Subset (3)

corpus · 45.3k rows

Split (1)

train · 45.3k rows

relevant_id large_string	earliest_claim_jusrisdiction string	jurisdiction list	ipcr_codes_str string	earliest_claim_date timestamp[ms]	earliest_claim_year string	classifications_ipcr_list_first_three_chars_list list	title_en string	abstract_en string	claims_text string	description_en string
075-695-807-176-408	US	[ "WO" ]	A41B13/00,A41B13/10,A45D44/08	2013-09-04T00:00:00	2013	[ "A41", "A45" ]	shoulder bib with removable pad	a reversible infant caregiver's bib having a reversible burp cloth affixed to a shoulder pad. the shoulder pad is designed with a moisture barrier to prevent regurgitated food from leaking through the pad and thus avoiding soiling or staining events to the wearer's clothing.	claims what is claimed is: 1 . a caregiver bib comprising: a. a shoulder bib having a first face, a second face, and an orifice through which the neck of said caregiver may pass so as to permit said shoulder bib to be worn around the neck of said caregiver; and b. an absorbent bib removably affixed to a face of said shoulder bib by attachment means. 2. the caregiver bib of claim 1 , wherein said shoulder bib and said absorbent bib are configured to extend over the same shoulder on the same bilateral side of the wearer from the wearer's chest. 3. the caregiver bib of claim 2, wherein said absorbent bib is reversible. 4. the caregiver bib of claim 3, wherein said shoulder bib possesses means to attach adornment items to said shoulder bib. 5. the caregiver bib of claim 1 , wherein said shoulder bib is reversible. 6. the caregiver bib of claim 1 , wherein said shoulder bib possesses a moisture barrier to inhibit liquids from leaking through said shoulder bib. 7. the caregiver bib of claim 1 , further comprising a removably attached breastfeeding cover. 8. a caregiver bib comprising: a. a shoulder bib having a first face, a second face, and an orifice through which the neck of said caregiver may pass so as to permit said shoulder bib to be worn around the neck of said caregiver; b. an absorbent bib removably affixed to a face of said shoulder bib by attachment means; and c. said shoulder bib and said absorbent bib being configured to extend over the same shoulder on the same bilateral side of the wearer from the wearer's chest. 9. the caregiver bib of claim 8, wherein said absorbent bib is reversible. 10. the caregiver bib of claim 9, wherein said shoulder bib possesses means to attach adornment items to said shoulder bib. 1 1 . the caregiver bib of claim 8, wherein said shoulder bib is reversible. 12. the caregiver bib of claim 8, wherein said shoulder bib possesses a moisture barrier to inhibit liquids from leaking through said shoulder bib. 13. the caregiver bib of claim 8, further comprising a removably attached breastfeeding cover. 14. a caregiver bib comprising: a. a shoulder bib having a first face, a second face, and an orifice through which the neck of said caregiver may pass so as to permit said shoulder bib to be worn around the neck of said caregiver; b. a reversible absorbent bib removably affixed to a face of said shoulder bib by attachment means; and c. said shoulder bib and said absorbent bib being configured to extend over the same shoulder on the same bilateral side of the wearer from the wearer's chest. 15. the caregiver bib of claim 14, wherein said shoulder bib possesses means to attach adornment items to said shoulder bib. 16. the caregiver bib of claim 14, wherein said shoulder bib is reversible. 17. the caregiver bib of claim 14, wherein said shoulder bib possesses a moisture barrier to inhibit liquids from leaking through said shoulder bib. 18. the caregiver bib of claim 14, further comprising a removably attached breastfeeding cover.	shoulder bib with removable pad cross reference to related applications [0001 ] this application claims priority from us provisional patent application 61 /873813, filed september 4, 2013. federally sponsored research and development [0002] not applicable. technical field [0003] the present disclosure relates generally to burp cloths, and more specifically to multiple layer burp cloths for use by infants/babies. background [0004] spittle and reflux, i.e. spit-up, are the bane of any well-dressed new parent's existence. air is often trapped within an infant's digestive system during feeding. burping the infant, i.e. encouraging the entrained air to be expelled orally by applying gentle pressure to the infant's abdomen or gently patting their back, during feeding can expel air from an infant's digestive system. this is often accomplished by pressing the infant's abdomen to the caregiver's chest and gently patting the infant's back with the caregiver's hand. it is common for infants to expel partially digested food, i.e. spit-up or reflux, when burped. reflux can also be the result of an upset developing digestive system or overfeeding. since some reflux is commonly foul smelling and can stain clothing, a parent or caretaker will often have a burp cloth available to catch the expelled material, often 1 to 2 tablespoons of material. [0005] the burp cloths are typically comprised of an absorbent material such as cotton, cotton blends, or terry cloth. the tactility and thickness of the material are important for infant comfort. once the baby has regurgitated some spittle or milk, the parent or caretaker may need to replace the burp cloth with another clean, sanitary burp cloth and therefore must have several burp cloths available. furthermore, most burp cloths are usually comprised of a single layer of material or a thin, absorbent layer over a bottom layer that may or may not be resistant to the penetration of liquid so as to prevent seepage and to protect underlying clothing or prevent contact with the skin of the caregiver. accordingly, what is needed in the art is a burp cloth or bib which can be used more than once in a single feeding, is sanitary, and is easy to change while being cost efficient. brief description of the drawngs [0001 ] fig. 1 depicts a perspective view of the shoulder bib as worn. [0002] fig. 2 depicts an exploded perspective view of the attachable/detachable absorbent bib and shoulder bib. [0003] fig. 2a depicts a cross sectional view of the shoulder bib. [0004] fig. 3 depicts a perspective view of the underside of the shoulder bib. [0005] fig. 4 depicts a removably attached breastfeeding cover in association with the shoulder bib. definitions [0006] where the definition of terms departs from the commonly used meaning of the term, applicant intends to utilize the definitions provided below, unless explicitly indicated otherwise. [0007] for purposes of this application, the term "shoulder bib" refers to the entire device. [0008] for the purposes of this application, the phrase "attachment means" refers to removably means of attachment which can be found in the prior art, including, but not limited to snaps, magnets, hoop and loop fabric, ribbons, string, and buttons. [0009] for purposes of this application, the term "shoulder pad" refers to the entire shoulder bib excluding the extensions of the shoulder bib which form the neck attachment. [0010] for purposes of this application, the term "bib arms" refers to extensions of the shoulder bib which form a neck orifice when conjoined so as to encircle the neck of the wearer. [001 1 ] for purposes of this application, the term "back" or "underside" both refer to the side of the shoulder bib which faces the wearer. [0012] for purposes of this application, the term "front" or "topside" both refer to the side of the shoulder bib which faces away from the wearer. detailed description [0013] as depicted in figs. 1 , 2, 2a 3, and 4, embodiments of the present device generally provide an improved shoulder bib 50 having shoulder pad 70 area and first and second shoulder bib arms 52, 55 with a sanitary, removably attached burp cloth 1 or other absorbent bib 1 affixed to a first shoulder bib face 54 or a second shoulder bib face 56 of the shoulder pad 70 of the shoulder bib 50. the shoulder bib 50 is primarily configured to be worn over the left or right shoulder of the wearer. alternatively, the shoulder bib 50 is reversible so as to be worn over either shoulder to accommodate both left and right handed parents. [0014] according to embodiments of the device as depicted in fig. 1 , the shoulder bib 50 is intended to be anchored around the neck of the wearer by the conjoining of a first bib arm 52 and a second bib arm 55. preferably, the first bib arm 52 and the second bib arm 55 are joined around the wearer's neck, preferably at the rear of the neck or at the opposing side from the shoulder pad area 70 having an affixed burp cloth 1 so as to keep the point of attachment 53 between the first bib arm 52 and the second bib arm 55 away from the infant. the terminal end 62 of the first bib arm 52 is joined to the terminal end 65 of the second bib arm 55 by a bib arms attachment means 51 , e.g. male and female snaps, hook and loop fabric, a button and buttonhole, or similar attachment means known to those skilled in the art. ideally, the terminal ends 62, 65 are detachably joined by common attachment means 51 so as to permit one handed attachment and detachment by the wearer. [0015] the shoulder pad 70 of the shoulder bib 50 preferably extends from at or about the shoulder blade of the wearer's shoulder on which the infant will be burped to a point across the shoulder and down across the breast. the material from which the shoulder pad 50 and bib arms 52, 55 are constructed is preferably absorbent and may incorporate decorative aspects. [0016] the first bib face 54 of the shoulder bib 50 possesses a means for removably attaching an absorbent bib 1. alternatively, the second face 56 may also possess absorbent bib attachment means 10 for removably attaching an absorbent bib 1 , i.e. burp cloth or burp pad. the absorbent bib attachment means 10 can be any of a multitude of commercially available means such as snaps, buttons, and hoop and loop fabric with a preference towards absorbent bib attachment means 10 that are safe for use with infants. the absorbent bib attachment means 10 are preferably affixed to the absorbent bib's 1 shoulder side 2 and are mated with corresponding attachment means 10 on the second and/or first faces 62, 65 of the shoulder pad 50. preferably, the absorbent bib 1 can be simply detached when soiled and replaced with a clean absorbent bib 1 or alternatively removed and reversed to expose a fresh, clean side of the absorbent bib 1. [0017] the absorbent bib 1 is preferably aesthetically matched with the fabric cover 59 of the shoulder bib 50. in an alternative embodiment, the fabric of the absorbent bib 1 and shoulder bib 50 are flame resistant. in a further alternative embodiment, the fabric cover 59 is treated to be anti-microbial and/or anti-viral. in a still further alternative embodiment, the fabric cover 59 is treated to combat odor from spittle, sputum, and/or food. [0018] ideally, the shoulder pad 70 is absorbent on at least its first face 54, but is also constructed to inhibit fluids from soaking through the shoulder bib 50 and staining clothing upon which the opposing second face 56 of the shoulder bib 50 may come into contact. the shoulder bib 50 may be constructed in a quilt-type assembly with a decorative outer fabric cover 59 and a soft fill 75 between the first face 54 and second face 56 of the shoulder bib 50. preferably, at least one layer of the bib 50 acts a fluid barrier 78 so that spit-up that soaks through the burp cloth 1 will not soak through the bib 50. in a still further embodiment, an internal fluid barrier 78 within the shoulder bib 50 prevents fluids from soaking through the bib 50. [0019] in a preferred alternative embodiment, the shoulder bib 50 and/or the absorbent bib 1 are adorned with items which can draw and maintain the infant's attention using toy attachment means 15. the adorned items 90, e.g. toys, may be things which stimulate the visual, auditory, olfactory, and/or tactile senses. in the event that the device is used with toddlers, users may attach adorned items 90 which enhance problem solving skills. the adorned items are preferably removably attached using infant safe, commercially available adornment item attachment means 15 as previously defined. alternatively, laces, loops of fabric, or ribbons can serve as adornment item attachment means 15. [0020] ideally, the absorbent bib 1 is at least partially constructed of a soft material pleasing to the touch and non-irritating to the infant's skin. in an alternate embodiment, the absorbent bib 1 is constructed with a soft, durable outer absorbent bib cover 11 with an absorbent, preferably non-toxic, absorbent bib fill material 13 contained therein. [0021 ] depicted in fig. 4, a breastfeeding attachment accessory 80, i.e. breastfeeding privacy shield or breastfeeding cover, can be attached to a second 56 and/or first face 54 of the bib 50 for privacy of breastfeeding sessions. this breastfeeding accessory 80 is removably attached using previously defined attachment means as breastfeeding accessory attachment means 85. fig. 4 demonstrates the use of four snap-fit means 85 on one face 54 or 56 of the bib 50 depicted in fig. 1 which are mated with four snap-fit means 85 on a face of the breastfeeding privacy shield 80, i.e. cover, depicted in fig. 4. the breastfeeding cover 80 is removably attached with first and second breast feeding accessory arms 87, 89, depicted in fig. 4, wrapped around the neck of the wearer. in a further embodiment, first and second breast feeding accessory arms 87, 89 are wrapped around the back of the wearer and are joined by attachment means 85 around the wearer's back to secure the breastfeeding cover 80 during the breastfeeding session so as to enhance privacy and security. [0022] while the present invention may have been disclosed herein with reference to certain embodiments, it will be apparent that modifications and variations are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined herein. furthermore, it should be appreciated that any and all examples in the present disclosure, while illustrating embodiments of the invention, are provided as non-limiting examples and are not to be read as limiting the various aspects so illustrated. the present invention is intended to have its full scope consistent with the drawings and description herein, and equivalents thereof. accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative and not as restrictive.
078-183-533-213-979	US	[ "WO", "US" ]	H04L1/02,H04B7/10	2005-11-02T00:00:00	2005	[ "H04" ]	modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment	a signal is modified according to a current diversity parameter adjustment, and is transmitted from a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device. a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the signal as received by the feedback communication device is received. the feedback signal comprises frames, and a frame comprises slots, where a slot has a slot power value. the frame timing of the frames is established from the slot power values. the signal is modified according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing.	1. a method for modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment, comprising: modifying a signal according to a current diversity parameter adjustment to produce a first and a second current transmit signals, the first and the second current signals respectively transmitted from first and second antennas of a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device; receiving a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the first and the second current signals combined as received by the feedback communication device, the feedback signal comprising a plurality of frames, a frame comprising a plurality of slots, a slot having a slot power value; establishing slot timing of the plurality of slots; establishing frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values, wherein establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values comprises: identifying one or more unavailable slots from the plurality of slot power values; and establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames in accordance with the one or more unavailable slots; and modifying the signal according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing to thereby produce first and second next transmit signals, the next signals respectively transmitted from said first and second antennas of said modifying communication device. 2. the method of claim 1 , wherein establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values further comprises: estimating a slot power value for each slot of the plurality of slots by: establishing a plurality of power samples for the each slot; and estimating the slot power value for the each slot from the plurality of power samples. 3. the method of claim 1 , wherein modifying the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing further comprises: calculating the next diversity parameter adjustment from the plurality of slot power values. 4. the method of claim 1 , wherein modifying the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing further comprises: applying the next diversity parameter adjustment in order to receive the feedback information in an available portion of the feedback signal. 5. a system for modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment, comprising: a signal modifier operable to: modify a signal according to a current diversity parameter adjustment to produce a first and a second current transmit signals, the first and the second current signals respectively transmitted from first and second antennas of a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device; and an input operable to: receive a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the first and the second current signals combined as received by the feedback communication device, the feedback signal comprising a plurality of frames, a frame comprising a plurality of slots, a slot having a slot power value; the signal modifier further operable to: establish slot timing of the plurality of slots; establish frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values by: identifying one or more unavailable slots from the plurality of slot power values; and establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames in accordance with the one or more unavailable slots; and modify the signal according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing to thereby produce first and second next transmit signals, the next signals respectively transmitted from said first and second antennas of said modifying communication device. 6. the system of claim 5 , the signal modifier further operable to establish the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values by: estimating a slot power value for each slot of the plurality of slots by: establishing a plurality of power samples for the each slot; and estimating the slot power value for the each slot from the plurality of power samples. 7. the system of claim 5 , the signal modifier further operable modify the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing by: calculating the next diversity parameter adjustment from the plurality of slot power values. 8. the system of claim 5 , the signal modifier further operable modify the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing by: applying the next diversity parameter adjustment in order to receive the feedback information in an available portion of the feedback signal. 9. a logic for modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment, the logic embodied in a non-transitory medium and operable to: modify a signal according to a current diversity parameter adjustment to produce a first and a second current transmit signals, the first and the second current transmit signals respectively transmitted from a first and a second antennas of a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device; receive a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the first and the second current transmit signals combined as received by the feedback communication device, the feedback signal comprising a plurality of frames, a frame comprising a plurality of slots, a slot having a slot power value; establish slot timing of the plurality of slots; establish frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values by: identifying one or more unavailable slots from the plurality of slot power values; and establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames in accordance with the one or more unavailable slots; and modify the signal according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing to thereby produce a first and a second next transmit signals, the next signals respectively transmitted from said first and second antennas of said modifying communication device. 10. the logic of claim 9 , further operable to establish the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values by: estimating a slot power value for each slot of the plurality of slots by: establishing a plurality of power samples for the each slot; and estimating the slot power value for the each slot from the plurality of power samples. 11. the logic of claim 9 , further operable to modify the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing by: calculating the next diversity parameter adjustment from the plurality of slot power values. 12. the logic of claim 9 , further operable to modify the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing by: applying the next diversity parameter adjustment in order to receive the feedback information in an available portion of the feedback signal. 13. a system for modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment, comprising: means for modifying a signal according to a current diversity parameter adjustment to produce a first and a second current transmit signals, the first and the second current signals respectively transmitted from a first and a second antennas of a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device; means for receiving a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the first and the second current signals combined as received by the feedback communication device, the feedback signal comprising a plurality of frames, a frame comprising a plurality of slots, a slot having a slot power value; means for establishing slot timing of the plurality of slots; means for establishing frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values, wherein the means for establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values further comprises: means for identifying one or more unavailable slots from the plurality of slot power values; and means for establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames in accordance with the one or more unavailable slots; and means for modifying the signal according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing to thereby produce first and second next transmit signals, the next signals respectively transmitted from said first and second antennas of said modifying communication device. 14. the system of claim 13 , wherein the means for establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values further comprises: means for estimating a slot power value for each slot of the plurality of slots by: establishing a plurality of power samples for the each slot; and estimating the slot power value for the each slot from the plurality of power samples. 15. the system of claim 13 , wherein the means for modifying the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing further comprises: means for calculating the next diversity parameter adjustment from the plurality of slot power values. 16. a method for modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment, comprising: modifying a signal according to a current diversity parameter adjustment to produce a first and a second current transmit signals, the first and the second current signals respectively transmitted from a first and a second antennas of a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device; receiving a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the first and the second current signals combined as received by the feedback communication device, the feedback signal comprising a plurality of frames, a frame comprising a plurality of slots, a slot having a slot power value; establishing slot timing of the plurality of slots; establishing frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values, establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames from the plurality of slot power values further comprising: estimating a slot power value for each slot of the plurality of slots by: establishing a plurality of power samples for the each slot; and estimating the slot power value for the each slot from the plurality of power samples; identifying one or more unavailable slots from the plurality of slot power values; and establishing the frame timing of the plurality of frames in accordance with the one or more unavailable slots; modifying the signal according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing to thereby produce first and second next transmit signals, the next signals respectively transmitted from said first and second antennas of said modifying communication device, modifying the signal according to the next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with the frame timing further comprising: calculating the next diversity parameter adjustment from the plurality of slot power values; and applying the next diversity parameter adjustment in order to receive the feedback information in an available portion of the feedback signal.	technical field this invention relates generally to the field of wireless communications and more specifically to modifying a signal according to a diversity parameter adjustment. background a transmitting communication device may have multiple antenna elements that transmit signals to communicate information. a receiving communication device extracts the information from the transmitted signals. multiple antenna elements may enhance spectral efficiency, allowing for more users to be simultaneously served over a given frequency band. the transmitted signals, however, propagate along different paths and may reach the receiving communication device with different phases that destructively interfere. it is generally desirable to reduce interference of transmitted signals. summary of the disclosure in accordance with the present invention, disadvantages and problems associated with previous techniques for determining diversity parameter adjustments may be reduced or eliminated. according to one embodiment of the present invention, a signal is modified according to a current diversity parameter adjustment, and is transmitted from a modifying communication device to a feedback communication device. a feedback signal reflecting feedback information describing the signal as received by the feedback communication device is received. the feedback signal comprises frames, and a frame comprises slots, where a slot has a slot power value. the signal is modified according to a next diversity parameter adjustment in accordance with frame timing. certain embodiments of the invention may provide one or more technical advantages. a technical advantage of one embodiment may be that a next diversity parameter adjustment may be synchronized with the boundary of a transmission slot, thus activating the diversity control concurrently with the transmit power changes. a transmit diversity control technique may be applied in accordance with frame timing to determine the next diversity parameter adjustment, which may improve the technique. certain embodiments of the invention may include none, some, or all of the above technical advantages. one or more other technical advantages may be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the figures, descriptions, and claims included herein. brief description of the drawings for a more complete understanding of the present invention and its features and advantages, reference is now made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a communication network that includes a modifying communication device that determines diversity parameter adjustments; fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method for determining diversity parameter adjustments that may be used by the signal modifier of fig. 1 ; fig. 3 is a diagram of an example sequence illustrating one embodiment of a method for establishing a slot boundary that may be used with the method of fig. 1 ; fig. 4 is a diagram of an example sequence illustrating another embodiment of a method for establishing a slot boundary that may be used with the embodiment of the method of fig. 2 ; fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method for determining frame timing for frame-based air interfaces; and figs. 6 and 7 illustrate applications of a window procedure and a perturbation procedure, respectively. detailed description of the drawings embodiments of the present invention and its advantages are best understood by referring to figs. 1 through 7 of the drawings, like numerals being used for like and corresponding parts of the various drawings. fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a communication network 10 that includes a modifying communication device 20 a that determines diversity parameter adjustments. according to the embodiment, modifying communication device 20 a applies a diversity parameter adjustment to a signal transmitted to feedback communication device 20 b . feedback communication device 20 b returns feedback information that describes the signal as received by feedback communication device 20 b . modifying communication device 20 a determines a next diversity parameter adjustment that reflects the feedback information. the next diversity parameter adjustment may be determined from the slot power values of the slots. a transmit diversity control technique is applied in accordance with the frame timing to determine the next diversity parameter adjustment. according to the illustrated embodiment, network 10 operates to provide services such as communication sessions. a communication session may refer to an active communication between endpoints, measured from endpoint to endpoint. information is communicated during a communication session. information may refer to voice, data, text, audio, video, multimedia, control, signaling, other information, or any combination of the preceding. the information may be communicated in packets. a packet may comprise a bundle of data organized in a specific way for transmission, and a frame may comprise the payload of one or more packets organized in a specific way for transmission. a packet-based communication protocol such as internet protocol (ip) may be used to communicate the packets. a packet may comprise any suitable packet, such as a general packet radio service (gprs) packet, an enhanced data for gsm evolutions (edge) packet, or other suitable packet. network 10 may utilize communication protocols and technologies to provide the communication sessions. example communication protocols and technologies include those set by the institute of electrical and electronics engineers, inc. (ieee) 802.xx, international telecommunications union (itu-t) standards, european telecommunications standards institute (etsi) standards, internet engineering task force (ietf) standards, or other standards. devices of network 10 may use any suitable multiple access technology, for example, a code division multiple access (cdma) technology. according to one embodiment, network 10 may operate according to a cdma 2000 telecommunications technology that uses a single cdma channel. as an example, a cdma 2000 high rate data packet technology, such as the evolution data only (evdo) technology may be used. network 10 may comprise any suitable communication network. a communication network may comprise all or a portion of a public switched telephone network (pstn), a public or private data network, a local area network (lan), a metropolitan area network (man), a wide area network (wan), a global computer network such as the internet, a wireline or wireless network, a local, regional, or global communication network, an enterprise intranet, other suitable communication link, or any combination of the preceding. communication network 10 includes one or more modifying communication devices 20 a and one or more feedback communication devices 20 b that communicate via a wireless link 24 . a communication device 20 represents any device operable to communicate information via signals with one or more other communication devices 20 . for example, communication device 20 may comprise a subscriber unit or a base station. a subscriber unit may comprise any device operable to communicate with a base station, for example, a personal digital assistant, a cellular telephone, a mobile handset, a computer, or any other device suitable for communicating signals to and from a base station. a subscriber unit may support, for example, session initiation protocol (ip), internet protocol (ip), or any other suitable communication protocol. a base station provides a subscriber unit access to a communication network that allows the subscriber unit to communicate with other networks or devices. a base station typically includes a base transceiver station and a base station controller. the base transceiver station communicates signals to and from one or more subscriber units. the base station controller manages the operation of the base transceiver station. a communication device 20 may include one or more antenna elements, where each antenna element is operable to receive, transmit, or both receive and transmit a signal. multiple antenna elements may provide for a separation process known as spatial filtering, which may enhance spectral efficiency, allowing for more users to be served simultaneously over a given frequency band. a communication link between communication devices 20 a and 20 b such as wireless link 24 may be a radio frequency link that is cellular in network organization. wireless link 24 may be used to communicate a signal between communication devices 20 a and 20 b. modifying communication device 20 a includes a signal modifier 28 that modifies one or more signals in accordance with feedback information received from feedback communication device 20 b . according to one embodiment, modifying a signal may be described as applying a diversity parameter adjustment. according to the embodiment, a diversity parameter represents a feature of a signal that may be modulated, for example, relative phase, relative amplitude, absolute power, frequency, timing, other suitable signal feature that may be modulated, or any combination of the preceding. relative phase may refer to the phase difference between the phase of a first signal for a first transmit antenna element and the phase of a second signal for a second transmit antenna element. relative amplitude may refer to the ratio between the amplitude of the first signal and the amplitude of the second signal. absolute power may refer to the total power transmitted by modifying communication device 20 a. a signal may be modified by applying a diversity parameter adjustment to the signal, which may increase constructive interference or reduce destructive interference. according to one embodiment, a next diversity parameter adjustment {right arrow over (f )}(k+1) may be calculated from a current diversity parameter {right arrow over (f )}(k) and a diversity parameter increment δ{right arrow over (f )}(k) according to equation (1): {right arrow over (f )} ( k+ 1)= {right arrow over (f )} ( k )+δ {right arrow over (f )} ( k ) (1) where k represents an iteration. signal modifier 28 may use feedback information to determine a diversity parameter adjustment for a next window. the feedback information may indicate, for example, whether modifying communication device 20 a should increase or reduce transmission power. feedback information may be obtained from a feedback signal in any suitable manner. according to a first technique, signal modifier 28 obtains feedback information from a quality indication signal received from feedback communication device 20 b . a quality indication signal may refer to a signal that describes a quality of a signal transmitted by modifying communication device 20 a as received by feedback communication device 20 b . a quality indication signal may request modifying communication device 20 a to increase or reduce its transmission power. according to a second technique, signal modifier 28 obtains feedback information from a control signal generated by a baseband subsystem of modifying communication device 20 a . a control signal may refer to a signal that provides instructions to a component of a communication device. according to the embodiment, the baseband subsystem extracts feedback information from a quality indication signal from feedback communication device 20 b , and generates a control signal that reflects the feedback information. for example, the control signal may control the transmission power in accordance with the feedback information, which may include parameters such as the data rate of a traffic channel. according to one embodiment, a control signal may comprise a pulse-density modulation (pdm) signal comprising a sequence of bits. the sequence may have any suitable length to provide acceptable resolution. for example, a length in the range of 100 to 10,000 bits may provide acceptable resolution to meet the requirements of the 0.25 decibel to 1 decibel reverse power steps of the cdma2000 1× and evdo standards or up to 2 decibels of the wcdma standard. the period may be sufficiently short to support integration by means of a low pass filter and to support a fast response to designated power steps. for example, the sequence frequency may be 19,000 to 20,000 sequences per second, such as approximately 19,200 sequences per second. a control signal may reflect factors other than those resulting from a diversity parameter adjustment. as a first example, the control signal may reflect an adjustment designed to maintain the power within the boundaries of a power mask. as a second example, the control signal may reflect an adjustment designed to maintain a constant energy per bit. as a third example, the control signal may reflect an adjustment made in response to interference levels and reception levels. feedback communication device 20 b includes a feedback generator 30 that generates feedback information that reflects the quality of the modified signals. the feedback information may include one or more quality indicators. according to one embodiment, a quality indicator may instruct modifying communication device 20 a to increase or decrease transmission power. an up value instructs modifying communication device 20 a to increase the total power of its transmitted signal, and a down value instructs modifying communication device 20 a to decrease the total power. a quality indicator may comprise, for example, a power control bit of a code division multiple access (cdma) power control signal. the quality indicators may be sent to modifying communication device 20 a in a quality indication signal. feedback information may include any other suitable information, such as parameters such as the data rate of a traffic channel. a component of network 10 may include logic, an interface, memory, other component, or any suitable combination of the preceding. “logic” may refer to hardware, software, other logic, or any suitable combination of the preceding. certain logic may manage the operation of a device, and may comprise, for example, a processor. “interface” may refer to logic of a device operable to receive input for the device, send output from the device, perform suitable processing of the input or output or both, or any combination of the preceding, and may comprise one or more ports, conversion software, or both. “memory” may refer to logic operable to store and facilitate retrieval of information, and may comprise random access memory (ram), read only memory (rom), a magnetic drive, a disk drive, a compact disk (cd) drive, a digital video disk (dvd) drive, removable media storage, any other suitable data storage medium, or a combination of any of the preceding. modifications, additions, or omissions may be made to communication network 10 without departing from the scope of the invention. additionally, operations of communication network 10 may be performed using any suitable logic. as used in this document, “each” refers to each member of a set or each member of a subset of a set. a subset of a set may include none, some, or all elements of the set. fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method for determining diversity parameter adjustments that may be used by signal modifier 28 of fig. 1 . according to the embodiment, a feedback signal that reflects feedback information is received. slot boundaries of the signal are established in order to determine slot power values and to apply a diversity control technique. the frame timing of the signal is determined from the slot power values to identify portions of the frames available for feedback information. a transmit diversity control technique is applied to determine the next diversity parameter adjustment. the next diversity parameter adjustment is applied in accordance with the frame timing. the method begins at step 100 , where slot boundaries of a feedback signal are established. according to one embodiment, a frame of a feedback signal may have one or more slots having the same or different durations and separated by slot boundaries. a slot may include one or more power samples corresponding to one or more channels. the samples reflect the power of the transmitted signal as received by feedback communication device 20 b . a slot power value may be estimated from the one or more power samples. a slot boundary may be established to identify samples corresponding to a slot. any suitable slot boundary method may be used to establish a slot boundary, for example, the methods described with reference to figs. 3 and 4 . received feedback or transmit power control may be used to change the slot power values. the received feedback may be decoded after receiver synchronization, such as receiver synchronization to slot boundaries. if power control and slot timing are not available, slot power values are estimated from the power samples at step 104 . the slot power values may be estimated during or after establishing the slot boundaries. the activity levels of the channels of the samples may be known or unknown. if the activity levels are known, samples within the slot boundaries may be used to determine the slot power value. different activity levels may yield a higher power value for a sample of active channels and a lower power value for a sample with no active channels. to compare the power of slots having different activity levels, the method may compensate for the difference between the higher power and the lower power. if the activity levels are not known, the slot power value may take into account the activity of channels that change during a mid-slot transition. the slot power value may then be selected in any suitable manner. as a first example, the value may be selected using the minimum sample of a slot. as a second example, the value may be selected as the minimum sample of a set of samples of the slot, where the set comprises samples that are sequentially repeated two, three, or more times. as a third example, the value may be selected from a sample of a predetermined part of the slot, such as a sample from the second half or third one-third of a slot. as a fourth example, the value may be selected from a particular sample, such at the 19 th sample, of a slot. the frame timing is determined at step 108 . according to one embodiment, frame timing may be determined by the baseband processor of the signal indicator. according to another embodiment, determining frame timing may refer to establishing the timing of portions of frames available for feedback information. the timing of available portions may be established by identifying slots that are unavailable for feedback information. diversity parameter adjustments may be applied to avoid the unavailable slots. unavailable slots may include slots that are designated for information other than feedback information. as an example, a forward frame may include time multiplexed power control and other information. a slot of the forward frame may yield a locked-control power response slot of a reverse frame that is unavailable for feedback information. the forward frame may include time multiplexed power control and other information. any suitable locked slot identification method may be used to determine the timing of the lock slots of frames, for example, the method described with reference to fig. 5 . unavailable slots may include slots that carry unreliable feedback information. in certain cases, a slot may typically include feedback information, but the information may be unreliable. as an example, in slot power control feedback, the first slot in the frame typically may include feedback information. this slot, however, may be unavailable when using the slot power as the control feedback since power change values corresponding to a frame boundary provide unreliable feedback information. a frame boundary may refer to the initial boundary of the initial slot of a frame. in the example, data rate changes for the reverse channel occur at a frame boundary. the data rate change may yield a transmit power change that is significantly greater than the transmit power change in response to a diversity parameter adjustment. accordingly, the resulting quality indication signal may not accurately reflect the transmit power change in response to a diversity parameter adjustment. a diversity control technique is applied at step 112 . the diversity control technique may be applied before or after determining frame timing. diversity parameter adjustments may be applied to avoid responses that would be carried in unavailable slots. the delay between applying a diversity parameter adjustment and receiving feedback information in response to the adjustment then may be taken into account in order to avoid the unavailable slots. the delay may depend upon system timing. as an example, the delay for a slot at the frame boundary or frame mid-point may be greater than the delay for other slots. any suitable transmit diversity control technique may be applied, for example, a perturbation technique or a window technique. according to an example perturbation technique, feedback information is obtained from a quality indication signal from feedback communication device 20 b . adjustments may be applied to consecutive slots in accordance to the feedback information. as an example, a larger adjustment may be applied to a first slot, and a smaller adjustment may be applied to a second slot. a larger adjustment may be defined as {right arrow over (f )} l (k+1)={right arrow over (f )}(k)+δ{right arrow over (f )}(k), and a smaller adjustment may be defined as {right arrow over (f )} s (k+1)={right arrow over (f )}(k)+δ{right arrow over (f )}(k). the feedback information for the adjustments may indicate a power increase for one adjustment and a power decrease for the other adjustment. a next adjustment may be made in the direction of the adjustment associated with the power decrease. according to an example window technique, feedback information is obtained from a control signal generated at modifying communication device 20 a in response to a quality indication signal. windows of a control signal correspond to frames of a quality indication signal. according to one embodiment, the windows may have sizes that may be readily synchronized with the size of the frames. as an example, the window size may be an integer fraction of the frame size, that is, if a frame size is n slots, the window size may be n/n slots, where n is integer. in evdo, the frame size is 16 slots, so the window size may be 2 slots, 4 slots, 8 slots, or 16 slots. in wcdma, the frame size is 15 slots, so the window size may be 3 slots, 5 slots, or 15 slots. as another example, window sizes of consecutive windows may be selected such that the sum of slots of the consecutive windows equals the number of slots of one frame. for example, in wcdma, window sizes of consecutive windows may be 8 slots and 7 slots. as another example, the window size could be an integer multiple of the frame size. a window may have a window power value representing the power of a window. according to one embodiment, the power of a window may be calculated from the average or sum of the slot power values of the participating slots of the window. as an example, the power pw(k) of window k may be given by: where p(i,k) represents the slot power of slot i of window k, n represents the number of participating slots, and m represents the number of slots of window k. a power change may refer to the difference between the power of a preceding window and the power of a current window. as an example, the power change δpw(k) between window k and window (k−1), may be given by δpw(k)=pw(k)−pw(k−1). according to another embodiment, the power of a window may be calculated using the cumulative power controls from a reference slot to a calculated slot. the power of a reference slot for a preceding window may be assigned a reference value. the equivalent slot power of each slot of the preceding and current windows may computed according to the cumulative power controls from the reference slot to the calculated slot. as an example, the equivalent slot power for slot i of window k−1 may be calculated according to: where i r represents the reference slot, p(i r ,k−1) represents the reference slot power, and δp(i) [db] represents the change caused by the power control of slot i. the equivalent slot power for slot i in window k may be calculated according to: a window may have a power trend. a power trend of a window may refer to the change of power within the window or within a part of the window. according to one embodiment, the power trend may be calculated by taking the difference between the power value of a first participating slot and the power value of a second participating slot. one or more power trends may be defined for a window. a power trend change may refer to the difference between a power trend of a current window and a power trend of a preceding window. a diversity parameter adjustment may be determined in accordance with the feedback information reflected in the power trend changes and power changes. if the feedback information for an adjustment in one direction indicates that the power should be decreased, a next adjustment may be made in the same direction. otherwise, the next adjustment may be made in the other direction. table 1 illustrates example adjustments that may be made in response to example combinations of a power change and power trend changes. according to the example, an adjustment is defined for a combination of a power change, a first power trend change, and a second power trend change, where the first and second power trend changes are for consecutive windows. table 1first power trendsecond powerpower changechangetrend changeadjustmentpositivepositivepositiveadjustment 1positivepositivenegativeadjustment 2positivenegativepositiveadjustment 3positivenegativenegativeadjustment 4negativepositivepositiveadjustment 5negativepositivenegativeadjustment 6negativenegativepositiveadjustment 7negativenegativenegativeadjustment 8 after applying the diversity control technique, the method terminates. modifications, additions, or omissions may be made to the method without departing from the scope of the invention. the method may include more, fewer, or other steps. additionally, steps may be performed in any suitable order without departing from the scope of the invention. fig. 3 is a diagram of an example sequence 150 illustrating one embodiment of a method for establishing a slot boundary that may be used with the method of fig. 1 . according to the embodiment, slot boundaries may be established from the power transitions of a control signal. example sequence 150 represents a control signal and comprises a sequence of bits divided into periods p i , where i equals, for example, 0, 1, . . . , 7. a period p i may represent a sample that may be used to establish the power value of a slot. each period p i may include any suitable number of bits, for example, six bits, where each bit may be either zero or one. according to one embodiment, the ratio of one to zeros of a period may indicate a period power value of the period. if the number of bits per period is consistent, the density of ones may indicate the power value. the density of ones in example sequence 150 is described by table 1, where x i represents the number of ones of period p i . table 1p ip 0p 1p 2p 3p 4p 5p 6p 7x i22221333 a power transition may be identified from a change in the power values of the periods, which may be measured by the difference between the densities of ones of the periods. according to one embodiment, the density difference d ij of a period p i may be given as d ij =x i −x j , where i−j=n and n represents the distance between periods. for example, n=1 corresponds to two consecutive periods, n=2 corresponds to two periods with a period between them, and n=3 corresponds to two periods with two periods between them. the differences between the densities for example sequence 150 are presented in table 2. table 2d 0,−2d 1,−1d 2,0d 3,1d 4,2d 5,3d 6,4d 7,500−1120 a power transition may have any suitable definition. as a first example, a transition may be defined as a period that has a non-zero density difference. in the first example, sequence 150 has three transitions, given by periods p 4 , p 5 , and p 6 . as a second example, a transition is identified as the first non-zero difference. subsequent differences for a duration of m slots are not identified as transitions, where m may be any suitable number such as m=1, 2, 3, or 4, or may be approximately equal to half a slot. in the second example, if m≧3, sequence 150 has one transition, given by period p 4 . as another example, a transition may be discarded if the density returns to a previous value when a difference between densities returns to zero. a slot boundary may be identified from the transitions in any suitable manner. as a first example, the most probable start sample may be defined as the sample with the most transitions. as a second example, the most probable start sample may be determined from the sample with the most transitions shifted by a constant number to reflect the statistics of the shifted windows. as a third example, contiguous difference values may be summed together to yield the value of a moving window. the number of moving windows may be the same as the number of samples. a power transition may indicate a slot boundary or a mid-slot power change. a mid-slot power change does not reflect the feedback information, and typically is negative. if transitions are found for only one portion of a slot, then the portion corresponds to a slot boundary. if transitions are found in two portions of the slot, where the two portion are separated by half a slot, the portion having more negative transitions may correspond to the mid-slot transition, and the portion having more positive transitions may correspond to a slot boundary. as an example, only positive power transitions may be considered. according to one embodiment, diversity parameter data collected from the feedback information may be used in establishing the slot boundaries. diversity parameter data may refer to information describing diversity parameters from previously applied adjustments. diversity parameter data may comprise, for example, phase data describing the phase from previously applied adjustments. according to one embodiment, the diversity parameter data may be expressed as a diversity parameter histogram of diversity parameter values. the histogram may indicate the frequency distribution of the diversity parameter values over a diversity parameter variable. according to one embodiment, the histogram may comprise a modulo-period-based histogram of detected pdm transitions. as a first example, a histogram may describe transitions that mainly characterize slot timing, such as power decreases in evdo. as a second example, a histogram may take into account statistics of positive and negative transitions. the histogram may associate the transitions with characteristics of the air interface. for instance, the histogram may record pcb-related transitions in the first two thirds of a 1× slot or rpc and channel activation transitions in evdo. as a third example, a histogram may be dynamic, where newer transitions are added to older transitions. at least some of the older transitions may be discarded. for instance, newer transitions may be added to a statistical function of older transitions, and the compound function of at least some of the older transitions may decay. modifications, additions, or omissions may be made to the method without departing from the scope of the invention. the method may include more, fewer, or other steps. additionally, steps may be performed in any suitable order without departing from the scope of the invention. according to one embodiment for detecting power transitions, n-behind threshold-exceeding differences of the values of a pdm sequence are established, and the next m differences are ignored. according to another embodiment, the start of threshold-exceeding transition is detected between repeated values of the pdm sequence. according to yet another embodiment, the start of a pdm sequence is detected by comparing sequences one-period behind, then one of the previous two is performed. fig. 4 is a diagram of an example sequence 160 illustrating another embodiment of a method for establishing a slot boundary that may be used with the embodiment of the method of fig. 2 . sequence 160 includes actual periods p i , where i=1, 2, . . . 5. windows w i may be synchronized with actual periods p i to estimate the timing of actual periods p i . a first period may have the same or different sequence as that of a second period. if the sequences are different, bits c 2 and c 3 may represent the changed bits. a changed bit may refer to a bit of a subsequent period that has a different value than that of a bit in the same position of a previous period. window w 2 may be positioned approximately at bit c 2 . according to one embodiment, there may be one, two, or three periods between the windows. as a first example, window w 3 may be started one period later, unless there is a changed bit before one period later. as a second example, window w 3 may be started two or more periods later, unless there was a changed bit within the two or more periods. as a third example, window w 3 may be started a specified duration and one or more periods later, if there is no changed bit within the duration and the one or more periods. based on bits c 2 and c 3 , the end of window w 4 may be corrected to synchronize windows w i with actual periods p i . modifications, additions, or omissions may be made to the method without departing from the scope of the invention. the method may include more, fewer, or other steps. additionally, steps may be performed in any suitable order without departing from the scope of the invention. according to one embodiment, the length of a period may be determined. for example, the unknown sequence length n may be found by searching for a n that satisfies equation (2): where pdm represents a bit, and n may be any desired threshold, for example, n=100 bits. fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of a method for determining frame timing. according to the embodiment, frame timing may be determined using a slot that has a dedicated position in a frame, such as an unavailable slot. when the slot is detected, a counter may be set in accordance with the detection of the slot to establish the frame timing. in one example, the unavailable slot comprises a lock response slot. any other unavailable slot, however, may be used. according to the illustrated embodiment, counter k tracks slots. counter k may be a modulo x slot counter, where x represents the number of slots of a frame. in the example, x=16, and k=1, . . . , 16. frame timing synchronization may be used to control counter k such that counter k indicates unavailable slots. in the example, the counter may indicate unavailable slots at k=1 and k=p i , where p i represents the slot number of the ith unavailable slot of a frame, for example, i=1, and p 1 =x/2+1=9. the method begins at step 200 , where frames are received. the frames include slots that each have a slot power value. an unavailable slot is detected at step 204 . an unavailable slot may be detected in any suitable manner. according to one embodiment, the difference between a slot power value of slot k and the slot power value of the previous slot k−1 is determined. an unavailable slot may be designated as detected if the difference satisfies a threshold. for example, a value smaller than the minimum slot power value difference associated with diversity parameter adjustment may be selected as the threshold value, and a difference that is less than the threshold value may be designated as an unavailable slot. if an unavailable slot is detected at step 204 , the method proceeds to step 208 . the frames may be synchronized at step 208 . if the frames are not synchronized at step 208 , the method proceeds to 212 , where the synchronization status is established. since the frames are not synchronized, the initial encounter of an unavailable slot may indicate that the synchronization status is modulo x. in the example, the synchronization status is modulo 16. counter k is set to k=1 at step 216 . the last unavailable slot counter k last is set to k=1 at step 220 . the method then proceeds to step 222 . if the frames are synchronized at step 208 , the method proceeds to step 224 . if the counter k is correctly tracking unavailable slots, then counter k=1 or k=p i . counter k may be at a next unavailable slot p i at step 224 . in the example, p i =p 1 =9. if counter k is at a next unavailable slot p i at step 224 , the method proceeds to step 228 , where the synchronization status is established. since the frames are synchronized, the encounter of the next unavailable slot may indicate that the synchronization status is modulo y, where y<x. in the example, y=x/2=8, and the synchronization status is modulo 8. the method then proceeds to step 220 . if counter k is not at a next unavailable slot p i at step 224 , the method proceeds to step 232 . counter k may be at k=1 at step 232 . if counter k=1 at step 232 , the method proceeds to step 222 . if counter k≠1 at step 232 , the method proceeds to step 236 . if counter k≠1 and k≠p i , then the detected unavailable slot is an unexpected unavailable slot. counter k may have the same value as last unavailable slot counter k last at step 236 . if counter k=k last at step 236 , the method proceeds to step 212 , where the synchronization status is established. if counter k≠k last at step 236 , the method proceeds to step 240 , where counter k may have the same value as k last modp i . in the example, k last modp=k last mod8. if counter k=k last modp i , the method proceeds to step 228 , where the synchronization status is established. if counter k≠k last modp i , the method proceeds to step 244 , where last unavailable slot counter k last is set to the value of counter k. the method then proceeds to step 222 . counter k is incremented to k+1 at step 222 . the method may continue at step 250 . if the method is to continue, the method returns to step 204 , where an unavailable slot may be detected. if the method is not to continue, the method terminates. modifications, additions, or omissions may be made to the method without departing from the scope of the invention. the method may include more, fewer, or other steps. additionally, steps may be performed in any suitable order without departing from the scope of the invention. according to one embodiment, the method may be performed to check for synchronization when a new slot power value becomes available. after synchronization, the method may be performed with less frequency or not at all. figs. 6 and 7 illustrate applications of a window procedure and a perturbation procedure, respectively. according to one embodiment, the application of a diversity control procedure to a frame-based air interface takes into account two timing factors relative to recovered frame timing. the first timing factor corresponds to the time when maximum feedback information is available. the second timing factor corresponds to the delay between the time the adjustment is made by modifying communication device 20 a to the time corresponding feedback from feedback communication device 30 is available to modifying communication device 20 a. fig. 6 illustrates an example of applying a window procedure to an evdo network. the window may have a size of 8 slots, and the feedback may be recovered for 13 out of 16 slots of the frame. fig. 7 illustrates an example of applying a perturbation procedure to an evdo network. the procedure may be applied over a time of 2 slots. certain embodiments of the invention may provide one or more technical advantages. a technical advantage of one embodiment may be that a next diversity parameter adjustment may be synchronized with the boundary of a transmission slot, thus activating the diversity control concurrently with the transmit power changes. a transmit diversity control technique may be applied in accordance with frame timing to determine the next diversity parameter adjustment, which may improve the technique. while this disclosure has been described in terms of certain embodiments and generally associated methods, alterations and permutations of the embodiments and methods will be apparent to those skilled in the art. accordingly, the above description of example embodiments does not define or constrain this disclosure. other changes, substitutions, and alterations are also possible without departing from the spirit and scope of this disclosure, as defined by the following claims.
078-706-840-012-173	GB	[ "GB", "US" ]	H03F1/30,H03F3/45	1978-05-31T00:00:00	1978	[ "H03" ]	amplifier with dark current compensation	a pre-amplifier for photomultiplier tubes includes means to compensate for the combined dark current and noise output of a photomultiplier tube without inducing a noise dependent offset voltage at the pre-amplifier output. a feedback amplifier and a compensating network, including a capacitor, cooperate to monitor the pre-amplifier output and during this time to maintain the feedback amplifier in a linearly responsive state while charging the capacitor to an amount necessary to clamp the average value of the most negative excursion of the pre-amplifier output to ground.	1. in a pre-amplifier for multilevel, pulsed electrical signals, said signals having a direct current signal component in the presence of noise and undulating between levels with respect to ground, wherein the improvement comprises: a feedback amplifier coupled to said signal at the output of said pre-amplifier to monitor said pre-amplifier output; a compensating circuit coupled intermediate said feedback amplifier and said pre-amplifier input; said feedback amplifier and said compensating circuit including means for enabling said feedback amplifier to monitor said pre-amplifier output and to operate in a linearly responsive state during levels of said multi-level, pulsed signal closest to ground for clamping the average value of said noise to ground, thereby restoring optimum ground to said output signal; said compensating circuit including a capacitor, means for charging said capacitor through said feedback amplifier during its linearly responsive state to transfer a compensating charged voltage level to said pre-amplifier input sufficient to compensate for the average value of said noise with respect to ground, and saturation means coupled to said feedback amplifier for enabling said feedback amplifier to saturate during other levels of said multi-level, pulsed signal and thereby cease monitoring of said pre-amplifier output. 2. the improvement of claim 1, including means coupled to said capacitor for enabling transfer of said compensating charged voltage level to said pre-amplifier input during feedback amplifier saturation. 3. the improvement of claim 2, including a diode coupled intermediate the output of said feedback amplifier and said capacitor for preventing appreciable discharge thereof during feedback amplifier saturation. 4. a photomultiplier tube pre-amplifier for compensating for the combined dark current output and noise of a photomultiplier tube without inducing a noise dependent offset voltage at the pre-amplifier output, said pre-amplifier comprising: a first amplifier having an input coupled to said photomultiplier output for receiving said combined dark current and noise output; a feedback amplifier having an input coupled to said first amplifier output to monitor said first amplifier input; a compensating circuit intermediate said feedback amplifier and said first amplifier input; said feedback amplifier and said compensating circuit including means for enabling said feedback amplifier to monitor said first amplifier output and to operate in a linearly responsive state during the presence of said combined dark current and noise to clamp the average value of the peak excursions of noise present at said first amplifier output to ground; said compensating circuit including a capacitor, means for charging said capacitor through said feedback amplifier during its linearly responsive state to transfer a charged voltage level to said first amplifier input sufficient to compensate for the average value of said noise with respect to ground, and saturation means coupled to said feedback amplifier for enabling said feedback amplifier to saturate during other levels of said multi-level, pulsed signal and thereby cease monitoring of said first amplifier output. 5. a photomultiplier pre-amplifier according to claim 4, including means coupled to said capacitor for enabling transfer of said compensating charged voltage level to said first amplifier input during feedback amplifier saturation. 6. a photomultiplier pre-amplifier according to claim 5, including a diode coupled intermediate the output of said feedback amplifier and said capacitor for preventing appreciable discharge thereof during feedback amplifier saturation.	background in pre-amplifier circuits, there is often a need to amplify and convert a periodic component of an input current signal to a voltage equivalent. such pre-amplifiers may also be required to block any d.c. component on which the periodic input signal may be superimposed and simultaneously clamp the voltage equivalent output signal to ground. while these functions may be implemented in a variety of ways, in general such means commonly utilize a dc blocking capacitor followed by a linear amplifier and a diode clamp. since the blocking capacitor must also pass the input periodic signal being amplified, in the case of low frequency input signals, the capacitance required may assume prohibitively large values. such low frequency input signals are commonly encountered in photometric applications for bichromatic analysis in which a light beam is mechanically interrupted or chopped at a relatively low periodic rate and thereafter converted by a photomultiplier tube to a corresponding signal for processing and analysis. pre-amplifiers currently in use for such photometric applications have eliminated the need for a dc blocking capacitor. present feedback amplifiers sample the photomultiplier dark current signal level, i.e., the quiescent direct current level of the photomultiplier tube (pmt) signal output. this dc level is used in the feedback network to charge a capacitor through a diode and resistor combination in a direction to remove the offset voltage due to the dark current signal present at the output of the pmt pre-amplifier. the feedback amplifier is normally in a state of positive saturation, with brief, uncontrolled excursions through its linear operating region, at times ending in negative saturation, with equally uncontrolled return excursions to positive saturation. the highly non-linear, frequency independent response of the feedback network results in an undesirable overall response to input noise. because of the overall circuit configuration, increasing the network's response time inevitably leads to other more disastrous trade-offs. the feedback network is thus incapable of frequency discrimination and output noise is processed exactly like the signal. as a result, the most negative excursion of signal plus noise at the output of the pre-amplifier is clamped to ground. this induces a noise dependent offset voltage in the pre-amplifier output signal. it is a characteristic of photomultiplier tubes that their noise level changes as a function of increasing tube operating voltage. since the voltage applied to the photomultiplier tube is a function of the absorbance value to be measured during bichromatic analysis, the noise dependent offset voltage at the output of the pre-amp inevitably leads to non-linearity measurement errors whose magnitude is related to the noise characteristics of the photomultiplier tube thus, in the past, in order to minimize the error due to the noise dependent offset voltages, it was required to pre-test and therefore pre-select the photomultiplier tubes having a low range of noise level changes. under normal circumstances, the rejection rate of new photomultiplier tubes in order to meet this criteria amounted to 50-60%. it is therefore desirable to provide a pre-amplifier able to restore ground in the presence of noise, and particularly one capable of compensating for the dark current output of a photomultiplier tube without requiring time consuming and costly pre-testing of photomultipliers to determine those having a desired low range of noise level changes. summary of the invention in accordance with the principles of the present invention, there is provided a pre-amplifier for photomultiplier tubes which includes means to compensate for the dark current output of the photomultiplier tube without inducing a noise dependent offset voltage at the pre-amplifier output. a compensating network cooperating with a feedback amplifier accurately clamps the average value of the most negative excursion of the output of the pre-amplifier to ground. this action assures optimum ground restoration of the output signal in the presence of noise. the feedback amplifier is coupled intermediate the compensating network and the output of the pre-amplifier with the output of the compensating network being coupled to the pre-amplifier input. during the dark current portion of the photomultiplier tube output signal, the feedback amplifier and a lead/lag compensating network combine to monitor the output of the pre-amplifier. during this time the feedback amplifier is maintained in a linearly responsive state and a capacitor, included in the lead/lag compensator, is charged to an amount of feedback correction necessary to accurately clamp the average value of the most negative excursion of the preamplifier output to ground. the resistor and capacitor components of the lead/lag compensator are selected to optimize the network signal response with respect to rise time, overshoot and stability. during other signal portions, when active ground restoration is not desired, the feedback amplifier is caused to saturate and therefore cease its monitoring function. accordingly, the compensated pre-amplifier of the present invention includes means to stabilize its feedback response to assure optimum ground restoration of its output signal in the presence of noise, thereby eliminating the noise dependent offset voltage present in such prior art pre-amplifiers. brief decription of the drawings fig. 1 is a block diagram of an amplifier circuit with means for restoring the ground signal in the presence of noise in accordance with the principles of the present invention; fig. 2 illustrates the output signal waveform with ground restoration in the presence of noise indicated in solid lines and the prior art results of an offset voltage in the signal due to noise indicated in dashed lines; and fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the components and their interconnections corresponding to the block diagram of fig. 1. detailed description initially, with reference to fig. 2, the dashed lines illustrate the offset voltage induced by prior art pre-amplifier/compensating networks. as previously explained, such prior art circuits clamped the most negative excursions of the output signal plus noise to ground thereby producing the noise dependent offset voltage indicated in fig. 2. on the other hand, the amplifier with compensation in accordance with the present invention restores an optimum ground condition to the signal. this is illustrated in the solid lines of fig. 2. in accordance with the present invention, a feedback network is incorporated with the amplifier to accurately clamp the average value of the most negative excursion of the output due to noise to ground. referring now to fig. 1, there is illustrated a pre-amplifier 10 having its inverting input 11 coupled to the output of a photomultiplier tube (pmt) 12. a feedback network 14 including a feedback amplifier 16 and a lead/lag compensating circuit 18 is coupled between an output terminal 20 and a non-inverting input 21 to pre-amplifier 10. the feedback induced by network 14 stabilizes the overall feedback response to assure the output signal derived from the photomultiplier tube 12 is optimally restored to ground in the presence of pmt output signal noise during its dark current signal portion. in particular, the feedback network 14 monitors the pre-amplifier output signal at terminal 20 only during the pmt dark current signal portion. feedback amplifier 16 is maintained linearly responsive during the pmt dark signal portion and is thus able to sample the output signal at terminal 20, and through the lead/lag compensating circuit 18 develop a voltage supplied to the amplifer 10 sufficient for feedback correction. referring now to fig. 3, there is illustrated in detail the components forming the apparatus shown in the block diagram of fig. 1. as will be described in more detail hereinafter, the components forming the feedback amplifier 16 and lead/lag compensating network 18 enable the amplifier a.sub.2 to monitor the output of amplifier a.sub.1 at terminal 20 only during the time intervals t.sub.1, t.sub.3 and t.sub.5 as noted on the waveform shown in fig. 2. during these time intervals, the amplifier a.sub.2 is operating in its linearly reponsive state to charge capacitor c.sub.3 with an amount of feedback correction necessary to clamp the average value of the most negative excursions of the output of amplifer of a.sub.1 to ground as shown in fig. 2. fig. 2 therefore illustrates the output signal waveform 22 present at the output terminal 20 as indicated in solid lines. also for purposes of illustration, the dashed lines in fig. 2 represent the noise present during the dark current portion of the photomultiplier tube 12 as previously described. in the time intervals t.sub.2, t.sub.4 and t.sub.6 indicated on the output signal 22 as shown in fig. 2, amplifier a.sub.2 is placed in negative saturation, thereby causing it to cease its monitoring function during the aforementioned time intervals. thus, the feedback network 14 is cycled between monitoring time intervals t.sub.1, t.sub.3 and t.sub.5 to restore an optimum ground to the output signal 22 in the presence of noise, and non-monitoring time intervals t.sub.2, t.sub.4 and t.sub.6. also, during the monitoring cycles, amplifier a.sub.2 is in a linearly responsive state, whereas during the non-monitoring time intervals amplifier a.sub.2 is in a saturated condition. thus, in general there has been provided an amplifier including means to stabilize its feedback response to assure optimum ground restoration of its output signal in the presence of noise. a specific embodiment of the present invention is set forth in fig. 3. in the preferred embodiment of the invention as shown therein, the feedback network 14 is used to clamp the average value of the most negative excursion of the output of amplifier a.sub.1 to ground. amplifier a.sub.1, including resistors r.sub.1, r.sub.2 and capacitor c.sub.4 acts as a preamplifier of the output signals from photomultiplier tube 12 supplied to the signal inverting input terminal 24. while the following description of the present invention is applied to an amplifier for photomultiplier tube output signals, it is to be understood that the invention is not so limited, and as previously indicated, may be used in other applications as well to assure optimum ground restoration of an output signal in the presence of noise. therefore, the specific illustration of the components in the photomultiplier tube environment shown in fig. 3, is merely to illustrate one application of the present invention. with respect to fig. 3, amplifier a.sub.1 operates as a current to voltage converter for the periodic component of the input signal from the photomultiplier tube (pmt) 12. the output of amplifier a.sub.1 is monitored by the stage gain characteristics of amplifier a.sub.2. at dc the gain of amplifier a.sub.2 is equal to the open loop gain of amplifier a.sub.2 due to capacitor c.sub.1. a high degree of gain at dc is a desirable attribute to enable the feedback network to accurately clamp the average value of the most negative excursion of the output of amplifier a.sub.1 to ground. at other than dc the stage gain of amplifier a.sub.2 is quickly rolled off by feedback resistor r.sub.5 to a stable value of stage gain determined by r.sub.5, r.sub.4, and r.sub.3 calculated to cause amplifier a.sub.2 to saturate negatively for positive excursions of the output of amplifier a.sub.1. the entry of amplifier a.sub.2 into negative saturation is a design requirement so as to cause amplifier a.sub.2 to cease its monitoring function since the most negative portion of the output of amplifier a.sub.1 has been completed, as evidenced in fig. 2 by the positive swing starting at points 26, 28, and 30 at the output of amplifier a.sub.1. prior to a.sub.2 entering negative saturation, capacitor c.sub.3 is charged at a rate governed by the output of amplifier a.sub.2 through diode cr.sub.1 and resistor network r.sub.8 and r.sub.9 in a direction to clamp the output of amplifier a.sub.1 to the ground reference supplied to the non-inverting terminal 32 of amplifier a.sub.2 through bias compensation resistor r.sub.6. linear operation of amplifier a.sub.2 is assured through the use of its local feedback and lead network r.sub.7 and c.sub.2. the circuit configuration represented by r.sub.7, c.sub.2, r.sub.8, r.sub.9 and c.sub.3 is commonly referred to as a lead/lag compensator and is frequently used in closed loop servo design as a means to optimize overall response with respect to rise time, overshoot and stability. the design of such networks is well documented and presents no undue restriction to those knowledgeable in the field. during that portion (time intervals t.sub.1, t.sub.3, t.sub.5) of the output signal waveform 22 in which amplifier a.sub.2 is actively clamping the output of amplifier a.sub.1, capacitor c.sub.3 is serving a dual role, that is, as a component of the lead/lag network and as the eventual memory element of the overall pre-amplifier when the output of amplifier a.sub.1 begins its positive excursion leading to the subsequent negative saturation of amplifier a.sub.2. as amplifier a.sub.2 approaches negative saturation, diode cr.sub.1 prevents the saturation state of amplifier a.sub.2 from influencing the charge on capacitor c.sub.3. since the voltage across capacitor c.sub.3 is at all times communicated to the non-inverting signal input terminal 34 of amplifier a.sub.1 through resistor r.sub.10 and since the voltage on capacitor c.sub.3 represents the amount of feedback correction deemed necessary by amplifier a.sub.1 during its linearly responsive state, the output of amplifier a.sub.1 continues to undergo the same level of correction during the saturation state of amplifier a.sub.2 subject to the restriction that capacitor c.sub.3 does not discharge appreciably before the next linearly responsive state of amplifier a.sub.2. in order to insure adequate dynamic range of amplifier a.sub.2 and to insure that diode cr.sub.1 is caused to conduct during the entire interval in which amplifier a.sub.2 is linearly responsive, the operating point of amplifier a.sub.2 is controlled by reference voltage v.sub.r acting through resistor r.sub.11. assuming that resistors r.sub.10 and r.sub.11 are of equal resistance, the voltage charge on capacitor c.sub.3 must be equal and of opposite polarity to reference voltage v.sub.r. the reference voltage v.sub.r is maintained at a substantially constant level by means of zener diode cr.sub.2, resistor r.sub.12 and capacitor c.sub.5 coupled to the indicated voltage source. since the voltage at the cathode end of diode cr.sub.1 bears a fixed dc relationship through resistors r.sub.8 and r.sub.9 to the voltage present on capacitor c.sub.3, it can be seen that an optimum operating point for amplifier a.sub.2 can be specified to lie at a point midway between the voltage on capacitor c.sub.3 and its positive saturation limit. in this manner, amplifier a.sub.2 is kept from clipping on noise peaks. the lead portion of the lead/lag network in the feedback path in addition to the role played in optimizing the rise time and stability of the circuit provides a high frequency roll-off characteristic to the closed-loop response which, in conjunction with capacitor c.sub.4, minimizes the high frequency noise output of the compensated amplifier circuit. the foregoing detailed description has been given for clearness of understanding only, and no unnecessary limitations should be understood therefrom as modifications will be obvious to those skilled in the art.
080-639-223-492-188	US	[ "US" ]	H01L51/00,H01L51/50,C07D209/56,C07D209/86,C07D307/77,C07D307/91,C07D333/50,C07D333/76,C07D405/04,C07D405/10,C07D409/04,C07D409/10,C07D487/04,C07D491/048,C07D495/04	2013-03-27T00:00:00	2013	[ "H01", "C07" ]	host materials for oled application	the present disclosure provides novel compounds containing dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene and larger all-benzenoid moiety that can be used as hosts for phosphorescent emitters providing low-voltage, high-efficiency and high-stability devices.	1 . a compound having a formula (i): a-l-b (i), wherein a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; wherein the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group; wherein l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and wherein b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. 2 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein l is selected from the group consisting of: a direct bond, 3 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is wherein k 1 to k 12 are independently selected from n and c—r′; and r′ is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. 4 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is selected from the group consisting of: 5 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is selected from the group consisting of: wherein x 1 -x 15 are independently selected from the group consisting of n and c—r″, wherein r″ is selected from a group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and y 1 and y 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of o, s, and se. 6 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is selected from the group consisting of: wherein n is an integer from 1 to 20; m is an integer from 1 to 20; x and y are independently selected from the group consisting of o, s, and nr 14 ; and r 11 , r 12 , r 13 and r 14 are selected from the group consisting of aryl and heteroaryl. 7 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is selected from the group consisting of: 8 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein a is selected from the group consisting of: 9 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein b is selected from the group consisting of: 10 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein the compound is selected from the group consisting of: wherein each different r's are selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. 11 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein the compound is selected from the group consisting of: 12 . a first device comprising a phosphorescent organic light-emitting device, the phosphorescent organic light-emitting device comprising: an anode; a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, comprising a compound containing an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms. 13 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the compound has a formula (i): a-l-b (i), wherein a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; wherein the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group; wherein l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and wherein b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. 14 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound of the formula (i) is a host. 15 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the organic layer further comprises a phosphorescent emissive dopant. 16 . the first device of claim 15 , wherein the phosphorescent emissive dopant is a transition metal complex having at least one ligand selected from the group consisting of: wherein r a , r b , r c , and r d may represent mono, di, tri, or tetra substitution, or no substitution; wherein r a , r b , r c , and r d are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; and wherein two adjacent substituents of r a , r b , r c , and r d are optionally joined to form a fused ring or form a multidentate ligand. 17 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the organic layer is a blocking layer and the compound is a blocking material in the organic layer. 18 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the organic layer is an electron transporting layer and the compound is an electron transporting material in the organic layer. 19 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the first device is a consumer product. 20 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the first device is an organic light-emitting device. 21 . the first device of claim 12 , wherein the first device comprises a lighting panel. 22 . a formulation comprising a compound having a formula i: a-l-b (i), wherein a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; wherein the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group; wherein l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and wherein b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof.	cross-reference to related applications this application claims priority to u.s. provisional application no. 61/805,611, filed mar. 27, 2013, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference. parties to a joint research agreement the claimed invention was made by, on behalf of, and/or in connection with one or more of the following parties to a joint university corporation research agreement: regents of the university of michigan, princeton university, university of southern california, and the universal display corporation. the agreement was in effect on and before the date the claimed invention was made, and the claimed invention was made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of the agreement. field of the invention the present invention relates to organic light emitting devices (oleds), and more specifically to organic materials used in such devices. more specifically, the present invention relates to host compounds for phosphorescent oleds. background opto-electronic devices that make use of organic materials are becoming increasingly desirable for a number of reasons. many of the materials used to make such devices are relatively inexpensive, so organic opto-electronic devices have the potential for cost advantages over inorganic devices. in addition, the inherent properties of organic materials, such as their flexibility, may make them well suited for particular applications such as fabrication on a flexible substrate. examples of organic opto-electronic devices include organic light emitting devices (oleds), organic phototransistors, organic photovoltaic cells, and organic photodetectors. for oleds, the organic materials may have performance advantages over conventional materials. for example, the wavelength at which an organic emissive layer emits light may generally be readily tuned with appropriate dopants. oleds make use of thin organic films that emit light when voltage is applied across the device. oleds are becoming an increasingly interesting technology for use in applications such as flat panel displays, illumination, and backlighting. several oled materials and configurations are described in u.s. pat. nos. 5,844,363, 6,303,238, and 5,707,745, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. one application for phosphorescent emissive molecules is a full color display. industry standards for such a display call for pixels adapted to emit particular colors, referred to as “saturated” colors. in particular, these standards call for saturated red, green, and blue pixels. color may be measured using cie coordinates, which are well known to the art. one example of a green emissive molecule is tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium, denoted ir(ppy) 3 , which has the following structure: in this, and later figures herein, we depict the dative bond from nitrogen to metal (here, ir) as a straight line. as used herein, the term “organic” includes polymeric materials as well as small molecule organic materials that may be used to fabricate organic opto-electronic devices. “small molecule” refers to any organic material that is not a polymer, and “small molecules” may actually be quite large. small molecules may include repeat units in some circumstances. for example, using a long chain alkyl group as a substituent does not remove a molecule from the “small molecule” class. small molecules may also be incorporated into polymers, for example as a pendent group on a polymer backbone or as a part of the backbone. small molecules may also serve as the core moiety of a dendrimer, which consists of a series of chemical shells built on the core moiety. the core moiety of a dendrimer may be a fluorescent or phosphorescent small molecule emitter. a dendrimer may be a “small molecule,” and it is believed that all dendrimers currently used in the field of oleds are small molecules. as used herein, “top” means furthest away from the substrate, while “bottom” means closest to the substrate. where a first layer is described as “disposed over” a second layer, the first layer is disposed further away from substrate. there may be other layers between the first and second layer, unless it is specified that the first layer is “in contact with” the second layer. for example, a cathode may be described as “disposed over” an anode, even though there are various organic layers in between. as used herein, “solution processible” means capable of being dissolved, dispersed, or transported in and/or deposited from a liquid medium, either in solution or suspension form. a ligand may be referred to as “photoactive” when it is believed that the ligand directly contributes to the photoactive properties of an emissive material. a ligand may be referred to as “ancillary” when it is believed that the ligand does not contribute to the photoactive properties of an emissive material, although an ancillary ligand may alter the properties of a photoactive ligand. as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first “highest occupied molecular orbital” (homo) or “lowest unoccupied molecular orbital” (lumo) energy level is “greater than” or “higher than” a second homo or lumo energy level if the first energy level is closer to the vacuum energy level. since ionization potentials (ip) are measured as a negative energy relative to a vacuum level, a higher homo energy level corresponds to an ip having a smaller absolute value (an ip that is less negative). similarly, a higher lumo energy level corresponds to an electron affinity (ea) having a smaller absolute value (an ea that is less negative). on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, the lumo energy level of a material is higher than the homo energy level of the same material. a “higher” homo or lumo energy level appears closer to the top of such a diagram than a “lower” homo or lumo energy level. as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first work function is “greater than” or “higher than” a second work function if the first work function has a higher absolute value. because work functions are generally measured as negative numbers relative to vacuum level, this means that a “higher” work function is more negative. on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, a “higher” work function is illustrated as further away from the vacuum level in the downward direction. thus, the definitions of homo and lumo energy levels follow a different convention than work functions. more details on oleds, and the definitions described above, can be found in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. summary of the invention the present disclosure provides novel compounds containing dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene and larger all-benzenoid moiety that can be used as hosts for phosphorescent emitters to provide low-voltage, high-efficiency and high-stability devices. they can also be used in oleds as emitters, hosts, charge transport materials, in both single color or multiple color devices, materials can be vapor-evaporated or solution processed. according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a novel compound having a formula (i), a-l-b (i), wherein a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; wherein the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group; wherein l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and wherein b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof is disclosed. according to an aspect of the present disclosure, a device comprising a phosphorescent organic light-emitting device is disclosed. the phosphorescent organic light-emitting device comprising: an anode, a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, comprising a compound containing an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms disclosed. a formulation comprising the novel compound is also disclosed. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device that can incorporate the inventive compound disclosed herein. fig. 2 shows an inverted organic light emitting device that can incorporate the inventive compound disclosed herein. detailed description generally, an oled comprises at least one organic layer disposed between and electrically connected to an anode and a cathode. when a current is applied, the anode injects holes and the cathode injects electrons into the organic layer(s). the injected holes and electrons each migrate toward the oppositely charged electrode. when an electron and hole localize on the same molecule, an “exciton,” which is a localized electron-hole pair having an excited energy state, is formed. light is emitted when the exciton relaxes via a photoemissive mechanism. in some cases, the exciton may be localized on an excimer or an exciplex. non-radiative mechanisms, such as thermal relaxation, may also occur, but are generally considered undesirable. the initial oleds used emissive molecules that emitted light from their singlet states (“fluorescence”) as disclosed, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,769,292, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. fluorescent emission generally occurs in a time frame of less than 10 nanoseconds. more recently, oleds having emissive materials that emit light from triplet states (“phosphorescence”) have been demonstrated. baldo et al., “highly efficient phosphorescent emission from organic electroluminescent devices,” nature, vol. 395, 151-154, 1998; (“baldo-i”) and baldo et al., “very high-efficiency green organic light-emitting devices based on electrophosphorescence,” appl. phys. lett., vol. 75, no. 3, 4-6 (1999) (“baldo-ii”), which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. phosphorescence is described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704 at cols. 5-6, which are incorporated by reference. fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device 100 . the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. device 100 may include a substrate 110 , an anode 115 , a hole injection layer 120 , a hole transport layer 125 , an electron blocking layer 130 , an emissive layer 135 , a hole blocking layer 140 , an electron transport layer 145 , an electron injection layer 150 , a protective layer 155 , a cathode 160 , and a barrier layer 170 . cathode 160 is a compound cathode having a first conductive layer 162 and a second conductive layer 164 . device 100 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. the properties and functions of these various layers, as well as example materials, are described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704 at cols. 6-10, which are incorporated by reference. more examples for each of these layers are available. for example, a flexible and transparent substrate-anode combination is disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,844,363, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of a p-doped hole transport layer is m-mtdata doped with f 4 -tcnq at a molar ratio of 50:1, as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. examples of emissive and host materials are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 6,303,238 to thompson et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of an n-doped electron transport layer is bphen doped with li at a molar ratio of 1:1, as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. u.s. pat. nos. 5,703,436 and 5,707,745, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, disclose examples of cathodes including compound cathodes having a thin layer of metal such as mg:ag with an overlying transparent, electrically-conductive, sputter-deposited ito layer. the theory and use of blocking layers is described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 6,097,147 and u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. examples of injection layers are provided in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. a description of protective layers may be found in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. fig. 2 shows an inverted oled 200 . the device includes a substrate 210 , a cathode 215 , an emissive layer 220 , a hole transport layer 225 , and an anode 230 . device 200 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. because the most common oled configuration has a cathode disposed over the anode, and device 200 has cathode 215 disposed under anode 230 , device 200 may be referred to as an “inverted” oled. materials similar to those described with respect to device 100 may be used in the corresponding layers of device 200 . fig. 2 provides one example of how some layers may be omitted from the structure of device 100 . the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2 is provided by way of non-limiting example, and it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be used in connection with a wide variety of other structures. the specific materials and structures described are exemplary in nature, and other materials and structures may be used. functional oleds may be achieved by combining the various layers described in different ways, or layers may be omitted entirely, based on design, performance, and cost factors. other layers not specifically described may also be included. materials other than those specifically described may be used. although many of the examples provided herein describe various layers as comprising a single material, it is understood that combinations of materials, such as a mixture of host and dopant, or more generally a mixture, may be used. also, the layers may have various sublayers. the names given to the various layers herein are not intended to be strictly limiting. for example, in device 200 , hole transport layer 225 transports holes and injects holes into emissive layer 220 , and may be described as a hole transport layer or a hole injection layer. in one embodiment, an oled may be described as having an “organic layer” disposed between a cathode and an anode. this organic layer may comprise a single layer, or may further comprise multiple layers of different organic materials as described, for example, with respect to figs. 1 and 2 . structures and materials not specifically described may also be used, such as oleds comprised of polymeric materials (pleds) such as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,247,190 to friend et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. by way of further example, oleds having a single organic layer may be used. oleds may be stacked, for example as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,707,745 to forrest et al, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. the oled structure may deviate from the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2 . for example, the substrate may include an angled reflective surface to improve out-coupling, such as a mesa structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,091,195 to forrest et al., and/or a pit structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,834,893 to bulovic et al., which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. unless otherwise specified, any of the layers of the various embodiments may be deposited by any suitable method. for the organic layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation, ink-jet, such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,013,982 and 6,087,196, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, organic vapor phase deposition (ovpd), such as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,337,102 to forrest et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, and deposition by organic vapor jet printing (ovjp), such as described in u.s. pat. no. 7,431,968, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. other suitable deposition methods include spin coating and other solution based processes. solution based processes are preferably carried out in nitrogen or an inert atmosphere. for the other layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation. preferred patterning methods include deposition through a mask, cold welding such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,294,398 and 6,468,819, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, and patterning associated with some of the deposition methods such as ink-jet and ovjd. other methods may also be used. the materials to be deposited may be modified to make them compatible with a particular deposition method. for example, substituents such as alkyl and aryl groups, branched or unbranched, and preferably containing at least 3 carbons, may be used in small molecules to enhance their ability to undergo solution processing. substituents having 20 carbons or more may be used, and 3-20 carbons is a preferred range. materials with asymmetric structures may have better solution processibility than those having symmetric structures, because asymmetric materials may have a lower tendency to recrystallize. dendrimer substituents may be used to enhance the ability of small molecules to undergo solution processing. devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the present invention may further optionally comprise a barrier layer. one purpose of the barrier layer is to protect the electrodes and organic layers from damaging exposure to harmful species in the environment including moisture, vapor and/or gases, etc. the barrier layer may be deposited over, under or next to a substrate, an electrode, or over any other parts of a device including an edge. the barrier layer may comprise a single layer, or multiple layers. the barrier layer may be formed by various known chemical vapor deposition techniques and may include compositions having a single phase as well as compositions having multiple phases. any suitable material or combination of materials may be used for the barrier layer. the barrier layer may incorporate an inorganic or an organic compound or both. the preferred barrier layer comprises a mixture of a polymeric material and a non-polymeric material as described in u.s. pat. no. 7,968,146, pct pat. application nos. pct/us2007/023098 and pct/us2009/042829, which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties. to be considered a “mixture”, the aforesaid polymeric and non-polymeric materials comprising the barrier layer should be deposited under the same reaction conditions and/or at the same time. the weight ratio of polymeric to non-polymeric material may be in the range of 95:5 to 5:95. the polymeric material and the non-polymeric material may be created from the same precursor material. in one example, the mixture of a polymeric material and a non-polymeric material consists essentially of polymeric silicon and inorganic silicon. devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the invention may be incorporated into a wide variety of consumer products, including flat panel displays, computer monitors, medical monitors, televisions, billboards, lights for interior or exterior illumination and/or signaling, heads up displays, fully transparent displays, flexible displays, laser printers, telephones, cell phones, personal digital assistants (pdas), laptop computers, digital cameras, camcorders, viewfinders, micro-displays, 3-d displays, vehicles, a large area wall, theater or stadium screen, or a sign. various control mechanisms may be used to control devices fabricated in accordance with the present invention, including passive matrix and active matrix. many of the devices are intended for use in a temperature range comfortable to humans, such as 18 degrees c. to 30 degrees c., and more preferably at room temperature (20-25 degrees c), but could be used outside this temperature range, for example, from −40 degree c to +80 degree c. the materials and structures described herein may have applications in devices other than oleds. for example, other optoelectronic devices such as organic solar cells and organic photodetectors may employ the materials and structures. more generally, organic devices, such as organic transistors, may employ the materials and structures. the term “halo” or “halogen” as used herein includes fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. the term “alkyl” as used herein contemplates both straight and branched chain alkyl radicals. preferred alkyl groups are those containing from one to fifteen carbon atoms and includes methyl, ethyl, propyl, isopropyl, butyl, isobutyl, tert-butyl, and the like. additionally, the alkyl group may be optionally substituted. the term “cycloalkyl” as used herein contemplates cyclic alkyl radicals. preferred cycloalkyl groups are those containing 3 to 7 carbon atoms and includes cyclopropyl, cyclopentyl, cyclohexyl, and the like. additionally, the cycloalkyl group may be optionally substituted. the term “alkenyl” as used herein contemplates both straight and branched chain alkene radicals. preferred alkenyl groups are those containing two to fifteen carbon atoms. additionally, the alkenyl group may be optionally substituted. the term “alkynyl” as used herein contemplates both straight and branched chain alkyne radicals. preferred alkyl groups are those containing two to fifteen carbon atoms. additionally, the alkynyl group may be optionally substituted. the terms “aralkyl” or “arylalkyl” as used herein are used interchangeably and contemplate an alkyl group that has as a substituent an aromatic group. additionally, the aralkyl group may be optionally substituted. the term “heterocyclic group” as used herein contemplates non-aromatic cyclic radicals. preferred heterocyclic groups are those containing 3 or 7 ring atoms which includes at least one hetero atom, and includes cyclic amines such as morpholino, piperdino, pyrrolidino, and the like, and cyclic ethers, such as tetrahydrofuran, tetrahydropyran, and the like. additionally, the heterocyclic group may be optionally substituted. the term “aryl” or “aromatic group” as used herein contemplates single-ring groups and polycyclic ring systems. the polycyclic rings may have two or more rings in which two carbons are common to two adjoining rings (the rings are “fused”) wherein at least one of the rings is aromatic, e.g., the other rings can be cycloalkyls, cycloalkenyls, aryl, heterocycles, and/or heteroaryls. additionally, the aryl group may be optionally substituted. the term “heteroaryl” as used herein contemplates single-ring hetero-aromatic groups that may include from one to three heteroatoms, for example, pyrrole, furan, thiophene, imidazole, oxazole, thiazole, triazole, pyrazole, pyridine, pyrazine and pyrimidine, and the like. the term heteroaryl also includes polycyclic hetero-aromatic systems having two or more rings in which two atoms are common to two adjoining rings (the rings are “fused”) wherein at least one of the rings is a heteroaryl, e.g., the other rings can be cycloalkyls, cycloalkenyls, aryl, heterocycles, and/or heteroaryls. additionally, the heteroaryl group may be optionally substituted. the alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, alkynyl, aralkyl, heterocyclic group, aryl, and heteroaryl may be optionally substituted with one or more substituents selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, cyclic amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. as used herein, “substituted” indicates that a substituent other than h is bonded to the relevant position, such as carbon. thus, for example, where r 1 is mono-substituted, then one r 1 must be other than h. similarly, where r 1 is di-substituted, then two of r 1 must be other than h. similarly, where r 1 is unsubstituted, r 1 is hydrogen for all available positions. the “aza” designation in the fragments described herein, i.e. aza-dibenzofuran, aza-dibenzonethiophene, etc. means that one or more of the c—h groups in the respective fragment can be replaced by a nitrogen atom, for example, and without any limitation, azatriphenylene encompasses both dibenzo[f,h]quinoxaline and dibenzo[f,h]quinoline. one of ordinary skill in the art can readily envision other nitrogen analogs of the aza-derivatives described above, and all such analogs are intended to be encompassed by the terms as set forth herein. it is to be understood that when a molecular fragment is described as being a substituent or otherwise attached to another moiety, its name may be written as if it were a fragment (e.g. naphthyl, dibenzofuryl) or as if it were the whole molecule (e.g. naphthalene, dibenzofuran). as used herein, these different ways of designating a substituent or attached fragment are considered to be equivalent. according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a novel compound having a formula (i): a-l-b (i) is disclosed. in formula (i), a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group. l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. in one embodiment of the compound having the formula (i), l is selected from the group consisting of: a direct bond, in another embodiment of the compound having the formula (i), a is wherein k 1 to k 12 are independently selected from n and c—r′; and r′ is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. in another embodiment, a is selected from the group consisting of: in another embodiment, a is selected from the group consisting of: wherein x 1 -x 15 are independently selected from the group consisting of n and c—r″, wherein r″ is selected from a group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and y 1 and y 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of o, s, and se. in another embodiment, a is selected from the group consisting of: wherein n is an integer from 1 to 20; m is an integer from 1 to 20; x and y are independently selected from the group consisting of o, s, and nr 14 ; and r 11 , r 12 , r 13 and r 14 are selected from the group consisting of aryl and heteroaryl. in another embodiment, a is selected from the group consisting of: in another embodiment, a is selected from the group consisting of: in another embodiment of the compound having the formula (i), b is selected from the group consisting of: in another aspect, a formulation comprising a compound having the formula (i), a-l-b (i), described herein is disclosed. dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene and larger all-benzenoid compounds are polyaromatic compounds which can be drawn using only fully aromatic benzene rings (sextets). the simplest compound in the series is benzene. the next homolog is triphenylene which has been used as building blocks for host and other functional materials in oleds. dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene.maxi-mumno. ofsextets1 sextet3 sextets1 sextet and 1 diene2 sextets and 1 ene dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene, the 3 rd homolog in the series, and larger all-benzenoid compounds, despite the high π-electron delocalization, have higher triplet energy compared to non all-benzenoid compounds (compounds which must be drawn with ene or diene) with the same number of carbons. dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene and larger all-benzenoid compounds are therefore useful as host building blocks for phosphorescent emitters to provide low-voltage, high-efficiency and high-stability devices. to demonstrate the relatively high triplet energy of these all-benzenoid compounds, compound 2-x and 2-y were synthesized. the data is summarized in table 1 below. for comparison, the triplet of anthracene is well beyond 650 nm and tetracene is 700 nm. in addition, the lumo can be quite deep due to the high π-electron delocalization. for example, the reduction potential is 2.55 v for compound 2-x. when such compounds are used as the hosts in oleds, the operating voltage may be low. table 1cvλ peak atλ peak atstructurecompounddata [v]rt [nm]77k [nm]2-xred: −2.55 (r) ox: 0.47 (r)4385122-y388501 according to an aspect, preferred structures for the novel compound having dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene or larger all-benzenoid moiety are: wherein each different r's are selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. examples of some specific inventive compounds having the preferred structures presented above are: according to another aspect of the present disclosure, a first device comprising a phosphorescent organic light-emitting device is disclosed. the phosphorescent organic light-emitting device comprises: an anode; a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, comprising a compound containing an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms. in one embodiment of the first device, the compound has a formula (i): a-l-b (i), wherein a contains a group selected from the group consisting of indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, and combinations thereof, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; wherein the substitution of one or more groups in a is optionally fused to the indole, carbazole, benzofuran, dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, benzoselenophene, dibenzoselenophene, triphenylene, azacarbazole, azadibenzofuran, azadibenzothiophene, azadibenzoselenophene, or azatriphenylene group; wherein l is a single bond or comprises an aryl or heteroaryl group having from 5-30 carbon atoms, which is optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof; and wherein b is an all-benzenoid group having at least 24 carbon atoms, which are optionally further substituted with one or more groups selected from hydrogen, deuterium, alkyl, cycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. in one embodiment of the first device, the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound of the formula (i) is a host. the organic layer can further comprise a phosphorescent emissive dopant. in one embodiment of the first device, the phosphorescent emissive dopant is a transition metal complex having at least one ligand selected from the group consisting of: wherein r a , r b , r c , and r d may represent mono, di, tri, or tetra substitution, or no substitution; wherein r a , r b , r c , and r d are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; and wherein two adjacent substituents of r a , r b , r c , and r d are optionally joined to form a fused ring or form a multidentate ligand. in one embodiment of the first device, the organic layer is a blocking layer and the compound is a blocking material in the organic layer. inn another embodiment, the organic layer is an electron transporting layer and the compound is an electron transporting material in the organic layer. in one embodiment of the first device, the first device is a consumer product. in another embodiment, the first device is an organic light-emitting device. in another embodiment, the first device can comprise a lighting panel. synthesis of the novel compounds synthesis of triphenylen-1-ol to a solution of 1,4-dihydro-1,4-epoxytriphenylene (3 g, 12 mmol), copper(ii) triflate (0.45 g, 1.2 mmol), and dry dichloromethane (120 ml) in a 250 ml round bottom flask equipped with a stir bar and nitrogen inlet was allowed to stir overnight at room temperature. the reaction mixture was quenched by deionized water, followed by dichloromethane extraction and the organic layer was dried over magnesium sulfate and filtered through filter paper. the solvent was then evaporated and the residue was then purified by flash column chromatography using dcm:hexane (1:2, v/v) as eluent. the resulting white solid was recrystallized from hexane to obtain 2.7 g (90%) of triphenylen-1-ol. synthesis of triphenylen-1-yl trifluoromethanesulfonate to a cooled solution (0° c.) of triphenylen-1-ol (2 g, 8.2 mmol), pyridine (8 ml) and dry dichloromethane (200 ml) in a 250 ml round bottom flask equipped with a stir bar and nitrogen inlet was added dropwise trifluoromethanesulfonyl anhydride (10 ml). the reaction mixture was allowed to stir overnight at room temperature. the reaction mixture was cooled to 0° c. and quenched by deionized water and the organic layer was dried over magnesium sulfate and filtered through filter paper. the solvent was then evaporated and the residue was then purified by column using dcm:hexane (1:4, v/v) as eluent. the resulting white solid was recrystallized from hexane, 2.7 g (88%) of triphenylen-1-yl trifluoromethanesulfonate was collected. synthesis of 1-(3-methoxyphenyl)triphenylene to a solution of triphenylen-1-yl trifluoromethanesulfonate (2.42 g, 6.42 mmol), 3-methoxyphenylboronic acid (1.96 g, 12.9 mmol), 2-dicyclohexylphosphino-2′,6′-dimethoxybiphenyl (0.34 g, 0.83 mmol), k 3 po 4 (4.20 g, 19.8 mmol) in toluene (90 ml), ethanol (5 ml) and water (5 ml) was bubbled with nitrogen for 30 min. pd 2 (dba) 3 (0.24 g, 0.26 mmol) was added. the mixture was bubbled with nitrogen for 15 min. the resultant mixture was refluxed for 4 h. after cooling, the reaction mixture was filtered through a short silica pad and magnesium sulphate and washed with toluene. the solvent was removed in vacuo and the residue was purified by flash chromatography using 15% toluene/hexane to afford 2.04 g (95%) of 1-(3-methoxyphenyl)triphenylene as a white foam. synthesis of 5-methoxydibenzo[fg,op]tetracene in a 50 ml round-bottom flash equipped with a nitrogen inlet and a stirring bar, 1-(3-methoxyphenyl)triphenylene (2.04 g, 6.10 mmol) was dissolved in anhydrous methylene chloride (20 ml). iron(iii) chloride (2.90 g, 17.9 mmol) was added and the mixture was stirred overnight. methanol was added and stirred for 2 h. the solid was filtered and heated to boil with toluene (200 ml). the residue was filtered through a silica pad while hot and washed with toluene and concentrated to give 2.06 g of brown solid. the brown solid was recrystallized with toluene/heptane (1:1, 50 ml) twice to give 1.39 g (69%) of 5-methoxydibenzo[fg,op]tetracene. synthesis of 5-dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene trifluoromethanesulfonate a mixture of 5-methoxydibenzo[fg,op]tetracene (1.39 g, 4.20 mmol) and pyridine hydrochloride (3.77 g, 32.7 mmol) was heated to melt for 2 hours. upon cooling, water was added and the precipitate was filtered and dried to give 1.278 g of brown solid residue which was used for the next step without further purification. to the above brown solid residue was added anhydrous dicholoromethane (20 ml) and anhydrous pyridine (2.7 ml, 13.6 mmol) at 0° c. after 10 min, trifluoromethanesulfonic anhydride (2.8 ml, 16.6 mmol) was added slowly via syringe. the solution was warmed to room temperature and stirred overnight. the reaction mixture was added water (5 ml) at 0° c. and extracted with toluene, dried with mgso 4 and filtered thru a short silica pad and washed with hot toluene and concentrated to give yellow powder. the yellow powder was recrystallized with heptane/toluene (3:1, 40 ml) twice to give 1.54 g (82%) of 5-dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene trifluoromethanesulfonate. synthesis of compound 2-x 5-dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene trifluoromethanesulfonate (1.10 g, 2.43 mmol), bis-biphenyl-4-yl-amine (0.82 g, 1.22 mmol) were mixed in dry toluene (80 ml). the solution was bubbled nitrogen while stirring for 15 min. pd 2 (dba) 3 (0.06 g, 0.07 mmol), 2-dicyclohexylphosphino-2′,6′-dimethoxybiphenyl (0.11 g, 0.28 mmol) and sodium tert-butoxide (0.46 g, 4.83 mmol) were added in sequence. the mixture was heated to reflux overnight under nitrogen. after cooling, the reaction mixture was filtered through a short silica pad and washed with hot toluene, the solvent was concentrated. the residue was recrystallized with toluene (30 ml) twice to obtain 1.21 g (80%) of compound 2-x. synthesis of compound 2-y (st notebook 95129406 page 68) 5-dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene trifluoromethanesulfonate (0.17 g, 0.39 mmol), phenylboronic acid (0.06 g, 0.48 mmol), k 2 co 3 (0.14 g, 1.00 mmol) in toluene (3 ml), water (1 ml) and etoh (1 ml) was bubbled with nitrogen for 30 min. pd(pph 3 ) 4 (0.014 g, 0.01 mmol) was added. the mixture was bubbled with nitrogen for 15 min. the resultant mixture was refluxed for 15 hours. after cooling, the reaction mixture was extracted with toluene and filtered through a short silica pad and washed with hot toluene. the solvent was concentrated. the residue was recrystallized with heptane-tolune (3:1, 4 ml) to give 0.04 g (27%) of compound 2-y. combination with other materials the materials described herein as useful for a particular layer in an organic light emitting device may be used in combination with a wide variety of other materials present in the device. for example, emissive dopants disclosed herein may be used in conjunction with a wide variety of hosts, transport layers, blocking layers, injection layers, electrodes and other layers that may be present. the materials described or referred to below are non-limiting examples of materials that may be useful in combination with the compounds disclosed herein, and one of skill in the art can readily consult the literature to identify other materials that may be useful in combination. hil/htl: a hole injecting/transporting material to be used in the present invention is not particularly limited, and any compound may be used as long as the compound is typically used as a hole injecting/transporting material. examples of the material include, but not limit to: a phthalocyanine or porphyrin derivative; an aromatic amine derivative; an indolocarbazole derivative; a polymer containing fluorohydrocarbon; a polymer with conductivity dopants; a conducting polymer, such as pedot/pss; a self-assembly monomer derived from compounds such as phosphonic acid and silane derivatives; a metal oxide derivative, such as moo x ; a p-type semiconducting organic compound, such as 1,4,5,8,9,12-hexaazatriphenylenehexacarbonitrile; a metal complex, and a cross-linkable compounds. examples of aromatic amine derivatives used in hil or htl include, but not limit to the following general structures: each of ar 1 to ar 9 is selected from the group consisting aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, azulene; group consisting aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and group consisting 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atom, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. wherein each ar is further substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. in one aspect, ar 1 to ar 9 is independently selected from the group consisting of: wherein k is an integer from 1 to 20; x 101 to x 108 is c (including ch) or n; z 101 is nar 1 , o, or s; ar 1 has the same group defined above. examples of metal complexes used in hil or htl include, but not limit to the following general formula: wherein met is a metal, which can have an atomic weight greater than 40; (y 101 -y 102 ) is a bidentate ligand, y 101 and y 102 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l 101 is an ancillary ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and k′+k″ is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. in one aspect, (y 101 -y 102 ) is a 2-phenylpyridine derivative. in another aspect, (y 101 -y 102 ) is a carbene ligand. in another aspect, met is selected from ir, pt, os, and zn. in a further aspect, the metal complex has a smallest oxidation potential in solution vs. fc + /fc couple less than about 0.6 v. host: the light emitting layer of the organic el device of the present invention preferably contains at least a metal complex as light emitting material, and may contain a host material using the metal complex as a dopant material. examples of the host material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as the triplet energy of the host is larger than that of the dopant. while the table below categorizes host materials as preferred for devices that emit various colors, any host material may be used with any dopant so long as the triplet criteria is satisfied. examples of metal complexes used as host are preferred to have the following general formula: wherein met is a metal; (y 103 -y 104 ) is a bidentate ligand, y 103 and y 104 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l 101 is an another ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and k′+k″ is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. in one aspect, the metal complexes are: wherein (o—n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o and n. in another aspect, met is selected from ir and pt. in a further aspect, (y 103 -y 104 ) is a carbene ligand. examples of organic compounds used as host are selected from the group consisting aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, azulene; group consisting aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and group consisting 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atome, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. wherein each group is further substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. in one aspect, host compound contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein r 101 to r 107 is independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof, when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. k is an integer from 0 to 20 or 1 to 20; k′″ is an integer from 0 to 20. x 101 to x 108 is selected from c (including ch) or n. z 101 and z 102 is selected from nr 101 , o, or s. hbl: a hole blocking layer (hbl) may be used to reduce the number of holes and/or excitons that leave the emissive layer. the presence of such a blocking layer in a device may result in substantially higher efficiencies as compared to a similar device lacking a blocking layer. also, a blocking layer may be used to confine emission to a desired region of an oled. in one aspect, compound used in hbl contains the same molecule or the same functional groups used as host described above. in another aspect, compound used in hbl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein k is an integer from 1 to 20; l 101 is an another ligand, k′ is an integer from 1 to 3. etl: electron transport layer (etl) may include a material capable of transporting electrons. electron transport layer may be intrinsic (undoped), or doped. doping may be used to enhance conductivity. examples of the etl material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as they are typically used to transport electrons. in one aspect, compound used in etl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein r 101 is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halide, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carbonyl, carboxylic acids, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof, when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. ar 1 to ar 3 has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. k is an integer from 1 to 20. x 101 to x 108 is selected from c (including ch) or n. in another aspect, the metal complexes used in etl contains, but not limit to the following general formula: wherein (o—n) or (n—n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o, n or n, n; l 101 is another ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. in any above-mentioned compounds used in each layer of the oled device, the hydrogen atoms can be partially or fully deuterated. thus, any specifically listed substituent, such as, without limitation, methyl, phenyl, pyridyl, etc. encompasses undeuterated, partially deuterated, and fully deuterated versions thereof. similarly, classes of substituents such as, without limitation, alkyl, aryl, cycloalkyl, heteroaryl, etc. also encompass undeuterated, partially deuterated, and fully deuterated versions thereof. in addition to and/or in combination with the materials disclosed herein, many hole injection materials, hole transporting materials, host materials, dopant materials, exiton/hole blocking layer materials, electron transporting and electron injecting materials may be used in an oled. non-limiting examples of the materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are listed in table 2 below. table 2 lists non-limiting classes of materials, non-limiting examples of compounds for each class, and references that disclose the materials. table 2materialexamples of materialpublicationshole injection materialspthalocyanine and porphyrin compoundsappl. phys. lett. 69, 2160 (1996)starburst triarylaminesj. lumin. 72-74, 985 (1997)cf x 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(2000)fullerene (e.g., c60)us20090101890triazine complexesus20040036077zn (n{circumflex over ( )}n) complexesu.s. pat. no. 6,528,187 it is understood that the various embodiments described herein are by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. for example, many of the materials and structures described herein may be substituted with other materials and structures without deviating from the spirit of the invention. the present invention as claimed may therefore include variations from the particular examples and preferred embodiments described herein, as will be apparent to one of skill in the art. it is understood that various theories as to why the invention works are not intended to be limiting.
081-037-083-530-557	US	[ "US" ]	G01S3/80	2011-04-21T00:00:00	2011	[ "G01" ]	system for targeting directed acoustical energy	a system for targeting directed acoustic energy comprises a directed acoustic energy source. the system provides for locating a target relative to the location for the directed acoustic energy source and for aiming the directed acoustic energy source relative to the target to account for at least the effects of wind drift on the sound field generated by the directed energy source. further sources of atmospheric data may include wind direction and speed and temperature, both at surface levels and at altitude and at a plurality of location including the locations of the target, the directed acoustic energy source and intermediate points.	1 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy, comprising: a directed acoustic energy source; means for locating a target relative to the location for the directed acoustic energy source; data inputs relating to atmospheric conditions; and means for determining a targeting solution to the target. 2 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 1 , further comprising: the targeting solution including an acoustic bearing; and means for adjusting aiming of the directed acoustic energy source on the acoustic bearing to compensate for wind drift or atmospheric refraction. 3 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 2 , further comprising: the data inputs including wind direction and speed and air temperature. 4 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 2 , further comprising: the data inputs including including wind direction, speed and temperature for a plurality of altitudes and locations between and including the location of the directed acoustic energy source and the target. 5 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set fort in claim 4 , further comprising: the directed acoustic energy source being steerable in two axes; an optical or electro-magnetic device having a default orientation depending upon the orientation of the directed acoustic energy source; and means for independently aiming the optical or electro-magnetic device. 6 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 5 , further comprising: a platform allowing selection of location for the directed acoustic energy source. 7 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 5 , further comprising: a mast for changing the altitude of the directed acoustic energy source. 8 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 6 , further comprising: means for indicating to an operator that the platform can be relocated to achieve an improved targeting solution or to indicate effects of implementing a locally optimized targeting solution. 9 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 6 , further comprising: a source specifying directed acoustic signal quality or intensity at the target; frequency band amplifiers for operation to compensate for differential spread of a sound field over different frequency bands at a range to the target. 10 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 9 , further comprising: the directed acoustic signal being a broadband signal. 11 . a system for targeting directed acoustic energy as set forth in claim 6 , further comprising: means for specifying terrain categories for each location. 12 . an acoustic system comprising: a directed acoustic source; a target identification subsystem for determining a bearing and range to a target from the directed acoustic source; sources of data relating to atmospheric conditions including at least wind speed and direction corresponding to the general location of the directed acoustic source or the target; and a data processing subsystem for determining wind drift from the data and aiming the output of the directed acoustic energy source to compensate for the wind drift at the determined range and bearing. 13 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 12 , further comprising: the sources of data relating to atmospheric conditions further including temperature data corresponding to the general location of the directed acoustic source of the target; and the data processing system further providing for determining acoustic refraction from the temperature data and the wind speed and direction data for correcting aiming of the directed acoustic source. 14 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 12 , further comprising: an optical or electro-magnetic system; and the data processing system further providing for aiming the optical or electro-magnetic system at the target on a line of sight basis. 15 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 13 , further comprising: an optical or electro-magnetic system; and the data processing system further providing for aiming the optical or electro-magnetic system at the target on a line of sight basis. 16 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 15 , further comprising: geographic data inputs relating to characterizations of terrain at locations between and including the locations of the target and the directed acoustic source; meteorological inputs relating to particulate content in the atmosphere; and the data processing system being responsive to the geographic data, the wind speed and direction data and the temperature data for generating a wind drift and refraction profile across the range from the directed acoustic source and the target and to the particulate content for estimating acoustic loss due to absorption and scatter. 17 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 15 , further comprising: bearing and elevation controls for the directed acoustic source. 18 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 17 , further comprising: means for controlling the height of the directed acoustic source. 19 . an acoustic system as set forth in claim 16 , further comprising: the data processing system being further responsive to the estimated loss calculation for modifying the projected acoustic spectrum to enhance the intelligibility of language at the target.	background 1. technical field the field relates to sound projection and more particularly for targeting a relatively directional sound beam under variable atmospheric conditions. 2. description of the problem the propagation of sound in the atmosphere relative to a fixed spatial reference often confounds expectations. unlike light, which can almost always be treated in “line of sight” fashion over distances of a few kilometers, sound can propagate from point to point differently between day and night and depending upon wind conditions. this stems from the fact that sound propagates not just through air, but by means of the air. atmospheric conditions contribute to changes in sound propagation paths in several ways. wind is one mechanism which alters the propagation of sound relative to two fixed points. the movement of the air relative to the fixed reference point shifts sound's direction of propagation in the plane of reference parallel to the ground. being upwind from a sound source reduces the amount of sound energy received across level ground at a given distance due to refraction from shifts in the apparent speed of sound with increases in altitude and from the effective distance traveled by the sound increasing. being downwind from a source can improve transmission of sound to a point at the same height across level terrain because the propagation speed of sound increases with altitude resulting in apparent downward refraction and because of the effective reduction in distance traveled by the sound. low frequencies are less effected by cross winds than are higher frequencies on account of shifts in direction due to the wind. in addition, the propagation path can exhibit refraction effects due changes in the speed of sound at through in the medium. refraction can direct sound upward away from the ground or downward into the ground in part based on differences in wind speed with changes in altitude. wind speeds in a given direction usually increase with increases in altitude due to decreasing effects of ground friction with consequential changes in the refraction effects. the speed of sound in air is also highly dependant on air temperature. temperature changes through air are most usually associated with changes in altitude. air temperature can vary substantially over the intended propagation path of a sound beam resulting in substantial refraction of sound. for example, during daylight, ground usually heats more quickly than water with the result that air close to the ground is hotter than air at elevation. conversely, air just above a large body of water is cooler than air at increasing elevations over water. this arrangement often reverses at night. the lapse rate of air temperature over land with increasing altitude also depends upon the nature of ground and the character of any ground cover. tarmac obviously warms more quickly and to a greater extent than does snow. decreasing temperatures with altitude refracts sound upwardly while increasing temperatures with altitude refracts sound downwardly. this contributes (over land) to sound “traveling” better during the “still” of night than sound travels during daylight. other atmospheric conditions can be of consequence. atmospheric humidity, increases of which reduce density altitude, can produce variation in the speed of sound resulting in refraction effects. precipitation, smoke particles, dust or other atmospheric particulate content can absorb or reflect sound energy, though at low frequencies the length of sound waves relative to the size of the particles is so great that these issues can be ignored. issues that arise are most commonly encountered occur with respect to snow which can absorb noticeable portions of the higher parts of the audio spectrum and can be of particular consequence with respect to an ultrasonic carrier beam modulated by a lower frequency sound wave. most research in the area of sound propagation in the atmosphere has dealt with omnidirectional sources. less consideration has been given to the transmission to a target of a directed sound beam, particularly a sound beam meeting a desired energy spread and intensity over a frequency range. precision sound targeting grows increasingly difficult as distances between the sound source and the target due to the quantity of and changing relationships between losses, air motion effects and refraction. further complicating matters with respect to directed acoustic energy is the possibility of mounting the sound source on a moving platform that may be located at altitude. another complication raised by transmission of a focused or collimated beam of sound (or more generally put, sound from a directed acoustic source) is that, notwithstanding focusing or collimating of the sound, different portions of the sound frequency spectrum will spread at different rates. the low frequency portion of the sound “beam” can be much broader than the high frequency portion of the sound due both to its being harder to collimate and due to its tendency to spread more quickly. as a result refraction of the sound beam or wind shear effects can have greater consequences for perceived intensity of the higher frequencies than its does for lower frequencies. shifts of the beam center relative to a target result in a quicker drop off in high frequency energy reaching the target. summary a system for targeting directed acoustic energy comprises a directed acoustic energy source. the system provides for locating a target relative to the location for the directed acoustic energy source and for aiming the directed acoustic energy source relative to the target to account for at least the effects of wind drift on the sound field generated by the directed energy source. atmospheric data (or estimates) considered may include wind direction and speed as well as temperature. these may be considered both at the surface and at altitude as well as at a plurality of locations including the locations of the target, the directed acoustic energy source and intermediate points. brief description of the drawings understanding of the following description may be enhanced by reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: fig. 1 is an illustration of a localized theater of operations for a sound field projection system. fig. 2 is a partial cutaway view of a broadband directed acoustic source with which the present invention may be practiced. fig. 3 is a block diagram of a control system. fig. 4 is a graphical depiction of data for estimating a wind shift and refraction of a sound field directed onto a target. fig. 5 is an alternative directed acoustic energy source. fig. 6 is a perspective view of a phased array directed sound source. fig. 7 is a simplified control system for the phases array directed sound source. detailed description referring to fig. 1 an environment is illustrated in which various platforms/vehicles v 1 , v 2 , for supporting directed acoustic sources 12 are provided. vehicle v 1 may be taken as a surface vehicle, either a ground vehicle or a water craft. vehicle v 2 may be taken as an aircraft, either manned or unmanned. directed acoustic sources 12 can be aimed so that a sound field sf impinges on target t with closer to a desired energy/frequency spread than can be achieved by line of sight targeting. sound field sf is depicted as converging, however, it may be collimated or, less frequently, diverging. the degree of convergence, divergence, or collimation may vary as a function of frequency. a coordinated, but independently targeted optical device and/or electro/magnetic radiator 15 may be associated with the directed acoustic sources 12 as described below. sound propagates in the environment with reference to a spatial reference frame r which is geographically fixed. the coordinate axes x, y and z of spatial reference frame r are conventional with x and y being normal to the direction of gravity and usually corresponding to magnetic n/s and e/w while z corresponds to altitude. the environment is characterized in simplified fashion with areas of ground, water and woodland f. a target t is located within the environment. it is intended to direct sound energy in a sound field sf onto target t with selected frequencies meeting selecting intensity levels. the sound field sf is usually, though not necessarily, from a single source. sound energy may originate from directed acoustic sources 12 carried by platforms, such as vehicles v 1 or v 2 which may include ground vehicles, ships or aircraft. alternatively, the sound source may be at a fixed location in the environment in the x/y plane. vehicles v 1 and v 2 , and target t, are immersed in the transmission medium for sound, here the atmosphere. wind w is treated as having a direction relative to the x, y plane. thermal and wind gradients can exist relative to the z axis and can vary in the z axis at various locations in the x, y plane. for example, it may be daylight and a body of water w may separate target t and vehicle v 1 . the directed sound source mounted on vehicle v 1 is selected to generate the sound field sf to direct onto target t. the temperature gradient with increasing altitude may be negative over land, positive over water, and generally have a greater absolute magnitude over land than over water. woodland f may change local wind direction. directed acoustic source is to be aimed to minimize energy input while meeting target energy levels across the acoustic spectrum of the sound field which impinges on the target t. as elaborated above, a number of factors contribute to refraction of the sound field between a directed acoustic source 12 and target t. data of varying degrees of reliability relating to some or all of the factors may be available for aiming of the directed acoustic source 12 . data may be available for some or all of the following factors: table 1wind speed (including wind speed at different altitudes)wind direction (including wind direction at different altitudes)temperature (including temperature at different tempertures)humidity or dew pointpresence of liquid or solid matter suspended or falling through the airplatform and target movement vectorsplatform altitude the sources of data may be remote, local remote sensing, local or from weather reports. in addition, derived parameters may be developed from these inputs, for example density altitude. the source of data may effect its reliability, and if local, the data may be highly granular relative to the spatial reference frame r. sensors located on one of vehicles v 1 or v 2 may used to determine temperature at the vehicle and to estimate temperatures along possible sound propagation paths to the target t, as well as to determine the range, bearing and acoustic bearing to the target t. depending upon available data correction of targeting may be simple as solution of the wind drift from the platform to the target or may be more complex. wind speed and direction will almost always be available, but may be derived from a raw wind velocity measurements taken on the platform corrected for platform velocity. similarly local temperature should be available. the calculated acoustic bearing usually includes a vertical component (elevation), but this may depend upon available data and capabilities of the system. power input may be varied by frequency range. alternatively, or in supplement thereto, equalization of the sound beam based on calculated losses at given frequency ranges, for example due to atmospheric particulate content, may be calculated and the signal compensated therefor. where the platform is a vehicle and mobile the system may take this factor into account and recommend to an operator relocation of the platform to achieve an acoustic bearing to the target or to achieve an acceptable signal. it is also possible to display to an operator the degree of degradation of the signal and allow the operator to decide on a mix of steps to take. signal degradation may be characterized in various ways. for example, if it is human speech that it is to be transmitted an estimate of intelligibility may be given. of course, various languages vary in their frequency content, particularly with regard to formation of consonants. for example, arabic is dominated by relatively low and middle frequencies compared to a southern african click languages. as a consequence identical conditions can have differing effects on the intelligibility of a transmission depending upon which language it is in. referring to fig. 2 , a broadband directed acoustic source 24 as described in u.s. pat. no. 7,912,234 and commonly owned with the present application is depicted. directed acoustic source 24 is one type of acoustic source with which the presently disclosed methods and systems may be practiced. its description here is intended only as an example of a broad band system and to illustrate these techniques. alternative acoustic sources, for example the system of fig. 5 , use a single category of transducer for broadband sound generation. broadband directed acoustic source 24 is based on a primary parabolic reflector dish 32 having a front concave reflecting surface 34 with a forward radiant axis a. forward concave reflecting surface 34 preferably has a parabolic contour. sound is reflected forward from concave reflecting surface 34 in a sound field sf toward target t substantially forward from the reflecting surface. sound field sf is fed by low frequency and high frequency acoustical transducers operatively positioned in a spaced relationship in front of the front concave reflecting surface 34 and centered on the forward radiant axis a. the acoustical transducers are mounted in the loudspeaker enclosure 30 and, more specifically, are mounted on a secondary parabolic ring 46 forming part of one end of enclosure 30 located closer to primary parabolic dish 32 . more specifically, loudspeaker enclosure 30 lies acoustically forward from the concave reflecting surface 34 , on the forward radiant axis a. loudspeaker enclosure 30 includes the secondary parabolic ring 46 and a lens cap 35 defining an acoustic cavity. low frequency sound is generated by a loudspeaker 40 which is centered on the forward acoustical axis a in the secondary parabolic ring 46 and oriented to direct sound into concave reflecting surface 34 . the low frequency sound source is illustrated as a single driver; diaphragm unit, however multiple drivers could be used. middle and high frequency sound is sourced from around the secondary parabolic ring by a plurality of horn loaded tweeters 39 . the tweeters 39 are oriented outwardly from the forward radiant axis and into the outer portion of primary parabolic dish 32 . again, other high frequency sound services could be used, e.g. high frequency diaphragm elements. tweeters 39 are arrayed radially around forward radiant axis a in a circle and the projection axis of the sound they generate is canted outwardly from the forward radiant axis a of the concave reflecting surface 34 . alternatively, the low frequency device could be a circular diaphragm disposed centered on the forward radiant axis with the hf sources located on or nearer to the forward radiant axis a. whatever the arrangement, sound from both sets of transducers is reflected forward from concave reflecting surface 34 in a sound field sf. directed acoustic source 12 may be displaced from target t by several hundreds or thousands of meters. enclosure 30 provides both support for the transducers and a framework 27 for moving the transducers in and out along forward projection axis a relative to concave reflecting surface 34 allowing sound field sf to be made converging, diverging or collimated. by moving enclosure 30 the far focus of converging forward reflected sound waves can be changed from tens of meters to hundreds of meters. enclosure 30 is supported forward from concave reflecting dish 34 on framework 27 which is mounted to a rim 29 set on the perimeter of primary parabolic dish 32 . the framework includes a plurality of struts 42 extending from the rim 29 forward from concave reflecting dish 34 . struts 42 converge on a perimeter ring 26 of smaller diameter than rim 27 . enclosure 30 rides on tracks 38 supported by the perimeter ring 26 . tracks 38 lie parallel to the forward radiant axis a. linear motors (not shown) may be used to lock enclosure 30 in place on the tracks 38 and to move the enclosure to and fro along the forward radiant axis a as indicated by double arrow b. movement of enclosure 30 changes the location of apparent source of sound directed into the concave reflecting dish and also changes the point of convergence of sound field sf forward from the concave reflecting surface 34 . conveniently mounted somewhere on the framework 27 , such as depending from rim 29 , is an optical or electromagnetic device 15 . this may a range finder and include a television camera and laser range finder. optical device 15 may also advantageously be mounted in lens cap 35 and nominally aligned with the forward radiant axis a of the concave reflecting surface 34 . acoustic projector 24 is movable as a unit up and down and in a circle using a motorized altazimuth mounting 20 set on the upper end of mast 14 . optical device 15 is similarly mounted for two axis movement relative to acoustic projector 24 , though it defaults to alignment on an axis parallel to, or bore cited with, the acoustic projection (forward radiant) axis a. where the acoustic projector 24 is installed on an aircraft, mast 14 is not typically used. in some circumstances an optical device 15 and acoustic source 24 may be located on different platforms, but operated in a coordinated fashion. referring to fig. 3 a control arrangement for directed acoustic source 24 and optical device 15 is illustrated. computer 50 should be taken in a broad sense as including both remote and local elements which communicate with one another using secure telematics links. computer 50 is usually to be taken in a collective sense as data processing and control facilities associated with a platform such as vehicle v 1 or vehicle v 2 and its directed acoustic source 24 . computer 50 may be connected to a variety of data inputs, which are conflated functionally here in the sense of a temperature input 58 and a wind input 60 . the actual source of these inputs may be a remote weather station or weather monitoring equipment such as a drone located in the same theater of operations of the platform in which the directed acoustic source is operating. in some cases the source of the data may be local such as a temperature sensor installed on the platform and/or an infra-red sensor located on the platform. if there are particulates suspended or falling through the air a local doppler radar may provide remote wind speed information between the platform and a target t. in such cases there can be some granularity to the wind and temperature data between the platform and the target t (see fig. 4 ) in the sense that computer 50 may have wind and temperature data for a plurality of locations and for several altitudes at some or all of the locations. there exist additional inputs to targeting computer 50 . an operator, likely with reference to operator display 54 , identifies the target t. once a target is selected its bearing and range 56 from the platform may be determined. in addition, platform velocity (speed and direction) as well as position 62 may be continually fed to targeting computer 50 . if the data is granular targeting computer 50 may calculate a refraction and wind shift profile for sound propagation from the platform to target t. if data is available only for the platform and is limited to wind velocity targeting computer may solve a simple wind triangle problem. the solution approach taken depends upon the data available, potentially the range to the target t and may be selected by the operator based on his or her judgement as to the reliability of the data. it may be an objective to hit a target t with particular energy levels for given frequency bands/levels. this characterization is included in the data provided by the selected acoustic signal input 64 . for convenience the acoustic spectrum may be divided into frequency bands including, by way of example: a low frequency band from 100 to 600 hz; a middle frequency band from 600 hz. to 1.5 khz.; and a high frequency band above 1.5 khz. each frequency band may be independently adjusted (frequency band adjustment subsystems 72 , 74 and 76 ) based on differing degrees of amplification or other equalization criteria before introduction to directed acoustic source 24 . where upward refraction or wind deflection of the sound field sf is indicated by the data high and middle frequency sound may be amplified to a greater extend than low frequency sound frequencies to compensate for the greater directivity of the sound field sf in higher frequency bands. in addition directed acoustic source may be raised by driving mast extension controller 66 to change the extension of mast 14 and thereby allow depression of the angle of the directed acoustic source through bearing and elevation controller 68 to allow compensation for upward refraction of sound due to decreasing temperature with upward changes in altitude or a headwind. optical device 15 is usually carried by directed acoustic source 24 but is independently steerable (using bearing and elevation controller 69 ) to allow optical device 15 to tract target t based on line of sight acquisition while directed acoustic source is diverted off the line of sight to adjust for drift and refraction of a sound field sf. optical device 15 may be considered as representing a conflation of possible devices including one or more of the following, a visual or thermal camera, a laser dazzler, a radar set, a search light, a microwave projector, etc. fig. 4 illustrates granularity of data along the line of sight from a platform at location l 1 on which a directed acoustic source 24 is positioned and a target t at location l 4 . some data are available at intermediary locations l 2 and l 3 . as represented, a fairly complete set of data inputs is available at l 1 including range to target t of 1500 meters during daylight with clear sky conditions. wind direction, velocity and temperature data at three levels is available to some extent for four locations. at an intermediate location l 2 wind direction, speed and temperature data are available at three levels. at intermediate location l 3 wind data are available as they are at a target location along with a target temperature. in addition, a surface characterization is available such as “water,” “ground,” “snow,” or “tarmac.” the characterizations are given as examples only, and the list is not intended as limiting. here it may be surmised that the platform p and target t are on open ground or tarmac while location l 2 corresponds to a point over open water and location l 3 is in an area shaded by trees. these factors may be used as points of reference for estimating the likely temperature gradient with altitude for an area. additional terrain considerations can further complicate the calculations or correction factors may be accessed from a look up table (lut) 59 . it is possible that no solution exists at a given location for directing an optimal or even acceptable sound field sf onto a target. in such cases instructions for relocation of the platform may be displayed to the operator or indication given the transmission may be compromised, as noted above. fig. 5 illustrates an alternative directed acoustic source 24 based on a central parabolic spike 90 with a camera 15 located in a central bore 92 of the parabolic spike and an array of loudspeakers 80 arrayed surrounding the spike and directed into the spike for reflection forward. parabolic spike 90 can include a plurality of scalloped regions. loudspeakers 80 are broadband transducers unlike the system used in fig. 2 . directed acoustic beams can be generated in other ways than by use of various types of parabolic reflectors. line arrays and phased arrays of a plurality of speakers are one alternative. in line arrays and phased arrays beams are produced by constructive and destructive interference patterns in sound fields produced by individual speakers. control over the phase relationship between loudspeakers in a line array allows the beam to be steered in the plane of the line. fig. 6 depicts a phased array 100 constructed from a plurality of loudspeakers 102 . a phased array may be considered as a stack of horizontal line arrays 101 . in a phased array the beam may be steered both in the horizontal plane and in the vertical plane. an optical device 103 may be associated with a phased array where the optical device is mounted for up/down and side-to-side movement. while the sound beam from phased array 100 may be steered the array itself can remain stationary. a highly simplified control arrangement for steering a beam from an array 100 is shown in fig. 7 where the signal from a signal source 110 is modified for vertical adjustment 112 and horizontal adjustment 114 for each speaker in array. a phased array 100 such as shown in fig. 6 can of course be operated as a planar array by operating all of the loudspeakers in phase with one another (an “isophasic planar array”) or with the output of the loudspeakers having a fixed phase relationship with one another. the beam produced by a planar array can be steered by physically steering the array.
083-173-165-663-782	US	[ "EP", "US", "WO", "TW" ]	G09G5/36,G09F13/04,F21K99/00,G02B27/02,G09F13/00,G09G3/36,G09G5/00,G09G5/10,F21V9/00,G09F13/22,G09F13/20	2005-12-21T00:00:00	2005	[ "G09", "F21", "G02" ]	sign and method for lighting	a sign comprising a surface having a display, and a plurality of sources of visible light. the sources of visible light are oriented to illuminate at least a portion of the display, and include solid state light emitters and/or luminescent materials. line segments drawn on a chromaticity diagram connecting coordinates of some of the illumination color hues define a shape which encompasses coordinates of the display color hue(s). also, a sign comprising a surface having a display having a surface area of at least 4 square meters, and at least 100 sources of visible light including solid state light emitters and/or luminescent materials. also, a sign comprising a white light source and at least one additional source of light. also, methods of illuminating signs.	1. a sign, comprising: a sign structure, a display and at least two sources of visible light, the sign structure having a first surface, the first surface defining substantially a first plane, the display on the first surface, the display comprising at least one display color hue, the sources of visible light oriented such that when illuminated, the sources of visible light illuminate at least a portion of the display by emitting light, at least some of which exits the sources of visible light, travels to the display, and is reflected by the display, so that the display is illuminated, the sources of visible light from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials, at least two of the sources of visible light, when illuminated, emit light having respective hues that are spaced from each other by at least 0.36 units on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. 2. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the display has a surface area of at least 4 square meters. 3. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the sign comprises at least 100 of the sources of visible light. 4. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the display comprises at least two color hues, and an intensity of at least one of the color hues is at least 35% of an intensity of illumination produced by mixing illumination from the at least a first source of visible light. 5. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the display comprises at least one region of permanent lettering and/or imagery. 6. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the sign structure is opaque. 7. a sign as recited in claim 1 , wherein the sources of visible light comprise at least four sources of visible light having respective hues that are spaced from each other by at least 0.36 units on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. 8. a method of illuminating a sign, comprising: illuminating a sign structure by illuminating at least two sources of visible light so that at least some of the light emitted by the sources of visible light exits the sources of visible light, travels to a display and is reflected by the display, so that the display is illuminated, the sign structure having a first surface, the first surface defining substantially a first plane, the display on the first surface, the display comprising at least one display color hue, the sources of visible light from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials, the light emitted from at least two of the sources of visible light having respective hues that are spaced from each other by at least 0.36 units on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. 9. a sign as recited in claim 8 , wherein the display has a surface area of at least 4 square meters. 10. a sign as recited in claim 8 , wherein the sign comprises at least 100 of the sources of visible light. 11. a method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the display comprises at least two color hues, and an intensity of at least one of the color hues is at least 35% of an intensity of illumination produced by illumination from the at least a first source of visible light. 12. a method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the sign structure is opaque. 13. a sign as recited in claim 8 , wherein the sources of visible light comprise at least four sources of visible light having respective hues that are spaced from each other by at least 0.36 units on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. 14. a method of illuminating a sign, comprising: illuminating a sign structure with a white light and at least one additional source of visible light, the sign structure having a first surface, a display on the first surface, the white light source having a cri of 75 or less, the at least one additional source of visible light from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials, wherein mixing of light from the white light source and light from the at least one additional source of visible light produces a mixed illumination which has a cri of at least 85. 15. a method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the display has a surface area of at least 4 square meters. 16. a method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the sign comprises at least 100 of the sources of visible light. 17. a method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the white light source and the at least one additional source of visible light emit light having a combined intensity of at least 400 lumens. 18. a method as recited in claim 14 , wherein an intensity of the white light source is at least 60% of an intensity of an illumination formed by mixing illumination from the white light source and the at least one additional source of visible light. 19. a method as recited in claim 14 , wherein an intensity of at least one of the color hues is at least 35% of an intensity of a mixed illumination produced by illumination from the white light source and from the at least one additional source of visible light. 20. a method of illuminating a sign, comprising: illuminating a sign structure with a white light source and a plurality of additional sources of visible light, the sign structure having a first surface, a display on the first surface, the display comprising at least one display color hue having x,y coordinates on a 1931 cie chromaticity diagram, the white light source having a cri of 75 or less, the additional sources of visible light from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials, the additional sources of visible light, when illuminated, emitting light of an illumination color hue having x,y coordinates on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram, wherein line segments drawn on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram connecting respective x,y coordinates of at least some of the illumination color hues define a shape which encompasses x,y coordinates of the at least one display color hue. 21. a method as recited in claim 20 , wherein the display has a surface area of at least 4 square meters. 22. a method as recited in claim 20 , wherein the sign comprises at least 100 of the sources of visible light. 23. a method as recited in claim 20 , wherein the white light source and the additional sources of visible light emit light having a combined intensity of at least 400 lumens. 24. a method as recited in claim 20 , wherein an intensity of the white light source is at least 60% of an intensity of an illumination formed by mixing illumination from the white light source and the additional sources of visible light. 25. a method as recited in claim 20 , wherein an intensity of at least one of the color hues is at least 35% of an intensity of a mixed illumination produced by illumination from the white light source and from the additional sources of visible light.	cross-reference to related applications this application claims the benefit of u.s. provisional patent application no. 60/752,556, filed dec. 21, 2005, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference. this application is a division of u.s. patent application ser. no. 11/613,733, (now u.s. patent publication no. 2007/0137074) (now u.s. pat. no. 8,112,921), filed dec. 20, 2006, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference as if set forth in its entirety. field of the invention the present invention relates to a sign, in particular, a large sign having a display with one or more colors, and lights for illuminating the sign. in a preferred aspect, the present invention relates to a billboard or a roadway sign which is illuminated with lighting which includes one or more solid state light emitters, e.g., one or more light emitting diodes, and/or one or more luminescent materials (such as a luminescent element comprising one or more phosphor materials). background of the invention a large proportion (some estimates are as high as one third) of the electricity generated in the united states each year goes to lighting. accordingly, there is an ongoing need to provide lighting which is more energy-efficient. it is well-known that incandescent light bulbs are very energy-inefficient light sources—about ninety percent of the electricity they consume is released as heat rather than light. fluorescent light bulbs are more efficient than incandescent light bulbs (by a factor of about 4) but are still quite inefficient as compared to solid state light emitters, such as light emitting diodes. in addition, as compared to the normal lifetimes of solid state light emitters, incandescent light bulbs have relatively short lifetimes, i.e., typically about 750-1000 hours. in comparison, the lifetime of light emitting diodes, for example, can generally be measured in decades. fluorescent bulbs have longer lifetimes (e.g., 10,000-20,000 hours) than incandescent lights, but provide less favorable color reproduction. color reproduction is typically measured using the color rendering index (cri) which is a relative measure of the shift in surface color of an object when lit by a particular lamp. daylight has the highest cri (of 100), with incandescent bulbs being relatively close (about 95), and fluorescent lighting being less accurate (70-85). certain types of specialized lighting have relatively low crt's (e.g., mercury vapor or sodium, both as low as about 40 or even lower). another issue faced by conventional light fixtures is the need to periodically replace the lighting devices (e.g., light bulbs, etc.). such issues are particularly pronounced where access is difficult (e.g., vaulted ceilings, bridges, high buildings, traffic tunnels) and/or where change-out costs are extremely high. the typical lifetime of conventional fixtures is about 20 years, corresponding to a light-producing device usage of at least about 44,000 hours (based on usage of 6 hours per day for 20 years). light-producing device lifetime is typically much shorter, thus creating the need for periodic change-outs. accordingly, for these and other reasons, efforts have been ongoing to develop ways by which solid state light emitters can be used in place of incandescent lights, fluorescent lights and other light-generating devices in a wide variety of applications. in addition, where light emitting diodes (or other solid state light emitters) are already being used, efforts are ongoing to provide light emitting diodes (or other solid state light emitters) which are improved, e.g., with respect to energy efficiency, color rendering index (cri), efficacy (lm/w), and/or duration of service. a variety of solid state light emitters are well-known. for example, one type of solid state light emitter is a light emitting diode. light emitting diodes are well-known semiconductor devices that convert electrical current into light. a wide variety of light emitting diodes are used in increasingly diverse fields for an ever-expanding range of purposes. more specifically, light emitting diodes are semiconducting devices that emit light (ultraviolet, visible, or infrared) when a potential difference is applied across a p-n junction structure. there are a number of well-known ways to make light emitting diodes and many associated structures, and the present invention can employ any such devices. by way of example, chapters 12-14 of sze, physics of semiconductor devices, (2d ed. 1981) and chapter 7 of sze, modern semiconductor device physics (1998) describe a variety of photonic devices, including light emitting diodes. the expression “light emitting diode” is used herein to refer to the basic semiconductor diode structure (i.e., the chip). the commonly recognized and commercially available “led” that is sold (for example) in electronics stores typically represents a “packaged” device made up of a number of parts. these packaged devices typically include a semiconductor based light emitting diode such as (but not limited to) those described in u.s. pat. nos. 4,918,487; 5,631,190; and 5,912,477; various wire connections, and a package that encapsulates the light emitting diode. as is well-known, a light emitting diode produces light by exciting electrons across the band gap between a conduction band and a valence band of a semiconductor active (light-emitting) layer. the electron transition generates light at a wavelength that depends on the band gap. thus, the color of the light (wavelength) emitted by a light emitting diode depends on the semiconductor materials of the active layers of the light emitting diode. although the development of light emitting diodes has in many ways revolutionized the lighting industry, some of the characteristics of light emitting diodes have presented challenges, some of which have not yet been fully met. for example, the emission spectrum of any particular light emitting diode is typically concentrated around a single wavelength (as dictated by the light emitting diode's composition and structure), which is desirable for some applications, but not desirable for others, (e.g., for providing lighting, such an emission spectrum provides a very low cri). because light that is perceived as white is necessarily a blend of light of two or more colors (or wavelengths), no single light emitting diode can produce white light. “white” light emitting diodes have been produced which have a light emitting diode pixel formed of respective red, green and blue light emitting diodes. other “white” light emitting diodes have been produced which include (1) a light emitting diode which generates blue light and (2) a luminescent material (e.g., a phosphor) that emits yellow light in response to excitation by light emitted by the light emitting diode, whereby the blue light and the yellow light, when mixed, produce light that is perceived as white light. in addition, the blending of primary colors to produce combinations of non-primary colors is generally well understood in this and other arts. in general, the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram (an international standard for primary colors established in 1931), and the 1976 cie chromaticity diagram (similar to the 1931 diagram but modified such that similar distances on the diagram represent similar perceived differences in color) provide useful reference for defining colors as weighted sums of primary colors. light emitting diodes can thus be used individually or in any combinations, optionally together with one or more luminescent material (e.g., phosphors or scintillators) and/or filters, to generate light of any desired perceived color (including white). accordingly, the areas in which efforts are being made to replace existing light sources with light emitting diode light sources, e.g., to improve energy efficiency, color rendering index (cri), efficacy (lm/w), and/or duration of service, are not limited to any particular color or color blends of light. a wide variety of luminescent materials (also known as lumiphors or luminophoric media, e.g., as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 6,600,175, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference) are well-known and available to persons of skill in the art. for example, a phosphor is a luminescent material that emits a responsive radiation (e.g., visible light) when excited by a source of exciting radiation. in many instances, the responsive radiation has a wavelength which is different from the wavelength of the exciting radiation. other examples of luminescent materials include scintillators, day glow tapes and inks which glow in the visible spectrum upon illumination with ultraviolet light. luminescent materials can be categorized as being down-converting, i.e., a material which converts photons to a lower energy level (longer wavelength) or up-converting, i.e., a material which converts photons to a higher energy level (shorter wavelength). inclusion of luminescent materials in led devices has been accomplished by adding the luminescent materials to a clear encapsulant material (e.g., epoxy-based or silicone-based material) as discussed above, for example by a blending or coating process. for example, u.s. pat. no. 6,963,166 (yano '166) discloses that a conventional light emitting diode lamp includes a light emitting diode chip, a bullet-shaped transparent housing to cover the light emitting diode chip, leads to supply current to the light emitting diode chip, and a cup reflector for reflecting the emission of the light emitting diode chip in a uniform direction, in which the light emitting diode chip is encapsulated with a first resin portion, which is further encapsulated with a second resin portion. according to yano '166, the first resin portion is obtained by filling the cup reflector with a resin material and curing it after the light emitting diode chip has been mounted onto the bottom of the cup reflector and then has had its cathode and anode electrodes electrically connected to the leads by way of wires. according to yano '166, a phosphor is dispersed in the first resin portion so as to be excited with the light a that has been emitted from the light emitting diode chip, the excited phosphor produces fluorescence (“light b”) that has a longer wavelength than the light a, a portion of the light a is transmitted through the first resin portion including the phosphor, and as a result, light c, as a mixture of the light a and light b, is used as illumination. as noted above, “white led lights” (i.e., lights which are perceived as being white or near-white) have been investigated as potential replacements for white incandescent lamps. a representative example of a white led lamp includes a package of a blue light emitting diode chip, made of gallium nitride (gan), coated with a phosphor such as yag. in such an led lamp, the blue light emitting diode chip produces an emission with a wavelength of about 450 nm, and the phosphor produces yellow fluorescence with a peak wavelength of about 550 nm on receiving that emission. for instance, in some designs, white light emitting diodes are fabricated by forming a ceramic phosphor layer on the output surface of a blue light-emitting semiconductor light emitting diode. part of the blue ray emitted from the light emitting diode chip passes through the phosphor, while part of the blue ray emitted from the light emitting diode chip is absorbed by the phosphor, which becomes excited and emits a yellow ray. the part of the blue light emitted by the light emitting diode which is transmitted through the phosphor is mixed with the yellow light emitted by the phosphor. the viewer perceives the mixture of blue and yellow light as white light. as also noted above, in another type of led lamp, a light emitting diode chip that emits an ultraviolet ray is combined with phosphor materials that produce red (r), green (g) and blue (b) light rays. in such an “rgb led lamp”, the ultraviolet ray that has been radiated from the light emitting diode chip excites the phosphor, causing the phosphor to emit red, green and blue light rays which, when mixed, are perceived by the human eye as white light. consequently, white light can also be obtained as a mixture of these light rays. designs have been provided in which existing led component packages and other electronics are assembled into a fixture. in such designs, a packaged led product is mounted to a circuit board, the circuit board is mounted to a heat sink, and the heat sink is mounted to the fixture housing along with required drive electronics. in many cases, additional optics (secondary to the package parts) are also necessary. in substituting light emitting diodes for other light sources, e.g., incandescent light bulbs, packaged leds have been used with conventional light fixtures, for example, fixtures which include a hollow lens and a base plate attached to the lens, the base plate having a conventional socket housing with one or more contacts which are electrically coupled to a power source. for example, led light bulbs have been constructed which comprise an electrical circuit board, a plurality of packaged leds mounted to the circuit board, and a connection post attached to the circuit board and adapted to be connected to the socket housing of the light fixture, whereby the plurality of leds can be illuminated by the power source. there is an ongoing need for ways to use solid state light emitters, e.g., light emitting diodes, to provide white light in a wider variety of applications, with greater energy efficiency, with improved color rendering index (cri), with improved contrast, with improved efficacy (lm/w), and/or with longer duration of service. brief summary of the invention in one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign which comprises a display having one or more color hues, and a plurality of sources of visible light for illuminating the display, the sources of visible light being selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials and providing excellent color rendering and contrast for the sign. in a specific aspect, the present invention provides effective lighting for comparatively large signs, e.g., billboards and/or roadway signage. preferably, in this aspect of the present invention, the sign includes sources of visible light which emit light having respective x,y coordinates on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram, the respective x,y coordinates, when connected by line segments, defining a shape which encompasses the respective x,y coordinates for each of the color hues on the display, whereby all of the color hues on the display can be illuminated effectively. in another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign which comprises a display which has one or more color hues and which is comparatively large, and a large number of sources of visible light for illuminating the display, the sources of visible light being selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials and including at least one light emitting diode having a relatively small illumination surface. in another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign which comprises a display having one or more color hues, a white light source for illuminating the sign, the white light source having a cri of 75 or less, and one or more additional sources of visible light for enhancing the cri of the white light source, the one or more additional sources of visible light being selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. in additional aspects of the present invention, lighting as described herein is used to illuminate signage. in another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign comprising a display having one or more color hues, and a plurality of sources of visible light for illuminating the display, in which illuminations from two or more sources of visible light which, if mixed in the absence of any other light, would produce a combined illumination which would be perceived as white or near-white, is mixed with illumination from one or more additional sources of visible light, each of the sources of visible light being independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. in a specific aspect of the present invention, the illumination from the mixture of light thereby produced is on or near the blackbody locus on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram (or on the 1976 cie chromaticity diagram). in the discussion relating to this aspect of the present invention, the two or more sources of visible light which produce light which, if combined in the absence of any other light, would produce an illumination which would be perceived as white or near-white are referred to herein as “white light generating sources.” the one or more additional sources of visible light referred to above are referred to herein as “additional light sources.” the respective sources of visible light can each independently be saturated or non-saturated. the term “saturated”, as used herein, means having a purity of at least 85%, the term “purity” having a well-known meaning to persons skilled in the art, and procedures for calculating purity being well-known to those of skill in the art. aspects of the present invention can be represented on either the 1931 cie (commission international de i′eclairage) chromaticity diagram or the 1976 cie chromaticity diagram. fig. 1 shows the 1931 cie chromaticity. diagram. fig. 2 shows the 1976 chromaticity diagram. fig. 3 shows an enlarged portion of the 1976 chromaticity diagram, in order to show the blackbody locus in more detail. persons of skill in the art are familiar with these diagrams, and these diagrams are readily available (e.g., by searching “cie chromaticity diagram” on the internet). the cie chromaticity diagrams map out the human color perception in terms of two cie parameters x and y (in the case of the 1931 diagram) or u′ and v′ (in the case of the 1976 diagram). for a technical description of cie chromaticity diagrams, see, for example, “encyclopedia of physical science and technology”, vol. 7, 230-231 (robert a meyers ed., 1987). the spectral colors are distributed around the edge of the outlined space, which includes all of the hues perceived by the human eye. the boundary line represents maximum saturation for the spectral colors. as noted above, the 1976 cie chromaticity diagram is similar to the 1931 diagram, except that the 1976 diagram has been modified such that similar distances on the diagram represent similar perceived differences in color. in the 1931 diagram, deviation from a point on the diagram can be expressed either in terms of the coordinates or, alternatively, in order to give an indication as to the extent of the perceived difference in color, in terms of macadam ellipses. for example, a locus of points defined as being ten macadam ellipses from a specified hue defined by a particular set of coordinates on the 1931 diagram consists of hues which would each be perceived as differing from the specified hue to a common extent (and likewise for loci of points defined as being spaced from a particular hue by other quantities of macadam ellipses). since similar distances on the 1976 diagram represent similar perceived differences in color, deviation from a point on the 1976 diagram can be expressed in terms of the coordinates, u′ and v′, e.g., distance from the point=(δu′ 2 +δv′ 2 ) 1/2 , and the hues defined by a locus of points which are each a common distance from a specified hue consist of hues which would each be perceived as differing from the specified hue to a common extent. the chromaticity coordinates and the cie chromaticity diagrams illustrated in figs. 1-3 are explained in detail in a number of books and other publications, such as pages 98-107 of k. h. butler, “fluorescent lamp phosphors” (the pennsylvania state university press 1980) and pages 109-110 of g. blasse et al., “luminescent materials” (springer-verlag 1994), both incorporated herein by reference. the chromaticity coordinates (i.e., color points) that lie along the blackbody locus obey planck's equation: e(λ)=aλ −5 /(e( b/t −1), where e is the emission intensity, λ is the emission wavelength, t the color temperature of the blackbody and a and b are constants. color coordinates that lie on or near the blackbody locus yield pleasing white light to a human observer. the 1976 cie diagram includes temperature listings along the blackbody locus. these temperature listings show the color path of a blackbody radiator that is caused to increase to such temperatures. as a heated object becomes incandescent, it first glows reddish, then yellowish, then white, and finally blueish. this occurs because the wavelength associated with the peak radiation of the blackbody radiator becomes progressively shorter with increased temperature, consistent with the wien displacement law. illuminants which produce light which is on or near the blackbody locus can thus be described in terms of their color temperature. also depicted on the 1976 cie diagram are designations a, b, c, d and e, which refer to light produced by several standard illuminants correspondingly identified as illuminants a, b, c, d and e, respectively. cri is a relative measurement of how the color rendition of an illumination system compares to that of a blackbody radiator. the cri equals 100 if the color coordinates of a set of test colors being illuminated by the illumination system are the same as the coordinates of the same test colors being irradiated by the blackbody radiator. there exist “white” led light sources which are relatively efficient but have a poor color rendering, typically less then 75, and which are particularity deficient in the rendering of red colors and also to a significant extent deficient in green. this means that many things, including the typical human complexion, food items, labeling, painting, posters, signs, apparel, home decoration, plants, flowers, automobiles, etc. exhibit odd or wrong color as compared to being illuminated with an incandescent light or natural daylight. so called “warm white” leds have a more acceptable color temperature for indoor use, and good cri, but their efficiency is much less then half that of the standard “white” leds. colored objects illuminated by rgb led lamps frequently do not appear in their true colors. for example, an object that reflects only yellow light, and thus that appears to be yellow when illuminated with white light, will appear black when illuminated with light having an apparent yellow color, produced by the red and green leds of an rgb led fixture. such fixtures, therefore, are considered to provide poor color rendition, particularly when illuminating various settings such as a theater stage, television set, building interior, or display window. there is therefore a need for a high efficiency solid-state white light source that combines the efficiency and long life of white leds with an acceptable color temperature and good color rendering index, good contrast and a wide gamut. in accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign comprising a sign structure and a plurality of sources of visible light. in this aspect of the present invention, the sign structure has a first surface on which a display is positioned. the display comprises at least one display color hue, each display color hue having x,y coordinates on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. the sources of visible light are oriented such that when illuminated, they each illuminate at least a portion of the display. the sources of visible light are each independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. each source of visible light, when illuminated, emits light of an illumination color hue, each illumination color hue having x,y coordinates on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. the sources of visible light are selected such that line segments drawn on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram connecting respective x,y coordinates of some or all of the illumination color hues define a shape which encompasses x,y coordinates of each display color hue. accordingly, the gamut of the color of the light emitted by the sources of visible light fully encompasses the gamut of the color of the display. in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign (e.g., a roadway sign) comprising a sign structure and at least 100 sources of visible light. in this aspect of the present invention, the sign structure has a first surface on which a display is positioned. the display comprises at least one display color hue and has a surface area of at least 4 square meters. the sources of visible light are oriented such that when illuminated, they each illuminate at least a portion of the display. the sources of visible light are independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. the sources of visible light comprise at least one light emitting diode having an illumination surface having a surface area of not more than 0.25 mm 2 . for a larger area display, in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign (e.g., a billboard) comprising a sign structure and at least 1000 sources of visible light (or, in some embodiments, at least 2000). in this aspect of the present invention, the sign structure has a first surface on which a display is positioned. the display comprises at least one display color hue and has a surface area of at least 40 square meters. the sources of visible light are oriented such that when illuminated, they each illuminate at least a portion of the display. the sources of visible light are independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. the sources of visible light comprise at least one light emitting diode having an illumination surface having a surface area of not more than 0.25 mm 2 . as noted above, one aspect of the present invention involves the use of leds having an illumination surface of limited size. additionally, where there are more emitters per unit area, these light emitters can be manufactured at a reduced cost. for example, with leds which are ˜ 1/9 the area (or so) of power leds with respect to the “chip/dice” size, the impact of defects greatly affects the yield (and hence the cost) of the fabricated wafer upon which the discrete leds are manufactured. for example, the table below shows the influence of “killer defects” on the led yield. killerstandardpower chipdefectledledloss (%)yield (%)yield (%)10909793375954539759298219991 a “killer defect” is defined as any defect that renders that “useable area” dead. hence, it now is obvious that even a small number of defects can vastly increase the cost of the led dice component. in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign comprising a sign structure, a white light source and at least one additional source of visible light. in this aspect of the present invention, the sign structure has a first surface on which a display is positioned. the white light source has a cri of 75 or less, and is oriented such that when illuminated, it illuminates at least a portion of the display. the at least one additional source of visible light is/are oriented such that when illuminated, it/they each illuminate at least a portion of the display. the at least one additional source of visible light is selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. the additional source(s) of visible light are selected such that mixing of light from the white light source and light from the at least one additional source of visible light produces a mixed illumination which has a cri of at least 85 (in some embodiments, at least 90). in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a sign comprising a sign structure, a white light source and a plurality of additional sources of visible light. in this aspect of the present invention, the sign structure has a first surface on which a display is positioned. the display comprises at least one display color hue, each display color hue having x,y coordinates on a 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. the white light source has a cri of 75 or less. the white light source is oriented such that when illuminated, it illuminates at least a portion of the display. the additional sources of visible light are oriented such that when illuminated, they each illuminate at least a portion of the display. the additional sources of visible light are each independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. each source of visible light, when illuminated, emits light of an illumination color hue, each illumination color hue having x,y coordinates on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. the additional sources of visible light are selected such that line segments drawn on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram connecting respective x,y coordinates of some or all of the illumination color hues define a shape which encompasses x,y coordinates of each of the at least one display color hue. accordingly, the gamut of the color of the light emitted by the sources of visible light fully encompasses the gamut of the color of the display. in accordance with additional aspects of the present invention, there are provided methods in which a sign is illuminated by one of the lighting devices described herein. the present invention may be more fully understood with reference to the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the invention. brief description of the invention fig. 1 shows the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. fig. 2 shows the 1976 chromaticity diagram. fig. 3 shows an enlarged portion of the 1976 chromaticity diagram, in order to show the blackbody locus in detail. fig. 4 depicts a color chart pertaining to a representative embodiment in accordance with the present invention. fig. 5 conceptually depicts a sign in accordance with the present inventive subject matter. detailed description of the invention as noted above, in accordance with various aspects of the present invention, there is provided a sign comprising a sign structure and a plurality of sources of visible light, the sign structure having a first surface on which a display is positioned. persons of skill in the art are familiar with a wide variety of sign structures having surfaces on which a display is positioned, and any such structures can be employed in the present invention. such sign structures can be made of any of a wide variety of materials, and can be in any of a wide variety of shapes. typically, such sign structures are substantially flat, having a front surface and a rear surface, the front surface having the display positioned thereon, although the present invention is not limited to such structures. the display can include lettering (one or more letters), one or more images, etc. as noted above, the present invention can be applied to comparatively large signage, e.g., signage in which the display has a surface area of at least 4 square meters, or signage in which the display has a surface area of at least 40 square meters. as also noted above, in accordance with various aspects of the present invention, the source or sources of visible light are each independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials. any desired solid state light emitter or emitters can be employed in accordance with the present invention. persons of skill in the art are aware of, and have ready access to, a wide variety of such emitters. such solid state light emitters include inorganic and organic light emitters. examples of types of such light emitters include light emitting diodes (inorganic or organic), laser diodes and thin film electroluminescent devices, a variety of each of which are well-known in the art. in a specific aspect of the present invention, relatively small light emitting diodes are employed, e.g., light emitting diodes which have an illumination surface having a surface area of not more than 0.25 mm 2 . as noted above, persons skilled in the art are familiar with a wide variety of solid state light emitters, including a wide variety of light emitting diodes, a wide variety of laser diodes and a wide variety of thin film electroluminescent devices, and therefore it is not necessary to describe in detail such devices, and/or the materials out of which such devices are made. the signs according to the present invention can comprise any desired number of sources of visible light and/or any desired number of solid state emitters. for example, a lighting device according to the present invention can include 100 or more light emitting diodes, or can include 1000 or more light emitting diodes, etc (or 100 or more sources of visible light, or 1000 or more sources of visible light). in general, with current light emitting diodes, greater efficiency can be achieved by using a greater number of smaller light emitting diodes (e.g., 100 light emitting diodes each having a surface area of 0.1 mm 2 vs. 25 light emitting diodes each having a surface area of 0.4 mm 2 but otherwise being identical). analogously, light emitting diodes which operate at lower current densities are generally more efficient. light emitting diodes which draw any particular current can be used according to the present invention. in one aspect of the present invention, light emitting diodes which each draw not more than 50 milliamps are employed. the one or more luminescent materials, if present, can be any desired luminescent material. as noted above, persons skilled in the art are familiar with, and have ready access to, a wide variety of luminescent materials. the one or more luminescent materials can be down-converting or up-converting, or can include a combination of both types. for example, the one or more luminescent materials can be selected from among phosphors, scintillators, day glow tapes, inks which glow in the visible spectrum upon illumination with ultraviolet light, etc. the one or more luminescent materials, when provided, can be provided in any desired form. for example, the luminescent element can be embedded in a resin (i.e., a polymeric matrix), such as a silicone material or an epoxy material. skilled artisans are familiar with a wide variety of “white” light sources which have poor cri, and any such sources can be used according to the present invention. for example, such “white” light sources include metal halide lights, sodium lights, discharge lamps, and some fluorescent lights. the sources of visible light (and/or the white light sources, if employed) in the lighting devices of the present invention can be arranged, mounted and supplied with electricity in any desired manner, and can be mounted on any desired housing or fixture. skilled artisans are familiar with a wide variety of arrangements, mounting schemes, power supplying apparatuses, housings and fixtures, and any such arrangements, schemes, apparatuses, housings and fixtures can be employed in connection with the present invention. the lighting devices of the present invention can be electrically connected (or selectively connected) to any desired power source, persons of skill in the art being familiar with a variety of such power sources. the expression “on”, e.g., as used in the preceding paragraph in the expression “mounted on”, or in other expressions, means that the first structure which is “on” a second structure can be in contact with the second structure, or can be separated from the second structure by one or more intervening structures. a statement herein that two components in a device are “electrically connected,” means that there are no components electrically between the components, the insertion of which materially affect the function or functions provided by the device. for example, two components can be referred to as being electrically connected, even though they may have a small resistor between them which does not materially affect the function or functions provided by the device (indeed, a wire connecting two components can be thought of as a small resistor); likewise, two components can be referred to as being electrically connected, even though they may have an additional electrical component between them which allows the device to perform an additional function, while not materially affecting the function or functions provided by a device which is identical except for not including the additional component; similarly, two components which are directly connected to each other, or which are directly connected to opposite ends of a wire or a trace on a circuit board or another medium, are electrically connected. representative examples of arrangements of sources of visible light, schemes for mounting sources of visible light, apparatus for supplying electricity to sources of visible light, housings for sources of visible light, fixtures for sources of visible light and power supplies for sources of visible light, all of which are suitable for the lighting devices of the present invention, are described in u.s. patent application no. 60/752,753, filed dec. 21, 2005, entitled “lighting device” (inventors: gerald h. negley, antony paul ven de ven and neal hunter), the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference. such fixtures also make it possible to integrate excellent thermal dissipation into the light fixture itself. in such a way, according to the present invention, light sources can be distributed over the area of the heat sink or thermal element. this provides the following: the heat load is uniformly distributed upon the thermal element, therefore minimizing overall size (area and thickness (volume)), and creates a light source that is virtually unaffected by shadowing—i.e., if an object smaller than the light emitting area is placed in front of the light emitting area, only a portion of the light rays are blocked. since the light sources follow the huygens principle (each sources acts a spherical wave front), the viewing of a shadow is not seen, and only a slight “dimming” of the illuminated sources occurs. this is in contrast to a single filament as the entire screen would be substantially dimmed and a shadow would be present. in accordance with an aspect of the present invention, light emitting diodes can be directly mounted to the thermal element and the thermal element can be manufactured to extend through the body of the fixture, and thermal dissipation fins can be exposed to the exterior, limiting additional thermal interfaces in the fixture design. these thermal elements can also provide mechanical integrity to the fixture. in an alternative aspect, thermal dissipation fins can be made (cast or extruded or elsewise fabricated) as part of the fixture exterior itself. then, the distributed light emitting diode array can be directly mounted onto the interior fixture housing, or a “light engine” consisting of the light emitting diode array can be mounted to the interior fixture housing. conventionally, lighting for signage such as billboards has been mounted to the bottom of the sign structure, e.g., in fixtures hung from the bottom of the sign structure on the front side, oriented such that the lights shine toward the display on the surface of the sign. in the signs according to the present invention, the sources of visible light (and/or the white light sources, if employed) can be mounted in a similar way, or can be mounted in any other suitable manner, so long as they can illuminate at least a portion of the sign. for example, if desired, the sources of visible light (and/or the white light sources, if employed) could be hung from or otherwise mounted along the top and/or one or both of the sides of the sign structure, and/or could be mounted remote from the sign structure, e.g., on a mounting frame, on the ground, etc. in another aspect of the present invention, the sources of visible light (each of the sources of visible light being independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials) include (1) two or more sources of visible light which, when illuminated, produce respective illuminations which, if mixed in the absence of any other light, would produce a combined illumination which would be perceived as white or near-white and/or would have color coordinates (x,y) which are within an area on a 1931 cie chromaticity diagram defined by four points having the following (x,y) coordinates: point 1—(0.329, 0.369); point 2—(0.329, 0.345); point 3—(0.316, 0.332); and point 4—(0.314, 0.355), i.e., the combined illumination would have color coordinates (x,y) within an area defined by a line segment connecting point 1 to point 2, a line segment connecting point 2 to point 3, a line segment connecting point 3 to point 4, and a line segment connecting point 4 to point 1, and (2) one or more additional sources of visible light which produce one or more respective additional illuminations, and the illumination from a mixture of light produced by all of such sources of visible light (i.e., (1) plus (2)) is near the blackbody locus on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram (or on the 1976 cif, chromaticity diagram), e.g., within ten, six or three macadam ellipse of at least one point on the blackbody locus. detailed discussions of such combinations of sources of visible light, and representative examples of such combinations are included in u.s. patent application no. 60/752,555, filed dec. 21, 2005, entitled “lighting device and lighting method” (inventors: antony paul van de ven and gerald h. negley), the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference. in a specific aspect of the present invention, the sources of visible light (each of the sources of visible light being independently selected from among solid state light emitters and luminescent materials) include (1) two or more sources of visible light which, when illuminated, produce respective illuminations which, if mixed in the absence of any other light, would produce a combined illumination which would be perceived as white or near-white and/or would have color coordinates (x,y) which are within an area on a 1931 cie chromaticity diagram defined by the four points having the (x,y) coordinates set forth above, (2) one or more light emitting diodes each producing a cyan illumination of a wavelength in the range of from about 500 to 505 nm, and (3) one or more light emitting diodes each producing a red illumination of a wavelength in the range of from about 610 to 630 nm. in a further specific aspect of the present invention, the one or more sources of visible light (and the white light source, if present), when illuminated, emit light having a combined intensity of at least 400 lumens. the expression “intensity” is used herein in accordance with its normal usage, i.e., to refer to the amount of light produced over a given area, and can be measured in units such as lumens or candelas. in a further specific aspect of the present invention, the one or more sources of visible light (and the white light source, if present), when illuminated, generate light which is mixed to produce a mixed illumination which has a cri of at least 85. in a further specific aspect of the present invention, the one or more sources of visible light (and the white light source, if present), when illuminated, generate light which is mixed to produce a mixed illumination of a hue which is within ten macadam ellipses (or, in some embodiments, within six macadam ellipses, or, in some embodiments, within three macadam ellipses) of at least one point on a blackbody locus on the 1931 cie chromaticity diagram. in a further specific aspect of the present invention, at least one source of visible light is saturated. in a further specific aspect of the present invention, each source of visible light emits light of an illumination color hue, and an intensity of at least one color hue is at least 35% of an intensity of a mixed illumination produced by mixing illumination from each of source of visible light (and the white light source, if present). fig. 4 depicts a color chart pertaining to a representative embodiment in accordance with the present invention. in fig. 4 , a first shape 10 depicts the coloring of a display on a billboard. the billboard includes a first set of phosphors which, upon excitation, emit light having x,y coordinates depicted by reference number 11 (point 1), a first set of light emitting diodes which emit light having x,y coordinates depicted by reference number 12 (point 2), a second set of light emitting diodes which emit light having x,y coordinates depicted by reference number 13 (point 3), and a third set of light emitting diodes which emit light having x,y coordinates depicted by reference number 14 (point 4). as shown in fig. 4 , by inserting a first line segment connecting point 1 to point 2, a second line segment connecting point 2 to point 3, a third line segment connecting point 3 to point 4, and a fourth line segment connecting point 4 to point 1, there is obtained a shape 15 which fully encompasses the shape 10 . accordingly, the gamut of the color of the light emitted by the light emitting diodes and the phosphors fully encompasses the gamut of the coloring of the display, whereby excellent rendering (color index and contrast) of the indicia on the billboard can be provided. fig. 5 conceptually depicts a sign in accordance with the present inventive subject matter. the sign comprises a sign structure 52 and at least 100 sources of visible light 58 . the sign structure 52 has a first surface 54 and a display 56 on the first surface 54 . the sources of visible light 58 are oriented such that when illuminated, the sources of visible light 58 illuminate at least a portion of the display 56 . the sources of visible light 58 comprise at least one light emitting diode 59 . as indicated above, light sources according to the present invention can utilize specific color “blending” of light sources of specific (x,y) color chromaticity coordinates. (see u.s. patent application no. 60/752,555, filed dec. 21, 2005, entitled “lighting device and lighting method” (inventors: antony paul van de ven and gerald h. negley)). depending on the printed source colors (billboards) for example, very high color rendering can be achieved (cri>90) as compared to the existing technology (cri=65). other signage types, such as green/white roadway signage can be “contrast enhanced” by using a spectrum of white light that has a large “green component”. although the overall cri may be low, the illuminated results can show greater contrast as per the lumen count. in addition, the present invention can provide further benefits, such as no limit to orientation of the light source (metal halide filaments must be oriented in a particular direction or face premature failure), and avoidance or reduction of shadowing effect (due to distributed light source). the devices according to the present invention can further comprise one or more long-life cooling device (e.g., a fan with an extremely high lifetime). such long-life cooling device(s) can comprise piezoelectric or magnetorestrictive materials (e.g., mr, gmr, and/or hmr materials) that move air as a “chinese fan”. in cooling the devices according to the present invention, typically only enough air to break the boundary layer is required to induce temperature drops of 10 to 15 degrees c. hence, in such cases, strong “breezes” or a large fluid flow rate (large cfm) are typically not required (thereby avoiding the need for conventional fans). the devices according to the present invention can further comprise secondary optics to further change the projected nature of the emitted light. such secondary optics are well-known to those skilled in the art, and so they do not need to be described in detail herein—any such secondary optics can, if desired, be employed. the devices according to the present invention can further comprise sensors or charging devices or cameras, etc. for example, persons of skill in the art are familiar with, and have ready access to, devices which detect one or more occurrence (e.g., motion detectors, which detect motion of an object or person), and which, in response to such detection, trigger illumination of a light, activation of a security camera, etc. as a representative example, a device according to the present invention can include a lighting device according to the present invention and a motion sensor, and can be constructed such that (1) while the light is illuminated, if the motion sensor detects movement, a security camera is activated to record visual data at or around the location of the detected motion, or (2) if the motion sensor detects movement, the light is illuminated to light the region near the location of the detected motion and the security camera is activated to record visual data at or around the location of the detected motion, etc. in accordance with additional aspects of the present invention, there are provided methods in which a sign is illuminated by one of the lighting devices described herein. any two or more structural parts of the lighting devices described herein can be integrated. any structural part of the lighting devices described herein can be provided in two or more parts (which can be held together, if necessary).
083-199-389-282-810	US	[ "US", "CN", "CA", "EP", "SG" ]	B23P6/00,B22F3/105,B23K26/342,B28B1/00,B29C64/153,B29C64/245,B29C73/24,B33Y10/00,B33Y30/00,B33Y80/00,B22F10/28,B22F12/00,B29C64/30,B29C64/40,B22F5/04,B22F7/06,B23K37/04,B23Q3/06,B23Q3/154,B29C73/00,B29C73/34,F01D5/00,F01D25/28,B22F7/08,B22F10/14,B22F10/60,B22F10/66,B22F12/30,B22F12/90,B29D99/00,B29L31/08,B22F10/10,B29L31/00	2019-01-30T00:00:00	2019	[ "B23", "B22", "B28", "B29", "B33", "F01" ]	tooling assembly for magnetically aligning components in an additive manufacturing machine	a tooling assembly for mounting a plurality of components, such as compressor blades, in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine to facilitate a repair process is provided. the tooling assembly includes component fixtures configured for receiving each of the compressor blades, a mounting plate for receiving the component fixtures, and a magnet assembly operably coupling the component fixtures to the mounting plate in a desired position and orientation to facilitate an improved printing process.	1 . a tooling assembly for mounting a component in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine, the tooling assembly comprising: a component fixture configured for receiving the component; a mounting plate configured for receiving the component fixture; and a magnet assembly operably coupling the mounting plate to the component fixture for securing the component fixture to the mounting plate in a desired orientation. 2 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , wherein the magnet assembly comprises: a fixture magnet mounted to the component fixture; and a plate magnet mounted to the mounting plate, the fixture magnet and the plate magnet having opposing magnetic poles such that the component fixture is urged toward the mounting plate. 3 . the tooling assembly of claim 2 , wherein the fixture magnet and the plate magnet have a non-circular geometry. 4 . the tooling assembly of claim 2 , wherein the fixture magnet and the plate magnet are substantially circular and have a single protrusion to create an unbalanced geometry. 5 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , wherein the magnet assembly comprises: a first fixture magnet and a second fixture magnet mounted to the component fixture and being spaced apart along a fixture magnetic axis; and a first plate magnet and a second plate magnet mounted to the mounting plate and being spaced apart along a plate magnetic axis, and wherein the first fixture magnet and the first plate magnet have opposing magnetic poles and the second fixture magnet and the second plate magnet have opposing magnetic poles such that the component fixture is urged toward the mounting plate such that the fixture magnetic axis is substantially parallel to the plate magnetic axis. 6 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , wherein the component fixture comprises a magnetic material and wherein the magnet assembly comprises: an electromagnet electrically coupled to a power supply for selectively generating a magnetic field that urges the component fixture toward the mounting plate. 7 . the tooling assembly of claim 6 , wherein the mounting plate defines a recess for receiving the component fixture. 8 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , further comprising: a material removal assembly for removing material above a repair surface of the component while positioned in the component fixture. 9 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , wherein the tooling assembly is configured for supporting the component during a subsequent additive manufacturing repair process, the additive manufacturing repair process comprising: depositing a layer of additive powder over a repair surface of the component using a powder dispensing assembly; and selectively irradiating the layer of additive powder to fuse the layer of additive powder onto the repair surface of the component. 10 . the tooling assembly of claim 1 , wherein the component is one of a plurality of components and the component fixture is one of a plurality of component fixtures, each of the plurality of component fixtures being configured for receiving one of a plurality of components, wherein the mounting plate is configured for receiving the plurality of component fixtures, and wherein the magnet assembly operably couples the mounting plate to the plurality of component fixtures for securing the plurality of component fixtures to the mounting plate in a desired orientation. 11 . the tooling assembly of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of components comprises at least one airfoil of a gas turbine engine. 12 . the tooling assembly of claim 10 , wherein each of the plurality of components is an airfoil of a gas turbine engine having a chord line, and wherein the plurality of components are in the desired orientation when the chord line of each of the plurality of components are parallel. 13 . a method of mounting a component in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine, the method comprising: mounting the component in a component fixture; positioning the component fixture on a mounting plate; and securing the component in the desired orientation on the mounting plate using a magnet assembly. 14 . the method of claim 13 , wherein the magnet assembly comprises: a fixture magnet mounted to the component fixture; and a plate magnet mounted to the mounting plate, the fixture magnet and the plate magnet having opposing magnetic poles such that the component fixture is urged toward the mounting plate. 15 . the method of claim 13 , wherein the magnet assembly comprises: a first fixture magnet and a second fixture magnet mounted to the component fixture and being spaced apart along a fixture magnetic axis; and a first plate magnet and a second plate magnet mounted to the mounting plate and being spaced apart along a plate magnetic axis, and wherein the first fixture magnet and the first plate magnet have opposing magnetic poles and the second fixture magnet and the second plate magnet have opposing magnetic poles such that the component fixture is urged toward the mounting plate such that the fixture magnetic axis is substantially parallel to the plate magnetic axis. 16 . the method of claim 13 , wherein the component fixture comprises a magnetic material and wherein securing the component in the desired orientation on the mounting plate using a magnet assembly comprises: selectively generating a magnetic field using an electromagnet electrically coupled to a power supply to urge the component fixture toward the mounting plate. 17 . the method of claim 13 , further comprising: removing material above a repair surface of the component using a material removal assembly while the component is positioned in the component fixture. 18 . the method of claim 13 , further comprising: depositing a layer of additive powder over a repair surface of the component using a powder dispensing assembly; and selectively irradiating the layer of additive powder to fuse the layer of additive powder onto the repair surface of the component. 19 . the method of claim 13 , wherein the component is one of a plurality of components and the component fixture is one of a plurality of component fixtures, each of the plurality of component fixtures being configured for receiving one of a plurality of components, wherein the mounting plate is configured for receiving the plurality of component fixtures, and wherein the magnet assembly operably couples the mounting plate to the plurality of component fixtures for securing the plurality of component fixtures to the mounting plate in a desired orientation. 20 . the method of claim 19 , wherein each of the plurality of components is an airfoil of a gas turbine engine having a chord line, and wherein the plurality of components are in the desired orientation when the chord line of each of the plurality of components are parallel.	field the present subject matter relates generally to additive manufacturing machines, and more particularly to tooling assemblies for aligning a plurality of components in a desired orientation for a powder bed additive manufacturing process. background machine or device components frequently experience damage, wear, and/or degradation throughout their service life. for example, serviced compressor blades of a gas turbine engine show erosion, defects, and/or cracks after long term use. specifically, for example, such blades are subject to significant stresses which inevitably cause blades to wear over time, particularly near the tip of the blade. for example, blade tips are susceptible to wear or damage from friction or rubbing between the blade tips and shrouds, from chemical degradation or oxidation from hot gasses, from fatigue caused by cyclic loading and unloading, from diffusion creep of crystalline lattices, etc. notably, worn or damaged blades may result in machine failure or performance degradation if not corrected. specifically, such blades may cause a turbomachine to exhibit reduced operating efficiency as gaps between blade tips and turbine shrouds may allow gasses to leak through the turbine stages without being converted to mechanical energy. when efficiency drops below specified levels, the turbomachine is typically removed from service for overhaul and refurbishment. moreover, weakened blades may result in complete fractures and catastrophic failure of the engine. as a result, compressor blades for a gas turbine engine are typically the target of frequent inspections, repairs, or replacements. it is frequently very expensive to replace such blades altogether, however, some can be repaired for extended lifetime at relatively low cost (as compared to replacement with entirely new blades). nevertheless, existing repair processes tend to be labor intensive and time consuming. for example, a traditional compressor blade tip repair process uses a welding/cladding technique where repair materials are supplied, in either powder or wire form, to the blade tips. the repair materials are melted by focused power source (e.g., laser, e-beam, plasma arc, etc.) and bonded to blade tips. however, blades repaired with such welding/cladding technique need tedious post-processing to achieve the target geometry and surface finish. specifically, due to the bulky feature size of the welding/cladding repair joint, the repaired blades require heavy machining to remove the extra materials on the tip, and further require a secondary polishing process to achieve a target surface finish. notably, such a process is performed on a single blade at a time, is very labor intensive and tedious, and results in very large overall labor costs for a single repair. alternatively, other direct-energy-deposition (ded) methods may be used for blade repair, e.g., such as cold spray, which directs high-speed metal powders to bombard the target or base component such that the powders deform and deposit on the base component. however, none of these ded methods are suitable for batch processing or for repairing a large number of components in a time efficient manner, thus providing little or no business value. accordingly, novel systems and methods have been developed and are presented herein for repairing or rebuilding worn compressor blades (or any other components) using a powder bed additive manufacturing process. specifically, such a repair process generally includes removing the worn portion of each of a plurality of compressor blades, positioning the plurality of compressor blades on a build platform of an additive manufacturing machine, determining the precise location of each blade tip, and printing repair segments directly onto the blade tips, layer by layer, until the compressor blades reach their original dimensions or another suitable target size and shape. notably, it may be desirable that each of the plurality of components is mounted on the build platform at a known and fixed spacing and orientation. in this regard, a vision system which is used to determine the precise coordinates of each blade tip may more accurately find such tips if all blades are equally spaced and oriented in the same direction. for example, to facilitate the vision system imaging process, the parts are preferably secured at same locations with high repeatability. similarly, the recoating and print process may be improved if the blades are uniformly spaced and the recoater passes over each blade tip along the same direction. accordingly, a system and method for precisely and repeatedly mounting serviced components in an additive manufacturing machine would be useful. more particularly, an additive manufacturing machine including a tooling assembly for quickly and effectively mounting a plurality of compressor blades with equal spacing and uniform orientation would be particularly beneficial. brief description aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description, or may be obvious from the description, or may be learned through practice of the invention. in one exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a tooling assembly for mounting a component in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine is provided. the tooling assembly comprising includes a component fixture configured for receiving the component, a mounting plate configured for receiving the component fixture, and a magnet assembly operably coupling the mounting plate to the component fixture for securing the component fixture to the mounting plate in a desired orientation. in another exemplary aspect of the present disclosure, a method of mounting a component in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine is provided. the method includes mounting the component in a component fixture, positioning the component fixture on a mounting plate, and securing the component in the desired orientation on the mounting plate using a magnet assembly. these and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. brief description of the drawings a full and enabling disclosure of the present invention, including the best mode thereof, directed to one of ordinary skill in the art, is set forth in the specification, which makes reference to the appended figures. fig. 1 shows a schematic representation of an additive repair system that may be used for repairing or rebuilding components according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 2 depicts certain components of a controller according to example embodiments of the present subject matter. fig. 3 shows a schematic view of an additive manufacturing machine that may be used as part of the exemplary additive manufacturing system of fig. 1 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 4 shows a close-up schematic view of a build platform of the exemplary additive manufacturing machine of fig. 3 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 5 is a schematic cross sectional view of part of a magnet assembly mounted within a component fixture according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 6 is a schematic cross sectional view of a plurality of component fixtures mounted to a mounting plate using magnet assemblies in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 7 provides a schematic view of another magnet assembly according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 8 is a schematic cross sectional view of part of a magnet assembly mounted within a component fixture according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 9 is a schematic view of the exemplary component fixture of fig. 8 being mounted to a mounting plate using the exemplary magnet assembly of fig. 8 . fig. 10 provides a schematic view of another magnet assembly according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. fig. 11 is a method of mounting a plurality of components in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. repeat use of reference characters in the present specification and drawings is intended to represent the same or analogous features or elements of the present invention. detailed description reference now will be made in detail to embodiments of the invention, one or more examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. each example is provided by way of explanation of the invention, not limitation of the invention. in fact, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various configurations, modifications, and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. for instance, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield a still further embodiment. thus, it is intended that the present invention covers such modifications and variations as come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. as used herein, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third” may be used interchangeably to distinguish one component from another and are not intended to signify location or importance of the individual components. in addition, the terms “upstream” and “downstream” refer to the relative direction with respect to the motion of an object or a flow of fluid. for example, “upstream” refers to the direction from which the object has moved or fluid has flowed, and “downstream” refers to the direction to which the object is moving or the fluid is flowing. furthermore, as used herein, terms of approximation, such as “approximately,” “substantially,” or “about,” refer to being within a ten percent margin of error. aspects of the present subject matter are directed to a system and method for repairing one or more components using an additive manufacturing process. the method includes securing the components in a tooling assembly such that a repair surface of each component is positioned within a single build plane, determining a repair toolpath corresponding to the repair surface of each component using a vision system, depositing a layer of additive powder over the repair surface of each component using a powder dispensing assembly, and selectively irradiating the layer of additive powder along the repair toolpath to fuse the layer of additive powder onto the repair surface of each component. specifically, aspects of the present subject matter provide a tooling assembly for mounting a plurality of components, such as compressor blades, in a powder bed additive manufacturing machine to facilitate such a repair process. the tooling assembly includes component fixtures configured for receiving each of the compressor blades, a mounting plate for receiving the component fixtures, and a magnet assembly operably coupling the component fixtures to the mounting plate in a desired position and orientation to facilitate an improved printing process. as described in detail below, exemplary embodiments of the present subject matter involve the use of additive manufacturing machines or methods. as used herein, the terms “additively manufactured” or “additive manufacturing techniques or processes” refer generally to manufacturing processes wherein successive layers of material(s) are provided on each other to “build-up,” layer-by-layer, a three-dimensional component. the successive layers generally fuse together to form a monolithic component which may have a variety of integral sub-components. although additive manufacturing technology is described herein as enabling fabrication of complex objects by building objects point-by-point, layer-by-layer, typically in a vertical direction, other methods of fabrication are possible and within the scope of the present subject matter. for example, although the discussion herein refers to the addition of material to form successive layers, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the methods and structures disclosed herein may be practiced with any additive manufacturing technique or manufacturing technology. for example, embodiments of the present invention may use layer-additive processes, layer-subtractive processes, or hybrid processes. suitable additive manufacturing techniques in accordance with the present disclosure include, for example, fused deposition modeling (fdm), selective laser sintering (sls), 3d printing such as by inkjets and laserjets, sterolithography (sla), direct selective laser sintering (dsls), electron beam sintering (ebs), electron beam melting (ebm), laser engineered net shaping (lens), laser net shape manufacturing (lnsm), direct metal deposition (dmd), digital light processing (dlp), direct selective laser melting (dslm), selective laser melting (slm), direct metal laser melting (dmlm), and other known processes. in addition to using a direct metal laser sintering (dmls) or direct metal laser melting (dmlm) process where an energy source is used to selectively sinter or melt portions of a layer of powder, it should be appreciated that according to alternative embodiments, the additive manufacturing process may be a “binder jetting” process. in this regard, binder jetting involves successively depositing layers of additive powder in a similar manner as described above. however, instead of using an energy source to generate an energy beam to selectively melt or fuse the additive powders, binder jetting involves selectively depositing a liquid binding agent onto each layer of powder. the liquid binding agent may be, for example, a photo-curable polymer or another liquid bonding agent. other suitable additive manufacturing methods and variants are intended to be within the scope of the present subject matter. the additive manufacturing processes described herein may be used for forming components using any suitable material. for example, the material may be plastic, metal, concrete, ceramic, polymer, epoxy, photopolymer resin, or any other suitable material that may be in solid, liquid, powder, sheet material, wire, or any other suitable form. more specifically, according to exemplary embodiments of the present subject matter, the additively manufactured components described herein may be formed in part, in whole, or in some combination of materials including but not limited to pure metals, nickel alloys, chrome alloys, titanium, titanium alloys, magnesium, magnesium alloys, aluminum, aluminum alloys, iron, iron alloys, stainless steel, and nickel or cobalt based superalloys (e.g., those available under the name inconel® available from special metals corporation). these materials are examples of materials suitable for use in the additive manufacturing processes described herein, and may be generally referred to as “additive materials.” in addition, one skilled in the art will appreciate that a variety of materials and methods for bonding those materials may be used and are contemplated as within the scope of the present disclosure. as used herein, references to “fusing” may refer to any suitable process for creating a bonded layer of any of the above materials. for example, if an object is made from polymer, fusing may refer to creating a thermoset bond between polymer materials. if the object is epoxy, the bond may be formed by a crosslinking process. if the material is ceramic, the bond may be formed by a sintering process. if the material is powdered metal, the bond may be formed by a melting or sintering process. one skilled in the art will appreciate that other methods of fusing materials to make a component by additive manufacturing are possible, and the presently disclosed subject matter may be practiced with those methods. in addition, the additive manufacturing process disclosed herein allows a single component to be formed from multiple materials. thus, the components described herein may be formed from any suitable mixtures of the above materials. for example, a component may include multiple layers, segments, or parts that are formed using different materials, processes, and/or on different additive manufacturing machines. in this manner, components may be constructed which have different materials and material properties for meeting the demands of any particular application. in addition, although the components described herein are constructed entirely by additive manufacturing processes, it should be appreciated that in alternate embodiments, all or a portion of these components may be formed via casting, machining, and/or any other suitable manufacturing process. indeed, any suitable combination of materials and manufacturing methods may be used to form these components. an exemplary additive manufacturing process will now be described. additive manufacturing processes fabricate components using three-dimensional (3d) information, for example a three-dimensional computer model, of the component. accordingly, a three-dimensional design model of the component may be defined prior to manufacturing. in this regard, a model or prototype of the component may be scanned to determine the three-dimensional information of the component. as another example, a model of the component may be constructed using a suitable computer aided design (cad) program to define the three-dimensional design model of the component. the design model may include 3d numeric coordinates of the entire configuration of the component including both external and internal surfaces of the component. for example, the design model may define the body, the surface, and/or internal passageways such as openings, support structures, etc. in one exemplary embodiment, the three-dimensional design model is converted into a plurality of slices or segments, e.g., along a central (e.g., vertical) axis of the component or any other suitable axis. each slice may define a thin cross section of the component for a predetermined height of the slice. the plurality of successive cross-sectional slices together form the 3d component. the component is then “built-up” slice-by-slice, or layer-by-layer, until finished. in this manner, the components described herein may be fabricated using the additive process, or more specifically each layer is successively formed, e.g., by fusing or polymerizing a plastic using laser energy or heat or by sintering or melting metal powder. for example, a particular type of additive manufacturing process may use an energy beam, for example, an electron beam or electromagnetic radiation such as a laser beam, to sinter or melt a powder material. any suitable laser and laser parameters may be used, including considerations with respect to power, laser beam spot size, and scanning velocity. the build material may be formed by any suitable powder or material selected for enhanced strength, durability, and useful life, particularly at high temperatures. each successive layer may be, for example, between about 10 μm and 200 μm, although the thickness may be selected based on any number of parameters and may be any suitable size according to alternative embodiments. therefore, utilizing the additive formation methods described above, the components described herein may have cross sections as thin as one thickness of an associated powder layer, e.g., 10 μm, utilized during the additive formation process. in addition, utilizing an additive process, the surface finish and features of the components may vary as need depending on the application. for example, the surface finish may be adjusted (e.g., made smoother or rougher) by selecting appropriate laser scan parameters (e.g., laser power, scan speed, laser focal spot size, etc.) during the additive process, especially in the periphery of a cross-sectional layer which corresponds to the part surface. for example, a rougher finish may be achieved by increasing laser scan speed or decreasing the size of the melt pool formed, and a smoother finish may be achieved by decreasing laser scan speed or increasing the size of the melt pool formed. the scanning pattern and/or laser power can also be changed to change the surface finish in a selected area. after fabrication of the component is complete, various post-processing procedures may be applied to the component. for example, post processing procedures may include removal of excess powder by, for example, blowing or vacuuming. other post processing procedures may include a stress relief process. additionally, thermal, mechanical, and/or chemical post processing procedures can be used to finish the part to achieve a desired strength, surface finish, and other component properties or features. notably, in exemplary embodiments, several aspects and features of the present subject matter were previously not possible due to manufacturing restraints. however, the present inventors have advantageously utilized current advances in additive manufacturing techniques to improve various components and the method of additively manufacturing such components. while the present disclosure is not limited to the use of additive manufacturing to form these components generally, additive manufacturing does provide a variety of manufacturing advantages, including ease of manufacturing, reduced cost, greater accuracy, etc. also, the additive manufacturing methods described above enable much more complex and intricate shapes and contours of the components described herein to be formed with a very high level of precision. for example, such components may include thin additively manufactured layers, cross sectional features, and component contours. in addition, the additive manufacturing process enables the manufacture of a single component having different materials such that different portions of the component may exhibit different performance characteristics. the successive, additive nature of the manufacturing process enables the construction of these novel features. as a result, components formed using the methods described herein may exhibit improved performance and reliability. referring now to fig. 1 , an exemplary additive repair system 50 will be described according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. as illustrated, additive repair system 50 generally includes a tooling fixture or assembly 52 , a material removal assembly 54 , a vision system 56 , a user interface panel 58 , and an additive manufacturing machine or system 100 . furthermore, a system controller 60 may be operably coupled with some or all parts of additive repair system 50 for facilitating system operation. for example, system controller 60 may be operably coupled to user interface panel 58 to permit operator communication with additive repair system 50 , e.g., to input commands, upload printing toolpaths or cad models, initiating operating cycles, etc. controller 60 may further be in communication with vision system 56 for receiving imaging data and with am machine 100 for performing a printing process. according to exemplary embodiments, tooling assembly 52 is generally configured for supporting a plurality of components in a desired position and orientation. according to exemplary embodiments, tooling assembly 52 supports 20 high pressure compressor blades 70 during an additive manufacturing repair process. specifically, the additive manufacturing process may be a powder bed fusion process (e.g., a dmlm or dmls process as described above). although the repaired components are illustrated herein as compressor blades 70 of a gas turbine engine, it should be appreciated that any other suitable component may be repaired, such as turbine blades, other airfoils, or components from other machines. in order to achieve proper recoating and to facilitate the printing process, it may be desirable to position all blades 70 in the same orientation and at the same height such that a repair surface 72 of each blade is in a single build plane. tooling assembly 52 is a fixture intended to secure blades 70 in such desired position and orientation. material removal assembly 54 may include a machine or device configured for grinding, machining, brushing, etching, polishing, wire electrical discharge machining (edm), cutting, or otherwise substantively modifying a component, e.g., by subtractive modification or material removal. for example, material removal assembly 54 may include a belt grinder, a disc grinder, or any other grinding or abrasive mechanism. according to an exemplary embodiment, material removal assembly 54 may be configured for removing material from a tip of each blade 70 to obtain a desirable repair surface 72 . for example, as explained briefly above, material removal assembly 54 may remove at least a portion of blades 70 that have been worn or damaged, e.g., which may include microcracks, pits, abrasions, defects, foreign material, depositions, imperfections, and the like. according to an exemplary embodiment, each blade 70 is prepared using material removal assembly 54 to achieve the desired repair surface 72 , after which the blades 70 are all mounted in tooling assembly 52 and leveled appropriately. however, according to alternative embodiments, material removal assembly 54 may grind each blade 70 as it is fixed in position in tooling assembly 52 . after the blades are prepared, vision system 56 may be used to obtain an image or digital representation of the precise position and coordinates of each blade 70 positioned in tooling assembly 52 . in this regard, according to exemplary embodiments, vision system 56 may include any suitable camera or cameras 80 , scanners, imaging devices, or other machine vision device that may be operably configured to obtain image data that includes a digital representation of one or more fields of view. such a digital representation may sometimes be referred to as a digital image or an image; however, it will be appreciated that the present disclosure may be practiced without rendering such a digital representation in human-visible form. nevertheless, in some embodiments, a human-visible image corresponding to a field of view may be displayed on the user interface 58 based at least in part on such a digital representation of one or more fields of view. vision system 56 allows the additive repair system 50 to obtain information pertaining to one or more blades 70 onto which one or more repair segments 74 (see fig. 4 ) may be respectively additively printed. in particular, the vision system 56 allows the one or more blades 70 to be located and defined so that the additive manufacturing machine 100 may be instructed to print one or more repair segments 74 on a corresponding one or more blades 70 with suitably high accuracy and precision. according to an exemplary embodiment, the one or more blades 70 may be secured to tooling assembly 52 , a mounting plate, a build platform, or any other fixture with repair surface 72 of the respective blades 70 aligned to a single build plane 82 . the one or more cameras 80 of the vision system 56 may be configured to obtain two-dimensional or three-dimensional image data, including a two-dimensional digital representation of a field of view and/or a three-dimensional digital representation of a field of view. alignment of the repair surface 72 of the blades 70 with the build plane 82 allows the one or more cameras 80 to obtain higher quality images. for example, the one or more cameras 80 may have a focal length adjusted or adjustable to the build plane 82 . with the repair surface 72 of one or more blades 70 aligned to the build plane 82 , the one or more cameras may readily obtain digital images of the repair surface 72 . the one or more cameras 80 may include a field of view that encompasses all or a portion of the one or more blades 70 secured to the tooling assembly 52 . for example, a single field of view may be wide enough to encompass a plurality of blades 70 , such as each of a plurality of workpieces secured to tooling assembly 52 . alternatively, a field of view may more narrowly focus on an individual blade 70 such that digital representations of respective blades 70 are obtained separately. it will be appreciated that separately obtained digital images may be stitched together to obtain a digital representation of a plurality of components or blades 70 . in some embodiments, the camera 80 may include a collimated lens configured to provide a flat focal plane, such that blades 70 or portions thereof located towards the periphery of the field of view are not distorted. additionally, or in the alternative, the vision system 56 may utilize a distortion correction algorithm to address any such distortion. image data obtained by the vision system 56 , including a digital representation of one or more blades 70 may be transmitted to a control system, such as controller 60 . controller 60 may be configured to determine a repair surface 72 of each of a plurality of blades 70 from one or more digital representations of one or more fields of view having been captured by the vision system 56 , and then determine one or more coordinates of the repair surface 72 of respective ones of the plurality of blades 70 . based on the one or more digital representations, controller 60 may generate one or more print commands (e.g., corresponding to one or more repair toolpaths, e.g., the path of a laser focal point), which may be transmitted to an additive manufacturing machine 100 such that the additive manufacturing machine 100 may additively print a plurality of repair segments 74 on respective ones of the plurality of blades 70 . the one or more print commands may be configured to additively print a plurality of repair segments 74 with each respective one of the plurality of repair segments 74 being located on the repair surface 72 of a corresponding blade 70 . each of the components and subsystems of additive repair system 50 are described herein in the context of an additive blade repair process. however, it should be appreciated that aspects of the present subject matter may be used to repair or rebuild any suitable components. the present subject matter is not intended to be limited to the specific repair process described. in addition, fig. 1 illustrates each of the systems as being distinct or separate from each other and implies the process steps should be performed in a particular order, however, it should be appreciated that these subsystems may be integrated into a single machine, process steps may be swapped, and other changes to the build process may be implemented while remaining within the scope of the present subject matter. for example, vision system 56 and additive manufacturing machine 100 may be provided as a single, integrated unit or as separate stand-alone units. in addition, controller 60 may include one or more control systems. for example, a single controller 60 may be operably configured to control operations of the vision system 56 and the additive manufacturing machine 100 , or separate controllers 60 may be operably configured to respectively control the vision system 56 and the additive manufacturing machine 100 . operation of additive repair system 50 , vision system 56 , and am machine 100 may be controlled by electromechanical switches or by a processing device or controller 60 (see, e.g., figs. 1 through 2 ). according to exemplary embodiments, controller 60 may be operatively coupled to user interface panel 58 for user manipulation, e.g., to control the operation of various components of am machine 100 or system 50 . in this regard, controller 60 may operably couple all systems and subsystems within additive repair system 50 to permit communication and data transfer therebetween. in this manner, controller 60 may be generally configured for operating additive repair system 50 or performing one or more of the methods described herein. fig. 2 depicts certain components of controller 60 according to example embodiments of the present disclosure. controller 60 can include one or more computing device(s) 60 a which may be used to implement methods as described herein. computing device(s) 60 a can include one or more processor(s) 60 b and one or more memory device(s) 60 c. the one or more processor(s) 60 b can include any suitable processing device, such as a microprocessor, microcontroller, integrated circuit, an application specific integrated circuit (asic), a digital signal processor (dsp), a field-programmable gate array (fpga), logic device, one or more central processing units (cpus), graphics processing units (gpus) (e.g., dedicated to efficiently rendering images), processing units performing other specialized calculations, etc. the memory device(s) 60 c can include one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage medium(s), such as ram, rom, eeprom, eprom, flash memory devices, magnetic disks, etc., and/or combinations thereof. the memory device(s) 60 c can include one or more computer-readable media and can store information accessible by the one or more processor(s) 60 b, including instructions 60 d that can be executed by the one or more processor(s) 60 b. for instance, the memory device(s) 60 c can store instructions 60 d for running one or more software applications, displaying a user interface, receiving user input, processing user input, etc. in some implementations, the instructions 60 d can be executed by the one or more processor(s) 60 b to cause the one or more processor(s) 60 b to perform operations, e.g., such as one or more portions of methods described herein. the instructions 60 d can be software written in any suitable programming language or can be implemented in hardware. additionally, and/or alternatively, the instructions 60 d can be executed in logically and/or virtually separate threads on processor(s) 60 b. the one or more memory device(s) 60 c can also store data 60 e that can be retrieved, manipulated, created, or stored by the one or more processor(s) 60 b. the data 60 e can include, for instance, data to facilitate performance of methods described herein. the data 60 e can be stored in one or more database(s). the one or more database(s) can be connected to controller 60 by a high bandwidth lan or wan, or can also be connected to controller through one or more network(s) (not shown). the one or more database(s) can be split up so that they are located in multiple locales. in some implementations, the data 60 e can be received from another device. the computing device(s) 60 a can also include a communication module or interface 60 f used to communicate with one or more other component(s) of controller 60 or additive manufacturing machine 100 over the network(s). the communication interface 60 f can include any suitable components for interfacing with one or more network(s), including for example, transmitters, receivers, ports, controllers, antennas, or other suitable components. referring now to fig. 3 , an exemplary laser powder bed fusion system, such as a dmls or dmlm system 100 , will be described according to an exemplary embodiment. specifically, am system 100 is described herein as being used to build or repair blades 70 . it should be appreciated that blades 70 are only an exemplary component to be built or repaired and are used primarily to facilitate description of the operation of am machine 100 . the present subject matter is not intended to be limited in this regard, but instead am machine 100 may be used for printing repair segments on any suitable plurality of components. as illustrated, am system 100 generally defines a vertical direction v or z-direction, a lateral direction l or x-direction, and a transverse direction t or y-direction (see fig. 1 ), each of which is mutually perpendicular, such that an orthogonal coordinate system is generally defined. as illustrated, system 100 includes a fixed enclosure or build area 102 which provides a contaminant-free and controlled environment for performing an additive manufacturing process. in this regard, for example, enclosure 102 serves to isolate and protect the other components of the system 100 . in addition, enclosure 102 may be provided with a flow of an appropriate shielding gas, such as nitrogen, argon, or another suitable gas or gas mixture. in this regard, enclosure 102 may define a gas inlet port 104 and a gas outlet port 106 for receiving a flow of gas to create a static pressurized volume or a dynamic flow of gas. enclosure 102 may generally contain some or all components of am system 100 . according to an exemplary embodiment, am system 100 generally includes a table 110 , a powder supply 112 , a scraper or recoater mechanism 114 , an overflow container or reservoir 116 , and a build platform 118 positioned within enclosure 102 . in addition, an energy source 120 generates an energy beam 122 and a beam steering apparatus 124 directs energy beam 122 to facilitate the am process as described in more detail below. each of these components will be described in more detail below. according to the illustrated embodiment, table 110 is a rigid structure defining a planar build surface 130 . in addition, planar build surface 130 defines a build opening 132 through which build chamber 134 may be accessed. more specifically, according to the illustrated embodiment, build chamber 134 is defined at least in part by vertical walls 136 and build platform 118 . in addition, build surface 130 defines a supply opening 140 through which additive powder 142 may be supplied from powder supply 112 and a reservoir opening 144 through which excess additive powder 142 may pass into overflow reservoir 116 . collected additive powders may optionally be treated to sieve out loose, agglomerated particles before re-use. powder supply 112 generally includes an additive powder supply container 150 which generally contains a volume of additive powder 142 sufficient for some or all of the additive manufacturing process for a specific part or parts. in addition, powder supply 112 includes a supply platform 152 , which is a plate-like structure that is movable along the vertical direction within powder supply container 150 . more specifically, a supply actuator 154 vertically supports supply platform 152 and selectively moves it up and down during the additive manufacturing process. am system 100 further includes recoater mechanism 114 , which is a rigid, laterally-elongated structure that lies proximate build surface 130 . for example, recoater mechanism 114 may be a hard scraper, a soft squeegee, or a roller. recoater mechanism 114 is operably coupled to a recoater actuator 160 which is operable to selectively move recoater mechanism 114 along build surface 130 . in addition, a platform actuator 164 is operably coupled to build platform 118 and is generally operable for moving build platform 118 along the vertical direction during the build process. although actuators 154 , 160 , and 164 are illustrated as being hydraulic actuators, it should be appreciated that any other type and configuration of actuators may be used according to alternative embodiments, such as pneumatic actuators, hydraulic actuators, ball screw linear electric actuators, or any other suitable vertical support means. other configurations are possible and within the scope of the present subject matter. as used herein, “energy source” may be used to refer to any device or system of devices configured for directing an energy beam of suitable power and other operating characteristics towards a layer of additive powder to sinter, melt, or otherwise fuse a portion of that layer of additive powder during the build process. for example, energy source 120 may be a laser or any other suitable irradiation emission directing device or irradiation device. in this regard, an irradiation or laser source may originate photons or laser beam irradiation which is directed by the irradiation emission directing device or beam steering apparatus. according to an exemplary embodiment, beam steering apparatus 124 includes one or more mirrors, prisms, lenses, and/or electromagnets operably coupled with suitable actuators and arranged to direct and focus energy beam 122 . in this regard, for example, beam steering apparatus 124 may be a galvanometer scanner that moves or scans the focal point of the laser beam 122 emitted by energy source 120 across the build surface 130 during the laser melting and sintering processes. in this regard, energy beam 122 can be focused to a desired spot size and steered to a desired position in plane coincident with build surface 130 . the galvanometer scanner in powder bed fusion technologies is typically of a fixed position but the movable mirrors/lenses contained therein allow various properties of the laser beam to be controlled and adjusted. according to exemplary embodiments, beam steering apparatus may further include one or more of the following: optical lenses, deflectors, mirrors, beam splitters, telecentric lenses, etc. it should be appreciated that other types of energy sources 120 may be used which may use an alternative beam steering apparatus 124 . for example, an electron beam gun or other electron source may be used to originate a beam of electrons (e.g., an “e-beam”). the e-beam may be directed by any suitable irradiation emission directing device preferably in a vacuum. when the irradiation source is an electron source, the irradiation emission directing device may be, for example, an electronic control unit which may include, for example, deflector coils, focusing coils, or similar elements. according to still other embodiments, energy source 120 may include one or more of a laser, an electron beam, a plasma arc, an electric arc, etc. prior to an additive manufacturing process, recoater actuator 160 may be lowered to provide a supply of powder 142 of a desired composition (for example, metallic, ceramic, and/or organic powder) into supply container 150 . in addition, platform actuator 164 may move build platform 118 to an initial high position, e.g., such that it substantially flush or coplanar with build surface 130 . build platform 118 is then lowered below build surface 130 by a selected layer increment. the layer increment affects the speed of the additive manufacturing process and the resolution of a components or parts (e.g., blades 70 ) being manufactured. as an example, the layer increment may be about 10 to 100 micrometers (0.0004 to 0.004 in.). additive powder is then deposited over the build platform 118 before being fused by energy source 120 . specifically, supply actuator 154 may raise supply platform 152 to push powder through supply opening 140 , exposing it above build surface 130 . recoater mechanism 114 may then be moved across build surface 130 by recoater actuator 160 to spread the raised additive powder 142 horizontally over build platform 118 (e.g., at the selected layer increment or thickness). any excess additive powder 142 drops through the reservoir opening 144 into the overflow reservoir 116 as recoater mechanism 114 passes from left to right (as shown in fig. 3 ). subsequently, recoater mechanism 114 may be moved back to a starting position. therefore, as explained herein and illustrated in fig. 3 , recoater mechanism 114 , recoater actuator 160 , supply platform 152 , and supply actuator 154 may generally operate to successively deposit layers of additive powder 142 or other additive material to facilitate the print process. as such, these components may collectively be referred to herein as powder dispensing apparatus, system, or assembly. the leveled additive powder 142 may be referred to as a “build layer” 172 (see fig. 4 ) and the exposed upper surface thereof may be referred to as build surface 130 . when build platform 118 is lowered into build chamber 134 during a build process, build chamber 134 and build platform 118 collectively surround and support a mass of additive powder 142 along with any components (e.g., blades 70 ) being built. this mass of powder is generally referred to as a “powder bed,” and this specific category of additive manufacturing process may be referred to as a “powder bed process.” during the additive manufacturing process, the directed energy source 120 is used to melt a two-dimensional cross-section or layer of the component (e.g., blades 70 ) being built. more specifically, energy beam 122 is emitted from energy source 120 and beam steering apparatus 124 is used to steer the focal point 174 of energy beam 122 over the exposed powder surface in an appropriate pattern (referred to herein as a “toolpath”). a small portion of exposed layer of the additive powder 142 surrounding focal point 174 , referred to herein as a “weld pool” or “melt pool” or “heat effected zone” 176 (best seen in fig. 4 ) is heated by energy beam 122 to a temperature allowing it to sinter or melt, flow, and consolidate. as an example, melt pool 176 may be on the order of 100 micrometers (0.004 in.) wide. this step may be referred to as fusing additive powder 142 . build platform 118 is moved vertically downward by the layer increment, and another layer of additive powder 142 is applied in a similar thickness. the directed energy source 120 again emits energy beam 122 and beam steering apparatus 124 is used to steer the focal point 174 of energy beam 122 over the exposed powder surface in an appropriate pattern. the exposed layer of additive powder 142 is heated by energy beam 122 to a temperature allowing it to sinter or melt, flow, and consolidate both within the top layer and with the lower, previously-solidified layer. this cycle of moving build platform 118 , applying additive powder 142 , and then directed energy beam 122 to melt additive powder 142 is repeated until the entire component (e.g., blades 70 ) is complete. referring now generally to figs. 5 through 10 , a tooling assembly 200 that may be used with am system 100 will be described according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. for example, tooling assembly 200 may replace tooling assembly 52 as described in relation to fig. 1 . due to the similarity between tooling assembly 200 , tooling assembly 52 , and the am system 100 in which they are configured for operating, like reference numerals will be used in figs. 5 through 10 to refer to like features described with respect to fig. 1 . referring now specifically to figs. 5 and 6 , tooling assembly 200 will be described according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. as explained above, tooling assembly 200 is generally configured for receiving one or more components, e.g., shown here as blades 70 , and securely mounting such components for a subsequent additive manufacturing process. specifically, tooling assembly 200 may secure each of the plurality of blades 70 in a desired position and orientation relative to am machine 100 . tooling assembly 200 generally includes a component fixture 202 configured for receiving one or more blades 70 . according to the illustrated embodiment, each component fixture 202 is configured for receiving a single blade 70 . in this regard, blade 70 may define a dovetail 204 which is configured for receipt in a complementary slot 206 defined in component fixture 202 . in this regard, once blade 70 is installed into complementary slot 206 of component fixture 202 , blades 70 may not move or rotate relative to component fixture 202 . component fixture 202 may generally be a rectangular block with a flat bottom surface 208 which may sit flush against another flat surface. tooling assembly 200 may further include a mounting plate 210 that is configured for receiving the plurality of component fixtures 202 . in this regard, mounting plate 210 may be a rigid plate having a flat receiving surface 212 upon which component fixtures 202 may be seated. notably, as described briefly above, it is desirable to fix the position and orientation of blades 70 prior to an additive manufacturing process. in this regard, as used herein, the “position” of a blade 70 may refer to the coordinates of a centroid of blade 70 in the x-y plane. in addition, the “orientation” of a blade 70 may refer to an angular position of blade 70 about the z-direction. more specifically, according to an exemplary embodiment, each blade 70 may define a chord line 214 which is a straight line extending from a leading edge to a trailing edge of the airfoil (see fig. 7 ). according to an exemplary embodiment, the orientation of each blade 70 may be defined according to the angular position of chord line 214 . in this regard, for example, two blades 70 are said to have the same “orientation” when chord lines 214 of those blades 70 are parallel to each other. although the exemplary repaired components described herein are blades 70 , it should be appreciated that other components such as other airfoils or any other machine component may be repaired according to alternative embodiments, and the orientation of such components may be redefined accordingly. according to the exemplary embodiment described herein, mounting plate 210 is configured for receiving a plurality of component fixtures 202 before being positioned at a known location on build platform 118 . however, it should be appreciated that according to alternative embodiments build platform 118 may be used directly as a mounting plate 210 . in this regard, for example, mounting plate 210 may be removed altogether and component fixtures 202 may be positioned, oriented, and secured where desired directly on build platform 118 . component fixture 202 may generally be formed from any suitable material and may have any suitable shape. according to the illustrated embodiment component fixture 202 is formed from metal such that it may be reused for multiple repair and rebuild processes. specifically, once blades 70 have been repaired using a powder bed additive manufacturing process as described below, each blade 70 may be removed from the corresponding component fixture 202 and component fixture 202 may be used to hold another blade 70 in a subsequent repair process. tooling assembly 200 may further include a magnet assembly 220 which is used to operably couple each component fixture 202 to mounting plate 210 . more specifically, according to the illustrated embodiment, magnet assembly 220 both secures each component fixture 202 and positions each component fixture in the desired orientation for a specific print process. generally speaking, magnet assembly 220 may include any suitable combination of permanent magnets, electromagnets, or other suitable magnetic materials or combinations thereof which are configured for operably coupling component fixtures 202 or blades 70 to mounting plate 210 as described herein. several exemplary magnet assemblies 220 are described below to facilitate discussion of operating principles of the present disclosure, but are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any manner. referring now specifically to figs. 5 and 6 , magnet assembly 220 includes a fixture magnet 222 that is mounted to each component fixture 202 . similarly, tooling assembly 200 may include a plurality of plate magnets 224 that are mounted to mounting plate 210 at the desired positions where blades 70 should be secured. fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 may be mounted or secured to component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 , respectively, in any suitable manner. for example, component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 may each define one or more magnet recesses 226 which are configured to receive respective magnets 222 , 224 . in this regard, for example, fixture magnet 222 may be positioned within magnet recess 226 defined in flat bottom surface 208 of component fixture 202 . magnets 222 , 224 may be secured within magnet recesses 226 using an adhesive, a mechanical fastener, a press fit interface, or in any other suitable manner. according to alternative embodiments, fixture magnet 222 may be embedded within component fixture 202 and plate magnets 224 may be embedded within mounting plate 210 . in order to secure component fixtures 202 to mounting plate 210 , fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 may have opposing magnetic poles such that component fixtures 202 are urged toward mounting plate 210 . in this regard, for example, each fixture magnet 222 may be a south pole of a permanent magnet. by contrast, each plate magnet 224 may be a north pole of a permanent magnet. as a result, fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 each generate magnetic fields which result in a magnetic attraction that urges component fixture 202 toward mounting plate 210 . although north and south are used generally herein to characterize the magnetic field generated by a particular magnet, it should be appreciated that fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 may swap positions, may generate magnetic fields having any other suitable direction and magnitude, and may be any other suitable type of device for generating a magnetic field. as best shown in fig. 6 , a plurality of blades 70 may be mounted at a fixed position on mounting plate 210 by positioning the corresponding component fixture 202 near mounting plate 210 such that plate magnet 224 attracts fixture magnet 222 to position and secure component fixture 202 . after all blades 70 have been mounted to mounting plate 210 , the material removal process may be performed to remove material above repair surface 72 of each blade 70 . by contrast, according to alternative embodiments, each blade 70 may be separately prepared by grinding or removing the tip of that blade 70 prior to mounting on mounting plate 210 . notably, the use of a single fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 for securing each blade 70 as shown in figs. 5 and 6 may effectively position blades 70 at the desired coordinates in the x-y plane, but may not position blades 70 in the desired orientation. referring now also to fig. 7 , fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 may have a non-circular geometry such that the magnetic field generated by fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 have a tendency to orient component fixture 202 and thus blades 70 along a certain direction. in this regard, the intensity of the magnetic field at a sharp corner or other protrusion 230 may be stronger than along the rounded surfaces of magnets 222 , 224 . as a result, magnets 222 , 224 have a tendency to align such that sharp corners or protrusions 230 point towards the same direction and such that magnets 222 , 224 have the same alignment within the x-y plane. it should be appreciated that any suitable unbalanced geometry of magnets 222 , 224 may be used to generate magnetic fields which have a tendency to align with each other. although an exemplary geometry is described herein, the present subject matter is not intended to be limited to such a geometry. referring now to figs. 8 and 9 , magnet assembly 200 may include a plurality of magnets positioned in each of component fixtures 202 and mounting plate 210 in order to position component fixtures 202 at the desired positions and orient blades 70 along the desired direction. in this regard, for example, magnet assembly 220 may include a first fixture magnet 240 and a second fixture magnet 242 mounted to each component fixture 202 . more specifically, first fixture magnet 240 and second fixture magnet 242 may be spaced apart along a fixture magnetic axis 244 and may have opposing magnetic poles (e.g., north and south poles). similarly, each blade position 248 defined on mounting plate 210 may include a first plate magnet 250 and a second plate magnet 252 mounted to mounting plate 210 . more specifically, first plate magnet 250 and second plate magnet 252 may be spaced apart along a plate magnetic axis 254 and may have opposing magnetic poles (e.g., north and south poles). notably, positioning component fixture 202 close to blade position 248 on mounting plate 210 will urge component fixture 202 toward mounting plate 210 such that fixture magnetic axis 244 is substantially parallel to plate magnetic axis 254 . in this manner, each component fixture 202 is secured to mounting plate 210 at the desired position and in the desired orientation. although component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 are illustrated herein as including separate magnets having opposite magnetic poles, it should be appreciated that a single bar magnet or any other magnetic coupling assembly may be used according to alternative embodiments. referring now to fig. 10 , magnet assembly 220 could instead include an electromagnet assembly 260 which is configured for securing component fixtures 202 to mounting plate 210 when energized with electrical current. as used herein, an electromagnet 262 is intended to refer to a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by an electric current. in this regard, electromagnets 262 usually consist of wire wound into a coil which is electrically coupled to a power supply 264 . power supply 264 selectively provides a current through the wire of electromagnet 262 which creates a magnetic field. although an exemplary electromagnet 262 is described, it should be appreciated that any other suitable type or configuration of electromagnet may be used according to alternative embodiments. according to the illustrated embodiment, component fixture 202 may include an embedded magnet or may be formed from a magnetic material, such that electromagnet 262 attracts component fixture 202 when energized. notably, according to exemplary embodiments, electromagnet 262 attracts component fixtures 202 toward mounting plate 210 , but may not facilitate appropriate alignment or orientation of such component fixtures 202 . thus, according to an exemplary embodiment, mounting plate 210 may define a plurality of recesses 266 which may be configured for receiving component fixtures 202 and preventing rotation thereof. in this manner, a plurality of blades 70 may be positioned in the desired alignment on mounting plate 210 by positioning component fixtures 202 on mounting plate within recesses 266 and energizing electromagnet 262 using power supply 264 . moreover, when the additive manufacturing process is complete, electromagnet 262 may be de-energized for easy removal of component fixtures 202 . now that the construction and configuration of additive repair system 50 has been described according to exemplary embodiments of the present subject matter, an exemplary method 300 for mounting a plurality of components for a repair or rebuild process using an additive repair system will be described according to an exemplary embodiment of the present subject matter. method 300 can be used to repair blades 70 using additive repair system 50 , am machine 100 , and tooling assembly 200 , or to repair any other suitable component using any other suitable additive manufacturing machine or system. in this regard, for example, controller 60 may be configured for implementing some or all steps of method 300 . further, it should be appreciated that the exemplary method 300 is discussed herein only to describe exemplary aspects of the present subject matter, and is not intended to be limiting. referring now to fig. 11 , method 300 includes, at step 310 , mounting a component in a component fixture. in this regard, a plurality of blades 70 which need to be repaired may be positioned in corresponding component fixtures 202 , e.g., by sliding dovetails 204 of each blade 70 in a complementary slot 206 of each component fixture 202 . step 320 includes positioning the component fixture on a mounting plate. for example, the mounting plate 210 may be a flat plate configured for receipt on build platform 118 of am machine 100 . alternatively, mounting plate 210 could instead replace build platform 118 . component fixtures 202 may be positioned directly on mounting plate 210 . step 330 includes securing the component in the desired orientation on the mounting plate using a magnet assembly. as described in detail above, the magnet assembly 200 may include a fixture magnet 222 and plate magnet 224 which have opposing polarities and are positioned within component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 , or vice versa, such that component fixture 202 is urged toward mounting plate and secured thereto. alternatively, component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 may each include bar magnets having opposing poles or may each include two separate magnets to create corresponding magnetic fields defining magnetic axes that can be aligned to orient component fixture 202 as desired. according still another embodiment, component fixtures 202 may be secured using electromagnet assembly 260 or any other suitable device for generating a magnetic field or attractive forces between component fixture 202 and mounting plate 210 . step 340 may include removing material above a repair surface of the component using a material removal assembly while the component is positioned in the component fixture. in this regard, after all blades 70 are positioned and oriented as desired on mounting plate 210 , material removal assembly 54 may be operated to remove the tip of each blade 70 down to repair surface 72 . according to alternative embodiments, each blade 70 may be prepared, e.g., by grinding, prior to mounting in component fixture 202 and/or on to mounting plate 210 . according to an exemplary embodiment, method 300 may further include additively printing repair segments onto repair surface 72 of each blade 70 using am machine 100 . in this regard, step 350 includes depositing a layer of additive powder over repair surface of the component using a powder dispensing assembly and step 360 includes selectively irradiating the layer of additive powder to fuse the layer of additive powder onto the repair surface of the component. in this manner, an energy source may fuse additive powder onto each blade tip layer by layer until the component is repaired to an original cad model or to another suitable geometry. fig. 11 depicts an exemplary control method having steps performed in a particular order for purposes of illustration and discussion. those of ordinary skill in the art, using the disclosures provided herein, will understand that the steps of any of the methods discussed herein can be adapted, rearranged, expanded, omitted, or modified in various ways without deviating from the scope of the present disclosure. moreover, although aspects of the methods are explained using additive repair system 50 , am machine 100 , and tooling assembly 200 as an example, it should be appreciated that these methods may be applied to repairing or rebuilding any other number, type, and configuration of components using any suitable tooling fixture or additive manufacturing machine or system. this written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the invention, including making and using any devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. the patentable scope of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they include structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal languages of the claims.
084-577-632-629-880	US	[ "WO", "US" ]	F02G1/043,F03G7/00,F25B9/14,H02K7/18	2000-09-05T00:00:00	2000	[ "F02", "F03", "F25", "H02" ]	thermoacoustic resonator	the invention is a thermoacoustic engine-generator (1) and heat pump that converts a thermal gradient into electrical energy. typically encased in a thermoplastic or metal package, it can range in the size from a microchip, upward. the significant embodiment is in the designing of solid-state heat exchangers (2,8) to make them resonate thermally at a desired frequency, thereby improving the specific power of the engine. the invention uses the superior energy density and thermal conductivity of solids.	i claim: 1. a miniature heat engine comprising: a) a thermally conductive envelopment means including a housing for containing a compressible working fluid, b) said compressible working fluid being capable of supporting propagation of periodic acoustical traveling waves, c) a first heat exchange means for adding thermal energy to the working fluid in one section of the housing, d) a second heat exchange means for removing thermal energy from the working fluid in another section of the housing, e) a thermal insulating means comprising an intermediate substrate dividing said first and second heat exchange means, and for mounting component parts of the miniature heat engine, f) an acoustical traveling wave generating means for causing periodic acoustical traveling waves to propagate on a path through the working fluid in communication between said first and second heat exchange means, g) an acoustic wave guiding means, a wave-guide, contiguous with the acoustical traveling wave generating means and integral with the geometry of the working fluid passages in the thermal insulating means and said first heat exchange means, by means of which the periodic acoustical traveling waves are vectored, thermally amplified, and acoustic-impedance-controlled, h) an energy conversion means for converting the acoustical energy produced by said miniature heat engine into other forms of electrical and mechanical energy, i) an inertance means, comprised of a planar baffle, for reducing the local propagation velocity of the acoustic traveling wave, and increasing the pressure gradient decay period during which energy is extracted trom the working fluid by the energy conversion means and said second heat exchange means, j) a metering means for causing the admittance of cooler working fluid from said second heat exchange means, through the energy conversion means, into the 5 acoustical traveling wave generating means, thereby completing an acoustic and thermodynamic circuit in the working fluid. 2. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1 , which can be manufactured as a single unitary device, or as a multiplicity of interconnected devices. 3. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the thermally conductive o envelopment means is comprised of two thermally conductive parallel plane surfaces separated by the thermal insulating means, said envelopment means comprising said housing which is in communication with the internal working fluid and the external environment for the purpose of transmitting thermal energy between said internal working fluid and said external environment. 4. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the thermal insulating 5 means divides the thermally conductive envelopment means into two separate sections which, in conjunction with the thermal insulating means, with said first heat exchange means in one section, said second heat exchange means in another section, and the thermal insulating means disposed between the sections so as to impede short-circuit thermal conduction between said first and second heat exchange means. 0 5. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1 , or claim 4, in which the thermal insulating means is penetrated by a multiplicity of through holes, ports, through which the periodic acoustical traveling waves communicate between said first heat exchange means and said second heat exchange means via the compressible working fluid. 6. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which said acoustical wave 5 generating means comprising an electric-acoustic transducer, is located at a central recess in the substrate, and so disposed as to cause periodic acoustic traveling waves to propagate on said path through the wave-guide and the working fluid from said first heat exchange means to said second heat exchange means. 7. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which said periodic acoustical 0 traveling wave generating means causes periodic acoustical traveling waves to propagate through the compressible working fluid, the propagating waves causing pressure fluctuations that create periodic compression and expansion in the working fluid in contact with the heat exchange means that results in an exchange of thermal energy between the heat exchange means and the working fluid, thereby conveying thermal energy from said first heat exchange means to said second heat exchange means via the acoustical traveling waves. 8. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the periodic acoustical traveling waves disturb the laminar boundary conditions existing at the interface between the working fluid and the heat exchange means, causing a periodic change in the rate of thermal energy flow between said heat exchange means and said working fluid. 9. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, or claim 8, in which the first heat exchange means injects thermal energy into periodic acoustical traveling waves in order to amplify the temperature and pressure gradients of said periodic acoustical traveling waves with respect to the static working fluid through which they are propagating. 10. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which said first and second heat exchange means have properties that have been manipulated, by means of engineering craft and process, so as to regulate the rate and periodicity of flow of thermal energy to and from the working fluid, said properties being specific heat, sensible heat, latent heat, thermal conductivity, cross-sectional thickness, contact surface area and mass. 11. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, or claim 10, in which the first and second heat exchange means are further characterized by a property of thermal resonance that is manipulated so as to cause said first and second heat exchange means to couple thermodynamically most efficiently with periodic acoustical traveling waves of a given frequency, and less efficiently with the static working fluid through which said periodic acoustical traveling waves are propagating, the coupling efficiency directly affecting the rate of thermal energy transferred per unit time between the first and second heat exchange means and the working fluid. 12. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the cross-sectional area of the wave-guide increases in the direction of wave propagation, the geometric flare of said waveguide tending to propagate and vector the periodic acoustical traveling waves in one direction as the pressure gradient in said periodic acoustical traveling waves propel them toward areas of greater volume and less pressure. 13. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the wave-guide is an integral part of the first heat exchange means, said first heat exchange means causing thermal energy to be injected into the periodic acoustical traveling waves as they traverse and expand through the wave-guide, thereby increasing the temperature and pressure gradient in said periodic acoustical traveling waves. 14. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, or claim 12, or claim 13, in which the acoustic wave-guide integral with said first heat exchange means causes the periodic acoustical traveling waves to be vectored from said first heat exchange means to said second heat exchange means by controlling the acoustic path impedance so that one direction of acoustic wave propagation is favored, and further causes the propagation velocity and amplitude of said periodic acoustical traveling waves to be increased by injection of thermal energy into the working fluid, said amplitude being defined as the pressure-temperature gradient of the periodic acoustical traveling wave with respect to the static working fluid. 15. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the energy conversion means is a linear alternator, comprised of a piston-armature assembly capable of reciprocating motion, in combination with a magnetic field generating means and electrical circuitry and so disposed in relation to one another that when said piston-armature assembly is caused to reciprocate by means of a fluctuating pressure gradient in the form of periodic acoustical traveling waves, said linear alternator produces alternating electrical current. 16. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, in which the inertance means is disposed between said second heat exchange means and the energy conversion means so as to cause the periodic acoustical traveling waves to slow and stall in the vicinity of the piston- armature assembly and said second heat exchange means, thereby giving up energy of inertial moment and causing periodic pressure-temperature peaks that mimic stirling cycle compressions in the working fluid. 17. the miniature heat engine as claimed in claim 1, or claim 16, in which the inertance means meters the acoustical and thermal energy in the stalled periodic acoustical traveling waves into said second heat exchange means, where the remaining energy is extracted from the working fluid and transmitted, via conduction, through the second heat exchange means section of the thermally conductive envelopment means, the engine housing, to an external heat sink. 18. a process comprising steps of: a) using a new engineering craft, with unique formulae and terminology, for calculating, quantifying and evaluating thermodynamic coupling efficiency and thermoacoustic resonance in solid materials and compressible working fluids subjected to a periodic flow of thermal energy, b) manipulating the elemental and geometric properties of said solirf material ' so as to cause heat exchange means to resonate and couple thermodynamically with a compressible working fluid via a periodic thermal energy flux of specific frequency, c) using a methodology for designing said heat exchange means, so as to cause an exchange of specific quantities of sensible and latent thermal energy between said heat exchange means and periodic acoustical traveling waves, thereby amplifying the pressure-temperature gradient of said periodic acoustical traveling waves with respect to the working fluid they are propagating through, d) using a methodology for calculating, quantifying and evaluating periodic thermal energy transmission through said solid material, and between said heat exchange means and a working fluid, in order to design and test thermoacoustic engines, e) determining a property of thermal impedance (z t ), expressed as a reciprocal power in joules (watt-seconds) per centimeter per square centimeter per degree kelvin, to quantify the flow of alternating energy per unit time with regard to impeding properties of a component or system, f) determining a property of thermal capacitance (c t ), expressed in joules per degree kelvin, with regard to the quantity of thermal energy that can be stored in a component or system for a given amplitude of applied thermal energy, g) determining a property of thermomotive force, thermal amplitude, the temperature gradient across a thermoacoustic engine or component thereof, the difference in maximum and minimum temperatures across said thermoacoustic engine or component thereof, expressed in degrees kelvin, h) determining a property of thermal reactance (x t ), expressed as a reciprocal power in joules per second, with regard to the resistance of a component or system to a reversal in the direction of flow of thermal energy. 19. a process as claimed in claim 18, further comprising steps of manipulating the elemental physical properties of mass density, specific heat, latent heat and thermal conductivity inherent in the solid matter of the heat exchange means, in conjunction with the geometry and disposition of said heat exchange means, and thereby caused to resonate at the atomic level by means of an oscillating flow of the thermal energy, the period and amplitude of the thermal energy oscillation being determined by the thermodynamic coupling efficiency, as measured by the ratio of thermal energy throughput versus the amplitude of the thermal energy oscillation, between the oscillating energy flow in the working fluid and the oscillating flow of thermal energy in the solid matter. 20. a process as claimed in claim 18, or claim 19, further comprising steps of using an engineering craft, by which elements comprising said heat exchange means are manipulated and combined into alloys and compounds having specific geometry, mass to surface-area ratios, specific heat, latent heat, thermal conductivity, surface chemistry, thermal reactance, thermal impedance and thermal capacitance, so as to amplify periodic acoustical traveling waves propagating in the compressible working fluid.	thermoacoustic resonator background of the invention the subject invention originates from twenty-two years research by the inventor, into engines and resonators that operate on the principles of thermoacoustic physics. for purposes of this application for patent, the term "thermoacoustic" refers to traveling energy impulses, normally detected as pressure fluctuations, propagating along velocity vectors that move thermal energy through an elastic medium that is typically a compressible working fluid. for purposes of this application for patent, thermoacoustic energy includes both shockwaves (supersonic and hypersonic pressure waves) and sound waves (pressure waves traveling at the sonic velocity of the working fluid under locally extant conditions). the research background data in heat, acoustic wave phenomena and gas mechanics includes the shock tube research performed by government and institutional scientists during the 1950's and 1960's, relevant examples of which can be found in the proceedings of the seventh international shock tube symposium, university of toronto press 1970, isbn 0-8020-1729-0; as well as research into thermoacoustic waves generated by chemical explosives, the chemistry of powder and explosives, volume i, 1941, volume ii, 1943, by tenney l. davis, ph.d., isbn 0913022-00-4; published research in atmospheric physics, including lightning, by martin a. uman, mcgraw-hill 1969; the flight of thunderbolts, 2 nd ed., b.f.j. schonland, clarendon press 1964; graphic survey of physics, by alexander taffel, oxford book company 1960; matter and motion, by james clerk maxwell, 1877, dover publications 1991 (reprint); laboratory exercises in physics, fuller and brownlee, allyn and bacon 1913; laboratory experiments in elementary physics, by newton henry black, macmillan company, 1944; modern physics, by williams, metcalfe, trinklein and lefler, 1968, holt, rinehart and winston publishers; physics of lightning, d.j. malan, the english universities press ltd., 1963; which includes thermoacoustic phenomena generated by natural lightning and man-made electric arcs. other relevant published research includes work in pulse tube refrigeration, including the influence of heat conduction on acoustic streaming, nikolaus rott, journal of applied mathematics and physics (zamp), vol. 25, pp. 417-421, 1974; a review of pulse tube refrigeration, ray radebaugh, cryogenic engineering conference, pp. 1-14, 1989; flow patterns intrinsic to the pulse tube refrigerator, j. m. lee, p. kittel, k. d. timmerhaus, r. radebaugh, national institute of standards and technology, pp. 125-139, 1993. the cryogenics department at nasa- ames is a premier focus of pulse tube refrigeration research. pulse tubes differ from thermoacoustic devices in that they are typically non-resonant devices in which a mechanical piston, driven by an external power source, generates compression waves (pulses) that move in one direction through a series of heat exchangers, and cause thermal energy to be transported between those heat exchangers. pulse tubes are typically used in cryogenic refrigeration applications. pulse tubes are similar to thermoacoustic devices in that traveling pressure waves in a working fluid are the mode of operation. the research history involving prime movers with associated thermoacoustic characteristics includes stirling cycle machines, by graham walker, phd, 1973, oxford university press; various stirling engine technical research reports, 1937 - 1978, issued by the philips company laboratories, eindhoven, netherlands; and stirling cycle engines, by andy ross, 1977, published by solar engines, phoenix, arizona. the device described herein is a traveling-wave thermoacoustic cycle (tac) engine- generator set, herein referred to as a thermoacoustic resonator (tar), comprised of an acoustically resonant cavity containing a multiplicity of thermally resonant heat exchangers and a compressible working fluid, in which a train of acoustic traveling waves is generated, and in which said acoustic traveling waves are amplified by a thermal gradient across the device, causing an increase in pressure and temperature amplitudes, and wave propagation velocity, and said acoustic traveling waves impinge upon a moveable piston-armature assembly, causing it to reciprocate within a magnetic field and generate electrical energy. thermoacoustic cycle (tac) engines are well known to acoustic science, are in uspto class 310 and international class h01l 041/08, and have been explored extensively by peter h. ceperley, george mason university; steven garrett of penn state university and gregory swift of los alamos national laboratory. thermoacoustic related patents searched include: 6 , 054 , 775 apr . , 2000 vocaturo 290/1r 6,032,464 mar., 2000 swift, et al 60/517 5,953,920 sep., 1999 swift, et al 60/520 x 5,892,293 apr., 1999 lucas 290/1r 5,673,561 oct., 1997 moss 62/6 5,659,173 aug., 1997 putterman, et al 250/361 5,647,216 jul . , 1997 garrett 62/6 5,519,999 may., 1996 harpole, et al 60/520 x 5,515,684 may., 1996 lucas, et al 62/6 5,456,082 oct., 1995 keolian, et al 62/6 5,319,938 jun. 1994 lucas 62/6 5,303,555 apr. 1994 chrysler, et al 62/6 5,295,355 mar. 1994 zhou, et al 62/6 5,275,002 jan. 1994 inoue, et al 62/6 5,269,147 dec. 1993 ishiza i, et al 62/467 5,263,341 nov. 1993 lucas 62/6 5,165,243 nov. 1992 bennett 62/6 4,722,201 feb. 1988 hoffler, et al 62/467 4,686,407 aug. 1987 ceperley 60/721 4,599,551 jul. 1986 heatley, et al 322/2r 4,398,398 aug. 1983 wheatley, et al 62/467 4,355,517 oct. 1982 ceperley 60/721 4,114,380 sep. 1978 ceperley 60/721 a thermoacoustic cycle engine is typically comprised of a resonant cavity in the approximate shape of a cylinder, tube or torus, in which a working fluid resides, and in which an applied difference in thermal potential, across internal isothermal heat exchangers that are separated by a regenerative heat exchanger (stack) and spaced along the length of the resonant cavity by a nominal wavelength or fraction thereof, produce and amplify acoustic waves which transport thermal energy from one heat exchanger to another, and maintain a state of oscillation, or periodic thermal and acoustic flux, in the working fluid. to extract useful work from the engine, the oscillating pressure component can be applied to a mechanical member, such as a piston, in order to perform reciprocating work, and thereby used to perform tasks such as pumping fluids or generating electrical energy. the maxima, or peak pressure points in the traveling thermoacoustic wave train, also transport thermal energy in accordance with the pressure-temperature relationship in a gas, as described in charles law, and this property can be employed in a reverse entropy cycle to produce refrigeration. thermoacoustic cycle engines have been researched for several decades, and researchers at the los alamos national laboratory, the naval post graduate school, the university of texas, penn state university and other institutions have written numerous research papers on the genre, primarily concerning standing-wave thermoacoustic physics a standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator developed by steven lurie garrett was flown aboard the space shuttle discovery in 1991 as an experimental package. it is mentioned (project 511) along with this inventor's acoustic cycle engine (project 503) in the 1993 rolex awards for enterprise, published december, 1992. currently, there are approximately thirty relevant patents in the field. the most significant problem with prior art thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators is that they have a very low power density. they are typically much larger and more massive for the amount of output work they produce, than other types of engines and refrigerators. until 1998, disregarding non-resonant pulse tubes, most researchers working in the field, including gregory swift's los alamos group, concentrated their efforts largely on thermoacoustic engines that employed standing wave physics. the power output of standing wave systems is limited by the inherent physical characteristics, to wit; standing wave systems rely on the forward-going wave being inverted and reflected uniformly back along the resonator at nearly the same propagation velocity. if too much energy is extracted from the forward-going wave in the cold- side heat exchanger the propagation velocity of the return wave is changed, and the forward- going wave and the return wave will be out of phase, and will interfere with each other. this adds impedance to the cycle, and tends to damp the oscillation. this inherent characteristic severely limits the quantity of energy per cycle that is available to perform useful work, resulting in large engines with low power density. traveling-wave engines and pulse tubes, by comparison, do not rely on reflected waves to maintain system oscillation. traveling-wave engines ideally propagate thermoacoustic energy in only one direction, eliminating the reflected wave, thus reducing the impeding effects of a change in wave propagation velocity on the system, and increasing the amount of useful energy that can be extracted from the system. in 1998-99, greg swift of los alamos attempted to improve the art by coupling ceperley' s torus-shaped traveling-wave engine with a cylindrical standing- wave resonator, in an effort to produce greater output power from the traveling-wave component, without damping the standing-wave oscillator. even so, the compound engine develops low energy density because the design still relies mainly on geometry to produce an engine that is acoustically resonant. the subject invention described herein is a traveling-wave thermoacoustic engine that conquers the problem of low power density through use of a design methodology and fabrication process conceived and developed by the inventor, in which the specific heat and thermal conductivity of the heat exchanger materials and the working fluid are tailored, in accordance with the designer's desires, to derive a combination of properties that produce specific values of thermal energy capacitance and reactance. thermal capacitance is the property that determines the natural period of thermal energy oscillation in matter. the thermal capacitance of a specific artifact, such as a heat exchanger in a thermoacoustic engine, is determined by design, by manipulating elemental matter with known properties, to produce alloys and compounds with different properties, to wit; artifacts with unique properties of specific heat and thermal conductivity with relation to their temperature swing, mass and geometry. in some cases, pure elements can exhibit the required thermal capacitance for optimal operation of a thermoacoustic engine, but this will occur only in cases where the engine designer has specifically chosen to engineer the engine around the natural properties of an element, rather than for a useful purpose, and even in such rare cases, the designer must still manipulate the surface area per unit mass and the energy coupling factors between components in order to derive a working engine. in other words, when intentionally designed to do so, thermal capacitance regulates the periodic oscillation of energy within the solid-state materials and the working fluid of a thermoacoustic resonator. the principal difference between prior stirling cycle and thermoacoustic cycle engines and the fellows tac engine is that these prior art machines depend upon an acoustic pressure oscillation in the working fluid that is derived from the sonic velocity of the fluid and the geometry of the resonant cavity; while the fellows engine relies upon the thermal resonance of the materials in the heat exchangers. the advantage of this thermal capacitance approach, and the improvement gained thereby to the prior art, is that the solid-state materials that comprise the heat exchangers exhibit thousands of times the volumetric energy density of typical working fluids, therefore, the greatest quantitative portion of the oscillating energy flux is concentrated in the solid-state materials, and when tapped by the subject design methodology, far exceeds the effect of the geometric dimensions of the resonator in determining the frequency of oscillation, the propagation velocity of the wave-train and the energy that can be extracted from the thermoacoustic engine. the effect of this design methodology and fabrication process on the energy density of the invention is so great that, in terms of power output per unit size, energy density is increased by two or three orders of magnitude, over those examples of the prior art in thermoacoustic engines that are known to the inventor. brief summary of the invention the principal improvement on prior art is a significant increase in power density. this is accomplished by the development of an applied engineering design and construction process, by the inventor, in which the principle of thermal resonance of materials, a property determined by the thermal energy capacitance of materials, is applied in a proprietary design methodology in order to manipulate the acoustic properties of a thermoacoustic machine by means of the periodic thermal energy properties of the heat exchanger materials and working fluids, in conjunction with the geometric design of the resonant cavity, rather than by means of the geometry of the cavity and the acoustic properties of the working fluid alone. this thermal resonance of materials principle constitutes a new invention of process, a new art, by which periodic thermal energy flux in matter can be measured, calculated, predicted and manipulated, and these material properties used to increase the energy density of thermoacoustic engines. this principle and the affected material properties are described in us provisional patent application no. 60, 151,349, oscar l. fellows, inventor, august 30, 1999. in the subject invention, multiple heat exchangers reside within an acoustic cavity. a minimum of two heat exchangers is required. the hot-side heat exchanger (hxh), which introduces thermal energy into the working fluid; the cold-side heat exchanger (hx-), which removes thermal energy from the working fluid; and the thermal capacitor (c t ), a type of regenerative heat exchanger that acts as a thermal metronome. g conserves energy in the cycle, aids in amplifying the traveling wave and helps sustain the thermoacoustic flux in the working fluid of the engine. in the minimal design described herein, hxh and c t comprise one unit with multiple functions. this heat exchanger arrangement is similar to prior art, but the invention is novel in the design methodology and fabrication process of the heat exchangers, in that the geometry, physical properties and operating theory of said heat exchangers are based on the inventor's theory of thermal capacitance, and thermal resonance of materials principle. two of the heat exchangers, hx h and hx * , are considered isothermal in that the external thermal gradient across them is considered steady state. in actuality, though the external energy source is ideally injecting energy into the engine at a steady rate, and the external energy sink is removing energy from the engine at a steady rate, the internal thermal gradient across hxh and hxc is in harmonic flux with the resonator frequency, and the heat exchangers are so designed. hxh introduces thermal energy into the working fluid, and hx- removes thermal energy from the working fluid in periodic pulses. these pulses are coincidental with the traveling thermoacoustic waves. traveling waves transiting hx h and hx c inside the engine cavity, periodically present to the heat exchangers a mass of working fluid that is high in density, high in energy amplitude and high in thermal conductivity. in between these periods of high density, are intervals when the working fluid in contact with the heat exchangers is relatively low in density, low in energy content and low in thermal conductivity. when the energy gradient and the relative thermal conductivity are greatest, energy flows between the working fluid and the heat exchangers. when the energy gradient and thermal conductivity are least, the energy flow is least, and results in a dwell period. another way of looking at it is that traveling waves remove thermal energy from hx and deposit it in hx c . these propagating energy pulses, if graphed as a waveform, will appear to be inversely proportional in amplitudes between genesis and decay, or rise and fall times, appearing as a saw tooth waveform in which the rise and fall times of the wave are inverted on opposite sides of the wave maxima, the slope of the amplitude vector. in practice, the rising and falling amplitude angles will be slightly asymmetrical. the approximate waveform is illustrated in the graph labeled "energy cycle in thermal capacitors." these cyclical heat exchangers operate in harmony with, and amplify, an injected waveform to produce a high amplitude fluctuating thermal pressure gradient across the resonator. as in provisional patent application no. 60, 151,349, oscar l. fellows, inventor, august 30, 1999; construction of this invention applies a design process methodology developed solely by the inventor, which shall now be described in depth. the design of the heat exchangers, c r hxh and hxc, involves specifically tailored and manipulated thermal resonance of materials properties, and specific geometry, that make them thermally resonant at a desired frequency, and thereby establish the acoustic period of the engine and working fluid. in other words, the materials are tailored so that they exhibit a natural period of energy oscillation that establishes a synchronous thermal energy flux in the working fluid. to further clarify, this design process methodology takes into account those material properties that combine to produce thermal capacitance, and permits accurate design of passive and active components so that they acquire and discharge thermal energy to and from a working fluid in harmonic resonance with the acoustic period of a traveling wave, when the working fluid is at the desired operating temperature and pressure. the elemental properties of the solid materials are adjusted by doping with other materials to form compounds with specific thermal properties, by surface treating components to create a desired surface effect, and by creative geometry, such as forming metal structures of reticulated foam or plates that exhibit desired surface area to mass and volume ratios. this particularly affects c t , in which the swing in thermal energy amplitude is greatest. the physical properties of the matter comprising the heat exchangers and working fluid, such as their specific heat, thermal conductivity, thermal hysteresis, thermal capacitance, mass, cross-section, surface area, fluid mass-flow-rate, impulse frequency, dwell angle and propagation velocity determine the amount of thermal energy that can be stored in a given mass of material at a given temperature, and the rate at which said thermal energy is conveyed through the mass and coupled to the working fluid. as stated above, these properties are rarely exhibited, in the correct interacting values for a given resonator, by pure elements. compound components and alloys must be created to adjust these values. in some cases, the alloys must be surface treated by plating, ion implantation, plasma deposition and other means to bring the various values into specification. these physical properties, the physical dimensions and geometry of the materials, along with the quantity of thermal throughput energy, and various thermal and frictional impedances, determine the thermodynamic operation of the invention. the heat exchanger materials must absorb and emit thermal energy in harmonic step with the cyclic rhythm, or frequency, of the traveling wave. the flow of thermal energy in the heat exchangers exhibits many properties that are similar in effect to energy flow in an electrical capacitor. for example, thermal reactance and thermal hysteresis are caused by a combination of the change of specific heat of a given material over a temperature range, because it determines the amount of energy required to "charge" a given mass of the material up to a desired thermomotive potential (temperature); and the reciprocal change in the thermal conductivity of the material, which is the inverse of "resistance" to the flow of thermal "current". these variable properties determine the time required for a given quantity of energy to be conveyed through the materials, including the working fluid, of the resonator. materials store thermal energy by increasing the relative distance of their atomic orbitals, analogous to a population inversion in a laser cavity, wherein electrons are pumped to energy levels above the ground state. in the same way, specific heat is linked to atomic structure. so is thermal conductivity. materials convey thermal energy via transfer of energy between adjacent atoms. the ionic and covalent bonds of materials vary, as do their specific heats, and the field strength of these bonds vary with distance, thereby changing the energy absorption properties of the materials with respect to the tension, or amplitude, of the charge. this phenomenon is linked to latent energy storage in matter, a phenomenon that is well documented in the scientific literature. said phenomenon often precedes a change of state, said change of state including changes in energy fields, such as magnetism and quantum states. in the following table, cp = specific heat, k = thermal conductivity, and λ = latent energy. specific heat is in cal/gm/c 0 , total and latent energy is in cal/gm, and thermal conductivity is in watts/cm c°. table showing latent energy of some materials in the materials shown, thermal conductivity varies inversely with specific heat, diminishing the value of the latent energy available per cycle. the thermal impedance in aluminum increases by twenty percent (20%) over the temperature range shown. this is not the case with magnesium, which exhibits a significant latent energy swing and almost no change in thermal conductivity. magnesium then, is a better thermal capacitor, even though its specific thermal conductivity is less than aluminum, because it exhibits less reactance and hysteresis than aluminum. beryllium may be the best choice, for though its conductivity is cut in half over the temperature range, latent energy increases by a factor often. examples of engineered materials with low reactance include iron lattices with grown silver whiskers. such combinations exhibit entirely different properties from the individual metals. doped silicon, glasses, ceramics, carbon compounds, metal oxides, carbides and deposited films are all appropriate materials, depending on the operating parameters desired in a tar. each material, because of its engineered thermal capacitance and reactance, is resonant at a different frequency, a frequency at which the energy oscillation within the material reaches a maximum value. because of these design characteristics, the energy levels in such materials can be pumped at a frequency that is resonant, or "natural", to a given artifact, causing it to exhibit a periodic swing in dynamic amplitude that is alternately significantly greater, and significantly less, than it would be in the same materials under non-resonant conditions. this increases the amplification factor. this property of thermal energy swing amplification is adjustable, by means of changing the pumping period of the energy source, and by changing the energy resonance, or more properly the internal capacitance, of the artifact, via manipulation of the physical properties and geometries of the materials. viewed in terms of thermal energy flow rate (power), this amplification is a manifestation of the inherent non-linear relaxation period, the dwell period, or more appropriately the energy- leveling period, of a given material that is undergoing a change in temperature in which both latent and sensible energy is being transferred. it holds true for fluids as well as solids. the inherent leveling period, which is determined by the changing values of specific heat and thermal conductivity, determines the quantitative energy flow per unit of time, the frequency at which a substance may be pumped in order to achieve the greatest energy swing amplification. as can be seen in the table, because of its large ratio of latent capacity to total energy, and its relatively unchanging thermal conductivity, magnesium has a shorter dwell period than aluminum, and less memory, or hysteresis, at the bottom of its energy well. the change in the apparent specific heat, and the relatively fixed thermal conductivity of the material, result in a high rate of energy transfer, and a greater amplification of the pressure-temperature oscillation of the wave than can be attributed to simple conduction between the heat exchangers and the working fluid. these properties are of little benefit in conventional steady state flow thermal systems, but become extremely important in high frequency cyclical systems such as thermoacoustic and stirling cycle engines. a simpler way of looking at the invention is in terms of apparent overall system impedance. in the prior art, a regenerative heat exchanger creates a small but abrupt change of temperature and pressure within the thermoacoustic wave, a transition in energy amplitude, altering its acoustic wavelength, phase angle and wave propagation velocity. the result is a small periodic pressure-temperature swing between the isothermal heat exchangers that can be output as useful work, and the wave becomes slightly asynchronous (out of phase), losing waveform symmetry. this has heretofore been viewed as a necessary, but performance-limiting, impedance, both in standing wave and traveling-wave prior art. the inventor's design process maintains the synchronicity of the traveling wave in relation to the energy transfer capabilities of the heat exchangers, by application of this thermal resonance of materials principle, thereby reducing apparent overall system impedance and producing a greater amount of output work, in comparison to the total internal energy flux of the engine, than is possible with the prior art. this is essentially impedance matching through resonant coupling. the resulting increase in energy density over the prior art is measured in multiple orders of magnitude. in the preferred embodiment, c t and hx h are physically coupled into a single component. ct-hxh acts as both the metronome and the heat injection point, the primary thermal oscillator. the external input energy to c t -hx h is preferably isothermal, but the internal extension of ct- hxh, that portion in contact with the internal working fluid, exhibits thermal capacitance, an engineered tendency to resonate internal energy at a particular frequency, and is induced by the signal injection means to couple with the working fluid in such a way that it takes up energy from the external source and injects it into the working fluid in a periodic oscillatory manner. this material resonance principle causes the injected signal to be reinforced and amplified more effectively than can be accomplished with the simple addition of thermal energy, as is the case with prior art. it operates in conjunction with hxc, the working fluid and the injected acoustic wave train, to establish the resonant period of the resonator. as a separate component, c t can also be configured as a regenerative device that reduces the amount of waste energy rejected through the cold-side heat exchanger by extracting a portion of the energy from the wave before it is rejected to hxc, and reintroducing it to succeeding waves before they enter hx h , as wave preheat energy. this energy conserving function can reduce the total input-to-output energy ratio of the engine, and increase overall thermal efficiency. these components, their novel arrangement, and the proprietary design process applied in the making of them, as described below, tend to reduce the physical size and increase the power density, operating efficiency, cost effectiveness and design predictability of the invention, thereby improving the art toward widespread commercial applications. the invention, including the design process, operating theory and design characteristics described herein, is a thermoacoustic, microelectromechanical system (mems) that uses acoustic waves to transform thermal energy into electrical energy. in function, the device is a micro miniature traveling wave thermoacoustic cycle engine and generator, and is herein referred to as a thermoacoustic resonator (tar). described simply, the tar is an acoustic cavity containing a compressible working fluid, in which an injected train of traveling waves is amplified by manipulating the thermal flux within the device, and the resulting periodic pressure fluctuation in the working fluid performs work on a freely reciprocating piston-armature assembly. the invention physically incorporates said reciprocating piston-armature assembly, electrical conductors, a magnetic field generating means, a signal injection means and multiple heat exchangers into the acoustic cavity. the heat exchangers in the tar are separated by a substrate that is a thermal insulator, also called a thermal break, that reduces short-circuit thermal conduction between components with differing temperature gradients, in order to limit the path of maximum throughput energy exchange, as much as possible, to the working fluid. the component parts of the tar are disposed within an integral case, or housing. the housing is preferably comprised of metal, though ceramics and thermoplastics can also be used. the tar can be further encapsulated within an external package, to meet varying conditions of use. tars can be made in single autonomous units. multiple unitary tars can be ganged together to form an array. multiple tars can also be manufactured as an integrated panel array, on a common substrate, with a common housing, a common power conditioning circuit, and connected by printed wiring. a single tar can range in size from approximately that of a microchip, with a piston less than one-fourth centimeter in diameter, to more than ten centimeters in diameter. as shown in the table labeled tar.wks, power output depends on the physical dimensions of the pistons and heat exchangers in the device, the static pressure of the working fluid, the magnetic field strength, the thermal gradient across the device, the energy throughput, the frequency of the internal pressure fluctuations, the travel of the attendant piston-armature oscillating within the magnetic field, and the electrical capacity of the internal conductors. in operation, a thermal gradient is established between the external isothermal heat exchangers by heating and cooling means, and coupled to the tar housing. a train of acoustic impulses, also called traveling waves, is injected by the signal injection means and causes the piston-armature to begin oscillating. as the internal components of the tar attain normal operating conditions, the energy amplitude of the traveling wave increases, converting the heat supplied by the thermal energy source into an electrical output current. the frequency of operation is determined by the engineered properties of all the heat exchangers, and to a lesser extent, by the geometry of the acoustic cavity. the propagation velocity of the traveling waves is determined by the nature and operating conditions of the working fluid. said traveling waves propagate through the working fluid from hxh to hx-, transporting thermal energy between the two. said traveling waves take up energy from one heat exchanger, causing said traveling waves to increase in pressure and temperature amplitude in accordance with charles law, and reject energy via another heat exchanger. the amplified traveling waves cause a large fluctuation, or oscillation, in the pressure of the working fluid. the oscillation in pressure in the working fluid causes the piston-armature assembly to reciprocate within a magnetic field, and generates an electric current in an electrical conductor. said electrical conductor is connected to the separate sides of the tar casing by electrically conducting means, so as to form opposite polarity terminals, in order to convey the electrical energy from within the tar to an external load. the outer opposing flat surfaces of the tar housing are designed for contact with the isothermal heat exchangers by which both thermal and electrical energy enter and exit the tar. the tar can be configured so that one or both electric poles are isolated from the thermal casing, if desired. this is a minor detail, and not intrinsic to the operation of the tar. thermally conductive strips can also be bonded to the opposing faces of the tar casing during manufacture, as a means to connect the tar to heat source and heat sink. the tar can then be potted in a non-conductive package, with the conductive strips exposed. the conductive strips can be omitted by bonding the tar directly to conductive hot and cold plates (external heat exchangers), with the tar sandwiched between the plates this works well for ganged arrays designed to achieve a multiplied power output. the preferred manufacturing methods for the micro miniature tars include the formation of the internal heat exchangers, thermal breaks and wiring by those techniques common to the semiconductor industry, including photolithography and chemical machining, ion implantation, doping, material deposition and laser ablation, much like large scale integrated circuits are created on computer chips. integrated tar thermal-to-electric generator panels with specific power conditioning and load capacities can be produced by these means. when affixed to a blackened metal absorber panel, or other radiant-energy absorbing material, and to a cooling means on its opposite face, the tar can convert heat from radiant energy, such as sunlight, into electrical energy. in this respect, the tar responds to a wider bandwidth of radiant energy than photovoltaic cells it can absorb and use wavelengths that are below the photovoltaic threshold for most materials. it is possible to configure the device to absorb and convert electromagnetic energy such as radio waves and microwaves into a different wavelength, such as 60 hertz power, by first converting the absorbed energy to heat. the tar can operate across a wide temperature range. the operating range with common materials is from 100 kelvins to 1200 kelvins. higher temperatures, and thus a wider absolute range, are possible with development of tars using advanced materials, such as ceramics, special composites and high-temperature metal alloys energy conversion efficiencies are directly related to the temperature gradient across the tar a theoretical (carnot) efficiency of 92% (1200k-100k/1200k=0 9167), and realizable efficiencies of 58% (0.920.63=0.58) are possible within the nominal limits of current materials and architecture. thermal energy is admitted to, and emitted from, the tar via conduction and radiation, at the outer case surfaces of the device. the external case surfaces of the tar operate as isothermal heat exchangers. the interior side of the heat exchangers is comprised of a matrix, which is of the proper mass, specific heat, thermal conductivity and surface area to alternately store and transfer the thermal energy to and from the working fluid within a period of time that "matches" the thermal resonance period of the tar heat exchangers. a variety of working fluids are employed in the manufacture of tars. each working fluid has unique physical properties. air and helium are the working fluids preferred for the tar. an example of the calculations involved in determining the working fluid charge is given below: the acoustic velocity of a compression wave in air is: v = 0 1.4p/d where p is the pressure and d the density. the coefficient, 1.4, will vary with the type of working fluid employed. as shown below the velocity of propagation of the traveling high- density wave, also varies directly with temperature. v = v 0 o l+t/273 v = v@stp + nt where velocity is meters/second, n is a coefficient of velocity change for a given working fluid per unit change in temperature, and t is temperature in c°. when the dimensions of the working fluid passages, which comprise the resonant cavity, are matched to the acoustic velocity of the working fluid under given dynamic temperature and pressure parameters, and with the thermal reactance of the thermal capacitors, a resonant frequency, or natural harmonic period of oscillation, is established for the device. operation under these conditions yields maximum efficiency. in the design of the tar, physical size limitations and the energy throughput required for a particular application are the principal determinants of the resonant frequency of the working fluid passages, and therefore, their length and diameter for a given resonant frequency. the fundamental frequency of an air column in a closed pipe, for example, is: n 0 = v/4l v is the wave propagation velocity and l is the length of the air column. in practice, an empirical correction proportional to the diameter of the tube is applied for greater accuracy. the approximate dimensions of the gas passages would then be calculated by the following formula: wavelength = (l + 0.4d) where d is the diameter of the gas passage and l the length. these formulas can be found in the 55th edition of the crc handbook of chemistry and physics. for maximum efficiency, the armature must reciprocate at the resonant frequency of the working fluid, and the traveling wave must arrive at the reflecting surfaces of the moving piston- armature assembly, in phase with it. the piston-armature assembly is a reciprocating mass, with an oscillation period designed to coincide with the resonant frequency of the working fluid under extant conditions. if a resonant condition between the armature and the acoustic velocity of the working fluid does not exist, a sub-optimal operating efficiency will result. this condition will cause the compression wave to be out of phase with the motion of the armature and the device will tend to damp its own oscillation and hence reduce its efficiency. the period required for transit of thermal energy through the heat exchangers and thermal capacitors must be calculated so that these components also accrete and discharge thermal energy in phase with the acoustic wave train. mass flow rates through the matrices of these components, specific heat of the materials and their thermal conductivity determine their porosity, web thickness and area per unit volume. in this transient-flow cycle, these factors translate into thermal capacitance (c t >, thermal reactance (x t ) and thermal impedance (z t ). the period required for complete energy leveling in a heat exchanger or thermal capacitor is divided into five parts, or five time constants. this is done because the rate of energy exchange between components is not linear, and work or power is measured as the rate of flow per unit of time. in any such non-linear system, peak power is usually achieved by cycling the system in a period that is less than the complete energy-leveling period. in the tar, the rate of energy exchange between components during the first time constant is sixty-three percent (63%) of the available energy. to extend the working cycle for four additional time constants, in order to harvest the remaining thirty-seven percent (37%), would decrease the overall power of the system. the rate of energy exchange changes logarithmically, and this is why thermal reactance and hysteresis are critical. for example, if total available energy is 100 joules, 63 joules will flow during the first time constant, 23.3 joules during the second time constant, 8.63 joules during the third time constant, 3.2 joules during the fourth time constant, and 1.87 joules during the fifth time constant if the thermodynamic cycle is one time constant in duration, the average rate of flow, or power, is 63 joules per cycle if the cycle is two time constants in duration, the average rate of flow is 63 + 23 / 2 = 43 joules per cycle. therefore, the system has a greater power output if the cycle is limited to one time constant in duration. time>» graph of quantitative energy flow per time constant as illustrated in the graph above, during each time-constant, 63% of the energy remaining in the energy donor is transferred to the energy recipient. the actual quantity depends upon temperature swing and duration of the swing, and the change in specific thermal conductivity and specific heat of the elements of the system over the temperature swing. this design knowledge permits specification of all heat exchangers in the machine so that they are closely matched to the energy transfer cycle desired through the machine, since it takes the acoustic velocity of the working fluid and the thermal impedances of all other interacting elements into account. in a periodic flow system, the thermal reactance (x t ) of any component will be the average of the angle of the amplitude and period of the energy transferred during the half-cycle. this will always be 0.63 of the available energy. the available energy is a factor of the reactance and hysteresis of the material. the value of the available energy in one time-constant is used in the inventor's formula to calculate the optimum quantity of energy exchanged in a given period in a transient-flow cycle. there are five time-constants in the cyclic swing between the minimum and maximum energy storage capacity of an element, during a period of alternating amplitude energy exchange. this number is the resulting coefficient multiplied against the carnot number that yields the nominal actual performance of the device. other factors, such as frictioπal losses within the gas passages, non-ideal gas behavior of the working fluid, cross-conduction of thermal energy, tangential reflection of acoustic energy and other impedances can affect the actual final energy conversion efficiency. the elements in the system appear to the energy flow as thermal impedances (z t ), the z t of an individual element being determined by its xt, hysteresis and the acoustic resonance of the system. overall system impedance is determined by the system designer, the object being to design for minimal z t , and synchronous, or harmonic operation among all the interacting elements. the point expressed here is that the parameters of all the system elements interplay to create the machine's performance, and that by using the inventor's proprietary design methodology, these parameters can be calculated to achieve consistent, optimum results. the tar is physically comprised of three principal sections; the hot-side heat exchanger; the cold-side heat exchanger; and sandwiched between them, a non-conductive thermal break. the thermal break serves as a substrate into which the component parts of the tar are assembled. it contains passages for the working fluid, and a centrally located cavity that houses a piston-armature assembly, said piston-armature assembly comprised of a piston-armature suspension, armature electrical conductors and a field magnet structure. these three principal sections are housed, or sandwiched, between two separate layers that comprise an electrically and thermally conductive outer casing, or envelope. in the case of multiple tars manufactured as an integrated panel array on a common substrate, the outer casing will be comprised of contiguous conductive layers laminated to both sides of the non-conductive substrate, which is a contiguous thermal break, to form a single panel, with said multiple tars and their connecting printed wiring sandwiched between. the tar components and the working fluid are disposed within the casing. ct-hx is a specially engineered heat exchanger, with integrated wave-guide. it couples the thermal source energy to the internal working fluid of the tar, vectors traveling waves in the proper direction and maintains system impedance. c t -hx h exhibits thermal resonance properties that couple most efficiently with traveling waves of a specific frequency, and less efficiently with the stagnant medium (the working fluid) through which the traveling waves propagate. a multiplicity of holes, or ports, extend through the thermal break in order to communicate thermoacoustic energy between the hot side heat exchanger and the cold side heat exchanger. the traveling waves exit c t -hx h at an amplified temperature and pressure, and continue on through the connecting ports in the thermal break, through connecting passages, toward the piston-armature assembly. said piston-armature assembly and passages are separated from the cold-side heat exchanger (hx.) by an inertance plate. the traveling waves are slowed and phase shifted between the piston-armature assembly and the inertance plate, where peak pressure is attained, and they perform work on the piston-armature assembly, causing the piston- armature assembly to reciprocate in step with the pressure fluctuations of the working fluid, and convert said pressure fluctuations into electrical energy. thermal energy remaining in the traveling waves is metered through the orifice in the inertance plate, into the internal matrix of the cold-side heat exchanger (hxc), where the remaining energy is transmitted, via conduction, through the thermally conductive outer casing of the tar to an external heat sink. when the high-pressure maxima of the wave train are within the cavity between the piston-armature assembly and the inertance plate (the dwell cavity), the low-pressure node is within hxh. the piston-armature assembly resists the pressure of the traveling wave, pushing it back toward hxh, and also pushing it through the metering orifices of the inertance plate into hxc. stirling cycle compression occurs in the dwell cavity for a period corresponding to eight to twelve degrees (8° -12°) of the cycle. the cooler pressure wave tends to rebound, driven both by the displacement of the rebounding armature mass and the physical oscillation caused by the changing pressure in the working fluid, back into ct-hxh. the tar engineer strives to extract maximum energy to the piston-armature assembly, to dump whatever remains of the energy into hxc, and to minimize the reflected wave, which represents impedance. the energy in the return wave is counter to the velocity vector of the wave train, and if improperly controlled, will conflict with succeeding traveling waves entering ct-hxh from the signal injecting means. the tar engineer strives to time the arrival of the reflected wave so that it arrives at ct-hxh during the nodal portion (minimal energy flow) of the injected signal, thereby reducing destructive impedance and reinforcing the oscillation. the drop in system pressure, caused by the loss of energy through hxc, now offers a large thermal gradient across hx h , and energy flows to the working fluid, causing a rapid increase in temperature and pressure within hx h , and generating a new, high density wavefront that moves through the device toward hx c , thereby repeating the cycle. the periodic oscillation and energy exchange that takes place within the internal elements is illustrated in the following graph. the time-constants inherent in the energy exchange are also depicted. the amplitude, or swing, of the temperature and pressure gradients is greatest across ct-hxh, but the energy exchange through hxc, and the oscillation period of the piston-armature must coincide with the rising and falling pressure of the traveling wave in order to realize peak efficiency from the device. the graph shows approximately one-and-two-thirds cycles. energy cycle in thermal capacitors time-»> the function of ct-hxh is to transfer an external energy stream to an internal working fluid in a periodic manner, in order to maximize the pressure swing in the cycle, and to establish the baseline period of the oscillating pressure-temperature gradient of the traveling wave in operation, the piston-armature assembly synchronously reciprocates with the oscillations in pressure. the armature is comprised of magnet-steel laminates and electrical conductors so disposed that they cut the lines of magnetic flux created by the magnetic field generating means, and produce an electric current in said electrical conductors the armature is suspended between the poles of the magnetic-field generating means, a permanent magnet or electromagnet, by mechanical bearings and the flexible suspension of the piston. the fluctuating pressure gradient within the working fluid causes the armature to reciprocate within the magnetic field, thereby causing an electric current to be induced in the armature conductors. said electric current is conveyed, via conducting means, from the armature to the outer casing of the tar, and to an external load in the working cycle, thermal energy is transferred from the hot-side heat exchanger to the cold-side heat exchanger via traveling waves that traverse the working fluid in periods of typically less than a few milliseconds. at a frequency often kilohertz (10 khz) for example, the period of sonic oscillation is one hundred microseconds (100 usec). gas pressure in a confined volume increases with increases in temperature on the order of 1/273 units, or 0.0037 per k°. for example, a static pressure of 10 kg/cm 2 will become 13 8 kg cm 2 with a 100 c° increase in temperature this pressure fluctuation of 3.8 kg/cm 2 will result in a force that is a multiple of the area it acts upon, which in this case, is the area of the piston for example, assume the area of the piston is one square centimeter, and the resultant force is (1 cm 2 3 8 kg/cm 2 = 3 8 kgf) assume that the piston travel is 2 0 millimeters and the tar is operating at a frequency of 5340 hz. the tar in this example will develop theoretical work of approximately 40.5 kg-m/sec, or 400 watts. if the hot-side temperature is 500k, and the cold-side temperature is 400k, the carnot efficiency will be: e = t1 - t2 / t1 500k - 400k / 500 = 0.20 our thermal capacitance theory gives a maximum of sixty-three percent (0.63) of carnot: 0.20 * 0.63 = 0.126, = 12.6% eff. therefore, our 400 watts of potential becomes (400 * 0.126 =) 50 watts. not bad from a disk that fits in the palm of your hand. if the temperature delta is increased to 300c°, for example: 700k - 400k = 300k / 700 = 0.429 0.429 * 0.63 = 0.27, or 27% eff 400 watts * 0.27 = 108 watts the actual value of work produced by the tar is limited by internal losses such as frictional impedance in the gas passages and heat exchangers, and the mechanical and electrical limits imposed by the physical size of the device. in a device of one centimeter diameter, for example, the armature winding must employ a wire conductor of very small cross-section in order to obtain a sufficient number of turns to produce a nominal voltage within the tiny magnet structure, and the current-carrying capacity of the small conductor limits the actual output. in the micro miniature sizes, these constraints will become increasingly important to the design of the device. the conductors and heat exchange elements will be etched into materials a few microns in cross-section. the most significant limiting factors with regard to operating life and generating capacity will be the mechanical strength and durability of the armature suspension, which is the only moving component, and the current carrying capacity of the armature winding. regarding the suspension, similar operating conditions can be found in high-frequency audio speakers, called tweeters, which have commonly demonstrated intermittent duty lives in excess of twenty years. regarding winding ampacity, a coiled ribbon conductor of copper or silver, 0.2 millimeter in cross-section, can easily carry one to two amperes. the number of turns of the winding, the frequency of oscillation and the field strength of the magnet structure will determine the developed voltage, or electromotive force (emf), produced by the tar. a ribbon conductor will increase current capacity by permitting greater cross-sectional area for a given length coil. when all the aforementioned elements are factored in with the thermal and mechanical limitations of the materials, a one-centimeter tar with external heat sinks of appropriate capacity, will support several watts of throughput. power will increase with size, because larger conductors and more robust mechanical elements can be employed. for example, an 11.3 cm diameter tar can handle approximately a kilowatt of throughput with a nominal conversion efficiency of 40%-50%. the micro-miniature sizes will typically be used in lower-temperature applications, where the temperature gradient across the tar is small. to summarize: in action, the tar acts as a thermal-to-electric energy converter. in the process of conducting thermal energy from its hot-side heat exchanger to its cold-side heat exchanger, the device converts a portion of the thermal energy into electrical energy. in very small tars (sub-centimeter diameter), where current requirements are low, the armature winding and magnetic field generating means can be replaced with a piezo-electric crystal, a component well known in science and industry, in which fluctuations in pressure generate a difference in electromotive potential across the crystal, and result in a small current flow. in a reverse-entropy cycle, a gated electrical current can be applied to the tar to cause it to pump heat through the device, thereby acting as a heat pump and producing refrigeration. when used as a miniature heat pump, the thermal efficiency of the device is again dependent upon the applied electrical impulses being of a frequency that is in phase with the thermoacoustic resonance of the internal components and the working fluid of the device, and the absolute temperatures of the thermal gradient across the device. the internal pressure is caused to fluctuate by the electrically induced motion of the piston-armature assembly, setting a wave train in motion, and thermal energy is admitted and rejected through the device in reverse direction to the flow when used as a thermal-electric generator, pumping thermal energy from a low- temperature source to a higher-temperature heat sink. brief description of the several views of the drawing the tar will be described with reference to drawings that are not to scale: figure 1 is a cross-sectional view of a six-layer laminate comprised of a thermal break sandwiched between two layers of porous conductive material that are, in turn, sandwiched between two plates of solid conductive material that form the outer envelope casing of the device. the drawing portrays these elements as they have been formed from the compound laminate, from which the resonator is assembled, illustrating the working fluid passages, cold-side heat exchanger, hot-side heat exchanger, armature and magnet structure. figure 2 is a planar view of the cold side of the resonator, showing a centrally located armature piston surrounded by a circular array of orifices that extend through the thermal break and connect the gas passages. also shown, as a block, is the power conditioning micro-circuitry, and the buss connector pads. the face of the thermal break has gas passages recessed into it. figure 3 is a planar view of the armature piston, showing the pressure relief orifice. figure 4 is a cross-sectional view of an armature piston, coil assembly and magnet structure. figure 5 is a planar view of an individually packaged tar, fully assembled. figure 6 is a cross-sectional view of an individually packaged tar. figure 7 is a planar view of multiple micro-miniature, ganged tars, comprising a panel array module complete with printed wiring. detailed description of the invention with respect to figure 1; the thermal break 3 is a thermal insulating means, preferably a material such as pressed fiber, ceramic or plastic, although other materials can be used, even metals that are poor conductors of heat. the purpose of the thermal break 3 is to minimize short- circuit thermal conduction between the two outer heat exchanger assemblies 2 and 8, and to reduce conductive losses and increase thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency. heat exchanger elements 2 and 8 are comprised of thermally conductive materials that typically have a large surface area to volume ratio, and very thin cross sections, bonded to the external conduction surfaces 1 in order to transfer thermal energy from the energy source to the internal working fluid, and from the internal working fluid to the heat sink, very rapidly. the hot-side heat exchanger 2 and cold-side heat exchanger 8 differ in their geometry, to compensate for the physical property changes in the working fluid that are due to changing temperature, pressure and acoustic wave propagation velocity. the thermal break 3 has working fluid passages 11 that permit acoustic communication between heat exchangers 2 and 8 via connecting ports 6, thereby permitting rapid transit of pressure and thermal energy from one side of the thermal break 3 to the other. a layer proximate to the thermal break comprises an inertance plate 7 that separates the working fluid passages 11 from the cold-side heat exchanger 8. an acoustic wave generating means 5, that is driven by an external oscillator, emits a train of acoustic traveling waves that transit the hot-side heat exchanger 2, and radiate outward through the gas passages and the connecting ports 6 at the periphery of the thermal break, and back through the gas passages 11 on the opposite side of the thermal break 3, toward the dwell cavity where the armature piston 10 is disposed. after acting upon the armature piston, the stalled pressure waves exit the dwell cavity through a metering orifice 19 in the inertance plate 7, and subside into the cold-side heat exchanger 8, where they give up the remaining energy to a heat sink. the pressure waves arriving in the dwell cavity between the armature piston 10 and the inertance plate 7 cause the armature assembly 9 to reciprocate within the magnet structure 4, which induces an electric current in the conductive coil integrated into armature assembly 9, and the resulting current is carried away to an external load by conducting means not shown. with respect to figure 2; a multiplicity of ports 6 extend through the thermal break 3, permitting acoustic communication between the armature piston 10 and dwell cavity, and the acoustic wave generating means. traveling waves conveying energy flow through the thermal break 3 via said ports 6, to the opposite side. printed wiring conductors 12 and junction pads 14 are located on the thermal break 3 for connecting the tar to a common wiring buss not shown that exports the electrical energy generated by the armature of the tar to an external load not shown. one of the conductors passes through a power conditioning means 13, shown here as a block diagram. with respect to figure 3; the piston-armature assembly 10 has a suspension 16 that holds it securely in place in the thermal break, and centered in the magnet structure. the piston is ported 15 in the center to relieve pressure across the piston-armature assembly 10 when the tar is idle, but is sufficiently small so that it does not substantially reduce piston travel, oscillation or energy output when the device is active. with respect to figure 4, the piston-armature assembly 10 and coil assembly 9 and 17, and the magnet structure 4, are shown in cross-section. the armature coil 17 is a small gauge conductor wound in a grooved ferrous ring 9. the piston-armature is cast, machined or molded to house the ring 9 and coil 17 assembly, and hold it in suspension, centered within the magnet structure 4. movement of coil assembly 9 and 17 with relation to the fixed magnet structure 4 induces an electric current in the coil 17. the ends of the conductor 17 penetrate the armature- piston suspension 16 and exit the device to the external wiring and terminal pads. with respect to figure 5; a conductive housing 1 contains an individual tar assembly. a perimeter ring 18 secures the two external heat exchangers to the center substrate as shown in figure 6. with respect to figure 6, an individual tar is housed in a disk comprised of two halves of a thermally conductive outer case 1, held together around a central thermal break 3. the thermal break 3 has passages 11 for the working fluid to reside in, a central depression to contain the acoustic wave generating means 5, the piston-armature assembly 10, coil ring 9, magnet structure 4, and multiple ports 6. the inertance plate 7 with metering orifice 19 is disposed between the piston-armature assembly 10 and the cold-side heat exchanger 8. the hot-side heat exchanger 2 and cold-side heat exchanger 8 are contained in, and bonded to, the two outer conductive halves 1 of the device. with respect to figure 7, a plurality of tars are arrayed on a module board, complete with interconnecting printed wiring 12, a common power conditioning means 13, and common terminal pads 14. in this configuration, many miniature devices are ganged together, similar to a ganged array of photovoltaic cells, to form engineered power modules for specific purposes, such as converting solar radiation into electrical power for a spacecraft or utility grid. the tars can be produced in this fashion for ease of quantity manufacturing, using processes and equipment similar to those processes and equipment commonly found in the manufacture of electronic integrated circuit semiconductor chips.
085-206-111-970-139	US	[ "US" ]	G06F17/00,G07F17/32	2013-10-07T00:00:00	2013	[ "G06", "G07" ]	supplementary mode of an interleaved wagering system	an interleaved wagering system is disclosed. the system includes an interactive controller constructed to communicate application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller. the system also includes a wager controller constructed to communicate a wager result associated with a received wager request. the system also includes the application controller operatively connected to the interactive controller and the wager controller, and constructed to: receive application telemetry; upon receiving application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate a notification to provide a supplementary mode session. the interactive controller is further constructed to: provide the supplementary mode session upon receiving the supplementary mode notification; communicate results of the supplementary mode session. the application controller is further constructed to: receive the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate a request for benefits.	1. an interleaved wagering system, comprising: an interactive controller constructed to communicate, to an application controller, a first application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and the application controller operatively connected to the interactive controller and the wager controller, and constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the first application telemetry; communicate the wager request to the wager controller; receive, from the wager controller, the wager result; communicate, to the interactive controller, updated user resources based on the received wager outcome; receive, from the interactive controller, a second application telemetry; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session, wherein the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the updated user resources; provide the updated user resources within the interactive application; communicate, to the application controller, the second application telemetry; receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session, and wherein the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. 2. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the interactive controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the wager controller by a network. 3. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the wager controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the interactive controller by a network. 4. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the application controller is further constructed to store a parameter value; and update the parameter value based on the received application telemetry, and wherein triggering the supplementary mode is based on whether the updated parameter value exceeds a threshold value. 5. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein triggering the supplementary mode is based on an indication received from a third party. 6. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the benefit pool controller is constructed to: accumulate a benefit pool; receive, from the application controller, a request for benefits; and communicate, to the application controller, benefits, based on the request for benefits. 7. the interleaved wagering system of claim 6 , wherein the benefit pool is accumulated based on a benefit contribution received from the wager controller. 8. the interleaved wagering system of claim 6 , wherein the benefit pool is accumulated based on benefits received from a third party, wherein the third party is an operator of the interleaved wagering system. 9. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill. 10. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on chance. 11. the interleaved wagering system of claim 1 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill and chance. 12. an application controller of an interleaved wagering system, comprising: an interactive controller interface operatively connecting the application controller to an interactive controller constructed to communicate, to an application controller, a first application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; a wager controller interface operatively connecting the application controller to a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and one or more processing modules constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the first application telemetry; communicate the wager request to the wager controller; receive, from the wager controller, the wager result; communicate, to the interactive controller, updated user resources based on the received wager outcome; receive, from the interactive controller, a second application telemetry; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session, wherein the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the updated user resources; provide the updated user resources within the interactive application; communicate, to the application controller, the second application telemetry; receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session, and wherein the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. 13. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the interactive controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the wager controller by a network. 14. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the wager controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the interactive controller by a network. 15. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the wager controller by a network, and wherein the application controller is operatively connected to the interactive controller by a network. 16. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the application controller is further constructed to store a parameter value; and update the parameter value based on the received application telemetry, and wherein triggering the supplementary mode is based on whether the updated parameter value exceeds a threshold value. 17. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein triggering the supplementary mode is based on an indication received from a third party. 18. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the benefit pool controller is constructed to: accumulate a benefit pool; receive, from the application controller, a request for benefits; and communicate, to the application controller, benefits, based on the request for benefits. 19. the interleaved wagering system of claim 18 , wherein the benefit pool is accumulated based on a benefit contribution received from the wager controller. 20. the interleaved wagering system of claim 18 , wherein the benefit pool is accumulated based on benefits received from a third party, wherein the third party is an operator of the interleaved wagering system. 21. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill. 22. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on chance. 23. the interleaved wagering system of claim 12 , wherein the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill and chance. 24. an interleaved wagering system, comprising: a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and an application controller of an interleaved wagering system operatively connecting the wager controller to an interactive controller by a network, the application controller constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, a first application telemetry; communicate the wager request to the wager controller; receive, from the wager controller, the wager result; communicate, to the interactive controller, updated user resources based on the received wager outcome; receive, from the interactive controller, a second application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; upon receiving the second application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session; receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. 25. an interleaved wagering system, comprising: an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system constructed to communicate, to an application controller, a first application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; and an application controller of an interleaved wagering system operatively connecting the interactive controller to a wager controller, the application controller constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the first application telemetry; communicate the wager request to the wager controller; receive, from the wager controller, the wager result; communicate, to the interactive controller, updated user resources based on the received wager outcome; receive, from the interactive controller, a second application telemetry; upon receiving the second application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session, wherein the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the updated user resources; provide the updated user resources within the interactive application; communicate, to the application controller, the second application telemetry; receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session, and wherein the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits.	cross reference to related applications this application is a continuation-in-part of patent cooperation treaty (pct) application no. pct/us14/59563, filed oct. 7, 2014, which claims priority of u.s. provisional patent application no. 61/887,758, filed oct. 7, 2013; furthermore, this application claims priority to u.s. provisional patent application no. 61/911,755, filed dec. 4, 2013, the disclosures of each of which are incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. this application references patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us11/26768, filed mar. 1, 2011, patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us11/63587, filed dec. 6, 2011, and patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us12/58156, filed sep. 29, 2012, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference. field of the invention embodiments of the present invention are generally related to communications within data processing systems. more particularly, the present invention relates to the communication and processing of wagering data. background the gaming industry has traditionally developed electronic gaming machines that present simple wagering games to a user. the communication and processing needs for these simple wagering games are easily met using conventional processing systems. however, more complicated wagering games need communication and processing systems that are better suited for implementing these more complicated wagering games. various aspects of embodiments of the present invention meet such a need. summary of the invention systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention provide a communication and data processing system constructed for an interleaved wagering system. in an example embodiment, an interleaved wagering system, comprises an interactive controller constructed to communicate, to an application controller, application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and the application controller operatively connected to the interactive controller and the wager controller. the application controller is constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, application telemetry; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session. the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session. the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. in some embodiments, the interactive controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and the application controller is operatively connected to the wager controller by a network. in some embodiments, the wager controller and the application controller are constructed from the same device, and the application controller is operatively connected to the interactive controller by a network. in some embodiments, the application controller is further constructed to store a parameter value; and update the parameter value based on the received application telemetry, and triggering the supplementary mode is based on whether the updated parameter value exceeds a threshold value. in some embodiments, triggering the supplementary mode is based on an indication received from a third party. in some embodiments, the benefit pool controller is constructed to: accumulate a benefit pool; receive, from the application controller, a request for benefits; and communicate, to the application controller, benefits, based on the request for benefits. in some embodiments, the benefit pool is be accumulated based on a benefit contribution received from the wager controller. in some embodiments, the benefit pool is accumulated based on benefits received from a third party, where the third party is an operator of the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill. in some embodiments, the results of the supplementary mode session is based on chance. in some embodiments, the results of the supplementary mode session is based on skill and chance. in another example embodiment, an application controller of an interleaved wagering system comprises: an interactive controller interface operatively connecting the application controller to an interactive controller constructed to communicate, to an application controller, application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; a wager controller interface operatively connecting the application controller to a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and one or more processing modules constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, application telemetry; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session. the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session. the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. in another example embodiment, an interleaved wagering system comprises: a wager controller constructed to communicate, to the application controller, a wager result associated with a received wager request; and an application controller of an interleaved wagering system operatively connecting the wager controller to an interactive controller by a network. the application controller is constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session; receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. in another example embodiment, an interleaved wagering system, comprises: an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system constructed to communicate, to an application controller, application telemetry associated with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller; and an application controller of an interleaved wagering system operatively connecting the interactive controller to a wager controller. the application controller is constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, application telemetry; upon receiving the application telemetry, determine whether to trigger a supplementary mode; when triggering the supplementary mode is determined, communicate, to the interactive controller, a notification to provide a supplementary mode session. the interactive controller is further constructed to: receive, from the application controller, the notification to provide the supplementary mode session; provide the supplementary mode session; communicate, to the application controller, results of the supplementary mode session. the application controller is further constructed to: receive, from the interactive controller, the results of the supplementary mode session; and when the received results are successful, communicate, to a benefit pool controller, a request for benefits. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a diagram of a structure of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. figs. 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d are illustrations of interactive controllers of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. figs. 3a, 3b and 3c are network diagrams of distributed interleaved wagering systems in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. figs. 4a and 4b are diagrams of a structure of an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. figs. 5a and 5b are diagrams of a structure of a wager controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. figs. 6a and 6b are diagrams of a structure of an application controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. fig. 7 is a sequence diagram of interactions between components of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. fig. 8 is a collaboration diagram for components of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. fig. 9 is a diagram of interactions between various components of the system and processes in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. fig. 10 is a diagram of the structure of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. fig. 11 is a sequence diagram of interactions between components of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. detailed description an interleaved wagering system interleaves wagering with non-wagering activities. in some embodiments of an interleaved wagering system an interactive application executed by an interactive controller provides non-wagering components of the interleaved wagering system. the interactive controller is operatively connected to an application controller that manages and configures the interactive application of the interactive controller and determines when wagers should be interleaved with the operations of the interactive application. the application controller is further operatively connected to a wager controller that provides one or more wagering propositions for one or more wagers. in some embodiments, the interactive controller also includes a wagering user interface that is used to display data about a wagering process, including but not limited a wager outcome of a wager made in accordance with a wagering proposition. the content of the wagering user interface is controlled by the application controller and includes content provided by the wager controller. in several embodiments, a user or user interactions are represented in an interleaved wagering system by the electronic representation of interactions between the user and the interactive application, typically received via a user interface of the interactive application, and a user profile of the interleaved wagering system associated with the user. many different types of interactive applications may be utilized with the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the interactive application reacts to the physical activity of the user. in these embodiments, the user interacts with the interactive application through one or more sensors that monitor the user's physical activities. such sensors may include, but are not limited to, physiological sensors that monitor the physiology of the user, environmental sensors that monitor the physical environment of the user, accelerometers that monitor changes in motion of the user, and location sensors that monitor the location of the user such as global positioning sensors. in some embodiments, the interactive application is a skill-based interactive game that is played by the user. in some embodiments, the interactive application is a tool used by the user to achieve some useful goal. in operation, a user interacts with the interactive application using various types of elements of the interactive application in an interactive application environment. elements are interactive application resources utilized by the user within the interactive application environment to provide an interactive experience for the user. wagers of credits are made in accordance with a wagering proposition as triggered by the user's use of one or more of the elements of the interactive application. wager outcomes of wagers of credits made in accordance with the wagering proposition can cause consumption, loss or accrual of credits. in accordance with some embodiments, wager outcomes of wagering events can influence elements in the interactive application such as, but not limited to, providing one or more new elements, restoring one or more consumed elements, causing the loss of one or more elements, and restoration or placement of one or more fixed elements. in various embodiments, the wagers may be made using real world credit (rc). in some embodiments, rc can be one or more credits that are purchased using, and redeemed in, a real world currency having a real world value. in many embodiments, rc can be one or more credits in a virtual currency. virtual currency can be thought of as a form of alternate currency that can be acquired, purchased or transferred in unit or in bulk by or to a user but does not necessarily directly correlate to a real currency. in many such embodiments, rc are allowed to be purchased using a real world currency but are prevented from being redeemed in a real world currency having a real world value. in several embodiments, during interaction with the interactive application using the elements, a user can optionally consume and/or accrue application environment credit (ac) within the interactive application as a result of the user's use of the interactive application. ac can be in the form of, but is not limited to, application environment credits, experience points, and points generally. in various embodiments, when the interactive application is a skill-based interactive game, ac is awarded to a player of the skill-based interactive game on the basis of the player's skillful play of the skill-based interactive game. in such embodiments, ac may be analogous to the score in a typical video game. the skill-based interactive game can have one or more scoring criteria, embedded within an application controller and/or an interactive controller that provides the skill-based interactive game that reflect user performance against goal(s) of the skill-based interactive game. in many embodiments, ac can be used to purchase in-game items, including but not limited to, elements that have particular properties, power ups for existing items, and other item enhancements. in many embodiments, ac may be used to earn entrance into a sweepstakes drawing, to earn entrance in a tournament with prizes, to score in the tournament, and/or to participate and/or score in any other game event. in many embodiments, ac can be stored on a user-tracking card or in a network-based user tracking system where the ac is attributed to a specific user. in many embodiments, a wagering proposition includes a wager of ac for a wager outcome of a randomly generated payout of interactive application ac, elements, and/or objects in accordance with a wagering proposition. in a number of embodiments, a wager of an amount of rc results in a wager outcome of a payout of ac, elements, and/or objects that have an rc value if cashed out. in some embodiments, in a case that an interactive application is a skill-based interactive game, interactive application objects include in-game objects that may be used by a player of the skill-based interactive game to enhance the player's gameplay of the skill-based interactive game. such objects include, but are not limited to, power-ups, enhanced in-game items, and the like. in some embodiments, the interactive application objects include objects that are detrimental to the player's play of the skill-based interactive game such as, but not limited to, obstructions in the game space, a temporary player handicap, an enhanced opponent, and the like. in some embodiments, elements in an interactive application include, but are not limited to, enabling elements (ee) that are interactive application environment resources utilized during the user's use of the interactive application and whose utilization by the user while using the interactive application triggers execution of a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition. in another embodiment, elements in an interactive application include, but are not limited to, a reserve enabling element (ree), that is an element that converts into one or more enabling elements upon occurrence of a release event during an interactive session. in yet another embodiment, elements in an interactive application include, but are not limited to, an actionable element (ae) that is an element that is acted upon during use of the interactive application to trigger a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition and may or may not be restorable during normal play of the interactive application. in yet another embodiment, elements in an interactive application include, but are not limited to, a common enabling element (cee) that is an element that may be shared by two or more users and causes a wagering event and associated wager to be triggered in accordance with the wagering proposition when used by one of the users during use of the interactive application. in some embodiments, in progressing through interactive application use, a user can utilize elements during interactions with a controlled entity (ce). a ce is a character, entity, inanimate object, device or other object under control of a user. in accordance with some embodiments of an interleaved wagering system, the triggering of the wagering event and/or wager can be dependent upon an interactive application environment variable such as, but not limited to, a required object (ro), a required environmental condition (rec), or a controlled entity characteristic (cec). a ro is a specific interactive application object in an interactive application acted upon for an ae to be completed. a non-limiting example of an ro is a specific key needed to open a door. an rec is an interactive application state present within an interactive application for an ae to be completed. a non-limiting example of an rec is daylight whose presence enables a character to walk through woods. a cec is a status of the ce within an interactive application for an ae to be completed. a non-limiting example of a cec is requirement that a ce have full health points before entering battle. although various interactive application resources such as, but not limited to, the types of interactive application elements as discussed herein may be used to trigger a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition, one skilled in the art will recognize that any interactive application resource can be utilized in an interleaved wagering system to trigger of a wager as appropriate to the specification of a specific application in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. in several embodiments, an interleaved wagering system can utilize an application controller to monitor use of the interactive application executed by an interactive controller for detecting a trigger of a wagering event. the trigger for the wagering event can be detected by the application controller from the utilization of the interactive application in accordance with at least one wagering event occurrence rule. the trigger of the wagering event can be communicated to a wager controller. in response to notification of the trigger, the wager controller executes a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition. in addition, use of an interactive application in an interleaved wagering system can be modified by the application controller based upon the wager outcome. in several embodiments, a wagering event occurrence can be determined from one or more application environment variables within an interactive application that are used to trigger a wager and/or associated wager in accordance with a wagering proposition. application environment variables can include, but are not limited to, passage of a period of time during interleaved wagering system interactive application use, a result from an interleaved wagering system interactive application session (such as, but not limited to, achieving a goal or a particular score), a user action that is a consumption of an element, or a user action that achieves a combination of elements to be associated with a user profile. in numerous embodiments, an interactive application instruction is an instruction to an interactive controller and/or an interactive application to modify an interactive application state or modify one or more interactive application resources. in some embodiments, the interactive application instructions may be based upon one or more of a wager outcome and application environment variables. an interactive application instruction can modify any aspect of an interactive application, such as, but not limited to, an addition of a period of time available for a current interactive application session for the interactive application of interleaved wagering system, an addition of a period of time available for a future interleaved wagering system interactive application session or any other modification to the interactive application elements that can be utilized during interactive application use. in some embodiments, an interactive application instruction can modify a type of element whose consumption triggers a wagering event occurrence. in many embodiments, an interactive application instruction can modify a type of element whose consumption is not required in a wagering event occurrence. in a number of embodiments, a user interface can be utilized that depicts a status of the interactive application in the interleaved wagering system. a user interface can depict any aspect of an interactive application including, but not limited to, an illustration of interleaved wagering system interactive application use advancement as a user uses the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, an interleaved wagering system including an application controller operatively connected to a wager controller and operatively connected to an interactive controller may provide for interleaving entertainment content from an interactive application. the interleaved wagering system provides for random wager outcomes in accordance with the wagering proposition that are independent of user skill while providing an interactive experience to the user that may be shaped by the user's skill. in several embodiments, an application controller of an interleaved wagering system may provide for a communications interface for asynchronous communications between a wager controller and an interactive application provided by an interactive controller, by operatively connecting the interactive controller, and thus the interactive controller's interactive application, with the wager controller. in some embodiments, asynchronous communications provided for by an interleaved wagering system may reduce an amount of idle waiting time by an interactive controller of the interleaved wagering system, thus increasing an amount of processing resources that the interactive controller may provide to an interactive application or other processes of the interactive controller. in many embodiments, asynchronous communications provided for by an interleaved wagering system reduces an amount of idle waiting time by a wager controller, thus increasing an amount of processing resources that the wager controller may provide to execution of wagers to determine wager outcomes, and other processes provided by the wager controller. in some embodiments, a wager controller of an interleaved wagering system may be operatively connected to a plurality of interactive controllers through one or more application controllers and the asynchronous communications provided for by the one or more application controllers allows the wager controller to operate more efficiently and provide wager outcomes to a larger number of interactive controllers than would be achievable without the one or more application controllers of the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, an interleaved wagering system including an application controller operatively connected to a wager controller and operatively connected to an interactive controller may provide for simplified communication protocols for communications of the interactive controller as the interactive controller may communicate user interactions with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller to the application controller without regard to a nature of a wagering proposition to be interleaved with processes of the interactive application. in various embodiments, an interleaved wagering system including an application controller operatively connected to a wager controller and operatively connected to an interactive controller may provide for simplified communication protocols for communications of the wager controller as the wager controller may receive wager requests and communicate wager outcomes without regard to a nature of an interactive application provided by the interactive controller. various types interleaved wagering systems are discussed in patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us11/26768, filed mar. 1, 2011, patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us11/63587, filed dec. 6, 2011, and patent cooperation treaty application no. pct/us12/58156, filed sep. 29, 2012, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. wagering interleaved systems fig. 1 is a diagram of a structure of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. the interleaved wagering system 128 includes an interactive controller 120 , an application controller 112 , and a wager controller 102 . the interactive controller 120 is operatively connected to, and communicates with, the application controller 112 . the application controller 112 is also operatively connected to, and communicates with, the wager controller 102 . in several embodiments, the wager controller 102 is a controller for providing one or more wagering propositions provided by the interleaved wagering system 128 and executes wagers in accordance with the wagering propositions. types of value of a wager can be one or more of several different types. types of value of a wager can include, but are not limited to, a wager of an amount of rc corresponding to a real currency or a virtual currency, a wager of an amount of ac earned by the player through use of an interactive application, a wager of an amount of elements of an interactive application, and a wager of an amount of objects used in an interactive application. a wager outcome determined for a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition can increase or decrease an amount of the type of value used in the wager, such as, but not limited to, increasing an amount of rc for a wager of rc. in various embodiments, a wager outcome determined for a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition can increase or decrease an amount of a type of value that is different than a type of value of the wager, such as, but not limited to, increasing an amount of an object of an interactive application for a wager of rc. in many embodiments, the wager controller 120 includes one or more pseudo random or random number generators (p/rng) 106 for generating random results, one or more paytables 108 for determining a wager outcome from the random results, and one or more credit or value meters 110 for storing amounts of wagered and won credits. the one or more p/rng generators 106 execute processes that can generate random or pseudo random results. the one or more paytables 108 are tables that can be used in conjunction with the random or pseudo random results to determine a wager outcome including an amount of rc, ac, elements or objects won as a function of interleaved wagering system use. there can be one or more paytables 108 in the wager controller 102 . the paytables 108 are used to implement one or more wagering propositions in conjunction with a random output of the random or pseudo random results. in some embodiments, selection of a paytable to use to execute a wager can be based on factors including, but not limited to, interactive application progress a user has achieved through use of the interactive application, user identification, and eligibility of the user for bonus rounds. in various embodiments, the interactive controller 120 provides an interactive application 143 and provides human input devices (hids) and output devices for interacting with the user 140 . the interactive controller 120 provides for user interactions 142 with the interactive application 143 by receiving input from a user through the hids and providing outputs such as video, audio and/or other sensory output to the user using the output devices. the interactive controller 120 is operatively connected to, and communicates with, the application controller 112 . the interactive controller communicates application telemetry data 124 to the application controller 112 and receives application instructions and resources 136 from the application controller 112 . via the communication of application instructions and resources 136 , the application controller 112 can communicate certain interactive application resources including control parameters to the interactive application 143 to affect the interactive application's execution by the interactive controller 120 . in various embodiments, these interactive application control parameters can be based on a wager outcome of a wager that was triggered by an element in the interactive application being utilized or acted upon by the user. in some embodiments, execution of the interactive application by the interactive controller 120 communicates user interactions with the interactive application to the application controller 112 . the application telemetry data 124 includes, but is not limited to, the user's utilization of the elements in the interactive application. in some embodiments, the interactive application 143 is a skill-based interactive game. in such embodiments, execution of the skill-based interactive game by the interactive controller 120 is based on the user's skillful play of the skill-based interactive game. the interactive controller 120 can also communicate user choices made in the skill-based interactive game to the application controller 112 included in the application telemetry data 124 such as, but not limited to, the user's utilization of the elements of the skill-based interactive game during the user's skillful play of the skill-based interactive game. in such an embodiment, the application controller is interfaced to the interactive controller 120 in order to allow the coupling of the skill-based interactive game to wagers made in accordance with a wagering proposition. in some embodiments, the interactive controller 120 includes one or more sensors 138 that sense various aspects of the physical environment of the interactive controller 120 . examples of sensors include, but are not limited to: global positioning sensors (gpss) for sensing communications from a gps system to determine a position or location of the interactive controller; temperature sensors; accelerometers; pressure sensors; and the like. sensor telemetry data 128 is communicated by the interactive controller to the application controller 112 . the application controller 112 receives the sensor telemetry data 128 and uses the sensory telemetry data to make wager decisions. in many embodiments, the interactive controller includes a wagering user interface 148 used to display wagering data to the user. in various embodiments, an application control layer 131 resident in the interactive controller 120 provides an interface between the interactive controller 120 and the application controller 112 . in many embodiments, application controller 112 provides an interface between the interactive application 143 provided by the interactive controller 120 and a wagering proposition provided by the wager controller 102 . in some embodiments, the application controller 112 includes an interactive controller interface 160 to an interactive controller. the interactive controller interface 160 provides for the communication of data between the interactive controller and the application controller, including but not limited to wager telemetry data 146 , application instructions and resources 136 , application telemetry data 124 , and sensor telemetry data 128 . in various embodiments, the application controller 112 includes a wager controller interface 162 to a wager controller. the wager controller interface 162 provides for communication of data between the application controller 112 and the wager controller, including but not limited to wager outcome data 130 and wager data 129 . in some embodiments, the application controller 112 includes a user management controller interface 164 to a user management controller. the user management controller interface 164 provides for communication of data between the application controller 112 and the user management controller, including but not limited to session control data 154 and session telemetry data 152 . the application controller 112 includes a business rule decision engine 122 that receives telemetry data, such as application telemetry data 124 and sensor telemetry data 128 , from the interactive controller 120 . the business rule decision engine 122 uses the telemetry data, along with trigger logic 126 to generate wager data 129 used to trigger a wager in the wager controller 102 . in some embodiments, the application telemetry data 124 includes, but is not limited to, application environment variables that indicate the state of the interactive application 143 being used by a user 140 , interactive controller data indicating the state of the interactive controller, and user actions and interactions 142 between the user and the interactive application 143 provided by the interactive controller 120 . the wagering and/or wager data 129 may include, but is not limited to, an amount and type of the wager, a trigger of the wager, and a selection of a paytable 108 to be used when executing the wager. in some embodiments, the business rule decision engine 122 also receives wager outcome data 130 from the wager controller 102 . the decision engine 122 uses the wager outcome data 130 , in conjunction with the telemetry data and application logic 132 to generate application decisions 134 communicated to an application resource generator 138 . the application resource generator 138 receives the application decisions and uses the application decisions to generate application instructions and application resources 136 to be communicated to the interactive application 143 . in many embodiments, the application controller 112 includes a pseudo random or random result generator used to generate random results that are communicated to the application resource generator 138 . the application resource generator 138 uses the random results to generate application instructions and application resources 136 to be communicated to the interactive application 143 . in various embodiments, the business rule decision engine 122 also determines an amount of ac to award to the user 140 based at least in part on the user's use of the interactive application of the interleaved wagering system as determined from the application telemetry data 124 . in some embodiments, wager outcome data 130 may also be used to determine the amount of ac that should be awarded to the user. in numerous embodiments, the interactive application is a skill-based interactive game and the ac is awarded to the user for the user's skillful play of the skill-based interactive game. in some embodiments, the application decisions 134 and wager outcome data 130 are communicated to a wagering user interface generator 144 . the wagering user interface generator 144 receives the application decisions 134 and wager outcome data 130 and generates wager telemetry data 146 describing the state of wagering and credit accumulation and loss for the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the wager telemetry data 146 may include, but is not limited to, amounts of ac and elements earned, lost or accumulated by the user through use of the interactive application as determined from the application decisions, and rc amounts won, lost or accumulated as determined from the wager outcome data 130 and the one or more meters 110 . in some embodiments, the wager outcome data 130 also includes data about one or more game states of a gambling game executed in accordance with a wagering proposition by the wager controller 102 . in various such embodiments, the wagering user interface generator 144 generates a gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display using the one or more game states of the gambling game. the gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display is included in the wager telemetry data 146 that is communicated to the interactive controller 120 . the gambling game process display and/or a gambling game state display is displayed by the wagering user interface 148 to the user 140 . in other such embodiments, the one or more game states of the gambling game are communicated to the interactive controller 120 and the wagering user interface 148 generates the gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display using the one or more game states of the gambling game for display to the user 140 . the application controller 112 can further operatively connect to the wager controller 102 to determine an amount of credit or elements available and other wagering metrics of a wagering proposition. thus, the application controller 112 may potentially affect an amount of rc in play for participation in the wagering events of a wagering game provided by the wager controller 102 in some embodiments. the application controller 112 may additionally include various audit logs and activity meters. in some embodiments, the application controller 112 can also couple to a centralized server for exchanging various data related to the user and the activities of the user during game play of an interleaved wagering system. in many embodiments, one or more users can be engaged in using the interactive application executed by the interactive controller 120 . in various embodiments, an interleaved wagering system can include an interactive application that provides a skill-based interactive game that includes head-to-head play between a single user and a computing device, between two or more users against one another, or multiple users playing against a computer device and/or each other. in some embodiments, the interactive application can be a skill-based interactive game where the user is not skillfully playing against the computer or any other user such as skill-based interactive games where the user is effectively skillfully playing against himself or herself. in some embodiments, the operation of the application controller 112 does not affect the provision of a wagering proposition by the wager controller 102 except for user choice parameters that are allowable in accordance with the wagering proposition. examples of user choice parameters include, but are not limited to: wager terms such as but not limited to a wager amount; speed of game play (for example, by pressing a button or pulling a handle of a slot machine); and/or agreement to wager into a bonus round. in various embodiments, wager outcome data 130 communicated from the wager controller 102 can also be used to convey a status operation of the wager controller 102 . in a number of embodiments, communication of the wager data 129 between the wager controller 102 and the application controller 112 can further be used to communicate various wagering control factors that the wager controller 102 uses as input. examples of wagering control factors include, but are not limited to, an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects consumed per wagering event, and/or the user's election to enter a jackpot round. in some embodiments, the application controller 112 utilizes the wagering user interface 148 to communicate certain interactive application data to the user, including but not limited to, club points, user status, control of the selection of choices, and messages which a user can find useful in order to adjust the interactive application experience or understand the wagering status of the user in accordance with the wagering proposition in the wager controller 102 . in some embodiments, the application controller 112 utilizes the wagering user interface 148 to communicate aspects of a wagering proposition to the user including, but not limited to, odds of certain wager outcomes, amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects in play, and amounts of rc, ac, elements, or objects available. in a number of embodiments, the wager controller 102 can accept wager proposition factors including, but not limited to, modifications in the amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects wagered on each individual wagering event, a number of wagering events per minute the wager controller 102 can resolve, entrance into a bonus round, and other factors. an example of a varying wager amount that the user can choose can include, but is not limited to, using a more difficult interactive application level associated with an amount of a wager. these factors can increase or decrease an amount wagered per individual wagering proposition in the same manner that a standard slot machine player can decide to wager more or less credits for each pull of the handle. in several embodiments, the wager controller 102 can communicate a number of factors back and forth to the application controller 112 , via an interface, such that an increase/decrease in a wagered amount can be related to the change in user profile of the user in the interactive application. in this manner, a user can control a wager amount per wagering event in accordance with the wagering proposition with the change mapping to a parameter or component that is applicable to the interactive application experience. in some embodiments, a user management controller 150 is used to authorize an interleaved wagering system gaming session. the user management controller receives game session data 152 , that may include, but is not limited to, user, interactive controller, application controller and wager controller data from the application controller 112 . the user management controller 150 uses the user, interactive controller, application controller and wager controller data to regulate an interleaved wagering system gaming session. in some embodiments, the user management controller may also assert control of an interleaved wagering system game session 154 . such control may include, but is not limited to, ending an interleaved wagering system game session, initiating wagering in an interleaved wagering system game session, ending wagering in an interleaved wagering system game session but not ending a user's play of the interactive application portion of the interleaved wagering system game, and changing from real credit wagering in an interleaved wagering system to virtual credit wagering, or vice versa. interleaved wagering system controllers figs. 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d are illustrations of interactive controllers of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. an interactive controller, such as interactive controller 120 of fig. 1 , may be constructed using one or more processing devices configured to perform the operations of the interactive controller. an interactive controller may be constructed from an electronic gaming machine 200 as shown in fig. 2a . the electronic gaming machine 200 may be physically located in various types of gaming establishments. an interactive controller may be constructed from a portable device 202 as shown in fig. 2b . the portable device 202 is a device that may wirelessly connect to a network. examples of portable devices include, but are not limited to, a tablet computer, a personal digital assistant, and a smartphone. an interactive controller may be constructed from a gaming console 204 as shown in fig. 2c . an interactive controller may be constructed from a personal computer 206 as shown in fig. 2d . indeed, an interactive controller in an interleaved wagering system may be constructed from any processing device including sufficient processing and communication capabilities that may be configured to perform the processes of an interactive controller in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. some interleaved wagering systems in accordance with many embodiments of the invention can operate with their components being network connected or can communicate with other interleaved wagering systems. in many embodiments, operations associated with components of an interleaved wagering system can be performed on a single device or across multiple devices. these multiple devices can be constructed using a single server or a plurality of servers such that an interleaved wagering system is executed as a system in a virtualized space such as, but not limited to, where a wager controller and an application controller are large scale centralized servers in the cloud operatively connected to widely distributed interactive controllers via a wide area network such as the internet or a local area network. in such embodiments, the components of an interleaved wagering system may communicate using a networking protocol or other type of device-to-device communications protocol. in many embodiments, a centralized wager controller is operatively connected to, and communicates with, one or more application controllers via a network. the centralized wager controller can generate wager outcomes for wagers in accordance with one or more wagering propositions. the centralized wager controller can execute a number of simultaneous or pseudo-simultaneous wagers in order to generate wager outcomes for a variety of wagering propositions that one or more networked interleaved wagering systems can use. in several embodiments, a centralized application controller is operatively connected to one or more interactive controllers and one or more wager controllers via a network. the centralized application controller can perform the functionality of an application controller across various interleaved wagering systems. in a variety of embodiments, management of user profile data can be performed by a user management controller operatively connected to, and communicating with, one or more application controllers, wager controllers and interactive controllers via a network. a user management controller can manage data related to a user profile. the managed data in the user profile may include, but is not limited to, data concerning controlled entities (characters) in interactive application use, user performance metrics for a type or class of interactive application, interactive application elements acquired by a user; rc and ac associated with a particular user, and tournament reservations. although a user management controller is discussed as being separate from an application controller server, a centralized application controller server may also perform the functions of a user management controller in some embodiments. in a number of embodiments, an application controller of an interleaved wagering system can communicate data to a user management controller. the data communicated by the application controller to the user management controller may include, but is not limited to, ac and rc used in an interactive application; user profile data; user interaction activity; profile data for users; synchronization data between a wager controller and an interactive application; and data about other aspects of an interleaved wagering system. in several embodiments, a user management controller can communicate user data to an application controller of an interleaved wagering system. the user data may include, but is not limited to, interactive application title and type; tournament data; special offers; character or profile setup and synchronization data between a wagering game and an interactive application; and data about any other aspect of an interleaved wagering system. in numerous embodiments, an interactive application server provides a host for managing head-to-head play operating over a network of interactive controllers connected to the interactive application server via a network. the interactive application server provides an environment where users can compete directly with one another and interact with other users. processing devices connected via a network to construct interleaved wagering systems in accordance with many embodiments of the invention can communicate with each other to provide services utilized by an interleaved wagering system. in several embodiments, a wager controller can communicate with an application controller over a network. in some embodiments, the wager controller can communicate with an application controller to communicate any type of data as appropriate for a specific application. examples of the data that may be communicated include, but are not limited to, data used to configure the various simultaneous or pseudo simultaneous wager controllers executing in parallel within the wager controller to accomplish interleaved wagering system functionalities; data used to determine metrics of wager controller performance such as wagers run and/or wager outcomes for tracking system performance; data used to perform audits and/or provide operator reports; and data used to request the results of a wager outcome for use in one or more function(s) operating within the application controller such as, but not limited to, automatic drawings for prizes that are a function of interactive controller performance. in several embodiments, an application controller can communicate with an interactive application server via a network when the interactive application server is also communicating with one or more interactive controllers over a network. an application controller can communicate with an interactive application server to communicate any type of data as appropriate for a specific application. the data that may be communicated between an application controller and an interactive application server includes, but is not limited to, the data for management of an interactive application server by an application controller server during an interleaved wagering system tournament. for example, an application controller may not be aware of the relationship of the application controller to the rest of a tournament since the actual tournament play may be managed by the interactive application server. therefore, management of an interleaved wagering system can include, but is not limited to tasks including, but not limited to, conducting tournaments according to system programming that can be coordinated by an operator of the interleaved wagering system; allowing entry of a particular user into a tournament; communicating the number of users in a tournament; and the status of the tournament (such as, but not limited to the amount of surviving users, the status of each surviving user within the game, and time remaining on the tournament); communicating the performance of users within the tournament; communicating the scores of the various users in the tournament; and providing a synchronizing link to connect the application controllers in a tournament with their respective interactive controllers. in several embodiments, an application controller can communicate with a user management controller via a network. an application controller can communicate with a user management controller to communicate any type of data as appropriate for a specific application. examples of data communicated between an application controller and a user management controller include, but are not limited to, data for configuring tournaments according to system programming conducted by an operator of an interleaved wagering system; data for exchange of data used to link a user's user profile to an ability to participate in various forms of interleaved wagering system use (such as but not limited to the difficulty of play set by the application controller server for an interactive application that is a skill-based interactive game); data for determining a user's ability to participate in a tournament as a function of a user's characteristics (such as but not limited to a user's prowess or other metrics used for tournament screening); data for configuring application controller and interactive controller performance to suit preferences of a user on a particular interleaved wagering system; and data for determining a user's use and wagering performance for the purposes of marketing intelligence; and data for logging secondary drawing awards, tournament prizes, rc and/or ac into the user profile. in many embodiments, the actual location of where various process are executed can be located either on a single device (wager controller, application controller, interactive controller), on servers (wager controller, application controller, or interactive application server), or a combination of both devices and servers. in a number of embodiments, certain functions of a wager controller, application controller, user management controller and/or interactive application server can operate on a local wager controller, application controller and/or interactive controller used to construct an interleaved wagering system being provided locally on a device. in some embodiments, a controller or server can be part of a server system including multiple servers, where applications can be run on one or more physical devices. similarly, in particular embodiments, multiple servers can be combined on a single physical device. some interleaved wagering systems in accordance with many embodiments of the invention can be distributed across a network in various configurations. figs. 3a, 3b and 3c are network diagrams of networked interleaved wagering systems in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. turning now to fig. 3a , one or more interactive controllers of a networked interleaved wagering system, such as but not limited to, a mobile or wireless device 300 , a gaming console 302 , a personal computer 304 , and an electronic gaming machine 305 , are operatively connected with a wager controller 306 of a networked interleaved wagering system over a network 308 . network 308 is communications network that allows processing systems communicate with each other and to share data. examples of the network 308 can include, but are not limited to, a local area network (lan) and a wide area network (wan). in some embodiments, one or more processes of an interactive controller and an application controller as described herein are executed on the individual interactive controllers 300 , 302 , 304 and 305 while one or more processes of a wager controller as described herein can be executed by the wager controller 306 . a networked interleaved wagering system in accordance with another embodiment of the invention is illustrated in fig. 3b . as illustrated, one or more interactive controllers of a networked interleaved wagering system, such as but not limited to, a mobile or wireless device 310 , a gaming console 312 , a personal computer 314 , and an electronic gaming machine 315 , are operatively connected with a wager controller server 316 and an application controller 318 over a network 320 . network 320 is a communications network that allows processing systems to communicate and share data. examples of the network 320 can include, but are not limited to, a local area network (lan) and a wide area network (wan). in some embodiments, the processes of an interactive controller as described herein are executed on the individual interactive controllers 310 , 312 , 314 and 315 . one or more processes of a wager controller as described herein are executed by the wager controller 316 , and one or more processes of an application controller as described herein are executed by the application controller 318 . a networked interleaved wagering systems in accordance with still another embodiment of the invention is illustrated in fig. 3c . as illustrated, one or more interactive controllers of a networked interleaved wagering system, such as but not limited to, a mobile device 342 , a gaming console 344 , a personal computer 346 , and an electronic gaming machine 340 are operatively connected with a wager controller 348 and an application controller 350 , and an interactive application server 352 over a network 354 . network 354 is a communications network that allows processing systems communicate and to share data. examples of the network 354 can include, but are not limited to, a local area network (lan) and a wide area network (wan). in some embodiments, one or more processes of a display and user interface of an interactive controller as described herein are executed on the individual interactive controllers 340 , 342 , 344 and 346 . one or more processes of a wager controller as described herein can be executed by the wager controller server 348 . one or more processes of an application controller as described herein can be executed by the application controller server 350 and one or more processes of an interactive controller excluding the display and user interfaces can be executed by the interactive application server 352 . in various embodiments, a user management controller may be operatively connected to components of an interleaved wagering system via a network. in other embodiments, a number of other peripheral systems, such as a user management system, a gaming establishment management system, a regulatory system, and/or hosting servers are also operatively connected with the interleaved wagering systems over a network. also, other servers can reside outside the bounds of a network within a firewall of the operator to provide additional services for network connected interleaved wagering systems. although various networked interleaved wagering systems are described herein, interleaved wagering systems can be networked in any configuration as appropriate to the specification of a specific application in accordance with embodiments of the invention. in some embodiments, components of a networked interleaved wagering system, such as an application controller, wager controller, interactive controller, or other servers that perform services for an application controller, wager controller and/or interactive controller, can be networked in different configurations for a specific networked interleaved wagering system application. figs. 4a and 4b are diagrams of a structure of an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. an interactive controller may be constructed from one or more processing devices configured to perform the operations of the interactive controller. in many embodiments, an interactive controller can be constructed from various types of processing devices including, but not limited to, a mobile device such as a smartphone or the like, a personal digital assistant, a wireless device such as a tablet computer or the like, an electronic gaming machine, a personal computer, a gaming console, a set-top box, a computing device, a controller, or the like. referring now to fig. 4a , an interactive controller 400 , suitable for use as interactive controller 120 of fig. 1 , provides an execution environment for an interactive application 402 of an interleaved wagering system. in several embodiments, an interactive controller 400 of an interleaved wagering system provides an interactive application 402 that generates an application user interface 404 for interaction with by a user. the interactive application 402 generates a user presentation 406 that is presented to the user through the application user interface 404 . the user presentation may include audio features, visual features or tactile features, or any combination of these features. the application user interface 404 further includes one or more human input devices (hids) that the user can use to interact with the interleaved wagering system. the user's interactions 408 are included by the interactive application 402 in application telemetry data 410 that is communicated by interactive controller 400 to various other components of an interleaved wagering system as described herein. the interactive application 402 receives application instructions and resources 412 communicated from various other components of an interleaved wagering system as described herein. in some embodiments, various components of the interactive application 402 can read data from an application state 414 in order to provide one or more features of the interactive application. in various embodiments, components of the interactive application 402 can include, but are not limited to, a physics engine, a rules engine, and/or a graphics engine. the physics engine is used to simulate physical interactions between virtual objects in the interactive application 402 . the rules engine implements the rules of the interactive application and a p/rng that may be used for influencing or determining certain variables and/or outcomes to provide a randomizing influence on the operations of the interactive application. the graphics engine is used to generate a visual representation of the interactive application state to the user. furthermore, the components may also include an audio engine to generate audio outputs for the user interface. during operation, the interactive application reads and writes application resources 416 stored on a data store of the interactive controller host. the game resources 416 may include game objects having graphics and/or control logic used to provide application environment objects of the interactive application. in various embodiments, the game resources may also include, but are not limited to, video files that are used to generate a portion of the user presentation 406 ; audio files used to generate music, sound effects, etc. within the interactive application; configuration files used to configure the features of the interactive application; scripts or other types of control code used to provide various features of the interactive application; and graphics resources such as textures, objects, etc. that are used by a graphics engine to render objects displayed in an interactive application. in operation, components of the interactive application 402 read portions of the application state 414 and generate the user presentation 406 for the user that is presented to the user using the user interface 212 . the user perceives the user presentation and provides user interactions 408 using the hids. the corresponding user interactions are received as user actions or inputs by various components of the interactive application 402 . the interactive application 402 translates the user actions into interactions with the virtual objects of the application environment stored in the application state 414 . components of the interactive application use the user interactions with the virtual objects of the interactive application and the interactive application state 414 to update the application state 414 and update the user presentation 406 presented to the user. the process loops continuously while the user interacts with the interactive application of the interleaved wagering system. the interactive controller 400 provides one or more interfaces 418 between the interactive controller 400 and other components of an interleaved wagering system, such as, but not limited to, an application controller. the interactive controller 400 and the other interleaved wagering system components communicate with each other using the interfaces. the interface may be used to pass various types of data, and to communicate and receive messages, status data, commands and the like. in certain embodiments, the interactive controller 400 and an application controller communicate application instructions and environment resources 412 and application telemetry data 410 . in some embodiments, the communications include requests by the application controller that the interactive controller 400 update the application state 414 using data provided by the application controller. in many embodiments, a communication by an application controller include a request that the interactive controller 400 update one or more resources 416 using data provided by the application controller. in a number of embodiments, the interactive controller 400 provides all or a portion of the application state to the application controller. in some embodiments, the interactive controller 400 may also provide data about one or more of the application resources 416 to the application controller. in some embodiments, the communication includes user interactions that the interactive controller 400 communicates to the application controller. the user interactions may be low level user interactions with the user interface 404 , such as manipulation of a hid, or may be high level interactions with game objects as determined by the interactive application. the user interactions may also include resultant actions such as modifications to the application state 414 or game resources 416 resulting from the user's interactions taken in the interleaved wagering system interactive application. in some embodiments, user interactions include, but are not limited to, actions taken by entities such as non-player characters (npc) of the interactive application that act on behalf of or under the control of the user. in some embodiments, the interactive controller 400 includes an interleaved wagering system user interface 420 used to communicate interleaved wagering system telemetry data 422 to and from the user. the interleaved wagering system telemetry data 422 from the interleaved wagering system include, but are not limited to, data used by the user to configure rc, ac and element wagers, and data about the wagering game rc, ac and element wagers such as, but not limited to, rc, ac and element balances and rc, ac and element amounts wagered. in some embodiments, the interactive controller includes one or more sensors 424 . such sensors may include, but are not limited to, physiological sensors that monitor the physiology of the user, environmental sensors that monitor the physical environment of the interactive controller, accelerometers that monitor changes in motion of the interactive controller, and location sensors that monitor the location of the interactive controller such as global positioning sensors (gpss). the interactive controller 400 communicates sensor telemetry data 426 to one or more components of the interleaved wagering system. referring now to fig. 4b , interactive controller 400 includes a bus 502 that provides an interface for one or more processing modules 504 , random access memory (ram) 506 , read only memory (rom) 508 , machine-readable storage medium 510 , one or more user output devices 512 , one or more user input devices 514 , and one or more communication interface devices 516 . the one or more processing modules 504 may take many forms, such as, but not limited to: one or more processors; a central processing unit (cpu); a multi-processor unit (mpu); an arm processor; a controller; a programmable logic device; or the like. examples of output devices 512 include, but are not limited to, display screens; light panels; and/or lighted displays. in accordance with particular embodiments, the one or more processing modules 504 are operatively connected to audio output devices such as, but not limited to: speakers; and/or sound amplifiers. in accordance with many of these embodiments, the one or more processing modules 504 are operatively connected to tactile output devices like vibrators, and/or manipulators. examples of user input devices 514 include, but are not limited to: tactile devices including but not limited to, keyboards, keypads, foot pads, touch screens, and/or trackballs; non-contact devices such as audio input devices; motion sensors and motion capture devices that the interactive controller can use to receive inputs from a user when the user interacts with the interactive controller; physiological sensors that monitor the physiology of the user; environmental sensors that monitor the physical environment of the interactive controller; accelerometers that monitor changes in motion of the interactive controller; and location sensors that monitor the location of the interactive controller such as global positioning sensors. the one or more communication interface devices 516 provide one or more wired or wireless interfaces for communicating data and commands between the interactive controller 400 and other devices that may be included in an interleaved wagering system. such wired and wireless interfaces include, but are not limited to: a universal serial bus (usb) interface; a bluetooth interface; a wi-fi interface; an ethernet interface; a near field communication (nfc) interface; a plain old telephone system (pots) interface, a cellular or satellite telephone network interface; and the like. the machine-readable storage medium 510 stores machine-executable instructions for various components of the interactive controller, such as but not limited to: an operating system 518 ; one or more device drivers 522 ; one or more application programs 520 including but not limited to an interactive application; and interleaved wagering system interactive controller instructions 524 for use by the one or more processing modules 504 to provide the features of an interactive controller as described herein. in some embodiments, the machine-executable instructions further include application control layer/application control interface instructions 526 for use by the one or more processing modules 504 to provide the features of an application control layer/application control interface as described herein. in various embodiments, the machine-readable storage medium 510 is one of a (or a combination of two or more of) a hard drive, a flash drive, a dvd, a cd, a flash storage, a solid state drive, a rom, an eeprom, and the like. in operation, the machine-executable instructions are loaded into memory 506 from the machine-readable storage medium 510 , the rom 508 or any other storage location. the respective machine-executable instructions are accessed by the one or more processing modules 504 via the bus 502 , and then executed by the one or more processing modules 504 . data used by the one or more processing modules 504 are also stored in memory 506 , and the one or more processing modules 504 access such data during execution of the machine-executable instructions. execution of the machine-executable instructions causes the one or more processing modules 504 to control the interactive controller 400 to provide the features of an interleaved wagering system interactive controller as described herein although the interactive controller is described herein as being constructed from one or more processing modules and instructions stored and executed by hardware components, the interactive controller can be constructed of only hardware components in accordance with other embodiments. in addition, although the storage medium 510 is described as being operatively connected to the one or more processing modules through a bus, those skilled in the art of interactive controllers will understand that the storage medium can include removable media such as, but not limited to, a usb memory device, an optical cd rom, magnetic media such as tape and disks. in some embodiments, the storage medium 510 can be accessed by the one or more processing modules 504 through one of the communication interface devices 516 or over a network. furthermore, any of the user input devices or user output devices can be operatively connected to the one or more processing modules 504 via one of the communication interface devices 516 or over a network. in some embodiments, the interactive controller 400 can be distributed across a plurality of different devices. in many such embodiments, an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system includes an interactive application server operatively connected to an interactive client over a network. the interactive application server and interactive application client cooperate to provide the features of an interactive controller as described herein. in various embodiments, the interactive controller 400 may be used to construct other components of an interleaved wagering system as described herein. in some embodiments, components of an interactive controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may be constructed from a single device using processes that communicate using an interprocess communication protocol. in other such embodiments, the components of an interactive controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may communicate by passing messages, parameters or the like. in some embodiments, components of an interactive controller, an application controller and a wager controller of a wagering interleaved system may be constructed using a single device using processes that communicate using an interprocess communication protocol. in other such embodiments, the components of an interactive controller, an application controller and a wager controller of a wagering interleaved system may communicate by passing messages, parameters or the like. figs. 5a and 5b are diagrams of a structure of a wager controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. a wager controller may be constructed from one or more processing devices configured to perform the operations of the wager controller. in many embodiments, a wager controller can be constructed from various types of processing devices including, but not limited to, a mobile device such as a smartphone or the like, a personal digital assistant, a wireless device such as a tablet computer or the like, an electronic gaming machine, a personal computer, a gaming console, a set-top box, a computing device, a controller, or the like. referring now to fig. 5a , in various embodiments, a wager controller 604 , suitable for use as wager controller 102 of fig. 1 , includes a pseudorandom or random number generator (p/rng) 620 to produce random results or pseudo random results; one or more paytables 623 which includes a plurality of factors indexed by the random result to be multiplied with an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects committed in a wager; and a wagering control module 622 whose processes may include, but are not limited to, generating random results, looking up factors in the paytables, multiplying the factors by an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects wagered, and administering one or more rc, ac, element, or object meters 626 . the various wager controller components can interface with each other via an internal bus 625 and/or other appropriate communication mechanism. an interface 628 allows the wager controller 604 to operatively connect to an external device, such as one or more application controllers as described herein. the interface 628 provides for receiving of wager data 629 from the external device that is used to specify wager parameters and/or trigger execution of a wager by the wager controller 604 . the interface 628 may also provide for communicating wager outcome data 631 to an external device. in numerous embodiments, the interface between the wager controller 604 and other systems/devices may be a wide area network (wan) such as the internet. however, other methods of communication may be used including, but not limited to, a local area network (lan), a universal serial bus (usb) interface, and/or some other method by which two electronic devices could communicate with each other. in various embodiments, a wager controller 604 may use a p/rng provided by an external system. the external system may be connected to the wager controller 604 by a suitable communication network such as a local area network (lan) or a wide area network (wan). in some embodiments, the external p/rng is a central deterministic system that provides random or pseudo random results to one or more connected wager controllers. during operation of the wager controller, the external system communicates wager data 629 to the wager controller 604 . the wager controller 604 receives the wager data and uses the wager data to trigger execution of a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition. the wager controller 604 executes the wager and determines a wager outcome for the wager. the wager controller communicates wager outcome data 631 of the wager outcome to the external system. in some embodiments, the wager controller uses the wager data to select a paytable 628 to use and/or an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects to wager. in some embodiments, the wager outcome data may include, but is not limited to, an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects won in the wager. in various embodiments, the wager outcome data may include, but is not limited to, an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects in the one or more meters 626 . in some embodiments, the wager outcome data includes state data for the wagering proposition of the executed wager. the state data may correspond to one or more game states of a gambling game that is associated with the wagering proposition. examples of state data include, but are not limited to, reel strips in an operation state or a final state for a reel-based gambling game, one or more dice positions for a dice-based gambling game, positions of a roulette wheel and roulette ball, position of a wheel of fortune, or the like. in various embodiments, the wagering control module 622 determines an amount of a wager and a paytable to use from the one or more paytables 623 . in such embodiments, in response to the wager data triggering execution of the wager, the wager control module 622 executes the wager by requesting a p/rng result from the p/rng 620 ; retrieving a paytable from the one or more paytables 623 ; adjusting the one or more credit meters 626 for an amount of the wager; applying the p/rng result to the retrieved paytable; multiplying the resultant factor from the paytable by an amount wagered to determine a wager outcome; updating the one or more meters 626 based on the wager outcome; and communicating the wager outcome to the external device. in various embodiments, an external system communicates a request for a p/rng result from the wager controller 604 . in response, the wager controller 604 returns a p/rng result as a function of an internal p/rng or a p/rng external to the external system to which the wager controller 604 is operatively connected. in some embodiments, a communication exchange between the wager controller 604 and an external system relate to the external system support for coupling a p/rng result to a particular paytable contained in the wager controller 604 . in such an exchange, the external system communicates to the wager controller 604 as to which of the one or more paytables 623 to use, and requests a result whereby the p/rng result would be associated with the requested paytable 623 . the result of the coupling is returned to the external system. in such an exchange, no actual rc, ac, element, or object wager is conducted, but might be useful in coupling certain non-value wagering interactive application behaviors and propositions to the same final resultant wagering return which is understood for the interleaved wagering system to conduct wagering. in some embodiments, the wager controller 604 may also include storage for statuses, wagers, wager outcomes, meters and other historical events in a storage device 616 . in some embodiments, an authorization access module provides a process to permit access and command exchange with the wager controller 604 and access to the one or more credit meters 626 for the amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects being wagered by the user in the interleaved wagering system. in numerous embodiments, communication occurs between various types of a wager controller and an external system 630 , such as application controller. in some of these embodiments, the purpose of the wager controller is to allocate wagers to pools, detect occurrences of one or more events upon which the wagers were made, and determine the wager outcomes for each individual wager based on the number of winning wagers and the amount paid into the pool. in some embodiments, the wager controller manages accounts for individual users wherein the users make deposits into the accounts, amounts are deducted from the accounts, and amounts are credited to the users' accounts based on the wager outcomes. in some embodiments a wager controller is a pari-mutuel wagering system such as used for wagering on an events such as horse races, greyhound races, sporting events and the like. in a pari-mutuel wagering system, user's wagers on the outcome of an event are allocated to a pool. when the event occurs, wager outcomes are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning wagers. in various embodiments, a wager controller is a central determination system, such as but not limited to a central determination system for a class ii wagering system or a wagering system in support of a “scratch off” style lottery. in such a wagering system, a player plays against other players and competes for a common prize. in a given set of wager outcomes, there are a certain number of wins and losses. once a certain wager outcome has been determined, the same wager outcome cannot occur again until a new set of wager outcomes is generated. in numerous embodiments, communication occurs between various components of a wager controller 604 and an external system, such as an application controller. in some of these embodiments, the purpose of the wager controller 604 is to manage wagering on wagering events and to provide random (or pseudo random) results from a p/rng. referring now to fig. 5b , wager controller 604 includes a bus 732 that provides an interface for one or more processing modules 734 , random access memory (ram) 736 , read only memory (rom) 738 , machine-readable storage medium 740 , one or more user output devices 742 , one or more user input devices 744 , and one or more network interface devices 746 . the one or more processing modules 734 may take many forms, such as, but not limited to, one or more processors, a central processing unit (cpu), a multi-processor unit (mpu), an arm processor, a controller, a programmable logic device, or the like. examples of output devices 742 include, but are not limited to, display screens, light panels, and/or lighted displays. in accordance with particular embodiments, the one or more processing modules 734 are operatively connected to audio output devices such as, but not limited to speakers, and/or sound amplifiers. in accordance with many of these embodiments, the one or more processing modules 734 are operatively connected to tactile output devices like vibrators, and/or manipulators. examples of user input devices 734 include, but are not limited to, tactile devices including but not limited to, keyboards, keypads, touch screens, and/or trackballs; non-contact devices such as audio input devices; motion sensors and motion capture devices that the wager controller can use to receive inputs from a user when the user interacts with the wager controller 604 . the one or more network interface devices 746 provide one or more wired or wireless interfaces for exchanging data and commands between the wager controller 604 and other devices that may be included in an interleaved wagering system. such wired and wireless interfaces include, but are not limited to: a universal serial bus (usb) interface; a bluetooth interface; a wi-fi interface; an ethernet interface; a near field communication (nfc) interface; a plain old telephone system (pots) interface; a cellular or satellite telephone network interface; and the like. the machine-readable storage medium 740 stores machine-executable instructions for various components of a wager controller, such as but not limited to: an operating system 748 ; one or more application programs 750 ; one or more device drivers 752 ; and interleaved wagering system wager controller instructions 754 for use by the one or more processing modules 734 to provide the features of an interleaved wagering system wager controller as described herein. in various embodiments, the machine-readable storage medium 740 is one of a (or a combination of two or more of) a hard drive, a flash drive, a dvd, a cd, a flash storage, a solid state drive, a rom, an eeprom, and the like. in operation, the machine-executable instructions are loaded into memory 736 from the machine-readable storage medium 740 , the rom 738 or any other storage location. the respective machine-executable instructions are accessed by the one or more processing modules 734 via the bus 732 , and then executed by the one or more processing modules 734 . data used by the one or more processing modules 734 are also stored in memory 736 , and the one or more processing modules 734 access such data during execution of the machine-executable instructions. execution of the machine-executable instructions causes the one or more processing modules 734 to control the wager controller 604 to provide the features of an interleaved wagering system wager controller as described herein although the wager controller 604 is described herein as being constructed from one or more processing modules and machine-executable instructions stored and executed by hardware components, the wager controller can be composed of only hardware components in accordance with other embodiments. in addition, although the storage medium 740 is described as being operatively connected to the one or more processing modules through a bus, those skilled in the art of processing devices will understand that the storage medium can include removable media such as, but not limited to, a usb memory device, an optical cd rom, magnetic media such as tape and disks. in some embodiments, the storage medium 740 can be accessed by the one or more processing modules 734 through one of the interfaces or over a network. furthermore, any of the user input devices or user output devices can be operatively connected to the one or more processing modules 734 via one of the interfaces or over a network. in various embodiments, the wager controller 604 may be used to construct other components of an interleaved wagering system as described herein. in some embodiments, components of a wager controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may be constructed from a single device using processes that communicate using an interprocess communication protocol. in other such embodiments, the components of a wager controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may communicate by passing messages, parameters or the like. it should be understood that there may be many embodiments of a wager controller 604 which could be possible, including forms where many modules and components of the wager controller are located in various servers and locations, so the foregoing is not meant to be exhaustive or all inclusive, but rather provide data on various embodiments of a wager controller 604 . figs. 6a and 6b are diagrams of a structure of an application controller of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. an application controller may be constructed from one or more processing devices configured to perform the operations of the application controller. in many embodiments, an application controller can be constructed from various types of processing devices including, but not limited to, a mobile device such as a smartphone, a personal digital assistant, a wireless device such as a tablet computer or the like, an electronic gaming machine, a personal computer, a gaming console, a set-top box, a computing device, a controller, or the like. referring now to fig. 6a , in many embodiments, an application controller 860 , suitable for use as application controller 112 of fig. 1 , manages operation of an interleaved wagering system, with a wager controller and an interactive controller being support units to the application controller 860 . the application controller 860 provides an interface between the interactive application, provided by an interactive controller, and a wagering proposition, provided by a wager controller. in some embodiments, the application controller 860 includes an interactive controller interface 800 to an interactive controller. the interactive controller interface 800 provides for communication of data between an interactive controller and the application controller 860 , including but not limited to wager telemetry data 802 , application instructions and resources 804 , application telemetry data 806 , and sensor telemetry data 810 . in various embodiments, the application controller 860 includes a wager controller interface 812 to a wager controller. the wager controller interface 812 provides for communication of data between the application controller 860 and a wager controller, including but not limited to wager outcomes 814 and wager data 816 . in some embodiments, the application controller 860 includes a user management controller interface 818 to a user management controller. the user management controller interface 818 provides for communication of data between the application controller 860 and a user management controller, including but not limited to session control data 820 and session telemetry data 822 . the application controller 860 includes a business rule decision engine 824 that receives telemetry data, such as application telemetry data and sensor telemetry data, from an interactive controller. the business rule decision engine 824 uses the telemetry data, along with trigger logic 826 to generate wager data used to trigger a wager in a wager controller. in some embodiments, the application telemetry data includes, but is not limited to, application environment variables that indicate the state of an interactive application being used by a user, interactive controller data indicating a state of an interactive controller, and user actions and interactions between a user and an interactive application provided by an interactive controller. the wagering and/or wager data may include, but is not limited to, an amount and type of the wager, a trigger of the wager, and a selection of a paytable to be used when executing the wager. in some embodiments, the business rule decision engine 824 also receives wager outcome data from a wager controller. the decision engine 824 uses the wager outcome data, in conjunction with telemetry data and application logic 828 to generate application decisions 830 communicated to an application resource generator 832 . the application resource generator 832 receives the application decisions and uses the application decisions to generate application instructions and application resources to be communicated to an interactive application. in many embodiments, the application controller 860 includes a pseudo random or random result generator used to generate random results that are communicated to the application resource generator 832 . the application resource generator uses the random results to generate application instructions and application resources to be communicated to an interactive controller for use by an interactive application. in various embodiments, the business rule decision engine 824 also determines an amount of ac to award to a user based at least in part on the user's use of an interactive application of the interleaved wagering system as determined from application telemetry data. in some embodiments, wager outcome data may also be used to determine the amount of ac that should be awarded to the user. in numerous embodiments, an interactive application is a skill-based interactive game and the ac is awarded to the user for the user's skillful play of the skill-based interactive game. in some embodiments, the application decisions and wager outcome data are communicated to a wagering user interface generator 834 . the wagering user interface generator 834 receives the application decisions and wager outcome data and generates wager telemetry data describing the state of wagering and credit accumulation and loss for the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the wager telemetry data 146 may include, but is not limited to, amounts of ac and elements earned, lost or accumulated by the user through use of the interactive application as determined from the application decisions, and rc amounts won, lost or accumulated as determined from the wager outcome data and the one or more credit meters. in some embodiments, the wager outcome data 814 also includes data about one or more game states of a gambling game executed in accordance with a wagering proposition by a wager controller. in various such embodiments, the wagering user interface generator 834 generates a gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display using the one or more game states of the gambling game. the gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display is included in wager telemetry data that is communicated to an interactive controller. the gambling game process display and/or a gambling game state display is displayed by a wagering user interface of the interactive controller to a user. in other such embodiments, the one or more game states of the gambling game are communicated to an interactive controller and a wagering user interface of the interactive controller generates a gambling game process display and/or gambling game state display using the one or more game states of the gambling game for display to a user. the application controller 860 can further operatively connect to a wager controller to determine an amount of credit or elements available and other wagering metrics of a wagering proposition. thus, the application controller 860 may potentially affect an amount of rc in play for participation in the wagering events of a wagering game provided by the wager controller. the application controller 860 may additionally include various audit logs and activity meters. in some embodiments, the application controller 860 can also couple to a centralized server for exchanging various data related to the user and the activities of the user during game play of an interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the operation of the application controller 860 does not affect the provision of a wagering proposition by a wager controller except for user choice parameters that are allowable in accordance with the wagering proposition. examples of user choice parameters include, but are not limited to: wager terms such as but not limited to a wager amount; speed of game play (for example, by pressing a button or pulling a handle of a slot machine); and/or agreement to wager into a bonus round. in a number of embodiments, communication of wager data between a wager controller and the application controller 860 can further be used to communicate various wagering control factors that the wager controller uses as input. examples of wagering control factors include, but are not limited to, an amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects consumed per wagering event, and/or the user's election to enter a jackpot round. in some embodiments, the application controller 860 utilizes a wagering user interface to communicate certain interactive application data to the user, including but not limited to, club points, user status, control of the selection of user choices, and messages which a user can find useful in order to adjust the interactive application experience or understand the wagering status of the user in accordance with the wagering proposition in the wager controller. in some embodiments, the application controller 860 utilizes a wagering user interface to communicate aspects of a wagering proposition to the user including, but not limited to, odds of certain wager outcomes, amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects in play, and amounts of rc, ac, elements, or objects available. in a number of embodiments, a wager controller can accept wager proposition factors including, but not limited to, modifications in the amount of rc, ac, elements, or objects wagered on each individual wagering event, a number of wagering events per minute the wager controller can resolve, entrance into a bonus round, and other factors. in several embodiments, the application controller 860 can communicate a number of factors back and forth to the wager controller, such that an increase/decrease in a wagered amount can be related to the change in user profile of the user in the interactive application. in this manner, a user can control a wager amount per wagering event in accordance with the wagering proposition with the change mapping to a parameter or component that is applicable to the interactive application experience. referring now to fig. 6b , application controller 860 includes a bus 862 providing an interface for one or more processing modules 864 , random access memory (ram) 866 , read only memory (rom) 868 , machine-readable storage medium 870 , one or more user output devices 872 , one or more user input devices 874 , and one or more network interface devices 876 . the one or more processing modules 864 may take many forms, such as, but not limited to: one or more processors; a central processing unit (cpu); a multi-processor unit (mpu); an arm processor; a programmable logic device; or the like. examples of output devices 872 include, include, but are not limited to: display screens; light panels; and/or lighted displays. in accordance with particular embodiments, the one or more processing modules 864 are operatively connected to audio output devices such as, but not limited to: speakers; and/or sound amplifiers. in accordance with many of these embodiments, the one or more processing modules 864 are operatively connected to tactile output devices like vibrators, and/or manipulators. examples of user input devices 874 include, but are not limited to: tactile devices including but not limited to, keyboards, keypads, foot pads, touch screens, and/or trackballs; non-contact devices such as audio input devices; motion sensors and motion capture devices that the application controller can use to receive inputs from a user when the user interacts with the application controller 860 . the one or more network interface devices 876 provide one or more wired or wireless interfaces for exchanging data and commands between the application controller 860 and other devices that may be included in an interleaved wagering system. such wired and wireless interfaces include, but are not limited to: a universal serial bus (usb) interface; a bluetooth interface; a wi-fi interface; an ethernet interface; a near field communication (nfc) interface; a plain old telephone system (pots), cellular, or satellite telephone network interface; and the like. the machine-readable storage medium 870 stores machine-executable instructions for various components of the application controller 860 such as, but not limited to: an operating system 878 ; one or more applications 880 ; one or more device drivers 882 ; and interleaved wagering system wager controller instructions 854 for use by the one or more processing modules 864 to provide the features of a wager controller as described herein. in various embodiments, the machine-readable storage medium 870 is one of a (or a combination of two or more of) a hard drive, a flash drive, a dvd, a cd, a flash storage, a solid state drive, a rom, an eeprom, and the like. in operation, the machine-executable instructions are loaded into memory 866 from the machine-readable storage medium 870 , the rom 868 or any other storage location. the respective machine-executable instructions are accessed by the one or more processing modules 864 via the bus 862 , and then executed by the one or more processing modules 864 . data used by the one or more processing modules 864 are also stored in memory 866 , and the one or more processing modules 864 access such data during execution of the machine-executable instructions. execution of the machine-executable instructions causes the one or more processing modules 864 to control the application controller 860 to provide the features of an interleaved wagering system application controller as described herein. although the application controller 860 is described herein as being constructed from one or more processing modules and instructions stored and executed by hardware components, the application controller can be composed of only hardware components in accordance with other embodiments. in addition, although the storage medium 870 is described as being operatively connected to the one or more processing modules through a bus, those skilled in the art of application controllers will understand that the storage medium can include removable media such as, but not limited to, a usb memory device, an optical cd rom, magnetic media such as tape and disks. also, the storage medium 870 can be accessed by processor 864 through one of the interfaces or over a network. furthermore, any of the user input devices or user output devices can be operatively connected to the one or more processing modules 864 via one of the interfaces or over a network. in various embodiments, the application controller 860 may be used to construct other components of an interleaved wagering system as described herein. in some embodiments, components of wager controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may be constructed using a single device using processes that communicate using an interprocess communication protocol. in other such embodiments, the components of a wager controller and an application controller of a wagering interleaved system may communicate by passing messages, parameters or the like. in numerous embodiments, any of a wager controller, an application controller, or an interactive controller as described herein can be constructed using multiple processing devices, whether dedicated, shared, or distributed in any combination thereof, or can be constructed using a single processing device. in addition, while certain aspects and features of interleaved wagering system processes described herein have been attributed to a wager controller, an application controller, or an interactive controller, these aspects and features can be provided in a distributed form where any of the features or aspects can be provided by any of a wager controller, an application controller, and/or an interactive controller within an interleaved wagering system without deviating from the spirit of the invention. although various components of interleaved wagering systems are discussed herein, interleaved wagering systems can be configured with any component as appropriate to the specification of a specific application in accordance with embodiments of the invention. in certain embodiments, components of an interleaved wagering system, such as an application controller, a wager controller, and/or an interactive controller, can be configured in different ways for a specific interleaved wagering system. operation of wagering interleaved systems fig. 7 is a sequence diagram of interactions between components of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. the components of the interleaved wagering system include a wager controller 902 , such as wager controller 102 of fig. 1 , an application controller 904 , such as application controller 112 of fig. 1 , and an interactive controller 906 , such as interactive controller 120 of fig. 1 . the process begins with the interactive controller 906 detecting a user performing a user interaction in a user interface of an interactive application provided by the interactive controller 906 . the interactive controller 906 communicates application telemetry data 908 to the application controller 904 . the application telemetry data includes, but is not limited to, the user interaction detected by the interactive controller 906 . the application controller 904 receives the application telemetry data 908 . upon determination by the application controller 904 that the user interaction indicates a wagering event, the application controller 904 communicates wager data 912 including a wager request to the wager controller 902 . the request for a wager event may include wager terms associated with a wagering proposition. the wager controller receives the wager data and uses the wager data to execute ( 913 ) a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition. the wager controller 902 communicates a wager outcome 914 of the executed wager to the application controller 904 . the application controller 904 receives the wager outcome and determines ( 915 ) interactive application instructions and resources 916 for the interactive application. the application controller 904 communicates the interactive application instructions and resources 916 to the interactive controller 906 . the application controller also communicates wagering telemetry data 920 including the wager outcome to the interactive controller 906 . the interactive controller 906 receives the interactive application instructions and resources 916 and wagering telemetry data 918 . the interactive controller 906 incorporates the received interactive application resources and executes the received interactive application instructions ( 918 ). the interactive controller updates ( 922 ) an application user interface of the interactive application provided by the interactive controller using the interactive application instructions and the resources, and updates ( 922 ) a wagering user interface using the wagering telemetry data. in several embodiments, a user can interact with an interleaved wagering system by using rc for wagering in accordance with a wagering proposition along with ac and elements in interactions with an interactive application. wagering can be executed by a wager controller while an interactive application can be executed by an interactive controller and managed with an application controller. fig. 8 is a collaboration diagram that illustrates how resources such as ac, rc, elements, and objects are utilized in an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. the collaboration diagram 1000 illustrates that rc 1002 , interactive application resources including elements and objects 1004 and ac 1006 can be utilized by a user 1008 in interactions with a wager controller 1010 , such as wager controller 102 of fig. 1 , an application controller 1012 , such as wager controller 112 of fig. 1 , and an interactive controller 1014 , such as interactive controller 120 of fig. 1 , of an interleaved wagering system. the contribution of elements and objects such as included in resources 1004 , can be linked to a user's access to credits, such as rc 1002 and/or ac 1006 . electronic receipt of these credits can come via a smart card, voucher or other portable media, or as received over a network from a server. in some embodiments, these credits can be drawn on demand from a user profile located in a database locally on an interleaved wagering system or in a remote server. a user's actions and/or decisions can affect an interactive application of interactive controller 1014 that consume and/or accumulate ac 1004 and/or resources 1004 in an interactive application executed by an interactive controller 1014 , a wager controller 101 and an application controller 1012 . the application controller 1012 can monitor the activities taking place within an interactive application executed by an interactive controller 1014 for wagering event occurrences. the application controller 1012 can also communicate the wagering event occurrences to the wager controller 1010 that triggers a wager of rc 1002 in accordance with a wagering proposition executed by the wager controller 1010 . in several embodiments, the user commences interaction with the interleaved wagering system by contributing credit to an interleaved wagering system such as, but not limited to, rc 1002 that may be credit in a real currency or may be credit in a virtual currency that is not fungible with a real currency, ac 1006 that may be application environment credits, and specified types of interactive application elements and/or objects 1004 . one or more of these contributions may be provided directly as currency and/or transferred in electronically. electronic transfer may come via a smart card, voucher or other portable media, or as transferred in over a network from a user data server or interleaved wagering system user account server. in many embodiments, contributions may be drawn on demand from user accounts located in servers residing on the network or in the cloud on a real time basis as the credits, elements and/or object are committed or consumed by the interleaved wagering system. generally, rc is utilized and accounted for by the wager controller 1010 ; and the resources 1004 and ac 1006 are utilized and accounted for by the application controller 1012 and/or the interactive controller 1014 . the user interacts (a) with an interactive application provided by the interactive controller 1014 with the interaction representing an action by the user within the context of the interactive application. the interactive controller 1014 receives the user interaction and communicates (b) the interaction to the application controller 1012 . the application controller 1012 receives the interaction and determines from the interaction whether or not a wager should be triggered. if a wager should be triggered, the application controller 1012 communicates (c) wager data about a wager in accordance with a wagering proposition associated with the interaction and thereby triggers a wager. the wager controller receives the wager data and executes the wager in accordance with the wagering proposition, and consumes (d) an appropriate amount of rc 1002 for the wager. the wager controller 1010 adjusts (e) the rc 1002 based upon a wager outcome of the wager and communicates (f) the wager outcome to the application controller 1012 as to the outcome of the wager triggered by the application controller 1012 . the application controller 1012 receives the wager outcome. the application controller determines what resources 1004 should be provided to the interactive controller and communicates (g) the resources 1004 to the interactive controller. the interactive controller receives the resources from the application control and integrates them into the execution of the interactive application provided by the interactive controller 1014 . in some embodiments, the application controller 1012 communicates (h) data about the wager outcome to the interactive controller. the interactive controller receives the wager outcome and displays the wager outcome to the user 1008 . in some embodiments, the application controller 1012 determines what resources and instructions to provide to the interactive controller 1014 for use by the interactive application provided by the interactive controller 1014 partially on the basis of the wager outcome. in some such embodiments, resources are provided in a case that the wager was a winning wager for the user. in other such embodiments, fewer or no resources are provided in a case of a losing wager. in some embodiments, the application controller 1012 determines what resources to provide based on internal logic of the application controller 1012 . in some such embodiments, the application controller 1012 employs a random result generator, such as a p/rng, to generate a random result and the random result is used to determine what resources are provided to the interactive controller 1014 . in several embodiments, the application controller 1012 determines an increment or a decrement of an amount of ac 1006 using the interactions received from the interactive controller. the increment or decremented amount is communicated (i) to the interactive controller for display to the user. in some embodiments, the application controller 1012 executes a wager of rc as a virtual currency, ac, elements or objects. in some such embodiments, the application controller 1012 employs a random result generator, such as a p/rng, to generate a random result and the random result is used to determine a wager outcome in rc as a virtual currency, ac, elements or objects. the following is description of an embodiment of the described collaboration where an interactive application provided by an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system is a first person shooter game. the process begins by a user selecting a machine gun to use in the game and then fires a burst of bullets at an opponent. the interactive controller can communicate to the application controller of the user's choice of weapon, that a burst of bullets was fired, and/or the outcome of the burst. the application controller communicates to the wager controller that 3 credits (rc) are to be wagered on the outcome of a wagering event to match the three bullets consumed. the wager controller then performs the wagering event and determines the result of the wager and may determine the winnings from a paytable. the wager controller consumes 3 credits of rc for the wager and executes the specified wager. by way of example, the wager controller may determine that the user hit a jackpot of 6 credits and returns the 6 credits to the rc and communicates to the application controller that 3 net credits were won by the user. the application controller communicates to the interactive controller to add 3 bullets to an ammunition clip. the interactive controller adds 3 bullets back to the ammo clip. the ammunition may be added by directly adding the ammunition to the clip or by allowing the user to find extra ammunition during use. the application controller logs the new user score (ac) in the game (as a function of the successful hit on the opponent) based on the interactive controller communication, and adds 2 extra points to the user score since a jackpot has been won. the application controller then adds 10 points to the user score (ac) given the success of the hit which in this example is worth 8 points, plus the 2 extra point. note that this example is only intended to provide an illustration of how credits flow in an interleaved wagering system, but is not intended to be exhaustive and only lists only one of numerous possibilities of how an interleaved wagering system may be configured to manage its fundamental credits. in many embodiments, user account controller 1020 , such as user account controller 150 of fig. 1 , an interleaved wagering system is used to store ac for use of the user. in such an embodiment, ac is generated by the application controller based on the user's use of the interleaved wagering system and an amount of the ac is communicated to the user account controller 1020 . the user account controller stores the amount of ac between sessions. in some embodiments, the user account controller communicates an amount of ac to the application controller at the start of a session for use by the user during a session. interactive applications may include supplementary modes of operation. for example, a skill-based interactive game may include supplementary bonus rounds and/or boss rounds. a bonus round may involve one or more challenges through which a user can acquire additional benefit (e.g., application environment credit, real credit, enabling elements, or resources) with minimal risk associated with the opportunity (e.g., little to no consumption of resources, such as real credit or enabling elements). a boss round may involve a skill-based challenge that is typically of higher difficulty than an average level of skilled application interaction, and may involve the opportunity for the user to acquire a substantial benefit for successful completion of the boss round. in some embodiments, the supplementary mode must be completed (e.g., the boss must be defeated) before further use of the application is allowed. execution of the supplementary mode of an interleaved wagering system may involve components of the interleaved wagering system as described herein. use of the components and interaction between components of the interleaved wagering system in the supplementary mode is consistent with the interleaved wagering system as described herein. for example, an interactive controller, interactive application, application controller, and wager controller used in an interleaved wagering system may be used in executing a supplementary mode of the interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the benefit associated with the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be a portion of resources committed by the user during interactive application interaction. for example, if the user loses 100 units of enabling elements during application interaction, a portion of the 100 units of enabling elements may be eligible for recovery by the user for successful completion of the supplementary mode. in many embodiments, the benefit associated with the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be a portion of credits committed to wagering by the user during interactive application interaction. in various embodiments, the benefit pool is in the form of a lottery and the benefits provided to the user are in the form of a draw from the lottery pool. in many embodiments, wagering is performed using virtual credits that do not have value and are not available for cashout into a real currency while the benefit has value in a real currency and is available for cashout. in some embodiments, the benefit associated with the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be provided by a third party source. for example, an operator of the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may contribute a benefit, such as application environment credit, or real credit. the operator may contribute the benefit in order to promote use of the interactive application. in some embodiments, the benefit associated with the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be accumulated over time. for example, a portion of resources committed by one or more users during application interaction may be allocated to a benefit pool. the collection period of the resources may be over a span of rounds, application sessions, hours, days, weeks, months, or any other time period. successful completion of the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be based (a) entirely upon skill, (b) entirely upon chance, or (c) a combination of skill and chance. in some embodiments, successful completion of the supplemental mode based entirely upon skill means a gambling game is not explicitly engaged to determine a payout. in some embodiments, successful completion of the supplemental mode based entirely upon chance means the player's skill is not relevant; the payout is determined as a function of a rng. successful completion of the supplemental mode may be solely based upon the user's performance, or may be based on the user's performance relative to others, either as a function of participating in a multi-user application session, or as a function of comparison of the user's performance to other users in individual application sessions. the user may or may not be aware of the benefit to be awarded upon successful completion of the supplemental mode. upon successful completion of the supplemental mode, the user may be awarded the entirety of the benefit pool, or may be awarded a portion of the benefit pool. in some embodiments, the portion awarded is based on the user's interaction with the application. for example, the portion awarded to a user may be based on a score achieved by the user in a game, compared to the performance of other users. the performance of other users to be taken into consideration may be over a period of time (e.g., a day, a week, a month, a year) or over a single application session (e.g., a multi-user session of the interactive application). the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system may be triggered in various ways. triggering may be based on application interaction time of the user, credits committed by the user, credits lost by the user, credits won by the user, in-application events, or by the operator or other non-user related circumstances. for example, the supplemental mode may be triggered when the user interacts with the application for a threshold amount of time. in another example, the supplemental mode may be triggered when the user loses a threshold amount of real world credits or enabling elements. in another example, the supplemental mode may be triggered when the user wins a threshold amount of resources, such as real world credits or application environment credits. in another example, the secondary mode may be triggered based on a schedule provided by the operator. in some embodiments, triggering of the secondary mode is independent of the user's interactions with the system. in some embodiments, normal operation of the interactive application may be interrupted by the supplemental mode. in some embodiments, the supplemental mode must be completed in order to return to normal operation of the interactive application. in some embodiments, the supplemental mode must be successfully completed to return to normal operation of the interactive application. in some embodiments, any completion of the supplemental mode (success or failure) is sufficient to return to normal operation of the interactive application. during the course of the supplemental mode of the interleaved wagering system, users may receive communication regarding the status of the benefit pool, rules of successful completion of the supplemental mode, or availability of the supplemental mode. in some embodiments, an interactive application is an interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game may include optional challenges or bosses. in some embodiments, the optional challenge allows a user to acquire additional benefit (e.g., points, goods, weapons, power ups) while providing little or no down side to the user (e.g., there is not the prospect of losing a life in the game, consuming game resources such as time, bullets, etc.). in some embodiments, it is not required that the optional round be completed (e.g., the boss defeated) before proceeding further in the interactive game. in some embodiments, an optional challenge or boss is structured so that it represents an opportunity for the user to access additional, bonus wagering, bonus points, or other benefit(s). in another embodiment, the optional challenge or boss accumulates additional funds as committed to the round by an operator, such as a casino, through a marketing budget or other mechanism. access to the optional challenge may be either (a) fully based upon skill, (b) fully random—i.e. not a function of skill, or (c) a combination of chance and skill, as described herein. in (a), a wager controller is not explicitly engaged to determine a payout. in (b), the user's skill is not relevant; beyond the requirement to defeat the boss and/or complete the bonus round, the payout is determined as a function of a p/rng, as described herein. in some embodiments, unlike access to the challenge, the optional challenge itself may be fully based upon skill. the user may win the benefits by defeating the optional challenge or boss. the user's success in winning the funds in the bonus and/or boss round may depend solely upon the user's performance relative to the interactive game, or it can be a function of the user's performance relative to others, either as a function of participating in a multi-user game session, or as a function of the user's performance relative to other players, each of whom is involved in a single user game session. users may compete concurrently, in parallel, or sequentially in a challenge. in an example embodiment, one or more eligible users may elect to participate in an optional boss battle. the user that successfully locates and defeats the optional boss may win the challenge. if competing concurrently, users may have to defeat other users prior to defeating the boss. if competing in parallel, the users may not interact with each other, but face the same challenge at the same time. if competing sequentially, the users may face the same challenge at different times. success in the optional challenge may grant access to additional wagering options at low or no cost, different pay tables, free entertainment play, or additional optional challenges. a skilled user may compete in an optional challenge, successfully complete the challenge, and then continue with another optional challenge. the secondary challenge may be accessible only through completion of the first challenge, but neither would be necessary to proceed further in the interactive game. success in a secondary optional challenge may generate a tertiary challenge and so forth. fig. 9 is a diagram of interactions between various components of the system and processes in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. a user 1100 performs application interaction 1102 . the application interaction may be with an interactive application as described herein, provided by an interactive controller of an interleaved wagering system. in some embodiments, the interaction application is an interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game is a skill-based interactive game. in some embodiment, the interactive game is a chance-based game. as described herein, a portion of a wager made during interaction with the interleaved wagering system is a benefit pool contribution 1106 sent to a benefit pool 1108 . after completion of the application interaction 1102 , (or in some embodiments, during application interaction 1102 ), an entry measure is performed 1104 . an entry measure may include measurements of various parameters that may trigger initiation of a supplementary mode of the interleaved wagering system. for example, the entry measure 1104 may track time spent by the user 1100 using the interactive application. when the time spent by the user 1100 reaches a threshold value, a supplementary mode 1112 may be triggered and provided to the user 1100 . upon entering a supplementary mode 1112 , the user 1100 is eligible to be awarded some amount of benefits from the benefit pool 1108 . as described herein, benefit pool contributions 1106 during execution of the interleaved wagering system may be included in the benefit pool 1108 . the benefit pool 1108 may also be sourced from alternate funding sources 1110 , such as a third party. an example of a third party may be a sponsor or operator of the interactive application or the interleaved wagering system. upon triggering of the supplementary mode 1112 , the user 1100 interacts with the supplementary mode 1114 . the supplementary mode interaction 1114 and determination of a successful outcome for the user 1100 may be based on skill, chance, or a combination thereof. if the user 1100 is successful 1116 , the user 1100 is awarded all of the benefit pool 1108 or a portion of the benefit pool 1108 . for example, if the interactive application is a skill-based interactive game, and the supplementary mode is a boss round, the user 1100 may have to defeat the boss, through skillful play of the interactive game, in order to be successful. as described herein, the amount of the benefit pool 1108 awarded to the user 1100 may be based on the user's performance alone or based on the user's performance compared to the performance of others. fig. 10 is a diagram of the structure of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. the interleaved wagering system includes an interactive controller 1202 , an application controller 1204 , and a wager controller 1206 , as described herein. the interactive controller 1202 may provide an interactive application. in some embodiments, the interactive application is an interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game is a skill-based interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game is a chance-based interactive game. the system further includes a benefit pool controller 1208 . as described herein, the benefit pool controller 1208 controls the benefits to be awarded to a user upon successful interaction with a supplementary mode of the interleaved wagering system. for example, when the benefit pool controller 1208 receives a request for benefits, the benefit pool controller 1208 may coordinate communication or transfer of the corresponding benefit award amount to the user. the benefit pool controller 1208 may further store the benefits to be awarded to the user upon successful interaction with the supplementary mode. the benefit pool controller 1208 is operatively connected to the application controller 1204 and the interactive controller 1202 . the benefit pool controller 1208 may be connected to the application controller 1204 and the interactive controller 1202 via a network connection. the benefit pool controller 1208 may also be responsible for determining a benefit award amount to award multiple interactive controllers participating in a multi-user supplementary mode session. that is, when a user's benefit award amount is based on the user's performance relative to the performance of other users in a common supplementary mode session, the benefit pool controller 1208 may receive the scores of the users participating in the common supplementary mode session, and divide the total benefits accordingly. in this case, the benefit pool controller 1208 is operatively connected to other application controllers and interactive controllers. for example, if there are total benefits of 1000 real world credits and 3 users participating in a supplementary mode session, the benefit pool controller 1208 receives the scores for the 3 users from their corresponding application controllers, via a network, and divides the 1000 real world credits accordingly. if the rules of the supplementary mode session indicate that the highest scoring user receives the entirety of the total benefits, the benefit pool controller 1208 will award the 1000 real world credits to the highest scoring user. if the rules of the supplementary mode session indicate that the total benefits will be divided proportionally based on the scores of the users, the benefit pool controller 1208 determines portions of the 1000 real world credits to award to the 3 users. the application controller 1204 further includes a supplementary mode module 1210 . the supplementary mode module 1210 may be responsible for triggering the supplementary mode. for example, the supplementary mode module 1210 may monitor various parameters, such as time spent by the user, user loss of credits, user earning of credits. when a monitored parameter meets a threshold value, the supplementary mode module 1210 triggers execution of the supplementary mode. in some embodiments, triggering of the supplementary mode includes communicating, to the interactive controller, an indication to provide a supplementary mode session. the supplementary mode module 1210 may also trigger execution of the supplementary mode based on a condition other than monitored parameters. for example, the condition may be a time-based trigger or receiving an indication from a third party source to trigger the supplementary mode. the interactive controller 1202 , upon receiving an indication to provide a supplementary mode session, provides the supplementary mode session, such as a bonus round or a boss round. when the user successfully completes the supplementary mode session, benefits are received from the benefit pool controller 1208 and the supplementary mode session is concluded. fig. 11 is a sequence diagram of interactions between components of an interleaved wagering system in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. the system includes an interactive controller 1302 , an application controller 1304 , a benefit pool controller 1306 , and a wager controller 1308 , as described herein. the interactive controller 1302 communicates application telemetry to the application controller 1304 ( 1310 ). the application telemetry is based on an interactive application provided by the interactive controller 1302 . in some embodiments, the interactive application is an interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game is a skill-based interactive game. in some embodiments, the interactive game is a chance-based interactive game. the application controller 1304 receives the application telemetry from the interactive controller 1302 ( 1310 ). based on the received application telemetry, the application controller 1304 determines whether a wager request should be triggered. when a wager request is triggered, the application controller 1304 communicates, to the wager controller 1308 , a wager request ( 1312 ). the wager controller 1308 receives the wager request from the application controller 1304 ( 1312 ). in some embodiments, upon receiving a wager request from the application controller 1304 , the wager controller 1308 communicates an amount of benefit to the benefit pool controller 1306 ( 1314 ). for example, the wager controller 1308 may communicate a real world credit amount to the benefit pool controller 1306 that is a portion of the wager amount associated with the wager request. the benefit pool controller 1306 receives the benefit contribution from the wager controller 1308 ( 1314 ). upon receiving the wager request, the wager controller 1308 also determines a wager result and communicates the wager result to the application controller 1304 ( 1316 ). the application controller 1304 receives the wager result from the wager controller 1308 ( 1316 ). steps 1310 - 1316 may be repeated any number of times, in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. interactive controller 1302 communicates, to the application controller 1304 , application telemetry ( 1318 ). the application controller 1304 receives the application telemetry from the interactive controller 1302 ( 1318 ). upon receiving the application telemetry, the application controller determines whether to trigger a supplementary mode ( 1320 ). as described herein, the determination of whether to trigger a supplementary mode may be performed by a supplementary mode module within the application controller 1304 . also as described herein, the determination may be based on whether one or more parameters meet a threshold value or may be based on another trigger, such as a time-based trigger or receiving an indication from a third party source (not shown). when triggering a supplementary mode is determined, the application controller 1304 communicates a notification regarding the supplementary mode to the interactive controller 1302 ( 1322 ). the notification regarding the supplementary mode may be an indication to the interactive controller 1302 to provide a supplementary mode to the user. as described herein, the supplementary mode may be a bonus round and/or a boss round. the interactive controller 1302 receives a notification regarding the supplementary mode, from the application controller 1304 ( 1322 ). upon receiving the notification, the interactive controller 1302 provides the supplementary mode session ( 1324 ). for example, if the interactive application is a skill-based interactive game, and the supplementary mode is a boss round, the user may be required to defeat the boss through skillful play of the interactive game in order to complete the supplementary mode session. upon completion of the supplementary mode session, the interactive controller 1302 communicates results of the supplementary mode session to the application controller 1304 ( 1326 ). the application controller 1304 receives the results of the supplementary mode session from the interactive controller 1302 ( 1326 ). the results of the supplementary mode session may be a score achieved by the user and may also include an indication of success or failure. based on the results of the supplementary mode session, the application controller 1304 communicates a request for benefits to the benefit pool controller 1306 ( 1328 ). the benefit pool controller 1306 receives the request for benefits from the application controller ( 1328 ). in some embodiments, the request for benefits includes the score of the user. based on the received request for benefits, the benefit pool controller 1306 communicates benefits to the application controller 1304 ( 1330 ). the application controller 1304 receives the benefits from the benefit pool controller 1306 ( 1330 ). the application controller 1304 communicates the received benefits to the interactive controller 1302 ( 1332 ). the interactive controller 1302 receives the benefits from the application controller 1304 ( 1332 ). in some embodiments, the benefit pool controller 1306 communicates the benefits to the interactive controller 1302 directly. while the above description may include many specific embodiments of the invention, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention, but rather as examples of embodiments thereof. it is therefore to be understood that the present invention can be practiced otherwise than specifically described, without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. thus, embodiments of the present invention described herein should be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive.
085-328-620-420-026	US	[ "WO", "KR", "TW", "US", "JP", "DE" ]	C07D401/14,C07D403/14,C07D405/14,C07D409/14,H01L51/00,H01L27/32,H01L51/50,H01L51/54,C09K11/06,C07D209/82	2010-08-20T00:00:00	2010	[ "C07", "H01", "C09" ]	bicarbazole compounds for oleds	novel organic compounds comprising a bicarbazole core are provided. in particular, the compounds has a 3,3'-bicarbazole core substituted at the 9-position with a triazine or pyrimidine. the compounds may be used in organic light emitting devices to provide devices having improved efficiency and improved lifetime.	claims: 1. a compound having the formula: wherein r ls r 2 , r3, and r4 may represent mono, di, tri, or tetra substitutions; wherein r ls r 2 , r3, and r4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl; wherein ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl; and wherein x is c or n. 2. the compound of claim 1, wherein ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are further substituted. 3. the compound of claim 1, wherein ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene; and wherein ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, wherein the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 . 4. the compound of claim 1, wherein ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. 5. the compound of claim 1, wherein ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. 6. the compound of claim 1, wherein r ls r 2 , r3, and r4 are hydrogen. 7. the compound of claim 1, wherein the compound is selected from the group consistin of: compound 1 compound 2 compound 3 compound 4 156 compound 181 compound 182 compound 183 compound 184 8. a first device comprising an organic light emitting device, further comprising: an anode; a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, wherein the organic layer comprises a compound having the formula: formula i, wherein r ls r 2 , r 3, and r4 may represent mono, di, tri, or tetra substitutions; wherein r ls r 2 , r 3 , and r4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl; wherein ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl; and wherein x is c or n. 9. the device of claim 8, wherein ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are further substituted. 10. the device of claim 8, wherein ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene; and wherein ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, wherein the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ari, ar 2 , and ar 3 . 11. the device of claim 8, wherein ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. 12. the device of claim 8, wherein ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. 13. the device of claim 8, wherein r ls r 2 , r 3 , and r4 are hydrogen. 14. the device of claim 8, wherein the compound is selected from the group consisting of: 200 202 203 compound 43 compound 44 compound 51 compound 52 207 compound 57 compound 58 compound 59 compound 60 compound 61 compound 62 compound 63 compound 64 210 compound 75 compound 76 compound 83 compound 84 216 217 compound 97 compound 98 compound 99 compound 100 compound 101 compound 102 compound 103 compound 104 compound 107 compound 108 compound 1 15 compound 116 224 226 compound 135 compound 136 compound 139 compound 140 compound 143 compound 144 230 compound 155 compound 156 234 236 compound 173 compound 174 compound 175 compound 176 238 compound 181 compound 182 compound 183 compound 184 15. the device of claim 8, wherein the organic layer is deposited using solution processing. 16. the device of claim 8, wherein the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound having formula i is a host. 17. the device of claim 16, wherein the organic layer further comprises an emissive dopant having the structure: 240 d29 d30 the device of claim 8, wherein the first device is a consumer product. the device of claim 8, wherein the first device is an organic light emitting	bicarbazole compounds for oleds [0001] the claimed invention was made by, on behalf of, and/or in connection with one or more of the following parties to a joint university corporation research agreement: regents of the university of michigan, princeton university, the university of southern california, and the universal display corporation. the agreement was in effect on and before the date the claimed invention was made, and the claimed invention was made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of the agreement. field of the invention [0002] the present invention relates to organic light emitting devices (oleds). more specifically, the present invention pertains to phosphorescent organic materials comprising a bicarbazole having a nitrogen-containing heterocycle at the 9 position. background [0003] opto-electronic devices that make use of organic materials are becoming increasingly desirable for a number of reasons. many of the materials used to make such devices are relatively inexpensive, so organic opto-electronic devices have the potential for cost advantages over inorganic devices. in addition, the inherent properties of organic materials, such as their flexibility, may make them well suited for particular applications such as fabrication on a flexible substrate. examples of organic opto-electronic devices include organic light emitting devices (oleds), organic phototransistors, organic photovoltaic cells, and organic photodetectors. for oleds, the organic materials may have performance advantages over conventional materials. for example, the wavelength at which an organic emissive layer emits light may generally be readily tuned with appropriate dopants. [0004] oleds make use of thin organic films that emit light when voltage is applied across the device. oleds are becoming an increasingly interesting technology for use in applications such as flat panel displays, illumination, and backlighting. several oled materials and configurations are described in u.s. pat. nos. 5,844,363, 6,303,238, and 5,707,745, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. [0005] one application for phosphorescent emissive molecules is a full color display. industry standards for such a display call for pixels adapted to emit particular colors, referred to as "saturated" colors. in particular, these standards call for saturated red, green, and blue pixels. color may be measured using cie coordinates, which are well known to the art. [0006] one example of a green emissive molecule is tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium, denoted ir(ppy) 3 , which has the structure: [0007] in this, and later figures herein, we depict the dative bond from nitrogen to metal (here, ir) as a straight line. [0008] as used herein, the term "organic" includes polymeric materials as well as small molecule organic materials that may be used to fabricate organic opto-electronic devices. "small molecule" refers to any organic material that is not a polymer, and "small molecules" may actually be quite large. small molecules may include repeat units in some circumstances. for example, using a long chain alkyl group as a substituent does not remove a molecule from the "small molecule" class. small molecules may also be incorporated into polymers, for example as a pendent group on a polymer backbone or as a part of the backbone. small molecules may also serve as the core moiety of a dendrimer, which consists of a series of chemical shells built on the core moiety. the core moiety of a dendrimer may be a fluorescent or phosphorescent small molecule emitter. a dendrimer may be a "small molecule," and it is believed that all dendrimers currently used in the field of oleds are small molecules. [0009] as used herein, "top" means furthest away from the substrate, while "bottom" means closest to the substrate. where a first layer is described as "disposed over" a second layer, the first layer is disposed further away from substrate. there may be other layers between the first and second layer, unless it is specified that the first layer is "in contact with" the second layer. for example, a cathode may be described as "disposed over" an anode, even though there are various organic layers in between. [0010] as used herein, "solution processible" means capable of being dissolved, dispersed, or transported in and/or deposited from a liquid medium, either in solution or suspension form. [0011] a ligand may be referred to as "photoactive" when it is believed that the ligand directly contributes to the photoactive properties of an emissive material. a ligand may be referred to as "ancillary" when it is believed that the ligand does not contribute to the photoactive properties of an emissive material, although an ancillary ligand may alter the properties of a photoactive ligand. [0012] as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first "highest occupied molecular orbital" (homo) or "lowest unoccupied molecular orbital" (lumo) energy level is "greater than" or "higher than" a second homo or lumo energy level if the first energy level is closer to the vacuum energy level. since ionization potentials (ip) are measured as a negative energy relative to a vacuum level, a higher homo energy level corresponds to an ip having a smaller absolute value (an ip that is less negative). similarly, a higher lumo energy level corresponds to an electron affinity (ea) having a smaller absolute value (an ea that is less negative). on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, the lumo energy level of a material is higher than the homo energy level of the same material. a "higher" homo or lumo energy level appears closer to the top of such a diagram than a "lower" homo or lumo energy level. [0013] as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first work function is "greater than" or "higher than" a second work function if the first work function has a higher absolute value. because work functions are generally measured as negative numbers relative to vacuum level, this means that a "higher" work function is more negative. on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, a "higher" work function is illustrated as further away from the vacuum level in the downward direction. thus, the definitions of homo and lumo energy levels follow a different convention than work functions. [0014] more details on oleds, and the definitions described above, can be found in us pat. no. 7,279,704, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. summary of the invention [0015] compounds comprising a bicarbazole are provided. the compounds have the formula: formula i. [0016] ri, r 2 , r 3, and r 4 may represent mono, di, tri, or terra substitutions. r ls r 2 , r 3, and r 4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 may be further substituted. x is c or n. [0017] in one aspect, ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, but the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 . preferably, ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. preferably, ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. [0018] in another aspect, r ls r 2 , r 3j and r 4 are hydrogen. [0019] specific examples of compounds comprising bicarbazole are also provided. in particular, the compound is selected from the group consisting of:  compound 181 compound 182 compound 183 compound 184 [0020] a first device comprising an organic light emitting device is also provided. the device further comprises an anode, a cathode, and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode. the organic layer comprises a compound having formula i, as described above. [0021] ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r4 may represent mono, di, tri, or terra substitutions. ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r 4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl. ar l s ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl. ar l s ar 2 , and ar 3 may be further substituted. x is c or n. [0022] in one aspect, ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, but the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 . preferably, ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. preferably, ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. [0023] in another aspect, r ls r 2 , r 3, and r 4 are hydrogen. [0024] specific examples of devices containing compounds comprising bicarbazole are also provided. in particular, the compound is selected from the group consisting of compound 1 - compound 184. [0025] in one aspect, the organic layer is deposited using solution processing. [0026] in one aspect, the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound having formula i is a host. [0027] in another aspect, the organic layer further comprises an emissive dopant having the formula: d1 d2 d3 d4 [0028] in one aspect, the first device is a consumer product. in another aspect, the first device is an organic light emitting device. brief description of the drawings [0029] fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device. [0030] fig. 2 shows an inverted organic light emitting device that does not have a separate electron transport layer. [0031] fig. 3 shows a bicarbazole compound with a nitrogen-containing heterocycle substitution at the 9-position. detailed description [0032] generally, an oled comprises at least one organic layer disposed between and electrically connected to an anode and a cathode. when a current is applied, the anode injects holes and the cathode injects electrons into the organic layer(s). the injected holes and electrons each migrate toward the oppositely charged electrode. when an electron and hole localize on the same molecule, an "exciton," which is a localized electron-hole pair having an excited energy state, is formed. light is emitted when the exciton relaxes via a photoemissive mechanism. in some cases, the exciton may be localized on an excimer or an exciplex. non-radiative mechanisms, such as thermal relaxation, may also occur, but are generally considered undesirable. [0033] the initial oleds used emissive molecules that emitted light from their singlet states ("fluorescence") as disclosed, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,769,292, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. fluorescent emission generally occurs in a time frame of less than 10 nanoseconds. [0034] more recently, oleds having emissive materials that emit light from triplet states ("phosphorescence") have been demonstrated. baldo et al., "highly efficient phosphorescent emission from organic electroluminescent devices," nature, vol. 395, 151-154, 1998; ("baldo- i") and baldo et al., "very high-efficiency green organic light-emitting devices based on electrophosphorescence," appl. phys. lett., vol. 75, no. 3, 4-6 (1999) ("baldo-ii"), which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. phosphorescence is described in more detail in us pat. no. 7,279,704 at cols. 5-6, which are incorporated by reference. [0035] fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device 100. the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. device 100 may include a substrate 110, an anode 115, a hole injection layer 120, a hole transport layer 125, an electron blocking layer 130, an emissive layer 135, a hole blocking layer 140, an electron transport layer 145, an electron injection layer 150, a protective layer 155, and a cathode 160. cathode 160 is a compound cathode having a first conductive layer 162 and a second conductive layer 164. device 100 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. the properties and functions of these various layers, as well as example materials, are described in more detail in us 7,279,704 at cols. 6-10, which are incorporated by reference. [0036] more examples for each of these layers are available. for example, a flexible and transparent substrate-anode combination is disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,844,363, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of a p-doped hole transport layer is m- mtdata doped with f.sub.4-tcnq at a molar ratio of 50: 1, as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. examples of emissive and host materials are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 6,303,238 to thompson et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of an n-doped electron transport layer is bphen doped with li at a molar ratio of 1 : 1 , as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. u.s. pat. nos. 5,703,436 and 5,707,745, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, disclose examples of cathodes including compound cathodes having a thin layer of metal such as mg:ag with an overlying transparent, electrically-conductive, sputter-deposited ito layer. the theory and use of blocking layers is described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 6,097,147 and u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. examples of injection layers are provided in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. a description of protective layers may be found in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. [0037] fig. 2 shows an inverted oled 200. the device includes a substrate 210, a cathode 215, an emissive layer 220, a hole transport layer 225, and an anode 230. device 200 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. because the most common oled configuration has a cathode disposed over the anode, and device 200 has cathode 215 disposed under anode 230, device 200 may be referred to as an "inverted" oled. materials similar to those described with respect to device 100 may be used in the corresponding layers of device 200. fig. 2 provides one example of how some layers may be omitted from the structure of device 100. [0038] the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2 is provided by way of non- limiting example, and it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be used in connection with a wide variety of other structures. the specific materials and structures described are exemplary in nature, and other materials and structures may be used. functional oleds may be achieved by combining the various layers described in different ways, or layers may be omitted entirely, based on design, performance, and cost factors. other layers not specifically described may also be included. materials other than those specifically described may be used. although many of the examples provided herein describe various layers as comprising a single material, it is understood that combinations of materials, such as a mixture of host and dopant, or more generally a mixture, may be used. also, the layers may have various sublayers. the names given to the various layers herein are not intended to be strictly limiting. for example, in device 200, hole transport layer 225 transports holes and injects holes into emissive layer 220, and may be described as a hole transport layer or a hole injection layer. in one embodiment, an oled may be described as having an "organic layer" disposed between a cathode and an anode. this organic layer may comprise a single layer, or may further comprise multiple layers of different organic materials as described, for example, with respect to figs. 1 and 2. [0039] structures and materials not specifically described may also be used, such as oleds comprised of polymeric materials (pleds) such as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,247,190 to friend et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. by way of further example, oleds having a single organic layer may be used. oleds may be stacked, for example as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,707,745 to forrest et al, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. the oled structure may deviate from the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2. for example, the substrate may include an angled reflective surface to improve out- coupling, such as a mesa structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,091,195 to forrest et al, and/or a pit structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,834,893 to bulovic et al, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. [0040] unless otherwise specified, any of the layers of the various embodiments may be deposited by any suitable method. for the organic layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation, ink-jet, such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,013,982 and 6,087,196, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, organic vapor phase deposition (ovpd), such as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,337,102 to forrest et al, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, and deposition by organic vapor jet printing (ovjp), such as described in u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/233,470, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. other suitable deposition methods include spin coating and other solution based processes. solution based processes are preferably carried out in nitrogen or an inert atmosphere. for the other layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation. preferred patterning methods include deposition through a mask, cold welding such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,294,398 and 6,468,819, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, and patterning associated with some of the deposition methods such as ink-jet and ovjd. other methods may also be used. the materials to be deposited may be modified to make them compatible with a particular deposition method. for example, substituents such as alkyl and aryl groups, branched or unbranched, and preferably containing at least 3 carbons, may be used in small molecules to enhance their ability to undergo solution processing. substituents having 20 carbons or more may be used, and 3-20 carbons is a preferred range. materials with asymmetric structures may have better solution processibility than those having symmetric structures, because asymmetric materials may have a lower tendency to recrystallize. dendrimer substituents may be used to enhance the ability of small molecules to undergo solution processing. [0041] devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the invention may be incorporated into a wide variety of consumer products, including flat panel displays, computer monitors, televisions, billboards, lights for interior or exterior illumination and/or signaling, heads up displays, fully transparent displays, flexible displays, laser printers, telephones, cell phones, personal digital assistants (pdas), laptop computers, digital cameras, camcorders, viewfmders, micro-displays, vehicles, a large area wall, theater or stadium screen, or a sign. various control mechanisms may be used to control devices fabricated in accordance with the present invention, including passive matrix and active matrix. many of the devices are intended for use in a temperature range comfortable to humans, such as 18 degrees c to 30 degrees c, and more preferably at room temperature (20-25 degrees c). [0042] the materials and structures described herein may have applications in devices other than oleds. for example, other optoelectronic devices such as organic solar cells and organic photodetectors may employ the materials and structures. more generally, organic devices, such as organic transistors, may employ the materials and structures. [0043] the terms halo, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkenyl, alkynyl, arylkyl, heterocyclic group, aryl, aromatic group, and heteroaryl are known to the art, and are defined in us 7,279,704 at cols. 31-32, which are incorporated herein by reference. [0044] novel bicarbazole containing compounds are provided (illustrated in fig. 3). more specifically, these compounds contain a 3,3 '-bicarbazole core and triazine or pyrimidine substitution at the 9-position. these compounds may be used as hosts for phosphorescent oleds. [0045] carbazole containing compounds for use as oled materials have been previously described. in particular, 3,3 '-bicarbazole compounds have good hole transporting properties, but have poor stability toward electrons. alkyl and aryl substituted 3,3 '-bicarbazole compounds have been used as hole transporting materials and hosts in oleds; however, these compounds also have imbalanced charge transporting properties and poor electron stability and may provide devices with low efficiency and limited lifetime. for example, a diaryl substituted 3,3'- bicarbazole, i.e. hi, has a homo around 5.6 ev, very good for hole transporting but poor for electron transporting and stability. therefore, the 3,3 '-bicarbazole compounds reported in the literature may have limited use. [0046] in the present invention, nitrogen containing electron deficient heterocycles were introduced to 3,3 '-bicarbazole compounds. in particular, the compounds contain a 3,3'- bicarbazole core and triazine or pyrimidine substitution at the 9 position. the nitrogen containing heterocycle tunes the homo/lumo levels as well as increases the compound's stability toward electrons. in addition, these compounds contain a donor part, i.e. bicarbazole, and an acceptor part, i.e. electron deficient nitrogen heterocycle. without being bound by theory, it is believed that these donor-acceptor type molecules can shrink singlet and triplet gap and improve stability to both hole and electrons. therefore, these 3,3 '-bicarbazole compounds containing a nitrogen heterocycle may provide devices having better stability and lower operating voltage. [0047] compounds comprising a bicarbazole are provided. the compounds have the formula: [0048] formula i. [0049] ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r4 may represent mono, di, tri, or terra substitutions. ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r 4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 may be further substituted. x is c or n. [0050] in one aspect, ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene, and ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, but the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ar l5 ar 2 , and ar 3 . preferably, ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. preferably, ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. [0051] in another aspect, r ls r 2 , r 3 , and r 4 are hydrogen. [0052] specific examples of compounds comprising bicarbazole are also provided. in particular, the compound is selected from the group consisting of: compound 14 compound 15 compound 16 72 compound 181 compound 182 compound 183 compound 184 [0053] a first device comprising an organic light emitting device is also provided. the device further comprises an anode, a cathode, and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode. the organic layer comprises a compound having formula i, as described above. [0054] ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r4 may represent mono, di, tri, or terra substitutions. ri, r 2 , r 3 , and r 4 are independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl. ar l s ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from aryl or heteroaryl. ar l s ar 2 , and ar 3 may be further substituted. x is c or n. [0055] in one aspect, ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, naphthalene, biphenyl, terphenyl, fluorene, dibenzofuran, dibenzothiophene, phenanthrene, and triphenylene. ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 are independently further substituted with a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, aryl and heteroaryl, but the substituent is not an aryl or heteroaryl fused directly to ar ls ar 2 , and ar 3 . preferably, ari and ar 2 are independently selected from the group consisting of phenyl, pyridine, and naphthalene. preferably, ar 3 is selected from the group consisting of phenyl, biphenyl, dibenzofuran, and dibenzothiophene. [0056] in another aspect, r ls r 2 , r 3, and r 4 are hydrogen. [0057] specific examples of devices containing compounds comprising bicarbazole are also provided. in particular, the compound is selected from the group consisting of compound 1 - compound 184. [0058] in one aspect, the organic layer is deposited using solution processing. [0059] in one aspect, the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound having formula i is a host. [0060] in another aspect, the organic layer further comprises an emissive dopant having the formula: d1 d2 d3 d4 [0061] in one aspect, the first device is a consumer product. in another aspect, the first device is an organic light emitting device. combination with other materials [0062] the materials described herein as useful for a particular layer in an organic light emitting device may be used in combination with a wide variety of other materials present in the device. for example, emissive dopants disclosed herein may be used in conjunction with a wide variety of hosts, transport layers, blocking layers, injection layers, electrodes and other layers that may be present. the materials described or referred to below are non-limiting examples of materials that may be useful in combination with the compounds disclosed herein, and one of skill in the art can readily consult the literature to identify other materials that may be useful in combination. hil/htl: [0063] a hole injecting/transporting material to be used in the present invention is not particularly limited, and any compound may be used as long as the compound is typically used as a hole injecting/transporting material. examples of the material include, but not limit to: a phthalocyanine or porphryin derivative; an aromatic amine derivative; an indolocarbazole derivative; a polymer containing fluorohydrocarbon; a polymer with conductivity dopants; a conducting polymer, such as pedot/pss; a self-assembly monomer derived from compounds such as phosphonic acid and sliane derivatives; a metal oxide derivative, such as moo x ; a p-type semiconducting organic compound, such as 1,4,5,8,9,12-hexaazatriphenylenehexacarbonitrile; a metal complex, and a cross-linkable compounds. [0064] examples of aromatic amine derivatives used in hil or htl include, but not limit to the following general structures: ar 2 . ar 3 n ar 2 ar 4 ar ar4 \ / \ n— ar 1— n 7 n n ~7\r ar 3 7 \ ar 5 ar ar [0065] each of ar 1 to ar 9 is selected from the group consisting aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, azulene; group consisting aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and group consisting 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atom, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. wherein each ar is further substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, arylalkyl, heteroalkyl, aryl and heteroaryl. [0066] in one aspect, ar 1 to ar 9 is independently selected from the group consisting of: [0067] k is an integer from 1 to 20; x 1 to x 8 is ch or n; ar 1 has the same group defined above. [0068] examples of metal complexes used in hil or htl include, but not limit to the following general formula: [0069] m is a metal, having an atomic weight greater than 40; (y^y 2 ) is a bidentate ligand, yl and y 2 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l is an ancillary ligand; m is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and m+n is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. [0070] in one aspect, (y^y 2 ) is a 2-phenylpyridine derivative. [0071] in another aspect, (y^y 2 ) is a carbene ligand. [0072] in another aspect, m is selected from ir, pt, os, and zn. [0073] in a further aspect, the metal complex has a smallest oxidation potential in solution vs. fc + /fc couple less than about 0.6 v. host: [0074] the light emitting layer of the organic el device of the present invention preferably contains at least a metal complex as light emitting material, and may contain a host material using the metal complex as a dopant material. examples of the host material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as the triplet energy of the host is larger than that of the dopant. [0075] examples of metal complexes used as host are preferred to have the following general formula: [0076] m is a metal; (y 3 -y 4 ) is a bidentate ligand, y 3 and y 4 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l is an ancillary ligand; m is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and m+n is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. [0077] in one aspect, the metal complexes are: [0078] (o-n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o and n. [0079] in another aspect, m is selected from ir and pt. [0080] in a further aspect, (y 3 -y 4 ) is a carbene ligand. [0081] examples of organic compounds used as host are selected from the group consisting aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, azulene; group consisting aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and group consisting 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atom, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. wherein each group is further substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, arylalkyl, heteroalkyl, aryl and heteroaryl. [0082] in one aspect, host compound contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: [0083] r 1 to r 7 is independently selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, arylalkyl, heteroalkyl, aryl and heteroaryl, when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. [0084] k is an integer from 0 to 20. [0085] x 1 to x 8 is selected from ch or n. hbl: [0086] a hole blocking layer (hbl) may be used to reduce the number of holes and/or excitons that leave the emissive layer. the presence of such a blocking layer in a device may result in substantially higher efficiencies as compared to a similar device lacking a blocking layer. also, a blocking layer may be used to confine emission to a desired region of an oled. [0087] in one aspect, compound used in hbl contains the same molecule used as host described above. [0088] in another aspect, compound used in hbl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: [0089] k is an integer from 0 to 20; l is an ancillary ligand, m is an integer from 1 to 3. etl: [0090] electron transport layer (etl) may include a material capable of transporting electrons. electron transport layer may be intrinsic (undoped), or doped. doping may be used to enhance conductivity. examples of the etl material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as they are typically used to transport electrons. [0091] in one aspect, compound used in etl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: [0092] r 1 is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, alkoxy, amino, alkenyl, alkynyl, arylalkyl, heteroalkyl, aryl and heteroaryl, when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. [0093] ar 1 to ar 3 has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. [0094] k is an integer from 0 to 20. [0095] x 1 to x 8 is selected from ch or n. [0096] in another aspect, the metal complexes used in etl contains, but not limit to the following general formula: n-l 2 ., [0097] (o-n) or (n-n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o, n or n, n; l is an ancillary ligand; m is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. [0098] in any above-mentioned compounds used in each layer of oled device, the hydrogen atoms attached to conjugated rings can be partially or fully deuterated. [0099] the materials described herein as useful for a particular layer in an organic light emitting device may be used in combination with a wide variety of other materials present in the device. for example, emissive dopants disclosed herein may be used in conjunction with a wide variety of hosts, transport layers, blocking layers, injection layers, electrodes and other layers that may be present. the materials described or referred to below are non-limiting examples of materials that may be useful in combination with the compounds disclosed herein, and one of skill in the art can readily consult the literature to identify other materials that may be useful in combination. [0100] in addition to and / or in combination with the materials disclosed herein, many hole injection materials, hole transporting materials, host materials, dopant materials, exiton/hole blocking layer materials, electron transporting and electron injecting materials may be used in an oled. non- limiting examples of the materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are listed in table 1 below. table 1 lists non-limiting classes of materials, non-limiting examples of compounds for each class, and references that disclose the materials. (e.g., triazole, oxadiazole) red dopants compound examples example 1. synthesis of compound 1 [0101] synthesis of 3-iodo-9h-carbazole. to a solution of 9h-carbazole (5.57g, 33.3 mmol) and ki (3.68g, 22.2 mmol) in acoh (92 ml) was heated to 100 °c for 1 h. ki0 3 (3.57g, 16.7 mmol) was added in portions to the solution, and the resulting mixture was stirred for another 2 h at 100°c. the mixture was poured into water (500 ml) and the precipitation was collected by filtration and washed with hot water. recrystallization was made in dcm to afford 6.8 g (70 %) of product as a white solid. [0102] synthesis of 9-phenyl-3-(4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-l,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)-9h- carbazole. to a solution of 3-bromo-9-phenyl-9h-carbazole (20.3 g, 63 mmol) in thf (150 ml) at -78 °c was added 47.25 ml (75.8 mmol) of n-butyllithium (1.6 m in hexane). the mixture was stirred at -78 °c for 1 h. 21 ml (100 mmol) of 2-isopropoxy-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl- [l,3,2]-dioxaborolane was added to the solution, and the resulting mixture was warmed to room temperature and stirred for 8 h. the mixture was poured into water and extracted with dichloromethane. the organic extracts were washed with brine and dried over magnesium sulfate. the solvent was removed by rotary evaporation, and recrystallization was made in hexane to afford 19.3 g (83 %) of product as a white solid. [0103] synthesis of 3-(9-phenyl-9h-carbazol-3-yl)-9h-carbazole. to a solution of 3-iodo- 9h-carbazole (879 mg, 3.0 mmol), pd(pph 3 ) 4 (165 mg, 0.15 mmol), 9-phenyl-3-(4,4,5,5- tetramethyl-l,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)-9h-carbazole (1.29 g, 4.5 mmol) and k 3 p0 4 (1.8g, 18.0 mmol) in dioxane (5ml). the solution was heated to 85 °c with vigorous stirring for 48 h under argon atmosphere. the mixture was poured into water and extracted with dcm. the organic extracts were washed with brine and dried over mgs0 4 . the solvent was removed by rotary evaporation, and recrystallization was made in dcm to afford 900 mg (74 %) of product. compound 1 [0104] synthesis of 9-(4,6-diphenyl-l,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-3-(9-phenyl-9h-carbazol-3-yl)-9h- carbazole (compound 1). to a solution of sodium hydride (100 mg, 3.0 mmol) and 3-(9- phenyl-9h-carbazol-3-yl)-9h-carbazole (816 mg, 2.0 mmol) in dry dmf (40 ml) was stirred at room temperature for 1 h under argon atmosphere. 2-chloro-4,6-diphenyl-l,3,5-triazine (448 mg, 1.67mmol ) was added to the solution at room temperature, then refluxed overnight. the mixture was poured into water and the precipitation was collected by filtration and washed with water, methanol and dcm to get 800 mg (75%) yellow solid. device examples [0105] all device examples were fabricated by high vacuum (<10 ~7 torr) thermal evaporation. the anode electrode is 800a of indium tin oxide (ito). the cathode consisted of 10 a of lif followed by 1000 a of al. all devices were encapsulated with a glass lid sealed with an epoxy resin in a nitrogen glove box (<1 ppm of h 2 0 and 0 2 ) immediately after fabrication, and a moisture getter was incorporated inside the package. [0106] as used herein, the following compounds have the following structures: h2 h3 [0107] particular devices are provided. the organic stack of the device examples 1 and 2 consisted of sequentially, from the ito surface, 100 a of el as the hole injection layer (hil), 300 a of 4,4'-bis[n-(l-naphthyl)-n-phenylamino]biphenyl (a-npd) as the hole transporting layer (htl), 300 a of host doped with el as the emissive layer (eml), 100 a of h2 as the blocking layer (bl), and 400 a of alq as the electron transporting layer (etl). [0108] comparative device examples 1 and 2 were fabricated similarly to device examples 1 and 2, except h3 was used as host. [0109] device structures for device examples 1 and 2 are provided in table 2 and the corresponding measured device data is provided in table 3. table 2. vte pholeds table 3. vte device data [0110] device examples 1 and 2 showed green pholeds with compound 1 as host with different el doping concentrations. the comparative examples used h3 (i.e., cbp, a commonly used pholed host) as the host. as can be seen from the table, devices with compound 1 as host had comparative operating voltage, slightly lower efficiency than devices with h3 as the host. however, the device operating lifetime was much higher than comparative examples. device example 1 almost doubled the lifetime of comparative example 1 (86 h vs 46 h) and device example 2 almost tripled the lifetime of comparative example 2 (83 h vs. 29 h). therefore, compound 1 is an excellent host material for phosphorescent oleds. [0111] it is understood that the various embodiments described herein are by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. for example, many of the materials and structures described herein may be substituted with other materials and structures without deviating from the spirit of the invention. the present invention as claimed may therefore includes variations from the particular examples and preferred embodiments described herein, as will be apparent to one of skill in the art. it is understood that various theories as to why the invention works are not intended to be limiting.
086-023-783-436-11X	US	[ "US" ]	E21B23/14,E21B17/02,E21B19/02,E21B19/084,E21B31/12,E21B47/007,E21B47/09,E21B47/12	2021-05-03T00:00:00	2021	[ "E21" ]	cable head for a wireline tool	the present disclosure describes a cable head for a wireline tool that includes a housing that comprises an outlet opening for a wireline and an interface configured to connect the housing to the wireline tool; a spool rotatably mounted in the housing; an anchoring point configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline; and a drive configured to rotate the spool and thereby wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to and retract the wireline into the housing. a wireline tool and a method of retrieving a lost wireline tool are also described.	1. a cable head for a wireline tool, the cable head comprising: a housing that comprises an outlet opening for a wireline and an interface configured to connect the housing to the wireline tool; a spool rotatably mounted in the housing; an anchoring point configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline; and a drive configured to rotate the spool and thereby wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to and retract the wireline into the housing. 2. the cable head of claim 1 , wherein the interface comprises a fastener for fastening the housing to the wireline tool. 3. the cable head of claim 1 , wherein the drive comprises: a motor configured to rotate the spool to wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool; and a control unit configured to control the motor. 4. the cable head of claim 3 , wherein the interface comprises an electrical connection configured to connect to an external power supply. 5. the cable head of claim 3 , further comprising a battery connected to the motor. 6. the cable head of claim 3 , further comprising a sensor configured to detect an electrical connection to above ground equipment through the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected electrical connection. 7. the cable head of claim 3 , further comprising an accelerometer configured to detect an acceleration of the cable head, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected acceleration. 8. the cable head of claim 7 , wherein the control unit is configured to determine the location of the cable head within a wellbore based on the detected acceleration. 9. the cable head of claim 8 , further comprising a wireless transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit the location of the cable head in response to a signal from the control unit. 10. the cable head of claim 3 , further comprising a tension sensor configured to detect the tension of the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the tension detected by the tension sensor. 11. a wireline tool comprising: a housing that comprises an outlet opening for a wireline; one or more sensors arranged in the housing and configured to detect one or more physical properties of a wellbore; a spool rotatably mounted in the housing; an anchoring point inside the housing that is configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline; and a drive configured to rotate the spool and thereby wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to and retract the wireline into the housing. 12. the wireline tool of claim 11 , wherein the drive comprises: a motor configured to rotate the spool to wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool; a power supply connected to the motor and the one or more sensors arranged in the housing; and a control unit configured to control the motor. 13. the wireline tool of claim 12 , further comprising a sensor configured to detect an electrical connection to above ground equipment through the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected electrical connection. 14. the wireline tool of claim 12 , further comprising an accelerometer configured to detect an acceleration of the cable head, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected acceleration. 15. the wireline tool of claim 14 , wherein the control unit is configured to determine the location of the cable head within a wellbore based on the detected acceleration. 16. the wireline tool of claim 15 , further comprising a wireless transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit the location of the cable head in response to a signal from the control unit. 17. the wireline tool of claim 12 , further comprising a tension sensor configured to detect the tension of the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the tension detected by the tension sensor. 18. a method of retrieving a lost wireline tool, the method comprising: connecting a first wireline to an anchoring point of a wireline tool; lowering, by the first wireline, the wireline tool into a wellbore; determining that the first wireline has been severed; and in response to determining that the first wireline has been severed, wrapping a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of a cable head of the wireline tool. 19. the method of claim 18 , wherein wrapping a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool comprises rotating the spool using a motor. 20. the method of claim 18 , wherein determining that the first wireline has been severed comprises detecting an interruption in an electrical connection to aboveground equipment through the first wireline. 21. the method of claim 18 , wherein determining that the first wireline has been severed comprises detecting a downward acceleration of the wireline tool down the wellbore. 22. the method of claim 18 , wherein determining that the first wireline has been severed comprises detecting a decrease in tension on the first wireline. 23. the method of claim 18 , further comprising transmitting a location of the wireline tool within the wellbore to an aboveground receiver. 24. the method of claim 18 , further comprising: lowering, by a second wireline, a fishing tool into the wellbore; grasping the wireline tool with the fishing tool; and raising, by the second wireline, the fishing tool and the wireline tool from the wellbore.	technical field this disclosure relates to a cable head for a wireline tool, a wireline tool, and a method of retrieving a lost wireline tool. background during the lifetime of a drilling well, workover and intervention activities are sometimes necessary. workover refers to maintenance or remedial work on a well that restores, prolongs, or enhances hydrocarbon production. wireline tools are often used for workover activities. for example, wireline tools are used to evaluate the properties of a reservoir, locate equipment within a wellbore, determine formation pressure and pore size, identify liquids found in the reservoir, and capture fluid samples in the reservoir for evaluation at a topside facility. generally, a wireline tool is connected to the end of a wireline and lowered into the wellbore. a cable head is a device that mechanically, and in some cases also electrically, connects the wireline tool to the wireline. summary in an example implementation, a cable head for a wireline tool includes a housing that includes an outlet opening for a wireline and an interface configured to connect the housing to the wireline tool, a spool rotatably mounted in the housing, an anchoring point configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline, and a drive configured to rotate the spool and thereby wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to and retract the wireline into the housing. in an aspect combinable with the example implementation, the interface includes a fastener for fastening the housing to the wireline tool. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the drive includes a motor configured to rotate the spool to wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool, and a control unit configured to control the motor. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the interface includes an electrical connection configured to connect to an external power supply. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the cable head includes a battery connected to the motor. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the cable head includes a sensor configured detect an electrical connection to aboveground equipment through the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected electrical connection. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the cable head includes an accelerometer configured to detect an acceleration of the cable head, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected acceleration. for example, the control unit can be configured to determine the location of the cable head within a wellbore based on the detected acceleration. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the cable head includes a wireless transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit the location of the cable head in response to a signal from the control unit. in another aspect combinable with the example implementation, the cable head includes a tension sensor configured to detect the tension of the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the tension detected by the tension sensor. in a further example implementation, a wireline tool includes a housing that includes an outlet opening for a wireline, one or more sensors arranged in the housing and configured to detect one or more physical properties of a wellbore, a spool rotatably mounted in the housing, an anchoring point inside the housing that is configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline, and a drive configured to rotate the spool and thereby wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to and retract the wireline into the housing. in an aspect combinable with the example implementation, the drive includes a motor configured to rotate the spool to wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool, a power supply connected to the motor and the one or more sensors arranged in the housing, and a control unit configured to control the motor. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the wireline tool includes a sensor configured detect an electrical connection to aboveground equipment through the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected electrical connection. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the wireline tool includes an accelerometer configured to detect an acceleration of the cable head, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the detected acceleration. for example, the control unit can be configured to determine the location of the cable head within a wellbore based on the detected acceleration. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the wireline tool includes a wireless transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit the location of the cable head in response to a signal from the control unit. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the wireline tool includes a tension sensor configured to detect the tension of the wireline, wherein the control unit is configured to control the motor based on the tension detected by the tension sensor. in yet a further example implementation, a method of retrieving a lost wireline tool includes connecting a first wireline to an anchoring point of a wireline tool, lowering, by the first wireline, the wireline tool into a wellbore, determining that the first wireline has been severed, and in response to determining that the first wireline has been severed, wrapping a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool. in an aspect combinable with the example implementation, wrapping a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool includes rotating the spool using a motor. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, determining that the first wireline has been severed includes detecting an interruption in an electrical connection to aboveground equipment through the first wireline. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, determining that the first wireline has been severed includes detecting a downward acceleration of the wireline tool down the wellbore. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, determining that the first wireline has been severed includes detecting a decrease in tension on the first wireline. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the method includes transmitting a location of the wireline tool within the wellbore to an aboveground receiver. in a further aspect combinable with the example implementation, the method includes lowering, by a second wireline, a fishing tool into the wellbore, grasping the wireline tool with the fishing tool, and raising, by the second wireline, the fishing tool and the wireline tool from the wellbore. the details of one or more implementations of the subject matter described in this disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter will become apparent from the description, the drawings, and the claims. brief description of the drawings fig. 1a is a schematic diagram of an example wellbore system with a wireline tool that includes a cable head according to the present disclosure. fig. 1b is a schematic diagram of the wellbore system in fig. 1a when the wireline is severed from the cable head. fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a wireline tool connected to a tangled and severed wireline. fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an example implementation of a wireline tool that includes a cable head according to the present disclosure. fig. 4a to 4c are schematic diagrams of the components of an example implementation of a cable head according to the present disclosure. fig. 5 depicts an example method of retrieving a lost wireline tool in accordance with implementations of the present disclosure. like reference numbers and designations in the various drawings indicate like elements. detailed description fig. 1a is a schematic diagram of an example wellbore system 10 with a wireline tool that includes a cable head according to the present disclosure. generally, fig. 1a illustrates a portion of one embodiment of a wellbore system 10 in which a wireline tool is connected to a wireline by the cable head. the cable head, as described more fully in the present disclosure, includes a housing that includes an outlet opening for a wireline and an interface configured to connect the housing to the wireline tool; a spool rotatably mounted in the housing; and an anchoring point configured for mechanical attachment to an end of the wireline. the spool is configured to rotate and wrap a portion of the wireline around the spool to retract the wireline into the housing. other aspects of the disclosure include a wireline tool and a method of retrieving a lost wireline tool. the wellbore system 10 is designed to access a subterranean formation and provide access to hydrocarbons located in the subterranean formation. as illustrated in fig. 1a , the wellbore system 10 includes a drilling assembly 12 deployed on a terranean surface 14 . the drilling assembly 12 may be used to form a wellbore 16 extending from the terranean surface 14 and through one or more geological formations in the earth. the drilling assembly 12 may be any appropriate assembly or drilling rig used to form wellbores or boreholes in the earth. the drilling assembly 12 may use traditional techniques to form such wellbores, such as the wellbore 16 , or may use nontraditional or novel techniques. in some embodiments, the drilling assembly 12 may use rotary drilling equipment to form such wellbores. rotary drilling equipment generally includes a drill string and the downhole tool (not shown). rotating drilling equipment on such a rotary drilling rig may include components that serve to rotate a drill bit, which in turn forms a wellbore, such as the wellbore 16 , deeper and deeper into the ground. the illustrated drilling assembly 12 includes a blowout preventer 18 positioned at the surface of the wellbore 16 . the blowout preventer 18 can close around (and in some instances, pass through) the drill string to seal off the space between the drill string and the wellbore wall. the illustrated wellbore system is only one example. other wellbore systems 10 can include a circulation system for drilling fluid or a topside facility, for example. in some embodiments, the wellbore 16 may be cased with one or more casings. as illustrated, the wellbore 16 includes a conductor casing 20 that extends from the terranean surface 14 a short distance into the earth. in some cases, a portion of the wellbore 16 enclosed by the conductor casing 20 may be a large diameter borehole. in some cases, the wellbore 16 may include additional casings (not shown) downhole from the conductor casing 20 . for example, an additional surface casing may enclose a slightly smaller borehole and protect the wellbore 16 from intrusion of, for example, freshwater aquifers located near the terranean surface 14 . during the lifetime of the wellbore system 10 , workover and intervention activities are sometimes necessary. workover refers to maintenance or remedial work on to restore, prolong, or enhance hydrocarbon production. wireline tools are often used for such workover activities. for example, wireline tools are used to evaluate the reservoir, locate equipment within a wellbore, determine formation pressure and pore size, identify liquids found in the reservoir, and capture fluid and other samples in the reservoir for evaluation at a topside facility. fig. 1a depicts a wireline tool 22 is shown near a bottom 24 of the wellbore 16 . the wireline tool 22 is connected to the end of a wireline 26 and lowered into the wellbore 16 . in some implementations, the wireline 26 includes a single-strand wire or cable. in other cases, the wireline 26 may include braided wire or cable. in some cases, the wireline can include electrical conductors that are used to transmit data between the tool 22 and surface equipment. in some contexts, a wire or cable that incorporates electrical conductors is referred to as a “wireline” and a thin cable without electrical conductors is referred to as a “slickline.” however, the present disclosure applies the term “wireline” to both types of cables. as shown, the wireline 26 is connected at one end to the wireline tool 22 by a cable head 28 . the opposite end of the wireline 26 is connected to a vehicle, such as a truck 30 . the end of the wireline 26 is wrapped around a drum that is mounted to the truck 30 (not shown). the wireline 26 and the tool 22 are raised and lowered by reeling the wire wrapped around the drum in and out. in the illustrated implementation, the drilling assembly 12 includes a pulley 32 that supports the wireline 26 . although the wireline 26 is made of robust materials, there are times when the wireline 26 may sever. the wireline 26 may sever due to mechanical failure, e.g., when the tool 22 becomes stuck in the wellbore 16 and the truck 30 attempts to reel in the wireline 26 . the material of the wireline 26 may also be compromised by the substances found at the bottom 24 of the wellbore 16 . when the wireline 26 severs, a first part of the wireline 26 remains attached to the truck 30 and the pulley 32 . a second part of the severed wireline 26 remains connected to the tool 22 via the cable head 28 . since the severed wireline 26 can no longer support the tool 22 , the tool 22 may fall to the bottom 24 of the wellbore 16 , as shown in fig. 1b , or remain stuck at an intermediate location in the wellbore 16 . in implementations of the present disclosure, the cable head 28 is configured to retract the second part of the severed wireline 26 into a body of the cable head 28 . in contrast, fig. 2 depicts a wellbore system 10 that does not include such a cable head 28 . in such cases, the second part 26 ′ of the severed wireline 26 is prone to tangle or form a bird's nest. the size of the bird's nest correlates with the length of the second part 26 ′ of the severed wireline 26 . in general, the bird's nest makes it difficult to grasp the lost tool 22 for retrieval from the wellbore 16 . for example, multiple tools and operations may be required to gain access to the tool 22 at the bottom 24 of the wellbore 16 . in fig. 1b , the second part 26 ′ of the wireline 26 is fully retracted into the body of the cable head 28 , making it easier for retrieval tools to grasp the cable head 28 and wireline tool 22 . depending on the length of the second part 26 ′ of the severed wireline, a small portion of the wireline 26 may still protrude from the cable head 28 in some implementations. even in such cases, the cable head 28 of the present disclosure minimizes the obstructions caused by the severed wireline 26 and improves the retrieval process for lost wireline tools. in some implementations, the cable head 28 may be configured to transmit a wireless signal that indicates the location of the wireline tool 22 , as depicted in fig. 1b . for example, the wellbore 16 may not necessarily extend in a straight vertical direction, as shown in fig. 1b . some wellbores may be offset from the vertical (for example, a slant wellbore). other wellbores may be a stepped wellbore, such that a portion is drilled vertically downward and then curved to a substantially horizontal wellbore portion. depending on the depth and location of the target subterranean formations, other wellbores may include multiple vertical and horizontal wellbore portions. in all of these cases, the wireless signal emitted by the cable head 28 may help to locate and recover the lost wireline tool 22 . fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an example implementation of a wireline tool 100 that includes a cable head 200 according to the present disclosure. in some aspects, the wireline tool 100 and the cable head 200 may be part of wireline tool 22 and the cable head 28 shown in figs. 1a and 1b . in the illustrated example, the wire line tool 100 is depicted as a logging tool. a logging tool can be used to obtain a record of the rock properties of a subterranean formation. the logging tool includes one or more instruments and sensors that detect and record the physical properties of the formation as the tool 100 moves along the length of the wellbore (not shown). in some implementations, the tool 100 is used for other purposes, such as, locating equipment within the wellbore or capturing samples from the reservoir for analysis. the illustrated cable head 200 includes an interface 202 that connects to the tool 100 . the interface 202 can be implemented in a variety of ways. for example, the interface 202 may include a fastener that creates a non-permanent joint between the cable head 200 and the tool 100 . examples of fasteners are one or more threaded fasteners, bolts, clamps, flanges, or pins. in other examples, the interface 202 may form a bonded or welded connection between the cable head 200 and the tool 100 . in other examples, the cable head 200 and the tool 100 may be integrally formed and contained, for example, in a common housing. the type of interface 202 may be tailored to maintenance and form factor considerations. for example, a releasable interface 202 may be used with a variety of tools and may be restored to its initial state after a retrieval operation. in contrast, a common housing may reduce the overall package size of the cable head and tool assembly and make it easier to navigate complex wellbore geometries. in some implementations, the cable head 200 includes a housing 204 that includes an upper housing part 204 a , a lower housing part 204 b , and a guide 206 . the upper housing part 204 a contains a spool ( fig. 4a-4c ) for winding a severed portion of the wireline 300 . the lower housing part 204 b contains a drive that rotates the spool when the wireline 300 is severed. the guide 206 is provided at a top surface of the housing 204 and provides an outlet for the wireline 300 to extend from the housing 204 and an inlet for wireline 300 to be retracted into housing 204 , if needed. in one example implementation, the spool in the upper housing part 204 a may be connected to a coiled spring contained in the lower housing part 204 b . during logging operations, the weight of the tool 100 and the cable head 200 may cause the coiled spring to uncoil as the tool 100 is suspended in the wellbore. if the wireline 300 is severed, the force of the coiled spring turns the spool and winds the severed portion of the wireline 300 around the spool. as described in more detail in reference to fig. 4a to 4c , the spool can also be driven by a motor. in both examples, the cable head 200 is designed to retract part of the severed wireline 300 into the housing 204 of the cable head 200 . fig. 4a to 4c are schematic diagrams of the components of an example implementation of a cable head according to the present disclosure. in some aspects, the components depicted in fig. 4a to 4c may be part of the cable head 200 shown in fig. 3 . more specifically, fig. 4a is a schematic diagram of the inner components of the cable head when the wireline 300 is not severed. for example, the wireline 300 may be connected to a truck parked at the surface of the wellbore system, as shown in figs. 1a and 1b . in fig. 4a , the weight of the wireline tool and the cable head apply tension to the wireline 300 , as indicated by the direction of the solid upward arrow. fig. 4b is a schematic diagram of the inner components of the cable head after the wireline 300 has been severed. in comparison to fig. 4a , the wireline 300 is slack. further, the cable head has begun reeling in the wireline 300 , as schematically represented by the dashed arrow. fig. 4c is a schematic diagram of the inner components of the wireline 300 after the wireline has been completely retracted. as shown in fig. 4a , the components of the cable head include a spool 400 , a wireline sensor 402 , a motor 404 , a control unit 406 , and a wireless transmitter 408 . the components 400 - 408 are contained in a housing of the cable head (not shown). for example, the spool 400 and the wireline sensor 402 can be contained in the upper housing part 204 a shown in fig. 3 , whereas the motor 404 , the control unit 406 , and the wireless transmitter 408 can be contained in the housing 204 b. the spool 400 is configured to reel in and store the severed wireline 300 . the spool 400 includes a core 410 and two end plates 412 and is supported in the housing (not shown) of the cable head so that the spool 400 can rotate relative to the rest of the cable head components. for example, the core 410 may have a bore for mounting the core 410 on a shaft (not shown). as shown in fig. 4c , the outer diameter and length of the core 410 are selected so that a suitable length of severed wireline 300 can be wrapped around the core 410 . as shown in fig. 4a , an upper end plate 412 includes a feed notch or groove 414 that guides the wireline 300 as the wireline 300 is wrapped onto the core 410 . in some implementations, the housing of the cable head may include a loop or eyelet to guide the wireline 300 as the wireline 300 is wrapped onto the core 410 . one end 302 of the wireline 300 is anchored to the spool 400 at an anchoring point. the wireline 300 extends from this anchoring point along the axial length of the core 410 of the spool 400 . the wireline 300 further extends through the feed notch 414 in the end plate 412 of the spool 400 and through a guide 416 arranged on the end plate 412 . the guide 416 may correspond to the guide 206 depicted in fig. 3 . although fig. 4a schematically depicts the anchoring point near the core 410 of the spool 400 , the anchoring point for the end 302 of the wireline 300 may be provided on a different part of the cable head, e.g., the shaft on which the spool 400 is mounted. the wireline sensor 402 is configured to detect that the wireline 300 has been severed. in implementations of the present disclosure, a severed wireline 300 can be detected based on an electrical connection through the wireline 300 to aboveground equipment, on the movement of the wireline tool, and on tension applied to the wireline 300 . in some implementations, the wireline sensor 402 can detect a severed wireline 300 based on a combination of two or more of these factors. as described above, the wireline 300 can establish both a mechanical and an electrical connection to aboveground equipment. in this case, the wireline sensor 402 can be configured to detect the electrical connection to aboveground equipment via the wireline 300 . when the wireline 300 is severed, the electrical connection is also severed. the wireline sensor 402 can output a signal that represents this electrical connection to the control unit 406 , for example. when the signal is interrupted over a period of time, the control unit 406 can be configured to determine that the wireline 300 has been severed. in some implementations, the wireline sensor 402 includes an accelerometer that detects the movement of the cable head and wireline tool along the wellbore. when the wireline 300 is severed, the accelerometer can detect that the cable head and wireline tool have begun to fall. similarly, the accelerometer can detect when the cable head and wireline tool come to rest, for example, at the bottom of the wellbore. the control unit 406 can be configured to receive output from the accelerometer to detect the duration and speed of the fall and estimate the approximate position of the wireline tool. in some implementations, the wireline sensor 402 is configured to sense whether tension is applied to the wireline 300 . for example, in normal operations of the wireline tool, the wirelines is connected to an aboveground structure and the weight of the tool places the wireline 300 under tension that is detected by the wireline sensor 402 . in this case, the wireline sensor 402 may be located adjacent to the anchoring point of the wireline 300 , as shown in fig. 4a . in some implementations, the wireline sensor 402 is configured to send the detected tension values to the control unit 406 . based on the tension values output by the wireline sensor 402 , the control unit 406 is configured to detect whether the wireline 300 has been severed. in some cases, the wireline sensor 402 is configured to detect the tension of the wireline 300 over a period of time, and the control unit 406 is configured to determine that the wireline 300 has been severed based on the detected tension. accordingly, the control unit 406 may distinguish a continuous drop in tension from a temporary change in tension. for example, a stable drop in tension may indicate that the wireline has been severed, while a temporary change in tension may indicate a snag or jog in a wireline that remains connected to aboveground structures. in some implementations, the control unit 406 is configured to control the motor 404 based on input from the wireline sensor 402 . for example, the control unit 406 is configured to determine that the wireline 300 has been severed and control the motor 404 in response to this. the motor 404 is configured to rotate the spool 400 about its support shaft for a predetermined time period that allows an appropriate length of severed wireline to be reeled in. alternatively, the motor 404 can rotate the spool 400 until an onboard battery (not shown) is empty. as shown in fig. 4b , rotation of the spool 400 causes the wireline 300 to wrap around the core 410 , thus retracting the severed portion of the wireline 300 into the housing of the cable head. in the illustrated implementation, the motor 404 and the spool 400 are arranged coaxially along an axis of the wireline tool and the wellbore. however, in other implementations, the spool 400 may have different dimensions and be arranged to rotate about an axis that is perpendicular to the axis of the wireline tool and the wellbore. in some implementations, the control unit 406 includes a power supply and memory, for example, for recording the tension values detected by the wireline sensor 402 . in some cases, the power supply and the memory can be common to both the cable head and the wireline tool. for example, the interface 202 shown in fig. 3 may include an electrical connection that connects the cable head to an external power supply. for example, the electrical connection provided by the interface 202 may connect the control unit 406 to the wireline tool's power supply to power the motor. in other implementations, the cable head may include a battery to power the components of the cable head. in some implementations, the electrical connection may additionally connect the control unit 406 to a memory of the wireline tool. in some implementations, the severed part of the wireline 300 is completely wrapped around the core 410 of the spool 400 , as shown in fig. 4c . as illustrated, the rotation of the core spool 400 may pull a severed end 304 of the wireline 300 through the guide 416 so that the wireline 300 is completely retracted into the cable head housing. in other cases, the severed end 304 of the wireline 300 may remain outside of the cable head housing. once the severed wireline 300 has been retracted, the control unit 406 may instruct a wireless transmitter 408 to transmit data to an aboveground structure. in some implementations, the wireless transmitter 408 is configured to wirelessly transmit the location of the cable head within a wellbore in response to a signal from the control unit 406 . for example, the wireless transmitter 408 may transmit data indicating the depth of the tool within the wellbore and length of the severed portion of the wireline 300 . fig. 5 depicts an example method 500 of retrieving a lost wireline tool. implementations of the method 500 can use the wireline tool and cable head depicted in fig. 1a to 4c . the method 500 includes connecting 502 a first wireline to an anchoring point of a wireline tool. in some cases, the anchoring point is provided in a cable head that connects to the wireline tool. in other cases, the wireline tool itself provides the anchoring point for the wireline. the method 500 also includes lowering 504 , by the first wireline, the wireline tool into a wellbore. as shown above in reference to figs. 1a and 1b , a wireline truck may be used to lower the wireline tool into the wellbore. the method 500 also includes determining 506 that the first wireline has been severed. for example, the wireline tool or the cable head may use any of the previously described techniques to determine that the first wireline has been severed. for example, the determining that the first wireline has been severed can include detecting an interruption in an electrical connection to aboveground equipment through the first wireline. determining that the first wireline has been severed can include detecting a downward acceleration of the wireline tool down the wellbore. determining that the first wireline has been severed can also include a decrease in tension on the first wireline. in some implementations, determining that the first wireline has been severed can include a combination of two or more of the described techniques. the method 500 also includes wrapping 508 a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool in response to determining that the first wireline has been severed. for example, wrapping a portion of the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool can include rotating the spool using a motor. in some implementations, the spool is part of the cable head. in other cases, the spool is part of the wireline tool itself. in some implementations, the method further includes transmitting a location of the wireline tool within the wellbore to an aboveground receiver. in some implementations, the method 500 includes lowering 510 , by a second wireline, a fishing tool into the wellbore; grasping 512 the wireline tool with the fishing tool; and raising 514 , by the second wireline, the fishing tool and the wireline tool from the wellbore. since the method 500 includes retracting a portion of the severed to first wireline by wrapping the severed first wireline around a spool of the wireline tool, the fishing tool is able to more easily engage the wireline tool for retrieval. thus, the described implementations provide a simple and effective method for retrieving a lost wireline tool. a number of implementations have been described. nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. for example, example operations, methods, or processes described herein may include more steps or fewer steps than those described. further, the steps in such example operations, methods, or processes may be performed in different successions than that described or illustrated in the figures. in some embodiments, the wellbore system may be deployed on a body of water rather than the terranean surface, as depicted in the figures. for instance, in some embodiments, the terranean surface may be an ocean, gulf, sea, or any other body of water under which hydrocarbon-bearing formations may be found. in short, reference to the terranean surface includes both land and water surfaces and contemplates forming and developing one or more wellbore systems from either or both locations. although the wellbore depicted in the figures extends in a vertical direction, in some embodiments, the wellbore may be offset from the vertical (for example, a slant wellbore). even further, in some embodiments, the wellbore may be a stepped wellbore, such that a portion is drilled vertically downward and then curved to a substantially horizontal wellbore portion. additional substantially vertical and horizontal wellbore portions may be added according to, for example, the type of terranean surface, the depth of one or more target subterranean formations, the depth of one or more productive subterranean formations, or other criteria. accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.
086-328-296-738-791	US	[ "US" ]	C07F15/00,H01L51/00,H01L51/50	2018-05-25T00:00:00	2018	[ "C07", "H01" ]	organic electroluminescent materials and devices	a compound having a first ligand l a of formula i, is disclosed. in the structure of formula i, z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n; ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered ring; each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or one of a variety of substituents; any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring. in the compound, l a is complexed to a metal m, which is optionally coordinated to other ligands. in addition, ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. organic light emitting devices, consumer products, formulations, and chemical structures containing the compounds are also disclosed.	1 . a compound comprising a first ligand l a of formula i wherein z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n; wherein ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered heterocyclic or carbocyclic ring; wherein each r a , r b , and r c represents mono to the maximum allowable substitutions, or no substitution; wherein each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; wherein any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring; wherein l a is complexed to a metal m; wherein m is optionally coordinated to other ligands; and wherein the ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. 2 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, aryl, heteroaryl, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, and combinations thereof. 3 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein z 1 through z 7 are c. 4 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein two substituents in r c are joined or fused together to form a ring. 5 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein ring b comprises only c atoms. 6 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein ring b comprises at least one si atom. 7 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein m is selected from the group consisting of ru, os, ir, pd, pt, cu, and au. 8 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein the first ligand l a is selected from the group consisting of: wherein g is a linking group; wherein each of r 1 through r 6 is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, aryl, heteroaryl, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, and combinations thereof. 9 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein the first ligand l a is selected from the group consisting of: l a1 through l a777 having a structure of formula ii, in which r 1 , r 2 , r 3 , r 4 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3r 4gl a1hhhhr c1l a2hr b1hhr c1l a3hr b3hhr c1l a4hr b4hhr c1l a5hr b5hhr c1l a6hr b7hhr c1l a7hr a3hhr c1l a8hr a34hhr c1l a9hr a74hhr c1l a10hr a75hhr c1l a11hhhhr c4l a12hr b1hhr c4l a13hr b3hhr c4l a14hr b4hhr c4l a15hr b5hhr c4l a16hr b7hhr c4l a17hr a3hhr c4l a18hr a34hhr c4l a19hr a74hhr c4l a20hr a75hhr c4l a21hhhhr c5l a22hr b1hhr c5l a23hr b3hhr c5l a24hr b4hhr c5l a25hr b5hhr c5l a26hr b7hhr c5l a27hr a3hhr c5l a28hr a34hhr c5l a29hr a74hhr c5l a30hr a75hhr c5l a31hhhhr c9l a32hr b1hhr c9l a33hr b3hhr c9l a34hr b4hhr c9l a35hr b5hhr c9l a36hr b7hhr c9l a37hr a3hhr c9l a38hr a34hhr c9l a39hr a74hhr c9l a40hr a75hhr c9l a41hhhhr c12l a42hr b1hhr c12l a43hr b3hhr c12l a44hr b4hhr c12l a45hr b5hhr c12l a46hr b7hhr c12l a47hr a3hhr c12l a48hr a34hhr c12l a49hr a74hhr c12l a50hr a75hhr c12l a51hhhhr c24l a52hr b1hhr c24l a53hr b3hhr c24l a54hr b4hhr c24l a55hr b5hhr c24l a56hr b7hhr c24l a57hr a3hhr c24l a58hr a34hhr c24l a59hr a74hhr c24l a60hr a75hhr c24l a61hhhhr c26l a62hr b1hhr c26l a63hr b3hhr c26l a64hr b4hhr c26l a65hr b5hhr c26l a66hr b7hhr c26l a67hr a3hhr c26l a68hr a34hhr c26l a69hr a74hhr c26l a70hr a75hhr c26l a71hhr b1hr c1l a72hhr b3hr c1l a73hhr b4hr c1l a74hhr b5hr c1l a75hhr b7hr c1l a76hhr a3hr c1l a77hhr a34hr c1l a78hhr a74hr c1l a79hhr a75hr c1l a80hhr b1hr c4l a81hhr b3hr c4l a82hhr b4hr c4l a83hhr b5hr c4l a84hhr b7hr c4l a85hhr a3hr c4l a86hhr a34hr c4l a87hhr a74hr c4l a88hhr a75hr c4l a89hhr b1hr c5l a90hhr b3hr c5l a91hhr b4hr c5l a92hhr b5hr c5l a93hhr b7hr c5l a94hhr a3hr c5l a95hhr a34hr c5l a96hhr a74hr c5l a97hhr a75hr c5l a98hhr b1hr c9l a99hhr b3hr c9l a100hhr b4hr c9l a101hhr b5hr c9l a102hhr b7hr c9l a103hhr a3hr c9l a104hhr a34hr c9l a105hhr a74hr c9l a106hhr a75hr c9l a107hhr b1hr c12l a108hhr b3hr c12l a109hhr b4hr c12l a110hhr b5hr c12l a111hhr b7hr c12l a112hhr a3hr c12l a113hhr a34hr c12l a114hhr a74hr c12l a115hhr a75hr c12l a116hhr b1hr c24l a117hhr b3hr c24l a118hhr b4hr c24l a119hhr b5hr c24l a120hhr b7hr c24l a121hhr a3hr c24l a122hhr a34hr c24l a123hhr a74hr c24l a124hhr a75hr c24l a125hhr b1hr c26l a126hhr b3hr c26l a127hhr b4hr c26l a128hhr b5hr c26l a129hhr b7hr c26l a130hhr a3hr c26l a131hhr a34hr c26l a132hhr a74hr c26l a133hhr a75hr c26l a134hhhr b1r c1l a135hhhr b3r c1l a136hhhr b4r c1l a137hhhr b5r c1l a138hhhr b7r c1l a139hhhr a3r c1l a140hhhr a34r c1l a141hhhr a74r c1l a142hhhr a75r c1l a143hhhr b1r c4l a144hhhr b3r c4l a145hhhr b4r c4l a146hhhr b5r c4l a147hhhr b7r c4l a148hhhr a3r c4l a149hhhr a34r c4l a150hhhr a74r c4l a151hhhr a75r c4l a152hhhr b1r c5l a153hhhr b3r c5l a154hhhr b4r c5l a155hhhr b5r c5l a156hhhr b7r c5l a157hhhr a3r c5l a158hhhr a34r c5l a159hhhr a74r c5l a160hhhr a75r c5l a161hhhr b1r c9l a162hhhr b3r c9l a163hhhr b4r c9l a164hhhr b5r c9l a165hhhr b7r c9l a166hhhr a3r c9l a167hhhr a34r c9l a168hhhr a74r c9l a169hhhr a75r c9l a170hhhr b1r c12l a171hhhr b3r c12l a172hhhr b4r c12l a173hhhr b5r c12l a174hhhr b7r c12l a175hhhr a3r c12l a176hhhr a34r c12l a177hhhr a74r c12l a178hhhr a75r c12l a179hhhr b1r c24l a180hhhr b3r c24l a181hhhr b4r c24l a182hhhr b5r c24l a183hhhr b7r c24l a184hhhr a3r c24l a185hhhr a34r c24l a186hhhr a74r c24l a187hhhr a75r c24l a188hhhr b1r c26l a189hhhr b3r c26l a190hhhr b4r c26l a191hhhr b5r c26l a192hhhr b7r c26l a193hhhr a3r c26l a194hhhr a34r c26l a195hhhr a74r c26l a196hhhr a75r c26l a197hhr b1r b1r c1l a198hhr b3r b3r c1l a199hhr b4r b4r c1l a200hhr b5r b5r c1l a201hhr b7r b7r c1l a202hhr a3r a3r c1l a203hhr a34r a34r c1l a204hhr a74r a74r c1l a205hhr a75r a75r c1l a206hhr b1r b1r c4l a207hhr b3r b3r c4l a208hhr b4r b4r c4l a209hhr b5r b5r c4l a210hhr b7r b7r c4l a211hhr a3r a3r c4l a212hhr a34r a34r c4l a213hhr a74r a74r c4l a214hhr a75r a75r c4l a215hhr b1r b1r c5l a216hhr b3r b3r c5l a217hhr b4r b4r c5l a218hhr b5r b5r c5l a219hhr b7r b7r c5l a220hhr a3r a3r c5l a221hhr a34r a34r c5l a222hhr a74r a74r c5l a223hhr a75r a75r c5l a224hhr b1r b1r c9l a225hhr b3r b3r c9l a226hhr b4r b4r c9l a227hhr b5r b5r c9l a228hhr b7r b7r c9l a229hhr a3r a3r c9l a230hhr a34r a34r c9l a231hhr a74r a74r c9l a232hhr a75r a75r c9l a233hhr b1r b1r c12l a234hhr b3r b3r c12l a235hhr b4r b4r c12l a236hhr b5r b5r c12l a237hhr b7r b7r c12l a238hhr a3r a3r c12l a239hhr a34r a34r c12l a240hhr a74r a74r c12l a241hhr a75r a75r c12l a242hhr b1r b1r c24l a243hhr b3r b3r c24l a244hhr b4r b4r c24l a245hhr b5r b5r c24l a246hhr b7r b7r c24l a247hhr a3r a3r c24l a248hhr a34r a34r c24l a249hhr a74r a74r c24l a250hhr a75r a75r c24l a251hhr b1r b1r c26l a252hhr b3r b3r c26l a253hhr b4r b4r c26l a254hhr b5r b5r c26l a255hhr b7r b7r c26l a256hhr a3r a3r c26l a257hhr a34r a34r c26l a258hhr a74r a74r c26l a259hhr a75r a75r c26l a260r b1hhhr c1l a261r b1r b1hhr c1l a262r b1r b3hhr c1l a263r b1r b4hhr c1l a264r b1r b5hhr c1l a265r b1r b7hhr c1l a266r b1r a3hhr c1l a267r b1r a34hhr c1l a268r b1r a74hhr c1l a269r b1r a75hhr c1l a270r b1hhhr c4l a271r b1r b1hhr c4l a272r b1r b3hhr c4l a273r b1r b4hhr c4l a274r b1r b5hhr c4l a275r b1r b7hhr c4l a276r b1r a3hhr c4l a277r b1r a34hhr c4l a278r b1r a74hhr c4l a279r b1r a75hhr c4l a280r b1hhhr c5l a281r b1r b1hhr c5l a282r b1r b3hhr c5l a283r b1r b4hhr c5l a284r b1r b5hhr c5l a285r b1r b7hhr c5l a286r b1r a3hhr c5l a287r b1r a34hhr c5l a288r b1r a74hhr c5l a289r b1r a75hhr c5l a290r b1hhhr c9l a291r b1r b1hhr c9l a292r b1r b3hhr c9l a293r b1r b4hhr c9l a294r b1r b5hhr c9l a295r b1r b7hhr c9l a296r b1r a3hhr c9l a297r b1r a34hhr c9l a298r b1r a74hhr c9l a299r b1r a75hhr c9l a300r b1hhhr c12l a301r b1r b1hhr c12l a302r b1r b3hhr c12l a303r b1r b4hhr c12l a304r b1r b5hhr c12l a305r b1r b7hhr c12l a306r b1r a3hhr c12l a307r b1r a34hhr c12l a308r b1r a74hhr c12l a309r b1r a75hhr c12l a310r b1hhhr c24l a311r b1r b1hhr c24l a312r b1r b3hhr c24l a313r b1r b4hhr c24l a314r b1r b5hhr c24l a315r b1r b7hhr c24l a316r b1r a3hhr c24l a317r b1r a34hhr c24l a318r b1r a74hhr c24l a319r b1r a75hhr c24l a320r b1hhhr c26l a321r b1r b1hhr c26l a322r b1r b3hhr c26l a323r b1r b4hhr c26l a324r b1r b5hhr c26l a325r b1r b7hhr c26l a326r b1r a3hhr c26l a327r b1r a34hhr c26l a328r b1r a74hhr c26l a329r b1r a75hhr c26l a330r b1hr b1hr c1l a331r b1hr b3hr c1l a332r b1hr b4hr c1l a333r b1hr b5hr c1l a334r b1hr b7hr c1l a335r b1hr a3hr c1l a336r b1hr a34hr c1l a337r b1hr a74hr c1l a338r b1hr a75hr c1l a339r b1hr b1hr c4l a340r b1hr b3hr c4l a341r b1hr b4hr c4l a342r b1hr b5hr c4l a343r b1hr b7hr c4l a344r b1hr a3hr c4l a345r b1hr a34hr c4l a346r b1hr a74hr c4l a347r b1hr a75hr c4l a348r b1hr b1hr c5l a349r b1hr b3hr c5l a350r b1hr b4hr c5l a351r b1hr b5hr c5l a352r b1hr b7hr c5l a353r b1hr a3hr c5l a354r b1hr a34hr c5l a355r b1hr a74hr c5l a356r b1hr a75hr c5l a357r b1hr b1hr c9l a358r b1hr b3hr c9l a359r b1hr b4hr c9l a360r b1hr b5hr c9l a361r b1hr b7hr c9l a362r b1hr a3hr c9l a363r b1hr a34hr c9l a364r b1hr a74hr c9l a365r b1hr a75hr c9l a366r b1hr b1hr c12l a367r b1hr b3hr c12l a368r b1hr b4hr c12l a369r b1hr b5hr c12l a370r b1hr b7hr c12l a371r b1hr a3hr c12l a372r b1hr a34hr c12l a373r b1hr a74hr c12l a374r b1hr a75hr c12l a375r b1hr b1hr c24l a376r b1hr b3hr c24l a377r b1hr b4hr c24l a378r b1hr b5hr c24l a379r b1hr b7hr c24l a380r b1hr a3hr c24l a381r b1hr a34hr c24l a382r b1hr a74hr c24l a383r b1hr a75hr c24l a384r b1hr b1hr c26l a385r b1hr b3hr c26l a386r b1hr b4hr c26l a387r b1hr b5hr c26l a388r b1hr b7hr c26l a389r b1hr a3hr c26l a390r b1hr a34hr c26l a391r b1hr a74hr c26l a392r b1hr a75hr c26l a393r b1hhr b1r c1l a394r b1hhr b3r c1l a395r b1hhr b4r c1l a396r b1hhr b5r c1l a397r b1hhr b7r c1l a398r b1hhr a3r c1l a399r b1hhr a34r c1l a400r b1hhr a74r c1l a401r b1hhr a75r c1l a402r b1hhr b1r c4l a403r b1hhr b3r c4l a404r b1hhr b4r c4l a405r b1hhr b5r c4l a406r b1hhr b7r c4l a407r b1hhr a3r c4l a408r b1hhr a34r c4l a409r b1hhr a74r c4l a410r b1hhr a75r c4l a411r b1hhr b1r c5l a412r b1hhr b3r c5l a413r b1hhr b4r c5l a414r b1hhr b5r c5l a415r b1hhr b7r c5l a416r b1hhr a3r c5l a417r b1hhr a34r c5l a418r b1hhr a74r c5l a419r b1hhr a75r c5l a420r b1hhr b1r c9l a421r b1hhr b3r c9l a422r b1hhr b4r c9l a423r b1hhr b5r c9l a424r b1hhr b7r c9l a425r b1hhr a3r c9l a426r b1hhr a34r c9l a427r b1hhr a74r c9l a428r b1hhr a75r c9l a429r b1hhr b1r c12l a430r b1hhr b3r c12l a431r b1hhr b4r c12l a432r b1hhr b5r c12l a433r b1hhr b7r c12l a434r b1hhr a3r c12l a435r b1hhr a34r c12l a436r b1hhr a74r c12l a437r b1hhr a75r c12l a438r b1hhr b1r c24l a439r b1hhr b3r c24l a440r b1hhr b4r c24l a441r b1hhr b5r c24l a442r b1hhr b7r c24l a443r b1hhr a3r c24l a444r b1hhr a34r c24l a445r b1hhr a74r c24l a446r b1hhr a75r c24l a447r b1hhr b1r c26l a448r b1hhr b3r c26l a449r b1hhr b4r c26l a450r b1hhr b5r c26l a451r b1hhr b7r c26l a452r b1hhr a3r c26l a453r b1hhr a34r c26l a454r b1hhr a74r c26l a455r b1hhr a75r c26l a456r b1hr b1r b1r c1l a457r b1hr b3r b3r c1l a458r b1hr b4r b4r c1l a459r b1hr b5r b5r c1l a460r b1hr b7r b7r c1l a461r b1hr a3r a3r c1l a462r b1hr a34r a34r c1l a463r b1hr a74r a74r c1l a464r b1hr a75r a75r c1l a465r b1hr b1r b1r c4l a466r b1hr b3r b3r c4l a467r b1hr b4r b4r c4l a468r b1hr b5r b5r c4l a469r b1hr b7r b7r c4l a470r b1hr a3r a3r c4l a471r b1hr a34r a34r c4l a472r b1hr a74r a74r c4l a473r b1hr a75r a75r c4l a474r b1hr b1r b1r c5l a475r b1hr b3r b3r c5l a476r b1hr b4r b4r c5l a477r b1hr b5r b5r c5l a478r b1hr b7r b7r c5l a479r b1hr a3r a3r c5l a480r b1hr a34r a34r c5l a481r b1hr a74r a74r c5l a482r b1hr a75r a75r c5l a483r b1hr b1r b1r c9l a484r b1hr b3r b3r c9l a485r b1hr b4r b4r c9l a486r b1hr b5r b5r c9l a487r b1hr b7r b7r c9l a488r b1hr a3r a3r c9l a489r b1hr a34r a34r c9l a490r b1hr a74r a74r c9l a491r b1hr a75r a75r c9l a492r b1hr b1r b1r c12l a493r b1hr b3r b3r c12l a494r b1hr b4r b4r c12l a495r b1hr b5r b5r c12l a496r b1hr b7r b7r c12l a497r b1hr a3r a3r c12l a498r b1hr a34r a34r c12l a499r b1hr a74r a74r c12l a500r b1hr a75r a75r c12l a501r b1hr b1r b1r c24l a502r b1hr b3r b3r c24l a503r b1hr b4r b4r c24l a504r b1hr b5r b5r c24l a505r b1hr b7r b7r c24l a506r b1hr a3r a3r c24l a507r b1hr a34r a34r c24l a508r b1hr a74r a74r c24l a509r b1hr a75r a75r c24l a510r b1hr b1r b1r c26l a511r b1hr b3r b3r c26l a512r b1hr b4r b4r c26l a513r b1hr b5r b5r c26l a514r b1hr b7r b7r c26l a515r b1hr a3r a3r c26l a516r b1hr a34r a34r c26l a517r b1hr a74r a74r c26l a518r b1hr a75r a75r c26l a519r b37hhhr c1l a520r b37r b1hhr c1l a521r b37r b3hhr c1l a522r b37r b4hhr c1l a523r b37r b5hhr c1l a524r b37r b7hhr c1l a525r b37r a3hhr c1l a526r b37r a34hhr c1l a527r b37r a74hhr c1l a528r b37r a75hhr c1l a529r b37hhhr c4l a530r b37r b1hhr c4l a531r b37r b3hhr c4l a532r b37r b4hhr c4l a533r b37r b5hhr c4l a534r b37r b7hhr c4l a535r b37r a3hhr c4l a536r b37r a34hhr c4l a537r b37r a74hhr c4l a538r b37r a75hhr c4l a539r b37hhhr c5l a540r b37r b1hhr c5l a541r b37r b3hhr c5l a542r b37r b4hhr c5l a543r b37r b5hhr c5l a544r b37r b7hhr c5l a545r b37r a3hhr c5l a546r b37r a34hhr c5l a547r b37r a74hhr c5l a548r b37r a75hhr c5l a549r b37hhhr c9l a550r b37r b1hhr c9l a551r b37r b3hhr c9l a552r b37r b4hhr c9l a553r b37r b5hhr c9l a554r b37r b7hhr c9l a555r b37r a3hhr c9l a556r b37r a34hhr c9l a557r b37r a74hhr c9l a558r b37r a75hhr c9l a559r b37hhhr c12l a560r b37r b1hhr c12l a561r b37r b3hhr c12l a562r b37r b4hhr c12l a563r b37r b5hhr c12l a564r b37r b7hhr c12l a565r b37r a3hhr c12l a566r b37r a34hhr c12l a567r b37r a74hhr c12l a568r b37r a75hhr c12l a569r b37hhhr c24l a570r b37r b1hhr c24l a571r b37r b3hhr c24l a572r b37r b4hhr c24l a573r b37r b5hhr c24l a574r b37r b7hhr c24l a575r b37r a3hhr c24l a576r b37r a34hhr c24l a577r b37r a74hhr c24l a578r b37r a75hhr c24l a579r b37hhhr c26l a580r b37r b1hhr c26l a581r b37r b3hhr c26l a582r b37r b4hhr c26l a583r b37r b5hhr c26l a584r b37r b7hhr c26l a585r b37r a3hhr c26l a586r b37r a34hhr c26l a587r b37r a74hhr c26l a588r b37r a75hhr c26l a589r b37hr b1hr c1l a590r b37hr b3hr c1l a591r b37hr b4hr c1l a592r b37hr b5hr c1l a593r b37hr b7hr c1l a594r b37hr a3hr c1l a595r b37hr a34hr c1l a596r b37hr a74hr c1l a597r b37hr a75hr c1l a598r b37hr b1hr c4l a599r b37hr b3hr c4l a600r b37hr b4hr c4l a601r b37hr b5hr c4l a602r b37hr b7hr c4l a603r b37hr a3hr c4l a604r b37hr a34hr c4l a605r b37hr a74hr c4l a606r b37hr a75hr c4l a607r b37hr b1hr c5l a608r b37hr b3hr c5l a609r b37hr b4hr c5l a610r b37hr b5hr c5l a611r b37hr b7hr c5l a612r b37hr a3hr c5l a613r b37hr a34hr c5l a614r b37hr a74hr c5l a615r b37hr a75hr c5l a616r b37hr b1hr c9l a617r b37hr b3hr c9l a618r b37hr b4hr c9l a619r b37hr b5hr c9l a620r b37hr b7hr c9l a621r b37hr a3hr c9l a622r b37hr a34hr c9l a623r b37hr a74hr c9l a624r b37hr a75hr c9l a625r b37hr b1hr c12l a626r b37hr b3hr c12l a627r b37hr b4hr c12l a628r b37hr b5hr c12l a629r b37hr b7hr c12l a630r b37hr a3hr c12l a631r b37hr a34hr c12l a632r b37hr a74hr c12l a633r b37hr a75hr c12l a634r b37hr b1hr c24l a635r b37hr b3hr c24l a636r b37hr b4hr c24l a637r b37hr b5hr c24l a638r b37hr b7hr c24l a639r b37hr a3hr c24l a640r b37hr a34hr c24l a641r b37hr a74hr c24l a642r b37hr a75hr c24l a643r b37hr b1hr c26l a644r b37hr b3hr c26l a645r b37hr b4hr c26l a646r b37hr b5hr c26l a647r b37hr b7hr c26l a648r b37hr a3hr c26l a649r b37hr a34hr c26l a650r b37hr a74hr c26l a651r b37hr a75hr c26l a652r b37hhr b1r c1l a653r b37hhr b3r c1l a654r b37hhr b4r c1l a655r b37hhr b5r c1l a656r b37hhr b7r c1l a657r b37hhr a3r c1l a658r b37hhr a34r c1l a659r b37hhr a74r c1l a660r b37hhr a75r c1l a661r b37hhr b1r c4l a662r b37hhr b3r c4l a663r b37hhr b4r c4l a664r b37hhr b5r c4l a665r b37hhr b7r c4l a666r b37hhr a3r c4l a667r b37hhr a34r c4l a668r b37hhr a74r c4l a669r b37hhr a75r c4l a670r b37hhr b1r c5l a671r b37hhr b3r c5l a672r b37hhr b4r c5l a673r b37hhr b5r c5l a674r b37hhr b7r c5l a675r b37hhr a3r c5l a676r b37hhr a34r c5l a677r b37hhr a74r c5l a678r b37hhr a75r c5l a679r b37hhr b1r c9l a680r b37hhr b3r c9l a681r b37hhr b4r c9l a682r b37hhr b5r c9l a683r b37hhr b7r c9l a684r b37hhr a3r c9l a685r b37hhr a34r c9l a686r b37hhr a74r c9l a687r b37hhr a75r c9l a688r b37hhr b1r c12l a689r b37hhr b3r c12l a690r b37hhr b4r c12l a691r b37hhr b5r c12l a692r b37hhr b7r c12l a693r b37hhr a3r c12l a694r b37hhr a34r c12l a695r b37hhr a74r c12l a696r b37hhr a75r c12l a697r b37hhr b1r c24l a698r b37hhr b3r c24l a699r b37hhr b4r c24l a700r b37hhr b5r c24l a701r b37hhr b7r c24l a702r b37hhr a3r c24l a703r b37hhr a34r c24l a704r b37hhr a74r c24l a705r b37hhr a75r c24l a706r b37hhr b1r c26l a707r b37hhr b3r c26l a708r b37hhr b4r c26l a709r b37hhr b5r c26l a710r b37hhr b7r c26l a711r b37hhr a3r c26l a712r b37hhr a34r c26l a713r b37hhr a74r c26l a714r b37hhr a75r c26l a715r b37hr b1r b1r c1l a716r b37hr b3r b3r c1l a717r b37hr b4r b4r c1l a718r b37hr b5r b5r c1l a719r b37hr b7r b7r c1l a720r b37hr a3r a3r c1l a721r b37hr a34r a34r c1l a722r b37hr a74r a74r c1l a723r b37hr a75r a75r c1l a724r b37hr b1r b1r c4l a725r b37hr b3r b3r c4l a726r b37hr b4r b4r c4l a727r b37hr b5r b5r c4l a728r b37hr b7r b7r c4l a729r b37hr a3r a3r c4l a730r b37hr a34r a34r c4l a731r b37hr a74r a74r c4l a732r b37hr a75r a75r c4l a733r b37hr b1r b1r c5l a734r b37hr b3r b3r c5l a735r b37hr b4r b4r c5l a736r b37hr b5r b5r c5l a737r b37hr b7r b7r c5l a738r b37hr a3r a3r c5l a739r b37hr a34r a34r c5l a740r b37hr a74r a74r c5l a741r b37hr a75r a75r c5l a742r b37hr b1r b1r c9l a743r b37hr b3r b3r c9l a744r b37hr b4r b4r c9l a745r b37hr b5r b5r c9l a746r b37hr b7r b7r c9l a747r b37hr a3r a3r c9l a748r b37hr a34r a34r c9l a749r b37hr a74r a74r c9l a750r b37hr a75r a75r c9l a751r b37hr b1r b1r c12l a752r b37hr b3r b3r c12l a753r b37hr b4r b4r c12l a754r b37hr b5r b5r c12l a755r b37hr b7r b7r c12l a756r b37hr a3r a3r c12l a757r b37hr a34r a34r c12l a758r b37hr a74r a74r c12l a759r b37hr a75r a75r c12l a760r b37hr b1r b1r c24l a761r b37hr b3r b3r c24l a762r b37hr b4r b4r c24l a763r b37hr b5r b5r c24l a764r b37hr b7r b7r c24l a765r b37hr a3r a3r c24l a766r b37hr a34r a34r c24l a767r b37hr a74r a74r c24l a768r b37hr a75r a75r c24l a769r b37hr b1r b1r c26l a770r b37hr b3r b3r c26l a771r b37hr b4r b4r c26l a772r b37hr b5r b5r c26l a773r b37hr b7r b7r c26l a774r b37hr a3r a3r c26l a775r b37hr a34r a34r c26l a776r b37hr a74r a74r c26l a777r b37hr a75r a75r c26 wherein l a778 through l a1813 have a structure of formula iii, in which r 1 , r 2 , r 3 , r 4 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3r 4gl a778hhhhr c1l a779hr b1hhr c1l a780hr b3hhr c1l a781hr b4hhr c1l a782hr b5hhr c1l a783hr b7hhr c1l a784hr a3hhr c1l a785hr a34hhr c1l a786hr a74hhr c1l a787hr a75hhr c1l a788hhhhr c4l a789hr b1hhr c4l a790hr b3hhr c4l a791hr b4hhr c4l a792hr b5hhr c4l a793hr b7hhr c4l a794hr a3hhr c4l a795hr a34hhr c4l a796hr a74hhr c4l a797hr a75hhr c4l a798hhhhr c5l a799hr b1hhr c5l a800hr b3hhr c5l a801hr b4hhr c5l a802hr b5hhr c5l a803hr b7hhr c5l a804hr a3hhr c5l a805hr a34hhr c5l a806hr a74hhr c5l a807hr a75hhr c5l a808hhhhr c9l a809hr b1hhr c9l a810hr b3hhr c9l a811hr b4hhr c9l a812hr b5hhr c9l a813hr b7hhr c9l a814hr a3hhr c9l a815hr a34hhr c9l a816hr a74hhr c9l a817hr a75hhr c9l a818hhhhr c12l a819hr b1hhr c12l a820hr b3hhr c12l a821hr b4hhr c12l a822hr b5hhr c12l a823hr b7hhr c12l a824hr a3hhr c12l a825hr a34hhr c12l a826hr a74hhr c12l a827hr a75hhr c12l a828hhhhr c24l a829hr b1hhr c24l a830hr b3hhr c24l a831hr b4hhr c24l a832hr b5hhr c24l a833hr b7hhr c24l a834hr a3hhr c24l a835hr a34hhr c24l a836hr a74hhr c24l a837hr a75hhr c24l a838hhhhr c26l a839hr b1hhr c26l a840hr b3hhr c26l a841hr b4hhr c26l a842hr b5hhr c26l a843hr b7hhr c26l a844hr a3hhr c26l a845hr a34hhr c26l a846hr a74hhr c26l a847hr a75hhr c26l a848hhr b1hr c1l a849hhr b3hr c1l a850hhr b4hr c1l a851hhr b5hr c1l a852hhr b7hr c1l a853hhr a3hr c1l a854hhr a34hr c1l a855hhr a74hr c1l a856hhr a75hr c1l a857hhr b1hr c4l a858hhr b3hr c4l a859hhr b4hr c4l a860hhr b5hr c4l a861hhr b7hr c4l a862hhr a3hr c4l a863hhr a34hr c4l a864hhr a74hr c4l a865hhr a75hr c4l a866hhr b1hr c5l a867hhr b3hr c5l a868hhr b4hr c5l a869hhr b5hr c5l a870hhr b7hr c5l a871hhr a3hr c5l a872hhr a34hr c5l a873hhr a74hr c5l a874hhr a75hr c5l a875hhr b1hr c9l a876hhr b3hr c9l a877hhr b4hr c9l a878hhr b5hr c9l a879hhr b7hr c9l a880hhr a3hr c9l a881hhr a34hr c9l a882hhr a74hr c9l a883hhr a75hr c9l a884hhr b1hr c12l a885hhr b3hr c12l a886hhr b4hr c12l a887hhr b5hr c12l a888hhr b7hr c12l a889hhr a3hr c12l a890hhr a34hr c12l a891hhr a74hr c12l a892hhr a75hr c12l a893hhr b1hr c24l a894hhr b3hr c24l a895hhr b4hr c24l a896hhr b5hr c24l a897hhr b7hr c24l a898hhr a3hr c24l a899hhr a34hr c24l a900hhr a74hr c24l a901hhr a75hr c24l a902hhr b1hr c26l a903hhr b3hr c26l a904hhr b4hr c26l a905hhr b5hr c26l a906hhr b7hr c26l a907hhr a3hr c26l a908hhr a34hr c26l a909hhr a74hr c26l a910hhr a75hr c26l a911hhhr b1r c1l a912hhhr b3r c1l a913hhhr b4r c1l a914hhhr b5r c1l a915hhhr b7r c1l a916hhhr a3r c1l a917hhhr a34r c1l a918hhhr a74r c1l a919hhhr a75r c1l a920hhhr b1r c4l a921hhhr b3r c4l a922hhhr b4r c4l a923hhhr b5r c4l a924hhhr b7r c4l a925hhhr a3r c4l a926hhhr a34r c4l a927hhhr a74r c4l a928hhhr a75r c4l a929hhhr b1r c5l a930hhhr b3r c5l a931hhhr b4r c5l a932hhhr b5r c5l a933hhhr b7r c5l a934hhhr a3r c5l a935hhhr a34r c5l a936hhhr a74r c5l a937hhhr a75r c5l a938hhhr b1r c9l a939hhhr b3r c9l a940hhhr b4r c9l a941hhhr b5r c9l a942hhhr b7r c9l a943hhhr a3r c9l a944hhhr a34r c9l a945hhhr a74r c9l a946hhhr a75r c9l a947hhhr b1r c12l a948hhhr b3r c12l a949hhhr b4r c12l a950hhhr b5r c12l a951hhhr b7r c12l a952hhhr a3r c12l a953hhhr a34r c12l a954hhhr a74r c12l a955hhhr a75r c12l a956hhhr b1r c24l a957hhhr b3r c24l a958hhhr b4r c24l a959hhhr b5r c24l a960hhhr b7r c24l a961hhhr a3r c24l a962hhhr a34r c24l a963hhhr a74r c24l a964hhhr a75r c24l a965hhhr b1r c26l a966hhhr b3r c26l a967hhhr b4r c26l a968hhhr b5r c26l a969hhhr b7r c26l a970hhhr a3r c26l a971hhhr a34r c26l a972hhhr a74r c26l a973hhhr a75r c26l a974hhr b1r b1r c1l a975hhr b3r b3r c1l a976hhr b4r b4r c1l a977hhr b5r b5r c1l a978hhr b7r b7r c1l a979hhr a3r a3r c1l a980hhr a34r a34r c1l a981hhr a74r a74r c1l a982hhr a75r a75r c1l a983hhr b1r b1r c4l a984hhr b3r b3r c4l a985hhr b4r b4r c4l a986hhr b5r b5r c4l a987hhr b7r b7r c4l a988hhr a3r a3r c4l a989hhr a34r a34r c4l a990hhr a74r a74r c4l a991hhr a75r a75r c4l a992hhr b1r b1r c5l a993hhr b3r b3r c5l a994hhr b4r b4r c5l a995hhr b5r b5r c5l a996hhr b7r b7r c5l a997hhr a3r a3r c5l a998hhr a34r a34r c5l a999hhr a74r a74r c5l a1000hhr a75r a75r c5l a1001hhr b1r b1r c9l a1002hhr b3r b3r c9l a1003hhr b4r b4r c9l a1004hhr b5r b5r c9l a1005hhr b7r b7r c9l a1006hhr a3r a3r c9l a1007hhr a34r a34r c9l a1008hhr a74r a74r c9l a1009hhr a75r a75r c9l a1010hhr b1r b1r c12l a1011hhr b3r b3r c12l a1012hhr b4r b4r c12l a1013hhr b5r b5r c12l a1014hhr b7r b7r c12l a1015hhr a3r a3r c12l a1016hhr a34r a34r c12l a1017hhr a74r a74r c12l a1018hhr a75r a75r c12l a1019hhr b1r b1r c24l a1020hhr b3r b3r c24l a1021hhr b4r b4r c24l a1022hhr b5r b5r c24l a1023hhr b7r b7r c24l a1024hhr a3r a3r c24l a1025hhr a34r a34r c24l a1026hhr a74r a74r c24l a1027hhr a75r a75r c24l a1028hhr b1r b1r c26l a1029hhr b3r b3r c26l a1030hhr b4r b4r c26l a1031hhr b5r b5r c26l a1032hhr b7r b7r c26l a1033hhr a3r a3r c26l a1034hhr a34r a34r c26l a1035hhr a74r a74r c26l a1036hhr a75r a75r c26l a1037r b1hhhr c1l a1038r b1r b1hhr c1l a1039r b1r b3hhr c1l a1040r b1r b4hhr c1l a1041r b1r b5hhr c1l a1042r b1r b7hhr c1l a1043r b1r a3hhr c1l a1044r b1r a34hhr c1l a1045r b1r a74hhr c1l a1046r b1r a75hhr c1l a1047r b1hhhr c4l a1048r b1r b1hhr c4l a1049r b1r b3hhr c4l a1050r b1r b4hhr c4l a1051r b1r b5hhr c4l a1052r b1r b7hhr c4l a1053r b1r a3hhr c4l a1054r b1r a34hhr c4l a1055r b1r a74hhr c4l a1056r b1r a75hhr c4l a1057r b1hhhr c5l a1058r b1r b1hhr c5l a1059r b1r b3hhr c5l a1060r b1r b4hhr c5l a1061r b1r b5hhr c5l a1062r b1r b7hhr c5l a1063r b1r a3hhr c5l a1064r b1r a34hhr c5l a1065r b1r a74hhr c5l a1066r b1r a75hhr c5l a1067r b1hhhr c9l a1068r b1r b1hhr c9l a1069r b1r b3hhr c9l a1070r b1r b4hhr c9l a1071r b1r b5hhr c9l a1072r b1r b7hhr c9l a1073r b1r a3hhr c9l a1074r b1r a34hhr c9l a1075r b1r a74hhr c9l a1076r b1r a75hhr c9l a1077r b1hhhr c12l a1078r b1r b1hhr c12l a1079r b1r b3hhr c12l a1080r b1r b4hhr c12l a1081r b1r b5hhr c12l a1082r b1r b7hhr c12l a1083r b1r a3hhr c12l a1084r b1r a34hhr c12l a1085r b1r a74hhr c12l a1086r b1r a75hhr c12l a1087r b1hhhr c24l a1088r b1r b1hhr c24l a1089r b1r b3hhr c24l a1090r b1r b4hhr c24l a1091r b1r b5hhr c24l a1092r b1r b7hhr c24l a1093r b1r a3hhr c24l a1094r b1r a34hhr c24l a1095r b1r a74hhr c24l a1096r b1r a75hhr c24l a1097r b1hhhr c26l a1098r b1r b1hhr c26l a1099r b1r b3hhr c26l a1100r b1r b4hhr c26l a1101r b1r b5hhr c26l a1102r b1r b7hhr c26l a1103r b1r a3hhr c26l a1104r b1r a34hhr c26l a1105r b1r a74hhr c26l a1106r b1r a75hhr c26l a1107r b1hr b1hr c1l a1108r b1hr b3hr c1l a1109r b1hr b4hr c1l a1110r b1hr b5hr c1l a1111r b1hr b7hr c1l a1112r b1hr a3hr c1l a1113r b1hr a34hr c1l a1114r b1hr a74hr c1l a1115r b1hr a75hr c1l a1116r b1hr b1hr c4l a1117r b1hr b3hr c4l a1118r b1hr b4hr c4l a1119r b1hr b5hr c4l a1120r b1hr b7hr c4l a1121r b1hr a3hr c4l a1122r b1hr a34hr c4l a1123r b1hr a74hr c4l a1124r b1hr a75hr c4l a1125r b1hr b1hr c5l a1126r b1hr b3hr c5l a1127r b1hr b4hr c5l a1128r b1hr b5hr c5l a1129r b1hr b7hr c5l a1130r b1hr a3hr c5l a1131r b1hr a34hr c5l a1132r b1hr a74hr c5l a1133r b1hr a75hr c5l a1134r b1hr b1hr c9l a1135r b1hr b3hr c9l a1136r b1hr b4hr c9l a1137r b1hr b5hr c9l a1138r b1hr b7hr c9l a1139r b1hr a3hr c9l a1140r b1hr a34hr c9l a1141r b1hr a74hr c9l a1142r b1hr a75hr c9l a1143r b1hr b1hr c12l a1144r b1hr b3hr c12l a1145r b1hr b4hr c12l a1146r b1hr b5hr c12l a1147r b1hr b7hr c12l a1148r b1hr a3hr c12l a1149r b1hr a34hr c12l a1150r b1hr a74hr c12l a1151r b1hr a75hr c12l a1152r b1hr b1hr c24l a1153r b1hr b3hr c24l a1154r b1hr b4hr c24l a1155r b1hr b5hr c24l a1156r b1hr b7hr 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b37hr a3r a3r c24l a1543r b37hr a34r a34r c24l a1544r b37hr a74r a74r c24l a1545r b37hr a75r a75r c24l a1546r b37hr b1r b1r c26l a1547r b37hr b3r b3r c26l a1548r b37hr b4r b4r c26l a1549r b37hr b5r b5r c26l a1550r b37hr b7r b7r c26l a1551r b37hr a3r a3r c26l a1552r b37hr a34r a34r c26l a1553r b37hr a74r a74r c26l a1554r b37hr a75r a75r c26l a1555r b40hhhr c1l a1556r b40r b1hhr c1l a1557r b40r b3hhr c1l a1558r b40r b4hhr c1l a1559r b40r b5hhr c1l a1560r b40r b7hhr c1l a1561r b40r a3hhr c1l a1562r b40r a34hhr c1l a1563r b40r a74hhr c1l a1564r b40r a75hhr c1l a1565r b40hhhr c4l a1566r b40r b1hhr c4l a1567r b40r b3hhr c4l a1568r b40r b4hhr c4l a1569r b40r b5hhr c4l a1570r b40r b7hhr c4l a1571r b40r a3hhr c4l a1572r b40r a34hhr c4l a1573r b40r a74hhr c4l a1574r b40r a75hhr c4l a1575r b40hhhr c5l a1576r b40r b1hhr c5l a1577r b40r b3hhr c5l a1578r b40r b4hhr c5l a1579r b40r b5hhr c5l a1580r b40r b7hhr c5l a1581r b40r a3hhr c5l a1582r b40r a34hhr c5l a1583r b40r a74hhr c5l a1584r b40r a75hhr c5l a1585r b40hhhr c9l a1586r b40r b1hhr c9l a1587r b40r b3hhr c9l a1588r b40r b4hhr c9l a1589r b40r b5hhr c9l a1590r b40r b7hhr c9l a1591r b40r a3hhr c9l a1592r b40r a34hhr c9l a1593r b40r a74hhr c9l a1594r b40r a75hhr c9l a1595r b40hhhr c12l a1596r b40r b1hhr c12l a1597r b40r b3hhr c12l a1598r b40r b4hhr c12l a1599r b40r b5hhr c12l a1600r b40r b7hhr c12l a1601r b40r a3hhr c12l a1602r b40r a34hhr c12l a1603r b40r a74hhr c12l a1604r b40r a75hhr c12l a1605r b40hhhr c24l a1606r b40r b1hhr c24l a1607r b40r b3hhr c24l a1608r b40r b4hhr c24l a1609r b40r b5hhr c24l a1610r b40r b7hhr c24l a1611r b40r a3hhr c24l a1612r b40r a34hhr c24l a1613r b40r a74hhr c24l a1614r b40r a75hhr c24l a1615r b40hhhr c26l a1616r b40r b1hhr c26l a1617r b40r b3hhr c26l a1618r b40r b4hhr c26l a1619r b40r b5hhr c26l a1620r b40r b7hhr c26l a1621r b40r a3hhr c26l a1622r b40r a34hhr c26l a1623r b40r a74hhr c26l a1624r b40r a75hhr c26l a1625r b40hr b1hr c1l a1626r b40hr b3hr c1l a1627r b40hr b4hr c1l a1628r b40hr b5hr c1l a1629r b40hr b7hr c1l a1630r b40hr a3hr c1l a1631r b40hr a34hr c1l a1632r b40hr a74hr c1l a1633r b40hr a75hr c1l a1634r b40hr b1hr c4l a1635r b40hr b3hr c4l a1636r b40hr b4hr c4l a1637r b40hr b5hr c4l a1638r b40hr b7hr c4l a1639r b40hr a3hr c4l a1640r b40hr a34hr c4l a1641r b40hr a74hr c4l a1642r b40hr a75hr c4l a1643r b40hr b1hr c5l a1644r b40hr b3hr c5l a1645r b40hr b4hr c5l a1646r b40hr b5hr c5l a1647r b40hr b7hr c5l a1648r b40hr a3hr c5l a1649r b40hr a34hr c5l a1650r b40hr a74hr c5l a1651r b40hr a75hr c5l a1652r b40hr b1hr c9l a1653r b40hr b3hr c9l a1654r b40hr b4hr c9l a1655r b40hr b5hr c9l a1656r b40hr b7hr c9l a1657r b40hr a3hr c9l a1658r b40hr a34hr c9l a1659r b40hr a74hr c9l a1660r b40hr a75hr c9l a1661r b40hr b1hr c12l a1662r b40hr b3hr c12l a1663r b40hr b4hr c12l a1664r b40hr b5hr c12l a1665r b40hr b7hr c12l a1666r b40hr a3hr c12l a1667r b40hr a34hr c12l a1668r b40hr a74hr c12l a1669r b40hr a75hr c12l a1670r b40hr b1hr c24l a1671r b40hr b3hr c24l a1672r b40hr b4hr c24l a1673r b40hr b5hr c24l a1674r b40hr b7hr c24l a1675r b40hr a3hr c24l a1676r b40hr a34hr c24l a1677r b40hr a74hr c24l a1678r b40hr a75hr c24l a1679r b40hr b1hr c26l a1680r b40hr b3hr c26l a1681r b40hr b4hr c26l a1682r b40hr b5hr c26l a1683r b40hr b7hr c26l a1684r b40hr a3hr c26l a1685r b40hr a34hr c26l a1686r b40hr a74hr c26l a1687r b40hr a75hr c26l a1688r b40hhr b1r c1l a1689r b40hhr b3r c1l a1690r b40hhr b4r c1l a1691r b40hhr b5r c1l a1692r b40hhr b7r c1l a1693r b40hhr a3r c1l a1694r b40hhr a34r c1l a1695r b40hhr a74r c1l a1696r b40hhr a75r c1l a1697r b40hhr b1r c4l a1698r b40hhr b3r c4l a1699r b40hhr b4r c4l a1700r b40hhr b5r c4l a1701r b40hhr b7r c4l a1702r b40hhr a3r c4l a1703r b40hhr a34r c4l a1704r b40hhr a74r c4l a1705r b40hhr a75r c4l a1706r b40hhr b1r c5l a1707r b40hhr b3r c5l a1708r b40hhr b4r c5l a1709r b40hhr b5r c5l a1710r b40hhr b7r c5l a1711r b40hhr a3r c5l a1712r b40hhr a34r c5l a1713r b40hhr a74r c5l a1714r b40hhr a75r c5l a1715r b40hhr b1r c9l a1716r b40hhr b3r c9l a1717r b40hhr b4r c9l a1718r b40hhr b5r c9l a1719r b40hhr b7r c9l a1720r b40hhr a3r c9l a1721r b40hhr a34r c9l a1722r b40hhr a74r c9l a1723r b40hhr a75r c9l a1724r b40hhr b1r c12l a1725r b40hhr b3r c12l a1726r b40hhr b4r c12l a1727r b40hhr b5r c12l a1728r b40hhr b7r c12l a1729r b40hhr a3r c12l a1730r b40hhr a34r c12l a1731r b40hhr a74r c12l a1732r b40hhr a75r c12l a1733r b40hhr b1r c24l a1734r b40hhr b3r c24l a1735r b40hhr b4r c24l a1736r b40hhr b5r c24l a1737r b40hhr b7r c24l a1738r b40hhr a3r c24l a1739r b40hhr a34r c24l a1740r b40hhr a74r c24l a1741r b40hhr a75r c24l a1742r b40hhr b1r c26l a1743r b40hhr b3r c26l a1744r b40hhr b4r c26l a1745r b40hhr b5r c26l a1746r b40hhr b7r c26l a1747r b40hhr a3r c26l a1748r b40hhr a34r c26l a1749r b40hhr a74r c26l a1750r b40hhr a75r c26l a1751r b40hr b1r b1r c1l a1752r b40hr b3r b3r c1l a1753r b40hr b4r b4r c1l a1754r b40hr b5r b5r c1l a1755r b40hr b7r b7r c1l a1756r b40hr a3r a3r c1l a1757r b40hr a34r a34r c1l a1758r b40hr a74r a74r c1l a1759r b40hr a75r a75r c1l a1760r b40hr b1r b1r c4l a1761r b40hr b3r b3r c4l a1762r b40hr b4r b4r c4l a1763r b40hr b5r b5r c4l a1764r b40hr b7r b7r c4l a1765r b40hr a3r a3r c4l a1766r b40hr a34r a34r c4l a1767r b40hr a74r a74r c4l a1768r b40hr a75r a75r c4l a1769r b40hr b1r b1r c5l a1770r b40hr b3r b3r c5l a1771r b40hr b4r b4r c5l a1772r b40hr b5r b5r c5l a1773r b40hr b7r b7r c5l a1774r b40hr a3r a3r c5l a1775r b40hr a34r a34r c5l a1776r b40hr a74r a74r c5l a1777r b40hr a75r a75r c5l a1778r b40hr b1r b1r c9l a1779r b40hr b3r b3r c9l a1780r b40hr b4r b4r c9l a1781r b40hr b5r b5r c9l a1782r b40hr b7r b7r c9l a1783r b40hr a3r a3r c9l a1784r b40hr a34r a34r c9l a1785r b40hr a74r a74r c9l a1786r b40hr a75r a75r c9l a1787r b40hr b1r b1r c12l a1788r b40hr b3r b3r c12l a1789r b40hr b4r b4r c12l a1790r b40hr b5r b5r c12l a1791r b40hr b7r b7r c12l a1792r b40hr a3r a3r c12l a1793r b40hr a34r a34r c12l a1794r b40hr a74r a74r c12l a1795r b40hr a75r a75r c12l a1796r b40hr b1r b1r c24l a1797r b40hr b3r b3r c24l a1798r b40hr b4r b4r c24l a1799r b40hr b5r b5r c24l a1800r b40hr b7r b7r c24l a1801r b40hr a3r a3r c24l a1802r b40hr a34r a34r c24l a1803r b40hr a74r a74r c24l a1804r b40hr a75r a75r c24l a1805r b40hr b1r b1r c26l a1806r b40hr b3r b3r c26l a1807r b40hr b4r b4r c26l a1808r b40hr b5r b5r c26l a1809r b40hr b7r b7r c26l a1810r b40hr a3r a3r c26l a1811r b40hr a34r a34r c26l a1812r b40hr a74r a74r c26l a1813r b40hr a75r a75r c26 wherein l a1814 through l a2013 have a structure of formula iv, in which r 1 , r 2 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2gl a1814hhr c1l a1815hr b1r c1l a1816hr b3r c1l a1817hr b4r c1l a1818hr b5r c1l a1819hr b7r c1l a1820hr a3r c1l a1821hr a34r c1l a1822hr a74r c1l a1823hr a75r c1l a1824hhr c4l a1825hr b1r c4l a1826hr b3r c4l a1827hr b4r c4l a1828hr b5r c4l a1829hr b7r c4l a1830hr a3r c4l a1831hr a34r c4l a1832hr a74r c4l a1833hr a75r c4l a1834hhr c5l a1835hr b1r c5l a1836hr b3r c5l a1837hr b4r c5l a1838hr b5r c5l a1839hr b7r c5l a1840hr a3r c5l a1841hr a34r c5l a1842hr a74r c5l a1843hr a75r c5l a1844hhr c9l a1845hr b1r c9l a1846hr b3r c9l a1847hr b4r c9l a1848hr b5r c9l a1849hr b7r c9l a1850hr a3r c9l a1851hr a34r c9l a1852hr a74r c9l a1853hr a75r c9l a1854hhr c12l a1855hr b1r c12l a1856hr b3r c12l a1857hr b4r c12l a1858hr b5r c12l a1859hr b7r c12l a1860hr a3r c12l a1861hr a34r c12l a1862hr a74r c12l a1863hr a75r c12l a1864r b1hr c1l a1865r b1r b1r c1l a1866r b1r b3r c1l a1867r b1r b4r c1l a1868r b1r b5r c1l a1869r b1r b7r c1l a1870r b1r a3r c1l a1871r b1r a34r c1l a1872r b1r a74r c1l a1873r b1r a75r c1l a1874r b1hr c4l a1875r b1r b1r c4l a1876r b1r b3r c4l a1877r b1r b4r c4l a1878r b1r b5r c4l a1879r b1r b7r c4l a1880r b1r a3r c4l a1881r b1r a34r c4l a1882r b1r a74r c4l a1883r b1r a75r c4l a1884r b1hr c5l a1885r b1r b1r c5l a1886r b1r b3r c5l a1887r b1r b4r c5l a1888r b1r b5r c5l a1889r b1r b7r c5l a1890r b1r a3r c5l a1891r b1r a34r c5l a1892r b1r a74r c5l a1893r b1r a75r c5l a1894r b1hr c9l a1895r b1r b1r c9l a1896r b1r b3r c9l a1897r b1r b4r c9l a1898r b1r b5r c9l a1899r b1r b7r c9l a1900r b1r a3r c9l a1901r b1r a34r c9l a1902r b1r a74r c9l a1903r b1r a75r c9l a1904r b1hr c12l a1905r b1r b1r c12l a1906r b1r b3r c12l a1907r b1r b4r c12l a1908r b1r b5r c12l a1909r b1r b7r c12l a1910r b1r a3r c12l a1911r b1r a34r c12l a1912r b1r a74r c12l a1913r b1r a75r c12l a1914r b2hr c1l a1915r b2r b1r c1l a1916r b2r b3r c1l a1917r b2r b4r c1l a1918r b2r b5r c1l a1919r b2r b7r c1l a1920r b2r a3r c1l a1921r b2r a34r c1l a1922r b2r a74r c1l a1923r b2r a75r c1l a1924r b2hr c4l a1925r b2r b1r c4l a1926r b2r b3r c4l a1927r b2r b4r c4l a1928r b2r b5r c4l a1929r b2r b7r c4l a1930r b2r a3r c4l a1931r b2r a34r c4l a1932r b2r a74r c4l a1933r b2r a75r c4l a1934r b2hr c5l a1935r b2r b1r c5l a1936r b2r b3r c5l a1937r b2r b4r c5l a1938r b2r b5r c5l a1939r b2r b7r c5l a1940r b2r a3r c5l a1941r b2r a34r c5l a1942r b2r a74r c5l a1943r b2r a75r c5l a1944r b2hr c9l a1945r b2r b1r c9l a1946r b2r b3r c9l a1947r b2r b4r c9l a1948r b2r b5r c9l a1949r b2r b7r c9l a1950r b2r a3r c9l a1951r b2r a34r c9l a1952r b2r a74r c9l a1953r b2r a75r c9l a1954r b2hr c12l a1955r b2r b1r c12l a1956r b2r b3r c12l a1957r b2r b4r c12l a1958r b2r b5r c12l a1959r b2r b7r c12l a1960r b2r a3r c12l a1961r b2r a34r c12l a1962r b2r a74r c12l a1963r b2r a75r c12l a1964r b37hr c1l a1965r b37r b1r c1l a1966r b37r b3r c1l a1967r b37r b4r c1l a1968r b37r b5r c1l a1969r b37r b7r c1l a1970r b37r a3r c1l a1971r b37r a34r c1l a1972r b37r a74r c1l a1973r b37r a75r c1l a1974r b37hr c4l a1975r b37r b1r c4l a1976r b37r b3r c4l a1977r b37r b4r c4l a1978r b37r b5r c4l a1979r b37r b7r c4l a1980r b37r a3r c4l a1981r b37r a34r c4l a1982r b37r a74r c4l a1983r b37r a75r c4l a1984r b37hr c5l a1985r b37r b1r c5l a1986r b37r b3r c5l a1987r b37r b4r c5l a1988r b37r b5r c5l a1989r b37r b7r c5l a1990r b37r a3r c5l a1991r b37r a34r c5l a1992r b37r a74r c5l a1993r b37r a75r c5l a1994r b37hr c9l a1995r b37r b1r c9l a1996r b37r b3r c9l a1997r b37r b4r c9l a1998r b37r b5r c9l a1999r b37r b7r c9l a2000r b37r a3r c9l a2001r b37r a34r c9l a2002r b37r a74r c9l a2003r b37r a75r c9l a2004r b37hr c12l a2005r b37r b1r c12l a2006r b37r b3r c12l a2007r b37r b4r c12l a2008r b37r b5r c12l a2009r b37r b7r c12l a2010r b37r a3r c12l a2011r b37r a34r c12l a2012r b37r a74r c12l a2013r b37r a75r c12 wherein l a2014 through l a2213 have a structure of formula v, in which r 1 , r 2 and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2gl a2014hhr c1l a2015hr b1r c1l a2016hr b3r c1l a2017hr b4r c1l a2018hr b5r c1l a2019hr b7r c1l a2020hr a3r c1l a2021hr a34r c1l a2022hr a74r c1l a2023hr a75r c1l a2024hhr c4l a2025hr b1r c4l a2026hr b3r c4l a2027hr b4r c4l a2028hr b5r c4l a2029hr b7r c4l a2030hr a3r c4l a2031hr a34r c4l a2032hr a74r c4l a2033hr a75r c4l a2034hhr c5l a2035hr b1r c5l a2036hr b3r c5l a2037hr b4r c5l a2038hr b5r c5l a2039hr b7r c5l a2040hr a3r c5l a2041hr a34r c5l a2042hr a74r c5l a2043hr a75r c5l a2044hhr c9l a2045hr b1r c9l a2046hr b3r c9l a2047hr b4r c9l a2048hr b5r c9l a2049hr b7r c9l a2050hr a3r c9l a2051hr a34r c9l a2052hr a74r c9l a2053hr a75r c9l a2054hhr c12l a2055hr b1r c12l a2056hr b3r c12l a2057hr b4r c12l a2058hr b5r c12l a2059hr b7r c12l a2060hr a3r c12l a2061hr a34r c12l a2062hr a74r c12l a2063hr a75r c12l a2064r b1hr c1l a2065r b1r b1r c1l a2066r b1r b3r c1l a2067r b1r b4r c1l a2068r b1r b5r c1l a2069r b1r b7r c1l a2070r b1r a3r c1l a2071r b1r a34r c1l a2072r b1r a74r c1l a2073r b1r a75r c1l a2074r b1hr c4l a2075r b1r b1r c4l a2076r b1r b3r c4l a2077r b1r b4r c4l a2078r b1r b5r c4l a2079r b1r b7r c4l a2080r b1r a3r c4l a2081r b1r a34r c4l a2082r b1r a74r c4l a2083r b1r a75r c4l a2084r b1hr c5l a2085r b1r b1r c5l a2086r b1r b3r c5l a2087r b1r b4r c5l a2088r b1r b5r c5l a2089r b1r b7r c5l a2090r b1r a3r c5l a2091r b1r a34r c5l a2092r b1r a74r c5l a2093r b1r a75r c5l a2094r b1hr c9l a2095r b1r b1r c9l a2096r b1r b3r c9l a2097r b1r b4r c9l a2098r b1r b5r c9l a2099r b1r b7r c9l a2100r b1r a3r c9l a2101r b1r a34r c9l a2102r b1r a74r c9l a2103r b1r a75r c9l a2104r b1hr c12l a2105r b1r b1r c12l a2106r b1r b3r c12l a2107r b1r b4r c12l a2108r b1r b5r c12l a2109r b1r b7r c12l a2110r b1r a3r c12l a2111r b1r a34r c12l a2112r b1r a74r c12l a2113r b1r a75r c12l a2114r b2hr c1l a2115r b2r b1r c1l a2116r b2r b3r c1l a2117r b2r b4r c1l a2118r b2r b5r c1l a2119r b2r b7r c1l a2120r b2r a3r c1l a2121r b2r a34r c1l a2122r b2r a74r c1l a2123r b2r a75r c1l a2124r b2hr c4l a2125r b2r b1r c4l a2126r b2r b3r c4l a2127r b2r b4r c4l a2128r b2r b5r c4l a2129r b2r b7r c4l a2130r b2r a3r c4l a2131r b2r a34r c4l a2132r b2r a74r c4l a2133r b2r a75r c4l a2134r b2hr c5l a2135r b2r b1r c5l a2136r b2r b3r c5l a2137r b2r b4r c5l a2138r b2r b5r c5l a2139r b2r b7r c5l a2140r b2r a3r c5l a2141r b2r a34r c5l a2142r b2r a74r c5l a2143r b2r a75r c5l a2144r b2hr c9l a2145r b2r b1r c9l a2146r b2r b3r c9l a2147r b2r b4r c9l a2148r b2r b5r c9l a2149r b2r b7r c9l a2150r b2r a3r c9l a2151r b2r a34r c9l a2152r b2r a74r c9l a2153r b2r a75r c9l a2154r b2hr c12l a2155r b2r b1r c12l a2156r b2r b3r c12l a2157r b2r b4r c12l a2158r b2r b5r c12l a2159r b2r b7r c12l a2160r b2r a3r c12l a2161r b2r a34r c12l a2162r b2r a74r c12l a2163r b2r a75r c12l a2164r b37hr c1l a2165r b37r b1r c1l a2166r b37r b3r c1l a2167r b37r b4r c1l a2168r b37r b5r c1l a2169r b37r b7r c1l a2170r b37r a3r c1l a2171r b37r a34r c1l a2172r b37r a74r c1l a2173r b37r a75r c1l a2174r b37hr c4l a2175r b37r b1r c4l a2176r b37r b3r c4l a2177r b37r b4r c4l a2178r b37r b5r c4l a2179r b37r b7r c4l a2180r b37r a3r c4l a2181r b37r a34r c4l a2182r b37r a74r c4l a2183r b37r a75r c4l a2184r b37hr c5l a2185r b37r b1r c5l a2186r b37r b3r c5l a2187r b37r b4r c5l a2188r b37r b5r c5l a2189r b37r b7r c5l a2190r b37r a3r c5l a2191r b37r a34r c5l a2192r b37r a74r c5l a2193r b37r a75r c5l a2194r b37hr c9l a2195r b37r b1r c9l a2196r b37r b3r c9l a2197r b37r b4r c9l a2198r b37r b5r c9l a2199r b37r b7r c9l a2200r b37r a3r c9l a2201r b37r a34r c9l a2202r b37r a74r c9l a2203r b37r a75r c9l a2204r b37hr c12l a2205r b37r b1r c12l a2206r b37r b3r c12l a2207r b37r b4r c12l a2208r b37r b5r c12l a2209r b37r b7r c12l a2210r b37r a3r c12l a2211r b37r a34r c12l a2212r b37r a74r c12l a2213r b37r a75r c12 wherein r a1 to r a75 have the following structures: wherein r b1 to r b42 have the following structures: wherein r c1 to r c29 have the following structures: 10 . the compound of claim 1 , wherein the compound has a formula of m(l a ) x (l b ) y (l c ) z wherein l b and l c are each a bidentate ligand; and wherein x is 1, 2, or 3; y is 0, 1, or 2; z is 0, 1, or 2; and x+y+z is the oxidation state of the metal m. 11 . the compound of claim 10 , wherein the compound has a formula selected from the group consisting of ir(l a ) 3 , ir(l a )(l b ) 2 , ir(l a ) 2 (l b ), ir(l a ) 2 (l c ), ir(l a )(l b )(l c ), and pt(l a )(l b ); and wherein l a , l b , and l c are different from each other in ir compounds, and wherein l a and l b can be same or different in pt compounds. 12 . the compound of claim 10 , wherein l b and l c are each independently selected from the group consisting of: wherein each y 1 through y 13 are independently selected from the group consisting of carbon and nitrogen; wherein y′ is selected from the group consisting of br e , nr e , pr e , o, s, se, c═o, s═o, so 2 , cr e r f rr, sir e r f , and ger e r f ; wherein each r e , and r f is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, aryl, heteroaryl, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, and combinations thereof; wherein r e and r f are optionally fused or joined to form a ring; wherein each r a , r b , r c , and r d may independently represent from mono substitution to the maximum possible number of substitution, or no substitution; wherein each r a , r b , r c , and r d is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; and wherein any two adjacent substituents of r a , r b , r c , and r d are optionally fused or joined to form a ring or form a multidentate ligand. 13 . the compound of claim 9 , wherein the compound is a compound ax having the formula ir(l ai ) 3 , or a compound cz having the formula ir(l ai ) 2 (l cj ); wherein x=i, and z=1260i+j−1260; wherein i is an integer from 1 to 2213, and j is an integer from 1 to 1260; and wherein l c1 through l c1260 have a structure of formula x in which r 1 , r 2 , and r 3 are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3l c1r d1r d1hl c2r d2r d2hl c3r d3r d3hl c4r d4r d4hl c5r d5r d5hl c6r d6r d6hl c7r d7r d7hl c8r d8r d8hl c9r d9r d9hl c10r d10r d10hl c11r d11r d11hl c12r d12r d12hl c13r d13r d13hl c14r d14r d14hl c15r d15r d15hl c16r d16r d16hl c17r d17r d17hl c18r d18r d18hl c19r d19r d19hl c20r d20r d20hl c21r d21r d21hl c22r d22r d22hl c23r d23r d23hl c24r d24r d24hl c25r d25r d25hl c26r d26r d26hl c27r d27r d27hl c28r d28r d28hl c29r d29r d29hl c30r d30r d30hl c31r d31r d31hl c32r d32r d32hl c33r d33r d33hl c34r d34r d34hl c35r d35r d35hl c36r d40r d40hl c37r d41r d41hl c38r d42r d42hl c39r d64r d64hl c40r d66r d66hl c41r d68r d68hl c42r d76r d76hl c43r d1r d2hl c44r d1r d3hl c45r d1r d4hl c46r d1r d5hl c47r d1r d6hl c48r d1r d7hl c49r d1r d8hl c50r d1r d9hl c51r d1r d10hl c52r d1r d11hl c53r d1r d12hl c54r d1r d13hl c55r d1r d14hl c56r d1r d15hl c57r d1r d16hl c58r d1r d17hl c59r d1r d18hl c60r d1r d19hl c61r d1r d20hl c62r d1r d21hl c63r d1r d22hl c64r d1r d23hl c65r d1r d24hl c66r d1r d25hl c67r d1r d26hl c68r d1r d27hl c69r d1r d28hl c70r d1r d29hl c71r d1r d30hl c72r d1r d31hl c73r d1r d32hl c74r d1r d33hl c75r d1r d34hl c76r d1r d35hl c77r d1r d40hl c78r d1r d41hl c79r d1r d42hl c80r d1r d64hl c81r d1r d66hl c82r d1r d68hl c83r d1r d76hl c84r d2r d1hl c85r d2r d3hl c86r d2r d4hl c87r d2r d5hl c88r d2r d6hl c89r d2r d7hl c90r d2r d8hl c91r d2r d9hl c92r d2r d10hl c93r d2r d11hl c94r d2r d12hl c95r d2r d13hl c96r d2r d14hl c97r d2r d15hl c98r d2r d16hl c99r d2r d17hl c100r d2r d18hl c101r d2r d19hl c102r d2r d20hl c103r d2r d21hl c104r d2r d22hl c105r d2r d23hl c106r d2r d24hl c107r d2r d25hl c108r d2r d26hl c109r d2r d27hl c110r d2r d28hl c111r d2r d29hl c112r d2r d30hl c113r d2r d31hl c114r d2r d32hl c115r d2r d33hl c116r d2r d34hl c117r d2r d35hl c118r d2r d40hl c119r d2r d41hl c120r d2r d42hl c121r d2r d64hl c122r d2r d66hl c123r d2r d68hl c124r d2r d76hl c125r d3r d4hl c126r d3r d5hl c127r d3r d6hl c128r d3r d7hl c129r d3r d8hl c130r d3r d9hl c131r d3r d10hl c132r d3r d11hl c133r d3r d12hl c134r d3r d13hl c135r d3r d14hl c136r d3r d15hl c137r d3r d16hl c138r d3r d17hl c139r d3r d18hl c140r d3r d19hl c141r d3r d20hl c142r d3r d21hl c143r d3r d22hl c144r d3r d23hl c145r d3r d24hl c146r d3r d25hl c147r d3r d26hl c148r d3r d27hl c149r d3r d28hl c150r d3r d29hl c151r d3r d30hl c152r d3r d31hl c153r d3r d32hl c154r d3r d33hl c155r d3r d34hl c156r d3r d35hl c157r d3r d40hl c158r d3r d41hl c159r d3r d42hl c160r d3r d64hl c161r d3r d66hl c162r d3r d68hl c163r d3r d76hl c164r d4r d5hl c165r d4r d6hl c166r d4r d7hl c167r d4r d8hl c168r d4r d9hl c169r d4r d10hl c170r d4r d11hl c171r d4r d12hl c172r d4r d13hl c173r d4r d14hl c174r d4r d15hl c175r d4r d16hl c176r d4r d17hl c177r d4r d18hl c178r d4r d19hl c179r d4r d20hl c180r d4r d21hl c181r d4r d22hl c182r d4r d23hl c183r d4r d24hl c184r d4r d25hl c185r d4r d26hl c186r d4r d27hl c187r d4r d28hl c188r d4r d29hl c189r d4r d30hl c190r d4r d31hl c191r d4r d32hl c192r d4r d33hl c193r d4r d34hl c194r d4r d35hl c195r d4r d40hl c196r d4r d41hl c197r d4r d42hl c198r d4r d64hl c199r d4r d66hl c200r d4r d68hl c201r d4r d76hl c202r d4r d1hl c203r d7r d5hl c204r d7r d6hl c205r d7r d8hl c206r d7r d9hl c207r d7r d10hl c208r d7r d11hl c209r d7r d12hl c210r d7r d13hl c211r d7r d14hl c212r d7r d15hl c213r d7r d16hl c214r d7r d17hl c215r d7r d18hl c216r d7r d19hl c217r d7r d20hl c218r d7r d21hl c219r d7r d22hl c220r d7r d23hl c221r d7r d24hl c222r d7r d25hl c223r d7r d26hl c224r d7r d27hl c225r d7r d28hl c226r d7r d29hl c227r d7r d30hl c228r d7r d31hl c229r d7r d32hl c230r d7r d33hl c231r d7r d34hl c232r d7r d35hl c233r d7r d40hl c234r d7r d41hl c235r d7r d42hl c236r d7r d64hl c237r d7r d66hl c238r d7r d68hl c239r d7r d76hl c240r d8r d5hl c241r d8r d6hl c242r d8r d9hl c243r d8r d10hl c244r d8r d11hl c245r d8r d12hl c246r d8r d13hl c247r d8r d14hl c248r d8r d15hl c249r d8r d16hl c250r d8r d17hl c251r d8r d18hl c252r d8r d19hl c253r d8r d20hl c254r d8r d21hl c255r d8r d22hl c256r d8r d23hl c257r d8r d24hl c258r d8r d25hl c259r d8r d26hl c260r d8r d27hl c261r d8r d28hl c262r d8r d29hl c263r d8r d30hl c264r d8r d31hl c265r d8r d32hl c266r d8r d33hl c267r d8r d34hl c268r d8r d35hl c269r d8r d40hl c270r d8r d41hl c271r d8r d42hl c272r d8r d64hl c273r d8r d66hl c274r d8r d68hl c275r d8r d76hl c276r d11r d5hl c277r d11r d6hl c278r d11r d9hl c279r d11r d10hl c280r d11r d12hl c281r d11r d13hl c282r d11r d14hl c283r d11r d15hl c284r d11r d16hl c285r d11r d17hl c286r d11r d18hl c287r d11r d19hl c288r d11r d20hl c289r d11r d21hl c290r d11r d22hl c291r d11r d23hl c292r d11r d24hl c293r d11r d25hl c294r d11r d26hl c295r d11r d27hl c296r d11r d28hl c297r d11r d29hl c298r d11r d30hl c299r d11r d31hl c300r d11r d32hl c301r d11r d33hl c302r d11r d34hl c303r d11r d35hl c304r d11r d40hl c305r d11r d41hl c306r d11r d42hl c307r d11r d64hl c308r d11r d66hl c309r d11r d68hl c310r d11r d76hl c311r d13r d5hl c312r d13r d6hl c313r d13r d9hl c314r d13r d10hl c315r d13r d12hl c316r d13r d14hl c317r d13r d15hl c318r d13r d16hl c319r d13r d17hl c320r d13r d18hl c321r d13r d19hl c322r d13r d20hl c323r d13r d21hl c324r d13r d22hl c325r d13r d23hl c326r d13r d24hl c327r d13r d25hl c328r d13r d26hl c329r d13r d27hl c330r d13r d28hl c331r d13r d29hl c332r d13r d30hl c333r d13r d31hl c334r d13r d32hl c335r d13r d33hl c336r d13r d34hl c337r d13r d35hl c338r d13r d40hl c339r d13r d41hl c340r d13r d42hl c341r d13r d64hl c342r d13r d66hl c343r d13r d68hl c344r d13r d76hl c345r d14r d5hl c346r d14r d6hl c347r d14r d9hl c348r d14r d10hl c349r d14r d12hl c350r d14r d15hl c351r d14r d16hl c352r d14r d17hl c353r d14r d18hl c354r d14r d19hl c355r d14r d20hl c356r d14r d21hl c357r d14r d22hl c358r d14r d23hl c359r d14r d24hl c360r d14r d25hl c361r d14r d26hl c362r d14r d27hl c363r d14r d28hl c364r d14r d29hl c365r d14r d30hl c366r d14r d31hl c367r d14r d32hl c368r d14r d33hl c369r d14r d34hl c370r d14r d35hl c371r d14r d40hl c372r d14r d41hl c373r d14r d42hl c374r d14r d64hl c375r d14r d66hl c376r d14r d68hl c377r d14r d76hl c378r d22r d5hl c379r d22r d6hl c380r d22r d9hl c381r d22r d10hl c382r d22r d12hl c383r d22r d15hl c384r d22r d16hl c385r d22r d17hl c386r d22r d18hl c387r d22r d19hl c388r d22r d20hl c389r d22r d21hl c390r d22r d23hl c391r d22r d24hl c392r d22r d25hl c393r d22r d26hl c394r d22r d27hl c395r d22r d28hl c396r d22r d29hl c397r d22r d30hl c398r d22r d31hl c399r d22r d32hl c400r d22r d33hl c401r d22r d34hl c402r d22r d35hl c403r d22r d40hl c404r d22r d41hl c405r d22r d42hl c406r d22r d64hl c407r d22r d66hl c408r d22r d68hl c409r d22r d76hl c410r d26r d5hl c411r d26r d6hl c412r d26r d9hl c413r d26r d10hl c414r d26r d12hl c415r d26r d15hl c416r d26r d16hl c417r d26r d17hl c418r d26r d18hl c419r d26r d19hl c420r d26r d20hl c421r d26r d21hl c422r d26r d23hl c423r d26r d24hl c424r d26r d25hl c425r d26r d27hl c426r d26r d28hl c427r d26r d29hl c428r d26r d30hl c429r d26r d31hl c430r d26r d32hl c431r d26r d33hl c432r d26r d34hl c433r d26r d35hl c434r d26r d40hl c435r d26r d41hl c436r d26r d42hl c437r d26r d64hl c438r d26r d66hl c439r d26r d68hl c440r d26r d76hl c441r d35r d5hl c442r d35r d6hl c443r d35r d9hl c444r d35r d10hl c445r d35r d12hl c446r d35r d15hl c447r d35r d16hl c448r d35r d17hl c449r d35r d18hl c450r d35r d19hl c451r d35r d20hl c452r d35r d21hl c453r d35r d23hl c454r d35r d24hl c455r d35r d25hl c456r d35r d27hl c457r d35r d28hl c458r d35r d29hl c459r d35r d30hl c460r d35r d31hl c461r d35r d32hl c462r d35r d33hl c463r d35r d34hl c464r d35r d40hl c465r d35r d41hl c466r d35r d42hl c467r d35r d64hl c468r d35r d66hl c469r d35r d68hl c470r d35r d76hl c471r d40r d5hl c472r d40r d6hl c473r d40r d9hl c474r d40r d10hl c475r d40r d12hl c476r d40r d15hl c477r d40r d16hl c478r d40r d17hl c479r d40r d18hl c480r d40r d19hl c481r d40r d20hl c482r d40r d21hl c483r d40r d23hl c484r d40r d24hl c485r d40r d25hl c486r d40r d27hl c487r d40r d28hl c488r d40r d29hl c489r d40r d30hl c490r d40r d31hl c491r d40r d32hl c492r d40r d33hl c493r d40r d34hl c494r d40r d41hl c495r d40r d42hl c496r d40r d64hl c497r d40r d66hl c498r d40r d68hl c499r d40r d76hl c500r d41r d5hl c501r d41r d6hl c502r d41r d9hl c503r d41r d10hl c504r d41r d12hl c505r d41r d15hl c506r d41r d16hl c507r d41r d17hl c508r d41r d18hl c509r d41r d19hl c510r d41r d20hl c511r d41r d21hl c512r d41r d23hl c513r d41r d24hl c514r d41r d25hl c515r d41r d27hl c516r d41r d28hl c517r d41r d29hl c518r d41r d30hl c519r d41r d31hl c520r d41r d32hl c521r d41r d33hl c522r d41r d34hl c523r d41r d42hl c524r d41r d64hl c525r d41r d66hl c526r d41r d68hl c527r d41r d76hl c528r d64r d5hl c529r d64r d6hl c530r d64r d9hl c531r d64r d10hl c532r d64r d12hl c533r d64r d15hl c534r d64r d16hl c535r d64r d17hl c536r d64r d18hl c537r d64r d19hl c538r d64r d20hl c539r d64r d21hl c540r d64r d23hl c541r d64r d24hl c542r d64r d25hl c543r d64r d27hl c544r d64r d28hl c545r d64r d29hl c546r d64r d30hl c547r d64r d31hl c548r d64r d32hl c549r d64r d33hl c550r d64r d34hl c551r d64r d42hl c552r d64r d64hl c553r d64r d66hl c554r d64r d68hl c555r d64r d76hl c556r d66r d5hl c557r d66r d6hl c558r d66r d9hl c559r d66r d10hl c560r d66r d12hl c561r d66r d15hl c562r d66r d16hl c563r d66r d17hl c564r d66r d18hl c565r d66r d19hl c566r d66r d20hl c567r d66r d21hl c568r d66r d23hl c569r d66r d24hl c570r d66r d25hl c571r d66r d27hl c572r d66r d28hl c573r d66r d29hl c574r d66r d30hl c575r d66r d31hl c576r d66r d32hl c577r d66r d33hl c578r d66r d34hl c579r d66r d42hl c580r d66r d68hl c581r d66r d76hl c582r d68r d5hl c583r d68r d6hl c584r d68r d9hl c585r d68r d10hl c586r d68r d12hl c587r d68r d15hl c588r d68r d16hl c589r d68r d17hl c590r d68r d18hl c591r d68r d19hl c592r d68r d20hl c593r d68r d21hl c594r d68r d23hl c595r d68r d24hl c596r d68r d25hl c597r d68r d27hl c598r d68r d28hl c599r d68r d29hl c600r d68r d30hl c601r d68r d31hl c602r d68r d32hl c603r d68r d33hl c604r d68r d34hl c605r d68r d42hl c606r d68r d76hl c607r d76r d5hl c608r d76r d6hl c609r d76r d9hl c610r d76r d10hl c611r d76r d12hl c612r d76r d15hl c613r d76r d16hl c614r d76r d17hl c615r d76r d18hl c616r d76r d19hl c617r d76r d20hl c618r d76r d21hl c619r d76r d23hl c620r d76r d24hl c621r d76r d25hl c622r d76r d27hl c623r d76r d28hl c624r d76r d29hl c625r d76r d30hl c626r d76r d31hl c627r d76r d32hl c628r d76r d33hl c629r d76r d34hl c630r d76r d42hl c631r d1r d1r d1l c632r d2r d2r d1l c633r d3r d3r d1l c634r d4r d4r d1l c635r d5r d5r d1l c636r d6r d6r d1l c637r d7r d7r d1l c638r d8r d8r d1l c639r d9r d9r d1l c640r d10r d10r d1l c641r d11r d11r d1l c642r d12r d12r d1l c643r d13r d13r d1l c644r d14r d14r d1l c645r d15r d15r d1l c646r d16r d16r d1l c647r d17r d17r d1l c648r d18r d18r d1l c649r d19r d19r d1l c650r d20r d20r d1l c651r d21r d21r d1l c652r d22r d22r d1l c653r d23r d23r d1l c654r d24r d24r d1l c655r d25r d25r d1l c656r d26r d26r d1l c657r d27r d27r d1l c658r d28r d28r d1l c659r d29r d29r d1l c660r d30r d30r d1l c661r d31r d31r d1l c662r d32r d32r d1l c663r d33r d33r d1l c664r d34r d34r d1l c665r d35r d35r d1l c666r d40r d40r d1l c667r d41r d41r d1l c668r d42r d42r d1l c669r d64r d64r d1l c670r d66r d66r d1l c671r d68r d68r d1l c672r d76r d76r d1l c673r d1r d2r d1l c674r d1r d3r d1l c675r d1r d4r d1l c676r d1r d5r d1l c677r d1r d6r d1l c678r d1r d7r d1l c679r d1r d8r d1l c680r d1r d9r d1l c681r d1r d10r d1l c682r d1r d11r d1l c683r d1r d12r d1l c684r d1r d13r d1l c685r d1r d14r d1l c686r d1r d15r d1l c687r d1r d16r d1l c688r d1r d17r d1l c689r d1r d18r d1l c690r d1r d19r d1l c691r d1r d20r d1l c692r d1r d21r d1l c693r d1r d22r d1l c694r d1r d23r d1l c695r d1r d24r d1l c696r d1r d25r d1l c697r d1r d26r d1l c698r d1r d27r d1l c699r d1r d28r d1l c700r d1r d29r d1l c701r d1r d30r d1l c702r d1r d31r d1l c703r d1r d32r d1l c704r d1r d33r d1l c705r d1r d34r d1l c706r d1r d35r d1l c707r d1r d40r d1l c708r d1r d41r d1l c709r d1r d42r d1l c710r d1r d64r d1l c711r d1r d66r d1l c712r d1r d68r d1l c713r d1r d76r d1l c714r d2r d1r d1l c715r d2r d3r d1l c716r d2r d4r d1l c717r d2r d5r d1l c718r d2r d6r d1l c719r d2r d7r d1l c720r d2r d8r d1l c721r d2r d9r d1l c722r d2r d10r d1l c723r d2r d11r d1l c724r d2r d12r d1l c725r d2r d13r d1l c726r d2r d14r d1l c727r d2r d15r d1l c728r d2r d16r d1l c729r d2r d17r d1l c730r d2r d18r d1l c731r d2r d19r d1l c732r d2r d20r d1l c733r d2r d21r d1l c734r d2r d22r d1l c735r d2r d23r d1l c736r d2r d24r d1l c737r d2r d25r d1l c738r d2r d26r d1l c739r d2r d27r d1l c740r d2r d28r d1l c741r d2r d29r d1l c742r d2r d30r d1l c743r d2r d31r d1l c744r d2r d32r d1l c745r d2r d33r d1l c746r d2r d34r d1l c747r d2r d35r d1l c748r d2r d40r d1l c749r d2r d41r d1l c750r d2r d42r d1l c751r d2r d64r d1l c752r d2r d66r d1l c753r d2r d68r d1l c754r d2r d76r d1l c755r d3r d4r d1l c756r d3r d5r d1l c757r d3r d6r d1l c758r d3r d7r d1l c759r d3r d8r d1l c760r d3r d9r d1l c761r d3r d10r d1l c762r d3r d11r d1l c763r d3r d12r d1l c764r d3r d13r d1l c765r d3r d14r d1l c766r d3r d15r d1l c767r d3r d16r d1l c768r d3r d17r d1l c769r d3r d18r d1l c770r d3r d19r d1l c771r d3r d20r d1l c772r d3r d21r d1l c773r d3r d22r d1l c774r d3r d23r d1l c775r d3r d24r d1l c776r d3r d25r d1l c777r d3r d26r d1l c778r d3r d27r d1l c779r d3r d28r d1l c780r d3r d29r d1l c781r d3r d30r d1l c782r d3r d31r d1l c783r d3r d32r d1l c784r d3r d33r d1l c785r d3r d34r d1l c786r d3r d35r d1l c787r d3r d40r d1l c788r d3r d41r d1l c789r d3r d42r d1l c790r d3r d64r d1l c791r d3r d66r d1l c792r d3r d68r d1l c793r d3r d76r d1l c794r d4r d5r d1l c795r d4r d6r d1l c796r d4r d7r d1l c797r d4r d8r d1l c798r d4r d9r d1l c799r d4r d10r d1l c800r d4r d11r d1l c801r d4r d12r d1l c802r d4r d13r d1l c803r d4r d14r d1l c804r d4r d15r d1l c805r d4r d16r d1l c806r d4r d17r d1l c807r d4r d18r d1l c808r d4r d19r d1l c809r d4r d20r d1l c810r d4r d21r d1l c811r d4r d22r d1l c812r d4r d23r d1l c813r d4r d24r d1l c814r d4r d25r d1l c815r d4r d26r d1l c816r d4r d27r d1l c817r d4r d28r d1l c818r d4r d29r d1l c819r d4r d30r d1l c820r d4r d31r d1l c821r d4r d32r d1l c822r d4r d33r d1l c823r d4r d34r d1l c824r d4r d35r d1l c825r d4r d40r d1l c826r d4r d41r d1l c827r d4r d42r d1l c828r d4r d64r d1l c829r d4r d66r d1l c830r d4r d68r d1l c831r d4r d76r d1l c832r d4r d1r d1l c833r d7r d5r d1l c834r d7r d6r d1l c835r d7r d8r d1l c836r d7r d9r d1l c837r d7r d10r d1l c838r d7r d11r d1l c839r d7r d12r d1l c840r d7r d13r d1l c841r d7r d14r d1l c842r d7r d15r d1l c843r d7r d16r d1l c844r d7r d17r d1l c845r d7r d18r d1l c846r d7r d19r d1l c847r d7r d20r d1l c848r d7r d21r d1l c849r d7r d22r d1l c850r d7r d23r d1l c851r d7r d24r d1l c852r d7r d25r d1l c853r d7r d26r d1l c854r d7r d27r d1l c855r d7r d28r d1l c856r d7r d29r d1l c857r d7r d30r d1l c858r d7r d31r d1l c859r d7r d32r d1l c860r d7r d33r d1l c861r d7r d34r d1l c862r d7r d35r d1l c863r d7r d40r d1l c864r d7r d41r d1l c865r d7r d42r d1l c866r d7r d64r d1l c867r d7r d66r d1l c868r d7r d68r d1l c869r d7r d76r d1l c870r d8r d5r d1l c871r d8r d6r d1l c872r d8r d9r d1l c873r d8r d10r d1l c874r d8r d11r d1l c875r d8r d12r d1l c876r d8r d13r d1l c877r d8r d14r d1l c878r d8r d15r d1l c879r d8r d16r d1l c880r d8r d17r d1l c881r d8r d18r d1l c882r d8r d19r d1l c883r d8r d20r d1l c884r d8r d21r d1l c885r d8r d22r d1l c886r d8r d23r d1l c887r d8r d24r d1l c888r d8r d25r d1l c889r d8r d26r d1l c890r d8r d27r d1l c891r d8r d28r d1l c892r d8r d29r d1l c893r d8r d30r d1l c894r d8r d31r d1l c895r d8r d32r d1l c896r d8r d33r d1l c897r d8r d34r d1l c898r d8r d35r d1l c899r d8r d40r d1l c900r d8r d41r d1l c901r d8r d42r d1l c902r d8r d64r d1l c903r d8r d66r d1l c904r d8r d68r d1l c905r d8r d76r d1l c906r d11r d5r d1l c907r d11r d6r d1l c908r d11r d9r d1l c909r d11r d10r d1l c910r d11r d12r d1l c911r d11r d13r d1l c912r d11r d14r d1l c913r d11r d15r d1l c914r d11r d16r d1l c915r d11r d17r d1l c916r d11r d18r d1l c917r d11r d19r d1l c918r d11r d20r d1l c919r d11r d21r d1l c920r d11r d22r d1l c921r d11r d23r d1l c922r d11r d24r d1l c923r d11r d25r d1l c924r d11r d26r d1l c925r d11r d27r d1l c926r d11r d28r d1l c927r d11r d29r d1l c928r d11r d30r d1l c929r d11r d31r d1l c930r d11r d32r d1l c931r d11r d33r d1l c932r d11r d34r d1l c933r d11r d35r d1l c934r d11r d40r d1l c935r d11r d41r d1l c936r d11r d42r d1l c937r d11r d64r d1l c938r d11r d66r d1l c939r d11r d68r d1l c940r d11r d76r d1l c941r d13r d5r d1l c942r d13r d6r d1l c943r d13r d9r d1l c944r d13r d10r d1l c945r d13r d12r d1l c946r d13r d14r d1l c947r d13r d15r d1l c948r d13r d16r d1l c949r d13r d17r d1l c950r d13r d18r d1l c951r d13r d19r d1l c952r d13r d20r d1l c953r d13r d21r d1l c954r d13r d22r d1l c955r d13r d23r d1l c956r d13r d24r d1l c957r d13r d25r d1l c958r d13r d26r d1l c959r d13r d27r d1l c960r d13r d28r d1l c961r d13r d29r d1l c962r d13r d30r d1l c963r d13r d31r d1l c964r d13r d32r d1l c965r d13r d33r d1l c966r d13r d34r d1l c967r d13r d35r d1l c968r d13r d40r d1l c969r d13r d41r d1l c970r d13r d42r d1l c971r d13r d64r d1l c972r d13r d66r d1l c973r d13r d68r d1l c974r d13r d76r d1l c975r d14r d5r d1l c976r d14r d6r d1l c977r d14r d9r d1l c978r d14r d10r d1l c979r d14r d12r d1l c980r d14r d15r d1l c981r d14r d16r d1l c982r d14r d17r d1l c983r d14r d18r d1l c984r d14r d19r d1l c985r d14r d20r d1l c986r d14r d21r d1l c987r d14r d22r d1l c988r d14r d23r d1l c989r d14r d24r d1l c990r d14r d25r d1l c991r d14r d26r d1l c992r d14r d27r d1l c993r d14r d28r d1l c994r d14r d29r d1l c995r d14r d30r d1l c996r d14r d31r d1l c997r d14r d32r d1l c998r d14r d33r d1l c999r d14r d34r d1l c1000r d14r d35r d1l c1001r d14r d40r d1l c1002r d14r d41r d1l c1003r d14r d42r d1l c1004r d14r d64r d1l c1005r d14r d66r d1l c1006r d14r d68r d1l c1007r d14r d76r d1l c1008r d22r d5r d1l c1009r d22r d6r d1l c1010r d22r d9r d1l c1011r d22r d10r d1l c1012r d22r d12r d1l c1013r d22r d15r d1l c1014r d22r d16r d1l c1015r d22r d17r d1l c1016r d22r d18r d1l c1017r d22r d19r d1l c1018r d22r d20r d1l c1019r d22r d21r d1l c1020r d22r d23r d1l c1021r d22r d24r d1l c1022r d22r d25r d1l c1023r d22r d26r d1l c1024r d22r d27r d1l c1025r d22r d28r d1l c1026r d22r d29r d1l c1027r d22r d30r d1l c1028r d22r d31r d1l c1029r d22r d32r d1l c1030r d22r d33r d1l c1031r d22r d34r d1l c1032r d22r d35r d1l c1033r d22r d40r d1l c1034r d22r d41r d1l c1035r d22r d42r d1l c1036r d22r d64r d1l c1037r d22r d66r d1l c1038r d22r d68r d1l c1039r d22r d76r d1l c1040r d26r d5r d1l c1041r d26r d6r d1l c1042r d26r d9r d1l c1043r d26r d10r d1l c1044r d26r d12r d1l c1045r d26r d15r d1l c1046r d26r d16r d1l c1047r d26r d17r d1l c1048r d26r d18r d1l c1049r d26r d19r d1l c1050r d26r d20r d1l c1051r d26r d21r d1l c1052r d26r d23r d1l c1053r d26r d24r d1l c1054r d26r d25r d1l c1055r d26r d27r d1l c1056r d26r d28r d1l c1057r d26r d29r d1l c1058r d26r d30r d1l c1059r d26r d31r d1l c1060r d26r d32r d1l c1061r d26r d33r d1l c1062r d26r d34r d1l c1063r d26r d35r d1l c1064r d26r d40r d1l c1065r d26r d41r d1l c1066r d26r d42r d1l c1067r d26r d64r d1l c1068r d26r d66r d1l c1069r d26r d68r d1l c1070r d26r d76r d1l c1071r d35r d5r d1l c1072r d35r d6r d1l c1073r d35r d9r d1l c1074r d35r d10r d1l c1075r d35r d12r d1l c1076r d35r d15r d1l c1077r d35r d16r d1l c1078r d35r d17r d1l c1079r d35r d18r d1l c1080r d35r d19r d1l c1081r d35r d20r d1l c1082r d35r d21r d1l c1083r d35r d23r d1l c1084r d35r d24r d1l c1085r d35r d25r d1l c1086r d35r d27r d1l c1087r d35r d28r d1l c1088r d35r d29r d1l c1089r d35r d30r d1l c1090r d35r d31r d1l c1091r d35r d32r d1l c1092r d35r d33r d1l c1093r d35r d34r d1l c1094r d35r d40r d1l c1095r d35r d41r d1l c1096r d35r d42r d1l c1097r d35r d64r d1l c1098r d35r d66r d1l c1099r d35r d68r d1l c1100r d35r d76r d1l c1101r d40r d5r d1l c1102r d40r d6r d1l c1103r d40r d9r d1l c1104r d40r d10r d1l c1105r d40r d12r d1l c1106r d40r d15r d1l c1107r d40r d16r d1l c1108r d40r d17r d1l c1109r d40r d18r d1l c1110r d40r d19r d1l c1111r d40r d20r d1l c1112r d40r d21r d1l c1113r d40r d23r d1l c1114r d40r d24r d1l c1115r d40r d25r d1l c1116r d40r d27r d1l c1117r d40r d28r d1l c1118r d40r d29r d1l c1119r d40r d30r d1l c1120r d40r d31r d1l c1121r d40r d32r d1l c1122r d40r d33r d1l c1123r d40r d34r d1l c1124r d40r d41r d1l c1125r d40r d42r d1l c1126r d40r d64r d1l c1127r d40r d66r d1l c1128r d40r d68r d1l c1129r d40r d76r d1l c1130r d41r d5r d1l c1131r d41r d6r d1l c1132r d41r d9r d1l c1133r d41r d10r d1l c1134r d41r d12r d1l c1135r d41r d15r d1l c1136r d41r d16r d1l c1137r d41r d17r d1l c1138r d41r d18r d1l c1139r d41r d19r d1l c1140r d41r d20r d1l c1141r d41r d21r d1l c1142r d41r d23r d1l c1143r d41r d24r d1l c1144r d41r d25r d1l c1145r d41r d27r d1l c1146r d41r d28r d1l c1147r d41r d29r d1l c1148r d41r d30r d1l c1149r d41r d31r d1l c1150r d41r d32r d1l c1151r d41r d33r d1l c1152r d41r d34r d1l c1153r d41r d42r d1l c1154r d41r d64r d1l c1155r d41r d66r d1l c1156r d41r d68r d1l c1157r d41r d76r d1l c1158r d64r d5r d1l c1159r d64r d6r d1l c1160r d64r d9r d1l c1161r d64r d10r d1l c1162r d64r d12r d1l c1163r d64r d15r d1l c1164r d64r d16r d1l c1165r d64r d17r d1l c1166r d64r d18r d1l c1167r d64r d19r d1l c1168r d64r d20r d1l c1169r d64r d21r d1l c1170r d64r d23r d1l c1171r d64r d24r d1l c1172r d64r d25r d1l c1173r d64r d27r d1l c1174r d64r d28r d1l c1175r d64r d29r d1l c1176r d64r d30r d1l c1177r d64r d31r d1l c1178r d64r d32r d1l c1179r d64r d33r d1l c1180r d64r d34r d1l c1181r d64r d42r d1l c1182r d64r d64r d1l c1183r d64r d66r d1l c1184r d64r d68r d1l c1185r d64r d76r d1l c1186r d66r d5r d1l c1187r d66r d6r d1l c1188r d66r d9r d1l c1189r d66r d10r d1l c1190r d66r d12r d1l c1191r d66r d15r d1l c1192r d66r d16r d1l c1193r d66r d17r d1l c1194r d66r d18r d1l c1195r d66r d19r d1l c1196r d66r d20r d1l c1197r d66r d21r d1l c1198r d66r d23r d1l c1199r d66r d24r d1l c1200r d66r d25r d1l c1201r d66r d27r d1l c1202r d66r d28r d1l c1203r d66r d29r d1l c1204r d66r d30r d1l c1205r d66r d31r d1l c1206r d66r d32r d1l c1207r d66r d33r d1l c1208r d66r d34r d1l c1209r d66r d42r d1l c1210r d66r d68r d1l c1211r d66r d76r d1l c1212r d68r d5r d1l c1213r d68r d6r d1l c1214r d68r d9r d1l c1215r d68r d10r d1l c1216r d68r d12r d1l c1217r d68r d15r d1l c1218r d68r d16r d1l c1219r d68r d17r d1l c1220r d68r d18r d1l c1221r d68r d19r d1l c1222r d68r d20r d1l c1223r d68r d21r d1l c1224r d68r d23r d1l c1225r d68r d24r d1l c1226r d68r d25r d1l c1227r d68r d27r d1l c1228r d68r d28r d1l c1229r d68r d29r d1l c1230r d68r d30r d1l c1231r d68r d31r d1l c1232r d68r d32r d1l c1233r d68r d33r d1l c1234r d68r d34r d1l c1235r d68r d42r d1l c1236r d68r d76r d1l c1237r d76r d5r d1l c1238r d76r d6r d1l c1239r d76r d9r d1l c1240r d76r d10r d1l c1241r d76r d12r d1l c1242r d76r d15r d1l c1243r d76r d16r d1l c1244r d76r d17r d1l c1245r d76r d18r d1l c1246r d76r d19r d1l c1247r d76r d20r d1l c1248r d76r d21r d1l c1249r d76r d23r d1l c1250r d76r d24r d1l c1251r d76r d25r d1l c1252r d76r d27r d1l c1253r d76r d28r d1l c1254r d76r d29r d1l c1255r d76r d30r d1l c1256r d76r d31r d1l c1257r d76r d32r d1l c1258r d76r d33r d1l c1259r d76r d34r d1l c1260r d76r d42r d1 wherein r d1 to r d21 have the following structures: 14 . an organic light emitting device (oled) comprising: an anode; a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, the organic layer comprising a compound comprising a first ligand l a of formula i wherein z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n; wherein ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered heterocyclic or carbocyclic ring; wherein each r a , r b , and r c represents mono to the maximum allowable substitution, or no substitution; wherein each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; wherein any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring; wherein l a is complexed to a metal m; wherein m is optionally coordinated to other ligands; and wherein the ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. 15 . the oled of claim 14 , wherein the organic layer is an emissive layer and the compound is an emissive dopant or a non-emissive dopant. 16 . the oled of claim 14 , wherein the organic layer further comprises a host, wherein host contains at least one chemical group selected from the group consisting of triphenylene, carbazole, dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, azacarbazole, aza-dibenzothiophene, aza-dibenzofuran, and aza-dibenzoselenophene. 17 . the oled of claim 14 , wherein the host is selected from the group consisting of: and combinations thereof. 18 . a consumer product comprising an organic light-emitting device comprising: an anode; a cathode; and an organic layer, disposed between the anode and the cathode, comprising a compound comprising a first ligand l a of formula i wherein z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n; wherein ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered heterocyclic or carbocyclic ring; wherein each r a , r b , and r c represents mono to the maximum allowable substitution, or no substitution; wherein each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof; wherein any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring; wherein l a is complexed to a metal m; wherein m is optionally coordinated to other ligands; and wherein the ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. 19 . a formulation comprising the compound of claim 1 . 20 . a chemical structure selected from the group consisting of a monomer, a polymer, a macromolecule, and a supramolecule, wherein the chemical structure comprising the compound of claim 1 .	cross-reference to related applications this application claims priority under 35 u.s.c. § 119(e) to u.s. provisional application no. 62/676,315, filed may 25, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. field the present invention relates to compounds for use as emitters, and devices, such as organic light emitting diodes, including the same. background opto-electronic devices that make use of organic materials are becoming increasingly desirable for a number of reasons. many of the materials used to make such devices are relatively inexpensive, so organic opto-electronic devices have the potential for cost advantages over inorganic devices. in addition, the inherent properties of organic materials, such as their flexibility, may make them well suited for particular applications such as fabrication on a flexible substrate. examples of organic opto-electronic devices include organic light emitting diodes/devices (oleds), organic phototransistors, organic photovoltaic cells, and organic photodetectors. for oleds, the organic materials may have performance advantages over conventional materials. for example, the wavelength at which an organic emissive layer emits light may generally be readily tuned with appropriate dopants. oleds make use of thin organic films that emit light when voltage is applied across the device. oleds are becoming an increasingly interesting technology for use in applications such as flat panel displays, illumination, and backlighting. several oled materials and configurations are described in u.s. pat. nos. 5,844,363, 6,303,238, and 5,707,745, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. one application for phosphorescent emissive molecules is a full color display. industry standards for such a display call for pixels adapted to emit particular colors, referred to as “saturated” colors. in particular, these standards call for saturated red, green, and blue pixels. alternatively the oled can be designed to emit white light. in conventional liquid crystal displays emission from a white backlight is filtered using absorption filters to produce red, green and blue emission. the same technique can also be used with oleds. the white oled can be either a single eml device or a stack structure. color may be measured using cie coordinates, which are well known to the art. one example of a green emissive molecule is tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium, denoted ir(ppy) 3 , which has the following structure: in this, and later figures herein, we depict the dative bond from nitrogen to metal (here, ir) as a straight line. as used herein, the term “organic” includes polymeric materials as well as small molecule organic materials that may be used to fabricate organic opto-electronic devices. “small molecule” refers to any organic material that is not a polymer, and “small molecules” may actually be quite large. small molecules may include repeat units in some circumstances. for example, using a long chain alkyl group as a substituent does not remove a molecule from the “small molecule” class. small molecules may also be incorporated into polymers, for example as a pendent group on a polymer backbone or as a part of the backbone. small molecules may also serve as the core moiety of a dendrimer, which consists of a series of chemical shells built on the core moiety. the core moiety of a dendrimer may be a fluorescent or phosphorescent small molecule emitter. a dendrimer may be a “small molecule,” and it is believed that all dendrimers currently used in the field of oleds are small molecules. as used herein, “top” means furthest away from the substrate, while “bottom” means closest to the substrate. where a first layer is described as “disposed over” a second layer, the first layer is disposed further away from substrate. there may be other layers between the first and second layer, unless it is specified that the first layer is “in contact with” the second layer. for example, a cathode may be described as “disposed over” an anode, even though there are various organic layers in between. as used herein, “solution processable” means capable of being dissolved, dispersed, or transported in and/or deposited from a liquid medium, either in solution or suspension form. a ligand may be referred to as “photoactive” when it is believed that the ligand directly contributes to the photoactive properties of an emissive material. a ligand may be referred to as “ancillary” when it is believed that the ligand does not contribute to the photoactive properties of an emissive material, although an ancillary ligand may alter the properties of a photoactive ligand. as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first “highest occupied molecular orbital” (homo) or “lowest unoccupied molecular orbital” (lumo) energy level is “greater than” or “higher than” a second homo or lumo energy level if the first energy level is closer to the vacuum energy level. since ionization potentials (ip) are measured as a negative energy relative to a vacuum level, a higher homo energy level corresponds to an ip having a smaller absolute value (an ip that is less negative). similarly, a higher lumo energy level corresponds to an electron affinity (ea) having a smaller absolute value (an ea that is less negative). on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, the lumo energy level of a material is higher than the homo energy level of the same material. a “higher” homo or lumo energy level appears closer to the top of such a diagram than a “lower” homo or lumo energy level. as used herein, and as would be generally understood by one skilled in the art, a first work function is “greater than” or “higher than” a second work function if the first work function has a higher absolute value. because work functions are generally measured as negative numbers relative to vacuum level, this means that a “higher” work function is more negative. on a conventional energy level diagram, with the vacuum level at the top, a “higher” work function is illustrated as further away from the vacuum level in the downward direction. thus, the definitions of homo and lumo energy levels follow a different convention than work functions. more details on oleds, and the definitions described above, can be found in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. summary according to an aspect of the present disclosure, a compound comprising a first ligand l a of formula i, is provided. in the structure of formula i: z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n;ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered heterocyclic or carbocyclic ring;each r a , r b , and r c represents mono to the maximum allowable substitutions, or no substitution;each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof;any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring;l a is complexed to a metal m;m is optionally coordinated to other ligands; andthe ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. an oled comprising the compound of the present disclosure in an organic layer therein is also disclosed. a consumer product comprising the oled is also disclosed. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device. fig. 2 shows an inverted organic light emitting device that does not have a separate electron transport layer. detailed description generally, an oled comprises at least one organic layer disposed between and electrically connected to an anode and a cathode. when a current is applied, the anode injects holes and the cathode injects electrons into the organic layer(s). the injected holes and electrons each migrate toward the oppositely charged electrode. when an electron and hole localize on the same molecule, an “exciton,” which is a localized electron-hole pair having an excited energy state, is formed. light is emitted when the exciton relaxes via a photoemissive mechanism. in some cases, the exciton may be localized on an excimer or an exciplex. non-radiative mechanisms, such as thermal relaxation, may also occur, but are generally considered undesirable. the initial oleds used emissive molecules that emitted light from their singlet states (“fluorescence”) as disclosed, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,769,292, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. fluorescent emission generally occurs in a time frame of less than 10 nanoseconds. more recently, oleds having emissive materials that emit light from triplet states (“phosphorescence”) have been demonstrated. baldo et al., “highly efficient phosphorescent emission from organic electroluminescent devices,” nature, vol. 395, 151-154, 1998; (“baldo-i”) and baldo et al., “very high-efficiency green organic light-emitting devices based on electrophosphorescence,” appl. phys. lett., vol. 75, no. 3, 4-6 (1999) (“baldo-ii”), are incorporated by reference in their entireties. phosphorescence is described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704 at cols. 5-6, which are incorporated by reference. fig. 1 shows an organic light emitting device 100 . the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. device 100 may include a substrate 110 , an anode 115 , a hole injection layer 120 , a hole transport layer 125 , an electron blocking layer 130 , an emissive layer 135 , a hole blocking layer 140 , an electron transport layer 145 , an electron injection layer 150 , a protective layer 155 , a cathode 160 , and a barrier layer 170 . cathode 160 is a compound cathode having a first conductive layer 162 and a second conductive layer 164 . device 100 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. the properties and functions of these various layers, as well as example materials, are described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 7,279,704 at cols. 6-10, which are incorporated by reference. more examples for each of these layers are available. for example, a flexible and transparent substrate-anode combination is disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,844,363, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of a p-doped hole transport layer is m-mtdata doped with f 4 -tcnq at a molar ratio of 50:1, as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. examples of emissive and host materials are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 6,303,238 to thompson et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. an example of an n-doped electron transport layer is bphen doped with li at a molar ratio of 1:1, as disclosed in u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. u.s. pat. nos. 5,703,436 and 5,707,745, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, disclose examples of cathodes including compound cathodes having a thin layer of metal such as mg:ag with an overlying transparent, electrically-conductive, sputter-deposited ito layer. the theory and use of blocking layers is described in more detail in u.s. pat. no. 6,097,147 and u.s. patent application publication no. 2003/0230980, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. examples of injection layers are provided in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. a description of protective layers may be found in u.s. patent application publication no. 2004/0174116, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. fig. 2 shows an inverted oled 200 . the device includes a substrate 210 , a cathode 215 , an emissive layer 220 , a hole transport layer 225 , and an anode 230 . device 200 may be fabricated by depositing the layers described, in order. because the most common oled configuration has a cathode disposed over the anode, and device 200 has cathode 215 disposed under anode 230 , device 200 may be referred to as an “inverted” oled. materials similar to those described with respect to device 100 may be used in the corresponding layers of device 200 . fig. 2 provides one example of how some layers may be omitted from the structure of device 100 . the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2 is provided by way of non-limiting example, and it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be used in connection with a wide variety of other structures. the specific materials and structures described are exemplary in nature, and other materials and structures may be used. functional oleds may be achieved by combining the various layers described in different ways, or layers may be omitted entirely, based on design, performance, and cost factors. other layers not specifically described may also be included. materials other than those specifically described may be used. although many of the examples provided herein describe various layers as comprising a single material, it is understood that combinations of materials, such as a mixture of host and dopant, or more generally a mixture, may be used. also, the layers may have various sublayers. the names given to the various layers herein are not intended to be strictly limiting. for example, in device 200 , hole transport layer 225 transports holes and injects holes into emissive layer 220 , and may be described as a hole transport layer or a hole injection layer. in one embodiment, an oled may be described as having an “organic layer” disposed between a cathode and an anode. this organic layer may comprise a single layer, or may further comprise multiple layers of different organic materials as described, for example, with respect to figs. 1 and 2 . structures and materials not specifically described may also be used, such as oleds comprised of polymeric materials (pleds) such as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 5,247,190 to friend et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. by way of further example, oleds having a single organic layer may be used. oleds may be stacked, for example as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,707,745 to forrest et al, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. the oled structure may deviate from the simple layered structure illustrated in figs. 1 and 2 . for example, the substrate may include an angled reflective surface to improve out-coupling, such as a mesa structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,091,195 to forrest et al., and/or a pit structure as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,834,893 to bulovic et al., which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. unless otherwise specified, any of the layers of the various embodiments may be deposited by any suitable method. for the organic layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation, ink-jet, such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,013,982 and 6,087,196, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, organic vapor phase deposition (ovpd), such as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,337,102 to forrest et al., which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, and deposition by organic vapor jet printing (ovjp), such as described in u.s. pat. no. 7,431,968, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. other suitable deposition methods include spin coating and other solution based processes. solution based processes are preferably carried out in nitrogen or an inert atmosphere. for the other layers, preferred methods include thermal evaporation. preferred patterning methods include deposition through a mask, cold welding such as described in u.s. pat. nos. 6,294,398 and 6,468,819, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, and patterning associated with some of the deposition methods such as ink-jet and organic vapor jet printing (ovjp). other methods may also be used. the materials to be deposited may be modified to make them compatible with a particular deposition method. for example, substituents such as alkyl and aryl groups, branched or unbranched, and preferably containing at least 3 carbons, may be used in small molecules to enhance their ability to undergo solution processing. substituents having 20 carbons or more may be used, and 3-20 carbons is a preferred range. materials with asymmetric structures may have better solution processability than those having symmetric structures, because asymmetric materials may have a lower tendency to recrystallize. dendrimer substituents may be used to enhance the ability of small molecules to undergo solution processing. devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the present invention may further optionally comprise a barrier layer. one purpose of the barrier layer is to protect the electrodes and organic layers from damaging exposure to harmful species in the environment including moisture, vapor and/or gases, etc. the barrier layer may be deposited over, under or next to a substrate, an electrode, or over any other parts of a device including an edge. the barrier layer may comprise a single layer, or multiple layers. the barrier layer may be formed by various known chemical vapor deposition techniques and may include compositions having a single phase as well as compositions having multiple phases. any suitable material or combination of materials may be used for the barrier layer. the barrier layer may incorporate an inorganic or an organic compound or both. the preferred barrier layer comprises a mixture of a polymeric material and a non-polymeric material as described in u.s. pat. no. 7,968,146, pct pat. application nos. pct/us2007/023098 and pct/us2009/042829, which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties. to be considered a “mixture”, the aforesaid polymeric and non-polymeric materials comprising the barrier layer should be deposited under the same reaction conditions and/or at the same time. the weight ratio of polymeric to non-polymeric material may be in the range of 95:5 to 5:95. the polymeric material and the non-polymeric material may be created from the same precursor material. in one example, the mixture of a polymeric material and a non-polymeric material consists essentially of polymeric silicon and inorganic silicon. devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the invention can be incorporated into a wide variety of electronic component modules (or units) that can be incorporated into a variety of electronic products or intermediate components. examples of such electronic products or intermediate components include display screens, lighting devices such as discrete light source devices or lighting panels, etc. that can be utilized by the end-user product manufacturers. such electronic component modules can optionally include the driving electronics and/or power source(s). devices fabricated in accordance with embodiments of the invention can be incorporated into a wide variety of consumer products that have one or more of the electronic component modules (or units) incorporated therein. a consumer product comprising an oled that includes the compound of the present disclosure in the organic layer in the oled is disclosed. such consumer products would include any kind of products that include one or more light source(s) and/or one or more of some type of visual displays. some examples of such consumer products include flat panel displays, curved displays, computer monitors, medical monitors, televisions, billboards, lights for interior or exterior illumination and/or signaling, heads-up displays, fully or partially transparent displays, flexible displays, rollable displays, foldable displays, stretchable displays, laser printers, telephones, mobile phones, tablets, phablets, personal digital assistants (pdas), wearable devices, laptop computers, digital cameras, camcorders, viewfinders, micro-displays (displays that are less than 2 inches diagonal), 3-d displays, virtual reality or augmented reality displays, vehicles, video walls comprising multiple displays tiled together, theater or stadium screen, a light therapy device, and a sign. various control mechanisms may be used to control devices fabricated in accordance with the present invention, including passive matrix and active matrix. many of the devices are intended for use in a temperature range comfortable to humans, such as 18 degrees c. to 30 degrees c., and more preferably at room temperature (20-25 degrees c.), but could be used outside this temperature range, for example, from −40 degree c. to +80 degree c. the materials and structures described herein may have applications in devices other than oleds. for example, other optoelectronic devices such as organic solar cells and organic photodetectors may employ the materials and structures. more generally, organic devices, such as organic transistors, may employ the materials and structures. the terms “halo,” “halogen,” and “halide” are used interchangeably and refer to fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. the term “acyl” refers to a substituted carbonyl radical (c(o)—r s ). the term “ester” refers to a substituted oxycarbonyl (—o—c(o)—r or —c(o)—o—r s ) radical. the term “ether” refers to an —or s radical. the terms “sulfanyl” or “thio-ether” are used interchangeably and refer to a —sr s radical. the term “sulfinyl” refers to a —s(o)—r s radical. the term “sulfonyl” refers to a —so 2 —r s radical. the term “phosphino” refers to a —p(r s ) 3 radical, wherein each r s can be same or different. the term “silyl” refers to a —si(r s ) 3 radical, wherein each r s can be same or different. in each of the above, r s can be hydrogen or a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combination thereof. preferred r s is selected from the group consisting of alkyl, cycloalkyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combination thereof. the term “alkyl” refers to and includes both straight and branched chain alkyl radicals. preferred alkyl groups are those containing from one to fifteen carbon atoms and includes methyl, ethyl, propyl, 1-methylethyl, butyl, 1-methylpropyl, 2-methylpropyl, pentyl, 1-methylbutyl, 2-methylbutyl, 3-methylbutyl, 1,1-dimethylpropyl, 1,2-dimethylpropyl, 2,2-dimethylpropyl, and the like. additionally, the alkyl group is optionally substituted. the term “cycloalkyl” refers to and includes monocyclic, polycyclic, and spiro alkyl radicals. preferred cycloalkyl groups are those containing 3 to 12 ring carbon atoms and includes cyclopropyl, cyclopentyl, cyclohexyl, bicyclo[3.1.1]heptyl, spiro[4.5]decyl, spiro[5.5]undecyl, adamantyl, and the like. additionally, the cycloalkyl group is optionally substituted. the terms “heteroalkyl” or “heterocycloalkyl” refer to an alkyl or a cycloalkyl radical, respectively, having at least one carbon atom replaced by a heteroatom. optionally the at least one heteroatom is selected from o, s, n, p, b, si and se, preferably, o, s or n. additionally, the heteroalkyl or heterocycloalkyl group is optionally substituted. the term “alkenyl” refers to and includes both straight and branched chain alkene radicals. alkenyl groups are essentially alkyl groups that include at least one carbon-carbon double bond in the alkyl chain. cycloalkenyl groups are essentially cycloalkyl groups that include at least one carbon-carbon double bond in the cycloalkyl ring. the term “heteroalkenyl” as used herein refers to an alkenyl radical having at least one carbon atom replaced by a heteroatom. optionally the at least one heteroatom is selected from o, s, n, p, b, si, and se, preferably, o, s, or n. preferred alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, or heteroalkenyl groups are those containing two to fifteen carbon atoms. additionally, the alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, or heteroalkenyl group is optionally substituted. the term “alkynyl” refers to and includes both straight and branched chain alkyne radicals. preferred alkynyl groups are those containing two to fifteen carbon atoms. additionally, the alkynyl group is optionally substituted. the terms “aralkyl” or “arylalkyl” are used interchangeably and refer to an alkyl group that is substituted with an aryl group. additionally, the aralkyl group is optionally substituted. the term “heterocyclic group” refers to and includes aromatic and non-aromatic cyclic radicals containing at least one heteroatom. optionally the at least one heteroatom is selected from o, s, n, p, b, si, and se, preferably, o, s, or n. hetero-aromatic cyclic radicals may be used interchangeably with heteroaryl. preferred hetero-non-aromatic cyclic groups are those containing 3 to 7 ring atoms which includes at least one hetero atom, and includes cyclic amines such as morpholino, piperidino, pyrrolidino, and the like, and cyclic ethers/thio-ethers, such as tetrahydrofuran, tetrahydropyran, tetrahydrothiophene, and the like. additionally, the heterocyclic group may be optionally substituted. the term “aryl” refers to and includes both single-ring aromatic hydrocarbyl groups and polycyclic aromatic ring systems. the polycyclic rings may have two or more rings in which two carbons are common to two adjoining rings (the rings are “fused”) wherein at least one of the rings is an aromatic hydrocarbyl group, e.g., the other rings can be cycloalkyls, cycloalkenyls, aryl, heterocycles, and/or heteroaryls. preferred aryl groups are those containing six to thirty carbon atoms, preferably six to twenty carbon atoms, more preferably six to twelve carbon atoms. especially preferred is an aryl group having six carbons, ten carbons or twelve carbons. suitable aryl groups include phenyl, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, tetraphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, and azulene, preferably phenyl, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, fluorene, and naphthalene. additionally, the aryl group is optionally substituted. the term “heteroaryl” refers to and includes both single-ring aromatic groups and polycyclic aromatic ring systems that include at least one heteroatom. the heteroatoms include, but are not limited to o, s, n, p, b, si, and se. in many instances, o, s, or n are the preferred heteroatoms. hetero-single ring aromatic systems are preferably single rings with 5 or 6 ring atoms, and the ring can have from one to six heteroatoms. the hetero-polycyclic ring systems can have two or more rings in which two atoms are common to two adjoining rings (the rings are “fused”) wherein at least one of the rings is a heteroaryl, e.g., the other rings can be cycloalkyls, cycloalkenyls, aryl, heterocycles, and/or heteroaryls. the hetero-polycyclic aromatic ring systems can have from one to six heteroatoms per ring of the polycyclic aromatic ring system. preferred heteroaryl groups are those containing three to thirty carbon atoms, preferably three to twenty carbon atoms, more preferably three to twelve carbon atoms. suitable heteroaryl groups include dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine, preferably dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, imidazole, pyridine, triazine, benzimidazole, 1,2-azaborine, 1,3-azaborine, 1,4-azaborine, borazine, and aza-analogs thereof. additionally, the heteroaryl group is optionally substituted. of the aryl and heteroaryl groups listed above, the groups of triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, imidazole, pyridine, pyrazine, pyrimidine, triazine, and benzimidazole, and the respective aza-analogs of each thereof are of particular interest. the terms alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aralkyl, heterocyclic group, aryl, and heteroaryl, as used herein, are independently unsubstituted, or independently substituted, with one or more general substituents. in many instances, the general substituents are selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acid, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. in some instances, the preferred general substituents are selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, aryl, heteroaryl, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, and combinations thereof. in some instances, the preferred general substituents are selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, aryl, heteroaryl, sulfanyl, and combinations thereof. in yet other instances, the more preferred general substituents are selected from the group consisting of deuterium, fluorine, alkyl, cycloalkyl, aryl, heteroaryl, and combinations thereof. the terms “substituted” and “substitution” refer to a substituent other than h that is bonded to the relevant position, e.g., a carbon or nitrogen. for example, when r 1 represents mono-substitution, then one r 1 must be other than h (i.e., a substitution). similarly, when r 1 represents di-substitution, then two of r 1 must be other than h. similarly, when r 1 represents no substitution, r 1 , for example, can be a hydrogen for available valencies of ring atoms, as in carbon atoms for benzene and the nitrogen atom in pyrrole, or simply represents nothing for ring atoms with fully filled valencies, e.g., the nitrogen atom in pyridine. the maximum number of substitutions possible in a ring structure will depend on the total number of available valencies in the ring atoms. as used herein, “combinations thereof” indicates that one or more members of the applicable list are combined to form a known or chemically stable arrangement that one of ordinary skill in the art can envision from the applicable list. for example, an alkyl and deuterium can be combined to form a partial or fully deuterated alkyl group; a halogen and alkyl can be combined to form a halogenated alkyl substituent; and a halogen, alkyl, and aryl can be combined to form a halogenated arylalkyl. in one instance, the term substitution includes a combination of two to four of the listed groups. in another instance, the term substitution includes a combination of two to three groups. in yet another instance, the term substitution includes a combination of two groups. preferred combinations of substituent groups are those that contain up to fifty atoms that are not hydrogen or deuterium, or those which include up to forty atoms that are not hydrogen or deuterium, or those that include up to thirty atoms that are not hydrogen or deuterium. in many instances, a preferred combination of substituent groups will include up to twenty atoms that are not hydrogen or deuterium. the “aza” designation in the fragments described herein, i.e. aza-dibenzofuran, aza-dibenzothiophene, etc. means that one or more of the c—h groups in the respective aromatic ring can be replaced by a nitrogen atom, for example, and without any limitation, azatriphenylene encompasses both dibenzo[f,h]quinoxaline and dibenzo[f,h]quinoline. one of ordinary skill in the art can readily envision other nitrogen analogs of the aza-derivatives described above, and all such analogs are intended to be encompassed by the terms as set forth herein. as used herein, “deuterium” refers to an isotope of hydrogen. deuterated compounds can be readily prepared using methods known in the art. for example, u.s. pat. no. 8,557,400, patent pub. no. wo 2006/095951, and u.s. pat. application pub. no. us 2011/0037057, which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties, describe the making of deuterium-substituted organometallic complexes. further reference is made to ming yan, et al., tetrahedron 2015, 71, 1425-30 and atzrodt et al., angew. chem. int. ed . ( reviews ) 2007, 46, 7744-65, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, describe the deuteration of the methylene hydrogens in benzyl amines and efficient pathways to replace aromatic ring hydrogens with deuterium, respectively. it is to be understood that when a molecular fragment is described as being a substituent or otherwise attached to another moiety, its name may be written as if it were a fragment (e.g. phenyl, phenylene, naphthyl, dibenzofuryl) or as if it were the whole molecule (e.g. benzene, naphthalene, dibenzofuran). as used herein, these different ways of designating a substituent or attached fragment are considered to be equivalent. in some instance, a pair of adjacent substituents can be optionally joined or fused into a ring. the preferred ring is a five, six, or seven-membered carbocyclic or heterocyclic ring, includes both instances where the portion of the ring formed by the pair of substituents is saturated and where the portion of the ring formed by the pair of substituents is unsaturated. as used herein, “adjacent” means that the two substituents involved can be on the same ring next to each other, or on two neighboring rings having the two closest available substitutable positions, such as 2, 2′ positions in a biphenyl, or 1, 8 position in a naphthalene, as long as they can form a stable fused ring system. according to an aspect of the present disclosure, a compound comprising a first ligand l a of formula i, is disclosed. in the structure of formula i: z 1 through z 7 are each independently c or n;ring b is a 5-membered or 6-membered heterocyclic or carbocyclic ring;each r a , r b , and r c represents mono to the maximum allowable substitutions, or no substitution;each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the general substituent group defined herein;any two substituents in r c may be joined or fused together to form a ring;l a is complexed to a metal m;m is optionally coordinated to other ligands; andthe ligand l a is optionally linked with other ligands to comprise a tridentate, tetradentate, pentadentate, or hexadentate ligand. in some embodiment, at least one r b is alkyl or cycloalkyl. in some embodiments, ring b is a six membered ring and two r b substituents are alkyl groups that form a saturated ring portion. it will be appreciated that the portion of ring b forming the ring may by unsaturated. in some embodiment, at least one r a , r b , or r c is partially fluorinated alkyl or cycloalkyl. in some embodiments, at least two r a , r b , or r c are partially fluorinated alkyl or cycloalkyl. in some embodiments, each r a , r b , and r c is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the preferred general substituent group defined herein. in some embodiments, each of z 1 through z 7 is c. in some embodiments, two substituents in r c are joined or fused together to form a ring. in some embodiments, the ring formed by the two substituents r c is aryl or heteroaryl. in some embodiments, ring b is a 5-membered ring. in some embodiments, ring b is a 6-membered ring. in some embodiments, ring b is an aromatic ring. in some embodiments, ring b is a aryl ring. in some embodiments, ring b is a heteroaryl ring. in some embodiments, ring b is partially saturated. in some embodiments, each of the atoms forming the backbone of ring b is a c atom. in some embodiments, ring b includes at least one si atom. in some embodiments, ring b includes at least one n atom. in some embodiments, ring b includes at least one o atom. in some embodiments, m is selected from the group consisting of ru, os, ir, pd, pt, cu, and au. in some embodiments, m is pt or ir. preferably, m is pt(ii) or ir(iii). in some embodiments, the compound is heteroleptic. in some embodiments, the compound is homoleptic. in some embodiments, the compound further comprises a substituted or unsubstituted acetylacetonate ligand. in some embodiments, the first ligand l a is selected from the group consisting of where g is a linking group, and each of r 1 through r 6 is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the preferred general substituent group defined herein. in some embodiments, g (going clockwise from the ring with r 1 to the pyrazine ring) is selected from the group consisting of —cr 7 r 8 —cr 9 r 10 —, —cr 7 ═cr 8 —, —sir 7 r 8 —cr 9 r 10 —, —o—cr 7 r 8 —, —cr 7 r 8 —sir 9 r 10 —, —cr 7 r 8 —o—, —cr 7 r 8 —, —sir 7 r 8 —, —nr 7 —, —s—, and —o—; and r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the preferred substituent group defined herein; and one or two pairs of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are optionally joined to form a ring. in some embodiments, one or two pairs of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are joined to form a fused ring or a spiro ring. in some embodiments, one or two pairs of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are joined to form a spiro ring. in some embodiments, one or two pairs of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are joined to form a fused ring. in some embodiments, each of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are independently hydrogen, alkyl, or cycloalkyl. in some embodiments, each of r 7 , r 8 , r 9 , and r 10 are independently hydrogen or alkyl. in some embodiments, the first ligand l a is selected from the group consisting of: l a1 through l a777 having a structure of formula ii, in which r 1 , r 2 , r 3 , r 4 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3r 4gl a1hhhhr c1l a2hr b1hhr c1l a3hr b3hhr c1l a4hr b4hhr c1l a5hr b5hhr c1l a6hr b7hhr c1l a7hr a3hhr c1l a8hr a34hhr c1l a9hr a74hhr c1l a10hr a75hhr c1l a11hhhhr c4l a12hr b1hhr c4l a13hr b3hhr c4l a14hr b4hhr c4l a15hr b5hhr c4l a16hr b7hhr c4l a17hr a3hhr c4l a18hr a34hhr c4l a19hr a74hhr c4l a20hr a75hhr c4l a21hhhhr c5l a22hr b1hhr c5l a23hr b3hhr c5l a24hr b4hhr c5l a25hr b5hhr c5l a26hr b7hhr c5l a27hr a3hhr c5l a28hr a34hhr c5l a29hr a74hhr c5l a30hr a75hhr c5l a31hhhhr c9l a32hr b1hhr c9l a33hr b3hhr c9l a34hr b4hhr c9l a35hr b5hhr c9l a36hr b7hhr c9l a37hr a3hhr c9l a38hr a34hhr c9l a39hr a74hhr c9l a40hr a75hhr c9l a41hhhhr c12l a42hr b1hhr c12l a43hr b3hhr c12l a44hr b4hhr c12l a45hr b5hhr c12l a46hr b7hhr c12l a47hr a3hhr c12l a48hr a34hhr c12l a49hr a74hhr c12l a50hr a75hhr c12l a51hhhhr c24l a52hr b1hhr c24l a53hr b3hhr c24l a54hr b4hhr c24l a55hr b5hhr c24l a56hr b7hhr c24l a57hr a3hhr c24l a58hr a34hhr c24l a59hr a74hhr c24l a60hr a75hhr c24l a61hhhhr c26l a62hr b1hhr c26l a63hr b3hhr c26l a64hr b4hhr c26l a65hr b5hhr c26l a66hr b7hhr c26l a67hr a3hhr c26l a68hr a34hhr c26l a69hr a74hhr c26l a70hr a75hhr c26l a71hhr b1hr c1l a72hhr b3hr c1l a73hhr b4hr c1l a74hhr b5hr c1l a75hhr b7hr c1l a76hhr a3hr c1l a77hhr a34hr c1l a78hhr a74hr c1l a79hhr a75hr c1l a80hhr b1hr c4l a81hhr b3hr c4l a82hhr b4hr c4l a83hhr b5hr c4l a84hhr b7hr c4l a85hhr a3hr c4l a86hhr a34hr c4l a87hhr a74hr c4l a88hhr a75hr c4l a89hhr b1hr c5l a90hhr b3hr c5l a91hhr b4hr c5l a92hhr b5hr c5l a93hhr b7hr c5l a94hhr a3hr c5l a95hhr a34hr c5l a96hhr a74hr c5l a97hhr a75hr c5l a98hhr b1hr c9l a99hhr b3hr c9l a100hhr b4hr c9l a101hhr b5hr c9l a102hhr b7hr c9l a103hhr a3hr c9l a104hhr a34hr c9l a105hhr a74hr c9l a106hhr a75hr c9l a107hhr b1hr c12l a108hhr b3hr c12l a109hhr b4hr c12l a110hhr b5hr c12l a111hhr b7hr c12l a112hhr a3hr c12l a113hhr a34hr c12l a114hhr a74hr c12l a115hhr a75hr c12l a116hhr b1hr c24l a117hhr b3hr c24l a118hhr b4hr c24l a119hhr b5hr c24l a120hhr b7hr c24l a121hhr a3hr c24l a122hhr a34hr c24l a123hhr a74hr c24l a124hhr a75hr c24l a125hhr b1hr c26l a126hhr b3hr c26l a127hhr b4hr c26l a128hhr b5hr c26l a129hhr b7hr c26l a130hhr a3hr c26l a131hhr a34hr c26l a132hhr a74hr c26l a133hhr a75hr c26l a134hhhr b1r c1l a135hhhr b3r c1l a136hhhr b4r c1l a137hhhr b5r c1l a138hhhr b7r c1l a139hhhr a3r c1l a140hhhr a34r c1l a141hhhr a74r c1l a142hhhr a75r c1l a143hhhr b1r c4l a144hhhr b3r c4l a145hhhr b4r c4l a146hhhr b5r c4l a147hhhr b7r c4l a148hhhr a3r c4l a149hhhr a34r c4l a150hhhr a74r c4l a151hhhr a75r c4l a152hhhr b1r c5l a153hhhr b3r c5l a154hhhr b4r c5l a155hhhr b5r c5l a156hhhr b7r c5l a157hhhr a3r c5l a158hhhr a34r c5l a159hhhr a74r c5l a160hhhr a75r c5l a161hhhr b1r c9l a162hhhr b3r c9l a163hhhr b4r c9l a164hhhr b5r c9l a165hhhr b7r c9l a166hhhr a3r c9l a167hhhr a34r c9l a168hhhr a74r c9l a169hhhr a75r c9l a170hhhr b1r c12l a171hhhr b3r c12l a172hhhr b4r c12l a173hhhr b5r c12l a174hhhr b7r c12l a175hhhr a3r c12l a176hhhr a34r c12l a177hhhr a74r c12l a178hhhr a75r c12l a179hhhr b1r c24l a180hhhr b3r c24l a181hhhr b4r c24l a182hhhr b5r c24l a183hhhr b7r c24l a184hhhr a3r c24l a185hhhr a34r c24l a186hhhr a74r c24l a187hhhr a75r c24l a188hhhr b1r c26l a189hhhr b3r c26l a190hhhr b4r c26l a191hhhr b5r c26l a192hhhr b7r c26l a193hhhr a3r c26l a194hhhr a34r c26l a195hhhr a74r c26l a196hhhr a75r c26l a197hhr b1r b1r c1l a198hhr b3r b3r c1l a199hhr b4r b4r c1l a200hhr b5r b5r c1l a201hhr b7r b7r c1l a202hhr a3r a3r c1l a203hhr a34r a34r c1l a204hhr a74r a74r c1l a205hhr a75r a75r c1l a206hhr b1r b1r c4l a207hhr b3r b3r c4l a208hhr b4r b4r c4l a209hhr b5r b5r c4l a210hhr b7r b7r c4l a211hhr a3r a3r c4l a212hhr a34r a34r c4l a213hhr a74r a74r c4l a214hhr a75r a75r c4l a215hhr b1r b1r c5l a216hhr b3r b3r c5l a217hhr b4r b4r c5l a218hhr b5r b5r c5l a219hhr b7r b7r c5l a220hhr a3r a3r c5l a221hhr a34r a34r c5l a222hhr a74r a74r c5l a223hhr a75r a75r c5l a224hhr b1r b1r c9l a225hhr b3r b3r c9l a226hhr b4r b4r c9l a227hhr b5r b5r c9l a228hhr b7r b7r c9l a229hhr a3r a3r c9l a230hhr a34r a34r c9l a231hhr a74r a74r c9l a232hhr a75r a75r c9l a233hhr b1r b1r c12l a234hhr b3r b3r c12l a235hhr b4r b4r c12l a236hhr b5r b5r c12l a237hhr b7r b7r c12l a238hhr a3r a3r c12l a239hhr a34r a34r c12l a240hhr a74r a74r c12l a241hhr a75r a75r c12l a242hhr b1r b1r c24l a243hhr b3r b3r c24l a244hhr b4r b4r c24l a245hhr b5r b5r c24l a246hhr b7r b7r c24l a247hhr a3r a3r c24l a248hhr a34r a34r c24l a249hhr a74r a74r c24l a250hhr a75r a75r c24l a251hhr b1r b1r c26l a252hhr b3r b3r c26l a253hhr b4r b4r c26l a254hhr 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b37hhr b4r c5l a673r b37hhr b5r c5l a674r b37hhr b7r c5l a675r b37hhr a3r c5l a676r b37hhr a34r c5l a677r b37hhr a74r c5l a678r b37hhr a75r c5l a679r b37hhr b1r c9l a680r b37hhr b3r c9l a681r b37hhr b4r c9l a682r b37hhr b5r c9l a683r b37hhr b7r c9l a684r b37hhr a3r c9l a685r b37hhr a34r c9l a686r b37hhr a74r c9l a687r b37hhr a75r c9l a688r b37hhr b1r c12l a689r b37hhr b3r c12l a690r b37hhr b4r c12l a691r b37hhr b5r c12l a692r b37hhr b7r c12l a693r b37hhr a3r c12l a694r b37hhr a34r c12l a695r b37hhr a74r c12l a696r b37hhr a75r c12l a697r b37hhr b1r c24l a698r b37hhr b3r c24l a699r b37hhr b4r c24l a700r b37hhr b5r c24l a701r b37hhr b7r c24l a702r b37hhr a3r c24l a703r b37hhr a34r c24l a704r b37hhr a74r c24l a705r b37hhr a75r c24l a706r b37hhr b1r c26l a707r b37hhr b3r c26l a708r b37hhr b4r c26l a709r b37hhr b5r c26l a710r b37hhr b7r c26l a711r b37hhr a3r c26l a712r b37hhr a34r c26l a713r b37hhr a74r c26l a714r b37hhr a75r c26l a715r b37hr b1r b1r c1l a716r b37hr b3r b3r c1l a717r b37hr b4r b4r c1l a718r b37hr b5r b5r c1l a719r b37hr b7r b7r c1l a720r b37hr a3r a3r c1l a721r b37hr a34r a34r c1l a722r b37hr a74r a74r c1l a723r b37hr a75r a75r c1l a724r b37hr b1r b1r c4l a725r b37hr b3r b3r c4l a726r b37hr b4r b4r c4l a727r b37hr b5r b5r c4l a728r b37hr b7r b7r c4l a729r b37hr a3r a3r c4l a730r b37hr a34r a34r c4l a731r b37hr a74r a74r c4l a732r b37hr a75r a75r c4l a733r b37hr b1r b1r c5l a734r b37hr b3r b3r c5l a735r b37hr b4r b4r c5l a736r b37hr b5r b5r c5l a737r b37hr b7r b7r c5l a738r b37hr a3r a3r c5l a739r b37hr a34r a34r c5l a740r b37hr a74r a74r c5l a741r b37hr a75r a75r c5l a742r b37hr b1r b1r c9l a743r b37hr b3r b3r c9l a744r b37hr b4r b4r c9l a745r b37hr b5r b5r c9l a746r b37hr b7r b7r c9l a747r b37hr a3r a3r c9l a748r b37hr a34r a34r c9l a749r b37hr a74r a74r c9l a750r b37hr a75r a75r c9l a751r b37hr b1r b1r c12l a752r b37hr b3r b3r c12l a753r b37hr b4r b4r c12l a754r b37hr b5r b5r c12l a755r b37hr b7r b7r c12l a756r b37hr a3r a3r c12l a757r b37hr a34r a34r c12l a758r b37hr a74r a74r c12l a759r b37hr a75r a75r c12l a760r b37hr b1r b1r c24l a761r b37hr b3r b3r c24l a762r b37hr b4r b4r c24l a763r b37hr b5r b5r c24l a764r b37hr b7r b7r c24l a765r b37hr a3r a3r c24l a766r b37hr a34r a34r c24l a767r b37hr a74r a74r c24l a768r b37hr a75r a75r c24l a769r b37hr b1r b1r c26l a770r b37hr b3r b3r c26l a771r b37hr b4r b4r c26l a772r b37hr b5r b5r c26l a773r b37hr b7r b7r c26l a774r b37hr a3r a3r c26l a775r b37hr a34r a34r c26l a776r b37hr a74r a74r c26l a777r b37hr a75r a75r c26 wherein l a778 through l a1813 have a structure of formula iii, in which r 1 , r 2 , r 3 , r 4 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3r 4gl a778hhhhr c1l a779hr b1hhr c1l a780hr b3hhr c1l a781hr b4hhr c1l a782hr b5hhr c1l a783hr b7hhr c1l a784hr a3hhr c1l a785hr a34hhr c1l a786hr a74hhr c1l a787hr a75hhr c1l a788hhhhr c4l a789hr b1hhr c4l a790hr b3hhr c4l a791hr b4hhr c4l a792hr b5hhr c4l a793hr b7hhr c4l a794hr a3hhr c4l a795hr a34hhr c4l a796hr a74hhr c4l a797hr a75hhr c4l a798hhhhr c5l a799hr b1hhr c5l a800hr b3hhr c5l a801hr b4hhr c5l a802hr b5hhr c5l a803hr b7hhr c5l a804hr a3hhr c5l a805hr a34hhr c5l a806hr a74hhr c5l a807hr a75hhr c5l a808hhhhr c9l a809hr b1hhr c9l a810hr b3hhr c9l a811hr b4hhr c9l a812hr b5hhr c9l a813hr b7hhr c9l a814hr a3hhr c9l a815hr a34hhr c9l a816hr a74hhr c9l a817hr a75hhr c9l a818hhhhr c12l a819hr b1hhr c12l a820hr b3hhr c12l a821hr b4hhr c12l a822hr b5hhr c12l a823hr b7hhr c12l a824hr a3hhr c12l a825hr a34hhr c12l a826hr a74hhr c12l a827hr a75hhr c12l a828hhhhr c24l a829hr b1hhr c24l a830hr b3hhr c24l a831hr b4hhr c24l a832hr b5hhr c24l a833hr b7hhr c24l a834hr a3hhr c24l a835hr a34hhr c24l a836hr a74hhr c24l a837hr a75hhr c24l a838hhhhr c26l a839hr b1hhr c26l a840hr b3hhr c26l a841hr b4hhr c26l a842hr b5hhr c26l a843hr b7hhr c26l a844hr a3hhr c26l a845hr a34hhr c26l a846hr a74hhr c26l a847hr a75hhr c26l a848hhr b1hr c1l a849hhr b3hr c1l a850hhr b4hr c1l a851hhr b5hr c1l a852hhr b7hr c1l a853hhr a3hr c1l a854hhr a34hr c1l a855hhr a74hr c1l a856hhr a75hr c1l a857hhr b1hr c4l a858hhr b3hr c4l a859hhr b4hr c4l a860hhr b5hr c4l a861hhr b7hr c4l a862hhr a3hr c4l a863hhr a34hr c4l a864hhr a74hr c4l a865hhr a75hr c4l a866hhr b1hr c5l a867hhr b3hr c5l a868hhr b4hr c5l a869hhr b5hr c5l a870hhr b7hr c5l a871hhr a3hr c5l a872hhr a34hr c5l a873hhr a74hr c5l a874hhr a75hr c5l a875hhr b1hr c9l a876hhr b3hr c9l a877hhr b4hr c9l a878hhr b5hr c9l a879hhr b7hr c9l a880hhr a3hr c9l a881hhr a34hr c9l a882hhr a74hr c9l a883hhr a75hr c9l a884hhr b1hr c12l a885hhr b3hr c12l a886hhr b4hr c12l a887hhr b5hr c12l a888hhr b7hr c12l a889hhr a3hr c12l a890hhr a34hr c12l a891hhr a74hr c12l a892hhr a75hr c12l a893hhr b1hr c24l a894hhr b3hr c24l a895hhr b4hr c24l a896hhr b5hr c24l a897hhr b7hr c24l a898hhr a3hr c24l a899hhr a34hr c24l a900hhr a74hr c24l a901hhr a75hr c24l a902hhr b1hr c26l a903hhr b3hr c26l a904hhr b4hr c26l a905hhr b5hr c26l a906hhr b7hr c26l a907hhr a3hr c26l a908hhr a34hr c26l a909hhr a74hr c26l a910hhr a75hr c26l a911hhhr b1r c1l a912hhhr b3r c1l a913hhhr b4r c1l a914hhhr b5r c1l a915hhhr b7r c1l a916hhhr a3r c1l a917hhhr a34r c1l a918hhhr a74r c1l a919hhhr a75r c1l a920hhhr b1r c4l a921hhhr b3r c4l a922hhhr b4r c4l a923hhhr b5r c4l a924hhhr b7r c4l a925hhhr a3r c4l a926hhhr a34r c4l a927hhhr a74r c4l a928hhhr a75r c4l a929hhhr b1r c5l a930hhhr b3r c5l a931hhhr b4r c5l a932hhhr b5r c5l a933hhhr b7r c5l a934hhhr a3r c5l a935hhhr a34r c5l a936hhhr a74r c5l a937hhhr a75r c5l a938hhhr b1r c9l a939hhhr b3r c9l a940hhhr b4r c9l a941hhhr b5r c9l a942hhhr b7r c9l a943hhhr a3r c9l a944hhhr a34r c9l a945hhhr a74r c9l a946hhhr a75r c9l a947hhhr b1r c12l a948hhhr b3r c12l a949hhhr b4r c12l a950hhhr b5r c12l a951hhhr b7r c12l a952hhhr a3r c12l a953hhhr a34r c12l a954hhhr a74r c12l a955hhhr a75r c12l a956hhhr b1r c24l a957hhhr b3r c24l a958hhhr b4r c24l a959hhhr b5r c24l a960hhhr b7r c24l a961hhhr a3r c24l a962hhhr a34r c24l a963hhhr a74r c24l a964hhhr a75r c24l a965hhhr b1r c26l a966hhhr b3r c26l a967hhhr b4r c26l a968hhhr b5r c26l a969hhhr b7r c26l a970hhhr a3r c26l a971hhhr a34r c26l a972hhhr a74r c26l a973hhhr a75r c26l a974hhr b1r b1r c1l a975hhr b3r b3r c1l a976hhr b4r b4r c1l a977hhr b5r b5r c1l a978hhr b7r b7r c1l a979hhr a3r a3r c1l a980hhr a34r a34r c1l a981hhr a74r a74r c1l a982hhr a75r a75r c1l a983hhr b1r b1r c4l a984hhr b3r b3r c4l a985hhr b4r b4r c4l a986hhr b5r b5r c4l a987hhr b7r b7r c4l a988hhr a3r a3r c4l a989hhr a34r a34r c4l a990hhr a74r a74r c4l a991hhr a75r a75r c4l a992hhr b1r b1r c5l a993hhr b3r b3r c5l a994hhr b4r b4r c5l a995hhr b5r b5r c5l a996hhr b7r b7r c5l a997hhr a3r a3r c5l a998hhr a34r a34r c5l a999hhr a74r a74r c5l a1000hhr a75r a75r c5l a1001hhr b1r b1r c9l a1002hhr b3r b3r c9l a1003hhr b4r b4r c9l a1004hhr b5r b5r c9l a1005hhr b7r b7r c9l a1006hhr a3r a3r c9l a1007hhr a34r a34r c9l a1008hhr a74r a74r c9l a1009hhr a75r a75r c9l a1010hhr b1r b1r c12l a1011hhr b3r b3r c12l a1012hhr b4r b4r c12l a1013hhr b5r b5r c12l a1014hhr b7r b7r c12l a1015hhr a3r a3r c12l a1016hhr a34r a34r c12l a1017hhr a74r a74r c12l a1018hhr a75r a75r c12l a1019hhr b1r b1r c24l a1020hhr b3r b3r c24l a1021hhr b4r b4r c24l a1022hhr b5r b5r c24l a1023hhr b7r b7r c24l a1024hhr a3r a3r c24l a1025hhr a34r a34r c24l a1026hhr a74r a74r c24l a1027hhr a75r a75r c24l a1028hhr b1r b1r c26l a1029hhr b3r b3r c26l a1030hhr b4r b4r c26l a1031hhr b5r b5r c26l a1032hhr b7r b7r c26l a1033hhr a3r a3r c26l a1034hhr a34r a34r c26l a1035hhr a74r a74r c26l a1036hhr a75r a75r c26l a1037r b1hhhr c1l a1038r b1r b1hhr c1l a1039r b1r b3hhr c1l a1040r b1r b4hhr c1l a1041r b1r b5hhr c1l a1042r b1r b7hhr c1l a1043r b1r a3hhr c1l a1044r b1r a34hhr c1l a1045r b1r a74hhr c1l a1046r b1r a75hhr c1l a1047r b1hhhr c4l a1048r b1r b1hhr c4l a1049r b1r b3hhr c4l a1050r b1r b4hhr c4l a1051r b1r b5hhr c4l a1052r b1r b7hhr c4l a1053r b1r a3hhr c4l a1054r b1r a34hhr c4l a1055r b1r a74hhr c4l a1056r b1r a75hhr c4l a1057r b1hhhr c5l a1058r b1r b1hhr c5l a1059r b1r b3hhr c5l a1060r b1r b4hhr c5l a1061r b1r b5hhr c5l a1062r b1r b7hhr c5l a1063r b1r a3hhr c5l a1064r b1r a34hhr c5l a1065r b1r a74hhr c5l a1066r b1r a75hhr c5l a1067r b1hhhr c9l a1068r b1r b1hhr c9l a1069r b1r b3hhr c9l a1070r b1r b4hhr c9l a1071r b1r b5hhr c9l a1072r b1r b7hhr c9l a1073r b1r a3hhr c9l a1074r b1r a34hhr c9l a1075r b1r a74hhr c9l a1076r b1r a75hhr c9l a1077r b1hhhr c12l a1078r b1r b1hhr c12l a1079r b1r b3hhr c12l a1080r b1r b4hhr c12l a1081r b1r b5hhr c12l a1082r b1r b7hhr c12l a1083r b1r a3hhr c12l a1084r b1r a34hhr c12l a1085r b1r a74hhr c12l a1086r b1r a75hhr c12l a1087r b1hhhr c24l a1088r b1r b1hhr c24l a1089r b1r b3hhr c24l a1090r b1r b4hhr c24l a1091r b1r b5hhr c24l a1092r b1r b7hhr c24l a1093r b1r a3hhr c24l a1094r b1r a34hhr c24l a1095r b1r a74hhr c24l a1096r b1r a75hhr c24l a1097r b1hhhr c26l a1098r b1r b1hhr c26l a1099r b1r b3hhr c26l a1100r b1r b4hhr c26l a1101r b1r b5hhr c26l a1102r b1r b7hhr c26l a1103r b1r a3hhr c26l a1104r b1r a34hhr c26l a1105r b1r a74hhr c26l a1106r b1r a75hhr c26l a1107r b1hr b1hr c1l a1108r b1hr b3hr c1l a1109r b1hr b4hr c1l a1110r b1hr b5hr c1l a1111r b1hr b7hr c1l a1112r b1hr a3hr c1l a1113r b1hr a34hr c1l a1114r b1hr a74hr c1l a1115r b1hr a75hr c1l a1116r b1hr b1hr c4l a1117r b1hr b3hr c4l a1118r b1hr b4hr c4l a1119r b1hr b5hr c4l a1120r b1hr b7hr c4l a1121r b1hr a3hr c4l a1122r b1hr a34hr c4l a1123r b1hr a74hr c4l a1124r b1hr a75hr c4l a1125r b1hr b1hr c5l a1126r b1hr b3hr c5l a1127r b1hr b4hr c5l a1128r b1hr b5hr c5l a1129r b1hr b7hr c5l a1130r b1hr a3hr c5l a1131r b1hr a34hr c5l a1132r b1hr a74hr c5l a1133r b1hr a75hr c5l a1134r b1hr b1hr c9l a1135r b1hr b3hr c9l a1136r b1hr b4hr c9l a1137r b1hr b5hr c9l a1138r b1hr b7hr c9l a1139r b1hr a3hr c9l a1140r b1hr a34hr c9l a1141r b1hr a74hr c9l a1142r b1hr a75hr c9l a1143r b1hr b1hr c12l a1144r b1hr b3hr c12l a1145r b1hr b4hr c12l a1146r b1hr b5hr c12l a1147r b1hr b7hr c12l a1148r b1hr a3hr c12l a1149r b1hr a34hr c12l a1150r b1hr a74hr c12l a1151r b1hr a75hr c12l a1152r b1hr b1hr c24l a1153r b1hr b3hr c24l a1154r b1hr b4hr c24l a1155r b1hr b5hr c24l a1156r b1hr b7hr c24l a1157r b1hr a3hr c24l a1158r b1hr a34hr c24l a1159r b1hr a74hr c24l a1160r b1hr a75hr c24l a1161r b1hr b1hr c26l a1162r b1hr b3hr c26l a1163r b1hr b4hr c26l a1164r b1hr b5hr c26l a1165r b1hr b7hr c26l a1166r b1hr a3hr c26l a1167r b1hr a34hr c26l a1168r b1hr a74hr c26l a1169r b1hr a75hr c26l a1170r b1hhr b1r c1l a1171r b1hhr b3r c1l a1172r b1hhr b4r c1l a1173r b1hhr b5r c1l a1174r b1hhr b7r c1l a1175r b1hhr a3r c1l a1176r b1hhr a34r c1l a1177r b1hhr a74r c1l a1178r b1hhr a75r c1l a1179r b1hhr b1r c4l a1180r b1hhr b3r c4l a1181r b1hhr b4r c4l a1182r b1hhr b5r c4l a1183r b1hhr b7r c4l a1184r b1hhr a3r c4l a1185r b1hhr a34r c4l a1186r b1hhr a74r c4l a1187r b1hhr a75r c4l a1188r b1hhr b1r c5l a1189r b1hhr b3r c5l a1190r b1hhr b4r c5l a1191r b1hhr b5r c5l a1192r b1hhr b7r c5l a1193r b1hhr a3r c5l a1194r b1hhr a34r c5l a1195r b1hhr a74r c5l a1196r b1hhr a75r c5l a1197r b1hhr b1r c9l a1198r b1hhr b5r c9l a1199r b1hhr b4r c9l a1200r b1hhr b5r c9l a1201r b1hhr b7r c9l a1202r b1hhr a3r c9l a1203r b1hhr a34r c9l a1204r b1hhr a74r c9l a1205r b1hhr a75r c9l a1206r b1hhr b1r c12l a1207r b1hhr b3r c12l a1208r b1hhr b4r c12l a1209r b1hhr b5r c12l a1210r b1hhr b7r c12l a1211r b1hhr a3r c12l a1212r b1hhr a34r c12l a1213r b1hhr a74r c12l a1214r b1hhr a75r c12l a1215r b1hhr b1r c24l a1216r b1hhr b3r c24l a1217r b1hhr b4r c24l a1218r b1hhr b5r c24l a1219r b1hhr b7r c24l a1220r b1hhr a3r c24l a1221r b1hhr a34r c24l a1222r b1hhr a74r c24l a1223r b1hhr a75r c24l a1224r b1hhr b1r c26l a1225r b1hhr b3r c26l a1226r b1hhr b4r c26l a1227r b1hhr b5r c26l a1228r b1hhr b7r c26l a1229r b1hhr a3r c26l a1230r b1hhr a34r c26l a1231r b1hhr a74r c26l a1232r b1hhr a75r c26l a1233r b1hr b1r b1r c1l a1234r b1hr b3r b3r c1l a1235r b1hr b4r b4r c1l a1236r b1hr b5r b5r c1l a1237r b1hr b7r b7r c1l a1238r b1hr a3r a3r c1l a1239r b1hr a34r a34r c1l a1240r b1hr a74r a74r c1l a1241r b1hr a75r a75r c1l a1242r b1hr b1r b1r c4l a1243r b1hr b3r b3r c4l a1244r b1hr b4r b4r c4l a1245r b1hr b5r b5r c4l a1246r b1hr b7r b7r c4l a1247r b1hr a3r a3r c4l a1248r b1hr a34r a34r c4l a1249r b1hr a74r a74r c4l a1250r b1hr a75r a75r c4l a1251r b1hr b1r b1r c5l a1252r b1hr b3r b3r c5l a1253r b1hr b4r b4r c5l a1254r b1hr b5r b5r c5l a1255r b1hr b7r b7r c5l a1256r b1hr a3r a3r c5l a1257r b1hr a34r a34r c5l a1258r b1hr a74r a74r c5l a1259r b1hr a75r a75r c5l a1260r b1hr b1r b1r c9l a1261r b1hr b3r b3r c9l a1262r b1hr b4r b4r c9l a1263r b1hr b5r b5r c9l a1264r b1hr b7r b7r c9l a1265r b1hr a3r a3r c9l a1266r b1hr a34r a34r c9l a1267r b1hr a74r a74r c9l a1268r b1hr a75r a75r c9l a1269r b1hr b1r b1r c12l a1270r b1hr b3r b3r c12l a1271r b1hr b4r b4r c12l a1272r b1hr b5r b5r c12l a1273r b1hr b7r b7r c12l a1274r b1hr a3r a3r c12l a1275r b1hr a34r a34r c12l a1276r b1hr a74r a74r c12l a1277r b1hr a75r a75r c12l a1278r b1hr b1r b1r c24l a1279r b1hr b3r b3r c24l a1280r b1hr b4r b4r c24l a1281r b1hr b5r b5r c24l a1282r b1hr b7r b7r c24l a1283r b1hr a3r a3r 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a75hr c12l a1670r b40hr b1hr c24l a1671r b40hr b3hr c24l a1672r b40hr b4hr c24l a1673r b40hr b5hr c24l a1674r b40hr b7hr c24l a1675r b40hr a3hr c24l a1676r b40hr a34hr c24l a1677r b40hr a74hr c24l a1678r b40hr a75hr c24l a1679r b40hr b1hr c26l a1680r b40hr b3hr c26l a1681r b40hr b4hr c26l a1682r b40hr b5hr c26l a1683r b40hr b7hr c26l a1684r b40hr a3hr c26l a1685r b40hr a34hr c26l a1686r b40hr a74hr c26l a1687r b40hr a75hr c26l a1688r b40hhr b1r c1l a1689r b40hhr b3r c1l a1690r b40hhr b4r c1l a1691r b40hhr b5r c1l a1692r b40hhr b7r c1l a1693r b40hhr a3r c1l a1694r b40hhr a34r c1l a1695r b40hhr a74r c1l a1696r b40hhr a75r c1l a1697r b40hhr b1r c4l a1698r b40hhr b3r c4l a1699r b40hhr b4r c4l a1700r b40hhr b5r c4l a1701r b40hhr b7r c4l a1702r b40hhr a3r c4l a1703r b40hhr a34r c4l a1704r b40hhr a74r c4l a1705r b40hhr a75r c4l a1706r b40hhr b1r c5l a1707r b40hhr b3r c5l a1708r b40hhr b4r c5l a1709r b40hhr b5r c5l a1710r b40hhr b7r c5l a1711r b40hhr a3r c5l a1712r b40hhr a34r c5l a1713r b40hhr a74r c5l a1714r b40hhr a75r c5l a1715r b40hhr b1r c9l a1716r b40hhr b3r c9l a1717r b40hhr b4r c9l a1718r b40hhr b5r c9l a1719r b40hhr b7r c9l a1720r b40hhr a3r c9l a1721r b40hhr a34r c9l a1722r b40hhr a74r c9l a1723r b40hhr a75r c9l a1724r b40hhr b1r c12l a1725r b40hhr b3r c12l a1726r b40hhr b4r c12l a1727r b40hhr b5r c12l a1728r b40hhr b7r c12l a1729r b40hhr a3r c12l a1730r b40hhr a34r c12l a1731r b40hhr a74r c12l a1732r b40hhr a75r c12l a1733r b40hhr b1r c24l a1734r b40hhr b3r c24l a1735r b40hhr b4r c24l a1736r b40hhr b5r c24l a1737r b40hhr b7r c24l a1738r b40hhr a3r c24l a1739r b40hhr a34r c24l a1740r b40hhr a74r c24l a1741r b40hhr a75r c24l a1742r b40hhr b1r c26l a1743r b40hhr b3r c26l a1744r b40hhr b4r c26l a1745r b40hhr b5r c26l a1746r b40hhr b7r c26l a1747r b40hhr a3r c26l a1748r b40hhr a34r c26l a1749r b40hhr a74r c26l a1750r b40hhr a75r c26l a1751r b40hr b1r b1r c1l a1752r b40hr b3r b3r c1l a1753r b40hr b4r b4r c1l a1754r b40hr b5r b5r c1l a1755r b40hr b7r b7r c1l a1756r b40hr a3r a3r c1l a1757r b40hr a34r a34r c1l a1758r b40hr a74r a74r c1l a1759r b40hr a75r a75r c1l a1760r b40hr b1r b1r c4l a1761r b40hr b3r b3r c4l a1762r b40hr b4r b4r c4l a1763r b40hr b5r b5r c4l a1764r b40hr b7r b7r c4l a1765r b40hr a3r a3r c4l a1766r b40hr a34r a34r c4l a1767r b40hr a74r a74r c4l a1768r b40hr a75r a75r c4l a1769r b40hr b1r b1r c5l a1770r b40hr b3r b3r c5l a1771r b40hr b4r b4r c5l a1772r b40hr b5r b5r c5l a1773r b40hr b7r b7r c5l a1774r b40hr a3r a3r c5l a1775r b40hr a34r a34r c5l a1776r b40hr a74r a74r c5l a1777r b40hr a75r a75r c5l a1778r b40hr b1r b1r c9l a1779r b40hr b3r b3r c9l a1780r b40hr b4r b4r c9l a1781r b40hr b5r b5r c9l a1782r b40hr b7r b7r c9l a1783r b40hr a3r a3r c9l a1784r b40hr a34r a34r c9l a1785r b40hr a74r a74r c9l a1786r b40hr a75r a75r c9l a1787r b40hr b1r b1r c12l a1788r b40hr b3r b3r c12l a1789r b40hr b4r b4r c12l a1790r b40hr b5r b5r c12l a1791r b40hr b7r b7r c12l a1792r b40hr a3r a3r c12l a1793r b40hr a34r a34r c12l a1794r b40hr a74r a74r c12l a1795r b40hr a75r a75r c12l a1796r b40hr b1r b1r c24l a1797r b40hr b3r b3r c24l a1798r b40hr b4r b4r c24l a1799r b40hr b5r b5r c24l a1800r b40hr b7r b7r c24l a1801r b40hr a3r a3r c24l a1802r b40hr a34r a34r c24l a1803r b40hr a74r a74r c24l a1804r b40hr a75r a75r c24l a1805r b40hr b1r b1r c26l a1806r b40hr b3r b3r c26l a1807r b40hr b4r b4r c26l a1808r b40hr b5r b5r c26l a1809r b40hr b7r b7r c26l a1810r b40hr a3r a3r c26l a1811r b40hr a34r a34r c26l a1812r b40hr a74r a74r c26l a1813r b40hr a75r a75r c26 wherein l a1814 through l a2013 have a structure of formula iv, in which r 1 , r 2 , and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2gl a1814hhr c1l a1815hr b1r c1l a1816hr b3r c1l a1817hr b4r c1l a1818hr b5r c1l a1819hr b7r c1l a1820hr a3r c1l a1821hr a34r c1l a1822hr a74r c1l a1823hr a75r c1l a1824hhr c4l a1825hr b1r c4l a1826hr b3r c4l a1827hr b4r c4l a1828hr b5r c4l a1829hr b7r c4l a1830hr a3r c4l a1831hr a34r c4l a1832hr a74r c4l a1833hr a75r c4l a1834hhr c5l a1835hr b1r c5l a1836hr b3r c5l a1837hr b4r c5l a1838hr b5r c5l a1839hr b7r c5l a1840hr a3r c5l a1841hr a34r c5l a1842hr a74r c5l a1843hr a75r c5l a1844hhr c9l a1845hr b1r c9l a1846hr b3r c9l a1847hr b4r c9l a1848hr b5r c9l a1849hr b7r c9l a1850hr a3r c9l a1851hr a34r c9l a1852hr a74r c9l a1853hr a75r c9l a1854hhr c12l a1855hr b1r c12l a1856hr b3r c12l a1857hr b4r c12l a1858hr b5r c12l a1859hr b7r c12l a1860hr a3r c12l a1861hr a34r c12l a1862hr a74r c12l a1863hr a75r c12l a1864r b1hr c1l a1865r b1r b1r c1l a1866r b1r b3r c1l a1867r b1r b4r c1l a1868r b1r b5r c1l a1869r b1r b7r c1l a1870r b1r a3r c1l a1871r b1r a34r c1l a1872r b1r a74r c1l a1873r b1r a75r c1l a1874r b1hr c4l a1875r b1r b1r c4l a1876r b1r b3r c4l a1877r b1r b4r c4l a1878r b1r b5r c4l a1879r b1r b7r c4l a1880r b1r a3r c4l a1881r b1r a34r c4l a1882r b1r a74r c4l a1883r b1r a75r c4l a1884r b1hr c5l a1885r b1r b1r c5l a1886r b1r b3r c5l a1887r b1r b4r c5l a1888r b1r b5r c5l a1889r b1r b7r c5l a1890r b1r a3r c5l a1891r b1r a34r c5l a1892r b1r a74r c5l a1893r b1r a75r c5l a1894r b1hr c9l a1895r b1r b1r c9l a1896r b1r b3r c9l a1897r b1r b4r c9l a1898r b1r b5r c9l a1899r b1r b7r c9l a1900r b1r a3r c9l a1901r b1r a34r c9l a1902r b1r a74r c9l a1903r b1r a75r c9l a1904r b1hr c12l a1905r b1r b1r c12l a1906r b1r b3r c12l a1907r b1r b4r c12l a1908r b1r b5r c12l a1909r b1r b7r c12l a1910r b1r a3r c12l a1911r b1r a34r c12l a1912r b1r a74r c12l a1913r b1r a75r c12l a1914r b2hr c1l a1915r b2r b1r c1l a1916r b2r b3r c1l a1917r b2r b4r c1l a1918r b2r b5r c1l a1919r b2r b7r c1l a1920r b2r a3r c1l a1921r b2r a34r c1l a1922r b2r a74r c1l a1923r b2r a75r c1l a1924r b2hr c4l a1925r b2r b1r c4l a1926r b2r b3r c4l a1927r b2r b4r c4l a1928r b2r b5r c4l a1929r b2r b7r c4l a1930r b2r a3r c4l a1931r b2r a34r c4l a1932r b2r a74r c4l a1933r b2r a75r c4l a1934r b2hr c5l a1935r b2r b1r c5l a1936r b2r b3r c5l a1937r b2r b4r c5l a1938r b2r b5r c5l a1939r b2r b7r c5l a1940r b2r a3r c5l a1941r b2r a34r c5l a1942r b2r a74r c5l a1943r b2r a75r c5l a1944r b2hr c9l a1945r b2r b1r c9l a1946r b2r b3r c9l a1947r b2r b4r c9l a1948r b2r b5r c9l a1949r b2r b7r c9l a1950r b2r a3r c9l a1951r b2r a34r c9l a1952r b2r a74r c9l a1953r b2r a75r c9l a1954r b2hr c12l a1955r b2r b1r c12l a1956r b2r b3r c12l a1957r b2r b4r c12l a1958r b2r b5r c12l a1959r b2r b7r c12l a1960r b2r a3r c12l a1961r b2r a34r c12l a1962r b2r a74r c12l a1963r b2r a75r c12l a1964r b37hr c1l a1965r b37r b1r c1l a1966r b37r b3r c1l a1967r b37r b4r c1l a1968r b37r b5r c1l a1969r b37r b7r c1l a1970r b37r a3r c1l a1971r b37r a34r c1l a1972r b37r a74r c1l a1973r b37r a75r c1l a1974r b37hr c4l a1975r b37r b1r c4l a1976r b37r b3r c4l a1977r b37r b4r c4l a1978r b37r b5r c4l a1979r b37r b7r c4l a1980r b37r a3r c4l a1981r b37r a34r c4l a1982r b37r a74r c4l a1983r b37r a75r c4l a1984r b37hr c5l a1985r b37r b1r c5l a1986r b37r b3r c5l a1987r b37r b4r c5l a1988r b37r b5r c5l a1989r b37r b7r c5l a1990r b37r a3r c5l a1991r b37r a34r c5l a1992r b37r a74r c5l a1993r b37r a75r c5l a1994r b37hr c9l a1995r b37r b1r c9l a1996r b37r b3r c9l a1997r b37r b4r c9l a1998r b37r b5r c9l a1999r b37r b7r c9l a2000r b37r a3r c9l a2001r b37r a34r c9l a2002r b37r a74r c9l a2003r b37r a75r c9l a2004r b37hr c12l a2005r b37r b1r c12l a2006r b37r b3r c12l a2007r b37r b4r c12l a2008r b37r b5r c12l a2009r b37r b7r c12l a2010r b37r a3r c12l a2011r b37r a34r c12l a2012r b37r a74r c12l a2013r b37r a75r c12 wherein l a2014 through l a2213 have a structure of formula v, in which r 1 , r 2 and g are defined as: ligandr 1r 2gl a2014hhr c1l a2015hr b1r c1l a2016hr b3r c1l a2017hr b4r c1l a2018hr b5r c1l a2019hr b7r c1l a2020hr a3r c1l a2021hr a34r c1l a2022hr a74r c1l a2023hr a75r c1l a2024hhr c4l a2025hr b1r c4l a2026hr b3r c4l a2027hr b4r c4l a2028hr b5r c4l a2029hr b7r c4l a2030hr a3r c4l a2031hr a34r c4l a2032hr a74r c4l a2033hr a75r c4l a2034hhr c5l a2035hr b1r c5l a2036hr b3r c5l a2037hr b4r c5l a2038hr b5r c5l a2039hr b7r c5l a2040hr a3r c5l a2041hr a34r c5l a2042hr a74r c5l a2043hr a75r c5l a2044hhr c9l a2045hr b1r c9l a2046hr b3r c9l a2047hr b4r c9l a2048hr b5r c9l a2049hr b7r c9l a2050hr a3r c9l a2051hr a34r c9l a2052hr a74r c9l a2053hr a75r c9l a2054hhr c12l a2055hr b1r c12l a2056hr b3r c12l a2057hr b4r c12l a2058hr b5r c12l a2059hr b7r c12l a2060hr a3r c12l a2061hr a34r c12l a2062hr a74r c12l a2063hr a75r c12l a2064r b1hr c1l a2065r b1r b1r c1l a2066r b1r b3r c1l a2067r b1r b4r c1l a2068r b1r b5r c1l a2069r b1r b7r c1l a2070r b1r a3r c1l a2071r b1r a34r c1l a2072r b1r a74r c1l a2073r b1r a75r c1l a2074r b1hr c4l a2075r b1r b1r c4l a2076r b1r b3r c4l a2077r b1r b4r c4l a2078r b1r b5r c4l a2079r b1r b7r c4l a2080r b1r a3r c4l a2081r b1r a34r c4l a2082r b1r a74r c4l a2083r b1r a75r c4l a2084r b1hr c5l a2085r b1r b1r c5l a2086r b1r b3r c5l a2087r b1r b4r c5l a2088r b1r b5r c5l a2089r b1r b7r c5l a2090r b1r a3r c5l a2091r b1r a34r c5l a2092r b1r a74r c5l a2093r b1r a75r c5l a2094r b1hr c9l a2095r b1r b1r c9l a2096r b1r b3r c9l a2097r b1r b4r c9l a2098r b1r b5r c9l a2099r b1r b7r c9l a2100r b1r a3r c9l a2101r b1r a34r c9l a2102r b1r a74r c9l a2103r b1r a75r c9l a2104r b1hr c12l a2105r b1r b1r c12l a2106r b1r b3r c12l a2107r b1r b4r c12l a2108r b1r b5r c12l a2109r b1r b7r c12l a2110r b1r a3r c12l a2111r b1r a34r c12l a2112r b1r a74r c12l a2113r b1r a75r c12l a2114r b2hr c1l a2115r b2r b1r c1l a2116r b2r b3r c1l a2117r b2r b4r c1l a2118r b2r b5r c1l a2119r b2r b7r c1l a2120r b2r a3r c1l a2121r b2r a34r c1l a2122r b2r a74r c1l a2123r b2r a75r c1l a2124r b2hr c4l a2125r b2r b1r c4l a2126r b2r b3r c4l a2127r b2r b4r c4l a2128r b2r b5r c4l a2129r b2r b7r c4l a2130r b2r a3r c4l a2131r b2r a34r c4l a2132r b2r a74r c4l a2133r b2r a75r c4l a2134r b2hr c5l a2135r b2r b1r c5l a2136r b2r b3r c5l a2137r b2r b4r c5l a2138r b2r b5r c5l a2139r b2r b7r c5l a2140r b2r a3r c5l a2141r b2r a34r c5l a2142r b2r a74r c5l a2143r b2r a75r c5l a2144r b2hr c9l a2145r b2r b1r c9l a2146r b2r b3r c9l a2147r b2r b4r c9l a2148r b2r b5r c9l a2149r b2r b7r c9l a2150r b2r a3r c9l a2151r b2r a34r c9l a2152r b2r a74r c9l a2153r b2r a75r c9l a2154r b2hr c12l a2155r b2r b1r c12l a2156r b2r b3r c12l a2157r b2r b4r c12l a2158r b2r b5r c12l a2159r b2r b7r c12l a2160r b2r a3r c12l a2161r b2r a34r c12l a2162r b2r a74r c12l a2163r b2r a75r c12l a2164r b37hr c1l a2165r b37r b1r c1l a2166r b37r b3r c1l a2167r b37r b4r c1l a2168r b37r b5r c1l a2169r b37r b7r c1l a2170r b37r a3r c1l a2171r b37r a34r c1l a2172r b37r a74r c1l a2173r b37r a75r c1l a2174r b37hr c4l a2175r b37r b1r c4l a2176r b37r b3r c4l a2177r b37r b4r c4l a2178r b37r b5r c4l a2179r b37r b7r c4l a2180r b37r a3r c4l a2181r b37r a34r c4l a2182r b37r a74r c4l a2183r b37r a75r c4l a2184r b37hr c5l a2185r b37r b1r c5l a2186r b37r b3r c5l a2187r b37r b4r c5l a2188r b37r b5r c5l a2189r b37r b7r c5l a2190r b37r a3r c5l a2191r b37r a34r c5l a2192r b37r a74r c5l a2193r b37r a75r c5l a2194r b37hr c9l a2195r b37r b1r c9l a2196r b37r b3r c9l a2197r b37r b4r c9l a2198r b37r b5r c9l a2199r b37r b7r c9l a2200r b37r a3r c9l a2201r b37r a34r c9l a2202r b37r a74r c9l a2203r b37r a75r c9l a2204r b37hr c12l a2205r b37r b1r c12l a2206r b37r b3r c12l a2207r b37r b4r c12l a2208r b37r b5r c12l a2209r b37r b7r c12l a2210r b37r a3r c12l a2211r b37r a34r c12l a2212r b37r a74r c12l a2213r b37r a75r c12 wherein r a1 to r a75 have the following structures; wherein r b1 to r b42 have the following structures: wherein r c1 to r c29 have the following structures: in some embodiments, the compound has a formula of m(l a ) x (l b ) y (l c ) z wherein l b and l c are each a bidentate ligand; x is 1, 2, or 3; y is 0, 1, or 2; z is 0, 1, or 2; and x+y+z is the oxidation state of the metal m. in some embodiments, the compound has a formula selected from the group consisting of ir(l a ) 3 , ir(l a )(l b ) 2 , ir(l a ) 2 (l b ), ir(l a ) 2 (l c ), and ir(l a )(l b )(l c ); and wherein l a , l b , and l c are different from each other. in some embodiments, the compound has a formula of pt(l a )(l b ); and wherein l a and l b can be same or different. in some embodiments, l a and l b are different. in some embodiments, l a and l b are connected to form a tetradentate ligand. in some embodiments, l a and l b are connected at two places to form a macrocyclic tetradentate ligand. in some embodiments having the formula of m(l a ) x (l b ) y (l c ) z , ligands l b and l c are each independently selected from the group consisting of: in such structures of l b and l c : each y 1 through y 13 are independently selected from the group consisting of carbon and nitrogen; y′ is selected from the group consisting of br e , nr e , pr e , o, s, se, c═o, s═o, so 2 , cr e r f rr, sir e r f , and ger e r f ; each r e and r f is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the preferred general substituent group defined herein; r e and r f are optionally fused or joined to form a ring; each r a , r b , r c , and r d may independently represent from mono substitution to the maximum possible number of substitution, or no substitution; each r a , r b , r c , and r d is independently hydrogen or a substituent selected from the general substituent group defined herein; and any two adjacent substituents of r a , r b , r c , and r d are optionally fused or joined to form a ring or form a multidentate ligand. in some embodiments having the formula of m(l a ) x (l b ) y (l c ) z , ligands l b and l c are each independently selected from the group consisting of: in some embodiments, l b is selected from the group consisting of the following structures: in some embodiments, ligand l is selected from the group consisting of the following structures: where l c1 through l c1260 have a structure of formula x in which r 1 , r 2 , and r 3 are defined as: ligandr 1r 2r 3l c1r d1r d1hl c2r d2r d2hl c3r d3r d3hl c4r d4r d4hl c5r d5r d5hl c6r d6r d6hl c7r d7r d7hl c8r d8r d8hl c9r d9r d9hl c10r d10r d10hl c11r d11r d11hl c12r d12r d12hl c13r d13r d13hl c14r d14r d14hl c15r d15r d15hl c16r d16r d16hl c17r d17r d17hl c18r d18r d18hl c19r d19r d19hl c20r d20r d20hl c21r d21r d21hl c22r d22r d22hl c23r d23r d23hl c24r d24r d24hl c25r d25r d25hl c26r d26r d26hl c27r d27r d27hl c28r d28r d28hl c29r d29r d29hl c30r d30r d30hl c31r d31r d31hl c32r d32r d32hl c33r d33r d33hl c34r d34r d34hl c35r d35r d35hl c36r d40r d40hl c37r d41r d41hl c38r d42r d42hl c39r d64r d64hl c40r d66r d66hl c41r d68r d68hl c42r d76r d76hl c43r d1r d2hl c44r d1r d3hl c45r d1r d4hl c46r d1r d5hl c47r d1r d6hl c48r d1r d7hl c49r d1r d8hl c50r d1r d9hl c51r d1r d10hl c52r d1r d11hl c53r d1r d12hl c54r d1r d13hl c55r d1r d14hl c56r d1r d15hl c57r d1r d16hl c58r d1r d17hl c59r d1r d18hl c60r d1r d19hl c61r d1r d20hl c62r d1r d21hl c63r d1r d22hl c64r d1r d23hl c65r d1r d24hl c66r d1r d25hl c67r d1r d26hl c68r d1r d27hl c69r d1r d28hl c70r d1r d29hl c71r d1r d30hl c72r d1r d31hl c73r d1r d32hl c74r d1r d33hl c75r d1r d34hl c76r d1r d35hl c77r d1r d40hl c78r d1r d41hl c79r d1r d42hl c80r d1r d64hl c81r d1r d66hl c82r d1r d68hl c83r d1r d76hl c84r d2r d1hl c85r d2r d3hl c86r d2r d4hl c87r d2r d5hl c88r d2r d6hl c89r d2r d7hl c90r d2r d8hl c91r d2r d9hl c92r d2r d10hl c93r d2r d11hl c94r d2r d12hl c95r d2r d13hl c96r d2r d14hl c97r d2r d15hl c98r d2r d16hl c99r d2r d17hl c100r d2r d18hl c101r d2r d19hl c102r d2r d20hl c103r d2r d21hl c104r d2r d22hl c105r d2r d23hl c106r d2r d24hl c107r d2r d25hl c108r d2r d26hl c109r d2r d27hl c110r d2r d28hl c111r d2r d29hl c112r d2r d30hl c113r d2r d31hl c114r d2r d32hl c115r d2r d33hl c116r d2r d34hl c117r d2r d35hl c118r d2r d40hl c119r d2r d41hl c120r d2r d42hl c121r d2r d64hl c122r d2r d66hl c123r d2r d68hl c124r d2r d76hl c125r d3r d4hl c126r d3r d5hl c127r d3r d6hl c128r d3r d7hl c129r d3r d8hl c130r d3r d9hl c131r d3r d10hl c132r d3r d11hl c133r d3r d12hl c134r d3r d13hl c135r d3r d14hl c136r d3r d15hl c137r d3r d16hl c138r d3r d17hl c139r d3r d18hl c140r d3r d19hl c141r d3r d20hl c142r d3r d21hl c143r d3r d22hl c144r d3r d23hl c145r d3r d24hl c146r d3r d25hl c147r d3r d26hl c148r d3r d27hl c149r d3r d28hl c150r d3r d29hl c151r d3r d30hl c152r d3r d31hl c153r d3r d32hl c154r d3r d33hl c155r d3r d34hl c156r d3r d35hl c157r d3r d40hl c158r d3r d41hl c159r d3r d42hl c160r d3r d64hl c161r d3r d66hl c162r d3r d68hl c163r d3r d76hl c164r d4r d5hl c165r d4r d6hl c166r d4r d7hl c167r d4r d8hl c168r d4r d9hl c169r d4r d10hl c170r d4r d11hl c171r d4r d12hl c172r d4r d13hl c173r d4r d14hl c174r d4r d15hl c175r d4r d16hl c176r d4r d17hl c177r d4r d18hl c178r d4r d19hl c179r d4r d20hl c180r d4r d21hl c181r d4r d22hl c182r d4r d23hl c183r d4r d24hl c184r d4r d25hl c185r d4r d26hl c186r d4r d27hl c187r d4r d28hl c188r d4r d29hl c189r d4r d30hl c190r d4r d31hl c191r d4r d32hl c192r d4r d33hl c193r d4r d34hl c194r d4r d35hl c195r d4r d40hl c196r d4r d41hl c197r d4r d42hl c198r d4r d64hl c199r d4r d66hl c200r d4r d68hl c201r d4r d76hl c202r d4r d1hl c203r d7r d5hl c204r d7r d6hl c205r d7r d8hl c206r d7r d9hl c207r d7r d10hl c208r d7r d11hl c209r d7r d12hl c210r d7r d13hl c211r d7r d14hl c212r d7r d15hl c213r d7r d16hl c214r d7r d17hl c215r d7r d18hl c216r d7r d19hl c217r d7r d20hl c218r d7r d21hl c219r d7r d22hl c220r d7r d23hl c221r d7r d24hl c222r d7r d25hl c223r d7r d26hl c224r d7r d27hl c225r d7r d28hl c226r d7r d29hl c227r d7r d30hl c228r d7r d31hl c229r d7r d32hl c230r d7r d33hl c231r d7r d34hl c232r d7r d35hl c233r d7r d40hl c234r d7r d41hl c235r d7r d42hl c236r d7r d64hl c237r d7r d66hl c238r d7r d68hl c239r d7r d76hl c240r d8r d5hl c241r d8r d6hl c242r d8r d9hl c243r d8r d10hl c244r d8r d11hl c245r d8r d12hl c246r d8r d13hl c247r d8r d14hl c248r d8r d15hl c249r d8r d16hl c250r d8r d17hl c251r d8r d18hl c252r d8r d19hl c253r d8r d20hl c254r d8r d21hl c255r d8r d22hl c256r d8r d23hl c257r d8r d24hl c258r d8r d25hl c259r d8r d26hl c260r d8r d27hl c261r d8r d28hl c262r d8r d29hl c263r d8r d30hl c264r d8r d31hl c265r d8r d32hl c266r d8r d33hl c267r d8r d34hl c268r d8r d35hl c269r d8r d40hl c270r d8r d41hl c271r d8r d42hl c272r d8r d64hl c273r d8r d66hl c274r d8r d68hl c275r d8r d76hl c276r d11r d5hl c277r d11r d6hl c278r d11r d9hl c279r d11r d10hl c280r d11r d12hl c281r d11r d13hl c282r d11r d14hl c283r d11r d15hl c284r d11r d16hl c285r d11r d17hl c286r d11r d18hl c287r d11r d19hl c288r d11r d20hl c289r d11r d21hl c290r d11r d22hl c291r d11r d23hl c292r d11r d24hl c293r d11r d25hl c294r d11r d26hl c295r d11r d27hl c296r d11r d28hl c297r d11r d29hl c298r d11r d30hl c299r d11r d31hl c300r d11r d32hl c301r d11r d33hl c302r d11r d34hl c303r d11r d35hl c304r d11r d40hl c305r d11r d41hl c306r d11r d42hl c307r d11r d64hl c308r d11r d66hl c309r d11r d68hl c310r d11r d76hl c311r d13r d5hl c312r d13r d6hl c313r d13r d9hl c314r d13r d10hl c315r d13r d12hl c316r d13r d14hl c317r d13r d15hl c318r d13r d16hl c319r d13r d17hl c320r d13r d18hl c321r d13r d19hl c322r d13r d20hl c323r d13r d21hl c324r d13r d22hl c325r d13r d23hl c326r d13r d24hl c327r d13r d25hl c328r d13r d26hl c329r d13r d27hl c330r d13r d28hl c331r d13r d29hl c332r d13r d30hl c333r d13r d31hl c334r d13r d32hl c335r d13r d33hl c336r d13r d34hl c337r d13r d35hl c338r d13r d40hl c339r d13r d41hl c340r d13r d42hl c341r d13r d64hl c342r d13r d66hl c343r d13r d68hl c344r d13r d76hl c345r d14r d5hl c346r d14r d6hl c347r d14r d9hl c348r d14r d10hl c349r d14r d12hl c350r d14r d15hl c351r d14r d16hl c352r d14r d17hl c353r d14r d18hl c354r d14r d19hl c355r d14r d20hl c356r d14r d21hl c357r d14r d22hl c358r d14r d23hl c359r d14r d24hl c360r d14r d25hl c361r d14r d26hl c362r d14r d27hl c363r d14r d28hl c364r d14r d29hl c365r d14r d30hl c366r d14r d31hl c367r d14r d32hl c368r d14r d33hl c369r d14r d34hl c370r d14r d35hl c371r d14r d40hl c372r d14r d41hl c373r d14r d42hl c374r d14r d64hl c375r d14r d66hl c376r d14r d68hl c377r d14r d76hl c378r d22r d5hl c379r d22r d6hl c380r d22r d9hl c381r d22r d10hl c382r d22r d12hl c383r d22r d15hl c384r d22r d16hl c385r d22r d17hl c386r d22r d18hl c387r d22r d19hl c388r d22r d20hl c389r d22r d21hl c390r d22r d23hl c391r d22r d24hl c392r d22r d25hl c393r d22r d26hl c394r d22r d27hl c395r d22r d28hl c396r d22r d29hl c397r d22r d30hl c398r d22r d31hl c399r d22r d32hl c400r d22r d33hl c401r d22r d34hl c402r d22r d35hl c403r d22r d40hl c404r d22r d41hl c405r d22r d42hl c406r d22r d64hl c407r d22r d66hl c408r d22r d68hl c409r d22r d76hl c410r d26r d5hl c411r d26r d6hl c412r d26r d9hl c413r d26r d10hl c414r d26r d12hl c415r d26r d15hl c416r d26r d16hl c417r d26r d17hl c418r d26r d18hl c419r d26r d19hl c420r d26r d20hl c421r d26r d21hl c422r d26r d23hl c423r d26r d24hl c424r d26r d25hl c425r d26r d27hl c426r d26r d28hl c427r d26r d29hl c428r d26r d30hl c429r d26r d31hl c430r d26r d32hl c431r d26r d33hl c432r d26r d34hl c433r d26r d35hl c434r d26r d40hl c435r d26r d41hl c436r d26r d42hl c437r d26r d64hl c438r d26r d66hl c439r d26r d68hl c440r d26r d76hl c441r d35r d5hl c442r d35r d6hl c443r d35r d9hl c444r d35r d10hl c445r d35r d12hl c446r d35r d15hl c447r d35r d16hl c448r d35r d17hl c449r d35r d18hl c450r d35r d19hl c451r d35r d20hl c452r d35r d21hl c453r d35r d23hl c454r d35r d24hl c455r d35r d25hl c456r d35r d27hl c457r d35r d28hl c458r d35r d29hl c459r d35r d30hl c460r d35r d31hl c461r d35r d32hl c462r d35r d33hl c463r d35r d34hl c464r d35r d40hl c465r d35r d41hl c466r d35r d42hl c467r d35r d64hl c468r d35r d66hl c469r d35r d68hl c470r d35r d76hl c471r d40r d5hl c472r d40r d6hl c473r d40r d9hl c474r d40r d10hl c475r d40r d12hl c476r d40r d15hl c477r d40r d16hl c478r d40r d17hl c479r d40r d18hl c480r d40r d19hl c481r d40r d20hl c482r d40r d21hl c483r d40r d23hl c484r d40r d24hl c485r d40r d25hl c486r d40r d27hl c487r d40r d28hl c488r d40r d29hl c489r d40r d30hl c490r d40r d31hl c491r d40r d32hl c492r d40r d33hl c493r d40r d34hl c494r d40r d41hl c495r d40r d42hl c496r d40r d64hl c497r d40r d66hl c498r d40r d68hl c499r d40r d76hl c500r d41r d5hl c501r d41r d6hl c502r d41r d9hl c503r d41r d10hl c504r d41r d12hl c505r d41r d15hl c506r d41r d16hl c507r d41r d17hl c508r d41r d18hl c509r d41r d19hl c510r d41r d20hl c511r d41r d21hl c512r d41r d23hl c513r d41r d24hl c514r d41r d25hl c515r d41r d27hl c516r d41r d28hl c517r d41r d29hl c518r d41r d30hl c519r d41r d31hl c520r d41r d32hl c521r d41r d33hl c522r d41r d34hl c523r d41r d42hl c524r d41r d64hl c525r d41r d66hl c526r d41r d68hl c527r d41r d76hl c528r d64r d5hl c529r d64r d6hl c530r d64r d9hl c531r d64r d10hl c532r d64r d12hl c533r d64r d15hl c534r d64r d16hl c535r d64r d17hl c536r d64r d18hl c537r d64r d19hl c538r d64r d20hl c539r d64r d21hl c540r d64r d23hl c541r d64r d24hl c542r d64r d25hl c543r d64r d27hl c544r d64r d28hl c545r d64r d29hl c546r d64r d30hl c547r d64r d31hl c548r d64r d32hl c549r d64r d33hl c550r d64r d34hl c551r d64r d42hl c552r d64r d64hl c553r d64r d66hl c554r d64r d68hl c555r d64r d76hl c556r d66r d5hl c557r d66r d6hl c558r d66r d9hl c559r d66r d10hl c560r d66r d12hl c561r d66r d15hl c562r d66r d16hl c563r d66r d17hl c564r d66r d18hl c565r d66r d19hl c566r d66r d20hl c567r d66r d21hl c568r d66r d23hl c569r d66r d24hl c570r d66r d25hl c571r d66r d27hl c572r d66r d28hl c573r d66r d29hl c574r d66r d30hl c575r d66r d31hl c576r d66r d32hl c577r d66r d33hl c578r d66r d34hl c579r d66r d42hl c580r d66r d68hl c581r d66r d76hl c582r d68r d5hl c583r d68r d6hl c584r d68r d9hl c585r d68r d10hl c586r d68r d12hl c587r d68r d15hl c588r d68r d16hl c589r d68r d17hl c590r d68r d18hl c591r d68r d19hl c592r d68r d20hl c593r d68r d21hl c594r d68r d23hl c595r d68r d24hl c596r d68r d25hl c597r d68r d27hl c598r d68r d28hl c599r d68r d29hl c600r d68r d30hl c601r d68r d31hl c602r d68r d32hl c603r d68r d33hl c604r d68r d34hl c605r d68r d42hl c606r d68r d76hl c607r d76r d5hl c608r d76r d6hl c609r d76r d9hl c610r d76r d10hl c611r d76r d12hl c612r d76r d15hl c613r d76r d16hl c614r d76r d17hl c615r d76r d18hl c616r d76r d19hl c617r d76r d20hl c618r d76r d21hl c619r d76r d23hl c620r d76r d24hl c621r d76r d25hl c622r d76r d27hl c623r d76r d28hl c624r d76r d29hl c625r d76r d30hl c626r d76r d31hl c627r d76r d32hl c628r d76r d33hl c629r d76r d34hl c630r d76r d42hl c631r d1r d1r d1l c632r d2r d2r d1l c633r d3r d3r d1l c634r d4r d4r d1l c635r d5r d5r d1l c636r d6r d6r d1l c637r d7r d7r d1l c638r d8r d8r d1l c639r d9r d9r d1l c640r d10r d10r d1l c641r d11r d11r d1l c642r d12r d12r d1l c643r d13r d13r d1l c644r d14r d14r d1l c645r d15r d15r d1l c646r d16r d16r d1l c647r d17r d17r d1l c648r d18r d18r d1l c649r d19r d19r d1l c650r d20r d20r d1l c651r d21r d21r d1l c652r d22r d22r d1l c653r d23r d23r d1l c654r d24r d24r d1l c655r d25r d25r d1l c656r d26r d26r d1l c657r d27r d27r d1l c658r d28r d28r d1l c659r d29r d29r d1l c660r d30r d30r d1l c661r d31r d31r d1l c662r d32r d32r d1l c663r d33r d33r d1l c664r d34r d34r d1l c665r d35r d35r d1l c666r d40r d40r d1l c667r d41r d41r d1l c668r d42r d42r d1l c669r d64r d64r d1l c670r d66r d66r d1l c671r d68r d68r d1l c672r d76r d76r d1l c673r d1r d2r d1l c674r d1r d3r d1l c675r d1r d4r d1l c676r d1r d5r d1l c677r d1r d6r d1l c678r d1r d7r d1l c679r d1r d8r d1l c680r d1r d9r d1l c681r d1r d10r d1l c682r d1r d11r d1l c683r d1r d12r d1l c684r d1r d13r d1l c685r d1r d14r d1l c686r d1r d15r d1l c687r d1r d16r d1l c688r d1r d17r d1l c689r d1r d18r d1l c690r d1r d19r d1l c691r d1r d20r d1l c692r d1r d21r d1l c693r d1r d22r d1l c694r d1r d23r d1l c695r d1r d24r d1l c696r d1r d25r d1l c697r d1r d26r d1l c698r d1r d27r d1l c699r d1r d28r d1l c700r d1r d29r d1l c701r d1r d30r d1l c702r d1r d31r d1l c703r d1r d32r d1l c704r d1r d33r d1l c705r d1r d34r d1l c706r d1r d35r d1l c707r d1r d40r d1l c708r d1r d41r d1l c709r d1r d42r d1l c710r d1r d64r d1l c711r d1r d66r d1l c712r d1r d68r d1l c713r d1r d76r d1l c714r d2r d1r d1l c715r d2r d3r d1l c716r d2r d4r d1l c717r d2r d5r d1l c718r d2r d6r d1l c719r d2r d7r d1l c720r d2r d8r d1l c721r d2r d9r d1l c722r d2r d10r d1l c723r d2r d11r d1l c724r d2r d12r d1l c725r d2r d13r d1l c726r d2r d14r d1l c727r d2r d15r d1l c728r d2r d16r d1l c729r d2r d17r d1l c730r d2r d18r d1l c731r d2r d19r d1l c732r d2r d20r d1l c733r d2r d21r d1l c734r d2r d22r d1l c735r d2r d23r d1l c736r d2r d24r d1l c737r d2r d25r d1l c738r d2r d26r d1l c739r d2r d27r d1l c740r d2r d28r d1l c741r d2r d29r d1l c742r d2r d30r d1l c743r d2r d31r d1l c744r d2r d32r d1l c745r d2r d33r d1l c746r d2r d34r d1l c747r d2r d35r d1l c748r d2r d40r d1l c749r d2r d41r d1l c750r d2r d42r d1l c751r d2r d64r d1l c752r d2r d66r d1l c753r d2r d68r d1l c754r d2r d76r d1l c755r d3r d4r d1l c756r d3r d5r d1l c757r d3r d6r d1l c758r d3r d7r d1l c759r d3r d8r d1l c760r d3r d9r d1l c761r d3r d10r d1l c762r d3r d11r d1l c763r d3r d12r d1l c764r d3r d13r d1l c765r d3r d14r d1l c766r d3r d15r d1l c767r d3r d16r d1l c768r d3r d17r d1l c769r d3r d18r d1l c770r d3r d19r d1l c771r d3r d20r d1l c772r d3r d21r d1l c773r d3r d22r d1l c774r d3r d23r d1l c775r d3r d24r d1l c776r d3r d25r d1l c777r d3r d26r d1l c778r d3r d27r d1l c779r d3r d28r d1l c780r d3r d29r d1l c781r d3r d30r d1l c782r d3r d31r d1l c783r d3r d32r d1l c784r d3r d33r d1l c785r d3r d34r d1l c786r d3r d35r d1l c787r d3r d40r d1l c788r d3r d41r d1l c789r d3r d42r d1l c790r d3r d64r d1l c791r d3r d66r d1l c792r d3r d68r d1l c793r d3r d76r d1l c794r d4r d5r d1l c795r d4r d6r d1l c796r d4r d7r d1l c797r d4r d8r d1l c798r d4r d9r d1l c799r d4r d10r d1l c800r d4r d11r d1l c801r d4r d12r d1l c802r d4r d13r d1l c803r d4r d14r d1l c804r d4r d15r d1l c805r d4r d16r d1l c806r d4r d17r d1l c807r d4r d18r d1l c808r d4r d19r d1l c809r d4r d20r d1l c810r d4r d21r d1l c811r d4r d22r d1l c812r d4r d23r d1l c813r d4r d24r d1l c814r d4r d25r d1l c815r d4r d26r d1l c816r d4r d27r d1l c817r d4r d28r d1l c818r d4r d29r d1l c819r d4r d30r d1l c820r d4r d31r d1l c821r d4r d32r d1l c822r d4r d33r d1l c823r d4r d34r d1l c824r d4r d35r d1l c825r d4r d40r d1l c826r d4r d41r d1l c827r d4r d42r d1l c828r d4r d64r d1l c829r d4r d66r d1l c830r d4r d68r d1l c831r d4r d76r d1l c832r d4r d1r d1l c833r d7r d5r d1l c834r d7r d6r d1l c835r d7r d8r d1l c836r d7r d9r d1l c837r d7r d10r d1l c838r d7r d11r d1l c839r d7r d12r d1l c840r d7r d13r d1l c841r 07r d14r d1l c842r d7r d15r d1l c843r d7r d16r d1l c844r d7r d17r d1l c845r d7r d18r d1l c846r d7r d19r d1l c847r d7r d20r d1l c848r d7r d21r d1l c849r d7r d22r d1l c850r d7r d23r d1l c851r d7r d24r d1l c852r d7r d25r d1l c853r d7r d26r d1l c854r d7r d27r d1l c855r d7r d28r d1l c856r d7r d29r d1l c857r d7r d30r d1l c858r d7r d31r d1l c859r d7r d32r d1l c860r d7r d33r d1l c861r d7r d34r d1l c862r d7r d35r d1l c863r d7r d40r d1l c864r d7r d41r d1l c865r d7r d42r d1l c866r d7r d64r d1l c867r d7r d66r d1l c868r d7r d68r d1l c869r d7r d76r d1l c870r d8r d5r d1l c871r d8r d6r d1l c872r d8r d9r d1l c873r d8r d10r d1l c874r d8r d11r d1l c875r d8r d12r d1l c876r d8r d13r d1l c877r d8r d14r d1l c878r d8r d15r d1l c879r d8r d16r d1l c880r d8r d17r d1l c881r d8r d18r d1l c882r d8r d19r d1l c883r d8r d20r d1l c884r d8r d21r d1l c885r d8r d22r d1l c886r d8r d23r d1l c887r d8r d24r d1l c888r d8r d25r d1l c889r d8r d26r d1l c890r d8r d27r d1l c891r d8r d28r d1l c892r d8r d29r d1l c893r d8r d30r d1l c894r d8r d31r d1l c895r d8r d32r d1l c896r d8r d33r d1l c897r d8r d34r d1l c898r d8r d35r d1l c899r d8r d40r d1l c900r d8r d41r d1l c901r d8r d42r d1l c902r d8r d64r d1l c903r d8r d66r d1l c904r d8r d68r d1l c905r d8r d76r d1l c906r d11r d5r d1l c907r d11r d6r d1l c908r d11r d9r d1l c909r d11r d10r d1l c910r d11r d12r d1l c911r d11r d13r d1l c912r d11r d14r d1l c913r d11r d15r d1l c914r d11r d16r d1l c915r d11r d17r d1l c916r d11r d18r d1l c917r d11r d19r d1l c918r d11r d20r d1l c919r d11r d21r d1l c920r d11r d22r d1l c921r d11r d23r d1l c922r d11r d24r d1l c923r d11r d25r d1l c924r d11r d26r d1l c925r d11r d27r d1l c926r d11r d28r d1l c927r d11r d29r d1l c928r d11r d30r d1l c929r d11r d31r d1l c930r d11r d32r d1l c931r d11r d33r d1l c932r d11r d34r d1l c933r d11r d35r d1l c934r d11r d40r d1l c935r d11r d41r d1l c936r d11r d42r d1l c937r d11r d64r d1l c938r d11r d66r d1l c939r d11r d68r d1l c940r d11r d76r d1l c941r d13r d5r d1l c942r d13r d6r d1l c943r d13r d9r d1l c944r d13r d10r d1l c945r d13r d12r d1l c946r d13r d14r d1l c947r d13r d15r d1l c948r d13r d16r d1l c949r d13r d17r d1l c950r d13r d18r d1l c951r d13r d19r d1l c952r d13r d20r d1l c953r d13r d21r d1l c954r d13r d22r d1l c955r d13r d23r d1l c956r d13r d24r d1l c957r d13r d25r d1l c958r d13r d26r d1l c959r d13r d27r d1l c960r d13r d28r d1l c961r d13r d29r d1l c962r d13r d30r d1l c963r d13r d31r d1l c964r d13r d32r d1l c965r d13r d33r d1l c966r d13r d34r d1l c967r d13r d35r d1l c968r d13r d40r d1l c969r d13r d41r d1l c970r d13r d42r d1l c971r d13r d64r d1l c972r d13r d66r d1l c973r d13r d68r d1l c974r d13r d76r d1l c975r d14r d5r d1l c976r d14r d6r d1l c977r d14r d9r d1l c978r d14r d10r d1l c979r d14r d12r d1l c980r d14r d15r d1l c981r d14r d16r d1l c982r d14r d17r d1l c983r d14r d18r d1l c984r d14r d19r d1l c985r d14r d20r d1l c986r d14r d21r d1l c987r d14r d22r d1l c988r d14r d23r d1l c989r d14r d24r d1l c990r d14r d25r d1l c991r d14r d26r d1l c992r d14r d27r d1l c993r d14r d28r d1l c994r d14r d29r d1l c995r d14r d30r d1l c996r d14r d31r d1l c997r d14r d32r d1l c998r d14r d33r d1l c999r d14r d34r d1l c1000r d14r d35r d1l c1001r d14r d40r d1l c1002r d14r d41r d1l c1003r d14r d42r d1l c1004r d14r d64r d1l c1005r d14r d66r d1l c1006r d14r d68r d1l c1007r d14r d76r d1l c1008r d22r d5r d1l c1009r d22r d6r d1l c1010r d22r d9r d1l c1011r d22r d10r d1l c1012r d22r d12r d1l c1013r d22r d15r d1l c1014r d22r d16r d1l c1015r d22r d17r d1l c1016r d22r d18r d1l c1017r d22r d19r d1l c1018r d22r d20r d1l c1019r d22r d21r d1l c1020r d22r d23r d1l c1021r d22r d24r d1l c1022r d22r d25r d1l c1023r d22r d26r d1l c1024r d22r d27r d1l c1025r d22r d28r d1l c1026r d22r d29r d1l c1027r d22r d30r d1l c1028r d22r d31r d1l c1029r d22r d32r d1l c1030r d22r d33r d1l c1031r d22r d34r d1l c1032r d22r d35r d1l c1033r d22r d40r d1l c1034r d22r d41r d1l c1035r d22r d42r d1l c1036r d22r d64r d1l c1037r d22r d66r d1l c1038r d22r d68r d1l c1039r d22r d76r d1l c1040r d26r d5r d1l c1041r d26r d6r d1l c1042r d26r d9r d1l c1043r d26r d10r d1l c1044r d26r d12r d1l c1045r d26r d15r d1l c1046r d26r d16r d1l c1047r d26r d17r d1l c1048r d26r d18r d1l c1049r d26r d19r d1l c1050r d26r d20r d1l c1051r d26r d21r d1l c1052r d26r d23r d1l c1053r d26r d24r d1l c1054r d26r d25r d1l c1055r d26r d27r d1l c1056r d26r d28r d1l c1057r d26r d29r d1l c1058r d26r d30r d1l c1059r d26r d31r d1l c1060r d26r d32r d1l c1061r d26r d33r d1l c1062r d26r d34r d1l c1063r d26r d35r d1l c1064r d26r d40r d1l c1065r d26r d41r d1l c1066r d26r d42r d1l c1067r d26r d64r d1l c1068r d26r d66r d1l c1069r d26r d68r d1l c1070r d26r d76r d1l c1071r d35r d5r d1l c1072r d35r d6r d1l c1073r d35r d9r d1l c1074r d35r d10r d1l c1075r d35r d12r d1l c1076r d35r d15r d1l c1077r d35r d16r d1l c1078r d35r d17r d1l c1079r d35r d18r d1l c1080r d35r d19r d1l c1081r d35r d20r d1l c1082r d35r d21r d1l c1083r d35r d23r d1l c1084r d35r d24r d1l c1085r d35r d25r d1l c1086r d35r d27r d1l c1087r d35r d28r d1l c1088r d35r d29r d1l c1089r d35r d30r d1l c1090r d35r d31r d1l c1091r d35r d32r d1l c1092r d35r d33r d1l c1093r d35r d34r d1l c1094r d35r d40r d1l c1095r d35r d41r d1l c1096r d35r d42r d1l c1097r d35r d64r d1l c1098r d35r d66r d1l c1099r d35r d68r d1l c1100r d35r d76r d1l c1101r d40r d5r d1l c1102r d40r d6r d1l c1103r d40r d9r d1l c1104r d40r d10r d1l c1105r d40r d12r d1l c1106r d40r d15r d1l c1107r d40r d16r d1l c1108r d40r d17r d1l c1109r d40r d18r d1l c1110r d40r d19r d1l c1111r d40r d20r d1l c1112r d40r d21r d1l c1113r d40r d23r d1l c1114r d40r d24r d1l c1115r d40r d25r d1l c1116r d40r d27r d1l c1117r d40r d28r d1l c1118r d40r d29r d1l c1119r d40r d30r d1l c1120r d40r d31r d1l c1121r d40r d32r d1l c1122r d40r d33r d1l c1123r d40r d34r d1l c1124r d40r d41r d1l c1125r d40r d42r d1l c1126r d40r d64r d1l c1127r d40r d66r d1l c1128r d40r d68r d1l c1129r d40r d76r d1l c1130r d41r d5r d1l c1131r d41r d6r d1l c1132r d41r d9r d1l c1133r d41r d10r d1l c1134r d41r d12r d1l c1135r d41r d15r d1l c1136r d41r d16r d1l c1137r d41r d17r d1l c1138r d41r d18r d1l c1139r d41r d19r d1l c1140r d41r d20r d1l c1141r d41r d21r d1l c1142r d41r d23r d1l c1143r d41r d24r d1l c1144r d41r d25r d1l c1145r d41r d27r d1l c1146r d41r d28r d1l c1147r d41r d29r d1l c1148r d41r d30r d1l c1149r d41r d31r d1l c1150r d41r d32r d1l c1151r d41r d33r d1l c1152r d41r d34r d1l c1153r d41r d42r d1l c1154r d41r d64r d1l c1155r d41r d66r d1l c1156r d41r d68r d1l c1157r d41r d76r d1l c1158r d64r d5r d1l c1159r d64r d6r d1l c1160r d64r d9r d1l c1161r d64r d10r d1l c1162r d64r d12r d1l c1163r d64r d15r d1l c1164r d64r d16r d1l c1165r d64r d17r d1l c1166r d64r d18r d1l c1167r d64r d19r d1l c1168r d64r d20r d1l c1169r d64r d21r d1l c1170r d64r d23r d1l c1171r d64r d24r d1l c1172r d64r d25r d1l c1173r d64r d27r d1l c1174r d64r d28r d1l c1175r d64r d29r d1l c1176r d64r d30r d1l c1177r d64r d31r d1l c1178r d64r d32r d1l c1179r d64r d33r d1l c1180r d64r d34r d1l c1181r d64r d42r d1l c1182r d64r d64r d1l c1183r d64r d66r d1l c1184r d64r d68r d1l c1185r d64r d76r d1l c1186r d66r d5r d1l c1187r d66r d6r d1l c1188r d66r d9r d1l c1189r d66r d10r d1l c1190r d66r d12r d1l c1191r d66r d15r d1l c1192r d66r d16r d1l c1193r d66r d17r d1l c1194r d66r d18r d1l c1195r d66r d19r d1l c1196r d66r d20r d1l c1197r d66r d21r d1l c1198r d66r d23r d1l c1199r d66r d24r d1l c1200r d66r d25r d1l c1201r d66r d27r d1l c1202r d66r d28r d1l c1203r d66r d29r d1l c1204r d66r d30r d1l c1205r d66r d31r d1l c1206r d66r d32r d1l c1207r d66r d33r d1l c1208r d66r d34r d1l c1209r d66r d42r d1l c1210r d66r d68r d1l c1211r d66r d76r d1l c1212r d68r d5r d1l c1213r d68r d6r d1l c1214r d68r d9r d1l c1215r d68r d10r d1l c1216r d68r d12r d1l c1217r d68r d15r d1l c1218r d68r d16r d1l c1219r d68r d17r d1l c1220r d68r d18r d1l c1221r d68r d19r d1l c1222r d68r d20r d1l c1223r d68r d21r d1l c1224r d68r d23r d1l c1225r d68r d24r d1l c1226r d68r d25r d1l c1227r d68r d27r d1l c1228r d68r d28r d1l c1229r d68r d29r d1l c1230r d68r d30r d1l c1231r d68r d31r d1l c1232r d68r d32r d1l c1233r d68r d33r d1l c1234r d68r d34r d1l c1235r d68r d42r d1l c1236r d68r d76r d1l c1237r d76r d5r d1l c1238r d76r d6r d1l c1239r d76r d9r d1l c1240r d76r d10r d1l c1241r d76r d12r d1l c1242r d76r d15r d1l c1243r d76r d16r d1l c1244r d76r d17r d1l c1245r d76r d18r d1l c1246r d76r d19r d1l c1247r d76r d20r d1l c1248r d76r d21r d1l c1249r d76r d23r d1l c1250r d76r d24r d1l c1251r d76r d25r d1l c1252r d76r d27r d1l c1253r d76r d28r d1l c1254r d76r d29r d1l c1255r d76r d30r d1l c1256r d76r d31r d1l c1257r d76r d32r d1l c1258r d76r d33r d1l c1259r d76r d34r d1l c1260r d76r d42r d1 where r d1 to r d2 1 have the following structures: in some embodiments, the compound is a compound ax having the formula ir(l ai ) 3 , compound by having the formula ir(l ai )(l bk ) 2 , or a compound cz having the formula ir(l ai ) 2 (l cj ). in such embodiments, x=i, y=460i+k−460, and z=1260i+j−1260, where i is an integer from 1 to 2213, k is an integer from 1 to 460, and j is an integer from 1 to 1260, wherein l ai , l bk , and l cj are described above. in some embodiments, an oled comprising an anode, a cathode, and an organic layer disposed between the anode and cathode is disclosed. the organic layer can include the novel compound disclosed herein. in some embodiments, a consumer product including such an oled is disclosed. in some embodiments, the oled has one or more characteristics selected from the group consisting of being flexible, being rollable, being foldable, being stretchable, and being curved. in some embodiments, the oled is transparent or semi-transparent. in some embodiments, the oled further comprises a layer comprising carbon nanotubes. in some embodiments, the oled further comprises a layer comprising a delayed fluorescent emitter. in some embodiments, the oled comprises a rgb pixel arrangement or white plus color filter pixel arrangement. in some embodiments, the oled is a mobile device, a hand held device, or a wearable device. in some embodiments, the oled is a display panel having less than 10 inch diagonal or 50 square inch area. in some embodiments, the oled is a display panel having at least 10 inch diagonal or 50 square inch area. in some embodiments, the oled is a lighting panel. in some embodiments, an emissive region is disclosed. the emissive region can have any of the compositions described for the organic layer of an oled as described herein. in some embodiments, the compound can be an emissive dopant. in some embodiments, the compound can produce emissions via phosphorescence, fluorescence, thermally activated delayed fluorescence, i.e., tadf (also referred to as e-type delayed fluorescence; see, e.g., u.s. application ser. no. 15/700,352, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety), triplet-triplet annihilation, or combinations of these processes. in some embodiments, the emissive dopant can be a racemic mixture, or can be enriched in one enantiomer. in some embodiments, the compound can be homoleptic (each ligand is the same). in some embodiments, the compound can be heteroleptic (at least one ligand is different from others). in some embodiments, the compound can be used as a phosphorescent sensitizer in an oled where one or multiple layers in the oled contains an acceptor in the form of one or more fluorescent and/or delayed fluorescence emitters. in some embodiments, the compound can be used as one component of an exciplex to be used as a sensitizer. as a phosphorescent sensitizer, the compound must be capable of energy transfer to the acceptor and the acceptor will emit the energy or further transfer energy to a final emitter. the acceptor concentrations can range from 0.001% to 100%. the acceptor could be in either the same layer as the phosphorescent sensitizer or in one or more different layers. in some embodiments, the acceptor is a tadf emitter. in some embodiments, the acceptor is a fluorescent emitter. in some embodiments, the emission can arise from any or all of the sensitizer, acceptor, and final emitter. according to another aspect, a formulation comprising the compound described herein is also disclosed. the oled disclosed herein can be incorporated into one or more of a consumer product, an electronic component module, and a lighting panel. the organic layer can be an emissive layer and the compound can be an emissive dopant in some embodiments, while the compound can be a non-emissive dopant in other embodiments. the organic layer can also include a host. in some embodiments, two or more hosts are preferred. in some embodiments, the hosts used maybe a) bipolar, b) electron transporting, c) hole transporting or d) wide band gap materials that play little role in charge transport. in some embodiments, the host can include a metal complex. the host can be a triphenylene containing benzo-fused thiophene or benzo-fused furan. any substituent in the host can be an unfused substituent independently selected from the group consisting of c n h 2n+1 , oc n h 2n+1 , oar 1 , n(c n h 2n+1 ) 2 , n(ar 1 )(ar 2 ), ch═ch—c n h 2n+1 , c≡c—c n h 2n+1 , ar 1 , ar 1 -ar 2 , and c n h 2n —ar 1 , or the host has no substitutions. in the preceding substituents n can range from 1 to 10; and ar and ar 2 can be independently selected from the group consisting of benzene, biphenyl, naphthalene, triphenylene, carbazole, and heteroaromatic analogs thereof. the host can be an inorganic compound. for example a zn containing inorganic material e.g. zns. the host can be a compound comprising at least one chemical group selected from the group consisting of triphenylene, carbazole, dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, azatriphenylene, azacarbazole, aza-dibenzothiophene, aza-dibenzofuran, and aza-dibenzoselenophene. the host can include a metal complex. the host can be, but is not limited to, a specific compound selected from the group consisting of: and combinations thereof. additional information on possible hosts is provided below. in yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a formulation that comprises the novel compound disclosed herein is described. the formulation can include one or more components selected from the group consisting of a solvent, a host, a hole injection material, hole transport material, electron blocking material, hole blocking material, and an electron transport material, disclosed herein. the present disclosure encompasses any chemical structure comprising the novel compound of the present disclosure. in other words, the inventive compound can be a part of a larger chemical structure. such chemical structure can be selected from the group consisting of a monomer, a polymer, a macromolecule, and a supramolecule (also known as supermolecule). combination with other materials the materials described herein as useful for a particular layer in an organic light emitting device may be used in combination with a wide variety of other materials present in the device. for example, emissive dopants disclosed herein may be used in conjunction with a wide variety of hosts, transport layers, blocking layers, injection layers, electrodes and other layers that may be present. the materials described or referred to below are non-limiting examples of materials that may be useful in combination with the compounds disclosed herein, and one of skill in the art can readily consult the literature to identify other materials that may be useful in combination. conductivity dopants: a charge transport layer can be doped with conductivity dopants to substantially alter its density of charge carriers, which will in turn alter its conductivity. the conductivity is increased by generating charge carriers in the matrix material, and depending on the type of dopant, a change in the fermi level of the semiconductor may also be achieved. hole-transporting layer can be doped by p-type conductivity dopants and n-type conductivity dopants are used in the electron-transporting layer. non-limiting examples of the conductivity dopants that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are exemplified below together with references that disclose those materials: ep01617493, ep01968131, ep2020694, ep2684932, us20050139810, us20070160905, us20090167167, us2010288362, wo006081780, wo2009003455, wo2009008277, wo2009011327, wo2014009310, us2007252140, us2015060804, us20150123047, and us2012146012. hil/htl: a hole injecting/transporting material to be used in the present invention is not particularly limited, and any compound may be used as long as the compound is typically used as a hole injecting/transporting material. examples of the material include, but are not limited to: a phthalocyanine or porphyrin derivative; an aromatic amine derivative; an indolocarbazole derivative; a polymer containing fluorohydrocarbon; a polymer with conductivity dopants; a conducting polymer, such as pedot/pss; a self-assembly monomer derived from compounds such as phosphonic acid and silane derivatives; a metal oxide derivative, such as moo x ; a p-type semiconducting organic compound, such as 1,4,5,8,9,12-hexaazatriphenylenehexacarbonitrile; a metal complex, and a cross-linkable compounds. examples of aromatic amine derivatives used in hil or htl include, but not limit to the following general structures: each of ar 1 to ar 9 is selected from the group consisting of aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, and azulene; the group consisting of aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and the group consisting of 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atom, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. each ar may be unsubstituted or may be substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acids, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. in one aspect, ar 1 to ar 9 is independently selected from the group consisting of: wherein k is an integer from 1 to 20; x 101 to x 108 is c (including ch) or n; z 101 is nar 1 , o, or s; ar 1 has the same group defined above. examples of metal complexes used in hil or htl include, but are not limited to the following general formula: wherein met is a metal, which can have an atomic weight greater than 40; (y 101 -y 102 ) is a bidentate ligand, y 101 and y 102 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l 101 is an ancillary ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and k′+k″ is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. in one aspect, (y 101 -y 102 ) is a 2-phenylpyridine derivative. in another aspect, (y 101 -y 102 ) is a carbene ligand. in another aspect, met is selected from ir, pt, os, and zn. in a further aspect, the metal complex has a smallest oxidation potential in solution vs. fc + /fc couple less than about 0.6 v. non-limiting examples of the hil and htl materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are exemplified below together with references that disclose those materials: cn102702075, de102012005215, ep01624500, ep01698613, ep01806334, ep01930964, ep01972613, ep01997799, ep02011790, ep02055700, ep02055701, ep1725079, ep2085382, ep2660300, ep650955, jp07-073529, jp2005112765, jp2007091719, jp2008021687, jp2014-009196, kr20110088898, kr20130077473, tw201139402, u.s. ser. no. 06/517,957, us20020158242, us20030162053, us20050123751, us20060182993, us20060240279, us20070145888, us20070181874, us20070278938, us20080014464, us20080091025, us20080106190, us20080124572, us20080145707, us20080220265, us20080233434, us20080303417, us2008107919, us20090115320, us20090167161, us2009066235, us2011007385, us20110163302, us2011240968, us2011278551, us2012205642, us2013241401, us20140117329, us2014183517, u.s. pat. nos. 5,061,569, 5,639,914, wo05075451, wo07125714, wo08023550, wo08023759, wo2009145016, wo2010061824, wo2011075644, wo2012177006, wo2013018530, wo2013039073, wo2013087142, wo2013118812, wo2013120577, wo2013157367, wo2013175747, wo2014002873, wo2014015935, wo2014015937, wo2014030872, wo2014030921, wo2014034791, wo2014104514, wo2014157018. ebl: an electron blocking layer (ebl) may be used to reduce the number of electrons and/or excitons that leave the emissive layer. the presence of such a blocking layer in a device may result in substantially higher efficiencies, and/or longer lifetime, as compared to a similar device lacking a blocking layer. also, a blocking layer may be used to confine emission to a desired region of an oled. in some embodiments, the ebl material has a higher lumo (closer to the vacuum level) and/or higher triplet energy than the emitter closest to the ebl interface. in some embodiments, the ebl material has a higher lumo (closer to the vacuum level) and/or higher triplet energy than one or more of the hosts closest to the ebl interface. in one aspect, the compound used in ebl contains the same molecule or the same functional groups used as one of the hosts described below. host: the light emitting layer of the organic el device of the present invention preferably contains at least a metal complex as light emitting material, and may contain a host material using the metal complex as a dopant material. examples of the host material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as the triplet energy of the host is larger than that of the dopant. any host material may be used with any dopant so long as the triplet criteria is satisfied. examples of metal complexes used as host are preferred to have the following general formula: wherein met is a metal; (y 103 -y 104 ) is a bidentate ligand, y 103 and y 104 are independently selected from c, n, o, p, and s; l 101 is an another ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal; and k′+k″ is the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. in one aspect, the metal complexes are: wherein (o—n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o and n. in another aspect, met is selected from ir and pt. in a further aspect, (y 103 -y 104 ) is a carbene ligand. in one aspect, the host compound contains at least one of the following groups selected from the group consisting of aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic compounds such as benzene, biphenyl, triphenyl, triphenylene, tetraphenylene, naphthalene, anthracene, phenalene, phenanthrene, fluorene, pyrene, chrysene, perylene, and azulene; the group consisting of aromatic heterocyclic compounds such as dibenzothiophene, dibenzofuran, dibenzoselenophene, furan, thiophene, benzofuran, benzothiophene, benzoselenophene, carbazole, indolocarbazole, pyridylindole, pyrrolodipyridine, pyrazole, imidazole, triazole, oxazole, thiazole, oxadiazole, oxatriazole, dioxazole, thiadiazole, pyridine, pyridazine, pyrimidine, pyrazine, triazine, oxazine, oxathiazine, oxadiazine, indole, benzimidazole, indazole, indoxazine, benzoxazole, benzisoxazole, benzothiazole, quinoline, isoquinoline, cinnoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, naphthyridine, phthalazine, pteridine, xanthene, acridine, phenazine, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, benzofuropyridine, furodipyridine, benzothienopyridine, thienodipyridine, benzoselenophenopyridine, and selenophenodipyridine; and the group consisting of 2 to 10 cyclic structural units which are groups of the same type or different types selected from the aromatic hydrocarbon cyclic group and the aromatic heterocyclic group and are bonded to each other directly or via at least one of oxygen atom, nitrogen atom, sulfur atom, silicon atom, phosphorus atom, boron atom, chain structural unit and the aliphatic cyclic group. each option within each group may be unsubstituted or may be substituted by a substituent selected from the group consisting of deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acids, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof. in one aspect, the host compound contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein r 101 is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acids, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof, and when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. k is an integer from 0 to 20 or 1 to 20. x 101 to x 108 are independently selected from c (including ch) or n. z 101 and z 102 are independently selected from nr 101 , o, or s. non-limiting examples of the host materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are exemplified below together with references that disclose those materials: ep2034538, ep2034538a, ep2757608, jp2007254297, kr20100079458, kr20120088644, kr20120129733, kr20130115564, tw201329200, us20030175553, us20050238919, us20060280965, us20090017330, us20090030202, us20090167162, us20090302743, us20090309488, us20100012931, us20100084966, us20100187984, us2010187984, us2012075273, us2012126221, us2013009543, us2013105787, us2013175519, us2014001446, us20140183503, us20140225088, us2014034914, u.s. pat. no. 7,154,114, wo2001039234, wo2004093207, wo2005014551, wo2005089025, wo2006072002, wo2006114966, wo2007063754, wo2008056746, wo2009003898, wo2009021126, wo2009063833, wo2009066778, wo2009066779, wo2009086028, wo2010056066, wo2010107244, wo2011081423, wo2011081431, wo2011086863, wo2012128298, wo2012133644, wo2012133649, wo2013024872, wo2013035275, wo2013081315, wo2013191404, wo2014142472, us20170263869, us20160163995, u.s. pat. no. 9,466,803, additional emitters: one or more additional emitter dopants may be used in conjunction with the compound of the present disclosure. examples of the additional emitter dopants are not particularly limited, and any compounds may be used as long as the compounds are typically used as emitter materials. examples of suitable emitter materials include, but are not limited to, compounds which can produce emissions via phosphorescence, fluorescence, thermally activated delayed fluorescence, i.e., tadf (also referred to as e-type delayed fluorescence), triplet-triplet annihilation, or combinations of these processes. non-limiting examples of the emitter materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are exemplified below together with references that disclose those materials: cn103694277, cn1696137, eb01238981, ep01239526, ep01961743, ep1239526, ep1244155, ep1642951, ep1647554, ep1841834, ep1841834b, ep2062907, ep2730583, jp2012074444, jp2013110263, jp4478555, kr1020090133652, kr20120032054, kr20130043460, tw201332980, u.s. ser. no. 06/699,599, u.s. ser. no. 06/916,554, us20010019782, us20020034656, us20030068526, us20030072964, us20030138657, us20050123788, us20050244673, us2005123791, us2005260449, us20060008670, us20060065890, us20060127696, us20060134459, us20060134462, us20060202194, us20060251923, us20070034863, us20070087321, us20070103060, us20070111026, us20070190359, us20070231600, us2007034863, us2007104979, us2007104980, us2007138437, us2007224450, us2007278936, us20080020237, us20080233410, us20080261076, us20080297033, us200805851, us2008161567, us2008210930, us20090039776, us20090108737, us20090115322, us20090179555, us2009085476, us2009104472, us20100090591, us20100148663, us20100244004, us20100295032, us2010102716, us2010105902, us2010244004, us2010270916, us20110057559, us20110108822, us20110204333, us2011215710, us2011227049, us2011285275, us2012292601, us20130146848, us2013033172, us2013165653, us2013181190, us2013334521, us20140246656, us2014103305, u.s. pat. nos. 6,303,238, 6,413,656, 6,653,654, 6,670,645, 6,687,266, 6,835,469, 6,921,915, 7,279,704, 7,332,232, 7,378,162, 7,534,505, 7,675,228, 7,728,137, 7,740,957, 7,759,489, 7,951,947, 8,067,099, 8,592,586, 8,871,361, wo06081973, wo06121811, wo07018067, wo07108362, wo07115970, wo07115981, wo08035571, wo2002015645, wo2003040257, wo2005019373, wo2006056418, wo2008054584, wo2008078800, wo2008096609, wo2008101842, wo2009000673, wo2009050281, wo2009100991, wo2010028151, wo2010054731, wo2010086089, wo2010118029, wo2011044988, wo2011051404, wo2011107491, wo2012020327, wo2012163471, wo2013094620, wo2013107487, wo2013174471, wo2014007565, wo2014008982, wo2014023377, wo2014024131, wo2014031977, wo2014038456, wo2014112450. hbl: a hole blocking layer (hbl) may be used to reduce the number of holes and/or excitons that leave the emissive layer. the presence of such a blocking layer in a device may result in substantially higher efficiencies and/or longer lifetime as compared to a similar device lacking a blocking layer. also, a blocking layer may be used to confine emission to a desired region of an oled. in some embodiments, the hbl material has a lower homo (further from the vacuum level) and/or higher triplet energy than the emitter closest to the hbl interface. in some embodiments, the hbl material has a lower homo (further from the vacuum level) and/or higher triplet energy than one or more of the hosts closest to the hbl interface. in one aspect, compound used in hbl contains the same molecule or the same functional groups used as host described above. in another aspect, compound used in hbl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein k is an integer from 1 to 20; l 101 is an another ligand, k′ is an integer from 1 to 3. etl: electron transport layer (etl) may include a material capable of transporting electrons. electron transport layer may be intrinsic (undoped), or doped. doping may be used to enhance conductivity. examples of the etl material are not particularly limited, and any metal complexes or organic compounds may be used as long as they are typically used to transport electrons. in one aspect, compound used in etl contains at least one of the following groups in the molecule: wherein r 101 is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, deuterium, halogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heteroalkyl, heterocycloalkyl, arylalkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, amino, silyl, alkenyl, cycloalkenyl, heteroalkenyl, alkynyl, aryl, heteroaryl, acyl, carboxylic acids, ether, ester, nitrile, isonitrile, sulfanyl, sulfinyl, sulfonyl, phosphino, and combinations thereof, when it is aryl or heteroaryl, it has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. ar 1 to ar 3 has the similar definition as ar's mentioned above. k is an integer from 1 to 20. x 101 to x 108 is selected from c (including ch) or n. in another aspect, the metal complexes used in etl contains, but not limit to the following general formula: wherein (o—n) or (n—n) is a bidentate ligand, having metal coordinated to atoms o, n or n, n; l 101 is another ligand; k′ is an integer value from 1 to the maximum number of ligands that may be attached to the metal. non-limiting examples of the etl materials that may be used in an oled in combination with materials disclosed herein are exemplified below together with references that disclose those materials: cn103508940, ep01602648, ep01734038, ep01956007, jp2004-022334, jp2005149918, jp2005-268199, kr0117693, kr20130108183, us20040036077, us20070104977, us2007018155, us20090101870, us20090115316, us20090140637, us20090179554, us2009218940, us2010108990, us2011156017, us2011210320, us2012193612, us2012214993, us2014014925, us2014014927, us20140284580, u.s. pat. nos. 6,656,612, 8,415,031, wo2003060956, wo2007111263, wo2009148269, wo2010067894, wo2010072300, wo2011074770, wo2011105373, wo2013079217, wo2013145667, wo2013180376, wo2014104499, wo2014104535, charge generation layer (cgl) in tandem or stacked oleds, the cgl plays an essential role in the performance, which is composed of an n-doped layer and a p-doped layer for injection of electrons and holes, respectively. electrons and holes are supplied from the cgl and electrodes. the consumed electrons and holes in the cgl are refilled by the electrons and holes injected from the cathode and anode, respectively; then, the bipolar currents reach a steady state gradually. typical cgl materials include n and p conductivity dopants used in the transport layers. in any above-mentioned compounds used in each layer of the oled device, the hydrogen atoms can be partially or fully deuterated. thus, any specifically listed substituent, such as, without limitation, methyl, phenyl, pyridyl, etc. may be undeuterated, partially deuterated, and fully deuterated versions thereof. similarly, classes of substituents such as, without limitation, alkyl, aryl, cycloalkyl, heteroaryl, etc. also may be undeuterated, partially deuterated, and fully deuterated versions thereof. experimental density function theory (dft) calculations were performed to determine s1, t1, homo, and lumo energy levels of the compounds. the data was gathered using the program gaussian16. geometries were optimized using b3lyp functional and cep-31g basis set. excited state energies were computed by time-dependent density functional theory (tddft) at the optimized ground state geometries. tetrahydrofuran (thf) solvent was simulated using a self-consistent reaction field to further improve agreement with experiment. dft calcuationshomolumot1s1compound #structureevevnmnmcc-1−5.46−2.87706627cc-2−5.50−3.161146697ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22−5.38−2.83774636 as shown from the dft calculation results, the addition of extra methyl groups on ligand l a has multiple effects on the optoelectronic properties of the final metal complexes. the homo energy should be lower by around 0.1 ev going from comparative compounds (cc-1 and cc-2) to compound ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 . the lumo energy levels are also affected, where cc-2 and ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 are 0.3 ev apart. the lumo typically being localized on quinoxaline, adding conjugation to that core will produce an even more electron deficient moiety shifting the lumo energy lower but also this will increase the molecular weight of the final compound, making it more difficult to sublime. the t1 energy of compound ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 is shifted to the near ir regime at 775 nm compared to 706 and 1146 nm for comparative compounds cc-1 and cc-2 for the inventive. the addition of methyl groups compared to benzannulation of the core is a good strategy having a bathochromic shift without increasing the molecular weight of the final metal complex significantly. cc-2 shows a larger bathochromic shift but this comes at the cost of potentially more aggregation and higher molecular weight leading to difficult thermal sublimation. the calculations obtained with the above-identified dft functional set and basis set are theoretical. computational composite protocols, such as the gaussian09 with b3lyp and cep-31g protocol used herein, rely on the assumption that electronic effects are additive and, therefore, larger basis sets can be used to extrapolate to the complete basis set (cbs) limit. however, when the goal of a study is to understand variations in homo, lumo, s1, ti, bond dissociation energies, etc. over a series of structurally-related compounds, the additive effects are expected to be similar. accordingly, while absolute errors from using the b3lyp may be significant compared to other computational methods, the relative differences between the homo, lumo, s1, ti, and bond dissociation energy values calculated with b3lyp protocol are expected to mirror experimental results quite well. see, e.g., hong et al., chem. mater. 2016, 28, 5791-98, 5792-93 and supplemental information (discussing the reliability of dft calculations in the context of oled materials). moreover, with respect to iridium or platinum complexes that are useful in the oled art, the data obtained from dft calculations correlates very well to actual experimental data. see tavasli et al., j. mater. chem. 2012, 22, 6419-29, 6422 (table 3) (showing dft calculations closely correlating with actual data for a variety of emissive complexes); morello, g. r., j. mol. model. 2017, 23:174 (studying of a variety of dft functional sets and basis sets and concluding the combination of b3lyp and cep-31g is particularly accurate for emissive complexes). synthesis example synthesis of ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 5,6-dimethylbenzo[a]phenazine (1.23 g, 4.75 mmol) and ircl 3 (0.80 g, 2.16 mmol) were added to a mixture of 2-ethoxyethanol (30 ml) and water (10 ml). the mixture was degassed under nitrogen for 20 minutes, and then heated to reflux for 16 hours. the green solid was filtered and washed with methanol to give 1.38 g the iridium dimer shown in the scheme above (86%). the ir dimer was added to 2-ethoxyethanol (20 ml) and degassed under nitrogen for 20 minutes. then, 3,7-diethylnonane-4,6-dione (1.01 g, 4.74 mmol) and potassium carbonate (0.66 g, 4.74 mmol) were added and the reaction was stirred at room temp (˜22° c.) for 16 hours. the solvent was removed, and the residue was purified on a triethylamine treated silica gel column eluted with a mixture of heptane/dichloromethane (dcm) (9/1, v/v) to give 1.00 g (59%) of product. device examples all example devices were fabricated by high vacuum (<10 −7 torr) thermal evaporation. the anode electrode was 1,150 å of indium tin oxide (ito). the cathode consisted of 10 å of 8-hydroxyquinoline lithium (liq) followed by 1,000 å of al. all devices were encapsulated with a glass lid sealed with an epoxy resin in a nitrogen glove box (<1 ppm of h 2 o and o 2 ) immediately after fabrication, and a moisture getter was incorporated inside the package. the organic stack of the device examples consisted of sequentially, from the ito surface, 100 å of hatcn as the hole injection layer (hil); 450 å of htm as a hole transporting layer (htl); 400 å of an emissive layer (eml) containing from red host rh1 and 1% of ir(l a4 ) 2 l c22 nir emitter and 350 å of 8-hydroxyquinoline lithium (liq) doped with 35% of etm as the etl. fig. 1 shows the schematic device structure. table 1, below, shows the device layer thickness and materials. the chemical structures of the compounds used in the device are shown below. table 1device layer materials and thicknesseslayermaterialthickness [å]anodeito1,150hilhat-cn100htlhtm450emlhost: ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 1%400etlliq: etm 35%350eilliq10cathodeal1,000 upon fabrication, the devices were tested for electroluminescent (el) and current-voltage-luminecence (jvl) properties. for this purpose, the sample device was energized by a 2 channel keysight b2902a source measurement unit (smu) at a current density of 10 ma/cm 2 and measured by the photo research pr735 spectroradiometer. radiance (w/str/cm 2 ) from 380 nm to 1080 nm, and total integrated photon count data were collected. the device is then placed under a large area silicon photodiode for the jvl sweep. the integrated photon count of the device at 10 ma/cm 2 was used to convert the photodiode current to photon count. the voltage was swept from 0 to a voltage equating to 200 ma/cm 2 . the eqe of the device is calculated using the total integrated photon count. lifetime was measured at accelerated conditions at current density of 80 ma/cm 2 . the device performance data are summarized in table 2. table 2performance of the ir(l a41 ) 2 l c22 devices example.at 80at 10 ma/cm 2ma/cm 2λ max [nm]fwhm [nm]voltage [v]eqe [%]lt 95% [h]720944.03.02,000 it is understood that the various embodiments described herein are by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. for example, many of the materials and structures described herein may be substituted with other materials and structures without deviating from the spirit of the invention. the present invention as claimed may therefore include variations from the particular examples and preferred embodiments described herein, as will be apparent to one of skill in the art. it is understood that various theories as to why the invention works are not intended to be limiting.
087-324-018-372-118	US	[ "US", "EP" ]	G06K9/00,G06K9/46,G06K9/66,G06F3/01	2006-07-13T00:00:00	2006	[ "G06" ]	gesture recognition simulation system and method	a gesture recognition simulation system and method is provided. in one embodiment, a gesture recognition simulation system includes a three-dimensional display system that displays a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component. a gesture recognition interface system is configured to receive an input gesture associated with a sensorless input object from a user. the gesture recognition simulation system further comprises a simulation application controller configured to match a given input gesture with a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component. the simulation application controller could invoke the three dimensional display system to display a simulated action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated an input gesture and a predefined action match.	1 . a gesture recognition simulation system comprising: a three-dimensional display system that displays a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component; a gesture recognition interface system configured to receive an input gesture associated with a sensorless input object from a user, the input gesture being determined by changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object relative to the at least one functional component; and a simulation application controller configured to match a given input gesture with a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component, and invoke the three dimensional display system to display a simulated action associated with the predefined action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated with the at least one functional component. 2 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the gesture recognition interface system comprises: a plurality of light sources positioned to illuminate a background surface; and at least one camera configured to receive a first plurality of images based on a first reflected light contrast difference between the background surface and the sensorless input object caused by a first of the plurality of light sources and a second plurality of images based on a second reflected light contrast difference between the background surface and the sensorless input object caused by a second of the plurality of light sources, such that the three-dimensional shape and the physical location of the sensorless input object are determined based on a comparison of shape and location of corresponding images of the first plurality of images and the second plurality of images. 3 . the system of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of light sources are infrared (ir) light sources, such that the at least one camera comprises an ir filter. 4 . the system of claim 1 , further comprising a gesture library that stores a plurality of predefined gestures, the simulation application controller employs the gesture library to determine if a given input gesture matches a predefined action. 5 . the system of claim 1 , further comprising an object library, accessible by the simulation application controller, that stores data associated with a plurality of simulated objects including three-dimensional image information, information associated with at least one functional component of the respective simulated object, and at least one predefined action associated with the at least one functional component. 6 . the system of claim 5 , wherein the object library is further configured to store at least one predefined gesture for a given predefined action. 7 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the three-dimensional display system is further configured to display a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated tool that is reactive to a user's hand, such that the sensorless input object comprises the user's hand and the at least one simulated tool. 8 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one sensorless input object comprises at least one of both hands of a user, at least one hand from multiple users, and at least one tool held by one or more users. 9 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the three-dimensional display system is a holograph projector, such that the three-dimensional image of the at least one simulated device is a holographic image. 10 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the input gesture comprises concurrent gestures associated with a plurality of users. 11 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the simulated action comprises one of removing, moving and assembling at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated with the at least one functional component. 12 . the system of claim 1 , further comprising an output system configured to provide an additional output in response to the simulated action, the output being at least one of an audio signal, a video signal, and a control signal. 13 . the system of claim 1 , wherein the input gesture comprises pointing with a finger to define a one-dimensional ray in three-dimensional space, such that multiple pointed fingers define a plurality of one-dimensional rays in three-dimensional space that further define a geometric shape in three dimensional space. 14 . a method of interacting with a simulated device, the method comprising: generating a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component; illuminating a background surface with a plurality of light sources; generating a first plurality of images associated with a sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by one of the plurality of light sources; generating a second plurality of images associated with the sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by another one of the plurality of light sources; determining changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object based on a comparison of corresponding images of the first and second plurality of images; determining an input gesture associated with the sensorless input object based on the changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object relative to the at least one functional component; determining if the input gesture matches a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component; and displaying a simulated action associated with a matched predefined action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated with the at least one functional component. 15 . the method of claim 14 , wherein illuminating the background surface comprises illuminating the background surface with a plurality of infrared (ir) light sources. 16 . the method of claim 14 , further comprising comparing the determined input gesture with a plurality of predefined gestures stored in a predefined gesture library, each predefined action of the at least one functional component having at least one associated gesture of the plurality of predefined gestures that initiates a simulated action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object. 17 . the method of claim 14 , further comprising accessing an object library configured to store data associated with a plurality of simulated objects, the data for each of the plurality of simulated objects including three-dimensional image information, information associated with at least one functional component of the respective simulated object, and at least one predefined action associated the at least one functional component. 18 . the method of claim 14 , further comprising generating a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated tool, the three-dimensional image of the at least one simulated tool being reactive to a user's hand, such that the simulated action is further associated with the at least one simulated tool. 19 . the method of claim 14 , wherein determining the input gesture associated with the sensorless input object comprises determining an input gesture associated with at least one of both hands of a user, at least one hand from multiple users, and at least one tool held by one or more users. 20 . the method of claim 14 , wherein generating the three-dimensional image of the at least one simulated object comprises projecting a three-dimensional holographic image of the at least one simulated object. 21 . the method of claim 14 , wherein determining the input gesture associated with the sensorless input object comprises determining concurrent input gestures associated with a plurality of users. 22 . the method of claim 14 , further comprising activating at least one additional output in response to the simulated action, the at least one additional output being at least one of an audio signal, a video signal, and a control signal. 23 . the method of claim 14 , wherein the simulated action comprises one of removing, moving and assembling at least a portion of the at least one simulated object. 24 . a gesture recognition simulation system comprising: means for displaying a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component; means for generating a first plurality of images associated with a sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and an illuminated background surface caused by a first light source; means for generating a second plurality of images associated with the sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by a second light source; means for determining changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object based on a comparison of corresponding images of the first and second plurality of images; means for determining an input gesture associated with the sensorless input object based on the determined changes; means for matching the input gesture to a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component and a physical location of the input gesture relative to the at least one functional component; and means for displaying a simulated action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object, the simulated action being associated with the matching of a predefined action to an associated input gesture. 25 . the system of claim 24 , further comprising means for storing a plurality of predefined gestures, the means for matching employing the means for storing to match the input gesture to the predefined action. 26 . the system of claim 24 , further comprising means for storing data associated with a plurality of simulated objects, the data for each of the plurality of simulated objects including three-dimensional image information, information associated with at least one functional component of the respective simulated object, and at least one predefined action associated with each of the at least one functional component. 27 . the system of claim 24 , wherein the sensorless input object comprises at least one of both hands of a user, at least one hand from multiple users, and at least one tool held by one or more users.	cross reference to related applications the present application is related to u.s. patent application entitled “gesture recognition interface system”, filed concurrently with the present application, attorney docket no. ng(ms)-7960, assigned to the same assignee as the present application and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. technical field the present invention relates generally to interface systems, and specifically to a gesture recognition simulation system and method. background new and innovative ways to provide an interface to a computer are often developed to complement changes in computer applications. for example, touch sensitive screens can allow a user to provide inputs to a computer without a mouse and/or a keyboard, such that desk area is not needed to operate the computer. however, these types of computer interfaces can only provide information to the computer regarding the touch event, itself, and thus can be limited in application. as another example, three-dimensional computer interfaces allow a given user to interact with a computer in three-dimensional space. an example of a three-dimensional computer interface that allows for gesture and free-space control of a computer is a virtual reality interface. however, virtual reality computer interface systems require a user to wear special equipment, such as an instrumented glove and/or headset. such equipment can be cumbersome, and at a given time, provides control and interface capability only for the given user that is wearing the equipment. summary one embodiment of the present invention may include a gesture recognition simulation system. the gesture recognition simulation system comprises a three-dimensional display system that displays a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component. the gesture recognition simulation system also comprises a gesture recognition interface system configured to receive an input gesture associated with a sensorless input object from a user. the input gesture could be determined by changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object relative to the at least one functional component. the gesture recognition simulation system further comprises a simulation application controller configured to match a given input gesture with a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component. the simulation application controller could invoke the three dimensional display system to display a simulated action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated with the at least one functional component. another embodiment of the present invention includes a method for interacting with a simulated device. the method may comprise generating a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object having at least one functional component. the method may also comprise illuminating a background surface with a plurality of light sources, generating a first plurality of images associated with a sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by one of the plurality of light sources, and generating a second plurality of images associated with the sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by another one of the plurality of light sources. the method may also comprise determining changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object based on a comparison of corresponding images of the first and second plurality of images. the method may also comprise determining an input gesture associated with the sensorless input object based on changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object relative to the at least one functional component. the method may also comprise determining if the input gesture matches a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component. the method may further comprise displaying a simulated action associated with a matched predefined action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object associated with the at least one functional component. another embodiment of the present invention includes a gesture recognition simulation system. the gesture recognition simulation system may comprise means for displaying a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated device having at least one functional component. the gesture recognition system may comprise means for generating a first plurality of images associated with a sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and an illuminated background surface caused by a first light source, means for generating a second plurality of images associated with the sensorless input object based on a reflected light contrast between the sensorless input object and the illuminated background surface caused by a second light source, and means for determining changes in at least one of a three-dimensional shape and a physical location of the sensorless input object based on a comparison of corresponding images of the first and second plurality of images. the gesture recognition system may further comprise means for determining an input gesture associated with the sensorless input object based on the determined changes, means for matching the input gesture to a predefined action associated with the at least one functional component and a physical location of the input gesture relative to the at least one functional component, and means for displaying a simulated action on at least a portion of the at least one simulated object, the simulated action being associated with the matching of a predefined action to an associated input gesture. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 illustrates an example of a block diagram of a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 2 illustrates an example of an object library of a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 3 illustrates an example of a simulation application controller of a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 4 illustrates an example of interaction between an input gesture and a simulated object in a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 5 illustrates an example of a gesture interface system in a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 6 illustrates an example of a gesture interface system in a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 7 illustrates an example of hand images for use in a gesture interface system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 8 illustrates an example of a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 9 illustrates another example of a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 10 illustrates an example of a method for gesture recognition simulation in accordance with an aspect of the invention. detailed description the present invention relates generally to interface systems, and specifically to a gesture recognition simulation system. a three-dimensional display system can display a three-dimensional image of a simulated object having one or more functional components. the three-dimensional image of the simulated object can be any of a variety of things with which people can interact, with the functional components providing the basis for the interaction. a functional component is defined as a portion of the simulated object in which simulated interaction can be performed, such that a gesture performed at or near a location of the functional component can cause an automatic rendering of a simulated action on at least the portion of the simulated object. the simulated action can, for example, include removing, moving, compressing, stretching and assembling the portion of the simulated object. additionally, the simulated action can, for example, include moving, rotating, compressing or stretching of the entire simulated object. for example, a functional component can be assigned to individual movable parts, such that one or more simulated action can be performed on the movable parts based on associated gestures. additionally, a functional component can be assigned to portions of a body of the simulated object not having movable parts, such that one or more simulated action can be performed on the entire simulated object based on associated gestures. by defining a simulated object having at least one functional component, any of a variety of simulation applications can be implemented. for example, the three-dimensional image of the simulated object could be a person's head on which a simulated haircut can be performed, an engine that can be simulated to be assembled and/or disassembled, or a musical instrument upon which a user can simulate a performance. as another example, the three-dimensional image of the simulated object can be a simulated control panel of an actual remotely located machine or device, such that the machine or device can be remotely controlled by the user on the simulated display. one or more users employ one or more sensorless input objects to provide input gestures at a gesture interface system. the gesture interface system could be, for example, located directly at the three-dimensional image of the simulated object, such that the user can interact directly with the simulated object. the sensorless input object could be, for example, one or more users' hands, a tool, and/or a simulated tool that is reactive to the one or more users' hands. the gesture interface system could include a plurality of infrared (ir) light sources that are configured to illuminate the sensorless input object and the background surface behind the sensorless input object to generate a plurality of images of the sensorless input object. the plurality of images could be, for example, a plurality of silhouettes of the sensorless input object. a simulation application controller can be configured to match an input gesture with one or more predefined actions corresponding to the input gesture. for example, a user could provide gestures that include changes in a three-dimensional shape and/or physical location of the sensorless input object. the simulation application controller could determine the gesture corresponding to the changes in the three-dimensional shape and/or physical location of the sensorless input object and match the determined input gesture with the one or more predefined actions. the simulation application controller can then display a simulated action that corresponds to a predefined action for which the user provided the input gesture. for example, the user can provide a hand gesture to turn a simulated screwdriver directly at an image of a simulated screw on the three-dimensional image of the simulated object, and thus the simulated screw on the three-dimensional image of the simulated object can be displayed as being screwed or unscrewed as the user performs the gesture. fig. 1 illustrates an example of a block diagram of a gesture recognition simulation system 10 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the gesture recognition simulation system 10 includes a gesture interface system 12 . the gesture interface system 12 generates data regarding input gestures associated with a sensorless input object. for example, a user can provide hand gestures that are associated with predefined actions. it is to be understood that the input object can be sensorless, such that the gesture interface system 12 can interpret the gesture without the use of sensors to track shape and/or motion of the input object, as will be described in greater detail below with reference to figs. 5-7 . for example, the user need not wear a special glove or use special tools to perform the input gestures, but can instead use his or her naked hand and/or use ordinary tools to perform the input gestures. as an example, the gesture interface system 12 could illuminate a retroreflective background surface to generate a plurality of silhouette images of the sensorless input object to determine changes in three-dimensional shape and physical location of the sensorless input object. the gesture interface system 12 can also be configured to determine gestures associated with multiple users, multiple hands from one or more users, and/or tools held by one or more users, either sequentially or concurrently. the data output from the gesture interface system 12 is input to a simulation application controller 14 . the simulation application controller 14 can be, for example, a standalone computer system or can be contained in one or more embedded processors. the simulation application controller 14 can interpret the input gestures associated with the sensorless input objects and match the input gestures to predefined actions to be performed on a simulated object. as described above, the simulated object can be any of a variety of objects with which a user can interact. in the example of fig. 1 , the simulation application controller 14 can output data associated with the simulated object to a three-dimensional display system 16 . the three-dimensional display system 16 can generate a three-dimensional image of the simulated object. for example, the three-dimensional display system 16 can be a holograph projector, such that the three-dimensional image of the simulated object is a holographic image. as another example, the three-dimensional display system 16 can be a three-dimensional display screen, such that the user(s) can wear goggles or other eyewear to be capable of viewing the display screen in three-dimensions. the gesture interface system 12 and the three-dimensional display system 16 can be integrated together, such that the user performs the input gestures using the sensorless input object(s) directly on functional components of the three-dimensional image of the simulated object. for example, the functional components of a given simulated object can include movable parts, removable parts, buttons, keys, or any of a variety of sub-parts of the simulated object with which the user(s) can interact. therefore, a given user can perform an input gesture at the gesture interface system 12 , the simulation application controller 14 can match the input gesture to a predefined action that is associated with a functional component of the simulated object, and the three-dimensional display system 16 can output a simulated action corresponding to the predefined action on the functional component of the three-dimensional image of the simulated object. as a result, the three-dimensional image of the simulated object can change in response to the input gesture based on the simulated action that is performed on the functional component of the simulated object. in addition, the three-dimensional display system 16 can also display images of simulated tools, such that the user can use his or her hands to interact with the simulated tools and the functional components of the three-dimensional display of the simulated object can be reactive to the simulated tools. furthermore, the three-dimensional display system 16 can include sensors or other feedback devices to supply information back to the simulation application controller 14 , such as alarms, position sensors, any of a variety of other feedback devices. the following are examples of applications that can be simulated using the gesture recognition simulation system 10 for the purpose of illustrating the versatility of the gesture recognition simulation system 10 . the simulated object could be a piano, with keys being functional components, such that a user can use his or her unencumbered fingers to simulate playing beethoven. the simulated object could be a person's head, with hair being a functional component, such that a user can perform a simulated haircut on a three-dimensional image of a person's head using gestures associated with real scissors, with a three-dimensional image of simulated scissors, or with scissor motions of the user's index and middle fingers. the simulated object could be a bomb in a briefcase, with the briefcase cover and wires within being functional components, such that a user can open the briefcase and cut wires within to safely dismantle and disarm the simulated bomb by cutting specific wires using gestures associated with real or simulated wire-cutters. the simulated object can be a control panel of an actual machine in a hazardous environment, with buttons and switches being the functional components, such that the real machine can be safely operated from a distance based on the user performing gestures to push simulated buttons and to manipulate simulated switches. it is to be understood that the gesture recognition simulation system 10 is not intended to be limited to these examples, but that an almost infinite number of simulated objects with which a user can interact can be used for simulations for learning, training, and/or operating devices. the gesture recognition simulation system 10 can also include an output system 18 coupled to the three-dimensional display system 16 . the output system 18 can be configured to produce outputs in response to simulated actions, sequences, or gestures. for example, the output system 18 can generate audio signals to provide an audible component to the simulated actions, to provide instructions, and/or to signal error messages to a user. the output system 18 can also generate video signals for similar purposes, such as to demonstrate instructions for a “next sequence” on a video monitor in a training simulation. furthermore, the output system 18 could generate control signals, such as wirelessly, through a wired network, and/or to access the internet, such that devices can be signaled or controlled remotely from the gesture recognition simulation system 10 . the simulation application controller 14 can also be coupled to an object library 20 and/or a gesture library 22 . the object library 20 can be configured to store data associated with a plurality of different objects 24 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 1 as object 1 through object n, where n is a positive integer. each of the objects 24 can represent data for a different simulated object for use in the gesture recognition simulation system 10 . for example, at the simulation application controller 14 , a given user desiring to run a simulation can enter a request to display a given simulated object on which the user wishes to run the simulation. the simulation application controller 14 can access the object library 20 and obtain the object 24 that includes the data pertinent to the simulation. for example, the data accessed by the simulation application controller 14 from the object library 20 can include three-dimensional display data corresponding to the simulated object, functional component data, data associated with predefined actions that correspond to each of the functional components, and interaction data on respective simulated actions to be displayed as part of the three-dimensional display data. in addition to the data pertaining to the simulated object, the object library 20 could contain gesture information data for each gesture that corresponds to each of the predefined actions for each of the functional components of the simulated object. additionally or alternatively, upon accessing data corresponding to the predefined actions for each of the functional components of the simulated object, the simulation application controller 14 could access the gesture library 22 to access predefined gestures associated with the predefined actions for the functional components of the given simulated object. the gesture library 22 could also include a variety of universal gestures that can be accessed by the simulation application controller 14 . for example, simple gestures such as pointing (e.g., as a laser pointer), selecting, moving, rotating, zooming, and environment adjustment commands can also be included in the gesture library 22 and accessed by the simulation application controller 14 . as yet another example, because a pointed finger can be interpreted as a one-dimensional ray in three-dimensional space, multiple fingertips can be implemented as a gesture to define a wedge, a cone, a prism, or any of a variety of shapes in three-dimensional space for selection of one or more functional components of a given simulated object. thus, multiple wedges or cones from both hands or from hands of multiple users can also be employed to further define other simulated actions in three-dimensional space, such as scaling, moving, selecting, or any of a variety of other gestures. such gestures could be applicable to any simulated object stored in the object library 20 , and not just those that are specific to a given set of functional components for a particular simulated object. in addition, the gesture library 22 could be programmable to include additional gestures. for example, the gesture library 22 could allow a user to download additional gestures and corresponding actions into the gesture library 22 . furthermore, the gesture library 22 could also be coupled to the gesture interface system 12 , such that additional gestures can be programmed into the gesture library 22 by a given user performing the new gestures at the gesture interface system 12 and downloading the resultant gesture data and corresponding action into the gesture library 22 . it is to be understood that the gesture recognition simulation system 10 in the example of fig. 1 is not intended to limited to that illustrated in fig. 1 . for example, the gesture recognition simulation system 10 could operate without an object library 20 or a gesture library 22 , such that it is specific to only one application. alternatively, the gesture recognition simulation system 10 could also be included in a much larger assembly, such that it is part of an entire factory assembly line or control station or is part of a networked collaborative system for multiple users at remote locations to all participate in a given simulation. in addition, the gesture recognition simulation system 10 could be integrated together as a solid assembly, or contained in two or more separate components. furthermore, as indicated above, an almost infinite variety of interactive simulations can be performed by the gesture recognition simulation system 10 , and as such, the gesture recognition simulation system 10 is not intended to be limited by the above examples. fig. 2 illustrates an example of an object library 50 of a gesture recognition simulation system (not shown) in accordance with an aspect of the invention. for example, the object library 50 could be similar to the object library 20 in the above described example of fig. 1 . the object library can be configured to store data associated with a plurality of different objects 52 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 2 as object 1 through object n, where n is a positive integer. each of the objects 52 can represent data for different, and possibly unrelated, simulated objects for use in a given gesture recognition simulation system. for example, object 1 can include data associated with a simulated oboe on which the user can simulate playing music, while object 2 can include data associated with a sign-language translation training tool for the user to gesture sign language to an image of a simulated deaf person. to access a given one of the objects 52 , for example, a given user desiring to run a simulation can enter a request to display a given simulated object on which the user wishes to run the simulation. a simulation application controller (not shown) can access the object library 50 and obtain the data pertinent to the desired simulation. each of the objects 52 in the object library 50 includes a base image 54 . the base image 54 can include three-dimensional image information associated with the simulated object for which the data in the object 52 pertains. the image information in the base image 54 could be transmitted to a three-dimensional display system (not shown). the three-dimensional display system could then output a three-dimensional image of the simulated object to which the object 52 pertains, thus allowing a user to visually interact with the three-dimensional image of the simulated object. each of the objects 52 in the object library 50 also includes a plurality of functional components 56 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 2 as functional component 1 through functional component m, where m is a positive integer. the functional components 56 of a given simulated object can be portions of the simulated object with which a given user interacts in the simulation. it is to be understood that, although each of the objects 52 are demonstrated in the example of fig. 2 as having m functional components 56 , each of the objects 52 may not have the same number of functional components 56 , but could each have a different number of functional components 56 depending on the complexity of the simulated object to which the given object 52 pertains. for example, object 1 could include data associated with a firearm, such that it has only two functional components (e.g., a handle and a trigger), while object 2 could include data associated with an automobile engine, such that it has hundreds of functional components. in addition, it is to be understood that the functional components 56 of a given simulated object can be dynamic, such that they can change in appearance or function through the performance of predefined actions based on input gestures. in addition, some of the functional components 56 may be interconnecting or composite, such that they can be merged or separated from other functional components 56 . for example, in a simulated object that is an electrical junction box, four screws can each be separate functional components 56 that attach a cover plate, which can be yet another functional component 56 , to the electrical junction box. as such, a given one of the functional components 56 can be dependent on the state of other functional components 56 in the given object 52 . each of the functional components 56 includes at least one action/gesture pair 58 . the action/gesture pairs 58 each represent a predefined action and corresponding input gesture with which the user can interact with the functional component 56 . simple functional components 56 could have, for example, a single action/gesture pair 58 , such as squeezing a trigger or pushing a button. other functional components 56 could have more than one action/gesture pair 58 , such as a screw which can be screwed, unscrewed, or moved in free space. as another example, composite functional components 56 , such as described above, could have many action/gesture pairs 58 , and could even have additional functional components 56 that are structured beneath a given action/gesture pair 58 , such that the additional functional components 56 are not accessible until a given predefined action is first performed. the gesture components of each action/gesture pair 58 could be included specifically for each object 52 in the object library 50 . alternatively, as described above in the example of fig. 1 , the object library 50 may only store predefined actions associated with functional components 56 , such that a simulation application controller accesses a gesture library to obtain the corresponding gestures associated with the predefined actions. as another alternative, the object library 50 may include data indicative of the appropriate gestures corresponding to the predefined actions for each functional component that is needed for a given simulation. accordingly, a simulation application controller could use the data to access the gesture library and automatically obtain the appropriate gestures for use in the simulation. fig. 3 illustrates an example of a simulation application controller 100 of a gesture recognition simulation system (not shown) in accordance with an aspect of the invention. for example, the simulation application controller 100 could be similar to the simulation application controller 14 in the above described example of fig. 1 . the simulation application controller 100 can include a user interface 102 and a current application memory 104 . the user interface 102 can simply be an interface to allow a given user to operate the given gesture recognition simulation system in which the simulation application controller 100 is included. for example, the user interface 102 can be a computer terminal, a network connection, or simple pushbuttons. the current application memory 104 can be configured to store data pertaining to a given interactive simulation for which the user desires to run. as an example, using the user interface 102 , the user can load data associated with a given simulated object and all associated gestures, demonstrated in the example of fig. 3 as object data 106 and gesture set 108 , into the current application memory 104 . upon issuing the command, the simulation application controller 100 can access the appropriate object data 106 , such as from an object library (not shown). for example, the simulation application controller 100 can employ a data line 110 , which could be a wired or wireless connection, to communicate with an object library and upload the object data 106 into the current application memory 104 . alternatively, the current application memory 104 could include data associated with a number of simulated objects, or the simulation application controller 100 could have an internal object library. upon the current application memory 104 receiving the object data 106 , the simulation application controller 100 could determine which gestures are needed to perform a simulation using the object data 106 . for example, data associated with a simulated object in the object data 106 could include a number of functional components. each of the functional components could have a number of associated action/gesture pairs, which could be predefined actions associated with the functional component, as well as the associated input gestures. the simulation application controller 100 could access a gesture library (not shown) via a data line 112 , which could be wired or wireless, to upload the appropriate gesture set 108 that includes the input gestures that correspond to each predefined action associated with each functional component of the simulated object in the object data 106 . the gesture set 108 can also include one or more universal gestures that are appropriate for any simulated object, and not just specific to the simulated object of the object data 106 . the universal gestures could also be accessed from a gesture library, or they could be included in the current application memory 104 or in a separate memory in the simulation application controller 100 . the simulation application controller 100 includes a gesture comparator 114 . the gesture comparator 114 receives gesture data 116 , such as from a gesture interface system (not shown). the gesture data 116 could be data that merely demonstrates movements, shapes, and/or position corresponding to a given input gesture associated with a sensorless input object, such that the gesture comparator 114 interprets the gesture data 116 to translate the gesture data 116 to a corresponding input gesture. alternatively, the gesture data 116 could be a signal that is indicative of a determined gesture, including movements, shapes, and/or position corresponding to a given input gesture associated with a sensorless input object, such that a definitive gesture was already translated from an input gesture at, for example, the gesture interface system. the gesture comparator 114 then compares the gesture data 116 with the gestures contained in the gesture set 108 , indicated by a comparison signal 118 , to determine if the gesture data 116 matches any of the gestures contained in the gesture set 108 . in addition, the gesture comparator 114 can also compare position information, such as position of a sensorless input object, to the object data 106 to determine an appropriate functional component of the simulated object for which the input gesture is intended. upon matching the gesture data 116 to a gesture within the gesture set 108 , the gesture comparator 114 outputs gesture information 120 to a gesture/component interaction engine 122 . the gesture/component interaction engine 122 also receives functional component data 124 associated with the appropriate function component as dictated by the physical location of the sensorless input object from the object data 106 . for example, the functional component data 124 could include all predefined actions that are associated with the given functional component. the gesture/component interaction engine 122 could receive the functional component data 124 from the object data 106 based on the comparison signal 118 commanding the object data 106 to transmit the functional component data 124 to the gesture/component interaction engine 122 . alternatively, the gesture/component interaction engine 122 could receive physical location information of the sensorless input object from the gesture information 120 , such that the gesture/component interaction engine 122 polls the object data 106 for the functional component data 124 . the gesture/component interaction engine 122 is configured to combine the functional component data 124 with the gesture information 120 . for example, the functional component data 124 could include predefined actions associated with a screw, such as screwing, unscrewing, and movement of the screw in free space. the gesture information 120 could be a gesture associated with screwing the screw using a screwing motion with the user's hand, such as with a simulated screwdriver. the gesture/component interaction engine 122 thus combines the data and outputs simulated action data 126 , which could be image data corresponding to the turning of a screw. the simulated action data 126 could be output to a three-dimensional display system (not shown), such that the three-dimensional display system demonstrates the functional component, the screw, turning relative to the simulated object. the gesture/component interaction engine 122 could also ensure that the simulated action data 126 is inclusive of data demonstrative of interaction with other functional components, or that the simulated action data 126 is not output unless the functional components are appropriately combined. for example, the gesture/component interaction engine 122 may not output the simulated action data 126 of the turning of the screw unless the screw is positioned relative to another functional component (e.g., a threaded aperture). it is to be understood that the example of fig. 3 is a simplified illustration of a simulation application controller 100 , and as such is not intended to be limited to the example of fig. 3 . for example, a number of additional components could be required for adequate operation of the simulation application controller 100 . in addition, as indicated above, the interaction of the components in the simulation application controller 100 can also vary based on design considerations and other application based factors. fig. 4 illustrates an example of interaction between an input gesture 150 and a simulated object 152 in a gesture recognition simulation system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the simulated object 152 can be an object 52 in the object library 50 in the example of fig. 2 . specifically, the simulated object 152 includes a three-dimensional image 154 , which could be output from a three-dimensional display system to allow a user to visually interact with the three-dimensional image 154 of the simulated object 152 . the three-dimensional image 154 has a plurality of functional components 156 associated with it, demonstrated in the example of fig. 4 as functional component 1 through functional component m, where m is a positive integer. the functional components 156 can be portions of the three-dimensional image 154 of the simulated object 152 with which a given user can interact. each of the functional components 156 includes at least one action/gesture pair 158 . the action/gesture pairs 158 each represent a predefined action and corresponding input gesture with which the user can interact with the given functional component 156 . in the example of fig. 4 , functional component 1 includes a number x of action/gesture pairs 158 , where x is a positive integer. similar to that described above in the example of fig. 2 , the functional components 156 can each have a different number of associated action/gesture pairs 158 . as also indicated in the above example of fig. 2 , one or more of the functional components 156 can be interconnecting or composite functional components, such that they can be merged or separated from other functional components 156 . as such, a given one of the functional components 156 can be dependent on the state of other functional components 156 in the simulated object 150 , and can thus have additional functional components 156 that are structured beneath a given action/gesture pair 158 . the input gesture 150 includes an input object location component 160 and a gesture motion component 162 . the input object location component 160 can represent a physical location of a sensorless input object in three-dimensional space. as will be better described below in the examples of figs. 5-9 , the physical location of the sensorless input object in three-dimensional space can be determined by a gesture interface system, such as the gesture interface system 12 in the above described example of fig. 1 . for example, the input object location component 160 can include information regarding a physical location of a user's hand, and can further include physical location information regarding fingertips and/or other features of the user's hand. in addition, the input object location component 160 can also include physical location information regarding a real or a simulated tool that is held in the user's hand. the gesture motion component 162 can include information regarding the actual gesture that is associated with the input object. for example, the gesture motion component 162 can be information regarding the gesture that corresponds to a given gesture in an action/gesture pair 158 , such as a gesture indicating the turning of a screwdriver. in a given simulation, a simulation application controller (not shown) determines which portion of the simulated object 150 a user desires to interact. the example of fig. 4 demonstrates that the input object location component 160 of the input gesture 150 can be interactive with a given one of the functional components 156 . for example, the simulation application controller can determine to which functional component 156 the user is providing the input gesture 150 based on the input object location component 160 . the simulated application controller, upon determining that the input object location component 160 and the physical location of the functional component 156 in three-dimensional space correspond with each other, can determine if the gesture motion component 162 corresponds with an appropriate one of the action/gesture pairs 158 . if the gesture motion component 158 corresponds with one of the action/gesture pairs 158 , the user has performed an appropriate gesture. the simulation application controller thus instructs the three-dimensional display system to modify the three-dimensional image 154 to display the resultant simulated action corresponding to the predefined action of the action/gesture pair 158 . for example, a user wishes to unscrew a simulated screw from a control panel. the simulated screw is therefore a functional component 156 (e.g., functional component 1 ). the user could move his or her sensorless input object (e.g., screwdriver, real or simulated) to the physical location in three-dimensional space where the simulated screw is located and could perform the unscrewing gesture. the simulation application controller can compare the physical location of the screwdriver tip with the physical location of the simulated screw. upon a correlation of the physical locations, the simulation application controller can determine that the user is performing the unscrewing gesture, which could match an appropriate action/gesture pair 158 of functional component 1 . in response, the simulation application controller can command the three-dimensional display system to display the simulated screw being unscrewed from the control panel. it is to be understood that fig. 4 is but one example of the manner in which input gestures can interact with a given simulated object. as such, fig. 4 is not intended to be limited by the above described interaction. for example, instead of utilizing an input object location component 160 of an input gesture 150 , a simulation application controller could utilize a separate gesture that selects a given functional component. for example, a user could simply touch or point to a given functional component 156 to select it, then perform the appropriate gesture at any of variety of locations in three-dimensional space, such that gestures need not necessarily be location specific. alternatively, a simulation application controller could receive a separate input altogether, such as from a computer, to select a given functional component upon which a gesture can be performed at a variety of different locations. therefore, an input gesture 150 can interact with a simulated object 152 in a number of different ways, depending on a given simulation application. fig. 5 illustrates an example of a gesture interface system 200 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the gesture interface system 200 includes a first camera 202 and a second camera 204 . coupled to each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 , respectively, is a first infrared (ir) light source 206 and a second ir light source 208 . the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 may each include an ir filter, such that the respective camera may only be able to receive ir light. the first ir light source 206 and the second ir light source 208 each illuminate a retroreflective surface 210 , such that ir light from the first ir light source 206 is reflected substantially directly back to the first camera 202 and ir light from the second ir light source 208 is reflected substantially directly back to the second camera 204 . accordingly, an object that is placed above the retroreflective surface 210 may reflect a significantly lesser amount of ir light back to each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 , respectively. therefore, such an object can appear to each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 as a silhouette image, such that it can appear as a substantially darker object in the foreground of the retroreflective surface 210 . a sensorless input object 212 can be used to provide input gestures over the retroreflective surface 210 . in the example of fig. 5 , the sensorless input object 212 is demonstrated as a user's hand, such that the input gestures can be provided through hand gestures. it is to be understood that the use of a hand to provide input gestures via hand gestures is but one example implementation of the gesture interface system 200 . for example, one or more users can provide input gestures concurrently, with one or more respective hands and/or tools. it is to be further understood that the sensorless input object 212 need not be specially designed or suited for use in the gesture interface system 200 . for example, a user's naked hand or an ordinary tool could be used as the sensorless input object 212 , and thus a user need not wear a glove that includes retroreflective material or one or more position sensors to provide input gestures to the gesture interface system 200 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. in the example of fig. 5 , the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 each receive separate silhouette images of the sensorless input object 212 , where each of the separate silhouette images received, respectively, by the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 are a matched pair. for example, each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 could rapidly take still photograph images at, for example, sixty times per second, such that each still photograph image taken by the first camera 202 is matched to a still photograph image taken by the second camera 204 at substantially the same time. the sensorless input object 212 can appear to be in a different location relative to the retroreflective surface 210 in each silhouette image matched pair captured by each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 , respectively, due to parallax caused by the different mounted locations of each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 . the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 can each provide their respective separate silhouette images of the sensorless input object 212 to a simulation application controller (not shown), such as the simulation application controller 14 in the example of fig. 1 . alternatively, the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 can each provide their respective separate silhouette images of the sensorless input object 212 to a dedicated controller, such that the dedicated controller of the gesture interface system 200 communicates with the simulation application controller. a dedicated controller could reside, for example, within a computer, or within one or more embedded processors of a given gesture recognition simulation system with which the gesture interface system 200 is being used. the respective silhouette images associated with the sensorless input object 212 can be processed to generate three-dimensional shape and physical location data associated with the sensorless input object 212 . for example, each of the first camera 202 and the second camera 204 could be mounted at a pre-determined angle relative to the retroreflective surface 210 . for a given matched pair of images of the sensorless input object 212 , if the pre-determined angle of each of the cameras 202 and 204 is equal, then each point of the sensorless input object 212 in two-dimensional space in a given image from the first camera 202 is equidistant from a corresponding point of the sensorless input object 212 in the respective matched image from the second camera 204 . as such, the three-dimensional shape and physical location of the sensorless input object 212 can be determined based on a relative parallax separation of the matched pair of images of the sensorless input object 212 at a given time. in addition, using a computer algorithm, a three-dimensional physical location of end-points, such as fingertips, associated with the sensorless input object 212 can be determined, as will be described in greater detail in the example of fig. 7 below. the gesture interface system 200 can be configured such that it is integral with a three-dimensional display system (not shown), as will be discussed in greater detail in the examples of figs. 8 and 9 below. for example, the gesture interface system 200 can be configured at the location of a holograph projector or a three-dimensional display screen. as such, the gesture interface system 200 can interpret input gestures associated with the sensorless input object 212 that are performed directly on a three-dimensional image of a simulated object, as described above. as will be apparent in the following discussion, the gesture interface system 200 in the example of fig. 5 is intended to represent but one example of a gesture interface system in accordance with an aspect of the invention. for example, the gesture interface system 200 could include more than two cameras that each supply respective silhouette images of the sensorless input object 212 to the simulation application controller or dedicated controller. additional cameras may provide better resolution for determining changes in shape of a given sensorless input object 212 for resolving a given input gesture. cameras can also be mounted to point upward, for example, at a ceiling mounted retroreflective surface instead of, or in addition to, the cameras 202 and 204 and the retroreflective surface 220 . in addition, the example of fig. 5 demonstrates that the retroreflective surface 210 is mounted on a table 214 . it is to be understood that such an arrangement is demonstrated for interaction with a simulated object that can be small enough to fit on the table 214 . however, much larger gesture interface systems can be realized, such that an entire room can support a given simulation, with the floor of the room being the retroreflective surface. as a further example, the ir light sources 206 and 208 may not illuminate in the ir spectrum, but could instead illuminate in a different spectrum, such as narrow frequency bands of visible light, with each of the respective cameras 202 and 204 having a corresponding spectrum filter. fig. 6 illustrates another example of a gesture interface system 250 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the gesture interface system 250 includes a controller 252 . the controller 252 could be a portion of a simulation application controller, such as at least a portion of the gesture comparator 114 in the example of fig. 3 , or could be a dedicated controller. a first camera 254 and a second camera 256 each receive a plurality of images of a sensorless input object, such as one or more users' hands and/or tools. the respective images of the sensorless input object could be silhouette images generated from retroreflection of ir light off of a background surface. the cameras 254 and 256 each input their respective images as a matched pair of images into a respective digitizer 258 . the digitizer 258 produces digitized versions of the images of the sensorless input object. the digitized images of the sensorless input object are input to an image comparator 260 . the image comparator 260 compares each of the digitized images of the sensorless input object to a previously stored digitized image of the sensorless input object to generate a binarized silhouette image of the sensorless input object. such a comparison allows for an improved quality of the digitized images when the illumination of the background surface, such as ir illumination in the example of fig. 5 , is not uniform across the background surface. the previously stored digitized image could have been captured during a calibration operation and/or from repeatedly storing the digitized image in memory buffers. as an example, a background model can be maintained for each of the cameras 254 and 256 without the sensorless input object being present. the background model images can be used to decide at each pixel whether the silhouette images of the sensorless input object correspond with a binary 1 or 0. in the above described example of the sensorless input object being a silhouette object in the foreground of an illuminated background, at each pixel location, if the sensorless input object silhouette image has a value that is approximately less than the corresponding background model image times a threshold scaling value of between 0 and 1, the output value will be a binary 1, thus denoting the presence of the sensorless input object. in this manner, the scaling value can be selected to provide an optimal balance between desirably detecting the sensorless input object while being substantially insensitive to residual shadows cast on the screen by an opposing source of illumination for the background surface. the binarized silhouette images of the sensorless input object are then each input to an image resolver 262 . the image resolver 262 can generate two-dimensional data regarding the shape of the sensorless input object. for example, the image resolver 262 can apply a mathematical algorithm to each of the digitized images of the sensorless input object to determine the presence of one or more features of a given sensorless input object, such as end-points. for example, the image resolver could determine the presence of fingertips and/or other features of a hand used as the sensorless input object. the image resolver 262 could employ a two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution algorithm to determine the endpoints and/or other features for each of the respective plurality of images from the cameras 254 and 256 . it is to be understood that the example of fig. 6 is not limited to use of a two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution algorithm, but that any of a variety of other spatial bandpass filtering can be used to determine the presence of the one or more end-points and/or other features of the sensorless input object. for example, a spatial filter that attenuates at least some of both high spatial frequency and low spatial frequency data content of a given digitized silhouette image can be used instead. the image resolver 262 can be tuned to determine the presence and two-dimensional location of the one or more end-points of the sensorless input object based on an adjustable threshold of the image resolver 262 . for example, the image resolver 262 could have a threshold set, such that regions of a given laplacian of gaussian convolved silhouette image that exceed the threshold can be determinative of a peak. the operation of the image resolver 262 to determine the one or more end-points of the sensorless input object will be described in greater detail in the example of fig. 7 . it is to be understood that, in the example of fig. 6 , any of a variety of other methods for endpoint and/or feature detection can be employed. for example, features can be detected through the use of a pattern matching algorithm that may scan a given silhouette image for one or more elongated finger shapes. the data output from each of the image resolvers 262 is input to an image combiner 264 . the image combiner 264 finds correspondence between the features detected by the first camera 254 and the features detected by the second camera 256 . various techniques can be employed to guide the correspondence process of the image combiner 264 . for example, a calibration of the stereo optical geometry associated with the first camera 254 and the second camera 256 constrains the allowed position of the a given feature from the first camera 254 to a contour (i.e., epipolar line) on the image of the second camera 256 . in addition, in the example of a user's hand being the sensorless input object, detected fingertips from each of the first and second cameras 254 and 256 can be organized into groups associated with the given user's hands. for example, the silhouette image that is output from each of the image comparators 260 can be used to determine connectivity of the detected fingertips to a common hand. the image combiner 264 can use the finger-to-hand association information to further guide the process of finding correspondences between fingertips from the images associated with the first camera 254 and the second camera 256 . fig. 7 demonstrates a composite image associated with the data output from the image combiner 264 . specifically, fig. 7 illustrates a first image 300 and a second image 302 of a sensorless input object, demonstrated in the example of fig. 7 as a user's hand. it is to be understood that the image combiner 264 may not actually construct the first image 300 and the second image 302 , but that the images 300 and 302 are demonstrated for illustrative purposes. it is to be further understood that, in the discussion of fig. 7 , reference will be made to fig. 6 , but the example of fig. 7 is not limited to the gesture interface system 250 of fig. 6 . the first image 300 could have been received by the first camera 254 and the second image 302 could have been received by the second camera 256 . the first image 300 and the second image 302 could have been received as silhouette images by each of the respective cameras 254 and 256 . due to parallax caused by the separate locations of the cameras 254 and 256 , the first image 300 and the second image 302 are demonstrated in the example of fig. 7 as spaced apart from each other by a distance x. in the example of fig. 7 , the first image 300 and the second image 302 have each been illustrated as having undergone a two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution filtering and feature detection operation. accordingly, each of the first image 300 and the second image 302 appear as they would after being output from the respective image resolver 262 . the resultant data output from the image resolvers 262 appears as positive and negative value pixels. the positive value pixels appear at the edges of space occupied by the user's hand, demonstrated by the lightly shaded portion 304 . the negative value pixels appear at the edges of space not occupied by the user's hand, demonstrated by the darker shaded portion 306 . a brief description of the two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution filtering operation follows. the data output from the filters 262 is achieved first by a gaussian convolution operation, such that the pixels of the user's hand undergo an averaging distribution. the result of the gaussian operation is such that the image of the user's hand appears blurred at the edge. a laplacian operation is then performed on the gaussian image, such that the pixels of the user's hand undergo a two-dimensional second derivative operation. the result of the laplacian operation is such that the two-dimensional edge boundary of the user's hand and the surrounding space is clearly defined. when the two operations are combined, positive and negative convolution data can be ascertained, for example, resulting in the positive value pixels of the lightly shaded portion 304 and the negative value pixels of the darker shaded portion 306 . it is to be understood that the polarity of the pixels could be the opposite, resulting in negative value pixels of the lightly shaded portion 304 and positive value pixels of the darker shaded portion 306 , depending on the image polarity. it is to be further understood that the two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution operation can be performed in a variety of different manners, such as, for example, by reversing the procedure to perform the laplacian operation first. furthermore, the two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution filtering operation can be tuned to increase or decrease the size of the distribution of the shaded portions 304 and 306 . the positive and negative convolution data can be interpreted by the image resolver 262 to determine the presence of one or more end-points and/or other features. in the example of fig. 7 , the detected features are fingertips 308 and 310 . for example, the image resolver 262 could determine the presence of a fingertip in the example of fig. 7 by evaluating the distribution of the positive value pixels in the lightly shaded portion 304 . if the two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution filtering operation is tuned to provide positive value pixels for the entirety of a user's finger, for example, then the image resolver 262 can ascertain dimensional information associated with the user's finger. from the dimensional information, the peak detector can determine the two-dimensional location of the fingertips 308 and 310 . in addition, upon determining the two-dimensional location of the fingertips 308 and 310 , the image resolver 262 can also ascertain dimensional information regarding the fingers themselves. for example, the image resolver 262 may be programmed to determine thickness, length, and orientation of a given elongated region that includes the end-point of a given sensorless input object, such as the fingers that include the detected fingertips. as an example, using the orientation of the one or more fingers can allow a gesture to be recognized by the gesture interface system 250 that is based merely on a given user pointing at the simulated object, such that the user's extended finger can behave as, for example, a laser pointer. as another example, determining dimensional information of the fingers could allow the gesture interface system 250 to recognize which of the user's fingers belong to which hand, such that, for example, a variety of two-handed gestures can be employed in operating the gesture interface system 250 . in addition, further analysis of the silhouette information in the vicinity of the fingertips allows the gesture interface system 250 to recognize which fingers belong to the same hand and which hands are likely to belong to any one user of a group of users based on the position and direction of the arm silhouettes extending from each hand. for example, multiple simultaneous inputs can be recognized defining either separate gestures on a per user basis or collaborative gestures where multiple user input is required to define a single gesture. referring back to fig. 6 , the composite images output from the image combiner 264 are input to a calibration data and location resolver 266 . the calibration data and location resolver 266 determines a three-dimensional location of the sensorless input object and associated features at a given time. for example, the example of fig. 7 demonstrates that the fingertips of the respective images 300 and 302 of the user's hand are spaced apart by a distance x. if, for example, the cameras 254 and 256 are mounted at an equal angle relative to the background surface, the fingertip of the user's hand occupies a point that is approximately located in two-dimensional space at x/2 along a line that intersects the fingertips 308 and 310 . however, differing values of x denote changes in height associated with the user's fingertip relative to the background surface. for example, as x increases, the user's hand is moving further away from the background surface. as x decreases, the user's hand is moving closer to the background surface. therefore, the calibration data and location resolver 266 interpolates the three-dimensional location of the sensorless input object and associated features based on parallax separation. the gesture interface system 250 can be calibrated to know which values of x correspond to the height of the user's fingertip relative to the background surface, such that a given value of x could correspond to a height of zero, thus denoting a touch of the user's fingertip to the background surface. the data output from the calibration data and location resolver 266 is input to a gesture recognition device 268 . the gesture recognition device 268 interprets the three-dimensional location data associated with the sensorless input object and associated features and translates changes in the location data into an input gesture. because the gesture recognition device 628 implements the location data associated with the sensorless input object, it can be programmed to recognize any of a variety of gestures that utilize changes in three-dimensional shape and/or physical location of the sensorless input object and/or associated features. the gesture recognition device 268 can also be programmed to recognize gestures from multiple users simultaneously, as described above. in addition, the gesture recognition device 268 can also evaluate not only changes in the three-dimensional shape and/or physical location of the sensorless input object, but also a time threshold associated with its motion. moreover, any of a variety of input gestures could be formed from six-degree of freedom motion based on changes in three-dimensional location and orientation of the sensorless input object and any associated features. it is to be understood that a given gesture recognition interface system is not intended to be limited by the example of figs. 5-7 . other implementations are possible for providing inputs in accordance with an aspect of the invention. for example, one or more of the devices in the controller 252 could be integral with other devices, or could be separate from the controller 252 . for example, the cameras 254 and 256 could each input their respective images to a common digitizer 258 . furthermore, the image resolvers 262 are but one way to determine the features of the sensorless input object, and that other algorithms may be employed in place of a two-dimensional laplacian of gaussian convolution filtering operation. for example, a three-dimensional rendering of the sensorless input object can be achieved by combining each image from each camera, and comparing the motions with the predefined gestures. accordingly, the example of figs. 5-7 is but one of a variety of ways of providing input gestures in accordance with an aspect of the invention. fig. 8 illustrates an example of a gesture recognition simulation system 350 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the gesture recognition simulation system 350 includes four cameras 352 , each of which includes a respective ir light source 354 . the cameras 352 may each include an ir filter, such that each of the respective cameras 352 may only be able to receive ir light. the ir light sources 354 each illuminate a retroreflective surface 356 , such that ir light from the ir light sources 354 is reflected substantially directly back to the respective one of the cameras 352 . accordingly, the cameras 352 , ir light sources 354 , and retroreflective surface 356 collectively form a gesture interface system, such as the gesture interface system 200 in the example of fig. 5 . the gesture recognition simulation system 350 includes a three-dimensional display system 358 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 8 as a holograph projector. in the example of fig. 8 , the three-dimensional display system 358 projects a holographic image of a simulated object 360 . the three-dimensional display system 358 is demonstrated in the example of fig. 8 as being mounted directly above the retroreflective surface 356 , such that the holographic image of the simulated object 360 is located at the gesture interface system formed by the cameras 352 , ir light sources 354 , and retroreflective surface 356 . accordingly, a user can provide input gestures to interact directly with the holographic image of the simulated object 360 . in addition, the holographic image of the simulated object 360 can include a plurality of functional components 362 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 8 as screws attached to an end of the simulated object 360 . a sensorless input object 364 can be used to provide input gestures over the retroreflective surface 356 . to provide the interaction between the sensorless input object 364 and the given functional component 362 , a simulation application controller (not shown) can detect a three-dimensional physical location of a feature of the sensorless input object 364 . for example, the simulation application controller could utilize the gesture interface system formed by the cameras 352 , ir light sources 354 , and retroreflective surface 356 to determine the three-dimensional physical location of a feature of the sensorless input object 364 . upon determining a correlation of the physical locations of the sensorless input object 364 and a given functional component 362 , the simulation application controller can determine a gesture motion associated with the sensorless input object to determine if it corresponds with a predefined action associated with the functional component. upon determining that the input gesture corresponds with the predefined action, the simulation application controller commands the three-dimensional display system 358 to output the appropriate simulated action. in the example of fig. 8 , the sensorless input object 364 is demonstrated as a screwdriver. the simulation application controller could utilize the gesture interface system formed by the cameras 352 , ir light sources 354 , and retroreflective surface 356 to determine the three-dimensional physical location of the end-point of the screwdriver 364 . fig. 8 demonstrates that the screwdriver 364 is being used to interact with one of the functional components 362 , a screw 366 . the simulation application controller can compare the three-dimensional location of the end-point of the screwdriver 364 with the location of the screw 366 . upon determining a correlation of the physical locations of the end-point of the screwdriver 364 and the screw 366 , the simulation application controller can determine a gesture motion associated with the screwdriver 364 to determine if it corresponds with a predefined action associated with the functional component. as the user may be providing an unscrewing gesture, the simulation application controller commands the three-dimensional display system 358 to output the appropriate simulated action, which in the example of fig. 8 , is the screw 366 being unscrewed and removed from the simulated object 360 . the example of fig. 8 is provided to demonstrate one possible simulation that can be utilized by the gesture recognition simulation system 350 . as described above in the examples of figs. 1-4 , a variety of other simulations can be achieved in accordance with an aspect of the invention. as such, the gesture recognition simulation system 350 is not intended to be limited to the example of fig. 8 . fig. 9 illustrates another example of a gesture recognition simulation system 400 in accordance with an aspect of the invention. the gesture recognition simulation system 400 includes four cameras 402 , each of which includes a respective ir light source 404 . the cameras 402 may each include an ir filter, such that each of the respective cameras 402 may only be able to receive ir light. the ir light sources 404 each illuminate a retroreflective surface 406 , such that ir light from the ir light sources 404 is reflected substantially directly back to the respective one of the cameras 402 . accordingly, the cameras 402 , ir light sources 404 , and retroreflective surface 406 collectively form a gesture interface system, such as the gesture interface system 200 in the example of fig. 5 . the gesture recognition simulation system 400 includes a three-dimensional display system 408 , demonstrated in the example of fig. 9 as a three-dimensional display screen. in the example of fig. 9 , the three-dimensional display system 408 displays a three-dimensional image of a simulated object 410 . for example, the three-dimensional display system 408 in the example of fig. 9 could require a user to wear special glasses or goggles to be able to view the simulated object 410 in three-dimensions. the three-dimensional display system 408 is demonstrated in the example of fig. 9 as being mounted next to the retroreflective surface 406 , such that the display of the simulated object 410 is located at the gesture interface system formed by the cameras 402 , ir light sources 404 , and retroreflective surface 406 . accordingly, a user can provide input gestures to interact directly with the display of the simulated object 410 . in addition, the display of the simulated object 410 can include a plurality of functional components 412 . the three-dimensional display system 408 can also be configured to display a plurality of simulated tools 414 . in the example of fig. 9 , the simulated tools 414 are demonstrated as a screwdriver, a wrench, and a hammer. a user's hand 416 can be used as a sensorless input object to provide input gestures over the retroreflective surface 406 . in the example of fig. 9 , the input gestures that can be provided to the gesture recognition simulation system 400 can include grabbing and manipulating the simulated tools 414 , such that the simulated tools 414 can also act as functional components that are reactive to the user's hand 416 . for example, a simulation application controller (not shown) can detect a three-dimensional physical location of the user's hand 416 using the gesture interface system formed by the cameras 402 , ir light sources 404 , and retroreflective surface 406 . upon determining a correlation of the physical locations of the user's hand 416 and a given one of the simulated tools 414 , the simulation application controller can determine a gesture motion associated with the sensorless input object to determine if it corresponds with a predefined action, such as grabbing the given simulated tool 414 . upon grabbing the simulated tool 414 , the simulation application controller could determine input gestures using the user's hand 416 that incorporate the simulated tool 414 . for example, a wrist-turning motion of the user's hand 416 while manipulating the simulated screwdriver 414 could be interpreted as an unscrewing gesture, such as described above in the example of fig. 8 . the simulation application controller could determine orientation of the simulated tool 414 based on the input gestures associated with the user's hand 416 , such that the simulation application controller could determine a three-dimensional physical location of an end-point of the simulated tool 414 . therefore, the simulation application controller can compare the three-dimensional location of the end-point of the simulated tool 414 with the location of a given functional component 412 . accordingly, the simulated tool 414 can act as a sensorless input object as an extension of input gestures that are provided using the user's hand 416 . the example of fig. 9 is provided to demonstrate one possible simulation that can be utilized by the gesture recognition simulation system 400 . as described above in the examples of figs. 1-4 , a variety of other simulations can be achieved in accordance with an aspect of the invention. as such, the gesture recognition simulation system 400 is not intended to be limited to the example of fig. 9 . in view of the foregoing structural and functional features described above, a methodology in accordance with various aspects of the present invention will be better appreciated with reference to fig. 10 . while, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the methodologies of fig. 10 are shown and described as executing serially, it is to be understood and appreciated that the present invention is not limited by the illustrated order, as some aspects could, in accordance with the present invention, occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other aspects from that shown and described herein. moreover, not all illustrated features may be required to implement a methodology in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. fig. 10 illustrates an example of a method 450 for gesture recognition simulation in accordance with an aspect of the invention. at 452 , a background surface is illuminated. the illumination could be provided by ir light sources, and the background surface could be retroreflective. at 454 , a plurality of images associated with a plurality of cameras are generated. the plurality of cameras could include ir filters, such that the plurality of cameras can only detect light in the ir spectrum. the plurality of images could be based on a reflected light contrast between a sensorless input object and the background surface. the sensorless input object could be a user's hand, a tool, or multiple hands and/or tools from the same or multiple users. at 456 , input gestures associated with the sensorless input object are determined. the determination of the input gesture could be based on changes in three-dimensional shape and/or physical location associated with the sensorless input object. at 458 , a three-dimensional image of at least one simulated object is generated. the at least one simulated object can have at least one functional component with which a user can interact. the three-dimensional image of the at least one simulated object could be generated from holograph projector or could be displayed on a three-dimensional display screen, such that a user can use goggles or glasses to view the three-dimensional simulated object. at 460 , the input gesture is matched with a predefined action associated with at least one functional component. the matching can occur through a simulation application controller comparing relative locations of the functional component and the sensorless input object in three-dimensional space. upon determining that the locations match, the simulation application controller could determine whether the gesture motion component of the input gesture corresponds to one of the predefined actions associated with the functional component. at 462 , a simulated action associated with the predefined action is displayed on the functional component of the simulated object. the simulated action can be displayed as occurring while the input gesture occurs. what have been described above are examples of the present invention. it is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the present invention, but one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that many further combinations and permutations of the present invention are possible. accordingly, the present invention is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
095-247-727-540-595	JP	[ "WO", "US", "CN", "JP" ]	C08J5/18,B32B7/023,B32B9/00,B32B27/36,C08G64/04,C08J7/04,H01B5/14,C08L69/00,G06F3/041,C08J7/046	2018-06-01T00:00:00	2018	[ "C08", "B32", "H01", "G06" ]	transparent film and transparent electrode	provided is a transparent film having advantages including excellent heat resistance and even birefringence, which has been less affected by the film formation conditions. the transparent film according to one embodiment includes a polycarbonate resin (a) having a constituent unit represented by general formula (1), and has a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 -12 m 2 /n or less.	1 . a transparent film comprising a resin composition including a polycarbonate resin (a) having a structural unit represented by formula (1) and having a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 −12 m 2 /n or less: wherein r 1 to r 4 are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and x is a single bond or a group represented by the following formula (2): wherein r 5 and r 6 are a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and at least one of r 5 and r 6 is an aryl group. 2 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the resin composition further includes a polycarbonate resin (b) including a structural unit represented by formula (3). 3 . the transparent film according to claim 2 , wherein a ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to a total mass of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b) is 10 to 100% by mass. 4 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the structural unit represented by formula (1) includes a structural unit represented by the following formula (4) or (5). 5 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the resin composition has a glass transition temperature of 150 to 185° c. 6 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the resin composition has a shear viscosity at 300° c. and a shear rate of 30 to 250 sec −1 of 300 to 1200 pa·s. 7 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the transparent film has a thickness of 30 to 200 μm. 8 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , further laminated with a high hardness resin layer having a pencil hardness of h or more. 9 . an optical film comprising the transparent film according to claim 1 . 10 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the transparent film is a film for a transparent electrode base material. 11 . a transparent electrode comprising the transparent film according to claim 10 and a transparent electrode layer laminated on the transparent film. 12 . the transparent electrode according to claim 11 , wherein the transparent electrode layer includes one or more of ato (antimony-doped indium oxide), fto (fluorine-doped tin oxide), azo (aluminum-doped zinc oxide), gzo (gallium-doped zinc oxide), ito (indium tin composite oxide), ag, cu, au, and a carbon nanotube. 13 . the transparent film according to claim 1 , wherein the transparent film is a protective film.	technical field the present invention relates to a transparent film including a polycarbonate resin, and particularly a transparent film useful as a film constituting an optical film and a base material film. background art polycarbonate resins are used in various fields as a general-purpose engineering plastic having excellent transparency, impact resistance, heat resistance, dimensional stability, and the like. one characteristic application of polycarbonate resins is in the optical field, which utilizes their excellent transparency. a common polycarbonate resin is derived from bisphenol a and has a relatively high refractive index, and therefore its use as an optical lens is being studied. for example, patent literature 1 states that a polycarbonate resin obtained by copolymerizing specific structural units has excellent optical properties and impact resistance, and can be used for a spectacle lens or a camera lens. further, patent literature 2 discloses an optical component made of an aromatic polycarbonate, and mentions an optical disc substrate, a pickup lens, and the like as specific examples of the optical component. in addition, the use of polycarbonate resins in various films is also being investigated, and examples of such applications include films for electronic and electrical device parts, optical films, heat-resistant films, electrically insulating films, and the like (patent literature 3). patent literature 3 describes a polycarbonate film obtained by molding a polycarbonate copolymer having specific structural units, and states that the polycarbonate film has particularly excellent mechanical strength, heat resistance, and the like. still further, research and development is being actively carried out to develop polycarbonate resins in a wide range of technical fields by utilizing the excellent properties of polycarbonate resin, but currently many of those are still in the process of development, and there is much room for improvement in terms of their properties. in the future, it is expected that the use of polycarbonate resins in a wider range of film applications will be investigated, and therefore, it is desired to develop a polycarbonate resin film having properties suitable for each application. prior art documents patent documents patent document 1: japanese patent laid-open no. 2017-210569patent document 2: japanese patent laid-open no. 10-109950patent document 3: japanese patent no. 3131031 summary of the invention problems to be solved by the invention it is an object of the present invention is to provide a transparent film in which birefringence is not easily affected by film formation conditions. means for solving the problems the present invention is as follows. [1] a transparent film comprising a resin composition including a polycarbonate resin (a) having a structural unit represented by formula (1) and having a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 −12 m 2 /n or less: wherein r 1 to r 4 are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and x is a single bond or a group represented by the following formula (2): wherein r 5 and r 6 are a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and at least one of r 5 and r 6 is an aryl group. [1-1] a transparent film comprising a polycarbonate resin (a) including a structural unit represented by formula (1) and having a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 12 m 2 /n or less: wherein r 1 to r 4 are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and x is a single bond or a group represented by the following formula (2): wherein r 5 and r 6 are a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and at least one of r 5 and r 6 is an aryl group, provided that a case where the polycarbonate resin (a) is a copolymer including a structural unit represented by formula (1) and a structural unit represented by the following formula (3) is excluded. [1-2] the transparent film according to [1] or [1-1], wherein the structural unit represented by formula (1) is included in a ratio of 70 to 100 mol % with respect to all of the structural units of the polycarbonate resin (a). [1-3] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [1-2], wherein the polycarbonate resin (a) has a viscosity average molecular weight of 7,000 to 35,000. [2] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [1-3], wherein the resin composition further includes a polycarbonate resin (b) having a structural unit represented by formula (3). [2-1] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [1-3], wherein the resin composition further comprises a polycarbonate resin (b) including a structural unit represented by formula (3): provided that a case where the polycarbonate resin (b) is a copolymer including a structural unit represented by formula (1) and a structural unit represented by formula (3) is excluded. [2-2] the transparent film according to [2] or [2-1], wherein the structural unit represented by formula (3) is included in a ratio of 70 to 100 mol % with respect to all of the structural units of the polycarbonate resin (b). [2-3] the transparent film according to any of [2] to [2-2], wherein the polycarbonate resin (b) has a viscosity average molecular weight of 10,000 to 35,000. [3] the transparent film according to any of [2] to [2-3], wherein a ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to a total mass of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b) is 10 to 100% by mass. [4] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [3], wherein the structural unit represented by formula (1) includes a structural unit represented by the following formula (4) or (5). [5] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [4], wherein the resin composition has a glass transition temperature of 150 to 185° c. [6] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [5], wherein the resin composition has a shear viscosity at 300° c. and a shear rate of 30 to 250 sec 1 of 300 to 1200 pa·s. [6-1] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [6], wherein the transparent film has a haze of 0 to 1.5% at a thickness of 160 μm. [7] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [6-1], wherein the transparent film has a thickness of 30 to 200 μm. [8] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [7], further laminated with a high hardness resin layer having a pencil hardness of h or more. [9] an optical film comprising the transparent film according to any of [1] to [8]. [10] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [8], wherein the transparent film is a film for a transparent electrode base material. [11] a transparent electrode comprising the transparent film according to [10] and a transparent electrode layer laminated on the transparent film. [12] the transparent electrode according to [11], wherein the transparent electrode layer includes one or more of ato (antimony-doped indium oxide), fto (fluorine-doped tin oxide), azo (aluminum-doped zinc oxide), gzo (gallium-doped zinc oxide), ito (indium tin composite oxide), ag, cu, au, and a carbon nanotube. [13] the transparent film according to any of [1] to [8], wherein the transparent film is a protective film. advantageous effect of the invention the present invention can provide a transparent film in which birefringence is not easily affected by the film forming conditions. embodiments for carrying out the invention embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail. the transparent film of the present invention comprises a polycarbonate resin (a) including a structural unit represented by formula (1) and has a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 −2 m 2 /n or less. in formula (1), r 1 to r 4 are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and x is a single bond or a group represented by the following formula (2). in formula (2), r 5 and r 6 are a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and at least one of r 5 and r 6 is an aryl group. as described above, polycarbonate resins have various excellent properties, such as transparency, impact resistance, heat resistance, and dimensional stability, but a polycarbonate resin produced with bisphenol a as a main component tends to have a high photoelastic coefficient. in a resin having a high photoelastic coefficient, birefringence tends to fluctuate depending on the film forming conditions, particularly an external force applied to the resin during film formation (for example, holding pressure during injection, roll pressing pressure during film formation, etc.). for example, when a large external force acts during film formation, the retardation value tends to increase. therefore, when the pressure acting on the resin differs slightly depending on the position due to the mechanical properties of the film forming machine and the film forming conditions, there arises a problem in that birefringence unevenness occurs in the film, and a uniform film cannot be obtained. in particular, birefringence unevenness tends to cause a problem of poor appearance (rainbow unevenness, etc.). such a problem can be solved by the present invention of a transparent film, which uses a polycarbonate resin including a structural unit represented by formula (1) and has a low photoelastic coefficient of the film as a whole. when the photoelastic coefficient is low, birefringence is not easily affected by an external force during film formation. therefore, according to the present invention, a transparent film having birefringence that is not easily affected by the film forming conditions and that has more uniform physical properties such as birefringence and appearance can be obtained even if the pressure acting on the resin during film formation differs slightly depending on the position. the transparent film of the present invention has a photoelastic coefficient of 80×10 −12 m 2 /n or less (for example, 55 to 80×10 −12 m 2 /n), preferably 75×10 −12 m 2 /n or less (for example, 55 to 75×10 −12 m 2 /n), more preferably 73×10 −12 m 2 /n or less (for example, 55 to 73×10 −12 m 2 /n), and particularly preferably 61×10 −12 m 2 /n or less (for example, 55 to 61×10 −12 m 2 /n). as will be described in detail later, the transparent film of the present invention, in which the type (structural unit) and the content of the polycarbonate resin composition constituting the transparent film are adjusted, has a photoelastic coefficient value within a preferable range. here, the photoelastic coefficient is a value measured at a wavelength of 633 nm in an environment of 23° c. and a relative humidity of 50%. specifically, a sample film of the polycarbonate resin composition having a width of 1 cm and a length of 6 cm was prepared. then, using a spectroscopic ellipsometer (m-220, manufactured by jasco corporation) under the above environment, the retardation (re) value in the film plane was measured at a wavelength of 633 nm while applying a stress load (0 to 720 gf) to the film, and the photoelastic coefficient was calculated from the stress and the slope of re. that is, the value of (retardation (re) value)×(film width (cm))/(load (gf)) was calculated and used as the photoelastic coefficient. specifically, the value of the slope of the (approximate) straight line connecting the points indicating each measured value in a graph with the value of the stress load (0 to 720 gf) on the horizontal axis and the above re value on the vertical axis was used as the photoelastic coefficient (m 2 /n). as described above, because the birefringence of the transparent film of the present invention is not easily affected by an external force during film formation, a difference in retardation when the film is formed at different roll pressing pressures can be suppressed to a low level. that is, even if the pressure acting on the resin during film formation differs slightly depending on the position, it is possible to obtain a transparent film having more uniform physical properties, such as birefringence and appearance. for example, an average rate of change of retardation (re) at a measurement wavelength of 523 nm when the roll pressing pressure during film formation is 5 mpa and 2 mpa of 30% or less (for example, 0 to 30%) and 25% or less (for example, 0 to 25%), 23% or less and the like can be obtained. here, the average rate of change of retardation (re) is a value calculated by the following expression. average rate of change (%) of retardation (re)=(re average value when film is formed at 5 mpa−re average value when film is formed at 2 mpa)/re average value when film is formed at 5 mpa in the above expression, as described in the examples, the re average value is an average value (measurement wavelength 523 nm) of the retardation values measured at intervals of 0.5 mm in the film width direction. depending on the application of the transparent film, post-processing (for example, vapor deposition, sputtering, etc.) for imparting design properties, conductivity, and the like is required. when such post-processing is required, heat resistance is often required. in such a case, it is preferable to use a transparent film having excellent heat resistance. according to the present invention, there can also be provided a transparent film capable of successfully performing a post-processing process requiring such heat resistance. specifically, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a transparent film having a glass transition temperature of 150° c. to 185° c. the glass transition temperature can be 155 to 180° c. or 160 to 175° c. further, the transparent film of the present invention has, in a film of a thickness of 160 μm, a haze of preferably 0.0 to 1.5%, more preferably 0.0 to 1.0%, and particularly preferably 0.0 to 0.3%. by having such a haze value, the transparent film of the present invention can be suitably used in applications requiring transparency. in the present specification, a mixture of the materials constituting the transparent film of the present invention before film formation is also referred to as a “resin composition”. however, the shear viscosity of the resin composition is, when measured at 300° c. and a shear rate of 30 to 250 sec-1, preferably 300 to 1100 pa·s, more preferably 400 to 800 pa·s, and particularly preferably 500 to 700 pa·s. when the shear viscosity is in the above range, it can be said that the resin composition has more suitable fluidity for forming a film on a film. each material included in the transparent film of the present invention will now be described in detail. (1) polycarbonate resin (a) the transparent film of the present invention includes a polycarbonate resin (a) including a structural unit represented by formula (1). in formula (1), r 1 to r 4 are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and x is a single bond or a group represented by the following formula (2), and preferably is a group represented by the following formula (2). in formula (2), r 5 and r 6 are a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, or an aryl group; and at least one of r 5 and r 6 is an aryl group. in formula (1), r 1 to r 4 represent a substituent on a phenylene group, and are preferably a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, or an aryl group having 6 to 30 carbon atoms. the alkyl group is more preferably an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, and particularly preferably an alkyl group having 1 to 4 carbon atoms. examples thereof include a methyl group, an ethyl group, an n-propyl group, an isopropyl group, an n-butyl group, an isobutyl group, a t-butyl group, and the like. the aryl group is more preferably an aryl group having 6 to 18 carbon atoms, and particularly preferably an aryl group having 6 to 12 carbon atoms. examples thereof include a phenyl group, a naphthyl group, and a biphenyl group. these alkyl and aryl groups may further have a substituent. r 1 to r 4 are preferably a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group having 1 to 4 carbon atoms, more preferably a hydrogen atom, a methyl group, or an ethyl group, and particularly preferably all of r 1 to r 4 are a hydrogen atom. examples of the alkyl group and the aryl group of r 5 and r 6 in formula (2) include the same examples as those described for r 1 to r 4 above. preferably, one of r 5 and r 6 is an alkyl group and the other is an aryl group, or both of r 5 and r 6 are an aryl group. specifically, examples of the structural unit represented by formula (1) include structural units derived from 4,4′-biphenol, 2,4′-biphenol, 2,2′-biphenol, 3,3′-dimethyl-4,4′-biphenol, 3,3′-diphenyl-4,4′-biphenol, 1,1-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-phenylethane, 1,1-bis(4-hydroxy-3-methylphenyl)-1-phenylethane, 1,1-bis(4-hydroxy-3-phenylphenyl)-1-phenylethane, bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)diphenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxy-3-methylphenyl)diphenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxy-3-phenylphenyl)diphenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)phenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)diphenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxy-3-methylphenyl)diphenylmethane, bis(4-hydroxy-3-phenylphenyl)diphenylmethane, 1,1-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-naphthylethane, and the like. the structural unit represented by formula (1) preferably includes a 1,1-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-phenylethane (a structural unit represented by the following formula (4)) or bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)diphenylmethane (a structural unit represented by the following formula (5)). the structural unit represented by formula (1) is, with respect to all of the structural units of the polycarbonate resin (a), preferably included in a ratio of 70 to 100 mol %, more preferably 80 to 100 mol %, and particularly preferably 95 to 100 mol %. by including the structural unit in such a ratio, the transparent film can be sufficiently provided with the preferable properties described above due to the structural unit represented by formula (1). the polycarbonate resin (a) may include any structural unit other than the structural unit represented by formula (1), but it is preferable that the polycarbonate resin (a) be composed of only the structural unit represented by formula (1). the other structural unit may be any structural unit that can be included in a conventional polycarbonate resin. the polycarbonate resin (a) may include one or two or more of the structural unit represented by formula (1). the polycarbonate resin (a) has a viscosity average molecular weight of preferably 7,000 to 35,000, more preferably 8,000 to 28,000, and particularly preferably 12,000 to 23,000. by setting the molecular weight in such a range, the resin composition can be provided with fluidity suitable for film molding. the polycarbonate resin (a) can be produced by reacting a monomer for deriving a structural unit represented by formula (1) and optionally a monomer for deriving another structural unit with a carbonic acid ester-forming compound. specifically, the polycarbonate resin (a) can be produced by a known method used in producing polycarbonate resins, for example, a direct reaction between a bisphenol and phosgene (phosgene method), or a transesterification reaction between a bisphenol and bisaryl carbonate (transesterification method), or the like. examples of the carbonic acid ester-forming compound include phosgene and bisaryl carbonates such as diphenyl carbonate, di-p-tolyl carbonate, phenyl-p-tolyl carbonate, di-p-chlorophenyl carbonate, and dinaphthyl carbonate. these compounds may be used singly or in combinations of two or more. in the phosgene method, usually, the monomer for deriving the structural unit represented by formula (1) and optionally the monomer for deriving another structural unit are reacted with phosgene in the presence of an acid binder and a solvent. as the acid binder, for example, pyridine or a hydroxide of an alkali metal such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, and the like are used. as the solvent, for example, methylene chloride, chloroform and the like are used. further, in order to promote a polycondensation reaction, it is preferable to add a catalyst such as a tertiary amine like triethylamine or a quaternary ammonium salt, and in order to adjust the degree of polymerization, it is preferable to add a monofunctional group compound such as phenol, p-t-butylphenol, p-cumylphenol, or a long-chain alkyl-substituted phenol. in addition, a small amount of an antioxidant, such as sodium sulfite or hydrosulfite, or a branching agent, such as phloroglucinol or isatin bisphenol may also optionally be added. the reaction temperature is usually in the range of 0 to 150° c., and preferably in the range of 5 to 40° c. the reaction time depends on the reaction temperature, but is usually 0.5 minutes to 10 hours, and preferably 1 minute to 2 hours. further, it is preferable to keep the ph of the reaction system at 10 or more during the reaction. on the other hand, in the transesterification method, the monomer for deriving the structural unit represented by formula (1) and optionally the monomer for deriving another structural unit are mixed with a bisaryl carbonate and reacted at a high temperature and reduced pressure. the reaction is usually carried out at a temperature in the range of 150 to 350° c., and preferably in the range 200 to 300° c., and the pressure is finally preferably reduced to 133 pa or less to distill out of the system the phenols derived from the bisaryl carbonate produced in the transesterification reaction. the reaction time depends on the reaction temperature, how much the pressure is reduced, and the like, but is usually about 1 to 24 hours. the reaction is preferably carried out in an inert gas atmosphere, such as in nitrogen or argon. further, a molecular weight modifier, an antioxidant, a branching agent, and the like may also optionally be added. (2) polycarbonate resin (b) the transparent film of the present invention may further include a polycarbonate resin (b) including a structural unit represented by the following formula (3). the structural unit represented by formula (3) is, with respect to all of the structural units of the polycarbonate resin (b), preferably included in a ratio of 80 to 100 mol %, more preferably 90 to 100 mol %, and particularly preferably 95 to 100 mol %. by including the polycarbonate resin (b) in such a ratio, the resin composition can be sufficiently provided with fluidity suitable for film formation. the polycarbonate resin (b) is not limited to being composed of only a structural unit represented by formula (3)(bisphenol a), and may include any structural unit other than the structural unit represented by formula (3). however, it is preferable that the polycarbonate resin (b) be composed of only the structural unit represented by formula (3). the other structural unit may be any structural unit that can be included in a conventional polycarbonate resin. the polycarbonate resin (b) has a viscosity average molecular weight of preferably 10,000 to 35,000, more preferably 22,000 to 35,000, and particularly preferably 25,000 to 35,000. by setting the molecular weight in such a range, it is possible to secure fluidity suitable for film molding, and at the same time, and impart mechanical properties such as bending resistance and impact resistance, which are important in the processes after film molding, to the film. the ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to the total mass of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b) is preferably 10 to 100% by mass, more preferably 30 to 100% by mass, and particularly preferably 50 to 100% by mass. further, the upper limit of the preferable range of the ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to the total mass is not limited to 100% by mass, and may be, for example, 90% by mass, 80% by mass, 70% by mass, or 60% by mass. the ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to the total mass may be, for example, 10 to 90% by mass, 10 to 80% by mass, 10 to 70% by mass, 10 to 60% by mass, and the like, or may be 30 to 90% by mass, 30 to 80% by mass, 30 to 70% by mass, 30 to 60% by mass, and the like, or may be 50 to 90% by mass, 50 to 80% by mass, 50 to 70% by mass, 50 or 60% by mass, and the like. by including the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b) in the above-mentioned ratios, a resin composition can be obtained that has a sufficient level of the above-described properties of the polycarbonate resin (a) as well as has good fluidity derived from the polycarbonate resin (b). as the ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) in the resin composition increases, the photoelastic coefficient tends to decrease, the impact on birefringence by an external force during film formation tends to decrease, and the glass transition temperature tends to increase. therefore, it is more preferable that the proportion of the polycarbonate resin (a) be larger than the proportion of the polycarbonate resin (b). as the resin composition constituting the transparent film, a copolymer including the structural unit represented by formula (1) and the structural unit represented by the above formula (3) in the same polymer chain may be used. the ratio of the structural unit represented by formula (1) to the total number of moles of the structural unit represented by formula (1) and the structural unit represented by formula (3) in such a copolymer is the same as the ratio of the polycarbonate resin (a) to the total mass of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b) described above. however, in the case of including the polycarbonate resin (b), it is preferable that the polycarbonate resin (b) be included in the resin composition as a blend with the polycarbonate resin (a), that is, the resin composition constituting the transparent film is preferably a mixture of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b). in a resin composition mainly using a mixture of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b), it is possible to broaden the range of selection of the molecular weights of the polycarbonate resin (a) and the polycarbonate resin (b). further, since molecular weight is also related to glass transition temperature and fluidity (viscosity), these properties can be easily adjusted in the resin composition which is a mixture. therefore, the proportion of the above-described copolymer in the resin composition is preferably low, for example, 30% by mass or less, preferably 20% by mass or less, and more preferably 10% by mass or less in the resin composition. further, it is preferable that the copolymer including the structural unit represented by formula (1) and the structural unit represented by formula (3) not be included in the resin composition. as the polycarbonate resin (b), a commercially available polycarbonate resin can be used, or a polycarbonate resin produced by the same method as described above for the polycarbonate resin (a) can be used. the resin composition preferably has a glass transition temperature of 150 to 185° c., more preferably 155 to 180° c., and further preferably 160 to 175° c. the resin composition has a shear viscosity at 300° c. and a shear rate of 30 to 250 sec −1 of preferably 300 to 1200 pa·s, preferably 400 to 1150 pa·s, and further preferably 500 to 1100 pa·s. (3) other components the resin composition may contain various additives within a range that does not deviate from the spirit of the present invention. examples of the additive include at least one additive selected from the group consisting of a heat stabilizer, an antioxidant, a flame retardant, a flame retardant aid, an ultraviolet absorber, a mold release agent, and a colorant. further, an antistatic agent, a fluorescent whitening agent, an antifogging agent, a fluidity improving agent, a plasticizer, a dispersant, an antibacterial agent, and the like may be added as long as the desired physical properties are not significantly impaired. examples of the heat stabilizer include phenol-based, phosphorus-based, and sulfur-based heat stabilizers. specifically, examples may include phosphorus oxo acids, such as phosphoric acid, phosphonic acid, phosphorous acid, phosphinic acid, and polyphosphoric acid; acidic pyrophosphate metal salts, such as acidic sodium pyrophosphate, acidic potassium pyrophosphate, and acidic calcium pyrophosphate; phosphates of group 1 or group 10 metals, such as potassium phosphate, sodium phosphate, cesium phosphate, and zinc phosphate; organic phosphate compounds, organic phosphite compounds, organic phosphonite compounds, and the like. alternatively, examples include at least one selected from the group consisting of a phosphite ester compound (a), phosphite (b), and tetrakis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl)-4,4′-biphenylene-di-phosphonite (c) including in the molecule at least one ester group esterified by a phenol and/or a phenol having at least one alkyl group having 1 to 25 carbon atoms. specific examples of the phosphite ester compound (a) include trioctyl phosphite, trioctadecyl phosphite, tridecyl phosphite, trilauryl phosphite, tristearyl phosphite, triphenyl phosphite, tris(monononylphenyl) phosphite, tris(monononyl/dinonyl-phenyl) phosphite, trisnonylphenyl phosphite, tris(octylphenyl) phosphite, tris(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl) phosphite, trinonylphosphite, didecylmonophenyl phosphite, dioctylmonophenyl phosphite, diisopropylmonophenyl phosphite, monobutyldiphenyl phosphite, monodecyldiphenyl phosphite, bis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl)pentaerythritol phosphite, bis(2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenyl) pentaerythritol phosphite, monooctyldiphenyl phosphite, distearyl pentaerythritol diphosphite, tricyclohexyl phosphite, diphenyl pentaerythritol diphosphite, bis(2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenyl) pentaerythritol diphosphite, 2,2-methylenebis(4,6-di-tert-butylphenyl) octylphosphite, bis(nonylphenyl) pentaerythritol diphosphite, bis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl) pentaerythritol diphosphite, bis(2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-ethylphenyl) pentaerythritol diphosphate, and the like. these may be used singly or in combinations of two or more. specific examples of the organic phosphite compound include “adeka stab 1178”, “adeka stab 2112” and “adeka stab hp-10” manufactured by adeka corporation; “jp-351” and “jp-360”, and “jp-3cp” manufactured by johoku chemical co., ltd.; “irgafos 168” manufactured by ciba specialty chemicals, and the like. examples of the organic phosphate include trimethyl phosphate, triethyl phosphate, tributyl phosphate, trioctyl phosphate, triphenyl phosphate, tricresyl phosphate, tris(nonylphenyl) phosphate, 2-ethylphenyldiphenyl phosphate, and the like. in the case of adding the heat stabilizer, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 0.001 to 1 part by mass, more preferably 0.01 to 0.7 parts by mass, and particularly preferably 0.03 to 0.5 parts by mass. by adding in such an amount, a sufficient heat stabilizing effect can be obtained. examples of the antioxidant include a phenol-based antioxidant, a hindered phenol-based antioxidant, a bisphenol-based antioxidant, a polyphenol-based antioxidant, and the like. specifically, examples may include 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol, tris(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl) isocyanurate, n-octadecyl-3-(3′,5′-di-tert-butyl-4′-hydroxyphenyl) propionate, tetrakis[methylene-3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate] methane, 4,4′-butylidenebis-(3-methyl-6-tert-butylphenol), triethylene glycol-bis[3-(3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-5-methylphenyl)propionate], 3,9-bis{2-[3-(3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-5-methylphenyl)propionyloxy]-1,1-dimethylethyl}-2,4,8,10-tetraoxaspiro[5,5]undecane, pentaerythritol tetrakis[3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate], thiodiethylene bis[3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate], n,n′-hexane-1,6-diyl bis[3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenylpropionamide), 2,4-dimethyl-6-(1-methylpentadecyl) phenol, diethyl [[3,5-bis(1,1-dimethylethyl)-4-hydroxyphenyl]methyl] phosphate, 3,3′,3″,5,5′,5″-hexa-tert-butyl-a,a′,a″-(mesitylene-2,4,6-triyl) tri-p-cresol, 4,6-bis(octylthiomethyl)-o-cresol, ethylene bis(oxyethylene) bis[3-(5-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-m-tolyl)propionate], hexamethylene bis[3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionate], 1,3,5-tris(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6(1h,3h,5h)-trione, 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-(4,6-bis(octylthio)-1,3,5-triazin-2-ylamino) phenol, and the like. specific examples of the phenol-based antioxidant include “irganox (registered trademark) 1010” and “irganox (registered trademark) 1076” manufactured by ciba specialty chemicals co., ltd.; “adeka stab ao-50”, “adeka stab ao-60,” manufactured by adeka corporation and the like. in the case of adding the antioxidant, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 0.001 to 1 part by mass, and more preferably 0.01 to 0.5 parts by mass. by adding in such an amount, a sufficient antioxidant effect can be obtained. examples of the flame retardant include an organic sulfonic acid metal salt and the like. examples of the organic sulfonic acid metal salt include an aliphatic sulfonic acid metal salt and an aromatic sulfonic acid metal salt. these may be used singly or in combinations of two or more. further, as the metal salt, an alkali metal salt and an alkaline earth metal salt are preferable. examples of the alkali metal include sodium, lithium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium. examples of the alkaline earth metal include calcium, strontium, and the like. an alkali metal such as sodium, potassium, rubidium, or cesium is more preferable, and sodium or potassium is particularly preferable. by employing such a metal, it is possible to obtain effects such as effectively promoting the formation of a carbonized layer during combustion and maintaining high transparency. examples of the aliphatic sulfonic acid salt include preferably a fluoroalkane-sulfonic acid metal salt, and more preferably a perfluoroalkane-sulfonic acid metal salt. further, examples of the fluoroalkane-sulfonic acid metal salt include an alkali metal salt and an alkaline earth metal salt, and an alkali metal salt is preferable. the number of carbon atoms of the fluoroalkane sulfonic acid metal salt is preferably 1 to 8, and more preferably 2 to 4. by setting the number of carbon atoms in such a range, an effect is obtained of enabling a high transparency to be maintained. specific preferable examples of the fluoroalkane-sulfonic acid metal salt include sodium perfluorobutane-sulfonate, potassium perfluorobutane-sulfonate, sodium perfluoroethane-sulfonate, potassium perfluoroethane-sulfonate, and the like. examples of the aromatic sulfonic acid metal salt include an alkali metal salt and an alkaline earth metal salt, and an alkali metal salt is preferable. specific examples of the aromatic sulfonic acid alkali metal salt include sodium 3,4-dichlorobenzenesulfonate, sodium 2,4,5-trichlorobenzenesulfonate, sodium benzenesulfonate,sodiumdiphenylsulfone-3-sulfonate,potassiumdiphenylsulfone-3-sulfonate, sodium 4,4′-dibromodiphenylsulfone-3-sulfonate, potassium 4,4′-dibromophenylsulfone-3-sulfonate, disodium diphenylsulfone-3,3′-disulfonate, dipotassium diphenylsulfone-3,3′-disulfonate, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, potassium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, potassium p-toluenesulfonate, potassium p-styrenesulfonate, and the like. preferably, particularly from the viewpoint of improving transparency, the organic sulfonic acid metal salt is potassium diphenylsulfone-3-sulfonate, potassium p-toluenesulfonate, potassium p-styrenesulfonate acid, or potassium dodecylbenzenesulfonate acid, and more preferably is potassium diphenylsulfone-3-sulfonate. a flame retardant other than the organic sulfonic acid metal salt may be added, and examples thereof include a silicone compound. the silicone compound preferably has a phenyl group in the molecule. by having a phenyl group, the dispersibility of the silicone compound in the polycarbonate is improved, and the transparency and flame retardancy are improved. the silicone compound preferably has a mass average molecular weight of 450 to 5000, more preferably 750 to 4000, further preferably 1000 to 3000, and particularly preferably 1500 to 2500. by setting the mass average molecular weight to 450 or more, film production becomes easier, adaptation to industrial production becomes easier, and the heat resistance of the silicone compound is less likely to decrease. further, by setting the mass average molecular weight of the silicone compound to 5000 or less, the dispersibility in the resin composition is improved, and deterioration in the flame retardancy of the film and in the mechanical properties tend to be more effectively suppressed. in the case of adding the flame retardant aid, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 0.1 to 7.5 parts by mass, and more preferably 0.2 to 5.0 parts by mass. by adding in such an amount, sufficient flame retardancy can be obtained, and the occurrence of appearance defects can also be suppressed. examples of the ultraviolet absorber include inorganic ultraviolet absorbers, such as cerium oxide and zinc oxide, as well as organic ultraviolet absorbers, such as a benzotriazole compound, a benzophenone compound, a salicylate compound, a cyanoacrylate compound, a triazine compound, an oxanilide compound, a malonic acid ester compound, a hindered amine compound, and a phenyl salicylic acid compound. among these, a benzotriazole-based or benzophenone-based organic ultraviolet absorber is preferable. in particular, specific examples of the benzotriazole compound include 2-(2′-hydroxy-5′-methylphenyl)benzotriazole, 2-[2′-hydroxy-3′,5′-bis(α,α-dimethylbenzyl)phenyl]-benzotriazole, 2-(2′-hydroxy-3′,5′-di-tert-butyl-phenyl)-benzotriazole, 2-(2′-hydroxy-3′-tert-butyl-5′-methylphenyl)-5-chlorobenzotriazole, 2-(2′-hydroxy-3′,5′-di-tert-butyl-phenyl)-5-chlorobenzotriazole), 2-(2′-hydroxy-3′,5′-di-tert-amyl)-benzotriazole, 2-(2′-hydroxy-5′-tert-octylphenyl)benzotriazole, 2,2′-methylenebis[4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)-6-(2n-benzotriazol-2-yl)phenol], 2-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-5-[(hexyl)oxy]-phenol, 2-[4,6-bis(2,4-dimethylphenyl)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl]-5-(octyloxy)phenol, 2,2′-(1,4-phenylene)bis[4h-3,1-benzoxazine-4-one], [(4-methoxyphenyl)-methylene]-propanedioic acid-dimethylester, 2-(2h-benzotriazol-2-yl)-p-cresol, 2-(2h-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-bis(1-methyl-1-phenylmethyl)phenol, 2-[5-chloro(2h)-benzotriazol-2-yl]-4-methyl-6-(tert-butyl)phenol, 2,4-di-tert-butyl-6-(5-chlorobenzotriazol-2-yl)phenol, 2-(2h-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(1,1,3,3-tetrabutyl)phenol, 2,2′-methylenebis [6-(2h-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(1,1,3,3-tetrabutyl)phenol], a condensation product of [methyl-3-[3-tert-butyl-5-(2h-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-hydroxyphenyl]propionate-polyethylene glycol], and the like. two or more of these may be used in combination. among the above examples, 2-(2′-hydroxy-5′-tert-octylphenyl)benzotriazole and 2,2′-methylene-bis[4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)-6-(2n-benzotriazole 2-yl)phenol] are preferable. further, specific examples of the benzophenone-based ultraviolet absorber include 2,4-dihydroxy-benzophenone, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxy-benzophenone, 2-hydroxy-4-n-octoxy-benzophenone, 2-hydroxy-4-dodecyloxy-benzophenone, 2-hydroxy-4-octadecyloxy-benzophenone, 2,2′-dihydroxy-4-methoxy-benzophenone, 2,2′-dihydroxy-4,4′-dimethoxy-benzophenone, 2,2′,4,4′-tetrahydroxy-benzophenone, and the like. further, specific examples of the phenyl salicylic acid-based ultraviolet absorber include phenyl salicylate, 4-tert-butyl-phenyl salicylate, and the like. in addition, specific examples of the triazine-based ultraviolet absorber include 2-(4,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-5-[(hexyl)oxy]-phenol, 2-[4,6-bis(2,4-dimethylphenyl)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl]-5-(octyloxy)phenol, and the like. further, specific examples of the hindered amine-based ultraviolet absorber include bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-4-yl)sebacate and the like. in the case of adding the ultraviolet absorber, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 0.01 to 3 parts by mass, and more preferably 0.1 to 1 part by mass. by adding in such an amount, excellent weather resistance is obtained, and contamination of the metal mold or cooling roll due to the occurrence of mold deposits and the like can also be suppressed. examples of the mold release agent include a carboxylic acid ester, a polysiloxane compound, paraffin wax (polyolefin based), and the like. specifically, examples may include at least one compound selected from the group consisting of an aliphatic carboxylic acid, an ester of an aliphatic carboxylic acid and an alcohol, an aliphatic hydrocarbon compound having a number average molecular weight of 200 to 15,000, and a polysiloxane-based silicone oil. examples of the aliphatic carboxylic acid include saturated or unsaturated aliphatic monovalent, divalent, or trivalent carboxylic acids. here, “aliphatic carboxylic acid” also includes an alicyclic carboxylic acid. among these, preferable aliphatic carboxylic acids include a monovalent or divalent carboxylic acid having 6 to 36 carbon atoms, and an aliphatic saturated monovalent carboxylic acid having 6 to 36 carbon atoms is more preferable. specific examples of the aliphatic carboxylic acid include palmitic acid, stearic acid, valeric acid, caproic acid, capric acid, lauric acid, araquinic acid, behenic acid, lignoseric acid, cerotic acid, melissic acid, tetratriacontanoic acid, montanic acid, glutaric acid, adipic acid, azelaic acid, and the like. specific examples of the ester of an aliphatic carboxylic acid and an alcohol include beeswax (a mixture containing myricyl palmitate as a main component), stearyl stearate, behenyl behenate, stearyl behenate, glycerin monopalmitate, glycerin monostearate, glycerin distearate, glycerin tristearate, pentaerythritol monopalmitate, pentaerythritol monostearate, pentaerythritol distearate, pentaerythritol tristearate, pentaerythritol tetrastearate, and the like. examples of the aliphatic hydrocarbon having a number average molecular weight of 200 to 15,000 include liquid paraffin, paraffin wax, microwax, polyethylene wax, fischer-tropsch wax, an α-olefin oligomer having 3 to 12 carbon atoms, and the like. here, “aliphatic hydrocarbon” also includes an alicyclic hydrocarbon. further, these hydrocarbon compounds may be partially oxidized. as such a compound, a partial oxide of paraffin wax, polyethylene wax, or polyethylene wax is preferable, and a partial oxide of paraffin wax or polyethylene wax is more preferable. the number average molecular weight is preferably 200 to 5000. these aliphatic hydrocarbons may be a single substance or a mixture of a plurality of substances having various compositions and molecular weights such that the number average molecular weight of the main components is within the above-described range. examples of the polysiloxane-based silicone oil include dimethyl silicone oil, phenyl methyl silicone oil, diphenyl silicone oil, fluorinated alkyl silicone, and the like. only one type of these release agents may be used, or two or more types may be used in combination. in the case of adding the mold release agent, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 0.001 to 2 parts by mass, and more preferably 0.01 to 1 part by mass. by adding in such an amount, sufficient mold releasability can be obtained, and deterioration in hydrolysis resistance and contamination of the film forming machine can also be suppressed, for example. as the colorant, a dye or a pigment can be used. examples thereof include an inorganic pigment, an organic pigment, and an organic dye. examples of the inorganic pigment include: sulfide pigments, such as carbon black, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow; silicate pigments, such as ultramarine blue; oxide pigments such as titanium oxide, zinc oxide, red iron oxide, chromium oxide, iron black, titanium yellow, zinc-iron brown, titanium cobalt green, cobalt green, cobalt blue, copper-chromium black, and copper-iron black; chromic acid pigments, such as chrome yellow and molybdate orange; ferrocyanide pigments such as iron blue, and the like. examples of the organic pigment and the organic dye include: phthalocyanine dyes and pigments, such as copper phthalocyanine blue and copper phthalocyanine green; azo dyes and pigments, such as nickel azo yellow; condensed polycyclic dyes and pigments, such as thioindigo, perinone, perylene, quinacridone, dioxazine, isoindolinone, and quinophthalone dyes and pigments; quinoline-based, anthraquinone-based, heterocyclic, and methyl-based dyes and pigments; and the like. among these, from the viewpoint of thermal stability, titanium oxide, carbon black, cyanine-based, quinoline-based, anthraquinone-based, phthalocyanine-based dyes and pigments and the like are preferable. in addition, only one type of colorant may be used, or two or more types may be used in combination. further, as the colorant, in order to improve handleability during film formation and to improve dispersibility in the resin composition, a masterbatch obtained by mixing a polystyrene resin, a polycarbonate resin, and an acrylic resin with the colorant may be used. in the case of adding the colorant, the added amount is, with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate resin in the resin composition (when a plurality of polycarbonate resins are included, the total mass of the polycarbonate resins), preferably 5 parts by mass or less, more preferably 3 parts by mass or less, and particularly preferably 2 parts by mass or less. by adding in such an amount, good impact resistance can be maintained. the transparent film of the present invention may optionally include a resin other than the above-described polycarbonate resin. examples of such other resins include a polycarbonate resin other than the polycarbonate resins (a) and (b); a thermoplastic polyester resin such as a polyethylene terephthalate resin (pet resin), polytrimethylene terephthalate (ptt resin), and a polybutylene terephthalate resin (pbt resin); a styrene resin such as a polystyrene resin (ps resin), a high impact polystyrene resin (hips), an acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer (as resin), and a methyl methacrylate-styrene copolymer (ms resin); an elastomer such as a core/shell type elastomer or a polyester elastomer such as a methyl methacrylate-acrylic rubber-styrene copolymer (mas); a polyolefin resin such as a cyclic cycloolefin resin (cop resin) and a cyclic cycloolefin (cop) copolymer resin; a polyamide resin (pa resin); a polyimide resin (pi resin); a polyetherimide resin (pei resin); a polyurethane resin (pu resin); a polyphenylene ether resin (ppe resin); a polyphenylene sulfide resin (pps resin); a polysulfone resin (psu resin); an acrylic resin such as a polymethylmethacrylate resin (pmma resin); polycaprolactone, and the like. in the case of adding another resin, the added amount is, with respect to the total mass of all the resins included in the resin composition, preferably 10% by mass or less, and more preferably 1% by mass or less. by adding in such an amount, there is a smaller influence on the effects of the present invention. a resin pellet can be obtained by molding a resin composition obtained by mixing the above-described materials. examples of the method include a well-known strand-type cold-cut method (a method in which a resin composition that has been melted is formed into a strand shape, cooled, and then cut into a predetermined shape to form pellets) or a hot-cut method carried out in air (a method in which a resin composition that has been melted is cut into pellets before touching water in the air), and a hot-cut method carried out in water (a method in which a resin composition that has been melted is cut in water and in simultaneously cooled to form pellets). the obtained resin pellets are preferably dried using a hot-air drying oven, a vacuum drying oven, a dehumidifying drying oven, or the like. (4) transparent film the transparent film of the present invention can be produced by appropriately using a known film forming method, but specifically, extrusion molding, cast molding, or the like is preferably used. an example of extrusion molding is a method in which pellets, flakes, or a powder of a resin composition to which additives have optionally been added are melted and kneaded with an extruder, then extruded from a t-die or the like to obtain a semi-molten sheet, which is cooled and solidified while sandwiching with a polishing roll or the like to obtain a film. the extruder may be a single-screw extruder or a twin-screw extruder, and can be vented or non-vented. an example of cast molding is a method in which the resin composition is thoroughly dissolved in a solvent, the obtained solution is cast on a support to form a film-like cast film, the cast film is dried by heating or the like to obtain a film. in this case, any solvent can be used as long as a cast film can be formed, but for example, methylene chloride, dioxolane, and the like are preferably used. the thickness of the film can be appropriately adjusted according to the application, but the thickness is preferably 30 to 200 μm, more preferably 40 to 180 μm, and particularly preferably 50 to 170 μm. with such a thickness, it is possible to obtain a film having excellent mechanical properties such as flexibility and rigidity, and good handling during secondary processing. further, another resin layer can be laminated on the transparent film of the present invention to obtain a laminated film composed of a plurality of resin layers. the other resin layer may be one layer or a plurality of layers, and can be arranged on one side or both sides of the transparent film. further, an additional layer may be present between the transparent film and the other resin layer. as the resin included in the other resin layer, the resins described above as another resin that can be added to the resin composition can be used, and a high hardness resin having a pencil hardness of h or more is preferable. using a high hardness resin having a pencil hardness of h or more enables hardness to be imparted to the laminated film. in addition, effects can be obtained such as, for example, scratch prevention during transportation when performing secondary processing and easier maintenance of the mechanical properties of the hard coat when further applying a hard coat on the high hardness resin layer. in view of such a background, it can be expected that the range of applications will be expanded by providing the high hardness resin layer. as the resin used for the high hardness resin layer, for example, a thermosetting resin, an energy ray curable resin, and a thermoplastic resin having a pencil hardness of h or more can be used. examples of the thermoplastic resin include acrylic resin and polycarbonate resin. in the case of using an acrylic resin, specifically, examples thereof include a methyl methacrylate resin (pmma: also referred to as polymethyl (meth)acrylate) polymerized from methyl methacrylate, a methyl methacrylate-vinylcyclohexane copolymer resin, and a methyl methacrylate-styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer resin. in the case of using a polycarbonate resin, specifically, examples thereof include a high-hardness polycarbonate resin including bisphenol c as a main component. (5) applications the transparent film of the present invention is not limited in terms of its shape, pattern, color, dimensions, or the like, which may be arbitrarily set according to the application thereof. the transparent film of the present invention is useful as an optical film, a base film, a protective film, and the like. specifically, the transparent film of the present invention can be used in electrical and electronic devices, oa devices, information terminal devices, mechanical parts, home appliances, vehicle parts, building materials, various containers, leisure goods/miscellaneous goods, parts of lighting devices and the like, parts of various household electric products, housings, containers, covers, storage parts, cases of electric appliances, covers and cases for lighting fixtures, and the like. examples of electrical and electronic devices include personal computers, game machines, television receivers, display devices such as liquid crystal display devices and plasma display devices, printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, electronic notebooks and pdas, electronic desk computers, electronic dictionaries, cameras, video cameras, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, battery packs, recording media drives and readers, mice, key pads, cd players, md players, portable radio/audio players, and the like. the transparent film of the present invention can also be used in illuminated signboards, liquid crystal backlights, lighting displays, traffic signs, signboards, screens, automobile parts such as reflectors and meter parts, toys, decorative items, and the like. in particular, the transparent film of the present invention can be used as a film for a transparent electrode base material. here, the transparent electrode has a transparent electrode layer arranged on one or both surfaces of a transparent base material. an additional layer may be present between the transparent base material and the transparent electrode layer. the transparent film of the present invention can be used as the transparent base material in this transparent electrode. according to one embodiment of the present invention, provided is a transparent electrode including the transparent film of the present invention and a transparent electrode layer laminated on the transparent film. the material of the transparent electrode layer is not particularly limited as long as it has conductivity, but it is preferable to include one or more conductive materials having, as a main component, an oxide conductive material typified by ato (antimony-doped indium oxide), fto (fluorine-doped tin oxide), azo (aluminum-doped zinc oxide), gzo (gallium-doped zinc oxide), and ito (indium tin composite oxide); a metal material typified by ag, cu, and au, or a carbon nanotube. the transparent electrode can be used in a film sensor for a touch panel, electronic paper, a dye-sensitized solar cell, a touch sensor, and the like. when manufacturing a transparent electrode, a heat treatment at 140° c. or higher for 30 minutes or longer is often required. in particular, when the transparent electrode layer is an ito layer, it is difficult to use a conventional polycarbonate-based film as a base material because the conductive performance improves as the annealing treatment is performed at 150° c. or higher for a longer time. in addition, since transparent electrodes are used in sites where the appearance is strictly controlled, such as in touch panel film sensors, polycarbonate films, whose birefringence is easily affected by the film forming conditions, are prone to producing a rainbow pattern, and hence the use of a polycarbonate film is often rejected. when the transparent film of the present invention is used as the base material of a transparent electrode, problems such as those described above can be solved. moreover, the transparent film of the present invention can be suitably used in foldable displays and the like by utilizing the excellent mechanical properties of the polycarbonate resin. the transparent film of the present invention can also be used as a protective film for protecting a product, and can be provided on the surface of the product for the purpose of protecting the product from being hit during transportation of the product, for example. the product to be protected is not particularly limited, and the transparent film of the present invention can be used as a film for protecting a transparent electrode like that described above, for example. when the transparent film of the present invention is used as a protective film of a transparent electrode, it is usual to remove the protective film when using the transparent electrode, but the present invention is not limited to a mode of use in which the transparent film is removed in this way. by providing an adhesive layer on one surface of the protective film, the protective film can be attached to the product. further, it is also possible to improve the slipperiness of the protective film by laminating a layer having an anti-blocking property on the surface opposite to the side on which the adhesive layer is provided. the slipperiness can be improved by providing a texture instead of laminating a layer having an anti-blocking property. examples the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to examples, but the subject matter of the present invention is not limited thereto. (synthesis example 1: synthesis of polycarbonate resin (a)) 34 liters of an 8.0% mass/mass solution of aqueous sodium hydroxide, 5800 g of 1,1-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-phenylethane (bpap) (manufactured by honshu chemical industrial co., ltd., 20.00 mol), and 10 g of hydrosulfite were charged into a 100 liter reaction vessel and mixed. 22 liters of dichloromethane was added to the resultant mixture, and 2600 g of phosgene was blown therein over 30 minutes while stirring at 15° c. after the blowing was finished, the reaction solution was emulsified by vigorously stirring for 1 minute, and 240 g of p-tertiary-butylphenol (ptbp, 1.60 mol) was added. after stirring for another 10 minutes, 20 ml of triethylamine was added, and stirring was continued for another 50 minutes. the obtained liquid was separated into an aqueous phase and an organic phase, and the organic phase was neutralized with phosphoric acid. washing with water was repeated until the conductivity of the cleaning liquid reached 10 μs/cm or less, to thereby obtain a purified resin liquid. the obtained resin solution was diluted with dichloromethane to adjust to 10.0% mass/mass. the resin solution was added dropwise to warm water maintained at 45° c., and the solvent was removed by evaporation to obtain a white precipitate. the obtained precipitate was filtered off and dried at 120° c. for 24 hours to obtain a powder of the polycarbonate resin (a). the polycarbonate resin (a) contained a structural unit represented by the above formula (4) (a structural unit derived from 1,1-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-1-phenylethane (bpap)) as a main component (bisphenol ap). the viscosity average molecular weight of the polycarbonate resin (a) was 12,000. example 1 the powder of the polycarbonate resin (a) produced in synthesis example 1 was melt-kneaded with a twin-screw extruder equipped with a vent and extruded into a film. the film was dropped between a first cooling roll and a second cooling roll of a film forming machine having three cooling rolls arranged perpendicularly to the molding direction, and the film was pressure-bonded by those rolls to obtain a film having a width of 250 mm and a thickness of 160 μm. at that time, two types of samples were obtained, one in which the pressing pressure of the first cooling roll and the second cooling roll was 5 kpa and the other in which the pressing pressure was 2 kpa. example 2 using a blender, 5.0 kg of the polycarbonate resin (a) produced in synthesis example 1 and 5.0 kg of e-2000f (a bisphenol a type polycarbonate manufactured by mitsubishi engineering-plastics corporation) having a viscosity average molecular weight of 27500, which is the polycarbonate resin (b) including a structural unit represented by the above formula (3), were stirred and uniformly mixed. using the obtained powder, a film was prepared in the same manner as in example 1. example 3 using a blender, 3.0 kg of the polycarbonate resin (a) produced in synthesis example 1 and 7.0 kg of e-2000f (manufactured by mitsubishi engineering-plastics corporation) having a viscosity average molecular weight of 27500 were stirred and uniformly mixed. using the obtained powder, a film was prepared in the same manner as in example 1. example 4 using a blender, 1.0 kg of the polycarbonate resin (a) produced in synthesis example 1 and 9.0 kg of e-2000f (manufactured by mitsubishi engineering-plastics corporation) having a viscosity average molecular weight of 27500 were stirred and uniformly mixed. using the obtained powder, a film was prepared in the same manner as in example 1. comparative example 1 a film was prepared in the same manner as in example 1 using 10.0 kg of e-2000f (manufactured by mitsubishi engineering-plastics corporation) having a viscosity average molecular weight of 27500. comparative example 2 a film was prepared in the same manner as in example 1 using 10.0 kg of the polycarbonate resin h-4000f (manufactured by mitsubishi engineering-plastics corporation) having a viscosity average molecular weight of 16000. the physical properties of the resins and films of the examples and comparative examples were evaluated as follows. (1) shear viscosity the resins of the examples and comparative examples were charged into a capillograph b1 manufactured by toyo seiki co., ltd., the resins were extruded at 300° c. from a nozzle hole (orifice) having a length of 10 mm and a diameter of 1.0 mm, and the shear viscosity at a shear rate of 30 to 250 sec −1 was measured. (2) glass transition temperature the glass transition temperature of the resins of the examples and comparative examples was measured with an extar dsc7020 manufactured by hitachi high-tech science corporation. approximately 10 mg of the object to be measured was placed in a non-sealed aluminum container, heated to 300° c. at a heating rate of 5° c./min in a nitrogen gas stream, and then the temperature was lowered to 40° c. the temperature was raised again under the same conditions to obtain a dsc curve. a tangent line was drawn on the dsc curve between two baselines before and after transition (a glass state baseline and a molten state baseline), and the temperature at the intersection of the tangent line and the baseline on the glass state side was used as the glass transition temperature. (3) photoelastic coefficient the films obtained in the examples and comparative examples were annealed. the films after the annealing treatment were subjected to a stress load (0 to 720 gf) using an ellipsometer m-220 manufactured by jasco corporation in an environment of 23° c. and a relative humidity of 50% to measure the retardation (re) value in the film plane at a wavelength of 633 nm. then, the photoelastic coefficient was calculated from the stress and the re slope. (4) haze the haze of the films obtained in the examples and comparative examples was measured using an hm-150 manufactured by murakami color research laboratory in accordance with jis k7136. (5) retardation (re) using a wpa-100 manufactured by photonics lattice inc., the retardation in the film width direction of the films produced in the examples and comparative examples (roll pressing pressures of 5 mpa and 2 mpa, respectively) was measured at 0.5 mm intervals by selecting a measurement wavelength of 523 nm. the average value of the retardation values obtained for each sample was calculated and used as the “re average value”. further, for each of the examples and comparative examples, the difference between the re average value of the sample having a roll pressing pressure of 5 mpa and the sample having a roll pressing pressure of 2 mpa (5 mpa re average value−2 mpa re average value) was calculated and used as the “re average change amount”. in addition, the ratio of the re average change amount to the re average value of the 5 mpa sample (re average change amount/5 mpa re average value) was calculated and used as the “re average change rate”. the evaluation results of the physical properties are shown in table 1 below. table 1resin (a):resin (b):glassrollrerere(main component:(main component:shearphotoelastictransitionpressingaverageaverageaveragebisphenol ap)bisphenol a)viscositycoefficienttemperaturehazepressurevaluechangechange(% by mass)(% by mass)(pa · s)(10 −12 m 2 /n)(° c.)(%)(mpa)(nm)amount (nm)rate (%)example 1100050057.11680.151192521296example 2505076061.01560.1515639252117example 3307090072.21540.1516441252130example 41090110074.11510.1521874342179comparative0100120085.11500.152378536example 12152comparative010020084.11400.1528015154example 22131 from table 1, it can be seen that birefringence in the transparent film of the present invention is not easily affected by the film forming conditions. although several embodiments of the present invention have been described above, these embodiments are presented as examples, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. these novel embodiments can be implemented in various other modes, and various omissions, replacements, and changes can be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention. these embodiments and modifications thereof are included in the scope and spirit of the invention, and are also included in the scope of the equivalents to the invention recited in the claims.
095-547-698-319-772	FR	[ "EP", "FR", "JP", "RU", "CN", "US", "WO", "BR" ]	D07B1/06,B60C9/08,B60C9/00,B60C9/02,B60C9/13	2009-12-04T00:00:00	2009	[ "D07", "B60" ]	tire comprising carcass reinforcement cables having different degrees of permeability	field: transport.substance: tire comprises at least one ply of metal reinforcing elements. said tire comprises flange reinforcements, tread being located in radial direction above said flange. said tread is connected with two beads via two side strips. at least 85% of metallic reinforcement elements of at least one ply of carcass reinforcements are untightened cords displaying at so-called permeability test wear rate smaller than 20 cm/min. at least 5% of reinforcing elements of said ply are cords. said cords comprise at least one strand of textile multifilament fibres.effect: higher fatigue and wear resistance.15 cl, 6 dwg	tyre (1) having a radial carcass reinforcement, consisting of at least one layer (2) of reinforcing elements, said tyre comprising a crown reinforcement (5), which is itself covered radially with a tread (6), said tread being joined to two beads (3) via two sidewalls, characterized in that at least 85% of the reinforcing elements of at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement are non-wrapped metal cords (7a) having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min, and in that at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement are cords (7b) comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. tyre (1) according to claim 1, characterized in that said at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min are cords having at least two layers and in that at least one inner layer is sheathed with a layer (34) consisting of a polymeric composition such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition, preferably one based on at least one diene elastomer. tyre (1) according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the cords (7a) have in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 10 cm 3 /min and preferably less than 2 cm 3 /min. tyre (1) according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that said at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement are textile cords (7b). tyre (1) according to claim 4, characterized in that the textile cords (7b) represent at most 10% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement. tyre (1) according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that said at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement are hybrid cords (7b) comprising at least one metal strand. tyre (1) according to claim 6, characterized in that said at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer (2) of the carcass reinforcement are layered cords (7b), in that the core comprises at least one strand or thread consisting of textile multifilament yarns and in that the strands of the intermediate and/or outer layers are metal strands. tyre (1) according to claim 6 or 7, characterized in that the hybrid cords (7b) represent at least 10% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement. tyre (1) according to one of claims 6 to 8, characterized in that the hybrid cords (7b) are cords having at least three layers and in that at least one intermediate layer is sheathed with a layer (64) consisting of a polymeric composition such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition, preferably one based on at least one diene elastomer. tyre (1) according to one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that said at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement are layered metal cords (7a) of [l+m] or [l+m+n] construction, comprising a first layer c1 having l threads of diameter d 1 where l ranges from 1 to 4, surrounded by at least one intermediate layer c2 having m threads of diameter d 2 wound together in a helix with a pitch p 2 where m ranges from 3 to 12, said layer c2 being optionally surrounded by an outer layer c3 of n threads of diameter d 3 wound together in a helix with a pitch p 3 where n ranges from 8 to 20, and in that a sheath (34) consisting of a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition based on at least one diene elastomer covers, in the [l+m] construction, said first layer c1 and, in the [l+m+n] construction, at least said layer c2. tyre (1) according to claim 10, characterized in that the diameter of the threads of the first layer c1 is between 0.10 and 0.5 mm, and in that the diameter of the threads of the layers c2, c3 is between 0.10 and 0.5 mm. tyre (1) according to claim 10 or 11, characterized in that said threads of the outer layer c3 are helically wound with a helix pitch of between 8 and 25 mm. tyre (1) according to one of claims 2 to 12, characterized in that the diene elastomer is selected from the group consisting of polybutadienes, natural rubber, synthetic polyisoprenes, butadiene copolymers, isoprene copolymers, and blends of these elastomers. tyre (1) according to one of claims 2 to 13, characterized in that the crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition based on at least one diene elastomer has, in the crosslinked state, a secant modulus in extension of less than 20 mpa and preferably less than 12 mpa.	the present invention relates to a tire having a radial carcass reinforcement and more particularly to a tire intended to equip heavy-goods vehicles running at sustained speed, such as, for example, lorries, tractors, trailers or buses. in general in heavy-goods vehicle tires, the carcass reinforcement is anchored on either side in the region of the bead and is surmounted radially by a crown reinforcement consisting of at least two superposed layers formed from threads or cords that are parallel in each layer and crossed from one layer to the next, making angles of between 10° and 45° with the circumferential direction. said working layers, forming the working reinforcement, may further be covered with at least one protective layer formed from advantageously extensible metal reinforcing elements, called elastic elements. it may also comprise a layer of low-extensibility metal threads or cords making an angle of between 45° and 90° with the circumferential direction, this ply, called triangulation ply, being located radially between the carcass reinforcement and the first crown ply called the working ply, these being formed from parallel threads or cords at angles of at most equal to 45° in absolute value. the triangulation ply forms, with at least said working ply, a triangulated reinforcement which undergoes, when subjected to the various stresses, little deformation, the essential role of the triangulation ply being to take up the transverse compressive forces to which all of the reinforcing elements in the crown region of the tire are subjected. in the case of heavy-goods vehicle tires, a single protective layer is usually present and its protecting elements are, in most cases, oriented in the same direction and at the same angle in absolute value as those of the reinforcing elements of the radially outermost, and therefore radially adjacent, working layer. in the case of civil engineering vehicle tires, intended for running on more or less uneven ground, the presence of two protective layers is advantageous, the reinforcing elements being crossed from one layer to the next and the reinforcing elements of the radially inner protective layer being crossed with the inextensible reinforcing elements of the radially outer working layer adjacent to said radially inner protective layer. the circumferential direction, or longitudinal direction, of the tire is the direction corresponding to the periphery of the tire and defined by the running direction of the tire. the transverse or axial direction of the tire is parallel to the rotation axis of the tire. the radial direction is a direction cutting the rotation axis of the tire and perpendicular thereto. the rotation axis of the tire is the axis about which it rotates in normal use. a radial or meridian plane is a plane that contains the rotation axis of the tire. the circumferential median, or equatorial, plane is a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis of the tire and that divides the tire into two halves. certain current “road” tires are intended to run at high speed on increasingly long journeys, because of the improvements in road networks and the growth of motorway networks throughout the world. all the conditions, under which such a tire is called upon to run, without doubt enable the tire to be run for a larger number of kilometers, since the wear of the tire is less. however, the endurance of this tire is prejudiced. to permit one or even two retreading operations on such tires, so as to extend their lifetime, it is necessary to preserve a structure and especially a carcass reinforcement with endurance properties which are sufficient to withstand said retreading operations. prolonged running under particularly severe conditions of tires thus constructed effectively introduces limits in terms of endurance of these tires. the elements of the carcass reinforcement are in particular subjected to flexural and compressive stresses during running which adversely affect their endurance. the cords that make up the reinforcing elements of the carcass layers are in fact subjected to large stresses when the tires are running, especially to repeated flexural stresses or variations in curvature, leading to friction between the threads, and therefore wear and fatigue: this phenomenon is termed “fatigue fretting”. to fulfill their function of strengthening the carcass reinforcement of the tire, said cords must firstly have good flexibility and a high endurance in flexure, which means in particular that their threads have to have a relatively small diameter, preferably less than 0.28 mm, more preferably less than 0.25 mm, generally smaller than that of the threads used in conventional cords for the crown reinforcements of tires. the cords of the carcass reinforcement are also subject to the phenomenon of “fatigue-corrosion” due to the very nature of the cords, which promote the passage of corrosive agents such as oxygen and moisture or even drain said agents. specifically, air or water penetrating the tire, for example as a result of degradation following a cut or more simply because of the permeability, albeit low, of the inner surface of the tire, may be conveyed by the channels formed within the cords because of their very structure. all these fatigue phenomena, which are generally grouped together under the generic term “fatigue-fretting-corrosion”, are the cause of progressive degradation of the mechanical properties of the cords and may, under the severest running conditions, affect the lifetime of said cords. to improve the endurance of these cords of the carcass reinforcement, it is known in particular to increase the thickness of the rubber layer that forms the internal wall of the cavity of the tire in order to minimize the permeability of said layer. this layer is usually composed partly of butyl rubber so as to better seal the tire. this type of material has the drawback of increasing the cost of the tire. it is also known to modify the construction of said cords so as in particular to increase their penetrability by the rubber and thus limit or even eliminate the passage of oxidizing agents via the channels formed within the cords. tires produced in this way have revealed problems of air pockets appearing during manufacture of the tire. this is because the various manufacturing steps lead to the formation of occluded air pockets. in the case of tires comprising a carcass reinforcement formed from cords having a structure that forms channels able to conduct the air, these air pockets disappear owing to the diffusion of the air into the materials, especially through said channels existing within the cords. in the case of tires comprising a carcass reinforcement formed from cords having a structure which is highly penetrated by the rubber, these air pockets remain after the manufacturing steps. what appears is only a displacement of these air pockets during the step of curing the tire, said pockets being displaced towards regions where a low pressure is exerted. the displacement of the air takes place along the carcass reinforcement, along passages that exist between the reinforcing elements, the layers of rubber compound covering the reinforcing elements forming indentation zones parallel to the reinforcing elements before the step of curing the tire. these indentation zones thus to permit the air to move slightly depending on the pressure that is exerted on the regions where the air pockets exist. the pressure or the pressure variations occur especially during the step of curing the tire or else during the conforming step, if it exists. the appearance of these air pockets is usually unacceptable depending on their location, and may require scrapping the tires, as said air pockets may become zones of weakness in the tire. the manufacturing costs therefore become unacceptable simply because of the poor production yields. the inventors were thus tasked with providing heavy-goods vehicles with tires the wear performance of which is maintained for road usage and in particular the endurance performance of which is improved, especially with regard to “fatigue-corrosion” or “fatigue-fretting-corrosion” phenomena, irrespective of the running conditions, in particular in terms of inflation, the manufacturing cost of said tires remaining acceptable. this objective has been achieved according to the invention by a tire having a radial carcass reinforcement, consisting of at least one layer of reinforcing elements, said tire comprising a crown reinforcement, which is itself covered radially with a tread, said tread being joined to two beads via two sidewalls, at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement being non-wrapped metal cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min and at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement being cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. the cords are either stranded cords or layered cords, or stranded cords of layered cords, or layered cords comprising strands. stranded cords are cords consisting of strands or threads twisted together. layered cords or multi-layer cords are cords consisting of a central core and one or more practically concentric layers of strands or threads placed around this central core. the layered cords most often used in the carcasses of heavy-goods vehicle tires are cords of [l+m] or [l+m+n] construction, the latter being generally intended for the largest tires. these cords are formed in a known manner from a core of l threads surrounded by a layer of m threads, the l+m combination forming the core of the cord, which core is itself surrounded by an outer layer of n threads, with in general l varying from 1 to 4, m varying from 3 to 12, and n varying from 8 to 20. where appropriate, the assembly may be wrapped with an external wrapping thread wound in a helix around the final layer. the cords are obtained from strands or threads consisting of multifilament yarns, which strands or yarns may or may not be twisted together, or from unitary threads such as cylindrical or oblong monofilaments, which may or may not be twisted together. the cords may be of hybrid type, that is to say composite, when they comprise elements of different nature. according to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the textile multifilament yarns are of the polyamide type and more preferably of the aromatic polyamide type, so as to provide mechanical properties as close as possible to those of the metal threads. although aliphatic polyamides are not excluded, they have in certain cases drawbacks, especially owing to possible shrinkage phenomena. in what is called the permeability test it is possible to determine longitudinal permeability to air of the tested cords, by measuring the volume of air passing through a test specimen under constant pressure for a given time. the principle of such a test, well known to those skilled in the art, is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatment of a cord for making it impermeable to air. the test has been described for example in the standard astm d2692-98. the test is carried out on cords directly extracted, by stripping, from the vulcanized rubber plies that they reinforce, and therefore on cords that have been penetrated by cured rubber. the test is carried out on a 2 cm length of cord, and therefore coated with its surrounding rubber composition (or coating rubber) in the cured state, in the following manner: air is sent into the cord, under a pressure of 1 bar, and the volume of air leaving it is measured using a flowmeter (calibrated for example from 0 to 500 cm 3 /min). during the measurement, the cord specimen is blocked in a compressed seal (for example a seal made of dense foam or rubber) in such a way that only the amount of air passing through the cord from one end to the other, along its longitudinal axis, is taken into account in the measurement. the sealing provided by the seal itself is checked beforehand using a solid rubber test specimen, that is to say one without a cord. the measured average air flow rate (average over 10 test specimens) is lower the higher the longitudinal impermeability of the cord. since the measurement is made with an accuracy of ±0.2 cm 3 /min, the measured values equal to or less than 0.2 cm 3 /min are considered to be zero and correspond to a cord that may be termed airtight (completely airtight) along its axis (i.e. in its longitudinal direction). this permeability test also constitutes a simple means of indirectly measuring the degree of penetration of the cord by a rubber composition. the measured flow rate is lower the higher the degree of penetration of the cord by the rubber. cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min have a degree of penetration greater than 66%. cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min have a degree of penetration greater than 90%. the degree of penetration of a cord may also be estimated using the method described below. in the case of a layered cord, the method consists firstly in removing the outer layer on a specimen having a length between 2 and 4 cm and then measuring, along a longitudinal direction and along a given axis, the sum of the lengths of rubber compound divided by the length of the specimen. these rubber compound length measurements exclude the spaces not penetrated along this longitudinal axis. these measurements are repeated along three longitudinal axes distributed over the periphery of the specimen and repeated on five cord specimens. when the cord comprises several layers, the first, removal step is repeated with the newly external layer and the rubber compound lengths measured along longitudinal axes. all the ratios of rubber compound lengths to specimen lengths thus determined are then averaged so as to define the degree of penetration of the cord. the inventors have demonstrated that a tire produced in this way according to the invention leads to very advantageous improvements in terms of the compromise between endurance and manufacturing cost. indeed, the endurance properties of such a tire are equivalent to those of the solutions mentioned above. the presence of at least 85% of cords of the carcass reinforcement having a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min in what is called the permeability test make it possible to limit the risks due to corrosion. furthermore, the presence of at least 5% of cables comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns makes it possible to drain the occluded air during manufacture of the tire and therefore results in higher productivity than that mentioned above and therefore lower costs. the inventors have demonstrated that a number of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns of between 5 and 15% makes it possible for the occluded air to meet a “drain” either right from the formation of an air pocket or upon said air pocket being displaced along a direction parallel to the reinforcing elements of the carcass reinforcement layer during the steps of manufacturing the tire, as was mentioned previously. the tests carried out have confirmed that the results obtained with cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns in these amounts are out of all proportion with those obtained with carcass reinforcement layers comprising only cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min. this is because the presence of at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns makes it possible to maintain practically all the tires thus manufactured and therefore to bring the manufacturing unit cost back down to acceptable values. according to a first embodiment of the invention, said at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns are textile cords, that is to say they consist only of textile strands or threads. according to this embodiment, their number is preferably less than 10% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement. according to a second embodiment of the invention, said at least 5% of the cores are hybrid cords comprising textile strands or threads and metal strands or threads. the presence of at least a part of metal strands or threads in said at least 5% of cords makes it possible to provide mechanical properties closer to those of a metal cord. according to this second embodiment, their number is preferably greater than 10% of the reinforcement elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement in order to ensure that the occluded air is completely drained during the manufacturing phase. preferably again, according to this second embodiment of the invention, said at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement are hybrid layered cords, the core of which comprises at least one strand or thread consisting of textile multifilament yarns, the strands of the intermediate and/or outer layers being metal strands. preferably again, said at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement are hybrid cords of the 1+m+n type, that is to say the core corresponds to a single thread or strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns, the strands of the intermediate and outer layers being metal strands. again advantageously, according to this second embodiment of the invention, said at least 85% of cords of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min are metal layered cords of the same construction as said at least 5% of hybrid cords. in the case of a carcass reinforcement comprising several layers of reinforcing elements, each of said layers may be in accordance with the invention. advantageously at least the radially outer layer comprises at least 85% of non-wrapped metal cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min and at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. this choice is particularly advantageous for ensuring complete evacuation of the air pockets that form during manufacture of the tire, these essentially appearing on the axially and/or radially external surface of the carcass reinforcement during manufacture. according to one advantageous embodiment of the invention, said at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement are cords having at least two layers, at least one inner layer being sheathed with a layer to consisting of a polymeric composition such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition, preferably one based on at least one diene elastomer. again preferably according to the invention, the cords of the carcass reinforcement have in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 10 cm 3 /min and more preferably less than 2 cm 3 /min. the invention also provides a tire having a radial carcass reinforcement consisting of at least one layer of reinforcing elements, said tire comprising a crown reinforcement, which is itself covered radially with a tread, said tread being joined to two beads via two sidewalls, at least 85% of the reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement being non-wrapped metal cords having at least two layers, at least one inner layer being sheathed with a layer consisting of a polymeric composition such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition, preferably one based on at least one diene elastomer, and at least 5% of the reinforcing elements of said at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement being cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. again advantageously according to the invention, the hybrid cords are cords having at least three layers, at least one intermediate layer being sheathed with a layer consisting of a polymeric composition such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition, preferably one based on at least one diene elastomer. in particular when the strands of the intermediate and outer layers are metal strands, the layer consisting of a polymeric composition prevents any rubbing between the metal strands or threads of the various layers. the expression “composition based on at least one diene elastomer” is understood to mean, as is known, that the composition comprises predominantly (i.e. with a mass fraction greater than 50%) this or these diene elastomers. it should be noted that the sheath according to the invention extends continuously around the layer that it covers (that is to say this sheath is continuous in the “orthoradial” direction of the cord, which is perpendicular to its radius) so as to form a continuous sleeve having a cross section that is advantageously almost circular. it should also be noted that the rubber composition of this sheath is crosslinkable or crosslinked, that is to say it includes, by definition, a suitable crosslinking system thus allowing the composition to crosslink while it undergoes curing (i.e. it cures and does not melt). thus, this rubber composition may be termed “non-melting”, because it cannot be melted by heating it to any temperature. the term “diene” elastomer or rubber is understood, as is known, to mean an elastomer derived at least partly (i.e. a homopolymer or a copolymer) from diene monomers (monomers carrying two carbon-carbon double bonds, whether conjugated or not). diene elastomers, in a known manner, may be put into two categories: those called “essentially unsaturated” diene elastomers and those called “essentially saturated” diene elastomers. in general, an “essentially unsaturated” diene elastomer is understood here to mean a diene elastomer derived at least partly from conjugated diene monomers having an original content of diene units (conjugated dienes) which is greater than 15% (mol %). thus, for example, diene elastomers such as butyl rubbers or copolymers of dienes and α-olefins of the epdm type do not fall within the above definition and in particular can be termed “essentially saturated” diene elastomers (having an original content of diene units that is low or very low and always less than 15%). in the category of “essentially unsaturated” diene elastomers, the term “highly unsaturated” diene elastomer is understood to mean in particular a diene elastomer having an original content of diene units (conjugated dienes) of greater than 50%. given these definitions, a diene elastomer that can be used in the cord according to the invention is understood more particularly to mean: (a) any homopolymer obtained by polymerizing a conjugated diene monomer having from 4 to 12 carbon atoms;(b) any copolymer obtained by copolymerizing one or more conjugated dienes with one another or with one or more aromatic vinyl compounds having from 8 to 20 carbon atoms;(c) a ternary copolymer obtained by copolymerizing ethylene, an α-olefin having 3 to 6 carbon atoms with an unconjugated diene monomer having from 6 to 12 carbon atoms, such as for example, the elastomers obtained from ethylene or propylene with an unconjugated diene monomer of the aforementioned type, such as for example 1,4-hexadiene, ethylidene norbornene and dicyclopentadiene;(d) an isobutene/isoprene copolymer (butyl rubber), and also halogenated, in particular chlorinated or brominated versions of this type of copolymer. although it applies to any type of diene elastomer, the present invention is primarily implemented with essentially unsaturated diene elastomers, in particular of type (a) or (b) above. thus, the diene elastomer is preferably chosen from the group formed by polybutadienes (br), natural rubber (nr), synthetic polyisoprenes (ir), various butadiene copolymers, various isoprene copolymers and blends of these elastomers. more preferably, such copolymers are chosen from the group formed by stirene-butadiene copolymers (sbr), butadiene-isoprene copolymers (bm), stirene-isoprene copolymers (sir) and stirene-butadiene-isoprene copolymers (sbir). more preferably according to the invention, the diene elastomer chosen predominantly (i.e. in respect of more than 50 phr) consists of an isoprene elastomer. the term “isoprene elastomer” is understood to mean, as is known, an isoprene homopolymer or copolymer, in other words a diene elastomer chosen from the group formed by natural rubber (nr), synthetic polyisoprenes (ir), various isoprene copolymers and blends of these elastomers. according to one advantageous embodiment of the invention, the diene elastomer chosen consists exclusively (i.e. for 100 phr) of natural rubber, synthetic polyisoprene or a blend of these elastomers, the synthetic polyisoprene having a content (in mol %) of 1,4-cis bonds preferably greater than 90%, and even more preferably greater than 98%. it would also be possible to use, according to one particular embodiment of the invention, cuts (blends) of this natural rubber and/or these synthetic polyisoprenes with other highly unsaturated diene elastomers, especially with sbr or br elastomers as mentioned above. the rubber sheath of the cord of the invention may contain one or more diene elastomers, it being possible for these to be used in combination with any type of synthetic elastomer other than those of diene type, or even with polymers other than elastomers, for example thermoplastic polymers, these polymers other than elastomers then being present by way of minority polymer. although the rubber composition of said sheath is preferably devoid of any plastomer and contains only a diene elastomer (or blend of diene elastomers) as polymeric base, said composition could also include at least one plastomer with a mass fraction x p which is less than the mass fraction x e of the elastomer(s). in such a case, the following relationship preferably applies: 0<x p <0.5x e and more preferably the following relationship applies: 0<x p <0.1x e . preferably, the crosslinking system of the rubber sheath is a system called a vulcanization system, that is to say one based on sulphur (or on a sulphur donor) and a primary vulcanization accelerator. added to this base vulcanization system may be various known secondary vulcanization accelerators or vulcanization activators. sulphur is used with a preferential amount of between 0.5 and 10 phr, more preferably between 1 and 8 phr, and the primary vulcanization accelerator, for example a sulphonamide, is used with a preferential amount of between 0.5 and 10 phr, more preferably between 0.5 and 5.0 phr. the rubber composition of the sheath according to the invention includes, besides said crosslinking system, all the common ingredients that can be used in rubber compositions for tires, such as reinforcing fillers based on carbon black and/or an inorganic reinforcing filler such as silica, anti-ageing agents, for example antioxidants, extender oils, plasticizers or processing aids, which make it easier to process the compositions in the uncured state, methylene donors and acceptors, resins, bismaleimides, known adhesion promoter systems of the rfs (resorcinol-formaldehyde-silica) type or metal salts, especially cobalt salts. preferably, the composition of the rubber sheath has, in the crosslinked state, a secant modulus in extension with 10% elongation (denoted m10), measured according to the astm d 412 (1998) standard, of less than 20 mpa and more preferably less than 12 mpa, in particular between 4 and 11 mpa. preferably, the composition of this sheath is chosen to be the same as the composition used for the rubber matrix that the cords according to the invention are intended to reinforce. thus, there is no problem of any incompatibility between the respective materials of the sheath and the rubber matrix. preferably, said composition is based on natural rubber and contains carbon black as reinforcing filler, for example a carbon black of astm 300, 600 or 700 grade (for example n326, n330, n347, n375, n683 or n772). according to a variant of the invention, said at least 85% of cords of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min are layered metal cords of [l+m] or [l+m+n] construction, comprising a first layer c1 having l threads of diameter d 1 where l ranges from 1 to 4, surrounded by at least one intermediate layer c2 having m threads of diameter d 2 wound together in a helix with a pitch p 2 where m ranges from 3 to 12, said layer c2 being optionally surrounded by an outer layer c3 of n threads of diameter d 3 wound together in a helix with a pitch p 3 where n ranges from 8 to 20, a sheath consisting of a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition based on at least one diene elastomer covering, in the [l+m] construction, said first layer c1 and, in the [l+m+n] construction, at least said layer c2. preferably, the diameter of the threads of the first layer of the inner layer (c1) is between 0.10 and 0.5 mm and the diameter of the threads of the outer layers (c2, c3) is between 0.10 and 0.5 mm. more preferably, the helix pitch with which said threads of the outer layer (c3) are wound is between 8 and 25 mm. within the meaning of the invention, the pitch represents the length, measured parallel to the axis of the cord, at the end of which a thread having this pitch makes one complete turn around the axis of the cord; thus, if the axis is sectioned by two planes perpendicular to said axis and separated by a length equal to the pitch of a thread of a to constituent layer of the cord, the axis of this thread in these two planes has the same position on the two circles corresponding to the layer of the thread in question. advantageously, the cord has one, and more preferably still all of the following characteristics, which is/are satisfied: the layer c3 is a saturated layer, that is to say there exists insufficient space in this layer to add to it at least an (n+1)th thread of diameter d 3 , n then representing the maximum number of threads that can be wound as a layer around the layer c2;the rubber sheath furthermore covers the inner layer c1 and/or separates the pairwise adjacent threads of the intermediate layer c2;the rubber sheath covers practically the radially inner semi-circumference of each thread of the layer c3 in such a way that it separates the pairwise adjacent threads of this layer c3. in the l+m+n construction according to the invention, the intermediate layer c2 preferably comprises six or seven threads and the cord according to the invention then has the following preferential characteristics (d 1 , d 2 , d 3 , p 2 and p 3 in mm): (i) 0.10<d 1 <0.28; (ii) 0.10<d 2 <0.25; (iii) 0.10<d 3 <0.25; (iv) m=6 or m=7; (v) 5π(d 1 +d 2 )<p 2 ≦p 3 <5π(d 1 +2d 2 +d 3 ); (vi) the threads of said layers c2, c3 are wound in the same twist direction (s/s or z/z). preferably, characteristic (v) is such that p 2 =p 3 , in such a way that the cord is said to be “compact” considering moreover characteristic (vi) (threads of the layers c2 and c3 wound in the same direction). according to characteristic (vi), all the threads of the layers c2 and c3 are wound in the same twist direction, that is to say either in the direction s (“s/s” arrangement) or in the direction z (“z/z” arrangement). by winding the layers c2 and c3 in the same direction, it is advantageously possible in the cord according to the invention to minimize the friction between these two layers c2 and c3 and therefore the wear of the threads constituting them (since there is no longer crossed contact between the threads). preferably, said at least 85% of cords of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min are layered cords of 1+m+n construction, that is to say that the inner layer c1 consists of a single thread. again advantageously, the (d 1 /d 2 ) ratios are preferably set within given limits, according to the number m (6 or 7) of threads in the layer c2, as follows: for m= 6: 0.9<( d 1 /d 2 )<1.3; for m= 7: 1.3<( d 1 /d 2 )<1.6. too low a value of the ratio d 1 /d 2 may be prejudicial to wear between the inner layer and the threads of the layer c2. as for too high a value, this may impair the compactness of the cord, for a barely modified definitive level of strength, and may also impair its flexibility. the greater rigidity of the inner layer c1 due to too high a diameter d 1 could moreover be prejudicial to the very feasibility of the cord during the cabling operations. the threads of the layers c2 and c3 may have the same diameter or this may differ from one layer to the other. preferably, threads of the same diameter (d 2 =d 3 ) are used, especially to simplify the cabling process and to lower the costs. the maximum number n max of threads that can be wound as a single saturated layer c3 around the layer c2 depends of course on many parameters (diameter d 1 of the inner layer, number m and diameter d 2 of the threads of the layer c2, and diameter d 3 of the threads of the layer c3). said at least 85% of cords of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min are preferably chosen from cords of 1+6+10, 1+6+11, 1+6+12, 1+7+11, 1+7+12 or 1+7+13 construction. for a better compromise between strength, feasibility and flexural endurance of the cord, on the one hand, and penetrability by the rubber on the other hand, it is preferred for the diameters of the threads of the layers c2 and c3, whether identical or not, to be between 0.12 mm and 0.22 mm. in such a case, it is preferred to have the following relationships satisfied: 0.14< d 1 <0.22; 0.12< d 2 ≦d 3 <0.20; 5< p 2 ≦p 3 <12 (small pitches in mm) or else 20< p 2 ≦p 3 <30 (large pitches in mm). a diameter less than 0.19 mm helps reduce the level of stresses undergone by the threads during the large variations in curvature of the cords, while it is preferred to choose diameters greater than 0.16 mm in particular for thread strength and industrial cost reasons. one advantageous embodiment consists for example in choosing p 2 and p 3 to be between 8 and 12 mm, advantageously with cords of 1+6+12 construction. preferably, the rubber sheath has an average thickness ranging from 0.010 mm to 0.040 mm. in general, said at least 85% of cords of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min according to the invention may be implemented with any type of metal thread, especially steel thread, for example carbon steel threads and/or stainless steel threads. it is preferred to use a carbon steel but of course it is possible to use other steels or other alloys. when a carbon steel is used, its carbon content (% by weight of steel) is preferably between 0.1% and 1.2%, more preferably from 0.4% to 1.0%. these contents represent a good compromise between the required mechanical properties of the tire and the feasibility of the thread. it should be noted that a carbon content of between 0.5% and 0.6% makes such steels ultimately less expensive, as they are easier to draw. another advantageous embodiment of the invention may also consist, depending on the intended applications, in using low carbon steels, for example having a carbon content of between 0.2% and 0.5%, especially because they have a lower cost and drawing is much easier. said at least 85% of cords of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min according to the invention may be obtained by various techniques known to those skilled in the art, for example, in two steps: firstly a step in which the l+m intermediate structure or core (layers c1+c2) is sheathed via an extrusion head, which step is followed, secondly, by a final operation in which the n remaining threads (layer c3) are cabled or twisted around the thus sheathed layer c2. the problem of bonding in the uncured state posed by the rubber sheath, during possible intermediate winding and unwinding operations, may be solved in a manner known to those skilled in the art, for example by using an intermediate plastic film. according to any one of the embodiments of the invention, the number of said at least at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of adjacent textile multifilament yarns is preferably less than 3. within a carcass reinforcement layer, reinforcing elements are said to be adjacent in the context of the invention when they are separated from one another only by polymer compounds. with more than three cords comprising at least one strand consisting of adjacent textile multifilament yarns, the risks of degradation or of visible defects on a tire would be greater, in particular because of the lower mechanical properties of said cords compared with those of said at least 85% of cords. this number of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of adjacent textile multifilament yarns is more preferably zero, that is to say that two of these layered cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns are never adjacent but always separated by at least one metal cord having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min. advantageously according to the invention the diameter of said at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns is between 0.9 and 1.1 times the diameter of the metal cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min. again advantageously, the breaking strength of said at least 5% of cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns is between 0.9 and 1.1 times the breaking strength of the metal cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min. according to one embodiment of the invention, the crown reinforcement of the tire is formed from at least two working crown layers of inextensible reinforcing elements, which are crossed from one layer to the other making angles of between 10° and 45° with the circumferential direction. according to other embodiments of the invention, the crown reinforcement also includes at least one layer of circumferential reinforcing elements. a preferred embodiment of the invention also provides for the crown reinforcement to be supplemented, radially to the outside, by at least one supplementary, protective layer consisting of elastic reinforcing elements oriented to the circumferential direction at an angle of between 10° and 45° and in the same sense as the angle made by the inextensible elements of the working layer that is radially adjacent thereto. the protective layer may have an axial width smaller than the axial width of the narrowest working layer. said protective layer may also have an axial width greater than the axial width of the narrowest working layer, such that it covers the edges of the narrowest working layer and, in the case of the radially upper layer being the narrowest, such that it is coupled, in the axial extension of the additional reinforcement, to the widest working crown layer over an axial width so as thereafter, axially to the outside, to be decoupled from said widest working layer by profiled elements having a thickness of at least 2 mm. the protective layer formed from elastic reinforcing elements may, in the abovementioned case, on the one hand, be optionally decoupled from the edges of said narrowest working layer by profiled elements having a thickness substantially less than the thickness of the profiled elements separating the edges of the two working layers and, on the other hand, have an axial width smaller or larger than the axial width of the widest crown layer. according to any of the embodiments of the invention mentioned above, the crown reinforcement may also be supplemented, radially to the inside between the carcass reinforcement and the radially internal working layer closest to said carcass reinforcement, with a triangulation layer of inextensible metal reinforcing elements made of steel making, with the circumferential direction, an angle-of greater than 60° and in the same sense as that of the angle made by the reinforcing elements of the radially closest layer of the carcass reinforcement. other details and advantageous features of the invention will become apparent below from the description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, in particular with reference to figs. 1 to 6 which show: fig. 1 , a meridional view of a diagram showing a tire according to one embodiment of the invention; fig. 2 , a schematic representation in cross section of a carcass reinforcement layer of the tire shown in fig. 1 , fig. 3 , a schematic representation of a cross-sectional view of a first example of a cord representing at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement of the tire shown in fig. 1 , fig. 4 , a schematic representation of a cross-sectional view of a second example of a cord representing at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement of the tire shown in fig. 1 , fig. 5 , a schematic representation of a third example of a cord representing at least 85% of the metal reinforcing elements of at least one layer of the carcass reinforcement of the tire shown in fig. 1 , and fig. 6 , a schematic representation of a layered cord comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. the figures have not been drawn to scale so as to make it simpler to understand them. in fig. 1 , the tire 1 , of 315/70 r 22.5 type, comprises a radial carcass reinforcement 2 anchored in two beads 3 around bead wires 4 . the carcass reinforcement 2 is formed by a single layer of metal cords. the carcass reinforcement 2 is wrapped with a crown reinforcement 5 which is itself covered with a tread 6 . the crown reinforcement 5 is formed, radially from the inside to the outside, from: a first working layer formed from continuous non-wrapped inextensible metal cords 11.35 over the entire width of the ply, said cords being oriented at an angle of 18°;a second working layer formed from continuous non-wrapped inextensible metal cords 11.35 over the entire width of the ply, said cords being oriented at an angle of 18° and crossed with the metal cords of the first working layer; anda protective layer formed from elastic metal cords 6×35. all these layers constituting the crown reinforcement 5 have not been shown in detail in the figures. fig. 2 illustrates a cross-sectional schematic representation of a carcass reinforcement layer 2 according to the invention, the cross section being in a plane perpendicular to the direction of orientation of the reinforcing elements. this layer consists of a set of cords 7 a , 7 b oriented parallel to one another and maintained between two layers 8 , 9 of rubber compound, called calendering layers. the reinforcing elements 7 a , shown as filled circles in fig. 2 , represent the at least 85% of non-wrapped metal cords having in what is called the permeability test a flow rate of less than 20 cm 3 /min and, in the present case, non-wrapped cords having at least two layers, at least an inner layer being sheathed with a layer which consists of a polymeric composition, such as a crosslinkable or crosslinked rubber composition. the element 7 b , shown as a cross-hatched circle in fig. 2 , represents the at least 5% of layered cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns. fig. 3 illustrates a schematic representation of the cross section through a carcass reinforcement cord 7 a of the tire 1 shown in fig. 1 . this cord 7 a is a non-wrapped layered cord of 1+6+12 construction, consisting of a central core formed by a thread 32 , an intermediate layer formed from six threads 33 and an outer layer formed from twelve threads 35 . the cord has the following characteristics (d and p in mm): 1+6+12 construction; d 1 =0.20; d 2 =0.18; p 2 =10; d 3 =0.18; p 3 =10; ( d 2 /d 3 )=1; where d 2 and p 2 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the intermediate layer and d 3 and p 3 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the threads of the outer layer. the core of the cord consisting of the central core formed from the thread 32 and from the intermediate layer formed from the six threads 33 is sheathed by a rubber composition 34 based on an unvulcanized diene elastomer (in the uncured state). sheathing of the core, consisting of the thread 32 surrounded by the six threads 33 , is carried out using an extrusion head, followed by a final operation of twisting or cabling the twelve threads 35 around the core thus sheathed. the cord 7 a has in what is called the permeability test, as described above, a flow rate equal to 0 cm 3 /min and therefore less than 2 cm 3 /min. its penetration by the rubber composition is equal to 95%. the cord 7 a has a diameter of 0.95 mm. the elastomer composition constituting the rubber sheath 34 is made from a composition as described above and has, in the present case, the same formulation, based on natural rubber and carbon black, as that of the calendering layers 8 , 9 of the carcass reinforcement that the cords are intended to reinforce. fig. 4 illustrates a schematic representation of the cross section through another carcass reinforcement cord 41 that can be used in a tire according to the invention as a replacement for the cord of fig. 3 , that is to say as said at least 85% of non-wrapped cords having at least two layers, at least one inner layer being sheathed with a layer consisting of a polymer composition. this cord 41 is a non-wrapped layered cord of 3+9 construction consisting of a central core formed from a cord consisting of three threads 42 twisted together and an outer layer formed from nine threads 43 . this cord has the following characteristics (d and p in mm): 3+9 construction; d 1 =0.18; p t =5; ( d 1 /d 2 )=1; d 2 =0.18; p 2 =10, where d 1 and p 1 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the threads of the central core and d 2 and p 2 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the threads of the outer layer. the central core consisting of a cord formed from three threads 42 was sheathed with a rubber composition 44 based on an unvulcanized diene elastomer (in the uncured state). the sheathing of the cord 42 is carried out by an extrusion head, followed by a final operation of cabling the nine threads 43 around the core thus sheathed. the cord 41 has in what is called the permeability test, as described above, a flow rate equal to 0 cm 3 /min and therefore less than 2 cm 3 /min. its penetration by the rubber composition is equal to 95%. the cord 41 has a diameter of 1.0 mm. fig. 5 illustrates a schematic representation of the cross section through another carcass reinforcement cord 51 that can be used in a tire according to the invention as a replacement for the cord of fig. 3 , that is to say as said at least 85% of non-wrapped cords having at least two layers, at least one inner layer being sheathed with a layer consisting of a polymer composition. this cord 51 is a non-wrapped layered cord of 1+6 construction consisting of a central core formed from a thread 52 and an outer layer formed from six threads 53 . this cord has the following characteristics (d and p in mm): 1+6 construction; d 1 =0.200; ( d 1 /d 2 )=1.14; d 2 =0.175; p 2 =10, where d 1 is the diameter of the core and d 2 and p 2 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the threads of the outer layer. the central core consisting of the thread 52 was sheathed with a rubber composition 54 based on an unvulcanized diene elastomer (in the uncured state). the sheathing of the thread 52 is carried out by an extrusion head, followed by a final operation of cabling the six threads 53 around the core thus sheathed. the cord 51 has in what is called the permeability test, as described above, a flow rate equal to 0 cm 3 /min and therefore less than 2 cm 3 /min. its penetration by the rubber composition is equal to 95%. the cord 51 has a diameter of 0.75 mm. fig. 6 illustrates a schematic representation of the cross section of a carcass reinforcement cord 7 b of the tire 1 shown in fig. 1 . this cord 7 b is a non-wrapped layered hybrid cord of 1+6+12 construction, consisting of a central core formed from a thread 61 consisting of multifilament aromatic polyamide yarns, an intermediate layer formed from six metal threads 63 and an outer layer formed from twelve metal threads 65 . the central core is a 22/2/1 s200 aromatic polyamide cord. it has the following characteristics (d and p in mm): structure 1+6+12; d 1 =0.22; d 2 =0.18; p 2 =10; d 3 =0.18; p 3 =10; ( d 2 /d 3 )=1, where d 2 and p 2 , are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the intermediate layer and d 3 and p 3 are, respectively, the diameter and the helix pitch of the threads of the outer layer. the central member of the cable consisting of the central core formed from the aromatic polyamide thread 62 and of the intermediate layer formed from the six threads 63 is sheathed with a rubber composition 64 based on an unvulcanized diene elastomer (in the uncured state). the sheathing of the core consisting of the thread 62 surrounded by the six threads 63 is carried out by an extrusion head and is followed by a final operation of twisting or cabling the twelve threads 65 around the core thus sheathed. in fig. 6 , the sheath is represented as reaching the core of the cord 7 b . it thus makes it possible to avoid any rubbing between the threads 63 of the intermediate layer, but the layer does not penetrate the multifilament yarns of the thread 62 so as to maintain its draining function. the thread 62 was coated beforehand, in a known manner, with an adhesive so as to promote its adhesion to the rubber composition 64 that penetrates right to the core while the tire is being cured, said adhesive furthermore acting as a barrier and preventing penetration of the rubber composition between the filaments of the thread 62 . the cord 7 b is therefore similar to the cord 7 a of fig. 3 but differs therefrom by its core which is not a metal thread but a thread or strand consisting of aromatic polyamide multifilament yarns. the cord 7 b has a diameter of 0.95 mm. the carcass reinforcement layer of the tire 1 produced in accordance with these figs. 1 , 2 and 6 comprises 87% of reinforcing elements 7 a and 13% of reinforcing elements 7 b. as mentioned previously, other types of cords 7 b , not shown in the figures, may be used. in particular, these may be textile cords. to give an example, the cord 7 b may be a 330×2 315/315 aromatic polyamide cord. such a cord consists of two strands of 330 aromatic polyamide filaments each strand being twisted with 315 twists per meter, and finally the two strands being assembled with a twist equivalent to 315 turns per meter in the opposite direction to that of the strands. the cord then passes via an adhesive coating step so as to deposit an adhesive that promotes the adhesion between said cord and the elastomeric compounds of the calendering layers. such a cord has a diameter of 1.0 mm. a carcass reinforcement layer produced in accordance with the invention with such a cord would comprise 94% of reinforcing elements 7 a and 6% of reinforcing elements 7 b. other examples of textile cords, also not shown in the figures, may be used for the invention. these may, for example, be 252×3 265/265 aromatic polyamide cords that have a diameter of 0.96 mm, or else 167×2×2 210/210 polyethylene naphthalate cords having a diameter of 0.94 mm. trials were carried out on tires produced according to the invention as shown in figs. 1 , 2 , 3 and 6 , while other trials were carried out on what are called control tires. the control tires differ from the tires according to the invention by a carcass reinforcement in which the reinforcing elements are cords such as those shown in fig. 3 , but they do not include a sheathing layer. the carcass reinforcement also does not comprise layered cords comprising at least one strand consisting of textile multifilament yarns, such as that of the invention. none of the tires thus produced, whether tires according to the invention or else control tires, showed any visible defect imputable to the presence of air or moisture. rolling drum endurance trials were carried out on a test machine imposing a load of 4415 dan on the tires, which were run at a speed of 40 km/h, with oxygen-doped inflation of the tires. the trials were carried out on the tires according to the invention under conditions identical to those applied to the control tires. the running tests were stopped as soon as the carcass reinforcement of the tires showed degradation. the trials thus carried out showed that the distances travelled during each of these tests are favorable for the tires according to the invention, which ran for 300 000 km, whereas the control tires travelled only 250 000 km. other rolling endurance trials on a vehicle driving axle were carried out by imposing a load of 3680 dan on the tires, which were run at a speed of 40 km/h, with a tire pressure of 0.2 bar. the trials were carried out on the tires according to the invention under conditions identical to those applied to the control tires. the running tests were carried out over a distance of 12 000 km or were stopped as soon as the carcass reinforcement of the tires showed degradation. the trials thus carried out showed that the distances travelled during each of these tests on the tires according to the invention could always reach around 12 000 km, whereas the control tires travelled at most only 10 000 km. furthermore, other types of tire were manufactured. these tires differ from the tires according to the invention by a carcass reinforcement comprising only cords 7 a as shown in fig. 3 . it turns out that most of these tires show visible defects on the sidewalls owing to the presence of air pockets that make the tires non-marketable. by producing tires in accordance with the invention it is possible to considerably reduce the number of non-marketable tires due to this type of defect in comparison with tires in which the carcass reinforcement comprises only cords as shown in fig. 3 .
095-663-430-289-371	US	[ "US" ]	B42C13/00	1983-07-25T00:00:00	1983	[ "B42" ]	bookbinding device	a combination bookbinding apparatus which can be used as a sewing frame, or a lying press, or a standing press wherein only its position on a table or work surface determines its function. all parts are in place at once and no alteration to the device is needed to effect a change in function. the device is automotive and leaves the hands free for the manipulation of the book(s) preparatory to the clamping or pressing operations.	1. a bookbinding apparatus for use in performing several different binding operations comprising: an elongated frame having two ends and two sides, one of said ends comprising a first, fixed, clamping surface which surface extends generally perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of said frame; first means comprising a second, movable, clamping surface, said means being mounted to said frame by second means which permits the first means to be moved along the longitudinal axis of said frame from a first, open, position to a second, clamping, position whereby a book may be clamped between said two surfaces; a flap hinged to said frame near said one end so as to pivot between an open position generally perpendicular to said longitudinal axis of said frame and a closed position generally parallel to said axis; whereby said apparatus may be supported for use in a bookbinding operation near the edge of a work surface with either the frame or the flap resting on said surface. 2. a bookbinding apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the second means comprises a movable beam guided for motion along the longitudinal axis of said frame and connecting rod means fixed at one end to the movable beam and fixed at the other end to said first means; said second means further comprising actuator means connected to said frame and to said movable beam so as to reciprocate said movable beam along the longitudinal axis of said frame. 3. a bookbinding apparatus as in claim 2 wherein the actuator means is selected from the group consisting of a rack and pinion means, a pneumatic actuator, a hydraulic actuator or a linear motor. 4. a bookbinding apparatus as in claim 1 wherein cover means are provided to enclose said frame.	background in the field of hand bookbinding and repair, there has been for centuries a constant and generally unimproved set of equipment dedicated to the following functions: (a) the clamping of books during certain phases of work, (b) the pressing of books during other phases of work, and (c) the holding of books and securing media during the sewing phase of work. the equipment for function (a) is currently known as a lying press, for function (b) a standing press, and for function (c) a sewing frame. in general, all equipment has been operated by the manual turning of one or two screws or nuts. with the advent of the machine-made book, all three pieces of equipment were phased out of the mass production of books. there remain, however, many binderies as well as restoration centers which demand the use of handwork on books and therefore the employment of the said equipment. when working on a single book, no more than one piece of said equipment need be used at a time. it follows, therefore, that a multiple-service or combination device capable of all three functions could save both space and capital expenses even when several devices are used at once. brief summary this invention comprises a single device which can function as a sewing frame, or a lying press or a standing press with all parts in place at once. it can be powered by an appropriate means for opening and closing or raising and lowering its elements. opened and closed horizontally, it can be used as a lying press. opened and closed vertically, it can be used as a standing press. opened in a vertical position, it can be used as a sewing frame. only its position on a table or work surface determines its function. paraphanalia ordinarily used with presses and sewing frames are also used with this device. provided with a foot switch or other means of control, the device can be operated while both hands are left free to manipulate the book(s) to be clamped or pressed (often a very difficult manipulation with prior art where only one hand is used to grasp the book while the other turns a tightening screw. detailed description fig. 1 is an isometric top and side view of the device with the top cover removed. it is shown in three positions of movement and in a working and carrying or storage condition. fig. 2 is an isometric top and side view of a table or work surface on which are shown three of the subject devices, each being used for a different one of the three heretofore mentioned functions common to hand bookbinding: (1) sewing a book(s), (2) pressing several books at once, and (3) clamping a book during work on it. fig. 1 shows the essential parts of the device: a frame or enclosure is made of enclosure rails 1 and 2, end piece 3, and stationary press-cheek clamping surface 4. travelling beam 5 is hinged to a movable press-cheek or clamping surface 6 through connecting rods 7 and 8. a means 9 for pushing and pulling elements 5 and 6 towards or away from element 4 is anchored to stationary clamping surface 4 at one end and to travelling beam 5 at the other end. an open flap 10 is hinged to the frame near the stationary clamping surface 4 at 11 and hangs over the edge of a table or work surface as shown in figs. 2-3 or rests on the said table as in figs. 2-1 and 2--2. when the means 9 pushes element 5 away from element 4, element 6 moves towards element 4 and presses or clamps books as shown in figs. 2--2 and 2-3, or releases tapes or cords in the sewing frame mode shown in fig. 2-1. when the means 9 pulls element 5 towards element 4, element 6 moves away from element 4 and releases books being pressed or clamped as shown in figs. 2--2 and 2-3, or tightens tapes or cords in the sewing frame mode shown in fig. 2-1. the movable press-cheek 6 is shown fully opened at 12 and fully closed at 13. the flap 10 is shown in a carrying or storage position at 14. covers 15 and 16 for said frame are shown attached to the frame as shown in fig. 1. a typical means of pushing or pulling (9) is an electrically driven rack and pinion combination or a pneumatic or hydraulic double-acting actuator as shown in fig. 1 (a piston and cylinder combination). linear motors or rotary motors in conjunction with gears, levers, pulleys and connectives are among many powering devices which could be used for such means.
097-218-275-831-788	FI	[ "FI", "EP" ]	B27D1/04,B27D1/00,B27D1/06,B27M1/00,B32B21/14,E04C2/12,B27L5/00,B27M1/04,B32B21/13	2020-12-22T00:00:00	2020	[ "B27", "B32", "E04" ]	a method for manufacturing a plywood board and a plywood board	the invention relates to a plywood board and a method for manufacturing the same. the plywood board comprises a primary surface veneer sheet (211), a secondary surface veneer sheet (221), and at least three core veneer sheets (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) arranged in between the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and the secondary surface veneer sheet (221), the veneer sheets having been bonded together with adhesive (120). at least one of the core veneer sheets (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) has been incised, thereby comprising incisions (i). however, neither the primary surface veneer sheet (211) nor the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) has been incised. moreover, a first angle (a1) between a grain direction (g211) of the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and a grain direction (g221) of the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) is at most 10 degrees.	a method for manufacturing a plywood board (100), the method comprising - peeling a first veneer web (311) from a first log (301) with a first veneer lathe (302), - peeling a second veneer web (411) from a second log (401) with the first veneer lathe (302) or a second veneer lathe, - after peeling the first veneer web (311), incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web, - drying the material of the first veneer web and the material of the second veneer web, - cutting at least the first veneer web (311) and the second veneer web (411) to form veneer sheets (200) that have been incised and veneer sheets (200) that have not been incised, - forming a preform (350) for a plywood board by staking at least five veneer sheets (200) and arranging adhesive (120) in between the at least five veneer sheets (200), and - hot pressing the preform (350) to form the plywood board (100), wherein - the preform (350) for the plywood board comprise a primary surface veneer sheet (211), a secondary surface veneer sheet (221), and at least three core veneer sheets (231, 232, 241, 242, 233) such that - neither the primary surface veneer sheet (211) nor the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) has been incised, - at least one the core veneer sheets has been incised, and - a first angle (α1) between a grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and a grain direction of the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) is at most 10 degrees. the method claim 1, wherein - a first primary core veneer sheet (231) is arranged adjacent to the primary surface veneer sheet (211), - a first secondary core veneer sheet (241) is arranged adjacent to the secondary surface veneer sheet (221), and - the material of the first primary core veneer sheet (231) has been incised and the material of the first secondary core veneer sheet (241) has been incised; preferably, - a second angle (α2) between a grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and a grain direction of the first primary core veneer (231) sheet is at least 75 degrees and - a third angle (α3) between a grain direction of the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) and a grain direction of the first secondary core veneer sheet (241) is at least 75 degrees. the method of claim 1 or 2 comprising - incising only a part of the material of the first veneer web (311) and - cutting the first veneer web (311) to form, from the first veneer web (311), a veneer sheet (200) that has been incised and a veneer sheet (200) that has not been incised. the method of any of the claims 1 to 3, wherein - a thickness of the veneer material is from 1.0 mm to 5.0 mm, and [a] - at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised before the first veneer web (311) is cut to veneer sheets (200) and/or [b] - at least a one of the veneer sheets (200) that have been cut from the first veneer web (311) is incised. the method of any of the claims 1 to 4, comprising - peeling the first veneer web (311) from the first log (301) such that the first veneer web (311) comprises a first side (312) and a second side (313), wherein when the first veneer web (311) is peeled, the second side (313) forms an outer surface of the first log (301) and the first side (312) is opposite to the second side (313), and - incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web (311) from second side (313); preferably, the method comprises - incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web (311) only from second side (313). the method of any of the claims 1 to 5, wherein - a rotational axis of the first log (301), from which the first veneer web (311) is peeled, defines a primary direction (pd) for the veneer material, - the veneer material that is incised comprises a first grain region (s1) in which the veneer material has a grain direction (gd) that forms a sixth angle (α6) of at least three degrees with the primary direction (pd). the method of any of the claims 1 to 6, wherein - the preform (350) for the plywood board comprises at least four core veneer sheets, such as at least five core veneer sheets, - a second primary core veneer sheet (232) is arranged adjacent to the first primary core veneer sheet (231), - a second secondary core veneer sheet (242) is arranged adjacent to the first secondary core veneer sheet (241), and - the material of the second primary core veneer sheet (232) has been incised and the material of the second secondary core veneer sheet (242) has been incised; preferably, - a fourth angle (α4) between a grain direction of the first primary core veneer sheet (231) and a grain direction of the second primary core veneer sheet (232) is at least 75 degrees and - an fifth angle (α5) between a grain direction of the first secondary core veneer sheet (241) and a grain direction of the second secondary core veneer sheet (242) is at least 75 degrees. the method of any of the claims 1 to 7, comprising - incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web with a tool comprising at least a first blade (511) and a second blade (512) that, during incising, penetrate into the material of first veneer web, wherein - the first and second blades (511, 512) are arranged at least 50 cm apart from a knife (304) of the first veneer lathe (302). the method of claim 8, wherein - at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised such that - the first blade (511) penetrates into the veneer material a depth (del) that is from 25 % to 80 % of the thickness (tv) of the veneer material. the method of claim 8 or 9 wherein - the first blade (511) has a length of at least 3 mm and a width that is less than the length of the first blade, - the second blade (512) has a length of at least 3 mm and a width that is less than the length of the second blade. the method of the claim 10, wherein - a rotational axis of the first log (301), from which the first veneer web (311) is peeled, defines a primary direction (pd) for the veneer material, - the veneer material that is incised comprises a first grain region (s1) in which the veneer material has a grain direction (gd) that forms a sixth angle (α6) of at least three degrees with the primary direction (pd), the method comprising - incising at least the material of the first grain region (s1) such that [a] - a direction (db) of the length of the first blade (511) forms a seventh angle (α7) of at most five degrees with the primary direction (pd) and/or [b] - an average (dba) of the direction of the length of the first blade (511) and the direction of the length of the second blade (512) forms an eighth angle (α8) of at most five degrees with the primary direction (pd). the method of any of the claims 1 to 11, comprising - detecting a first skewness value of veneer material from a first grain region (s1), - determining that the first skewness value is at least equal to a threshold, and - thereafter, incising the veneer material of the first grain region (s1); preferably, the method further comprises - detecting a second skewness value of veneer material from a second grain region (s2), which has not been incised, - determining that the second skewness value is below the threshold, and - leaving the veneer material of the second grain region (s2) without incisions. the method of any of the claims 1 to 12, wherein - the material of the first veneer web that is incised has a moisture content of at least 30 wt% on dry basis when being incised. a plywood board (100), having - a length (l), a width (w), and a thickness (t), wherein the thickness (t) is smaller than the length (l) and smaller than the width (w), the plywood board (100) comprising - a primary surface veneer sheet (211), a secondary surface veneer sheet (221), and at least three core veneer sheets (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) arranged in between the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and the secondary surface veneer sheet (221), wherein - the veneer sheets have been bonded together with adhesive (120), - at least one of the core veneer sheets (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) has been incised, - neither the primary surface veneer sheet (211) nor the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) has been incised, and - a first angle (α1) between a grain direction (g211) of the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and a grain direction (g221) of the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) is at most 10 degrees. the plywood board of claim 14, wherein - the core veneer sheet (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) that has been incised has a grain direction (g231, g232, g241) that forms an angle (β1) of from 3 to 87 degrees with a direction (dl) of the length (l) of the plywood board (100); preferably - each incision (i) of the incised core veneer layer (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) has a shape of an elongated cut that extends the most in a longitudinal direction (di) of the incision (i) in question, - an average of the longitudinal directions of the incisions (i) [a] is parallel to the direction (dl) of length (l) or the direction (dw) of the width (w) of the plywood board (100) or [b] forms an angle (β0l) of less than 5 degrees with the direction (dl) of length (l) or [c] forms an angle (β0w) of less than 5 degrees with the direction (dw) of the width (w) of the plywood board (100), and - the core veneer layer (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) that has been incised has a grain direction (g231, g232, g233, g241, g242) that forms an angle (β2) of less than 8 degrees with the average of the longitudinal directions of the incisions (i); more preferably, - the longitudinal directions (dl) of the incisions (i) of the core veneer sheet (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) that has been incised are parallel to each other. the plywood board of claim 14 or 15, wherein - a first primary core veneer sheet (231) is arranged adjacent to the primary surface veneer sheet (211), - a first secondary core veneer sheet (241) is arranged adjacent to the secondary surface veneer sheet (221), and - the material of the first primary core veneer sheet (231) has been incised and the material of the first secondary core veneer sheet (241) has been incised; preferably, - a second angle (α2) between a grain direction (g211) of the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and a grain direction (g231) of the first primary core veneer sheet (231) is at least 75 degrees and - a third angle (α3) between a grain direction (g221) of the secondary surface veneer (221) and a grain direction (g241) of the first secondary core veneer (241) is at least 75 degrees. the plywood board of any of the claims 14 to 16 comprising - at least four core veneers (231, 232, 233, 241, 242), such as at least five core veneers (231, 232, 233, 241, 242), wherein - a second primary core veneer sheet (232) is arranged adjacent to the first primary core veneer sheet (231), - a second secondary core veneer sheet (242) is arranged adjacent to the first secondary core veneer sheet (241), and - the material of the second primary core veneer sheet (232) has been incised and the material of the second secondary core veneer sheet (242) has been incised; preferably, - a fourth angle (α4) between a grain direction (g231) of the first primary core veneer sheet (231) and a grain direction (g232) of the second primary core veneer sheet (232) is at least 75 degrees and - an fifth angle (α5) between a grain direction (g241) of the first secondary core veneer sheet (241) and a grain direction of the second secondary core veneer sheet (242) is at least 75 degrees. the method of any of the claims 1 to 13 or the plywood board of any of the claims 14 to 17, wherein - the material of each such core veneer sheet (231, 241, 233, 243), of which wood material has a grain direction (g231, g241, g233, g243) that forms an angle of at least 75 degrees with the grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet (211), has been incised; preferably - the material of each such core veneer sheet (232, 242), of which wood material has a grain direction (g232, g242) that forms an angle of at most 15 degrees with the grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet (211), has not been incised. the method or the plywood board of any of the claims 1 to 18, wherein - the primary surface veneer sheet (211) and the secondary surface veneer sheet (221) comprise hardwood, such ash, aspen, basswood, beech, birch, cherry, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, poplar, lauan, teak, rosewood, okume, or meranti; preferably birch or beech.	technical field the invention relates to methods for manufacturing plywood boards. the invention relates to plywood boards. the invention relates to flat plywood boards and methods for manufacturing them. background plywood is manufactured by gluing several wooden veneer sheets on top of each other. during gluing, a preform comprising veneer sheets and adhesive is pressed to bond the veneer sheets to form a flat plywood board from the preform. the veneer sheets of the preform are substantially dry. the preform is commonly pressed in between two flat plates, whereby the resulting plywood board is flat. however, it has been found that during storage and/or during use, the plywood board may warp. warping is not beneficial, since some uses of plywood boards require flatness of the plywood boards. thus, flat plywood boards that remain flat also during storage and in use are needed. a possible solution is to discard, before use, such boards that are not sufficiently flat. however, as a result, waste is produced. the boards may be discarded e.g. before or during sanding, if the boards are sanded. in addition the boards may be discarded after storage, just before use. as an example, approximately 1 % of plywood boards may be discarded at one or both phases. summary an aim of the present solution is to present a plywood board that warps, during storage and/or in use, less than a known plywood board. an aim of the present solution is to present a method for manufacturing such a plywood board. it has been found that the warping is caused by moisture absorbed by the plywood board. moreover, moisture, when absorbed by the plywood board, causes the veneer sheets of the plywood board to swell. in theory, plywood is reasonably isotropic because of the different grain directions of different veneer layers, which are directed directly towards a length or a width of the plywood board. however, it has been found, that in practice the wood material comprises also skewed grains, i.e. grains of which direction is neither longitudinal nor transverse, but somewhere in between. it has been found that the skewed grains cause warping of the plywood board. discarding individual veneer sheets, of which skewness is too high, might be a solution. however, a lot of waste would still be produced. it has also been found that the skewed grains can be cut by incising (i.e. tenderizing) the wooden veneer material of the plywood board. it has also been found that forming the plywood board using veneer material, wherein at least some of the skewed grains have been cut by incising, the tendency for warping is diminished. brief description of the drawings fig. 1a shows a plywood board in a perspective view, fig. 1b shows a plywood board having five veneer sheets in a side view, fig. 1c shows a plywood board having six veneer sheets in a side view, fig. 1d shows a plywood board having seven veneer sheets in a side view, fig. 2a shows a plywood board having five veneer sheets in a side view and in an exploded view together with some angles, fig. 2b shows a plywood board having two surface veneer sheets that have not been incised, fig. 2c shows a plywood board having at least two core veneer sheets that have been incised, fig. 2d shows a plywood board having seven core veneer sheets of which such veneer sheets that have a grain direction substantially perpendicular to the grain direction of a surface veneer sheet have been incised, fig. 2e shows a veneer sheet made of parts, fig. 2f shows a veneer sheet made of parts, fig. 3a shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised, when the material is in the form of veneer sheets, fig. 3b shows producing a first or a second veneer web from a first or a second log, respectively, fig. 3c shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised, when the material is in the form of the veneer web, and the veneer web is subsequently dried, fig. 3d shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised, when the material is in the form of the veneer web, and the material of the veneer web is subsequently dried in the form of veneer sheets, fig. 3e shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised by bending, when the material is in the form of the veneer web, fig. 3f shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein at least a part of the material of the first veneer web is incised by bending, when the material is in the form of veneer sheets, fig. 4a shows in detail and in a side view peeling the veneer web from a log, fig. 4b shows in a side view a preform for a plywood board, wherein none of the veneer sheets has been turned upside down, fig. 4c shows in a top view grain directions of the surface veneer sheets of the preform of fig. 4b , fig. 4d shows in a top view grain directions of two surface veneer sheets before turning one of them upside down, fig. 4e shows in a top view grain directions of the two surface veneer sheets of fig. 4d after turning one of them upside down, fig. 4f shows in a side view a preform for a plywood board, wherein one of the surface veneer sheets has been turned upside down, fig. 4g shows in a side view a preform for a plywood board, wherein one of the surface veneer sheets has been turned upside down, fig. 5a shows in a side view incising a veneer web, fig. 5b shows in a top view incising a veneer web with axial blades, the veneer web having skewed grains, fig. 5c shows in a top view incising a veneer web with non-axial blades, the veneer web having skewed grains, fig. 5d shows in a side view incising a veneer web and penetration of blades into the veneer web, fig. 6a shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein a skewness of veneer material, as part of a veneer web, is determined, and the veneer material is incised when the skewness exceeds a limit, fig. 6b shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein a skewness of veneer material, as part of a veneer web, is determined, and the veneer material is not incised when the skewness is below a limit, fig. 6c shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein skewnesses of veneer material, as part of a veneer web, are determined, and such veneer material of which skewness exceeds a limit is incised and such veneer material of which skewness is below the limit is not incised, fig. 6d shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein skewnesses of veneer sheets are determined, a veneer sheet is incised when its skewness exceeds a limit, and a veneer sheet is not incised when its skewness is below the limit, fig. 6e shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein veneer sheets that do not comprise skewed grains bypass an incising part of an incision device, fig. 6f shows a method for manufacturing a plywood board, wherein a quality of each veneer sheet is automatically detected and the veneer sheets are classified according to their quality, fig. 7a shows incising a veneer with a plane in an experiment, and fig. 7b shows punctuating a veneer with a spike in an experiment. detailed description the following reference numerals and symbols are used and shown in the figures: 100 a plywood board, 120 adhesive, 132 a first surface of the plywood board, 134 a second surface of the plywood board, 200 a veneer sheet (in general), 200a, 200b, 200c a veneer sheet (in general), 211 a primary surface veneer sheet, 221 a secondary surface veneer sheet, 231 a first primary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the primary surface veneer sheet 211, 232 a second primary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the first primary core veneer sheet 231, 232a a part of the second primary core veneer sheet, 232b a part of the second primary core veneer sheet, 232c a part of the second primary core veneer sheet, 232d a part of the second primary core veneer sheet, 233 a third primary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the second primary core veneer sheet 232, 234 a fourth primary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the third primary core veneer sheet 233, 241 a first secondary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the secondary surface veneer sheet 221, 242 a second secondary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the first secondary core veneer sheet 241, 243 a third secondary core veneer sheet, adjacent to the second secondary core veneer sheet 242, 301 a first log, 302 a first veneer lathe, 304 a knife of the first veneer lathe, 306 a pressure bar, 311 a first veneer web, 312 a first surface (of a veneer web or a veneer sheet), 313 a second surface (of a veneer web or a veneer sheet), 314 lathe checks, 330 a roll, configured to bend veneer material, 342 an applicator for applying adhesive, 350 a preform for the plywood board, 401 a second log, 411 a second veneer web, 500 a device for incising, 510 an incising roll, 511 a blade, 512 a blade, 520 a support roll, 552 a first conveyor, for conveying veneer sheets to a bypass passage, 554 a second conveyor, for conveying veneer sheets from the bypass passage, 610 an optical detector, 620 a skewness detector, a an arrow, indicating an orientation of a veneer sheet or veneer web, cp a central plane, cpu1 a processor, cpu2 a processor, di direction of an incision or an average direction of incisions, del a depth, of incisions, dl direction of the length l of the plywood board, dw direction of the length w of the plywood board, db a longitudinal direction of a blade, dba an average of the direction of the length of a first blade and a direction of the length of a second blade, db511 a longitudinal direction of the blade 511, db512 a longitudinal direction of the blade 512, gd a grain direction, g211 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 211, g221 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 221, g231 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 231, g232 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 232, g233 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 233, g234 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 234, g241 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 241, g242 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 242, g243 a grain direction of the wood material of the veneer 243, i an incision, in incised, l a length of the plywood board, m a total number of wooden veneer sheets of a plywood board, n an integer number such that m=2n+2 or m=2n+3, ni not incised nir a non-incised region, pd a primary direction, p1 a first passage, for veneer sheets, p2 a second passage, for veneer sheets,, r1 a first region that is incised, r2 a second region, separate from r1, that is incised, s1 a first grain region, which may be, and typically is, incised, s2 a second grain region, which typically is not incised, sx a direction, sy a direction, perpendicular to sx, sz a direction, perpendicular to sx and sy, t a thickness of the plywood board, tv a thickness, of veneer material, w a width of the plywood board, wweb a width of a veneer web, α1 a first angle, between the grain directions g211, g221 of the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 α2 a second angle, between the grain directions g211, g231 of the primary surface veneers sheet 211 and the a first primary core veneer sheet 231, α3 a third angle, between the grain directions g221, g241 of the secondary surface veneers sheet 221 and the a first secondary core veneer sheet 241, α4 a fourth angle, between the grain directions g231 and g232, α5 a fifth angle, between the grain directions g241 and g242, α6 a sixth angle, between the primary direction pd and a grain direction, α7 a seventh angle, between the primary direction pd and a longitudinal direction of a blade, α8 an eighth angle, between the primary direction pd and an average direction of the longitudinal directions of the blades, β0l an angle between a direction of the length of the plywood board and an average of longitudinal direction of incisions, β0w an angle between a direction of the width of the plywood board and an average of longitudinal direction of incisions, β1 an angle between a direction of the length of the plywood board and a grain direction of a veneer sheet, β2 an angle between an average direction of the incision(s) and a grain direction of the wood material of a veneer sheet. figure 1a shows a plywood board 100 having a length l, a width w, and a thickness t. herein the thickness t is smaller than the length l and smaller than the width w. three orthogonal directions, sx, sy, and sz are shown in fig. 1a , wherein sz is parallel (i.e. unidirectional) with a direction of the thickness t. the plywood board 100 has a first surface 132 and an opposite second surface 134. a normal of the first surface 132 is unidirectional (i.e. parallel) with the direction of the thickness t of the plywood board 100. a normal of the second surface 134 is unidirectional with the direction of the thickness t of the plywood board 100. most often a direction dl of the length l is defined such that it is substantially parallel to a grain direction (g211, g221) of a surface veneer (211, 221) of the plywood board 100. the grain directions (g211, g221) of the surface veneers may be mutually parallel. thus, oftentimes the length l is less than the width w. this convention derives from the fact that a length of a log (301, 401) is substantially parallel to the grain direction of the wood material. as detailed in the background, e.g. during storage or in use, the plywood board may warp, whereby it no longer is exactly planar. warping occurs as cupping or as twisting. in cupping, the first or the second surface of the plywood board becomes concave, the opposite side becoming convex. in twisting, the first and the second surface of the plywood board become saddle surface like surfaces. fig. 1b shows, in a side view, a plywood board 100 comprising five veneer sheets 200 (denoted by 211, 231, 232, 241, and 221) and adhesive 120 arranged in between the veneer sheets 200. hereinbelow, veneer sheets are commonly referred to by the reference numeral 200, when considered feasible. the plywood board 100 comprises a primary surface veneer sheet 211, a secondary surface veneer sheet 221, and at least three core veneer sheets (231, 232, 241) arranged in between the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and the secondary surface veneer sheet 221, the veneer sheets 200 bonded together with adhesive 120. the core veneer sheets are arranged between the surface veneer sheets in the direction of the thickness t of the board 100. as for a definition of the surface veneer sheet, a surface veneer sheet is such a veneer sheet that comprises veneer sheets only on one of its sides. in case the plywood board 100 has not been coated, a surface veneer sheet (211, 221) forms a surface (132, 134) of the plywood board 100. however, a surface veneer sheet may comprise veneer sheets on only one of its side, and other material layer(s) on the other side. such other material include at least coating material, such as polymerized resins. in the embodiment, at least one of the core veneer sheets (231, 232, 241) has been incised. as detailed above, incising has been found to reduce warping of the plywood board 100 during storage and in use. methods for incising and reasons why warping is reduced by incising will be detailed later. the core veneer sheet that has been incised may have been incised when being a part of a veneer web or after having been cut from the veneer web, i.e. as a veneer sheet. thus, at least one of the core veneer sheets comprises incisions i. the incisions i are evidence of the material having been incised, as indicated by the letters "in" near the numerals 231 and 241 in fig. 1b . such incisions i are shown in fig. 2a for all the core veneer sheets. an example of an incision is shown also in fig. 7a . however, in the embodiment of fig. 1b , neither the primary surface veneer sheet 211 nor the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 has been incised. neither of them has been incised neither in the veneer web form nor in the veneer sheet form. thus, both the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 are free from incisions i. such incisions i are absent from fig. 2a (see surface veneer sheets 211, 221).the absence of incisions is indicated also in fig. 1b by the letters "ni" (not incised) near the reference numerals 211 and 221. fig. 2a shows an ideal case, wherein a grain direction g211, g231, g232, g241, g211 of each one of the veneer sheets 211, 231, 232, 241, 221 is parallel to either the length or the width of the veneer sheet. this may occur, when the tree, from which the veneer sheets are made, grows straight. the plywood board may be cross-oriented throughout, as in fig. 2a , but need not be, as in fig. 1c . the grain orientations of the veneer sheets is shown by the arrows on the right hand side of fig. 2a , and as arrow or cross marks on the left hand side of fig. 2a . on the left hand side of fig. 2a , the arrow shown in a veneer sheet indicates a grain direction parallel to plane of the figure (sheets 211, 232, and 221), or substantially parallel e.g. in figs. 2b and 2c , and the cross mark indicates grain direction perpendicular to plane of the figure (sheets 231 and 241), or substantially perpendicular e.g. in figs. 2b and 2c . the possible deviation from parallel or perpendicular will be explained later. however, the tree, from which the veneer sheets are made, does not always grow straight. in such a case, the grain direction gd of the material of the veneer web 311 is not exactly parallel to a direction of width wweb of the veneer web 311 (see e.g. fig. 3b and 5b ). however, as detailed above, most commonly, the plywood board is made such that the direction dl of the length l of the board 100 is parallel to the direction of the width wweb of the veneer web 311 from which the surface veneer sheet is made. most often, even if the grains are skewed, the angle of skewness (shown by α6 in fig. 5b ) is less than eight degrees. however, a skewness of e.g. at least 3 degrees seems to warp the plywood board. it has been found that the discarded plywood boards (see background), which did not comprise incised veneer material, typically comprised veneer layers, in which the skewness was at least five degrees. therefore, and referring to 2b, the grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 needs not be unidirectional with the length l or the width w. referring to 2b, the grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 needs not be unidirectional with the length or the width. in such a case the grains are skewed, as discussed above. however, also in such a case, the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 are preferably oriented such that a first angle α1, which remains in between these directions, is small. if needed, one of the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 may be turned upside down before pressing the stack of veneer sheets as detailed in connection with figs. 4b to 4f . it has been found that having a small angle (or no angle at all) between the grain directions of the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 also reduces the tendency of warping. referring to figs. 2a and 2b , in an embodiment, a first angle α1 between a grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and a grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 is at most 10 degrees. it has been found that decreasing the first angle α1 decreases the tendency of warping. moreover, preferably both the grain directions g211 and g221 are substantially parallel to a length l or a width w of the plywood board 100. as detailed above, it is commonplace to define the length such that a direction of the length is parallel to the grain directions g211, g221. more specifically, preferably an angle between the grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and a length l of the plywood board is less than 5 degrees or more than 85 degrees. in a similar way, preferably an angle between the grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 and a length l of the plywood board is less than 5 degrees or more than 85 degrees. this angle is slightly less than the typical maximum angle for skewness, because typically, the surface veneer sheets are of high quality, whereby their skewness is less than maximum. throughout this description, an angle between two directions is defined as the smaller of the two angles of the two straight lines that are parallel to the two directions. thus, e.g. if an angle between the grain direction g211 and a direction of length l would be 45 degrees, whereby another angle between the grain direction g211 and a direction of length l would be 135 degrees; the smaller one would be neither less than 5 degrees nor greater than 135 degrees. thus, such a direction would not be substantially parallel to the direction of length or width in the aforementioned meaning. the primary surface veneer 211 may form the primary surface 132 of the plywood board 100. the secondary surface veneer 221 may form the secondary surface 134 of the plywood board 100. the surface veneers 221, 221 are not incised because many applications require a smooth surface 132, 134 of the board 100, and incisions typically are indentations in the veneer sheets 231, 232, 241. incisions are also typically not considered visually attractive, and the plywood board is not always coated by with opaque coating. thus incisions on a surface veneer could deteriorate the visual appearance. furthermore, as detailed below, the incisions are particularly effective in reducing warpage, when the incisions are formed on a second side 313 of the veneer material, which is opposite to a first side 312 that contains lathe checks 314. both the incisions and the lathe checks are detrimental for visual appearance. thus, in such a case the incised veneer sheets do not comprise any visually attractive surfaces. moreover, for manufacturing reasons it is feasible to incise all the veneer material from the same side(s); or from only the same side, i.e. only from the second side 313. as for incising, it has been found that the skewed grains of the core veneers, in particular such core veneers that are not central veneers (or the central veneer) are responsible for the warping of the plywood board. this seems to result from the swelling of the veneer material of a veneer sheet adjacent to the skewed grains particularly in the direction that is perpendicular to their grain direction. to elaborate, wood material swells most in a tangential direction, somewhat less in a radial direction, and only negligible in the grain direction. thus, when the plywood is cross-oriented, as it commonly is, the veneer layers tend to swell in the tangential direction of that layer. if the material was not skewed, the grains of the adjacent layer could resist the swelling; and the cross-structure would cause the internal stress to cancel. however, when the grains of the adjacent layer is skewed, the grains (which do not swell) of the adjacent veneer layer cause internal stress (shear and normal) to the plywood board, which does not cancel out by other internal stress. thus, such swelling causes forces inside the board. it has been found that by incising at least such parts of the plywood board, the warping can be reduced. naturally, incising must be performed before the pressing the preform of the board to form the board. it seems that after breaking the grains, their strength is not sufficient to resist the swelling of the adjacent layers, and thus the strength is not sufficient for causing warping. moreover, the further away from a central plane cp of the board, the higher the internal torque generated by said stress. therefore, most preferable, at least such core veneer sheets that are close to the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 have been incised. referring to fig. 1b , in an embodiment, a first primary core veneer sheet 231 is arranged adjacent to the primary surface veneer sheet 211. herein the term "adjacent" indicates that no other wooden veneer sheet is arranged in between these sheets 211, 231. however, adhesive 120 is arranged in between the adjacent sheets 211, 231. moreover, a first secondary core veneer sheet 241 is arranged adjacent to the secondary surface veneer sheet 221. herein the term "adjacent" indicates that no other wooden veneer sheet is arranged in between these sheets 221, 241. however, adhesive 120 is arranged in between the sheets 221, 241. in the embodiment of fig. 1b , the first primary core veneer sheet 231 has been incised. the presence of incisions, and the fact the material of the sheet has been incised, is indicated in fig. 1b by the letters "in" (incised) near the reference numeral 231. the first primary core veneer sheet 231 in fig. 2a also shows incisions i. in the embodiment of fig. 1b , the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 has been incised. the presence of incisions, and the fact the material of the sheet has been incised, is indicated in fig. 1b by the letter "in" (incised) near the reference numeral 241. the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 in fig. 2a also shows incisions i. referring to fig. 2a , the grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 is typically substantially perpendicular to the grain direction g231 of the first primary core veneer sheet 231. thus, in an embodiment, a second angle α2 between the grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and the grain direction g231 of the first primary core veneer sheet 231 is at least 75 degrees, such as at least 80 degrees. this takes into account the skewness of at most about 8 degrees for both the two veneer sheets 211, 231. in a similar manner on the opposite side of the plywood board 100, the grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 is substantially perpendicular to the grain direction g241 of the first secondary core veneer sheet 241. thus, in an embodiment, a third angle α3 between the grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 and the grain direction g241 of the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 is at least 75 degrees, such as at least 80 degrees. referring to fig. 2c , preferably, the incisions i have the form of elongated cuts extending, at least on the average, substantially in the direction of length or width of the plywood board 100. moreover, when, in such a case, the grains of the veneer sheets are skewed, they are cut by the incisions, as indicated in fig. 2c for the first primary core veneer sheet 231 and the first secondary core veneer sheet 241. it has been found that the skewness of the grains affects warping in particular when a skewness of the veneer sheet is at least three degrees. thus, in a preferable embodiment, a core veneer layer (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) that has been incised (i.e. comprises incisions i) has a grain direction that forms an angle β1 of from 3 to 87 degrees with a direction dl of the length l of the plywood board 100. for example, in fig. 2c , the angle β1 remains in between the grain direction g241 and a direction dl of length l. as this angle is 3 to 87 degrees, an angle in between the grain direction g241 and a direction dw of the width w is also 3 to 87 degrees, because a direction dw of the width w is perpendicular to the direction dl length l. in the experiments (see below) the effect of incising was tested also for a skewness of five degrees. moreover, preferably in such a case each incision i has a shape of an elongated cut that extends the most in a longitudinal direction di of the incision i (i.e. cut) in question. furthermore, an average of the longitudinal directions di of the incisions is parallel to the direction dl of the length l or the direction dw of the width w of the plywood board 100; or at least an angle β0l, β0w in between them is small. more specifically, an angle β0l between the average of the longitudinal directions di of the cuts (i.e. incisions) and the direction dl of the length l is less than 5 degrees or an angle β0w between the average of the longitudinal directions di of the cuts and the direction dw of the width w is less than 5 degrees. more preferable, an angle between the average of the longitudinal directions di of the cuts (i.e. incisions) and the direction dl of the length l is less than 3 degrees or the angle between the average of the longitudinal directions di of the cuts and the direction dw of the width w is less than 3 degrees. preferably, the average of the longitudinal directions di of the cuts (i.e. incisions) is parallel to the direction dl of the length l or the direction dw of the width w of the plywood board 100. even more preferably, the longitudinal direction di of each incision i is parallel to the direction dl of the length l or the direction dw of the width w of the plywood board 100. however, the incisions i are preferably substantially parallel to the grain direction of the material comprising the incisions. thus, the core veneer layer (231, 232, 233, 241, 242) that has been incised (i.e. comprises incisions i) has a grain direction that forms an angle β2 of at most eight degrees with the average of the longitudinal directions di of the incisions i (i.e. cuts). as indicated above, it has been found that in such a case, the incisions have beneficial effect in reducing warping of the plywood board, since the grains of the core veneer have been cut. this is also beneficial from the point of view, that when all incisions are formed in the same manner, in such veneers that are not skewed, not many of the grains are cut, since the angle β2 is small. for example, in the experiments (see fig. 7a and the experiments below), the angle β2 between a grain direction g and a longitudinal direction di of each one of the incisions was 5 degrees, since the incisions were parallel to each other, and parallel to the direction dw of the width w of the board. thus, in the experiments the angle β0w was zero (see above). moreover, the grain direction g of the incised layer formed an angle β1 of 5 degrees with the direction dw of the width w. referring to fig. 1c , in a preferable embodiment, the plywood board 100 comprises at least four core veneer sheets 231, 232, 241, 242. referring to fig. 1d , in a more preferable embodiment, the plywood board 100 comprises at least five core veneer sheets 231, 232, 233, 241, 242. in such an embodiment, a second primary core veneer sheet 232 is arranged adjacent to the first primary core veneer sheet 231 and a second secondary core veneer sheet 242 is arranged adjacent to the first secondary core veneer sheet 241. the term "adjacent" herein means that no wooden veneers sheets has been arranged in between the adjacent veneer sheets; however, adhesive 120 has been arranged therein between. in order to reduce warping, preferably in such an embodiment, both the second primary core veneer sheet 232 and the second secondary core veneer sheet 242 have been incised. these veneer sheets may have been incised irrespective of whether the primary core veneer sheets (231, 241) have been incised or not. however, preferably at least the four core veneer sheets closest to either one of the surface veneer sheets have been incised. thus, preferably all of the first primary core veneer sheet 231, the second primary core veneer sheet 232, the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 and the second secondary core veneer sheet 242 have been incised. a plywood board 100 comprises a number m of veneer sheets. in figs. 1b, 1c, 1d , and 2d the number is five, six, seven, and nine, respectively. referring to fig. 1d , in case the plywood board 100 comprises an odd number (2n+1, wherein n is an integer; m=2n+3 because of the two surface veneer sheets) of core veneer sheets, incising the central core veneer sheet (233) has less effect on warping than incising the other core veneer sheets. referring to fig. 1c , in case the plywood board 100 comprises an even number (2n, wherein n is an integer; m=2n+2 because of the two surface veneer sheets) of core veneer sheets, incising the two central core veneer sheets (232, 242) has less effect on warping than incising the other core veneer sheets. as for the grain directions of the veneer sheets, in figs. 1b, 1c, and 1d the hatching of the veneer sheets is related to grain direction. hatches from up-left to low-right (in fig. 1b the sheets 211, 232, 221) indicate a grain direction that is substantially perpendicular to a grain direction indicated by a hatching from low-left to up-right (in fig. 1b the sheets 231, 241). what has been said above about the grain directions indicated in fig. 2a applies for figs. 2b, 2c , and 2d . referring to fig. 2a , in an embodiment, a fourth angle α4 between a grain direction g231 of the first primary core veneer sheet 231 and a grain direction g232 of the second primary core veneer sheet 232 is at least 75 degrees, such as at least 80 degrees. as shown in fig. 2d , a fifth angle (α5) between a grain direction g241 of the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 and a grain direction g242 of the second secondary core veneer sheet 242 is at least 75 degrees, such as at least 80 degrees. in terms of grain directions and presence of incisions, preferably the plywood board 100 is symmetric about a central plane cp, as indicated in figs. 1c and 1d . in such a symmetric plywood board 100, each two veneer sheets that are equally far from the central plane cp have mutually parallel grain directions (or at least substantially parallel in the meaning of an angle between their grain directions being less than 15 degrees) and both of them are either incised or free from incisions. as an example, in fig, 1c , the surface veneer sheets 211, 221, which are equally far from the central plane cp, are free from incisions (see the symbol "ni"). moreover, their grain directions are parallel to each other (or substantially parallel, as indicated by the first angle α1). moreover, the first core veneer sheets (231, 241), which are equally far from the central plane cp, have been incised (see the symbol "in"). moreover, their grain directions are parallel to each other or substantially parallel to each other. this applies also the embodiments of fig. 1b and fig. 1d . preferably, the number m of veneer sheets of the plywood board 100 is from 5 to 21, such as from 7 to 13 (including the surface veneer sheets 211, 221). even more preferably the number is odd (i.e. 2n+3, wherein n is an integer) and from 5 to 21, such as from 7 to 13. at least the surface veneer sheets have not been incised. preferably at least the first core veneer sheets (primary 231 and secondary 241) have been incised. even more preferably, at least all the other core veneer sheets than the central core veneer sheet (one in case a number of the veneer sheets is odd) or two central core veneer sheets (in case a number of the veneer sheets is even) have been incised. preferably only m-2 or m-3 of them have been incised, when m is odd (i.e. all other than the surface veneer sheets, optionally not incising the central core veneer sheet). when m is even, only m-2 or m-4 of the veneer sheets have been incised (i.e. all other than the surface veneer sheets, optionally not incising the two central core veneer sheets). given in proportion, preferably from 10 % to 90 % of the veneer sheets of the plywood board 100 have been incised. one possibility is to incise the material of each such veneer sheet, of which grain direction is substantially perpendicular to the grain direction of a surface veneer sheet. for example, if the plywood board is cross-laminated throughout and comprises an odd number of veneer sheets, every second core veneer sheet may be incised. in such a scenario, less than 50 % of the veneer sheets would be incised. thus, in an embodiment of the method or the plywood board, the material of each such core veneer layer (231, 241, 233, 243), of which wood material has a grain direction (g231, g241, g233, g243) that forms an angle of at least 75 degrees with the grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet 211, has been incised. this has the beneficial effect that when constructing the preform 350 for the plywood board, the veneer sheets that have a grain direction that is substantially parallel to a grain direction of a surface veneer are typically taken from a first stack, while the veneer sheets that have a grain direction that is substantially perpendicular to a grain direction of a surface veneer (in the meaning defined above) are typically taken from a second stack. thus, all the veneer sheets of the second stack may have been incised, which simplifies the manufacturing process. referring to fig. 2d , which shows a plywood board having seven core veneer layers 231, 232, 233, 234, 243, 242, 241 (i.e. m=9), the plywood board may be e.g. cross-laminated, whereby every second core veneer sheet (starting from the first primary core veneer sheet 231) may be incised. correspondingly, in an embodiment, only the aforementioned (substantially perpendicular) veneer sheets have been incised. thus, in an embodiment, the material of each such core veneer layer (232, 242), of which wood material has a grain direction (g232, g242) that forms an angle of at most 15 degrees with the grain direction of the primary surface veneer sheet 211, has not been incised. this has the beneficial effect that when constructing the preform 350 for the plywood board as detailed above, none of the veneer sheets of the first stack need to be incised. this further simplifies the manufacturing process. referring to fig. 2d , therein none of every second core veneer sheet (starting from the second primary core veneer sheet 232) is incised. however, as detailed in fig. 1c , the plywood board need not be cross-laminated throughout, whereby the veneer sheets having the aforementioned orientations would not be every second veneer sheets. for example, in fig. 1c , the veneer sheets 232 and 242 are adjacent veneer sheets and have a grain direction that is substantially parallel to a grain direction of a surface veneer 211, whereby, in the aforementioned scenario, these veneer sheets would not be incised. as for manufacturing the plywood board 100, reference is made to figs. 3a to 3f . in general, veneer sheets 200 are being produced, and by gluing these together, the plywood board 100 is obtained. hereinbelow the term veneer sheet and the reference numeral 200 relate to both core veneer sheets (231, 232, 241, 242) and surface veneer sheets 211, 221. referring to figs. 3a to 3f , a method for manufacturing the plywood board 100 comprises peeling a first veneer web 311 from a first log 301 with a first veneer lathe 302 comprising a knife 304. the first veneer web 311 is used to form at least a veneer sheet 200 of the plywood board 100. even if not shown in a separate figure, the method comprises peeling a second veneer web 411 from a second log 401 with the first veneer lathe 302 or a second veneer lathe. producing the first veneer web 311 from the first log 301 is indicated in fig. 3b . producing the second veneer web 411 from the second log 401 is indicated in fig. 3b . the second veneer web 411 may be processed in a similar way as the first veneer web 311 to produce veneer sheets 200. veneer sheets 200 obtained from both the first log 301 and the second log 401, and optionally sheets from further log or logs, may be used to form the plywood board 100. veneer sheets 200 obtained from only the first log 301 may be used to form the plywood board 100. for example, it is possible to incise all the material of the first veneer web 311 and not incise any of the material of the second veneer web 411, and in this way produce both incised and un-incised veneer sheets 200. for example, it is possible to incise only a part of the material of the first veneer web 311, and in this way produce both incised and un-incised veneer sheets 200 only from the first log 301. as detailed above, the plywood board 100 comprises un-incised veneer sheets 200 (e.g. the surface veneer sheets 211, 221) and at least one incised veneer sheet (i.e. a core veneer sheet 231, 232, 241, 242, 233). thus, the method comprises incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311. the term "material of the first veneer web" refers to the material irrespective of whether it is in the form of the veneer web 311 or whether it is in the form of veneer sheets 200, which are cut from the veneer web(s). as detailed below, the method thus comprises [a] incising at least a part of the first veneer web 311 and/or [b] incising at least a part of veneer sheets 200 cut from the first veneer web 311. however, the material of the first veneer web 311 is incised only after the material has been peeled from the first log 301. a part of the material of the second veneer web 411 may be incised. if only a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 is incised, all the material of the second veneer web 411 may be incised. if incised, the material of the second veneer web 411 is incised after peeling it from the second log 401. referring to fig. 3a , the material of the first veneer web 311 that is incised, may be incised after cutting ("cutting" in fig. 3a ) the first veneer web 311 to veneer sheets 200. thus, in the embodiment of fig. 3a , instead of incising the veneer web 311, the material of the veneer web 311 is incised ("incising" in fig. 3a ) when it is in the form of veneer sheets 200. therefore, an embodiment comprises incising at least a one of the veneer sheets 200 that have been cut from the first veneer web 311. referring to figs. 3c and 3d , the material of the first veneer web 311 that is incised, may be incised ("incising" in figs. 3c and 3d ) before cutting ("cutting") the first veneer web 311 to the veneer sheets 200. thus, in the embodiment of figs. 3c and 3d , at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 is incised when it is in the form of the veneer web 311. thus, an embodiment comprises incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 before the first veneer web 311 is cut to veneer sheets 200. naturally, both the veneer web 311 and the sheets 200 cut therefrom may be incised subsequently (not shown). in figs. 3a , 3c , and 3d , the material that is incised is incised by using blades that penetrate into the wooden material to form cuts, i.e. incisions. referring to figs. 3e and 3f , in the alternative, the material of the first veneer web 311 may be incised by bending the material to a small radius of curvature. the material of the first veneer web 311 may be bent e.g. onto a roll 330 having a radius of curvature of at most 150 mm, e.g. from 10 mm to 150 mm, and extending in a longitudinal direction, which is parallel to an axis of rotation of the roll 330 and parallel to a direction of width wweb of the veneer web 311. this direction applies also when veneer sheets 200 are incised by bending them ( fig. 3f ). for the width wweb of the web, reference is made to fig. 3b . thus, the width wweb of the veneer web corresponds to a length of the log, from which is peeled. the web may propagate in a straightforward manner, whereby the axis of rotation of the bending roll 330 may be parallel to the axis of rotation of the log, when peeled by the lathe 302. referring to fig. 3e , the material of the veneer web 311 may be bent before cutting the veneer web 311 to veneer sheets 200. referring to fig. 3f , the material of the veneer web 311 may be bent after cutting the veneer web 311 to veneer sheets 200. the veneer material is preferably bent such that a first side 312 of the material, which contains lathe checks (see fig. 4a ), remain as an inner side during incising by bending. correspondingly, the incisions i are formed onto the outer side (see fig. 3e ). this is shown in fig. 3e , but applies equally in fig. 3f . the method comprises cutting the first veneer web 311 and the second veneer web 411 to form a set of veneer sheets 200. the material of the veneer web(s) are incised and cut such that the set of veneer sheets 200 comprises veneers sheets 200 that have been incised and veneer sheets 200 that have not been incised. the method comprises drying the material of the first veneer web 311 and the material of the second veneer web 411. referring to figs. 3a and 3d , the material of the first veneer web 311 may be dried after cutting the first veneer web 311 to veneer sheets 200. the veneer sheets 200 can be dried irrespective of whether the step of incising is performed to the material in the web form (as in fig. 3d ) or in the sheet form (as in fig. 3a ). referring to fig. 3c , the material of the first veneer web 311 may be dried before cutting the first veneer web 311 to veneer sheets 200. referring to figs. 3e and 3f , the order of the steps of incising, cutting, and drying may be chosen based on needs irrespective of the details of how the material is incised. however, the material of the first veneer web 311 is incised after the first veneer web 311 has been cut from the first log, and dried thereafter. i.e. the material is incised before drying. this applies also to drying of the material of the second veneer web 411. the method comprises forming a preform 350 for a plywood board by stacking at least five veneer sheets 200 on top of each other, arranging adhesive in between the at least five veneer sheets, and hot pressing the preform 350 to form the plywood board 100. it is noted that the each one of the five veneer sheets may originate from different logs. thus, even if the method has been discussed in context with only two logs, typically, during manufacturing a multitude of logs are peeled, and the veneer sheets are shuffled. however, since at least a part of the veneer material originating from the first log 301 is incised, at least the incised core veneer sheet (231, 232, 241, 242, 233), or at least a part (232a, 232b, 232c, 232d) thereof, is produced from the first log 301. the first log 301, the second log 401 or another log may be used for producing at least another veneer sheet (surface veneer sheet and/or core veneer sheet) of the plywood board. in addition, the first log 301 may be used for producing other veneer sheets for another plywood board or other plywood boards. if only a part of the of the veneer material originating from the first log 301 is incised, the part not incised may be used as material for one or both surface veneer sheet(s) (211, 221) of the plywood board 100 or for one or both surface veneer sheet(s) of another plywood board. referring to figs. 3a , 3c , and 3d , liquid adhesive may be applied e.g. in a roll coater type applicator 342, by pouring, or by spraying onto a surface of the veneer sheets. as well known, instead of liquid adhesive, dry adhesives in the form of dry adhesive sheets can be used. as a further alternative, the adhesive may be applied as a foam. the dry veneer sheets as obtained by the process of fig. 3e or 3f may be used in a similar way to produce the plywood board 100. it has been found that incising does not deteriorate the mechanical properties of the plywood board 100 (e.g. strength) much, at least when the incisions do not penetrate through the material of the veneer (sheet or web). however, it has also been found that dry wood is reasonable fragile, whereby incising dry wood easily causes the incisions to penetrate through the wood material. in contrast, when the moisture content of the wood material of the veneer (sheet or web) is high, the wood material is less brittle. therefore preferably, the material of the first veneer web 311 that is incised has a moisture content of at least 30 wt% on dry basis when incised. as detailed above, when incised, the material may be in the form of the web 311 or the sheet 200. the moisture content may be e.g. from 30 wt% to 185 wt%. herein the unit "wt%" indicates the moisture content relative to dry matter content. for example, it has been found that a suitable moisture content for incising hardwood, such as birch, is from 60 wt% to 110 wt%. for example, it has been found that a suitable moisture content for incising softwood, such as spruce, is from 30 wt% to 185 wt%. this helps to control the depth of the incisions and to prevent them from propagating through the wood material, in this way helping to keep the strength of the veneer sheets 200 even if incised. as detailed in the context of the plywood board 100, the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 are not incised. therefore, an embodiment of the method comprises forming the preform 350 for the plywood board 100 from a primary surface veneer sheet 211, a secondary surface veneer sheet 221, and at least three core veneer sheets (231, 241, 232, 242, 233) such that neither the primary surface veneer sheet 211 nor the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 has been incised. the at least three core veneer sheets are arranged in between the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and the secondary surface veneer sheet 221, and at least one of the core veneer sheets has been incised. in practice, the veneer sheets 200 may be classified according to their quality, and high quality veneer sheets, which have not been incised (and may be taken from a first storage position), are used as surface veneer sheets; and lower quality veneers, which may have been incised (and may be taken from a second storage position), are used as core veneer sheets. as detailed above, the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 are preferably arranged relative to each other such that a first angle α1 between a grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and a grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 is at most 10 degrees. reference is made to figs. 3a , 3c , 3d , 2a , and 2b . in an embodiment, a first primary core veneer sheet 231 is arranged adjacent to the primary surface veneer sheet 211, a first secondary core veneer sheet 241 is arranged adjacent to the secondary surface veneer sheet 221, and both the first primary core veneer sheet and the first secondary core veneer sheet have been incised when part of the web 311 or as veneer sheets 200 (i.e. the first core veneer sheets 231 and 241 comprise incisions). for example, incised veneer sheets may be stored in different locations than un-incised veneer sheets, and the veneer sheets needed may be taken from the appropriate location. in an embodiment, a second angle α2 between a grain direction g211 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and a grain direction g231 of the first primary core veneer sheet 231 is at least 75 degrees and a third angle α3 between a grain direction g221 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 and a grain direction g241 of the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 is at least 75 degrees. in an embodiment, such a preform 350 is formed that the preform 350 for the plywood board 100 comprises at least four core veneer sheets (i.e. m ≥ 6), such as at least five core veneer sheets (i.e. m ≥ 7). as for the terms, a second primary core veneer sheet 232 is arranged adjacent to the first primary core veneer sheet 231 and a second secondary core veneer sheet 242 is arranged adjacent to the first secondary core veneer sheet 241. in the embodiment, the preform 350 is formed such that both the second primary core veneer sheet 232 and the second secondary core veneer sheet 242 have been incised in the meaning discussed above. in a preferable embodiment, a fourth angle α4 between a grain direction g231 of the first primary core veneer sheet 231 and a grain direction g232 of the second primary core veneer sheet 232 is at least 75 degrees and a fifth angle α5 between a grain direction g241 of the first secondary core veneer sheet 241 and a grain direction of the second secondary core veneer sheet 242 is at least 75 degrees. as for the total number of veneer sheets, number of incised veneer sheets and number of un-incised veneer sheets, what has been said in connection with the plywood board 100 applies in connection with the method and to the preform 350 for the plywood board 100. as for incising veneer sheets (or only such veneer sheets) of which grain direction is substantially perpendicular to a grain direction of a surface veneer sheet, what has been said above applies in connection with the method. as detailed above, it is possible to incise all the material of the first veneer web 311 and leave the material of the second veneer web 411 without incising. thus, surface veneer sheets 211, 221 would be produced from the second veneer web 411 only. however, it has been found that oftentimes there is a shortage of the surface veneer sheets 211, 221, since their quality requirement is high. oftentimes high quality veneer is only present in a middle part of a veneer web 311, 411. therefore, incising all the material of the first veneer web 311 would incise also such material that probably has a high quality before incising. therefore, in a preferable embodiment, only a part of the first veneer web 311 is incised. moreover, the embodiment of the method comprises cutting the first veneer web 311 to form, from the first veneer web 311, at least a part of a veneer sheet 200 that has been incised and a veneer sheet 200 that has not been incised. then, the veneer sheet 200 that has not been incised can be used as a surface veneer sheet 211, 221; and the veneer sheet 200 that has been incised (or a part thereof) can be used as a (part of a) core veneer sheet. however, they are not necessarily used in the same panel 100. in the context of figs. 3a and 3f , it is possible e.g. to incise only some of the veneer sheets 200, which have been cut from the first veneer web 311. in the context of figs. 3c and 3d , it is possible that an incising device 500, such as an incising roll 510, is operable in two modes, wherein in a first mode the device 500 forms incisions to the material, and in a second mode the device 500 leaves the material intact. e.g. an incising roll 510 may be moved away from the veneer web 311 (e.g. lifted) not to form the incisions and brought in contact with the veneer web 311 (e.g. lowered) to form the incisions. it is also possible to automatically detect the skewness of the veneer material, and incise the material based on a measured skewness (or at least two measured skewness values). referring to fig. 6a , it is possibly to use a skewness detector 620 to determine a skewness of the veneer material, which in fig. 6a is in the form of the veneer web. thereafter, if the skewness exceeds a threshold, the veneer material may be incised, as indicated on the right hand side of fig. 6a . the arrow from left to right indicates the direction of movement of the web. for example, if the skewness exceeds the threshold, the incising device 500 may be set to a position of incision (e.g. the roll 510 lowered, see fig. 5a ). referring to fig. 6b , alternatively, it is possibly to use a skewness detector 620 to determine a skewness of the veneer material, which in fig. 6b is in the form of the veneer web. thereafter, if the skewness is below a threshold, the veneer material may bypass the incising device 500 or go through the incising device that is set to a mode, wherein the device 500 does not incise the material. for example, if the skewness is below the threshold, the incising device 500 may be set to a position for not incising (e.g. the roll 510 lifted, see fig. 5a ). thus, even if only one veneer lathe 302 is used, the whole veneer webs 311 receivable therefrom can be incised ( fig. 6a ) or left without incisions ( fig. 6b ). however, for reasons detailed above, preferably the skewness detector 620 is used to locally detect areas wherein the skewness exceeds the threshold, and the incision device 500 is configured to incise only such veneer material. thus, in an embodiment, the skewness detector 620 is used to determine a fist skewness value from a first grain region s1 and a second skewness value from a second grain region s2; wherein the first skewness value is at least equal to a threshold and the second skewness value is less than the threshold. then, the processor cpu1 is configured to control the incision device 500 such that the veneer material of the first grain region s1 is incised and the veneer material of the second grain region s2 is not incised, as indicated in fig. 6c . what has been said above applies mutatis mutandis to the embodiments, wherein the veneer material is incised after cutting to veneer sheets 200, i.e. when the veneer sheets 200 are incised. referring to fig. 6d , in an embodiment, a skewness detector 620 is used to determine a fist skewness value from a first veneer sheet 200a and a second skewness value from a second veneer sheet 200b; wherein the first skewness value is at least equal to a threshold and the second skewness value is less than the threshold. then, the processor cpu1 is configured to control the incision device 500 such that the veneer material of the first veneer sheet 200a is incised and the veneer material of the second veneer sheet 200b is not incised, as indicated in fig. 6d . as indicated in fig. 6d , the whole first veneer sheet 200a can be called the first grain region s1, and the whole second veneer sheet 200b can be called the second grain region s2. the processor cpu1 can control the device 500 e.g. by lifting or lowering the incision roll 510. in the alternative, and with reference to fig. 6e , the device for incising 500 may comprise a bypass passage ("by-pass") such that the veneer sheets 200 guided to the bypass passage bypass the incising part (e.g. incising roll 510) of the device 500, whereby those sheets that propagate through the bypass passage are not incised. those sheets that should be incised are guided through the incising part (e.g. in between the rolls 510, 520) of the device 500. for example, fig. 6e shows a first conveyor 552. the first conveyor 552 is operated by the processor cpu1 such that the first conveyor 552 conveys veneer sheets that do not comprise skewed veneer material to the bypass passage. fig. 6e shows also a second conveyor 554 that is configured to convey the veneer sheets back to the normal process line after the incising part (e.g. the roll 510). the conveyors 552, 554 may be comprised by the device for incising 500. thus, an embodiment of the method comprises: detecting a first skewness value of veneer material from a first grain region s1, which, at the time of detecting the first skewness value, has not been incised, determining that the first skewness value is at least equal to a threshold, and after said determining, incising the veneer material of the first grain region s1. a preferable embodiment further comprises: detecting a second skewness value of veneer material from a second grain region s2, which, at the time of detecting the second skewness value, has not been incised, determining that the second skewness value is below the threshold, and after said determining, deciding not to incise the material of the second grain region s2, thereby leaving the veneer material of the second grain region s2 without incisions. in an embodiment that comprises incising the veneer material when it is the form of the veneer web 311, in the preferable embodiment of the method, the first and second grain regions s1 and s2 are different parts of the same veneer web 311. in an embodiment that comprises incising the veneer material when it is the form of the veneer sheets 200a, 200b, in the preferable embodiment of the method, the first and second grain regions s1 and s2 may originate from different logs 301, 401. both these latter two options involve incising only a part of veneer material of a veneer web, which is beneficial from point of view of raw material use. referring to fig. 4a , when a veneer web 311 is peeled from a log 301 using a lathe 302 comprising a knife 304, a part of a first side 312 of the veneer web 311 is in contact with the knife 304 of the lathe. moreover, not even a part of the first side 312 is in contact with a pressure bar 306, in particular a nose (rolling a stationary) of the pressure bar 306. correspondingly, a part of an opposite side 313, second side 313, is in contact with the pressure bar 306. moreover, when peeling the log, the second side 313 of the veneer web forms a surface of the log 301. typically, the veneer web 311 is thereafter bent to a horizontal conveyor in such a way that lathe checks 314 are formed at least on the first side 312 of the veneer web 311. the lathe checks 314 already weaken the wooden material of the web 311 to some extent. it has been found that incising the material of the first veneer web 311 is more effective, when the second side 313 (i.e. the side opposite to the lathe checks 314) is incised. therefore, an embodiment of the method comprises cutting the first veneer web 311 from the first log 301 using a lathe 302 such that the first veneer web 311 comprises a first side 312 and second side 313, wherein when the first veneer web 311 is cut, the second side 313 forms an outer surface of the primary log 301 (i.e. a part of the second surface 313 is in contact with a pressure bar 306) and the first side 312 is opposite to the second side 313. moreover, the embodiment comprises incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 from the second side 313. as detailed above, this may be done when the material is in the form of the web 311 or in the form of the sheets 200. as discussed above, the material of the veneer web may be incised by cutting ( figs. 3a , 3c , 3d ) or by bending ( figs. 3e and 3f ). bending forms incisions mainly of the side of the material that is further away from the roll 330, while less incisions (if any) are produced onto the side contacting the roll 330 (see figs 3e and 3f ). cutting forms incisions on the side that is cut. the preferably side for incising has been shown in fig 3e for bending, and in fig. 5a for cutting. it has also been found that incising by cutting (as opposed to bending) more effectively breaks the fibres of the veneer material, whereby the broken fibres no longer bend the plywood, even if they swell. with reference to figs. 5a and 5b , a preferable embodiment of the method comprises incising at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 with a tool 500 comprising at least a first blade 511 and a second blade 512 that penetrate into the material when incising the material of first veneer web 311. even if fig. 5a only shows the embodiment, wherein the web 311 is being incised, referring to fig. 3a , a substantially similar tool 500 can be used to incise the material of the first veneer web 311 when the incised material is in the form of veneer sheets 200 (i.e. incising the veneer sheets 200). the blades 511, 512 preferably penetrate the veneer material from the second side 313. as detailed above, in a preferable embodiment, only a part of the material of first veneer web 311 is incised. thus, preferably, the incising tool 500 is configured to operate in two modes: in a first mode, wherein the material passing the tool is incised, and in a second mode, wherein the material passing the tool is not incised. e.g. in fig. 5a , the incising roll 510 may be moved in the sz direction to change between the operating modes. the veneer material may be supported from an opposite side by a support roll 520 or another support. however, it has been found that such a tool is hard to realize very close to the lathe 302 or as part of the lathe 302. thus preferable, the incising tool 500 is a different tool than the lathe 302. naturally the tools may be fixed together. however, for these reasons, in a preferable embodiment, the first blade 511 and the second blade 512 of the incising tool 500 are arranged at least 50 cm apart from the knife 304 of the veneer lathe 302. reference is made to fig. 5a . referring to fig. 5b , the first veneer web 311 or the veneer sheet 200 that is incised comprises, after incising, the incisions i. such incisions are shown also in figs. 2a and 2c . with reference to figs. 4a and 5a , the incisions i are preferably formed on the second side 313 of the veneer web or veneer sheet. more preferably, the incisions i are formed only on the second side 313 of the veneer web or veneer sheet. for definition of the second side, see above. veneer sheets 200 are formed from the first veneer web 311 by cutting. a size (length and width) of the veneer sheet 200 is somewhat more than the size (length l and width w, correspondingly) of the plywood board 100. typically, after gluing, edges of the glued preform 350 are sawn to produce a finished plywood board 100. moreover, typically, the length of a veneer sheet equals it width, and e.g. at least two plywood boards can be obtained by sawing the board obtainable from hot-pressing the preform 350. however, in the plywood board 100, the width of the web, wweb, may be oriented parallel to the length l of the board or the width w of the board. moreover, a veneer sheet 200, in particular a core veneer sheet 232, may be constructed from multiple pieces, as show in figs. 2e and 2f . in contrast, the surface veneer sheets 211 and 221 are preferably formed of only one piece of wood (each). a plywood board having a surface veneer sheet (211, 221) formed of multiple pieces may suffice (and thus may be manufactured), e.g. if the appearance is not critical. commonly also the first (primary and secondary) core veneer sheets 231, 241 are made of one piece only, since adhesive is applied to these veneers. however, at least the other veneer sheets, e.g. the second primary core veneer sheet 232 may be made of pieces 232a and 232b, which are arranged end-to-end in the grain direction (gd) of these parts 232a, 232b as shown in fig. 2e . alternatively, the second primary core veneer sheet 232 may be made of pieces 232c and 232d, which are arranged side by side in the grain direction (gd) of these parts 232c, 232d, as shown in fig. 2f . even if only two pieces are shown, a veneer sheet or a veneer layer may be formed using even more pieces of veneer material. referring to fig. 5b , the first blade 511 may have a shape of an elongated blade, whereby its length is greater than its width. this applies also to the second blade 512. in order for a single blade 511, 512 to be capable of breaking multiple fibres, the blades have at least a certain length. in fig. 5b , the length of each blade is directed in the sy direction. as shown by fig. 5a , the direction sy is also parallel to a rotational axis of the first log 301, when the first veneer web 301 is peeled by the lathe 302. however, the web 311 or the sheets 200 may be turned after peeling. thus, in an embodiment, the first blade 511 has a length of at least 3 mm and a width that is less than the length of the first blade 511; and the second blade 512 has a length of at least 3 mm and a width that is less than the length of the second blade 512. the a length of the first and the second blade 511, 512 may be e.g. at least 5 mm or at least 10 mm. this helps cutting multiple fibres at once. for reasons of manufacturing the device 500 for incising the veneer material, a length of the first or the second blade may be less than 500 mm, such as less than 100 mm, for example as less than 50 mm or even less than 25 mm. a width of the blade 511, 512 may be e.g. at most 1/5, such as at most 1/10 or at most 1/20 of the length of the blade. for example, a width of the blade may be 0.5 mm to 3 mm (for a blade longer than 3 mm), such as 0.75 mm to 2.5 mm. as demonstrated by the experiments, a narrow blade cuts the fibres, while a wide spike could only puncture the material without actually cutting the fibres. as detailed above, preferably at least the skewed fibres are incised. when the fibres are not skewed, i.e. they are straight, the fibre direction of the of the first log 301 and fibre direction of the first veneer web 311 are parallel to a rotational axis of the first log 301. however, in reality and commonly, some of the fibres are skewed. therefore, during incising, at least the skewed fibres can be cut, when the blades 511, 512 are at least on the average oriented parallel to the rotational axis of the first log 301. this is shown in figs. 5a and 5b , wherein all the blades 511, 512 are oriented in this way, i.e. a direction of the length of the blade (i.e. sy as detailed above) is parallel to the rotational axis of the first log 301. figure 5b also shows a first grain region s1 of the first veneer web 311 that comprises skewed fibres. even if not shown, the first grain region s1 that comprises skewed fibres has also been incised. for clarity, the incisions i are only shown next to the grain region s1. referring to figs. 5a and 5b , in embodiment of the method, a rotational axis of the first log 301, from which the first veneer web 311 is cut, defines a primary direction pd for the first veneer web 311 (these directions being parallel to each other). it is noted that even if only the veneer sheets 200 are incised, the rotational axis of the first log 301, from which the first veneer web 311 is cut, defines a primary direction pd for the veneer sheet 200 that is incised, because the sheet 200 is cut from the first veneer web 311 in such a way that a length or a width of the veneer sheet 200 is parallel to the direction of width wweb of the veneer web 311. moreover, the primary direction pd is parallel to either a direction of a length or a direction of a width of the veneer sheet 200. the primary pd direction is parallel to the direction of the length of the sheet 200, provided that an angle between a grain direction of the veneer sheet 200 and direction of the length is less than an angle between the grain direction of the veneer sheet 200 and a direction of the width. otherwise, the primary pd direction is parallel to the direction of the width of the sheet 200. as an example, in fig. 6d , a primary direction pd would be the same for both the veneer sheets 200a, 200b. referring to fig. 5b , in an embodiment, the first veneer web 311 or the veneer sheet 200 cut therefrom, i.e. the veneer material that in incised, comprises a first grain region s1, in which the veneer material has a grain direction gd that forms a sixth angle α6 of at least three degrees with the primary direction pd of the veneer material (web or sheet). in the plywood board, this corresponds to the angle β1 discussed above. e.g. in an embodiment, in the first grain region s1, the veneer material has a grain direction gd that forms a sixth angle α6 of at least five degrees with the primary direction pd. thus, the threshold discussed in connection with fig. 6c may be e.g. 2 to 6 degrees, such as 3 to 5 degrees. however, as detailed above, the skewness is typically not very high. therefore, the sixth angle α6 may be e.g. less than eight degrees. as detailed above, the embodiment comprises incising the material of the first grain region s1. moreover, preferably the region s1 is incised with blades that are substantially parallel to the primary direction pd or with blades that are on the average substantially parallel to the primary direction pd. concerning the former and with reference to fig. 5b , an embodiment comprises incising the material in the region s1 with such a first blade 511 that a direction db of the length of the first blade 511 forms a seventh angle α7 of at most five degrees with the primary direction pd. the seventh angle α7 may be smaller. preferably, the seventh angle α7 is less than 3 degrees. in fig. 5b , the seventh angle α7 is substantially zero. since the plywood board 100 is typically manufactured in such a way that the direction of the width wweb of the web 311 becomes parallel with either the length l or the width w of the board, the seventh angle α7 typically equals the angle β0w or β0l defined above in connection with the board 100. with reference to fig. 5c , the blades 511, 512 need not be parallel. the directions of the first and second blades 511 and 512 are depicted by db511 and db512, respectively, in fig. 5c . however, an average direction dba of their lengths can be defined (e.g. as a direction of the vector that is the vector sum of the directed lengths of the blades; not directed in substantially reverse directions). thus, an embodiment comprises incising the material in the region s1 with such a first blade 511 and a second blade 512 that an average dba of the direction d511 of the length of the first blade 511 and the direction d512 of the length of the second blade 512 forms an eighth α8 angle of at most 5 degrees with the primary direction pd. the eighth angle α8 may be smaller. preferably, the eighth angle α8 is less than 3 degrees. in fig. 5c , the eighth angle α8 is substantially zero. the eighth angle α8 typically equals the angle β0w or β0l defined above in connection with the board 100 as detailed above, such blades are capable of cutting at least the skewed fibres of the first veneer web 311 or the veneer sheet 200 cut from the first veneer web 311. such cutting reduces the tendency of warping particularly efficiently. it has been found that an amount of the incisions affects warping and strength of the plywood board. in theory, the more incisions, the less warping of the board. however, simultaneously the strength may be lost. therefore, preferably an amount of the incisions is from 3 000 to 15 000 per square metre of the incised material. in particular, the first grain region s1 as discussed above, may comprise 3 000/m 2 to 15 000/m 2 incisions, such as 5 000/m 2 to 10 000/m 2 incisions. in terms of total length of the incisions, a total length of the incisions may be 10 m to 200 m per square metre. in particular, the first grain region s1 as discussed above, may comprise 10/m to 200/m incisions, such as 20/m to 100/m incisions. the total length refers to a sum of the lengths of all the incisions (e.g. number of incisions times their average length). referring to fig. 5b , the blades may be designed in such a way that when used for incising, a first region r1 and a second region r2 are incised, and a non-incised region nir is left in between the first region r1 and the second region r2 in the principal direction pd. a width of the non-incised region nir may be at least 10 mm, such as from 10 mm to 100 mm, wherein the width of the non-incised region is measured in the primary direction pd. this has two technical effects. first it ensures the strength of the veneer sheets 200, as the incisions do not extend throughout the material. second, this helps maintenance of the incising device 500. for example, only a part of the blades 511, 512 may be replaced during maintenance, when some of the blades 511, 512 are arranged apart from other blades in the axial direction of the incising roll 510. as indicated above, preferably the veneer web or the veneer sheet, whichever is being incised, is not incised through. when using blades 511, 512 for incising, this implies that the blades only penetrate a part of the material to be incised (web of sheet). referring to fig. 5d , in an embodiment at least a part of the material of the first veneer web 311 is incised such that the first blade 511 penetrates into the veneer material (i.e. first veneer web 311 or the veneer sheet 200) a depth del that is from 25 % to 80 % of the thickness tv of the veneer material (i.e. the web 311 or the sheet 200). preferably, the depth del is from 50 % to 75 % of the thickness tv. more preferably, the first blade (and also the other blades) penetrate into the veneer material from the second side 313. these values commonly ensure that the incisions penetrate up to about the same level as the lathe checks 314, which are on the other side of the veneer material. thus, the incisions and the lathe checks, in combination, do not, at least typically, propagate through the veneer material. this improves the integrity of the veneer sheets. however, this also breaks a sufficient amount of the fibres so as to reduce warping of the plywood board. this can be seen also from the plywood board 100. thus, in an embodiment of the plywood board 100, such core veneer sheets that comprise incisions comprise such incisions that do not extend through to core veneer sheet. more specifically, in an embodiment of the plywood board 100, such core veneer sheets that comprise incisions comprise incisions of which depth is from 25 % to 80 %, such as from 50 % to 75 %, of the thickness of the core veneer sheet. this may apply to all such core veneer sheets that comprise incisions. in a plywood board made of hardwood, a thickness of a veneer sheet 200 is typically from 1.0 mm to 2.0 mm, such as from 1.3 mm to 1.8 mm. in a plywood board made of softwood, a thickness of a veneer sheet 200 is typically from 1.0 mm to 5.0 mm, such as from 1.3 mm to 4 mm. the material may be somewhat thicker when being incised than after drying. correspondingly, in the method, a thickness of the first veneer web 311 may be from 1.0 mm to 5.0 mm, such as from 1.3 mm to 4.0 mm. more specific examples include hardwood, such as birch, wherein a thickness of the first veneer web may be 1.5 mm -1.6 mm (when incised); as well as softwood, such as spruce, wherein a thickness of the first veneer web may be 1.5 to 4.0 mm. it has been found that the problem of the plywood board 100 warping during storage is more severe in case of hardwood plywood than in case of softwood plywood. therefore, in an embodiment of the method, the first veneer web 311 comprises hardwood, such as ash, aspen, basswood, beech, birch, cherry, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, poplar, lauan, teak, rosewood, okume, or meranti; preferably birch or beech. in an embodiment of the plywood board, the first and second surface veneers 211, 221 comprise hardwood, such as ash, aspen, basswood, beech, birch, cherry, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, poplar, lauan, teak, rosewood, okume, or meranti; preferably birch or beech. after drying, the veneer sheets 200a, 200b, 200c may be used in such a part of the plywood board 100 that minimizes material use. typically, all such veneer sheets that have sufficiently high quality are used as surface veneer sheets 211, 221. the rest are used as core veneer sheets 231, 241 or to form pieces 232a, 232b, 232c, 232d of a core veneer sheet 232. commonly adhesive 120 is applied only onto such core veneers that are made of one integral piece of wood. thus, the veneer sheets may be classified according to their quality. an embodiment of the method comprises determining a quality of a veneer sheet 200 using the standard en 635-2 (1995) or en 635-3 (1995). more precisely, an embodiment comprises determining a quality of a hardwood veneer sheet 200 using the standard en 635-2:1995 or determining a quality of a softwood veneer sheet 200 using the standard en 635-3:1995. the presence of incisions i affects the quality of the veneer sheet 200. preferably, the quality is determined automatically. referring to fig. 6f , in an embodiment, the quality of a veneer sheet (200a, 200b, 200c) is automatically determined using an optical detector 610 and a processor cpu2. the detector 610 may be e.g. an imaging means, such as a digital camera. from the information, the processor cpu2 determines the quality of the corresponding veneer sheet 200a, 200b, 200c. as evident, the quality refers to the quality of the individual veneer sheet. thus, a quality is associated with each veneer sheet. such association is done automatically by the processor cpu2. fig. 6f shows a roll coater type applicator 342 for applying adhesive onto a veneer sheet; however, as indicated above, alternatively another type of an applicator 342 can be used. a first passage p1 is configured to bypass the applicator 342 and a second passage p2 is for conveying the veneer sheets 200 to the applicator 342. the processor cpu2 is configured to guide veneer sheets (200a, 200c in fig. 6 ) of which quality exceeds a limit to the first passage p1 and guide the other veneer sheets (200b in fig. 6 ) to the second passage p2. in this way, adhesive 120 is not applied to the veneer sheets 200a, 200c guided to the first passage p1; and adhesive is applied by the applicator 342 to at least some of the veneer sheets guided to the second passage p2. as detailed above and in figs. 3a , 3c , and 3d , a screen 344 can be used instead of a roll coater type applicator 342 to apply the adhesive 120. in this way, the first passage p1 form a bypass for the veneer sheets to pass by the application 342. the veneer sheets that have been classified based on their quality can be stored in a storage. in particular, a first storage location may be used for storing the veneer sheets guided to the first passage p1 (i.e. the high quality veneers, e.g. surface veneers 211, 221). at least a second storage location may be used for storing the veneer sheets guided to the second passage p2 (i.e. the low quality veneers, i.e. the core veneers). even if not shown, further quality classes can be used. e.g. the veneer conveyed to the second passage p2 may be classified as full veneers (of higher quality) and partial veneers (of lower quality), which may be used in the process differently. e.g. adhesive could be applied only onto the full veneers. the incisions i affect the quality of the veneer sheets. in addition, e.g. knots and holes affect the quality. knots or holes are shown on the veneer sheet 200b in fig. 6f . the optical detector 610 and the processor cpu2 may, in combination, determine a presence of incisions on the veneer sheet 200 that is imaged by the optical detector 610. if incisions i are detected, the veneer sheet may be transferred to the second path p2, to be used as core veneer sheet or a part thereof. referring to fig. 4a , the first veneer web 311 is cut from the first log 301 such that it has the first surface 312 and second surface 313, as detailed above. moreover, as indicated is figs. 2a and 2b , preferably the grain directions of the first and second surface veneer sheets 211, 221 are substantially the same, i.e. the first angle α1 is small, as detailed above. in an embodiment of the method, the first veneer web 311 and/or the veneer sheets 200 cut therefrom is/are arranged on different conveyors such that the web 311 or the sheets 200 are not turned about a horizontal axis. thus, the first side 312 faces downwards and the second side 313 faces upwards throughout the process. an arrow a is shown in fig. 4a to indicate a direction from the first side 312 to the second side 313. referring to fig. 4b , when the veneer sheets are not turned upside down, all the veneer sheets 211, 231, 241, 221 are arranged to the preform 350 such that the second side 313 faces upwards, as indicated by the arrows a of the veneer sheets in fig. 4b . when the first and second surface veneers 211, 221 have been cut from the same log, they may have substantially the same grain direction, as indicated in fig. 4c , even if the grains are skewed. however, at least when the first and second surface veneers 211, 221 have been cut from different logs, they may have different grain directions, as indicated in fig. 4d , at least if at least one of them comprises skewed grains. however, it has been found that in such a case, the grain directions of the surface veneer sheets 211, 221 can be made more parallel by turning the one of the surface veneer sheets 221, 221 upside down (i.e. about an axis that is comprised by the plane of the veneer sheet that is turned). for example, by turning the primary surface veneer sheet 211 of fig. 4d upside down, the grain direction would become as shown in fig. 4e , and the first angle α1 would be much less than in case of fig. 4d . the result of turning the primary surface veneer sheet 211 upside down is shown also in fig. 4f , wherein the arrow a of the sheet 211 points downwards instead of pointing upwards as in fig. 4b . thus, in the embodiments related to figs. 4b and 4f , the primary surface veneer 211 sheet comprises a first side 312 and an opposite second side 313 such that when cutting the first veneer web 311, from which the primary surface veneer sheet 211 is peeled with the lathe 302, the second side 313 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 forms an outer side of the log (301, 401) from which the primary surface veneer sheet 211 has been peeled. moreover, the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 comprises a first side 312 and an opposite second side 313 such that when peeling a veneer web, from which the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 is cut, with the lathe 302 or another lathe, the second side 313 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 an outer side of the log (301, 401) from which the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 has been peeled. the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 may be cut from the same log or from a different log than from which the primary surface veneer sheet 211 is made. it may be cut from the log or another log with the same or another lathe. referring to fig. 4b , an embodiment comprises forming the preform 350 for the plywood board 100 such that the first side 312 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 faces in the same direction as the first side 312 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221. in addition, as indicated in fig. 4b , the first sides of the core veneers face also in the same direction (i.e. downwards). referring to figs. 4f and 4g , an embodiment comprises forming the preform 350 for the plywood board 100 such that the first side 312 of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 faces in the same direction as the second side 313 of the secondary surface veneer sheet 221. as detailed above, this typically involves turning only one of the primary surface veneer sheet 211 and the secondary surface veneer sheet 221 about an axis that is parallel to a plane of the veneer that is turned. referring specifically to fig. 4f , only the primary surface veneer 211 may be turned upside down, whereby the first sides of all the other veneer sheets (231, 241, 221) face in a different direction (downwards) than the first side of the primary surface veneer 211 (upwards). referring specifically to fig. 4g , only the secondary surface veneer 221 may be turned upside down, whereby the first sides of all the other veneer sheets (211, 231, 241) face in a different direction (downwards) than the first side of the secondary surface veneer 221 (upwards). if the veneer material of the surface veneers 211, 221 is not skewed, the embodiment of fig. 4g is most preferable, since in that case, the lathe checks 314 (see fig. 4a ), which are on the first side 312 of the veneer sheets 200, face the interior of the plywood board. therefore, the surfaces of the plywood boards are of high quality. for these reasons, the embodiments of fig. 4b and 4g are most preferable. which one is more preferable depends on skewness of the material, and how much weight is given to a quality of the surface. naturally, the number of core veneer sheets may vary, as discussed above. it has also been found that the incisions have a beneficial effect for the adhesive bonding of the veneer sheets to each other. it seems that the incisions increase a surface area of the veneer sheets, thereby allowing the adhesive 120 to form a stronger bond between the veneer sheets. it has been found that this effect is particularly beneficial, when liquid adhesive is used for bonding the veneer sheets 200 together. experimental the effect of incising was confirmed by comparing warping (in particular twisting) of plywood boards made without incisions, with punctures, and with incisions. in the tests, birch was peeled to form the veneer, whereby warping of birch plywood boards were tested. the birch plywood boards only comprised five veneers layers, as shown in fig. 1b . for forming a reference panel, no veneer sheet was incised. for forming an incised plywood board, the first primary core veneer layer 231 (the layer formed by the first primary core veneer sheet 231) and the first secondary core veneer layer 241 (the layer formed by the first secondary core veneer sheet 241) were incised. for forming a punctured plywood board, the first primary core veneer layer 231 and the first secondary core veneer layer 241 were punctured. the other layers (211, 221, 232) were neither incised nor punctured. as for the grain direction within these layers, the veneer sheets were cut in such a way that the angles of the grain direction directions relative to a direction dl of a length l of the plywood board were as follows: primary surface veneer layer 211, 0 degrees; first primary core veneer layer 231, 85 degrees; second primary core veneer layer 232, 0 degrees; first secondary core veneer layer 241, 85 degrees; and secondary surface veneer layer 221, 0 degrees (see fig. 1b ). moreover, an angle between the grain directions of the layers 231 and 241 was 10 degrees, i.e. the 85 degrees indicated above is defined in different directions for these layers. the 85 degrees corresponds to the limits discussed for the angle β1 in connection with the plywood board 100 above. in this way, the structure of the tested plywood board resembled a fully cross-laminated plywood boards, wherein the first primary and secondary core veneer layers 231, 241 comprise veneers with a skewness of 5 degrees of the grains of the material. moreover, such layers may have been incised or punctured (see above). in reference plywood boards, none of the veneer layers were incised or punctured. in an incising method, the material of the first primary and secondary core veneer layers 231, 241 was incised with blades (511, 512) that were "long" in a direction dw of width w of the plywood board and "narrow" in a perpendicular direction. a length of such a part of the blade 511 that penetrated the wood material was 3 mm and it was narrow (a width was 0.5 mm). the direction dw of width w of the plywood board was perpendicular to the direction dl of the length l of the plywood board (see above for the angles of the grain directions). figure 7a shows the orientation of the blade 511 relative to the grain direction gd and the directions dl and dw of the length l and the width w of the plywood board, respectively. a number of the incisions was 1/cm 2 , i.e. 10 000/m 2 . given the length of the blade 511, the specific length of incisions was about 30/m. in a punctuating method, the material of first primary and secondary core veneer layers 231, 241 was punctuated with a spike that had circular cross section (see fig. 7b ). a diameter of the cross section of the spike was about 2.5 mm. a number of the punctuation was 1/cm 2 , i.e. 10 000/m 2 . the plywood boards were manufactured in a hot-press process in an ordinary fashion and they were weighed. after manufacturing the boards, they were first stored at 85 %rh and 20 °c for a week to humidify them. they were weighed, and their degree of warping was measured. thereafter, the boards were stored at 30 %rh and 23 °c for a week to de-humidify them. during the second week they were weighed and their degree of warping was measured at the same time. moreover, immediately after the second week they were also weighed and their degree of warping was measured. as a degree of warping, the following measure was used: the plywood board was set on a measurement stand that consisted of three vertical equally high bars arranged on three corners of a square. thus, the upper ends of the bars define a plane. as a measure of the degree of warping, a position (i.e. height) of the part of the plywood board at the location of the fourth corner of the square of the measurement stand was measured relative to the height of the bars of the measurement stand. this position (as measured in mm) was considered to indicate the degree of warping, since the distance indicates a deviation from planarity. a length and a width for the measurement stand (i.e. the square) was 450 mm by 450 mm. thus, the degree of warping was of the order of 1 % to 2 % (see table 1). while this measure for the degree of warping is not capable of measuring a degree of cupping, by the selection of the grain directions in the layers 231 and 241 (see above and fig. 1b ), the warping of the plywood boards was always of the twisting type. table 1 shows the results. the warping of the boards during the de-humidifying period (see above) and after the de-humidifying period (see above) are shown. table-tabl0001 table 1: effect of incising and punctuating on plywood warping punctuation type during de-humidifying after de-humidifying none 5.6 mm 7.5 mm incising 4.0 mm 5.5 mm circular 8.3 mm 9.6 mm as can be seen from table 1, incising the first primary and secondary veneer layers 231, 241 decreased the degree of warping by 27 %. in practice, an acceptance limit for the plywood boards could be e.g. 5 mm so that boards having a higher degree of warping are rejected. with the method, the amount of reject could thus be reduced by about 50 %, even if not directly readable from table 1. it seems that punctuating the veneers does not reduce the warping. the inventors consider that punctuating veneer material with round spikes do dot cut the skew grains, whereby they are also after the punctuation capable of transmitting force upon drying, and thus the degree of warping is not reduced. instead, incising, i.e. breaking the fibres e.g. by cutting (or by bending, as detailed above), makes the skew fibres incapable of transmitting internal stress.
097-396-776-116-573	EP	[ "CN", "EP", "US", "RU", "WO", "CA" ]	C07C7/135,C07C7/12,C07C9/10,C07C9/14,C07C9/22,C07C7/13	2007-07-10T00:00:00	2007	[ "C07" ]	process for the separation of unbranched hydrocarbons from their branched isomers	the present invention relates to a process for the separation of at least one unbranched c4-c2o hydrocarbon from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer of the unbranched hydrocarbon, which comprises the step of - contacting the fluid mixture with an adsorbent comprising a porous metal organic framework material, which material comprises at least oneat least bidentate organic compound coordinately bound to at least one metal ion, to get the unbranched hydrocarbon adsorbed, wherein the at least one at least bidentate organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone and has at least two ring nitrogens and is unsubstituted or bears one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, ci-6-alkyl, phenyl, nh2, nh(d-6-alkyl), n(c1-6-alkyl)2, oh, ophenyl and oci-6-alkyl, where the substituents ci_6-alkyl and phenyl are unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, nh2, nh(d-6-alkyl), n(c1-6-alkyl)2, oh, ophenyl and oci-6-alkyl. the present invention also relates to the use of said porous metal-organic framework material in a process for the separation of unbranched hydrocarbons from their branched isomers.	1 . a process for the separation of at least one unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbon from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer of the unbranched hydrocarbon, which comprises the step of contacting the fluid mixture with an adsorbent comprising a porous metal organic framework material, which material adsorbs the unbranched hydrocarbon and comprises at least one at least bidentate organic compound coordinately bound to at least one metal ion, wherein the at least one at least bidentate organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone and has at least two ring nitrogens and is unsubstituted or bears one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl, where the substituents c 1-6 -alkyl and phenyl are unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl. 2 . the process according to claim 1 , wherein the ring system of the at least one at least bidentate organic compound is a substituted imidazole. 3 . the process according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one metal ion is an ion of a metal selected from the group consisting of zn, cu, co, ni, fe, and mn. 4 . the process according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one unbranched hydrocarbon is a c 4 -c 10 alkane. 5 . the process according to claim 4 , wherein the at least one unbranched c 4 -c 10 alkane is n-butane. 6 . the process according to claim 1 , wherein the fluid mixture is a gas mixture. 7 . the process according to claim 6 , wherein the contacting is carried out at a temperature in the range of 0° c. and 200° c. 8 . the process according to claim 6 , wherein the contacting is carried out at a partial pressure of the at least unbranched alkane in the range of 0.5 bar (absolute) and 10 bar (absolute). 9 . the process according to claim 6 , wherein the contacting is carried out for a period of time in the range of 0.5 to 120 min. 10 . the process according to claim 6 , wherein the step of contacting is part of a pressure swing adsorption, temperature swing adsorption or combined pressure and temperature swing adsorption process. 11 . (canceled)	the present invention relates to a process for the separation of at least one unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbon from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer of the unbranched hydrocarbon. branched and unbranched hydrocarbons, such as n-butane and isobutane are important starting materials for technical applications and chemical reactions like the catalytic dehydrogenation resulting in the respective alkenes. however, not for all applications it is desired to have these isomers in a mixture so that it is necessary to separate them from each other. the selective adsorption of one of these isomers is a suitable procedure known in the art. known adsorbing materials are zeolites or molecular sieves. for example in u.s. pat. no. 6,022,398 the high purity isobutane adsorption seraration and purification is described using an adsorption bed packed with zeolite 5a. further zeolite based adsorbents and molecular sieves are described by v. ya. nikolina et al., russian chemical reviews 29 (1960), 509-521 and d. caputo et al., separation science and technology 39 (2005), 1547-1561. in recent times more effective adsorbents are described, which are called metal-organic framework materials. b. chen et al., angew. chem. 118 (2006), 1418-1421 describe the use of a zinc based metal-organic framework material, wherein the double organic linker system bdc and 4,4′-bipy is used. this metal-organic framework material is called mof-508a. an analogous double organic linker constituted metal-organic framework material is described by l. pan et al., angew. chem. 118 (2006), 632-635. the two linkers are 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)bis(benzoic acid) and a pyridine derivative. the metal-organic framework materials described for the aforementioned separation are very complex and unstable compared to conventional metal-organic framework materials for separation in general. moreover, they show only a very limited uptake capacity, which would lead to a non-economic process. even though there are several adsorbent described in the state of the art for the above mentioned separation there is a need for further alternative adsorbents which are easier to prepare, constituted by only one organic linker and efficient for the above mentioned separation. thus, an object of the present invention is to provide a metal-organic framework material for the process of separating unbranched hydrocarbons from their branched isomers. this object is achieved by a process for the separation of at least one unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbon from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer of the unbranched hydrocarbon, which comprises the step of contacting the fluid mixture with an adsorbent comprising a porous metal organic framework material, which material comprises at least one at least bidentate organic compound coordinately bound to at least one metal ion, to get the unbranched hydrocarbon adsorbed, wherein the at least one at least bidentate organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone and has at least two ring nitrogens and is unsubstituted or bears one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl, where the substituents c 1-6 -alkyl and phenyl are unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl. it was founded that the use of specific metal-organic framework materials based on a ring system which is derived from pyrrole or pyridone is useful for the separation mentioned above. the porous metal-organic framework material used in the process according to the present invention can be prepared by conventional methods as described in u.s. pat. no. 790,253, m. o'keeffe et al., j. sol. state chem. 152 (2000), 3-20, h. li et al., nature 402 (1999), 276, m. eddaoudi et al., topics in catalysis 9, (1999), pages 105 to 111, b. chen et al., science 291, (2001), 1021-1023, de-a-101 11 230, wo-a 2005/049892 and a. c. sudik et al., j. am. chem. soc. 127 (2005), 7110-7118. however, preferably the porous metal-organic framework material for the process of the present invention is prepared using an electrochemical procedure as described in wo-a 2007/131955. accordingly, the preparation of the porous metal-organic framework material for the process of the present invention involves the anodic oxidation of at least one metal which then enters the reaction medium as cation and reacts with at the least one organic compound to form the porous metal-organic framework material. this framework material can, for example, be separated of by filtration. preferably, only one organic compound is used for the build-up of the framework. the term “electrochemical preparation” as used for the purposes of the present invention refers to a preparative process in which the formation of at least one reaction product in at least one process step is associated with the migration of electric charges or the occurrence of electric potentials. the term “at least one metal ion” as used for the purposes of the present invention refers to embodiments in which at least one ion of a metal or at least one ion of a first metal and at least one ion of at least one second metal which is different from the first metal is provided by anodic oxidation. the present invention also comprises embodiments in which at least one ion of at least one metal is provided by anodic oxidation and at least one ion of at least one metal is provided via a metal salt, with the at least one metal in the metal salt and the at least one metal provided as metal ion by means of anodic oxidation being able to be identical or different. the present invention therefore comprises, for example, an embodiment in which the reaction medium comprises one or more different salts of a metal and the metal ion comprised in this salt or in these salts is additionally provided by anodic oxidation of at least one anode comprising this metal. the present invention likewise comprises an embodiment in which the reaction medium comprises one or more different salts of at least one metal and at least one metal different from these metals is provided as metal ion in the reaction medium by means of anodic oxidation. in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the at least one metal ion is provided by anodic oxidation of at least one anode comprising this at least one metal and no further metal is provided via a metal salt. in a further preferred embodiment, the metal organic framework prepared by the process of the invention comprises only one metal. the present invention accordingly comprises an embodiment in which the at least one anode comprises a single metal or two or more metals and in the case of the anode comprising a single metal, this metal is provided by anodic oxidation and in the case of the anode comprising two or more metals, at least one of these metals is provided by anodic oxidation. furthermore, the present invention comprises an embodiment in which at least two anodes are used, with these being able to be identical or different. each of the at least two anodes can comprise a single metal or two or more metals. it is possible, for example, that two different anodes comprise the same metals but in different proportions. it is likewise possible, for example, in the case of different anodes for a first anode to comprise a first metal and a second anode to comprise a second metal, with the first anode not comprising the second metal and/or the second anode not comprising the first metal. the metal or the metals are elements of groups 2 to 15 of the periodic table of the elements. for the purposes of the present invention, preferred metal ions are selected from the group of metals consisting of copper, iron, aluminum, zinc, magnesium, zirconium, titanium, vanadium, molybdenum, tungsten, indium, calcium, strontium, cobalt, nickel, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, palladium, scandium, yttrium, a lanthanide, manganese and rhenium. iron, copper, zinc, manganese, nickel and cobalt are more preferred. particular preference is given to zinc. a lanthanide comprises la, ce, pr, nd, pm, sm, eu, gd, tb, dy, ho, er, yb and lu. as metal ions which are provided in the reaction medium by anodic oxidation, particular mention may be made of cu 2+ , cu + , ni 2+ , ni + , fe 3+ , fe 2+ , co 3+ , co 2+ , zn 2+ , mn 3+ , mn 2+ , al 3+ , mg 2+ , sc 3+ , y 3+ , ln 3+ , re 3+ , v 3+ , in 3+ , ca 2+ , sr 2+ , pt 2+ , tio 2+ , ti 4+ , zro 2+ , zr 4+ , ru 3+ , ru 2+ , mo 3+ , w 3+ , rh 2+ , rh + , pd 2+ and pd + . particular preference is given to zn 2+ , cu 2+ , cu + , fe 2+ , fe 3+ , mn 3r , mn 2+ ni 2+ , ni + , co 3+ and co 2+ . very particular preference is given to zn 2+ . the present invention accordingly also provides a process as described above in which a copper-comprising and/or a nickel-comprising and/or a cobalt-comprising and/or a zinc-comprising and/or an iron-comprising and/or a manganese comprising anode is used as metal ion source. in a preferred embodiment, the present invention also provides a process as described above in which a zinc-comprising anode is used as metal ion source. the nature of the anode used in the process of the invention can in principle be chosen freely as long as it is ensured that the at least one metal ion can be provided in the reaction medium by anodic oxidation to allow formation of the porous metal organic framework. preference is given to, inter alia, anodes in the form of a rod and/or a ring and/or a disk, for example an annular disk, and/or a plate and/or a tube and/or a bed of loose material and/or a cylinder and/or a cone and/or a frustum of a cone. in a preferred embodiment, the preparation of a metal-organic framework material for the process of the present invention is carried out using at least one sacrificial anode. the term “sacrificial anode” as used for the purposes of the present invention refers to an anode which is at least partly dissolved during the course of the process of the invention. embodiments in which at least part of the dissolved anode material is replaced during the course of the process are also encompassed here. this can occur, for example, by at least one fresh anode being introduced into the reaction system or, in a preferred embodiment, an anode being introduced into the reaction system and being fed further into the reaction system either continuously or discontinuously during the course of the preparation process. preference is given to using anodes which consist of the at least one metal serving as metal ion source or comprise this at least one metal on at least one suitable support material in the process of the invention. the geometry of the at least one support material is essentially not subject to any restrictions. it is possible to use, for example, support materials in the form of a woven fabric and/or a sheet and/or a felt and/or a mesh and/or a rod and/or a candle and/or a cone and/or a frustum of a cone and/or a ring and/or a disk and/or a plate and/or a tube and/or a bed of loose material and/or a cylinder. possible support materials are, for example, metals such as at least one of the above-mentioned metals, alloys such as steels or bronzes or brass, graphite, felt or foams. very particular preference is given to anodes which consist of the at least one metal serving as metal ion source. the nature of the cathode used in the preparation process can in principle be chosen freely as long as it is ensured that the at least one metal ion can be provided in the reaction medium by anodic oxidation. in a preferred embodiment of the process of the invention, the electrically conductive electrode material of the at least one cathode is selected so that no interfering secondary reaction takes place in the reaction medium. preferred cathode materials are, inter alia, graphite, copper, zinc, tin, manganese, iron, silver, gold, platinum or alloys such as steels, bronzes or brass. as preferred combinations of the anode material serving as metal ion source and the electrically conductive cathode material, mention may be made by way of example of: anodecathodezinczinczincsteelzincironcoppercoppermanganesecoppercobaltcobaltironsteelcoppersteel the geometry of the at least one cathode is essentially not subject to any restrictions. it is possible to use, for example, cathodes in the form of a rod and/or a ring and/or a disk and/or a plate and/or a tube. for the purposes of the present invention, it is possible to use essentially any of the types of cell customary in electrochemistry. very particular preference is given in the process of the invention to an electrolysis cell which is suitable for the use of sacrificial electrodes. it is in principle possible to use, inter alia, divided cells having, for example, a parallel arrangement of electrodes or candle-shaped electrodes. as separation medium between the cell compartments, it is possible to use, for example, ion-exchange membranes, microporous membranes, diaphragms, filter fabrics composed of materials which do not conduct electrodes, glass frits and/or porous ceramics. preference is given to using ion-exchange membranes, in particular cation-exchange membranes, and among these preference is in turn given to using membranes which comprise a copolymer of tetrafluorethylene and a perfluorinated monomer comprising sulfonic acid groups. in a preferred embodiment of the process of the invention, preference is given to using one or more undivided cells. very particular preference is given to combinations of geometries of anode and cathode in which the facing sides of the anode and cathode form a gap having a homogeneous thickness. in an undivided cell, the electrodes are, for example, arranged parallel to one another, with the electrode gap having a homogeneous thickness in the range, for example, from 0.5 mm to 30 mm, preferably in the range from 0.75 mm to 20 mm and particularly preferably in the range from 1 to 10 mm. in a preferred embodiment, it is possible, for example, to arrange a cathode and an anode parallel to one another so that an electrode gap having a homogeneous thickness in the range from 0.5 to 30 mm, preferably in the range from 1 to 20 mm, more preferably in the range from 5 to 15 mm and particularly preferably the range from 8 to 12 mm, for example in the region of about 10 mm, is formed in the resulting cell. this type of cell will be referred to as a “gap cell”. in a preferred embodiment of the preparation process, the above-described cell is used as a bipolar cell. apart from the above-described cell, the electrodes are employed individually or a plurality of them are stacked in a likewise preferred embodiment of the process of the invention. in the latter case, the electrodes are referred to as stacked electrodes which are connected in a bipolar series in what is accordingly referred to as a stacked plate cell. particularly when the process of the invention is carried out on an industrial scale, preference is given to using at least one pot cell and particularly preferably stacked plate cells connected in series whose in-principle structure is described in de 195 33 773 a1. in the preferred embodiment of the stacked plate cell, preference is given, for example, to arranging disks of suitable materials, for example copper disks, parallel to one another so that a gap having a homogeneous thickness in the range from 0.5 to 30 mm, preferably in the range from 0.6 to 20 mm, more preferably in the range from 0.7 to 10 mm, more preferably in the range from 0.8 to 5 mm and in particular in the range from 0.9 to 2 mm, for example in the region of about 1 mm, is in each case formed between the individual disks. here, the distances between the individual disks can be identical or different, but in a particularly preferred embodiment the distances between the disks are essentially equal. in a further embodiment, the material of a disk of the stacked plate cell can differ from the material of another disk of the stacked plate cell. for example, one disk can be made of graphite and another disk can made of copper, with the copper disk being connected as anode and the graphite disk being connected as cathode. furthermore, preference is given for the purposes of the present invention to using, for example, “pencil sharpener” cells as are described, for example, in j. chaussard et al., j. appl. electrochem. 19 (1989) 345-348. particular preference is given to using pencil sharpener electrodes having rod-shaped, feedable electrodes in the process of the invention. cells in which the electrode spacing is less than or equal to 1 mm are referred to as capillary gap cells. in likewise preferred embodiments of the preparation process, it is possible to use electrolysis cells having, for example, porous electrodes made of beds of metal particles or having, for example, porous electrodes composed of metal meshes or having, for example, electrodes composed of both beds of metal particles and metal meshes. in a further preferred embodiment, electrolysis cells which have at least one sacrificial anode having a circular disk-shaped cross section and at least one cathode having an annular cross section, with particular preference being given to the diameter of the preferably cylindrical anode being smaller than the internal diameter of the cathode and the anode being located in the cathode in such a way that a gap of homogeneous thickness is formed between the outer surface of the cylindrical anode and the interior surface of the cathode which at least partly surrounds the anode, are used. it is also possible to reverse the polarity so that the original anode becomes the cathode and the original cathode becomes the anode. in this process variant, it is possible, for example, when suitable electrodes which comprise different metals are chosen, firstly to make available one metal as metal cation by means of anodic oxidation and to make available a further metal in a second step after reversal of the polarity. it is likewise possible to bring about the reversal of polarity by application of ac current. it is in principle possible to carry out the process batchwise or continuously or in mixed operation. the process is preferably carried out continuously, in particular in at least one flow cell. the voltages employed in the preparation process can be matched to the respective at least one metal of the at least one anode serving as metal ion source for the porous metal organic framework and/or to the properties of the at least first organic compound and/or, if appropriate, to the properties of the at least one solvent described below and/or, if appropriate, to the properties of the at least one electrolyte salt described below and/or to the properties of the at least one cathodic depolarization compound described below. in general, the voltages per electrode pair are in the range from 0.5 to 100 v, preferably in the range from 1 to 40 v and particularly preferably in the range from 1.5 to 20 v. examples of preferred ranges are from about 1.5 to 10 v or from 10 to 20 v or from 20 to 25 v or from 10 to 25 v or from 4 to 20 v or from 4 to 25 v. the voltage can be constant over the course of the process of the invention or can change continuously or discontinuously over the course of the process. for example, if copper is being oxidized anodically, the voltages are generally in the range from 3 to 20 v, preferably in the range from 3.5 to 15 v and particularly preferably in the range from 4 to 15 v. the current densities occurring in the preparation of the porous organic framework material are generally in the range from 0.01 to 1000 ma/cm 2 , preferably in the range from 0.1 to 1000 ma/cm 2 , more preferably in the range from 0.2 to 200 ma/cm 2 , more preferably in the range from 0.3 to 100 ma/cm 2 and particularly preferably in the range from 0.5 to 50 ma/cm 2 . the preparation process is generally carried out at a temperature in the range from 0° c. to the boiling point, preferably in the range from 20° c. to the boiling point, of the respective reaction medium or of the at least one solvent used, preferably under atmospheric pressure. it is likewise possible to carry out the process under superatmospheric pressure, with pressure and temperature preferably being chosen so that the reaction medium is preferably at least partly liquid. in general, the preparation process is carried out at a pressure in the range from 0.5 to 50 bar, preferably in the range from 1 to 6 bar and particularly preferably at atmospheric pressure. depending on the type and physical state of the constituents of the reaction medium, the electrochemical preparation according to the invention of the metal organic framework can in principle also be carried out without an additional solvent. this is, for example, the case particularly when the at least one organic compound in the reaction medium functions as solvent. it is likewise possible in principle to dispense with a solvent and, for example, carry out the process of the invention in the melt, with at least one constituent of the reaction medium being present in the molten state. in a preferred embodiment, the reaction medium comprises at least one suitable solvent in addition to the at least one organic compound and, if appropriate, to the at least one electrolyte salt and, if appropriate, to the at least one cathodic depolarization compound. the chemical nature and amount of this at least one solvent can be matched to the at least one organic compound and/or to the at least one electrolyte salt and/or to the at least one cathodic depolarization compound and/or to the at least one metal ion. conceivable solvents are in principle all solvents or solvent mixtures in which the starting materials used in the process of the invention can be at least partly dissolved or suspended under the chosen reaction conditions such as pressure and temperature. for the purposes of the present invention, the term “solvent” also comprises solvent mixtures. examples of solvents used are, inter alia, water;alcohols having 1, 2, 3 or 4 carbon atoms, e.g. methanol, ethanol, n-propanol, isopropanol, n-butanol, isobutanol, tert-butanol;carboxylic acids having 1, 2, 3 or 4 carbon atoms, e.g. formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid or butanoic acid;nitriles such as acetonitrile or cyanobenzene;ketones such as acetone;at least singularly halogen-substituted lower alkanes such as methyl chloride or 1,2-dichloroethane;acid amides such as amides of lower carboxylic acids such as carboxylic acids having 1, 2, 3 or 4 carbon atoms, e.g. amides of formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid or butanoic acid, for example formamide, dimethylformamide (dmf), diethylformamide (def), t-butylformamide, acetamide, dimethylacetamide, diethylacetamide or t-butylacetamide;cyclic ethers such as tetrahydrofuran or dioxane;n-formylamides or n-acetylamides or symmetrical or unsymmetrical urea derivatives of primary, secondary or cyclic amines such as ethylamine, diethylamine, piperidine or morpholine;amines such as ethanolamine, triethylamine or ethylenediamine;dimethyl sulfoxide;pyridine;trialkyl phosphites and phosphates; and mixtures of two or more of the abovementioned compounds. the reaction medium preferably comprises an organic solvent which may, if appropriate, be present in admixture with water; the organic solvent particularly preferably comprises an alcohol. the term “organic solvent” as used above includes both pure organic solvents and organic solvents which comprise small amounts of at least one further compound such as, preferably, water. in this case, the water contents of the abovementioned solvents are in the range up to 1% by weight, preferably in the range up to 0.5% by weight, particularly preferably in the range from 0.01 to 0.5% by weight and very particularly preferably in the range from 0.1 to 0.5% by weight. for the purposes of the present invention, the term “methanol” or “ethanol” or “acetonitrile” or “dmf” or “def” also encompasses, for example, a solvent which may in each case particularly preferably comprise water in an amount of from 0.1 to 0.5% by weight. however, the at least one further compound can also be of a different chemical nature. in particular, it does not have to be a customary solvent. mention may be made by way of example of stabilizers. if a mixture of organic solvents with water is present, it is of course possible for higher proportions of water to be present in the solvent mixture. preferred solvents in the preparation process are methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, dmf, dmac and def or a mixture of two or more of these compounds. very particular preference is given to methanol, ethanol, dmf, def and a mixture of two or more of these compounds as solvent. methanol is especially preferred. in a preferred embodiment, at least one protic solvent is used as solvent. this is preferably used when, inter alia, the cathodic formation of hydrogen is to be achieved in order to avoid the redeposition described below on the cathode of the at least one metal ion provided by anodic oxidation. however, a protic solvent can also be dispensed with for the purposes of the present invention since the at least one organic compound has at least one ring nitrogen to which, at least as represented by a limiting formula, a hydrogen atom is bound and can be split off and reduced. for example, in the case of methanol being used as solvent, the temperature for the process of the invention under atmospheric pressure is generally in the range from 0 to 90° c., preferably in the range from 0 to 65° c. and particularly preferably in the range from 15 to 65° c. for example, in the case of ethanol being used as solvent, the temperature in the process of the invention under atmospheric pressure is generally in the range from 0 to 100° c., preferably in the range from 0 to 78° c. and particularly preferably in the range from 25 to 78° c. in the preparation process, the ph of the reaction medium is set so that it is favorable for the synthesis or the stability or preferably for the synthesis and the stability of the framework. for example, the ph can be set by means of the at least one electrolyte salt. if the reaction is carried out as a batch reaction, the reaction time is generally in the range up to 30 hours, preferably in the range up to 20 hours, more preferably in the range from 1 to 10 hours and particularly preferably in the range from 1 to 5 hours. the at least one organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone and has at least two ring nitrogens and is unsubstituted or bears one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl, where the substituents c 1-6 -alkyl and phenyl are unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl. for the purposes of present invention, the term “c 1-6 -alkyl” refers to an alkyl group having from 1 to 6 carbon atoms. examples are methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, i-propyl, n-butyl, i-butyl, sec-butyl, t-butyl, pentyl, hexyl. preferred radicals are methyl and ethyl. if a substituted c 1-6 -alkyl radical is present, at least one hydrogen atom is replaced by another substituent. furthermore, for the purposes of the present invention, the term “halogen” refers to fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine. preference is given to fluorine and chlorine. as indicated above, the organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycylic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone. all these three heterocycles have a ring nitrogen which in at least one limiting structure bears a hydrogen atom which can be split off. it is thus possible to deprotonate pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. this forms a negative charge which can at least partly balance the positive charge of the at least one metal ion. for the purposes of the present invention, the term “derive” means that the monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system has at least one substructure which corresponds to pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. furthermore, two or all three heterocycles can also be present as substructure in the ring system. for the purposes of the present invention, the term “derive” also means that the three abovementioned heterocycles can occur not in neutral form but, if appropriate, also as anion or cation so that the oxidation can also occur in the presence of these ions. furthermore, it should be noted that at least one of the heterocycles which represents a substructure of the ring system is deprotonated during the reaction. furthermore, for the purposes of the present invention, the term “derive” means that the substructure of at least one of the three heterocycles can bear substituents and one or more ring carbons can be replaced by a heteroatom. of course, the ring system can also be one of the heterocycles pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone itself or the ring system can likewise be made up of substructures which are selected exclusively from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone. in this case too, the above-described modifications are possible. finally, it should be noted that at least one hydrogen which in at least one limiting structure is not the hydrogen bound to said nitrogen is replaced by a bond by means of which the respective heterocycle is bound to the remainder of the ring system. if a monocyclic ring system is present, this is derived from pyrrole or alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. however, the ring system can also be a bicyclic ring system. this is the case when, for example, two rings which are joined to one another via a covalent single bond or via a group r are present in the ring system. here, one ring has to be derived from pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. r can be —o—, —nh—, —s—, —n═n— or an aliphatic branched or unbranched saturated or unsaturated hydrocarbon which has from 1 to 4 carbon atoms and may be interrupted by one or more atoms or functional groups selected independently from the group consisting of —o—, —nh—, —s— and —n═n—. furthermore, the bicyclic ring system can be a fused ring system. examples are, in particular, benzo-fused derivatives derived from pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone. in addition, the bicyclic ring system can be a bridged ring system. the ring system can likewise be a polycyclic ring system which has, for example, 3, 4 or more rings. here, the rings can be joined via a covalent single bond and/or a group r and/or be fused and/or be present as a bridged ring system. the ring system has at least two ring nitrogens. here, at least one of the two ring nitrogens is that nitrogen which is present in the ring derived from pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. in addition, at least one further ring nitrogen has to be present. if the ring system is one which has more than one ring, the at least second ring nitrogen can also be present in the ring derived from pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone or, if the at least one further ring is not derived from one of these three heterocycles, may be located in this ring. the at least two ring nitrogens are preferably present in one ring of the ring system. in this case, the ring is derived from pyrazole, imidazole, pyridazin-2-one or pyrimidin-2-one or pyrimidin-4-one. preference is given to imidazole. in addition to the two ring nitrogens, further ring nitrogens can be present. for example, the ring system can have 3, 4, 5 or more ring nitrogens. if more than two ring nitrogens are present, all ring nitrogens can be present in one ring of the ring system or can be distributed over more than one ring up to all rings of the ring system. if, for example, three ring nitrogens are present, these are also preferably present in the ring which is derived from pyrrole, alpha-pyridone or gamma-pyridone. the resulting substructure of the ring can then be derived, for example, from a triazole, such as 1,2,3-triazole or 1,2,4-triazole. in addition, the ring system can have further heteroatoms in the ring. these can be, for example, oxygen or sulfur. however, preference is given to no further heteroatoms in addition to nitrogen being present. if the ring system has more than one ring, this ring can be saturated or unsaturated. the at least one further ring preferably has an at least partially conjugated double bond system or is aromatic in nature. the ring system can be unsubstituted. the ring system can also have one or more substituents. if a plurality of substituents are present, these can be identical or different. preference is given to substituted imidazoles. the substituents bound to the ring system can be halogen, c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl or oc 1-6 -alkyl. if at least one of the abovementioned substituents of the ring system is a c 1-6 -alkyl or phenyl, these can likewise be unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents. when a plurality of substituents are present, it is also possible here for them to be identical or different. these are selected from the group consisting of halogen, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl. if the group c 1-6 -alkyl occurs more than once, these alkyl groups can be identical or different. for the purposes of the present invention, the hydroxy or keto group of alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone is not counted as a substituent since this group is necessarily present in the ring in order to obtain, at least for one limiting structure, a ring nitrogen bound to hydrogen. preference is given to the substituents bound to the ring system having no further substituents. preferred substituents bound to the ring system are c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 and oh, c 1-6 -alkyl and nh 2 are more preferred. particular preference is given to c 1-6 -alkyl. in a further preferred embodiment, the ring system is selected from the group consisting of further preferred ring systems are an imidazole, benzimidazole, triazole, 2-hydroxypyrimidine or 4-hydroxypyrimidine. the at least one organic compound is very particularly preferably selected from the group consisting of 2-methylimidazole, 2-ethylimidazole, benzimidazole, 1,2,4-triazole, 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole, 3,5-diamino-1,2,4-triazole, 2-hydroxypyrimidine and 4-hydroxypyrimidine and their deprotonated forms. a particularly useful metal-organic framework material is zn-2-methylimidazole. one of the above-described organic compounds can be used in the formation of the porous metal organic framework. however, it is likewise possible to use a plurality of such organic compounds. however, preference is given to only one of the above-described organic compounds which participates in the formation of the framework being used. the at least one organic compound is used for the preparation in a concentration which is generally in the range from 0.1 to 30% by weight, preferably in the range from 0.5 to 20% by weight and particularly preferably in the range from 2 to 10% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the reaction system minus the weight of the anode and the cathode. accordingly, the term “concentration” in this case comprises both the amount of the at least one organic compound dissolved in the reaction medium and, for example, any amount of the at least one organic compound suspended in the reaction medium. in a preferred embodiment of the preparation process, the at least one organic compound is added continuously and/or discontinuously as a function of the progress of the electrolysis and in particular as a function of the decomposition of the anode or liberation of the at least one metal ion and/or as a function of the formation of the porous metal organic framework. it is also possible for further organic compounds whose presence is advantageous for the formation of a desired structure to be added as templates to the electrolyte. in a particularly preferred embodiment of the preparation process, the reaction medium comprises at least one suitable electrolyte salt. depending on the at least one organic compound used and/or any solvent used, it is also possible in the process of the invention to carry out the preparation of the porous metal organic framework without any additional electrolyte salt. the electrolyte salts which can be used in the preparation process are essentially not subject to any restrictions. preference is given to using, for example, salts of mineral acids, sulfonic acids, phosphonic acids, boronic acids, alkoxysulfonic acids or carboxylic acids or of other acidic compounds such as sulfonamides or imides. possible anionic components of the at least one electrolyte salt are accordingly, inter alia, sulfate, monoalkylsulfate such as monomethylsulfate, nitrate, nitrite, sulfite, disulfite, phosphate, hydrogenphosphate, dihydrogenphosphate, diphosphate, triphosphate, phosphite, chloride, chlorate, bromide, bromate, iodide, iodate, carbonate or hydrogen-carbonate. possible cation components of the electrolyte salts which can be used according to the invention are, inter alia, alkali metal ions such as li + , na + , k + or rb + , alkaline earth metal ions such as mg 2+ , ca 2+ , sr 2+ or ba 2+ , ammonium ions or phosphonium ions. as ammonium ions, mention may be made of quaternary ammonium ions and protonated monoamines, diamines and triamines. examples of quaternary ammonium ions which are preferably used according to the invention are, inter alia, symmetrical ammonium ions such as tetraalkylammonium preferably bearing c 1 -c 4 -alkyl, for example methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl, isobutyl, tert-butyl, e.g. tetramethylammonium, tetraethylammonium, tetrapropylammonium, tetrabutylammonium, orunsymmetrical ammonium ions such as unsymmetrical tetraalkylammonium preferably bearing c 1 -c 4 -alkyl, for example methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl, isobutyl, tert-butyl, for example methyltributylammonium, orammonium ions bearing at least one aryl such as phenyl or naphthyl or at least one alkaryl such as benzyl or at least one aralkyl and at least one alkyl, preferably c 1 -c 4 -alkyl, for example methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl, isobutyl, tert-butyl, e.g. aryltrialkylammonium such as benzyltrimethylammonium or benzyltriethylammonium. in a preferred embodiment, sodium methylsulfate or tributylmethylammonium-methylsulfate is used as electrolyte salt in the preparation process. in one, inter alia, preferred embodiment of the preparation process, it is possible for compounds which are used for formation of the porous metal organic framework to be introduced into the reaction medium via the cationic and/or anionic component of the at least one electrolyte salt. in particular, at least one organic compound which is comprised in the resulting porous metal organic framework can be introduced via at least one electrolyte salt in the process. in an embodiment of the preparation process, it is thus possible to introduce the metal ion into the reaction medium via the cationic component of the at least one electrolyte salt in addition to the at least one anode as metal ion source. it is likewise possible for at least one metal ion which is different from the at least one metal ion introduced by means of anodic oxidation in terms of the valence of the cation and/or the type of metal to be introduced into the reaction medium via the cationic component of the at one electrolyte salt. in the preparation process, the concentration of the at least one electrolyte salt is generally in the range from 0.01 to 10% by weight, preferably in the range from 0.05 to 5% by weight and particularly preferably in the range from 0.1 to 3% by weight, in each case based on the sum of the weights of all electrolyte salts present in the reaction medium and more preferably based on the total weight of the reaction medium without taking into account the anodes and cathodes. if the preparation process is carried out as a batch process, the reaction medium comprising the starting materials is generally made available first, electric current is subsequently applied and the medium is then circulated by pumping. if the process is carried out continuously, a substream is generally branched off from the reaction medium, the porous metal organic framework comprised therein is isolated and the mother liquor (the remaining reaction medium) is recirculated. in a particularly preferred embodiment, the preparation process is carried out so that redeposition on the cathode of the metal ion liberated by anodic oxidation is prevented. according to the invention, this redeposition is, for example, preferably prevented by using a cathode which has a suitable hydrogen overvoltage in a given reaction medium. such cathodes are, for example, the abovementioned graphite, iron, copper, zinc, tin, manganese, silver, gold, platinum cathodes or cathodes comprising alloys such as steels, bronzes or brass. furthermore, the redeposition is, preferably prevented by, for example, using an electrolyte which promotes the cathodic formation of hydrogen in the reaction medium. in this respect, preference is given, inter alia, to an electrolyte which comprises at least one protic solvent. preferred examples of such solvents have been given above. particular preference is given here to alcohols, in particular methanol and ethanol. furthermore, the redeposition is, preferably prevented by, for example, at least one compound which leads to cathodic depolarization being comprised in the reaction medium. for the purposes of the present invention, a compound which leads to cathodic depolarization is any compound which is reduced at the cathode under given reaction conditions. as cathodic depolarizers, preference is given, inter alia, to compounds which are hydrodimerized at the cathode. examples of particularly preferred compounds of this type are acrylonitrile, acrylic esters and maleic esters such as, more preferably, dimethyl maleate. further preferred cathodic depolarizers are, inter alia, compounds which comprise at least one carbonyl group which is reduced at the cathode. examples of such compounds comprising carbonyl groups are, for instance, ketones such as acetone. as cathodic depolarizers, preference is given, inter alia, to compounds which have at least one nitrogen-oxygen bond, a nitrogen-nitrogen bond and/or a nitrogen-carbon bond which is/are reduced at the cathode. examples of such compounds are, for instance, compounds having a nitro group, compounds having an azo group, compounds having an azoxy group, oximes, pyridines, imines, nitriles and/or cyanates. it is also possible in the preparation process to combine at least two of the abovementioned measures for preventing the cathodic redeposition. for example, it is possible to use both an electrolyte which promotes the cathodic formation of hydrogen and an electrode having a suitable hydrogen overvoltage. it is likewise possible both to use an electrolyte which promotes the cathodic formation of hydrogen and to add at least one compound which leads to cathodic depolarization. it is likewise possible both to add at least one compound which leads to cathodic depolarization and to use a cathode having a suitable hydrogen overvoltage. furthermore, it is possible both to use an electrolyte which promotes the cathodic formation of hydrogen and to use an electrode having a suitable hydrogen overvoltage and also to add at least one compound which leads to cathodic depolarization. accordingly, in a preparation process as described above the cathodic redeposition of the at least one metal ion is at least partly prevented by means of at least one of the following measures: (i) use of an electrolyte which promotes the cathodic formation of hydrogen; (ii) addition of at least one compound which leads to cathodic depolarization; (iii) use of a cathode having a suitable hydrogen overvoltage. as has been indicated above, these measures are not absolutely necessary since hydrogen deposition can in principle be possible and a satisfactory conductivity can in principle be present as a result of the at least one organic compound. in a particularly preferred embodiment, the preparation process is carried out in the circulation mode. for the purposes of the present invention, this “electrolysis circuit” is any procedure in which at least part of the reaction system present in the electrolysis cell is discharged from the electrolysis cell, if appropriate subjected to at least one intermediate treatment step such as at least one thermal treatment or addition and/or removal of at least one component from the discharged stream and recirculated to the electrolysis cell. for the purposes of the present invention, such an electrolysis circuit is particularly preferably combined with the use of a stacked plate cell, a tube cell or a pencil sharpener cell. the porous metal organic framework is typically present as a suspension. the framework can be separated off from its mother liquor. this separation can in principle be effected by means of all suitable methods. the framework is preferably separated off by solid-liquid separation, centrifugation, extraction, filtration, membrane filtration, crossflow filtration, diafiltration, ultrafiltration, flocculation using flocculants such as nonionic, cationic and/or anionic auxiliaries, ph shift by addition of additives such as salts, acids or bases, flotation, spray drying, spray granulation or evaporation of the mother liquor at elevated temperatures and/or under reduced pressure and concentration of the solid. the reaction medium separated off from the porous metal organic framework (mother liquor) can be discarded. however, it is preferably recirculated to the reaction so that it is reused for the oxidation. the separation can be followed by at least one additional washing step, at least one additional drying step and/or at least one additional calcination step. if at least one washing step is carried out in the process of the invention, washing is preferably carried out using at least one solvent employed in the synthesis. if at least one drying step is carried out in the process of the invention, if appropriate after at least one washing step, the framework solid is generally dried at temperatures in the range from 20 to 200° c., preferably in the range from 40 to 120° c. and particularly preferably in the range from 56 to 60° c. preference is likewise given to drying under reduced pressure, in which case the temperatures can generally be selected so that the at least one washing liquid is at least partly, preferably essentially completely, removed from the crystalline porous metal organic framework and the framework structure is at the same time not destroyed. the drying time is generally in the range from 0.1 to 15 hours, preferably in the range from 0.2 to 5 hours and particularly preferably in the range from 0.5 to 1 hour. the at least one washing step which can be carried out if appropriate and the at least one drying step which can be carried out if appropriate can be followed by at least one calcination step in which the temperatures are preferably selected so that the structure of the framework is not destroyed. it is possible, for example, for at least one template compound which may, if appropriate, have been used for the electrochemical preparation according to the invention of the framework to be removed at least partly, preferably essentially quantitatively, by, in particular, washing and/or drying and/or calcination. the process for preparing the porous metal organic framework is typically carried out in water as solvent with addition of a further base. as a result of the preferred use of the organic solvent, it is not necessary to use such a base. nevertheless, the solvent for the process of the invention can be selected so that it itself is basic, but this is not absolutely necessary for carrying out the process of the invention. in addition, the organic solvent can be present in admixture with water. it is likewise possible to use a base. however, preference is given to not using any additional base. in addition to or as an alternative to the abovementioned calcination and/or washing steps, the removal of the at least one organic compound (ligand) from the pores of the porous metal organic framework can be effected by treatment of the framework formed with a further solvent. here, the ligand is removed in a type of “extraction process” and may, if appropriate, be replaced by a solvent molecule in the framework. this mild method is particularly useful when the ligand is a high-boiling compound. the treatment preferably takes at least 30 minutes and can typically be carried out for up to 2 days. this can occur at room temperature or elevated temperature. it is preferably carried out at elevated temperature, for example at least 40° c., preferably 60° c. the extraction is more preferably carried out at the boiling point of the solvent used (under reflux). the treatment can be carried out in a simple vessel by slurrying and stirring of the framework. it is also possible to use extraction apparatuses such as soxhlet apparatuses, in particular industrial extraction apparatuses. solvents which can be used are, for example, c 1-6 -alkanol, dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso), n,n-dimethylformamide (dmf), n,n-diethylformamide (def), acetonitrile, toluene, dioxane, benzene, chlorobenzene, methyl ethyl ketone (mek), pyridine, tetrahydrofuran (thf), ethyl acetate, optionally halogenated c 1-200 -alkane, sulfolane, glycol, n-methylpyrrolidone (nmp), gamma-butyrolactone, alicyclic alcohols such as cyclohexanol, ketones, such as acetone or acetylacetone, cyclic ketones, such as cyclohexanone or mixtures thereof. a c 1-6 -alkanol is an alcohol having from 1 to 6 carbon atoms. examples are methanol, ethanol, n-propanol, i-propanol, n-butanol, i-butanol, t-butanol, pentanol, hexanol and mixtures thereof. an optionally halogenated c 1-200 -alkane is an alkane which has from 1 to 200 carbon atoms and in which one or more up to all hydrogen atoms can be replaced by halogen, preferably chlorine or fluorine, in particular chlorine. examples are chloroform, dichloromethane, tetrachloromethane, dichloroethane, hexane, heptane, octane and mixtures thereof. preference is given to methanol, ethanol, propanol, acetone, mek and mixtures thereof. a very particularly preferred extractant is methanol. the solvent used is preferably water-free. independently of its production, the resultant metal-organic framework material is produced in pulverulent or crystalline form. this can be used as such as sorbent in the inventive method alone or together with other sorbents or other materials. preferably, this is performed as bulk good, in particular in a fixed bed. in addition, the metal-organic framework material can be converted into a shaped body. preferred methods in this case are rod extrusion or tableting. in the production of shaped bodies, further materials, for example binders, lubricants or other additives, can be added to the metal-organic framework material. likewise, it is conceivable that mixtures of metal-organic framework material and other adsorbents, for example activated carbon, are produced as shaped bodies, or separately result in shaped bodies which are then used as shaped body mixtures. essentially no restrictions exist with respect to the possible geometries of these metal-organic framework materials. for example, those which may be mentioned are, inter alia, pellets, for example disk-shaped pellets, pills, beads, granules, extrudates, for example rods, honeycombs, meshes or hollow bodies. for production of these shaped bodies, in principle all suitable methods are possible. in particular, preference is given to the following procedures: kneading the framework material alone or together with at least one binder and/or at least one pasting agent and/or at least one template compound to obtain a mixture; shaping the resultant mixture by means of at least one suitable method, for example extrusion; optionally washing and/or drying and/or calcining the extrudate; optionally final processing.applying the framework material to at least one if appropriate porous support material. the resultant material can then be further processed in accordance with the above-described method to give a shaped body.applying the framework material to at least one if appropriate porous substrate. kneading and shaping can be performed according to any suitable method, as described, for example, in ullmanns enzyklopädie der technischen chemie [ullmann's encyclopedia of industrial chemistry], 4th edition, volume 2, pp. 313 ff. (1972), the content of which in this respect is incorporated in its entirety by reference into the context of the present application. for example, preferably, the kneading and/or shaping can be performed by means of a piston press, roller press in the presence or absence of at least one binder material, compounding, pelleting, tableting, extruding, co-extruding, foaming, spinning, coating, granulating, preferably spray-granulating, spraying, spray-drying or a combination of two or more of these methods. very particularly, pellets and/or tablets are produced. the kneading and/or shaping can be performed at elevated temperatures, such as, for example, in the range from room temperature to 300° c., and/or at elevated pressure, such as, for example, in the range from atmospheric pressure up to some hundred bar and/or in a protective gas atmosphere, such as, for example, in the presence of at least one noble gas, nitrogen or a mixture of two or more thereof. the kneading and/or shaping, according to a further embodiment, is carried out with the addition of at least one binder, as binder, use being able to be made in principle of any chemical compound which imparts the viscosity of the mass to be kneaded and/or shaped desired for the kneading and/or shaping. therefore, binders, in the context of the present invention, can be both viscosity-increasing, and viscosity-decreasing, compounds. as binders preferred, inter alia, mention may be made of, for example, aluminum oxide or aluminum-oxide-comprising binders, as are described, for example, in wo 94/29408, silicon dioxide, as described, for example, in ep 0 592 050 a1, mixtures of silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide, as are described, for example, in wo 94/13584, clay minerals, as are described, for example, in jp 03-037156 a, for example montmorillonite, kaolin, bentonite, hallosite, dickite, nacrite and anauxite, alkoxysilanes, as are described, for example, in ep 0 102 544 b1, for example tetraalkoxysilanes, for example tetramethoxysilane, tetraethoxysilane, tetrapropoxysilane, tetrabutoxysilane, or, for example, trialkoxysilanes, for example trimethoxysilane, triethoxysilane, tripropoxysilane, tributoxysilane, alkoxytitanates, for example tetraalkoxytitanates, for example tetramethoxytitanate, tetraethoxytitanate, tetrapropoxytitanate, tetrabutoxytitanate, or, for example, trialkoxytitanates, for example trimethoxytitanate, triethoxytitanate, tripropoxytitanate, tributoxytitanate, alkoxyzirconates, for example tetraalkoxyzirconates, for example tetramethoxyzirconate, tetraethoxyzirconate, tetrapropoxyzirconate, tetrabutoxyzirconate, or, for example, trialkoxyzirconates, for example trimethoxyzirconate, triethoxyzirconate, tripropoxyzirconate, tributoxyzirconate, silica sols, amphiphilic substances and/or graphites. in particular, preference is given to graphite. as viscosity-increasing compound, use can also be made of, for example, if appropriate in addition to the abovementioned compounds, an organic compound and/or a hydrophilic polymer, for example cellulose or a cellulose derivative, for example methylcellulose and/or a polyacrylate and/or a polymethacrylate and/or a poly(vinyl alcohol) and/or a polyvinylpyrrolidone and/or a polyisobutene and/or a polytetrahydrofuran. as pasting agents, use can be made of, inter alia, preferably water or at least one alcohol, for example a monoalcohol having 1 to 4 carbon atoms, for example methanol, ethanol, n-propanol, isopropanol, 1-butanol, 2-butanol, 2-methyl-1-propanol or 2-methyl-2-propanol or a mixture of water and at least one of said alcohols or a polyhydric alcohol, for example a glycol, preferably a water-miscible polyhydric alcohol, alone or as a mixture with water and/or at least one of said monohydric alcohols. further additives which can be used for kneading and/or shaping are, inter alia, amines or amine derivatives, for example tetraalkylammonium compounds or amino alcohols and carbonate-comprising compounds, for instance calcium carbonate. such further additives are described, for instance, in ep 0 389 041 a1, ep 0 200 260 a1, or wo 95/19222. the sequence of the additives such as template compound, binder, pasting agent, viscosity-increasing substance, in the shaping and kneading is in principle not critical. according to a further preferred embodiment, the shaped body obtained according to kneading and/or shaping is subjected to at least one drying which is generally carried out at a temperature in the range from 25 to 300° c., preferably in the range from 50 to 300° c., and particularly preferably in the range from 100 to 300° c. likewise, it is possible to carry out the drying in a vacuum or under a protective gas atmosphere, or by spray drying. according to a particularly preferred embodiment, in the context of this drying operation, at least one of the compounds added as additives is at least partially removed from the shaped body. according to the present invention at least one unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbon is separated from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer thereof. unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbons are alkanes or alkenes, containing one or more c═c-double bonds in the chain having 4 to 20 carbon atoms. preferred are alkanes. an unbranched c 4 -c 20 alkane is an alkane of formula h 3 c—(ch 2 ) n —ch 3 , wherein n is an integer from 2 to 18. this includes n-butane, n-pentane, n-hexane, n-heptane, noktane, n-nonane, n-decane, n-mindecane, n-dodecane as well as the c13-, c14-, c15-, c16-, c17-, c18-, c19-, and c20-n-alkanes. an unbranched c 4 -c 20 alkene can be derived from the respective alkane with one or more c═c double bonds. the term “unbranched c 4 -c 20 alkene” includes cis- and trans-forms. preferably the at least one unbranched alkane is a c 4 -c 10 -alkane. these alkanes are n-butane, n-pentane, n-hexane, n-heptane, n-oktane, n-nonane, and n-decane. more preferred are c4, c5 and c8 n-alkanes. preferably the at least one unbranched alkane is n-butane. the fluid mixture can have one of the unbranched hydrocarbons or more than one, e.g. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or more of these hydrocarbons. the corresponding branched isomers have the same number of carbon atoms but at least one at least tertiary carbon atom, which is not an sp 2 carbon atom in case of alkenes. for example the branched isomer of n-butane is isobutane (2-methylpropane). the branched isomers of n-pentane are 2-methylbutane and 2,2-dimethylpropane. separating n-alkanes from branched alkanes can be particularly useful for the production of motor fuels. branched alkanes typically have higher octane ratings than the corresponding n-alkanes. u.s. pat. no. 3,700,589 describes a process using 5 a zeolite to separate normal from branched chain hydrocarbons. the higher octane fuels earn a premium in the market place because of reduced engine knock and improved performance in engines. the fluid mixture in the process for the separation according to the present invention can be a liquid or a gas mixture. in case the fluid mixture is a liquid mixture the process for the separation according to the present invention may be carried out as a so called “simulated moving bed”. this is commonly completed in a countercurrent operation in which the feed location through a bed is changed in such a fashion that the adsorbent moves effectively countercurrent to the fluid being used as a desorbent. in said process the desorbent used is chosen such that it is at an intermediate selectivity to the components to be separated. the resulting streams from the process are subsequently passed onto further separation (commonly distillation) to separate the desorbent from the recovered streams. preferably, for c4 and c5 hydrocarbons the fluid mixture is a gas mixture. for higher hydrocarbons a liquid phase separation process is preferred. the contacting of a gas mixture is preferably carried out by continuous adsorption on a fixed bed. in this case the gas mixture is passed through the sorption bed. further preferably, the continuous adsorption takes place in one or more shaft or tubular reactors, in particular in one or two shaft reactors, at least one reactor being filled with an adsorbent which comprises a porous metal-organic framework material. reactor cascades are likewise conceivable. a reactor can comprise a part-filling with the porous metal-organic framework material, or a combined bed, for example having additional other adsorbents. the inventive method is carried out at a partial pressure of the at least one unbranched hydrocarbon which is preferably in the range from 0.5 bar (absolute) and 10 bar (absolute), even more preferred is the range of 0.9 bar and 2.5 bar (absolute). the temperature of the gas mixture in the contacting with the sorbent which comprises a porous metal-organic framework material can be in a range from 0° c. to 200° c., even more preferred from 5° c. to 150° c., even more preferred from 10° c. to 110° c. in particular the adsorption is carried out at ambient temperature. the gas mixture is preferably contacted with the sorbent at a gaseous hourly space velocity (ghsv) of 50 l(s.t.p.)/h to 10 000 l(s.t.p.)/h. the gas mixture can be contacted with the sorbent comprising a porous metal-organic framework material once or repeatedly. the unbranched hydrocarbon which is separated off and situated on the adsorbent can be desorbed by means of third purge gas under conditions in which the separation (enrichment) is also carried out. there are further possibilities for desorption without additional purge gas by means of pressure swing adsorption (psa) including vacuum psa (vpsa) or temperature swing adsorption (tsa). preferably, the desorption takes place with pressure swing adsorption. the manner in which desorption can be carried out is known to those skilled in the art. instructions for this are found, for example, in werner kast “adsorption aus der gasphase” [adsorption from the gas phase], verlag vch, weinheim, 1988. preferably the step of contacting is part of a pressure swing adsorption, temperature swing adsorption or combined pressure and temperature swing adsorption process. preferably the contacting is carried out for a period of time in the range of 0.5 min to 120 min, more preferred from 0.7 to 60 min. the steps most commonly used in the psa process would be adsorption followed by equalization, and co current vent to a pressure above the lowest pressure in the cycle. next a co current pressure reduction to provide a purge gas is completed, followed by a countercurrent depressurization to the lowest pressure in the cycle. then a purge gas supplied from an earlier step in the cycle is used to sweep the adsorbed material off the bed. after the desorption step is completed the bed is brought back up to pressure with counter current equalization gas and subsequently to adsorption pressure by either feed co currently and/or product gas counter currently. another aspect of the present invention is the use of a porous metal organic framework material, which material comprises at least one at least bidentate organic compound coordinately bound to at least one metal ion, wherein the at least one at least bidentate organic compound is a monocyclic, bicyclic or polycyclic ring system which is derived from at least one heterocycle selected from the group consisting of pyrrole, alpha-pyridone and gamma-pyridone and has at least two ring nitrogens and is unsubstituted or bears one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, c 1-6 -alkyl, phenyl, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl, where the substituents c 1-6 -alkyl and phenyl are unsubstituted or bear one or more substituents selected independently from the group consisting of halogen, nh 2 , nh(c 1-6 -alkyl), n(c 1-6 -alkyl) 2 , oh, ophenyl and oc 1-6 -alkyl, for the separation of at least one unbranched c 4 -c 20 hydrocarbon from a fluid mixture containing the unbranched hydrocarbon and at least one branched isomer of the unbranched hydrocarbon. examples example 1 gaschromatographic separation of n- and i-butane zn-2-methylimidazol is prepared according to example 1 the international application with the application number pct/ep2007/054568 and filled into a packed gc column (l50 mm× 1/16″ edelstahlrohr). he (3.8 bar) is used as a carrier gas. the gc is constantly held at 100° c. small amounts of gases are dosed by the help of a sampling loop and a multi-port valve into the he gas stream. the retention time is analyzed by a thermal conductivity detector (tcd). the retention time for i-butane is 7.00 min, for n-butane 24.26 min. for comparison, the retention time of ar is 1.16 min. example 2 adsorption isotherms of n- and i-butane zn-2-methylimidazol is prepared according to example 1. the uptake is determined gravimetrically by means of a magnetically coupled balance from rubotherm gmbh, bochum (de). prior to the measurement the sample is activated at 120° c. under vacuum conditions for 5 hours. fig. 1 shows the uptake u (in mg/g) as a function of the adsorption pressure p (in mbar) at 31° c. the black diamonds represent the uptake of n-butane, the white squares correspond to i-butane. the difference in the henry coefficients derived from the initial slope is more than one order of magnitude (˜factor 14). example 3 adsorption isotherms of n- and neopentane fig. 2 shows the uptake u of different pentanes (in mg/g) as a function of the absolute adsorption pressure p (in mbar) at 31° c. (otherwise similar conditions as example 1). the black diamonds represent the uptake of n-pentane, the white squares correspond to 2,2-dimethylpropane (neopentane). the difference in the henry constants is as good as for example 2. comparative example 4 adsorption isotherms of n- and i-butane on 5a for comparison a commercial 5 a molecular sieve (carl roth gmbh+co. kg, karlsruhe (de)). prior to the experiment the sample is externally activated for 14 hours under vacuum at 300° c. and additionally in-situ under vacuum at 180° c. for 10 hours fig. 3 shows the uptake u of butanes (in mg/g) as a function of the absolute adsorption pressure p (in mbar) at 31° c. (similar conditions as in example 1). the absolute uptake is much lower than in example 1 and the difference in henry coefficients is much smaller.
097-747-503-306-576	US	[ "US" ]	D06F95/00	1995-11-03T00:00:00	1995	[ "D06" ]	laundry container structure	a laundry container assembly including a base seat, an upper frame, four support columns and four wall boards. four insertion holes are formed on four corners of the base seat and four corresponding insertion holes are formed on four corners of the upper frame. each support column has two insertion posts respectively at an upper end and a lower end. an annular groove is formed on the insertion post. an annular projection is formed on a wall of the insertion hole, whereby the insertion post is securely inserted into the insertion hole with the annular projection engaged with the annular groove. each wall board has two z-shaped insertion plates on two sides. each support column is formed with two longitudinal l-shaped insertion channels on two adjacent inner sides, whereby the four support columns are inserted into the insertion holes of the base seat and the insertion plates of the four wall boards are longitudinally downward inserted into the insertion channels of the support columns. the insertion posts of the upper ends of the support columns are further inserted into the insertion holes of the upper frame to complete the container assembly. four hook members are disposed under four corners of the upper frame for hanging a laundry net thereon. the laundry container assembly is able to bear heavy weight. the clothes to be washed are placed in the laundry net which can be taken out and entirely thrown into a washing machine for washing.	1. a laundry container assembly comprising a base seat, an upper frame, four support columns and four wall boards, wherein four insertion holes being formed on upper surface of four corners of the base seat and four corresponding insertion holes are formed on lower surface of four corners of the upper frame, each support column having two insertion posts respectively at an upper end and a lower end, an annular groove being formed around a surface of the insertion post, an annular projection being formed on a wall of the insertion hole, whereby the insertion post is securely inserted into the insertion hole with the annular projection engaged with the annular groove, each wall board having two z-shaped insertion plates on two sides, each support column being formed with two longitudinal l-shaped insertion channels on two adjacent inner sides, whereby the four support columns are inserted into the insertion holes of the base seat and the insertion plates of the four wall boards are longitudinally downward inserted into the insertion channels of the support columns to define a rectangular box body, the insertion posts of the upper ends of the support columns being further inserted into the insertion holes of the upper frame to complete the container assembly, four hook members being disposed under four corners of the upper frame, whereby a periphery of an opening of a laundry net is hooked and hung on the hook members. 2. a laundry container assembly as claimed in claim 1, comprising a base seat, two long wall boards, two short wall boards and a cover, wherein the base seat is disposed with four insertion holes formed on four corners thereof, each long wall board having two insertion posts respectively on two sides of a lower face thereof, an annular groove being formed around a surface of the insertion post, an annular projection being formed on a wall of the insertion hole, whereby the insertion post is securely inserted into the insertion hole with the annular projection engaged with the annular groove, each long wall board further having two opposite longitudinal fungus-shaped insertion channels on two sides, each short wall board being formed with two longitudinal fungus-shaped insertion plates on two sides corresponding to the insertion channels, whereby the insertion plates are longitudinally inserted into the insertion channels to define a rectangular box body, the cover being pivotally connected with one side of one of the long wall boards by two hinges disposed in two hinge recesses of the long wall board, four hook members being disposed in four recesses formed along upper edges of the long and short wall boards, whereby a periphery of an opening of a laundry net is hooked and hung on the hook members to form the laundry container assembly. 3. a laundry container assembly as claimed in claim 1, wherein an arch groove is formed on the surface of the insertion post of the support column or the long wall board and a ball member resiliently urged by a spring is imbedded in the wall of the insertion hole of the base seat or the upper frame, whereby when the insertion post is inserted into the insertion hole, the ball member is resiliently pushed into the arch groove so as to engage the insertion post with the insertion hole. 4. a laundry container assembly as claimed in claim 2, wherein an arch groove is formed on the surface of the insertion post of the support column or the long wall board and a ball member resiliently urged by a spring is imbedded in the wall of the insertion hole of the base seat or the upper frame, whereby when the insertion post is inserted into the insertion hole, the ball member is resiliently pushed into the arch groove as as to engage the insertion post with the insertion hole.	background of the invention the present invention relates to a laundry container assembly which is firmly constructed and able to bear heavy weight. the clothes to be washed are placed in a laundry net which is hung in the container and can be taken out and entirely thrown into a washing machine for washing. fig. 7 shows a conventional laundry container assembly including a base seat 81, four support columns 82, an upper frame 83 and a cover 84 pivotally connected with the upper frame 83 by hinges 85. four inclined projecting plates 811 are respectively disposed on four arch corners of the base seat 81 to together with the arch corners define four insertion spaces for the lower ends of the support columns 82 to fixedly insert therein. the lower side of the upper frame 83 is formed with similar structure for the upper ends of the support columns 82 to insert therein so as to form a laundry container assembly 80 as shown in fig. 8. a waterproof bag 90 is fitted around the container assembly with the periphery of the upper frame 83 received in an upper opening of the bag 90. the clothes to be washed can be placed in the laundry container. such laundry container assembly 80 has simple structure in which the support columns 82 are only engaged with the base seat 81 and the upper frame 83 by insertion without any other reinforcing structure. therefore, when transferring the laundry container assembly, the base seat is apt to loosen and detach from the support columns or the upper frame 83 tends to separate from the support columns. moreover, such laundry container assembly can hardly bear heavy weight so that in case a person sits on the cover 84, the container will swing or the inclined projecting plates 811 of the base seat 81 will be biased and broken to make the support columns 82 disengaged from the base seat 81. summary of the invention it is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a laundry container assembly which is firmly constructed and able to bear heavy weight without swinging. it is a further object of the present invention to provide the above laundry container structure including hook members on which a laundry net is hung. the clothes to be washed are placed in the laundry net which can be directly taken out and entirely thrown into a washing machine for washing. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a perspective exploded view of the present invention; fig. 1a is a sectional view taken along line i--i of fig. 1; fig. 1b is an enlarged view of circled area b in fig. 1; fig. 1c is a sectional view taken along line iii--iii of fig. 1; fig. 2 is a perspective assembled view of the present invention; fig. 3 is a perspective exploded view of another embodiment of the present invention; fig. 3a is an enlarged view of circled area a in fig. 3; fig. 3b is a sectional view taken along line iii--iii of fig. 3; fig. 4 is a perspective assembled view of the embodiment of fig. 3; fig. 5 is a perspective exploded view showing another aspect of the insertion post and insertion hole of the present invention; fig. 6 is a sectional assembled view showing the aspect of the insertion post and insertion hole of fig. 5; fig. 7 is a perspective exploded view of a conventional laundry container assembly; and fig. 8 is a perspective assembled view of the conventional laundry container assembly. detailed description of the preferred embodiments please refer to fig. 1. the present invention includes a base seat 10, an upper frame 20, four support columns 30 and four wall boards 40. the base seat 10 is a rectangular frame body disposed with inner water and air permeable screen. four insertion holes 11 are formed on upper surface of four corners of the base seat 10. four corresponding insertion holes 21 are formed on lower surface of four corners of the upper frame 20. each support column 30 has two insertion posts 31 respectively at an upper end and a lower end. an annular groove 32 is formed around the surface of the insertion post 31, while an annular projection 12 is formed on the wall of the insertion hole 11, whereby the insertion post 31 can be securely inserted into the insertion hole 11 with the annular projection 12 engaged with the annular groove 32. each wall board 40 has two z-shaped insertion plates 41 on two sides, while each support column 30 is formed with two longitudinal l-shaped insertion channels 33 on two adjacent inner sides, whereby the four support columns 30 are inserted into the insertion holes 11 of the base seat 10 and the insertion plates 41 of the four wall boards 40 are longitudinally downward inserted into the insertion channels 33 of the support columns 30 to define a rectangular box body. the insertion posts 31 of the upper ends of the support columns 30 are further inserted into the insertion holes 21 of the upper frame 20 to complete the container assembly. four hook members 23 are disposed under four corners of the upper frame 20 as shown in fig. 1a, whereby the periphery of an opening of a laundry net 50 can be hooked and hung on the hook members 23. a cover 25 is pivotally connected with one side of the upper frame 20 by hinges 24 for covering the upper opening of the container as shown in fig. 2. according to the above arrangements, the laundry container assembly is firmly constructed and able to bear heavy weight. the clothes to be washed are placed in the laundry net 50 which can be conveniently directly taken out of the container and entirely thrown into a washing machine for washing. fig. 3 shows another embodiment of the present invention, including a base seat 10, two long wall boards 61, two short wall boards 62 and a cover 70. the base seat 10 is four insertion holes formed on four corners thereof. each long wall board 61 has two insertion posts 611 respectively on two sides of a lower face thereof. an annular groove 612 is formed around the surface of the insertion post 611. an annular projection 12 is formed on the wall of the insertion hole 11, whereby the insertion post 611 can be securely inserted into the insertion hole 11 with the annular projection 12 engaged with the annular groove 612. each long wall board 61 further has two opposite longitudinal fungus-shaped insertion channels 613 on two sides, while each short wall board 62 is formed with two longitudinal fungus-shaped insertion plates 621 on two sides corresponding to the insertion channels 613, whereby the insertion plates 621 are longitudinally inserted into the insertion channels 613 to define a rectangular box body 60. the cover 70 is pivotally connected with one side of one of the long wall boards 61 by two hinges 71 disposed in two hinge recesses 614 of the long wall board 61. four hook members 616, 623 are disposed in four recesses 615, 622 formed along upper edges of the long and short wall boards, whereby the periphery of an opening of a laundry net 50 can be hooked and hung on the hook members 616, 623 to form a laundry container assembly as shown in fig. 4, which is also able to bear heavy weight. figs. 5 and 6 show another embodiment of the insertion posts 31 of the support columns 30 and the insertion posts 611 of the long wall boards 61. an arch groove 34 is formed on the surface of the insertion post 31 and a ball member 14 resiliently urged by a spring 13 is imbedded in the wall of the insertion hole 11, 21 of the base seat 10 or the upper frame 20, whereby when the insertion post 31 is inserted into the insertion hole 11, 21, the ball member 14 is resiliently pushed into the arch groove 34 so as to engage the insertion post with the insertion hole as shown in fig. 6. the above embodiments are only some examples of the present invention and the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the examples. any modification or variation derived from the examples should fall within the scope of the present invention.
097-958-522-893-542	US	[ "US" ]	A61K8/81,A61Q1/00,A61Q3/02,A61Q5/00,A61Q17/04,A61K8/00,A61K8/18,A61Q3/00	2011-09-30T00:00:00	2011	[ "A61" ]	cosmetic compositions comprising latex film formers	disclosed are cosmetic compositions comprising at least one latex-film former chosen from at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer and derivatives thereof, and at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer.	1 . a cosmetic composition comprising: a. at least one latex film former chosen from at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer and derivatives thereof; and b. at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. 2 . the cosmetic composition of claim 1 , wherein the at least one latex film former is chosen from at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer, and derivatives thereof, having a tg ranging from about 0° c. to about 50° c. 3 . the cosmetic composition of claim 1 , wherein the latex film former is present in the cosmetic composition in an amount ranging from about 20% to about 80%. 4 . the cosmetic composition of claim 1 , wherein the at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer is chosen from styrene/acrylates/ammonium methacrylate copolymers, styrene/acrylates copolymers, and derivatives thereof. 5 . the cosmetic composition of claim 4 , wherein the at least one coalescent is chosen from propylene glycol n-butyl ether and dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. 6 . the cosmetic composition of claim 4 , wherein the at least one plasticizer is chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 7 . the cosmetic composition of claim 5 , further comprising at least one plasticizer chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 8 . the cosmetic composition of claim 5 , wherein the at least one coalescent is chosen from dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. 9 . the cosmetic composition of claim 8 , wherein the at least one plasticizer is chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 10 . the cosmetic composition of claim 1 , chosen from nail compositions, make-up compositions, mascara compositions, hair-care compositions, and sunscreen compositions. 11 . a method of improving at least one property chosen from adhesion, water-resistance, oil-resistance, shine, and long-wear properties in a cosmetic composition, said method comprising including in the cosmetic composition: a. at least one latex film former chosen from at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer and derivatives thereof; and b. at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. 12 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the at least one latex film former is chosen from at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer, and derivatives thereof, having a tg ranging from about 0° c. to about 50° c. 13 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the latex film former is present in the cosmetic composition in an amount ranging from about 20% to about 80%. 14 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer is chosen from styrene/acrylates/ammonium methacrylate copolymers, styrene/acrylates copolymers, and derivatives thereof. 15 . the method of claim 14 , wherein the at least one coalescent is chosen from propylene glycol n-butyl ether and dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. 16 . the method of claim 14 , wherein the at least one plasticizer is chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 17 . the method of claim 15 , further comprising at least one plasticizer chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 18 . the method of claim 15 , wherein the at least one coalescent is chosen from dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. 19 . the method of claim 18 , wherein the at least one plasticizer is chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. 20 . the method of claim 11 , chosen from nail compositions, make-up compositions, mascara compositions, hair-care compositions, and sunscreen compositions.	field of the disclosure the disclosure relates to cosmetic compositions comprising (1) at least one latex film former, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. latex film formers useful in various embodiments of the disclosure may be chosen from random styrene acrylate copolymers and derivatives thereof, and acrylate copolymers and derivatives thereof. cosmetic compositions according to various embodiments of the disclosure may have improved properties, such as improved water- and/or oil-resistance, shine, adhesion, hardness, and/or long wear. background film formers, coalescents, and plasticizers are well-known in the cosmetic field. inclusion of a film former in a cosmetic composition can improve various properties, such as, for example, shine, adhesion, and long wear. it is also known that inclusion of a coalescent agent promotes the coalescence of polymer particles in an aqueous dispersion, and inclusion of a plasticizer makes it possible to plasticize a polymer in an aqueous dispersion. the use of latex film formers in cosmetic compositions is also known, for example, in mascara, hair styling products, topical foundation, sunscreen compositions, and water-based nail enamel. in particular, latex and latex blends have been used to provide extended-wear properties of the cosmetic product into which they are formulated. for example, conventional washable mascara compositions use latex film formers in combination with an oil-in-water emulsion. however, it has been found that cosmetic compositions having film formers may have less than satisfactory properties. for example, nail varnish compositions are known which comprise aqueous dispersions of particles of a film-forming polymer, wherein the film may exhibit poor adhesion to the nail and/or may not be sufficiently bright. there is a desire in the cosmetic industry to provide consumers with products having improved properties such as improved shine, adhesion, and long wear. as such, there is a continuous need to invent novel cosmetic compositions which demonstrate one or more improved property. it has now been surprisingly discovered that by incorporating (1) at least one latex film former, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer into cosmetic compositions, cosmetic properties such as water- and/or oil-resistance, shine, adhesion, hardness, and/or long wear can be improved. description of exemplary embodiments the disclosure relates, in various embodiments, to cosmetic compositions comprising (1) at least one latex film former, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. latex film formers useful according to the disclosure may be chosen from random styrene acrylate copolymers and derivatives thereof. according to various embodiments of the disclosure, the at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer and derivatives thereof may be chosen from those having a glass transition temperature (tg) ranging from about −15° c. to about 90° c., such as from about 0° c. to about 50° c. by way of non-limiting example only, the at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer may be chosen from styrene/acrylates/ ammonium methacrylate copolymers, styrene-acrylates copolymers, and styrene acrylic copolymers. exemplary commercial random styrene acrylate copolymer products that may be used include, but are not limited to, syntran 5760 (paraben free), by interpolymer corporation; joncryl 77, by basf performance chemicals; and rhoplex p376, by dow chemical company. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one latex film former may be present in the cosmetic composition in an amount ranging from about 10% to about 90%, such as about 20% to about 80%, about 25% to about 75%, or about 30% to about 60%. in at least one exemplary embodiment, the at least one latex film former is present in the cosmetic composition in an amount ranging from about 25% to about 35%, such as about 28% to about 30%. as described herein, the cosmetic compositions comprising at least one latex film former further comprise at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. plasticizers useful according to various embodiments of the disclosure include one or more chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. coalescents useful according to various embodiments of the disclosure include one or more chosen from propylene glycol n-butyl ether and dipropylene glycol benzoate. in various embodiments, the at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer may be added in a combined amount of up to about 10%, such as up to about 7%, or up to about 5%. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer may be added in a combined amount ranging from about 1% to about 5%, such as about 1% to about 3%. one embodiment of the disclosure relates to cosmetic compositions comprising (1) at least one latex film former chosen from a styrene/acrylates/ammoumium methacrylate copolymer, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. in one exemplary embodiment, the latex film former may, by way of example, be styrene/acrylates/ammoumium methacrylate copolymer (and) sodium lauryl sulfate (and) carylyl glycol, such as, for example, syntran 5760 (paraben free). in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one coalescent may be chosen from dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one plasticizer may be chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. another embodiment of the disclosure relates to cosmetic compositions comprising (1) at least one latex film former chosen from a styrene/acrylates copolymer, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. in one exemplary embodiment, the latex film former may, by way of example, be styrene-acrylates copolymer chosen from rhoplex p376. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one coalescent may be chosen from propylene glycol n-butyl ether and dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one plasticizer may be chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. another embodiment of the disclosure relates to cosmetic compositions comprising (1) at least one latex film former chosen from a styrene/acrylates copolymer, and (2) at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer. in one exemplary embodiment, the latex film former may, by way of example, be styrene-acrylates copolymer chosen from joncryl 77. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one coalescent may be chosen from dipropylene glycol dibenzoate. in various exemplary embodiments, the at least one plasticizer may be chosen from tributyl citrate, texanol ester alcohol, and diisobutyl adipate. in addition, other cosmetic ingredients may be included in the compositions according to the disclosure. such ingredients are known, and include but are not limited to solvents (including water), colorants, humectants, emulsifiers, surfactants, preservatives, fragrances, thickeners or texturizers, emollients, and additional film-formers, coalescents, and/or plasticizers. one of skill in the art will be able to select appropriate types and amounts of additional cosmetic ingredients, based on, for example, the type of cosmetic composition being formulated and the desired properties thereof. by way of example only, such additional cosmetic ingredients may be present in the compositions according to the disclosure in a combined amount ranging from about 10% to about 80%, such as about 15% to about 60%, about 25% to about 40%, or about 30% to about 35%. exemplary cosmetic compositions contemplated according to the disclosure include compositions intended for application to keratinous fibers, such as the hair, skin, and nails. such compositions include, but are not limited to, nail compositions (e.g. nail enamel), mascara compositions, make-up compositions (e.g. foundations), sunscreen compositions, and hair-care compositions (e.g. hair-styling compositions). without wishing to be bound by theory, it is believed that the combination of the at least one latex film former described herein and at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer surprisingly and unexpectedly shows a synergistic effect, imparting improved properties such as, for example, improved water- and/or oil-resistance, shine, adhesion, hardness, and/or long-wear to the cosmetic compositions. by way of example only, mascara formulations comprising at least one latex film former described herein and at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer have been found to have improved curl, curl-retention, volume, and long-wear properties, which are seen for several days after application. as a further non-limiting example, nail formulations, such as water-based nail enamel formulations, comprising a latex film former comprising at least one random styrene acrylate copolymer and derivatives thereof, and at least one coalescent and/or plasticizer, have been found to have improved shine, smoothness on application, hardness, and long-wear properties. it should be noted, however, that compositions according to the disclosure may not have one or more of the above-referenced improved properties, yet such compositions are intended to be within the scope of the disclosure. it is to be understood that both the foregoing description and the following examples are exemplary and explanatory only, and are not to be interpreted as restrictive of the disclosure. moreover, it should be understood that various features and/or characteristics of differing embodiments herein may be combined with one another. it is therefore to be understood that numerous modifications may be made to the illustrative embodiments and that other arrangements may be devised without departing from the scope of the invention. other embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the disclosure and practice of the various exemplary embodiments disclosed herein. it is also to be understood that, as used herein the terms “the,” “a,” or “an,” mean “at least one,” and should not be limited to “only one” unless explicitly indicated to the contrary. thus, for example, the use of “a plasticizer” is intended to mean at least one plasticizer. unless otherwise indicated, all numbers used in the specification and claims are to be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about,” whether or not so stated. it should also be understood that the precise numerical values used in the specification and claims form additional embodiments of the invention, and are intended to include any ranges which can be narrowed to any two end points disclosed within the exemplary ranges and values provided. efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the numerical values disclosed herein. any measured numerical value, however, can inherently contain certain errors resulting from the standard deviation found in its respective measuring technique. examples the following examples are intended to be non-restrictive and explanatory only, with the scope of the invention being defined by the claims. examples 1 and 2 simple mascara compositions two simple mascara compositions were made by mixing, independently, the components set forth in the following table 1 and table 2. table 1trade nameinci nameweight %dermacryl aqfammonium acrylates copolymer43.75joncryl77styrene/acrylates copolymer43.75scandinol sp 21tributyl citrate2.2distinctive ink blackblack 25pv aqiiexpert gel eg56bis-methoxy peg-13 peg-438/1ppg-110 smdi copolymerqs waterqs water4.3total100% table 2trade nameinci nameweight %dermacryl aqfammonium acrylates copolymer43.75joncryl77styrene/acrylates copolymer43.75scandinol sp 21tributyl citrate1.5dipropylene glycol dibenzoate1.5qs waterqs water9.5total100% example 3 mascara composition two batches of a mascara composition were prepared having the composition shown in table 3, by following the procedure set forth in table 4. table 3phaseinci nametrade nameconc.weight (g)weight (g)a1di waterdi water29.43294.30147.15a1methylparabenmethyl paraben0.333.301.65a1phenoxyethanolphenoxyethanol0.848.404.20a1ethylparabenethyl paraben0.222.201.10a1disodium edtadisodium edta0.202.001.00a1sodium dehydroacetatesodium dehydroacetate0.202.001.00a1butylene glycolbutylene glycol2.4024.0012.00a1simethiconesimethicone0.101.000.50a1peg-200 glyceryl stearatesimulsol 2203.0030.0015.00a2black iron oxidesunpuro black7.00070.0035.00a3acrylamide/sodiumsimulgel 6002.0020.0010.00acryloyldimethyl-taurate copolymerb1beeswaxwhite beeswax sp 453p7.1871.8035.90b1carnauba waxcarnauba wax sp634.0040.0020.00b1cetyl alcoholacilol 162.0020.0010.00b1vp/eicoseneantaton v2202.0020.0010.00copolymerb1glyceryl stearateglyceryl stearate1.0010.005.00b1ethylenediamine/stearyluniclear 100vg2.0020.0010.00dimer dilinoleatecopolymerb1simmondsia chinensisiso jojoba 502.0020.0010.00(jojoba) buttercjoncryl 77/dermacryl aqf/30.00300.00150.001.5% tributyl citratedcaprylyl glycolcaprylyl glycol1.0010.005.00ddenatured alcoholdenatured alcohol3.0030.0015.00dsoluble collagensoluble collagen0.101.000.50total100.001000.00500.00 table 4scraperagitatorhomovactempoperationrpmrpmrpmbar° c.charge phase a1 and phase a2 to main kettle00800—rt/55(mk) and mix for 60 minutes to properly dispersepigments. begin heating to 55° c.charge phase a3 to mk and mix for 5 minutes.001100—55/95batch will become thicker as a3 becomesincorporated. continue heating to 95° c.melt phase b1 in side kettle (sk) on hot plate.hotheat to 95° c. and verify all waxes are melted.platecharge sk to mk and emulsify for 20 minutes.001500—95maintain temperature at 95° c.start cooling batch to 45° c. with sweep mixingmin———95/45only.at 45° c. add phase c one component at a time.min———45mix until dispersed and uniform. increase mixerspeed if needed to properly incorporate largeamount of film formers added at this stage.continue cooling to 30° c. with sweep mixing.min———45/30at 30° c. charge phase d to mk and mix untilmin———30uniform. the mascara compositions prepared in tables 1 and 3 above were tested on eyelashes. the resulting products demonstrated improved properties of thickness, curl, volume, and long wear. these properties were still visible after two days. example 4 water-based nail enamel a water-based nail enamel was prepared having the following composition, as shown in table 5: table 5weight %(rawweight %inci nametrade namematerial)(active)waterwater8.11qsstyrene acrylic emulsionrhoplex p3762010acrylic copolymerdermacryl aqf55.5525propylene glycol n-butyldowanol pnb2.12etherdipropylene glycol22dibenzoatepigment dispersion12.243total100100 the nail enamel composition was tested and found to have improved properties of shine, smoothness upon application, water- and oil-resistance, hardness, and long wear. these properties were seen to last for several days.
098-810-169-169-419	US	[ "US" ]	F16L55/035	1992-06-12T00:00:00	1992	[ "F16" ]	hanger for vehicle exhaust systems and the like	a hanger for suspending a first component from a second elevated component comprising a first body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a first durometer hardness and a tensile strength sufficient to support the first component, and having a pair of spaced openings therein; a second body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than the first durometer hardness, disposed within one of the openings of the first body member and being molded integrally therewith and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of the second elevated component; and a third body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than the first durometer hardness, disposed within the other of the openings of the first body member and being molded integrally therewith and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of the first component; the materials of the second and third body member being compatible with the material of the first body member to permit the molding of the second and third body members with the first body member in a semi-molten state whereby the materials are molded together to provide an integral structure of at least a dual durometer hardness.	1. a hanger for suspending a first component from a second elevated component comprising: a first body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a first durometer hardness and a tensile strength sufficient to support said first component, and having a pair of spaced openings therein; a second body member disposed within a first one of said openings of said first body member and being molded integrally therewith and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of said second elevated component, said second body member being formed of a thermoplastic elastomer compatible with said first body member thermoplastic elastomer, said second body member thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than said first durometer hardness; and a third body member disposed within a second one of said openings of said first body member and being molded integrally therewith and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of said first component, said third body member being formed of a thermoplastic elastomer compatible with said first body member thermoplastic elastomer, said third body member thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than said first durometer hardness; and whereupon the first body member, the second body member and the third body member form an integral structure having at least a dual durometer hardness. 2. a hanger according to claim 1 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness in the range of 40 to 90 shore d, and the second and third body members are formed of materials each having a durometer hardness in the range of 20 to 90 shore a. 3. a hanger according to claim 1 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 65.+-.5 shore d and said second and third body members each are formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 35.+-.5 shore a. 4. a hanger according to claim 1 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 65.+-.5 shore d and said second and third body members each are formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 55.+-.5 shore a. 5. a hanger according to claim 1 wherein said second body member and said attachment element of said second elevated component completely fill said first one of said first body member openings and said third body member only partially fills said second one of said first body member openings. 6. a hanger according to claim 5 wherein said third body member spans a pair of opposed sides of said second one of said first body member openings. 7. a hanger according to claim 5 wherein said third body member fills only a lower portion of said second one of said first body member openings. 8. a hanger for suspending a first component from a second elevated component comprising: a first body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a first durometer hardness and a tensile strength sufficient to support said first component, and having a first annular section, a second annular section and an interconnecting section interconnecting said first annular section and said second annular section; a second body member disposed within and molded integrally with said first annular section of said first body member, and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of said second elevated component, said second body member being formed of a thermoplastic elastomer compatible with said first body member thermoplastic elastomer, said second body member thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than said first durometer hardness; and a third body member disposed within and molded integrally with said second annular section of said first body member, and having an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of said first component, said third body member being formed of a thermoplastic elastomer compatible with said first body member thermoplastic elastomer, said third body member thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than said first durometer hardness; whereupon the first body member, the second body member and the third body member form an integral structure having at least a dual durometer hardness. 9. a hanger according to claim 8 wherein said interconnecting section of said first body member has a cross-shaped cross-sectional configuration. 10. a hanger according to claim 8 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness in the range of 40 to 90 shore d, and said second and third body members are formed of materials having a durometer hardness in the range of 20 to 90 shore a. 11. a hanger according to claim 8 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 65.+-.5 shore d and said second and third body members are formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 35.+-.5 shore a. 12. a hanger according to claim 8 wherein said first body member is formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 65.+-.5 shore d and said second and third body members are formed of a material having a durometer hardness of 55.+-.5 shore a. 13. a hanger according to claim 8 wherein said second body member and said attachment element of said second elevated component completely fill the first annular section of said first body member and said third body member only partially fills the second annular section of said first body member. 14. a hanger according to claim 13 wherein said third body member spans a pair of opposed sides of said second annular section. 15. a hanger according to claim 13 wherein said third body member fills only a lower portion of said second annular section of said first body member.	this invention relates to a hanger device and more particularly to a hanger device suitable for suspending an engine exhaust system from the underside of a vehicle body. in most vehicles provided with engine exhaust systems, there usually are provided various hanger devices for suspending such systems from the undersides of the vehicles. typically, such devices are used not only to support the exhaust system but to dampen vibrations to impede the transmission of engine vibrations through the exhaust system to the floor of the vehicle, and to attenuate sound. to provide such functions, such hangers commonly are constructed of an elastomeric material such as rubber or various combinations of elastomer materials provided with various reinforcing materials such as metals, synthetic materials such as nylon and the like. in addition to such functions, such devices provide for thermal expansion of the exhaust system components as such components are heated during operation of the vehicle. most of such prior art devices, however, have been found not to be entirely satisfactory in performance in that they provide for either the use of comparatively costly materials or a relatively costly manufacturing process. it thus has been found to be desirable to provide a hanger device of the type described which not only will provide for adequate support of the exhaust system, the dampening of engine vibrations, the attenuation of sound and the thermal expansion of the exhaust system components but which will be economical to manufacture and which will be consistently effective in performance over the service life of the vehicle on which it is installed. generally, the present invention provides for a hanger device consisting of a first body member formed of a thermoplastic elastomer of a certain durometer hardness to provide a tensile strength sufficient to carry the load to be suspended from the hanger, and having a set of openings therein, a second body member disposed in one of the openings in the first body member, formed of a thermoplastic elastomer having a durometer hardness less than the durometer hardness of the first body member and an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of an elevated component, and a third body member disposed in the other opening in the first body member, formed of a thermoplastic elastomer also having a durometer hardness less than the durometer hardness of the first body member and an opening therein for receiving an attachment element of a component to be the suspended from the hanger. although the several body members have different durometer hardnesses, they are formed of compatible thermoplastic elastomers so that they may be molded together to form an integral structure of at least a dual durometer hardness. the tensile strength of the hanger is provided by the first body member having a greater durometer hardness, and the vibration dampening and noise attenuating properties are provided by the second and third body members interposed between the first body member and the attachment elements, having a lesser durometer hardness. certain additives such as fiberglass and mica can be added to the member compounds to enhance their properties. fiberglass particularly may be added to enhance the tensile strength and heat resistant properties of the body members. the hanger preferably is formed in an injection molding machine having first and second stage molds in which the first body member compound is injected into a first set of mold cavities to form the first body member, and then, as the first body member compound is in a semi-molten state, the second and third body member compounds are injected into a second set of mold cavities containing the semi-molten first body member to form the final integral structure. the semi-molten state of the first body member and the compatibility of the thermoplastic elastomer compounds of the several body members permits the resulting structure to form an integral molded unit having at least a dual durometer. the particular durometer hardnesses of the several bodies are determined by the specific application of the hanger although the second and third body members are intended to have a lower hardness than the first body member to provide the desired vibration dampening and noise attenuating properties of the hanger. accordingly, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide an improved hanger device particularly suitable for suspending a vehicle exhaust system from a vehicle body. another object of the present invention is provide an improved hanger device suitable for use in suspending an vehicle exhaust system from a vehicle body which is effective in dampening engine vibrations and thus impeding the transmission of such vibrations to the vehicle body, attenuating sound and providing for the thermal expansion of the exhaust system being supported as the exhaust system becomes heated during operation of the vehicle. a further object of the present invention is to provide an improved hanger device for suspending an engine exhaust system from a vehicle body which is comparatively simple in design, relatively inexpensive to manufacture and highly effective in performance. other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to those persons having ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein: fig. 1 is a perspective view of a hanger device for suspending an engine exhaust system from the body of a vehicle, embodying the present invention; fig. 2 is a front, elevational view of the embodiment shown in fig. 1; fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 3--3 in fig. 2; fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 4--4 in fig. 2; fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along line 5--5 in fig. 2; fig. 6 is a cross-sectional view of a first set of mold cavities for injection molding a first portion of the device shown in figs. 1 through 5; and fig. 7 is a cross-sectional view of a second set of mold cavities of an injection molding machine for forming a second portion of the embodiment shown in figs. 1 through 5. referring to fig. 1 of the drawings, there is illustrated a hanger device 10 embodying the present invention which is adapted to suspend a component 11 of an engine exhaust system from a component 12 of a vehicle body. as best shown in fig. 2, the hanger device consists of a first molded body member 13, a second molded body member 14 and a third molded body member 15, molded together to form an integral unit. molded body member 13 includes an annular section 16 providing a cylindrical opening 17 therethrough, an annular section 18 providing a cylindrical opening 19 therethrough and a connecting section 20 having a cross-shaped cross-sectional configuration. molded body member 13 is formed of a molded thermoplastic elastomer material having a tensile strength sufficient to carry the load of the exhaust system which is secured thereto. molded body member 14 is disposed within cylindrical opening 17 and molded integrally with annular section 16 of molded body member 13. it is formed of a thermoplastic elastomer compatible with the material of molded body member 13 to permit the members to be molded together as integral unit, and has a durometer hardness less than the durometer hardness of molded body member 13. body member 14 further is provided with an axial opening 21 for receiving an attachment element such as a bolt 22 for securing the hanger device from vehicle body component 12. molded body member 15 is disposed within cylindrical opening 19 of annular section 18, and also is molded integrally with annular section 18. it similarly consists of a thermoplastic material which is compatible with the material of molded body member 13 and also has a durometer hardness less than the durometer hardness of molded body member 13. body member 15 further is provided with an axial opening 23 adapted to receive an attachment element such as a bolt 24 as shown in fig. 1. body member 15 does not entirely fill cylindrical opening 19 in annular section 18 but instead spans opposed sides of annular section 18, providing an upper space 25 disposed between body member 15 and annular section 18 and a lower space 26 between body member 15 and annular section 18. it thus will be seen that in addition to the composition of the material of body member 15, the spacing above and below the body member permits body member 15 to displace diametrically relative to annular section 18 to enhance its vibration dampening and sound attenuating capabilities. depending on the particular application and requirements of the hanger device, the configuration of body member 15 can be enlarged to fill the lower space 26 and possibly even upper space 25. referring to figs. 6 and 7, there is illustrated two sets of molds for injection molding the hanger device as described in a two-stage injection process. in the first stage, body member 13 is formed with a thermoplastic material having a comparatively higher durometer hardness and in the second stage, while body member 13 is in a semi-molten state, body members 14 and 15 are formed by injecting a material having a comparatively lower durometer hardness into the second set of molds. as the second thermoplastic material is injected into the second set of molds, the several body members become molded together to form an integral unit. fig. 6 illustrates a set of molds 27 and 28 having mold cavities 29 and 30, and mating surfaces 31 and 32, respectively. the set of molds shown in fig. 6 are disposed at a first station of the injection molding machine and provide for the formation of body member 13 by means of the injection of a molten thermoplastic elastomer material having a comparatively high durometer hardness into mated cavities 29 and 30. fig. 7 illustrates a second set of molds used in the second stage to mold the hanger device. the set consists of a mold 27 provided with mold cavity 29 and a mold 33 having a mold cavity 34 cooperating with mold cavity 29 and a mating surface 35 engaging mating surface 31 of mold 27 when the molds are closed during the second stage of the molding process. in the conventional manner, a thermoplastic elastomer material having a durometer hardness less than the durometer hardness of the material forming body member 13 is injected into mold cavity 34 to become integrally molded with body member 13 formed in the first stage of the process and subsisting in a semi-molten state. the injection molding of the hanger device preferably is performed on a machine having a first station in which the first stage molding occurs and a second station in which the second stage molding occurs. in the first station, molds 27 and 28 are mated to inject the first material to form body member 13. the mold sections are then indexed by rotating one mold relative to the other to mate molds 27 and 33 while body member 13 remains heated in a semi-molten state in cavity 29 of mold 27, and the second material is injected into the second set of mold cavities at the second station to form body members 14 and 15 and bond them to body member 13 to form an integral structure. a variety of thermoplastic or thermosetting elastomers can be used for the harder and softer materials of the hanger device. preferably, body member 13 is formed of a material having a durometer hardness in the range of 40 to 90 shore d, and body members 14 and 15 each is formed of a material having a durometer hardness in the range of 20 to 90 shore a. in the preferred embodiment of the invention, body member 13 is formed of a thermoplastic material and body members 14 and 15 are formed of a thermoplastic polyolefinic elastomer consisting of fully cured elastomer particles dispersed in a continuous thermoplastic matrix. body member 13 may be formed either of a virgin polypropylene material or a polypropylene material provided with certain additives depending upon the specifications of the hanger. fiberglass may be added to enhance the strength and rigidity of the material. mica may be added to enhance rigidity to a greater extent but would have the added effect of reducing tensile and shear strength. the preferred durometer hardness of body member 13 material is 65.+-.5 shore d. body members 14 and 15 of the hanger preferably are formed of kraton g or santoprene. kraton g is a high performance thermoplastic polyolefinic elastomer manufactured and sold by the shell chemical company of houston, texas. it is a styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (sebs) block polymer which exhibits a high temperature, chemical, oxidation and weather resistance. santoprene is a high performance thermoplastic polyolefinic elastomer manufactured and sold by the monsanto polymer products company of akron, ohio. it is a fully vulcanized polyolefinic material produced by a proprietary vulcanization process by monsanto. the specific hardness of body members 14 and 15 is dependent upon the specifications of the hanger. durometer hardnesses of 35.+-.5 shore a and 55.+-.5 shore a for body members 14 and 15 may be used for different applications. from the foregoing detailed description, it will be evident that there are a number of changes, adaptations and modifications of the present invention which come within the province of those persons having ordinary skill in the art to which the aforementioned invention pertains. however, it is intended that all such variations not departing from the spirit of the invention be considered as within the scope thereof as limited solely by the appended claims.
100-207-322-738-387	US	[ "US" ]	H01L21/3065,H01L21/02,H01L21/67,H01J37/00,H01L21/306,H01L21/308,H01L21/311,H01L21/3213	2018-07-06T00:00:00	2018	[ "H01" ]	self-limiting selective etching systems and methods	exemplary etching methods may include flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. the methods may include flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region. the methods may include contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the hydrogen-containing precursor and the fluorine-containing precursor. the substrate may define a trench, and a layer of an oxygen-containing material may be disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate. the methods may include halting delivery of the hydrogen-containing precursor. the methods may also include removing the oxygen-containing material.	1 . an etching method comprising: flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber; flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region; contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the hydrogen-containing precursor and the fluorine-containing precursor, wherein the substrate defines a trench, wherein a layer of an oxygen-containing material is disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate; halting delivery of the hydrogen-containing precursor; and removing the oxygen-containing material. 2 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the hydrogen-containing precursor is maintained fluidly isolated from a plasma formable within the semiconductor processing chamber in a remote plasma region of the semiconductor processing chamber. 3 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the hydrogen-containing precursor comprises water vapor. 4 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor comprises anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. 5 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the substrate further comprises an exposed region of hafnium oxide, zirconium oxide, or aluminum oxide. 6 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the oxygen-containing material is selected from the group consisting of silicon dioxide, silicon oxycarbide, silicon oxynitride, and silicon oxycarbonitride. 7 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the etching method is performed at a temperature below or about 0° c. 8 . the etching method of claim 7 , wherein the etching method is performed at a temperature above a freezing point of water at operating chamber conditions. 9 . the etching method claim 1 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is continually flowed subsequent halting the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor. 10 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed at a flow rate below or about 1 slm during the etching method. 11 . the etching method of claim 10 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is pulsed during the etching method. 12 . the etching method of claim 11 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is pulsed off for at least two seconds during each cycle of pulsing performed during the etching method. 13 . the etching method of claim 1 , wherein the substrate processing region is maintained plasma free during the etching method. 14 . a removal method comprising: flowing water vapor into a substrate processing region at a temperature below or about 0° c.; flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber; contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the water vapor and the fluorine-containing precursor, wherein the substrate defines a trench, wherein a layer of an oxygen-containing material is disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate; halting the flow of water vapor while maintaining the flow of the fluorine-containing precursor; and removing the oxygen-containing material. 15 . the removal method of claim 14 , wherein the water vapor is delivered into the substrate processing region at a temperature above or about −40° c. 16 . the removal method of claim 14 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed at a rate of less than or about 500 sccm during the removal method. 17 . the removal method of claim 14 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is delivered in pulses, wherein the delivery is characterized by a first period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed, and a second period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor flow is halted. 18 . the removal method of claim 17 , wherein the first period of time and the second period of time are both greater than or about 2 seconds. 19 . the removal method of claim 14 , wherein the fluorine-containing precursor is anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, and wherein the substrate processing region is maintained plasma-free during the removal method. 20 . an etching method comprising: flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber while maintaining the substrate process region at a temperature between about −50° c. and about 0° c.; flowing anhydrous hydrogen fluoride into the substrate processing region; contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the hydrogen-containing precursor and the anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, wherein the substrate defines a trench, wherein a layer of an oxygen-containing material is disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate; halting the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor; and removing the oxygen-containing material.	technical field the present technology relates to semiconductor processes and equipment. more specifically, the present technology relates to selectively etching oxygen-containing structures. background integrated circuits are made possible by processes which produce intricately patterned material layers on substrate surfaces. producing patterned material on a substrate requires controlled methods for removal of exposed material. chemical etching is used for a variety of purposes including transferring a pattern in photoresist into underlying layers, thinning layers, or thinning lateral dimensions of features already present on the surface. often it is desirable to have an etch process that etches one material faster than another facilitating, for example, a pattern transfer process. such an etch process is said to be selective to the first material. as a result of the diversity of materials, circuits, and processes, etch processes have been developed with a selectivity towards a variety of materials. etch processes may be termed wet or dry based on the materials used in the process. a wet hf etch preferentially removes silicon oxide over other dielectrics and materials. however, wet processes may have difficulty penetrating some constrained trenches and also may sometimes deform the remaining material. dry etches produced in local plasmas formed within the substrate processing region can penetrate more constrained trenches and exhibit less deformation of delicate remaining structures. however, local plasmas may damage the substrate through the production of electric arcs as they discharge. thus, there is a need for improved systems and methods that can be used to produce high quality devices and structures. these and other needs are addressed by the present technology. summary exemplary etching methods may include flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. the methods may include flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region. the methods may include contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the hydrogen-containing precursor and the fluorine-containing precursor. the substrate may define a trench, and a layer of an oxygen-containing material may be disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate. the methods may include halting delivery of the hydrogen-containing precursor. the methods may also include removing the oxygen-containing material. in some embodiments, the hydrogen-containing precursor may be maintained fluidly isolated from a plasma formable within the semiconductor processing chamber in a remote plasma region of the semiconductor processing chamber. the hydrogen-containing precursor may be or include water vapor. the fluorine-containing precursor may be or include anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. the substrate may also include an exposed region of hafnium oxide, zirconium oxide, aluminum oxide, or other high-k materials including metal-containing materials. the oxygen-containing material may be selected from the group consisting of silicon dioxide, silicon oxycarbide, silicon oxynitride, or silicon oxycarbonitride. the etching method may be performed at a temperature below or about 0° c. the etching method may be performed at a temperature above a freezing point of water at operating chamber conditions. the fluorine-containing precursor may be continually flowed subsequent halting the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor. the fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed at a flow rate below or about 1 slm during the etching method. the fluorine-containing precursor may be pulsed during the etching method. the fluorine-containing precursor may be pulsed off for at least two seconds during each cycle of pulsing performed during the etching method. the substrate processing region may be maintained plasma free during the etching method. some embodiments of the present technology may also encompass removal methods, which may include flowing water vapor into a substrate processing region at a temperature below or about 0° c. the methods may include flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber. the methods may include contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the water vapor and the fluorine-containing precursor. the substrate may define a trench, and a layer of an oxygen-containing material may be disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate. the methods may include halting the flow of water vapor while maintaining the flow of the fluorine-containing precursor. the methods may also include removing the oxygen-containing material. in some embodiments, the water vapor may be delivered into the substrate processing region at a temperature above or about −40° c. the fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed at a rate of less than or about 500 sccm during the removal method. the fluorine-containing precursor may be delivered in pulses. the delivery may be characterized by a first period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed, and a second period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor flow is halted. the first period of time and the second period of time may both be greater than or about 2 seconds. the fluorine-containing precursor may be anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, and the substrate processing region may be maintained plasma-free during the removal method. some embodiments of the present technology may also encompass etching methods. the methods may include flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into a substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber while maintaining the substrate process region at a temperature between about −50° c. and about 0° c. the methods may include flowing anhydrous hydrogen fluoride into the substrate processing region. the methods may include contacting a substrate housed in the substrate processing region with the hydrogen-containing precursor and the anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. the substrate may define a trench, and a layer of an oxygen-containing material may be disposed within the trench and exposed on the substrate. the methods may include halting the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor. the methods may include removing the oxygen-containing material. such technology may provide numerous benefits over conventional systems and techniques. for example, the processes may allow high-aspect-ratio features to be etched without eroding other exposed materials. additionally, the processes may produce a self-limiting etch, where etching ceases once the desired material has been fully removed. these and other embodiments, along with many of their advantages and features, are described in more detail in conjunction with the below description and attached figures. brief description of the drawings a further understanding of the nature and advantages of the disclosed technology may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the drawings. fig. 1 shows a top plan view of one embodiment of an exemplary processing system according to embodiments of the present technology. fig. 2a shows a schematic cross-sectional view of an exemplary processing chamber according to embodiments of the present technology. fig. 2b shows a detailed view of a portion of the processing chamber illustrated in fig. 2a according to embodiments of the present technology. fig. 3 shows a bottom plan view of an exemplary showerhead according to embodiments of the present technology. fig. 4 shows exemplary operations in a method according to embodiments of the present technology. figs. 5a-5c show cross-sectional views of substrates being processed according to embodiments of the present technology. figs. 6a-6b show operational effects on etching according to embodiments of the present technology. several of the figures are included as schematics. it is to be understood that the figures are for illustrative purposes, and are not to be considered of scale unless specifically stated to be of scale. additionally, as schematics, the figures are provided to aid comprehension and may not include all aspects or information compared to realistic representations, and may include additional or exaggerated material for illustrative purposes. in the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a letter that distinguishes among the similar components. if only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the letter. detailed description diluted acids may be used in many different semiconductor processes for cleaning substrates and removing materials from those substrates. for example, diluted hydrofluoric acid can be an effective etchant for silicon oxide, and may be used to remove silicon oxide from silicon surfaces. after the etching or cleaning operation is complete, the acid may be dried from the wafer or substrate surface. using dilute hydrofluoric acid (“dhf”) may be termed a “wet” etch, and the diluent is often water. additional etching processes may be used that utilize precursors delivered to the substrate. for example, a plasma species may be delivered to a wafer along with water vapor to form an etchant mixture as well. although wet etchants using aqueous solutions or water-based processes may operate effectively for certain substrate structures, the water may pose issues in a variety of conditions. for example, in some oxide etch processes, including silicon dioxide as one non-limiting example, utilizing water, as well as conditions at which the etch process is performed, may create etch processes that may not be well controlled. again with the non-limiting example of etching silicon dioxide, etchants may include a fluorine-containing precursor as well as a hydrogen-containing precursor. in one example, the fluorine-containing precursor may be anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, and the hydrogen-containing precursor may be water. the chemical process occurring may include the following reaction: sio 2 +4hf+h 2 o→sif 4 +h 2 o+2h 2 o as illustrated, along with the formation of volatile silicon tetrafluoride, the etch reaction may produce additional water as well. as hydrogen fluoride continues to be flowed, the etch process may proceed faster due to the increasing amount of water being produced at the etch front to form etchant with the hydrogen fluoride. although the oxide may be removed, control of the removal may be difficult, and the etch process may essentially create a runaway scenario in which as long as the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed, the etch process will self-sustain and increase in speed. conventional techniques tend to continue to flow water into the processing chamber, or maintain an amount of relative humidity that delivers even more water, producing a further lack of control on the reaction process. utilizing water during etch processes may also pose issues when utilized on substrates including metal materials. for example, certain later fabrication processes, such as producing air gaps, removing oxide dielectric, or other processes to remove oxygen-containing materials, may be performed after an amount of metallization has been formed on a substrate. if water is utilized in some fashion during the etching, an electrolyte may be produced, which when contacting the metal material, may cause galvanic corrosion to occur between dissimilar metals, and the metal may be corroded or displaced in various processes. although some conventional processes have avoided this issue by utilizing alternative precursors, they may be unsuitable for fabrication processes in which multiple exposed materials are located, which may include silicon oxide, silicon nitride, as well as exposed metal. hafnium oxides have become prevalent in many semiconductor structures as well, along with other high-k materials including zirconium oxide, aluminum oxide, and other high-k materials and metal-containing materials, and water may affect hafnium oxide layers formed around features, such as metal gates. hafnium oxide may be characterized by a more porous structure which may absorb fluorine containing precursors. when water is introduced to these structures, a hydroxide of hafnium may be produced, which may exhibit flowability and swelling, and discreet hafnium oxide structures may be partially or fully displaced or otherwise damaged by these etching methods. the present technology overcomes these issues by performing a self-limiting and self-catalyzed etch process that allows removal of material through high aspect ratio features, as well as removal of oxide relative to a host of other materials. the processes may or may not utilize plasma effluents as part of the etchant recipes in different embodiments. the technology may be capable of selectively etching oxide-containing materials relative to carbon-containing or nitrogen-containing materials. additionally, based on the control of the etch process, exposed carbon-containing or nitrogen-containing materials may be protected during the etching of what may conventionally otherwise be lower-selectivity etches. in embodiments in which a plasma may not be formed, formation of oxygen and hydroxyl radicals may be minimized, which may further protect surrounding structures. finally, by utilizing a minimum amount of water to catalyze oxide removal, the etch chemistry may operate essentially on oxide surfaces alone. this may reduce effects on exposed regions of metal materials including hafnium dioxide, where additional spacer layers may further protect the structure along sidewalls through the substrate. accordingly, damage and displacement of hafnium and other metal structures may be minimized or substantially prevented. indeed, aspects of the present technology may passivate hafnium oxide and other materials from etching based on the etchant materials used. although the remaining disclosure will routinely identify specific etching processes utilizing the disclosed technology, it will be readily understood that the systems and methods are equally applicable to deposition and cleaning processes as may occur in the described chambers, as well as other etching technology including back-end-of-line air gap formation and other etching that may be performed with a variety of exposed materials that may be maintained or substantially maintained. accordingly, the technology should not be considered to be so limited as for use with the exemplary etching processes or chambers alone. moreover, although an exemplary chamber is described to provide foundation for the present technology, it is to be understood that the present technology can be applied to virtually any semiconductor processing chamber that may allow the operations described. fig. 1 shows a top plan view of one embodiment of a processing system 100 of deposition, etching, baking, and curing chambers according to embodiments. in the figure, a pair of front opening unified pods (foups) 102 supply substrates of a variety of sizes that are received by robotic arms 104 and placed into a low pressure holding area 106 before being placed into one of the substrate processing chambers 108 a - f , positioned in tandem sections 109 a - c . a second robotic arm 110 may be used to transport the substrate wafers from the holding area 106 to the substrate processing chambers 108 a - f and back. each substrate processing chamber 108 a - f , can be outfitted to perform a number of substrate processing operations including the dry etch processes described herein in addition to cyclical layer deposition (cld), atomic layer deposition (ald), chemical vapor deposition (cvd), physical vapor deposition (pvd), etch, pre-clean, degas, orientation, and other substrate processes. the substrate processing chambers 108 a - f may include one or more system components for depositing, annealing, curing and/or etching a dielectric film on the substrate wafer. in one configuration, two pairs of the processing chambers, e.g., 108 c - d and 108 e - f , may be used to deposit dielectric material on the substrate, and the third pair of processing chambers, e.g., 108 a - b , may be used to etch the deposited dielectric. in another configuration, all three pairs of chambers, e.g., 108 a - f , may be configured to etch a dielectric film on the substrate. any one or more of the processes described may be carried out in chamber(s) separated from the fabrication system shown in different embodiments. it will be appreciated that additional configurations of deposition, etching, annealing, and curing chambers for dielectric films are contemplated by system 100 . fig. 2a shows a cross-sectional view of an exemplary process chamber system 200 with partitioned plasma generation regions within the processing chamber. during film etching, e.g., titanium nitride, tantalum nitride, tungsten, silicon, polysilicon, silicon oxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride, silicon oxycarbide, etc., a process gas may be flowed into the first plasma region 215 through a gas inlet assembly 205 . a remote plasma system (rps) 201 may optionally be included in the system, and may process a first gas which then travels through gas inlet assembly 205 . the inlet assembly 205 may include two or more distinct gas supply channels where the second channel (not shown) may bypass the rps 201 , if included. a cooling plate 203 , faceplate 217 , ion suppressor 223 , showerhead 225 , and a substrate support 265 , having a substrate 255 disposed thereon, are shown and may each be included according to embodiments. the pedestal 265 may have a heat exchange channel through which a heat exchange fluid flows to control the temperature of the substrate, which may be operated to heat and/or cool the substrate or wafer during processing operations. the wafer support platter of the pedestal 265 , which may comprise aluminum, ceramic, or a combination thereof, may also be resistively heated in order to achieve relatively high temperatures, such as from up to or about 100° c. to above or about 1100° c., using an embedded resistive heater element. the faceplate 217 may be pyramidal, conical, or of another similar structure with a narrow top portion expanding to a wide bottom portion. the faceplate 217 may additionally be flat as shown and include a plurality of through-channels used to distribute process gases. plasma generating gases and/or plasma excited species, depending on use of the rps 201 , may pass through a plurality of holes, shown in fig. 2b , in faceplate 217 for a more uniform delivery into the first plasma region 215 . exemplary configurations may include having the gas inlet assembly 205 open into a gas supply region 258 partitioned from the first plasma region 215 by faceplate 217 so that the gases/species flow through the holes in the faceplate 217 into the first plasma region 215 . structural and operational features may be selected to prevent significant backflow of plasma from the first plasma region 215 back into the supply region 258 , gas inlet assembly 205 , and fluid supply system 210 . the faceplate 217 , or a conductive top portion of the chamber, and showerhead 225 are shown with an insulating ring 220 located between the features, which allows an ac potential to be applied to the faceplate 217 relative to showerhead 225 and/or ion suppressor 223 . the insulating ring 220 may be positioned between the faceplate 217 and the showerhead 225 and/or ion suppressor 223 enabling a capacitively coupled plasma (ccp) to be formed in the first plasma region. a baffle (not shown) may additionally be located in the first plasma region 215 , or otherwise coupled with gas inlet assembly 205 , to affect the flow of fluid into the region through gas inlet assembly 205 . the ion suppressor 223 may comprise a plate or other geometry that defines a plurality of apertures throughout the structure that are configured to suppress the migration of ionically-charged species out of the first plasma region 215 while allowing uncharged neutral or radical species to pass through the ion suppressor 223 into an activated gas delivery region between the suppressor and the showerhead. in embodiments, the ion suppressor 223 may comprise a perforated plate with a variety of aperture configurations. these uncharged species may include highly reactive species that are transported with less reactive carrier gas through the apertures. as noted above, the migration of ionic species through the holes may be reduced, and in some instances completely suppressed. controlling the amount of ionic species passing through the ion suppressor 223 may advantageously provide increased control over the gas mixture brought into contact with the underlying wafer substrate, which in turn may increase control of the deposition and/or etch characteristics of the gas mixture. for example, adjustments in the ion concentration of the gas mixture can significantly alter its etch selectivity, e.g., sinx:siox etch ratios, si:siox etch ratios, etc. in alternative embodiments in which deposition is performed, it can also shift the balance of conformal-to-flowable style depositions for dielectric materials. the plurality of apertures in the ion suppressor 223 may be configured to control the passage of the activated gas, i.e., the ionic, radical, and/or neutral species, through the ion suppressor 223 . for example, the aspect ratio of the holes, or the hole diameter to length, and/or the geometry of the holes may be controlled so that the flow of ionically-charged species in the activated gas passing through the ion suppressor 223 is reduced. the holes in the ion suppressor 223 may include a tapered portion that faces the plasma excitation region 215 , and a cylindrical portion that faces the showerhead 225 . the cylindrical portion may be shaped and dimensioned to control the flow of ionic species passing to the showerhead 225 . an adjustable electrical bias may also be applied to the ion suppressor 223 as an additional means to control the flow of ionic species through the suppressor. the ion suppressor 223 may function to reduce or eliminate the amount of ionically charged species traveling from the plasma generation region to the substrate. uncharged neutral and radical species may still pass through the openings in the ion suppressor to react with the substrate. it should be noted that the complete elimination of ionically charged species in the reaction region surrounding the substrate may not be performed in embodiments. in certain instances, ionic species are intended to reach the substrate in order to perform the etch and/or deposition process. in these instances, the ion suppressor may help to control the concentration of ionic species in the reaction region at a level that assists the process. showerhead 225 in combination with ion suppressor 223 may allow a plasma present in first plasma region 215 to avoid directly exciting gases in substrate processing region 233 , while still allowing excited species to travel from chamber plasma region 215 into substrate processing region 233 . in this way, the chamber may be configured to prevent the plasma from contacting a substrate 255 being etched. this may advantageously protect a variety of intricate structures and films patterned on the substrate, which may be damaged, dislocated, or otherwise warped if directly contacted by a generated plasma. additionally, when plasma is allowed to contact the substrate or approach the substrate level, the rate at which oxide species etch may increase. accordingly, if an exposed region of material is oxide, this material may be further protected by maintaining the plasma remotely from the substrate. the processing system may further include a power supply 240 electrically coupled with the processing chamber to provide electric power to the faceplate 217 , ion suppressor 223 , showerhead 225 , and/or pedestal 265 to generate a plasma in the first plasma region 215 or processing region 233 . the power supply may be configured to deliver an adjustable amount of power to the chamber depending on the process performed. such a configuration may allow for a tunable plasma to be used in the processes being performed. unlike a remote plasma unit, which is often presented with on or off functionality, a tunable plasma may be configured to deliver a specific amount of power to the plasma region 215 . this in turn may allow development of particular plasma characteristics such that precursors may be dissociated in specific ways to enhance the etching profiles produced by these precursors. a plasma may be ignited either in chamber plasma region 215 above showerhead 225 or substrate processing region 233 below showerhead 225 . plasma may be present in chamber plasma region 215 to produce the radical precursors from an inflow of, for example, a fluorine-containing precursor or other precursor. an ac voltage typically in the radio frequency (rf) range may be applied between the conductive top portion of the processing chamber, such as faceplate 217 , and showerhead 225 and/or ion suppressor 223 to ignite a plasma in chamber plasma region 215 during deposition. an rf power supply may generate a high rf frequency of 13.56 mhz but may also generate other frequencies alone or in combination with the 13.56 mhz frequency. fig. 2b shows a detailed view 253 of the features affecting the processing gas distribution through faceplate 217 . as shown in figs. 2a and 2b , faceplate 217 , cooling plate 203 , and gas inlet assembly 205 intersect to define a gas supply region 258 into which process gases may be delivered from gas inlet 205 . the gases may fill the gas supply region 258 and flow to first plasma region 215 through apertures 259 in faceplate 217 . the apertures 259 may be configured to direct flow in a substantially unidirectional manner such that process gases may flow into processing region 233 , but may be partially or fully prevented from backflow into the gas supply region 258 after traversing the faceplate 217 . the gas distribution assemblies such as showerhead 225 for use in the processing chamber section 200 may be referred to as dual channel showerheads (dcsh) and are additionally detailed in the embodiments described in fig. 3 . the dual channel showerhead may provide for etching processes that allow for separation of etchants outside of the processing region 233 to provide limited interaction with chamber components and each other prior to being delivered into the processing region. the showerhead 225 may comprise an upper plate 214 and a lower plate 216 . the plates may be coupled with one another to define a volume 218 between the plates. the coupling of the plates may be so as to provide first fluid channels 219 through the upper and lower plates, and second fluid channels 221 through the lower plate 216 . the formed channels may be configured to provide fluid access from the volume 218 through the lower plate 216 via second fluid channels 221 alone, and the first fluid channels 219 may be fluidly isolated from the volume 218 between the plates and the second fluid channels 221 . the volume 218 may be fluidly accessible through a side of the gas distribution assembly 225 . fig. 3 is a bottom view of a showerhead 325 for use with a processing chamber according to embodiments. showerhead 325 may correspond with the showerhead 225 shown in fig. 2a . through-holes 365 , which show a view of first fluid channels 219 , may have a plurality of shapes and configurations in order to control and affect the flow of precursors through the showerhead 225 . small holes 375 , which show a view of second fluid channels 221 , may be distributed substantially evenly over the surface of the showerhead, even amongst the through-holes 365 , and may help to provide more even mixing of the precursors as they exit the showerhead than other configurations. the chamber discussed previously may be used in performing exemplary methods including etching methods. turning to fig. 4 is shown exemplary operations in a method 400 according to embodiments of the present technology. method 400 may include one or more operations prior to the initiation of the method, including front end processing, deposition, gate formation, etching, polishing, cleaning, or any other operations that may be performed prior to the described operations. the method may include a number of optional operations, which may or may not be specifically associated with some embodiments of methods according to the present technology. for example, many of the operations are described in order to provide a broader scope of the structural formation, but are not critical to the technology, or may be performed by alternative methodology as will be discussed further below. method 400 describes operations shown schematically in figs. 5a-5c , the illustrations of which will be described in conjunction with the operations of method 400 . it is to be understood that fig. 5 illustrates only partial schematic views, and a substrate may contain any number of structural sections having aspects as illustrated in the figures, as well as alternative structural aspects that may still benefit from operations of the present technology method 400 may or may not involve optional operations to develop the semiconductor structure to a particular fabrication operation. it is to be understood that method 400 may be performed on any number of semiconductor structures, and fig. 5 illustrates one exemplary structure of a gate about which an oxide removal operation may be performed. as illustrated in fig. 5a , the semiconductor structure may represent a device in which a trench, via, or other recessed feature has been formed in a substrate 501 . as illustrated, structure 500 may include a substrate 501 made of or containing silicon or some other semiconductor substrate material as well as interlayer dielectric materials through which a recess, trench, via, or isolation structure may be formed. trench 503 , which may also be a via or other recess that is similarly encompassed by the present technology, may include a spacer 505 structure formed between a sidewall 502 of substrate 501 and a material 504 formed or positioned within trench 503 . material 504 may be a metal material such as a gate, a dielectric material, a contact material, a transistor material, or any other material that may be used in semiconductor processes. it is to be understood that the figure is merely indicative of one of many structures for which the present technology may be applicable. other exemplary structures may include two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures common in semiconductor manufacturing, and within which an oxide material is to be removed relative to one or more other materials, as the present technology may selectively remove many oxide containing materials, such as silicon oxide, relative to materials having a reduced oxygen content, such as silicon, silicon nitride, and any of the other materials discussed elsewhere. additionally, although a high-aspect-ratio structure is illustrated and discussed, the technology may be equally applicable to lower aspect ratios and any other structures. returning to the figure, gate metals and materials may include a number of metal and/or metal-containing species including tungsten, titanium, tantalum, cobalt, aluminum, or any other work-function metal or material which may be incorporated within the structure. about gate or material 504 may be a liner 510 as well as a layer of hafnium oxide 512 , which may operate as an additional gate insulator, for example. spacer 505 may include a number of layers formed laterally adjacent one another. for example, as illustrated in the figure, spacer 505 may include a first layer 506 , and a second layer 508 . in some alternative embodiments, second layer 508 may be a different sacrificial layer, or a portion of an interlayer dielectric to be removed. the spacer 505 may include any number of layers in different embodiments, although in some embodiments the spacer may include at least two layers of materials. some methods of forming an airgap, such as in some embodiments of the present technology, may include forming a sacrificial layer between other layers of the spacer. during subsequent removal, the sacrificial layer may be removed to provide the airgap between the maintained layers of the spacer. in some embodiments, second layer 508 of spacer 505 may illustrate a sacrificial material to be removed from the substrate to produce an airgap between the first layer 506 and a third layer of the spacer 505 , not shown. in some embodiments, although not illustrated, first layer 506 of spacer 505 and second layer 508 of spacer 505 may extend beneath a third layer by some amount as would be understood by one of skill for a finfet structure in which the spacer materials may extend about a fin and source/drain structure formed perpendicular to the illustrated gate. as these layers may be formed over one another during fabrication, the last layer formed, such as a third layer laterally out from second layer 508 may be seated or disposed over the other layers of the spacer 505 . in some embodiments, a lateral portion of the sacrificial spacer material may be removed during a self-catalyzing etching operation as will be discussed further below. it is to be understood that the illustration includes only a schematic view of a spacer according to some embodiments of the present technology, and is not drawn to any particular scale, but is instead illustrated to emphasize certain characteristics of possible structures encompassed by the present technology having an oxide material to be removed. for example, in some embodiments each layer may be formed to a similar thickness laterally, or any individual layer may be thicker than any other layer, or may not be included. similarly, additional layers of material may be included in a variety of configurations as well. layers of material according to the present technology may be characterized by any aspect ratios or the height-to-width ratio of the structure, although in some embodiments the materials may be characterized by larger aspect ratios, which may not allow sufficient etching utilizing conventional technology or methodology. for example, in some embodiments the aspect ratio of any layer of an exemplary structure may be greater than or about 10:1, greater than or about 20:1, greater than or about 30:1, greater than or about 40:1, greater than or about 50:1, or greater. additionally, each layer of spacer 505 may be characterized by a reduced width less than or about 10 nm, less than or about 8 nm, less than or about 6 nm, less than or about 5 nm, less than or about 4 nm, less than or about 3 nm, less than or about 2 nm, less than or about 1 nm, or less, including any fraction of any of the stated numbers, such as 2.5 nm, 1.5 nm, etc. this combination of high aspect ratios and minimal widths may frustrate many conventional etching operations, or require substantially longer etch times to remove a layer, such as layer 508 , along a vertical distance through a confined width. moreover, damage to or removal of other exposed layers may occur with conventional technologies as well. the materials encompassed by the present technology may include a variety of materials, such as silicon-containing materials, for each of the spacer layers. as previously discussed, substrate 501 may include materials including silicon or polysilicon, silicon germanium, or other materials, including silicon oxide or other dielectric materials when the structure represents material formed overlying a substrate, such as an interlayer dielectric, for example. although not illustrated, one or more capping materials may be formed over the exposed upper surface of substrate 501 or material 504 , and may include oxide and/or nitride materials, or any of the other materials noted here. spacer 505 may be characterized by multiple layers, each layer of which may be any number of materials. for example, any of the layers may be or include silicon oxide, silicon oxycarbide, silicon oxycarbonitride, silicon carbon nitride, or silicon nitride. in some embodiments adjacent layers of spacer 505 may be different materials. for example, second spacer layer 508 may be a different material from first spacer layer 506 . in some embodiments, first spacer layer 506 may be or include a carbon-containing and/or nitrogen-containing material, such as any of the nitride-containing materials noted above, and second spacer layer 508 may be or include an oxygen-containing material, such as any of the oxygen-containing materials noted above. for example, one possible combination of materials may include silicon carbon nitride for the first spacer layer 506 , and silicon oxide, silicon oxycarbide, or silicon oxycarbonitride as the second spacer layer 508 . put another way, in some embodiments, second spacer layer 508 may include a higher oxygen concentration, or a lower carbon concentration, or a lower nitrogen concentration, than first spacer layer 506 . as will be explained below, such configurations may advantageously allow selective removal of the second spacer layer 508 , while substantially or essentially maintaining the first spacer layer and any number of exposed gate or other metal materials of the substrate. the method 400 may be performed to remove second spacer layer 508 in embodiments, although any number of oxide or oxygen-containing materials may be removed in any number of structures in embodiments of the present technology. the method may include flowing a hydrogen-containing precursor into the substrate processing region of a semiconductor processing chamber housing the described substrate, or some other substrate, at operation 405 . method 400 may further include flowing a fluorine-containing precursor into the substrate processing region at operation 410 . the fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed through a remote plasma region of the processing chamber, such as region 215 described above, although in some embodiments method 400 may not utilize plasma effluents. for example, method 400 may flow a fluorine-containing or other halogen-containing precursor to the substrate without exposing the precursor to a plasma. the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed into the processing region prior to the fluorine-containing precursor, although in some embodiments the precursors may be co-flowed, and the two precursors may be flowed through different or similar portions of the processing chamber. for example, both precursors may be flowed through an entrance to the chamber, or the fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed through a first access to the chamber, and the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed through a second access to the chamber. at operation 415 , the hydrogen-containing precursor and the fluorine-containing precursor may contact a semiconductor substrate including an oxygen-containing material, such as is illustrated in fig. 5 . the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor may be halted at operation 420 , which will be described further below, and may limit a runaway effect in the etching process, allowing a self-limiting etch process to occur. at operation 425 at least a portion of the second spacer 508 , which may be or include an oxygen-containing material, may be removed while maintaining additional layers of spacer 505 , such as first layer 506 , as well as additionally exposed metals or metal-containing materials, which may include any of the previously noted materials. precursors used in the method may include a fluorine-containing precursor or a halogen-containing precursor. an exemplary fluorine-containing precursor may be nitrogen trifluoride (nf 3 ), which may be flowed into the remote plasma region, which may be separate from, but fluidly coupled with, the processing region. other sources of fluorine may be used in conjunction with or as replacements for the nitrogen trifluoride. in general, a fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed into the remote plasma region and the fluorine-containing precursor may include at least one precursor selected from the group of atomic fluorine, diatomic fluorine, nitrogen trifluoride, carbon tetrafluoride, hydrogen fluoride including anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, xenon difluoride, and various other fluorine-containing precursors used or useful in semiconductor processing. the precursors may also include any number of carrier gases, which may include nitrogen, helium, argon, or other noble, inert, or useful precursors. although a plasma may be formed in the process, in some embodiments the fluorine-containing precursor may not be plasma enhanced or radicalized prior to being delivered to the substrate processing region, and in some embodiments no plasma may be formed in exemplary processes. for example, a fluorine-containing precursor, such as anhydrous hydrogen fluoride or any other precursor, may be flowed into the semiconductor processing region without being plasma enhanced prior to contacting the substrate. the hydrogen-containing precursor may include hydrogen, a hydrocarbon, water vapor, an alcohol, such as isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, or other materials that may include hydrogen or a hydroxy moiety as would be understood by the skilled artisan. additional precursors such as carrier gases or inert materials may be included with the hydrogen-containing precursors as well. in some embodiments, the hydrogen-containing precursor, such as water vapor, may be maintained fluidly isolated from a plasma that may be formed within the remote plasma region. in some embodiments, no plasma may be formed during the etching methods to aid in protecting carbon-containing or nitrogen-containing materials, such as the spacer layers surrounding the sacrificial layer. although selectivity of a plasma process may etch oxide materials faster than nitride materials, because of the high aspect ratios and relatively thin material widths described above, exposure of sidewalls of first spacer layer 506 to an etchant including water vapor or a hydroxy-containing material may cause thinning to occur during the removal, which may not maintain sufficient thickness of the spacer layer, and may produce adverse effects on exposed metal materials as previously described. in embodiments, the plasma processing region may be maintained plasma free during the removal operations. by plasma free is meant that plasma may not be actively formed within the processing region during the operations, although plasma effluents produced remotely as described earlier, may be used during the operations. the process of method 400 may include timing aspects as well as temperature and pressure considerations providing an etchant that may be limited in volume at initiation. for example, although a variety of hydrogen-containing or hydroxy-containing materials may be used, in some embodiments water may be flowed into the processing chamber, and may be flowed in a vapor form. the processing chamber may be operated at a temperature and pressure configured to condense a minimum amount of liquid water across a top surface of the substrate including a top surface of each of the spacer layers, which may be exposed. the water provided may be halted after a sufficient amount of water has been produced on the exposed surface of the oxide materials. advantageously, halting the flow of water may also reduce the development of hexafluorosilicic acid where silicon tetrafluoride may be further developed with additional water and fluorine-containing precursor. this acid may stain and otherwise damage structures, yet when the amount of water is limited according to the present technology, development of the acid may be limited. as the fluorine-containing precursor is delivered, an etch process may be performed according to the reaction described above. although other layers may have an exposed surface that causes slight etching to occur, such as for a few monolayers, because the water flow has been stopped, as long as the exposed material is not naturally etched by the fluorine-containing precursor by itself, no further etching may occur. conversely, because etching of the oxide may produce additional water, the oxide material may continue to etch. as this water is formed substantially or only at the etch front, the etch process may be essentially limited to the oxide material. as illustrated in fig. 5b , self-generating water layer 515 may be formed across only the exposed oxide surface at the etch front where additional water is produced. although the fluorine-containing precursor flow may be continued, because other exposed surfaces may not be exposed to additional water, less a discreet amount from initiation desorbed from surfaces as the oxide etch process continues, these materials may be substantially maintained, and may not be etched at all in some embodiments after the initial water delivered has been consumed. the fluorine-containing precursor may then continue the oxide etch reaction producing additional water to maintain etching at the exposed oxide surface, and as illustrated the oxide material may be continually removed with only a continued flow of the fluorine-containing precursor into the chamber. to produce the etchant according to some embodiments, the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed in an initial pulse or burst to initiate the process, and in some embodiments no additional hydrogen-containing precursor may be delivered to the processing chamber. the hydrogen-containing precursor, such as water or any of the previously noted materials may be co-flowed with the delivery of the fluorine-containing precursor, or the hydrogen-containing precursor may be delivered prior to flowing the fluorine-containing precursor. for example, the hydrogen-containing material may be flowed for at least about 2 seconds prior to halting the flow of the hydrogen-containing precursor. because a temperature gradient may form in certain chambers, such as where sidewalls may be warmer than a central region, in some embodiments the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed for greater than or about 3 seconds, greater than or about 4 seconds, greater than or about 5 seconds, greater than or about 6 seconds, greater than or about 7 seconds, greater than or about 8 seconds, greater than or about 9 seconds, greater than or about 10 seconds, greater than or about 20 seconds, greater than or about 30 seconds, greater than or about 45 seconds, greater than or about 1 minute, or more. to limit the amount of condensation formation on exposed surfaces, which may affect the rate of etching as well as the amount of etching of other exposed materials, in some embodiments the first period of time during which only the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed may be less than or about 1 minute, and may be less than or about 45 seconds, less than or about 30 seconds, less than or about 20 seconds, less than or about 10 seconds, or less. the fluorine-containing precursor may be introduced subsequent the delivery of the hydrogen-containing precursor, although in some embodiments the precursors may be co-flowed. the fluorine-containing precursor may be flowed for a period of time to maintain the reaction, and may be continually flowed until all oxide material has been removed, or until a desired amount of the oxide material has been removed. as will be explained further below, delivery of the fluorine-containing precursor may be utilized to tune the etch process to ensure a more linear process, which may be less susceptible to runaway conditions. accordingly, in addition to controlling the flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor, the fluorine-containing precursor may be delivered at intervals in a pulsed delivery of material. accordingly, the fluorine-containing precursor may be delivered for any amount of time to continue an oxide etch process, or the fluorine-containing precursor may be pulsed on for a first period of time, and may be pulsed off for a second period of time during which the flow of the fluorine-containing precursor is halted. in some embodiments the pulse on period and the pulse off period may be a similar amount of time, although in some embodiments the times may differ, and either the pulse on period or the pulse off period may be longer. because the etch process may be limited to oxide or oxygen-containing materials once catalyzed, in some embodiments, either with pulsed or continuous flow of the fluorine-containing precursor, the etch process may continue until all oxide material has been removed as illustrated in fig. 5c . the etch process may naturally cease at this point, as no further water generation may occur at the etch front. alternatively, after a desired amount of material has been removed, the flow or pulsing of fluorine-containing precursor may be halted, which may cause the etch process to cease. process conditions may also impact the operations performed in method 400 as well as other removal methods according to the present technology, and may afford a more controlled self-generating reaction. as previously explained, aspects of the present etch technology relate to utilizing a self-catalyzing and self-sustaining reaction in which additional water may be produced during the etch process to facilitate continued etching. however, because the amount of water may continue to increase as the reaction proceeds, a runaway reaction may occur in which sufficient water is produced to begin attacking other structures. in this scenario, water may begin to pool across the surface of the substrate after sufficient generation, which may lead to corrosion and etching of other structures. conversely, when properly controlled, the amount of water may be contained as illustrated with etch front fluid or water layer 515 , where the water generation is generally contained within the feature being etched. hence, by maintaining a more linear or tailing etch rate, the etch process may be limited to the oxide features. turning to fig. 6a is shown a chart illustrating the effect of temperature on oxide etch amount for some embodiments of the present technology. because the etch reaction may proceed based on water retention at the surface of the oxide material, lower temperatures may facilitate maintenance and adsorption of generated water at the surface of the feature to be etched. line 605 illustrates an etch rate where the temperature may be maintained at 0° c. or above. as illustrated, after an initial amount of etching occurs, the etch process halts completely and no further etching occurs. this may be due to the generated water desorbing from the oxide surface. thus, despite continued delivery of a fluorine-containing precursor, without water present no further etching may occur. accordingly, in some embodiments the temperature may be maintained below or about 0° c., and the substrate, pedestal, or chamber temperature during the method 400 may be maintained below or about −2° c., below or about −4° c., below or about −6° c., below or about −8° c., below or about −10° c., below or about −15° c., below or about −20° c., below or about −25° c., below or about −30° c., below or about −40° c., below or about −50° c., or lower. the temperature may also be maintained at any temperature within these ranges, within smaller ranges encompassed by these ranges, or between any of these ranges. line 610 illustrates an effect as temperature continues to be reduced. the lower the temperature, the more water may be retained at the surface of the oxide layer, and the more likely a runaway etch process may occur as illustrated by the line. as time proceeds, water is continually generated at a higher rate, and thus the etch rate begins to slope and curve upward. beyond the edge of the chart, etch rate will continue to escalate, which may cause fluid to pool in a runaway reaction, which may damage other exposed structures. this may occur more so in exemplary processes where the water is allowed to freeze, which may further increase the amount of water retained at the surface, and thus in some embodiments the temperature may be maintained above the freezing point of water at the operating chamber conditions. accordingly, in some embodiments the temperature may be maintained above or about −100° c. during the etch process, and may be maintained above or about −90° c., above or about −80° c., above or about −70° c., above or about −60° c., above or about −50° c., above or about −40° c., above or about −30° c., above or about −20° c., or higher, as well as within any smaller range incorporated within any of these ranges, as well as within any ranges encompassed by end points defined by and of these stated temperatures with a stated temperature in the ranges above. consequently, maintaining the temperate in a range to allow partial retention of water on the surface, while permitting an amount of desorption, may produce a line similar to line 615 . as illustrated, the etch process actually plateaus over time, which illustrates that the process is more controlled, and may eventually quench due to full desorption of produced water. by increasing the temperature slightly, a linear etch profile may be produced by which a controlled reaction limited to the oxide material may be maintained. the pressure within the chamber may also affect the operations performed as well as affect at what temperature the hydrogen-containing precursor may freeze or maintain a particular amount of desorption, and in embodiments the chamber pressure may be maintained below about 500 torr, below about 400 torr, below about 300 torr, below about 200 torr, below about 100 torr, below about 50 torr, below or about 40 torr, below or about 30 torr, below or about 25 torr, below or about 20 tor below or about 15 torr, below or about 10 torr, below or about 9 torr, below or about 8 torr, below or about 7 torr, below or about 6 torr, below or about 5 torr, below or about 4 torr, below or about 3 torr, below or about 2 torr, below or about 1 torr, or less. the pressure may also be maintained at any pressure within these ranges, within smaller ranges encompassed by these ranges, or between any of these ranges. by performing the operations at pressures below about 30 torr, the selectivity of the process with respect to a carbon-containing or nitrogen-containing material may be increased. additionally, pressure may influence the freezing point of water and the desorption rate of water developed at the surface, and thus controlling pressure may further control the etch reaction. some embodiments of the present technology involve providing an initial amount of water to initiate a reaction in which additional water is generated. because the water flow is halted, the water flow may not be available to further tune the etch process. however, as the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed, the rate and timing may be controlled to improve control of the etch process being performed. fig. 6b illustrates the effect of the fluorine-containing precursor flow rate on the linearity of the etch process, and may illustrate the rate for exemplary precursor anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. line 620 illustrates a flow rate that may cause runaway etching, which may increase development of water that may damage other surfaces. line 625 shows the effect as the flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor is reduced, providing a more linear etch process, which may limit formation of water to the oxide material being etched. accordingly, the flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor may be tuned, including in situ, to control the etch process. for example, a flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor may be reduced, maintained, or increased during the removal operations. during any of the operations of method 400 , the flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor may be between about 5 sccm and about 1,000 sccm. additionally, the flow rate of the fluorine-containing precursor may be maintained below or about 900 sccm, below or about 800 sccm, below or about 700 sccm, below or about 600 sccm, below or about 500 sccm, below or about 400 sccm, below or about 300 sccm, below or about 200 sccm, below or about 100 sccm, or less. the flow rate may also be between any of these stated flow rates, or within smaller ranges encompassed by any of these numbers. adding further control to the etch front and water development, the fluorine-containing precursor may be pulsed in some embodiments, and may be delivered throughout the etch process either continually or in a series of pulses, which may be consistent or varying over time. the pulsed delivery may be characterized by a first period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor is flowed, and a second period of time during which the fluorine-containing precursor is paused or halted. the time periods may be similar or different from one another with either time period being longer. in embodiments either period of time may be greater than or about 1 second, and may be greater than or about 2 seconds, greater than or about 3 seconds, greater than or about 4 seconds, greater than or about 5 seconds, greater than or about 6 seconds, greater than or about 7 seconds, greater than or about 8 seconds, greater than or about 9 seconds, greater than or about 10 seconds, greater than or about 11 seconds, greater than or about 12 seconds, greater than or about 13 seconds, greater than or about 14 seconds, greater than or about 15 seconds, greater than or about 20 seconds, greater than or about 30 seconds, greater than or about 45 seconds, greater than or about 60 seconds, or longer. the times may also be any smaller range encompassed by any of these ranges. the hydrogen-containing precursor may be flowed at any of these flow rates depending on the precursor used, which may be any number of hydrogen-containing precursors. for example, in embodiments in which water vapor is utilized, the vapor may be introduced at a rate of at least or about 0.1 g/min until sufficient water has been introduced, which may be less than one minute of time. the water vapor may also be introduced at a rate of at least or about 0.2 g/min, at least or about 0.3 g/min, at least or about 0.4 g/min, at least or about 0.5 g/min, at least or about 0.6 g/min, at least or about 0.7 g/min, at least or about 0.8 g/min, at least or about 0.9 g/min, at least or about 1 g/min, at least or about 1.5 g/min, or more, although the vapor may be introduced below about 5 g/min or below or about 1 g/min to reduce or limit condensation and/or freezing on other components of the chamber and the substrate. the water vapor may also be introduced at a flow rate between any of these stated flow rates, or within smaller ranges encompassed by any of these numbers before being halted. second layer 508 of the spacer may be fully removed or partially removed, as previously discussed, while substantially or essentially maintaining first spacer layer 506 . although partial rounding at top portions of spacer layer 506 may occur depending on the materials forming each layer of the spacer 505 , minimal removal of spacer layer 506 may occur, as well as removal of any of the other exposed layers including metal-containing layers, and the layers may be more than 50% maintained from an initial formation amount. in some embodiments the other layers may be more than 60% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 70% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 80% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 90% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 95% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 97% maintained from an initial formation amount, more than 99% maintained from an initial formation amount, or more. because water may be generated to sustain the reaction only as long as additional silicon oxide or other oxide material is present, processes according to the present technology may also be self-limiting. once the oxide material has been removed, no further water generation may occur, and the process may cease. additionally, because the water may be limited to the oxide material once the initial injection of water has been consumed or dissipated from other surfaces, the present technology may afford high selectivity and protection of other exposed materials. the present technology may selectively etch silicon oxide, silicon oxycarbide, silicon oxycarbonitride, or other oxygen-containing materials relative to other materials, and may selectively etch some types of silicon oxide relative to other types of silicon oxide. for example, the present technology may etch deposited silicon oxides relative to thermal oxide at a rate of at least about 10:1, and may etch deposited oxides relative to thermal oxide at a rate of at least about 15:1, at least about 20:1, at least about 50:1, at least about 100:1, or more. deposited oxides may include spin on dielectrics, or deposition techniques including cvd, pecvd, and other deposition techniques. the present technology may also etch any of the oxygen-containing materials relative to silicon nitride, silicon carbon nitride films having any ratio of carbon and nitrogen, or silicon oxycarbonitride, at a rate of at least about 20:1, at least about 25:1, at least about 30:1, at least about 50:1, at least about 100:1, at least about 150:1, at least about 200:1, at least about 250:1, at least about 300:1, at least about 350:1, at least about 400:1, at least about 450:1, at least about 500:1, or more. the processes described may similarly etch the oxygen-containing materials relative to any of the metal or metal-containing materials previously described, and may produce any of the selectivities as noted above with respect to these additional materials. the previously discussed methods may allow the removal of oxide material from a substrate, which may be from high-aspect-ratio features, while maintaining other materials including metal and metal-containing materials, and other silicon-containing materials. by utilizing the present methods and operations, high-aspect-ratio features having relatively thin widths of initial exposure may be etched while not causing pattern collapse, unlike wet etching, and while not removing or while substantially maintaining other exposed material layers, unlike some conventional dry etching. in the preceding description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous details have been set forth in order to provide an understanding of various embodiments of the present technology. it will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that certain embodiments may be practiced without some of these details, or with additional details. having disclosed several embodiments, it will be recognized by those of skill in the art that various modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents may be used without departing from the spirit of the embodiments. additionally, a number of well-known processes and elements have not been described in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present technology. accordingly, the above description should not be taken as limiting the scope of the technology. additionally, methods or processes may be described as sequential or in steps, but it is to be understood that the operations may be performed concurrently, or in different orders than listed. where a range of values is provided, it is understood that each intervening value, to the smallest fraction of the unit of the lower limit, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise, between the upper and lower limits of that range is also specifically disclosed. any narrower range between any stated values or unstated intervening values in a stated range and any other stated or intervening value in that stated range is encompassed. the upper and lower limits of those smaller ranges may independently be included or excluded in the range, and each range where either, neither, or both limits are included in the smaller ranges is also encompassed within the technology, subject to any specifically excluded limit in the stated range. where the stated range includes one or both of the limits, ranges excluding either or both of those included limits are also included. as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. thus, for example, reference to “a precursor” includes a plurality of such precursors, and reference to “the layer” includes reference to one or more layers and equivalents thereof known to those skilled in the art, and so forth. also, the words “comprise(s)”, “comprising”, “contain(s)”, “containing”, “include(s)”, and “including”, when used in this specification and in the following claims, are intended to specify the presence of stated features, integers, components, or operations, but they do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, components, operations, acts, or groups.
102-007-603-932-166	US	[ "US" ]	A01N37/06,A01N37/18,A01N41/12	1987-03-17T00:00:00	1987	[ "A01" ]	use of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and/or the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid as insect attractants	described are the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide having the structure: ##str1## and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid having the structure: ##str2## taken alone or taken in combination as attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid taken alone or in combination find utility primarily as bait enhancers for acute toxins and/or trapping devices.	1. a method of attracting musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) to an insect trap comprising the step of exposing the environment surrounding said trap to an insect attractant-containing polymer which consists of a mixture of a polymer and from about 1% up to about 45% by weight of said polymer of a composition of matter selected from the group consisting of: (i) n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide; (ii) the mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid; (iii) a mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide; and (iv) a mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and dimethyl disulfide said polymer being compatible with said composition of matter. 2. the method of claim 1 wherein the composition of matter is n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide. 3. the method of claim 1 wherein the composition of matter is a mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid. 4. the method of claim 1 wherein the composition of matter is a mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide. 5. the method of claim 1 wherein the composition of matter is a mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and dimethyl disulfide.	background of the invention this invention relates to insect attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). more particularly this invention relates to compositions of matter containing n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and/or the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid as attractants for musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae). fast intercontinental travel and trade are stepping up changes of importing nonindigenous insect pests into the united states. attractants, or lures, can be of considerable aid in facilitating the early detection of such insect pests, and they are of vital importance in measuring the progress of a program aimed at eradicating a species that has become established. in agriculture handbook no. 239 published by the agricultural research service of the united states of american department of agriculture issued in june 1963 entitled, "materials tested as insect attractants", compiled by m. beroza and n. green, n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide having the structure: ##str3## is indicated to have low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for dropsophila and the european chafer, and a moderate attractancy index ("2" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the pink bollworm. in beroza, et al, the compound n,n-dibutyl-m-toluamide having the structure: ##str4## has low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the mediterranean fruit fly, the mexican fruit fly, the gypsy moth and the bollweevil as well as the house fly (musca domestic l.). it is indicated to have a moderate attractancy index ("2" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the pink bollworm. the compound n,n-dibutyl-o-toluamide is indicated to have low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the melon fly, the mediterranean fruit fly, the mexican fruit fly, the bollweevil and the house fly (musca domestic l.). n,n-dibutyl-o-toluamide has the structure: ##str5## the compound n,n-diisoporpyl-o-toluamide having the structure: ##str6## is indicated to have low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the melon fly, the mediterranean fruit fly, the mexican fruit fly, the pink bollworm, the bollweevil and the house fly (musca domestica l.). the compound n,n-dibutyl-p-toluamide having the structure: ##str7## is indicated to have low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the mediterranean fruit fly, the mexican fruit fly, the gypsy moth, the bollweevil and the house fly (musca domestica l.). the compound having the structure: ##str8## which is n,n-dipropyl-p-toluamide is indicated to have low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the mediterranean fruit fly, the mexican fruit fly and the house fly (musca domestica l.). the ethyl ester of crotonic acid is indicated to have moderate attractancy indeces ("2" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the oriental fruit fly, the melon fly and the mediterranean fruit fly and low attractancy indeces ("1" on a scale of 1 to 3) for the mexican fruit fly and the gypsy moth. nothing in the prior art discloses the use of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide or the ethyl ester of 2-ethyl-3-pentenoic acid taken alone or in combination in attracting certain species of insects including musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) at a high level; higher than standard commercial products, e.g., golden malrin.rtm. or equivalent to standard commercial products, e.g., golden malrin.rtm.. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic top view of the location of insect traps containing formulated slow release insect attractants and control materials (known attractant, golden malrin.rtm. fly bait). fig. 2 is a cut-away side elevation view (schematic) indicating the positioning of sticky traps in a test barn taken along lines 2--2 of fig. 1. fig. 3 is a perspective schematic view of a test sticky trap showing the positioning of the slow release material suspended inside of the trap structure. fig. 4 is a cut-away section in perspective of the sticky trap system of fig. 3. fig. 5 is a bar graph showing a comparison of the field trial tests of attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) comparing n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm., a mixture of (z)-9-tricosene and methomyl which is methomyl(s-methyl n-[methyl-carbamoyl]oxy)thioacetimidate, the graph being compound vs. house flies per trap. fig. 6 is a bar graph showing a comparison of the field trial tests of attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) comparing n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm., the graph being compound vs. house fly specks per trap, the house fly specks being located inside of the trap. fig. 7 is a bar graph showing a comparison of the field trial tests of attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) comparing n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm., the graph being compound vs. house fly specks per trap, the house fly specks being outside of the traps. fig. 8 is a bar graph showing a comparison of the field trial tests of attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) comparing a mixture (50:50 weight:weight) of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm., the graph being compound vs. house fly specks per trap, the house fly specks being located within the trap. fig. 9 is a bar graph showing a comparison of the field trial tests of attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) comparing a mixture (50:50 weight:weight) of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide, and golden malrin.rtm., the graph being a mixture of compounds vs. house fly specks per trap within the trap. fig. 10 is a cut-away side elevation schematic diagram of a screw extruder during the compounding of a resin with the insect attractants, n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of same, as well as the mixtures of n,n-ethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide, while simultaneously adding foaming agent into the hollow portion of the barrel of the extruder and incorporates the pelletizing apparatus used in pelletizing the extruded foamed tow product produced as a result of the extrusion operation. summary of the invention our invention relates to the use of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide having the structure: ##str9## the ethyl ester of ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid having the structure: ##str10## mixtures thereof, and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide having the structure: ##str11## and dimethyl disulfide having the structure: ##str12## as attractants for house flies (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). a trapping system which is the basis of a first testing technique used in testing the efficacy of the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of same and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide is a standard zoecon.rtm. sticky trap consisting of a zoecon pherocon.rtm. 1c trap with a 2 cm.times.2 cm strip of formulated slow release attractant suspended on a paper clip inside the trap. the traps are placed in a goat barn and are suspended from the rafters. trap placement was replicated in the four quadrants of the barn. traps were placed in the barn for seven days and the insects collected were identified and counted. evidence of insects visiting the traps were also counted as insect specks inside or outside the traps. all test materials were compared with a standardized check treatment consisting of 0.5 grams of golden malrin.rtm. fly bait inside of the slow release packet hung like the other compounds. our invention also relates to the formation of insect attractant-containing polymeric pellets by means of introduction into a single screw or twin screw extruder of, in series, thermoplastic polymer followed by insect attractant which is compatible with the thermoplastic polymer, in turn, followed by introduction of a gaseous blowing agent or blowing agent which will produce a gas which is inert to the polymer and to the insect attractant, e.g., n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of same, and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide. in the alternative, the use of the foaming agent can be omitted. the nature of the extruder utilized in this aspect of our invention to form the polymeric insect attractant particles of our invention may be either single screw or double screw. thus, the types of extruder that can be used are disclosed at pages 246-247 and 332-349 of the modern plastics encyclopedia, 1982-1983 published by the mcgraw-hill publishing company, the disclosure of which is incorpoated by reference herein. more specifically, examples of extruders which are useable in carrying out this aspect of our invention (with modification for introduction of insect attractant downstream from introduction of the polymer and optionally with a further modification that the gaseous blowing agent is introduced still further downstream from the point of introduction of insect attractant) are as follows: 1. the welex "super twinch" 3.5" extruder manufactured by welex incorporated, 850 jolly road, blue bell, pa. 19422; 2. krauss-maffei twin screw extruder manufactured by the krauss-maffei corporation/extruder division, 3629 west 30th street south, wichita, kansas 67277; 3. modified sterling model 4000 and 5000 series extruder manufactured by sterling extruder corporation of 901 durham avenue, south plainfield, new jersey; 4. crt ("counter-rotating tangential") twin screw extruder manufactured by welding engineers, inc. of king of prussia, pennsylvania 19406; 5. the leistritz twin screw dispersion compounder manufactured by the american leistritz extruder corporation of 198 u.s. route 206 south, somerville, new jersey 08876; 6. the zsk twin screw co-rotating extruder manufactured by the werner & pfleiderer corporation of 663 east crescent avenue, ramsey, new jersey 07446; 7. the farrel extruder manufactured by farrel connecticut division, emhart machinery group, ansonia, connecticut 06401; 8. the mpc/v baker perkins twin screw extruder manufactured by the baker perkins inc. chemical machinery division of saginaw, michigan 48601; and 9. the berstorff single screw, twin screw, or foam extrusion equipment manufactured by berstorff corporation, p. o. box 240357, 8200-a arrowridge boulevard, charlotte, north carolina 28224. in producing the insect attractant-containing polymer particles of our invention, various polymers may be utilized, for example, low density polyethylene, high density polyethylene, polypropylene, the co-polymer of ethylene and vinyl acetate, and polyvinyl chloride. more specifically, the polymers used in the practice of our invention may be co-polymers of ethylene and a polar vinyl monomer selected from (a) vinyl acetate; (b) ethyl acrylate; (c) methyl acrylate; (d) butyl acrylate and (e) acrylic acid including the hydrolyzed co-polymer of ethylene and vinyl acetate. preferred co-polymers are ethylene vinyl acetate with about 9 to 60% vinyl acetate and ethylene/ethyl acrylate with about 6 to 18% ethyl acrylate. resins of the type disclosed for use as co-polymers are commercially available in the molding powder form. for example, ethylene vinyl acetate co-polymers are marketed by the e.i. dupont de nemours company under the tradename "elvax.rtm." and by the arco polymer division under the trademark "dyland".rtm.and by the exxon corporation of linden, new jersey under the trademark "dexxon".rtm.. ethylene/ethyl acrylate co-polymers are marketed by union carbide corporation under the tradename "eea resins".rtm.. the polymer is added to the single screw or twin screw extruder at a feed rate in the range of from about 80 up to about 300 pounds per hour while maintaining the temperature in the screw extruder between about 160.degree. and about 240.degree. c. if the polymer or co-polymer powder is added to the extruder at a reference "barrel segment", then the insect attractant is added to the extruder under pressure downstream from the addition point of the polymer at 1 or more "barrel segments" s-2, s-3, s-4, s-5, s-6, s-7, s-8 or s-9. thus, the invention provides a process for forming insect attractant-containing polymeric particles such as polymeric pellets which include a relatively high concentration of insect attractants. the insect attractant added at "barrel segments" "s-2, s-3, s-4, s-5, s-6, s-7, s-8 or s-9" of the single screw or twin screw extruder is to be compatible with the polymer added at "barrel segment" s-1 of the single screw or twin screw extruder. the proportion of insect attractant is limited only by either (a) its solubility in the resin or mixture of resins used and/or (b) the volume ratio of microvoids in the polymer to said polymer and/or (c) the solubility of the insect attractant in the polymer on solidification. the proportion of insect attractant can in many instances go up to 45% by weight or even higher. thus, the proportion of insect attractant to resin can vary from small but effective amounts on the order of about 1% of the weight of the resin body up to about 45% by weight of the resin body. in general, it is preferred to use between about 5% up to about 30% based on the weight of resin body of the insect attractant. this is an optimum amount balancing the proportion of insect attractant against the time period over which the article emits the insect attractant and against the tendency of the insect attractant to "oil out". this "oiling out" is specifically avoided as a result of the use of foaming agent. as stated, supra, various polymers are useful in the practice of our invention. specific examples of polymers useful in the practice of our invention are as follows: (a) dylan.rtm. brand of low density polyethylene dylan.rtm. is a trademark owned by the atlantic richfield company of los angeles, california; (b) dylite.rtm. of expandable polystyrene compositions. dylite.rtm. is a trademark of the atlantic richfield company of los angeles, california; (c) super dylan.rtm. a high density polyethylene. super dylan.rtm. is a trademark of the atlantic richfield company of los angeles, california; (d) blended polyethylene and carbon black as specifically taught in u.s. pat. no. 4,369,267 issued on jan. 18, 1983, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (e) polystyrene as discosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,369,227 issued on jan. 18, 1983, the specification for which is incorporated herein; (f) polyene/alpha-olefin as exemplified and disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,369,291, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (g) poly-alpha-olefins as exemplified in canadian letters patent no. 1,137,069 issued on dec. 7, 1982, the specification for which is incorporated herein; (h) polymeric compositions as disclosed in canadian letters patent no. 1,137,068 issued on dec. 7, 1982, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (i) poly-alpha-olefins disclosed in canadian letters patent no. 1,137,067, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (j) polyolefins described in canadian letters patent no. 1,137,066, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (k) polyethylene oxides as disclosed in canadian letters patent no. 1,137,065 issued on dec. 7, 1982, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (l) olefin polymers and co-polymers as disclosed in canadian letters patent no. 1,139,737, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. canadian patent no. 1,139,737 was issued on jan. 18, 1983; (m) polyolefins disclosed in canadian letters patent no. 1,139,738, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. canadian patent no. 1,139,738 was issued on jan. 18, 1983; (n) chlorinated pvc as disclosed in polymer 1982, 23 (7, suppl.), 1051-6 abstracted at chem. abstracts 97:145570y, 1982; (o) polyepsilon caprolactone co-polymers made by means of alcohol initiated polymerization as disclosed in j. polym. sci. polym. chem. ed. 1982, 20(2), pages 319-26, abstracted at chem. abstracts, volume 96:123625x, 1982; (p) styrene acrylonitrile co-polymers as disclosed in diss. abstracts, int. b, 1982, 42(8), 3346 and abstracted at chem. abstracts 96:143750n (1982); (q) co-polymers of epsilon caprolactone with 1,4-butane diol as disclosed at kauch. rezine, 1982, (2), 8-9, abstracted at chem. abstracts, volume 96:182506g (1982); (r) polyesters as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,326,010, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (s) chlorinated polyethylene as disclosed by belorgey, et al, j. polym. sci. polym. phys. ed. 1982, 20(2), 191-203; (t) plasticized polyepsilon caprolactone co-polymers containing dimethyl phthalate plasticizers as set forth in japanese patent no. j81/147844, abstracted at chem. abstracts, volume 96:69984y (1982), the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (u) maleic anhydride modified adducts of polyepsilon caprolactone polyols and ethylenically unsaturated monomer as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,137,279 issued on jan 30, 1979, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (v) polyurethane polymers having lactone backbones as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,156,067 issued on may 22, 1979, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; (w) polyurethane polyether resins wherein the resin is obtained by reacting a polyfunctional lactone with a long chain polyalkylene diol and a urethane precursor as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,355,550 issued on mar. 10, 1981, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; and (x) resins having polyurethane backbones as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 3,975,350 issued on aug. 17, 1976, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. optionally, downstream from the addition point of the insect attractant a gaseous or liquid containing blowing agent may be added (e.g., at barrel segments s-5, s-6, s-7, s-8 or s-9and s-10) using the polymer addition barrel segment as a reference barrel segment "s-1". examples of gaseous blowing agents are carbon dioxide, nitrogen, mixtures of nitrogen and carbon dioxide in proportions of from 1 up to 99% by volume nitrogen and 99 down to 1% by volume carbon dioxide, helium, mixtures of helium and nitrogen, mixtures of helium and carbon dioxide and other gases which are inert at the temperature and pressure of the polymer at the time of the extrusion operation. thus, gas containing oxygen or other reactive gases, e.g., hydrogen, should be avoided. the pressure of the gas blowing agent being added to the extruder at the point of addition may vary from about 80 up to about 150 psig. higher pressures may be used without adversely affecting the usefulness of the foamed insect attractant-containing polymer particle. the feed rate range of insect attractant may be between about 0.5% up to about 45% by weight of the polymer. the die of the extruder may create rod, sheet, film or ribbon. the resulting product may then, if desired, be pelletized to form foamed insect attractant-containing polymer particles or the ribbon may be used "as-is" as an insect attractant-containing polymeric article of manufacture itself. in addition to the optional gaseous blowing agents (which are necessarily "inert" gases), blowing agents may be added at some point on the extruder which will create gaseous voids in the insect attractant-containing polymeric articles of our invention and these "blowing agents" are well known to one having ordinary skill in the art. examples of such non-gaseous containing materials which yield gases on admixture with the polymer in the extruder but which are still inert to the insect attractant are as follows: (i) under high pressure, ethylene, methane, propane, butane, propylene, methyl chloride, methyl bromide, vinyl chloride and methylene dichloride as more specifically described in u.s. pat. no. 2,387,730, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (ii) ordinarily liquid material such as n-pentane, isopentane, cyclopentane, hexane and petroleum ether fractions or halogen hydrocarbons such as cfcl.sub.3, cf.sub.2 cl.sub.2, ch.sub.3 cl, ch.sub.2 cl.sub.2 separately or in admixture with one another as set forth in u.s. pat. no. 3,758,425, column 4, lines 1-5, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein; (iii) dichlorotetrafluoroethane, tetramethylmethane, monochlorodifluoromethane, dichlorodifluoromethane, and dichlorotetrafluoroethane as specifically described in u.s. pat. nos. 2,948,664 and 2,948,665 issued on aug. 9, 1960, the specifications for which are incorporated herein by reference; and (iv) azo bis(formamide); diazoaminobenzene; n,n'-dinitrosopentamethylene tetramine; n,n'-dimethyl-n,n'-dinitrosoterephthalamide; p,p'-oxy-bis(benzene sulfonyl semicarbazide); azo bis(isobutyronitrile); p,p'-diphenyl-bis(sulfonyl hydrazide); benzene-sulfonyl hydrazide; m-benzene-bis(sulfonyl hydrazide) as more specifically described in u.s. pat. no. 3,298,975 issued on jan. 17, 1967, the specification for which is incorporated by reference herein. the resulting extruded (and if desired pelletized) material may then be, for example, injection molded to form a useful article. such injection molding can be carried out in accordance with the procedure as set forth in u.s. pat. no. 3,268,636 issued on aug. 23, 1966, the specification for which is incorpoated by reference herein. detailed description of the drawings referring to figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4, figs. 3 and 4 shown in detail the zoecon.rtm. sticky trap, more specifically a zoecon pherocon.rtm.1c trap (e.g., in fig. 4 indicated by reference numeral 616a) and in fig. 1 indicated by reference numerals 608c, 608d, 609a, 609b, 609c, 609d, 610a, 610c, 610d, 611a, 611c, 612a, 612c, 612d, 613a, 613c, 613d, 614a, 614b, 614c, 615a, 615c, 616a, 616b, 617a, 617b, 617c, 618a, 618b, 618c, 619c, 620a, 620b, 620c, 621a, 621b, 621c, 623a, 623b, 623c, 624a, 624b and 624c. the zoecon pherocon.rtm.1c trap has suspended in it as will be seen from figs. 3 and 4, a 2 cm.times.2 cm strip of slow release polymer (polyethylene) 6117 in figs. 3 and 4 containing insect attractant (n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid or mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide); or the 2 cm.times.2 cm strip contains the golden malrin.rtm. control. the mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid may contain from 0.5% up to 99.5% of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and from 0.5% up to 99.5% of the ethyl ester of the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid. the mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide may contain from 0.5% up to 99.5% of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and from 0.5% up to 99.5% of dimethyl disulfide, all percentages being weight percentages in addition, our invention contemplates the use of the mixtures containing three components; n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and dimethyl disulfideby wherein each of the components may vary from 0.1% up to 99.9% with the other components being the remainder of the mixture. the 2 cm.times.2 cm strip 6117 is suspended in the trap 616a from bar 6116 using holder 6118. trap 616a has lower tray 6110 which will catch insect droppings or dead insects which do not adhere to the 2 cm.times.2 cm strip 6117. the lower tray 6110 is attached via strips 6112a and 6112b to upper holder 6111 which is attached to suspension bar 6113 suspended by rod 6114 to the barn beam 6115 (in fig. 2). the barn beam 6115 is held in a horizontal position by upright supports 602 and 606 (as will be seen in fig. 2) which is firmly in place on the barn floor 6119. the 2 cm.times.2 cm strip 6117 is formulated in such apparatus as is set forth in fig. 10 described in detail, infra. the traps containing the insect attractant, e.g., n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid ethyl ester and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, 2 -methyl-3-pentenoic acid ethyl ester and dimethyl disulfide or the golden malrin.rtm. control are placed in the goat barn having fencing panels 601 and 603 and inner support 604 and 605, an observation post 622 and experimental locations 608, 609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 623 and 624 has suspended in it the several zoecon pherocon.rtm.1c traps each containing 2 cm.times.2 cm strips of formulated slow release insect attractants. trap placement was replicated in four quadrants of the barn. traps 616a, 616b, 615a, 615c and other traps were placed in the barn for seven days and the insects collected were identified and counted. evidence of various insects visiting the traps were also counted, as fly specks inside or outside to the traps. all the test materials were compared with a standardized check treatment consisting of 0.5 grams of golden malrin.rtm. fly bait inside slow release packets hung like the other compounds as in strip 6117 in figs. 3 and 4. figs. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 indicate the results of field trial tests using the apparatus set forth in figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4. fig. 5 is a series of bar graphs for field trial tests of the attractants n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm. for house fly counts, inside the traps indicated by reference numeral 6117. thus, the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 103 is the bar graph for n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide insofar as it attracts musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) inside of such traps as trap 616a in figs. 3 and 4, the house flies being located on tray 6110 in figs. 3 and 4. tray 6110 is also shown in fig. 2. the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 102 is the bar graph for the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid insofar as it attracts musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae). the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 101 is the bar graph for golden malrin.rtm. (insofar as it attracts musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). as stated, supra, fig. 5 is a graph of flies/trap vs compound. thus, the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide in fig. 5 gives rise to an attractancy of musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) of 28.33 fly/trap; the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid gives rise to an attractancy of 3.50 house fly/trap; and the golden malrin.rtm. gives rises to 6.75 house flies per trap. fig. 6 is a series of bar graphs for field trial tests of the attractants n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and golden malrin.rtm. for house fly speck counts inside the traps indicated by reference numeral 6117. thus, the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 203 is the bar graph for n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) inside of such traps as trap 616a in figs. 3 and 4, the house fly specks being located on tray 6110 in figs. 3 and 4. tray 6110 is also shown in fig. 2. the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 202 is the bar graph for the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae). the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 201 is the bar graph for golden malrin.rtm. (insofar as it attracts (musca domestic l.(diptera:muscidae)). as stated supra, fig. 6 is a graph of fly speck/trap vs. compound. thus, the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide in fig. 6 gives rise to an attractancy of (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) of 144.00 fly speck/trap; the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid gives rise to an attractancy of 60.25 fly speck/trap and the golden malrin.rtm. gives rise to 44.00 fly specks per trap. fig. 7 is a series of bar graphs for field trial tests of the attractants n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid ethyl ester and golden malrin.rtm. for house fly speck counts outside the traps indicated by reference numeral 6117. thus, the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 303 is the bar graph for n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) outside of such traps as trap 616a in figs. 3 and 4, the house fly specks being located outside of tray 6110 in figs. 3 and 4. tray 6110 is also shown in fig. 2. the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 302 is the bar graph for the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae). the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 301 is the bar graph for golden malrin.rtm. (insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). as stated, supra, fig. 7 is a graph of fly speck/trap vs. compound for the fly specks outside of the trap. thus, the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide in fig. 7 gives rise to an attractancy of (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) of 109.333 fly speck/trap; the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid gives rise to an attractancy of 51.00 fly speck/trap and the golden malrin.rtm. gives rise to 42.25 fly speck/trap. fig. 8 is a series of bar graphs for field trial tests of the attractant, the mixture (50:50 weight:weight) of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid as well as for golden malrin.rtm.for house fly speck counts inside the traps indicated by reference numeral 6117. thus, the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 402 is the bar graph for the 50:50 weight:weight mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid (insofar as the mixture attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)) inside of such traps as trap 616a in figs. 3 and 4, the house fly specks being located on tray 610 in figs. 3 and 4. tray 610 is also shown in fig. 2. the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 401 in the bar graph for golden malrin.rtm. (insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). as stated, supra, fig. 8 is a graph of fly speck/trap vs. compound. thus, the mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid gives rise to an attractancy of (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) of 53.6 fly specks per trap; and the golden malrin.rtm.gives rise to only 6.2 fly specks per trap. fig. 9 is a series of bar graphs for field trial tests of the attractant which is the mixture (50:50 weight:weight) of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide as well as for golden malrin.rtm. for house speck counts inside the traps indicated by reference numeral 6117. thus, the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 502 is the bar graph for the mixture of n,n-dimethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) inside of such traps as trap 616a in figs. 3 and 4, the house fly specks being located on tray 6110 in figs. 3 and 4. tray 6110 is also shown in fig. 2. the bar graph indicated by reference numeral 501 is the bar graph for golden malrin.rtm. (insofar as it attracts (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae)). as stated, supra, fig. 9 is a graph of fly speck/trap vs. compound. thus, the mixture of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide in fig. 9 gives rise to an attractancy of (musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) of 35.40 fly speck/trap and the golden malrin.rtm. gives rise to only 2.40 fly speck/trap. fig. 10 is a schematic cut-away elevation diagram of an extrusion and pelletizing apparatus useful in carrying out a process of our invention during the operation of said apparatus whereby the insect attractant is incorporated into a polymer such as a polyethylene. motor 15 drives the extruder screws located at 23a in barrel 16, the extruder being operated at temperatures in the range of about 150.degree. c. up to about 250.degree. c. at the beginning of the barrel resin at source 12 together with additives, e.g., processing aids and densifiers at location 13 is added via addition funnel 14 into the extruder. simultaneously (when the operation reaches "steady state"), insect attractants, n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and, mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and dimethyl disulfide is added to the extruder at 1, 2 or more of barrel segments s-3, s-4, s-5, s-6, s-7 and s-8 of the extruder (which may be a twin screw or single screw extruder) at locations 18a, 18b, 18c and 18d (for example) by means of gear pump 23 from source 17. from source 19 into barrel segments s-5, s-6, s-7, s-8, s-9and s-10, a gaseous or liquid blowing agent, e.g., nitrogen, carbon dioxide and the like as described, supra, are added simultaneously with the addition of the insect attractant, e.g., n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid, mixtures of same, and mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and dimethyl disulfide or mixtures of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide, the the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid and dimethyl disulfide. the feed rate range of resin is about 80-300 pounds per hour. the feed rate range of the insect attractant is between 1 and 35% of the feed rate range of the resin. the blowing agent range is such that the pressure of the gas or the pressure over the liquid being fed into the extruder is between about 50 and 200 psig if, indeed, blowing agent is added. if desired, the extruded ribbon or cylinder may be passed through water bath 20 and pelletized in pelletizer 21 and then passed into collection apparatus 21a. it is well known that the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is an insect repellent as is set forth in published japanese application no. j84/042646 (which discloses an insect repellent composition containing as active constituents n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide and halobenzoylpropionic acid esters abstracted as follows: badi d21 77-05578y/04=j84042-646-b synergistic insect repellent compans.--of diethyl toluamide and alkyl halobenzoyl propionates basf ag 05.07.75-de-530070b05 (16.10.84) *be-843684-a a01n-37/42 22.06.76 as 072844 (288rh) insect repellent compan. are new contg. as active constituents n,n-dimethyl-toluamide and a halobenzoylpropionic acid ester of formula (a) in (a) x is halo; r is 1-4c alkyl opt. substd. by cl or--ome. specifically claimed is ethyl beta-(4-bromobenzoyl) propionate. the effectiveness of the toluamide against mosquitos is combined with that of (a) against houseflies, and a synergistic effect is shown. a preferred insect repellent compsn. is a mixt. of n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide (ii) and ethyl beta-(4-bromobenzoyl) propionate (i), esp. in ratio of 6:1 to 1:6 (j52010419-a). (4pp) n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is also known as a cockroach and mosquito repellent as set forth in chemical business, september 1985, at page 45, to wit: roach offender if you've seen cockroaches where we've seen cockroaches, you probably think that nothing turns away these hardy insects. researchers at the department of agriculture's gainsville, fl, laboratory, however, say that some chemical cousins of the well-known mosquito-chaser deet effectively discourage german roaches. usda is now seeking patents on the compounds, said to keep roaches out of such favorite breeding spots as boxes and cracks for a month or more. n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is also known as a female pink bollworm moth attractant as set forth in science, jan. 5, 1968 issue (by d. s. greenberg, at pages 99 and 100) and also as set forth by neumark, et al, environmental letters 7(1), 21-30 (1974) abstracted at chemical abstracts, volume 81, 1974, abstract no. 146849c. thus, the attractancy determined in the instant invention for n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is surprising and unexpected. however, it has now been determined that the n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is an attractant for musca domestica l.(diptera:muscidae) in the air stream (at relatively low concentrations) and still acts as a repellent when coated on an object, e.g., the human epidermis. thus, n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide can be used both as an attract and a repellent depending upon the concentrations used. the concentrations of all materials tested herein are at the level of 5% in polymer. it is noteworthy that dimethyl disulfide has heretofore been discovered alone as a mosquito attractant (culicidae) but its use in conjunction with n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide is unknown. thus, u.s. letters patent, ser. no. 901,647 filed on aug. 29, 1986 discloses the use of dimethyl disulfide as a mosquito attractant when taken alone or in combination with dibutylsuccinate. the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid may be prepared according to the procedure as set forth in u.s. letters pat. no. 4,000,327 issued on dec. 28, 1976 at example xl or at example ii. u.s. letters pat. no. 4,000,327 issued on dec. 28, 1986 is incorporated herein by reference. that patent discloses the use in berry fruit flavors of the the ethyl ester of 2-methyl-3-pentenoic acid.
102-580-589-047-559	US	[ "EP", "DE", "JP", "CN", "GB", "WO" ]	G05B23/02,G06F3/0481,G05B19/418,G06F3/04847,G06F3/04817,G06F3/0484	2013-03-15T00:00:00	2013	[ "G05", "G06" ]	graphical process variable trend monitoring for a process control system	a process control monitoring system for a process control plant uses graphic trend symbols to assist in detecting and monitoring trends of process variables within the process control plant. a graphic display application within the process control monitoring system may implement and display each graphic trend symbol to graphically indicate or encapsulate current trend and value information of a process variable within the process control plant. the graphic display application may display the graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within a graphical representation of the process control plant while maintaining the hierarchical structure or each hierarchical level of the process plant. the graphic display application may also include a zoom feature that enables a user to quickly drill down through tend data to obtain more information and to support problem identification and diagnosis tasks.	a method of generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies a trend of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the method comprising: generating a first graphic element that represents: a rate of change trend attribute, the rate of change trend attribute indicating a rate of change of the process variable or a direction of change trend attribute, the direction of change trend attribute indicating a rate of change of the process variable; and displaying a graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including the first graphic element. the method of claim 1, wherein generating the first graphic element comprises generating the first graphic element that represents the rate of change trend attribute, the method further comprising: generating a second graphic element that represents a direction of change attribute, the direction of change attribute indicating a direction of change of the process variable; and displaying the generated second graphic element together with the first graphic element on the user interface. the method of claim 2, further comprising: generating a third graphic element that represents a process variable magnitude attribute, the process variable magnitude attribute indicating a magnitude of the process variable; and displaying the generated third graphic element together with the first graphic element and second graphic element on the user interface. the method of claim 3, further comprising: generating a fourth graphic element that represents a process variable position attribute, the process variable position attribute indicating a position of the process variable; and displaying the generated fourth graphic element together with the first graphic element, second graphic element, and third graphic element on the user interface. the method of claim 4, further comprising: generating a fifth graphic element that represents a change desirability attribute, the change desirability attribute indicating a desirability of change for the process variable; and displaying the generated fifth graphic element together with the first graphic element, second graphic element, third graphic element, and fourth graphic element on the user interface. the method of claim 2, further comprising: generating a graphic desired value element associated with a desired value for the process variable; and displaying the generated graphic designed value element together with the first graphic element and second graphic element on the user interface, the orientation of the second graphic element relative to the graphic desired value element indicating a relationship between the corresponding direction of change of the process variable and the desired value of the process variable. the method of claim 1, further comprising: generating a graphic desired value element associated with a desired value for the process variable; and displaying the generated graphic designed value element together with the first graphic element on the user interface, the orientation of the first graphic element relative to the graphic desired value element indicating a relationship between the corresponding current rate of change of the process variable and the desired value of the process variable.	technical field the present disclosure relates generally to process control systems and, more particularly, to monitoring trends of process variables and hierarchical, graphical navigating of process control plants. description of the related art process plants, such as those used in chemical, petroleum or other industries, typically include one or more centralized or decentralized process controllers communicatively coupled to at least one host or operator workstation and to one or more process control and instrumentation devices, such as field devices, via analog, digital or combined analog/digital buses. field devices, which may be, for example valves, valve positioners, switches, transmitters, and sensors (e.g., temperature, pressure and flow rate sensors), perform functions within the process such as increasing or decreasing fluid flow and measuring process parameters. the process controller receives signals indicative of process measurements or process variables made by or associated with the field devices and/or other information pertaining to the field devices, uses this information to implement a control routine and then generates control signals which are sent over one or more of the buses or other communication lines to the field devices to control the operation of the process. information from the field devices and the controller is typically made available to one or more applications executed by operator workstations to enable an operator to perform desired functions with respect to the process, such as viewing the current state of the process, modifying the operation of the process, etc. as an example, the deltav™ control system, sold by emerson process management includes multiple applications stored within and executed by different devices located at diverse places within a process plant. while a typical process plant has many process control and instrumentation devices, such as valves, transmitters, sensors, etc. connected to one or more process controllers which execute software that controls these devices during the operation of the process, there are many other supporting devices or equipment which are also necessary for or related to process operation. these additional devices include, for example, power supply equipment, power generation and distribution equipment, storage tanks, heaters, rotating equipment such as turbines, etc., which are located at numerous places in a typical plant. while this additional equipment does not necessarily create or use process variables and, in many instances, is not controlled or even coupled to a process controller for the purpose of affecting the process operation, this equipment is nevertheless important to and ultimately necessary for proper operation of the process. to manage the relative location of and information from the many field devices and pieces of equipment, a configuration application, which resides in one or more operator workstations, enables a designer to create or change operator interfaces which are used by a viewing application to display data to an operator and to enable the operator to change settings, such as set points, within the process control routine. each dedicated controller and, in some cases, one or more field devices, stores and executes a controller application that runs the control modules assigned and downloaded thereto to implement actual process control functionality. the viewing applications, which may be run on one or more operator workstations, receive data from the controller application via the buses and display this data to process control system designers, operators, or users using the user interfaces, and may provide any of a number of different views, such as an operator's view, an engineer's view, a technician's view, etc. a database application is typically stored in and executed by a database device that collects and stores some or all of the data provided across the buses while a configuration database application may run in a still further computer attached to the buses to store the current process control routine configuration and data associated therewith. alternatively, the configuration database may be located in the same workstation as the configuration application. as the complexity of and number of field devices used in a process control environment have increased, different viewing applications, such as graphical display applications, have been provided to enable users such as operators to monitor the process. for example, graphical display applications have been used to enable control operators to view the current functioning of the process plant, or areas of the process plant, or to enable maintenance personnel to view the state of hardware devices within the process plant, to enable simulation of the process plant, etc. as an example, one type of graphical display application may use a piping (or process) and instrumentation diagram (p&id) to enable a user to monitor the current functioning of the process plant in real-time. a p&id generally includes graphical representations of plant equipment and functionality that, together, form a functional plan view of a particular portion of a process. the graphical representations within a p&id are generally arranged quasi-realistically and so provide a more life-like layout of process control equipment, so that the location of each piece of equipment in the p&id, in some sense, reflects the layout of the actual equipment in the process plant. for instance the graphical display application may use a p&id to represent a crude unit in a particular area of the process plant as including several pieces of equipment, such as a heater, a storage tank, a desalter, etc., by depicting each piece of equipment of the crude unit in a spatially representative layout. additionally, p&ids typically allow the operator to monitor parameters (such as process variable values) in the plant in real-time while offering highly user-configurable display options. unfortunately, however, the display of real-time values in p&ids does not effectively support the detection of changes in these real-time values over time. in other words, the display of real-time process variable values via the p&id does not enable the user of the p&id to easily detect or understand trends within the real-time data being depicted. in fact, because the p&ids tend to cram real-time values within the screen spaces not used by the equipment depicted in the quasi-spatially realistic display, it may be difficult for a user to see and understand the real-time data itself, much less the temporal trends within that data. exacerbating this problem, p&id developers have more recently attempted to design p&id displays to reflect more detail associated with process plant equipment or to reflect more complex process plants under the belief that more of such data assists the user in understanding the process better. this push to create more complex p&ids has lead developers to incorporate, and subsequently display in the p&id, more information from increasingly complex process plants that include a greater number of equipment and field devices. besides operating to hide real-time data within more graphical clutter, these more complex p&ids typically include inconsistent layouts (from p&id to p&id), making locating the real-time parameter values harder and harder for users who must switch between multiple different p&ids. in effect, these recent trends merely exacerbate clutter within the p&ids, which further slows searches for process parameter data made by the users. as a result, an operator using a p&id to monitor a process, may quickly lose focus in the vast amount of information presented in the p&id or may miss important process variable trends or patterns emerging within the process because the operator is presented with such an expansive amount of detailed data. moreover, this immense amount of data, especially in a large, complex process plant, is difficult to view, much less to absorb and to understand using only a p&id and (potentially other supporting graphs or diagrams, such as process variable trend graphs, accessible via the p&id). as a result, the operator may exert unnecessary time and energy in locating and comparing a current value of a process variable with a setpoint value, a desired value, etc. moreover, by not detecting or identifying problems during the process more quickly, such as a worsening condition of a particular process variable, etc., the operator may be slow to react to correct a potential runaway process that could result in serious injuries, property damage, environmental contamination, or even death. these "terror episodes" are likely to occur more frequently when the operator is attempting to monitor a more complex and/or larger plant via a p&id. additionally, navigation within the p&id of a large-scale, complex process plant may pose difficulties for the operator. because of the hierarchical nature and the large scope of process plants, navigating to different portions or areas of the process plants via the p&id may be confusing, difficult, and counterintuitive. depending on the current hierarchical level or detail level of a representation of the process plant that the control operator is viewing via a p&id, the operator may have trouble properly determining the current location within the representation of the process plant that is displayed within a viewport within the context of the other areas of the process plant. in current p&id viewing implementations, while viewing this current location or area of the representation of the process plant at a particular hierarchical level in the p&id, an operator is provided with a limited number of hyperlinks to navigate throughout the representation of the plant. each of these hyperlinks which may indicate an area, a unit, or a piece of equipment in the plant, generally appear as text only, and give no indication of their specific location or hierarchical level relative to other areas or units in the plant. that is, there is typically no consistent stimulus-response mapping between the navigation hyperlinks and what these hyperlinks lead to, leaving a less experienced operator with an uncertain feeling when navigating through a series of interconnected p&ids. moreover, the hyperlinks provided to the operator are generally only for navigation within a current hierarchical level and do not provide additional options for navigation throughout the locations and hierarchy within the representation of the process plant. in other words, the p&id lacks the capability for the operator to "drill down" into more detailed, hierarchical levels while maintaining the context of the entire representation of the process plant. for example, if a different area of the representation of the process plant requires immediate attention of the operator, such as a process variable in the different area that is leading to a runway condition of the process, the operator may have trouble determining, and subsequently navigating to, the location of the different area in the process plant relative to the current location of the process plant. as a result, the operator may endure unpredictable navigation (e.g., trial and error clicking, etc.) during a time critical incident which may lead to poor decision making of the operator through unnecessary stress and frustration. likewise, if the operator does successfully navigate to the location of the different area of the identified problem, the control operator may still need to contend with attempting to obtain the proper level of detail of the process control variables. at too high of detail level, the operator may possess too little process control information in viewing only the p&id. alternatively, the operator may possess too much detail in viewing multiple process variable trend graphs, in attempting to compare current process variable values with setpoint information, etc. moreover, the detailed information sources may not be integrated with the p&id and may require the control operator to view information of various levels of detail that is distributed across multiple separate windows or screens. possessing too few or too many details may lead to the control operator making incomplete or slow decisions, respectively, that may cause serious consequences during a critical incident or period. summary a process control monitoring system for a process control plant uses graphic trend symbols to assist in detecting and monitoring trends of process variables within the process control plant. a graphic display application within the process control monitoring system may implement and display each graphic trend symbol to graphically indicate or encapsulate current trend and value information of a process variable within the process control plant. in particular, the graphic display application may use process variable data that is collected from field devices and stored in a database to generate one or more graphic elements that are displayed together to form the graphic trend symbol. each graphic element may represent a different attribute of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol and may include graphic trend elements that indicate trend information of the process variable, such as a rate of change of the process variable, a direction of change of the process variable, a change desirability of the process variable, etc. likewise, the graphic elements may also include graphic value elements that indicate current value information of the process variable, such as a magnitude of the process variable from a desired value, a position of the process variable relative to the desired value, etc. the graphic display application may display one or more of these graphic elements together to form a graphic trend symbol and to graphically or symbolically indicate the current trend or value of the process variable. moreover, the graphic display application may display the graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within a graphical representation of the process control plant, such as a p&id, so that the operator may quickly orient herself with the location of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol in relation to the area surrounding the graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation. advantageously, the graphic display application may display the graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation of the process plant while simultaneously displaying a navigation pane that may provide context to the operator of the hierarchical structure or each hierarchical level (e.g., a particular area, a unit, a piece of equipment etc.) of the process plant in relation to the display graphical representation. importantly, the graphic display application may also assist the operator in quickly navigating among the different hierarchical levels, via the navigation pane, to monitor the graphic trend symbols within the context of different hierarchical levels within the graphical representation of the process plant. in particular, the graphic display application may constantly and consistently display the navigation pane in the same relative position to the graphical representation to provide predictable and efficient navigation within the graphical representation of the process plant. in particular, the graphic display application may implement the navigation pane to include different types of selector icons in which each selector icon represents a different unit, an area, a piece of equipment, etc. and corresponds to a particular graphical depiction displayed within graphical representation of the plant. beneficially, the graphic display application displays the different types of selector icons in different types of selection areas for the operator to easily distinguish the different hierarchical levels and corresponding process variables within the process plant while maintaining context in relation to the overall plant. in response to receiving a selection of a selector icon in a particular selection area within the navigation pane, the graphic display application may reposition or change the level of detail of the graphical representation of the process plant according to the selected selector icon. in displaying the graphic trend symbols within the spatially realistic view of the graphical representation of plant, the graphic display application may additionally provide process variable information views of varied levels of detailed one or more of the process variables that are associated with the displayed graphic trend symbols. advantageously, the graphic display application may determine to implement one or more process variable information panes of varied levels of detail depending various factors, such as screen space, process variables in a critical state, etc. the graphic display application implements each pane to display a different level of detailed information for the one or more process variables that correspond to the displayed graphic trend symbols within the currently displayed view of the graphical representation. for instance, the graphic display application may display a summary pane that may include only the graphic trend symbol and an associated name of the process variable for one or more graphic trend symbols displayed with the graphical representation. furthermore, the graphic display application may also display a detailed pane that may include, in addition to the information provided in the summary pane for example, a current process variable magnitude/position value and desired value comparison diagram and/or an actual actuator or value position for the one or more graphic trend symbols displayed with the graphical representation. moreover, the graphic display application may display an expanded pane that may include, in addition to the information provided in the detailed pane for instance, historical graphs of the process variable. importantly, the graphic display application may dynamically highlight the graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation and all of the varied detailed views of the corresponding process variable within the panes in response to receiving a selection of a graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation, a selection of the corresponding process variable view within the summary pane, a selection of the corresponding process variable view within the detailed pane, etc. brief description of the drawings for a more complete understanding of the disclosure, reference should be made to the following detailed description and accompanying drawing figures, in which like reference numerals identify like elements in the figures, and in which: fig. 1 is a schematic representation of a process control system having a controller (or control element) configured to receive process variable information from a number of field devices via transmitted communications between the controller and the number of field devices in accordance with one aspect of the disclosure; fig. 2 is a screen shot of a graphical representation of an exemplary crude unit within a portion of a process control plant and a navigation pane for a process control plant; fig. 2a illustrates another implementation of the navigation pane of fig. 2 ; fig. 2b illustrates another example navigation pane containing the example navigation buttons of fig. 2a ; fig. 2c illustrates another example navigation pane containing the example navigation buttons of figs. 2a and/or 2b; fig. 2d illustrates another view of the example navigation pane of fig. 2c ; fig. 3 is a detailed view of a navigation pane for a process control plant; fig. 4 is a screen shot of a highlighted graphical representation of a heater within a graphical representation of an exemplary crude unit within a portion of a process control plant and a navigation pane for a process control plant; fig. 5 is screen shot of a graphical representation of an exemplary heater within a portion of a process control plant, a navigation pane, a summary pane, and an expanded pane; fig. 6 is a view of an exemplary graphic trend symbol; fig. 7 is a process variable attribute chart useable to create graphic trend symbols; figs. 7a-d and 8-17 illustrate example icons to indicate conditions, characteristics, trends, and/or other information associated with process variables corresponding to components within the example process control system of fig. 1 ; fig. 18 is detailed view of a summary pane, a detailed pane, and an expanded pane of the screen shot of fig. 5 ; fig. 18a illustrates an alternative example of the summary pane of fig. 18 ; fig. 18b illustrates an alternative example of the detailed pane of fig. 18 containing example process variable graphics to indicate more information than the example graphics of fig. 18a . fig. 18c illustrates an alternative example of the process variable pane of fig. 18 containing example process variable graphics to indicate more information than the example graphics of fig. 18b ; fig. 18d illustrates the example process variable summary pane of figs. 18a-18c in a collapsed form; fig. 18e illustrates an example event history table for display; fig. 19 is a screen shot of a highlighted selected process variable and a number of corresponding highlighted detailed views of the selected process variable; and fig. 20a-20b is an example method of generating a graphic trend symbol. detailed description a process control monitoring system 10 illustrated in fig. 1 that may be used to implement and to display a graphic trend symbol described herein includes a process controller 11 connected to a database 12 and to one or more host workstations or computers 14 (which may be any type of personal computers, workstations, etc.) via a network bus 31, such as a ethernet communication network for example. each workstation 14 may include a memory for storing a plurality of applications including, for example, a graphical display application 30 and may be communicatively coupled to a user interface 13. the controller 11 is also connected to field devices 15-22 via input/output (i/o) cards 26 and 28. the database 12 may be any desired type of data collection unit having any desired type of memory and any desired or known software, hardware or firmware for storing data. the system 10 may also store process variable values or process variable data within the database 12 for use in generating, and subsequently displaying, graphic trend symbols to an operator. the controller 11 is, in fig. 1 , communicatively connected to the field devices 15-22 using a hardwired communication network and communication scheme, or in the alternative, a wireless network and wireless communication scheme. generally, the field devices 15-22 may be any types of devices, such as sensors, valves, transmitters, positioners, etc., while the i/o cards 26 and 28 may be any types of i/o devices conforming to any desired communication or controller protocol such as the fieldbus protocol, the hart protocol, the 4-20ma analog protocol, etc. the valves, sensors, and other equipment illustrated in fig. 1 may be any desired kind or type of equipment including, for example, fieldbus field devices, standard 4-20ma field devices, hart field devices, etc. and may be connected to and be controlled by the controller 11 in any desired manner. also, other controllers may be connected to the controller 11 and to the workstations 14 via, for example, the ethernet communication line 31 to control other devices or areas associated with the process plant 16 and the operation of such additional controllers may be coordinated with the operation of the controller 11 illustrated in fig. 1 in any desired or known manner. the controller 11 includes a processor 23 that implements or oversees one or more process control routines (or any module, block, or sub-routine thereof) stored in a memory 24. generally speaking, the controller 11 communicates with the devices 15-22, the host computers 14 and the database 12 to control a process in any desired manner. moreover, the controller 11 may implement a control strategy or scheme using what are commonly referred to as function blocks, wherein each function block is an object or other part (e.g., a subroutine) of an overall control routine that operates in conjunction with other function blocks (via communications called links) to implement process control loops within the process control monitoring system 10. function blocks typically perform one of an input function, such as that associated with a transmitter, a sensor or other process parameter measurement device, a control function, such as that associated with a control routine that performs pid, fuzzy logic, etc. control, or an output function which controls the operation of some device, such as a valve, to perform some physical function within the process control monitoring system 10. of course, hybrid and other types of function blocks exist and may be utilized herein. the function blocks may be stored in and executed by the controller 11 or other devices as described below. generally speaking, the process control monitoring system 10 of fig. 1 may be used to monitor the process of one or more process control plants in which, for example, one of the workstations 14 executes a graphic display application that allows an operator, via the user interface 13, to monitor the process via a spatially realistic graphical representation of the plant and to navigate to different areas of the representation of the process plant within the context of the hierarchical structure of the process plant. in the exemplary process control monitoring system illustrated in fig. 1 , such a graphic display application 30 resides in the workstation 14. however, the graphic display application 30 could be stored and executed in other workstations 14, or in other computers communicatively connected to the bus 31 in any desired manner, including in any wireless manner. referring again to fig. 1 , a database 12 may store configuration data including equipment data such as a list of equipment units in the plant and equipment hierarchy, administrative information related to various areas of the plant, association of equipment units with plant areas, hierarchical breakdown of equipment, field device data such as location data for each field device, association of field devices with pieces of equipment, and other configuration data. also, it will be noted that the database 12 may be a separate server or a group of servers or, if the process plant control monitoring network 10 is sufficiently small, the database 12 may be implemented simply as a dedicated process servicing part of the file system of the one of the workstations 14. importantly, the system 10 may store both current and historical process variable values collected from the field devices 15-22 or process variable data generated by the graphic display application 30 within the database 12 for use in generating and in displaying graphic trend symbols to the operator, for instance. in general, an operator may run or execute the graphic display application 30 to implement and to display graphic trend symbols within a graphical representation of the process plant during operation or in a simulation environment. the graphic display application 30 may retrieve or receive process variable information from the database 12 for a particular process variable to generate process variable data and process variable trend data. the graphic display application may use these process variable data and process variable trend data in generating the graphic trend symbol and displaying within the graphical representation of the process plant. as illustrated in fig. 2 , for example, the graphic display application 30 presents, to the operator, an exemplary screen shot 50 that includes a graphical representation of a plant component, in this case a crude unit 53, displayed within a viewport 52 and a navigation pane 54. the displayed crude unit graphical representation 53 depicts only a portion of the overall graphical representation of the process plant (i.e., the entire p&id) and specifically only depicts the equipment included within a crude unit (e.g., labeled, "crude unit 1") of the process plant. as seen in fig. 2 , the graphic display application may display the crude unit graphical representation 53 to include a spatially realistic layout (e.g., a p&id) of the crude unit in the plant that includes graphically realistic depictions of equipment, such as a heater 56, a distillation tower 58, a desalter 60, etc, that compose the crude unit. the graphic display application may display each piece of displayed equipment to include a realistic depiction of the piece of equipment, identifier labels, and any pipes, connections, etc. that may couple the piece of equipment to other pieces of equipment or other inflow/outflow sources, such as fuel oil, fuel gas, water sources, etc. for example, the heater 56 includes a realistic depiction of the heater and an identifier label "h-138" while indicating inputs and outputs associated with the heater 56, such as an inlet for a steam pipe 57, an inlet for a fuel oil pipe 59, an inlet for a fuel oil pipe 63, and an outlet for a crude pipe 65. the graphic display application may display the graphical representation of the crude unit 53 within the viewport 52 to also include specific or critical process variable information for each piece of equipment. for example, as shown in fig. 2 , the graphic display application 30 displays process variable data for several process variables associated with the heater 56, such as inlet pressure, outlet pressure, and crude temperature (discussed in more detailed below). the navigation pane 54, as shown in fig. 2 , allows the operator to efficiently navigate to graphic trend symbols within the graphical representation of the entire process plant 61, or other process plants, while providing the operator context within a hierarchical framework or structure that reflects the actual hierarchical structure of the process plant. in particular, the navigation pane 54 may allow the operator to quickly recognize the area or the portion of the process plant that is currently displayed within the viewport 52 in context or in relation to the overall representation of the process plant 61. furthermore, the navigation pane 54 may clearly provide some or all possible location navigation options to the operator for efficiently navigating to a different area of the representation of the process plant regardless of the hierarchical level of the different area of the representation of the process plant. advantageously, the graphic display application 30 may constantly and consistently display the navigation pane 54 in the same position relative to the viewport 52 within the screen shot 50 to provide predictable and efficient navigation within the representation of the process plant to the operator. in fig. 2 , the navigation pane 54 may represent a process plant 61 and the associated units and equipment with the process plant 61 in the hierarchical structure of the process plant 61. in particular, the navigation pane 54 includes a unit selection area 62 that includes one or more unit selector icons 66, 68, 70 that, in this example, are labeled "crude unit 1," "crude unit 2," and "crude unit 3," respectively. the navigation pane 54 may also include an equipment selection area 64 that may include one or more equipment selector icons 72-82 that correspond to specific pieces of equipment in the actual plant. in response to receiving a selection of one of the unit selector icons, such as the "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66 for instance, the graphic display application 30 may populate one or more equipment selector icons 72-82 in the equipment selection area 64 that correspond to the one or more pieces of equipment associated or included within the selected unit. for example, as shown in fig. 2 , the graphic display application 30 displays all equipment associated with the selected "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66, which includes a "desalter" equipment selector icon 72, a "storage tanks" equipment selector icon 74, a "tower" equipment selector icon 76, an "overhead rcvr" equipment selector icon 80, and a "heater" equipment selector icon 82. of course, the navigation pane 54 of the process control monitoring system 10 may include any number of hierarchical levels and selection areas and is not limited to two hierarchical levels that include units and equipment. likewise, in response to receiving a selection of the "crude unit 2" unit selector icon 68 for example, the graphic display application 30 populates the equipment selection area 64 with equipment selector icons (not shown) associated with or included within the newly selected unit. as an example, fig. 2a illustrates an example navigation pane 2600 associated with at least a portion of a process control system (e.g., the example process control system 10 of fig. 1 ). the example navigation pane 2600 includes multiple navigation buttons 2602, 2604, 2606, 2608, 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 grouped or arranged in separate columns 2620, 2622, 2624. each navigation button 2602, 2604, 2606, 2608, 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 corresponds to a particular component (e.g., a plant, an area, a unit, an equipment module, a control module, etc.) in the process control system. each column 2620, 2622, 2624 corresponds to a different level in a hierarchy of components of the process control system and, therefore, contains the navigation buttons 2602, 2604, 2606, 2608, 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 associated with components corresponding to the hierarchy level of each column 2620, 2622, 2624. in the illustrated example, higher or upper levels of components (e.g., parent components) are towards the left and lower levels (e.g., child components or subcomponents) are towards the right. for instance, in the illustrated example of fig. 2a , the left-hand column 2620 corresponds to the plant level of a hierarchy of the process control system and includes a single navigation button 2602 labeled as "texas plant" that corresponds to a single plant in the process control system. the next level down in the hierarchy (corresponding to the middle column 2622) of the illustrated example is the unit level, which contains the navigation buttons 2604, 2606, 2608 respectively labeled as "crude unit 1," "crude unit 2," and "crude unit 3" that correspond to three process units within the plant of the process control system. the next level down in the example hierarchy (and bottom level represented in the example navigation pane 2600 in column 2624) is the equipment module level, which contains the navigation buttons 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 respectively labeled as "storage tanks," "desalter," "heater," "tower," and "overhead receiver" that correspond to five process modules of the process control system. in some examples, the navigation pane 2600 may contain more columns to represent other levels within the process control system hierarchy (e.g., equipment module levels and/or control module levels). in the illustrated example, each column 2620, 2622, 2624 in the illustrated example corresponds to a single branch of child components associated with a common parent component in the hierarchy. that is, the navigation buttons associated with lower levels in the hierarchy that are shown in the example navigation pane 2600 correspond to components that are a subset of components contained within one of the components represented by one of the navigation buttons in the level immediately above the corresponding lower level. for example, the navigation buttons 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 in the right-hand level column 2624 may correspond to process modules that are all associated with the same process unit within the process control system (e.g., the first crude process unit associated with the navigation button 2604 in the middle column 2622). similarly, each of the three navigation buttons 2604, 2606, 2608 in the middle column 2622 may correspond to process units that are all associated with the same plant (e.g., the plant associated with the navigation button 2602 in the left-hand column 2620). thus, while the crude process units associated with the navigation buttons 2606, 2608 may have multiple sub-components (e.g., multiple equipment and/or control modules), these are not represented by navigation buttons in the navigation pane 2600 shown in fig. 2a because they are within branches of the hierarchy other than the one shown. in the illustrated example, the particular branch of each level of the hierarchy that is displayed in the navigation pane 2600 at any given time may be based on a current view (e.g., a current process diagram 304 in the p&id display area 302) of the process control system. for example, if the heater module associated with the navigation button 2614) of the first crude process unit associated with the navigation button 2604) is currently being viewed, all the navigation buttons in the branches from the top level (e.g., the plant associated with the navigation button 2602) down to the level associated with the heater module are displayed. as shown in the illustrated example, the sibling components (e.g., components that directly branch from the same parent component one level up the hierarchy) at each level of the hierarchy are also displayed. in some examples, the navigation button corresponding to the specific component currently being viewed (e.g., via the p&id display area 302) is graphically distinguished from the other navigation buttons. for example, as shown in fig. 2a , when an operator is viewing a p&id for the heater module of the first unit of the plant, the navigation button 2614 corresponding to the heater module has a unique visual characteristic (e.g., different pattern) to distinguish it from the remaining navigation buttons. although the illustrated example shows the navigation button 2614 having a unique pattern, any other visually distinctive characteristic may alternatively be used (e.g., shading, color, shape, size, outline, orientation, symbol, notation, bordering, flashing, highlighting, etc.). additionally or alternatively, each navigation button in a direct path or line from a top level of the hierarchy (e.g., a plant) down to the particular component (e.g., area, unit, module, etc.) being viewed is graphically altered to be distinguishable from the other navigation buttons. for example, the navigation buttons 2602, 2604, 2614 include a thick border; however, any other visually identifiable characteristic may alternatively be used. in this manner, operators may quickly determine what they are viewing and how it relates to other components within the process control system and the other navigation buttons within the navigation pane 2600. preferably, the graphic display application 30 may indicate the selection of a unit selector icon 66-70 of fig. 2 by shading the selected unit selector icon (e.g., "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66), for instance, and the background of the equipment selection area 64, as shown in fig. 2 , to indicate that the equipment selector icons 72-82 are associated with the selected unit selector icon 66. similarly, fig. 2b illustrates another example navigation pane 2700 associated with the same portion of the example process control system represented in the example navigation pane 2600 of fig. 2a . the example navigation pane 2700 is similar to the example navigation pane 2600 except that each branch in the hierarchy, including the plant associated with the navigation button 2602) is placed within a separate tab 2702, 2704, 2706, 2708. accordingly, in the illustrated example, the tabs 2702, 2704, 2706, 2708 associated with each component in the direct line of the hierarchy are brought to a front view and highlighted with a bold outline and/or otherwise graphically identified. the navigation button in fig. 2b associated with the current view (e.g., the graphical representation 53) of the viewport 52 (e.g., the navigation button 2614 associated with the heater module) is visually distinguished (e.g., via shading, color, pattern, highlighting, outlining, flashing, etc.). in this manner, an operator can visually identify the context of the current view displayed in the viewport 52 relative to the rest of the process control system. additionally, the outline of the tabs 2702, 2708 serve to graphically represent that each of the three crude process units (represented by the navigation buttons 2604, 2606, 2608) are subcomponents within the plant (represented by the navigation button 2602) and that each of the five process modules (represented by the navigation buttons 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618) are subcomponents within the first crude process unit (represented by the navigation button 2604). fig. 2c illustrates another example navigation pane 2800 associated with the same portion of the example process control system of figs. 2 , 2a , and/or 2b. however, unlike the other example navigation panes, the example navigation pane 2800 includes a top banner 2802 with a title 2804 identifying the top level of the process control system represented in the navigation pane (e.g., the texas plant). as such, in the illustrated example of fig. 2c , a left-hand column 2806 corresponds to the unit level of the hierarchy and contains the navigation buttons 2604, 2606, 2608 and a middle column 2808 corresponds to the area level of the hierarchy and contains the navigation buttons 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618. a right-hand column 2810 of the example navigation pane 2800 includes navigation buttons 2812, 2814, 2816 corresponding to components in the next level down the hierarchy (e.g., equipment and/or control modules). in some examples, each column 2806, 2808, 2810 may have an adjustable width to account for more or less components associated with the corresponding level of the hierarchy. additionally or alternatively, the columns 2806, 2808, 2810 may contain more navigation buttons than are shown at any one time but may be viewed by using a corresponding scroll bar 2818. the example navigation pane 2800 is similar or identical to the example navigation pane 54 of fig. 2 except that the navigation pane 2800 shows additional detail and corresponds to the heater module displayed via the viewport 52 rather than the graphical representation of the crude process unit 53 being displayed via the viewport 52 as shown in fig. 2 . in the illustrated example, the lower level components contained within a particular higher level component represented in the example navigation pane 2800 are identified by a marker 2820 (e.g., a triangle or arrow) located next to each higher level navigation button corresponding to the direct line of components in the hierarchy pointing down to the navigation button associated with the currently viewed component. for example, the marker 2820 next to the navigation button 2604 indicates that all the navigation buttons displayed in the lower levels (e.g., the navigation buttons 2610, 2612, 2614, 2616, 2618 in the column 2808 and the navigation buttons 2812, 2814, 2816 in the column 2810) correspond to subcomponents within the first crude process unit of the process control system (i.e., the upper component associated with the navigation button 2604). similarly, the marker 2820 next to the navigation button 2614 indicates that the navigation buttons 2812, 2814, 2816 correspond to components within the heater module (i.e., the upper component associated with the navigation button 2614). additionally or alternatively, the direct path of components from the top level of the hierarchy down to the currently viewed component may also be indicated by altering the appearance of the corresponding navigation button(s) along the direct path (e.g., by changing the shading, color, pattern, brightness, outline, etc. of the corresponding navigation button(s) similar to what was described above in connection with fig. 2a ). furthermore, as with figs. 2a and 2b , the navigation button in fig. 2c associated with the current view (e.g., the graphical representation 53) of the viewport 52 (e.g., the navigation button 2614 associated with the heater module) is visually distinguished (e.g., via a unique shading, pattern, color, shape, size, outline, orientation, symbol, notation, flashing, highlighting, etc.) of course any suitable manner of indicating that the equipment selector icons 72-82 and the equipment selection area 54 are associated with the selected unit selector icon 66 may be employed, such as displaying an identical symbolic indicator (e.g., an asterisk in the upper corner of the selector icon, etc.) in each equipment selector icon displayed in the selected unit selector icon (not shown), etc. as will be described in greater detail below, selecting (e.g., via a mouse click) anyone of the navigation buttons may change the current view (e.g., the graphical representation 53 in the viewport 52) of the process control system to correspond to the component selected. in this manner, in addition to providing contextual awareness to operators regarding the current view relative to other components as well as the alarm state of the components, the example navigation pane 2800 enables an operator to quickly navigate to any component in the process control system and bring up the corresponding p&id and/or other information for further analysis. in other examples, selecting (e.g., via a mouse click) one of the navigation buttons may not immediately change the process diagram 304 to the selected component but merely give a preview of the selected component within the navigation pane. for example, an operator may be viewing the example navigation pane 2800 as shown in fig. 2c and want to know the source of the single alarm indicated in the alarm summary icon 2626 of the navigation button 2608 corresponding to the third crude process unit of the process control system. to do so, an operator may select the navigation button 2608 in the left-hand column 2806 to then update the remaining columns 2808, 2810 to show navigation buttons associated with the subcomponents of the third crude process unit as indicated in fig. 2d . that is, upon selecting the navigation button 2608 in the example navigation pane 2800 of fig. 2c , the marker 2820 is displayed next to the navigation button 2608 to indicate that the middle column 2808 has been repopulated with new navigation buttons 2902, 2904, 2906, 2908, 2910 corresponding to the components within the third crude process unit of the process control system. then, upon selecting the navigation button 2904 (indicated as the source or location of the alarm based on the alarm summary icon 2626), the right-hand column will be populated with navigation buttons 2912, 2914, 2916 and another marker 2820 will be displayed next to the navigation button 2904 to indicate that the navigation buttons 2912, 2914, 2916 in the third column 2810 correspond to subcomponents within the desalter module represented by the navigation button 2904. although the content of the columns 2806, 2808, 2810 between the example navigation pane 2800 shown in figs. 2c and 2d is different, in some examples, the navigation pane 2800 of fig. 2d is a preview of the desalter module of the third crude process unit such that the p&id of the heater module of the first crude process unit will remain on display in the graphical representation 53. in some examples, navigating to a preview display in the navigation pane 2800 may be accomplished by selecting the corresponding navigation buttons in a first manner (e.g., a single mouse click) and actually navigating to a new portion of the process plant (e.g., with a different graphical representation 53) may be accomplished by selecting the corresponding navigation button in a second, different manner (e.g., a double mouse click). as described above, the markers 2820 next to the navigation buttons 2608, 2904 of fig. 2d and/or the distinctive appearance (e.g., based on shading, color, pattern, border, notation, etc.) of the navigation buttons 2608, 2904 of fig. 2d indicate the relationship of the navigation buttons in each column 2806, 2808, 2810 (e.g., the branches and/or paths of the hierarchy) that are currently being displayed. however, when a preview navigation pane is shown (e.g., the navigation pane 2800 of fig. 2d ), the navigation button corresponding to the particular component actually being displayed in the graphical representation 53 may be hidden (e.g., the navigation button 2614 of fig. 2c ). accordingly, as shown in the example navigation pane 2800 of fig. 2d , a separate marker 2918 may be shown next to the navigation button corresponding to the branch of the hierarchy of the process control system associated with the currently viewed component in the graphical representation 53. additionally, the marker 2918 may be different in appearance (e.g., based on color, pattern, outline, shape, notation, etc.) than the markers 2820 described above to distinguish the purposes of the markers 2820, 2918. in some examples, the unique visual characteristic of the marker 2918 may correspond to the visually distinguishing feature (e.g., color, pattern, shading, highlight, border, etc.) of the navigation button associated with the component corresponding to the graphical representation 53 (e.g., the navigation button 2614 of fig. 2c ). as shown in figs. 2c and 2d , the top banner 2802 includes a p&id display button 2826 that returns the example navigation pane 2800 to show the navigation buttons associated with the component in the process control system currently being displayed via the graphical representation 53. for instance, if an operator were to select (e.g., mouse click) the p&id display button 2826 after navigating to the preview navigation pane 2800 shown in fig. 2d , the navigation pane 2800 would return to the view shown in navigation pane 2800 of fig. 2c corresponding to the heater module that is currently being displayed in the p&id display area 302. in some examples, the top banner 2802 may also include a back button 2828 and a forward button 2830 to browse back and forth between different views that an operator has navigated through while using the navigation pane 2800. additionally or alternatively, the top banner 2802 also includes a previous alarm button 2832 and a next alarm button 2834 to skip back and forth between pages (e.g., graphical representations 53 of the process plant within the viewport 52) that are associated with at least one process variable currently in an alarm state. furthermore, the top banner 2802 may include an alarm filter button 2836 to reconfigure the navigation pane 2800 to only show navigation buttons associated with components that include at least one process variable under an alarm state and/or to filter the navigation pane 2800 to only show navigation buttons associated with high-criticality alarms. additionally or alternatively, a separate sort button may be provided to sort and/or filter the navigation buttons in other manners (e.g., sort by alphabetical order, engineered order, order of severity, etc.). referring now to fig. 3 , the screen shot 55 displays a detailed view of the navigation pane 54 that may further include process variable alarm indicators 84-98 or badges that indicate different types of alarms occurring for process variables that are associated with the displayed equipment selector icons 72-82, unit selector icons 66-70, and the plant 61. for example, the alarm indicator 84 associated with the "storage tanks" equipment selector icon 74 is low priority alarm that indicates a less urgent state condition for a particular process variable associated with the storage tanks in the process plant. because the alarm indicator 84 associated with the "storage tanks" equipment selector icon 74 is associated with lower priority alarm, the graphic display application 30 may display the alarm indicator 84 with a particular color, shading, symbol indicator, or any other suitable manner to indicate a lower priority alarm. however, if an alarm indicator is associated with a higher priority alarm, such as an alarm indicator 90 associated with the "heater" equipment selector icon 82, the graphic display application 30 may display the alarm indicator 90 in a color, shading, symbol indicator, etc. different from the lower priority alarm. moreover, one selector icon 66-82 may indicate both a lower priority alarm and a higher priority alarm for two or more process variables associated with the particular selector icon. for example, as shown in fig. 3 , the graphic display application 30 displays one lower priority alarm 88 and one higher priority alarm 90 that are associated with the "heater" equipment selector icon 82. of course, any number of priority alarm levels may be used with the alarm indicators 84-98. advantageously, the graphic display application 30 associates each process variable alarm with a corresponding graphic trend symbol located within the graphical representation of the process plant and may aggregate each process variable alarm by alarm level priority and by hierarchical level or portion within the process plant corresponding to the location of the graphic trend symbol. for example, as shown in fig. 3 , the graphic display application 30 aggregates the three lower priority alarms 84-88 (e.g., the lower priority alarm 84 associated with the "storage tanks" equipment selector icon 74, the lower priority alarm 86 associated with the "desalter" equipment selector icon 72, and the lower priority alarm 88 associated with the "heater" equipment selector icon 82) and labels the lower priority alarm indicator 92 associated with the "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66 with a "3" to indicate to the operator that three lower priority alarms associated with three process variables (and corresponding graphic trend symbols) are currently occurring in the "crude unit 1" unit. likewise, for example, the graphic display application 30 may aggregate the higher priority alarms for each higher hierarchical level in the process plant. for instance, the only one higher priority alarm associated with any of the equipment selector icons 72, 74, 82 associated with the "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66 is the higher priority alarm 90 associated with the "heater" equipment selector icon 82. the graphic display application 30 displays this one higher priority alarm indicator 90 associated with the "heater" equipment selector icon 82 by labeling the higher priority alarm indicator 94 associated with the "crude unit 1" unit selector icon 66 with a "1" to indicate to the operator that only one higher priority alarm associated with one process variable is occurring in the "crude unit 1" unit. as a result, the operator may quickly identify the number of and priority level of process variable alarms for a particular plant, unit, piece of equipment, etc. via the aggregate alarm indicators for different hierarchical entities represented within the navigation pane 54. the graphic display application 30 allows the operator to quickly navigate to a particular graphic trend symbol within a portion or area of the graphical representation of the process plant by using the selector icons of the navigation pane and visually associating the portion or area of the graphical representation. referring now to a screen shot 100 of fig. 4 , for instance, the graphic display application 30 additionally may allow the operator to visually identify, within the p&id, a particular unit, piece of equipment, etc. that is associated with an indicated selector icon within the navigation pane 54. for instance, in response to detecting an operator-initiated hover event (e.g., a mouse, finger contact point, or any other suitable way to indicate a selector icon without confirming a selection) near or over the "heater" equipment selector icon 82 of the navigation pane 54, the graphic display application 30 only highlights the corresponding graphical depiction of the heater 56 in the crude unit graphical representation 53 within the viewport 52. the graphic display application 30 may additionally highlight the "heater" equipment selector icon 82 within the navigation pane 54 in conjunction with highlighting the graphical depiction of the heater 56 to further provide context to the operator by visually conveying, via the navigation pane 54, the hierarchical position of the heater within the hierarchical structure of the process plant. the graphic display application 30 may highlight the equipment selector icon 82 and the graphical depiction of the heater 56, for instance, using a highlighted border 104, 102, as shown in fig. 4 , or in alternative, may entirely shade the equipment selector icon 82 and graphical depiction 56 with a color different from other colors appearing in the graphical representation of the crude unit 53, or may use any other suitable means to highlight the equipment selector icon 82 and graphical depiction 56 of the heater. thus, if the operator performed a hover event near or on another equipment selector icon in the equipment selection area 64 (i.e., equipment included in or situated a hierarchical level below the "crude unit 1" area of the process plant), the graphic display application 30 highlights the corresponding graphical depiction within the graphical representation of the crude unit 53 within the viewport 52. in this manner, the operator may quickly identify the location of a particular graphic trend symbol (or a piece of equipment that includes the particular graphic trend symbol) within the graphical representation while maintaining context relative to the overall process plant via hovering over various selector icons on the navigation pane. moreover, in response to determining the location of the particular graphic trend symbol, the operator may desire to see a more detailed view of the location or area of the particular graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation. advantageously, the operator may confirm a selection of a selector icon associated with the desired area to reposition or to change the detail level (e.g., zoom in, zoom out, etc.) of the portion of the graphical representation of the process plant that is display within the viewport. for example, upon receiving a confirmation selection, via a command or control input, click, tapping gesture, etc., of one of the unit selector icons 66-70 or equipment selector icons 72-82, the graphic display application 30 may display a different portion of the graphical representation of the process plant 61 that is associated with the selected selector icon. for example, in response to a confirmation selection of the "heater" equipment selector icon 82, the graphic display application 30 may display a graphical representation of the heater 112, as shown in fig. 5 , that is associated with the selected "heater" equipment selector icon 82. with continued reference to fig. 5 , a screen shot 110 includes the graphical representation of the heater 112 that is associated with the confirmation selected "heater" equipment selector icon 82 displayed within the viewport 52, the navigation pane 54, a process variable summary pane 130, and a process variable expanded pane with historical graphs 150. in this example, this graphical representation of the heater 112 of fig. 5 is a subset of the graphical representation of the crude unit 53 and additionally provides more detailed information of the heater than provided in the graphical representation of the crude unit. importantly, the operator may efficiently monitor the current trend and values for each process variable via each corresponding displayed graphic trend symbol within a portion of the graphical representation of the process plant. moreover, the graphic display application 30 displays each graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within the graphical representation of the process plant so that the operator may quickly recognize the location of a field device associated with a particular process variable in relation to the entire process plant. for example, the graphical representation of the heater 112 may include a more detailed view of the inlets 57, 59, 63 into and outlet 65 from the heater 56, valves 114, nearby pieces of equipment to the heater 56 (e.g., the desalter 60), process variable data 116, and graphic trend symbols 118-122. each graphic trend symbol 118-122 may correspond to a monitored process variable in the process control system and visually represent real-time information about the process variable. moreover, in addition to the graphic trend symbols 118-122 displayed in the graphical depiction of the heater 112, for example, the graphic display application 30 may also display a summary view of the corresponding graphic trend symbols 128-132 in the summary pane 130, a detailed view of the corresponding graphic trend symbols in a detailed pane (described below), and/or the expanded view of the corresponding graphic trend symbols 151-152, including historical graphics for example, in the expanded pane 150. referring now to fig. 6 , an exemplary graphic trend symbol 160 graphically encapsulates process control information related to a process variable and visually conveys this graphically encoded information to the operator. for example, the graphic trend symbol 160 may represent a pressure, a temperature, etc. of process variable associated with a field device and may include various graphic elements 162-170, each representing a different attribute of the process variable and a desired value 172 (e.g., a setpoint, a target point, etc.) that indicates a normal or intended value for the process variable. the graphic elements 162-170, for instance, may include both graphic trend elements 166-170 that represent trends of the process variable and graphic value elements 162, 164 that represent current values of the process variable. these process variable attributes may include, for instance, a magnitude of the process variable from the desired value (e..g, a setpoint value), a position of the process variable relative to the desired value, a direction of change of the process variable, a rate of change of the process variable, a change desirability of the process variable, etc. the graphic display application 30 may implement these graphic elements 162-170 associated with the process variable attributes in retrieving or receiving the current and historical process variable values from the database 12 for a particular process variable to generate process variable data and process variable trend data. the graphic display application 30 generates process variable data to indicate the current values or positions of the process variable, such as a magnitude of the process variable from a desired value, a position of the process variable relative to the desired value, etc. likewise, the graphic display application 30 generates process variable trend data to indicate the current trend of the process variable, such as a rate of change of the process variable, a direction of change of the process variable, a change desirability of the process variable, etc. the graphic display application 30 may utilize process variable current and/or historical updates to generate and to display each graphic element that together form the graphic trend symbol. for example, the graphic trend symbol 160, as illustrated in fig. 6 , includes a magnitude graphic value element 162 that is associated a magnitude of the process variable from the desired value, a position graphic value element 164 that is associated with the position of the process variable relative to the desired value, a direction of change graphic trend element 166 that is associated with a direction of change of the process variable, a rate of change graphic trend element 168 that is associated with a rate of change of the process variable, and a change desirability graphic trend element 170 that is associated with the change desirability of the process variable. of course, any number or type of process variable attributes may be used in implementing the graphic trend symbol 160. moreover, the graphic display application 30 may display the layout of the graphic elements 162-170 and desired value 172 in any arrangement. preferably, none of the graphic elements may occlude any other graphic element so that any number of possible combinations of graphic elements may be implemented and displayed to the operator. the magnitude graphic value element 162, as shown in fig. 6 , may be depicted as a bar, a column, a line, etc. and graphically represents the magnitude of the process variable from the desired value 172 in a relative manner such that a depiction of a longer bar, for instance, indicates a greater magnitude in the current value of the process variable. for example, the graphic display application 30 may retrieve a current value of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol from the database 12 and generate the magnitude graphic value element 162 based on the current raw value. of course, the graphical display application 30 may determine or generate the magnitude graphic trend element 162 in any suitable manner. the graphic display application 30 may generate a normalized value using a normalized scale that reflects a ratio of the current raw value of the magnitude to a maximum value of the process variable that the field device is physically capable of reading or to a maximum value that is an operator-imposed limit, ceiling, etc. of the process variable (e.g., when the current value is at the maximum value of the process variable, the magnitude graphic value element 162 may reflect a 100% ratio level). in another example, the graphic display application 30 may fix the desired value 172 (e.g., the setpoint) at a 50% ratio level and adjust the current value of the process variable relative to this 50% desired value 172 ratio level. as another example, if the magnitude value for one magnitude graphic value element 162 is twice as large as the magnitude value of another magnitude graphic value element 162, then the graphic display application 30 may depict the bar of the first magnitude graphic value element 162 twice as long as the bar of the second magnitude graphic value element 162. alternatively, the graphic display application 30 may display the bar of the first magnitude graphic value element 162 relatively longer than the second magnitude graphic value element 162. referring now to fig. 7 , an example the various bar lengths for the magnitude graphic value element 162 is found in a process variable attribute chart 200 that includes various examples of process variable attributes arrangement by row. the first row includes three different values of the graphic trend symbol 160 for three different magnitude values of the process variable. as shown in fig. 7 , for example, the value of the magnitude graphic value element 202 represents a relatively smaller magnitude value (i.e., closer to the desired value 172) than the value of the magnitude graphic value elements 204, 206. likewise, the value of the magnitude graphic value element 204 represents a relatively smaller magnitude value than the value of the magnitude graphic value element 206, but larger than the value of the magnitude graphic value element 202. the value of the magnitude graphic value element 206 represents a magnitude value that is relatively further away from the desired value 172 compared to the other two values of the magnitude graphic value element 202, 204. if the magnitude value is greater than a certain threshold for example, the graphic display application 30 may trigger a process variable alarm within the process system and incorporate the triggered process variable alarm in determining the counts displayed within the process variable alarm indicators 84-98 as shown in fig. 3 . additionally, the graphic display application 30 may compare the value of the magnitude value to two different thresholds to determine a lower priority alarm and a higher priority alarm, such as described above in reference to the process variable alarm indicators 84-98. referring back to fig. 6 , the position graphic value element 164 may be depicted as the position or the location of the magnitude bar, namely whether the magnitude bar of the magnitude graphic value element 164 is above, below, or at the desired value 172. for example, the graphic display application 30 may retrieve a current value of the process variable and desired value 172 associated with the graphic trend symbol from the database 12 and generate the position graphic value element 162 based on the current raw value in relation to the desired value 172. of course, the graphical display application 30 may determine or generate the position graphic trend element 164 in any suitable manner. in the graphic trend symbol 160 of fig. 6 , the value of the position graphic value element 164 is displayed above the desired value 172 indicating that the current process variable value is above the desired value 172. as an example as shown in the second row of chart 200 of fig. 7 , the graphic display application 30 may position and display the value of the position graphic value element 208 above the desired value 172 to indicate that the current process variable value is above the desired value 172 when implementing the graphic trend symbol 160. alternatively, the graphic display application 30 may position and display the value of the position graphic value element 210 below the desired value 172 to indicate that the current process variable value is below the desired value 172. additionally, when the current process variable value is identical or substantially close to the desired value 172, the graphic display application 30 may display only the desired value 172. referring back to fig. 6 , the direction of change graphic trend element 166 may be depicted, for example, as two flanking triangles that point toward the direction of change of the process variable. of course, the graphic display application 30 may create the direction of change graphic trend element 166 using any other shapes, arrows, repetitive animations, graphical indications, or any other suitable manner of indicating the rate of change of a process variable. for example, the graphic display application 30 may retrieve a current and one or more historical values of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol from the database 12 and generate the direction of change graphic value element 166 based on the difference between the current raw value and at least one historical raw value. of course, the graphical display application 30 may determine or generate the direction of change graphic trend element 166 in any suitable manner. the direction of change graphic trend element 166 may indicate one of a plurality of direction of change categories, in which each direction of change category is associated with a direction of change value that may include a direction toward the desired value 172, a direction away from the desired value 172, or no movement relative to the desired value 172. as an example, the direction of change graphic trend element 166 of fig. 6 indicates that the process variable is moving away from the desired value 172 because process variable magnitude is increasing while the process variable position is above the desired value 172. referring to fig. 7 , in the third row of the chart 200 includes several examples of this direction of change attribute via the different direction of change graph trend elements 214-218. for instance, the value of the direction of change graphic trend element 214 indicates that the direction of change of the process variable is away from the desired value 172 (thus is getting worse) because the process variable is increasing and the position of the process variable is above the desired value 172. alternatively, the value of the direction of change graphic trend element 218 indicates that the direction of change of the process variable is toward the desired value 172 (thus is getting better) because the process variable is decreasing and the position of the process variable is above the desire value 172. an additional example includes the value of direction of change graphic trend element 216 that indicates that the direction of change of the process variable is stationary regardless of the position of the process variable being above or below the desired value 172 (thus not getting better or worse.) referring back to fig. 6 , the rate of change graphic trend element 168 may be depicted, for example, as two marks protruding from the graph trend symbol 160. of course, the graphic display application 30 may create the rate of change graphic trend element 168 using any other shapes, arrows, repetitive or flashing animations, graphical indications, or any other suitable manner of indicating the rate of change of a process variable value. for example, the graphic display application 30 may retrieve a current and one or more historical values of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol from the database 12 and generate the rate of change graphic value element 168 based on the difference between the current raw value and at least one historical raw value and a time lapse. of course, the graphical display application 30 may determine or generate the rate of change graphic trend element 168 in any suitable manner. the rate of change graphic trend element 168 may indicate one of a plurality of rate of change categories, in which each rate of change category is associated with a specific rate of change value or a range of rate of change values. as an example, the rate of change graphic trend element 168 of fig. 6 indicates that the process variable is relatively quickly changing because of the two protruding marks. referring now to fig. 7 , the fourth row of the chart 200 presents several examples of values, categories, etc. of this rate of change attribute as shown in different rate of change graph trend elements 220-224. for instance, a value of the rate of change graphic trend element 220 indicates that the rate of change of the process variable is stationary absolutely or relatively from the desired value 172. alternatively, the graphic display application 30 may generate a value of the direction of change graphic trend element 222 to indicate that the rate of change of the process variable is slow, again, absolutely or relative to the desired value 172 or other rate of change values or other values of rate of change graphic trend elements 220, 224. as an additional example, the graphic display application 30 may implement a value of rate of change graphic trend element 224 to indicate that the rate of change of the process variable is quick relative to the other values of rate of change graphic trend elements 220, 222. when the value of rate of change is measured absolutely, a value of rate of change may be associated with a particular rate of change category via associating the value of rate of change with a particular range or using various thresholds to determine the change category. referring back to fig. 6 , the change desirability graphic trend element 170 may be depicted, for example, as displaying portions of the graphic trend symbol 160, such as the outline of the direction of change graphic trend element 166 and the rate of change graphic trend element 168, in bold with a thicker line. of course, the graphic display application 30 may create the change desirability graphic trend element 170 using any other shapes, arrows, repetitive or flashing animations, graphical indications, or any other suitable manner of indicating the presence of the change desirability of a process variable. for example, the graphic display application 30 may retrieve a current and one or more historical values of the process variable associated with the graphic trend symbol from the database 12 and generate the direction change desirability graphic value element 170 based on the difference between the current raw value and at least one historical raw value. in particular, the graphic display application 30 may use the other graphic elements 162-168 in determining the change desirability graphic trend element 170. of course, the graphical display application 30 may determine or generate the change desirability graphic trend element 170 in any suitable manner. the change desirability graphic trend element 170 may indicate one of a plurality of change desirability categories, in which each change desirability category is associated with an improving process variable state condition, a worsening process variable state condition, or a maintaining process variable state condition. as an example, the change desirability graphic trend element 170 of fig. 6 indicates that the process variable state condition is worsening (e.g., portions of graphic trend symbol 160 are in bold) because process variable magnitude is increasing (i.e., the direction of change of the process variable is moving away from the desired value) while the process variable position is above the desired value 172. as shown in fig. 7 , the fifth row of the chart 200 includes several examples of values, categories, etc. of this change desirability attribute as shown in different change desirability graph trend elements 226-230. in particular, the graphic display application 30 may implement a particular value of the change desirability attribute within a display graphic trend symbol to indicate to the operator whether the condition, the state, the trend, etc. of the process variable is improving, worsening, or maintaining. for instance, a value of the change desirability graphic trend element 226 indicates that the change desirability of the process variable is improving because the process variable is decreasing (i.e., the direction of change of the process variable is moving toward the desired value) and the position of the process variable is above the desired value 172. alternatively, a value of the direction of change graphic trend element 228 indicates that the change desirability of the process variable is worsening because the process variable is increasing and the position of the process variable is above the desire value 172. an additional example includes a value of change desirability graphic trend element 230 that indicates that the change desirability of the process variable is maintained because the rate of change of the process variable is not increasing or decreasing regardless of the position of the process variable being above or below the desired value 172. after the graphic trend symbol 160 is generated, the graphic display application 30 may preferably display the graphic trend symbol 160 within the graphic depiction of the heater 112, as shown in fig. 5 , and on in the summary pane 130 as discussed above. as an alternative technique to the graphic trend symbol implementation of figs. 6 and 7 , the graphic trend symbol be may implemented using various graphics to represent different states of a process variable as discussed below. for instance, fig. 7a illustrates example icons 402, 404, 406 to indicate conditions, characteristics, trends, and/or other information associated with a process variable of a process control system (e.g., the example process control system 10 of fig. 1 .) specifically, in the illustrated example of fig. 7a , the characteristics and/or conditions emphasized by the icons 402, 404, 406 include a current state of a process variable, a projected state of the process variable, and a corresponding trend (e.g., direction) of the process variable, which are represented by the shape, orientation, and notations on the icons 402, 404, 406 in the illustrated example. for example, the icon 402 is triangular in shape with a peak 408 pointing upwards to visually indicate an upward trend of the process variable. by comparison, the icon 406 is also triangular in shape but with a peak 410 pointing downwards to visually indicate a downward trend of the process variable. the characteristic of the shapes of icons described herein to indicate a direction or trend of corresponding process variables is referred to herein as the trend identifying shape of the icons. additionally, the icons 402, 406 each contain two sections: (1) a current state section 412 that is opposite the peaks 408, 410 to visually indicate the current state of the process variable and (2) a projected state section 414 that is adjacent the peaks 408, 410 to visually indicate the projected state of the process variable. the icon 404 of fig. 7a is in a generally diamond or rhombus shape (or any other suitable shape) to be distinguishable from the triangular shapes of the icons 402, 406 to visually indicate that the process variable is maintaining its present state (e.g., there is no trend upwards or downwards). the current state sections 412 and the projected state sections 414 of the icons 402, 404 are positioned in a stacked manner corresponding to the direction the process variable is trending (e.g., the direction the peaks 408, 410 are pointing). as used herein, the term "state" of a process variable corresponds to the operating state of the variable with respect to its set point and/or any alarm limits. for example, if a process variable is operating within allowable limits, the "state" of the process variable would be normal or as expected or as desired. however, if the process variable has exceeded a high alarm limit, then the state of the process variable would be a high alarm state. similarly, the state of an alarm may be a low alarm state if the process variable drops below a corresponding low alarm limit in some situations, a process variable may be associated with multiple alarm limits set at different values corresponding to varying levels of seriousness or criticality (e.g., a high alarm limit and a high-high alarm limit). in the illustrated example, the current and projected states of a process variable are visually indicated in the icons 402, 404, 406 by a textual notation or other visual indicia within the corresponding current state and projected state sections 412, 414. for example, as shown in fig. 7a , a single exclamation point is indicative of the process variable in an operating state (e.g., the current state section 412 in the icon 402) corresponding to a first alarm state associated with a range of values for the process variable outside normal operating conditions (e.g., the process variable drops below a low alarm limit or rises above a high alarm limit) a double exclamation point is indicative of the process variable passing a second alarm limit (e.g., the process variable drops below a low-low alarm limit or rises above a high-high alarm limit) into a corresponding low-low alarm state or a high-high alarm state (e.g., the projected state section 414 in the icon 402). additional exclamation points and/or other notations may be provided to indicate other operating states associated with the process variable (e.g., passing a third alarm limit) no exclamation point shown (e.g., the projected state section 414 of the icon 406) is indicative of the process variable operating within normal operating conditions. the icon 404 of the illustrated example is not divided into sections because the icon 404 indicates that the corresponding process variable is being maintained in a specific state (e.g., it is not trending upwards or downwards to change states). put another way, the current state and the projected state of the process variable are the same. accordingly, only a single notation (e.g., a single set of double exclamation points) is represented within the icon 404 to indicate the corresponding state within which the process variable is being maintained (e.g., it is remaining steady in a high-high alarm state). visually representing the current state, the projected state, and the associated trend as described above enables an operator to quickly and intuitively assess conditions associated with a process variable including the current state of the process variable as well as a projected state. in this manner, an operator can anticipate when a process variable is approaching an alarm limit to proactively take measures to resolve the situation even before the alarm is tripped. furthermore, even if the process variable is operating within an alarm state outside a desired range of values, visually indicating current and projected state characteristics associated with the process variable enables the operator to quickly recognize the qualitative status of the trend (e.g., whether the state of the process variable is improving (moving towards the set point) or worsening (moving away from the set point)). in a similar manner, where a process variable is bounded by alarm limits on a single side (e.g., either high limits or low limits), the current and projected states can serve to identify the direction or trend in which the value of the process variable is moving. however, where a process variable is bounded on both sides (e.g., has both upper and lower alarm limits) the trend of the process variable may not be immediately apparent based only on the current and projected states. accordingly, the icons 402, 406 of fig. 7a are shaped like triangles to point in the direction in which the process variable is trending as is shown and described in greater detail in fig. 7b . figs. 7b-7d illustrate other example icons 502, 504, 602, 702 to indicate the conditions, characteristics, trends, and/or information associated with a process variable as described above in connection with fig. 7a . specifically, the example icons of figs. 7b-7d emphasize current and projected states of a process variable, and the direction of the process variable. the example icons 502 of fig. 7b are similar to the icon 402 of fig. 7a in that the icons 502 are generally triangular in shape and point upward to indicate an upward trend of the process variable. the example icons 504 of fig. 7b are also similar to the icon 406 of fig. 7a in that the icons 504 are generally triangular in shape and point downward to indicate a downward trend of the process variable. furthermore, while the icons 402, 406 of fig. 7a include exclamation points to indicate the current and projected state of the corresponding process variables, the current and projected states in the icons 502, 504 are represented by the shading (e.g., flood fill) of the corresponding current and projected state sections. other methods of indicating the operating states of the process variables may alternatively be used including different patterns, colors, shading, shapes, sizes, outlines, textual or symbolic notations, flashing, highlighting, etc. for example, a normal operating state may be indicated by a gray color, a low or high alarm state (relatively low criticality) may be indicated by a yellow color, and a low-low or a high-high alarm state (relatively high criticality) may be indicated by a red color. further, in such examples, the background or surrounding color may be indicated by a gainsboro color (e.g., a light bluish gray). more generally, the color scheme implemented in some examples is specified in industry standard perceptual color discrimination spaces (e.g., international commission on illumination (cie) standards). an advantage of such a color scheme is that the colors may be distinguishable by color anomalous (e.g., color blind) as well as normal (e.g., non-color anomalous) operators. in the illustrated examples of fig. 7b and throughout the following figures, the high criticality states (e.g., low-low or high-high alarm states) are represented with dark shading, the low criticality states (e.g., low or high alarm states) are represented with light shading, and the normal operating state is represented with no shading (e.g., white.) for purposes of explanation, the icons 502, 504 are shown above corresponding process variable graphs 506 that indicate an example value of the process variable over time. each graph 506 shows a set point or target value (indicated by the centerline 508) at which the process variable is to operate under normal conditions and two levels of high and low alarm states or ranges (referred to herein as a high-high alarm state 510, a high alarm state 512, a low alarm state 514, and a low-low alarm state 516) delineated by hashed lines corresponding to alarm limits and distinguished with different shading associated with the severity of the corresponding alarm state. the state of a process variable within the area between the high and low alarm states 512, 514 is referred to herein as the normal or target operating state. additionally, each graph includes a dot 518 representative of the current value of the process variable disposed along a line 520. the solid portion of the line 520 is representative of the value of the process variable over time leading up to the current value. the dotted portion of the line 520 is an extrapolation of the solid portion of the line 520 to represent the projected value of the process variable going forward in time. additionally or alternatively, other icons (or variations on the icons 502, 504 shown in fig. 7b ) may be used to represent corresponding process variables changing in other manner over time not shown by the graphs 506 (e.g., a steeper trend line 520 that crosses over the set point.) as shown in fig. 7b , the icons 502 are placed in a row 522 associated with an increasing process variable (e.g., trending upwards) and the icons 504 are placed in a row 524 associated with a decreasing process variable (e.g., trending downwards). based on the trend identifying shape of the icons 502, 504 (e.g., a generally triangular shape oriented to point up or down), an operator can easily identify the direction or trend of the process variable. furthermore, in some such examples, based on the direction of the trend in conjunction with the ordering of the states indicated by the current and projected state sections, operators can infer the relative position of the process variable with respect to the desired value (e.g., set point, etc.) and the qualitative status of the indicated trend (e.g., worsening or improving). for example, if the trend identifying shape indicates a downward trend and the projected state section indicates a worse alarm state than the current state section, operators can infer that the process variable is below the set point and dropping (i.e., getting worse). in contrast, if the trend identifying shape indicates an upward trend with the same current and projected states as in the above example, operators can infer that the process variable is above the target value and rising such that it is again worsening. in a similar manner, if the relative severity of the current and projected state sections of the icons are reversed from the above examples, operators can infer whether a process variable is above or below the set point and that it is qualitatively improving (i.e., moving towards the set point.) in the illustrated example of fig. 7b , the icons 502, 504 are grouped in separate columns 526, 528, 530 based on whether the state of the process variable is improving in that it is moving towards the desired value (e.g., the set point) (column 526), worsening in that it is moving away from the set point (column 528), or maintaining in that it is in a substantially constant or steady state condition (column 530). within the improving column 526 and the worsening column 528 of the increasing row 522, fig. 7b provides each possible icon 502 for each projected transition between states as the value of the process variable is projected to move from the low-low alarm region to the low alarm region, from the low alarm region to the normal operating state, from the normal operating state to the high alarm region, and from the high alarm region to the high-high alarm region. in the columns 526, 528 of the decreasing row 524, fig. 7b illustrates each icon 504 corresponding to the reverse transitions from the high-high alarm range down through the low-low alarm range. as with the icons 402, 406 of fig. 7a , the current and projected state of the process variable associated with the icons 502, 504 of fig. 7b are based on the visually distinguishable characteristic (e.g., shading or flood fill, patterns, colors, shapes, sizes, outlines, textual or symbolic notations, bordering, flashing, highlighting, etc.) of the current and projected state sections of the icons 502, 504. within the state maintaining column 530, the icons 502, 504 have the same generally triangular shape as the icons 502, 504 of the other columns 526, 528 (to indicate a direction of the trend associated with the process variable). however, in contrast with the icons 502, 504 in the columns 526, 528, the icons 502, 504 of the state maintaining column 530 are filled or shaded with a single color corresponding to a single state of the process variable. in this manner, an operator may recognize that while the process variable is either moving up (icons 502) or down (icons 504), the trend is evening out such that the projected state is the same as the current state. in some situations, the process variable may be substantially constant over time such that there is no trend up or down. under such conditions, a different shape may be represented such as a generally octagonal shape as shown by the icons 602 of fig. 7c with appropriate indicia (e.g., shading, patterns, colors, outlines, textual or symbolic notations, bordering, flashing, highlighting, etc.) to visually indicate the corresponding operating state of the process variable. the generally octagonal shape is provided because of its association with a stop sign to intuitively indicate the process variable is not changing (i.e., it has stopped). additionally or alternatively, where the trend is oscillating or the trend is not otherwise clearly moving up, down, or maintaining a steady state, a different shape may be used to indicate such a condition of the process variable as shown by the shape of the icons 702 of fig. 7d . while certain shapes have been described in connection with figs. 7a-7d to indicate various characteristics (e.g., current state, projected state, trend) other suitable shapes and their corresponding orientation may alternatively be used. for examples, an arrow or other shape that indicates direction may be used in place of the icons 402, 406 of fig. 7a and the icons 502, 504 of fig. 7b . as additional alternative examples, figs. 8-10 illustrate other example icons to indicate conditions, characteristics, trends, and/or other information associated with the process variable of the example process control system 10 of fig. 1 . in particular, the illustrated examples of figs. 8-10 show icons that emphasize current and projected states of a process variable, the direction of the process variable, and the relationship of the process variable to a set point associated with the process variable. for instance, fig. 8 illustrates example triangular icons 802, 804 similar to the triangular icons 402, 406 of fig. 7a except that the icons 802, 804 are divided into a current state section 806 and a projected state section 808 where the projected state section 808 extends along an edge adjacent a peak 810 of the triangular icons 802, 804. in this manner, the horizontal relationship of the sections 806, 808 (e.g., viewed from left to right) represents the change of state of the process variable over time. that is, the current state is indicated on the left (by the current state section 806) and the projected state (i.e., the state at a future point in time) is indicated on the right (by the projected state section 808). additionally, the vertical relationship of the sections 806, 808 (e.g., viewed up or down in the direction pointed by the peak 810) represents the direction of the process variable. fig. 8 also illustrates example steady state icons 812 having a generally rectangular shape. the steady state icons 812 also include two sections to provide consistency with the increasing and decreasing trend icons 802, 802 but each section 806. 808 has the same visual indicia of the operating state (e.g., shading, pattern, color, outline, textual or symbolic notation, bordering, flashing, highlighting, etc.) because a steady state implies that the projected state of an associated process variable is the same as the current state of the process variable. accordingly, the example icons 802, 804, 812 of fig. 8 provide the same information regarding the current and projected states of a process variable as well as the trend of the process variable as was described above in connection with figs. 7a-7d . additionally, the example icons 802, 804, 812 include a set point indicator 814 (e.g., a line denoting a desired value) to indicate the relative position of the value of the process variable with respect to a set point associated with the process variable. for example, in the left hand column of fig. 8 the set point indicator 814 in each of the corresponding icons 802, 804, 812 is positioned above the rest of the corresponding icon 802, 804, 812 (e.g., above the sections 806, 808) to indicate the process variable is below the set point. in this manner, an operator can recognize that the process variable represented by the increasing icon 802 is improving (i.e., moving towards the set point) while the process variable represented by the decreasing icon 804 is worsening (i.e., moving away from the set point) without having to mentally integrate the meaning of the shading in the current state section 806 and the projected state section 808 and the order in which the sections 806, 808 are stacked. thus, whether a process variable is getting farther away or closer to its set point can be identified even if the current state and the projected state are the same. in a similar manner, as shown in fig. 8 , the set point indicator 814 is placed below the rest of the icons 802, 804, 812 to indicate the value of the process variable is above the set point, and the set point is positioned at the same level as the rest of the icons 802, 804, 812 to indicate when the value of the process variable is approximately at the set point. while fig. 8 shows the set point indicator 814 behind the rest of the icons 802, 804, 810, in some examples, the set point indicator 814 is placed in front of (i.e., overlays) the rest of the icons 802, 804, 810. as an another example, fig. 9 illustrates icons 902, 904, 906 that function in the same way as the icons 802, 804, 810 of fig. 8 , except that the icons 902, 904, 906 have a different shape. in particular, the trend identifying shape (e.g., triangular shape) of the icons 902, 904, 906 to indicate the trend or direction of the process variable is exclusively associated with the current state of the process variable, while a separate section running along a side of the triangle serves to indicate the projected state of the process variable. fig. 10 illustrates yet other example icons 1002, 1004, 1006 similar to those described above in connection with figs. 8 and 9 . in fig. 10 , the current state of the process variable is indicated by a generally rectangular shape with a chamfered-like edge 1008. in the illustrated example, the slope of the edge 1008 (moving from left to right) serves to indicate the direction of trend of the process variable over time. the icons 1004 of the illustrated example do not have a chamfered-like edge 1008, thereby indicating that the process variable is maintaining its current value. in some examples, the angle of the slope is indicative of the rate at which the value of the process variable is changing. the use of the edge 1008 provides an alternative trend identifying shape that does not point the direction of the trend like a triangle or arrow but is nevertheless intuitive because it is representative of a graph plotted over time. while the example icons 802, 804, 810, 902, 904, 906, 1002, 1004, 1006 of figs. 8-10 provide some indication of the relative position of the process variable with respect to the set point (e.g., via the set point indicator 814 of fig. 8 ), in some examples, in addition to the relative position of the process variable (i.e., above, below, or at the set point), it is desirable to indicate the relative deviation of the process variable from the set point with respect to an entire range of potential values for the process variable (e.g., how far above or below the set point). an indication of such a relative deviation of the process variable from the set point is provided in the illustrated examples of figs. 11-17 along with other indications of conditions, characteristics, trends, and/or other information associated with process variables described more fully below. in particular, fig. 11 illustrates example icons 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108 with shapes similar to those described above. for example, the triangles in icons 1102, 1106 indicate that the trend of the process variable is moving up or down, respectively. the rectangle in the icon 1104 indicates a steady state of the process variable, and the wavy rectangle in the icon 1108 indicates an oscillating or indeterminate pattern of the process variable. further, the shading of each shape indicates the corresponding operational state (e.g., normal operating state, high alarm state, low alarm state, high-high alarm state, low-low alarm state, etc.) of the process variable as described above. as shown in fig. 11 , each of the shapes is positioned at various points along an operational range indicator 1110 (e.g., the solid vertical line). in the illustrated example, the range indicator 1110 is representative of a range of potential values at which the process variable may operate and a process variable indicator 1112 (e.g., the central dot of each icon 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108) corresponds to the location or position of the process variable within the range represented by the line 1110. thus, as is shown in the icon 1104, the process variable is nearly at the upper extremity of the range of potential values and, therefore, is shown with a pattern corresponding to a high-high alarm state. the dashed horizontal line in each icon 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108 is a set point indicator 1114 (e.g., a dashed line) representative of the set point relative to the range of potential values indicated by the range indicator 1110. although the set point indicator 1114 is shown in fig. 11 as approximately in the middle of the range indicator 1110, the set point indicator 1114 may be located at any location along the range indicator 1110 depending upon the value of the set point and the corresponding values associated with the range defined by the range indicator 1110. in this manner, an operator may immediately determine the relative position (e.g., above/below) of the process variable with respect to the set point as in figs. 8-9 but also visually assess the relative deviation of the process variable from the set point with respect to the extreme values of the process variable within an expected range of values for the process variable represented by the line 1110 to obtain a more accurate picture of the condition of the process variable. fig. 12 illustrates example icons 1202, 1204, 1206, 1208 that correspond to the same states and corresponding trends as illustrated in the example icons 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108 of fig. 11 , respectively. however, the example icons 1202, 1204, 1206, 1208 include a process variable indicator 1210 that is an arrow head or pointer, instead of the dot 1112 of fig. 11 , to point the specific location of the process variable relative to the set point and the entire range of potential values for the process variable. additionally, the example icons 1202, 1206 include a projected state section 1212 to explicitly indicate in a visual manner, the direction of the trend and the anticipated state of the process variable if the trend continues on its projected path without change. fig. 13 illustrates other example icons 1302, 1304, 1306, 1308 that correspond to the same states and corresponding trends as illustrated in connection with the example icons 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108 of fig. 11 , respectively. furthermore, as shown in the illustrated example, the icons 1302, 1304, 1306, 1308 of fig. 13 are based on the same shapes as the example icons 1102, 1104, 1106, 1108 of fig. 11 . however, in the example icons 1302, 1304, 1306, 1308 of fig. 13 , a set point indicator 1310 (e.g., the central line) and an operational range indicator 1312 (e.g., the rectangular bar) are shown within the outer shape. the relative position and relative deviation of the process variable with respect to the set point and outer limits of potential values for the process variable is indicated by a black band that serves as a process variable indicator 1314 within the range bar 1312. in this manner, the icons 1302, 1304, 1306, 1308 remain stationary and can be larger and of a consistent size when used in an operator display as compared to the examples of figs. 11 and 12 . in addition to indicating the placement of a process variable within an overall range of potential values and relative to a set point, in some examples disclosed herein, the placement or relative distance of the value of the process variable with respect to one or more alarm limits may also be indicated (as shown in the illustrated examples of figs. 14-16 described in greater detail below). for example, fig. 14 illustrates another example icon 1400 with a set point indicator 1402 (e.g., the central bar or line) located on an operational range indicator bar 1404. in the illustrated example, each end of the range indicator 1404 includes an outer (more critical) alarm section 1406 corresponding to a sub-range of values associated with a high-high alarm state or a low-low alarm state. immediately within the outer alarm sections 1406 of the example icon 1400 is an inner alarm section 1408 corresponding to a high alarm state or a low alarm state while the remaining portion of the range indicator bar 1404 corresponds to a normal operating state. the relative position, deviation, and distance of the process variable with respect to the set point, alarm limits, and entire operational range (as well as the current state of the process variable) is indicated in the example icon 1400 by a process variable indicator line 1410 that may move along the range bar 1404. the trend or direction of the process variable and, therefore, the projected state of the process variable, is indicated by the direction in which an arrow marker 1412 is pointing along the range 1406. fig. 15 illustrates other example icons 1502, 1504, 1506, 1508 having operational range indicator bars 1510 similar to the range indicator bars 1312 of the example icons 1302, 1304, 1306, 1308 of fig. 13 except that the range indicator bars 1510 of fig. 15 are substantially longer and extend beyond the trend identifying shapes associated with each of the example icons 1502, 1504, 1506, 1508. the longer range indicator 1510 provides a greater distance over which the range of potential process variable values is represented to provide greater precision or granularity in visually indicating the relative position, deviation, and/or distance of the process variable with respect to the set point, range, and/or alarm limits. furthermore, as shown in the illustrated example, additional alarm limit indicators 1512 (e.g., lines) are included within the range indicator bar 1510 to represent the points on the range corresponding to alarm limits for the process variable (e.g., similar to the alarm sections 1406, 1408 of fig. 14 described above.) fig. 16 illustrates other example icons 1602, 1604, 1606, 1608 that are similar to the example icons 1502, 1504, 1506, 1508 of fig. 15 except that the icons 1602, 1604, 1606, 1608 include a textual notation 1610 identifying the actual value of the process variable. in other examples, the actual value of the set point and/or the alarm limits may also be indicated. fig. 17 illustrates a series of example icons 1702, 1704, 1706 similar to those of figs. 15 and 16 corresponding to a process variable at various locations along a range defined by a range indicator. for simplicity, different shading (e.g., flood fill) in the icons 1702, 1704, 1706 has been omitted but, in some examples, when being used would be shaded (or flood filled) in a similar manner as described above. in the four left-most increasing icons 1702, the process variable is shown above the set point (based on the position of the process variable indicator (e.g., the black band)) and the trend identifying shape of the icons 1702 is an upward pointing triangle. as a result, in the illustrated example, the four left-most icons 1702 are indicative of a worsening state (e.g., the process variable is trending away from the set point). this is similarly true for the four-right-most decreasing icons 1706. as shown in the illustrated example, the trend identifying shape (e.g., a generally triangular shape pointing up or down) associated with the icons 1702, 1706 in a qualitatively worsening state are represented with a thick border 1708 to capture the attention of an operator and/or enable the operator to quickly identify when a process parameter is worsening and, thus, may need corrective action. in other examples, the icons 1702, 1704 associated with a worsening state may be distinguished in any other suitable manner such as flashing, changing in color, size, intensity, pattern, orientation, etc. another characteristic associated with a process variable that can be beneficial to an operator is the rate or speed at which a process variable is changing. for example, if a process variable is rapidly approaching an alarm limit, an operator can benefit from this knowledge to know that action must be taken quickly to avert potential problems whereas if a process variable is trending towards an alarm limit, but at a modest pace, the operator may monitor the process variable to determine if it is corrected before taking action. accordingly, in the illustrated example of fig. 17 , the rate of change of the value of a process variable is indicated by rate indicators 1710 (e.g., the lines or tails stemming from the trend identifying shape). in some examples, a greater number of rate indicators 1710 corresponds to a greater rate of change of the process variable. as is illustrated, the rate indicators 1710 may also be displayed as thick lines when the corresponding process variable is in a worsening state. while the example icons describe above in connection with figs. 6-17 provide various visual indicia (e.g., shading, patterns, colors, shapes, sizes, lines, pointers, outlines, orientations, symbols, notations, bordering, flashing, highlighting, etc.) to convey the identified characteristics, trends, and/or conditions of corresponding process variables, other visual indicia and their appropriate orientation and composition may be used in addition to, or in place of, what is described above to convey the same characteristics and/or conditions. furthermore, the visual indicia of the icons described above may be combined in different ways and/or be given different meanings from what is described herein to convey the desired information and enable the salient attributes to stand out to operators in an intuitive manner with relatively little mental effort and/or time on the part of the operators. the intent of the visual indicia of the example icons described herein increase the efficiency of operators while reducing the potential for errors. additionally, the different icons and corresponding visual indicia described above in connection with figs. 6-17 tradeoff in terms of the attributes of the process variables and/or the aspects of the corresponding trend information that are emphasized to an operator. accordingly, the particular icons used in any particular process control system setting can vary based on the needs and/or circumstances of the particular operations being monitored and controlled and/or the preferences of the operators associated with the particular process control system. in some examples, to further assist operators in quickly identifying circumstances and/or process attributes of particular interest and/or concern, the icons rendered in a relatively sparse layout and arranged (e.g., horizontally aligned, vertically aligned, etc.) in a manner that draws the attention of the operators to the salient issues. for example, an icon indicating a single decreasing parameter among a number of other icons indicating parameters that are non-decreasing may pop-out or attract the attention of an operator for easy spotting. some such example arrangements of the icons are described in greater detail below. in conjunction with displaying the graphic trend symbol within the graphical representation, the graphic display application 30 may determine to implement one or more process variable information panes of varied levels of detail depending various factors, such as screen space, process variables in a critical state, etc. the graphic display application implements each pane to display a different level of detailed information for the one or more process variables that correspond to the displayed graphic trend symbols within the currently displayed view of the graphical representation. referring now to fig. 18 , the graphic display application 30 may display one or more of the summary pane 130, the detailed pane 140, and the expanded pane 150, as shown in a detailed view 300 of the screen shot 110 of fig. 5 , in conjunction with the graphic depiction of the heater 112 of fig. 5 as discussed above. advantageously, the graphic display application 30 displays the same process variable on each pane 130, 140, 150 with increasingly more detail for each pane130, 140, 150. for example, the detailed pane 140 includes and display more detailed process information for the process variable than the summary pane 130. likewise, the expanded pane 150 includes and display more detailed process information for the process variable than the detailed pane 140. with continued reference to fig. 18 , the summary pane 130 may include one or more graphic trend symbols 130-134 and a process variable title 136-138 corresponding to each graphic trend symbol 130-134. the detailed pane 140 includes detailed views of each process variable 141, 142, 144 in which each detailed view of a particular process variable includes a larger, higher resolution version of the graphic trend symbol 143, 145, 146, a current process variable magnitude/position value and desired value comparison diagrams 147-149, and an actual actuator or value position 153, 155. the expanded pane 150 includes expanded views of each process variable 151, 152, 154 in which each expanded view of a particular process variable includes the information from the detailed view 141, 142, 144 and a historical trend graph 156-158. for simplicity, the process variable graphics and corresponding process variables attributes associated with the summary pane 130, detailed pane 140, and expanded pane 150 may be referred to herewithin as "basic graphics," "mid-level graphics," and "detailed graphics." for example, the graphic trend symbol 143 and corresponding attributes (e.g., diagram 147, value position 153, etc.) associated with the process variable 141 would be referred to as mid-level graphics because the process variable 141 appears in the detailed pane 140. because each pane 130, 140, 150 may be revealed or hidden, the graphic display application 30 may determine to display the appropriate level of detail depending on the usage of the operator. for example, the graphic display application 30 may display full detail of all of the process variables when necessary. however, because of screen space constraints, the graphic display application 30 may have to provide a scroll bar that does not allow all of the possible information to be seen by the operator at once. in this case, the graphic display application 30 may hide the summary pane 130 and detailed pane 140 to create more screen space for the expanded pane 150. alternatively, the graphic display application 30 may determine that all process variables should be visible and may shrink or hide the expanded views of some or all of the process variables 151, 152, 154 or some or all of the detailed views of the process variables 141, 142, 144. in another implementation, the graphic display application 30 may determine to display all information for critical process variables or critical details within the graphical representation of the heater 112, for example. in this case, the graphic display application 30 may hide the views for less critical process variables or less critical details. in the alternative, figs. 18a-18d illustrate an example process variable summary pane 1800 that includes example graphics associated with three process variables of a desalter module of a process control system (e.g., the example process control system 10 of fig. 1 .) the graphics may correspond to the graphics described above in connection with fig. 18 . the graphics in each of the figs. 18a-18d include varying levels of detail to provide varying amounts of information relating to the process variables based on the needs and/or desires of an operator. more particularly, fig. 18a illustrates another example process variable summary pane 130 containing example graphic trend symbols 1802, 1804, 1806. fig. 18b illustrates the example process variable detailed pane 140 including example graphic trend symbols 1902, 1904, 1906 with additional process variable attribute information. fig. 18c illustrates the example process variable expanded pane 150 including example graphic trend symbols 2002, 2004, 2006 and further detailed process variable attributes. fig. 18d illustrates the summary pane 1800 in a collapsed form with the graphics hidden from view. as shown in the illustrated examples, each of the basic graphics 1802, 1804, 1806, mid-level graphics 1902, 1904, 1906, and detailed graphics 2002, 2004, 2006 include the same icons 1808, 1810, 1812, respectively, which are similar to the icons described above in connection with fig. 18 . additionally, the basic graphics 1802, 1804, 1806 in the illustrated example of fig. 18a include summary information such as a name 1814 of the process variable or parameter being measured and a corresponding units of measurement 1816. in some examples, the basic graphics 1802, 1804, 1806 may be limited to the icons without any additional information. as another alternative example to fig. 18 , the mid-level graphics 1902, 1904, 1906 of fig. 18b include the same summary information provided in the basic graphics 1808, 1810, 1812 but also add additional details. for example, the mid-level graphics 1902, 1904, 1906 of the illustrated example include a parameter code or tag 1910 associated with the process variable, a set point or target value indicator 1912 for the corresponding process variable, a measured value indicator 1914 of the corresponding process variable, an output indicator 1916 associated with the corresponding process variable if appropriate (e.g., output of a control valve), and a mode indicator 1918 to indicate whether the process is under automatic or manual control. as shown in the example illustration, the measured value indicator 1914 is positioned at the same level as the trend indicator of the corresponding icon 1808, 1810, 1812 while the set point value indicator 1912 is positioned at a level corresponding to each respective set point indicator to provide a second visual indication of whether the value of the process variable is above, below, or approximately the same as the set point. furthermore, the measured value indicator 1914 is filled with the same shading as the current state section of the corresponding icon 1808, 1810, 1812 to indicate the current state of the process variable. as an alternative and similar implementation to fig. 18 , the detailed graphics 2002, 2004, 2006 of fig. 18c include the same information provided in the mid-level graphics 1902, 1904, 1906 of fig. 18b but also add additional details. for example, the detailed graphics 2002, 2004, 2006 may include a trend graph 2008 that plots the value of the process variable over a certain time period. in some examples, the trend graph 2008 includes a projected trend region 2010 to visually represent an expected path of the process variable if it continues on its current trend. as shown in the example trend graphs 2008 of fig. 18c , a set point line 2012 and one or more alarm lines 2014 are included to visually indicate the relative position of the process variable with respect to the set point and alarm limits over the time period displayed in the graph 2008. additionally, in some examples, the trend graphs 2008 may identify alarm state portions 2016 (e.g., via different shading, patterns, colors, or other visually distinguishable indicia) that enable the timing, duration, and state of alarms associated with the process variable to be tracked or tagged over time. a top banner 1818, of the example process variable panes 130, 140, 150, and 1800 of figs. 18a-18d provides a title and/or code 1820 associated with the plant, area, unit, module or other component of a process control system corresponding to the summary pane 1800. the top banner 1818 may also include a summary icon 1822 that provides summary data associated the process variables associated with the component of the process control system corresponding to the process variable summary pane 1800. for instance, in the illustrated example, the summary icon 1822 indicates the worst current state (e.g., by the shading or other graphical indicia of the large circle) and/or the worst projected state (e.g., by the shading or other graphical indicia of the small circle) among all process variables associated with the corresponding component of the process control system. in some examples, the top banner 1818 includes a navigation button 1824 that enables an operator to navigate to a dedicated screen (e.g., a graphical representation 53 displayed via viewport 52) associated with the particular component of the process control system. in the illustrated example, the top banner 1818 of the summary pane 1800 also includes a collapse/expand button 1826 to collapse the process variable summary pane 1800 to just the top banner 1818 as shown in fig. 18d , or to expand the process variable summary pane 1800 of fig. 18d to anyone of the expanded views shown in figs. 18a-18b . additionally, the detailed view 300 of fig. 18 may include an event history button (not shown) to provide operators with more temporal context for the events (e.g., alarms) and further augment the trend-based monitoring and analysis of the condition of the process control system. in some implementations, an operator may select the event history button to open an event summary table 3300, an example of which is illustrated in fig. 18e , that provides additional information about alarms and/or other events monitored in the process control system. in some examples, the event history table 3300 may displayed within the detailed view 300 of fig. 18 . in other examples, the event history table 3300 may be generated in a pop-up window and/or other display area. as shown in fig. 18e , the information provided in the event history table 3300 is based on key changes, alarms, and/or events within the process control system that are tagged over time to provide situational awareness and recovery for operators to better diagnose potential problems and understand how they relate to other aspects of the process control system. for example, the event history table 3300 includes the date and time (e.g., hours and minutes) of each event, a description of the event, the unit and/or parameter associated with the event, and action items to be performed and/or already completed that are associated with the event. in addition to the above information, the event history table 3300 also includes a column corresponding to the status and/or impact of the event. as shown in the illustrated example, the status and/or impact column of the event history table 3300 incorporates trend-based graphics 3302 corresponding to the graphics used throughout the operator interface as described above. in this manner, operators may quickly identify the timing and relationships of the process variables associated with the graphics 3302 that are displayed throughout the operator interface. referring now to fig. 19 , an exemplary screen shot 400 includes the graphical representation of a heater 112 displayed within the viewport 52, the navigation pane 54, the summary pane 130, and the expanded pane 150. the graphic display application 30 may allow the operator to visually identify, within the p&id and other panes, the process variable that is associated with a hover event or confirmation selection of the operator. for instance, in response to detecting an operator-initiated hover event near or over the graphic trend symbol 138 for the process variable labeled "flue gas temp" within the summary pane 130, the graphic display application 30 may highlight the corresponding graphic trend symbol 120 within the graphical representation of the heater 112 within the viewport 52 and highlight the expanded view of the corresponding graphic trend symbol 151 for the same process variable. a flowchart representative of an example method for implementing the example operator station 104 of fig. 2 is shown in figs. 20a-20b . in this example, the method may be implemented using machine readable instructions that comprise a program for execution by a processor. the program may be embodied in software stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium such as a cd-rom, a floppy disk, a hard drive, a digital versatile disk (dvd), a blu-ray disk, or a memory associated with the processor, but the entire program and/or parts thereof could alternatively be executed by a device other than the processor and/or embodied in firmware or dedicated hardware. further, although the example program is described with reference to the flowchart illustrated in figs. 20a-20b , many other methods of implementing the example graphic display application 30 may alternatively be used. for example, the order of execution of the blocks may be changed, and/or some of the blocks described may be changed, eliminated, or combined. the method illustrated in figs. 20a-20b begins at block 3400 by the graphic display application 30 monitoring process variables associated with a process control system (e.g., the example process control system 10 of fig. 1 ). at block 3402, graphic display application 30 determines and/or stores condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information may include any of a current state of a process variable, a projected state of the process variable, a corresponding trend of the process variable, a direction of change of the process variable, a rate of change of the process variable, a relative position of the process variable with respect to a set point (e.g., above, below, or approximately at the set point), a relative deviation of the process variable from the set point with respect to an operational range of values for the process variable, a relative distance of the process variable with respect to an alarm limit, an actual value of the process variable, and/or the historical or archived values of the process variable tagged over time. at block 3404, the graphic display application 30 generates icons representative of the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. for example, the generated icons may correspond to any of the icons described above in connection with figs. 6-17 . at block 3406, the graphic display application 30 also calculates alarm summary data associated with each component within a hierarchy of components in the process control system. the alarm summary data corresponds to one or more of the presence of an active alarm associated with a process variable corresponding to each of the components, the number of the active alarms associated with each of the components, the current state of each of the corresponding process variables, or a projected state of each of the corresponding process variables. as described above, each component may correspond to any of a plant, site, area, unit, module, etc., and higher level components in the hierarchy may contain multiple lower level components. thus, the alarm summary data of each higher level component may include the alarm summary data of corresponding lower level components (e.g., subcomponents.) at block 3408, the graphic display application 30 renders a diagram representative of at least one of the components within the hierarchy via a display. in some examples, the component for display is selected based on a user input (e.g., an operator input). in some examples, the diagram is a piping and instrumentation diagram (p&id) composed of multiple elements representative of various aspects and/or subcomponents of the selected component for display. furthermore, the diagram may provide key indicators and/or other relevant information associated with the process variables corresponding to the displayed component of the process control system. in the example method of figs. 20a-20b , when the operator interface renders the diagram, the operator interface includes the generated icons (block 3404) adjacent to, or in place of, the key indicators and/or other relevant information. for example, the icons may be displayed next to elements in the p&id corresponding to the source of the corresponding process variables. additionally, the icons associated with process variables in an alarm state may also be rendered within an alarm banner. at block 3410, the operator interface renders a navigation pane via the display corresponding to the rendered diagram. the navigation pane includes navigation buttons representative of components within the hierarchy similar to any of the navigation panes described above in connection with figs. 2a-2d . in such examples, each navigation button may be associated with a corresponding alarm summary icon that is representative of the calculated alarm summary data (block 3406). at block 3414, the graphic display application 30 determines whether a request to navigate within the navigation pane has been received. a request to navigate within the navigation pane may arise from an operator selecting (e.g., via a mouse click) on a navigation button that is not within a direct path of the hierarchy associated with component currently represented by the displayed diagram (e.g., previewing the relationship of other components). if the graphic display application 30 determines that such a request has been received (block 3412), the graphic display application 30 updates the navigation pane. the updated navigation pane may include new navigation buttons corresponding to components at a lower level in the hierarchy below the component associated with the selected navigation button (e.g., child components). furthermore, an indication of the direct path in the hierarchy to the navigation button associated with the currently displayed diagram may also be provided if the new navigation buttons prevent the entire path from being represented. once the navigation pane has been updated (block 3414), control advances to block 3416. if the graphic display application 30 determines that a request to navigate within the navigation pane has not been received (block 3412), control immediately advances to block 3416. at block 3416, the graphic display application 30 determines whether a request to render a different diagram representative of a different component of the process control system has been received. a request to render a different diagram may arise from an operator selecting (e.g., via double-mouse click) a navigation button corresponding to a different component than the component currently represented by the rendered diagram. in other examples, an operator may select (e.g., via double-mouse click) an element within the diagram corresponding to a subcomponent within the currently displayed component. if the graphic display application 30 determines that a request has been received (block 3412), the graphic display application 30 renders the different diagram via the display (block 3418). as described above in connection with block 3408, the graphic display application 30 may display different icons corresponding to the process variables associated with the component represented by the new diagram within the diagram. in addition to rendering the new diagram (block 3418), the operator interface updates the navigation pane to reflect the different diagram rendered (block 3420). for example, the navigation button associated with the component represented by the new diagram may be altered to be visually identifiable from other navigation buttons as described above. after updating the navigation pane (block 3420), control advances to block 3422. returning to block 3416, if the graphic display application 30 determines that a request to render a different diagram has not been received (block 3412), control immediately advances to block 3422. at block 3422, the graphic display application 30 determines whether a request to display information in a process variable summary pane has been received. the process variable summary pane may be similar to any of the process variable summary panes described above in connection with figs. 18-18e . a request to display information within a process variable summary pane may include an operator requesting a new process variable summary pane to be created or for an existing process variable summary pane to be expanded to display additional information. if it is determined that such a request is received (block 3422), the graphic display application 30 determines whether there is enough space within a designated display area to display the requested information (block 3424). whether there is enough space depends on size of the designated display area, the amount of information that is requested to be displayed, and what information is already displayed. in some examples, the designated display area corresponds to a screen space on an output display device having a defined size (e.g., a defined width and height of pixels) such as, for example, the detailed view 300 of the screen shot 110 of fig. 5 . in such examples, as more process variables are to be summarized and/or as more information is to be represented (e.g., via basic graphics, mid-level graphics, or detailed graphics), more screen space is needed to display the requested information. in such examples, the total amount of information to be displayed (based on what is already displayed and the additional information requested) may exceed the available area defined by the screen space and the operator station would determine that there is not enough space within the designated area to display the requested information (block 3424). in other examples, the designated display area is not limited to a particular size but can vary depending upon the information requests of an operator at any particular moment. as such, in some examples, the designated display area may be greater in size than the corresponding display screen through which the designated display area is rendered such that only a portion of the designated display area is available at any given moment (e.g., by scrolling up or down). for example, rather than displaying the requested information in a detailed view 300 on a display screen, in some examples, the requested information is displayed via an interface of a portable handheld device (e.g., a smart phone, tablet, etc.) where the screen size and/or resolution is limited. in some such examples, the requested information, as represented by the icons and related graphics described herein, is displayed in an independent interface that takes up all or substantially all of the screen display area of the corresponding display device (e.g., the icons are shown without displaying a corresponding p&id) with the ability to scroll between various portions of the designated display area when it cannot all be rendered within a single screen of the display device. in such examples, the operation application may determine that there is enough space within the designated display area to display the requested information (block 3424), because the designated display area is not limited to a defined size. continuing in the example process, if the graphic display application 30 determines there is not enough space within the designated display area (block 3424), the graphic display application 30 adjusts the zoom of existing process variable summary pane(s) (block 3426). for example, the graphic display application 30 may reduce the existing process variable summary pane(s) to a lower level of detail and/or collapse the summary pane to only display the top banner. once the existing process variable summary pane(s) have been adjusted (block 3426), the operator interface renders the process variable summary pane with the requested information via the display (block 3428). if the graphic display application 30 determines that there is enough space within the designated display area (or the display area can dynamically change size) to display the requested information (block 3424), the operator interface directly renders the corresponding process variable summary pane (block 3428). once the process variable summary pane has been rendered, control advances to block 3430. returning to block 3422, if the graphic display application 30 determines that a request to display information in a process variable summary pane has not been received, the example method of figs. 20a-20b advances to block 3430. at block 3430, the graphic display application 30 determines whether a request to identify relationship(s) of on-screen elements to a particular element has been received. on-screen elements may correspond to any of graphical elements within the diagram representative of components or subcomponents within the process control system, textual elements within the diagram providing information associated with process variables corresponding to the displayed components, icons displayed within the diagram corresponding to the process variables, information in an alarm banner, and/or graphics within one or more process variable summary panes. a request to identify a relationship between any of the above elements may arise from an operator selecting (e.g., via a mouse click, mouse hover, etc.) one of the displayed elements. if the graphic display application 30 determines that such a request has been received (block 3430), the operator interface identifies the on-screen elements associated with particular element selected via the display (block 3432). that is, the components represented within the diagram may be identified along with the corresponding navigation button in the navigation pane as described above in connection with fig. 2 . additionally or alternatively, an alarm banner entry, an icon and/or textual information in the diagram, and/or one or more graphics in one or more process variable summary panes associated with the same process variable may be identified as described above in connection with fig. 3 . once related elements are identified (block 3432), control advances to block 3434. if the graphic display application 30 determines that a request to identify relationship(s) of elements has not been received, control advances directly to block 3434. at block 3434, the graphic display application 30 determines whether to continue monitoring the process control system. if the process control system is to be monitored, control returns to block 3400 of the example process. if the graphic display application 30 determines not to continue monitoring the process control system, the example process of figs. 20a-20b ends. the term "field device" is used herein in a broad sense to include a number of devices or combinations of devices (i.e., devices providing multiple functions, such as a transmitter/actuator hybrid), as well as any other device(s) that perform(s) a function in a control system. in any event, field devices may include, for example, input devices (e.g., devices such as sensors and instruments that provide status, measurement or other signals that are indicative of process control parameters such as, for example, temperature, pressure, flow rate, etc.), as well as control operators or actuators that perform actions in response to commands received from controllers and/or other field devices. when implemented, any of the software described herein may be stored in any computer readable memory such as on a magnetic disk, a laser disk, or other storage medium, in a ram or rom of a computer or processor, etc. likewise, this software may be delivered to a user, a process plant or an operator workstation using any known or desired delivery method including, for example, on a computer readable disk or other transportable computer storage mechanism or over a communication channel such as a telephone line, the internet, the world wide web, any other local area network or wide area network, etc. (which delivery is viewed as being the same as or interchangeable with providing such software via a transportable storage medium). furthermore, this software may be provided directly without modulation or encryption or may be modulated and/or encrypted using any suitable modulation carrier wave and/or encryption technique before being transmitted over a communication channel. while the present invention has been described with reference to specific examples, which are intended to be illustrative only and not to be limiting of the invention, it may be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that changes, additions or deletions may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. aspects 1. a method of generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies trends of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the method comprising: receiving an update of a process variable value from an element in the process control system, the element communicatively coupled to the computing device; generating, using at least the update of the process variable value, process variable data that indicates one or more process variable attributes, the process variable data including process variable trend data that indicates one or more process variable trend attributes; generating, using the process variable data, one or more graphic elements, each graphic element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable attributes; generating, using the process variable trend data, one or more graphic trend elements, each graphic trend element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable trend attributes; and displaying the graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including at least one generated graphic trend element and at least one generated graphic element, the at least one generated graphic trend element and the at least one generated graphic element not occluding each other. 2. the method of aspect 1, wherein the at least one generated graphic element includes another graphic trend element that corresponds to another trend attribute. 3. the method of aspect 1, further comprising: determining, for one of the indicated process variable trend attributes, a plurality of trend categories associated with the process variable trend attribute. 4. the method of aspect 3, further comprising: determining, using the process variable trend data, a trend value for the process variable trend attribute; determining, for the one of the indicated process variable trend attributes, a trend category from the plurality of trend categories associated with the determined trend value. 5. the method of aspect 4, wherein generating the one or more graphic trend elements includes generating a graphic trend element associated with the determined trend category. 6. the method of aspect 1, further comprising: determining, using the process variable data, a current value for a process variable value attribute, wherein the process variable value attribute is indicated by process variable value data that is generated using the process variable data, wherein generating the one or more graphic elements includes generating a graphic value element associated with the determined current value for the process variable value attribute. 7. the method of aspect 6, wherein displaying the at least one generated graphic element includes displaying the generated graphic value element. 8. the method of aspect 1, wherein generating process variable data includes generating the process variable trend data using historical process variable data. 9. the method of aspect 8, wherein using the historical process variable data includes using at least one previous update of the process variable value. 10. the method of aspect9, wherein one of the process variable trend attributes includes a rate of change trend attribute that indicates a rate of change of the process variable. 11. the method of aspect 10, wherein the rate of change trend attribute includes a plurality of rate of change trend categories, each one of the plurality of rate of change trend categories indicating a unique rate of change of the process variable. 12. the method of aspect 11, wherein each one of the plurality of rate change trend categories indicates a range of rates of change of the process variable. 13. the method of aspect 12, wherein the generated graphic trend element corresponding to the determined trend category includes a rate of change graphic trend element corresponding to one of the plurality of rate of change trend categories. 14. the method of aspect 13, wherein the rate of change graphic trend element is graphically depicted via a number of marks protruding from the graphic trend symbol. 15. the method of aspect 14, wherein the number of marks is proportional to the rate of change. 16. the method of aspect 13, further comprising: generating, using the historical process variable data, a rate of change value for the process variable; determining a rate of change trend category from the plurality of rate of change trend categories most closely associated with the generated rate of change value; generating a rate of change graphic trend element corresponding to the determined rate of change trend category; and displaying the generated rate of change graphic trend element in conjunction with the graphic trend symbol via the user interface. 17. the method of aspect 10, further comprising: generating, using the historical process variable data, a rate of change value for the process variable, wherein generating the one or more graphic trend elements includes generating a rate of change graphic trend element that corresponds to the generated rate of change value, wherein the size of the generated rate of change graphic trend element is proportional to the rate of change value. 18. the method of aspect 9, wherein one of the trend attributes includes a direction of change trend attribute that indicates a direction of change of the process variable. 19. the method of aspect 18, further comprising: determining a plurality of direction of change trend categories associated with the direction of change attribute, each of the plurality of direction of change trend categories indicating a direction of change of the process variable. 20. the method of aspect 19, further comprising: receiving a desired value associated with the process variable, wherein the plurality of direction of change trend categories includes at least one of: (i) a direction change away from the desired value, (ii) a direction change toward the desired value, or (iii) no direction change relative to the desired value. 21. the method of aspect 20, wherein the generated graphic trend element corresponding to the determined trend category includes a direction of change graphic trend element corresponding to one of the plurality of direction of change trend categories. 22. the method of aspect 21, wherein the direction of change graphic trend element is graphically depicted as a triangular shape attached to the graphic trend symbol. 23. the method of aspect 22, wherein the direction of change graphic trend element associated with the direction change away from the desired value direction of change trend category is graphically depicted as a triangular shape that indicates a direction away from the desired value. 24. the method of aspect 22, wherein the direction of change graphic trend element associated with the direction change toward the desired value direction of change trend category is graphically depicted as a triangular shape that indicates a direction toward the desired value. 25. the method of aspect22, wherein the direction of change graphic trend element associated with the no direction change relative to the desired value direction of change trend category is graphically depicted as a triangular shape that indicates a direction neither toward nor away from the desired value. 26. the method of aspect21, further comprising: generating, using the historical process variable data, a direction of change value for the process variable; determining a direction of change trend category from the plurality of direction of change trend categories associated with the generated direction of change value; generating a direction of change graphic trend elements corresponding to the determined direction of change trend category; and displaying the generated direction of change graphic trend element in conjunction with the graphic trend symbol via the user interface. 27. the method of aspect 1, wherein the process variable data further includes process variable value data that indicates one or more process variable value attributes. 28. the method of aspect 27, wherein generating the one or more graphic elements includes generating one or more graphic value elements, each graphic value element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable value attributes. 29. the method of aspect 28, wherein one of the process variable value attributes includes a process variable magnitude attribute that indicates a magnitude of the process variable. 30. the method of aspect 29, further comprising: receiving a desired value associated with the process variable; determining, using the process variable value data, a current value of the process variable; and determining, using the current value of the process variable and the received desired value, a magnitude value of the process variable, wherein the magnitude of the process variable is a difference between the current value of the process variable and the desired value. 31. the method of aspect 30, further comprising: wherein generating the one or more graphic value elements includes generating a magnitude graphic value element that corresponds to the magnitude of the process variable value, wherein the size of magnitude graphic value element is proportional to the magnitude value of the process variable. 32. the method of aspect 31, wherein the magnitude graphic value element includes a depiction of a magnitude bar extending from a depiction of the desired value, the length of the magnitude bar being proportional to the magnitude value of the process variable. 33. the method of aspect28, wherein one of the process variable value attributes includes a process variable direction attribute that indicates a direction of the process variable relative to the desired value. 34. the method of aspect 33, further comprising: generating, using the generated magnitude of the process variable and the received desired value, a direction of the process variable value relative to the desired value. 35. the method of aspect 28, wherein one of the process variable value attributes includes a process variable position attribute that indicates a position of the process variable relative to the desired value. 36. the method of aspect 35, further comprising determining a plurality of process variable position categories associated with the process variable position attribute, each of the plurality of process variable position categories indicating a process variable position relative to the desired value. 37. the method of aspect 36, further comprising receiving a desired value associated with the process variable; determining, using the process variable value data, a process variable value; and wherein the plurality of process variable position categories includes at least one of: (i) a position wherein the process variable value is greater than the desired value, (ii) a position wherein the process variable value is less than the desired value, or (iii) a position wherein the process variable value is substantially similar to the desired value. 38. the method of aspect 37, wherein the generated graphic value element corresponding to the determined process variable position category includes a position graphic value element corresponding to one of the plurality of process variable position categories. 39. the method of aspect 26, wherein one of the process variable trend attributes includes a change desirability attribute that indicates a desirability of change for the process variable. 40. the method of aspect 39, furthering comprising: determining a plurality of change desirability categories associated with the change desirability attribute, each of the change desirability of change trend categories indicating a change desirability of the process variable. 41. the method of aspect 40, further comprising: wherein the plurality of change desirability categories includes at least one of: (i) an improving process variable station condition, (ii) a worsening process variable station condition, or (iii) a maintaining process variable station condition. 42. the method of aspect41, wherein the generated graphic trend element corresponding to the determined trend category includes a change desirability graphic trend element corresponding to one of the plurality of change desirability categories. 43. the method of aspect42, wherein the change desirability graphic trend element associated with the worsening process variable state condition change desirability trend category is graphically depicted as widening a line of at least one portion of the graphic trend symbol. 44. the method of aspect 42, wherein the process variable data further includes process variable value data that indicates a position of the process variable relative to the desired value. 45. the method of aspect 44, further comprising: determining, a change desirability trend category from the plurality of direction of change trend categories associated with the generated direction of change value; generating a change desirability graphic trend elements corresponding to the determined change desirability trend category; and displaying the generated change desirability graphic trend element in conjunction with the graphic trend symbol via the user interface. 46. a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, executable by a processor, for generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies trends of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the instructions comprising: instructions for receiving an update of a process variable value from an element in the process control system, the element communicatively coupled to the computing device; instructions for generating, using at least the update of the process variable value, process variable data that indicates one or more process variable attributes, the process variable data including process variable trend data that indicates one or more process variable trend attributes; instructions for generating, using the process variable data, one or more graphic elements, each graphic element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable attributes; instructions for generating, using the process variable trend data, one or more graphic trend elements, each graphic trend element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable trend attributes; and instructions for displaying the graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including at least one generated graphic trend element and at least one generated graphic element, the at least one generated graphic trend element and the at least one generated graphic element not occluding each other. 47. a method of generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies a trend of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the method comprising: generating a first graphic element that represents a rate of change trend attribute, the rate of change trend attribute indicating a rate of change of the process variable; and displaying a graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including the first graphic element. 48. the method of aspect47, further comprising: generating a second graphic element that represents a direction of change attribute, the direction of change attribute indicating a direction of change of the process variable; and displaying the generated second graphic element together with the first graphic element on the user interface. 49. the method of aspect48, further comprising: generating a third graphic element that represents a process variable magnitude attribute, the process variable magnitude attribute indicating a magnitude of the process variable; and displaying the generated third graphic element together with the first graphic element and second graphic element on the user interface. 50. the method of aspect 49, further comprising: generating a fourth graphic element that represents a process variable position attribute, the process variable position attribute indicating a position of the process variable; and displaying the generated fourth graphic element together with the first graphic element, second graphic element, and third graphic element on the user interface. 51. the method of aspect50, further comprising: generating a fifth graphic element that represents a change desirability attribute, the change desirability attribute indicating a desirability of change for the process variable; and displaying the generated fifth graphic element together with the first graphic element, second graphic element, third graphic element, and fourth graphic element on the user interface. 52. a method of generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies a trend of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the method comprising: generating a first graphic element that represents a direction of change trend attribute, the direction of change trend attribute indicating a rate of change of the process variable; and displaying a graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including the first graphic element.
103-170-140-986-307	JP	[ "EP", "US", "JP", "WO" ]	G06F9/46,G06F9/48,H04L29/10	2001-09-20T00:00:00	2001	[ "G06", "H04" ]	task switching system, task switching method and dsp modem	a modem 1 has a one-chip single dsp 2 , and the single dsp 2 executes a controller task (ct) and a data-pump task (dp). in the ct, a plurality of sub-tasks are continuously executed in the round robin mode in the ct task processing part 3 . during the execution of the ct task, when the dp task is required to be started by an interrupt generated by an external event, the parameters for restarting the ct task that is being executed are stored in the task switching part 5 , and then the task is switched from the ct task to the dp task according to the parameters for restarting the data-pump task, which are previously stored. then, after the process of the switched dp task is finished, the parameters for restarting the dp task are stored and the task is, switched from the dp task to the ct task according to the parameters for restarting the ct task.	1 . (amended) a task switching system in a single processor, said task switching system comprising: a first task processing unit that continuously executes a plurality of sub-tasks in a round robin mode; a second task processing unit that executes a predetermined task when a corresponding predetermined event occurs; and a task switching unit that makes said first task processing means stop execution of said sub-tasks and makes said second task processing means start execution of said predetermined task when said predetermined event occurs and when the first task: is being executed, and that makes said second task processing means continue execution of said predetermined task when said second task is being executed. 2 . (amended) a task switching method in a single processor that executes a first task and a second task, said task switching method comprising: a first step that continuously executes a plurality of sub-tasks of said first task in a round robin mode; a second step that stops execution of said first task and starts execution of said second task when a predetermined event occurs and when said first task is being executed; and a third step that restarts execution of said first task after said execution of said second task is finished. 3 . the task switching method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein said second step further stores parameters for restarting said first task and restarts said second task according to previously stored parameters for restarting said second task, and said third step stores said parameters for restarting said finished second task and restarts said first task, which is stopped when said second task is restarted, according to said parameters for restarting said first task stored by said second task. 4 . the task switching method as claimed in claims 2 or 3 , wherein said predetermined event is an interrupt generated by an external event, and said second step stops said execution of said first task and starts said execution of said second task when said interrupt is generated during execution of said first task. 5 . (amended) a modem having a single dsp that switches a task between a controller task and a data-pump task and executes said task, said modem comprising: a controller task processing unit that continuously executes a plurality of sub-tasks of said controller task in a round robin mode; a data-pump task processing unit that executes said data-pump task when a predetermined event occurs and when said controller task is being executed; and a task switching unit that makes said controller task processing means stop execution of said sub-tasks and makes said data-pump task processing means start execution of said data-pump task when said predetermined event occurs. 6 . (amended) a dsp that switches tasks and executes said tasks included in an apparatus having a modem, said dsp comprising: a first task processing unit that continuously executes a plurality of sub-tasks in a round robin mode; a second task processing unit that executes a predetermined task when a corresponding predetermined event occurs; and a task switching unit that makes said first task processing means stop execution of said sub-tasks and makes said second task processing means start execution of said predetermined task when said predetermined event occurs and when said first task is being executed.	technical field the present invention relates to technology for switching tasks that are executed on a processor, and more particularly to a task switching system, a task switching method and a dsp modem, in which a plurality of tasks are effectively switched in a single processor. background art a single processor executes one task selected from a plurality of tasks. the task takes a state from a plurality of states, such as an executable state in which state the task can be executed by the processor, a running state in which state the task is being executed by the processor and a waiting state in which state the task cannot be executed by the processor. the executable tasks can be executed by the processor according to the priority of each task. fig. 1 shows an example of a task mode transition diagram. fig. 1 shows the task state transition diagram for a relatively simple real time operating system, hereinafter referred to as rtos. the task takes various states, for example an executable state 41 , a running state 42 , a waiting state 43 , a compulsory waiting state 44 and a dormant state 45 . for example, the task state is changed from the executable state 41 to the running state 42 when a run event is generated. the task state is changed from the executable state 41 to the compulsory waiting state 44 when a break event is generated. the task state is changed from the executable state 41 to the dormant state 45 when a compulsory termination event is generated. the task state is changed from the running state 42 to the executable state 41 when an execution wait event is generated. the task state is changed from the running state 42 to the waiting state 43 when a wait condition event is generated. the task state is changed from the running state 42 to the dormant state 45 when a termination event is generated. the task state is changed from the waiting state 43 to the executable state 41 when a wait release event is generated. the task state is changed from the waiting state 43 to the compulsory waiting state 44 when a compulsory wait event is generated. the task state is changed from the waiting state 43 to the dormant state 45 when a compulsory termination event is generated. the task state is changed from the waiting state 44 to the executable state 41 when a restart event is generated. the task state is changed from the dormant state 45 to the executable state 41 when a start event is generated. the task is started according to an event or a state transition, and is terminated after a desired operation is finished. next, conventional task management technology will be explained. a modem has two main functions, which are transaction control and signal processing. examples of transaction control are user-issued at command processing, s-register processing, conversion processing from digital bit data to digital byte data, buffering, error correction, and data compression and decompression. the transaction control is called a controller task. an example of signal processing is modulation and demodulation, in which digital bit data are modulated to a transmission signal that is transmitted through the transmission line and the transmission signal received from the transmission line is demodulated to digital bit data. the signal processing is called a data-pump task. conventionally, the controller task is performed by a software program running on a general purpose cpu (central processing unit) such as a micro-computer, and the data-pump task is performed by a hardware device, such as a dsp (digital signal processor), dedicated to signal processing. however, recently, technology for the dsp has advanced and thereby the processing ability as measured in mips (millions of instruction per second) is significantly increased. therefore, there is a need to provide a modem by using a one chip dsp in order to cut the cost of the product and reduce the size of the product. generally, a multi-tasking rtos is used to implement the multi-tasking system, such as the modem, running on the dsp. although the rtos is general-purpose and can process a plurality of complicated tasks, it also requires dsp resources. further, it is required to design the tasks to be executed by the rtos according to specifications of the rtos. generally, in the real time system, a plurality of tasks are frequently started at the same time. one task requires a relatively long time to be executed and another task requires a relatively short time to be executed. the rtos controls the execution and waiting of these tasks when such operations are required. the rtos is required to hold state information for every task to properly control the task. it is also required for a task to have a mechanism to notify of the rtos start timing and priority of the task. because the rtos itself is also executed by the processor, the size of the rtos is also included in the total amount of software needed in memory and execution time of the rtos is also included in the total amount of execution time needed, respectively. a mechanism to switch between the rtos and the tasks is also needed. the task switching technology is described in, for example, japanese. laid-open patent application no.2000-105708, japanese laid-open patent application no.2000-142065 and japanese laid-open patent application no.2000-215068. on the other hand, in the low cost and reduced sized dsp, a stack area is reduced to be as small as possible. further, it is required to have the stack area controlled by software in memory to implement the rtos mentioned above. as a result, the software structure becomes very complicated and the rtos cannot be executed effectively. therefore, it is a requirement for a modem using such a small-sized and low cost dsp to effectively execute two tasks, which are the controller task and the data-pump task, without using the complete rtos. however, it is not possible to provide such a modem using prior art technology. in the prior art technology, it is not possible to effectively switch among a plurality of tasks in the single processor. for example, it is not possible to effectively execute two tasks, which are the controller task and the data-pump task, without using the complete rtos, in the modem using a small-sized and low cost dsp. disclosure of the invention accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a task switching system, a task switching method and a dsp modem, in which the above-described disadvantage is eliminated. a more specific object of the present invention is to provide a task switching system, a task switching method and a dsp modem, which are constructed by a small-sized and low cost one-chip dsp. the above objects of the present invention are achieved by a task switching system, a task switching method and a dsp modem in which a single processor executes a first task and a second task, a plurality of sub-tasks of the first task are continuously executed in a round robin mode, and the second task is executed when a predetermined event occurs, and the first task is restarted after the execution of the second task is finished. for example, in the modem using the one-chip dsp, the dsp executes a controller task (a modem controller task) and a data-pump task (a modem data-pump task) in the controller task, a plurality of sub-tasks are continuously executed in the round robin mode. during the execution of the controller task, when the data-pump task is required to be started by the interrupt generated by an external event, the parameters for restarting the controller task are stored, and then the task is switched from the controller task to the data-pump task according to the parameters for restarting the data-pump tasks which are previously stored. then, after the process of the data-pump task is finished, the parameters for restarting the data-pump task are stored and the task is switched from the data-pump task to the controller task according to the parameters for restarting the controller task. brief description of the drawings other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: fig. 1 shows an example of a task state transition diagram; fig. 2 shows a bock diagram of a task switching system and a modem of an embodiment according to the present invention; fig. 3 shows a hardware block diagram of the modem shown in fig. 2 ; and fig. 4 shows a flow chart of procedures of the task switching system of the embodiment according to the present invention. best mode for carrying out the invention a description will now be given, with reference to the accompanying drawings, of embodiments of the present invention. fig. 2 shows a bock diagram of a task switching system and a modem of the embodiment according to the present invention. fig. 3 shows a hardware block diagram of the modem shown in fig. 2 . fig. 4 shows a flow chart of procedures of the task switching system of the embodiment according to the present invention. in fig. 3 , reference numeral 1 shows a modem, reference numeral 20 shows a dte (data terminal equipment) constructed by, for example a personal computer, and reference numeral 30 shows a communication line. the modem 1 mainly has a dsp 2 , a serial port 10 , a work-ram 11 (random access memory), a program rom 12 (read only memory), an a/d and d/a converter 13 , a daa 14 (data access arranger) and a control port 15 . the dsp 2 is connected to the dte 20 via the serial port 10 and performs the controller task with sub-tasks, such as connection control between the dte 20 and the communication line 30 , user-issued at command processing, s-register processing, conversion processing from digital bit data to digital byte data, buffering, error correction, and data compression and decompression; and the data-pump task, such as modulation and demodulation, in which the digital bit data are modulated to a transmission signal that is transmitted through the transmission line and the transmission signal received from the transmission line is demodulated to digital bit data. the processes performed by the dsp 2 are actually executed by a cpu in the dsp 2 according to a program stored on the program rom 12 . further, the dsp 2 executes the task switching according to the present invention using the work-ram 11 . the daa 14 has a ncu (network control unit) and a hybrid circuit. the daa 14 performs both connection control to the communication line 30 and data transmission and reception control according to an instruction from the dsp 2 through the control port 15 . the data transmitted from and received by the daa 14 is converted from digital signal to analog signal and from analog signal to digital signal by the a/d and d/a converter 13 . therefore, in the modem 1 , the digital signal to be transmitted is supplied from the dte 20 and the digital signal is signal-processed and controlled by the dsp 2 . then, the digital signal supplied from the dsp 2 is converted to an analog signal by the a/d and d/a converter 13 , and then sent to the communication line 30 through the daa 14 . the analog signal received from the communication line 30 is supplied to the a/d and d/a converter 13 through the daa 14 , and then, the analog signal is converted to the digital signal by the a/d and d/a converter 13 . the digital signal is signal-processed and controlled by the dsp 2 , and supplied to the dte 20 through the serial port 10 . the dsp 2 in the modem 1 has the structure shown in fig. 2 , and the dsp 2 can efficiently switch the task between the transaction control task such as the controller task, and the signal-processing task such as the data-pump task. as shown in fig. 2 , the dsp 2 in the modem 1 has a controller task processing part 3 , a data-pump task processing part 4 and a task switching part 5 . in the controller task processing part 3 , a plurality of sub-tasks a 3 a through f 3 f are continuously executed in a round robin mode. in the data-pump task processing part 4 , a modulation and de-modulation task 4 a is executed. in the task switching part 5 , an interrupt detection part 5 a detects an external event interrupt, such as completion of conversion of a block by the a/d and d/a converter 13 shown in fig. 3 , and a switching part 5 b stops the sub-tasks a 3 a through f 3 f being continuously executed by the controller task processing part 3 in the round robin mode and switches the task to the modulation and de-modulation task 4 a. when the task is switched, the switching part 5 b stores information or parameters that are needed to restart the stopped sub-tasks a 3 a through f 3 f into a parameter memory area 5 c in the work-ram 11 shown in fig. 3 . after the modulation and de-modulation task 4 a is finished, the task switching part 5 stores parameters which are needed to restart the data-pump task processing part 4 into the parameter memory area 5 c , and reads the parameters for restarting the sub-tasks a 3 a through f 3 f from the parameter memory area 5 c , and then, switches the task to the sub-tasks a 3 a through f 3 f according to the parameters. as a result, the dsp 2 in the modem 1 according to the present invention can switch the tasks without using the entire os (operating system). therefore, the amount of memory to be used can be reduced. next, procedures of the task switching system used in the modem 1 and the dsp 2 will be explained with reference to fig. 4 . after the dsp 2 is reset and initialized, at step 301 , the controller task (ct_task), which is a normally processed task of the controller, is executed. this controller task is a one-level process having a ctx process and a lapm process, and the controller task is continuously executed. the ctx process has sub-tasks. examples of the sub-tasks are at command parser processing, s-register processing, conversion processing from digital bit data to digital byte data, buffering, and flow control for a host device. the lapm (link access procedure for modems) is the error correction process described in v.42: error correction recommendation of the itu-t (international telecommunication union-telecommunication standardization sector). further, this controller task includes the data compression process, such as v.42bis, and so on. each task (each controller sub-task) processes data when the data to be processed exists, and proceeds to the next controller sub-task when no data to be processed exists, in the round robin mode. the external event needed for the controller (ct) task is generated by the ct resource interrupt process, such as communication between the host device, or accumulation of either the de-modulated data supplied from the data-pump (dp) task or the data that will be supplied to the dp task for modulation. while the ct_task is being processed, interrupts are allowed. while the dp task does not require processing, the ct task is continuously executed in the round robin mode. in step 302 , for example, an input signal from the a/d converter in the a/d and d/a converter 13 is the start event for the dp reception process 303 of the data-pump (dp) task. similarly, the timing at which data are supplied to the d/a converter in the a/d and d/a converter 13 is the external start event for the dp transmit process 304 of the data-pump (dp) task. an ad/da interrupt generated by the a/d and d/a converter 13 is processed at step 307 . the ad/da interrupt is a process which is started by a hardware interrupt generated by the a/d and d/a converter 13 connected to the dsp 2 at a time when the ad/da conversion is finished. the data are stored in a transmit/reception buffer. if the dp task is needed, the tasks of the dp main level are notified by means of a flag, ad so on. after the process needed for the interrupt at step 308 is finished, at step 309 , the task that was being executed before the interrupt is identified and the procedure is branched based on the identified result. if the task that was being executed before the interrupt is not the ct_task, then the procedure proceeds to the step 310 and the task which was being executed before the interrupt is restarted normally. however, if the task that was being executed before the interrupt is the ct_task, then the task switching part 5 stores the status information of the ct_task (parameters such as registers or the next entry point that is needed for re-starting the task) into the parameter memory area 5 c , and at step 311 , the procedure jumps to the top of the dp process 302 . in this embodiment, the dp task is always switched to the ct task after the dp task is completely processed. therefore, the dp task is switched from the ct task at the start of the dp task when the dp task is restarted. the dp task is executed at the normally running level and no interrupt pc stack is used. when the next entry point (pc) is stored in this process, a malfunction of the stack does not occur because the pc stack is all popped-up. commonly, not every signal processing step needed for the dp task is executed in the interrupt process. this prevents the multiple interrupt system from failing because of a prolonged interrupt interval, and this is because a specific process must be executed using the plurality of sampled data according to a plurality of the ad interrupts (normally, one symbol of the modem consists of a plurality of samples). therefore, it is required to switch the task to the dp task at the normally running level. in the dp task 302 , the signal processing, such as the reception or transmission of data, is executed at the steps 303 and 304 according to the requirement of the event generated by the ad/da interrupt. during the process, another process requirement may occur indicated by the ad/da interrupt. therefore, at step 305 , whether a new dp task is generated is determined. after the occurrence of the new dp task is determined, and if it is required to process the new dp task, the dp task 302 is continued. if it is not required to process the new dp task, the procedure advances to the taskctl process at step 306 . the taskctl process is a module that recovers the entry point and the register of the controller task (ct_task). at the step 306 of the taskctl, the procedure jumps to the entry point of ct_task, which was stored in the memory. as a result, the procedure advances to the step 301 . the mark * shows the jump. the return address is different when the procedure jumps to the entry point of ct_task. returning to ct_task restarts the task that is stopped, at the step 301 . as described above, the controller task (ct_task) does not need to know that the data-pump task exists. this allows the controller task (program) to be described as one closed task (program). this is very convenient when the controller software that has been implemented on the conventional cpu is transplanted to the software implemented on another cpu. the modulated and de-modulated data are used to interface the dp task with the ct task. this data sequence is stored in the memory constructed as a software fifo (first in first out) memory. the amount of data or no data in the memory works as a start event for both the dp task and the ct task. the ct task also has an event started by an i/f signal from the host device, such as the at command, and so on. those i/f signals are checked by means of the interrupt process for the ct resource and polling, and so on. as described above with reference to fig. 2 through fig. 4 , in the task switching system, the task switching method, the dsp and the modem of the embodiment, the modem 1 has a one-chip single dsp 2 , and the single dsp 2 executes the controller task (modem controller task) and the data-pump task (modem data-pump task). in the controller task, a plurality of sub-tasks are continuously executed in the round robin mode. during the execution of the controller task, when the data-pump task is required to be started by the interrupt generated by the external event, the parameters for restarting the controller task are stored, and then the task is switched from the controller task to the data-pump task according to the parameters for restarting the data-pump task that are previously stored. then, after the process of the switched data-pump task is finished, the parameters for restarting the data-pump task are stored and the task is switched from the data-pump task to the controller task according to the parameters for restarting the controller task. this allows the controller task to be described as a collection of closed sub-tasks (program). further, when the data-pump task is required, the data-pump task is executed with higher priority. according to this embodiment, it is possible to sufficiently switch tasks in the modem 1 without using a large scale and complicated rtos. the present invention is not limited to the specifically disclosed embodiments shown in fig. 2 through fig. 4 , but variations and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. for example, in the present embodiment, the task is switched between the controller task and data-pump task by the task switching part 5 . however, the data-pump processing part 4 or the modulation and de-modulation task 4 a can execute the task switching function in place of the task switching function being performed by the task switching part 5 . in this case, the data-pump task (the data-pump processing part 4 or the modulation and de-modulation task 4 a ) that is being executed stores its own parameters in the memory for restarting the data-pump task itself when the data-pump task itself is finished, and switches the task from the data-pump task itself to the controller task according to the parameters stored for restarting the controller task. in the embodiment, the dsp in the modem is used for implementing the present invention. however, it is possible to apply the present invention to an apparatus in which a plurality of tasks are effectively switched in a single processor. for example, the single processor executes the first task and the second task. in the first task, a plurality of sub-tasks are continuously executed in the round robin mode. during the execution of the first task, when the second task is required to be started by the interrupt generated by the external event, the parameters for restarting the first task are stored, and then the task is switched from the first task to the second task according to the parameter for restarting the second task that are previously stored. then, after the process of the switched second task is finished, the parameters for restarting the second task are stored and the processing is switched from the second task to the first task according to the parameters for restarting the first task. according to the present invention, it is possible to effectively switch a plurality of tasks in a single processor. for example, in the modem using the small-sized and low cost dsp, it is possible to effectively execute two tasks, which are the controller task and the data-pump task, without using the complete rtos (real time operating sysyem). therefore, it is possible to provide the small-sized and low cost modem using the one-chip dsp. the present invention is not limited to the specifically disclosed embodiments, but variations and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. the present application is based on japanese priority application no. 2001-286670 filed on sep. 20, 2001, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
104-851-275-727-062	US	[ "US", "WO" ]	B29C67/00,B33Y10/00,B33Y70/00,C09D5/24,C09D7/43,C09D7/61,C09D7/65,C09D175/04,C09D175/06,C09D177/00,D06M15/564,C09D11/10,B41J3/407,C09D11/322,C09D11/38,C09D11/52	2016-01-22T00:00:00	2016	[ "B29", "B33", "C09", "D06", "B41" ]	3d printable composite waterborne dispersions	a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing. the dispersion includes a composition containing an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles; an associative thickener; and a functional filler. the functional filler may be conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, polydimethylsiloxane, eutectic metal particles, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, particles with high acoustic impedance, low-k dielectric particles, or high-k dielectric particles. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of dynamic yield stress and static yield stress. the composition is film-forming when dried. a method for three-dimensionally printing an object with a three-dimensional printer includes dispensing a composite waterborne dispersion to deposit the dispersion toward a build surface to define an object portion, the dispersion including an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles and an associative thickener, the composition having a yield stress >0 pa and being film-forming when dried.	1 . a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing, comprising: a composition comprising a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles; an associative thickener; and a first functional filler comprising conductive particles, wherein (i) the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress, and (ii) the composition is film-forming when dried. 2 - 35 . (canceled) 36 . a method for three-dimensionally printing an object with a three-dimensional printer including (i) a dispensing system comprising at least one cartridge adapted to dispense a composite waterborne dispersion through an orifice, (ii) a build surface disposed below the dispensing system, and (iii) a robotic control system with at least one axis of movement, the method comprising: dispensing the composite waterborne dispersion from the cartridge through the orifice to deposit the waterborne dispersion toward the build surface to define at least a portion of the object, wherein the composite waterborne dispersion includes a composition comprising an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles; and an associative thickener; and wherein (i) the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress, and (ii) the composition is film-forming when dried. 37 . the method of claim 36 , wherein the composition further comprises a functional filler selected from the group consisting of a color pigment, conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, pdms, a solder component, quartz, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, barium titanate particles, and radar absorbing particles. 38 . the method of claim 37 , wherein the conductive particles are selected from the group consisting of silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, and graphene. 39 . the method of claim 38 , wherein the functional filler comprises a plurality of particles and an average diameter of the polymer particles is at least one order of magnitude smaller than an average diameter of the functional filler particles. 40 . the method of claim 36 , wherein a porous substrate is disposed on the build surface, and a yield stress of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion allows spanning over gaps in surface pores of the substrate. 41 . the method of claim 40 , wherein the porous substrate comprises a textile. 42 - 48 . (canceled) 49 . a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing, comprising: a composition comprising a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles; an associative thickener; and a first functional filler selected from the group consisting of fumed silica, milled glass fibers, polydimethylsiloxane (pdms), eutectic metal particles, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, particles with high acoustic impedance, low-k dielectric particles, and high-k dielectric particles, wherein (i) the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress, and (ii) the composition is film-forming when dried. 50 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the composition comprises at least 20 vol % of the first functional filler. 51 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises eutectic metal particles, and the eutectic metal particles are selected from the group consisting of tin bismuth, gallium-indium, indium-silver particles. 52 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises thermally insulating particles, and the thermally insulating particles are selected from the group consisting of foams, aerogels, and hollow spheres. 53 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises thermally conductive particles, and the thermally conductive particles are selected from the group consisting of boron nitride particles and diamond particles. 54 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises ferromagnetic particles, and the ferromagnetic particles are selected from the group consisting of carbonyl iron, ferrite, and molypermalloy powder. 55 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises particles with high acoustic impedance, and the particles with high acoustic impedance are selected from the group consisting of tungsten, alumina, zirconia, tungsten carbide, and lead oxide particles. 56 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises low-k dielectric particles, and the low-k dielectric particles are selected from the group consisting of polytetrafluoroethylene ptfe, polyimide aerogel particles, and glass. 57 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises high-k dielectric particles, and the high-k dielectric particles are selected from the group consisting of titanium dioxide, strontium titanate, barium strontium titanate, barium titanate, and calcium copper titanate. 58 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises fumed silica. 59 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises milled glass fibers. 60 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises polydimethylsiloxane (pdms). 61 . the composite waterborne dispersion of claim 49 , wherein the first functional filler comprises carbon fiber.	related application this application claims priority to u.s. provisional patent application ser. no. 62/286,067, filed jan. 22, 2016, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein. field of the invention embodiments of the invention relate to three-dimensional (“3d”) printable inks, based on composite waterborne polymer dispersions. background the 3d printing industry currently faces limitations in the variety of materials that may be printed. thermoplastic filaments are widely used in fused deposition modeling (“fdm”) and fused filament fabrication (“fff”) printing, while uv curable resins are dominant in stereolithography (“sla”) printing. there is a commercial need for 3d printing of polymer-based inks in electronics, shoe manufacturing, and other industries. summary in an aspect, embodiments of the invention relate to a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing. the composite waterborne dispersion includes a composition including a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles, an associative thickener, and a first functional filler including conductive particles. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress. the composition is film-forming when dried. one or more of the following features may be included. the composition may have a static yield stress >50 pa, e.g., >200 pa. the composition may have a viscosity selected from a range of 10 to 10,000 pas at shear rate 1/s. the composition may include a non-volatile content selected from a range of 70 wt % to 95 wt %, or greater than 25 volume percent, preferably greater than 40 volume percent. the maximum agglomerate size of the composition may be less than 50 microns, or preferably less than 25 microns. the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles may be self-crosslinking at room temperature. the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles may have a minimum film formation temperature below 22° c. the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles may include at least one of a polyurethane, an acrylic, an alkyd, pvc, styrene butadiene, vinyl acetate, vinyl acetate ethylenes, vinyl maleate, or vinyl versatate. the associative thickener may be selected from the group including a hydrophobically modified ethoxylated urethane (heur), a hydrophobically modified alkali swellable emulsion (hase), a tri-block co-polymer, a hydrophobically modified polyacrylate thickener, a hydrophobically modified polyether thickener, or a hydrophobically modified cellulose ether. the composite waterborne dispersion may include a solid metal precursor and/or a dissolved metal precursor. the composition may further include a second functional filler. the second functional filler may include a color pigment, and the composition may include 0.1-10 wt % color pigment. the second functional filler may be selected from the group including conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, pdms, a eutectic metal particle, quartz, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, or radar absorbing particles. at least a portion of the second functional filler may include a coating material that interacts with the associative thickener. the coating material may be selected from the group including an unsaturated hydrocarbon, a fatty acid, an ionic surfactant, a nonionic surfactant, an ionic polymer, or a block copolymer. the composition may include at least 25 wt % conductive particles. the conductive particles may be selected from the group including silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, graphene, copper oxide particles, tungsten particles, aluminum microparticles, nickel microparticles, or microparticles of eutectic metal systems. an average diameter of the polymer particles in the aqueous dispersion may be at least one order of magnitude smaller than an average diameter of the conductive particles of the first functional filler. the composition may further include a rheological modifier that increases a resting viscosity, yield stress, or pseudoplastic behavior of the composition. the composition may further include at least one of a defoamer, an antifoam, a coalescent, a dispersant, or an adhesion modifier. the composition may include the defoamer and the defoamer is selected from the group including a silicone-based defoamer, an oil-based defoamer, a powder-based defoamer, a wax-based defoamer, polyethylene glycol-based defoamer, polypropylene glycol-based defoamer, an alkyl-polyacrylate based defoamer, an antifoam, pdms, polyester-functionalized silicone, or fluorosilicone. the composition may include a coalescent. the coalescent may be selected from the group including glycol ethers, (3-hydroxy-2,2,4-trimethylpentyl) 2-methylpropanoate (e.g., texanol from eastman), propylene carbonate, diethyl carbonate, n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (nmp), dimethyl formamide (dmf), tetrahydrofuran (thf), dibasic esters, glycols, glycol ether acetates, propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate (e.g., optifilm enhancer 300), optifilm enhancer 400, 2-ethylhexyl benzoate (e.g., velate 368 coalescent from eastman), or 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate (e.g., velate 375 coalescent from eastman). the composition may include the dispersant, and the dispersant may be selected from the group including sorbitan monooleate (e.g., span 80 from sigma-aldrich), polyethylene glycol sorbitan monooleate (e.g., tween 80 from eastman), octylphenol ethoxylate (e.g., triton x-100 from sigma-aldrich), hydropalat we 3320 from basf (trade secret: njtsrn 489909-5554-pc; one component is a type of fatty alcohol alkoxylate), dapro w-77 from elementis specialties (contains ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethyl alcohol, and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate), jeffsperse x3503 from huntsman (proprietary blend of a nonionic polymeric dispersant), disperbyk 190 from byk (solution of a high molecular weight block copolymer with pigment affinic groups), zetasperse 3100 from air products (proprietary surface active polymers), rhodoline3500 from solvay, dispex ultra fa 4480 nu from basf (modified fatty alcohol polyglycol ether), polyacrylic, ionic surfactants, non-ionic surfactants, or comb polymers. the composition may include the adhesion modifier, and the adhesion modifier may be selected from the group including a silane coupling agent, a secondary polymer, a secondary polymer dispersion, a dissolved polymer, an oligomer, a surfactant, a wetting agent, a chlorinated polyolefins, an epoxy-functionalized compound, or an amino-functional silicone polymer. the adhesion modifier may include the silane coupling agent and the composition may include 0.01-3 wt % silane coupling agent. the adhesion modifier may include the silane coupling agent and the silane coupling agent may be selected from the group including glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane, aminopropyltriethoxysilane, aminoethylaminopropyl-trimethoxysilane, 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane, cationic vinylbenzyl and amino-functional methoxy-silane, vinyltrimethoxysilane, or aminoethylaminopropyltrialkoxysilane. the composition may include the adhesion modifier and the adhesion modifier may include at least two different types of silane coupling agents. the adhesion modifier may include a second aqueous dispersion of a second type of polymer particles. the polymer particles of the second aqueous dispersion may be compatible with the polymer particles of the first aqueous dispersion. the adhesion modifier may include a dissolved polymer. the dissolved polymer may be a cellulose derivative, which may be selected from the group including hydroxypropyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, or sodium carboxy methyl cellulose. the dissolved polymer may be an ionic polymer, which may be selected from the group consisting of polyacrylic acid, alginate, xanthan gum, pectin, carrageenan, or hyaluronic acid. the dissolved polymer may be a nonionic polymer, which may be selected from the group including polyvinylpyrrolidone, polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxide, dextran, guar gum, polyvinyl alcohol, polyacrylamide, or chitosan. the composition may cure or dry at room temperature. an object may include the composite waterborne dispersion. the description of elements of the embodiments of other aspects of the invention may be applied to this aspect of the invention as well. in another aspect, embodiments of the invention relate to a method for three-dimensionally printing an object with a three-dimensional printer including a dispensing system including at least one cartridge adapted to dispense a composite waterborne dispersion through an orifice as a continuous filament, a build surface disposed below the dispensing system, or a robotic control system with at least one axis of movement. the method includes dispensing the composite waterborne dispersion from the cartridge through the orifice to deposit the waterborne dispersion toward the build surface to define at least a portion of the object. the composite waterborne dispersion includes a composition of an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles or associative thickener, and the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress, and the composition is film-forming when dried. one or more of the following features may be included. the composition may further include a functional filler, which may be selected from the group including a color pigment, conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, pdms, a solder component, quartz, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, barium titonate particles, or radar absorbing particles. the conductive particles may be selected from the group including silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, or graphene. the functional filler may include a plurality of particles and an average diameter of the polymer particles may be at least one order of magnitude smaller than an average diameter of the functional filler particles. a porous substrate may be disposed on the build surface, and a yield stress of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion may allow spanning over gaps in surface pores of the substrate. the porous substrate may include a textile. the textile may be selected from the group consisting of a woven textile or a knit fabric. the substrate may include a non-planar surface. the method for three-dimensionally printing an object may further include scanning a non-planar surface with at least one of a laser distance sensor, a laser line scanner, or a ccd camera, to obtain a surface map of the topology of the surface, and then using the surface map to control deposition of the waterborne dispersion on the non-planar surface while maintaining a substantially constant standoff. the waterborne dispersion may be deposited onto a substrate disposed on the build surface. a starting geometry of the printed object may be adapted to shrink into a desired shape, to thereby compensate for shrinkage of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion. the waterborne dispersion may be deposited onto a compliant substrate on the build surface and shrinkage of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion may drive a shape change in the compliant substrate. an object may be formed by the three-dimensionally printing the object with the composite waterborne dispersion. the description of elements of the embodiments of other aspects of the invention may be applied to this aspect of the invention as well. in another aspect, embodiments of the invention relate to a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing. the composite waterborne dispersion includes a composition including a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles, an associative thickener, and a first functional filler including fumed silica, milled glass fibers, polydimethylsiloxane (pdms), eutectic metal particles, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, particles with high acoustic impedance, low-k dielectric particles, or high-k dielectric particles. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress. the composition is film-forming when dried. one or more of the following features may be included. the composition may include at least 20 vol % of the first functional filler. the first functional filler may include eutectic metal particles, e.g., tin bismuth, gallium-indium, or indium-silver particles. the first functional filler may include thermally insulating particles, such as foams, aerogels, or hollow spheres. the first functional filler may include thermally conductive particles, e.g., boron nitride particles or diamond particles. the first functional filler may include ferromagnetic particles, such as carbonyl iron, ferrite, or molypermalloy powder. the first functional filler may include particles with high acoustic impedance, such as tungsten, alumina, zirconia, tungsten carbide or lead oxide particles. the first functional filler may include low-k dielectric particles, e.g., polytetrafluoroethylene ptfe, polyimide aerogel particles, and glass. the first functional filler may include high-k dielectric particles, such as titanium dioxide, strontium titanate, barium strontium titanate, barium titanate, or calcium copper titanate. the first functional filler may include fumed silica. the first functional filler may include milled glass fibers. the first functional filler may include polydimethylsiloxane (pdms). the first functional filler may include an elastomer. the first functional filler may include carbon fiber. the description of elements of the embodiments of other aspects of the invention may be applied to this aspect of the invention as well. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic drawing of ink system interactions; figs. 2a-2b are graphs illustrating the rheology of a silver conductive ink formulation in terms of static yield stress, in accordance with embodiments of the invention; figs. 3a-3b are graphs illustrating the rheology of a silver conductive ink formulation in terms of dynamic yield stress, in accordance with embodiments of the invention; figs. 4a-4b are graphs illustrating the rheology of a silver conductive ink formulation demonstrating pseudoplasticity in terms of shear rate and viscosity, in accordance with embodiments of the invention; figs. 5a-5c are graphs illustrating the rheology of various ink formulations (to which an oscillation amplitude of increasing strain is applied) in terms of elastic modulus g′ and loss modulus g″ in accordance with embodiments of the invention; figs. 6a-6b are plots of ink resistance vs time (ambient cure), in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; fig. 7 is a plot of ink resistivity vs cure temperature (two hour cure), in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; fig. 8 illustrates 3d printing of an inductive charging coil, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; figs. 9a-9e illustrate silver conductive ink stacking and spanning performed in accordance with embodiments of the invention; and figs. 10a-10b illustrate inks printed onto porous textiles in accordance with embodiments of the invention. detailed description printing ink in 3-dimensions places a certain set of demands on the ink rheology. 3d printed inks are designed to have a yield stress and therefore be self-supporting, allowing the ink to remain stable for months in a cartridge without settling or need for remixing. repeatable extrusion of ink through a small orifice, such as a nozzle tip, demands that the material be highly shear-thinning, so that only a moderate applied pressure is required to extrude the ink through the orifice. post-extrusion, the material's internal network is temporarily broken apart and viscosity is greatly reduced, requiring a fast recovery to its initial, self-supporting state. for certain applications, extending this recovery time may be advantageous (for example, a slow recovery obscures the appearance of discrete layers), but in general the recovery time is preferably minimal. a material that satisfies the above rheological criteria allows one to span gaps, build in 3d, and print closely spaced deposits of ink without overlap. accordingly, certain rheological properties are desired for 3d printing inks: (1) high static yield stress, which is the minimum stress required to initiate flow from a static, solid-like state; (2) pseudoplastic or shear-thinning behavior, which allows the ink to flow easily during extrusion from the nozzle; and (3) minimal thixotropy, meaning quick recovery time. in other words, the ink very quickly recovers the viscosity and yield stress that it had before it was sheared apart. with the onset of increasingly strict volatile organic compounds (“voc”) regulations, which limit the commercial usage of organic solvents, the market for waterborne polymer dispersions has flourished. waterborne polymer dispersions are now used in a variety of applications ranging from paints to shoe manufacturing. such commercial dispersions include polyurethanes, self-crosslinking polyurethanes, polycarbonate ester polyurethanes, acrylics, styrene acrylics, and self-crosslinking acrylics, just to name a few. however, waterborne dispersions are low viscosity fluids, generally unsuitable for 3d printing on their own. while every interaction between components of an ink formulation—physical, chemical and/or electrostatic—strongly influences rheology, the list below describes certain ways of optimizing waterborne ink rheology for 3d printing: associative thickeners (at) increase the viscosity, yield stress, and pseudoplastic and/or thixotropic behavior of the system. possible interactions include: at-at, polymer-at-polymer, particle-at-particle, filler-at-filler, polymer-at-filler, etc.non-associative thickeners are polymers dissolved in solvent that thicken the system via polymer chain entanglement. the exclusive use of non-associative thickeners is generally not ideal for 3d printing applications requiring repeated start-stops, because non-associative thickeners cause ink “stringiness” and thus poor start-stop behavior. such “stringiness” increases the likelihood of overlapping ink deposits (i.e., short circuits, if the ink is conductive) and undesirable protrusions from otherwise smooth surfaces. furthermore, such thickeners generally display weak pseudoplastic behavior, which is not ideal for 3d printing. on the other hand, non-associative thickeners can be used to improve the ink's ability to print a continuous trace without break and support itself while spanning gaps in free space.pseudoplastic and/or thixotropic additives create a constructed 3d network that can be broken apart with shear. for example, fumed silica is composed of small particles that weakly flocculate and interact with each other mostly via surface interactions, i.e., hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonding, and van der waals forces. the selection of fumed silica, including the choice of using a dispersion versus powder, is important for optimizing thixotropy, compatibility with the system, and optical clarity, if desired.other factors that influence rheology include: solids loading, solvent fraction, particle size, particle geometry, viscosity of polymer dispersion, amount of dispersant added, and surface chemistry of ink components. the selection of one or more waterborne polymer dispersions depends on the desired application. for example, the formulation for a silver conductive ink requires that a selected polymer dispersion satisfy at least some of the following properties: a narrow size distribution of small, well-dispersed and stabilized particles, at least 1 order of magnitude smaller than the conductive particles. importantly, the dispersed polymer particles fill in the gaps between conductive particles as the ink dries. the preferred volume fraction of polymer in conductive ink is generally a trade-off between conductivity and improved mechanical properties of dried ink.freeze-thaw stability allows the formulated ink to withstand exposure to freezing temperatures multiple times without destabilizing. such stability is important for commercial air shipping and extended storage.self-crosslinking results in the formation of a hard and flexible film with a room temperature cure.ability to be cured at elevated temperatures is beneficial, in case a post-processing condition is desired. for example, the conductive ink may be incorporated into crosslinking systems that require thermal curing to achieve final properties. for a conductive ink to be successfully incorporated in 3d printed electronics, a number of demands are placed on the ink formulation: high conductivity to minimize resistance of conductive traces.ability to fully cure and dry at room temperature, i.e., 22° c.low toxicity and odor, to be safely and easily handled by most users.low voc content to satisfy industry regulations.strong adhesion to thermoplastics used in 3d printing such as polylactic acid (“pla”), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (“abs”) and polyethylene terephthalate (“pet”).absence of air bubbles to ensure that no unintended break in printing could result in an open circuit.good flexibility of dried ink traces—if a printed electronic part is dropped and the conductive traces are brittle, there is a high risk of a broken trace, resulting in an open circuit.good abrasion resistance of dried ink traces to minimize visible scratching.ability to be 3d printed, following the ideal rheological properties. for conductive inks in particular, “non-stringiness” is highly desirable in preventing accidental overlap of traces (i.e., short circuits), and ink adhesion should be good for both electronic components and thermoplastic substrates. while proper selection of a polymer dispersion is important to the success of a silver conductive ink, a number of other ingredients are typically added to the formulation to improve material properties: coalescents, i.e., slow-evaporating solvents that are miscible with water, may be added to optimize the rate at which the ink cures, reduce the risk of ink drying/clogging in the printing nozzle, and improve the final mechanical properties of dried ink.surfactants stabilize both the polymer dispersion and conductive particles within the uncured ink, ensuring long-term storage stability.defoamer destroys existing air bubbles and minimizes the formation of new air bubbles. the existence of air bubbles not only results in lower conductivity (air is an insulator), but also a single air bubble can ruin a print by causing an unintended break in printing a conductive trace, which results in an open circuit.adhesion promoter significantly improves adhesion to both pla and electronic components. without proper adhesion, there is a high risk of dried ink delaminating from a thermoplastic substrate and electronic components falling out of place in the circuit, both of which would result in print failure. referring to fig. 1 , typical physical and chemical interactions in silver conductive ink 100 are illustrated, i.e., between silver flakes 102 , a surfactant 104 , polymer particles 106 , and an associative thickener 108 . an associative thickener is a tri-block co-polymer with hydrophobic ends and hydrophilic middle. the silver flakes have a hydrophobic surface, and the polymer dispersion is moderately hydrophobic. if one were to make a mixture of the polymer dispersion, silver flake, and dispersant, then the dispersant would disperse the silver flakes very well in the polymer dispersion. however, since the silver flakes do not interact with the polymer dispersion, they would gradually settle to the bottom due to gravity. when the associative thickener is added to the mixture, the middle of the triblock co-polymer allows it to be dissolved into the aqueous medium. the hydrophobic ends cling to the surfaces of the silver flake, and the surfaces of the polymer dispersion, and also interact with themselves to form micelles. the interactions are mixed with some bridging polymer to particle, some bridging flake to flake, and some bridging flake to polymer, and some bridging either flake or polymer to micelles of the thickener itself. all these interactions create a linked 3d network that mechanically holds the silver flakes from settling out of solution, and gives the ink a yield stress that makes it printable. tuning the rheology of conductive ink is important for 3d printing. however, rheology modification requires particular care, because the addition of too much thickener or other additives can cause significant reductions in conductivity: heur associative thickeners (hydrophobically modified polyurethanes) are water-soluble polymers with hydrophobic end groups, which physically interact with each other and create a branched network within the ink. the strength of physical interactions with dispersed polymer particles and conductive particles depend largely on the surface chemistry of the particle surfaces—stronger interactions increase the viscosity of the ink. the highly desirable heur thickener increases pseudoplastic behavior and long-term storage stability without adversely affecting conductivity, flexibility and hardness of deposited ink after room temperature cure, as long as the quantity of thickener is optimized.defoamers not only prevent/eliminate air bubble formation, but also some induce a pronounced thickening effect, which is important for designing a self-supporting ink. such defoamers typically contain a combination of hydrophobic solids, polysiloxanes, and amorphous silica.conductive particles affect rheology, especially since they compose such a high volume fraction in conductive ink. although rheology is not the most critical factor in selection of conductive particles, it should be noted that higher aspect ratio particles demonstrate more thixotropy and shear thinning behavior. particle size and surface chemistry also affect rheology, in particular the possible addition of a fatty acid coating on the conductive particle surface.pseudoplastic/thixotropic additives such as fumed silica and carbon black reduce conductivity, but small amounts can significantly improve shape retention, pseudoplasticity and thixotropy of the ink. for applications that incorporate a mixing nozzle for 3d printing of gradient features, fumed silica and/or carbon black may be incorporated to vary conductivity. referring to figs. 2a and 2b , graphs illustrate the rheology of a silver conductive ink formulation in terms of static yield stress. using a ta instruments dhr-3 hybrid rheometer, and a vane and cup attachment, a constant shear rate of 0.01 l/s was applied to ( 2 a) a silver conductive ink composition before silver particles were added, and ( 2 b) a silver conductive ink composition after dispersion of silver particles. static yield stress is defined as the minimum stress required to initiate flow in a material. in fig. 2a , the shear stress remains constant over time, with no clear yield stress, as the strain is increased, whereas in fig. 2b , when silver particles are incorporated, the stress increases with strain until reaching the static yield stress of about 250 pa, subsequently dropping as the internal structure of the ink is sheared apart in the yielding event. in summary, the presence of the conductive particles and their interaction with the associative thickener is integral to obtaining a suitable non-zero static yield stress. although associative thickener on its own may suitably thicken a conductive ink formulation, in reality only a small amount can be added without adversely affecting conductivity. however, because the silver particles interact strongly with the hydrophobic segments of the associative thickener, a static yield stress is created with minimal thickener addition, e.g., 0.5 to 1.5 wt %. referring to figs. 3a and 3b , graphs illustrate the rheology of a silver conductive ink formulation in terms of dynamic yield stress. a flow sweep of increasing shear rate was applied to ( 3 a) conductive ink composition before silver particles are added, and ( 3 b) silver conductive ink composition after dispersion of silver particles. dynamic yield stress is defined as the minimum stress required to maintain flow in a material, and is generally lower in value than the static yield stress. the value of a dynamic yield stress is generally obtained by model fitting, i.e., by fitting a shear stress versus shear strain curve to a standard rheological model that has dynamic yield stress as one of the variables. rheological curve fitting software, trios, may be used to fit a curve to the raw data shown in figs. 3a and 3b . using an algorithm, multiple different rheology equations are attempted to be fit to the raw data. the goodness of fit is determined by the equation and parameters that produce a coefficient of determination with the value closest to 1. curve fitting dictates that the best fitting model for the data in both figs. 3a and 3b is the herschel-bulkley model for a non-newtonian fluid: τ=τ 0 +k{dot over (γ)} n where τ is the shear stress, {dot over (γ)} is the shear rate, τ 0 is the dynamic yield stress, k is the consistency index, and n is the flow index. the dynamic yield stress τ 0 is the y-intercept of the curve, or the stress level below which the material can no longer flow. the shear rate {dot over (γ)} is the x variable, and the variable that is gradually modulated to study the behavior of the stress with shear rate. the dynamic yield stress is measured as the lowest stress reading recorded during the time period when the rheometer is moving at its lowest shear rate possible, thus causing the material to flow at a very slow rate. the dynamic shear rate is usually recorded through model fitting to rheological models with controlled strain rate ( figs. 3a-3b ). the static yield stress is recorded by gradually increasing the stress to measure when the material starts to flow ( figs. 2a-2b ). the hershel-bulkley model is frequently used for shear thinning materials with a non-zero yield stress. when the yield stress term, τ 0 , equals zero and the flow index term, n, equals one, the equation for the herschel-bulkley model reduces to newton's law of viscosity, which may be used to describe a newtonian fluid like water. curve fitting analysis demonstrates that the model that best fits the data in fig. 3a is the hershel-bulkley model with a yield stress value of zero. since the equation shown in fig. 3a has a flow index close to one, this fluid model closely follows newton's law with slight non-newtonian behavior. the data in fig. 3b also fits the hershel-bulkley model with a dynamic yield stress value (i.e., a y-intercept) that is greater than zero, and a flow index that is less than 1. this indicates that the material has a non-zero yield stress, and non-newtonian flow. curve fitting estimates the dynamic yield stress to have values of 0 pa and 168 pa for figs. 3a and 3b , respectively. analysis was conducted over three decades in the range of 10 −2 to 1 pa. thus, it was demonstrated that the addition of silver particles increases the dynamic yield stress. one who is skilled in the art would readily ascertain which models are most likely to fit based on the fluid characteristics of the material of interest. referring to figs. 4a and 4b , a controlled shear rate flow sweep shown may be used to demonstrate shear thinning behavior, in which the viscosity of a non-newtonian fluid decreases with increasing shear rate. graphs ( 4 a) and ( 4 b) represent data for a conductive ink before silver particles are added, and silver conductive ink after dispersion of silver particles. for a range of shear rates 10 −3 to 50 l/s, the viscosity in ( 4 a) decreases by only 3 pas, whereas the viscosity in ( 4 b) decreases by more than three orders of magnitude. thus, it was demonstrated that the addition of silver particles intensifies shear-thinning behavior. referring to figs. 5a-5c , an oscillation amplitude sweep of increasing strain was applied to ( 5 a) conductive ink before silver particles are added, ( 5 b) silver conductive ink, and ( 5 c) optically translucent ink, which contains a high percentage of associative thickener to thicken the latex dispersion, as well as some fumed silica. viscoelastic behavior may be described by the storage modulus g′ and loss modulus g″. a solid-like material will display a dominant g′ value, while a fluid-like material will display a dominant g″ value. when a solid-like material reaches the yield stress, the storage modulus g′ begins to drop significantly. the point at which g′ and g″ cross over marks the transition from a solid-like to fluid-like state. it can be seen that without the presence of the dispersed silver particles in the ink formulation, the storage modulus is always lower than the loss modulus, indicating that the mixture is always liquid like, as evident in ( 5 a). graph ( 5 b) demonstrates that the dispersion of silver particles and their interaction with other ink components cause the ink to behave elastically at low stress, until it reaches the yield point and converts to a liquid like medium. however, it is possible to create a viscoelastic ink with a much broader elastic range without the presence of silver particles, using primarily associative thickener and small quantities of fumed silica. in ( 5 c), it is shown that such an ink has a dominant g′ until it begins to yield at a value of 225 pa. the ink formulation of an exemplary 3d printable, silver conductive ink is provided in table 1, and was used for the preparation of the plots in figs. 6a-6b and fig. 7 , table 1ink formulation of an exemplary 3dprintable, silver conductive inkactive componentweight percent (%)min-max-chemicalimumimumtypicalsilver flake (d50~3.5 microns)59078.3polymer dispersion: sancure 843c4155.6from lubrizolheur thickener: coapur 975w0.0510.2from coatexsilicone-based defoamer: byk-17190.0130.2from bykdispersant 1: hydropalat we0.0130.13320 from basfdispersant 2: zetasperse 31000.0130.2from air products & chemicalscoalescent: dowanol dpnb from dow0.130.4silane-based adhesion promoter:0.0130.6(3-glycidyloxypropyl)trimethoxysilanedeionized water103014.4 this exemplary formulation in accordance with embodiments of the invention demonstrated the following material capabilities: self-supporting after deposition to build 3d circuits without short circuiting;quickly became conductive at room temperature within a short time frame, reaching 50% of its final conductivity within 30 minutes and 95% of its conductivity within 12 hours;ambient curing resulted in low volume resistivity (<2.310 −7 ωm after 24 hours), and elevated curing resulted in even lower volume resistivity (1.110 −7 ωm after 2 hours at 50° c.);abrasion: pencil hardness of dried ink at ambient cure improved from 5 b to 2 b over time, and elevated curing (2 hours at 75° c.) improved the pencil hardness to >4h (astm d3363-05); andlow voc content (<7%). an alternative formulation of 3d printable, silver conductive ink is provided in table 2: table 2an alternative formulation of 3d printable, silver conductive inkactive componentweight percentchemicalminimummaximumtypicalweightpolymer dispersion:0.1%40%3.8%37.879 gflexible polyurethanedispersion-sancure12929 from lubrizolpolymer dispersion:0%40%14.3%142.945 ga self-cross-linkingpolyurethane dispersion-sancure 843cfrom lubrizoldispersant:0%2%0.25%2.533 gzetasperse3100from air products& chemicalsdispersant:0%2%0.2%2.049 ghydropalat we3320 from basfheur thickener:0.05%5%1.2%11.622 gcoapur 975wfrom coatexsilicone-based0%5%0.14%1.374 gdefoamer:byk-1719 from bykcoalescent: dowanol0%10%0.02%0.240 gdpnb from dowagc-a silver flake60%99%80.0%797.959 g this alternative formulation yields an ink with good adhesion properties and improved flexibility. for example, experimental data indicated that the adhesion value improved from an initial value of 3, to a value of 5, after incorporating sancure 12929. this data is based on astm d3359—tape adhesion test, with the adhesion values being unitless grades assigned in accordance with the standards put forth in astm d3359. referring to figs. 6a and 6b , the conductivity of a silver conductive ink formulated in accordance with an embodiment of the invention (composition provided in the table above) was tracked over time at ambient cure, using a four point probe. the film was cast at approximately a 50 micron thickness, and the final resistivity of the ink trace was ˜1.4 e-7 ω*m. a conductivity profile over a three-hour period is shown in fig. 6a , and a conductivity profile over a 60-hour period is shown in fig. 6b . the ink appeared to cure almost completely after one hour. the same conductive ink was also exposed to elevated curing temperatures, and resistivity measurements were taken as shown in fig. 7 . films were cast with a thickness of approximately 50 microns, and films were exposed at given temperatures for two hours. it appears that the silver conductive ink cures to near completion at 50° c. for two hours. ink formulations for 3d printing may vary widely. general criteria for 3d printing inks, based on composite waterborne polymer dispersions, are discussed below. a conductive ink in accordance with some embodiments of the invention is a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing, including a composition of a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles, an associative thickener, and a first functional filler including conductive particles. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress. in addition, the composition is film-forming when dried. a composition having a non-zero yield stress is advantageous for 3d printing of layers. as discussed in detail below, in some embodiments of the invention, the first functional filler may be a material other than conductive particles. the following characteristics of the composition are applicable to various embodiments of the invention, including to compositions with fillers other than conductive particles. the composition may have a static yield stress over 50 pa, preferably over 100 pa, and more preferably over 200 pa, e.g., 240 pa. the composition may have a dynamic yield stress of over 50 pa, preferably over 100 pa, e.g., 160 pa or more preferably even higher, e.g., greater than 200 pa. higher yield stress enables particles to remain suspended in the dispersion for greater periods of time without settling. the high yield stress also allows one to build consecutive layers in printing without the bottom layer sagging from the stress caused by the weight of the layers on top. the composition may have a viscosity ranging from 10 to 10,000 pa·s at a shear rate of 1/s. for some applications, the viscosity is preferably 100-1000 pas, and even more preferably 200-500 pas, e.g., 352 pas. a higher viscosity allows one to keep fillers suspended for longer periods of time without settling. the composition may include a non-volatile content of 70 wt % to 95 wt %, e.g., 87.5 wt %. in some embodiments, the composition may include a non-volatile content of greater than 25 volume percent, and more preferably greater than 40 vol % volume percent. a higher non-volatile content reduces shrinkage, due to a smaller volumetric change. a maximum agglomerate size of the composition may be less than 50 microns. more preferably the maximum agglomerate size is as small as the largest particles present in the system. preferably, the maximum agglomerate size is less than one-tenth of the diameter of the nozzle through which the waterborne dispersion is extruded, more preferably less than one-hundredth of the nozzle diameter. for example, for applications in which the waterborne dispersion is extruded out of a 250 micron nozzle, a maximum agglomerate size is preferably less than 20 microns. for extrusion of compositions of silver nanoparticles through even smaller nozzles, agglomerate sizes of less than 200 nm may be preferred. the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles is film-forming at room temperature, i.e., at 22° c. the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles may have a minimum film formation temperature below 22° c. in some embodiments the polymer particles may also be self-crosslinking at room temperature, indicating that they form chemical bonds between particles during the process of coalescence as the water evaporates from the system. a number of parameters may be considered for selecting appropriate polymer particles for inclusion in the aqueous dispersion. these parameters include mechanical properties suitable for the intended use, cost, compatibility with the chemistry of the functional filler, particle size, and film strength. accordingly, the aqueous dispersion of polymer particles may include polyurethane, an acrylic, an alkyd, pvc, styrene butadiene, vinyl acetate, vinyl acetate ethylenes, vinyl maleate, and/or vinyl versatate. examples of suitable acrylics include a styrene acrylic, a vinyl acrylic, a self-crosslinking acrylic, an epoxy-functionalized acrylic, hybrid alkyd-acrylic, and vinyl versatate acrylic. examples of suitable polyurethanes include a self-crosslinking polyurethane, a polycarbonate ester polyurethane, an epoxy-functionalized polyurethane, and hybrid alkyd-polyurethane. the associative thickener may be, e.g., a hydrophobically modified ethoxylated urethane (heur), an epoxy-functionalized polyurethane, epoxy-functionalized acrylic, an alkyd, a hybrid alkyd-acrylic, an hybrid alkyd-polyurethane, a hydrophobically modified alkali swellable emulsion (hase), a tri-block co-polymer, a hydrophobically modified polyacrylate thickener, a hydrophobically modified polyether thickener, and a hydrophobically modified cellulose ether. the composite waterborne dispersion may include a solid metal precursor and/or a dissolved metal precursor. the metal precursor is reduced to a solid metal filler during evaporation of the dispersion. an exemplary composition including silver acetate that functions as a metal precursor is: non-ionic polymer dispersion—binderwater—solventsilver acetate—silver salt that dissolves in waterammonium hydroxide—forms diaminesilver (i) complex in waterformic acid—reducing agent that is complexed with extra ammonia to form ammonium formate in solution when the water evaporates, the amine evaporates from silver complex, and formate complex, the formic acid then reduces the silver precursor into elemental silver. at the same time, the evaporation of the water drives coalescence of the polymeric particles. the composition may include a second functional filler, such as a color pigment, preferably about 0.1-10 wt % color pigment. in some embodiments, the second functional filler may be conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, pdms, eutectic metal particles, quartz, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, thermally insulating particles, polyimide aerogels, ferromagnetic particles, and/or radar absorbing particles. the second functional filler may include conductive particles of a type different from the conductive particles of the first functional filler, e.g., silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoribbons, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, graphene, copper oxide particles, tungsten particles, aluminum microparticles, nickel microparticles, or microparticles of eutectic metal systems. the second functional filler may also be a solder component, i.e., a component of a eutectic system that melts and changes phases when heated. at least a portion of the second functional filler may include a coating material that interacts with the associative thickener. this interaction between the coating material and the associative thickener is typically a hydrophobic interaction. associative thickeners for water-based systems almost always have hydrophobic end groups that “modify” the hydrophilic water soluble backbone. this allows the thickener to be soluble in water, but it will also interact with everything that is hydrophobic or hydrophobically-modified, including itself. for example, the conductive particles may also have some hydrophobic functionalization, interacting with the associative thickener and greatly enhancing the thickening effect. the coating material may be, e.g., an unsaturated hydrocarbon, a fatty acid, an ionic surfactant, a nonionic surfactant, an ionic polymer, and/or a block copolymer. in some embodiments, the composite waterborne dispersion may be uncoated, and the outside may be ionized to electrostatically repel each polymer particle from other polymeric particles, to prevent agglomeration. the composition may include at least 20 wt % conductive particles. the conductive particles may be, e.g., silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, and/or graphene. in some embodiments, the conductive particles may be silver flakes having a tapped density of 2.7-3.9 g/cm 3 , a diameter range of 3-10 microns, and a specific surface area of 0.6-1.2 m 2 /g. an average diameter of the polymer particles in the aqueous dispersion is preferably at least one order of magnitude smaller than an average diameter of the conductive particles of the first functional filler, although larger particles can be effective in some cases. the composition may also include a rheological modifier that increases a resting viscosity, yield stress, and pseudoplastic behavior of the composition. resting viscosity is also referred to as “zero shear viscosity.” higher yield stress enables particles to remain suspended in the dispersion for greater periods of time without settling. the high yield stress also allows one to build consecutive layers in printing without the bottom layer sagging from the stress caused by the weight of the layers on top. the composition may further include at least one of a defoamer, an antifoam, a coalescent, a dispersant, and an adhesion modifier. as used herein, antifoam prevents the formation of foam, and a defoamer eliminates existing foam. the defoamer may be, e.g., a silicone-based defoamer, an oil-based defoamer, a powder-based defoamer, a wax-based defoamer, polyethylene glycol-based defoamer, polypropylene glycol-based defoamer, an alkyl-polyacrylate based defoamer, an antifoam, pdms, polyester-functionalized silicone, and/or fluorosilicone. the composition may include the coalescent. the coalescent serves to slow the evaporation rate of solvent in the composite waterborne dispersion, lower the minimum film formation temperature, and aid in the coalescence of polymer particles, thereby improving film formation. the coalescent may be a glycol ether, (3-hydroxy-2,2,4-trimethylpentyl) 2-methylpropanoate (texanol from eastman), propylene carbonate, diethyl carbonate, n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (nmp), dimethyl formamide (dmf), tetrahydrofuran (thf), dibasic esters, glycols, glycol ether acetates, propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate (optifilm enhancer 300 from eastman), optifilm enhancer 400, 2-ethylhexyl benzoate (velate 368 coalescent from eastman) or 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate (velate 375 coalescent). suitable glycol ethers may be dipropylene glycol n-butyl ether, diethylene glycol monomethyl ether, diethylene glycol n-butyl ether, dipropylene glycol monomethyl ether, and 2-butoxyethanol (a glycol ether). the composition may include the dispersant, and the dispersant may be, e.g., sorbitan monooleate (span 80 from sigma aldrich), polyethylene glycol sorbitan monooleate (tween 80), octylphenol ethoxylate triton x-100, hydropalat we 3320 (from basf, trade secret: njtsrn 489909-5554-pc; one component is a type of fatty alcohol alkoxylate), dapro w-77 from elementis specialties (contains ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethyl alcohol, and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate), jeffsperse x3503 from huntsman (proprietary blend), disperbyk 190 from byk (solution of a high molecular weight block copolymer with pigment affinic groups), zetasperse 3100 from air products & chemicals (proprietary surface active polymers), rhodoline 3500, dispex ultra fa 4480 nu from basf (modified fatty alcohol polyglycol ether), ionic surfactants such as sodium stearate or sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, a non-ionic surfactant such as polyethylene ethoxylate, or a comb polymer. the composition may include an adhesion modifier, and the adhesion modifier may be, e.g., a silane coupling agent, a secondary polymer, a secondary polymer dispersion, a dissolved polymer, an oligomer, a surfactant, a wetting agent, a chlorinated polyolefin, an epoxy-functionalized compound, and/or an amino-functional silicone polymer. the adhesion modifier may include the silane coupling agent and the composition may include 0.01-3 wt % silane coupling agent. the adhesion modifier may include the silane coupling agent and the silane coupling agent may be, e.g., glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane, aminopropyltriethoxysilane, aminoethylaminopropyl-trimethoxysilane, 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane, cationic vinylbenzyl and amino-functional methoxy-silane, vinyltrimethoxysilane, or aminoethylaminopropyltrialkoxysilane. in some embodiments, the adhesion modifier may include at least two different types of silane coupling agents. the adhesion modifier may include a second aqueous dispersion of a second type of polymer particles. the polymer particles of the second aqueous dispersion may be compatible with the polymer particles of the first aqueous dispersion. the particles are compatible in that the second aqueous dispersion does not destabilize the first dispersion or vice versa. also, the resulting film does not phase separate into two different region e.g., polymer 1 and polymer 2. the adhesion modifier may include a dissolved polymer. the dissolved polymer may be a cellulose derivative, such as hydroxypropyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, and/or sodium carboxy methyl cellulose. alternatively, the water soluble polymer may be an ionic polymer, such as polyacrylic acid, alginate, polyvinyl alcohol, polyacrylamide, xanthan gum, pectin, carrageenan, and/or hyaluronic acid. in some embodiments, the dissolved polymer may be a nonionic polymer such as polyvinylpyrrolidone, polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxide, dextran, guar gum, and/or chitosan. the composition may cure and dry at room temperature, i.e., at 22° c. accordingly, the composition may be used without a heating/curing step. instead of (as well as in addition to) the conductive particles included in the conductive inks discussed above, composite waterborne dispersions suitable for 3d printing may include other functional fillers. for example, in an alternative embodiment, an ink is a composite waterborne dispersion for 3d printing, including a composition of a first aqueous dispersion of polymer particles, an associative thickener, and a functional filler. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress. in addition, the composition is film-forming when dried. in compositions in accordance with embodiments of the invention, the polymer dispersion is the binder, the associative thickener makes it printable, and the filler carries out the function. many different polymer dispersions may be used to achieve the same purpose. however, in the case of silver ink, the associative thickener significantly affects the viscosity by interacting with the hydrophobic silver flake. in the case where the functional filler is not hydrophobic, one may choose a polymer dispersion that is more hydrophobic so that the associative thickener provides more thickening without the need for the filler to provide any thickening. in some cases, the filler may contribute to thickening; in such embodiments, the amount of filler may be tuned to accommodate for the thickening. the functional filler may be selected to provide particular material properties and advantages; the composition may include at least 20 vol % of the functional filler. the functional filler may be fumed silica, which may increase the mechanical strength and abrasion resistance, as well as improve the rheological properties of the ink for printing. the functional filler may be milled glass fibers, which may increase the mechanical strength and the stiffness of the cured film. the functional filler may be polydimethylsiloxane (pdms), which may make the film more compliant and tough. the addition of pdms and/or other elastomer particles may also increase the level of acoustic attenuation of the film. the functional filler may be eutectic metal particles. the inclusion of eutectic particles allows the formulation of an ink that is liquid metal at low temperatures, but quickly solidifies upon cooling. an ink including eutectic particles may be conductive and may be sinterable at low temperatures. suitable eutectic metal particles may be tin-bismuth, gallium-indium, indium-silver, etc. the functional filler may be carbon fiber, which increases the mechanical strength and the stiffness of the cured film. the functional filler may be thermally insulating particles, which shield heat and provide insulation. suitable thermally insulating particles may be materials containing greater than 30 vol % air, for example, foams, aerogels, hollow spheres, etc., including glass bubbles and polyimide aerogel particles. the functional filler may be thermally conductive particles, which transmit heat. an ink containing thermally conductive particles may be used to print a heat sink, heat spreader, or matrix for high power carrying conductors. suitable thermally conductive particles may be particles with thermal conductivities greater than 5 w/mk, for example, boron nitride or diamond. the functional filler may be ferromagnetic particles. inks containing ferromagnetic particles may be used to create inductors, motor cores, etc. these ferromagnetic or inducting particles may also be radio frequency (rf) and/or electromagnetic absorbers, which may be used to reduce or stop signal interference and/or noise. suitable ferromagnetic particles may be carbonyl iron, ferrite, molypermalloy powder, etc. the functional filler may be particles with high acoustic impedance, which may be used to tune the acoustic impedance of an interface to selectively allow sound or ultrasound to pass through or be reflected by the interface. suitable particles with high acoustic impedance may be a high density material such as tungsten, alumina, zirconia, tungsten carbide, or lead oxide particles. the functional filler may be low-k dielectric particles, which may be used to tune the dielectric constant of an ink for rf applications. low-k dielectric particles may have a dielectric constant less than 2.75. suitable low-k dielectric particles may be polytetrafluoroethylene (ptfe), polyimide aerogel particles, or glass. the functional filler may be high-k dielectric particles, which may be used to tune the dielectric constant of an ink for rf applications. suitable high-k dielectric particles may be barium titanate, strontium titanate, titanium dioxide, barium strontium titanate, or calcium copper titanate. generally, any of the previously described aqueous dispersion of polymer particles and associative thickener may be used in combination with these functional fillers, with some customization. for example, the dispersions for the conductive ink indicated above are preferred because they have a small particle size, and are flexible, tough, and self cross-linking. in other situations, another polymer dispersion may be ideal. for example, if high flexibility is desired, a styrene acrylic may be preferred. if low cost is desired, then an acrylic dispersion may be selected. if electrical percolation is not a concern, then a larger particle size polymer dispersion may be chosen for better mechanical properties and greater shelf stability. if bonding to an epoxy matrix is desired, then one may use a dispersion of solid epoxy, such that it can chemically bond to the substrate. an exemplary formulation for a 3d printable polyamide aerogel ink is given in table 3. table 3exemplary formulation for a 3d printable polyamide aerogel ink.active componentweight percentchemicalminimummaximumtypicalweightdispersant: turboset509971.811.577 gultra pro, a polyurethanewaterborne dispersionfrom lubrizoldeionized water0204.40.709 gdispersant:0410.171 gzetasperse 3100from air products& chemicalsspeed-mix for 30 s at 1500 without vacuumdispersant:040.850.137 ghydropalatwe 3320 from basfheur thickener:0.1103.50.571 gcoapur 975wfrom coatexsilicone-based defoamer:050.850.137 gbyk-1719 from bykcoalescent: dowanol0251.50.240 gdpnb from dowspeed mix for 3 minutes at 1500 without vacuumthermal insulating05012.42 gfunctional fillerpolyimide aerogelpowdertreated or untreated silica:0103.50.571 gts-720 or ultrabond 4740speed mix for 30 s at 800 and 1 minutes at 1500 this exemplary formulation has a low dielectric constant and is thermally insulating. 3d printing of composite waterborne dispersions any of the composite waterborne dispersions discussed herein may be used in three-dimensional printing e.g., direct-write. broadly, an object may be three-dimensionally printed by a three-dimensional printer that includes (i) a dispensing system having at least one cartridge adapted to dispense a composite waterborne dispersion through an orifice as a continuous filament, (ii) a build surface disposed below the dispensing system, and (iii) a robotic control system. an example of a suitable three-dimensional printer is the voxel8 developer's kit, available from voxel8, inc., somerville, mass. the composite waterborne dispersion is dispensed from the cartridge through the orifice to deposit the waterborne dispersion onto the build surface to define at least a portion of the object. the composite waterborne dispersion includes a composition of an aqueous dispersion of polymer particles and an associative thickener. the composition has a yield stress >0 pa, the yield stress being at least one of a dynamic yield stress and a static yield stress. the composition is film-forming when dried. referring to fig. 8 , 3d printing of an inductive charging coil 810 is illustrated. in particular, conductive ink 812 including a composite waterborne dispersion in accordance with embodiments of the invention, is shown being pneumatically deposited through a 250 micron nozzle 814 to form an inductive charging coil 810 embedded inside of a 3d printed plastic substrate 816 using a 3d printer. referring to figs. 9a-9e , composite waterborne dispersions in accordance with embodiments of the invention may be used for 3d printing. in particular, figs. 9a-9c demonstrate that silver conductive ink 912 including a composite waterborne dispersion may be extruded to form stacked layers 918 , and figs. 9d-9e show that silver conductive ink 912 can span across gaps 920 as wide as 9 mm. the composition may also include a functional filler, such as a color pigment, conductive particles, fumed silica, milled glass fibers, pdms, a solder component, quartz, carbon fiber, thermally insulating particles, thermally conductive particles, ferromagnetic particles, and/or radar absorbing particles. exemplary suitable conductive particles are silver powder, silver flakes, silver nanowires, silver nanoparticles, silver-coated copper, silver-coated glass, silver-coated aluminum, gold nanowires, gold nanoparticles, gold powder, gold flakes, gold-coated copper, copper nanowires, copper microwires, copper nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, carbon particles, and graphene. the functional filler may include a plurality of particles, such that an average diameter of the polymer particles is at least one order of magnitude smaller than an average diameter of the functional filler particles. this size difference allows silver flakes to lay flat without being perturbed by large polymeric particles. a porous substrate may be disposed on the build surface, or act as the build surface itself, and a yield stress of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion allows spanning over gaps in surface pores of the substrate. the porous substrate may be a textile, e.g., a woven textile or a knit fabric. the substrate may have a non-planar surface, such as a shoe upper. the non-planar surface may be scanned with a laser distance sensor, a laser line scanner, and/or a ccd camera, to obtain a surface map of the topology of the surface. then surface map may then be used to control deposition of the waterborne dispersion on the 3d surface while maintaining the nozzle at approximately a constant distance or standoff from the 3d surface. in some embodiments, the waterborne dispersion may be deposited onto a substrate that is disposed on the build surface. a starting geometry of the printed object may be adapted to compensate for shrinkage of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion. for example, if a cube shape was directly printed onto a rigid substrate, then the shrinkage from drying would cause the cube to shrink, but it would still be constrained by the substrate, causing the desired cube to turn into a trapezoidal prism like geometry with a base that has a larger area than the top surface. if the forces caused by shrinkage are modeled, then the starting geometry can be adjusted such that the dried and deformed shape resembles the initially desired form. for example, a trapezoidal prism with a base having a smaller area than the top surface could be printed, such that after shrinking, a cube is left. in some embodiments, the unavoidable shrinkage forces can be taken advantage of to drive a desired shape change. in particular, the waterborne dispersion may be deposited onto a compliant substrate on the build surface, and shrinkage of the deposited composite waterborne dispersion drives a shape change in the compliant substrate. a particular application for 3d printing of composite waterborne dispersions lies in athletic shoe manufacturing, for which the yarn upper knit shoes includes polymer dispersions that were cast into a mold and hot-pressed onto the woven or knit surface. the polymer film serves as a stretchable, tough and breathable coating, satisfying the high demands of athletic wear. although the rheological demands for 3d printing shoe uppers are substantially similar to 3d printing conductive traces in electrical circuits, certain requirements are unique: the desired mechanical properties of the waterborne dispersion should be retained in the 3d printable ink, even with the addition of rheological modifiers.thixotropy can help reduce/eliminate the appearance of discrete printed layersoptical clarity is generally required, greatly limiting the selection of rheological modifiers. proper dispersion, small particle size, and closely matching refractive indices of polymer dispersion and additives is important. select heur thickeners and fumed silica powders and/or dispersions may preserve the ink's transparency.the ink formulation should be non-toxic and low voc.ink shrinkage should be controlled so that any 3d shape may be reliably printed.ink “breathability” or superb moisture vapor transmission is important in allowing the ink to fully cure at every layer in a timely manner, without air bubble formation. an exemplary formulation for optically clear ink for shoe uppers is listed in table 4. table 4exemplary formulation for optically clear ink for shoe uppersactive componentweight percent (%)chemicalminimummaximumtypicalpolymer dispersion: impranil304538.0dlc-f from covestro, anionic/anionic polycarbonateester polyurethane dispersionheur thickener:0.51.00.7coapur 975w from arkemafumed silica:01.51.0aerosil 1 r972 fromevonik, which actsas a rheological modifier.deionized water507060.3 an alternative embodiment of an optically clear ink for textile coating is shown in table 5. table 5alternative embodiment of an optically clear ink for textile coatingactive componentweight percentchemicalminimummaximumtypicalweightpolymer dispersion: turbo-509991.436.584 gset ultra pro, an aqueouspolyurethane dispersionheur thickener:0.1103.81.524 goptiflo h7500heur thickener:0.1103.81.524 gcoapur 975wfrom coatexfumed silica:0100.90.364 gaerosil 1r972from evonik an alternative embodiment of a black ink for textile coating is shown in table 6. table 6alternative embodiment of a black ink for textile coating.active componentweight percentchemicalminimummaximumtypicalweightpolymer dispersion:50990.955.976 gturboset ultra proheur associative0.1103.950.249 gthickener: optiflo h7500carbon black: mogul e0100.520.033 gdispersant: hydropalat050.520.032 gwe 3320 from basf the above embodiments of inks for textile coating are capable of spanning large gaps and may be used in applications such as coating porous athletic shoes. referring to figs. 10a and 10b , composite waterborne dispersions in accordance with embodiments of the invention may be printed to form objects, e.g., by printing onto textiles. accordingly, the resulting objects incorporate the composite waterborne dispersions. fig. 10a shows a pigmented polyurethane dispersion 1022 printed onto an open polyester netted textile 1024 . fig. 10b shows a translucent polyurethane dispersion printed as a continuous film onto polyester canvas 1026 . having described certain embodiments of the invention, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that other embodiments incorporating the concepts disclosed herein may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. accordingly, the described embodiments are to be considered in all respects as only illustrative and not restrictive. various combinations and permutations of the materials and properties of the embodiments disclosed herein are considered to be taught, as well.
105-314-022-255-661	CN	[ "CN", "WO" ]	G06F17/30	2011-10-27T00:00:00	2011	[ "G06" ]	method and apparatus for web content structure modeling applied in web content subscription	an approach, regarded as enabling technology, is provided for generating a customizable and consolidated viewable web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. the approach involves processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout/structure defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the approach further involves processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. the approach also involves causing, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the approach additionally involves processing and/or facilitating a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions.	what is claimed is: 1. a method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on me following: a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages; a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions; a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof, and a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 2. a method of claim 1 , wherein the (1) data and/or (2) information and or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: one or more deletion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; a processing of the one or more deletion variations to determine first similarity information; and a determination of whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the first similarity information. 3. a method according to any of claims 1 and 2, wherein die (1) data and or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: one or more substitution variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; a processing of the one or more substitution variations to determine second similarity information; and a determination of whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the second similarity information. 4. a method according to any of claims 1 -3, wherein the (1) data and or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: one or more insertion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; a processing of the one or more insertion variations to determine third similarity information; and a determination of whether die one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the third similarity information. 5. a method according to any of claims 1-4, wherein the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: the modeling being based on at least: one or more nodal strings having one or more hyper text markup language (html) nodes, one or more child nodes, or any combination thereof, and the determination of the one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof being based on at least: a splitting of the one or more nodal strings to determine one or more former html nodes and one or more former child nodes; a splitting of one or more new nodal strings to determine new one or more html nodes and one or more new child nodes; and a comparison of the split one or more nodal strings with the split one or more new nodal strings to determine a variation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings, based at least in part, on a differentiation between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 6. a method of claim 5, wherein the differentiation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings comprises determining an edit distance between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 7. a method according to any of claims 1 -6, wherein the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: a generation of one or more alerts with respect to die one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 8. a method according to 7, wherein the alert is a highlighting of a determined one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof. 9. a method of claim 8, wherein the (1 ) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: a type of variation based, at least in part, on a determination that the variation is one or more of deletion variations, substitution variations, or insertion variations, wherein the highlighting is a type that corresponds to the determined type of variation and/or the determined edit distance. 10. a method according to any of claims 1 -9, wherein the (1 ) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal are further based, at least in part, on the following: a determination to generate a user interface for rendering of at least one personalized web page based, at least in part, on the one or more subscriptions and the one or more updates. 1 1. an apparatus comprising: at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following, process and or facilitate a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages; process and/or facilitate a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions; cause, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof; and process and/or facilitate a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 12. an apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the apparatus is further caused to: determine one or more deletion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; process and/or facilitate a processing of the one or more deletion variations to determine first similarity information; and determine whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the first similarity information. 13. an apparatus according to any of claims 11 and 12, wherein the apparatus is further caused to: determine one or more substitution variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; process and/or facilitate a processing of the one or more substitution variations to determine second similarity information; and determine whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the second similarity information. 14. an apparatus according to any of claims 11-13, wherein the apparatus is further caused to: determine one or more insertion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; process and/or facilitate a processing of the one or more insertion variations to determine third similarity information; and determine whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the third similarity information. 15. an apparatus according to any of claims 11-14, wherein the modeling comprises causing the apparatus to: determine one or more nodal strings having one or more hyper text markup language (html) nodes, one or more child nodes, or any combination thereof; and the determination of the one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof comprises causing the apparatus to: split the one or more nodal strings to determine one or more former html nodes and one or more former child nodes; split one or more new nodal strings to determine new one or more html nodes and one or more new child nodes; and compare the split one or more nodal strings with the split one or more new nodal strings to determine a variation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings, based at least in part, on a differentiation between die one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 16. an apparatus of claim 15, wherein the differentiation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings comprises determining an edit distance between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 17. an apparatus according to any of claims 11-16, wherein the apparatus is urther caused to: cause, at least in part, a generation of one or more alerts with respect to the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 18. an apparatus according to 17, wherein the alert is a highlighting of a determined one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof. 19. an apparatus of claim 18, wherein the apparatus is further caused to: determine a type of variation based, at least in part, on a determination mat the variation is one or more of deletion variations, substitution variations, or insertion variations, wherein the highlighting is a type mat corresponds to the determined type of variation and or the determined edit distance. 20. an apparatus according to any of claims 11-19, wherein the apparatus is further caused to: determine to generate a user interface for rendering of at least one personalized web page based, at least in part, on the one or more subscriptions and the one or more updates. 21. a method comprising: processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages; processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions; causing, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof; and processing and/or facilitating a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 22. a method of claim 21 , further comprising: determining one or more deletion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; processing and/or facilitating a processing of the one or more deletion variations to determine first similarity information; and determining whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the first similarity information. 23. a method according to any of claims 21 and 22, further comprising: determining one or more substitution variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; processing and/or facilitating a processing of the one or more substitution variations to determine second similarity information; and determining whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the second similarity information. 24. a method according to any of claims 21 -23, further comprising: determining one or more insertion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling; processing and/or facilitating a processing of the one or more insertion variations to determine third similarity information; and determining whether the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the third similarity information. 25. a method according to any of claims 21 -24, wherein the modeling comprises: determining one or more nodal strings having one or more hyper text markup language (html) nodes, one or more child nodes, or any combination thereof, and the determination of the one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof comprises: splitting the one or more nodal strings to determine one or more former html nodes and one or more former child nodes; splitting one or more new nodal strings to determine new one or more html nodes and one or more new child nodes; and comparing the split one or more nodal strings with the split one or more new nodal strings to determine a variation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings, based at least in part, on a differentiation between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 26. a method of claim 25, wherein the differentiation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings comprises determining an edit distance between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. 27. a method according to any of claims 21 -26, further comprising: causing, at least in part, a generation of one or more alerts with respect to the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. 28. a method according to 27, wherein the alert is a highlighting of a determined one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof. 29. a method of claim 28, further comprising: detemiining a type of variation based, at least in part, on a determination that the variation is one or more of deletion variations, substitution variations, or insertion variations, wherein the highlighting is a type that corresponds to the determined type of variation and/or the determined edit distance. a method according to any of claims 21-29, further comprising: determining to generate a user interface for rendering of at least one personalized web page based, at least in part, on the one or more subscriptions and the one or more updates. 31. an apparatus according to any of claims 11-20, wherein the apparatus is a mobile phone further comprising: user interlace circuitry and user interface software configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile phone through use of a display and configured to respond to user input and a display and display circuitry configured to display at least a portion of a user interlace of the mobile phone, the display and display circuitry configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile phone. 32. a computer-readable storage medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause an apparatus to perform at least a method of any of claims 21-30. 33. an apparatus comprising means for performing a method of any of claims 21-30. 34. an apparatus of claim 33, wherein the apparatus is a mobile phone further comprising: user interface circuitry and user interlace software configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of die mobile phone through use of a display and configured to respond to user input; and a display and display circuitry configured to display at least a portion of a user interface of the mobile phone, the display and display circuitry configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile phone. 35. a computer program product including one or more sequences of one or more instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause an apparatus to at least perform the steps of a method of any of claims 21-30. 36. a method comprising facilitating access to at least one interface configured to allow access to at least one service, the at least one service configured to perform a method of any of claims 21-30. 37. a method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and/or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on the method of any of claims 21 -30. 38. a method comprising facilitating creating and/or facilitating modifying (1 ) at least one device user interface element and/or (2) at least one device user interface functionality, the (1 ) at least one device user interface element and or (2) at least one device user interface functionality based, at least in part, on the method of any of claims 21-30.	method and apparatus for web content structure modeling applied in web content subscription background [0001] service providers and device manufacturers (e.g., wireless, cellular, etc.) are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by, for example, providing compelling network services. more and more users prefer to view a plurality of sources of web content but are limited by time, device capabilities and resource availability. some systems provide a means for consolidating one or more selected portions of one or more websites into a customized view. but, systems that provide for a customizable viewable web content often need to detect whether certain websites often change their layouts, or change the topics that are provided in a section of a web page, for example. accordingly, in a case where one or more websites change their layouts, users may prefer to have a way to collect, aggregate and update the user's selected web content from one or more websites such that the user may be notified of the change, or the system may update the changes for the user. further, users may have a desire to have an ability to extract and/or manipulate any of the one or more selected portions. as such, users may prefer to use any collection, aggregation and/or updating of the selected web content to identify a section that corresponds to the selected portion of a given web page, assuming the information is regularly updated, but the page structure does not change often. some example embodiments [0002] therefore, there is a need for an approach for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. [0003] according to one embodiment, a method comprises processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the method also comprises processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. the method further comprises causing, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the method additionally comprises processing and/or facilitating a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. [0004] according to another embodiment, an apparatus comprises at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code for one or more computer programs, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause, at least in part, the apparatus to process and/or facilitate a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the apparatus is also caused to process and/or facilitate a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. the apparatus is further caused to cause, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the apparatus is additionally caused to process and or facilitate a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. [0005] according to another embodiment, a computer-readable storage medium carries one or more sequences of one or more instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause, at least in part, an apparatus to process and/or facilitate a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the apparatus is also caused to process and or facilitate a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. the apparatus is further caused to cause, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the apparatus is additionally caused to process and or facilitate a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. [0006j according to another embodiment, an apparatus comprises means for processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the apparatus also comprises means for processing and/or facilitating a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. the apparatus further comprises means for causing, at least in part, a modeling of the one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the apparatus additionally comprises means for processing and/or facilitating a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. [0007] in addition, for various example embodiments of the invention, the following is applicable: a method comprising facilitating a processing of and/or processing (1) data and or (2) information and/or (3) at least one signal, the (1) data and or (2) information and or (3) at least one signal based, at least in part, on (or derived at least in part from) any one or any combination of methods (or processes) disclosed in this application as relevant to any embodiment of the invention. [0008] for various example embodiments of the invention, the following is also applicable: a method comprising facilitating access to at least one interface configured to allow access to at least one service, the at least one service configured to perform any one or any combination of network or service provider methods (or processes) disclosed in this application. [0009] for various example embodiments of the invention, the following is also applicable: a method comprising facilitating creating and or facilitating modifying (1) at least one device user interface element and/or (2) at least one device user interface functionality, the (1) at least one device user interface element and/or (2) at least one device user interface functionality based, at least in part, on data and or information resulting from one or any combination of methods or processes disclosed in this application as relevant to any embodiment of the invention, and/or at least one signal resulting from one or any combination of methods (or processes) disclosed in this application as relevant to any embodiment of the invention. [0010] for various example embodiments of the invention, the following is also applicable: a method comprising creating and/or modifying (1) at least one device user interface element and or (2) at least one device user interface functionality, the (1) at least one device user interface element and/or (2) at least one device user interface functionality based at least in part on data and/or information resulting from one or any combination of methods (or processes) disclosed in this application as relevant to any embodiment of the invention, and or at least one signal resulting from one or any combination of methods (or processes) disclosed in mis application as relevant to any embodiment of the invention. {0011] in various example embodiments, the methods (or processes) can be accomplished on the service provider side or on the mobile device side or in any shared way between service provider and mobile device with actions being performed on both sides. [0012] for various example embodiments, the following is applicable: an apparatus comprising means for performing the method of any of originally filed claims 1-10, 21-30, and 36-38. [0013] still other aspects, features, and advantages of the invention are readily apparent from the following detailed description, simply by illustrating a number of particular embodiments and implementations, including the best mode contemplated for carrying out the invention. the invention is also capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details can be modified in various obvious respects, all without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive. brief description of the drawings [0014] the embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings: [0015] fig. 1 is a diagram of a system capable of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, according to one embodiment; [0016] fig. 2 is a diagram of the components of a content selection processing platform, according to one embodiment; [0017] fig. 3 is a flowchart of a process for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, according to various embodiments; 10018] fig. 4 is a diagram of a web page that has information that interests a user, according to various embodiments; [0019] fig. 5 is a diagram of a web page that has information that interests a user, according to various embodiments; [0020] fig. 6 is a diagram of example user interfaces for selecting content, subscribing to the selected content, organizing the selected content, and viewing the selected content, according to one embodiment; [0021] fig. 7 is a diagram of a flowchart illustrating an analysis of a webpage, according to one embodiment; [0022] fig. 8 is a diagram of a flowchart illustrating an analysis of a webpage, according to one embodiment; [0023] fig. 9 is a diagram of an example webpage, according to one embodiment; [00241 fig. 10 is a diagram of an updated webpage, according to one embodiment; [0025] fig. 11 is a diagram of updated portions of a webpage, according to one embodiment; [0026] fig. 12 is a diagram of hardware that can be used to implement an embodiment of the invention; [0027] fig. 13 is a diagram of a chip set that can be used to implement an embodiment of the invention; and [0028] fig. 14 is a diagram of a mobile terminal (e.g., handset) that can be used to implement an embodiment of the invention. description of some embodiments [0029] examples of a method, apparatus, and computer program for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling are disclosed. in the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention. it is apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the embodiments of the invention may be practiced without these specific details or with an equivalent arrangement in other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the embodiments of the invention. [0030] as used herein, the term content refers to any web content, data content, web page data, newsfeeds, social networking data, blogs, audio content, visual content, any other sensual content, etc. [0031] fig. 1 is a diagram of a system capable of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, according to one embodiment more and more users prefer to view a plurality of sources of web content but are limited by time, device capabilities and resource availability. users spend lots of time frequenting one or more websites to view certain information, check for updates, etc. examples of such information may be stock prices, newsfeeds, social networking updates, sports scores, travel information, etc. [0032] users may traverse a number of individual websites to get all of this information, and each time has to wait for an entire page to load. this loading is a waste of time and resources if the user is not interested in a lot of the material that is present on the web page. for example, the user may not be interested in random videos, advertisements, or sound clips mat are available on a web page. a device that the user uses to access the web page may also be limited in its functionality, or the user may have limited memory or bandwidth availability, so the time it takes for an entire web page to load, if possible, is extensive, and expensive if the user is paying for his specific data usage as charged by a service provider. [0033] conventional information channel subscriptions offer the opportunity for a user to acquire online information that interests the user. the content, however, is generated by the information providers with predefined channels. thus the conventional subscriptions cannot provide a fully flexible and personalized form of online information. further, conventional subscriptions do not provide a direct solution for reducing the traffic cost mat the most low-end phone users concern. [0034] content mash up can call apis that content providers offer, similar to newsfeeds, but there are limits to the information an api can offer. other means for cultivating content such as internet content crawling, search, index, and web scraping offer automatic offline backend processing, rather than user-centric interaction. [0035] to address this problem, a system 100 of fig. 1 introduces the capability to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. such a capability will drive the next billion users to the web by greatly improving a user's personalized internet browsing experience. [0036] as shown in fig. 1, the system 100 comprises a user equipment (ue) 101 having connectivity to a content selection processing platform 103, one or more web pages 109 and one or more social networking services 111 via a communication network 105. a user of the ue 101 uses a content grabber api 107 to develop the user's own customizable user interface for displaying aggregated selected content from the one or more web pages 109 and/or the one or more social networking services 111. [0037] for example, users of the system 100 can clip certain sections of interest from different web pages 109 and aggregate them together into the user's own "newspaper." the user can view what the user wants via the content grabber api 107, meanwhile reducing data costs because only the desired information is downloaded or accessed by a device rather than the extraneous data using content this removal of extraneous content also increases the response speed of the user's device as well. [0038] the system 100 offers a personalized internet browsing experience. users can freely select content in which the user is interested (personalized content) from a web page 109 (i.e. everyone's content) and receive only the information that interests the user thereby reducing data costs and speeding up the user's experienced content rendering of the browsing. in other words, the user can define what the users wants, and then organize the desired content in a viewable format using the content grabber api 107 that the user customizes such as organizing the content by topic, date, time, etc. for example, a user might be very interested for high quality rendering of specific images for selected content such as sports scores, but not interested in rendering other images completely. so the user may use the content grabber api 107 to select a section of a web page that displays updated sports scores and add mat information to the user's own customizable interface without any extraneous images. the user may also then grab other content such as stock quotes from another web page and add that content to the user's own customizable interlace without other extraneous data that may be present on that website, and so on and so on. the content selection processing platform 103 may be resident on the ue 101 or remote from the ue 101, and facilitates the selection of desired content, processing the aggregation of the selected content, and generates a customized user interface for displaying the aggregated selected content [0039] the system 100 enables a user to generate a personalized content subscription by designating mat the selected content be tagged to be continually updated for presentation on the ue 101. the user can select the interested content as the personalized subscription, and system can offer/publish the similar content for an upcoming period. the interest is defined fully by users via the content grabber api 107, rather man external content providers in the newsfeed business. [0040] to accomplish the above-mentioned customizable and consolidated viewable web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, the system 100 leverages a user's interaction with content conventional web page structures are parsed, however, and this can be a problem for always updating selected content if, for example, the web page 109 format is changed. if the structure/layout is updated or changed, the system 100 will generate an alert for the user or the content selection processing platform 103 that a possible update of the subscription is necessary. this is different from web crawling, searching, indexing, etc. because conventional methods for cultivating content such as these basically just collect information. but, the system 100 learns a user's interests and is capable of offering better services for the user. this offers the opportunity of explicit user interest modeling. [0041] the system 100 also provides a business opportunity in that targeted ads, suggested content, suggested social networking contacts, etc, may be generated based on the content selected by a user to be aggregated and displayed. [0042] in embodiments, analyzing a web page's layout may be beneficial to confirm a particular content topic and/or to determine mat a subscription needs to be updated. a detailed discussion for analyzing a web page's layout may be beneficial to confirm a particular content topic and/or to determine mat a subscription needs to be updated may be found below with regard to figs. 7-11. as discussed above, websites often change their layouts, or change the topics that are provided in a section of a web page, for example. the following high level discussion refers to steps that may be followed to collect, aggregate and update a user's selected web content from one or more network sources: step 1 : website layout (html structure) extraction - the content selection processing platform 103 uses an extracted website layout as subcontent for content geographies and similarity detection to determine a structure change. a website structure analysis and modeling may also be used to statistically understand the semantic meaning of an extracted tag pattern, such as periodic news blocks, ads, headlines, etc. if a change is detected, an alert may be generated by the content selection processing platform 103, as discussed above, to indicate that the user may need to update his settings for his content subscriptions, or select new content that may be relevant. for example, if sports scores used to be in the upper right hand comer of a web page, but have been replaced by political news, the content selection processing platform 103 would detect this change and alert the user. the same would be true if, for example, content were replaced by imagery or advertisements. step 2: subcontent labeling (by user) and retrieval (through the location) - the content selection processing platform 103 gets a content location index from a user's selection and labels it as a subscription. the content selection processing platform 103 then retrieves the subscribed content from the indexed web content location. step 3: user preference - after web content structure modeling, the content selection processing platform 103 creates block-wise javascript that is embedded in the each of the indexed blocks to model or monitor a user's interactive selection that is collected via content grabber api 107. the user's selectioi preference is observed from javascript and feedback is calculated by the content selection processing platform 103 to form a user selection profile (url, indexed content location). optional step: training general topic models from web data - the content selection processing platform 103 generates a topic histogram for a user selected subcontent as a seed profile. for the retrieved subcontent, the histogram is compared with the seed profile. [0043] the above mentioned web structure analysis and subcontent location indexing model of the content selection processing platform 103 is a main processing stream mat considers content based modeling (e.g. topic model) as a secondary processing stream. this model offers unlimited personalized and affordable online content access, with reduced data cost and fast browsing response (web page rendering) mat is based on full user personalization. content may be generated gathered by the user and organized by topic instead of source by the user or the content selection processing platform 103 in a graphical user interface. [0044] by way of example, the ue 101 , content selection processing platform 103, web page 109 and social networking service 111 communicate with each other and other components of the communication network 105 using well known, new or still developing protocols. in mis context, a protocol includes a set of rules defining how the network nodes within the communication network 105 interact with each other based on information sent over the communication links. the protocols are effective at different layers of operation within each node, from generating and receiving physical signals of various types, to selecting a link for transferring those signals, to the format of information indicated by those signals, to identifying which software application executing on a computer system sends or receives the information. the conceptually different layers of protocols for exchanging information over a network are described in the open systems interconnection (osi) reference model. [0045] by way of example, the communication network 105 of system 100 includes one or more networks such as a data network, a wireless network, a telephony network, or any combination thereof. it is contemplated that the data network may be any local area network (lan), metropolitan area network (man), wide area network (wan), a public data network (e.g., the internet), short range wireless network, or any other suitable packet-switched network, such as a commercially owned, proprietary packet-switched network, e.g., a proprietary cable or fiber-optic network, and the like, or any combination thereof. in addition, the wireless network may be, for example, a cellular network and may employ various technologies including enhanced data rates for global evolution (edge), general packet radio service (gprs), global system for mobile communications (gsm), internet protocol multimedia subsystem (ims), universal mobile telecommunications system (umts), etc., as well as any other suitable wireless medium, e.g., worldwide interoperability for microwave access (wimax), long term evolution (lte) networks, code division multiple access (cdma), wideband code division multiple access (wcdma), wireless fidelity (wifi), wireless lan (wlan), bluetooth®, internet protocol (ip) data casting, satellite, mobile ad-hoc network (manet), and the like, or any combination thereof. [0046] the ue 101 is any type of mobile terminal, fixed terminal, or portable terminal including a mobile handset, station, unit, device, multimedia computer, multimedia tablet, internet node, communicator, desktop computer, laptop computer, notebook computer, netbook computer, tablet computer, personal communication system (pcs) device, personal navigation device, personal digital assistants (pdas), audio video player, digital camera/camcorder, positioning device, television receiver, radio broadcast receiver, electronic book device, game device, or any combination thereof, including the accessories and peripherals of these devices, or any combination thereof. it is also contemplated that the ue 101 can support any type of interface to the user (such as "wearable" circuitry, etc.). [0047] communications between the network nodes are typically effected by exchanging discrete packets of data. each packet typically comprises (1) header information associated with a particular protocol, and (2) payload information that follows the header information and contains information that may be processed independently of mat particular protocol. in some protocols, the packet includes (3) trailer information following the payload and indicating the end of the payload information. the header includes information such as the source of the packet, its destination, the length of the payload, and other properties used by the protocol. often, the data in the payload for the particular protocol includes a header and payload for a different protocol associated with a different, higher layer of the osi reference model. the header for a particular protocol typically indicates a type for the next protocol contained in its payload. the higher layer protocol is said to be encapsulated in the lower layer protocol. the headers included in a packet traversing multiple heterogeneous networks, such as the internet, typically include a physical (layer 1) header, a data-link (layer 2) header, an internetwork (layer 3) header and a transport (layer 4) header, and various application (layer 5, layer 6 and layer 7) headers as defined by the osi reference model. [0048] fig. 2 is a diagram of the components of content selection processing platform 103, according to one embodiment by way of example, the content selection processing platform 103 includes one or more components for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. it is contemplated mat the functions of these components may be combined in one or more components or performed by other components of equivalent functionality. in this embodiment, the content selection processing platform 103 includes a control logic 201, a communication module 203, a content extraction module 205, an extracted content database 207 and a presentation module 209. [0049] the control logic 201 interfaces with the communication module 203 that communicates with the content grabber api 107, ue 101, web page 109 and social networking service 111. the control logic 201 reacts to a selection of content by a user via content grabber api 107. the control logic 201 receives an instruction to extract content selected by a user and instructs the content extraction module 205 to extract the selected content preferences such as subscription data or a user profile relating to detected and determined preferences for the extracted content may be stored in the extraction content database 207. the control logic 201 then, in response to user direction by way of the content grabber api 107 instructs the presentation module to generate a presentation of the extracted content in accordance with a user's customized settings and preferences of the extracted content the control logic 201 then causes the presentation to be displayed by the ue 101 by way of the communication module 203. the control logic 201 also detects any change in the extracted content that may be determined to be out of the ordinary, such as a change in topic, format, webpage layout, etc. that indicates that the selected content has changed and may not be desirable to the user. the control logic 201 then causes an alert to be sent to the ue 101 that indicates that the user's selected content should be updated. alternatively, or in addition to the alert, an alert may be sent to a service provider to update the selection for the user without the user having to update the selection by way of the content grabber api 107, or the alert may cause the control logic 201 to cause the content extraction module 205 to search for related content and estimate a new location of the selected content and cause the selected content, or location of the selected content, to be updated without user or service interaction so that the user's subscriptions appear to update seamlessly. [0050] fig. 3 is a flowchart of a process for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, according to one embodiment. in one embodiment, the content selection processing platform 103 performs the process 300 and is implemented in, for instance, a chip set including a processor and a memory as shown in fig. 13. in step 301, the content selection processing platform 103 processes and/or facilitates a processing of one or more web pages to determine a layout defining one or more content portions of the one or more web pages. the process continues to step 303 in the content selection processing platform 103 processes and/or facilitates a processing of one or more selections of the one or more content portions to cause, at least in part, one or more subscriptions to the selected one or more portions. next, in step 305, the content selection processing platform 103 causes, at least in part, a modeling of d e one or more web pages to determine one or more changes to the layout, the one or more content portions, or a combination thereof. the modeling includes, for example, a determination of one or more nodal strings having one or more hyper text markup language (html) nodes, one or more child nodes, or any combination thereof. [0051] then, in step 307, the content selection processing platform 103 determines one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, and/or insertion variations of the one or more web pages based, at least in part, on the modeling. the determination of the one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof includes, for example, splitting the one or more nodal strings to determine one or more former html nodes and one or more former child nodes; splitting one or more new nodal strings to determine new one or more html nodes and one or more new child nodes; and comparing the split one or more nodal strings with the split one or more new nodal strings to determine a variation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings, based at least in part, on a differentiation between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. the differentiation between the split one or more nodal strings and the split one or more new nodal strings comprises determining an edit distance between the one or more former html nodes, the one or more former child nodes, the one or more new html nodes and the one or more new child nodes. [0052] the process continues to step 309 in which the content selection processing platform 103 processes and/or facilitates a processing of the one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, and or insertion variations to determine one or more corresponding similarity information. then, in step 311, the content selection processing platform 103 determines whether one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions can be performed based, at least in part, on the one or more corresponding similarity information and processes and/or facilitates a processing of the modeling to determine one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. [0053] in step 313, the content selection processing platform 103 determines a type of variation based, at least in part, on a determination mat the variation is one or more of deletion variations, substitution variations, or insertion variations. then, in step 3 is, the content selection processing platform 103 causes, at least in part, a generation of one or more alerts with respect to the one or more updates to the one or more subscriptions. the alert may be, for example, a highlighting of a determined one or more deletion variations, substitution variations, insertion variations, or any combination thereof. in one or more embodiments, the highlighting may be, for example, a type that corresponds to the determined type of variation and/or the determined edit distance. for example, the highlighting for an insertion variation may be a different color from the highlighting for a substitution variation or a deletion variation. in one embodiment, an insertion variation may be highlighted green, while a substitution variation may be highlighted red. then, in step 317, the content selection processing platform 103 determines to generate a user interface for rendering of at least one personalized web page based, at least in part, on the one or more subscriptions and the one or more updates. [005 ] fig. 4 is a diagram of a web page 401 that has information that interests a user, according to various embodiments. the web page 401 as a top stories section 403 in the upper right hand corner of the web page 401. the user uses the content grabber api 107 to select the top stories section 403 for extraction and generation of the selected content portion 405. the selected content portion 405 is a display of only the information that the user wants from the web page 401 and ignores any of the other rich media 407 that may include pictures, other text, sound clips, movies, advertisements, etc. \|0055] the selected content portion 405 may be presented to the user individually as-is, in a converted format that consumes even less data usage, or in an aggregated format with other selections from other web pages, for example. [0056] fig. 5 is a diagram of a web page 501 that has information that interests a user, according to various embodiments. the web page 501 as a travel booking section 503 in the left side of the web page soi. the user uses the content grabber api 107 to select the travel booking section 503 for extraction and generation of the selected content portion sos. the selected content portion 505 is a display of only the information that the user wants from the web page 501 and ignores any of the other rich media 507 that may include pictures, other text, sound clips, movies, advertisements, etc. [0057] the selected content portion sos may be presented to the user individually as-is, in a converted format that consumes even less data usage, or in an aggregated format with other selections from other web pages such as the selected content portion 405 discussed above in fig. 4, for example. in the case of a selected content portion any functionality such as booking a travel may be maintained in the presentation to the user. so, in mis example, the user can quickly view and book travel without waiting for other sections of the web page 501 to load. this saves the user both time and data usage. [0058] fig. 6 is a diagram of example user interfaces of the content grabber api 107 for selecting content, subscribing to the selected content, organizing the selected content, and viewing the selected content, according to one embodiment. [0059] a user may select content of a web page by way of user interface 601, the content grabber api 107 asks the user if he would like to subscribe to the selected content at user interface 603. this selection, if subscribed to, is then organized by way of a series of topic channels at user interface 605 that a user may access by way of ue 101. a user may then select the assigned channel and view any subscribed selections at user interface 607 or 609, for example. a user may select sports for a sports selection and navigate back to a channel selection user interface to view the sport channel, or any other channel, for example. the user may also scroll through other available subscriptions while within a channel topic using various triggers such as a soft key, a hard key, finger swipe, voice, device orientation change, or other direction to change the display. [0060] fig. 7 is a flowchart 700 exemplifying a systematic approach for defining a web page structure and framework define web page structure modeling and framework that is computable and may be used to define any similarity metrics between two web pages. based on this systematic approach, the content selection processing platform 103 may identify any change of web page structure by way of insertion, deletion and substitution of content, for example. the web page structure can be represented, for example, as a graph such as a document object model ("dom") tree. the approach may be used to uniquely and bi-directionally convertible map between a structural graph and a semantic string. it is then possible to process the string to achieve the objectives of the approach by introducing the string edit distance. fig. 7 illustrates a breakdown of a webpage 701 into various page path codes, or in other words, every html node (div or table) 703. the flowchart 700 also illustrates any child nodes 705 of which the content selection processing platform 103 determines names of the child nodes 705 , for example, a div element 701 (whose path code is 0.0.0) has three child nodes 705 labeled: ρ,ρ,ρ. the content selection processing platform inserts "&&" to produce a string: 0.0.0&&p+p+p. the content selection processing platform then traverses all the nodes and inserts "»" and get the complete string. accordingly, the content selection processing platform 103 may produce the following string 707:"0.0.0&&p+p+p>>0.0&&div+h1+p>>0.1&&p+h1>>0.2&&p+p+p>>0.3&&p+h1+p" based on the webpage 701. the content selection processing platform may then save the string and write it to a local txt file named, for example, nodesrecord.txt. [0061] fig. 8 illustrates a flowchart 800 that illustrates a detection/comparison process for determining any changes/updates between versions of a webpage 801. when the content selection processing platform 103 detects a new webpage, the content selection processing platform first reads the local txt file to get the whole string. the content selection processing platform 103 then splits the string 707 of fig.7 with "»" and "&&", to generate the former page path code (html nodes 703 and any child node names 705). the content selection processing platform 103 compares the generated former page path node 703 and any former child node names 705 with a split string 807 of the new page producing the new page code (i.e. the new page's html nodes 803 and any new child node names 805). if the content selection processing platform 103 determines that the new path code existed before, and its child node names did not change, the node that did not change may be highlighted by bordering it in red, in the flowchart 800, for example. [0062] if the content selection processing platform 103 determines the path code of a node in the new page did not exist before, the content selection processing platform 103 considers it as a new element and highlights this by coloring its background green (or any other color for that matter), for example. if the content selection processing platform 103 determines that the path code of a node in the new page existed before, but its children node names changed, the content selection processing platform calculates its edit distance (i.e. a determination or estimation as to how much the node changed) and may color its background by any varying color depending on the calculated edit distance. [0063] for example, considering the webpage 801 illustrated in fig. 8, the content selection processing platform 103 tracks a structure change such as an insertion, deletion and or substitution variation as follows: • nodes those do not exist before - 0.4 - color background red · nodes those do not change at all - 0.0, 0.1, 0.3 - border • nodes those existed before but changed - 0.0.0, 0.2 - colored depend on edit distance [0064] the content selection processing platform 103 may determine edit distance between, for example, the stringl: 0.0.0&&p+p+p and the string2: 0.0.0&&p+p+hl. stringl changes to string 2, and needs to let hi replace the third p of stringl . accordingly, its edit distance is 2. [00651 regarding visualization of the edit distance, the distance may be color coded by any means mat may distinguish a distance and or variation type. [0066] fic. 9 illustrates a sample webpage 901 that has a text region 903 in a lower portion at a first sample time. the sample webpage 901 is an example of a first webpage that is taken as a base for any comparison that is conducted by the content selection processing platform 103 when determining if there are any updates that should be processed and/or alerted for any subscriptions to content such as desired content displayed by webpage 901. specifically, in this example, the content selection processing platform 103 is used to identify any change of web page structure by way of insertion, deletion and substitution of content, for example. initially, the content selection processing platform 103 determines a breakdown of webpage 901 into various page path codes, or in other words, every html node (div or table) and any child nodes of which the content selection processing platform 103 determines names of the child nodes. the content selection processing platform 103, as discussed above, produces a string identifying the nodes and child nodes. the content selection processing platform 103 then saves the string and writes it to a local txt file named, for example, nodesrecord.txt. then, as discussed below, the string is compared to another version of the webpage sampled at a different time, such as that discussed below with regard to fig. 10. [0067] fig. 10 illustrates a webpage 1001 that is essentially the same as the webpage 901, but is now a new webpage because the text region 903 has been replaced (i.e. substituted) by a sales region 1003 that is different from the text region 903 discussed above. the webpage 1001 is a sampling of the webpage 901 taken at a different time. the content selection processing platform 103 compared the webpages 901 and 1001 and determined that a variation existed and alerted the variation by highlighting the sales region 1003. the highlighting may be any color, such as green, for example depending on any determined edit distance between the webpage 901 and 1001. [0068] specifically, the content selection processing platform 103 detects a new webpage by reading a local txt file to get the whole string of the new web page 1001. the content selection processing platform 103 then splits the string 707 to generate the former page path code (html nodes and any child node names). the content selection processing platform 103 compares the former page path code and any former child node names with a split string of the new page producing the new page code (i.e. the new page's html nodes and any new child node names). the content selection processing platform 103, in this example, determined the path code of a node in the new page did not exist before (i.e. the text portion changed), the content selection processing platform 103 considers it as a new element and highlights by coloring its background red (or any other color for that matter), for example. [0069] fig. 11 illustrates an example of a portion of a webpage 1101 that is determined to have existed before when compared to a previous website based on a node path, for example. accordingly, the portion of the webpage 1101 is bordered by a solid line, which may be red, for example. however, if it's child node names are determined by the content selection processing platform 103 to be different, the portion of the webpage may be highlighted by a color indicating the type of variation and/or the edit distance of the variation, for example by a green colored highlight, such as webpage 1103. [0070] specifically, in this example, the content selection processing platform 103 determined that the path code of a node in the new page existed before, but its children node names changed. the content selection processing platform 103 calculated its edit distance (i.e. a determination or estimation as to how much the node changed) and colored its background by any varying color depending on the calculated edit distance. for example, considering the webpage 1101, the content selection processing platform 103 tracked a structure change such as an insertion, deletion and/or substitution variation as follows: • nodes those do not change at all - 0.0, 0.1 , 0.3 - border - red • nodes those existed before but changed - 0.0.0, 0.2 - colored depend on edit distance [0071] the content selection processing platform 103 determined an edit distance between, for any detected changed in strings. the visualization of the edit distance, the distance was color coded by the content selection processing platform 103 to distinguish a distance and/or variation type. in mis example, the content selection processing platform 103 highlighted the text region in green. [0072] the processes described herein for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling may be advantageously implemented via software, hardware, firmware or a combination of software and or firmware and/or hardware. for example, the processes described herein, may be advantageously implemented via processor(s), digital signal processing (dsp) chip, an application specific integrated circuit (asic), field programmable gate arrays (fpgas), etc. such exemplary hardware for performing the described functions is detailed below. [0073] fig. 12 illustrates a computer system 1200 upon which an embodiment of the invention may be implemented. although computer system 1200 is depicted with respect to a particular device or equipment, it is contemplated that other devices or equipment (e.g., network elements, servers, etc.) within fig. 12 can deploy the illustrated hardware and components of system 1200. computer system 1200 is programmed (e.g., via computer program code or instructions) to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling as described herein and includes a communication mechanism such as a bus 1210 for passing information between other internal and external components of the computer system 1200. information (also called data) is represented as a physical expression of a measurable phenomenon, typically electric voltages, but including, in other embodiments, such phenomena as magnetic, electromagnetic, pressure, chemical, biological, molecular, atomic, sub-atomic and quantum interactions. for example, north and south magnetic fields, or a zero and non-zero electric voltage, represent two states (0, 1) of a binary digit (bit). other phenomena can represent digits of a higher base. a superposition of multiple simultaneous quantum states before measurement represents a quantum bit (qubit). a sequence of one or more digits constitutes digital data that is used to represent a number or code for a character. in some embodiments, information called analog data is represented by a near continuum of measurable values within a particular range. computer system 1200, or a portion thereof, constitutes a means for performing one or more steps of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. [0074] a bus 1210 includes one or more parallel conductors of information so that information is transferred quickly among devices coupled to the bus 1210. one or more processors 1202 for processing information are coupled with the bus 1210. [0075] a processor (or multiple processors) 1202 performs a set of operations on information as specified by computer program code related to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. the computer program code is a set of instructions or statements providing instructions for the operation of the processor and/or the computer system to perform specified functions. the code, for example, may be written in a computer programming language that is compiled into a native instruction set of the processor. the code may also be written directly using the native instruction set (e.g., machine language). the set of operations include bringing information in from the bus 1210 and placing information on the bus 1210. the set of operations also typically include comparing two or more units of information, shifting positions of units of information, and combining two or more units of information, such as by addition or multiplication or logical operations like or, exclusive or (xor), and and. each operation of the set of operations that can be performed by the processor is represented to the processor by information called instructions, such as an operation code of one or more digits. a sequence of operations to be executed by the processor 1202, such as a sequence of operation codes, constitute processor instructions, also called computer system instructions or, simply, computer instructions. processors may be implemented as mechanical, electrical, magnetic, optical, chemical or quantum components, among others, alone or in combination. [0076] computer system 1200 also includes a memory 1204 coupled to bus 1210. the memory 1204, such as a random access memory (ram) or any other dynamic storage device, stores information including processor instructions for customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. dynamic memory allows information stored therein to be changed by the computer system 1200. ram allows a unit of information stored at a location called a memory address to be stored and retrieved independently of information at neighboring addresses. the memory 1204 is also used by the processor 1202 to store temporary values during execution of processor instructions. the computer system 1200 also includes a read only memory (rom) 1206 or any other static storage device coupled to the bus 1210 for storing static information, including instructions, that is not changed by the computer system 1200. some memory is composed of volatile storage that loses the information stored thereon when power is lost also coupled to bus 1210 is a nonvolatile (persistent) storage device 1208, such as a magnetic disk, optical disk or flash card, for storing information, including instructions, mat persists even when the computer system 1200 is turned off or otherwise loses power. [0077] information, including instructions for customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling, is provided to the bus 1210 for use by the processor from an external input device 1212, such as a keyboard containing alphanumeric keys operated by a human user, a microphone, an infrared (ir) remote control, a joystick, a game pad, a stylus pen, a touch screen, or a sensor. a sensor detects conditions in its vicinity and transforms those detections into physical expression compatible with the measurable phenomenon used to represent information in computer system 1200. other external devices coupled to bus 1210, used primarily for interacting with humans, include a display device 1214, such as a cathode ray tube (crt), a liquid crystal display (lcd), a light emitting diode (led) display, an organic led (oled) display, a plasma screen, or a printer for presenting text or images, and a pointing device 1216, such as a mouse, a trackball, cursor direction keys, or a motion sensor, for controlling a position of a small cursor image presented on the display 1214 and issuing commands associated with graphical elements presented on the display 1214. in some embodiments, for example, in embodiments in which the computer system 1200 performs all functions automatically without human input, one or more of external input device 1212, display device 1214 and pointing device 1216 is omitted. [0078] in the illustrated embodiment, special purpose hardware, such as an application specific integrated circuit (asic) 1220, is coupled to bus 1210. the special purpose hardware is configured to perform operations not performed by processor 1202 quickly enough for special purposes. examples of asics include graphics accelerator cards for generating images for display 1214, cryptographic boards for encrypting and decrypting messages sent over a network, speech recognition, and interfaces to special external devices, such as robotic arms and medical scanning equipment that repeatedly perform some complex sequence of operations that are more efficiently implemented in hardware. [0079] computer system 1200 also includes one or more instances of a communications interface 1270 coupled to bus 1210. communication interface 1270 provides a one-way or two-way communication coupling to a variety of external devices that operate with their own processors, such as printers, scanners and external disks. in general the coupling is with a network link 1278 mat is connected to a local network 1280 to which a variety of external devices with their own processors are connected. for example, communication interface 1270 may be a parallel port or a serial port or a universal serial bus (usb) port on a personal computer. in some embodiments, communications interface 1270 is an integrated services digital network (isdn) card or a digital subscriber line (dsl) card or a telephone modem that provides an information communication connection to a corresponding type of telephone line. in some embodiments, a communication interface 1270 is a cable modem that converts signals on bus 1210 into signals for a communication connection over a coaxial cable or into optical signals for a communication connection over a fiber optic cable. as another example, communications interface 1270 may be a local area network (lan) card to provide a data communication connection to a compatible lan, such as ethernet. wireless links may also be implemented. for wireless links, the communications interface 1270 sends or receives or both sends and receives electrical, acoustic or electromagnetic signals, including infrared and optical signals, that carry information streams, such as digital data. for example, in wireless handheld devices, such as mobile telephones like cell phones, the communications interface 1270 includes a radio band electromagnetic transmitter and receiver called a radio transceiver. in certain embodiments, the communications interface 1270 enables connection to the communication network 105 for customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling to the ue 101. \|0080] the term "computer-readable medium" as used herein refers to any medium that participates in providing information to processor 1202, including instructions for execution. such a medium may take many forms, including, but not limited to computer-readable storage medium (e.g., non-volatile media, volatile media), and transmission media. non-transitory media, such as non-volatile media, include, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device 1208. volatile media include, for example, dynamic memory 1204. transmission media include, for example, twisted pair cables, coaxial cables, copper wire, fiber optic cables, and carrier waves that travel through space without wires or cables, such as acoustic waves and electromagnetic waves, including radio, optical and infrared waves. signals include man-made transient variations in amplitude, f equency, phase, polarization or other physical properties transmitted through the transmission media. common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a cd-rom, cdrw, dvd, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, optical mark sheets, any other physical medium with patterns of holes or other optically recognizable indicia, a ram, a prom, an eprom, a flash-eprom, an eeprom, a flash memory, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave, or any other medium from which a computer can read. the term computer-readable storage medium is used herein to refer to any computer-readable medium except transmission media. [0081] logic encoded in one or more tangible media includes one or bom of processor instructions on a computer-readable storage media and special purpose hardware, such as asic 1220. [0082] network link 1278 typically provides information communication using transmission media through one or more networks to other devices that use or process the information. for example, network link 1278 may provide a connection through local network 1280 to a host computer 1282 or to equipment 1284 operated by an internet service provider (isp). isp equipment 1284 in turn provides data communication services through the public, world-wide packet-switching communication network of networks now commonly referred to as the internet 1290. [0083] a computer called a server host 1292 connected to the internet hosts a process that provides a service in response to information received over the internet. for example, server host 1292 hosts a process that provides information representing video data for presentation at display 1214. it is contemplated that the components of system 1200 can be deployed in various configurations within other computer systems, e.g., host 1282 and server 1292. [0084] at least some embodiments of the invention are related to the use of computer system 1200 for implementing some or all of the techniques described herein. according to one embodiment of the invention, those techniques are performed by computer system 1200 in response to processor 1202 executing one or more sequences of one or more processor instructions contained in memory 1204. such instructions, also called computer instructions, software and program code, may be read into memory 1204 from another computer-readable medium such as storage device 1208 or network link 1278. execution of the sequences of instructions contained in memory 1204 causes processor 1202 to perform one or more of the method steps described herein. in alternative embodiments, hardware, such as asic 1220, may be used in place of or in combination with software to implement the invention. thus, embodiments of the invention are not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software, unless otherwise explicitly stated herein. [0085] the signals transmitted over network link 1278 and other networks through communications interface 1270, carry information to and from computer system 1200. computer system 1200 can send and receive information, including program code, through the networks 1280, 1290 among others, through network link 1278 and communications interface 1270. in an example using the internet 1290, a server host 1292 transmits program code for a particular application, requested by a message sent from computer 1200, through internet 1290, isp equipment 1284, local network 1280 and communications interface 1270. the received code may be executed by processor 1202 as it is received, or may be stored in memory 1204 or in storage device 1208 or any other non-volatile storage for later execution, or both. in this manner, computer system 1200 may obtain application program code in the form of signals on a carrier wave. [0086] various forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequence of instructions or data or both to processor 1202 for execution. for example, instructions and data may initially be carried on a magnetic disk of a remote computer such as host 1282. the remote computer loads the instructions and data into its dynamic memory and sends the instructions and data over a telephone line using a modem. a modem local to the computer system 1200 receives the instructions and data on a telephone line and uses an infrared transmitter to convert the instructions and data to a signal on an infra-red carrier wave serving as the network link 1278. an infrared detector serving as communications interlace 1270 receives the instructions and data carried in the infrared signal and places information representing the instructions and data onto bus 1210. bus 1210 carries the information to memory 1204 from which processor 1202 retrieves and executes the instructions using some of the data sent with the instructions. the instructions and data received in memory 1204 may optionally be stored on storage device 1208, either before or after execution by the processor 1202. [0087] fig. 13 illustrates a chip set or chip 1300 upon which an embodiment of the invention may be implemented. chip set 1300 is programmed to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling as described herein and includes, for instance, the processor and memory components described with respect to fig. 12 incorporated in one or more physical packages (e.g., chips). by way of example, a physical package includes an arrangement of one or more materials, components, and/or wires on a structural assembly (e.g., a baseboard) to provide one or more characteristics such as physical strength, conservation of size, and/or limitation of electrical interaction. it is contemplated mat in certain embodiments the chip set 1300 can be implemented in a single chip. it is further contemplated mat in certain embodiments the chip set or chip 1300 can be implemented as a single "system on a chip." it is further contemplated mat in certain embodiments a separate asic would not be used, for example, and that all relevant functions as disclosed herein would be performed by a processor or processors. chip set or chip 1300, or a portion thereof, constitutes a means for performing one or more steps of providing user interface navigation information associated with the availability of functions. chip set or chip 1300, or a portion thereof, constitutes a means for performing one or more steps of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. [0088] in one embodiment, the chip set or chip 1300 includes a communication mechanism such as a bus 1301 for passing information among the components of the chip set 1300. a processor 1303 has connectivity to the bus 1301 to execute instructions and process information stored in, for example, a memory 1305. the processor 1303 may include one or more processing cores with each core configured to perform independently. a multi-core processor enables multiprocessing within a single physical package. examples of a multi-core processor include two, four, eight, or greater numbers of processing cores. alternatively or in addition, the processor 1303 may include one or more microprocessors configured in tandem via the bus 1301 to enable independent execution of instructions, pipelining, and multithreading. the processor 1303 may also be accompanied with one or more specialized components to perform certain processing functions and tasks such as one or more digital signal processors (dsp) 1307, or one or more application-specific integrated circuits (asic) 1309. a dsp 1307 typically is configured to process real-world signals (e.g., sound) in real time independently of the processor 1303. similarly, an asic 1309 can be configured to performed specialized functions not easily performed by a more general purpose processor. other specialized components to aid in performing the inventive functions described herein may include one or more field programmable gate arrays (fpga), one or more controllers, or one or more other special- purpose computer chips. [0089] in one embodiment, the chip set or chip 1300 includes merely one or more processors and some software and/or firmware supporting and/or relating to and/or for the one or more processors. [0090] the processor 1303 and accompanying components have connectivity to the memory 1305 via the bus 1301. the memory 1305 includes bom dynamic memory (e.g., ram, magnetic disk, writable optical disk, etc.) and static memory (e.g., rom, cd-rom, etc.) for storing executable instructions that when executed perform the inventive steps described herein to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. the memory 1305 also stores the data associated with or generated by the execution of the inventive steps. [0091] fig. 14 is a diagram of exemplary components of a mobile terminal (e.g., handset) for communications, which is capable of operating in the system of fig. 1, according to one embodiment in some embodiments, mobile terminal 1401, or a portion thereof, constitutes a means for performing one or more steps of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. generally, a radio receiver is often defined in terms of front-end and back-end characteristics. the front-end of the receiver encompasses all of the radio frequency (rf) circuitry whereas the back-end encompasses all of the base-band processing circuitry. as used in this application, the term "circuitry" refers to both: (1) hardware-only implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry), and (2) to combinations of circuitry and software (and or firmware) (such as, if applicable to the particular context, to a combination of processors), including digital signal processors), software, and memory(ies) mat work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions). this definition of "circuitry'' applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. as a further example, as used in this application and if applicable to the particular context, the term "circuitry" would also cover an implementation of merely a processor (or multiple processors) and its (or their) accompanying software/or firmware. the term "circuitry" would also cover if applicable to the particular context, for example, a baseband integrated circuit or applications processor integrated circuit in a mobile phone or a similar integrated circuit in a cellular network device or other network devices. [0092] pertinent internal components of the telephone include a main control unit (mcu) 1403, a digital signal processor (dsp) 1405, and a receiver transmitter unit including a microphone gain control unit and a speaker gain control unit. a main display unit 1407 provides a display to the user in support of various applications and mobile terminal functions that perform or support the steps of customizing and consolidating web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. the display 1407 includes display circuitry configured to display at least a portion of a user interlace of the mobile terminal (e.g., mobile telephone). additionally, the display 1407 and display circuitry are configured to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile terminal. an audio function circuitry 1409 includes a microphone 1411 and microphone amplifier that amplifies the speech signal output from the microphone 1411. the amplified speech signal output from the microphone 1411 is fed to a coder/decoder (codec) 1413. 100931 a radio section 1415 amplifies power and converts frequency in order to communicate with a base station, which is included in a mobile communication system, via antenna 1417. the power amplifier (pa) 1419 and the transmitter/modulation circuitry are operationally responsive to the mcu 1403, with an output from the pa 1419 coupled to the duplexer 1421 or circulator or antenna switch, as known in the art the pa 1419 also couples to a battery interface and power control unit 1420. [0094] in use, a user of mobile terminal 1401 speaks into the microphone 1411 and his or her voice along with any detected background noise is converted into an analog voltage. the analog voltage is then converted into a digital signal through the analog to digital converter (adc) 1423. the control unit 1403 routes the digital signal into the dsp 1405 for processing therein, such as speech encoding, channel encoding, encrypting, and interleaving. in one embodiment, the processed voice signals are encoded, by units not separately shown, using a cellular transmission protocol such as enhanced data rates for global evolution (edge), general packet radio service (gprs), global system for mobile communications (gsm), internet protocol multimedia subsystem (ims), universal mobile telecommunications system (umts), etc., as well as any other suitable wireless medium, e.g., microwave access (wimax), long term evolution (lte) networks, code division multiple access (cdma), wideband code division multiple access (wcdma), wireless fidelity (wifi), satellite, and the like, or any combination thereof. [0095] the encoded signals are then routed to an equalizer 1425 for compensation of any frequency-dependent impairments that occur during transmission though the air such as phase and amplitude distortion. after equalizing the bit stream, the modulator 1427 combines the signal with a rf signal generated in the rf interface 1429. the modulator 1427 generates a sine wave by way of frequency or phase modulation. in order to prepare the signal for transmission, an up-converter 1431 combines the sine wave output from the modulator 1427 with another sine wave generated by a synthesizer 1433 to achieve the desired frequency of transmission. the signal is then sent through a pa 1419 to increase the signal to an appropriate power level. in practical systems, the pa 1419 acts as a variable gain amplifier whose gain is controlled by the dsp 1405 from information received from a network base station. the signal is then filtered within the duplexer 1421 and optionally sent to an antenna coupler 1435 to match impedances to provide maximum power transfer. finally, the signal is transmitted via antenna 1417 to a local base station. an automatic gain control (agc) can be supplied to control the gain of the final stages of the receiver. the signals may be forwarded from there to a remote telephone which may be another cellular telephone, any other mobile phone or a land-line connected to a public switched telephone network (pstn), or other telephony networks. [0096] voice signals transmitted to the mobile terminal 1401 are received via antenna 1417 and immediately amplified by a low noise amplifier (lna) 1437. a down-converter 1439 lowers the carrier frequency while the demodulator 1441 strips away the rf leaving only a digital bit stream. the signal then goes through the equalizer 1425 and is processed by the dsp 1405. a digital to analog converter (dac) 1443 converts the signal and the resulting output is transmitted to the user through the speaker 1445, all under control of a main control unit (mcu) 1403 which can be implemented as a central processing unit (cpu). [0097] the mcu 1403 receives various signals including input signals from the keyboard 1447. the keyboard 1447 and/or the mcu 1403 in combination with other user input components (e.g., the microphone 1411) comprise a user interface circuitry for managing user input. the mcu 1 03 runs a user interface software to facilitate user control of at least some functions of the mobile terminal 1401 to customize and consolidate web content collected from one or more sources based on web content structure modeling. the mcu 1403 also delivers a display command and a switch command to the display 1407 and to the speech output switching controller, respectively. further, the mcu 1403 exchanges information with the dsp 1405 and can access an optionally incorporated sim card 1449 and a memory 1451. in addition, the mcu 1403 executes various control functions required of the terminal. the dsp 1405 may, depending upon the implementation, perform any of a variety of conventional digital processing functions on the voice signals. additionally, dsp 1405 determines the background noise level of the local environment from the signals detected by microphone 1411 and sets the gain of microphone 1411 to a level selected to compensate for the natural tendency of the user of the mobile terminal 1401. [0098] the codec 1413 includes the adc 1423 and dac 1443. the memory 1451 stores various data including call incoming tone data and is capable of storing other data including music data received via, e.g., the global internet the software module could reside in ram memory, flash memory, registers, or any other form of writable storage medium known in the art the memory device 1451 may be, but not limited to, a single memory, cd, dvd, rom, ram, eeprom, optical storage, magnetic disk storage, flash memory storage, or any other non-volatile storage medium capable of storing digital data. [0099] an optionally incorporated sim card 1449 carries, for instance, important information, such as the cellular phone number, the carrier supplying service, subscription details, and security information. the sim card 1449 serves primarily to identify the mobile terminal 1401 on a radio network. the card 1449 also contains a memory for storing a personal telephone number registry, text messages, and user specific mobile terminal settings. [0100] while the invention has been described in connection with a number of embodiments and implementations, the invention is not so limited but covers various obvious modifications and equivalent arrangements, which fall within the purview of the appended claims. although features of the invention are expressed in certain combinations among the claims, it is contemplated that these features can be arranged in any combination and order.
106-901-440-533-911	US	[ "KR", "US", "BR" ]	F23D14/32,C03B5/235,F23D14/22,F23M5/02	1995-07-17T00:00:00	1995	[ "F23", "C03" ]	combustion process and apparatus therefore containing separate injection of fuel and oxidant streams	a burner assembly having improved flame length and shape control is presented, which includes in exemplary embodiments at least one fuel fluid inlet and at least one oxidant fluid inlet, means for transporting the fuel fluid from the fuel inlet to a plurality of fuel outlets, the fuel fluid leaving the fuel outlets in fuel streams that are injected into a combustion chamber, means for transporting the oxidant fluid from the oxidant inlets to at least one oxidant outlet, the oxidant fluid leaving the oxidant outlets in oxidant fluid streams that are injected into the combustion chamber, with the fuel and oxidant outlets being physically separated, and geometrically arranged in order to impart to the fuel fluid streams and the oxidant fluid streams angles and velocities that allow combustion of the fuel fluid with the oxidant in a stable, wide, and luminous flame. alternatively, injectors may be used alone or with the refractory block to inject oxidant and fuel gases. the burner assembly affords improved control over flame size and shape and may be adjusted for use with a particular furnace as required.	1. a method of combustion of a fuel with an oxidant, the method comprising: a) providing a supply of an oxidant fluid stream; b) injecting said oxidant fluid stream into a combustion chamber to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; c) providing a supply of fuel fluid stream; d) injecting said fuel fluid stream into the combustion chamber to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; e) creating a substantially planar sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber by injecting the at least two injected fuel fluid streams into the combustion chamber, at least two of the injected fuel fluid streams being substantially located in a first fuel plane; f) intersecting the oxidant fluid stream with the sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber; and g) combusting the fuel fluid with the oxidant fluid in the combustion chamber, wherein a major portion of the oxidant is injected in at least two oxidant fluid streams defining a second plane, said at least two oxidant streams in said second plane converging at a converging angle with said fuel streams in said first plane and intersecting with the fuel streams in the first fuel plane in the combustion chamber. 2. the method according to claim 1 wherein said converging angle is not more than 20.degree.. 3. the method according to claim 1 wherein two adjacent oxidant fluid streams make a final diverging angle smaller than 15.degree.. 4. a burner assembly comprising at least two fuel fluid cavities, at least one oxidant fluid cavity and at least one exit face at which at least one of the fuel fluid cavities and at least one of the oxidant fluid cavities terminates, comprising: a) means for supplying an oxidant fluid stream; b) means to inject said oxidant fluid stream in said at least one oxidant fluid cavity to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; c) means for supplying a fuel fluid stream; d) means to inject said fuel fluid stream in said at least two fuel fluid channels to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; and e) wherein the directions of injection of the oxidant fluid stream and the fuel fluid stream are substantially converging and intersect at a combustion zone, while the directions of at least two adjacent fuel fluid channels are diverging. 5. a method of combustion of a fuel with an oxidant, the method comprising: a) providing a supply of an oxidant fluid stream; b) injecting said oxidant fluid stream into a combustion chamber to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; c) providing a supply of a fuel fluid stream; d) injecting said fuel fluid stream into the combustion chamber to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; e) creating a substantially planar sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber by injecting the at least two injected fuel fluid streams into the combustion chamber, at least two of the injected fuel fluid streams being substantially located in first fuel plane; f) intersecting the oxidant fluid stream with the sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber; g) combusting the fuel fluid with the oxidant fluid in the combustion chamber, wherein all of the oxidant is injected in at least two oxidant fluid streams defining a second plane, said at least two oxidant streams in said second plane converging at a converging angle with said fuel streams in said first plane and intersecting with the fuel streams in the first fuel plane in the combustion chamber. 6. a burner assembly having improved flame length and shape control, comprising: a refractory block adapted to be in fluid connection with sources of oxidant and fuel, the refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, the exit end having fuel exits and oxidant exits, the refractory block further having a plurality of fuel cavities, at least two of the fuel cavities defining a first fuel plane, and a plurality of oxidant cavities defining a second oxidant plane, wherein the first fuel plane is nearer a bottom of the refractory block than the second oxidant plane, the fuel cavities being more numerous than the oxidant cavities, the burner assembly including a mounting bracket assembly removably attached to the fuel and oxidant entrance end of the refractory block, the mounting bracket assembly having a gas distribution face, the burner assembly including a fuel distributor having multiple fuel injectors each fuel injector extending into a respective fuel cavity in said first fuel plane, wherein said fuel distributor is mounted directly on said mounting bracket assembly with means for fastening. 7. a burner assembly having improved flame length and shape control, comprising: a refractory block adapted to be in fluid connection with sources of oxidant and fuel, the refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, the exit end having fuel exits and oxidant exits, the refractory block further having a plurality of fuel cavities, at least two of the fuel cavities defining a first fuel plane, and a plurality of oxidant cavities defining a second oxidant plane, wherein the first fuel plane is nearer a bottom of the refractory block than the second oxidant plane, the fuel cavities being more numerous than the oxidant cavities, the burner assembly including a mounting bracket assembly removably attached to the fuel and oxidant entrance end of the refractory block, the mounting bracket assembly having a gas distribution face, the burner assembly including a fuel distributor having multiple fuel injectors, each fuel injector extending into a respective fuel cavity in said first fuel plane, the fuel distributor and fuel injectors being a single, integral component.	background of the invention 1. field of the invention the present invention relates to a combustion process and an apparatus therefor containing separate injectors to introduce separately a fuel and an oxidant in the combustion chamber of a furnace, so that the fuel burns with the oxidant in a wide luminous flame, and whereby the combustion of the fuel with the oxidant generates reduced quantities of nitrogen oxides (no.sub.x) 2. related art industrial high temperature processes, such as glass or frit melting, ferrous and non ferrous materials smelting, use large amounts of energy to transform a variety of raw materials into a hot molten product, that is then casted, formed or otherwise disposed of in further stages of the industrial process. this operation is generally performed in large furnaces, that can produce as much as 500 tons per day of molten material. combustion in the furnace of a fossil fuel, such as natural gas, atomized fuel oil, propane, or the like, with an oxidant that contains oxygen is a preferred method of supplying the energy. in some cases, the combustion is supplemented by electric heating. most of the time, the fuel and the oxidant are introduced in the furnace through burners, in order to generate flames. the transfer of energy from the flames to the material to be melted results from the combination of convection at the surface of the material, and radiation to the surface or into the material if it is transparent to the radiation. flames that are highly radiative (usually referred to as luminous flames), are usually preferred, because they provide better heat transfer and, thus, higher fuel efficiency. for flame heating, it is also very important to have the energy from the flame evenly distributed above the surface of the material to be melted, otherwise, hot and cold regions may co-exist in the furnace, which is not desirable the quality of products manufactured with material melted in such a furnace is often poor. for example, in a bath of molten glass, there may be glass stones in cold regions, and accelerated volatilization of glass in hot regions. also, broad flames are preferred because they yield a better bath coverage. in many countries, particularly the united states, increasingly stringent regulations are being promulgated regarding emissions of no.sub.x. it is, therefore, important to develop combustion techniques wherein no.sub.x formation is limited. in very high temperature processes, no.sub.x formation is promoted by long residence times of oxygen and nitrogen molecules in hot regions of the flame and the furnace. the use of substantially pure oxygen (about 90% o.sub.2 or higher) instead of air as the oxidant has proven to be very successful in reducing the no.sub.x emissions by as much as 90%, since all nitrogen is eliminated. however, substitution of air by substantially pure oxygen increases the flame temperature, and thus creates regions in the furnace where the reactivity of nitrogen with oxygen is high, and wherein the formation of no.sub.x may proportionally increase, even though it is globally decreased when compared to combustion with air. also, it is impossible in practice to eliminate all nitrogen from a furnace, because industrial furnaces are not tight to air leaks, the fuel usually contains some nitrogen, and oxygen supplied from non-cryogenic sources, such as oxygen produced by a vacuum swing adsorption plant (vsa), contains a small residual nitrogen concentration. conventional methods of combusting fuel and oxygen for heating furnaces utilize post mix oxy-fuel burners. conventional oxy-fuel burners have a metallic body with inlets for a fuel and an oxidant with a high concentration of molecular oxygen, and means to transport the streams with separate coaxially oriented channels to multiple injectors located at the burner tip. these burners generate high temperature flames with the shape of a narrow pencil at the burner tip, which needs to be located far enough into the furnace, to avoid or reduce overheating of the furnace walls. as a consequence of the high temperatures encountered in melting furnaces, one important drawback of these burners is the need for cooling, usually a jacket where a circulating fluid such as water provides the cooling. such a burner is described, for example, in british patent 1,215,925. severe corrosion problems for the cooling jacket can arise particularly when the furnace atmosphere contains condensable vapors. the gas cooled oxy-fuel burner is an improvement of the water-cooled burner. the body of the burner is protected from the furnace radiation by a refractory brick often referred to as a burner block, that possesses a substantially cylindrical cavity that opens into the furnace. the burner is usually mounted at the back of the cavity, and it usually contains concentric injectors of fuel and oxidant located in the cavity, recessed from the furnace inner wall. the brick and the burner are cooled by a peripheral annular flow of gas, usually the oxidant gas. such burners are described e.g. in u.s. pat. no. 5,346,390 and u.s. pat. no. 5,267,850. with this type of burner, combustion starts in the burner block before reaching the furnace. thus, the flame is confined in and directed by the cylindrical cavity as a narrow axisymmetric jet, and provides insufficient covering of the melt in the furnace, these flames have high peak temperatures and generate relatively large amounts of no.sub.x, because there is a direct contact between the oxygen and the fuel without dilution by the combustion products. another drawback of these gas cooled burners is that the flame may overheat and damage the furnace refractory wall because it starts in the wall itself. also recirculation zones under the flame itself tend to accelerate refractory wear when the furnace atmosphere chemically reacts with the refractory material of the furnace wall which may reduce the furnace lifetime. british patent 1,074,826 and u.s. pat. no. 5,299,929 disclose burners containing alternated multiple oxygen and fuel injectors in parallel rows in order to obtain a flatter llame. although this brings an improvement in terms of coverage of the melt, these burners still produce relatively large amounts of no.sub.x. another drawback of these burners is that they are mechanically complex to build in order to obtain a flat flame. it is also known to inject fuel and oxidant streams by separate, distinct injectors into a combustion chamber to generate flames detached from the furnace wall, with the aim of reducing refractory wear. one such apparatus is described in u.s. pat. no. 5,302,112 wherein fuel and oxidant jets are injected at a converging angle into a furnace, which yields good mixing of the oxidant and fuel gases at the converging point of the two jets, thus enhancing the combustion rate but shortening the flame. however, the flame of such a burner has a high peak temperature and large quantities of nitrogen oxides are created in the furnace. to decrease this high peak temperature and significantly reduce formation of no.sub.x it has been suggested in u.s. pat. no. 4,378,205 to inject the fuel and/or the oxidant jets at very high velocities and to use separate injections of fuel and oxidant gases wherein the fuel and/or the oxidant jets entrain combustion products contained in the furnace atmosphere, and are diluted before the actual combustion between the fuel and the oxidant. however, the flames generated by these burners are almost invisible, as disclosed therein, col. 9, lines 58-65. it is, thus, extremely difficult for a furnace operator to determine and/or control the location of the combustion zones, and whether or not the burner apparatus is actually turned on, which may be hazardous. another drawback of this burner is that the entrainment of combustion products promotes strong recirculation streams of gases in the furnace, which in turn accelerates the wear of the refractory walls of the furnace. also, the use of high velocity oxidant jets requires the use of a high pressure oxidant supply, which means that the oxidant gas needs to be either produced or delivered at high pressure (the fuel gas is usually at relatively high pressure) or that the oxidant gas, such as the low pressure oxygen gas usually supplied by a vsa unit, has to be recompressed before being injected into the furnace. burners in use today typically are only designed to use gaseous fuel or liquid fuels (perhaps by spray of the liquid fuel), but cannot burn both types of fuel simultaneously, or switch easily from gaseous fuel to liquid fuel. liquid fuels present their own problems to the combustion artisan. the liquid fuel is typically atomized, and there are several different techniques available for the atomization of liquid fluids. the object is to produce jets of liquid fluid droplets (also called "spray") which have defined geometric characteristics. the usual liquid fuels are not particularly flammable in the liquid state: only in the gaseous state are they able to support an oxidation reaction sufficiently rapid to give rise to the appearance of a flame. when one wishes to obtain stable flames with fuels that are liquid or viscous at ambient temperature, the principal difficulty is thus to "shrewdly condition" this liquid in such a way that it evaporates rapidly in order to support oxidation reactions in the interior of the flame. the method currently used to achieve this "shrewd conditioning" consists of atomizing the fuel in the form of droplets: thus, for a given quantity of fuel, this makes possible a substantial increase in the amount of liquid surface exposed to the oxidant (the smaller the drops are, the greater will be the interfacial surface--the site of evaporation). in simplified terms there are three major methods for achieving atomization of a liquid: 1. rotating cup atomization involves shredding the fluid with the air of a moving mechanical element. 2. in mechanical atomization the fuel is compressed to very high pressures (15 to 30 bars), thus imparting to it a high kinetic energy. this energy results in shearing of the liquid when it is brought into contact with the exterior atmosphere and thus results in the formation of droplets. 3. gaseous-fluid-assisted atomization can be used to arrive at a similar result while achieving a saving on high pressures (2 to 6 bars). in simplified terms one can distinguish two types of gaseous-fluid-assisted atomization according to whether the liquid fuel and atomizing fluid are brought into contact inside or outside the atomizer head. these types may be referred to as internal atomization and external atomization. internal atomization is characterized by confinement of the liquid fuel and atomizing fluid in an emulsion chamber. the mode of introduction of the two fluids into this chamber can vary considerably and has a direct influence on the characteristics of the emulsion that exits from the chamber. likewise, the internal geometry of this chamber (overall volume, vanes for producing rotation, number and diameters of the inlet and outlet orifices, and so forth) also affects the specific characteristics of the fuel/atomizing fluid mixture to be burned. this mode of atomization generally affords an excellent quality of atomization, that is, an emulsion composed of very small particles with a very narrow particle size distribution about these small diameters. at a given fuel delivery rate, this emulsion quality is naturally a function of the atomizing fluid delivery rate employed and the pressure level prevailing in the interior of the atomizing chamber. for external atomization, where contact between the two phases takes place outside of any confining enclosure, the emulsion is created mainly by shearing of the jet of liquid fuel by the atomizing fluid. the geometry of the outlets for the two fluids completely determines the quality of the atomization, and particle size analysis of the drops resulting from the contact shows a relatively wide diameter distribution (simultaneous presence of small and large particles). in the field of liquid fuel atomization, the principal known priority for the invention is published european patent application no. 0687858 a1, which claims an external atomization device that produces a very narrow spray angle (less than 15.degree.). this published application in particular claims that to successfully achieve this specific characteristic the angle formed between the atomizing fluid and the liquid fuel must be between 5.degree. and 30.degree.. another disclosed liquid fuel atomization device is the one disclosed in european patent application no. 0335728 a2, which claims a device for the introduction of a fluid into a combustion enclosure through the expedient of several distinct conduits branching from a common main conduit. a need exists for a burner which may operate at low pressure, particularly for the oxidant gas, while producing a wide, flat luminous flame with reduced no.sub.x emissions, and which affords a manner of controlling flame length so as to adapt the flame to the furnace in which it is used. there also exists a need in the art for a burner having the capability of burning gaseous fuels and liquid fuels, either at the same time or in the alternative. there is a need in the combustion art for a liquid fuel atomizer that falls within the scope of the third mode of atomization, a complete device that makes possible a controlled fluid introduction into the combustion zone that is a two-phase mixture of atomizing gas and droplets of liquid fuel, wherein atomization takes place outside of the nozzle (external atomization) and yet permits forming distinct spray jets having high relative angles (5.degree. to 30.degree.). in particular the combustion art is desirous of a device for atomization of a liquid fuel using a gaseous fluid and the application of this device to a burner such as the burner assemblies described herein. summary of the invention in accordance with the present invention, methods and systems for combustion of a fuel with oxygen contained in an oxidant gas are presented, wherein the fuel and oxidant gas are injected in separate fluid streams into a combustion chamber of a high temperature furnace (having a temperature of at least, 820.degree. c. or 150.degree. f.) in such proportions that the molar ratio of oxygen in the oxidant flow to fuel flow is between about 0.95 and about 1.05 (stoichiometric ratio), the fuel and oxidant producing a wide, luminous, well-defined flame. methods and systems of the present invention generate reduced quantities of no.sub.x. in general, the inventive burner assembly comprises at least one fuel fluid inlet and at least one oxidant fluid inlet, means for transporting the fuel fluid from the fuel inlet to a plurality of fuel outlets, the fuel fluid leaving the fuel outlets in fuel streams that are injected into a combustion chamber, means for transporting the oxidant fluid from the oxidant inlets to at least one oxidant outlet, the oxidant fluid leaving the oxidant outlets in oxidant fluid streams that are injected into the combustion chamber, with the fuel and oxidant outlets being physically separated, and geometrically arranged in order to impart to the fuel fluid streams and the oxidant fluid streams angles (referred to herein as "final" angles) and velocities (as the fuel and oxidant enter the combustion chamber) that allow combustion of the fuel fluid with the oxidant in a stable, wide, and luminous flame, thus, one aspect of the invention is a burner assembly having improved flame length and shape control, comprising: a refractory block adapted to be in fluid connection with sources of oxidant and fuel, the refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, the exit end having fuel exits and oxidant exits, the refractory block further having a plurality of fuel cavities, at least two of the fuel cavities defining a first fuel plane, and a plurality of oxidant cavities defining a second oxidant plane, the fuel cavities being more numerous than the oxidant cavities. preferred are burner assemblies of this aspect of the invention wherein the oxidant exits are larger than the fuel exits, and embodiments wherein one or more cavities has therein an injector positioned therein, as defined herein. preferred refractory blocks have at least five cavities, three cavities at a lower portion thereof for injection of fuel into a furnace combustion chamber, and two cavities at an upper portion thereof for injection of an oxidant into a furnace combustion chamber. alternatively, especially in the case when liquid fuels such as fuel oil is used as the fuel, the oxidant cavities are preferably more numerous than the fuel cavities. in a particularly preferred embodiment (a so-called "bi-fuel" embodiment), the refractory block has at least one liquid fuel cavity and at least one gaseous fuel cavity. in these embodiments, it is preferred that the liquid fuel cavity be positioned below that gaseous fuel cavities, and the gaseous fuel cavities positioned below the oxidant cavities, as further described herein. preferably, the fuel and oxidant exits are circular and contoured. the cavities are preferably straight holes through the refractory block form a fluid entrance end of the block to a fluid exit end of the block. the burner assembly of the invention may in some preferred embodiments comprise a fuel distributor or atomizer which is a single, integral component which fits inside a cavity of the refractory block, the fuel distributor having multiple fuel exits. another burner assembly embodiment of the invention is that comprising a refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, and further having a single liquid fuel cavity and a plurality of oxidant cavities, the oxidant cavities defining an oxidant plane which is positioned at an upper portion of the refractory block and above the liquid fuel cavity. yet another burner assembly of the invention comprises a refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, and further having a plurality of fuel cavities and a plurality of oxidant cavities, at least two of the oxidant cavities defining a first oxidant plane which is positioned at an upper portion of the refractory block and above a portion of the fuel cavities defining a fuel plane, wherein at least some of the oxidant cavities form a second plane at a position lower in the refractory block than the first oxidant plane, and wherein at least one of the oxidant cavities in the second oxidant plane has positioned therein a fuel injector having a diameter smaller than its corresponding oxidant cavity. another burner assembly embodiment of the invention comprises a refractory block having a fuel and oxidant entrance end and a fuel and oxidant exit end, and further having a plurality of fuel cavities and a single oxidant cavity, said oxidant cavity positioned at an upper portion of the refractory block and above a portion of the fuel cavities defining a fuel plane. the oxidant cavity itself (cross-section) and its exit may be non-circular, such as rectangular, oval, ellipsoidal, and the like, in all cases preferably with contoured edges at the block exit face as described herein. another burner assembly of the invention comprises: a) at least two fuel injectors defining a first plane; b) at least one oxidant injector; c) a wall through which the oxidant and the fuel injectors protrude into a combustion chamber, the injectors removably secured in the wall; wherein the oxidant injectors are positioned at a converging angle toward the first plane in the combustion chamber ranging from about 0.degree. to about 15.degree.. another aspect of the invention is a method of combustion of a fuel with an oxidant, the method comprising: a) providing a supply of an oxidant fluid stream; b) injecting the oxidant fluid stream into a combustion chamber to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; c) providing a supply of a fuel fluid stream; d) injecting the fuel fluid stream into the combustion chamber to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; e) creating a substantially planar sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber by injecting the at least two injected fuel fluid streams into the combustion chamber, at least two of the injected fuel fluid streams being substantially located in a first fuel plane; f) intersecting the oxidant fluid stream with the sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion chamber; and g) combusting the fuel fluid with the oxidant fluid in the combustion chamber. in preferred processes in accordance with the invention, two adjacent fuel fluid streams have a final diverging angle which is not greater than about 15.degree.. other preferred methods are those wherein gaseous and liquid fuels are burned simultaneously, and methods wherein gaseous fuel (or liquid fuel) is burned first, followed by liquid fuel (or gaseous fuel). it has been discovered that when the oxidant flow cavities are arranged in a diverging fashion the flame is wider. in some embodiments, the flame breadth can be increased (without significant decrease in the flame length) by providing the fuel and/or oxidant flow cavities with a final divergence angle slightly more than their initial divergence angle, as further described herein. also, in some preferred embodiments, oxidant and fuel injectors are used (especially for fuel) which fit inside the fuel and/or oxidant cavities. other embodiments of the method and apparatus of the invention include the provision of different distances between oxidant cavities and fuel cavities, depending on the type of fuel being burned (for example gaseous fuel vs. liquid fuel); non-parallel oxidant cavities (i.e. having diverging angles); and the provision, especially for fuel oil purposes, of a fuel injector having multiple diverging fuel sub-injectors, the fuel injector being located in one cavity of the refractory block. further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent after review of the following description and claims. brief description of the drawing fig. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a refractory block component of a burner assembly of the present invention, wherein the fuel "sheet" is made by using three (3) fuel injectors located in a first plane, and wherein the oxidant is supplied by two (2) injectors located in a second plane; fig. 2 is a front view of the arrangement of fig. 1; fig. 3 is a schematic side view of the combustion process that occurs in a furnace when the configuration of fig. 1 or 2 is used; fig. 4 is a top view of the process of fig. 3; fig. 5 illustrates a second burner assembly embodiment of the present invention, where the fuel "sheet" is formed by using two fuel cavities in a first fuel plane, the oxidant being supplied by two cavities in a second plane, and flame stabilization being supplied by an auxiliary fuel injection in the second plane; fig. 6 illustrates a third burner assembly embodiment of the present invention, where the fuel "sheet" is formed by using two fuel cavities in a first fuel plane, the oxidant being supplied by two cavities in a second plane, and wherein the flame is being stabilized by an auxiliary oxidant cavity in the first fuel plane, between the fuel cavities. fig. 7 illustrates a perspective view of one burner assembly embodiment of the present invention; figs. 8(a), (b) and (c) illustrate top, back and side views, respectively, of a burner assembly of the present invention including cavities; figs. 9(a) and (b) illustrate a refractory block of the present invention, showing various cavities; figs. 10(a), (b), (c) and (d) illustrate a burner block assembly, oxygen distributor and fuel distributor of the present invention; figs. 11(a), (b), (c), (d), and (e) illustrate another burner block assembly, oxygen distributor and fuel distributor of the present invention; figs. 12(a), (b), (c) and (d) illustrate a burner assembly of the invention in top, side, bottom, and detail views, showing in particular, the tube sealing detail; fig. 13a is a perspective view of a refractory block useful in the invention, illustrating two oxidant cavities, three fuel gas cavities, and one fuel oil cavity; fig. 13b is a side elevation view of the refractory block of fig. 13b; fig. 13c is a side elevation view of an alternate design for the refractory block of fig. 13a; fig. 14 is a side elevation view of a burner assembly without a refractory block, having only oxidant and fuel in ectors; fig. 15 is a plan view of a refractory block, illustrating cavities; fig. 16 is a plan view of the refractory block of fig. 15, illustrating an embodiment having short injectors inside the cavities; fig. 17 is a plan view of the refractory block of fig. 15, illustrating an embodiment having long injectors protruding outside of the cavities; fig. 18 is a side elevation view of a liquid fuel atomizer useful in the invention; figs. 19a and 19b are sectional and front end elevation views, respectively, of the liquid fuel atomizer of fig. 18; fig. 20a is a schematic illustration of a refractory block and cavity in same; fig. 20b is a schematic illustrating a preferred relationship between throat diameter and gas exit diameter for an injector or cavity; and figs. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33 are front elevation views of thirteen refractory block embodiments within the invention. description of preferred embodiments i. general aspects according to one aspect of the present invention, the combustion process and apparatus therefor are provided which operates with low oxidant supply pressure, such as the pressure delivered by a vacuum swing adsorption oxygen production unit, low oxidant pressure means a pressure ranging from about 105,000 to about 170,000 pa (absolute pressure) (50 m bar to 0.7 bar/relative pressure). according to the present invention, the fuel and the oxidant are introduced in the furnace through separate cavities in the burner assembly. the term "fuel", according to this invention, means, for example, methane, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, propane, atomized oil or the like (either in gaseous or liquid form) at either room temperature (about 25.degree. c.) or in preheated form. the term "oxidant", according to the present invention, means a gas with an oxygen molar concentration of at least 50%. such oxidants include oxygen-enriched air containing at least 50% vol., oxygen such as "industrially" pure oxygen (99.5%) produced by a cryogenic air separation plant or non-pure oxygen produced by e.g. a vacuum swing adsorption process (about 88% vol. o.sub.2 or more) or "impure" oxygen produced from air or any other source by filtration, adsorption, absorption, membrane separation, or the like, at either room temperature (about 25.degree. c.) or in preheated form. the cavities, as defined herein, are passages through a ceramic block or through a furnace wall, and preferably have a generally cylindrical cross section. any equivalent cross section can be used, such as square, rectangular, ellipsoid, oval, and the like. injectors are defined herein as tubular members having an outer shape which mates with its respective cavity, and which can be placed in its respective cavity to prolong the use of the refractory burner block. injectors can be either metallic tubes, metallic tubes or pipes with ceramic ends, ceramic tubes, or a combination thereof. examples of suitable ceramic materials for injector tubes include alumina, zirconia, yttria, silicon carbide, and the like. various stainless steels may be used for the injectors if the injectors are metallic, and metallic injectors having heat-protective refractory coatings, employing materials such as those mentioned for ceramic injectors, are also possible. injectors are preferred but not absolutely necessary. for example, injectors would not be necessary if the cavities are covered or coated with a layer of ceramic or any other material which withstands the high temperature and has adequate non-porosity to avoid penetration of gas through the refractory block the injectors are installed in cavities opened through the furnace walls, or through a refractory or ceramic brick mounted in the furnace wall. in some embodiments, the length of the injector is purposely made insufficient to span the respective length of its cavity in the burner block: the fuel or oxidant flows from the injector into the cavity, then from the cavity into the combustion chamber of the furnace. thus, in some embodiments, the injector stops before any change in direction of the gas flow that can be imparted by the geometry of the cavity; in other embodiments, the injector may protrude out of the refractory block and into the combustion chamber. in other embodiments there may be no injectors at all. the fuel injection is preferably made by at least two, preferably identical, cavities which axis are located preferably in a same plane, further referred to as the first fuel plane. the fuel and oxidant outlets are physically separated and geometrically arranged in order to impart to the fuel fluid streams and the oxidant fluid streams angles and velocities that allow combustion of the fuel fluid with the oxidant in a stable, wide, and luminous flame. in preferred embodiments, the fuel cavities diverge at an initial angle, and then this initial divergence angle increases slightly just before the fuel enters the combustion chamber to the final divergence angle. this final divergence angle is preferably only a few degrees larger than the first divergence angle. a preferred final angle between two adjacent fuel cavities is between about 3 and 10 degrees. the distance 1 between the extremities of the cavities when the fuel enters the combustion chamber of the furnace is comprised preferably between about 4 and 10 times the inner diameter d of each fuel injector in the first plane. the first plane is preferably but not necessarily parallel to the melt surface. when the fuel injector or cavity is not circular, the dimension "d" is an equivalent diameter corresponding to the cross-sectional area of an equalivalent circular injector or cavity. the combination of the fuel jets from the fuel cavities is such that it creates a fuel "sheet". by fuel "sheet", it is meant a substantially continuous cloud of fuel droplets (if liquid) or fuel gas in an angle of the first plane of at most about 120.degree., preferably between about 20.degree. and 60.degree., and preferably about symmetrical relative to the longitudinal axis of symmetry of the fuel cavities. the velocity of the fuel gas in the cavities is preferably at least about 15 m/s. according to one preferred embodiment of the present invention, a process is provided wherein a "sheet" of fuel fluid is generated above the surface to be heated, e.g. by means of at least two fuel cavities that make a final diverging angle preferably smaller than about 15 degrees, said fuel cavities being located in a first plane, an oxidant fluid having a lower velocity than that of the fuel fluid (preferably not exceeding about 60 meters per second (m/s)) being injected above the surface to be heated, preferably with at least two oxygen cavities, two adjacent oxygen cavities making a final diverging angle smaller than about 15 degrees. these cavities are preferably located in a second plane, which converges to and intersects with the first plane in the combustion chamber. the low velocity oxidant fluid jets which intersect with the fuel sheet, are dragged by the fuel flow along the fuel sheet, and create a combustion zone that stretches along the "sheet". accordingly, at the beginning of the combustion zone of the combustion chamber, a fuel-rich region is maintained at the underside of the fuel cloud where significant amounts of soot are formed. the soot and the fuel are then progressively oxidized by the oxidant that diffuses along the combustion zone. according to a particular embodiment of the invention, a method of combustion in a combustion zone is provided for a burner assembly containing at least two fuel fluid cavities, at least one oxidant fluid cavity and at least one exit face at which the fuel fluid cavities and oxidant fluid cavity terminates, the process entailing: providing a supply of an oxidant fluid stream; injecting said oxidant fluid stream through said at least one oxidant fluid cavity to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; providing a supply of a fuel fluid stream; injecting said fuel fluid stream through said at least two fuel fluid cavities to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; creating a substantially planar sheet of fuel fluid by injecting the at least two injected fuel fluid streams with a final diverging angle, at least two injected fuel fluid streams being substantially located in a first fuel plane; intersecting the oxidant fluid stream with the sheet of fuel fluid in the combustion zone; and combusting the oxidant fluid with the fuel fluid in the combustion zone. additionally, the invention also provides stabilization of the flame with an auxiliary injection of fuel and/or oxidant gases. according to another embodiment of the invention, it is possible to also have additional fuel cavities, e.g. located in a second fuel plane, beneath the first fuel plane and preferably parallel to or slightly converging with the first fuel plane. the injection of the oxidant fluid is made by at least two, preferably identical, cavities whose axis are located in the same plane, namely a first oxidant plane. the axial distance l between the tips of the oxidant cavities where the oxidant flow enters the combustion chamber of the furnace is comprised preferably between about 2 and about 10 times the inner diameter d (or equivalent diameter, as defined previously for "d") of each oxidant injector in the second plane. two adjacent oxidant cavities make a final diverging angle (in the direction of the flow) between about 0 and 15 degrees, preferably between about 0 and 7 degrees. the oxidant velocity in the cavities is smaller than the fuel velocity in the cavities of the first oxidant plane, and preferably smaller than about 60 meters per second (m/s). in some embodiments of the invention, the oxidant cavities contain so-called swirlers, intended to give to the oxidant streams a swirling motion to increase the spreading of the oxidant streams in the combustion zone, and improve the mixing between the oxidant and the fuel sheet. suitable swirlers are metallic fins or twisted stripes of metal placed in the cavities or injectors. the total quantities of fuel and oxidant used by the combustion system are such that the flow of oxygen ranges from about 0.95 to about 1.05 of the theoretical stoichiometric flow of oxygen necessary to obtain the complete combustion of the fuel flow. another expression of this statement is that the combustion ratio is between 0.95 and 1.05. the angle a between the first fuel plane and the second (oxidant) plane is between about 0 and 20 degrees, the first fuel plane and second plane converging toward the combustion chamber. the distance h between the first fuel plane and the second plane is at least equal to 2 times the diameter d, in the vertical plane at the exit of the cavities, with the first fuel plane being considered as substantially horizontal. the present invention also relates to a burner assembly comprising at least two fuel fluid cavities, at least one oxidant fluid cavity and at least one exit face at which the fuel fluid cavities and the oxidant fluid cavity terminates, comprising: means for supplying an oxidant fluid stream; means to inject said oxidant fluid stream in said at least one oxidant fluid cavity to create at least one injected oxidant fluid stream; means for supplying a fuel fluid stream; means to inject said fuel fluid stream in said at least two fuel fluid cavities to create at least two injected fuel fluid streams; wherein the directions of injection of the oxidant fluid stream and the fuel fluid stream are substantially converging while the directions of at least two adjacent fuel fluid channels are diverging. a first refractory block component 5 of a burner assembly embodiment of the invention is illustrated in fig. 1, having three fuel fluid cavities 1a, 1b, and 1c in a first plane 2, and two oxidant fluid cavities 3a and 3b in the second plane 4. the two first and second planes (2 and 4) make an angle .alpha.. the three fuel fluid cavities 1a, 1b, and 1c make an angle .alpha. between two adjacent ones, preferably the same. preferably, the axis of the middle fuel cavity 1b is perpendicular to an exit face 10 of refractory block 5. fig. 2 illustrates a front view of block 5 of fig. 1. on fig. 2, d represents the diameter of fuel cavities 1a, 1b, and 1c at exit face 10; 1 represents their respective axial separation distance at exit face 10; d represents the diameter of oxidant cavities 3a and 3b at exit face 10; and l their respective axial separation distance at exit face 10. "h" represents the distance between planes 2 and 4 at exit face 10 of block 5. it is to be recognized that all dimensions described herein with reference to fig. 2 ,nay be modified based on the particular fuel used. for example, if fuel oil is used, the distance h would tend to be greater than if natural gas were used as the fuel. fig. 3 represents a schematic side elevation view of the operation of the combustion system of figs. 1 and 2 as used in, for example, a glass melting tank 12, while fig. 4 illustrates a perspective view of the system of figs. 1-3. a fuel "sheet" or "cloud" is formed by fuel fluid streams exiting the fuel cavities in the first plane 2. jets of oxidant 6 exit the cavities of the second plane 4, and intersect the fuel sheet in the combustion chamber 70 of the furnace. combustion of the fuel with the oxidant occurs at an interface between the two flows to generate a flame 8 above the melt 9. in the early stages of the combustion process, the region located under the flame is fuel rich, which promotes the formation of carbon particles (soot) and thus enhances the luminosity of the flame. this is one of the characteristics of the invention: by spreading the fuel in a plane and creating planar layer or a "sheet" all over the melt substantially parallel to the melt and directing oxygen from above into the direction of the "sheet" to intersect the "sheet", then combustion preferably occurs in between the oxidant fluid and the fuel fluid where they cross each other. before the intersection of the planes, the flow is stratified, the bottom portion of the flame (which is closer to the melt) being fuel rich and thus generating soot because of the excess amount of fuel which is cracked by the high temperature flame. this soot is entrained by the gaseous stream beyond the intersection of the planes, to be further reburned in the flame which is thus more luminous. the configuration illustrated in figs. 1 to 3 was tested in a pilot scale furnace of square cross section (1 m wide and 2.5 meters long). the furnace was heated up to 820.degree. c. (1500.degree. f.) by an assist oxygen natural gas burner. when the furnace temperature was high enough, the combustion system of the invention was started and the assist burner shut down. the flame was viewed from the side of the furnace which had viewing ports. when necessary, the burner assembly including the refractory block illustrated in fig. 1 was rotated (e.g. by 90 degrees) , so that the flame could be better monitored from the side viewports, in all experiments, the first plane of the natural gas cavities was parallel to one of the furnace walls (side or bottom). the combustion system that was tested used natural gas flowing at about 32 nm.sup.3 /hr (1200 scfh) as a fuel fluid and pure oxygen flowing at about 64 nm.sup.3 /hr (2400 scfh) as the oxidant fluid under a pressure of about 100 m bar above the furnace pressure. this represents a combustion ratio of about 1. the distance l between the oxygen cavities was 15 cm. the angle between the natural gas cavities was 5 degrees. the arrangement allowed to vary the distance h between the first plane and the second plane from 2.5 cm to 10 cm, and the relative angle of the two oxygen cavities from 0 to 5 degrees. the cavities included injectors made of ceramic mullite tubes (stainless steel tubes have been further tested too). all cavities were mounted in cavities drilled through refractory material (referred to as the refractory block 5). the diameter of the natural gas cavities was varied between 0.925 cm and 1.58 cm (0.364 inches and 0.622 inches) so that fuel fluid velocities of 44 m/s, 26 m/s, and 16 m/s, were respectively achieved. the diameter of the oxygen cavities was varied between 1.9 and 2.66 cm (0.75 and 1.049 inches) so that oxygen velocities of 16 m/s, 27 m/s, and 31 m/s were achieved. the co, o.sub.2, co.sub.2, no.sub.x contents in the flue gases were continuously monitored. similar conditions with excess oxygen and furnace leaking (air ingress) were maintained during all the tests so that the no.sub.x emissions from the various configurations can be compared. the average furnace temperature was about 1450.degree. c. for all the tests. a sampling probe was also introduced in the furnace, at a distance of two meters from the block 5 to measure the local co concentration in the flame. low measured co concentrations at the sampling probe indicate short flames. another indication of short flames for this particular furnace is the observation of relatively low temperature flue gases, with about the same stoichiometric conditions. also tested in the pilot furnace was an oxygen-natural gas burner of the post mix type, with a generic "tube in tube" design: injection of natural gas surrounded by an annular oxygen stream. this burner was used as a reference, the burner was attached to the furnace wall, and generated 500 ppm of no.sub.x in the flue gases. for the system according to the invention, when the distance h was equal to 2.5. cm and the angle between the two planes was equal to 0 degree, a stable flame was generated, detached from the burner block. there was evidence of very good mixing between the fuel and oxygen jets. the flame length was short (1.5 m), especially when the velocity of the fuel was 2 to 4 times the velocity of the oxygen. the no.sub.x concentration was about 400 ppm. the flame appeared to be slightly broader than the reference flame. as the distance h was increased (still maintaining .alpha.=0.degree.), the mixing between natural gas and oxygen was delayed, and some soot was formed in the flame. at h=8 cm, the flame appeared very voluminous and very long. large amounts of soot were observed on the water cooled sampling probe at 2 meters from the burner block in which the burner is installed. the flame was visible, but its boundaries were hard to define because the flame was unstable. the furnace pressure exhibited important pressure fluctuations due to this instability. the no.sub.x emissions were dramatically reduced to about 60 ppm. although the quality of the combustion seemed relatively poor, there was no co left in the flue gases. at h=8 cm, an improvement of the flame stability was obtained when the angle between the first and the second planes was increased to 5.degree., 10.degree., and 20.degree.. the angle .alpha.=20.degree. gave the best stability. increasing a beyond 20.degree. did not significantly reduce the amount of soot formed and the flame luminosity, did not reduce the flame width, but increased the nox concentration in the flue gases, and decreased the flame length. also the impingement of the oxygen jets on the fuel sheet at the angle of 20.degree., even when the oxygen velocity was reduced, modified the shape of the "sheet", and deflected it towards the wall parallel to the first plane, which was found to be undesirable. the flame could be considered as being stable or very stable (for h=8 cm) for an angle comprised between about 5.degree. and 15.degree.. in a given configuration, increasing the ratio of natural gas velocity to oxygen velocity improved the flame stability. for example the configuration where .alpha.=10.degree. and h=8 cm is stable when the fuel velocity is 70 m/s and the oxygen velocity is 16 m/s. however, the stability effect is detrimental to the flame length and luminosity. the larger natural gas velocity was obtained by closing the natural gas injector located in the center of the first plane, so that all the natural gas was flowing through the two outer natural gas cavities. it has been unexpectedly found, however, that the flame stability could be significantly improved without affecting the flame luminosity and the flame length if one natural gas injector is located in between the two oxygen cavities of the second plane, such as indicated on fig. 5, preferably if one of the natural gas injector 21 in the first plane 2 is moved to the second plane 4, or close to it, substantially at the same distance from each oxygen injector 23, 24. the other two fuel cavities 20, 22 keep the same position. most preferably, if three gas cavities 20, 21, 22 and two oxygen cavities 23, 24 are provided, it is preferred to have two natural gas cavities 20, 22 in the first plane 2, two oxygen cavities 23, 24 in the second plane 4 and a third natural gas injector 21 located close to or in the second plane 4, preferably at substantially the same distance from the fuel cavities, said distance being preferably smaller than or preferably at most equal in the distance from the two oxygen cavities. approximately one third of the natural gas flow may be diverted from the first plane 2 to improve the flame stability. a stabilizing combustion zone is created between the first fuel plane 2 and the second (oxidant) plane 4, that initiates the combustion above the main fuel sheet. a preferred location for the stabilizing natural auxiliary jet is the median plane between the oxygen cavities. in conditions where the natural gas velocity was 44 m/s, the oxygen velocity was 16 m/s, the distance h was 8 cm, and the angle .alpha. was 10.degree., lower no.sub.x emissions (63 ppm) were found when the auxiliary natural gas injector was located exactly in between the oxygen cavities, than when the auxiliary natural gas injector was closer to one or the other oxygen cavities (74 ppm). however, in both cases, no.sub.x emissions were low. modifying the angle a can be advantageously used to increase the heat transfer to the wall towards the first plane. it has been found that increasing the angle a from 0.degree. to 10.degree. increased the temperature difference between the wall located near the first plane 2 and the opposed wall from 0.degree. c. to 27.degree. c. at .alpha.=20.degree. the temperature difference was about 32.degree. c. a combustion system according to the invention can thus be used to increase the heat transfer toward the load and reduce the furnace crown temperature. according to another embodiment of the invention, an equivalent improvement of the flame stability can be obtained if an auxiliary oxygen injector 25 is installed in the first plane 2 of the fuel cavities 20, 22, as shown for example on fig. 6. (the same relative locations of this oxygen injector and the gas cavities applies, as disclosed on fig. 5.) in this configuration, there are two oxygen cavities 23, 24 in the second plane 4 and two fuel cavities 20, 22 and one oxygen injector 25 in the first fuel plane 2. as it appears from the above description of the operation of the combustion system, the flame length can be varied by changing the angle a between the second plane 4 of the oxygen cavities and the first fuel plane 2 of the fuel cavities. the flame stability is enhanced and maintained over the range of flame length adjustment by an auxiliary injection of fuel near the oxygen cavities, or an auxiliary injection of oxygen near the fuel cavities. changing the angle between the two flames can also be used to increase the neat transfer towards the load of the furnace, and thus improve the efficiency of the fuel burnt. in the case of glass furnaces, additional heat transfer in some areas of furnaces can be useful to enhance the convective circulations of the molten glass and/or increase the residence time of the molten glass in the furnace, which improves the glass quality. combustion systems of the present invention are intended to be used, for example, to replace air-fuel combustion systems in already existing furnaces, and/or to be used as the main source of energy in new furnaces. in accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, a burner is provided having oxidant exits which are slightly angled to the sides, and generally contoured, preferably rounded, at their tips (i.e. at the exit face 10). quite surprisingly, it has been discovered that the angled exits allow the oxygen flow and, thus, the flame to be wider and prevent fuel from exiting unburned. additionally, the rounded tips cause less turbulence, and, hence, afford a greater control over flame shape. in fact, obtainment of a particular flame shape is most important and it is quite advantageous to be able to adjust flame shape to customer need. these and other aspects of the present invention will be now be further described by reference to figs. 7-12. the principal components of a preferred burner assembly depicted in fig. 7 are: 1) a refractory block 5; 2) a mounting bracket assembly 72; 3) a fuel distributor 74, located at the bottom of the mounting bracket assembly, and 4) an oxidant distributor 76, located at the top of the mounting bracket assembly. fuel is supplied through an inlet 78. oxidant is supplied to the burner assembly through an inlet 80. in figs. 8a (plan view), 8b (end elevation) and 8c (side elevation) the fuel and oxidant cavities are straignt holes through refractory block 5. the gas exit of each oxidant cavity and each fuel cavity have rounded edges at the gas exit face 10 as opposed to straight edges. the rounded edges reduce the velocity gradient between the gas flows ejected from the block and the surrounding atmosphere, which prevents particulates or volatile species contained in the atmosphere to build-up around the outlets of the cavities which in turn would alter the geometry of the cavities. this is particularly important in the case of the natural gas cavities, because the build-up process can be aggravated by the thermal cracking of the natural gas and the formation of coke deposits at the natural gas exits from the refractory blocks, which can alter flow direction in the furnace. the bottom cavities used for the fuel make a diverging angle .beta. in order to distribute the fuel gas flow in a sheet pattern. an angle .beta. of 5 degrees is represented in fig. 8(a). from results of numerical simulations, it was found that the flame width could be increased by increasing the angle of the natural gas cavities. for instance, .beta.=7.5 degrees produce a wider flame compared to .beta.=5 degrees, without significantly reducing the flame length. the refractory block 5 illustrated in figs. 9a (side elevation) and 9b (plan view) has five cavities: three cavities at the bottom for the injection of fuel in the furnace, and two cavities at the top for the oxidant injection. the refractory block 5 depicted in figs. 9a and 9b is preferably a single piece of refractory material having multiple cavities or through holes therethrough, such as cavities 91 and 92 for oxidant, and cavities 94, 96, and 98 for fuel. in the embodiment illustrated in figs. 9a and 9b, note that oxidant cavities 91 and 92 are initially parallel to each other and with the fuel cavities (see portions 91a and 92a), but then angle away from each other at an angle of 2.theta., and toward the fuel cavities at an angle .mu.. also note that fuel cavities 94 and 98 (the two on either side of the block 5) angle away from the central fuel cavity 96 at an angle, preferably also .theta.. this design allows the ability to position the exits of the fuel cavities closer to one another than in the embodiment illustrated in fig. 8. closer fuel exits might be useful when the fuel is fuel oil. suitable materials for the refractory block are fused zirconia (zro.sub.2), fused cast azs (alumina-zirconia-silica), rebonded azs, or fused cast alumina (al.sub.2 o.sub.3) the choice of a particular material is dictated among other parameters by the type of glass mrelted in the glass tank. straight cavities as illustrated in fig. 8 are easy to clean in case some material happens to block the gas outlets. however, angling out the last few centimeters of the cavities is enough to impart a diverging angle to the fuel gas streams. such a cavity design is illustrated in figs. 10a (plan view illustrating oxidant cavities only), 10b (plan view illustrating fuel and oxidant cavities), 10c (back end elevation) and 10d (side elevation), in the case of the oxidant cavities. each of the oxidant cavities 91 and 92 comprise two straight flow paths 91a and 92a, initially parallel, that make a small outward angle near the exit (flow paths). the purpose of the small angle is to direct the flow of oxidant outwards, in a similar fashion as the jets of fuel gas. in laboratory and field tests, angling out the oxidant (in the tests oxygen was used) cavities proved to give more stability to the flame and is beneficial to the burner operation by widening flame width without significantly decreasing flame length. a preferred configuration is when the angle between the two oxidant cavities at their exits is equal to the angle between the two side fuel gas cavities. the embodiment illustrated in figs. 11a-e is similar to the embodiment illustrated in fig. 10, except that fig. 11e illustrates that the two side fuel injectors make a small angle outward near their exit; thus both of the oxidant cavities 91b and 92b veer outward near exit face 10, as well as the two side fuel injectors 94b and 98b. from figs. 8, 10, and 11 it can be seen that the oxygen cavities are preferably angled downward toward the natural gas cavities. the angle shown on the drawings is 10 degrees. under certain conditions, a smaller angle (such as 7.5 degrees) can be used. again angling out the last few inches of the cavities is enough to impart a converging angle between the oxygen jets and the natural jets. the burner assembly illustrated in fig. 12 includes a mounting bracket made of two parts that are positioned on each of the upper and lower portions of refractory block 5, fastened together by bolts 32 screwed in plate p. the mounting bracket assembly slides in vertical grooves g.sub.1 and g.sub.2 in the refractory block, and is thus well anchored to the block once the bolts 60 and 61 are in place. an oxidant distributor 30 of fig. 12 is mounted directly on the mounting bracket assembly with bolts 32 and plate 34. tightness between the distributor and the block is insured by a gasket 36. the distributor comprises a plate 38 on which oxidant injectors 40 and 41 are welded. when mounted on the burner, the oxidant injectors penetrate into cavities in burner block 5, and stop about 10 cm (4 inches) away from exit face 10 of the block, before any change in direction of the flow that can be imparted by the geometry of the oxidant cavities. a fuel gas distributor 50i mounted on a plate 52 with quick connect clamps 53a and 53b. plate 52 is attached to the mounting bracket by bolts 54a and 54b. tightness between plate 52 and refractory block 5 is insured by a gasket 56. three gas injectors 58a, 58b, and 58c penetrate into refractory block 5, and stop about 10 cm (4 inches) away from exit face 10 of block 5 before any chance in direction of the flow that can be imparted by the geometry of the fuel gas cavities, the inlet heads of the fuel gas injectors are imprisoned between the injector 60 and plate 52. fuel gas injector tightness is insured by o-rings 62 and 64 positioned on the inlet head of the fuel gas injectors. the tube sealing detail in fig. 12(d) is noted, in particular. fig. 13a is a perspective view of a refractory block 5 useful in the invention, illustrating the exits of two oxidant cavities 91a and 91b, the exits of three fuel gas cavities 94a, 94b, and 94c, and the exit of one liquid fuel cavity 95, fig. 13b is a gas exit end elevation view of the refractory block of fig. 13b, illustrating distances d.sub.1 and d.sub.2, wherein d.sub.2 is the distance between a plane containing the axial center of the two oxidant cavities 91 (second plane) and the liquid fuel cavity 95, and d.sub.1 is the distance between the second plane and a plane containing the three fuel gas cavities 94. (note that d.sub.1 is the same distance as h in fig. 2) fig. 13c is a gas exit end elevation view of an alternate design for the refractory block of fig. 13a, illustrating an embodiment wherein there are in fact no gaseous fuel exits, and only one liquid fuel exit 97 is present (the two oxidant gas exits are the same as in fig. 13a). a relationship has been found to exist between the power of the inventive burner and the distances d.sub.1 =h, d.sub.2, d, d, l, and 21 as depicted in figs. 2, 13b, and 22. if the distance between oxygen and natural gas exits from the burner is defined by d.sub.1, then d.sub.1 =a(p/1000).sup.1/2 wherein p is the burner capacity in kilowatts (kw), and about 500 mm<a<about 150 mm. the preferred value for a is about 110 mm. if d.sub.2 is defined as the distance from the plane containing the fuel gas exits to the parallel plane containing the liquid fuel exit, then d.sub.2 =d.sub.1.rho.fo/.rho.ng [(i.sub.fo +i.sub.air)/i.sub.ng ](10.sup.-3 ) wherein: i.sub.fo =liquid fuel momentum in the cavity or injector, i.sub.air =atomizing air momentum in the injector or cavity, i.sub.ng =gaseous fuel momentum, .rho..sub.fo =liquid fuel specific gravity, and .rho..sub.ng =gaseous fuel specific gravity. for the preferred value of a and for the following momentum value: i.sub.fo =0.06n, i.sub.air =1.79n, i.sub.ng =1.56n, .rho..sub.fo =0.9kg/dm.sup.3, and .rho..sub.ng =0.74kg/m.sup.3, the dimensional values listed in table 1 are available. table 1 ______________________________________ burner power power (kw) 500 1000 1500 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 ______________________________________ d.sub.1 78 110 135 156 191 220 246 270 291 (mm) d.sub.2 113 160 196 227 278 320 358 392 423 (mm) d 10.6 15 18.4 21.2 26 30 33.5 36.7 39.7 (mm) d 29.7 42 51.4 59.4 72.7 84 93.9 102.9 111.1 (mm) l 113.1 160 196 226.3 277.1 320 357.8 391.9 423.3 (mm) 2l 99 140 171.5 198 242.5 280 313 342.9 370.4 (mm) ______________________________________ fig. 14 is a side elevation view of a burner assembly without a refractory block, having only oxidant injectors 102 and fuel injectors 104 inserted through and secured in a wall 100 of a furnace or glass melt tank, in accordance with another burner assembly embodiment of the present invention. the oxidant injectors are illustrated as being straight, with no change in angle, but of course the injectors may initially be parallel with the fuel injectors, and then change direction, so that the fuel and oxidant mix in the combustion chamber. this embodiment may also be used when the fuel is a liquid fuel. this arrangement, as well as the embodiment illustrated in fig. 17, may be useful in that the fuel and oxidant may be preheated by combusted fuel in the combustion chamber, adding to the efficiency of fuel combustion. fig. 15 is a plan view of a refractory block, illustrating cavities (oxidant or fuel) 91a and 91b; fig. 16 is a plan view of the refractory block of fig. 15, illustrating an embodiment having short injectors 102a and 102b inside the cavities; and fig. 17 is a plan view of the refractory block of fig. 15, illustrating an embodiment having long injectors 102a and 102b protruding outside of the cavities. ii. specifics for liquid fuel atomization fig. 18 is a sectional view of a liquid fuel atomizer 200 useful in the invention. as stated previously in the background section, the present aspect of the invention falls within the scope of the third mode of liquid fuel atomization; it describes a complete device that makes possible control of the atomization of a liquid fuel using a gaseous fluid and the application of this device to a burner, such as the inventive burner assemblies described herein. in the present invention, even though the geometry for fluid introduction seems similar, the fluid introduction into the combustion zone is a two-phase mixture of atomizing gas and droplets of liquid fuel. further, the specific characteristics of the invention reside in the fact that atomization takes place outside of the nozzle (external atomization) and yet permits forming distinct spray jets having high relative angles (5.degree. to 30.degree.) the fundamental constraint on a liquid fuel atomizer operating in high temperature combustion zones (varying from 1400.degree. c. to 1700.degree. c.) is its durability. moreover, the flame produced at the outlet of this injector is an oxy flame residing at an even higher temperature (>2200.degree. c.). these high temperatures must not under any circumstance lead to any damage of the components comprising this device. this device must be able to function continuously under these conditions and with an inspection frequency on the order of months. the inventive liquid fuel atomizer is capable of ensuring the production of a single broad flame, a single long flame, or several short flames simultaneously. the atomization principle adopted in the atomizer of the present invention is external atomization. this choice was essentially imposed by the constraints of thermal resistance and maintenance of the injector when used in a third generation burner (self-cooled burner with separate injection). in effect, the temperature levels potentially reached by the fuel injectors in burners of this type are very much higher than those previously encountered with first and second generation burners. these temperature levels therefore do not allow direct contact between the fuel spray and high temperature metal parts. this contact would inevitably lead to coke formation at the tip of the injector and, in short order, plugging of the tip. external atomization is the only mode of atomization which is able to obviate this difficulty and thereby ensure an injector servicing frequency on the order of a month. in a effect, this atomization is characterized by the formation of the spray outside of the injector, thus precluding all contact between the spray and metal parts. moreover, as we will see in the description of the device, the liquid fuel is constantly "sheathed" by the atomizing fluid, which, being heated preferentially, draws off the heat flux transmitted to the injector. by playing the role of a heat transfer fluid for cooling, the atomizing fluid thus protects the liquid fuel from any excessive heating that could produce the beginnings of coke formation. a. description of the inventive liquid atomization device (fig. 18) the liquid fuel atomizer of the present invention comprises: a liquid fuel injector, and an outer nozzle completely surrounding the injector. to facilitate cleaning of the atomization device, this outer nozzle is composed of two symmetrical cowls which, when they are positioned face to face, form channels for flow of atomization fluid, as further explained in part iib. reference will now be made to figs. 18-19. in fig. 18, the liquid fuel atomizer 200 is composed of a first hollow cylinder 202 having an internal surface 204 of inside diameter d.sub.oi and an outside surface 206 having outside diameter d.sub.oe. hollow cylinder 202 has a fuel exit end 203 having a single fuel exit fluidly connected to a plurality of hollow elementary conduits c.sub.1, c.sub.2, and c.sub.3. liquid fuel is delivered into first hollow cylinder 202 having diameter d.sub.oi and then to the interior of all the hollow elementary conduits to emerge from an atomized fuel exit end 208 of the liquid fuel atomizer 200 (combustion chamber side). the number of hollow elementary conduits c can range from 2 to 5 (typically 2 or 3). the axes of all the hollow elementary conduits c are in the same plane ("spray plane"); this plane contains the axis of the first hollow cylinder 202. in fig. 18 and the accompanying discussion, the symbols which carry a numeral in superior position will refer to the number of elementary atomizer. each of the hollow elementary conduits c will have an inside diameter d.sup.i.sub.1 (into which the liquid fuel will flow) and an outside "diameter" d.sup.i.sub.2. the external shape of the hollow elementary conduits c is not necessarily cylindrical: it can be parallelepipedal with square section. in such a case, d.sup.i.sub.2 is the side of the square, the side parallel to the "spray plane." each of these hollow elementary conduits c has an inclination angle .alpha..sup.i.sub.1 with respect to the axis of the cylinder (d.sub.oi ; d.sub.oe) ; this angle is in the "spray plane." the length of each of these hollow elementary conduits c (distance between the first hollow cylinder 202 and the end of the hollow elementary conduit) is l.sup.i.sub.1. b. description of the outer nozzle (figs. 19a and 19b) the outer nozzle 210 is formed of a second hollow cylinder 212 (having an inside surface 214 of diameter d.sub.fi and an external surface 216 of outside diameter d.sub.fe) which is extended by a profiled part 218 comprised of two symmetrical cowls 219 and 221. the interior of profiled part 218 of nozzle 210 is pierced by channels 220, 222, 224 which merge with the second hollow cylinder 212. the number of channels 220, 222, 224 is equal to the number of hollow elementary conduits c present in outer nozzle 210. all the axes of these channels 220, 222, 224 are located in the "spray plane", denoted by solid line eff which also contains the axis of second hollow cylinder 212. solid line e.sub.ff denotes the separation between symmetrical cowls 219 and 221. the channels 220, 222, 224 have a length l.sup.i.sub.2 and a diameter d.sup.i.sub.3. the shape of the channels is the same as that of the elementary conduits of the fuel injector: it can be cylindrical or parallelepipedal with square section (in the former case, d.sup.i.sub.3 is the diameter of the cylinder; in the latter case d.sup.i.sub.3 is the length of the side of the square, the side parallel to the "spray plane"). each of channels 220, 222, 224 has an inclination angle .alpha..sup.i.sub.2 with respect to the axis of the second hollow cylinder 212; this angle is in the "spray plane." the axis of first hollow cylinder 202 coincides with that of second hollow cylinder 212. the atomizing fluid is delivered through second hollow cylinder 212, between surfaces 206 and 214, and then to the interior of the outer nozzle 210 and through channels 220, 222, and 224, and to exit end 208. c. details of an "elementary atomizer" (fig. 18) an elementary atomizer is comprised of a hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 inside which the liquid fuel flows. the outside surface 226 of a hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 can be cylindrical or parallelepipedal with square section; the internal geometry of the hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 is cylindrical. a machined channel 224 in which hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 is arranged. the geometry of this channel 224 is the same as the external geometry of hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3. the atomizing fluid circulates in channel 224, around hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3. to provide external atomization of the liquid fuel by the atomizing fluid, all the elementary atomizers composing the atomization device 200 of the invention conform to precise technical criteria. for each elementary atomizer i, where i can be equal to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 according to the number of elementary atomizers which the atomization device of the invention has, the following apply: 1. to avoid any plugging of the hollow elementary conduit c where the liquid fuel circulates: d.sup.i.sub.1 .gtoreq.0.5 mm and typically d.sup.i.sub.1 =2 mm. 2. the thickness of the hollow elementary conduit c must be as small as possible in order to permit immediate shearing of the jet of liquid fuel as it exits from the hollow elementary conduit c by the atomizing fluid which flows along its periphery: the smaller the thickness of material separating the fuel from the atomizing fluid is, the more rapidly the two fluids will be brought in contact and thus the more effective the shearing between the two jets will be. furthermore, a reduction in the thickness of the conduit also favors the formation of a spray having a low solid angle. 3. lastly, a decrease in this thickness also serves to decrease the amount of material subjected to the thermal radiation from the combustion chamber: the smaller the thickness of the conduit is, the more limited the amount of heat captured by the conduit will be. the temperature of the conduit will be lowered as a consequence. on the other hand, this thickness must be sufficient to provide mechanical resistance to the shocks that occur during manipulation of the atomization device. d.sup.i.sub.2 -d.sup.i.sub.1 .ltoreq.6 mm, and typically and preferably d.sup.i.sub.2 -d.sup.i.sub.2 =1 mm. the space between the outside surface 226 of the hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 and the inside of the channel 224 ("the flame") must be proportioned in such a way that the velocity of the atomizing fluid (v.sub.atomizing fluid) follows the relationship: mach 0.3.ltoreq.v.sub.atomizing fluid .ltoreq.mach 1.2. accordingly, depending on the delivery rates of the fuel to be atomized, the following applies: 0.2 mm.ltoreq.(d.sup.i.sub.3 -d.sup.i.sub.2).ltoreq.6 mm, and typically (d.sup.i.sub.3 -d.sup.i.sub.2)=1 mm. the purpose of each of the elementary atomizers is to eject a spray of droplets in a precise direction. this direction is the direction of the axis of channel 224 and hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3 for liquid fuel. to ensure this precise orientation of the trajectories of the droplets composing the spray, it is necessary to have perfect coaxiality between the axis of channel 224 and that of hollow elementary conduit c.sub.3. thus the criterion is: .alpha..sup.i.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.i.sub.2. furthermore, the length of the hollow elementary conduit and the length of its respective channel must be sufficient to secure establishment of the flows of the two fluids in their respective conduits. if one wishes that the two fluids enter the combustion chamber with the same orientation of the axial components of their respective velocity vectors, it is preferred that: l.sup.i.sub.1 .gtoreq.5d.sup.i.sub.1 and typically l.sup.i.sub.1 =0d.sup.i.sub.1 l.sup.i.sub.2 .gtoreq.5(d.sup.i.sub.3 -d.sup.i.sub.2) and typically l.sup.i.sub.2 =15(d.sup.i.sub.2 -d.sup.i.sub.2) d. distribution of fluids among the different elementary atomizers to ensure a proper distribution of the liquid fuel among the different hollow elementary conduits c composing the device, the criterion to be satisfied is: d.sub.oi.sup.2 .gtoreq.1.3.sigma..sub.i d.sup.i.sub.1.sup.2 and typically d.sub.oi =4 mm. furthermore, the lengths of the different hollow elementary conduits c must be as close to one another as possible: letting i and j be two elementary atomizers, l.sup.i.sub.1 =l.sup.j.sub.1. depending on whether one does or does not wish to distribute different liquid fuel delivery rates to each of the hollow elementary conduits c, one may or may not choose d.sup.i.sub.1 values specific to each of the hollow elementary conduits c. the larger d.sup.i.sub.1 is, the more fuel will be carried by hollow elementary atomizer i. to ensure a proper distribution of atomizing fluid to the various elementary atomizer channels 224 comprising the device, the criterion to be satisfied is: d.sub.fi.sup.2 -d.sub.oe.sup.2 .gtoreq.1.3.sigma..sub.i (d.sup.i.sub.3.sup.2 -d.sup.i.sub.2.sup.2). furthermore, the lengths of the different conduits must be as close to one another as possible: letting i and j be two elementary atomizers, l.sup.i.sub.2 =l.sup.j.sub.2. e. relative angles between different elementary atomizers: example of a device having three elementary atomizers (fig. 18) the relative angle between the different elementary atomizers is a function of the number of elementary atomizers composing the atomization device and the flame morphology one wishes to obtain. thus: 0.degree..ltoreq..alpha..sup.i.sub.1 .ltoreq.60.degree. and 0.degree..ltoreq..alpha..sup.i.sub.2 .ltoreq.60.degree.. in general, the greater the number of elementary atomizers and the larger the relative angles between these elementary atomizers, the wider and shorter the flame will be. conversely, an atomization device having two elementary atomizers with a low relative angle (on the order of 10.degree., that is .alpha..sup.1.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.1.sub.2 =5.degree. and .alpha..sup.2.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.2.sub.2 =5.degree.) will produce a long and straight flame. by way of example, the following flames were obtained in industrial tests in a glass furnace and in a pilot furnace with two atomization devices each having three elementary atomizers: fuel oil delivery rate=100 kg/h; atomizing air delivery rate=20 kg/h. device a (fig. 18): .alpha..sup.1.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.1.sub.2 =16.degree.; .alpha..sup.2.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.2.sub.2 =0.degree.; .alpha..sup.3.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.3.sub.2 =16.degree.. d.sup.1.sub.1 =d.sup.2.sub.1 =d.sup.3.sub.1 =2.0 mm. length of visible flame=3.5 m. width of visible flame=1.5 m. device b (fig. 18): .alpha..sup.1.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.1.sub.2 =12.degree.; .alpha..sup.2.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.2.sub.2 =0.degree.; .alpha..sup.3.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.3.sub.2 =12.degree.. d.sup.1.sub.1 =d.sup.2.sub.1 =d.sup.3.sub.1 =2.0 mm. length of visible flame=4.5 m. width of visible flame=0.7 m. depending on the respective angles for the elementary atomizers and the relative diameter of the hollow elementary conduits c carrying the liquid fuel, it is also possible to obtain separate flames for each of the elementary atomizers., thus, at the same fuel oil and atomizing air delivery rates, one has: device c (fig. 18) .alpha..sup.1.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.1.sub.2 =20.degree.; .alpha..sup.2.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.2.sub.2 =0.degree.; .alpha..sup.3.sub.1 =.alpha..sup.3.sub.2 =20.degree.. d.sup.1.sub.1 =d.sup.2.sub.1 =d.sup.3.sub.1 =2.0 mm. length of 3 separate visible flames=1.5 m. width of 3 separate visible flames=0.5 m. f. additional characteristics of the outer nozzle related to the use of the atomization device in glass furnaces (figs. 19a and 19b ) in the case of continuous use of the inventive liquid fuel atomizer 200 in glass furnaces (combustion chambers with elevated temperatures ranging from 1500.degree. c. to 1670.degree. c.) the liquid fuel atomizer of the invention must be capable of ensuring production of a stable flame for periods on the order of months. the atomization principle selected makes it possible to keep the temperature of the metal parts composing the device below 1100.degree. c. thus, the temperature measured at the tip of the device during an industrial test for one month in a glass furnace at 1600.degree. c. never exceeded 800.degree. c. these temperatures, which are not very high compared to the melting temperature of glass (.about.1350.degree. c.), give rise to a condensation phenomenon by the vitreous materials present in glass furnaces. to avoid the formation of a layer of glass condensates on the outside of outer nozzle 210, two symmetrical orifices 230, 232 are provided in the outer nozzle 210 (fig. 19a and fig. 19b ) generally vertically aligned in a plane designated 240. the diameter d.sub.or and the elevation h.sub.or are established in such a way that the jet of atomizing fluid emerging from the orifices 230, 232 covers the entire surface of the exit end 209 of the outer nozzle 210. typically, d.sub.or .about.1 mm and h.sub.or .about.10 mm. g. control of the flame length at a fixed geometry for a given geometry of the liquid fuel atomizer 200 of the present invention, it is possible to significantly vary the length of the flame (or flames) produced by a burner using this device. the flexibility (in terms of flame length at constant fuel delivery rate) observed when the liquid fuel atomizer 200 is deployed in a glass furnace corresponds to a ratio of one to three (flame length varying from about 3.7 to about 1.2 m). this control of the flame length is achieved by increasing or decreasing the delivery rate of the atomizing fluid flowing between the outer nozzle 210 and the hollow elementary conduits c. this variation in delivery rate is directly linked to the variation in pressure of the atomizing fluid upstream from the liquid fuel atomizer 200. in ordinary use, the liquid fuel atomizer 200 functions at an atomizing fluid pressure between about 1 and 6 bars relative. the higher the pressure of the atomizing fluid, the higher also will be the delivery rate of atomizing fluid and the shorter and "harder" the obtained flame (or flames) will be. this phenomenon is directly attributable to the change in the particle size distribution of the droplets of liquid fuel composing the spray that is formed: the increase in the rate of delivery of atomizing fluid has the effect of decreasing the average spray droplet diameter and narrowing the distribution of the diameters about this mean value. conversely, a decrease in the rate of delivery of atomizing fluid will increase the average diameter while widening the distribution. the overall mechanism of combustion of a liquid fuel reveals three characteristic times which, according to their respective weights, completely determine the type of flame resulting from a given atomization, these three characteristic times are: the evaporation time, the chemical time, and the hydrodynamic time. obtaining a particle size distribution confined narrowly about small drop diameters leads to a decreased time for vaporization of the droplets and thus an increased rapidity of deflagration since the chemical time remains nearly constant. a spray characterized by such a distribution (high atomizing fluid delivery rate) will thus produce a short flame typical of a rapid combustion and very localized in space. preferred pressurized atomization fluids are employed, such as pressurized air, steam, water vapor, and the like. iii. other burner assembly embodiments fig. 20a is a schematic illustration of a refractory block 5 and fuel gas cavity 94 in same, while fig. 20b is a schematic illustrating a cavity throat diameter d' and gas exit diameter d for an injector or cavity. for fuel gas, the ratio of 1 (from fig. 2, the distance between adjacent fuel gas exits) and d' (fuel cavity or injector throat diameter) ranges from about 1.5 to about 10, more preferably from about 1.5 to about 3, and most preferably about 2. fig. 20a also illustrates that the cavities in the refractory block may have varying diameter in the direction of gas flow, and that the gas exits are generally contoured at the exits, allowing the exits to be less likely to be plugged. figs. 21 and 22 are gas exit end elevation views of two other refractory block embodiments within the invention, illustrating oxidant cavities 91a and 91b. the embodiment of fig. 21 illustrates that the fuel gas cavities 94 may have concentric gas injectors in each cavity, whereby for example, fuel may injected in small diameter fuel gas injector 94' for low power operation, and through either the large diameter fuel gas injector 94 only, or through both injectors 94 and 94' for high power burner operation. control of fuel flow between 94 and 94' may be controlled by suitable valving arrangements, or through the use of an orifice in the line feeding one or the other of 94 and 94'. a liquid fuel injector 95 is also illustrated. fig. 22 illustrates a very important alternative refractory block embodiment within the invention, wherein it has been discovered that flame stability is significantly increased when the peripheral oxidant injectors 91a and 91b, when positioned as illustrated, have a distance separating them of l, is greater than two times the distance 1 between adjacent fuel injectors, that is when l>21. this is true also when the fuel and oxidant are injected via the use only of injectors, rather than the use of a refractory block. figs. 23-31 illustrate, in front elevation views, other embodiments of burner assemblies of the invention. fig. 23 illustrates an embodiment wherein the two oxidant cavities 91a and 91b have exits which are rectangular, also illustrating three fuel gas exits 94 and a liquid fuel exit 95. fig. 24 illustrates an embodiment wherein oxidant emanates from two oxidant exits 91a and 91b, and oxidant also emanates from three annular portions 91' which surround respectively three fuel exits 94'. fig. 25 illustrates an embodiment wherein a single oxidant exit 91 is present as a rectangle having a width much greater than its height. in this embodiment, the ratio of co width to height of the oxidant cavity exit may range from 1:1 up to about 4:1. fig. 26 illustrates an embodiment wherein the two oxidant cavities 91a and 91b have exits which are ellipsoid, also illustrating three fuel gas exits 94. fig. 27 illustrates an embodiment similar to the embodiment of fig. 26, with the addition of a liquid fuel cavity 95 having a circular exit. fig. 28 illustrates an embodiment wherein a single ellipsoid oxidant exit 91 is present with three fuel gas cavities 94 having circular exits. fig. 29 illustrates an embodiment similar to the embodiment of fig. 28, with the addition of a liquid fuel cavity 95 having a circular exit. fig. 30 illustrates an embodiment wherein a single ellipsoid oxidant exit 91 is present with two fuel gas cavities 94 having circular exits. fig. 31 illustrates an embodiment similar to the embodiment of fig. 30 wherein a single ellipsoid oxidant exit 91 is present with two fuel gas cavities 94 having circular exits, with the addition of a liquid fuel cavity 95 having a circular exit. figs. 32 and 33 illustrate embodiments wherein oxidant emanates from one or more positions both above and below the fuel exit(s). in these embodiments, the fuel cavities are essentially parallel to the lower oxidant cavities, while the upper oxidant cavities are angled down so that the upper oxidant fluid flow converges with the fuel fluid flow and the lower oxidant fluid flows in the combustion chamber. thus, in fig. 32, duel oxidant exits 91a and 91b are positioned above and below, respectively, of a single fuel exit 94. fig. 33 illustrates a similar embodiment, except that there are two oxidant exits 91a and 91b above two fuel exits 94, and two oxidant exits 91a' and 91b' below the duel fuel exits. more than two fuel exits, with corresponding upper and lower oxidant exits, can be envisioned. many other embodiments are possible and can easily be envisioned by the skilled artisan after having read and understood the above. it is important to point out that the exits of oxidant and fuel in all embodiments are preferably contoured, as depicted for example in figs. 8-11. having described the present invention, it will be readily apparent to the artisan that many changes and modifications may be made to the above-described embodiments without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention.
108-190-133-835-359	US	[ "US", "WO" ]	H05K7/20,H04M1/02	2007-06-13T00:00:00	2007	[ "H05", "H04" ]	external heat sink for electronic device	an external heat sink device that can be attached to an electronic device during periods of excess heat generation, such as during a gaming session, for example. the external heat sink device can be removed from the electronic device during times of relatively lower heat generation. other external accessories can be associated with the external heat sink device, such as an external antenna, speakers, game input device, power supply, etc.	1 . an electronic device assembly, comprising: an electronic device having a housing; and a heat sink device releasably attachable to the housing of the electronic device for absorbing heat therefrom. 2 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , wherein the electronic device includes communication circuitry, and wherein the heat sink device includes an antenna element couplable to the communication circuitry when the heat sink device is attached to the electronic device. 3 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , wherein the heat sink device includes a passive heat sink. 4 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 3 , wherein the passive heat sink includes at least one cooling fin for dissipating heat into the environment. 5 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , further comprising a thermoelectric cooling device within the housing of the electronic device, the thermoelectric cooling device configured to transfer heat from an interior of the housing to an exterior of the housing, wherein the heat sink device is configured to absorb heat transferred by the thermoelectric cooling device. 6 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 5 , wherein the thermoelectric cooling device includes a peltier device. 7 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , wherein the heat sink device includes an active heat sink. 8 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 7 , wherein the active heat sink includes a thermoelectric cooling device. 9 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 7 , wherein the active heat sink includes at least one fan for circulating air around the housing of the electronic device. 10 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , wherein at least one of the electronic device or the heat sink device includes an attachment mechanism for securing the electronic device and heat sink device together. 11 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , further comprising an accessory module for supporting at least one of the electronic device and heat sink device. 12 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 11 , wherein the heat sink device is integral with the accessory module. 13 . a electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 11 , wherein the accessory module includes at least one of a user input device, a power supply, or a speaker. 14 . an electronic device assembly as set forth in claim 1 , wherein a surface of the heat sink device is configured to engage a surface of the electronic device to form a thermal interface for the transfer of heat from the interior of the housing to the heat sink device. 15 . the electronic device of claim 1 , wherein said electronic device is a mobile phone. 16 . the electronic device of claim 1 , wherein said electronic device includes at least one of a personal audio device, a personal video device or a personal digital assistant. 17 . a device for transferring heat from an electronic device comprising an external heat sink releasably securable to a housing of the electronic device. 18 . a device as set forth in claim 17 , further comprising an antenna element, wherein the antenna element is couplable to communication circuitry of the electronic device when the device is secured to the electronic device. 19 . a device as set forth in claim 17 , wherein the heat sink includes a passive heat sink a having at least one cooling fin. 20 . a device as set forth in claim 17 , wherein the heat sink includes an active heat sink. 21 . a device as set forth in claim 17 , further comprising an attachment mechanism for releasably securing the device to the electronic device. 22 . an electronic device assembly comprising; an electronic device having a housing and at least one thermoelectric cooling element configured to transfer heat from an interior of the housing to an exterior of the housing; and a thermal mass releasably securable to the housing of the electronic device for absorbing heat transferred by the thermoelectric cooling element. 23 . a method of cooling an electronic device comprising attaching a heat sink to an exterior of a housing of the electronic device, wherein the heat sink is configured to absorb heat from the interior of the housing and dissipate the absorbed heat to the environment.	technical field of the invention the present invention relates generally to electronic devices and, more particularly, to portable electronic devices. description of the related art in designing the physical characteristics of mobile phones, a number of considerations are taken into account. one characteristic that is particularly important to users of mobile phones is the size and/or thickness of the mobile phone (generally a smaller and/or thinner phone is preferred). thus, a trend in mobile phones has generally been towards smaller and thinner mobile phones. conventional mobile phones, in addition to providing voice communication capabilities, also provide a number of non-voice related features. for example, mobile phones can be used to surf the internet, transmit and receive messages (e.g., emails and text messages), play music and videos, take and display photographs, as well as a number of other features. an increasingly popular function of mobile phones is gaming. as mobile phone processors become more powerful, mobile phone games can be more advanced and become more graphics intensive. for example, three-dimensional (3d) gaming is becoming possible on mobile phones. network gaming is also possible using the mobile phone's communication circuitry, for example, to connect the mobile phone to a gaming network. during a 3d gaming session, and in particular a networked 3d gaming session, a mobile phone typically consumes an increased amount of power (e.g., max power) as compared to other mobile phone functions, such as placing a call, for example. accordingly, the mobile phone typically generates an increased amount of heat during such activities. as mobile phones decrease in size, dissipating the heat generated by the phone becomes an increasing challenge. summary to improve performance and reliability of mobile phones, particularly during periods of excess heat generation, while maintaining a sleek form factor desirable to consumers, there is a need for an external heat sink device that can be attached to the mobile phone during periods of excess heat generation, such as during a gaming session, for example. the external heat sink device can be removed from the phone during times of relatively lower heat generation. other external accessories can be associated with the external heat sink device, such as an external antenna, speakers, game input device, power supply, etc. in accordance with an aspect of the invention, an electronic device assembly comprises an electronic device having a housing, and a heat sink device releasably attachable to the housing of the electronic device for absorbing heat therefrom. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the electronic device includes communication circuitry, wherein the heat sink device includes an antenna element couplable to the communication circuitry when the heat sink device is attached to the electronic device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink device includes a passive heat sink. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the passive heat sink is a heat sink including at least one cooling fin for dissipating heat into the environment. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the electronic device further comprises a thermoelectric cooling device contained within the housing of the electronic device, the thermoelectric cooling device configured to transfer heat from an interior of the housing to the exterior of the housing, wherein the heat sink device is configured to absorb heat transferred by the thermoelectric cooling device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the thermoelectric cooling device includes a peltier element. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink device includes an active heat sink. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the active heat sink includes a thermoelectric cooling device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the active heat sink includes at least one fan for circulating air around the housing of the electronic device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, at least one of the electronic device or the heat sink device includes an attachment mechanism for securing the electronic device and heat sink device together. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the electronic device further comprises an accessory module for supporting at least one of the electronic device and heat sink device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink device is integral with the accessory module. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the accessory module includes at least one of a user input device, a power supply, or a speaker. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, a surface of the heat sink device is configured to engage a surface of the electronic device to form a thermal interface for the transfer of heat from the interior of the housing to the heat sink device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, said electronic device is a mobile phone. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, said electronic device includes at least one of a personal audio device, a personal video device or a personal digital assistant. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, a device for transferring heat from an electronic device comprises an external heat sink device releasably securable to a housing of the electronic device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the device comprises an antenna element, wherein the antenna element is couplable to communication circuitry of the electronic device when the heat sink device is secured to the electronic device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink device includes a passive heat sink and at least one cooling fin. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink device includes an active heat sink. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the heat sink includes an attachment mechanism for releasably securing the heat sink device to the electronic device. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, an electronic device assembly comprises an electronic device having a housing and at least one thermoelectric cooling element configured to transfer heat from an interior of the housing to an exterior of the housing, and a thermal mass releasably securable to the housing of the electronic device for absorbing heat transferred by the thermoelectric heat sink. in accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method of dissipating heat generated by an electronic device comprises attaching a heat sink device to an exterior of a housing of the electronic device, wherein the heat sink device is configured to absorb heat from the interior of the housing and dissipate the heat to the environment. these and further features of the present invention will be apparent with reference to the following description and attached drawings. in the description and drawings, particular embodiments of the invention have been disclosed in detail as being indicative of some of the ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed, but it is understood that the invention is not limited correspondingly in scope. rather, the invention includes all changes, modifications and equivalents coming within the scope of the claims appended hereto. features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments. it should be emphasized that the terms “comprises” and “comprising,” when used in this specification, are taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a perspective view of a mobile phone. fig. 2 is a perspective view of an exemplary electronic device assembly including a mobile phone and an external heat sink in accordance with the invention. fig. 3 is a perspective view of the electronic device assembly of fig. 2 with the external heat sink detached from the mobile phone. fig. 3a is an enlarged portion of fig. 3 . fig. 4 is a top view of another exemplary electronic device assembly including a mobile phone, an external heat sink, and an accessory module in accordance with the invention. fig. 5 is a side view of the electronic device assembly of fig. 4 . detailed description of embodiments the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. the term “electronic equipment” includes portable radio communication equipment. the term “portable radio communication equipment,” which hereinafter is referred to as a “mobile radio terminal,” “mobile phone,” “mobile device,” or “mobile terminal” and the like, includes all equipment such as mobile telephones, pagers, communicators, i.e., electronic organizers, personal digital assistants (pdas), smartphones, portable communication apparatus or the like. the term “electronic equipment” also may include portable digital music and/or video devices, e.g., ipod devices, mp3 players, etc. in the present application, the invention is described primarily in the context of a mobile phone. however, it will be appreciated that the invention is not intended to be limited to a mobile phone and can be any type of electronic equipment. referring now to fig. 1 , a mobile phone 10 is shown as having a “brick” or “block” design type housing 18 (sometimes referred to as a case), but it will be appreciated that other type housings, such as, for example, clam shell or slide-type housings, may be utilized without departing from the scope of the invention. the mobile phone 10 further includes a speaker 20 , display 22 , a navigation switch and selection/function keys or switches 24 , a key pad 26 , a microphone 28 , and a side switch 30 ; these are illustrative and exemplary of parts of a typical mobile phone, but it will be appreciated that other parts that are similar or different in form and/or function may be included in the mobile phone 10 . the mobile phones to which the invention pertains also may be of the types that have more or fewer functions, keys, etc., compared to those illustrated and described herein. as will be appreciated, the mobile phone 10 may function as a conventional mobile phone. the mobile phone 10 may have additional functions and capabilities that may be developed in the future. from a conventional point of view, the display 22 displays information to a user, such as operating state, time, phone numbers, contact information, various navigational menus, etc., which facilitate and/or enable the user to utilize the various features of the mobile phone. the display also may be used to view movies, images, or to play games, for example. part or all of the display 22 may be a touch screen type device. the navigation and function keys 24 and the keypad 26 may be conventional in that they provide for a variety of user operations. for example, one or more of the function keys and navigation device 24 may be used to navigate through a menu displayed on the display 22 to select different phone functions, profiles, settings, etc., as is conventional. the keypad 26 typically includes one or more special function keys, such as, a “call send” key for initiating or answering a call, a “call end” key for ending or hanging up a call, and dialing keys for dialing a telephone number. other keys included in the navigation and function keys 24 and/or keypad 26 may include an on/off power key, a web browser launch key, a camera key, a voice mail key, a calendar key, etc. the side switch 30 can be configured to perform any of a wide variety of functions. the specific function of the side switch 30 is not germane to the invention as will be appreciated. turning to figs. 2-5 and initially to fig. 2 , an exemplary electronic device assembly in accordance with the invention is illustrated generally by reference numeral 40 . the electronic device assembly 40 includes the mobile phone 10 and a heat sink device 44 releasably attached to the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 . the heat sink device 44 can be attached to the mobile phone 10 during periods of time when the phone 10 , and more specifically processing units within the phone 10 , are generating excess heat, such as when the mobile phone 10 is used for gaming, for example. the heat sink device 44 can be provided with one or more cooling fins 45 for aiding in the dissipation of heat from the heat sink device 44 to the environment. further, and as will be described in more detail below, one or more fans or other active elements can be provided for circulating air around the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 . turning to fig. 3 , the heat sink device 44 is illustrated separated (detached) from the mobile phone 10 . the heat sink device 44 has a heat sink body portion 46 generally made from a material having a relatively high thermal conductivity (thermal mass). suitable materials, for example, would include certain metals and metal alloys. as used in herein, the term passive heat sink generally refers to a thermal mass for absorbing heat. the heat sink device 44 includes rails 48 and 50 for engaging respective sides of the mobile phone 10 for securing the heat sink device 44 thereto. as described in more detail below, suitable grooves 51 can be provided on the respective sides of the mobile phone 10 for receiving the rails 48 and 50 . alternatively, the rails 48 and 50 can be configured to compressively engage the respective sides of the mobile phone 10 sufficiently to secure the heat sink device 44 thereto. a surface 52 of the heat sink body 46 is configured to engage the bottom or back surface of the mobile phone 10 (not shown) to form a thermal interface for the transfer of heat from the interior of the housing 18 of the mobile phone to the heat sink device 44 . as will appreciated, the mobile phone 10 can be any conventional mobile phone, for example, in which case rails 48 and 50 can be configured to compressively engage the sides of the mobile phone 10 . of course, other attachment mechanisms for securing the heat sink device 44 to a conventional mobile phone can be provided. alternatively, the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 can be configured to cooperate with the heat sink device 44 . for example, the housing 18 can be provided with a portion thereof that is removable and/or otherwise configured to expose a surface of the mobile phone 10 that is more suitable for heat transfer than the housing 18 otherwise would be. for example, a removable cover can expose a surface adjacent a main processor of the mobile phone 10 to facilitate more efficient heat transfer. as mentioned, the mobile phone 10 can be equipped with a groove 51 on each side of the housing 18 for receiving the rails 48 and 50 of the heat sink device 44 . in such case, the heat sink device 44 can be secured to the mobile phone 10 by sliding the rails 48 and 50 into the respective groove 51 on each side of the mobile phone 10 . as illustrated in fig. 3a , the groove 51 can include a ramp surface 62 for urging the rails 48 and 50 upward as the heat sink device 44 is slid relative to the mobile phone 10 . as the rails 48 and 50 are urged upward by ramp surface 62 , the heat sink surface 52 engages the back surface of the mobile phone 10 to thereby form the thermal interface for absorbing heat from the mobile phone 10 . the ramp surface 62 can be configured to assist in developing a prescribed state of compression between the mobile phone 10 and the heat sink device 44 . securing the heat sink device 44 to the mobile phone 10 in such a manner can facilitate more uniform and consistent heat absorption from the interior of the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 . the groove 51 can be any suitable length, and the ramp surface 62 can have any desired slope so as to ensure thermal contact between the heat sink device 44 and the mobile phone 10 . it will be appreciated that the heat sink device 44 typically will be attached to the mobile phone 10 to absorb heat from within the housing 18 during periods of time of excess heat generation. typically, this corresponds to a gaming session, for example, a 3d gaming session when one or more processors of the phone are rendering three dimensional graphics. it will be appreciated that when using the mobile phone 10 for gaming, a user typically grasps the phone using both hands and uses respective thumbs to operate the navigational button 24 and/or keypad 26 to control the game. when grasping the phone 10 in this manner, the user not only tends to block the transfer of heat from the phone 10 to the environment (e.g., the user's hands insulate the mobile phone 10 ), but also may block and/or interfere with the operation of the phone's antenna. as such, during gaming the communication circuitry of the mobile phone 10 may experience difficulty connecting with a service provider's communication network. this can prevent calls and/or messages from being received by the phone, and may also decrease the performance of the mobile phone in when used in a networked gaming mode. to decrease the likelihood of a user interfering with the operation of the communication circuitry of the mobile phone 10 , an external antenna 60 is provided as part of the heat sink device 44 . when the heat sink device 44 is attached to the mobile phone 10 , the external antenna 60 is configured to couple with the communication circuitry of the mobile phone 10 to thereby act as the primary antenna connecting to a communications and/or gaming network. it will be appreciated that the external antenna 60 can be coupled with the communication circuitry of the mobile phone 10 in any suitable manner, such as by a suitable antenna connector associated with the external antenna 60 that connects to a respective suitable antenna connector (not shown) on the mobile phone 10 . it will be appreciated that the gaming experience of a user in real-time networked games where uplink and downlink speed in a wireless network is important can be enhanced by improved antenna performance achievable with the external antenna 60 . in this regard, it will be appreciated that the antenna performance of the external antenna 60 is typically greater than the performance of a typical internal antenna associated with a mobile phone due to the larger dimensions and better grounding possible when locating the external antenna 60 with the heat sink device 44 . turning to figs. 4 and 5 , another exemplary electronic device assembly in accordance with the invention is illustrated generally by the reference numeral 70 . in this embodiment the mobile phone 10 and heat sink device 44 are supported by an accessory module 72 . the accessory module 72 includes a control pad 74 , a plurality of buttons 76 , and a slot 78 for receiving the mobile phone 10 . it will be appreciated the suitable connectors on the accessory module 72 can be provided to connect the phones circuitry to the various features of the accessory module 72 , such as the directional control pad 74 and/or buttons 76 . the accessory module 72 can provide additional functionality such as an auxiliary power supply for supplying power to the phone 10 for extended periods of gaming. such a power supply can be configured to not only power the mobile phone 10 but to also charge the mobile phone's 10 battery. speakers can be provided on the accessory module for providing enhanced audio during gaming. in the illustrated embodiment the mobile phone 10 and heat sink device 44 are attached as previously described. together, the mobile phone 10 and heat sink device 44 are slid into the slot 78 of the accessory module 72 . it will be appreciated, that the heat sink device 44 can be formed integrally with the accessory module 72 , such that only the phone 10 would be slid into the accessory module 72 . in such an embodiment, the rails 48 and 50 of the heat sink device 44 can serve to secure the phone to the accessory module 72 . by providing the heat sink device 44 as a separate component, however, the mobile phone 10 can be used (1) alone, (2) with the heat sink device 44 , or (3) with the heat sink device 44 and the accessory module 72 , thereby making the electronic device assembly 70 versatile. while providing the mobile phone 10 with the external heat sink device 44 as thus far described can be adequate for absorbing heat from the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 under a variety of conditions, in some applications additional cooling capacity may be desired. in this regard, the heat sink device 44 can be an active heat sink employing, for example, one or more fans for circulating air around the housing 18 of the mobile phone 10 to aid in dissipating heat to the environment. the heat sink device 44 could also be equipped with a liquid cooling system for increasing its cooling capacity, for example. another manner in which the cooling capacity of the heat sink device 44 can be increased is by providing one or more thermoelectric cooling devices within the mobile phone 10 configured to absorb heat from the interior of the housing 18 and transfer the absorbed heat to the exterior of the housing 18 . for example, in fig. 5 a thermoelectric cooling device 82 is illustrated inside of the housing 18 . the thermoelectric cooling device 82 which may be, for example a peltier device, is positioned to absorb heat from the heat generating components of the mobile phone 10 , such as the processor, and to exhaust the heat to the exterior of the housing 18 . by actively transferring heat from the interior of the housing 18 to the exterior of the housing 18 , the heat sink device 44 can be more effective at absorbing heat from the housing 18 . as will be appreciated, a peltier element typically consists of semiconductors mounted successively which form p-n and n-p junctions. each junction has a thermal contact with radiators and when current of a given polarity is supplied to the circuit, a temperature difference form between the radiators. accordingly, one of the radiators warms and one of the radiators cools. by placing the cold side of the peltier module near the heat generating components of the mobile phone 10 , and the hot side of the peltier device near an external surface of the mobile phone 10 , heat can be transferred from the interior of the housing to the exterior by the peltier device. although the invention has been shown and described with respect to certain preferred embodiments, it is understood that equivalents and modifications will occur to others skilled in the art upon the reading and understanding of the specification. the present invention includes all such equivalents and modifications, and is limited only by the scope of the following claims.
117-032-384-989-179	US	[ "EP", "WO", "US", "CN" ]	G06F16/00,G06K9/62,G06F16/28,G06N3/08,G06N20/00,G06N99/00	2018-08-30T00:00:00	2018	[ "G06" ]	data classification using data flow analysis	described herein is a system and method for utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification with respect to a source dataset and a generated derived dataset. a flow confidence for a field is calculated using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the derived dataset. an associated derived confidence for a particular tag is calculated in accordance with an associated confidence and the flow confidence. when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the particular tag is copied to the derived dataset. in some embodiments, when the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold, the particular tag is not copied to the derived dataset. otherwise an action to be taken is identified. a response to the action is received and the adaptive algorithm is modified in accordance with the received response.	claims 1. a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification, comprising: a processing system comprising a processor and a memory having computer- executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to: receive a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generate a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identify an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modify the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. 2. the system of claim 1, wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using a machine learning process 3. the system of claim 1, wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using at least one of a linear regression algorithm, a logistic regression algorithm, a decision tree algorithm, a support vector machine (svm) algorithm, a naive bayes algorithm, a k-nearest neighbors (knn) algorithm, a k-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, a dimensionality reduction algorithm, an artificial neural network (ann), or a gradient boost & adaboost algorithm. 4. the system of claim 1, wherein the action comprises providing the particular tag to a human reviewer. 5. the system of claim 1, wherein the action to be taken comprises an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset. 6. the system of claim 1, wherein calculating the flow confidence for the particular field using the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset is further based upon a flow analysis of the derived dataset and the source dataset. 7. the system of claim 1, further comprising when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: modifying at least one of a value of the first threshold or a value of the second threshold in accordance with the received response. 8. the system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first threshold and the second threshold is a function of a compliance requirement and an associated risk. 9. the system of claim 1, further comprising performing conflict resolution between conflicting tags of the derived dataset using a set of rules. 10. a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification, comprising: receiving a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generating a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculating a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculating an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identifying an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receiving a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modifying at least one of a value of the first threshold or a value of the second threshold in accordance with the received response. 11. the method of claim 10, wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using at least one of a linear regression algorithm, a logistic regression algorithm, a decision tree algorithm, a support vector machine (svm) algorithm, a naive bayes algorithm, a k- nearest neighbors (knn) algorithm, a k-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, a dimensionality reduction algorithm, an artificial neural network (ann), or a gradient boost & adaboost algorithm. 12. the method of claim 10, wherein the action to be taken comprises an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset. 13. the method of claim 10, wherein calculating the flow confidence for the particular field using the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset is further based upon a flow analysis of the derived dataset and the source dataset. 14. the method of claim 10, further comprising when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: modifying the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. 15. a computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions that when executed cause a computing device to: receive a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generate a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identify an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modify the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response.	data classification using data flow analysis background [0001] large organizations such as corporations, governments, etc. can store increasingly greater amounts of data. in some examples, data stores can ingest and process millions of files every day. the storage and/or use of this data can be governed by requirement(s) which can be, for example, self-imposed (e.g., corporate policy) and/or externally imposed (e g., controlled by one or more governmental entity(ies)). in order to comply with these requirement(s), at least some portion(s) of the data can be classified based upon one or more classification schema(s). summary [0002] described herein is a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification, comprising: a processing system comprising a processor and a memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to: receive a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generate a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identify an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modify the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. [0003] this summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. this summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. brief description of the drawings [0004] fig. l is a functional block diagram that illustrates a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification. [0005] fig. 2 is a functional block diagram that illustrates a data classification component. [0006] figs. 3 and 4 are flow charts that illustrate a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification. [0007] figs 5 and 6 are flow charts that illustrate a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification. [0008] fig. 7 is a functional block diagram that illustrates an exemplary computing system. detailed description [0009] various technologies pertaining to performing data classification using data flow analysis are now described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. in the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of one or more aspects. it may be evident, however, that such aspect(s) may be practiced without these specific details. in other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate describing one or more aspects. further, it is to be understood that functionality that is described as being carried out by certain system components may be performed by multiple components. similarly, for instance, a component may be configured to perform functionality that is described as being carried out by multiple components. [0010] the subject disclosure supports various products and processes that perform, or are configured to perform, various actions regarding performing data classification using data flow analysis. what follows are one or more exemplary systems and methods. [0011] aspects of the subject disclosure pertain to the technical problem of classifying data upon which data processing operation(s) have been performed. the technical features associated with addressing this problem involve receiving a source dataset storing data in field(s), at least one of the fields having tag(s), each tag having an associated confidence. a derived dataset is generated by performing action(s) on the source dataset. for each of the field(s) having at least one tag: calculating a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculating an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold, not copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identifying an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receiving a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset (e.g., reviewed by a human reviewer); and modifying the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. accordingly, aspects of these technical features exhibit technical effects of reducing time spent by a human reviewer in order to classify data, reducing compliance costs associated with requirement(s), and/or reducing the likelihood of failing to comply with the requirement(s). [0012] moreover, the term“or” is intended to mean an inclusive“or” rather than an exclusive“or.” that is, unless specified otherwise, or clear from the context, the phrase “x employs a or b” is intended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. that is, the phrase“x employs a or b” is satisfied by any of the following instances: x employs a; x employs b; or x employs both a and b. in addition, the articles“a” and “an” as used in this application and the appended claims should generally be constmed to mean“one or more” unless specified otherwise or clear from the context to be directed to a singular form. [0013] as used herein, the terms“component” and“system,” as well as various forms thereof (e.g., components, systems, sub-systems, etc.) are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. for example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an instance, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. by way of illustration, both an application running on a computer and the computer can be a component. one or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. further, as used herein, the term“exemplary” is intended to mean serving as an illustration or example of something, and is not intended to indicate a preference. [0014] compliance with governmental regulation(s) and/or business requirement(s) regarding storage and/or use of data can be difficult for entities such as corporations, governments, etc. in order to comply with these regulation(s) and/or requirement(s), all or portion(s) of data can be classified using one or more schemas. for example, data can be classified as being european union general data protection regulation (gdpr) sensitive or not. [0015] newly created resource(s) such as table(s), file(s), etc. are generally required to be classified and tagged. classification and tagging can be needed even when the newly created resource(s) are derived from other resource(s) which have been classified and tagged. performing processing operation(s) on data further complicates compliance with these regulation(s) and/or requirement(s). in some embodiments, processing operation(s) can result in some or all classification(s) flowing from a source dataset to a dataset derived from the source dataset. for example, copying a portion (e.g., column) from the source dataset can result in copying classification(s) associated with the field. however, in some embodiments, processing operation(s) can result in some or no classification(s) appropriately flowing from the source dataset to the derived dataset. for example, performing a hash operation on a field (e g., column) from the source dataset can under certain circumstances (e.g., based upon the regulation(s) and/or requirement s)) result in classification(s) associated with the field not flowing to the derived dataset (e.g., gdpr sensitive information removed by processing operation). [0016] described herein is a system and method for using data flow analysis to perform data classification. as noted, a significant portion of data (e.g., derived dataset) can be a result of transformation of other data (e.g., source dataset(s)), which have already classified. in some embodiments, when lineage of data is known with a high degree of confidence, it can be utilized by an adaptive algorithm to determine the classification of derived data from classification of source data automatically (e.g., without involving human labor). however, due to compliance requirement(s), regulation(s) and/or associated risk(s), in some embodiments, when the confidence calculated by the adaptive algorithm is not greater than or equal to a first threshold or less than or equal to a second threshold, the adaptive algorithm can identify action(s) (e.g., human input) to be taken to confirm or reject automatically generated classification(s). response(s) to the action(s) can be utilized to modify the adaptive algorithm. [0017] referring to fig. 1, a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification 100 is illustrated. the system 100 can classify data upon which data processing operation(s) have been performed by calculating a flow confidence for field(s) using an adaptive algorithm. tag(s) associated with the field(s) can be copied, not copied and/or an action identified to be taken with respect to particular tag(s). in some embodiments, each tag can have an associated confidence (e g., numerical value in the range of zero (no confidence) to one (complete confidence)). the adaptive algorithm can be modified in accordance with a response received with respect to the identified action to be taken. tag(s) can be utilized to search and identify data corresponding to particular tag(s) and/or particular record(s) within tagged dataset(s). [0018] the system 100 includes a data classification component 110 that receives information regarding a source dataset 120 and information regarding a derived dataset 130 the derived dataset 130 is generated from the source dataset 120 using processing operation(s) 140. in some embodiments, a single source dataset 120 is employed to generated the derived dataset 130. in some embodiments, the derived dataset 130 can be generated based upon all or portions of a plurality of source datasets 120. [0019] in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can receive information regarding the processing operation(s) 140. in some embodiments, the information can comprise flow hint(s) which describe action(s) taken by the processing operation(s) 140 with respect to the source dataset 120. for example, the processing operation(s) 140 can include one or more database operation(s) (e g., sql operations such as select, join, insert, delete), arithmetic operation(s), logical operation(s) and/or bitwise operation(s). [0020] the source dataset 120 and the derived dataset 130 store a collection of data. in some embodiments, the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130 comprise a relational database comprising one or more tables (e.g., relation(s)) of column(s) (e.g., attribute(s), field(s)) and row(s) (e.g., record(s)). relationship(s) can logically connect tables to one another. in some embodiments, the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130 comprise object-oriented data structures, hierarchical data structures, and/or network data structures that store data according to schema(s). [0021] in some embodiments, the source dataset 120 and the derived dataset 130 are based upon a common relational database and/or schema. in some embodiments, the source dataset 120 and the derived dataset 130 are based upon different relational databases and/or schema [0022] the information regarding the source dataset 120 received by the data classification component 110 can include organizational information, for example, name(s) of column(s) and/or name(s) within the schema. the information can further include tag(s) associated with portion(s) of the organizational information. “tag” refers to relevant classification s) associated with portion(s) of a particular dataset (e , column(s), table(s), and/or the dataset itself). in some embodiments, tag(s) are stored within the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130. in some embodiments, tag(s) are stored separately from the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130 (e g , in a database and/or file). [0023] in some embodiments, the information regarding the source dataset 120 comprises organizational information (e.g., column name) and tag(s) (e.g., classification(s)). in some embodiments, the information regarding the source dataset 120 comprises hierarchically and/or complexly structured data. [0024] in some embodiments, tag(s) are applied to the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130 at one or more levels of granularity. for example, tag(s) can apply to the entire source dataset 120 and/or the entire derived dataset 130 and/or tag(s) can apply to specific portion(s) (e.g., column(s) and/or field(s)) of the source dataset 120 and/or the derived dataset 130. [0025] in some embodiments, a tag comprises metadata including information based on a classification schema (e.g., personally sensitive information, highly sensitive information, no personally sensitive information). in some embodiments, a tag comprises a plurality of properties describing the tag and/or data associated with the tag, for example, a confidence level, how the tag was generated, a date and/or time of tag creation, a source of the generated tag, and/or a source of the associated data (e.g., search history). [0026] in some embodiments, tag(s) are manually associated with the source dataset 120 based upon user input. for example, a user can review newly created resource(s), such as an additional column added to a table, and determined which classification(s), if any, apply to the newly created resource(s). the user can then apply tag(s) as appropriate to the newly created resource(s). [0027] in some embodiments, tag(s) are automatically associated with the source dataset 120, for example, by a classifier. in some embodiments, an automated system can classify and/or tag the newly created resource(s) based on rule(s). however, these automated systems have conventionally not been generally successful in reliably classifying/tagging particular categories of data, for example, speech data. unlike, an email address and/or a phone number, which can have known pattem(s), speech data can appear like an arbitrary sequence of bytes, thus making automated classification difficult. [0028] in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can perform a data flow analysis for each data processing operation in order to analyze whether output data (e g., derived dataset 130) is derived directly or indirectly from data that was previously classified (e.g., source dataset 120). for example, a comparison can be made between at least a portion of the derived dataset 130 and at least a portion of the source dataset 120 in order to infer action(s) performed by the processing operation(s) 140. in instances in which the data classification component 110 determined that output data is derived directly or indirectly, the data classification component 110 can flow classification(s) from the source dataset 120 by calculating derived confidence for each tag (e.g., classification confidence) based on a flow confidence. in some embodiments, flow confidence is a numerical value in the range of zero (no confidence) to one (complete confidence). in some embodiments, tag(s) (e.g., classification s)) that meet certain confidence threshold criteria are applied automatically. in some embodiments, human(s) are asked to confirm other classifications via "approval flow" . [0029] in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can utilize an adaptive algorithm to calculate a flow confidence in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset 130. in some embodiments, the adaptive algorithm can be trained using a machine learning process that utilizes various features present in datasets with the adaptive algorithm representing an association among the features. in some embodiments, the adaptive algorithm is trained using one or more machine learning algorithms including linear regression algorithms, logistic regression algorithms, decision tree algorithms, support vector machine (svm) algorithms, naive bayes algorithms, a k- nearest neighbors (knn) algorithm, a k-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, dimensionality reduction algorithms, artificial neural network (ann), and/or a gradient boost & adaboost algorithm. the adaptive algorithm can be trained in a supervised, semi -supervised and/or unsupervised manner. [0030] in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can, for each of the field(s) of the source dataset having at least one tag, calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset. for each tag associated with the particular field, an associated derived confidence for the particular tag can be calculated in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence. [0031] for each tag associated with the particular field, when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset. when the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold, the particular tag is not copied to the derived dataset. [0032] when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold, an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset can be identified. in some embodiments, the action to be taken is for a human reviewer to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset 130 (e.g., providing the particular tag to the human reviewer). in some embodiments, the action to be taken is for an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset 130 to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset 130. [0033] a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset can be received (e.g., reviewed by a human reviewer and/or automatic process). in some embodiments, the adaptive algorithm can be modified in accordance with the received response. in this manner, the adaptive algorithm can be adjusted to better calculate flow confidence resulting in action (e.g., human review and/or automatic process) being taken in fewer instances. [0034] thus, while in some embodiments, human labor may still be required to confirm or reject automatic classification when the calculated associated derived confidence is not high enough for the system 100 to apply the classification. however, in some embodiments, human labor can be significantly reduced, as only a small number of cases requires human labor, and even in these cases rather than requiring a human to classify, the proposed classification s) can simply be confirmed or rejected. [0035] in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can modify the first threshold (e.g., value) and/or the second threshold (e.g., value) in accordance with the received response. accordingly, the data classification component 110 can be adapted to more effectively analyze data flow in order to perform data classification. in some embodiments, the first threshold (e.g., value) and/or the second threshold (e.g., value) is a function of a compliance requirement and an associate risk (e.g., a cost/benefit based analysis). [0036] in some embodiments, when classifications flow from a source dataset 120 to a derived dataset 130, conflicting tags may be applied to the derived dataset 130. in some instances, this can result in set(s) of classification(s) that don't make sense together. these cases can be handled by an optional set of rules 150 (e.g., hierarchical, customizable) that can be applied by the data classification component 110. in this manner, the data classification component 110 can determine resulting tag(s) by applying the set of rules 150. in some embodiments, property(ies) of the tag can be utilized by the data classification component 110 when applying the set of rules 150 to conflicting tags in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can identify an action to take with respect to the conflicting tags (e.g., human interaction), for example, based upon the set of rules 150. [0037] in some embodiments, tag(s) can be applied to field(s) based upon pre defined template(s). for example, a source dataset 120 can be based upon periodically generated data (e.g., hourly, daily, weekly) with the content changing, but the structure and corresponding tag(s) being static. property(ies) associated with the tag(s) can reflect that the tag(s) were applied based upon pre-defmed template(s). this information can be utilized when resolving conflicting tags. for example, more specifically applied tag(s) (e.g., applied by a human reviewer) can take precedent over more generally applied tag(s) (e.g., tag(s) based upon the pre-defmed template(s)). [0038] turning to fig. 2, a data classification component 110 is illustrated. the data classification component 110 includes a flow confidence component 210 and a tag component 220. [0039[ as discussed previously with respect to fig. 1, the data classification component 110 receives information regarding a source dataset 120 and information regarding a derived dataset 130. the derived dataset 130 is generated from the source dataset 120 using processing operation(s) 140. in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can receive information regarding the processing operation(s) 140. the source dataset 120 can store data in field(s), with at least one of the fields have tag(s), each tag having an associated confidence. [0040] the flow confidence component 210 can, for each of the field(s) having at least one tag, calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset [0041] the tag component 220 can, for each of the field(s) having at least one tag: for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence. for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the particular tag can be copied to the derived dataset. when the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold, the particular tag is not copied to the derived dataset. when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: an action can be identified to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset. [0042] the data classification component 110 can receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset. in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can further modify the adaptive algorithm of the flow confidence component 210 in accordance with the received response. in some embodiments, the data classification component 110 can modify a value of the first threshold and/or a value of the second threshold in accordance with the received response. accordingly, the data classification component 110 can be adapted to more effectively analyze data flow in order to perform data classification. [0043] figs. 3-6 illustrate exemplary methodologies relating to utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification. while the methodologies are shown and described as being a series of acts that are performed in a sequence, it is to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are not limited by the order of the sequence. for example, some acts can occur in a different order than what is described herein. in addition, an act can occur concurrently with another act. further, in some instances, not all acts may be required to implement a methodology described herein. [0044] moreover, the acts described herein may be computer-executable instructions that can be implemented by one or more processors and/or stored on a computer-readable medium or media. the computer-executable instructions can include a routine, a sub-routine, programs, a thread of execution, and/or the like. still further, results of acts of the methodologies can be stored in a computer-readable medium, displayed on a display device, and/or the like. [0045] referring to figs. 3 and 4, a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification 300 is illustrated. in some embodiments, the method 300 is performed by the system 100. [0046] at 304, a source dataset is received with the source dataset storing data in one or more fields. at least one of the fields has one or more tags with each tag having an associated confidence. [0047] at 308, a derived dataset is generated by performing an action on the source dataset. at 312, a flow confidence is calculated for a particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived data set. at 316, an associated derived confidence is calculated for a particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence. [0048] at 320, a determination is made as to whether the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold. if the determination at 320 is yes, at 324, the particular tag is copied to the derived dataset and processing continues at 328. if the determination at 320 is no, at 332, a determination is made as to whether the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold. if the determination at 332 is yes, at 336, the particular tag is not copied to the derived dataset and processing continues at 328. [0049] if the determination at 332 is no, at 340, an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset is identified. at 344, a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset is received. at 348, the adaptive algorithm is modified in accordance with the response. [0050] at 328, a determination is made as to whether there are more tags associated with the particular field. if the determination at 328 is yes, processing continues at 316. if the determination at 328 is no, at 352, a determination is made as to whether there are more fields having at least one tag. if the determination at 352 is yes, processing continues at 312. if the determination at 352 is no, no further processing occurs. [0051] turning to figs. 5 and 6, a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification 500 is illustrated. in some embodiments, the method 500 is performed by the system 100. [0052] at 504, a source dataset is received with the source dataset storing data in one or more fields. at least one of the fields has one or more tags with each tag having an associated confidence. [0053] at 508, a derived dataset is generated by performing an action on the source dataset. at 512, a flow confidence is calculated for a particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived data set. at 516, an associated derived confidence is calculated for a particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence. [0054] at 520, a determination is made as to whether the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold. if the determination at 520 is yes, at 524, the particular tag is copied to the derived dataset and processing continues at 528. if the determination at 520 is no, at 532, a determination is made as to whether the associated derived confidence is less than or equal to a second threshold. if the determination at 532 is yes, at 536, the particular tag is not copied to the derived dataset and processing continues at 528. [0055] if the determination at 532 is no, at 540, an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset is identified. at 544, a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset is received. at 548, a value of the first threshold and/or a value of the second threshold is modified in accordance with the received response. [0056] at 528, a determination is made as to whether there are more tags associated with the particular field. if the determination at 528 is yes, processing continues at 516. if the determination at 528 is no, at 552, a determination is made as to whether there are more fields having at least one tag. if the determination at 552 is yes, processing continues at 512. if the determination at 552 is no, no further processing occurs. [0057] described herein is a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification, comprising: a processing system comprising a processor and a memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to: receive a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generate a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identify an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modify the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. [0058] the system can include wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using a machine learning process. the system can further include wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using at least one of a linear regression algorithm, a logistic regression algorithm, a decision tree algorithm, a support vector machine (svm) algorithm, a naive bayes algorithm, a k-nearest neighbors (knn) algorithm, a k-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, a dimensionality reduction algorithm, an artificial neural network (ann), or a gradient boost & adaboost algorithm. the system can include wherein the action comprises providing the particular tag to a human reviewer. [0059] the system can further include wherein the action to be taken comprises an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset. the system can include wherein calculating the flow confidence for the particular field using the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset is further based upon a flow analysis of the derived dataset and the source dataset. the system can further include when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: modifying at least one of a value of the first threshold or a value of the second threshold in accordance with the received response. [0060] the system can include wherein at least one of the first threshold and the second threshold is a function of a compliance requirement and an associated risk. the system can further include performing conflict resolution between conflicting tags of the derived dataset using a set of rules. [0061] described herein is a method of utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification, comprising: receiving a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generating a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculating a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculating an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identifying an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receiving a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modifying at least one of a value of the first threshold or a value of the second threshold in accordance with the received response. [0062] the method can include wherein the adaptive algorithm is trained using at least one of a linear regression algorithm, a logistic regression algorithm, a decision tree algorithm, a support vector machine (svm) algorithm, a naive bayes algorithm, a k- nearest neighbors (knn) algorithm, a k-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, a dimensionality reduction algorithm, an artificial neural network (ann), or a gradient boost & adaboost algorithm. the method can further include wherein the action comprises providing the particular tag to a human reviewer. [0063] the method can include wherein the action to be taken comprises an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset. the method can further include wherein calculating the flow confidence for the particular field using the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset is further based upon a flow analysis of the derived dataset and the source dataset. [0064] the method can include when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: modifying the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. the method can further include wherein at least one of the first threshold and the second threshold is a function of a compliance requirement and an associated risk the method can include performing conflict resolution between conflicting tags of the derived dataset using a set of rules. [0065] described herein is a computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions that when executed cause a computing device to: receive a source dataset storing data in one or more fields, at least one of the fields having one or more tags, each tag having an associated confidence; generate a derived dataset by performing an action on the source dataset; for each of the one or more fields having at least one tag: calculate a flow confidence for the particular field using an adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset; for each tag associated with the particular field, calculate an associated derived confidence for the particular tag in accordance with the associated confidence and the flow confidence; for each tag associated with the particular field: when the associated derived confidence is greater than or equal to a first threshold, copying the particular tag to the derived dataset; when the associated derived confidence is less than the first threshold and greater than the second threshold: identify an action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; receive a response to the action to be taken with respect to the particular tag for the derived dataset; and modify the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the received response. [0066] the computer storage media can include wherein the action to be taken comprises at least one of review by a human reviewer or an automatic process to review at least a portion of the data in the derived dataset to determine whether or not the particular tag should flow to the derived dataset. the computer storage media can further include wherein calculating the flow confidence for the particular field using the adaptive algorithm in accordance with the action performed and the generated derived dataset is further based upon a flow analysis of the derived dataset and the source dataset. [0067] with reference to fig. 7, illustrated is an example processing system, general-purpose computer or computing device 702 (e.g., mobile phone, desktop, laptop, tablet, watch, server, hand-held, programmable consumer or industrial electronics, set-top box, game system, compute node, etc.). for instance, the computing device 702 may be used in a system utilizing data flow analysis to perform data classification 100. [0068] the computer 702 includes one or more processor(s) 720, memory 730, system bus 740, mass storage device(s) 750, and one or more interface components 770. the system bus 740 communicatively couples at least the above system constituents. however, it is to be appreciated that in its simplest form the computer 702 can include one or more processors 720 coupled to memory 730 that execute various computer executable actions, instructions, and or components stored in memory 730. the instructions may be, for instance, instructions for implementing functionality described as being carried out by one or more components discussed above or instructions for implementing one or more of the methods described above. [0069] the processor(s) 720 can be implemented with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (dsp), an application specific integrated circuit (asic), a field programmable gate array (fpga) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. a general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. the processors) 720 may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, for example a combination of a dsp and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, multi-core processors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a dsp core, or any other such configuration. in one embodiment, the processor(s) 720 can be a graphics processor. [0070] the computer 702 can include or otherwise interact with a variety of computer-readable media to facilitate control of the computer 702 to implement one or more aspects of the claimed subject matter the computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer 702 and includes volatile and nonvolatile media, and removable and non-removable media. computer-readable media can comprise two distinct and mutually exclusive types, namely computer storage media and communication media. [0071] computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. computer storage media includes storage devices such as memory devices (e.g., random access memory (ram), read-only memory (rom), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (eeprom), etc.), magnetic storage devices (e.g , hard disk, floppy disk, cassettes, tape, etc ), optical disks (e.g., compact disk (cd), digital versatile disk (dvd), etc.), and solid state devices (e.g., solid state drive (ssd), flash memory drive (e.g., card, stick, key drive) etc ), or any other like mediums that store, as opposed to transmit or communicate, the desired information accessible by the computer 702 accordingly, computer storage media excludes modulated data signals as well as that described with respect to communication media [0072] communication media embodies computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. the term“modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. by way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, rf, infrared and other wireless media. [0073] memory 730 and mass storage device(s) 750 are examples of computer- readable storage media. depending on the exact configuration and type of computing device, memory 730 may be volatile (e.g., ram), non-volatile (e.g., rom, flash memory, etc.) or some combination of the two. by way of example, the basic input/output system (bios), including basic routines to transfer information between elements within the computer 702, such as during start-up, can be stored in nonvolatile memory, while volatile memory can act as external cache memory to facilitate processing by the processors) 720, among other things. [0074] mass storage device(s) 750 includes removable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer storage media for storage of large amounts of data relative to the memory 730. for example, mass storage device(s) 750 includes, but is not limited to, one or more devices such as a magnetic or optical disk drive, floppy disk drive, flash memory, solid-state drive, or memory stick. [0075] memory 730 and mass storage device(s) 750 can include, or have stored therein, operating system 760, one or more applications 762, one or more program modules 764, and data 766. the operating system 760 acts to control and allocate resources of the computer 702. applications 762 include one or both of system and application software and can exploit management of resources by the operating system 760 through program modules 764 and data 766 stored in memory 730 and/or mass storage device (s) 750 to perform one or more actions. accordingly, applications 762 can turn a general-purpose computer 702 into a specialized machine in accordance with the logic provided thereby [0076] all or portions of the claimed subject matter can be implemented using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof to control a computer to realize the disclosed functionality. by way of example and not limitation, system 100 or portions thereof, can be, or form part, of an application 762, and include one or more modules 764 and data 766 stored in memory and/or mass storage device(s) 750 whose functionality can be realized when executed by one or more processor(s) 720. [0077] in accordance with one particular embodiment, the processor(s) 720 can correspond to a system on a chip (soc) or like architecture including, or in other words integrating, both hardware and software on a single integrated circuit substrate. here, the processor(s) 720 can include one or more processors as well as memory at least similar to processor(s) 720 and memory 730, among other things. conventional processors include a minimal amount of hardware and software and rely extensively on external hardware and software. by contrast, an soc implementation of processor is more powerful, as it embeds hardware and software therein that enable particular functionality with minimal or no reliance on external hardware and software. for example, the system 100 and/or associated functionality can be embedded within hardware in a soc architecture. [0078] the computer 702 also includes one or more interface components 770 that are communicatively coupled to the system bus 740 and facilitate interaction with the computer 702. by way of example, the interface component 770 can be a port (e.g. , serial, parallel, pcmcia, usb, firewire, etc.) or an interface card (e g , sound, video, etc ) or the like. in one example implementation, the interface component 770 can be embodied as a user input/output interface to enable a user to enter commands and information into the computer 702, for instance by way of one or more gestures or voice input, through one or more input devices (e.g., pointing device such as a mouse, trackball, stylus, touch pad, keyboard, microphone joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, camera, other computer, etc.). in another example implementation, the interface component 770 can be embodied as an output peripheral interface to supply output to displays (e.g., lcd, led, plasma, etc.), speakers, printers, and/or other computers, among other things. still further yet, the interface component 770 can be embodied as a network interface to enable communication with other computing devices (not shown), such as over a wired or wireless communications link. [0079] what has been described above includes examples of aspects of the claimed subject matter. it is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the claimed subject matter, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations of the disclosed subject matter are possible. accordingly, the disclosed subject matter is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications, and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. furthermore, to the extent that the term“includes” is used in either the details description or the claims, such term is intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term“comprising” as“comprising” is interpreted when employed as a transitional word in a claim.
117-044-179-532-012	JP	[ "DE", "EP", "US" ]	G02B6/02,B29C47/06,B29D11/00,B60Q1/26,B60Q1/32,B60Q3/00,B60Q3/02,B60Q7/00,F21V8/00,G02B6/00,G02B6/28,G02B6/42	1997-04-24T00:00:00	1997	[ "G02", "B29", "B60", "F21" ]	optical transmission tube, method for making it and linear illuminant system	in an optical transmission tube (1) comprising a tubular cladding (11) and a core (12) within the cladding having a higher index of refraction than the cladding, a strip-shaped reflecting layer (13) is longitudinally extended between the cladding and the core. light passing through the core is reflected and scattered by the reflecting layer to emerge from the tube through an area of the outer surface of the cladding opposed to the reflecting layer. the optical transmission tube is prepared by extruding the core, the reflecting layer and a tubular cladding.	a method for preparing an optical transmission tube (1) using a three-color extruder having three screw sections, comprising the steps of: (a) simultaneously feeding a core material, a cladding material, and a reflecting material loaded with a white pigment or scattering agent into the extruder; (b) extruding the core material into a cylindrical core (12); (c) extruding the reflecting material into a strip-shaped reflecting layer (13) on the outer surface of the cylindrical core (12); and (d) extruding the cladding material into a tubular cladding (11) enclosing the core and the reflecting strip, thereby forming the optical transmission tube having the strip-shaped reflecting layer (13) extending between the cladding (11) and the core (12) and longitudinally of the cladding. a method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of: (e) forming a reflective protective layer (14) on an area of the outer surface of said cladding (11) surrounding the reflecting layer (13). a method according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein said cladding (11) is constructed of (meth)acrylic polymer. a method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein said core (12) is constructed of polystyrene, polycarbonate or a styrene-(meth)acrylate copolymer. a method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said reflecting layer (13) is constructed of a (meth)acrylic polymer loaded with a white pigment or scattering agent. an optical transmission tube (1) obtainable by the method of any one of claims 1 to 5. a linear illuminant system comprising: an optical transmission tube (1) according to claim 6; a light source (2) coupled to at least one end of said optical transmission tube (1) in a water-proof manner; and a drive means (3) for operating the light source (2).	this invention relates to an optical transmission tube comprising a tubular transparent cladding and a transparent core having a higher index of refraction than the cladding and a method for preparing the same. preferably, it relates to an optical transmission tube allowing directional light emergence from one side or outer surface area of the cladding, and to a linear illuminant system having improved water resistance, improved environmental resistance and a low power consumption for driving. prior art since optical transmission tubes comprising a tubular cladding and a core in the cladding having a higher index of refraction than the cladding are generally designed so as to transmit as much light as possible from one end to the other end thereof, only a low luminance is generally available near the side surface of the tube. one possible measure for increasing the luminance at the side surface of an optical transmission tube is by corrugating the cladding inner surface to scatter light. this measure is difficult to apply in that method for producing an optical transmission tube which fills a tubular cladding with a core-forming polymerizable monomer liquid and pressurises the liquid to cause the monomer to polymerize,because the cladding is likely to rupture. it may also be envisaged to disperse scattering particles in the core for increasing the luminance at the side surface of an optical transmission tube. it may occur to those skilled in the art to disperse scattering particles in a monomer liquid and then polymerize and solidify the monomer. however, there has never been available a method of adding scattering particles to a monomeric liquid and polymerizing the liquid in a controlled manner such that the scattering particles are distributed in a limited area, that is, so as to form a reflecting layer, at the end of polymerization. known illuminant devices capable of providing linear light emission over a length of several meters include neon tubes and fluorescent tubes. neon tubes and fluorescent tubes require high voltages, with the risk of electric shocks and leakage. they cannot be used in water and at places where rain or snow reaches. since the tubes are formed of glass, they cannot be used at places where failure of glass tubes by physical collision of people or vehicles is expectable. where the neon tubes and fluorescent tubes are used in a bent form, the glass tubes must be worked to the desired curvature, which requires skilled workers and hence, leads to an increased cost. the power consumption of neon tubes and fluorescent tubes is as high as several tens of watts per meter. for a long term of operation, they must be installed where a commercial power supply is available. to solve these problems, optical transmission tubes in the form of a flexible tube filled with a transparent core liquid or flexible transparent polymer and strands of plastic optical fibers have been proposed. the system includes a light source and an optical transmission tube which receives light from the light source at one end thereof. the optical transmission tube is designed such that light may emerge from a side surface area of the tube over a length of several tens of meters. since the light source can be remote from the light emerging area, this system can be used in water, outdoor or even in an environment with the risk of explosion. the system is free of the risk of breakage, eliminates complex cumbersome working such as glass working, and is readily applied at a necessary site. these optical transmission tubes provide light emergence over a length of several tens of meters. since the light emergent efficacy at the side surface is low, a high power light source of about 50 to 250 w is required in order to provide an increased luminance. when such an optical transmission tube is used in water, outdoor or in an environment with the risk of explosion for the purpose of providing side surface light emergence, a means for protecting the light source is necessary. as a consequence, the light source is increased in size and its accommodation is significantly limited. an aim of the invention is to provide a new and useful optical transmission tube, and/or linear illuminant system. a preferred aim of the invention is to provide an optical transmission tube allowing directional emergence of light from one side or an outer surface area thereof at a high luminance. another preferred aim of the invention is to provide a method for preparing the optical transmission tube. another preferred aim of the invention is to provide a linear illuminant system which can be used in water, at places where rain or snow reaches, or in an environment with the risk of explosion, which requires only a low power to produce sufficient side light emergence, and which is compact so that it may be installed at any desired place. in a first aspect, the invention provides an optical transmission tube comprising a tubular cladding having an outer surface and a core within the cladding having a higher index of refraction than the cladding. a reflecting layer in a strip form extends between the cladding and the core and longitudinally of the cladding. light passing through the core is reflected and scattered by the reflecting layer to exit from the tube through an area of the outer surface of the cladding that is opposed to the reflecting layer. in a second aspect, the invention provides a method for preparing an optical transmission tube, comprising the steps of dispersing scattering particles in a core-forming solution comprising a monomer capable of forming a core upon polymerization; filling a tubular cladding with the scattering particle-dispersed core-forming solution; resting the tubular cladding horizontally for allowing the scattering particles to settle on a lower inner surface of the cladding; and thereafter, causing the core-forming solution to polymerize and solidify within the cladding, thereby forming a solid core within the cladding and forming a reflecting layer composed of the scattering particles in a strip form extending between the cladding and the core and longitudinally of the cladding. in a third aspect, the invention provides a method for preparing an optical transmission tube using a three-color extruder having three screw sections and two concentric dies. a core material, a cladding material, and a reflecting material loaded with a white pigment or scattering agent are simultaneously fed into the extruder from its inlet. the core material is extruded into a cylindrical core. the reflecting material is extruded into a strip-shaped reflecting layer on the outer surface of the cylindrical core. the cladding material is extruded into a tubular cladding enclosing the core and the reflecting strip, thereby forming the optical transmission tube having the strip-shaped reflecting layer extending between the cladding and the core and longitudinally of the cladding. in the optical transmission tube of the invention, the reflecting layer in a strip form is disposed between the cladding and the core and extended longitudinally of the cladding. intense light passing through the core providing the maximum light quantity is reflected by the elongated strip-shaped reflecting layer and the reflected light emerges from the tube through an area of the outer surface of the cladding opposed to the reflecting layer. (it is noted that since the quantity of light passing through the cladding is small, the reflected light thereof is very weak.) intense light exits from the opposed outer surface area of the tube with a high directivity and at a high luminance, establishing a brightly illuminated state. in the place where the optical transmission tube is disposed, the elongated one side surface area of the tube is brightly illuminant. in one embodiment wherein the reflecting layer is constructed of scattering particles such as silicone resin particles, polystyrene resin particles or metal oxide particles, the tube produces highly directional light emergence having a high luminance. in another preferred embodiment, a metal sheet or a reflective coating having scattering particles dispersed therein is formed on the outer surface of the cladding so as to surround the reflecting layer between the cladding and the core. even when the reflecting layer has defects such as pinholes, light leaking through the defects in the reflecting layer to the rear side thereof and light laterally escaping outside the reflecting layer are reflected by the reflective coating back to the opposed area. this further increases the luminance of light emergent from the opposed area (opposed to the reflecting layer) and significantly reduces the loss of light. the method of the invention may ensure that the strip-shaped reflecting layer is formed in a very simple manner. then the optical transmission tube adapted to emit highly directional light at a high luminance from its one side surface area can be easily prepared. in a third aspect, the invention provides a linear illuminant system comprising a light transmission tube including a transparent core and a cladding having a lower index of refraction than the core and serving as a light emergent element, a light source coupled to at least one end of the light transmission tube in a water-proof manner, and a drive means for operating the light source. the light transmission tube is constructed such that when light emitted from the light source is transmitted by the light transmission tube, light emerges from a longitudinal side of the light transmission tube. the preferred light transmission tube has a reflecting layer in a strip form extending between the cladding and the core and longitudinally of the cladding. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a fragmental axial cross-sectional view of one exemplary optical transmission tube according to one embodiment of the invention. fig. 2 is a radial cross-sectional view of the optical transmission tube of fig. 1. fig. 3 is a radial cross-sectional view like fig. 2, but showing an optical transmission tube according to another embodiment. fig. 4 schematically illustrates, partially in cross section, a linear illuminant system according to the invention. figs. 5 and 6 schematically illustrates optical transmission tubes according to further embodiments of the invention. fig. 7 is a radial cross-sectional view of an optical transmission tube with a reflective protective layer. figs. 8 and 9 are radial cross-sectional views of optical transmission tubes attached to different channels. fig. 10 illustrates a sign to which the linear illuminant system of the invention is applied. fig. 11 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a guide passage. fig. 12 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a stairway. fig. 13 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a panel. fig. 14 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a segmented display board. fig. 15 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a vehicle interior. fig. 16 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a vehicle door. fig. 17 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to the vehicle rear side as side lights. fig. 18 illustrates the linear illuminant system of the invention as applied to a stop sign attached to a vehicle trunk. explanation and description of preferred features referring to figs. 1 and 2, an optical transmission tube 1 according to the invention is illustrated as comprising a tubular transparent cladding 11 having inner and outer surfaces and a transparent core 12 coaxially disposed within the cladding 11. the core 12 has a higher index of refraction than the cladding 11. a reflecting layer 13 in a strip form is disposed between the cladding 11 and the core 12. the strip form means that the reflecting layer 13 extends longitudinally of the cladding 11 as viewed in the axial cross section of fig. 1 and extends an arcuate as viewed in the radial cross section fig. 2. that is, the reflecting layer 13 extends only a part of a circle on one side of the tube as viewed in the radial cross section of fig. 2. the reflecting layer 13 may have a certain thickness extending from the core surface toward the interior as shown in fig. 2. with this construction, light passing through the core 12 is reflected and scattered by the reflecting layer 13 and emerges from the tube through an area of the outer surface of the cladding 11 that is approximately diametrically opposed to the reflecting layer 13, as shown by arrows l. since the reflecting layer 13 is disposed at the one or bottom side in fig. 2, the opposed area from which the reflected light emerges is the other or top side of the tube. in one preferred embodiment, a reflective protective layer 14 is disposed on the one side or bottom surface of the cladding 11 so as to circumferentially and longitudinally surround the reflecting layer 13. when a first preparation method to be described later is employed, the tubular cladding is preferably constructed of flexible materials which are moldable into a tubular form and have a low index of refraction, such as plastics and elastomers. illustrative examples of such flexible materials include polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamides, polystyrene, abs resins, polymethyl methacrylate, polycarbonate, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, polyvinyl acetate, polyethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers, polyvinyl alcohol, polyethylene-polyvinyl alcohol copolymers, fluoro-resins, silicone resins, natural rubber, polyisoprene rubber, polybutadiene rubber, styrene-butadiene copolymers, butyl rubber, halogenated butyl rubber, chloroprene rubber, acrylic rubber, epdm, acrylonitrile-butadiene copolymers, fluoro-rubber, and silicone rubber. of these, silicone polymers and fluorinated polymers having a low index of refraction are preferred. exemplary silicone polymers include polydimethylsiloxane polymers, polymethylphenylsiloxane polymers, and fluorosilicone polymers; and exemplary fluorinated polymers include polytetrafluoroethylene (ptfe), tetrafluoroethylene-hexafluoropropylene copolymers (fep), tetrafluoroethylene-perfluoroalkoxyethylene copolymers (pfe), polychloro-trifluoroethylene (pctfe), ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymers (etfe), polyvinylidene fluoride, polyvinyl fluoride, vinylidene fluoride-trifluorochloroethylene copolymers, vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene copolymers, vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene-tetrafluoroethylene terpolymers, tetrafluoroethylene-propylene rubber, and fluorinated thermoplastic elastomers. the fluorinated polymers are especially preferred. these materials may be used alone or in admixture of two or more. the core materials are preferably solid. examples include (meth)acrylic polymers, polycarbonate, ethylidene-norbornene polymers, sbs, sis, and sebs (styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene block polymers), with the (meth)acrylic polymers being preferred. the (meth)acrylic polymers include homopolymers resulting from polymerization of a monomer selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, and esters thereof with monohydric alcohols, and copolymers resulting from copolymerization of two or more monomers. the monohydric alcohols are those having 1 to 22 carbon atoms. in particular, copolymers of a monomer selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, and esters thereof with lower alcohols of 1 to 5 carbon atoms, preferably 1 to 3 carbon atoms, most preferably one carbon atom, with a monomer of the following general formula (1) are preferred because they are well flexible or soft and light transmissive. in formula (1), r 1 is a hydrogen atom or methyl group, and r 2 is an alkyl group of 8 to 20 carbon atoms, preferably 10 to 16 carbon atoms, more preferably 12 to 14 carbon atoms. the higher alkyl group represented by r 2 may be a single alkyl group or a mixture of alkyl groups, and most preferably a mixture of alkyl groups of 12 and 13 carbon atoms. the ratio of the alkyl group of 12 carbon atoms to the alkyl group of 13 carbon atoms is preferably from 20:80 to 80:20 by weight, and more preferably from 40:60 to 60:40 by weight. the proportion of the monomer selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid and lower alcohol esters thereof and the monomer of formula (1) to be copolymerized is preferably from 5:95 to 79:21, and more preferably from 30:70 to 65:35 in weight ratio. the diameter of the core is generally 2 to 30 mm, preferably 4 to 15 mm, though not critical. the reflecting layer is preferably constructed of scattering particles, that is, particles capable of scattering light. exemplary scattering particles include organic polymer particles such as silicone resin particles and polystyrene resin particles, metal oxide particles such as al 2 o 3 , tio 2 and sio 2 , sulfate particles such as baso 4 , and carbonate particles such as caco 3 , alone or in admixture of two or more. preferably the scattering particles have a mean particle size of 0.1 to 30 µm, especially 1 to 15 µm. particles greater than 30 µm are sometimes disadvantageous when the optical transmission tube is prepared by the inventive method to be described later in detail because such larger particles tend to settle out during the step of introducing the core-forming liquid into the tubular cladding. the thickness of the reflecting layer is preferably 10 to 200 µm, especially 50 to 100 µm, though not critical. a too thin layer would reflect a less amount of light, resulting in a low luminance. a too thick layer would reflect a more amount of light to provide a high luminance, but over a short distance from the light source, sometimes with the disadvantage of providing a lower luminance at positions remote from the light source. when a second preparation method to be described later is employed, the core is preferably formed of polystyrene, polycarbonate, a styrene-(meth) acrylate copolymer (abbreviated as ms polymer) or the like, and the cladding having a lower index of refraction than the core is preferably formed of a (meth)acrylic polymer. further, the reflecting layer is preferably formed of a (meth)acrylic polymer loaded with a white pigment or scattering agent. the (meth)acrylic polymers used herein are the same as the (meth)acrylic polymers described in conjunction with the first method, and examples of the white pigment and scattering agent are the same as the above-described scattering particles. when light leaks through defects in the reflecting layer to the rear side thereof and light laterally escapes outside the reflecting layer, the reflective protective layer serves to reflect such leakage light back to the other side (or top side). the reflective protective layer may be a layer by which such leakage light is not transmitted, and preferably a layer which reflects such leakage light without absorbing it. illustratively, the reflective protective layer may be a metal foil or sheet such as silver or aluminum, a reflective tape, a metallized tape, or a coating having dispersed therein light-scattering particles as described above. the protective layer 14 on the outer surface of the cladding 11 may have a circumferential width sufficient to span only the reflecting layer 13 as shown in fig. 2. alternatively, as shown in fig. 3, the protective layer 14 may have a greater circumferential width to extend beyond the reflecting layer 13 toward the other side (or top side) and to leave the light emergent area 15 open. the first method for preparing the optical transmission tube of the above-described construction according to the invention involves the steps of dispersing scattering particles in a core-forming solution comprising a monomer or monomers as described above, filling a tubular cladding with the particle-dispersed core-forming solution, closing the opposite ends of the cladding with plugs, and resting the tubular cladding horizontally for about 1/2 to 48 hours for allowing the scattering particles to settle on a lower inner surface of the cladding. instead of horizontal resting, centrifugation may be carried out. thereafter, with the particles kept settled, the monomer(s) is polymerized and cured within the cladding to thereby form a solid core within the cladding. a reflecting layer composed of the scattering particles is thus formed in a strip form between the cladding and the core or in a shallow recess in the surface of the core. in this method, the monomer polymerization technique is not critical although the common technique is by adding a polymerization initiator to the monomer(s) and heating at 50 to 120°c for 1 to 20 hours for effecting polymerization. exemplary polymerization initiators include organic peroxides such as t-butyl hydroperoxide, di-t-butyl peroxide, lauroyl peroxide, benzoyl peroxide, dimyristyl peroxydicarbonate, t-butyl peroxyacetate, t-butyl peroxy(2-ethylhexanoate), and cumyl peroxyoctoate, and azo compounds such as asobisisobutyronitrile and azobiscyclohexane nitrile. it is recommended that the core-forming solution is polymerized while it is pressurized from one end or both ends of the clad tubing, so that no bubbles are generated in the core. the second method for preparing an optical transmission tube according to the invention uses a three-color extruder having three screw sections and two concentric dies. a core material, a cladding material, and a reflecting material loaded with a white pigment or scattering agent are simultaneously fed into the extruder from its inlet. the core material is extruded into a cylindrical core. the reflecting material is extruded into an axially extending strip-shaped reflecting layer on the outer surface of the cylindrical core. the cladding material is extruded into a tubular cladding enclosing the core and the reflecting strip. this results in the optical transmission tube in which the strip-shaped reflecting layer extends between the cladding and the core and longitudinally of the cladding. the second method has the following advantages. a laminate structure having three functions can be molded all at once by co-extruding three materials having different indices of refraction or physical properties. the rate of molding is high. a firm bond is established between the respective layers since the layers are laminated in a softened state. the optical transmission tube of the invention is to emit more light from its side surface area to provide a high luminance. the inventive method is effective for producing such an optical transmission tube. next, the linear illuminant system according to the invention is described. referring to fig. 4, a linear illuminant system is illustrated as comprising a light transmission tube 1 serving as a light emergent element, a light source 2 coupled to one end of the light transmission tube 1, and a drive means 3 for operating the light source 2. the light transmission tube is constructed such that when light emitted from the light source is transmitted by the light transmission tube, light emerges from a longitudinal side of the light transmission tube. the optical transmission tube 1 is constructed as shown in figs. 1 and 2, that is, includes a tubular transparent cladding 11, a transparent core 12 having a higher index of refraction than the cladding 11, and a strip-shaped reflecting layer 13 extending between the cladding 11 and the core 12 on one side. the tube 1 further includes a reflective protective layer 14 on the one side of the cladding 11 surrounding the reflecting layer 13, which is effective for increasing the reflection efficiency. the detail of the optical transmission tube is as described above. the diameter and length of the core of the optical transmission tube are not critical. when a single led is used as the light source 2, for example, the core has a diameter of about 2 to 30 mm, preferably 4 to 15 mm and a length of about 0.1 to 5 m, preferably about 0.2 to 2 m. the light source 2 is coupled to at least one longitudinal end (the left end in the illustrated embodiment) of the optical transmission tube 1. it may be a light emitting diode (led). depending on the intended application, a choice may be made among leds emitting light of various colors such as red, blue, green, yellow, orange and white. with respect to the number of leds used, a single led may be used, or plural leds may be used to increase the light quantity. the led may be coupled to one end or both ends of the light tube. the embodiment wherein leds are coupled to both ends of the light tube provides more uniform linear light emergence at a high luminance. with respect to the emission color of leds, they may emit monochromatic light or a mixture of different colors. in one exemplary application where the linear illuminant system is installed at the stop line of a railroad crossing, the system having leds capable of emitting light of different colors may be designed such that the color of its light emission may be changed, for example, yellow light is normally emitted, but immediately before and during the passage of a train, red light is emitted to give warning to passersby. the leds may be continuously or intermittently operated. with respect to the attachment structure, one end of the optical transmission tube 1 is fixedly secured to a tubular joint member 20 with an adhesive or by cramping. the light source 2 in the form of led is received in the joint member 20 and integrally coupled to the end face of the optical transmission tube 1. the light source 2 is electrically connected to the drive means 3 by a cord 30 with an insulating coat of rubber, vinyl resin or polyethylene. to provide insulation around the connection between the light source 2 and the cord 30, the joint member 20 is filled with a potting material 21 such as an epoxy resin or silicone rubber for preventing entry of water, water vapor, combustible gas or liquid. the cord 30 may be inserted in a flexible sheath of metal or resin or a rubber or plastic pipe for protection or water-proofness. the structure of the optical transmission tube may be modified. for example, as shown in fig. 5, the tube 1 may be inserted into a transparent resin pipe 10a for protection purpose. as shown in fig. 6, the tube 1 and the joint member 20 may be enclosed with a transparent heat shrinkable tubing 10b which is heat shrunk into tight fit for protecting the tube 1 and providing a seal over the entire structure. further, as shown in fig. 7, a light reflective layer 14 may formed on a (one side) portion of the outer surface of the optical transmission tube 1, for example, by attaching a reflective tape strip having a metal material such as stainless steel, gold or silver evaporated, sputtered or plated thereon, applying a reflective coating, attaching a metal foil, applying reflecting particles such as titanium oxide, or attaching a pigmented vinyl tape. alternatively, a securing channel 15 or 16 may be attached to a (one side) portion of the outer surface of the optical transmission tube 1 as shown in figs. 8 and 9. if desired, the channel 15 or 16 is further given a reflecting function so that the channel may serve as a reflective protective layer. the channel 15 or 16 is usually formed of metal materials such as aluminum and stainless steel or plastic or elastomer materials loaded with highly reflective fine particles. the drive means 3 for supplying electricity to the light source 2 includes a power supply (e.g., a battery, solar battery or dc/ac power supply) and an electric circuit (including resistors, transistors, constant current diodes, etc., for example) for converting the power into direct current for operating the led. the solar battery or secondary battery may be incorporated in the drive means 3 or externally connected to the drive means 3. a suitable sealant is applied where the cord 30 is extended from the drive means 3, for providing water-proofness. the linear illuminant system of the invention is of the construction comprising a light transmission tube including a transparent core and a cladding having a lower index of refraction than the core, and serving as a light emergent element, a light source coupled to at least one end of the light transmission tube in a water-proof manner, and a drive means for operating the light source, wherein the light transmission tube is constructed such that when light emitted from the light source is transmitted by the light transmission tube, light emerges from a longitudinal side of the light transmission tube. differently stated, the light source is integrally coupled to the optical transmission tube in a water-proof manner so that the optical transmission tube and the light source may be disposed outdoor or in water, separately from the drive means. the linear illuminant system can be advantageously used in water, at places where rain or snow reaches, or in an environment with the risk of explosion. the system requires only a low electric power to produce sufficient side light emergence. the system is compact, and few restrictions are imposed on its installation site. example examples of the invention are given below by way of illustration and not by way of limitation. example 1 a core-forming solution was prepared by mixing 60 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate (mma), 40 parts by weight of lauryl methacrylate (lma), and 0.05 part by weight of benzoyl peroxide (bpo) to form a monomer solution having a specific gravity of 0.92. in 100 parts by weight of the monomer solution were dispersed 0.15 part by weight of scattering particles which were silicone resin particles having a mean particle size of 7 µm and a specific gravity of 1.32 (commercially available from toshiba k.k.) or polystyrene resin particles having a mean particle size of 10 µm and a specific gravity of 1.06 (commercially available from sekisui chemicals k.k.). this solution was fed into a fep tube having an outer diameter of 6 mm and a length of 1.5 m, which was closed at both ends. the tube was rested on a horizontal table for 2 hours, allowing the particles to settle on a lower inner surface of the fep tube. the tube was carefully transferred in a hot bath at 65°c so that the particle deposit might remain intact. in the hot bath, while a pressure of 3.5 kg/cm 2 was applied from the opposite ends of the tube, the monomer solution was polymerized and solidified for 3 hours. there was obtained an optical transmission tube in which a reflecting layer composed of the scattering particles extended in a strip form on the core surface and longitudinally of the tube. the optical transmission tube was tested by coupling a halogen lamp of 20 w as the light source with the tube so that light entered the tube from one end face. light emerged from the tube along an elongated area of the other side surface of the tube opposed to the reflecting layer. the luminance of light was measured on the other side of the tube, using a colorimeter cs100 (minolta k.k.). measurement was made along the length of the tube at distances of 10 cm, 20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm from the light incident end face of the tube. the results are shown in table 1. for comparison purposes, an optical transmission tube was similarly prepared by filling the fep tube with the monomer solution free of the particles and polymerizing the monomer solution. the tube was similarly measured for side luminance. the results are shown in table 1. table-tabl0001 table 1 dispersed particles side luminance (cd/m 2 ) at a distance from the incident end type amount (pbw) 10 cm 20 cm 30 cm 40 cm comparative example - 0 0 65 65 19 19 12 12 11 11 example polystyrene particles 0.15 620 410 310 205 silicone particles 0.15 613 422 380 265 it is evident from table 1 that as compared with the comparative tube without a reflecting layer, the tubes having a reflecting layer formed therein as a result of addition of scattering particles to a monomer solution allow light to emerge from the side surface at a higher luminance. in the inventive tubes, the luminance is kept high even at distances remote from the light source, that is, the luminance distribution has a gentle slope. example 2 the optical transmission tube prepared as in example 1 was measured for side luminance using a red led lamp light source (applied voltage 2v, current 20 ma, 0.04 w). the results are shown in table 2. a reflective tape (adhesive tape) of vinyl chloride resin loaded with a white pigment was attached to the one side surface of the cladding of the tube to surround the reflecting layer. this tube was also measured for side luminance, with the results shown in table 2. table-tabl0002 table 2 dispersed particles side luminance (cd/m 2 ) at a distance from the incident end type amount (pbw) 5 cm 12 cm 20 cm comparative example - 0 3.3 1.0 0.4 example silicone particles 0.5 10.2 10.0 9.6 silicone particles+ reflective tape 0.5 16.8 16.5 16 it is evident from table 2 that the tubes within the scope of the invention provide a high side luminance and the attachment of reflective tape improves the luminance. as compared with the tubes of example 1 using the halogen lamp of 20 w, the tubes of this example produce a lower overall luminance level since the led used therein is operated with a power of 0.04 w. example 3 a multi-color extruder having three screw sections and capable of co-extruding three materials was used. the core material used is shown in table 3, the cladding material used was an acrylic polymer, and the reflecting material used was the same as the cladding material in which 15% by weight of titanium oxide was dispersed. the core material, cladding material, and reflecting material were simultaneously fed into the extruder from its inlet and extruded through concentric dies. the core material was extruded into a cylindrical rod having a diameter of 6 mm. the reflecting material was extruded into an axially extending strip having a transverse width of about 1.5 mm and a radial thickness of 0.01 to 0.02 mm on the outer surface of the cylindrical rod, the strip serving as a white reflecting layer. the cladding material was extruded into a tubular cladding enclosing the rod and the strip and having an outer diameter of 6.5 mm. there was obtained a cylindrical light tube. this tube was measured for side luminance as in example 1, with the results shown in table 3. comparative example shown in table 3 is the same as above. table-tabl0003 table 3 core side luminance (cd/m 2 ) at a distance from the incident end 10 cm 20 cm 30 cm 40 cm comparative example acrylic polymer 65 19 12 11 example polystyrene 590 370 270 180 polycarbonate 510 340 230 140 styrene-acrylate copolymer 450 310 200 105 styrene-acrylate copolymer: styrene/methyl methacrylate 30/70 (weight ratio) copolymer example 4 the optical transmission tubes prepared as in example 3 were measured for side luminance using a red led lamp light source (applied voltage 2v, current 20 ma, 0.04 w). the results are shown in table 4. table-tabl0004 table 4 core side luminance (cd/m 2 ) at a distance from the incident end 5 cm 12 cm 20 cm comparative example acrylic polymer 3.3 1.0 0.4 example polystyrene 9.7 9.0 8.5 polycarbonate 9.2 8.6 8.1 styrene-acrylate copolymer 8.6 7.8 7.5 example 5 the optical transmission tubes obtained in example 3 were examined for the presence or absence of air between the layers and separation between the layers before and after a thermal shock test of rapidly cooling from 70°c to -30°c and then rapidly heating from -30°c to 70°c. visual observation was made by passing light through the tubes. in all the tubes, neither air bubbles nor separation between the layers was found before and after the thermal shock test. a close bond between the layers was confirmed. example 6 the optical transmission tube used herein was the tube of 30 cm long having a reflecting layer of silicone resin particles obtained in example 1. a mirror finished stainless steel disc having a thickness of 1 mm and a diameter of 6 mm was joined to one end face of the tube with a clear epoxy adhesive as a reflecting plate. a green light emitting led nspg50 (by nichia chemical k.k.) was coupled to the other end face of the tube using an aluminum joint. lead conductors were soldered to terminals of the led while the connection zone was covered with a silicone rubber adhesive to provide a water-proof seal. a linear illuminant element (example 6a) was constructed in this way. a comparative linear illuminant element was similarly constructed using the tube of comparative example in example 1. a current flow of 20 ma was conducted from a power supply to the led whereby light emerged from the side area of the tube. the tube was measured for side luminance as in example 1. measurement was made along the length of the tube at distances of 50 mm, 150 mm, and 250 mm from the light incident end face of the tube. the results are shown in table 5. the element of example 6a produced a higher luminance than the comparative element. the power consumption was 0.06 w. the linear illuminant element was immersed in water for 6 months. even after water immersion, the element could be operated to provide the same light emission as the initial element without current leakage and other problems. a linear illuminant element (example 6b) was similarly constructed except that a channel as shown at 15 or 16 in fig. 8 or 9 was formed from a highly reflective resin banlite ld-1000r (teijin k.k.) and the optical transmission tube was fitted into the channel. the channel itself was reflective. the tube was measured for side luminance as in example 1, with the results shown in table 5. table-tabl0005 table 5 side luminance (cd/m 2 ) at a distance from the incident end 50 mm 150 mm 250 mm example 6a 120 100 100 example 6b 200 180 175 comparative example 20 10 10 as is evident from table 5, the tube of example 6b having the reflective protective layer 14 in the form of a channel produced the highest side luminance, the tube of example 6a having the reflecting layer 13 produced a high side luminance, and the tube of comparative example without the reflecting layer 13 and the reflective protective layer 14 produced the lowest side luminance. referring to figs. 10 to 18, the application of the linear illuminant element or system is described. in fig. 10, the optical transmission tube 1 of the linear illuminant system is extended along the peripheral sides of a sign board 4. the sign board with such an illuminant molding contributes to safety driving at night. in fig. 11, the optical transmission tubes 1 are attached to a side wall 5 of a tunnel. equivalent objects include underground passages, corridors in buildings and hospitals, and emergency paths in public facilities such as theaters and halls. in this application, a commercial power supply may be used as the drive means for the light source. a provision is made such that upon a power failure, the light source can be driven by a battery. as opposed to incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps which can be burned with batteries for a time as short as several ten minutes, the led used as the light source is expected to provide a far longer time of operation even when operated by a battery. the linearity of light emission instructs a safe smooth guide to people because the guidance path is ascertainable by an instant look. in fig. 12, the optical transmission tubes 1 are extended along the upper edges of upright walls 6 of a stairway for preventing an accident by misstep at night. when the tubes are attached to an emergency stairway, the stairway can be readily ascertained upon emergency at night, contributing to safe evacuation guidance. in fig. 13, the optical transmission tubes 1 are extended along the peripheral sides of an advertising board 7. fig. 14 shows a segmented display panel 4' for indicating the maximum speed. for each digit, seven tubes are combined such that selected ones may be operated while the remaining ones are extinct. this enables variable indication of the speed limit. by increasing the number of segments, a character or modified display is possible. the invention is also applicable to automobiles. in fig. 15, the optical transmission tube 1 is extended along the side of a vehicle interior 8a for providing indirect illumination. in fig. 16, the optical transmission tube 1 is attached to a lower portion of the inner wall of a door 8b, serving as a foot light. in fig. 17, the optical transmission tubes 1 are attached to the rear side 8c of a vehicle, serving as side lights. in fig. 18, the optical transmission tube 1 is extended along the sides of a triangular emergency stop sign 9 which is used to inform the following drivers of the emergency stop of the car on the road. in addition to the foregoing examples, the linear illuminant element or system of the invention may find many other applications including (1) luminous nameplates, (2) guide poles used at night work, (3) luminous sticks, (4) luminous swords as sporting gears and toys, (5) warning lights suspended from tent ropes for warning against stumbling at night, (6) displays in aquariums, (7) course indicators and decorative lights in pools, (8) buoys, piers, banks and marine hoses (for providing improved visibility), (9) crossing gates, and (10) safety displays providing linear luminous bands for indicating crossing stop lines and the height limit of overhead beams or parking inlets. although some preferred embodiments have been described, many modifications and variations may be made thereto in light of the above teachings. it is therefore to be understood that the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described without departing from the scope of the appended claims.
117-693-229-607-87X	US	[ "US" ]	G01N31/22,G01N33/18,G01N33/52,G01N33/84	1997-03-19T00:00:00	1997	[ "G01" ]	low range total available chlorine test strip	a composition, method, and test device for determining a low concentration of total available chlorine concentration in a test sample are disclosed. the test device includes a test pad having a suitable carrier matrix incorporating an indicator reagent composition capable of converting combined available chlorine to free available chlorine and of interacting with free available chlorine to produce a detectable and measurable response for total available chlorine over a range of 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine in the test sample. an indicator reagent composition contains: (a) an indicator dye that is responsive to free available chlorine, such as tetramethylbenzidine, (b) a buffer, (c) an optional surfactant, (d) a catalyst, and (e) a polymer. an indicator reagent composition is incorporated into a carrier matrix, like filter paper, to provide a test pad useful in a dry phase total available chlorine assay of a test sample, such as a source water for a hemodialysis unit.	1. a composition capable of exhibiting a detectable and measurable color transition in response to a total available chlorine concentration of 0 to about 2 ppm, said composition comprising: (a) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine; (b) a buffer; (c) 0% to about 0.02%, by weight of the composition, of a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof; (d) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a peroxidase enzyme, iodide ion, and mixtures thereof; (e) about 0.05% to about 4%, by weight of the composition, of a polymer; and (f) a carrier comprising water, wherein the composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6. 2. the composition of claim 1 wherein the indicator is present in a concentration of about 1 to about 200 millimoles per liter of the composition. 3. the composition of claim 1 wherein the indicator comprises a redox indicator, a heterocyclic azine indicator, or a mixture thereof. 4. the composition of claim 1 wherein the indicator is a benzidine-type indicator having a structure ##str3## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2, either the same or different, are selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkyloxy group, amino, aryl, and aryloxy, or the r.sup.2 substituents can be taken together to form .paren open-st.ch.sub.2 .paren close-st..sub.n, wherein n is 1 or 2. 5. the composition of claim 4 wherein the indicator is selected from the group consisting of benzidine, o-tolidine, o-dianisidine, 2,7-di-aminofluorene, 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine, 3,3'-diaminobenzidine, 3,3',5,5'-tetra(alkyl)benzidine wherein the alkyl group contains two to about six carbon atoms, a nitrogen substituted benzidine, bis(n-ethylquinol-2-one)azine, and (n-methylbenzthiozal-2-one)(1-ethyl-3-phenyl-5-methyltriazol-2-one)azine. 6. the composition of claim 1 wherein the buffer is present in a concentration of about 20 to about 600 millimoles per liter of the composition. 7. the composition of claim 1 wherein the buffer is selected from the group consisting of a polycarboxylic acid wherein the carboxyl groups are separated by two to five carbon atoms, citric acid, succinic acid, ketoglutaric acid, lactic acid, phosphate, borate, acetate, and mixtures thereof. 8. the composition of claim 1 wherein the nonionic surfactant has an hlb value of about 4 to less than 50. 9. the composition of claim 1 wherein the nonionic surfactant is selected from the group consisting of an ethoxylated polysorbate, an ethoxylated alcohol, an ethoxylated phenol, a polyethylene glycol, a polypropylene glycol, an ethylene glycol-propylene glycol copolymer, a polybutylene glycol, and mixtures thereof. 10. the composition of claim 1 wherein the anionic surfactant comprises a sulfate, a sulfonate, a carbonate, a phosphate, or a carboxylate. 11. the composition of claim 1 wherein the anionic surfactant is selected from the group consisting of an alkyl sulfate, an alkyl ether sulfate, an alkyl ether sulfonate, a sulfate ester of an alkylphenoxy polyoxyethylene ethanol, an alpha-olefin sulfonate, a beta-alkyloxy alkane sulfonate, an alkyl arylsulfonate, an alkyl carbonate, an alkyl ether carboxylate, a fatty acid, a sulfosuccinate, an alkyl ether sulfosuccinate, a sarcosinate, an octoxynol phosphate, a taurate, a fatty tauride, a sulfated monoglyceride, a fatty acid amido polyoxyethylene sulfate, and mixtures thereof. 12. the composition of claim 1 wherein the anionic surfactant comprises an ammonium, monoethanolamine, diethanolamine, triethanolamine, isopropylamine, sodium, potassium, lithium, or magnesium salt of lauryl sulfate, dodecylbenzenesulfonate, lauryl sulfosuccinate, a lauryl ether sulfate, a lauryl ether carboxylate, lauryl sarcosinate, cocomethyl tauride, and a sulfosuccinate half ester amide, and mixtures thereof. 13. the composition of claim 1 wherein the polymer is selected from the group consisting of polyvinylpyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, gum arabic, gelatin, algin, carrageenan, casein, albumin, methyl cellulose, hydroxypropylcellulose, hydroxyethyl-cellulose, hydroxybutylcellulose, sodium carboxy-methylcellulose, and mixture thereof. 14. the composition of claim 1 wherein the polymer is hydrophobic. 15. the composition of claim 1 wherein the carrier comprises 0% to about 90% by weight of the carrier of an organic solvent. 16. the composition of claim 1 having a ph of about 4.5 to about 5.5. 17. the composition of claim 1 having a ph of about 4.8 to about 5.3. 18. a method of determining total available chlorine content of an aqueous test sample containing 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine, said method comprising: (a) contacting the aqueous test sample with an indicator reagent composition comprising: (i) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine; (ii) a buffer; (iii) 0% to about 0.02%, by weight of the composition, of a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof; (iv) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a peroxidase enzyme, iodide ion, and mixtures thereof; (v) about 0.05% to about 4%, by weight of the composition, of a polymer; and (vi) a carrier comprising water, wherein the composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6; (b) determining the total available chloride content of the aqueous test sample from the intensity and degree of the color transition are determine visually or instrumentally. 19. the method of claim 18 wherein the aqueous test sample has a total available chlorine content of about 0.05 to about 1.50 ppm. 20. a method of determining the total available chlorine content of an aqueous sample containing 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine, said method comprising: (a) contacting the aqueous sample with an analyte detection device comprising a test pad, said test pad having incorporated therein an indicator reagent composition comprising: (i) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine; (ii) a buffer; (iii) 0% to about 0.02%, by weight of the composition, of a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof; (iv) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a peroxidase enzyme, iodide ion, and mixtures thereof; (v) about 0.05% to about 4%, by weight of the composition, of a polymer; and (vi) a carrier comprising water, wherein the composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6; (b) determining the total available chlorine content of the aqueous sample from the intensity and degree of a color transition of the indicator reagent composition. 21. the method of claim 20 wherein the aqueous test sample contacts the analyte detection device by directing a stream of the aqueous test sample onto the test pad. 22. a method of determining the total available chlorine content of an aqueous sample having a total available chlorine content of 0 to about 2 ppm comprising: (a) contacting the aqueous sample with an analyte detection device comprising a test pad having incorporated therein: (i) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine; (ii) a buffer; (iii) 0% to about 0.02%, by weight of the composition, of a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof; (iv) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a peroxidase enzyme, iodide ion, and mixtures thereof; (v) about 0.05% to about 4%, by weight of the composition, of a polymer; and (vi) a carrier comprising water, wherein the composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6; (b) examining the analyte detection device for a color transition; and (c) correlating the color transition to the total available chlorine content of the aqueous sample. 23. an analyte-detection device to determine the total available chlorine content of an aqueous test sample comprising: a support strip; a test pad; and an indicator reagent composition incorporated into the test paid, said reagent composition comprising: (a) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine; (b) a buffer; (c) 0% to about 0.02%, by weight of the composition, of a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof; (d) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst selected from the group consisting of a peroxidase enzyme, iodide ion, and mixtures thereof; (e) about 0.05% to about 4%, by weight of the composition, of a polymer; wherein the composition has a ph of about 4.8 to about 5.3.	field of the invention the present invention relates to a composition, method, and test device for determining the total available chlorine concentration of a test sample. more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and test device for assaying a liquid test sample, such as a sanitizing solution, for a low total available chlorine concentration of 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine by using an improved indicator reagent composition. the indicator reagent composition undergoes a detectable and measurable response upon contact with a test sample containing a low concentration of free available chlorine. contrary to prior compositions and methods, the present method has the advantage of quantitatively measuring a low concentration of total available chorine. background of the invention the use of chlorine as a sanitizer or disinfectant for various water supplies and various types of equipment, like food processing equipment and medical equipment, such as a hemodialysis unit, is common. because the amount of available chlorine in an aqueous solution relates directly to the disinfecting or sanitizing activity of the solution, a test which rapidly and accurately measures available chlorine is important. the available chlorine family is comprised of compounds which, when in aqueous solution, yield solutions of hypochlorous acid. the available chlorine family is further divided into compounds containing free available chlorine and compounds containing combined available chlorine. the sum of free available chlorine and combined available chlorine is termed total available chlorine. free available chlorine encompasses chlorine-containing compounds in aqueous solution such as hypochlorous acid, hypochlorite ion, and, in strong acid solutions, free chlorine. the use of free available chlorine as a disinfectant for water supplies and equipment is widespread because of its low cost, convenience, and effectiveness as an antiseptic agent in relatively low concentrations. for example, free available chlorine is used as a disinfectant in a majority of hemodialysis centers. combined available chlorine, also termed bound available chlorine, mainly encompasses organic chloramines, which release only a small amount of free available chlorine in aqueous solution. chloramines are formed from chlorine reacting with amine compounds in water. the amine compounds can be an impurity in the water or arise from ammonia added to water with chlorine during water disinfection. ammonia and chlorine are added to the water to form chloramines which stabilize chlorine from decomposition and/or evaporation, and also increases the bacteriocidal potency of chlorine. depending on the ratio of chlorine-to-ammonia and the acidity of the water, chloramines formed from chlorine and ammonia are a mixture of monochloramine, dichloramine, and trichloramine at various ratios. although monochloramine is the main chloramine of concern due to its toxicity, removal of all chlorine is essential for safe and effective operation of a dialysis water purification system. conventionally, combined available chlorine has not been considered an effective disinfectant or sanitizer. accordingly, prior chlorine assays have focused on assays for free available chlorine, i.e., the active disinfectant. for example, assays disclosed in rupe et al. u.s. pat. no. 4,092,115 and ramana et al. u.s. pat. no. 5,491,094, consider combined available chlorine as an interferant in the assay for free available chlorine, and the assays have been designed only to measure free available chlorine. however, in some applications, it is important to assay for total available chlorine. for example, chlorine is used in hemodialysis centers to sanitize hemodialysis units because chlorine is an effective and economical sanitizing agent. it is important to clean and disinfect a hemodialysis unit between each dialysis session to prevent pathogen contamination from patient to patient. however, chlorine also is a very toxic compound that can cause hemolysis even when only a trace amount of chlorine diffuses from the hemodialysis unit into the blood of an individual. therefore, if an assay for residual chlorine in a hemodialysis unit detects only free available chlorine, a potentially toxic amount of combined available chlorine, which slowly generates free available chlorine, can be present to adversely affect an individual subsequently connected to the hemodialysis unit. trace amounts of free available chlorine also can adversely affect filtration membranes of the hemodialysis unit. combined available chlorine is considered highly toxic because of its electronic neutrality and ability to penetrate cell membranes. in a municipal source water, combined available chlorine always exists in various proportions relative to total available chlorine. combined available chlorine is formed in a reaction of free available chlorine either with amine compounds, which are present as contaminants in the source water, or with ammonia, which is added to the water with free chlorine to stabilize the chlorine and to increase the bacteriocidal potency of the chlorine disinfectant. with respect to a dialysis unit, all chlorine species in a water supply are removed before the water can be used in hemodialysis. chlorine removal is usually performed by passing the water through a water purification tank containing activated carbon, and then through a reverse osmosis column. the presence of combined available chlorine in the water affects the efficacy of the carbon tank in removing all chlorine species. knowledge of the concentration of total chlorine is important in designing the water purification system, as well as devising a method of monitoring chlorine in the purified water. occasionally, a trace amount of chlorine leaks through the tank. if the chlorine leaking through the tank is all, or substantially, combined chlorine, this suggests exhaustion of carbon tank capacity. however, if the chlorine leaking through the tank contains a high proportion of free chlorine, this indicates the presence of a mechanical defect, such as channelling through the activated carbon inside the tank or an insufficient contact time between the water and the activated carbon. determination of both the free and combined available chlorine is important in managing the water purification for dialysis. therefore, when a sanitizing solution is used in medical or food processing equipment, two critical chlorine levels must be monitored. first, the free available chlorine concentration must be sufficiently high to perform a sanitizing or disinfecting function, i.e., at least about 1000 ppm (parts per million) free available chlorine is needed to effectively sanitize equipment. typically, a chlorine concentration sufficient for equipment sanitization is about a 1 to 10 volume dilution of a 5.25% (by weight) sodium hypochlorite with water, to provide a solution containing about 0.5% to about 0.6% (by weight) sodium hypochlorite, i.e., about 5000 to about 6000 ppm chlorine. during the sanitizing process, the sanitizing solution is assayed periodically to ensure that sufficient free available chlorine is present to sanitize the equipment. after the sanitizing function is completed, and before use, the equipment is rinsed with water to flush residual chlorine from the equipment. the rinse water also is assayed for available chlorine to ensure that the level of residual available chlorine is below the maximum allowable level, e.g., 0.5 ppm as recommended by the association of advancement of medical instrumentation (aami). in practice, the residual available chlorine concentration is essentially zero, or at least below the previous lowest detectable levels of about 0.1 to about 0.2 ppm, i.e., equivalent to a 1 to 100,000 water dilution of 5.25% (by weight) sodium hypochlorite. a chlorine test strip having a broad range chlorine sensitivity of up to 5,000 ppm can be used to monitor the presence and absence of chlorine during the sanitizing and cleaning process. however, when assaying the water quality of a purified source water for use in a dialysis unit, a much more stringent water quality standard is used. municipal water normally contains 0.5 to 3.0 ppm chlorine in order to suppress the growth of microorganisms during the transport of water from the water treatment plant to consumers. because free chlorine is not stable and quickly decomposes during water distribution, ammonia commonly is added with chlorine to generate chloramine. as previously stated, chloramine is less reactive than free chlorine, and is much more stable. therefore, chloramine is a more effective disinfectant because of its long-lasting reactivity. for the same reason, chloramine also is considered a more toxic water contaminant, particularly when the water is to be used in hemodialysis units. the association for the advancement of medical instrumentation (aami) standards rate water containing greater than 0.1 ppm of chloramine as unsafe for hemodialysis use. in almost all dialysis facilities, the tap (e.g., the source) water, therefore, is routinely filtered through a bed of activated carbon to remove any trace amount chlorine and/or chloramine. the effectiveness of the carbon tank is constantly monitored to ensure that the chlorine total/chloramine level is less than 0.1 ppm, and preferably zero. because of the extremely low concentration of chlorine and, particularly, because of the slow reactivity of chloramine, no presently available test strip allows a convenient quantitative assay for low concentrations of total available chlorine. commercial assay systems are available for assaying hemodialysis units for available chlorine. one assay utilizes tablets or dry powder, and another utilizes dry chemistry test strips. each assay has advantages and disadvantages, and neither assay satisfies the different testing requirements needed for a hemodialysis unit. the tablet method has good sensitivity (e.g., 0.1 ppm) and is less expensive per assay. however, the tablet method is more cumbersome to perform and requires more technician time. the dry chemistry test strips usually are not as sensitive as the tablet method and can cost more per test. nevertheless, the strip test is very easy and convenient, particularly when operating a mobile hemodialysis unit. in most hemodialysis centers, the test strip is used as a screening test for residual chlorine, whereas the tablet method is used for more critical water testing. because of the differences in test requirements, most hemodialysis centers are forced to stock both the tablet and dry chemistry test systems. dialysis facilities rely on the tablet method using a liquid chemistry assay procedure for the determination of low concentrations of total available chlorine in water. in the assay, chloramine is allowed to react with iodide ion to form iodine, which in turn reacts with n,n-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine (dpd) indicator to generate a light pink color. the sensitivity of the test is achieved by increasing the depth of view through a long verticle path of the reaction tube. as previously stated, the test is cumbersome and time consuming. conversion of this test method to a strip format is difficult because such a long depth of view is not feasible. hi sense reagent strip, marketed by serim research corporation, elkhart, ind., is another commercially available chloramine test device. in the test, chloramine first is reacted with an iodide ion solution to form iodine, which in turn reacts with a leuco dye impregnated on a membrane. the test requires multiple operation steps and about approximately eight (8) minutes to complete. the test provides only qualitative results by showing positive or negative with no color. the test lacks quantitative information on the chloramine level and also lacks the convenience of a single step test and short reaction time of 60 seconds or less, which are essential for a rapid routine assay. in the parent application, now u.s. pat. no. 5,811,254, a single assay for assaying both the high and the low available chlorine concentration range was disclosed. that disclosure showed that it was possible to cross the 10,000 fold difference in chlorine concentration between a working sanitizing solution and a residual chlorine concentration, and detect and differentiate concentration levels over a broad range. using the test strips makes it difficult to detect ultralow levels of chlorine, i.e., below 0.1 ppm. as opposed to the dip-and-read, it now was found that by repeatedly exposing the strip to the test sample, the strip can detect lower levels of chlorine. yet, sensitivity still is limited because the process also causes rinsing of the indicator from the strip, thereby making the color on the reagent pad barely visible. furthermore, the iodide ion in the test pad also is quickly rinsed from the test pad to such a low concentration that catalytic conversion of chloramine by iodide became very slow. this makes the prior test strip less reliable for low-level total chlorine testing. in order to overcome these problems, it is necessary to immobilize the indicator on the substrate matrix to prevent it from being rinsed off the test pad, and the iodide ions must be anchored in such a way that they are slowly released during the test. the present disclosure sets forth a practical, approach to solving these problems. in particular, the present invention is directed to providing an assay for total available chlorine that is capable of quantitatively measuring total available chlorine concentration over the range of 0 to about 2 ppm, and especially about 0.05 to about 1.50 ppm. the present invention, therefore, is directed to an assay method and device that can be used to assay for total available chlorine, both free and bound available chlorine, present at 2 ppm or less. accordingly, a test strip can be used to test for residual chlorine in the rinse water after cleaning the hemodialysis unit or for the chlorine content of the source water for the dialyzer. as illustrated hereafter, the present test strips have a good sensitivity and a detection range over 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine with a continuous color response. such a determination provides important information with respect to whether potentially harmful amounts of available chlorine are present in rinse water or dialysis water. the present method of assaying for total available chlorine in an aqueous test sample yields trustworthy and reproducible results by utilizing an indicator reagent composition that undergoes a color transition in response to a low concentration of total available chlorine, and not as a result of a competing chemical or physical interaction, such as a preferential interaction with another test sample component. for example, the present indicator reagent composition has sufficient sensitivity to quantitatively detect 0.1 ppm or less total available chlorine. in accordance with the present invention, an indicator reagent composition can be incorporated into a carrier matrix to provide sufficient sensitivity and color differentiation to assay for total available chlorine concentration over the range of 0 ppm to about 2 ppm, and typically about 0.05 to about 1.50 ppm. in addition, although dry phase test strips have been used to assay for chlorine concentration, no dry phase test strip has been used to quantitatively assay for total available chlorine over such a low concentration range. examples of prior disclosures relating to assaying for chlorine include storm u.s. pat. no. 3,718,605; reiss u.s. pat. no. 4,938,926; ross, jr. et al. u.s. pat. no. 4,049,382; frant u.s. pat. no. 5,300,442, harp u.s. pat. no. 5,362,650; o'brien et al. u.s. pat. no. 4,904,605; and j. d. johnson et al., analytical chemistry, 40(13), pages 1744-1750 (1969). summary of the invention in brief, the present invention is directed to a new and improved composition, test device, and method of determining the total available chlorine concentration of a test sample. a device includes a test pad comprising a suitable carrier matrix incorporating an indicator reagent composition capable of converting combined available chlorine to free available chlorine, and interacting with free available chlorine to produce a detectable response to total available chlorine concentration. a carrier matrix of the test pad comprises a bibulous material, such as filter paper; a nonbibulous material, such as a strip, layer, or membrane of a polymerized material; or a mixture thereof. an indicator reagent composition is homogeneously incorporated into the carrier matrix, and the carrier matrix then holds the indicator reagent composition homogeneously throughout the carrier matrix while maintaining carrier matrix penetrability by the test sample. more particularly, the present invention is directed to a method of assaying for the total available chlorine content of aqueous test samples by utilizing a new indicator reagent composition. it has been demonstrated that a reagent composition including: (a) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine to provide a detectable and measurable response, (b) a buffer, like a polycarboxylic acid, (c) an optional surfactant, like an anionic surfactant, (d) a catalyst, (e) a polymer, and (f) a catalytic amount of iodide ion or a peroxidase enzyme, affords sufficient sensitivity to test sample total available chlorine content, and a sufficient color differentiation between test samples of different total available chlorine content over the range of 0 to about 2 ppm, and particularly 0.05 to about 1.50 ppm. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the indicator reagent composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6. an accurate and reliable quantitative determination for total available chlorine in a test sample is achieved because the indicator reagent composition is maintained at a ph of about 4 to about 6, and contains an iodide ion or peroxidase catalyst. by utilizing an indicator reagent composition of the present invention, the quantitative assay for total available chlorine in liquid test samples is more sensitive and accurate because the combined available chlorine in the test sample is quickly converted to free available chlorine. the indicator reagent composition then is able to detect the total available chlorine present in the test sample. therefore, a buffer is included in the indicator reagent composition to maintain a ph of about 4 to about 6 and achieve a more accurate measurement of the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. the buffer is included in the indicator reagent composition to maintain the reagent composition within a ph range wherein the combined available chlorine, i.e., chloramine, is quickly converted to free available chlorine. the presence of a catalytic amount of iodide ion or a peroxidase enzyme further facilitates, and speeds, conversion of combined available chlorine to free available chlorine. therefore, one aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and composition for quantitatively determining a low concentration of total available chlorine concentration of an aqueous liquid. the composition converts the combined available chlorine to free available chlorine, and interacts with the free available chlorine to produce a change in color of a test device that is indicative of the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method of assaying aqueous test samples, said method having sufficient sensitivity and sufficient visual color resolution to allow differentiation between, and the quantitative measurement of, test samples having different low total available chlorine concentrations. yet another object of the present invention is to provide a sensitive method of assaying test samples for total available chlorine concentration over the range of 0 to about 2 ppm total available chlorine. accordingly, the present method is able to detect residual chlorine present in rinse water, i.e., less than 0.5 ppm, or in source water for a dialysis unit, i.e., less than 0.1 ppm. another aspect of the present invention is to provide an indicator reagent composition that interacts with free available chlorine and undergoes a visually or instrumentally differentiable color transition to allow a determination of total available chlorine concentration of a test sample. another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method of assaying for the total available chlorine content of a liquid test sample by incorporating an indicator reagent composition into a dry phase detection device, wherein the indicator reagent composition comprises: (a) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine to provide a detectable and measurable response, (b) a buffer, (c) an optional surfactant, (d) a catalyst, (e) a polymer, and (f) a suitable carrier, and wherein the indicator reagent composition has a ph of about 4 to about 6. still another aspect of the present invention is to provide a new and improved method of assaying for a low total available chlorine concentration of an aqueous test sample by utilizing a test device, including a carrier matrix, said carrier matrix comprising a bibulous matrix, like filter paper, or a nonbibulous matrix, like a glass fiber or a layer of a permeable polymeric material, and said carrier matrix having incorporated therein an indicator reagent composition capable of converting bound available chlorine to free available chlorine, and of interacting with free available chlorine present in the test sample, to provide a color transition that can be correlated to the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. a further aspect of the present invention is to provide an improved dry phase test strip that incorporates an indicator reagent composition comprising a suitable indicator, a buffer, an optional surfactant, a catalyst, and a polymer, and having a ph of about 4 to about 6, into the carrier matrix, and thereby provide a quantitative assay for the total available chlorine content of a test sample. the above and other aspects and advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments. detailed description of the preferred embodiments in accordance with the method of the present invention, a quantitative assay of aqueous test samples for a low concentration of total available chlorine is accomplished by utilizing an indicator reagent composition that includes (a) an indicator capable of interacting with free available chlorine to provide a detectable and measurable response, (b) a buffer, (c) an optional surfactant, (d) a catalyst, and (e) a polymer. by employing an indicator reagent composition of the present invention, having a ph of about 4 to about 6, sufficient sensitivity and sufficient visual color differentiation between test samples of different total available chlorine content is achieved. in accordance with the method of the present invention, test samples having a total available chlorine content of 0 to about 2 ppm, and particularly 0.05 to about 1.50 ppm, can be measured and differentiated. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the method and composition are employed in dry phase, test pad assays to determine the total available chlorine concentration of aqueous test samples. a dry phase test strip, including a test pad comprising a carrier matrix incorporating an indicator reagent composition of the present invention, allows the rapid quantitative assay of test samples by visual means. in particular, the present invention allows determination of the total available chlorine concentration of a test sample by the visual color change of a test pad on a test strip resulting from contact between the test strip and the test sample. total available chlorine concentration of the test sample is determined by correlating the detected free available chlorine concentration to the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. the test strip includes a test pad comprising an inert carrier matrix incorporating an indicator reagent composition. the present composition and method allow the rapid calorimetric determination of the total available chlorine concentration of a test sample by quickly converting the bound available chlorine to free available chlorine, and assaying for the resulting total free chlorine concentration. previous assay methods employed compositions that avoided measurement of bound available chlorine. in contrast, the present method measures the total available chlorine content, i.e., free and bound available chlorine, by utilizing a composition having a ph of about 4 to about 6, and which contains a catalyst to increase the rate of conversion of combined available chlorine to free available chlorine. an important component of the present indicator reagent composition is the indicator. the indicator included in the indicator reagent composition is limited only in that the indicator is capable of undergoing a detectable response, and preferably a chromogenic response, in the presence of free available chlorine. accordingly, the indicator preferably is a redox indicator that undergoes a color transition, or other detectable response, upon conversion from its reduced state to its oxidized state by free available chlorine. the indicator dye should be sufficiently stable such that free available chlorine is present before a color transition occurs. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the indicator dye undergoes a color transition through various detectable and measurable degrees and intensities of color such that the degree and intensity of the color transition can be correlated to the concentration of total available chlorine in a test sample. it should be noted that the indicator is incapable of interacting with bound available chlorine. therefore, as explained in detail hereafter, the bound available chlorine is converted to free available chlorine. the indicator, therefore, responds to the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. the indicator, therefore, typically is a redox indicator. preferred redox indicators are the benzidine-type indicators, i.e., benzidine and benzidine derivatives. the benzidine-type indicators have the ability to develop easily detectable and differentiable color hues of varying intensity, which makes these indicators useful in quantitative assays. although the exact mechanism of color formation by benzidine-type indicators in the presence of various analytes is not known, it is known that two sequential color forms occur: a first colored species which is blue in color, and a second colored species, which is brown. the blue color species tends to be transient and changes to the brown color species. therefore, it has been necessary to detect a color change within a prescribed time period or to stabilize the blue color. otherwise, the significance of the color transition, i.e., correlation to analyte concentration, is lost because subtle shades of blue, which are easily distinguishable, yield to the less easily differentiated brown hues. benzidine-type indicators have the structure: ##str1## wherein the r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 substituents, same or different, can be hydrogen, lower alkyl (i.e., alkyl having 1 to about 6 carbon atoms), lower alkyloxy (i.e., alkyloxy having 1 to about 6 carbon atoms), amino, aryl, or aryloxy. moreover, the r.sup.2 substituents together can form .paren open-st.ch.sub.2 .paren close-st..sub.n, wherein n is 1 or 2. in addition to the above, the r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 groups can be substituted such as with hydroxy, halogen, cyano, and similar substituents. typical benzidine-type indicators include, but are not limited to, benzidine, o-tolidine, o-dianisidine, 2,7-diamino-fluorene, 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (hereafter tetramethylbenzidine or tmb), 3,3'-diaminobenzidine, 3,3',5,5'-tetra(alkyl)benzidine, the various n- and n'-substituted benzidines and others, and mixtures thereof. another useful class of dyes are the heterocyclic azine indicators, for example, bis(n-ethylquinol-2-one)azine and (n-methylbenzthiozal-2-one) (1-ethyl-3-phenyl-5-methyltriazol-2-one)azine. preferably, the indicator is a benzidine-type indicator. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the indicator is 3,3',5,5'-tetramethyl-benzidine. the indicator typically is present in the indicator reagent composition in a concentration of about 1 to about 200 mm, and preferably in a concentration of about 10 to about 150 mm. the amount of indicator in the indicator reagent composition can be less than about 1 mm, or greater than about 200 mm, depending upon the intensity of the color transition that a particular indicator undergoes upon oxidation. in general, the amount of indicator included in the indicator reagent composition is limited only in that the indicator undergoes a detectable color transition in proportion to the concentration of free available chlorine. the detection of free available chlorine then can be correlated to total available chlorine content of the test sample. as discussed in detail hereafter, a preferred method of assaying for a low concentration of total available chlorine involves repeatedly contacting the test pad with the test sample, e.g., applying a stream of test sample to the test pad. this method has a tendency to rinse the indicator from the test pad, and thereby adversely affect assay results. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the indicator is immobilized on the carrier matrix by a covalent chemical bond, or, preferably, by physical encapsulation or entrapment within the polymer. immobilization of the indicator will be discussed in detail hereafter. in addition to the indicator, the indicator reagent composition also contains a buffer. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the buffer buffers the indicator reagent composition in the range of about 4 to about 6, and preferably about 4.5 to about 5.5. to achieve the full advantage of present invention, the buffer maintains the composition at a ph of about 4.8 to about 5.3. in the ph range of about 4 to about 6, the bound available chlorine, i.e., chloramine, is converted to free available chlorine at a sufficient rate such that the bound available chlorine is assayed and detected by the present indicator reagent composition. a ph of about 4 to about 6, therefore, provides an indicator reagent composition having a very high sensitivity to chlorine. free available chlorine interacts with an indicator over a wide ph range. however, bound available chlorine cannot interact with the indicator above ph about 6. the interaction between bound available chlorine and the indicator increases significantly at ph about 5.5 or less, and especially at ph 5 or less, i.e., bound available chlorine is converted to free available chlorine, which in turn can interact with the indicator. however, below ph about 5, the development of a background color increases. this background color interferes with an accurate assay for total available chlorine. therefore, to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the indicator reagent composition is buffered at a ph of about 4.8 to about 5.3. the identity of the buffer is not particularly limited, as long as the indicator reagent composition is buffered in the range of about 4 to about 6. therefore, useful buffers include, but are not limited to, polycarboxylic acids, phosphate, borate, acetate, and mixtures thereof. preferred buffers are polycarboxylic acids, and especially polycarboxylic acids wherein the carboxyl groups are separated by two to five carbon atoms. examples of useful polycarboxylic acid buffers include, but are not limited to, citric acid, succinic acid, lactic acid, and ketoglutaric acid. as demonstrated in detail hereafter, the polycarboxylic acid buffers improve the color response of the indicator to free available chlorine, and provide a more stable color response. it has been theorized, but is not relied upon herein, that the polycarboxylic acid is capable of complexing with the indicator to form a brighter and more spectacular color, and to stabilize the color. the concentration of buffer in the composition typically is about 20 to about 600 mm, and preferably about 50 to about 200 mm. in addition to the indicator and the buffer, the indicator reagent composition also contains an optional surfactant. the optional surfactant is an anionic surfactant, a nonionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof. the optional surfactant is present in the indicator reagent composition in an amount of 0% to about 0.02%, and preferably 0% to about 0.01%, by weight of the composition. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the surfactant is present in an amount of about 0.001% to about 0.007% by weight of the composition. as illustrated in detail hereafter, the optional surfactant is present in a minimal amount, if at all. the optional surfactant, if used, is present in a sufficient amount to facilitate wetting of the surface of the polymer, but not in a sufficiently low amount to avoid solubilizing the indicator. the optional surfactant, therefore, assists wetting of the carrier matrix by the test sample, without adversely affecting the color transition of the indicator in response to free available chlorine. as further illustrated hereafter, the optional surfactant may assist the present indicator reagent composition assay for a low concentration of total available chlorine, i.e., 0 ppm to about 2 ppm. with respect to effectively wetting the polymer surface, the surfactant can be an anionic surfactant, a nonionic surfactant, or a mixture thereof. each of these classes of surfactants effectively wets the surface of the polymer. anionic and cationic surfactants also improve the stability of the color transition of the indicator. cationic surfactants and zwitterionic surfactants, as demonstrated hereafter, did not stabilize the color transition. the optional surfactant has an hlb (hydrophilic-lipophilic balance) of less than 50, and preferably less than 20. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the optional surfactant has an hlb value of about 4 to about 20. useful nonionic surfactants include, but are not limited to, an ethoxylated polysorbate, e.g., polysorbate 20 through polysorbate 85, an ethoxylated alcohol, e.g., a c.sub.10 to c.sub.22 alcohol ethoxylated with about 10 to about 25 moles of ethylene oxide, an ethoxylated phenol, i.e., an ethoxylated octylphenol, nonylphenol, or dodecylphenol with about 8 to about 30 moles of ethylene oxide, a polyethylene glycol, e.g., peg-8 through peg-40, a polypropylene glycol, e.g., ppg-9 through ppg-34, an ethylene glycol-propylene glycol copolymer, e.g., a poloxamer, a polybutylene glycol, and similar non-ionic surfactants, and mixtures thereof. in general, a useful nonionic surfactant has an hlb value of about 4 to less than 50. anionic surfactants useful in the present invention are not particularly limited. usually, the anionic surfactant includes a hydrophobic moiety, such as a carbon chain including about eight carbon atoms to about 30 carbon atoms, and particularly about twelve carbon atoms to about twenty carbon atoms; and further includes a hydrophilic moiety, such as sulfate, sulfonate, carbonate, phosphate, or carboxylate. often, the hydrophobic carbon chain is etherified, such as with ethylene oxide or propylene oxide, to impart a particular physical property or reduced surface tension, to the anionic surfactant. the anionic surfactants are well known, and can be a fatty acid, a salt of a fatty acid, an ethoxylated fatty acid, or a salt of an ethoxylated fatty acid, for example. therefore, suitable anionic surfactants include, but are not limited to, compounds in the classes known as alkyl sulfates, alkyl ether sulfates, alkyl ether sulfonates, sulfate esters of an alkylphenoxy polyoxyethylene ethanol, alpha-olefin sulfonates, beta-alkyloxy alkane sulfonates, alkyl arylsulfonates, alkyl carbonates, alkyl ether carboxylates, fatty acids, sulfosuccinates, alkyl ether sulfosuccinates, sarcosinates, octoxynol phosphates, nonoxynol phosphates, taurates, fatty taurides, sulfated monoglycerides, fatty acid amido polyoxyethylene sulfates, and isothienates; or mixtures thereof. many additional anionic surfactants are described in mccutcheon's, detergents and emulsifiers, 1993 annual, published by mccutcheon division, mc publishing co., and incorporated herein by reference. usually, the anionic surfactant is present in the composition as a neutralized salt in the form of a sodium, potassium, lithium, ammonium, alkyl-ammonium, or hydroxyalkylammonium salt, wherein the alkyl moiety includes one to about three carbon atoms. the alkyl sulfates and alkyl ether sulfates are particularly effective classes of anionic surfactants. consequently, exemplary anionic surfactants useful in the composition and method of the present invention include, but are not limited to, the ammonium, monoethanolamine, diethanolamine, triethanolamine, isopropylamine, sodium, potassium, lithium, or magnesium salt of lauryl sulfate, dodecylbenzenesulfonate, lauryl sulfosuccinate, lauryl ether sulfate, lauryl ether carboxylate, lauryl sarcosinate, cocomethyl tauride, and sulfosuccinate half ester amide, or mixtures thereof. examples of especially useful anionic surfactants are a lauryl sulfate salt, a lauryl ether sulfate salt, a lauryl phosphate, a sulfosuccinate salt, a dodecylsulfonate salt, a cholate salt, a c.sub.8 to c.sub.18 fatty acid, and mixtures thereof. in addition to the indicator, buffer, and optional surfactant, the indicator reagent composition also contains about 100 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst to increase the rate at which the indicator reagent composition converts the combined available chlorine to free available chlorine, thereby making it possible to assay for the amount of combined and free, i.e., total, available chlorine in the test sample. preferably, the indicator reagent composition contains about 200 to about 1200 ppm of a catalyst, and, to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, about 500 to about 1000 ppm. at these concentrations, the catalyst does not interfere with the color transition of the indicator, or cause a false positive assay. tests showed that a combination of an indicator with a low level of catalyst was as an effective test system for total available chlorine. however, accelerating the catalytic reaction by increasing the concentration of catalyst showed that high level of catalyst, like iodide ion, interferes with the color transition of the indicator. this interference was much more pronounced at a higher chlorine level, e.g., 5 ppm or higher. it was also surprisingly found that for a total chlorine concentration of less than 1.0 ppm, and particularly less than 0.1 ppm, a high catalyst concentration does not interfere with the color transition of the indicator. this discovery allows the use of a higher catalyst concentration to accelerate this reaction, and thus makes the rapid detection of an ultralow level of total available chlorine possible. in one embodiment, the catalyst is a peroxidase, like horseradish peroxidase. the peroxidase reduces the interference of ammonium ions in the total available chlorine assay. it is important to reduce ammonium ion interference because ammonium ions react with free available chlorine to form a chloramine, and thereby convert free available chlorine to bound available chlorine. the presence of a peroxidase reverses this reaction, and frees the bound available chlorine from chloramine such that the resulting free available chlorine is available for assay by a present indicator reagent composition. the finding that a peroxidase stabilizes and enhances color formation in a total available chlorine assay is both new and unexpected. it was expected that a peroxidase, which is a protein, would interfere in the reaction between free available chlorine and the indicator. this interference is expected because free available chlorine reacts with nitrogen present in a protein to form a chloramine, which binds chlorine and makes it unavailable for reaction with the indicator. surprisingly, however, it was found that incorporating a catalytic amount of a peroxidase into a present indicator reagent composition does not interfere with the reaction between the indicator and free available chlorine and thereby reduce test strip sensitivity, but, to the contrary, increases the sensitivity of the test strips and yields an accurate quantitative assay for total available chlorine. in particular, the effect of incorporating horseradish peroxidase is illustrated below. free available chlorine reacts with variety of redox indicators, the most common of which are benzidine indicators, such as orthotolidine or 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine. an important problem associated with such indicators is that they exhibit a very narrow sensitivity range for chlorine, i.e., there is no variation of test strip color when chlorine level is 10 ppm or higher. therefore, it is impossible to visually quantify a chlorine level greater than about 10 ppm. however, by adding horseradish peroxidase to an indicator reagent composition, the test strip color varies over the range 0 ppm to about 2 ppm total available chlorine with a differentiable color transition from colorless to sky blue. in another test, it was found that peroxidase increases the rate of conversion of combined available chlorine to free available chlorine. it was found that a test strip incorporating an indicator reagent composition lacking peroxidase reacted very slowly with a test sample containing 1 ppm of chloramine. however, when peroxidase was incorporated into the composition, a test strip reacted with 1 ppm of chloramine in 45 seconds to generate a color transition identical to 1 ppm of free available chlorine. incorporating a peroxidase into an indicator reagent composition provides another advantage. in particular, when peroxidase is present, the test strip can be used to assay for peroxide in addition to total available chlorine. hydrogen peroxide is a commonly used disinfectant for hemodialysis units, but most indicator reagent compositions are insensitive to peroxide unless a catalytic peroxidase enzyme is present. accordingly, a present test strip can be used to assay for peroxide over the range of 0 to greater than about 10 ppm. this capability greatly increases versatility of the present test strips because medical workers often use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize hemodialysis units. the present test strips, therefore, can be used by medical personnel as the sole test strip to assay for residual sanitizing compounds in the rinse water of a hemo-dialysis unit, regardless of whether the sanitizer is chlorine or a peroxide. medical laboratories and clinics, therefore, do not have to stock different types of assay kits for testing low total available chlorine and peroxide. similar to testing for low, residual amounts of chlorine, the present test strips turn blue upon contact with a test sample containing residual peroxide. a single test strip, therefore, provides the convenience of a dual test system for hydrogen peroxide and total available chlorine. in another embodiment, the catalyst is iodide ion, typically in the form of an alkali metal iodide, like lithium iodide, sodium iodide, or, preferably, potassium iodide. the amount of iodide ion present in the indicator reagent composition is about 100 to about 1500 ppm, and preferably about 250 to about 1000 ppm. to achieve the full advantage of the present invention, the amount of iodide ion present in the composition is about 350 to about 800 ppm. it has been determined that one part of iodide ion can react with at least four equivalents of chloramine, thereby increasing the rate of conversion of bound available chlorine to a detectable free chlorine species. iodide ion allows an indirect assay of the bound available chlorine. in particular, the catalytic mechanism involves recycling of iodide ion and iodine. the iodide ion first is oxidized by chloramine to iodine, which in turn oxidizes an indicator, like tetramethylbenzidine (tmb), to an oxidized, colored indicator complex. as a result, iodine is reduced back to iodide ion which then repeats the oxidation-reduction cycle until all of the chloramine substrate is consumed. like any catalytic reaction, the rate of this conversion is proportional to the level of catalyst. at a potassium iodide concentration of the present invention, completion of the reaction is almost instantaneous. ##str2## in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the amount of iodide ion can be maintained at a high level, and, at the same time, not interfere with the assay for total available chlorine. if the amount of available iodide ion is too high, iodine can be formed too rapidly and precipitated before the iodine can react with the indicator. as a consequence, the intensity of color transition is reduced, and a low assay results. at the same time, the yellow/brown color of iodine causes strip color to shift to a dirty green hue, making color differentiation to correlate the color transition to total available chlorine concentration more difficult. however, release of iodide ion can be controlled by entrapping the iodide ions in a polymer which forms a relatively hard gel, which provides a slow release of iodide ion into solution. as discussed hereafter, the polymer preferably is sufficiently hydrophilic to allow wetting by the aqueous test sample, and forms a gel structure which is not readily soluble in water. therefore, a polymer also is incorporated into the indicator reagent composition. the polymer retards the release of iodide ion, and improves the stability and uniformity of the color transition of the test device. the polymer also helps incorporate the indicator reagent composition uniformly throughout the carrier matrix. suitable polymers include, but are not limited to, polyvinylpyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, gum arabic, gelatin, algin, carrageenan, casein, albumin, methyl cellulose, and similar natural and synthetic polymeric materials. preferred polymers are gelatin and cellulose-type polymers. specific examples of natural, cellulose-type polymers are hydroxypropylcellulose, hydroxyethylcellulose, hydroxybutylcellulose, and sodium carboxymethylcellulose. a useful synthetic polymer is a polyvinylpyrrolidone of average molecular weight about 40,000 and available commercially from isp corp., wayne, n.j. a polymer generally is included in the indicator reagent composition in an amount of about 0.05% to about 4%, and preferably from about 0.2% to about 3%, by total weight of the indicator reagent composition. the natural, cellulose-type polymers and gelatin are preferred over synthetic polymers, like polyvinylpyrrolidone, because the synthetic polymers have a tendency to impart a green hue to the test strip. the cellulose-type polymers impart a preferred bluish color. the polymers also serve a thickening function to help facilitate impregnation of the carrier matrix with the indicator reagent composition. the presence of a polymer in an indicator reagent composition also enhances chloramine reactivity. the effectiveness of a polymer with respect to enhancing chloramine reactivity is directly related to the hydrophobicity of the polymer. for example, gantrez es 225 (an ethyl ester of a pvm/ma copolymer), klucel (hydroxypropylcellulose), and pvp k60 (polyvinylpyrrolidone) have a decreasing effectiveness with respect to enhancing chloramine reactivity, and also have a decreasing hydrophobicity. test strips impregnated with an indicator reagent composition containing gantrez es 225 were essentially 100% reactive with chloramine, but also tended to develop background color with chlorine-free water. pvp k60 generated little background color, but is only 50% reactive with chloramine. klucel provided the best overall results when considering both chloramine reactivity and lack of background color. in particular, when using klucel, the test strip had an 80% to 90% chloramine reactivity and no background color. the above-mentioned chloramine reactivities were evaluated by comparing the color of a test strip after immersion into hypochlorite (free chlorine) solutions either containing or free of ammonium sulfate. the addition of ammonium ions to the hypochlorite solution converts hypochlorite to chloramine, which consequently is unreactive to free chlorine test strips. test strip reactivity to chloramine can be improved and restored to 100% by various approaches described herein, including a ph of about 4 to 6, the presence of a surfactant, the presence of a catalyst, and the presence of a polymer. the percent reactivity was visually estimated by comparing the intensity of test strip color with chloramine in relationship to the equivalent test strip color with free chlorine. importantly, the polymer also prevents the indicator from premature rinsing from the test pad during the assay. as discussed hereafter, the preferred method of assaying for a low total available chlorine concentration is to apply a stream of the test sample to the test strip. this method has a tendency to extract and rinse the indicator from the test strip. therefore, the indicator can be immobilized on the carrier matrix by physical encapsulation or entrapment within the polymer. entrapment within the polymer is facilitated by incorporating a hydrophobic indicator that is soluble in organic solvent in a polymer having hydrophobic properties. particularly useful polymers are gantrez es 225, gantrez es 325, or a cellulose-type polymer. gantrez es 225 and es 325 are hydrophobic polymers, and also provide a dried polymer surface having sufficient surface activity to allow coating over, or impregnation with, a second aqueous solution. a cellulose-type polymer, on the other hand, is a hydrophilic polymer, but also has sufficient hydrophobicity and solubility in organic solvents. both types of polymers entrap the indicator into the polymer matrix when the polymer and indicator are both dissolved in a single solution, and the solution is applied to the carrier matrix. particularly useful polymers are cellulose-type polymers having hydroxypropyl groups. an additional advantage of the cellulose-type polymers is that these polymers precipitate from solution at an elevated temperature, and form microparticles. these microparticles increase the surface area of the carrier matrix and, as described later, enhance test strip reactivity. in addition, if necessary or if desired, inert background dyes can be included in the reagent composition to improve the color resolution and differentiation of the color transition in the present assay for total available chlorine. suitable background dyes include, but are not limited to, ethyl orange (4-(4-diethylaminophenylazo)-benzenesulfonic acid); orange g (4-(2-hydroxy-(7,9 sodium disulfonate)-1-naphthylazo)-benzene); disperse orange 11, 13, or 25; calcomine orange; methyl orange; and orange ii (4-(2-hydroxy-1-naphthylazo) benzenesulfonic acid), or mixtures thereof. a background dye is included in an indicator reagent composition of the present invention in a concentration of 0 mm to about 2 mm, and preferably 0 mm to about 1 mm. the carrier for the ingredients of an indicator reagent composition includes water. however, because of the limited water solubility of particular ingredients included in the indicator reagent composition, organic solvents, such as acetone, methanol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, acetonitrile, ethyl acetate, and similar solvents can be included in the carrier vehicle. the selection of a suitable organic solvent or solvents, in addition to water, to include in the carrier of the indicator reagent composition is within the capability of those skilled in the art of designing diagnostic assays. the amount of organic solvent present in an indicator reagent composition generally is 0% to about 90%, and preferably about 10% to about 70%, by weight of the carrier. a carrier comprising water and an organic solvent, like methanol, ethanol, or acetone, is especially preferred because a carrier matrix impregnated with the indicator reagent composition can be dried within a few to several minutes. as previously described, an indicator reagent composition undergoes a color transition upon contact with a test sample to provide an assay for total available chlorine concentration from the intensity and degree of the color transition. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, an indicator reagent composition of the present invention provides a sufficiently resolved and differentiated color transition such that the total available chlorine in a test sample can be measured and accurately determined without the use of color-measuring instruments, such as spectrophotometers or calorimeters, over a concentration range of 0 to about 2 ppm. however, if desired, such color-measuring instruments can be used to measure the difference in color degree and intensity between the test sample and a solution having a known concentration of total available chlorine. the intensity and degree of the color transition are used to determine the total available chlorine content of the test sample by comparing or correlating the color produced by the test sample to colors produced by solutions having a known total available chlorine concentration. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the indicator reagent composition provides a sufficiently resolved and differentiated color transition such that the total available chlorine of the test sample can be measured for test samples having a total available chlorine content of 0 to about 2 ppm without the use of color-measuring instruments. an indicator reagent composition of the present invention, as described above, is used in dry phase, test pad assays for total available chlorine. the dry phase, test pad assay for total available chlorine utilizing a present indicator reagent composition is performed in accordance with methods well known in the art. in general, the assay for total available chlorine is performed by contacting the test sample with an analyte detection device that includes an indicator reagent composition. the analyte detection device can be dipped into the test sample, or the test sample can be applied to the analyte detection device dropwise. preferably, a stream of the test sample is applied to the analyte detection device. the resulting change in color of the analyte detection device reveals the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample; and, if so designed, the resulting color transition can be compared to a standardized color chart to provide a measurement of the total available chlorine concentration of the test sample. typically, the analyte detection device is a test strip impregnated with an indicator reagent composition, designed either as a single pad test strip (to assay only for a single analyte) or as a multiple pad test strip (to assay for several analytes simultaneously). for either type of test strip, the test strip includes a support strip, or handle, normally constructed from a hydrophobic plastic, and a reagent test pad, comprising a bibulous or nonbibulous carrier matrix. in general, the carrier matrix is an absorbent material that allows the test sample to move in response to capillary forces through the matrix to contact the indicator reagent composition and produce a detectable and measurable color transition. the carrier matrix can be any substance capable of incorporating the chemical reagents required to perform the assay of interest, as long as the carrier matrix is substantially inert with respect to the chemical reagents. the carrier matrix also is porous or absorbent relative to the liquid test sample. the expression "carrier matrix" refers either to bibulous or nonbibulous matrices that are insoluble in the carrier of the indicator reagent composition and other physiological fluids and that maintain their structural integrity when exposed to the carrier and other physiological fluids. suitable bibulous matrices include filter paper, sponge materials, cellulose, wood, woven and nonwoven fabrics, and the like. nonbibulous matrices include glass fiber, polymeric films, and microporous membranes. other suitable carrier matrices include hydrophilic inorganic powders, such as silica gel, alumina, diatomaceous earth and the like; argillaceous substances; cloth; hydrophilic natural polymeric materials, particularly cellulosic material, like cellulose beads, and especially fiber-containing papers such as filter paper or chromatographic paper; synthetic or modified naturally occurring polymers, such as cellulose acetate, polyvinyl chlorine ride, polyacrylamide, polyacrylates, polyurethanes, crosslinked dextran, agarose, and other such crosslinked and noncrosslinked water-insoluble hydrophilic polymers. the carrier matrix can be of different chemical compositions or a mixture of chemical compositions. the matrix also can vary in regards to smoothness and roughness combined with hardness and softness. the handle usually is formed from hydrophobic materials such as cellulose acetate, polyethylene terephthalate, polycarbonate, or polystyrene, and the carrier matrix is most advantageously constructed from filter paper or polymeric films. the carrier matrix of the test strip can be any bibulous or nonbibulous material that allows permeation by the test sample to saturate the test pad of the test strip that is impregnated with the indicator reagent composition. a preferred carrier matrix is a hydrophilic, bibulous matrix, including cellulosic materials, such as paper, and preferably filter paper. the carrier matrix also can be a hydrophilic, nonbibulous matrix, including polymeric films, such as a polyurethane or a crosslinked gelatin. such polymeric films possess all of the qualities required of a carrier matrix of the present invention, including suspending and positioning both the essential ingredients and any optional ingredients included in the indicator reagent composition, and permeability of the test sample through the carrier matrix. the sensitivity of a present test pad is related to the surface area of the carrier matrix. the greater the surface area of the carrier matrix, the higher the intensity of the color transition. this in turn allows differentiation between color transitions resulting from test samples having different low total available chlorine concentrations. cellulose fiber, in addition to its high porosity, is a preferred carrier matrix for providing a large surface area for the indicator reagent composition. microfilament synthetic cloth can also be used as the carrier matrix. when a synthetic film is used as the carrier matrix, the addition of fine particles in the coating solution provides additional surface area. the most common particulate materials are microcrystalline cellulose, diatomite, and talc. in accordance with the method of the present invention, to perform a dry phase test strip assay for total available chlorine, an acetone solution, including: (a) about 1 to about 200 mm of an indicator, such as tetramethylbenzidene; (b) about 0% to about 0.02% by weight of a surfactant, like a sulfosuccinate; (c) about 0.05% to about 4% by weight of a polymer, like a hydrophobic polymer; and (d) any other desired optional ingredients, or solvents, first is prepared. a nonbibulous matrix, such as a polyurethane film, or a bibulous matrix, such as filter paper, then is saturated or impregnated with the acetone solution by immersing or by spraying the acetone solution onto sheets or precut strips or pads of the polyurethane film or filter paper. then, after removing the acetone solvent by drying in a forced air oven at a temperature of about 40.degree. c. to about 100.degree. c. for about 2 minutes to about 5 minutes, the polyurethane film or filter paper is saturated and impregnated with an aqueous solution, including: (a) about 20 to about 600 mm of a buffer, like a citrate buffer; (b) about 150 to about 1500 ppm of a catalyst, like a peroxidase or iodide ion; (c) 0% to about 4% by weight of a polymer; and (d) any other desired optional ingredients or solvents, like background dyes, either by immersion or by spraying. after a second oven drying at about 40.degree. c. to about 100.degree. c. for approximately 2 minutes to 15 minutes, the twice-saturated or twice-impregnated polyurethane film or filter paper, if necessary, is cut to an appropriate size, such as a pad having dimensions of about 0.2 in. (inch) (0.5 cm) by about 0.5 in (1.3 cm) to about 0.5 in. (1.3 cm) by about 1 in. (2.5 cm). it should be understood that it is well within the experimental techniques of those skilled in the art of preparing test devices to determine the proper balance between size of the test pad, the strength of indicator reagent composition solutions, the amount of test sample, and the method of introducing the test sample to the test strip, such as by pipetting rather than dipping, in order to design a quantitative assay for total available chlorine utilizing the method and composition of the present invention. the dried, twice-impregnated polyurethane film or filter paper then is secured to an opaque or transparent hydrophobic plastic handle with double-sided adhesive tape. the resulting test strip then is contacted with a test sample for a sufficient time to saturate the test pad with the sample. after waiting a predetermined time, such as from about 1 second to about 120 seconds, the test strip is examined, either visually or by instrument, for a response. the color transition, if any, of the test pad reveals the concentration of total available chlorine in the test sample. in many cases, simple visual observation of the test strip provides the desired information. if more accurate information is required, a color chart bearing color spots corresponding to various known concentrations of total available chlorine can be prepared for the particular indicator reagent composition used in the test strip. the resulting color of the test strip after contact with the test sample then can be compared with the color spots on the chart to determine the concentration of total available chlorine in the test sample. if a still more accurate determination is required, a spectrophotometer or calorimeter can be used to more precisely determine the degree of the color transition. in addition, the dry phase test strip assay can be made quantitative by employing spectrophotometric or calorimetric techniques, as opposed to visual techniques, in order to more reliably and more accurately measure the degree of color transition, and, therefore, more accurately measure the concentration of total available chlorine in the test sample. in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, the following dry phase test strips were prepared to perform a dry phase assay for total available chlorine. a strip, a pad, or a sheet of a carrier matrix, like filter paper, first was immersed into an acetone solution including: ______________________________________ indicator reagent composition formulation #1 first immersion solution ingredient amount ______________________________________ acetone 40 g tmb.sup.1) 0.5 g 10% klucel.sup.2) 5 g surfactant.sup.3) 0.002 g ______________________________________ .sup.1) tetramethylbenzidine indicator; .sup.2) a 10% aqueous solution of hydroxypropylcellulose, klucel is available from aqualon co., wilmington, de; and .sup.3) aerosol ot, dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, available from cytec industries, west paterson, nj. excess solution was removed from the surface of the filter paper with a scraper bar. the once-saturated or impregnated filter paper then was dried in a forced air oven having a temperature of about 45.degree. c. to about 80.degree. c. for about 5 minutes. after drying, the once-saturated or impregnated filter paper then was immersed into an aqueous solution including: ______________________________________ second immersion solution ingredient amount ______________________________________ water 30 g citrate buffer (1m) (ph 5.1) 3 g peroxidase 30 mg 2.5% natrosol.sup.4) 1.5 g 2% benecel.sup.5) 3 g potassium iodide 37 mg ______________________________________ .sup.4) a 2.5% aqueous solution of hydroxyethylcellulose, natrosol is available from aqualon co.; and .sup.5) a 2% aqueous solution of hydroxyethylmethylcellulose, benecel is available from aqualon co. the twice-saturated or impregnated filter paper then was dried in an oven having a temperature of about 40.degree. c. to about 80.degree. c. for about 5 minutes. the dried and twice-saturated or impregnated filter paper then was backed with a double-sided adhesive, and slit into 0.2 inch (0.5 cm) wide ribbons. a ribbon of filter paper incorporating an indicator reagent composition of the present invention then is attached to a polystyrene plastic support by means of the double-sided adhesive. the plastic support, including the saturated or impregnated filter paper, then is slit into 0.2 inch (0.5 cm) wide strips. accordingly, the plastic support includes a pad having dimensions of about 0.2 inch (0.5 cm) by about 0.2 inch (0.5 cm) of saturated or impregnated filter paper to provide a test pad comprising a filter paper carrier matrix incorporating an indicator reagent composition of the present invention. in addition, it should be understood that an indicator reagent composition of the present invention demonstrates sufficient stability such that the carrier matrix can be saturated or impregnated by immersing the carrier matrix into a single aqueous solution, or a single aqueous acetone solution, including all of the essential and optional ingredients of the indicator reagent composition. however, the two-step method utilizing two immersions is preferred because certain indicator reagent composition ingredients have relatively low water solubilities, and a more stable color transition is observed. to demonstrate the new and unexpected results achieved by the method of the present invention, dry phase test strips incorporating an indicator reagent composition of the present invention (formulation #1) were used to assay standardized solutions containing available chlorine. individual test strips were dipped into a series of standardized solutions, containing from 0 ppm to 1.26 ppm available chlorine. the standardized solutions contained chloramine, and were prepared by diluting a 5.25% (by weight) sodium hypochlorite solution with deionized water, and adding four equivalents of ammonium sulfate to the dilution hypochlorite solution. the standardized solutions were assayed for total available chlorine by applying a continuous stream of a standardized solution onto the test pad for about sixty (60) seconds. the color of the test strips then was observed. timing of the strip reaction is not critical. however, for consistency, the strip color was evaluated after 10 seconds after application of the standardized solution. it should be noted that the present test strips can detect 0.1 ppm or less total available chlorine by contacting the test strip with the test sample for 60 seconds. any trace of a blue color is considered a positive test for available chlorine. the test results are set forth in table 1. table 1 ______________________________________ test strip reactivity chloramine strip readings concentration (relative color (ppm) scale) strip color.sup.6) ______________________________________ 0 0 off white 0.07 <0.1 0.10 0.1 misty blue 0.23 >0.1 0.35 <0.5 0.48 0.5 aqua blue 0.70 >0.5 0.82 <1.0 1.01 1.0 sky blue 1.26 >1.0 ______________________________________ .sup.6) test strip was colorless prior to immersion into the standardized solution. the results set forth in table 1 show that a test strip of the present invention is capable of assaying for total available chlorine over the entire range of 0 to about 2 ppm by providing a differentiable color response over this entire range. accordingly, a single test strip can be used to ensure that a source water for a dialysis unit has an available chlorine concentration below 0.1 ppm, and that the residual chlorine in rinse water from a dialysis unit, after sanitizing, is below toxic levels. in particular, table 1 shows that if the test strip shows any degree of blue color, then the rinse water contains a potentially toxic amount of total available chlorine, and, therefore, rinsing of the hemodialysis unit with deionized water should be continued. similarly, if that same test strip is blue as a result of assaying a source water, then the source water for use in a hemodialysis unit contains a potentially toxic amount of total available chlorine. the results in table 1 also show that in the low concentration range (e.g., about 2 ppm or less) color differentiation between different total available chlorine concentrations is relatively easy to distinguish. to demonstrate the effect of a surfactant, solutions containing different surfactants were individually impregnated onto filter paper, such as schleicher & schuell 903. the solutions contained the following ingredients, wherein the identity of the surfactant was varied: ______________________________________ acetone 5 g tetramethylbenzidene 0.5 g surfactant 0.005 g. ______________________________________ filter paper was dipped in a solution, then dried at 65.degree. c. for 5 minutes. the dried filter papers were made into strips by cutting into 0.2 inch squares, which were adhered to a plastic handle using double-side adhesive tape. the resulting test strips were dipped into solutions having different free available chlorine concentrations. the color of each test strip was visually observed and recorded. table 2 summarizes the test results using different surfactants. table 2 ______________________________________ effect of surfactant on assay range using tetramethylbenzidine dilution factor.sup.7) 1:10 1:50 1:500 1:5000 1:10,000 ______________________________________ nonionic surfactants.sup.8) brij 35 y.sup.12) y y/gr bl lt/blue tween 20 y y y/gr bl lt/blue triton x-100 y y y/gr bl lt/blue anionic surfactants.sup.9) dbs br bk/bl bl bl lt/blue sds br bk/bl bl bl lt/blue doss br gr/bl bl bl lt/blue cholate br br bl bl lt/blue benzoic acid.sup.10) br bk/bl bl bl lt/blue lauric acid br bk/bl bl bl lt/blue caprylic acid br bk/bl bl bl lt/blue cationic surfactants.sup.11) ctab y y gr gr gr cpc y y y bl lt/blue zwitterionic surfactants.sup.11) z-08 y y gr bl lt/blue chaps y y gr gr lt/blue control none y y gr gr lt/blue ______________________________________ .sup.7) diluting 1 volume part of aqueous 5.25% (by weight) sodium hypochlorite solution with indicated parts of water; .sup.8) brij 35-polyethylene glycol dodecyl ether (23 moles ethylene oxide), tween 20-polyethylene glycol sorbitan monolaurate (20 moles ethylene oxide), and triton x100--polyethylene glycol tertoctyl phenyl ether (9 moles ethylene oxide); .sup.9) dbs-dodecylbenzene sulfonate, sds-sodium dodecylsulfate, doss-dioctyl sulfosuccininate, and cholate-sodium salt of cholic acid; .sup.10) benzoic acid is not a surfactant, but is capable of stabilizing color formation; .sup.11) ctab-cetyltrimethylammonium chloride, cpc-cetylpyridinum chloride, z08--zwittergent 308, and chaps-3, [(3cholamidopropyl)-dimethylammonio1-propane sulfonate; and .sup.12) color designations: y-yellow; br-brown; bk-black; dk-dark; gr-green; bl-blue; y/gr-yellowish green; bk/bl-black blue, dk/bl-dark blue, lt/bl-light blue. as illustrated in table 2, anionic surfactants have an excellent ability to prevent oxidized tetramethylbenzidine, that is blue in color, from being further oxidized and turning brown in color. the class of anionic surfactant present in an indicator reagent composition is not important, e.g, sulfate, sulfonate, carboxylate, phosphate, and similar hydrophilic moieties are useful. however, the hydrophobic moiety of the anionic surfactant can have an effect. the tests show that a linear hydrophobic moiety, alone or with phenyl groups, is slightly more effective in stabilizing the color of the indicator than a bulkier hydrophobic moiety, such as cholate or dioctyl sulfosuccinate. it is theorized that both the hydrophilic group, and the hydrophobic moiety of the surfactant interact with the indicator, thereby protecting the indicator from further oxidation, and further color change. nonionic surfactants also were effective in stabilizing the color transition, but cationic and zwitterionic surfactants failed to effectively prevent further oxidation of an oxidized indicator. as previously stated, the indicator reagent composition is buffered in a ph range of about 4 to about 6. it also has been found that the identity of the buffer has an effect with respect to stabilizing the color transition and preventing the colored, oxidized form of the indicator from being further oxidized and turning the test strip brown. in particular, a citrate buffer and a phosphate buffer were equally effective with respect to stabilizing the color transition of a tmb indicator in the presence of free available chlorine, although the color of a test strip containing a citrate buffer has a brighter and cleaner blue color than a test strip containing a phosphate buffer. the following table 3 illustrates the effect of different buffers on color stability of an indicator reagent composition using tmb as the indicator. table 3 ______________________________________ effect of buffer on color stability dilution factor.sup.6) 1:10 1:50 1:500 1:5000 1:10,000 ______________________________________ buffer (ph) citrate (5.1) br.sup.12) bk/bl bl bl lt/bl succinate br bk/bl bl bl lt/bl (5.2) 2-ketoglut- br br bl bl lt/bl arate (5.6) lactate (5.1) br dk/bl bl bl lt/bl phosphate br bk/bl bl bl lt/bl (5.3) borate (5.4) y y gr lt/bl lt/bl ______________________________________ in addition, the ability of a peroxidase to stabilize the color transition of a test strip and catalyze the assay for total available chlorine was demonstrated by adding 50 milligrams of horseradish peroxidase to the second immersion solution of formulation #1, preparing test strips, and using the test strips to assay for total available chlorine of solutions containing chloramine. the tests showed that peroxidase increased the reaction rate to convert bound chlorine to free chlorine, and the test strip underwent a complete color transition faster than a test strip lacking peroxidase. from the visual assays and the data presented in tables 1-3, it has been demonstrated that a particularly useful indicator is tetramethylbenzidine. an indicator reagent composition of the present invention that includes tetramethylbenzidine, in addition to a surfactant and a buffer to buffer the composition to a ph of about 4 to about 6, exhibits a sufficiently dramatic color transition, from light blue to brown, to provide a sensitive and accurate assay for total available chlorine in a test sample. the color transition also is sufficiently resolvable and differentiable, either visually or by instrument, such that an unknown concentration of total available chlorine in a test sample can be determined. furthermore, it has been found that the indicator is stabilized by interaction with a surfactant, and that a catalyst can convert bound available chlorine to free available chlorine, such that the color transition endpoint is reached within about 1 second to about 2 minutes. in accordance with an important feature of the present invention, the continuing and substantial problems in dry phase test strips for assaying a low concentration of total available chlorine, including the instability of the indicator, are essentially eliminated by the present invention. an indicator reagent composition of the present invention provides a differentiable response to total available chlorine over the concentration range of 0 to about 2 ppm of the test sample. therefore, accurate and reliable assays for total available chlorine in test samples can be performed by utilizing an indicator reagent composition and device of the present invention. obviously, many modifications and variations of the invention as hereinbefore set forth can be made without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, and, therefore, only such limitations should be imposed as are indicated by the appended claims.
119-222-030-424-39X	US	[ "US" ]	G06F1/26	2010-09-28T00:00:00	2010	[ "G06" ]	home energy manager for providing energy projections	a home energy management system for providing energy usage and cost projections to a user related to management of a home network is provided. the system comprises a central controller coupled to at least one energy consuming device, the central controller being configured to receive energy consumption data from the at least one energy consuming device, and a user interface comprising a display coupled to the central controller to receive user input data and provide the user with information. the central controller is further configured to use the energy consumption data and user input data to provide the user with one or more of future energy consumption projections, energy saving suggestions, and cost saving suggestion.	1 . a home energy management system for providing energy usage and cost projections to a user related to management of a home network, said system comprising: a central controller coupled to at least one energy consuming device, said central controller being configured to receive energy consumption data from said at least one energy consuming device; and a user interface comprising a display coupled to the central controller to receive user input data and provide said user with information, wherein said central controller is further configured to use the energy consumption data and user input data to provide said user with one or more of future energy consumption projections, energy saving suggestions, and cost saving suggestions. 2 . the home energy management system according to claim 1 , wherein said controller is further configured to receive utility data indicative of the current state of an associated utility and use said utility data along with said energy consumption data and said user input data to provide said future energy consumption projections, energy savings suggestions and cost saving suggestions. 3 . the home energy management system according to claim 2 , wherein based upon said controller received data, the controller is configured to develop an interactive diagram of said home network and display said diagram to a user. 4 . the home energy management system according to claim 3 , wherein said interactive diagram includes said at least one energy consuming device in said network. 5 - 7 . (canceled) 8 . the home energy management system according to claim 1 , wherein said central controller is a home energy manager. 9 . (canceled) 10 . the home energy management system according to claim 1 , wherein said at least one energy consuming device comprises an hvac, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a dryer and any other device or power switch or energy consuming device. 11 . the home energy management system according to claim 1 , wherein said controller includes an analysis program configured to calculate energy loads for a particular home based on at least one of home specifications provided by a user and assumed factors of the home. 12 . (canceled) 13 . a method for providing energy usage and cost projections to a user related to the management of a home network comprising a central controller communicatively coupled to one or more energy consuming devices, a user interface display and an associated utility, said method comprising: collecting energy consumption data from said at least one energy consuming device and utility data indicative the current state of said associated utility; constructing an interactive diagram of the home network, wherein said diagram includes selectable icons corresponding to each energy consuming device of said home network, wherein each icon may be customized using a selection of parameters; and providing said user with an energy analysis of each selected icon. 14 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein said energy analysis includes projecting future energy cost and consumption based at least in part on said received data and said selected energy consuming device parameters. 15 . the method according to claim 13 , further including presenting said energy projections to a user on a user interface display. 16 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein said energy cost and consumption projections include one or more of future energy consumption, future energy cost, energy saving suggestions, and cost saving suggestions. 17 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein said parameters include time of use, length of use, desired power level, desired temperature, and any additional parameters that may affect energy consumption. 18 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein the selecting various combinations of energy consuming device parameters provides a visual comparison of the effect each parameter has on energy usage cost. 19 . the method according to claim 13 , further including providing a comprehensive energy analysis for the entire home network. 20 . the method according to claim 13 , further including creating an internet connection between said controller and a database containing energy consuming devices. 21 . the method according to claim 20 , further including: comparing the projected future energy usage cost of at least one energy consuming device with the cost of and projected future usage cost of a more efficient energy consuming devices located on said database; and displaying the comparison to the user. 22 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein a user may input specifications for the at least one energy consuming device to increase accuracy of the energy analysis, said specifications including one or more of serial number, model number, and year. 23 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein the controller is configured to automatically detect the specifications for the at least one energy consuming device. 24 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein said at least one energy consuming device comprises an hvac, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a dryer and any other device or power switch or energy consuming device configured to operate at power levels detected by an associated power/energy measuring device. 25 . a method for enabling a user to visualize the impact of energy usage decisions in a home network comprising a central controller communicatively coupled to one or more energy consuming devices, a user interface display and an associated utility, said method comprising: collecting and analyzing energy consumption data, wherein said data includes one or more of device parameters, device usage, energy state of a current utility, and energy cost data; using said data to provide future energy use and cost projections and presenting said projections to a user via said user interface; and providing suggestions for saving energy and reducing cost.	cross reference to related applications the present application is a continuation-in-part of u.s. application ser. no. 12/892,130 (ge 237986), filed sep. 28, 2010, which is expressly incorporated herein by reference, in its entirety. background the following disclosure relates to energy management, and more particularly to energy management of household consumer appliances, as well as other energy consuming devices and/or home energy systems found in the home. the present disclosure finds particular application to a home energy management system configured to provide predictive guidance to consumers through a communicating consumer control device, such as a home energy manager (hem). many utilities are currently experiencing a shortage of electric generating capacity due to increasing consumer demand for electricity. currently utilities charge a flat rate, but with increasing cost of fuel prices and high energy usage at certain parts of the day, utilities have to buy more energy to supply customers during peak demand, which causes prices to rise during these times. if peak demand can be lowered, then a potential huge cost savings can be achieved and the peak load that the utility has to accommodate is lessened. in order to reduce high peak power demand, many utilities have instituted time of use (tou) metering and rates which include higher rates for energy usage during on-peak times and lower rates for energy usage during off-peak times. as a result, consumers are provided with an incentive to use electricity at off-peak times rather than on-peak times and to reduce overall energy consumption of devices at all times. to take advantage of the lower cost of electricity during off-peak times, systems have been provided that can automatically operate power consuming devices during off-peak hours in order to reduce consumer's electric bills and also to reduce the load on generating plants during on-peak hours. active and real time communication of energy costs of devices to the consumer enables informed choices of operating the power consuming functions of the devices. although these systems are capable of being run automatically according to demand period, a user may choose to override the system and run a device normally, or delay the operation of the system for a particular period of time. accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a consumer with information that would help the consumer make an informed decision about the cost impact such an override will incur, to provide an incentive for discretional power use to be moved into the off-peak timeframe and so consumers can balance their level of comfort with a desired savings amount. it is further desirable to provide a consumer with additional long-term saving suggestions, such as when to upgrade a device to a more energy efficient model. summary the present disclosure enables energy consumers to maintain comfort, reduce energy usage and costs by providing methods, systems and devices that will guide the user to make educated, logical choices regarding energy tradeoffs based on their actual usage patterns. not only will these choices in addition to impacting a user's overall energy usage, the energy tradeoff choices will also impact the load on the electrical grid will also be impacted. in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, a home energy management system for providing energy usage and cost projections to a user related to management of a home network is provided. the system comprises a central controller coupled to at least one energy consuming device. the central controller is configured to receive energy consumption data from the at least one energy consuming device. the system further includes a user interface comprising a display coupled to the central controller to receive user input data and provide the user with information. the central controller is further configured to use the energy consumption data and user input data to provide the user with one or more of future energy consumption projections, energy saving suggestions, and cost saving suggestions. in accordance with another aspect of the present disclosure, a method is disclosed for providing energy usage and cost projections to a user related to the management of a home network via a user interface display coupled to a central controller. the method includes communicatively coupling the central controller to one or more energy consuming devices and associated utility, receiving one or more of energy consumption data from the at least one energy consuming device and utility data indicative of the current state of the associated utility, constructing an interactive diagram of the home network that includes selectable icons corresponding to each energy consuming device of the home network, and providing the user with an energy analysis of each selected icon. each icon may be customized using a selection of parameters. in accordance with yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a method is disclosed for establishing an energy management system having a home energy manager (hem), at least one energy consuming device in communication with the hem, and a user interface communicatively coupled to the hem for providing user information and receiving user commands thereat. the method comprises the steps of collecting and analyzing energy consumption and constraint data that includes one or more of device parameters, device usage, energy state of a current utility, and energy cost data, extrapolating the data to provide future energy use and cost projections, and presenting the projections to a user via the user interface, and providing the user suggestions and tips for implementing energy and cost saving solutions. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic illustration of an exemplary energy management system with one or more devices in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure; fig. 2 is an illustrative depiction of an exemplary home network diagram including one or more devices in accordance with another aspect of the present disclosure; fig. 3 is another illustrative depiction of an exemplary home network diagram including a pop-up screen in accordance with another aspect of the present disclosure; and fig. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary methodology for a home energy manager in accordance with yet another aspect of the present disclosure. detailed description a home energy management system is provided with a home energy manager (hem) that can handle the energy management between utilities and a home network of power consuming devices. the hem is an electronic system having a central controller that provides a homeowner the means to monitor and manage their energy consumption through a combination of behavior modification and programmed control logic. the central controller provides real time feedback on electricity, water, and natural gas consumption, and provides data on renewable energy generation occurring at the home, such as solar photovoltaic generation, wind generation, or any other type of renewable generation. the central controller can also receive and process a signal indicative of one or more energy parameters or operating states of an associated utility, including at least a peak demand state or period and an off-peak demand state or period. the hem system stores consumption data and communicates this data to homeowners. according to a first embodiment, the central controller operates as a data server for providing data through an application programming interface (api) in a client application, such as, for example, “google powermeter”, which accesses data using a client application to acquire data from a web server. the api can then be used to present this data to the homeowner. the api generates graphs of energy usage, generation and/or storage on the client device, such as a personal computer, smart phone, or other remote device capable of displaying such graphs, that is in communication with the central controller. in another embodiment, data pertaining to the consumer's energy consumption, generated energy, and/or storage is displayed on a user display, such as an lcd touch screen display, to receive and present data through a web browser on the homeowner's networked pc. for example, energy data may be displayed on the device's user display and through a web browser on the homeowner's networked pc, mobile phone, or other device in communication with the central controller. fig. 1 schematically illustrates an exemplary home management system 100 for one or more energy consuming devices, such as devices 102 , 104 , 106 as is presently known. each of the devices 102 , 104 , 106 can comprise one or more power consuming features/functions. for example, device 104 can be a refrigerator, an hvac system, and/or any energy consuming device capable of having power consumption measured thereat. such devices typically each have an internal controller which controls each of the device's power consuming features/functions. the controller 110 is operatively connected to each of the internal controllers. alternatively, a dsm module may be hard wired to communicate with one or more of the internal controllers and receive an rf signal directly from the central controller. when operating as a hem, the central controller 110 may transmit signals received from the utility (via smart meter or other means) along to devices, such as appliances 102 , 104 , and 106 connected to a home area network (han). the central controller 110 may determine which devices shed load by going into an energy savings mode or other power deferred state, or the central controller may communicate the occurrence of a peak demand condition or state to dsm modules which determine features/functions of its associated device are altered to shed load, or the signal from the central controller may be communicated to the internal controllers of the devices in the network. the controller 110 may include a user interface 120 having a display 122 . the display may include an lcd touch screen for enabling use interaction and input regarding what information is displayed, or the user interface 120 can include separate control buttons for making various operational selections. the controller 110 is configured to gather information and data related to current usage patterns and as well as current power costs, and generate historical usage charts therefrom. this information can be used to determine current energy usage and cost associated with using each device/appliance in at least one of the energy savings mode and normal mode. this real-time information (i.e., current usage patterns, current power cost and current energy usage/cost) can be presented to the user via the display. the devices 102 , 104 , and 106 may additionally transmit instantaneous energy/power consumption information to the central controller 110 . the controller 110 comprises a memory 130 having at least table 132 of fig. 1 that collects energy consumption, generation and/or storage data for a home or other network (e.g., warehouse, business, etc.). the table comprises variables associated with the heating and cooling conditions of the home, for example. a table may be generated for each device and any given operating mode that includes historical home data that is currently updated and future projected data, which may be used in a client application of a client device, such as a computer or mobile phone, for presenting graphs or other data to the user. in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, a home energy management system's central controller, operating as a hem, extrapolates the information provided by the power consuming devices of the home network and or the utilities, or energy providers alike, for providing energy projections and energy saving suggestions to a homeowner. by extrapolating the energy data, the central controller can provide calculated projections related to potential cost savings suggestions and the implementation of green options, such as peak energy consumption reduction, carbon savings, and the like. the hem systems is configured to utilize the display of the user interface to provide active, real-time feedback to the user regarding the implications of operating each device 102 , 104 , 106 under a variety of circumstances, such as time of day and type of usage. one such implication is the cost to the user of using a particular device in a particular manner. energy costs are generally based on the current operating and usage patterns and energy consumption costs, such as the cost per kilowatt hour charged by the corresponding utility or energy provider. the central controller can review the energy usage of an entire home network relative to each device controlled by the hem system and determine the impact of each decision made regarding response choices within the home network before the actual decision is executed. the type of information to be provided to the user may include the impact that a particular decision will have on the electric bill, the peak demand impact, the carbon footprint impact, or any other metric of the like. as described above, the central controller is configured to receive information indicative of the current energy state of a utility or associated energy provider. when the controller receives input that a peak demand period is approaching, this information can be presented to a user on the user interface display, along with a notification of any home network devices in use and scheduled to enter energy saving mode for the duration of the peak period. based on this knowledge, a user can decide to allow one or more device(s) to enter energy saving mode, override the decision to enter energy saving mode, delay the start of the device, or completely disable the device. the controller could present “all possible options” available to the user in one page either graphically or tabular such that the user could make the best choice considering all possible options. the user may select each option for each device in question and the controller can calculate various cost projections based on the responses and display such cost projections to the user. the selection of each option will impact cost displayed and thus the user can visualize the just how each decision will energy usage and cost. the central controller of the hem system is further configured to track the energy consumption of a particular home network device for a given cycle and record any changes in this consumption during a peak demand period. for instance, a refrigerator provides feedback to the central controller indicating that during a peak demand period, the refrigerator consumed x amount of power, compared to a period of time immediately prior to, or immediately after, the peak event, in which the refrigerator consumed y. the controller can then include this information in a graph or database that depicts what the refrigerator, or other home network device, typically consumes in one cycle, over the last ten cycles, the last twenty cycles, etc. a cycle may be defined as the elapsed time between a start of an appliance and the stop of the same appliance. likewise, it could be defined as a specific elapsed time, such as a 24 hour period. this graph or database may be displayed to a homeowner on the display screen of the user interface. based at least upon the information collected and stored in the central controller, an interactive map/diagram is developed that simulates the layout of a user's home network, including each home network device and display this interactive diagram to the user, as best illustrated in fig. 2 . according to this illustrative embodiment, the diagram 200 includes selectable icons representing each of a home network's energy consuming devices, such as an air conditioning unit 201 , a refrigerator 203 , a water heater 205 , a washer/dryer 207 , a stove 209 , lights 211 , a microwave 213 , a computer 215 , a pool with a pool pump 217 , a television 219 , a ceiling fan 221 , and a dishwasher 223 . the diagram 200 is preferably interactive, wherein a user can manipulate device and usage variables specific to each device to present different situations and outcomes. each device icon depicted in the diagram may be individually selected and manipulated to create a visualization of how much it will cost to run the selected device for a particular period at a particular time of day. the central controller is in communication with each device by way of a rf connection. additionally, the communications module attached to each device incorporates an address which is associated with that device, thereby allowing the central controller to recognize each device specifically. with reference to fig. 3 , selecting a device icon, such as the dishwasher 223 , triggers a pop-up screen 300 requesting that a user specify usage parameters, such as start time, number of loads, type of load cycle, etc. upon entering the information, the usage cost for each scenario is calculated and displayed to the user to illustrate the various effects each decision a user makes. the user can return to the main diagram screen 200 at any time and adjust any or all of the parameters and compare the effects various decisions have on cost and energy usage. the user may choose to switch to another device and/or switch to another time of day/night. the cost calculated as a result of the selected parameters can be added to calculated costs of other devices to create a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly household prediction. a timeline 250 may be continuously provided on the screen, indicating times of peak, mid-peak, non-peak and any other desired peak demand periods to allow users to visualize the changes on costs based on the designated utility state. with further reference to fig. 3 , and in accordance with one example, a user consults the diagram 200 intending to run a laundry wash cycle at 6 pm. the timeline 250 of the diagram 200 indicates to the user that the utility is currently experiencing a peak demand period, which is scheduled to terminate at 10 pm. the user can select the icon for each of the washer and dryer separately on the diagram, enter usage parameters, and compare the cost of running the washer and dryer at 6 pm and at 10 pm. the diagram will illustrate to the user that delaying the wash cycle until after 10 pm would likely result in a savings of x amount of money. since delaying a wash cycle necessarily delays a drying cycle, which may result in a savings of y amount of money, the application will calculate a total saving of x+y. each parameter entered for a specific wash/dry usage, such as the number of loads, wash and/or dry cycle setting, the desired water temperature, etc., will affect the outcome of the cost. preferably, the user also inputs the water heating means, such as gas, electric, or hybrid electric. this knowledge will facilitate more accurate cost projections based on the amount of hot water consumed during a wash cycle. combining this knowledge with knowledge of the cycle parameters used, i.e., hot water wash or cold water, will enable more accurate projections. the hem may then make suggestions to the user on how to further lower the calculated costs, by adjusting usage parameters such as time, water temperature, etc. the same methodology may be applied to each device in the home network, such as an oven, refrigerator, hvac, etc. in terms of an oven, depending on the time of day/night, type of cooking to be done, length of time the oven will be on, desired temperature, oven setting, etc., the central controller can calculate the cost of cooking one or more particular items. using this cost, a user can determine if for example, it would be more cost effective to cook as planned, alter cooking plans such as utilizing a microwave oven to reheat or heat pre-cooked foods, or purchase pre-cooked “ready to eat” food at a grocery store or restaurant. not only is the controller equipped to acquire the cost of pre-cooked food items for comparative purposes, but the user may be educated as to the specific cost of cooking the food. the user can then factor this information into the decision of buying a pre-cooked meal versus cooking at home. additionally, the controller could present the cost of “warming” a pre-cooked frozen meal in the microwave, assuming that the user inputs the cooking time required for the specific meal. in another aspect of the present disclosure, the controller 110 connects via either ethernet or wifi to the user's router for accessing the internet 140 of fig. 1 . based on the specifications of each device in the user's home network stored in the controller, a user may be presented with suggestions regarding upgrading or improving one or more devices in the home network, such as suggestions pertaining to more energy efficient devices. for instance, a user may input available specifications for any or all of the devices included in the home network. the specifications may include information such as the model number, year, etc., that is easily obtained from device literature, product labels and the like. based on the inputted specifications, the controller can identify one or more upgraded energy efficient devices that could potentially save the user money. based on the patterns of past usage for a particular device, a projection of a user's cost of using the device can be estimated over a particular time period, such as a week, month, year, and this projected cost can be compared to the cost of purchasing and running an updated device in the same manner over the same period of time. this comparison may provide “payback information” to demonstrate that replacing the device is more cost effective to a user, especially over some specified payback period. a similar analysis may be implemented for analyzing a user's hvac energy usage as defined in u.s. application ser. no. 12/837,741, fully incorporated herein by reference. this analysis may then be used for comparing to other homes via a network, such as a social network the central controller can track and analyze the amount of power the hvac consumes for a given day, month, year, etc. for instance, during a peak demand period the temperature set point in a home may be raised from 74° f. to 78° f., causing the air conditioner to shut off. the central controller can track the time it takes for the house to increase in temperature 4° f. since the controller also knows the outdoor temperature, the system can build a family of cool-down curves with specific indoor setpoints and outdoor temperature, as further defined in detail in u.s. application ser. no. 12/837,741. once the peak demand event is over, and the temperature set point is returned to 74° f., the central controller can track the time it takes the air conditioner to bring the temperature back down and may build an analogous family of curves for the cool-down period. inferences regarding the health of the hvac system and the thermal efficiency of the house structure can be devised and presented to the homeowner by the system. additionally, the user may enter as many parameters of the hvac as available, such as model number, year, serial number, average temperature when in use, cost to run over a particular period, such as the past month, year, etc. this information may further be used to assess the efficiency of and cost to operate the hvac system and these parameters may be compared with that of an upgraded, more energy efficient hvac. moreover, better tradeoff analyses will result if the user is able to input thorough, specific product specifications such as eer, seer, capacity, etc. for example of the current hvac system. the purpose of providing such information is to make the application's estimates more educated and accurate; however, some useful information can be presented to the homeowner from the ramp-up and cool-down data as described earlier. preferably, for implementing the aforementioned upgrade suggestions and comparisons, the controller is configured to locate available device upgrades automatically by populating the device specifications and accessing a general electric (ge) or an affiliated website or database including a catalog of comparable devices. if, however, the selected device is a product that is not manufactured and/or sold by ge, such as central air conditioner, for example, the controller can access other manufacture models and the energy efficiency rating (eer) of those products from various sites online. in the case of non-ge devices, a user may have to provide more device information to obtain more accurate comparisons and suggestions. likewise, the controller may be able to link to a general electric website to gleen the specific performance data for their current hvac system for use in the comparison with newer equipment. the central controller is further configured to provide suggestions to a homeowner for improving the overall efficiency of the homeowner's home for saving on heating, cooling, and other energy costs. u.s. application ser. no. 12/837,741, fully incorporated by reference herein, provides a method for recording the thermal characteristics and time response constraints of an individual home to suggest behaviors that can be used with tou or dr programs to reduce the total energy, peak load, and costs to residential energy consumers. a controller gathers data of a particular home and builds a home profile based upon these specific conditions. the presently disclosed hem system utilizes this information that is collected and stored in the controller to further assess a home's efficiency status. the hem system is configured to consider pertinent variables such as the efficiency of the insulation, the windows, etc., and can provide tips and suggestions for implementing improvements that will improve efficiency. a user may be requested to input home specifications, such as size, materials used, year built, insulation type and thickness in walls and ceilings, window configurations, home orientation etc., to provide an accurate view of the home. the more inputs a user provides the more accurate analysis and suggestions for improvement will be. the controller can incorporate an analysis program that calculates the heating and cooling loads for the specific house based on these inputs and/or assumed factors based on the age of the home, location, and common building practices for that era in this locale. alternatively, if a user prefers not to input data manually, the controller may gather as much information as possible from the actual utility meter, since, as mentioned above, the controller is tied to the meter. according to another aspect, the hem system is configured to analyze and assess a home network's lighting system. a user may input the number of lighting units found in each room, the type of lights, the wattage of each light, when the lights are on, etc., and the controller can calculate how much of an energy load this adds to the system when the lights are in use. additionally, the subject application can indicate how much a user will save if the current lights were replaced by more energy efficient lights. ashrae has very effective and detailed transfer functions that will predict the impact of lighting on cooling loads as well as the direct power consumption of lighting devices. these algorithms can be incorporated into the hem system to facilitate the inclusion of lighting tradeoffs into the cooling costs of a building. fig. 4 illustrates an exemplary method 400 for implementing the hem system methodology provided herein. while the method 400 is illustrated and described below as a series of acts or events, it will be appreciated that the illustrated ordering of such acts or events are not to be interpreted in a limiting sense. for example, some acts may occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other acts or events apart from those illustrated and/or described herein. in addition, not all illustrated acts may be required to implement one or more aspects or embodiments of the description herein. further, one or more of the acts depicted herein may be carried out in one or more separate acts and/or phases. the method 400 begins at start. at 402 ( a ) energy consumption data signals are sent from at least one energy consuming device in a home network to a central controller of a home energy management system (hem). the energy consuming devices comprise, for example, an hvac, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a dryer and any other power consuming device configured to operate at power levels detected by a power/energy measuring device, such as pool pumps, thermostats, and/or smart switches. at 404 the controller is utilized to extrapolate the energy consumption data and project future energy consumption and costs. at 408 , the user is provided with energy costs saving suggestions based on the projected future energy consumption and costs calculated in 404 . additionally, at 402 ( b ), the controller receives signals from an associated utility indicative of the utility's energy state, such as a peak demand period, a non-peak demand period, and a mid-peak demand period. for signals indicative of a peak demand period, at 406 , a user is presented with the option to enter energy saving mode, delay device activation, or override energy saving mode. at 410 , the user is presented with cost implications for each scenario on a display. many utilities use repetitive or recurring price tiers that repeat on a daily basis. additionally, the daily tiers are adjusted according to season, such that a utility may have a summer period of tiers, a winter period of tiers, etc. in these cases, the user could be presented the cost implications of various decisions hours or days before an event is to occur. this would allow for more thought time to process the ramifications before making a choice or decision. furthermore, at 412 , the hem develops an interactive diagram of the home network including each home network device and an energy state timeline. at 414 , the hem calculates and displays cost projections based on user-manipulated user variables, such as length of use, time of use, type of use, etc. at 416 , the user is presented with suggestions as to methods of lowering the projected costs. the invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments. obviously, modifications and alterations will occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding detailed description. it is intended that the invention be construed as including all such modifications and alterations.
121-337-911-307-873	JP	[ "JP", "EP", "DE", "US" ]	C30B25/02,C30B25/14,C30B25/16,C30B29/06,H01L21/205	1986-09-08T00:00:00	1986	[ "C30", "H01" ]	method for growing elemental semiconductor single crystal thin film	purpose:to enable the growth of an elemental semiconductor single crystal thin film with an accuracy of the order of molecular layer, by introducing a gas containing the constituent element of the objective elemental semiconductor on to a substrate in a growth chamber, exhausting the gas and repeating the above steps. constitution:a gate valve 2 is opened and a growth chamber 1 is evacuated with an ultra-high vacuum pump 3 until the pressure in the chamber is decreased to 10<-4>-10-2 pa. a substrate 8 is heated with a heater 5 or an infrared lamp 6 to effect the thermal cleaning of the substrate. after raising the temperature of the substrate 8 a little, the valve 12 is opened to introduce a gas containing the constituent element of the elemental semiconductor into the growth chamber 1 for 1-60sec, the valve 12 is closed and the gas in the growth chamber 1 is exhausted for 1-120sec to effect the growth of a single molecular layer of an elemental semiconductor single crystal on the substrate 8. the operations are repeated under the same conditions to deposit the monomolecular layers on the substrate.	1. a method for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor, said method comprising repeating the successive operations of feeding a single kind of gas containing said element semiconductor as a component element onto a substrate heated in a growth chamber for a given period of time and then exhausting said gas in the growth chamber for a given period of time under controlled operating conditions and thereby growing said single crystal thin film of said element semiconductor in a desired thickness with a precision of monomolecular layer. 2. a method as claimed in claim 1 wherein repetition of said successive operations is carried out under different operating conditions. 3. a method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said operating conditions are controlled with respect to the pressure inside said growth chamber, the heating temperature of said substrate and the flow rate of said gas. 4. a method as claimed in claim 2 wherein said operating conditions are controlled with respect to the pressure inside said growth chamber, the heating temperature of said substrate and the flow rate of said gas. 5. a method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said gas is any one of sih₂cl₂, sihcl₃, sicl₄, sih₄ and si₂h₆. 6. a method for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor, said method comprising continuously feeding a single kind of gas containing said element semiconductor as a component element onto a substrate heated in a growth chamber for a given period of time, and thereby growing said single crystal thin film of said element semiconductor in a desired thickness. 7. a method as claimed in claim 6 wherein said operating conditions are controlled with respect to the pressure inside said growth chamber, the heating temperature of said substrate and the flow rate of said gas. 8. a method as claimed in claim 6 wherein said gas is any one of sih₂cl₂, sihcl₃, sicl₄, sih₄ and si₂h₆.	background of the invention 1. field of the invention the present invention relates to a method for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor and more specifically to a method suitable for growing a high-quality single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor with a precision of monomolecular layer. 2. description of prior art as epitaxy techniques for the formation of an epitaxially grown single crystal layer of an element semiconductor consisting solely of one element such as silicon, there have been heretofore known, for example, chemical vapor deposition hereinafter referred to as "cvd"), molecular beam epitaxy (hereinafter referred to as "mbe"), etc. further, recently, one of the inventors (junichi nishizawa) proposed a molecular layer epitaxy method (hereinafter abbreviated as ʺmleʺ) which made possible the formation of a grown single crystal layer with a precision of monomolecular layer by alternately introducing different kinds of gases. (japanese patent application no. 59-153978 which has been laid open to public inspection as laid-open no. 61-34928.) however, the above-mentioned known methods have not been completely satisfactory because of the disadvantages set forth below. for example, in cvd, a source gas (e.g., sih₄) is introduced simultaneously with a carrier gas (e.g., hydrogen) into a reaction chamber and then single crystals are grown by pyrolysis. in a such manner, contamination by impurities is apt to cause due to the introduction of the carrier gas, thereby causing not only deterioration of the quality of a grown layer, but also other problems, for example, difficulties in controlling with a precision of monomolecular layer. on the other hand, in the case of the mbe in which crystal growth is carried out under ultrahigh vacuum, it is difficult to maintain the rate of crystal growth constant over a long time. further, the mbe is still inferior in the quality of the resulting crystals as compared to the cvd set forth above. the mle has been developed with the object of overcoming the disadvantages of these former methods, but this method is disadvantageous in that a gas feeding system is complicated, since different gases are repeatedly alternately fed. therefore, improvement has been awaited. summary of the invention the present invention has been developed with a view of eliminating the disadvantages associated with the above prior art. more specifically, the present invention is directed to a further improvement in the above mle. it is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a novel method for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor with a precision of monomolecular layer on a substrate by introducing only one kind of gas. as described above, in the mel, different kinds of gases are alternately introduced onto a substrate so that single crystals of an element semiconductor are grown with a precision of the monomolecular layer. in contrast to such a prior art method, the present inventors discovered a method for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor wherein the successive operations of feeding a single kind of gas containing the element semiconductor as a component element onto a substrate heated in a growth chamber over a given period of time and exhausting the gas in the growth chamber for a given period of time are repeated under controlled operating conditions and thereby the single crystal thin film of the element semiconductor is grown to a desired thickness with a precision of monomolecular layer. in another feature of the present invention, a single kind of gas containing an element semiconductor as a component element is continuously fed onto a substrate heated in a growth chamber under controlled operating conditions over a given period of time, thereby growing a single crystal thin film of the element semiconductor in a desired thickness. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the construction of the crystal growing apparatus used for carrying out the present invention. fig. 2 is a graph showing the substrate temperature dependence of the film thickness grown per cycle of gas feeding and exhausting. fig. 3 is a graph showing the dependence of the film thickness grown per cycle of gas feeding and exhausting upon the gas feeding pressure. figs. 4(a) to 4(d) are sequence charts showing the pulses of gas feeding. fig. 5 is a graph showing the dependence of the growth rate upon the gas feeding pressure when gas is continuously fed for a given period of time. detailed description of the preferred embodiments as the result of the inventors' detailed studies, the operating conditions set forth above are practically controlled in such a manner that the pressure inside the growth chamber, the gas feeding time and exhausting time are in the ranges of 10⁻⁴ to 10² pa (pascal), 1 to 60 seconds and 1 to 120 seconds, respectively, and other conditions such as the heating temperature of the substrate and the flow rate of the gas fed are appropriately adjusted. in practicing the first feature of the present invention wherein gas feeding and exhausting operations are alternately repeated, the operating cycle of feeding a single gas containing an element semiconductor as a component element onto a substrate for a predetermined period of time and then exhausting the gas for a predetermined period of time is repeated until a single crystal thin film having a desired thickness is formed. the operating conditions are appropriately adjusted depending on the intended single crystal thin film and they are not necessarily required to be the same throughout all of the cycles. as the gas containing an element semiconductor as a component element, sih₂cl₂, sihcl₃, sicl₄, sih₄ or si₂h₆ is preferably used in the present invention. the present invention will hereinafter be described more specifically with reference to the following examples. examples fig. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the construction of a crystal growing apparatus used for growing a single crystal thin film of an element semiconductor in accordance to the present invention. in fig. 1, reference numerals 1 and 2 designate a growth chamber made of a metallic material, such as stainless, and a gate valve, respectively. numeral 3 indicates an exhaust for evacuating the growth chamber 1 to an ultrahigh vacuum and numeral 4 indicates a nozzle for introducing gas 13 containing a semiconductor component element. numeral 5 indicates a heater for heating a substrate 8 of (100) oriented silicon semiconductor crystal. the heater 5 is made of a tungsten wire sealed within a quartz and a infrared lump 6 is disposed on the upper portion of a lump house 11 in order to heat the substrate 8. a quartz plate 10 divides the lump house 11 from the growth chamber 1. leads, etc., are not shown in fig. 1. there are also shown a pyrometer 7 for measuring temperatures and a b-a (bayard-alpert) gauge 9 for measuring the degree of vacuum inside the growth chamber 1. as a practical example of growing single crystals of iv-group element semiconductor using such an apparatus, particulary silicon will hereinafter be explained. silicon single crystal thin films were formed using sih₂cl₂ (dichlorosilane) as a silicon-containing gas at various substrate temperatures while keeping the gas feeding pressure constant. fig. 2 shows the substrate temperature dependence of the thickness of silicon single crystal thin films grown per cycle at various substrate temperatures. any of the thin films was grown by repeating a cycle of feeding the dichlorosiliane gas into the growth chamber 1 and evacuating the growth chamber 1. in each cycle, gas feeding time and exhausting time were 40 seconds and 20 seconds, respectively. that is, the total time required for one cycle was 60 seconds. the gas feeding pressure was 1.3 × 10⁻² pascal (pa). the thickness of the thin film grown per cycle varies on the order of one monomolecular layer to several monolayers depending on the temperature of the substrate, as shown in fig. 2. particularly, the operating conditions for growing thin films on the order of monomolecular layer, dimolecular layer and half-molecular layer per cycle are respectively described hereinafter. firstly, in order to grow a monomolecular layer of si single crystal per cycle, the gate valve 2 was opened and the interior of the growth chamber 1 was evacuated to a pressure of the order of 10⁻⁷ to 10⁻⁸pa by using the ultrahigh vacuum exhaust 3. the substrate 8 was heated to a temperature of 800°c by the heater 5 or the infrared lump 6 and its surface was subjected to a heat cleaning for five minutes. then, the substrate 8 was heated to 855°c by the heater 5 or the infrared lump 6 and valve 12 was opened to introduce sih₂cl₂ gas into the growth chamber 1 over 40 seconds while the interior pressure of the growth chamber 1 was maintained at 1.3 × 10⁻² pa. thereafter, the valve 12 was closed and the gas inside the growth chamber 1 was exhausted for 20 seconds. such an operating cycle grew a monomolecular layer of si single crystal on the substrate 8. by repeating such a cycle under the same conditions, monomolecular layers were successively grown one after another and thereby a thin film having the desired thickness could be grown with the precision of monomolecular layer. for example, when the above-mentioned cycle was repeated 500 times, a grown thin film approximately 680 å in thickness was formed on the (100) substrate 8. similarly, in order to grow a dimolecular layer of silicon single crystal per cycle, the growth chamber 1 was evacuated to ultrahigh vacuum and the surface of the substrate 8 was subjected to a heat cleaning. after heating the substrate 8 to 890°c, the valve 12 was opened to introduce sih₂cl₂ gas into the growth chamber 1 for 40 seconds while maintaining the interior pressure of the growth chamber 1 at 1.3 × 10⁻² pa. thereafter, the valve 12 was closed and the gas inside the growth chamber 1 was exhausted for 20 seconds. by one cycle of such successive operations, a dimolecular layer of si single crystal was grown on the substrate 8. as one practical example, when the same cycle was repeated 500 times under the same conditions, there was obtained a grown thin film of si single crystal with a thickness of approximately 1360 å on the (100) substrate. further, in order to grow a half-molecular layer of si single crystal per cycle, the growth chamber 1 was evacuated to an ultrahigh vacuum and the surface of the substrate 8 was subjected to a heat cleaning. after heating the substrate 8 to 820°c, the valve 12 was opened to introduce sih₂cl₂ gas into the growth chamber 1 for 40 seconds while maintaining the pressure inside the growth chamber 1 at 1.3 × 10⁻² pa. thereafter, the valve 12 was closed and the gas inside the growth chamber 1 was exhausted for 20 seconds. by one cycle of such successive operations, a half-molecular layer of si single crystal was grown on the substrate 8. in an exemplary crystal growing process, when the same operations were repeated 500 times under the same conditions, there was obtained a grown si single crystal thin film with a thickness of approximately 340 å on the (100) substrate. as set forth above, according to the present invention, it is possible to grow single crystals of one monolayer to several monolayers in thickness with a precision of monomolecular layer by appropriately varying the temperature of the substrate under the same gas feeding pressure. fig. 3 is a graph showing the dependence of the film thickness grown per cycle upon the gas feeding pressure in which sih₂cl₂ gas was used and the gas feeding pressure was varied while keeping the temperature of the substrate constant. in each cycle, the gas feeding time and the exhausting time were 40 seconds and 20 seconds. thus, 60 seconds was required for each cycle. as practical examples of growing element semiconductor single crystals with a precision of monomolecular layer at a substrate temperature of 850 °c, we will specifically described about the operating conditions which make it possible to grow thin films of the order of one monolayer, dimolecular layer and half-molecular layer in thickness per cycle. firstly, in order to grow a monomolecular layer of si single crystal in each cycle, the gate valve 2 was opened and the growth chamber was evacuated to the degree of vacuum where the interior pressure of the growth chamber 1 was about 10⁻⁷ to 10⁻⁸ pa, using the ultrahigh vacuum exhaust 3. the substrate 8 was heated to 800°c by the heater 5 or the infrared lump 6 and the surface of the substrate 8 was subjected to heat cleaning for about 5 minutes. then, the substrate 8 was heated to 850°c by the heater 5 or the infrared lump 6 and the valve 12 was opened to introduce sih₂cl₂ gas into the growth chamber 1 for 40 seconds. throughout the introduction of the gas, the pressure inside the growth chamber 1 was of 1.5 × 10⁻² pa. thereafter, the valve 12 was closed and the gas in the growth chamber 1 was exhausted for 20 seconds. in one cycle of such successive operations, a monomolecular layer of si single crystal was grown on the substrate 8. these successive operations were repeated under the same conditions to grow successively monomolecular layers. similarly, in order to grow a dimolecular layer of si single crystal per cycle, sih₂cl₂ gas was fed into the growth chamber 1 for 40 seconds so that the pressure inside the growth chamber 1 was brought to 7.0 ×10⁻² pa and then the growth chamber 1 was evacuated for 20 seconds. a dimolecular layer of si single crystal was grown on the substrate 8 per cycle. further, in order to grow a half-molecular layer of si single crystal for each cycle, sih₂cl₂ gas was introduced into the growth chamber 1 for 40 seconds so that the pressure within the growth chamber 1 was brought to 6.0 × 10⁻³ pa and then the growth chamber 1 was evacuated for 20 seconds. in one cycle of these successive operations, there was obtained a grown single crystal thin film with a film thickness equivalent to the thickness of a half-molecular layer on the substrate 8. the above examples were carried out at a substrate temperature of 850°c, but, also within the substrate temperature range of 750 to 900°c, it is possible to grow single crystals with a precision of the order of monomolecular layer, as in the same manner as described in the above examples, by appropriately selecting optimum conditions for gas feeding pressure and time and the evacuating time. in the foregoing examples, the single crystal thin films having the desired thickness were grown by repeating the successive steps of gas feeding and evacuation under the same conditions throughout the growing process, as shown in a sequence chart in fig. 4(a). however, it is not always required to conduct every cycle under the same conditions. if necessary, as shown in the sequence charts of figs. 4(b) to 4(d), gas feeding pressure and time may be changed. in figs. 4(a) to 4(d), feeding pressure and feeding time are indicated by p₀ and p₁ and t₁ and t₃, respectively, and exhaust time is indicated by t₂. in such cases, single crystals are grown to a film thickness of monolayers corresponding to the operating conditions of each cycle. further examples are illustrated in which element semiconductor single cyrstal thin films having a desired thickness are grown by continuously introducing a single kind of gas on the substrate 8 heated in the growth chamber 1 over a given period of time. fig. 5 shows the dependence of growth rate of thin films upon the gas feeding pressure. the thin films were formed using sih₂cl₂ (dichlorosilane) as an si-containing gas. the temperature of the substrate 8 was maintained constant and the gas feeding pressure was varied. as noted from fig. 5, the growth rate ( µ m per minute) is increased on the order of 0.1 µm. for example, in order to form a grown thin film of 1 µm in thickness, the gate valve 2 was opened and the growth chamber 1 was evacuated to the degree where the pressure within the growth chamber 1 reached 10⁻⁶ pa or less. the surface of the substrate 8 was subjected to heat cleaning and then the substrate 8 was heated to 1050°c by the heater 5 or by the infrared lump 6. the valve 12 was opened to introduce sih₂cl₂ gas into the growth chamber 1 for 10 minutes, while keeping the pressure inside the growth chamber 1 at 50 pa. this procedure formed a 1 µ m thick single crystal thin film onto the substrate 8. as the ultrahigh vacuum exhaust in the foregoing examples, turbo-molecular pump, cryopump, ion pump or other known vacuum pumps can be employed. further, in the above described examples, only si single crystals are described. however, the present invention can also be applied to other iv-group semiconductors, such as ge. further, the material of the substrate is not limited to si. other materials, such as sapphire or spinel, can also be employed. as described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to grow element semiconductor single crystal thin films on a substrate with the precision of monomolecular layer using only a single kind of gas containing a component element of an element semiconductor. since only such a single gas is used as a source gas, there can be readily obtained single crystal thin films of high quality in a high reproducibility, by simplified operating parameters, without causing contamination problems by impurities (e.g., oxygen, carbon, etc.), which are associated with the use of carrier gas such as hydrogen. further, the single crystal growth of the present invention is advantageous in that the operating temperature for single crystal growth is approximately 250 °c lower than usual epitaxial temperature (approximately 1100 °c). in addition, the present invention has an industrial merit that the growing apparatus can be also simplified, since a gas feeding line is simplified.
122-645-860-836-791	US	[ "US" ]	H04N21/2187,H04N21/231,H04N21/234,H04N21/235,H04N21/237,H04N21/262,H04N21/266,H04N21/2668,H04N21/2743,H04N21/6405	2016-10-03T00:00:00	2016	[ "H04" ]	streaming video system	a streaming video system receives a plurality of live video streams, applies filtering, and outputs the plurality of live video streams via a plurality of social networks and/or other sites that are able to receive live streamed video.	1 . a streaming video system comprising: a streaming server configured to receive a plurality of live video streams via respective assigned communication ports; a back end application server operatively coupled to the streaming server, the back end application server being configured to filter for inclusion or exclusion the plurality of received live video streams; a timer circuit configured to apply at least a seven second delay to at least an included subset of the plurality of received live video streams; and a restreaming server configured to restream the included subset of the received live video streams as a plurality of restreamed live video streams to each of a plurality of social networks via respective assigned second communication ports. 2 . the streaming video system of claim 1 , wherein the back end application server operates an image analysis module configured to provide skin filtering on at least a portion of the plurality of live video streams. 3 . the streaming video system of claim 1 , wherein the back end application server operates a metadata reader configured to read at least one selected from the group consisting of a whitelist inclusion, a blacklist exclusion, a geofence inclusion, a geofence exclusion, and a plurality of hashtags; 4 . the streaming video system of claim 3 , wherein the back end application server is configured to respectively exclude or include video streams carrying header data corresponding to filter parameters. 5 . the streaming video system of claim 1 , further comprising: a video processor configured to superimpose an advertisement onto all or a subset of the restreamed live video streams as video data overwritten onto a predetermined portion of a video image carried by the live video streams. 6 . the streaming video system of claim 1 , further comprising: a video processor configured to interpose an advertisement into all or a subset of the restreamed live video streams as video data inserted into the live video streams.	cross reference to related applications the present application claims priority benefit from u.s. provisional patent application no. 62/403,411, entitled “streaming video system,” filed oct. 3, 2016 (docket number 3044-001-02); which, to the extent not inconsistent with the disclosure herein, is incorporated by reference. summary according to an embodiment, a streaming video system includes a streaming server (e.g., a media server) configured to receive a plurality of live video streams via respective assigned communication ports. the streaming server creates a database record that can include a unique identifier, a time of arrival, one or more hashtags, optionally a protocol, optionally an originating network, and header data data that can be determined from the arriving data stream. a metadata reader can be configured to read at least one selected from the group consisting of a whitelist inclusion, a blacklist exclusion, a geofence inclusion, a geofence exclusion, one or more hashtags, the time of arrival, the protocol, the originating network, and/or other attributes; and to respectively exclude or include corresponding video streams. a back end application server can include a video processor that decodes the video streams via a codex. the back end application server filters the plurality of live video streams. the filters can include an image analysis module configured to provide skin filtering on at least a portion of the plurality of live video streams. a timer circuit may optionally apply a delay, for example at least a seven second delay, to at least an included subset of the plurality of received live video streams. optionally, video streams that are selected, via data carried in the database, for restreaming without image filtering can be passed to an output stage. the included subset of the received live video streams is restreamed by an output stage as a plurality of restreamed live video streams by a restreaming server (media server) to each of a plurality of social networks and/or other sites that accept live streamed video via respective assigned second communication ports. optionally, a video processor inserted before or included in the output stage can superimpose or interpose an advertisement into all or a subset of the restreamed live video streams. the video processor can decode the video stream via a codex, superimpose or interpose the advertisement, re-encode the video stream via a codex, and output the live stream via the respective assigned second communication port. brief description of the drawings figs. 1-8 depict various aspects of a streaming video system, according to embodiments. detailed description in the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. in the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. other embodiments may be used and/or other changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the disclosure. aspects of the invention will be made apparent by reference to the accompanying figures. while various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments are contemplated. the various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
126-260-746-798-216	US	[ "US" ]	G01G21/28,A47B57/16,A47B57/20,A47B57/42,A47B57/52,G01G21/22,G01G21/23,H01R12/72,H01R13/514,H02J1/00,H05K5/00,H05K7/14,H05K7/18	2017-06-21T00:00:00	2017	[ "G01", "A47", "H01", "H02", "H05" ]	crossbar mechanism for coupling to fixture	shelves or other fixtures may be used to support items at a facility. weighing modules including load cells may be used at the fixtures to acquire weight data indicative of changes to the fixture as items are added or removed from the fixture. weighing modules may be modular and repositionable with respect to a modular crossbar that provides electrical power and data connectivity. this allows for the fixtures to be easily reconfigured to accommodate items of different sizes.	1. a system comprising: a fixture comprising: a crossbar having a left bracket attached to a left end of the crossbar and a right bracket attached to a right end of the crossbar, wherein the left bracket includes a first hook and the right bracket includes a second hook; the crossbar comprising: a crossbar front member comprising a first rear wall, a first upper wall, and a first front wall, the walls arranged to produce a concave region; and a crossbar back member mounted to the first rear wall, the crossbar back member comprising: a plurality of engagement slots, each engagement slot having a long axis that is perpendicular to a long axis of the crossbar; and a plurality of linear electrical contacts, each linear electrical contact having a long axis that is parallel to the long axis of the crossbar; and a weighing module engaged to the crossbar via one of the engagement slots. 2. the system of claim 1 , the weighing module further comprising: an engagement rail configured to mate with the one of the engagement slots of the crossbar; a weighing module connector configured to establish electrical contact with one or more of the plurality of linear electrical contacts; a load cell; and electronics connected to the load cell and the weighing module connector, the electronics configured to generate load cell data and send the load cell data to the weighing module connector. 3. the system of claim 1 , each of the plurality of engagement slots comprising: a rectangular cross section perpendicular to the long axis of the engagement slot; an entry of the engagement slot comprising a widened top portion of the engagement slot that narrows to the rectangular cross section; and a stop feature that blocks a bottom end of the engagement slot. 4. a device comprising: a left bracket; a right bracket; a front bracket extending from the left bracket to the right bracket along a front of the device; a crossbar having a first end attached to the left bracket and a second end attached to the right bracket, the crossbar comprising: a plurality of crossbar engagement features arranged along at least a portion of a long axis of the crossbar; and a plurality of electrical contacts extending from proximate to the first end to proximate to the second end of the crossbar. 5. the device of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of electrical contacts, during operation, transfer a voltage of less than 60 volts. 6. the device of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of crossbar engagement features are arranged along a back wall of the crossbar, each crossbar engagement feature comprising an engagement slot having a slot long axis that is perpendicular to the long axis of the crossbar. 7. the device of claim 6 , one or more of the plurality of crossbar engagement features comprising: a rectangular cross section perpendicular to the long axis of the engagement slot; a top portion of the engagement slot that is wider than a bottom portion; and an obstruction at a bottom end of the engagement slot. 8. the device of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of crossbar engagement features are arranged along an upper surface of the crossbar and a front surface of the crossbar is planar. 9. the device of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of crossbar engagement features comprise one or more of slots, recesses, tabs, or rails. 10. the device of claim 4 , wherein a front side of the cross bar is taller than a back side of the crossbar. 11. the device of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of engagement features are arranged above the plurality of electrical contacts. 12. the device of claim 4 , the crossbar further comprising: a channel extending from the first end to the second end, the channel having a first side, a bottom, and a second side; and wherein the plurality of electrical contacts are arranged along one or more of the first side, the bottom, or the second side within the channel. 13. a device comprising: a crossbar having a first end and a second end; a first plurality of crossbar engagement features arranged along a back wall of the crossbar; a plurality of electrical contacts arranged along the crossbar; a connector electrically connected to one or more of the plurality of electrical contacts, wherein the connector is configured to convey digital data signals; and a lower engagement section of the crossbar, the lower engagement section arranged along a bottom of the crossbar, the lower engagement section comprising a second plurality of engagement features. 14. the device of claim 13 , further comprising: a first bracket attached proximate to the first end of the crossbar; and a second bracket attached proximate to the second end of the crossbar, wherein each of the first and second brackets comprises: a bracket body; an upper engagement tab extending from an upper portion of a first end of the bracket body, the upper engagement tab comprising: a first notch positioned proximal to the bracket body; a second notch positioned distal to the bracket body; a lower engagement tab extending from a lower portion of the first end of the bracket body, the lower engagement tab comprising: a third notch positioned proximal to the bracket body; and a distal surface. 15. the device of claim 13 , wherein the first plurality of crossbar engagement features comprise one or more of slots, recesses, tabs, or rails. 16. the device of claim 13 , wherein the first plurality of crossbar engagement features are arranged above the plurality of electrical contacts. 17. the device of claim 13 , wherein the plurality of electrical contacts are positioned on a back side of the crossbar and comprise linear electrical contacts with a long axis that is parallel to a long axis of the crossbar and extending between the first end and the second end. 18. the device of claim 13 , wherein each of the first plurality of engagement features comprising an engagement slot having a long axis that is perpendicular to a long axis of the crossbar. 19. the device of claim 18 , each of the engagement slots comprising: a rectangular cross section perpendicular to the long axis of the engagement slot; and a first portion of the engagement slot that is wider than a second portion. 20. the device of claim 18 , the crossbar further comprising: a channel extending from the first end to the second end, the channel having a first side, a bottom, and a second side; and wherein the plurality of electrical contacts are arranged along one or more of the first side, the bottom, or the second side within the channel. 21. a system comprising: a fixture comprising: a crossbar comprising: a plurality of crossbar engagement features; and a plurality of electrical contacts; a first weighing module coupled to the crossbar via a first crossbar engagement feature of the plurality of crossbar engagement features; and a second weighing module coupled to the crossbar via a second crossbar engagement feature of the plurality of crossbar engagement features.	background retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered, purchased, leased, borrowed, rented, viewed, and so forth, by clients or customers. for example, an e-commerce website may maintain inventory in a fulfillment center. when a customer orders an item, the item is picked from inventory, routed to a packing station, packed, and shipped to the customer. likewise, physical stores maintain inventory in customer accessible areas, such as in a shopping area, and customers can pick items from inventory and take them to a cashier for purchase, rental, and so forth. many physical stores also maintain inventory in a storage area, fulfillment center, or other facility that can be used to replenish inventory located in the shopping areas or to satisfy orders for items that are placed through other distribution pathways (e.g., e-commerce). other examples of entities that maintain facilities holding inventory include libraries, museums, rental centers, and so forth. in each instance, for an item to be moved from one location to another, it is picked from its current location and transitioned to a new location. it is often desirable to monitor quantity of inventory at various places within the facility. brief description of figures the detailed description is set forth with reference to the accompanying figures. the use of the same reference numbers in different figures indicates similar or identical items or features. the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale, and in some figures, the proportions or other aspects may be exaggerated to facilitate comprehension of particular aspects. figs. 1-8 illustrate views of a fixture comprising weighing modules affixed to a crossbar, with the accessories to hold items cantilevered from the weighing modules, according to some implementations. fig. 9 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module is mounted in front of the crossbar, according to some implementations. fig. 10 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module is inserted into the crossbar vertically, according to some implementations. fig. 11 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module is mounted atop the crossbar, according to some implementations. fig. 12 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module is inserted into a channel of the crossbar, according to some implementations. figs. 13-15 illustrate views of a fixture comprising a modular weighing module affixed to a crossbar, and the accessories are mounted atop the weighing modules, according to some implementations. figs. 16-20 illustrate views of a fixture that includes a crossbar with integrated weighing modules, according to some implementations. fig. 21 illustrates a view of a fixture with a modular weighing module that may be moved with respect to a crossbar, according to some implementations. fig. 22 illustrates a view of a fixture with modular weighing modules affixed to a crossbar, according to some implementations. figs. 23-27 illustrate views of a crossbar with a modular weighing module supporting a cantilevered hanger from which items may be suspended, according to some implementations. figs. 28-33 illustrate views of a crossbar with a modular weighing module supporting a cantilevered hanger, according to some implementations. fig. 34 is a block diagram illustrating a materials handling facility (facility) using the system, according to some implementations. fig. 35 is a block diagram illustrating additional details of the facility, according to some implementations. fig. 36 is a block diagram of a server to support operation of the facility, according to some implementations. while implementations are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations are not limited to the examples or figures described. it should be understood that the figures and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit implementations to the particular form disclosed but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. the headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. as used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to. detailed description a materials handling facility (facility) or other setting may utilize fixtures that are used to stow or otherwise hold items. the fixtures, such as gondolas or racks, are equipped with weighing modules that generate weight data. the weighing modules may include one or more load cells and associated electronics. during operation, the weighing modules generate weight data from the load cells and send that weight data using a communication interface. the weighing modules may be arranged to gather information about the changes in weight occurring at a fixture. a fixture may contain one or more of the weighing modules that support accessories holding the items. the weighing modules may include a mechanical interface that allows for mechanical coupling to other structures within the fixture, such as a crossbar, accessory, and so forth. the crossbar may couple to a supporting member, such as part of a gondola unit. the height of the crossbar may be adjusted to provide different vertical spacing. in some implementations, the mechanical interface may allow the weighing module to be added to the fixture, removed from the fixture, be re-positioned with respect to the crossbar, and so forth. this arrangement allows for easy reconfigurability to accommodate items of different physical sizes at different times by moving crossbars, weighing modules, and associated accessories. the accessory provides physical support for one or more items. for example, the accessory may include a shelf, bin, hanger, and so forth. the accessory may be supported, at least in part, by one or more weighing modules. the weighing modules provide data indicative of the weight on the accessory. the facility may include, or have access to, an inventory management system. the inventory management system may use data from the sensors at or near the fixture, such as the weight data from the weighing modules, to determine interactions in the facility. interactions may comprise of the user picking an item from a fixture, placing an item at a fixture, touching an item, bringing an object such as a hand or face close to an item, and so forth. for example, the inventory management system may generate interaction data that indicates what type and quantity of item a user picked from a particular fixture, and then use this interaction data to adjust the count of inventory stowed at the particular fixture. use of weighing modules and the weight data offers several operational benefits, especially in a materials handling facility or other facility. these benefits may include mechanical robustness, relatively low cost for installation and maintenance, reconfigurability, fast sensor response times, and so forth. described in this disclosure are various structures and systems that allow for a facility to be equipped with fixtures that utilize weighing modules having load cells. these structures may be modular, facilitating reconfiguration as the needs of the facility change. by using the devices and techniques described herein, operation of the facility may be improved. fixtures may be reconfigured to meet changing needs, faulty components may be easily replaced with functional ones, and so forth. as a result, flexibility of use is maximized while operating costs are reduced. illustrative system the systems and devices described include weighing modules attached to one or more accessories. the weighing module provides load cell data that is indicative of a weight on the accessory. this load cell data may then be processed to determine if an item has been added to or removed from the accessory. figs. 1-8 illustrate views of a fixture comprising weighing modules affixed to a crossbar, with the accessories to hold items cantilevered from the weighing modules, according to some implementations. fig. 1 illustrates a view of the fixture that comprises a crossbar 102 supporting six weighing modules 104 . the weighing modules 104 , in turn, support a total of four accessories 106 . the weighing modules 104 include one or more load cells and generate weight data. the accessory 106 provides physical support for an item. for example, the accessory 106 may comprise a tray such as depicted here, a bin, a hanger, and so forth. as depicted here, in some implementations an accessory 106 may be supported by a single weighing module 104 , or by two or more. for example, an accessory 106 that is used to stow items having a weight that exceeds a maximum weight capacity of the load cell of a single weighing module 104 may be supported by two weighing modules 104 . the weight data from the weighing modules 104 may be provided to an inventory management system. the inventory management system may use the weight data to determine changes to inventory, for example counts of inventory stored at a particular accessory 106 . brackets 108 are mounted to or otherwise mechanically support the crossbar 102 . for example, a left bracket 108 and a right bracket 108 are arranged on a left end and right end of the crossbar 102 , respectively. the brackets 108 include engagement features 110 , such as hooks or tabs, that are configured to mechanically engage corresponding engagement features such as slots on a vertical support. for example, the engagement features 110 may be configured to attach to slots in a freestanding fixture used to display items, such as a gondola. a front bracket 112 extends from the left bracket 108 to a right bracket 108 along a front of the device. for example, the front bracket 112 is arranged in front of a leading or frontal edge of the accessory 106 . a gap is present between the accessory 106 , the bracket 108 , and front bracket 112 allowing the accessory 106 to move under the influence of a change in weight of a load on the accessory 106 . in some implementations, the bracket 108 and the front bracket 112 may comprise a single piece of material. for example, a piece of sheet metal may be cut and bent to form the bracket 108 , the engagement features 110 , and the front bracket 112 . as mentioned above, in some situations two or more weighing modules 104 may be used to support an accessory 106 . a first location of the accessory 106 may be affixed to a first weighing module 104 such that lateral motion is minimized. a second location of the same accessory 106 may be affixed to a second weighing module 104 in such a fashion that vertical support is provided while lateral movement may take place. for example, the second location of the accessory 106 may rest atop a bracket, lip, or other surface of the second weighing module 104 that is affixed to the load cell therein. this lateral movement may prevent the accessory 106 from binding. fig. 2 illustrates another view of the fixture of fig. 1 depicting an underside. in this view, a back side of the crossbar 102 is visible showing a crossbar backpiece 128 . the crossbar backpiece 128 includes crossbar engagement slots 120 and a plurality of electrical conductors on a circuit board 122 . in some implementations these conductors may be arranged as linear electrical contacts, with each linear electrical contact having a long axis that is parallel to a long axis of the crossbar 102 . in other implementations, instead of or in addition to the crossbar engagement slots 120 , the crossbar backpiece 128 may include one or more of tabs, ridges, and so forth. in another implementation, the linear conductors may be arranged on an interior surface or back of the circuit board 122 while vias or pass-throughs provide electrical connections to pads on the exterior surface. contacts, pins, or other conductive elements on the weighing node 104 may then come into contact with these pads, establishing electrical contact. in one implementation, the exterior surface may include a conductor, such as a copper ground plane. within the ground plane, the pads are present, separated from the copper ground plane by a gap or electrical insulator. this configuration may reduce electromagnetic interference emitted or received by operation of the circuit board 122 . the crossbar engagement slots 120 provide a structure for a corresponding portion of the weighing module 104 to mechanical engagement. the crossbar engagement slots 120 may be rectangular in cross section, with the cross section taken perpendicular to a long axis of the engagement slot 120 . in some implementations, a top portion of the engagement slot 120 may be wider than a lower portion. this top portion narrows to the rectangular cross section farther down the engagement slot 120 . this wide top portion followed by the narrowing may facilitate installation of a weighing module 104 . for example, a slight misalignment would be corrected as the wider portion captures the engagement feature of the weighing module 104 and guides that engagement feature into the crossbar engagement slot 120 . the engagement slot 120 may include one or more constrictions, in which the width of the slow narrows. these constrictions may help limiting movement of the weighing module 104 once engaged. in other implementations the crossbar engagement slots 120 may utilize different cross sectional shapes. for example, the crossbar engagement slot 120 may be trapezoidal in cross section. one or more electrical contacts may be provided along the width of the crossbar 102 . the electrical contacts provide electrically conductive pathways that may be used to provide electrical power, data communication pathways to transfer data, and so forth between the crossbar 102 and the weighing module 104 . as illustrated here, a circuit board 122 having a plurality of traces is mounted to the crossbar backpiece 128 . along this circuit board 122 are linear traces of electrically conductive material such as aluminum or copper. these traces have a long axis that is parallel to the long axis of the crossbar 102 . the conductors on the circuit board 122 in turn are connected to other electronics within the fixture, to connectors, and so forth. for example, the crossbar 102 may include an rj45 jack that is wired to the conductors on the circuit board 122 , facilitating the connection of the conductors on the circuit board 122 to a power supply, data network, and so forth. also shown is a lower engagement section 124 . the lower engagement section 124 may include one or more mechanical engagement features, such as tabs, slots, recesses, rails, and so forth that are configured to mate with a corresponding engagement feature of a weighing module 104 . for example, a tab may extend vertically from a bottom of a weighing module 104 to engage a hole or slot in the lower engagement section 124 . in another example, the bottom of the weighing module 104 may include a hole or slot into which a tab extending from the lower engagement section 124 may be inserted. also depicted are a pair of crossbraces 126 that extend from approximately the center of the front bracket 112 to a rear portion of the brackets 108 . the crossbraces 126 may improve rigidity of the fixture. fig. 3 depicts a view the fixture of fig. 1 showing the back of the crossbar 102 . in this view, the crossbar engagement slots 120 are visible. the crossbar engagement slots 120 may incorporate an engagement slot stop 136 , such as a block or termination of the slot that otherwise limits vertical motion within the crossbar engagement slot 120 . for example, the crossbar engagement slots 120 and the engagement slot stop 136 may be milled or formed into the crossbar backpiece 128 . in this view, the widened top portion 138 of the engagement slot 120 is visible. the widened top portion 138 may facilitate installation of the weighing module 104 . the engagement slot 120 may include a construction or narrowing for at least a portion. for example, a lower two-thirds of the engagement slot 120 may be narrower than an upper one-third of the engagement slot 120 . also shown are the exterior backpieces 140 of the respective weighing modules 104 . the circuit board 122 comprising a plurality of electrical conductors is also visible. when the weighing module 104 is installed on the crossbar 102 , respective electrical contacts on an interior surface of the weighing module 104 come into contact with respective electrical contacts on the circuit board 122 . these electrical contacts allow for the transfer of electrical power and data between the crossbar 102 and the weighing module 104 . for example, the circuit board 122 may comprise four horizontal traces extending left to right. two traces may be used to provide electrical power while two traces are used to provide data communication. fig. 4 depicts a cross sectional view of the crossbar 102 and the weighing module 104 of fig. 1 . in this view, the exterior backpiece 140 is visible. a circuit board 122 with electronics is enclosed within the exterior backpiece 140 . the weighing module 104 includes one or more engagement rails 148 . the engagement rails 148 extend away from a rear wall 150 of the weighing module 104 . in some implementations the engagement rail 148 comprises a lip that is formed at a right angle with respect to a planar surface of the rear wall 150 . when installed, the engagement rails 148 are inserted at least partially within the crossbar engagement slots 120 . once engaged, left to right or lateral movement of the weighing module 104 is constrained. for example, the crossbar engagement slots 120 have a long axis that is oriented vertically. when engaged, the engagement rails 148 prevent the weighing module 104 from moving perpendicularly (such as left and right) with respect to the crossbar 102 . in some implementations the engagement rail 148 may be sloped or slanted at a lower end. for example, the engagement rail 148 may comprise a first end that is distal to top of the weighing module 104 . the first end may slope from a first distance with respect to the rear wall 150 to a second distance that is less than the first distance. in other implementations, the engagement rail 148 may be omitted. instead, a screw, wedge, clamp, or other mechanism may be used to prevent lateral motion of the weighing module 104 . for example, a set screw may be turned that places pressure on the front or back of the crossbar 102 . also depicted is the circuit board 122 with the electrically conductive traces. the lower engagement section 124 is also shown with holes therein. one or more tabs or pegs may extend from a bottom of the weighing module 104 to engage one or more of the holes. fig. 5 depicts a cross sectional view of the crossbar 102 and the weighing module 104 of fig. 1 . a module frontpiece 156 forms a cap or top of the weighing module 104 , and extends down. beneath the module frontpiece 156 is a load cell 158 . in some implementations the load cell 158 may comprise a single point load cell. the load cell 158 may have a first end and a second end. each end may be affixed using one or more fasteners to another member. in some implementations, the fasteners may be removeable, such as bolts, screws, cams, and so forth. this removability facilitates repair by allowing a damaged or defective load cell 158 to be removed and replaced. for example, as shown here the module frontpiece 156 may include a pair of holes 162 that are unthreaded. these holes may be countersunk to allow screws to be inserted and made flush against the outer surface of the module frontpiece 156 . the first end of the load cell 158 may include a pair of threaded holes 164 which the screws mechanically engage. thus, a screw may be used to join the module frontpiece 156 to the first end of the load cell 158 . in a similar fashion, an upper wall 160 of weighing module 104 may include holes 162 through which screws may be inserted to engage threaded holes 164 in the second end of the load cell 158 . also shown is the rear wall 150 . in some implementations, the rear wall 150 and the upper wall may comprise a single piece of material. the load cell 158 may incorporate a spacer or step that allows a gap between adjacent structures such as the module frontpiece 156 and the upper wall 160 during operation. when a load is applied to the load cell, this gap may change as the load cell 158 undergoes a deflection. load cell wiring 166 conveys electrical signals from the load cell 158 to electronics for use in generating load cell data. for example, the load cell wiring 166 may connect to electronics within the exterior backpiece 140 of the weighing module 104 . fig. 6 depicts an exploded view of the fixture of fig. 1 . in this view, the accessories 106 are mounted to a front of one or more respective module frontpieces 156 of weighing modules 104 . for example, the accessories 106 may include one or more unthreaded holes 162 while the module frontpiece 156 includes one or more corresponding threaded holes 164 . a screw may then be inserted through the hole 162 on the accessory 106 into the threaded hole 164 on the module frontpiece 156 . in the exposed portion of the weighing module 104 the engagement rails 148 are visible. the circuit board 122 is depicted that is attached to a lower portion of the back of the crossbar backpiece 128 . the crossbar backpiece 128 is attached to a back of a crossbar frontpiece 176 . the crossbar 102 may be affixed to a midpoint between a front and back of the brackets 108 . fig. 7 depicts a side view of the fixture of fig. 1 . a bracket 108 with the engagement features 110 is shown. the crossbar 102 is depicted, with the weighing module 104 mounted atop and around the crossbar 102 . to the rear of the crossbar 102 is the exterior backpiece 140 of the weighing module 104 , while the module frontpiece 156 provides a cap that extends across a top of the weighing module 104 and down a front of the crossbar 102 . attached to the module frontpiece 156 is the accessory 106 . fig. 8 depicts a cutaway side view of the fixture of fig. 1 at a weighing module 104 . shown is a cap 184 that may be formed from the module frontpiece 156 . the cap 184 includes a rearward rear cap wall 186 that is behind the load cell 158 and has a bottom edge that is below a top edge of the exterior backpiece 140 . the cap 184 also comprises a top cap wall 188 that extends from the rear cap wall 186 to a front cap wall 190 . the front cap wall 190 extends down from the top cap wall 188 in front of at least a portion of the crossbar 102 . in cross section, the cap 184 may exhibit a “c” or “u” shaped cross section. in the implementation depicted here, the module frontpiece 156 is shaped to form the accessory 106 , with the module frontpiece 156 and the accessory 106 formed from a single piece of material. for example, a bend 192 may be formed in the module frontpiece 156 causing the material to extend at an angle away from the rear wall 150 of the weighing module 104 . an accessory side brace 194 may be provided that adds structural strength to the interface between the accessory 106 and the front cap wall 190 . the rear wall 150 of the weighing module 104 may be longer or taller than the interior front wall 196 or the front cap wall 190 . the module frontpiece 156 is attached to a first end of the load cell 158 . for example, one or more removeable fasteners such as screws or bolts may be used to join the module frontpiece 156 to the first end of the load cell 158 . the second end of the load cell 158 is in turn mounted to an interior member of the weighing module 104 , such as the upper wall 160 . for example, one or more removeable fasteners such as screws or bolts may be used to join the second end of the load cell 158 to the upper wall 160 . the interior member of the weighing module 104 may comprise the upper wall 160 , the rear wall 150 , and an interior front wall 196 . together, this interior member forms a concave region or recess which fits over at least a portion of the crossbar 102 . in some implementations, the interior member may comprise a single piece. for example, the structure of the crossbar 102 comprising the crossbar frontpiece 176 , the crossbar backpiece 128 , and the circuit board 122 , may be at least partially covered by the interior members of the weighing module 104 . the crossbar backpiece 128 may be joined to the crossbar frontpiece 176 using one or more backpiece fasteners 204 . for example, a screw, bolt, or rivet may be used to join the crossbar backpiece 128 to the crossbar frontpiece 176 . shown within the enclosure provided by the exterior backpiece 140 of the weighing module 104 is the weighing module circuit board 200 . the load cell wiring 166 (not shown here) may connect to the weighing module circuit board 200 . for example, the weighing module circuit board 200 may be used to support circuitry that generates load cell data from the load cell 158 . continuing the example, the weighing module circuit board 200 may include an analog-to-digital converter, digital signal processor, and so forth. the weighing module circuit board 200 may include a communication interface to send the load cell data via the traces on the circuit board 122 to another device. a weighing module connector 202 provides electrical contacts that are configured to couple to corresponding electrical conductors on the circuit board 122 . for example, the weighing module connector 202 may comprise one or more spring contacts, pogo pins, contact pads, and so forth. when the weighing module 104 is installed, the electrical contacts in the weighing module connector 202 provide electrical contact with corresponding electrical conductors of the circuit board 122 on the crossbar 102 . the weighing module connector 202 may be connected to one or more devices within the weighing module 104 , such as circuitry on the weighing module circuit board 200 . power and data communication may be supplied by the crossbar 102 through the electrical contacts of the circuit board 122 as accessed by the weighing module connector 202 . also shown is the weighing module 104 engagement rail 148 and the engagement slot stop 136 . to provide additional strength and structural stiffness, an upper bracket 198 may be incorporated into the weighing module 104 . the upper bracket 198 may extend along at least an upper portion of the rear wall 150 , the upper wall 160 , and an upper portion of the front cap wall 190 . for example, the upper bracket 198 may be approximately “u” shaped in cross section. in the implementation depicted here, the weighing module 104 may include two upper brackets 198 , one arranged at the left and right sides of the weighing module 104 , with the load cell 158 arranged in between. the crossbar 102 may be mounted to the bracket 108 . for example, the crossbar 102 may be screwed or bolted to the left and right brackets 108 . fig. 9 depicts another implementation of a fixture in which the modules are mounted to a front of the crossbar 102 . as depicted here the weighing modules 104 may mount to a front of the crossbar 102 . for example, the weighing modules 104 may be screwed to a front of the crossbar. the accessories 106 may cantilever out, supported at a near end by the weighing modules 104 and at the far end extended towards the front of the fixture. a ticket channel 218 may be provided. printed tags may be inserted into the ticket channel 218 . for example, the tags may include information such as a name of an item, item identifier, price, and so forth, for the type of item stowed by the particular accessory 106 . the ticket channel 218 may be affixed to the front of the accessory 106 . wire guides 220 may be arranged around at least a portion of a perimeter of the accessory 106 . the wire guides 220 may help contain items within the accessory. fig. 10 depicts a view of a fixture in which a weighing module 104 is inserted into a channel of the crossbar 102 . the weighing module 104 is modular and repositionable along the crossbar 102 . in this implementation, the crossbar 102 comprises a crossbar channel 228 . the weighing module 104 may be emplaced at least partially within the crossbar channel 228 . one or more crossbar engagement features 226 on the crossbar 102 may be configured to engage a module engagement feature 230 on the weighing module 104 . for example, the crossbar engagement features 226 may comprise teeth or ridges into which the corresponding module engagement feature 230 such as a pin or post may fit. in other implementations, the crossbar engagement features 226 may comprise tabs, slots, recesses, protrusions, and so forth. these crossbar engagement features 226 are located along an upper surface or edge of at least a portion of the crossbar 102 . the engagement of the module engagement feature 230 with the crossbar engagement feature 226 may prevent the weighing module 104 from moving laterally when installed. the front of the crossbar 102 comprises a planar surface. within the crossbar channel 228 may be the circuit board 122 (not shown) or other arrangement of electrical conductors. the weighing module 104 may include weighing module connectors 202 on a complementary face, configured to engage the conductors on the circuit board 122 when installed in the crossbar channel 228 . a load cell 158 is mounted proximate to a top of the weighing module 104 . an accessory 106 may be affixed to a first end of the load cell 158 , while a second end of the load cell 158 is mounted to a member of the weighing module 104 . fig. 11 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module 104 is mounted atop the crossbar 102 , according to some implementations. in this implementation the module frontpiece 156 of the weighing module 104 extends down and then attaches to an accessory 106 such as a tray that cantilevers away from the crossbar 102 . the accessory 106 may include a ticket channel 218 , wire guides 220 , and so forth. fig. 12 illustrates a view of a fixture in which a weighing module 104 is inserted into crossbar channel 228 of the crossbar 102 , according to some implementations. in this illustration, the crossbar engagement features 226 are located within the crossbar channel 228 . the weighing module 104 includes one or more module engagement features 230 along an underside of an overhang. when the weighing module 104 is inserted into the crossbar channel 228 , the module engagement features 230 sit atop the corresponding crossbar engagement features 226 . not shown are the circuit board 122 and the weighing module connector 202 which provide electrically conductive pathways between the crossbar 102 and the weighing module 104 . figs. 13-15 illustrate views of a fixture comprising a modular weighing module affixed to a crossbar, and the accessories are mounted atop the weighing modules, according to some implementations. fig. 13 depicts a view of view of an underside of the fixture in which the accessory 106 is supported by one or more weighing modules 104 arranged underneath. in this illustration crossbar 102 is shown with a crossbar front cover 244 and brackets 108 on the left end of the crossbar 102 and the right end of the crossbar 102 . as described above, the brackets 108 may include one or more engagement features 110 . the weighing module 104 includes an upper bracket 238 that engages at least a portion of the crossbar 104 . fig. 14 depicts a side view of the fixture of fig. 13 . the accessory 106 may comprise a tray having a front lip 240 and a rear lip 242 . the front lip 240 may be shorter than the rear lip 242 . the accessory 106 mounts to the load cell 158 at a point between the front and rear of the tray accessory 106 . for example, a first end of the load cell 158 is attached to the accessory 106 while the second end of the load cell 158 is attached to the upper bracket 238 . the accessory 106 extends horizontally beyond the edges of the weighing module 104 . fig. 15 depicts a cross section of the weighing module 104 while mounted on the crossbar 102 . the accessory 106 is mounted to a first end of the load cell 158 while a second end of the load cell 158 is mounted to portion of the weighing module 104 . for example, the second end of the load cell 158 may attach to the upper bracket 238 , an interior wall, and so forth. the upper bracket 238 extends from a top of the crossbar front cover 244 down along at least a portion of the crossbar front cover 244 . the crossbar 102 may include a crossbar backpiece 128 that includes crossbar engagement slots 120 . one or more engagement rails 148 of the weighing module 104 may engage the crossbar engagement slots 120 . the crossbar backpiece 128 may include a circuit board 122 or other electrical contacts to which a weighing module connector 202 may come into content when the weighing module 104 is installed on the crossbar 102 . a rear coverplate mount 252 may extend from the interior wall of the weighing module 104 . a rear coverplate (not shown) may be attached to the rear coverplate mount 252 . the rear coverplate may provide protection to the weighing module circuit board 200 or other components within the weighing module 104 . the load cell 158 may be joined to the various elements as described above. for example, the accessory 106 may include unthreaded holes 162 through which a screw is inserted and used to engage a corresponding threaded hole 164 in the load cell 158 . figs. 16-20 illustrate views of a fixture that includes a crossbar with integrated weighing modules, according to some implementations. in this implementation, the integrated weighing modules are affixed to particular positions within the fixture. fig. 16 depicts a front view of the fixture with six accessories 106 comprising bins that are arranged left to right. while six accessories 106 are shown, it is understood that the fixture may include more or fewer accessories 106 . the size, such as the width of the respective accessories 106 may also differ within the fixture. for example, the leftmost accessory 106 may be a bin that is 2 inches while an adjacent accessory 106 is 6 inches wide. in front of the accessories 106 a ticket channel 218 extends from a left bracket 108 on a left end to a right bracket 108 on a right end of the fixture. the brackets 108 may support the ticket channel 218 . a gap or other clearance between the accessories 106 and the brackets 108 and the ticket channel 218 allow the individual accessories 106 to move or deflect responsive to changes in weight of the loads placed within the bins. fig. 17 depicts a rear view of the fixture of fig. 16 . fig. 18 depicts an exploded view of the fixture of fig. 16 . the accessories 106 include one or more holes. for example, unthreaded holes 162 may be arranged within a bottom or floor of the accessory to facilitate engagement to an accessory mounting block 272 . the accessory mounting block 272 may include one or more threaded holes 164 configured to engage a screw that is inserted through the holes 162 of the accessory 106 , joining the accessory mounting block 272 to the accessory 106 . the accessory mounting block 272 may include one or more unthreaded holes 162 through which fasteners such as screws may be inserted and used to engage one or more threaded holes 164 in a first end of the load cell 158 . the accessory mounting block 272 may be used to provide additional clearance between the load cell 158 and the bottom of the accessory 106 . the accessory mounting block 272 may also facilitate the adjustment or changeout of accessories 106 , acting as an intermediate element to reduce the potential for damage to the load cell 158 during accessory 106 changeout. in some implementations, the accessory mounting block 272 may be mounted to the accessory 106 between a front edge of the accessory 106 and a midpoint between the front edge and a rear edge of the accessory 106 . utilization of the accessory mounting blocks 272 facilitates reconfiguration of the fixture. for example, in some implementations a wider accessory 106 may be used. it may be desirable to have the accessory 106 span several load cells 158 without being engaged thereto. continuing the example, the accessory 106 may be affixed to a single accessory mounting block 272 , and thus to a corresponding load cell 158 , while the other accessory mounting blocks 272 underneath are removed. in this configuration, the weight on the accessory 106 is the measured using a single load cell 158 . in another example, the accessory 106 may span three or more load cells. the accessory 106 may be affixed to accessory mounting blocks 272 on each end, while the accessory mounting block 272 in the middle is removed. the fixture depicted includes a frame 262 that includes a rear crosspiece 264 , a middle crosspiece 266 , and a front crosspiece 268 . these crosspieces extend from a left bracket 108 to a right bracket 108 . in some implementations, the crosspieces 264 , 266 , 268 and the brackets 108 may comprise a single piece of material that has been formed into the desired shape. a front stop 270 is affixed to a front of the fixture, such as via fasteners to the front crosspiece 268 . a ticket channel 218 may be joined to one or more of the front stop 270 , the front cross piece 268 , and the brackets 108 . in some implementations the crosspieces may have a non-planar cross section. for example, the rear crosspiece 264 may include one or more bends to form a “c” or “u” cross section that increases the stiffness of the rear crosspiece 264 . an electronics cover 274 provides protection for electronics associated with the fixture. for example, a circuit board may include analog-to-digital converters that accept signals from the load cells 158 and generate load cell data. the circuit board may include a communication interface that then transmits the load cell data to an external device. in some implementations the electronics cover 274 may enhance electromagnetic compatibility, such as by providing shielding for radiated signals. the rear crosspiece 264 may include one or more holes or other mechanical mounting features. a second end of the load cell 158 is mounted to the rear crosspiece 264 . for example, one or more removeable fasteners such as bolts or screws may be used to join the second end of the load cell 158 to the rear crosspiece 264 . fig. 19 depicts a side view of the fixture of fig. 16 . a side wall of the accessory 106 bin is visible, along with a bracket 108 and the engagement features 110 on the bracket 108 . the rear crosspiece 264 , middle crosspiece 266 , and the front crosspiece 268 may include bends or features as shown here that extend downwards. these features may increase the stiffness of the crosspieces and the overall fixture. the engagement features 110 of the bracket 108 may be configured to allow for mounting to a gondola or other support structure in two configurations. in a first configuration, the bracket 108 is engaged such that the fixture is substantially horizontal. for example, in this first configuration the bottom of the accessory 106 may be horizontal. in a second configuration, the bracket 108 is engaged such that the fixture is angled, such that the front edge of the bracket 108 is lower than the rear edge of the bracket 108 . the engagement features 110 may include an upper engagement tab 450 . the upper engagement tab includes two notches: a proximal notch 452 and a distal notch 454 . the proximal notch 452 is closest to a body of the bracket 108 while the distal notch 452 is closer to a tip of the engagement tab 450 . the notches 452 and 454 may be rectangular in cross section. the notches 452 and 454 are arranged at an angle relative to one another. for example, the interior proximal sides of the notches 452 and 454 may be angled with respect to one another, such that the proximal notch 452 is arranged vertically while the distal notch 452 is at an angle relative to vertical. the engagement features 110 may also include a lower engagement tab 456 . the lower engagement tab 456 includes a distal surface 458 and a notch 460 . the distal notch 454 and the notch 460 are aligned with one another. for example, the interior proximal surface of the distal notch 454 and the interior proximal surface of the notch 460 are collinear with one another. the proximal notch 452 is aligned with the distal surface 458 . for example, the interior proximal surface of the proximal notch 452 may be aligned with the distal surface 458 . a horizontal mount engagement line 462 is depicted, showing the approximate position of a portion of a gondola or upright to which the engagement features 110 engage in the first configuration. when mounted in the first configuration, as shown by line 462 , the proximal notch 452 of the upper engagement tab 450 engages the gondola while the distal surface 458 of the lower engagement tab 456 rests against a surface of the gondola. an angled mount engagement line 464 is depicted, showing the approximate position of a portion of a gondola or upright to which the engagement features engage in the second configuration. when mounted in the second configuration, as shown by line 464 , the distal notch 454 of the upper engagement tab 450 engages a first portion of the gondola while the notch 460 of the lower engagement tab 456 also engages a second portion of the gondola. this arrangement of engagement features 110 allows for improvement in the installation, removal, and reconfiguration of fixtures. for example, compared to conventional engagement mechanisms, the fixture as described may be added to or removed from between adjacent fixture or other structures without the need to tilt the fixture at an extreme angle. additionally, the fixture may be quickly reconfigured from horizontal to angled mounting. this allows for greater flexibility in reconfiguring for stowing and presenting items. this arrangement of engagement features 110 may be used with respect to any of the fixtures described in this disclosure, for conventional shelves, and so forth. fig. 20 depicts a cross section of the fixture of fig. 16 . as shown in this illustration, the load cell 158 may be mounted such that the first end of the load cell 158 is joined to the accessory mounting block 272 while the second end of the load cell 158 is joined to a front portion of the rear crosspiece 264 . when installed, the leading or front edge of the load cell 158 does not reach as far as a trailing or back edge of the middle crosspiece 266 . during use, as the load cell 158 deflects under changes in the load on the accessory 106 , the first end of the load cell 158 may move into the space that is between rear crosspiece 264 and the middle crosspiece 266 . the accessory mounting block 272 provides additional clearance or height, providing room for the load cell 158 to deflect while providing clearance from a top surface of the electronics cover 274 and a bottom surface of the accessory 106 . also shown is the front stop 270 that is affixed to the front crosspiece 268 . mounted to the front stop is the ticket channel 218 . there is a gap or clearance between a leading edge of the accessory 106 and a trailing edge of the front stop 270 . this gap allows the accessory 106 to move with respect to the front stop 270 as the weight on the accessory 106 changes. in other implementations, other arrangements may be utilized. for example, the cross member between the brackets 108 may be a channel within which the load cells 158 are mounted. fig. 21 illustrates a view of a fixture with a modular weighing module that may be moved with respect to a crossbar, according to some implementations. in this illustration, weighing modules 104 may be inserted into a crossbar channel 228 at a desired lateral position between the left end and right end of the crossbar 102 . the crossbar 102 is supported by brackets 108 . one or more crossbar engagement features 226 extend from left to right along a rear wall of the crossbar channel 228 . for example, the crossbar engagement features 226 may comprise crenellations or teeth extending upward. the fixture may include a front stop 270 and a ticket channel 218 . the weighing module 104 is below the accessory 106 and the accessory 106 is mounted to the load cell 158 of the weighing module 104 . the position of the weighing module 104 is between a front and a back of the accessory 106 . for example, the load cell 158 may attach to the accessory 106 at a midpoint between the front and back of the accessory 106 . the accessory 106 may include an accessory back wall 284 and an accessory front lip 286 . the accessory back wall 284 extends up from the surface of the trailing edge of the accessory 106 . the accessory front lip 286 extends up from the surface of the leading edge of the accessory 106 . wire guides 220 may be used on one or more sides of the accessory 106 . the accessory back wall 284 may include wire guide slots 282 that allow for the wire guides 220 to be repositioned with respect to a particular accessory 106 . for example, a pair of wire guides 220 may be moved together to accommodate narrower items or may be moved apart to accommodate wider items. fig. 22 illustrates a view of a fixture with modular weighing modules affixed to a crossbar, according to some implementations. this fixture utilizes weighing modules 104 that are affixed to a crossbar 102 (not shown) that extends from a left bracket 108 to a right bracket 108 . in comparison, the fixture of fig. 21 allows for the weighing modules 104 to be moved laterally as designed to change the spacing between weighing modules 104 . the accessories 106 may include an accessory back wall 284 and an accessory front lip 286 . wire guides 220 may be installed to facilitate retention of items within respective ones of the accessories 106 . a ticket channel 218 is also shown. figs. 23-27 illustrate views of a crossbar with modular weighing module 104 supporting a cantilevered hanger from which items may be suspended, according to some implementations. fig. 23 depicts a front view of the fixture showing accessories 106 comprising hangers that cantilever away from the weighing module 104 . the weighing modules 104 are mounted to a crossbar 102 . engagement features 110 extend from a left end and a right end of the crossbar 102 , allowing the crossbar to be mounted to another structure, such as the uprights of a gondola. tag holders 300 are shown at the leading tip of the accessory 106 hanger. for example, the tag holder 300 may hold a printed tag showing price, item number, and so forth. fig. 24 shows a rear view of the fixture of fig. 23 . a vent 306 is shown. the vent 306 provides air circulation to facilitate cooling of electronics within the crossbar 102 . fig. 25 shows an exploded view of the fixture of fig. 23 . the accessory 106 hanger may be affixed to the weighing module 104 by inserting one or more prongs into corresponding holes in a front plate 314 . this allows the weighing module 104 to easily be reconfigured to support hangers of different sizes. the front plate 314 is attached to, or part of, a bracket 316 that, in turn, is affixed to a first end of the load cell 158 . a cover 318 of the weighing module 104 provides an exterior to the weighing module 104 , protecting the interior components. a hole in the cover 318 allows the bracket 316 to exit from the cover 318 while not restricting movement of the bracket 316 . the cover 318 is mounted to structures in the weighing module 104 other than the load cell 158 . an upper mounting bracket 320 is affixed to a rear wall of the weighing module 104 . a lower mounting bracket 322 is affixed to the rear wall of the weighing module 104 , below the upper mounting bracket 320 . the crossbar 102 comprises a crossbar front 310 and a crossbar backpiece 312 . an electronics cover 274 within the crossbar 102 may contain the electronics associated with operation of the fixture. fig. 26 shows a side view of the weighing module 104 of the fixture of fig. 23 . in this view prongs of the accessory 106 hanger are visible, mechanically engaging the accessory 106 to the front plate 314 . the front plate 314 in turn is attached to a forward portion of the bracket 316 . the bracket 316 may include one or more stiffening features 330 . these stiffening features may include cross braces, bends, folds, and so forth. by including the stiffening features 330 in the bracket 316 , in this cantilevered configuration the mechanical oscillation may be reduced. this reduction may improve the quality of the load cell data produced by the load cell 158 . the upper mounting bracket 320 of the weighing module 104 extends over the top of the crossbar 102 , while the lower mounting bracket 322 extends back away from the weighing module 104 , underneath at least a portion of the crossbar 102 . the lower mounting bracket 322 may include one or more screws 332 . for example, the screw may comprise a thumbscrew 332 that may be tightened to provide mechanical engagement with a portion of the underside of the crossbar 102 . fig. 27 shows a cross section of the weighing module of fig. 26 . a front portion of the bracket 316 joins to the front plate 314 . the bracket 316 extends horizontally back to the load cell 158 . an upper surface of a first end of the load cell 158 is joined to an underside of the bracket 316 . for example, removeable fasteners such as bolts or screws may be used. the bracket 316 may have a bend 340 that forms a lip 342 . the lip 342 may increase the stiffness of the bracket 316 . a lower surface of a second end of the load cell 158 is joined to an upper surface of a support bracket 344 . the support bracket 344 mounts to a rear wall of the weighing module 104 . the support bracket 344 may include one or more stiffening features 330 , such as described above. the load cell 158 may comprise a single point load cell. in the implementation depicted here, the long axis of the load cell 158 is perpendicular to the load, in this case the accessory 106 . the torsion and off-axis load introduced by this configuration are well tolerated with the use of the single point load cell, and allow for a more compact arrangement of the weighing module 104 . in cross section, the cross section of the crossbar 102 is asymmetric. for example, the shape of the crossbar 102 as shown in this figure includes a slope that extends downward away from the front of the crossbar 102 . the upper mounting bracket 320 is configured with a corresponding shape, allowing the weighing module 104 to hang from the crossbar. one or more upper conductors 352 may be arranged along the slope of the upper portion of the crossbar 102 . similarly, one or more lower conductors 354 may be arranged along an underside of the crossbar 102 . these conductors may be used to transfer one or more of electrical power, signals, and so forth. the upper mounting bracket 320 and the lower mounting bracket 322 may be separated by a gap 350 or insulator, with each acting as an electrically conductive pathway. when installed, the upper mounting bracket 320 provides a conductive pathway from electronics in the weighing module 104 to the upper conductor 352 . the lower mounting bracket 322 with the screw 332 provides a conductive pathway from the electronics to the lower conductor 354 . in other implementations, electrical connections between the weighing module 104 and the crossbar 102 may be provided as described above, using the circuit board 122 on the crossbar 102 and corresponding weighing module connectors 202 on the weighing module 104 . figs. 28-33 illustrate views of a crossbar 102 with modular weighing module 104 supporting a cantilevered hanger, according to some implementations. in these implementations, the body of the weighing module 104 is behind the crossbar 102 . fig. 28 shows a front view of the fixture with a crossbar 102 . a weighing module 104 has a front cover 366 . the front cover 366 includes one or more hanger holes 368 in a vertical surface of the front cover 366 . the hanger holes 368 are configured to accept the prongs of an accessory 106 such as a hanger. the front cover 366 of the weighing module 104 extends downward to cover at least a portion of a crossbar front 364 . however, in this fixture, the weighing module 104 does not engage a front vertical surface of the crossbar front 364 . fig. 29 shows a front view of a variation of the fixture in which the crossbar 102 includes upper engagement features 376 . the upper engagement features 376 may include slots, tabs, and so forth. when installed, the weighing module 104 is configured to engage at least a portion of these upper engagement features 376 . fig. 30 shows a rear view of the fixture of fig. 29 , showing the upper engagement features 376 and lower engagement features 378 . also shown is the circuit board 122 . a module back cover 380 of the weighing module 104 is also shown, along with a top or cap of the front cover 366 . fig. 31 shows an exploded view of the fixture of fig. 29 . the module back cover 380 fits behind and below the front cover 366 . the front cover 366 is affixed to a first end of the load cell 158 . a second end of the load cell 158 is affixed to a horizontal portion of an internal front piece 390 of the weighing module 104 . an internal backpiece 392 in turn may be affixed to the internal front piece 390 . one or more module engagement features 394 may extend from the internal front piece 390 . for example, the module engagement features 394 may comprise tabs that protrude from the weighing module 104 and are configured to engage upper engagement features 376 comprising slots. fig. 32 depicts a side view of the fixture of fig. 29 . the bracket 108 is shown along with the front cover 366 . fig. 33 depicts a cross section of the fixture of fig. 29 . the front cover 366 is bend or otherwise formed to create a cap 404 . a horizontal portion of the cap 404 is affixed to a first end of the load cell 158 . when a load is applied to the hanger that is hanging from front cover 366 , the load cell 158 is deflected. in the implementation shown here, the front cover 366 comprises a single piece of material. one or more stiffening features may be included to improve the stiffness of the front cover 366 . compared to some of the other fixtures described herein, the front cover 366 of the weighing module 104 does not come into contact with a front vertical surface of the crossbar front 364 . a gap is present between the front vertical surface of the crossbar front 364 and the front cover 366 . instead, the weighing module 104 remains engaged with the crossbar 102 by way of the upper engagement features 376 and the lower engagement features 378 , as well as the cantilevering action provided by the load on an accessory. a second end of the load cell 158 is affixed to the horizontal portion of the internal front piece 390 . as described above, the load cell 158 may be affixed to other members using one or more removeable fasteners. a weighing module connector 202 may be mounted to or within the internal front piece 390 , on a front surface facing towards the crossbar 102 when installed. when installed, the weighing module connector 202 comes into contact with the electrical conductors on the circuit board 122 of the crossbar 102 . visible is a module engagement feature 394 that is within one of the upper engagement features 376 . the crossbar 102 may include a slope 406 that extends downwards from a front of the crossbar 102 to a back. the internal backpiece 392 encloses at least some of the parts of the weighing module 104 , such as the electronics 408 . a bracket 410 may extend from the internal front piece 390 and provides an attachment point for the internal back piece 392 . the implementations described above are provided for illustration, and not necessarily as limitations. for example, the fixtures may support different numbers of accessories 106 , combinations of different accessories on the same fixture, and so forth. fig. 34 is a block diagram 3400 illustrating a materials handling facility (facility) 3402 using the system, according to some implementations. a facility 3402 comprises one or more physical structures or areas within which one or more items 432 ( 1 ), 432 ( 2 ), . . . , 432 (q) may be held. as used in this disclosure, letters in parenthesis such as “(q)” indicate an integer value greater than or equal to zero. the items 432 may comprise physical goods, such as books, pharmaceuticals, repair parts, electronic gear, and so forth. the facility 3402 may include one or more areas designated for different functions with regard to inventory handling. in this illustration, the facility 3402 includes a receiving area 3404 , a storage area 3406 , and a transition area 3408 . the receiving area 3404 may be configured to accept items 432 , such as from suppliers, for intake into the facility 3402 . for example, the receiving area 3404 may include a loading dock at which trucks or other freight conveyances unload the items 432 . in some implementations, the items 432 may be processed, such as at the receiving area 3404 , to generate at least a portion of the item data. for example, an item 432 may be imaged or otherwise scanned to develop reference images or representations of the item 432 at the receiving area 3404 . the storage area 3406 is configured to store the items 432 . the storage area 3406 may be arranged in various physical configurations. in one implementation, the storage area 3406 may include one or more aisles 3410 . the aisle 3410 may be configured with, or defined by, fixtures 430 such as those described above that are arranged along one or both sides of the aisle 3410 . the fixtures 430 may also be movable such that the arrangements of aisles 3410 may be reconfigurable. in some implementations, the fixtures 430 may be configured to move independently of an outside operator. for example, the fixtures 430 may comprise a rack with a power source and a motor, operable by a computing device to allow the rack to move from one location within the facility 3402 to another. one or more users 434 ( 1 ), 434 ( 2 ), . . . , 434 (u) and totes 436 ( 1 ), 436 ( 2 ), . . . , 436 (t) or other material handling apparatus may move within the facility 3402 . for example, the user 434 may move about within the facility 3402 to pick or place the items 432 in various fixtures 430 , placing them on the tote 436 for ease of transport. the tote 436 is configured to carry or otherwise transport one or more items 432 . for example, the tote 436 may include a basket, cart, bag, bin, and so forth. in other implementations, other material handling apparatuses such as robots, forklifts, cranes, aerial drones, and so forth, may move about the facility 3402 picking, placing, or otherwise moving the items 432 . for example, a robot may pick an item 432 from a first fixture 430 ( 1 ) and move the item 432 to a second fixture 430 ( 2 ). one or more sensors 438 may be configured to acquire information in the facility 3402 . the sensors 438 may include, but are not limited to, cameras 438 ( 1 ), depth sensors 438 ( 2 ), load cells 158 , optical sensor arrays 438 ( 13 ), proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ), and so forth. the sensors 438 may be stationary or mobile, relative to the facility 3402 . for example, as described above the shelves may contain load cells 158 to generate weight signals, cameras 438 ( 1 ) to acquire images of picking or placement of items 432 on shelves, optical sensor arrays 438 ( 13 ) to detect shadows of the user's 434 hands at the fixtures 430 , and so forth. in another example, the facility 3402 may include a camera 438 ( 1 ) to obtain images of the user 434 or other objects in the facility 3402 . the sensors 438 are discussed in more detail below with regard to fig. 35 . while the storage area 3406 is depicted as having one or more aisles 3410 , fixtures 430 storing the items 432 , sensors 438 , and so forth, it is understood that the receiving area 3404 , the transition area 3408 , or other areas of the facility 3402 may be similarly equipped. furthermore, the arrangement of the various areas within the facility 3402 is depicted functionally rather than schematically. for example, in some implementations, multiple different receiving areas 3404 , storage areas 3406 , and transition areas 3408 may be interspersed rather than segregated in the facility 3402 . the facility 3402 may include, or be coupled to, an inventory management system 440 . the inventory management system 440 is configured to interact with users 434 or devices such as sensors 438 , robots, material handling equipment, computing devices, and so forth, in one or more of the receiving area 3404 , the storage area 3406 , or the transition area 3408 . during operation of the facility 3402 , the sensors 438 may be configured to provide sensor data, or information based on the sensor data, to the inventory management system 440 . the sensor data may include image data, non-image data, weight data obtained from load cells 158 , and so forth. the sensors 438 are described in more detail below with regard to fig. 35 . the inventory management system 440 or other systems may use the sensor data to track the location of objects within the facility 3402 , movement of the objects, or provide other functionality. objects may include, but are not limited to, items 432 , users 434 , totes 436 , and so forth. for example, a series of images acquired by the camera 438 ( 1 ) may indicate removal by the user 434 of an item 432 from a particular location on the fixture 430 and placement of the item 432 on or at least partially within the tote 436 . the facility 3402 may be configured to receive different kinds of items 432 from various suppliers and to store them until a customer orders or retrieves one or more of the items 432 . a general flow of items 432 through the facility 3402 is indicated by the arrows of fig. 34 . specifically, as illustrated in this example, items 432 may be received from one or more suppliers, such as manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and so forth, at the receiving area 3404 . in various implementations, the items 432 may include merchandise, commodities, perishables, or any suitable type of item 432 , depending on the nature of the enterprise that operates the facility 3402 . upon being received from a supplier at the receiving area 3404 , the items 432 may be prepared for storage in the storage area 3406 . for example, in some implementations, items 432 may be unpacked or otherwise rearranged. the inventory management system 440 may include one or more software applications executing on a computer system to provide inventory management functions. these inventory management functions may include maintaining information indicative of the type, quantity, condition, cost, location, weight, or any other suitable parameters with respect to the items 432 . the items 432 may be stocked, managed, or dispensed in terms of countable units, individual units, or multiple units, such as packages, cartons, crates, pallets, or other suitable aggregations. alternatively, some items 432 , such as bulk products, commodities, and so forth, may be stored in continuous or arbitrarily divisible amounts that may not be inherently organized into countable units. such items 432 may be managed in terms of a measurable quantity such as units of length, area, volume, weight, time, duration, or other dimensional properties characterized by units of measurement. generally speaking, a quantity of an item 432 may refer to either a countable number of individual or aggregate units of an item 432 or a measurable amount of an item 432 , as appropriate. after arriving through the receiving area 3404 , items 432 may be stored within the storage area 3406 . in some implementations, like items 432 may be stored or displayed together in the fixtures 430 such as on accessories 106 . in this implementation, all items 432 of a given kind are stored in one fixture 430 . in other implementations, like items 432 may be stored in different fixtures 430 . for example, to optimize retrieval of certain items 432 having frequent turnover within a large physical facility 3402 , those items 432 may be stored in several different fixtures 430 to reduce congestion that might occur at a single fixture 430 . when a customer order specifying one or more items 432 is received, or as a user 434 progresses through the facility 3402 , the corresponding items 432 may be selected or “picked” from the fixtures 430 containing those items 432 . in various implementations, item picking may range from manual to completely automated picking. for example, in one implementation, a user 434 may have a list of items 432 they desire and may progress through the facility 3402 picking items 432 from fixtures 430 within the storage area 3406 and placing those items 432 into a tote 436 . in other implementations, employees of the facility 3402 may pick items 432 using written or electronic pick lists derived from customer orders. these picked items 432 may be placed into the tote 436 as the employee progresses through the facility 3402 . after items 432 have been picked, the items 432 may be processed at a transition area 3408 . the transition area 3408 may be any designated area within the facility 3402 where items 432 are transitioned from one location to another or from one entity to another. for example, the transition area 3408 may be a packing station within the facility 3402 . when the item 432 arrives at the transition area 3408 , the items 432 may be transitioned from the storage area 3406 to the packing station. information about the transition may be maintained by the inventory management system 440 . in another example, if the items 432 are departing the facility 3402 , a list of the items 432 may be obtained and used by the inventory management system 440 to transition responsibility for, or custody of, the items 432 from the facility 3402 to another entity. for example, a carrier may accept the items 432 for transport with that carrier accepting responsibility for the items 432 indicated in the list. in another example, a user 434 may purchase or rent the items 432 and remove the items 432 from the facility 3402 . during use of the facility 3402 , the user 434 may move about the facility 3402 to perform various tasks, such as picking or placing the items 432 in the fixtures 430 . to facilitate operation of the facility 3402 , the inventory management system 440 is configured to use the sensor data including the weight data and may also use other information such as item data, physical layout data, non-weight data, and so forth, to generate interaction data 442 . the interaction data 442 may provide information about an interaction, such as a pick of an item 432 from the fixture 430 , a place of an item 432 to the fixture 430 , a touch made to an item 432 at the fixture 430 , a gesture associated with an item 432 at the fixture 430 , and so forth. the interaction data 442 may include one or more of the type of interaction, interaction location identifier indicative of where from the fixture 430 the interaction took place, item identifier, quantity change to the item 432 , user identifier, and so forth. the interaction data 442 may then be used to further update the item data. for example, the quantity of items 432 on hand at a particular accessory 106 may be changed based on an interaction that picks or places one or more items 432 . the inventory management system 440 may combine or otherwise utilize data from different sensors 438 of different types, including the load cells 158 . for example, weight data obtained from load cells 158 at the fixture 430 may be used in conjunction with non-weight data such as the image data to determine the interaction data 442 . fig. 35 is a block diagram 3500 illustrating additional details of the facility 3402 , according to some implementations. the facility 3402 may be connected to one or more networks 3502 , which in turn connect to one or more servers 3504 . the network 3502 may include private networks such as an institutional or personal intranet, public networks such as the internet, or a combination thereof. the network 3502 may utilize wired technologies (e.g., wires, fiber optic cables, and so forth), wireless technologies (e.g., radio frequency, infrared, acoustic, optical, and so forth), or other connection technologies. the network 3502 is representative of any type of communication network, including one or more of data networks or voice networks. the servers 3504 may be configured to execute one or more modules or software applications associated with the inventory management system 440 or other systems. while the servers 3504 are illustrated as being in a location outside of the facility 3402 , in other implementations, at least a portion of the servers 3504 may be located at the facility 3402 . the servers 3504 are discussed in more detail below with regard to fig. 36 . the users 434 , the totes 436 , or other objects in the facility 3402 may be equipped with one or more tags 3506 . the tags 3506 may be configured to emit a signal 3508 . in one implementation, the tag 3506 may be a radio frequency identification (rfid) tag 3506 configured to emit a rf signal 3508 upon activation by an external signal. for example, the external signal may comprise a radio frequency signal or a magnetic field configured to energize or activate the rfid tag 3506 . in another implementation, the tag 3506 may comprise a transmitter and a power source configured to power the transmitter. for example, the tag 3506 may comprise a bluetooth® low energy (ble) transmitter and battery. in other implementations, the tag 3506 may use other techniques to indicate presence of the tag 3506 . for example, an acoustic tag 3506 may be configured to generate an ultrasonic signal 3508 , which is detected by corresponding acoustic receivers. in yet another implementation, the tag 3506 may be configured to emit an optical signal 3508 . the inventory management system 440 may be configured to use the tags 3506 for one or more of identification of the object, determining a location of the object, and so forth. for example, the users 434 may wear tags 3506 , the totes 436 may have tags 3506 affixed, and so forth, which may be read and, based at least in part on signal strength, used to determine identity and location. generally, the inventory management system 440 or other systems associated with the facility 3402 may include any number and combination of input components, output components, and servers 3504 . the one or more sensors 438 (including the load cells 158 ) may be arranged at one or more locations within the facility 3402 . for example, the sensors 438 may be mounted on or within a floor, wall, at a ceiling, at a fixture 430 , on a tote 436 , may be carried or worn by a user 434 , and so forth. the sensors 438 may include one or more load cells 158 . one or more load cells 158 are configured to measure the weight of a load, such as the item 432 , the tote 436 , or other objects. the load cells 158 may be configured to measure the weight of the load at one or more of the fixtures 430 , the tote 436 , on the floor of the facility 3402 , and so forth. for example, the fixture 430 may include a plurality of accessories 106 , with one or more load cells 158 beneath each accessory 106 to provide weight signals about an individual partitioned area or platform. the load cells 158 may include one or more sensing mechanisms to determine the weight of a load. these sensing mechanisms may include piezoresistive devices, piezoelectric devices, capacitive devices, electromagnetic devices, optical devices, potentiometric devices, microelectromechanical devices, and so forth. the sensing mechanisms of load cells 158 may operate as transducers that generate one or more signals based on an applied force, such as that of the load due to gravity. for example, the load cell 158 may comprise a strain gauge and a structural member that deforms slightly when weight is applied. the strain gauge may be bonded to or otherwise affixed to the structural member. as weight is applied, the structural members is deformed, which also results in deformation of the strain gauge. by measuring a change in the electrical characteristic of the strain gauge, such as capacitance or resistance, the weight may be determined. for example, a lookup table may relate a particular electrical resistance value to a particular weight. in another example, the load cell 158 may comprise a force sensing resistor (fsr). the fsr may comprise a resilient material that changes one or more electrical characteristics when compressed. for example, the electrical resistance of a particular portion of the fsr may decrease as the particular portion is compressed. the inventory management system 440 may use the data acquired by the load cells 158 to identify an object, determine a change in the quantity of objects, determine a location of an object, maintain shipping records, and so forth. the sensors 438 may include one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ) or other imaging sensors. the one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ) may include imaging sensors configured to acquire images of a scene. the cameras 438 ( 1 ) are configured to detect light in one or more wavelengths including, but not limited to, terahertz, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and so forth. the one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ) may comprise charge coupled devices (ccd), complementary metal oxide semiconductor (cmos) devices, microbolometers, and so forth. the inventory management system 440 may use image data acquired by the one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ) during operation of the facility 3402 . for example, the inventory management system 440 may identify items 432 , users 434 , totes 436 , and so forth, based at least in part on their appearance within the image data acquired by the one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ). the one or more cameras 438 ( 1 ) may be mounted in various locations within the facility 3402 . for example, a camera 438 ( 1 ) may be mounted overhead, on fixtures 430 , may be worn or carried by users 434 , may be affixed to totes 436 , and so forth. one or more depth sensors 438 ( 2 ) may also be included in the sensors 438 . the depth sensors 438 ( 2 ) are configured to acquire spatial or three-dimensional (3d) data, such as depth information, about objects within a field of view. the depth sensors 438 ( 2 ) may include range cameras, lidar systems, sonar systems, radar systems, structured light systems, stereo vision systems, optical interferometry systems, and so forth. the inventory management system 440 may use the 3d data acquired by the depth sensors 438 ( 2 ) to identify objects, determine a location of an object in 3d real space, and so forth. one or more buttons 438 ( 3 ) may be configured to accept input from the user 434 . the buttons 438 ( 3 ) may comprise mechanical, capacitive, optical, or other mechanisms. for example, the buttons 438 ( 3 ) may comprise mechanical switches configured to accept an applied force from a touch of the user 434 to generate an input signal. the inventory management system 440 may use data from the buttons 438 ( 3 ) to receive information from the user 434 . for example, the tote 436 may be configured with a button 438 ( 3 ) to accept input from the user 434 and send information indicative of the input to the inventory management system 440 . the sensors 438 may include one or more touch sensors 438 ( 4 ). the touch sensors 438 ( 4 ) may use resistive, capacitive, surface capacitance, projected capacitance, mutual capacitance, optical, interpolating force-sensitive resistance (ifsr), or other mechanisms to determine the position of a touch or near-touch. for example, the ifsr may comprise a material configured to change electrical resistance responsive to an applied force. the location within the material of that change in electrical resistance may indicate the position of the touch. the inventory management system 440 may use data from the touch sensors 438 ( 4 ) to receive information from the user 434 . for example, the touch sensor 438 ( 4 ) may be integrated with the tote 436 to provide a touchscreen with which the user 434 may select from a menu one or more particular items 432 for picking, enter a manual count of items 432 at a fixture 430 , and so forth. one or more microphones 438 ( 5 ) may be configured to acquire information indicative of sound present in the environment. in some implementations, arrays of microphones 438 ( 5 ) may be used. these arrays may implement beamforming techniques to provide for directionality of gain. the inventory management system 440 may use the one or more microphones 438 ( 5 ) to acquire information from acoustic tags 3506 , accept voice input from the users 434 , determine ambient noise level, and so forth. the sensors 438 may include proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ) used to determine presence of an object, such as the user 434 , the tote 436 , and so forth. the proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ) may use optical, electrical, ultrasonic, electromagnetic, or other techniques to determine a presence of an object. in some implementations, the proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ) may use an optical emitter and an optical detector to determine proximity. for example, an optical emitter may emit light, a portion of which may then be reflected by the object back to the optical detector to provide an indication that the object is proximate to the proximity sensor 438 ( 6 ). in other implementations, the proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ) may comprise a capacitive proximity sensor 438 ( 6 ) configured to provide an electrical field and determine a change in electrical capacitance due to the presence or absence of an object within the electrical field. the proximity sensors 438 ( 6 ) may be configured to provide sensor data indicative of one or more of a presence or absence of an object, a distance to the object, or characteristics of the object. an optical proximity sensor 438 ( 6 ) may use time-of-flight (tof), structured light, interferometry, or other techniques to generate the distance data. for example, tof determines a propagation time (or “round-trip” time) of a pulse of emitted light from an optical emitter or illuminator that is reflected or otherwise returned to an optical detector. by dividing the propagation time in half and multiplying the result by the speed of light in air, the distance to an object may be determined. in another implementation, a structured light pattern may be provided by the optical emitter. a portion of the structured light pattern may then be detected on the object using a sensor 438 such as a camera 438 ( 1 ). based on an apparent distance between the features of the structured light pattern, the distance to the object may be calculated. other techniques may also be used to determine distance to the object. in another example, the color of the reflected light may be used to characterize the object, such as skin, clothing, tote 436 , and so forth. the sensors 438 may include one or more optical sensors 438 ( 7 ). the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may be configured to provide data indicative of one or more of color or intensity of light impinging thereupon. for example, the optical sensor 438 ( 7 ) may comprise a photodiode and associated circuitry configured to generate a signal or data indicative of an incident flux of photons. as described below, the optical sensor array 438 ( 13 ) may comprise a plurality of the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ). for example, the optical sensor 438 ( 7 ) may comprise an array of ambient light sensors such as the isl76683 as provided by intersil corporation of milpitas, calif., usa, or the max44009 as provided by maxim integrated of san jose, calif., usa. in other implementations, other optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may be used. the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may be sensitive to one or more of infrared light, visible light, or ultraviolet light. for example, the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may be sensitive to infrared light, and infrared light sources such as leds may provide illumination. the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may include photodiodes, photoresistors, photovoltaic cells, quantum dot photoconductors, bolometers, pyroelectric infrared detectors, and so forth. for example, the optical sensor 438 ( 7 ) may use germanium photodiodes to detect infrared light. one or more radio frequency identification (rfid) readers 438 ( 8 ), near field communication (nfc) systems, and so forth, may be included as sensors 438 . for example, the rfid readers 438 ( 8 ) may be configured to read the rf tags 3506 . information acquired by the rfid reader 438 ( 8 ) may be used by the inventory management system 440 to identify an object associated with the rf tag 3506 such as the item 432 , the user 434 , the tote 436 , and so forth. for example, based on information from the rfid readers 438 ( 8 ) detecting the rf tag 3506 at different times and rfid readers 438 ( 8 ) having different locations in the facility 3402 , a velocity of the rf tag 3506 may be determined. one or more rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may also be included as sensors 438 . in some implementations, the rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may be part of transceiver assemblies. the rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may be configured to acquire rf signals 3508 associated with wi-fi®, bluetooth®, zigbee®, 2g, 34g, 4g, lte, or other wireless data transmission technologies. in some implementations, the rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may detect signals transmitted at frequencies such as below 15 mhz. the rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may provide information associated with data transmitted via radio frequencies, signal strength of rf signals 3508 , and so forth. for example, information from the rf receivers 438 ( 9 ) may be used by the inventory management system 440 to determine a location of an rf source, such as a communication interface onboard the tote 436 . the sensors 438 may include one or more accelerometers 438 ( 10 ), which may be worn or carried by the user 434 , mounted to the tote 436 , and so forth. the accelerometers 438 ( 10 ) may provide information such as the direction and magnitude of an imposed acceleration. data such as rate of acceleration, determination of changes in direction, speed, and so forth, may be determined using the accelerometers 438 ( 10 ). a gyroscope 438 ( 11 ) may provide information indicative of rotation of an object affixed thereto. for example, the tote 436 or other objects may be equipped with a gyroscope 438 ( 11 ) to provide data indicative of a change in orientation of the object. a magnetometer 438 ( 12 ) may be used to determine an orientation by measuring ambient magnetic fields, such as the terrestrial magnetic field. the magnetometer 438 ( 12 ) may be worn or carried by the user 434 , mounted to the tote 436 , and so forth. for example, the magnetometer 438 ( 12 ) mounted to the tote 436 may act as a compass and provide information indicative of which direction the tote 436 is oriented. an optical sensor array 438 ( 13 ) may comprise one or optical sensors 438 ( 7 ). the optical sensors 438 ( 7 ) may be arranged in a regular, repeating, or periodic two-dimensional arrangement such as a grid. the optical sensor array 438 ( 13 ) may generate image data. for example, the optical sensor array 438 ( 13 ) may be arranged within or below a fixture 430 and obtain information about shadows of items 432 , hand of the user 434 , and so forth. the sensors 438 may include other sensors 438 (s) as well. for example, the other sensors 438 (s) may include light curtains, ultrasonic rangefinders, thermometers, barometric sensors, hygrometers, and so forth. for example, the inventory management system 440 may use information acquired from thermometers and hygrometers in the facility 3402 to direct the user 434 to check on delicate items 432 stored in a particular fixture 430 , which is overheating, too dry, too damp, and so forth. in one implementation, a light curtain may utilize a linear array of light emitters and a corresponding linear array of light detectors. for example, the light emitters may comprise a line of infrared light emitting diodes (leds) or vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (vcsels) that are arranged above a top shelf in front of the fixture 430 , while the light detectors comprise a line of photodiodes sensitive to infrared light arranged below the light emitters. the light emitters produce a “lightplane” or sheet of infrared light that is then detected by the light detectors. an object passing through the lightplane may decrease the amount of light falling upon the light detectors. for example, the user's 434 hand would prevent at least some of the light from light emitters from reaching a corresponding light detector. as a result, a position along the linear array of the object may be determined that is indicative of a touchpoint. this position may be expressed as touchpoint data, with the touchpoint being indicative of the intersection between the hand of the user 434 and the sheet of infrared light. in some implementations, a pair of light curtains may be arranged at right angles relative to one another to provide two-dimensional touchpoint data indicative of a position of touch in a plane. input from the light curtain, such as indicating occlusion from a hand of a user 434 may be used to trigger acquisition or selection of image data for processing by an analysis module. the other sensors 438 (s) may also include an instrumented auto-facing unit (afu). the instrumented afu may comprise a position sensor configured to provide data indicative of displacement of a pusher. as an item 432 is removed from the instrumented afu, the pusher moves, such as under the influence of a spring, and pushes the remaining items 432 in the instrumented afu to the front of the fixture 430 . by using data from the position sensor, and given item datasuch as a depth of an individual item 432 , a count may be determined, based on a change in position data. for example, if each item 432 is 1 inch deep, and the position data indicates a change of 4 inches, the quantity held by the instrumented afu may have changed by 4 items 432 . this count information may be used to confirm or provide a cross check for a count obtained by other means, such as analysis of the image data. in some implementations, the camera 438 ( 1 ) or other sensors 438 (s) may include hardware processors, memory, and other elements configured to perform various functions. for example, the camera 438 ( 1 ) may be configured to generate image data, send the image data to another device such as the server 3504 , and so forth. the facility 3402 may include one or more access points 3510 configured to establish one or more wireless networks. the access points 3510 may use wi-fi®, nfc, bluetooth®, or other technologies to establish wireless communications between a device and the network 3502 . the wireless networks allow the devices to communicate with one or more of the sensors 438 , the inventory management system 440 , the optical sensor arrays 438 ( 13 ), the tag 3506 , a communication device of the tote 436 , or other devices. output devices 3512 may also be provided in the facility 3402 . the output devices 3512 are configured to generate signals, which may be perceived by the user 434 or detected by the sensors 438 . in some implementations, the output devices 3512 may be used to provide illumination of the optical sensor array 438 ( 13 ). haptic output devices 3512 ( 1 ) are configured to provide a signal that results in a tactile sensation to the user 434 . the haptic output devices 3512 ( 1 ) may use one or more mechanisms such as electrical stimulation or mechanical displacement to provide the signal. for example, the haptic output devices 3512 ( 1 ) may be configured to generate a modulated electrical signal, which produces an apparent tactile sensation in one or more fingers of the user 434 . in another example, the haptic output devices 3512 ( 1 ) may comprise piezoelectric or rotary motor devices configured to provide a vibration, which may be felt by the user 434 . one or more audio output devices 3512 ( 2 ) may be configured to provide acoustic output. the acoustic output includes one or more of infrasonic sound, audible sound, or ultrasonic sound. the audio output devices 3512 ( 2 ) may use one or more mechanisms to generate the acoustic output. these mechanisms may include, but are not limited to, the following: voice coils, piezoelectric elements, magnetorestrictive elements, electrostatic elements, and so forth. for example, a piezoelectric buzzer or a speaker may be used to provide acoustic output. the display devices 3512 ( 3 ) may be configured to provide output, which may be seen by the user 434 or detected by a light-sensitive sensor such as a camera 438 ( 1 ) or an optical sensor 438 ( 7 ). in some implementations, the display devices 3512 ( 3 ) may be configured to produce output in one or more of infrared, visible, or ultraviolet light. the output may be monochrome or in color. the display devices 3512 ( 3 ) may be one or more of emissive, reflective, microelectromechanical, and so forth. an emissive display device 3512 ( 3 ), such as using leds, is configured to emit light during operation. in comparison, a reflective display device 3512 ( 3 ), such as using an electrophoretic element, relies on ambient light to present an image. backlights or front lights may be used to illuminate non-emissive display devices 3512 ( 3 ) to provide visibility of the output in conditions where the ambient light levels are low. the display devices 3512 ( 3 ) may be located at various points within the facility 3402 . for example, the addressable displays may be located on fixtures 430 , totes 436 , on the floor of the facility 3402 , and so forth. other output devices 3512 (p) may also be present. for example, the other output devices 3512 (p) may include scent/odor dispensers, document printers, 3d printers or fabrication equipment, and so forth. fig. 36 illustrates a block diagram 3600 of a server 3504 configured to support operation of the facility 3402 , according to some implementations. the server 3504 may be physically present at the facility 3402 , may be accessible by the network 3502 , or a combination of both. the server 3504 does not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. common expressions associated with the server 3504 may include “on-demand computing”, “software as a service (saas)”, “platform computing”, “network-accessible platform”, “cloud services”, “data centers”, and so forth. services provided by the server 3504 may be distributed across one or more physical or virtual devices. one or more power supplies 3602 may be configured to provide electrical power suitable for operating the components in the server 3504 . the one or more power supplies 3602 may comprise batteries, capacitors, fuel cells, photovoltaic cells, wireless power receivers, conductive couplings suitable for attachment to an external power source such as provided by an electric utility, and so forth. the server 3504 may include one or more hardware processors 3604 (processors) configured to execute one or more stored instructions. the processors 3604 may comprise one or more cores. one or more clocks 3606 may provide information indicative of date, time, ticks, and so forth. for example, the processor 3604 may use data from the clock 3606 to associate a particular interaction with a particular point in time. the server 3504 may include one or more communication interfaces 3608 such as input/output (i/o) interfaces 3610 , network interfaces 3612 , and so forth. the communication interfaces 3608 enable the server 3504 , or components thereof, to communicate with other devices or components. the communication interfaces 3608 may include one or more i/o interfaces 3610 . the i/o interfaces 3610 may comprise inter-integrated circuit (i2c), serial peripheral interface bus (spi), universal serial bus (usb) as promulgated by the usb implementers forum, rs-232, and so forth. the i/o interface(s) 3610 may couple to one or more i/o devices 3614 . the i/o devices 3614 may include input devices such as one or more of a sensor 438 , keyboard, mouse, scanner, and so forth. the i/o devices 3614 may also include output devices 3512 such as one or more of a display device 3512 ( 3 ), printer, audio speakers, and so forth. in some embodiments, the i/o devices 3614 may be physically incorporated with the server 3504 or may be externally placed. the network interfaces 3612 may be configured to provide communications between the server 3504 and other devices, such as the totes 436 , routers, access points 3510 , and so forth. the network interfaces 3612 may include devices configured to couple to personal area networks (pans), local area networks (lans), wireless local area networks (wlans), wide area networks (wans), and so forth. for example, the network interfaces 3612 may include devices compatible with ethernet, wi-fi®, bluetooth®, zigbee®, and so forth. the server 3504 may also include one or more busses or other internal communications hardware or software that allow for the transfer of data between the various modules and components of the server 3504 . as shown in fig. 36 , the server 3504 includes one or more memories 3616 . the memory 3616 may comprise one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media (crsm). the crsm may be any one or more of an electronic storage medium, a magnetic storage medium, an optical storage medium, a quantum storage medium, a mechanical computer storage medium, and so forth. the memory 3616 provides storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data for the operation of the server 3504 . a few example functional modules are shown stored in the memory 3616 , although the same functionality may alternatively be implemented in hardware, firmware, or as a system on a chip (soc). the memory 3616 may include at least one operating system (os) module 3618 . the os module 3618 is configured to manage hardware resource devices such as the i/o interfaces 3610 , the i/o devices 3614 , the communication interfaces 3608 , and provide various services to applications or modules executing on the processors 3604 . the os module 3618 may implement a variant of the freebsd® operating system as promulgated by the freebsd project; other unix™ or unix-like variants; a variation of the linux™ operating system as promulgated by linus torvalds; the windows® operating system from microsoft corporation of redmond, wash., usa; and so forth. also stored in the memory 3616 may be a data store 3620 and one or more of the following modules. these modules may be executed as foreground applications, background tasks, daemons, and so forth. the data store 3620 may use a flat file, database, linked list, tree, executable code, script, or other data structure to store information. in some implementations, the data store 3620 or a portion of the data store 3620 may be distributed across one or more other devices including the servers 3504 , network attached storage devices, and so forth. a communication module 3622 may be configured to establish communications with one or more of the totes 436 , sensors 438 , display devices 3512 ( 3 ), other servers 3504 , or other devices. the communications may be authenticated, encrypted, and so forth. the memory 3616 may store an inventory management module 3624 . the inventory management module 3624 is configured to provide the inventory functions as described herein with regard to the inventory management system 440 . for example, the inventory management module 3624 may track items 432 between different fixtures 430 , to and from the totes 436 , and so forth. the inventory management module 3624 may access sensor data 3630 . the sensor data 3630 may include the weight data 3632 , non-weight data 3634 , such as obtained from other sensors 438 such as cameras 438 ( 1 ), depth sensors 438 ( 2 ), and so forth. the inventory management module 3624 may include one or more of a data acquisition module 3626 and an analysis module 3628 . the data acquisition module 3626 may be configured to acquire and access information associated with operation of the facility 3402 . for example, the data acquisition module 3626 may be configured to acquire the sensor data 3630 , such as the weight data 3632 , the non-weight data 3634 such as the image data, and so forth. the analysis module 3628 is configured to process other sensor data 3630 to determine interaction data 442 . the sensor data 3630 may include weight data 3632 obtained from the load cells 158 and non-weight data 3634 obtained from other sensors, such as image data from cameras 438 ( 1 ), depth sensor data from the depth sensors 438 ( 2 ), data from instrumented auto facing units 438 ( 14 ) and so forth. threshold data 3636 may specify one or more thresholds used by the analysis module 3628 to determine changes in a quantity of items 432 at a particular accessory 106 . for example, the threshold data 3636 may specify a minimum variance in weight that is indicative of a change in quantity of items 432 at a particular accessory 106 . the inventory management system 440 may maintain and utilize item data 3638 and physical layout data 3640 . the item data 3638 comprises information about a particular type of item 432 . the item data 3638 may include information indicative of a weight of a single item 432 , or a package, kit, or other grouping considered to be a single item 432 . the item data 3638 may include other characteristics of that type of item 432 such as: physical dimensions, characteristics about how the item 432 appears, and so forth. for example, the item data 3638 may comprise a plurality of local descriptor values generated by feature extraction algorithms, parameters for classifiers, neural network configuration data, and so forth, that characterizes the appearance of a representative one or more of the item 432 . the item data 3638 may indicate the types and quantities of items 432 that are expected to be stored at that particular fixture 430 , such as in a particular accessory 106 on a fixture 430 . the item data 3638 may include other data. for example, the other data may comprise weight distribution of the item 432 , point cloud data for the item 432 , and so forth. the physical layout data 3640 may provide information indicative of where fixtures 430 are in the facility, location of sensors, information about sensor orientation and field of view (where applicable), and so forth. for example, the physical layout data 3640 may comprise information representative of a map or floor plan of the facility with relative positions of fixtures 430 , planogram data indicative of how types of items 432 are to be arranged at the fixtures 430 , and so forth. in another example, the physical layout data 3640 may comprise information indicating the particular placement of load cells 158 on a particular fixture 430 . the interaction data 442 provides information about an interaction, such as a pick of an item 432 from the fixture 430 , a place of an item 432 to the fixture 430 , a touch made to an item 432 at the fixture 430 , a gesture associated with an item 432 at the fixture 430 , and so forth. the interaction data 442 may include one or more of the type of interaction, interaction location identifier indicative of the fixture 430 at which the interaction took place, an item identifier indicative of a type of item 432 or particular item 432 , quantity change to the item 432 , user identifier, and so forth. the interaction data 442 may then be used to further update the item data 3638 . for example, the quantity of items 432 on hand at a particular partitioned area on the fixture 430 may be changed based on an interaction that picks or places one or more items 432 . operation of the analysis module 3628 , including generation of the interaction data 442 , is discussed in more detail below. the interaction data 442 provides information about an interaction, such as a pick of an item 432 from the fixture 430 , a place of an item 432 to the fixture 430 , a touch made to an item 432 at the fixture 430 , a gesture associated with an item 432 at the fixture 430 , and so forth. the interaction data 442 may include one or more of the type of interaction, interaction location identifier indicative of the fixture 430 at which the interaction took place, an item identifier indicative of a type of item 432 or particular item 432 , quantity change to the item 432 , user identifier, and so forth. the interaction data 442 may then be used to further update the item data 3638 . for example, the quantity of items 432 on hand at a particular partitioned area on the fixture 430 may be changed based on an interaction that picks or places one or more items 432 . operation of the analysis module 3628 , including generation of the interaction data 442 , is discussed in more detail below. the interaction data 442 provides information about an interaction, such as a pick of an item 432 from the accessory 106 , a place of an item 432 to the accessory 106 , a touch made to an item 432 at the accessory 106 , a gesture associated with an item 432 at the accessory 106 , and so forth. the interaction data 442 may include one or more of the type of interaction, interaction location identifier indicative of the accessory 106 at which the interaction took place, an item identifier indicative of a type of item 432 or particular item 432 , quantity change to the item 432 , user identifier, and so forth. the interaction data 442 may then be used to further update the item data 3638 . for example, the quantity of items 432 on hand at a particular accessory 106 may be changed based on an interaction that picks or places one or more items 432 . processing of image data may be performed by an image processing module implementing, at least in part, one or more of the following tools or techniques. in one implementation, processing of the image data may be performed, at least in part, using one or more tools available in the opencv library as developed by intel corporation of santa clara, calif., usa; willow garage of menlo park, calif., usa; and itseez of nizhny novgorod, russia, with information available at www.opencv.org. in another implementation, functions available in the okao machine vision library as promulgated by omron corporation of kyoto, japan, may be used to process the image data. in still another implementation, functions such as those in the machine vision toolbox for matlab (mvtb) available using matlab as developed by math works, inc. of natick, mass., usa, may be utilized. techniques such as artificial neural networks (anns), active appearance models (aams), active shape models (asms), principal component analysis (pca), cascade classifiers, and so forth, may also be used to process the sensor data 3630 or other data. for example, the ann may be trained using a supervised learning algorithm such that object identifiers are associated with images of particular objects within training images provided to the ann. once trained, the ann may be provided with the sensor data 3630 to determination of similarity between two or more images, provide object identification, and so forth. other modules 3642 may also be present in the memory 3616 as well as other data 3644 in the data store 3620 . for example, the other modules 3642 may include an accounting module while the other data 3644 may include billing data. the accounting module may be configured to assess charges to an account associated with a particular user 434 or other entities, while the billing data may include information such as payment account numbers. the processes discussed herein may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination thereof. in the context of software, the described operations represent computer-executable instructions stored on one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media that, when executed by one or more processors, perform the recited operations. generally, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and the like that perform particular functions or implement particular abstract data types. those having ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that certain steps or operations illustrated in the figures above may be eliminated, combined, or performed in an alternate order. any steps or operations may be performed serially or in parallel. furthermore, the order in which the operations are described is not intended to be construed as a limitation. embodiments may be provided as a software program or computer program product including a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions (in compressed or uncompressed form) that may be used to program a computer (or other electronic device) to perform processes or methods described herein. the computer-readable storage medium may be one or more of an electronic storage medium, a magnetic storage medium, an optical storage medium, a quantum storage medium, and so forth. for example, the computer-readable storage media may include, but is not limited to, hard drives, floppy diskettes, optical disks, read-only memories (roms), random access memories (rams), erasable programmable roms (eproms), electrically erasable programmable roms (eeproms), flash memory, magnetic or optical cards, solid-state memory devices, or other types of physical media suitable for storing electronic instructions. further, embodiments may also be provided as a computer program product including a transitory machine-readable signal (in compressed or uncompressed form). examples of transitory machine-readable signals, whether modulated using a carrier or unmodulated, include, but are not limited to, signals that a computer system or machine hosting or running a computer program can be configured to access, including signals transferred by one or more networks. for example, the transitory machine-readable signal may comprise transmission of software by the internet. separate instances of these programs can be executed on or distributed across any number of separate computer systems. thus, although certain steps have been described as being performed by certain devices, software programs, processes, or entities, this need not be the case, and a variety of alternative implementations will be understood by those having ordinary skill in the art. additionally, those having ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that the techniques and devices described above can be utilized in a variety of devices, environments, and situations. although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described. rather, the specific features and acts are disclosed as illustrative forms of implementing the claims.
128-463-372-336-879	US	[ "US" ]	C08G18/40	1975-05-19T00:00:00	1975	[ "C08" ]	polyurethane foam and method for its manufacture	the resiliency and permeability of flexible polyurethane foams prepared from polyether polyols are improved by including a minor proportion of a polyester polyol in the reaction mixture.	1. in a process for the preparation of a flexible polyurethane foam from a reaction mixture comprising a polyether polyol having a hydroxyl functionality of greater than two, an organic aromatic polyisocyanate, a blowing agent, at least on chain extender, an organo-silicon emulsifier surfactant, and a catalyst, the improvement which comprises the addition to the reaction mixture of a polyester polyol having a hydroxyl functionality of greater than two and less than three in amounts of from about 0.5 to about 5 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of said polyether polyol, whereby the ease of foam preparation is improved and a foam of increased resilience and stability is obtained. 2. the process of claim 1 wherein the amount of polyester polyol is from about 1 to about 2 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of said polyether polyol. 3. the process of claim 1 wherein the polyester polyol is a polyester prepared from the reaction of adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolpropane; and has a hydroxyl number of from about 48 to about 52, an acid number of from about 1.0 to about 2.0, and a viscosity of from about 18,500 to about 21,500 cps at 25.degree. c. 4. the process of claim 1 wherein the polyester polyol is a polyester prepared from the reaction of adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolethane; and has a hydroxyl number of from about 52 to about 63, an acid number of from about 1.5 to about 2.5, and a viscosity of from about 19,000 to about 21,000 cps at 25.degree. c. 5. the process of claim 1 wherein the blowing agent is water. 6. the process of claim 1 wherein the blowing agent is a combination of water and a volatile organic blowing agent. 7. the process of claim 1 wherein the reaction mixture also comprises an organic flame-retardant. 8. the process of claim 7 wherein: the polyether polyol is a polyether triol having a molecular weight of about 6000 and a hydroxyl number of about 28, and which contains both primary and secondary hydroxyl groups; the organic polyisocyanate is an adduct of tolylene diisocyanate; the blowing agent is a combination of water and trichlorofluoromethane; the catalyst is triethylenediamine; the organic flame-retardant is tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate; and the polyester polyol is a polyester prepared from the reaction of adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolpropane. 9. a high-resilience, flexible, polyurethane foam which comprises the reaction product of a mixture of a polyether polyol having a hydroxyl functionality of greater than two, a minor amount of a polyester polyol having a hydroxyl functionality greater than two and less than three, an organic aromatic polyisocyanate, a blowing agent, at least one chain extender, an organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactant, and a catalyst, the amount of said polyester polyol being from about 0.5 to about 5 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of said polyether polyol. 10. a high-resilience, flexible, polyurethane foam according to claim 9 that is made flame-retardant by the inclusion of a halogenated phosphate ester in the reaction mixture.	background of the invention 1. field of the invention this invention relates to high resilience polyurethane foams, and more particularly to the use of minor amounts of certain polyester polyols to improve the resilience of flexible polyurethane foams made from polyether polyols. the high resilience polyurethane foams made according to this invention are obtained directly, without the necessity of mechanical crushing of the cured foam. the method disclosed is especially applicable to the production of free-rise slabstock, but it can also be employed to produce high resilience foam in closed molds, if desired. 2. description of the prior art flexible polyurethane foams prepared by the reaction of polyether polyols and organic polyisocyanates in the presence of blowing agents are well known, and have been made commercially in various forms including molded shapes, sheets, and blocks of circular and rectangular cross-section. such products were found to be of use in a number of applications such as insulation and packaging, but were not completely satisfactory in cushioning applications due to lack of sufficient resilience. typical uses requiring resiliency include cushions, mattresses, automotive and furniture upholstery, and shoe inner soles. the deficiency in resilience of polyether polyurethane foams is believed to be due to a number of factors, including the molecular composition of the polyurethane polymer and the fact that the foams contained too high a proportion of closed cells. a great many attempts have been made to overcome the deficiency in resilience. while these have provided some improvements, none has been completely successful and many add unduly to cost by way of more expensive raw materials or additional processing steps. one of the known means for improving resilience is to subject a foam having a high proportion of closed cells to mechanical crushing, as between a pair of rolls for example. this method causes some of the closed cells to rupture, thus increasing the degree of openness and rendering the structure less tight and more resilient. although crushing has beeen widely used in the foam industry, it does not improve resiliency to the desired degree and necessitates additional equipment and processing with a consequent increase in cost. another approach to improving resiliency is the use of the so-called polymer-polyols such as those described by patten et al in journal of cellular plastics, november/december 1974, page 276 et seq, as partial or total replacements for conventional polyether polyols. these polymer-polyols are produced by the in situ polymerization of one or more vinyl monomers, such as styrene and acrylonitrile, in the presence of a conventional polyether polyol. although these materials may provide improved resiliency in foams made under ideal conditions, they have been found to be deficient in processability when used in free-rise slab stock formulations under actual plant conditions. various other means for improving resiliency have been disclosed in prior patents. examples are: the use of an undistilled tolylene diamine phosgenation product having a controlled acidity, disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 3,801,518 to irwin et al; the use of a mixture of alkanols of octahydrothieno (3,4-b) pyrazine 6,6-dioxide as chain extenders, as disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 3,821,132 to mao et al; the use of polyether polyols capped with urethane or urea end groups, as disclosed by fabris et al in u.s. pat. no. 3,823,096; the use of isocyanurate polyols as curing agents for molded foams, as disclosed by taub in u.s. pat. no. 3,856,718; the use of a mixture of polyols comprising an ethylene oxide tipped polyester polyol and a large proportion of a second polyester polyol containing at least 40% by weight of oxyethylene groups at least some of which are in non-terminal positions, as disclosed by fishbein et al in u.s. pat. no. 3,857,800; and the addition to the reaction mixture of a solid polymer of ethylenically unsaturated monomers free from groups reactive with nco or oh groups, as disclosed by blankenship in u.s. pat. no. 3,869,413. summary of the invention this invention is based on the surprising discovery that soft highly resilient polyether polyurethane foams can be directly prepared, without the necessity for introducing a crushing step and without resorting to the use of expensive raw materials, by adding a small proportion of a polyester polyol to a conventional reaction mixture comprising a polyether polyol, an organic polyisocyanate, a blowing agent, one or more chain extenders, a surfactant, and one or more catalysts. other compounding ingredients well known to the art, such as flame-retardants, dyes, pigments, fillers, anti-static agents, anti-oxidants and so on, can also be included in the reaction mixture if desired. this discovery is particularly unexpected in view of the facts well known in the art that: (a) polyester polyurethane foams are invariably tighter and more closed-cell than polyether polyurethane foams, and (b) highly resilient polyether polyurethane slabstock foams are generally considered to be the tightest of the polyether polyurethane slabstock foams. thus it was quite surprising to find that the addition of as little as 0.5 part by weight of a polyester polyol to 100 parts by weight of a polyether polyol markedly improved the ease of foam preparation (i.e. the processing latitude) and improved the physical properties of the foam itself. in the latter regard, the resulting foam was more permeable, more resilient, and did not shrink: thus it was not necessary to crush the foam in order to achieve the desired resiliency nor to avoid shrinkage. the foam was improved in stability, in that the indentation load deflection did not increase during storage. detailed description of the invention the polyester polyols which are used in the practice of this invention are known in the art and are conventionally used as the sole, or the major, polyols in the preparation of flexible polyester type polyurethanes. these polyesters have a hydroxyl functionality, i.e. an average number of hydroxyl groups per molecule, of greater than two and less than three. they can be prepared, for example, by the reaction of dicarboxylic acids with greater than the stoichiometric amount of polyhydric alcohols consisting of a mixture of diols and triols. if desired, polyhydric alcohols containing four or more hydroxyl groups can be used in place of triols, although triols are preferred. examples of suitable triols are: trimethylolethane; trimethylolpropane; 1,2,4-butanetriol; 1,2,6-hexanetriol; triethanolamine; and glycerol, with the first two named being preferred. examples of suitable diols are: neopentyl glycol; ethylene glycol; diethylene glycol; hexamethylene glycol; 1,3 and 1,4-butylene glycol; 1,2- and 1,3-propylene glycol, and the corresponding dipropylene glycols. the polyhydric alcohols and polycarboxylic acid compounds each contain from two to about 36 carbon atoms in the molecule. the polycarboxylic acid includes such acid precursors as the corresponding acid anhydrides or acid halides or even, for example, alkyl esters. examples of suitable carboxylic acid compounds which can be used include, for example, aromatic acids such as phthalic acid, terephthalic acid, isophthalic acid, tetrachlorophthalic acid, cycloaliphatic acids such as dimerized linoleic acid, maleated and fumarated resin acids, tricarballylic acid, and cyclohexane-1,4-diacetic acid. the preferred acids are the aliphatic dicarboxylic acids containing from about 4 to about 12 carbon atoms in the molecule, such as oxydipropionic, succinic, glutaric, adipic, azelaic, suberic, and sebacic acids, or combinations of such acids. the polyester polyols can also be prepared from corresponding lactones, such as gamma-butyro; or epsilon-caprolactones, for example. the polyhydric polyester polyol usually has a molecular weight of at least about 400 and optimally between about 500 and about 5000. the hydroxyl number of the compound is correspondingly in the range of from about 15 to about 300, and preferably in the range of from about 40 to about 70. generally a polyester having a molecular weight of greater than about 10,000 is difficult to handle commercially because of the difficulty of completely mixing such a high viscosity compound into the reaction mixture. however, in circumstances where a high molecular weight reactant is desired and where the suitable powerful mixing apparatus is available, the higher molecular weight compound can be used; the only significant limitation is that the compound contain, on the average, more than two active hydrogen groups, preferably hydroxyl groups. the preferred hydroxyl functionality for the polyester polyols is from about 2.2 to 2.8. it is preferred that the polyesters have a low acid number, 3.0 or less, although polyesters with higher acid numbers can be used without departing from the scope of this invention. it is recognized that certain compounds which are considered by those skilled in the art as polyester resins also contain ether linkages, e.g., esters prepared from dipropylene glycol. however, the primary character of such resins is considered to be that of an ester. preferred polyester polyols for use in this invention are those prepared by the reaction of adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and either trimethylolethane or trimethylolpropane, having hydroxyl numbers in the range of from about 48 to about 63, acid numbers in the range of from about 1.0 to about 2.5, and viscosities in the range of from about 18,500 to about 21,500 cps at 25.degree. c. although a single polyester polyol is generally employed, mixtures of two or more can also be used. the amount of polyester required is from about 0.5 to about 5 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol, with from about 1 to about 2 parts being preferred. the polyether polyols suitable for use in the present invention can be selected from any of the wide variety of polyhydric polyether compounds available and conventionally used by the art for the preparation of flexible polyether-type polyurethanes. the most common polyether polyol compounds, the polyoxyalkylene polyether polyols, are generally prepared by the reaction of an alkylene oxide, such as 1,2-propylene oxide, with a polyhydric alcohol. the polyhydric alcohol can be selected from among the same polyhydric alcohols recited above for use in preparation of the polyester; preferably, however, a higher average functionality is useful for a polyether polyol. therefore, a higher proportion of trihydric polyols, such as glycerol, trimethylolethane and trimethylolpropane is used in the mixture of polyhydric alcohols used to prepare the polyether polyols. the alkylene oxides used in preparing the polyethers preferably are those which contain from two to about four carbon atoms, for example, ethylene oxide, 1,2-propylene oxide and 1,2-butylene oxide, and homopolymers and copolymers thereof. other reactants can also be used in preparing the polyhydric polyalkylene ether, such as glycidol and cyclic ethers like di- and tetramethylene ethers, and epihalohydrins, e.g., epichlorohydrin. also useful are the polyaralkylene ether polyols which are derived from the corresponding aralkylene oxides such as for example styrene oxide, alone or mixed with alkylene oxide. generally, a triol reacted with mixtures of 1,2-propylene oxide and ethylene oxide are preferred for the preparing of the polyether polyol reactant. the polyethers for use in the present invention preferably have a molecular weight of from about 4000 to about 6500 and a hydroxyl functionality of from about 2.6 to about 3.5. a single polyether polyol or mixtures of two or more can be used. the organic polyisocyanates useful in the present invention are aromatic isocyanates which contain at least two isocyanate groups per molecule. single polyisocyanates can be used, but mixtures are generally employed. preferably, the isocyanate mixture selected has an isocyanate functionality of from about 2 to about 3.0. suitable organic polyisocyanates include, for example, m-xylylene diisocyanate, p-xylene diisocyanate, diphenylmethane-4,4'-diisocyanate, m-phenylene diisocyanate; p-phenylene diisocyanate, 3-(alpha-isocyanatoethyl)-phenyl isocyanate, 2,6-diethylbenzene-1,4-diisocyanate, diphenyldimethylmethane-4,4'-diisocyanate, 2,4-toluene diisocyanate, 2,6-toluene diisocyanate, 3,3'-dimethyl-4,4'-biphenylene diisocyanate, 3,3'-dimethoxy-4,4'-biphenylene diisocyanate, 3,3-diphenyl-4,4'-biphenylene diisocyanate, 4,4'-biphenylene diisocyanate, 3,3'-dichloro-4,4'-biphenylene diisocyanate, and 1,5-naphthylene diisocyanate. preferably, in the preparation of high resilience polyether polyurethane foams, the organic polyisocyanate will be a mixture of the type referred to as "adducts of tdi", "polymeric tdi", "oligimeric tdi", mixtures of isocyanurate with tdi, allophanate-biuret-carbodiimide derivatives in the tdi used to make them (made by reacting tdi with minor amounts of an alcohol, or water, or an amine), or "tdi-rich quasi-prepolymer", these terms being well recognized by those skilled in the art ("tdi" denoting tolylene diisocyanate). "adducts of tdi" may be, for example, an adduct of tdi with a polyol such as trimethylolpropane. it is also within the scope of the present invention to use "crude tdi", either along or enriched with a diisocyanate such as 2,4- or 2,6- tolylene diisocyanate. the term "crude tdi" refers to the material obtained by reacting phosgene with an appropriate diaminotoluene, without substantial purification. the product is believed to contain materials of polyurea and polybiuret structure. the preferred blowing or foaming agent for general use in the production of polyurethane foam is water. the advantages of using water are low cost and the stability which the use of water adds to the foam-making. the water-isocyanate reaction gives not only gas for blowing, but urea-containing polymer very quickly, contributing materially to early polymer strength needed to hold the gas inside, to form foam. generally, when water is used, it is present in proportions of from about 0.5 to about 6 weight percent of water based on the total weight of the reacting polyols. blowing agents which do not react with the isocyanate can be used as an adjunct with water. these are organic compounds which are vaporized at the temperatures produced by the exotherm of the isocyanate-reactive hydrogen reaction. such volatile organic blowing agents are well known in the art and include certain halogen-substituted aliphatic or cyclo-aliphatic hydrocarbons having boiling points between about -40.degree. c. and +70.degree. c., including methylene chloride, the freon fluorocarbons, such as trichloromonofluoromethane, dichlorodifluoromethane, and 1-chloro-2-fluoroethane; low boiling hydrocarbons such as n-propane, cyclopropane, butane, isobutane, pentane, hexane, cyclohexane and their mixtures, and the like. in the present invention, either water alone or water and an organic blowing agent can be used. in the production of supersoft, or very low density, flexible polyurethane foam it will generally be necessary to include in the reaction mixture one of the auxiliary blowing agents discussed above, in addition to water. as those skilled in the art will recognize, the amount of such auxiliary blowing agent to be used will depend on a number of factors, including the density desired in the finished foam, the boiling point of the blowing agent, and the temperature reached in the reaction mass, and may range from as little as 1 part by weight to 30 parts by weight, or more, per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. in order to obtain higher strength and compression load values, and to increase reactivity of the reaction mixture for better processibility, low molecular weight, reactive, compounds termed chain extenders are included in the polyurethane foam formulations of the present invention. examples are difunctional amines such as diethanolamine, aromatic polyamines such as the condensation products of o-chloroaniline with formaldehyde, certain specialty polyols sold as proprietary products for this purpose (such as niax la-700, sold by union carbide), and others which are well known in the art. the simple amines such as diethanolamine will generally be used in amounts up to about 5 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol, whereas the higher molecular weight chain extenders such as the o-chloroaniline/formaldehyde condensates may be used at somewhat higher levels, up to about 12 parts per weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. the exact levels for optimum results may be higher or lower than the amounts given illustratively above, depending on the total composition as will be recognized by those skilled in the art. a single chain extender or a combination of two or more can be employed. it is conventional in the art to utilize a foam-stabilizing emulsifier-surfactant and foaming agent in balanced proportions to obtain a foam of a desired cell size, structure and density. the foam-stabilizing emulsifier-surfactants used in the present invention are organo-silicon compounds, usually polymers, which are soluble in polyols. such organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactants are well known to the art, described extensively in the published literature, and sold commercially. the commercially available organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactants are sold with specific instructions as to their suitability for polyether polyol or polyester polyol urethane foam production. generally, an emulsifier-surfactant suitable for one polyol type is not suitable for use in a foaming reaction based on the other type. further, these emulsifier-surfactants are proprietary products, sold without disclosure as to their precise chemical structure. however, the emulsifier-surfactant used for polyether polyol-containing reaction mixtures are known to depress the surface tension to a greater extent than do the organo-silicon surfactants used with polyester polyols. the most generally available organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactants are polymers which contain a plurality of silicon atoms (which form part of the hydrophobic portion of the polymer molecule) and a long chain hydrophilic group, for example a polyoxyalkylene ether group. in the more common organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactant compounds, the silicon is present as a siloxane group, i.e., -si-o. a wide variety of molecular structures incorporating these two necessary elements, i.e., the long chain hydrophilic group and silicon atoms, have been used. for example, a first type of structure is a polymer containing a chain of siloxane groups, i.e., ##str1## wherein l represents the number of siloxane groups, forming a backbone or spine of the molecule, to which are attached as pendant, or branched chains, one or more long chain hydrophilic groups, i.e., as one of the r groups. in a second type of structure, a chain of alternating siloxane and hydrophilic, e.g. oxyalkylene, groups form a backbone or spine of the molecule. in a third, somewhat less common, type, the molecular spine is formed by a carbon chain, to which is attached pendant groups containing a silicon atom and a long chain hydrophilic group. other connecting groups can also be present in the above types of silicon-hydrophilic group-containing polymers; these include, for example, alkylene groups, carboxyl groups, carbamyl groups and amino groups. other organo-silicon emulsifier surfactants are disclosed in canadian pat. nos. 873,390, 860,995, 849,038, and 851,239; u.s. pat. nos. 3,541,031; 3,404,105; 3,230,185; 3,278,465; 3,577,362; and 3,165,843. u.s. pat. nos. 873,390; 3,404,105; 3,278,465; 3,230,188; and 3,165,843 (example 4) especially show those polymers particularly adapted to use as emuslifier-surfactants with polyether polyols. another type of organo-silicon surfactant which can be used in conjunction with, or as a replacement for, the hydrophilic organo-silicon emulsifier-surfactants described above is a low molecular weight polymer of a dialkylsiloxane. suitable polymers of this type will have a viscosity at 25.degree. c of 10 cs, or less. a preferred surfactant is a polydimethylsiloxane having a viscosity of 5 cs at 25.degree. c. the amount of organo-silicon surfactant will generally range from about 0.01 to about 2 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. other non-silicon foam-stabilizing emulsifiers for polyurethane foams can be used in combination with the organo-silicon surfactants described above, if desired, in the present invention. such useful emulsifiers include, for example, nonionic surfactants such as ethoxylated fatty acids and ethoxylated alkylphenols, and anionic surfactants such as sodium lauryl sarcosinate and various oil-soluble sulfonates. commercially, a catalyst is usually employed in the process of preparing a foamed polyurethane. often, a combination of two catalysts is used to catalyze separate reactions which occur when using water as the foaming agent. a first catalyst is for the polymerization reaction between the isocyanate and the hydroxyl compound, and a second catalyst is for the blowing reaction between water and the isocyanates. the various catalysts useful for each type of reaction are well known in the art. it is commonly understood that tertiary amines are effective for and tend to favor reaction of isocyanate with water; and that metal salts, and complexes, favor the polymerization reaction with the polyol. the most common metal catalysts include tin compounds and iron compounds. other metal compounds which can be used include compounds of cobalt, lead, vanadium, chromium, tungsten, antimony, and titanium. examples of tertiary amine catalysts include triethylenediamine, n -ethylmorpholine, n, n, n', n'- tetramethyl-1,3-butanediamine, and bis 2-(n,n-dimethylamine) ethyl ether and other such compounds. useful tin compounds include stannous salts, e.g., stannous octoate and stannous oleate, and the covalently linked organotin compounds such as dibutyltin diacetate and tributyltin oxide. mixtures of the tertiary amines are frequently used commercially as are mixtures of tertiary amine catalysts and tin compounds. although tin, or other metal, catalysts can be used in the practice of the present invention, it is preferred to use one or more tertiary amines in the absence of metal-containing catalysts. it is particularly preferred to use triethylenediamine as the catalyst. the catalyst levels used in carrying out this invention are conventional and will generally range from about .05 to about 2 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. preferably, the catalyst levels will be between about 0.1 to about 1 part by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. thus in its broadest aspect, this invention provides an improved means for obtaining a high resilience polyether polyurethane foam which comprises the addition of a minor amount of a polyester polyol to a conventional high resilience foam formulation comprising a polyether polyol, an organic polyisocyanate, a blowing agent, an organo-silicon foam-stabilizing emulsifier-surfactant, one or more chain extenders, and a catalyst, the amount of polyester polyol ranging from about 0.5 to about 5 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. in another, and preferred embodiment of the invention, a flame-retardant is also included in the reaction mixture in order to improve the resistance of the finished foam to burning when exposed to flame or other high-temperature ignition source. for this purpose, any of the flame-retardant additives conventionally used in the preparation of flexible polyurethane foams can be used. among these conventional additives, the most widely used are halogenated organic compounds of phosphorus such as: tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate; tris(2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate; tris(2,3-dichloropropyl) phosphate; and tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate. the preferred flame-retardant for use in the present invention is tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate. the amount of flame-retardant will be that required to impart the desired degree of flame-retardancy to the particular foam formulation being used. as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the amount to be used will depend on the efficiency of the flame-retardant as well as the foam formulation. the amount may be as little as 2 parts and as much as 30 parts by weight, or more, per 100 parts by weight of polyether polyol. when tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phoshate is employed, the effective amount will range from about 4 to about 8 parts per 100 parts of polyether polyol. the high-resilience polyurethane foam compositions of this invention can be prepared by any known method, including the one-shot, prepolymer, and quasi-prepolymer techniques, for the production of either molded products or free-rise continuous slabstock. these compositions are particularly suitable for making continuous slabstock by the one-shot method. the following are examples of the process and the product prepared therefrom according to this invention. they are to be taken as illustrative, but not limitative, of the scope of the invention and merely set out certain preferred embodiments thereof. in these examples, all parts are parts by weight. example 1 the following materials were fed to a conventional foaming apparatus to form, continuously, a rectangular bun of polyurethane foam having 30 inch sides. ______________________________________ ingredients parts ______________________________________ polyether triol containing primary and 100.0 secondary hydroxyls, molecular weight 6000, hydroxyl no. 28 adduct of tdi, equiv. wt. 105 43.2 (e-378, sold by mobay chem. co.) trichlorofluoromethane 25.0 l-5305 silicone surfactant* 0.25 amine-type chain extender 1.85 triethylenediamine, 33% solution in dripropylene glycol 1.0 water 2.90 tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate 5.0 polyester polyol derived from adipic acid, 1.0 diethylene glycol, and trimethylolpropane; hydroxyl no. 52, acid no. 1.5, viscosity 20,000 cps. at 25.degree. c. ______________________________________ sold commercially by union carbide corp. for use in polyether foam the index of this example was 100. the reaction mixture processed without problems: the foam set up well, and there was no shrinkage. the following physical properties were measured on the finished and cured foam. ______________________________________ density, pcf 1.10 ild, 2 in, 25% 2.7 65% 6.8 modulus, 2 in. 65/25 2.52 ild, 4 in., 25% 3.8 65% 7.8 modulus, 4 in., 65/25 2.05 % resilience 55.6 air permeability, cfm 9.2 tensile strength, psi 4.5 % elongation 109 tear strength, lb/in. 0.7 compression set, 90%, 22 hr. 58.1 90%, 6 hr. 32.7 flammability, astm 1692-74 burn time, sec. 7.2 burn extent, in. 0.54 ______________________________________ example 1, illustrative of one of the preferred embodiments of the invention, provided a supersoft, resilient, flame-retardant flexible foam of fine and uniform cell structure without the necessity for crushing. the ild of this foam did not increase during storage at room temperature (20.degree.-25.degree. c.). examples 2-4 the procedure of example 1 was repeated, using the same formulation with the exception of the polyester polyol concentration. in example 2, the polyester content was 1 part as in example 1; in example 3 the polyester content was 0.5 part; and in example 4, the polyester was entirely omitted. the product of example 2 was essentially equal to the product of example 1 in all respects. the product of example 3, containing 0.5 part polyester, was a soft and resilient foam, but exhibited very slight shrinkage. the product of example 4, a comparative example made according to the prior art, showed extensive shrinkage and was noticeably less resilient than the foams of examples 2 and 3. examples 5-8 the following materials were fed to a conventional continuous foaming apparatus, as in example 1: __________________________________________________________________________ parts ingredients 5 6 7 8 __________________________________________________________________________ polyether triol molecular weight 4000, 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 hydroxyl no. 34 adduct of tdi, equiv. wt. 105 61.3 61.3 61.3 61.3 (e-378, sold by mobay chem. co.) poly(dimethylsiloxane), viscosity 5 cs at 25.degree. c. 0.02 -- -- -- l-5303 silicone surfactant -- 1.0 -- -- b-3207 silicone surfactant** -- -- 0.5 -- chain extender 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 triethylenediamine, 33% solution in dipropylene glycol 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 water 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 polyester polyol derived from adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethyolethane; hydroxyl no. 56; acid no. 2.0; viscosity 19,500 cps at 25.degree. c. 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 __________________________________________________________________________ sold commercially by union carbide corp, for use in polyether *sold commercially by goldschmidt, for use in polyether foam the following physical properties were determined in the cured foams: ______________________________________ 5 6 7 8 ______________________________________ density, pcf 2.50 2.40 2.58 2.37 % resilience 61.2 62.5 61.2 65.3 permeability, cfm 2.7 2.6 2.1 4.3 ______________________________________ the product of example 8, made without silicone emulsifier-surfactant, was soft and resilient but had a coarse, non-uniform, cell structure. the rectangular bun as made was observed to have a bad bottom and sides, and to exhibit slight settling. examples 5-7 processed well, were soft and resilient, and had a uniform cell structure which met commercial requirements. examples 9- 23 example 5 was repeated, but with different esters replacing the three parts of the polyester polyol. example 23 was a comparator, without ester. ______________________________________ example ester parts ______________________________________ 9 linear polyester derived from 2.5 1,3-butanediol and adipic acid, hydroxyl no. 61 10 " 5.0 11 partially hydrolyzed castor oil, hydroxyl no. 340 2.5 12 " 5.0 13 di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate 2.5 14 " 5.0 15 butyl oleate 2.5 16 " 5.0 17 stearyl methacrylate 2.5 18 " 5.0 19 epoxidized soybean oil 2.5 20 " 5.0 21 diacetylated polyester derived from 1,3-butanediol and adipic acid 2.5 22 " 5.0 23 none -- ______________________________________ none of the foams from examples 9-22 showed any improvement in either processability or resilience as compared with the foam from example 23. all of the foams from examples 9-23 exhibited some shrinkage, indicative of an undesirably high proportion of closed cells, and were noticeably inferior in resilience to the product of examples 5, 6 and 7. examples 9-22 illustrate that linear polyesters (without branching) having a high hydroxyl number, linear polyesters which have been capped with acetyl groups, simple esters of alcohols and mono- or di-basic acids, and partial or complete glyerol esters of monobasic acids are all ineffective in improving the resilience of polyether polyurethane foam. examples 24-28 __________________________________________________________________________ parts ingredients 24 25 26 27 28 __________________________________________________________________________ polyether triol, mol. wt. 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 4000, hydroxyl no. 34 adduct of tdi, equiv. wt. 105 (e-378, mobay chem. co.) 61.5 61.5 61.6 61.0 61.0 poly(dimethylsiloxane), visc. 5 cs at 25.degree. c. 0.02 0.02 0.02 -- 0.02 chain extender 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 triethylenediamine, 33% solution in diethylene glycol 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 water 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 polyester polyol from adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolpropane, hydroxyl no. 52 5.0 -- -- -- -- polyester polyol from adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolethane, hydroxyl no. 56 -- 5.0 -- -- -- polyester polyol from adipic acid, diethylene glycol, and trimethylolethane, hydroxyl no. 61 -- -- 5.0 -- -- __________________________________________________________________________ examples 24-28 were prepared by the method used for example 1. the following physical properties were measured: ______________________________________ 24 25 26 27 28 ______________________________________ density, pcf 2.63 2.51 2.47 2.41 2.53 resilience, 59.8 59.8 63.9 57.0 51.4 ______________________________________ the products of examples 24-26, made according to the present inventions, were judged to be good foams, showing no shrinkage and having a uniform cell structure. the product of comparative example 27 showed top skin shrinkage and a coarse, uneven, cell structure. as shown in the foregoing table, it was deficient in resilience. the product of comparative example 28 showed bad top skin shrinkage; and as shown in the foregoing table the foam was substantially deficient in resilience. example 29 example 1 was repeated, except that the tris(1,3-dichloropropyl-2) phosphate was left out. the foam processed well and showed no shrinkage. the product was essentially equivalent to the product of example 1 in resilience, air permeability, and other physical properties, but it was not flame-retardant. examples 30-33 example 1 is repeated, except that the adduct of tdi (e-378) is replaced by an equivalent weight of: polymeric tdi (example 30); a mixture of isocyanurate and tdi (example 31); tdi containing allophanate, biuret and carbodiimide derivatives (example 32); and crude tdi (example 33). the foams process without problems and without shrinkage. the finished and cured foams were highly resilient and flame-retardant, essentially the same as the product of example 1.
131-906-321-909-559	US	[ "US" ]	H04W36/08,H04W48/20,H04W76/15,H04W76/27,H04W76/30	2018-06-01T00:00:00	2018	[ "H04" ]	method and system for anchor cell reselection with multi-rat dual-connectivity	a wireless station of a radio access network receives a reselection priority value of a frequency band used when the wireless station is an e-utra-nr dual connectivity (en-dc) anchor. the wireless station broadcasts an intra-frequency system information block (sib) that includes a first cell reselection priority information element (ie) and a first anchor-cell reselection priority ie, wherein the first anchor-cell reselection priority ie includes the reselection priority value of the frequency band used by the wireless station. the wireless station also broadcast an inter-frequency sib that includes a second cell reselection priority ie and a second anchor-cell reselection priority ie, wherein the second anchor-cell reselection priority ie includes another reselection priority value of another frequency band for another en-dc anchor. use of additional anchor-cell priorities enable en-dc-capable end devices to camp on an anchor cell even when a non-anchor cell has a higher conventional priority than the anchor cell.	1. a method comprising: receiving by a wireless base station, a first reselection priority value of a first frequency band used by the wireless station when the wireless base station is an anchor in a multi-radio access technology (rat) dual-connectivity network environment; receiving a second reselection priority value of a second frequency band used by a neighboring wireless base station when the neighboring wireless base station is another anchor in the multi-rat dual-connectivity network environment; broadcasting intra-frequency first cell reselection information and first anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the first anchor-cell reselection information includes the first reselection priority value; and broadcasting inter-frequency second cell reselection information and second anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the second anchor-cell reselection information includes the second reselection priority value. 2. the method of claim 1 , wherein broadcasting the intra-frequency first cell reselection information includes broadcasting the intra-frequency first cell reselection information in an intra-frequency system information block (sib). 3. the method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless base station is an evolved nodeb for an evolved universal mobile telecommunications system (umts) terrestrial radio access network (e-utran). 4. the method of claim 1 , further comprising: sending, to an end device, an rrc connection release message, wherein the rrc connection release message includes third anchor-cell reselection information for a third frequency band. 5. the method of claim 1 , wherein broadcasting the inter-frequency second cell reselection information includes broadcasting the inter-frequency second cell reselection priority information in an inter-frequency system information block (sib). 6. the method of claim 1 , wherein the first anchor-cell reselection information and the second anchor-cell reselection information are configured to be not used by an end device, when the end device is not a dual-connectivity-capable device. 7. the method of claim 1 , wherein the first anchor-cell reselection information is configured to supersede the first cell reselection information and the second anchor-cell reselection information is configured to supersede the second cell reselection information for an end device with dual-connectivity capability. 8. the method of claim 1 , wherein the first anchor-cell reselection information is included within an information element (ie) of an intra-frequency sib. 9. the method of claim 1 , wherein the first cell reselection information and first anchor-cell reselection information are included within separate information elements (ies) of an intra-frequency system information block (sib). 10. a wireless station, comprising: a radio communication interface; and a processor configured to: receive a first reselection priority value of a first frequency band used by the wireless station when the wireless station is an anchor in a multi-radio access technology (rat) dual-connectivity network environment; receive a second reselection priority value of a second frequency band used by a neighboring wireless station when the neighboring wireless station is another anchor in the multi-rat dual-connectivity network environment; broadcast, via the radio communication interface, intra-frequency first cell reselection information and first anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the first anchor-cell reselection information includes the first reselection priority value; and broadcast, via the radio communication interface, inter-frequency second cell reselection priority information and second anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the second anchor-cell reselection information includes the second reselection priority value. 11. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein, when broadcasting the intra-frequency first cell reselection information, the processor is further configured to: broadcast the intra-frequency first cell reselection information in an intra-frequency system information block (sib). 12. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein, when receiving the second reselection priority value, the processor is further configured to: receive the second reselection priority value from one of a core network device or the other anchor. 13. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein the wireless station is a long term evolution (lte) evolved node b (enb) for a radio access network. 14. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to: send, to an end device, an rrc connection release message, wherein the rrc connection release message includes third anchor-cell reselection information for a third frequency band. 15. the wireless station of claim 14 , wherein the rrc connection release message further includes anchor-cell reselection sub-priority information that includes a reselection sub-priority value. 16. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein, when receiving the first reselection priority value of the first frequency band used by the wireless station, the processor is further configured to: receive a first reselection sub-priority value for one or more frequencies within the first frequency band. 17. the wireless station of claim 10 , wherein, when broadcasting the inter-frequency first cell reselection information and first anchor-cell reselection information, the processor is further configured to: broadcast the first cell reselection information and the first anchor-cell reselection information in separate information elements of a system information block (sib). 18. a non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a processor of a device, which when executed cause the device to: receive a first reselection priority value and a reselection sub-priority value of a first frequency band used by the wireless station when the wireless station is an anchor in a multi-radio access technology (rat) dual-connectivity network environment; receive a second reselection priority value of a second frequency band used by a neighboring wireless station when the neighboring wireless station is another anchor in the multi-rat dual-connectivity network environment; broadcast, via a radio communication interface, intra-frequency first cell reselection information and first anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the first anchor-cell reselection priority information includes the first reselection priority value; and broadcast, via the radio communication interface, inter-frequency second cell reselection priority information and second anchor-cell reselection information, wherein the second anchor-cell reselection information includes the second reselection priority value. 19. the non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to cause the device to: send, to an end device, an rrc connection release message, wherein the rrc connection release message includes third anchor-cell reselection priority information for a third frequency band. 20. the non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein the instructions to broadcast the inter-frequency second anchor-cell reselection priority information further comprise instructions to cause the device to: broadcast anchor-cell reselection sub-priority information associated with the second anchor-cell reselection priority information.	cross-reference to related application this application is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/995,646, filed on jun. 1, 2018, and titled “method and system for anchor cell reselection with multi-rat dual-connectivity,” the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. background the development and design of future generation wireless networks (e.g., fifth generation (5g) networks) is currently underway by various organizations, service providers, and so forth. for example, the development and design of a network may be based on cloud technologies, software defined networking (sdn), and network function virtualization (nfv). dual connectivity solutions may be employed when user equipment (ue) can connect to different radio access technology (rat) types simultaneously. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary multi-rat dual connectivity network environment in which anchor cell reselection may be implemented; figs. 2a and 2b are diagrams illustrating exemplary anchor cell reselection signaling in a portion of the network environment of fig. 1 ; fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating exemplary components of a device that may correspond to one or more of the devices illustrated and described herein; fig. 4a is a diagram illustrating an environment for anchor cell reselection signaling in another portion of the network environment of fig. 1 ; fig. 4b is a table illustrating exemplary cell reselection priorities for an anchor enb in the portion of network environment of fig. 4a according to an implementation; fig. 4c is a table illustrating exemplary cell reselection priorities for a non-anchor enb in the portion of network environment of fig. 4a according to an implementation; fig. 5 is an exemplary format of a system information block 3 (sib3) information element (ie) for anchor cell reselection priority, according to an implementation; fig. 6 is an exemplary format of a system information block 5 (sib5) ie for anchor cell reselection priority, according to an implementation; fig. 7 is an exemplary format of a radio resource control (rrc) connection release ie for anchor cell reselection priority, according to an implementation; and figs. 8 and 9 are flow diagrams illustrating exemplary processes for anchor cell reselection in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment. detailed description of the preferred embodiments the following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. the same reference numbers in different drawings may identify the same or similar elements. also, the following detailed description does not limit the invention. dual connectivity solutions are employed when end devices (e.g., user equipment) can connect to different rat types simultaneously. for example, with development of future generation radio technologies, such as fifth generation new radio (5g nr), an end device will be able to connect simultaneously to a 5g nr radio access network (ran) and an evolved universal mobile telecommunications system (umts) terrestrial radio access network (e-utran) of a long term evolution (lte) network. in such cases, downlink and uplink packets can be transmitted over either/both of the radio access technologies. thus, end devices can connect simultaneously to 5g nr and e-utran for different bearers (e.g., different logical channels with particular end-to-end quality of service (qos) requirements) or even split bearers. a wireless station (e.g., an lte evolved nodeb (enb)) may serve as an anchor for e-utra+5g nr dual connectivity. current networking standards define cell reselection priorities (e.g., cellreselectionpriority and cellreselectionsubpriority) for lte cells generally. however, different priorities are not defined for an lte cell anchoring lte and 5g nr dual connectivity (en-dc). this lack of priority distinction between conventional lte enbs and anchor lte enbs makes it difficult for en-dc-capable devices to camp on an lte anchor cell when an lte anchor cell is at a lower priority than another lte cell which is not an anchor. this is especially a problem for co-located lte cells that support different bands/carriers. in systems and methods described herein a wireless station of a ran receives a reselection priority value of a frequency band used when the wireless station is an e-utra-nr dual connectivity (en-dc) anchor. the wireless station broadcasts an intra-frequency system information block (sib) that includes a first cell reselection priority information element (ie) and a first anchor-cell reselection priority ie, wherein the first anchor-cell reselection priority ie includes the reselection priority value of the frequency band used by the wireless station. the wireless station also broadcast an inter-frequency sib that includes a second cell reselection priority ie and a second anchor-cell reselection priority ie, wherein the second anchor-cell reselection priority ie includes another reselection priority value of another frequency band for another en-dc anchor. use of additional anchor-cell priorities enable en-dc-capable end devices to more consistently camp on an anchor cell even when a non-anchor cell has a higher conventional priority than the anchor cell. fig. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary network environment 100 in which the systems and methods, described herein, may be implemented. as shown in fig. 1 , environment 100 may include an end device 110 , an e-utran including multiple enodebs (enb) 125 - 1 and 125 - 2 (referred to collectively as enbs 125 and generically as enb 125 ), a 5g nr ran 130 including multiple gnbs 135 , and a core network 140 with network devices 150 . according to other embodiments, environment 100 may include additional networks, fewer networks, and/or different types of networks than those illustrated and described herein. environment 100 includes links between the networks and between the devices. environment 100 may be implemented to include wired, optical, and/or wireless links among the devices and the networks illustrated. a communicative connection via a link may be direct or indirect. for example, an indirect communicative connection may involve an intermediary device and/or an intermediary network not illustrated in fig. 1 . additionally, the number and the arrangement of links illustrated in environment 100 are exemplary. in the configuration of fig. 1 , end device 110 (e.g., a ue) may use wireless channels 170 - 1 and 170 - 2 (referred to collectively as wireless channels 170 ) to access e-utran 120 and 5g nr ran 130 , respectively. wireless channels 170 may correspond, for example, to physical layer protocols in accordance with different rat types. for example, wireless channel 170 - 1 may correspond to physical layer protocols for 4g ran standards (e.g., 3gpp standards for 4g air interfaces, etc.), while wireless channel 170 - 2 may correspond to physical layer protocols for 5g new radio standards (e.g., 3gpp standards for 5g air interfaces, etc.). wireless channels 170 may be used to provide communications to/from end device 110 using dual-connectivity with different bearers. in some implementations, end device 110 may include any type of mobile device having multiple coverage mode capabilities, and thus the capability to communicate simultaneously with different wireless stations (e.g., enb 125 , gnb 135 , etc.) using different wireless channels (e.g., channels 170 ) corresponding to the different rans (e.g., e-utran 120 and 5g nr ran 130 ). thus, end device 110 may be referred to herein as an en-dc-capable end device when distinguishing from an end device that is not en-dc-capable. end device 110 may be a mobile device that may include, for example, a cellular radiotelephone, a smart phone, a tablet, any type of internet protocol (ip) communications device, a voice over internet protocol (voip) device, a laptop computer, a wearable computer, a gaming device, a media player device, or a digital camera that includes communication capabilities (e.g., wireless communication mechanisms such as wi-fi). in other implementation, end device 110 may be implemented as a machine-type communications (mtc) device, an internet of things (iot) device, a machine-to-machine (m2m) device, etc. enb 125 may include a network device that has computational and wireless communicative capabilities. in some instances, enb 125 may be referred to as a “wireless station.” enb 125 may include a transceiver system and other components having functionality that allow end device 110 to wirelessly connect to e-utran 120 and core network 140 . enb 125 may interface with core network 140 via a diameter si interface, for example. gnb 135 may include a network device and other components having functionality that allow end device 110 to wirelessly connect to 5g nr ran 130 and core network 140 . in one implementation, gnb 135 may interface with core network 140 via a diameter s 1 interface. in the context of a multi-rat dual connectivity environment, enbs 125 - 1 and 125 - 2 may be configured with different capabilities. for example, enbs 125 - 1 includes logic that enables enbs 125 - 1 to serve as a dual-connectivity anchor to deliver packets between core network 140 and end device 110 via either wireless channel 170 - 1 or via wireless channel 170 - 2 (e.g., using gnb 135 ). enb 125 - 2 and gnb 135 may communicate with each other via an x2 interface. an x2 interface may be implemented, for example, with a protocol stack that includes an x2 application protocol and stream control transmission protocol (sctp). the x2 interface may be divided into a control plane interface, x2-c, and a user plane interface, x2-u. conversely, enb 125 - 2 may not include anchor capabilities. core network 140 may include one or multiple networks of one or multiple types. for example, core network 140 may be implemented to include a terrestrial network and/or a satellite network. according to an exemplary implementation, core network 140 includes a complementary network pertaining to multiple rans. for example, core network 140 may include the core part of an lte network, an lte-a network, a 5g network, a legacy network, and so forth. depending on the implementation, core network 140 may include various network elements that may be implemented in network devices 150 . such network elements may include a mobility management entity (mme), a user plane function (upf), a session management function (smf), a core access and mobility management function (amf), a unified data management (udm), a packet data network gateway (pgw), a serving gateway (sgw), a policy control function (pcf), a home subscriber server (hss), as well other network elements pertaining to various network-related functions, such as billing, security, authentication and authorization, network polices, subscriber profiles, network slicing, and/or other network elements that facilitate the operation of core network 140 . radio resource control rrc may be considered a protocol that handles signaling between end device 110 and a radio access network (e.g., e-utran 120 and/or 5g nr ran 130 ). rrc states (e.g., idle, connected, etc.) may be handled by the control plane which includes an rrc layer. during rrc idle mode, end device 110 may camp on a cell after cell selection or reselection takes place, where factors such as, for example, radio link quality, cell status, and radio access technology may be considered. as used herein “camping” on a selected cell refers to end device 110 maintaining data exchanges with core network 140 within the confines of the selected cell (e.g., associated with one of enbs 125 ). a “cell” may include a coverage area served by an enb (e.g., one of enbs 125 ) using a particular frequency band. thus, in some cases, a cell and the enb 125 servicing the cell may be referred to interchangeably. end device 110 may also monitor a paging channel to detect incoming calls and acquire system information. in the idle mode, the control plane protocols include cell selection and reselection procedures. during rrc connected mode, end device 110 may provide e-utran 120 with downlink channel quality and neighbor cell information so e-utran 120 may assist end device 110 to select the most suitable cell. particularly, end device 110 may measure parameters associated with a current cell to which end device 110 is attached, as well as the neighboring cells, to make a decision to camp on the cell providing the strongest signal. the key parameters of the cell, (e.g., found in the master information block (mib) and the system information blocks (sibs)), may be measured for the intra-frequency and inter-frequency neighboring cells. the measurements may be tracked and uploaded to the rrc layer, which makes control decisions on which cell end device 110 is to camp. accordingly, cell selection/reselection may be based on a number of levels of criteria, which may include absolute priority, radio link quality, and/or cell accessibility. in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment, without priority distinctions between lte anchor cells (e.g., served by enb 125 - 1 ) and lte non-anchor cells (served by enb 125 - 2 ), end device 110 (e.g., when en-dc capable) may have difficulty camping on an anchor cell. for example, assume an advanced wireless system (aws) band (e.g., b66) is the anchor band but associated reselection priority of a b66 lte cell is lower than pcs band (b2) and cellular band (b5) cells. given the lte cell reselection priority, end device 110 will camp on the highest priority b2/b5 cells and not camp on the b66 anchor cell. hence, end device 110 would not be able to establish a dual connection with gnb 135 and would not be able to take advantage of an available high-speed 5g connection. in the example described above, simply changing the reselection priority of the b66 anchor cell to the highest priority so as to direct end device 110 to camp on the anchor cell would cause undesirable side effects. namely, since sibs are broadcast to all devices in a coverage area, changing the b66 anchor cell priority would cause lte-only devices (e.g., end devices without en-dc capability) to also be directed to camp on the b66 cells as opposed to higher priority b2 or b5 cells, resulting in degraded user experience for the lte only devices. thus, implementations described herein provide dedicated priorities and sub-priorities for lte anchor cells while maintaining existing priority of all cells for standard lte services. figs. 2a and 2b are diagrams illustrating exemplary anchor cell reselection signaling in a portion 200 of network environment 100 . fig. 2a illustrates exemplary broadcast signals provided by enb 125 - 1 and 125 - 2 to provide priorities for cell selection by end device 110 . in accordance with lte current standards, each enb 125 broadcasts its own (intra-frequency) cellreselectionpriority ie 212 (e.g., cellreselectionpriority ie 212 - 1 or cellreselectionpriority ie 212 - 2 ) to all devices in its coverage area over sib3 210 . also, each enb 125 broadcasts its inter-frequency neighbors' cellreselectionpriority ie 222 (e.g., cellreselectionpriority ie 222 - 1 or 222 - 2 ) to all devices in its coverage area over sib5 220 . additionally, as shown in fig. 2a , an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie in sib3 210 and sib5 220 is defined for an lte anchor cell. if an enb 125 is a dual-connectivity anchor, it broadcasts its own (intra-frequency) en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority 214 to all devices in its coverage area over sib3. otherwise, if an enb 125 is not a dual-connectivity anchor, the enb does not broadcast the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority 214 . thus, in the example of fig. 2a , enb 125 - 1 , which serves as a dual-connectivity anchor, may broadcast sib3 210 - 1 , which includes cellreselectionpriority ie 212 - 1 and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority 214 . conversely, enb 125 - 2 , which is not an anchor, may broadcast sib3 210 - 2 including cellreselectionpriority ie 212 - 2 . if an enb 125 , serving as either an anchor or non-anchor, has an lte anchor cell as its neighbor, enb 125 may broadcast its inter-frequency neighbor's en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority to all devices in its coverage area over sib5. since (in the example of fig. 2a ) no other anchors are adjacent to enb 125 - 1 , enb 125 - 1 may broadcast sib5 250 - 1 , which includes cellreselectionpriority ie 222 - 1 . conversely, since an anchor (e.g., enb 125 - 1 ) is adjacent to enb 125 - 2 , enb 125 - 2 may broadcast sib3 220 - 2 including cellreselectionpriority ie 222 - 2 and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority 224 . in some implementations, sib3s 210 and sib5s 220 may also include an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority (not shown in fig. 2a ). as described further herein, end device 110 may receive sib3s 210 and sib5s 220 from enbs 125 and apply the indicated cell priorities or sub-priorities. assuming end device 110 is en-dc capable, end device 110 would decode the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies of sib3s 210 and sib5s 220 . if end device 110 is not en-dc capable or is an lte-only legacy device, end device 110 will not use the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies of sib3s 210 and sib5s 220 , but will decode only the legacy cellreselectionpriority plus cellreselectionsubpriority and perform cell reselection as per current standards. referring to fig. 2b , each enb 125 may also be configured to provide an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie 234 and an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie (not shown in fig. 2b ) in an rrcconnectionrelease message 230 to end device 110 . rrcconnectionrelease message 230 with en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie 234 may be provided, for example, only if the end device 110 is en-dc capable, and e-utran 120 wants to change the anchor priority for end device 110 to redirect to an anchor on another frequency (e.g., another enb 125 - 1 ). e-utran 120 may use this “release and redirect” to an lte anchor cell, post-handover when an en-dc capable end device 110 is handed over from a non-en-dc coverage area to an en-dc coverage area but on a non-anchor cell. although figs. 2a and 2b illustrate an exemplary communications for anchor cell reselection in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment, according to other exemplary embodiments, additional, different, and/or fewer communication may be used. fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating exemplary components of a device 300 that may correspond to one or more of the devices described herein. for example, device 300 may correspond to components included in end device 110 , enb 125 , gnb 130 , or network device 150 . as illustrated in fig. 3 , according to an exemplary embodiment, device 300 includes a bus 305 , a processor 310 , a memory/storage 315 that stores software 320 , a communication interface 325 , an input 330 , and an output 335 . according to other embodiments, device 300 may include fewer components, additional components, different components, and/or a different arrangement of components than those illustrated in fig. 3 and described herein. bus 305 includes a path that permits communication among the components of device 300 . for example, bus 305 may include a system bus, an address bus, a data bus, and/or a control bus. bus 305 may also include bus drivers, bus arbiters, bus interfaces, and/or clocks. processor 310 includes one or multiple processors, microprocessors, data processors, co-processors, application specific integrated circuits (asics), controllers, programmable logic devices, chipsets, field-programmable gate arrays (fpgas), application specific instruction-set processors (asips), system-on-chips (socs), central processing units (cpus) (e.g., one or multiple cores), microcontrollers, and/or some other type of component that interprets and/or executes instructions and/or data. processor 310 may be implemented as hardware (e.g., a microprocessor, etc.), a combination of hardware and software (e.g., a soc, an asic, etc.), may include one or multiple memories (e.g., cache, etc.), etc. processor 310 may be a dedicated component or a non-dedicated component (e.g., a shared resource). processor 310 may control the overall operation or a portion of operation(s) performed by device 300 . processor 310 may perform one or multiple operations based on an operating system and/or various applications or computer programs (e.g., software 320 ). processor 310 may access instructions from memory/storage 315 , from other components of device 300 , and/or from a source external to device 300 (e.g., a network, another device, etc.). processor 310 may perform an operation and/or a process based on various techniques including, for example, multithreading, parallel processing, pipelining, interleaving, etc. memory/storage 315 includes one or multiple memories and/or one or multiple other types of storage mediums. for example, memory/storage 315 may include one or multiple types of memories, such as, random access memory (ram), dynamic random access memory (dram), cache, read only memory (rom), a programmable read only memory (prom), a static random access memory (sram), a single in-line memory module (simm), a dual in-line memory module (dimm), a flash memory (e.g., a nand flash, a nor flash, etc.), and/or some other type of memory. memory/storage 315 may include a hard disk (e.g., a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optic disk, a solid state disk, etc.), a micro-electromechanical system (mems)-based storage medium, and/or a nanotechnology-based storage medium. memory/storage 315 may include a drive for reading from and writing to the storage medium. memory/storage 315 may be external to and/or removable from device 300 , such as, for example, a universal serial bus (usb) memory stick, a dongle, a hard disk, mass storage, off-line storage, network attached storage (nas), or some other type of storing medium (e.g., a compact disk (cd), a digital versatile disk (dvd), a blu-ray disk (bd), etc.). memory/storage 315 may store data, software, and/or instructions related to the operation of device 300 . software 320 includes an application or a program that provides a function and/or a process. software 320 may include an operating system. software 320 is also intended to include firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language (hdl), and/or other forms of instruction. additionally, for example, end device 110 may include logic to perform tasks, as described herein, based on software 320 . communication interface 325 permits device 300 to communicate with other devices, networks, systems, devices, and/or the like. communication interface 325 includes one or multiple wireless interfaces and/or wired interfaces. for example, communication interface 325 may include one or multiple transmitters and receivers, or transceivers. communication interface 325 may include one or more antennas. for example, communication interface 325 may include an array of antennas. communication interface 325 may operate according to a protocol stack and a communication standard. communication interface 325 may include various processing logic or circuitry (e.g., multiplexing/de-multiplexing, filtering, amplifying, converting, error correction, etc.). input 330 permits an input into device 300 . for example, input 330 may include a keyboard, a mouse, a display, a button, a switch, an input port, speech recognition logic, a biometric mechanism, a microphone, a visual and/or audio capturing device (e.g., a camera, etc.), and/or some other type of visual, auditory, tactile, etc., input component. output 335 permits an output from device 300 . for example, output 335 may include a speaker, a display, a light, an output port, and/or some other type of visual, auditory, tactile, etc., output component. according to some embodiments, input 330 and/or output 335 may be a device that is attachable to and removable from device 300 . device 300 may perform a process and/or a function, as described herein, in response to processor 310 executing software 320 stored by memory/storage 315 . by way of example, instructions may be read into memory/storage 315 from another memory/storage 315 (not shown) or read from another device (not shown) via communication interface 325 . the instructions stored by memory/storage 315 cause processor 310 to perform a process described herein. alternatively, for example, according to other implementations, device 300 performs a process described herein based on the execution of hardware (processor 310 , etc.). fig. 4a is a diagram illustrating anchor cell reselection signaling in another portion 400 of network environment 100 . as shown in fig. 4a , network portion 400 may include end device 110 in wireless signal range of two anchor cells, enb 125 - 1 a and enb 125 - 1 b , and two non-anchor cells, enb 125 - 2 a and enb 125 - 2 b . network portion 400 may represent an en-dc deployment, where the anchor bands are the upper 700 mhz band (b13) supported by enb 125 - 1 a and aws band (b66) supported by enb 125 - 1 b . non-anchor bands in the example of fig. 4a are pcs band (b2) supported enb 125 - 2 a and cellular band (b5) supported by enb 125 - 2 b. as shown in figs. 4b and 4c , enbs 125 of fig. 4a may implement en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies to enable en-dc devices (e.g., end device 110 ) to camp on a lte anchor cell when an lte anchor cell is at lower priority than another lte cell which is not an anchor. figs. 4b and 4c are tables showing exemplary cell reselection priorities for two of the cells of fig. 4a . particularly, fig. 4b includes a table 410 showing exemplary cell reselection priorities and sub-priorities for aws band (b66) supported by anchor enb 125 - 1 b , and fig. 4c includes a table 420 showing exemplary cell reselection priorities and sub-priorities for cellular band (b5) supported by non-anchor enb 125 - 2 b . the values illustrated and described in relation to figs. 4b and 4c are exemplary, and the ranges of values, as described herein are exemplary. referring to fig. 4b , table 410 includes a signal type field 411 , a frequency id field 412 , a cellreselectionpriority field 413 , a cellreselectionsubpriority field 414 , an effective priority field 415 , an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 , an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority field 417 , an en-dc effective priority field 418 , and a variety of entries 419 for fields 411 - 418 . signal type field 411 indicates the type of communication signal associated with the corresponding entries in other fields 412 - 418 , including priority selections of cellreselectionpriority field 413 and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 . frequency id field 412 indicates the cell frequency band (e.g., corresponding to one of enbs 125 ) associated with the corresponding entries in other fields 413 - 418 , including priority selections of cellreselectionpriority field 413 and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 . cellreselectionpriority field 413 may include an lte reselection priority assigned by the network for each frequency band in frequency id field 412 . for example, priorities in cellreselectionpriority field 413 may include priorities for standard lte-only connections with a value between 0-7, where 0 is the lowest priority and 7 is the highest priority. cellreselectionsubpriority field 414 may include an lte reselection priority assigned by the network for frequencies within the same frequency band. for example, priorities in cellreselectionsubpriority field 414 may include sub-priorities for standard lte-only connections with a value between 0.1 and 0.9, where 0.1 is the lowest sub-priority and 0.9 is the highest sub-priority. effective priority field 415 may include a priority value based on a combination of values from corresponding entries in cellreselectionpriority field 413 and cellreselectionsubpriority field 414 . en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 may include an en-dc anchor reselection priority assigned by the network for each applicable frequency band in frequency id field 412 . for example, priorities in en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 may include priority values for connections band b13 (corresponding to one of enb 125 - 1 a ) and band b66 (corresponding to enbs 12 - 1 b ). similar to cellreselectionpriority field 413 , an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority value may be assigned between 0-7, where 0 is the lowest priority and 7 is the highest priority. en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority field 417 may include an anchor reselection priority assigned by the network for frequencies within the same frequency band. en-dc-anchor effective priority field 417 may include a priority value based on a combination of values from corresponding entries in en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority field 417 . referring to figs. 4a and 4b , enb 125 - 1 b may use priorities shown in table 410 to broadcast ies in sib3 and sib5. thus, enb 125 - 1 b may broadcast cellreselectionpriority values for sib3 and sib5 according to conventional lte protocols. as an en-dc anchor cell, enb 125 - 1 b may also broadcast its own (intra-frequency) en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority (e.g., “2”) from field 413 to all devices in its coverage area over sib3. for sib5, enb 125 - 1 b may broadcast its inter-frequency neighbors' en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority from field 416 (e.g., “2” for b13 on enb 125 - 1 a , and “1” for b66/f1.2 on enb 125 - 1 b ) to all devices in its coverage area. for sib5, enb 125 - 1 b may also broadcast its inter-frequency neighbors' en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority from field 417 (e.g., “0.4” for b66/f1.2 on enb 125 - 1 b ). in other implementations, enb 125 - 1 b may also use priorities shown in table 410 to provide ies from fields 416 and 417 in an rrcconnectionrelease message to a specific end device 110 . referring to fig. 4c , table 420 includes the same signal type field 411 , frequency id field 412 , cellreselectionpriority field 413 , cellreselectionsubpriority field 414 , effective priority field 415 , en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority field 416 , en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority field 417 , and an en-dc effective priority field 418 as described above in connection with fig. 4b . table 420 includes a variety of entries 429 for fields 411 - 418 for band b5 (corresponding to enbs 12 - 2 b ). referring to figs. 4a and 4c , enb 125 - 2 b may use priorities shown in table 420 to broadcast ies in sib3 and sib5. thus, enb 125 - 2 b may broadcast cellreselectionpriority values and cellreselectionsubpriority values for sib3 and sib5 according to conventional lte protocols. as an en-dc non-anchor cell, enb 125 - 2 b may not have an (intra-frequency) en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority value in field 416 (or an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority value in field 417 ) for sib3. for sib5, enb 125 - 2 b may broadcast its inter-frequency neighbors' en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority values from field 416 (e.g., “1” for b66/f1.1 on enb 125 - 1 b, “ 1” for b66/f1.2 on enb 125 - 1 b , and “2” for b13/f5 on enb 125 - 1 a ) and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority values from field 417 (e.g., “0.4” for b66/f1.2 on enb 125 - 1 b ) to all devices in its coverage area. in some instances, enb 125 - 2 b may also use priorities shown in table 420 to provide ies from fields 416 and 417 in an rrcconnectionrelease message to a specific end device 110 . the frequency bands, priorities and sub-priorities referred to in figs. 4a-4c are used as examples. in other implementations, different frequency bands, priorities, and/or sub-priorities may be used similarly. in another implementation, for example, cellreselectionsubpriority field 417 and/or en-dc effective priority field 418 may be omitted. fig. 5 illustrates an exemplary format of a sib3 ie 500 for en-dc anchor cell reselection priority. as shown in fig. 5 , sib3 ie 500 may include an ie identifier “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionservingfreqinfo-vxxxx,” which may introduce the ie within sib5 and a particular version (e.g., “vxxxx”) of a wireless networking standard. in one implementation, sib3 ie 500 may resemble a format for a cellreselectionservingfreqinfo ie in a conventional (non-dual connectivity) lte environment. sib3 ie 500 may include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0-7). sib3 ie 500 may also include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0.1-0.9). sib3 ie 500 may be broadcast only if the serving cell (e.g., enb 25 - 1 ) is an lte anchor for en-dc. fig. 6 illustrates an exemplary format of a sib5 ie 600 for en-dc anchor cell reselection priority. as shown in fig. 6 , sib5 ie 600 may include an ie identifier “en-dc-anchor-interfreqcarrierfreqinfo-vxxxx,” which may introduce the ie within sib5 and a particular version (e.g., “vxxxx”) of a wireless networking standard. in one implementation, sib5 ie 600 may resemble a format for an interfreqcarrierfreqinfo ie in a conventional (non-dual connectivity) lte environment. sib5 ie 600 may include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0-7). sib5 ie 600 may also include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0.1-0.9). sib5 ie 600 may be broadcast only if an inter-frequency carrier (e.g., enb 25 - 1 ) is an lte anchor for en-dc. fig. 7 illustrates an exemplary format of an rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 for en-dc anchor cell reselection priority. as shown in fig. 7 , rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may include an ie identifier “en-dc-anchor-freqpriorityeutra-rxx,” which may introduce the ie within rrcconnectionrelease and a particular release number (e.g., “rxx”) of a wireless networking standard. in one implementation, rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may resemble a format for an en-dc-anchor-freqpriorityeutra ie in a conventional (non-dual connectivity) lte environment. rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may include a carrierfreq-rxx field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding absolute radio frequency channel number (arfcn) value. rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may also include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0-7). rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may further include an “en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority-rxx” field (where “rxx” represents a release version of a wireless network standard) and a corresponding value (e.g., 0.1-0.9). rrcconnectionrelease ie 700 may be populated only for a designated lte anchor—carrier frequency (e.g., corresponding to one of enb 25 - 1 a or enb 125 - 1 b ). fig. 8 is a flow diagram illustrating another exemplary process 800 for anchor cell reselection in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment. according to an exemplary embodiment, a wireless network device (e.g., enb 125 ) performs steps of process 800 . for example, processor 310 executes software 320 to perform the steps illustrated in fig. 8 , and described herein. in another embodiment, enb 125 may perform steps of process 800 in conjunction with one or more end devices, such as end device 110 . referring to fig. 8 , in block 810 , priority values and sub-priority values for an en-dc anchor point may be received. for example, similar to conventional priority values for cellreselectionpriority and cellreselectionsubpriority, enb 125 - 1 may receive, from a network device 150 in core network 140 or a network administrator device, a priority value and a sub-priority value for enb 125 - 1 serving as an anchor point. enb 125 - 1 may use the priority value and a sub-priority value to generate an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie. in block 820 , an intra-frequency sib may be broadcast, the sib including an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie. for example, enb 125 - 1 may broadcast, to all devices in its coverage area, an intra-frequency sib3 that includes the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie using the assigned anchor point priority value and sub-priority value. the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie may supersede the conventional cellreselectionpriority ie and cellreselectionsubpriority ie values included in sib3, when end device 110 is en-dc-capable. in block 830 , priority values and sub-priority values for one or more neighboring cells with anchor capabilities may be received. for example, enb 125 - 1 may receive priority information of neighboring cells from other enbs 125 and/or from network devices 150 in core network 140 . enb 125 - 1 may use the priority information to generate an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie for an inter-frequency sib. in block 840 , an inter-frequency sib may be broadcast, the sib including an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie for neighboring cells. for example, enb 125 - 1 may broadcast, to all devices in its coverage area, an inter-frequency sib5 that includes the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie. the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie supersede the conventional cellreselectionpriority ie and cellreselectionsubpriority ie values included in sib5, when end device 110 is en-dc-capable. the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie and the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie include priority values and sub-priority values for each neighboring enb 125 that has en-dc anchor capabilities. fig. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating another exemplary process 900 for anchor cell reselection in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment. according to an exemplary embodiment, an end device (e.g., end device 110 ) performs steps of process 900 . for example, processor 310 executes software 320 to perform the steps illustrated in fig. 9 , and described herein. in another embodiment, end device 110 may perform steps of process 900 in conjunction with one or more network devices, such as one or more of enbs 125 . referring to fig. 9 , in block 910 , sibs with en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies may be received. for example, end device 110 may receive sib3s and/or sib5s broadcast by enbs 125 - 1 with an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie. in some embodiments, the sib3 or sib5 may also include an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie. in block 920 , it may be determined if the end device is en-dc-capable. for example, end device 110 may include the capability to communicate with both e-utran 120 and ng nr ran 130 . if the end device is not en-dc capable (block 920 —no), in block 930 the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies may be ignored. for example, if an end device is not en-dc capable or if it is an lte-only legacy device, the end device will skip the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies of sib3 and sib5. instead, the end device will decode only legacy cellreselectionpriority plus cellreselectionsubpriority ies and perform reselection as per current lte wireless standards. if the end device is en-dc capable (block 920 —yes), in block 940 it may be determined if the end device is camped on an anchor cell. for example, end device 110 may determine from sib3 or another sib that a particular enb 125 is an anchor point. if the end device is camped on an anchor cell (block 940 —yes), in block 950 it may be determined if a higher priority anchor cell is available to serve the end device. for example, end device 110 may be camped on a cell supported by enb 125 - 1 with anchor capabilities. since end device 110 is en-dc capable, end device 110 may decode en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies of sib3 and sib5. if a higher priority anchor cell is not available to serve the end device (block 950 —no), in block 960 the end device may remain camped on the current anchor cell. for example, end device 100 may determine from en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie of sib5 that end device 110 is already using the highest priority anchor band frequency. thus, end device 110 may remain camped on the current cell. if a higher priority anchor cell is available to serve the end device (block 950 —yes) or if the end device is not camped on an anchor cell (block 940 —no), in block 970 the end device may trigger reselection to an anchor cell using en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie values. for example, end device 110 may discovers available anchor bands frequencies and their respective priorities from the en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies in sib3 and sib5. end device 110 may trigger reselection to camp on the highest priority anchor band that satisfies the camping criteria for radio frequency (rf) signal conditions, such as thresholds for reference signal received power (rsrp) and reference signal received quality (rsrq). after remaining camped on the highest available anchor cell (block 960 ) or triggering reselection to an anchor cell (block 970 ), in block 980 a rrcconnectionrelease with en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority and en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ies may be received. for example, end device 110 may receive rrcconnectionrelease message 230 with en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie 234 and, optionally, an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie. based on the values in en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionpriority ie 234 , end device 110 may return to block 970 to trigger reselection to camp on the highest priority anchor band (e.g., as indicated in the rrcconnectionrelease message) that satisfies the camping criteria for radio frequency (rf) signal conditions. although fig. 9 illustrates an exemplary process 900 for anchor cell reselection in a multi-rat dual connectivity environment, process 900 may include additional operations, fewer operations, and/or different operations than those illustrated in fig. 9 , and described herein. for example, in another implementation, an rrcconnectionrelease message with an en-dc-anchor-cellreselectionsubpriority ie may also be provided to an en-dc capable end device before the end device camps on an anchor cell. as set forth in this description and illustrated by the drawings, reference is made to “an exemplary embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “embodiments,” etc., which may include a particular feature, structure or characteristic in connection with an embodiment(s). however, the use of the phrase or term “an embodiment,” “embodiments,” etc., in various places in the specification does not necessarily refer to all embodiments described, nor does it necessarily refer to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments necessarily mutually exclusive of other embodiment(s). the same applies to the term “implementation,” “implementations,” etc. the foregoing description of embodiments provides illustration, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. accordingly, modifications to the embodiments described herein may be possible. for example, various modifications and changes may be made thereto, and additional embodiments may be implemented, without departing from the broader scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. the description and drawings are accordingly to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive. the terms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to be interpreted to include one or more items. further, the phrase “based on” is intended to be interpreted as “based, at least in part, on,” unless explicitly stated otherwise. the term “and/or” is intended to be interpreted to include any and all combinations of one or more of the associated items. the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example.” any embodiment or implementation described as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or implementations. in addition, while series of blocks have been described with regard to the processes illustrated in figs. 8 and 9 , the order of the blocks may be modified according to other embodiments. further, non-dependent blocks may be performed in parallel. additionally, other processes described in this description may be modified and/or non-dependent operations may be performed in parallel. embodiments described herein may be implemented in many different forms of software executed by hardware. for example, a process or a function may be implemented as “logic,” a “component,” or an “element.” the logic, the component, or the element, may include, for example, hardware (e.g., processor 310 , etc.), or a combination of hardware and software (e.g., software 320 ). embodiments have been described without reference to the specific software code because the software code can be designed to implement the embodiments based on the description herein and commercially available software design environments and/or languages. for example, various types of programming languages including, for example, a compiled language, an interpreted language, a declarative language, or a procedural language may be implemented. use of ordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., in the claims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another, the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed, the temporal order in which instructions executed by a device are performed, etc., but are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain name from another element having a same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim elements. additionally, embodiments described herein may be implemented as a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores data and/or information, such as instructions, program code, a data structure, a program module, an application, a script, or other known or conventional form suitable for use in a computing environment. the program code, instructions, application, etc., is readable and executable by a processor (e.g., processor 310 ) of a device. a non-transitory storage medium includes one or more of the storage mediums described in relation to memory/storage 315 . to the extent the aforementioned embodiments collect, store or employ personal information provided by individuals, it should be understood that such information shall be used in accordance with all applicable laws concerning protection of personal information. additionally, the collection, storage and use of such information may be subject to consent of the individual to such activity, for example, through well known “opt-in” or “opt-out” processes as may be appropriate for the situation and type of information. storage and use of personal information may be in an appropriately secure manner reflective of the type of information, for example, through various encryption and anonymization techniques for particularly sensitive information. no element, act, or instruction set forth in this description should be construed as critical or essential to the embodiments described herein unless explicitly indicated as such. all structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the various aspects set forth in this disclosure that are known or later come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims. no claim element of a claim is to be interpreted under 35 u.s.c. § 112(f) unless the claim element expressly includes the phrase “means for” or “step for.”
133-729-055-991-227	JP	[ "DE", "US", "TW", "JP", "CN", "KR", "WO" ]	H03K3/356,H03K19/0175,H03K19/0944,H03K23/44,G11C19/28,H03K3/02,G09G5/00,G06F1/04,G11C19/00,G09G3/20,G09G3/36,H01L21/8234,H01L27/06,H01L27/088,H01L29/786,H03K19/096,G09F9/30,H03K19/00,G11C19/18,H01L21/28,H01L29/78,H03K17/687,H03K17/06,G02F1/133,G02F1/1368,G02F1/1345,H01L27/08	2010-03-02T00:00:00	2010	[ "H03", "G11", "G09", "G06", "H01", "G02" ]	pulse signal output circuit and shift register	an object of the present invention is to provide a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit. in an embodiment of the pulse signal output circuit, a transistor has a source terminal or a drain terminal connected to a gate electrode of another transistor having a source terminal or a drain terminal forming an output terminal of the pulse signal output circuit, the channel length of the transistor being longer than the channel length of the other transistor. thereby, the amount of a leakage current modifying the gate potential of the other transistor can be reduced, and a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit can be prevented.	1 . a pulse signal output circuit comprising: a first transistor and a second transistor, a first terminal of the first transistor and a first terminal of the second transistor being electrically connected to a first output terminal; a third transistor and a fourth transistor, a first terminal of the third transistor and a first terminal of the fourth transistor being electrically connected to a second output terminal; a fifth transistor; and a sixth transistor, wherein a first terminal of the fifth transistor, a gate of the first transistor and a gate of the third transistor are electrically connected to each other; wherein a gate of the fifth transistor, a first terminal of the sixth transistor, a gate of the second transistor and a gate of the fourth transistor are electrically connected to each other; and wherein a channel of the fifth transistor and a channel of the sixth transistor are each longer than a channel of the third transistor and a channel of the fourth transistor. 2 . a pulse signal output circuit comprising: a first transistor and a second transistor, a first terminal of the first transistor and a first terminal of the second transistor being electrically connected to a first output terminal; a third transistor and a fourth transistor, a first terminal of the third transistor and a first terminal of the fourth transistor being electrically connected to a second output terminal; a first input signal generation circuit comprising a fifth transistor; and a second input signal generation circuit comprising a sixth transistor, wherein a first terminal of the fifth transistor, a gate of the first transistor and a gate of the third transistor are electrically connected to each other; wherein a gate of the fifth transistor, a first terminal of the sixth transistor, a gate of the second transistor and a gate of the fourth transistor are electrically connected to each other; and wherein a channel of the fifth transistor and a channel of the sixth transistor are each longer than a channel of the third transistor and a channel of the fourth transistor. 3 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 , wherein a second terminal of the fifth transistor and a second terminal of the sixth transistor are electrically connected to a power supply line. 4 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 , further comprising a capacitor electrically connected between the gate and a second terminal of the second transistor. 5 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 , wherein any one of the fifth transistor and the sixth transistor is a transistor having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series. 6 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 , wherein any one of the transistors includes an oxide semiconductor. 7 . a shift register circuit including a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 . 8 . an electronic device including a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 2 . 9 . a pulse signal output circuit comprising: a first transistor and a second transistor, a first terminal of the first transistor and a first terminal of the second transistor being electrically connected to a first output terminal; a third transistor and a fourth transistor, a first terminal of the third transistor and a first terminal of the fourth transistor being electrically connected to a second output terminal; a first input signal generation circuit comprising a fifth transistor and a sixth transistor; and a second input signal generation circuit comprising a seventh transistor, an eighth transistor and a ninth transistor, wherein a first terminal of the fifth transistor, a first terminal of the sixth transistor, a gate of the first transistor and a gate of the third transistor are electrically connected to each other; wherein a gate of the sixth transistor, a first terminal of the seventh transistor, a first terminal of the eighth transistor, a first terminal of the ninth transistor, a gate of the second transistor and a gate of the fourth transistor are electrically connected to each other; and wherein a channel of the sixth transistor and a channel of the ninth transistor are each longer than a channel of the third transistor and a channel of the fourth transistor. 10 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , wherein a first power supply line is electrically connected to a second terminal of the fifth transistor, a second terminal of the seventh transistor and a second terminal of the eighth transistor; wherein a second power supply line is electrically connected to a second terminal of the sixth transistor, a second terminal of the ninth transistor, a second terminal of the second transistor and a second terminal of the fourth transistor; wherein a pulse signal line is electrically connected to a gate of the fifth transistor and a gate of the ninth transistor; wherein a first clock signal line is electrically connected to a second terminal of the first transistor and a second terminal of the third transistor; wherein a second clock signal line is electrically connected to a gate of the eighth transistor; and wherein an input line is electrically connected to a gate of the seventh transistor. 11 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , further comprising a tenth transistor configured to control an electrical connection of the first terminal of the fifth transistor and the first terminal of the sixth transistor to the gate of the first transistor and the gate of the third transistor, wherein a gate of the tenth transistor is electrically connected a second terminal of the fifth transistor. 12 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , further comprising an eleventh transistor having a first terminal electrically connected to a second terminal of the eighth transistor, wherein a gate of the eleventh transistor is electrically connected to a clock signal line. 13 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , further comprising a capacitor electrically connected between the gate and a second terminal of the second transistor. 14 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , wherein any one of the sixth transistor and the ninth transistor is a transistor having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series. 15 . a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 , wherein any one of the transistors includes an oxide semiconductor. 16 . a shift register circuit including a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 . 17 . an electronic device including a pulse signal output circuit according to claim 9 .	technical field the disclosed invention relates to pulse signal output circuits and shift registers. background art transistors formed over flat plates such as glass substrates and typically used in liquid crystal display devices generally include semiconductor materials such as amorphous silicon or polycrystalline silicon. although transistors including amorphous silicon have low field effect mobility, they can be formed over large glass substrates. in contrast, although transistors including polycrystalline silicon have high field effect mobility, they need a crystallization process such as laser annealing and are not always suitable for large glass substrates. on the other hand, transistors including oxide semiconductors as semiconductor materials have attracted attention. for example, patent documents 1 and 2 disclose techniques by which a transistor is formed using zinc oxide or an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor as a semiconductor material and is used as a switching element of an image display device. transistors including oxide semiconductors in channel regions have higher field effect mobility than transistors including amorphous silicon. further, oxide semiconductor films can be formed at a temperature of 300° c. or lower by a sputtering method or the like; thus, a manufacturing process of transistors including an oxide semiconductor is simpler than that of transistors including polycrystalline silicon. such transistors including oxide semiconductors are expected to be used as switching elements included in pixel portions and driver circuits of display devices such as liquid crystal displays, electroluminescent displays, and electronic paper. for example, non-patent document 1 discloses a technique by which a pixel portion and a driver circuit of a display device include transistors including oxide semiconductors. note that transistors including oxide semiconductors are all n-channel transistors. therefore, in the case where a driver circuit includes transistors including oxide semiconductors, the driver circuit includes only n-channel transistors. patent document [patent document 1] japanese published patent application no. 2007-123861 [patent document 2] japanese published patent application no. 2007-096055 non-patent document [non-patent document 1] t. osada et al., “development of driver-integrated panel using amorphous in—ga—zn-oxide tft”, proc. sid ' 09 digest , 2009, pp. 184-187. disclosure of invention a driver circuit includes, for example, a shift register having a pulse signal output circuit. in the case where the shift register includes transistors having the same conductivity type, the shift register might have a problem of unstable operation, for example. in view of the problem, an object of one embodiment of the present invention is to provide a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit. one of objects of the present invention is to provide a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit. in an embodiment of the pulse signal output circuit, a transistor has a source terminal or a drain terminal connected to a gate electrode of another transistor having a source terminal or a drain terminal forming an output terminal of the pulse signal output circuit, the channel length of the transistor being longer than the channel length of the other transistor. thereby, the amount of a leakage current modifying the gate potential of the other transistor can be reduced, and a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit can be prevented. a concrete example of a configuration that can be employed is described below. an embodiment of the present invention is a pulse signal output circuit including first to ninth transistors, a first input signal generation circuit, and a second input signal generation circuit. a first terminal of the first transistor and a first terminal of the second transistor are electrically connected to a first output terminal, and a first terminal of the third transistor and a first terminal of the fourth transistor are electrically connected to a second output terminal. the first input signal generation circuit includes the fifth transistor and the sixth transistor. a first terminal of the fifth transistor and a first terminal of the sixth transistor are electrically connected to each other and collectively function as an output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit. the second input signal generation circuit includes the seventh to ninth transistors. a second terminal of the seventh transistor, a second terminal of the eighth transistor, and a first terminal of the ninth transistor are electrically connected to each other and collectively function as an output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit. a gate terminal of the first transistor, a gate terminal of the third transistor, and the output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. a gate terminal of the second transistor, a gate terminal of the fourth transistor, and the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. a channel length of the sixth transistor is longer than a channel length of the third transistor and longer than a channel length of the fourth transistor. a channel length of the ninth transistor is longer than the channel length of the third transistor and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor. in the pulse signal output circuit, it is preferable that a first clock signal be input to a second terminal of the first transistor and a second terminal of the third transistor; a first potential be supplied to a second terminal of the second transistor, a second terminal of the fourth transistor, a second terminal of the sixth transistor, and a second terminal of the ninth transistor; a second potential which is higher than the first potential be supplied to a second terminal of the fifth transistor, a first terminal of the seventh transistor, and a first terminal of the eighth transistor; a first pulse signal be input to a gate terminal of the fifth transistor and a gate terminal of the ninth transistor; an output signal of the second input signal generation circuit be input to a gate terminal of the sixth transistor; a third pulse signal be input to a gate terminal of the seventh transistor; a second clock signal be input to a gate terminal of the eighth transistor; and a second pulse signal be output from the first output terminal or the second output terminal. in the pulse signal output circuit, at least one of the sixth transistor and the ninth transistor may be a transistor having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series. another embodiment of the present invention is a pulse signal output circuit including first to eleventh transistors, a first input signal generation circuit, and a second input signal generation circuit. a first terminal of the first transistor and a first terminal of the second transistor are electrically connected to a first output terminal, and a first terminal of the third transistor and a first terminal of the fourth transistor are electrically connected to a second output terminal. the first input signal generation circuit includes the fifth to seventh transistors. a first terminal of the fifth transistor, a first terminal of the sixth transistor, and a first terminal of the seventh transistor are electrically connected to each other, and a second terminal of the seventh transistor functions as an output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit. the second input signal generation circuit includes the eighth to eleventh transistors. a second terminal of the eleventh transistor and a first terminal of the ninth transistor are electrically connected to each other, and a second terminal of the ninth transistor, a second terminal of the eighth transistor, and a first terminal of the tenth transistor are electrically connected to each other and collectively function as an output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit. a gate terminal of the first transistor, a gate terminal of the third transistor, and the output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. a gate terminal of the second transistor, a gate terminal of the fourth transistor, and the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. a channel length of the sixth transistor is longer than a channel length of the third transistor and longer than a channel length of the fourth transistor. a channel length of the tenth transistor is longer than the channel length of the third transistor and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor. in the pulse signal output circuit, it is preferable that a first clock signal be input to a second terminal of the first transistor and a second terminal of the third transistor; a first potential be supplied to a second terminal of the second transistor, a second terminal of the fourth transistor, a second terminal of the sixth transistor, and a second terminal of the tenth transistor; a second potential which is higher than the first potential be supplied to a second terminal of the fifth transistor, a gate terminal of the seventh transistor, a first terminal of the eighth transistor, and a first terminal of the eleventh transistor; a first pulse signal be input to a gate terminal of the fifth transistor and a gate terminal of the tenth transistor; an output signal of the second input signal generation circuit be input to a gate terminal of the sixth transistor; a third pulse signal be input to a gate terminal of the eighth transistor; a second clock signal be input to a gate terminal of the ninth transistor; a third clock signal be input to a gate terminal of the eleventh transistor; and a second pulse signal be output from the first output terminal or the second output terminal. in the pulse signal output circuit, at least one of the sixth transistor and the tenth transistor may be a transistor having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series. in the pulse signal output circuit which is the embodiment of the present invention, a capacitor having a terminal electrically connected to a node where the gate terminal of the second transistor, the gate terminal of the fourth transistor, and the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other may be included. in the pulse signal output circuit, at least one of the transistors preferably includes all oxide semiconductor. further, a shift register can include a plurality of pulse signal output circuits. note that in the pulse signal output circuit, the transistor includes an oxide semiconductor in some cases; however, the disclosed invention is not limited to this. note that in this specification and the like, a term such as “over” or “below” does not necessarily mean that a component is placed “directly on” or “directly under” another component. for example, the expression “a gate electrode over a gate insulating layer” does not exclude the case where another component is placed between the gate insulating layer and the gate electrode. in addition, in this specification and the like, terms such as “electrode” and “wiring” do not limit the functions of components. for example, an “electrode” can be used as part of a “wiring”, and the “wiring” can be used as part of the “electrode”. the terms such as “electrode” and “wiring” can also mean a combination of a plurality of “electrodes” and “wirings”, for example. functions of a “source” and a “drain” might be interchanged when, for example, a transistor of opposite polarity is used or the direction of current flow is changed in circuit operation. therefore, in this specification, the terms “source” and “drain” can be interchanged. note that in this specification and the like, the term “electrically connected” includes the case where components are connected to each other through an object having any electric function. here, there is no particular limitation on all object having any electric function as long as electric signals can be transmitted and received between components that are connected to each other through the object. examples of an “object having any electric function” are a switching element such as a transistor, a resistor, an inductor, a capacitor, and an element with a variety of functions in addition to an electrode and a wiring. a pulse signal output circuit capable of operating stably and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit can be provided. brief description of drawings figs. 1a to 1c illustrate configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register. fig. 2 is a timing chart of a shift register. figs. 3a to 3c illustrate operation of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 4a to 4c illustrate operation of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 5a and 5b illustrate configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 6a to 6c illustrate configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register. fig. 7 is a timing chart of a shift register. figs. 8a to 8c illustrate operation of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 9a and 9b illustrate operation of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 10a and 10b illustrate configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit. figs. 11a to 11d illustrate structure examples of transistors. figs. 12a to 12e illustrate an example of a method for manufacturing a transistor. figs. 13a to 13c illustrate examples of semiconductor devices. figs. 14a to 14f illustrate electronic devices. best mode for carrying out the invention examples of embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. note that the present invention is not limited to the following description. it will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art that modes and details of the present invention can be changed in various ways without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. therefore, the present invention should not be construed as being limited to the following description of the embodiments. note that the position, size, range, or the like of each component illustrated in drawings and the like is not accurately represented in some cases for easy understanding. therefore, the disclosed invention is not necessarily limited to the position, size, range, or the like disclosed in the drawings and the like. note that in this specification and the like, ordinal numbers such as “first”, “second”, and “third” are used in order to avoid confusion among components and do not limit the number. embodiment 1 in this embodiment, configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit will be described with reference to figs. 1a to 1c , fig. 2 , figs. 3a to 3c , and figs. 4a to 4c . circuit configuration first, examples of circuit configurations of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit will be described with reference to figs. 1a to 1c . a shift register described in this embodiment includes first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —n (n≧2) and first to fourth signal lines 11 to 14 which transmit clock signals (see fig. 1a ). a first clock signal (clk 1 ) is supplied to the first signal line 11 . a second clock signal (clk 2 ) is supplied to the second signal line 12 . a third clock signal (clk 3 ) is supplied to the third signal line 13 . a fourth clock signal (clk 4 ) is supplied to the fourth signal line 14 . the clock signal is a signal which alternates between an h-level signal (high potential) and an l-level signal (low potential) at regular intervals. here, the first to fourth clock signals (clk 1 to clk 4 ) are delayed by ¼ period sequentially. in this embodiment, by using the clock signals, control or the like of the pulse signal output circuit is performed. each of the first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 , to 10 —n includes a first input terminal 21 , a second input terminal 22 , a third input terminal 23 , a fourth input terminal 24 , a fifth input terminal 25 , a first output terminal 26 , and a second output terminal 27 (see fig. 1b ). the first input terminal 21 , the second input terminal 22 , and the third input terminal 23 are electrically connected to any of the first to fourth signal lines 11 to 14 . for example, the first input terminal 21 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 is electrically connected to the first signal line 11 , the second input terminal 22 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 , is electrically connected to the second signal line 12 , and the third input terminal 23 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 , is electrically connected to the third signal line 13 . in addition, the first input terminal 21 in the second pulse signal output circuit 10 —2 is electrically connected to the second signal line 12 , the second input terminal 22 in the second pulse signal output circuit 10 —2 is electrically connected to the third signal line 13 , and the third input terminal 23 in the second pulse signal output circuit 10 —2 is electrically connected to the fourth signal line 14 . note that here, the case where the second to fourth signal lines 12 to 14 are connected to the n-th pulse signal output circuit 10 —n is described. however, which signal lines are connected to the n-th pulse signal output circuit 10 —n depends on the value of n. thus, it is to be noted that the configuration described herein is just an example. in an m-th pulse signal output circuit (m≧2) of the shift register described in this embodiment, the fourth input terminal 24 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 of an (m−1)-th pulse signal output circuit. in an m-th pulse signal output circuit (m≦n−2); the fifth input terminal 25 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 of an (m+2)-th pulse signal output circuit; the first input terminal 26 is electrically connected to the fourth input terminal 24 of an (m+1)-th pulse signal output circuit; and the second output terminal 27 outputs a signal to an out(m). for example, the fourth input terminal 24 in the third pulse signal output circuit 10 —3 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 in the second pulse signal output circuit 10 —2 . the fifth input terminal 25 in the third pulse signal output circuit 10 —3 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 in the fifth pulse signal output circuit 10 —5 . the first input terminal 26 in the third pulse signal output circuit 10 —3 is electrically connected to the fourth input terminal 24 in the fourth pulse signal output circuit 10 —4 and the fifth input terminal 25 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 . in addition, a first start pulse (sp 1 ) is input from a fifth wiring 15 to the fourth input terminal 24 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 . a pulse output from the previous stage is input to the fourth input terminal 24 in a k-th pulse signal output circuit 10 —4 (k is a natural number greater than or equal to 2 and less than or equal to n). a second start pulse (sp 2 ) is input to the fifth input terminal 25 in a (n−1)-th pulse signal output circuit 10 —n−i . a third start pulse (sp 3 ) is input to the fifth input terminal 25 in the n-th pulse signal output circuit 10 —n . the second start pulse (sp 2 ) and the third start pulse (sp 3 ) may be input from the outside or generated inside the circuit. next, specific configurations of the first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —n will be described. each of the first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —n includes a pulse signal generation circuit including first to fourth transistors 101 to 104 , a first input signal generation circuit including fifth to seventh transistors 105 to 107 , and a second input signal generation circuit including eighth to eleventh transistors 108 to 111 (see fig. 1c ). further, signals are supplied to the first to eleventh transistors 101 to 111 from first and second power supply lines 31 and 32 , in addition to the first to fifth input terminals 21 to 25 . a specific example of a configuration of the pulse signal generation circuit is as follows. a first terminal (hereinafter, “first terminal” means one of a source terminal and a drain terminal) of the first transistor 101 and a first terminal of the second transistor 102 are electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 . similarly, a first terminal of the third transistor 103 and a first terminal of the fourth transistor 104 are electrically connected to the second output terminal 27 . a gate terminal of the first transistor 101 , a gate terminal of the third transistor 103 , and an output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. a gate terminal of the second transistor 102 , a gate terminal of the fourth transistor 104 , and an output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are electrically connected to each other. the first clock signal is input to a second terminal (hereinafter, “second terminal” means the other of the source terminal and the drain terminal) of the first transistor 101 . the second terminal of the first transistor 101 also functions as the first input terminal 21 in the pulse signal output circuit. a first potential (for example, a low potential v ss ) is supplied to a second terminal of the second transistor 102 through the first power supply line 31 . the first clock signal is input to a second terminal of the third transistor 103 . the second terminal of the third transistor 103 also functions as the first input terminal 21 in the pulse signal output circuit. the first potential is supplied to a second terminal of the fourth transistor 104 through the first power supply line 31 . a specific example of a configuration of the first input signal generation circuit is as follows. a first terminal of the fifth transistor 105 , a first terminal of the sixth transistor 106 , and a first terminal of the seventh transistor 107 are electrically connected to each other. further, a second terminal of the seventh transistor 107 functions as the output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit. a second potential is supplied to a second terminal of the fifth transistor 105 through the second power supply line 32 . the first potential is supplied to a second terminal of the sixth transistor 106 through the first power supply line 31 . a pulse signal from the previous stage (in the first pulse signal output circuit, the pulse signal includes a start pulse signal) is input to a gate terminal of the fifth transistor 105 . the gate terminal of the fifth transistor 105 functions as a first input terminal of the first input signal generation circuit and functions as the fourth input terminal 24 of the pulse signal output circuit. an output signal of the second input signal generation circuit is input to a gate terminal of the sixth transistor 106 . the gate terminal of the sixth transistor 106 functions as a second input terminal of the first input signal generation circuit. the second potential is supplied to a gate terminal of the seventh transistor 107 through the second power supply line 32 . although the seventh transistor 107 is provided in this embodiment, a configuration without the seventh transistor 107 may be employed. with the seventh transistor 107 , rise in the potential of the first terminal of the fifth transistor 105 , which might be caused by bootstrap operation, can be suppressed. that is to say, application of high bias voltage to a region between a gate and a source (or between the gate and a drain) of the fifth transistor 105 can be prevented; thus, deterioration of the fifth transistor 105 can be suppressed. a specific example of a configuration of the second input signal generation circuit is as follows. a second terminal of the eleventh transistor 111 and a first terminal of the ninth transistor 109 are electrically connected to each other. a second terminal of the ninth transistor, a second terminal of the eighth transistor, and a first terminal of the tenth transistor are electrically connected to each other and function as the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit. the second potential is supplied to a first terminal of the eighth transistor 108 and a first terminal of the eleventh transistor 111 through the second power supply line 32 . the first potential is supplied to a second terminal of the tenth transistor 110 through the first power supply line 31 . a pulse signal from a second subsequent stage is input to a gate terminal of the eighth transistor 108 , as illustrated in fig. 1a and fig. 1b . the gate terminal of the eighth transistor 108 functions as a first input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and as the fifth input terminal 25 in the pulse signal output circuit. the second clock signal is input to a gate terminal of the ninth transistor 109 . the gate terminal of the ninth transistor 109 functions as a second input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and the second input terminal 22 in the pulse signal output circuit. a pulse signal from the previous stage (in the first pulse signal output circuit, the pulse signal is a start pulse signal) is input to a gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 . the gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 functions as a third input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and the fourth input terminal 24 in the pulse signal output circuit. the third clock signal is input to a gate terminal of the eleventh transistor 111 . the gate terminal of the eleventh transistor 111 functions as a fourth input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and the third input terminal 23 in the pulse signal output circuit. note that in the pulse signal output circuit described in this embodiment, a channel length of the sixth transistor 106 is longer than a channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than a channel length of the fourth transistor 104 . further, a channel length of the tenth transistor 110 is longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 . thus, the amount of shifts in the threshold voltage of the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 can be reduced, so that the deterioration can be suppressed. note that components of the pulse signal output circuit (e.g., configuration examples of the pulse signal generation circuit, the first input signal generation circuit, and the second input signal generation circuit) are just examples, and the disclosed invention is not limited thereto. in the following description of this embodiment, a node where the gate terminal of the first transistor 101 , the gate terminal of the third transistor 103 , and the output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit are connected to each other in the pulse signal output circuit illustrated in fig. 1c is referred to as a node a. in addition, a node where the gate terminal of the second transistor 102 , the gate terminal of the fourth transistor 104 , and the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are connected to each other is referred to as a node b. a capacitor for favorably performing bootstrap operation may be provided between the node a and the first output terminal 26 . furthermore, a capacitor electrically connected to the node b may be provided in order to hold a potential of the node b. note that each of the first to eleventh transistors 101 to 111 preferably includes an oxide semiconductor. when an oxide semiconductor is included in the transistor, the off-state current of the transistor can be reduced. further, the on-state current and field-effect mobility of the transistor including an oxide semiconductor can be increased as compared to a transistor including amorphous silicon or the like. furthermore, the deterioration of the transistor can be suppressed. thus, an electronic circuit which consumes low power, can operate at high speed, and operates with higher accuracy is realized. note that the description of the transistor including an oxide semiconductor is omitted here because it is described in detail in an embodiment below. operation next, operation of the shift register shown in figs. 1a to 1c is described with reference to fig. 2 , figs. 3a to 3c , and figs. 4a to 4c . specifically, operation in each of first to sixth periods 51 to 56 in a timing chart illustrated in fig. 2 is described with reference to figs. 3a to 3c and figs. 4a to 4c . in the timing chart, clk 1 to clk 4 denote clock signals; sp 1 denotes a first start pulse; out 1 to out 4 denote outputs from the second output terminals of the first to fourth pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —4 ; nodes a and b denote potentials at the nodes a and b; and srout 1 to srout 4 denote outputs from the first output terminals of the first to fourth pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —4 . note that in the description below, the first to eleventh transistors 101 to 111 are all n-channel transistors. further, in figs. 3a to 3c and figs. 4a to 4c , transistors indicated by solid lines mean that the transistors are in a conduction state (on), and transistors indicated by dashed lines mean that the transistors are in a non-conduction state (off). typical operation of the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 is described. the configuration of the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 is as described above. further, relation between signals input and potentials supplied is as described above. note that in the description below, v dd is used for all the high potentials (also referred to as h levels, h-level signals, or the like) to be supplied to input terminals and power supply lines, and v ss is used for all the low potentials (also referred to as l levels, l-level signals, or the like) to be supplied to input terminals and power supply lines. in the first period 51 , sp 1 is at h level, so that a high potential is supplied to the gate terminal of the fifth transistor 105 and the gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 which function as the fourth input terminal 24 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 . thus, the fifth transistor 105 and the tenth transistor 110 are turned on. in the first period 51 , clk 3 is also at h level, so that the eleventh transistor 111 is also turned on. in addition, since a high potential is supplied to the gate terminal of the seventh transistor 107 , the seventh transistor 107 is also turned on (see fig. 3a ). when the fifth transistor 105 and the seventh transistor 107 are turned on, the potential of the node a rises. when the tenth transistor 110 is turned on, the potential of the node b falls. the potential of the second terminal of the fifth transistor 105 is v dd . therefore, the potential of the first terminal of the fifth transistor 105 becomes v dd −v th105 , which is a potential obtained by subtracting the threshold voltage of the fifth transistor 105 from the potential of the second terminal. the potential of the gate terminal of the seventh transistor 107 is v dd . therefore, in the case where v th107 , which is the threshold voltage of the seventh transistor 107 , is higher than or equal to v th105 , the potential of the node a becomes v dd −v th107 , whereby the seventh transistor 107 is turned off. on the other hand, in the case where v th107 is lower than v th105 , the potential of the node a rises to v dd −v th105 while the seventh transistor 107 is kept on. hereinafter, the potential of the node a attained in the first period 51 is denoted by v ah . here, v th105 and v th107 are the threshold voltage of the fifth transistor 105 and the threshold voltage of the seventh transistor 107 , respectively. the same can be said for the other transistors. when the potential of the node a reaches v ah , the fifth transistor 105 and the seventh transistor 107 are turned off; thus, the node a is made to be in a floating state while the potential thereof is kept at v ah . when the potential of the node a becomes v ah , the first transistor 101 and the third transistor 103 are turned on. here, since clk 1 is at l level, an l-level signal is output from the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 . in the second period 52 , the potential of clk 1 is changed from l level to h level. since the first transistor 101 and the third transistor 103 are on, a potential of the first output terminal 26 and a potential of the second output terminal 27 rise. further, a capacitance is generated between the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) of the first transistor 101 ; with the capacitance, the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) thereof are capacitively coupled. similarly, a capacitance is generated between the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) of the third transistor 103 ; with the capacitance, the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) thereof are capacitively coupled. thus, the potential of the node a in a floating state rises as the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 rise (bootstrap operation). the potential of the node a finally becomes higher than v dd +v th101 , and each of the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 becomes v dd (h level) (see fig. 2 and fig. 3b ). in the second period 52 , the tenth transistor 110 is on; therefore, the node b is kept at l level. thus, variation in the potential of the node b due to capacitive coupling, which occurs when the potential of the first output terminal 26 is changed from l level to h level, can be suppressed, so that a malfunction due to the variation in the potential can be prevented. in the third period 53 , sp 1 becomes l level, so that the fifth transistor 105 and the tenth transistor 110 are turned off. further, clk 1 is kept at h level and the potential of the node a is not changed; thus, v dd (a h-level signal) is output from the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 (see fig. 3c ). note that in the third period 53 , although the node b is in a floating state, the potential of the first output terminal 26 is not changed; therefore, a malfunction due to the capacitive coupling is negligible. in the fourth period 54 , since both clk 2 and clk 3 are at h level, the potential of the node b rises in a short period of time. further, clk 1 becomes l level. consequently, the second transistor 102 and the fourth transistor 104 are turned on, so that the potentials of the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 fall in a short period of time (see fig. 4a ). in the fifth period 55 , the potential of the fifth input terminal 25 (i.e., srout 3 ) is kept at h level, whereby the potential of the node b is kept. thus, the second transistor 102 , the fourth transistor 104 , and the sixth transistor 106 are kept on, so that the potentials of the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 are kept at l level (see fig. 4b ). in the sixth period 56 , the fifth input terminal 25 (i.e., srout 3 ) becomes l level, so that the eighth transistor 108 is turned off. at this time, the node b is made to be in a floating state while keeping the potential. thus, the second transistor 102 , the fourth transistor 104 , and the sixth transistor 106 are kept on (see fig. 4c ). note that the potential of the node b falls due to an off-state current of a transistor, for example. however, a transistor with a sufficiently low off-state current (e.g., a transistor including an oxide semiconductor) does not have such a problem; thus, the fall in the potential of the node b can be suppressed. the threshold voltage of a transistor including silicon is controlled by doping, but the threshold voltage of a transistor including a wide-gap semiconductor such as an oxide semiconductor cannot be controlled by doping. thus, in the transistor including a wide-gap semiconductor, a current might flow between a source and a drain even when a bias is not applied to a gate (even when the gate and the source have the same potential). however, in the pulse signal output circuit described in this embodiment, the channel length of the tenth transistor 110 is made longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 , whereby the amount of a leakage current generated from the node b can be suppressed; thus, the potential of the node b can be kept stably. further, the channel length of the sixth transistor 106 is made longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 , whereby the amount of a leakage current generated from the node a can be suppressed; thus, bootstrap operation in the node a can be made stable. that is to say, with the structure of this embodiment, the potential of the node a and the potential of the node b can be kept for a long period of time; thus, even when the structure is used for a circuit with low frequency, for example, a malfunction can be prevented. note that in order to further suppress the fall in the potential of the node b, a capacitor 120 having one electrode electrically connected to the node b may be additionally provided, as illustrated in fig. 5a . the other electrode of the capacitor 120 may be electrically connected to the first power supply line 31 , for example. further, the fall in the potential of the node b can be further suppressed by using a sixth transistor 106 or a tenth transistor 110 having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series, as illustrated in fig. 5b . note that although fig. 5b illustrates an example in which both the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 have multi-gate structures, only one of the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 may have a multi-gate structure. of course, the structure illustrated in fig. 5a and the structure illustrated in fig. 5b may be used in combination. with the use of a transistor having a multi-gate structure as illustrated in fig. 5b , redundancy of the transistor can be accomplished. thus, yield of the pulse signal output circuit can be improved. in the case where both clk 2 and clk 3 become h level in a subsequent period, the ninth transistor 109 and the eleventh transistor 111 are turned on, and a potential is supplied to the node b periodically. therefore, even when a transistor having a comparatively high off-state current is used, a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit can be prevented. in addition, the shift register of this embodiment is driven by a driving method in which a pulse output from the m-th pulse signal output circuit overlaps with half of a pulse output from the (m+ 1 )-th pulse signal output circuit. therefore, a wiring can be charged for a longer period of time as compared to the case where the driving method is not used. that is to say, with the driving method, a pulse signal output circuit which withstands a heavy load and operates at high frequency is provided. embodiment 2 in this embodiment, configuration examples of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit, which are different modes from the pulse signal output circuit and the shift register described in the above embodiment, and operation thereof will be described with reference to figs. 6a to 6c , fig. 7 , figs. 8 a to 8 c, and figs. 9a and 9b . circuit configuration first, examples of circuit configurations of a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register including the pulse signal output circuit will be described with reference to figs. 6a to 6c . the configuration of the shift register described in this embodiment is similar to that of the shift register described in the above embodiment. one of differences between them is that the third input terminal 23 is not provided in the first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —n (see figs. 6a to 6c ). that is, two types of clock signals are input to one pulse signal output circuit. the other structures are similar to those in the above embodiment. since the third input terminal 23 is not provided in the first to n-th pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —n , the eleventh transistor connected to the third input terminal 23 is not provided (see fig. 6c ). accordingly, the connection relation in the second input signal generation circuit is partly changed. a specific example of a configuration of the second input signal generation circuit is as follows. the second terminal of the ninth transistor 109 , the second terminal of the eighth transistor 108 , and the first terminal of the tenth transistor 110 are electrically connected to each other and function as the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit. the second potential is supplied to the first terminal of the eighth transistor 108 and the first terminal of the ninth transistor 109 through the second power supply line 32 . the first potential is supplied to the second terminal of the tenth transistor 110 through the first power supply line 31 . a pulse signal is input to the gate terminal of the eighth transistor 108 . the gate terminal of the eighth transistor 108 functions as the first input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and as the fifth input terminal 25 in the pulse signal output circuit. the second clock signal is input to the gate terminal of the ninth transistor 109 . the gate terminal of the ninth transistor 109 functions as the second input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and the second input terminal 22 in the pulse signal output circuit. a pulse signal is input to the gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 . the gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 functions as the third input terminal of the second input signal generation circuit and the fourth input terminal 24 in the pulse signal output circuit. note that in the pulse signal output circuit described in this embodiment, a channel length of the sixth transistor 106 is longer than a channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than a channel length of the fourth transistor 104 . further, a channel length of the tenth transistor 110 is longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 . thus, the amount of shifts in the threshold voltage of the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 can be reduced, so that the deterioration can be suppressed. note that the aforementioned configuration is just an example, and the disclosed invention is not limited thereto. in the following description of this embodiment, in a manner similar to the above embodiment, a node where the gate terminal of the first transistor 101 , the gate terminal of the third transistor 103 , and the output terminal of the first input signal generation circuit are connected to each other in the pulse signal output circuit illustrated in fig. 6c is referred to as a node a. in addition, a node where the gate terminal of the second transistor 102 , the gate terminal of the fourth transistor 104 , and the output terminal of the second input signal generation circuit are connected to each other is referred to as a node b. a capacitor for favorably performing bootstrap operation may be provided between the node a and the first output terminal 26 . furthermore, a capacitor electrically connected to the node b may be provided in order to hold a potential of the node b. note that each of the first to tenth transistors 101 to 110 preferably includes an oxide semiconductor. when an oxide semiconductor is included in the transistor, the off-state current of the transistor can be reduced. further, the on-state current and field-effect mobility of the transistor including an oxide semiconductor can be increased as compared to a transistor including amorphous silicon or the like. furthermore, the deterioration of the transistor can be suppressed. thus, an electronic circuit which consumes low power, can operate at high speed, and operates with higher accuracy is realized. note that the description of the transistor including an oxide semiconductor is omitted here because it is described in detail in an embodiment below. operation next, operation of the shift register shown in figs. 6a to 6c is described with reference to fig. 7 , figs. 8a to 8c , and figs. 9a and 9b . specifically, operation in each of first to fifth periods 51 to 55 in a timing chart illustrated in fig. 7 is described with reference to figs. 8a to 8c and figs. 9a and 9b . in the timing chart, clk 1 to clk 4 denote clock signals; sp 1 denotes a first start pulse; out 1 to out 4 denote outputs from the second output terminals of the first to fourth pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 to 10 —4 ; nodes a and b denote potentials at the nodes a and b; and srout 1 to srout 4 denote outputs from the first output terminals of the first to fourth pulse signal output circuits 10 —1 , to 10 —4 . note that in the description below, the first to tenth transistors 101 to 110 are all n-channel transistors. further, in figs. 8a to 8c and figs. 9a and 9b , transistors indicated by solid lines mean that the transistors are in a conduction state (on), and transistors indicated by dashed lines mean that the transistors are in a non-conduction state (off). typical operation of the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 is described. the configuration of the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 is as described above. further, relation between signals input and potentials supplied is as described above. note that in the description below, v dd is used for all the high potentials (also referred to as h levels, h-level signals, or the like) to be supplied to input terminals and power supply lines, and v ss is used for all the low potentials (also referred to as l levels, l-level signals, or the like) to be supplied to input terminals and power supply lines. in the first period 51 , sp 1 is at h level, so that a high potential is supplied to the gate terminal of the fifth transistor 105 and the gate terminal of the tenth transistor 110 which function as the fourth input terminal 24 in the first pulse signal output circuit 10 —1 . thus, the fifth transistor 105 and the tenth transistor 110 are turned on. in addition, since a high potential is supplied to the gate terminal of the seventh transistor 107 , the seventh transistor 107 is also turned on (see fig. 8a ). when the fifth transistor 105 and the seventh transistor 107 are turned on, the potential of the node a rises. when the tenth transistor 110 is turned on, the potential of the node b falls. the potential of the second terminal of the fifth transistor 105 is v dd . therefore, the potential of the first terminal of the fifth transistor 105 becomes v dd −v th105 , which is a potential obtained by subtracting the threshold voltage of the fifth transistor 105 from the potential of the second terminal. the potential of the gate terminal of the seventh transistor 107 is v dd . therefore, in the case where v th107 , which is the threshold voltage of the seventh transistor 107 , is higher than or equal to v th105 , the potential of the node a becomes v dd −v th107 , whereby the seventh transistor 107 is turned off. on the other hand, in the case where v th107 is lower than v th105 , the potential of the node a rises to v dd −v th105 while the seventh transistor 107 is kept on. hereinafter, the potential of the node a attained in the first period 51 is denoted by v ah . when the potential of the node a reaches v ah , the fifth transistor 105 and the seventh transistor 107 are turned off; thus, the node a is made to be in a floating state while the potential thereof is kept at v ah . when the potential of the node a becomes v ah , the first transistor 101 and the third transistor 103 are turned on. here, since clk 1 is at l level, an l-level signal is output from the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 . in the second period 52 , the potential of clk 1 is changed from l level to h level. since the first transistor 101 and the third transistor 103 are on, a potential of the first output terminal 26 and a potential of the second output terminal 27 rise. further, a capacitance is generated between the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) of the first transistor 101 ; with the capacitance, the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) thereof are capacitively coupled. similarly, a capacitance is generated between the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) of the third transistor 103 ; with the capacitance, the gate terminal and the source terminal (or the drain terminal) thereof are capacitively coupled. thus, the potential of the node a in a floating state rises as the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 rise (bootstrap operation). the potential of the node a finally becomes higher than v dd −v th101 , and each of the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 becomes v dd (h level) (see fig. 7 and fig. 8b ). in the third period 53 , clk 2 becomes h level, and the ninth transistor 109 is turned on. accordingly, the potential of the node b rises. when the potential of the node b rises, the second transistor 102 , the fourth transistor 104 , and the sixth transistor 106 are turned on and the potential of the node a falls. therefore, the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 become l level (see fig. 8c ). in the fourth period 54 , clk 2 becomes l level, and the ninth transistor 109 is turned off. the fifth input terminal 25 (i.e., srout 3 ) becomes h level, and the eighth transistor 108 is turned on. therefore, the potential of the node a and the potential of the node b are kept, and the potential of the first output terminal 26 and the potential of the second output terminal 27 are kept at l level (see fig. 9a ). in the fifth period 55 , the potential of the fifth input terminal 25 (i.e., srout 3 ) becomes l level, whereby the potential of the node b is kept. thus, the second transistor 102 , the fourth transistor 104 , and the sixth transistor 106 are kept on, so that the potentials of the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 are kept at l level (see fig. 9b ). note that the potential of the node b falls due to an off-state current of a transistor, for example. however, a transistor with a sufficiently low off-state current (e.g., a transistor including an oxide semiconductor) does not have such a problem. the threshold voltage of a transistor including silicon is controlled by doping, but the threshold voltage of a transistor including a wide-gap semiconductor such as an oxide semiconductor cannot be controlled by doping. thus, in the transistor including a wide-gap semiconductor, a current might flow between a source and a drain even when a bias is not applied to a gate (even when the gate and the source have the same potential). however, in the pulse signal output circuit described in this embodiment, the channel length of the tenth transistor 110 is made longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 , whereby the amount of a leakage current generated from the node b can be suppressed; thus, the potential of the node b can be kept stably. further, the channel length of the sixth transistor 106 is made longer than the channel length of the third transistor 103 and longer than the channel length of the fourth transistor 104 , whereby the amount of a leakage current generated from the node a can be suppressed; thus, bootstrap operation in the node a can be made stable. that is to say, with the structure of this embodiment, the potential of the node a and the potential of the node b can be kept for a long period of time; thus, even when the structure is used for a circuit with low frequency, for example, a malfunction can be prevented. note that in order to further suppress the fall in the potential of the node b, a capacitor 120 having one electrode electrically connected to the node b may be additionally provided, as illustrated in fig. 10a . the other electrode of the capacitor 120 may be electrically connected to the first power supply line 31 , for example. further, the fall in the potential of the node b can be further suppressed by using a sixth transistor 106 or a tenth transistor 110 having a multi-gate structure where at least two gates are arranged in series, as illustrated in fig. 10b . note that although fig. 10b illustrates an example in which both the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 have multi-gate structures, one of the sixth transistor 106 and the tenth transistor 110 may have a multi-gate structure. of course, the structure illustrated in fig. 10a and the structure illustrated in fig. 10b may be used in combination. with the use of a transistor having a multi-gate structure as illustrated in fig. 10b , redundancy of the transistor can be accomplished. thus, yield of the pulse signal output circuit can be improved. in the case where clk 2 becomes h level in a subsequent period, the ninth transistor 109 is turned on, and a potential is supplied to the node b periodically. therefore, even when a transistor having a comparatively high off-state current is used, a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit can be prevented. as described above, the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be combined with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments as appropriate. embodiment 3 in this embodiment, examples of transistors which can be used in the pulse signal output circuit and the shift register described in the above embodiment are described with reference to figs. 11a to 11d . there is no particular limitation on the structure of the transistor. for example, a suitable structure such as a top-gate structure, a bottom-gate structure, a staggered structure, or a planar structure can be employed. alternatively, the transistor may have a single-gate structure in which one channel formation region is formed or a multi-gate structure in which two or more channel formation regions are formed. alternatively, the transistor may have a structure in which two gate electrode layers are formed over and below a channel region with a gate insulating layer provided therebetween. figs. 11a to 11d illustrate examples of the cross-sectional structures of the transistors. the transistors illustrated in figs. 11a to 11d each include an oxide semiconductor as a semiconductor. an advantage of the use of an oxide semiconductor is high mobility and low off-state current which can be obtained by a simple low-temperature process. a transistor 410 illustrated in fig. 11a is an example of a bottom-gate transistor and is also referred to as an inverted-staggered transistor. the transistor 410 includes a gate electrode layer 401 , a gate insulating layer 402 , an oxide semiconductor layer 403 , a source electrode layer 405 a , and a drain electrode layer 405 b which are provided over a substrate 400 having an insulating surface. further, an insulating layer 407 which is in contact with the oxide semiconductor layer 403 is provided. a protective insulating layer 409 is formed over the insulating layer 407 . a transistor 420 illustrated in fig. 11b is an example of a bottom-gate transistor referred to as a channel-protective (channel-stop) transistor and is also referred to as an inverted-staggered transistor. the transistor 420 includes the gate electrode layer 401 , the gate insulating layer 402 , the oxide semiconductor layer 403 , an insulating layer 427 functioning as a channel protective layer, the source electrode layer 405 a , and the drain electrode layer 405 b which are provided over the substrate 400 having an insulating surface. further, the protective insulating layer 409 is provided. a transistor 430 illustrated in fig. 11c is an example of a bottom-gate transistor. the transistor 430 includes the gate electrode layer 401 , the gate insulating layer 402 , the source electrode layer 405 a , the drain electrode layer 405 b , and the oxide semiconductor layer 403 which are provided over the substrate 400 having an insulating surface. further, the insulating layer 407 which is in contact with the oxide semiconductor layer 403 is provided. furthermore, the protective insulating layer 409 is formed over the insulating layer 407 . in the transistor 430 , the gate insulating layer 402 is provided on and in contact with the substrate 400 and the gate electrode layer 401 , and the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b are provided on and in contact with the gate insulating layer 402 . further, the oxide semiconductor layer 403 is provided over the gate insulating layer 402 , the source electrode layer 405 a , and the drain electrode layer 405 b. a transistor 440 illustrated in fig. 11d is an example of a top-gate transistor. the transistor 440 includes an insulating layer 437 , the oxide semiconductor layer 403 , the source electrode layer 405 a , the drain electrode layer 405 b , the gate insulating layer 402 , and the gate electrode layer 401 which are provided over the substrate 400 having an insulating surface. a wiring layer 436 a and a wiring layer 436 b are provided in contact with the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b , respectively. in this embodiment, as described above, the oxide semiconductor layer 403 is used as a semiconductor layer. as an oxide semiconductor used for the oxide semiconductor layer 403 , an oxide of four metal elements, such as an in—sn—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor; an oxide of three metal elements, such as an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—sn—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, all in—al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an al—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor layer, or a sn—al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor; an oxide of two metal elements, such as an in—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a zn—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor, or all in—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor; an in—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—o-based oxide semiconductor, or a zn—o-based oxide semiconductor can be used. further, sio 2 may be added to the oxide semiconductor. here, for example, an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is an oxide including at least in, ga, and zn, and there is no particular limitation on the composition ratio thereof. furthermore, the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor may contain an element other than in, ga, and zn. for the oxide semiconductor layer 403 , an oxide semiconductor expressed by a chemical formula of inmo 3 (zno) m (m>0) can be used. here, m represents one or more metal elements selected from ga, al, mn, or co. for example, mean be ga, ga and al, ga and mn, ga and co, or the like. the off-state current of the transistor 410 , the transistor 420 , the transistor 430 , and the transistor 440 including the oxide semiconductor layer 403 can be markedly reduced. thus, when such transistors are used in the pulse signal output circuit and the shift register, the potential of each node can be kept easily, so that the possibility of a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit and the shift register can be markedly lowered. there is no particular limitation on a substrate which can be used as the substrate 400 having an insulating surface. for example, a glass substrate, a quartz substrate, or the like used for a liquid crystal display device or the like can be used. alternatively, a substrate where an insulating layer is formed over a silicon wafer may be used, for example. in each of the bottom-gate transistors 410 , 420 , and 430 , an insulating film serving as a base may be provided between the substrate and the gate electrode layer. the insulating layer has a function of preventing diffusion of an impurity element from the substrate, and can be formed to have a single-layer structure or a layered structure including one or more films selected from a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, or a silicon oxynitride film. the gate electrode layer 401 can be formed using a metal material such as molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, aluminum, copper, neodymium, or scandium, or an alloy material which includes any of these materials as a main component. the gate electrode layer 401 may have a single-layer structure or a layered structure. the gate insulating layer 402 can be formed using one or more films selected from a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxynitride film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, an aluminum nitride film, an aluminum oxynitride film, an aluminum nitride oxide film, a hafnium oxide film, or the like by a plasma-enhanced cvd method, a sputtering method, or the like. for example, a gate insulating layer with a total thickness of about 300 nm can be formed in such a manner that a silicon nitride film (sin y (y>0)) with a thickness of 50 to 200 nm is formed as a first gate insulating layer by plasma-enhanced cvd and a silicon oxide film (sio x (x>0)) with a thickness of 5 to 300 nm is stacked over the first gate insulating layer as a second gate insulating layer by a sputtering method. the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b can be formed using a metal material such as molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, aluminum, copper, neodymium, or scandium, or an alloy material which includes any of these materials as a main component. for example, the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b can have a layered structure of a metal layer including aluminum, copper, or the like and a refractory metal layer including titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, or the like. heat resistance may be improved with the use of an aluminum material to which an element for preventing generation of hillocks and whiskers (e.g., silicon, neodymium, or scandium) is added. alternatively, a conductive metal oxide film may be used as a conductive film serving as the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b (including a wiring layer formed using the same layer as the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b ). indium oxide (in 2 o 3 ), tin oxide (sno 2 ), zinc oxide (zno), an alloy of indium oxide and tin oxide (in 2 o 3 —sno 2 , which is abbreviated to ito in some cases), an alloy of indium oxide and zinc oxide (in 2 o 3 —zno), any of these metal oxide materials including silicon oxide, or the like can be used as a conductive metal oxide. the wiring layer 436 a and the wiring layer 436 b which are in contact with the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b , respectively, can be formed using a material which is similar to that of the source electrode layer 405 a and the drain electrode layer 405 b. for each of the insulating layers 407 , 427 , and 437 , an inorganic insulating film such as a silicon oxide film, a silicon oxynitride film, an aluminum oxide film, or an aluminum oxynitride film can be used typically. for the protective insulating layer 409 , an inorganic insulating film such as a silicon nitride film, an aluminum nitride film, a silicon nitride oxide film, or an aluminum nitride oxide film can be used. in addition, a planarization insulating film for reducing surface unevenness due to the transistor may be formed over the protective insulating layer 409 . for the planarization insulating film, an organic material such as polyimide, acrylic, or benzocyclobutene can be used. other than such an organic material, a low-dielectric constant material (a low-k material) or the like can be used. note that the planarization insulating film may be formed by stacking a plurality of insulating films including these materials. as described above, the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be combined with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments as appropriate. embodiment 4 in this embodiment, an example of a transistor including an oxide semiconductor layer and an example of a manufacturing method thereof will be described in detail with reference to figs. 12a to 12e . figs. 12a to 12e are cross-sectional views illustrating a manufacturing process of a transistor. a transistor 510 illustrated here is an inverted staggered transistor similar to the transistor 410 illustrated in fig. 11a . an oxide semiconductor used for a semiconductor layer of this embodiment is an i-type (intrinsic) oxide semiconductor or a substantially i-type (intrinsic) oxide semiconductor. the i-type (intrinsic) oxide semiconductor or substantially i-type (intrinsic) oxide semiconductor is obtained in such a manner that hydrogen, which is an n-type impurity, is removed from an oxide semiconductor, and the oxide semiconductor is purified so as to contain as few impurities that are not main components of the oxide semiconductor as possible. note that the purified oxide semiconductor includes extremely few carriers, and the carrier concentration is lower than 1×10 14 /cm 3 , preferably lower than 1×10 12 /cm 3 , further preferably lower than 1×10 11 /cm 3 . such few carriers enable a current in an off state (off-state current) to be small enough. specifically, in the transistor including the above-described oxide semiconductor layer, the off-state current density per 1 μm of channel width at room temperature (25° c.) can be 100 za/μm (1×10 −19 a/μm) or lower, or further 10 za/μm (1×10 −20 a/μm) or lower under conditions where the channel length l of the transistor is 10 μm and the source-drain voltage is 3 v. the transistor 510 including the purified oxide semiconductor layer hardly has temperature dependence of an on-state current and also has an extremely small off-state current. a process for manufacturing the transistor 510 over a substrate 505 will be described with reference to figs. 12a to 12e . first, a conductive film is formed over the substrate 505 having an insulating surface, and then a gate electrode layer 511 is formed through a first photolithography process. note that a resist mask used in the photolithography process may be formed by an inkjet method. formation of the resist mask by an inkjet method needs no photomask; thus, manufacturing cost can be reduced. as the substrate 505 having an insulating surface, a substrate similar to the substrate 400 described in the above embodiment can be used. in this embodiment, a glass substrate is used as the substrate 505 . an insulating layer serving as a base may be provided between the substrate 505 and the gate electrode layer 511 . the insulating layer has a function of preventing diffusion of an impurity element from the substrate 505 , and can be formed of one or more films selected from a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, a silicon oxynitride film, and the like. the gate electrode layer 511 can be formed using a metal material such as molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, aluminum, copper, neodymium, or scandium, or an alloy material which includes any of these metal materials as a main component. the gate electrode layer 511 can have a single-layer structure or a stacked structure. next, a gate insulating layer 507 is formed over the gate electrode layer 511 . the gate insulating layer 507 can be formed by a plasma-enhanced cvd method, a sputtering method, or the like. the gate insulating layer 507 can be formed of one or more films selected from a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxynitride film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, an aluminum nitride film, an aluminum oxynitride film, an aluminum nitride oxide film, a hafnium oxide film, and the like. further, in order that hydrogen, hydroxyl, and moisture are contained as little as possible in the gate insulating layer 507 and an oxide semiconductor film 530 , it is preferable to preheat the substrate 505 over which the gate electrode layer 511 is formed or the substrate 505 over which the gate electrode layer 511 and the gate insulating layer 507 are formed, in a preheating chamber of a sputtering apparatus as pretreatment for the formation of the oxide semiconductor film 530 , so that impurities such as hydrogen and moisture adsorbed on the substrate 505 are eliminated. as an evacuation unit, a cryopump is preferably provided for the preheating chamber. this preheating step may be performed on the substrate 505 over which layers up to and including a source electrode layer 515 a and a drain electrode layer 515 b are formed. note that this preheating treatment can be omitted. next, over the gate insulating layer 507 , the oxide semiconductor film 530 with a thickness of greater than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 200 nm, preferably greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 30 nm is formed (see fig. 12a ). for the oxide semiconductor film 530 , any of the four-component metal oxide, the three-component metal oxides, the two-component metal oxides, an in—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, and the like, which are described in the above embodiment, can be used. as a target for forming the oxide semiconductor film 530 by a sputtering method, it is particularly preferable to use a target having a composition ratio of in:ga:zn=1:x:y (x is 0 or more and y is more than or equal to 0.5 and less than or equal to 5). for example, a target having a composition ratio of in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:2 [molar ratio] can be used. alternatively, a target having a composition ratio of in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno =1:1:1 [molar ratio], a target having a composition ratio of in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno =1:1:4 [molar ratio], or a target having a composition ratio of in 2 o 3 :zno=1:2 [molar ratio] can be used. in this embodiment, an oxide semiconductor layer having an amorphous structure is formed by a sputtering method using an in—ga—zn—o-based metal oxide target. the relative density of a metal oxide in the metal oxide target is greater than or equal to 80%, preferably greater than or equal to 95%, and further preferably greater than or equal to 99.9%. the use of a metal oxide target having high relative density makes it possible to form an oxide semiconductor layer with a dense structure. the atmosphere in which the oxide semiconductor film 530 is formed is preferably a rare gas (typically, argon) atmosphere, an oxygen atmosphere, or a mixed atmosphere containing a rare gas (typically, argon) and oxygen. specifically, it is preferable to use, for example, an atmosphere of a high-purity gas from which an impurity such as hydrogen, water, hydroxyl, or hydride is removed so that the impurity concentration is 1 ppm or lower (preferably the impurity concentration is 10 ppb or lower). in the formation of the oxide semiconductor film 530 , for example, a process object is held in a treatment chamber that is kept under reduced pressure and the process object may be heated so that the temperature of the process object is higher than or equal to 100° c. and lower than 550° c., preferably higher than or equal to 200° c. and lower than or equal to 400° c. alternatively, the temperature of the process object in the formation of the oxide semiconductor film 530 may be room temperature (25° c.±10° c.). then, a sputtering gas from which hydrogen, water, and the like are removed is introduced while moisture in the treatment chamber is removed, and the aforementioned target is used, whereby the oxide semiconductor film 530 is formed. the oxide semiconductor film 530 is formed while the process object is heated, so that impurities contained in the oxide semiconductor layer can be reduced. further, damage due to sputtering can be reduced. in order to remove moisture in the treatment chamber, an entrapment vacuum pump is preferably used. for example, a cryopump, an ion pump, a titanium sublimation pump, or the like can be used. alternatively, a turbo molecular pump provided with a cold trap may be used. by evacuation with the cryopump or the like, hydrogen, water, and the like can be removed from the treatment chamber, whereby the impurity concentration in the oxide semiconductor film 530 can be reduced. the oxide semiconductor film 530 can be formed under the following conditions, for example: the distance between the process object and the target is 170 mm, the pressure is 0.4 pa, the direct-current (dc) power is 0.5 kw, and the atmosphere is an oxygen atmosphere (the proportion of oxygen is 100%), an argon atmosphere (the proportion of argon is 100%), or a mixed atmosphere including oxygen and argon. a pulse-direct current (dc) power source is preferably used because powder substances (also referred to as particles or dust) generated in the film formation can be reduced and the film thickness can be uniform. the thickness of the oxide semiconductor film 530 is greater than or equal to 1 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, preferably greater than or equal to 1 nm and less than or equal to 30 nm, more preferably greater than or equal to 1 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. with the oxide semiconductor film 530 having such a thickness, a short-channel effect due to miniaturization can be suppressed. note that the appropriate thickness differs depending on the oxide semiconductor material to be used, the intended use of the semiconductor device, and the like; therefore, the thickness may be determined in accordance with the material, the intended use, and the like. note that before the oxide semiconductor film 530 is formed by a sputtering method, a substance attached to a surface where the oxide semiconductor film 530 is to be formed (e.g., a surface of the gate insulating layer 507 ) is preferably removed by reverse sputtering in which an argon gas is introduced and plasma is generated. here, the reverse sputtering is a method in which ions collide with a process surface so that the surface is modified, in contrast to normal sputtering in which ions collide with a sputtering target. as an example of a method for making ions collide with a process surface, there is a method in which high-frequency voltage is applied to the process surface in an argon atmosphere so that plasma is generated in the vicinity of the process object. note that an atmosphere of nitrogen, helium, oxygen, or the like may be used instead of an argon atmosphere. next, the oxide semiconductor film 530 is processed into an island-shaped oxide semiconductor layer through a second photolithography process. note that a resist mask used in the photolithography process may be formed by an inkjet method. formation of the resist mask by an inkjet method needs no photomask; thus, manufacturing cost can be reduced. in the case where a contact hole is formed in the gate insulating layer 507 , a step of forming the contact hole can be performed at the same time as processing of the oxide semiconductor film 530 . as the etching of the oxide semiconductor film 530 , either wet etching or dry etching or both of them may be employed. as an etchant used for wet etching of the oxide semiconductor film 530 , a solution obtained by mixing phosphoric acid, acetic acid, and nitric acid or the like can be used. an etchant such as ito-07n (produced by kanto chemical co., inc.) may also be used. then, heat treatment (first heat treatment) is performed on the oxide semiconductor layer, so that an oxide semiconductor layer 531 is formed (see fig. 12b ). by the first heat treatment, excessive hydrogen (including water and hydroxyl) in the oxide semiconductor layer is removed and a structure of the oxide semiconductor layer is improved, so that defect level in energy gap can be reduced. the temperature of the first heat treatment is, for example, higher than or equal to 300° c. and lower than 550° c., or higher than or equal to 400° c. and lower than or equal to 500° c. the heat treatment can be performed in such a way that, for example, a process object is introduced into an electric furnace in which a resistance heating element or the like is used and heated at 450° c. under a nitrogen atmosphere for an hour. during the heat treatment, the oxide semiconductor layer is not exposed to the air, in order to prevent contamination by water and hydrogen. the heat treatment apparatus is not limited to an electric furnace; the heat treatment apparatus can be an apparatus that heats a process object using thermal conduction or thermal radiation from a medium such as a heated gas or the like. for example, an rta (rapid thermal annealing) apparatus such as a grta (gas rapid thermal annealing) apparatus or an lrta (lamp rapid thermal annealing) apparatus can be used. an lrta apparatus is an apparatus for heating a process object using radiation of light (an electromagnetic wave) emitted from a lamp such as a halogen lamp, a metal halide lamp, a xenon arc lamp, a carbon arc lamp, a high-pressure sodium lamp, or a high-pressure mercury lamp. a grta apparatus is an apparatus for heat treatment using a high-temperature gas. as the gas, an inert gas which does not react with a process object by heat treatment, such as nitrogen or a rare gas such as argon is used. for example, as the first heat treatment, grta treatment may be performed in the following manner. the process object is put in an inert gas atmosphere that has been heated, heated for several minutes, and then taken out of the inert gas atmosphere. the grta treatment enables high-temperature heat treatment in a short time. moreover, in the grta treatment, even conditions of the temperature that exceeds the upper temperature limit of the process object can be employed. note that the inert gas may be changed to a gas including oxygen during the process. this is because defect levels in the energy gap due to oxygen deficiency can be reduced by performing the first heat treatment in an atmosphere including oxygen. note that as the inert gas atmosphere, an atmosphere that contains nitrogen or a rare gas (e.g., helium, neon, or argon) as its main component and does not contain water, hydrogen, or the like is preferably used. for example, the purity of nitrogen or a rare gas such as helium, neon, or argon introduced into a heat treatment apparatus is set to 6n (99.9999%) or more, preferably 7n (99.99999%) or more (i.e., the impurity concentration is 1 ppm or less, preferably 0.1 ppm or less). in any case, impurities are reduced by the first heat treatment so that the i-type (intrinsic) or substantially i-type oxide semiconductor layer is obtained. accordingly, a transistor having excellent characteristics can be realized. the above heat treatment (first heat treatment) has an effect of removing hydrogen, water, and the like and thus can be referred to as dehydration treatment, dehydrogenation treatment, or the like. the dehydration treatment or the dehydrogenation treatment can be performed after the formation of the oxide semiconductor film 530 and before the oxide semiconductor film 530 is processed into the island-shaped oxide semiconductor layer. such dehydration treatment or dehydrogenation treatment may be performed once or more times. the first heat treatment can be performed at any of the following timings instead of the above timing: after formation of a source electrode layer and a drain electrode layer, after formation of an insulating layer over the source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer, and the like. next, a conductive film to be a source electrode layer and a drain electrode layer (including a wiring formed from the same layer as the source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer) is formed over the gate insulating layer 507 and the oxide semiconductor layer 531 . the conductive film used to form the source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer can be formed using any of the materials described in the above embodiment. a resist mask is formed over the conductive film in a third photolithography process, and the source electrode layer 515 a and the drain electrode layer 515 b are formed by selective etching, and then, the resist mask is removed (see fig. 12c ). light exposure at the time of formation of the resist mask in the third photolithography process may be performed using ultraviolet light, krf laser light, or arf laser light. note that the channel length (l) of the transistor is determined by the distance between the source electrode layer and the drain electrode layer. therefore, in light exposure for forming a mask for a transistor with a channel length (l) of less than 25 rim, it is preferable to use extreme ultraviolet light whose wavelength is as short as several nanometers to several tens of nanometers. in light exposure using extreme ultraviolet light, resolution is high and depth of focus is large. for these reasons, the channel length (l) of the transistor completed later can be greater than or equal to 10 nm and less than or equal to 1000 nm (1 μm), and the circuit can operate at high speed. moreover, power consumption of the semiconductor device can be reduced by miniaturization. in order to reduce the number of photomasks and the number of photolithography processes, the etching step may be performed using a resist mask formed with a multi-tone mask. since a resist mask formed with a multi-tone mask includes regions of plural thicknesses and can be further changed in shape by performing etching, the resist mask can be used in a plurality of etching steps to provide different patterns. therefore, a resist mask corresponding to at least two kinds of different patterns can be formed with one multi-tone mask. thus, the number of light-exposure masks can be reduced and the number of corresponding photolithography processes can also be reduced, whereby simplification of the process can be realized. note that it is preferable that etching conditions be optimized so as not to etch and divide the oxide semiconductor layer 531 when the conductive film is etched. however, it is difficult to obtain etching conditions in which only the conductive film is etched and the oxide semiconductor layer 531 is not etched at all. in some cases, part of the oxide semiconductor layer 531 is etched when the conductive film is etched, whereby the oxide semiconductor layer 531 having a groove portion (a recessed portion) is formed. either wet etching or dry etching may be used for the etching of the conductive film. note that dry etching is preferably used in terms of miniaturization of elements. an etching gas and an etchant can be selected as appropriate in accordance with a material to be etched. in this embodiment, a titanium film is used as the conductive film and an in—ga—zn—o based material is used for the oxide semiconductor layer 531 ; accordingly, in the case of employing wet etching, ammonia hydrogen peroxide (a mixed solution of ammonia, water, and hydrogen peroxide) is used as an etchant. next, plasma treatment using a gas such as n 2 o, n 2 , or ar is preferably performed, so that water, hydrogen, or the like attached to a surface of an exposed portion of the oxide semiconductor layer may be removed. hi the case of performing the plasma treatment, an insulating layer 516 serving as a protective insulating film is formed without the oxide semiconductor layer being exposed to the air after the plasma treatment. the insulating layer 516 is preferably formed to a thickness of at least 1 nm by a method through which an impurity such as water or hydrogen is not introduced into the insulating layer 516 , such as a sputtering method. when hydrogen is contained in the insulating layer 516 , entry of the hydrogen to the oxide semiconductor layer, or extraction of oxygen in the oxide semiconductor layer by the hydrogen is caused, thereby causing the backchannel of the oxide semiconductor layer to have lower resistance (to have an n-type conductivity), so that a parasitic channel may be formed. as the insulating layer 516 , a silicon oxide film, a silicon oxynitride film, an aluminum oxide film, an aluminum oxynitride film, or the like is preferably used. in this embodiment, a silicon oxide film is formed to a thickness of 200 nm by a sputtering method as the insulating layer 516 . the substrate temperature in deposition may be higher than or equal to room temperature (25° c.) and lower than or equal to 300° c., and is 100° c. in this embodiment. the silicon oxide film can be deposited by a sputtering method in a rare gas (typically, argon) atmosphere, an oxygen atmosphere, or a mixed atmosphere containing a rare gas and oxygen. as a target, a silicon oxide target or a silicon target may be used. in order to remove moisture remaining in the deposition chamber of the insulating layer 516 at the same time as deposition of the oxide semiconductor film 530 , an entrapment vacuum pump (such as a cryopump) is preferably used. when the insulating layer 516 is deposited in the deposition chamber which is evacuated using a cryopump, the impurity concentration in the insulating layer 516 can be reduced. a turbo molecular pump provided with a cold trap may be used as an evacuation unit for removing moisture remaining in the deposition chamber used for forming the insulating layer 516 . a sputtering gas used for forming the insulating layer 516 is preferably a high-purity gas from which an impurity such as hydrogen or water is removed. next, second heat treatment is performed in an inert gas atmosphere or an oxygen gas atmosphere. the second heat treatment is performed at a temperature higher than or equal to 200° c. and lower than or equal to 450° c., preferably higher than or equal to 250° c. and lower than or equal to 350° c. for example, the heat treatment may be performed at 250° c. for 1 hour in a nitrogen atmosphere. the second heat treatment can reduce variation in electric characteristics of the transistor. by supply of oxygen from the insulating layer 516 to the oxide semiconductor layer 531 , an oxygen vacancy in the oxide semiconductor layer 531 is reduced, whereby an i-type (intrinsic) or substantially i-type oxide semiconductor layer can be formed. in this embodiment, the second heat treatment is performed after the formation of the insulating layer 516 ; however, the timing of the second heat treatment is not limited thereto. for example, the first heat treatment and the second heat treatment may be successively performed, or the first heat treatment may double as the second heat treatment. in the above-described manner, through the first heat treatment and the second heat treatment, the oxide semiconductor layer 531 is purified so as to contain as few impurities that are not main components of the oxide semiconductor layer as possible, whereby the oxide semiconductor layer 531 can become an i-type (intrinsic) oxide semiconductor layer. through the above-described process, the transistor 510 is formed (see fig. 12d ). it is preferable to further form a protective insulating layer 506 over the insulating layer 516 (see fig. 12e ). the protective insulating layer 506 prevents entry of hydrogen, water, and the like from the outside. as the protective insulating layer 506 , a silicon nitride film, an aluminum nitride film, or the like can be used, for example. the formation method of the protective insulating layer 506 is not particularly limited; however, an rf sputtering method is suitable for forming the protective insulating layer 506 because it achieves high productivity. after the formation of the protective insulating layer 506 , heat treatment may be further performed at a temperature higher than or equal to 100° c. and lower than or equal to 200° c. for 1 hour to 30 hours in the air. a transistor which includes a purified oxide semiconductor layer and is manufactured in accordance with this embodiment as described above has a characteristic of significantly small off-state current. therefore, with the use of such a transistor, the potential of a node can be easily kept. the use of such a transistor for a pulse signal output circuit and a shift register can significantly reduce the probability of causing a malfunction of the pulse signal output circuit and the shift register. as described above, the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be combined with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments as appropriate. embodiment 5 with the use of the shift register whose example is illustrated in embodiment 1 or embodiment 2, a semiconductor device having a display function (also referred to as a display device) can be manufactured. further, part or whole of a driver circuit can be formed over the same substrate as a pixel portion, whereby a system-on-panel can be obtained. as a display element used for the display device, a liquid crystal element (also referred to as a liquid crystal display element) or a light-emitting element (also referred to as a light-emitting display element) can be used. the light-emitting element includes, in its category, an element whose luminance is controlled by a current or a voltage, and specifically includes, in its category, an inorganic electroluminescent (el) element, an organic el element, and the like. furthermore, a display medium whose contrast is changed by an electric effect, such as electronic ink, can be used. in fig. 13a , a sealant 4005 is provided so as to surround a pixel portion 4002 provided over a first substrate 4001 , and the pixel portion 4002 is sealed between the first substrate 4001 and a second substrate 4006 . in fig. 13a , a scan line driver circuit 4004 and a signal line driver circuit 4003 which are formed over a substrate separately prepared are mounted in a region which is not included in a region surrounded by the sealant 4005 over the first substrate 4001 . further, a variety of signals and potentials are supplied to the signal line driver circuit 4003 which is separately formed, and the scan line driver circuit 4004 or the pixel portion 4002 from flexible printed circuits (fpcs) 4018 a and 4018 b. in figs. 13b and 13c , the sealant 4005 is provided so as to surround the pixel portion 4002 and the scan line driver circuit 4004 which are provided over the first substrate 4001 . the second substrate 4006 is provided over the pixel portion 4002 and the scan line driver circuit 4004 . consequently, the pixel portion 4002 and the scan line driver circuit 4004 are sealed together with the display element by the first substrate 4001 , the sealant 4005 , and the second substrate 4006 . in figs. 13b and 13c , the signal line driver circuit 4003 which is formed over a substrate separately prepared is mounted in a region which is different from a region surrounded by the sealant 4005 over the first substrate 4001 . in figs. 13b and 13c , a variety of signals and potentials are supplied to the signal line driver circuit 4003 which is separately formed, and the scan line driver circuit 4004 or the pixel portion 4002 from an fpc 4018 . although figs. 13b and 13c each illustrate an example in which the signal line driver circuit 4003 is formed separately and mounted on the first substrate 4001 , the present invention is not limited to this structure. the scan line driver circuit may be separately formed and then mounted, or only part of the signal line driver circuit or part of the scan line driver circuit may be separately formed and then mounted. note that a connection method of a separately formed driver circuit is not particularly limited, and a chip on glass (cog) method, a wire bonding method, a tape automated bonding (tab) method, or the like can be used. fig. 13a illustrates an example in which the signal line driver circuit 4003 and the scan line driver circuit 4004 are mounted by a cog method. fig. 13b illustrates an example in which the signal line driver circuit 4003 is mounted by a cog method. fig. 13c illustrates an example in which the signal line driver circuit 4003 is mounted by a tab method. in addition, the display device includes a panel in which the display element is sealed, and a module in which an ic or the like including a controller is mounted on the panel. note that a display device in this specification means an image display device, a display device, or a light source (including a lighting device). furthermore, the display device also includes the following modules in its category: a module to which a connector such as an fpc, a tab tape, or a tcp is attached; a module having a tab tape or a tcp at the tip of which a printed wiring board is provided; and a module in which an integrated circuit (ic) is directly mounted on a display element by a cog method. further, the pixel portion provided over the first substrate includes a plurality of transistors, and the transistors which are illustrated in the aforementioned embodiment as an example can be used for the transistors. in the case where a liquid crystal element is used as the display element, a thermotropic liquid crystal, a low-molecular liquid crystal, a high-molecular liquid crystal, a polymer dispersed liquid crystal, a ferroelectric liquid crystal, an anti-ferroelectric liquid crystal, or the like is used. these liquid crystal materials exhibit a cholesteric phase, a smectic phase, a cubic phase, a chiral nematic phase, an isotropic phase, or the like depending on conditions. alternatively, liquid crystal exhibiting a blue phase for which an alignment film is unnecessary may be used. a blue phase is one of liquid crystal phases, which is generated just before a cholesteric phase changes into an isotropic phase while temperature of cholesteric liquid crystal is increased. since the blue phase appears only in a narrow temperature range, a liquid crystal composition in which several weight percent or more of a chiral agent is mixed is used for a liquid crystal layer in order to improve the temperature range. the liquid crystal composition which includes a liquid crystal showing a blue phase and a chiral agent has a short response time of 1 msec or less, has optical isotropy, which makes the alignment process unneeded, and has a small viewing angle dependence. in addition, an alignment film does not need to be provided and thus rubbing treatment is not necessary. therefore, electrostatic discharge damage caused by the rubbing treatment can be prevented and defects and damage of the liquid crystal display device in the manufacturing process can be reduced. thus, productivity of the liquid crystal display device can be increased. the specific resistivity of the liquid crystal material is greater than or equal to 1×10 9 ω·cm, preferably greater than or equal to 1×10 12 ω·cm, still preferably greater than or equal to 1×10 12 ω·cm. note that the specific resistance in this specification is measured at 20° c. the size of a storage capacitor formed in the liquid crystal display device is set considering the leakage current of the transistor provided in the pixel portion or the like so that charge can be held for a predetermined period. the size of the storage capacitor may be set considering the off-state current of a transistor or the like. for the liquid crystal display device, a twisted nematic (tn) mode, an in-plane-switching (ips) mode, a fringe field switching (ffs) mode, an axially symmetric aligned micro-cell (asm) mode, an optically compensated birefringence (ocb) mode, a ferroelectric liquid crystal (flc) mode, an antiferroelectric liquid crystal (aflc) mode, or the like is used. a normally black liquid crystal display device such as a transmissive liquid crystal display device utilizing a vertical alignment (va) mode is preferable. some examples are given as a vertical alignment mode. for example, an mva (multi-domain vertical alignment) mode, a pva (patterned vertical alignment) mode, an asv mode, or the like can be employed. furthermore, the present invention can be applied to a va liquid crystal display device. the va liquid crystal display device has a kind of form in which alignment of liquid crystal molecules of a liquid crystal display panel is controlled. in the va liquid crystal display device, liquid crystal molecules are aligned in a vertical direction with respect to a panel surface when no voltage is applied. moreover, it is possible to use a method called domain multiplication or multi-domain design, in which a pixel is divided into some regions (subpixels) and molecules are aligned in different directions in their respective regions. in the display device, a black matrix (a light-blocking layer), an optical element (an optical substrate) such as a polarizing element, a retardation element, or an anti-reflection element, and the like are provided as appropriate. for example, circular polarization may be obtained by using a polarizing substrate and a retardation substrate. in addition, a backlight, a side light, or the like may be used as a light source. as a display method in the pixel portion, a progressive method, an interlace method, or the like can be employed. further, color elements controlled in a pixel at the time of color display are not limited to three colors: r, g, and b (r, g, and b correspond to red, green, and blue, respectively). for example, r, g, b, and w (w corresponds to white); r, g, b, and one or more of yellow, cyan, magenta, and the like; or the like can be used. further, the sizes of display regions may be different between respective dots of color elements. note that the disclosed invention is not limited to the application to a display device for color display; the disclosed invention can also be applied to a display device for monochrome display. alternatively, as the display element included in the display device, a light-emitting element utilizing electroluminescence can be used. light-emitting elements utilizing electroluminescence are classified according to whether a light-emitting material is an organic compound or an inorganic compound. in general, the former is referred to as an organic el element, and the latter is referred to as an inorganic el element. in an organic el element, by application of voltage to a light-emitting element, electrons and holes are separately injected from a pair of electrodes into a layer containing a light-emitting organic compound, and current flows. the carriers (electrons and holes) are recombined, and thus, the light-emitting organic compound is excited. the light-emitting organic compound returns to a ground state from the excited state, thereby emitting light. because of such a mechanism, the light-emitting element is called a current-excitation light-emitting element. the inorganic el elements are classified according to their element structures into a dispersion-type inorganic el element and a thin-film inorganic el element. a dispersion-type inorganic el element has a light-emitting layer where particles of a light-emitting material are dispersed in a binder, and its light emission mechanism is donor-acceptor recombination type light emission that utilizes a donor level and an acceptor level. a thin-film inorganic el element has a structure where a light-emitting layer is sandwiched between dielectric layers, which are further sandwiched between electrodes, and its light emission mechanism is localized type light emission that utilizes inner-shell electron transition of metal ions. further, an electronic paper in which electronic ink is driven can be provided as the display device. the electronic paper is also called an electrophoretic display device (electrophoretic display) and has advantages in that it has the same level of readability as regular paper, it has less power consumption than other display devices, and it can be set to have a thin and light form. an electrophoretic display device can have various modes. an electrophoretic display device contains a plurality of microcapsules dispersed in a solvent or a solute, each microcapsule containing first particles which are positively charged and second particles which are negatively charged. by applying an electric field to the microcapsules, the particles in the microcapsules move in opposite directions to each other and only the color of the particles gathering on one side is displayed. note that the first particles and the second particles each contain pigment and do not move without an electric field. moreover, the first particles and the second particles have different colors (which may be colorless). thus, an electrophoretic display device is a display device that utilizes a so-called dielectrophoretic effect by which a substance having a high dielectric constant moves to a high-electric field region. a solution in which the above microcapsules are dispersed in a solvent is referred to as electronic ink. this electronic ink can be printed on a surface of glass, plastic, cloth, paper, or the like. furthermore, by using a color filter or particles that have a pigment, color display can also be achieved. note that the first particles and the second particles in the microcapsules may each be formed using a single material selected from a conductive material, an insulating material, a semiconductor material, a magnetic material, a liquid crystal material, a ferroelectric material, an electroluminescent material, an electrochromic material, or a magnetophoretic material or formed using a composite material of any of these. as the electronic paper, a display device using a twisting ball display system can be used. the twisting ball display system refers to a method in which spherical particles each colored in black and white are arranged between a first electrode layer and a second electrode layer which are electrode layers used for a display element, and a potential difference is generated between the first electrode layer and the second electrode layer to control alignment of the spherical particles, so that display is performed. the pulse signal output circuit illustrated in embodiment 1 or embodiment 2 is used for the display device whose example is illustrated as above, whereby the display device can have a variety of functions. as described above, the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be combined with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments as appropriate. embodiment 6 a semiconductor device disclosed in this specification can be used in a variety of electronic devices (including game machines). examples of electronic devices are a television set (also referred to as a television or a television receiver), a monitor of a computer or the like, a camera such as a digital camera or a digital video camera, a digital photo frame, a cellular phone handset (also referred to as a cellular phone or a cellular phone device), a portable game machine, a personal digital assistant, an audio reproducing device, a large game machine such as a pinball machine, and the like. fig. 14a illustrates a laptop personal computer which includes at least the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification as a component. the laptop personal computer includes a main body 3001 , a housing 3002 , a display portion 3003 , a keyboard 3004 , and the like. fig. 14b illustrates a personal digital assistant (pda) which includes at least the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification as a component. the personal digital assistant includes a display portion 3023 , an external interface 3025 , operation buttons 3024 , and the like in a main body 3021 . a stylus 3022 is included as an accessory for operation. the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification can be used as electronic paper. fig. 14c illustrates an e-book reader which includes the electronic paper as a component. fig. 14c illustrates an example of the e-book reader. for example, an e-book reader 2700 includes two housings 2701 and 2703 . the housings 2701 and 2703 are combined with each other with a hinge 2711 so that the e-book reader 2700 can be opened and closed with the hinge 2711 used as an axis. with such a structure, the e-book reader 2700 can operate like a paper book. a display portion 2705 and a display portion 2707 are incorporated in the housing 2701 and the housing 2703 , respectively. the display portion 2705 and the display portion 2707 may display one image or different images. in the case where the display portion 2705 and the display portion 2707 display different images, for example, a display portion on the right side (the display portion 2705 in fig. 14c ) can display text and a display portion on the left side (the display portion 2707 in fig. 14c ) can display images. fig. 14c illustrates an example in which the housing 2701 includes an operation portion and the like. for example, the housing 2701 includes a power switch 2721 , operation keys 2723 , a speaker 2725 , and the like. with the operation key 2723 , pages can be turned. note that a keyboard, a pointing device, or the like may be provided on the same surface as the display portion of the housing. further, an external connection terminal (e.g., an earphone terminal or a usb terminal), a recording medium insertion portion, and the like may be provided on a back surface or a side surface of the housing. furthermore, the e-book reader 2700 may function as an electronic dictionary. further, the e-book reader 2700 may transmit and receive data wirelessly. through wireless communication, desired book data or the like can be purchased and downloaded from an electronic book server. fig. 14d illustrates a cellular phone which includes at least the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification as a component. the cellular phone includes two housings 2800 and 2801 . the housing 2801 includes a display panel 2802 , a speaker 2803 , a microphone 2804 , a pointing device 2806 , a camera lens 2807 , an external connection terminal 2808 , and the like. in addition, the housing 2800 includes a solar cell 2810 for storing electricity in a personal digital assistant, an external memory slot 2811 , and the like, further, an antenna is incorporated in the housing 2801 . further, the display panel 2802 includes a touch panel. a plurality of operation keys 2805 which are displayed as images are indicated by dashed lines in fig. 14d . note that the cellular phone includes a dc-dc converter for raising voltage output from the solar cell 2810 to voltage needed in each circuit. the display direction of the display panel 2802 is changed as appropriate depending on a usage pattern. further, since the cellular phone includes the camera lens 2807 on the same surface as the display panel 2802 , it can be used as a video phone. the speaker 2803 and the microphone 2804 can be used for videophone calls, recording, playback, and the like as well as voice calls. furthermore, the housings 2800 and 2801 which are developed as illustrated in fig. 14d can overlap with each other by sliding; thus, the size of the cellular phone can be decreased, which makes the cellular phone suitable for being carried. the external connection terminal 2808 can be connected to an ac adapter and a variety of cables such as a usb cable, and charging and data communication with a personal computer or the like are possible. further, a large amount of data can be stored and moved by insertion of a storage medium into the external memory slot 2811 . further, the cellular phone may have an infrared communication function, a television reception function, or the like in addition to the above functions. fig. 14e illustrates a digital video camera which includes at least the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification as a component. the digital video camera includes a main body 3051 , a first display portion 3057 , an eye piece portion 3053 , operation switches 3054 , a second display portion 3055 , a battery 3056 , and the like. fig. 14f illustrates an example of a television set which includes at least the semiconductor device disclosed in this specification as a component. in a television set 9600 , a display portion 9603 is incorporated in a housing 9601 . the display portion 9603 can display images. here, the housing 9601 is supported by a stand 9605 . the television set 9600 can be operated by an operation switch of the housing 9601 or a remote control. further, the remote control may include a display portion for displaying data output from the remote control. note that the television set 9600 includes a receiver, a modem, and the like. with the receiver, general television broadcasts can be received. further, when the television set is connected to a communication network with or without wires via the modem, one-way (from a transmitter to a receiver) or two-way (between a transmitter and a receiver or between receivers) data communication can be performed. as described above, the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be combined with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments as appropriate. this application is based on japanese patent application serial no. 2010-044949 filed with japan patent office on mar. 2, 2010, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
133-957-878-837-41X	GB	[ "EP", "GB", "CN", "US", "WO" ]	H01J49/04,A61B10/00,A61B10/02,A61B17/32,A61B18/00,A61B18/14,A61B18/20,G01N27/623,G01N33/68,G01N33/92,G16B40/10,H01J49/00,H01J49/06,H01J49/16,G01N27/62,G01N33/50,G01N27/622,A61B1/00,A61B1/04,A61B1/273,A61B1/31,A61B5/00,A61B5/01,A61B5/0507,A61B5/055,A61B5/145,A61B6/03,A61B8/13,A61B17/00,A61B18/04,A61B18/18,A61B90/13,A61F13/38,C12Q1/02,C12Q1/04,C12Q1/18,C12Q1/24,G01N1/22,G01N3/00,G01N9/00,G01N27/624,G01N30/72,G01N33/487,G16B20/00,G16H10/40,G16H15/00,G16H50/20,H01J49/02,H01J49/10,H01J49/14,H01J49/24,H01J49/26	2015-03-06T00:00:00	2015	[ "H01", "A61", "G01", "G16", "C12" ]	ambient ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform for direct mapping from bulk tissue	a method of ion imaging is disclosed that includes automatically sampling a plurality of different locations on a sample (20) using a first device (21) which is arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from the sample (20). mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data corresponding to each location is obtained and the obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data is used to construct, train or improve a sample classification model.	a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer comprising: a first device comprising a laser device arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from a sample; a device arranged and adapted to automatically translate said sample relative to said first device any one or more of before, during, and after obtaining mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data from at least some of said locations on said sample; a collision surface located within a vacuum chamber of said mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer; a device arranged and adapted to add a matrix to said aerosol, smoke or vapour prior to said aerosol, smoke or vapour impacting upon said collision surface; and a control system arranged and adapted: (i) to automatically sample a plurality of different locations on said sample using said first device and to obtain mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data corresponding to each said location; and (ii) to use said obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data to construct, train or improve a sample classification model; wherein in use at least some of said aerosol, smoke or vapour and matrix is caused to impact upon said collision surface wherein at least some of said aerosol, smoke or vapour is ionized upon impacting said collision surface so as to generate analyte ions; and wherein said matrix is selected from the group consisting of: (i) a solvent for said aerosol, smoke or vapour; (ii) an organic solvent; (iii) a volatile compound; (iv) polar molecules; (v) water; (vi) one or more alcohols; (vii) methanol; (viii) ethanol; (ix) isopropanol; (x) acetone; (xi) acetonitrile; (xii) 1-butanol; (xiii) tetrahydrofuran; (xiv) ethyl acetate; (xv) ethylene glycol; (xvi) dimethyl sulfoxide; (xvii) an aldehyde; (xviii) a ketone; (xiv) non-polar molecules; (xx) hexane; (xxi) chloroform; (xxii) butanol; and (xxiii) propanol or wherein said matrix comprises a lockmass or calibration compound. a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in claim 1, wherein said sample comprises a biological sample, biological tissue, human tissue, animal tissue, biological matter, a bacterial colony, a fungal colony or one or more bacterial strains. a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein said sample comprises native or unmodified sample material, optionally wherein said native or unmodified sample material is unmodified by the addition of a matrix or reagent. a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in any of claims 1, 2 or 3, wherein said sample classification model comprises a biological sample classification model, a biological tissue classification model, a human tissue classification model, an animal tissue classification model or a bacterial strain classification model. a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising a heater which is arranged and adapted to heat said collision surface. a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in claim 5, wherein said heater is arranged and adapted to heat said collision surface to a temperature selected from the group consisting of: (i) 200-300 °c; (ii) 300-400 °c; (iii) 400-500 °c; (iv) 500-600 °c; (v) 600-700 °c; (vi) 700-800 °c; (vii) 800-900 °c; (viii) 900-1000 °c; (ix) 1000-1100 °c; and (x) > 1100 °c	field of the invention the present invention generally relates to mass spectrometry, and in particular to methods of ion imaging, methods of electrosurgery, ion imagers, mass spectrometers and electrosurgical devices. various embodiments are contemplated wherein analyte ions generated by an ambient ionisation ion source are then subjected either to: (i) mass analysis by a mass analyser such as a quadrupole mass analyser or a time of flight mass analyser; (ii) ion mobility analysis (ims) and/or differential ion mobility analysis (dma) and/or field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (faims) analysis; and/or (iii) a combination of firstly ion mobility analysis (ims) and/or differential ion mobility analysis (dma) and/or field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (faims) analysis followed by secondly mass analysis by a mass analyser such as a quadrupole mass analyser or a time of flight mass analyser (or vice versa). various embodiments also relate to an ion mobility spectrometer and/or mass analyser and a method of ion mobility spectrometry and/or method of mass analysis. background mass spectrometry imaging ("msi") analysis of biological samples is known and allows simultaneous and spatially resolved detection of metabolites, proteins and lipids directly from biological tissue sections. the technique has gained significant momentum during the course of the last two decades with the introduction of new techniques such as matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization ("maldi"), secondary ion mass spectrometry ("sims") and desorption electrospray ionization ("desi"). the spatially resolved nature of the resulting data allows its use as a supplemental layer of information for histopathological characterization and classification of tissues including the possibility of cancer biomarker discovery. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ("reims") may be used for the real time identification of tissues e.g., during surgical interventions. coupling of mass spectrometry with a surgical diathermy device has resulted in a technology known as intelligent knife ("iknife") technology which has an intra-operative tissue identification accuracy of 92-100 %. iknife technology allows surgeons to more efficiently resect tumours intraoperatively through minimizing the amount of healthy tissue removed whilst ensuring that all the cancerous tissue is removed. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis of biological tissue has been shown to yield phospholipid profiles showing high histological and histopathological specificity - similar to matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation ("maldi"), secondary ion mass spectrometry ("sims") and desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") imaging. a mass spectrometric signal is obtained by subjecting the cellular biomass to alternating electric current at radiofrequency which causes localized joule-heating and the disruption of cells along with desorption of charged and neutral particles. the resulting aerosol or surgical smoke is then transported to a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer for on-line mass spectrometric and/or ion mobility analysis. conventional rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry profiling applications require a spectral library of reference mass spectra in order to build multivariate classification models which are necessary for pattern-based identification. current iknife technology reference mass spectra are obtained by manual electrosurgical sampling of ex vivo tissue specimens followed by the histopathological examination of the remaining material. although the conventional workflow provides satisfactory data, there is a degree of uncertainty involved at the validation step since the tissue part producing the spectral data cannot be investigated since it is evaporated during the course of the analysis. hence, conventionally all identifications are based on interpolation of the histological environment of the evaporated tissue. gb 2,491,486 discloses using a laser probe to generate gas phase analyte molecules which are preferably transferred into a vacuum chamber of a mass spectrometer and ionised by impact ionisation with a surface within the vacuum chamber. it is desired to provide an improved method of ion imaging. summary according to an aspect there is provided a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer as claimed in claim 1. in contrast to the known manual data collection approach, exemplary embodiments relate to an automated computer-controlled method of ambient ionization mass spectrometry sampling of tissue specimens wherein the 3d tissue environment may be used for histological validation. in some embodiments, an ambient ionization mass spectrometry imaging device may be used in a minimally invasive fashion for the analysis of macroscopic tissue slices (not histological sections) and both the adjacent slice and the remaining tissue material may be fixed, embedded, sectioned, stained and histologically examined. exemplary embodiments provide an imaging platform for systematic ambient ionization mass spectrometry data and/or ion mobility data collection. further embodiments provide a mass spectrometric imaging platform for sample preparation-free ambient imaging ms analysis of biological samples. in order to create spectral libraries for training the classification models, reference data needs to be acquired in large quantities as classification accuracy generally improves as a function of number of training samples. various embodiments provide automated high-throughput methods for collecting ambient ionization mass spectrometry data and/or ion mobility data from heterogeneous organic tissue. in exemplary embodiments, the instrumentation includes a 2d stage with an additional high-precision z-axis actuator. the sample may include a biological sample, a biological tissue, human tissue, animal tissue biological matter, a bacterial colony, a fungal colony or one or more bacterial strains. the sample can comprise native or unmodified sample material. the native or unmodified sample material may be unmodified by the addition of a matrix or reagent. the biological tissue may comprise in vivo biological tissue, ex vivo biological tissue or in vitro biological tissue. the biological tissue comprises either: (i) adrenal gland tissue, appendix tissue, bladder tissue, bone, bowel tissue, brain tissue, breast tissue, bronchi, coronal tissue, ear tissue, esophagus tissue, eye tissue, gall bladder tissue, genital tissue, heart tissue, hypothalamus tissue, kidney tissue, large intestine tissue, intestinal tissue, larynx tissue, liver tissue, lung tissue, lymph nodes, mouth tissue, nose tissue, pancreatic tissue, parathyroid gland tissue, pituitary gland tissue, prostate tissue, rectal tissue, salivary gland tissue, skeletal muscle tissue, skin tissue, small intestine tissue, spinal cord, spleen tissue, stomach tissue, thymus gland tissue, trachea tissue, thyroid tissue, ureter tissue, urethra tissue, soft and connective tissue, peritoneal tissue, blood vessel tissue and/or fat tissue; (ii) grade i, grade ii, grade iii or grade iv cancerous tissue; (iii) metastatic cancerous tissue; (iv) mixed grade cancerous tissue; (v) a sub-grade cancerous tissue; (vi) healthy or normal tissue; or (vii) cancerous or abnormal tissue. the sample classification model may include a biological sample classification model, a biological tissue classification model, a human tissue classification model, an animal tissue classification model, a biological matter classification model, a bacterial colony classification model, a fungal colony classification model or a bacterial strain classification model. constructing, training or improving the sample classification model may be in order either: (i) to distinguish between healthy and diseased tissue; (ii) to distinguish between potentially cancerous and non-cancerous tissue; (iii) to distinguish between different types or grades of cancerous tissue; (iv) to distinguish between different types or classes of sample material; (v) to determine whether or not one or more desired or undesired substances are present in the sample; (vi) to confirm the identity or authenticity of the sample; (vii) to determine whether or not one or more impurities, illegal substances or undesired substances are present in the sample; (viii) to determine whether a human or animal patient is at an increased risk of suffering an adverse outcome; (ix) to make or assist in the making a diagnosis or prognosis; and (x) to inform a surgeon, nurse, medic or robot of a medical, surgical or diagnostic outcome. using the obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data to construct, train or improve the sample classification model may comprise performing a supervised or unsupervised multivariate statistical analysis of the mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data. the multivariate statistical analysis may be selected from the group consisting of: (i) principal component analysis ("pca"); and (ii) linear discriminant analysis ("lda"). the method may further comprise analysing a profile of the aerosol, smoke or vapour or a profile of ions derived from the aerosol, smoke or vapour. the profile may be selected from the group consisting of: (i) a lipidomic profile; (ii) a fatty acid profile; (iii) a phospholipid profile; (iv) a phosphatidic acid (pa) profile; (v) a phosphatidylethanolamine (pe) profile; (vi) a phosphatidylglycerol (pg) profile; (vii) a phosphatidylserines (ps) profile; (viii) a phosphatidylinositol (pi) profile; or (ix) a triglyceride (tg) profile. the first device may comprise or form part of an ambient ion or ionization source or the first device may generate the aerosol, smoke or vapour for subsequent ionization by an ambient ion or ionization source or other ionization source. the first device may be arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from the sample without the sample requiring prior preparation. the first device may comprise an ion source selected from the group consisting of: (i) a laser desorption ionization ("ldi") ion source; (ii) a laser diode thermal desorption ("ldtd") ion source; and (iii) a laser ablation electrospray ("laesi") ion source;. the aerosol, smoke or vapour may comprise uncharged aqueous droplets optionally comprising cellular material. at least 50%, 55%, 60%, 65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90% or 95% of the mass or matter generated by the first device and which forms the aerosol may be in the form of droplets. the first device may be arranged and adapted to generate aerosol wherein the sauter mean diameter ("smd", d32) of the aerosol is in a range: (i) < 5 µm; (ii) 5-10 µm; (iii) 10-15 µm; (iv) 15-20 µm; (v) 20-25 µm; or (vi) > 25 µm. the aerosol may traverse a flow region with a reynolds number (re) in the range: (i) < 2000; (ii) 2000-2500; (iii) 2500-3000; (iv) 3000-3500; (v) 3500-4000; or (vi) > 4000. substantially at the point of generating the aerosol, the aerosol may comprise droplets having a weber number (we) selected from the group consisting of: (i) < 50; (ii) 50-100; (iii) 100-150; (iv) 150-200; (v) 200-250;(vi) 250-300; (vii) 300-350; (viii) 350-400; (ix) 400-450; (x) 450-500; (xi) 500-550; (xii) 550-600; (xiii) 600-650; (xiv) 650-700; (xv) 700-750; (xvi) 750-800; (xvii) 800-850; (xviii) 850-900; (xix) 900-950; (xx) 950-1000; and (xxi) > 1000. substantially at the point of generating the aerosol, the aerosol may comprise droplets having a stokes number (s k ) in the range: (i) 1-5; (ii) 5-10; (iii) 10-15; (iv) 15-20; (v) 20-25; (vi) 25-30; (vii) 30-35; (viii) 35-40; (ix) 40-45; (x) 45-50; and (xi) > 50. substantially at the point of generating the aerosol, the aerosol may comprise droplets having a mean axial velocity selected from the group consisting of: (i) < 20 m/s; (ii) 20-30 m/s; (iii) 30-40 m/s; (iv) 40-50 m/s; (v) 50-60 m/s; (vi) 60-70 m/s; (vii) 70-80 m/s; (viii) 80-90 m/s; (ix) 90-100 m/s; (x) 100-110 m/s; (xi) 110-120 m/s; (xii) 120-130 m/s; (xiii) 130-140 m/s; (xiv) 140-150 m/s; and (xv) > 150 m/s. the first device may comprise a point of care ("poc"), diagnostic or surgical device. various embodiments are contemplated wherein analyte ions generated by an ambient ionisation ion source are then subjected either to: (i) mass analysis by a mass analyser such as a quadrupole mass analyser or a time of flight mass analyser; (ii) ion mobility analysis (ims) and/or differential ion mobility analysis (dma) and/or field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (faims) analysis; and/or (iii) a combination of firstly ion mobility analysis (ims) and/or differential ion mobility analysis (dma) and/or field asymmetric ion mobility spectrometry (faims) analysis followed by secondly mass analysis by a mass analyser such as a quadrupole mass analyser or a time of flight mass analyser (or vice versa). various embodiments also relate to an ion mobility spectrometer and/or mass analyser and a method of ion mobility spectrometry and/or method of mass analysis. sample classification models may include a biological sample classification model, a biological tissue classification model, a human tissue classification model, an animal tissue classification model, a biological matter classification model, a bacterial colony classification model, a fungal colony classification model or a bacterial strain classification model. exemplary embodiments may further include a device arranged and adapted to aspirate the aerosol, smoke or vapour produced from the sample. in some embodiments, the device may be arranged and adapted to aspirate the aerosol, smoke or vapour in a substantially pulsed, discontinuous or irregular manner. in some embodiments, the control system is arranged and adapted to vary an aspiration duty cycle during the course of a surgical, non-surgical or other procedure. in exemplary embodiments, the control system is arranged and adapted to obtain an optical image of the sample. in some embodiments, the control system may be arranged and adapted to substantially co-register the optical image and an ion image. in some embodiments, the control system may be arranged and adapted to define one or more regions of interest in the optical image and/or the ion image. in some embodiments, the control system may be arranged and adapted to determine a class or classification of one or more regions of interest. the class or classification may include a healthy status, a pre-cancerous status, a cancerous status or a bacterial strain. in exemplary embodiments, the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer may further include tubing or other means which is arranged and adapted to pass the aerosol, smoke or vapour into the vacuum chamber of the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer. the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer can also include a heater which is arranged and adapted to heat the collision surface. the heater may be arranged and adapted to heat the collision surface to a temperature selected from the group consisting of: (i) < about 100 °c; (ii) about 100-200 °c; (iii) about 200-300 °c; (iv) about 300-400 °c; (v) about 400-500 °c; (vi) about 500-600 °c; (vii) about 600-700 °c; (viii) about 700-800 °c; (ix) about 800-900 °c; (x) about 900-1000 °c; (xi) about 1000-1100 °c; and (xii) > about 1100 °c. in exemplary embodiments, the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer may further include a mass analyser and/or ion mobility analyser for mass analysing and/or ion mobility analysing the analyte ions. various embodiments are contemplated which relate to generating smoke, aerosol or vapour from a sample or a target (details of which are provided elsewhere herein) using an ambient ionisation ion source. the aerosol, smoke or vapour is then mixed with a matrix and aspirated into a vacuum chamber of a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer. the mixture is caused to impact upon a collision surface causing the aerosol, smoke or vapour to be ionised by impact ionization which results in the generation of analyte ions. the resulting analyte ions (or fragment or product ions derived from the analyte ions) may then be mass analysed and/or ion mobility analysed and the resulting mass spectrometric data and/or ion mobility spectrometric data may be subjected to multivariate analysis or other mathematical treatment in order to determine one or more properties of the sample or the target in real time. according to various embodiments the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer may obtain data in negative ion mode only, positive ion mode only, or in both positive and negative ion modes. positive ion mode spectrometric data may be combined or concatanated with negative ion mode spectrometric data. negative ion mode can provide particularly useful spectra for classifying aerosol, smoke or vapour samples, such as aerosol, smoke or vapour samples from samples or targets comprising lipids. ion mobility spectrometric data may be obtained using different ion mobility drift gases, or dopants may be added to the drift gas to induce a change in drift time of one or more species. this data may then be combined or concatenated. it will be apparent that the requirement to add a matrix or a reagent directly to a sample may prevent the ability to perform in vivo analysis of tissue and also, more generally, prevents the ability to provide a rapid simple analysis of sample or target material. brief description of the drawings various embodiments will now be described, by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: fig. 1 illustrates a method of rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ("reims") wherein an rf voltage is applied to bipolar forceps resulting in the generation of an aerosol or surgical plume which is captured through an irrigation port of the bipolar forceps and is then transferred to a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer for ionization and mass analysis and/or ion mobility analysis; fig. 2 shows a rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform located above a tissue sample to be imaged; fig. 3 shows a workflow of a combined desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform analysis for co-registration of histological features between an optical image and desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry data; fig. 4 shows a heated coil interface used on a waters xevo g2-s (rtm) instrument for improved sensitivity and robustness towards contamination; fig. 5 shows a method of analysis that comprises building a classification model according to various embodiments; fig. 6 shows a set of reference sample spectra obtained from two classes of known reference samples; fig. 7 shows a multivariate space having three dimensions defined by intensity axes, wherein the multivariate space comprises plural reference points, each reference point corresponding to a set of three peak intensity values derived from a reference sample spectrum; fig. 8 shows a general relationship between cumulative variance and number of components of a pca model; fig. 9 shows a pca space having two dimensions defined by principal component axes, wherein the pca space comprises plural transformed reference points or scores, each transformed reference point or score corresponding to a reference point of fig. 7 ; fig. 10 shows a pca-lda space having a single dimension or axis, wherein the lda is performed based on the pca space of fig. 9 , the pca-lda space comprising plural further transformed reference points or class scores, each further transformed reference point or class score corresponding to a transformed reference point or score of fig. 9 ; fig. 11 shows a method of analysis that comprises using a classification model according to various embodiments; fig. 12 shows a sample spectrum obtained from an unknown sample; fig. 13 shows the pca-lda space of fig. 10 , wherein the pca-lda space further comprises a pca-lda projected sample point derived from the peak intensity values of the sample spectrum of fig. 12 fig. 14 shows a method of analysis that comprises building a classification library according to various embodiments; fig. 15 shows a method of analysis that comprises using a classification library according to various embodiments; fig. 16 schematically illustrates a setup of rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging instrumentation; fig. 17a shows a rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging sampling probe, fig. 17b shows a variety of possible alternatively shaped sampling probes and fig. 17c shows a setup of a xyz-stage wherein the sampling probe is mounted onto a z-actuator and is connected to a high voltage power supply and wherein evaporated aerosol is captured by suction tubing and is transported to a mass spectrometer; fig. 18a shows a cutting sampling mode of the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform and fig. 18b shows a pointing sampling mode of the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform; fig. 19a shows the impact on carbonization, burning-valley and crater size for various cutting speeds in a cutting mode of operation, fig. 19b shows the impact on carbonization, burning-valley and crater size for the time the electrosurgical tip remained inside the sample for a pointing mode of operation and fig. 19c shows how rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging in cutting mode at low spatial resolution evaporates the top surface layer of the sample; fig. 20a shows concordance correlation coefficients (ccc) between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging in a cutting mode of operation and iknife technology mass spectra in dependency on varying frequency at 2 kv for porcine liver and fig. 20b shows concordance correlation coefficients (ccc) between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging in a cutting mode of operation and iknife technology mass spectra in dependency on varying voltage at 40 khz for porcine liver; fig. 21a shows total ion counts (tic) at different frequencies in a cutting mode of operation and fig. 21b shows total ion counts (tic) at different voltages in a cutting mode of operation; fig. 22a shows concordance correlation coefficients between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging in a pointing mode of operation and iknife technology mass spectra in dependency on frequency, fig. 22b shows concordance correlation coefficients (ccc) between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging in a pointing mode of operation and iknife technology mass spectra in dependency on voltage, fig. 22c shows total ion counts (tic) at different frequencies in a pointing mode of operation and fig. 22d shows total ion counts (tic) at different voltages in a cutting mode of operation; fig. 23a shows a mass spectral pattern of porcine liver obtained in a cutting mode of operation for high voltages, fig. 23b shows a mass spectral pattern of porcine liver obtained in a cutting mode of operation for low voltages and fig. 23c shows an iknife technology reference spectrum; fig. 24 shows a principal component analysis plot of various kinds of tissue types analysed with the same experimental rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging parameters for cutting and pointing modes respectively; fig. 25 shows a sample, h&e and mass spectrometric multivariate images of liver samples with metastatic tumour analysed by rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry and desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") wherein it is apparent that both techniques clearly differentiate the tissue types; fig. 26 shows principal component analysis plots of healthy and cancerous liver tissues for rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging cutting and pointing modes as well as for desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") data wherein pc is the principal component and percentage values are explained variance; fig. 27 shows an univariate intensity comparison of single phospholipid ion species wherein the depicted images of samples are ion-images of the respective ions and desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry show similar relative intensity values for the same ions wherein pe is phosphatidyl-ethanolamine; fig. 28 shows an example profile for s . pneumoniae acquired using a modified tecan evo (rtm) without the introduction of isopropanol (ipa) matrix; fig. 29a shows spectral profiles obtained for fusobacterium nucleatum using the tecan platform without ipa, fig. 29b shows spectral profiles obtained for fusobacterium nucleatum using forceps without ipa and fig. 29c shows spectral profiles obtained for fusobacterium nucleatum using forceps with ipa; fig. 30a shows spectral profiles obtained for staphylococcus hominis using automated tecan based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry without ipa, fig. 30b shows spectral profiles obtained for staphylococcus hominis using forceps based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry without ipa, fig. 30c shows spectral profiles obtained for staphylococcus hominis using automated tecan based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry with ipa and fig. 30d shows spectral profiles obtained for staphylococcus hominis using forceps based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry with ipa; and fig. 31a shows forceps based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry spectra profiles for pseudomonas aeruginosa with ipa and fig. 31b shows forceps based rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry spectra profiles for pseudomonas aeruginosa without ipa. detailed description various embodiments will now be described in more detail below which in general relate to an ion imager having an ambient ionization ion source device. a plurality of different locations on a sample are automatically sampled using the device, and mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data corresponding to each location is obtained. the obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data is then used to construct, train or improve a sample classification model. arrangements described below that do not use a laser device to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from a sample are outside of the scope of the present invention and are described for illustrative purposes. ambient ionization ion sources according to various embodiments a first device is arranged and adapted to generate an aerosol, smoke or vapour from a sample (e.g., in vivo tissue). the device may comprise an ambient ionization ion source which is characterized by the ability to generate analyte aerosol, smoke or vapour from a native or unmodified sample. for example, other types of ionization ion sources such as matrix assisted laser desorption ionization ("maldi") ion sources require a matrix or reagent to be added to the sample prior to ionization. it will be apparent that the requirement to add a matrix or a reagent to a sample prevents the ability to perform in vivo analysis of tissue and also, more generally, prevents the ability to provide a rapid simple analysis of target material. in contrast, therefore, ambient ionization techniques are particularly advantageous since firstly they do not require the addition of a matrix or a reagent (and hence are suitable for the analysis of in vivo tissue) and since secondly they enable a rapid simple analysis of target material to be performed. a number of different ambient ionization techniques are known. as a matter of historical record, desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") was the first ambient ionization technique to be developed and was disclosed in 2004. since 2004, a number of other ambient ionization techniques have been developed. these ambient ionization techniques differ in their precise ionization method but they share the same general capability of generating gas-phase ions directly from native (i.e. untreated or unmodified) samples. a particular advantage of the various ambient ionization techniques is that the various ambient ionization techniques do not require any prior sample preparation. as a result, the various ambient ionization techniques enable both in vivo tissue and ex vivo tissue samples to be analyzed without necessitating the time and expense of adding a matrix or reagent to the tissue sample or other target material. a list of ambient ionization techniques are given in the following table 1: table-tabl0001 table 1: a list of ambient ionization techniques. acronym ionisation technique desi desorption electrospray ionization dessi desorption sonic spray ionization dappi desorption atmospheric pressure photoionization easi easy ambient sonic-spray ionization jedi jet desorption electrospray ionization tm-desi transmission mode desorption electrospray ionization lmj-ssp liquid microjunction-surface sampling probe dice desorption ionization by charge exchange nano-desi nanospray desorption electrospray ionization eadesi electrode-assisted desorption electrospray ionization aptdci atmospheric pressure thermal desorption chemical ionization v-easi venturi easy ambient sonic-spray ionization afai air flow-assisted ionization lesa liquid extraction surface analysis ptc-esi pipette tip column electrospray ionization afadesi air flow-assisted desorption electrospray ionization deffi desorption electro-flow focusing ionization estasi electrostatic spray ionization pasit plasma-based ambient sampling ionization transmission dapci desorption atmospheric pressure chemical ionization dart direct analysis in real time asap atmospheric pressure solid analysis probe aptdi atmospheric pressure thermal desorption ionization padi plasma assisted desorption ionization dbdi dielectric barrier discharge ionization fapa flowing atmospheric pressure afterglow hapgdi helium atmospheric pressure glow discharge ionization apgddi atmospheric pressure glow discharge desorption ionization ltp low temperature plasma ls-apgd liquid sampling-atmospheric pressure glow discharge mipdi microwave induced plasma desorption ionization mfgdp microfabricated glow discharge plasma roppi robotic plasma probe ionization plasi plasma spray ionization maldesi matrix assisted laser desorption electrospray ionization eldi electrospray laser desorption ionization ldtd laser diode thermal desorption laesi laser ablation electrospray ionization caldi charge assisted laser desorption ionization la-fapa laser ablation flowing atmospheric pressure afterglow ladesi laser assisted desorption electrospray ionization ldesi laser desorption electrospray ionization lems laser electrospray mass spectrometry lsi laser spray ionization ir-lamici infrared laser ablation metastable induced chemical ionization ldspi laser desorption spray post-ionization pamldi plasma assisted multiwavelength laser desorption ionization haldi high voltage-assisted laser desorption ionization paldi plasma assisted laser desorption ionization essi extractive electrospray ionization pesi probe electrospray ionization nd-essi neutral desorption extractive electrospray ionization ps paper spray dip-apci direct inlet probe-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization ts touch spray wooden-tip wooden-tip electrospray cbs-spme coated blade spray solid phase microextraction tsi tissue spray ionization radio radiofrequency acoustic desorption ionization liad-esi laser induced acoustic desorption electrospray ionization sawn surface acoustic wave nebulization uasi ultrasonication-assisted spray ionization spa-nanoesi solid probe assisted nanoelectrospray ionization pausi paper assisted ultrasonic spray ionization dpesi direct probe electrospray ionization esa-py electrospray assisted pyrolysis ionization appis ambient pressure pyroelectric ion source rastir remote analyte sampling transport and ionization relay saci surface activated chemical ionization demi desorption electrospray metastable-induced ionization reims rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry spam single particle aerosol mass spectrometry tdams thermal desorption-based ambient mass spectrometry maii matrix assisted inlet ionization saii solvent assisted inlet ionization swiferr switched ferroelectric plasma ionizer lptd leidenfrost phenomenon assisted thermal desorption the ambient ionisation ion source comprises a laser ionisation ion source. according to an embodiment the laser ionisation ion source may comprise a mid-ir laser ablation ion source. for example, there are several lasers which emit radiation close to or at 2.94 µm which corresponds with the peak in the water absorption spectrum. according to various embodiments the ambient ionisation ion source may comprise a laser ablation ion source having a wavelength close to 2.94 µm on the basis of the high absorption coefficient of water at 2.94 µm. according to an embodiment the laser ablation ion source may comprise a er:yag laser which emits radiation at 2.94 µm. other embodiments are contemplated wherein a mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator ("opo") may be used to produce a laser ablation ion source having a longer wavelength than 2.94 µm. for example, an er:yag pumped zgp-opo may be used to produce laser radiation having a wavelength of e.g. 6.1 µm, 6.45 µm or 6.73 µm. in some situations it may be advantageous to use a laser ablation ion source having a shorter or longer wavelength than 2.94 µm since only the surface layers will be ablated and less thermal damage may result. according to an embodiment a co:mgf 2 laser may be used as a laser ablation ion source wherein the laser may be tuned from 1.75-2.5 µm. according to another embodiment an optical parametric oscillator ("opo") system pumped by a nd:yag laser may be used to produce a laser ablation ion source having a wavelength between 2.9-3.1 µm. according to another embodiment a co 2 laser having a wavelength of 10.6 µm may be used to generate the aerosol, smoke or vapour. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ("reims") fig. 1 illustrates a method of rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ("reims") that is not in accordance with the present invention (as it does not use a laser) and in which bipolar forceps 1 may be brought into contact with in vivo tissue 2 of a patient 3. in the example shown in fig. 1 , the bipolar forceps 1 may be brought into contact with brain tissue 2 of a patient 3 during the course of a surgical operation on the patient's brain. an rf voltage from an rf voltage generator 4 may be applied to the bipolar forceps 1 which causes localised joule or diathermy heating of the tissue 2. as a result, an aerosol or surgical plume 5 is generated. the aerosol or surgical plume 5 may then be captured or otherwise aspirated through an irrigation port of the bipolar forceps 1. the irrigation port of the bipolar forceps 1 is therefore reutilised as an aspiration port. the aerosol or surgical plume 5 may then be passed from the irrigation (aspiration) port of the bipolar forceps 1 to tubing 6 (e.g. 1/8" or 3.2 mm diameter teflon (rtm) tubing). the tubing 6 is arranged to transfer the aerosol or surgical plume 5 to an atmospheric pressure interface 7 of a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer 8. a matrix comprising an organic solvent such as isopropanol (ipa) may be added to the aerosol or surgical plume 5 at the atmospheric pressure interface 7. the mixture of aerosol 3 and organic solvent may then be arranged to impact upon a collision surface within a vacuum chamber of the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer 8. the collision surface may be heated. the aerosol is caused to ionize upon impacting the collision surface resulting in the generation of analyte ions. the ionization efficiency of generating the analyte ions may be improved by the addition of the organic solvent. however, the addition of an organic solvent is not essential. analyte ions which are generated by causing the aerosol, smoke or vapour 5 to impact upon the collision surface are then passed through subsequent stages of the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer and are subjected to mass analysis and/or ion mobility analysis in a mass analyser and/or ion mobility analyser. the mass analyser may, for example, comprise a quadrupole mass analyser or a time of flight mass analyser. sample treatment for the analysis of human samples, ethical approval was obtained from the national healthcare service research ethics committee (study id 11/lo/1686). fig. 2 shows a rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform (i.e. an ion imager) that is not in accordance with the present invention (as it does not use a laser) and which is located above a tissue sample 20 to be imaged. the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform includes a first device which may comprise a sampling needle, electrode, tip or probe 21 that is brought into contact with a sample 20 to generate gaseous or aerosolised analyte material by the rapid evaporative ionization process (i.e. a first device arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from the sample). power may be provided to the sampling probe 21 by a high voltage power supply 23, in conjunction with a function generator 23a. the evaporated gaseous or aerosolised analyte material may be captured by suction tubing 22 and transported (i.e. aspirated) through tubing 24 towards a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer 28 for analysis. the sampling probe 21 may be mounted onto a z-actuator and may be manipulated over the sample 20 in the x-y plane to automatically sample and generate analyte material at a plurality of different locations over the whole area of the sample 20. correlating the position of the sampling needle 21 relative to the xyz stage 25 with the results of the mass spectrometric and/or ion mobility analysis allows ion imaging of the sample 20. thus a plurality of different locations on the sample 20 may be automatically sampled using the first device, which is arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from the sample. by obtaining mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data corresponding to each of the locations, an ion image, such as ion image 26, may be generated. alternatively or additionally, the obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility spectrometer may be used to construct, train or improve a sample classification model. for example, the sample classification model represented by principle components analysis (pca) loadings 27. fig. 3 shows a workflow of combined desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform analysis for co-registration of histological features between optical image, desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry data that is not in accordance with the present invention (as it does not use a laser). fresh human liver metastasis samples were obtained from surgical resection specimens and immediately frozen to -80°c, at workflow stage 30. at stages 31a and 31b, the tissue samples were cryosectioned (thermo microm hm550 cryostat, thermo fisher scientific (rtm), germany) to 10 µm thickness and thaw mounted onto glass slides for desorption electrospray lonisation ("desi") analysis, as illustrated at workflow stage 32. the remaining bulk tissue was used for rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis, as illustrated at stage 33. desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") imaging analysis on the glass slide mounted tissue sample was carried out using an in-house built desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") stage at stage 34, to generate a desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") ion image illustrated at stage 36. at workflow stage 35, rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging analysis on the bulk tissue sample was performed using a modified prosolia (rtm) flowprobe stage (prosolia (rtm), usa), to generate rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ion images, for example ion images illustrated at 39a and 39b. desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") analysis of tissues was carried out using a mass spectrometer operated in negative ion mode. the desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") imaging pixel size was set to 100 µm, the electrospray solvent was methanol:water (95:5 vol/vol) at a solvent flow rate of 1.5 µl/min and zero-grade nitrogen nebulizing gas at a pressure of 4 bar was used. following desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") analysis, at stage 37, tissue sections were stained with h&e (haematoxylin and eosin) and digitally scanned (nano-zoomer 2.0-ht, hamamatsu (rtm), japan) to create optical images at stage 38 for comparison with the ambient ionization mass spectral (desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry) images. a line scan mode (cutting mode of operation) rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis of one liver metastasis sample was performed on a mass spectrometer and a spot sampling (pointing mode of operation) analysis of another liver metastasis sample and a microorganism culture were performed on a waters xevo g2-s q-tof instrument (rtm) (waters micromass (rtm), u.k.) in negative ion mode. the waters xevo g2-s (rtm) mass spectrometer was equipped with a modified atmospheric interface 40 combining an orthogonal venturi-pump for aerosol transfer and a heated capillary inlet as shown in fig. 4 . the heated capillary inlet comprises a cylindrical collision surface 44 mounted within a ceramic holder 43 and heated via a sheathed 42 conductive coil 41. the use of such a heated coil interface may provide improved sensitivity and robustness against contamination. thus, at least some aerosol, smoke or vapour generated by a first device operating in a cutting or pointing mode of operation may be caused to impact upon the heated collision surface located within the vacuum chamber of a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer, so as to generate analyte ions. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging analysis of liver metastasis was carried out in a (first) cutting mode at 1 bar venturi gas pressure and about 4 kv p-p amplitude at about 50 khz alternating current frequency (ac). a blade-shaped electrosurgical tip (sampling probe) was used, about 500 µm pixel size, 1 mm/s cutting speed and 1 mm cutting depth. analysis of liver metastasis in a (second) pointing mode was carried out at about 0.25 bar venturi gas pressure, 2 kv amplitude at about 50 khz ac and using a wire-shaped electrosurgical tip at about 750 µm pixel size, 0.1 s time remaining inside the sample and a pointing depth of about 1 mm. aerosol was transferred (i.e. aspirated) using a 1/8" od, 2 mm id ptfe tubing. since the used power settings were sufficiently high such as potentially to cause severe injury, the instrumental setup was handled with high caution and insulating gloves were worn. parameter optimization of the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform was carried out using porcine liver samples. for comparison of mass spectral patterns between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging and iknife technology, porcine liver, porcine kidney cortex, lamb liver and chicken skeletal muscle were analysed using an electrosurgical handpiece (meyer-haake gmbh (rtm), germany) with incorporated ptfe tubing (1/8" od, 2mm id) which was connected to the venturi pump. liver, kidney and muscle were food grade and purchased as such. the iknife technology was operated in a cutting mode at 40 w and 1 bar gas pressure in combination with a valleylab surgistat ii (rtm) power-controlled electrosurgical generator (covidien, ireland). data processing raw spectral profiles were loaded into a matlab (rtm) environment (version r2014a, mathworks, usa) for pre-processing, ms-image visualization and pattern recognition analysis. all mass spectra were linearly interpolated to a common interval of 0.1 da and individually normalized to the total ion count ("tic") of each mass spectrum. the data was used for univariate comparison of intensity levels across liver tissue types and ionization techniques and for bacterial ms-image visualization of single ions. peak annotation for liver metastasis samples was based on m/z accuracy obtained from the unprocessed raw files, while bacterial peak annotation was based on mass accuracy and on tandem-ms spectra obtained using bipolar forceps. multivariate ms-image visualization was performed on mass spectra additionally binned to 1 da intervals in the mass range of m/z 600-1000 da for biological tissue and m/z 400-2000 for bacteria. for multivariate image visualization, ms-images and optical images were co-registered to define regions of interest ("rols") for building a supervised training model (i.e. a sample classification model). defined rois (classes) were healthy and cancerous tissue for the liver samples and one region for each bacterium plus agar, resulting overall in two classes for liver samples and four classes for bacterial samples. the training model was used to classify each pixel of the same sample and colour code the obtained score-values into red-green-blue colour scale. this supervised strategy for image visualization is based on an algorithm that combines recursive maximum margin criterion ("rmmc") with linear discriminant analysis ("lda"). for unsupervised analysis, principal component analysis ("pca") was performed on the mass spectra defined by the regions of interest. concordance correlation coefficients were used to measure the agreement between rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform ("rip") mass spectra and iknife technology mass spectra. this quantitative measure is defined as: wherein ρ c is the concordance correlation coefficient, ρ is pearson's correlation coefficient and σ rip / iknife is the standard deviation of the mean intensity values of µ rip / iknife . a low concordance correlation coefficient close to the value of zero indicates low agreement while a value close to the value of one suggests high similarity between spectral profiles. boxplots show the median at the central mark within the box with 25 th and 75 th percentiles at the edges of the box. the upper and lower whiskers account for approximately 2.7 standard deviations (99.3% data coverage). mass spectra were standardized to 100% intensity scale before their data was visualized with boxplots. analysing sample spectra a list of analysis techniques which are intended to fall within the scope of the present invention are given in the following table 2: table-tabl0002 table 2: a list of analysis techniques. analysis techniques univariate analysis multivariate analysis principal component analysis (pca) linear discriminant analysis (lda) maximum margin criteria (mmc) library based analysis soft independent modelling of class analogy (simca) factor analysis (fa) recursive partitioning (decision trees) random forests independent component analysis (ica) partial least squares discriminant analysis (pls-da) orthogonal (partial least squares) projections to latent structures (opls) opls discriminant analysis (opls-da) support vector machines (svm) (artificial) neural networks multilayer perceptron radial basis function (rbf) networks bayesian analysis cluster analysis kernelized methods subspace discriminant analysis k-nearest neighbours (knn) quadratic discriminant analysis (qda) probabilistic principal component analysis (ppca) non negative matrix factorisation k-means factorisation fuzzy c-means factorisation discriminant analysis (da) combinations of the foregoing analysis approaches can also be used, such as pca-lda, pca-mmc, pls-lda, etc. analysing the sample spectra can comprise unsupervised analysis for dimensionality reduction followed by supervised analysis for classification. by way of example, a number of different analysis techniques will now be described in more detail. multivariate analysis - developing a model for classification according to various embodiments, obtained mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data is used to construct, train or improve a sample classification model. by way of example, a method of building a classification model using multivariate analysis of plural reference sample spectra will now be described. fig. 5 shows a method 500 of building a classification model using multivariate analysis according to an embodiment. in this example, the method comprises a step 502 of obtaining plural sets of intensity values for reference sample spectra. the method then comprises a step 504 of unsupervised principal component analysis (pca) followed by a step 506 of supervised linear discriminant analysis (lda). this approach may be referred to herein as pca-lda. other multivariate analysis approaches may be used, such as pca-mmc. the pca-lda model is then output, for example to storage, in step 508. the multivariate analysis such as this can provide a classification model that allows an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample to be classified using one or more sample spectra obtained from the aerosol, smoke or vapour sample. the multivariate analysis will now be described in more detail with reference to a simple example. fig. 6 shows a set of reference sample spectra obtained from two classes of known reference samples. the classes may be any one or more of the classes of target described herein. however, for simplicity, in this example the two classes will be referred as a lefthand class and a right-hand class. each of the reference sample spectra has been pre-processed in order to derive a set of three reference peak-intensity values for respective mass to charge ratios in that reference sample spectrum. although only three reference peak-intensity values are shown, it will be appreciated that many more reference peak-intensity values (e.g., ∼ 100 reference peak-intensity values) may be derived for a corresponding number of mass to charge ratios in each of the reference sample spectra. in other embodiments, the reference peak-intensity values may correspond to: masses; mass to charge ratios; ion mobilities (drift times); and/or operational parameters. fig. 7 shows a multivariate space having three dimensions defined by intensity axes. each of the dimensions or intensity axes corresponds to the peak-intensity at a particular mass to charge ratio. again, it will be appreciated that there may be many more dimensions or intensity axes (e.g., ∼ 100 dimensions or intensity axes) in the multivariate space. the multivariate space comprises plural reference points, with each reference point corresponding to a reference sample spectrum, i.e., the peak-intensity values of each reference sample spectrum provide the co-ordinates for the reference points in the multivariate space. the set of reference sample spectra may be represented by a reference matrix d having rows associated with respective reference sample spectra, columns associated with respective mass to charge ratios, and the elements of the matrix being the peak-intensity values for the respective mass to charge ratios of the respective reference sample spectra. in many cases, the large number of dimensions in the multivariate space and matrix d can make it difficult to group the reference sample spectra into classes. pca may accordingly be carried out on the matrix d in order to calculate a pca model that defines a pca space having a reduced number of one or more dimensions defined by principal component axes. the principal components may be selected to be those that comprise or "explain" the largest variance in the matrix d and that cumulatively explain a threshold amount of the variance in the matrix d. fig. 8 shows how the cumulative variance may increase as a function of the number n of principal components in the pca model. the threshold amount of the variance may be selected as desired. the pca model may be calculated from the matrix d using a non-linear iterative partial least squares (nipals) algorithm or singular value decomposition, the details of which are known to the skilled person and so will not be described herein in detail. other methods of calculating the pca model may be used. the resultant pca model may be defined by a pca scores matrix s and a pca loadings matrix l. the pca may also produce an error matrix e, which contains the variance not explained by the pca model. the relationship between d, s, l and e may be: fig. 9 shows the resultant pca space for the reference sample spectra of figs. 6 and 7 . in this example, the pca model has two principal components pco and pc, and the pca space therefore has two dimensions defined by two principal component axes. however, a lesser or greater number of principal components may be included in the pca model as desired. it is generally desired that the number of principal components is at least one less than the number of dimensions in the multivariate space. the pca space comprises plural transformed reference points or pca scores, with each transformed reference point or pca score corresponding to a reference sample spectrum of fig. 6 and therefore to a reference point of fig. 7 . as is shown in fig. 9 , the reduced dimensionality of the pca space makes it easier to group the reference sample spectra into the two classes. any outliers may also be identified and removed from the classification model at this stage. further supervised multivariate analysis, such as multi-class lda or maximum margin criteria (mmc), in the pca space may then be performed so as to define classes and, optionally, further reduce the dimensionality. as will be appreciated by the skilled person, multi-class lda seeks to maximise the ratio of the variance between classes to the variance within classes (i.e., so as to give the largest possible distance between the most compact classes possible). the details of lda are known to the skilled person and so will not be described herein in detail. the resultant pca-lda model may be defined by a transformation matrix u, which may be derived from the pca scores matrix s and class assignments for each of the transformed spectra contained therein by solving a generalised eigenvalue problem. the transformation of the scores s from the original pca space into the new lda space may then be given by: where the matrix z contains the scores transformed into the lda space. fig. 10 shows a pca-lda space having a single dimension or axis, wherein the lda is performed in the pca space of fig. 9 . as is shown in fig. 10 , the lda space comprises plural further transformed reference points or pca-lda scores, with each further transformed reference point corresponding to a transformed reference point or pca score of fig. 9 . in this example, the further reduced dimensionality of the pca-lda space makes it even easier to group the reference sample spectra into the two classes. each class in the pca-lda model may be defined by its transformed class average and covariance matrix or one or more hyperplanes (including points, lines, planes or higher order hyperplanes) or hypersurfaces or voronoi cells in the pca-lda space. the pca loadings matrix l, the lda matrix u and transformed class averages and covariance matrices or hyperplanes or hypersurfaces or voronoi cells may be output to a database for later use in classifying an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample. the transformed covariance matrix in the lda space v' g for class g may be given by: where v g are the class covariance matrices in the pca space. the transformed class average position z g for class g may be given by: where s g is the class average position in the pca space. multivariate analysis - using a model for classification according to various embodiments, a sample classification model which was previously constructed, trained or improved according to a method described herein is used in order to classify a sample at a location. by way of example, a method of using a classification model to classify an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample will now be described. fig. 11 shows a method 1100 of using a classification model according to an embodiment. in this example, the method comprises a step 1102 of obtaining a set of intensity values for a sample spectrum. the method then comprises a step 1104 of projecting the set of intensity values for the sample spectrum into pca-lda model space. other classification model spaces may be used, such as pca-mmc. the sample spectrum is then classified at step 1106 based on the project position and the classification is then output in step 1108. classification of an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample will now be described in more detail with reference to the simple pca-lda model described above. fig. 12 shows a sample spectrum obtained from an unknown aerosol, smoke or vapour sample. the sample spectrum has been pre-processed in order to derive a set of three sample peak-intensity values for respective mass to charge ratios. as mentioned above, although only three sample peak-intensity values are shown, it will be appreciated that many more sample peak-intensity values (e.g., - 100 sample peak-intensity values) may be derived at many more corresponding mass to charge ratios for the sample spectrum. also, as mentioned above, in other embodiments, the sample peak-intensity values may correspond to: masses; mass to charge ratios; ion mobilities (drift times); and/or operational parameters. the sample spectrum may be represented by a sample vector d x , with the elements of the vector being the peak-intensity values for the respective mass to charge ratios. a transformed pca vector s x for the sample spectrum can be obtained as follows: then, a transformed pca-lda vector z x for the sample spectrum can be obtained as follows: fig. 13 again shows the pca-lda space of fig. 10 . however, the pca-lda space of fig. 13 further comprises the projected sample point, corresponding to the transformed pca-lda vector z x , derived from the peak intensity values of the sample spectrum of fig. 12 . in this example, the projected sample point is to one side of a hyperplane between the classes that relates to the right-hand class, and so the aerosol, smoke or vapour sample may be classified as belonging to the right-hand class. alternatively, the mahalanobis distance from the class centres in the lda space may be used, where the mahalanobis distance of the point z x from the centre of class g may be given by the square root of: and the data vector d x may be assigned to the class for which this distance is smallest. in addition, treating each class as a multivariate gaussian, a probability of membership of the data vector to each class may be calculated. library based analysis - developing a library for classification by way of example, a method of building a classification library using plural input reference sample spectra will now be described. fig. 14 shows a method 1400 of building a classification library. in this example, the method comprises a step 1402 of obtaining plural input reference sample spectra and a step 1404 of deriving metadata from the plural input reference sample spectra for each class of sample. the method then comprises a step 1404 of storing the metadata for each class of sample as a separate library entry. the classification library is then output, for example to electronic storage, in step 1406. a classification library such as this allows an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample to be classified using one or more sample spectra obtained from the aerosol, smoke or vapour sample. the library based analysis will now be described in more detail with reference to an example. in this example, each entry in the classification library is created from plural pre-processed reference sample spectra that are representative of a class. in this example, the reference sample spectra for a class are pre-processed according to the following procedure: first, a re-binning process is performed. in this embodiment, the data are resampled onto a logarithmic grid with abscissae: where n chan is a selected value and denotes the nearest integer below x. in one example, n chan is 2 12 or 4096. then, a background subtraction process is performed. in this embodiment, a cubic spline with k knots is then constructed such that p% of the data between each pair of knots lies below the curve. this curve is then subtracted from the data. in one example, k is 32. in one example, p is 5. a constant value corresponding to the q% quantile of the intensity subtracted data is then subtracted from each intensity. positive and negative values are retained. in one example, q is 45. then, a normalisation process is performed. in this embodiment, the data are normalised to have mean y i . in one example, y i = 1. an entry in the library then consists of metadata in the form of a median spectrum value µ i and a deviation value d i for each of the n chan points in the spectrum. the likelihood for the i'th channel is given by: where 1/2 ≤ c < ∞ and where γ ( c ) is the gamma function. the above equation is a generalised cauchy distribution which reduces to a standard cauchy distribution for c = 1 and becomes a gaussian (normal) distribution as c → ∞. the parameter d i controls the width of the distribution (in the gaussian limit d i = σ i is simply the standard deviation) while the global value c controls the size of the tails. in one example, c is 3/2, which lies between cauchy and gaussian, so that the likelihood becomes: for each library entry, the parameters µ i are set to the median of the list of values in the i'th channel of the input reference sample spectra while the deviation d i is taken to be the interquartile range of these values divided by ^2. this choice can ensure that the likelihood for the i'th channel has the same interquartile range as the input data, with the use of quantiles providing some protection against outlying data. library based analysis - using a library for classification by way of example, a method of using a classification library to classify an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample will now be described. fig. 15 shows a method 1500 of using a classification library. in this example, the method comprises a step 1502 of obtaining a set of plural sample spectra. the method then comprises a step 1504 of calculating a probability or classification score for the set of plural sample spectra for each class of sample using metadata for the class entry in the classification library. the sample spectra are then classified at step 1506 and the classification is then output in step 1508. classification of an aerosol, smoke or vapour sample will now be described in more detail with reference to the classification library described above. in this example, an unknown sample spectrum y is the median spectrum of a set of plural sample spectra. taking the median spectrum y can protect against outlying data on a channel by channel basis. the likelihood l s for the input data given the library entry s is then given by: where µ i and d i are, respectively, the library median values and deviation values for channel i. the likelihoods l s may be calculated as log likelihoods for numerical safety. the likelihoods l s are then normalised over all candidate classes ' s ' to give probabilities, assuming a uniform prior probability over the classes. the resulting probability for the class s̃ is given by: the exponent (1/ f ) can soften the probabilities which may otherwise be too definitive. in one example, f = 100. these probabilities may be expressed as percentages, e.g., in a user interface. alternatively, rms classification scores r s may be calculated using the same median sample values and derivation values from the library: again, the scores r s are normalised over all candidate classes ' s '. the aerosol, smoke or vapour sample may then be classified as belonging to the class having the highest probability and/or highest rms classification score. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform fig. 16 schematically illustrates and figs. 17a-c show a rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform (i.e. an ion imager) that is not in accordance with the present invention (as it does not use a laser), which includes three major functional elements that all influence the quality of mass spectra. the imaging platform may include a power generator, a xyz-stage with a sampling probe (i.e. a first device arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from a sample) and a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer. the mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data obtained using the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry (or other ambient ionisation) imaging platform may be used to construct, train or improve a sample classification model (e.g., as described above). the power supply setup used for the platform may comprise a tektronix (rtm) afg 3022 arbitrary function generator (tektronix (rtm), usa), a tektronix (rtm) dpo 3014 oscilloscope and a trek 10/40a high voltage amplifier (trek (rtm), usa). the arbitrary function generator was used to generate sinus waveforms with amplitudes between 1 v and 6 v at frequencies in the range of 10 to 60 khz. the high voltage power amplifier multiplied the voltage by a factor of 1000 and supplied the connected sampling probe with the electric current. the oscilloscope provided feedback to ensure correct working parameters. the xyz-stage may comprise a modified prosolia (rtm) 2d desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") stage 131 (as shown in fig. 17c ) and may include a flowprobe (rtm) upgrade (prosolia (rtm), usa) with a high precision z-axis actuator 132. the sampling probe 21 is mounted onto the actuator 132 via two mounting points 133 and is connected to the power generator setup 23 as well as a ms inlet capillary through tubing 24 (as shown in fig. 17a ). a laser height sensor 134 may be used to measure the distance or height between an electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 (or more generally the first device) and the sample surface, and can ensure an equal penetration depth of the tip into the sample which is useful for uneven sample surfaces. the laser height sensor 134 may comprise a camera. the electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 may be exchanged for other materials or shapes depending on the field of application. in case of high precision sampling, a small diameter wire may be used, whereas a large surface tip is suitable to maximize mass spectrometric and/or ion mobility signal intensity. a variety of possible alternatively shaped sample probes are shown in fig. 17b . the electrosurgical tip may be surrounded by suction tubing 22 which is connected to a venturi air jet pump. an optical fibre in conjunction with a laser source may be used to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from a target (e.g. tissue sample). the imaging platform is capable of at least two sampling modes; namely a cutting mode of operation as illustrated in fig. 18a and a pointing mode of operation as illustrated in fig. 18b . in a cutting mode of operation, line scans are performed and the electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 may be kept at a constant z-value, i.e. a constant height above the sample, while the x and y values can change in a way such that a macroscopic cut is made in a right to left trajectory through the tissue sample, with each subsequent cut being made at an increment further in the y direction. in this approach, the electrosurgical tip is in substantially continuous contact with the sample and therefore continuously produces aerosol. the speed of x-movement influences the width of the region of tissue disruption and the amount of aerosol produced (as illustrated in fig. 19a ). if the step size in the y direction is smaller than the burning-valley-width, then a complete surface layer will be evaporated (as illustrated in fig. 19c ). in a pointing mode of operation, the sampling probe 21 can penetrate the sample for a given depth and time. both factors influence the amount of evaporated aerosol and burn-crater size as is apparent from fig. 19b . in terms of imaging performance, the time of contact between the electrosurgical tip and the sample can influence the achievable spatial resolution which is limited by the width of tissue disruption. as ion current is also a function of cutting speed, there is (like in the case of all other msi methods) a trade-off between spatial resolution, signal intensity and sampling time. in a cutting mode of operation, the speed of imaging depends on a user defined cutting speed which is usually the already mentioned compromise between mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer sampling time and desired spatial resolution. in the case of a pointing mode of operation, the time necessary to move from one sampling spot or location to the next may be determined by the maximum movement speed of the xyz-stage and the time the sampling probe tip remains inside the sample. an exemplary cutting speed is about 1 mm/s, and the time necessary to record one pixel in a pointing mode of operation may be about 3 s, for example. using these parameters, imaging of a 2x2 cm sample with 2 mm spatial resolution will take an approximately equal amount of time of about 5 minutes for both pointing and cutting modes of operation (see table 3 below). the additional time necessary to move the z-actuator in the pointing mode of operation becomes more significant as the pixel size becomes smaller. this leads to a five times higher amount of imaging time at 500 µm pixel size in a pointing mode of operation compared with a cutting mode of operation. while cutting mode imaging at low resolutions evaporates the whole top sample layer, pointing mode in low resolution leaves the majority of tissue unaffected, allowing the same surface to be characterized at a later time. in both cases, the user of a preferred rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform (i.e. ion imager) should be aware of the heterogeneity within the sample, as cutting and pointing depth causes tissue evaporation from the bulk sample. table-tabl0003 table 3: theoretical sampling time and resolution for 2x2 cm sample. cutting mode sampling at 1 mm/s cutting speed and 25 s per row, which includes return time to a new row. pointing mode sampling at 3 s per pixel. pointing mode cutting mode pixel size no. of pixels time / min no. of rows ms scan time / s time / min 2 mm 100 5 10 2 4.2 1 mm 400 20 20 1 8.3 500 µm 1600 80 40 0.5 16.7 250 µm 6400 320 80 0.25 33.3 the transfer (i.e. aspiration) of aerosol to the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer may be carried out using a venturi air jet pump mounted to an atmospheric interface of a mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer. the aerosol trajectory may be perpendicular to the ms-inlet capillary. as a result, larger particles may be excluded by momentum separation thereby avoiding clogging and contamination of the mass spectrometer and/or ion mobility spectrometer. excess aerosol may be captured by a surgical smoke trap device. frequency and voltage dependencies the imaging platform (i.e. ion imager) can enable automated high-throughput collection of reference mass spectra and/or ion mobility data in order to aid real-time classification in ms-guided electrosurgery (iknife technology) applications. for example, , the classification algorithm (i.e. sample classification model) may compare mass spectral and/or ion mobility patterns of spectra created during surgery with mass spectra obtained ex vivo, in vivo or in vitro. accordingly, it is important that the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform provides similar ionization conditions as will be used in surgery. thus, a plurality of different locations of a sample are sampled using a first device arranged and adapted to generate aerosol, smoke or vapour from the sample to obtain mass spectral data and/or ion mobility data at each location. a sample classification model which was previously constructed, trained or improved according to a method of ion imaging as described herein is then used in order to classify the sample at each location. commercially available electrosurgical generators as used in operating theatres provide highly reproducible mass spectral patterns which are unique for different histological tissue types. the power supply setup used in conjunction with the imaging platform (as shown schematically illustrated in fig. 16 ) may allow variation in the amplitude and/or frequency and/or waveform, while an oscilloscope may provide feedback ensuring correct working conditions. depending on the application of the imaging platform, the experimental parameters can thus be changed in order to alter ionization conditions and to meet the requirements for recording reference mass spectra for intra-surgical tissue identification or bacterial classification purposes. rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry ionization mechanism is based on joule-heating which is a thermal process wherein the heat created is proportional to the square of electric current and the impedance. as electric current density is also a function of cross sectional area, the contact surface area of the electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 also has an impact on the heating process. if an electric current is applied to a biological tissue then the intracellular temperature rises up to a point of vaporization where excess heat facilitates evaporation of particles and ions leading to the formation of surgical aerosol. the major ions created in this process are singly charged lipids being most abundant in the m/z 600-1000 mass range for eukaryotic tissue and additionally in the m/z 1100-1500 mass range in case of bacteria in form of e.g. lipid dimers or cardiolipins. depending on the thermal stability of the molecules, thermal degradation may occur as it was observed in the case of phosphatidyl-ethanolamine species which are partly ionized to both [m-nh 4 ] - and [m-h] - , while other phospholipids species form [m-h] - ions. the density and frequency of the electric current can therefore have an important influence on the appearance of the mass spectrum. electrosurgical generators have an incorporated control loop providing constant power when cutting through tissue, even if the impedance is rapidly changing. this leads to gentle and reproducible cuts with minimized tissue heat exposure. electrosurgical generators are not easily incorporated into an imaging set up due to a number of safety measures required when used in theatre, hence a simplified power supply was built. since a p-p voltage amplitude-controlled rf power supply cannot follow the changing impedance of the sample, it was important to determine whether the simplified setup can provide spectra similar to those obtained when using proper electrosurgical equipment. optimization of the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging platform was carried out by finding the optimal frequency and voltage values to match the iknife technology reference mass spectral pattern of porcine liver as shown in figs. 20a-b and figs. 21a-b . concordance correlation coefficients ("ccc") between the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging and iknife technology mass spectra were used as a quantitative measure to find the optimal spectral agreement. in cutting mode, a factor influencing tissue heat exposure is cutting speed, which leads to high localized temperature for slow speeds and vice versa. depending on the required ion current, the ms sampling time window needs to be sufficiently long, compromising either spatial resolution or cutting speeds. therefore, prior to voltage and frequency optimization, a cutting speed should be chosen that satisfies requirements on ion yield and spatial resolution. once a cutting speed is set, heat exposure can then be controlled by changing the voltage or frequency output of the power generator setup. the cutting speed may need further reiteration if the available range of voltages and frequencies is not sufficient for adequate heat production. an exemplary cutting speed of 1 mm/s was found to gently cut at high ion yields. as shown in fig. 20a , at a constant p-p voltage of 2 kv an increase in frequency leads to less thermal degradation and higher similarity to iknife technology patterns. according to the oscilloscope readout, the power generator setup was not capable of maintaining a constant increase in power output above 50 khz at a 2 kv amplitude, explaining the stable concordance correlation coefficient between about 40 khz and about 60 khz. at lower frequencies more in-depth heat dissipation was observed leading to wide burning valleys, carbonization and inconsistent mass spectral patterns with varying baseline noise levels. this was accompanied by strong soot particle production leading to contamination of the ms-inlet capillary, without contributing to the ion yield (see the total ion counts in fig. 21a ). at higher frequencies (above about 40 khz) visible soot particle production was negligible and no carbonization was observed. this led to mass spectral patterns very similar to those produced by electrosurgical equipment, as indicated by concordance correlation coefficients near 0.9. the highest and most consistent tic was also found to be in that frequency window. as shown in fig. 20b , an increase in voltage at 40 khz frequency resulted in similar phenomena as observed with decreasing frequency, such as carbonization and wide burning valleys, leading to high concordance correlation coefficients to be found at low voltages. however, once the voltage was set below about 2 kv, ion currents dramatically dropped (see the total ion counts in fig. 21b ). this led to an optimal parameter window between about 3-4 kv and about 40-50 khz where concordance correlation coefficients are high and the total ion yield was also sufficient. similar behaviour was observed in a pointing mode of operation, as shown in the parameter optimization plots of figs. 22a-d which show the total ion counts and the concordance correlation coefficients between the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging and iknife technology reference spectra at different operating frequencies and voltages. a difference between a pointing and a cutting mode of operation is the time the electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 is in contact with the same part of tissue. in a cutting mode of operation, the tip is constantly moving and therefore continuously touches fresh tissue, whereas the tip remains at the same tissue spot for a defined amount of time in a pointing mode of operation. this leads to longer exposure of heat, thus voltage and frequency have to be chosen in a way that carbonization is kept at a minimum. at the same time, longer exposure also creates more ions, decreasing the need for higher voltages to gain a sufficiently high tic. by decreasing the time the tip remained about 1 mm inside the sample to a value of about 0.1 s, the exposure could be successfully decreased so that burn crater diameter was about 500 µm while providing good tics and concordance correlation coefficients at about 2 kv and about 40 khz. the impact of heat exposure on the mass spectral pattern is shown in figs. 23a-c. figs. 23a-c illustrate changes in mass spectral patterns of porcine liver obtained in cutting mode for high ( fig. 23a ) and low ( fig. 23b ) voltages compared to an iknife technology reference spectrum ( fig. 23c ). there is a prominent peak in all mass spectra at m/z = 885.5 which is identified as a phosphatidyl-inositol species [pi(38:4)-h] - . the iknife technology reference mass spectrum shown in fig. 23c shows the highest tic together with the most distinct intensity difference between the pi peak and all other phospholipid signals. the signal to noise ratio decreases with increasing voltage, which particularly impacts the spectral pattern in the mass range between about m/z 600 and 1000, used for classification. although the intensity difference between the pi peak and all other peaks is larger for the 2 kv ( fig. 23b ) compared to the 6 kv spectrum ( fig. 23a ), the tic of the 2 kv spectrum is lower, indicating a lower level of chemical noise. optimized cutting and pointing mode parameters were used to analyse various types of tissues from different animals, including porcine and lamb liver, porcine kidney cortex and chicken skeletal muscle. additionally, all samples were analysed by proper electrosurgical equipment ('iknife' technology setup) to ensure selected experimental rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging parameters are suitable for multiple tissue types. principal component analysis of the data showed that the overall variance is mostly associated with the tissue types, not the modes of analysis (see fig. 24 ). this demonstrates that the experimental parameters are universally applicable to various tissue types in terms of matching the iknife technology reference mass spectral patterns. imaging liver with metastatic tumour the imaging capability of the novel rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry platform (i.e. ion imager) was studied using human liver tumour samples (as illustrated in fig. 25 ). for demonstration of the versatility of the platform a cutting mode rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry image was obtained on a first instrument whilst a pointing mode image was obtained on a time of flight mass spectrometer. spatially resolved mass spectrometric information was co-registered with h&e images to locate mass spectra with the desired histological identity. supervised multivariate analysis of the tissues revealed clear distinction between healthy and cancerous tissue for both rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry imaging and desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") imaging data. the desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") images show a sharp border between the two tissue types as a result of the high spatial resolution and small pixel size of 100 µm. the upper half of the cutting mode rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry image contains pixels of mixed healthy and tumour pattern influences causing a blurred border. a possible explanation is due to the direction of the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry cut that was performed which started at healthy tissue and continued towards the tumour region. this might have caused transport of tumour tissue pieces into the healthy area. another reason may be inhomogeneous tissue below the surface of the seemingly cancerous area. assuming that the mass spectra are to be used as reference data for the iknife technology, then only pixels with a high class-membership probability should be used for training the multivariate models (i.e. the sample classification model). unsupervised principal component analysis (pca) demonstrates high intra-tissue-type spectral similarity together with spatially distinct clustering of healthy and cancerous data points in pca space (see fig. 26 ). desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") imaging data acquired at high spatial resolution can also be used to locate histological fine structures and their corresponding mass spectra which can then be co-registered with the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry data. a limiting factor for co-registration of desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry data is the spatial resolution currently achievable with the preferred rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry platform. while the cutting mode image was recorded at 500 µm pixel size, the pointing mode image features 750 µm sized pixels. in the case of this liver metastasis sample, the resolution is sufficient. however, in case of tissues with higher heterogeneity, higher spatial resolution images may be advantageous. the spatial resolution may be increased to decrease the diameter of the electrosurgical tip of the sampling probe 21 which would also be accompanied by lower spectral intensities. however, by connecting the sampling probe directly to the mass spectrometer inlet capillary (as is also done in the bipolar forceps approach described above) ion yield improves, thus overcoming the possible sensitivity issue. this also allows less penetration in z-direction, decreasing the probability of ionizing unanticipated tissue types. multivariate analysis of the liver metastasis samples shows a clear distinction of tissue types based on their molecular ion patterns. while rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry and desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") exhibit different ionization mechanisms resulting in mass spectrometric patterns that are not directly comparable to each other, univariate biochemical comparison of single ions provides a comparable measure for desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry co-registration. for certain compounds, the relative intensity difference between two tissue types is similar across all tissue types, ionization techniques and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis modes (cutting and pointing modes). this enables desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") to be used as a fold-change intensity-predictor for rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry based on up- and down-regulated compounds, which ultimately represents additional information for unknown tissue type identification. the higher spatial resolution of desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") allows the up- and down-regulated ions to be registered with certain histological features which may not be resolvable by rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry. this gives insight to the underlying histological composition of a tissue if certain changes in single ion intensities are observed in low resolution rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry. in the case of metastatic liver comparison, two different phosphatidyl-ethanolamine (pe) species were found to possess opposite relative intensities between healthy and metastatic tissue types as shown in fig. 27 . the represented images are ion images of the two pe ion species. pe(38:4) has a higher abundance in healthy tissue in all four cases, with the rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry cutting mode image showing barely any presence of this ion in tumour tissue. however, compared to the desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") images where this lipid is well abundant even in tumour tissue, the absence of intensity has to be associated with the lower sensitivity achieved by rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry cutting. opposite behaviour is seen by the ion [pe(36:1)-h] - showing elevated intensities in tumour tissue. future research will be dedicated to the comparison of multiple samples to obtain cross-validated relative intensity levels for ions of interest. once enough data is collected, desorption electrospray ionization ("desi") can serve as a biochemical blueprint, allowing tissue types to be histologically annotated with higher confidence when analysed by rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry. the ion imager may include a monopolar device with a separate return electrode or a bipolar device. other arrangements are also contemplated in which the ion imager may include a multi-phase or 3-phase device and may include, for example, three or more separate electrodes or probes. setting up high throughput culturing, dna isolation and ms data acquisition, determination of minimum culturing time a customised tecan evo (rtm) platform incorporating automated colony imaging and colony picking was used to provide a reproducible system for high throughput workflows utilising rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis. using an automated platform helps minimise user time and errors to ensure the data is accurate and reproducible. automated rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry analysis was compared to the spectral profiles obtained using forceps. five isolates of thirty species were examined using both methods and were also tested with and without the introduction of isopropanol ("ipa") matrix. according to various embodiments a matrix (ipa) is added to the aerosol, smoke or vapour generated by the first device. the matrix is be added to the aerosol, smoke or vapour prior to the aerosol, smoke or vapour impacting upon a collision surface. it was apparent that for some bacterial species the tecan (rtm) method generated noisy spectra. for example, streptococcus pneumoniae generally produced noisy spectra with low intensities (see fig. 28 ). although some lipids could be observed, this was not reproducible. spectral profiles including both high and low mass lipids were observed for fusobacterium nucleatum, but typically the profiles lacked those within higher mass ranges as in the mass spectrum shown in fig. 29c . however, as shown by the spectra in fig. 29a and fig. 29b , these higher mass components were sometimes apparent and thus it is clear that, with optimisation, good quality spectra may be acquired. although a thorough analysis of each species needs to be performed, it was clear that the tecan (rtm) produced data that encompasses higher mass range lipids. for example, as shown in figs. 30a-d automated rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry produced a higher signal to noise ratio for staphylococcus hominis. the infusion of ipa, although producing peaks of significantly higher intensities, may result in the loss of higher mass range lipids as shown by the mass spectra in fig. 30c and fig. 30d in the case of s . hominis and figs. 31a-b in the case of pseudomonas aeruginosa. the presence of ipa also seems to increase the quality and reproducibility of the analysis. the statistical differentiation of strains appears to be equally efficient with and without ipa. nevertheless, the high mass ranges seem to contribute to the separation of the strains in the dry mode, suggesting that, without being required for the separation, they might still bear valuable information. it is also envisioned that a high-throughput sequencing pipeline may be implemented to attach the 'gold' standard of taxonomic classification (16s rrna gene sequence for bacteria and its region sequence for fungi) to each isolate rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry fingerprint. for instance, a filtration based platform such as the qiagen qlacube that can process 96 isolates may be adapted to encompass the breath of clinical microbiology. various different automated capillary electrophoresis technologies may be used to ensure pcr have successfully been generated. it is also contemplated that agarose gel electrophoresis may be used. a bioinformatic pipeline may be developed to allow for the automated analysis of sequence data and taxonomic classification against established sequence databases. many of the techniques described above are presented in the context of utilising rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry as an ionisation method. however, it will be appreciated that the techniques and apparatus described herein are not limited to rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry devices and may also be extended to other ambient ion sources and other methods of ambient ionisation. for example, a tool having fenestrations or aspiration ports may be provided as part of a laser surgery probe for aspirating aerosol, smoke or vapour generated using the laser. further details of known ambient ion sources that may be suitable for use with the techniques and apparatus described herein are presented above. methods of medical treatment, surgery and diagnosis and non-medical methods various different embodiments are contemplated. according to some embodiments the methods disclosed above may be performed on in vivo, ex vivo or in vitro tissue. the tissue may comprise human or non-human animal tissue. various surgical, therapeutic, medical treatment and diagnostic methods are contemplated. however, other embodiments are contemplated which relate to non-surgical and non-therapeutic methods of mass spectrometry and/or ion mobility spectrometry which are not performed on in vivo tissue. other related embodiments are contemplated which are performed in an extracorporeal manner such that they are performed outside of the human or animal body. further embodiments are contemplated wherein the methods are performed on a non-living human or animal, for example, as part of an autopsy procedure. although the present invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the accompanying claims.
134-203-953-588-712	US	[ "EP", "WO", "US", "CN" ]	B26D1/28,B26D5/00,B26D5/20,G05B19/416	2016-01-23T00:00:00	2016	[ "B26", "G05" ]	optimization of blade portioner cutting speed	a method and system (10) are provided for automatically portioning workpieces (14) using a rotating blade (22) passing through narrow gap (20) formed between the ends of adjacent conveyors (12) and (18). a scanning system (16) scans the workpieces (14) to physically characterize the workpieces and control the operation of the blade (22), including its rotational speed. the portioning of the workpiece can be carried out in accordance with one or more directly-controlled characteristics (parameter/specifications), such as a cutting path of the blade (22), the rotational speed of the blade (22), and the speed of the conveyor (12). the directly-controlled characteristics may be varied until an acceptable set of one or more indirectly-controlled characteristics is achieved, including, for example, the weight of the cut portions, the quality of the cuts achieved by the cutting blade, and the throughput of the portioning system (10).	claims the embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows: 1. a method for determining optimized parameters for cutting a workpiece with a blade cutter, the blade cutter rotated by a motor, said method comprising: monitoring the rotational speed profile of the blade cutter about the revolution of the blade cutter by the motor; monitoring data from the motor corresponding to operational parameters of the motor during rotation of the blade cutter; monitoring the accuracy of desired physical specifications of the portions being cut; monitoring the feed rate of the workpieces relative to the blade cutter; optimizing at least one of the speed profile of the blade cutter during the revolution of the blade cutter and the feed rate of the workpieces, based on the one or more desired operational parameters of the motor and the desired accuracy of the one or more physical specifications of the portions being cut. 2. the method of claim 1, wherein the operational parameters of the motor include at least one of the motor current usage profile, temperature of the motor, motor following error, and motor torque profile. 3. the method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the physical specifications of the portions being cut comprise the weight of the portions cut from the workpiece, the mass of the portions cut from the workpiece, the thickness of the portions cut from the workpiece, and the quality of the cuts made on the portions. 4. the method according to any one of claims 1-3, further comprising quantifying the quality of the cuts made on the portions. 5. the method of claim 4, wherein the quality of the cuts made in the portions is quantified according to a numerical scale. 6. the method according to any one of claims 1-5, wherein the motor rotational speed profiles include: (a) stopping the rotation of the blade cutter between each cut made and then accelerating the blade cutter at the required time to make a cut; (b) overshooting the normal rotational stop point of the blade cutter and retracting the blade cutter to a rotational position before the stop point at a time before the next cut is to be made; (c) rotating the blade cutter at a substantially constant speed; (d) rotating the blade cutter at an overspeed through the non-cutting rotational travel of the blade cutter and slowing the rotation of the blade cutter as the blade cutter cuts through the workpiece; (e) rotating the blade cutter at a constant speed through the workpiece; and (f) rotating the blade cutter at a non-constant speed through the workpiece. 7. the method of any one of claims 1-6, further comprising monitoring the throughput of the workpieces and optimizing at least one of the speed profile of the blade cutter and the feed rate of the workpieces based on the desired operational parameters of the motor and the desired accuracy of the physical specifications of the portions being cut. 8. in a system for cutting food items into portions with a cutting blade rotated by a motor about a rotational path profile, a method for adjusting the operational parameters of the system comprising the rotational speed profile of the cutting blade and/or the feed rate of the food items relative to the cutting blade based on at least one of the desired physical characteristics of the portions to be cut from the food items and the desired throughput of the food items to be achieved, and the desired operational parameters of the system comprising: determining an initial first set of operational system parameters, including the rotational speed profile of the cutting blade and the feed rate of the food items toward the cutting blade; monitoring the operational parameters of the motor during rotation of the cutting blade; monitoring the physical characteristics of the portion being cut; monitoring the throughput of the food items; adjusting the rotational speed of the cutting blade and/or the feed rate of the food item based on at least one of the monitored operational parameters of the motor, the physical accuracy of the portions being cut and the feed rate of the food items. 9. the method of claim 8, wherein the physical characteristics of the portions being cut comprise weight, mass, thickness, area, and cut quality. 10. the method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the operational parameters of the motor include current profile, torque profile, and motor following error. 11. the method according to any one of claims 8-10, wherein the motor rotational path profiles are selected from the group consisting of: (a) stopping the rotation of the cutting blade between each cut made and then accelerating the cutting blade at the required time to make the next cut; (b) overshooting the normal rotational stop point of the cutting blade and retracting the cutting blade to a rotational position before the stop point at a time before the next cut is required to be made; (c) rotating the cutting blade at substantially a constant speed; (d) rotating the cutting blade at an overspeed through the non-cutting rotational travel of the cutting blade and slowing the rotation of the cutting blade as the cutting blade cuts through the workpiece; (e) rotating the cutting blade at a substantially constant speed through the workpiece; and (f) rotating the cutting blade at a non-constant speed through the workpiece. 12. a method of adaptive control of operational parameters of a blade slicing machine to slice workpieces into portions with a cutter rotated by a motor along a rotational speed profile, comprising: selecting a first set of cutting parameters; performing the slicing of the workpieces using the first set of selected cutting parameters; during the slicing of the workpieces, measuring the operational parameters of the motor; varying at least one of the cutting parameters and comparing successive measurements of the operational parameters of the motor; determining the throughput at the selected operational parameters; and setting the cutting parameters of the slicing machine based on the measured operational parameters of the motor and the desired throughput. 13. the method according to claim 12, wherein the cutting parameters comprise the rotational speed of the cutter and the feed rate of the workpieces. 14. the method according to claim 12 or 13, wherein the motor rotational speed profiles are selected from the group consisting of: (a) stopping the rotation of the cutter between each cut made and then accelerating the cutter at the required time to make a cut; (b) overshooting the normal rotational stop point of the cutter and retracting the cutter to a rotational position before the stop point at a time before the next cut is required to be made; (c) rotating the cutter at substantially a constant speed; (d) rotating the cutter at an overspeed through the non-cutting rotational travel of the cutter and slowing the rotation of the cutter as the cutter cuts through the workpiece; (e) rotating the cutter at a substantially constant speed through the workpiece; and (f) rotating the cutter at a non-constant speed through the workpiece. 15. the method according to claim 12, wherein the cutting parameters are selected from the group consisting of at least one of the physical specifications of the portions cut from the workpiece and the quality of the cuts made to the workpiece. 16. the method according to claim 15, wherein the physical characteristics of the portions cut from the workpiece are selected from the group consisting of weight, thickness, area, and cut quality. 17. the method according to any one of claims 12-16, wherein the operational parameters of the motor include one or more parameters selected from the group including motor rotational speed, motor rotational speed profile, current use usage profile during each motor revolution, temperature of the motor, motor following error, and torque profile during each motor revolution. 18. the method according to any one of claims 12-14 or 17, wherein the cutting parameters comprise the type of cutter utilized. 19. the method according to claim 18, wherein the type of cutter is selected from the group consisting of: a cutter having a cutting blade with a substantially straight cutting edge, a cutter having a cutting blade h with a curved cutting edge; and a cutter having a cutting blade with a toothed cutting edge.	optimization of blade portioner cutting speed technical field the present invention relates to processing workpieces, and more particularly to portioning workpieces, such as food products, into smaller units. background workpieces, including food products, are portioned or otherwise cut into smaller units or portions in accordance with customer needs. food products are commonly portioned either to uniform or specific sizes, weights, thicknesses, or other specifications. examples of commonly portioned food products include steaks to be served in restaurants, chicken filets packaged in frozen dinners and chicken patties sized and shaped to fit within a specific bun. fish is likewise routinely portioned into filets or steaks. much of the portioning of workpieces, and in particular food products, is now carried out with the use of high-speed portioning machines. these machines use various scanning techniques to ascertain the size, shape, and other physical characteristics of the workpiece as it is being advanced on a moving conveyor. this information is analyzed with the aid of a computer to determine how to most efficiently portion the workpiece into optimum or desired sizes, weights, thicknesses, or other criteria being used. for example, the customer may desire chicken breast portions in two different weights or sizes. the chicken breast is scanned as it moves on an infeed conveyor belt, and a determination is made through the use of the computer as to how best to portion the chicken breast to the specific weights desired by the customer. portioning of workpieces can be performed by a cutting blade that swings across the conveyor system through a gap defined by the ends of two adjacent conveyors that advance and support the workpieces being portioned. typically, the blade is attached to a servo motor, which spins the blade very quickly through the gap. the workpiece progresses forwardly on the conveyor belts across the gap, thereby advancing between successive blade revolutions. the blade may make approximately 20 to 30 cuts per second to provide controlled weight, thickness, or size portions, and the timing of the blade passage through the conveyor belt gap must be very tightly controlled. as discussed below, it is important to optimize the speed of the rotating blade cutter to achieve clean and accurate cuts of the workpieces while also maximizing throughput and minimizing heat generation in the servo motor. the present disclosure addresses methods and systems for optimizing the rotational speed of the portioning blade. summary this summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. this summary is not intended to identify key features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. a method for determining optimized parameters for cutting a workpiece with a blade cutter rotated by a motor, the method includes monitoring the rotational speed of the blade cutter about the revolution of the blade cutter as driven by the motor, monitoring data from the motor corresponding to the operational parameters of the motor during rotation of the rotary blade, monitoring the accuracy of the desired physical specifications of the portions being cut, and monitoring the rate that the workpieces are fed to the cutting blade. during such monitoring, optimizing at least one of (1) the speed profile of the cutting blade during a revolution of the cutting blade and (2) the feed rate of the workpieces, based on one or more desired operational parameters of the motor, and the desired accuracy of one or more physical specifications of the portions being cut. as a further aspect of the method, the operational parameters of the motor include the motor current usage profile, the temperature of the motor, the motor following error, and/or the motor torque profile. as a further aspect of the method, the physical specifications of the portions being cut include the weight of the portions cut from the workpiece, the mass of the portions cut from the workpiece, the thickness of the portions cut from the workpiece, and the quality of the cuts made on the portions. in accordance with a further aspect of the method, the quality of the cuts made on the portions can be quantified in accordance with the numerical scale. as a further aspect of the method, the throughput of the workpieces is monitored and the speed profile of the cutter blade and/or the feed rate of the workpieces is optimized based on the desired operational parameters of the motor and the desired accuracy of the physical specifications of the portions being cut. in a system for cutting food items into portions with a cutting blade rotated by a motor, a method is provided for adjusting the operational parameters of the system, which includes the rotational profile of the cutting blade and/or the feed rate of the food items relative to the cutting blade based on one or more desired physical characteristics of the portions being cut and the desired throughput of the food items to be achieved. the desired operational parameters of the system include determining an initial set of operational system parameters, including the rotational speed profile of the cutting blade and the feed rate of food items toward the cutting blade, monitoring the operational parameters of the motor during rotation of the cutting blade, monitoring the physical characteristics of the portions being cut, monitoring the throughput of the food items, and adjusting the rotational speed of the cutting blade and/or the feed rate of the food items based on at least one of the monitored parameters of the motor, the physical accuracy of the portions being cut, and the feed rate of the food items. in the method of adjusting the operational parameters of the system, the physical characteristics of the portions being cut include weight, mass, thickness, area, and cut quality. in the method for adjusting the operational parameters of the system, the operational parameters of the motor include current profile, torque profile, and motor following error. in a further aspect of the adjustment method, the motor rotational profiles are selected from the group consisting of: stopping the rotation of the cutting blade between each cut made and then accelerating the cut at the required time to make the next cut; overshooting the normal rotational stop point of the cutting blade and retracting the cutting blade to rotational position before the stop point at a time before the next cut is required to be made; rotating the cutting blade at a substantially constant speed; rotating the cutting blade at an overspeed through the non-cutting rotational travel of the cutting blade and slowing the rotation of the cutting blade as the cutting blade cuts through the workpiece; rotating the cutting blade at a substantially constant speed through the workpiece; and rotating the cutting blade at a non-constant speed through the workpiece. a method for adaptive control of the operational parameters of a blade slicing machine to slice workpieces into portions with a blade rotated by a motor includes selecting a first set of cutting parameters, performing the slicing of the workpieces using the first set of selected cutting parameters, during the slicing of the workpiece measuring the operational parameters of the motor, varying at least one of the cutting parameters and comparing successive measurements of the operational parameters of the motor, determining the throughput at the selected operational parameters, and setting the cutting parameters of the slicing machine based on the measured operational parameters of the motor and the desired throughput. in a further aspect of the present disclosure, the cutting parameters include the rotational speed of the blade and the feed rate of the workpieces. in accordance with a further aspect of the present disclosure, the cutting parameters include at least one physical specification of the portions cut from the workpiece and the quality of the cuts made to the workpiece. description of the drawings the foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: figure 1 is a schematic view of a disclosed embodiment of the present disclosure; figure 2a - figure 2e illustrate the quality of cuts applied to portions divided from a workpiece; figure 3a - figure 3e graph possible rotational speeds of a cutting blade along the rotational revolution of the cutting blade; figure 4 is a flow chart illustrating a routine for evaluating the effects of cutting to certain specifications on the final product characteristics as well as on the portioning system parameters which are directly controlled by the portioning process, prior to actually portioning the workpiece, according to a further aspect of the present disclosure; and figure 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a routine for evaluating the effects on indirectly-controlled parameters or specifications of a workpiece or portioning system based on selected directly-controlled parameters or specifications prior to actually portioning the workpiece, according to a further aspect of the present disclosure. detailed description the detailed description set forth below in connection with the appended drawings, where like numerals reference like elements, is intended as a description of various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter and is not intended to represent the only embodiments. each embodiment described in this disclosure is provided merely as an example or illustration and should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. the illustrative examples provided herein are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed. similarly, any steps described herein may be interchangeable with other steps, or combinations of steps, in order to achieve the same or substantially similar result. in the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. it will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that many embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced without some or all of the specific details. in some instances, well-known process steps have not been described in detail in order to not unnecessarily obscure various aspects of the present disclosure. further, it will be appreciated that embodiments of the present disclosure may employ any combination of features described herein and process steps may be performed in sequences other than as specified. the present application may include references to directions such as "forward," "rearward," "front," "back," "upward," "downward," "right hand," "left hand," "in," "out," "extended," "advanced," "retracted," "proximal," and "distal." these references and other similar references in the present application are only to assist in helping describe and understand the present invention and are not intended to limit the present invention to these directions. with respect to the terminology used in the present application, for the most part, the word "parameter" is used to refer to a physical characteristic or feature such as length, width, thickness, weight or color. also for the most part, the word "specification " refers to a particular parameter value or range, such as a length of between 1 10 and 120 mm, a weight that is no more than 30 grams, or the color blue. also, in accordance with the present application, a specific instance of a parameter will have a value, the value may or may not lie within a particular specification. in spite of the foregoing, it is within the scope of the present application to intermingle the use of the term parameter with the use of the term specification. for example, if the word specification is being utilized, this word should be interpreted broadly enough to also encompass the word parameter, and vice-versa. also, in the present application, the word "characteristic" shall be a generic term that refers to "parameter" and/or "specification." the present application may include modifiers, such as the words "generally," "approximately" or "substantially." these terms are meant to serve as modifiers to indicate that the "dimension," "shape," or other physical parameter or specification in question need not be exact, but may vary as long as the function that is required to be performed can be carried out. for example, in the phrase "generally circular in shape," the shape need not be exactly circular as long as the required function of the structure or process in question can be carried out. in the following description, various embodiments of the present disclosure are described and illustrated. the systems, assemblies, apparatus and steps described and illustrated may be identified in the various embodiments by the same part number, but with an alpha suffix or other suffix. the descriptions of the parts/component steps of such systems, assemblies, apparatus, and methods that are the same or similar are not repeated so as to avoid redundancy in the present application. figure 1 schematically illustrates a portioning system 10 suitable for implementing an embodiment for the present disclosure. the portioning system 10 includes a first conveyor 12 for carrying workpieces (also "work products" or "products") 14 to be portioned past a first scanning system 16 for scanning the workpieces prior to portioning. a second conveyor 18 is positioned closely adjacent the end of the first conveyor 12, thereby to define a narrow gap 20 therebetween. a cutting knife or blade 22 (also "blade cutter" or "cutter") of a cutting device 24 (also "cutter") is rotated through the gap 20. the cutting device 24 includes a servo motor 26 for powering the blade 22 to cut the workpieces 14 into desired units or portions 28. the blade 22 is mounted on the drive shaft 27 of the servo motor 26 with a mounting assembly 29. an optional second scanning system 30 may be positioned downstream of the cutting device 24 to scan and physically characterize the portions 28 as well as the nature, including the quality, of the cuts of the workpiece 14 performed by the cutting device 24. a third conveyor 32, operating at a higher speed than the second conveyor 18, receives the cut portions 28 from the second conveyor. the higher speed of the third conveyor 32 causes the portions to be separated so that the individual portions 28 can be analyzed as well as the cuts made on the portions. the speed of the third conveyor 32 is monitored via encoder 62 associated with drive roller 58 for the third conveyor, and is connected to a computer 36. the conveyors 12, 18 and 32, the scanning systems 16 and 30, and the cutting device 24 are coupled to and controlled by the computer 36 (also "processor"). the computer may include an output interface or display 37, as well as a user input interface 38 (keyboard, mouse, etc.), a cpu 39, memory units 40, and other components that are commonly included in or used with computers. the computer can be connected to a network 41. also, rather than employing a computer 36 specifically for portioning system 10, a network computing system can be used for this purpose instead. generally, the scanning systems 16 and 30 scan the workpieces 14 and portions 28 to produce scanning information representative of the physical characteristics of the workpieces/portions and to forward the scanning information to computer 36. the computer 36 analyzes the scanning data to develop the physical characteristics or parameters of the workpieces/portions, for example, their size, shape, length, width, thickness, etc. the computer 36 also develops a thickness or height distribution of the scanned workpiece/portion as well as area and/or volume distributions of the workpieces/portions. the weight of the workpiece/portions can be determined by using an assumed density for the workpieces/portions. the computer can model the workpiece 14 to determine how the workpiece might be portioned into end product sets composed of one or more portions of specific physical criteria, including, for example, weight, shape, thickness, length, width, etc. in this regard, the computer is able to factor in defects found in the workpiece during the scanning process. such defects may include local discontinuities (including voids), foreign material and undesirable material in the workpiece, for example, bones, gristle, or fat in meat products. with all of these criteria and factors in mind, the computer determines how the workpiece may be portioned into one or more end product sets. the computer then controls the cutting device 24 as well as the speeds of the conveyors 12 and 18 to portion the workpiece according to selected end product or portion sets. the second scanner 30 may be used in a manner similar to scanner 16 in terms of characterizing the portions 28 resulting from workpiece 14. in addition, the scanner 30 is capable of analyzing the quality of the cuts made by the blade 22, including, for example, whether the portions 28 have been completely cut, and whether the cut of the portions is complete, ragged or uneven, straight or planar. describing the foregoing systems in more detail, the conveyor 12 carries the workpiece 14 beneath scanning system 16. the scanning system 16 may be of a variety of different types, including a video camera to view workpiece 14 illuminated by one or more light sources such as a laser. light from the light source is extended across the moving conveyor belt 42 to define a sharp shadow or light stripe line, with the area forwardly of the transverse light beam being dark. when no workpiece 14 is being carried by the infeed conveyor 12, the shadow line/light stripe forms a straight line across the conveyor belt 42. however, when a workpiece 14 passes across the shadow line/light stripe, the upper, irregular surface of the workpiece produces an irregular shadow line/light stripe as viewed by a video camera directed diagonally and downwardly on the workpiece and the shadow line/light stripe. the video camera detects the displacement of the shadow line/light stripe from the position it would occupy if no workpiece were present on the conveyor belt. this displacement represents the thickness of the workpiece along the shadow line/light stripe. the length of the workpiece is determined by the distance of the belt travel that the shadow line/light stripes are created by the workpiece. in this regard, an encoder 50 is integrated into the infeed conveyor 12, with the encoder generating pulses at fixed distance intervals corresponding to the forward movement of the conveyor. in lieu of a video camera, the scanning station may instead utilize an x-ray apparatus for determining the physical characteristics of the workpiece including its shape, mass, and weight. x-rays may be passed through the workpiece in the direction of an x-ray detector (not shown). such x-rays are attenuated by the workpiece in proportion to the mass thereof. scanner system 16 includes a generator to irradiate the workpiece 14 to be scanned with x-ray radiation and a receiver to receive the attenuated radiation. the receiver portion can be integral with the generator. attenuation of the x-rays can occur by passing through the workpiece or by reflection from the workpiece. when radiation passes through the workpiece, a certain amount of radiation is absorbed by the workpiece through which it passes. therefore there will be a relationship between the amount of radiation sent to the workpiece and the amount of radiation received after passing through the workpiece. the cause of absorption is believed to reside in the chemical bonds within the molecules of the workpiece. radiation once attenuated can be collected and converted into a useable form. photodiodes, for example, may be used to convert an amount of radiation in the visible range into a voltage or current signal. for x-rays, a scintillating material may be used to generate visible light capable of detection by a photodiode. this method is described in u.s. patent no. 5,585,603, to vogeley, jr., which is herein incorporated by reference. the foregoing scanning systems are known in the art and, thus, are not novel per se. however, the use of these scanning systems in conjunction with the other aspects of the described embodiments are believed to be new. as noted above, the data and information measured/gathered by the scanning device(s) is transmitted to the computer 36, which records the location of the workpiece 14 on the conveyor 12, as well as the length, width and thickness of the workpiece about the entire area of the workpiece. with this information, the processor can develop an area profile, a volume profile and/or a height profile of the workpiece. knowing the density of the workpiece, the processor can also determine the weight of the workpiece or segments thereof or profile thereof. the scanning information can also be used to ascertain whether there are any defects in the workpiece. such defects might include tears, holes, fat, bone, or cartilage. for example, if an x-ray apparatus is utilized, and if a hole or tear exists, the x-rays will be attenuated to a lesser extent than if the workpiece is structurally intact. also, for a workpiece composed of raw meat, the density of fat, bones, and cartilage is different from the density of the meat. this density variation results in a difference in the attenuation of the x-rays passing through the workpiece. for example, the density of bone is greater than the density of meat. thus, the x-rays passing through the bone will be attenuated to a greater extent than the x-rays passing through the meat. as a consequence, by the scanning process, the existence as well as the position and size of the defects in the workpiece may be ascertained. examples of the foregoing scanning devices are disclosed in u.s. patent no. 6,563,904, incorporated by reference herein. preferably the computer 36, as noted above, having a cpu 39 and a memory 40, is used in the methods according to the present disclosure. data consisting of desired end product specifications or attributes, such as weight, thickness, length, and height, are stored in the computer memory 40. the memory can store additional specifications, attributes, and/or maps that can readily be selected by a user via a user interface 38, for example, when changing product lines. for instance, the user may be processing chicken breasts for a particular customer who may have one or two desired weights for cut portions; when the order of the customer is filled, the user may switch the computer to meet the specifications of a different customer or to a different type of product. this switch may be automated and triggered by a counter that keeps track of the number of workpieces that have been processed, or the switch may be carried out manually to allow the user time to retool any apparatus or to recalibrate a process. in other alternate embodiments, a library of maps for an entire production plan can be stored in the memory of the computer 36. as shown in figure 1, the computer 36 can be in communication with a network system 41 which allows the computer 36 to talk to and share information with other computers. computer 36 can also drive other periphery hardware besides the scanner system 16. for instance, computer 36 can direct the operation of the conveyor 12, cutting device 24, and optional second scanner 30. as noted above, workpieces 14 are cut or sliced into portions 28 of desired sizes, weights, thicknesses, etc., by use of a cutting device 24 that is rapidly rotated through a gap 20 between adjacent conveyors 12 and 18 by a servo motor 28. the rotational speed profile of the blade 22 is of importance with respect to numerous aspects of the operation of the system 10 including the quality of the cut made through the workpiece 14, the accuracy of the weights or other criteria of the portions 28, the throughput achieved by the system 10, and the operational parameters of the servo motor 28, including the level of motor heating, as discussed below. what is meant by rotational speed profile is the rotational speed of the cutting blade about a full rotation of the blade, including when cutting through a workpiece and when rotating between cuts of the workpiece. the servo motor 24 rotates the cutting blade 22 at a very high speed, for example, at a rate of between 20 to 30 rotations per second. as discussed more fully below, different blade rotational movement strategies can be utilized in the rotational profile of the blade 22. the speed of the blade 22 can have a significant impact on various aspects of the portioning of workpieces 14, for example, meat workpieces. for workpieces composed of raw, unfrozen meat, it is desirable to cut the meat quickly to maximize throughput, but also the speed of the blade should be optimized for the quality of the cut achieved. to the cutting blade 22, the raw, unfrozen meat is quite soft. as a result, as it is being cut, the meat can provide a resistance to the movement or inertia of the blade that is almost like a liquid in cutting the meat, the blade initially compresses and deforms the meat (fibers) until the fibers fracture below the blade. the fracture then spreads through the meat below the blade as the blade cuts through the meat. if there is little or no support to the meat to counter the compression of the blade, the meat will not fracture readily but simply continue to compress and move with the blade. thus, it is important that the gap 20 be as small as possible. nonetheless, if the cutting of the meat occurs with too slow of a blade speed, the meat will tend to be pushed into the gap 20 without being cleanly cut, causing not only a low quality cut, as discussed below, but also variability in the weights or other physical specification for the portions 26. on the other hand, cutting the meat at too high of a velocity of the blade 22 also leads to negative effects. the blade moving through the meat encounters two types of resistance, pressure drag and frictional drag. the pressure drag corresponds to a bluff body passing through a fluid, in this case, the knife blade 22 passing through the meat. in fluid dynamics, the pressure drag results from the eddy motions that are set up in the fluid by passage of the body. this drag is associated with the formation of the wake, for example, such as can be readily seen behind a passing boat. a similar phenomenon occurs when slicing meat. even though blade 22 can be quite streamlined and is of limited cross-section, the pressure drag can be significant because pressure drag resistance roughly increases with the square of the velocity of the blade traveling through the meat. the frictional drag is caused by friction between the sides of the knife blade 22 and the meat. for fluids like water, frictional drag increases linearly with velocity. however, the frictional drag of a body rubbing against a solid object is ideally independent of velocity, since meat usually behaves somewhere between a fluid like water and a solid, the frictional drag imposed on blade 22 by the meat being sliced increases with velocity but not quite in proportion with velocity. the net effect of the pressure drag and frictional drag caused by the meat is that the drag forces on blade 22 increase with velocity, and as such at some point the benefits gained by increasing the speed of the blade to increase throughput is offset by the drag forces imposed on the knife blade 22 by the meat being cut. it would be desirable to optimize the speed of the knife blade to achieve high throughput while at the same time managing or limiting the level of drag force on the knife blade. other factors in optimizing the rotational speed profile of the knife blade are discussed below. in this regard, for workpieces in the form of raw meat, cut accuracy and cut quality can be negatively impacted if the speed of the knife blade is too fast in relation to the drag force caused on the knife blade by the meat. during the initial stages of cutting, the meat is actually compressed by the blade 22 and the meat is deformed at a rate dependent on the speed of the blade. from testing using high speed cameras, it appears that the compression forces caused by the knife blade propagate through the meat, with the rate of propagation depending on characteristics of the meat, including its density. nonetheless, if the blade moves too fast, the energy from the compressive forces propagates through the meat like a shockwave, which can cause the meat to move significantly on the conveyor. if this happens, the subsequent cuts made in the workpiece will be inaccurately placed. further, some gel like products, including some foods being portioned, can be compressed to the point that it becomes inelastic or "stiffens" with compression from high speed cutting, and can actually break a cutting blade 22. at a proper cutting blade speed, the meat compresses to the point of fracturing so that the force created by the blade propagates in meat in directions away from the compression at a speed fast enough to prevent the meat from becoming incompressible but slow enough so as not to create a shockwave that causes the meat to move. applicants have found that there is an optimum blade speed or speed range resulting in accurate, high quality cuts for a given meat geometry for specific physical properties of the meat while maintaining a high level of throughput. bearing in mind that the blade compresses the meat until the meat fractures the geometry and specific physical properties of the meat workpiece, as such the width of the meat determines the length along the blade where compression is occurring and where, after failure, friction affects both the movement of the blade and the cutting of the meat. in a similar way, the thickness of the meat affects the compressibility of the meat as well as the amount of force required to cut through the meat to overcome frictional forces once failure (fracturing of the meat) has occurred. physical properties of the meat include the compressibility of the meat, the internal forces "binding the meat" (between fibers and inside fibers), and also resisting fracturing of the meat. the difference in force required to cut the meat, and the reaction of the meat to the force of the blade, is different if the meat does or does not have significant connective tissue or "gristle" or fat. in addition to the density, width, and thickness of the workpiece, other physical characteristics of the workpiece, including food products, are important factors in the ability to cut the workpiece with a blade-type cutter. such additional factors include the stiffness, rigidity and internal cohesion, of the workpieces. the stiffness and/or rigidity of the meat food products can be due to rigor mortis of the meat or whether the meat is partially frozen. also, chicken can have a stiff, unappealing texture known as "woody chicken." these and the other physical characteristics of the workpieces can be highly variable among different products and even within populations of like products. for example, meat products may under some conditions act like liquids and under other conditions act more like a solid or act like some combination of the two expected behaviors. the optimization of the product cutting process recognizes this and seeks to take these factors into consideration, including in determining the cutting speed of a blade cutter. as discussed above, goals in slicing food products, including meat, with a rotating blade include accurately cutting the portions to a specified weight or weights, or other specification(s). another goal is to maximize the cut quality of the food product. as mentioned previously, both of these goals can be significantly affected by the speed of the knife blade through the workpiece, and with the desirable speed being impacted by numerous physical characteristics of the workpiece. the weight of the cut portions 28 can be measured by weighing the portions using a standard weighing machine (not shown) downstream of the cutting device 24. as an alternative, a second scanning system 30 may be utilized to scan the portions 28 and ascertain their weight by determining the volume of the portions 28 and applying an assumed density for the workpiece portions. in lieu of the second scanning system, an x- ray system as discussed above can be used to determine the weight of the cut portions. with respect to the quality of the cuts made in the workpiece 14 by blade 22, it is possible to quantify such cut quality by rating the resulting cut using a numerical scale. for example, a value of " 1 " can be applied to the cut if the cut is incomplete and does not completely sever a portion 26 from an adjacent portion, as shown in figure 2a. a rating of "2" could be applied to the cut if the cut is ragged or uneven, or has a trailing string of the workpiece as shown in figure 2b. a rating of "3" could be applied if the cut, though the cut is complete, is ragged or "out of square" in two dimensions and/or not flat or even, as shown in figure 2c. a higher rating of "4" can be applied to a cut if the cut is "good" but not "perfect" due to being, for example, not vertical or otherwise "square," as shown in figure 2d. lastly, a numerical score of "5" could be applied if the cut is substantially "perfect," meaning "flat with little or no unevenness." as noted above, the blade 22 of cutting device 24 is driven by a servo motor 26. servo motors are desirable to use in slicing operations due to their low rotational inertia, high torque levels, and accurate motion (speed) control. at the speeds at which blade 22 is rotated by motor 26, heat buildup in the motor can be very significant due to the very rapid start/stop cycles that are needed to control accurately the rotational profile of the blade 22 and achieve high throughput. a possible avenue to reduce a limit to heat buildup in servo motors is simply to use a larger motor, as will be the case if the blade 22 were driven at a steady state. however, in the present situation, a larger motor would have more inertia, requiring the motor to "work" even harder under the acceleration and deceleration requirements for very rapid start/stop cycles of the blade 22. thus, the gains achieved by using an increased motor size typically are limited. the result is that servo motor heating can be a significant limitation on the production throughput of rotating blade portioners. higher cutting velocities and accelerations, with its attendant rapid start/stop cycles, causes increased motor heating for a given throughput. thus, motor heating is another factor impacting the optimum cutting velocity of the system blade 22. as noted above, the blade 22 can be rotated at selected velocity profiles about each revolution of the cutting blade. servo motors currently available are driven by servo-amplifiers, which are quite sophisticated in their ability to achieve ideal or desired waveforms for motion control. also, data regarding the operational parameters of the motor is available in "real time." for example, it is possible to measure motor current and/or torque generated by the motor when the blade 22 is passing through the workpiece, thereby quantifying the cutting force of the blade in relation to the rotational angle or position of the blade. the same information is available when the blade 22 is not passing through the workpiece. one goal or beneficial result that can result from optimizing the operational parameters of system 10 is to lower or perhaps even minimize the force required to be applied to the blade 22 to achieve portions of accurate physical specifications as well as high-quality cuts and a desired level of throughput. also, a lower cutting force provides the advantage of reduced motor heating, thereby lessening the likelihood of damage to the motor and extending the life of the motor. monitoring the cutting force of the blade 22 while measuring the motor current or torque generated by the motor 26 enables the sharpness or the dullness of the blade 22 to be ascertained. if the motor current and/or torque generated by the motor 26 is increasing or has increased beyond a predetermined set point, this can be an indication that the blade 22 has dulled sufficiently so that it should be replaced. a record of data indicating how sharp the blade is, can be kept in a data collection system, and computer memory 40, allowing for prediction of the rate the blade will become dull, and the estimated time, or number of future cuts, when the blade will need to be replaced. this ability to monitor the blade enables some strategies for avoiding the problems of a dull blade, and the high expense of unscheduled down time required to change the blade. the cost of unscheduled downtime in modern industrial food plants can in some cases be measured in the hundreds of dollars per minute, but in all cases, most likely is high enough to put a high value on strategies and methods designed to avoid downtime. two examples of these strategies for this application include (1) avoiding excess wear on the blades by determining the rate the blade is becoming dull, and then switching to products that will require fewer cuts and less wear, or (2) using the method to monitor the wear on the blade, and changing the blade out during scheduled downtime, such as during breaks for workers. another indication of the blade 22 becoming dull is increased inaccuracy of the weight of the portions or other physical parameters of the portions. a dull cutting blade 22 can cause the workpiece 14 to move during the cutting of a portion. as a result, all of the subsequent cuts made in the same workpiece may be in the wrong location, and so the weights or other physical parameter of the portions may be inaccurate. thus, if the weights or other physical specifications of the portions are deviating significantly or are inaccurate, then the sharpness or dullness of the blade 22 should be investigated. it will be appreciated that the motor current and/or motor torque generated can also be an indication of whether blade 22 has been broken or otherwise damaged. the motor current usage and/or torque generated or broken blades can be stored in the computer 36. accordingly, if the motor current and/or torque generated matches stored values for broken or damaged blades, then that condition can be identified by the computer 36 and an alert be issued to personnel. alternatively, the system 10 can be designed so that slicing of the workpieces automatically stops if a broken or damaged blade is detected. in this regard, frozen product can cause the blade 22 to deflect. when it does, in some cases, the blade could hit a part of the machine that breaks or bends the blade. also, gel workpieces can "stiffen" when cut at high speeds, and thus can break cutting blades. this may also occur in meats. if a blade becomes twisted along its longitudinal axis or deformed or bent laterally relative to the length of the blade, such broken blades or bent blades can cause damage to parts of the portioning machine, and in particular the plastic conveyor belt. alarming personnel and/or the emergency stop of the blade would be very useful in preventing damage to the portioning machine and avoiding significant downtime to fix the damage. of course, in addition to monitoring the motor current and/or torque, cutting blade damage or failure can be ascertained by changes in the weight or other physical parameters of the portions 28. also, if the broken or damaged blade results in an incomplete cut between successive portions, then that situation is readily detectible by measuring the weights of the portions 26 or simply visually inspecting the portions. it will be appreciated that different cutting velocities can be tested, either during normal production or in a separate non-production or calibration mode so as to determine the force imposed on the blade 22 as a function of velocity of the blade passing through the workpiece. this information can be combined with other data, such as the dimensions of a cross-section of the workpiece from scanner 16, or the physical composition of the workpiece (for instance, for the meat workpieces, the amount of fat, gristle, etc., in the meat), thereby to develop parameters of the cutting mode of the blade 22 for specific physical specifications and conditions of the workpiece being processed. in some cases, temperature of the product, especially temperatures in the freezing latent zone, may be encountered, or even encouraged, and could significantly affect the force required, and quality of the cut. there are numerous possible blade path and speed profiles that can be utilized in controlling and optimizing the operation of system 10. for example, if the cuts made in the workpieces 14 are uniformly spaced, the speed of the blade 22 can be constant or nearly constant, for example, similar to the rotation of an airplane propeller, see figure 3a. as a variation, the speed of the blade can be varied (increased or decreased) to match the required timing of the cut, thereby to achieve a desired weight or other physical parameter for the cut portion 26. figure 3a plots the speed of the blade 22 about slightly more than the full 360-degree rotation of the blade. in this regard, the blade passes through the workpiece during approximately 30 degrees of the rotation of the blade during each revolution. in figure 3a, this corresponds to the rotation of blade 22 from zero degrees to 30 degrees, and then again from 360 degrees to 390 degrees. so, figure 3a (as well as figures 3b - 3e below) shows the speed of the blade through two cuts of the workpiece. a second approach is to stop the blade between each cut at a point roughly 180 degrees from the center of the workpiece cutting zone, see figure 3b. the blade rests at the stop point until it is necessary to move to the next cut, at which time the blade moves at a steady angular acceleration to the cutting zone and then travels through the cutting zone at a steady velocity and thereafter slows to a stop at the stop point via steady deceleration. it will be appreciated that the blade is stopped for only a few milliseconds, since the blade rotates at a speed of 20 to 30 revolutions per second. nonetheless, depending on the closeness of the cuts and the belt speed, the blade 22 may rest at the stop point for a very short time, or perhaps for a more extended time period. as a third rotational cut profile, shown in figure 3c, if there is sufficient time available between cuts and motor heating is a concern, the blade can overshoot the normal stop point and then be retracted to a position before the stop point before the next cut is made. this allows for a more gradual acceleration of the blade to the cut zone. then, after the blade passes the cut zone, it decelerates more gradually, perhaps overshooting the normal stop point, and then again slowly moving back to a position prior to the normal stop point. this mode of operation helps reduce heating of the motor windings by reducing the required acceleration of the blade 22. as a fourth potential rotational profile, it may be desirable to have a slower cutting speed, but with a shorter time period between successive cuts. in this rotational speed profile, the blade slows down just before entering the workpiece to be sliced and then speeds up after exiting the workpiece, see figure 3d. in all of the above-described blade speed profiles, the blade speed through the workpiece may be at a constant speed, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. in this regard, allowing the blade to still be accelerating as it enters the workpiece and then allowing the blade to decelerate as it is leaving the workpiece can provide more flexibility to the blade speed profile approaches described above, see figure 3e. monitoring of motor current and/or motor torque was described above for determining the blade cutting force, which can be an indication of whether the speed of the blade is optimized to the physical parameters or characteristics of the workpieces 14 as well as the condition of the blade 22, including the sharpness or the dullness of the blade and whether the blade has broken or otherwise become damaged. other motor parameters may be measured or monitored in lieu of the motor current or motor torque. such other parameters may include, for example, motor following error, which is the extent to or the accuracy with respect to which the motor speed achieves the desired cutting paths and velocity profiles for the blade discussed above. the position and speed of the blade can be readily monitored through the motor drive servo system and errors or irregularities therein can serve as feedback as to the operation of system 10 and the physical parameters, cut quality, and quantity (throughput) of the portions 28. the motor following error, as with motor current or torque, can also provide an indication of the condition of the cutting blade, whether it has become dull, broken or otherwise damaged. as the condition of the cutting blade changes, for example, as the cutting blade becomes less sharp, the blade path and speed profiles can be altered to compensate for the condition of the blade. for example, as the blade dulls, it may be desirable to reduce the speed of the blade as it passes through the workpiece. as a consequence, the speed of the blade, when not passing through the workpiece, may have to be increased. this blade speed profile may be similar to that shown in figure 3d above. also, it may be desirable for the blade to be accelerating when it enters the workpiece as opposed to traveling through the workpiece at a constant speed. in this regard, see figure 3e above. if the system 10 senses that the motor 26 is overheating with the number of cuts being made, a change may be made to cut products that require fewer cuts. another option is to alternate between products requiring more or fewer cuts, in order to prevent the motor from overheating. the desired speed profile of blade 22 can be calibrated including selection of the blade path by performing a calibration procedure for the cutting blade. during such calibration procedure or mode, the blade 22 can be operated at various speeds with the geometry and other specifications of the workpiece stored in computer 36 along with the speed profile of the cutting blade through the workpiece. the motor current profile can be monitored as well as other system parameters, including whether the specified physical parameters of the cut portions (for example, weight) have been achieved, and the quality of the cuts made on the portions. as noted above, some of the geometry data for the workpiece can include its width, thickness, and/or height profile. if the workpiece is meat, additional data can include the type of meat, the extent of marbling or fat, the temperature of the meat, etc. another consideration is the throughput level achievable at different blade motion and speed profiles. by the foregoing testing, a blade cutting path can be selected and the blade speed along the rotational blade path determined along with the conveyor belt speed needed to achieve the desired throughput of the workpieces. moreover, even during the operational mode of the system 10, occasionally the blade speed can be altered to investigate the resulting system parameters, thereby to determine whether or not the belt speed and cutting profile should be changed to reflect changes that have occurred in the physical parameters of the workpiece, the dulling of the cutting blade, or other factors. the decision process in determining optimized parameters for cutting workpieces with a blade cutter can be thought of in terms of directly-controlled parameters (and specifications) and indirectly-controlled parameters (and specifications). for example, in algebra, y is said to be a function of x. in other words, y = f(x). the directly-controlled parameters (specifications) are the independent variables such as "x." the indirectly- controlled parameters (specifications) are the dependent variables, such as "y," and result from the input of the directly-controlled parameters (specifications). in the context of the present disclosure, directly-controlled parameters (specifications) represent parameters used to slice the workpiece. having made cuts (or simulated the cuts) of the workpiece, the resulting portions have properties that constitute the indirectly-controlled parameters along with the throughput of the workpieces and the heat generated in the motor used to power the cutting blade. in accordance with the present disclosure, it is possible to consider the effect of meeting (or controlling) user-specified directly-controlled parameters (specifications) and other parameters (or specifications) that are not directly controlled, prior to portioning or cutting. specifically, the present disclosure offers methods that may be used when cutting a workpiece, and it is desired that the resulting portions have particular characteristics not directly controlled by cutting or that a desired throughput is achieved or that a desired operating condition of the cutting motor is achieved. examples of directly-controlled parameters and specifications include: 1. the cutting blade path selected; 2. blade speed throughout the rotational path of the cutting blade; 3. physical parameter(s) of the cut portions, include weight, thickness, etc.; 4. conveyor belt speed; 5. cutting blade type or shape. examples of indirectly-controlled parameters and specifications include the following: 1. physical parameters of portions; 2. accuracy of the physical parameters of the portions achieved; 3. the quality of the cuts made in the portions; 4. the cutting force profile of the cutting blade as the workpiece is being cut; 5. the motor heat generated; 6. the throughput of the workpieces achieved. it is to be understood that some of these examples of indirectly-controlled parameters can also be utilized as directly-controlled parameters, such as the physical parameters of the portions. figure 4 is a flowchart illustrating a general process of evaluating what effects portioning a workpiece 14 according to certain directly-controlled parameters/specifications will have on the cut portion specifications which are not directly controlled by the portioning process to ensure that the final pieces will have desired physical specifications as well as seeking to minimize motor heating and maximize throughput. in step 90, the user requests to portion workpieces by directly controlling certain parameters, for example, using a specific cutting blade path and controlling the speed of the cutting blade throughout the select path. further, the user requests that workpieces cut to the selected specification(s) result in desired indirectly- controlled characteristics, for example, the weight or thickness of the portions and the quality of the cuts made on the resulting portions. other directly-controlled parameters and specifications may include physical specifications of the cut portions, the speed of the conveyor belt, as well as the type of cutting blade used. these directly-controlled characteristics, as well as those noted above, will have a bearing on several possible indirectly-controlled parameters and specifications, including the accuracy of the physical parameters of the portions cut from the workpieces, the quality of the cuts made in the portions, the cutting force required to cut the workpieces into desired portions, the level of motor heat generated, and the throughput of the workpieces achieved. thereafter, for each scanned workpiece (block 92), in block 94, portioning the workpiece according to one or more directly-controlled specification(s) (dsi, ds 2 ... or ds n ) is simulated, and resulting indirectly-controlled specification(s) is calculated. for example, cutting according to the specification dsi (e.g., blade speed) is simulated and the indirectly-controlled specification isi (e.g., throughput) resulting from the cutting to the specification dsi is calculated. if an acceptable value or level of isi (throughput) results, then portioning of the workpiece will commence. of course, rather than simulating portioning based on a singular directly- controlled parameter specification, simulation may be carried out using several of the possible directly-controlled parameters and several resulting indirectly-controlled parameters may be calculated. if an acceptable combination of directly-controlled parameters of dsi, ds 2 ...or ds n and indirectly-controlled parameters of isi, is 2 ... or is n is found, then portioning can be carried out in accordance with the selected directly- controlled parameters. further, one or more of the directly-controlled parameters dsi, ds 2 ... or ds n can be varied until an acceptable combination of indirectly-controlled parameters isi, is 2 ... or is n results. it is possible to continue the simulation and calculation process with different directly-controlled parameters until an acceptable combination of indirectly-controlled parameters is achieved. alternatively, a value function (or its negative/opposite, or cost function) may be used to rank multiple alternative solutions. according to this methodology, portioning to multiple specification requirements (dsi, ds 2 ... or ds n in this example) is simulated, and the resulting indirectly-controlled specification(s) (isi, is 2 ...isn), for example, accuracy of portion weight, level of motor heat generated, etc., is calculated for each simulation and compared to the acceptable indirectly-controlled specification(s) (isi, is 2 ... or is n ). if multiple acceptable combinations of directly-controlled parameters exist, a suitable value function is used to select the most preferable combination. after the acceptable optimal combinations of dsi, ds 2 ...or ds n and isi, is 2 ... or is n is found, then, proceeding to step 96 as shown in figure 4, the portioning system 10 is used to perform actual cuts of the workpiece in accordance with the selected combination of directly-controlled and indirectly-controlled specifications. as a further aspect of the present disclosure, each of the characteristics, i.e., parameters/specifications, both direct and indirect, can potentially have an acceptable range rather than just a single acceptable value. it is possible to define a "cost" function that has a value of 0 (zero) at the center of each range of each specification with an increasing "cost" as the simulated values of the parameters deviate from the center of the specification range. further, a weighting factor can be applied to the "cost" from each of the parameters. finally, the "weighted" costs are combined, such as by addition, to give a "total cost." thus, for each combination of the directly-controlled characteristics and resulting indirectly-controlled characteristics, there is a single "total cost" amount associated with the simulated cutting/portioning result. it is to be understood that the term "cost" as used herein refers to the negative or opposite to the word "value" discussed above. these terms are related in the sense that with respect to a particular specification, an increase in the "cost" corresponds to a decrease in the "value." the cost function definition could take almost any form, including one-sided definitions, where the characteristic can never be above or below a threshold, and the target (0 cost) value is something other than the middle of the range. an example of this exists from packaged grocery goods where it is legally required that a container not contain less than the labeled amount or quantity. however, it is clearly in the interest of the product producer to be as close as possible to the labeled amount or quantity. examples of three cost functions that can be used include: 1 . the cost increases with deviation from the range midpoint, and continues increasing for parameter values beyond the range, 2. the cost increases from a deviation from the range midpoint, with "hard" limits (for example, large step function cost increase) at the range limits; 3. there is no cost associated with values within the range, with "hard" limits at the range limits. the "total cost" number is used with a multi-dimensional optimization technique, such as the "gradient descent" minimization algorithm, to find an optimal choice of directly-controlled parameters/specifications. within a limited number of steps or iterations, it is possible to find the optimal solution without having to consider all of the perhaps thousands of potential combinations of directly-controlled parameter values. examples of non-linear algorithms similar to gradient descent include the gauss-newton method, the bfgs method, and the levenb erg-mar quardt method. other algorithms or analysis methods that may be utilized in this regard include, for example nelder-mead method, differential evolutions methods, genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, as well as binary digital methods. of course, in the range of interest, linear algorithms and analysis techniques can be used to arrive at an optimum choice of directly-controlled parameters. it is to be understood that in the above description of identifying optimum directly-controlled and/or indirectly-controlled parameters and specifications, a cost function analysis can be utilized. however, it is also to be understood that the negative or opposite concept of a value function could be employed instead. in this case, a multi- dimensional maximization technique or algorithm would be applied to arrive at optimal directly- and/or indirectly-controlled parameters/specifications. figure 5 is a flow chart illustrating one example of a process or method for determining how to cut a workpiece according to one or more directly-controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) to achieve desired one or more indirectly- controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) of the resulting portioned piece. in step 100, a user requests to cut the workpieces by directly controlling certain characteristics (parameters or specifications) dci, dc 2 ...dc n , for example, cutter blade path, cutter blade speed throughout the rotational path of the cutter blade, and/or conveyor speed. in the process, in step 102, the user inputs one or more directly-controlled characteristics dci, dc 2 , . . . dc n . next at step 104, the user inputs one or more resulting indirectly-controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) to be met by the portions that meet the characteristic requirements of dci, dc 2 , . . . and/or dc n . next at step 106, the user inputs acceptable ranges of values for the directly- controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) dci, dc 2 , . . . and/or dc n . this can be performed using a graphical user interface, for example, interface 38 shown in figure 1. this example varies from the example described above in that in the present example, specification ranges are specified by the parameter being utilized. nonetheless, it is to be understood that a specific value can be specified for one or more of the parameters being utilized. next at step 108, acceptable values or ranges for the one or more indirectly- controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) are inputted. next at step 110, cost functions can be assigned to one or more of the directly- controlled and/or indirectly-controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications). as discussed above, the cost function can have a value of zero at the center of the range of each specification, with an increasing cost as the simulated value of the parameter in question deviates from the center of the specification range. also, as discussed above, the cost function definition can take many other forms, including one-sided "definitions" where parameters can never be above or below a threshold value, and the target (zero cost) value is other than at the middle of a range. next at step 112, a weighting factor can be assigned to one or more of the costs of a parameter, thereby to establish that some cost factors are more important or less important than other cost factors. then for the scanned workpiece (block 114), in block 116, simulating the cutting of the workpiece occurs according to the one or more directly-controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) (dci, dc 2 , . . . and/or dc n ), and the resulting indirectly- controlled characteristics (parameters or specifications) are calculated or determined using computer 36. for example, cutting according to characteristic dci is simulated and the indirectly-controlled parameter (e.g., weight, throughput) resulting from the cutting to the characteristic dci is calculated. this may be carried out by seeking to minimize the "total cost" of the resulting portion using a multi-dimensional minimization technique. in this manner, a minimum cost or an acceptable cost can be achieved, typically after a discrete number of calculation iterations. this eliminates the need to perform calculations for every possible acceptable directly-controlled characteristic(s) dci, dc 2 , . . . and/or dc n . after an acceptable and/or optimal combination of directly-controlled parameters and specifications and/or indirectly-controlled parameters and specifications is arrived at, then, at step 118, the portioning system is used to perform cutting according to the selected combination for the directly-controlled and indirectly-controlled parameter(s)/specification(s). while illustrative embodiments have been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. in this regard, although the present disclosure has mentioned specific food items, the methods and systems of the present disclosure are not limited to the specific food items mentioned, but can be used to portion other types of food items, including, for instance, fruits and vegetables, and other types of meat, poultry, or fish. further, the present disclosure is applicable to non-food workpieces of numerous types. further, a programmable logic controller could be used in place of computer 36 and its attendant components. as a further alternative, rather than employing a computer 36 specifically for the portioning system 10, the portioning system can be connected to a network computing system employed to control other operations in addition to portioning system 10, for example, cooking systems, freezing systems, packaging systems, etc. in addition, although blade 22 is illustrated in figure 1 as being in a straight profile, the blade instead could be formed in other profiles, such as curved. a curved blade would allow the cutting edge of the blade to both slide along the workpiece as well as penetrate into the workpiece. this could assist in performing the cutting of various types of workpieces. also, the cutting device 24 can be of types other than the cutting device 24 illustrated and described above. for example, the cutting device may be a motor-driven circular saw, a radial saw, a band saw, a hacksaw, a reciprocating saw, a stryker® saw, etc. all of these cutting devices are motor-driven, wherein the operational parameters of the motor may be an important factor in optimizing the cutting speed of the cutting device. these alternative cutting devices can have cutting edges of various profiles or configurations, including a tooth cutting edge.
136-992-679-917-700	JP	[ "US" ]	C07C211/54,C07C217/92,G03G5/06	1997-07-24T00:00:00	1997	[ "C07", "G03" ]	stilbene derivative and method for producing the same	the present invention provides a novel stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (1): ##str1## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when the substitution position of r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 is the 4-(para) position, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are hydrogen atoms, a method for producing the same and use thereof. the above stilbene derivative (1) is useful as an electric charge transferring material, particularly hole transferring material.	1. a stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (1): ##str71## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that (1) when the substitution position of r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 is the 4 (para)-position, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are hydrogen atoms, and (2) when both of r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are methyl groups, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted. 2. the stilbene derivative according to claim 1, wherein r.sup.3 and r.sup.1 in the general formula (1) are the same groups and r.sup.4 and r.sup.2 are the same groups. 3. the stilbene derivative according to claim 1, wherein the compound represented by the general formula (1) is a compound represented by the following general formula (1)-1: ##str72## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when the substitution position of r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 is the 4-(para) position, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are hydrogen atoms. 4. the stilbene derivative according to claim 1, wherein the compound represented by the general formula (1) is a compound represented by the following general formula (1)-2: ##str73## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when (1) the substitution position of r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 is the 4 (para)-position, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are hydrogen atoms , and (2) when both of r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are methyl groups, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted. 5. a stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (1): ##str74## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, an aryl group selected from the group consisting of phenyl, naphtyl, anthoryl and penanthoryl, an aralkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted. 6. the stilbene derivative according to claim 5, wherein the compound represented by the general formula (1) is a compound represented by the general formula (1)-1 ##str75## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, an aryl group selected from the group consisting of phenyl naphtyl, anthoryl and phenanthoryl, an aralkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted. 7. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 8. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 3-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 3-position. 9. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 5-position. 10. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is an ethyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is an ethyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 11. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is an ethyl group, r.sup.2 is an ethyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is an ethyl group and r.sup.4 is an ethyl group at the 6-position. 12. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a isopropyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is an isopropyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 13. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a tert-butyl group, r.sup.2 is a tert-butyl group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a tert-butyl group and r.sup.4 is a tert-butyl group at the 5-position. 14. the stilbene derivative according to claim 6, wherein r.sup.1 is a methoxy group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is a methoxy group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 15. the stilbene derivative according to claim 5, wherein the compound represented by the general formula (1) is a compound represented by the general formula (1)-2: ##str76## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, an aryl group selected from the group consisting of phenyl, naphtyl, anthoryl and phenanthoryl, and aralkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms or an alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, the groups of which are optionally substituted. 16. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 17. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 3-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 3-position. 18. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 5-position. 19. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is an ethyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is an ethyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 20. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is an ethyl group, r.sup.2 is a ethyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is a ethyl group and r.sup.4 is a ethyl group at the 6-position. 21. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is an isopropyl group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is an isopropyl group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 22. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a tert-butyl group, r.sup.2 is a tert-butyl group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a tert-butyl group and r.sup.4 is a tert-butyl group at the 5-position. 23. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methoxy group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 6-position, r.sup.3 is a methoxy group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 6-position. 24. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methoxy group, r.sup.2 is a methyl group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a methoxy group and r.sup.4 is a methyl group at the 5-position. 25. the stilbene derivative according to claim 15, wherein r.sup.1 is a methyl group, r.sup.2 is a methoxy group at the 5-position, r.sup.3 is a methyl group and r.sup.4 is a methoxy group at the 5-position. 26. the stilbene derivative according to claim 5, wherein r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are substituted in the 3-, 5-, or 6-position. 27. a method for producing a stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (1): ##str77## wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when the substitution position of r.sup.2 and are the same groups, which comprises reacting a formulated triphenylamine derivative represented by the general formula (2): ##str78## (wherein r.sup.1 represents an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when the substitution position of r.sup.2 is the 4(para) position, r.sup.2 is a hydrogen atom) with a bisphosphate derivative represented by the general formula (3): ##str79## 28. the method for producing the stilbene derivative according to claim 5, the formulated triphenylamine derivative (2) is obtained by reacting an aniline derivative represented by the general formula (4): (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) with iodobenzene to obtain a triphenylamine derivative represented by the general formula (5): ##str80## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) and formylating this compound (5) by the vilsmeier method. 29. an electrophotosensitive material comprising a conductive substrate and a photosensitive layer provided on the conductive substrate, wherein said photosensitive layer contains a stilbene derivative of claim 1. 30. the electrophotosensitive material according to claim 29, wherein said photosensitive layer contains an electric charge generating material and electric charge transferring material in combination with said stilbene derivative.	background of the invention the present invention relates to a novel stilbene derivative which is suitably used as an electron charge transferring material (particularly hole transferring material) in a solar battery, an electroluminescence device, an electrophotosensitive material or the like, and a method for producing the same. in image forming devices, various photoconductors having a sensitivity at the wavelength range of a light source used in said devices have been used. the organic photoconductor has widely been used because of its advantages such as easy production in comparison with a conventional inorganic photoconductor, various selective photosensitive materials (e.g. electric charge transferring material, electric charge generating material, binding resin, etc.) and high functional design freedom. examples of the organic photoconductor include a single-layer type photoconductor wherein an electric charge transferring material and an electric charge generating material are dispersed in the same photosensitive layer, and a multi-layer type photoconductor comprising an electric charge generating layer containing an electric charge generating material and an electric charge transferring layer containing an electric charge transferring material, which are mutually laminated. as the electric charge transferring material used in the above photoconductor, a stilbene derivative is disclosed in japanese patent laid-open publication nos. 50-31773 and 7-244389. however, since the stilbene derivative disclosed in the above patent publications is normally inferior in compatibility with a binding resin and is not uniformly dispersed in the photosensitive layer, electric charges hardly move. therefore, although the above stilbene derivative itself has high electric charge mobility, when using this stilbene derivative as an electric charge transferring material, the characteristics can not be sufficiently exerted. accordingly, the residual potential of the photoconductor becomes higher and the photosensitivity was not sufficient. summary of the invention it is a main object of the present invention to solve the above technical problems, thereby to provide a novel stilbene derivative which is suitable as an electric charge transferring material of an electrophotosensitive material, and to provide a method for producing the same. it is another object of the present invention to provide an electrophotosensitive material whose sensitivity is improved in comparison with a conventional one. the present inventors have studied intensively in order to solve the above problems. as a result, the present inventors have found a new fact that, among stilbene derivatives, a compound whose diphenylamino groups at the molecular end is unsymmetrical, particularly a stilbene derivative represented by the following general formula (1), wherein one phenyl group in the above diphenylamino group has no substituent and the other phenyl group has a substituent at the 2- and 3-position, 2- and 5-position, 2- and 6-position or only at the 2-position, is superior in compatibility with a binding resin to a conventional stilbene derivative and has large electric charge mobility. thus, the present invention has been accomplished. general formula (1): ##str2## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted; and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group which are optionally substituted, provided that when the substitution position of r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 is the 4 (para)-position, r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are hydrogen atoms) the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1) is a compound, which is not specifically disclosed in japanese patent laid-open publication nos. 7-244389 and 50-31773, and has high compatibility with a binding resin in comparison with a compound disclosed in the above patent publications and has large electric charge mobility. therefore, a high-sensitivity electrophotosensitive material can be provided by using such a stilbene derivative (1) as an electric charge (hole) transferring material in the electrophotosensitive material. furthermore, the present inventors have intensively studied about the method of efficiently obtaining the following formyl compound (2) of triphenylamine: ##str3## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) as a starting material in the method of producing the above stilbene derivative (1). as a result, the present inventors have found that, when a triphenylamine derivative (5): ##str4## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) having a substituent at the 2-position of a phenyl group is formulated by the vilsmeier method, the above compound (2), wherein the phenyl group having a substituent among three phenyl groups of the compound (5) is not formulated and only non-substituted phenyl group of the compound (5) is formulated, can be efficiently produced, resulting in improvement of the productivity of the stilbene derivative (1). thus, the present invention has been accomplished. that is, the method of producing the stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention is characterized by reacting a formulated triphenylamine derivative represented by the general formula (2): ##str5## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) with a bisphosphate derivative represented by the general formula (3): ##str6## the above formylated triphenylamine derivative (2) used in the production method of the present invention is a compound obtained by reacting an aniline derivative represented by the general formula (4): ##str7## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) with iodobenzene to obtain a triphenylamine derivative represented by the general formula (5): ##str8## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above) and formulating this compound (5) by the vilsmeier method. when the above triphenylamine derivative (5) is formulated by the vilsmeier method, only the formyl compound (2) of triphenylamine as the raw material of the stilbene derivative (1) is produced in high yield. the reason is not sure. regarding the phenyl group having a substituent r.sup.1 at the ortho-position among three phenyl groups of the above compound (5), a bonding axis of a nitrogen atom and a phenyl group in the above compound (5) causes distortion by an influence of the substituent r.sup.1 and donation of electrons from the nitrogen atom is lowered, which results in deterioration of nucleophilicity of the phenyl group. as a result, the para-position of the phenyl group is not formulated and only the para-position of the other phenyl group is formulated. the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention is an electrophotosensitive material comprising a conductive substrate, and a photosensitive layer provided on the conductive substrate, characterized in that the photosensitive layer contains a stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1). since the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention contains the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1) in the photosensitive layer, the rate of transferring electric charges (holes) generated in the electric charge generating material is fast, that is, the electric charge mobility is large and the photosensitivity at the time of charging and exposure is excellent. as a result, according to the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention, high sensitivity can be obtained in comparison with the case where a conventional stilbene derivative is used as a hole transferring material. the photosensitive layer is preferably a single-layer type photosensitive layer containing an electric charge generating material and an electron transferring material, together with the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1). brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a graph illustrating a .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of a stilbene derivative (11-2) obtained in synthesis example 1. fig. 2 is a graph illustrating an infrared absorption spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-2). fig. 3 is a graph illustrating a .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of a stilbene derivative (11-6) obtained in synthesis example 2. fig. 4 is a graph illustrating an infrared absorption spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-6). fig. 5 is a graph illustrating a .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of a stilbene derivative (11-7) obtained in synthesis example 3. fig. 6 is a graph illustrating an infrared absorption spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-7). fig. 7 is a graph illustrating an infrared absorption spectrum of a stilbene derivative (12-3) obtained in synthesis example 4. fig. 8 is a graph illustrating an infrared absorption spectrum of a stilbene derivative (12-5) obtained in synthesis example 5. detailed description of the invention firstly, stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention will be described in detail hereinafter. in the above general formula (1), examples of the alkyl group corresponding to r.sup.1, r.sup.2, r.sup.3 and r.sup.4 include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms such as methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl, isobutyl, s-butyl, t-butyl, pentyl, isopentyl, neopentyl, hexyl and the like, among which those having 1 to 4 carbon atoms such as methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl, isobutyl, s-butyl, t-butyl and the like are particularly preferred. further, the alkyl group corresponding to r.sup.1, r.sup.2, r.sup.3 and r.sup.4 optionally have a substituent such as hydroxyalkyl group, alkoxyalkyl group, alkylaminoalkyl group, dialkylaminoalkyl group, halogenated alkyl group, alkoxycarbonylalkyl group, carboxyalkyl group, alkanoyloxyalkyl group, aminoalkyl group and the like. especially, in the stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention, the alkyl groups which have substituents of electron donating groups such as alkoxy group, alkylamino group, dialkylamino group, amino group and the like are preferred in view of improving the hole transferring capability. examples of the hydroxyalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as hydroxymethyl, 2-hydroxyethyl, 1,1-dimethyl-2-hydroxyethyl, 3-hydroxypropyl, 4-hydroxybutyl, 2-hydroxybutyl, 1-hydroxypentyl, 6-hydroxyhexyl and the like. examples of the alkoxyalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in both the alkyl moiety and the alkoxy moiety such as methoxymethyl, methoxyethyl, methoxybutyl, ethoxyhexyl, ethoxymethyl, butoxyethyl, t-butoxyhexyl, hexyloxymethyl and the like. examples of the alkylaminoalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as methylaminomethyl, ethylaminomethyl, hexylaminomethyl, ethylaminoethyl, hexylaminoethyl, methylaminopropyl, butylaminopropyl, methylaminobutyl, ethylaminobutyl, hexylaminobutyl, methylaminohexyl, ethylaminohexyl, butylaminohexyl, hexylaminohexyl and the like. examples of the dialkylaminoalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as dimethylaminomethyl, diethytlaminomethyl, dihexylaminomethyl, diethylaminoethyl, dihexylaminoethyl, dimethylaminopropyl, dibutylaminopropyl, dimethylaminobutyl, diethylaminobutyl, dihexylaminobutyl, dimethylaminohexyl, diethylaminohexyl, dibutylaminohexyl, dihexylaminohexyl and the like. examples of the alkoxycarbonylalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in both the alkyl moiety and alkoxy moiety such as methoxycarbonylmethyl, methoxycarbonylethyl, methoxycarbonylhexyl, ethoxycarbonylmethyl, ethoxycarbonylethyl, propoxycarbonylmethyl, isopropoxycarbonylmethyl, buthoxycarbonylmethyl, pentyloxycarbonylmethyl, hexycarbonylmethyl, hexylcarbonylbutyl, hexylcarbylhexyl and the like. examples of carboxyalkyl group include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as carboxymethyl, carboxyethyl, carboxybutyl, carboxyhexyl, 1-methyl-2-carboxyethyl and the like. examples of the halogenated alkyl group include alkyl groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms which are substituted by 1 to 3 halogen atoms such as monochlormethyl, monobromomethyl, monoiodomethyl, monofluoromethyl, dichlormethyl, dibromomethyl, diiodomethyl, difluoromethyl, trichlormehyl, tribromomethyl, triiodomethyl, trifluoromethyl, monochlorethyl, monobromoethyl, monoiodoethyl, monofluoroethyl, dibromobutyl, diiodobutyl, difluorobutyl, chlorhexyl, bromohexyl, iodohexyl, fluorohexyl. examples of alkanoyloxyalkyl group include alkanoyloxy groups having 2 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkanoyl moiety and 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as acetoxymethyl, 2-acetoxyethyl, propionyloxymethyl, 1 -hexanoyloxy-2-methylpentyl and the like. examples of aminoalkyl group include aminoalkyl groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as aminomethyl, aminoethyl, aminopropyl, aminobutyl, aminohexyl and the like. examples of alkoxy group corresponding to r.sup.1, r.sup.2, r.sup.3 and r.sup.4 include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms such as methoxy, ethoxy, propoxy, isopropoxy, butoxy, t-butoxyl, pentyloxyl, hexyloxy and the like. further, these alkoxy groups are optionally substituted by halogen atom, amino group, hydroxyl group, carboxyl group, alkanoyloxy group and the like, as mentioned above as a substituent for alkyl group. examples of aryl group corresponding to r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 include groups such as phenyl, naphtyl, anthoryl, phenanthoryl and the like. examples of aralkyl group corresponding to r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 include those having 1 to 6 carbon atoms in the alkyl moiety such as benzyl1-phenylethyl, 3-phenylpropyl, 4-phenylbutyl, 5-phenylpentyl, 6-phenylhexyl and the like. the aryl group and aralkyl group optionally have substituents, examples of which include halogen atom, amino group, hydroxyl group, carboxyl group which are optionally esterified, ciano group and the like in addition to the above-mentioned alkyl groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms and alkoxy groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms. further, substitution positions of these substituents are not necessarily specified. the stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention includes the following general formulas (11) to (13) according to a difference in substitution position on a center benzene ring. among them, a stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (11) or (12) is particularly preferred. ##str9## (wherein r.sup.1 to r.sup.4 are as defined above). as the specific examples of the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1), substituents corresponding to r.sup.1 to r.sup.4 are shown in the following tables 1 to 2. in tables 1 to 2, those represented by a series of the compound numbers (11-1, 11-2, 11-3, . . . ) are stilbene derivatives included in the general formula (11) whereas those represented by a series of the compound numbers (12-1, 12-2, 12-3, . . . ) are stilbene derivatives included in the general formula (12). in tables 1 to 2, h represents a hydrogen atom, me represents a methyl group, et represents an ethyl group, i-pr represents an isopropyl group, t-bu represents a tert-butyl group, meo represents a methoxy group, eto represents an ethoxy group, ph represents a phenyl group, and bzl represents a benzyl group. table 1 ______________________________________ compound numbers r.sup.1 r.sup.2 r.sup.3 r.sup.4 ______________________________________ 11-1 me h me h 11-2 me 6-me me 6-me 11-3 me 3-me me 3-me 11-4 me 5-me me 5-me 11-5 et h et h 11-6 et 6-me et 6-me 11-7 et 6-et et 6-et 11-8 i-pr h i-pr h 11-9 i-pr 6-me i-pr 6-me 11-10 t-bu h t-bu h 11-11 t-bu 5-t-bu t-bu 5-t-bu 11-12 ph h ph h 11-13 bzl h bzl h 11-14 meo h meo h 11-15 eto h eto h 11-16 meo me meo me ______________________________________ table 2 ______________________________________ compound numbers r.sup.1 r.sup.2 r.sup.3 r.sup.4 ______________________________________ 12-1 me h me h 12-2 me 6-me me 6-me 12-3 me 3-me me 3-me 12-4 me 5-me me 5-me 12-5 et h et h 12-6 et 6-me et 6-me 12-7 et 6-et et 6-et 12-8 i-pr h i-pr h 12-9 i-pr 6-me i-pr 6-me 12-10 t-bu h t-bu h 12-11 t-bu 5-t-bu t-bu 5-t-bu 12-12 ph h ph h 12-13 bzl h bzl h 12-14 meo h meo h 12-15 eto h eto h 12-16 meo 6-me meo 6-me 12-17 meo 5-me meo 5-me 12-18 me 5-meo me 5-meo ______________________________________ the method of synthesizing the stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention will be described by way of the case where r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 are the same groups and r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are the same groups as the example. reaction scheme (i): ##str10## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above). according to this reaction, a stilbene derivative represented by the general formula (1-a) of the present invention is obtained by reacting a formyl compound of triphenylamine, which is represented by the general formula (2), with a bisphosphate derivative (3) in a suitable anhydrous solvent in the presence of a base. the solvent used in the above reaction may be any one which does not exert an influence on the reaction, and examples thereof include ethers such as diethyl ether, tetrahydrofuran, dioxane and the like; halogenated hydrocarbons such as methylene chloride, chloroform, dichloroethane and the like; and aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene and the like. examples of the above base include sodium alkoxide such as sodium methoxide and metal hydride such as sodium hydride. the amount of the base is at least from 2 to 4 times, and preferably from 2 to 2.5 times in a molar ratio, per mol of the bisphosphate derivative (3). the amount of the compound (2) is from 1.8 to 2.5 times, and preferably from 1.95 to 2.05 times in a molar ratio, per mol of the bisphosphate derivative (3). the reaction is normally performed at -10 to 25.degree. c., and is completed within the range from about 3 to 12 hours. reaction scheme (ii): ##str11## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above). according to this reaction, a formyl compound (2) of triphenylamine as a starting material of the above reaction scheme (1-a) is obtained by adding an aniline derivative (4) and iodobenzene (90) in nitrobenzene to cause a reaction between them together with a catalyst such as anhydrous potassium carbonate, copper or the like to obtain a triphenylamine derivative (5) and then formylating this triphenylamine derivative (5) by the vilsmeier method. the ratio of the above aniline derivative (4) to iodobenzene (90) to be used is from 1:1.7 to 1:3, and preferably from 1:1.8 to 1:2.2, in a molar ratio. the reaction is normally performed at 160 to 220.degree. c., and is completed within the range from about 4 to 30 hours. a reagent (vilsmeier reagent) used in the above vilsmeier method is prepared by a combination of (i) a halogenating agent such as phosphorous oxychloride, phosgene, oxalyl chloride, thionyl chloride, triphenylphosphine-bromine, hexachlorotriphosphazatriene or the like with (ii) n,n-dimethylformamide (dmf), n-methylformanilide (mfa), n-formylmorpholine, n,n-diisopropylformamide or the like. in the present invention, a combination of phosphorous oxychloride with dmf which can also be used as the solvent, is employed particularly preferably. in the preparation of the above vilsmeier reagent, the ratio of the above (i) to (ii) to be used is normally from 1:1 to 1:2, and preferably from 1:1 to 1:1.2. the amount of the above vilsmeier reagent is from 0.9 to 2 times, and preferably from 1 to 1.1 times in a molar ratio, per mol of the triphenylamine derivative (5). the formylation of the above compound (5) is normally performed at 40 to 80.degree. c. and is completed within the range from about 2 to 5 hours. in the stilbene derivative (1) according to the present invention, the stilbene derivative having a substituted alkyl group for r.sup.1 and/or r.sup.2, for example r.sup.1 is a hydroxy alkyl group, may be synthesized by (1) a method of using an aniline derivative having a hydroxy alkyl group as a starting compound or (2) a method wherein the stilbene derivative having an alkyl group for r.sup.1 is synthesized and then said alkyl group is converted to a hydroxalkyl group by conventional means, for example, oxidation. reaction scheme (iii): ##str12## according to this reaction, a bisphosphate derivative (3) as a starting material of the above reaction scheme (1-a) is obtained by reacting .alpha.,.alpha.'-dichloroxylene (91) with a phosphorous acid or in a soithout using a solvent or in a solvent. the reaction is promoted when tertiary amine is added to remove a halogenated alkyl from the reaction system. the solvent used in the above reaction may be any one which does not exert an influence on the reaction, and examples thereof include ethers such as diethyl ether, tetrahydrofuran, dioxane and the like; halogenated hydrocarbons such as methylene chloride, chloroform, dichloroethane and the like; aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene and the like; and dimethylformamide. examples of the above tertiary amine include triethylamine, tributylamine, pyridine, 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine and the like. the amount of the phosphorous acid triester is at least 2 times, and preferably from 2 to 2.4 times in a molar ratio, per mol of .alpha., .alpha.'-dichloroxylene (91). the reaction is normally performed at 80 to 150.degree. c. and is completed within the range from about 1 to 4 hours. among the stilbene derivative (1), a compound wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.3 or r.sup.2 and r.sup.4 are different groups is synthesized by reacting a monophosphate derivative in place of the above bisphosphate derivative (3) with formyl compounds (2) and (2') of triphenylamine, which have different groups, in order. specifically, as shown in the following scheme (iv), methylbenzyl chloride (92) is first reacted with a phosphorous acid triester to obtain a monophosphate (93). then, this monophosphate (93) is reacted with the above formyl compound (2) of triphenylamine to obtain a monostilbene derivative (94), which is chlorinated to obtain a compound (95). reaction scheme (iv): ##str13## (wherein r.sup.1 and r.sup.2 are as defined above). then, as shown in the following reaction scheme (v), a stilbene derivative (1-b) is obtained by reacting the above compound (95) with a phosphorous acid triester to obtain a compound (96) and reacting the compound with a formyl compound (2') of triphenylamine. reaction scheme (v): ##str14## (wherein r.sup.1 to r.sup.4 are as defined above). the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1) can be suitably used as a hole transferring material in the electrophotosensitive material and can also be used in various fields such as solar battery, electroluminescence device and the like because of large electric charge mobility, that is, because of high hole transferring capability as described above. the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention will be described hereinafter. the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention is obtained by providing a photosensitive layer containing the stilbene derivative represented by the above general formula (1) on a conductive substrate. the electrophotosensitive material may be a single-layer type or a multi-layer type as described above, but the present invention can be applied to both of them. the single-layer type electrophotosensitive material is that obtained by providing a single photosensitive layer on a conductive substrate. this photosensitive layer is formed by dissolving or dispersing a stilbene derivative (hole transferring material) represented by the general formula (1), an electric charge generating material, a binding resin and, if necessary, an electron transferring material in a suitable solvent, applying the resulting coating solution on a conductive substrate and drying the coating solution. such a single-layer type photosensitive material can be applied to both positive charging and negative charging type in a single construction, and the productivity is excellent because of simple layer construction. regarding the single-layer type electrophotosensitive material of the present invention, the residual potential of the photosensitive material is considerably lowered and the sensitivity is improved in comparison with a conventional single-layer type electrophotosensitive material. on the other hand, the multi-layer type electrophotosensitive material is obtained by first providing an electric charge generating layer containing an electric charge generating material on a conductive substrate using a means such as vapor deposition, application or the like, applying a coating solution containing at least one stilbene derivative (hole transferring material) represented by the general formula (1) and a binding resin on this electric charge generating layer, and drying the coating solution to form an electric charge transferring layer. to the contrary, the electric charge transferring layer may be formed on the conductive substrate and the electric charge generating layer may be formed thereon. since the electric charge generating layer has a considerably small film thickness in comparison with the electric charge transferring layer, it is preferred that the electric charge generating layer is formed on the conductive substrate and the electric charge transferring layer is formed thereon in order to protect the electric charge generating layer. the charging type (positive or negative) of the electrophotosensitive material is selected according to the order of formation of the above electric charge generating layer and electric charge transferring layer and the kind of the electric charge transferring material used in the electric charge transferring layer. for example, in a case where the electric charge generating layer is formed on the conductive substrate and the electric charge transferring layer is formed thereon, as described above and the hole transferring material such as stilbene derivative (1) of the present invention is used as the electric charge transferring material in the electric charge transferring layer, the resulting photosensitive material becomes a negative charging type. regarding the multi-layer type electrophotosensitive material of the present invention, the residual potential of the photosensitive material is considerably lowered and the sensitivity is improved in comparison with the multi-layer type electrophotosensitive material using a conventional stilbene derivative as the hole transferring material. as described above, the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention can be applied to both of the single-layer type and multi-layer type. the single-layer type is preferred because of the following reason. that is, the single-layer type can be used in both (negative and positive) charging types and can be easily produced because of its simple structure. furthermore, film failures can be inhibited at the time of formation of the film and the optical characteristics can be improved because of small interlaminar surface. materials to be used in the present elelctrophotosensitive are hereinafter explained. <electric charge generating material> examples of the electric charge generating material used in the present invention include compounds represented by the following general formulas (cg1) to (cg12). ##str15## (wherein r.sup.g1 and r.sup.g2 are the same or different and represent a substituted or non-substituted alkyl group having 18 or less carbon atoms, a cycloalkyl group, an aryl group, an alkanoyl group or an aralkyl group) (cg4) bisazo pigment cp.sup.1 --n.dbd.n--q--n.dbd.n--cp.sup.2 (cg 4) [wherein cp.sup.1 and cp.sup.2 are the same or different and represent a coupler residue; and q represents groups represented by the following formulas: ##str16## (wherein r.sup.g3 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an aryl group or a heterocyclic group, and the alkyl group, aryl group or heterocyclic group may have a substituent; and .omega. represents 0 or 1), ##str17## (wherein r.sup.g4 and r.sup.g5 are the same or different and represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1 to 5 carbon atoms, a halogen atom, an alkoxy group, an aryl group or an aralkyl group), ##str18## (wherein r.sup.g6 represents a hydrogen atom, an ethyl group, a chloroethyl group or a hydroxyethyl group), ##str19## (wherein r.sup.g7, r.sup.g8 and r.sup.g9 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1 to 5 carbon atoms, a halogen atom, an alkoxy group, an aryl group or an aralkyl group)] ##str20## (wherein r.sup.g10 and r.sup.g11 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group or a halogen atom; and r.sup.g12 and r.sup.g13 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group) ##str21## (wherein r.sup.g14, r.sup.g15, r.sup.g16 and r.sup.g17 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkoxy group or a halogen atom) ##str22## (wherein r.sup.g18, r.sup.g19, r.sup.g20 and r.sup.g21 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group or a halogen atom; and m represents ti or v) ##str23## (wherein r.sup.g22 and r.sup.g23 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group or a halogen atom) ##str24## (wherein cp.sup.3, cp.sup.4 and cp.sup.5 are the same or different and represent a coupler residue) ##str25## (wherein r.sup.g24 and r.sup.g25 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group; and z is an oxygen atom or a sulfur atom) ##str26## (wherein r.sup.g26 and r.sup.g27 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group) ##str27## (wherein r.sup.g28 and r.sup.g29 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group or a halogen atom; and r.sup.g30 and r.sup.g31 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group) in the above electric charge generating material, examples of the alkyl group include groups having 5 to 6 carbon atoms such as n-pentyl, n-hexyl and the like, in addition to the same groups as those described above. examples of the substituted or non-substituted alkyl group having 18 or less carbon atoms include groups such as heptyl, octyl, nonyl, decyl, dodecyl, tridecyl, pentadecyl, octadecyl, etc., in addition to the alkyl groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms. examples of the cycloalkyl group include groups having 3 to 8 carbon atoms such as cyclopropyl, cyclobutyl, cyclopentyl, cyclohexyl, cycloheptyl, cyclooctyl and the like. examples of the alkoxy group include groups having 1 to 6 carbon atoms such as methoxy, ethoxy, n-propoxy, isopropoxy, t-butoxy, n-pentyloxy, n-hexyloxy and the like. examples of the aryl group include groups such as phenyl, napthyl, anthryl, phenanthryl and the like. examples of the alkanoyl group include formyl, acetyl, propionyl, butyryl, pentanoyl, hexanoyl and the like. examples of the halogen atom include fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine and the like. examples of the heterocyclic group include thienyl, furyl, pyrrolyl, pyrrolidinyl, oxazolyl, isoxazolyl, thiazolyl, isothiazolyl, imidazolyl, 2h-imidazoyl, pyrazolyl, triazolyl, tetrazolyl, pyranyl, pyridyl, piperidyl, piperidino, 3-morpholinyl, morpholino, thiazolyl and the like. the heterocyclic group may also be ones condensed with an aromatic ring. examples of the substituent which may be substituted on the above groups include halogen atom, amino group, hydroxyl group, optionally esterified carboxyl group, cyano group, alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkenyl group having 2 to 6 carbon atoms which may have an aryl group and the like. examples of the coupler residue represented by cp.sup.1, cp.sup.2, cp.sup.3, cp.sup.4 and cp.sup.5 include the groups shown in the following general formulas (cp-1) to (cp-11). ##str28## in the respective formulas, r.sup.g32 is a carbamoyl group, a sulfamoyl group, an allophanoyl group, oxamoyl group, anthraniloyl group, carbazoyl group, glycyl group, hydantoyl group, phthalamoyl group or a succinamoyl group. these groups may have substituents such as halogen atom, phenyl group which may have a substituent, naphthyl group which may have a substituent, nitro group, cyano group, alkyl group, alkenyl group, carbonyl group, carboxyl group and the like. r.sup.g33 is an atomic group which is required to form an aromatic ring, a polycyclic hydrocarbon or a heterocycle by condensing with a benzene ring. these rings may have the same substituent as that described above. r.sup.g34 is an oxygen atom, a sulfur atom or an imino group. r.sup.g35 is a divalent chain hydrocarbon or an aromatic hydrocarbon group, and these groups may have the same substituent as that described above. r.sup.g36 is an alkyl group, an aralkyl group, an aryl group or a heterocyclic group. these groups may have the same substituent as that described above. r.sup.g37 is an atomic group which is required to form a heterocycle together with a divalent chain hydrocarbon or aromatic hydrocarbon group or two nitrogen atoms in the above formulas (cp-1) to (cp-2). these rings may have the same substituent as that described above. r.sup.g38 is a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an amino group, a carbamoyl group, a sulfamoyl group, an allophanoyl group, a carboxyl group, an alkoxycarbonyl group, an aryl group or a cyano group. the groups other than a hydrogen atom may have the same substituent as that described above. r.sup.g39 is an alkyl group or an aryl group which may have the same substituent as that described above. examples of the alkenyl group include alkenyl groups having 2 to 6 carbon atoms such as vinyl, allyl, 2-butenyl, 3-butenyl, 1-methylallyl, 2-pentenyl, 2-hexenyl and the like. in the above r.sup.g33, examples of the atomic group which is required to form an aromatic ring by condensing with a benzene ring include alkylene groups having 1 to 4 carbon atoms such as methylene, ethylene, trimethylene, tetramethylene and the like. examples of the aromatic ring to be formed by condensing the above r.sup.g33 with a benzene ring include naphthalene ring, anthracene ring, phenanthrene ring, pyrene ring, chrysene ring, naphthacene ring and the like. in the above r.sup.g33, examples of the atomic group which is required to form a polycyclic hydrocarbon by condensing with a benzene ring include the above alkylene groups having 1 to 4 carbon atoms, carbazole ring, benzocarbazole ring, dibenzofuran ring and the like. in the above r.sup.g33, examples of the atomic group which is required to form a heterocycle by condensing with a benzene ring include benzofuranyl, benzothiophenyl, indolyl, benzoxazolyl, 1h-indolyl, benzothiazolyl, lh-indadolyl, benzoimidazolyl, chromenyl, chromanyl, isochromanyl, quinolinyl, isoquinolinyl, cinnolinyl, phthalazinyl, quinazolinyl, quinoxalinyl, dibenzofranyl, carbazoyl, xanthenyl, acridinyl, phenanthridinyl, phenazinyl, phenoxazinyl, thianthrenyl and the like. examples of the aromatic heterocyclic group to be formed by condensing the above r.sup.g33 and the benzene ring include thienyl, furyl, pyrrolyl, oxazolyl, isoxazolyl, thiazolyl, isothiazolyl, imidazolyl, pyrazolyl, triazolyl, tetrazolyl, pyridyl, thiazolyl and the like. in addition, it may also be a heterocyclic group condensed with other aromatic rings (e.g. benzofuranyl, benzoimidazolyl, benzoxazolyl, benzothiazolyl, quinolyl, etc.). in the above r.sup.g35 and r.sup.g37, examples of the divalent chain hydrocarbon include ethylene, trimethylene, tetramethylene and the like. examples of the divalent aromatic hydrocarbon include phenylene, naphthylene, phenanthrilene and the like. in the above r.sup.g36, examples of the heterocyclic group include pyridyl, pyrazyl, thienyl, pyranyl, indolyl and the like. in the above r.sup.g37, examples of the atomic group which is required to form a heterocycle together with two nitrogen atoms include phenylene, naphthylene, phenanthrylene, ethylene, trimethylene, tetramethylene and the like. examples of the aromatic heterocyclic group to be formed by the above r.sup.g37 and two nitrogen atoms include benzoimidazole, benzo[f]benzoimidazole, dibenzo[e,g]benzoimidazole, benzopyrimidine and the like. these groups may have the same substituent as that described above. in the above r.sup.g38, examples of the alkoxycarbonyl group include groups such as methoxycarbonyl, ethoxycarbonyl, propoxycarbonyl, butoxycarbonyl and the like. in the present invention, there can be used powders of inorganic photoconductive materials such as selenium, selenium-tellurium, selenium-arsenic, cadmium sulfide, amorphous silicon, etc. and known electric charge generating materials such as pyrilium salt, anthanthrone pigments, triphenylmethane pigments, threne pigments, toluidine pigments, pyrazoline pigments, quinacridone pigments, etc. in addition to the above electric charge generating materials. the above electric charge generating materials can be used alone or in combination thereof to present an absorption wavelength within a desired range. a photosensitive material having sensitivity at the wavelength range of 700 nm or more is required in digital-optical image forming apparatuses such as laser beam printer using a light source of semiconductor laser, facsimile and the like. therefore, among the above electric charge generating materials, phthalocyanine pigments such as metal-free phthalocyanine represented by the above general formula (cg1), oxotitanyl phthalocyanine represented by the general formula (cg2) and the like are preferably used. the crystal form of the above phthalocyanine pigments is not specifically limited, and various phthalocyanine pigments having different crystal form can be used. in analogue-optical image forming devices such as electrostatic copying machine using a white light source such as halogen lamp, etc., a photosensitive material having sensitivity at the visible range is required. therefore, the perylene pigment represented by the above general formula (cg3) and bisazo pigment represented by the general formula (cg4) and the like are suitably used. <hole transferring material> in the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention, a stilbene derivative (1) as the hole transferring material and other known hole transferring materials may be contained in the photosensitive layer. examples of the hole transferring material include various compounds having high hole transferring capability, for example, compounds represented by the following general formulas (ht1) to (ht13): ##str29## (wherein r.sup.h1, r.sup.h2, r.sup.h3, r.sup.h4, r.sup.h5 and r.sup.h6 are the same or different and represent a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; a and b are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 4; c, d, e and f are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 5; and each r.sup.h1, r.sup.h2, r.sup.h3, r.sup.h4, r.sup.h5 and r.sup.h6 may be different provided that a, b, c, d, e or f is 2 or more) ##str30## (wherein r.sup.h7, r.sup.h8, r.sup.h9, r.sup.h10 and r.sup.h11 are the same or different and represent a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; g, h, i and j are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 5; k represents an integer of 0 to 4; and each r.sup.h7, r.sup.h8, r.sup.h9, r.sup.h10 and r.sup.h11 may be different provided that g, h, i, j or k is 2 or more) ##str31## (wherein r.sup.h12, r.sup.h13, r.sup.h14 and r.sup.h15 are the same or different and represent a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; r.sup.h16 is a halogen atom, a cyano group, a nitro group, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; m, n, o and p are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 5; and q is an integer of 0 to 6; each r.sup.h12, r.sup.h13, r.sup.h14, r.sup.h15 and r.sup.h16 may be different provided that m, n, o, p or q is 2 or more) ##str32## (wherein r.sup.h17, r.sup.h18, r.sup.h19 and r.sup.h20 are the same or different and represent a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; r, s, t and u are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 5; and that each r.sup.h17, r.sup.h18, r.sup.h19 and r.sup.h20 may be different provided that r, s, t or u is 2 or more) ##str33## (wherein r.sup.h21 and r.sup.h22 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group, and r.sup.h23, r.sup.h24, r.sup.h25 and r.sup.h26 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group) ##str34## (wherein r.sup.h27, r.sup.h28 and r.sup.h29 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group) ##str35## (wherein r.sup.h30, r.sup.h31, r.sup.h32 and r.sup.h33 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group) ##str36## (wherein r.sup.h34, r.sup.h35, r.sup.h36, r.sup.h37 and r.sup.h38 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group) ##str37## (wherein r.sup.h39 is a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group, and r.sup.h40, r.sup.h41 and r.sup.h42 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group) ##str38## (wherein r.sup.h43, r.sup.h44 and r.sup.h45 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group) ##str39## (wherein r.sup.h46 and r.sup.h47 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent or an alkoxy group which may have a substituent; a nd r.sup.h48 and r.sup.h49 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, or an aryl group which may have a substituent) ##str40## (wherein r.sup.h50, r.sup.h51, r.sup.h52, r.sup.h53, r.sup.h54 and r.sup.h55 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; .alpha. is an integer of 1 to 10; v, w, x, y, z and .beta. are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 2; and each r.sup.h50, r.sup.h51, r.sup.h52, r.sup.h53, r.sup.h54 and r.sup.h55 may be different provided that v, w, x, y, z or .beta. is 2) ##str41## (wherein r.sup.h56, r.sup.h57, r.sup.h58 and r.sup.h59 may be the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or an alkoxy group, and .phi. represent a group represented by the formulas (.phi.-1), (.phi.-2) or (.phi.-3): ##str42## in the hole transferring material described above, examples of the alkyl group, alkoxy group, aryl group, aralkyl group and halogen atom include the same groups as those described above. examples of the substituent which may be substituted on the above groups include halogen atom, amino group, hydroxyl group, optionally esterified carboxyl group, cyano group, alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkenyl group having 2 to 6 carbon atoms which may have an aryl group, etc. the substitution position of the substituent is not specifically limited. in the present invention, there can be used hole transferring materials which have hitherto been known, that is, nitrogen-containing cyclic compounds and condensed polycyclic compounds, e.g. oxadiazole compounds such as 2,5-di(4-methylaminophenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole, etc.; styryl compounds such as 9-(4-diethylaminostyryl)anthracene, etc.; carbazole compounds such as polyvinyl carbazole, etc.; organopolysilane compounds; pyrazoline compounds such as 1-phenyl-3-(p-dimethylaminophenyl)pyrazoline, etc.; hydrazone compounds; triphenylamine compounds; indole compounds; oxazole compounds; isoxazole compounds; thiazole compounds; thiadiazole compounds; imidazole compounds; pyrazole compounds; and triazole compounds, together with or in place of the above hole transferring materials (ht-1) to (ht-13). in the present invention, these hole transferring materials may be used alone or in combination thereof. when using the hole transferring material having film forming properties, such as poly(vinylcarbazole), etc., a binding resin is not required necessarily. <electron transferring material> examples of the electron transferring materials include various compounds having high electron transferring capability, for example, compounds represented by the following general formulas (et1) to (et17): ##str43## (wherein r.sup.e1, r.sup.e2, r.sup.e3, r.sup.e4 and r.sup.e5 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent, an aryl group which may have a substituent, an aralkyl group which may have a substituent, a phenoxy group which may have a substituent or a halogen atom) ##str44## (wherein r.sup.e6 represents an alkyl group; r.sup.e7 represents an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxy group which may have a substituent, an aryl group which may have a substituent, an aralkyl group which may have a substituent, a halogen atom or a halogenated alkyl group; .gamma. represents an integer of 0 to 5; and each r.sup.e7 may be different provided that .gamma. is 2 or more) ##str45## (wherein r.sup.e8 and r.sup.e9 may be the same or different and represent an alkyl group; .delta. represents an integer of 1 to 4; .epsilon. represents an integer of 0 to 4; and each r.sup.e8 and r.sup.e9 may be different provided that .delta. and .epsilon. are 2 or more) ##str46## (wherein r.sup.e10 represents an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group, an alkoxy group, a halogenated alkyl group or a halogen atom; .zeta. represents an integer of 0 to 4; .eta. represents an integer of 0 to 5; and each r.sup.e10 may be different provided that .eta. is 2 or more) ##str47## (wherein r.sup.e11 represents an alkyl group; .sigma. represents an integer of 1 to 4; and each rell may be different provided that .sigma. is 2 or more) ##str48## (wherein r.sup.e12 and r.sup.e13 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group, an aryl group, an aralkyloxycarbonyl group, an alkoxy group, a hydroxyl group, a nitro group or a cyano group; and x represents an oxygen atom, a .dbd.n--cn group or a .dbd.c(cn).sub.2 group) ##str49## (wherein r.sup.e14 represents a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, an alkyl group or a phenyl group which may have a substituent; r.sup.e15 represents a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, a phenyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxycarbonyl group, a n-alkylcarbamoyl group, a cyano group or a nitro group; .lambda. represents an integer of 0 to 3; and each r.sup.e15 may be different provided that .lambda. is 2 or more) ##str50## (wherein .theta. represents an integer of 1 to 2) ##str51## (wherein r.sup.e16 and r.sup.e17 are the same or different and represent a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, a cyano group, a nitro group or an alkoxycarbonyl group; and .nu. and .xi. represent an integer of 0 to 3; and r.sup.e16 and r.sup.e17 may be different provided when .nu. or .xi. is 2 or more) ##str52## (wherein r.sup.e18 and r.sup.e19 are the same or different and represent a phenyl group, a polycyclic aromatic group or a heterocyclic group, and these group may have a substituent) ##str53## (wherein r.sup.e20 represents an amino group, a dialkylamino group, an alkoxy group, an alkyl group or a phenyl group; .pi. represents an integer of 1 to 2; and each r.sup.e20 may be different provided that .pi. is 2) ##str54## (wherein r.sup.e21 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an aryl group, an alkoxy group or an aralkyl group) ##str55## (wherein r.sup.e22 represents a halogen atom, an alkyl group which may have a substituent, a phenyl group which may have a substituent, an alkoxycarbonyl group, a n-alkylcarbamoyl group, a cyano group or a nitro group; .mu. represents an integer of 0 to 3; and each r.sup.e22 may be different provided that .mu. is 2 or more) ##str56## [(wherein r.sup.e23 represents an alkyl group which may have a substituent or an aryl group which may have a substituent; and r.sup.e24 represents an alkyl group which may have a substituent, an aryl which may have a substituent, or a group: --o--r.sup.e24a (r.sup.e24a represents an alkyl group which may have a substituent, or an aryl group which may have a substituent)] ##str57## (wherein r.sup.e25, r.sup.e26, r.sup.e27, r.sup.e28, r.sup.e29, r.sup.e30 and r.sup.e31 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, aryl group, aralkyl group, alkoxy group, a halogen atom or a halogenated alkyl group; and .chi. and .phi. are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 4) ##str58## (wherein r.sup.e32 and r.sup.e33 are the same or different and represent an alkyl group, an aryl group, an alkoxy group, a halogen atom or a halogenated alkyl group; and .tau. and .phi. are the same or different and represent an integer of 0 to 4) ##str59## (wherein r.sup.e34, r.sup.e35, r.sup.e36 and r.sup.e37 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, alkoxy group, an aryl group, an aralkyl group, a cycloalkyl group or an amino group provided that at least two substituents of r.sup.e34, r.sup.e35, r.sup.e36 and r.sup.e37 are the same groups other than hydrogen atom). in the above electron transferring materials, examples of the alkyl group, alkoxy group, aryl group, aralkyl group, cycloalkyl group, alkoxycarbonyl group, heterocyclic group and halogen atom include the same groups as those described above. examples of the alkyl group and halogen atom in the halogenated alkyl group include the same groups as those described above. examples of the condensed polycyclic group include naphthyl, penanthryl and anthryl and the like. examples of the aralkyloxycarbonyl group include those of which aralkyl portions are various aralkyl groups described above. examples of the n-alkylcarbamoyl group include those of which alkyl portions are various alkyl groups described above. examples of the dialkylamino group include those of which alkyl portions are various alkyl groups described above. two alkyl groups substituted on the amino may be the same or different. examples of the substituent, which may be substituted on each group described above, include halogen atom, amino group, hydroxyl group, optionally esterified carboxyl group, cyano group, alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkoxy group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, alkenyl group having 2 to 6 carbon atoms which may have an aryl group and the like. the substitution position of the substituent is not specifically limited. in the present invention, there can be used known electron transferring materials such as benzoquinone compound, malononitrile compound, thiopyran compound, tetracyanoethylene, 2,4,8-trinitrothioxanthone, dinitrobenzene, dinitroanthracene, dinitroacridine, nitroanthraquinone, dinitroanthraquinone, succinic anhydride, maleic anhydride, dibromomaleic anhydride, etc., in addition to those described above. in the present invention, these electron transferring materials may be used alone or in combination thereof. <binding resin> as the binding resin for dispersing the above respective components, there can be used various resins which have hitherto been used in the photosensitive layer, and examples thereof include thermoplastic resins such as styrene-butadiene copolymer, styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer, styrene-maleic acid copolymer, acrylic copolymer, styrene-acrylic acid copolymer, polyethylene, ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer, chlorinated polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, ionomer, vinyl chloride-vinyl acetate copolymer, polyester, alkyd resin, polyamide, polyurethane, polycarbonate, polyarylate, polysulfon, diaryl phthalate resin, ketone resin, polyvinyl butyral resin, polyether resin, polyester resin and the like; crosslinking thermosetting resins such as silicone resin, epoxy resin, phenol resin, urea resin, melamine resin and the like; and photosetting resins such as epoxy acrylate, urethane acrylate and the like. in addition to the above respective components, various additives which have hitherto been known, such as deterioration inhibitors (e.g. antioxidants, radical scavengers, singlet quenchers, ultraviolet absorbers, etc.), softeners, plasticizers, surface modifiers, bulking agents, thickening agents, dispersion stabilizers, wax, acceptors, donors and the like can be formulated in the photosensitive layer as long as the electrophotographic characteristics are not adversely effected by the additives. in order to improve the sensitivity of the photosensitive layer, known sensitizers such as terphenyl, halonaphthoquinones, acenaphthylene and the like may be used in combination with the electric charge generating material. in the single-layer type photosensitive material, the electric charge generating material is formulated in the amount of 0.1 to 50 parts by weight, and preferably 0.5 to 30 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. the stilbene derivative (1) (hole transferring material) of the present invention is formulated in the amount of 20 to 500 parts by weight, and preferably 30 to 200 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. when the electron transferring material is contained, it is suitable that the amount of the electron transferring material is from 5 to 100 parts by weight, and preferably from 10 to 80 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. the thickness of the photosensitive layer in the single-layer type photosensitive material is from 5 to 100 .mu.m, and preferably from 10 to 50 .mu.m. the electric charge generating material and binding resin, which constitute the electric charge generating layer, may be used in various proportions in the multi-layer photosensitive material. it is suitable that the electric charge generating material is formulated in the amount of 5 to 1,000 parts by weight, and preferably 30 to 500 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. when a hole transferring material is contained in the electric charge generating layer, it is suitable that the hole transferring material is formulated in the amount of 10 to 500 parts by weight, and preferably 50 to 200 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. the hole transferring material and binding resin, which constitute the electric charge transferring layer, can be used in various proportions within such a range as not to prevent the transfer of electrons and to prevent the crystallization. it is suitable that the stilbene derivative (1) (hole transferring material) of the present invention is used in the amount of 10 to 500 parts by weight, and preferably 25 to 200 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin so as to easily transfer electric charges generated by light irradiation in the electric charge generating layer. when the electron transferring material is contained in the electric charge transferring layer, it is suitable that the electron transferring material is formulated in the amount of 5 to 200 parts by weight, and preferably 10 to 100 parts by weight, based on 100 parts by weight of the binding resin. regarding the thickness of the photosensitive layer in the multi-layer type photosensitive layer, the thickness of the electric charge generating layer is from about 0.01 to 5 .mu.m, and preferably from about 0.1 to 3 .mu.m, and that of the electric charge transferring layer is from 2 to 100 .mu.m, and preferably from about 5 to 50 .mu.m. a barrier layer may be formed in such a range as not to injure the characteristics of the photosensitive material between the conductive substrate and photosensitive layer in the single-layer type photosensitive material, and between the conductive substrate and electric charge generating layer, between the conductive substrate layer and electric charge transferring layer or between the electric charge generating layer and electric charge transferring layer in the multi-layer type photosensitive material. further, a protective layer may be formed on the surface of the photosensitive layer. as the conductive substrate to be used in the electrophotosensitive material of the present invention, various materials having the conductivity can be used. examples of the conductive substrate include single metals such as iron, aluminum, copper, tin, platinum, silver, vanadium, molybdenum, chromium, cadmium, titanium, nickel, palladium, indium, stainless steel, brass and the like; plastic materials which are vapor-deposited or laminated with the above metal; glass materials coated with aluminum iodide, tin oxide, indium oxide and the like. the conductive substrate may be made in a form of a sheet or a drum according to a structure of the image forming device to be used. the substrate itself may have a conductivity or only the surface of the substrate may have a conductivity. it is preferred that the conductive substrate has sufficient mechanical strength when used. when the above photosensitive layer is formed by the application method, the above electric charge generating material, electric charge transferring material and binding resin may be dispersed and mixed together with a suitable solvent by using a known method such as a roll mill, a ball mill, an atriter, a paint shaker, a supersonic dispenser, etc. to prepare a dispersion which is applied by using a known means and then allowed to dry. as the solvent for preparing the coating solution, there can be used various organic solvents, and examples thereof include alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, butanol and the like; aliphatic hydrocarbons such as n-hexane, octane, cyclohexane and the like; aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, xylene and the like; halogenated hydrocarbons such as dichloromethane, dichloroethane, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, chlorobenzene and the like; ethers such as dimethyl ether, diethyl ether, tetrahydrofuran, ethylene glycol dimethyl ether, diethylene glycol dimethyl ether and the like; ketones such as acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, cyclohexanone and the like; esters such as ethyl acetate, methyl acetate and the like; dimethylformaldehyde, dimethylformamide, dimethyl sulfoxide, and the like. these solvents may be used alone or in combination thereof. in order to improve the dispersibility of the electric charge transferring material and electric charge generating material as well as the smoothness of the surface of the photosensitive layer, there may be used surfactants, leveling agents or the like. examples the following synthesis examples, examples and comparative examples further illustrate the present invention in detail. synthesis of stilbene derivative reference example 1 synthesis of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine 2,6-dimethylaniline (15 g, 124 mmol), iodobenzene (50 g, 245 mmol), anhydrous potassium carbonate (17 g, 123 mmol) and powdered copper (1 g, 16 mmol) were added in 150 ml of nitrobenzene, and the mixture was reacted under reflux for about 24 hours. after the completion of the reaction, the inorganic salt was removed and the solvent was distilled off. the resulting residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography (developing solvent: chloroform/hexane mixed solvent) to obtain 28.8 g of the titled compound (yield: 85%). reference example 2 synthesis of 2-ethyl-6-methyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 6-ethyl-o-toluidine in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline, the reaction was performed to obtain 28.1 g of the titled compound (yield: 79%). reference example 3 synthesis of 2,6-diethylphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2,6-diethylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline, the reaction was performed to obtain 31.0 g of the titled compound (yield: 83%). reference example 4 synthesis of 2,3-dimethyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2,3-dimethylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline, the reaction was performed to obtain 28.4 g of the titled compound (yield: 84%). reference example 5 synthesis of 2-ethyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline, the reaction was performed to obtain 26.7 g of the titled compound (yield: 79%). reference example 6 synthesis of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine (28 g, 102 mmol) was dissolved in 300 ml of dimethylformamide (dmf) and phosphoric acid oxychloride (16 g, 104 mmol) was added, and the mixture was reacted at 40.degree. c. for 1 hour. after the completion of the reaction, the reaction solution was added in 300 ml of water and extracted with ethyl acetate. the organic layer was washed with water and dried to distill off the solvent. then, the residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography (developing solvent: chloroform/hexane mixed solvent) to obtain 26.8 g of the titled compound (yield: 87%). reference example 7 synthesis of 2-ethyl-6-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethyl-6-methyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 28.2 g of the titled compound (yield: 87%). reference example 8 synthesis of 2,6-diethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2,6-diethyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 27.1 g of the titled compound (yield: 80%). reference example 9 synthesis of 2,3-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2,3-dimethyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethytriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 27.5 g of the titled compound (yield: 89%). reference example 10 synthesis of 2-ethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine according to the same manner as that described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 24.8 g of the titled compound (yield: 80%). reference example 11 synthesis of bisphosphate a bisphosphate derivative represented by the following formula (3p) was obtained from triethyl phosphate and p-xylylene dichloride. furthermore, a bisphosphate derivative represented by the following formula (3 m) was obtained from triethyl phosphate and m-xylylene dichloride. ##str60## reference example 12 synthesis of 2-methoxytriphenylamine 2-methoxytriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of o-anisidine in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 13 synthesis of 2-ethoxytriphenylamine 2-ethoxytriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of o-phenetidine in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 14 synthesis of 2-methoxy-6-methyl-triphenylamine 2-methoxy-6-methyl-triphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-6-methylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 15 synthesis of 2-methoxy-5-methyl-triphenylamine 2-methoxy-5-methyl-triphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-5-methylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 16 synthesis of 5-methoxy-2-methyl-triphenylamine 5-methoxy-2-methyl-triphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 5-methoxy-2-methylaniline in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 17 synthesis of 2-methoxy-4'-formiltriphenylamine 2-methoxy-4'-formiltriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxytriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine. reference example 18 synthesis of 2-ethoxy-4'-formiltriphenylamine 2-ethoxy-4'-formiltriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethoxytriphenylamine place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine. reference example 19 synthesis of 2-methoxy-6-methyl-formiltriphenylamine 2-methoxy-6-methyl-formiltriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 5-methoxy-6-methyl-triphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethylaniline. reference example 20 synthesis of 2-methoxy-5-methyl-4'-formiltriphenylamine 2-methoxy-5-methyl-4'-formiltriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-5-methyl-triphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine. reference example 21 synthesis of 5-methoxy-2-methyl-4'-formiltriphenylamine 5-methoxy-2-methyl-4'-formiltriphenylamine can be obtained by performing the reaction described in reference example 6 except for using the same molar amount of 5-methoxy-2-methyl-triphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 1 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-2) bisphosphate (5.9 g, 15.6 mmol) represented by the above formula (3p) and sodium hydride dried under deaeration (0.75 g, 31.2 mmol) were added in 200 ml of tetrahydrofuran, followed by ice-cooling. to this mixture, a solution obtained by dissolving 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine (9.5 g, 31.5 mmol) in 50 ml of tetrahydrofuran was added dropwise and the reaction was performed at room temperature for about 3 hours. after the completion of the reaction, the reaction solution was added to 400 ml of an aqueous diluted hydrochloric acid solution (about 2%). the deposited crystal was collected by filtration, and then washed with water. the crystal was dried and purified by silica gel column chromatography (developing solvent: chloroform/hexane mixed solvent) to obtain 7.0 g of a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-2 in the above table 1 (yield: 66%) melting point: 190-192.degree. c. the .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-2) is shown in fig. 1 and the infrared absorption spectrum is shown in fig. 2. synthesis example 2 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-6) according to the same manner as that described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethyl-6-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 7.2 g of a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-6 in the above table 1 (yield: 65%) melting point: 194-197.degree. c. the .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-6) is shown in fig. 3 and the infrared absorption spectrum is shown in fig. 4. synthesis example 3 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-7) according to the same manner as that described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2,6-diethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine, the reaction was performed to obtain 8.1 g of a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-7 in the above table 1 (yield: 70%) melting point: 224-226.degree. c. the .sup.1 h-nmr spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (11-7) is shown in fig. 5 and the infrared absorption spectrum is shown in fig. 6. synthesis example 4 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-3) according to the same manner as that described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2,3-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 p), the reaction was performed to obtain 6.5 g of a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-3 in the above table 2 (yield: 61%) melting point: 93-96.degree. c. the infrared absorption spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (12-3) is shown in fig. 7. synthesis example 5 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-5) according to the same manner as that described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p), the reaction was performed to obtain 5.9 g of a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-5 in the above table 2 (yield: 56%) melting point: 92-95.degree. c. the infrared absorption spectrum of the above stilbene derivative (12-5) is shown in fig. 8. production of electrophotosensitive material (single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source) synthesis example 6 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-14) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-14 in the above table 1 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 7 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-15) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-15 in the above table 1 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethoxy-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 8 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-16) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-16 in the above table 1 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-6-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 9 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-17) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-17 in the above table 1 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-5-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 10 synthesis of stilbene derivative (11-18) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 11-18 in the above table 1 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 5-methoxy-2-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine. synthesis example 11 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-14) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-14 in the above table 2 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and for using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p). synthesis example 12 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-15) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-15 in the above table 2 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-ethoxy-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and for using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p). synthesis example 13 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-16) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-16 in the above table 2 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-6-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and for using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p). synthesis example 14 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-17) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-17 in the above table 2 can be obtained by performing the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 2-methoxy-5-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and for using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p). synthesis example 15 synthesis of stilbene derivative (12-18) a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number 12-18 in the above table 2 can be obtained by perfoming the reaction described in synthesis example 1 except for using the same molar amount of 5-methoxy-2-methyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine in place of 2,6-dimethyl-4'-formyltriphenylamine and for using the same molar amount of bisphosphate represented by the above formula (3 m) in place of bisphosphate resented by the above general formula (3 p). examples 1 an x type metal-free phthalocyanine (cg1-1) was used as the electric charge generating material. a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-2) of the above table 1 was used as the hole transferring material. 5 parts by weight of the above electric charge generating material, 100 parts by weight of the above hole transferring material and 100 parts by weight of a binding resin (polycarbonate) were mixed and dispersed, together with 800 parts by weight of a solvent (tetrahydrofuran), in a ball mill for 50 hours to prepare a coating solution for single-layer type photosensitive layer. then, this coating solution was applied on a conductive substrate (aluminum tube) by using the dip coating method, followed by hot-air drying at 100.degree. c. for 30 minutes to obtain a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source, which has a single-layer type photosensitive layer of 25 .mu.m in film thickness. example 2 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-6) of the above table 1 as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 3 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-7) of the above table 1 as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 4 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-3) of the above table 1 as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 5 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-5) of the above table 1 as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 6 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for further formulating 30 parts by weight of a diphenoquinone derivative represented by the formula (et17-1): ##str61## as the electron transferring material in the coating solution for single-layer photosensitive layer, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 7 according to the same manner as that described in example 6 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-6) as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 8 according to the same manner as that described in example 6 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-7) as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 9 according to the same manner as that described in example 6 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-3) as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 10 according to the same manner as that described in example 6 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-5) as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. examples 11 to 15 according to the same manner as that described in examples 6 to 10 except for using a naphthoquinone derivative represented by the formula (et14-1): ##str62## as the electron transferring material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 16 to 20 according to the same manner as that described in examples 6 to 10 except for using a naphthoquinone derivative represented by the formula (et14-2): ##str63## as the electron transferring material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. comparative example 1 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the formula (6-1): ##str64## as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced, respectively. comparative example 2 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the formula (6-2): ##str65## as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced, respectively. comparative example 3 according to the same manner as that described in example 1 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the formula (6-3): ##str66## as the hole transferring material, a single-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 1 to 20 and comparative examples 1 to 3 were subjected to the following electrical characteristics test (i) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. electrical characteristics test (1) by using a drum sensitivity tester manufactured by gentec co., a voltage was applied on the surface of each photosensitive material to charge the surface at +700 v.+-.20 v and the surface potential v.sub.0 (v) was measured. then, monochromatic light [wavelength: 780 nm (half-width: 20 nm), light intensity: 8 .mu.j/cm.sup.2 ] from white light of a halogen lamp as an exposure light source through a band-pass filter was irradiated on the surface of each photosensitive material (irradiation time: 1.5 sec.) and the time required to reduce the above surface potential v.sub.0 to half was measured and a half-time exposure e.sub.1/2 (.mu.j/cm.sup.2) was calculated. further, a surface potential at the time at which 0.5 sec. has passed since the beginning of exposure was measured as a residual potential v.sub.r (v). the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 3. in the following tables, the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material were represented by each formula number or each compound number. table 3 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 1 cg 1-1 11-2 -- 700 113 0.73 example 2 cg 1-1 11-6 -- 701 114 0.74 example 3 cg 1-1 11-7 -- 698 112 0.73 example 4 cg 1-1 12-3 -- 698 117 0.75 example 5 cg 1-1 12-5 -- 700 116 0.75 example 6 cg 1-1 11-2 et17-1 704 92 0.67 example 7 cg 1-1 11-6 et17-1 703 94 0.68 example 8 cg 1-1 11-7 et17-1 706 92 0.67 example 9 cg 1-1 12-3 et17-1 704 97 0.69 example 10 cg 1-1 12-5 et17-1 700 96 0.68 example 11 cg 1-1 11-2 et14-1 701 96 0.68 example 12 cg 1-1 11-6 et14-1 697 96 0.69 example 13 cg 1-1 11-7 et14-1 699 97 0.69 example 14 cg 1-1 12-3 et14-1 700 104 0.72 example 15 cg 1-1 12-5 et14-1 704 103 0.72 example 16 cg 1-1 11-2 et14-2 705 90 0.66 example 17 cg 1-1 11-6 et14-2 704 91 0.66 example 18 cg 1-1 11-7 et14-2 700 89 0.66 example 19 cg 1-1 12-3 et14-2 699 99 0.69 example 20 cg 1-1 12-5 et14-2 698 100 0.70 comp. ex. 1 cg 1-1 6-1 -- 703 143 0.80 comp. ex. 2 cg 1-1 6-2 -- 700 142 0.79 comp. ex. 3 cg 1-1 6-3 -- 695 139 0.78 ______________________________________ examples 21 to 25 according to the same manner as that described in examples 1 to 5 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 26 to 30 according to the same manner as that described in examples 6 to 10 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 31 to 35 according to the same manner as that described in examples 11 to 15 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 36 to 40 according to the same manner as that described in examples 16 to 20 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 4 to 6 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 1 to 3 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 21 to 40 and comparative examples 4 to 6 were subjected to the above electrical characteristics test (i) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 4. table 4 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 21 cg 2-1 11-2 -- 702 112 0.74 example 22 cg 2-1 11-6 -- 704 114 0.74 example 23 cg 2-1 11-7 -- 690 111 0.73 example 24 cg 2-1 12-3 -- 698 116 0.75 example 25 cg 2-1 12-5 -- 699 117 0.75 example 26 cg 2-1 11-2 et17-1 704 93 0.67 example 27 cg 2-1 11-6 et17-1 703 94 0.67 example 28 cg 2-1 11-7 et17-1 705 92 0.67 example 29 cg 2-1 12-3 et17-1 705 97 0.68 example 30 cg 2-1 12-5 et14-1 698 98 0.69 example 31 cg 2-1 11-2 et14-1 698 97 0.69 example 32 cg 2-1 11-6 et14-1 700 99 0.70 example 33 cg 2-1 11-7 et14-1 704 100 0.70 example 34 cg 2-1 12-3 et14-1 699 104 0.72 example 35 cg 2-1 12-5 et14-1 704 101 0.70 examp1e 36 cg 2-1 11-2 et14-2 705 91 0.65 example 37 cg 2-1 11-6 et14-2 703 93 0.66 example 38 cg 2-1 11-7 et14-2 702 92 0.66 example 39 cg 2-1 12-3 et14-2 700 99 0.68 example 40 cg 2-1 12-5 et14-2 700 99 0.69 comp. ex. 4 cg 2-1 6-1 -- 701 135 0.77 comp. ex. 5 cg 2-1 6-2 -- 705 140 0.80 comp. ex. 6 cg 2-1 6-3 -- 699 139 0.79 ______________________________________ examples 41 to 45 according to the same manner as that described in examples 1 to 5 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 46 to 50 according to the same manner as that described in examples 6 to 10 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 51 to 55 according to the same manner as that described in examples 11 to 15 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 56 to 60 according to the same manner as that described in examples 16 to 20 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 7 to 9 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 1 to 3 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 41 to 60 and comparative examples 7 to 9 were subjected to the above electrical characteristics test (i) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 5. table 5 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 41 cg 2-2 11-2 -- 704 114 0.63 example 42 cg 2-2 11-6 -- 700 113 0.62 example 43 cg 2-2 11-7 -- 701 113 0.63 example 44 cg 2-2 12-3 -- 702 118 0.64 example 45 cg 2-2 12-5 -- 700 119 0.65 example 46 cg 2-2 11-2 et17-1 698 91 0.61 example 47 cg 2-2 11-6 et17-1 699 93 0.61 example 48 cg 2-2 11-7 et17-1 697 90 0.60 example 49 cg 2-2 12-3 et17-1 699 99 0.62 example 50 cg 2-2 12-5 et17-1 704 100 0.62 example 51 cg 2-2 11-2 et14-1 703 91 0.60 example 52 cg 2-2 11-6 et14-1 703 91 0.60 example 53 cg 2-2 11-7 et14-1 702 93 0.61 example 54 cg 2-2 12-3 et14-1 700 99 0.62 example 55 cg 2-2 12-5 et14-1 700 100 0.62 example 56 cg 2-2 11-2 et14-2 698 87 0.59 example 57 cg 2-2 11-6 et14-2 698 88 0.60 example 58 cg 2-2 11-7 et14-2 702 90 0.61 example 59 cg 2-2 12-3 et14-2 701 95 0.62 example 60 cg 2-2 12-5 et14-2 697 97 0.62 comp. ex. 7 cg 2-2 6-1 -- 701 130 0.79 comp. ex. 8 cg 2-2 6-2 -- 700 125 0.73 comp. ex. 9 cg 2-2 6-3 -- 705 128 0.75 ______________________________________ (multi-layer type electrophotosensitive material for digital light source) example 61 2.5 parts by weight of a x type metal-free phthalocyanine (cg1-1) as the electric charge generating material and 1 parts by weight of a binding resin (polyvinyl butyral) were mixed and dispersed, together with 15 parts by weight of a solvent (tetrahydrofuran), in a ball mill to prepare a coating solution for electric charge generating layer. then, this coating solution was applied on a conductive substrate (aluminum tube) by using the dip coating method, followed by hot-air drying at 110.degree. c. for 30 minutes to form an electric charge generating layer of 0.5 .mu.m in film thickness. then, 1 part by weight of a stilbene derivative (11-2) as the hole transferring material and 1 part by weight of a binding resin (polycarbonate) were mixed and dispersed, together with 10 parts by weight of a solvent (tetrahydrofuran), in a ball mill to prepare a coating solution for electric charge transferring layer. then, this coating solution was applied on the above electric charge generating layer by using the dip coating method, followed by hot-air drying at 110.degree. c. for 30 minutes to form an electric charge transferring layer of 20 .mu.m in film thickness, thereby producing a multi-layer type photosensitive material. example 62 according to the same manner as that described in example 61 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-6) as the hole transferring material, a multi-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 63 according to the same manner as that described in example 61 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (11-7) as the hole transferring material, a multi-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 64 according to the same manner as that described in example 61 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-3) as the hole transferring material, a multi-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. example 65 according to the same manner as that described in example 61 except for using a stilbene derivative represented by the compound number (12-5) as the hole transferring material, a multi-layer type photosensitive material for digital light source was produced. examples 66 to 70 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using an .alpha. type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-1) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. examples 71 to 75 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using a y type oxotitanylphthalocyanine (cg2-2) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 10 to 12 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61, 66 and 71 except for using a stilbene derivative (6-1) as the hole transferring material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for digital light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 61 to 75 and comparative examples 10 to 12 were subjected to the following electrical characteristics test (ii) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. electrical characteristics test (ii) according to the same manner as that described in the above electrical characteristics test (i) except for charging the surface of the photosensitive material to -700.+-.20 v, the surface potential v.sub.0 (v), residual potential v.sub.r (v) and half-life exposure e.sub.1/2 (.mu.j/cm.sup.2) were determined. the kind of the electric charge generating material and hole transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 6. table 6 ______________________________________ electric charge hole generating transferring material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 61 cg 1-1 11-2 -700 -129 0.61 example 62 cg 1-1 11-6 -701 -129 0.60 example 63 cg 1-1 11-7 -702 -130 0.61 example 64 cg 1-1 12-3 -702 -132 0.62 example 65 cg 1-1 12-5 -698 -134 0.64 example 66 cg 2-1 11-2 -700 -104 0.54 example 67 cg 2-1 11-6 -702 -101 0.52 example 68 cg 2-1 11-7 -701 -103 0.54 example 69 cg 2-1 12-3 -698 -107 0.55 example 70 cg 2-1 12-5 -699 -105 0.54 example 71 cg 2-2 11-2 -706 -94 0.39 example 72 cg 2-2 11-6 -702 -96 0.40 example 73 cg 2-2 11-7 -703 -93 0.38 example 74 cg 2-2 12-3 -700 -100 0.41 example 75 cg 2-2 12-5 -701 -99 0.40 comp. ex. 10 cg 1-1 6-1 -700 -158 0.75 comp. ex. 11 cg 2-1 6-1 -698 -163 0.79 comp. ex. 12 cg 2-2 6-1 -703 -162 0.79 ______________________________________ (single-layer type photosensitive material for analogue light source) examples 76 to 80 according to the same manner as that described in examples 1 to 5 except for using a perylene pigment represented by the formula (cg3-1): ##str67## as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced. examples 81 to 85 according to the same manner as that described in examples 6 to 10 except for using a perylene pigment (cg3-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 86 to 90 according to the same manner as that described in examples 11 to 15 except for using a perylene pigment (cg3-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 91 to 95 according to the same manner as that described in examples 15 to 20 except for using a perylene pigment (cg3-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 13 to 15 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 1 to 3 except for using a perylene pigment (cg3-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 76 to 95 and comparative examples 13 to 15 were subjected to the following electrical characteristics test (iii) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated, respectively. electrical characteristics test (iii) according to the same manner as that described in the above electrical characteristics test (i) except for using white light (light intensity: 8 lux) from a halogen lamp as an exposure light source, the surface potential v.sub.0 (v), residual potential v.sub.r (v) and half-life exposure e.sub.1/2 (lux.multidot.sec.) were determined. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 7. table 7 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 76 cg 3-1 11-2 -- 700 206 1.57 example 77 cg 3-1 11-6 -- 701 209 1.58 example 78 cg 3-1 11-7 -- 704 209 1.57 example 79 cg 3-1 12-3 -- 699 214 1.59 example 80 cg 3-1 12-5 -- 698 219 1.61 example 81 cg 3-1 11-2 et17-1 704 182 1.47 example 82 cg 3-1 11-6 et17-1 706 185 1.48 example 83 cg 3-1 11-7 et17-1 700 185 1.48 example 84 cg 3-1 12-3 et17-1 701 192 1.52 example 85 cg 3-1 12-5 et17-1 704 191 1.52 example 86 cg 3-1 11-2 et14-1 703 178 1.46 example 87 cg 3-1 11-6 et14-1 699 178 1.46 example 88 cg 3-1 11-7 et14-1 699 180 1.47 example 89 cg 3-1 12-3 et14-1 700 188 1.50 example 90 cg 3-1 12-5 et14-1 703 184 1.48 example 91 cg 3-1 11-2 et14-2 702 171 1.43 example 92 cg 3-1 11-6 et14-2 702 174 1.44 example 93 cg 3-1 11-7 et14-2 700 171 1.42 example 94 cg 3-1 12-3 et14-2 706 176 1.45 example 95 cg 3-1 12-5 et14-2 704 177 1.45 comp. ex. cg 3-1 6-1 -- 695 235 1.75 13 comp. ex. cg 3-1 6-2 -- 704 240 1.79 14 comp. ex. cg 3-1 6-3 -- 703 239 1.79 15 ______________________________________ examples 96 to 100 according to the same manner as that described in examples 76 to 80 except for using a bisazo pigment represented by the formula (cg4-1): ##str68## as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 101 to 105 according to the same manner as that described in examples 81 to 85 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 106 to 110 according to the same manner as that described in examples 86 to 90 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 111 to 115 according to the same manner as that described in examples 91 to 95 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 16 to 18 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 13 to 15 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-1) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 96 to 115 and comparative examples 16 to 18 were subjected to the above electrical characteristics test (iii) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 8. table 8 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 96 cg 4-1 11-2 -- 700 177 1.50 example 97 cg 4-1 11-6 -- 701 180 1.52 example 98 cg 4-1 11-7 -- 704 179 1.50 example 99 cg 4-1 12-3 -- 705 185 1.53 example 100 cg 4-1 12-5 -- 698 186 1.54 example 101 cg 4-1 11-2 et17-1 699 149 1.33 example 102 cg 4-1 11-6 et17-1 699 150 1.34 example 103 cg 4-1 11-7 et17-1 700 149 1.34 example 104 cg 4-1 12-3 et17-1 701 156 1.36 example 105 cg 4-1 12-5 et17-1 702 155 1.36 example 106 cg 4-1 11-2 et14-1 700 150 1.34 example 107 cg 4-1 11-6 et14-1 704 149 1.34 example 108 cg 4-1 11-7 et14-1 702 149 1.33 example 109 cg 4-1 12-3 et14-1 705 158 1.37 example 110 cg 4-1 12-5 et14-1 706 153 1.35 example 111 cg 4-1 11-2 et14-2 700 138 1.29 example 112 cg 4-1 11-6 et14-2 699 140 1.30 example 113 cg 4-1 11-7 et14-2 698 140 1.31 example 114 cg 4-1 12-3 et14-2 699 146 1.32 example 115 cg 4-1 12-5 et14-2 704 148 1.34 comp. ex. cg 4-1 6-1 -- 695 200 1.59 16 comp. ex. cg 4-1 6-2 -- 699 199 1.59 17 comp. ex. cg 4-1 6-3 -- 703 195 1.58 18 ______________________________________ examples 116 to 120 according to the same manner as that described in examples 76 to 80 except for using a bisazo pigment represented by the formula (cg4-2): ##str69## as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 121 to 125 according to the same manner as that described in examples 81 to 85 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 126 to 130 according to the same manner as that described in examples 86 to 90 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 131 to 135 according to the same manner as that described in examples 91 to 95 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 19 to 21 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 13 to 15 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-2) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 116 to 135 and comparative examples 19 to 21 were subjected to the above electrical characteristics test (iii) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 9. table 9 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 116 cg 4-2 11-2 -- 706 203 1.61 example 117 cg 4-2 11-6 -- 700 204 1.61 example 118 cg 4-2 11-7 -- 698 202 1.61 example 119 cg 4-2 12-3 -- 699 207 1.63 example 120 cg 4-2 12-5 -- 699 208 1.63 example 121 cg 4-2 11-2 et17-1 700 179 1.51 example 122 cg 4-2 11-6 et17-1 701 181 1.52 example 123 cg 4-2 11-7 et17-1 700 178 1.50 example 124 cg 4-2 12-3 et17-1 697 185 1.53 example 125 cg 4-2 12-5 et17-1 703 182 1.51 example 126 cg 4-2 11-2 et14-1 704 166 1.40 example 127 cg 4-2 11-6 et14-1 699 169 1.42 example 128 cg 4-2 11-7 et14-1 705 167 1.41 example 129 cg 4-2 12-3 et14-1 704 174 1.48 example 130 cg 4-2 12-5 et14-1 702 172 1.46 example 131 cg 4-2 11-2 et14-2 700 155 1.36 example 132 cg 4-2 11-6 et14-2 701 156 1.37 example 133 cg 4-2 11-7 et14-2 699 154 1.36 example 134 cg 4-2 12-3 et14-2 697 160 1.39 example 135 cg 4-2 12-5 et14-2 699 161 1.39 comp. ex. cg 4-2 6-1 -- 701 225 1.72 19 comp. ex. cg 4-2 6-2 -- 712 230 1.75 20 comp. ex. cg 4-2 6-3 -- 703 232 1.78 21 ______________________________________ examples 136 to 140 according to the same manner as that described in examples 76 to 80 except for using a bisazo pigment represented by the formula (cg4-3): ##str70## as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 141 to 145 according to the same manner as that described in examples 81 to 85 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-3) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 146 to 150 according to the same manner as that described in examples 86 to 90 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-3) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 151 to 155 according to the same manner as that described in examples 91 to 95 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-3) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 22 to 24 according to the same manner as that described in comparative examples 13 to 15 except for using a bisazo pigment (cg4-3) as the electric charge generating material, single-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 136 to 155 and comparative examples 22 to 24 were subjected to the above electrical characteristics test (iii) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. the kind of the electric charge generating material, hole transferring material and electron transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 10. table 10 ______________________________________ hole electron electric charge trans- trans- generating ferring ferring material material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 136 cg 4-3 11-2 -- 704 204 1.61 example 137 cg 4-3 11-6 -- 700 204 1.61 example 138 cg 4-3 11-7 -- 702 202 1.60 example 139 cg 4-3 12-3 -- 706 207 1.63 example 140 cg 4-3 12-5 -- 703 208 1.63 example 141 cg 4-3 11-2 et17-1 700 179 1.48 example 142 cg 4-3 11-6 et17-1 698 181 1.48 example 143 cg 4-3 11-7 et17-1 697 180 1.47 example 144 cg 4-3 12-3 et17-1 697 185 1.49 example 145 cg 4-3 12-5 et17-1 702 184 1.49 example 146 cg 4-3 11-2 et14-1 701 181 1.48 example 147 cg 4-3 11-6 et14-1 699 183 1.49 example 148 cg 4-3 11-7 et14-1 704 182 1.49 example 149 cg 4-3 12-3 et14-1 703 186 1.50 example 150 cg 4-3 12-5 et14-1 701 186 1.50 example 151 cg 4-3 11-2 et14-2 704 176 1.47 example 152 cg 4-3 11-6 et14-2 698 180 1.48 example 153 cg 4-3 11-7 et14-2 702 179 1.47 example 154 cg 4-3 12-3 et14-2 699 184 1.49 example 155 cg 4-3 12-5 et14-2 698 183 1.50 comp. ex. cg 4-3 6-1 -- 712 225 1.72 22 comp. ex. cg 4-3 6-2 -- 713 230 1.75 23 comp. ex. cg 4-3 6-3 -- 719 229 1.73 24 ______________________________________ (multi-layer type photosensitive material for analogue light source) examples 156 to 160 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using a perylene pigment (cg3-1) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 161 to 165 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using a perylene pigment (cg4-1) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 166 to 170 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using a perylene pigment (cg4-2) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. examples 171 to 175 according to the same manner as that described in examples 61 to 65 except for using a perylene pigment (cg4-3) as the electric charge generating material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. comparative examples 25 to 28 according to the same manner as that described in examples 156, 161, 166 and 171 except for using a stilbene derivative (6-1) as the hole transferring material, multi-layer type photosensitive materials for analogue light source were produced, respectively. the photosensitive materials obtained in examples 156 to 175 and comparative examples 25 to 28 were subjected to the following electrical characteristics test (iv) and the electrical characteristics of the respective photosensitive materials were evaluated. electrical characteristics test (iv) according to the same manner as that described in the above electrical characteristics test (iii) except for charging the surface of the photosensitive material to -700.+-.20 v, the surface potential v.sub.0 (v), residual potential v.sub.r (v) and half-life exposure e.sub.1/2 (lux.multidot.sec.) were determined. the kind of the electric charge generating material and hole transferring material used in the above respective examples and comparative examples as well as test results of the electrical characteristics are shown in table 11. table 11 ______________________________________ electric charge hole generating transferring material material v.sub.o v.sub.r e.sub.1/2 ______________________________________ example 156 cg 3-1 11-2 -701 -125 1.89 example 157 cg 3-1 11-6 -702 -129 1.91 example 158 cg 3-1 11-7 -698 -125 1.90 example 159 cg 3-1 12-3 -700 -136 1.94 example 160 cg 3-1 12-5 -704 -134 1.93 example 161 cg 4-1 11-2 -701 -108 1.79 example 162 cg 4-1 11-6 -705 -106 1.80 example 163 cg 4-1 11-7 -704 -108 1.80 example 164 cg 4-1 12-3 -700 -121 1.86 example 165 cg 4-1 12-5 -704 -119 1.85 example 166 cg 4-2 11-2 -703 -120 1.86 example 167 cg 4-2 11-6 -698 -124 1.87 example 168 cg 4-2 11-7 -699 -122 1.86 example 169 cg 4-2 12-3 -706 -128 1.88 example 170 cg 4-2 12-5 -702 -126 1.88 example 171 cg 4-3 11-2 -701 -102 1.77 example 172 cg 4-3 11-6 -704 -106 1.78 example 173 cg 4-3 11-7 -705 -103 1.77 example 174 cg 4-3 12-3 -700 -109 1.80 example 175 cg 2-2 12-5 -697 -111 1.81 comp. ex. 25 cg 3-1 6-1 -706 -158 2.01 comp. ex. 26 cg 4-1 6-1 -703 -163 2.11 comp. ex. 27 cg 4-2 6-1 -709 -152 2.00 comp. ex. 28 cg 4-3 6-1 -700 -163 2.09 ______________________________________ as is apparent from tables 3 to 11, the electrophotosensitive materials of examples 1 to 175 show small absolute value of the residual potential v.sub.r in comparison with the comparative examples corresponding to the respective examples. with respect to the half-life exposure e.sub.1/2, respective value in the examples is the same as or smaller than that of the corresponding comparative examples. consequently, it is found that the electrophotosensitive materials of examples 1 to 175 have excellent sensitivity. according to the same manner as that described in examples 1-175, electrophotosensitive materials (single-layer type or multi-layer type photoconductor for analogue-light source, or single-layer type or multi-layer type photoconductor for digital-light source can be produced by using the stilbene derivative (11-14) to (11-18) of synthesis examples 6-10 or the stilbene derivative (12-14) to (12-18) of synthesis examples 11-15, which show an excellent sensitivity similar to electrophotosensitive materials of examples 1-175.
137-452-532-609-358	US	[ "CN", "WO", "US" ]	F16K1/02,F16K1/32,F16K1/36,F16K1/46,F16K1/48,F16K27/08,F16K3/24,F16K3/316,F16K27/04,F16K47/08,F16K27/02	2019-05-08T00:00:00	2019	[ "F16" ]	control valve including valve trim having relative movement between bonnet and cage	the invention discloses a control valve including a valve trim having relative movement between a bonnet and a cage. the control valve includes a valve body including an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet. the control valve includes a cage disposed in the flow passage. the control valve includes a control element disposed in the flow passage and shiftable between a first position and a second position. the control valve includes a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage. the bonnet is adapted to receive a portion of the cage. thecontrol valve includes a coupling formed between the bonnet and the cage that allows movement between the bonnet and the cage.	claims what is claimed is: 1. a control valve, comprising: a valve body comprising an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet; a cage disposed in the flow passage and comprising an external groove; a control element disposed in the flow passage and shiftable between a first position and a second position; a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage, the bonnet comprising an internal groove and having a portion that engages a portion of the cage, the external groove of the cage and the internal groove of the bonnet positioned adjacent one another when the portion of the bonnet engages the portion of the cage; and a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form a coupling between the bonnet and the cage, the coupling allowing movement between the bonnet and the cage. 2. the control valve of claim 1 , wherein the portion of the cage comprises an outward facing step, the outward facing step being disposed adjacent the bonnet. 3. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the step forms a space, and wherein the portion of the bonnet comprises the internal groove and is disposed within the space formed by the step. 4. the control valve of any preceding claim, further comprising a seal, the seal positioned on a surface of the step, the seal arranged to be compressed between the bonnet and the surface of the step of the cage. 5. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein a height of the external groove is less than a height of the internal groove, the compressible ring disposed within the external groove and movable within the internal groove to provide the coupling. 6. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the seal is a spiral-wound gasket. 7. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein a height of the external groove is greater than a height of the internal groove, the compressible ring disposed within the internal groove and movable within the external groove to provide the coupling. 8. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the cage comprises an outward-facing tapered surface, the compressible ring is sized to cooperate with the outward-facing tapered surface to expand the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the external groove. 9. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the bonnet comprises an inward-facing tapered surface, the compressible ring is sized to corporate with the inward-facing tapered surface to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the internal groove. 10. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the internal groove of the bonnet comprises a second inward-facing tapered surface, the second inward-facing tapered surface arranged to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being removed from the internal groove. 1 1 . the control valve of any preceding claim, further comprising a plug guide carried by the cage and adapted to guide movement of the control element. 12. the control valve of any preceding claim, wherein the cage comprises an internal groove and an internal step, the internal step engaged by the plug guide, further comprising a second fastener arranged within the internal groove of the cage, the second fastener engaging a surface of the plug guide to couple the plug guide to the cage. 13. a valve trim subassembly for use with a valve body comprising an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet, the valve trim subassembly comprising: a cage disposable in the flow passage and comprising an external groove; a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage, the bonnet comprising an internal groove and having a portion that engages a portion of the cage, the external groove of the cage and the internal groove of the bonnet positioned adjacent one another when the portion of the bonnet engages the portion of the cage; and a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form a coupling between the bonnet and the cage, the coupling allowing movement between the bonnet and the cage. 14. the valve trim subassembly of claim 13, further comprising a control element disposed in the cage. 15. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the cage comprises an outward facing step, the outward facing step disposed adjacent the bonnet. 16. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the bonnet comprises the internal groove and is disposed within a space formed by the step. 17. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, further comprising a seal positioned on a surface of the step, the seal arranged to be compressed between the bonnet and the surface of the step of the cage. 18. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein a height of the external groove is less than a height of the internal groove, the compressible ring disposed within the external groove and movable within the internal groove to provide the coupling between the bonnet and the cage. 19. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the cage comprises an outward-facing tapered surface, the compressible ring is sized to cooperate with the outward-facing tapered surface to expand the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the external groove. 20. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein a portion of the bonnet comprises an inward-facing tapered surface, the compressible ring is sized to corporate with the inward-facing tapered surface to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the internal groove. 21 the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, wherein the internal groove of the bonnet comprises a second inward-facing tapered surface, the second inward facing tapered surface arranged to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being removed from the internal groove. 22. the valve trim subassembly of any preceding claim, further comprising a control element and a plug guide, the plug guide carried by the cage and adapted to guide movement of the control element. 23. a control valve, comprising: a valve body comprising an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet; a cage disposed in the flow passage; a control element disposed in the flow passage and shiftable between a first position and a second position; a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage, the bonnet adapted to receive a portion of the cage; and a coupling formed between the bonnet and the cage that allows movement between the bonnet and the cage. 24. the control valve of claim 23, wherein the bonnet comprising an internal groove and the cage comprises an external groove, further comprising a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form the coupling. 25. a method of producing a valve trim subassembly for use with a valve body, the method comprising: providing a cage comprising an external groove; positioning a compressible ring within the external groove; providing a bonnet comprising an internal groove; engaging a portion of the bonnet with a portion of the cage; and positioning the compressible ring within the internal groove of the bonnet to form a coupling between the cage and the bonnet, the coupling allowing movement between the cage and the bonnet. 26. the method of claim 25, wherein the portion of the cage comprises an outward-facing tapered surface and wherein positioning the compressible ring within the external groove comprises engaging the compressible ring against the outward-facing tapered surface to allow the compressible ring to cooperate with the outward-facing tapered surface to expand the compressible ring. 27. the method of any preceding claim, wherein the portion of the bonnet comprises an inward-facing tapered surface and wherein positioning the compressible ring within the internal groove of the bonnet comprises engaging the compressible ring against the inward-facing tapered surface to allow the compressible ring to cooperate with the inward-facing tapered surface to compress the compressible ring. 28. the method of any preceding claim, further comprising providing a control element and a plug guide adapted to guide movement of the control element, and disposing the control element within the cage and coupling the plug guide to the cage. 29. the method of any preceding claim, wherein the cage comprises an internal groove and an internal step, further comprising providing a second fastener and engaging the plug guide and the internal step and disposing the second fastener within the internal groove, the fastener engaging a surface of the plug guide to couple the stem guide to the cage.	control valves including valve trim having relative movement between the bonnet and the cage field of the disclosure [0001] the present patent relates generally to control valves and, in particular, to control valves including valve trim having relative movement between the bonnet and the cage. background [0002] known control valves include numerous trim components that are individually positioned within a valve body when the control valve is being assembled. as a result, tolerance stack-ups must be accounted for when manufacturing and positioning the trim components within the valve body. moreover, proper alignment of the trim components is required to ensure proper seating of the valve plug against the seat ring to shut-off fluid flow through the control valve. summary [0003] in accordance with a first example, a control valve includes a valve body includes an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet. the control valve includes a cage disposed in the flow passage and including an external groove. the control valve includes a control element disposed in the flow passage and shiftable between a first position and a second position. the control valve includes a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage. the bonnet includes an internal groove and having a portion that engages a portion of the cage. the external groove of the cage and the internal groove of the bonnet are positioned adjacent one another when the portion of the bonnet engages the portion of the cage. the control valve includes a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form a coupling between the bonnet and the cage. the coupling allowing movement between the bonnet and the cage. [0004] in accordance with a second example, a valve trim subassembly for use with a valve body includes an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet. the valve trim subassembly includes a cage disposable in the flow passage and includes an external groove. the valve trim subassembly includes a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage. the bonnet includes an internal groove and having a portion that engages a portion of the cage. the external groove of the cage and the internal groove of the bonnet are positioned adjacent one another when the portion of the bonnet engages the portion of the cage. the valve trim subassembly includes a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form a coupling between the bonnet and the cage. the coupling allowing movement between the bonnet and the cage. [0005] in accordance with a third example, a control valve includes a valve body including an inlet, an outlet, and a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet. the control valve includes a cage disposed in the flow passage and a control element disposed in the flow passage and shiftable between a first position and a second position. the control valve includes a bonnet securable to the valve body and disposed adjacent the cage. the bonnet is adapted to receive a portion of the cage. the control valve includes a coupling formed between the bonnet and the cage that allows movement between the bonnet and the cage. [0006] in accordance with a fourth example, a method of producing a valve trim subassembly for use with a valve body, the method includes providing a cage including an external groove; positioning a compressible ring within the external groove; providing a bonnet including an internal groove; engaging a portion of the bonnet with a portion of the cage; and positioning the compressible ring within the internal groove of the bonnet to form a coupling between the cage and the bonnet. the coupling allowing movement between the cage and the bonnet. [0007] in further accordance with the foregoing first, second, third and/or fourth examples, an apparatus and/or method may further include any one or more of the following: [0008] in accordance with one example, the portion of the cage includes an outward facing step. the outward facing step is disposed adjacent the bonnet. [0009] in accordance with another example, the step forms a space. the portion of the bonnet includes the internal groove and is disposed within the space formed by the step. [0010] in accordance with another example, further including a seal. the seal is positioned on a surface of the step. the seal is arranged to be compressed between the bonnet and the surface of the step of the cage. [0011] in accordance with another example, a height of the external groove is less than a height of the internal groove. the compressible ring is disposed within the external groove and movable within the internal groove to provide the coupling. [0012] in accordance with another example, the seal is a spiral-wound gasket. [0013] in accordance with another example, a height of the external groove is greater than a height of the internal groove. the compressible ring is disposed within the internal groove and is movable within the external groove to provide the coupling. [0014] in accordance with another example, the portion of the cage includes an outward facing tapered surface. the compressible ring is sized to cooperate with the outward-facing tapered surface to expand the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the external groove. [0015] in accordance with another example, the portion of the bonnet includes an inward facing tapered surface. the compressible ring is sized to corporate with the inward-facing tapered surface to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the internal groove. [0016] in accordance with another example, the internal groove of the bonnet includes a second inward-facing tapered surface. the second inward-facing tapered surface is arranged to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being removed from the internal groove. [0017] in accordance with another example, further including a plug guide carried by the cage and adapted to guide movement of the control element. [0018] in accordance with another example, the cage includes an internal groove and an internal step. the internal step is engaged by the plug guide. further including a second fastener arranged within the internal groove of the cage. the second fastener engaging a surface of the plug guide to couple the plug guide to the cage. [0019] in accordance with another example, further including a control element disposed in the cage. [0020] in accordance with another example, the portion of the bonnet includes the internal groove and is disposed within a space formed by the step. [0021] in accordance with another example, further including a control element and a plug guide. the plug guide carried by the cage and adapted to guide movement of the control element. [0022] in accordance with another example, the bonnet includes an internal groove and the cage includes an external groove. further including a compressible ring arranged within the internal groove and the external groove to form the coupling. [0023] in accordance with another example, the portion of the cage includes an outward facing tapered surface and positioning the compressible ring within the external groove includes engaging the compressible ring against the outward-facing tapered surface to allow the compressible ring to cooperate with the outward-facing tapered surface to expand the compressible ring. [0024] in accordance with another example, the portion of the bonnet includes an inward facing tapered surface and positioning the compressible ring within the internal groove of the bonnet includes engaging the compressible ring against the inward-facing tapered surface to allow the compressible ring to cooperate with the inward-facing tapered surface to compress the compressible ring when the compressible ring is being positioned within the internal groove. [0025] in accordance with another example, further including providing a control element and a plug guide adapted to guide movement of the control element. the method includes disposing the control element within the cage and coupling the plug guide to the cage. [0026] in accordance with another example, the cage includes an internal groove and an internal step, further including providing a second fastener and engaging the plug guide and the internal step and disposing the second fastener within the internal groove. the fastener engaging a surface of the plug guide to couple the plug guide to the cage. brief description of the drawings [0027] fig. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a control valve assembled in accordance with the teachings of a first disclosed example of the present invention and including a valve body having an inlet, an outlet, a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet, and a valve trim subassembly having a cage, and a coupling provided between the cage and a bonnet to allow movement between the cage and the valve bonnet. [0028] fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view illustrating portions of the cage, the valve bonnet and aspects of the coupling between the cage and the valve bonnet. [0029] fig. 3 is similar to fig. 2 but is a further enlarged fragmentary view illustrating aspects of the coupling between the cage and the valve bonnet. [0030] fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a control valve assembled in accordance with the teachings of a second disclosed example of the present invention and including a valve body having an inlet, an outlet, a flow passage connecting the inlet and the outlet, and a valve trim subassembly having a plug guide. [0031] fig. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view illustrating portions of the cage, the valve bonnet and aspects of a coupling between the cage and the plug guide. [0032] fig. 6 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view illustrating portions of the cage, the valve bonnet and aspects of an alternative coupling between the cage and the plug guide. detailed description [0033] although the following text discloses a detailed description of example methods, apparatus and/or articles of manufacture, it should be understood that the legal scope of the property right is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. accordingly, the following detailed description is to be construed as examples only and does not describe every possible example, as describing every possible example would be impractical, if not impossible. numerous alternative examples could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent. it is envisioned that such alternative examples would still fall within the scope of the claims. [0034] referring now to the drawings, fig. 1 illustrates a control valve 100 in accordance with the teachings of a first disclosed example of the present invention. the control valve 100 includes a valve body 102 having an inlet 104, an outlet 106 and a flow passage 108 connecting the inlet 104 and the outlet 106. the control valve 100 includes a cage 1 10 disposed in the flow passage 108. [0035] the cage 1 10 includes an external groove 1 12 (the external groove 1 12 is best shown in fig. 2). the external groove 1 12 has a square cross-section that may form an interference fit with a compressible ring 125 that is discussed in more detail below. alternatively, the external groove 1 12 may have another cross-section (e.g., rectangular). in the example shown, the cage 1 10 also includes an integral seat 1 13. [0036] a control element 1 14 is disposed in the flow passage 108 and is shiftable between a first position and a second position. the first position may be associated with the control element 1 14 being spaced from the seat 1 13 allowing fluid flow through the flow passage 108. the second position may be associated with the control element 1 14 engaging the seat 1 13 preventing fluid flow through the flow passage 108. in the example shown, the control element 1 14 is a pressure balanced valve plug. flowever, alternatively and as shown in figs. 4 and 5, the control element 1 14 may be an unbalanced valve plug. [0037] as shown in fig. 1 , a bonnet 1 16 is securable to the valve body 102 and disposed adjacent the cage 1 10. the bonnet 1 16 includes an internal groove 1 18 (the internal groove 1 18 is best shown in fig. 2). the internal groove 1 18 has a rectangular cross-section. flowever, other cross-sections may be used instead (e.g., semi-circular groove). [0038] when the bonnet 1 16 receives the cage 1 10 as shown, a portion 120 of the bonnet 1 16 engages a portion 122 of the cage 1 10 and the external groove 1 12 of the cage 1 10 is positioned adjacent the internal groove 1 18 of the bonnet 1 16. the portion 120 of the bonnet 1 16 is shown as a stepped-annular projection that matingly engages corresponding structure of the valve body 102. the portion 122 of the cage 1 10 is shown as an annular projection. the grooves 1 12, 1 18 being adjacent one another may include having the grooves 1 12, 1 18 face one another, being radially aligned and/or at least partially overlapping. for example, having the grooves 1 12, 1 18 positioned adjacent one another can include the external groove 1 12 being positioned between ends 124, 126 (the ends 124, 126 are best seen in fig. 2) of the internal groove 1 18 allowing for the compressible ring 125 to extend between the grooves 1 12, 1 18 as shown. [0039] the compressible ring 125 (the compressible ring 125 is best shown in fig. 2) is arranged within the internal groove 1 18 and the external groove 1 12 to form a coupling 129 between the bonnet 1 16 and the cage 1 10. the coupling 129 allows movement between the bonnet 1 16 and the cage 1 10. thus, the compressible ring 125 forms a non-rigid connection between the bonnet 1 16 and the cage 1 10. the compressible ring 125 may be a snap ring or another type of fastener. [0040] fig. 2 illustrates a detailed view of the control valve 100 of fig. 1. in the example shown, a height 127 of the external groove 1 12 is less than a height 128 of the internal groove 1 18. as a result, the compressible ring 125 may be disposed within the external groove 1 12 and can be movable within the internal groove 1 18. for example, an interference fit may be formed between the compressible ring 125 and the external groove 1 12 that secures the compressible ring 125 within the external groove 1 12. alternatively, a height of the internal groove 1 18 may be less than a height of the external groove 1 12 (see, for example, fig. 6). in such examples, the compressible ring 125 may be disposed within the internal groove 1 18 and may be movable within the external groove 1 12. regardless of the relative heights of the external groove 1 12 and the internal groove 1 18, the ability of the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16 to be movably coupled to one another accommodates for differences in thermal expansion rates of the valve body 102, the cage 1 10 and/or the bonnet 1 16. moreover, movably coupling the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16 allows this valve trim subassembly to be relatively easily installed within the valve body 102 with reduced alignment issues. the valve trim subassembly may include two or more of the cage 1 10, the control element 1 14 and the bonnet 1 16. [0041] as shown in fig. 2, the portion 122 of the cage 1 10 has an outward-facing step 130 disposed adjacent the bonnet 1 16. the step 130 forms a space 132 in which a portion 134 of the bonnet 1 16 is positioned. the internal groove 1 18 is formed on the portion 134 of the bonnet 1 16, which is shown having a substantially rectangular cross-section. [0042] a seal 136 is positioned on a surface 138 of the step 130 and is arranged to be compressed between the bonnet 1 16 and the surface 138 of the step 130. when the relative position of the cage 1 10, the bonnet 1 16 or the valve body 102 changes, the seal 136 may continue to sealingly engage the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16. thus, regardless of the relative position between the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16, a seal may continue to be provided between the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16 and/or between the cage 1 10, the bonnet 1 16 and the valve body 102. in the example shown, the seal 136 is a spiral-wound gasket. however, the seal 136 may be any other type of seal. another seal 139 is positioned between a shoulder 140 of the bonnet 1 16 and a stepped-surface 141 of the valve body 102. the seal 139 may prevent fluid flow between the valve body 102 and the bonnet 1 16. the seal 139 is shown as a shim gasket or a bonnet gasket. however, other types of seals may alternatively be used. [0043] fig. 3 illustrates another detailed view of the control valve 100 of fig. 1. in the example shown, the portion 122 of the cage 1 10 has an outward-facing tapered surface 142 and a portion 143 of the bonnet 1 16 has an inward-facing tapered surface 144. angles of one or more of the surfaces 142, 144 is approximately 30°. however, the angle of the respective surfaces 142, 144 may be any other angle. [0044] when the compressible ring 125 is being positioned within the external groove 1 12, the compressible ring 125 is sized to cooperate with the tapered surface 142 to expand the compressible ring 125. specifically, when the compressible ring 125 is being positioned about the cage 1 10 and the compressible ring 125 engages the tapered surface 142, the compressible ring 125 is expanded (the diameter is increased). when the compressible ring 125 carried by the cage 1 10 is being positioned within the internal groove 1 18, the compressible ring 125 is sized to cooperate with the tapered surface 144 to compress compressible ring 125 (the diameter is decreased). in the compressed state, the compressible ring 125 and the cage 1 10 may be further positioned within the bonnet 1 16 until the compressible ring 125 is radially aligned with the internal groove 1 18, thereby allowing the compressible ring 125 to move toward an expanded state and be received within the internal groove 1 18. when the compressible ring 125 is received within the groove 1 12, 1 18, the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16 are movably coupled together (e.g., coupled in a manner that allows movement between the cage 1 10 and the bonnet 1 16). [0045] as shown in fig. 3, the internal groove 1 18 has a second inward-facing tapered surface 146. an angle of the tapered surface 146 is approximately 60°. however, the tapered surface 146 may be formed at any other angle. when the compressible ring 125 is being removed from the internal groove 1 18, the second inward-facing tapered surface 146 is arranged to compress the compressible ring 125. specifically, if a valve stem 148 (the valve stem 148 is best shown in fig. 1 ) of the control valve 100 is struck with a hammer, the control element 1 14 is driven against the seat 1 13, causing the seat 1 13, the cage 1 10 and the compressible ring 125 within the external groove 1 12 to move downward. as the compressible ring 125 moves downward, the compressible ring 125 engages the tapered surface 146 and is compressed. when the compressible ring 125 is compressed by the tapered surface 146, the compressible ring 125 is removable from the internal groove 1 18 and the cage 1 10 may be uncoupled from the bonnet 1 16. [0046] fig. 4 illustrates a control valve 250 in accordance with the teachings of a second disclosed example of the present invention. elements of the control valve 250 which are the same or similar to the control valve 100 are designated by the same reference numeral, incremented by 100. a description of many of these elements is abbreviated or eliminated in the interest of brevity. [0047] the control valve 250 is similar to the control valve 100 of fig. 1 . flowever, in contrast to the control valve 100 of fig. 1 , the control valve 200 of fig. 4 includes a plug guide 252 carried by the cage 210. the plug guide 252 guides the movement of a control element 256 relative to the valve seat 213. the valve seat 213 is integral to the cage 210. to guide movement of the control element 256, the plug guide 252 includes an aperture 257 that receives a portion 258 of the control element 256. as a result of the interaction between the portion 258 of the control element 256 and the aperture 257 of the plug guide 252, the control element 256 is guided relative to the valve seat 213. the control element 256 is an unbalanced valve plug. flowever, other types of valve plugs may be used. [0048] fig. 5 illustrates a detailed view of the control valve 250 of fig. 4. in the example shown, the cage 210 includes an internal groove 260 and an internal step 262. a fastener 263 is received within the internal groove 260. the fastener 263 may be a compressible ring such as a snap ring or a retaining ring. the plug guide 252 engages the internal step 262 and is captured between the internal step 262 and the fastener 263 to couple the plug guide 252 to the cage 210. specifically, the fastener 263 projects from the internal groove 260 and engages a surface 264 of the plug guide 252. in the example shown, a portion 266 of the cage 210 includes an outward-facing tapered surface 268. when the fastener 263 is being positioned within the internal groove 260, the tapered surface 268 is arranged to compress the fastener 263. [0049] fig. 6 illustrates a detailed view of the control valve 250 of fig. 4 having an alternative coupling between the cage 210 and the bonnet 216. in contrast to the examples shown above, a height of the internal groove 218 of the bonnet 1 16 is less than a height of the external groove 212 of the cage 210. thus, the compressible ring 225 is disposed within the internal groove 218 and is movable within the external groove 212. also, the external groove 212 includes the tapered surface 246. the tapered surface 246 is positioned to allow the compressible ring 225 to be compressed when, for example, the valve stem 148 (the valve stem 148 is best shown in fig. 1 ) of the control valve 100 is struck with a hammer to remove the compressible ring 225 from the external groove 212. [0050] from the foregoing, it will be appreciated that the above disclosed apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture enable control valves to be produced with less tolerance variances, reducing the likelihood of leaks occurring. specifically, tolerance variances are reduced using the teachings of this disclosure by forming a cage with an integral seat and coupling the cage to a bonnet using a snap ring. the coupling between the bonnet and the cage substantially ensures the relative alignment between the cage and the bonnet and forms a modular valve-trim assembly (a valve trim cartridge). as a result of the non-rigid coupling between the cage and bonnet, thermal expansion between the respective components of the control valve is allowed and machining tolerance variations between the respective control valve components may be increased. moreover, as a result of the teachings of this disclosure, the number of parts included in the valve trim assembly is reduced and the time required to assemble such valves is reduced given that no subsequent operations are required to achieve proper alignment and sealing. the modular valve trim assembly may be formed using additive manufacturing processes, milling processes, etc. [0051] to assemble one of the valve trim subassemblies, the valve plug and the valve stem are positioned within the cage, the spiral wound gasket is placed over top of the cage and a snap ring is positioned within a groove formed by an outer surface of the cage. when the plug is an unbalanced plug, a plug guide can be positioned within the cage. to secure the plug guide within the cage, the plug guide is captured between an internal shoulder of the cage and a fastener carried by the cage. the fastener can be a retaining ring. [0052] to couple the valve trim assembly and the bonnet to form the modular valve trim assembly, an end of the cage carrying the snap ring is inserted into the inner diameter of the bonnet until the snap ring is received within a corresponding groove of the bonnet. the interaction between the bonnet, the cage and the snap ring forms an interference fit that couples (movably couples) the cage and the bonnet together. [0053] moreover, the groove formed by the bonnet is sized (e.g., has sufficient height) to allow the snap ring and the cage to shift up and down during the compression or decompression of the spiral wound gasket while allowing the cage to engage the bonnet during assembly and operation. specifically, the coupling between the cage and the bonnet formed by the snap ring allows the spiral wound gasket positioned therebetween to expand and contract to fill the gap between the bonnet and the cage, thereby allowing the interface between the bonnet and the cage to remain sealed regardless of the relative position of the cage and the bonnet. [0054] when the valve trim subassembly is installed into a valve body, fasteners are received through the bonnet and the valve body to couple (e.g., bolt) the valve body and the bonnet together and compress the port flat sheet graphite gasket and the spiral wound gasket at the top of the cage. the compression of the gaskets allows the cage to engage the bonnet. in contrast, if a rigid connection were formed between the bonnet and the cage such as that provided by a threaded connection, the spiral wound gasket may not be compressed or able to expand / compress when the bonnet is bolted to the valve body. as a result, an improper seal may be formed and/or components of the control valve may be overstressed. [0055] further, while several examples have been disclosed herein, any features from any examples may be combined with or replaced by other features from other examples. moreover, while several examples have been disclosed herein, changes may be made to the disclosed examples within departing from the scope of the claims.
139-832-909-416-677	US	[ "US", "JP" ]	C03C21/00,C03C23/00	1992-07-27T00:00:00	1992	[ "C03" ]	thermally durable anti-reflective glass	a process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass comprises injecting element ions into the surface region of a glass sheet by ion implantation and thereafter treating the surface of the glass sheet with an acid or acid salt to remove excess alkali from the surface thereof.	1. a process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass, comprising the steps of: a) injecting element ions into a surface region of a glass sheet by ion implantation; and b) treating the surface of the glass sheet with a compound selected from the group consisting of acids and acid salts, to remove excess alkali from the surface of the glass sheet. 2. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the element ions are selected from the group consisting of argon, nitrogen, aluminum, titanium, and mixtures thereof. 3. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the element ions comprise argon ions. 4. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the element ions are implanted at an energy level from about 1 kev to about 5 mev. 5. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 4, wherein the energy level is from about 30 kev to about 70 kev. 6. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the element ions are implanted to a concentration from about 10 .sup.12 ions/cm.sup.2 to about 10.sup.18 ions/cm.sup.2 . 7. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 6, wherein the concentration is from about 2.times.10.sup.16 ions/cm.sup.2 to about 9.times.10.sup.16 ions/cm.sup.2. 8. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the element ions are implanted to a depth of up to about 1,500 angstroms. 9. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1, wherein the acids are selected from the group consisting of nitric, phosphoric, boric, sulfuric, hydrochloric, and acetic acids and mixtures thereof, and the acid salts are selected from the group consisting of sodium bicarbonate and sodium bisulfate and mixtures thereof. 10. the process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass according to claim 1 wherein the compound comprises nitric acid. 11. a process for making ion implanted anti-reflective glass thermally durable, comprising treating a surface of the glass with a compound selected from the group consisting of acids and acid salts to remove excess alkali from the surface of the glass. 12. the process for making ion implanted anti-reflective glass thermally durable according to claim 11, wherein the acids are selected from the group consisting of nitric, phosphoric, boric, sulfuric, hydrochloric, and acetic acids and mixtures thereof, and the acid salts are selected from the group consisting of sodium bicarbonate and sodium bisulfate and mixtures thereof. 13. the process for making ion implanted anti-reflective glass thermally durable according to claim 11, wherein the compound comprises nitric acid.	field of the invention this invention is directed to thermally durable anti-reflective glass. more particularly, the invention contemplates a process for making anti-reflective glass, which glass retains its anti-reflectivity when heated to conventional glass sheet processing and fabricating temperatures. background of the invention it is well-known that the visible reflection of light rays from the surface of a sheet of glass may be reduced by modifying the surface of the glass sheet. for example, the surface of the glass sheet may be treated with an etchant such as hydrofluoric acid to produce a frosted, anti-reflective glass for use in portrait frames, etc. another method for modifying the surface of a glass sheet to produce anti-reflective glass is by ion implantation, wherein ions of an element are electrically accelerated and injected into the glass sheet to a selected depth and concentration in order to produce a solid mixture in the surface region of the glass sheet which thereby exhibits a gradational refractive index. hines, r. l., "radiation effect of positive ion bombardment on glass, " journal of applied physics, v. 28, no. 5, pp. 587-591 (1957) discloses the ion implantation of argon ions into the surface region of a soda-lime-silica glass sheet, to produce anti-reflective glass. arnold, g. w., "radiation enhanced diffusion in ion-implanted glasses and glass/metal couples," mat. res. soc. sym. proc., v. 27, pp. 61-66 (1984) discloses that such ion implantation causes alkali atom migration to the surface of the soda-lime-silica glass sheet. it has been discovered that glass sheets, whose surfaces have been modified by ion implantation to produce anti-reflective glass, lose their anti-reflective properties when the glass sheets are heated to conventional glass processing and fabricating temperatures, such as those used to provide pyrolytic coatings thereon or to heat and bend the glass sheets. it would be desirable to develop a process for preparing ion implanted anti-reflective glass, which glass would not lose its anti-reflectivity as a result of being heated to conventional glass sheet fabricating and processing temperatures. summary of the invention accordant with the present invention, there surprisingly has been discovered a process for preparing thermally durable anti-reflective glass. the process comprises the steps of: a) injecting element ions into a surface region of a glass sheet by ion implantation; and b) treating the surface of the glass sheet with a compound selected from the group consisting of acids and acid salts, to remove excess alkali from the surface of the glass sheet. the process of the present invention is particularly well suited for producing anti-reflective glass by ion implantation, which glass is intended to undergo subsequent processing to produce formed automotive and architectural glazings. brief description of the drawing the novel features that are considered characteristic of the invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. the invention will best be understood, however, by reference to the accompanying description of specific embodiments when read in conjunction with the attendant drawing in which fig. 1 is a graph illustrating the thermal durability of ion implanted anti-reflective glass. detailed description of the preferred embodiments the present invention is directed to thermally durable anti-reflective glass. by the term "thermally durable" as it is used herein is meant that glass made anti-reflective by ion implantation will retain a greater percentage of anti-reflectivity when heated to conventional glass sheet processing and fabricating temperatures than the ion implanted anti-reflective glass disclosed in the prior art. temperatures at which glass sheets are typically processed, i.e., formed, annealed, pyrolytically coated, tempered, etc. range from about 400.degree. c. to about 650.degree. c. ion implantation is a well-known process for injecting ions of elements into the surface region of a glass sheet. ions of the selected elements are electrically accelerated toward the target glass sheet, and attain an energy sufficient to cause the element ions to significantly penetrate the glass sheet. the atoms of the selected elements are ionized by collisions with electrons in an electrical discharge in a gas at low pressure, and then accelerated by a negative electrical potential to the penetration velocity. when the ions of the selected elements collide with the surface of the g)ass sheet, they actually tunnel into or are implanted into the surface region of the glass sheet. thus, a buried element phase is formed in the surface region of the target glass sheet. generally, the implanted ions are injected to form a gradational concentration of the element phase. this modified surface region displays a gradational refractive index which is different from the refractive index of the glass. this feature makes the glass anti-reflective. the properties of the implanted ion layer, and therefore the anti-reflective nature of the glass, may be determined by controlling the ion implantation process variables. various element ions may be used for the ion implantation process of the present invention including, but not necessarily limited to, argon, nitrogen, aluminum, titanium, etc., as well as mixtures of element ions. particularly useful element ions comprise argon ions. ion implantation energies may vary over a wide range from about 1 kev to about 5 mev, to produce a useful ion concentration from about 10.sup.12 to 10.sup.18 ions/cm.sup.2. preferably, the ion implantation energy ranges from about 30 kev to about 70 kev, and is used to produce an element ion concentration from about 2.times.10.sup.16 ions/cm.sup.2 to about 9.times.10.sup.16 ions/cm.sup.2. the element ions generally penetrate the glass to a depth of up to about 1,500 angstroms, thereby defining the surface region of the glass sheet having the modified refractive index. when an ion implanted anti-reflective glass sheet is heated to conventional processing or fabricating temperatures, for example to form or anneal the glass sheet, the anti-reflectivity of the ultimately produced glass sheet is diminished. while not wishing to be bound by any particular theory regarding the mechanism by which ion implanted glass sheets lose their anti-reflectivity over time at elevated temperatures, it is believed that alkali ions which migrate to the surface of the glass sheets during the ion implantation process are reintroduced back into the glass sheets at the elevated processing temperatures, to partially reform the original glass structure. the process according to the present invention combines a surface dealkyization step with the ion implantation process. the surface of the ion implanted glass sheet is treated with an acid or an acid salt to remove the excess alkali formed at the surface of the glass sheet during the ion implantation operation. the glass surface is treated by applying the acid or acid salt to the surface of the glass sheet, to react with the excess alkali, and thereafter washing the reaction residue off of the glass sheet. the acid or acid salt is generally in the form of an aqueous solution but may also be in the form of a vapor. useful acids include, but are not necessarily limited to, inorganic acids such as nitric, phosphoric, boric, sulfuric, and hydrochloric acids, as well as mixtures thereof. organic acids such as for example, acetic acid may also be used singularly or in a mixture with other acids. a preferred acid comprises nitric acid. alternately, acid salts such as sodium bicarbonate or sodium bisulfate or a mixture thereof may be employed. finally the resultant residue may be rinsed from the surface of the glass sheet with water. as will be readily apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art, the acid or acid salt solution concentration, the temperature of the glass sheet during the treatment step, and the time of contact between the acid or acid salt solution and the surface of the glass sheet, may vary over wide limits and are not sharply critical to the successful practice of the present invention. example samples of clear float glass were implanted with argon ions at about 70 kev to a dose of about 3.times.10.sup.16 ions/cm.sup.2 to produce anti-reflective glass. for comparison purposes, some of the samples were heated in air for various lengths of time to simulate the loss of antireflectivity at elevated glass processing temperatures, and the increase in reflectivity was measured. the remainder of the samples were treated according to the present invention by immersion in an aqueous solution of nitric acid (ph about 5) for about one hour at about 60.degree. c. thereafter, these samples were also heated in air, and the increase in reflectivity was measured. fig. 1 demonstrates the average increase in reflectivity for the as-implanted samples versus the increase in reflectivity for anti-reflective glass prepared according to the present invention. it is evident that the examples produced according to the present invention are more thermally durable than the comparison samples. these examples may be repeated with similar success by substituting the generically or specifically described reactants and/or reaction conditions recited herein for those actually used for the previous examples. from the foregoing description, one ordinarily skilled in the art can easily ascertain the essential characteristics of this invention, and without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, can make various changes and modifications in the invention to adapt it to various usages and conditions.
140-309-466-124-171	US	[ "US" ]	A61B5/00,A61B5/0205,H04L29/08,H04W4/80,G05B19/00,A61B5/024,A61B5/11,G05B23/00,G06F7/00,G06F7/04,G06K19/00,G08B29/00,G08C19/00,H04B1/00,H04B3/00,H04Q1/00,H04Q9/00	2012-06-22T00:00:00	2012	[ "A61", "H04", "G05", "G06", "G08" ]	portable biometric monitoring devices and methods of operating same	the present inventions, in one aspect, are directed to portable biometric monitoring device including a housing having a physical size and shape that is adapted to couple to the user's body, at least one band to secure the monitoring device to the user, a physiological sensor, disposed in the housing, to generate data which is representative of a physiological condition of the user data. the physiological sensor may include a light source to generate and output light having at least a first wavelength, and a photodetector to detect scattered light (e.g., from the user). a light pipe is disposed in the housing and optically coupled to the light source directs/transmits light therefrom along a predetermined path to an outer surface of the housing. processing circuitry calculates a heart rate of the user using data which is representative of the scattered light.	1 . a method of presenting a user with data from an external device on a biometric monitoring device, the method comprising: at the biometric monitoring device, receiving the data from the external device; and presenting the data to the user via an element configured to present information from the biometric monitoring device. 2 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises a communication addressed to the user. 3 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises information about an incoming phone call on the external device. 4 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises an email message. 5 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises a text message. 6 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises a calendar notification. 7 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises weather information. 8 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data is provided for a location detected for the user. 9 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises cues to train the user. 10 . the method of claim 2 , wherein the data comprises an alert to the user. 11 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises internet content. 12 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the internet content comprises social media content. 13 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the internet content comprises information from a periodical. 14 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the internet content comprises coaching advice for the user. 15 . the method of claim 11 , wherein the internet content comprises weather information. 16 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the external device is a server or a client device. 17 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the external device is a smart phone. 18 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the external device is a tablet or a computer. 19 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the biometric monitoring device comprises one or more biometric sensors. 20 . the method of claim 19 , wherein in the one more biometric sensors comprises a motion detector. 21 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the biometric monitoring device is configured to be worn by the user. 22 . the method of claim 21 , wherein the biometric monitoring device comprises a band designed to be worn around a wrist or ankle or wherein the biometric monitoring device is configured to be worn in a clip mounted to an article of clothing. 23 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the element configured to present information from the biometric monitoring device is configured to present the information by sound. 24 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the element configured to present information from the biometric monitoring device is configured to present the information by motion in the biometric monitoring device. 25 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the element configured to present information from the biometric monitoring device is a display configured to present the information visually. 26 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the biometric monitoring device comprises an application. 27 . the method of claim 26 , wherein the application is configured to fuse with an application on the external device. 28 . the method of claim 1 , further comprising: detecting proximity between the biometric monitoring device and external device; and in response, launching an application on the external device. 29 . the method of claim 28 , wherein the external device is a mobile phone and detecting proximity comprises near-field communication. 30 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the biometric monitoring device receives the data from the external device via bluetooth, ant, wlan, power-line networking, or a cell phone network.	related application this application is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/073,657, entitled “portable biometric monitoring devices and methods of operating same”, by yuen et al., filed nov. 6, 2013, which is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 13/924,784, entitled “portable biometric monitoring devices and methods of operating same”, by yuen et al., filed jun. 24, 2013, which claims priority to u.s. provisional application ser. no. 61/662,961, entitled “wireless personal biometrics monitor”, filed jun. 22, 2012, and u.s. provisional application ser. no. 61/752,826, entitled “portable monitoring devices and methods of operating same”, filed jan. 15, 2013, which applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/073,657 also claims priority to u.s. provisional application no. 61/830,600, entitled “portable monitoring devices and methods of operating same”, by yuen et al., filed jun. 3, 2013, which application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/073,657 is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/029,763, entitled “device state dependent user interface management”, by brumback et al., filed sep. 17, 2013, which claims priority to u.s. provisional application no. 61/746,101, filed dec. 26, 2012, entitled “context dependent user interface”, and to u.s. provisional patent application no. 61/789,305, filed mar. 15, 2013, entitled “device state dependent user interface management”, which applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. introduction the present inventions relate to a biometric monitoring device and methods and techniques to collect one or more types of physiological and/or environmental data from embedded or resident sensors and/or external devices and communicates or relays such information to other devices or other internet-viewable sources. (see, for example, fig. 1 ). while the user is wearing or manipulating the biometric monitoring device, through one or a plurality of sensors, the device may detect one or many of physiological metrics including, but not limited to, the user's heart rate. the device may have a user interface directly on the device that indicates the state of one or more of the data types available and/or being tracked/acquired. the user interface may also be used to display data from other devices or internet sources. the device may implement wireless communications so that when the user and device comes within range of a wireless base station or access point, the stored data automatically uploads to an internet viewable source such as a website. brief description of the drawings in the course of the detailed description to follow, reference will be made to the attached drawings. these drawings show different aspects of the present inventions and, where appropriate, reference numerals illustrating like structures, components, materials and/or elements in different figures are labeled similarly. the various embodiments disclosed herein are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to the same and/or similar structures/components/features/elements. it is understood that various combinations of the structures, components, features and/or elements, other than those specifically shown, are contemplated and are within the scope of the present inventions. moreover, there are many inventions described and illustrated herein. the present inventions are neither limited to any single aspect nor embodiment thereof, nor to any combinations and/or permutations of such aspects and/or embodiments. moreover, each of the aspects of the present inventions, and/or embodiments thereof, may be employed alone or in combination with one or more of the other aspects of the present inventions and/or embodiments thereof. for the sake of brevity, certain permutations and combinations are not discussed and/or illustrated separately herein. the various embodiments disclosed herein are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which: fig. 1 illustrates an exemplary portable monitoring device which enables user interaction via a user interface, wherein the portable monitoring device may have a user interface, processor, biometric sensor(s), memory, environmental sensor(s) and/or a wireless transceiver which may communicate with an external device (for example, a client and/or server); fig. 2 illustrates an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device which may be secured to the user through the use of a band; the exemplary portable biometric monitoring device may have a display, button(s), electronics package, and/or a band or an attachment band; notably, the band or attachment band is employed to secure the portable biometric monitoring device to the user, for example, an appendage of the user, for example, via hooks and loops (e.g., velcro), a clasp, and/or a band having memory of its shape (e.g. through the use of, for example, a spring metal band, elastic band, a “rubber” band, and/or a watch-like band); fig. 3 illustrates a view of the skin facing portion of the portable biometric monitoring device of, for example, fig. 2 ; notably, in this embodiment, the portable monitoring device includes a sensor protrusion and recess for mating a charger and/or data transmission cable; notable, the protrusion may more firmly maintain the sensor in contact with the skin of the user (for example, predetermined or fixed relational contact with the skin of the user); fig. 4 illustrates a cross-sectional view (through the electronics package) of an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device; fig. 5 illustrates a cross sectional view of a sensor protrusion of an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device; notably, two light sources (e.g. led's) may be located on one or more sides of the photodetector (for example, either side or opposing sides of a photodetector) to enable photoplethysmography (ppg) sensing wherein light blocking material may be placed between the light sources and the photodetector to prevent any light from the light sources from going through the device body and being detected by the photodetector (in one embodiment, the light sources and photodetector are placed on a flexible pcb); a flexible transparent layer may be placed on the lower surface of the sensor protrusion to form a seal wherein the transparent layer may provide other functions such as preventing liquid from entering the device where the light sources or photodetectors are disposed or placed; notably, the transparent layer may be formed through in-mold labeling or “iml”; fig. 6 illustrates a cross sectional view of a sensor protrusion of an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device; notably, the protrusion is similar to that illustrated in the exemplary portable biometric monitoring device of fig. 5 ; however, the light sources and photodetector are placed on a flat and/or rigid pcb; fig. 7 illustrates another cross-sectional view of a ppg sensor, wherein in this embodiment, the ppg sensor does not include a protrusion; moreover, a gasket and/or a pressure sensitive adhesive may be employed to resist, inhibit and/or prevent liquid from entering the body of the device; fig. 8 illustrates an exemplary geometry of a ppg light source and photodetector wherein, in this embodiment, two light sources are placed on either side of a photodetector; notably, the lights sources and photodetector may be disposed or located in a protrusion on the back of a portable biometric monitoring device which may also operate as a smart watch (the side which faces the skin of the user); fig. 9 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor having a photodetector and two led light sources which may be disposed or located in a portable biometric monitoring device having a protrusion; notably, in this embodiment, light pipes are optically connected the led's and photodetector to the surface of the user's skin, wherein, in operation, the light from the light sources scatters/reflects off of blood in the body, some of which reaches the photodetector via the light pipes; notably, the light pipes preferentially direct or transmit light along a predetermined path, for example, defined by the geometry and/or material of the light pipe; fig. 10 illustrates an exemplary ppg detector having a protrusion with curved sides to reduce and/or minimize any discomfort to the user during operation and/or to more firmly maintain the sensor in contact with the skin of the user (for example, predetermined or fixed relational contact with the skin of the user); in this embodiment, the surface of light pipes are connect the photodetector and leds to the user's skin and are contoured to enhance and/or maximize light flux coupling between the leds and photodetectors to the light pipes; notably, the end of the light pipes which face the user's skin may also contoured wherein this contour may provide focusing or defocusing to enhance and/or optimize the ppg signal (for example, the contour may focus light to a certain depth and location which coincides with an area where blood flow is likely to occur); in addition, the vertex of these foci overlap or are very close together so that the photodetector may receive, for example, the maximum possible amount of scattered/reflected light; fig. 11 illustrates an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device having a band and optical sensors and light emitters disposed therein; fig. 12 illustrates a portable biometric monitoring device having a display and wristband; an optical ppg (e.g. heart rate) detection sensors and/or emitters may be disposed or located on the side of the device; notably, in one embodiment, the sensors and/or emitters are disposed or located in buttons mounted on the side of the device; fig. 13 illustrates a user who is inputting a user input by pressing the side of a portable biometric monitoring device wherein, in response, the device takes a heart rate measurement from a side mounted optical heart rate detection sensor; a display of the device may thereafter display whether or not the heart rate has been detected and/or display the user's heart rate; fig. 14 illustrates functionality of a portable biometric monitoring device smart alarm feature wherein, in this embodiment, the monitoring device may be able to detect or may be in communication with a device which can detect the sleep stage or state of a user (e.g. light or deep sleep); the user may set a window of time which they would like to be awoken (e.g. 6:15 am to 6:45 am); the smart alarm may be triggered by the user going into a light sleep state during the alarm window; fig. 15 illustrates, in a flow diagram form, the operation of a portable biometric monitoring device which changes how the device detects a user's heart rate based on how much movement the device is experiencing; in this embodiment, there is motion detected (e.g. through the use of an accelerometer), the user may be considered active and high sampling rate heart rate detection may occur to reduce motion artifacts in the heart rate measurement; the data may be saved and/or displayed; notably, where the user is not moving, low sampling heart rate detection (which does not consume as much power) may be adequate to measure a heart rate; fig. 16 illustrates an exemplary portable monitoring device which has a bicycle application (resident thereon) which may display speed and/or cadence among other metrics; the application may be activated whenever the monitoring device comes into proximity of a passive or active nfc tag, which may be attached to or disposed on the bicycle, for example, the bicycle handlebar(s), frame and/or pedal(s); fig. 17 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor having a light source, light detector, adc, processor, dac/gpios, and light source intensity and on/off control; fig. 18 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor which is similar to the embodiment illustrated in fig. 17 ; in this embodiment, however, the sensor employs a sample and hold circuit as well as analog signal conditioning; fig. 19 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor which is similar to the embodiment illustrated in fig. 17 ; in this embodiment, however, the sensor employs a sample and hold circuit (and, in one embodiment, oversamples the signals); fig. 20 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor having multiple switchable light sources and detectors, light source intensity and on/off control, and signal conditioning circuitry fig. 21 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor which uses synchronous detection; notably, in this embodiment, a demodulator is employed to detect/recover the signal; fig. 22 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor which is similar to the embodiment illustrated in fig. 17 ; in this embodiment, however, the sensor employs a differential amplifier in the signal detection path; fig. 23 illustrates an exemplary ppg sensor having many of the features/circuitry illustrated in fig. 17-22 ; fig. 24 illustrates certain circuitry/elements of an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device having a heart rate or ppg sensor, motion sensor, display, vibromotor/vibramotor, and communication circuitry which are connected to a processor; fig. 25 illustrates certain circuitry/elements of an exemplary portable biometric monitoring device having a heart rate or ppg sensor, motion sensor, display, vibromotor/vibramotor, location sensor, altitude sensor, skin conductance/wet sensor and communication circuitry which is connected to a processor; fig. 26 illustrates certain circuitry/elements of an exemplary portable monitoring device having physiological sensors, environmental sensors, and/or location sensors connected to a processor; fig. 27 illustrates, in block diagram form, exemplary signal flow of motion signals and optical ppg signals which are employed to measure a heart rate of the user; fig. 28 illustrates, in block diagram form, exemplary signal flow of motion signals and optical ppg signals which are employed to measure a heart rate of the user; fig. 29 illustrates a sensor which has an analog connection to a sensor processor which, in turn, has a digital connection to an application processor; fig. 30 illustrates a sensor device which has one or multiple sensors connected to an application processor; and fig. 31 illustrates a sensor device which has one or multiple sensors connected to sensor processors which, in turn, are connected to an application processor. again, there are many inventions described and illustrated herein. the present inventions are neither limited to any single aspect nor embodiment thereof, nor to any combinations and/or permutations of such aspects and/or embodiments. each of the aspects of the present inventions, and/or embodiments thereof, may be employed alone or in combination with one or more of the other aspects of the present inventions and/or embodiments thereof. for the sake of brevity, many of those combinations and permutations are not discussed separately herein. moreover, many other aspects, inventions and embodiments, which may be different from and/or similar to, the aspects, inventions and embodiments illustrated in the drawings, will be apparent from the description, illustrations and claims, which follow. in addition, although various features and attributes have been illustrated in the drawings and/or are apparent in light thereof, it should be understood that such features and attributes, and advantages thereof, are not required whether in one, some or all of the embodiments of the present inventions and, indeed, need not be present in any of the embodiments of the present inventions. detailed description at the outset, it should be noted that there are many inventions described and illustrated herein. the present inventions are neither limited to any single aspect nor embodiment thereof, nor to any combinations and/or permutations of such aspects and/or embodiments. moreover, each of the aspects of the present inventions, and/or embodiments thereof, may be employed alone or in combination with one or more of the other aspects of the present inventions and/or embodiments thereof. for the sake of brevity, many of those permutations and combinations will not be discussed separately herein. further, in the course of describing and illustrating the present inventions, various circuitry, architectures, structures, components, functions and/or elements, as well as combinations and/or permutations thereof, are set forth. it should be understood that circuitry, architectures, structures, components, functions and/or elements other than those specifically described and illustrated, are contemplated and are within the scope of the present inventions, as well as combinations and/or permutations thereof. physiological sensors the portable biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may use one, some or all of the following sensors to acquire physiological data, including the physiological data outlined in the table below. all combinations and permutations of physiological sensors and/or physiological data are intended to fall within the scope of the present inventions. the portable biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may include but is not limited to the types one, some or all of sensors specified below to acquire the corresponding physiological data; indeed, other type(s) of sensors may be employed to acquire the corresponding physiological data, which are intended to fall within the scope of the present inventions. additionally, the device may derive the physiological data from the corresponding sensor output data, but is not limited to the number or types of physiological data that it could derive from said sensor. physiological sensorsphysiological data acquiredoptical reflectometerheart rate, heart rate variabilitypotential embodiments:spo2 (saturation of peripheral oxygen)light emitter and receiverrespirationmulti or single led and photostressdiode arrangementblood pressurewavelength tuned for specificarterial stiffnessphysiological signalsblood glucose levelssynchronous detection/blood volumeamplitude modulationheart rate recoverycardiac healthmotion detectoractivity level detectionpotential embodiments:sitting/standing detectioninertial, gyro or accelerometerfall detectiongpsskin tempstressemgmuscle tensionekgheart rate, heart rate variability, heartpotential embodiments:rate recovery1 leadstress2 leadcardiac healthmagnetometeractivity level based on rotationlaser dopplerpower meterultra soundblood flowaudioheart rate, heart rate variability, heartrate recoverylaugh detectionrespirationrespiration type- snoring, breathing,breathing problemsuser's voicestrain gaugeheart rate, heart rate variabilitypotential embodiment:stressin a wrist bandwet sensorstresspotential embodiment:swimming detectiongalvanic skin responseshower detection in one exemplary embodiment, the portable biometric monitoring device includes an optical sensor to detect, sense, sample and/or generate data that may be used to determine information representative of, for example, stress (or level thereof), blood pressure and/or heart rate of a user. (see, for example, figs. 2-7 and 17-23 ). in this embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes an optical sensor having one or more light sources (led, laser, etc.) to emit or output light into the user's body and/or light detectors (photodiodes, phototransistors, etc.) to sample, measure and/or detect a response or reflection and provide data used to determine data which is representative of stress (or level thereof), blood pressure and/or heart rate of a user (e.g., using photoplethysmography—“ppg”). in one exemplary embodiment, a user's heart rate measurement may be triggered by criteria determined by one or more sensors (or processing circuitry connected to them). for instance, when data from the motion sensor(s) indicates a period of stillness or little motion, the biometric monitoring device may trigger, acquire and/or obtain a heart rate measurement or data. (see, for example, figs. 15, 24 and 25 ). in one embodiment, when the motion sensor(s) indicate user activity or motion (for example, motion that is not suitable or optimum to trigger, acquire and/or obtain desired heart rate measurement or data (for example, data used to determine a user's resting heart rate), the biometric monitoring device and/or the sensor(s) employed to acquire and/or obtain desired heart rate measurement or data may be placed or remain in a low power state. notably, measurements taken during motion may be less reliable and may be corrupted by motion artifact (for example, relative motion between the sensors and the user). in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may employ data indicative of user activity or motion (for example, from one or more motion sensors) to adjust or modify characteristics of triggering, acquiring and/or obtaining desired heart rate measurement or data (for example, to improve robustness to motion artifact). for instance, data indicative of user activity or motion may be employed to adjust or modify the sampling rate and/or resolution mode of sensors which acquire heart rate data (for example, where the amount of user motion exceeds a certain threshold, the biometric monitoring device may increase the sampling rate and/or increase the sampling resolution mode of sensors employed to acquire heart rate measurement or data). moreover, the biometric monitoring device may adjust or modify the sampling rate and/or resolution mode of the motion sensor(s) during such periods of user activity or motion (for example, periods where the amount of user motion exceeds a certain threshold). in this way, when the biometric monitoring device determines or detects such user activity or motion, the motion sensor(s) may be placed into a higher sampling rate and/or higher sampling resolution mode to, for example, enable more accurate adaptive filtering on the heart rate signal. (see, for example, fig. 15 ). notably, where the biometric monitoring device employs optical techniques to acquire heart rate measurements or data (e.g., photoplethysmography), a motion signal may be employed to determine or establish a particular approach or technique to data acquisition or measurement (e.g., synchronous detection rather than a non-amplitude modulated approach or technique) and/or analysis thereof. (see, for example, fig. 21 ). in this way, the data which is indicative of the amount of user motion or activity establishes or adjusts the type or technique of data acquisition or measurement by the optical heart rate data acquisition sensors. for example, in one preferred embodiment, the biometric monitoring device and technique of the present inventions may adjust and/or reduce the sampling rate of optical heart rate sampling when the motion detector circuitry detects or determines that the user's motion is below a threshold (for example, the biometric monitoring device determines the user is sedentary or asleep). (see, for example, fig. 15 ). in this way, the biometric monitoring device may control its power consumption (for example, reduce power consumption by reducing the sampling rate—for instance, the biometric monitoring device may sample the heart rate (via the heart rate sensor) once every 10 minutes, or 10 seconds out of every 1 minute. notably, the biometric monitoring device may, in addition thereto or in lieu thereof, control power consumption via controlling data processing circuitry analysis and/or data analysis techniques in accordance with motion detection. as such, the motion of the user may impact the heart rate data acquisition parameters and/or data analysis or processing thereof. in yet another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may employ sensors to calculate heart rate variability when the device determines the user to be, for example, sedentary or asleep. here, the device may operate the sensors in a higher-rate sampling mode (relative to non-sedentary periods or periods of user activity that exceed a predetermined threshold) to calculate heart rate variability. the biometric monitoring device (or external device) may employ heart rate variability as an indicator of cardiac health or stress. indeed, in a preferred embodiment, the biometric monitoring device measures and/or determines the user's stress level and/or cardiac health when the user is sedentary and/or asleep (for example, as detected and/or determined (for example, automatically) by the biometric monitoring device). the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may determine the user's stress level, health state (e.g., risk, onset, or progression of fever or cold) and/or cardiac health using sensor data which is indicative of the heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, body temperature and/or heart rate. in this way, processing circuitry of the biometric monitoring device may determine and/or track the user's “baseline” stress levels over time and/or cardiac “health” over time. in another embodiment, the device measures a physiologic parameter of the user during one or more periods where the user is motionless (or the user's motion is below a predetermined threshold), sitting, lying down, asleep, or in a particular sleep stage (e.g., deep sleep). such data may also be employed as a “baseline” for stress-related parameters, health-related parameters (e.g., risk or onset of fever or cold), cardiac health, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, body temperature and/or heart rate. notably, in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may automatically detect or determine when the user is attempting to go to sleep, entering sleep, is asleep and/or is awoken from a period of sleep. in this embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may employ physiological sensors to acquire physiological data (of the type and in the manner as described herein) wherein the data processing circuitry correlates a combination of heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, galvanic skin response, motion, and/or skin and/or body temperature sensing to detect or determine if the user is attempting to go to sleep, entering sleep, is asleep and/or is awoken from a period of sleep. in response, the biometric monitoring device may, for example, acquire physiological data and/or determine physiological conditions of the user (of the type and in the manner as described herein). for example, a decrease or cessation of user motion combined with a reduction in user heart rate and/or a change in heart rate variability may indicate that the user has fallen asleep. subsequent changes in heart rate variability and galvanic skin response may be used to determine transitions of the user's sleep state and/or between two or more stages of sleep (for example, into lighter and/or deeper stages of sleep). motion by the user and/or an elevated heart rate and/or a change in heart rate variability may be used to determine that the user has awoken. in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device is one component of a system for monitoring sleep, where the system comprises a secondary device capable of communicating with the biometric monitoring device and adapted to be placed near the sleeper (e.g., an alarm clock). the secondary device may have a shape and mechanical and/or magnetic interface to accept the biometric monitoring device for safe keeping, communication, and/or charging. notably, the communication between the biometric monitoring device and the secondary device may be provided through wireless communication techniques/methods and protocols such as bluetooth, bluetooth 4.0, rfid, nfc, or wlan. the secondary device may comprise sensors to assist in sleep or environmental monitoring such as, for example, sensors that measure ambient light, noise and/or sound (e.g., to detect snoring), temperature, humidity, and air quality (pollen, dust, co2, etc.). in one embodiment, the secondary device may communicate with an external service such as www.fitbit.com or server (e.g., personal computer). communication may be achieved through wired (e.g., ethernet, usb) or wireless (e.g., wlan, bluetooth, rfid, nfc, cellular) circuitry and protocols to transfer data to and/or from the secondary device. the secondary device may also act as a relay to transfer data to and/or from the biometric monitoring device to an external service such as www.fitbit.com or other service (e.g., news, social network updates, email, calendar notifications), or server (e.g., personal computer, mobile phone, tablet). calculation of the user's sleep data may be executed on one or both devices or an external service (e.g., a cloud server) using data from one or both devices. the secondary device may be equipped with a display to output data obtained by the secondary device or data transferred to it by the biometric monitoring device, the external service, or a combination of data from the biometric monitoring device, the secondary device, and/or the external service. for example, the secondary device may display data indicative of the user's heart rate, total steps for the day, activity and/or sleep goal achievement, the day's weather (measured by the secondary device or reported for a location by an external service), etc. in another example, the secondary device may display data related to the ranking of the user relative to other users, such as, in the context of user activity (for example, total weekly step count). in yet another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may be equipped with a display to display data obtained by the biometric monitoring device, the secondary device, the external service, or a combination of the three sources. in embodiments where the first device is equipped with a wakeup alarm (e.g., vibromotor/vibramotor, speaker), the secondary device may act as a backup alarm (e.g., using an audio speaker). the secondary device may also have an interface (e.g., display and buttons or touch screen) to create, delete, modify, or enable alarms on the first and/or the secondary device. in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may automatically detect or determine whether it is or is not attached to, disposed on and/or being worn by the user. in response to detecting or determining the biometric monitoring device is not attached to, disposed on and/or being worn by the user, the biometric monitoring device (or selected portions thereof) may implement or be placed in a low power mode of operation—for example, the optical heart rate sensor and/or circuitry may be placed in an off or disabled state or a lower power or sleep mode). for example, in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes one or more light detectors (photodiodes, phototransistors, etc.) wherein, if at a given light intensity setting, one or more light detectors provides a low return signal, the biometric monitoring device may interpret the data is indicative of the device not being worn. upon such a determination, the device may reduce its power consumption—for example, “disable” or adjust the operating conditions of the stress and/or heart rate detection sensors and/or circuitry (for example, reduce duty cycle of or disable the light source(s) and/or detector(s), and/or disable or attenuate associated circuitry or portions thereof). in addition, the biometric monitoring device may periodically determine (e.g., once per second) if the operating conditions of the stress and/or heart rate detection sensors and/or associated circuitry should be restored to a normal operating condition (for example, light source(s), detector(s) and/or associated circuitry should return to a normal operating mode for heart rate detection). in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device restores the operating conditions of the stress and/or heart rate detection sensors and/or associated circuitry upon detection of a triggerable event—for example, upon detecting motion of the device (for example, based on data from one or more motion sensor(s)) and/or detecting a user input via the user interface (for example, a tap, bump or swipe). in a related embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may, for power saving purposes, reduce its rate of heart rate measurement collection to, for instance, one measurement per minute whilst the user is not highly active. in one embodiment, the user may put the device into a mode of operation to generate measurements on demand or at a faster rate (e.g., once per second), for instance, via the interface—such as, by pushing a button. in one embodiment, the optical sensors (sources and/or detectors) may be disposed on an interior or skin side of the biometric monitoring device (i.e., a side whereby the surface of the device contacts, touches and/or faces the skin of the user (hereinafter “skin side”). (see, for example, figs. 2-7 ). in another embodiment, the optical sensors may be disposed on one or more sides of the device, including the skin side and one or more sides of the device that face or are exposed to the ambient environment (environmental side). (see, for example, figs. 11-13 ). notably, the data from such optical sensors may be representative of physiological data and/or environmental data. indeed, in one embodiment, the optical sensors provide, acquire and/or detect information from multiple sides of the biometric monitoring device whether or not the sensors are disposed on one or more of the multiple sides. for example, the optical sensors may obtain data related to the ambient light conditions of the environment. where optical sensors are disposed or arranged on the skin side of the biometric monitoring device, in operation, a light source emits light upon the skin of the user and, in response, a light detector samples, acquires and/or detects a response or scattered/reflected light from the skin (and/or from inside the body). the one or more sources and detectors may be arranged in an array or pattern that enhances or optimizes the snr and/or reduces or minimizes power consumption by light sources and detectors. these optical detectors sample, acquire and/or detect physiological data which may then be processed or analyzed (for example, by resident processing circuitry) to obtain data which is representative of, for example, a user's heart rate, respiration, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation (spo2), blood volume, blood glucose, skin moisture and/or skin pigmentation level. the source(s) may emit light having one or more wavelengths which are specific or directed to a type of physiological data to be collected. the optical detectors may sample, measure and/or detect one or more wavelengths that are also specific or directed to a type of physiological data to be collected and physiological parameter (of the user) to be assessed or determined. for instance, in one embodiment, a light source emitting light having a wavelength in the green spectrum (for example, an led that emits light having wavelengths corresponding to the green spectrum) and photodiode positioned to sample, measure and/or detect a response or reflection may provide data used to determine or detect heart rate. in contrast, a light source emitting light having a wavelength in the red spectrum (for example, an led that emits light having wavelengths corresponding to the red spectrum) and a light source emitting light having a wavelength in the infrared spectrum (for example, an led that emits light having wavelengths corresponding to the ir spectrum) and photodiode positioned to sample, measure and/or detect a response or reflection may provide data used to determine or detect spo2. indeed, in one embodiment, the color or wavelength of the light emitted by the led (or set of leds) may be modified, adjusted and/or controlled in accordance with a predetermined type of physiological data being acquired or conditions of operation. here, the wavelength of the light emitted by the led is adjusted and/or controlled to optimize and/or enhance the “quality” of the physiological data obtained and/or sampled by the detector. for example, the color of the light emitted by the led may be switched from infrared to green when the user's skin temperature or the ambient temperature is cool in order to enhance the signal corresponding to cardiac activity. (see, for example, fig. 20 ). the biometric monitoring device, in one embodiment, includes a window (for example, a visually opaque window) in the housing to facilitate optical transmission between the optical sensors and the user. here, the window may permit light (for example, a substantial portion of a selected wavelength) to be emitted by, for example, one or more leds, onto the skin of the user and a response or reflection to pass into the housing to be sampled, measured and/or detected by, for example, one or more photodiodes. in one embodiment, the circuitry related to emitting and receiving light may be disposed in the interior of the device housing and underneath a plastic or glass layer (for example, painted with infrared ink) or an infrared lens which permits infrared light to pass but not light in the human visual spectrum. in this way, the light transmission is invisible to the human eye. the biometric monitoring device, in one embodiment, may employ light pipes or other light transmissive structures. (see, for example, figs. 8-10 ). in this regard, in one embodiment, light is directed from the light source to the skin of the user through light pipes or other light transmissive structures. scattered or reflected light from the user's body may be directed back to and detected by the optical circuitry through the same or similar structures. indeed, the transmissive structures may employ a material and/or optical design to facilitate low light loss (for example, a lens) thereby improving snr of the photo detector and/or reducing power consumption of the light emitter(s) and/or light detector(s). in one embodiment, the light pipes or other light transmissive structures may include a material that selectively transmits light having one or more specific or predetermined wavelengths with higher efficiency than others, thereby acting as a bandpass filter. this bandpass filter may be tuned to improve the signal of a specific physiological data type. for example, in one embodiment, an in-mold-labeling or “iml” light transmissive structure may be implemented wherein the structure uses a material with predetermined or desired optical characteristics to create a specific bandpass characteristic, for example, to pass infrared light with greater efficiency than light of other wavelengths (for example, light having a wavelength in human visible spectrum). in another embodiment, a biometric monitoring device may employ light transmissive structure having an optically opaque portion (including certain optical properties) and an optically transparent portion (including optical properties different from the optically opaque portion). such a structure may be provided via a double-shot or two step molding process wherein optically opaque material is injected and optically transparent material is injected. a biometric monitoring device implementing such a light transmissive structure may include different transmissive properties for different wavelengths depending on the direction of light travel through the structure. for example, in one embodiment, the optically opaque material may include a property of being reflective to a specific wavelength range so as to more efficiently transport light from the light emitter(s) and from the user's body back to and detected by the detector (which may be of a different wavelength(s) relative to the wavelength(s) of the emitted light). in another embodiment which implements light transmissive structures (for example, structures created or formed through iml), such structures may include a mask consisting of an opaque material which limits the aperture of one, some or all of the light source(s) and/or detector(s). in this way, the light transmissive structures selectively “define” a preferential volume of the body that light is emitted into and/or detected from. notably, other mask configurations may be employed or implemented in connection with the inventions described and/or illustrated herein; all such mask configurations to, for example, improve the photoplethysmography signal, and which are implemented in connection with the inventions described and/or illustrated herein, are intended to fall within the scope of the present inventions. in any of the light transmissive structures described herein, the surface of the optics or device body may include a hard coat paint, hard coat dip, or optical coatings (such as anti-reflection), scratch resistance, anti-fog, and/or wavelength band block (such as ultraviolet light blocking). such characteristics or materials may improve the operation, accuracy and/or longevity of the biometric monitoring device. in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes a concave or convex shape, on the skin side of the device, to focus light towards a specific volume at a specific depth in the skin and increase the efficiency of light collected from that point into the photodetector. (see, for example, figs. 8-10 ). where such a biometric monitoring device also employs light pipes to selectively and controllably route light, it may be advantageous to shape the end of the light pipe with a degree of cylindricity (for example, rather than radially symmetric). such a configuration may improve the snr by increasing the efficiency of light transferred from the emitter onto or into the skin of the user while decreasing “stray” light from being detected or collected by the photodetector. in this way, the signal sampled, measured and/or detected by the photodetector consists less of stray light and more of the user's response to such emitted light (signal or data that is representative of the response to the emitted light). in one embodiment, the components of the optical sensor are positioned on the skin side of the device and arranged or positioned to reduce or minimize the distance between (i) the light source(s) and/or associated detector(s) and (ii) the skin of the user. (see, for example, fig. 5 ). such a configuration may improve the efficiency of light flux coupling between the components of the optical sensor and the user's body. for example, in one embodiment, the light source(s) and/or associated detector(s) are disposed on a flexible or pliable substrate which facilitates the skin side of the device to conform (for example, without additional processing) or be capable of being shaped (or compliant) to conform to the shape of the user's body part (for example, wrist, arm ankle and/or leg) to which the biometric monitoring device is coupled or attached during normal operation so that the light source(s) and/or associated detector(s) are/is close to the skin of the user (i.e., with little to no gap between the skin side of the device and the juxtaposed surface of the skin of the user). (see, fig. 11 ). in one embodiment, the light source(s) and/or associated detector(s) are disposed on a flat flex cable or “ffc” or flexible pcb. in this embodiment, the flexible or pliable substrate (for example, ffc or flexible pcb) could connect to a second substrate (for example, pcb) within the device having other components disposed thereon (for example, the data processing circuitry). optical components of differing heights may be mounted to different “fingers” of flexible substrate and pressed or secured to the housing surface such that the optical components are flush to the housing surface. in one embodiment, the second substrate may be a relative inflexible or non-pliable substrate, fixed within the device, having other circuitry and components (passive and/or active) disposed thereon. the biometric monitoring device is adapted (for example, includes a size and shape) to be worn or carried on the body of a user (for example, arm, wrist, leg and/or ankle). in preferred embodiments including the optical heart rate monitor, the device may be a wrist-worn or arm-mounted accessory such as a watch or bracelet. (see, for example, figs. 2-13 ). in one embodiment, optical elements of the optical heart rate monitor are disposed or located on the interior or skin side of the biometric monitoring device, for example, facing the top of the wrist (i.e., the optical heart rate monitor is juxtaposed the wrist) when the device is wrist mounted. (see, for example, figs. 2-7 ). in another embodiment, the optical heart rate monitor is disposed or located on one or more external or environmental side surfaces of the biometric monitoring device. (see, for example, figs. 12 and 13 ). in this embodiment, the user may touch an optical window (behind which optical elements of the optical heart rate monitor are located) with a finger on the opposing hand to initiate a heart rate measurement (and/or other metrics related to heart rate such as heart rate variability) and/or collect data which may be used to determine the user's heart rate (and/or other metrics related to heart rate). (see, for example, fig. 12 ). in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may trigger or initiate the measurement(s) by detecting a (sudden) drop in incident light on the photodiode—for example, when the user's finger is placed over the optical window. in addition thereto, or in lieu thereof, a heart rate measurement (or other such metric) may be trigged by an ir-based proximity detector and/or capacitive touch/proximity detector (which may be separate from other detectors). such ir-based proximity detector and/or capacitive touch/proximity detector may be disposed in or on and/or functionally, electrically and/or physically coupled to the optical window to detect or determine the presence of, for example, the user's finger. in yet another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may include one or more buttons which, when depressed, triggers or initiates heart rate measurement (and/or other metrics related to heart rate). the button(s) may be disposed in close proximity of the optical window to facilitate the user pressing the button while the finger is disposed on the optical window. (see, for example, fig. 13 ). in one embodiment, the optical window may be embedded in a push button. thus, when the user presses the button(s), it could trigger a measurement via the user's finger which engages and depresses the button. indeed, the button may be given a shape and/or resistance to pressing that enhances or optimizes a pressure profile against the finger to provide high snr during measurement or data acquisition. in other embodiments (not illustrated), the biometric monitoring device may take the form of a clip, smooth object, pendant, anklet, belt, etc. that is adapted to be worn on the body, clipped or mounted to an article of clothing, deposited in clothing (e.g., pocket), or deposited in an accessory (e.g., handbag). in one specific embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes a protrusion on the skin or interior side of the device. (see, fig. 2-11 ). when coupled to the user, the protrusion engages the skin with more force than the surrounding device body. in this embodiment, an optical window or light transmissive structure (both of which are discussed in detail above) may form or be incorporated in a portion of the protrusion. the light emitter(s) and/or detector(s) of the optical sensor may be disposed or arranged in the protrusion juxtaposed the window or light transmissive structure. (see, for example, figs. 3 and 11 ). as such, when attached to the user's body, the window portion of the protrusion of the biometric monitoring device engages the user's skin with more force than the surrounding device body—thereby providing a more secure physical connection between the user's skin and the optical window. that is, a protrusion improves sustained and/or fixed contact between the biometric monitoring device and the user's skin (for example, the skin of a predetermined portion of the user's body) which may reduce the amount of stray light measured by the photodetector, decrease motion between the biometric monitoring device and the user, and/or provide improved local pressure to the user's skin; all of which may increase the quality of the cardiac signal of interest. notably, the protrusion may contain other sensors that benefit from close proximity and/or secure contact to the user's skin. these may be included in addition to or in lieu of a heart rate sensor and include sensors such as a skin temperature sensor (e.g., noncontact thermopile that utilizes the optical window or thermistor joined with thermal epoxy to the outer surface of the protrusion), pulse oximeter, blood pressure sensor, emg, or galvanic skin response sensor. in addition thereto, or in lieu thereof, a portion of the skin side of the biometric monitoring device may include a friction enhancing mechanism or material. for example, the skin side of the biometric monitoring device may include a plurality of raised or depressed regions portions (for example, small bumps, ridges, grooves, and/or divots). moreover, a friction enhancing material (for example, a gel-like material such as silicone) may be disposed on the skin side. indeed, a device back made out of gel may also provide friction while also improving user comfort and preventing stray light from entering. as noted above, a friction enhancing mechanism or material may be used alone or in conjunction with the biometric monitoring device having a protrusion as described herein. in this regard, the biometric monitoring device may include a plurality of raised or depressed regions portions (for example, small bumps, ridges, grooves, and/or divots) in or on the protrusion portion of the device. indeed, such raised or depressed regions portions may be incorporated/embedded in or on a window portion of the protrusion. in addition thereto, or in lieu thereof, the protrusion portion may consist of or be coated with a friction enhancing material (for example, a gel-like material such as silicone). notably, the use of a protrusion and/or friction may improve measurement accuracy of data acquisition corresponding to certain parameters (e.g., heart rate, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, skin coloration, heat flux, blood pressure, blood glucose, etc.) by reducing motions of the sensor relative to the user's skin during operation, especially whilst the user is in motion. some or all of the interior or skin side of the housing of the biometric monitoring device may also consist of a metal material (for example, steel, stainless steel, aluminum, magnesium, or titanium). such a configuration may provide a structural rigidity. (see, for example, fig. 3 ). in this embodiment, the device body may be designed to be hypoallergenic through the use of a hypoallergenic “nickel-free” stainless steel. notably, it may be advantageous to employ (at least in certain locations) a type of metal that is ferrous in properties (for example, a grade of stainless steel that is ferrous). under this circumstance, the portable biometric monitoring device (where it includes a rechargeable energy source (for example, rechargeable battery) may interconnect with a charger using magnetic properties to secure thereto. in addition, the portable biometric monitoring device may also engage a dock or dock station using such magnetic properties to facilitate data transfer. moreover, such a housing may provide enhanced electromagnetic shielding which would enhance the integrity and reliability of the optical heart rate sensor and data acquisition process/operation. furthermore, a skin temperature sensor may be physically and thermally coupled, for example with thermal epoxy, to the metal body to detect or sense the temperature of the user. in embodiments including a protrusion, the sensor may be positioned near or in the protrusion to provide secure contact and localized thermal coupling to the user's skin. in a preferred embodiment, one or more components of the optical sensor (which may, in one embodiment, located in a protrusion, and/or in another embodiment, may be disposed or placed flush to the surface of the device) are attached, fixed, included and/or secured to the portable biometric monitoring device via a liquid-tight seal (i.e., a method/mechanism that prevents liquid ingress into the body of the biometric monitoring device). for example, in one embodiment, a device back made out of a metal including but not limited to stainless steel, aluminum, magnesium, or titanium or a rigid plastic could provide a structure which is stiff enough to maintain the structural integrity of the device while accommodating a watertight seal for the sensor package. (see, figs. 3-7 ). in a preferred embodiment, a package or module of the optical sensor would be connected to the device with a pressure sensitive adhesive and a liquid gasket. (see, fig. 7 ). screws, rivets or the like may also be used, for example, if a stronger or more durable connection is required between the optical sensor package/module and the device body. notably, the present inventions may also use watertight glues, hydrophobic membranes such as gore-tex, o-rings, sealant, grease, or epoxy to secure or attach the optical sensor package/module and the device body. as intimated above, the portable biometric monitoring device may include a material disposed on the skin or interior side which includes high reflectivity characteristic—for example, polished stainless steel, reflective paint, and polished plastic. in this way, light scattered/reflected off the skin side of the device may be scattered/reflected back into the skin in order to, for example, improve the snr. indeed, this effectively increases the input light signal as compared with a device body back that is non-reflective. notably, in one embodiment, the color of the skin or interior side of the biometric monitoring device is selected to provide certain optical characteristics (for example, reflect certain or predetermined wavelengths of light), in order to improve the signal of certain physiological data types. for example, where the skin or interior side of the biometric monitoring is green, the measurements of the heart rate may be enhanced due to the preferential emission of a wavelength of the light corresponding to the green spectrum. where the skin or interior side of the biometric monitoring is red, the measurements of the spo2 may be enhanced due to the emission preferential of a wavelength of the light corresponding to the red spectrum. in one embodiment, the color of the skin or interior side of the biometric monitoring device may be modified, adjusted and/or controlled in accordance with a predetermined type of physiological data being acquired. fig. 17 depicts an exemplary schematic block diagram of an optical sensor where light is emitted from a light source toward the user's skin and the reflection is sensed by a light detector, wherein the output of the detector is subsequently digitized by an analog to digital converter (adc). the intensity of the light source may be modified (e.g., through a light source intensity control module) to maintain a desirable scattered/reflected intensity signal. for example, the intensity of the output of the light source may be reduced to avoid saturation of the output signal from the light detector. as another example, the light source intensity may be increased to maintain the output signal from the light detector within a desired range of output values. notably, the active control of the sensor device may be achieved through linear or nonlinear control methods such as proportional-integral-derivative (pid) control, fixed step control, predictive control, neural networks, hysteresis, and the like, and may also employ information derived from other sensors in the device such as motion, galvanic skin response, etc. fig. 17 is provided for illustration and does not limit the implementation of such a system to, for instance, an adc integrated within a mcu, or the use of a mcu for that matter. other possible implementations include the use of one or more internal or external adcs, fpgas, asics, etc. in another embodiment, the sensor device may incorporate the use of a sample and hold circuit (or equivalent) to maintain the output of the light detector while the light source is turned off or attenuated to save power. in embodiments of the present inventions where relative changes in the light detector output are of primary importance (e.g., heart rate measurement), the sample and hold circuit may not have to maintain an accurate copy of the output of the light detector. in such cases, the sample and hold circuitry may be, for example, a diode (e.g., schottky diode) and capacitor. the output of the sample and hold may be presented to an analog signal conditioning circuit (e.g., a sallen-key bandpass filter, level shifter, and/or gain circuit) to condition and amplify the signal within frequency bands of interest (e.g., 0.1 hz to 10 hz for cardiac or respiratory function) which is then digitized by the adc. (see, for example, fig. 18 ). in operation, this removes the dc and low frequency components of the signal and helps resolve the ac component related to heart rate and/or respiration. this embodiment may also include the analog signal conditioning circuitry (not illustrated) for variable gain settings that can be controlled to provide a suitable signal (e.g., not saturated). the performance characteristics (e.g., slew rate and/or gain bandwidth product) and power consumption of the light source, light detector, and/or sample and hold may be significantly higher than the analog signal conditioning circuit to enable fast duty cycling of the light source. in one embodiment, the power provided to the light source and light detector may be controlled separately from the power provided to the analog signal conditioning circuit to provide additional power savings. in another embodiment, the output of the light detector and/or sample and hold may be acquired or sampled by an adc in addition to or in lieu of the analog signal conditioning circuit to control the light intensity of the light source or to measure the physiologic parameters of interest, for example, when the analog signal conditioning circuit is not yet stable after a change to the light intensity setting. notably, because the physiologic signal of interest is typically small relative to the inherent resolution of the adc, in some embodiments, the reference voltages and/or gain of the adc may be adjusted to enhance signal quality, or the adc may be oversampled. in yet another embodiment, the device may digitize the output of only the sample and hold circuit by, for example, oversampling, adjusting the reference voltages and/or gain of the adc, or using a high resolution adc. (see, for example, fig. 19 ). in another embodiment, the sensor device may incorporate a differential amplifier to amplify the relative changes in the output of the light detector output. (see, for example, fig. 22 ). in one embodiment, a digital average or digital lowpass filtered signal is subtracted from the output of the light detector output and amplified before it is digitized by the adc. in another embodiment, an analog average or analog lowpass filtered signal is subtracted from the output of the light detector through, for example, the use of a sample and hold circuit and analog signal conditioning circuitry. the power provided to the light source, light detector, and differential amplifier may be controlled separately from the power provided to the analog signal conditioning circuit to improve power savings. in one embodiment, the light detector module may incorporate a transimpedance amplifier stage with variable gain. such a configuration may avoid or minimize saturation from bright ambient light and/or bright emitted light from the light source. for example, the gain of the transimpedance amplifier may be automatically adjusted and/or reduced with a variable resistor and/or multiplexed set of resistors in the negative feedback path of the transimpedance amplifier. in embodiment of the present inventions, the device may incorporate little to no optical shielding from ambient light by amplitude modulating the intensity of the light source and demodulating the output of the light detector (e.g., synchronous detection). (see, for example, fig. 21 ). in other aspects, if the ambient light is of sufficient brightness to obtain a heart rate signal, the light source may be reduced in brightness and/or turned off completely. in yet another embodiment, the aforementioned processing techniques may be used in combination to optically measure physiological parameters of the user. (see, for example, fig. 23 ). this topology may allow the sensor device to operate in a low power measurement state and circuit topology when applicable and adapt to a higher power measurement state and circuit topology as necessary. for instance, the sensor device may measure the physiologic parameter of interest (e.g., heart rate) using analog signal conditioning circuitry whilst the user is immobile or sedentary to reduce power consumption, but switch to oversampled sampling of the light detector output directly whilst the user is active. there are many inventions described and illustrated herein in the context of physiological sensors/detectors. while certain embodiments, features, attributes and advantages of the inventions have been described and illustrated, it should be understood that many others, as well as different and/or similar embodiments, features, attributes and advantages of the present inventions, are apparent from the description and illustrations. as such, the above embodiments of the inventions are merely exemplary. they are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the inventions to the precise forms, techniques, materials and/or configurations disclosed. many modifications and variations are possible in light of this disclosure. for example, in an embodiment where the device includes a heart rate monitor, processing of the signal to obtain heart rate measurements may comprise filtering and/or signal conditioning such as bandpass filtering (e.g., butterworth filter). to counteract the large transients that may occur in the signal and/or to improve convergence of said filtering, nonlinear approaches may be employed such as neural networks or slew rate limiting. data from one or more of the sensors on the portable biometric monitoring device, such as data which corresponds to motion, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, etc., may be used to adjust and/or determine the signal conditioning methods implemented by the device. under certain operating conditions, the heart rate of the user may be measured by counting the number of signal peaks within a time window or utilizing the fundamental frequency or second harmonic of the signal (e.g., through a fast fourier transform (fft)). in other cases, such as motion, ffts may be performed on the signal and spectral peaks extracted, which are subsequently processed by a multiple target tracker which starts, continues, merges, and deletes tracks of the spectra. in one embodiment, a similar set of operations are performed on the motion signal and the output is used to do activity discrimination (e.g., sedentary, walking, running, sleeping, lying down, sitting, biking, typing, elliptical, weight training) which is used to assist the multiple target tracker. for instance, it may be determined that the user was stationary and has begun to move and this information may be used to preferentially bias the track continuation toward increasing frequencies. similarly, the activity discriminator may determine that the user has stopped running or is running slower and this information may be used to preferentially bias the track continuation toward decreasing frequencies. tracking may be achieved with single-scan or multi-scan multi-target tracker topologies such as joint probabilistic data association trackers, multiple hypotheses tracking, nearest neighbor, etc. estimation and prediction in the tracker may be done through kalman filters, spline regression, particle filters, interacting multiple model filters, etc. a track selector module uses the output tracks from the multiple spectra tracker and estimates the user's heart rate. the estimate may be taken as the maximum likelihood track, a weight sum of the tracks against their probabilities of being the heart rate, etc. the activity discriminator may furthermore influence the selection and/or fusion to get the heart rate estimate. for instance, if the user is sleeping, sitting, lying down, or sedentary, a prior probability may be skewed toward heart rates in the 40-80 bpm range; whereas if the user is running, jogging, or doing other vigorous exercise, a prior probability may be skewed toward elevated heart rates in the 90-180 bpm range. the influence of the activity discriminator may be based on the speed of the user. the estimate may be shifted toward (or wholly obtained by) the fundamental frequency of the signal when the user is not moving. the track that corresponds to the user's heart rate may be selected based on criteria that are indicative of changes in activity—for instance, if the user begins to walk from being stationary, the track that illustrates a shift toward higher frequency may be preferentially chosen. the acquisition of a good heart rate signal may be indicated to the user through a display on the biometric monitoring device or another device in communication with the biometric monitoring device (for example, wired or wireless communication (e.g., a bluetooth low energy equipped mobile phone)). in a preferred embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes a signal strength indicator which is represented by the pulsing of a led that is viewable by the user. the pulsing may be timed or correlated to be coincident with the user's heart beat. the intensity, pulsing rate and/or color of the led may be modified or adjusted to suggest signal strength. for example, a brighter led intensity may represent a stronger signal or in an rgb-type led configuration, a green colored led may represent a stronger signal. in a preferred embodiment, the strength of the heart rate signal may be determined by the energy (e.g., squared cumulative sum) of the signal in a frequency band of, for instance, 0.5 hz to 4 hz. in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may have a strain gauge, pressure sensor, and/or force sensor which may be incorporated or constructed into the housing and/or in the band (in those embodiments where the biometric monitoring device is attached to or mounted with a band like a watch, bracelet, and/or armband—which may then be secured to the user). a signal quality metric may be calculated with these contact sensors either alone or in combination with data from the heart rate signal. in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may monitor heart rate optically through an array of photodetectors such as a grid of photodiodes or a ccd camera. motion of the optical device with respect to the skin may be tracked through feature tracking of the skin and/or adaptive motion correction using an accelerometer and gyroscope. the detector array may be in contact with the skin or offset at a small distance away from the skin. the detector array and its associated optics may be actively controlled (e.g., with a motor) to maintain a stabilized image of the target and acquire a heart rate signal. this optomechanical stabilization may be achieved using information from motion sensors (e.g., gyroscope) or image features. in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may implement relative motion cancellation using a coherent or incoherent light source to illuminate the skin and a photodetector array with each photodetector associated with comparators for comparing the intensity between neighboring detectors—obtaining a so-called speckle pattern which may be tracked using a variety of image tracking techniques such as, for example, optical flow, template matching, edge tracking, etc. in this embodiment, the light source used for motion tracking may be different from the light source used in the optical heart rate monitor. in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may consist of a plurality of photodetectors and photoemitters distributed along the surface of the device that touches the user's skin (i.e., the skin side of the biometric monitoring device). (see, for example, figs. 2-11 ). in the example of a bracelet, for instance, there may be a plurality of photodetectors and photoemitters placed along the circumference of the interior of the band. (see, for example, fig. 11 ). a heart rate signal quality metric at each site may be calculated to determine the best or set of best sites for estimating the user's heart rate. subsequently, some of the sites may be disabled or turned off to, for example, reduce power consumption. the device may periodically check the heart rate signal quality at some or all of the sites to (i) select/enable one or more sensors and/or detectors and/or (ii) determine one or more preferred sensor/detector to, for example, thereby enhance, monitor and/or optimize signal and/or power efficiency. in another embodiment, biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may include a heart rate monitoring system including a plurality of sensors such as optical, acoustic, pressure, electrical (e.g., ekg), and motion and fuse the information from two or more of these sensors to provide an estimate of heart rate and/or mitigate noise induced from motion. in addition to heart rate monitoring (or other biometric monitoring), or in lieu thereof, the biometric monitoring device, in one embodiment, includes optical sensors to track or detect time and duration of ultraviolet light exposure, total outdoor light exposure, the type of light source and duration and intensity of that light source (fluorescent light exposure, incandescent bulb light exposure, halogen, etc.), exposure to television (based on light type and flicker rate), whether the user is indoors or outdoors, time of day and location based on light conditions. in one embodiment, the ultraviolet detection sensor may consist of a reverse biased led emitter driven as a light detector. the photocurrent produced by this detector may be characterized by, for instance, measuring the time it takes for the led's capacitance (or alternately a parallel capacitor) to discharge. all of the optical sensors could be used in conjunction with other sensors to improve detection of the data described above or be used to augment detection of other types of physiological or environmental data. where the biometric monitoring device includes an audio or passive acoustic sensor, the device may contain one or more passive acoustic sensors that detect sound and pressure and which can include but not be limited to microphones, piezo film, etc. the acoustic sensors may be disposed on one or more sides of the device, including the side that touches or faces the skin (skin side) and the sides that face the environment (environmental sides). the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may also include galvanic skin response (gsr) circuitry to measure the response of the user's skin to emotional and physical stimuli or physiological changes (e.g., the transition of sleep stage). in one embodiment, the invention is a wrist or arm-mounted device incorporating a band comprised of conductive rubber or fabric so that the galvanic skin response electrodes may be hidden in the band. because the galvanic skin response circuitry may be subjected to changing temperatures and environmental conditions, it may also include circuitry to enable automatic calibration, such as two or more switchable reference resistors in parallel or series with the human skin/electrode path that allows real-time measurement of known resistors to characterize the response of the galvanic skin response circuit. the reference resistors may be switched into and out of the measurement path such that they are measured independently and/or simultaneously with the human skin. the skin side sensors would detect any type of sound transmitted through the body and the sensors could be arranged in an array or pattern that optimizes both the snr and power consumption. these sensors could detect respiration (by listening to the lung), respiratory sounds (breathing, snoring) and problems, heart rate (listening to the heart beat), user's voice (via sound transmitted from the vocal cords throughout the body). environmental sensors the monitoring device of the present inventions may use one, some or all of the following environmental sensors to, for example, acquire the environmental data, including environmental data outlined in the table below. the monitoring device is not limited to the number or types of sensors specified below but may employ other sensors that acquire environmental data outlined in the table below. all combinations and permutations of environmental sensors and/or environmental data are intended to fall within the scope of the present inventions. additionally, the device may derive environmental data from the corresponding sensor output data, but is not limited to the types of environmental data that it could derive from said sensor. notably, the monitoring device of the present inventions may one or more, or all of the environmental sensors described herein and one or more, or all of the physiological sensors described herein. indeed, biometric monitoring device may acquire any or all of the environmental data and physiological data described herein using any sensor now known or later developed—all of which are intended to fall within the scope of the present inventions. environmental sensorsenvironmental data acquiredmotion detectorlocationpotential embodiments:inertial, gyro or accelerometergpspressure/altimeter sensorelevationambient temptemperaturelight sensorindoor vs. outdoorwatching tv (spectrum/flicker ratedetection)optical data transfer-initiation, qrcodes, etc.ultraviolet light exposureaudioindoor vs. outdoorcompasslocationpotential embodiments:3 axis compass in one embodiment, the monitoring device may include an altimeter sensor, for example, disposed or located in the interior of the device housing. (see, for example, figs. 25 and 26 ). in such a case, the device housing may have a vent that allows the interior of the device to measure, detect, sample and/or experience any changes in exterior pressure. in one embodiment, the vent prevents water from entering the device while facilitating measuring, detecting and/or sampling changes in pressure via the altimeter sensor. for example, an exterior surface of the biometric monitoring device may include a vent type configuration or architecture (e.g., a gore™ vent) which allows ambient air to move in and out of the housing of the device (which allows the altimeter sensor to measure, detect and/or sample changes in pressure), but reduces, prevents and/or minimizes water and other liquids penetration into the device housing. the altimeter sensor, in one embodiment, may be filled with gel that allows the sensor to experience pressure changes outside of the gel. the use of a gel filled altimeter may give the device a higher level of environmental protection with or without the use of an environmentally sealed vent. the device may have a higher survivability rate with a gel filled altimeter in locations including but not limited to those that have high humidity, a clothes washer, a dish washer, a clothes dryer, a steam room, the shower, a pool, and any location where the device may be exposed to moisture, exposed to liquid or submerged in liquid. sensors integration/signal processing the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may use data from two or more sensors to calculate the corresponding physiological or environmental data as seen in the table below (for example, data from two or more sensors which are used in combination). the device may include but is not limited to the number, types, or combinations of sensors specified below. additionally, the device may derive the included data from the corresponding sensor combinations, but is not limited to the number or types of data that could be calculated from the corresponding sensor combinations data derived from signal processingsensor integrationsof multiple sensorsskin temp and ambient tempheat fluxheart rate and motionelevation gainmotion detector and other user'susers in the proximitymotion detectormotion, any heart rate sensor,sit/standing detectiongalvanic skin responseany heart rate, heart rate variabilitysleep phase detectionsensor, respiration, motionsleep apnea detectionany heart rate sensor and/orresting heart ratewetness sensor, and/or motionactive heart ratedetectorheart rate while asleepheart rate while sedentaryany heart rate detectorearly detection of heart problems:cardiac arrhythmiacardiac arrestmultiple heart rate detectorspulse transit timeaudio and/or strain gaugetyping detectiongps and photoplethysmographylocation-stress correlation:(ppg)determination of stressful regionsdetermination of low stress regionsactivity specific heart rateresting heart rateactive heart rateautomatic activity classification andactivity heart rate determinationheart rate, galvanic skin response,user fatigue, for example whileaccelerometer and respirationexercising in one embodiment, the device may also include a near-field communication (nfc) receiver/transmitter to detect proximity to another device, such as a mobile phone. when the device is brought into close or detectable proximity to the second device, it may trigger the start of new functionality on the second device (e.g., the launching of an “app” on the mobile phone and radio syncing of physiological data from the device to the second device). (see, for example, fig. 16 ). indeed, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may implement any of the circuitry and techniques described and/or illustrated in u.s. provisional patent application 61/606,559, filed mar. 5, 2012, “near field communication system, and method of operating same”, inventor: james park (the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference). in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device includes a location sensor (for example, gps circuitry) and heart rate sensor (for example, photoplethysmography circuitry) to generate gps or location related data and heart rate related data, respectively. (see, for example, figs. 25 and 26 ). the biometric monitoring device may then fuse, process and/or combine data from these two sensors/circuitry to, for example, determine, correlate and/or “map” geographical regions according to physiological data (for example, heart rate, stress, activity level, quantity of sleep and/or caloric intake). in this way, the biometric monitoring device may identify geographical regions that increase or decrease a measurable user metric including but not limited to heart rate, stress, activity, level, quantity of sleep and/or caloric intake. in addition thereto, or in lieu thereof, the biometric monitoring device may employ the gps related data and photoplethysmography related data (notably, each of which may be considered data streams), to determine or correlate the user's heart rate according to activity levels—for example, as determined by the user's acceleration, speed, location and/or distance traveled (as measured by the gps and/or determined from gps related data). (see, for example, figs. 25 and 26 ). here, in one embodiment, heart rate as a function of speed may be “plotted” or correlated for the user, or the data could be broken down into different levels including but not limited to sleeping, resting, sedentary, moderately active, active, and highly active. indeed, the biometric monitoring device may also correlate gps related data to a database of predetermined geographic locations that have activities associated with them for a set of predetermined conditions. for example, activity determination and corresponding physiological classification (for example, heart rate classification) may include correlating a user's gps coordinates that correspond to location(s) of exercise equipment, health club and/or gym and physiological data. under these circumstances, a user's heart rate during, for example a gym workout, may be automatically measured and displayed. notably, many physiological classifications may be based on gps related data including location, acceleration, altitude, distance and/or velocity. such a database including geographic data and physiological data may be compiled, developed and/or stored on the biometric monitoring device and/or external computing device. indeed, in one embodiment, the user may create their own location database or add to or modify the location database to better classify their activities. in another embodiment, the user may simultaneously wear multiple biometric monitoring devices (having any of the features described herein). the devices of this embodiment may communicate with each other or a remote device using wired or wireless circuitry to calculate, for example, biometric or physiologic qualities or quantities that, for example, may be difficult or inaccurate to calculate otherwise such as pulse transit time. the use of multiple sensors may also improve the accuracy and/or precision of biometric measurements over the accuracy and/or precision of a single sensor. for example, having a device on the waist, wrist, and ankle could improve the detection of the user taking a step over that of a single device in only one of those locations. signal processing could be performed on the devices in a distributed or centralized method to provide improved measurements over that of a single device. this signal processing could also be performed remotely and communicated back to the devices after processing. processing task delegation the biometric monitoring device may include one or more processors. (see, for example, figs. 29-31 ). for example, an independent application processor may be used to store and execute applications that utilize sensor data acquired and processed by one or more sensor processors (processor(s) that process data from physiological, environmental and/or activity sensors). in the case where there are multiple sensors, there may also be multiple sensor processors. an application processor may have sensors directly connected to it as well. sensor and application processors may exist as separate discrete chips or exist within the same packaged chip (multi-core). a device may have a single application processor, or an application processor and sensor processor, or a plurality of application processors and sensor processors. in one embodiment, the sensor package may be placed on a daughterboard that includes the analog components. this board may have some of the electronics typically found on the main pcb such as, but not limited to, transimpedance amplifiers, filtering circuits, level shifters, sample and hold circuits, and a microcontroller unit. such a configuration may allow the daughterboard to be connected to the main pcb through the use of a digital connection rather than analog in addition to any necessary power or ground connections. a digital connection may have a variety of advantages over the analog daughter to main pcb connection including but not limited to a reduction in noise and a reduction in the number of necessary cables. the daughterboard may be connected to the main board through the use of a flex cable or set of wires. multiple applications may be stored on an application processor. an application can consist of executable code and data for the application, but not limited to these. data may consist of graphics or other information required to execute the application and/or information output generated by the application. the executable code and data for the application can both reside on the application processor or the data for the application can be stored and retrieved from an external memory. external memory may include but is not limited to nand flash, nor flash, flash on another processor, other solid-state storage, mechanical or optical disks, and/or mram. the executable code for an application may also be stored on an external memory. when an application is requested to be executed, the application processor retrieves the executable code and/or data from the external storage and executes it. the executable code can be temporarily or permanently stored on the memory or storage of the application processor. this allows the application to be executed more quickly on the next execution request, since the step of retrieval is eliminated. when the application is requested to be executed, the application processor can retrieve all of the executable code of the application or portions of the executable code. in the latter case, only the portion of executable code required at that moment is retrieved. this allows applications that are larger than the application processor's memory or storage to be executed. the application processor may also have memory protection features to prevent applications from overwriting, corrupting, interrupting, blocking, or otherwise interfering with other applications, the sensor system, the application processor, or other components of the system and/or sensor device. applications may be loaded onto the application processor and any external storage via a variety of wired, wireless, optical, capacitive mechanisms including but not limited to usb, wi-fi, bluetooth, bluetooth low energy, nfc, rfid, and zigbee. in one embodiment, applications may be cryptographically signed with an electronic signature. as such, the application processor may restrict the execution of applications to those that have the correct signature. methods of wearing the device the biometric monitoring device may include a housing having a size and shape that facilitates fixing the device to the user's body (or clothing) during normal operation wherein the device, when coupled to the user, does not measurably or appreciably impact the user's activity. the device may be worn in different ways depending on the specific sensor package integrated into the device and the data that the user would like to acquire. a user may wear one or more of the biometric monitoring devices of the present inventions on their wrist or ankle (or arm or leg) with the use of a band that is flexible and thereby readily fitted to the user. the band may have an adjustable circumference, therefore allowing it to be fitted to the user. the band may be constructed from a material that shrinks when exposed to heat, therefore allowing the user to create a custom fit. the band may be detachable from the “electronics” portion of the biometric monitoring device and, if necessary, replaceable. in a preferred embodiment, the biometric monitoring device consists of two major components—a body (containing the “electronics”) and a band (that facilitates attaching the device to the user). the body may include a housing (made, for example, of a plastic or plastic-like material) and extension tabs projecting from the body (made, for example, from a metal or metal-like material). (see, for example, figs. 4-7 ). the band (made, for example, of a thermoplastic urethane) is attachable to the body mechanically or adhesively. the band may extend out a fraction of the circumference of the user's wrist. the distal ends of the urethane band may be connected with a velcro, a hook and/or loop elastic fabric band that loops around a d-ring on one side and then attaches back to itself. in this embodiment, the closure mechanism would allow the user infinite band length adjustment (unlike an indexed hole and mechanical clasp closure). the velcro or fabric could be attached to the band in a manner that allows it to be replaced (for example, if it is worn or otherwise undesirable to wear before the useful or end of life of the device). in one embodiment, the velcro or fabric would be attached with screws or rivets and/or glue, adhesive and/or clasp to the band. the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may also be integrated and worn in a necklace, chest band, bra, patch, glasses, earring, or toe band. the device may be built in such a way that the sensor package/portion of the biometric monitoring device is removable and can be worn in any number of ways including, but not limited to, those listed above. in another embodiment, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may be worn clipped to an article of clothing or deposited in clothing (e.g., pocket) or an accessory (e.g., handbag, backpack, wallet). because the biometric monitoring device may not be near the user's skin, in embodiments that include heart rate measurements, the measurements may be obtained in a discrete, “on demand” context by the user manually placing the device into a specific mode (e.g., depressing a button, covering a capacitive touch sensor, etc., possibly with the heart rate sensor embedded in the button/sensor) or automatically once the user places the device against the skin (e.g., applying the finger to an optical heart rate sensor). user interface with the device the biometric monitoring device may include one or more methods of interacting with the device either locally or remotely. in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device may convey data visually through a digital display. the physical embodiment of this display may use any one or a plurality of display technologies including, but not limited to one or more of led, lcd, amoled, e-ink, sharp display technology, graphical display, and other display technologies such as tn, htn, stn, fstn, tft, ips, and olet. this display could show data acquired or stored locally on the device or could display data acquired remotely from other devices or internet services. the device may use a sensor (for example, an ambient light sensor, “als”) to control or adjust screen backlighting. for example, in dark lighting situations, the display may be dimmed to conserve battery life, whereas in bright lighting situations, the display may increase its brightness so that it is more easily read by the user. in another embodiment, the device may use single or multicolor leds to indicate a state of the device. states that the device indicate may include but are not limited to biometric states such as heart rate or application states such as an incoming message, a goal has been reached. these states may be indicated through the led's color, being on, off, an intermediate intensity, pulsing (and/or rate thereof), and/or a pattern of light intensities from completely off to highest brightness. in one embodiment, an led may modulate its intensity and/or color with the phase and frequency of the user's heart rate. in a preferred embodiment, the use of an e-ink type display or technology would allow the display to remain on without the battery drain of a non-reflective display. this “always-on” functionality may provide a pleasant user experience in the case of, for example, a watch application where the user may simply glance at the device to see the time. the e-ink display always displays content without compromising the battery life of the device, allowing the user to see the time as they would on a traditional watch. the device may use a light such as an led to display the heart rate of the user by modulating the amplitude of the light emitted at the frequency of the user's heart rate. the device may depict heart rate zones (e.g., aerobic, anaerobic) through the color of an led (e.g., green, red) or a sequence of leds that light up in accordance with changes in heart rate (e.g., a progress bar). the device may be integrated or incorporated into another device or structure, for example, glasses or goggles, or communicate with glasses or goggles to display this information to the user. the biometric monitoring device may also convey information to a user through the physical motion of the device. one such embodiment of a method to physically move the device is the use of a vibration inducing motor (for example, a vibromotor/vibramotor). the device may use this method alone, or in combination with a plurality of motion inducing technologies. the device may convey information to a user through audio. a speaker could convey information through the use of audio tones, voice, songs, or other sounds. these three information communication methods—visual, motion, and auditory—may be used alone or in any combination with each other or another method of communication to communicate any one or plurality of the following information: that a user needs to wake up at certain timethat a user should wake up as they are in a certain sleep phasethat a user should go to sleep as it is a certain timethat a user should wake up as they are in a certain sleep phase and in a preselected time window bounded by the earliest and latest time that the user wants to wake up.an email was receivedthe user has been inactive for a certain period of time. notably, this may integrate with other applications like, for instance, a meeting calendar or sleep tracking application to block out, reduce, or adjust the behavior of the inactivity alert.the user has been active for a certain period of timethe user has an appointment or calendar eventthe user has reached a certain activity metricthe user has gone a certain distancethe user has reached a certain mile pacethe user has reached a certain speedthe user has accumulated a certain elevation gainthe user has taken a certain number of stepsthe user has had a heart rate measurement recentlythe user's heart rate has reached a certain levelthe user has a normal, active, or resting heart rate of a specific value or in a specific rangethe user's heart rate has enter or exited a certain goal range or training zonethe user has a new heart rate “zone” goal to reach, as in the case of heart rate zone training for running, bicycling, swimming, etc. activitiesthe user has swum a lap or completed a certain number of laps in a poolan external device has information that needs to be communicated to the user such as an incoming phone call or any one of the above alertsthe user has reached a certain fatigue goal or limit. in one embodiment, fatigue may be determined through a combination of heart rate, galvanic skin response, motion sensor, and/or respiration data these examples are provided for illustration and are not intended to limit the scope of information that may be communicated by the device (to, for example, the user). note that the data used to determine whether or not an alert is met may be acquired from a first device and/or one or more secondary devices. the device itself may determine whether the criteria for an alert has been met. alternatively, a computing device in communication with the device (e.g. a server and/or a mobile phone) may determine when the alert should occur. in view of this disclosure, other information that the device may communicate to the user can be envisioned by one of ordinary skill in the art. for example, the device may communicate with the user when a goal has been met. the criteria for meeting this goal may be based on physiological, contextual, and environmental sensors on a first device, and/or other sensor data from one or more secondary devices. the goal may be set by the user or may be set by the device itself and/or another computing device in communication with the device (e.g. a server). in an exemplary embodiment, the device may vibrate when a biometric goal is met. the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may be equipped with wireless and/or wired communication circuitry to display data on a secondary device in real time. for example, the invention may be able to communicate with a mobile phone via bluetooth low energy in order to give real-time feedback of heart rate, heart rate variability, and/or stress to the user. the invention may coach or grant “points” for the user to breathe in specific ways that alleviate stress. stress may be quantified or evaluated through heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, changes in motion-activity data and/or galvanic skin response. the biometric monitoring device may receive input from the user through one or more local or remote input methods. one such embodiment of local user input could use a sensor or set of sensors to translate a user's movement into a command to the device. such motions could include but may not be limited to tapping, rolling the wrist, flexing one or more muscles, and swinging. another user input method may be through the use of a button of type, but not limited to the types, capacitive touch button, capacitive screen, and mechanical button. in one embodiment, the user interface buttons may be made of metal. in the case that the screen uses capacitive touch detection, it may always be sampling and ready to respond to any gesture or input without an intervening event such as pushing a physical button. the device may also take input through the use of audio commands. all of these input methods may be integrated into the device locally or integrated into a remote device that can communicate with the device either through a wired or wireless connection. in addition, the user may also be able to manipulate the device through a remote device. in one embodiment, this remote device could have internet connectivity. in one embodiment, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may operate as a wrist-mounted vibrating alarm to silently wake the user from sleep. the biometric monitoring device may track the user's sleep quality, waking periods, sleep latency, sleep efficiency, sleep stages (e.g., deep sleep versus rem), and/or other sleep-related metrics through one or a combination of heart rate, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, motion sensing (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer), and skin temperature. the user may specify a desired alarm time and the invention may use one or more of the sleep metrics to determine an optimal time to wake the user. in one embodiment, when the vibrating alarm is active, the user may cause it to hibernate or turn off by slapping or tapping the device (which is detected, for example, via motion sensor(s), a pressure/force sensor and/or capacitive touch sensor in the device). in one embodiment, the device may attempt to arouse the user at an optimum point in the sleep cycle by starting a small vibration at a specific user sleep stage or time prior to the alarm setting. it may progressively increase the intensity or noticeability of the vibration as the user progresses toward wakefulness or toward the alarm setting. (see, for example, fig. 14 ). in another aspect, the biometric monitoring device may be configured or communicated with using onboard optical sensors such as the components in an optical heart rate monitor. in yet another aspect, the device's methods for communicating with the user may combine one or more feedback mechanisms such as vibration, audio, graphical display, or leds. for example, upon detecting or determining that the user has reached a goal, the device vibrates to notify the user. if the user then presses a button, the display turns on and presents data about the goal that the user reached (e.g. what goal was reached, if this goal was previously reached one or more times on a different day, week, month, or year, and/or how long it took to reach the goal). in another example, the color and/or intensity of one or more leds may serve as notifications that the user is winning or losing against a friend in a competition in, say, step count. in yet another example, the device is a wrist-mounted device that may vibrate or emit audio feedback to notify the user of an incoming email, text message, or other alert, whereby if the user moves his wrist in a gesture similar to checking a watch, the display is turned on and the data of the alert is presented to the user. in yet another example, the device may present increasingly noticeable feedback methods based on the importance and/or urgency of the alert. for instance, a high priority alert may include audio, vibration, and visual feedback, whereas a low priority alert may only include visual feedback. the criteria to distinguish a high priority alert may be defined by the user. examples include the priority of an email message, the sender of a text or email message, a meeting notification, a goal achieved vs a halfway mark of the goal, etc. the preceding examples are provided for illustration and should not be considered as limitations to the present inventions. indeed, all possible combinations of feedback mechanisms and interactions described herein are intended to be within the scope of the present inventions. one or more of the sensors disclosed herein may be used to detect a physical gesture corresponding to a user input. this allows a user to interact with the device using physical gestures. for example, a wrist-based portable biometric device may contain an accelerometer, magnetometer and/or a gyroscope. one or more of these sensors may be used to determine when the user moves their wrist in a manner that is similar to that performed when viewing a watch. the portable biometric device may interpret this gesture as a user input or interaction. the watch-viewing gesture may be programmed to cause the portable biometric monitoring device to display the time. other gestures which may be used to cause the portable biometric monitoring device to display a specific data screen such as the time of day include but are not limited one, multiple taps, or a specific pattern of taps. for example, a user may tap anywhere on the exterior of the portable biometric device two times within a specific time period (e.g. one seconds) to cause the display to show the time. wireless connectivity and data transmission the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may include a means of wireless communication to transmit and receive information from the internet and/or other devices. the wireless communication may consist of one or more means such as bluetooth, ant, wlan, power-line networking, and cell phone networks. these are provided as examples and do not exclude other wireless communication methods existent or that are yet to be invented. the wireless connection is two ways. the device may transmit, communicate and/or push its data to other peripheral devices and/or the internet. the device may also receive, request and/or pull data from other peripheral devices and/or the internet. the biometric monitoring device may act as a relay to provide communication for other devices to each other or to the internet. for example, the device may connect to the internet via wlan but also be equipped with an ant radio. an ant device may communicate with the device to transmit its data to the internet through the device's wlan (and vice versa). as another example, the device may be equipped with bluetooth. if a bluetooth-enabled smart phone comes within reach of the device, the device may transmit data to or receive data from the internet through the smart phone's cell phone network. data from another device may also be transmitted to the device and stored (and vice versa) or transmitted at a later time. the present inventions may also include streaming or transmitting web content for displaying on the biometric monitoring device. the following are typical examples: historical graphs of heart rate and/or other data measured by the device but stored remotelyhistorical graphs of user activity and/or foods consumed and/or sleep data that are measured by other devices and/or stored remotely (e.g., fitbit.com)historical graphs of other user-tracked data stored remotely. examples include heart rate, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, blood glucose levels, cholesterol, duration of tv watching, duration of video game play, mood, etc.coaching and/or dieting data based on one or more of the user's heart rate, current weight, weight goals, food intake, activity, sleep, and other data.user progress toward heart rate, weight, activity, sleep, and/or other goals.summary statistics, graphics, badges, and/or metrics (e.g., “grades”) to describe the aforementioned datathe aforementioned data displayed for the user and his/her “friends” with similar devices and/or tracking methodssocial content such as twitter feeds, instant messaging, and/or facebook updatesother online content such as newspaper articles, horoscopes, weather reports, rss feeds, comics, crossword puzzles, classified advertisements, stock reports, and websitesemail messages and calendar schedules content may be delivered to the biometric monitoring device according to different contexts. for instance, in the morning, news and weather reports may be displayed along with the user's sleep data from the previous night. in the evening, a daily summary of the day's activities may be displayed. the invention may also include nfc, rfid, or other short-range wireless communication circuitry that may be used to initiate functionality in other devices. for instance, the invention may be equipped with an nfc antenna so that when a user puts it into close proximity with a mobile phone, an app is launched automatically on the mobile phone. these examples are provided for illustration and are not intended to limit the scope of data that may be transmitted, received, or displayed by the device, nor any intermediate processing that may occur during such transfer and display. in view of this disclosure/application, many other data can be envisioned by one reasonably skilled in the art. charging and data transmission the biometric monitoring device may use a wired connection to charge an internal rechargeable battery and/or transfer data to a host device such as a laptop or mobile phone. in one embodiment, the device may use magnets to help the user align the device to the dock or cable. the magnetic field of magnets in the dock or cable and the magnets in the device itself could be strategically oriented to as to force the device to self-align and provide a force that holds the device to the dock or cable. the magnets may also be used as conductive contacts for charging or data transmission. in another embodiment, a permanent magnet is only used in the dock or cable side, not in the device itself. this may improve the performance of the biometric monitoring device where the device employs a magnetometer. with a magnet in the device, the strong field of a nearby permanent magnet may increase the difficulty for the magnetometer to accurately measure the earth's magnetic field. in another embodiment, the device could contain one or more electromagnets in the device body. the charger or dock for charging and data transmission would also contain an electromagnet and/or a permanent magnet. the device could only turn on its electromagnet when it is close to the charger or dock. it could detect proximity to the dock by looking for the magnetic field signature of a permanent magnet in the charger or dock using a magnetometer. alternatively it could detect proximity to the charger by measuring the received signal strength indication or rssi of a wireless signal from the charger or dock. the electromagnet could be reversed, creating a force that repels the device from the charging cable or dock either when the device doesn't need to be charged, synced, or when it has completed syncing or charging. configurable application functionality in some embodiments, the biometric monitoring device of the present inventions may include a watch-like form factor and/or bracelet, armlet, or anklet form factor and may be programmed with “apps” that launch specific functionality and/or display specific information. apps may be launched or closed by a variety of means or techniques including but not limited to pressing a button, using a capacitive touch sensor, performing a gesture that is detected by an accelerometer, moving to a location detected by a gps or motion sensor, compressing the device body, thereby creating a pressure signal inside the device that is detected by an altimeter, or placing the device close to an nfc tag which is associated with an app or set of apps. apps may also be automatically triggered to launch or close by certain environmental or physiological conditions including but not limited to a high heart rate, the detection of water using a wet sensor (to launch a swimming application for example), a certain time of day (to launch a sleep tracking application at night for example), a change in pressure and motion characteristic of a plane taking off or landing to launch and close an “airplane” mode app. apps may also be launched or closed by meeting multiple conditions simultaneously. for example, if an accelerometer detects that a user is running and the user presses a button it may launch a pedometer application, an altimeter data collection application and/or display. in another case where the accelerometer detects swimming and the user presses the same button, it may launch a lap counting application. in one embodiment, the device could have a swim-tracking mode that may be launched by starting a swimming app. in this mode, the device's motion sensors and/or magnetometer may be used to detect swim strokes, classify swim stroke types, detect swimming laps, and other related metrics such as stroke efficiency, lap time, speed, distance, and calorie burn. directional changes indicated by the magnetometer may be used to detect a diversity of lap turn methods. in a preferred embodiment, data from a motion sensor and/or pressure sensor may be used to detect strokes. in another embodiment, a bicycling app may be launched by moving the device within proximity of an nfc or rfid tag that is located on the bicycle, on a mount on the bicycle or in a location associated with a bicycle including but not limited to a bike rack or bike storage facility. (see, for example, fig. 16 ). the app launched may use a different algorithm than is normally used to determine metrics including but not limited to calories burned, distance traveled, and elevation gained. the app may also be launched when a wireless bike sensor is detected including but not limited to a wheel sensor, gps, cadence sensor, or power meter. the device may then display and/or record data from the wireless bike sensor or bike sensors. additional apps include but are not limited to a programmable or customizable watch face, stop watch, music player controller (e.g., mp3 player remote control), text message and/or email display or “notifier”, navigational compass, bicycle computer display (when communicating with a separate or integrated gps device, wheel sensor, or power meter), weight lifting tracker, sit-up reps tracker, pull up reps tracker, resistance training form/workout tracker, golf swing analyzer, tennis (or other racquet sport) swing/serve analyzer, tennis game swing detector, baseball swing analyzer, ball throw analyzer (e.g., football, baseball), organized sports activity intensity tracker (e.g., football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer), disk throw analyzer, food bite detector, typing analyzer, tilt sensor, sleep quality tracker, alarm clock, stress meter, stress/relaxation biofeedback game (e.g., potentially in combination with a mobile phone that provides auditory and/or visual cues to train user breathing in relaxation exercises), teeth brushing tracker, eating rate tracker (e.g., to count or track the rate and duration by which a utensil is brought to the mouth for food intake), intoxication or suitability to drive a motor vehicle indicator (e.g., through heart rate, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, gait analysis, puzzle solving, and the like), allergy tracker (e.g., using galvanic skin response, heart rate, skin temperature, pollen sensing and the like, possibly in combination with external seasonal allergen tracking from, for instance, the internet; possibly determining the user's response to particular forms of allergen (e.g., tree pollen) and alerting the user to the presence of such allergens (e.g., from seasonal information, pollen tracking databases, or local environmental sensors in the device or employed by the user)), fever tracker (e.g., measuring the risk, onset, or progress of a fever, cold, or other illness, possibly in combination with seasonal data, disease databases, user location, and/or user provided feedback to assess the spread of a particular disease (e.g., flu) in relation to a user, and possibly prescribing or suggesting the abstinence of work or activity in response), electronic games, caffeine affect tracker (e.g., monitoring the physiologic response such as heart rate, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, blood pressure, stress, sleep, and/or activity in either short term or long term response to the intake or abstinence of coffee, tea, energy drinks and/or other caffeinated beverages), drug affect tracker (e.g., similar to the previously mentioned caffeine tracker but in relation to other interventions, whether they be medical or lifestyle drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, etc.), endurance sport coach (e.g., recommending or prescribing the intensity, duration, or profile of a running/bicycling/swimming workout, or suggesting the abstinence or delay of a workout, in accordance with a user specified goal such as a marathon, triathlon, or custom goal utilizing data from, for instance, historical exercise activity (e.g., distance run, pace), heart rate, heart rate variability, health/sickness/stress/fever state), weight and/or body composition, blood pressure, blood glucose, food intake or caloric balance tracker (e.g., notifying the user how many calories he may consume to maintain or achieve a weight), pedometer, and nail biting detector. in some cases, the apps may rely solely on the processing power and sensors of the invention. in other cases, the apps may fuse or merely display information from an external device or set of external devices including but not limited to a heart rate strap, gps distance tracker, body composition scale, blood pressure monitor, blood glucose monitor, watch, smart watch, mobile communication device such as a smart phone or tablet, or server. in one embodiment, the portable monitoring device may control a music player on a secondary device. aspects of the music player that may be controlled include but are not limited to the volume, selection of tracks and/or playlists, skipping forward or backward, fast forwarding or rewinding of tracks, the tempo of the track, and the music player equalizer. control of the music player may be via user input or automatic based on physiological, environmental, or contextual data. for example, a user may be able to select and play a track on their smart phone by selecting the track through a user interface on the device. in another example, the portable monitoring device may automatically choose an appropriate track based on the activity level of the user (the activity level being calculated from device sensor data). this may be used to help motivate a user to maintain a certain activity level. for example, if a user goes on a run and wants to keep their heart rate in a certain range, the device may play an upbeat or higher tempo track if their heart rate is below the range which they are aiming for. there are many inventions described and illustrated herein. while certain embodiments, features, attributes and advantages of the inventions have been described and illustrated, it should be understood that many others, as well as different and/or similar embodiments, features, attributes and advantages of the present inventions, are apparent from the description and illustrations. as such, the above embodiments of the inventions are merely exemplary. they are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the inventions to the precise forms, techniques, materials and/or configurations disclosed. many modifications and variations are possible in light of this disclosure. it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and operational changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present inventions. as such, the scope of the inventions is not limited solely to the description above because the description of the above embodiments has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. importantly, the present inventions are neither limited to any single aspect nor embodiment, nor to any combinations and/or permutations of such aspects and/or embodiments. moreover, each of the aspects of the present inventions, and/or embodiments thereof, may be employed alone or in combination with one or more of the other aspects and/or embodiments thereof. for the sake of brevity, many of those permutations and combinations will not be discussed and/or illustrated separately, in detail, herein. the term “calculate” and other forms (i.e., calculating, calculated and calculation) in the claims means, among other things, calculate, assesses, determine and/or estimate and other forms thereof. in addition, the term “light pipe” (or plural thereof) in the claims means, among other things, a light pipe, light conduit, light path or other light transmissive structure that preferentially directs or transmits light along a predetermined path, for example, a path defined by the geometry and/or material of the light pipe. further, in the claims, “scattered” means, among other things, scattered and/or reflected. notably, the terms “first,” “second,” and the like, herein do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another. moreover, in the claims, the terms “a” and “an” herein do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item.
141-143-478-797-567	US	[ "AU", "US", "WO", "JP", "EP" ]	B43L1/10,B32B27/10,B41M5/00,B41M5/50,B41M5/52,B43L1/00,C08J7/16,C09D4/00,C09D4/02,C09D7/12	2002-08-30T00:00:00	2002	[ "B43", "B32", "B41", "C08", "C09" ]	method of making writable erasable articles and articles therefrom	a method of making erasable article comprises: providing an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces; applying a polymerizable precursor composition to at least a portion of the first major surface; polymerizing the polymerizable precursor composition to form a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer; and exposing the electret film and non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer to a direct current corona discharge, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. erasable articles and kits containing them are also disclosed. also disclosed are dry erase articles having a first coating layer coated onto a flexible substrate. the first coating composition has a hardness upon curing of greater than about 500 mpa and forms an ink receptive writing surface suitable for receiving dry erase marker ink. the first coating layer has minimal effect on the flexibility of the sheet.	1 . a method of making an erasable article comprising: providing an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces; applying a polymerizable precursor composition to at least a portion of the first major surface; polymerizing the polymerizable precursor composition to form a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer; and exposing the electret film and non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer to a direct current corona discharge, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. 2 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a thickness in a range of from about 0.5 micrometers to about 20 micrometers. 3 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a thickness in a range of from about 1 micrometers to about 14 micrometers. 4 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a thickness in a range of from about 1 micrometers to about 8 micrometers. 5 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a scratch hardness of at least about 4h. 6 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a scratch hardness of at least about 6h. 7 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the exposed non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer surface has a roughness ra of less than about 50 nanometers. 8 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the exposed non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer surface has a roughness ra of less than about 5 nanometers. 9 . the method of claim 1 , wherein polymerizable precursor composition comprises polymerizable material and curative. 10 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the polymerizable material comprises polyacrylate. 11 . the method of claim 9 , wherein the curative comprises photoinitiator. 12 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film is opaque. 13 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film is transparent or translucent. 14 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film is a single layer. 15 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film comprises at least one of polypropylene or a poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomer. 16 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film comprises a zinc poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomer. 17 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the electret film further comprises phosphorescent pigment. 18 . the method of claim 1 , further comprising an ink layer disposed between the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer and the electret film. 19 . the method of claim 18 , wherein the ink layer further comprises phosphorescent pigment. 20 . an erasable article comprising an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprises colloidal silica, and wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. 21 . an erasable article prepared according to the method of claim 1 . 22 . an erasable article comprising an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material, and wherein the erasable article forms a roll. 23 . a stack comprising a plurality of erasable articles superimposed on each other, wherein each erasable article comprises: an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. 24 . an erasable article comprising: an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer contacting the first major surface, wherein the electret film and wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material; and a liner, wherein the liner contacts the second major surface. 25 . the erasable article of claim 24 , wherein the electret film is a single layer. 26 . the erasable article of claim 24 , wherein the substrate is selected from the group consisting of an architectural surface, an appliance, a window, and fabric. 27 . a kit comprising: an erasable article, wherein the erasable article comprises: an electret film having a first major surface and a second major surface; and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer; and at least one of a marker, eraser, or liquid cleaner. 28 . the kit of claim 27 , wherein the erasable article further comprises a liner. 29 . the kit of claim 27 , wherein the marker comprises an aqueous ink. 30 . a dry erase article comprising: a flexible sheet having a first surface; a first coating layer disposed on the first surface having a hardness upon curing of greater than about 500 mpa a writing surface disposed on the first coating layer suitable for receiving dry erase ink; and wherein the first coating layer has minimal effect on the flexibility of the sheet. 31 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the ink receptive surface has a surface energy of at least about 25 mj/m ² . 32 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the substrate and the secured first coating layer have a level of flexibility such that the substrate and the secured first coating layer can be bent 180 degrees around a 6.4 mm diameter mandrel without any visible signs of cracking or fracture of the substrate or the first coating layer or debonding of the first coating layer from the substrate. 33 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the substrate and the secured first coating layer have a level of flexibility such that the substrate and the secured first coating layer can be bent 180 degrees around a 3.2 mm diameter mandrel without any visible signs of cracking or fracture of the substrate or the first coating layer or debonding of the first coating layer from the substrate. 34 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the sheet is selected from the group consisting of: polymeric film, extrusion coated paper, paper film laminate, coated paper, uncoated paper, and flexible metal. 35 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer has a thickness of about 1 to about 15 micrometers. 36 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer preferably has a thickness of about 1 to about 10 micrometers. 37 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer further comprises: at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer; and colloidal inorganic oxide particles. 38 . the dry erase article of claim 37 wherein the colloidal inorganic oxide particles have an average particle diameter of less than about 1 micrometer. 39 . the dry erase article of claim 37 wherein the first coating layer further comprises: an ultraviolet photoinitiator. 40 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer is curable by ultraviolet, electron beam, or thermal radiation. 41 . the dry erase article of claim 30 , and further comprising: a second coating layer disposed between the first coating layer and the flexible sheet. 42 . the dry erase article of claim 41 , wherein the second coating layer includes printed indicia. 43 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the flexible sheet includes a second surface and further comprising: a second coating layer disposed on the second surface. 44 . the dry erase article of claim 43 wherein the second coating layer is adhesive. 45 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer has a hardness upon curing of greater than about 600 mpa. 46 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer has a hardness upon curing of greater than about 700 mpa. 47 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the 60 degree gloss value of the writing surface is greater than 50 gloss units. 48 . the dry erase article of claim 30 wherein the first coating layer has less and 10% by weight of additives. 49 . a dry erase article comprising: a substrate having a first surface and a second surface; a curable hardcoat layer secured to the first surface, the hardcoat layer including at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer, colloidal inorganic oxide particles; and a writing surface disposed on the curable hardcoat layer suitable for receiving dry erase marker ink, the writing surface having a 60 degree gloss value of greater than 50 gloss units. 50 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the curable hardcoat composition comprises a curing initiator. 51 . the dry erase article of claim 50 wherein the curing initiator comprises an ultraviolet photoinitiator. 52 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal inorganic oxide particles are silica particles. 53 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal silica particles have an average diameter of about 5 to about 1000 nm. 54 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal silica particles have an average diameter of about 5 to about 100 nm. 55 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal silica particles comprise from about 5 to about 50 weight percent of the coating composition excluding solvents. 56 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the curable hardcoat further comprises an organofunctional silane coupling agent. 57 . the dry erase article of claim 56 wherein said the organofunctional silane coupling agent comprises a hydrolyzable organofunctional silane. 58 . the dry erase article of claim 56 , wherein the coupling agent comprises 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate, 3-(triethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate, or a mixture thereof. 59 . the dry erase article of claim 56 , wherein the coupling agent comprises about 1 to about 15 weight percent of the hardcoat composition. 60 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the ethylenically unsaturated monomer comprises at least one trifunctional or higher functionality ethylenically unsaturated monomer or combinations thereof. 61 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the ethylenically unsaturated monomer comprises at least one monofunctional or difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer or combinations thereof. 62 . the dry erase article of claim 61 wherein the monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer comprises an amide containing compound. 63 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the monofunctional amide-containing compound is selected from the group consisting of n,n-disubstituted acetamides, n,n-disubstituted formamides, n,n-disubstituted acrylamides, n-substituted pyrolidinones, n-substituted formamides, n-substituted caprolactams, and combinations thereof. 64 . the radiation curable hardcoat composition of claim 49 , wherein the monofunctional or difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer comprises about 1 to about 80 weight percent of the hardcoat composition. 65 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the trifunctional or higher functionality ethylenically unsaturated monomer is pentaerythritol triacrylate or pentaerythritol tetracrylate, the difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer is hexanediol diacrylate, the monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer is n,n-dimethyl acrylamide, the organofunctional silane coupling agent is (meth)acryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane, and the colloidal inorganic oxide particles comprise silica. 66 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal silica particles have an average diameter of about 5 to about 1000 nm. 67 . the dry erase article of claim 49 , wherein the colloidal silica particles have an average diameter of about 5 to about 100 nm. 68 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the curable hardcoat layer is a coatable uv hardcoat solution at 100% solids. 69 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the substrate is selected from the group consisting of: a polymeric sheet, polymeric film, extrusion coated paper, paper film laminate, coated paper, uncoated paper, metal film, and metal sheet. 70 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the hardcoat layer has a thickness from about 1 micrometer to about 15 micrometers. 71 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the first coating layer preferably has a thickness of about 1 to about 10 micrometers. 72 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the writing surface has a surface energy of at least 25 mj/m ² . 73 . the dry erase article of claim 49 wherein the hardcoat layer has less than 10% by weight of additives. 74 . a method for forming a dry erase article in a continuous process comprising: applying a curable hardcoat coating to a streaming or moving web of a flexible substrate; curing the coating at a curing station, wherein the cured coating had a hardness of 500 mpa or greater as measured by a nanoindenter; and forming a writing surface on the hardcoat coating suitable for receiving dry erase ink. 75 . the method of claim 74 wherein the substrate is selected from a group consisting of: a polymeric film, extrusion coated paper, paper film laminate, coated paper, uncoated paper, and flexible metal. 76 . the method of claim 74 wherein the hardcoat coating has a thickness of from about 1 micrometer to about 15 micrometers 77 . the dry erase article of claim 74 wherein the first coating layer preferably has a thickness of about 1 to about 10 micrometers. 78 . the method of claim 74 wherein the hardcoat coating is comprised of at least one multifunctional acrylate monomer, and colloidal inorganic oxide particles. 79 . the dry erase article of claim 78 wherein the hardcoat layer further comprises a curing initiator. 80 . the dry erase article of claim 78 wherein the curing initiator is further comprised of a uv photoinitiator. 81 . the method of claim 74 wherein after curing, the writing surface has a surface energy of at least 25 mj/m ² . 82 . the method of claim 74 wherein the step of curing the hardcoat coating further comprises: emitting radiation at the hardcoat coating. 83 . the method of claim 74 wherein the radiation is selected from the group consisting of: ultraviolet radiation, electron beam, and thermal radiation. 84 . the method of claim 74 and further comprising: drying the hardcoat coating on the flexible substrate.	cross reference to related application this application is a continuation in part (cip) of and claims priority to application ser. no. 10/231,568 filed on aug. 30, 2002 for method of making erasable articles and articles therefrom by vivek bharti, clinton l. jones, and frederick j. gustafson. the priority application is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. technical field the present invention relates to articles having an erasable writing surface. background as commonly used, the term dry erase as applied to an article (e.g., a white board) refers to the ability to write or mark on that article with ink (e.g., using a felt tip marking pen), and later erase the ink without the need of a liquid cleaner. in practice, inks intended for use with dry erase surfaces are often specifically formulated for use with individual surface compositions, and may not be useful on all types of dry erase materials. various dry erase articles are known, many of which are adapted to be mounted on a vertical surface using adhesive or mechanical fasteners (e.g., screws, nails, hooks, etc.). however, mechanical fasteners and many adhesives are unsuitable for uses in which repositioning of the dry erase article is desired. further, adhesives may not adhere well to contaminated surfaces such as those contaminated with oil and/or dust particles. dry erase articles are known in the art generally as articles having surfaces that a user may write upon using ink markers. the user may then erase written indicia using an eraser (e.g. a cloth or a felt pad). examples of dry erase surfaces include cured melamine resins, porcelain covered steel, fluoropolymer films, vinyl films, and ultraviolet radiation (uv) curable hardcoat films. commercially available dry erase boards using cured melamine resins are manufactured by gbc office products, skokie, ill., boone international, corona, calif., and roseart company, wood ridge, n.j. commercially available dry erase boards using porcelain covered steel are available from gbc office products and boone international. commercially available dry erase articles using fluoropolymer film can be obtained from walltalkers, inc., fairlawn, ohio. vinyl dry erase articles are sold by best-rite manufacturing, temple, tex. uv curable hardcoat film dry erase boards are commercially available from gbc office products and boone international. using uv curable hardcoats to form dry erase articles has resulted in the ability to form articles that have a level of flexibility. previously known dry erase articles that used uv curable hardcoats to provide a dry erase surface have not provided a high performance level. in particular, previous hardcoats which acceptably received the ink on the surface of the dry erase article resulted in poor erasability after aging of the writing on the dry erase surface, requiring repeated wiping with the eraser or even leaving ghost images of the indicia after repeated wiping with the eraser. one preferred method of erasing a dry erase article is to use a dry eraser. ghost images of dry erase writing left after erasure require the application of liquid cleaners (e.g. water, household cleaners or solvent based dry erase cleaners). the term cling film is commonly used to refer to a film that can cling to a substrate without the use of adhesives or fasteners. cling films are generally divided into two major types: cling vinyl films and electret films. cling vinyl films (also known as static cling vinyl films) typically contain plasticizers and/or tackifiers, and can typically be adhered to smooth, rigid surfaces such as glass windows, but may not adhere well to porous, rough and/or dusty surfaces. in addition, plasticizers and/or tackifiers that are present in cling vinyl films may diffuse out of the film and leave a residue or on, or otherwise damage, a substrate to which the film is bonded. in contrast, electret films (i.e., films having a permanent or semi-permanent electrostatic charge) typically adhere to surfaces by electrostatic attraction, typically do not require plasticizers or tackifiers, and may adhere well even to rough or dusty surfaces. typically, such films are relatively inexpensive and can be repeatedly adhered to, and removed from (e.g., by peeling), surfaces without risk of leaving adhesive residue and/or physically damaging the substrate surface. electret films typically outperform (e.g., with regard to duration of cling, resistance to humidity, and the like) films having mere surface charges (e.g., formed by contact charging). however, electret films may not erase well, with and/or without a liquid cleaner, if used with a variety of inks. that is, such films may leave traces of the ink image (i.e., ghosting), especially if used with ink not specifically adapted for use with the film. it would be desirable to have erasable articles (e.g., films) that can be successfully marked and erased (e.g., dry erased) using a variety of inks, wherein the articles can be repeatedly adhered to, and removed from, a wide range of substrates by electrostatic attraction. summary in one aspect, the present invention provides a method of making an erasable article comprising: providing an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces; applying a polymerizable precursor composition to at least a portion of the first major surface; polymerizing the polymerizable precursor composition to form a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer; and exposing the electret film and non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer to a direct current corona discharge, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. in another aspect, the present invention provides an erasable article comprising an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprises colloidal silica, and wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. in another aspect, the present invention provides an erasable article comprising an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material, and wherein the erasable article forms a roll. in another aspect, the present invention provides a stack of erasable articles comprising a plurality of erasable articles superimposed on each other, wherein each erasable article comprises: an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer comprising contacting the first major surface, wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material. in another aspect, the present invention provides an erasable article comprising: an electret film having first and second opposed major surfaces, and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer contacting the first major surface, wherein the electret film and wherein the second major surface is free of adhesive material; and a liner, wherein the liner contacts the second major surface. in another aspect, the present invention provides a kit comprising: an erasable article, wherein the erasable article comprises: an electret film having a first major surface and a second major surface; and a non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer; and at least one of a marker, eraser, or liquid cleaner. erasable articles of the present invention can typically be repeatedly adhered to, and removed from, a wide range of substrates by electrostatic attraction, and may typically be marked and erased (e.g., dry erased) using a variety of inks. in another aspect, the present invention provides a dry erase article comprising: a flexible sheet having a first surface; a first coating layer disposed on the first surface having a hardness upon curing of greater than about 500 mpa; a writing surface disposed on the first coating layer suitable for receiving dry erase ink; and wherein the first coating layer has minimal effect on the flexibility of the sheet. in another aspect, the present invention provides a dry erase article comprising: a substrate having a first surface and a second surface; a curable hardcoat layer secured to the first surface, the hardcoat layer including at least one multifunctional acrylate monomer, and inorganic oxide particles; and a writing surface disposed on the curable hardcoat layer suitable for receiving dry erase marker ink, the writing surface having a 60 degree gloss value of greater than about 50 gloss units. in another aspect, the present invention provides a method for forming a dry erase article in a continuous process comprising: applying a curable hardcoat coating to a streaming or moving web of a flexible substrate; and curing the coating at a curing station, wherein the cured coating had a hardness of 500 mpa or greater as measured by a nanoindenter; and forming a writing surface on the hardcoat coating suitable for receiving dry erase ink. as used herein: film refers to a continuous nonporous thin layer, and includes for example, rolls, sheets, tapes, and strips; removably adhered means separable by peeling, without substantial damage (e.g., tearing) to the objects being separated; (meth)acryl includes acryl and methacryl; and ionomer refers to a polymer having carboxyl groups wherein at least some of the acidic protons have been replaced (i.e., neutralized) by metal ions. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an exemplary erasable article according to one embodiment of the present invention; fig. 2 is a perspective view of an exemplary erasable article in the form of a roll according to one embodiment of the present invention; and fig. 3 is a perspective view of an exemplary stack of erasable sheets according to one embodiment of the present invention. fig. 4 is a perspective view of one embodiment of the inventive dry erase article. fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view of one embodiment of the inventive dry erase article. fig. 5a is a cross-sectional view of a second embodiment of the inventive dry erase article. fig. 6 is a schematic view of one embodiment of the inventive process for making a dry erase article. while the above-identified drawings set forth various embodiments of the present invention, other embodiments of the present invention are also contemplated, as noted in the discussion. this disclosure presents illustrative embodiments of the present invention by the way of representation and not limitation. numerous other modifications and embodiments can be devised by those skilled in the art which fall within the spirit and scope of the principles of this invention. detailed description one exemplary embodiment of an erasable article according to the present invention is illustrated in fig. 1 . referring now to fig. 1 , erasable article 100 has electret film 110 with first and second opposed major surfaces 120 and 122 , respectively. non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer 130 contacts first major surface 120 , and removable liner 150 contacts second major surface 122 . in one exemplary embodiment, erasable articles according to the present invention may be provided, as shown in fig. 2 , in the form of roll 200 . in one exemplary embodiment, erasable articles according to the present invention may be provided in the form of a stack of sheets as shown, for example, in fig. 3 , wherein stack 300 comprises a plurality of superimposed erasable articles 301 . in this embodiment, each erasable article 301 independently comprises electret film 110 with first and second opposed major surfaces 120 and 122 , respectively, and non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer 130 which contacts first major surface 120 . due to the inherent charge of the erasable articles, they typically self adhere to form a stack that may be handled as a single item. electret films, useful in practice of the present invention, typically comprise a thermoplastic polymeric material, optionally containing various fillers and additives. useful thermoplastic polymeric materials that can maintain an electret charge include fluorinated polymers (e.g., poly tetrafluoroethylene, polyvinylidene fluoride, tetrafluoroethylene-hexafluoropropylene copolymers, vinylidene fluoride-trifluorochloroethylene copolymers), polyolefins (e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, poly-4-methyl-1-pentene, propylene-ethylene copolymers), copolymers of olefins and other monomers (e.g., ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers, ethylene-acrylic acid copolymers, ethylene-maleic acid anhydride copolymers, propylene-acrylic acid copolymers, propylene-maleic acid anhydride copolymers, 4-methyl-1-pentene-acrylic acid copolymers, 4-methyl-1-pentene-maleic acid anhydride copolymers), ionomers (e.g., ethylene-(meth)acrylic acid copolymers with at least some acidic protons replaced by na , k , ca ² , mg ² , or zn ² cations), polyesters (e.g., polyethylene terephthalate), polyamides (e.g., nylon-6, nylon-6,6), polycarbonates, polysulfones, non-plasticized polyvinyl chloride, blends and mixtures thereof, and the like. preferably, the thermoplastic material comprises at least one of polypropylene or a poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomer, more preferably a poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomer, more preferably a zinc poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomer. many poly(ethylene-co-(meth)acrylic acid) ionomers are commercially available as pellets and/or films, for example, as marketed under the trade designation surlyn (e.g., lithium poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomers such as surlyn 7930, surlyn 7940; sodium poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomers such as surlyn 1601, surlyn 8020, surlyn 8120, surlyn 8140, surlyn 8150, surlyn 8320, surlyn 8527, surlyn 8660, surlyn 8920, surlyn 8940, surlyn 8945; zinc poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) ionomers such as surlyn 1705-1, surlyn 1706, surlyn 6101, surlyn 9020, surlyn 9120, surlyn 9150, surlyn 9320w, surlyn 9520, surlyn 9650, surlyn 9720, surlyn 9721, surlyn 9910, surlyn 9945, surlyn 9950, surlyn 9970, surlyn pc-100) by e. i. du pont de nemours & company, wilmington, del.; or as marketed under the trade designation iotek (e.g., sodium poly(ethylene-co-acrylic acid) ionomers such as iotek 3110, iotek 3800, or iotek 8000; and zinc poly(ethylene-co-acrylic acid) ionomers such as iotek 4200) by exxon mobil corporation, houston, tex. further details of useful poly(ethylene-co-(meth)acrylic acid) ionomers are described in, for example, commonly assigned u.s. patent application entitled method of adhering a film and articles therefrom (bharti et al.), ser. no. 10/231,570, filed on aug. 30, 2002, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. if the polymer is obtained in pellet form, the pellets may be melt-extruded as a film using procedures well known in the film art. typically, the thickness of the electret film is in the range of from about 10 to about 2500 micrometers, although thinner and thicker films may also be used. preferably, the electret film has a thickness in the range of from about 25 to about 310 micrometers, more preferably in the range of from about 50 to about 110 micrometers. optionally, one or more additives can be included in the thermoplastic polymer. exemplary optional additives include antioxidants, light stabilizers (e.g., as available from ciba specialty chemicals, tarrytown, n.y. under the trade designations chimassorb 2020, chimassorb 119, chimassorb 944, tinuvin 783, or tinuvin c 353), thermal stabilizers (e.g., as available from ciba specialty chemicals under the trade designations irganox 1010, irganox 1076), fillers (e.g., inorganic or organic), charge control agents (e.g., as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,558,809 (groh et al.)), fluorochemical additives (e.g., as described in u.s. pat. no. 5,976,208 (rousseau et al.) and u.s. pat. no. 6,397,458 (jones et al.)), glass beads, glass bubbles, colorants (e.g., dyes, pigments (including phosphorescent pigments), and fragrances. exemplary optional additives also include titanium dioxide (e.g., in particulate form). if present, the amount of titanium dioxide preferably is in a range of from about 1 to about 50 percent by volume, more preferably in a range of from about 1 to about 20 percent by volume, based on the total volume of the film, although greater and lesser amounts of titanium dioxide particles may also be used. the electret film may be a unitary film (i.e., a single layer) or it may be multilayered. the electret film may be opaque, transparent, or translucent, and may have distinct regions of differing opacity. the electret film may be perforated. preferably, the electret film is free of tackifiers and/or plasticizers. electret films can be readily obtained from commercial sources or prepared by a variety of methods that are well known in the art. for details on methods for making electret films, see, for example, electrets, g. m. sessler (ed.), springer-verlag, new york, 1987. exemplary methods of forming electrets are well known in the art and include thermal electret, electroelectret (e.g., direct current (i.e., dc) corona discharge), radioelectret, magnetoelectret, photoelectret, and mechanical electret forming methods as described in, for example, u.s. pat. no. 5,558,809 (groh et al.), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. typically, electret films utilized in practice of the present invention have a charge (i.e., electret charge) density of greater than about 0.05 nanocoulombs per square centimeter (nc/cm ² ), preferably greater than about 0.5 nc/cm ² , more preferably greater than about 5 nc/cm ² . dc corona charging (e.g., as described in, for example, u.s. pat. no. 6,001,299 (kawabe et al.) and u.s. pat. no. 4,623,438 (felton et al.), the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference) is a desirable and convenient method for preparing electret films that are useful in practice of the present invention. exemplary commercially available electret films include polypropylene electret films available under the trade designation clingz from permacharge corporation, rio rancho, n. mex. in some embodiments of the present invention, for example, those in which strong bonding is undesirable (e.g., bonding to fragile substrates), it may be preferable that one or more exposed surfaces of the electret article (e.g., the electret film itself or laminate thereof) be free of adhesive or latent adhesive that might accidentally, or by design, strongly adhere to the substrate over time. the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer typically provides a receptive surface for inks, while simultaneously providing erasability. the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer may be formed by polymerizing a precursor composition, although other methods (e.g., crosslinking of a polymer or blend thereof using chemical means or ionizing radiation) may also be used. useful precursor compositions typically comprise one or more polymerizable materials (e.g., monomers and/or oligomers, which may be monofunctional and/or polyfunctional), a curative, and optionally inorganic particles. polymerizable materials may be, for example, free-radically polymerizable, cationically polymerizable, and/or condensation polymerizable. useful polymerizable materials include, for example, acrylates and methacrylates, epoxies, polyisocyanates, and trialkoxysilane terminated oligomers and polymers. preferably, the polymerizable material comprises a free-radically polymerizable material. useful free-radically polymerizable materials include, for example, free-radically polymerizable monomers and/or oligomers, either or both of which may be monofunctional or multifunctional. exemplary free-radically polymerizable monomers include styrene and substituted styrenes (e.g., -methylstyrene); vinyl esters (e.g., vinyl acetate); vinyl ethers (e.g., butyl vinyl ether); n-vinyl compounds (e.g., n-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone, n-vinylcaprolactam); acrylamide and substituted acrylamides (e.g., n,n-dialkylacrylamides); and acrylates and/or methacrylates (i.e., collectively referred to herein as (meth)acrylates) (e.g., isooctyl (meth)acrylate, nonylphenol ethoxylate (meth)acrylate, isononyl (meth)acrylate, diethylene glycol (meth)acrylate, isobornyl (meth)acrylate, 2-(2-ethoxyethoxy)ethyl (meth)acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl (meth)acrylate, lauryl (meth)acrylate, butanediol mono(meth)acrylate, -carboxyethyl (meth)acrylate, isobutyl (meth)acrylate, 2-hydroxyethyl (meth)acrylate, (meth)acrylonitrile, isodecyl (meth)acrylate, dodecyl (meth)acrylate, n-butyl (meth)acrylate, methyl (meth)acrylate, hexyl (meth)acrylate, (meth)acrylic acid, stearyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxy functional polycaprolactone ester (meth)acrylate, hydroxyethyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxymethyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxypropyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxyisopropyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxybutyl (meth)acrylate, hydroxyisobutyl (meth)acrylate, tetrahydrofurfuryl (meth)acrylate, ethylene glycol di(meth)acrylate, hexanediol di(meth)acrylate, triethylene glycol di(meth)acrylate, 1,3-propylene glycol di(meth)acrylate, tetraethylene glycol di(meth)acrylate, trimethylolpropane tri(meth)acrylate, 1,4-cyclohexanediol di(meth)acrylate, 1,5-pentanediol di(meth)acrylate, ethoxylated trimethylolpropane tri(meth)acrylate, glycerol tri(meth)acrylate, pentaerythritol tri(meth)acrylate, pentaerythritol tetra(meth)acrylate, dipentaerythritol penta(meth)acrylate, and neopentyl glycol di(meth)acrylate). exemplary free-radically polymerizable oligomers include those marketed by ucb chemicals, smyrna, georgia (e.g., under the trade designation ebecryl), and those marketed by sartomer company, exton, pa. (e.g., under the trade designations kayarad or cn). for some applications, it may also be useful to include unsaturated fluorinated material such as, for example, one or more fluoroalkyl (meth)acrylates in the polymerizable material. if incorporated in the polymerizable material, the amount of fluorinated material is typically chosen such that dry erase marker inks can effectively wet out the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer surface (i.e., the inks do not bead up on the surface). depending on the choice of polymerizable material, the precursor composition may, optionally, contain one or more curatives that assist in polymerizing the polymerizable material. the choice of curative for specific polymerizable materials depends on the chemical nature of the copolymerizable material. for example, in the case of epoxy resins, one would typically select a curative known for use with epoxy resins (e.g., dicyandiamide, onium salt, polymercaptan). in the case of free-radically polymerizable resins, free radical thermal initiators and/or photoinitiators are useful curatives. typically, the optional curative(s) is used in an amount effective to facilitate polymerization of the monomers and the amount will vary depending upon, for example, the type of curative, the molecular weight of the curative, and the polymerization process. the optional curative(s) is typically included in the precursor composition in an amount in a range of from about 0.01 percent by weight to about 10 percent by weight, based on the total weight of the precursor composition, although higher and lower amounts may also be used. the precursor composition may be cured, for example, by exposure to a thermal source (e.g., heat, infrared radiation), electromagnetic radiation (e.g., ultraviolet and/or visible radiation), and/or particulate radiation (e.g., electron beam). if the optional curative is a free-radical initiator, the amount of curative is preferably in a range of from about 1 percent by weight to about 5 percent by weight, based on the total weight of the precursor composition, although higher and lower amounts may also be used. useful free-radical photoinitiators include, for example, benzoin ethers such as benzoin methyl ether and benzoin isopropyl ether, substituted benzoin ethers (e.g., anisoin methyl ether), substituted acetophenones (e.g., 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone), substituted alpha-ketols (e.g., 2-methyl-2-hydroxypropiophenone), benzophenone derivatives (e.g., benzophenone), and acylphosphine oxides. exemplary commercially available photoinitiators include photoinitiators available under the trade designation irgacure (e.g., irgacure 651, irgacure 184, irgacure 819) or darocur (e.g., darocur 1173, darocur 4265) from ciba specialty chemicals, tarrytown, n.y., and under the trade designation lucirin (e.g., lucirin tpo) from basf, parsippany, n.j. exemplary free-radical thermal initiators include peroxides such as benzoyl peroxide, dibenzoyl peroxide, dilauryl peroxide, cyclohexane peroxide, methyl ethyl ketone peroxide, hydroperoxides, for example, tert-butyl hydroperoxide and cumene hydroperoxide, dicylohexyl peroxydicarbonate, t-butyl perbenzoate, and azo compounds, for example, 2,2,-azo-bis(isobutyronitrile). the precursor composition may, optionally, include inorganic particles (e.g., dispersed in a mixture of polymerizable material and curative). exemplary inorganic particles include silica particles, preferably in colloidal form. colloidal silicas dispersed as sols in aqueous solutions are available commercially under the trade designations ludox (e. i. du pont de nemours and company, wilmington, del.), nyacol (nyacol, ashland, mass.), and nalco (nalco chemical company, oak brook, ill.). non-aqueous silica sols (e.g., silica organosols) are also commercially available under such trade names as nalco 1057 (a silica sol in 2-propoxyethanol, nalco chemical company), and ma-st, ip-st, and eg-st, (nissan chemical industries, tokyo, japan). the silica particles preferably have an average particle diameter in a range of from about 5 nanometers (nm) to about 1000 nm, more preferably in a range of from about 10 nm to about 50 nm. if present, colloidal silica particles are preferably covalently bonded, directly or indirectly, to one or more (meth)acrylate groups. if utilized, colloidal silica particles typically are present in the polymerizable material in an amount of from about 10 percent by weight to about 50 percent by weight, based on the total weight of colloidal silica particles and polymerizable material, although higher and lower amounts may also be useful. preferably, colloidal silica particles are present in the polymerizable material in an amount of from about 25 percent by weight to about 40 percent by weight. optionally, one or more additives may be mixed with the polymerizable material and optional curative prior to curing. exemplary useful additives include colorants (e.g., pigments, dyes), fillers, ultraviolet (uv) absorbing agents, antiblocking agents, flame retardant agents, plasticizers, light stabilizers, heat stabilizers, and slip agents. further details regarding polymerizable materials, curatives, and inorganic particles may be found in, for example, u.s. pat. no. 5,258,225 (katsamberis), u.s. pat. no. 5,391,210 (bilkadi et al.), and u.s. pat. no. 5,677,050 (bilkadi et al.), the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer may be affixed to a polymeric film by any suitable means known in the art, including, for example, coating a precursor composition (e.g., roll coating, gravure coating, rod coating, spraying, spin coating, dip coating, curtain coating) onto a surface of a polymer film and subsequently polymerizing the precursor composition as described hereinabove. typically, the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer has a thickness in a range of from about 0.5 micrometers to about 20 micrometers, preferably in a range of from about 2 micrometers to about 14 micrometers, more preferably in a range of from about 3 micrometers to about 8 micrometers, although other thicknesses may be used. thicker non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layers may cause unacceptable curling of erasable article (e.g., as may result from shrinkage during polymerization of the polymerizable material). typically, the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer is relatively smooth, although rough non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layers may also be useful. for example, the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer may have an average surface roughness ra (i.e., the average of the absolute distance between the middle value and the actual surface) of less than about 200 nanometers, preferably less than about 150 nanometers, more preferably less than about 100 nanometers. ra can be readily determined by optical interferometry, for example, using commercially available equipment such that marketed by veeco instruments, woodbury, n.y., under the trade designation wyko hd3300 head measurement system. as hardness tends to increase with crosslink density, useful non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layers may have a scratch hardness (i.e., pencil hardness), according to astm d 3363-00 (2000), using a 50 micrometer thick film on a rigid borosilicate glass substrate, of at least about 2h, preferably at least about 4h, more preferably at least about 6h, although lesser values may also be used. in one embodiment of the invention, the surface of the electret film contacts a substrate. any solid substrate may be used in practicing the present invention. the substrate may be conductive or nonconductive. preferably, at least the portion of the surface of the substrate that contacts the electret film is substantially planar. as used herein, the term substantially planar encompasses surfaces that are generally planar in appearance, optionally having minor irregularities, imperfections, and/or warpage. suitable substrates may have vertical and/or horizontal surfaces, and may be painted or unpainted. exemplary substrates include liners (e.g., papers, thermoplastic polymer films); multilayer optical films (e.g., as described in for example u.s. pat. no. 5,825,543 (ouderkirk et al.) and u.s. pat. no. 5,783,120 (ouderkirk et al.), the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference), architectural surfaces (e.g., floors, walls, ceilings), glass (e.g., windows, mirrors), metal, drywall, plaster, motor vehicles (e.g., automobiles, trucks, motorcycles), trailers (e.g., truck trailers), mobile homes, boats, furniture (e.g., wicker furniture), boxes, cabinets, mats, wall hangings, doors, dishes (e.g., glasses, plates, and ceramic dishes), ceramic tile, photographs, banners, balloons, signs, paper, and cloth. preferably, the substrate is non-conductive (i.e., a dielectric), although this is not a requirement. typically, erasable articles of the present invention may be removably adhered to a substrate by contacting them the substrate, sliding them to the desired orientation and position, and then smoothing out wrinkles and/or bubbles. after smoothing, the erasable article is preferably rubbed (e.g., with a woven or nonwoven cloth) as described in commonly assigned u.s. patent application entitled method for electrostatically adhering an article to a substrate (bharti et al.), u.s. ser. no. 10/232,259, filed on aug. 30, 2002, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. such rubbing typically serves to increase the level of shear adhesion between the electret film and the substrate. erasable articles of the present invention may, optionally, include ink layers and/or printed images such as for example, a continuous ink layer, ornamental designs, and/or indicia (e.g., artistic border, letters, grid lines). optional ink layers and/or printed images may contain one or more of any known inks (e.g., colored inks, phosphorescent inks, infrared inks). suitable printing methods and inks are well known and/or commercially available. exemplary printing methods include flexographic printing, ink jet printing, electrostatic printing, gravure printing, screen printing, and thermal transfer printing. optional printing may be disposed, for example, on the surface of the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer, between the non-tacky crosslinked polymeric layer and the electret film (e.g., as a continuous ink layer), or on an uncoated surface of the electret film. in one embodiment of the present invention, erasable articles may be combined in kit form with one or more items that would be used in conjunction with erasable articles. exemplary items include one or more markers (e.g., felt tip markers, dry erase markers), erasers, cloths, and liquid cleaners (e.g., in a spray bottle). while erasable articles of the present invention may be used with markers having any type of ink, preferably they are used with markers containing aqueous inks. the present invention will be more fully understood with reference to the following non-limiting examples in which all parts, percentages, ratios, and so forth, are by weight unless otherwise indicated. examples unless otherwise noted, all reagents used in the examples were obtained, or are available from, general chemical suppliers such as aldrich chemical co., milwaukee, wis., or may be synthesized by known methods. 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate was obtained under the trade designation sr 238 from sartomer company, exton, pennsylvania; pentaerythritol tetraacrylate was obtained under the trade designation sr 295 from sartomer company; and 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenylpropan-1-one was obtained under the trade designation darocur 1173 from ciba specialty chemicals, tarrytown, n.y. preparation of precursor composition hc1 precursor composition hc1 was prepared by combining 10 grams (g) of 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate with 10 g of pentaerythritol tetraacrylate in a dark brown wide-mouth jar. the jar was sealed and then shaken briefly by hand to mix the contents. 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenylpropan-1-one (0.4 g) was added to the monomer mixture, and the jar was again briefly shaken to mix the contents. when the mixture appeared to be homogeneous, 20 g of 2-propanol was added to the jar, and the jar was then capped and shaken briefly by hand to thoroughly mix its contents. preparation of precursor compositions hc2-hc5 precursor composition hc2 was obtained under the trade designation 3m 906 abrasion resistant coating as a 50 percent by weight mixture of acrylate monomers and colloidal silica in isopropanol from 3m company, st. paul, minn. precursor compositions hc3, hc4, and hc5 were made by dilution of hc2 with isopropanol as follows: hc3 (60 percent by weight isopropanol), hc4 (70 percent by weight isopropanol), hc5 (80 percent by weight isopropanol). preparation of film a zinc polyethylene-methacrylic acid ionomer pellets (78 parts, obtained under the trade designation surlyn 1705-1 from e. i. du pont de nemours & company, wilmington, del.), and 22 parts of a mixture of 15.4 parts titanium dioxide dispersed in 6.6 parts polyethylene (obtained under the trade designation standridge 11937 white concentrate from standridge color, bridgewater, n.j.) were combined and extruded onto a polyester liner (2 mils (50 micrometers) thickness) using a 2.5 inch (6.4 cm) single screw extruder (model number: 2.5tmiii-30, obtained from hpm corporation, mount gilead, ohio), at a temperature of 199 degrees c., resulting in a film having a thickness of 3 mils (80 micrometers) adhered to a polyester liner (2 mils (50 micrometers) thickness). preparation of film b film b was a 3-layer biaxially oriented (7 by 7) film made by simultaneous 3-layer coextrusion. the two outer layers had a thickness of 0.005 mils (0.1 micrometers) and consisted of polypropylene (obtained under the trade designation fina-3376 from atofina petrochemicals, houston, tex.). the central layer consisted of 5 percent by weight titanium dioxide in 95 percent by weight polypropylene (fina-3376). the total film thickness was 1.85 mils (47 micrometers). the markers used in the examples were obtained from commercial sources, and are identified as follows: markers a 1 and a 1 , black and red, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation marks-a-lot everbold whiteboard marker from avery dennison corporation, pasadena, calif.; markers a 2 and a 2 , black and red, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation marks-a-lot permanent marker from avery dennison corporation; markers b 1 and b 1 , orange and purple, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation boone screamers dry erase marker from boone international corporation, corona, california; markers b 2 and b 2 , black and green, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation boone low odor dry erase marker from boone international corporation; markers d 1 and d 1 , black and blue, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation dixon dry erase white board marker from dixon ticonderoga company, heathrow, fla.; markers e 1 and e 1 , black and blue, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation liquid expo dry erase marker from sanford corporation, bellwood, ill.; markers e 2 and e 2 , black and red, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation expo low odor dry erase marker from sanford corporation; markers e 3 and e 3 , black and green, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation expo dry erase marker from sanford corporation; and markers s 1 and s 1 , black and red, respectively, were obtained under the trade designation sanford sharpie permanent marker from sanford corporation. dry erase test the uncoated side of a pair of approximately 8.5 inches by 11 inches (22 cm by 28 cm) samples of each comparative and exemplary film was electrostatically adhered to the surface of 40-point white paperboard obtained under the trade designation crescent paperboard obtained from unisource worldwide, brooklyn park, minn., which had larger dimensions than the film being tested. the exposed coated side of each film was cleaned with liquid cleaner obtained under the trade designation expo white board cleaner from sanford corporation. the cleaned coated surface of each of the two film samples was then marked by writing on it with each of the markers listed above. one of the pair of films was stored for 1 day at a temperature of 23 c. whereas the other of the pair of films was stored for 3 days at a temperature of 49 c. the marked film samples were evaluated for erasability by rubbing the marked surface of the films with an eraser obtained from sanford corporation, bellwood, ill., under the trade designation expo eraser for dry erase surfaces. the marked films were rubbed by hand with the eraser, using moderate pressure, in a back and forth motion until either the marking was completely erased or until ten back and forth motions had been completed. the film samples were then visually evaluated and rated for erasability according to the following scale, as reported in table 2: 1rubbing with the eraser had no effect on the marking; 2marking was partially removed or was smeared and was still readable; 3most of the marking was removed, but a faint remnant or ghost of the mark was visible; 4the marking was completely removed. wet erase test after the films were evaluated in the dry erase test, the same films were subjected to a wet cleaning test protocol after which they were again evaluated for erasability. specifically, the films were sprayed with water and were then wiped by hand with a paper towel, using moderate pressure, in ten back and forth motions. the films were then sprayed with a glass cleaner available under the trade designation windex original glass cleaner from sc johnson company, racine, wis., and were again wiped by hand with a paper towel, using moderate pressure, in ten back and forth motions. the films were then sprayed with liquid cleaner obtained under the trade designation expo white board cleaner from sanford corporation, and were again wiped by hand with a paper towel, using moderate pressure, in ten back and forth motions. the erasability of the films after the sequence of three wet cleaning steps was evaluated as described for the dry erase test and the data are reported in table 2. general method for preparation of erasable films erasable films were prepared by coating individual samples of polymer films a (after removal of the liner) and b with precursor compositions hc1 through hc5, and then curing the precursor composition with electromagnetic radiation. accordingly, the polymer film was temporarily fastened to a glass plate by taping the corners of the polymer film to the plate with adhesive tape. the hardcoat precursor composition was then coated on the polymer film by means of a 6 meyer rod (obtained from rd specialties, webster, n.y.) resulting in a nominal wet coating thickness of 15 micrometers. the solvent was then allowed to evaporate at room temperature for approximately one minute. the coated precursor composition was then exposed to high intensity ultraviolet light from a 600 watts/inch (236 watts/cm) microwave driven lamp equipped with a h-type bulb (obtained from fusion uv systems, inc., gaithersburg, md.) by passing the coated film under the lamp at a speed of 100 feet per minute (30 m/min, dosage: uva 0.166 j/cm ² , uvb 0.164 j/cm ² ) under a blanket of nitrogen gas. the resultant coated and cured films were (with any associated liner removed) were dc corona charged under ambient conditions using a horizontally arranged series of four charging bars (obtained under the trade designation chargemaster pinner arc resistant charging bar from simco company, hatfield, pa.). the charging bars were spaced as follows: the center to center distance between bar 1 and bar 2 was 3.0 inches (7.6 cm), the center to center distance between bar 2 and bar 3 was 3.25 inches (8.3 cm), and the center to center distance between bar 3 and bar 4 was 3.75 inches (9.5 cm). each charging bar was situated 1.5 inches (3.5 cm) above a corresponding grounded metal plate. a voltage of 29 kilovolts (relative to the grounded metal plates) was applied to each charging bar. film samples were charged by placing them on a moving (one foot per minute (1.8 meters per minute)) continuous belt (part number: 8882802a, obtained from light weight belting corporation, minneapolis, minn.) that passed between the charging bars and the metal plates, such that the belt maintained contact with the metal plates. during charging, the coated side of the film faced the belt. preparation of comparative films comparative films were prepared by corona charging individual samples of polymer films a and b according to the general method for preparation of erasable films (above), except that no precursor composition used. identification of comparative and dry erase films is given in table 1 (below). table 1 film crosslinked identification polymer film polymeric coating ca (comparative) a none cb (comparative) b none f1 a hc1 f2 a hc2 f3 a hc3 f4 a hc4 f5 a hc5 f6 b hc2 f7 b hc3 f8 b hc4 f9 b hc5 evaluation of films for erasability the films of table 1 were evaluated for erasability using the dry erase test and the wet erase test. results are presented in table 2 (below). table 2 dry dry wet wet erase erase erase erase rating rating rating rating after after after after test 24 72 24 72 num- mark- hours hours hours hours ber film ers at 23 c. at 49 c. at 23 c. at 49 c. 1 ca a1, a1 1 not tested 4 not tested 2 cb a1, a1 4 1 4 4 3 f1 a1, a1 4 1 4 4 4 f2 a1, a1 4 4 4 4 5 f3 a1, a1 4 1 4 4 6 f4 a1, a1 3 1 4 4 7 f5 a1, a1 3 1 4 4 8 f6 a1, a1 4 4 4 4 9 f7 a1, a1 4 4 4 4 10 f8 a1, a1 4 4 4 4 11 f9 a1, a1 4 4 4 4 12 ca b1, b1 1 not tested 3 not tested 13 cb b1, b1 4 1 4 4 14 f1 b1, b1 4 1 4 4 15 f2 b1, b1 4 3 4 4 16 f3 b1, b1 4 1 4 4 17 f4 b1, b1 3 1 4 4 18 f5 b1, b1 3 1 4 4 19 f6 b1, b1 4 4 4 4 20 f7 b1, b1 4 4 4 4 21 f8 b1, b1 4 4 4 4 22 f9 b1, b1 4 4 4 4 23 ca b2, b2 1 not tested 3 not tested 24 cb b2, b2 4 2 4 4 25 f1 b2, b2 4 2 4 4 26 f2 b2, b2 4 3 4 4 27 f3 b2, b2 3 2 4 4 28 f4 b2, b2 3 2 4 4 29 f5 b2, b2 3 1 4 4 30 f6 b2, b2 4 4 4 4 31 f7 b2, b2 4 4 4 4 32 f8 b2, b2 4 4 4 4 33 f9 b2, b2 4 4 4 4 34 ca d1, d1 1 not tested 3 not tested 35 cb d1, d1 4 3 4 4 36 f1 d1, d1 4 1 4 4 37 f2 d1, d1 4 3 4 4 38 f3 d1, d1 3 2 4 4 39 f4 d1, d1 3 2 4 4 40 f5 d1, d1 3 1 4 4 41 f6 d1, d1 4 4 4 4 42 f7 d1, d1 4 4 4 4 43 f8 d1, d1 4 4 4 4 44 f9 d1, d1 4 4 4 4 45 ca e3, e3 2 not tested 3 not tested 46 cb e3, e3 4 3 4 3.5 47 f1 e3, e3 4 2.5 4 4 48 f2 e3, e3 4 4 4 4 49 f3 e3, e3 3 2 3.5 4 50 f4 e3, e3 4 3 4 4 51 f5 e3, e3 3 2.5 4 4 52 f6 e3, e3 4 4 4 4 53 f7 e3, e3 4 4 4 4 54 f8 e3, e3 4 4 4 4 55 f9 e3, e3 4 4 4 4 56 ca e2, e2 1 not tested 3 not tested 57 cb e2, e2 4 3 4 4 58 f1 e2, e2 4 3 4 4 59 f2 e2, e2 4 4 4 4 60 f3 e2, e2 3.5 3 4 4 61 f4 e2, e2 3 3 4 4 62 f5 e2, e2 3 2.5 4 4 63 f6 e2, e2 4 4 4 4 64 f7 e2, e2 4 4 4 4 65 f8 e2, e2 4 4 4 4 66 f9 e2, e2 4 4 4 4 67 ca e1, e1 1 not tested 3.5 not tested 68 cb e1, e1 4 3.5 4 4 69 f1 e1, e1 4 2 4 4 70 f2 e1, e1 4 2.5 4 4 71 f3 e1, e1 3 2.5 4 4 72 f4 e1, e1 3 2.5 4 4 73 f5 e1, e1 3 3 4 4 74 f6 e1, e1 4 3 4 4 75 f7 e1, e1 4 3 4 4 76 f8 e1, e1 4 3 4 4 77 f9 e1, e1 4 3 4 4 78 ca a2, a2 1 not tested 4 not tested 79 cb a2, a2 1 1 4 3.5 80 f1 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 81 f2 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 82 f3 a2, a2 1 1 3.5 3.5 83 f4 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 84 f5 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 85 f6 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 86 f7 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 87 f8 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 88 f9 a2, a2 1 1 4 4 89 ca s1, s1 1 not tested 3 not tested 90 cb s1, s1 1 1 4 3.5 91 f1 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 92 f2 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 93 f3 s1, s1 1 1 3.5 3.5 94 f4 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 95 f5 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 96 f6 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 97 f7 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 98 f8 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 99 f9 s1, s1 1 1 4 4 another embodiment of the invention is illustrated at 10 in fig. 4 . dry erase article 10 includes writing surface 12 that accepts ink from a writing implement such as a dry erase marker or permanent marker. dry erase article 10 also may include a frame 13 a surrounding the dry erase surface, a clip or holder 13 b for a dry erase marker, and a tray 13 c. typically, dry erase markers are used to write on writing surface 12 , transferring ink to the writing surface 12 in the form of written indicia 14 . in one embodiment, dry erase article 10 may include printed indicia (or pre-printed indicia) 16 (shown in dotted lines) which cannot be erased. examples of printed indicia 16 may include lines, graphics, calendars, and other indicia that may be useful. dry erase article 10 is illustrated mounted to substantially flat vertical surface 17 , such as a wall. acceptance of ink on writing surface 12 as written indicia 14 without beading of the ink can be defined as the wettability of the dry erase writing surface 12 . acceptable wettability (or writing without dewetting) is accomplished if the surface energy of the writing surface 12 is greater than the surface tension of the solvents in the marker inks. in one embodiment, the surface energy of the writing surface is greater than or equal to about 25 mj/m ² . in another embodiment, the surface energy of the writing surface is greater than or equal to about 30 mj/m ² , as measured by the dyne pen test described below in the examples. writing surface 12 additionally provides a level of erasability which allows the user to wipe away (e.g. with a dry cloth or dry eraser) written indicia 14 once it is no longer desired. in the current inventive dry erase article 10 , writing surface 12 is easily erasable with a simple eraser after heat or time aging of the writing on the dry erase article. in one embodiment, writing surface 12 is erasable with 1 to 2 wipe(s) of a dry eraser after heat aging of up to 54 degrees c. (130 degrees f.) for 2 days or time aging of up to 14 days at room temperature (typically around 22 degrees c. or 72 degrees f.). easy erasability after aging of the writing is an advantage of the invention over previously known hardcoat compositions used for dry erase. an additional design characteristic of the inventive dry erase article 10 may be to provide a glossy writing surface 12 . in one embodiment, the writing surface has a 60 degree gloss level of 50 gloss units or greater. increasing the gloss value can typically be accomplished by minimizing the content of large particles or waxes (e.g., 1 m or greater) that are not polymerized into the coating. in another embodiment, writing surface may have a 60 degree gloss of 75 gloss units or higher. fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view of dry erase article 10 as taken along lines 2 - 2 . dry erase article 10 includes substrate 20 , having first side 22 a and second side 22 b. in one embodiment, substrate 20 is has a flexibility of at least 6.4 mm as measured by the mandrel bend test (described below in the examples). substrate 20 , may be clear, translucent or opaque and may be colorless or colored (including white). hardcoat layer 24 is disposed on first side 22 a of substrate 20 . in one embodiment, hardcoat layer 24 is uv curable, but may also be cured by other types of radiation (e.g. thermal radiation and electron beam, among others). cured hardcoat layer 24 forms writing surface 12 . in one embodiment, cured hardcoat layer has a hardness of about 500 mpa or greater as measured by the nanoindenter hardness test (described below in the examples), providing the writing surface with a high degree of erasability. more preferably, cured hardcoat layer has a hardness of about 600 mpa or greater, and most preferably, cured hardcoat layer has a hardness of about 700 mpa or greater. as discussed above with respect to fig. 4 , it is desirable for writing surface 12 to have a surface energy of greater than about 25 mj/m ² . this surface energy of hardcoat layer 24 prevents ink from typical dry erase and permanent markers from beading up on the writing surface 12 . in the current embodiment, the combination of wettability and erasability provide a high performance dry erase article. written indicia 14 is received as a continuous layer, preventing beading up or gaps in the lines forming written indicia 14 . additionally, written indicia 14 can be quickly removed from dry erase article 10 with a minimum of wiping and a minimum of absorbance of ink (or ghosting) by dry erase article 10 . it should be noted that various embodiments of the inventive dry erase article 10 a may also include optional additional coating layers, as illustrated in fig. 5a . for example, primer layer 26 may be used to facilitate adhesion of hardcoat layer 24 to substrate 20 . additionally, pre-printed indicia 16 may also be included, either in a layer between substrate 20 and hardcoat layer 24 (as shown), or on the opposite side of substrate 20 (e.g. more proximate second side 22 b of substrate 20 ) if substrate 20 is transparent or translucent. an optional adhesive layer 28 may also be included in dry erase article 10 a, providing the user the ability to secure dry erase article 10 a to a wall, desktop, or other surface without mechanical fasteners (or when the substrate does not have cling properties). adhesive layer 28 can be any type of adhesive desirable for the end use application. for example, permanent, repositionable and positionable adhesives may be used. the adhesives may be pressure-sensitive, hot melt, or thermally activated. if the adhesive chosen is pressure-sensitive, it may be desirable to include a release liner (as known in the art) disposed against the pressure-sensitive adhesive as part of dry erase article 10 a. adhesive layer 28 may be coated directly on second side 22 b of substrate, or may include other optional layers between substrate 20 and adhesive layer 28 . other layers, coatings and treatments may be included in dry erase article 10 a as would be known to one skilled in the art. the substrate 20 may further be secured (e.g. by mechanical fasteners or adhesive layer, among other methods known in the art) to a more rigid board (e.g. cardboard or particleboard) or another flexible sheet forming a dry erase article that may be placed or secured on a final user surface (e.g. a wall or a desk). alternately, (as described previously in great detail) dry erase article may have cling properties that allow it to be secured to a surface. in another embodiment, the dry erase article may be attached to a mechanical fastener backing (such as the hook portion of a hook and loop fastener) for mounting to a cloth wall or mating with another mechanical fastener. the dry erase article can be secured using any number of securing methods known in the art such as using adhesives or mechanical fasteners, among others. fig. 6 is a schematic drawing illustrating one exemplary method of manufacturing the inventive dry erase article 10 . flexible substrate 20 is unwound from unwind roll 32 . this forms a moving web which is translated under coating station 34 . coating station 34 coats hardcoat layer 24 onto first side 22 a of substrate 20 . coating station 34 can utilize any number of coating methods known to the art such as gravure coating, die coating, roll coating, rod coating, offset printing, and flexographic printing. the hardcoat layer 24 and substrate 20 proceed through optional drying station 35 to remove any solvent from hardcoat layer 24 . drying station 35 typically uses heat to evaporate the solvent. substrate 20 and hardcoat layer 24 are translated under a curing station 36 . in one embodiment, curing station 36 is an ultra-violet (uv) radiation source, which emits uv radiation 38 onto hardcoat layer 24 to cure the hardcoat layer 24 . other types of radiation (e.g. electron beam or thermal radiation) may be used to cure hardcoat layer 24 , as known in the art. substrate 20 and hardcoat layer 24 , now secured together, form dry erase article 10 b and proceed to takeup roll 40 . the process illustrated in fig. 6 is one example of a continuous manufacturing process enabled by the current inventive dry erase article 10 b. since the substrate is flexible, it can be easily transported and unwound from rolls (such as unwind roll 32 ). additionally, the cured hardcoat layer 24 does not substantially affect the flexibility of the substrate, allowing dry erase article 10 b to be continuously fed to later stages of manufacture (such as take up roll 40 ). other continuous manufacturing processes can be performed on the moving web of material, such as coating or affixing optional layers (discussed previously), or cutting, slitting and stacking of the web. the order of the process may be altered as well. however, in any continuous manufacturing process enabled by the current inventive dry erase article 10 a, the combined flexibility of the substrate and hardcoat layer 24 increases throughput over batch type manufacturing required by the inflexible substrate and/or hardcoats of many previous styles of dry erase articles (e.g. cured melamine resins and porcelain covered steel). as discussed, one embodiment of the invention comprises coating of the radiation curable hardcoat coating composition on a flexible substrate in a continuous coating and curing process. a flexible substrate is one that can be wound about itself into a roll without cracking either the substrate or the coating applied to the substrate. the flexible substrate can be unwound, and successively passed through a coating station, a drying station, and a curing station, and wound into roll at the end of the process. the hardcoat coating of the invention does not substantially affect the ability of the substrate to be wound into a roll. an advantage of this coating process is that many yards of the material may be made continuously without stopping. this results in low manufacturing cost. flexibility of a film or a coated film can be measured by the mandrel bend test described in more detail in the example section. a flexible substrate can be bent 180 degrees around a 6.4 mm diameter mandrel without showing any visible signs of cracking or fracture. a flexible substrate coated with the cured hardcoat layer of the present invention can also be bent 180 degrees around a 6.4 mm diameter mandrel without any visible signs of cracking, fracture, or debonding. more preferably, the flexible coated substrate can be bent 180 degrees around a 3.2 mm mandrel without any change an appearance. this flexibility additionally increases ease of use of inventive dry erase article 10 , since the article can be rolled or otherwise applied without harm to the dry erase article 10 . in fact, the dry erase article itself can act as a living hinge in a dry erase article wherein the bend radius of the living hinge does not exceed the bend resistance of the coated substrate. another embodiment of the invention comprises coating of the radiation curable hardcoat coating composition on a rigid or flexible substrate in a sheet fed process. an example of a sheet fed process is a sheet fed printing press. a stack of rigid or flexible sheets is placed at one end of a printing press. graphics can be printed on the substrate with several printing methods including flexo printing and offset printing. then the radiation curable coating composition can be applied to the sheet by one of several printing methods including flexographic printing. the sheet is then fed through a radiation curing station. while the inventive dry erase article allows for a high degree of flexibility, facilitating manufacturing and ease of use, cured hardcoat layer 24 also has a hardness of at least about 500 mpa, and a surface energy of greater than about 25 mj/m ² providing inventive dry erase article with a high degree of wettability and erasability. this combination of flexibility, wettability and erasability is advantageous over previously known dry erase articles. substrates as previously discussed, and shown, curable hardcoat layer 24 is coated onto substrate 20 . suitable substrates for the inventive dry erase article are sheets and films of polymeric resins, including both thermoplastic and thermoset resins. example polymeric resins are polyesters, polyethers, polyamides, polyurethanes, polyacrylates, polyolefins, polyvinyls, cellulose esters, epoxy resins, phenolic resins, polysiloxanes, polystyrene, copolymers of acrylonitrile-styrene, butyrates, and the like. other suitable substrates are based on paper, for example, uncoated paper, coated paper, polymer coated paper, and paper film laminates. metal films and sheets are also suitable substrates. in one embodiment, the substrate is chosen so as to have a flexibility of at least about 6.4 mm as measured by the mandrel bend test allowing the substrate to be used in a continuous (or web type) manufacturing process, and/or allows it to be easily manipulated by the end user. although not necessary in all cases due to the adherence of coating compositions used in the current invention, separate primer layer(s) 26 (as discussed above), comprising a single ingredient or mixture of ingredients, may be used to improve the bond of the coating to the substrate. example primers include polyacrylates, melamine acrylates, poly vinyl chlorides, poly vinylidene chlorides, and polyvinyl alcohols. texturizing, chemical, or physical treatment of the surface may also be used to improve bonding, for example, corona treatment. hardcoat layer as previously shown and described, substrate 20 is coated on a first surface with a cured coating layer 24 (also may be referred to as a hardcoat coating solution, hardcoat composition or dry erase coating). the hardness of the hardcoat layer can be measured by taber abrasion (known in the art) followed by a haze measurement. more abrasion resistant films typically have less haze after abrasion by the taber wheel. however, taber abrasion of a film can also be reduced by the presence of a lubricant on the film. example lubricants include hydrocarbons, fluorocarbons, and silicones, whether polymerized into the hardcoat coating solution or merely present at the surface. a more direct instrument for measuring hardness is a nanoindenter. the nanoindenter hardness test is discussed further in the example section. as discussed previously, it is desirable to create a dry erase article that erases easily with a simple dry eraser even after the dry erase writing has been present on the surface for a long time. the current invention has found an unexpected correlation between the hardness of the cured hardcoat and the ability to erase dry erase markers after time and/or heat aging of written indicia on the writing surface. that is, harder uv curable acrylic coatings were easier to erase than softer uv curable acrylic coatings. increased hardness was made possible by addition of colloidal inorganic oxide particles, preferably silica particles, and more preferably silica particles reacted with a silane coupling agent. it is also desirable to provide a writing surface that accepts ink from permanent and dry erase markers without dewetting or beading up of ink. typical marker solvents include ethanol, isopropanol, methyl isobutyl ketone, n-butyl acetate, ethyl acetate, n-propanol, and n-butanol. in order for the marker to completely wet out the dry erase surface without beading up, the surface energy of the dry erase surface must be greater than the surface tension of the solvents in the maker. the solvent in the list above with the highest surface tension is n-butyl acetate, with a surface tension of about 25 mj/m ² . therefore, in one embodiment, the writing surface of the dry erase article has a surface energy greater than about 25 mj/m ² . in an alternate embodiment, the writing surface of the dry erase article has a surface energy greater than about 30 mj/m ² as measured by the dyne pen test. hardcoat coating solution hardcoat coating compositions that may be suitable for use with the current inventive dry erase article are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,885,332, u.s. pat. no. 5,104,929, u.s. pat. no. 6,458,462 and u.s. pat. no. 6,265,061, all of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety herein. in one embodiment, the hardcoat coating solution comprises an organic matrix and colloidal inorganic oxide particles. the organic matrix can include a variety of monomers, oligomers, and/or polymers that form the cured matrix for the inorganic oxide particles. the organic matrix comprises at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer. preferably, the organic matrix contains at least one organofunctional silane monomer coupling agent. optional initiators, photosensitizers and additives may also further comprise the curable composition from which the cured organic matrix of the cured hardcoat composition is derived, which are discussed in more detail below. the radiation curable hardcoat coating composition also includes inorganic oxide particles, which are discussed in more detail below. within the present invention, it is possible to make a coatable uv hardcoat solution at 100% solids or, by adding a solvent, reduce the solids below 100%. the 100% solids hardcoat solution has economic and environmental advantages. solvents also offer advantages. solvents reduce the viscosity of hardcoat solutions to make them more coatable by some coating methods. a radiation curable hardcoat composition of the present invention preferably includes an organic matrix and colloidal inorganic particles that preferably include silica. preferably, the cured organic matrix is prepared from a curable organic binder, or curable composition, that includes an ethylenically unsaturated monomer selected from the group of at least one multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated ester of (meth)acrylic acid, at least one monofunctional or difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer and combinations thereof, and at least one organofunctional silane coupling agent. the curable hardcoat composition preferably includes no greater than about 80 percent by weight (wt. %) of at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer and at least about 20 wt. % colloidal inorganic oxide particles, based on the total weight of the hardcoat composition without solvent. weight percent composition of the hardcoat solution from this point on will represent the solids portion of the composition, (e.g., without added solvent). preferably, it includes at least about 40 wt. % of at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer, and no greater than about 60 wt. % of colloidal inorganic oxide particles. if the ethylenically unsaturated monomers used include a mixture of multifunctional and monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomers, the multifunctional monomer including any difunctional monomer is preferably used in an amount of at least about 20 wt. %, and the monofunctional monomer is preferably used in an amount of at least about 5 wt. %. preferably, the multifunctional monomer including any difunctional monomer is used in an amount of no greater than about 60 wt. %, and the monofunctional monomer is used in an amount of no greater than about 20 wt. %. if used, an organofunctional silane coupling agent is preferably used in an amount of at least about 5 wt. %, more preferably, at least about 10 wt. % based on the weight of the coating composition without solvent. the combination of the organic matrix with the colloidal inorganic oxide particles results in unexpected and improved properties as an easily erasable hardcoat coating for dry erase articles. the multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of (meth)-acrylic acid tend to increase the hardness of the coating, whereas the monofunctional or difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer tends to toughen the coating without significant loss in abrasion resistance. ethylenically unsaturated monomer in one embodiment, the organic matrix comprises at least one ethylenically unsaturated monomer and preferably, at least one coupling agent. the ethylenically unsaturated monomer(s) of the organic matrix may be at least one multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer, or a combination of at least one multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer and at least one monofunctional or difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer. the multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer may be an ester of (meth)acrylic acid. it is more preferably selected from a group consisting of a trifunctional ethylenically unsaturated ester of acrylic or methacrylic acid, a tetrafunctional ethylenically unsaturated ester of acrylic or methacrylic acid, and combinations thereof. of these, trifunctional and tetrafunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of (meth)acrylic acid are more preferred. examples of suitable multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of (meth)acrylic acid are the polyacrylic acid or polymethacrylic acid esters of polyhydric alcohols including, for example, the triacrylic acid and trimethacrylic acid esters of aliphatic triols such as glycerin, 1,2,3-propanetrimethanol, 1,2,4-butanetriol, 1,2,5-pentanetriol, 1,3,6,-hexanetriol, and 1,5,10-decanetriol; the tetraacrylic and tetramethacrylic acid esters of aliphatic triols, such as 1,2,3,4-butanetetraol, 1,1,2,2-tetramethylolethane, 1,1,3,3-tetramethylolpropane, and pentaerythritol; the pentaacrylic acid and pentamethacrylic acid esters of aliphatic pentol such as adonitol; the hexaacrylic acid and hexamethacrylic acid esters of hexanols such as sorbitol and dipentaerythritol; the diacrylic acid and dimethacrylic acid esters of aromatic diols such as resorcinol, pyrocatecol, bisphenol a, and bis(2-hydroxyethyl) phthalate; the trimethacrylic acid ester of aromatic triols such as pyrogallol and 2-phenyl-2,2-methylolethanol; and the hexaacrylic acid and hexamethacrylic acid esters of dihydroxy ethyl hydantoin; and mixtures thereof. preferably, the multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated ester of (meth)acrylic acid is selected from the group consisting of pentaerythritol triacrylate, pentaerythritol trimethacrylate, pentaerythritol tetraacryalte and a combination thereof. in addition to the multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of acrylic acid, the curable composition, from which the cured organic matrix is derived, may include at least one difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer. the difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer may be a difunctional ethylenically unsaturated ester of (meth)acrylic acid (that is, an alkyl and/or aryl acrylate or methacrylate). the difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer is preferably selected from a group consisting of a difunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of acrylic or methacrylic acid. examples of suitable difunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of (meth)acrylic acid are the polyacrylic acid or polymethacrylic acid esters of polyhydric alcohols including, for example, the diacrylic acid and dimethylacrylic acid ester of aliphatic diols such as ethyleneglycol, triethyleneglycol, 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propanediol, 1,3-cyclopentanediol, 1-ethoxy-2,3-propanediol, 2-methyl-2,4-pentanediol, 1,4-cyclohexanediol, 1,6-hexamethylenediol, 1,2-cyclohexanediol, and 1,6-cyclohexanedimethanol. preferably the difunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer is 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate. in addition to the multifunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of acrylic acid, the curable composition, from which the cured organic matrix is derived, may include at least one monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer. the monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated monomer may be selected from a group consisting of a monofunctional (meth)acrylic acid ester, a (meth)acrylamide, an alpha-olefin, a vinyl ether, a vinyl ester, a vinyl amide and combinations thereof. example monofunctional ethylenically unsaturated esters of (meth)acrylic acid include, but are not limited to, 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate, 2-hydroxymethylacrylate, 2-methylbutyl acrylate, isooctyl acrylate, lauryl acrylate, 4-methyl-2-pentyl acrylate, isoamyl acrylate, sec-butyl acrylate, n-butyl acrylate, n-hexyl acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, n-octyl acrylate, n-decyl acrylate, isodecyl acrylate, isodecyl methacrylate, and isononyl acrylate. the monofunctional acrylate monomer may be an n,n-disubstituted (meth) acrylamide monomer or an n-substituted-n-vinyl-amide. examples of suitable (meth)acrylamides are n-tert-butylacrylamide, n,n-dimethylacrylamide, n,n-diethylacrylamide, n-(5,5-dimethylhexyl) acrylamide, n-(hydroxymethyl) acrylamide, n-(isobutoxymethyl)acrylamide, n-isopropylacrylamide, n-methylacrylamide, n-ethylacrylamide, n-methyl-m-ethylacrylamide, n-(fluoren-2-yl)acrylamide, n-(2-fluorenyl)-2-methylacrylamide, 2,3-bis(2-furyl)acrylamide, n,n-methylene-bis acrylamide. one preferred acrylamide is n,n-dimethyl acrylamide. n-vinyl caprolactam is an example of an n-vinyl-amide. inorganic oxide particles in the present embodiment, the radiation curable hardcoat composition preferably includes colloidal inorganic oxide particles. the inorganic oxide particles are dispersed within the cured organic matrix. one preferred inorganic oxide particle is silica, however others may be used. it is desirable that the colloidal inorganic particles of the coating be derived from a sol rather than a powder, which can result in an intractable mass that is unsuitable for coating. the addition of additives, such as high molecular weight polymers, may enable compositions derived from colloidal powder to be cast onto inorganic polymeric substrates. the colloidal silica particles are employed in the coating at 10% to 50% by weight, and more preferably, at 25% to 40% by weight. silica sols useful for preparing hardcoat compositions can be prepared by methods well known in the art. as used herein, sol shall refer to a colloidal dispersion of substantially non-aggregated, inorganic oxide particles in a liquid medium. colloidal silicas dispersed as sols in aqueous solutions are also available commercially under such trade names as ludox (e.i. dupont de nemours and co., wilmington, del.), nyacol (nyacol co., ashland, mass.), and nalco 2327 and 1042 (nalco chemical co., oak brook, ill.). nonaqueous silica sols (also called silica organosols) are also commercially available under the trade names nalco 1057 (a silica sol in 2-propoxyethanol, nalco chemical co.), ma-st, ip-st, and eg-st (nissan chemical ind., tokyo, japan) and highlink og silica organosols (clariant corporation, charlotte, n.c.). in one embodiment, the silica particles preferably have an average particle diameter of about 5 nm to about 1000 nm, and preferably have an average particle diameter of about 10 nm to about 50 nm. average particle size can be measured using transmission electron microscopy or light scattering techniques to count the number of particles of a given diameter. additional examples of suitable colloidal silicas are described in u.s. pat. no. 5,126,394 (bilkadi). preferably, the silica particles are functionalized with a coupling agent. more preferably, the silica particles are (meth)acrylate functionalized. herein (meth)acrylate functionalized means the silica particles are functionalized with a (meth)acrylate terminated organofunctional silane. the functionalized particles bond intimately and isotropically with the organic matrix. typically, the silica particles are functionalized by adding a (meth)acrylate functionalized silane to aqueous colloidal silica. examples of (meth)acrylate functionalized colloidal silica are described in u.s. pat. no. 4,491,508 (olsen et al.), u.s. pat. no. 4,455,205 (olsen et al.), u.s. pat. no. 4,478,876 (chung), u.s. pat. no. 4,486,504 (chung), and u.s. pat. no. 5,258,225 (katsamberis). in addition to silica, or in place of silica, the colloidal inorganic particles may be colloidal articles of higher refractive index than silica. examples of such higher index colloidal particles include, but are not limited to, alumina, titania, zirconia, ceria, and antimony oxide sols, all of which are available commercially from suppliers such as nyacol co., ashland, mass., and nalco chemical co., oak brook, ill. organofunctional silane monomer coupling agent in one embodiment, the curable organic matrix composition with colloidal inorganic oxide particles contains an organofunctional silane monomer coupling agent. a wide variety of organofunctional silane monomers may be used in the practice of the present invention. some preferred organofunctional silanes are hydrolyzable organofunctional silanes, also known in the art as coupling agents for coupling silica particles to organic materials. representative examples include methyl trimethoxysilane, methyl triethoxysilane, phenyl trimethoxysilane, phenyl triethoxysilane, (meth)acryloxyalkyl trimethoxysilanes, such as methacryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane, (meth)acryloxypropyl trichlorosilane, phenyl trichlorosilane, vinyl trimethoxysilane, vinyl triethoxysilane, propyl trimethoxysilane, propyl triethoxysilane, glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane, glycidoxypropyl triethoxysilane, glycidoxypropyl trichlorosilane, perfluoroalkyl trimethoxysilane, perfluoroalkyl triethoxysilane, perfluoromethylalkyl trimethoxysilanes, such as tridecafluoro-1,1,2,2-tetrahydrooctyl trimethoxysilane, perfluoroalkyl trichlorosilanes, trifluoromethylpropyl trimethoxysilane, trifluoromethylpropyl trichlorosilane, and perfluorinated sulfonimido ethyl trimethoxysilane (available from the 3m company, st. paul, minn., under the trade designation fc 405), combinations of these, and the like. most preferably, the organofunctional silane monomer is (meth)acryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane. optional initiators and photosensitizers during the manufacture of inventive dry erase article, the uncured hardcoat coating composition can be exposed to an energy source, for example, heat, ultraviolet (uv) radiation or electron beam (e-beam) radiation, which initiates a curing process of the curable composition. this curing process typically occurs via a free radical mechanism, which can require the use of a free radical initiator (simply referred to herein as an initiator, for example, a photoinitiator or a thermal initiator). if the energy source is an electron beam, the electron beam generates free radicals and no initiator is required. when the initiator is exposed to one of these energy sources, the initiator generates free radicals, which then initiates the polymerization and cross-linking. examples of suitable free radical thermal initiators include, but are not limited to, peroxides such as benzoyl peroxide, azo compounds, benzophenones, and quinones. examples of photoinitiators that generate a free radical source when exposed to visible light radiation include, but are not limited to, benzophenones. examples of photoinitiators that generate a free radical source when exposed to ultraviolet light include, but are not limited to, organic peroxides, azo compounds, quinines, benzophenones, nitroso compounds, hydrozones, pyrylium compounds, triacrylimidazoles, benzoin, benzoin ethers, and methylbenzoin, examples of commercially available ultraviolet photoinitiators include those available under the trade designations irgacure 184 (1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone), irgacure 361 and darocur 1173 (2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenyl-propan-1-one) from ciba specialty chemicals, tarrytown n.y. typically, if used, an amount of an initiator is included in the precursor composition to effect the desired level and rate of cure. preferably, the initiator is used in an amount of about 0.1 wt. % to about 10 wt. %, and more preferably about 1 wt. % to about 3 wt. %, based on the total weight of the curable composition without solvent. it should be understood that combinations of different initiators can be used if desired. in addition to the initiator, the curable hardcoat composition of the present invention can include a photosensitizer. the photosensitizer aids in the formation of free radicals that initiate curing of the precursor composition, especially in an air atmosphere. suitable photosensitizers include, but are not limited to, aromatic ketones and tertiary amines. suitable aromatic ketones include, but are not limited to, benzophenone, acetophenone, benzil, benzaldehyde, and o-chlorobenzaldehyde, xanthone, tioxanthone, 9,10-anthraquinone, and many other aromatic ketones. suitable tertiary amines include, but are not limited to, methyldiethanolamine, ethyldiethanolamine, triethanolamine, phenylmethyl-ethanolamine, dimethylaminoethylbenzoate, and the like. typically, if used, an amount of initiator is included in the precursor compositions to effect the desired level and rate of cure. preferably, the amount of photosensitizer used in the compositions of the present invention is about 0.01 wt. % to about 10 wt. %, more preferably about 0.05 wt. % to about 5 wt. %, and most preferably, about 0.25 wt. % to about 3 wt. %, based on the total weight of the coating composition (that is, the dry erase coating composition without solvent). it should be understood that combinations of different photosensitizers can be used if desired. methods of curing include heat, uv and e-beam. however, other methods may be used. if thermal (or heat) curing is used, however, the temperature must not be so high that it will melt the dry erase article or substrate. solvent in addition to the other components of the radiation curable hardcoat composition, it may further include a solvent or solvents. the curable hardcoat coating composition may include a solvent or solvents to reduce the viscosity of the curable coating composition in order to enhance the coating characteristics. the appropriate viscosity level depends upon various factors such as the coating thickness, application technique, and the type of substrate material onto which the hardcoat coating composition is applied. the organic solvent(s) should be selected such that they are compatible with the components in the hardcoat coating composition. as used in this context, compatible means that there is minimal phase separation between the solvent and the curable organic binder or matrix of the hardcoat coating composition. additionally, the solvent or solvents should be selected such that they do not adversely affect the cured hardcoat coating properties. furthermore, the solvent(s) should be selected such that they have an appropriate drying rate. that is, the solvent(s) should not dry too slowly, which would slow down the process of making a coated dry erase article, nor too quickly, which could cause defects such as pin holes or craters in the hardcoat coating. examples of suitable solvents include alcohols, preferably the lower alcohols such as isopropyl alcohol, n-butanol, methanol, ethanol, and ketones such as methyl ethyl ketone, glycols, heptane, and combinations thereof. additives the hardcoat coating composition can also include a leveling agent to improve the flow or wetting of the curable hardcoat coating composition on the substrate (before it is cured). the leveling agent can be a solvent that is used to adjust the viscosity of the hardcoat coating composition. if the hardcoat coating composition does not properly wet the substrate, this can lead to visual imperfections such as pinholes and/or ridges in the coating. examples of leveling agents include, but are not limited to, fluorochemical surfactants and alkoxy terminated polysilicones. an example of a fluorochemical surfactant is fc-4430 available from 3m company, st. paul, minn. the hardcoat coating composition can include an amount of a leveling agent to impart the desired result. preferably, the leveling agent is present in an amount up to about 1 wt. %, and more preferably, about 0.1 wt. % to about 0.5 wt. %, based on the total weight of the hardcoat coating composition. it should be understood that combinations of different leveling agents can be used if desired. polymeric materials are known to degrade by a variety of mechanisms. common additives that can offset this are known as stabilizers, absorbers, antioxidants, and the like. the hardcoat coating compositions of the present invention can include one or more of the following: ultraviolet stabilizer, ultraviolet absorber, ozone stabilizer, and thermal stabilizer/antioxidant. an ultraviolet stabilizer and/or ultraviolet absorber for improving weatherability and reducing the yellowing of the hardcoat coating with time. an example of an ultraviolet stabilizer includes that available under the trade designation tinuvin 292 (bis(1,2,2,6,6-pentamethyl-4-piperidinyl)sebacate) and an example of an ultraviolet absorber includes that available under the trade designation tinuvin 1130 (hydroxyphenyl benzotriazole), both of which are available from ciba specialty chemicals, tarrytown, n.y. the hardcoat coating composition can include an amount of either an ultraviolet stabilizer and/or an ultraviolet absorber to impart the desired result. preferably, the ultraviolet stabilizer or absorber is present in an amount up to about 10 wt. %, and more preferably, about 1 wt. % to about 5 wt. %. based on the total weight of the hardcoat coating composition. it should be understood that combinations of different ultraviolet stabilizers and absorbers can be used if desired. an ozone stabilizer protects against degradation resulting from reaction with ozone. examples of ozone stabilizers include, but are not limited to, hindered amines such as that available under the trade designation irganox 1010 available from ciba specialty chemicals and phenoltriazine commercially available from aldrich chemical company, inc., milwaukee, wis. the hardcoat coating composition can include an amount of an ozone stabilizer to impart the desired result. preferably, the ozone stabilizer is present in an amount up to about 1 wt. %, more preferably about 0.1 wt. % to about 1.0 wt. %, and most preferably about 0.3 wt. % to about 0.5 wt. %, based on the total weight of the hardcoat coating composition. a thermal stabilizer/antioxidant reduces the amount of yellowing as a result of weathering. examples of such materials include, but are not limited to, low melting hindered phenols and triesters. specific examples include 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol commercially available under the trade designation ultranox 226 antioxidant from borg warner chemicals, inc., parkersburg, n.y.; octadecyl 3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxycinnamate commercially available under the trade designations isonox 132 antioxidant (schnectady chemicals, inc., schnectady, n.y.) or vanox 1320 antioxidant (vanderbilt co., inc. norwalk, cn). the hardcoat coating composition can include sufficient thermal stabilizer/antioxidant to impart the desired result. preferably, the thermal stabilizer/antioxidant is present in an amount up to about 3% by weight, and more preferably about 0.5 to about 1%, based on the total weight of the hardcoat coating composition without solvent. it should be understood that combinations of different thermal stabilizers/antioxidants can be used if desired. other optional additives to the curable hardcoat coating composition, that eventually forms the cured organic matrix after curing, are waxes and thermosetting resins. the thermosetting resins may be used to impart their specific properties to the hardcoat coating composition of the present invention. such properties may be desired for particular dry erase articles or portions of dry erase articles. some examples of such resins include acrylic, acryl-melamine, acryl-epoxy, acryl-urethane, melamine-alkyd, epoxy, epoxy-phenolic, or phenolic resins. these resins are easy to obtain commercially. waxes are organic particles that are not polymerized into the cured coating and therefore may reduce the hardness of the coating. it should be understood that any additive to the coating composition not polymerized into the coating may reduce the crosslink density and the hardness of the cured coating. therefore in one embodiment of the invention, the use of additives is minimized. reduced hardness may cause the dry erase article to be harder to erase. therefore, all additives preferably are used at the minimum possible concentration level to achieve the desired stabilization of the coating. additives preferably make up less than 10 wt. % of the cured hardcoat composition. primer and adhesive layers the first surface of the substrate may be chemically or physically treated to promote adhesion of the curable hardcoat coating composition to the first surface of the substrate. chemical treatments include polyacrylates, melamine acrylates, poly vinyl chlorides, poly vinylidene chlorides, and polyvinyl alcohols. physical treatments include texturizing, corona treatment and flame treatment. the second surface of the substrate may be chemically or physically treated to promote adhesion of an optional adhesive to it. suitable adhesives include permanent pressure sensitive adhesives, repositionable adhesives, and hot melt adhesives. the adhesives allow attachment of the dry erase article to a more rigid surface to make a dry erase board. the adhesive may also allow the attachment of the dry erase substrate directly to some surface such as a wall, door, filing cabinet, or the like. the radiation curable hardcoat coating composition can be coated by a number of available coating methods known in the art, including but not limited to gravure coating, die coating, roll coating, rod coating and printing methods, including but not limited to offset and flexographic printing. the present invention will be more fully understood with reference to the following non-limiting examples. examples preparation of article flexible coated substrates were cut into sheets about 2228 cm (811 in.) and were mounted to 1 mm thick white linerboard with 3m 558 positionable mounting adhesive (3m company, st. paul, minn.). the top surface of the mounted film was then cleaned once with expo dry erase spray cleaner (sanford corp., bellwood, ill.) and wiped dry with a paper towel. dyne pen test for surface energy dyne pens or surface energy pens are available from uv process supply, inc., chicago, ill. the pens came in a set of 8 ranging in surface tension from 30 mj/m ² to 44 mj/m ² in steps of 2 mj/m ² . the 30 mj/m ² pen was first applied to the dry erase surface in a continuous line about 5 cm long. then the next higher surface tension pen was applied to the surface. the writing line of the pen was observed for one minute. the surface energy of the surface was taken as the surface tension of the highest number pen that did not dewet in one minute. 60 degree gloss test gloss at 60 degrees was measured on a byk gardner gloss-haze meter available from byk gardner, columbia, md. the instrument was first verified to be in calibration with a standard white gloss tile. the test specimen was a dry erase film mounted on fiberboard with 3m 558 pma tape. three measurements of gloss were made on each specimen and the average of the three measurements was reported. writing on surface with markers dry erase surfaces were marked with 18 different markers comprising 7 brands of dry erase and 2 brands of permanent markers. the dry erase markers were avery marks-a-lot (avery-dennison, pasadena, calif.), boone screamers (boone international, corona, calif.), boone low odor (boone international), dixon dry erase (dixon ticonderoga co., heathrow, fla.), expo bold (sanford corp., bellwood, ill.), expo 2 (sanford corp.), and liquid expo (sanford corp.). the permanent markers were sharpie (sanford corp.) and avery marks-a-lot (avery-dennison) brands. the markers all had a wide or chisel point. two colors of marker from each brand were chosen including black if available. it was noted that within the same brand of dry erase marker, some colors were more difficult to remove than others. a typical dry erase sample was about the size of a sheet of paper. for each marker brand a horizontal space about 2.5 cm high on the sample was reserved for that marker brand. the first marker was used to write the marker brand name on the left hand side of the 2.5 cm high space and the second marker was used to write the same marker brand name on the right hand side of the 2.5 cm high space. in this manner, all the writing from each marker brand is lined up in one erasable horizontal line. the name of the marker was written on the film to more easily determine if the marker was completely erased. time aging of marker writing time aging of the marker writing was accomplished by letting the sample sit for two weeks at approximately 22 degrees c. (72 degrees f.) in an office environment. humidity was not specifically controlled, however, the office was air conditioned in the summer. heat aging of marker writing after writing on the dry erase surface, the writing was allowed to dry for one hour before putting the sample in a bench top laboratory oven. the sample was heat aged for 48 hours at 55 degrees c. (130 degrees f.). marker wettability test after marking the surface of the dry erase article and aging, each marker was examined for evidence of dewetting. dewetting of the writing was evidenced by the appearance of holes in the writing or a shrinkage of the characteristic writing line. the total number of markers that have evidence of dewetting was calculated. because there are 18 different markers in the writing test, the range of possible dewetting scores is 0-18. for example, if no markers dewet, the dewetting score is zero. dry erase marker removal after writing on the sample and aging, removability of dry erase writing was tested as follows. the sample was placed on a hard, flat surface. an expo brand dry eraser (sanford corp.) was used to erase the writing. the area of the eraser in contact with the sample was about 12.5 cm5 cm. steady hand pressure of about 5.2 kgf (8.1 kpa) was maintained on the eraser as it was passed over the first line of marker writing. the first line of writing included the writing from the two markers of the first brand. the number of firm eraser strokes required to remove all but a few specs of marker writing were counted. in many cases a single stroke of the eraser removed all the writing. in other cases it took ten or more strokes to remove the writing. counting of strokes was stopped after all the writing was completely erased or when additional strokes did not remove any more writing. for some markers, the eraser did not remove all of the writing. if some writing remained on the surface, water was applied to a paper towel. the number of strokes of the wet towel required to completely remove the writing was counted. if the wet towel did not remove the all the writing, windex window cleaner (s.c. johnson co., racine, wis.) and a paper towel were applied to the surface to remove it. if the windex cleaner did not remove all the writing, expo dry erase spray cleaner was sprayed on the surface and wiped with a paper towel. the total number of strokes of each cleaning procedure were added together to give a number for each line of marker writing. then the total number of strokes for each of the 7 lines of dry erase marker writing were added to give the dry erase score. the minimum dry erase removal score is 7 (because there were a total of 7 lines of dry erase marker writing). permanent marker removal the permanent marker test was performed only after the dry erase marker removal test was complete to avoid smearing the dry erase markers with spray cleaner. with the sample on a flat surface, some expo dry erase cleaner was sprayed directly on the permanent marker writing. the writing was then cleaned with a paper towel. the spray and clean cycle was repeated several times until either the sample was clean or no more of the permanent marker writing was removed. there were 4 permanent markers on the sample. if any ghost image of the permanent marker remained on the surface, it was counted as a failure and the score for that marker was zero. the total number of permanent markers completely cleaned from the surface was the permanent marker score. the range of possible permanent marker removal scores is 0-4. for example, if no permanent marker was removed from the sample, the permanent marker removal score would be 0. mandrel bend test for flexibility the mandrel bend test was adapted from astm d3111, standard test method for flexibility determation of hot-melt adhesives by mandrel bend test method. the test specimens were the uncoated and coated substrates cited in the examples. the specimens were cut into sheets of about 20 by 25 mm. smaller specimens can also be tested. each sheet was wrapped 180 degrees around a metal rod or mandrel within 1 second. if the specimen was coated, the coated side of the specimen was on the outside of the mandrel. three mandrel diameters were available for this test, 6.4 mm ( in), 4.8 mm ({fraction (3/16)} in), and 3.2 mm ( in). the specimen was then removed from the mandrel and examined with a 4 eyepiece or a microscope. failure of the mandrel bend test was evidenced by the appearance of visible fracture, crazing, or cracking of the coating or the substrate or debonding of the coating from the substrate. nanoindenter test for hardness hardness was measured with a nanoindenter xp (mts systems corporation, eden prairie, minn.). prior to testing, samples were cut into one centimeter squares and mounted on 50 mm diameter aluminum cylinders which served as fixtures in the nano xp translation stage. the samples were fixed to the aluminum cylinder by double stick tape. for all experiments, a diamond berkovich probe was used. the nominal loading rate was set at 10 nm/s with spatial drift set point set at 0.05 nm/s maximum. the probe was forced against the sample at a constant strain rate of 0.05/s to a depth of 200 nm. the regions to be characterized were located while viewing the sample on a video screen with 100 magnification. the test regions were selected to insure that each region was representative of the desired sample material, i.e. free of voids, inclusions, or debris. furthermore, microscope optical axis to indenter axis alignment was checked and calibrated previous to testing by an iterative process where test indentations were made into a fused quartz standard, with error correction provided by software in the xp. the sample surface was located via a surface find function in which the probe approaches the surface with a spring stiffness that changes significantly when the surface is encountered. once the probe was at the surface, load-displacement data was acquired as the probe indented the surface. this data was then transformed to hardness based on the equations below. the experiment was repeated in seven different areas of the sample and then averaged. for each indentation test, plots of load vs. displacement, hardness vs. depth, and elastic modulus vs. depth were generated. hardness data was also averaged over a penetration depth of 100-150 nm. hardness, h, is defined as: hp/a, where p is the applied load on the sample and a is the projected area of contact of the sample with the indenter probe. the units of hardness are megapascals (mpa). a discussion of the theory of instrumented indentation testing and hardness determination can be found in chapter 4 of the mts testworks 4 software for nanoindentation systems (mts systems). table of components acro- nym description manufacturer location irgacure uv photoinitiator ciba specialty tarrytown, ny 184 chemicals darocure uv photoinitiator ciba specialty tarrytown, ny 1173 chemicals fc-4430 fluorochemical 3m company st. paul, mn surfactant nalco 20 nm colloidal silica ondeo nalco naperville, il 2327 dispersion company a174 3-(trimethoxysilyl aldrich chemical milwaukee, wi propyl) methacrylate co. hdda 1,6 hexanediol sartomer exton, pa diacrylate peta pentaerythritol sartomer exton, pa tetraacrylate prostab hindered amine nitroxide ciba specialty tarrytown, ny 5198 chemicals sr444 pentaerythritol triacrylate sartomer exton, pa z-6040 3-(trimethoxysilyl dow coring midland, mi propyl) methacrylate dma n,n-dimethyl acrylamide aldrich chemical milwaukee, wi co. phenothiazine aldrich chemical milwaukee, wi co. bht butylated aldrich chemical milwaukee, wi hydroxytoluene co. tinuvin uv stabilizer ciba specialty tarrytown, ny 292 chemicals example 1 78.5 g of pentaerythritol triacrylate, 31.2 g of dow corning z-6030 silane coupling agent, 19.5 g of n,n-dimethyl acrylamide, 17.5 mg of phenothiazine and 15.9 mg of butylated hydroxytoluene (bht) were weighed into a flask. the mixture was stirred for approximately 30 minutes until all reagents were completely dissolved. upon addition of 255 g of nalco 2327 (40% aqueous dispersion of colloidal silica with a ph of 9.3; ammonium stabilized), the solution became a milky white suspension. the resin flask was sealed and a 24 cm distillation column and 500 ml receiving flask, cooled to 78 c. with a dry ice/acetone bath, were attached. a thermocouple was placed in the reaction mixture to monitor the reaction temperature. vacuum was slowly applied to the apparatus through the distillation head until reaching a pressure of 10 torr. the temperature of the mixture was slowly increased, causing the distillation of water from the suspension. as the distillation proceeded and the distillation of water was nearly complete the mixture changed from a milky white suspension to a nearly clear solution. water distillation ceased from the solution when the mixture reached approximately 50 c. because of the high viscosity of the solution, approximately 195 g of the curable composition product were recovered from the resin flask. the curable composition product was diluted to 50% solids by the addition of 195 g of isopropyl alcohol. to the above curable composition was added 3.9 g of irgacure 184. the solution was coated on clear 0.1 mm (4 mil) thick pvdc primed polyester film made by 3m company, st. paul, minn. the solution was coated with a 6 meyer rod on 23 cm wide film. handspreads were dried in air for 2 min. to remove the solvent. the coated film was then exposed to a uv h bulb at 1500 w/cm (600 w/in) with a nitrogen purge to crosslink the coating on a moving belt at a speed of 12 n/min (40 fpm). example 2 400 g of nalco 2327 colloidal silica dispersion was charged into a quart jar. next, 450 g of 1-methoxy-2-propanol and 25.4 g of a174 silane coupling agent were mixed together and added to the colloidal dispersion while stirring. the jar was sealed and heated to 80 degrees c. for 16.5 hr. this resulted in a white, high viscosity solution of modified silica. a 1 l round-bottom flask was charged with 520.8 g of the above modified sol. 73.4 g of 1,6 hexanediol diacrylate, 73.4 g of pentaerythritol tetracrylate and 0.058 g of prostab 5198 were added to the flask. water and alcohol were removed via rotary evaporation under vacuum. a clear, low viscosity liquid was obtained. to this solution was added 2.44 g of darocure 1173 and 1.0 g of fc-4430. the solution was coated on a laboratory coater on 23 cm wide, 0.1 mm thick, primed polyester film available from 3m company. the coating method was reverse gravure with a 10 bcm volume factor qch pattern gravure cylinder. the web speed was 15 m/min. the coated film was cured by passing the web under a uv h bulb at 1000 w/cm (400 w/in) with a nitrogen purge. example 3 500 g of nalco 2327 colloidal silica was concentrated at 55 degrees c. in a roto-evaporator to 300 g. the concentrate was diluted with 1200 g of n-propanol and the solution obtained added over a period of 30 min. to the still pot of a distillation apparatus containing 900 g of refluxing n-propanol. there distilled an azeotrope of water and n-propanol at 88 degrees c. distillation was continued until the still head temperature increased to 97 degrees c. to 800 g of 20.5 wt. % solids dispersion of particles made in n-propanol were added 12.4 g of irgacure 184, 10.3 g of tinuvin 292, 40.6 g of n,n-dimethyl acrylamide, and 261.1 g of sr444 resin. the solution was coated as described in example 1. table 1 test results from examples. example 1 2 3 test method units hardcoat 1 hardcoat 2 hardcoat 3 hardness mpa 726 616 588 mandrel bend 6.4 mm pass pass pass mandrel mandrel bend 4.8 mm pass pass pass mandrel mandrel bend 3.2 mm pass pass pass mandrel gloss, 60 degrees gloss 121 119 113 units marker dewetting no. of 0 0 0 pens dry erase no. of 11 12 7 time aging strokes dry erase no. of 10 11 9 heat aging strokes permanent no. of 4 4 4 marker, time aging pens various modifications and alterations of this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention, and it should be understood that this invention is not to be unduly limited to the illustrated embodiments set forth herein.
141-415-595-501-821	US	[ "US", "WO" ]	B29C45/14,B29C45/72,F16L59/20,F16L58/18	2022-01-19T00:00:00	2022	[ "B29", "F16" ]	field joint coating injection machine and method	a machine is disclosed for coating field joints of pipeline with a coating material. the machine includes an extruder, at least one accumulator, a mold, and pipework. the extruder is configured to melt the coating material into a molten coating material, and the at least one accumulator is configured to store the molten coating material. the mold is configured to fit around the field joints and is configured to mold the molten coating material to harden about the field joints. the pipework connects the extruder to the at least one accumulator and connects the at least one accumulator to the mold. the pipework is configured to conduct the molten coating material along the pipework. at least one heater has a fluid medium and is configured to heat the fluid medium to at least one temperature setpoint. conduit work connects the at least one heater to the pipework and is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework to keep the coating material molten in the pipework.	1 . a machine for coating a portion of a pipeline with a coating material, the machine comprising: an extruder being configured to melt the coating material into a molten coating material; a coater being configured to fit on the portion of the pipework and being configured to coat the molten coating material thereon; pipework connecting the extruder to the mold, the pipework configured to conduct the molten coating material therealong; at least one fluid heater having a fluid medium and being configured to heat the fluid medium to at least one temperature setpoint; and conduit work connecting the at least one fluid heater to the pipework and being configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework. 2 . the machine of claim 1 , wherein the coater comprises: a mold being configured to fit around the portion of the pipework and being configured to mold the molten coating material to harden about the portion; or a die head being configured to fit adjacent the portion of the pipework and being configured to layer the molten coating material to harden about the portion. 3 . a machine for coating field joints of pipeline with a coating material, the machine comprising: an extruder being configured to melt the coating material into a molten coating material; at least one accumulator being configured to store the molten coating material; a mold being configured to fit around the field joints and being configured to mold the molten coating material to harden about the field joints; pipework connecting the extruder to the at least one accumulator and connecting the at least one accumulator to the mold, the pipework configured to conduct the molten coating material therealong; at least one fluid heater having a fluid medium and being configured to heat the fluid medium to at least one temperature setpoint; and conduit work connecting the at least one fluid heater to the pipework and being configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework. 4 . the machine of claim 3 , wherein the conduit work comprises: one or more annular pipe sections disposed about one or more sections of the pipework and defining an annular space therewith; and one or more conducting lines connected between the at least one fluid heater and the one or more annular pipe sections and conducting the heated fluid medium between the at least one fluid heater and the annular space. 5 . the machine of claim 4 , comprising one or more manifolds disposed between connections of the one or more conducting lines. 6 . the machine of claim 3 , further comprising a valve disposed on the pipework between the at least one accumulator and the mold, the valve being operable to open and close communication of the molten coating material therethrough. 7 . the machine of claim 3 , wherein the at least one fluid heater comprises: a temperature sensor being configured to measure a temperature of the heated fluid medium; an electric heating element configured to heat the fluid medium; a pumping unit configured to pump the fluid medium; and a controller connected to the temperature sensor, the electric heating element, and the pumping element and being configured to operate the electric heating element and the pumping element based on the measured temperature and the temperature setpoint. 8 . the machine of claim 3 , further comprising a control unit in communication with the extruder, the at least one accumulator, the mold, and the at least one fluid heater, the control unit being configured to coordinate operation therebetween. 9 . the machine of claim 8 , further comprising: one or more temperatures sensors disposed about the pipework and connected to the control unit, the one or more temperatures sensors being configured to measure a temperature associated therewith for the control unit; and/or one or more pressure sensors disposed about the conduit work and connected to the control unit, the one or more pressure sensors being configured to measure a pressure associated therewith for the control unit. 10 . the machine of claim 8 , wherein the extruder comprises one or more electric heaters and a feeder, the control unit in communication with the one or more electric heaters and the feeder and being configured to control feeding and melting of the coating material. 11 . the machine of claim 8 , wherein the at least one accumulator comprises one or more electric heaters and a feeder, the control unit in communication with the one or more electric heaters and the feeder and being configured to control feeding and heating of the molten coating material. 12 . the machine of claim 8 , wherein the conduit work connects the at least one fluid heater to the extruder and is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the extruder, wherein the extruder comprises a feeder, the control unit in communication with the at least one fluid heater and the feeder and being configured to control feeding and melting of the coating material. 13 . the machine of claim 12 , wherein the at least one fluid heater comprises: a first of the at least one fluid heater connected by a first of the conduit work to the pipework and being configured to heat the fluid medium to a first of the at least one temperature setpoint; and a second of the at least one fluid heater connected by a second of the conduit work to the extruder and being configured to heat the fluid medium to a second of the at least one temperature setpoint, wherein the control unit is configured to separately control the first and second temperatures of the first and second fluid heaters. 14 . the machine of claim 8 , wherein the conduit work connects the at least one fluid heater to the at least one accumulator and is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the at least one accumulator, wherein the at least one accumulator comprises a feeder, the control unit in communication with the at least one fluid heater and the feeder and being configured to control feeding and heating of the molten coating material. 15 . the machine of claim 14 , wherein the at least one fluid heater comprises: a first of the at least one fluid heater connected by a first of the conduit work to the pipework and being configured to heat the fluid medium to a first of the at least one temperature setpoint; and a second of the at least one fluid heater connected by a second of the conduit work to the at least one accumulator and being configured to heat the fluid medium to a second of the at least one temperature setpoint, wherein the control unit is configured to separately control the first and second temperatures of the first and second fluid heaters. 16 . a method of processing an exposed field joint of a pipeline, the method comprising: melting a coating material in an extruder; accumulating the melted coating material in at least one accumulator; injection molding the melted coating material in a mold fit around the exposed field joint; conducting the melted coating material from the extruder, to the accumulator, and to the mold using pipework; and maintaining the coating material melted in the pipework by heating a fluid medium and conduiting the heated fluid medium into heat transfer with the pipework. 17 . the method of claim 16 , wherein conduiting the heated fluid medium into heat transfer with the pipework comprises conducting the heated fluid medium in an annular space of one or more annular pipe sections disposed about one or more sections of the pipework. 18 . the method of claim 17 , wherein conduiting the heated fluid medium into heat transfer with the pipework comprises distributing the heated fluid medium in a plurality of conducting lines using one or more manifolds disposed between at least one fluid heater and the pipework. 19 . the method of claim 16 , wherein the heating the fluid medium comprises: monitoring temperature of the heated fluid medium; and powering an electric heating element based on the monitored temperature. 20 . the method of claim 19 , further comprising powering a pump used to pump the heated fluid based on the monitored temperature. 21 . the method of claim 16 , wherein monitoring temperature of the heated fluid medium comprises monitoring the temperature of the heated fluid medium for one or more of: at least one fluid heater configured to heat the fluid medium; an extruder configured to melt and feed the coating material; at least one accumulator configured to store and expel the molten coating material; and conduit work configured to conduct the heated fluid medium.	background of the disclosure oil and gas pipelines are typically coated for corrosion and impact resistance and for thermal insulation. individual pipes can be coated in a factory with an extrusion coating. the ends of the individual pipes are left bare of coating or machined back post-manufacture to produce a cutback region so the ends of the pipes can be welded together to produce the pipeline. the ends are typically joined in the field or close to the installation point. the cutback regions of the coating typically have a chamfer so the pipes can be handled without damaging edges of the coating and to increase the surface area for field joint application. to complete the protection of the joined pipes, additional coating material is applied in the field to the cutback region at the field joints between joined pipes. different coatings can be used for field joints, including shrink-applied casings, or cast or injection molded coatings. to cover the field joints, for example, a field joint coating injection machine can be used in the field to cover the field joints with injection-molded material. using this machine, a mold is placed around an exposed field joint between the cutback regions in the existing coatings of the two pipes. a coating material, such as polypropylene, is heated and kept molten within the field joint coating injection machine. the melted coating material is then injected into the mold to fill the space around the field joint. once the material has cooled around the joint enough, the mold is removed, leaving a coating that covers across the field joint. during operation, the coating material is heated and kept molten in the field joint coating injection machine. to do this, mica or electric band heaters are placed around various parts of the pipework in the machine, and a number of zonal temperature sensors (thermocouples) are used to measure the temperatures to ensure that the material is kept molten. the electric heating by the band heaters may not provide uniform heating, and a number of heating zones need to be controlled and monitored. these band heaters are electrically powered and have limited power output for particular zones. the band heaters are susceptible to physical damage, can burn out, and require additional on-machine wiring for the various zones to be heated on the machine. additionally, faulty thermocouples may send inaccurate temperature readings that cause the conventional electric band heaters to increase power and increase temperature unchecked. unfortunately, current industry practice has dealt with the failings of the present arrangement by increasing the number of temperature sensors used throughout the machine to redundantly monitor for temperature issues or failures of the electric band heaters. the subject matter of the present disclosure is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above. summary of the disclosure a machine is disclosed herein for coating a portion of a pipeline with a coating material. the machine comprises an extruder, a coater, pipework, at least one fluid heater, and conduit work. the extruder is configured to melt the coating material into a molten coating material, and the coater is configured to fit on the portion of the pipework and is configured to coat the molten coating material thereon. the pipework connects the extruder to the mold, and the pipework is configured to conduct the molten coating material therealong. the at least one fluid heater has a fluid medium and is configured to heat the fluid medium to at least one temperature setpoint. the conduit work connects the at least one fluid heater to the pipework and is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework. a machine is also disclosed herein for coating field joints of pipeline with a coating material. the machine comprises an extruder, at least one accumulator, a mold, pipework, at least one fluid heater, and conduit work. the extruder is configured to melt the coating material into a molten coating material, and the at least one accumulator is configured to store the molten coating material. the mold is configured to fit around the field joints and is configured to mold the molten coating material to harden about the field joints. the pipework connects the extruder to the at least one accumulator and connects the at least one accumulator to the mold. the pipework is configured to conduct the molten coating material therealong. the at least one fluid heater has a fluid medium and is configured to heat the fluid medium to at least one temperature setpoint. the conduit work connects the at least one fluid heater to the pipework and is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework. a method of processing an exposed field joint of a pipeline is disclosed herein. the method comprises: melting a coating material in an extruder; accumulating the melted coating material in at least one accumulator; injection molding the melted coating material in a mold fit around the exposed field joint; conducting the melted coating material from the extruder, to the accumulator, and to the mold using pipework; and maintaining the coating material melted in the pipework by heating a fluid medium and conduiting the heated fluid medium into heat transfer with the pipework. the foregoing summary is not intended to summarize each potential embodiment or every aspect of the present disclosure. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 illustrates a schematic view of a field joint coating injection machine according to the present disclosure. fig. 2 illustrates an example section of pipework for the machine having conduit work for conducting heated fluid medium. fig. 3 illustrates an example section of conduit work for the machine connected to a heater. fig. 4 illustrates a schematic view of another field joint coating injection machine according to the present disclosure. fig. 5 illustrates a flowchart for temperature control in a machine according to the present disclosure. fig. 6 illustrates a schematic view of a field joint coating injection machine according to another configuration of the present disclosure. fig. 7 illustrates a schematic view of a pipe coating machine according to the present disclosure. detailed description of the disclosure fig. 1 illustrates a schematic view of a field joint coating injection machine 10 according to the present disclosure. as its name implies, the machine 10 is used for coating field joints j of a pipeline p with a coating material to produce field coatings fc. the machine 10 includes an extruder 20 , at least one accumulator 60 a - b , a coater 80 , and pipework 40 . the pipework 40 interconnects the extruder 20 , the at least one accumulator 60 a - b , and the mold 80 together so that molten coating material that is produced by the extruder 20 and is stored in the accumulator 60 a - c can be injection molded by the mold 80 to a field joint j. the extruder 20 is configured to melt the coating material, such as polypropylene, into a molten coating material. the extruder 20 has a barrel or chamber 22 to process the coating material. for example, solid pellets of the coating material can be fed into the barrel 22 by a hopper 26 . a feeder 24 , such as a screw, processes the raw coating material through the barrel or chamber 22 . as shown in this configuration, the extruder 20 uses electric heating elements 32 to aid in heating the coating material in barrel or chamber 22 . at least one electric heating unit 30 can be used to power and control the electric heating elements 32 so that the heating elements 32 assist in melting the material being extruded along the extruder 20 to a proper melting temperature. here, the coater 80 is a mold, and at least one accumulator 60 a - b is configured to store quantities of the molten coating material for eventual injection molding with the mold 80 . as shown here, a pair of accumulators 60 a - b can be used. each accumulator 60 a - b includes a chamber 62 for storing the molten coating material and has a feeder 64 , such as a piston, to force the material out of the chamber 62 . a valve 70 disposed on the pipework 40 between at least one accumulator 60 a - b and the mold 80 , controls delivery of the molted coating material from the accumulators 60 a - b to the mold 80 . for example, the valve 70 can include a hydraulic piston or other actuator 72 that is operable to open and close communication of the molten coating material therethrough so that the material forced from the accumulator 60 a - b can enter the mold 80 closed around the field joint j of the pipeline p. the mold 80 is configured to fit around the field joint j and is configured to mold the molten coating material about the field joint j. as is typical, the mold 80 includes two or more articulating mold sections that can be moved using hydraulics or the like to fit around the field joint j. the pipework 40 connects the extruder 20 to the at least one accumulator 60 a - b and connects the at least one accumulator 60 a - b to the mold 80 , and the pipework 40 is configured to conduct the molten coating material therealong. as is typical, the pipework 40 includes one or more pipes, pipe sections, etc. that are connected by flanges or the like. the pipework 40 is typically composed of steel and can be of an appropriate diameter in which to conduct the proper throughput of the coating material for performing the injection molding. during operations, the pipeline p to be coated remains stationary whilst the machine 10 is moved into position about the field joint j at the open mold 80 . pellets of coating material that are vacuum fed into material hopper 26 on the extruder 20 can be mixed with various additives. the extruder 20 processes the mixed material into a molten form by screw feeding the pellets at pressure along the heated barrel 22 of the extruder 20 . the molten material is fed along the pipework 40 to the accumulators 60 a - b filling the accumulators through the act of process material through the extruder. the machine 10 is moved so that the mold 80 is centered at the field joint j to be coated. the mold 80 is then raised up and closed around the field joint j. typically, the mold 80 is clamped closed with hydraulic cylinders to create a tight annulus for the injection-molded material to fill. the hydraulically-operated valve 70 is opened, and the feeder 64 of an accumulator 60 a - b forces the molten material out of the accumulator's chamber 62 so the material can be injected into the mold 80 and can encase the field joint j. cooling allows the material to harden inside the mold 80 . for example, chilled fluid can be used to cool at least the outer profile of the material. the mold 80 can be opened, and the cast-filled joint f can be further cooled and dressed. this process is repeated along the pipeline p at the various field joints j. between coating steps, the coating material is kept heated and molten. thus, the at least one accumulator 60 a - b uses electric heating elements 34 to heat the coating material stored therein. the electric heating unit 30 can be used to power and control the electric heating elements 34 so that the heating elements 34 keep the material molten. the coating material inside the pipework 40 must also be kept molten during operations. inadvertent cooling of the material during operations can be hazardous. to uniformly heat the molten coating material in the interconnecting pipework 40 , the machine 10 includes at least one fluid heater 100 having a fluid medium and includes conduit work 50 , connecting lines 110 , 114 , 120 , 124 , and manifolds 112 , 122 to conduct the heated fluid medium. the fluid heater 100 is configured to heat the fluid medium, such as oil, to at least one temperature setpoint suited to keep the coating material molten in the pipework 40 . the connecting lines 110 , 114 , 120 , 124 and the manifolds 112 , 122 connect the fluid heater 100 to the conduit work 50 . in turn, the conduit work 50 is configured to conduct the heated fluid medium with the pipework 40 so the heat from the fluid medium can be transferred to the coating material inside the pipework 40 . in general and as discussed in more detail below, the conduit work 50 includes one or more annular pipe sections disposed about one or more sections of the pipework 40 and defining an annular space therewith. the conducting lines 110 , 114 , 120 , 124 are connected between the fluid heater 100 and the one or more annular pipe sections of the conduit work 50 to conduct the heated fluid medium between the fluid heater 100 and the annular space around the pipework 40 . preferably, a delivery line 110 from the fluid heater 100 that delivers the heated fluid medium to a manifold 112 , which distributes the medium to distributed conducting lines 114 that connect to the conduit work 50 . in a similar manner, a return line 120 connected to the fluid heater 100 receives the fluid medium from a manifold 122 , which connects by distributed conducting lines 124 from the conduit work 50 . in this way, the heated fluid medium can be circulated and continuously heated to maintain a temperature setpoint throughout. as can be seen during operations, the fluid heater 100 supplies the heated fluid medium, e.g., oil, to the pipework 40 by way of the lines 110 , 120 , manifolds 112 , 122 , and the connecting lines 114 , 124 in a closed-loop system. the heated fluid medium controls the temperature of the coating material inside the pipework 40 . as discussed herein, a pipe-in-pipe arrangement can transfer the heat from the heated fluid medium circulating in the conduit work 50 around the pipework 40 to achieve a uniform heat profile. connections in the pipework 40 , such as where flanged connections are present, can use an interconnecting line to connect sections in series. of course, independent connection points from the manifolds 112 , 112 can be used to connect directly to individual sections of the conduit work 50 . as shown in fig. 1 , the machine 10 can include a control unit 150 for coordinating the overall operation of the machine 10 . the control unit 150 can be in communication with the extruder 20 , the at least one accumulator 60 a - b , the mold 80 , the at least one fluid heater 10 , and the at least one electric heating unit 30 . as such, the control unit 150 can include some of the conventional controls and features used in a field joint coating machine to operate the extruder 20 , the electric heating unit 30 , the accumulators 60 a - b , the valve 70 , and the mold 80 . in addition to these conventional controls and features, the control unit 150 is further configured to coordinate the operation of these elements in conduction with the control of the at least one fluid heater 100 and any sensing components 152 associated therewith. as shown, one or more temperatures sensors 152 (t) can be disposed about the pipework 40 and connected to the control unit 150 to measure temperature. the control unit 150 can monitor the temperature of the molten coating material in the pipework 40 and can measure the temperature of the heated fluid medium of the conduit work 50 . various temperatures sensors 152 (t) can be appropriately distributed throughout various zones of the pipework 40 and conduit work 50 to maintain proper temperature monitoring. because the conduit work 50 and the fluid heater 100 can provide bulk heating across a greater surface area of the pipework 40 , the complexity involved in temperature monitoring can be simplified because heating is less likely to fail at discrete points in the configuration. other sensors can be disposed about the pipework 40 and the conduit work 50 . for example, one or more pressure and/or flow sensors 152 (p) can be disposed about the conduit work 50 and connected to the control unit 150 to measure pressure and/or flow of the heated fluid medium. the pressure and/or flow measurement can be used for a variety of purposes, such as determining internal pipework pressure and subsequently blockages, etc. fig. 2 illustrates an example section of pipework 40 for the machine having conduit work 50 for conducting heated fluid medium. as noted above and as shown, the pipework 40 typically includes one or more pipes, pipe sections, etc. that are connected by flanges or the like. the pipework 40 is typically composed of steel and can be of an appropriate diameter. it will be appreciated that the teachings of the present disclosure can be used for different configurations for the pipework 40 . the conduit work 50 includes annularly arranged pipe sections 52 disposed on the pipework 40 . the pipe sections 52 have closed ends to form an enclosed annulus 55 with the pipework 50 for collection of the heated fluid medium. for example, the pipe section 52 can be a shorter length of tubing that fits over the pipework section and that has its ends welded to the pipework 40 . flanges 42 of the pipework 40 may be left accessible for assembly and maintenance. of course, other forms of heat exchange can be used. for example, the conduit work 50 can include coiled tubing routed and wrapped about the pipework 40 . these and other configurations can be used, and enhancements can be made to increase heat transfer rates. interconnecting lines 54 can connect the enclosed annuli 55 from one pipe section 52 to the other. this provides flexibility in the assembly and arrangement of the pipework 40 and the conduit work 50 . the interconnected lines 54 and annuli 55 connect to the delivery line 112 for delivery of the heated fluid medium and connect to the return line 114 for return of the medium. sizing of the lines 54 , 112 , 114 and volume of the annuli 55 , and the like can be configured for the flow of the fluid medium and the temperature setpoints to be maintained. the heated fluid medium in the annuli 55 can transfer heat to any molten coating material held inside the pipework 40 . additional insulation 56 can be applied to the conduit work 50 for further heat retention. the insulation 56 can extend over the flanges 42 and any exposed portions of the pipework 40 as well. if desired, temperatures and pressure sensors 152 (t, p) can be associated with the conduit work 50 to measure pressure and temperature for the purposes of control as noted herein. fig. 3 illustrates an example section of the conducting lines for the machine connected to a fluid heater 100 . in general, the fluid heater 100 includes a fluid reservoir 102 , a heating element 104 , a pump 106 , and a controller 108 , among other components. the controller 108 includes a temperature sensor configured to measure the temperature of the heated fluid medium. the pump 106 pumps the fluid medium, and the heating element 104 , which is preferably electric, heats the fluid medium. during operation, the controller 108 is configured to operate the electric heating element 104 , and the pump 106 based on the measurements so the fluid medium can be properly heated. a chilled water supply is connected to the fluid heater 100 in order to regulate the temperature should it be required. as shown in fig. 3 , an example of a manifold 112 for the delivery line 110 from the fluid heater 100 is shown. the manifold 112 connects to the larger delivery line 110 from the fluid heater 100 and distributes the heated fluid medium to a plurality of conducting lines 114 , which can be hydraulic lines or the like. the arrangement for the return line 120 of the heater 100 can be similarly arranged. the delivery line 110 , the manifold 112 , and the conducting lines 114 can be insulated. fig. 4 illustrates a schematic view of another field joint coating injection machine 10 according to the present disclosure. this machine 10 is similar to that discussed above so like reference numerals are used for comparable components. in the previous arrangement, electric heating was applied directly to the extruder 20 and the accumulators 60 a - b . in the present arrangement, a heated fluid medium is used for heating the extruder 20 and accumulators 60 a - b as well as being used for heating the pipework 40 . as before, the conduit work 50 connects to at least one fluid heater 100 so heated fluid medium can be used to heat the coating material in the pipework 40 to keep it molten. features of this arrangement can be similar to those discussed above and are not repeated here. the extruder 20 includes conduit work 28 for heated fluid medium to be used in heating and melting the coating material for the extruder 20 . likewise, the accumulators 60 a - b include conduit work 68 for heated fluid medium to be used in keeping the coating material molten in the accumulators 60 a - b . as shown, the additional conduit work 28 , 68 can be connected to one or more additional fluid heaters 160 , if necessary, so that separate temperature setpoints can be maintained between the extruder 20 , the accumulators 60 a - b , and the conduit work 50 . as such, the control unit 150 can separately control the fluid heaters 100 , 160 for the extruder 20 , the accumulators 60 a - b , and the conduit work 50 . of course, one fluid heater could be used if appropriate. moreover, the extruder 20 and the accumulators 60 a - b can use separate fluid heaters different from the conduit's fluid heater 100 ; or the accumulators 60 a - b and the conduit work 50 can share the fluid heater 100 separate from the fluid heater 160 used for the extruder 20 . in general, the additional conduit work 28 , 68 can include annular spaces surrounding a housing or chamber 22 , 62 of the respective components 20 , 60 so heat from the heated fluid medium can be transferred to the coating material inside the respective chamber 22 , 62 . other forms of heat exchange can be used. for example, the conduit work 28 , 68 can include coiled tubing routed and wrapped about the housings or chambers 22 , 62 . these and other configurations can be used, and enhancements can be made to increase heat transfer rates. as disclosed herein, the configuration for the machine 10 simplifies the heating used to keep the coating material molten in the pipework 40 . the need to control multiple, individually heated zones is simplified or avoided. instead, unitary heat source(s) from the fluid heater(s) 100 , 160 , etc. can provide a much more uniform and desirable heat profile to more of the pipework 40 (and other parts of the machine 10 if applicable). the configuration for the disclosed machine 10 also mitigates potential safety hazards that can be caused by faulty thermocouples. heat retention can be much improved in the disclosed machine 10 due to the physical mass of the heated fluid medium acting as an additional heated insulation layer around the material pipework 40 . ease of manufacture is also greatly increased due to simpler wiring and routing required of the component as well as ease in locating faults should any issue occur. based on the understanding above, the operation of the disclosed configurations can have a more simplified process flow because the fluid heater(s) takes care of the primary temperature control in the machine 10 . fig. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a process 200 for temperature control in a machine ( 10 ) according to the present disclosure. reference to elements in other figures is made for better illustration. the process 200 for temperature control shown here does not include any processing controls directly related to operating components of the machine 10 , such as running the extruder 20 , opening/closing the mold 80 , operating the accumulators 60 a - b , opening/closing the valve 70 , etc. as will be appreciated, a control system (e.g., one or more control units 150 , one or more controllers 108 , or the like) as disclosed herein can be used for the temperature control and any other control functions. at the start of the process 200 , the control system can measure the temperature of the heated fluid medium (oil) (block 202 ). the measurements can include temperatures measured in the fluid heater 100 , 160 , etc., and can include one or more temperatures measured with one or more sensors 152 distributed in the conduit work 50 . based on the coating material used and other factors, the temperature for the heated fluid requires a particular acceptable range in order for the heated fluid to keep the coating material molten. therefore, the control system determines whether the measured temperature is within the acceptable range (decision 204 ). if so, then the control system can return to monitoring temperature measurements (block 202 ), which may be performed on a cyclical basis. when the measured temperature is not within the acceptable range, then the control system performs one of a number of actions depending on the discrepancy. as shown here, the acceptable temperature range can have sets of low and high setpoint values to which temperature measurements can be compared. extreme setpoints (l.sp 2 , h.sp 2 ) represent an outer boundary for the temperature range, and inner setpoints (l.sp 1 , h.sp 1 ) represent an inner range between which proper temperature values can lie. therefore, the control system can maintain current heating by the heating element 104 and current pumping by the pumping element 106 of the heater 100 when the temperature measurements are within the inner set points. if the temperature falls below the lower inner setpoint (l.sp 1 ) (block 210 ), the control system turns on the heat supplied by the heating element 104 . if the heating element 104 is already powered, then the power can be increased. if appropriate, changes in the flow of the heated fluid can also be implemented using the pumping element 106 . a warning may also be displayed or communicated, and the control system returns to measuring the temperature (block 202 ) to determine if and when the temperature measurements increase to the acceptable range (block 204 ). if the temperature falls below the lower outer setpoint (l.sp 1 ) (block 220 ), the control system turns on the heat supplied by the heating element 104 . if the heating element 104 is already powered, then the power can be increased. if appropriate, changes in the flow of the heated fluid can also be implemented using the pumping element 106 . an alarm may also be displayed or initiated, and the control system returns to measuring the temperature (block 202 ) to determine if and when the temperature measurements increase to the acceptable range (block 204 ). shut off of machine functions may or may not follow. in like manner, if the temperature rises above the high inner setpoint (h.sp 1 ) (block 212 ), the control system turns off the heat supplied by the heating element (or reduces the power supplied to the heating element). if appropriate, changes in the flow of the heated fluid can also be implemented using the pumping element 106 . a warning may also be displayed or communicated, and the control system returns to measuring the temperature (block 202 ) to determine if and when the temperature measurements decrease to the acceptable range (block 204 ). if the temperature rises above the high outer setpoint (h.sp 2 ) (block 222 ), the control system initiates an emergency shut down to stop the operation of the machine to avoid elevated temperatures. as can be seen, the monitoring process 200 performed here is made directly to the heated fluid medium, which under the configuration of the disclosed system is arranged to transfer heat to the coating material in the pipework 40 . thus, appropriate heating of the heated fluid can be equated directly to appropriate heating of the coating material. the entire process 200 can be supplemented with additional monitoring. for example, some zonal temperature monitoring of the heated fluid, the pipework 40 , the conduit work 50 , and/or the coating material can be performed using distributed sensors 152 to detect temperature variation, possible anomalies, or discrepancies. for example, the monitoring process 200 can monitor the temperature of the molten coating material directly (rather than or in addition to monitoring the heating fluid) to control the temperature of the heating fluid. the machine 10 as disclosed herein can be used for mainline production and can be permanently installed on a production line. the pipeline p can be moved for mainline production. alternatively, the machine 10 can be implemented as a mobile unit that can be moved to locations. moreover, in some embodiments, components of the machine 10 can be separated from other components so the separated components can be moved to a field joint. for example, fig. 6 illustrates a schematic view of a field joint coating injection machine 10 according to another configuration of the present disclosure. like reference numerals are used for comparable components to other embodiments. again, the coater 80 is a mold, and at least one accumulator 60 a - b is configured to store quantities of the molten coating material for eventual injection molding with the mold 80 . here, the accumulator 60 a - b and the mold 80 are separable as a movable unit 11 b from the extruder 20 , which is typically a large and heavy component. in this way, the extruder 20 along with its heater 30 can be a unit 11 a used to melt the coating material, which can be communicated to the accumulators 60 a - b . the accumulators 60 a - b and mold 80 can then be disconnected from the pipework 40 of the extruder 20 so the movable unit 11 b having the accumulators 60 a - b and mold 80 can be moved as using a lift or the like to a field joint to be coated. in this embodiment, the conduit work 50 of the present disclosure is used on the pipework 40 as before. however, a connection and valve arrangement 170 can be used between the pipework 40 to allow a section 41 a of the pipework 40 for the extruder 20 to be separated from another section 41 b of the pipework 40 for the accumulators 60 a - b and mold 80 . the conduit work 50 can also be divided at the connection and valve arrangement 70 so a section 51 a of the conduit work 50 for the extruder 20 can be separated from another section 51 b of the conduit work 50 for the accumulators 60 a - b and mold 80 . if practical, the same heating unit 100 can connect to both of the sections 51 a - b of the conduit work 50 . for example, flexible lines 115 , 125 of an umbilical (not shown) can be used for connecting to the movable unit's conduit work 51 b so the movable unit 11 b can be moved. alternatively, each conduit section 51 a - b can have its own heating unit 100 such that one unit 100 stays with the extruder's conduit work section 51 a and the other heating unit (not shown) can be moved with the movable unit 11 b to heat its conduit work section 51 b. the teachings of the present disclosure can also be used with machines other than a field joint coating injection machine. for example, a coating machine can be used to coat the surface of a pipe with a thin coating. for example, fig. 7 illustrates a schematic view of a pipe coating machine 15 according to the present disclosure. as before, the machine 15 can be a mainline production unit or can be a smaller more mobile unit. the machine 15 includes an extruder 20 , pipework 40 , and a coater 90 , along with other supporting components. here, the coater 90 is a robotic assembly having a die head 95 that installs on a pipe (not shown). rotation of the die head 95 about the pipe by the robotic assembly 90 wraps extruded coating material around a field joint or the like. for this machine 15 , the robotic assembly 90 is separable as a movable unit 11 b from the extruder 20 , which is typically a large and heavy component. in this way, the extruder 20 along with its heater 30 can be a unit 11 a used to melt the coating material. the movable unit 11 b having the robotic assembly 90 can then be moved using a lift or the like to a field joint to be coated. (for a mainline production unit, components of the machine 15 do not need to be disconnected from the extruder 20 .) in this embodiment, the conduit work 50 of the present disclosure is used on the pipework 40 as before. however, a connection, such as an umbilical 55 , can be used between the pipework 40 to allow a section 41 a of the pipework 40 for the extruder 20 to be separated from another section 41 b of the pipework 40 for the robotic assembly 90 . the conduit work 50 can also be divided. for example, the robotic assembly 90 includes integrated pipework sections 41 b for conducting the heated coating material. a section 51 a of the conduit work 50 for the extruder 20 can be separated from another section 51 b of the conduit work 50 for the assembly 50 . if practical, the same heating unit 100 can connect to the sections 51 a - b of the conduit work 50 . for example, flexible lines 115 , 125 of the umbilical 50 can be used for connecting to the movable unit's conduit work 51 b so the movable unit 11 b can be moved. alternatively, each conduit section 51 a - b can have its own heating unit 100 such that one unit 100 stays with the extruder's conduit work section 51 a and the other heating unit (not shown) can be moved with the movable unit 11 b to heat its conduit work section 51 b. the foregoing description of preferred and other embodiments is not intended to limit or restrict the scope or applicability of the inventive concepts conceived of by the applicants. it will be appreciated with the benefit of the present disclosure that features described above in accordance with any embodiment or aspect of the disclosed subject matter can be utilized, either alone or in combination, with any other described feature, in any other embodiment or aspect of the disclosed subject matter. in exchange for disclosing the inventive concepts contained herein, the applicants desire all patent rights afforded by the appended claims. therefore, it is intended that the appended claims include all modifications and alterations to the full extent that they come within the scope of the following claims or the equivalents thereof.
142-247-605-867-226	JP	[ "KR", "TW", "JP", "US", "WO" ]	H01L29/786,G02F1/1368,H01L21/336,H05B44/00,H01L21/28,H01L51/50,H05B33/22,H01L29/45,H01L21/324,H01L27/32,H01L29/06,H01L29/78,H01L29/12,H01L29/417,H01L27/12,H01L29/423,H01L29/49,H01L29/22	2009-10-09T00:00:00	2009	[ "H01", "G02", "H05" ]	semiconductor device and method for manufacturing the same	to provide a thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics and provide a semiconductor device in which the thin film transistor is used as a switching element.solution: a semiconductor device comprises: a gate electrode in which a thin film transistor is formed on an insulating surface; a gate insulation film on the gate electrode; an oxide semiconductor film which overlaps the gate electrode on the gate insulation film and includes a layer where a concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than another region; a pair of metal oxide films formed on the oxide semiconductor film so as to contact the layer; and a source electrode or a drain electrode which contacts the metal oxide films. the metal oxide films are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode or the drain electrode.selected drawing: figure 1	1. a semiconductor device comprising: a gate electrode over an insulating surface; a gate insulating film over the gate electrode; an oxide semiconductor film over the gate insulating film, the oxide semiconductor film overlapping the gate electrode; a pair of metal oxide films over the oxide semiconductor film; and a source electrode and a drain electrode over the pair of metal oxide films, wherein the oxide semiconductor film comprises a first portion, a second portion and a third portion between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the source electrode overlaps the first portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein the drain electrode overlaps the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein each of the first portion and the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film comprises, on the pair of metal oxide films sides, a region where a concentration of one or a plurality of metals in the oxide semiconductor film is higher than a concentration of one or a plurality of metals in the third portion of the oxide semiconductor film, and wherein the pair of metal oxide films, the source electrode, and the drain electrode comprise a same metal material. 2. the semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the metal in the source electrode and the drain electrode is titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum. 3. the semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein a thickness of the region of the oxide semiconductor film is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 4. the semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein a thickness of each of the pair of metal oxide films is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 5. the semiconductor device according to claim 1 , further comprising an insulating film over the source electrode and the drain electrode, wherein the insulating film is in direct contact with the oxide semiconductor film. 6. a semiconductor device comprising: a gate electrode over an insulating surface; a gate insulating film over the gate electrode; an oxide semiconductor film including indium, gallium, and zinc over the gate insulating film, the oxide semiconductor film overlapping the gate electrode; a pair of metal oxide films over the oxide semiconductor film; and a source electrode and a drain electrode over the pair of metal oxide films, wherein the oxide semiconductor film comprises a first portion, a second portion and a third portion between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the source electrode overlaps the first portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein the drain electrode overlaps the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein each of the first portion and the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film comprises, on the pair of metal oxide films sides, a region where a concentration of one or a plurality of indium, gallium, and zinc is higher than a concentration of one or a plurality of indium, gallium, and zinc in the third portion of the oxide semiconductor film, and wherein the pair of metal oxide films, the source electrode, and the drain electrode comprise a same metal material. 7. the semiconductor device according to claim 6 , wherein the metal in the source electrode and the drain electrode is titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum. 8. the semiconductor device according to claim 6 , wherein a thickness of the region of the oxide semiconductor film is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 9. the semiconductor device according to claim 6 , wherein a thickness of each of the pair of metal oxide films is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 10. the semiconductor device according to claim 6 , further comprising an insulating film over the source electrode and the drain electrode, wherein the insulating film is in direct contact with the oxide semiconductor film. 11. a semiconductor device comprising: a gate electrode over a substrate; a gate insulating film over the gate electrode; an oxide semiconductor film comprising a first metal over the gate insulating film, the oxide semiconductor film overlapping the gate electrode; a first metal oxide film over the oxide semiconductor film; a second metal oxide film over the oxide semiconductor film; a source electrode over the first metal oxide film; and a drain electrode over the second metal oxide film; wherein each of the first metal oxide film, the second metal oxide film, the source electrode and the drain electrode comprises a second metal, wherein the oxide semiconductor film comprises a first portion, a second portion and a third portion between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the source electrode overlaps the first portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein the drain electrode overlaps the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein a first region of the oxide semiconductor film is in direct contact with the first metal oxide film, wherein a second region of the oxide semiconductor film is in direct contact with the second metal oxide film, and wherein a concentration of the first metal in the first region and the second region is higher than a concentration of the first metal in the third portion. 12. the semiconductor device according to claim 11 , wherein the second metal is titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum. 13. the semiconductor device according to claim 11 , wherein a thickness of each of the first region and the second region is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 14. the semiconductor device according to claim 11 , wherein a thickness of each of the first metal oxide film and the second metal oxide film is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 15. the semiconductor device according to claim 11 , further comprising an insulating film over the source electrode and the drain electrode, wherein the insulating film is in direct contact with the oxide semiconductor film. 16. the semiconductor device according to claim 11 , wherein the source electrode is in direct contact with the gate insulating film, and wherein the drain electrode is in direct contact with the gate insulating film. 17. a semiconductor device comprising: a gate electrode over a substrate; a gate insulating film over the gate electrode; an oxide semiconductor film comprising a first metal over the gate insulating film, the oxide semiconductor film overlapping the gate electrode; a first metal oxide film over the oxide semiconductor film; a second metal oxide film over the oxide semiconductor film; a source electrode over the first metal oxide film; and a drain electrode over the second metal oxide film; wherein each of the first metal oxide film, the second metal oxide film, the source electrode, and the drain electrode comprises a second metal, wherein the oxide semiconductor film comprises a first portion, a second portion and a third portion between the first portion and the second portion, wherein the source electrode overlaps the first portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein the drain electrode overlaps the second portion of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein a first region of the oxide semiconductor film is in direct contact with the first metal oxide film, wherein a second region of the oxide semiconductor film is in direct contact with the second metal oxide film, and wherein the first region and the second region have a higher indium concentration than the third portion. 18. the semiconductor device according to claim 17 , wherein the second metal is titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum. 19. the semiconductor device according to claim 17 , wherein a thickness of each of the first region and the second region is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 20. the semiconductor device according to claim 17 , wherein a thickness of each of the first metal oxide film and the second metal oxide film is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. 21. the semiconductor device according to claim 17 , further comprising an insulating film over the source electrode and the drain electrode, wherein the insulating film is in direct contact with the oxide semiconductor film. 22. the semiconductor device according to claim 17 , wherein the source electrode is in direct contact with the gate insulating film, and wherein the drain electrode is in direct contact with the gate insulating film.	technical field the present invention relates to a thin film transistor including an oxide semiconductor, a semiconductor device including the thin film transistor, and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device. background art a thin film transistor including a semiconductor film formed over an insulating surface is an essential semiconductor element for a semiconductor device. since there is limitation on manufacture of thin film transistors in terms of allowable temperature limit of a substrate, a transistor mainly used for a semiconductor display device is a thin film transistor including amorphous silicon that can be deposited at relatively low temperature, polysilicon that can be obtained by crystallization with use of laser light or a catalytic element, or the like in an active layer. in recent years, a metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics which is referred to as an oxide semiconductor has attracted attention as a novel semiconductor material which has both high mobility, which is a characteristic of polysilicon, and uniform element characteristics, which is a characteristic of amorphous silicon. the metal oxide is used for various applications; for example, indium oxide is a well-known metal oxide and used as a material of a transparent electrode included in a liquid crystal display device or the like. examples of such metal oxides having semiconductor characteristics include tungsten oxide, tin oxide, indium oxide, zinc oxide, and the like. a thin film transistor including such a metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics in a channel formation region has been known (patent documents 1 and 2). [reference] [patent document] [patent document 1] japanese published patent application no. 2007-123861[patent document 2] japanese published patent application no. 2007-096055 disclosure of invention an object of one embodiment of the present invention disclosed is to provide a thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics and a semiconductor device including the thin film transistor as a switching element. the inventors found that a region which is the closest to a source electrode and a drain electrode in an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film includes composite layers where the concentration of a metal is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers) in a thin film transistor including the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film as an active layer of the thin film transistor. the inventors also found that metal oxide films are formed between the source electrode and the composite layer, and between the drain electrode and the composite layer. fig. 2 shows a photograph of a cross section of a thin film transistor with a channel-etched structure in which the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film is used as an active layer of the thin film transistor. the photograph is taken with a high resolution transmission electron microscope (tem: “h9000-nar” manufactured by hitachi, ltd.). both figs. 3a and 3b show a high-magnification photograph (four-million-fold magnification) of the interface between an oxide semiconductor film and a titanium film which is in contact with the top of the oxide semiconductor film, by using the same sample as that for the photograph in fig. 2 . both of the photographs are taken with a scanning transmission electron microscope (stem: “hd-2700” manufactured by hitachi, ltd.) at an accelerating voltage of 200 kv. a photograph at point a in fig. 2 corresponds to fig. 3a , and a photograph at point b in fig. 2 corresponds to fig. 3b . specifically, fig. 3a is a photograph of the interface between the oxide semiconductor film and the titanium film, which is in contact with the top of the oxide semiconductor film, at a position where the oxide semiconductor film overlaps with a gate electrode. as can be seen from fig. 3a , there is an interface layer containing titanium oxide (tiox) between the titanium (ti) film and the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film (igzo). in addition, in the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film (igzo), a region which is the closest to the interface layer containing titanium oxide (tiox) includes an indium crystal, which can be seen as a grid shape. the layer containing indium that can be seen as a grid shape corresponds to a composite layer where the concentration of indium is higher than that in other regions (an in-rich layer). in a similar manner, fig. 3b is a photograph of the interface between the oxide semiconductor film and the titanium film, which is in contact with the top of the oxide semiconductor film, at a position where the oxide semiconductor film does not overlap with the gate electrode. in a manner similar to fig. 3a , as can be seen from fig. 3b , there is an interface layer containing titanium oxide (tiox) between the titanium (ti) film and the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film (igzo). in addition, in the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film (igzo), a region which is the closest to the interface layer containing titanium oxide (tiox) includes an in-rich layer. the inventors thought that the titanium oxide is formed in the following manner: oxygen in the oxide semiconductor film is taken out by titanium in the vicinity of the interface between the oxide semiconductor film and the titanium film; the concentration of in is increased in a region of the oxide semiconductor film which is close to the titanium film; and the oxygen which is taken out is reacted with titanium. because a region which is the closest to a source electrode and a drain electrode in an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film includes layers where the concentration of one or a plurality of indium, gallium, and zinc is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers), the metal-rich layers in the oxide semiconductor film have low resistance. in addition, the titanium oxide films (tiox) formed between the source electrode and the oxide semiconductor film and between the drain electrode and the oxide semiconductor film have n-type conductivity. therefore, with the above structure, contact resistance between the source electrode and the oxide semiconductor film and between the drain electrode and the oxide semiconductor film is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of the tft can be increased. it is possible to use as the oxide semiconductor, a four-component metal oxide such as an in—sn—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a three-component metal oxide such as an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—sn—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an al—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, and a sn—al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, or a two-component metal oxide such as an in—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, an al—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, a zn—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—mg—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—ga—o-based oxide semiconductor, an in—o-based oxide semiconductor, a sn—o-based oxide semiconductor, and a zn—o-based oxide semiconductor. note that in this specification, for example, an in—sn—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor means a metal oxide including indium (in), tin (sn), gallium (ga), and zinc (zn), and there is no particular limitation on the stoichiometric proportion. the above oxide semiconductor may contain silicon. moreover, oxide semiconductors can be represented by the chemical formula, inmo 3 (zno) m (m>0). here, m represents one or more metal elements selected from ga, al, mn, and co. a driver circuit and a pixel portion can be formed over one substrate by using a thin film transistor which is one embodiment of the present invention, and a semiconductor display device can be manufactured by using a display element such as an el element, a liquid crystal element, or an electrophoretic element. since a thin film transistor is easily broken due to static electricity or the like, a protective circuit for protecting the thin film transistor for the pixel portion is preferably provided over the same substrate for a gate line or a source line. the protective circuit is preferably formed using a nonlinear element in which an oxide semiconductor film is used. the thin film transistor which is one embodiment of the present invention may be a bottom-gate thin film transistor with a channel-etched structure, or may be a bottom-gate thin film transistor with a channel-protective structure. alternatively, the thin film transistor may be a bottom-contact thin film transistor. the bottom-gate transistor includes a gate electrode formed over an insulating surface, a gate insulating film over the gate electrode, an oxide semiconductor film which overlaps with the gate electrode over the gate insulating film and which includes composite layers where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions, a pair of metal oxide films formed over the oxide semiconductor film and in contact with the composite layers, and a source electrode and a drain electrode which are in contact with the metal oxide films. the metal oxide films are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode and the drain electrode. the bottom-contact transistor includes a gate electrode formed over an insulating surface, a gate insulating film over the gate electrode, a source electrode and a drain electrode over the gate insulating film, metal oxide films in contact with the source electrode and the drain electrode, and an oxide semiconductor film which overlaps with the gate electrode and which includes composite layers where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions. the composite layers are in contact with the metal oxide films. the metal oxide films are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode and the drain electrode. because a region which is the closest to a source electrode and the drain electrode in an oxide semiconductor film includes composite layers where the concentration of a metal is higher than that in other regions, and metal oxide films having n-type conductivity are formed between the source electrode and the oxide semiconductor film and between the drain electrode and the oxide semiconductor film, contact resistance between the source electrode and the oxide semiconductor film and between the drain electrode and the oxide semiconductor film is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of a tft can be increased. brief description of drawings figs. 1a and 1c illustrate cross-sectional views of a transistor, and fig. 1b illustrates a top view thereof. fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional tem photograph of a thin film transistor. figs. 3a and 3b show cross-sectional tem photographs in the vicinity of the interface between an oxide semiconductor film and a source electrode or between the oxide semiconductor film and a drain electrode in a thin film transistor. figs. 4a to 4c illustrate crystal structures of metals and oxygen in igzo. figs. 5a and 5b illustrate structural models of metal atoms and oxygen atoms in the vicinity of the interface between a tungsten film and an oxide semiconductor film. figs. 6a and 6b illustrate structural models of metal atoms and oxygen atoms in the vicinity of the interface between a molybdenum film and an oxide semiconductor film. figs. 7a and 7b illustrate structural models of metal atoms and oxygen atoms in the vicinity of the interface between a titanium film and an oxide semiconductor film. fig. 8 illustrates a crystal structure of titanium dioxide having a rutile structure. fig. 9 shows a state density of titanium dioxide having a rutile structure. fig. 10 shows a state density of titanium dioxide in an oxygen-deficiency state. fig. 11 shows a state density of a titanium monoxide. figs. 12a and 12c illustrate cross-sectional views of a transistor, and fig. 12b illustrates a top view thereof. figs. 13a and 13c illustrate cross-sectional views of a transistor, and fig. 13b illustrates a top view thereof. figs. 14a and 14b respectively illustrate a top view and a cross-sectional view of an electronic paper. figs. 15a and 15b illustrate block diagrams of semiconductor display devices. figs. 16a and 16b illustrate configuration of a signal line driver circuit and a timing chart thereof. figs. 17a and 17b are circuit diagrams showing a structure of a shift register. figs. 18a and 18b respectively show a circuit diagram and a timing chart of operation of a shift register. figs. 19a to 19c show a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. figs. 20a to 20c show the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. figs. 21a and 21b show the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. fig. 22 shows the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. fig. 23 shows the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. fig. 24 shows the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device. fig. 25 illustrates a cross-sectional view of a liquid crystal display device. figs. 26a to 26c illustrate cross-sectional views of light-emitting devices. fig. 27 illustrates a structure of a liquid crystal display device module. figs. 28a to 28e illustrate electronic devices each using a semiconductor display device. fig. 29 illustrates a band diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. best mode for carrying out the invention hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. however, the present invention is not limited to the following description and it is easily understood by those skilled in the art that modes and details can be variously changed without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. therefore, the invention should not be construed as being limited to the description of the embodiments below. the present invention can be applied to manufacture of any kind of semiconductor devices including microprocessors, integrated circuits such as image processing circuits, rf tags, and semiconductor display devices. the semiconductor display devices include the following in its category: liquid crystal display devices, light-emitting devices in which a light-emitting element typified by an organic light-emitting element (oled) is provided for each pixel, electronic papers, digital micromirror devices (dmds), plasma display panels (pdps), field emission displays (feds), and other semiconductor display devices in which a circuit element using a semiconductor film is included in a driver circuit. note that the semiconductor display devices include a panel in which a display element is sealed, and a module in which an ic and the like including a controller are mounted on the panel. the present invention further relates to one mode of an element substrate before the display element is completed in the manufacturing process of the semiconductor display device, and the element substrate is provided with a means for applying a current or a voltage to the display element in each of a plurality of pixels. specifically, the element substrate may be in a state in which only a pixel electrode of the display element is provided, a state after formation of a conductive film to be a pixel electrode and before etching of the conductive film to form the pixel electrode, or any other states. (embodiment 1) in this embodiment, described are results of computational science investigation on the phenomenon that a layer where the concentration of indium is higher than that in the other regions (an in-rich layer) and a titanium oxide film (tiox) are formed in the vicinity of the interface between a metal film used as a source electrode or a drain electrode and an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film of a thin film transistor with a channel-etched structure using the in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film as an active layer of the thin film transistor. first, energy that is needed for formation of an oxygen-deficiency state (deficiency formation energy e def ) in respective case of indium oxide, gallium oxide, and zinc oxide, which are contained in an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor, was calculated to investigate which metal oxide is likely to form the oxygen-deficiency state. note that the deficiency formation energy e def is defined as formula 1 below. a represents one of the following: indium; gallium; zinc; and indium, gallium, and zinc. note that e(o) represents half energy of an oxygen molecule, and e(a m o n-1 ) represents energy of an oxide a m o n-1 including oxygen deficiency. e def =e ( a m o n-1 )+ e ( o )− e ( a m o n ) (formula 1) relation between the concentration of deficiency n and the deficiency formation energy e def is approximately shown as formula 2 below. note that n represents the number of oxygen positions in the state where deficiency is not formed, k b represents boltzman constant, and t represents temperature. n=n ×exp(− e def /k b t ) (formula 2) for calculation, castep, which is a program for a density functional theory, was used. a plan wave basis pseudopotential method was used as a method for the density functional theory. ggapbe was used for a functional. the cut-off energy was 500 ev. the k-point sets for igzo, in 2 o 3 , ga 2 o 3 , and zno were grids of 3×3×1, 2×2×2, 2×3×2, and 4×4×1, respectively. a crystal structure of an igzo crystal was a structure of 84 atoms which was obtained by doubling a structure having a symmetry of r-3 (international number: 148) in both a-axis and b-axis direction, and by arranging ga and zn such that the energy becomes a minimum. crystal structures of in 2 o 3 , ga 2 o 3 , and zno are a bixbyite structure of 80 atoms, a β-gallia structure of 80 atoms, and an wurtzite structure of 80 atoms, respectively. from formula 2, it is found that as the deficiency formation energy e def is increased, the concentration of oxygen deficiency n, i.e., the amount of oxygen deficiency, is decreased. table 1 below shows values of deficiency formation energy e def in cases where a is indium; gallium; zinc; and indium, gallium, and zinc. note that the value of the deficiency formation energy e def of igzo (model 1) is a value of the deficiency formation energy e def of an oxygen atom adjacent to three indium atoms and one zinc atom in a crystal in the case where a is indium, gallium, and zinc. fig. 4a illustrates a structure of a portion which is formed by three indium atoms, one zinc atom, and an oxygen atom that is adjacent to these metal atoms in an igzo crystal. note also that the value of the deficiency formation energy e def of igzo (model 2) is a value of the deficiency formation energy e def of an oxygen atom adjacent to three indium atoms and one gallium atom in a crystal in the case where a is indium, gallium, and zinc. fig. 4b illustrates a structure of a portion which is formed by three indium atoms, one gallium atom, and an oxygen atom that is adjacent to these metal atoms in an igzo crystal. note also that the value of the deficiency formation energy e def of igzo (model 3) is a value of the deficiency formation energy e def of an oxygen atom adjacent to two zinc atoms and two gallium atoms in a crystal in the case where a is indium, gallium, and zinc. fig. 4c illustrates a structure of a portion which is formed by two zinc atoms, two gallium atoms, and an oxygen atom that is adjacent to these metal atoms in an igzo crystal. table 1compounde def (ev)in 2 o 33.06zno3.75igzo (model 1)3.73igzo (model 2)3.98igzo (model 3)4.08ga 2 o 34.18 as the value of deficiency formation energy e def becomes high, the energy needed for formation of an oxygen-deficiency state is increased, that is, a bond between oxygen and metal tends to be stronger. therefore, from the values of deficiency formation energy e def shown in table 1, it is found that indium has the weakest bond with oxygen and that oxygen is likely to be taken out in the vicinity of indium. the oxygen-deficiency state in an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is likely to be formed because oxygen is taken out from the oxide semiconductor by a metal used for a source electrode and a drain electrode. electrical conductivity of the oxide semiconductor is increased by formation of the oxygen-deficiency state; therefore, when oxygen is taken out in the above-described manner, electrical conductivity of an oxide semiconductor film in the vicinity of the interface between the oxide semiconductor film and a metal film is expected to be increased. next, in order to confirm whether or not oxygen is taken out from an oxide semiconductor by a metal, a quantum-mechanically stable structure model in the vicinity of the interface between an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film and a metal film was investigated by calculation using a quantum molecular dynamics (qmd) method. a structure for calculation was manufactured in the following manner. first, a unit cell including 84 atoms of in 12 ga 12 zn 12 o 48 was extracted from an amorphous in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor (a-igzo) that was formed by a classical molecular dynamics (cmd) method, and the structure was optimized by quantum molecular dynamics (qmd) and a first-principle structure optimization. by cutting the structure-optimized unit cell, a-igzo layers were obtained. over the a-igzo layers, metal layers having crystals of respective metal atoms (w, mo, and ti) were stacked. after that, the manufactured structures were optimized. each of these structures was used as a starting object, and calculation was performed by using the quantum molecular dynamics (qmd) method at 623.0 k. note that the lower end of each of the a-igzo layers and the top end of each of the metal layers were fixed so that only interaction at the interface could be estimated. calculation conditions for the classical molecular dynamics calculation are shown below. materials explorer was used as a calculation program. a-igzo was formed under the following conditions. in a calculation cell having a length of 1 nm on each side, 84 atoms in total (the ratio was in:ga:zn:o=1:1:1:4) were randomly arranged, and the density was set to 5.9 g/cm 3 . the temperature was gradually lowered from 5500 k to 1 k in the nvt ensemble. the total calculation time was 10 ns with time intervals of 0.1 fs. potentials between metal and oxygen, and between oxygen and oxygen were of a born-mayer-huggins type, and a potential between metal and metal was of an uff type. electrical charges of in, ga, zn, and o were +3, +3, +2, and −2, respectively. calculation conditions for the qmd calculation are shown below. a first principle calculation software, castep, was used as a calculation program. ggapbe was used for a functional, and an ultrasoft type was used for pseudopotential. the cut-off energy was 260 ev, and the k-point set was 1×1×1. the md calculation was performed in the nvt ensemble, and the temperature was 623 k. the total calculation time was 2.0 ps with time intervals of 1.0 fs. figs. 5a and 5b , figs. 6a and 6b , and figs. 7a and 7b are calculation results. in figs. 5a and 5b , figs. 6a and 6b , and figs. 7a and 7b , white circles represent any of metal atoms of w, mo, and ti, and black circles represent oxygen atoms. figs. 5a and 5b illustrate structural models in the case of using a metal layer of w. fig. 5a illustrates the structural model before calculation by the qmd method, and fig. 5b illustrates the structural model after the calculation by the qmd method. figs. 6a and 6b illustrate structural models in the case of using a metal layer of mo. fig. 6a illustrates the structural model before calculation by the qmd method, and fig. 6b illustrates the structural model after the calculation by the qmd method. figs. 7a and 7b illustrate structural models in the case of using a metal layer of ti. fig. 7a illustrates the structural model before calculation by the qmd method, and fig. 7b illustrates the structural model after the calculation by the qmd method. from fig. 6a and fig. 7a , it is found that oxygen already transfers to the metal layer at the time of structural optimization in the case of using mo and the case of using ti. from comparison among fig. 5b , fig. 6b , and fig. 7b , it is found that the largest amount of oxygen transfers in the case of using ti. it is considered that the most suitable material for an electrode which causes oxygen-deficiency in a-igzo is ti. oxygen that is taken out by titanium reacts with titanium, resulting in titanium oxide. then, investigation was conducted to see whether or not the titanium oxide film formed between the oxide semiconductor film and the titanium film has conductivity. titanium dioxide can have some types of crystal structures such as a rutile structure (a tetragonal system obtained at high temperature), an anatase structure (a tetragonal system obtained at low temperature), and a brookite structure (an orthorhombic system). since the anatase structure and the brookite structure turn into the rutile structure, which is the most stable structure, by being heated, the titanium oxide was assumed to have the rutile structure. a crystal structure of titanium oxide having the rutile structure is shown in fig. 8 . the rutile structure is a tetragonal system, and the space group of crystal symmetry is p4 2 /mnm. calculation for obtaining state density of the titanium dioxide structure was performed by using a density functional theory using a ggapbe functional. while symmetry was maintained, the structure including the cell structure was optimized and the state density was calculated. for calculation of a density functional, a plane wave pseudopotential method in a castep code was used. the cut-off energy was 380 ev. fig. 9 shows the state density of titanium dioxide having the rutile structure. from fig. 9 , it is found that titanium dioxide having the rutile structure has a band gap, and that it has state density similar to that of an insulator or a semiconductor. note that in the density functional theory, the band gap tends to be estimated small; therefore, the actual band gap of titanium dioxide is approximately 3.0 ev, which is larger than the band gap shown in the state density of fig. 9 . next, fig. 10 shows the state density of titanium dioxide having the rutile structure including oxygen deficiency. specifically, titanium oxide having 24 ti atoms and 47 o atoms, which was obtained by removing one o atom from titanium oxide having 24 ti atoms and 48 o atoms, was used as a model for calculation. from the state density of fig. 10 , it is found that the fermi level moves above the band gap; therefore, in the case where oxygen deficiency is formed, titanium dioxide has n-type conductivity. next, fig. 11 shows the state density of titanium monoxide (tio). from fig. 11 , it is found that titanium monoxide has a state density that is similar to that of a metal. therefore, from the state density of titanium dioxide in fig. 9 , the state density of titanium dioxide including oxygen deficiency in fig. 10 , and the state density of titanium monoxide in fig. 11 , it is expected that titanium dioxide including oxygen deficiency (tio 2-δ ) has n-type conductivity when 0<δ<1. therefore, even in the case where a titanium oxide film contains any of titanium dioxide, titanium monoxide, and titanium dioxide including oxygen deficiency as a component, the titanium oxide film is considered to be unlikely to inhibit current flow between an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor film and a titanium film. fig. 29 shows an energy band diagram between a source electrode and a drain electrode in a thin film transistor. note that in fig. 29 , an in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film (igzo) is used as an oxide semiconductor film, and tiox films are included between the oxide semiconductor film and the source electrode, and between the oxide semiconductor film and the drain electrode of the thin film transistor. note that the thickness of the tiox films is more than or equal to 0.1 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. the above oxide semiconductor film contains a large number of metal atoms (e.g., in, ga, and zn) and a pair of composite layers that are in contact with the above pair of tiox films. electron affinity of the in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film (igzo) in a region other than the composite layers, electron affinity of the tiox films, electron affinity of ti for the source electrode and the drain electrode, and electron affinity of the composite layers are 4.3 ev, 4.3 ev, 4.1 ev, and 4.5 ev, respectively. note that in fig. 29 , the positions of the bands change so that fermi levels of the substances are equal. when a gate voltage is not applied, since the number of carriers in igzo is small, the fermi level is near the center of the band gap. since the number of carriers in the tiox films and the composite layers are large, the position of the fermi level is close to the conduction band. therefore, in fig. 29 , the position of a conduction band of each substance differs from the above-described relative value of electron affinity. since there is almost no difference between the electron affinities of the composite layers as shown in fig. 29 , it is possible to realize a favorable connection structure between the oxide semiconductor film and the source electrode, and between the oxide semiconductor film and the drain electrode. (embodiment 2) in this embodiment, a structure of a thin film transistor which includes an oxide semiconductor film in a channel formation region is described by taking an example of a bottom-gate transistor with a channel-etched structure. fig. 1a illustrates a cross-sectional view of a thin film transistor 201 and fig. 1b illustrates a top view of the thin film transistor 201 illustrated in fig. 1a . note that a cross-sectional view taken along dashed line a 1 -a 2 in fig. 1b corresponds to fig. 1a . the thin film transistor 201 includes a gate electrode 203 formed over a substrate 202 having an insulating surface, a gate insulating film 204 over the gate electrode 203 , an oxide semiconductor film 205 which overlaps with the gate electrode 203 over the gate insulating film 204 and which includes composite layers 250 where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions, a pair of metal oxide films 251 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 205 and in contact with the composite layers 250 , and a source electrode 206 and a drain electrode 207 which are in contact with the metal oxide films 251 . further, the thin film transistor 201 may include as its component an oxide insulating film 208 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 205 . the metal oxide films 251 are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 . note that the thin film transistor 201 illustrated in figs. 1a to 1c has a channel-etched structure in which part of the oxide semiconductor film 205 is etched between the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 . an insulating film as a base film may be formed between the gate electrode 203 and the substrate 202 . the base film can be formed with a single layer or a stacked layer using one or more of insulating films which prevent diffusion of impurity elements from the substrate 202 , specifically, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, and a silicon oxynitride film. a material for the gate electrode 203 can be a single layer or a stacked layer using one or more of a metal material such as molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, neodymium, or scandium, or an alloy material which contains any of these metal materials as a main component, or a nitride of these metals. note that aluminum or copper can also be used as the above metal material as long as it can withstand a temperature of heat treatment performed in a later step. aluminum or copper is preferably used in combination with a refractory metal material in order to avoid problems with heat resistance and corrosion. as the refractory metal material, molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, neodymium, scandium, or the like can be used. for example, as a two-layer structure of the gate electrode 203 , it is preferable to stack a titanium nitride film and a molybdenum film. as a three-layer structure, it is preferable to stack a tungsten film or a tungsten nitride film, an alloy film of aluminum and silicon or an alloy film of aluminum and titanium, and a titanium nitride film or a titanium film. further, by using a light-transmitting oxide conductive film of indium oxide, an indium oxide-tin oxide alloy, an indium oxide-zinc oxide alloy, zinc oxide, zinc aluminum oxide, zinc aluminum oxynitride, zinc gallium oxide, or the like, the aperture ratio of a pixel portion can be increased. in this specification, oxynitride refers to a substance which contains more oxygen than nitrogen, and nitride oxide refers to a substance which contains more nitrogen than oxygen. the thickness of the gate electrode 203 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film with a thickness of 100 nm for the gate electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a tungsten target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the gate electrode 203 is formed. the gate insulating film 204 can be formed with a single layer of a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxynitride film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or a tantalum oxide film or a stacked layer thereof by a plasma cvd method, a sputtering method, or the like. in this embodiment, a silicon oxynitride film with a thickness of 100 nm is used as the gate insulating film 204 . after the oxide semiconductor film is formed by a sputtering method using an oxide semiconductor as a target, the oxide semiconductor film is processed into a desired shape by etching or the like, so that the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 is formed. the oxide semiconductor film can be formed by a sputtering method under a rare gas (for example, argon) atmosphere, an oxygen atmosphere, or a mixed atmosphere including a rare gas and oxygen. the thickness of the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 is more than or equal to 10 nm and less than or equal to 300 nm, preferably, more than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 100 nm. as the oxide semiconductor film 205 , the oxide semiconductor described above can be used. in this embodiment, as the oxide semiconductor film 205 , an in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film with a thickness of 50 nm, which is obtained by a sputtering method using an oxide semiconductor target including indium (in), gallium (ga), and zinc (zn) (in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:1), is used. after a conductive film for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 , the conductive film is patterned by etching or the like, so that the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 are formed. when the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 are formed by the patterning, an exposed portion of the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 is partly etched in some cases. in this case, in the oxide semiconductor film 205 , the thickness of a region between the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 becomes smaller than the thickness of regions which overlap with the source electrode 206 or the drain electrode 207 , as illustrated in fig. 1a . as a material of a conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, for example, an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like can be used. in a semiconductor device of one embodiment of the present invention, in the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 , at least a portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 may be formed using an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like. therefore, in the case where the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 each having a structure in which a plurality of metal films are stacked, a metal film that is in contact with the oxide semiconductor film 205 may be formed using titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum, and the other metal films can be formed using any of the following examples: an element selected from aluminum, chromium, tantalum, titanium, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, tungsten, zirconium, beryllium, and yttrium; an alloy containing one or more of the above elements as a component; a nitride containing the above element as a component; or the like. for example, by using a conductive film having a stacked structure of a titanium film, an aluminum alloy film containing neodymium, and a titanium film, and by using the titanium film in the portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 , the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 can have a low resistance and high heat resistance in the aluminum alloy film containing neodymium. note that in the case where heat treatment is performed after the formation of the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, the conductive film preferably has heat resistance enough to withstand the heat treatment. in the case of performing heat treatment after the formation of the conductive film, the conductive film is formed in combination with the heat-resistant conductive material because aluminum alone has problems of low heat resistance, being easily corroded, and the like. as the heat-resistant conductive material which is combined with aluminum, the following material is preferably used: an element selected from titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, neodymium, and scandium; an alloy containing one or more of these elements as a component; a nitride containing any of these elements as a component; or the like. the thickness of the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a titanium target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 are formed. by forming the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 having the above structure, oxygen in the region of the oxide semiconductor film 205 which is the closest to the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 is taken out, so that the composite layers 250 where the concentration of a metal contained in the oxide semiconductor film 205 is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers) are formed in the oxide semiconductor film 205 . the oxygen that is taken out reacts with the metal in the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 , so that the metal oxide films 251 are formed between the metal-rich composite layer 250 and the source electrode 206 , and between the metal-rich composite layer 250 and the drain electrode 207 . the thickness of the metal-rich composite layers 250 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm, and the thickness of the metal oxide films 251 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. for example, in the case where an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is used for the oxide semiconductor film 205 , the composite layers 250 where the concentration of indium is higher than that in other regions (in-rich layers) exist in regions of the oxide semiconductor film 205 which are the closest to the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 , so that resistance of the in-rich composite layers 250 in the oxide semiconductor film 205 becomes lower. in the case where titanium is used for the source electrode 206 and the drain electrode 207 , the metal oxide films 251 formed between the source electrode 206 and the oxide semiconductor film 205 and between the drain electrode 207 and the oxide semiconductor film 205 contain titanium oxide (tiox) and have n-type conductivity. therefore, with the above structure, contact resistance between the source electrode 206 and the oxide semiconductor film 205 and between the drain electrode 207 and the oxide semiconductor film 205 is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of a tft can be increased. the oxide insulating film 208 is formed to be in contact with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 , the source electrode 206 , and the drain electrode 207 by a sputtering method. the oxide insulating film 208 in contact with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 205 is preferably formed using an inorganic insulating film which contains as few impurities, e.g., moisture, hydrogen, and a hydroxy group, as possible and blocks entry of these impurities from the outside, such as a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or an aluminum oxynitride film. in this embodiment, a silicon oxide film with a thickness of 300 nm is preferably formed as the oxide insulating film 208 . when the oxide insulating film 208 is formed in contact with the oxide semiconductor film 205 by a sputtering method, a pcvd method, or the like, oxygen is supplied to at least a region of the oxide semiconductor film 205 which is in contact with the oxide insulating film 208 , and resistance becomes higher because the carrier concentration becomes low, preferably to a value of less than 1×10 18 /cm 3 ; as a result, a high-resistance oxide semiconductor region is formed. by forming the oxide insulating film 208 , the oxide semiconductor film 205 has a high-resistance oxide semiconductor region in vicinity of an interface between the oxide semiconductor film 205 and the oxide insulating film 208 . note that as illustrated in fig. 1c , the thin film transistor 201 may further include a conductive film 209 over the oxide insulating film 208 . a material or stacked layer structure similar to that for the gate electrode 203 can be used for the conductive film 209 . the thickness of the conductive film 209 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. a resist mask is formed by a photolithography method and a conductive film is processed (patterned) to have a desired shape. the conductive film 209 is formed so as to overlap with a channel formation region in the oxide semiconductor film 205 . the conductive film 209 may be in a floating state, that is, electrically insulated, or may be in a state in which a potential is given. in the latter case, a potential having the same level as the gate electrode 203 or a fixed potential such as a ground potential may be given to the conductive film 209 . by controlling the level of a potential given to the conductive film 209 , the threshold voltage of the thin film transistor 201 can be controlled. further, in the case of forming the conductive film 209 , an insulating film 210 is formed so as to cover the conductive film 209 . the insulating film 210 is formed using an inorganic insulating film which contains as few impurities, e.g., moisture, hydrogen, and a hydroxy group, as possible and blocks entry of these impurities from the outside, such as a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or an aluminum oxynitride film. a thin film transistor using an oxide semiconductor has high mobility compared to a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon, and uniform element characteristics similar to those of a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon. accordingly, an oxide semiconductor can be used for not only a pixel portion but also a semiconductor element which forms a driver circuit with higher driving frequency than the pixel portion. a system-on-panel can be realized without a process of crystallization or the like. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with the above embodiment. (embodiment 3) in this embodiment, a structure of a bottom-contact thin film transistor which is different from that of the thin film transistor 201 illustrated in embodiment 2 is described. for the same portions as those in embodiment 2 or portions having functions similar to those in embodiment 2, embodiment 2 can be referred to, and repetitive description thereof is omitted. fig. 12a illustrates a cross-sectional view of a thin film transistor 211 , and fig. 12b illustrates a top view of the thin film transistor 211 illustrated in fig. 12a . note that a cross-sectional view taken along dashed line b 1 -b 2 in fig. 12b corresponds to fig. 12a . the thin film transistor 211 includes a gate electrode 213 formed over a substrate 212 having an insulating surface, a gate insulating film 214 over the gate electrode 213 , a source electrode 216 or a drain electrode 217 over the gate insulating film 214 , metal oxide films 261 in contact with the source electrode 216 or the drain electrode 217 , and an oxide semiconductor film 215 which overlaps with the gate electrode 213 and which includes composite layers 260 where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions. the composite layers 260 are in contact with the metal oxide films 261 . further, the thin film transistor 211 may include as its component an oxide insulating film 218 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 215 . the metal oxide films 261 are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 . an insulating film as a base film may be provided between the gate electrode 213 and the substrate 212 . the base film can be formed using a material and a stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2. in addition, the gate electrode 213 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2. the thickness of the gate electrode 213 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film with a thickness of 100 nm for the gate electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a tungsten target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the gate electrode 213 is formed. the gate insulating film 214 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2, and the manufacturing method shown in embodiment 2. in this embodiment, a silicon oxynitride film with a thickness of 100 nm is used as the gate insulating film 204 . after a conductive film for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed over the gate insulating film 214 , the conductive film is patterned by etching or the like, so that the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 are formed. as a material of a conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, for example, an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like can be used. in a semiconductor device of one embodiment of the present invention, in the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 , at least a portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 215 to be formed later may be formed using an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like. therefore, in the case where the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 each having a structure in which a plurality of metal films are stacked, a metal film that is in contact with the oxide semiconductor film 215 may be formed using titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum, and the other metal films can be formed using any of the following examples: an element selected from aluminum, chromium, tantalum, titanium, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, tungsten, zirconium, beryllium, and yttrium; an alloy containing one or more of the above elements as a component; a nitride containing the above element as a component; or the like. for example, by using a conductive film having a stacked structure of a titanium film, an aluminum alloy film containing neodymium, and a titanium film, and by using the titanium film in the portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 215 , the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 can have a low resistance and high heat resistance in the aluminum alloy film containing neodymium. note that in the case where heat treatment is performed after the formation of the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, the conductive film preferably has heat resistance enough to withstand the heat treatment. in the case of performing heat treatment after the formation of the conductive film, the conductive film is formed in combination with the heat-resistant conductive material because aluminum alone has problems of low heat resistance, being easily corroded, and the like. as the heat-resistant conductive material which is combined with aluminum, the following material is preferably used: an element selected from titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, neodymium, and scandium; an alloy containing one or more of these elements as a component; a nitride containing any of these elements as a component; or the like. the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 of a bottom-contact thin film transistor are preferably thinner than those of the bottom-gate transistor illustrated in embodiment 2 in order to prevent breakage of the oxide semiconductor film 215 formed later. specifically, the thicknesses of the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 are 10 nm to 200 nm, preferably 50 nm to 75 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a titanium target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) to have a desired shape by etching, so that the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 are formed. the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 215 can be formed using a material similar to that in embodiment 2 and the manufacturing method shown in embodiment 2, so as to be in contact with the gate insulating film 214 in a position overlapping with the gate electrode 213 over the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 . in this embodiment, as the oxide semiconductor film 215 , an in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film with a thickness of 50 nm, which is obtained by a sputtering method using an oxide semiconductor target including indium (in), gallium (ga), and zinc (zn) (in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:1), is used. by forming the oxide semiconductor film 215 having the above structure over the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 , oxygen in the region of the oxide semiconductor film 215 which is the closest to the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 is taken out, so that the composite layers 260 where the concentration of a metal contained in the oxide semiconductor film 215 is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers) are formed in the oxide semiconductor film 215 . the oxygen that is taken out reacts with the metal in the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 , so that the metal oxide films 261 are formed between the metal-rich composite layer 260 and the source electrode 216 , and between the metal-rich composite layer 260 and the drain electrode 217 . the thickness of the metal-rich composite layers 260 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm, and the thickness of the metal oxide films 261 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. for example, in the case where an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is used for the oxide semiconductor film 215 , the composite layers 260 where the concentration of indium is higher than that in other regions (in-rich layers) exist in regions of the oxide semiconductor film 215 which are the closest to the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 , so that resistance of the in-rich composite layers 260 in the oxide semiconductor film 215 becomes lower. in the case where titanium is used for the source electrode 216 and the drain electrode 217 , the metal oxide films 261 formed between the source electrode 216 and the oxide semiconductor film 215 , and between the drain electrode 217 and the oxide semiconductor film 215 contain titanium oxide (tiox) and have n-type conductivity. therefore, with the above structure, contact resistance between the source electrode 216 and the oxide semiconductor film 215 , and between the drain electrode 217 and the oxide semiconductor film 215 is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of a tft can be increased. the oxide insulating film 218 is formed to be in contact with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 215 by a sputtering method. the oxide insulating film 218 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2, and the manufacturing method shown in embodiment 2. in this embodiment, a silicon oxide film with a thickness of 300 nm is formed as the oxide insulating film 218 . note that as illustrated in fig. 12c , the thin film transistor 211 may further include a conductive film 219 over the oxide insulating film 218 . a material or stacked layer structure similar to that for the gate electrode 213 can be used for the conductive film 219 . the thickness of the conductive film 219 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. a resist mask is formed by a photolithography method and a conductive film is processed (patterned) to have a desired shape. the conductive film 219 is formed so as to overlap with a channel formation region in the oxide semiconductor film 215 . the conductive film 219 may be in a floating state, that is, electrically insulated, or may be in a state in which a potential is given. in the latter case, a potential having the same level as the gate electrode 213 or a fixed potential such as a ground potential may be given to the conductive film 219 . by controlling the level of a potential given to the conductive film 219 , the threshold voltage of the thin film transistor 211 can be controlled. further, in the case of forming the conductive film 219 , an insulating film 220 is formed so as to cover the conductive film 219 . the insulating film 220 is formed using an inorganic insulating film which contains as few impurities, e.g., moisture, hydrogen, and a hydroxy group, as possible and blocks entry of these impurities from the outside, such as a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or an aluminum oxynitride film. a thin film transistor using an oxide semiconductor has high mobility compared to a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon, and uniform element characteristics similar to those of a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon. accordingly, an oxide semiconductor can be used for not only a pixel portion but also a semiconductor element which forms a driver circuit with higher driving frequency than the pixel portion. a system-on-panel can be realized without a process of crystallization or the like. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments. (embodiment 4) in this embodiment, a structure of a bottom-gate thin film transistor with a channel-protective structure which is different from that of the thin film transistor 201 illustrated in embodiment 2 or the thin film transistor 211 illustrated in embodiment 3 is described. for the same portions as those in embodiment 2 or portions having functions similar to those in embodiment 2, embodiment 2 can be referred to, and repetitive description thereof is omitted. fig. 13a illustrates a cross-sectional view of a thin film transistor 221 , and fig. 13b illustrates a top view of the thin film transistor 221 illustrated in fig. 13a . note that a cross-sectional view taken along dashed line c 1 -c 2 in fig. 13b corresponds to fig. 13a . the thin film transistor 221 includes a gate electrode 223 formed over a substrate 222 having an insulating surface, a gate insulating film 224 over the gate electrode 223 , an oxide semiconductor film 225 which overlaps with the gate electrode 223 over the gate insulating film 224 and which includes composite layers 270 where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions, a pair of metal oxide films 271 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 225 and in contact with the composite layers 270 , a source electrode 226 and a drain electrode 227 which are in contact with the metal oxide films 271 , and a channel protective film 231 formed over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 in a position overlapping with the gate electrode 223 . further, the thin film transistor 221 may include as its component an oxide insulating film 228 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 225 . the metal oxide films 271 are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 . an insulating film as a base film may be provided between the gate electrode 223 and the substrate 222 . the base film can be formed using a material and a stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2. in addition, the gate electrode 223 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2. the thickness of the gate electrode 223 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film with a thickness of 100 nm for the gate electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a tungsten target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the gate electrode 223 is formed. the gate insulating film 224 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2, and the manufacturing method shown in embodiment 2. in this embodiment, a silicon oxynitride film with a thickness of 100 nm is used as the gate insulating film 224 . the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 can be formed by using the same material as in embodiment 2 and the method described in embodiment 2, over the gate insulating film 224 in a position which overlaps with the gate electrode 223 . in this embodiment, as the oxide semiconductor film 225 , an in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film with a thickness of 50 nm, which is obtained by a sputtering method using an oxide semiconductor target including indium (in), gallium (ga), and zinc (zn) (in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:1), is used. the channel protective film 231 is formed over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 in a position of the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 which overlaps with a portion to be a channel formation region, i.e., a position which overlaps with the gate electrode 223 . the channel protective film 231 can prevent the portion of the oxide semiconductor film 225 , which serves as a channel formation region later, from being damaged in a later step (for example, reduction in thickness due to plasma or an etchant in etching). therefore, reliability of the thin film transistor can be improved. the channel protective film 231 can be formed using an inorganic material that contains oxygen (e.g., silicon oxide, silicon nitride oxide, silicon oxynitride, aluminum oxide, or aluminum oxynitride). the channel protective film 231 can be formed by a vapor deposition method such as a plasma cvd method or a thermal cvd method, or a sputtering method. after the formation of the channel protective film 231 , the shape thereof is processed by etching. here, the channel protective film 231 is formed in such a manner that a silicon oxide film is formed by a sputtering method and processed by etching using a mask formed by photolithography. when the channel protective film 231 , which is an oxide insulating film, is formed to be in contact with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 by a sputtering method, a pcvd method, or the like, oxygen is supplied from the channel protective film 231 . carrier concentration at least in a region of the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 in contact with the channel protective film 231 is preferably lowered to less than 1×10 18 /cm 3 , more preferably equal to or less than 1×10 14 /cm 3 , and resistance becomes higher, resulting in a high-resistance oxide semiconductor region. by formation of the channel protective film 231 , the oxide semiconductor film 225 can have the high-resistance oxide semiconductor region in the vicinity of the interface between the oxide semiconductor film 225 and the channel protective film 231 . after a conductive film for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 and the channel protective film 231 , the conductive film is patterned by etching or the like, so that the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 are formed. as a material of a conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, for example, an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like can be used. in a semiconductor device of one embodiment of the present invention, in the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 , at least a portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 may be formed using an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like. therefore, in the case where the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 each having a structure in which a plurality of metal films are stacked, a metal film that is in contact with the oxide semiconductor film 225 may be formed using titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum, and the other metal films can be formed using any of the following examples: an element selected from aluminum, chromium, tantalum, titanium, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, tungsten, zirconium, beryllium, and yttrium; an alloy containing one or more of the above elements as a component; a nitride containing the above element as a component; or the like. for example, by using a conductive film having a stacked structure of a titanium film, an aluminum alloy film containing neodymium, and a titanium film, and by using the titanium film in the portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 225 , the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 can have a low resistance and high heat resistance in the aluminum alloy film containing neodymium. note that in the case where heat treatment is performed after the formation of the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode, the conductive film preferably has heat resistance enough to withstand the heat treatment. in the case of performing heat treatment after the formation of the conductive film, the conductive film is formed in combination with the heat-resistant conductive material because aluminum alone has problems of low heat resistance, being easily corroded, and the like. as the heat-resistant conductive material which is combined with aluminum, the following material is preferably used: an element selected from titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, neodymium, and scandium; an alloy containing one or more of these elements as a component; a nitride containing any of these elements as a component; or the like. the thickness of the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after the conductive film for the source electrode and the drain electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a titanium target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 are formed. by forming the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 having the above structure, oxygen in the region of the oxide semiconductor film 225 which is the closest to the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 is taken out, so that the composite layers 270 where the concentration of a metal contained in the oxide semiconductor film 225 is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers) are formed in the oxide semiconductor film 225 . the oxygen that is taken out reacts with the metal in the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 , so that the metal oxide films 271 are formed between the metal-rich composite layer 270 and the source electrode 226 , and between the metal-rich composite layer 270 and the drain electrode 227 . the thickness of the metal-rich composite layers 270 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm, and the thickness of the metal oxide films 271 is more than or equal to 2 nm and less than or equal to 10 nm. for example, in the case where an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is used for the oxide semiconductor film 225 , the composite layers 270 where the concentration of indium is higher than that in other regions (in-rich layers) exist in regions of the oxide semiconductor film 225 which are the closest to the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 , so that resistance of the in-rich composite layers 270 in the oxide semiconductor film 225 becomes lower. in the case where titanium is used for the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 , the metal oxide films 271 formed between the source electrode 226 and the oxide semiconductor film 225 , and between the drain electrode 227 and the oxide semiconductor film 225 contain titanium oxide (tiox) and have n-type conductivity. therefore, with the above structure, contact resistance between the source electrode 226 and the oxide semiconductor film 225 , and between the drain electrode 227 and the oxide semiconductor film 225 is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of a tft can be increased. the oxide insulating film 228 is formed to be in contact with the source electrode 226 and the drain electrode 227 by a sputtering method. the oxide insulating film 228 can be formed using the material and stacked layer structure similar to those in embodiment 2, and the manufacturing method shown in embodiment 2. note that when the channel protective film 231 is formed, the oxide insulating film 228 is not necessarily formed. note that as illustrated in fig. 13c , the thin film transistor 221 may further include a conductive film 229 over the oxide insulating film 228 . a material or stacked layer structure similar to that for the gate electrode 223 can be used for the conductive film 229 . the thickness of the conductive film 229 is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. a resist mask is formed by a photolithography method and a conductive film is processed (patterned) to have a desired shape. the conductive film 229 is formed so as to overlap with a channel formation region in the oxide semiconductor film 225 . the conductive film 229 may be in a floating state, that is, electrically insulated, or may be in a state in which a potential is given. in the latter case, a potential having the same level as the gate electrode 223 or a fixed potential such as a ground potential may be given to the conductive film 229 . by controlling the level of a potential given to the conductive film 229 , the threshold voltage of the thin film transistor 221 can be controlled. further, in the case of forming the conductive film 229 , an insulating film 230 is formed so as to cover the conductive film 229 . the insulating film 230 is formed using an inorganic insulating film which contains as few impurities, e.g., moisture, hydrogen, and a hydroxy group, as possible and blocks entry of these impurities from the outside, such as a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or an aluminum oxynitride film. a thin film transistor using an oxide semiconductor has high mobility compared to a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon, and uniform element characteristics similar to those of a thin film transistor using amorphous silicon. accordingly, an oxide semiconductor can be used for not only a pixel portion but also a semiconductor element which forms a driver circuit with higher driving frequency than the pixel portion. a system-on-panel can be realized without a process of crystallization or the like. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments. (embodiment 5) in this embodiment, a structure of a semiconductor display device referred to as an electronic paper or a digital paper, which is a semiconductor display device of the present invention, is described. a display element which can control a grayscale by voltage application and has a memory property is used for the electronic paper. specifically, in the display element used for the electric paper, a display element such as a non-aqueous electrophoretic display element; a display element which uses a pdlc (polymer dispersed liquid crystal) method, in which liquid crystal droplets are dispersed in a high polymer material which is between two electrodes; a display element which includes chiral nematic liquid crystal or cholesteric liquid crystal between two electrodes; a display element which includes charged fine particles between two electrodes and employs a particle-moving method in which the charged fine particles are moved through fine particles by using an electric field; or the like can be used. further, a non-aqueous electrophoretic display element may be a display element in which a dispersion liquid in which charged fine particles are dispersed is interposed between two electrodes; a display element in which a dispersion liquid in which charged fine particles are dispersed is included over two electrodes between which an insulating film is interposed; a display element in which twisting balls having hemispheres which are different colors which charge differently are dispersed in a solvent between two electrodes; a display element which includes microcapsules in which a plurality of charged fine particles are dispersed in a solution, between two electrodes; or the like. fig. 14a illustrates a top view of a pixel portion 700 , a signal line driver circuit 701 , and a scan line driver circuit 702 of an electronic paper. the pixel portion 700 includes a plurality of pixels 703 . further, a plurality of signal lines 707 are led into the pixel portion 700 from the signal line driver circuit 701 . a plurality of scan lines 708 are led into the pixel portion 700 from the scan line driver circuit 702 . each of the pixels 703 includes a transistor 704 , a display element 705 , and a storage capacitor 706 . a gate electrode of the transistor 704 is connected to one of the scan lines 708 . further, one of a source electrode and a drain electrode of the transistor 704 is connected to one of the signal lines 707 and the other of the source electrode and the drain electrode of the transistor 704 is connected to a pixel electrode of the display element 705 . note that in fig. 14a , the storage capacitor 706 is connected in parallel to the display element 705 so that a voltage applied between the pixel electrode and a counter electrode of the display element 705 is stored; however, in the case where the memory property of the display element 705 is so high that display can be maintained, the storage capacitor 706 is not necessarily provided. note that although a structure of an active matrix pixel portion in which one transistor which serves as a switching element is provided in each pixel is described in fig. 14a , the electric paper which is one embodiment of the invention is not limited to this structure. a plurality of transistors may be provided in each pixel. further, in addition to transistors, elements such as capacitors, resistors, coils, or the like may also be connected. an electronic paper of an electrophoretic system including microcapsules is given as one example. fig. 14b illustrates a cross-sectional view of the display element 705 provided for each of the pixels 703 . the display element 705 includes a pixel electrode 710 , a counter electrode 711 , and microcapsules 712 to which a voltage is applied by the pixel electrode 710 and the counter electrode 711 . either the source electrode or the drain electrode 713 of a transistor 704 is connected to the pixel electrode 710 . in the microcapsules 712 , positively charged white pigment such as titanium oxide and negatively charged black pigment such as carbon black are sealed together with a dispersion medium such as oil. a voltage is applied between the pixel electrode and the counter electrode in accordance with the voltage of a video signal applied to the pixel electrode 710 , and black pigment and white pigment are drawn to a positive electrode side and a negative electrode side, respectively. thus, the grayscale can be displayed. further, in fig. 14b , the microcapsules 712 are fixed by light-transmitting resin 714 between the pixel electrode 710 and the counter electrode 711 . however, the present invention is not limited to this structure. a space formed by the microcapsules 712 , the pixel electrode 710 , and the counter electrode 711 may be filled with gas such as inert gas or air. note that in this case, the microcapsules 712 is preferably fixed to both or either the pixel electrode 710 and/or the counter electrode 711 by an adhesive or the like. in addition, the number of the microcapsules 712 included in the display element 705 is not necessarily plural as in fig. 14b . one display element 705 may include a plurality of microcapsules 712 or a plurality of display elements 705 may include one microcapsule 712 . for example, two display elements 705 share one microcapsule 712 , and a positive voltage and a negative voltage are applied to the pixel electrode 710 included in one of the display elements 705 and the pixel electrode 710 included in the other of the display elements 705 , respectively. in this case, in the microcapsule 712 in a region overlapping with the pixel electrode 710 to which a positive voltage is applied, black pigment is drawn to the pixel electrode 710 side and white pigment is drawn to the counter electrode 711 side. in contrast, in the microcapsule 712 in a region overlapping with the pixel electrode 710 to which a negative voltage is applied, white pigment is drawn to the pixel electrode 710 side and black pigment is drawn to the counter electrode 711 side. next, a specific driving method of an electronic paper is described by taking an example of the above electronic paper of the electrophoretic system. operation of the electronic paper in an initialization period, a writing period, and a holding period can be separately described. first, in the initialization period before a display image is switched, the grayscale levels of each of the pixels in a pixel portion are temporarily set to be equal in order to initialize display elements. initialization of the gray scale level prevents an afterimage. specifically, in an electrophoretic system, displayed grayscale level is adjusted by the microcapsule 712 included in the display element 705 such that the display of each pixel is white or black. in this embodiment, an operation of initialization in the case where after an initialization video signal for displaying black is inputted to a pixel, an initialization video signal for displaying white is inputted to a pixel is described. for example, when the electronic paper of an electrophoretic system in which display of an image is performed toward the counter electrode 711 side, a voltage is applied to the display element 705 such that black pigment in the microcapsule 712 moves to the counter electrode 711 side and white pigment in the microcapsule 712 moves to the pixel electrode 710 side. next, a voltage is applied to the display element 705 such that white pigment in the microcapsule 712 moves to the counter electrode 711 side and black pigment in the microcapsule 712 moves to the pixel electrode 710 side. further, depending on the grayscale level displayed before the initialization period, only one-time input of an initialization video signal to the pixel could possibly stop the move of white pigment and black pigment in the microcapsule 712 and cause a difference between displayed grayscale levels of pixels even after the initialization period ends. therefore, it is preferable that a negative voltage −vp with respect to a common voltage vcom be applied to the pixel electrode 710 a plurality of times so that black is displayed and a positive voltage vp with respect to the common voltage vcom be applied to the pixel electrode 710 a plurality of times so that white is displayed. note that when grayscale levels displayed before the initialization period differ depending on display elements of each of the pixels, the minimum number of times for inputting an initialization video signal also varies. accordingly, the number of times for inputting an initialization video signal may be changed between pixels in accordance with a grayscale level displayed before the initialization period. in this case, the common voltage vcom is preferably inputted to a pixel to which the initialization video signal is not necessarily inputted. note that in order for the voltage vp or the voltage −vp which is an initialization video signal to be applied to the pixel electrode 710 a plurality of times, the following operation sequence is performed a plurality of times: the initialization video signal is inputted to a pixel of a line including the scan line in a period during which a pulse of a selection signal is supplied to each scan line. the voltage vp or the voltage −vp of an initialization video signal is applied to the pixel electrode 710 a plurality of times, whereby movement of white pigment and black pigment in the microcapsule 712 converges in order to prevent generation of a difference of grayscale levels between pixels. thus, initialization of a pixel in the pixel portion can be performed. note that in each pixel in the initialization period, the case where black is displayed after white as well as the case where white is displayed after black is acceptable. alternatively, in each pixel in the initialization period, the case where black is displayed after white is displayed; and further, after that white is displayed is also acceptable. further, as for all of the pixels in the pixel portion, timing of starting the initialization period is not necessarily the same. for example, timing of starting the initialization period may be different for every pixel, or every pixel belonging to the same line, or the like. next in the writing period, a video signal having image data is inputted to the pixel. in the case where an image is displayed on the entire pixel portion, in one frame period, a selection signal in which a pulse of voltage is shifted is sequentially inputted to all of the scan lines. then, in one line period in which a pulse appears in a selection signal, a video signal having image data is inputted to all of the signal line. white pigment and black pigment in the microcapsule 712 are moved to the pixel electrode 710 side and the counter electrode 711 in accordance with the voltage of the video signal applied to the pixel electrode 710 , so that the display element 705 displays a grayscale. note that also in the writing period, the voltage of a video signal is preferably applied to the pixel electrode 710 a plurality of times as in the initialization period. accordingly, the following operation sequence is performed a plurality of times: the video signal is inputted to a pixel of a line including the scan line in a period during which a pulse of a selection signal is supplied to each scan line. next, in the holding period, after the common voltage vcom is inputted to all of the pixels through signal lines, a selection signal is not inputted to a scan line, or a video signal is not inputted to a signal line. accordingly, the positions of white pigment and black pigment in the microcapsule 712 included in the display element 705 is maintained unless a positive or negative voltage is applied between the pixel electrode 710 and the counter electrode 711 , so that the grayscale level displayed on the display element 705 is held. therefore, an image written in the writing period is maintained even in the holding period. note that a voltage needed for changing gray scales of the display element used for an electric paper tends to be higher than that of a liquid crystal element used for a liquid crystal display device or that of a light-emitting element such as an organic light-emitting element used for a light-emitting device. therefore, the potential difference between the source electrode and the drain electrode of the transistor 704 of a pixel serving for a switching element in a writing period is large; as a result, off-current is increased, and disturbance of display is likely to occur due to fluctuation of potentials of the pixel electrode 710 . in order to prevent fluctuation of potentials of the pixel electrode 710 caused by the off-current of the transistor 704 , it is effective to increase capacitance of the storage capacitor 706 . in addition, noise of display by the display element 705 can occur in some cases by not only a voltage between the pixel electrode 710 and the counter electrode 711 , but also a voltage generated between the signal line 707 and the counter electrode 711 being applied to microcapsules 712 . in order to prevent the noise, it is effective to secure a large area of the pixel electrode 710 and prevent the voltage generated between the signal line 707 and the counter electrode 711 from being applied to the microcapsules 712 . however, as described above, when capacitance of the storage capacitor 706 is increased in order to prevent fluctuations of potentials of the pixel electrode 710 , or when the area of the pixel electrode 710 is increased in order to prevent the noise of display, the value of current to be supplied to a pixel in a wiring period becomes high, resulting in a longer time for input of a video signal. in an electric paper of one embodiment of the present invention, since the transistor 704 used for a pixel as a switching element has high field effect mobility, a high on-current can be obtained. as a result, even when the capacitance of the storage capacitor 706 is increased, or even when the area of the pixel electrode 710 is increased, a video signal can be rapidly input to a pixel. therefore, the length of the writing time can be suppressed, and displayed images can be smoothly switched. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments. (embodiment 6) fig. 15a is an example of a block diagram of an active matrix semiconductor display device. over a substrate 5300 in the display device, a pixel portion 5301 , a first scan line driver circuit 5302 , a second scan line driver circuit 5303 , and a signal line driver circuit 5304 are provided. in the pixel portion 5301 , a plurality of signal lines extended from the signal line driver circuit 5304 is arranged and a plurality of scan lines extended from the first scan line driver circuit 5302 and the second scan line driver circuit 5303 is arranged. note that pixels which include display elements are provided in a matrix in respective regions where the scan lines and the signal lines intersect with each other. further, the substrate 5300 in the display device is connected to a timing control circuit 5305 (also referred to as a controller or a controller ic) through a connection portion such as a flexible printed circuit (fpc). in fig. 15a , the first scan line driver circuit 5302 , the second scan line driver circuit 5303 , and the signal line driver circuit 5304 are provided over the same substrate 5300 as the pixel portion 5301 . therefore, since the number of components provided outside such as a driver circuit is reduced, it is possible not only to downsize the display device but also to reduce cost due to decrease in the number of assembly steps and inspection steps. further, if the driver circuit is provided outside the substrate 5300 , wirings would need to be extended and the number of connections of wirings would be increased, but by providing the driver circuit over the substrate 5300 , the number of connections of the wirings can be reduced. therefore, decrease in yield due to defective connection of the driver circuit and the pixel portion can be prevented, and decrease in reliability due to low mechanical strength at a connection portion can be prevented. note that as an example, the timing control circuit 5305 supplies a first scan line driver circuit start signal (gsp 1 ) and a scan line driver circuit clock signal (gck 1 ) to the first scan line driver circuit 5302 . moreover, as an example, the timing control circuit 5305 supplies a second scan line driver circuit start signal (gsp 2 ) (also referred to as a start pulse) and a scan line driver circuit clock signal (gck 2 ) to the second scan line driver circuit 5303 . the timing control circuit 5305 supplies a signal line driver circuit start signal (ssp), a signal line driver circuit clock signal (sck), video signal data (data) (also simply referred to as a video signal) and a latch signal (lat) to the signal line driver circuit 5304 . note that each clock signal may be a plurality of clock signals whose periods are different or may be supplied together with an inverted clock signal (ckb). either the first scan line driver circuit 5302 or the second scan line driver circuit 5303 can be omitted. in fig. 15b , a circuit with a low drive frequency (e.g., the first scan line driver circuit 5302 and the second scan line driver circuit 5303 ) is formed over the same substrate 5300 as the pixel portion 5301 , and the signal line driver circuit 5304 is formed over another substrate which is different from the substrate provided with the pixel portion 5301 . it is also possible to form a circuit with a low drive frequency such as an analog switch used for a sampling circuit in the signal line driver circuit 5304 partly over the same substrate 5300 as the pixel portion 5301 . thus, by partly employing system-on-panel, advantages of system-on-panel such as the above-described prevention of decrease in yield due to defective connection, or low mechanical strength at a connection portion, and reduction in cost due to decrease in the number of assembly steps and inspection steps can be obtained more or less. further, as compared with system-on-panel in which the pixel portion 5301 , the first scan line driver circuit 5302 , the second scan line driver circuit 5303 , and the signal line driver circuit 5304 are formed over one substrate, by partly employing system-on-panel, it is possible to increase performance of a circuit with a high drive frequency. moreover, formation of a pixel portion having a large area is possible, which is difficult to realize in the case of using a single crystal semiconductor. next, a structure of a signal line driver circuit including an n-channel transistor is described. the signal line driver circuit illustrated in fig. 16a includes a shift register 5601 and a sampling circuit 5602 . the sampling circuit 5602 includes a plurality of switching circuits 5602 _ 1 to 5602 _n (n is a natural number). the switching circuits 5602 _ 1 to 5602 _n each include a plurality of n-channel transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k (k is a natural number). a connection relation in the signal line driver circuit is described by using the switching circuit 5602 _ 1 as an example. note that one of a source electrode and a drain electrode included in a transistor is referred to as a first terminal, and the other of the source electrode and the drain electrode is referred to as a second terminal in the description below. first terminals of the transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k are connected to wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k , respectively. the video signal is input to each of the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k . second terminals of the thin film transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k are connected to signal lines s 1 to sk, respectively. gate electrodes of the thin film transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k are connected to a wiring 5605 _ 1 . the shift register 5601 has the function of sequentially selecting the switching circuits 5602 _ 1 to 5602 _n by sequentially outputting timing signals having a high voltage level (h level) to wirings 5605 _ 1 to 5605 _n. the switching circuit 5602 _ 1 has a function of controlling a conduction state between the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k and the signal lines s 1 to sk (a conduction state between the first terminal and the second terminal), i.e., a function of controlling whether or not to supply potentials of the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k to the signal lines s 1 to sk by switching of the transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 _n. next, operation of the signal line driver circuit shown in fig. 16a is described with reference to a timing chart in fig. 16b . fig. 16b illustrates a timing chart of timing signals sout_ 1 to sout_n respectively inputted to the wirings 5605 _ 1 to 5605 _n and video signals vdata_ 1 to vdata_k respectively inputted to the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k from the shift register 5601 , as one example. note that one operation period of the signal line driver circuit corresponds to one line period in a display device. fig. 16b illustrates one example of the case where one line period is divided into periods t 1 to tn. each of the periods t 1 to tn is a period for writing a video signal to one pixel belonging to the selected row. in the periods t 1 to tn, the shift register 5601 sequentially outputs h-level timing signals to the wirings 5605 _ 1 to 5605 _n. for example, in the period t 1 , the shift register 5601 outputs an h-level signal to the wiring 5605 _ 1 . then, the thin film transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k included in the switching circuit 5602 _ 1 are turned on, so that the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k and the signal lines s 1 to sk are brought into conduction. in this case, data (s 1 ) to data (sk) are input to the wirings 5604 _ 1 to 5604 — k , respectively. the data (s 1 ) to data (sk) are input to pixels in the first to k-th columns in the selected row through the transistors 5603 _ 1 to 5603 — k . thus, in the periods t 1 to tn, video signals are sequentially written to the pixels in the selected row by k columns. by writing video signals to pixels of every plurality of columns, the number of video signals or the number of wirings can be reduced. thus, connections to an external circuit such as a controller can be reduced. by writing video signals to pixels of every plurality of columns, writing time can be extended and insufficient writing of video signals can be prevented. next, one mode of a shift register used for the signal line driver circuit or the scan line driver circuit will be described with reference to figs. 17a and 17b and figs. 18a and 18b . the shift register includes first to n-th pulse output circuits 10 _ 1 to 10 _n (n is a natural number of greater than or equal to 3) (see fig. 17a ). a first clock signal ck 1 , a second clock signal ck 2 , a third clock signal ck 3 , and a fourth clock signal ck 4 are supplied from a first wiring 11 , a second wiring 12 , a third wiring 13 , and a fourth wiring 14 , respectively, to the first to nth pulse output circuits 10 _ 1 to 10 _n. a start pulse sp 1 (a first start pulse) from a fifth wiring 15 is input to the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 . a signal from a pulse output circuit of the previous stage (also referred to as a previous stage signal out (n−1) (n is a natural number of greater than or equal to 2) is input to the n-th pulse output circuit 10 — n (n is a natural number of greater than or equal to 2 and less than or equal to n) of the second and subsequent stages. to the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 , a signal from the third pulse output circuit 10 _ 3 of a stage following the next stage is input. similarly, to the n-th pulse output circuit 10 — n of the second or subsequent stage, a signal from the (n+2)th pulse output circuit 10 — (n+ 2) of the stage following the next stage (such a signal is referred to as a subsequent-stage signal out(n+2)) is input. therefore, from the pulse output circuits of the respective stages, first output signals (out( 1 )(sr) to out(n)(sr)) to be input to the pulse output circuits of the subsequent stages and/or the stages before the preceding stages and second output signals (out( 1 ) to out(n)) to be input to different circuits or the like are output. since later-stage signals out(n+2) are not input to the pulse output circuits in the last two stages of the shift register, a structure in which a second start pulse sp 2 and a third start pulse sp 3 are input to the respective pulse output circuits may be employed, for example, as shown in fig. 17a . note that a clock signal (ck) alternates between an h level and an l level (low level voltage) at regular intervals. the first to the fourth clock signals (ck 1 ) to (ck 4 ) are delayed by ¼ period sequentially. in this embodiment, by using the first to fourth clock signals (ck 1 ) to (ck 4 ), control or the like of driving of a pulse output circuit is performed. a first input terminal 21 , a second input terminal 22 , and a third input terminal 23 are electrically connected to any of the first to fourth wirings 11 to 14 . for example, in fig. 17a , the first input terminal 21 of the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 is electrically connected to the first wiring 11 , the second input terminal 22 of the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 is electrically connected to the second wiring 12 , and the third input terminal 23 of the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 is electrically connected to the third wiring 13 . in addition, the first input terminal 21 of the second pulse output circuit 10 _ 2 is electrically connected to the second wiring 12 , the second input terminal 22 of the second pulse output circuit 10 _ 2 is electrically connected to the third wiring 13 , and the third input terminal 23 of the second pulse output circuit 10 _ 2 is electrically connected to the fourth wiring 14 . each of the first to n-th pulse output circuits 10 _ 1 to 10 _n includes the first input terminal 21 , the second input terminal 22 , the third input terminal 23 , a fourth input terminal 24 , a fifth input terminal 25 , a first output terminal 26 , and a second output terminal 27 (see fig. 17b ). in the first pulse output circuit 10 _ 1 , the first clock signal ck 1 is input to the first input terminal 21 ; the second clock signal ck 2 is input to the second input terminal 22 ; the third clock signal ck 3 is input to the third input terminal 23 ; the start pulse is input to the fourth input terminal 24 ; the next stage signal out ( 3 ) is input to the fifth input terminal 25 ; the first output signal out ( 1 ) (sr) is output from the first output terminal 26 ; and the second output signal out ( 1 ) is output from the second output terminal 27 . next, fig. 18a illustrates one example of a specific circuit structure of a pulse output circuit. the pulse output circuits each include first to thirteenth transistors 31 to 43 (see fig. 18a ). signals or power supply potentials are supplied to the first to thirteenth transistors 31 to 43 from a power supply line 51 which supplies a first high power supply potential vdd, a power supply line 52 which supplies a second high power supply potential vcc, and a power supply line 53 which supplies a low power supply potential vss, in addition to the above-described first to fifth input terminals 21 to 25 , the first output terminal 26 , and the second output terminal 27 . here, the relation of the power supply potentials of the power supply lines in fig. 18a is as follows: a first power supply potential vdd is higher than a second power supply potential vcc, and the second power supply potential vcc is higher than a third power supply potential vss. the first to fourth clock signals (ck 1 ) to (ck 4 ) alternate between h-level signals and l-level signals at regular intervals. the potential is vdd when the clock signal is at the h level, and the potential is vss when the clock signal is at the l level. by making the potential vdd of the power supply line 51 higher than the second power supply potential vcc of the power supply line 52 , a potential applied to a gate electrode of a transistor can be lowered, shift in the threshold voltage of the transistor can be reduced, and deterioration of the transistor can be suppressed without an adverse effect on the operation of the transistor. in fig. 18a , a first terminal of the first transistor 31 is electrically connected to the power supply line 51 , a second terminal of the first transistor 31 is electrically connected to a first terminal of the ninth transistor 39 , and a gate electrode of the first transistor 31 is electrically connected to the fourth input terminal 24 . a first terminal of the second transistor 32 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , a second terminal of the second transistor 32 is electrically connected to the first terminal of the ninth transistor 39 , and a gate electrode of the second transistor 32 is electrically connected to a gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 . a first terminal of the third transistor 33 is electrically connected to the first input terminal 21 , and a second terminal of the third transistor 33 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 . a first terminal of the fourth transistor 34 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , and a second terminal of the fourth transistor 34 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 . a first terminal of the fifth transistor 35 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , a second terminal of the fifth transistor 35 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the second transistor 32 and the gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 , and a gate electrode of the fifth transistor 35 is electrically connected to the fourth input terminal 24 . a first terminal of the sixth transistor 36 is electrically connected to the power supply line 52 , a second terminal of the sixth transistor 36 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the second transistor 32 and the gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 , and a gate electrode of the sixth transistor 36 is electrically connected to the fifth input terminal 25 . a first terminal of the seventh transistor 37 is electrically connected to the power supply line 52 , a second terminal of the seventh transistor 37 is electrically connected to a second terminal of the eighth transistor 38 , and a gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 is electrically connected to the third input terminal 23 . a first terminal of the eighth transistor 38 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the second transistor 32 and the gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 , and a gate electrode of the eighth transistor 38 is electrically connected to the second input terminal 22 . the first terminal of the ninth transistor 39 is electrically connected to the second terminal of the first transistor 31 and the second terminal of the second transistor 32 , a second terminal of the ninth transistor 39 is electrically connected to a gate electrode of the third transistor 33 and a gate electrode of the tenth transistor 40 , and a gate electrode of the ninth transistor 39 is electrically connected to the power supply line 52 . a first terminal of the tenth transistor 40 is electrically connected to the first input terminal 21 , a second terminal of the tenth transistor 40 is electrically connected to the second output terminal 27 , and the gate electrode of the tenth transistor 40 is electrically connected to the second terminal of the ninth transistor 39 . a first terminal of the eleventh transistor 41 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , a second terminal of the eleventh transistor 41 is electrically connected to the second output terminal 27 , and the gate electrode of the eleventh transistor 41 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the second transistor 32 and the gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 . a first terminal of the twelfth transistor 42 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , a second terminal of the twelfth transistor 42 is electrically connected to the second output terminal 27 , and a gate electrode of the twelfth transistor 42 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 . a first terminal of the thirteenth transistor 43 is electrically connected to the power supply line 53 , a second terminal of the thirteenth transistor 43 is electrically connected to the first output terminal 26 , and a gate electrode of the thirteenth transistor 43 is electrically connected to the gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 . in fig. 18a , a portion where the gate electrode of the third transistor 33 , the gate electrode of the tenth transistor 40 , and the second terminal of the ninth transistor 39 are connected is referred to as a node a. a portion where the gate electrode of the second transistor 32 , the gate electrode of the fourth transistor 34 , the second terminal of the fifth transistor 35 , the second terminal of the sixth transistor 36 , the first terminal of the eighth transistor 38 , and the gate electrode of the eleventh transistor 41 are connected is referred to as a node b (see fig. 18a ). a timing chart of a shift register in which a plurality of pulse output circuits illustrated in fig. 18a are provided is illustrated in fig. 18b . note that the placement of the ninth transistor 39 in which the second power supply potential vcc is applied to the gate electrode as illustrated in fig. 18a has the following advantages before and after bootstrap operation. in the case where a potential of the node a is raised by bootstrap operation without the provision of the ninth transistor 39 in which the second power supply potential vcc is applied to the gate electrode, a potential of the source electrode which is the second terminal of the first transistor 31 rises to a value higher than the first power supply potential vdd. then, the first terminal of the first transistor 31 , that is, the terminal on the power supply line 51 side, comes to serve as a source electrode of the first transistor 31 . consequently, in the first transistor 31 , a high bias voltage is applied and thus significant stress is applied between the gate electrode and the source electrode and between the gate electrode and the drain electrode, which might cause deterioration of the transistor. by providing of the ninth transistor 39 whose gate electrode is supplied with the second power supply potential vcc, the potential of the node a is raised by the bootstrap operation, but at the same time, an increase in the potential of the second terminal of the first transistor 31 can be prevented. in other words, by providing of the ninth transistor 39 , a negative bias voltage applied between the gate electrode and the source electrode of the first transistor 31 can be reduced. thus, the circuit configuration in this embodiment can reduce a negative bias voltage applied between the gate electrode and the source electrode of the first transistor 31 , so that deterioration of the first transistor 31 due to stress can be suppressed. the place of the ninth transistor 39 is not limited as long as the second terminal of the first transistor 31 and the gate electrode of the third transistor 33 are connected through the first terminal and the second terminal of the ninth transistor 39 . note that when the shift register including a plurality of pulse output circuits in this embodiment is included in a signal line driver circuit having a larger number of stages than a scan line driver circuit, the ninth transistor 39 may be omitted, which is advantageous in that the number of transistors is reduced. note that when oxide semiconductors are used for semiconductor layers for the first to the thirteenth transistors 31 to 43 , the off-current of the thin film transistors can be reduced, the on-current and the field effect mobility can be increased, and the degree of deterioration can be reduced, whereby malfunction in a circuit can decrease. further, the degree of deterioration of the transistor using oxide semiconductor caused by applying high potential to the gate electrode is small as compared to the transistor using amorphous silicon. therefore, even when the first power supply potential vdd is supplied to a power supply line to which the second power supply potential vcc is supplied, a similar operation can be performed, and the number of power supply lines which are provided in a circuit can be reduced, so that the circuit can be miniaturized. note that a similar function is obtained even when the connection relation is changed so that a clock signal that is supplied to the gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 from the third input terminal 23 and a clock signal that is supplied to the gate electrode of the eighth transistor 38 from the second input terminal 22 are supplied from the second input terminal 22 and the third input terminal 23 , respectively. in this case, in the shift register illustrated in fig. 18a , the state is changed from the state where both the seventh transistor 37 and the eighth transistor 38 are turned on, to the state where the seventh transistor 37 is turned off and the eighth transistor 38 is turned on, and then to the state where both the seventh transistor 37 and the eighth transistor 38 are turned off; thus, the fall in a potential of the node b due to fall in the potentials of the second input terminal 22 and the third input terminal 23 is caused twice by fall in the potential of the gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 and fall in the potential of the gate electrode of the eighth transistor 38 . on the contrary, in the shift register shown in fig. 18a is driven so that the state where the seventh transistor 37 and the eighth transistor 38 are both on is changed through the state where the seventh transistor 37 is on and the eighth transistor 38 is off to the state where the seventh transistor 37 is off and the eighth transistor 38 is off, potential reduction at the node b, which is caused by fall in the of the second input terminal 22 and the third input terminal 23 , is caused only once due to fall in the potential of the gate electrode of the eighth transistor 38 . therefore, the connection relation, that is, the clock signal is supplied from the third input terminal 23 to the gate electrode of the seventh transistor 37 and the clock signal is supplied from the second input terminal 22 to the gate electrode of the eighth transistor 38 , is preferable. that is because the number of times of the change in the potential of the node b can be reduced, whereby the noise can be reduced. in this manner, in a period during which the potentials of the first output terminal 26 and the second output terminal 27 are held at the l level, the h level signal is regularly supplied to the node b; therefore, malfunction of a pulse output circuit can be suppressed. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments. (embodiment 7) in this embodiment, manufacturing methods of semiconductor display devices according to one embodiment of the present invention are described with reference to figs. 19a to 19c , figs. 20a to 20c , figs. 21a and 21b , fig. 22 , fig. 23 , and fig. 24 . note that the term “successive film formation” in this specification means that during a series of a first film formation step by sputtering and a second film formation step by sputtering, an atmosphere in which a substrate to be processed is disposed is not contaminated by a contaminant atmosphere such as air, and is constantly controlled to be vacuum or an inert gas atmosphere (a nitrogen atmosphere or a rare gas atmosphere). by the successive film formation, film formation can be conducted to a substrate which has been cleaned, without re-attachment of moisture or the like. performing the process from the first film formation step to the second film formation step in the same chamber is within the scope of the successive formation in this specification. in addition, the following is also within the scope of the successive formation in this specification: in the case of performing the process from the first film formation step to the second film formation step in plural chambers, the substrate is transferred after the first film formation step to another chamber without being exposed to air and subjected to the second film formation. note that between the first film formation step and the second film formation step, a substrate transfer step, an alignment step, a slow-cooling step, a step of heating or cooling the substrate to a temperature which is necessary for the second film formation step, or the like may be provided. such a process is also within the scope of the successive formation in this specification. a step in which liquid is used, such as a cleaning step, wet etching, or formation of a resist may be provided between the first deposition step and the second deposition step. this case is not within the scope of the successive deposition in this specification. in fig. 19a , a light-transmitting substrate 400 may be a glass substrate manufactured by a fusion method or a float method, or a metal substrate formed of a stainless alloy having an insulating film on the surface. a substrate formed from a flexible synthetic resin, such as plastic, generally tends to have a low allowable temperature limit, but can be used as the substrate 400 as long as the substrate can withstand processing temperatures in the later manufacturing process. examples of a plastic substrate include polyester typified by polyethylene terephthalate (pet), polyethersulfone (pes), polyethylene naphthalate (pen), polycarbonate (pc), polyetheretherketone (peek), polysulfone (psf), polyetherimide (pei), polyarylate (par), polybutylene terephthalate (pbt), polyimide, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene resin, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, polyvinyl acetate, acrylic resin, and the like. in the case where a glass substrate is used and the temperature at which the heat treatment is to be performed later is high, a glass substrate whose strain point is more than or equal to 730° c. is preferably used. as a glass substrate, a glass material such as aluminosilicate glass, aluminoborosilicate glass, or barium borosilicate glass is used, for example. in general, a glass substrate containing more barium oxide (bao) than diboron trioxide (b 2 o 3 ) is more practical as heat-resistant glass. therefore, a glass substrate containing a larger amount of bao than b 2 o 3 is preferably used. note that as the above glass substrate, a substrate formed of an insulator such as a ceramic substrate, a quartz substrate, or a sapphire substrate may be used. alternatively, crystallized glass or the like may be used. next, a conductive film is formed entirely over a surface of the substrate 400 , and then a first photolithography step is performed in such a manner that a resist mask is formed and unnecessary portions are removed by etching, so that wirings and an electrode (a gate wiring including a gate electrode 401 , a capacitor wiring 408 , and a first terminal 421 ) are formed. at this time, the etching is performed so that at least end portions of the gate electrode 401 are tapered. a material for the conductive film can be a single layer or a stacked layer using one or more of a metal material such as molybdenum, titanium, chromium, tantalum, tungsten, neodymium, or scandium, or an alloy material which contains any of these metal materials as a main component, or nitride of these metals. note that aluminum or copper can also be used as the above metal material as long as it can withstand a temperature of heat treatment performed in a later step. for example, as a conductive film having a two-layer stack structure, the following structures are preferable: a two-layer structure of an aluminum layer and a molybdenum layer stacked thereover, a two-layer structure of a copper layer and a molybdenum layer stacked thereover, a two-layer structure of a copper layer and a titanium nitride layer or a tantalum nitride layer stacked thereover, and a two-layer structure of a titanium nitride layer and a molybdenum layer. as a three-layer structure, the following structure is preferable: a layered structure containing aluminum, an alloy of aluminum and silicon, an alloy of aluminum and titanium, or an alloy of aluminum and neodymium in a middle layer and any of tungsten, tungsten nitride, titanium nitride, and titanium in a top layer and a bottom layer. a light-transmitting oxide conductive layer can be used for part of the electrode layer and the wiring to increase the aperture ratio. for example, indium oxide, an alloy of indium oxide and tin oxide, an alloy of indium oxide and zinc oxide, zinc oxide, zinc aluminum oxide, zinc aluminum oxynitride, zinc gallium oxide, or the like can be used. the thicknesses of the gate electrode 401 , the capacitor wiring 408 , and the first terminal 421 are each 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, after a conductive film with a thickness of 100 nm for the gate electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a tungsten target, the conductive film is processed (patterned) by etching to have a desired shape, so that the gate electrode 401 , the capacitor wiring 408 , and the first terminal 421 are formed. an insulating film serving as a base film may be provided between the substrate 400 and the gate electrode 401 , the capacitor wiring 408 , and the first terminal 421 . the base film has a function of preventing diffusion of an impurity element from the substrate 400 , and can be formed with a single layer or stacked layer using one or more films selected from a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride oxide film, and a silicon oxynitride film. next, a gate insulating film 402 is formed entirely over surfaces of the gate electrode 401 , the capacitor wiring 408 , the first terminal 421 as illustrated in fig. 19b . the gate insulating film 402 can be formed to have a single layer of a silicon oxide film, a silicon nitride film, a silicon oxynitride film, a silicon nitride oxide film, an aluminum oxide film, or a tantalum oxide film or a stacked layer thereof by a plasma cvd method, a sputtering method, or the like. for example, a silicon oxynitride film may be formed using a deposition gas including silane (for example, monosilane), oxygen, and nitrogen by a plasma cvd method. the film thickness of the gate insulating film 402 is desirably more than or equal to 50 nm and less than or equal to 250 nm. in this embodiment, a silicon oxynitride film with a thickness of 100 nm formed by a plasma cvd method is used as the gate insulating film 402 . next, an oxide semiconductor film 403 is formed over the gate insulating film 402 . the oxide semiconductor film 403 is formed by a sputtering method with use of an oxide semiconductor as a target. moreover, the oxide semiconductor film 403 can be formed by a sputtering method under a rare gas (for example, argon) atmosphere, an oxygen atmosphere, or an atmosphere including a rare gas (for example, argon) and oxygen. it is preferable that before the oxide semiconductor film 403 is formed by a sputtering method, dust on a surface of the gate insulating film 402 be removed by reverse sputtering by introducing an argon gas and generating plasma. the reverse sputtering refers to a method in which, without application of a voltage to a target side, an rf power source is used for application of a voltage to a substrate side in an argon atmosphere to generate plasma in the vicinity of the substrate to modify a surface. note that instead of an argon atmosphere, a nitrogen atmosphere, a helium atmosphere, or the like may be used. alternatively, an argon atmosphere to which oxygen, nitrous oxide, or the like is added may be used. alternatively, an argon atmosphere to which chlorine, carbon tetrafluoride, or the like is added may be used. the oxide semiconductor film 403 for formation of a channel formation region may be formed using the above-described oxide material having semiconductor characteristics. the thickness of the oxide semiconductor film 403 is 5 nm to 300 nm, preferably 10 nm to 100 nm. in this embodiment, film deposition is performed using an oxide semiconductor target containing in, ga, and zn (in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:1 or in 2 o 3 :ga 2 o 3 :zno=1:1:2 [mol ratio]) under the following condition: the distance between a substrate and a target is 100 mm, the pressure is 0.6 pa, the direct-current (dc) power supply is 0.5 kw, and the atmosphere is oxygen (the flow rate of oxygen is 100%). note that a pulse direct current (dc) power supply is preferable because dust due to film deposition can be reduced and the film thickness can be uniform. in this embodiment, a 50 nm-thick in—ga—zn—o-based non-single-crystal film is formed as the oxide semiconductor film. after the sputtering, the oxide semiconductor film is formed without exposure to the air, whereby adhesion of dust and moisture to an interface between the gate insulating film 402 and the oxide semiconductor film 403 can be prevented. further, a pulsed direct current (dc) power supply is preferable because dust can be reduced and a thickness distribution is uniform. it is preferable that the relative density of the oxide semiconductor target is greater than or equal to 80%, more preferably greater than or equal to 95%, further preferably, greater than or equal to 99.9%. the impurity concentration in the oxide semiconductor film which is formed using the target having high relative density can be reduced, and thus a thin film transistor having high electric characteristics or high reliability can be obtained. in addition, there is also a multi-source sputtering apparatus in which a plurality of targets of different materials can be set. with the multi-source sputtering apparatus, films of different materials can be formed to be stacked in the same chamber, or a film of plural kinds of materials can be formed by electric discharge at the same time in the same chamber. in addition, there are a sputtering apparatus provided with a magnet system inside the chamber and used for a magnetron sputtering, and a sputtering apparatus used for an ecr sputtering in which plasma generated with the use of microwaves is used without using glow discharge. furthermore, as a deposition method by sputtering, there are also a reactive sputtering method in which a target substance and a sputtering gas component are chemically reacted with each other during deposition to form a thin compound film thereof, and a bias sputtering in which a voltage is also applied to a substrate during deposition. in addition, the substrate may be heated at a temperature of more than or equal to 400° c. and less than or equal to 700° c. by light or a heater during the film formation with a sputtering method. the damage due to sputtering is repaired at the same time as the film formation by heating during the film formation. preheat treatment is preferably performed so as to remove moisture or hydrogen remaining on an inner wall of the sputtering apparatus, on a surface of the target, or in a target material, before the oxide semiconductor film is formed. as the preheat treatment, a method in which the inside of the film formation chamber is heated to 200° c. to 600° c. under reduced pressure, a method in which introduction and evacuation of nitrogen or an inert gas are repeated while the inside of the film formation chamber is heated, and the like can be given. after the preheat treatment, the substrate or the sputtering apparatus is cooled, and then the oxide semiconductor film is formed without exposure to air. in this case, not water but oil or the like is preferably used as a coolant for the target. although a certain level of effect can be obtained when introduction and evacuation of nitrogen are repeated without heating, it is more preferable to perform the treatment with the inside of the film formation chamber heated. it is preferable to remove moisture or the like remaining in the sputtering apparatus with the use of a cryopump before, during, or after the oxide semiconductor film is formed. next, as illustrated in fig. 19c , a second photolithography step is performed in such a manner that a resist mask is formed and the oxide semiconductor film 403 is etched. for example, unnecessary portions are removed by wet etching using a mixed solution of phosphoric acid, acetic acid, and nitric acid, so that an island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 404 can be formed so as to overlap with the gate electrode 401 . in etching of the oxide semiconductor film 403 , organic acid such as citric acid or oxalic acid can be used for etchant. in this embodiment, the unnecessary portions are removed by wet etching using ito07n (product of kanto chemical co., inc.), so that the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 404 is formed. note that etching here is not limited to wet etching and dry etching may be used. as the etching gas for dry etching, a gas containing chlorine (chlorine-based gas such as chlorine (cl 2 ), boron chloride (bcl 3 ), silicon chloride (sicl 4 ), or carbon tetrachloride (ccl 4 )) is preferably used. alternatively, a gas containing fluorine (fluorine-based gas such as carbon tetrafluoride (cf 4 ), sulfur fluoride (sf 6 ), nitrogen fluoride (nf 3 ), or trifluoromethane (chf 3 )); hydrogen bromide (hbr); oxygen (o 2 ); any of these gases to which a rare gas such as helium (he) or argon (ar) is added; or the like can be used. as the dry etching method, a parallel plate rie (reactive ion etching) method or an icp (inductively coupled plasma) etching method can be used. in order to etch the films into desired shapes, the etching condition (the amount of electric power applied to a coil-shaped electrode, the amount of electric power applied to an electrode on a substrate side, the temperature of the electrode on the substrate side, or the like) is adjusted as appropriate. the etchant after the wet etching is removed together with the etched materials by cleaning. the waste liquid including the etchant and the material etched off may be purified and the material may be reused. when a material such as indium contained in the oxide semiconductor film is collected from the waste liquid after the etching and reused, the resources can be efficiently used and the cost can be reduced. in order to obtain a desired shape by etching, the etching conditions (such as an etchant, etching time, and temperature) are adjusted as appropriate depending on the material. next, as illustrated in fig. 20a , heat treatment may be performed on the oxide semiconductor film 404 under a reduced-pressure atmosphere, an atmosphere of an inert gas such as nitrogen and a rare gas, an oxygen gas atmosphere, or an ultra-dry air atmosphere (the moisture amount is 20 ppm (−55° c. by conversion into a dew point) or less, preferably 1 ppm or less, more preferably 10 ppb or less when measured by a dew point meter in a crds (cavity ring down laser spectroscopy) method). with the heat treatment on the oxide semiconductor film 404 , the oxide semiconductor film 405 is formed. specifically, under an inert gas atmosphere (e.g., nitrogen, helium, neon, or argon), rapid thermal annealing (rta) treatment can be performed at a temperature of more than or equal to 500° c. and less than or equal to 750° c. (or a temperature lower than or equal to the strain point of the glass substrate) for approximately more than or equal to 1 minute and less than or equal to 10 minutes, preferably, at 650° c. for approximately more than or equal to 3 minutes and less than or equal to 6 minutes. with an rta method, dehydration or dehydrogenation can be performed in a short time; therefore, treatment can be performed even at a temperature higher than the strain point of the glass substrate. note that the timing of the above-described heat treatment is not limited to this timing after formation of the oxide semiconductor film 404 , and the oxide semiconductor film 403 before formation of the oxide semiconductor film 404 may be subjected to the heat treatment. the heat treatment may also be performed plural times after formation of the oxide semiconductor film 404 . further, a heating method using an electric furnace, a rapid heating method such as a gas rapid thermal annealing (grta) method using a heated gas or a lamp rapid thermal annealing (lrta) method using lamp light, or the like can be used for the heat treatment. for example, in the case of performing heat treatment using an electric furnace, the temperature rise characteristics is preferably set at higher than or equal to 0.1° c./min and lower than or equal to 20° c./min and the temperature drop characteristics is preferably set at higher than or equal to 0.1° c./min and lower than or equal to 15° c./min. note that in heat treatment, it is preferable that moisture, hydrogen, and the like be not contained in nitrogen or a rare gas such as helium, neon, or argon. it is preferable that the purity of nitrogen or the rare gas such as helium, neon, or argon which is introduced into a heat treatment apparatus be set to be 6n (99.9999%) or higher, preferably 7n (99.99999%) or higher (that is, the impurity concentration is 1 ppm or lower, preferably 0.1 ppm or lower). after the heat treatment under an inert gas atmosphere, the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 405 may be crystallized partly or entirely. cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in fig. 20a correspond to cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in a plan view illustrated in fig. 22 , respectively. next, as illustrated in fig. 20b , a conductive film 406 is formed using a metal material over the oxide semiconductor film 405 by a sputtering method or a vacuum evaporation method. as a material of a conductive film 406 , for example, an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like can be used. in a semiconductor device of one embodiment of the present invention, in the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b , at least a portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 405 may be formed using an element selected from titanium, tungsten, and molybdenum, an alloy containing one or more of the above elements, or the like. therefore, in the case where the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b each having a structure in which a plurality of metal films are stacked, a metal film that is in contact with the oxide semiconductor film 405 may be formed using titanium, tungsten, or molybdenum, and the other metal films can be formed using any of the following examples: an element selected from aluminum, chromium, tantalum, titanium, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, tungsten, zirconium, beryllium, and yttrium; an alloy containing one or more of the above elements as a component; a nitride containing the above element as a component; or the like. for example, by using a conductive film 406 having a stacked structure of a titanium film, an aluminum alloy film containing neodymium, and a titanium film, and by using the titanium film in the portion which is the closest to the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 405 , the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b can have a low resistance and high heat resistance in the aluminum alloy film containing neodymium. note that in the case where heat treatment is performed after the formation of the conductive film 406 for the source electrode and the drain electrode, the conductive film 406 preferably has heat resistance enough to withstand the heat treatment. in the case of performing heat treatment after the formation of the conductive film 406 , the conductive film 406 is formed in combination with the heat-resistant conductive material because aluminum alone has problems of low heat resistance, being easily corroded, and the like. as the heat-resistant conductive material which is combined with aluminum, the following material is preferably used: an element selected from titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, neodymium, and scandium; an alloy containing one or more of these elements as a component; a nitride containing any of these elements as a component; or the like. the thickness of the conductive film 406 for the source electrode and the drain electrode is 10 nm to 400 nm, preferably 100 nm to 200 nm. in this embodiment, the conductive film 406 for a source electrode and a drain electrode is formed by a sputtering method using a titanium target. by forming the conductive film 406 having the above structure, oxygen in the region of the oxide semiconductor film 405 which is the closest to the conductive film 406 is taken out, so that the composite layers 430 where the concentration of a metal contained in the oxide semiconductor film 405 is higher than that in other regions (metal-rich layers) are formed in the oxide semiconductor film 405 . the oxygen that is taken out reacts with the metal in the conductive film 406 , so that the metal oxide films 431 are formed between the conductive film 406 and the metal-rich composite layers 430 . next, as illustrated in fig. 20c , a third photolithography step is performed in such a manner that a resist mask is formed and unnecessary portions of the conductive film 406 are removed by wet etching or dry etching, so that a source electrode 407 a , a drain electrode 407 b , and a second terminal 420 are formed. for example, in the case where the conductive film 406 is formed using titanium, wet etching can be performed by using a hydrogen peroxide solution or heated hydrochloric acid as etchant. note that since oxygen is further taken out from the oxide semiconductor film 412 by the heat treatment, it is possible to increase the thickness of the composite layers 430 and the metal oxide films 431 . in the above-described etching step, since the composite layer 430 is etched in an exposed region of the oxide semiconductor film 405 , an island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 409 having a thin region between the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b can be formed in some cases. in addition, in the above-described etching, the metal oxide film 431 is etched together with the conductive film 406 . thus, there are the etched metal oxide film 431 between the composite layer 430 of the oxide semiconductor film 409 and the source electrode 407 a , and the etched metal oxide film 431 between the composite layer 430 of the oxide semiconductor film 409 and the drain electrode 407 b . the composite layer 430 on the source electrode 407 a side and the composite layer 430 on the drain electrode 407 b side are separated from each other. in addition, the metal oxide film 431 on the source electrode 407 a side and the metal oxide film 431 on the drain electrode 407 b side are separated from each other. for example, in the case where an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide semiconductor is used for the oxide semiconductor film 405 , the composite layers 430 where the concentration of indium is higher than that in other regions (in-rich layers) exist in regions of the oxide semiconductor film 405 which are the closest to the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b , so that resistance of the in-rich composite layers 430 in the oxide semiconductor film 405 becomes lower. in the case where titanium is used for the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b , the metal oxide films 431 formed between the source electrode 407 a and the oxide semiconductor film 405 , and between the drain electrode 407 b and the oxide semiconductor film 405 contain titanium oxide (tiox) and have n-type conductivity. therefore, with the above structure, contact resistance between the source electrode 407 a and the oxide semiconductor film 405 , and between the drain electrode 407 b and the oxide semiconductor film 405 is reduced, and the amount of on-current and field effect mobility of a tft can be increased. in the third photolithography step, the second terminal 420 which is formed using the same material as the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b is left in the terminal portion. note that the second terminal 420 is electrically connected to a source wiring (a source wiring including the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b ). further, by using a resist mask which is formed using a multi-tone mask and has regions with plural thicknesses (for example, two different thicknesses), the number of resist masks can be reduced, resulting in simplified process and lower costs. cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in fig. 20c correspond to cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in a plan view illustrated in fig. 23 , respectively. next, as illustrated in fig. 21a , an oxide insulating film 411 which covers the gate insulating film 402 , the oxide semiconductor film 409 , the source electrode 407 a , and the drain electrode 407 b is formed. in this embodiment, a silicon oxide film with a thickness of 300 nm is formed as the oxide insulating film 411 . the substrate temperature in film formation may be higher than or equal to room temperature and lower than or equal to 300° c. and is 100° c. in this embodiment. formation of the silicon oxide film with a sputtering method can be performed under a rare gas (for example, argon) atmosphere, an oxygen atmosphere, or an atmosphere including a rare gas (for example, argon) and oxygen. further, a silicon oxide target or a silicon target may be used as a target. for example, with use of a silicon target, a silicon oxide film can be formed by a sputtering method under an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen. by providing the oxide insulating film 411 in contact with the exposed region of the oxide semiconductor film 409 provided between the source electrode 407 a and the drain electrode 407 b , the resistance of the region of the oxide semiconductor film 409 which is in contact with the oxide insulating film 411 becomes higher (the carrier concentration is decreased, preferably to a value lower than 1×10 18 /cm 3 ), resulting in formation of an oxide semiconductor film 412 having a high-resistance channel formation region. in this embodiment, the oxide insulating film 411 with a thickness of 300 nm is formed by a pulsed dc sputtering method using a columnar polycrystalline, boron-doped silicon target which has a purity of 6n (the resistivity is 0.01 ωcm), in which the distance between the substrate and the target (t-s distance) is 89 mm, the pressure is 0.4 pa, the direct-current (dc) power source is 6 kw, and the atmosphere is oxygen (the oxygen flow rate is 100%). next, after the oxide insulating film 411 is formed, second heat treatment may be performed. the second heat treatment is performed under a reduced-pressure atmosphere, an atmosphere of an inert gas such as nitrogen and a rare gas, an oxygen gas atmosphere, or an ultra-dry air atmosphere (the moisture amount is 20 ppm (−55° c. by conversion into a dew point) or less, preferably 1 ppm or less, more preferably 10 ppb or less when measured by a dew point meter in a crds (cavity ring down laser spectroscopy) method, at a temperature of more than or equal to 200° c. and less than or equal to 400° c., for example, more than or equal to 250° c. and less than or equal to 350° c.). for example, the second heat treatment is performed in a nitrogen atmosphere at 250° c. for one hour. alternatively, rta treatment may be performed at high temperature for a short time as in the previous heat treatment. by the heat treatment, the oxide semiconductor film 412 is heated while being in contact with the oxide insulating film 411 . in addition, the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 412 is increased. accordingly, electric characteristics of the transistor can be improved and variation in the electric characteristics thereof can be reduced. there is no particular limitation on when to perform this heat treatment as long as it is performed after the formation of the oxide insulating film 411 . when this heat treatment also serves as heat treatment in another step, for example, heat treatment in formation of a resin film or heat treatment for reducing resistance of a transparent conductive film, the number of steps can be prevented from increasing. through the above steps, a thin film transistor 413 can be manufactured. next, a fourth photolithography step is performed in such a manner that a resist mask is formed and the oxide insulating film 411 and the gate insulating film 402 are etched, so that a contact hole is formed to expose parts of the drain electrode 407 b , the first terminal 421 , and the second terminal 420 . next, the resist mask is removed, and then a transparent conductive film is formed. the transparent conductive film is formed of indium oxide (in 2 o 3 ), indium oxide-tin oxide alloy (in 2 o 3 —sno 2 , abbreviated to ito), or the like by a sputtering method, a vacuum evaporation method, or the like. such a material is etched with a hydrochloric acid-based solution. however, since a residue is easily generated particularly in etching ito, indium oxide-zinc oxide alloy (in 2 o 3 —zno) may be used to improve etching processability. moreover, in the case where heat treatment for reducing resistance of the transparent conductive film, the heat treatment can serve as heat treatment for increasing resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 412 , which results in improvement of electric characteristics of the transistor and reduction in variation in the electric characteristics thereof. next, a fifth photolithography step is performed in such a manner that a resist mask is formed and unnecessary portions are removed by etching, so that a pixel electrode 414 which is connected to the drain electrode 407 b , a transparent conductive film 415 which is connected to the first terminal 421 , and a transparent conductive film 416 which is connected to the second terminal 420 are formed. the transparent conductive films 415 and 416 serve as electrodes or wirings connected to an fpc. the transparent conductive film 415 formed over the first terminal 421 is a connection terminal electrode which functions as an input terminal of the gate wiring. the transparent conductive film 416 formed over the second terminal 420 is a connection terminal electrode which functions as an input terminal of the source wiring. in the fifth photolithography step, a storage capacitor is formed with the capacitor wiring 408 and the pixel electrode 414 , in which the gate insulating film 402 and the oxide insulating film 411 are used as dielectrics. a cross-sectional view after the resist mask is removed is illustrated in fig. 21b . cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in fig. 21b correspond to cross-sectional views taken along dashed lines c 1 -c 2 and d 1 -d 2 in a plan view illustrated in fig. 24 , respectively. through these six photolithography steps, the storage capacitor and the thin film transistor 413 which is a bottom-gate staggered thin film transistor can be completed using the six photomasks. by disposing the thin film transistor and the storage capacitor in each pixel of a pixel portion in which pixels are arranged in a matrix form, one of substrates for manufacturing an active matrix display device can be obtained. in this specification, such a substrate is referred to as an active matrix substrate for convenience. in the case of manufacturing an active matrix liquid crystal display device, an active matrix substrate and a counter substrate provided with a counter electrode are bonded to each other with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. alternatively, a storage capacitor may be formed with a pixel electrode which overlaps with a gate wiring of an adjacent pixel, with an oxide insulating film and a gate insulating film interposed therebetween, without provision of the capacitor wiring. in an active matrix liquid crystal display device, pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix form are driven to form a display pattern on a screen. specifically, a voltage is applied between a selected pixel electrode and a counter electrode corresponding to the pixel electrode, so that a liquid crystal layer provided between the pixel electrode and the counter electrode is optically modulated and this optical modulation is recognized as a display pattern by an observer. in manufacturing a light-emitting display device, a partition wall including an organic resin film is provided between organic light-emitting elements in some cases. in that case, heat treatment performed on the organic resin film can also serve as the heat treatment which increases the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 412 so that improvement and less variation in electric characteristics of the transistor are achieved. the use of an oxide semiconductor for a thin film transistor leads to reduction in manufacturing cost. in particular, by the heat treatment, impurities such as moisture, hydrogen, or oh are reduced and the purity of the oxide semiconductor film is increased. as a result, a semiconductor display device including a highly reliable thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics can be manufactured. since the semiconductor film in the channel formation region is a region whose resistance is increased, electric characteristics of the thin film transistor are stabilized, and increase in off-current or the like can be prevented. accordingly, a semiconductor display device including the highly reliable thin film transistor having favorable electric characteristics can be provided. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments. (embodiment 8) in the liquid crystal display device according to one embodiment of the present invention, a highly reliable thin film transistor with high mobility and on-current is used; therefore, the liquid crystal display device according to one embodiment of the present invention has high contrast and high visibility. in this embodiment, a structure of the liquid crystal display device according to an embodiment of the present invention is described. fig. 25 illustrates as an example a cross-sectional view of a pixel in a liquid crystal display device of one embodiment of the present invention. the thin film transistor 1401 illustrated in fig. 25 includes a gate electrode 1402 formed over an insulating surface, a gate insulating film 1403 over the gate electrode 1402 , an oxide semiconductor film 1404 which overlaps with the gate electrode 1402 over the gate insulating film 1403 and which includes composite layers 1420 where the concentration of one or a plurality of metals contained in the oxide semiconductor is higher than that in other regions, a pair of metal oxide films 1421 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 1404 and in contact with the composite layers 1420 , and a pair of conductive films 1406 which function as a source electrode and a drain electrode and which are in contact with the metal oxide films 1421 . further, the thin film transistor 1401 may include as its component an oxide insulating film 1407 formed over the oxide semiconductor film 1404 . the oxide insulating film 1407 is formed so as to cover the gate electrode 1402 , the gate insulating film 1403 , the oxide semiconductor film 1404 , and the pair of conductive films 1406 . the metal oxide films 1421 are formed by oxidation of a metal contained in the pair of conductive films 1406 . an insulating film 1408 is formed over the oxide insulating film 1407 . an opening is provided in part of the oxide insulating film 1407 and the insulating film 1408 , and a pixel electrode 1410 is formed so as to be in contact with one of the conductive films 1406 in the opening. further, a spacer 1417 for controlling a cell gap of a liquid crystal element is formed over the insulating film 1408 . an insulating film is etched to have a desired shape, so that the spacer 1417 can be formed. a cell gap may also be controlled by dispersing a filler over the insulating film 1408 . an alignment film 1411 is formed over the pixel electrode 1410 . the alignment film 1411 can be formed by subjecting an insulating film to rubbing treatment. further, a counter electrode 1413 is provided in a position opposed to the pixel electrode 1410 , and an alignment film 1414 is formed on the side of the counter electrode 1413 which is close to the pixel electrode 1410 . furthermore, a liquid crystal 1415 is provided in a region which is surrounded by a sealant 1416 between the pixel electrode 1410 and the counter electrode 1413 . note that a filler may be mixed in the sealant 1416 . the pixel electrode 1410 and the counter electrode 1413 can be formed using a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide containing silicon oxide (itso), indium tin oxide (ito), zinc oxide (zno), indium zinc oxide (izo), or gallium-doped zinc oxide (gzo), for example. note that this embodiment shows an example of manufacturing a transmissive type liquid crystal element by using a light-transmitting conductive film for the pixel electrode 1410 and the counter electrode 1413 . the liquid crystal display device according to an embodiment of the present invention may be a semi-transmissive type liquid crystal display device or a reflective type liquid crystal display device. the liquid crystal display device illustrated in fig. 25 may be provided with a color filter, a shielding film for preventing disclination (a black matrix), or the like. although a liquid crystal display device of a tn (twisted nematic) mode is described in this embodiment, the thin film transistor of one embodiment of the present invention can be used for other liquid crystal display devices of a va (vertical alignment) mode, an ocb (optically compensated birefringence) mode, an ips (in-plane-switching) mode, and the like. alternatively, liquid crystal exhibiting a blue phase for which an alignment film is unnecessary may be used. a blue phase is one of liquid crystal phases, which is generated right before a cholesteric phase changes into an isotropic phase while temperature of cholesteric liquid crystal is increased. since the blue phase is generated within an only narrow range of temperature, liquid crystal composition in which a chiral agent at 5 wt % or more is mixed is used for the liquid crystal 1415 in order to improve the temperature range. the liquid crystal composition which includes liquid crystal exhibiting a blue phase and a chiral agent have such characteristics that the response time is more than or equal to 10 μsec. and less than or equal to 100 μsec., which is short, the alignment process is unnecessary because the liquid crystal composition has optical isotropy, and viewing angle dependency is small. fig. 27 illustrates an example of a perspective view showing a structure of a liquid crystal display device of the present invention. the liquid crystal display device shown in fig. 27 is provided with a liquid crystal panel 1601 in which a liquid crystal element is formed between a pair of substrates; a first diffusing plate 1602 ; a prism sheet 1603 ; a second diffusing plate 1604 ; a light guide plate 1605 ; a reflection plate 1606 ; a light source 1607 ; and a circuit substrate 1608 . the liquid crystal panel 1601 , the first diffusing plate 1602 , the prism sheet 1603 , the second diffusing plate 1604 , the light guide plate 1605 , and the reflection plate 1606 are stacked in this order. the light source 1607 is provided at an end portion of the light guide plate 1605 . the liquid crystal panel 1601 is uniformly irradiated with light from the light source 1607 which is diffused inside the light guide plate 1605 , due to the first diffusing plate 1602 , the prism sheet 1603 , and the second diffusing plate 1604 . although the first diffusing plate 1602 and the second diffusing plate 1604 are used in this embodiment, the number of diffusing plates is not limited thereto. the number of diffusing plates may be one, or may be three or more. it is acceptable as long as the diffusing plate is provided between the light guide plate 1605 and the liquid crystal panel 1601 . therefore, a diffusing plate may be provided only on the side closer to the liquid crystal panel 1601 than the prism sheet 1603 , or may be provided only on the side closer to the light guide plate 1605 than the prism sheet 1603 . further, the cross section of the prism sheet 1603 is not limited to a sawtooth-shape illustrated in fig. 27 . the prism sheet 1603 may have a shape with which light from the light guide plate 1605 can be concentrated on the liquid crystal panel 1601 side. the circuit substrate 1608 is provided with a circuit which generates various kinds of signals input to the liquid crystal panel 1601 , a circuit which processes the signals, or the like. in fig. 27 , the circuit substrate 1608 and the liquid crystal panel 1601 are connected to each other through an fpc (flexible printed circuit) 1609 . note that the above-described circuits may be connected to the liquid crystal panel 1601 by a cog (chip on glass) method, or part of the circuits may be connected to the liquid crystal panel 1601 by a cof (chip on film) method. fig. 27 illustrates an example in which the circuit substrate 1608 is provided with a controlling circuit which controls driving of the light source 1607 and the controlling circuit and the light source 1607 are connected to each other via the fpc 1610 . note that the above-described controlling circuits may be formed over the liquid crystal panel 1601 . in that case, the liquid crystal panel 1601 and the light source 1607 are connected to each other through an fpc or the like. note that although fig. 27 illustrates an edge-light type light source where the light source 1607 is provided on the edge of the liquid crystal panel 1601 , a direct type light source where the light sources 1607 are provided directly below the liquid crystal panel 1601 may be used. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments as appropriate. (embodiment 9) in this embodiment, a structure of a light-emitting device including the thin film transistor according to one embodiment of the present invention for a pixel is described. in this embodiment, a cross-sectional structure of a pixel in the case where a transistor for driving a light-emitting element is n-channel type is described with reference to figs. 26a to 26c . note that, although figs. 26a to 26c shows the case where a first electrode is a cathode and a second electrode is an anode, the first electrode may be an anode and the second electrode may be a cathode as well. a cross-sectional view of a pixel in the case where a transistor 6031 is n-channel type, and light emitted from a light-emitting element 6033 is extracted from a first electrode 6034 side is illustrated in fig. 26a . the transistor 6031 is covered with an insulating film 6037 , and over the insulating film 6037 , a bank 6038 having an opening is formed. in the opening of the bank 6038 , the first electrode 6034 is partially exposed, and the first electrode 6034 , an electroluminescent layer 6035 , and a second electrode 6036 are sequentially stacked in the opening. the first electrode 6034 is formed of a material or to a thickness to transmit light, and can be formed of a material having a low work function of a metal, an alloy, an electrically conductive compound, a mixture thereof, or the like. specifically, an alkaline metal such as li or cs, an alkaline earth metal such as mg, ca, or sr, an alloy containing such metals (e.g., mg:ag, al:li, or mg:in), a compound of such materials (e.g., calcium fluoride or calcium nitride), or a rare-earth metal such as yb or er can be used. further, in the case where an electron injection layer is provided, another conductive layer such as an aluminum layer may be used as well. then, the first electrode 6034 is formed to a thickness to transmit light (preferably, about 5 nm to 30 nm). furthermore, the sheet resistance of the first electrode 6034 may be suppressed by formation of a light-transmitting conductive layer of a light-transmitting oxide conductive material so as to be in contact with and over or under the above-described conductive layer with a thickness to transmit light. alternatively, the first electrode 6034 may be formed of only a conductive layer of another light-transmitting oxide conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ito), zinc oxide (zno), indium zinc oxide (izo), or gallium-doped zinc oxide (gzo). furthermore, a mixture in which zinc oxide (zno) is mixed at 2% to 20% in indium tin oxide including ito and silicon oxide (hereinafter referred to as itso) or in indium oxide including silicon oxide may be used as well. in the case of using the light-transmitting oxide conductive material, it is preferable to provide an electron injection layer in the electroluminescent layer 6035 . the second electrode 6036 is formed of a material and to a thickness to reflect or shield light, and can be formed of a material suitable for being used as an anode. for example, a single-layer film including one or more of titanium nitride, zirconium nitride, titanium, tungsten, nickel, platinum, chromium, silver, aluminum, and the like, a stacked layer of a titanium nitride film and a film including aluminum as a main component, a three-layer structure of a titanium nitride film, a film including aluminum as a main component, and a titanium nitride film, or the like can be used for the second electrode 6036 . the electroluminescent layer 6035 is formed using a single layer or a plurality of layers. when the electroluminescent layer 6035 is formed with a plurality of layers, these layers can be classified into a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light-emitting layer, an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, and the like in view of the carrier transporting property. in the case where the electroluminescent layer 6035 includes at least one of the hole injection layer, the hole transport layer, the electron transport layer, and the electron injection layer in addition to the light-emitting layer, the electron injection layer, the electron transport layer, the light-emitting layer, the hole transport layer, and the hole injection layer are sequentially stacked over the first electrode 6034 in this order. note that the boundary between each layer is not necessarily clear, and there may be a case where the boundary is unclear since a material for forming each layer is mixed with each other. each layer can be formed with an organic material or an inorganic material. as the organic material, any of a high molecular compound, a medium molecular compound, and a low molecular compound can be used. note that the medium molecular weight material corresponds to a low polymer in which the number of repetitions of a structural unit (the degree of polymerization) is about 2 to 20. a distinction between a hole injection layer and a hole transport layer is not always distinct, which is the same as in the sense that a hole transporting property (hole mobility) is an especially important characteristic. a layer being in contact with the anode is referred to as a hole injection layer and a layer being in contact with the hole injection layer is referred to as a hole transport layer for convenience. the same is also true for the electron transport layer and the electron injection layer; a layer being in contact with the cathode is referred to as an electron injection layer and a layer being in contact with the electron injection layer is referred to as an electron transport layer. in some cases, the light-emitting layer also functions as the electron transport layer, and it is therefore referred to as a light-emitting electron transport layer, too. in the case of the pixel shown in fig. 26a , light emitted from the light-emitting element 6033 can be extracted from the first electrode 6034 side as shown by a hollow arrow. next, a cross-sectional view of a pixel in the case where a transistor 6041 is n-channel type, and light emitted from a light-emitting element 6043 is extracted from a second electrode 6046 side is illustrated in fig. 26b . the transistor 6041 is covered with an insulating film 6047 , and over the insulating film 6047 , a bank 6048 having an opening is formed. in the opening of the bank 6048 , a first electrode 6044 is partially exposed, and the first electrode 6044 , an electroluminescent layer 6045 , and the second electrode 6046 are sequentially stacked in the opening. the first electrode 6044 is formed of a material and to a thickness to reflect or shield light, and can be formed of a material having a low work function of a metal, an alloy, an electrically conductive compound, a mixture thereof, or the like. specifically, an alkaline metal such as li or cs, an alkaline earth metal such as mg, ca, or sr, an alloy containing such metals (e.g., mg:ag, al:li, or mg:in), a compound of such materials (e.g., calcium fluoride or calcium nitride), or a rare-earth metal such as yb or er can be used. further, in the case where an electron injection layer is provided, another conductive layer such as an aluminum layer may be used as well. the second electrode 6046 is formed of a material or to a thickness to transmit light, and formed of a material suitable for being used as an anode. for example, another light-transmitting oxide conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ito), zinc oxide (zno), indium zinc oxide (izo), or gallium-doped zinc oxide (gzo) can be used for the second electrode 6046 . further, a mixture in which zinc oxide (zno) is mixed at 2% to 20% in indium tin oxide including ito and silicon oxide (hereinafter referred to as itso) or in indium oxide including silicon oxide may be used as well for the second electrode 6046 . furthermore, a single-layer film including one or more of titanium nitride, zirconium nitride, titanium, tungsten, nickel, platinum, chromium, silver, aluminum, and the like, a stacked layer of a titanium nitride film and a film including aluminum as a main component, a three-layer structure of a titanium nitride film, a film including aluminum as a main component, and a titanium nitride film, or the like can be used for the second electrode 6046 . however, in the case of using a material other than the light-transmitting oxide conductive material, the second electrode 6046 is formed to a thickness to transmit light (preferably, about 5 nm to 30 nm). the electroluminescent layer 6045 can be formed in a manner similar to the electroluminescent layer 6035 of fig. 26a . in the case of the pixel shown in fig. 26b , light emitted from the light-emitting element 6043 can be extracted from the second electrode 6046 as shown by a hollow arrow. next, a cross-sectional view of a pixel in the case where a transistor 6051 is n-channel type, and light emitted from a light-emitting element 6053 is extracted from a first electrode 6054 side and a second electrode 6056 side is illustrated in fig. 26c . the transistor 6051 is covered with an insulating film 6057 , and over the insulating film 6057 , a bank 6058 having an opening is formed. in the opening of the bank 6058 , the first electrode 6054 is partially exposed, and the first electrode 6054 , an electroluminescent layer 6055 , and the second electrode 6056 are sequentially stacked in the opening. the first electrode 6054 can be formed in a manner similar to that of the first electrode 6034 of fig. 26a . the second electrode 6056 can be formed in a manner similar to the second electrode 6046 of fig. 26b . the electroluminescent layer 6055 can be formed in the same manner as the electroluminescent layer 6035 in fig. 26a . in the case of the pixel shown in fig. 26c , light emitted from the light-emitting element 6053 can be extracted from the first electrode 6054 side and the second electrode 6056 side as shown by hollow arrows. this embodiment can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments as appropriate. example 1 by using a semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention, an electronic device with high-speed operation can be provided. in addition, by using a semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention, an electronic device capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. moreover, with the semiconductor device of the present invention, the heat treatment temperature in the manufacturing process can be suppressed; therefore, a highly reliable thin film transistor with excellent characteristics can be formed even when the transistor is formed over a substrate formed using a flexible synthetic resin of which heat resistance is lower than that of glass, such as plastic. accordingly, with the use of the manufacturing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, a highly reliable, lightweight, and flexible semiconductor device with low power consumption can be provided. examples of a plastic substrate include polyester typified by polyethylene terephthalate (pet), polyethersulfone (pes), polyethylene naphthalate (pen), polycarbonate (pc), polyetheretherketone (peek), polysulfone (psf), polyetherimide (pei), polyarylate (par), polybutylene terephthalate (pbt), polyimide, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene resin, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, polyvinyl acetate, acrylic resin, and the like. semiconductor devices according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for display devices, laptops, or image reproducing devices provided with recording media (typically, devices which reproduce the content of recording media such as digital versatile discs (dvds) and have displays for displaying the reproduced images). further, the electronic devices including the semiconductor device according to an embodiment of the present invention include mobile phones, portable game machines, portable information terminals, e-book readers, cameras such as video cameras or digital still cameras, goggle-type displays (head mounted displays), navigation systems, audio reproducing devices (for example, car audio systems or digital audio players), copying machines, facsimiles, printers, versatile printers, automated teller machines (atms), vending machines, and the like. specific examples of such electronic devices are shown in figs. 28a to 28e . fig. 28a illustrates an e-book reader including a housing 7001 , a display portion 7002 , and the like. the semiconductor display device according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for the display portion 7002 . by including the semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention in the display portion 7002 , an e-book reader capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention can also be used for an integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the e-book reader. by using the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention for the integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the e-book reader, an e-book reader capable of high-speed operation can be provided. moreover, with the use of a flexible substrate, the semiconductor device and the semiconductor display device can have flexibility. thus, a flexible, lightweight, and easy-to-use e-book reader can be provided. fig. 28b illustrates a display device that includes a housing 7011 , a display portion 7012 , a support 7013 , and the like. the semiconductor display device according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for the display portion 7012 . by including the semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention in the display portion 7012 , a display device capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention can also be used for an integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the display device. by using the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention for the integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the display device, a display device capable of high-speed operation can be provided. note that examples of the display device include all the information display devices used for personal computers, tv broadcast reception, advertisement display, or the like. fig. 28c illustrates a display device including a housing 7021 , a display portion 7022 , and the like. the semiconductor display device according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for the display portion 7022 . by including the semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention in the display portion 7022 , a display device capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention can also be used for an integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the display device. by using the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention for the integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the display device, a display device capable of high-speed operation can be provided. moreover, with the use of a flexible substrate, the semiconductor device and the semiconductor display device can have flexibility. thus, a flexible, lightweight, and easy-to-use display device can be provided. accordingly, as illustrated in fig. 28c , a display device can be used while being fixed to fabric or the like, and an application range of the display device is dramatically widened. fig. 28d illustrates a portable game machine including a housing 7031 , a housing 7032 , a display portion 7033 , a display portion 7034 , a microphone 7035 , speakers 7036 , operation keys 7037 , a stylus 7038 , and the like. the semiconductor display device according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for the display portion 7033 and the display portion 7034 . by including the semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention in the display portion 7033 and the display portion 7034 , a portable game machine capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention can also be used for an integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the portable game machine. by using the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention for the integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the portable game machine, a portable game machine capable of high-speed operation can be provided. although the portable game machine illustrated in fig. 28d has the two display portions 7033 and 7034 , the number of display portions included in the portable game machines is not limited thereto. fig. 28e illustrates a mobile phone which includes a housing 7041 , a display portion 7042 , an audio input portion 7043 , an audio output portion 7044 , operation keys 7045 , a light-receiving portion 7046 , and the like. light received in the light-receiving portion 7046 is converted into electrical signals, whereby external images can be loaded. the semiconductor display device according to an embodiment of the present invention can be used for the display portion 7042 . by including the semiconductor display device according to one embodiment of the present invention in the display portion 7042 , a mobile phone capable of displaying an image with high contrast and visibility can be provided. the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention can also be used for an integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the mobile phone. by using the semiconductor device according to one embodiment of the present invention for the integrated circuit for controlling the driving of the mobile phone, a mobile phone capable of high-speed operation can be provided. example 1 can be implemented in combination with any of the above embodiments as appropriate. this application is based on japanese patent application serial no. 2009-235570 filed with japan patent office on oct. 9, 2009, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. explanation of reference 10 : pulse output circuit, 11 : wiring, 12 : wiring, 13 : wiring, 14 : wiring, 15 : wiring, 21 : input terminal, 22 : input terminal, 23 : input terminal, 24 : input terminal, 25 : input terminal, 26 : output terminal, 27 : output terminal, 31 : transistor, 32 : transistor, 33 : transistor, 34 : transistor, 35 : transistor, 36 : transistor, 37 : transistor, 38 : transistor, 39 : transistor, 40 : transistor, 41 : transistor, 42 : transistor, 43 : transistor, 51 : power supply line, 52 : power supply line, 53 : power supply line, 201 : thin film transistor, 202 : substrate, 203 : gate electrode, 204 : gate insulating film, 205 : oxide semiconductor film, 206 : source electrode, 207 : drain electrode, 208 : oxide insulating film, 209 : conductive film, 210 : insulating film, 211 : thin film transistor, 212 : substrate, 213 : gate electrode, 214 : gate insulating film, 215 : oxide semiconductor film, 216 : source electrode, 217 : drain electrode, 218 : oxide insulating film, 219 : conductive film, 220 : insulating film, 221 : thin film transistor, 222 : substrate, 223 : gate electrode, 224 : gate insulating film, 225 : oxide semiconductor film, 226 : source electrode, 227 : drain electrode, 228 : oxide insulating film, 229 : conductive film, 230 : insulating film, 231 : channel protective film, 250 : composite layer, 251 : metal oxide film, 260 : composite layer, 261 : metal oxide film, 270 : composite layer, 271 : metal oxide film, 400 : substrate, 401 : gate electrode, 402 : gate insulating film, 403 : oxide semiconductor film, 404 : oxide semiconductor film, 405 : oxide semiconductor film, 406 : conductive film, 408 : capacitor wiring, 409 : oxide semiconductor film, 411 : oxide insulating film, 412 : oxide semiconductor film, 413 : thin film transistor, 414 : pixel electrode, 415 : transparent conductive film, 416 : transparent conductive film, 420 : terminal, 421 : terminal, 430 : composite layer, 431 : metal oxide film, 700 : pixel portion, 701 : signal line driver circuit, 702 : scan line driver circuit, 703 : pixel, 704 : transistor, 705 : display element, 706 : storage capacitor, 707 : signal line, 708 : scan line, 710 : pixel electrode, 711 : counter electrode, 712 : microcapsule, 713 : drain electrode, 714 : resin, 1401 : thin film transistor, 1402 : gate electrode, 1403 : gate insulating film, 1404 : oxide semiconductor film, 1406 : conductive film, 1407 : oxide insulating film, 1408 : insulating film, 1410 : pixel electrode, 1411 : alignment film, 1413 : counter electrode, 1414 : alignment film, 1415 : liquid crystal, 1416 : sealant, 1417 : spacer, 1420 : composite layer, 1421 : metal oxide film, 1601 : liquid crystal panel, 1602 : diffusing plate, 1603 : prism sheet, 1604 : diffusing plate, 1605 : light guide plate, 1606 : reflection plate, 1607 : light source, 1608 : circuit substrate, 1609 : fpc, 1610 : fpc, 407 a: source electrode, 407 b : drain electrode, 5300 : substrate, 5301 : pixel portion, 5302 : scan line driver circuit, 5303 : scan line driver circuit, 5304 : signal line driver circuit, 5305 : timing control circuit, 5601 : shift register, 5602 : sampling circuit, 5603 : transistor, 5604 : wiring, 5605 : wiring, 6031 : transistor, 6033 : light-emitting element, 6034 : electrode, 6035 : electroluminescent layer, 6036 : electrode, 6037 : insulating film, 6038 : bank, 6041 : transistor, 6043 : light-emitting element, 6044 : electrode, 6045 : electroluminescent layer, 6046 : electrode, 6047 : insulating film, 6048 : bank, 6051 : transistor, 6053 : light-emitting element, 6054 : electrode, 6055 : electroluminescent layer, 6056 : electrode, 6057 : insulating film, 6058 : bank, 7001 : housing, 7002 : display portion, 7011 : housing, 7012 : display portion, 7013 : support, 7021 : housing, 7022 : display portion, 7031 : housing, 7032 : housing, 7033 : display portion, 7034 : display portion, 7035 : microphone, 7036 : speaker, 7037 : operation key, 7038 : stylus, 7041 : housing, 7042 : display portion, 7043 : audio input portion, 7044 : audio output portion, 7045 : operation key, 7046 : light-receiving portion.
145-238-431-324-209	IN	[ "EP", "US", "WO" ]	C07D487/04,A61K31/4985,A61P35/02,C07D487/16	2019-03-27T00:00:00	2019	[ "C07", "A61" ]	solid state forms of acalabrutinib	the present disclosure relates to solid state forms of acalabrutinib, processes for the preparation thereof and pharmaceutical compositions comprising said solid state forms of acalabrutinib.	1 . crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: a) an xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; b) an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 4 ; c) a 13 c solid state nmr having peaks in the range of 100-200 ppm at 107.0, 113.8, 137.8, 141.9, 146.5 and 165.4 ppm±0.2 ppm; d) a solid state 13 c nmr spectrum having absolute chemical shift differences from a reference peak at 127.3±2 ppm of 20.3, 13.5, 10.5, 14.6, 19.2 and 38.1 ppm±0.1 ppm respectively; e) a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum substantially as depicted in fig. 6a, 6b or 6 c ; and/or f) combinations of these data. 2 . crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 , characterized by an xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta, and also having one, two, three, four or five additional peaks selected from 10.3, 13.1, 15.1, 20.5 and 27.7 degrees two theta±0.2 degrees two theta. 3 . crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 , wherein said crystalline form is an anhydrous form. 4 . crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 , which contains no more than about 20 wt % of any other crystalline forms of acalabrutinib. 5 . (canceled) 6 . a pharmaceutical composition comprising crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 . 7 . a pharmaceutical formulation comprising crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 , and at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. 8 . a process for preparing a pharmaceutical formulation comprising combining a crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 with at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. 9 . a medicament comprising the crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 . 10 . (canceled) 11 . a method of treating hematologic diseases, optionally wherein the hematologic disease is a form of blood cancer, comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 to a subject in need of the treatment. 12 . (canceled) 13 . a process for preparing an acalabrutinib salt or a solid state form thereof, comprising preparing crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib according to claim 1 , and converting it to an acalabrutinib salt, co-crystal or a solid state form thereof. 14 . (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide (“compound 1”) having the formula: 15 . the compound according to claim 14 in isolated form. 16 . a composition comprising amorphous acalabrutinib, and the compound according to claim 15 as an impurity. 17 . the composition of claim 16 , wherein compound 1 is present at a level of less than about 0.2 wt %. 18 . the composition of claim 17 , wherein compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.02 wt % to about 0.2 wt %. 19 . the composition of claim 17 , wherein compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.05 wt % to about 0.2 wt %. 20 . amorphous acalabrutinib including the compound according to claim 14 at a level of less than about 0.2 wt % when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and relative humidity (“rh”) of about 60% for a period of 1 month. 21 . amorphous acalabrutinib according to claim 20 , wherein the compound of claim 14 is formed at a level of from about 0.02 wt % to about 0.2 wt % when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month. 22 . amorphous acalabrutinib according to claim 20 , wherein the compound of claim 14 is formed at a level of from about 0.05 wt % to about 0.2 wt % when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month.	field of the invention the present disclosure relates to solid state forms of acalabrutinib, processes for the preparation thereof and pharmaceutical compositions comprising said solid state forms of acalabrutinib. the present disclosure also relates to (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide [“compound 1” ], which is an impurity of acalabrutinib, and to processes for its preparation. the present disclosure further relates to compositions comprising amorphous acalabrutinib and having the respective impurity (compound 1) at a level of less than about 0.2%, or from about 0.02% to about 0.2%. background of the invention acalabrutinib has the chemical name 4-{8-amino-3-[(2s)-1-(2-butynoyl)-2-pyrrolidinyl]imidazo[1,5-a]pyrazin-1-yl}-n-(2-pyridinyl)benzamide. acalabrutinib has the following chemical structure: acalabrutinib is being developed for the treatment of hematologic diseases like chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (cll), mantle cell lymphoma (mcl) and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (waldenström's macroglobulinaemia, wm). acalabrutinib is disclosed in wo 2013/010868 (referred to as '868). according to the '868 applicant, as well as statements in later publications, the procedure disclosed in this publication has been found to produce acalabrutinib in an amorphous form. wo 2017/002098 discloses amorphous and crystalline forms of acalabrutinib, as well as acalabrutinib salts. according to this publication, the product obtained in wo 2013/010868 is an amorphous form. moreover, the acalabrutinib product was found to have a tendency to form an oil. wo 2019/041026 and wo 2018/064797 also disclose solid state forms and co-crystals of acalabrutinib. polymorphism, the occurrence of different crystal forms, is a property of some molecules and molecular complexes. a single compound, like acalabrutinib, may give rise to a variety of polymorphs having distinct crystal structures and physical properties like melting point, thermal behavior (e.g. measured by thermogravimetric analysis—“tga”, or differential scanning calorimetry—“dsc”), x-ray powder diffraction (xrpd, or sometimes also referred to as pxrd) pattern, infrared absorption fingerprint, raman absorption fingerprint, and solid state ( 13 c-) nmr spectrum. one or more of these techniques may be used to distinguish different polymorphic forms of a compound. different solid state forms (including solvated forms) of an active pharmaceutical ingredient may possess different properties. such variations in the properties of different solid state forms and solvates may provide a basis for improving processing or its formulation into a pharmaceutical product, for example, by facilitating better processing or handling characteristics, improving the dissolution profile, or improving stability (polymorph as well as chemical stability) and shelf-life. these variations in the properties of different solid state forms may also provide improvements to the final dosage form, for instance, if they serve to improve bioavailability. different solid state forms and solvates of an active pharmaceutical ingredient may also give rise to a variety of polymorphs or crystalline forms, which may in turn provide additional opportunities to use variations in the properties and characteristics of a solid active pharmaceutical ingredient for providing an improved product. discovering new solid state forms and solvates of a pharmaceutical product can provide materials having desirable processing properties, such as ease of handling, ease of processing, storage stability, and ease of purification, or as desirable intermediate crystal forms that facilitate conversion to other polymorphic forms. new polymorphic forms and solvates of a pharmaceutically useful compound can also provide an opportunity to improve the performance characteristics of a pharmaceutical product (dissolution profile, bioavailability, etc.). it enlarges the repertoire of materials that a formulation scientist has available for formulation optimization, for example by providing a product with different properties, e.g., a different crystal habit, higher crystallinity or polymorphic stability which may offer better processing or handling characteristics, improved dissolution profile, or improved shelf-life. for at least these reasons, there is a need for additional solid state forms (including solvated forms) of acalabrutinib. in addition, identifying impurities and controlling formation of such impurities is of importance for development and manufacture of pharmaceutical compounds. the present disclosure identifies an impurity of acalabrutinib, and an amorphous form of acalabrutinib comprising said impurity. summary of the invention the present disclosure generally relates to solid state forms of acalabrutinib, processes for their preparation, and pharmaceutical compositions comprising these solid state forms. in one aspect, the present disclosure relates to a crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib, characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: a. an xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta;b. an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 4 ;c. a 13 c solid state nmr having peaks in the range of 100-200 ppm at 107.0, 113.8, 137.8, 141.9, 146.5 and 165.4 ppm+0.2 ppm;d. a solid state 13 c nmr spectrum having absolute chemical shift differences from a reference peak at 127.3±2 ppm of 20.3, 13.5, 10.5, 14.6, 19.2 and 38.1 ppm+0.1 ppm respectively;e. a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum substantially as depicted in fig. 6a, 6b or 6 c ; and/orf. combinations of these data. the crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib of the present disclosure may in some embodiments be an anhydrous form. in another aspect, the present disclosure encompasses the use of the described solid state forms of acalabrutinib, in particular of form acb3, for the preparation of pharmaceutical compositions and/or pharmaceutical formulations. such compositions and formulations are in some embodiments suitable for the treatment of hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers. accordingly, the present disclosure further provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising any one or a combination of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib according to the present disclosure. in yet another aspect, the present disclosure also encompasses pharmaceutical formulations comprising any one or a combination of the described solid state forms of acalabrutinib, or a pharmaceutical composition comprising any one or a combination of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib according to the present disclosure, and at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. the present disclosure further encompasses processes to prepare said pharmaceutical formulations of acalabrutinib comprising combining any one or a combination of the described solid state forms with at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. the solid state forms defined herein as well as the pharmaceutical compositions or formulations of the solid state form of acalabrutinib can be used as medicaments. in some embodiments, the solid state forms described herein as well as the pharmaceutical compositions or formulations of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib can be used for the treatment of hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers. examples of such blood cancers include chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (cll), mantle cell lymphoma (mcl) and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (waldenstrom's macroglobulinaemia, wm). in a related aspect, the present disclosure also provides methods of treating hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers; comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of any one or a combination of the described solid state forms, or at least one of the herein described pharmaceutical compositions or formulations, to a subject suffering from said hematologic diseases (including said forms of blood cancers), or otherwise in need of the treatment. the present disclosure also provides uses of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib described herein for preparing other solid state forms of acalabrutinib and/or acalabrutinib co-crystals and/or salts, and their solid state forms. the present disclosure further provides processes for preparing other solid state forms of acalabrutinib and/or acalabrutinib co-crystals and/or salts, and their solid state forms thereof. the processes for preparing an acalabrutinib salt or a solid state form thereof comprise preparing the solid state forms of acalabrutinib as described herein, such as crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib, and converting it to an acalabrutinib salt, co-crystal or a solid state form thereof. the process may optionally further comprise combining the resulting acalabrutinib salt, co-crystal or a solid state form thereof, with at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient to prepare a pharmaceutical composition or formulation. the present disclosure further relates to a compound named (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide (hereinafter also referred to as “compound 1”), which is an impurity of acalabrutinib, and to processes for the preparation of compound 1. the present disclosure also relates to compositions comprising amorphous acalabrutinib and having compound 1 at a level of less than about 0.2%; or less than about 0.15%; or less than about 0.1% by weight. in some embodiments compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.02% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.15%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.1% by weight. in other embodiments, compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.05% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.15%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.1% by weight. in another aspect, the present disclosure relates to amorphous acalabrutinib forming compound 1 at a level of less than about 0.2%; or less than about 0.15%; or less than about 0.1% by weight, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and relative humidity (“rh”) of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. in some embodiments, amorphous acalabrutinib forms compound 1 at a level of from about 0.02% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.15%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.1% by weight, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. in other embodiments, amorphous acalabrutinib forms compound 1 at a level of from about 0.05% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.15%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.1% by weight, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. brief description of the figures fig. 1 shows an x-ray powder diffractogram (xrpd) of form acb1 of acalabrutinib. fig. 2 shows an xrpd of form acb2 of acalabrutinib. fig. 3 shows an xrpd of form iii of acalabrutinib, as described in wo 2017/002095. fig. 4 shows an xrpd of form acb3 of acalabrutinib. fig. 5 shows an xrpd of form acb4 of acalabrutinib. fig. 6a shows a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum of form acb3 of acalabrutinib (full scan). fig. 6b shows a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum of form acb3 of acalabrutinib (at the range of 0-100 ppm). fig. 6c shows a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum of form acb3 of acalabrutinib (at the range of 100-200 ppm). fig. 7 shows a 1 h nmr of compound 1. fig. 8 shows a 13 c nmr of compound 1. fig. 9 shows a mass spectrum of compound 1. detailed description of the invention the present disclosure relates to solid state forms of acalabrutinib, processes for their preparation, and pharmaceutical compositions comprising these solid state forms. in addition, the present disclosure also relates to (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide, which is an impurity of acalabrutinib and to processes for its preparation. the present disclosure further relates to compositions comprising amorphous acalabrutinib and containing the respective impurity at a level of less than about 0.2%, or from about 0.02% to about 0.2%. the process described in wo 2013/010868 (referred to as '868) may afford acalabrutinib in amorphous form. wo 2017/002095 describes several polymorphs of acalabrutinib, and also confirms the difficulty in obtaining a crystalline product. the '868 applicant's attempts to prepare a crystalline form of acalabrutinib by common concentration of api solutions in organic solvents failed, and resulted in a viscous oil product, which finally, upon extended evaporation, converted to an amorphous solidified foam. the present inventors succeeded in developing an adequate crystallization technique for acalabrutinib, providing pharmaceutically suitable solid-state forms of acalabrutinib. depending on which solid state form of acalabrutinib it is compared to, the solid state forms of acalabrutinib according to the present disclosure may have advantageous properties selected from at least one of: chemical or polymorphic purity, flowability, solubility, wettability, low hygroscopicity, low solvent (e.g. water) content, dissolution rate, bioavailability, morphology or crystal habit, stability—such as chemical stability as well as thermal and mechanical stability with respect to polymorphic conversion, stability towards dehydration and/or storage stability, a lower degree of hygroscopicity, low content of residual solvents and advantageous processing and handling characteristics such as compressibility, or bulk density. a crystal form may be referred to herein as being characterized by graphical data “as depicted in” a figure. such data include, for example, powder x-ray diffractograms and solid state nmr spectra. as is well-known in the art, the graphical data potentially provides additional technical information to further define the respective solid state form (a so-called “fingerprint”) which can not necessarily be described by reference to numerical values or peak positions alone. in any event, the skilled person will understand that such graphical representations of data may be subject to small variations, e.g., in peak relative intensities and peak positions due to factors such as variations in instrument response and variations in sample concentration and purity, which are well known to the skilled person. nonetheless, the skilled person would readily be capable of comparing the graphical data in the figures herein with graphical data generated for an unknown crystal form and confirm whether the two sets of graphical data are characterizing the same crystal form or two different crystal forms. a crystal form of acalabrutinib referred to herein as being characterized by graphical data “as depicted in” a figure will thus be understood to include any crystal forms of the acalabrutinib, characterized with the graphical data having such small variations, as are well known to the skilled person, in comparison with the figure. a solid state form (or polymorph) may be referred to herein as polymorphically pure or as substantially free of any other solid state (or polymorphic) forms. as used herein in this context, the expression “substantially free of any other forms” will be understood to mean that the solid state form contains about 20% (w/w) or less, about 10% (w/w) or less, about 5% (w/w) or less, about 2% (w/w) or less, about 1% (w/w) or less, or no detectable amount of any other forms of the subject compound as measured, for example, by xrpd. thus, the solid state form of acalabrutinib described herein as substantially free of any other solid state forms would be understood to contain greater than about 80% (w/w), greater than about 90% (w/w), greater than about 95% (w/w), greater than about 98% (w/w), greater than about 99% (w/w), or 100% of the subject solid state form of acalabrutinib. as used herein, unless stated otherwise, xrpd peaks reported herein have been measured using cuk α radiation, λ=1.5418 å. as used herein, the term “isolated” in reference to solid state forms of acalabrutinib of the present disclosure corresponds to solid state form of acalabrutinib that is physically separated from the reaction mixture in which it is formed. a thing, e.g., a reaction mixture, may be characterized herein as being at, or allowed to come to “room temperature”, often abbreviated “rt.” this means that the temperature of the thing is close to, or the same as, that of the space, e.g., the room or fume hood, in which the thing is located. typically, room temperature is from about 20° c. to about 30° c., about 22° c. to about 27° c., or about 25° c. as used herein, unless indicated otherwise, the term “elevated temperature” refers to any temperature above room temperature, preferably above about 20° c., and more preferably above about 25° c. a process or step may be referred to herein as being carried out “overnight.” this refers to a time interval, e.g., for the process or step, that spans the time during the night, when that process or step may not be actively observed. this time interval is from about 8 to about 20 hours, about 10 to about 18 hours, or about 16 hours. as used herein, and unless stated otherwise, the term “anhydrous” in relation to crystalline acalabrutinib relates to a crystalline acalabrutinib which does not include any crystalline water (or other solvents) in a defined, stoichiometric amount within the crystal. moreover, an “anhydrous” form does not contain more than 1% (w/w) of either water or organic solvents as measured for example by tga. the term “solvate”, as used herein and unless indicated otherwise, refers to a crystal form that incorporates a solvent in the crystal structure. when the solvent is water, the solvate is often referred to as a “hydrate.” the solvent in a solvate may be present in either a stoichiometric or in a non-stoichiometric amount. the amount of solvent employed in a chemical process, e.g., a reaction or crystallization, may be referred to herein as a number of “volumes” or “vol” or “v.” for example, a material may be referred to as being suspended in 10 volumes (or 10 vol or 10v) of a solvent. in this context, this expression would be understood to mean milliliters of the solvent per gram of the material being suspended, such that suspending a 5 grams of a material in 10 volumes of a solvent means that the solvent is used in an amount of 10 milliliters of the solvent per gram of the material that is being suspended or, in this example, 50 ml of the solvent. in another context, the term “v/v” may be used to indicate the number of volumes of a solvent that are added to a liquid mixture based on the volume of that mixture. for example, adding methyl tert-butyl ether (mtbe) (1.5 v/v) to a 100 ml reaction mixture would indicate that 150 ml of mtbe was added. as used herein, the term “reduced pressure” refers to a pressure of from about 10 pbar to 50 mbar. as used herein, and unless stated otherwise, the term acalabrutinib form iii relates to form iii as described in wo 2017/002095. form iii can for example be described by the xrpd pattern as presented in fig. 3 . the present disclosure includes a crystalline form of acalabrutinib designated as form acb1. the crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib can be characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: an xrpd pattern having peaks at 3.7, 7.4, 13.9, 16.1, 18.2 and 19.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 1 ; and combinations of these data. crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib may in some embodiments be further characterized by the xrpd pattern having peaks at 3.7, 7.4, 13.9, 16.1, 18.2 and 19.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta, and also having one, two, three, four, five or six additional peaks selected from 10.9, 12.5, 14.7, 15.3, 21.7 and 24.0 degrees two theta±0.2 degrees two theta. crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib may be characterized by each of the above characteristics alone/or by all possible combinations, e.g. by xrpd pattern having peaks at 3.7, 7.4, 13.9, 16.1, 18.2 and 19.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta and/or an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 1 . crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib may be prepared by a process comprising crystallization of acalabrutinib from a mixture comprising ethanol as a solvent and n-heptane as an anti-solvent. the crystallization comprises providing a solution of acalabrutinib in ethanol and combining the solution with n-heptane to obtain a suspension. typically, the solution is provided at a temperature of from about 20° c. to about 50° c., preferably from about 20° c. to about 30° c. or from about 30° c. to about 50° c. combining the solution with the anti-solvent can be done either by direct addition, i.e. the anti-solvent is added to the solution; or by reverse addition, i.e., the solution is added to the anti-solvent. the process for preparing crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib may further comprise recovering said crystalline form. the recovery may be done, for example, by filtering the suspension, for example by vacuum filtration; optionally washing; and drying. preferably, drying is done by air, typically at room temperature. crystalline form acb1 of acalabrutinib may also be prepared by a process comprising precipitating form acb1 from a slurry of ethanol and methyl tert-butyl ether (“mtbe”). the present disclosure further includes a crystalline form of acalabrutinib designated as form acb2. the crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib can be characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: an xrpd pattern having peaks at 7.7, 9.2, 10.9, 15.6, 16.5 and 17.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 2 ; and combinations of these data. crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib may in some embodiments be further characterized by the xrpd pattern having peaks at 7.7, 9.2, 10.9, 15.6, 16.5 and 17.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta, and also having one, two, three, four or five additional peaks selected from 13.2, 18.1, 20.5, 21.2 and 22.0 degrees two theta±0.2 degrees two theta. crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib may be characterized by each of the above characteristics alone/or by all possible combinations, e.g. by xrpd pattern having peaks at 7.7, 9.2, 10.9, 15.6, 16.5 and 17.2 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta and/or an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 2 . crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib may be a hydrate form, and acetonitrile solvate or hydrate-acetonitrile solvate. the water and solvent content may be from about 1.5% to about 5% (w/w), as measured by typical methods, such as tga. crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib may be prepared a process comprising crystallization of form acb2 from acetonitrile. typically, the crystallization is done without presence of water, preferably the moisture content in the acetonitrile solvent used, is in amount of less than 1% (w/w). alternatively, the crystallization may be done with a mixture of acetonitrile and water, which may result in crystalline form acb2 of acalabrutinib in either hydrate or hydrate-solvate form. the present disclosure further includes a crystalline form of acalabrutinib designated as form acb3. the crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib can be characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: an xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 4 ; a 13 c solid state nmr having peaks in the range of 100-200 ppm at 107.0, 113.8, 137.8, 141.9, 146.5 and 165.4 ppm±0.2 ppm; a solid state 13 c nmr spectrum having the following chemical shift absolute differences from a reference peak at 127.3±2 ppm of 20.3, 13.5, 10.5, 14.6, 19.2 and 38.1 ppm±0.1 ppm respectively; a 13 c solid state nmr spectrum substantially as depicted in fig. 6a, 6b or 6 c ; and combinations of these data. crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may in some embodiments be further characterized by the xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta, and also having one, two, three, four or five additional peaks selected from 10.3, 13.1, 15.1, 20.5 and 27.7 degrees two theta±0.2 degrees two theta. in some embodiments, crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may be an anhydrous form. crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may be characterized by each of the above characteristics alone/or by all possible combinations, e.g. by xrpd pattern having peaks at 6.3, 16.3, 17.5, 18.5, 19.6 and 24.0 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta and/or an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 4 . crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may have advantageous properties as described herein above. particularly, form acb3 is polymorphically stable under various thermodynamic and/or physical conditions. for example, form acb3 is polymorphically stable when stored at room temperature and relative humidity (“rh”) of about 80% for a period of at least 7 days, or at room temperature and rh of about 60% for a period of at least 1 month, or at temperature of 40° c. and rh of about 75% for a period of at least 1 month. in addition, it remains polymorphically stable when heated to a temperature of about 100° c. over a period of about 30 minutes. it is also polymorphically stable towards solvent grinding or strong dry grinding. crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may be prepared by a process comprising crystallization of acalabrutinib from a mixture comprising acetic acid as a solvent and methyl tert-butyl ether (“mtbe”) as an anti-solvent. the crystallization comprises providing a solution of acalabrutinib in acetic acid and combining the solution with mtbe to obtain a gum-like material or a suspension. typically, the solution is provided at a temperature of from about 25° c. to about 30° c. combining the solution with the anti-solvent can be done by direct addition, i.e. the anti-solvent is added to the solution. the process for preparing crystalline form acb3 of acalabrutinib may in certain embodiments further comprise recovering said crystalline form. the recovery may be done, for example, by filtering the suspension, for example by vacuum filtration, and may optionally include washing and drying the crystalline form. preferably, drying is done by air or by vacuum drying, typically at a temperature of from about 60° c. to about 70° c., for example for a period of from about 4 hours to about 24 hours. the present disclosure further includes a crystalline polymorph of acalabrutinib designated form acb4. the crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib may be characterized by data selected from one or more of the following: an x-ray powder diffraction pattern substantially as depicted in fig. 5 ; an x-ray powder diffraction pattern having peaks at 8.4, 10.0, 17.0, 17.8, 21.7 and 23.7 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; and combinations of these data. crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib may in some embodiments be further characterized by an x-ray powder diffraction pattern having peaks at 8.4, 10.0, 17.0, 17.8, 21.7 and 23.7 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta, and also having any one, two, three, four or five additional peaks selected from 20.2, 20.9, 24.9 and 26.7 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta. crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib may be characterized by each of the above characteristics alone/or by all possible combinations, e.g., an xrpd pattern having peaks at 8.4, 10.0, 17.0, 17.8, 21.7 and 23.7 degrees 2-theta±0.2 degrees 2-theta; an xrpd pattern as depicted in fig. 5 , and combinations thereof. in one embodiment of this aspect of the present disclosure, crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib is isolated. the crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib may in certain embodiments be a methanol solvate. in some embodiments, the amount of methanol in crystalline form acb4 may be from about 3% to about 7.5% (w/w), as measured by tga. crystalline form acb4 of acalabrutinib may be prepared by a process comprising precipitation of crystalline form acb4 from methanol. in some embodiments, the process comprises slurrying amorphous acalabrutinib in methanol. optionally, methyl tert-butyl ether (mtbe) can be added to the slurry. the methanol may be aqueous methanol. in some embodiments, the methanol is from about 50% to about 95% aqueous methanol, meaning it contains from about 5% to about 50% (v/v) water. the present disclosure also provides uses of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib described herein for preparing other solid state forms of acalabrutinib and/or acalabrutinib co-crystals and salts, and their solid state forms. the present disclosure thus also encompasses processes for preparing other solid state forms of acalabrutinib and/or acalabrutinib co-crystals and salts, and their solid state forms. such processes include preparing a solid state form of the present disclosure, and converting it to other solid state forms of acalabrutinib and/or acalabrutinib co-crystals or salts, and their solid state forms. in another aspect, the present disclosure encompasses the use of the above described solid state form of acalabrutinib for the preparation of pharmaceutical compositions and/or pharmaceutical formulations. such pharmaceutical compositions and/or pharmaceutical formulations may be suitable for the treatment of hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers. the present disclosure further provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising any one or a mixture of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib according to the present disclosure. in some embodiments, the solid state form is form acb3. in yet another embodiment, the present disclosure encompasses pharmaceutical formulations comprising any one or a mixture of the solid state form of acalabrutinib (such as form acb3) and at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. pharmaceutical formulations of the present invention contain any one or a combination of the crystalline forms of acalabrutinib of the present disclosure. in some embodiments, the solid state form is form acb3. the active ingredient and excipients can be formulated into compositions and dosage forms according to methods known in the art. in addition to the active ingredient, the pharmaceutical formulations of the present disclosure contain one or more pharmaceutically acceptable excipients. excipients are added to the formulation for a variety of purposes. diluents increase the bulk of a solid pharmaceutical composition, and can make a pharmaceutical dosage form containing the composition easier for the patient and caregiver to handle. diluents for solid compositions include, for example, microcrystalline cellulose (e.g. avicel®), microfine cellulose, lactose, starch, pregelatinized starch, calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, sugar, dextrates, dextrin, dextrose, dibasic calcium phosphate dihydrate, tribasic calcium phosphate, kaolin, magnesium carbonate, magnesium oxide, maltodextrin, mannitol, polymethacrylates (e.g. eudragit®), potassium chloride, powdered cellulose, sodium chloride, sorbitol, and talc. solid pharmaceutical compositions that are compacted into a dosage form, such as a tablet, can include excipients whose functions include helping to bind the active ingredient and other excipients together after compression. binders for solid pharmaceutical compositions include acacia, alginic acid, carbomer (e.g. carbopol), carboxymethylcellulose sodium, dextrin, ethyl cellulose, gelatin, guar gum, hydrogenated vegetable oil, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose (e.g. klucel®), hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (e.g. methocel®), liquid glucose, magnesium aluminum silicate, maltodextrin, methylcellulose, polymethacrylates, povidone (e.g. kollidon®, plasdone®), pregelatinized starch, sodium alginate, and starch. the dissolution rate of a compacted solid pharmaceutical composition in the patient's stomach can be increased by the addition of a disintegrant to the composition. disintegrants include alginic acid, carboxymethylcellulose calcium, carboxymethylcellulose sodium (e.g. ac-di-sol®, primellose®), colloidal silicon dioxide, croscarmellose sodium, crospovidone (e.g. kollidon®, polyplasdone®), guar gum, magnesium aluminum silicate, methyl cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, polacrilin potassium, powdered cellulose, pregelatinized starch, sodium alginate, sodium starch glycolate (e.g. explotab®), and starch. glidants can be added to improve the flowability of a non-compacted solid composition and to improve the accuracy of dosing. excipients that can function as glidants include colloidal silicon dioxide, magnesium trisilicate, powdered cellulose, starch, talc, and tribasic calcium phosphate. when a dosage form such as a tablet is made by the compaction of a powdered composition, the composition is subjected to pressure from a punch and dye. some excipients and active ingredients have a tendency to adhere to the surfaces of the punch and dye, which can cause the product to have pitting and other surface irregularities. a lubricant can be added to the composition to reduce adhesion and ease the release of the product from the dye. lubricants include magnesium stearate, calcium stearate, glyceryl monostearate, glyceryl palmitostearate, hydrogenated castor oil, hydrogenated vegetable oil, mineral oil, polyethylene glycol, sodium benzoate, sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium stearyl fumarate, stearic acid, talc, and zinc stearate. flavoring agents and flavor enhancers make the dosage form more palatable to the patient. common flavoring agents and flavor enhancers for pharmaceutical products that can be included in the composition of the present invention include maltol, vanillin, ethyl vanillin, menthol, citric acid, fumaric acid, ethyl maltol, and tartaric acid. solid and liquid compositions can also be dyed using any pharmaceutically acceptable colorant to improve their appearance and/or facilitate patient identification of the product and unit dosage level. in liquid pharmaceutical compositions of the present disclosure, the active ingredient and any other solid excipients may be dissolved or suspended in a liquid carrier such as water, vegetable oil, alcohol, polyethylene glycol, propylene glycol, or glycerin. liquid pharmaceutical compositions can contain emulsifying agents to disperse uniformly throughout the composition an active ingredient or other excipient that is not soluble in the liquid carrier. emulsifying agents that can be useful in liquid compositions of the present invention include, for example, gelatin, egg yolk, casein, cholesterol, acacia, tragacanth, chondrus, pectin, methyl cellulose, carbomer, cetostearyl alcohol, and cetyl alcohol. liquid pharmaceutical compositions of the present disclosure can also contain a viscosity enhancing agent to improve the mouth-feel of the product and/or coat the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. such agents include acacia, alginic acid bentonite, carbomer, carboxymethylcellulose calcium or sodium, cetostearyl alcohol, methyl cellulose, ethylcellulose, gelatin guar gum, hydroxyethyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose, maltodextrin, polyvinyl alcohol, povidone, propylene carbonate, propylene glycol alginate, sodium alginate, sodium starch glycolate, starch tragacanth, and xanthan gum. sweetening agents such as sorbitol, saccharin, sodium saccharin, sucrose, aspartame, fructose, mannitol, and invert sugar can be added to improve the taste. preservatives and chelating agents such as alcohol, sodium benzoate, butylated hydroxyl toluene, butylated hydroxyanisole, and ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid can be added at levels safe for ingestion to improve storage stability. according to the present disclosure, a liquid composition can also contain a buffer such as gluconic acid, lactic acid, citric acid, or acetic acid, sodium gluconate, sodium lactate, sodium citrate, or sodium acetate. selection of excipients and the amounts used can be readily determined by the formulation scientist based upon experience and consideration of standard procedures and reference works in the field. the solid compositions of the present disclosure include powders, granulates, aggregates, and compacted compositions. the dosages include dosages suitable for oral, buccal, rectal, parenteral (including subcutaneous, intramuscular, and intravenous), inhalant, and ophthalmic administration. although the most suitable administration in any given case will depend on the nature and severity of the condition being treated, the most preferred route of the present disclosure is oral. the dosages can be conveniently presented in unit dosage form and prepared by any of the methods well-known in the pharmaceutical arts. dosage forms include solid dosage forms like tablets, powders, capsules, suppositories, sachets, troches, and lozenges, as well as liquid syrups, suspensions, and elixirs. the dosage form of the present disclosure can be a capsule containing the composition, such as a powdered or granulated solid composition of the invention, within either a hard or soft shell. the shell can be made from gelatin and optionally contain a plasticizer such as glycerin and sorbitol, and an opacifying agent or colorant. a composition for tableting or capsule filling can for example be prepared by wet granulation. in wet granulation, some or all of the active ingredients and excipients in powder form are blended and then further mixed in the presence of a liquid, typically water, that causes the powders to clump into granules. the granulate is screened and/or milled, dried, and then screened and/or milled to the desired particle size. the granulate can then be tableted, or other excipients can be added prior to tableting, such as a glidant and/or a lubricant. a tableting composition can be prepared conventionally by dry blending. for example, the blended composition of the actives and excipients can be compacted into a slug or a sheet and then comminuted into compacted granules. the compacted granules can subsequently be compressed into a tablet. as an alternative to dry granulation, a blended composition can be compressed directly into a compacted dosage form using direct compression techniques. direct compression produces a more uniform tablet without granules. excipients that are particularly well suited for direct compression tableting include microcrystalline cellulose, spray dried lactose, dicalcium phosphate dihydrate, and colloidal silica. the proper use of these and other excipients in direct compression tableting is known to those in the art with experience and skill in particular formulation challenges of direct compression tableting. a capsule filling of the present invention can comprise any of the aforementioned blends and granulates that were described with reference to tableting, but they are not subjected to a final tableting step. in some embodiments, a pharmaceutical formulation of acalabrutinib is formulated for administration to a mammal, such as a human. acalabrutinib can be formulated, for example, as a viscous liquid solution or suspension, such as a clear solution, for injection. the formulation can contain one or more solvents. a suitable solvent can be selected by considering the solvent's physical and chemical stability at various ph levels, viscosity (which would allow for syringeability), fluidity, boiling point, miscibility, and purity. suitable solvents include alcohol usp, benzyl alcohol nf, benzyl benzoate usp, and castor oil usp. additional substances can be added to the formulation such as buffers, solubilizers, and antioxidants, among others (ansel et al., pharmaceutical dosage forms and drug delivery systems, 7th ed.). the present disclosure further encompasses processes to prepare said formulations of acalabrutinib. such processes comprise combining any one or a mixture of the solid state forms of acalabrutinib and at least one pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. the solid state forms of acalabrutinib as defined herein, as well as the pharmaceutical compositions or formulations thereof, can be used as medicaments, particularly for the treatment of hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers. examples of such blood cancers include chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (cll), mantle cell lymphoma (mcl) and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (waldenström's macroglobulinaemia, wm). the present disclosure also provides methods of treating of hematologic diseases, such as forms of blood cancers; comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of any one or a mixture of the solid state form of acalabrutinib of the present disclosure, or at least one of the above pharmaceutical compositions or formulations, to a subject suffering from hematologic diseases (including forms of blood cancers), or otherwise in need of the treatment. in another aspect, the present disclosure relates to (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide (“compound 1”), which is an impurity of acalabrutinib and to processes for its preparation. compound 1 has the following structure: in some embodiments, compound 1 can be isolated. compound 1 may be characterized by a mass spectrum m+h=532.2152. compound 1 may also be characterized by the following 1 h-nmr or 13 c-nmr peaks, as listed in table 1: table 1solventdmso-d613 c at 100 mhz1 h at 400 mhznochem. shift, ppmchem. shift, ppmmultiplicityj, hz13.75. 3.842.02, 1.79 (6h)s~289.13, 88.64~~~374.60, 74.64~~~4152.39, 152.24~~~548.81, 46.383.85 (2h)t6.29624.52, 23.212.37, 2.04 (2h)m~731.83, 32.872.37, 2.22 (2h)m~851.27, 53.825.55 (1h)dd6.83, 4.169144.95, 145.75~~~10141.66, 141.98~~~11117.00, 117.12~~~12146.69, 146.63~~~13113.32, 113.847.50, 7.52 (1h)2 × d6.46, 6.5214110.08, 109.398.06, 8.11 (1h)2 × d6.47, 6.5515nh~16137.36, 137.25~~~17, 21130.448.26, 8.30 (2h)2 × d8.62, 8.4618, 20127.55, 127.598.08, 8.09 (2h)2 × d8.45, 8.9819133.48, 133.53~~~22166.17~~~23nh10.86 (1h)s~24152.72~~~25115.288.24 (1h)d9.5126138.567.86 (1h)td7.87, 1.7527120.277.18 (1h)dd6.83, 5.2528148.428.41 (1h)dd4.82, 1.0629167.45~~~30112.766.20, 6.22 (1h)2 × s~31148.32~~~3219.622.48 (3h)s~ the above compound 1 may be used as a reference standard in determining and/or quantifying the purity of acalabrutinib. compound 1 may be prepared by a process comprising reacting acalabrutinib with 2-butynoic acid, in the presence of a base, such as imidazole, trimethylamine, etc. to facilitate the reaction, a coupling agent may be used, such as pivaloyl chloride, hexafluorophosphate azabenzotriazole tetramethyl uronium (“hatu”) or 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (edci). the above reaction may be done in the presence of an organic solvent, for example a chlorinated solvent, such as dichloromethane, or non-chlorinated solvents, such as isopropyl acetate, tetrahydrofuran or toluene. compound 1 may be recovered from the reaction mixture, for example by extraction. in some embodiments, the process comprises adding water to the reaction mixture and adjusting the ph level to a level from which the organic layer and the aqueous layer separate. the aqueous layer may be subjected to additional separation step, by adding an organic solvent, such as dichloromethane, and adjusting the ph level. compound 1 may be isolated from the organic layer by removing the solvents, for example by distillation or evaporation. the ph level is typically adjusted to a strong acidic ph at the first separation step, for example a ph of about 1.8. at the second separation step, the ph level is typically adjusted to about neutral ph, for example in some embodiments to ph 6.9. the isolated impurity compound 1 can be purified, for example by hplc. in yet another aspect, the present disclosure relates to compositions comprising amorphous acalabrutinib, and having the impurity compound 1 at a level of less than about 0.2%; or less than about 0.15%; or less than about 0.1%. in some embodiments, compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.02% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.15; or from about 0.02% to about 0.1. in other embodiments, compound 1 is present at a level of from about 0.05% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.15; or from about 0.05% to about 0.1. in yet another aspect, the present disclosure relates to amorphous acalabrutinib forming the respective impurity (compound 1) at a level of less than about 0.2%; or less than about 0.15%; or less than about 0.1%, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and relative humidity (“rh”) of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. in some embodiments, the amorphous acalabrutinib forms compound 1 at a level of from about 0.02% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.02% to about 0.15; or from about 0.02% to about 0.1, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. in certain embodiments, the amorphous acalabrutinib forms compound 1 at a level of from about 0.05% to about 0.2%; or from about 0.05% to about 0.15; or from about 0.05% to about 0.1, when stored at a temperature of about 25° c. and rh of about 60% for a period of 1 month, or for a period of 3 months, or for a period of 6 months. having described the disclosure with reference to certain preferred embodiments, other embodiments will become apparent to one skilled in the art from consideration of the specification. the disclosure is further illustrated by reference to the following examples describing in detail the preparation of the composition and methods of use of the disclosure. it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many modifications, both to materials and methods, may be practiced without departing from the scope of the disclosure. analytical methods x-ray powder diffraction method: bruker d8 advance; copper kα radiation (λ=1.5418 å); lynx eye detector; laboratory temperature 22-25° c.; pmma specimen holder ring. prior to analysis, the samples were gently ground by means of mortar and pestle in order to obtain a fine powder. the ground sample was adjusted into a cavity of the sample holder and the surface of the sample was smoothed by means of a cover glass. silicon was used as a reference standard for determining peak positions. measurement parameters: scan range: 2-40 degrees 2-theta; scan mode: continuous; step size: 0.05 degrees; time per step: 0.5 s; sample spin: 30 rpm; sample holder: pmma specimen holder ring. solid state 13c-nmr method: solid-state nmr spectra were measured at 11.7 t using a bruker avance iii hd 500 us/wb nmr spectrometer (karlsruhe, germany, 2013) with 3.2 mm probehead. the 13c cp/mas nmr spectra employing cross-polarization were acquired using the standard pulse scheme at spinning frequency of 15 khz and a room temperature (298 k). the recycle delay was 8 s and the cross-polarization contact time was 2 ms. the 13c scale was referenced to α-glycine (176.03 ppm for 13c). frictional heating of the spinning samples was offset by active cooling, and the temperature calibration was performed with pb(no3)2. the nmr spectrometer was completely calibrated and all experimental parameters were carefully optimized prior the investigation. magic angle was set using kbr during standard optimization procedure and homogeneity of magnetic field was optimized using adamantane sample (resulting line-width at half-height δν 1/2 was less than 3.5 hz at 250 ms of acquisition time). examples preparation of starting material acalabrutinib can be prepared by any process disclosed in the literature, for example in wo 2013/010868. acalabrutinib form iii can be prepared by any one of the processes described in wo 2017/002095. amorphous acalabrutinib can be prepared by any known method for preparing amorphous materials, such as lyophilization, spray drying, fast evaporation, etc. alternatively, it may be prepared by the process described herein below in example 8, step i. example 1: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb1 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.1 grams) was added into a mixture of ethanol (0.25 ml) and methyl tert butylether (“mtbe”, 0.35 ml) at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. and the obtained slurry was stirred for 3 days at the same temperature. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb1 was obtained (0.07 grams). example 2: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb1 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.07 grams) was dissolved in ethanol (0.5 ml) at a temperature of 30-50° c., and was stirred for 5-10 minutes to obtain a clear solution. n-heptane (1.5 ml, pre-maintained at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c.) was added into the clear solution, under magnetic stirring and a gummy material was obtained and was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. and kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb1 was obtained (0.05 grams). example 3: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb1 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.07 grams) was dissolved in ethanol (0.5 ml) at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c. and was stirred for 5-10 minutes to obtain a clear solution. the obtained clear solution was added into n-heptane (1.5 ml, pre-maintained at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c.) under magnetic stirring and a gummy material was obtained and was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at 20° c.-30° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb1 was obtained (0.05 grams). example 4: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb1 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.07 grams) was dissolved in ethanol (0.5 ml) at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c. and was stirred for 5-10 minutes to obtain a clear solution. n-heptane (1.5 ml, pre-maintained at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c.) was added into the clear solution under magnetic stirring and a gummy material was obtained and was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb1 was obtained (0.05 grams). a pxrd pattern is shown in fig. 1 . example 5: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb1 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.07 grams) was dissolved in ethanol (0.5 ml) at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c. and was stirred for 5-10 minutes to obtain a clear solution. the obtained clear solution was added into n-heptane (1.5 ml, pre-maintained at a temperature of 30°−50° c.) under magnetic stirring and a gummy material was obtained and was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 30° c.-50° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at 20° c.-30° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb1 was obtained (0.05 grams). example 6: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb2 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.1 grams) was added into acetonitrile (1.5 ml, moisture content less than 1%) at a temperature of 40° c.-50° c. and was stirred for 10-20 minutes at the same temperature to obtain a clear solution. the obtained clear solution was kept under stirring at a temperature of 0° c.-5° c. for 5 days. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 0° c.-5° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. the solid was further dried in atd (air tray drier) at a temperature of 140° c. for 1 hour. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb2 was obtained (0.07 g). example 7: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb2 acalabrutinib (form iii, 0.5 grams) was added into acetonitrile (1.5 ml, moisture content less than 1%) at a temperature of 40° c.-50° c. and was stirred for 10-20 minutes at the same temperature, and a gummy-sticky solid was formed. additional amount of acetonitrile (3.5 ml) was added and the mixture was kept under stirring at a temperature of 45° c. for 1-3 hours. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 20° c.-25° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of 20° c.-30° c. the solid was further dried in atd (air tray drier) at a temperature of 140° c. for 1 hour. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb2 was obtained (0.35 grams). a pxrd pattern is shown in fig. 2 . example 8: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb2 acalabrutinib (amorphous, 0.1 gm) was added into a 10 ml vial containing a mixture of acetonitrile and water (4 ml, 95:5 ratio) at a temperature of about 25-30° c. the mixture was stirred for 10 minutes at same temperature and the obtained slurry was heated to a temperature of about 50° c. and maintained for about 5-10 minutes at this temperature to form a clear solution. the clear solution was then cooled down to a temperature of about 25-30° c. over a period of about 5-10 minutes, and it was left to crystallize at the same temperature. after 10 days, the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum and kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb2 was obtained. example 9: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 step i: preparation of crude acalabrutinib 2-butynoic acid (2.1 grams), imidazole (2.13 grams) and dichloromethane (100 ml) were mixed under stirring for 30 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c., then the reaction mixture was cooled to temperature of about 0 to about 10° c. and further stirred for 10 minutes. pivaloyl chloride (2.26 grams) was added over a period of 5 minutes, and the mixture was stirred for 1 hour at the same temperature. then, (s)-4-(8-amino-3-(pyrrolidin-2-yl)imidazo[1,5-a]pyrazin-1-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide, (5.0 grams) was added and the mixture was stirred for 30 minutes, the reaction completion was monitored by hplc. water (50 ml) was added at a temperature of about 5-10° c., and the mixture was stirred for 30-45 minutes at a temperature of about 10-25° c. the ph was adjusted to ph 5.9 using aqueous sodium carbonate solution (1 gram of sodium carbonate in 10 ml water), and the mixture was stirred for 10-15 minutes. then the layers were separated and the organic layer was collected. water (50 ml) was added and the ph was adjusted to ph 1-1.1 using ˜35% conc. hcl solution (approx. 6 ml) at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the mixture was stirred for 15 minutes then the layers were separated and the aqueous layer was collected. the aqueous layer was washed twice with dichloromethane (25 ml) stirred at a temperature of about 15-25° c. for 30 minutes, then layers were separated and the aqueous layer was collected. dichloromethane (50 ml) was added to the aqueous layer and then the ph was adjusted to ph 6.5 using aqueous sodium carbonate solution (2 grams of sodium carbonate and 20 ml water) at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the mixture was stirred for 30 minutes then layers were separated and the organic layer was collected. water (50 ml) was added and the mixture was stirred for 20-30 minutes at a temperature of about 15-25° c. then layers were separated and the final organic layer was collected. the solvent was distilled off under vacuum at a temperature of about 38° c., crude acalabrutinib residue was obtained (6.2 grams, amorphous) step ii: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 premixed mixture of acetone (7.5 ml) and n-heptane (22.5 ml) was added to acalabrutinib crude residue (2 grams, amorphous) at a temperature of about 25° c. the mass was heated to a temperature of about 50-55° c. and was stirred for 60-90 minutes. water (0.16 ml) was added and the mixture was stirred for 30 minutes at the same temperature. then, gradually the mixture was cooled down to a temperature of about 25-30° c. over a period of about 40 minutes and maintained for 15 minutes. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 20-30° c. and washed with n-heptane (4 ml), then kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. the obtained solid was dried in a vacuum tray drier, under vacuum at a temperature of about 45-50° c. for a period of 3 hours. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained (yield: 1.35 grams). a pxrd pattern is shown in fig. 4 . example 10: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib crude residue (2 grams, amorphous) was added to ethanol (8 ml) at a temperature of about 25° c. the mass was heated to a temperature of about 54° c. and n-heptane (4 ml) was added slowly over a period of 10 minutes. the mixture was stirred for 2 hours at the same temperature, then, it was gradually cooled down to a temperature of about 20-25° c. over a period of 1 hour and maintained for 60 minutes at the same temperature. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 20-30° c. and was kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. the solid was further dried in a vacuum tray drier under vacuum at a temperature of about 25° c. for 3 hours. a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained (yield: 1.4 grams). example 11: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 step i: preparation of crude acalabrutinib 2-butynoic acid (25.25 grams), imidazole (25.6 grams) and dichloromethane (1200 ml) were mixed under stirring for 5 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. then, the reaction mixture was cooled to a temperature of about 0-10° c. and was stirred for 15 minutes. then, pivaloyl chloride (27.17 grams) was added slowly over a period of 15 minutes, and the reaction mixture was stirred for 1 hour at the same temperature. (s)-4-(8-amino-3-(pyrrolidin-2-yl)imidazo[1,5-a]pyrazin-1-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide (60 grams) was added and the reaction mixture was stirred for 30 minutes and the reaction completion was monitored by hplc. 600 ml of water was added at a temperature of about 0-25° c. and the mixture was stirred for 30-45 minutes at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the layers were separated, the organic layer was collected at a temperature of about 15-25° c., 600 ml of water was added and the ph was adjusted to ph 0.8-1.1 with ˜35% conc. hcl solution (approx. 35 ml) at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the mixture was stirred for 45 minutes and the layers were separated and the aqueous layer was collected. dichloromethane (600 ml) was added to the aqueous layer and it was stirred for 30 minutes at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the layers were separated and the aqueous layer was collected. dichloromethane (600 ml) was added to the aqueous layer and the ph was adjusted to ph 6.5-7.0 using aqueous sodium carbonate solution (18.5 grams of sodium carbonate and 185 ml water) at a temperature of about 15-25° c., and the mixture was stirred for 30 minutes. the layers were separated, the organic layer at was collected, then water (300 ml) was added; the mixture was stirred for 20-30 minutes at a temperature of about 15-25° c. the layers were separated, and the final organic layer was collected. the solvent was distilled off under vacuum at a temperature of about 40° c., and crude acalabrutinib residue was obtained (75 grams, amorphous). step ii: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib crude residue (75 grams, amorphous) was dissolved in 300 ml ethanol (300 ml) (at a temperature of about 50-55° c. and a clear solution was formed. n-heptane (150 ml) was added to the clear solution over a period of about 20 minutes, and the solution was stirred for 10 minutes at the same temperature. then, the clear solution was gradually cooled down to a temperature of about 20° c. over a period of 5 hours, and the slurry was maintained for 30 minutes at the same temperature and a solid was formed. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 20-30° c., then washed with a mixture of ethanol:n-heptane (2:1; 120 ml). the washed solid was maintained under suction for about 10-15 minutes at 20-30° c. and further dried the compound in a vtd (vacuum tray drier) under vacuum at a temperature of about 40-50° c. for 25 hours. crystalline acalabrutinib was obtained (48 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained. example 12: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib (amorphous, 1 g) and acetic acid (5 ml) were mixed in a 500 ml round bottom flask at a temperature of about 25-30° c., and a clear solution formed. mtbe (110 ml) was added to the clear solution and a gel/gummy like material was formed. it was further maintained upon stirring for a period of about 24 hours at the same temperature. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 15-30° c. and the isolated material was kept under suction for about 20-30 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. then, it was washed with mtbe (10 ml) and further dried in an air tray drier (atd) at a temperature of about 70° c. for a period of about 4 hours. crystalline acalabrutinib was obtained (0.7 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained. example 13: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib (amorphous, 2 grams) and acetic acid (5 ml) were mixed in a 500 ml round bottom flask at a temperature of about 25-30° c., and a clear solution formed. mtbe (220 ml) was added to the clear solution and the mixture maintained upon stirring for a period of about 72 hours at the same temperature. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 15-30° c. and the isolated material kept under suction for about 20-30 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. then, the material was washed with mtbe (10 ml) and further dried in a vacuum tray drier (vtd) at a temperature of about 60° c. for a period of about 40 hours. crystalline acalabrutinib was obtained (1.6 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained. example 14: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib (form i, 0.200 grams) was mixed with a mixture of mtbe and acetic acid (90% mtbe, 10% acetic acid, total volume 4 ml) in a 5 ml vial and the obtained slurry were stirred for 6 hours at a temperature of about 15-30° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of about 15-30° c. and kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. then, the filtered material was washed with mtbe (10 ml) and further dried in an atd at a temperature of about 70° c. for 6 hours to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.12 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained. example 15: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb3 acalabrutinib (form i, 1.5 grams) was mixed with a mixture of mtbe and acetic acid (60% mtbe, 40% acetic acid, total volume 5 ml) in a 10 ml vial, and an additional amount of mtbe (2 ml) was added. the obtained slurry were stirred for 48 hours at a temperature of about 15-30° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at 15-30° c. and kept under suction for about 10-15 minutes at a temperature of about 20-30° c. the filtered solid was washed with mtbe (10 ml) and further dried in an atd at a temperature of about 70° c. for 6 hours to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (1.0 gram). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb3 was obtained. example 16: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.740 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (95%, 1.4 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.9 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 17: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.740 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (95%, 0.7 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.9 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. a pxrd pattern is shown in fig. 5 . example 18: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.5 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (80%, 0.5-0.9 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.65 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 19: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.5 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (75%, 0.5-0.9 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.65 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 20: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.5 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (65%, 0.5-0.9 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.65 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 21: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.5 grams) was added into a 2 ml vial with aqueous methanol (50%, 0.5-0.9 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.65 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 22: preparation of crystalline acalabrutinib form acb4 acalabrutinib (amorphous form, 0.5 grams) was added into a 10 ml vial with aqueous methanol (95%, 0.5 ml) and the obtained slurry was stirred for 2 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. then, mtbe (3.5 ml) was added to the slurry and it was further stirred for 24 hours at a temperature of 0-5° c. the obtained solid was filtered under vacuum at a temperature of 15-30° c. and kept under suction for a period of about 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 20-30° c. to obtain crystalline acalabrutinib (0.55 grams). a sample was analyzed by pxrd, form acb4 was obtained. example 23: preparation of amorphous acalabrutinib acalabrutinib pure (40 grams), prepared and isolated according to example 10 steps i) and ii), was dissolved in methanol (240 ml) at a temperature of about 20-25° c. and a clear solution formed. the solvent was distilled of at a temperature of about 40-45° c. (tj) afforded a solid (40.6 grams), which was dried under vacuum at a temperature of about 40-45° c. (tj) to afford amorphous acalabrutinib (37.5 grams). example 24: preparation of (s)-4-(9-(1-(but-2-ynoyl)pyrrolidin-2-yl)-4-methyl-2-oxo-2h-imidazo[5′,1′:3,4]pyrazino[1,2-a]pyrimidin-11-yl)-n-(pyridin-2-yl)benzamide—compound 1 2-butynoic acid (1.5 grams), imidazole (1.5 grams) and dichloromethane (30 ml) were mixed under stirring for 30 minutes at a temperature of about 20-25° c. pivaloyl chloride (2.2 grams) was added, followed by acalabrutinib (3.0 grams). the reaction mixture was stirred for 15 hours at a temperature of about 20-25° c. and the reaction progress was monitored by hplc. water (20 ml) was added at a temperature of about 20-25° c., and the mixture was stirred for 30 minutes. the ph was adjusted to 1.8 using concentrated hcl (1.8 ml) and the mixture was stirred for 10-15 minutes. the layers were separated and the aqueous layer was collected. dichloromethane (15 ml) was added to the aqueous layer and the ph was adjusted to 6.9 using ˜20% aqueous sodium carbonate (approx. 8 ml) at a temperature of about 20-25° c. the mixture was stirred for 15 minutes, then the layers were separated and the organic layer was collected. the solvent was distilled under vacuum at a temperature of about 35° c. (tj) to obtain crude compound 1 (3.1 grams) having an hplc purity of 59.74%, which was isolated by prep. hplc to afford 100 mg of compound 1 with an hplc purity of 99.59%.
147-455-165-808-414	US	[ "WO", "US", "KR" ]	H04N19/70,H04N19/105,H04N19/117,H04N19/184,H04N19/423,H04N19/30	2020-03-30T00:00:00	2020	[ "H04" ]	image encoding/decoding method and device for signaling information relating to ptl, dpb, and hrd in sps, and computer-readable recording medium storing bitstream	provided are an image encoding/decoding method and device for signaling information relating to a profile tier level (ptl), a decoded picture buffer (dpb), and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) in a sequence parameter set (sps), and a method for transmitting a bitstream. an image decoding method according to the present disclosure may comprise the steps of: obtaining flag information indicating whether a ptl syntax structure, a dpb parameter syntax structure, and an hrd parameter syntax structure exist in an sps; obtaining at least one of the ptl syntax structure, the dpb parameter syntax structure, and the hrd parameter syntax structure on the basis of the flag information; and processing a current output layer set (ols) on the basis of the obtained syntax structures, wherein the flag information has a predetermined value on the basis of the existence of an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps.	1 . an image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus, the image decoding method comprising: obtaining flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps); obtaining at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information; and processing a current output layer set (ols), based on the obtained syntax structure, wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present. 2 . the image decoding method of claim 1 , wherein the flag information has a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that the ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as the layer identifier of the sps is present. 3 . the image decoding method of claim 1 , further comprising obtaining at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure from the sps, based on the flag information indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps. 4 . the image decoding method of claim 1 , wherein, when the flag information indicates that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are not present in the sps, at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure is obtained from a video parameter set (vps). 5 . the image decoding method of claim 1 , wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. 6 . the image decoding method of claim 5 , wherein the flag information has a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. 7 . (canceled) 8 . an image encoding method performed by an image encoding apparatus, the image encoding method comprising: encoding flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps); encoding at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information; and processing a current output layer set (ols), based on the at least one syntax structure, wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present. 9 . the image encoding method of claim 8 , wherein the flag information has a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that the ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as the layer identifier of the sps is present. 10 . the image encoding method of claim 8 , further comprising encoding at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure in the sps, based on the flag information indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are in the sps. 11 . the image encoding method of claim 8 , wherein, when the flag information indicates that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are not present in the sps, at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure is encoded in a video parameter set (vps). 12 . the image encoding method of claim 8 , wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. 13 . the image encoding method of claim 12 , wherein the flag information has a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. 14 . a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream generated by the image encoding method of claim 8 . 15 . a method of transmitting a bitstream generated by an image encoding method, the image encoding method comprising: encoding flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps); encoding at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information; and processing a current output layer set (ols), based on the at least one syntax structure, wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present.	technical field the present disclosure relates to an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus and, more particularly, to an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus for signaling ptl (profile tier level), dpb (decoded picture buffer) and hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) related information in sps (sequence parameter set) and a computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream generated by the image encoding method/apparatus of the present disclosure. background art recently, demand for high-resolution and high-quality images such as high definition (hd) images and ultra high definition (uhd) images is increasing in various fields. as resolution and quality of image data are improved, the amount of transmitted information or bits relatively increases as compared to existing image data. an increase in the amount of transmitted information or bits causes an increase in transmission cost and storage cost. accordingly, there is a need for high-efficient image compression technology for effectively transmitting, storing and reproducing information on high-resolution and high-quality images. disclosure technical problem an object of the present disclosure is to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus with improved encoding/decoding efficiency. another object of the present disclosure is to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus for improving encoding/decoding efficiency by efficiently signaling ptl, dpb and hrd related information in sps. another object of the present disclosure is to provide a method of transmitting a bitstream generated by an image encoding method or apparatus according to the present disclosure. another object of the present disclosure is to provide a recording medium storing a bitstream generated by an image encoding method or apparatus according to the present disclosure. another object of the present disclosure is to provide a recording medium storing a bitstream received, decoded and used to reconstruct an image by an image decoding apparatus according to the present disclosure. the technical problems solved by the present disclosure are not limited to the above technical problems and other technical problems which are not described herein will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description. technical solution an image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus according to an aspect of the present disclosure may comprise obtaining flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps), obtaining at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information, and processing a current output layer set (ols), based on the obtained syntax structure. the flag information may have a predetermined value, based on that an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present. in the image decoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that the ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as the layer identifier of the sps is present. the image decoding method of the present disclosure may further include obtaining at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure from the sps, based on the flag information indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps. in the image decoding method of the present disclosure, when the flag information indicates that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are not present in the sps, at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure may be obtained from a video parameter set (vps). in the image decoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a predetermined value, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. in the image decoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. an image decoding apparatus according to another aspect of the present disclosure may comprise a memory and at least one processor. the at least one processor may be configured to obtain flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps), obtain at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information, and process a current output layer set (ols), based on the obtained syntax structure, wherein the flag information has a predetermined value, based on that an ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present. an image encoding method performed by an image encoding apparatus according to another aspect of the present disclosure may comprise encoding flag information indicating whether a profile tier level (ptl) syntax structure, a decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameter syntax structure and a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) parameter syntax structure are present in a sequence parameter set (sps), encoding at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure, based on the flag information, and processing a current output layer set (ols), based on the at least one syntax structure. the flag information may have a predetermined value, based on that an ols only one layer having the same layer identifier as a layer identifier of the sps is present. in the image encoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that the ols including only one layer having the same layer identifier as the layer identifier of the sps is present. the image encoding method of the present disclosure may further include encoding at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure in the sps, based on the flag information indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps. in the image encoding method of the present disclosure, when the flag information indicates that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are not present in the sps, at least one among the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure may be encoded in a video parameter sec (vps). in the image encoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a predetermined value, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. in the image encoding method of the present disclosure, the flag information may have a value indicating that the ptl syntax structure, dpb parameter syntax structure and hrd parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, based on that an identifier for a vps referred to by the sps is 0. a transmission method according to another aspect of the present disclosure may transmit the bitstream generated by the image encoding apparatus or the image encoding method of the present disclosure. a computer-readable recording medium according to another aspect of the present disclosure may store the bitstream generated by the image encoding apparatus or the image encoding method of the present disclosure. the features briefly summarized above with respect to the present disclosure are merely exemplary aspects of the detailed description below of the present disclosure, and do not limit the scope of the present disclosure. advantageous effects according to the present disclosure, it is possible to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus with improved encoding/decoding efficiency. also, according to the present disclosure, it is possible to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus for improving encoding/decoding efficiency by efficiently signaling ptl, dpb and hrd related information in sps. also, according to the present disclosure, it is possible to provide a method of transmitting a bitstream generated by an image encoding method or apparatus according to the present disclosure. also, according to the present disclosure, it is possible to provide a recording medium storing a bitstream generated by an image encoding method or apparatus according to the present disclosure. also, according to the present disclosure, it is possible to provide a recording medium storing a bitstream received, decoded and used to reconstruct an image by an image decoding apparatus according to the present disclosure. it will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the effects that can be achieved through the present disclosure are not limited to what has been particularly described hereinabove and other advantages of the present disclosure will be more clearly understood from the detailed description. description of drawings fig. 1 is a view schematically showing a video coding system, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 2 is a view schematically showing an image encoding apparatus, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 3 is a view schematically showing an image decoding apparatus, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 4 is a view showing an example of a schematic picture decoding procedure, to which embodiment(s) of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 5 is a view showing an example of a schematic picture encoding procedure, to which embodiment(s) of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 6 is a view showing an example of a layer structure for a coded image/video. fig. 7 is a view showing the syntax structure of a vps according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 8 is a view showing a syntax structure for signaling a dpb parameter according to the present disclosure. fig. 9 is a view showing a syntax structure of a vps according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 10 is a view illustrating a syntax structure of a vps according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 11 is a view illustrating the syntax structure of an sps for signaling hrd parameters according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 12 is a view illustrating a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 13 is a view illustrating an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 14 is a views illustrating a sublayer_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. fig. 15 is a view illustrating an example of an image encoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 16 is a view illustrating an example of an image decoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 17 is a view illustrating another example of an image decoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. fig. 18 is a view illustrating an embodiment of a method of encoding sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag according to the present disclosure. fig. 19 is a view illustrating an embodiment of a method of decoding a picture based on sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag according to the present disclosure. fig. 20 is a view showing a content streaming system, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. mode for invention hereinafter, the embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so as to be easily implemented by those skilled in the art. however, the present disclosure may be implemented in various different forms, and is not limited to the embodiments described herein. in describing the present disclosure, if it is determined that the detailed description of a related known function or construction renders the scope of the present disclosure unnecessarily ambiguous, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. in the drawings, parts not related to the description of the present disclosure are omitted, and similar reference numerals are attached to similar parts. in the present disclosure, when a component is “connected”, “coupled” or “linked” to another component, it may include not only a direct connection relationship but also an indirect connection relationship in which an intervening component is present. in addition, when a component “includes” or “has” other components, it means that other components may be further included, rather than excluding other components unless otherwise stated. in the present disclosure, the terms first, second, etc. may be used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from other components, and do not limit the order or importance of the components unless otherwise stated. accordingly, within the scope of the present disclosure, a first component in one embodiment may be referred to as a second component in another embodiment, and similarly, a second component in one embodiment may be referred to as a first component in another embodiment. in the present disclosure, components that are distinguished from each other are intended to clearly describe each feature, and do not mean that the components are necessarily separated. that is, a plurality of components may be integrated and implemented in one hardware or software unit, or one component may be distributed and implemented in a plurality of hardware or software units. therefore, even if not stated otherwise, such embodiments in which the components are integrated or the component is distributed are also included in the scope of the present disclosure. in the present disclosure, the components described in various embodiments do not necessarily mean essential components, and some components may be optional components. accordingly, an embodiment consisting of a subset of components described in an embodiment is also included in the scope of the present disclosure. in addition, embodiments including other components in addition to components described in the various embodiments are included in the scope of the present disclosure. the present disclosure relates to encoding and decoding of an image, and terms used in the present disclosure may have a general meaning commonly used in the technical field, to which the present disclosure belongs, unless newly defined in the present disclosure. in the present disclosure, a “picture” generally refers to a unit representing one image in a specific time period, and a slice/tile is a coding unit constituting a part of a picture, and one picture may be composed of one or more slices/tiles. in addition, a slice/tile may include one or more coding tree units (ctus). in the present disclosure, a “pixel” or a “pel” may mean a smallest unit constituting one picture (or image). in addition, “sample” may be used as a term corresponding to a pixel. a sample may generally represent a pixel or a value of a pixel, and may represent only a pixel/pixel value of a luma component or only a pixel/pixel value of a chroma component. in the present disclosure, a “unit” may represent a basic unit of image processing. the unit may include at least one of a specific region of the picture and information related to the region. the unit may be used interchangeably with terms such as “sample array”, “block” or “area” in some cases. in a general case, an m×n block may include samples (or sample arrays) or a set (or array) of transform coefficients of p columns and n rows. in the present disclosure, “current block” may mean one of “current coding block”, “current coding unit”, “coding target block”, “decoding target block” or “processing target block”. when prediction is performed, “current block” may mean “current prediction block” or “prediction target block”. when transform (inverse transform)/quantization (dequantization) is performed, “current block” may mean “current transform block” or “transform target block”. when filtering is performed, “current block” may mean “filtering target block”. in addition, in the present disclosure, a “current block” may mean a block including both a luma component block and a chroma component block or “a luma block of a current block” unless explicitly stated as a chroma block. the “luma block of the current block” may be expressed by including an explicit description of a luma component block, such as “luma block” or “current luma block”. the “chroma block of the current block” may be expressed by including an explicit description of a chroma component block, such as “chroma block” or “current chroma block”. in the present disclosure, “a or b” may mean “only a”, “only b” or “both a and b”. in other words, in the present disclosure, “a or b” may be interpreted as “a and/or b”. for example, in the present disclosure, “a, b or c” may mean “only a, “only b”, “only c” or “any combination of a, b and c”. a slash (/) or comma used in the present disclosure may mean “and/or”. for example, “a/b” may mean “a and/or b”. therefore, “a/b” may mean “only a”, “only b” or “both a and b”. for example, “a, b, c” may mean “a, b or c”. in the present disclosure, “at least one of a and b” may mean “only a”, “only b” or “both a and b”. in addition, in the disclosure, “at least one of a or b” or “at least one of a and/or b” may be interpreted as being the same as “at least one of a and b”. in addition, in the present disclosure, “at least one of a, b and c” may mean “only a”, “only b”, “only c” or “any combination of a, b and c”. in addition, in the disclosure, “at least one of a, b or c” or “at least one of a, b and/or c” may be interpreted as being the same as “at least one of a, b and c”. in addition, parentheses used in the present disclosure may mean “for example”. specifically, when “prediction (intra prediction” is described, “intra prediction” may be proposed as an example of “prediction”. in other words, “prediction” of the present disclosure is not limited to “intra prediction” and “intra prediction” may be proposed as an example of “prediction”. in addition, even when “prediction (that is, intra prediction)” is described, “intra prediction” may be proposed as an example of “prediction”. in the present disclosure, technical features individually described in one drawing may be implemented individually or simultaneously. overview of video coding system fig. 1 is a view showing a video coding system according to the present disclosure. the video coding system according to an embodiment may include a encoding apparatus 10 and a decoding apparatus 20 . the encoding apparatus 10 may deliver encoded video and/or image information or data to the decoding apparatus 20 in the form of a file or streaming via a digital storage medium or network. the encoding apparatus 10 according to an embodiment may include a video source generator 11 , an encoding unit 12 and a transmitter 13 . the decoding apparatus 20 according to an embodiment may include a receiver 21 , a decoding unit 22 and a renderer 23 . the encoding unit 12 may be called a video/image encoding unit, and the decoding unit 22 may be called a video/image decoding unit. the transmitter 13 may be included in the encoding unit 12 . the receiver 21 may be included in the decoding unit 22 . the renderer 23 may include a display and the display may be configured as a separate device or an external component. the video source generator 11 may acquire a video/image through a process of capturing, synthesizing or generating the video/image. the video source generator 11 may include a video/image capture device and/or a video/image generating device. the video/image capture device may include, for example, one or more cameras, video/image archives including previously captured video/images, and the like. the video/image generating device may include, for example, computers, tablets and smartphones, and may (electronically) generate video/images. for example, a virtual video/image may be generated through a computer or the like. in this case, the video/image capturing process may be replaced by a process of generating related data. the encoding unit 12 may encode an input video/image. the encoding unit 12 may perform a series of procedures such as prediction, transform, and quantization for compression and coding efficiency. the encoding unit 12 may output encoded data (encoded video/image information) in the form of a bitstream. the transmitter 13 may transmit the encoded video/image information or data output in the form of a bitstream to the receiver 21 of the decoding apparatus 20 through a digital storage medium or a network in the form of a file or streaming. the digital storage medium may include various storage mediums such as usb, sd, cd, dvd, blu-ray, hdd, ssd, and the like. the transmitter 13 may include an element for generating a media file through a predetermined file format and may include an element for transmission through a broadcast/communication network. the receiver 21 may extract/receive the bitstream from the storage medium or network and transmit the bitstream to the decoding unit 22 . the decoding unit 22 may decode the video/image by performing a series of procedures such as dequantization, inverse transform, and prediction corresponding to the operation of the encoding unit 12 . the renderer 23 may render the decoded video/image. the rendered video/image may be displayed through the display. overview of image encoding apparatus fig. 2 is a view schematically showing an image encoding apparatus, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. as shown in fig. 2 , the image encoding apparatus 100 may include an image partitioner 110 , a subtractor 115 , a transformer 120 , a quantizer 130 , a dequantizer 140 , an inverse transformer 150 , an adder 155 , a filter 160 , a memory 170 , an inter predictor 180 , an intra predictor 185 and an entropy encoder 190 . the inter predictor 180 and the intra predictor 185 may be collectively referred to as a “predictor”. the transformer 120 , the quantizer 130 , the dequantizer 140 and the inverse transformer 150 may be included in a residual processor. the residual processor may further include the subtractor 115 . all or at least some of the plurality of components configuring the image encoding apparatus 100 may be configured by one hardware component (e.g., an encoder or a processor) in some embodiments. in addition, the memory 170 may include a decoded picture buffer (dpb) and may be configured by a digital storage medium. the image partitioner 110 may partition an input image (or a picture or a frame) input to the image encoding apparatus 100 into one or more processing units. for example, the processing unit may be called a coding unit (cu). the coding unit may be acquired by recursively partitioning a coding tree unit (ctu) or a largest coding unit (lcu) according to a quad-tree binary-tree ternary-tree (qt/bt/tt) structure. for example, one coding unit may be partitioned into a plurality of coding units of a deeper depth based on a quad tree structure, a binary tree structure, and/or a ternary structure. for partitioning of the coding unit, a quad tree structure may be applied first and the binary tree structure and/or ternary structure may be applied later. the coding procedure according to the present disclosure may be performed based on the final coding unit that is no longer partitioned. the largest coding unit may be used as the final coding unit or the coding unit of deeper depth acquired by partitioning the largest coding unit may be used as the final coding unit. here, the coding procedure may include a procedure of prediction, transform, and reconstruction, which will be described later. as another example, the processing unit of the coding procedure may be a prediction unit (pu) or a transform unit (tu). the prediction unit and the transform unit may be split or partitioned from the final coding unit. the prediction unit may be a unit of sample prediction, and the transform unit may be a unit for deriving a transform coefficient and/or a unit for deriving a residual signal from the transform coefficient. the predictor (the inter predictor 180 or the intra predictor 185 ) may perform prediction on a block to be processed (current block) and generate a predicted block including prediction samples for the current block. the predictor may determine whether intra prediction or inter prediction is applied on a current block or cu basis. the predictor may generate various information related to prediction of the current block and transmit the generated information to the entropy encoder 190 . the information on the prediction may be encoded in the entropy encoder 190 and output in the form of a bitstream. the intra predictor 185 may predict the current block by referring to the samples in the current picture. the referred samples may be located in the neighborhood of the current block or may be located apart according to the intra prediction mode and/or the intra prediction technique. the intra prediction modes may include a plurality of non-directional modes and a plurality of directional modes. the non-directional mode may include, for example, a dc mode and a planar mode. the directional mode may include, for example, 33 directional prediction modes or 65 directional prediction modes according to the degree of detail of the prediction direction. however, this is merely an example, more or less directional prediction modes may be used depending on a setting. the intra predictor 185 may determine the prediction mode applied to the current block by using a prediction mode applied to a neighboring block. the inter predictor 180 may derive a predicted block for the current block based on a reference block (reference sample array) specified by a motion vector on a reference picture. in this case, in order to reduce the amount of motion information transmitted in the inter prediction mode, the motion information may be predicted in units of blocks, subblocks, or samples based on correlation of motion information between the neighboring block and the current block. the motion information may include a motion vector and a reference picture index. the motion information may further include inter prediction direction (l0 prediction, l1 predictjon, bi prediction, etc.) information. in the case of inter prediction, the neighboring block may include a spatial neighboring block present in the current picture and a temporal neighboring block present in the reference picture. the reference picture including the reference block and the reference picture including the temporal neighboring block may be the same or different. the temporal neighboring block may be called a collocated reference block, a co-located cu (colcu), and the like. the reference picture including the temporal neighboring block may be called a collocated picture (colpic). for example, the inter predictor 180 may configure a motion information candidate list based on neighboring blocks and generate information indicating which candidate is used to derive a motion vector and/or a reference picture index of the current block. inter prediction may be performed based on various prediction modes. for example, in the case of a skip mode and a merge mode, the inter predictor 180 may use motion information of the neighboring block as motion information of the current block. in the case of the skip mode, unlike the merge mode, the residual signal may not be transmitted. in the case of the motion vector prediction (mvp) mode, the motion vector of the neighboring block may be used as a motion vector predictor, and the motion vector of the current block may be signaled by encoding a motion vector difference and an indicator for a motion vector predictor. the motion vector difference may mean a difference between the motion vector of the current block and the motion vector predictor. the predictor may generate a prediction signal based on various prediction methods and predict on techniques described below. for example, the predictor may not only apply intra prediction or inter prediction but also simultaneously apply both intra prediction and inter prediction, in order to predict the current block. a prediction method of simultaneously applying both intra prediction and inter prediction for prediction of the current block may be called combined inter and intra prediction (ciip). in addition, the predictor may perform intra block copy (ibc) for prediction of the current block. intra block copy may be used for content image/video coding of a game or the like, for example, screen content coding (scc). ibc is a method of predicting a current picture using a previously reconstructed reference block in the current picture at a location apart from the current block by a predetermined distance. when ibc is applied, the location of the reference block in the current picture may be encoded as a vector (block vector) corresponding to the predetermined distance. ibc basically performs prediction in the current picture, but may be performed similarly to inter prediction in that a reference block is derived within the current picture. that is, ibc may use at least one of the inter prediction techniques described in the present disclosure. the prediction signal generated by the predictor may be used to generate a reconstructed signal or to generate a residual signal. the subtractor 115 may generate a residual signal (residual block or residual sample array) by subtracting the prediction signal (predicted block or prediction sample array) output from the predictor from the input image signal (original block or original sample array). the generated residual signal may be transmitted to the transformer 120 . the transformer 120 may generate transform coefficients by applying a transform technique to the residual signal. for example, the transform technique may include at least one of a discrete cosine transform (dct), a discrete sine transform (dst), a karhunen-loève transform (klt), a graph-based transform (gbt), or a conditionally non-linear transform (cnt). here, the gbt means transform obtained from a graph when relationship information between pixels is represented by the graph. the cnt refers to transform acquired based on a prediction signal generated using all previously reconstructed pixels. in addition, the transform process may be applied to square pixel blocks having the same size or may be applied to blocks having a variable size rather than square. the quantizer 130 may quantize the transform coefficients and transmit them to the entropy encoder 190 . the entropy encoder 190 may encode the quantized signal (information on the quantized transform coefficients) and output a bitstream. the information on the quantized transform coefficients may be referred to as residual information. the quantizer 130 may rearrange quantized transform coefficients in a block type into a one-dimensional vector form based on a coefficient scanning order and generate information on the quantized transform coefficients based on the quantized transform coefficients in the one-dimensional vector form. the entropy encoder 190 may perform various encoding methods such as, for example, exponential golomb, context-adaptive variable length coding (cavlc), context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (cabac), and the like. the entropy encoder 190 may encode information necessary for video/image reconstruction other than quantized transform coefficients (e.g., values of syntax elements, etc.) together or separately. encoded information (e.g., encoded video/image information) may be transmitted or stored in units of network abstraction layers (nals) in the form of a bitstream. the video/image information may further include information on various parameter sets such as an adaptation parameter set (aps), a picture parameter set (pps), a sequence parameter set (sps), or a video parameter set (vps). in addition, the video/image information may further include general constraint information. the signaled information, transmitted information and/or syntax elements described in the present disclosure may be encoded through the above-described encoding procedure and included in the bitstream. the bitstream may be transmitted over a network or may be stored in a digital storage medium. the network may include a broadcasting network and/or a communication network, and the digital storage medium may include various storage media such as usb, sd, cd, dvd, blu-ray, hdd, ssd, and the like. a transmitter (not shown) transmitting a signal output from the entropy encoder 190 and/or a storage unit (not shown) storing the signal may be included as internal/external element of the image encoding apparatus 100 . alternatively, the transmitter may be provided as the component of the entropy encoder 190 . the quantized transform coefficients output from the quantizer 130 may be used to generate a residual signal. for example, the residual signal (residual block or residual samples) may be reconstructed by applying dequantization and inverse transform to the quantized transform coefficients through the dequantizer 140 and the inverse transformer 150 . the adder 155 adds the reconstructed residual signal to the prediction signal output from the inter predictor 180 or the intra predictor 185 to generate a reconstructed signal (reconstructed picture, reconstructed block, reconstructed sample array). if there is no residual for the block to be processed, such as a case where the skip mode is applied, the predicted block may be used as the reconstructed block. the adder 155 may be called a reconstructor or a reconstructed block generator. the generated reconstructed signal may be used for intra prediction of a next block to be processed in the current picture and may be used for inter prediction of a next picture through filtering as described below. the filter 160 may improve subjective/objective image quality by applying filtering to the reconstructed signal. for example, the filter 160 may generate a modified reconstructed picture by applying various filtering methods to the reconstructed picture and store the modified reconstructed picture in the memory 170 , specifically, a dpb of the memory 170 . the various filtering methods may include, for example, deblocking filtering, a sample adaptive offset, an adaptive loop filter, a bilateral filter, and the like. the filter 160 may generate various information related to filtering and transmit the generated information to the entropy encoder 190 as described later in the description of each filtering method. the information related to filtering may be encoded by the entropy encoder 190 and output in the form of a bitstream. the modified reconstructed picture transmitted to the memory 170 may be used as the reference picture in the inter predictor 180 . when inter prediction is applied through the image encoding apparatus 100 , prediction mismatch between the image encoding apparatus 100 and the image decoding apparatus may be avoided and encoding efficiency may be improved. the dpb of the memory 170 may store the modified reconstructed picture for use as a reference picture in the inter predictor 180 . the memory 170 may store the motion information of the block from which the motion information in the currant picture is derived (or encoded) and/or the motion information of the blocks in the picture that have already been reconstructed. the stored motion information may be transmitted to the inter predictor 180 and used as the motion information of the spatial neighboring block or the motion information of the temporal neighboring block. the memory 170 may store reconstructed samples of reconstructed blocks in the current picture and may transfer the reconstructed samples to the intra predictor 185 . overview of image decoding apparatus fig. 3 is a view schematically showing an image decoding apparatus, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. as shown in fig. 3 , the image decoding apparatus 200 may include an entropy decoder 210 , a dequantizer 220 , an inverse transformer 230 , an adder 235 , a filter 240 , a memory 250 , an inter predictor 260 and an intra predictor 265 . the inter predictor 260 and the intra predictor 265 may be collectively referred to as a “predictor”. the dequantizer 220 and the inverse transformer 230 may be included in a residual processor. all or at least some of a plurality of components configuring the image decoding apparatus 200 may be configured by a hardware component (e.g., a decoder or a processor) according to an embodiment. in addition, the memory 250 may include a decoded picture buffer (dpb) or may be configured by a digital storage medium. the image decoding apparatus 200 , which has received a bitstream including video/image information, may reconstruct an image by performing a process corresponding to a process performed by the image encoding apparatus 100 of fig. 2 . for example, the image decoding apparatus 200 may perform decoding using a processing unit applied in the image encoding apparatus. thus, the processing unit of decoding may be a coding unit, for example. the coding unit may be acquired by partitioning a coding tree unit or a largest coding unit. the reconstructed image signal decoded and output through the image decoding apparatus 200 may be reproduced through a reproducing apparatus (not shown). the image decoding apparatus 200 may receive a signal output from the image encoding apparatus of fig. 2 in the form of a bitstream. the received signal may be decoded through the entropy decoder 210 . for example, the entropy decoder 210 may parse the bitstream to derive information (e.g., video/image information) necessary for image reconstruction (or picture reconstruction). the video/image information may further include information on various parameter sets such as an adaptation parameter set (aps), a picture parameter set (pps), a sequence parameter set (sps), or a video parameter set (vps). in addition, the video/image information may further include general constraint information. the image decoding apparatus may further decode picture based on the information on the parameter set and/or the general constraint information. signaled/received information and/or syntax elements described in the present disclosure may be decoded through the decoding procedure and obtained from the bitstream. for example, the entropy decoder 210 decodes the information in the bitstream based on a coding method such as exponential golomb coding, cavlc, or cabac, and output values of syntax elements required for image reconstruction and quantized values of transform coefficients for residual. more specifically, the cabac entropy decoding method may receive a bin corresponding to each syntax element in the bitstream, determine a context model using a decoding target syntax element information, decoding information of a neighboring block and a decoding target block or information of a symbol/bin decoded in a previous stage, and perform arithmetic decoding on the bin by predicting a probability of occurrence of a bin according to the determined context model, and generate a symbol corresponding to the value of each syntax element. in this case, the cabac entropy decoding method may update the context model by using the information of the decoded symbol/bin for a context model of a next symbol/bin after determining the context model. the information related to the prediction among the information decoded by the entropy decoder 210 may be provided to the predictor (the inter predictor 260 and the intra predictor 265 ), and the residual value on which the entropy decoding was performed in the entropy decoder 210 , that is, the quantized transform coefficients and related parameter information, may be input to the dequantizer 220 . in addition, information on filtering among information decoded by the entropy decoder 210 may be provided to the filter 240 . meanwhile, a receiver (not shown) for receiving a signal output from the image encoding apparatus may be further configured as an internal/external element of the image decoding apparatus 200 , or the receiver may be a component of the entropy decoder 210 . meanwhile, the image decoding apparatus according to the present disclosure may be referred to as a video/image/picture decoding apparatus. the image decoding apparatus may be classified into an information decoder (video/image/picture information decoder) and a sample decoder (video/image/picture sample decoder). the information decoder may include the entropy decoder 210 . the sample decoder may include at least one of the dequantizer 220 , the inverse transformer 230 , the adder 235 , the filter 240 , the memory 250 , the inter predictor 160 or the intra predictor 265 . the dequantizer 220 may dequantize the quantized transform coefficients and output the transform coefficients. the dequantizer 220 may rearrange the quantized transform coefficients in the form of a two-dimensional block. in this case, the rearrangement may be performed based on the coefficient scanning order performed in the image encoding apparatus. the dequantizer 220 may perform dequantization on the quantized transform coefficients by using a quantization parameter (e.g., quantization step size information) and obtain transform coefficients. the inverse transformer 230 may inversely transform the transform coefficients to obtain a residual signal (residual block, residual sample array). the predictor may perform prediction on the current block and generate a predicted block including prediction samples for the current block. the predictor may determine whether intra prediction or inter prediction is applied to the current block based on the information on the prediction output from the entropy decoder 210 and may determine a specific intra/inter prediction mode (prediction technique). it is the same as described in the predictor of the image encoding apparatus 100 that the predictor may generate the prediction signal based on various prediction methods (techniques) which will be described later. the intra predictor 265 may predict the current block by referring to the samples in the current picture. the description of the intra predictor 185 is equally applied to the intra predictor 265 . the inter predictor 260 may derive a predicted block for the current block based on a reference block (reference sample array) specified by a motion vector on a reference picture. in this case, in order to reduce the amount of motion information transmitted in the inter prediction mode, motion information may be predicted in units of blocks, subblocks, or samples based on correlation of motion information between the neighboring block and the current block. the motion information may include a motion vector and a reference picture index. the motion information may further include inter prediction direction (l0 prediction, l1 prediction, bi prediction, etc.) information. in the case of inter prediction, the neighboring block may include a spatial neighboring block present in the current picture and a temporal neighboring block present in the reference picture. for example, the inter predictor 260 may configure a motion information candidate list based on neighboring blocks and derive a motion vector of the current block and/or a reference picture index based on the received candidate selection information. inter prediction may be performed based on various prediction modes, and the information on the prediction may include information indicating a mode of inter prediction for the current block. the adder 235 may generate a reconstructed signal (reconstructed picture, reconstructed block, reconstructed sample array) by adding the obtained residual signal to the prediction signal (predicted block, predicted sample array) output from the predictor (including the inter predictor 260 and/or the intra predictor 265 ). if there is no residual for the block to be processed, such as when the skip mode is applied, the predicted block may be used as the reconstructed block. the description of the adder 155 is equally applicable to the adder 235 . the adder 235 may be called a reconstructor or a reconstructed block generator. the generated reconstructed signal may be used for intra prediction of a next block to be processed in the current picture and may be used for inter prediction of a next picture through filtering as described below. the filter 240 may improve subjective/objective image quality by applying filtering to the reconstructed signal. for example, the filter 240 may generate a modified reconstructed picture by applying various filtering methods to the reconstructed picture and store the modified reconstructed picture in the memory 250 , specifically, a dpb of the memory 250 . the various filtering methods may include, for example, deblocking filtering, a sample adaptive offset, an adaptive loop filter, a bilateral filter, and the like. the (modified) reconstructed picture stored in the dpb of the memory 250 may be used as a reference picture in the inter predictor 260 . the memory 250 may store the motion information of the block from which the motion information in the current picture is derived (or decoded) and/or the motion information of the blocks in the picture that have already been reconstructed. the stored motion information may be transmitted to the inter predictor 260 so as to be utilized as the motion information of the spatial neighboring block or the motion information of the temporal neighboring block. the memory 250 may store reconstructed samples of reconstructed blocks in the current picture and transfer the reconstructed samples to the intra predictor 265 . in the present disclosure, the embodiments described in the filter 160 , the inter predictor 180 , and the intra predictor 185 of the image encoding apparatus 100 may be equally or correspondingly applied to the filter 240 , the inter predictor 260 , and the intra predictor 265 of the image decoding apparatus 200 . general image/video coding procedure in image/video coding, a picture configuring an image/video may be encoded/decoded according to a decoding order. a picture order corresponding to an output order of the decoded picture may be set differently from the decoding order, and, based on this, not only forward prediction but also backward prediction may be performed during inter prediction. fig. 4 shows an example of a schematic picture decoding procedure, to which embodiment(s) of the present disclosure is applicable. each procedure shown in fig. 4 may be performed by the image decoding apparatus of fig. 3 . for example, step s 410 may be performed by the entropy decoder 210 , step s 420 may be performed by a predictor including the predictors 265 and 260 , step s 430 may be performed by a residual processor 220 and 230 , step s 440 may be performed by the adder 235 , and step s 450 may be performed by the filter 240 . step s 410 may include the information decoding procedure described in the present disclosure, step s 420 may include the inter/intra prediction procedure described in the present disclosure, step s 430 may include a residual processing procedure described in the present disclosure, step s 440 may include the block/picture reconstruction procedure described in the present disclosure, and step s 450 may include the in-loop filtering procedure described in the present disclosure. referring to fig. 4 , the picture decoding procedure may schematically include a procedure (s 410 ) for obtaining image/video information (through decoding) from a bitstream, a picture reconstruction procedure (s 420 to s 440 ) and an in-loop filtering procedure (s 450 ) for a reconstructed picture. the picture reconstruction procedure may be performed based on prediction samples and residual samples obtained through inter/intra prediction (s 420 ) and residual processing (s 430 ) (dequantization and inverse transform of the quantized transform coefficient) described in the present disclosure. a modified reconstructed picture may be generated through the in-loop filtering procedure for the reconstructed picture generated through the picture reconstruction procedure. in this case, the modified reconstructed picture may be output as a decoded picture, stored in a decoded picture buffer (dpb) of a memory 250 and used as a reference picture in the inter prediction procedure when. decoding the picture later. the in-loop filtering procedure (s 450 ) may be omitted. in this case, the reconstructed picture may be output as a decoded picture, stored in a dpb of a memory 250 , and used as a reference picture in the inter prediction procedure when decoding the picture later. the in-loop filtering procedure (s 450 ) may include a deblocking filtering procedure, a sample adaptive offset (sao) procedure, an adaptive loop filter (alf) procedure and/or a bi-lateral filter procedure, as described above, some or all of which may be omitted. in addition, one or some of the deblocking filtering procedure, the sample adaptive offset (sao) procedure, the adaptive loop filter (alf) procedure and/or the bi-lateral filter procedure may be sequentially applied or all of them may be sequentially applied. for example, after the deblocking filtering procedure is applied to the reconstructed picture, the sao procedure may be performed. alternatively, after the deblocking filtering procedure is applied to the reconstructed picture, the alf procedure may be performed. this may be similarly performed even in the encoding apparatus. fig. 5 shows an example of a schematic picture encoding procedure, to which embodiment(s) of the present disclosure is applicable. each procedure shown in fig. 5 may be performed by the image encoding apparatus of fig. 2 . for example, step s 510 may be performed by the predictors 185 and 180 , step s 520 may be performed by a residual processor 115 , 120 and 130 , and step s 530 may be performed in the entropy encoder 190 . step s 510 may include the inter/intra prediction procedure described in the present disclosure, step s 520 may include the residual processing procedure described in the present disclosure, and step s 530 may include the information encoding procedure described in the present disclosure. referring to fig. 5 , the picture encoding procedure may schematically include not only a procedure for encoding and outputting information for picture reconstruction (e.g., prediction information, residual information, partitioning information, etc.) in the form of a bitstream but also a procedure for generating a reconstructed picture for a current picture and a procedure (optional) for applying in-loop filtering to a reconstructed picture, as described with respect to fig. 2 . the encoding apparatus may derive (modified) residual samples from a quantized transform coefficient through the dequantizer 140 and the inverse transformer 150 , and generate the reconstructed picture based on the prediction samples which are output of step s 510 and the (modified) residual samples. the reconstructed picture generated in this way may be equal to the reconstructed picture generated in the decoding apparatus. the modified reconstructed picture may be generated through the in-loop filtering procedure for the reconstructed picture. in this case, the modified reconstructed picture may be stored in the decoded picture buffer or a memory 170 , and may be used as a reference picture in the inter prediction procedure when encoding the picture later, similarly to the decoding apparatus. as described above, in some cases, some or all of the in-loop filtering procedure may be omitted. when the in-loop filtering procedure is performed, (in-loop) filtering related information (parameter) may be encoded in the entropy encoder 190 and output in the form of a bitstream, and the decoding apparatus may perform the in-loop filtering procedure using the same method as the encoding apparatus based on the filtering related information. through such an in-loop filtering procedure, noise occurring during image/video coding, such as blocking artifact and ringing artifact, may be reduced and subjective/objective visual quality may be improved. in addition, by performing the in-loop filtering procedure in both the encoding apparatus and the decoding apparatus, the encoding apparatus and the decoding apparatus may derive the same prediction result, picture coding reliability may be increased and the amount of data to be transmitted for picture coding may be reduced. as described above, the picture reconstruction procedure may be performed not only in the image decoding apparatus but also in the image encoding apparatus. a reconstructed block may be generated based on intra prediction/inter prediction in units of blocks, and a reconstructed picture including reconstructed blocks may be generated. when a current picture/slice/tile group is an i picture/slice/tile group, blocks included in the current picture/slice/tile group may be reconstructed based on only intra prediction. on the other hand, when the current picture/slice/tile group is a p or b picture/slice/tile group, blocks included in the current picture/slice/tile group may be reconstructed based on intra prediction or inter prediction. in this case, inter prediction may be applied to some blocks in the current picture/slice/tile group and intra prediction may be applied to the remaining blocks. the color component of the picture may include a luma component and a chroma component and the methods and embodiments of the present disclosure are applicable to both the luma component and the chroma component unless explicitly limited in the present disclosure. example of coding layer structure coded video/image according to the present disclosure may be, for example, processed according to the coding layer and structure described below. fig. 6 is a view showing a layer structure for a coded image. the coded image is classified into a video coding layer (vcl) for an image decoding process and handling itself, a lower system for transmitting and storing encoded information, and a network abstraction layer (nal) present between the vcl and the lower system and responsible for a network adaptation function. in the vcl, vcl data including compressed image data (slice data) may be generated or a supplemental enhancement information (sei) message additionally required for a decoding process of an image or a parameter set including information such as a picture parameter set (pps), a sequence parameter set (sps) or a video parameter set (vps) may be generated. in the nal, header information (nal unit header) may be added to a raw byte sequence payload (rbsp) generated in the vcl to generate at nal unit. in this case, the rbsp refers to slice data, a parameter set, an sei message generated in the vcl. the nal unit header may include nal unit type information specified according to rbsp data included in a corresponding nal unit. as shown in fig. 6 , the nal unit may be classified into a vcl nal unit and a non-vcl nal unit according to the rbsp generated in the vcl. the vcl nal unit may mean a nal unit including information on an image (slice data), and the non-vcl nal unit may mean a nal unit including information (parameter set or sei message) required to decode an image. the vcl nal unit and the non-vcl nal unit may be attached with header information and transmitted through a network according to the data standard of the lower system. for example, the nal unit may be modified into a data format of a predetermined standard, such as h.266/vvc file format, rtp (real-time transport protocol) or ts (transport stream), and transmitted through various networks. as described above, in the nal unit, a nal unit type may be specified according to the rbsp data structure included in the corresponding nal unit, and information on the nal unit type may be stored in a nal unit header and signaled. for example, this may be largely classified into a vcl nal unit type and a non-vcl nal unit type depending on whether the nal unit includes information on an image (slice data). the vcl nal unit type may be classified according to the property and type of the picture included in the vcl nal unit, and the non-vcl nal unit type may be classified according to the type of a parameter set. an example of the nal unit type specified according to the type of the parameter set/information included in the non-vcl nal unit type will be listed below. dci (decoding capability information) nal unit type (nut): type for nal unit including dcivps (video parameter set) nut: type for nal unit including vpssps (sequence parameter set) nut: type for nal unit including spspps (picture parameter set) nut: type for nal unit including ppsaps (adaptation parameter set) nut: type for nal unit including apsph (picture header) nut: type for nal unit including ph the above-described nal unit types may have syntax information for a nal unit type, and the syntax information may be stored in a nal unit header and signaled. for example, the syntax information may be nal_unit_type, and the nal unit types may be specified using nal_unit_type values. meanwhile, as described above, one picture may include a plurality of slices, and one slice may include a slice header and slice data. in this case, one picture header may be further added to a plurality of slices (slice header and slice data set) in one picture. the picture header (picture header syntax) may include information/parameters commonly applicable to the picture. the slice header (slice header syntax) may include information/parameters commonly applicable to the slice. the aps (aps syntax) or pps (pps syntax) may include information/parameters commonly applicable to one or more slices or pictures. the sps (sps syntax) may include information/parameters commonly applicable to one or more sequences. the vps (vps syntax) may information/parameters commonly applicable to multiple layers. the dci (dci syntax) may include information/parameters related to decoding capability. in the present disclosure, a high level syntax (hls) may include at least one of the aps syntax, the pps syntax, the sps syntax, the vps syntax, the dci syntax, the picture header syntax or the slice header syntax. in addition, in the present disclosure, a low level syntax (lls) may include, for example, a slice data syntax, a ctu syntax, a coding unit syntax, a transform unit syntax, etc. meanwhile, in the present disclosure, image/video information encoded in the encoding apparatus and signaled to the decoding apparatus in the form of a bitstream may include not only in-picture partitioning related information, intra/inter prediction information, residual information, in-loop filtering information but also information on the slice header, information on the picture header, information on the aps, information on the pps, information on the sps, information on the vps and/or information on the dci. in addition, the image/video information may further include general constraint information and/or information on a nal unit header. high level syntax signalling and semantics as described above, image/video information according to the present disclosure may include a high level syntax (hls). an image encoding method and/or an image decoding method may be performed based on the image/video information. dpb parameter signalling a decoded picture buffer (dpb) may conceptually consist of sub-dpbs. each sub-dpb may include picture storage buffers for storing decoded pictures of one layer. each picture storage buffer may contain a decoded picture that is marked as “used for reference” and is held for future output. for multilayer bitstream, dpb parameter is not assigned per output layer set (ols) but instead assigned for each layer. in addition, for each layer, at maximum, two dpb parameters may be assigned. at this time, one of the two dpb parameters may be a dpb parameter for when the layer is an output layer and the other one may be a dpb parameter for when the layer is not an output layer but is used as a reference layer. when the layer is an output layer, the layer may be used for reference and for future output. when the layer is not an output layer but is used as a reference layer, the layer may be only used for reference of picture/slice/block of the output layer if there is no layer switching. in the prior art, dpb parameters are signaled for each layer in an ols. signaling of the dpb parameters may simplify signaling of dpb parameters in the prior art. fig. 7 is a view showing the syntax structure of a vps according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. according to the example shown in fig. 7 , when vps_all_independent_layers_flag is 0, vps_num_dpb_params may be signaled. as described below, vps_all_independent_layers_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 0) may specify that one or more of layers in a coded video sequence (cvs) may use inter-layer prediction. in addition, vps_all_independent_layers_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 1) may specify that all layers in a coded. video sequence (cvs) are independently coded without using inter-layer prediction. in the above description, the cvs may be understood as a bitstream or image/video information including a sequence of coded pictures for a multilayer. vps_num_dpb_params may specify the number of dpb_parameters( ) syntax structures included in a video parameter set (vps). for example, vps_num_dpb_params may be in the range of 0 to 16, inclusive, and, when not present, the value of vps_num_dpb_params may be inferred (set) to be equal to 0. when the value of vps_num_dpb_params is greater than 0, that is, when the number of dpb_parameters( ) syntax structures included in the vps is greater than 0, one or more dpb parameters may be signaled. for example, the one or more dpb parameters may include same_dpb_size_output_or_nonoutput_flag, vps_sublayer_dpb_params_present_flag, dpb_size_only_flag[i], dpb_max_temporal_id[i], layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i], layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx[i] and/or dpb_parameters( ). same_dpb_size_output_or_nonoutput_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx[i] is not present in the vps. same_dpb_size_output_or_nonoutput_flag equal to a second value (e.g.,) may specify that layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx[i] may be present in the vps. vbs_sublayer_dpb_params_present_flag may be used to control the presence of max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1[ ], max_num_reorder_pics[ ] and and/or max_latency_increase_plus1[ ] in dpb_parameters( ) in the vps. when vps_sublayer_dpb_params_present_flag is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to 0. dpb_size_only_flag[i] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that max_num_reorder_pics[i] and/or max_latency_increase_plus1[ ] are not present in an i-th dpb_parameters( ) in the vps. dpb_size_only_flag[i] equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that max_num_reorder_pics[ ] and/or max_latency_increase_plus1[ ] may be present in an i-th dpb_parameters( ) in the vps. dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may specify a temporal layer identifier (e.g., temporalid) the highest sublayer representation for which the dpb parameters may be present in the i-th dpb_parameters( ) in the vps. dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_max_sublayer_minus1, inclusive. when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0 without being signaled. when vps_max_sublayer_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is equal to 1, the value of dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be equal to vps_max_sublayers_minus1. layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i] may be an index, to the list of dpb_paramers( ) in the vps, of dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th layer when it is an output layer in an ols. layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_num_dpb_params−1, inclusive. if vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is equal to 1, dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th layer when it is an output layer is dpb_parameters( ) present in the sps referred to by the layer. otherwise, when vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is equal to 0, the following may apply. when vps_num_dpb_params is equal to 1, the value of layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i] may be inferred to be 0.it is a requirement of bitstream conformance that the value of layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i] shall be such that dpb_size_only_flag[layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i]] is equal to 0. layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx [i] may specify the index, to the list of dpb_parameters( ) in the vps, of the dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th layer when it is a non-output layer in an ols. layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_num_dpb_params−1, inclusive. when same_dpb_size_output_or_nonoutput_flag is equal to 1, the following applies. if vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is equal to 1, dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th layer when it is a non-output layer is dpb_parameters( ) present in the sps referred co by the layer.otherwise, if vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is equal to 0, the value of layer_nonoutput_dpb_params_idx[i] may be inferred to be equal to layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i]. otherwise, if same_dpb_size_output_or_nonoutput_flag is equal to 0, when vps_num_dpb_params is equal to 1, the value of layer_output_dpb_params_idx[i] may be inferred to be 0. fig. 8 is a view showing a syntax structure for signaling a dpb parameter according to the present disclosure. as shown in fig. 8 , a dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure may include information on a dpb size, information on a maximum picture reorder number, and/or information on maximum latency for each coder layer video sequence (clvs) of a cvs. in the above description, the clvs may be understood as a bitstream or image/video including a sequence of coded pictures belonging to the same layer. when dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in a vps, olss, to which the dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure applies, may be specified by the vps. when dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in an sps, it applies to the ols that includes only the layer that is the lowest layer among the layers that refer to the sps. in this case, the lowest layer is an independent layer. max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1[i]+1 may specify, for each clvs of the cvs, the maximum required size of the dpb. max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1[i] may be in the range of 0 to maxdpbsize−1, inclusive. max_num_reorder_pics[i] may specify, for each clvs of the cvs, the maximum allowed number of pictures of the clvs that can precede any picture in the clvs in decoding order and follow that picture in output order. max_num_reorder_pics[i] may be in the range of 0 to max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1[i], inclusive. when i is greater than 0, max_num_reorder_pics[i] shall be greater than or equal to max_num_reorder_pics[i−1]. when max_num_reorder_pics[i] is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to max_num_reorder_pics[maxsublayersminus1]. max_latency_increase_plus1[i] not equal to 0 may be used to compute maxlatencypictures[i]. maxlatencypictures[i] may specify, for clvs of the cvs, the maximum number of pictures in the clvs that can precede any picture in the clvs in output order and follow that picture in decoding order. when max_latency_increase_plus1[i] is not equal to 0, maxlatencypictures[i] may be computed as follows. maxlatencypictures[i]=max_num_reorder_pics[i]+max_latency_increase_plus1[i]−1 max_latency_increase_plus1[i] may be in the range of 0 to 232−2, inclusive. when max_latency_increase_plus1[i] is riot present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to max_latency_increase_plus1[maxsublayersminus1]. the dpb parameters may be used in a process of outputting or removing a decoded image from a dpb. video parameter set signalling a video parameter set (vps) is a parameter set which is used for the carriage of layer information. the layer information may include, for example, information on an output layer set (ols), information on a profile tier level, information on a relationship between an ols and a hypothetical reference decoder and information on a relationship between an ols and a decoded picture buffer (dpb). the vps may not be essential for decoding of a bitstream. a vps raw byte sequence payload (rbsp) shall be available to a decoding process prior to it being referenced, included in at least one access unit (au) with temporalid equal to 0 or provided through external means. all vps nal units with a particular value of vps_video_parameter_set_id in a coded video sequence (cvs) shall have the same content. fig. 9 is a view showing a syntax structure of a vps according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. in figs. 7 and 9 , the repeated description of the same syntax elements and/or the same signaling conditions may be omitted. in the example shown in fig. 9 , vps_video_parameter_set_id provides an identifier for the vps. other syntax elements may refer to the vps using vps_video_parameter_set_id. the value of vps_video_parameter_set_id shall be greater than 0. vps_num_ptls_minus1+1 may specify the number of profile_tier_level( ) syntax structures in the vps. the value of vps_num_ptls_minus1 shall be less than totalnumolss. totalnumolss may specify the total number of olss specified by the vps. when vps_max_layers_minus1 is 0, totalnumolss may be derived as 1. otherwise, if each_layer_is_an_ols_flag is equal to 1 or if ols_mode_idc is equal to 0 or 1, totalnumolss may be derived as vps_max_layers_minus1+1. otherwise, if ols_mode_idc is equal to 2, totalnumolss may be derived as num_output_layer_sets_minus1+1. ols_mode_idc may be an indicator indicating a mode for deriving the total number of olss specified by the vps. as described below, each_layer_is_an_ols_flag may specify whether each ols includes only one layer. pt_present_flag[i] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that profile, tier, and general constraints information are present in the i-th profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps. pt_present_flag[i] equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that profile, tier, and general constraints information are not present in the i-th profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps. when pt_present_flag[i] is equal to the second value, the profile, tier, and general constraints information for the i-th profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps may be inferred to be the same as that for the (i−1)-th profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps. ptl_max_temporal_id[i] may specify the temporalid of the highest sublayer representation for which the level information is present in the i-th profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps. the value of ptl_max_temporal_id[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_max_sublayers_minus1, inclusive. when vps_max_sublayer_minus1 is 0, ptl_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be 0. when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is equal to 1, ptl_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be equal to vps_max_sublayer_minus1. in the above description, vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is information signaled in the vps. vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may mean that the number of temporal sublayers is the same for all the layers in each cvs referring to the vps. vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may mean that layers in each cvs referring to the vps may not have the same number of temporal sublayers. when vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is not present, vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag may be inferred to be equal to a first value. in addition, vps_max_sublayer_minus1+1 may specify a maximum number of temporal sublayers which may be present in a layer in each cvs referring to the vps. vps_max_sublayers_minus1 maybe in the range of 0 to 6, inclusive. vps_ptl_alignment_zero_bit shall be equal to 0. ols_ptl_idx[i] may specify the index, to the list of profile_tier_level( ) in the vps, of profile_tier_level( ) that applies to the i-th ols. when ols_ptl_idx[i] is present, ols_ptl_idx[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_num_ptls_minus1, inclusive. when vps_num_ptls_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of ols_ptl_idx[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0. numlayersinols[i] may specify the number of layers in the i-th ols. when numlayersinols[i] is equal to 1, the profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure that applies to the i-th ols may also be present in the sps referred to by the layer in the i-th ols. it is a requirement of bitstream conformance that, when numlayersinols[i] is 1, the profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the vps for the i-th ols and the profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure in the sps shall be identical. vps_num_dpb_params may specify the number of dpb_parameters( ) syntax structures in the vps. vps_num_dpb_params may be in the range of 0 to 16, inclusive. when vps_num_dpb_params is not present, the value of vps_num_dpb_params may be inferred to be equal to 0. vps_sublayer_dpb_params_present_flag may be used to control the presence of max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1[ ], max_num_reorder_pics[ ], and/or max_latency_increase_plus1[ ] in the vps. when vps_sublayer_dpb_params_present_flag is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to 0. dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may specify the identifier (e.g., temporalid) of the highest sublayer representation for which the dpb parameters may be present in the i-th dpb_parameters( ) in the vps. dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_max_sublayers_minus1, inclusive. when vps_max_sublayer_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0 without being signaled. when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is equal to 1, the value of dpb_max_temporal_id[i] may be inferred to be equal to vps_max_sublayers_minus1. ols_dpb_pic_width[i] may specify the width of each picture storage buffer for the i-th ols. in this case, the width may be the value in units of luma samples. ols_dpb_pic_height[i] may specify the height of each picture storage buffer for the i-th ols. in this case, the height may be the value in units of luma samples. ols_dpb_params_idx[i] may specify the index, to the list of dpb_parameters( ) in the vps, of the dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th ols when numlayersinols[i] is greater than 1. when ols_dpb_params_idx[i] is present, ols_dpb_params_idx[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_num_dpb_params−1, inclusive. when ols_dpb_params_idx[i] is not present, the value of ols_dpb_params_idx[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0. when numlayersinols[i] is equal to 1, dpb_parameters( ) that applies to the i-th ols may be present in the sps referred to by the layer in the i-th ols. fig. 10 as a view illustrating a syntax structure or a vps according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. the syntax structure of the vps shown in fig. 10 includes parts of syntax elements related to the present disclosure in vps, and various other syntax elements not shown in fig. 10 may be included in the vps. in the example shown in fig. 10 , vps_video_parameter_set_id provides an identifier for the vps. other syntax elements may refer to the vps using vps_video_parameter_set_id. the value of vps_video_parameter_set_id shall be greater than 0. vps_max_layers_minus1 plus 1 may specify the maximum allowed number of layers in each cvs referring to the vps. vps_max_sublayers_minus1 plus 1 may specify the maximum number of temporal sublayers that may be present in a layer in each cvs referring to the vps. vps_max_sublayers_minus1 may be in the range of 0 to 6, inclusive. vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag may be signaled when vps_max_layers_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0. vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that the number of temporal sublayers is the same for all the layers in each cvs referring to the vps. vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the layers in each cvs referring to the vps may not have the same number of temporal sublayers. when vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1). vps_all_independent_layers_flag may be signaled when vps_max_layers_minus1 is greater than 0. vps_all_independent_layers_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that all layers in the cvs are independently coded without using inter-layer prediction. vps_all_independent_layers_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that one or more of the layers in the cvs may use inter-layer prediction. when vps_all_independent_layers_flag is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1). vps_layer_id[i] may represent nuh_layer_id of an i-th layer. when both m and n are integers equal to or greater than 0 and m is less than n, vps_layer_id[m] shall be less than vps_layer_id[n]. vps_independent_layer_flag[i] may be signaled when i is greater than 0 and vps_all_independent_layers_flag is 0. vps_independent_layer_flag[i] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that an i-th layer does not use inter-layer prediction. vps_independent_layer_flag[i] equal to a second value (e.g., 1) may specify that an i-th layer may use inter-layer prediction. when vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is 0, information indicating whether a 0 th layer to an (i−1)-th layer are direct reference layers an i-th layer (vps_direct_ref_layer_flag[i][j] for j in the range of 0 to i−1) may be additionally signaled. when vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is not present in a bitstream, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to 1. each_layer_is_an_ols_flag may be signaled when vps_max_layers_minus1 is greater than 0. in addition, each_layer_is_an_ols_flag may be signaled when vps_all_independent_layers_flag is equal to a first value. each_layer_is_an_ols_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that each ols contains only one layer. in addition, each_layer_is_an_ols_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that each layer itself in a cvs referring to the vps is an ols (that is, one layer contained in the ols is the only output layer). in addition, each_layer_is_an_ols_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that at least one ols may contain more than one layer. if vps_max_layers_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of each_layer_is_an_ols_flag may be inferred to be equal to 1. otherwise, when vps_all_independent_layers_flag is equal to 0, the value of each_layer_is_an_ols_flag may be inferred to be equal to 0. when each_layer_is_an_ols_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0) and vps_all_independent_layers_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0), ols_mode_idc may be signaled. ols_mode_idc equal to a first value (e.g., 0) may specify that the total number of olss specified by the vps is equal to vps_max_layers_minus1+1. in this case, an i-th ols may contain the layers with layer indices from 0 to i, inclusive. in addition, for each ols, only a layer having a highest layer index (highest layer) in the ols may be output. ols_mode_idc equal to a second value (e.g., 1) may specify that the total number of olss specified by the vps is equal to vps_max_layers_minus1+1. in this case, an i-th ols may contain layers with layer indices from 0 to i, inclusive. in addition, for each ols, all layers in the ols may be output. ols_mode_idc equal to a third value (e.g., 2) may specify that the total number of olss specified by the vps is explicitly signaled. in addition, for each ols, the output layers are explicitly signaled. other layers which are not output layers are the layers that are direct or indirect reference layers of the output layers of the ols. when vps_all_independent_layers_flag is equal to 1 and each_layer_is_an_ols_flag is equal to 0, the value of ols_mode_idc may be inferred to be equal to a third value (e.g., 2). when ols_mode_idc is 2, num_output_layer_sets_minus1 and ols_output_layer_flag[i][j] may be explicitly signaled. num_output_layer_sets_minus1 plus 1 may specify the total number of olss specified by the vps. when ols_mode_idc is 2, ols_output_layer_flag[i][j] may specify whether a j-th layer of an i-th ols is an output layer. ols_output_layer_flag[i][j] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that a layer with a layer identifier nuh_layer_id equal to vps_layer_id[j] is an output layer of an i-th ols. ols_output_layer_flag[i][j] equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that a layer with a layer identifier nuh_layer_i equal to vps_layer_id[j] is not an output layer of an i-th ols. hereinafter, hrd parameters signaled in the vps will be described. when each_layer_is_an_ols_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0), vps_general_hrd_params_present_flag may be signaled. vps_general_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and other hrd parameters are present in the vps. vps_general_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and other hrd parameters are not present in the vps. when vps_general_hrd_params_present_flag is not present, the value thereof may be inferred to be equal to a second value (e.g., 0). when an i-th ols contains one layer (numlayersinols[i] is equal to 1), the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure that applies to the i-th ols may be present in a sequence parameter set (sps) referred to by the layer in the i-th ols. vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag may be signaled when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0. vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that the i-th ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure in the vps contains hrd parameters for the sublayers with a temporal layer identifier temporalid in the range of 0 to hrd_max_tid[i], inclusive. vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the i-th ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure in the vps contains hrd parameters for the sublayers with a temporal layer identifier temporalid equal to hrd_max_tid[i] only. when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is equal to 0, vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag may be inferred to be equal to a second value (e.g., 0). when vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0), the hrd parameters for the sublayers with temporalid in the range of 0 to hrd_max_tid[i]−1, inclusive, are inferred to be the same as that for the sublayer with a temporal layer identifier temporalid equal to hrd_max_tid[i]. num_ols_hrd_params_minus1 plus 1 may specify the number of ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structures in the vps. num_ols_hrd_params_minus1 may be in the range of 0 to totalnumolss−1. totalnumolss may specify the total number of olss specified by the vps. in the present disclosure, the hrd parameter may mean ols_hrd_parameters( ). accordingly, the number of hrd parameter syntax structures may mean the number of ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structures. hrd_max_tid[i] may be signaled when vps_max_sublayer_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0). hrd_max_tid[i] may specify the temporal layer identifier temporalid of the highest sublayer for which the related hrd parameters are contained in the i-th ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure. hrd_max_tid[i] may be in the range of 0 to vps_max_sublayers_minus1, inclusive. when vps_max_sublayer_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of hrd_max_tid[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0. when vps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0 and vps_all_layers_same_num_sublayers_flag is equal to 1, the value of hrd_max_tid[i] may be inferred to be equal to vps_max_sublayers_minus1. as shown in fig. 10 , a variable firstsublayer specifying the temporal layer identifier temporalid of a first sublayer may be derived to be 0 or hrd_max_tid[i] based on vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag. specifically, when vps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag is equal to 1, firstsublayer may be derived to be 0, and, otherwise, firstsublayer may be derived to be hrd_max_tid[i]. based on the derived firstsublayer and hrd_max_tid[i], the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may be signaled. when num_ols_hrd_params_minus1 plus 1 and totalnumolss are not equal and num_ols_hrd_params_minus1 is greater than 0, ols_hrd_idx[i] may be signaled. in this case, ols_hrd_idx[i] may be signaled for the i-th ols, when the number (numlayersinols[i]) of layers contained in the i-th ols is greater than 1. ols_hrd_idx[i] specifies the index, to the list of ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structures in the vps, of the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure that applies to the i-th ols. the value of ols_hrd_idx[[i] may be in the range of 0 to num_ols_hrd_params_minus1, inclusive. when the number (numlayersinols[i]) of layers contained in the i-th ols is equal to 1, the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure that applies to the i-th ols may be present in an sps referred to by the layer in the i-th ols. in the present disclosure, ols_hrd_idx[i] is the index of ols_hrd_parameters( ) that applies to an i-th ols or an i-th multi-layer ols and may be referred to as mapping information between a (multi-layer) ols and a hrd parameter syntax structure (ols_hrd_parameters( )). when num_ols_hrd_param_minus1 plus 1 is equal to totalnumolss, the value of ols_hrd_idx[i] may be inferred to be equal to i. otherwise, when numlayersinols[i] is greater than 1 and num_ols_hrd_params_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of ols_hrd_idx[i] may be inferred to be equal to 0. hrd signalling in vps and sps hereinafter, signaling of hrd parameters according to the present disclosure will be described in greater detail. the hrd parameters may be signaled for each output layer set (ols). a hypothetical reference decoder (hrd) is a hypothetical decoder model that specifies constraints on the variability of conforming nal unit streams or conforming byte streams that an encoding process may produce. the hrd parameters may be included and signaled in a vps as described with reference to fig. 10 or may be included and signaled in an sps. fig. 11 is a view illustrating the syntax structure of an sps for signaling hrd parameters according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. in the example shown in fig. 11 , sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that a profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure and a dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure are present in the sps. profile_tier_level( ) may be a syntax structure for transmitting parameters for a profile tier level, and dpb_parameters( ) may be a syntax structure for transmitting decoded picture buffer (dpb) parameters. in addition, sps_pti_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may be present in an sps. sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the above-described four syntax structures are not present in the sps. the value of sps_pti_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may be equal to the value of vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nub_layer_id]]. that is, the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may encoded as the value of vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]]. in the present disclosure, a profile_tier_level( ) syntax structure and a dpb_parameters( ) syntax structure may be referred to as a ptl syntax structure and a dpb parameter syntax structure, respectively. also, in the present disclosure, a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may be referred to as a hrd parameter syntax structure. in the present disclosure, sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag corresponds to flag information indicating whether a ptl syntax structure, a dpb parameter syntax structure and a hrd parameter syntax structure are present in an sps. more specifically, sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_param_present_flag of the present disclosure indicates whether a ptl syntax structure and a dpb parameter syntax structure are present in the sps, and indicates whether and a hrd parameter syntax structure may be present in the sps. accordingly, in the present disclosure, that sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag indicates whether a ptl syntax structure, a dpb parameter syntax structure and a hrd parameter syntax structure are present in an sps includes or means than sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag indicates whether a ptl syntax structure and a dpb parameter syntax structure are present in an sps and indicates whether a hrd parameter syntax structure may be present in an sps. in the above, vps_independent_layer_flag[i] may be a syntax element included and transmitted in the vps. vps_independent_layer_flag[i] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that a layer with an index i is an independent layer which does not use inter-layer prediction. vps_independent_layer_flag[i] equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that a layer with an index i may use inter-layer prediction. when vps_independent_layer_flag[i] is not present, the value thereof is inferred to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1). when sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to 1, sps_general_hrd_params_present_flag may be signaled. sps_general_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that the sps includes a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure. sps_general_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the sps does not include a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure or an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure. as shown in fig. 11 , when sps_max_sublayers_minus1 is greater than 0, sps_sublayer_cbp_params_present_flag may be signaled. in this case, sps_max_sublayers_minus1 plus 1 may specify the maximum number of temporal sublayers which may be present in each coded layer video sequence (clvs) referring to the sps. sps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may specify that the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure in the sps includes hrd parameters for sublayers with the temporal layer identifier temporalid in the range of 0 to sps_max_sublayers_minus1, inclusive. sps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may specify that the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure in the sps includes hrd parameters for the sublayer with the temporal layer identifier temporalid equal to sps_max_sublayers_minus1 only. when sps_max_sublayers_minus1 is equal to 0, the value of sps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag is inferred to be equal to a second value (e.g., 0). when sps_sublayer_cpb_params_present_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0), the hrd parameters for the sublayers with the temporal layer identifier temporalid in the range of 0 to sps_max_sublayers_minus1−1, inclusive, are inferred to be the same as that for the sublayer with the temporal layer identifier temporalid equal to sps_max_sublayers_minus1. fig. 12 is a view illustrating a general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. as shown in fig. 12 , the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may include some of the sequence-level hrd parameters used in the hrd operations. it is a requirement of bitstream conformance that the content of the general_hrd_parameters( ) present in any vpss or spss in the bitstream shall be identical. when the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in a vps, the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may apply to all olss specified by the vps. when the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in an sps, the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may apply to the ols that contains only the lowest layer among the layers that refer to the sps. in this case, the lowest layer is an independent layer. as shown in fig. 12 , the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is a hrd parameter and may include syntax elements such as num_units_in_tick, time_scale, and general_nal_hrd_params_present_flag. the hrd parameters shown in fig. 12 may have the same meanings as the conventional hrd parameters. accordingly, a detailed description of hrd parameters that are less relevant to the present disclosure will be omitted. fig. 13 is a view illustrating an ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. when the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in a vps, olss, to which the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure applies, may be specified by the vps. when the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is included in an sps, the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may apply to an ols that contains the lowest layer among the layers that refer to the sps. in this case, the lowest layer is an independent layer. as shown in fig. 13 , the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is a hrd parameter and may include syntax elements such as fixed_pic_rate_general_flag, fixed_pic_rate_within_cvs_flag, and elemental_duration_in_tc_minus1. the hrd parameters shown in fig. 13 may have the same meanings as the conventional hrd parameters. accordingly, a detailed description of hrd parameters that are less relevant to the present disclosure will be omitted. fig. 14 is a view illustrating a sublayer_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. the sublayer_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may be included and signaled in the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure of fig. 13 . as shown in fig. 14 , the sublayer_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure is a hrd parameter and may include syntax elements such as bit_rate_value_minus1, cpb_size_value_minus1, and cpb_size_du_value_minus1. the hrd parameters shown in fig. 14 may have the same meanings as the conventional hrd parameters. accordingly, a detailed description of hrd parameters that are less relevant to the present disclosure will be omitted. for reference, an output time may be a time when a reconstructed picture is to be output from a dpb. the output time may be specified by the hrd according to the output timing dpb operation. two sets of hrd parameters such as nal hrd parameter and vcl hrd parameter may be used. the hrd parameters maybe signaled through the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure. the general_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure and the ols_hrd_parameters( ) syntax structure may be included and signaled in the vps or may be included and signaled in the sps. for example, dpb management may be performed based on the hrd parameters. as an example, removal of picture(s) from the dpb before decoding of the current picture and/or (decoded) picture output may be performed based on the hrd parameters. the signaling method described with reference to figs. 7 to 14 have at least the following problems. as described above, the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is constrained such that it shall be equal to vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]]. that is, it is constrained that sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a first value (e.g., 1) when a current layer is an independent layer and sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0) when the current layer is not an independent layer. however, the current layer being an independent layer does not mean that there is an ols containing only the independent layer. for example, a bitstream may contain two layers (layer 0 and layer 1) which are both independent layers. in addition, there are two olss in the bitstream, the first ols may contain only layer 0 and the second ols may contain layer 0 and layer 1. in this example, layer 1 is an independent layer, but there is no need to signal ptl, dpb and hrd parameters in the sps referred to by pictures in layer 1 since there is no ols that contains only layer 1. that as, in this example, layer 1 is an independent layer, but sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) may be inaccurate since there is no ols that contains only layer 1. signaling associated with the ols includes the above-described problems and include disadvantages which are not described in the present disclosure. the embodiments according to the present disclosure for solving at least one of the problems may include at least one of the following configurations. the following configurations are applicable individually or in combinations. configuration 1: for each independent layer (that is, a layer for which vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]] is equal to a first layer (e.g., 1)), it may be constrained that there is an ols that only contains the independent layer. configuration 2: alternatively, it may be constrained that the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a first value (e.g., 1) when there is an ols that contains only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps. configuration 3: when sps_video_parameter_set_id is equal to a second value (e.g., 0), it may be specified that the cvs contains only one ols and the ols contains the only layer in the cvs. fig. 15 is a view illustrating an example of an image encoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. the image encoding apparatus may derive hrd parameters (s 1510 ) and encode image/video information (s 1520 ). in this case, the image/video information may include information related to the derived hrd parameters. although not shown in fig. 15 , the image encoding apparatus may perform dpb management based on the hrd parameters derived in step s 1510 . fig. 16 is a view illustrating an example of an image decoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. the image decoding apparatus may obtain image/video information (s 1610 ). in this case, the image/video information may include information related to the hrd parameters. the image decoding apparatus may decode a picture based on the obtained hrd parameters (s 1620 ). fig. 17 is a view illustrating another example of an image decoding method, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. the image decoding apparatus may obtain image/video information from a bitstream (s 1710 ). in this case, the image/video information may include information related to the hrd parameters. the image decoding apparatus may perform dpb management based on the obtained hrd parameters (s 1720 ). the image decoding apparatus may decode a picture based on the dpb (s 1730 ). for example, blocks/slices in a current picture may be decoded based on inter prediction using a picture already reconstructed in the dpb as a reference picture. in the example described with reference to figs. 15 to 17 , the information related to the hrd parameters may include at least one of information/syntax elements described in connection with at least one of the embodiments of the present disclosure. in addition, as described above, dpb management may be performed based on the hrd parameters. for example, removal of picture(s) from the dpb before decoding of the current picture and/or (decoded) picture output may be performed based on the hrd parameters. also, in the example described with reference to figs. 15 to 17 , the hrd parameters may be substituted with a ptl syntax structure, a dpb parameter syntax structure and/or the hrd parameters. according to an embodiment of the present disclosure for solving at least some of the above-described problems, for each independent layer, it may be constrained that there is an ols containing only the independent layer. specifically, layer a with vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]] equal to a first value (e.g., 1) is an independent layer and, in this case, it is a requirement of bitstream conformance that there is necessarily an ols that contains only layer a. according to another embodiment of the present disclosure for solving at least some of the above-described problems, when there is an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps, the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may be constrained to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1). according to the embodiment described with reference to fig. 11 , the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may be constrained to be equal to the value of vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]]. however, since the current layer being an independent layer does not mean that there is an ols containing only the independent layer, the constraint in the example of fig. 11 may cause inaccurate signaling. in the present embodiment, the inaccurate constraint is deleted, and it is a new requirement of bitstream conformance that, when there is an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps, the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a first value (e.g., 1). more specifically, when there is an ols containing only one layer and nuh_layer_id of the layer is equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps, the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may be constrained to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1). fig. 18 is a view illustrating an embodiment of a method of encoding sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag according to the present disclosure. the image encoding apparatus may determine whether an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of an sps is present (s 1810 ). when an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is present (step s 1810 —yes), the image encoding apparatus may set the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag equal to a first value (e.g., 1) (s 1820 ). the image encoding apparatus may encode sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag with the set value into the sps (s 1830 ). when an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is not present (step s 1810 —no), the image encoding apparatus may determine the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag to be equal to a first value (e.g., 1) or a second value (e.g., 0) (s 1840 ). the image encoding apparatus may encode sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag with the determined value into the sps (s 1830 ). fig. 19 is a view illustrating an embodiment of a method of decoding a picture based on sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag according to the present disclosure. the image decoding apparatus may obtain and then decode sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag from a bitstream (e.g., sps) (s 1910 ). the image decoding apparatus may determine whether sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a first value (e.g., 1) (s 1920 ). when sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a first value (e.g., 1) (s 1920 —yes), the image decoding apparatus may obtain hrd parameters from the sps (s 1930 ) and decode a picture based on the hrd parameters (s 1940 ). when sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is equal to a second value (e.g., 0) (s 1920 —no), the image decoding apparatus may not obtain hrd parameters from the sps (s 1930 is skipped) and decode a picture based on the hrd parameters (s 1940 ). in this case, the hrd parameters may be obtained from a syntax structure (e.g., vps) other than the sps. in the embodiment described with reference to fig. 18 , the image encoding apparatus encodes sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag based on the determination of step s 1810 . accordingly, in the embodiment described with reference to fig. 19 , the image decoding apparatus may not make determination correspond to step s 1810 . that is, when the ols containing only one layer with the layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is present and sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is encoded as a first value, the image decoding apparatus may obtain sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag encoded as an accurate value according to the present disclosure without making the determination corresponding to step s 1810 . alternatively, the image decoding apparatus may make the determination corresponding to step s 1810 . for example, the image decoding apparatus may determine whether an ols containing only one layer with the layer identifier equal to nub_layer_id of the sps is present (not shown), before or after step s 1910 . when an ols containing only one layer with the layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is present, the image decoding apparatus may set the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag to a first value and may make the determination of step s 1920 . therefore, even if sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag obtained from the bitstream is equal to a second value, when an ols containing only one layer with the layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is present, errors occurred in the encoding step may be corrected by setting the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag to the first value. according to the embodiment described with reference to figs. 18 and 19 , by setting the value of sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag depending on whether an ols containing only one layer with the layer identifier equal to nuh_layer_id of the sps is present, it is possible to improve accuracy and efficiency of signaling of the hrd parameters. in the embodiment described with reference to figs. 18 and 19 , it is determined whether an ols containing only one layer with a layer identifier equal to nub_layer_id of an sps is present (e.g., s 1810 ) in relation with encoding/decoding sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag. however, a condition related to encoding/decoding sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag is not limited to the determination. for example, in relation with encoding/decoding sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag, condition(s) other than the above condition may be determined additionally. in the embodiment described with reference to figs. 18 and 19 , signaling of hrd parameters are described. however, it is not limited to that and the embodiment may also be applied to signaling a ptl syntax structure and/or a dpb parameter syntax structure. for example, hrd parameters of steps s 1930 and s 1940 of fig. 19 may be substituted with a ptl syntax structure, a dpb parameter syntax structure and/or hrd parameters. in the method described with reference to figs. 18 and 19 , some steps may be omitted or the order thereof may be changed. in addition, a step(s) which is(are) not shown in figs. 18 and 19 may be added at any location. according to another embodiment of the present disclosure for solving at least some of the above-described problems, sps_video_parameter_set_id equal to a second value (e.g., 0) may be constrained to specify that the cvs contains only one ols and the ols contains the only layer in the cvs. for example, a variable totalnumolss specifying the total number of olss may be inferred to be equal to 1, and it may be constrained that the only ols may contain only a current layer. when sps_video_parameter_set_id has a value greater than 0, it may specify an identifier vps_video_parameter_set_id for a vps referred to by the sps. accordingly, according to the present disclosure, sps_video_parameter_set_id having a value of 0 may have the following meanings. the sps does not refer to a vps.when decoding a clvs which refers to the sps, no vps is referred to.the value of vps_max_layers_minus1 is inferred to be equal to 0. the cvs contains only one layer (that is, all vcl nal units in the cvs have nuh_layer_id of the same value) a layer identifier specified by nuh_layer_id is inferred to be equal to 0.the only layer is inferred to be an independent layer (vps_independent_layer_flag[generallayeridx[nuh_layer_id]]=1)totalnumolss is inferred to be equal to 1 and the only ols contains only a current layer. as described above, when sps_video_parameter_set_id is 0, the ols includes only one layer. accordingly, in this case, as in the embodiment described with reference to figs. 18 and 19 , sps_ptl_dpb_hrd_params_present_flag may be constrained to have a first value (e.g., 1). while the exemplary methods of the present disclosure described above are represented as a series of operations for clarity of description, it is not intended to limit the order in which the steps are performed, and the steps may be performed simultaneously or in different order as necessary. in order to implement the method according to the present disclosure, the described steps may further include other steps, may include remaining steps except for some of the steps, or may include other additional steps except for some steps. in the present disclosure, the image encoding apparatus or the image decoding apparatus that performs a predetermined operation (step) may perform an operation (step) of confirming an execution condition or situation or the corresponding operation (step). for example, if it is described that predetermined operation is performed when a predetermined condition is satisfied, the image encoding apparatus or the image decoding apparatus may perform the predetermined operation after determining whether the predetermined condition is satisfied. the various embodiments of the present disclosure are not a list of all possible combinations and are intended to describe representative aspects of the present disclosure, and the matters described in the various embodiments may be applied independently or in combination of two or more. various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof. in the case of implementing the present disclosure by hardware, the present disclosure can be implemented with application specific integrated circuits (asics), digital signal processors (dsps), digital signal processing devices (dspds), programmable logic devices (plds), field programmable gate arrays (fpgas), general processors, controllers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, etc. in addition, the image decoding apparatus and the image encoding apparatus, to which the embodiments of the present disclosure are applied, may be included in a multimedia broadcasting transmission and reception device, a mobile communication terminal, a home cinema video device, a digital cinema video device, a surveillance camera, a video chat device, a real time communication device such as video communication, a mobile streaming device, a storage medium, a camcorder, a video on demand (vod) service providing device, an ott video (over the top video) device, an internet streaming service providing device, a three-dimensional (3d) video device, a video telephony video device, a medical video device, and the like, and may be used to process video signals or data signals. for example, the ott video devices may include a game console, a blu-ray player, an internet access tv, a home theater system, a smartphone, a tablet pc, a digital video recorder (dvr), or the like. fig. 20 is a view showing a content streaming system, to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. as shown in fig. 20 , the content streaming system, to which the embodiment of the present disclosure is applied, may largely include an encoding server, a streaming server, a web server, a media storage, a user device, and a multimedia input device. the encoding server compresses content input from multimedia input devices such as a smartphone, a camera, a camcorder, etc. into digital data to generate a bitstream and transmits the bitstream to the streaming server. as another example, when the multimedia input devices such as smartphones, cameras, camcorders, etc. directly generate a bitstream, the encoding server may be omitted. the bitstream may be generated by an image encoding method or an image encoding apparatus, to which the embodiment of the present disclosure is applied, and the streaming server may temporarily store the bitstream in the process of transmitting or receiving the bitstream. the streaming server transmits the multimedia data to the user device based on a user's request through the web server, and the web server serves as a medium for informing the user of a service. when the user requests a desired service from the web server, the web server may deliver it to a streaming server, and the streaming server may transmit multimedia data to the user. in this case, the content streaming system may include a separate control server. in this case, the control server serves to control a command/response between devices in the content streaming system. the streaming server may receive content from a media storage and/or an encoding server. for example, when the content is received from the encoding server, the content may be received in real time. in this case, in order to provide a smooth streaming service, the streaming server may store the bitstream for a predetermined time. examples of the user device may include a mobile phone, a smartphone, a laptop computer, a digital broadcasting terminal, a personal digital assistant (pda), a portable multimedia player (pmp), navigation, a slate pc, tablet pcs, ultrabooks, wearable devices (e.g., smartwatches, smart glasses, head mounted displays), digital tvs, desktops computer, digital signage, and the like. each server in the content streaming system may be operated as a distributed server, in which case data received from each server may be distributed. the scope of the disclosure includes software or machine-executable commands (e.g., an operating system, an application, firmware, a program, etc.) for enabling operations according to the methods of various embodiments to be executed on an apparatus or a computer, a non-transitory computer-readable medium having such software or commands stored thereon and executable on the apparatus or the computer. industrial applicability the embodiments of the present disclosure may be used to encode or decode an image.
147-575-345-160-420	US	[ "US" ]	A61B34/10,A61B6/00,A61B6/12,A61B17/00,A61B17/17,A61B17/70,A61B17/86,A61B34/20,A61B34/30,A61B90/00,A61B90/11,A61F2/46,G06T7/00,G06T7/20,G06T7/33,G06T7/50,G06T7/70,G06T19/00,G06T19/20	2012-06-21T00:00:00	2012	[ "A61", "G06" ]	systems and methods related to robotic guidance in surgery	a surgical implant planning computer positions an implant device relative to a bone of a patient. an initial image of a bone is obtained. an initial location data structure is obtained that contains data defining mapping between locations on the implant device and corresponding locations relative to the bone in the initial image. a target image of the bone of the patient is obtained. a transformation matrix is generated that transforms a contour of a portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone in the target image. a transformed location data structure is generated based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure. a graphical representation of the implant device is displayed overlaid at locations on the target image of the bone determined based on the transformed location data structure.	1. a method by a surgical implant planning computer for positioning a surgical implant device relative to a bone of a patient, the method comprising: generating a transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a portion of the bone in an initial image to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone in a target image; generating a transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to an initial location data structure, wherein the initial data structure includes data defining mapping between a set of locations on the surgical implant device and a corresponding set of locations relative to the bone in the initial image; and displaying a graphical representation of the surgical implant device overlaid at locations on the target image of the bone determined based on the transformed location data structure. 2. the method of claim 1 , wherein the surgical implant device comprises a surgical screw, and further comprising: determining locations of a tip and a tail of the surgical screw relative to the bone in the initial image based on the data in the initial location data structure. 3. the method of claim 1 , wherein the generation of the transformation matrix comprises: modifying a size and/or a rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a size and/or a rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone in the target image. 4. the method of claim 3 , further comprising: repeating the modification of the size and/or the rotational angle of contours of a plurality of portions of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of contours of a corresponding plurality of portions of the bone in the target image. 5. the method of claim 3 , wherein the modification of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone in the initial image, comprises: applying a best fit transformation of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone in the target image. 6. the method of claim 3 , wherein the modification of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone in the initial image, comprises: applying an affine transformation of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone in the target image. 7. the method of claim 1 , wherein the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, comprises: for a first one of the locations on the surgical implant device defined in the initial location data structure, applying the transformation matrix to transform a corresponding first one of the locations defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image to a transformed first location defined relative to the bone in the target image; and storing the transformed first location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the first one of the locations on the surgical implant device. 8. the method of claim 7 , further comprising: generating another transformation matrix that transforms a contour of another portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding another portion of the bone in the target image, wherein the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, further comprises: for a second one of the locations on the surgical implant device defined in the initial location data structure, applying the other transformation matrix to transform a corresponding second one of the locations defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image to a transformed second location defined relative to the bone in the target image; and storing the transformed second location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the second one of the locations on the surgical implant device. 9. the method of claim 7 , wherein: the surgical implant device comprises a surgical screw having a tip location and a tail location defined in the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image; and the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, comprises: generating a first transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a first portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding first portion of the bone in the target image; for the tip location on the surgical screw defined in the initial location data structure, applying the first transformation matrix to transform a corresponding first location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image to a transformed first location defined relative to the bone in the target image; storing the transformed first location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the tip location on the surgical screw; generating a second transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a second portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding second portion of the bone in the target image, for the tail location on the surgical screw defined in the initial location data structure, applying the second transformation matrix to transform a corresponding second location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image to a transformed second location defined relative to the bone in the target image; and storing the transformed second location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the tail location on the surgical screw. 10. the method of claim 1 , wherein: the surgical implant device comprises a surgical screw having a tip location and a tail location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image; and the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, comprises scaling a distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw defined relative to the bone in the target image based on the transformation matrix. 11. the method of claim 10 , wherein the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, further comprises: scaling a diameter of the surgical screw based on the scaling of the distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw. 12. the method of claim 1 , further comprising: providing the transformed location data structure to a surgical robotic system to control positioning of a surgical end-effector of the surgical robotic system relative to a location on the bone of the patient based on data of the transformed location data structure. 13. the method of claim 12 , further comprising: transforming locations that are defined by the transformed location data structure in a reference coordinate system of the target image of the bone to another reference coordinate system of the surgical end-effector; controlling movement by the surgical robotic system of the surgical end-effector to position the surgical end-effector relative to the location on the bone of the patient based on the transformed locations to facilitate implantation of the surgical implant device in the bone of the patient. 14. the method of claim 1 , further comprising: determining distances between locations on the surgical implant device defined by the transformed location data structure and adjacent surfaces of the bone in the target image; and responsive to the determined distances, adjusting where the graphical representation of the surgical implant device is displayed as an overlay on the target image of the bone. 15. the method of claim 1 , further comprising: obtaining a set of rules defining depth of penetration of the surgical implant device and angle of the penetration relative to a surface of the bone in the target image; and responsive to the set of rules, adjusting where the graphical representation of the surgical implant device is displayed as an overlay on the target image of the bone. 16. a surgical implant planning computer comprising: at least one network interface connected to at least one networked server; a display device; at least one processor connected to the at least one network interface and the display device; and at least one memory storing program instructions executed by the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: generating a transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a portion of the bone in an initial image to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone in a target image; generating a transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to an initial location data structure, wherein the initial data structure includes data defining mapping between a set of locations on the surgical implant device and a corresponding set of locations relative to the bone in the initial image; and displaying a graphical representation of the surgical implant device overlaid at locations on the target image of the bone determined based on the transformed location data structure. 17. the surgical implant planning computer of claim 16 , wherein: the surgical implant device comprises a surgical screw having a tip location and a tail location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image; and the generation of the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, comprises scaling a distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw defined relative to the bone in the target image based on the transformation matrix. 18. the surgical implant planning computer of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise: providing the transformed location data structure through the at least one network interface to a surgical robotic system to control positioning of a surgical end-effector of the surgical robotic system relative to a location on the bone of the patient based on data of the transformed location data structure. 19. a surgical system comprising: a surgical implant planning computer comprising: at least one network interface connected to at least one networked server; a display device; at least one processor connected to the at least one network interface and the display device; and at least one memory storing program instructions executed by the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: generating a transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a portion of the bone in an initial image to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone in a target image; generating a transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to an initial location data structure, wherein the initial data structure includes data defining mapping between a set of locations on the surgical implant device and a corresponding set of locations relative to the bone in the initial image; and displaying a graphical representation of the surgical implant device overlaid at locations on the target image of the bone determined based on the transformed location data structure; and a surgical robotic system comprising: a robotic arm configured to position a surgical end-effector; and a controller connected to the robotic arm, wherein the controller is configured to perform operations comprising: transforming locations that are defined by the transformed location data structure in a reference coordinate system of the target image of the bone to another reference coordinate system of the surgical end-effector; and controlling movement of the surgical end-effector to position the surgical end-effector relative to a location on the bone of the patient based on the transformed locations to facilitate implantation of the surgical implant device in the bone of the patient. 20. the surgical system of claim 19 , wherein: the surgical implant device comprises a surgical screw having a tip location and a tail location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image; the operation of generating the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure, comprises scaling a distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw defined relative to the bone in the target image based on the transformation matrix; and the operation of controlling movement of the surgical end-effector to position the surgical end-effector relative to a location on the bone of the patient based on the transformed locations to facilitate implantation of the surgical implant device in the bone of the patient.	cross-reference to related applications this application is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/975,846 filed on may 10, 2018 (published as u.s. pat. pub. no. 2018-0256259), which is a continuation-in-part application of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/609,334 filed on may 31, 2017, which is continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/157,444 filed on may 18, 2016, which is a continuation in part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/095,883, filed apr. 11, 2016, which is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/062,707, filed on oct. 24, 2013, which is a continuation-in-part application of u.s. patent application ser. no. 13/924,505, filed on jun. 21, 2013, which claims priority to provisional application no. 61/662,702 filed on jun. 21, 2012 and claims priority to provisional application no. 61/800,527 filed on mar. 15, 2013, and claims priority to provisional application 62/615,492 filed on jan. 10, 2018, all of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties for all purposes. field of the invention the present disclosure relates to medical devices, and more particularly, surgical robotic systems and related methods and devices. background position recognition systems for robot assisted surgeries are used to determine the position of and track a particular object in 3-dimensions (3d). in robot assisted surgeries, for example, certain objects, such as surgical instruments, need to be tracked with a high degree of precision as the instrument is being positioned and moved by a robot or by a physician, for example. infrared signal based position recognition systems may use passive and/or active sensors or markers for tracking the objects. in passive sensors or markers, objects to be tracked may include passive sensors, such as reflective spherical balls, which are positioned at strategic locations on the object to be tracked. infrared transmitters transmit a signal, and the reflective spherical balls reflect the signal to aid in determining the position of the object in 3d. in active sensors or markers, the objects to be tracked include active infrared transmitters, such as light emitting diodes (leds), and thus generate their own infrared signals for 3d detection. with either active or passive tracking sensors, the system then geometrically resolves the 3-dimensional position of the active and/or passive sensors based on information from or with respect to one or more of the infrared cameras, digital signals, known locations of the active or passive sensors, distance, the time it took to receive the responsive signals, other known variables, or a combination thereof. position feedback is thereby used to precisely guide movement of robotic arms and tools relative to a patients' surgical site. currently, development of a surgical plan for the desired locations where screws, tools, or other surgical implant devices are to be implanted when using a surgical robot is performed manually by a surgeon. a surgeon analyzes a patient's medical image and may mark up the image to create a surgical plan. although each patient is different, they share many similarities. therefore, the process of marking up an image to create a surgical plan need not start from scratch for each case. these surgical systems could benefit from a more automated, rapid and accurate process of planning of the characteristics of a surgical implant device that is to be implanted into a particular bone and planning of the precise location, angle of entry, and depth of implantation of the device. such a process could be based on successful surgical plans created for previous patients. summary various embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to a surgical system that allows auto-generation of a surgical plan and/or enables a surgeon to develop a surgical plan for implanting a surgical implant device with respect to a bone shown in one medical image, and that automatically transforms the surgical plan for use in implanting the surgical implant device into a bone that is shown in another medical image. in some embodiments, a surgeon can plan implantation of the implant device relative to an initial image of a bone, which may correspond to an earlier image of this or another patient or may correspond to a general surgical bone model. when a target image of the patient's bone is then obtained, such as during surgery or preparation, the surgical system can generate a transformation matrix related to transforming one or more bone contours shown in the initial image to conform to corresponding one or more bone contours in the target image. the surgical system then uses the transformation matrix to transform the surgical plan that was developed relative to the initial image to now be relative to the target image. the location, angle of entry, and depth of implantation of the implant device and/or sizing of the implantation device that was earlier specified with respect to the bone shown in the initial image can thereby be transformed relative to the bone shown in the target image. the transformed surgical plan can be displayed for review by the surgeon and/or can be provided to a surgical robotic system to control positioning of a surgical end-effector of the surgical robotic system relative to the bone of the patient. according to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a method is provided to operate a surgical implant planning computer for positioning a surgical implant device relative to a bone of a patient. an initial image of a bone is obtained. an initial location data structure is obtained that contains data defining mapping between a set of locations on the surgical implant device and a corresponding set of locations relative to the bone in the initial image. a target image of the bone of the patient is obtained. a transformation matrix is generated that transforms a contour of a portion of the bone in the initial image to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone in the target image. a transformed location data structure is generated based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure. a graphical representation of the surgical implant device is displayed overlaid at locations on the target image of the bone determined based on the transformed location data structure. in some further embodiments, the transformed location data structure is provided to a surgical robotic system to control positioning of a surgical end-effector of the surgical robotic system relative to a location on the bone of the patient based on data of the transformed location data structure. locations that are defined by the transformed location data structure in a reference coordinate system of the target image of the bone can be transformed to another reference coordinate system of the surgical end-effector. movement of the surgical end-effector by the surgical robotic system to position the surgical end-effector relative to the location on the bone of the patient can be controlled based on the transformed locations to facilitate implantation of the surgical implant device in the bone of the patient. corresponding surgical implant planning computers, surgical systems, and computer program products are disclosed. still other methods and corresponding surgical implant planning computers, surgical systems, and computer program products according to embodiments of the inventive subject matter will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon review of the following drawings and detailed description. it is intended that all such methods, surgical implant planning computers, surgical systems, and computer program products be included within this description, be within the scope of the present inventive subject matter, and be protected by the accompanying claims. moreover, it is intended that all embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented separately or combined in any way and/or combination. description of the drawings the accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in a constitute a part of this application, illustrate certain non-limiting embodiments of inventive concepts. in the drawings: fig. 1 is an overhead view of a potential arrangement for locations of the robotic system, patient, surgeon, and other medical personnel during a surgical procedure; fig. 2 illustrates the robotic system including positioning of the surgical robot and the camera relative to the patient according to one embodiment; fig. 3 illustrates a surgical robotic system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 4 illustrates a portion of a surgical robot in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a surgical robot in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 6 illustrates a surgical robot in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; figs. 7a-7c illustrate an end-effector in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 8 illustrates a surgical instrument and the end-effector, before and after, inserting the surgical instrument into the guide tube of the end-effector according to one embodiment; figs. 9a-9c illustrate portions of an end-effector and robot arm in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 10 illustrates a dynamic reference array, an imaging array, and other components in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 11 illustrates a method of registration in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 12a-12b illustrate embodiments of imaging devices according to exemplary embodiments; fig. 13a illustrates a portion of a robot including the robot arm and an end-effector in accordance with an exemplary embodiment; fig. 13b is a close-up view of the end-effector, with a plurality of tracking markers rigidly affixed thereon, shown in fig. 13a ; fig. 13c is a tool or instrument with a plurality of tracking markers rigidly affixed thereon according to one embodiment; fig. 14a is an alternative version of an end-effector with moveable tracking markers in a first configuration; fig. 14b is the end-effector shown in fig. 14a with the moveable tracking markers in a second configuration; fig. 14c shows the template of tracking markers in the first configuration from fig. 14a ; fig. 14d shows the template of tracking markers in the second configuration from fig. 14b ; fig. 15a shows an alternative version of the end-effector having only a single tracking marker affixed thereto; fig. 15b shows the end-effector of fig. 15a with an instrument disposed through the guide tube; fig. 15c shows the end-effector of fig. 15a with the instrument in two different positions, and the resulting logic to determine if the instrument is positioned within the guide tube or outside of the guide tube; fig. 15d shows the end-effector of fig. 15a with the instrument in the guide tube at two different frames and its relative distance to the single tracking marker on the guide tube; fig. 15e shows the end-effector of fig. 15a relative to a coordinate system; fig. 16 is a block diagram of a method for navigating and moving the end-effector of the robot to a desired target trajectory; figs. 17a-17b depict an instrument for inserting an expandable implant having fixed and moveable tracking markers in contracted and expanded positions, respectively; figs. 18a-18b depict an instrument for inserting an articulating implant having fixed and moveable tracking markers in insertion and angled positions, respectively; fig. 19a depicts an embodiment of a robot with interchangeable or alternative end-effectors; fig. 19b depicts an embodiment of a robot with an instrument style end-effector coupled thereto; fig. 20 illustrates a block diagram of a surgical system including a surgical implant planning computer connected to a surgical robotic system that operate in accordance with some exemplary embodiments; fig. 21 depicts a set of images that can be displayed on a display device and related operations performed by the surgical implant planning computer to generate a transformation matrix that transforms a surgical plan for implanting a surgical implant device relative to a bone in an initial image for overlay on a bone in a target image, in accordance with some exemplary embodiments; figs. 22 and 23 illustrate flowcharts of operations by the surgical implant planning computer in accordance with some exemplary embodiments; fig. 24 depicts a set of images of bones with an overlaid surgical implant device that can be displayed on a display device via operations in accordance with some exemplary embodiments; fig. 25 illustrate flowcharts of operations by the surgical implant planning computer to adjust a location of a surgical implant device relative to the bones in the images depicted in fig. 24 , in accordance with some exemplary embodiments; and fig. 26 illustrates a block diagram of components of a surgical implant planning computer that are configured to operate in accordance with some exemplary embodiments. detailed description the following discussion is presented to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use embodiments of the present disclosure. various modifications to the illustrated embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the principles herein can be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from embodiments of the present disclosure. thus, the embodiments are not intended to be limited to embodiments shown, but are to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features disclosed herein. the following detailed description is to be read with reference to the figures, in which like elements in different figures have like reference numerals. the figures, which are not necessarily to scale, depict selected embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments. skilled artisans will recognize the examples provided herein have many useful alternatives and fall within the scope of the embodiments. as explained above, a surgeon may develop a surgical plan by analyzing a patient's medical image and marking up the image to create the surgical plan for desired locations where screws, tools, or other surgical implant devices are to be implanted when using a surgical robot that assists with implanting the devices. when using a surgical robotic system, a desired screw location may be planned preoperatively using a computerized interface. in this interface, the surgeon scrolls through or otherwise manipulates views of the patient's medical images, such as ct scan, x-ray, or mri and positions graphic objects representing the desired locations of screws as overlays on a displayed medical image of a bone. the system stores the planned screw locations in system memory, typically by storing the x,y,z cartesian coordinates of the tip and tail locations of each screw in the coordinate system of the volumetric scan of the medical image, or in the case of fluoroscopic guidance, saving tip and tail location coordinates in the coordinate system through which the fluoro shot images are projected. later, when the robot is activated, the coordinate system in which the screw locations have been planned is registered with the coordinate system of the tracking cameras and the robot moves to the planned locations, holding a guide tube for preparation of screw holes and insertion of screws. in accordance with various embodiments disclosed herein, the surgical planning process is improved by providing a surgical implant planning computer that automatically predicts desired locations of screws and/or other surgical implant devices before the surgeon views the patient's images and can incorporate the surgeon's preferences regarding screw or other device placement (preferred depth, preferred angle, etc.) into an automatic predictive surgical plan with respect to an initial medical image. alternatively or additionally, the surgical implant planning computer obtains an initial surgical plan developed by a surgeon for implanting a screw or other implant device with respect to the initial medical image. the system transforms the automatic predictive surgical plan and/or the surgeon's initial surgical plan made with respect to the initial medical image to a transformed plan for use in implanting the surgical implant device into a bone that is shown in a target medical image. such automatic planning can reduce the time required for the surgery and increase precision of planning. although various embodiments are described in the context of developing a surgical plan for implanting screws into a bone, this disclosure is not limited thereto. embodiments disclosed herein can be used to plan the implantation of any type of surgical implant device into a bone, tissue, cartilage, or other anatomical structure. an example surgical robotic system is initially described below in detail followed by a description of various configurations and operations of a surgical implant planning computer as part of a surgical system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure. surgical robotic system turning now to the drawing, figs. 1 and 2 illustrate a surgical robot system 100 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. surgical robot system 100 may include, for example, a surgical robot 102 , one or more robot arms 104 , a base 106 , a display 110 , an end-effector 112 , for example, including a guide tube 114 , and one or more tracking markers 118 . the surgical robot system 100 may include a patient tracking device 116 also including one or more tracking markers 118 , which is adapted to be secured directly to the patient 210 (e.g., to a bone of the patient 210 ). the surgical robot system 100 may also use a camera 200 , for example, positioned on a camera stand 202 . the camera stand 202 can have any suitable configuration to move, orient, and support the camera 200 in a desired position. the camera 200 may include any suitable camera or cameras, such as one or more infrared cameras (e.g., bifocal or stereophotogrammetrical cameras), able to identify, for example, active and passive tracking markers 118 (shown as part of patient tracking device 116 in fig. 2 and shown by enlarged view in figs. 13a-13b ) in a given measurement volume viewable from the perspective of the camera 200 . the camera 200 may scan the given measurement volume and detect the light that comes from the markers 118 in order to identify and determine the position of the markers 118 in three-dimensions. for example, active markers 118 may include infrared-emitting markers that are activated by an electrical signal (e.g., infrared light emitting diodes (leds)), and/or passive markers 118 may include retro-reflective markers that reflect infrared light (e.g., they reflect incoming ir radiation into the direction of the incoming light), for example, emitted by illuminators on the camera 200 or other suitable device. figs. 1 and 2 illustrate a potential configuration for the placement of the surgical robot system 100 in an operating room environment. for example, the robot 102 may be positioned near or next to patient 210 . although depicted near the head of the patient 210 , it will be appreciated that the robot 102 can be positioned at any suitable location near the patient 210 depending on the area of the patient 210 undergoing the operation. the camera 200 may be separated from the robot system 100 and positioned at the foot of patient 210 . this location allows the camera 200 to have a direct visual line of sight to the surgical field 208 . again, it is contemplated that the camera 200 may be located at any suitable position having line of sight to the surgical field 208 . in the configuration shown, the surgeon 120 may be positioned across from the robot 102 , but is still able to manipulate the end-effector 112 and the display 110 . a surgical assistant 126 may be positioned across from the surgeon 120 again with access to both the end-effector 112 and the display 110 . if desired, the locations of the surgeon 120 and the assistant 126 may be reversed. the traditional areas for the anesthesiologist 122 and the nurse or scrub tech 124 may remain unimpeded by the locations of the robot 102 and camera 200 . with respect to the other components of the robot 102 , the display 110 can be attached to the surgical robot 102 and in other exemplary embodiments, display 110 can be detached from surgical robot 102 , either within a surgical room with the surgical robot 102 , or in a remote location. end-effector 112 may be coupled to the robot arm 104 and controlled by at least one motor. in exemplary embodiments, end-effector 112 can comprise a guide tube 114 , which is able to receive and orient a surgical instrument 608 (described further herein) used to perform surgery on the patient 210 . as used herein, the term “end-effector” is used interchangeably with the terms “end-effectuator” and “effectuator element.” although generally shown with a guide tube 114 , it will be appreciated that the end-effector 112 may be replaced with any suitable instrumentation suitable for use in surgery. in some embodiments, end-effector 112 can comprise any known structure for effecting the movement of the surgical instrument 608 in a desired manner. the surgical robot 102 is able to control the translation and orientation of the end-effector 112 . the robot 102 is able to move end-effector 112 along x-, y-, and z-axes, for example. the end-effector 112 can be configured for selective rotation about one or more of the x-, y-, and z-axis, and a z frame axis (such that one or more of the euler angles (e.g., roll, pitch, and/or yaw) associated with end-effector 112 can be selectively controlled). in some exemplary embodiments, selective control of the translation and orientation of end-effector 112 can permit performance of medical procedures with significantly improved accuracy compared to conventional robots that use, for example, a six degree of freedom robot arm comprising only rotational axes. for example, the surgical robot system 100 may be used to operate on patient 210 , and robot arm 104 can be positioned above the body of patient 210 , with end-effector 112 selectively angled relative to the z-axis toward the body of patient 210 . in some exemplary embodiments, the position of the surgical instrument 608 can be dynamically updated so that surgical robot 102 can be aware of the location of the surgical instrument 608 at all times during the procedure. consequently, in some exemplary embodiments, surgical robot 102 can move the surgical instrument 608 to the desired position quickly without any further assistance from a physician (unless the physician so desires). in some further embodiments, surgical robot 102 can be configured to correct the path of the surgical instrument 608 if the surgical instrument 608 strays from the selected, preplanned trajectory. in some exemplary embodiments, surgical robot 102 can be configured to permit stoppage, modification, and/or manual control of the movement of end-effector 112 and/or the surgical instrument 608 . thus, in use, in exemplary embodiments, a physician or other user can operate the system 100 , and has the option to stop, modify, or manually control the autonomous movement of end-effector 112 and/or the surgical instrument 608 . further details of surgical robot system 100 including the control and movement of a surgical instrument 608 by surgical robot 102 can be found in co-pending u.s. patent application ser. no. 13/924,505, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. the robotic surgical system 100 can comprise one or more tracking markers 118 configured to track the movement of robot arm 104 , end-effector 112 , patient 210 , and/or the surgical instrument 608 in three dimensions. in exemplary embodiments, a plurality of tracking markers 118 can be mounted (or otherwise secured) thereon to an outer surface of the robot 102 , such as, for example and without limitation, on base 106 of robot 102 , on robot arm 104 , and/or on the end-effector 112 . in exemplary embodiments, at least one tracking marker 118 of the plurality of tracking markers 118 can be mounted or otherwise secured to the end-effector 112 . one or more tracking markers 118 can further be mounted (or otherwise secured) to the patient 210 . in exemplary embodiments, the plurality of tracking markers 118 can be positioned on the patient 210 spaced apart from the surgical field 208 to reduce the likelihood of being obscured by the surgeon, surgical tools, or other parts of the robot 102 . further, one or more tracking markers 118 can be further mounted (or otherwise secured) to the surgical tools 608 (e.g., a screw driver, dilator, implant inserter, or the like). thus, the tracking markers 118 enable each of the marked objects (e.g., the end-effector 112 , the patient 210 , and the surgical tools 608 ) to be tracked by the robot 102 . in exemplary embodiments, system 100 can use tracking information collected from each of the marked objects to calculate the orientation and location, for example, of the end-effector 112 , the surgical instrument 608 (e.g., positioned in the tube 114 of the end-effector 112 ), and the relative position of the patient 210 . the markers 118 may include radiopaque or optical markers. the markers 118 may be suitably shaped include spherical, spheroid, cylindrical, cube, cuboid, or the like. in exemplary embodiments, one or more of markers 118 may be optical markers. in some embodiments, the positioning of one or more tracking markers 118 on end-effector 112 can maximize the accuracy of the positional measurements by serving to check or verify the position of end-effector 112 . further details of surgical robot system 100 including the control, movement and tracking of surgical robot 102 and of a surgical instrument 608 can be found in u.s. patent publication no. 2016/0242849, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. exemplary embodiments include one or more markers 118 coupled to the surgical instrument 608 . in exemplary embodiments, these markers 118 , for example, coupled to the patient 210 and surgical instruments 608 , as well as markers 118 coupled to the end-effector 112 of the robot 102 can comprise conventional infrared light-emitting diodes (leds) or an optotrak® diode capable of being tracked using a commercially available infrared optical tracking system such as optotrak®. optotrak® is a registered trademark of northern digital inc., waterloo, ontario, canada. in other embodiments, markers 118 can comprise conventional reflective spheres capable of being tracked using a commercially available optical tracking system such as polaris spectra. polaris spectra is also a registered trademark of northern digital, inc. in an exemplary embodiment, the markers 118 coupled to the end-effector 112 are active markers which comprise infrared light-emitting diodes which may be turned on and off, and the markers 118 coupled to the patient 210 and the surgical instruments 608 comprise passive reflective spheres. in exemplary embodiments, light emitted from and/or reflected by markers 118 can be detected by camera 200 and can be used to monitor the location and movement of the marked objects. in alternative embodiments, markers 118 can comprise a radio-frequency and/or electromagnetic reflector or transceiver and the camera 200 can include or be replaced by a radio-frequency and/or electromagnetic transceiver. similar to surgical robot system 100 , fig. 3 illustrates a surgical robot system 300 and camera stand 302 , in a docked configuration, consistent with an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. surgical robot system 300 may comprise a robot 301 including a display 304 , upper arm 306 , lower arm 308 , end-effector 310 , vertical column 312 , casters 314 , cabinet 316 , tablet drawer 318 , connector panel 320 , control panel 322 , and ring of information 324 . camera stand 302 may comprise camera 326 . these components are described in greater with respect to fig. 5 . fig. 3 illustrates the surgical robot system 300 in a docked configuration where the camera stand 302 is nested with the robot 301 , for example, when not in use. it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the camera 326 and robot 301 may be separated from one another and positioned at any appropriate location during the surgical procedure, for example, as shown in figs. 1 and 2 . fig. 4 illustrates a base 400 consistent with an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. base 400 may be a portion of surgical robot system 300 and comprise cabinet 316 . cabinet 316 may house certain components of surgical robot system 300 including but not limited to a battery 402 , a power distribution module 404 , a platform interface board module 406 , a computer 408 , a handle 412 , and a tablet drawer 414 . the connections and relationship between these components is described in greater detail with respect to fig. 5 . fig. 5 illustrates a block diagram of certain components of an exemplary embodiment of surgical robot system 300 . surgical robot system 300 may comprise platform subsystem 502 , computer subsystem 504 , motion control subsystem 506 , and tracking subsystem 532 . platform subsystem 502 may further comprise battery 402 , power distribution module 404 , platform interface board module 406 , and tablet charging station 534 . computer subsystem 504 may further comprise computer 408 , display 304 , and speaker 536 . motion control subsystem 506 may further comprise driver circuit 508 , motors 510 , 512 , 514 , 516 , 518 , stabilizers 520 , 522 , 524 , 526 , end-effector 310 , and controller 538 . tracking subsystem 532 may further comprise position sensor 540 and camera converter 542 . system 300 may also comprise a foot pedal 544 and tablet 546 . input power is supplied to system 300 via a power source 548 which may be provided to power distribution module 404 . power distribution module 404 receives input power and is configured to generate different power supply voltages that are provided to other modules, components, and subsystems of system 300 . power distribution module 404 may be configured to provide different voltage supplies to platform interface module 406 , which may be provided to other components such as computer 408 , display 304 , speaker 536 , driver 508 to, for example, power motors 512 , 514 , 516 , 518 and end-effector 310 , motor 510 , ring 324 , camera converter 542 , and other components for system 300 for example, fans for cooling the electrical components within cabinet 316 . power distribution module 404 may also provide power to other components such as tablet charging station 534 that may be located within tablet drawer 318 . tablet charging station 534 may be in wireless or wired communication with tablet 546 for charging table 546 . tablet 546 may be used by a surgeon consistent with the present disclosure and described herein. power distribution module 404 may also be connected to battery 402 , which serves as temporary power source in the event that power distribution module 404 does not receive power from input power 548 . at other times, power distribution module 404 may serve to charge battery 402 if necessary. other components of platform subsystem 502 may also include connector panel 320 , control panel 322 , and ring 324 . connector panel 320 may serve to connect different devices and components to system 300 and/or associated components and modules. connector panel 320 may contain one or more ports that receive lines or connections from different components. for example, connector panel 320 may have a ground terminal port that may ground system 300 to other equipment, a port to connect foot pedal 544 to system 300 , a port to connect to tracking subsystem 532 , which may comprise position sensor 540 , camera converter 542 , and cameras 326 associated with camera stand 302 . connector panel 320 may also include other ports to allow usb, ethernet, hdmi communications to other components, such as computer 408 . control panel 322 may provide various buttons or indicators that control operation of system 300 and/or provide information regarding system 300 . for example, control panel 322 may include buttons to power on or off system 300 , lift or lower vertical column 312 , and lift or lower stabilizers 520 - 526 that may be designed to engage casters 314 to lock system 300 from physically moving. other buttons may stop system 300 in the event of an emergency, which may remove all motor power and apply mechanical brakes to stop all motion from occurring. control panel 322 may also have indicators notifying the user of certain system conditions such as a line power indicator or status of charge for battery 402 . ring 324 may be a visual indicator to notify the user of system 300 of different modes that system 300 is operating under and certain warnings to the user. computer subsystem 504 includes computer 408 , display 304 , and speaker 536 . computer 504 includes an operating system and software to operate system 300 . computer 504 may receive and process information from other components (for example, tracking subsystem 532 , platform subsystem 502 , and/or motion control subsystem 506 ) in order to display information to the user. further, computer subsystem 504 may also include speaker 536 to provide audio to the user. tracking subsystem 532 may include position sensor 504 and converter 542 . tracking subsystem 532 may correspond to camera stand 302 including camera 326 as described with respect to fig. 3 . position sensor 504 may be camera 326 . tracking subsystem may track the location of certain markers that are located on the different components of system 300 and/or instruments used by a user during a surgical procedure. this tracking may be conducted in a manner consistent with the present disclosure including the use of infrared technology that tracks the location of active or passive elements, such as leds or reflective markers, respectively. the location, orientation, and position of structures having these types of markers may be provided to computer 408 which may be shown to a user on display 304 . for example, a surgical instrument 608 having these types of markers and tracked in this manner (which may be referred to as a navigational space) may be shown to a user in relation to a three dimensional image of a patient's anatomical structure. motion control subsystem 506 may be configured to physically move vertical column 312 , upper arm 306 , lower arm 308 , or rotate end-effector 310 . the physical movement may be conducted through the use of one or more motors 510 - 518 . for example, motor 510 may be configured to vertically lift or lower vertical column 312 . motor 512 may be configured to laterally move upper arm 308 around a point of engagement with vertical column 312 as shown in fig. 3 . motor 514 may be configured to laterally move lower arm 308 around a point of engagement with upper arm 308 as shown in fig. 3 . motors 516 and 518 may be configured to move end-effector 310 in a manner such that one may control the roll and one may control the tilt, thereby providing multiple angles that end-effector 310 may be moved. these movements may be achieved by controller 538 which may control these movements through load cells disposed on end-effector 310 and activated by a user engaging these load cells to move system 300 in a desired manner. moreover, system 300 may provide for automatic movement of vertical column 312 , upper arm 306 , and lower arm 308 through a user indicating on display 304 (which may be a touchscreen input device) the location of a surgical instrument or component on a three dimensional image of the patient's anatomy on display 304 . the user may initiate this automatic movement by stepping on foot pedal 544 or some other input means. fig. 6 illustrates a surgical robot system 600 consistent with an exemplary embodiment. surgical robot system 600 may comprise end-effector 602 , robot arm 604 , guide tube 606 , instrument 608 , and robot base 610 . instrument tool 608 may be attached to a tracking array 612 including one or more tracking markers (such as markers 118 ) and have an associated trajectory 614 . trajectory 614 may represent a path of movement that instrument tool 608 is configured to travel once it is positioned through or secured in guide tube 606 , for example, a path of insertion of instrument tool 608 into a patient. in an exemplary operation, robot base 610 may be configured to be in electronic communication with robot arm 604 and end-effector 602 so that surgical robot system 600 may assist a user (for example, a surgeon) in operating on the patient 210 . surgical robot system 600 may be consistent with previously described surgical robot system 100 and 300 . a tracking array 612 may be mounted on instrument 608 to monitor the location and orientation of instrument tool 608 . the tracking array 612 may be attached to an instrument 608 and may comprise tracking markers 804 . as best seen in fig. 8 , tracking markers 804 may be, for example, light emitting diodes and/or other types of reflective markers (e.g., markers 118 as described elsewhere herein). the tracking devices may be one or more line of sight devices associated with the surgical robot system. as an example, the tracking devices may be one or more cameras 200 , 326 associated with the surgical robot system 100 , 300 and may also track tracking array 612 for a defined domain or relative orientations of the instrument 608 in relation to the robot arm 604 , the robot base 610 , end-effector 602 , and/or the patient 210 . the tracking devices may be consistent with those structures described in connection with camera stand 302 and tracking subsystem 532 . figs. 7a, 7b, and 7c illustrate a top view, front view, and side view, respectively, of end-effector 602 consistent with an exemplary embodiment. end-effector 602 may comprise one or more tracking markers 702 . tracking markers 702 may be light emitting diodes or other types of active and passive markers, such as tracking markers 118 that have been previously described. in an exemplary embodiment, the tracking markers 702 are active infrared-emitting markers that are activated by an electrical signal (e.g., infrared light emitting diodes (leds)). thus, tracking markers 702 may be activated such that the infrared markers 702 are visible to the camera 200 , 326 or may be deactivated such that the infrared markers 702 are not visible to the camera 200 , 326 . thus, when the markers 702 are active, the end-effector 602 may be controlled by the system 100 , 300 , 600 , and when the markers 702 are deactivated, the end-effector 602 may be locked in position and unable to be moved by the system 100 , 300 , 600 . markers 702 may be disposed on or within end-effector 602 in a manner such that the markers 702 are visible by one or more cameras 200 , 326 or other tracking devices associated with the surgical robot system 100 , 300 , 600 . the camera 200 , 326 or other tracking devices may track end-effector 602 as it moves to different positions and viewing angles by following the movement of tracking markers 702 . the location of markers 702 and/or end-effector 602 may be shown on a display 110 , 304 associated with the surgical robot system 100 , 300 , 600 , for example, display 110 as shown in fig. 2 and/or display 304 shown in fig. 3 . this display 110 , 304 may allow a user to ensure that end-effector 602 is in a desirable position in relation to robot arm 604 , robot base 610 , the patient 210 , and/or the user. for example, as shown in fig. 7a , markers 702 may be placed around the surface of end-effector 602 so that a tracking device placed away from the surgical field 208 and facing toward the robot 102 , 301 and the camera 200 , 326 is able to view at least 3 of the markers 702 through a range of common orientations of the end-effector 602 relative to the tracking device. for example, distribution of markers 702 in this way allows end-effector 602 to be monitored by the tracking devices when end-effector 602 is translated and rotated in the surgical field 208 . in addition, in exemplary embodiments, end-effector 602 may be equipped with infrared (ir) receivers that can detect when an external camera 200 , 326 is getting ready to read markers 702 . upon this detection, end-effector 602 may then illuminate markers 702 . the detection by the ir receivers that the external camera 200 , 326 is ready to read markers 702 may signal the need to synchronize a duty cycle of markers 702 , which may be light emitting diodes, to an external camera 200 , 326 . this may also allow for lower power consumption by the robotic system as a whole, whereby markers 702 would only be illuminated at the appropriate time instead of being illuminated continuously. further, in exemplary embodiments, markers 702 may be powered off to prevent interference with other navigation tools, such as different types of surgical instruments 608 . fig. 8 depicts one type of surgical instrument 608 including a tracking array 612 and tracking markers 804 . tracking markers 804 may be of any type described herein including but not limited to light emitting diodes or reflective spheres. markers 804 are monitored by tracking devices associated with the surgical robot system 100 , 300 , 600 and may be one or more of the line of sight cameras 200 , 326 . the cameras 200 , 326 may track the location of instrument 608 based on the position and orientation of tracking array 612 and markers 804 . a user, such as a surgeon 120 , may orient instrument 608 in a manner so that tracking array 612 and markers 804 are sufficiently recognized by the tracking device or camera 200 , 326 to display instrument 608 and markers 804 on, for example, display 110 of the exemplary surgical robot system. the manner in which a surgeon 120 may place instrument 608 into guide tube 606 of the end-effector 602 and adjust the instrument 608 is evident in fig. 8 . the hollow tube or guide tube 114 , 606 of the end-effector 112 , 310 , 602 is sized and configured to receive at least a portion of the surgical instrument 608 . the guide tube 114 , 606 is configured to be oriented by the robot arm 104 such that insertion and trajectory for the surgical instrument 608 is able to reach a desired anatomical target within or upon the body of the patient 210 . the surgical instrument 608 may include at least a portion of a generally cylindrical instrument. although a screw driver is exemplified as the surgical tool 608 , it will be appreciated that any suitable surgical tool 608 may be positioned by the end-effector 602 . by way of example, the surgical instrument 608 may include one or more of a guide wire, cannula, a retractor, a drill, a reamer, a screw driver, an insertion tool, a removal tool, or the like. although the hollow tube 114 , 606 is generally shown as having a cylindrical configuration, it will be appreciated by those of skill in the art that the guide tube 114 , 606 may have any suitable shape, size and configuration desired to accommodate the surgical instrument 608 and access the surgical site. figs. 9a-9c illustrate end-effector 602 and a portion of robot arm 604 consistent with an exemplary embodiment. end-effector 602 may further comprise body 1202 and clamp 1204 . clamp 1204 may comprise handle 1206 , balls 1208 , spring 1210 , and lip 1212 . robot arm 604 may further comprise depressions 1214 , mounting plate 1216 , lip 1218 , and magnets 1220 . end-effector 602 may mechanically interface and/or engage with the surgical robot system and robot arm 604 through one or more couplings. for example, end-effector 602 may engage with robot arm 604 through a locating coupling and/or a reinforcing coupling. through these couplings, end-effector 602 may fasten with robot arm 604 outside a flexible and sterile barrier. in an exemplary embodiment, the locating coupling may be a magnetically kinematic mount and the reinforcing coupling may be a five bar over center clamping linkage. with respect to the locating coupling, robot arm 604 may comprise mounting plate 1216 , which may be non-magnetic material, one or more depressions 1214 , lip 1218 , and magnets 1220 . magnet 1220 is mounted below each of depressions 1214 . portions of clamp 1204 may comprise magnetic material and be attracted by one or more magnets 1220 . through the magnetic attraction of clamp 1204 and robot arm 604 , balls 1208 become seated into respective depressions 1214 . for example, balls 1208 as shown in fig. 9b would be seated in depressions 1214 as shown in fig. 9a . this seating may be considered a magnetically-assisted kinematic coupling. magnets 1220 may be configured to be strong enough to support the entire weight of end-effector 602 regardless of the orientation of end-effector 602 . the locating coupling may be any style of kinematic mount that uniquely restrains six degrees of freedom. with respect to the reinforcing coupling, portions of clamp 1204 may be configured to be a fixed ground link and as such clamp 1204 may serve as a five bar linkage. closing clamp handle 1206 may fasten end-effector 602 to robot arm 604 as lip 1212 and lip 1218 engage clamp 1204 in a manner to secure end-effector 602 and robot arm 604 . when clamp handle 1206 is closed, spring 1210 may be stretched or stressed while clamp 1204 is in a locked position. the locked position may be a position that provides for linkage past center. because of a closed position that is past center, the linkage will not open absent a force applied to clamp handle 1206 to release clamp 1204 . thus, in a locked position end-effector 602 may be robustly secured to robot arm 604 . spring 1210 may be a curved beam in tension. spring 1210 may be comprised of a material that exhibits high stiffness and high yield strain such as virgin peek (poly-ether-ether-ketone). the linkage between end-effector 602 and robot arm 604 may provide for a sterile barrier between end-effector 602 and robot arm 604 without impeding fastening of the two couplings. the reinforcing coupling may be a linkage with multiple spring members. the reinforcing coupling may latch with a cam or friction based mechanism. the reinforcing coupling may also be a sufficiently powerful electromagnet that will support fastening end-effector 102 to robot arm 604 . the reinforcing coupling may be a multi-piece collar completely separate from either end-effector 602 and/or robot arm 604 that slips over an interface between end-effector 602 and robot arm 604 and tightens with a screw mechanism, an over center linkage, or a cam mechanism. referring to figs. 10 and 11 , prior to or during a surgical procedure, certain registration procedures may be conducted to track objects and a target anatomical structure of the patient 210 both in a navigation space and an image space. to conduct such registration, a registration system 1400 may be used as illustrated in fig. 10 . to track the position of the patient 210 , a patient tracking device 116 may include a patient fixation instrument 1402 to be secured to a rigid anatomical structure of the patient 210 and a dynamic reference base (drb) 1404 may be securely attached to the patient fixation instrument 1402 . for example, patient fixation instrument 1402 may be inserted into opening 1406 of dynamic reference base 1404 . dynamic reference base 1404 may contain markers 1408 that are visible to tracking devices, such as tracking subsystem 532 . these markers 1408 may be optical markers or reflective spheres, such as tracking markers 118 , as previously discussed herein. patient fixation instrument 1402 is attached to a rigid anatomy of the patient 210 and may remain attached throughout the surgical procedure. in an exemplary embodiment, patient fixation instrument 1402 is attached to a rigid area of the patient 210 , for example, a bone that is located away from the targeted anatomical structure subject to the surgical procedure. in order to track the targeted anatomical structure, dynamic reference base 1404 is associated with the targeted anatomical structure through the use of a registration fixture that is temporarily placed on or near the targeted anatomical structure in order to register the dynamic reference base 1404 with the location of the targeted anatomical structure. a registration fixture 1410 is attached to patient fixation instrument 1402 through the use of a pivot arm 1412 . pivot arm 1412 is attached to patient fixation instrument 1402 by inserting patient fixation instrument 1402 through an opening 1414 of registration fixture 1410 . pivot arm 1412 is attached to registration fixture 1410 by, for example, inserting a knob 1416 through an opening 1418 of pivot arm 1412 . using pivot arm 1412 , registration fixture 1410 may be placed over the targeted anatomical structure and its location may be determined in an image space and navigation space using tracking markers 1420 and/or fiducials 1422 on registration fixture 1410 . registration fixture 1410 may contain a collection of markers 1420 that are visible in a navigational space (for example, markers 1420 may be detectable by tracking subsystem 532 ). tracking markers 1420 may be optical markers visible in infrared light as previously described herein. registration fixture 1410 may also contain a collection of fiducials 1422 , for example, such as bearing balls, that are visible in an imaging space (for example, a three dimension ct image). as described in greater detail with respect to fig. 11 , using registration fixture 1410 , the targeted anatomical structure may be associated with dynamic reference base 1404 thereby allowing depictions of objects in the navigational space to be overlaid on images of the anatomical structure. dynamic reference base 1404 , located at a position away from the targeted anatomical structure, may become a reference point thereby allowing removal of registration fixture 1410 and/or pivot arm 1412 from the surgical area. fig. 11 provides an exemplary method 1500 for registration consistent with the present disclosure. method 1500 begins at step 1502 wherein a graphical representation (or image(s)) of the targeted anatomical structure may be imported into system 100 , 300 600 , for example computer 408 . the graphical representation may be three dimensional ct or a fluoroscope scan of the targeted anatomical structure of the patient 210 which includes registration fixture 1410 and a detectable imaging pattern of fiducials 1420 . at step 1504 , an imaging pattern of fiducials 1420 is detected and registered in the imaging space and stored in computer 408 . optionally, at this time at step 1506 , a graphical representation of the registration fixture 1410 may be overlaid on the images of the targeted anatomical structure. at step 1508 , a navigational pattern of registration fixture 1410 is detected and registered by recognizing markers 1420 . markers 1420 may be optical markers that are recognized in the navigation space through infrared light by tracking subsystem 532 via position sensor 540 . thus, the location, orientation, and other information of the targeted anatomical structure is registered in the navigation space. therefore, registration fixture 1410 may be recognized in both the image space through the use of fiducials 1422 and the navigation space through the use of markers 1420 . at step 1510 , the registration of registration fixture 1410 in the image space is transferred to the navigation space. this transferal is done, for example, by using the relative position of the imaging pattern of fiducials 1422 compared to the position of the navigation pattern of markers 1420 . at step 1512 , registration of the navigation space of registration fixture 1410 (having been registered with the image space) is further transferred to the navigation space of dynamic registration array 1404 attached to patient fixture instrument 1402 . thus, registration fixture 1410 may be removed and dynamic reference base 1404 may be used to track the targeted anatomical structure in both the navigation and image space because the navigation space is associated with the image space. at steps 1514 and 1516 , the navigation space may be overlaid on the image space and objects with markers visible in the navigation space (for example, surgical instruments 608 with optical markers 804 ). the objects may be tracked through graphical representations of the surgical instrument 608 on the images of the targeted anatomical structure. figs. 12a-12b illustrate imaging devices 1304 that may be used in conjunction with robot systems 100 , 300 , 600 to acquire pre-operative, intra-operative, post-operative, and/or real-time image data of patient 210 . any appropriate subject matter may be imaged for any appropriate procedure using the imaging system 1304 . the imaging system 1304 may be any imaging device such as imaging device 1306 and/or a c-arm 1308 device. it may be desirable to take x-rays of patient 210 from a number of different positions, without the need for frequent manual repositioning of patient 210 which may be required in an x-ray system. as illustrated in fig. 12a , the imaging system 1304 may be in the form of a c-arm 1308 that includes an elongated c-shaped member terminating in opposing distal ends 1312 of the “c” shape. c-shaped member 1130 may further comprise an x-ray source 1314 and an image receptor 1316 . the space within c-arm 1308 of the arm may provide room for the physician to attend to the patient substantially free of interference from x-ray support structure 1318 . as illustrated in fig. 12b , the imaging system may include imaging device 1306 having a gantry housing 1324 attached to a support structure imaging device support structure 1328 , such as a wheeled mobile cart 1330 with wheels 1332 , which may enclose an image capturing portion, not illustrated. the image capturing portion may include an x-ray source and/or emission portion and an x-ray receiving and/or image receiving portion, which may be disposed about one hundred and eighty degrees from each other and mounted on a rotor (not illustrated) relative to a track of the image capturing portion. the image capturing portion may be operable to rotate three hundred and sixty degrees during image acquisition. the image capturing portion may rotate around a central point and/or axis, allowing image data of patient 210 to be acquired from multiple directions or in multiple planes. although certain imaging systems 1304 are exemplified herein, it will be appreciated that any suitable imaging system may be selected by one of ordinary skill in the art. turning now to figs. 13a-13c , the surgical robot system 100 , 300 , 600 relies on accurate positioning of the end-effector 112 , 602 , surgical instruments 608 , and/or the patient 210 (e.g., patient tracking device 116 ) relative to the desired surgical area. in the embodiments shown in figs. 13a-13c , the tracking markers 118 , 804 are rigidly attached to a portion of the instrument 608 and/or end-effector 112 . fig. 13a depicts part of the surgical robot system 100 with the robot 102 including base 106 , robot arm 104 , and end-effector 112 . the other elements, not illustrated, such as the display, cameras, etc. may also be present as described herein. fig. 13b depicts a close-up view of the end-effector 112 with guide tube 114 and a plurality of tracking markers 118 rigidly affixed to the end-effector 112 . in this embodiment, the plurality of tracking markers 118 are attached to the guide tube 112 . fig. 13c depicts an instrument 608 (in this case, a probe 608 a) with a plurality of tracking markers 804 rigidly affixed to the instrument 608 . as described elsewhere herein, the instrument 608 could include any suitable surgical instrument, such as, but not limited to, guide wire, cannula, a retractor, a drill, a reamer, a screw driver, an insertion tool, a removal tool, or the like. when tracking an instrument 608 , end-effector 112 , or other object to be tracked in 3d, an array of tracking markers 118 , 804 may be rigidly attached to a portion of the tool 608 or end-effector 112 . preferably, the tracking markers 118 , 804 are attached such that the markers 118 , 804 are out of the way (e.g., not impeding the surgical operation, visibility, etc.). the markers 118 , 804 may be affixed to the instrument 608 , end-effector 112 , or other object to be tracked, for example, with an array 612 . usually three or four markers 118 , 804 are used with an array 612 . the array 612 may include a linear section, a cross piece, and may be asymmetric such that the markers 118 , 804 are at different relative positions and locations with respect to one another. for example, as shown in fig. 13c , a probe 608 a with a 4-marker tracking array 612 is shown, and fig. 13b depicts the end-effector 112 with a different 4-marker tracking array 612 . in fig. 13c , the tracking array 612 functions as the handle 620 of the probe 608 a. thus, the four markers 804 are attached to the handle 620 of the probe 608 a, which is out of the way of the shaft 622 and tip 624 . stereophotogrammetric tracking of these four markers 804 allows the instrument 608 to be tracked as a rigid body and for the tracking system 100 , 300 , 600 to precisely determine the position of the tip 624 and the orientation of the shaft 622 while the probe 608 a is moved around in front of tracking cameras 200 , 326 . to enable automatic tracking of one or more tools 608 , end-effector 112 , or other object to be tracked in 3d (e.g., multiple rigid bodies), the markers 118 , 804 on each tool 608 , end-effector 112 , or the like, are arranged asymmetrically with a known inter-marker spacing. the reason for asymmetric alignment is so that it is unambiguous which marker 118 , 804 corresponds to a particular location on the rigid body and whether markers 118 , 804 are being viewed from the front or back, i.e., mirrored. for example, if the markers 118 , 804 were arranged in a square on the tool 608 or end-effector 112 , it would be unclear to the system 100 , 300 , 600 which marker 118 , 804 corresponded to which corner of the square. for example, for the probe 608 a, it would be unclear which marker 804 was closest to the shaft 622 . thus, it would be unknown which way the shaft 622 was extending from the array 612 . accordingly, each array 612 and thus each tool 608 , end-effector 112 , or other object to be tracked should have a unique marker pattern to allow it to be distinguished from other tools 608 or other objects being tracked. asymmetry and unique marker patterns allow the system 100 , 300 , 600 to detect individual markers 118 , 804 then to check the marker spacing against a stored template to determine which tool 608 , end effector 112 , or other object they represent. detected markers 118 , 804 can then be sorted automatically and assigned to each tracked object in the correct order. without this information, rigid body calculations could not then be performed to extract key geometric information, for example, such as tool tip 624 and alignment of the shaft 622 , unless the user manually specified which detected marker 118 , 804 corresponded to which position on each rigid body. these concepts are commonly known to those skilled in the methods of 3d optical tracking. turning now to figs. 14a-14d , an alternative version of an end-effector 912 with moveable tracking markers 918 a- 918 d is shown. in fig. 14a , an array with moveable tracking markers 918 a- 918 d are shown in a first configuration, and in fig. 14b the moveable tracking markers 918 a- 918 d are shown in a second configuration, which is angled relative to the first configuration. fig. 14c shows the template of the tracking markers 918 a- 918 d, for example, as seen by the cameras 200 , 326 in the first configuration of fig. 14a ; and fig. 14d shows the template of tracking markers 918 a- 918 d, for example, as seen by the cameras 200 , 326 in the second configuration of fig. 14b . in this embodiment, 4-marker array tracking is contemplated wherein the markers 918 a- 918 d are not all in fixed position relative to the rigid body and instead, one or more of the array markers 918 a- 918 d can be adjusted, for example, during testing, to give updated information about the rigid body that is being tracked without disrupting the process for automatic detection and sorting of the tracked markers 918 a- 918 d. when tracking any tool, such as a guide tube 914 connected to the end effector 912 of a robot system 100 , 300 , 600 , the tracking array's primary purpose is to update the position of the end effector 912 in the camera coordinate system. when using the rigid system, for example, as shown in fig. 13b , the array 612 of reflective markers 118 rigidly extend from the guide tube 114 . because the tracking markers 118 are rigidly connected, knowledge of the marker locations in the camera coordinate system also provides exact location of the centerline, tip, and tail of the guide tube 114 in the camera coordinate system. typically, information about the position of the end effector 112 from such an array 612 and information about the location of a target trajectory from another tracked source are used to calculate the required moves that must be input for each axis of the robot 102 that will move the guide tube 114 into alignment with the trajectory and move the tip to a particular location along the trajectory vector. sometimes, the desired trajectory is in an awkward or unreachable location, but if the guide tube 114 could be swiveled, it could be reached. for example, a very steep trajectory pointing away from the base 106 of the robot 102 might be reachable if the guide tube 114 could be swiveled upward beyond the limit of the pitch (wrist up-down angle) axis, but might not be reachable if the guide tube 114 is attached parallel to the plate connecting it to the end of the wrist. to reach such a trajectory, the base 106 of the robot 102 might be moved or a different end effector 112 with a different guide tube attachment might be exchanged with the working end effector. both of these solutions may be time consuming and cumbersome. as best seen in figs. 14a and 14b , if the array 908 is configured such that one or more of the markers 918 a- 918 d are not in a fixed position and instead, one or more of the markers 918 a- 918 d can be adjusted, swiveled, pivoted, or moved, the robot 102 can provide updated information about the object being tracked without disrupting the detection and tracking process. for example, one of the markers 918 a- 918 d may be fixed in position and the other markers 918 a- 918 d may be moveable; two of the markers 918 a- 918 d may be fixed in position and the other markers 918 a- 918 d may be moveable; three of the markers 918 a- 918 d may be fixed in position and the other marker 918 a- 918 d may be moveable; or all of the markers 918 a- 918 d may be moveable. in the embodiment shown in figs. 14a and 14b , markers 918 a, 918 b are rigidly connected directly to a base 906 of the end-effector 912 , and markers 918 c, 918 d are rigidly connected to the tube 914 . similar to array 612 , array 908 may be provided to attach the markers 918 a- 918 d to the end-effector 912 , instrument 608 , or other object to be tracked. in this case, however, the array 908 is comprised of a plurality of separate components. for example, markers 918 a, 918 b may be connected to the base 906 with a first array 908 a, and markers 918 c, 918 d may be connected to the guide tube 914 with a second array 908 b. marker 918 a may be affixed to a first end of the first array 908 a and marker 918 b may be separated a linear distance and affixed to a second end of the first array 908 a. while first array 908 is substantially linear, second array 908 b has a bent or v-shaped configuration, with respective root ends, connected to the guide tube 914 , and diverging therefrom to distal ends in a v-shape with marker 918 c at one distal end and marker 918 d at the other distal end. although specific configurations are exemplified herein, it will be appreciated that other asymmetric designs including different numbers and types of arrays 908 a, 908 b and different arrangements, numbers, and types of markers 918 a- 918 d are contemplated. the guide tube 914 may be moveable, swivelable, or pivotable relative to the base 906 , for example, across a hinge 920 or other connector to the base 906 . thus, markers 918 c, 918 d are moveable such that when the guide tube 914 pivots, swivels, or moves, markers 918 c, 918 d also pivot, swivel, or move. as best seen in fig. 14a , guide tube 914 has a longitudinal axis 916 which is aligned in a substantially normal or vertical orientation such that markers 918 a- 918 d have a first configuration. turning now to fig. 14b , the guide tube 914 is pivoted, swiveled, or moved such that the longitudinal axis 916 is now angled relative to the vertical orientation such that markers 918 a- 918 d have a second configuration, different from the first configuration. in contrast to the embodiment described for figs. 14a-14d , if a swivel existed between the guide tube 914 and the arm 104 (e.g., the wrist attachment) with all four markers 918 a- 918 d remaining attached rigidly to the guide tube 914 and this swivel was adjusted by the user, the robotic system 100 , 300 , 600 would not be able to automatically detect that the guide tube 914 orientation had changed. the robotic system 100 , 300 , 600 would track the positions of the marker array 908 and would calculate incorrect robot axis moves assuming the guide tube 914 was attached to the wrist (the robot arm 104 ) in the previous orientation. by keeping one or more markers 918 a- 918 d (e.g., two markers 918 c, 918 d) rigidly on the tube 914 and one or more markers 918 a- 918 d (e.g., two markers 918 a, 918 b) across the swivel, automatic detection of the new position becomes possible and correct robot moves are calculated based on the detection of a new tool or end-effector 112 , 912 on the end of the robot arm 104 . one or more of the markers 918 a- 918 d are configured to be moved, pivoted, swiveled, or the like according to any suitable means. for example, the markers 918 a- 918 d may be moved by a hinge 920 , such as a clamp, spring, lever, slide, toggle, or the like, or any other suitable mechanism for moving the markers 918 a- 918 d individually or in combination, moving the arrays 908 a, 908 b individually or in combination, moving any portion of the end-effector 912 relative to another portion, or moving any portion of the tool 608 relative to another portion. as shown in figs. 14a and 14b , the array 908 and guide tube 914 may become reconfigurable by simply loosening the clamp or hinge 920 , moving part of the array 908 a, 908 b relative to the other part 908 a, 908 b, and retightening the hinge 920 such that the guide tube 914 is oriented in a different position. for example, two markers 918 c, 918 d may be rigidly interconnected with the tube 914 and two markers 918 a, 918 b may be rigidly interconnected across the hinge 920 to the base 906 of the end-effector 912 that attaches to the robot arm 104 . the hinge 920 may be in the form of a clamp, such as a wing nut or the like, which can be loosened and retightened to allow the user to quickly switch between the first configuration ( fig. 14a ) and the second configuration ( fig. 14b ). the cameras 200 , 326 detect the markers 918 a- 918 d, for example, in one of the templates identified in figs. 14c and 14d . if the array 908 is in the first configuration ( fig. 14a ) and tracking cameras 200 , 326 detect the markers 918 a- 918 d, then the tracked markers match array template 1 as shown in fig. 14c . if the array 908 is the second configuration ( fig. 14b ) and tracking cameras 200 , 326 detect the same markers 918 a- 918 d, then the tracked markers match array template 2 as shown in fig. 14d . array template 1 and array template 2 are recognized by the system 100 , 300 , 600 as two distinct tools, each with its own uniquely defined spatial relationship between guide tube 914 , markers 918 a- 918 d, and robot attachment. the user could therefore adjust the position of the end-effector 912 between the first and second configurations without notifying the system 100 , 300 , 600 of the change and the system 100 , 300 , 600 would appropriately adjust the movements of the robot 102 to stay on trajectory. in this embodiment, there are two assembly positions in which the marker array matches unique templates that allow the system 100 , 300 , 600 to recognize the assembly as two different tools or two different end effectors. in any position of the swivel between or outside of these two positions (namely, array template 1 and array template 2 shown in figs. 14c and 14d , respectively), the markers 918 a- 918 d would not match any template and the system 100 , 300 , 600 would not detect any array present despite individual markers 918 a- 918 d being detected by cameras 200 , 326 , with the result being the same as if the markers 918 a- 918 d were temporarily blocked from view of the cameras 200 , 326 . it will be appreciated that other array templates may exist for other configurations, for example, identifying different instruments 608 or other end-effectors 112 , 912 , etc. in the embodiment described, two discrete assembly positions are shown in figs. 14a and 14b . it will be appreciated, however, that there could be multiple discrete positions on a swivel joint, linear joint, combination of swivel and linear joints, pegboard, or other assembly where unique marker templates may be created by adjusting the position of one or more markers 918 a- 918 d of the array relative to the others, with each discrete position matching a particular template and defining a unique tool 608 or end-effector 112 , 912 with different known attributes. in addition, although exemplified for end effector 912 , it will be appreciated that moveable and fixed markers 918 a- 918 d may be used with any suitable instrument 608 or other object to be tracked. when using an external 3d tracking system 100 , 300 , 600 to track a full rigid body array of three or more markers attached to a robot's end effector 112 (for example, as depicted in figs. 13a and 13b ), it is possible to directly track or to calculate the 3d position of every section of the robot 102 in the coordinate system of the cameras 200 , 326 . the geometric orientations of joints relative to the tracker are known by design, and the linear or angular positions of joints are known from encoders for each motor of the robot 102 , fully defining the 3d positions of all of the moving parts from the end effector 112 to the base 116 . similarly, if a tracker were mounted on the base 106 of the robot 102 (not shown), it is likewise possible to track or calculate the 3d position of every section of the robot 102 from base 106 to end effector 112 based on known joint geometry and joint positions from each motor's encoder. in some situations, it may be desirable to track the positions of all segments of the robot 102 from fewer than three markers 118 rigidly attached to the end effector 112 . specifically, if a tool 608 is introduced into the guide tube 114 , it may be desirable to track full rigid body motion of the robot 902 with only one additional marker 118 being tracked. turning now to figs. 15a-15e , an alternative version of an end-effector 1012 having only a single tracking marker 1018 is shown. end-effector 1012 may be similar to the other end-effectors described herein, and may include a guide tube 1014 extending along a longitudinal axis 1016 . a single tracking marker 1018 , similar to the other tracking markers described herein, may be rigidly affixed to the guide tube 1014 . this single marker 1018 can serve the purpose of adding missing degrees of freedom to allow full rigid body tracking and/or can serve the purpose of acting as a surveillance marker to ensure that assumptions about robot and camera positioning are valid. the single tracking marker 1018 may be attached to the robotic end effector 1012 as a rigid extension to the end effector 1012 that protrudes in any convenient direction and does not obstruct the surgeon's view. the tracking marker 1018 may be affixed to the guide tube 1014 or any other suitable location of on the end-effector 1012 . when affixed to the guide tube 1014 , the tracking marker 1018 may be positioned at a location between first and second ends of the guide tube 1014 . for example, in fig. 15a , the single tracking marker 1018 is shown as a reflective sphere mounted on the end of a narrow shaft 1017 that extends forward from the guide tube 1014 and is positioned longitudinally above a mid-point of the guide tube 1014 and below the entry of the guide tube 1014 . this position allows the marker 1018 to be generally visible by cameras 200 , 326 but also would not obstruct vision of the surgeon 120 or collide with other tools or objects in the vicinity of surgery. in addition, the guide tube 1014 with the marker 1018 in this position is designed for the marker array on any tool 608 introduced into the guide tube 1014 to be visible at the same time as the single marker 1018 on the guide tube 1014 is visible. as shown in fig. 15b , when a snugly fitting tool or instrument 608 is placed within the guide tube 1014 , the instrument 608 becomes mechanically constrained in 4 of 6 degrees of freedom. that is, the instrument 608 cannot be rotated in any direction except about the longitudinal axis 1016 of the guide tube 1014 and the instrument 608 cannot be translated in any direction except along the longitudinal axis 1016 of the guide tube 1014 . in other words, the instrument 608 can only be translated along and rotated about the centerline of the guide tube 1014 . if two more parameters are known, such as (1) an angle of rotation about the longitudinal axis 1016 of the guide tube 1014 ; and (2) a position along the guide tube 1014 , then the position of the end effector 1012 in the camera coordinate system becomes fully defined. referring now to fig. 15c , the system 100 , 300 , 600 should be able to know when a tool 608 is actually positioned inside of the guide tube 1014 and is not instead outside of the guide tube 1014 and just somewhere in view of the cameras 200 , 326 . the tool 608 has a longitudinal axis or centerline 616 and an array 612 with a plurality of tracked markers 804 . the rigid body calculations may be used to determine where the centerline 616 of the tool 608 is located in the camera coordinate system based on the tracked position of the array 612 on the tool 608 . the fixed normal (perpendicular) distance d f from the single marker 1018 to the centerline or longitudinal axis 1016 of the guide tube 1014 is fixed and is known geometrically, and the position of the single marker 1018 can be tracked. therefore, when a detected distance d d from tool centerline 616 to single marker 1018 matches the known fixed distance d f from the guide tube centerline 1016 to the single marker 1018 , it can be determined that the tool 608 is either within the guide tube 1014 (centerlines 616 , 1016 of tool 608 and guide tube 1014 coincident) or happens to be at some point in the locus of possible positions where this distance d d matches the fixed distance d f . for example, in fig. 15c , the normal detected distance d d from tool centerline 616 to the single marker 1018 matches the fixed distance d f from guide tube centerline 1016 to the single marker 1018 in both frames of data (tracked marker coordinates) represented by the transparent tool 608 in two positions, and thus, additional considerations may be needed to determine when the tool 608 is located in the guide tube 1014 . turning now to fig. 15d , programmed logic can be used to look for frames of tracking data in which the detected distance d d from tool centerline 616 to single marker 1018 remains fixed at the correct length despite the tool 608 moving in space by more than some minimum distance relative to the single sphere 1018 to satisfy the condition that the tool 608 is moving within the guide tube 1014 . for example, a first frame f 1 may be detected with the tool 608 in a first position and a second frame f 2 may be detected with the tool 608 in a second position (namely, moved linearly with respect to the first position). the markers 804 on the tool array 612 may move by more than a given amount (e.g., more than 5 mm total) from the first frame f 1 to the second frame f 2 . even with this movement, the detected distance d d from the tool centerline vector c′ to the single marker 1018 is substantially identical in both the first frame f 1 and the second frame f 2 . logistically, the surgeon 120 or user could place the tool 608 within the guide tube 1014 and slightly rotate it or slide it down into the guide tube 1014 and the system 100 , 300 , 600 would be able to detect that the tool 608 is within the guide tube 1014 from tracking of the five markers (four markers 804 on tool 608 plus single marker 1018 on guide tube 1014 ). knowing that the tool 608 is within the guide tube 1014 , all 6 degrees of freedom may be calculated that define the position and orientation of the robotic end effector 1012 in space. without the single marker 1018 , even if it is known with certainty that the tool 608 is within the guide tube 1014 , it is unknown where the guide tube 1014 is located along the tool's centerline vector c′ and how the guide tube 1014 is rotated relative to the centerline vector c′. with emphasis on fig. 15e , the presence of the single marker 1018 being tracked as well as the four markers 804 on the tool 608 , it is possible to construct the centerline vector c′ of the guide tube 1014 and tool 608 and the normal vector through the single marker 1018 and through the centerline vector c′. this normal vector has an orientation that is in a known orientation relative to the forearm of the robot distal to the wrist (in this example, oriented parallel to that segment) and intersects the centerline vector c′ at a specific fixed position. for convenience, three mutually orthogonal vectors k′, j′, i′ can be constructed, as shown in fig. 15e , defining rigid body position and orientation of the guide tube 1014 . one of the three mutually orthogonal vectors k′ is constructed from the centerline vector c′, the second vector j′ is constructed from the normal vector through the single marker 1018 , and the third vector i′ is the vector cross product of the first and second vectors k′, j′. the robot's joint positions relative to these vectors k′, j′, i′ are known and fixed when all joints are at zero, and therefore rigid body calculations can be used to determine the location of any section of the robot relative to these vectors k′, j′, i′ when the robot is at a home position. during robot movement, if the positions of the tool markers 804 (while the tool 608 is in the guide tube 1014 ) and the position of the single marker 1018 are detected from the tracking system, and angles/linear positions of each joint are known from encoders, then position and orientation of any section of the robot can be determined. in some embodiments, it may be useful to fix the orientation of the tool 608 relative to the guide tube 1014 . for example, the end effector guide tube 1014 may be oriented in a particular position about its axis 1016 to allow machining or implant positioning. although the orientation of anything attached to the tool 608 inserted into the guide tube 1014 is known from the tracked markers 804 on the tool 608 , the rotational orientation of the guide tube 1014 itself in the camera coordinate system is unknown without the additional tracking marker 1018 (or multiple tracking markers in other embodiments) on the guide tube 1014 . this marker 1018 provides essentially a “clock position” from −180° to +180° based on the orientation of the marker 1018 relative to the centerline vector c′. thus, the single marker 1018 can provide additional degrees of freedom to allow full rigid body tracking and/or can act as a surveillance marker to ensure that assumptions about the robot and camera positioning are valid. fig. 16 is a block diagram of a method 1100 for navigating and moving the end-effector 1012 (or any other end-effector described herein) of the robot 102 to a desired target trajectory. another use of the single marker 1018 on the robotic end effector 1012 or guide tube 1014 is as part of the method 1100 enabling the automated safe movement of the robot 102 without a full tracking array attached to the robot 102 . this method 1100 functions when the tracking cameras 200 , 326 do not move relative to the robot 102 (i.e., they are in a fixed position), the tracking system's coordinate system and robot's coordinate system are co-registered, and the robot 102 is calibrated such that the position and orientation of the guide tube 1014 can be accurately determined in the robot's cartesian coordinate system based only on the encoded positions of each robotic axis. for this method 1100 , the coordinate systems of the tracker and the robot must be co-registered, meaning that the coordinate transformation from the tracking system's cartesian coordinate system to the robot's cartesian coordinate system is needed. for convenience, this coordinate transformation can be a 4×4 matrix of translations and rotations that is well known in the field of robotics. this transformation will be termed tcr to refer to “transformation—camera to robot”. once this transformation is known, any new frame of tracking data, which is received as x,y,z coordinates in vector form for each tracked marker, can be multiplied by the 4×4 matrix and the resulting x,y,z coordinates will be in the robot's coordinate system. to obtain tcr, a full tracking array on the robot is tracked while it is rigidly attached to the robot at a location that is known in the robot's coordinate system, then known rigid body methods are used to calculate the transformation of coordinates. it should be evident that any tool 608 inserted into the guide tube 1014 of the robot 102 can provide the same rigid body information as a rigidly attached array when the additional marker 1018 is also read. that is, the tool 608 need only be inserted to any position within the guide tube 1014 and at any rotation within the guide tube 1014 , not to a fixed position and orientation. thus, it is possible to determine tcr by inserting any tool 608 with a tracking array 612 into the guide tube 1014 and reading the tool's array 612 plus the single marker 1018 of the guide tube 1014 while at the same time determining from the encoders on each axis the current location of the guide tube 1014 in the robot's coordinate system. logic for navigating and moving the robot 102 to a target trajectory is provided in the method 1100 of fig. 16 . before entering the loop 1102 , it is assumed that the transformation tcr was previously stored. thus, before entering loop 1102 , in step 1104 , after the robot base 106 is secured, greater than or equal to one frame of tracking data of a tool inserted in the guide tube while the robot is static is stored; and in step 1106 , the transformation of robot guide tube position from camera coordinates to robot coordinates tcr is calculated from this static data and previous calibration data. tcr should remain valid as long as the cameras 200 , 326 do not move relative to the robot 102 . if the cameras 200 , 326 move relative to the robot 102 , and tcr needs to be re-obtained, the system 100 , 300 , 600 can be made to prompt the user to insert a tool 608 into the guide tube 1014 and then automatically perform the necessary calculations. in the flowchart of method 1100 , each frame of data collected consists of the tracked position of the drb 1404 on the patient 210 , the tracked position of the single marker 1018 on the end effector 1014 , and a snapshot of the positions of each robotic axis. from the positions of the robot's axes, the location of the single marker 1018 on the end effector 1012 is calculated. this calculated position is compared to the actual position of the marker 1018 as recorded from the tracking system. if the values agree, it can be assured that the robot 102 is in a known location. the transformation tcr is applied to the tracked position of the drb 1404 so that the target for the robot 102 can be provided in terms of the robot's coordinate system. the robot 102 can then be commanded to move to reach the target. after steps 1104 , 1106 , loop 1102 includes step 1108 receiving rigid body information for drb 1404 from the tracking system; step 1110 transforming target tip and trajectory from image coordinates to tracking system coordinates; and step 1112 transforming target tip and trajectory from camera coordinates to robot coordinates (apply tcr). loop 1102 further includes step 1114 receiving a single stray marker position for robot from tracking system; and step 1116 transforming the single stray marker from tracking system coordinates to robot coordinates (apply stored tcr). loop 1102 also includes step 1118 determining current location of the single robot marker 1018 in the robot coordinate system from forward kinematics. the information from steps 1116 and 1118 is used to determine step 1120 whether the stray marker coordinates from transformed tracked position agree with the calculated coordinates being less than a given tolerance. if yes, proceed to step 1122 , calculate and apply robot move to target x, y, z and trajectory. if no, proceed to step 1124 , halt and require full array insertion into guide tube 1014 before proceeding; step 1126 after array is inserted, recalculate tcr; and then proceed to repeat steps 1108 , 1114 , and 1118 . this method 1100 has advantages over a method in which the continuous monitoring of the single marker 1018 to verify the location is omitted. without the single marker 1018 , it would still be possible to determine the position of the end effector 1012 using tcr and to send the end-effector 1012 to a target location but it would not be possible to verify that the robot 102 was actually in the expected location. for example, if the cameras 200 , 326 had been bumped and tcr was no longer valid, the robot 102 would move to an erroneous location. for this reason, the single marker 1018 provides value with regard to safety. for a given fixed position of the robot 102 , it is theoretically possible to move the tracking cameras 200 , 326 to a new location in which the single tracked marker 1018 remains unmoved since it is a single point, not an array. in such a case, the system 100 , 300 , 600 would not detect any error since there would be agreement in the calculated and tracked locations of the single marker 1018 . however, once the robot's axes caused the guide tube 1012 to move to a new location, the calculated and tracked positions would disagree and the safety check would be effective. the term “surveillance marker” may be used, for example, in reference to a single marker that is in a fixed location relative to the drb 1404 . in this instance, if the drb 1404 is bumped or otherwise dislodged, the relative location of the surveillance marker changes and the surgeon 120 can be alerted that there may be a problem with navigation. similarly, in the embodiments described herein, with a single marker 1018 on the robot's guide tube 1014 , the system 100 , 300 , 600 can continuously check whether the cameras 200 , 326 have moved relative to the robot 102 . if registration of the tracking system's coordinate system to the robot's coordinate system is lost, such as by cameras 200 , 326 being bumped or malfunctioning or by the robot malfunctioning, the system 100 , 300 , 600 can alert the user and corrections can be made. thus, this single marker 1018 can also be thought of as a surveillance marker for the robot 102 . it should be clear that with a full array permanently mounted on the robot 102 (e.g., the plurality of tracking markers 702 on end-effector 602 shown in figs. 7a-7c ) such functionality of a single marker 1018 as a robot surveillance marker is not needed because it is not required that the cameras 200 , 326 be in a fixed position relative to the robot 102 , and tcr is updated at each frame based on the tracked position of the robot 102 . reasons to use a single marker 1018 instead of a full array are that the full array is more bulky and obtrusive, thereby blocking the surgeon's view and access to the surgical field 208 more than a single marker 1018 , and line of sight to a full array is more easily blocked than line of sight to a single marker 1018 . turning now to figs. 17a-17b and 18a-18b , instruments 608 , such as implant holders 608 b, 608 c, are depicted which include both fixed and moveable tracking markers 804 , 806 . the implant holders 608 b, 608 c may have a handle 620 and an outer shaft 622 extending from the handle 620 . the shaft 622 may be positioned substantially perpendicular to the handle 620 , as shown, or in any other suitable orientation. an inner shaft 626 may extend through the outer shaft 622 with a knob 628 at one end. implant 10 , 12 connects to the shaft 622 , at the other end, at tip 624 of the implant holder 608 b, 608 c using typical connection mechanisms known to those of skill in the art. the knob 628 may be rotated, for example, to expand or articulate the implant 10 , 12 . u.s. pat. nos. 8,709,086 and 8,491,659, which are incorporated by reference herein, describe expandable fusion devices and methods of installation. when tracking the tool 608 , such as implant holder 608 b, 608 c, the tracking array 612 may contain a combination of fixed markers 804 and one or more moveable markers 806 which make up the array 612 or is otherwise attached to the implant holder 608 b, 608 c. the navigation array 612 may include at least one or more (e.g., at least two) fixed position markers 804 , which are positioned with a known location relative to the implant holder instrument 608 b, 608 c. these fixed markers 804 would not be able to move in any orientation relative to the instrument geometry and would be useful in defining where the instrument 608 is in space. in addition, at least one marker 806 is present which can be attached to the array 612 or the instrument itself which is capable of moving within a pre-determined boundary (e.g., sliding, rotating, etc.) relative to the fixed markers 804 . the system 100 , 300 , 600 (e.g., the software) correlates the position of the moveable marker 806 to a particular position, orientation, or other attribute of the implant 10 (such as height of an expandable interbody spacer shown in figs. 17a-17b or angle of an articulating interbody spacer shown in figs. 18a-18b ). thus, the system and/or the user can determine the height or angle of the implant 10 , 12 based on the location of the moveable marker 806 . in the embodiment shown in figs. 17a-17b , four fixed markers 804 are used to define the implant holder 608 b and a fifth moveable marker 806 is able to slide within a pre-determined path to provide feedback on the implant height (e.g., a contracted position or an expanded position). fig. 17a shows the expandable spacer 10 at its initial height, and fig. 17b shows the spacer 10 in the expanded state with the moveable marker 806 translated to a different position. in this case, the moveable marker 806 moves closer to the fixed markers 804 when the implant 10 is expanded, although it is contemplated that this movement may be reversed or otherwise different. the amount of linear translation of the marker 806 would correspond to the height of the implant 10 . although only two positions are shown, it would be possible to have this as a continuous function whereby any given expansion height could be correlated to a specific position of the moveable marker 806 . turning now to figs. 18a-18b , four fixed markers 804 are used to define the implant holder 608 c and a fifth, moveable marker 806 is configured to slide within a pre-determined path to provide feedback on the implant articulation angle. fig. 18a shows the articulating spacer 12 at its initial linear state, and fig. 18b shows the spacer 12 in an articulated state at some offset angle with the moveable marker 806 translated to a different position. the amount of linear translation of the marker 806 would correspond to the articulation angle of the implant 12 . although only two positions are shown, it would be possible to have this as a continuous function whereby any given articulation angle could be correlated to a specific position of the moveable marker 806 . in these embodiments, the moveable marker 806 slides continuously to provide feedback about an attribute of the implant 10 , 12 based on position. it is also contemplated that there may be discreet positions that the moveable marker 806 must be in which would also be able to provide further information about an implant attribute. in this case, each discreet configuration of all markers 804 , 806 correlates to a specific geometry of the implant holder 608 b, 608 c and the implant 10 , 12 in a specific orientation or at a specific height. in addition, any motion of the moveable marker 806 could be used for other variable attributes of any other type of navigated implant. although depicted and described with respect to linear movement of the moveable marker 806 , the moveable marker 806 should not be limited to just sliding as there may be applications where rotation of the marker 806 or other movements could be useful to provide information about the implant 10 , 12 . any relative change in position between the set of fixed markers 804 and the moveable marker 806 could be relevant information for the implant 10 , 12 or other device. in addition, although expandable and articulating implants 10 , 12 are exemplified, the instrument 608 could work with other medical devices and materials, such as spacers, cages, plates, fasteners, nails, screws, rods, pins, wire structures, sutures, anchor clips, staples, stents, bone grafts, biologics, cements, or the like. turning now to fig. 19a , it is envisioned that the robot end-effector 112 is interchangeable with other types of end-effectors 112 . moreover, it is contemplated that each end-effector 112 may be able to perform one or more functions based on a desired surgical procedure. for example, the end-effector 112 having a guide tube 114 may be used for guiding an instrument 608 as described herein. in addition, end-effector 112 may be replaced with a different or alternative end-effector 112 that controls a surgical device, instrument, or implant, for example. the alternative end-effector 112 may include one or more devices or instruments coupled to and controllable by the robot. by way of non-limiting example, the end-effector 112 , as depicted in fig. 19a , may comprise a retractor (for example, one or more retractors disclosed in u.s. pat. nos. 8,992,425 and 8,968,363) or one or more mechanisms for inserting or installing surgical devices such as expandable intervertebral fusion devices (such as expandable implants exemplified in u.s. pat. nos. 8,845,734; 9,510,954; and 9,456,903), stand-alone intervertebral fusion devices (such as implants exemplified in u.s. pat. nos. 9,364,343 and 9,480,579), expandable corpectomy devices (such as corpectomy implants exemplified in u.s. pat. nos. 9,393,128 and 9,173,747), articulating spacers (such as implants exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 9,259,327), facet prostheses (such as devices exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 9,539,031), laminoplasty devices (such as devices exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 9,486,253), spinous process spacers (such as implants exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 9,592,082), inflatables, fasteners including polyaxial screws, uniplanar screws, pedicle screws, posted screws, and the like, bone fixation plates, rod constructs and revision devices (such as devices exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 8,882,803), artificial and natural discs, motion preserving devices and implants, spinal cord stimulators (such as devices exemplified in u.s. pat. no. 9,440,076), and other surgical devices. the end-effector 112 may include one or instruments directly or indirectly coupled to the robot for providing bone cement, bone grafts, living cells, pharmaceuticals, or other deliverable to a surgical target. the end-effector 112 may also include one or more instruments designed for performing a discectomy, kyphoplasty, vertebrostenting, dilation, or other surgical procedure. the end-effector itself and/or the implant, device, or instrument may include one or more markers 118 such that the location and position of the markers 118 may be identified in three-dimensions. it is contemplated that the markers 118 may include active or passive markers 118 , as described herein, that may be directly or indirectly visible to the cameras 200 . thus, one or more markers 118 located on an implant 10 , for example, may provide for tracking of the implant 10 before, during, and after implantation. as shown in fig. 19b , the end-effector 112 may include an instrument 608 or portion thereof that is coupled to the robot arm 104 (for example, the instrument 608 may be coupled to the robot arm 104 by the coupling mechanism shown in figs. 9a-9c ) and is controllable by the robot system 100 . thus, in the embodiment shown in fig. 19b , the robot system 100 is able to insert implant 10 into a patient and expand or contract the expandable implant 10 . accordingly, the robot system 100 may be configured to assist a surgeon or to operate partially or completely independently thereof. thus, it is envisioned that the robot system 100 may be capable of controlling each alternative end-effector 112 for its specified function or surgical procedure. system with surgical implant planning computer and surgical robotic system fig. 20 illustrates a block diagram of a surgical system that includes a surgical implant planning computer 2000 connected to a surgical robotic system 100 and which are configured to operate in accordance with some embodiments. the surgical implant planning computer 2000 can be connected to a surgical implant device catalog server 2010 to obtain information that defines available types and characteristics of surgical implant devices, such as different dimensional bone screws, and can be further connected to obtain images from a patient medical image server 2020 and may be connected to obtain anatomical model images from a medical model image server 2030 . referring to fig. 20 , the surgical implant planning computer 2000 allows auto-generation of a surgical plan with respect to an initial medical image and/or uses a surgical plan developed by a surgeon for implanting a surgical implant device with respect to the initial medical image. the surgical implant planning computer 2000 automatically transforms the surgical plan for use in implanting the surgical implant device into a bone that is shown in a target medical image. the surgical implant planning computer 2000 may provide the transformed surgical plan to the surgical robotic system 100 to control movement of a surgical end-effector 112 by the surgical robotic system to position the surgical end-effector 112 relative to a location on a bone of the patient to facilitate implantation of the surgical implant device into the bone. in one example embodiment, a surgeon can interface with the surgical implant planning computer 2000 to generate a surgical plan for the locations of bone screws on a representative scan or image (collectively referred to as a “medical image”, “image scan”, and “image” for brevity) of a bone in which the screws are to be inserted. the surgical implant planning computer 2000 can obtain an initial image of a normal spine, possibly from a subject of a specific or average height, age and weight, from the patient medical image server 2020 , e.g., ct scan of a patient's spine, or may obtain a modeled initial image of the appropriate anatomical structure from the medical model image server 2030 which may have images that are based on, e.g., sawbones model by pacific research, inc. a surgical plan can be generated that identifies where screws can be implanted at any foreseeable location relative to a bone shown in the initial image where a screw might be foreseeably needed. this surgical plan can be generated automatically by an algorithm that considers locations of available bony corridors through image processing, or manually by an individual who is knowledgeable about appropriate surgical placement of screws. for example, in an image scan of the thoracolumbosacral spine, a surgical plan can be generated by a surgeon scrolling through an image volume and marking locations that identify where pedicle screws could be implanted in every pedicle from t1-s3 in the image. the initial image and the surgical plan identifying corresponding screw locations are stored by the surgical implant planning computer 2000 in a local or remote memory database for later recall and use with a particular identified patient or, more generally, future new patients. when a new target image for a patient is received and screw planning is needed, the surgeon would interface with the surgical implant planning computer 2000 to specify where screws are to be inserted in one or more regions of a bone shown in the target image. the computer 2000 responsively obtains the initial image, the surgical plan, and the target image, and performs spatial transformations to morph the contours of the initial image to sufficiently match, according to a defined rule, the contours of the target image at the specified locations. to minimize the amount of morphing required, the initial image retrieved from the patient medical image server 2020 or medical model image server 2030 may be selected to match the age, gender, height, weight, ethnicity or other parameters of the target image to provide a closer approximation. different sections of the images could be morphed with different transformations so that each specific bone of interest from the initial image sufficiently matches the target image, such as according to a best-fit operation. for example, if trying to match three levels of the lumbar spine from the initial image to the corresponding three levels in the target image, the computer 2000 may operate to independently transform each vertebra of the initial image to best match each corresponding vertebra shown in the target image. moreover, within a bone different portions around key points could be stretched and rotated differently to satisfy the defined rule for conformance between corresponding portions in the initial and target images. operations for transforming, e.g., morphing, may include affine transformations, which do not require the body being morphed to maintain a constant aspect ratio. fig. 21 depicts a set of images that can be displayed on a display device and related operations performed by the surgical implant planning computer 2000 to generate a transformation matrix that transforms a surgical plan for implanting a surgical implant device relative to a bone in an initial image for overlay on a bone in a target image, in accordance with some exemplary embodiments. referring to fig. 21 , the images include an initial image 2100 , a target image 2110 , an initial overlaid composite view 2120 of the initial and target images 2100 and 2110 in which only total horizontal scaling, total vertical scaling, rotation and translation are allowed, and a transformed overlaid composite view 2130 of the target image 2110 , which has been further asymmetrically transformed in subsets of the image to better conform to the initial image 2100 . the initial image 2100 shows a bone 2108 and an initial surgical plan for where a tip location 2106 and tail location 2104 of a surgical screw 2102 are to be located after implantation into the bone 2108 . as explained above, the initial surgical plan shown in initial image 2100 may have been developed by a surgeon viewing the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 of the patient or another patient (e.g., from patient medical image server 2020 ) or medical model (e.g., from medical model image server 2030 ), or may have been automatically generated by the surgical implant planning computer 2000 with respect to the bone 2108 shown in the initial image 2100 while operating to satisfy one or more rules generated based on the surgeon's earlier defined preferences regarding screw or other device placement (preferred depth, preferred angle, etc.) relative to defined and/or determined characteristics of the bone 2108 . the initial image 2100 is noticeably smaller than the target image 2110 and to achieve the initial overlay 2120 initial image 2100 is scaled so that the total anteroposterior and lateral dimensions match those of the target image 2110 . as will be explained below, the surgical implant planning computer 2000 further asymmetrically transforms the implant locations within key anatomic regions 2122 defined by the surgical plan for use with the bone 2112 shown in the target image 2110 of a patient obtained by ct scan, x-ray, or other medical imaging process. the transformed implant locations, e.g., the transformed tip and tail locations of the surgical screw 2132 , may be provided to the surgical robotic system 100 to control movement of the surgical end-effector 112 by the surgical robotic system 100 to position the surgical end-effector 112 relative to a bone of the patient to facilitate implantation of the surgical screw 2132 in the bone. figs. 22 and 23 illustrate flowcharts of operations by the surgical implant planning computer 2000 for generating and using a transformation matrix for surgical planning in accordance with some exemplary embodiments referring to figs. 21 and 22 , the computer 2000 obtains 2200 the initial image 2100 of the bone and obtains 2202 an initial location data structure containing data defining mapping between a set of locations on the surgical implant device, e.g., tip 2106 and tail 2104 on screw 2102 , and a corresponding set of locations where they are overlaid relative to the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 . locations of the tip and the tail of the surgical screw 2102 relative to the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 can be determined based on the data in the initial location data structure. the type of surgical implant device and associated locations (e.g., tip, tail, other defined locations and/or contours) that are to be mapped to an initial image may be obtained from the surgical implant device catalog server 2010 , and the initial image may be obtained from the medical model image server 2030 and/or the patient medical image server 2020 . the computer 2000 also obtains 2204 the target image 2110 of the patient's bone 2112 from the patient medical image server 2020 . the computer 2000 generates 2206 a transformation matrix that transforms a contour of a portion 2122 of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 , where an example portion of the overlaid images 2120 is illustrated as 2112 in fig. 21 . the transformation matrix may be generated based on how much groups of points defining a surface contour of the bone 2108 in the portion 2122 of the initial image 2100 need to be individually moved or collectively stretched and/or rotated to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a corresponding surface contour of the bone 2112 in the portion 2122 of the target image 2110 . the defined rule may correspond to morphing the bone 2108 to achieve an optimal fit of the respective surface contours of the bone 2112 within the portion 2122 . operations for morphing include, without limitation, affine transformations, which do not require the body being morphed to maintain a constant aspect ratio. the overlaid composite image 2120 may be generated by transforming, e.g., stretching, the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to approximately have the same overall size as the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . the transformed overlaid composite view 2130 may be generated by further transforming, e.g., morphing through stretching and rotating, a plurality of contours along anterior and posterior external surfaces and spinal canal surfaces of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2110 to more closely conform to the corresponding contours of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . the computer 2000 then generates 2208 a transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure of the surgical implant device, e.g., screw 2102 , or applying the transformation matrix to key points of the initial location data structure such as screw tip 2106 and screw tail 2104 . this distinction is made because transforming the entire screw, which crosses two regions 2122 and 2124 that are differently transformed, could result in a bent screw 2132 whereas transforming the tip and tail points only and then re-connecting these points with a straight line would result in a straight screw 2132 . the computer 2000 displays 2214 on a display device a graphical representation of the surgical implant device, e.g., screw 2132 , overlaid at locations on the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 that are determined based on the transformed location data structure. in one embodiment, the surgical implant planning computer 2000 can be configured to display auto-planned screw locations on the target image of the patient for the surgeon to view and adjust if needed. the computer 2000 automatically determines a length of the screw based on the known screw tip and tail coordinates defined based on dimensions of the bone 2108 and based on characteristic data for available screws that is obtained from the surgical implant device catalog server 2010 . the computer 2000 may be configured to automatically scale the diameter of the screw based on the determined scaling that occurs between the original screw length relative to the bone in the initial image 2100 to the transformed screw length relative to the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . for example, if a 50 mm screw fit the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 but after transformation of the bone 2108 to conform to the bone 2112 , the screw length was reduced to 40 mm, this reduction would represent a decrease of 20% of the screw length. the computer 2000 may be configured to correspondingly reduce the screw diameter by 20%. alternatively or additionally, the computer 2000 may access a historical repository of data provided for a group of actual patients with different lengths of screws that identifies what screw diameter was selected for use with corresponding various lengths of screws for various defined regions of bone. alternatively or additionally, the computer 2000 can use the known information about the locations of bone contours of the target image 2110 which are evaluated during transformation of the initial image 2100 for surface conformance, the amount of space available within the region through which the screw passes can be automatically measured and a best fitting diameter of screw automatically selected. in an illustrative embodiment, the surgical screw 2102 has a tip location and a tail location defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone in the initial image, and the computer 2000 scales ( 2210 in fig. 22 ) a distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw defined relative to the bone 2108 in the target image 2100 based on the transformation matrix. in a further embodiment, the computer 2000 scales ( 2212 in fig. 22 ) a diameter of the surgical screw based on the scaling of the distance between the tip and tail locations of the surgical screw. as explained above, contours along key points in different portions on a bone can be stretched and rotated differently to satisfy the defined rule for conformance between corresponding portions in the initial and target images. in fig. 21 another portion 2124 within the overlaid images 2120 is illustrated in which the contours of the bone 2108 can be transformed to more closely conform to the corresponding contours of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 also within the portion 2124 . the same or another transformation matrix can be generated or refined based on the transformations performed within the portion 2124 of the overlaid images 2120 . for example, it may be desirable for good pedicle screw placement to fit the initial image shape to the target image shape in the posterior region of a vertebra in such a way that that the pedicle widths overlay while also maintaining the size of the spinal canal and offset of pedicles from midline. such a goal may require different portions of the vertebra to be transformed with a different transformation matrix and may disallow usage of a single transformation matrix for the entire vertebra. a generalized method for transforming individual regions of an initial image to match corresponding regions of a target image while maintaining continuity at the boundaries between regions can be applied using a technique similar to that used to digitally create animated videos in which images are morphed (see for example http://www.learnopencv.com/face-morph-using-opencv-cpp-python/). this morphing technique uses sets of points with correspondence of landmarks from the initial image to the target image, divides the image area or volume into discrete regions using delaunay triangulation, and then applies affine transformations to each triangle (2d) or tetrahedron (3d) to fit each triangulated area or volume from the initial to a target image. in the current application, for example, to match an initial image volume of an ideal spine to a target image volume of a new patient's spine, key landmarks such as the spinous process, lamina, transverse process, pedicle, and vertebral body could be automatically identified in initial and target images through pattern recognition and image processing or manually identified by a user scrolling through the image and marking these locations to create the point correspondence set. delaunay triangulation and affine transformations for best fit could be automatically generated using known techniques. the affine transformations corresponding to the tetrahedra within which the tip and tail points lie would then be applied to the tip and tail points of a screw. the screw body is not transformed since doing so might alter its cylindrical shape. instead, a new screw body would be positioned using the transformed tip and tail points to achieve the target screw plan. in some further embodiments, the operations for generating 2206 the transformation matrix can include modifying a size and/or a rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a size and/or a rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . moreover, as explained above, the operations can be repeated to modify the size and/or the rotational angle of contours of a plurality of portions of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of contours of a corresponding plurality of portions of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . in one further embodiment, the operations for modifying the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 , can include applying a best fit transformation of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 , such as shown in the overlay composite image 2120 and/or the further transformed overlay composite image 2130 . in another further embodiment, the operations for modifying the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 , can include applying an affine transformation of the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to the size and/or the rotational angle of the contour of the corresponding portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . in a further embodiment, the operations for generating the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure can include, for a first one of the locations on the surgical implant device defined in the initial location data structure, applying the transformation matrix to transform a corresponding first one of the locations defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to a transformed first location defined relative to the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 , and storing the transformed first location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the first one of the locations on the surgical implant device. the operations can further include generating another transformation matrix that transforms a contour of another portion 2124 of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy the defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding another portion 2124 of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . the operations for generating the transformed location data structure based on applying the transformation matrix to the initial location data structure can further include, for a second one of the locations on the surgical implant device defined in the initial location data structure, applying the other transformation matrix to transform a corresponding second one of the locations defined by the initial location data structure relative to the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to a transformed second location defined relative to the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 , and storing the transformed second location in the transformed location data structure with an association to the second one of the locations on the surgical implant device. reference is now made to the flowchart of fig. 23 which illustrates example operations that can be performed to transform the mapping of locations on the screw 2102 to the bone 2108 shown in the initial image 2100 to a corresponding mapping of locations on the screw 2102 to the bone 2112 shown in the target image 2110 . a first transformation matrix is generated 2300 that transforms a contour of a first portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour a corresponding first portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . the first transformation matrix is applied 2302 to the tip location on the surgical screw defined in the initial location data structure. the transformed tip location is then stored 2304 in the transformed location data structure. a second transformation matrix is generated 2306 that transforms a contour of the second portion of the bone 2108 in the initial image 2100 to satisfy a defined rule for conforming to a contour of a corresponding second portion of the bone 2112 in the target image 2110 . the second transformation matrix is applied 2308 to the tail location on the surgical screw defined in the initial location data structure, and the transformed tail location is then stored 2310 in the transformed location data structure. some scenarios can be envisioned where the operations for automatically generating a surgical plan for implanting a screw or other device into a patient's bone using an anatomical model may not provide an acceptable solution for some patients. for example, a corridor of bone can be a straight connection between locations where the tip and tail of a screw would be positioned in the initial image (e.g., corresponding to an anatomical model or other patient), however the corresponding corridor of patient's bone in the target image of the patient may be excessively curved. various such scenarios are depicted in the images of bones shown in fig. 24 , where a surgical implant device, e.g., screw, is displayed as an overlay on the bones. referring to fig. 24 , image 2400 illustrates a bone 2404 having a straight corridor in which a screw, rod, or other device 2402 can be implanted. in sharp contrast, image 2410 illustrates a bone 2412 having a substantially curved corridor in which the implant device 2402 could be implanted. however, it would not be medically acceptable to implant device 2402 where it penetrates a surface of and extends outside the bone 2412 through the curved region. in accordance with embodiments herein, the surgical implant planning computer 2000 can be configured to identify and compensate for such curved regions, by adjusting the location of the implant device 2402 to extend entirely within the bone 2412 . in the example of image 2420 , the computer 2000 shifts inward the location of the implant device 2402 from location 2402 ′ so as to not extend outside the bone 2412 when generating the surgical plan for locations where the device 2402 is to be implanted within the bone 2412 . fig. 25 is a flowchart of corresponding operations that the surgical implant planning computer 2000 may perform to compensate for bone curvature or other bone recesses when generating a surgical plan. referring to fig. 25 , distances are determined 2200 between locations on the surgical implant device defined by the transformed location data structure and adjacent surfaces of the bone in the target image. responsive to the determined distances, the computer 2000 adjusts 2204 where the graphical representation of the surgical implant device is displayed as an overlay on the target image of the bone. the operations for generating the surgical plan can include biasing or constraining the location of the implant device based on rules that are defined based on preferences of a surgeon. the computer 2000 , may obtain 2202 a set of rules defining depth of penetration of the surgical implant device and angle of the penetration relative to a surface of the bone in the target image, and use the set of rules to adjust 2204 where the graphical representation of the surgical implant device is displayed as an overlay on the target image of the bone. for example, some surgeons may prefer to have pedicle screws at the lower lumbar level be implanted directed straight in from posterior to anterior while other surgeons may prefer to have the screws implanted angled inward from lateral to medial. alternatively or additionally, some surgeons may prefer to have pedicle screws penetrate to 50% of the depth of the vertebral body while other surgeons may prefer to have pedicle screws penetrate to 75% of the depth of the vertebral body. these and other preferences of surgeons on screw placement and other preferences for implant devices, can be stored with the surgical plan that the surgeon makes relative to the initial image, and which is used by the computer 2000 during the transformation of the surgical plan to be directed to the target image. the computer 2000 may enable surgeons who prefer not to go through the process of planning every foreseeable screw and/or other device implant location, to instead select from a defined set (e.g., a diagram) of possible choices that most closely match their identified preferences. in this manner, a surgical system is provided that transforms an automatically generated predictive surgical plan and/or the surgeon's initial surgical plan made with respect to an initial medical image to a transformed plan for use in implanting the surgical implant device into a patient's bone that is shown in a target medical image. such automatic planning can reduce the time required for the surgery and increase precision of planning. the transformed surgical plan can be displayed for review by the surgeon and/or can be provided to a surgical robotic system to control positioning of a surgical end-effector of the surgical robotic system relative to the bone of the patient. although the robot and associated systems described herein are generally described with reference to spine or other bone applications, it is also contemplated that the surgical system is configured for use in other surgical applications, including but not limited to, surgeries in trauma or other orthopedic applications (such as the placement of intramedullary nails, plates, and the like), cranial, neuro, cardiothoracic, vascular, colorectal, oncological, dental, and other surgical operations and procedures. components of surgical implant planning computer fig. 26 illustrates a block diagram of components of a surgical implant planning computer 2000 that are configured to operate in accordance with some exemplary embodiments. the computer 2000 can include a display device 2630 , a wireless and/or wired network interface circuit 2640 , at least one processor circuit 2610 (processor), and at least one memory circuit 2620 (memory). the processor 2610 is connected to the memory 2620 , the display device 2630 , and the network interface circuit 2640 . the memory 2620 stores program code 2622 that is executed by the processor 2610 to perform operations. the processor 2610 may include one or more data processing circuits, such as a general purpose and/or special purpose processor (e.g., microprocessor and/or digital signal processor), which may be collocated or distributed across one or more data networks. the processor 2610 is configured to execute computer program instructions among program code 2622 in the memory 2620 , described below as a computer readable medium, to perform some or all of the operations and methods for one or more of the embodiments disclosed herein for a surgical implant planning computer 2000 . the network interface circuit 2640 is configured to communicate with another electronic device, such as the servers 2010 , 2020 , and/or 2030 , and the surgical robotic system 100 , through a wired network (e.g., ethernet, usb, etc.) and/or wireless network (e.g., wi-fi, bluetooth, cellular, etc.). further definitions and embodiments in the above-description of various embodiments of present inventive concepts, it is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of present inventive concepts. unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which present inventive concepts belong. it will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of this specification and the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. when an element is referred to as being “connected”, “coupled”, “responsive”, or variants thereof to another element, it can be directly connected, coupled, or responsive to the other element or intervening elements may be present. in contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected”, “directly coupled”, “directly responsive”, or variants thereof to another element, there are no intervening elements present. like numbers refer to like elements throughout. unless specified or limited otherwise, the terms “mounted,” “connected,” “supported,” and “coupled” and variations thereof are used broadly and encompass both direct and indirect mountings, connections, supports, and couplings. further, “connected” and “coupled” are not restricted to physical or mechanical connections or couplings. as used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity. the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. it will be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements/operations, these elements/operations should not be limited by these terms. these terms are only used to distinguish one element/operation from another element/operation. thus a first element/operation in some embodiments could be termed a second element/operation in other embodiments without departing from the teachings of present inventive concepts. the same reference numerals or the same reference designators denote the same or similar elements throughout the specification. as used herein, the terms “comprise”, “comprising”, “comprises”, “include”, “including”, “includes”, “have”, “has”, “having”, or variants thereof are open-ended, and include one or more stated features, integers, elements, steps, components or functions but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, elements, steps, components, functions or groups thereof. furthermore, as used herein, the common abbreviation “e.g.”, which derives from the latin phrase “exempli gratia,” may be used to introduce or specify a general example or examples of a previously mentioned item, and is not intended to be limiting of such item. the common abbreviation “i.e.”, which derives from the latin phrase “id est,” may be used to specify a particular item from a more general recitation. example embodiments are described herein with reference to block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations of computer-implemented methods, apparatus (systems and/or devices) and/or computer program products. it is understood that a block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions that are performed by one or more computer circuits. these computer program instructions may be provided to a processor circuit of a general purpose computer circuit, special purpose computer circuit, and/or other programmable data processing circuit to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer and/or other programmable data processing apparatus, transform and control transistors, values stored in memory locations, and other hardware components within such circuitry to implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks, and thereby create means (functionality) and/or structure for implementing the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block(s). these computer program instructions may also be stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks. accordingly, embodiments of present inventive concepts may be embodied in hardware and/or in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) that runs on a processor such as a digital signal processor, which may collectively be referred to as “circuitry,” “a module” or variants thereof. it should also be noted that in some alternate implementations, the functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the flowcharts. for example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved. moreover, the functionality of a given block of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be separated into multiple blocks and/or the functionality of two or more blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be at least partially integrated. finally, other blocks may be added/inserted between the blocks that are illustrated, and/or blocks/operations may be omitted without departing from the scope of inventive concepts. moreover, although some of the diagrams include arrows on communication paths to show a primary direction of communication, it is to be understood that communication may occur in the opposite direction to the depicted arrows. although several embodiments of inventive concepts have been disclosed in the foregoing specification, it is understood that many modifications and other embodiments of inventive concepts will come to mind to which inventive concepts pertain, having the benefit of teachings presented in the foregoing description and associated drawings. it is thus understood that inventive concepts are not limited to the specific embodiments disclosed hereinabove, and that many modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. it is further envisioned that features from one embodiment may be combined or used with the features from a different embodiment(s) described herein. moreover, although specific terms are employed herein, as well as in the claims which follow, they are used only in a generic and descriptive sense, and not for the purposes of limiting the described inventive concepts, nor the claims which follow. the entire disclosure of each patent and patent publication cited herein is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, as if each such patent or publication were individually incorporated by reference herein. various features and/or potential advantages of inventive concepts are set forth in the following claims.
148-120-603-566-470	US	[ "CA", "US" ]	B42F15/00,B65D5/44	1990-08-07T00:00:00	1990	[ "B42", "B65" ]	shipping and storage casing	shipping and storage casing the casing of a file shipping and storage container incorporates a reinforcing member along a pair of opposite walls at an end opening in which an external leg portion forms a right angle with a flange portion at a juncture that is smooth and uninterrupted and in which an internal leg portion forms a juncture with the flange portion that includes a row of aligned, lengthwise, longitudinally spaced-apart slits forming a bending line.	1. a shipping and storage casing of sheet material having a unitary metal reinforcing member affixed to the edge of the sheet material along each of two opposite sides of an opening into the casing, each reinforcing member comprising a first elongated substantially planar leg portion affixed to one face of the sheet material adjacent the opening, a narrow substantially planar flange portion joined along one edge integrally to the first leg portion along one edge thereof along a continuous smooth juncture free of interruptions and disposed substantially orthogonally to the first leg portion such as to overlie the edge of the sheet material, and a second elongated substantially planar leg portion joined integrally to the other edge of the flange portion along a bending line defined by vestigial segments of the member located between spaced-apart perforations and being adapted to be bent along the bending line into engagement with the other face of the sheet material adjacent the edge thereof. 2. a shipping and storage casing according to claim 1 wherein in each reinforcing member the second leg portion extends from the flange portion at substantially a right angle in a direction opposite from the first leg portion. 3. a shipping and storage casing according to claim 2 wherein in each reinforcing member the perforations are elongated slits aligned along the bending line and the edges of each slit are deformed such that they bend at angles to the planes of the second leg portion and flange portions, respectively, whereby when the member is installed on the casing said bent edges butt together. 4. a shipping and storage casing according to claim 1 wherein the first leg portion of each reinforcing member is located outside of the casing and the second leg portion is located on the inside of the casing, whereby the smooth juncture between the first leg portion and the flange portion is located on the outside of the casing. 5. a shipping and storage casing according to claim 1 and further comprising reinforcing elements along the remaining two sides of the opening including u-shaped bars, each of which has an arm portion at each end that extends into a portion of a corresponding reinforcing member between the leg portions thereof, and wherein the flange portion of each reinforcing member has a width substantially equal to the thickness of the bar.	background of the invention a popular way of shipping or storing records and files is in a container that consists of a drawer received in a casing. such containers are widely marketed by the assignee of the present invention under the trademark "transfile.rtm.." while containers of this type can be made of various sheet materials, such as plywood or fiberboard, they are usually made of corrugated boxboard. to enable easy access to the contents of the container, the casing is often made with an opening at one end so that the file drawer can be slid out. the opening is reinforced by metal reinforcing members. the "transfile.rtm." containers sold over many years have casings that are constructed in the manner shown in figs. 1 to 5 of the accompanying drawings. the construction is based in large part on an invention described and shown in u.s. pat. no. 2,221,854 (zalkind, nov. 19, 1940). the casing 20 comprises a body 22 of corrugated boxboard having top and bottom walls 24 and 26, side walls 28 and 30 and an end wall at one end (not shown). it is produced as a onepiece blank with bending lines that facilitate erecting it from a flattened form in which it is shipped and stored. when erected for use (fig. 1), it has an end opening 32 through which a drawer is inserted. the opening 32 is shaped and rigidified against buckling by reinforcing elements in the form of channel- or u-shaped metal strips 34 that fit over the edges of the top and bottom walls 24, 26. the juncture between the two legs of the strip 34 is enlarged and receives the base portion of a u-shaped bar 36, only a portion of which is visible in fig. 1. an arm at each end of each bar extends at a right angle to the base portion and extends into a corresponding reinforcing member 38, one of which fits over the edge of each of the two side walls 28 and 30 of the casing body at the opening 32. the bars 36 establish and maintain the rectangular shape of the casing opening. the reinforcing members 38 and elements 34, along with the bars in the case of the top and bottom walls, keep the walls of the casing from buckling at the opening. the reinforcing elements and members are assembled onto the casing at the factory. the elements 34 are made and assembled onto the body in the condition in which they are shown in fig. 1, except that the bars 36 are rotated, relative to the erected form, 90 degrees so that they lie in the planes of the top and bottom walls. the reinforcing members 38 are manufactured in the form shown in fig. 4 and are assembled to the boxboard body in that form. the member 38 consists of an inner leg portion 40 that is substantially planar, but with a slight offset 42, and has a rolled bead 44 at its free end, which adds stiffness, presents an inset guide surface for the file drawer, and provides a smooth edge. an outer leg portion 46, which is also substantially planar, is formed with numerous punched prongs 48 that, in the assembled casing, pierce the casing body walls and are bent over and slightly out at their tips into the casing walls (to eliminate a sharp exposed tip) to secure the members to the body. the juncture between the two leg portions 40 and 46 is formed by a flange portion 50 that is of a width slightly greater than that of the bars 36. along each margin of the flange portion is a row of u-shaped slits 52 formed by slitting and bending in slightly small rectangular segments 54 of the metal band from which the member is formed. the longer portions of the slits--the portions that extend lengthwise of the member--define fold lines along which the inner leg portion of the member is folded by the user into the inside of the casing body when the casing is erected (see fig. 3). when the reinforcing member is properly folded over the edge of the casing wall, the respective leg portions should form right angles with the flange portion. although the reinforcing member 38 shown in figs. 1 to 5 has served well over many years of widespread use, one of its shortcomings is that the user does not always form the fold at the flange properly. if one fold line is folded sharply, it becomes somewhat weaker than it should be, and it also presents a sharp edge. moreover, the existence of the slits presents sharp corners, even when the member is folded correctly. the presence of the two fold lines also creates two lengthwise lines of weakness along the edge of the member, where the respective leg portions of the member are joined to the flange portion by only a series of relatively narrow, spaced-apart strands 56 of the metal between the ends of the adjacent slits. summary of the invention an object of the present invention is to provide a shipping and storage casing in which the reinforcing members are configured such that they are not subject to being folded improperly, are stronger and stiffer and present at the juncture of the external leg portion and the flange portion a continuous smooth corner free of sharp edges. the foregoing and other objects are attained, according to the invention, by a shipping and storage casing comprising a body of sheet material having top, bottom and side walls, a rectangular opening at one end, and a unitary metal reinforcing member affixed to the edge of the body along each of two opposite sides of the rectangular opening. each reinforcing member includes a first elongated substantially planar leg portion, a narrow substantially planar flange portion joined along one edge integrally to the first leg portion along one edge thereof along a continuous smooth juncture free of interruptions and disposed substantially orthogonally to the first leg portion, and a second elongated substantially planar leg portion joined integrally to the other edge of the flange portion along a bending line defined by spaced-apart perforations. the first leg portion of each reinforcing member is secured to one face of the sheet material adjacent the opening, the flange portion extends over the edge at substantially right angles to the first leg portion, and the second leg portion extends from the flange portion in a direction opposite from the first leg portion. in this form the casing is conveniently shipped to the customer and stored until it is needed. when the casing is erected, the second leg portion is bent along the bending line into engagement with the other face of the sheet material. preferably, the bending line of each reinforcing member is in the form of elongated, aligned slits, and the edges of each slit are deformed such that they bend at angles to the planes of the second leg portion and the flange portion, respectively. when the member is installed on the casing, the bent edges extend toward the sheet material of the body wall on the inside of the casing and butt together, which virtually eliminates sharp edges. advantageously, the first leg portion of each reinforcing member is located outside of the casing, and the second leg member is located on the inside of the casing, so that the smooth juncture between the first leg portion and the flange portion is located on the outside of the casing. for a better understanding of the invention reference may be made to the following description of an exemplary embodiment, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. description of the drawings fig. 1 is a fragmentary perspective view of a portion of a prior art casing, the portion being at the open end; fig. 2 is a fragmentary elevational view of a prior art reinforcing member showing it as it is initially formed; fig. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view of a portion of a side wall of the casing and reinforcing member of fig. 1; fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the reinforcing member taken along the lines 4--4 of fig. 2; fig. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view of a detail of the reinforcing member, as indicated by the circle 5 of fig. 4; fig. 6 is a fragmentary perspective view of a portion of a casing embodying the present invention; fig. 7 is a fragmentary view of the reinforcing member of the casing of fig. 6; fig. 8 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view of a portion of a side wall of the casing and reinforcing member of fig. 6; fig. 9 is a cross-sectional view of the reinforcing member, taken along the lines 9--9 of fig. 7; fig. 10 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view of a detail of the reinforcing member, as indicated by the circle 10 in fig. 9; and fig. 14 is an enlarged fragmentary cross-sectional view of a detail of the reinforcing member (also the area of the circle 10 in fig. 9) after it is bent to its finally assembled position in the casing body. description of the embodiment the corrugated boxboard body, the reinforcing elements on the edges of the top and bottom walls of the body and the bars that shape the rectangular opening are the same as the prior art casing shown in figs. 1 and 4 and described above. accordingly, they are designated by the same reference numerals in figs. 6 and 8, and the description of them is not repeated. the reinforcing members 60 comprise an inner leg portion 62 that is substantially planar, but with an offset 64 such that a rolled bead 66 at the free edge providing a standoff is accommodated. an external leg portion 68 has stamped prongs 70 that pierce the body side walls and are bent over and slightly out into the casing sheet material to fasten the member to the body. the respective leg portions are joined to a flange portion 72. the external leg portion 68 and the flange portion 72 are joined at a 90 degree angle, which is formed when the member is manufactured, and the juncture between them is smooth and continuous and uninterrupted by slits or the like. as initially manufactured, the leg portion 62 of the reinforcing member forms a 90 degree angle with the flange portion 72 and extends from it in a direction away from the flange portion 68. a row of aligned, lengthwise, longitudinally spaced-apart slits 74 is formed at the juncture between the external leg portion and the flange portion. the slits 74 define a bending line along which the leg portion 62 bends relative to the flange portion 72 when the casing is erected. the edges 76 and 77 of the slits 74 are bent slightly in a direction away from the planes of the leg portion 62 and flange portion 92 (see fig. 10), so that when the internal leg portion 62 is bent into place against the inside surface of the wall of the casing body, the edges 76 and 77 butt together and virtually eliminate exposed sharp edges (see fig. 11). like the prior art casings (figs. 1 to 5), the casing of the present invention is supplied with the body collapsed and with the reinforcing elements 34 and reinforcing members 60 installed. the casing is erected by extending the casing walls into approximately the final shape, pivoting the bars 36 such that the arms at each end lie in the plane of the opening, and bending the internal leg portions 62 inwardly and then downwardly into place against the inner surfaces of the body side walls 28, 30, respectively. when the internal leg portions are bent into their final position, the arms of the bars 36 are automatically captured between the leg portions 62 and 68 of the reinforcing members and form a highly rigid connection between the top and bottom walls and the side walls of the casing body at the opening. in the assembled casing (figs. 6, 8 and 11) the junctures between the external leg portions 68 and the flange portions 72 of the reinforcing members 60 are presented at the external edge of the casing side walls, and because it is smooth and continuous, there are no sharp edges. the continuous edge is also stronger and more rigid than the slit external edge of the prior art reinforcing member. in general the reinforcing member is stronger because there is only one row of slits and the slits are straight rather than u-shaped. accordingly, the number of stress riser points is a small fraction of the number present in the prior art reinforcing member. the present invention also eliminates the possibility that the user will make an incorrect bend in the reinforcing member, inasmuch as the bend at the juncture between the external leg portion and the flange portion is formed when the member is manufactured. the remaining bend is inherently made correctly at 90 degrees when the internal flange is bent flat against the inside surface of the casing body, because 90 degrees of the total 180 degree difference between the angle between the leg portions as formed initially and as installed on the casing is preestablished at manufacture, and the remaining 90 degrees must result from the single bend made by the user. a not insignificant further advantage of the present invention is the better appearance of the reinforcing member 60 as compared with the prior art reinforcing member 38. the above-described embodiment of the invention is merely exemplary, and numerous variations and modifications of it will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. all such variations and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
148-335-410-912-080	US	[ "US" ]	C03B5/16	2007-08-15T00:00:00	2007	[ "C03" ]	submerged fired vertical furnance	a furnace is heated by submerged heating equipment. an exhaust stack is vented directly to outside the furnace. a portion of hot gases may pass into at least one shaft via which incoming material and a stage of pre-heating occurs.	1 . a method of melting solids in a furnace comprising: providing a submerged pool at a lower portion of a vertical melting furnace or to a horizontal extension thereto, providing an exhaust stack spaced from at least one water jacket through which incoming material passes, means to maintain heat in said pool comprising at least one submerged electrode or burner, and wherein said means to maintain heat in the melt pool comprises a feeding shaft on at least one side of said furnace. 2 . a method according to claim 1 wherein said burner is a oxy/gas burner. 3 . a method according to claim 1 wherein said material is mixed by incoming currents produced by combustion from said submerged burner or electrode. 4 . a method according to claim 1 wherein a feeding shaft is disposed on each of the opposite sides of the furnace. 5 . a method for melting solids in a vertical melting furnace, comprising: charging solid materials into at least one bed of solids disposed in a lower portion of the furnace, charging melted solids into at least one feeding shaft of the melting furnace, and submerging oxy/gas burner or electrode means to maintain heat in a melt pool at said lower portion of the furnace. 6 . a method according to claim 5 wherein a water jacket is in communication with the melt pool to conduct incoming solids to the melt pool and provide mechanical control to the glass flow control. 7 . a method according to claim 5 and further comprising a feeding shaft disposed on one or each of opposite sides of the furnace. 8 . a method according to claim 6 wherein the glass flow is managed using glass viscosity in the various zones that is controlled using impedience or resistance in each zone. 9 . a vertical melting furnace comprising: a melt pool in a lower portion of a horizontal extension of the furnace and communicating with input material, at least one water jacket in communication with the melt pool to conduct incoming solids to the melt pool to control glass flow, and means for maintaining submerged heating in said melt pool, whereby hot gases pass upwardly to incoming solids to pre-heat and melt portions of said solids to form a melt which flows downwardly into the melt pool. 10 . a melting furnace according to claim 9 wherein the submerged combustion is maintained by submerged oxy/gas burner means. 11 . a melting furnace according to claim 9 and having an input feeding shaft on each of two opposite sides of the furnace. 12 . a melting furnace according to claim 9 and further comprising a glass flow control system permitting glass flow control utilizing glass viscosity. 13 . a glass flow control system according to claim 9 utilizing electric, gas, and/or oxygen/gas burners. 14 . a vertical melting furnace for melting solids, comprising: a submerged melt pool at a lower portion of the vertical melting furnace or to a horizontal extension thereto, an exhaust stack spaced from at least one water jacket through which incoming material passes, at least one submerged electrode or burner for maintaining heat in said pool, and a feeding shaft on at least one side of said furnace. 15 . a melting furnace according to claim 14 wherein said burner is a oxy/gas burner. 16 . a melting furnace according to claim 14 wherein said material is mixed by incoming currents produced by combustion from said submerged burner or electrode. 17 . a melting furnace according to claim 14 wherein a second feeding shaft is disposed on a side of said furnace from said at least one side. 18 . a melting furnace according to claim 14 further comprising a water jacket in communication with the melt pool to conduct incoming solids to the melt pool and to provide mechanical control to the flow of molten material therethrough. 19 . a melting furnace according to claim 14 wherein the at least one water jacket is in communication with the melt pool to conduct incoming solids t 9 the melt pool and provide mechanical control to a glass flow control. 20 . a melting furnace according to claim 12 wherein the glass flow is managed using glass viscosity in the various zones that is controlled using impedience/resistance in each zone.	cross-reference to related applications not applicable. statement regarding federally sponsored research or development not applicable. reference to sequence listing, a table, or a computer program listing compact disc appendix not applicable. background and summary of the invention the present invention relates to furnaces which are heated by submerged heating equipment which may be gas, oxy/gas or electrically fired. water cooled melting furnaces have been used for some years to melt a variety of materials such as metal, rock, glass, etc. water cooled furnaces for melting glass began in the 1970's. several types of energy have been utilized, such as electric, gas, and coke. conventional cupola furnaces have typically utilized solid coke fuel. such furnaces have been relatively efficient, but have major shortcomings, including poor quality of the melt, and that the firing of solid coke produces a relatively high degree of air pollution. the present invention eliminates these shortcomings and certain other problems associated with conventional water cooled melting furnaces. in accordance with the invention, heat for melting is provided by submerged electrodes and/or gas burners using gas or oxy/gas, without utilizing other types of fossil fuels and the like. an air/gas or oxy/gas mixture is utilized, and the heat of exhaust gases is efficiently utilized for the pre-heating of incoming material, which moves generally downwardly as in traditional furnaces. the output or “melt” of the furnace is very homogenous as compared with conventional prior art melts. the vertical melting shaft may preferably be disposed using a gas/oxy burner or submerged electrodes directly above a melt pool, or it may be offset relative to the melt pool, as indicated in fig. 1 . batch materials are charged into a melting chamber at the entrance of the melting shaft, as by being pushed by a reciprocating ram, a screw, or a vibrating screen, etc. (not shown) into the melting chamber. a shaft according to fig. 1 is utilized, and may be pushed into the melting chamber. an exhaust stack is vented via the stacks directly to the outside of the furnace. a portion of the hot gases may pass into the vertical shaft or shafts through which incoming material passes, and where a first stage of pre-heating occurs. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is an overall view of the submerged fired vertical furnace according to the present invention. detailed description of the invention the present invention relates to a substantially vertical shaft melting furnace wherein solid charge is continuously added and passes downwardly to hot combustion gases in a preheated and sized reduction melting zone, providing intensive preheating and melting of the charge using electricity or heat of combustion gases. prior art conventional melting and heating furnaces are generally reverberatory furnaces and cupolas. reverberatory furnaces have been very expensive in capital cost and in operation, and have provided low production rates and low thermal efficiency. the present invention is a continuous melting furnace which is gas or electrically fired and relates generally to substantially vertical melting furnaces in which charge is continuously added. the burners utilized with the invention may be of any suitable design, and oxidizing gas may preferably be provided. a vertical shaft furnace 10 has a melt pool 12 at the bottom thereof and communicating with meltable solids passing through water jackets 14 on opposite sides of the furnace. referring to the drawing, submerged heating in a melt pool 12 produces gases some of which pass upwardly in water jackets 14 to produce a melt which extends downwardly toward the melt pool 12 which melts any remaining portion of solids coming through the water jackets. a chimney 18 extends vertically above the melt pool. material which is added through charge entry ports 28 , 30 may be mixed with melts in the melt pool 12 by intensive melt current resulting from submerged heating. submerged burners or electrodes 16 are installed in the walls of the melt pool. gases from the melt pool 12 pass to and heat lower portions of the opposite vertical shafts or water jackets 14 through which incoming material passes. submerged combustion is maintained in the melt pool to produce combustion product gases which pass upwardly through the solids to preheat and melt a portion of the solids to form melt which flows downwardly into said melt pool to at least partially melt a remaining portion of said solids to reduce their size sufficiently to pass through support grid openings and into said melt pool. preferred embodiments of the present invention typically utilize gas burners or electrode equipment in the melt pool 12 , and use a computer program to control glass flow. in a preferred embodiment of the invention shown in the drawing, burners or tuyeres may be employed for added control and/or submerging heating. the burners (not shown) utilized may be of any suitable known design. the partially melted solid charge particles are reduced in size after passing through a melting zone. melting is completed by submerged heating, which provides high heating intensity and high heat transfer to the melt. submerged heating provides intensive convection currents in the melt, high heat and transfer rates between the melt in the collection zone, fresh melt and charge particles entering the melt resulting in rapid melting of these particles. some gases may be guided into the vertical feed shafts to carry incoming material. a melting system comprises one or more feed shafts in the furnace wherein material is mixed with melt in a melt pool 12 at the bottom of the furnace. intense currents are produced by submerged heating. the charge is supported on a coolant distribution grid having openings smaller than the average diameter of the solid charge material and/or the glass viscosity. the charge flows downwardly through the submerged melt pool which is generally at the bottom of the furnace. partially melted charge particles are reduced in size after passing through the preheating melting zone so that the particles reaching the coolant grid are of sufficiently small size to pass with the melt through the coolant grid area. melting is completed by submerged heating which involves high heat transfer between the melt and a collection zone. the melt and charge particles enter the melt for rapid melting. unmelted granular material is charged into the upper end of a melting shaft, and is inserted into the upper end of the shaft. it may be urged slowly sideways by reciprocating rams 24 , 26 , and into a melting chamber. at least a major portion of the melting occurs at the front face of the granular material, and is slowly charged into the melting chamber. an exhaust stack communicates with the furnace. a portion of hot gases is vented outwardly via a stack, as during furnace start-up and operation, or, the gases are guided into the vertical shaft. submerged heating is maintained in the melt pool, and produces product gases some of which pass upwardly through the bed of solids and melt a portion thereof to form a melt extending into the melt pool to melt any remaining portion of the solids, with solids passing through the grid opening into the melt pool. it will be understood that various changes and modifications may be made from the preferred embodiment discussed above without departing from the scope of the present invention, which is established by the following claims and equivalents thereof.
151-849-554-061-162	US	[ "US" ]	B65D21/02,B65D1/02	2016-08-18T00:00:00	2016	[ "B65" ]	magnetic toiletry bottle	a dual compartment bottle for toiletries that includes: a first compartment; a second compartment; and a magnetic connector between the first compartment and second compartment, wherein said magnetic connector is adapted to hold the first compartment and second compartment together in a composite bottle. the first compartment and second compartment may be adapted to form various shapes such as a spherical, pear or oval shape.	1 . a dual compartment bottle for toiletries comprising: a. a first compartment; b. a second compartment; and c. a magnetic connector between the first compartment and second compartment, wherein said magnetic connector is adapted to hold the first compartment and second compartment together in a composite bottle. 2 . the dual compartment bottle for toiletries according to claim 1 , where the first compartment and second compartment are adapted to form a spherical shape. 3 . the dual compartment bottle for toiletries according to claim 1 , where the first compartment and second compartment are adapted to form a pear shape. 4 . the dual compartment bottle for toiletries according to claim 1 , where the first compartment and second compartment are adapted to form an oval shape.	background of the invention field of invention the present invention relates to a system for supplying toiletries and with the use of a magnetic connection. description of related art individuals used various types of toiletries on a regular basis as deodorant, body spray, perfume, hairspray, body lotions and creams. these toiletries are provided in various types of bottles and containers for use by the consumer. frequently certain types of toiletries are combined to provide similar scents such as deodorant and body spray may be used of a similar scent to provide consistent aroma for the user. sometimes the items are slightly different but compliment each other and are marketed together within a certain product line. as a result, since many times deodorant, body creams, lotions are marketed under a single product line it would be advantageous to have a bottling system that allows for both decorative and utilitarian aspects to assist the consumer in the consumption of the products. summary of the invention the present invention relates to a dual compartment bottle for toiletries that includes: a first compartment; a second compartment; and a magnetic connector between the first compartment and second compartment, wherein said magnetic connector is adapted to hold the first compartment and second compartment together in a composite bottle. the first compartment and second compartment may be adapted to form various shapes such as a spherical, pear or oval shape. brief description of drawings fig. 1 depicts a spherical bottle with a magnetic connection in accordance with the present invention. fig. 2 depicts a tear drop safe bottle with the magnetic connection in accordance with the present invention. fig. 3 depicts an oval-shaped bottle further using the magnetic connection in accordance with the present invention. detailed description the present invention relates to a bottle and system for toiletries that uses a magnetic connection between separate containers for separate toiletries. these toiletries are meshed together into a single bottle with separate containers for each toiletry. preferably, the present invention includes a bottle that is includes two distinct compartments, where one compartment contains a first toiletry and the second compartment contains a second toiletry. these compartments are held together through a magnetic connection between the compartments. during use the compartments may be separated and therefore the user may use the toiletry contained within the compartment. when united the compartments create a unique decorative shape that's aesthetically pleasing, where the user possesses the utility of storing the toiletries in one easy to use convenient bottle. fig. 1 depicts a spherical bottle in accordance with the present invention. the spherical bottle 100 includes a first compartment 23 and a second compartment 25 joining these compartments is a magnet 20 shown in fig. 1 . the magnet 20 attracts both sides and seals the bottle in a solid unit as depicted in fig. 1 . the bottle 100 may be separated during use, where the first compartment 23 is separated from the second compartment 25 so a user can have access to a particular toiletry within the compartment. preferably in one particular embodiment, a perfume or a body spray may be in the first compartment 23 and deodorant may be held within second compartment 25 . this particular shape and configuration in shown in fig. 1 provides a round spherical shape that is curved along the magnetic connection as shown in fig. 1 . fig. 2 depicts a second embodiment of the present invention, where a pear-shaped bottle 200 is shown. the pear-shaped bottle 200 includes a first compartment 30 and a second compartment 32 . a top 35 was provided that it may be easily removed during use. a magnetic connection is provided between the compartments similar to what is shown in fig. 1 . in fig. 3 , a third embodiment of the present invention is depicted bottle 300 includes an oval shape with a first compartment 40 and a second compartment 42 that are separated as needed by the consumer. again these compartments are held together through a magnetic connection between the compartments providing a pleasingly aesthetic look as shown in fig. 3 with an effective manner of use where each compartment houses a separate toiletry and the toiletry may be consumed by separating the compartments as needed. the instant invention has been shown and described in what it considers to be the most practical and preferred embodiments. it is recognized, however, that departures may be made there from within the scope of the invention and that obvious modifications will occur to a person skilled in the art.
152-287-226-089-46X	KR	[ "KR", "EP", "CN", "WO", "US" ]	G06F3/01,G06F3/041,G06F3/14,G06F1/16,G06F3/0487,G06F3/0488,G06F3/147,G06F9/44	2013-06-25T00:00:00	2013	[ "G06" ]	portable device and controlling method thereof	the specification relates to a portable device to enable a user to control the display of a device more conveniently and accurately and a control method thereof. to this end, according to a disclosed embodiment, the portable device includes: a gradient sensor unit which acquires the gradient of the portable device; a curved display unit which senses a touch input and displays an image; a movable mass which has a predefined weight, moves inside the portable device, and changes the center of gravity; and a processor which controls the gradient sensor unit, curved display unit, and movable mass. when the gradient of the portable device is detected without a first touch input, which is a predefined touch input, while a first screen mode for a running application is being provided, the processor switches from the first screen mode to a second screen mode if the gradient exceeds a first threshold. when the gradient is detected together with the first touch input, the processor switches from the first screen mode to the second screen mode if the gradient exceeds a second threshold. the second threshold is smaller than the first threshold.	a portable device (1020) comprising: a tilt sensor unit (2030) configured to obtain an amount of tilt of the portable device (1020), wherein the tilt refers to an angle (θ) between a reference ground surface and the portable device (1020); a display unit (2010) attached to a front surface of the portable device (1020) and configured to sense a touch input on the front surface of the portable device (1020) and configured to display an image, wherein the rear surface of the portable device (1020) is curved to allow tilting or rocking of the device when the device is placed on a surface and the front surface of the display unit (2010) faces upwards, so that a predetermined touch input on a front surface of the portable device (1020) causes a tilting or a rocking of the portable device (1020); and a processor (2050) configured to control the tilt sensor unit (2030), and the curved display unit (2010), characterized in that the processor (2050) is further configured to: when providing a landscape mode (3020) with regard to an application being currently executed, switch from the landscape mode (3020) to a portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected without a first touch input which is the predetermined touch input and the amount of the tilt exceeds a first threshold (θ1), and switch from the landscape mode (3020) to the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected along with the first touch input (4010) that causes the tilting or the rocking of the portable device (1020) and the amount of the tilt exceeds a second threshold (θ2), wherein the second threshold (θ2) is less than the first threshold (θ1). the portable device (1020) further comprising a movable mass (1030, 1040) controlled by the processor (2050) and having a predetermined mass value configured to move within the portable device (1020) and to change a center of gravity of the portable device (1020). the portable device (1020) according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the display unit (2010) has an inwardly or outwardly bent shape. the portable device (1020) according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the touch input (4010) is a contact-based touch input on the portable device (1020) for a predetermined period, and wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to display an indicator that indicates the predetermined period on the display unit (2010). the portable device according to claim 1, wherein the portable device (1020 comprises a physical button or a soft button displayed on the display unit (2010) configured to sense the touch input. the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 1-5, further comprising a grip sensor unit (2040) configured to sense whether or not the portable device (1020) is being gripped wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to: when the portable device (1020) is gripped, switch from the landscape mode (3020) to the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) even when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected along with the first touch input (4010) and the amount of the tilt exceeds the first threshold (θ1). the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 2-6, wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to: move the movable mass (1030, 1040) to a predetermined position when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected along with the first touch input (4010), display an indicator that indicates movement of the movable mass (1030, 1040) on the display unit (2010), and provide a notification of change in the center of gravity when the center of gravity of the portable device (1020) is changed as a movement of the movable mass (1030, 1040) is completed, and wherein the predetermined position is determined based on a changed amount of the tilt. the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 2-7, wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to: move the movable mass (1030, 1040) to a predetermined position, and switch from the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) back to the landscape mode (3020) when a second touch input which is a predetermined touch input is detected, and wherein the predetermined position is determined based on a changed amount of the tilt. the portable device (1020) according to claim 8, wherein the second touch input is a touch input including maintaining contact with the portable device (1020) for a predetermined period. the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 1-9, wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to switch from the landscape mode (3020) to the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected along with the first touch input (4010) and the amount of the tilt exceeds a third threshold (θ3) while a predetermined application is being executed, wherein the third threshold (θ3) is less than the second threshold (θ2). the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 1-10, wherein the tilt sensor unit (2030) includes at least one sensor of an accelerometer and a gyro sensor. the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 1-11, wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to provide the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) according to a tilt direction of the portable device (1020). the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 2-12, wherein the movable mass (1030, 1040) includes at least one constituent element equipped in the portable device (1020). the portable device (1020) according to any one of claims 2-13, wherein the processor (2050) is further configured to move or rotate the movable mass (1030, 1040) upward, downward, leftward, rightward, or diagonally within the portable device (1020) to change the center of gravity. a method of controlling a portable device (1020), the portable device (1020) having a display unit (2010) attached to its front surface for sensing a touch input on the front surface and for displaying an image, the portable device (1020) having a rear surface which is curved to allow tilting or rocking of the device when the device is placed on a surface and the front surface of the display unit (2010) faces upwards, the method comprising: providing (s8010) a landscape mode with regard to an application being currently executed; detecting (s8020) a tilt of the portable device (1020) and a first touch input (4010) that is a predetermined touch input, wherein the tilt refers to an angle (θ) between a reference ground surface and the portable device (1020); and switching (s8030) from the landscape mode (3020) to a portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected without the first touch input (4010) and an amount of the tilt exceeds a first threshold (θ1), switching (s8040) from the landscape mode (3020) to the portrait mode (3030-1, 3030-2) when the tilt of the portable device (1020) is detected along with the first touch input (4010) that causes the tilting or the rocking of the portable device (1020) and the amount of the tilt exceeds a second threshold (θ2), wherein the second threshold (θ2) is less than the first threshold (θ1).	technical field the disclosure relates to a portable device equipped with a curved display unit, and more particularly to a portable device in which a screen mode is controlled based on a tilt of the device and a control method thereof. background art as flexible display panels have recently entered widespread use, devices equipped with various shapes of display units have been developed. as such, devices may be configured to enable installation of curved flexible display units. in the case in which a device is equipped with a curved flexible display unit, however, a position of the device may be easily changed by external force even in a state in which the device is placed on the floor. if rotation of a screen is controlled based on the same tilt threshold as in conventional devices, this device control may have difficulty in making the most of the curved display unit's characteristics. in us 2010/0013651 a1 a device is described including a housing having a curved support surface, and a display provided on the housing. the display is configured to display information. the device further includes a sensor configured to sense rolling movement of the housing, and a controller configured to influence the information displayed on the display in response to the rolling movement sensed by the sensor. in wo 2012/001464 a1 an apparatus, method and computer program are provided, wherein the apparatus comprises: a housing comprising a convex portion configured to enable the apparatus to rock in response to an impulse provided by a user; and a processor configured to enable a function of the apparatus to be performed in response to the detection of the rocking of the apparatus. in us 2013/0154947 a1 a determining of a display orientation on a screen of a portable device includes detecting a current hand position of a user on a touch sensitive surface that is applied to an entire body of the portable device; comparing the current hand position to pre-stored hand position templates that are each associated with a preferred display orientation; determining a matching hand position template; configuring the display orientation of the screen to match the preferred display orientation associated with the matching hand position template; learning hand position patterns of the user by monitoring whether the user changes the display orientation of the screen within a predetermined amount of time after the configuring of the display orientation; and modifying the preferred display orientation associated with the matching hand position template based on the learned hand position patterns of the user. in us 2013/0141464 a1 a method can include operating a 3-axis accelerometer having two axes that define a plane and an axis perpendicular to the plane to provide an acceleration value along each of the axes and orienting output to a display in either a portrait format or a landscape format based on comparing the acceleration values for the two axes that define the plane to a threshold that depends on the acceleration value for the axis perpendicular to the plane. disclosure of invention technical problem accordingly, embodiments are directed to a portable device and a control method thereof that substantially obviate one or more problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art. one embodiment provides a device in which a screen mode is provided based on a predetermined touch input and a tilt of the device, and a control method of the device. another embodiment provides a device in which a threshold is determined based on whether or not a predetermined touch input is detected, and a control method of the device. another embodiment provides a device in which a screen mode is provided based on whether or not grip of the device is sensed as well as a tilt of the device, and a control method of the device. another embodiment provides a device in which a movable mass is moved based on a detected tilt of the device if the tilt exceeds a threshold, so as to move the center of gravity of the device, and a control method of the device. another embodiment provides a device in which an indicator to indicate a predetermined touch input is provided, and a control method of the device. a further embodiment provides a device in which a movable mass is moved to a predetermined position based on a predetermined touch input, and a control method of the device. additional advantages, objects, and features of the embodiments will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the embodiments. the objectives and other advantages of the embodiments may be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings. solution to problem the above identified objects are solved by the features of the independent claims. it is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description of the embodiments are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the embodiments as claimed. advantageous effects of invention as is apparent from the above description, according to one embodiment, a device may change a threshold that is a criterion for switching between screen modes based on whether or not a predetermined touch input is detected. appropriately changing the threshold based on the touch input may assist the device equipped with a curved display unit in more effectively controlling a screen mode based on an amount of tilt of the device. according to another embodiment, when the amount of tilt of the device exceeds a threshold, the device may move a movable mass to maintain the detected tilt so as to change the center of gravity of the device. in this way, a user may control the device to maintain a desired position. according to a further embodiment, the device may provide an indicator that indicates a predetermined touch input. provision of the indicator may allow the user to easily know a screen mode of the device and a method of controlling the center of gravity. brief description of drawings the accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate embodiment(s) and together with the description serve to explain the principle of the disclosure. in the drawings: fig. 1 is a view showing the exterior and interior of a device equipped with a curved display unit according to one embodiment; fig. 2 is a block diagram of the device according to one embodiment; fig. 3 is a view showing an embodiment in which the device provides a screen mode for an application; fig. 4 is a view showing an embodiment in which a screen mode is switched based on a tilt of the device; fig. 5 is a view showing an embodiment in which the center of gravity of the device is moved based on a predetermined touch input as well as a tilt of the device; fig. 6 is a view showing an embodiment in which the center of gravity of the device is moved based on a predetermined touch input; fig. 7 is a view showing various embodiments with regard to a first touch input and a second touch input; and fig. 8 is a flowchart showing a method of switching a screen mode of a device based on a touch input as well as a tilt of the device. best mode for carrying out the invention although the terms used in the following description are selected, as much as possible, from general terms that are widely used at present while taking into consideration the functions obtained in accordance with the embodiments, these terms may be replaced by other terms based on intensions of those skilled in the art, customs, emergence of new technologies, or the like. also, in a particular case, terms that are arbitrarily selected by the applicant may be used. in this case, the meanings of these terms may be described in corresponding description parts of the disclosure. accordingly, it should be noted that the terms used herein should be construed based on practical meanings thereof and the whole content of this specification, rather than being simply construed based on names of the terms. moreover, although the embodiments will be described herein in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and content described in the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the disclosure is not limited to or restricted by the embodiments. portable devices are becoming much thinner and lighter with advances in electronic device fabrication technology. the disclosure relates to a portable electronic device, which is hereinafter referred to as a portable device. the portable device refers to various electronic devices having mobility including, for example, a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (pda), a laptop computer, a tablet pc, an mp3 player, a cd player, and a dvd player. hereinafter, the portable device will simple be referred to as a device. advance in the technologies of display elements equipped in devices has enabled production of a flexible display panel. the flexible display panel refers to a display unit that is fabricated using a pliable, bendable, roll-able flexible substrate without loss of display characteristics differently from a conventional hard display panel. the flexible display panel is also referred to as e-paper. the flexible display panel is lighter and thinner and has greater shock-resistance than conventional hard display panels, and is freely bendable. the substrate used in the flexible display panel may be fabricated as a metal foil, very thin glass, or plastic substrate. in particular, in the case of a plastic substrate, a polycarbonate (pc) substrate, a polyethylene terephthalate (pet) substrate, a polyether sulfone (pes) substrate, a polyimide (pi) substrate, a polyethylene naphthalate (pen) substrate, and an acrylate substrate may be used. in the disclosure, a display unit may include the aforementioned flexible display panel. in particular, the display unit of the disclosure may include a curved flexible display panel. in the following description, the display unit may refer to curved display unit. fig. 1 is a view showing the exterior and interior of a device equipped with a curved display unit according to one embodiment. the device, designated by reference numeral 1020, may be equipped with a curved display unit 1010. one embodiment in which the device 1020 is equipped with the curved display unit 1010 having an inwardly bent shape is shown in the drawing. alternatively, differently from illustration of the drawing, the device 1020 may be equipped with an outwardly bent and curved display unit. in addition, the device 1020 may be equipped with a curved display unit, one side or the other side of which is bent. that is, the curved display unit 1010 is not limited to a specific shape as exemplarily shown in the drawing. note that, for convenience of description, as exemplarily shown in the drawing, the inwardly bent and curved display unit 1010 will be described hereinafter by way of a representative example of the display unit. meanwhile, a surface of the device 1020 to which the curved display unit 1010 is attached may be referred to as a front surface of the device 1020. in addition, a opposite surface to the surface of the device 1020 to which the curved display unit 1010 is attached may be referred to as a rear surface of the device 1020. in one embodiment, the device 1020 may include a movable mass 1030 or 1040 provided therein. the movable mass 1030 or 1040 may refer to an element that has a predetermined mass value and is movable within the device 1020 to change the center of gravity of the device 1020. the movable mass 1030 or 1040 may be moved in various directions within the device 1020, thereby serving to change the center of gravity of the device 1020. in one embodiment, the movable mass 1030 may be moved in various directions including, e.g., upward, downward, leftward, rightward, or diagonally along a rail within the device 1020. in another embodiment, the movable mass 1040 may be moved by being rotated along with a disc within the device 1020. the movable mass 1030 or 1040 may be embodied in various ways so long as they can change the center of gravity of the device 1020, and are not limited to the above-described embodiment. the movable mass 1030 or 1040 may be an internal component of the device 1020. for example, the movable mass 1030 or 1040 may include a battery, a circuit board, a camera, or a display unit of the device 1020, or combinations thereof. that is, it is unnecessary to add a separate component serving as the movable mass 1030 or 1040, and movement of any internal component of the device 1020 may be controlled to realize the function of the movable mass 1030 or 1040. once the movable mass 1030 or 1040 is moved within the device 1020 as described above, the center of gravity of the device 1020 may be changed. in this case, the device 1020 may have a curved shape, and therefore a position of the device 1020 may be changed in various ways as the center of gravity is changed. an embodiment with regard to change in the position of the device 1020 depending on change in the center of gravity will be described later in detail with reference to figs. 4 and 5 . fig. 2 is a block diagram of the device according to one embodiment. in fig. 2 , the device may include a display unit 2010, a touch sensor unit 2020, a tilt sensor unit 2030, a grip sensor unit 2040, and a processor 2050. the display unit 2010 may display an image. more specifically, the display unit 2010 may display an execution image of an application that is executed by the processor 2050. in the disclosure, the image may refer to a stationary image, a moving image, text or various other visible images that may be displayed on the display unit 2010. in particular, the display unit 2010 of the disclosure may display various images based on a screen mode for an application. a detailed description of the screen mode will follow with reference to fig. 3 . the display unit 2010 may include the touch sensor unit 2020 to sense a touch input on the display unit 2010. more specifically, the display unit 2010 may sense a user touch input using at least one sensing means equipped in the device. in one embodiment, the at least one sensing means may include various touch sensing means, such as a touch sensor, a fingerprint sensor, a motion sensor, a proximity sensor, a pressure sensor, etc. the touch sensor unit 2020 is a generic term of the aforementioned various sensing means, and the aforementioned sensors may be embodied as separate elements included in the device, or may be combined to constitute at least one element included in the device. the display unit 2010 may sense various user touch inputs via the touch sensor unit 2020. more specifically, the touch sensor unit 2020 may sense various contact or noncontact touch inputs, such as a long-press touch input, a short-press touch input, a drag touch input, a release touch input, a hovering input, or a flicking touch input of the user. moreover, the touch sensor unit 2020 may sense a touch input by various touch input tools, such as a touch pen, a stylus pen, etc., and may transmit the sensed result to the processor 2050. in the disclosure, the display unit 2010 may include a flexible display panel. the flexible display panel may be mounted, in a curved form, in the device according to characteristics of the panel. in the disclosure, as mentioned in fig. 1 , the inwardly bent and curved display unit 2010 will be described by way of a representative embodiment. the tilt sensor unit 2030 may sense a tilt of the device. more specifically the tilt sensor unit 2030 may sense an upward or downward amount of tilt of the device on the basis of a horizontal center axis of the device when the device is vertically oriented. alternatively, the tilt sensor unit 2030 may sense a leftward or rightward amount of tilt of the device on the basis of a vertical center axis of the device when the device is horizontally oriented. the tilt sensor unit 2030 may sense an amount of tilt of the device using at least one sensing means equipped in the device. in one embodiment, the at least one sensing means may include various tilt sensing means, such as a gravity sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, a motion sensor, a gyro sensor, an accelerometer, an infrared sensor, an inclination sensor, a height sensor, a proximity sensor, an infrared sensor, a luminance sensor, a depth sensor, a pressure sensor, etc. the tilt sensor unit 2030 may be a generic term for the above enumerated various sensing means. also, the above enumerated sensors may be provided as individual elements included in the digital device, or may be combined to constitute at least one element. the grip sensor unit 2040 may sense grip of the device. more specifically, the grip sensor unit 2040 may sense whether or not the device is being gripped. the grip sensor unit 2040 may sense whether or not a user is gripping the device using at least one sensor selected from among a luminance sensor, a pressure sensor, a touch sensor, and a motion sensor. the grip sensor unit 2040 may be provided at one side of the device to sense whether or not the user is gripping the device. in addition, the grip sensor unit 2040 may be selectively provided in the device according to embodiments. although not shown in the drawing, the device may include an object sensor unit (not shown). the object sensor unit may sense whether or not the device is placed on another object. moreover, the object sensor unit may sense properties of the object on which the device is placed. the properties of the object may include at least one selected from among texture, color, and reflectivity of the object. the object sensor unit may transmit information on the sensed properties of the object to the processor 2050, and the processor 2050 may control display of an image based on the received information. the processor 2050 may execute various applications by processing data within the device. in addition, the processor 2050 may control execution of an application contained in the device in response to a control instruction. the processor 2050 may control the aforementioned respective units of the device as well as data transmission/ reception between units. in addition, the processor 2050 may execute a command in response to an input signal if the signal input via the aforementioned sensor units is sensed. in particular, the processor 2050 of the disclosure may control a screen mode of an application based on an amount of tilt of the device. the processor 2050 may perform switching between screen modes for an application when it is detected that an amount of tilt of the device exceeds a threshold. for example, in a state in which an application that is being executed is in a first screen mode, the processor 2050 may switch from the first screen mode to a second screen mode when the device is tilted beyond a threshold. note that the threshold may be changed according to whether or not tilting of the device is detected along with a predetermined touch input. a more detailed description of this will follow with reference to fig. 4 . moreover, the processor 2050 may change the center of gravity of the device by moving a movable mass located within the device. more specifically, the processor 2050 may move the movable mass based on a touch input as well as a tilt of the device. a more detailed description of this will follow with reference to figs. 5 and 6 . hereinafter, in the case in which each operation or motion performed by the portable device begins or proceeds in response to user input, note that a description of generation of a user input signal is replaced by the above description. in addition, the processor 2050 may be represented as controlling the device or at least one unit included in the device in response to a user input, and may be understood as equivalent to the device. meanwhile, fig. 2 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the portable device, and separate blocks logically classify constituent elements of the device. thus, the aforementioned elements of the device may be mounted as a single chip or a plurality of chips based on device design. fig. 3 is a view showing an embodiment in which the device provides a screen mode for an application. the device may provide various screen modes with regard to an application that is being executed based on an amount of tilt of the device. alternatively, the device may provide various screen modes with regard to an application execution screen that is being displayed based on a tilt of the device. in the disclosure, the screen mode may refer to a mode in which an application execution screen is displayed as a horizontal screen mode 3020 or a vertical screen mode 3030-1 and 3030-2. that is, the screen mode may include a landscape mode 3020 and a portrait mode 3030-1 or 3030-2. in this case, the landscape mode may be referred to as a first screen mode 3020, and the portrait mode may be referred to as a second screen mode 3030-1 or 3030-2. if switching between screen modes occurs, the device may simply rotate a screen that is being displayed. alternatively, if switching between screen modes occurs, the device may convert a screen that is being displayed into a screen for the switched screen mode. for example, assuming that a gallery application is being executed in a first screen mode, the device may display a landscape photo 3020. in this case, if an amount of tilt of the device beyond a threshold is detected, the device may switch from the first screen mode 3020 to the second screen mode 3030-1. once switching to the second screen mode 3030-1 is completed, the device may convert a landscape photo of the first screen mode 3020 into a portrait photo of the second screen mode 3030-1 so as to display the portrait photo of the second screen mode 3030-1. that is, once switching to the second screen mode 3030-1 is completed, the device may rotate and display the photo that is being displayed in the first screen mode 3020. in this case, the device may adjust the size of the photo according to the rotation. alternatively, once switching to the second screen mode 3030-2 is completed, the device may display additional information on the photo that is being displayed in the first screen mode 3020. in this case, the additional information on the photo may be displayed in a portrait form. in the disclosure, switching between screen modes based on an amount of tilt of the device is necessary because, when a screen remains in an original orientation thereof despite tilting of the device, the user may view a tilted screen and thus may have difficulty in recognizing information displayed on the screen. for this reason, the device of the disclosure may control display such that a screen is rotated based on a tilted direction of the device to allow the user to easily recognize information regardless of a tilt of the device. for example, as exemplarily shown in the drawing, when the device is tilted leftward from a vertical center line 3010 during display of the first screen mode 3020, the device may display a portrait screen showing an image of the first screen mode 3020 on a basis of the right side of the vertical center line 3010. alternatively, when the device is tilted rightward from the vertical center line 3010 during display of the first screen mode 3020, the device may display a portrait screen showing an image of the first screen mode 3020 on a basis of the left side of the vertical center line 3010. fig. 4 is a view showing an embodiment in which a screen mode is switched based on an amount of tilt of the device. the device of the disclosure may perform switching between screen modes based on an amount of tilt of the device. in one embodiment, the tilt may refer to an angle between a ground surface and the device. when the device is tilted such that an angle θ between the ground surface and the device exceeds a first threshold θ1, the device may switch from a first screen mode to a second screen mode. in other words, if the amount of tilt θ of the device exceeds the first threshold θ1, the device may perform switching between screen modes. this is because switching from the first screen mode to the second screen mode when the device is tilted beyond the first threshold θ1 may allow the user to more easily recognize displayed information. on the other hand, when a first touch input 4010 that is a predetermined touch input and the amount of tilt θ of the device are detected, the device may perform switching between screen modes at a second threshold θ2 which is less than the first threshold θ1. that is, if only the amount of tilt θ of the device is detected without the first touch input 4010, the device may perform switching between screen modes when the amount of tilt θ exceeds the first threshold θ1. however, if the amount of tilt θ of the device is detected along with the first touch input 4010, the device may perform switching between screen modes when the amount of tilt θ exceeds the second threshold θ2. in this case, the second threshold θ2 may be less than the first threshold θ1. that is, if the first touch input 4010 is additionally detected, differently from the case in which the first touch input 4010 is not present, the device may perform switching between screen modes even if the device is slightly tilted. this means that the first touch input 4010 of the disclosure is a predetermined touch input of the user required to cause switching between screen modes and the input clearly indicates user desire for switching between screen modes. accordingly, the device may more rapidly switch from the first screen mode to the second screen mode under provision of the second threshold θ2 as a smaller tilt. as such, if tilting of the device is detected along with the first touch input 4010, more rapid screen switching than in the case in which the first touch input 4010 is not present may be accomplished. a more detailed description related to various embodiments of the first touch input 4010 will follow with reference to fig. 7 . in the same context, according to an additional embodiment, the device may determine a threshold, at which switching between screen modes occurs during execution of a predetermined application, to a third threshold that is less than the second threshold θ2. in the case in which an application is adapted for execution in a second screen mode or is suitable for execution in the second screen mode, the device may provide a third threshold as a threshold that causes switching between screen modes during execution of the application. this is because if the user executes an application optimized for a second screen mode, this means that the user has desire for switching to the second screen mode. accordingly, the device may provide a third threshold that is less than the second threshold θ2 such that switching to the second screen mode rapidly occurs even when the device is slightly tilted. in another embodiment, a threshold may be determined by sensing of whether or not the device is gripped. more specifically, if it is sensed that the user is gripping the device, the device may maintain the first threshold θ1 regardless of whether or not the first touch input 4010 is sensed. in other words, if it is sensed that the user is gripping the device, the device may perform switching between screen modes if the tilt of the device exceeds the first threshold θ1 even if the first touch input 4010 is detected. while the user is gripping the device, the tilt θ of the device may be more easily changed. in this case, applying the second threshold θ2 less than the first threshold θ1 to the present embodiment may confuse the user because a screen mode will be changed even when the device is slightly tilted. accordingly, in this case, it is reasonable that the first threshold θ1 is maintained to ensure stable switching between screen modes so as not to confuse the user. alternatively, the device may additionally provide a threshold greater than the first threshold θ1 to ensure stable switching between screen modes. in a further embodiment, a threshold may be determined by sensing whether or not the device is placed on the floor. when the device is placed on the floor, the amount of tilt θ of the device may not be easily changed as compared to the case in which the device is gripped. accordingly, in this case, as described above, the device may provide the second threshold θ2 as a threshold of the amount of tilt θ for switching between screen modes. fig. 5 is a view showing an embodiment in which the center of gravity of the device is moved based on a predetermined touch input and a tilt of the device. in the disclosure, the center of gravity of the device may be changed simultaneous with switching of a screen mode as described above with reference to figs. 3 and 4 . more specifically, if the device detects a predetermined touch input as well as tilting of the device for switching between screen modes, the device may perform switching between screen modes, and additionally move a movable mass 5030 to change the center of gravity of the device. for example, if a first touch input 5040 and tilting of the device are detected during execution of a first screen mode 5010, the device may switch from the first screen mode 5010 to a second screen mode 5020. in this case, the device may move the movable mass 5030 simultaneously with switching to the second screen mode 5020. since the movable mass 5030 has a predetermined mass value, the center of gravity of the device may be changed via movement of the movable mass 5030. the reason of changing the center of gravity of the device is that, in a state in which the device is oriented such that a front surface of the display unit faces upward, it is difficult to achieve a sufficient viewing angle between the display unit and the user when a distance between the device and the user increases. therefore, the device may move the center of gravity and change a position of the device using curved characteristics of the display unit to allow the device to maintain a specific position, thereby achieving a sufficient viewing angle between the user and the device. with regard to movement of the movable mass 5030, the device may move the movable mass 5030 to a predetermined position. the predetermined position may be set in various ways by the user according to device design purposes, the kind of application that is being executed, and designs. in this case, since the movable mass 5030 is always moved to the predetermined position, a tilt of the device after completion of movement of the movable mass 5030 may be equally maintained in substance. in another embodiment, the device may move the movable mass 5030 based on an amount of tilt of the device. more specifically, the device may move the movable mass 5030 to maintain an amount of tilt of the device when the first touch input 5040 is completed. alternatively, the device may move the movable mass 5030 to maintain an amount of tilt of the device at the occurrence time of switching to the second screen mode 5020. to maintain the changed tilt of the device, in one embodiment, the device may obtain the changed amount of tilt of the device, and obtain a position of the movable mass 5030 required to maintain the changed amount of tilt of the device. the device main maintain the changed amount of tilt of the device by moving the movable mass 5030 to the obtaind position of the movable mass 5030. in another embodiment, if the movable mass 5030, which has been freely moved by gravity, stays at a moved position beyond a predetermined time, the device may fix the movable mass 5030 at the corresponding position so as to maintain the changed amount of tilt of the device. the device may move the movable mass 5030 in various ways as described above with reference to fig. 1 . in one embodiment, although not shown, the device may provide an indicator that indicates, e.g., a movement direction, movement completion time, and a position of the movable mass 5030. for example, the device may indicate a movement direction of the movable mass 5030 by displaying an arrow image that points in a movement direction of the movable mass 5030. in one embodiment, the device may provide a notification of completion of movement of the movable mass 5030. for example, the device may provide the user with a notification with regard to movement of the center of gravity by displaying a message that informs change in the center of gravity as movement of the movable mass 5030 is completed. meanwhile, like the case in which switching to the second screen mode 5020 is not performed if it is sensed that the user is gripping the device as described above with reference to fig. 4 , the device may not move the movable mass 5030 if it is sensed that the user is gripping the device. a position of the device is changed via movement of the movable mass 5030 in order to provide the user with a sufficient viewing angle even when the device is placed on the floor. however, it is unnecessary to move the movable mass 5030 if it is sensed that the user is gripping the device because the user can easily adjust a viewing angle by directly moving the device. therefore, in the case in which it is sensed that the user is gripping the device, as exemplarily shown in fig. 4 , the device may not move the movable mass 5030 even if both the first touch input 5040 and the tilt of the device which exceeds a first threshold are detected. as described above with reference to fig. 4 , in the case in which it is sensed that the device is placed on another object, switching to the second screen mode 5020 and movement of the movable mass 5030 may be performed simultaneously. this is because the device placed on the object, differently from the device gripped by the user, may have a need for movement of the movable mass 5030 to achieve a sufficient viewing angle. fig. 6 is a view showing an embodiment in which the center of gravity of the device is moved based on a predetermined touch input. like the above description of fig. 5 , fig. 6 will be described on the basis of the device, the center of which is moved via movement of a movable mass 6040. the device may move the movable mass 6040 to an original position thereof in response to a second touch input 6030 that is a predetermined touch input. in other words, the device may move the movable mass 6040 to a predetermined position when detecting the second touch input 6030 that is a predetermined touch input. the predetermined position may be determined based on a changed amount of tilt of the device. for example, the device may move the movable mass 6040 to an original position thereof by a distance equal to the changed amount of tilt of the device. in addition, the predetermined position may be variously determined based on device design purposes, designs, installation methods of the movable mass 6040, the kind of application that is being executed, and user setting, and is not limited to the above-described embodiment. once the movable mass 6040 is moved to an original position thereof, the center of gravity of the device may be moved. moreover, the device may switch from a second screen mode 6010 to a first screen mode 6020. in the disclosure, the second touch input 6030 may be a predetermined touch input to switch from the second screen mode 6010 to the first screen mode 6020. alternatively, the second touch input 6030 may be a predetermined touch input to return the movable mass 6040 to an original position thereof. the second touch input 6030 may be embodied in various ways, and a more detailed description of this will follow with reference to fig. 7 . fig. 7 is a view showing various embodiments with regard to a first touch input and a second touch input. in the disclosure, the first touch input and the second touch input may be touch inputs for switching between screen modes. alternatively, in the disclosure, the first touch input and the second touch input may be predetermined touch inputs for movement of a movable mass. the first touch input and the second touch input may be embodied in various ways. in one embodiment, the first touch input or the second touch input may be a touch input on a curved display unit. more specifically, the first touch input or the second touch input may be a touch input on a predetermined position or region 7020 of the curved display unit. the device may display a software button 7020 in a predetermined region of the curved display unit to indicate the predetermined region 7020. the user may instruct switching between screen modes or may move a movable mass, by touching the software button 7020,. in another embodiment, the first touch input or the second touch input may be a touch input on a hardware button 7010 provided at the device. the hardware button 7010 may be a physical button 7010 provided at the device, such as a power on/off button, a volume adjustment button, an unlock button, a home screen button, etc. in another embodiment, the first touch input or the second touch input may be a touch input that remains in contact beyond a predetermined time. the device may display an indicator 7030 to indicate the predetermined time. if contact of the touch input maintains beyond the predetermined time, the device may perform switching between screen modes, or may move a movable mass. in another embodiment, the first touch input or the second touch input may be a touch input of drawing a predetermined pattern (not shown). the device may display an indicator to guide the user through the predetermined pattern. the user may input a touch according to the touch pattern guided by the indicator so as to achieve switching between screen modes or movement of a movable mass. in particular, the first touch input may be a touch input of changing an amount of tilt of the device in a state in which a front surface of the curved display unit faces upward. that is, when a tilt of the device placed on another object is changed by a touch input, the touch input may be referred to as a first touch input. the device may detect whether or not the device is placed on another object, or whether or not the user is gripping the device, thereby performing switching between screen modes or moving the movable mass based on change in the amount of tilt of the device. in addition, the first touch input or the second touch input may include various gesture inputs with regard to the device, in addition to the above-described embodiments, and may be set and changed in various ways based on device design purposes, the kind of application, and user setting. fig. 8 is a flowchart showing a method of switching screen modes of a device based on a touch input as well as an amount of tilt of the device. in the flowchart, a detailed description of configurations similar or equal to the above description of figs. 4 to 6 will be omitted herein. first, the device may provide a first screen mode with regard to an application that is being executed (s8010). in the disclosure, the first screen mode may be a horizontal or landscape mode for display of an application execution screen. details of the screen mode have been described above with reference to fig. 3 . next, the device may judge whether or not both a tilt of the device and a first touch input are detected during provision of the first screen mode (s8020). in the disclosure, the first touch input may be a predetermined touch input for switching between screen modes. in another embodiment, the first touch input may be a predetermined touch input for change in the center of gravity. various embodiments of the first touch input have been described above with reference to fig. 7 . when only the tilt of the device is detected without the first touch input, and when the tilt of the device exceeds a first threshold, the first screen mode may be switched to the second screen mode (s8030). in the disclosure, the second screen mode may be a vertical or portrait mode for display of an application execution screen. on the other hand, when the tilt of the device and the first touch input are detected together, and when the tilt of the device exceeds a second threshold, the first screen mode may be switched to the second screen mode (s8040). in this case, the second threshold is less than the first threshold. that is, when the first touch input and tilting of the device are detected, the device may be switched to the second screen mode even when the device is slightly tilted. determination of the threshold has been described above in detail with reference to fig. 4 . although not shown in the flowchart, in one embodiment, the device may perform movement of the center of gravity of the device as well as switching between screen modes. more specifically, the device may move the movable mass provided therein based on the changed tilt of the device to enable change in the center of gravity. this has been described above with reference to fig. 5 . in addition, the movable mass may be returned to an original position by a second touch input that is a predetermined touch input on the device. this has been described above with reference to fig. 6 . in addition, various embodiments of the second touch input have been described with reference to fig. 7 . although the respective drawings have been described for convenience of description, the embodiments described with reference to the respective drawings may be combined with one another to realize novel embodiments. in addition, a computer readable recording medium in which a program to execute the above-described embodiments is stored may be designed as needed within the scope of the disclosure. in addition, the device and the control method thereof are not limited to the configuration and method of the above-described embodiments, and some or all of the above-described embodiments may be selectively combined with one another to enable various modifications. it will be apparent that, although the preferred embodiments have been shown and described above, the disclosure is not limited to the above-described specific embodiments, and various modifications and variations can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the subject-matter of the appended claims. thus, it is intended that the modifications and variations should not be understood independently of the technical prospect of the disclosure. in the disclosure, it will be understood that angles, distances, and lengths may represent accurate values, but may represent substantial angles, distances, and lengths within a predetermined range. that is, the angles, distances, and lengths of the disclosure may represent substantial angles, distances, and lengths within a tolerance range. in addition, the disclosure describes both a device invention as well as a method invention, and descriptions of both inventions may be complementarily applied as needed. mode of the invention various embodiments have been described in the best mode for carrying out the invention. it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope of the invention. thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. industrial applicability as described above, the present invention is totally or partially applicable to electronic devices.
153-739-768-431-937	US	[ "US" ]	B62D21/00,B60K11/04	2009-02-04T00:00:00	2009	[ "B62", "B60" ]	all terrain vehicle with radiator protection	a vehicle including a main body frame having a length direction and a width direction includes a front frame carried by the main body frame. the front frame includes a first front cross frame having a generally height and extends along said main body's width direction. a second front cross frame is disposed frontward and offset from the first cross frame at an elevational height less than the first front cross frame. a first and second side frame interconnect with the first cross frame and the second cross frame to define radiator cage having an interior space. a radiator is disposed within the interior space of said radiator cage.	1 . a vehicle including a main body frame having a length direction and a width direction comprising: a front frame carried by said main body frame including: a first front cross frame having a generally height and extending along said main body's width direction; a second front cross frame that is disposed frontward and offset from said first cross frame at an elevational height less than said first front cross frame and that extends along the main body's width direction; a first front side frame and a second front side frame that are, respectively, disposed on a left and right side as to extend along the vehicle front-back direction, and that respectively interconnect the first cross frame and the second cross frame to define a radiator cage having an interior space; said first front side frame and said second front side frame being inclined from said second front cross frame to said first front cross frame; and a radiator disposed within said interior space of said radiator cage. 2 . the vehicle of claim 1 wherein said radiator cage includes a left pillar member and a right pillar member interconnecting said left and right front side frame with said main body frame, said radiator being carried by said left and right pillar members via a fixing bracket which simultaneously carries a front differential unit. 3 . the vehicle of claim 1 wherein said second front cross frame includes a left and right side which are adapted to carry left and right cushion units which cushion upper arm members of a suspension. 4 . the vehicle of claim 3 wherein said upper arm members of suspension are in communication with said front wheels at a location along a horizontal plane, said radiator being located rearwardly of said horizontal plane. 5 . the vehicle of claim 1 wherein said radiator includes a primary body portion and an upper and lower portion and wherein said radiator is carried within said radiator cage such that said upper portion and said primary body portion are inclined from lower portion to said upper potion relative to said main body frame. 6 . the vehicle of claim 5 wherein said incline is greater than five degrees but not greater than fifteen degrees. 7 . the vehicle of claim 1 wherein a first bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the first front side frame, said first bracket supporting a first cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system; a second bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the second front side frame, said second bracket supporting supports a second cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system; and said radiator being mounted in a manner that at least an upper portion of the radiator is located in a rectangular space surrounded by the first and the second front cross frames and the first and the second front side frames. 8 . a vehicle according to claim 7 , wherein at least said first and second brackets are, respectively, integrally formed near the connection portions of the second front cross frame with the first and the second front side frames. 9 . a vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein a hood is disposed above the interior space of said radiator cage; and the radiator is disposed in a rearwardly inclined state where a portion of the radiator is located more rearward as the portion is located more upward. 10 . a vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein, as viewed from a vehicle lateral side, the radiator intersects with the first and the second side frames in an inclined state. 11 . a vehicle according to claim 1 , wherein the radiator is a vertical type radiator that includes a rectangular core and upper and lower head tanks that are respectively connected to an upper end and a lower end of the core and that flow coolant in a vertical direction, and the lower head tank is supported by a portion of the vehicle body frame. 12 . a vehicle including a main body frame having a length direction and a width direction comprising: a front frame carried by said main body frame including: a first front cross frame having a generally height and extending along said main body's width direction; a second front cross frame that is disposed frontward and offset from said first cross frame at an elevational height less than said first front cross frame and that extends along the main body's width direction; a first front side frame and a second front side frame that are, respectively, disposed on a left and right side so as to extend along the main body's front-back direction, and that respectively interconnect the first cross frame and the second cross frame to define radiator cage having an interior space; said first front side frame and said second front side frame being inclined from said second front cross frame to said first front cross frame; a radiator at least partially disposed within said interior space of said radiator cage; said radiator having a front profile defined by a top radiator portion, a bottom radiator portion and a radiator body and said radiator front profile being carried within said interior space of said radiator cage in a manner wherein said front profile does not extend past a plane defined by the most forward surface of said second front cross frame. 13 . the vehicle of claim 12 wherein said radiator cage includes a left pillar member and a right pillar member interconnecting said left and right front side frame with said main body frame, said radiator being carried by said left and right pillar members via a fixing bracket which simultaneously carries a front differential unit. 14 . the vehicle of claim 12 wherein said second front cross frame includes a left and right side which are adapted to carry left and right cushion units which cushion upper arm members of a suspension. 15 . the vehicle of claim 12 wherein said radiator includes a primary body portion and an upper and lower portion and wherein said radiator is carried within said radiator cage such that said upper portion and said primary body portion are inclined from lower portion to said upper potion relative to said main body frame. 16 . the vehicle of claim 12 wherein a first bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the first front side frame, said first bracket supporting a first cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system; a second bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the second front side frame, said second bracket supporting supports a second cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system; and said radiator being mounted in a manner that at least an upper portion of the radiator is located in a rectangular space surrounded by the first and the second front cross frames and the first and the second front side frames. 17 . a vehicle according to claim 16 , wherein at least said first and second brackets are, respectively, integrally formed near the connection portions of the second front cross frame with the first and the second front side frames. 18 . a vehicle according to claim 12 , wherein a hood is disposed above the interior space of said radiator cage; and the radiator is disposed in a rearwardly inclined state where a portion of the radiator is located more rearward as the portion is located more upward. 19 . a vehicle according to claim 12 , wherein, as viewed from a vehicle lateral side, the radiator intersects with the first and the second side frames in an inclined state. 20 . a vehicle according to claim 12 , wherein the radiator is a vertical type radiator that includes a rectangular core and upper and lower head tanks that are respectively connected to an upper end and a lower end of the core and that flow coolant in a vertical direction, and the lower head tank is supported by a portion of the vehicle body frame.	background of the invention 1. field of the invention the present invention relates to an all terrain vehicle including a radiator mounted frontward of a vehicle body frame in a protective environment. 2. description of the related art in vehicles of the type including a radiator used to maintain the temperature of the engine coolant within a predetermined range, generally the radiator is mounted frontward of the vehicle body frame to increase cooling performance by flowing air. for example, in japanese unexamined patent application publication no. 2006-103369, there is proposed a configuration including a radiator mounted frontward of cross pipes. more specifically, a front frame provided frontward of a vehicle body frame is configured into a u-shape in the plan view. the front frame includes left and right extending portions extending along a vehicle in a front-back direction, and cross portions that extend along the vehicle width direction which interconnect with rear ends of the respective left and right extending portions. additional cross pipes are provided for interconnecting the left and right extending portions in the vehicle width direction. the radiator is mounted frontward of the cross pipes. however, in the configuration as in the above-described conventional vehicle in which the radiator is disposed frontward of the cross pipes, while the radiator can be protected against external forces exerted from the vehicle lateral sides, there is a problem in that the radiator cannot be sufficiently protected against external forces exerted from the vehicle front side. summary of the invention in view of the foregoing problem, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle that enables improving protection for a radiator against external forces exerted from both the vehicle lateral sides and vehicle front side. according to one aspect of the present invention, an all terrain vehicle (atv 1 ) includes a pair of left and right front wheels, a front panel provided rearward of the front wheels, a first front cross frame that is disposed in front of the front panel and extends generally across the vehicle in the width direction, a second front cross frame disposed forward and offset from the first front cross frame and also extending generally along the vehicle's width direction; a front left side frame and a front right side frame that respectively, are disposed on the left and right sides of the vehicle extending along the vehicle's front-back direction, and that respectively interconnect the first front cross frame and the second front cross frame. a first bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the front left side frame, and supports a first cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system. a second bracket is provided near a connection portion of the second front cross frame with the front right side frame that supports a second cushion unit of a front wheel suspension system. these structures define a radiator cage having an interior. a radiator is mounted in a manner that is located in a rectangular space surrounded by the first front and second front cross frames and the left and right side frames. according to the vehicle of the present invention, frame members include outer surfaces which define boundaries which the radiator does not pass. hence, the first and the second front cross frames and the front left and right side frames function as protection members, thereby improving the protection performance against external forces exerted from both the vehicle lateral sides and vehicle frontward side. further, the first and the second brackets, respectively, for supporting the cushion units are provided near the connection portions of the second front cross frame with the front left and right side frames. hence, external forces transmitted from the front wheels via the cushion units can be supported by the second front cross frame that has high stiffness, consequently it is possible to increase the support stiffness of the cushion units. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a side view of an all-terrain vehicle of one embodiment of the present invention; fig. 2 is a side view of a vehicle body frame of the vehicle to which a radiator is mounted; fig. 3 is a plan view of the vehicle body frame; fig. 4 is a side view of a front frame of the vehicle body frame; fig. 5 is a front view of the front frame; fig. 6 is a front view of an upper portion of the radiator; and fig. 7 is a side view of a lower portion of the radiator. description of the preferred embodiments one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. figs. 1 to 7 are views of an all-terrain vehicle of one embodiment of the present invention. in the present embodiment, the front, rear, left, and right refer to the front, rear, left, and right in the state as viewed from a passenger who is sitting in a seat looking toward the front wheels unless otherwise specifically mentioned. also, as shown in the figures like parts are identified with the same numeral. the front wheels are the same on both the left and right sides, so they are referenced by like numeral 3 . in some instances only the left side of the vehicle is shown, but it is understood that similar items on the right side, while not shown, are of similar nature. with reference to the drawings, all terrain vehicle 1 (atv 1 ) includes a vehicle body frame 2 , a radiator 19 , an engine unit 3 , a pair of front wheels 4 , and a pair of rear wheels 5 . the radiator 19 is mounted in a front portion of the vehicle body frame 2 . the engine unit 3 is mounted in a central portion of the vehicle body frame 2 . the front wheels 4 are, respectively, disposed in left and right front end portions of the vehicle body frame 2 . the rear wheels 5 are, respectively, disposed in left and right rear end portions. the atv 1 further includes a first seat 6 disposed in a front portion of the vehicle body frame 2 , a second seat 7 disposed rearward of the first seat 6 , a first floor 8 disposed frontward of the first seat 6 , and a second floor 9 disposed between the first and the second seats 6 and 7 . the engine unit 3 is disposed between the first and the second floors 8 and 9 . a cargo support 10 is disposed on the rear side of the second seat 7 of the vehicle body frame 2 substantially at the same height as a seat surface of the second seat 7 . the vehicle body frame 2 preferably includes main body frame 2 a , pillar frames 2 b , and front frame 2 c. the left and right front wheels 4 and the engine unit 3 are disposed in the main body frame 2 a. the pillar frames 2 b are respectively elevationally formed on the left and right sides of the main body frame 2 a , thereby forming a passenger compartment a. the front frame 2 c is disposed frontward of passenger compartment a of the main body frame 2 a. the first and second seats 6 and 7 are disposed inside of the passenger compartment a. main body frame 2 a includes left and right center members 12 extending along the vehicle in a front-back direction, and front and rear cross members 14 f, 14 r that interconnect between left and right center members 12 . plate-like cross members 13 interconnect midway portions of the respective center members 12 . engine unit 3 is mounted to cross members 13 . as shown in figs. 1 and 3 , pillar frame 2 b is connected to outer end portions 14 a of the front and rear cross members 14 , and includes left and right pillar members 15 and multiple roof members 16 . the left and right pillar members 15 have front and rear passenger entries 15 a and 15 b formed therein, and the roof members 16 interconnect between upper end portions of the left and right pillar members 15 l and 15 r. the first seat 6 is separated into left and right seats 6 l and 6 r at a predetermined distance along the vehicle width direction. the left and right seats 6 include seat cushions 6 c , seat backs 6 d, and headrests 6 e. a steering wheel 17 is disposed frontward of the left seat 6 . the second seat 7 is disposed approximately at the same height as the first seat 6 , and includes a bench seat cushion 7 a and a seat back 7 b allowing two persons to be seated. a headrest 7 c is disposed above the seat back 7 b. the atv 1 further includes a partition wall 23 and a hood 25 . the partition wall 23 partitions the passenger compartment a from a front compartment b. the hood 25 is disposed frontward of the partition wall 23 and opens or closes an upper end portion of the front compartment b. as shown in fig. 4 , partition wall 23 includes an upper portion 23 a, a frontwardly declined portion 23 b, and a lower portion 23 c. the upper portion 23 a is disposed in a front end portion of pillar frame 2 b , and instruments (not shown), such as a speed meter, are disposed on it. the frontwardly declined portion 23 b extends obliquely downward and forward from the upper portion 23 a. the lower portion 23 c extends obliquely downward and rearward from the frontwardly declined portion 23 b. an accelerator pedal (not shown) and a brake pedal are disposed in the lower portion 23 c, and a front edge portion of the first floor 8 is connected to the lower portion 23 c. a tunnel portion 24 extending rearward in continuation with the partition wall 23 is formed in a central portion of the partition wall 23 in the vehicle width direction. the tunnel portion 24 is formed convexly into an upwardly protruding shape, in which an upper end of the tunnel portion 24 is located at substantially the same height as the seat surface of the first seat 6 . the front compartment b is a space located ahead of the partition wall 23 and below the hood 25 , and communicates with a space in the tunnel portion 24 . the engine unit 3 is disposed in the tunnel portion 24 located rearward of the partition wall 23 . the engine unit 3 includes a water-cooled four-cycle engine 20 mounted in a central portion of the left and right center members 12 , 12 in the front-back direction, a v-belt type continuously variable transmission 21 that changes and the rotation of the engine 20 and outputs it, and a cooling unit 28 that cools the continuously variable transmission 21 . the engine 20 has a structure formed by overlay-coupling a cylinder body 20 g and a cylinder head 20 c on a crankcase 20 f. more specifically, the engine 20 is mounted in a manner that a crankshaft 20 a is oriented substantially horizontally along the vehicle width direction, and a cylinder axis line 20 b is oriented rearward and obliquely upward direction. the engine 20 is disposed so as to be located between the left and right seats 6 a and 6 b of the first seat 6 . as viewed from a vehicle lateral side, the engine 20 is disposed such that a portion of the engine 20 overlaps with the first seat 6 . more specifically, the engine 20 is disposed such that the cylinder head 20 c of the engine 20 overlaps with the seat cushions 6 c. an intake pipe 30 extending forward the vehicle front direction from the front sidewall of the cylinder head 20 c is connected to the front sidewall, and an exhaust pipe 31 extending toward the vehicle rearward direction from a rear sidewall of the cylinder head 20 c is connected to the rear sidewall. in a top view, the intake pipe 30 and the exhaust pipe 31 are disposed substantially linearly on a substantially vehicle center line along the front-back direction. the exhaust pipe 31 includes a first vertical tube portion 31 b, a transverse tube portion 31 c, a second longitudinal tube portion 31 d, and an extending portion 31 e. the first vertical tube portion 31 b extends substantially vertically and downward from a connection portion 31 a connected to the cylinder head 20 c. the transverse tube portion 31 c extends rearward below the second floor 9 from a lower end of the first vertical tube portion 31 b. the second longitudinal tube portion 31 d extends in such a manner as to elevate upward from a rear end of the transverse tube portion 31 c. the extending portion 31 e extends rearwardly from an upper end of the second longitudinal tube portion 31 d through a space between the second seat 7 and a rear wheel drive shaft 5 a of the rear wheels 5 . the exhaust pipe 31 includes a muffler 36 that is disposed in connection to a rear end of the extending portion 31 e and is disposed so as to be located rearward of the second seat 7 . the muffler 36 has a substantially ellipsoidal shape having a front-back direction dimension greater than a vertical direction dimension, and the axis line thereof is arranged in the vehicle width direction. the intake pipe 30 is connected to the cylinder head 20 c by way of a throttle body 32 equipped with a fuel injection valve 33 . a surge tank 34 is interposed midway of the intake pipe 30 . the surge tank 34 is disposed frontward of the engine 20 in the tunnel portion 24 . an air cleaner 35 is connected to the surge tank 34 by way of an intake air introduction pipe 30 a . the surge tank 34 has a volumetric capacity greater than a volumetric capacity of the air cleaner 35 . the air cleaner 35 is disposed in a central portion in the vehicle width direction. as viewed from the side, the air cleaner 35 is disposed between the partition wall 23 in the front compartment b and the hood 25 . an intake port 35 a is connected and formed to a rear wall of the air cleaner 35 . the intake port 35 a is located higher than upper ends 4 b of the respective front wheels 4 , and is opened towards the rear side in the front compartment b. the continuously variable transmission 21 includes a transmission case 21 a, a drive pulley 21 b, a driven pulley 21 d, and a v belt 21 e. the transmission case 21 a is integrally coupled to a left side in the vehicle width direction of the engine 20 and extends frontward from the engine 20 . the drive pulley 21 b is housed in the transmission case 21 a and is mounted to the crankshaft 20 a of the engine 20 . the driven pulley 21 d is mounted to an output shaft 21 c parallel to the crankshaft 20 a. the v belt 21 e is wound around the drive pulley 21 b and the driven pulley 21 d. front and rear power transmission shafts 22 a and 22 b disposed towards the front-back direction are connected to the output shaft 21 c. the front and rear power transmission shafts 22 a and 22 b are, respectively, connected to front and rear wheel drive shafts 4 a and 5 a via front and rear differential unit 22 c and 22 d. the cooling unit 28 includes a cooling air introduction duct 40 that introduces cooling air into the continuously variable transmission 21 , and a cooling air discharge duct 41 that discharges air after cooling. the cooling air introduction duct 40 is routed towards the vehicle's forward side from the transmission case 21 a. an air inlet 40 a of the cooling air introduction duct 40 is located higher than the upper ends 4 b of the front wheels 4 (same herein below), and is opened in the vicinity of a right wall of the air cleaner 35 in the vehicle width direction in the front compartment b. the cooling air discharge duct 41 is routed towards the vehicle front side from the transmission case 21 a. an air outlet 41 a of the cooling air discharge duct 41 is located higher than the upper edges 4 b of the front wheels 4 , and is opened downward and rearward in the front compartment b. the left and right front wheels 4 are supported by the vehicle body frame 2 via front wheel suspension systems 37 so as to be vertically and pivotally moveable. the left and right front wheel suspension systems 37 respectively are connected to the front frame 2 c , and include upper and lower arm members 38 a and 38 b that supports the front wheels 4 to be vertically and pivotally, and rotatably moveable, and cushion units 39 that interconnects between the upper arm members 38 a and the front frame 2 c. the front frame 2 c includes a first front cross frame 45 , a second front cross frame 46 , a first front side frame 47 , and a second side frame 48 . the first front cross frame 45 is disposed frontward of passenger compartment a higher than the main frame 2 a , and extends along the vehicle width direction. the second front cross frame 46 is disposed forward of and lower than the first front cross frame 45 , and extends along the vehicle width direction. the first and second front side frames 47 and 48 , respectively, are disposed so as to extend in the front-back direction on the left and right side in the vehicle width direction, and interconnect the first and the second front cross frames 45 and 46 forming a protective environment for radiator 19 . the front frame 2 c further includes left and right front pillar members 50 and left and right rear pillar members 51 that, respectively, extend upward from left and right center members 12 of main body frame 2 a to interconnect with first and second front side frames 47 and 48 as shown in fig. 4 , the various frame members of front frame 2 c are of differing height to provide an inclined upper frame profile. in application, first and second frit side frames 47 and 48 incline from a lowest point at their respective interconnections with front pillar members 50 to their highest point at their interconnection with first frame cross frame 45 . along their respective lengths, second front cross frame is elevated in relation with front the front pillars and the rear pillars are elevated with respect to second front frame member. in application, the first front cross frame 45 is formed of an angular pipe, and the left and right end portions thereof are respectively connected to the left and right pillar members 15 . a steering support bracket 45 a for supporting the steering wheel 17 is connected to the left end portion of the first front cross frame 45 . the respective first and second front side frames 47 and 48 are formed of an angular pipe, and a rear end portion thereof is connected to the first front cross frame 45 and extends linearly along a frontward and downward direction from the first front cross frame 45 . in other words, the respective first and second front side frames 47 and 48 are disposed to extend rearward and upward so that a portion located more rearward in the vehicle front-back direction is located higher. the second front cross frame 46 has a u-shaped cross section that is downwardly opened, and is connected to front end portions of the respective first and second front side frames 47 and 48 . left and right end portions 46 a l, 46 a r of the second front cross frame 46 , respectively, protrude outward in the vehicle width direction from the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . as shown in fig. 5 , to provide further support to second front cross frame 46 , left and right front side members 52 and 53 extend along the front-back direction and are disposed on the outer sides of the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 in the vehicle width direction. first and second front side frames 47 and 48 are inclined and in the preferred embodiment are inclined up to an angle of sixty-eight degrees as measured against a vertical axis along its length. the left and right side members 52 and 53 , respectively, have rear end faces connected to the first front cross frame 45 and front end portions connected to the left and right end portions 46 a of the second front cross frame 46 . the left and right front side members 52 and 53 , respectively, are located at the same heights as the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 , and are disposed so that the vehicle widthwise distance becomes narrower towards the vehicle front side. as shown in fig. 5 , a vehicle widthwise distance p 1 between the left and right center members 12 is set smaller than a vehicle widthwise distance p 2 between the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . this arrangement enables increasing arm lengths of the respective upper and lower arm members 38 a and 38 b on the left and right sides. further, with reference to fig. 5 , as viewed from the vehicle front side, the front differential unit 22 c is disposed in such a manner as to bridge between the left and right center members 12 . it is formed in the manner that a vehicle-lateral dimension w 1 between the left and right center members 12 is smaller than a vehicle-lateral dimension w 2 inclusive of joint portions 22 e of the front differential unit 22 c to which the front wheel drive shaft 4 a is connected. the front frame 2 c further includes first and second brackets 46 b, 46 b respectively provided near connection portions of the second cross frame 46 with the first and the second side frames 47 and 48 . the first and second brackets 46 b, 46 b, respectively, are formed integrally with left and right end portions 46 a of the second cross frame 46 . upper end portions 39 a of the left and right cushion units 39 are, respectively, connected to the first and the second brackets 46 b. as shown in fig. 5 , the respective first and second front cross frames 45 and 46 in combination with first and second front side frames 47 and 48 define a radiator cage having an interior. radiator 19 is mounted in a manner wherein it is located inside of a rectangular space b′ surrounded by the first and second front cross frames 45 and 46 and the first and second front side frames 47 and 48 . as is shown by the drawings, a key aspect of the radiator cage is that the radiator does not extend forwardly past the most outer structural surface area of second cross frame 46 and hence is protected from a frontal impact. radiator 19 is configured as described in detail below. the radiator 19 is a vertical type radiator that includes a core 55 , an upper head tank 56 , and a lower head tank 57 . the core 55 has a rectangular shape in which the vertical dimension is greater than the vehicle widthwise dimension. the upper head tank 56 is connected to an upper end of the core 55 , and temporarily stores coolant that is used to cool the engine 20 . the lower head tank 57 is connected to a lower end of the core 55 , temporarily stores the coolant cooled when flowing through the core 55 , and returns the coolant into the engine 20 . by providing the upper head tank 56 and the lower head tank 57 , the coolant can be flown evenly into the overall area of the core 55 . a radiator cap 56 a for opening and closing a filler port for the coolant is fitted to the upper head tank 56 . as shown in fig. 4 , an electric fan 58 is disposed on a rear face of the core 55 . as shown in figs. 5 and 6 , radiator brackets 59 are mounted to left and right side portions of the upper tank 56 , respectively. the left and right radiator brackets 59 are, respectively, fixed with bolts to the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . thereby, the upper portion 19 a of the radiator 19 is supported by the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . as shown in figs. 4 and 7 , a radiator projection portion 57 a projecting downward is formed to the lower head tank 57 . a fixing bracket 62 extending rearward to fix the front differential unit 22 c is mounted to the front pillar members 50 , and an upward u-shaped fixing bracket 60 which faces upward is fixed together with the fixing bracket 62 . a supporting hole 60 a is formed in a bottom portion 60 b of the fixing bracket 60 , and a grommet 61 is mounted to the supporting hole 60 a. the protruding portion 57 a is inserted into the supporting hole 60 a with the grommet 61 interposed there between. thereby, a lower portion 19 b of the radiator 19 is resiliently supported by the front frame 2 c via a fixing bracket 60 so as not to be moveable along the front-back and lateral directions. the radiator 19 is disposed in a manner that the upper portion 19 a thereof is located rearward of and near the second front cross frame 46 and projects upward from the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . the hood 25 is located upward of and near the upper head tank 56 . further, the radiator 19 is disposed in a manner that the lower portion 19 b thereof is located downward of the second front cross frame 46 , and the upper portion 19 a is located rearward of the second front cross frame 46 . more specifically, the radiator 19 is disposed in a rearwardly inclined state where a portion thereof is located more rearward as it is located more upward. while the invention is intended to providing for the inclination of the radiator from even a small five degree incline, in the preferred embodiment, radiator 19 is able to be inclined preferably at an angle up to fifteen degrees as measured against a vertical axis. thereby, as viewed from the vehicle lateral side, the upper portion 19 a of the radiator 19 is rearwardly inclined so brackets 59 may join them with first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . according to the present embodiment, the upper portion 19 a of the radiator 19 is disposed inside the rectangular space b′. the rectangular space b′ is surrounded by the second and first front cross frames 46 and 45 , which extend in the vehicle width direction and are disposed in the front and rear portions spaced apart from each other ahead of the passenger compartment a, and the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 , which extend along the vehicle front-back direction and interconnect the first and the second front cross frames 45 and 46 . hence, the first and the second front cross frames 45 and 46 and the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 function as protection members. this enhances the protection performance of the radiator 19 against external forces exerted from both the vehicle lateral sides and vehicle front side. as described above, the first and the second brackets 46 b, 46 b respectively, for supporting the upper end portions 39 a of the cushion units 39 are provided near the connection portions of the second cross frame 46 with the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . hence, input power transmitted from the front wheels 4 l and 4 r via the left and right cushion units 39 can be supported by the entirety of the front frame 2 c having a high stiffness, consequently enabling enhancing the support stiffness of the cushion units 39 . this is accomplished as the upper end portions 39 a are provided near the connection portions then first and second side frames 47 and 48 can assist in the support. if end portions 39 a were not provided near the connection portions, then side frames 47 and 48 could not provide much support. further, since the first and the second brackets 46 b, respectively, are formed integral with the second front cross frame 46 , the number of parts is not increased, therefore enabling inhibiting costs from increasing. in the present invention, the configuration may be such that the first and the second brackets 46 b are formed independently of the second front cross frame 46 , and are disposed near the connection portions of the second front cross frame 46 . in the present embodiment, the radiator 19 is disposed in a manner that the lower portion 19 b thereof is located downwardly of the second front cross frame 46 , and the upper portion 19 a thereof is located rearward of the second front cross frame 46 . as viewed from the vehicle lateral side, the radiator 19 is disposed in the rearwardly inclined state in which the upper portion 19 a thereof is located more rearward as it is located more upward; that is, the lower portion 19 b thereof is more frontward as it is located more downward. consequently, the vertical dimension of the radiator 19 can be increased, and hence the cooling performance can be improved corresponding thereto. more specifically, since the hood 25 is located near the upper portion of the radiator 19 , in the case where, for example, the radiator 19 is disposed upright, the vertical dimension thereof has to be reduced to prevent interference with the hood 25 . in the present embodiment, the radiator 19 is rearwardly inclined, so that the size of the radiator 19 can be increased. in the present embodiment, the radiator 19 is disposed to diagonally intersect with the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 . from this respect as well, the size of the radiator 19 can be increased, thereby enabling the cooling performance to be enhanced. in the present embodiment, the radiator 19 is the vertical type radiator in which the upper and lower head tank 56 and 57 are, respectively, connected to the upper and lower ends of the core 55 . further, the lower head tank 57 is resiliently supported by means of the fixing bracket 60 of the front frame 2 c. consequently, the size of the radiator 19 can be increased while preventing interference with the hood 25 , and hence the cooling performance can be improved. in other words, it is more advantageous in terms of the cost to increase the radiation area size by increasing the core length rather than increasing the number of cores. in the present embodiment, since the radiator 19 is of the vertical type, the radiation area size can be increased by increasing the core length. in the present embodiment, the first and the second front side frames 47 and 48 are each inclined upwardly in an upward direction towards the vehicle rear so that it is positioned higher as it comes nearer to the vehicle rearward direction. consequently, the inclination angle of the radiator 19 can be increased while preventing the interference with the hood 25 , and the size of the radiator 19 can be increased corresponding thereto.
153-914-607-537-381	US	[ "US" ]	H04L12/58,G06F17/16,G06N20/00,G06F15/16,H04L51/18,H04L51/42	2019-10-24T00:00:00	2019	[ "H04", "G06" ]	technologies for predicting personalized message send times	disclosed embodiments are related to send time optimization technologies for sending messages to users. the send time optimization technologies provide personalized recommendations for sending messages to individual subscribers taking into account the delay and/or lag between the send time and the time when a subscriber engages with a sent message. a machine learning (ml) approach is used to predict the optimal send time to send messages to individual subscribers for improving message engagement. the personalized recommendations are based on unique characteristics of each user's engagement preferences and patterns, and deals with historical feedback that is generally incomplete and skewed towards a small set of send hours. the ml approach automatically discovers hidden factors underneath message and send time engagements. the ml model may be a two-layer non-linear matrix factorization model. other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.	1 . one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media (ntcrsm) comprising instructions for message send time predictions, wherein execution of the instructions are configurable to cause a computing system to: generate a two-layer non-negative matrix factorization machine learning (ml) model for message send time optimization, the ml model including at least two matrices, and the ml model to predict engagement rates for respective message send times for individual users of a service provider platform, each of the predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times being based on time intervals between previous message send times and previous message interaction times for corresponding ones of a plurality of previously sent messages; determine a future message send time for each of the respective users based on the generated ml model; and send individual messages to each of the respective users at the determined future message send time for each of the respective users. 2 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 1 , wherein, to generate the ml model, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: generate each matrix of the at least two matrices to have at least two dimensions that are directly related to one another. 3 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 1 , wherein the at least two matrices include a user-message matrix (umm) and a message-send time matrix (msm), and, to generate the ml model, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: generate the umm to include m×n elements, wherein m is a number of the respective users and n is a number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages, and each element in the umm includes a value indicating an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages by a corresponding one of the respective users; and generate the msm to include n×l elements, wherein n is the number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages and l is a number of the previous message send times, and each element in the msm includes an engagement rate for a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages at a corresponding one of the time intervals. 4 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 3 , wherein a value of “1” in an element of the umm indicates an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages, and a value of “0” in the umm indicates a non-engagement with the corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages. 5 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 3 , wherein l equals 24*7 or 168. 6 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 3 , wherein, to generate the ml model, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: determine, from the umm, k number of dimensional factors for all of the respective users and all of the plurality of previously sent messages; and determine, from the msm, p number of dimensional factors for all of the plurality of previously sent messages and all of the time intervals. 7 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 6 , wherein, to determine the k number of dimensional factors and the p number of dimensional factors, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: determine a configured size of the k number of dimensional factors; and determine a configured size of the p number of dimensional factors. 8 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 6 , wherein, to determine the k number of dimensional factors and the p number of dimensional factors, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: determine a size of the k number of dimensional factors and a size of the p number of dimensional factors based on a current or a previous computational resource consumption. 9 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 6 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: decompose the umm into a user factor matrix (ufm) including m×k elements and a message factor matrix (mf 1 ) including k×n elements; and decompose the msm into a message factor matrix (mf 2 ) including n×p elements and a sent time factor matrix (stf) including p×l elements. 10 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 9 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: perform matrix multiplication on the ufm, the mf 1 , the mf 2 , and the stf to obtain a prediction matrix including m×l elements, each of the m×l elements including respective predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times. 11 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 10 , wherein, to perform the matrix multiplication, execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: calculate a product of the mf 1 and the mf 2 to obtain an inner product matrix having k×p elements; and after calculating the inner product matrix, calculate a product of the ufm, the inner product matrix, and the stf to obtain the prediction matrix. 12 . the one or more ntcrsm of claim 10 , wherein execution of the instructions is to cause the computing system to: receive indications of various interactions with the individual messages by the respective users, the various interactions including opening times for corresponding ones of the individual messages; and update the ml model with additional time intervals, the additional time intervals being intervals between the determined future message send times and the opening times for the corresponding ones of the individual messages. 13 . an apparatus to be implemented in a cloud computing service, the apparatus comprising: a network interface; and a processor system communicatively coupled with the network interface, the processor system to: generate a two-layer non-negative matrix factorization machine learning (ml) model for message send time optimization, the ml model including at least two matrices, and the ml model to predict engagement rates for respective message send times for individual users of a service provider platform, each of the predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times being based on time intervals between previous message send times and previous message interaction times for corresponding ones of a plurality of previously sent messages; determine a future message send time for each of the respective users based on the generated ml model; and send individual scheduling requests to one or more outgoing message managers (omm), the individual scheduling requests to cause the one or more omms to schedule generating and transmission of individual messages to each of the respective users at the determined future message send time for each of the respective users. 14 . the apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the at least two matrices include a user-message matrix (umm) and a message-send time matrix (msm), and to generate the ml model using non-negative matrix factorization, the processor system is to: generate the umm to include m×n elements, wherein m is a number of the respective users and n is a number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages, and each element in the umm includes a value indicating an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages by a corresponding one of the respective users; and generate the msm to include n×l elements, wherein n is the number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages and l is a number of the previous message send times, and each element in the msm includes an engagement rate for a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages at a corresponding one of the time intervals. 15 . the apparatus of claim 14 , wherein, to generate the ml model using non-negative matrix factorization, the processor system is further to: determine, from the umm, k number of dimensional factors for all of the respective users and all of the plurality of previously sent messages, wherein the k number of dimensional factors is a configured number or the k number of dimensional factors is based on a current or a previous computing resource consumption; and determine, from the msm, p number of dimensional factors for all of the plurality of previously sent messages and all of the time intervals, wherein the p number of dimensional factors is a configured number or the p number of dimensional factors based on a current or a previous computing resource consumption, and wherein a value of k is same as a value of p, or the value of k is different than the value of p. 16 . the apparatus of claim 15 , wherein, to generate the ml model using non-negative matrix factorization, the processor system is further to: decompose the umm into a user factor matrix (ufm) including m×k elements and a message factor matrix (mf 1 ) including k×n elements; decompose the msm into a message factor matrix (mf 2 ) including n×p elements and a sent time factor matrix (stf) including p×l elements; and perform matrix multiplication on the ufm, the mf 1 , the mf 2 , and the stf to obtain a prediction matrix including m×l elements, each of the m×l elements including respective predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times, and, to perform the matrix multiplication, the processor system is to: calculate a product of the mf 1 and the mf 2 to obtain an inner product matrix having k×p elements; and after calculating the inner product matrix, calculate a product of the ufm, the inner product matrix, and the stf to obtain the prediction matrix. 17 . a method of predicting message send times for individual subscribers of a service provider platform, the method comprising: generating, by a cloud computing service, a two-layer non-negative matrix factorization send time optimization (sto) model, the sto model for predicting message send times for the individual subscribers to maximize engagement with respective messages, the sto model including at least two matrices, and each of the predicted message send times being based on time intervals between previous message send times and previous message interaction times for the individual subscribers; determining, by the cloud computing service, future message send times for the individual subscribers based on the generated sto model; scheduling, by the cloud computing service, individual messages to be sent to the individual subscribers at the determined future message send times; and generating and sending, by the cloud computing service, the individual messages such that the individual message arrive at a time that is same as the determined future message send times or within a time interval that includes the determined future message send times. 18 . the method of claim 17 , wherein the at least two matrices include a user-message matrix (umm) and a message-send time matrix (msm) generating the sto model comprises: generating, by the cloud computing service, the umm including m×n elements, wherein m is a number of the respective users and n is a number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages, and each element in the umm includes a value indicating an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages by a corresponding one of the respective users; and generating, by the cloud computing service, the msm including n×l elements, wherein n is the number of sent messages in the plurality of previously sent messages and l is a number of the previous message send times, and each element in the msm includes an engagement rate for a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages at a corresponding one of the time intervals. 19 . the method of claim 18 , wherein generating the sto model further comprises: determining, by the cloud computing service from the umm, k number of dimensional factors for all of the respective users and all of the plurality of previously sent messages, wherein the k number of dimensional factors is a configured number or the k number of dimensional factors is based on a current or a previous computing resource consumption; and determining, by the cloud computing service from the msm, p number of dimensional factors for all of the plurality of previously sent messages and all of the time intervals, wherein the p number of dimensional factors is a configured number or the p number of dimensional factors based on a current or a previous computing resource consumption, and wherein a value of k is same as a value of p, or the value of k is different than the value of p. 20 . the method of claim 19 , wherein generating the sto model further comprises: decomposing, by the cloud computing service, the umm into a user factor matrix (ufm) including m×k elements and a message factor matrix (mf 1 ) including k×n elements; decomposing, by the cloud computing service, the msm into a message factor matrix (mf 2 ) including n×p elements and a sent time factor matrix (stf) including p×l elements; and performing, by the cloud computing service, matrix multiplication on the ufm, the mf 1 , the mf 2 , and the stf to obtain a prediction matrix including m×l elements, each of the m×l elements including respective predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times, and performing the matrix multiplication comprises: calculating a product of the mf 1 and the mf 2 to obtain an inner product matrix having k×p elements; and calculating a product of the ufm, the inner product matrix, and the stf to obtain the prediction matrix.	copyright notice a portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. the copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the united states patent and trademark office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. technical field one or more implementations relate generally to database management systems and cloud computing systems, and in particular to systems and methods for predicting times for sending messages to individual subscribers to improve subscriber engagement with such messages. background some cloud computing systems provide messaging services, which allow their customers organizations (orgs) to send messages to their subscribers, and to track subscriber engagement with the sent messages. usually, customers orgs design their messages to achieve high impact on user engagement. in this context, engagement refers to a user opening a message and/or interacting with the content within the message. most customer orgs send their messages whenever they have content to send out, or based on a ‘gut feeling’ of when their customers are likely to engage with the content of their messages. because most customer orgs wish to send messages to a high volume of subscribers (e.g., sometimes in the millions), one issue with this approach to sending messages is that it can be computationally burdensome to transmit such a large number of messages at the same (or almost the same) time. additionally, sending such high volumes of messages at once can be costly in terms of network resource overhead. some customer orgs use send time optimization tools provided by the cloud computing service or provided by a third party developer. existing send optimization tools include global level recommendation tools and a/b testing tools (also known as “split-run testing” or “bucket testing”). the global level recommendation tools mainly focus on finding historical trends or predicting when users are actively engaged with their email client, which does not necessarily solve the problem of when to send emails to those users. such solutions make a strong assumption that the best time to send email is when users open them, which is not necessarily true for all users. additionally, these solutions usually involve pooling data across enterprises, which cause imbalanced model accuracy. a/b testing tools require manual effort to split the subscribers for randomized experiments, and such solutions generally take at least a few days to obtain meaningful results. existing send time optimization tools do not account for the delay/lag between the send time and the time when a subscriber engages with the message (e.g., an open time or the like), and lack personalized recommendations for individual subscribers. however, existing send time optimization tools are not based on individual subscribers or even based on specific demographic audiences. brief description of the drawings the included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve to provide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosed inventive systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storage media. these drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations. fig. 1a shows an example environment in which an on-demand database service can be used according to various embodiments. fig. 1b shows an example implementation of elements of fig. 1a and example interconnections between these elements according to various embodiments. fig. 2a shows example architecture of an on-demand database service environment according to various embodiments. fig. 2b shows example architectural components of the on-demand database service environment of fig. 2a according to various embodiments. figs. 3-4 illustrate an example send time prediction procedure according to various embodiments. fig. 5 show an example process for carrying out the various embodiments discussed herein. detailed description disclosed embodiments are related to send time optimization mechanisms that predict send times for sending messages to individual subscribers to improve subscriber engagement with such messages. in embodiments, a cloud computing system includes messaging services that allow customer platforms to send messages to their subscribers, and to track subscriber engagement with the sent messages. the messaging services also include send timing services, which allow the customer platforms to set a time and date to send messages to their subscribers. the send timing service may also be referred to as “delayed delivery” or the like. according to various embodiments, the cloud computing system also provides a send time optimization tool that allows customer platforms to predict a best or optimal send time to send messages to individual subscribers. the send time optimization tool may interact with the send timing service to set the optimal time/date for sending messages to individual subscribers. the send time optimization tool accounts for the delay and/or lag between the send time and the time when a subscriber engages with the message (e.g., a time when the subscriber opens the message and/or interacts with the message content), and provides personalized recommendations for sending messages for individual subscribers. in various embodiments, a machine learning (ml) approach is used to predict the best send time to send individual messages to individual subscribers for improving message engagement. this approach automatically discovers hidden factors underneath message and send time engagements/interactions, and leverages crowd opinion for subscribers that do not have sufficient data. the ml model makes personalized recommendations based on the unique characteristics of each user's engagement preferences and patterns, accounts for the time between the send time and open time, which typically varies from subscriber to subscriber, and deals with historical feedback that is generally incomplete and skewed towards a small set of send hours. in embodiments, the ml model is a two-layer non-linear matrix factorization model. other embodiments may be described and/or disclosed. as alluded to previously, sending a large amount of messages without send time optimization can be computationally intensive and can consume large amounts of computing and network resources, at least from the perspective of the cloud computing system. the send time optimization embodiments described by the present disclosure level or smooth out resource consumption by scheduling and sending messages at different times and dates, based on predicted optimal engagements of individual subscribers. the send time optimization embodiments are a technological improvement in that the embodiments allow cloud computing systems to reduce network and computing resource overhead associated with generating and sending messages to subscribers on behalf of customer organizations. the send time optimization embodiments also reduce network and computing resource overhead of customer organizations' platforms by reducing the amount of content generated and sent to subscribers that is not consumed by the subscribers. additionally, the solutions described herein conserves network resources at subscriber devices by reducing or eliminating the need for using network resources associated with receiving unwanted messages, and also conserves computing resources at subscriber devices by reducing or eliminating the need to implement spam filters and the like and/or reducing the amount of data to be processed when analyzing and/or deleting such messages. using conventional send time optimization tools may help reduce resource consumption/overhead in comparison to not using send time optimization tools at all. however, the conventional send time optimization tools do not predict optimal engagement times as well as the embodiments described herein, and therefore, the send time optimization embodiments further reduce resource consumption/overhead as compared to the conventional send time optimization tools. examples of systems, apparatus, computer-readable storage media, and methods according to the disclosed implementations are described in this section. these examples are being provided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of the disclosed implementations. it will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that the disclosed implementations may be practiced without some or all of the specific details provided. in other instances, certain process or method operations, also referred to herein as “blocks,” have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring of the disclosed implementations. other implementations and applications are also possible, and as such, the following examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting. in the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. although these disclosed implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the implementations, it is to be understood that these examples are not limiting, such that other implementations may be used and changes may be made to the disclosed implementations without departing from their spirit and scope. for example, the blocks of the methods shown and described herein are not necessarily performed in the order indicated in some other implementations. additionally, in some other implementations, the disclosed methods includes more or fewer blocks than are described. as another example, some blocks described herein as separate blocks may be combined in some other implementations. conversely, what may be described herein as a single block may be implemented in multiple blocks in some other implementations. additionally, the conjunction “or” is intended herein in the inclusive sense where appropriate unless otherwise indicated; that is, the phrase “a, b or c” is intended to include the possibilities of “a,” “b,” “c,” “a and b,” “b and c,” “a and c” and “a, b and c.” example embodiments of the present disclosure may be described in terms of a multitenant and/or cloud computing architecture or platform. cloud computing refers to a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable computing resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand and without active management by users. computing resources (or simply “resources”) are any physical or virtual component, or usage of such components, of limited availability within a computer system or network. examples of resources include usage/access to, for a period of time, servers, processor(s), storage equipment, memory devices, memory areas, networks, electrical power, input/output (peripheral) devices, mechanical devices, network connections (e.g., channels/links, ports, network sockets, etc.), operating systems, virtual machines (vms), software/applications, computer files, and/or the like. cloud computing provides cloud computing services (or cloud services), which are one or more capabilities offered via cloud computing that are invoked using a defined interface (e.g., an api or the like). multi-tenancy is a feature of cloud computing where physical or virtual resources are allocated in such a way that multiple tenants and their computations and data are isolated from and inaccessible to one another. as used herein, the term “tenant” refers to a group of users (e.g., cloud service users) who share common access with specific privileges to a software instance and/or a set of computing resources. tenants may be individuals, organizations, or enterprises that are customers or users of a cloud computing service or platform. however, a given cloud service customer organization could have many different tenancies with a single cloud service provider representing different groups within the organization. a multi-tenant platform or architecture, such as those discussed herein, may provide a tenant with a dedicated share of a software instance typically including one or more of tenant specific data, user management, tenant-specific functionality, configuration, customizations, non-functional properties, associated applications, etc. multi-tenancy contrasts with multi-instance architectures, where separate software instances operate on behalf of different tenants. in some implementations, the users described herein are users (or “members”) of an interactive online “enterprise social network,” also referred to herein as an “enterprise social networking system,” an “enterprise collaborative network,” or more simply as an “enterprise network.” such online enterprise networks are increasingly becoming a common way to facilitate communication among people, any of whom can be recognized as enterprise users. one example of an online enterprise social network is chatter®, provided by salesforce.com, inc. of san francisco, calif. salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of enterprise social networking services, customer relationship management (crm) services and other database management services, any of which can be accessed and used in conjunction with the techniques disclosed herein in some implementations. these various services can be provided in a cloud computing environment as described herein, for example, in the context of a multi-tenant database system. some of the described techniques or processes can be implemented without having to install software locally, that is, on computing devices of users interacting with services available through the cloud. while the disclosed implementations may be described with reference to chatter® and more generally to enterprise social networking, those of ordinary skill in the art should understand that the disclosed techniques are neither limited to chatter® nor to any other services and systems provided by salesforce.com, inc. and can be implemented in the context of various other database systems such as cloud-based systems that are not part of a multi-tenant database system or which do not provide enterprise social networking services. i. example system overview fig. 1a shows an example of an environment 10 in which on-demand services (e.g., cloud computing services and/or database services) can be used in accordance with various embodiments. the environment 10 includes user systems 12 , a network 14 , system 16 (also referred to herein as a “cloud-based system,” “database system,” “cloud computing service,” or the like), and customer platform (cp) 50 . the cloud system 16 includes a processor system 17 , an application platform 18 , a network interface 20 , tenant database (db) 22 for storing tenant data 23 (see e.g., fig. 1b ), system db 24 for storing system data 25 (see fig. 1b ), program code 26 for implementing various functions of the system 16 , and process space 28 for executing db system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of an application hosting service. in some other implementations, environment 10 may not have all of these components or systems, or may have other components or systems instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. the system 16 may be a db system and/or a cloud computing service comprising a network or other interconnection of computing systems (e.g., servers, storage devices, applications, etc., such as those discussed with regard to figs. 1a-1b infra) that provides access to a pool of physical and/or virtual resources. in some implementations, the system 16 is a multi-tenant db system and/or a multi-tenant cloud computing platform. in some implementations, the system 16 provides a communications as a service (caas), compute as a service (compaas), database as a service (daas), data storage as a service (dsaas), firewall as a service (faas), infrastructure as a service (iaas), network as a service (naas), platform as a service (paas), security as a service, software as a service (saas), and/or other like cloud services. in some implementations, the environment 10 is an environment in which an on-demand db service exists. an on-demand db service, such as that which can be implemented using the system 16 , is a service that is made available to users outside of the enterprise(s) that own, maintain or provide access to the system 16 . as described above, such users generally do not need to be concerned with building or maintaining the system 16 . instead, resources provided by the system 16 may be available for such users' use when the users need services provided by the system 16 ; that is, on the demand of the users. some on-demand db services can store information from one or more tenants into tables of a common db image to form a multi-tenant db system (mts). the term “multi-tenant db system” can refer to those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of a db system may be shared by one or more customers or tenants. for example, a given application server may simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and a given db table may store rows of data such as feed items for a potentially much greater number of customers. a db image can include one or more db objects. a relational db management system (rdbms) or the equivalent can execute storage and retrieval of information against the db object(s). application platform 18 can be a framework that allows the applications of system 16 to execute, such as the hardware or software infrastructure of the system 16 . in some implementations, the application platform 18 enables the creation, management and execution of one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demand db service, users accessing the on-demand db service via user systems 12 , or third party application developers accessing the on-demand db service via user systems 12 . in some implementations, the system 16 implements a web-based customer relationship management (crm) system. for example, in some such implementations, the system 16 includes application servers configured to implement and execute crm software applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, renderable web pages and documents and other information to and from user systems 12 and to store to, and retrieve from, a db system related data, objects, and web page content. in some mts implementations, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical db object in tenant db 22 . in some such implementations, tenant data is arranged in the storage medium(s) of tenant db 22 so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared. the system 16 also implements applications other than, or in addition to, a crm application. for example, the system 16 can provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a crm application. user (or third party developer) applications, which may or may not include crm, may be supported by the application platform 18 . the application platform 18 manages the creation and storage of the applications into one or more db objects and the execution of the applications in one or more virtual machines in the process space of the system 16 . in some embodiments, the process space of the system 16 may be divided into isolated user-space instances using suitable os-level virtualization technology such as containers (e.g., docker® containers, kubernetes® containers, solaris® containers, etc.), partitions, virtual environments (ves) (e.g., openvz® virtual private servers, etc.), and/or the like. the applications of the application platform 18 may be developed with any suitable programming languages and/or development tools, such as those discussed herein. the applications may be built using a platform-specific and/or proprietary development tool and/or programming languages, such as those discussed herein. in embodiments, the tenant data storage 22 , the system data storage 24 , and/or some other data store (not shown) include extract-load-transform (elt) data or extract-transform-load (etl) data, which may be raw data extracted from various sources and normalized (e.g., indexed, partitioned, augmented, canonicalized, etc.) for analysis and other transformations. in some embodiments, the raw data may be loaded into the tenant data storage 22 , the system data storage 24 , and/or some other data store (not shown) and stored as key-value pairs, which may allow the data to be stored in a mostly native form without requiring substantial normalization or formatting. according to some implementations, each system 16 is configured to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenants of system 16 . as such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. if more than one mts is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city a and one or more servers located in city b). as used herein, each mts could include one or more logically or physically connected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. additionally, the term “server” is meant to refer to a computing device or system, including processing hardware and process space(s), an associated storage medium such as a memory device or db, and, in some instances, a db application (e.g., oodbms or rdbms) as is well known in the art. it should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. similarly, the db objects (dbos) described herein can be implemented as part of a single db, a distributed db, a collection of distributed dbs, a db with redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and can include a distributed db or storage network and associated processing intelligence. the network 14 can be or include any network or combination of networks of systems or devices that communicate with one another. for example, the network 14 can be or include any one or any combination of a local area network (lan), a wireless lan (wlan), wide area network (wan), telephone network, wireless network, cellular network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration including proprietary and/or enterprise networks, or combinations thereof. the network 14 can include a transfer control protocol and internet protocol (tcp/ip) network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred to as the “internet” (with a capital “i”). the internet will be used in many of the examples herein. however, it should be understood that the networks that the disclosed implementations can use are not so limited, although tcp/ip is a frequently implemented protocol. the network 14 may comprise one or more network elements, each of which may include one or more processors, communications systems (e.g., including network interface controllers, one or more transmitters/receivers connected to one or more antennas, etc.), and computer readable media. examples of such network elements may include wireless aps (waps), a home/business server (with or without radio frequency (rf) communications circuitry), routers, switches, hubs, radio beacons, (macro or small-cell) base stations, servers (e.g., stand-alone, rack-mounted, blade, etc.), and/or any other like devices/systems. connection to the network 14 may be via a wired or a wireless connection using one or more of the various communication protocols discussed infra. as used herein, a wired or wireless communication protocol may refer to a set of standardized rules or instructions implemented by a communication device/system to communicate with other devices, including instructions for packetizing/depacketizing data, modulating/demodulating signals, implementation of protocols stacks, and the like. connection to the network 14 may require that the various devices and network elements execute software routines which enable, for example, the seven layers of the open systems interconnection (osi) model of computer networking or equivalent in a wireless network. the user systems 12 can communicate with system 16 using tcp/ip and, at a higher network level, other common internet protocols to communicate, such as hypertext transfer protocol (http), file transfer protocol (ftp), andrew file system (afs), wireless application protocol (wap), internet protocol (ip), internet protocol security (ipsec), session initiation protocol (sip) with real-time transport protocol (rtp or secure rtp (srtp), internet control message protocol (icmp), user datagram protocol (udp), quic (sometimes referred to as “quick udp internet connections”), stream control transmission protocol (sctp), web-based secure shell (ssh), extensible messaging and presence protocol (xmpp), websocket protocol, internet group management protocol (igmp), internet control message protocol (icmp), etc. in an example where http is used, each user system 12 can include an http client commonly referred to as a “web browser” or simply a “browser” for sending and receiving http signals to and from an http server (also referred to as a “web server”) of the system 16 . in this example, each user system 12 may send and receive http messages where a header of each message includes various operating parameters and the body of the such messages may include code or source code documents (e.g., html, xml, json, apex®, css, jsp, messagepack™, apache® thrift™, asn.1, google® protocol buffers (protobuf), dbos, or some other like object(s)/document(s)). such an http server can be implemented as the sole network interface 20 between the system 16 and the network 14 , but other techniques can be used in addition to or instead of these techniques. in some implementations, the network interface 20 between the system 16 and the network 14 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin http request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming http requests evenly over a number of servers. in mts implementations, each of the servers can have access to the mts data; however, other alternative configurations may be used instead. the user systems 12 can be implemented as any computing device(s) or other data processing apparatus or systems usable by users to access the system 16 . for example, any of user systems 12 can be a desktop computer, a work station, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a handheld computing device (e.g., personal data assistants (pdas), pagers, portable media player, etc.), a mobile cellular phone (e.g., a “smartphone”), or any other wifi-enabled device, wap-enabled device, or other computing device capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the internet or other network (e.g., network 14 ). the terms “user system”, “computing device”, “computer system”, or the like may be used interchangeably herein with one another and with the term “computer.” as shown by fig. 1a , the user system 12 includes a processor system 12 a, which can include any suitable combination of one or more processors, such as one or more central processing units (cpus) including single-core or multi-core processors (such as those discussed herein), graphics processing units (gpus), reduced instruction set computing (risc) processors, acorn risc machine (arm) processors, complex instruction set computing (cisc) processors, digital signal processors (dsp), programmable logic devices (plds), field-programmable gate arrays (fpgas), application specific integrated circuits (asics), system-on-chips (socs) and/or programmable socs, microprocessors or controllers, or any other electronic circuitry capable of executing program code and/or software modules to perform arithmetic, logical, and/or input/output operations, or any suitable combination thereof. as examples, the processor system 12 a may include intel® pentium® or core™ based processor(s); amd zen® core architecture processor(s), such as ryzen® processor(s) or accelerated processing units (apus), mxgpus, or the like; a, s, w, and t series processor(s) from apple® inc.; snapdragon™ processor(s) from qualcomm® technologies, inc., texas instruments, inc.® open multimedia applications platform (omap)™ processor(s); mips warrior m-class, warrior i-class, and warrior p-class processor(s) provided by mips technologies, inc.; arm cortex-a, cortex-r, and cortex-m family of processor(s) as licensed from arm holdings, ltd.; geforce®, tegra®, titan x®, tesla®, shield®, and/or other like gpus provided by nvidia®; and/or the like. the memory system 12 b can include any suitable combination of one or more memory devices, such as volatile storage devices (e.g., random access memory (ram), dynamic ram (dram), etc.) and non-volatile memory device (e.g., read only memory (rom), flash memory, etc.). the memory system 12 b may store program code for various applications (e.g., application 12 y and/or other applications discussed herein) for carrying out the procedures, processes, methods, etc. of the embodiments discussed herein, as well as an operating system (os) 12 x and one or more dbs or dbos (not shown). the application(s) 12 y is/are a software application designed to run on the user system 12 and is used to access data stored by the system 16 . the application 12 y may be platform-specific, such as when the user system 12 is implemented in a mobile device, such as a smartphone, tablet computer, and the like. the application 12 y may be a native application, a web application, or a hybrid application (or variants thereof). one such application 12 y may be the previously discussed http client, for example, a web browsing (or simply “browsing”) program, such as a web browser based on the webkit platform, microsoft's internet explorer browser, apple's safari, google's chrome, opera's browser, or mozilla's firefox browser, and/or the like, to execute and render web applications allowing a user (e.g., a subscriber of on-demand services provided by the system 16 ) of the user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages, interfaces (e.g., ui 30 in fig. 1b ), and application(s) 12 y available to it from the system 16 over the network 14 . in other implementations, each user system 12 may operate a web or user application 12 y designed to interact with applications of the application platform 18 allowing a user (e.g., a subscriber of on-demand services provided by the system 16 ) of the user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages, interfaces (e.g., ui 30 in fig. 1b ), and applications 12 y available to it from the system 16 over the network 14 . in some cases, an owner/operator of system 16 may have pre-built the web or user applications 12 y for use by clients, customers, and/or agents of a tenant organization (org) to access a tenant space or enterprise social network of that tenant org. in some cases, developers associated with a tenant org (e.g., cp 50 ) may build custom application(s) for interacting with the tenant data. the user (or third party) application(s) may be native application(s) (e.g., executed and rendered in a container) or hybrid application(s) (e.g., web applications being executed/rendered in a container or skeleton). the user (or third party) application(s) may be platform-specific, or developed to operate on a particular type of user system 12 or a particular (hardware and/or software) configuration of a user system 12 . the term “platform-specific” may refer to the platform implemented by the user system 12 , the platform implemented by the system 16 , and/or a platform of a third party system/platform. the web, user, or third party application(s) 12 y discussed herein may be a software, program code, logic modules, application packages, etc. that are built using one or more programming languages and/or development tools, such as those discussed herein. furthermore, such applications may utilize a suitable querying language to query and store information in an associated tenant space, such as, for example, the various query languages discussed herein or the like. the application 12 y may be developed using any suitable programming language and/or development tools such as any of those discussed herein. in some implementations, the application 12 y may be developed using platform-specific development tools and/or programming languages such as those discussed herein. in an example, the user systems 12 may implement web, user, or third party applications 12 y to request and obtain data from system 16 , and render graphical user interfaces (guis) in an application container or browser. these guis may correspond with gui 12 v and/or ui 30 shown and described with respect to fig. 1b . in some implementations, the guis may include a data analytics gui, such as salesforce® wave™ dashboard, which may provide visual representations of data (also referred to as visual representations 12 v or the like) residing in an enterprise cloud or in an on-demand services environment (e.g., a tenant space within system 16 ). the guis may include one or more components (e.g., graphical control elements (gces), tabs, reports, dashboards, widgets, pages, etc.). examples of such components may include audio/video calling components, messaging components (e.g., chat, instant messaging, short message service (sms)/multimedia messaging service (mms) messaging, emailing, etc.), and visualization components. the visualization components may enable a user of a user system 12 to select visualization parameters (also referred to as “lens parameters” or “filters”) for displaying data from one or more datasets. a dataset may be a specific view or transformation of data from one or more data sources (e.g., a tenant space of db 22 , etc.). the visualization parameters may include, for example, a selection of data or data type to display from one or more datasets; a particular graph, chart, or map in which to view the selected data; color schemes for the graphs/charts/maps; a position or orientation of the graphs/charts/maps within a particular gui, etc. the graphs/charts/maps to be displayed may be referred to as a “lens” or a “dashboard”. a lens may be a particular view of data from one or more datasets, and a dashboard may be a collection of lenses. in some implementations, a gui may display lenses, dashboards, and/or control panels to alter or rearrange the lenses/dashboards. furthermore, the various application(s) discussed herein may also enable the user system 12 to provide authentication credentials (e.g., user identifier (user_id), password, personal identification number (pin), digital certificates, etc.) to the system 16 so that the system 16 may authenticate the identity of a user of the user system 12 . each user system 12 typically includes an operating system (os) 12 x to manage computer hardware and software resources, and provide common services for various applications 12 y. the os 12 x includes one or more drivers and/or apis that provide an interface to hardware devices thereby enabling the os 12 x and applications to access hardware functions. the os 12 x includes middleware that connects two or more separate applications or connects applications 12 y with underlying hardware components beyond those available from the drivers/apis of the os 12 x. the os 12 x may be a general purpose os or a platform-specific os specifically written for and tailored to the user system 12 . the input system 12 c can include any suitable combination of input devices, such as touchscreen interfaces, touchpad interfaces, keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, a pen or stylus or the like, or interfaces to networks. the input devices of input system 12 c may be used for interacting with a gui provided by the browser/application container on a display of output system 12 d (e.g., a monitor screen, liquid crystal display (lcd), light-emitting diode (led) display, among other possibilities) of the user system 12 in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by the system 16 or other systems or servers. for example, the user interface device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system 16 , and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various gui pages that may be presented to a user. the output system 12 d can include any suitable combination of output devices, such as one or more display devices, printers, or interfaces to networks. the output system 12 d is used to display visual representations and/or guis 12 v based on various user interactions. as discussed above, implementations are suitable for use with the internet, although other networks can be used instead of or in addition to the internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (vpn), a non-tcp/ip based network, any lan or wan or the like. the communications system 12 e may include circuitry for communicating with a wireless network or wired network. communications system 12 e may be used to establish a link 15 (also referred to as “channel 15 ,” ‘networking layer tunnel 15 ,’ and the like) through which the user system 12 may communicate with the system 16 . communications system 12 e may include one or more processors (e.g., baseband processors, network interface controllers, etc.) that are dedicated to a particular wireless communication protocol (e.g., wifi and/or ieee 802.11 protocols), a cellular communication protocol (e.g., long term evolution (lte) and the like), a wireless personal area network (wpan) protocol (e.g., ieee 802.15.4-802.15.5 protocols, bluetooth or bluetooth low energy (ble), etc.), and/or a wired communication protocol (e.g., ethernet, fiber distributed data interface (fddi), point-to-point (ppp), etc.). the communications system 12 e may also include hardware devices that enable communication with wireless/wired networks and/or other user systems 12 using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a solid or non-solid medium. such hardware devices may include switches; filters; amplifiers; antenna elements; wires, ports/receptacles/jacks/sockets, and plugs; and the like to facilitate the communications over the air or through a wire by generating or otherwise producing radio waves to transmit data to one or more other devices, and converting received signals into usable information, such as digital data, which may be provided to one or more other components of user system 12 . to communicate (e.g., transmit/receive) with the system 16 , the user system 12 using the communications system 12 e may establish link 15 with network interface 20 of the system 16 . the users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 12 can be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user of such user system. for example, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 12 to interact with the system 16 , that user system can have the capacities allotted to the salesperson. however, while an administrator is using that user system 12 to interact with the system 16 , that user system can have the capacities allotted to that administrator. where a hierarchical role model is used, users at one permission level can have access to applications, data, and db information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have access to certain applications, db information, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level. thus, different users generally will have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application and db information, depending on the users' respective security or permission levels (also referred to as “authorizations”). according to some implementations, each user system 12 and some or all of its components are operator-configurable using applications, such as a browser, including computer code executed using one or more central processing units (cpus) and/or other like computer processing devices (e.g., processor system 12 b). similarly, the system 16 (and additional instances of an mts, where more than one is present) and all of its components can be operator-configurable using application(s) including computer code to run using the processor system 17 , which may include one or more cpus/processors. examples of the processors/cpus of processor system 17 may include one or multiple intel pentium® or xeon® processors, advanced micro devices (amd) zen® core architecture processor(s), such as ryzen® or epyc® processor(s), accelerated processing units (apus), mxgpus, or the like; arm-based processor(s) licensed from arm holdings, ltd. such as the arm cortex-a family of processors and the thunderx2® provided by cavium™, inc.; centrig™ processor(s) from qualcomm® technologies, inc.; power architecture processor(s) provided by the openpower® foundation and/or ibm®; geforce®, tegra®, titan x®, tesla®, shield®, and/or other like gpus provided by nvidia®; a mips-based design from mips technologies, inc. such as mips warrior p-class processors; and/or the like, or the like. the system 16 includes tangible computer-readable media having non-transitory instructions stored thereon/in that are executable by or used to program a server (e.g., the app servers 100 or other servers discussed herein) or other computing system (or collection of such servers or computing systems) to perform some of the implementation of processes described herein. for example, computer program code 26 can implement instructions for operating and configuring the system 16 to intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data and media content as described herein. in some implementations, the computer code 26 can be downloadable and stored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, also can be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device as is well known, such as a rom or ram, or provided on any media capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disks (dvd), compact disks (cd), microdrives, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ics), or any other type of computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructions or data. additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, for example, over the internet, or from another server, as is well known, or transmitted over any other existing network connection as is well known (e.g., extranet, vpn, lan, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols (e.g., tcp/ip, http, https, ethernet, etc.) as are well known. it will also be appreciated that computer code for the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programming language that can be executed on a server or other computing system such as, for example, c, c++, html, any other markup language, java™, javascript, activex, any other scripting language, such as vbscript, and many other programming languages as are well known may be used. (java™ is a trademark of sun microsystems, inc.). the cp 50 includes one or more physical and/or virtualized systems for providing content and/or functionality (i.e., services) to one or more clients (e.g., user system 12 ) over a network (e.g., network 14 ). the physical and/or virtualized systems include one or more logically or physically connected servers and/or data storage devices distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. generally, the cp 50 is configured to use ip/network resources to provide web pages, forms, applications, data, services, and/or media content to different user system 12 . as examples, the cp 50 may provide search engine services; social networking and/or microblogging services; content (media) streaming services; e-commerce services; communication services such as voice-over-internet protocol (voip) sessions, text messaging, group communication sessions, and the like; immersive gaming experiences; and/or other like services. the user systems 12 that utilize services provided by cp 50 may be referred to as “subscribers” of cp 50 or the like. although fig. 1a shows only a single cp 50 , the cp 50 may represent multiple individual cps 50 , each of which may have their own subscribing user systems 12 . cp 50 (also referred to as a “service provider platform”, “tenant”, “tenant organization”, or the like) may be a customer or tenant of the system 16 that develops applications that interact and/or integrate with the system 16 and utilize data from an associated tenant space in tenant db 22 ; these applications may be referred to as “customer apps,” “cp apps,” or the like. the term “customer platform” or “cp” as used herein may refer to both the platform and/or applications themselves, as well as the owners, operators, and/or developers associated with the customer platform. the cp apps may obtain data from the associated tenant space to render/display visual representations of relevant tenant data. in some cases, the cp apps utilize tenant data for interacting with user systems 12 by, for example, sending messages to various user systems 12 (e.g., subscribers of the cp 50 ) via the system 16 . to do so, the cp apps include program code or script(s) that call an api/ws 32 (see e.g., fig. 1b ) to create and execute the sending of these messages based on predefined events/conditions and/or triggering events. as discussed in more detail infra, the cp apps include program code/scripts that call apis/ws 32 (see e.g., fig. 1b ) to schedule and send messages to individual subscribers. fig. 1b shows example implementations of elements of fig. 1a and example interconnections between these elements according to some implementations. that is, fig. 1b also illustrates environment 10 , but fig. 1b shows various elements of the system 16 and various interconnections between such elements are shown with more specificity according to some more specific implementations. additionally, in fig. 1b , the user system 12 includes a processor system 12 a, a memory system 12 b, an input system 12 c, an output system 12 d, and a communications system 12 e. in other implementations, the environment 10 may not have the same elements as those shown by fig. 1b or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed. in fig. 1b , the network interface 20 and/or processor system 17 is/are implemented as a set of application servers 100 1 - 100 x (where x is a number) each application server 100 (also referred to herein as an “app server”, an “api server”, an “http application server,” a “worker node”, and/or the like) is configured to communicate with tenant db 22 and the tenant data 23 therein, as well as system db 24 and the system data 25 therein, to serve requests received from the user systems 12 . the tenant data 23 can be divided into individual tenant storage spaces 112 , which can be physically or logically arranged or divided. within each tenant storage space 112 , user storage 114 and application metadata 116 can similarly be allocated for each user. for example, a copy of a user's most recently used (mru) items can be stored to user storage 114 . similarly, a copy of mru items for an entire organization that is a tenant can be stored to tenant storage space 112 . the process space 28 includes system process space 102 , individual tenant process spaces 104 and a tenant management process space (tmps) 110 . in various embodiments, the process space 28 includes one or more query processors 103 , one or more message send (ms) processors 105 , and one or more send time optimization (sto) processors 106 . the ms processor(s) 105 stream or otherwise provide message send requests (msrs) to the omms 350 . the msrs are sent to the app server 100 by the cp 50 via the api/ws 32 in response to a detected interaction with the cp 50 by a user system 12 and/or a detected interaction with a previously sent message by a user system 12 . in some implementations, the msrs may be sent in batches, or the api/ws 32 may include separate calls for single and batch subscriber msr submissions. aspects of the msrs are discussed in more detail infra. the ms processor(s) 105 may also stream or otherwise provide message send tracking data to other entities/elements in system 16 , such as database objects in the tenant space 112 or the like. aspects of message send tracking data is discussed in more detail infra. according to various embodiments, the sto processor(s) 106 are systems and/or applications that predict send times for individual recipients (e.g., user systems 12 ) based on previous engagements/interactions with previously sent messages and/or interactions with the cp 50 . these and other aspects are discussed in more detail infra. these and other aspects are discussed in more detail infra with respect to figs. 3-5 . in some implementations, the sto processor(s) 106 may be included in, or otherwise operated by, some other system or entity discussed herein, such as one or more of the omms 350 , a system shown and described with respect to figs. 2a-2b , or a separate, stand alone, sto system (not shown). the ms processor(s) 105 and sto processor(s) 106 may be implemented as software components (e.g., software engines, software agents, artificial intelligence (ai) agents, modules, objects, or other like logical units), as individual hardware elements, or a combination thereof. in an example software-based implementation, the ms processor(s) 105 and sto processor(s) 106 may be developed using a suitable programming language, development tools/environments, etc., which are executed by one or more processors of one or more computing systems (see e.g., processor system 17 of fig. 1a ). in this example, program code of the ms processor(s) 105 and sto processor(s) 106 may be executed by a single processor or by multiple processing devices. in an example hardware-based implementation, the ms processor(s) 105 and sto processor(s) 106 are implemented by respective hardware elements, such as gpus (or floating point units within one or more gpus), hardware accelerators (e.g., fpgas, asics, dsps, socs, etc.) that are configured with appropriate logic blocks, bit stream(s), etc. to perform their respective functions, ai accelerating co-processor(s), tensor processing units (tpus), and/or the like. in some embodiments, the ms processor(s) 105 and sto processor(s) 106 may be implemented using stream processor(s), which are systems and/or applications that send or receive data streams and execute the applications or analytics logic in response to detecting events or triggers from the data streams. the stream processor(s) process data directly as it is produced or received and detect conditions from the data streams within a relatively small time period (e.g., measured in terms of milliseconds to minutes). the stream processor(s) may be implemented using any stream/event processing engines or stream analytics engines such as, for example, apache® kafka®, apache® storm®, apache® flink®, apache® apex®, apache® spark®, ibm® spade, nvidia® cuda™, intel® ct™, ampa™ provided by software ag®, streamc™ from stream processors, inc., and/or the like. the application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism (asm) 38 that supports application developers' (“app developers”) creation and management of applications. such applications and others can be saved as metadata into tenant db 22 by save routines (srs) 36 for execution by subscribers as one or more tenant process spaces 104 managed by tenant management process 110 , for example. invocations to such applications can be coded using procedural language (pl)/salesforce® object query language (soql) 34 , which provides a programming language style interface extension to application programming interface (api) 32 . a detailed description of some pl/soql language implementations is discussed in commonly assigned u.s. pat. no. 7,730,478, titled method and system for allowing access to developed applications via a multi-tenant on-demand database service, by craig weissman, issued on jun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. invocations to applications can be detected by one or more system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 116 for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine. in some implementations, the application platform 18 also includes policies 35 . the policies 35 comprise documents and/or data structures that define a set of rules that govern the behavior of the various subsystems of the app server 100 . for example, one or more of the policies 35 may dictate how to handle network traffic for specific network addresses (or address ranges), protocols, services, applications, content types, etc., based on an organization's information security (infosec) policies, regulatory and/or auditing policies, access control lists (acls), and the like. additionally, the policies 35 can specify (within various levels of granularity) particular users, and user groups, that are authorized to access particular resources or types of resources, based on the org's hierarchical structure, and security and regulatory requirements. the documents or data structures of the policies 35 may include a “description,” which is a collection of software modules, program code, logic blocks, parameters, rules, conditions, etc., that may be used by the app server 100 to control the operation of the app server 100 and/or access to various services. any suitable programming languages, markup languages, schema languages, etc., may be used to define individual policies 35 and instantiate instances of those policies 35 . as examples, the policies 35 may be defined using xml, json, markdown, ifttt (“if this then that”), pads markup language (pads/ml), nettle, capirca™, and/or some other suitable data format, such as those discussed herein. the application platform 18 may be, or may include, a development environment, programming language(s), and/or tools (collectively referred to as a “development environment”, “dev-environment” and the like) that allows app developers to create/edit applications for implementing the various embodiments discussed herein. as examples, the dev-environment may be or include a software development environment (sde), an integrated development environment (ide), a software development kit (sdk), a software development platform (sdp), a schema builder, a modeling language application, a source code editor, build automation tools, debugger, compiler, interpreter, and/or some other like platform, framework, tools, etc. that may assist an app developer in building applications, configurations, definitions, and/or the like. in some implementations, the dev-environment may be a standalone application, or may be a web-based or cloud-based environment (e.g., a native application, a web application, or a hybrid application including guis that render an sde/ide/sdk/sdp implemented by a backend service (e.g., system 16 ) in a web browser or application container). the system 16 of fig. 1b also includes a user interface (ui) 30 and an api 32 (also referred to as a “web service”) to system 16 resident processes, which allow users or developers at user systems 12 to access the resident processes. in some implementations, application (app) code, app/service templates, and/or policies 35 developed by customer platforms may be pushed or otherwise sent to the system 16 using api 32 . in these implementations, the app code, app/service templates, and/or policies 35 may be developed using a development (dev) environment, programming language(s), and/or dev-tools provided by the system 16 . the api 32 may be implemented as a remote api or a web api, such as a representational state transfer (rest or restful) api, simple object access protocol (soap) api, salesforce.com apex api, and/or some other like api. the api 32 may be implemented as a web service including, for example, apache® axi2.4 or axi3, apache® cxf, json-remote procedure call (rpc), json-web service protocol (wsp), web services description language (wsdl), xml interface for network services (xins), web services conversation language (wscl), web services flow language (wsfl), restful web services, and/or the like. in some implementations, the api 32 may include one or more public apis and one or more private apis. the public apis are apis that includes one or more publically exposed endpoints that allows user systems 12 to access tenant data. these endpoints specify where resources are located and/or how particular web services can be accessed. the application 12 y may be used to generate and transmit a message (e.g., an http message) with a user-issued query and a suitable uri/url to access of an endpoint of the system 16 . in embodiments, one or more of the public apis may be an asynchronous (“async”) query api, where the user-issued query includes an api call or other like instruction indicating that a user-issued query should be treated as an aysnc query (referred to as an “async query verb”). the async query verbs to invoke the async query api may be defined by api 32 and can be coded using pl/soql 34 or some other suitable programming or query language. when an async query invokes the async query api, an async query engine (e.g., a query engine 103 ) or async query scheduler may generate a corresponding async query job. the term “job” as used herein refers to a unit of work or execution that performs work that comprises one or more tasks. individual jobs may have a corresponding job entity comprising a record or db object that stores various values, statistics, metadata, etc. during the lifecycle of the job or until the job is executed, which are placed in a schedule or queue and executed from the queue, in turn. an async query job entity corresponding to an async query job is a job entity existing for the during the lifecycle of an async query, which is placed in a schedule or queue and executed by the async query engine, in turn. the async public api may be implemented as a rest or restful api, soap api, apex api, and/or some other like api, such as those discussed herein. private apis are apis 32 that are private or internal to the system 16 , which allows system applications (e.g., tenant management process 110 , system process 102 , query engine(s) 103 , ms processor(s) 105 , and sto processor(s) 106 to access other system applications. the private apis 32 may be similar to the public apis 32 except that the endpoints of the private apis 32 are not publically available or accessible. the private apis 32 may be made less discoverable by restricting users, devices, and/or applications from calling or otherwise using the private apis 32 . for example, use of the private apis 32 may be restricted to machines inside a private network (or an enterprise network), a range of acceptable ip addresses, applications with ids included in a whitelist or subscriber list, requests/calls that include a particular digital certificate or other like credentials, and/or the like. the private apis may be implemented as a rest or restful api, soap api, apex api, a proprietary api, and/or some other like api. each application server 100 is communicably coupled with tenant db 22 and system db 24 , for example, having access to tenant data 23 and system data 25 , respectively, via a different network connection 15 . for example, one application server 100 1 can be coupled via the network 14 (e.g., the internet), another application server 100 n can be coupled via a direct network link 15 , and another application server 100 n can be coupled by yet a different network connection 15 . transfer control protocol and internet protocol (tcp/ip) are examples of typical protocols that can be used for communicating between application servers 100 and the system 16 . however, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols can be used to optimize the system 16 depending on the network interconnections used. the application servers 100 may access the tenant data 23 and/or the system data 25 using suitable private apis as discussed previously. in some implementations, each application server 100 is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant of the system 16 . in this regard, each application server 100 may be configured to perform various db functions (e.g., indexing, querying, etc.) as well as formatting obtained data (e.g., elt data, etl data, etc.) for various user interfaces to be rendered by the user systems 12 . because it can be desirable to be able to add and remove application servers 100 from the server pool at any time and for various reasons, in some implementations there is no server affinity for a user or organization to a specific application server 100 . in some such implementations, an interface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an f5 big-ip load balancer) is communicably coupled between the application servers 100 and the user systems 12 to distribute requests to the application servers 100 . in one implementation, the load balancer uses a least—connections algorithm to route user requests to the app servers 100 (see e.g., load balancer 228 of figs. 2a-2b discussed infra). other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed-response-time, also can be used. for example, in some instances, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different application servers 100 , and three requests from different users could hit the same application server 100 . in this manner, by way of example, system 16 can be a multi-tenant system in which system 16 handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations. in one example storage use case, one tenant can be an organization (org) that employs a sales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage aspects of their sales. a user can maintain contact data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant db 22 ). in an example of a mts arrangement, because all of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system 12 having little more than network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. for example, when a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates regarding that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby. while each user's data can be stored separately from other users' data regardless of the employers of each user, some data can be organization-wide data shared or accessible by several users or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. thus, there can be some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures can be managed at the user level. because an mts can support multiple tenants including possible competitors, the mts can have security protocols that keep data, applications, and application use separate. also, because many tenants may opt for access to an mts rather than maintain their own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that can be implemented in the mts. in addition to user-specific data and tenant-specific data, the system 16 also can maintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data. such system level data can include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable among tenants. in some implementations, the user systems 12 (which also can be client systems) communicate with the application servers 100 to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from the system 16 . such requests and updates can involve sending one or more queries to tenant db 22 or system db 24 . the system 16 (e.g., an application server 100 in the system 16 ) can automatically generate one or more native queries (e.g., sql statements or sql queries or the like) designed to access the desired information from a suitable db. to do so, the system 16 (e.g., an application server 100 in the system 16 ) may include one or more query engines 103 , which is/are a software engine, sdk, object(s), program code and/or software modules, or other like logical unit that takes a description of a search request (e.g., a user query), processes/evaluates the search request, executes the search request, and returns the results back to the calling party. the query engine(s) 103 may be program code that obtains a query from a suitable request message via the network interface 20 that calls a public api, translates or converts the query into a native query (if necessary), evaluates and executes the native query, and returns results of the query back to the issuing party (e.g., a user system 12 ). to perform these functions, the query engine(s) 103 include a parser, a query optimizer, db manager, compiler, execution engine, and/or other like components. in some implementations, each of the illustrated dbs may generate query plans to access the requested data from that db, for example, the system db 24 can generate query plans to access the requested data from the system db 24 . the term “query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used to access information in a db system. the query engine(s) 103 may include any suitable query engine technology or combinations thereof. as examples, the query engine(s) 103 may include direct (e.g., sql) execution engines (e.g., presto sql query engine, mysql engine, soql execution engine, apache® phoenix® engine, etc.), a key-value datastore or nosql db engines (e.g., dynamodb® provided by amazon.com®, mongodb query framework provided by mongodb inc.®, apache® cassandra, redis™ provided by redis labs®, etc.), mapreduce query engines (e.g., apache® hive™, apache® impala™ apache® hawq™, ibm® db2 big sql®, etc. for apache® hadoop® db systems, etc.), relational db (or “newsql”) engines (e.g., innodb™ or mysql cluster™ developed by oracle®, myrocks™ developed by facebook.com®, faunadb provided by fauna inc.), postgresql db engines (e.g., microkernel db engine and relational db engine provided by pervasive software®), graph processing engines (e.g., graphx of an apache® spark® engine, an apache® tez engine, neo4j provided by neo4j, inc.™, etc.), pull (iteration pattern) query engines, push (visitor pattern) query engines, transactional db engines, extensible query execution engines, package query language (paql) execution engines, legobase query execution engines, and/or some other query engine used to query some other type of db system (such as any processing engine or execution technology discussed herein). in some implementations, the query engine(s) 103 may include or implement an in-memory caching system and/or an in-memory caching engine (e.g., memcached, redis, etc.) to store frequently accessed data items in a main memory of the system 16 for later retrieval without additional access to the persistent data store. in various embodiments, the query engine 103 may control or enforce the order in which transactions are processed. in these embodiments, order in which transactions are executed may be based on an mdm consistent state, which as discussed in more detail infra, is used to ensure consistency and synchronization for mdm services provided by an mdm system (e.g., mdm system 304 of fig. 3 ). in alternative embodiments, the mdm consistent state may be enforced by the sto processor(s) 106 . these and other aspects are discussed in more detail infra. each db can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined or customizable categories. as used herein, a “database object”, “data object”, or the like may refer to any representation of information in a db that is in the form of an object or tuple, and may include variables, data structures, functions, methods, classes, db records, db fields, db entities, associations between data and db entities (also referred to as a “relation”), and the like. a “table” is one representation of a data object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and custom objects according to some implementations. it should be understood that “table” and “data(base) object” may be used interchangeably herein. each table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. each row or element of a table can contain an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. for example, a crm db can include a table that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. another table can describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. in some mts implementations, standard entity tables can be provided for use by all tenants. for crm db applications, such standard entities can include tables for case, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, each containing pre-defined fields. as used herein, the term “entity” also may be used interchangeably with “object” and “table.” in some mts implementations, tenants are allowed to create and store custom objects, or may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. commonly assigned u.s. pat. no. 7,779,039, titled custom entities and fields in a multi-tenant database system, by weissman et al., issued on aug. 17, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant db system. in some implementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logical tables per organization. it is transparent to customers that their multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that their data may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers. each application server 100 is also communicably coupled with one or more outgoing message managers (omm) 350 1-y (where y is a number; and collectively referred to as “omms 350 ” or “omm 350 ”), which may also interact with the dbs 22 and 24 . the omms 350 build and send messages to cp subscribers on behalf of cp 50 . the omms 350 may comprise one or more pools of servers (also referred to as “message servers”), associated data storage devices, and/or other like computer devices dedicated to running/executing message management/processing and/or scheduling/queueing processes, procedures, mechanisms, etc. these message servers may include the same or similar processor systems, memory systems, network interface, and other like components as the app server 100 or other computer systems discussed herein. in embodiments, the omms 350 may process the content of messages received from various entities (e.g., app servers 100 ) of the system 16 to transform such messages into a desired outgoing message format. for outgoing messages, the omms 350 may convert the messages from an internal format/representation used by the entities of the system 16 to a format that can be consumed by external entities (e.g., user systems 12 ). additionally, each omm 350 may include one or more message rendering entities (mres), where each mre include or operate various message processing applications and protocols to generate and transmit the messages. the mres may generate messages based on msrs and send definitions (discussed infra). the mres send the generated messages to individual recipients, such user systems 12 , or the mres may provide the generated messages to a suitable system or application to be sent to the intended recipients. as examples, the mres may be or operate mail transfer agent (mta) applications to receive and transfer email messages to/from various user systems 12 in accordance with simple mail transfer protocol (smtp), extended smtp, post office protocol 3 (pop3), internet message access protocol (imap), and/or some other suitable email protocol. in another example, the mres may provide push notification services using webpush, http server push, websockets, etc. to provide push notifications to various user systems 12 . in another example, the mres may act as external short messaging entities (esmes) that implement sms server/gateway applications and/or implement the short message peer-to-peer (smpp) protocol to send/receive sms/mms messages to user systems 12 via short message service centers (smsc). in another example, the mres may implement various streaming technologies or protocols to generate and broadcast audio or video data, and/or send/receive ott messages. the messages may be built and sent to individual recipients as discussed in commonly assigned u.s. application ser. no. 15/791,184 titled “technologies for low latency messaging” filed on oct. 23, 2017, and commonly assigned u.s. application ser. no. 15/997,215 titled “message logging using two-stage message logging mechanisms” filed on jun. 4, 2018, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties and for all purposes. as mentioned previously, customer platforms 50 (not shown by fig. 1b ) may be customers or tenants of the system 16 that develop cp apps that interact and/or integrate with the system 16 and utilize data from an associated tenant space in tenant db 22 . in various embodiments, the cp apps utilize tenant data for interacting with user systems 12 by, for example, sending messages to various user systems 12 (e.g., subscribers of the cp 50 ) via the system 16 . to do so, the cp apps include program code or script(s) that call an api/ws 32 to create and execute the sending of these messages based on various triggering events. the cp apps may also include program code/scripts that call apis/ws 32 to schedule and send messages. cp 50 may identify message recipients using dynamic, rule-based segmentation of lists, trigger events, and/or profiles. after a message is sent, cp apps may call the apis/ws 32 to return aggregate statistics about various interactions with the content contained in the messages. the messages to be sent to individual recipients may be referred to as “message sends,” “sends,” and/or the like. a “message send” is an individual message sent to one or more recipients (e.g., a subscriber, client, customer, etc. operating user systems 12 ). as examples, the message sends may be emails, push notifications, sms/mms messages, over-the-top (ott) messages, microblogging and/or social media posts, direct messages in social media platform, and/or other type of computer-readable message. the message sends may include, for example, text, audio content, video content, animations, links or references to web resources, and/or other like content. in order to send messages to intended recipients, the cp 50 may develop program code, script(s), etc., to define particular messages to be sent to intended recipient(s) based on particular interactions with a cp. this code/script(s) may be referred to as a “send definition,” “message definition,” “send template,” “send configuration,” “send classification,” “message interaction,” “triggered message interaction,” and the like. the send definition is a configuration or policy that is used to send and track built messages, and defines various parameters for message send jobs that may be reused for multiple message sends or interactions/events. this allows cps to set rules/conditions for generating personalized media and/or dynamic content for particular subscribers. the system 16 generates and sends messages according to the conditions/rules set by the send definition. the rules/conditions defined by a send definition can be cp-initiated or based on one or more trigger events. cp-initiated messages may be sent to identified subscribers at specified times/dates. as examples, cp-initiated messages may include periodic (e.g., weekly, monthly, etc.) newsletters, list of offers or advertisements, marketing messages, amber alerts, weather alerts, low-account-balance alerts, subscription renewal messages, and/or the like. a trigger event may be any type of event or action, which may or may not be based on a user, device, or system interaction with a cp 50 or content within a message. the trigger events may include, inter alia, user interactions with the cp 50 , user interactions with content included in previously sent messages, dates and/or times of day, messages/indications received from other platforms/services, and/or the like. as examples, trigger events may include completion of an online form, submitting a purchase order, performing a search, abandoning an online form or a shopping cart, failing to login after a number of login attempts, resetting a user name or password, signing up to an email list, requesting more information, opening a message send, interacting with (e.g., clicking/tapping on) content and/or a particular area within a message, etc. message sends that are based on trigger events may be referred to as “trigger sends.” the send definitions define message types, message formats, and content to be sent to particular subscribers based on demographic data and/or when a particular trigger event occurs. in some implementations, the send definitions may include send classifications, content, destination management information, and send options. a send classification include parameters for a message job in a central location that can be reused for multiple triggered interactions. the content is the message to send when the send definition is triggered. the cp 50 50 may create or upload personalized and/or dynamic content using a development environment and/or gui tools provided by the system 16 . destination management information includes subscriber identities (ids) to which messages are to be sent, such as email addresses, phone numbers, application names/ids, etc. the subscriber ids may be supplied by one or more subscriber lists, or data extensions (des) that extract data from various database objects in the db 22 . send options include parameters related to how statistics from the messages are tracked, keywords to categorize the send definition, and/or the like. in various embodiments, the system 16 provides a send optimization tool that predicts a time and/or date when individual subscribers are most likely to interact with a particular message send, and the send definition may indicate that the system 16 should send message sends to individual subscribers according to the predictions provided by the send optimization tool. the send definitions may be developed using any suitable mark-up language, object notation language, programming language, including the various languages, tools, etc., discussed herein, and a cp 50 can push send definitions to the system 16 through a suitable api/ws 32 . for example, message sends for a newsletter may be initiated by an api/ws 32 or gui 30 , while triggered sends may be initiated using only the api/ws 32 . the send definitions include information that the system 16 uses each time a message is triggered, such as a unique external key value that is used by api/ws 32 calls to initiate the send definition. the system 16 may provide a dev-environment, programming language(s), and/or development tools that allows cp 50 to create/edit send definitions, such as those discussed herein. the dev-environment may allow the cp 50 to define multiple message sends that the system 16 may accept via api/ws 32 requests in response to detection of corresponding interactions. for example, the cp 50 may define individual message sends for account balance alerts, account security alerts, account activity acknowledgements, newsletter blasts, advertisements, time-based sales events, and/or the like. the dev-environment may include destination management tools and reply management tools. the destination management tools may allow the cp 50 to define target recipients (e.g., one or more user systems 12 ) or subscriber lists of recipients to receive the built messages, and particular message delivery mechanisms to be used for building and sending the messages (e.g., using sms/mms, ott, push notifications, email, etc.). the reply management tools allow the cp 50 to define automatic responses/replies to recipient messages, such as out-of-office replies, auto-replies, and unsubscribe requests received in response to message sends. the dev-environment may also allow the cp 50 to define various send options, which specify how and what type of statistics are tracked from msrs and/or built messages. the dev-environment may also include tools that allow the cp 50 to activate or create and define one or more custom database objects (cdbos) to store custom data. these cbdos may be referred to as “data extensions.” a de may be a table or other like database object (dbo) within the tenant space 112 of the tenant db 22 that stores various subscriber-related data, and also maintains an association with a subscriber list which allows unified subscriber subscription and status management, tracking, and reporting. de message sends may use cp-defined data as a source for message send recipients. as mentioned previously, the ms processor(s) 105 handle various message send tracking aspects. tracking is an aggregated collection of data that allows the cp 50 to record and view various metrics related to message sends, such as an open rate, a number of clicks or click-through rate, undeliverable messages or bounce rate, forwarded messages and a number of new subscribers each forward generated, and/or other metrics. in some embodiments, the tracking may be accomplished using a return receipt such as when the message is an email. in some embodiments, the tracking may be accomplished using a web beacon, such as a transparent image (e.g., a 1×1 pixel gif) or html element/tag (e.g., using framing), which is automatically included in each message send. where the transparent image is used, the subscribers browser/application may automatically download the image by sending a request to the app server 100 (ms processor(s) 105 ) and/or a location where the image is stored when the subscriber opens the message and the request would include or provide identifying information about the user system 12 . where html elements/tags is/are used, the subscribers browser/application may send a request to the app server 100 (ms processor(s) 105 ) for referred to content included in the message when the subscriber opens the message and the request would include or provide identifying information about the user system 12 . in other embodiments, the tracking may be accomplished using a script or other like code included in the message. for example, the message may include script (e.g., javascript or the like) that obtains and sends back information (e.g., in an additional http message(s)) that is not typically included in an http header, such as time zone information, global positioning system (gps) coordinates, cookie data stored at the user system 12 , screen or display resolution of the user system 12 , and/or other like information. other methods may be used to obtain or derive user information. in another implementation, canvas fingerprinting may be used where the script included in the message draws text with a predetermined font, size, and background color(s), calls a canvas api todataurl method to get the canvas pixel data in dataurl format, calculates a hash of the text-encoded pixel data which serves as the fingerprint, and sends the fingerprint back to the app server 100 (ms processor(s) 105 ). other tracking mechanisms may be used in other embodiments. when a cp-initiated event or a trigger event occurs at the cp 50 , the code/script(s) implemented by the cp 50 calls the api/ws 32 , and sends an msr to an app server 100 . the app server 100 (or ms processor 105 ) sends the msr to an omm 350 , which generates and transmits a corresponding message to a particular recipient based on the information/data included in the msr. in some implementations, the msrs may be sent in batches, or the api/ws 32 may include separate calls for single and batch subscriber msr submissions. each msr may include msr information and an msr payload. in one example, msr information and msr payload may be located in a payload (body) portion of an http message, which may be in html, xml, json, and/or some other suitable format and variants thereof. other message types (such as any message type discussed herein) and arrangements of data in such messages may be used in other embodiments. the msr information includes cp-specific information such as a customer identifier (id) (also referred to as a “tenant id”, “org id”, and the like) that indicates/identifies the cp 50 , an msr id that indicates/identifies a universally unique id (uuid) of the msr, an msr job id (request id) that indicates/identifies a uuid of the msr job and/or the request, and a priority indicator/indication that indicates/identifies a priority of the msr payload. the priority information may indicate a priority or rank associated with the msr payload using levels (e.g., high, medium, low), a number scheme (e.g., 1 through 10), or an amount of time to delivery (e.g., by a specified time/date, a specified number of seconds, etc.). the msr payload includes both recipient specific attributes that are used to build a personalized message from the send definition, fully rendered content specific to the recipient, or some combination thereof. for example, the msr payload may include a send definition id, send time data, and/or other like information. the send definition id indicates a location/address of a send definition associated with the cp 50 , which may be used to access the send definition to build a message for intended recipients. the send time data may indicate a time and/or date when the message should be sent to the individual recipient or when the message should arrive at the recipient's device. in various embodiments, the send time data may indicate to use a send time predicted by the send time optimization tool embodiments discussed infra with respect to figs. 3-5 . fig. 2a shows a system diagram illustrating example architectural components of an on-demand db service environment 200 according to some implementations. a client machine communicably connected with the cloud 204 , generally referring to one or more networks in combination, as described herein, can communicate with the on-demand db service environment 200 via one or more edge routers 208 and 212 . a client machine can be any of the examples of user systems 12 described above. the edge routers can communicate with one or more core switches 220 and 224 through a firewall 216 . the core switches can communicate with a load balancer 228 , which can distribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 240 and 244 . the pods 240 and 244 , which can each include one or more servers or other computing resources, can perform data processing and other operations used to provide on-demand services. communication with the pods can be conducted via pod switches 232 and 236 . components of the on-demand db service environment can communicate with db storage 256 through a db firewall 248 and a db switch 252 . as shown in figs. 2a and 2b , accessing an on-demand db service environment can involve communications transmitted among a variety of different hardware or software components. further, the on-demand db service environment 200 is a simplified representation of an actual on-demand db service environment. for example, while only one or two devices of each type are shown in figs. 2a and 2b , some implementations of an on-demand db service environment can include anywhere from one to several devices of each type. also, the on-demand db service environment need not include each device shown in figs. 2a and 2b , or can include additional devices not shown in figs. 2a and 2b . one or more of the devices in the on-demand db service environment 200 can be implemented on the same physical device or on different hardware. some devices can be implemented using hardware or a combination of hardware and software. thus, terms such as “data processing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used herein are not limited to a single hardware device, rather references to these terms can include any suitable combination of hardware and software configured to provide the described functionality. the cloud 204 refers to a data network or multiple data networks, often including the internet. client machines communicably connected with the cloud 204 can communicate with other components of the on-demand db service environment 200 to access services provided by the on-demand db service environment. for example, client machines can access the on-demand db service environment to retrieve, store, edit, or process information. in some implementations, the edge routers 208 and 212 route packets between the cloud 204 and other components of the on-demand db service environment 200 . for example, the edge routers 208 and 212 can employ the border gateway protocol (bgp). the bgp is the core routing protocol of the internet. the edge routers 208 and 212 can maintain a table of ip networks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability among autonomous systems on the internet. in some implementations, the firewall 216 can protect the inner components of the on-demand db service environment 200 from internet traffic. in some embodiments, firewall 216 may be an active firewall. the firewall 216 can block, permit, or deny access to the inner components of the on-demand db service environment 200 based upon a set of rules and other criteria (e.g., the policies 35 discussed previously). the firewall 216 can act as, or implement one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a stateful filter, a proxy server, virtual private networking (vpn), network access controller (nac), host-based firewall, unified threat management (utm) system, a predictive intelligence (pi) and/or faas, and/or any other type of firewall technology. in some implementations, the core switches 220 and 224 are high-capacity switches that transfer packets within the on-demand db service environment 200 . the core switches 220 and 224 can be configured as network bridges that quickly route data between different components within the on-demand db service environment. in some implementations, the use of two or more core switches 220 and 224 can provide redundancy or reduced latency. in some implementations, the pods 240 and 244 perform the core data processing and service functions provided by the on-demand db service environment. each pod can include various types of hardware or software computing resources. an example of the pod architecture is discussed in greater detail with reference to fig. 2b . in some implementations, communication between the pods 240 and 244 is conducted via the pod switches 232 and 236 . the pod switches 232 and 236 can facilitate communication between the pods 240 and 244 and client machines communicably connected with the cloud 204 , for example via core switches 220 and 224 . also, the pod switches 232 and 236 may facilitate communication between the pods 240 and 244 and the db storage 256 . in some implementations, the load balancer 228 can distribute workload between the pods 240 and 244 . balancing the on-demand service requests between the pods can assist in improving the use of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times, or reducing overhead. the load balancer 228 may include multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic. in some implementations, access to the db storage 256 is guarded by a db firewall 248 . in some implementations, the db firewall 248 is an active firewall. additionally, the firewall 248 may be equipped with the group optimization technologies discussed herein. the db firewall 248 can act as a computer application firewall operating at the db application layer of a protocol stack. the db firewall 248 can protect the db storage 256 from application attacks such as structure query language (sql) injection, db rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure. in some implementations, the db firewall 248 includes a host using one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy traffic before passing it to a gateway router. the db firewall 248 can inspect the contents of db traffic and block certain content or db requests. the db firewall 248 can work on the sql application level atop the tcp/ip stack, managing applications' connection to the db or sql management interfaces as well as intercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a db network or application interface. in some implementations, communication with the db storage 256 is conducted via the db switch 252 . the multi-tenant db storage 256 can include more than one hardware or software components for handling db queries. accordingly, the db switch 252 can direct db queries transmitted by other components of the on-demand db service environment (for example, the pods 240 and 244 ) to the correct components within the db storage 256 . in some implementations, the db storage 256 is an on-demand db system shared by many different organizations as described above with reference to figs. 1a and 1b . fig. 2b shows a system diagram further illustrating example architectural components of an on-demand db service environment according to some implementations. the pod 244 can be used to render services to a user of the on-demand db service environment 200 . in some implementations, each pod includes a variety of servers or other systems. the pod 244 includes one or more content batch servers 264 , content search servers 268 , query servers 282 , file (force) servers 286 , access control system (acs) servers 280 , batch servers 284 , and app servers 288 . the pod 244 also can include db instances 290 , quick file systems (qfs) 292 , and indexers 294 . in some implementations, some or all communication between the servers in the pod 244 can be transmitted via the switch 236 . in some implementations, the app servers 288 include a hardware or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts, etc.) for supporting the construction of applications provided by the on-demand db service environment 200 via the pod 244 . in some implementations, the hardware or software framework of an app server 288 is configured to execute operations of the services described herein, including performance of the blocks of various methods or processes described herein. in some alternative implementations, two or more app servers 288 can be included and cooperate to perform such methods, or one or more other servers described herein can be configured to perform the disclosed methods. in various implementations, the app servers 288 may be the same or similar to the app servers 100 discussed with respect to figs. 1a-1b . the content batch servers 264 can handle requests internal to the pod. some such requests can be long-running or not tied to a particular customer. for example, the content batch servers 264 can handle requests related to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks. the content search servers 268 can provide query and indexer functions. for example, the functions provided by the content search servers 268 can allow users to search through content stored in the on-demand db service environment. the file servers 286 can manage requests for information stored in the file storage 298 . the file storage 298 can store information such as documents, images, and basic large objects (blobs). by managing requests for information using the file force servers 286 , the image footprint on the db can be reduced. the query servers 282 can be used to retrieve information from one or more file systems. for example, the query system 282 can receive requests for information from the app servers 288 and transmit information queries to the nfs 296 located outside the pod. the pod 244 can share a db instance 290 configured as a multi-tenant environment in which different organizations share access to the same db. additionally, services rendered by the pod 244 may call upon various hardware or software resources. in some implementations, the acs servers 280 control access to data, hardware resources, or software resources. in some implementations, the batch servers 284 process batch jobs, which are used to run tasks at specified times. for example, the batch servers 284 can transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers 288 , to trigger the batch jobs. in some implementations, a qfs 292 is an open source file system available from sun microsystems® of santa clara, calif. the qfs can serve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessing information available within the pod 244 . the qfs 292 can support some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be grouped together into a file system. file system metadata can be kept on a separate set of disks, which can be useful for streaming applications where long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. thus, the qfs system can communicate with one or more content search servers 268 or indexers 294 to identify, retrieve, move, or update data stored in the network file systems (nfs) 296 or other storage systems. in some implementations, one or more query servers 282 communicate with the nfs 296 to retrieve or update information stored outside of the pod 244 . the nfs 296 can allow servers located in the pod 244 to access information to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. in some implementations, queries from the query servers 282 are transmitted to the nfs 296 via the load balancer 228 , which can distribute resource requests over various resources available in the on-demand db service environment. the nfs 296 also can communicate with the qfs 292 to update the information stored on the nfs 296 or to provide information to the qfs 292 for use by servers located within the pod 244 . in some implementations, the pod includes one or more db instances 290 . the db instance 290 can transmit information to the qfs 292 . when information is transmitted to the qfs, it can be available for use by servers within the pod 244 without using an additional db call. in some implementations, db information is transmitted to the indexer 294 . indexer 294 can provide an index of information available in the db 290 or qfs 292 . the index information can be provided to file force servers 286 or the qfs 292 . ii. send time optimization embodiments as mentioned previously, cps 50 may define various conditions and/or triggers for sending messages to subscribers. in general, cps 50 do not know when the best or most optimal time for sending messages to subscribers. in this context, the best or most optimal time to send messages refers to a time of maximum or most probable engagement, such as times when individual subscribers are most likely to open or interact with a message send. this is because different subscribers have different preferences in terms of how and when they read their messages, including preferred message type (e.g., email, sms, mms, ott, social media post, etc.), ordering preferences (e.g., opening/reading newest messages, according to keywords, sender id/address, etc.), and timing preferences (e.g., time of day when subscribers open/read messages). cps 50 want to determine the best/optimal time to send messages to subscribers so that the messages have a higher chance of being consumed by the subscribers. typically, cps 50 use a holistic approach to sending message, for example, sending messages late at night or early in the morning because they believe subscribers consume their messages in the morning. this approach may work for some set of a subscriber population, however, this approach does not involve any user/subscriber personalization. according to various embodiments, send time optimization tools (e.g., sto processor(s) 106 discussed previously) provide personalized predictions of optimal send times for individual subscribers. historically, send time predictions were based on classification and/or regression models, where extracted features are associated with message send times and open times, and various send times are fed into the model to obtain the highest engagement probability. these classification and regression models are somewhat effective except that they tend to be biased towards send times traditionally used by cps 50 . this is because the only available send times that exist historically are available to be used as samples for generating a suitable model, whereas feedback of potential send times that have not been used before are unknown and unavailable for training. this means that sampling bias presented in the historical data cannot be handled properly in these models. in other words, the prediction results provided by the classification/regression models naturally bias towards those pre-existing times and away from unexplored send times. additionally, these classification models do not usually account for how some subscribers' behavior tend to reinforce these biases even though these behaviors may not match the behaviors of other subscribers. conventional classification and regression models do not extract enough meaningful and predictive features that can capture the relationships between message send time and engagement for individual subscribers. the send time optimization tools (e.g., sto processor(s) 106 ) account for the delay and/or lag between the send time and the time when a subscriber engages with a message (e.g., a time when the subscriber opens the message and/or interacts with the message content), and provides personalized recommendations for sending messages for individual subscribers. in various embodiments, a machine learning (ml) approach is used to predict the best send time to send individual messages to individual subscribers for improving message engagement. this approach automatically discovers hidden factors underneath message sends and send time engagements/interactions, and leverages crowd opinion for subscribers that do not have sufficient data. the ml model makes personalized recommendations based on the unique characteristics of each subscriber's engagement preferences and patterns, accounts for the time between the send time and open time which typically varies from subscriber to subscriber, and accounts for historical feedback that is generally incomplete and skewed towards a small set of send hours. in embodiments, the ml model is a two-layer non-linear matrix factorization model, which is shown and described with respect to figs. 3 and 4 . figs. 3 and 4 show an example send time optimization model (“sto model”) 300 according to various embodiments. in this example, the sto model 300 is a two-layer non-linear matrix factorization model. in embodiments, the sto processor(s) 106 may generate the sto model 300 as follows. at node 1 , the sto processor(s) 106 generates two components, the first component being an interaction or engagement component that captures the interactions/engagement of a particular message with a particular subscriber, and the second component being a send time component that captures a relationship between a message and send time. in this example, the engagement component is an m×n user-message matrix (umm) containing the interactions between m number of users and n number of sent messages (or message campaigns), and the send time component is an n×l message send time matrix (msm) with n number of sent messages for l number of time instances. in one example, l=247=168. in the umm, each column corresponds to an individual message and each row corresponds to an individual user. additionally, each cell in the umm represents a subscriber's engagement with a particular message. in this example, a cell in the umm is set to 1 if the user engaged with the message and set to 0 otherwise. in some cases, empty cells may also represent a non-engaged message or may represent missing engagement data for that user/subscriber such as when a subscriber's browser/application settings has disabled image loading or uses some other tracking blocker application, the subscriber's isp uses some sort of virus scanner before forwarding the message to the subscriber opens the email, or the like. for users/subscribers that have little to no engagement information, crowd opinions may be used to generate personalized predictions. in the msm, each column corresponds to an individual send time and each row corresponds to an individual message. additionally, each cell in the msm includes an engagement rate for a corresponding message at a particular time instance. an engagement rate is a metric that measures the level of engagement that content receives from a set of subscribers/users (e.g., an “audience”). various factors may influence engagement depending on the type of engagement being measured. in embodiments, the engagement rate represents a rate (e.g., a percentage value) at which a particular message was engaged with for a particular send time. in this example, the engagement rate is an opening rate, which represents a rate at which a particular message was opened for a particular send time. in other embodiments, other engagement rates may be used, such as a click-through rate, conversion rate (e.g., rate at which a desired action or task is performed), response rate (e.g., amount of subscribers who respond to a certain message), share or virility rate (e.g., a rate at which a message, such as a social media post, is forwarded or otherwise shared with other subscribers/users), and the like. next at node 2 , the sto processor(s) 106 decompose each of the umm and the msm into a product of two lower dimensional components. in this example, the sto processor(s) 106 derive k dimensional factors for all users and all messages from the umm to decompose the umm into an m×k user factor matrix (ufm) and a k×n (first) message factor matrix (mf 1 ). each row in the ufm is a user factor, and each column in the mf 1 is a message factor. additionally, the sto processor(s) 106 derive p dimensional factors for all messages and send times from the msm to decompose the msm into an n×p (second) message factor matrix (mf 2 ) and an p×l send time factor matrix (stf). the user factors k represent individual aspects of a subscriber's message open behavior. the user factors k are used to calculate the similarity between different users with respect to their message preferences and engagement habits, which alleviates issues related to cold start problems (e.g., due to users with limited historical feedback/messages). the message factors p represent relationships between individual subscribers and different messaging campaigns. the message factors p may be thought of as a persona or demographic profile for a particular message or message campaign. each of the messaging campaigns may be represented by a code, which may be a number such as a series of floating point digits. subscribers encoded with a particular code in the stf or mf 2 will most likely react in the same way to a message or message campaign. matrix factorization allows hidden features to be easily mined to a desired quality while retaining the interactions between two dimensions as compared to standard classification or regression models, where feature extraction engineering is usually done through manual crafting and many iterations of guesses and trials. decomposing (e.g., factorizing) the umm captures the hidden interactive relationships between users/subscribers and messages, and decomposing (e.g., factorizing) the msm uncovers the relationships between messages and send times with respect to engagement. in some embodiments, the rank of both message factor matrices (e.g., mf 1 , mf 2 , or the combined k and p matrix) can be customized based on for example, scalability and/or computational costs/complexity, sparsity, and/or the like. scalability refers to the amount of users and/or messages to be processed, and the amount of computational resources, needed to calculate the predicted send times. in embodiments, the size of the message factor matrices may be configured based on the size of the interaction matrix (e.g., the m×n umm). sparsity in this context refers to the number of engagements that exist for a particular message. as an example, since the number of messages may be extremely large, even the most active users will only have engaged with a relatively small subset of the overall number of messages. next, the sto processor(s) 106 derive the predictions for each subscriber from the four factor components (e.g., ufm, mf 1 , mf 2 , and stf). in this example, the matrix multiplication yields the prediction matrix, which includes a row for each user prediction (see e.g., fig. 4 ). referring now to fig. 4 , which shows an example of node 3 of sto model 300 according to various embodiments. in fig. 4 , node 3 includes nodes 3 a, 3 b, and 3 c. at node 3 a, the four factor matrices (e.g., ufm, mf 1 , mf 2 , and stf) are chained together using matrix multiplication to build the bridge from users to send times and to predict the optimal/best send time for each user/subscriber. however, when cps 50 have millions (or billions) of subscribers and send millions (or billions) of messages, the umm and the msm (and consequently, the ufm, mf 1 , mf 2 , and stf) may become extremely large, and performing multiplication on such large matrices becomes computationally complex and resource intensive, even where distributed computing systems are used. in order to address scaling challenges associated with matrix multiplication, the order of multiplication is switched by first calculating the product of the two inner message factors (e.g., mf 1 and mf 2 ). in this example, the inner product of ufm×mf 1 ×mf 2 ×stf is performed and yields ufm×inner product(k×p)×stf as is shown by node 3 b. the ufm, inner product of k×p, and the stf are then combined to yield a single prediction component, which in this example is an m×l prediction matrix. since k and p are usually orders of magnitude smaller than m and n, such embodiments can greatly reduce resource consumption and computational overhead by creating an intermediate low rank component (e.g., inner product(k×p)). the scalability and efficiency improvements increase as the m number of users and/or n number of messages become relatively large. fig. 5 illustrates a send time optimization process 500 according to various embodiments. for illustrative purposes, the operations of process 500 is described as being performed by elements/components shown and described with regard to figs. 1a-4 . however, other computing devices may operate process 500 in a multitude of implementations, arrangements, and/or environments. in embodiments, the computer system(s) includes program code stored in a memory system, which when executed by a processor system, is configurable to the computer system(s) to perform the various operations of processes 500 . while particular examples and orders of operations are illustrated in fig. 5 , in various embodiments, these operations may be re-ordered, separated into additional operations, combined, or omitted altogether. process 500 begins at operation 505 where the sto processor 106 obtains tracking data for a set of subscribers. in embodiments, the tracking data may be collected by the ms processor(s) 105 as discussed previously. at operation 510 , the sto processor 106 generates an ml model for message send time optimization (the “sto ml model”). the sto ml model is used to predict engagement rates for respective message send times for individual users/subscribers of a service provider platform (e.g., cp 50 ). each of the predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times are based on time intervals between previous message send times and previous message interaction times for corresponding sent messages. aspects of operation 510 are discussed in more detail infra. at operation 515 , the sto processor 106 determines a future message send time for each of the respective subscribers based on the generated sto ml model. the future message sent time may be a predicted send time that will maximize subscriber engagement with the message. at operation 520 , the sto processor 106 schedules individual messages to be sent to each of the respective subscribers at the determined future message send time for each of the respective subscribers. in embodiments, the sto processor 106 may send the determined future send time to one or more omms 350 , which may handle scheduling, generating, and sending the messages to the respective subscribers. in various embodiments, the sto processor 106 (or the ms processor 105 ) receives indications of various interactions with the individual messages by the respective subscribers. the various interactions may include, for example, opening times for corresponding ones of the individual messages. in these embodiments, the sto processor 106 may update the sto ml model with additional time intervals between the determined future message send times and the opening times for the individual messages. at operation 525 process 500 ends or repeats as necessary. fig. 5 also shows various operations for generating the sto ml model, which corresponds to operation 510 of process 500 . sto ml model generation process 510 begins at operation 530 where the sto processor 106 generates a user-message matrix (umm) and a message-send time matrix (msm). the umm includes m×n elements, where m is a number of the respective subscribers and n is a number of sent messages of the previously sent messages. each element in the umm includes a value indicating an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages by a corresponding one of the respective users. in embodiments, a value of “1” in an element of the umm indicates an engagement with a corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages, and a value of “0” in the umm indicates a non-engagement with the corresponding one of the plurality of previously sent messages. the msm includes n×l elements, where n is the number of sent messages and l is a number of the previous message send times. each element in the msm includes an engagement rate for a corresponding one of the previously sent messages at a corresponding one of the time intervals. in embodiments, l equals 247 or 168. at operation 535 , the sto processor 106 determines, from the umm, k number of dimensional factors for all of the respective subscribers and all of the previously sent messages, and determines, from the msm, p number of dimensional factors for all of the previously sent messages and all of the time intervals. in some embodiments, the sto processor 106 determines a configured size of the k number of dimensional factors; and/or determines a configured size of the p number of dimensional factors. in some embodiments, the sto processor 106 determines a size of the k number of dimensional factors and a size of the p number of dimensional factors based on a current or a previous computational resource utilization or consumption. at operation 540 , the sto processor 106 decomposes the umm into a user factor matrix (ufm) including m×k elements and a first message factor matrix (mf 1 ) including k×n elements, and at operation 545 , the sto processor 106 decomposes the msm into a second message factor matrix (mf 2 ) including n×p elements and a sent time factor matrix (stf) including p×l elements. at operation 550 , the sto processor 106 derives a prediction component based on the ufm, mf 1 , mf 2 , and stf. in various embodiments, where the prediction component is a prediction matrix, the sto processor 106 performs matrix multiplication on the ufm, the mf 1 , the mf 2 , and the stf to obtain a prediction matrix including m×l elements, each of the m×l elements including respective predicted engagement rates for the respective message send times. in some embodiments, the sto processor 106 calculates a product of the mf 1 and the mf 2 to obtain an inner product matrix having k×p elements. in these embodiments, after calculating the inner product matrix, the sto processor 106 calculates a product of the ufm, the inner product matrix, and the stf to obtain the prediction matrix. after operation 550 , process 510 returns to process 500 . the specific details of the specific aspects of implementations disclosed herein may be combined in any suitable manner without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations. however, other implementations may be directed to specific implementations relating to each individual aspect, or specific combinations of these individual aspects. additionally, while the disclosed examples are often described herein with reference to an implementation in which an on-demand database service environment is implemented in a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the present implementations are not limited to multi-tenant databases or deployment on application servers. implementations may be practiced using other database architectures, for example, oracle®, db2® by ibm®, and the like without departing from the scope of the implementations claimed. it should also be understood that some of the disclosed implementations can be embodied in the form of various types of hardware, software, firmware, middleware, or combinations thereof, including in the form of control logic, and using such hardware or software in a modular or integrated manner. other ways or methods are possible using hardware and a combination of hardware and software. additionally, any of the software components or functions described in this application can be implemented as software code to be executed by one or more processors using any suitable computer language such as, for example, python, pytorch, numpy, ruby, ruby on rails, scala, smalltalk, java™, c++, c#, “c”, rust, go (or “golang”), javascript, server-side javascript (ssjs), php, pearl, lua, torch/lua with just-in time compiler (luajit), accelerated mobile pages script (ampscript), vbscript, javaserver pages (jsp), active server pages (asp), node.js, asp.net, jamscript, hypertext markup language (html), extensible markup language (xml), wiki markup or wikitext, wireless markup language (wml), java script object notion (json), apache® messagepack™, cascading stylesheets (css), extensible stylesheet language (xsl), mustache template language, handlebars template language, guide template language (gtl), apache® thrift, abstract syntax notation one (asn.1), google® protocol buffers (protobuf), salesforce® apex®, salesforce® visualforce®, salesforce® lightning®, salesforce® wave™ dashboard designer, salesforce® force.com® ide, android® studio™ integrated development environment (ide), apple® ios® software development kit (sdk), and/or any other programming language or development tools including proprietary programming languages and/or development tools. furthermore, some or all of the software components or functions described herein can utilize a suitable querying language to query and store information in one or more databases or data structures, such as, for example, structure query language (sql), object query language (oql), salesforce® oql (soql), salesforce® object search language (sosl), salesforce® analytics query language (saql), and/or other query languages. the software code can be stored as a computer- or processor-executable instructions or commands on a physical non-transitory computer-readable medium. examples of suitable media include random access memory (ram), read only memory (rom), magnetic media such as a hard-drive or a floppy disk, or an optical medium such as a compact disk (cd) or dvd (digital versatile disk), flash memory, and the like, or any combination of such storage or transmission devices. computer-readable media encoded with the software/program code may be packaged with a compatible device or provided separately from other devices (e.g., via internet download). any such computer-readable medium may reside on or within a single computing device or an entire computer system, and may be among other computer-readable media within a system or network. a computer system, or other computing device, includes a monitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of the results mentioned herein to a user. while some implementations have been described herein, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. thus, the breadth and scope of the present application should not be limited by any of the implementations described herein, but should be defined only in accordance with the following and later-submitted claims and their equivalents.
154-301-415-273-849	US	[ "CN", "US", "KR", "WO" ]	C09K11/02,C08F30/02,C09K11/70,C08G77/442,G02F1/1335,C08F230/02,C08G77/20,C08G77/30,C09K11/56,C09K11/88,C08F212/14,C08F297/02,C08G77/04,C08G77/14,C08L83/10,G02F1/133,G02F1/13357	2016-07-20T00:00:00	2016	[ "C09", "C08", "G02" ]	stabilizing styrenic polymer for quantum dots	the present disclosure provides a composite particle that includes: a fluorescent semiconductor core/shell nanoparticle (preferably, nanocrystal); and a stabilizing homo- or copolymer combined with the core/shell nanoparticle, the stabilizing (co)polymer comprising styrene monomer units and functionalized with phosphine, arsine or stibine groups.	1 . a composite particle comprising a fluorescent core/shell nanoparticle and a stabilizing copolymer of the formula: wherein each r 1 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 2 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 3 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 4 is an alkyl or vinyl group; each r 5 is a hydrocarbyl group or a functional group; r 7 is a divalent hydrocarbyl group selected from alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene, r 8 is the residue of an initiator, which may be functional or non-functional; z is p, as or sb; subscript a is 1 to 20; subscript b is 0 to 100; subscript c is 0 to 1000; and subscript d is 0 to 1000, with the proviso that c+d is at least one and preferably 100-400. 2 . the composite particle of claim 1 wherein subscript a is 1-100. 3 . the composite particle of claim 1 wherein c+d is 100-400. 4 . the composite particle of claim 1 further comprising a surface modifying ligand bound to the surface of the nanoparticle of the formula: r 15 —r 12 (x) n iii wherein r 15 is (hetero)hydrocarbyl group having c 2 to c 30 carbon atoms; r 12 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene; n is at least one; x is a ligand group, including —co 2 h, —so 3 h, —p(o)(oh) 2 , —op(o)(oh), —oh and —nh 2 . 5 . the composite particle of claim 1 wherein the core comprises inp, cds or cdse. 6 . the composite particle of claim 1 wherein the shell comprises a magnesium or zinc-containing compound. 7 . the composite particle of claim 1 wherein the shell is a multilayered shell. 8 . the composite particle of claim 7 wherein the multilayered shell comprises an inner shell overcoating the core, wherein the inner shell comprises zinc selenide and zinc sulfide. 9 . the composite particle of claim 7 wherein the multilayered shell comprises an outer shell overcoating the inner shell, wherein the outer shell comprises zinc sulfide or mgs. 10 . a composition comprising the composite particle of claim 1 further comprising a secondary carrier fluid. 11 . a composition comprising the composite particle of claim 1 dispersed in droplets of the stabilizing (co)polymer and the optional secondary carrier fluid, said droplets dispersed in a polymeric binder. 12 . the composition of claim 11 wherein the polymeric binder comprises polysiloxanes, fluoroelastomers, polyamides, polyimides, polycaprolactones, polycaprolactams, polyurethanes, polyvinyl alcohols, polyvinyl chlorides, polyvinyl acetates, polyesters, polycarbonates, polyacrylates, polymethacrylates, polyacrylamides, epoxy resins and polymethacrylamides. 13 . an article comprising the composite particle of claim 1 dispersed in a cured polymeric binder between two barrier films. 14 . the article of claim 13 wherein the polymeric binder comprises polysiloxanes, fluoroelastomers, polyamides, polyimides, polycaprolactones, polycaprolactams, polyurethanes, polyvinyl alcohols, polyvinyl chlorides, polyvinyl acetates, polyesters, polycarbonates, polyacrylates, polymethacrylates, polyacrylamides, epoxy resins and polymethacrylamides. 15 . an article comprising the composite particle of claim 1 dispersed in an uncured polymeric binder between two barrier films. 16 . a composition comprising the composite particle of claim 1 further dispersed in an uncured polymeric binder. 17 . a copolymer of the formula: wherein each r 1 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 2 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 3 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 4 is an alkyl or vinyl group; each r 5 is a hydrocarbyl group or a functional group; r 7 is a divalent hydrocarbyl group selected from alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene, r 8 is the residue of an initiator, which may be functional or non-functional; z is p, as or sb; subscript a is 1 to 20; subscript b is 0 to 100; subscript c is 0 to 1000; and subscript d is 0 to 1000, with the proviso that c+d is at least one. 18 . the copolymer of claim 17 wherein c+d is 100-400.	background quantum dot enhancement films (qdef) are used as part of the backlight for lcd displays. red and green quantum dots in the film down-convert light from the blue led source to give white light. this has the advantage of improving the color gamut over the typical lcd display and decreasing the energy consumption colloidal quantum dot nanoparticles (preferably, nanocrystals) are stabilized with organic ligands and/or additives to maintain dispersion stability in a carrier fluid (or solvent). quantum dot ligands also improve photoluminescent quantum yields by passivating surface traps, stabilize against aggregation and degradation, and influence the kinetics of nanoparticle (preferably, nanocrystal) growth during synthesis. therefore, optimizing the organic ligand and/or additive is important for achieving optimal quantum yield, processability, and functional lifetime in qdef. summary composite particles are provided that are capable of fluorescence and suitable for use in quantum dot enhancement films. in one aspect, the present disclosure provides a composite particle that includes: a fluorescent semiconductor core/shell nanoparticle (preferably, nanocrystal); and a stabilizing homo- or copolymer combined with the core/shell nanoparticle, the stabilizing (co)polymer comprising styrene monomer units and functionalized with phosphine, arsine or stibine groups. in one embodiment the stabilizing copolymer is of the formula: wherein each r 1 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 3 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 6 is h, a hydrocarbyl group or a functional group; r 7 is a divalent hydrocarbyl group selected from alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene; r 8 is the residue of an initiator, which may be functional or non-functional; z is p, as or sb; subscript a is 1 to 100, preferably 10-100; subscript b is 0 to 100, and may be 1-100. with respect to r 8 , the residue of an initiator is that portion which initiates polymerization and is covalently bonded to the (co)polymer. for example, when using butyllithium, r 8 is a butyl group. the “z” group may be o-, m-, or p- and is preferably p-. in one embodiment, the stabilizing (co)polymer is of the formula: wherein each r 1 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 2 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 3 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkyl, aryl, alkaryl and aralkyl; each r 4 is an alkyl or vinyl group; each r 5 is a hydrocarbyl group or a functional group; r 7 is a divalent hydrocarbyl group selected from alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene, r 8 is the residue of an initiator, which may be functional or non-functional; z is p, as or sb; subscript a is 1 to 20; subscript b is 0 to 100, and may be 1-100; subscript c is 0 to 1000; and subscript d is 0 to 1000, with the proviso that c+d is at least one and preferably 100-400. with respect to r 8 , the residue of an initiator is that portion which initiates polymerization and is covalently bonded to the (co)polymer. for example, when using butyllithium, r 8 is a butyl group. the “z” group may be o-, m-, or p- and is preferably p-. in one aspect, the present disclosure provides a composite particle that includes: a fluorescent semiconductor core/shell nanoparticle (preferably, nanocrystal); and a stabilizing (co)polymer of formulas i or ii. in a preferred embodiment, the fluorescent semiconductor core/shell nanoparticle includes: an inp core; an inner shell overcoating the core, wherein the inner shell includes zinc selenide and zinc sulfide; and an outer shell overcoating the inner shell, wherein the outer shell includes zinc sulfide. as used herein “alkyl” means a linear or branched, cyclic or acylic, saturated monovalent hydrocarbon. “alkylene” means a linear or branched saturated divalent hydrocarbon. “alkenyl” means a linear or branched unsaturated hydrocarbon. “aryl” means a monovalent aromatic, such as phenyl, naphthyl and the like. “arylene” means a polyvalent, aromatic, such as phenylene, naphthalene, and the like. “aralkylene” means a group defined above with an aryl group attached to the alkylene, e.g., benzyl, 1-naphthylethyl, and the like. as used herein, “(hetero)hydrocarbyl” is inclusive of hydrocarbyl alkyl, aryl, aralkyl and alkaryl groups, and heterohydrocarbyl heteroalkyl and heteroaryl groups, the later comprising one or more catenary (in-chain) heteroatoms such as ether or amino groups. heterohydrocarbyl may optionally contain one or more catenary (in-chain) functional groups including ester, amide, urea, urethane, and carbonate functional groups. unless otherwise indicated, the non-polymeric (hetero)hydrocarbyl groups typically contain from 1 to 60 carbon atoms. some examples of such heterohydrocarbyls as used herein include, but are not limited to, methoxy, ethoxy, propoxy, 4-diphenylaminobutyl, 2-(2′-phenoxyethoxy)ethyl, 3,6-dioxaheptyl, 3,6-dioxahexyl-6-phenyl, in addition to those described for “alkyl”, “heteroalkyl”, and “aryl” supra. the term “composite particle” as used herein refers to a nanoparticle, which is typically in the form of a core/shell nanoparticle (preferably, nanocrystal), having any associated organic coating or other material on the surface of the nanoparticle that is not removed from the surface by ordinary solvation. such composite particles are useful as “quantum dots,” which have a tunable emission in the near ultraviolet (uv) to far infrared (ir) range as a result of the use of a semiconductor material. the term “nanoparticle” refers to a particle having an average particle diameter in the range of 0.1 to 1000 nanometers such as in the range of 0.1 to 100 nanometers or in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers. the term “diameter” refers not only to the diameter of substantially spherical particles but also to the distance along the smallest axis of the structure. suitable techniques for measuring the average particle diameter include, for example, scanning tunneling microscopy, light scattering, and transmission electron microscopy. a “core” of a nanoparticle is understood to mean a nanoparticle (preferably, a nanocrystal) to which no shell has been applied or to the inner portion of a core/shell nanoparticle. a core of a nanoparticle can have a homogenous composition or its composition can vary with depth inside the core. many materials are known and used in core nanoparticles, and many methods are known in the art for applying one or more shells to a core nanoparticle. the core has a different composition than the one more shells. the core typically has a different chemical composition than the shell of the core/shell nanoparticle. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic side elevation view of an edge region of an illustrative film article including quantum dots. fig. 2 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method of forming a quantum dot film. fig. 3 is a schematic illustration of an embodiment of a display including a quantum dot article. detailed description the present disclosure provides composite particles that contain fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles that can fluoresce when excited with actinic radiation. the composite particles can be used in coatings and films for use in optical displays. fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles emit a fluorescence signal when suitably excited. they fluoresce at a second wavelength of actinic radiation when excited by a first wavelength of actinic radiation that is shorter than the second wavelength. in some embodiments, the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles can fluoresce in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum when exposed to wavelengths of light in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. in other embodiments, the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles can fluoresce in the infrared region when excited in the ultraviolet or visible regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. in still other embodiments, the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles can fluoresce in the ultraviolet region when excited in the ultraviolet region by a shorter wavelength of light, can fluoresce in the visible region when excited by a shorter wavelength of light in the visible region, or can fluoresce in the infrared region when excited by a shorter wavelength of light in the infrared region. the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles are often capable of fluorescing in a wavelength range such as, for example, at a wavelength up to 1200 nanometers (nm), or up to 1000 nm, up to 900 nm, or up to 800 nm. for example, the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles are often capable of fluorescence in the range of 400 to 800 nanometers. the nanoparticles have an average particle diameter of at least 0.1 nanometer (nm), or at least 0.5 nm, or at least 1 nm. the nanoparticles have an average particle diameter of up to 1000 nm, or up to 500 nm, or up to 200 nm, or up to 100 nm, or up to 50 nm, or up to 20 nm, or up to 10 nm. semiconductor nanoparticles, particularly with sizes on the scale of 1-10 nm, have emerged as a category of the most promising advanced materials for cutting-edge technologies. semiconductor materials include elements or complexes of group 2-group 16, group 12-group 16, group 13-group 15, group 14-group 16, and group 14 semiconductors of the periodic table (using the modern group numbering system of 1-18). some suitable quantum dots include a metal phosphide, a metal selenide, a metal telluride, or a metal sulfide. exemplary semiconductor materials include, but are not limited to, si, ge, sn, bn, bp, bas, aln, alp, alas, alsb, gan, gap, gaas, gasb, inn, inp, inas, insb, aln, alp, alas, alsb, gan, gap, gaas, gasb, zno, zns, znse, znte, cds, cdse, cdte, hgs, hgse, hgte, bes, bese, bete, mgs, mgse, mgte, ges, gese, gete, sns, snse, snte, pbo, pbs, pbse, pbte, cuf, cucl, cubr, cui, si 3 n 4 , ge 3 n 4 , al 2 o 3 , (ga,in) 2 (s,se,te) 3 , al 2 co, cas, case, cate, srs, srse, srte, bas, base, bate, and an appropriate combination of two or more such semiconductors. these semiconductor materials can be used for the core, the one or more shell layers, or both. in certain embodiments, exemplary metal phosphide quantum dots include indium phosphide and gallium phosphide, exemplary metal selenide quantum dots include cadmium selenide, lead selenide, and zinc selenide, exemplary metal sulfide quantum dots include cadmium sulfide, lead sulfide, and zinc sulfide, and exemplary metal telluride quantum dots include cadmium telluride, lead telluride, and zinc telluride. other suitable quantum dots include gallium arsenide and indium gallium phosphide. exemplary semiconductor materials are commercially available from evident thermoelectrics (troy, n.y.), and from nanosys inc., milpitas, calif. nanocrystals (or other nanostructures) for use in the present invention can be produced using any method known to those skilled in the art. suitable methods are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 6,949,206 (whiteford, incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. the nanocrystals (or other nanostructures) for use in the present invention can be produced from any suitable material, suitably an inorganic material, and more suitably an inorganic conductive or semiconductive material. suitable semiconductor materials include those disclosed in and include any type of semiconductor, including group 12-16, group 13-15, group 14-16 and group 14 semiconductors. suitable semiconductor materials include, but are not limited to, si, ge, sn, se, te, b, c (including diamond), p, bn, bp, bas, alp, alas, alsb, gan, gap, gaas, gasb, inn, inp, inas, insb, aln, alp, zno, zns, znse, znte, cds, cdse, cdte, hgs, hgse, hgte, bes, bese, bete, mgs, mgse, ges, gese, gete, sns, snse, snte, pbo, pbs, pb se, pbte, cuf, cucl, cubr, cui, si 3 n 4 , ge 3 n 4 , al 2 o 3 , (ga, in) 2 (s, se, te) 3 , al 2 co, and an appropriate combination of two or more such semiconductors. in certain aspects, the semiconductor nanocrystals or other nanostructures may comprise a dopant from the group consisting of: a p-type dopant or an n-type dopant. the nanocrystals (or other nanostructures) useful in the present invention can also comprise group 12-group 16 or group 13-group 15 semiconductors. examples of group 12-group 16 or group 13-group 15 semiconductor nanocrystals and nanostructures include any combination of an element from group 12, such as zn, cd and hg, with any element from group 16, such as s, se, te, po, of the periodic table; and any combination of an element from group 13, such as b, al, ga, in, and tl, with any element from group 15, such as n, p, as, sb and bi, of the periodic table. other suitable inorganic nanostructures include metal nanostructures. suitable metals include, but are not limited to, ru, pd, pt, ni, w, ta, co, mo, ir, re, rh, hf, nb, au, ag, ti, sn, zn, fe, and the like. while any known method can be used to create nanocrystal phosphors, suitably, a solution-phase colloidal method for controlled growth of inorganic nanomaterial phosphors is used. see alivisatos, a. p., “semiconductor clusters, nanocrystals, and quantum dots,” science 271:933 (1996); x. peng, m. schlamp, a. kadavanich, a. p. alivisatos, “epitaxial growth of highly luminescent cdse/cds core/shell nanocrystals with photostability and electronic accessibility,” j. am. chem. soc. 30:7019-7029 (1997); and c. b. murray, d. j. norris, m. g. bawendi, “synthesis and characterization of nearly monodisperse cde (e=sulfur, selenium, tellurium) semiconductor nanocrystallites,” j. am. chem. soc. 115:8706 (1993). this manufacturing process technology leverages low cost processability without the need for clean rooms and expensive manufacturing equipment. in these methods, metal precursors that undergo pyrolysis at high temperature are rapidly injected into a hot solution of organic surfactant molecules. these precursors break apart at elevated temperatures and react to nucleate nanocrystals. after this initial nucleation phase, a growth phase begins by the addition of monomers to the growing crystal. the result is freestanding crystalline nanoparticles in solution that have an organic surfactant molecule coating their surface. utilizing this approach, synthesis occurs as an initial nucleation event that takes place over seconds, followed by crystal growth at elevated temperature for several minutes. parameters such as the temperature, types of surfactants present, precursor materials, and ratios of surfactants to monomers can be modified so as to change the nature and progress of the reaction. the temperature controls the structural phase of the nucleation event, rate of decomposition of precursors, and rate of growth. the organic surfactant molecules mediate both solubility and control of the nanocrystal shape. in semiconductor nanocrystals, photo-induced emission arises from the band edge states of the nanocrystal. the band-edge emission from nanocrystals competes with radiative and non-radiative decay channels originating from surface electronic states. x. peng, et al., j. am. chem. soc. 30:7019-7029 (1997). as a result, the presence of surface defects such as dangling bonds provide non-radiative recombination centers and contribute to lowered emission efficiency. an efficient and permanent method to passivate and remove the surface trap states is to epitaxially grow an inorganic shell material on the surface of the nanocrystal. x. peng, et al., j. am. chem. soc. 30:7019-7029 (1997). the shell material can be chosen such that the electronic levels are type i with respect to the core material (e.g., with a larger bandgap to provide a potential step localizing the electron and hole to the core). as a result, the probability of non-radiative recombination can be reduced. core-shell structures are obtained by adding organometallic precursors containing the shell materials to a reaction mixture containing the core nanocrystal. in this case, rather than a nucleation-event followed by growth, the cores act as the nuclei, and the shells grow from their surface. the temperature of the reaction is kept low to favor the addition of shell material monomers to the core surface, while preventing independent nucleation of nanocrystals of the shell materials. surfactants in the reaction mixture are present to direct the controlled growth of shell material and ensure solubility. a uniform and epitaxially grown shell is obtained when there is a low lattice mismatch between the two materials. additionally, the spherical shape acts to minimize interfacial strain energy from the large radius of curvature, thereby preventing the formation of dislocations that could degrade the optical properties of the nanocrystal system. in suitable embodiments, zns can be used as the shell material using known synthetic processes, resulting in a high-quality emission. as above, if necessary, this material can be easily substituted, e.g., if the core material is modified. additional exemplary core and shell materials are described herein and/or known in the art. for many applications of quantum dots, two factors are typically considered in selecting a material. the first factor is the ability to absorb and emit visible light. this consideration makes inp a highly desirable base material. the second factor is the material's photoluminescence efficiency (quantum yield). generally, group 12-16 quantum dots (such as cadmium selenide) have higher quantum yield than group 13-15 quantum dots (such as inp). the quantum yield of inp cores produced previously has been very low (<1%), and therefore the production of a core/shell structure with inp as the core and another semiconductor compound with higher bandgap (e.g., zns) as the shell has been pursued in attempts to improve the quantum yield. thus, the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles (i.e., quantum dots) of the present disclosure include a core and a shell at least partially surrounding the core. the core/shell nanoparticles can have two distinct layers, a semiconductor or metallic core and a shell surrounding the core of an insulating or semiconductor material. the core often contains a first semiconductor material and the shell often contains a second semiconductor material that is different than the first semiconductor material. for example, a first group 12-16 (e.g., cdse) semiconductor material can be present in the core and a second group 12-16 (e.g., zns) semiconductor material can be present in the shell. in certain embodiments of the present disclosure, the core includes a metal phosphide (e.g., indium phosphide (inp), gallium phosphide (gap), aluminum phosphide (alp)), a metal selenide (e.g., cadmium selenide (cdse), zinc selenide (znse), magnesium selenide (mgse)), or a metal telluride (e.g., cadmium telluride (cdte), zinc telluride (znte)). in certain embodiments, the core includes a metal phosphide (e.g., indium phosphide) or a metal selenide (e.g., cadmium selenide). in certain preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, the core includes a metal phosphide (e.g., indium phosphide). the shell can be a single layer or multilayered. in some embodiments, the shell is a multilayered shell. the shell can include any of the core materials described herein. in certain embodiments, the shell material can be a semiconductor material having a higher bandgap energy than the semiconductor core. in other embodiments, suitable shell materials can have good conduction and valence band offset with respect to the semiconductor core, and in some embodiments, the conduction band can be higher and the valence band can be lower than those of the core. for example, in certain embodiments, semiconductor cores that emit energy in the visible region such as, for example, cds, cdse, cdte, znse, znte, gap, inp, or gaas, or near ir region such as, for example, inp, inas, insb, pbs, or pbse may be coated with a shell material having a bandgap energy in the ultraviolet regions such as, for example, zns, gan, and magnesium chalcogenides such as mgs, mgse, and mgte. in other embodiments, semiconductor cores that emit in the near ir region can be coated with a material having a bandgap energy in the visible region such as cds or znse. formation of the core/shell nanoparticles may be carried out by a variety of methods. suitable core and shell precursors useful for preparing semiconductor cores are known in the art and can include group 2 elements, group 12 elements, group 13 elements, group 14 elements, group 15 elements, group 16 elements, and salt forms thereof. for example, a first precursor may include metal salt (m+x−) including a metal atom (m+) such as, for example, zn, cd, hg, mg, ca, sr, ba, ga, in, al, pb, ge, si, or in salts and a counter ion (x−), or organometallic species such as, for example, dialkyl metal complexes. the preparation of a coated semiconductor nanocrystal core and core/shell nanocrystals can be found in, for example, dabbousi et al. (1997) j. phys. chem. b 101:9463, hines et al. (1996) j. phys. chem. 100: 468-471, and peng et al. (1997) j. amer. chem. soc. 119:7019-7029, as well as in u.s. pat. no. 8,283,412 (liu et al.) and international publication no. wo 2010/039897 (tulsky et al.). in certain preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, the shell includes a metal sulfide (e.g., zinc sulfide or cadmium sulfide). in certain embodiments, the shell includes a zinc-containing compound (e.g., zinc sulfide or zinc selenide). in certain embodiments, a multilayered shell includes an inner shell overcoating the core, wherein the inner shell includes zinc selenide and zinc sulfide. in certain embodiments, a multilayered shell includes an outer shell overcoating the inner shell, wherein the outer shell includes zinc sulfide. in some embodiments, the core of the shell/core nanoparticle contains a metal phosphide such as indium phosphide, gallium phosphide, or aluminum phosphide. the shell contains zinc sulfide, zinc selenide, or a combination thereof. in some more particular embodiments, the core contains indium phosphide and the shell is multilayered with the inner shell containing both zinc selenide and zinc sulfide and the outer shell containing zinc sulfide. the thickness of the shell(s) may vary among embodiments and can affect fluorescence wavelength, quantum yield, fluorescence stability, and other photostability characteristics of the nanocrystal. the skilled artisan can select the appropriate thickness to achieve desired properties and may modify the method of making the core/shell nanoparticles to achieve the appropriate thickness of the shell(s). the diameter of the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles (i.e., quantum dots) of the present disclosure can affect the fluorescence wavelength. the diameter of the quantum dot is often directly related to the fluorescence wavelength. for example, cadmium selenide quantum dots having an average particle diameter of about 2 to 3 nanometers tend to fluoresce in the blue or green regions of the visible spectrum while cadmium selenide quantum dots having an average particle diameter of about 8 to 10 nanometers tend to fluoresce in the red region of the visible spectrum. since carboxylic acids are often used as surfactants in the synthesis of inp/zns core/shell particles, the quantum dots may have acid functional ligands attached thereto, prior to dispersing in the stabilizing agent. similarly, cdse quantum dots may be functionalized with amine-functional ligands as result of their preparation. as result, the quantum dots may be functionalized with those surface modifying additives or ligands resulting from the original synthesis of the nanoparticles. as result, the quantum dots may be surface modified with ligands of formula iii: r 15 —r 12 (x) n iii wherein r 15 is (hetero)hydrocarbyl group having c 2 to c 30 carbon atoms; r 12 is a hydrocarbyl group including alkylene, arylene, alkarylene and aralkylene; n is at least one; x is a ligand group, including —co 2 h, —so 3 h, —p(o)(oh) 2 , —op(o)(oh), —oh and —nh 2 . such additional surface modifying ligands may be added when the functionalizing with the stabilizing agent of formula i, or may be attached to the nanoparticles as result of the synthesis. such additional surface modifying agents are present in amounts less than or equal to the weight of the instant stabilizing copolymer, preferably 10 wt. % or less, relative to the amount of the stabilizing agent. various methods can be used to surface modify the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles with the ligand compounds. in some embodiments, procedures similar to those described in u.s. pat. no. 7,160,613 (bawendi et al.) and u.s. pat. no. 8,283,412 (liu et al.) can be used to add the surface modifying agent. for example, the ligand compound and the fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles can be heated at an elevated temperature (e.g., at least 50° c., at least 60° c., at least 80° c., or at least 90° c.) for an extended period of time (e.g., at least 1 hour, at least 5 hours, at least 10 hours, at least 15 hours, or at least 20 hours). if desired, any by-product of the synthesis process or any solvent used in surface-modification process can be removed, for example, by distillation, rotary evaporation, or by precipitation of the nanoparticles and centrifugation of the mixture followed by decanting the liquid and leaving behind the surface-modified nanoparticles. in some embodiments, the surface-modified fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles are dried to a powder after surface-modification. in other embodiments, the solvent used for the surface modification is compatible (i.e., miscible) with any carrier fluids used in compositions in which the nanoparticles are included. in these embodiments, at least a portion of the solvent used for the surface-modification reaction can be included in the carrier fluid in which the surface-modified, fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles are dispersed. suitable solvents or carrier fluids include, but are not limited to, aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g., toluene, benzene, or xylene), aliphatic hydrocarbons such as alkanes (e.g., cyclohexane, heptane, hexane, or octane), alcohols (e.g., methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, or butanol), ketones (e.g., acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, or cyclohexanone), aldehydes, amines, amides, esters (e.g., amyl acetate, ethylene carbonate, propylene carbonate, or methoxypropyl acetate), glycols (e.g., ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, butylene glycol, triethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, heylene glycol, or glycol ethers such as those commercially available from dow chemical, midland, mich. under the trade designation dowanol), ethers (e.g., diethyl ether), dimethyl sulfoxide, tetramethylsulfone, halocarbons (e.g., methylene chloride, chloroform, or hydrofluoroethers), or combinations thereof. the stabilizing agent improves the stability of the quantum dots for their use in quantum dot articles. in particular, the instant stabilizing agent renders the quantum dots stable in the dispersion of carrier fluids, droplets of which are dispersed in the polymeric matrix. the combination of the stabilizing agents with the quantum dots may prevent the quantum dot particles from photodegradation. stabilizing copolymers may be prepared by anionic polymerization of a vinyl aromatic monomer and a cyclic siloxane to form a living polymer. such monomers include vinyl aromatic compounds such as styrene, a-methylstyrene, vinyltoluene, tert-butylstyrene, methoxystyrene, trimethylsilylstyrene and its isomers. living polymers are conveniently prepared by contacting the monomers with an alkali metal hydrocarbon or alkoxide salt in the presence of an inert organic diluent. desirably, the monomers may be added sequentially to produce a styrene-silicone block copolymer. when the block copolymers are prepared using living anionic polymerization techniques, the simplified structure a-m can represent the living a block where m is propagating anionic fragment. the a block is the polymerization product of a first monomer composition that includes “z” functional styrene monomers. a second monomer composition that includes the monomers used to form the b block (e.g., the second monomer composition can include cyclic siloxane monomers can be added to a-m resulting in the formation of the living diblock structure a-b-m. the addition of another charge of the first monomer composition, which includes monomers according to formula i, and the subsequent elimination of the living anion site can result in the formation of triblock structure a-b-a. the initiators for anionic polymerization may be any of the alkali metal hydrocarbons or alkoxide salts which produce a mono-functional living polymer, i.e., only one end of the polymer contains a reactive ion. such initiators include the hydrocarbons of lithium, sodium or potassium, for example, containing a carbon-centered anion and comprised of up to 20 carbon atoms or more, and preferably up to 8 carbon atoms. illustrative alkali metal hydrocarbons include ethylsodium, propylsodium, butylpotassium, octylpotassium, benzylpotassium, benzylsodium, phenylsodium, ethyllithium, butyllithium, sec-butyllithium, isobutyllithium, tert-butyllithium and 2-ethylhexyllithium. sec-butyllithium is the preferred initiator. functional anionic initiators may be used. one such initiator is p-(bis-trimethylsilylamino)phenyl lithium. u.s. pat. no. 5,331,058 (shephard) and u.s. pat. no. 5,391,663 (bening) describe functional initiators having the structure r 31 r 32 r 33 si—o-a′-li is described in wherein r 31 , r 32 , and r 33 are preferably alkyl, alkoxy, aryl, or alkaryl groups having from 1 to 10 carbon atoms, and a′ is preferably a branched or straight chain bridging group having at least 2 carbon atoms. r 1 , r 2 , and r 3 are preferably not all ch 3 . the bridging group (a) is most preferably a straight chain alkyl having from 3 to 10 carbon atoms. further reference may be made to initiator systems disclosed in the following references: jagur-grodzinski, j. (2002), functional polymers by living anionic polymerization. j. polym. sci. a polym. chem., 40: 2116-2133. doi:10.1002/pola.10291, fl l. hsieh, r. p, quirk, “anionic polymerization, principles and practical applications” marcel dekker, inc., new york, 1996; r. p. quirk, s. h. jang, recent advances in anionic synthesis of functionalized elastomers using functionalized alkylithium initiators, rubb. chem. thechnol., 1996, 69(3), 444-461; y. s. yu, r. jerome, r. haft, ph. teyssié, “efficiency of the sec-butyllithium/m-diisopropenylbenzene diadduct as an anionic polymerization initiator in apolar solvents”, macromolecules, 1994, 27, 5957-5963; f. bandermann, h. d. speikamp, l. weigel, “bifunctional anionic initiators: a critical study and overview”, makromoi. chem. 1985, 186, 2017-2024; and rachid matmour, arvind s. more, prakash p. wadgaonkar, and yves gnanou, “high performance poly(styrene-b-diene-b-styrene) triblock copolymers from a hydrocarbon-soluble and additive-free dicarbanionic initiator”, j. am. chem. soc. 2006. 128(25), 8158-8159. u.s. pat. no. 5,329,005, issued jul. 12, 1994, and entitled “soluble anionic polymerization initiators and preparation thereof,” discloses mono lithio amine initiators. the amount of initiator usually dictates the molecular weight of the living polymer. if a small portion of initiator is used, with respect to the amount of monomer, the molecular weight of the living polymer will generally be larger than if a small proportion of initiator is used. generally, the initiator concentration can vary from about 0.01 to about 0.1 mole of active alkali metal per mole of monomer, or higher. the polymerization temperature used depends on the monomers being polymerized, solvent used, and on the type of polymerization technique practiced. for living anionic polymerization reactions, the temperature is often about −80° c. to about 40° c. in general, the polymerization reaction is carried out under controlled conditions so as to exclude substances that can destroy the initiator or living anion. typically, the polymerization reaction is carried out in an inert atmosphere such as nitrogen, argon, helium, or combinations thereof. when the reaction is a living anionic polymerization, anhydrous conditions may be necessary. a living polymer chain prepared using anionic polymerization methods can be terminated in several ways to yield a functional group end-capped polymer. this reaction is described in u.s. pat. no. 3,842,059. the end-capping reaction is carried out, as in the case of the terminating reaction, by adding the capping reactant to the living polymer chain at the polymerization temperature. depending on the intended consequence of the end-capping, either an excess or a stoichiometric equivalent relative to the amount of initiator may be used. in cases where polymer coupling is intended, reagent amounts should be exact as end capping reactions are preferred to occur on a mole basis. while many of the following reagents react to near completion, it is not necessary for all polymer chain ends to be functionalized for unique properties to be realized in bulk material. in the technical literature, numerous examples of coupling agents are reported [h. l. hsieh, rubber chem. and tech., 1976, 49(5), 1305]. addition of suitable electrophiles to the growing polymer chain will result in nucleophilic attack of the propagating anion. examples of such electrophiles include carbon dioxide to yield a terminal carboxylic acid, organic imines to give terminal amines, small molecule aldehydes and ketones to give terminal alcohols. similarly, bulky electrophiles containing a protected functional group, exemplified by the substituted diphenylethylene 1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1-phenylethylene, are commonly utilized in end-capping reactions. organic small molecules containing halogen leaving groups (ie f, cl, br, i) may also be utilized for end-capping of polymer chains. examples of such small molecules, in addition to their congener analogues, are para-chloromethylstyrene, 2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-1-(3-chloropropyl)-1-aza-2,5-disilacyclopentane and 1-bromo-3-(tert-butyldimethyl)siloxylpropane. ring opening of strained cyclic organics is also commonly utilized for polymer chain end-capping with concurrent functionalization. ethylene oxide, substituted epoxides, thiiranes, six-membered siloxanes, aziridine, substituted aziridines, and sultones are examples of some of the many strained cyclics that have been used for this purpose. in addition to functional group installation, coupling of polymer chains is also commonly achieved with end-capping reagents. these coupling agents are generally of the form r 1 0-2 r 2 0-2 ax 2-4 , where a is a main group atom, x is some halogen, r 1 and r 2 are alkyl, aryl, alkaryl, or aralkyl groups. the r substituents may possess functionality, such as dichlorovinylmethylsilane. di-, tri- and tetra-halogenated organosilanes, dibromoxylenes, and dibromomethane are unfunctionalized coupling agents regularly used to give polymer chains with or without branching. the nature of the propagating anion determines what end-capping reagent may be used. one skilled in the art recognizes the inherent reactivity differences between carbon-centered anions and anions centered on other main-group elements. as such, some less reactive end-capping reagents will react with a polymer chain in which the propagating anion is carbon based, while less reactive reagents will fail to terminate, for example the case of poly(ethyleneoxide), an oxygen-centered anion. in yet a more specific example an end-capping agent that yields a methacrylate functional group of the polymer terminus, 3-(dimethyl)iodosilyl-1-propylmethacrylate, will cleanly terminate an oxygen-centered anion but will engage in alternate reactivity with carbon centered anions like the case of polystyrene. halosilanes are commonly use to terminate oxygen-centered anions. for example, oxanions may be terminated with an iodosilane or iodosiloxane such as iodotrimethylsilane or hexamethyldisiloxane to provide a trimethyl silyl terminal groups. the living anions may be terminated with an aminoalkyl dimethyl iododisiloxane or aminoalkyl dimethyl iodosilane to provide an alkylamino terminal groups. chlorovinyldimethylsilane may be used to provide a terminal vinylsilane group. the stabilized fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles may be dispersed in a solution, suspension or dispersion that contains (a) an optional carrier fluid and (b) a polymeric binder, a precursor of the polymeric binder, or combinations thereof. the stabilized nanoparticles may be dispersed in the optional carrier fluid, which is then dispersed in the polymeric binder, forming droplets of the nanoparticles in the secondary carrier fluid, which in turn are dispersed in the polymeric binder. the polymeric binders desirably provide barrier properties to exclude oxygen and moisture. if water and/or oxygen enter the quantum dot article, the quantum dots can degrade and ultimately fail to emit light when excited by ultraviolet or blue light irradiation. slowing or eliminating quantum dot degradation along the laminate edges is particularly important to extend the service life of the displays in smaller electronic devices such as those utilized in, for example, handheld devices and tablets. the polymeric binders or resins desirably provide barrier properties to exclude oxygen and moisture when cured. if water and/or oxygen enter the quantum dot article, the quantum dots can degrade and ultimately fail to emit light when excited by ultraviolet or blue light irradiation. slowing or eliminating quantum dot degradation along the laminate edges is particularly important to extend the service life of the displays in smaller electronic devices such as those utilized in, for example, handheld devices and tablets. exemplary polymeric binders include, but are not limited to, polysiloxanes, fluoroelastomers, polyamides, polyimides, polycarolactones, polycaprolactams, polyurethanes, polyethers, polyvinyl chlorides, polyvinyl acetates, polyesters, polycarbonates, polyacrylates, polymethacrylates, polyacrylamides, and polymethacrylamides, and mixtures thereof. suitable precursors of the polymeric binder or resin include any precursor materials used to prepare the polymeric materials listed above. exemplary precursor materials include acrylates that can be polymerized to polyacrylates, methacrylates that can be polymerized to form polymethacrylates, acrylamides that can be polymerized to form polyacrylamides, methacrylamides that can be polymerized to form polymethacrylamides, epoxy resins and dicarboxylic acids that can be polymerized to form polyesters, diepoxides that can be polymerized to form polyethers, isocyanates and polyols that can be polymerized to form polyurethanes, or polyols and dicarboxylic acids that can be polymerized to form polyesters. in some embodiments, such as cdse, the polymeric binder is a thermally curable epoxy-amine composition optionally further comprising a radiation-curable acrylate as described in applicant's copending wo 2015/095296 (eckert et al.); thiol-epoxy resins as described in u.s. 62/148,209 (qiu et al., filed 16 apr. 2015), thiol-alkene-epoxy resins as described in u.s. 62/148,212 (qui et al. filed 16 apr. 2015); thiol-alkene resins as described in u.s. 62/080,488 (qui et al., filed 17 nov. 2014), and thiol silicones as described in wo 2015/138174 (qiu et al., published 17 sep. 2015). in some preferred embodiments the polymeric binder is a radiation curable oligomer having the general formula r olig -(l 1 -z 1 ) d , wherein r olig groups include urethanes, polyurethanes, esters, polyesters, polyethers, polyolefins, polybutadienes and epoxies; l 1 is a linking group; z 1 is a pendent, free-radically polymerizable group such as (meth)acryloyl, vinyl or alkynyl and is preferably a (meth)acrylate, and d is greater than 1, preferably at least 2. the linking group l 1 between the oligomer segment and ethylenically unsaturated end group includes a divalent or higher valency group selected from an alkylene, arylene, heteroalkylene, or combinations thereof and an optional divalent group selected from carbonyl, ester, amide, sulfonamide, or combinations thereof. l 1 can be unsubstituted or substituted with an alkyl, aryl, halo, or combinations thereof. the l 1 group typically has no more than 30 carbon atoms. in some compounds, the l 1 group has no more than 20 carbon atoms, no more than 10 carbon atoms, no more than 6 carbon atoms, or no more than 4 carbon atoms. for example, l 1 can be an alkylene, an alkylene substituted with an aryl group, or an alkylene in combination with an arylene or an alkyl ether or alkyl thioether linking group. the pendent, free radically polymerizable functional groups z 1 may be selected from the group consisting of vinyl, vinyl ether, ethynyl, and (meth)acyroyl which includes acrylate, methacrylate, acrylamide and methacrylamide groups. the oligomeric group r olig may be selected from poly(meth)acrylate, polyurethane, polyepoxide, polyester, polyether, polysulfide, polybutadiene, hydrogenated polyolefins (including hydrogenated polybutadienes, isoprenes and ethylene/propylene copolymers, and polycarbonate oligomeric chains. as used herein, “(meth)acrylated oligomer” means a polymer molecule having at least two pendent (meth)acryloyl groups and a weight average molecular weight (mw) as determined by gel permeation chromatography of at least 1,000 g/mole and typically less than 50,000 g/mole. (meth)acryloyl epoxy oligomers are multifunctional (meth)acrylate esters and amides of epoxy resins, such as the (meth)acrylated esters of bisphenol-a epoxy resin. examples of commercially available (meth)acrylated epoxies include those known by the trade designations ebecryl 600 (bisphenol a epoxy diacrylate of 525 molecular weight), ebecryl 605 (ebecryl 600 with 25% tripropylene glycol diacrylate), ebecryl 3700 (bisphenol-a diacrylate of 524 molecular weight) and ebecryl 3720h (bisphenol a diacrylate of 524 molecular weight with 20% hexanediol diacrylate) available from cytec industries, inc., woodland park, n.j.; and photomer 3016 (bisphenol a epoxy acrylate), photomer 3016-40r (epoxy acrylate and 40% tripropylene glycol diacrylate blend), and photomer 3072 (modified bisphenol a acrylate, etc.) available from basf corp., cincinnati, ohio, and ebecryl 3708 (modified bisphenol a epoxy diacrylate) available from cytec industries, inc., woodland park, n.j. (meth)acrylated urethanes are multifunctional (meth)acrylate esters of hydroxy terminated isocyanate extended polyols, polyesters or polyethers. (meth)acrylated urethane oligomers can be synthesized, for example, by reacting a diisocyanate or other polyvalent isocyanate compound with a polyvalent polyol (including polyether and polyester polyols) to yield an isocyanate terminated urethane prepolymer. a polyester polyol can be formed by reacting a polybasic acid (e.g., terephthalic acid or maleic acid) with a polyhydric alcohol (e.g., ethylene glycol or 1,6-hexanediol). a polyether polyol useful for making the acrylate functionalized urethane oligomer can be chosen from, for example, polyethylene glycol, polypropylene glycol, poly(tetrahydrofuran), poly(2-methyl-tetrahydrofuran), poly(3-methyl-tetrahydrofuran) and the like. alternatively, the polyol linkage of an acrylated urethane oligomer can be a polycarbonate polyol. subsequently, (meth)acrylates having a hydroxyl group can then be reacted with the terminal isocyanate groups of the prepolymer. both aromatic and the preferred aliphatic isocyanates can be used to react with the urethane to obtain the oligomer. examples of diisocyanates useful for making the (meth)acrylated oligomers are 2,4-tolylene diisocyanate, 2,6-tolylene diisocyanate, 1,3-xylylene diisocyanate, 1,4-xylylene diisocyanate, 1,6-hexane diisocyanate, isophorone diisocyanate and the like. examples of hydroxy terminated acrylates useful for making the acrylated oligomers include, but are not limited to, 2-hydroxyethyl (meth)acrylate, 2-hydroxypropyl (meth)acrylate, a-hydroxybutyl acrylate, polyethylene glycol (meth)acrylate and the like. a (meth)acrylated urethane oligomer can be, for example, any urethane oligomer having at least two acrylate functionalities and generally less than about six functionalities. suitable (meth)acrylated urethane oligomers are also commercially available such as, for example, those known by the trade designations photomer 6008, 6019, 6184 (aliphatic urethane triacrylates) available from henkel corp.; ebecryl 220 (hexafunctional aromatic urethane acrylate of 1000 molecular weight), ebecryl 284 (aliphatic urethane diacrylate of 1200 molecular weight diluted with 12% of 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate), ebecryl 4830 (aliphatic urethane diacrylate of 1200 molecular weight diluted with 10% of tetraethylene glycol diacrylate), and ebecryl 6602 (trifunctional aromatic urethane acrylate of 1300 molecular weight diluted with 40% of trimethylolpropane ethoxy triacrylate), available from ucb chemical; and sartomer cn1963, 963e75, 945a60, 963b80, 968, and 983) available from sartomer co., exton, pa. properties of these materials may be varied depending upon selection of the type of isocyanate, the type of polyol modifier, the reactive functionality and molecular weight. diisocyanates are widely used in urethane acrylate synthesis and can be divided into aromatic and aliphatic diisocyanates. aromatic diisocyanates are used for manufacture of aromatic urethane acrylates which have significantly lower cost than aliphatic urethane acrylates but tend to noticeably yellow on white or light colored substrates. aliphatic urethane acrylates include aliphatic diisocyanates that exhibit slightly more flexibility than aromatic urethane acrylates that include the same functionality, a similar polyol modifier and at similar molecular weight. the curable composition may comprise a functionalized poly(meth)acrylate oligomer, which may be obtained from the reaction product of: (a) from 50 to 99 parts by weight of (meth)acrylate ester monomer units that are homo- or co-polymerizable to a polymer (b) from 1 to 50 parts by weight of monomer units having a pendent, free-radically polymerizable functional group. examples of such materials are available from lucite international (cordova, tenn.) under the trade designations of elvacite 1010, elvacite 4026, and elvacite 4059. the (meth)acrylated poly(meth)acrylate oligomer may comprise a blend of an acrylic or hydrocarbon polymer with multifunctional (meth)acrylate diluents. suitable polymer/diluent blends include, for example, commercially available products such as ebecryl 303, 745 and 1710 all of which are available from cytec industries, inc., woodland park, n.j. the curable composition may comprise a (meth)acrylated polybutadiene oligomer, which may be obtained from a carboxyl- or hydroxyl-functionalized polybutadiene. by carboxyl or hydroxy functionalized polybutadiene is meant to designate a polybutadiene comprising free —oh or —cooh groups. carboxyl functionalized polybutadienes are known, they have for example been described in u.s. pat. no. 3,705,208 (nakamuta et al.) and are commercially available under the trade name of nisso pb c-1000 (nisso america, new york, n.y.). carboxyl functionalized polybutadienes can also be obtained by the reaction of a hydroxyl functionalized polybutadiene (that is a polybutadiene having free hydroxyl groups) with a cyclic anhydride such as for example has been described in u.s. pat. no. 5,587,433 (boeckeler), u.s. pat. no. 4,857,434 (klinger) and u.s. pat. no. 5,462,835 (mirle). carboxyl and hydroxyl functionalized polybutadienes suitable for being used in the process according to the present invention contain besides the carboxyl and/or hydroxyl groups, units derived from the polymerization of butadiene. the polybutadiene (pdb) generally comprises 1-4 cis units/1-4 trans units/1-2 units in a ratio a/b/c where a, b and c range from 0 to 1 with a+b+c=1. the number average molecular weight (mn) of the functionalized polybutadiene is preferably from 200 to 10000 da. the mn is more preferably at least 1000. the mn more preferably does not exceed 5000 da. the cooh or —oh functionality is generally from 1.5 to 9, preferably from 1.8 to 6. exemplary hydroxyl and carboxyl polybutadienes include without limitation poly bd r-20lm (hydroxyl functionalized pdb, a=0.2, b=0.6, c=0.2, m n 1230) and poly bd r45-ht (hydroxyl functionalized pdb, a=0.2, b=0.6, c=0.2, m n 2800) commercialized by atofina, nisso-pb g-1000 (hydroxyl functionalized pdb, a=0, b<0.15, c>0.85, m n 1250-1650), nisso-pb g-2000 (hydroxyl functionalized pdb, a=0, b<0.15, c>0.85, m n 1800-2200), nisso-pb g-3000 (hydroxyl functionalized pdb, a=0, b<0.10, c>0.90, m n 2600-3200), nisso-pb c-1000 (carboxyl functionalized pdb, a=0, b<0.15, c>0.85, mn 1200-1550) obtainable from nisso america, new york, n.y. when carboxyl functionalized polybutadienes obtained from the reaction of a hydroxyl functionalized polybutadiene with a cyclic anhydride are used, this cyclic anhydride preferably include phthalic anhydride, hexahydrophthalic anhydride, glutaric anhydride, succinic anhydride, dodecenylsuccinic anhydride, maleic anhydride, trimellitic anhydride, pyromellitic anhydride. mixtures of anhydrides can also be used. the amount of anhydride used for the preparation of a carboxyl functionalized polybutadiene from a hydroxyl functionalized polybutadiene is generally at least 0.8 molar, preferably at least 0.9 molar and more preferably at least 0.95 molar equivalent per molar equivalents of —oh groups present in the polybutadiene. a (meth)acrylated polybutadiene oligomer, which is the reaction product of a carboxyl functionalized polybutadiene, may be prepared with a (meth)acrylated monoepoxide. (meth)acrylated mono-epoxides are known. examples of (meth)acrylated mono-epoxides that can be used are glycidyl (meth)acrylate esters, such as glycidylacrylate, glycidylmethacrylate, 4-hydroxybutylacrylate glycidylether, bisphenol-a diglycidylether monoacrylate. the (meth)acrylated mono-epoxides are preferably chosen from glycidylacrylate and glycidylmethacrylate. alternatively, a (meth)acrylated polybutadiene oligomer which is the reaction product of a hydroxyl functionalized polybutadiene may be prepared with a (meth)acrylate ester, or halide. some (meth)acrylated polybutadienes that can be used, for example, include ricacryl 3100 and ricacryl 3500, manufactured by sartomer company, exton, pa., usa, and nisso te-2000 available from nisso america, new york, n.y. alternatively, other methacrylated polybutadienes can be used. these include dimethacrylates of liquid polybutadiene resins composed of modified, esterified liquid polybutadiene diols. these are available under the tradename cn301 and cn303, and cn307, manufactured by sartomer company, exton, pa., usa. regardless which methacrylated polybutadiene is used with embodiments of the invention, the methacrylated polybutadiene can include a number of methacrylate groups per chain from about 2 to about 20. alternatively, the acrylate functionalized oligomers can be polyester acrylate oligomers, acrylated acrylic oligomers, acrylated epoxy oligomers, polycarbonate acrylate oligomers or polyether acrylate oligomers. useful epoxy acrylate oligomers include cn2003b from sartomer co. (exton, pa.). useful polyester acrylate oligomers include cn293, cn294, and cn2250, 2281, 2900 from sartomer co. (exton, pa.) and ebecryl 80, 657, 830, and 1810 from ucb chemicals (smyrna, ga.). suitable polyether acrylate oligomers include cn501, 502, and 551 from sartomer co. (exton, pa.). useful polycarbonate acrylate oligomers can be prepared according to u.s. pat. no. 6,451,958 (sartomer technology company inc., wilmington, del.). in each embodiment comprising a (meth)acrylated oligomer, the curable binder composition optionally, yet preferably, comprises diluent monomer in an amount sufficient to reduce the viscosity of the curable composition such that it may be coated on a substrate. in some embodiments, the composition may comprise up to about 70 wt-% diluent monomers to reduce the viscosity of the oligomeric component to less than 10000 centipoise and to improve the processability. useful monomers are desirably soluble or miscible in the (meth)acrylated oligomer, highly polymerizable therewith. useful diluents are mono- and polyethylenically unsaturated monomers such as (meth)acrylates or (meth)acrylamides. suitable monomers typically have a number average molecular weight no greater than 450 g/mole. the diluent monomer desirably has minimal absorbance at the wavelength of the radiation used to cure the composition. such diluent monomers may include, for example, n-butyl acrylate, isobutyl acrylate, hexyl acrylate, 2-ethyl-hexylacrylate, isooctylacrylate, caprolactoneacrylate, isodecylacrylate, tridecylacrylate, laurylmethacrylate, methoxy-polyethylenglycol-monomethacrylate, laurylacrylate, tetrahydrofurfuryl-acrylate, ethoxy-ethoxyethyl acrylate and ethoxylated-nonylacrylate. especially preferred are 2-ethyl-hexylacrylate, ethoxy-ethoxyethyl acrylate, tridecylacrylate and ethoxylated nonylacrylate. high t g monomers having one ethylenically unsaturated group and a glass transition temperature of the corresponding homopolymer of 50° c. or more which are suitable in the present invention, include, for example, n-vinylpyrrolidone, n-vinyl caprolactam, isobornyl acrylate, acryloylmorpholine, isobornylmethacrylate, phenoxyethylacrylate, phenoxyethylmethacrylate, methylmethacrylate and acrylamide. furthermore, the diluent monomers may contain an average of two or more free-radically polymerizable groups. a diluent having three or more of such reactive groups can be present as well. examples of such monomers include: c 2 -c 18 alkylenedioldi(meth)acrylates, c 3 -c 18 alkylenetrioltri(meth)acrylates, the polyether analogues thereof, and the like, such as 1,6-hexanedioldi(meth)acrylate, trimethylolpropanetri(meth)acrylate, triethyleneglycoldi(meth)acrylate, pentaeritritoltri(meth)acrylate, and tripropyleneglycol di(meth)acrylate, and di-trimethylolpropane tetraacrylate. suitable preferred diluent monomers include for example benzyl (meth)acrylate, phenoxyethyl (meth)acrylate; phenoxy-2-methylethyl (meth)acrylate; phenoxyethoxyethyl (meth)acrylate, 1-naphthyloxy ethyl acrylate; 2-naphthyloxy ethyl acrylate; phenoxy 2-methylethyl acrylate; phenoxyethoxyethyl acrylate; 2-phenylphenoxy ethyl acrylate; 4-phenylphenoxy ethyl acrylate; and phenyl acrylate. preferred diluent monomers includes phenoxyethyl (meth)acrylate, benzyl (meth)acrylate, and tricyclodecane dimethanol diacrylate. phenoxyethyl acrylate is commercially available from sartomer under the trade designation “sr339”; from eternal chemical co. ltd. under the trade designation “etermer 210”; and from toagosei co. ltd under the trade designation “to-1166”. benzyl acrylate is commercially available from osaka organic chemical, osaka city, japan. tricyclodecane dimethanol diacrylate is commercially available from sartomer under the trade designation “sr833-s”. such optional monomer(s) may be present in the polymerizable composition in amount of at least about 5 wt-%. the optional monomer(s) typically total no more than about 70 wt-% of the curable composition. the some embodiments the total amount of diluent monomer ranges from about 10 wt-% to about 50-%. when using a free-radically curable polymeric binder, the curable composition further comprises photoinitiators, in an amount between the range of about 0.1% and about 5% by weight. useful photoinitiators include those known as useful for photocuring free-radically polyfunctional (meth)acrylates. exemplary photoinitiators include benzoin and its derivatives such as alpha-methylbenzoin; alpha-phenylbenzoin; alpha-allylbenzoin; alpha-benzylbenzoin; benzoin ethers such as benzil dimethyl ketal (e.g., “irgacure 651” from basf, florham park, n.j.), benzoin methyl ether, benzoin ethyl ether, benzoin n-butyl ether; acetophenone and its derivatives such as 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenyl-1-propanone (e.g., “irgacure 1173” from basf, florham park, n.j.) and 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone (e.g., “irgacure 184” from basf, florham park, n.j.); 2-methyl-1-[4-(methylthio)phenyl]-2-(4-morpholinyl)-1-propanone (e.g., “irgacure 907” from basf, florham park, n.j.); 2-benzyl-2-(dimethylamino)-1-[4-(4-morpholinyl)phenyl]-1-butanone (e.g., “irgacure 369” from basf, florham park, n.j.) and phosphine oxide derivatives such as ethyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoylphenylphoshinate (e.g. “tpo-l” from basf, florham park, n.j.), and irgacure 819 (phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide) available from basf, florham park, n.j. other useful photoinitiators include, for example, pivaloin ethyl ether, anisoin ethyl ether, anthraquinones (e.g., anthraquinone, 2-ethylanthraquinone, 1-chloroanthraquinone, 1,4-dimethylanthraquinone, 1-methoxyanthraquinone, or benzanthraquinone), halomethyltriazines, benzophenone and its derivatives, iodonium salts and sulfonium salts, titanium complexes such as bis(eta5-2,4-cyclopentadien-1-yl)-bis[2,6-difluoro-3-(1h-pyrrol-1-yl) phenyl]titanium (e.g., “irgacure 784” from basf, florham park, n.j.); halomethyl-nitrobenzenes (e.g., 4-bromomethylnitrobenzene), mono- and bis-acylphosphines (e.g., “irgacure 1700”, “irgacure 1800”, “irgacure 1850”, and “irgacure 4265”). in some embodiments, the polymeric binder is an epoxy compound that can be cured or polymerized by the processes that are those known to undergo cationic polymerization and include 1,2-, 1,3-, and 1,4-cyclic ethers (also designated as 1,2-, 1,3-, and 1,4-epoxides). suitable epoxy binders can include, for example, those epoxy binders described in u.s. pat. no. 6,777,460. in particular, cyclic ethers that are useful include the cycloaliphatic epoxies such as cyclohexene oxide, vinylcyclohexene oxide, vinylcyclohexene dioxide, and the celloxide series type of binders available from daicel (u.s.a.) inc., fort lee, n.j. or the syna-epdxy series of epoxy resins from synasia inc., metuchen, n.j., such as 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl-3, 4-epoxycyclohexane carboxylate, bis-(3,4-epoxycyclohexyl) adipate and 2-(3, 4-epoxycylclohexyl-5, 5-spiro-3,4-epoxy) cyclohexene-meta-dioxane; also included are the glycidyl ether type epoxy binders such as propylene oxide, epichlorohydrin, styrene oxide, glycidol, the epon, eponex, and heloxy series type of epoxy binders available from resolution performance products, houston, tex., including the diglycidyl either of bisphenol a and chain extended versions of this material such as epon 828, epon 1001, epon 1004, epon 1007, epon 1009 and epon 2002 or their equivalent from other manufacturers, eponex 1510, the hydrogenated diglycidyl either of bisphenol a, heloxy 67, diglycidyl ether of 1,4-butanediol, heloxy™ 107, diglycidyl ether of cyclohexane dimethanol, or their equivalent from other manufacturers, dicyclopentadiene dioxide, epoxidized vegetable oils such as epoxidized linseed and soybean oils available as vikolox and vikoflex binders from atofina, philadelphia, pa., epoxidized kraton liquid polymers, such as l-207 available from kraton polymers, houston, tex., epoxidized polybutadienes such as the poly bd binders from atofina, philadelphia, pa., 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether, polyglycidyl ether of phenolformaldehyde, and for example den™ epoxidized phenolic novolac binders such as den 431 and den 438 available from dow chemical co., midland mich., epoxidized cresol novolac binders such as araldite ecn 1299 available from vantico ag, basel, switzerland, resorcinol diglycidyl ether, and epoxidized polystyrene/polybutadiene blends such as the epofriendz binders such as epofriend a1010 available from daicel usa inc., fort lee, n.j., and resorcinol diglycidyl ether. higher molecular weight polyols include the polyethylene and polypropylene oxide polymers in the molecular weight (mn) range of 200 to 20,000 such as the carbowax polyethyleneoxide materials available from dow chemical co., midland, mich., caprolactone polyols in the molecular weight range of 200 to 5,000 such as the tone polyol materials available from dow, polytetramethylene ether glycol in the molecular weight range of 200 to 4,000, such as the terathane materials available from dupont and polythf 250 from basf, polyethylene glycol, such as peg™ 200 available from dow, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene binders such as the poly bd materials available from atofina, philadelphia, pa., phenoxy binders such as those commercially available from phenoxy associates, rock hill, s.c., or equivalent materials supplied by other manufacturers. it is also within the scope of this invention to include one or more epoxy binders which can be blended together. it is also within the scope of this invention to include one or more mono or poly-alcohols which can be blended together. the different kinds of binders and alcohols can be present in any proportion. it is within the scope of this invention to use vinyl ether monomers as the cationically curable material. vinyl ether-containing monomers can be methyl vinyl ether, ethyl vinyl ether, tert-butyl vinyl ether, isobutyl vinyl ether, triethyleneglycol divinyl ether (rapt-cure dve-3, available from international specialty products, wayne, n.j.), 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol divinyl ether (rapi-cure chve, international specialty products), trimetylolpropane trivinyl ether (available from basf corp., mount olive, n.j.) and the vectomer divinyl ether binders from morflex, greensboro, n.c., such as vectomer 2010, vectomer 2020, vectomer 4010, and vectomer 4020, or their equivalent from other manufacturers. it is within the scope of this invention to use a blend of more than one vinyl ether binder. it is also within the scope of this invention to use one or more epoxy binders blended with one or more vinyl ether binders. the different kinds of binders can be present in any proportion. the preferred epoxy binders include the celloxide or syna-epdxy type of binders especially 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl-3, 4-epoxycyclohexanecarboxylate, bis-(3,4-epoxycyclohexyl) adipate and 2-(3, 4-epoxycylclohexyl-5,5-spiro-3, 4-epoxy) cyclohexene-meta-dioxane and the bisphenol a epon type binders including 2,2-bis-p-(2, 3-epoxypropoxy) phenylpropane and chain extended versions of this material and, binders of the type eponex 1510 and heloxy 107 and 68. also useful in the present invention are purified versions of these epoxies as described in u.s. published patent application 2002/0022709 published 21 feb. 2002. when preparing compositions containing epoxy monomers, hydroxy-functional materials can be added. the hydroxyl-functional component can be present as a mixture or a blend of materials and can contain mono-and polyhydroxyl containing materials. preferably, the hydroxy-functional material is at least a diol. when used, the hydroxyl-functional material can aid in chain extension and in preventing excess crosslinking of the epoxy during curing, e. g., increasing the toughness of the cured composition. when present, useful hydroxyl-functional materials include aliphatic, cycloaliphatic or alkanol-substituted arene mono- or poly-alcohols having from about 2 to about 18 carbon atoms and two to five, preferably two to four hydroxy groups, or combinations thereof. useful mono-alcohols can include methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, 2-methyl-2-propanol, 1-butanol, 2-butanol, 1-pentanol, neopentyl alcohol, 3-pentanol, 1-hexanol, 1-heptanol, 1-octanol, 2-phenoxyethanol, cyclopentanol, cyclohexanol, cyclohexylmethanol, 3-cyclohexyl-1-propanol, 2-norbornanemethanol and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol. polyols useful in the present invention include aliphatic, cycloaliphatic, or alkanol-substituted arene polyols, or mixtures thereof having from about 2 to about 18 carbon atoms and two to five, preferably two to four hydroxyl groups. examples of useful polyols include 1,2-ethanediol, 1,2-propanediol, 1,3-propanediol, 1,4-butanediol, 1,3-butanediol, 2-methyl-1, 3-propanediol, 2, 2-dimethyl-1, 3-propanediol, 2-ethyl-1, 6-hexanediol, 1,5-pentanediol, 1,6-hexanediol, 1,8-octanediol, neopentyl glycol, glycerol, trimethylolpropane, 1,2, 6-hexanetriol, trimethylolethane, pentaerythritol, quinitol, mannitol, sorbitol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, tetraethylene glycol, glycerine, 2-ethyl-2-(hydroxymethyl)-1, 3-propanediol, 2-ethyl-1, 3-pentanediol, 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol, 1,4-benzene-dimethanol and polyalkoxylated bisphenol a derivatives. other examples of useful polyols are disclosed in u.s. pat. no. 4,503,211. bi-functional monomers having both cationically polymerizable and free-radically polymerizable moieties in the same monomer are useful in the present invention, such as, for example, glycidyl methacrylate, or 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate. it is also within the scope of this invention to add a free radically polymerizable monomer, such as an acrylate or methacrylate. the addition of such a monomer broadens the scope of obtainable physical properties and processing options. when two or more polymerizable monomers are present, they can be present in any proportion. suitable cationic photoinitiators are selected from organic onium cations, for example those described in photoinitiators for free radical cationic & anionic photopolymerization, 2 nd edition, j. v. crivello & k. dietliker, john wiley and sons, 1998, pp. 275 to 298, and u.s. pat. nos. 4,250,311, 3,708,296, 4,069,055, 4,216,288, 5,084,586 and 5,124,417 and such descriptions incorporated herein by reference, including aliphatic or aromatic group iva-viia (cas version) centered onium salts, preferably i-, s-, p- and c-centered onium salts, such as those selected from sulfoxonium, diaryliodonium, triarylsulfonium, carbonium and phosphonium, and most preferably i-, and s-centered onium salts, such as those selected from sulfoxonium, diaryliodonium, and triarylsulfonium, wherein “aryl” means an unsubstituted or substituted aromatic moiety having up to four independently selected substituents. in some embodiments, the polymeric binder is a thermally curable epoxy-amine composition optionally further comprising a radiation-curable acrylate as described in applicant's copending wo 2015095296 (eckert et al.); thiol-epoxy resins as described in u.s. 62/148,209 (qiu et al., filed 16 apr. 2015), thiol-alkene-epoxy resins as described in u.s. 62/148,212 (qui et al. filed 16 apr. 2015); thiol-alkene resins as described in u.s. 62/080,488 (qui et al., filed 17 nov. 2014), and thiol silicones as described in wo 2015/138174 (qiu et al., published 17 sep. 2015). the quantum dot layer can have any useful amount of quantum dots, and in some embodiments the quantum dot layer can include from 0.1 to 10 wt %, preferably 0.1 to 1 wt %, quantum dots, based on the total weight of the quantum dot layer (dots, optional liquid carrier and polymeric binder). the dispersion composition can also contain a surfactant (i.e., leveling agent), a polymerization initiator, and other additives, as known in the art. generally, the stabilized quantum dots, the stabilizing agent, the polymeric binder and optional carrier fluid are combined and subject to high shear mixing to produce a dispersion of the ligand functional quantum dots in the polymer matrix. the matrix is chosen such there is limited compatibility and the quantum dots form a separate, non-aggregating phase in the matrix. as the quantum dots are often prepared and ligand-functionalized in an organic solvent, are dispersed in the binder resin, is then coated and cured either thermally, free-radically, or both to lock in the dispersed structure and exclude oxygen and water from the dispersed quantum dots. the curable composition may be irradiated with activating uv or visible radiation to polymerize the components preferably in the wavelengths of 250 to 500 nanometers. uv light sources can be of two types: 1) relatively low light intensity sources such as blacklights that provide generally 10 mw/cm 2 or less (as measured in accordance with procedures approved by the united states national institute of standards and technology as, for example, with a uvimap™ um 365 l-s radiometer manufactured by electronic instrumentation & technology, inc., in sterling, va.) over a wavelength range of 280 to 400 nanometers and 2) relatively high light intensity sources such as medium- and high-pressure mercury arc lamps, electrodeless mercury lamps, light emitting diodes, mercury-xenon lamps, lasers and the like, which provide intensities generally between 10 and 5000 mw/cm 2 in the wavelength rages of 320-390 nm (as measured in accordance with procedures approved by the united states national institute of standards and technology as, for example, with a powerpuck™ radiometer manufactured by electronic instrumentation & technology, inc., in sterling, va.). referring to fig. 1 , quantum dot article 10 includes a first barrier layer 32 , a second barrier layer 34 , and a quantum dot layer 20 between the first barrier layer 32 and the second barrier layer 34 . the quantum dot layer 20 includes a plurality of quantum dots 22 dispersed in a matrix 24 . the barrier layers 32 , 34 can be formed of any useful material that can protect the quantum dots 22 from exposure to environmental contaminates such as, for example, oxygen, water, and water vapor. suitable barrier layers 32 , 34 include, but are not limited to, films of polymers, glass and dielectric materials. in some embodiments, suitable materials for the barrier layers 32 , 34 include, for example, polymers such as polyethylene terephthalate (pet); oxides such as silicon oxide, titanium oxide, or aluminum oxide (e.g., sio 2 , si 2 o 3 , tio 2 , or al 2 o 3 ); and suitable combinations thereof. more particularly, barrier films can be selected from a variety of constructions. barrier films are typically selected such that they have oxygen and water transmission rates at a specified level as required by the application. in some embodiments, the barrier film has a water vapor transmission rate (wvtr) less than about 0.005 g/m 2 /day at 38° c. and 100% relative humidity; in some embodiments, less than about 0.0005 g/m 2 /day at 38° c. and 100% relative humidity; and in some embodiments, less than about 0.00005 g/m 2 /day at 38° c. and 100% relative humidity. in some embodiments, the flexible barrier film has a wvtr of less than about 0.05, 0.005, 0.0005, or 0.00005 g/m 2 /day at 50° c. and 100% relative humidity or even less than about 0.005, 0.0005, 0.00005 g/m 2 /day at 85° c. and 100% relative humidity. in some embodiments, the barrier film has an oxygen transmission rate of less than about 0.005 g/m 2 /day at 23° c. and 90% relative humidity; in some embodiments, less than about 0.0005 g/m 2 /day at 23° c. and 90% relative humidity; and in some embodiments, less than about 0.00005 g/m 2 /day at 23° c. and 90% relative humidity. exemplary useful barrier films include inorganic films prepared by atomic layer deposition, thermal evaporation, sputtering, and chemical vapor deposition. useful barrier films are typically flexible and transparent. in some embodiments, useful barrier films comprise inorganic/organic. flexible ultra-barrier films comprising inorganic/organic multilayers are described, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 7,018,713 (padiyath et al.). such flexible ultra-barrier films may have a first polymer layer disposed on polymeric film substrate that is overcoated with two or more inorganic barrier layers separated by at least one second polymer layer. in some embodiments, the barrier film comprises one inorganic barrier layer interposed between the first polymer layer disposed on the polymeric film substrate and a second polymer layer 224 . in some embodiments, each barrier layer 32 , 34 of the quantum dot article 10 includes at least two sub-layers of different materials or compositions. in some embodiments, such a multi-layered barrier construction can more effectively reduce or eliminate pinhole defect alignment in the barrier layers 32 , 34 , providing a more effective shield against oxygen and moisture penetration into the matrix 24 . the quantum dot article 10 can include any suitable material or combination of barrier materials and any suitable number of barrier layers or sub-layers on either or both sides of the quantum dot layer 20 . the materials, thickness, and number of barrier layers and sub-layers will depend on the particular application, and will suitably be chosen to maximize barrier protection and brightness of the quantum dots 22 while minimizing the thickness of the quantum dot article 10 . in some embodiments each barrier layer 32 , 34 is itself a laminate film, such as a dual laminate film, where each barrier film layer is sufficiently thick to eliminate wrinkling in roll-to-roll or laminate manufacturing processes. in one illustrative embodiment, the barrier layers 32 , 34 are polyester films (e.g., pet) having an oxide layer on an exposed surface thereof. the quantum dot layer 20 can include one or more populations of quantum dots or quantum dot materials 22 . exemplary quantum dots or quantum dot materials 22 emit green light and red light upon down-conversion of blue primary light from a blue led to secondary light emitted by the quantum dots. the respective portions of red, green, and blue light can be controlled to achieve a desired white point for the white light emitted by a display device incorporating the quantum dot article 10 . exemplary quantum dots 22 for use in the quantum dot articles 10 include, but are not limited to, inp or cdse with zns shells. suitable quantum dots for use in quantum dot articles described herein include, but are not limited to, core/shell luminescent nanocrystals including cdse/zns, inp/zns, pbse/pbs, cdse/cds, cdte/cds or cdte/zns. in exemplary embodiments, the luminescent nanocrystals include an outer ligand coating and are dispersed in a polymeric matrix. quantum dot and quantum dot materials 22 are commercially available from, for example, nanosys inc., milpitas, calif. the quantum dot layer 20 can have any useful amount of quantum dots 22 , and in some embodiments the quantum dot layer 20 can include from 0.1 wt % to 1 wt % quantum dots, based on the total weight of the quantum dot layer 20 . in one or more embodiments the quantum dot layer 20 can optionally include scattering beads or particles. these scattering beads or particles have a refractive index that differs from the refractive index of the matrix material 24 by at least 0.05, or by at least 0.1. these scattering beads or particles can include, for example, polymers such as silicone, acrylic, nylon, and the like, or inorganic materials such as tio 2 , sio x , alo x , and the like, and combinations thereof. in some embodiments, including scattering particles in the quantum dot layer 20 can increase the optical path length through the quantum dot layer 20 and improve quantum dot absorption and efficiency. in many embodiments, the scattering beads or particles have an average particle size from 1 to 10 micrometers, or from 2 to 6 micrometers. in some embodiments, the quantum dot material 20 can optionally include fillers such fumed silica. in some preferred embodiments, the scattering beads or particles are tospearl™ 120 a, 130 a, 145 a and 2000 b spherical silicone resins available in 2.0, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 micron particle sizes respectively from momentive specialty chemicals inc., columbus, ohio. the matrix 24 of the quantum dot layer 20 can be formed from a polymeric binder or binder precursor that adheres to the materials forming the barrier layers 32 , 34 to form a laminate construction, and also forms a protective matrix for the quantum dots 22 . in one embodiment, the matrix 24 is formed by curing or hardening an adhesive composition including an epoxy amine polymer and an optional radiation-curable methacrylate compound. referring to fig. 2 , in another aspect, the present disclosure is directed to a method of forming a quantum dot film article 100 including coating an adhesive composition including quantum dots on a first barrier layer 102 and disposing a second barrier layer on the quantum dot material 104 . in some embodiments, the method 100 includes polymerizing (e.g., radiation curing) the radiation curable polymeric binder to form a fully- or partially cured quantum dot material 106 and optionally thermally polymerizing the binder composition to form a cured polymeric binder 108 . for thermally curable polymeric binders, step 106 is omitted. in some embodiments, the binder composition can be cured or hardened by heating. in other embodiments, the adhesive composition may also be cured or hardened by applying radiation such as, for example, ultraviolet (uv) light. curing or hardening steps may include uv curing, heating, or both. in some example embodiments that are not intended to be limiting, uv cure conditions can include applying about 10 mj/cm 2 to about 4000 mj/cm 2 of uva, more preferably about 10mj/cm 2 to about 200 mj/cm 2 of uva. heating and uv light may also be applied alone or in combination to increase the viscosity of the binder composition, which can allow easier handling on coating and processing lines. in some embodiments, the binder composition may be cured after lamination between the overlying barrier films 32 , 34 . thus, the increase in viscosity of the binder composition locks in the coating quality right after lamination. by curing right after coating or laminating, in some embodiments the cured binder increases in viscosity to a point that the binder composition acts as a pressure sensitive adhesive (psa) to hold the laminate together during the cure and greatly reduces defects during the cure. in some embodiments, the radiation cure of the binder provides greater control over coating, curing and web handling as compared to traditional thermal curing. once at least partially cured, the binder composition forms polymer network that provides a protective supporting matrix 24 for the quantum dots 22 . ingress, including edge ingress, is defined by a loss in quantum dot performance due to ingress of moisture and/or oxygen into the matrix 24 . in various embodiments, the edge ingress of moisture and oxygen into the cured matrix 24 is less than about 1.25 mm after 1 week at 85° c., or about less than 0.75 mm after 1 week at 85° c., or less than about 0.5 mm after 1 week at 85° c. in various embodiments, oxygen permeation into the cured matrix is less than about 80 (cc·mil)/(m 2 day), or less than about 50 (cc·mil)/(m 2 day). in various embodiments, the water vapor transmission rate of the cured matrix should be less than about 15 (20 g/m 2 .mil·day), or less than about 10 (20 g/m 2 .mil·day). in various embodiments, the thickness of the quantum dot layer 20 is about 80 microns to about 250 microns. fig. 3 is a schematic illustration of an embodiment of a display device 200 including the quantum dot articles described herein. this illustration is merely provided as an example and is not intended to be limiting. the display device 200 includes a backlight 202 with a light source 204 such as, for example, a light emitting diode (led). the light source 204 emits light along an emission axis 235 . the light source 204 (for example, a led light source) emits light through an input edge 208 into a hollow light recycling cavity 210 having a back reflector 212 thereon. the back reflector 212 can be predominately specular, diffuse or a combination thereof, and is preferably highly reflective. the backlight 202 further includes a quantum dot article 220 , which includes a protective matrix 224 having dispersed therein quantum dots 222 . the protective matrix 224 is bounded on both surfaces by polymeric barrier films 226 , 228 , which may include a single layer or multiple layers. the display device 200 further includes a front reflector 230 that includes multiple directional recycling films or layers, which are optical films with a surface structure that redirects off-axis light in a direction closer to the axis of the display, which can increase the amount of light propagating on-axis through the display device, this increasing the brightness and contrast of the image seen by a viewer. the front reflector 230 can also include other types of optical films such as polarizers. in one non-limiting example, the front reflector 230 can include one or more prismatic films 232 and/or gain diffusers. the prismatic films 232 may have prisms elongated along an axis, which may be oriented parallel or perpendicular to an emission axis 235 of the light source 204 . in some embodiments, the prism axes of the prismatic films may be crossed. the front reflector 230 may further include one or more polarizing films 234 , which may include multilayer optical polarizing films, diffusely reflecting polarizing films, and the like. the light emitted by the front reflector 230 enters a liquid crystal (lc) panel 280 . numerous examples of backlighting structures and films may be found in, for example, u.s. pat. no. 8,848,132 (o'neill et al.). examples the following materials were obtained from commercial sources and used as received: materialsabbreviationcas #/or trade nameproduct codedescriptiondpps40538-11-2/4-(diphenylphosphino)styrene,708127available from sigma-aldrich co.llc., st. louis, missouri.d3541-05-9/hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane,235687available from sigma-aldrich co.llc., st. louis, missouri.sec-buli598-30-1/sec-butyllithium, 1.4m in195596cyclohexane, available fromsigma-aldrich co. llc., st.louis, missouri.pdms9016-00-6/dimethylpolysiloxane, mw ~5970,dmps1cviscosity 90-100 cst at 25° c.,available from sigma-aldrich co.llc., st. louis, missouri.4-vbc1592-20-7/4-vinylbenzylchloride, 90%,436887available from aldrich co. llc.,st. louis, missouri.toluene108-88-3/available from sigma-aldrich co.(anhydrous)244511llc., st. louis, missourisatsna/dms-z21succinic anhydride-terminatedsilicone, available from gelest,morrisville, pennsylvaniainp/green/354-9bquantum dots available fromddsa/toluenenanosys, milpitas, california.lot 354-9b. used for pdppshomopolymer experiments.inp/green/374-121fquantum dots available from nanosys,ddsa/toluenemilpitas, california. lot 374-121f.used for pdpps-pdms experiments. general considerations polymer synthesis and quantum dot solution preparations were conducted in a mbraun labmaster sp glovebox under ar atmosphere. standard inert atmosphere, air-free techniques were used for both anionic polymerization, quantum dot manipulation, and quantum dot solution compounding. toluene was purified by passage through activated alumina columns under ar. d3 was dried by melting and stirring over calcium hydride under inert atmosphere for at least 24 hours, after which time dry monomer was obtained by vacuum transferring d3 into a clean, dry receiving flask. 4vbc was prepared by degassing through freeze-pump-thaw cycles followed by stirring over calcium hydride for at least 48 hours, after which time dry monomer was distilled into a clean, dry receiving flask. quantum yield measurements: fluorescence cells were from nsg precision cells, model 63-es10. quantum yield measurements were made on a hamamatsu absolute pl quantum yield spectrometer c11347. an excitation wavelength of 440 nm was used for all measurements. a built in program was used to analyze the emission spectra to calculate the desired spectral quantities. a built in correction program was used to correct the emission spectra for self-absorption to give corrected quantum yields. the peak position was determined for the peak maximum in the corrected spectra curve. a cary 60 uv-vis spectrometer was used to check the absorption of each sample after the emission measurements were made to insure that the samples were well behaved. example 1 (ex-1): synthesis of poly [diphenylphosphino)styrene-block-(dimethylsiloxane)] (pdpps-pdms) dpps (0.6 g) was added to a schlenk bomb with stirbar and dissolved in 6 ml toluene. sec-buli (0.30 ml, 1.4 m in cyclohexane) was then added while stirring rapidly, causing an immediate color change to cherry-red. the reaction was sealed and stirred overnight. after 18 hours had passed, d3 was added (0.15 g), causing a gradual color change from cherry red to light brown. after four hours, additional d3 (9.0 g) was added followed by 12 ml thf. the polymerization was sealed and stirred for an additional 36 hours. trimethylsilylchloride (0.1 ml, neat) was then added under standard atmosphere, causing the pale brown solution to clarify to colorless. 9.45 g of a viscous, white, turbid oil (pdpps-pdms) was obtained after placing the crude reaction mixture under high vacuum. for this example, 1 h-nmr indicates ˜11 additions of d3 per dpps monomer. 1 h-nmr (cdcl 3 ): 7.18 (d, br., 12h), 6.80-6.17 (m, br., 2h), 2.38-1.17 (m, br., 3h), 0.067 (s, 198h). 31 p{ 1 h}-nmr (cdcl 3 ): −6.60 (s, br.). preparation of succinic acid terminated silicone (sacs) to a 500 ml round bottomed flask equipped with a stir bar was added 108.94 g of sats followed by adding 6.7 g of distilled water and 78.43 g of toluene. the resulting suspension was stirred and refluxed under nitrogen atmosphere. reflux was continued until the anhydride hydrolyzed to the corresponding acid (reaction monitored using a nicolet is-50 ft-ir). the suspension was cooled to room temperature, and to it was added four tablespoons of magnesium sulfate. the suspension was stirred to remove excess water. the suspension was then filtered through whatmann filter paper, followed by removal of toluene using vacuum evaporation. 96.93 g of sacs was obtained as a light yellow colored viscous oil. example 2: quantum yield measurements of quantum dots in the presence of pdpps-pdms copolymer preparation of green inp dot composition with pdpps-pmds to a 250 ml schlenk flask equipped with a stir bar was added 4 g of pdpps-pdms and 2 g of sacs. the flask was connected to a schlenk line and the oligomer was degassed under vacuum at on a water bath for 2 hours. in an inert atmosphere, 21.1 g of green inp/ddsa/toluene was then added to the schlenk flask. the flask was sealed and removed from the glove box. the flask was re-introduced to the schlenk line and toluene was evaporated under high vacuum. the flask was disconnected from schlenk line and taken inside the glove box. after releasing the vacuum inside the glove box, 1.7 g of pdms was added, followed by rinsing the inside of the flask with anhydrous toluene. the flask was sealed properly inside the glove box, and taken out from the glove box. the flask was re-introduced to the schlenk line and placed on a water bath. toluene was evaporated under high vacuum while stirring the solution on a water bath for 1-2 hours. 9 g of dot concentrate was obtained after transferring the dot concentrate to a preweighed glass jar. the final optical density of the dot concentrate was around 27. formulation is described in table 1. table 1sampleweight (g)pddps-pdms4.0sacs2.0pdms1.7green inp/ddsa/toluene21.1 quantum yield studies of green inp dot composition with pdpps-pdms polymer a dilute quantum dot solution in 10 ml toluene was prepared by weighing or pipetting out desired amount of quantum dot concentrate in a 20 ml vial. amount and identity of dot concentrate is listed below in table 4. then 4 ml of test solution was pipetted into a separate fluorescence cell. one cell containing toluene only was the blank. each cell was sealed with a rubber septa and then all of the cells were removed from the glove box to make the quantum yield measurements. quantum yield measurements are listed in table 2. comparative example 1 is a control in which no additive is used to stabilize the quantum dot solution, other than “native ligands table 2measuredpeakquantumwavelengthfwhmadditiveyield(nm)(nm)ex-2: 14.8 mg of example 2 dot0.7654243concentrate (inventive)ce-1: no additive0.66852941.3*fwhm = full width half maximum
154-934-039-618-363	JP	[ "JP", "TW", "US" ]	H01L21/8239,H01L27/105,H01L45/00,H01L49/00,G11C11/00,H01L27/24,G11C13/00	2018-03-22T00:00:00	2018	[ "H01", "G11" ]	storage device and method for manufacturing the same	to provide a storage device capable of reducing contact resistance.solution: a storage device 100 comprises: a first lamination structure 10 including a plurality of first conductive layers 12 laminated along a z direction and a first insulation layer 14; a second lamination structure 30 including a plurality of second conductive layers 32 laminated along the z direction and a second insulation layer 34 and provided on the first lamination structure; a third insulation layer 50 provided between the first lamination structure and the second lamination structure; a third conductive layer 60 and a first resistance change layer 80 provided in the first lamination structure; a fourth conductive layer 70 and a second resistance change layer 82 provided in the second lamination structure; and a fifth conductive layer 52 provided in the third insulation layer and electrically connecting the third conductive layer and the fourth conductive layer. a length ly3 in a y direction in a lower part of the fourth conductive layer is longer than a length ly4 in a y direction in an upper part of the fourth conductive layer.selected drawing: figure 3	1 . a memory device comprising: a first stacked structure including a plurality of first conductive layers extending in a first direction and arrayed along a second direction intersecting with the first direction and a plurality of first insulating layers extending in the first direction and provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers in the second direction; a second stacked structure including a plurality of second conductive layers extending in the first direction and arrayed along the second direction and a plurality of second insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of second conductive layers in the second direction and extending in the first direction, and provided on the first stacked structure; a third insulating layer provided between the first stacked structure and the second stacked structure; a third conductive layer provided in the first stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of first conductive layers to the plurality of first insulating layers, and including a first portion and a second portion provided between the first portion and the third insulating layer; a first variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of first conductive layers and the plurality of first insulating layers and the third conductive layer in a third direction intersecting with the first direction and the second direction; a fourth conductive layer provided in the second stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of second conductive layers to the plurality of second insulating layers, and including a third portion and a fourth portion located farther away from the third insulating layer in the second direction than the third portion, a length of the third portion in the first direction being larger than a length of the fourth portion in the first direction; a second variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of second conductive layers and the plurality of second insulating layers and the fourth conductive layer in the third direction; and a fifth conductive layer provided in the third insulating layer and electrically connecting the third conductive layer to the fourth conductive layer. 2 . the memory device according to claim 1 , wherein a length of the third portion in the third direction is smaller than a length of the fourth portion in the third direction. 3 . the memory device according to claim 1 , wherein a length of the first portion in the first direction is larger than a length of the second portion in the first direction. 4 . the memory device according to claim 1 , wherein a length of the first portion in the third direction is smaller than a length of the second portion in the third direction. 5 . a method for manufacturing a memory device, the method comprising: forming a first stacked structure including a plurality of first conductive layers extending in a first direction and a plurality of first insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers and extending in the first direction; forming, in the first stacked structure, grooves extending in a third direction intersecting with a second direction intersecting with the first direction and penetrating through the first stacked structure and the first direction; forming sacrificial materials in the grooves; forming holes in the first stacked structure; forming insulating materials in the holes; removing the sacrificial materials; and forming third conductive layers at portions with the sacrificial materials removed therefrom. 6 . the method according to claim 5 , further comprising: forming a third insulating layer on the first stacked structure, wherein the third conductive layers include a first portion and a second portion provided between the first portion and the third insulating layer. 7 . the method according to claim 6 , wherein a length of the first portion in the first direction is larger than a length of the second portion in the first direction. 8 . the method according to claim 6 , wherein a length of the first portion in the third direction is smaller than a length of the second portion in the third direction. 9 . the method according to claim 5 , further comprising: forming, on the first stacked structure, a second stacked structure including a plurality of third conductive layers extending in the first direction and a plurality of second insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of third conductive layers and extending in the first direction; forming, in the second stacked structure, second grooves extending in the third direction and penetrating the second stacked structure and the first direction; forming second sacrificial materials in the second grooves; forming second holes in the second stacked structure; forming second insulating materials in the second holes; removing the second sacrificial materials; and forming fourth conductive layers at portions with the second sacrificial materials removed therefrom. 10 . the method according to claim 9 , wherein the fourth conductive layers include a third portion and a fourth portion located farther away from the third insulating layer in the second direction than the third portion, a length of the third portion in the first direction being larger than a length of the fourth portion in the first direction. 11 . the method according to claim 10 , wherein a length of the third portion in the third direction is smaller than a length of the fourth portion in the third direction.	cross-reference to related application this application claims the benefit of and priority to japanese patent application no. 2018-055379, filed mar. 22, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. field embodiments described herein relate generally to a memory device and a method for manufacturing the same. background as large-capacity nonvolatile memory, two-terminal resistive random access memory, which would become an alternative to existing floating-gate nand flash memory, is actively being developed. this type of memory enables low-voltage and low-current operation, high-speed switching, and miniaturization and high-density integration of memory cells. various materials are being proposed for a variable resistance layer of the resistive random access memory. for example, in a variable resistance layer made from titanium oxide and amorphous silicon, serving as a barrier film, a change in electrical resistance occurs due to modulation of the oxygen vacancy density caused by the application of a bias to titanium oxide. in a large-capacity memory cell array, a great number of metal wirings called bit lines and word lines are arrayed in an intersecting manner, and a memory cell is formed at an intersection between each bit line and each word line. write to one memory cell is performed by applying voltages to a bit line bl and a word line wl connected to the memory cell. description of the drawings fig. 1 is a block diagram of a memory device according to some embodiments. fig. 2 is an equivalent circuit schematic of a memory cell array according to some embodiments. fig. 3a , fig. 3b , and fig. 3c are schematic views of the memory device according to some embodiments. fig. 4a , fig. 4b , fig. 4c , fig. 4d , fig. 4e , fig. 4f , fig. 4g , fig. 4h , fig. 4i , fig. 4j , and fig. 4k are schematic views illustrating a method for manufacturing the memory device according to some embodiments. fig. 5a , fig. 5b , fig. 5c , fig. 5d , fig. 5e , fig. 5f , fig. 5g , fig. 5h , and fig. 5i are schematic views illustrating the method for manufacturing the memory device according to some embodiments. fig. 6a and fig. 6b are schematic views of a memory device serving as a comparative configuration for some embodiments. detailed description embodiments provide a memory device configured to be reduced in contact resistance. in general, according to some embodiments, a memory device may include a first stacked structure including a plurality of first conductive layers extending in a first direction and arrayed along a second direction intersecting with the first direction and a plurality of first insulating layers extending in the first direction and provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers in the second direction, a second stacked structure including a plurality of second conductive layers extending in the first direction and arrayed along the second direction and a plurality of second insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of second conductive layers in the second direction and extending in the first direction, and provided on the first stacked structure, a third insulating layer provided between the first stacked structure and the second stacked structure, a third conductive layer provided in the first stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of first conductive layers to the plurality of first insulating layers, and including a first portion and a second portion provided between the first portion and the third insulating layer, a first variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of first conductive layers and the plurality of first insulating layers and the third conductive layer in a third direction intersecting with the first direction and the second direction, a fourth conductive layer provided in the second stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of second conductive layers to the plurality of second insulating layers, and including a third portion and a fourth portion located more away from the third insulating layer in the second direction than the third portion, a length of the third portion in the first direction being larger than a length of the fourth portion in the first direction, a second variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of second conductive layers and the plurality of second insulating layers and the fourth conductive layer in the third direction, and a fifth conductive layer provided in the third insulating layer and electrically connecting the third conductive layer to the fourth conductive layer. hereinafter, embodiments will be described with reference to the drawings. furthermore, in the drawings, the same or similar portions are assigned the respective same or similar reference characters. in the present disclosure, to indicate the positional relationship between, for example, components, an upward direction in the drawings may be referred to as “up” and the downward direction in the drawings may be referred to as “down”. in the present disclosure, the directions referred to as “up” and “down” are not necessarily the direction of gravitational force. a memory device according to some embodiments may include a first stacked structure including a plurality of first conductive layers extending in a first direction and arrayed along a second direction intersecting with the first direction and a plurality of first insulating layers extending in the first direction and provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers in the second direction, a second stacked structure including a plurality of second conductive layers extending in the first direction and arrayed along the second direction and a plurality of second insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of second conductive layers in the second direction and extending in the first direction, and provided on the first stacked structure, a third insulating layer provided between the first stacked structure and the second stacked structure, a third conductive layer provided in the first stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of first conductive layers to the plurality of first insulating layers, and including a first portion and a second portion provided between the first portion and the third insulating layer, a first variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of first conductive layers and the plurality of first insulating layers and the third conductive layer in a third direction intersecting with the first direction and the second direction, a fourth conductive layer provided in the second stacked structure, extending in the second direction, connecting the plurality of second conductive layers to the plurality of second insulating layers, and including a third portion and a fourth portion located more away from the third insulating layer in the second direction than the third portion, a length of the third portion in the first direction being larger than a length of the fourth portion in the first direction, a second variable resistance layer provided between each of the plurality of second conductive layers and the plurality of second insulating layers and the fourth conductive layer in the third direction, and a fifth conductive layer provided in the third insulating layer and electrically connecting the third conductive layer to the fourth conductive layer. fig. 1 is a block diagram of a memory device 100 according to some embodiments. fig. 2 is an equivalent circuit schematic of a memory cell array 101 illustrated in fig. 1 . fig. 2 schematically illustrates a wiring structure in the memory cell array. the memory device 100 according to some embodiments is resistive random access memory. the resistive random access memory stores data by utilizing a change of resistance of a variable resistance layer caused by application of a voltage. moreover, the memory cell array 101 in some embodiments has a three-dimensional structure in which memory cells are three-dimensionally arranged. the three-dimensional structure of the memory cell array 101 enables improving the degree of integration of the memory device 100 . as illustrated in fig. 1 , the memory device 100 includes a memory cell array 101 , a word line driver circuit 102 , a row decoder circuit 103 , a sense amplifier circuit 104 , a column decoder circuit 105 , and a control circuit 106 . moreover, as illustrated in fig. 2 , a plurality of memory cells mc is arranged in three dimensions inside the memory cell array 101 . in fig. 2 , a region surrounded by a dashed line corresponds to one memory cell mc. the memory cell array 101 may include, for example, a plurality of word lines wl (e.g., wl 11 , wl 12 , wl 13 , wl 21 , wl 22 , and wl 23 ) and a plurality of bit lines bl (e.g., bl 11 , bl 12 , bl 21 , and bl 22 ). the word line wl may extend in the y-direction. the bit line bl may extend in the z-direction, which intersects at right angles with the x-direction. the memory cell mc may be located at an intersection portion between the word line wl and the bit line bl. the y-direction is a specific example of a first direction, the z-direction is a specific example of a second direction, and the x-direction, which intersects at right angles with the y-direction and the z-direction, is a specific example of a third direction. the plurality of word lines wl may be electrically connected to the row decoder circuit 103 (see fig. 1 ). the plurality of bit lines bl may be connected to the sense amplifier circuit 104 (see fig. 1 ). select transistors st (e.g., st 11 , st 21 , st 12 , and st 22 ) and global bit lines gbl (e.g., gbl 1 and gbl 2 ) may be provided between the plurality of bit lines bl and the sense amplifier circuit 104 . the row decoder circuit 103 may have the function of selecting (e.g., may be configured to select) a word line wl according to an input row address signal. the word line driver circuit 102 may have the function of applying (e.g., may be configured to apply) a predetermined voltage to the word line wl selected by the row decoder circuit 103 . the column decoder circuit 105 may have the function of selecting (e.g., may be configured to select) a bit line bl according to an input column address signal. the sense amplifier circuit 104 may have the function of applying (e.g., may be configured to apply) a predetermined voltage to the bit line bl selected by the column decoder circuit 105 . moreover, the sense amplifier circuit 104 may have the function of detecting and amplifying (e.g., may be configured to detect and amplify) a current flowing between the selected word line wl and the selected bit line bl. the control circuit 106 may have the function of controlling (e.g., maybe configured to control) the word line driver circuit 102 , the row decoder circuit 103 , the sense amplifier circuit 104 , the column decoder circuit 105 , and other circuits (not illustrated). circuits such as the word line driver circuit 102 , the row decoder circuit 103 , the sense amplifier circuit 104 , the column decoder circuit 105 , and the control circuit 106 may be electronic circuits. for example, such circuits may be configured with transistors made from semiconductor layers (not illustrated) and/or wiring layers. fig. 3a , fig. 3b , and fig. 3c are schematic views of the memory device 100 according to some embodiments. fig. 3a is a schematic view of the memory device 100 according to some embodiments. fig. 3b is a schematic sectional view of the memory device 100 according to some embodiments in an xz cross-section passing through a first conductive layer 12 , a second conductive layer 32 , a third conductive layer 60 , and a fourth conductive layer 70 . fig. 3c is a schematic sectional view of the memory device 100 according to some embodiments in a yz cross-section passing through the third conductive layer 60 and the fourth conductive layer 70 . furthermore, in fig. 3a , to facilitate visualization of a third insulating layer 50 and a fifth conductive layer 52 , which are described below, the third insulating layer 50 and the fifth conductive layer 52 are illustrated in such a way as to be separated from a first stacked structure 10 and a second stacked structure 30 , which are described below. the memory device 100 may include the first stacked structure 10 , the second stacked structure 30 , and the third insulating layer 50 . the first stacked structure 10 may include a plurality of first conductive layers 12 extending in the y-direction and a plurality of first insulating layers 14 provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers 12 and extending in the y-direction. the first conductive layers 12 may be arrayed along the z-direction. the second stacked structure 30 may be provided above the first stacked structure 10 . the second stacked structure 30 may include a plurality of second conductive layers 32 extending in the y-direction and a plurality of second insulating layers 34 provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of second conductive layers 32 and extending in the y-direction. the second conductive layers 32 may be arrayed along the z-direction. the third insulating layer 50 may be provided between the first stacked structure 10 and the second stacked structure 30 . the third conductive layer 60 may be provided in the first stacked structure 10 . the third conductive layer 60 may extend in the z-direction and may penetrate (e.g., pass through) the first stacked structure 10 . the third conductive layer 60 may connect the plurality of first conductive layers 12 to the plurality of first insulating layers 14 . the fourth conductive layer 70 may be provided in the second stacked structure 30 . the fourth conductive layer 70 may extend in the z-direction and penetrate (e.g., pass through) the second stacked structure 30 . the fourth conductive layer 70 may connect the plurality of second conductive layers 32 to the plurality of second insulating layers 34 . the fifth conductive layer 52 may be provided in the third insulating layer 50 . the fifth conductive layer 52 may electrically connect the third conductive layer 60 to the fourth conductive layer 70 . the first conductive layer 12 and the second conductive layer 32 may be word lines wl. the third conductive layer 60 and the fourth conductive layer 70 may be bit lines bl. the first conductive layer 12 , the second conductive layer 32 , the third conductive layer 60 , the fourth conductive layer 70 , and the fifth conductive layer 52 may be conductive layers. the first conductive layer 12 , the second conductive layer 32 , the third conductive layer 60 , the fourth conductive layer 70 , and/or the fifth conductive layer 52 may be, for example, metal layers. the first conductive layer 12 , the second conductive layer 32 , the third conductive layer 60 , the fourth conductive layer 70 , and/or the fifth conductive layer 52 may include, for example, tungsten, titanium nitride, or copper. the first conductive layer 12 , the second conductive layer 32 , the third conductive layer 60 , the fourth conductive layer 70 , and/or the fifth conductive layer 52 can be formed from another type of metal, a metal semiconductor compound, or an electrically conductive material such as a semiconductor. the word lines wl may be arranged in the x-direction with a period of, for example, 50 nanometers (nm) or more and 200 nm or less. the thickness in the z-direction of the word line wl may be, for example, 30 nm or less. the bit lines bl maybe arranged in the y-direction with a period of, for example, 50 nm or more and 200 nm or less. the period of arrangement of the word lines wl in the x-direction, the thickness of the word line wl in the z-direction, the period of arrangement of the bit lines bl in the y-direction, and the thickness of the bit line bl in the z-direction can be measured, for example, by observation with a transmission electron microscope. the first insulating layer 14 and the second insulating layer 34 may include, for example, an oxide, an oxynitride, or a nitride. the first insulating layer 14 and the second insulating layer 34 may be, for example, oxide silicon (sio). it is desirable that the third insulating layer 50 be formed from such a material as to be able to take a higher selection ratio (e.g., etching selectivity) during manufacturing even in comparison with any of the first insulating layer 14 , the second insulating layer 34 , the third conductive layer 60 , or the fourth conductive layer 70 . it is desirable that the third insulating layer 50 be, for example, silicon nitride (sin). a first variable resistance layer 80 may be provided between the first conductive layers 12 and the third conductive layer 60 and between the first insulating layers 14 and the third conductive layer 60 . a second variable resistance layer 82 may be provided between the second conductive layers 32 and the fourth conductive layer 70 and between the second insulating layers 34 and the fourth conductive layer 70 . the first variable resistance layer 80 and the second variable resistance layer 82 may have the function of storing (e.g., may be configured to store) data by a change in resistance state. moreover, the first variable resistance layer 80 and the second variable resistance layer 82 may allow rewriting of data by receiving application of a voltage or current. the first variable resistance layer 80 and the second variable resistance layer 82 may transition between a high resistance state (e.g., reset state) and a low resistance state (e.g., set state) by receiving application of a voltage or current. for example, the high resistance state is defined as data “0”, and the low resistance state is defined as data “1”. in fig. 3a , a region surrounded by a dashed line is one memory cell mc. each memory cell mc may be provided between the first conductive layer 12 and the third conductive layer 60 and between the second conductive layer 32 and the fourth conductive layer 70 . the memory cell mc may store one-bit data of “0” or “1”. each of the first variable resistance layer 80 and the second variable resistance layer 82 may be a stacked film of, for example, a chalcogenide including germanium (ge), antimony (sb), and tellurium (te), a binary transition metal oxide such as nio or tio 2 , a solid electrolyte such as ges or cus, a perovskite oxide such as pr 0.7 ca 0.3 mno 3 or srtio 3 , a vacancy-modulated conductive oxide including tio 2 or wo 3 , a semiconductor including silicon or germanium, or a metal oxide including al, hf, or ta. the length l y1 of a first portion 62 of the third conductive layer 60 in the y-direction may be larger than the length l y2 of a second portion 64 of the third conductive layer 60 in the y-direction. moreover, the length l x1 of the first portion 62 of the third conductive layer 60 in the x-direction may be smaller than the length l x2 of the second portion 64 of the third conductive layer 60 in the x-direction. here, the second portion 64 may be provided between the first portion 62 and the second stacked structure 30 . the length l y3 of a third portion 72 of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the y-direction may be larger than the length l y4 of a fourth portion 74 of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the y-direction. moreover, the length l x3 of the third portion 72 of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the x-direction may be smaller than the length l x4 of the fourth portion 74 of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the x-direction. here, the fourth portion 74 may be located farther away from the third insulating layer 50 than the third portion 72 in the z-direction. in other words, the third portion 72 may be provided between the fourth portion 74 and the first stacked structure 10 . fig. 4a , fig. 4b , fig. 4c , fig. 4d , fig. 4e , fig. 4f , fig. 4g , fig. 4h , fig. 4i , fig. 4j , and fig. 4k and fig. 5a , fig. 5b , fig. 5c , fig. 5d , fig. 5e , fig. 5f , fig. 5g , fig. 5h , and fig. 5i are schematic views illustrating a method for manufacturing the memory device 100 according to some embodiments. in each of fig. 4a to fig. 4k , two figures are respectively illustrated at upper and lower portions thereof (hereinafter, referred to as “upper figure” and “lower figure”). in these two figures, the upper figure is a schematic sectional view illustrating a manufacturing process for the memory device 100 illustrated in fig. 3a , from a plane formed by cutting-through with an xz cross-section passing through the first conductive layer 12 , the second conductive layer 32 , the third conductive layer 60 , and the fourth conductive layer 70 . moreover, in these two figures, the lower figure is a schematic sectional view illustrating a manufacturing process for the memory device 100 illustrated in fig. 3a , from a plane formed by cutting-through with a yz cross-section passing through the third conductive layer 60 and the fourth conductive layer 70 . fig. 5a to fig. 5i are schematic views illustrating portions of a method for manufacturing the second stacked structure 30 in the method for manufacturing the memory device 100 according to some embodiments. furthermore, in fig. 4a to fig. 4k and fig. 5a to fig. 5i , the first variable resistance layer 80 and the second variable resistance layer 82 are omitted from illustration. the method for manufacturing the memory device 100 according to some embodiments may form a first stacked structure including a plurality of first conductive layers extending in a first direction and a plurality of first insulating layers provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of first conductive layers and extending in the first direction. the method may form, in the first stacked structure, grooves extending in a third direction intersecting with a second direction intersecting with the first direction and penetrating (e.g., passing through) the first stacked structure and the first direction, forms sacrificial materials in the grooves. the method may form holes in the first stacked structure, form insulating materials in the holes, remove the sacrificial materials, and form fourth conductive layers at portions with the sacrificial materials removed therefrom. first, as illustrated in fig. 4a , the method may form a third insulating layer 50 on the first stacked structure 10 . next, as illustrated in fig. 4b and fig. 5a , the method may form, on the third insulating layer 50 , a second stacked structure 30 including a plurality of second conductive layers 32 extending in the x-direction and the y-direction and a plurality of second insulating layers 34 provided between respective adjacent ones of the plurality of second conductive layers 32 and extending in the x-direction and the y-direction. next, as illustrated in fig. 4c and fig. 5b , the method may form grooves 90 extending in the y-direction in the second stacked structure 30 with use of, for example, photolithography and reactive ion etching (rie). next, as illustrated in fig. 4d and fig. 5c , the method may form a sacrificial material 92 in each of the grooves 90 , and then may planarize the upper surface of the second stacked structure 30 with use of etchback. it is desirable that the sacrificial material 92 include a material capable of being easily formed and likely to be selectively removed with respect to the second conductive layer 32 and the second insulating layer 34 . it is desirable that the sacrificial material 92 include, for example, polysilicon or amorphous silicon. next, as illustrated in fig. 4e and fig. 5d , the method may form a hard mask 94 including, for example, silicon nitride (sin) on the second stacked structure 30 . next, as illustrated in fig. 4f and fig. 5e , the method may form first holes (e.g., holes) 96 extending in the z-direction in the second stacked structure 30 and the hard mask 94 with use of, for example, photolithography and rie. next, as illustrated in fig. 4g and fig. 5f , the method may form an insulating material 98 including, for example, silicon oxide in each of the first holes 96 , and then may planarize the upper surface of each of the hard mask 94 and the insulating material 98 with use of, for example, chemical metal polishing (cmp). next, as illustrated in fig. 4h and fig. 5g , the method may remove the hard mask 94 and a part of the insulating material 98 with use of, for example, etchback, and then may planarizes the upper surface of the second stacked structure 30 . next, as illustrated in fig. 4i and fig. 5h , the method may remove the sacrificial materials 92 with use of, for example, wet etching using an alkaline solution. with this, portions 99 with sacrificial materials removed therefrom may be formed. next, as illustrated in fig. 4j , the method may remove a part of the third insulating layer 50 provided under the groove 90 with use of, for example, rie to form second holes 54 , thus exposing the upper surface of the third conductive layer 60 . next, after depositing a second variable resistance layer (not illustrated) on the inside surface of the portion 99 with a sacrificial material removed therefrom, as illustrated in fig. 4k and fig. 5i , the method may form a fourth conductive layer 70 in the second hole 54 and in the portion 99 with a sacrificial material removed therefrom and with the second variable resistance layer deposited on the inside surface thereof, thus attaining the memory device 100 according to some embodiments. next, a functional effect of the memory device 100 according to some embodiments is described. if, to attain a high-density integration of a memory device, the number of layers of the second conductive layers 32 and the number of layers of the second insulating layers 34 , which form the second stacked structure 30 , are made larger, the length of the fourth conductive layer 70 , which penetrates (e.g., passes through) the second conductive layers 32 and the second insulating layers 34 , in the z-direction becomes larger. however, it is difficult to form a fourth conductive layer 70 the lengths of which in the x-direction and the y-direction are uniform. generally, in the case of forming a groove with use of, for example, rie to form the fourth conductive layer 70 , the width of the upper groove portion is likely to become larger than the width of the lower groove portion. since the fourth conductive layer 70 is formed in the groove, as a result, the lengths of an upper portion of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the x-direction and the y-direction are likely to become larger than the lengths of a lower portion of the fourth conductive layer 70 in the x-direction and the y-direction. since it is difficult to form the fourth conductive layer 70 in a uniform manner, in current practices, a plurality of stacked structures, such as the first stacked structure 10 and the second stacked structure 30 , is provided, and the third conductive layer 60 and the fourth conductive layer 70 are electrically interconnected by the fifth conductive layer 52 provided in the third insulating layer 50 . however, in such a case, an issue arises in that the contact resistance between the fifth conductive layer 52 and the fourth conductive layer 70 increases. fig. 6a and fig. 6b are schematic views of a memory cell array 801 of a memory device 800 serving as a comparative configuration. in the memory cell array 801 , the length l y1 of a first portion 862 in the y-direction is smaller than the length l y2 of a second portion 864 in the y-direction. moreover, the length l y3 of a third portion 872 in the y-direction is smaller than the length l y4 of a fourth portion 874 in the y-direction. moreover, the length l x1 of the first portion 862 in the x-direction is smaller than the length l x2 of the second portion 864 in the x-direction. moreover, the length l x3 of the third portion 872 in the x-direction is smaller than the length l x4 of the fourth portion 874 in the x-direction. therefore, an area at which the fourth conductive layer 70 and the fifth conductive layer 52 contact each other would become small. as the number of layers of the second conductive layers 32 and the number of layers of the second insulating layers 34 become larger to attain a high-density integration of the memory cell mc, such a tendency becomes more conspicuous. for example, as compared with the lengths in the x-direction and the y-direction of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the uppermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 , the lengths in the x-direction and the y-direction of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the lowermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 would become as smaller as 70%. therefore, as compared with the area in the xy plane of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the uppermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 , the area in the xy plane of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the lowermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 would become as smaller as 49%. therefore, an issue arises in that the contact resistance of wirings used to allow a write current or read current for the memory cell to flow becomes large. in the memory device 100 according to some embodiments, the length l y3 of the third portion 72 in the y-direction may be larger than the length l y4 of the fourth portion 74 in the y-direction (see fig. 3c ). therefore, the contact resistance of wirings interconnecting the third conductive layer 60 and the fourth conductive layer 70 can be reduced. moreover, in the memory device 100 according to some embodiments the length l x3 of the third portion 72 in the x-direction may be smaller than the length l x4 of the fourth portion 74 in the x-direction (see fig. 3b ). the fourth conductive layer 70 in which the length l x3 is smaller than the length l x4 can be easily manufactured. furthermore, the area in the xy plane of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the uppermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 and the area in the xy plane of the fourth conductive layer 70 at the lowermost layer portion of the second stacked structure 30 may become almost the same. therefore, providing a memory device 100 which is capable of being easily manufactured and is reduced in contact resistance is enabled. moreover, the length l y1 of the first portion 62 in the y-direction may be larger than the length l y2 of the second portion 64 in the y-direction (see fig. 3c ), and the length l x1 of the first portion 62 in the x-direction may be smaller than the length l x2 of the second portion 64 in the x-direction (see fig. 3b ). the select transistors st and the global bit lines gbl may be provided below the first stacked structure 10 . accordingly, providing a memory device 100 which is reduced in contact resistance with respect to the select transistors st and the global bit lines gbl is enabled. the method for manufacturing the memory device 100 according to some embodiments may form grooves 90 extending in the y-direction (see fig. 4c and fig. 5b ), forms sacrificial materials 92 in the grooves 90 (see fig. 4d and fig. 5c ), forms first holes 96 (see fig. 4f and fig. 5e ), forms insulating materials 98 in the first holes 96 (see fig. 4g and fig. 5f ), removes the sacrificial materials 92 (see fig. 4i and fig. 5h ), and forms fourth conductive layers 70 at portions with the sacrificial materials removed therefrom (see fig. 4k and fig. 5i ). the shape of each of the groove 90 and the first hole 96 maybe a general shape in which the length of the upper portion is large and the length of the lower portion is small. the method for manufacturing according to some embodiments may remove the sacrificial materials 92 formed in the grooves 90 and, after that, may form the fourth conductive layers 70 . therefore, manufacturing the fourth conductive layer 70 in which the length of the upper portion is small and the length of the lower portion is large, as in the memory device 100 according to some embodiments, contrary to a general shape of the fourth conductive layer 70 , is enabled. while certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure. indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure. the accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the present disclosure.
156-422-187-056-749	JP	[ "US" ]	F16B39/30	1994-11-01T00:00:00	1994	[ "F16" ]	loosening and dislodging preventing screw	the present invention relates to a male and female screw set wherein the male screw comprises at least a projecting part pressing against the flank plane of the female screw when the male and female screws are engaged. a dimensional difference is formed between the pitches of the female and male screw threads. when the female and male screws are engaged, the advancing side flank plane of the female screw thread is contacted by the advancing side flank plane of the male screw thread, while the other receding side flank plane of the female screw thread is contacted by other receding side flank plane of the male screw thread, and these respective flank planes are pressed together with tightening. in addition, the thread angle of the female screw is made approximately 1 degree 20 minutes to 3 degrees 30 minutes larger with respect to the male screw, so that when the male screw is taken as the standard thread angle, the respective flank angles of the male and female screw load threads mutually contact at the crest of the male screw when loaded, thereby preventing loosening and dislodging when the male and female screws are engaged.	1. a male and female screw set comprising a male screw and a female screw having respective load threads, said male screwthread having a standard thread half-angle, said female screw thread having a thread half-angle that is larger than the standard thread half-angle by more than 2 degrees 00 minutes but not more than 3 degrees 00 minutes so that respective flank angles of the male and female screw load threads mutually contact at the male screw when loaded, thereby preventing loosening and dislodging between the male and female screws.	background of the invention the present invention relates to a screw used for fastening parts and in particular to a screw designed so as to prevent loosening and dislodging when male and female threads are engaged. according to the conventionally used metric screw standard, as shown in fig. 9, the male screw 1 thread angle is 60 degrees, comprising 30 degree opposing angles with respect to the axial perpendicular plane v. the female screw 2 as well is formed with the same thread angle. however, in the case of a conventional screw 1 of this type, when a load is applied to the contacting threads during tightening, since the elastic deformation of angles of the male screw 1 exceeds that of the female screw 2, the surface pressure produced by the load in the the flank planes 6 and 8 is not uniform. while flank planes of the male screw 1 and female screw 2 remain in contact, the elastic deformation and load operating center operate eccentrically at the sides of roots of the male screw 1. consequently, since the torque radius decreases, a problem was encountered whereby the male screw was loosened or dislodged. summary of the invention the present invention recognizes the problems associated with the above type of conventional screw, and an objective is to provide a male screw whereby loosening and dislodging are absent between the male and female threads when the male and female threads are engaged and the respective flank planes are in linear contact. in order to resolve the problems of the above mentioned prior art, in the case of this invention, a minimum of one projecting part is formed near the peak of the flank plane of the male screw thread. when the male and female threads are engaged, this projecting part is brought into pressing contact with the female thread flank plane, thereby preventing loosening and dislodging between the male and female screws. in the case of a male screw according to this invention, since the male thread projecting part presses the female thread flank plane when the male and female screws are engaged, loosening and dislodging does not occur between the male and female screws. in order to resolve the problems of the above mentioned prior art, in the case of this invention, a dimensional difference is formed between the female screw thread pitch and male screw thread pitch. as a result, when the female and male screws are engaged, the male screw thread advancing side contacts the flank plane of the female screw other thread receding side, thereby preventing loosening and dislodging between the female and male screws. as a consequence of this construction, when the female screw and male screw engage, the male screw thread advancing flank plane contacts the female screw thread advancing flank plane, while other thread receding side flank plane of the male screw contacts other thread receding side flank plane of the female screw. since tightening brings these into pressing contact, loosening and dislodging between the female and male screws do not occur. in addition, in order to resolve the problems of the prior art mentioned above, a special feature in the case of this invention comprises making the thread half-angle of the female screw approximately 1 degree 20 minutes to 3 degrees 30 minutes larger with respect to the male screw, so that when the male screw is taken as the standard thread angle, the respective flank angles of the male and female screw threads loaded mutually contact at the male screw ridge angle part when loaded. as a result of this construction, without reducing the screw thread strength, the surface pressure can be made uniform during loading when tightening. since the torque radius can therefore be made large, loosening of the screws cannot easily occur. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a partial enlarged cross-sectional view showing the male and female thread engaged state of a screw according to the first embodiment of this invention; fig. 2 is a lateral view of male screw threads according to this invention; fig. 3 is a direct view of the male screw shown in fig. 2; fig. 4 is a lateral view of male screw threads shown in fig. 2 according to another embodiment of this invention; fig. 5 is a direct view of the male screw shown in fig. 4; fig. 6 is a partial enlarged cross-sectional view showing the male and female thread engaged state of a screw according to the third embodiment of this invention; fig. 7 is a partial enlarged vertical cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the screw shown in fig. 6; fig. 8 is a partial enlarged vertical cross-sectional view showing the male and female thread engaged state of a screw according to the third embodiment; and fig. 9 is a partial enlarged vertical cross-sectional view showing the thread shape of a conventional metric screw. fig. 10(a) is an enlarged view of one projecting parts 7 of fig. 1; fig. 10(b)-(d) are cross-sectional views of the projecting part shown in fig. 10(a) in each of three alternative embodiments. detailed description of the preferred embodiments �first embodiment! following is a description of a first embodiment of this invention with reference to attached figs. 1-5. as indicated in fig. 1, a screw 1 according to the first embodiment has a 60 degree thread angle comprising two 30 degree angles formed symmetrically with respect to axial perpendicular plane v. near the peak area of the respective side flanks 6 of the threads, projecting parts 7 project from the flank plane 6. as shown in figs. 2 and 3, when viewed from the male screw axial direction, the projecting parts 7 are formed at 4 locations at 90 degree intervals in a spiral shape. the height of the projecting parts 7 is made slightly higher than the spacing when the male screw 1 and female screw 2 are engaged. these projecting parts 7, for example, can be formed with cross-sections comprising round cones, triangular cones, or squared cones, but are not limited to these shapes. the female screw 2, as indicated in fig. 1, has a 60 degree thread angle comprising two 30 degree angles formed symmetrically with respect to axial perpendicular plane v and comprises flank planes 8. figs. 4 and 5 indicate a case when one projecting part 7 is respectively formed parallel with the axial line at both sides of the flank plane 6. projecting parts 7 formed in the flank planes 6 in this manner, can be formed in either one location or a plurality of locations. these can also be formed in one side of the flank plane 6 or skipping every other angle, as determined according to the male screw 1 size and tightening torque. since a screw according to this invention has this type of construction, when the male screw 1 and female screw 2 are engaged and turned for tightening, the projecting part 7 of the flank plane 6 of the male screw 1 presses against the the flank plane 8 of the female screw 2. consequently, even if slack occurs between the male screw 1 and female screw 2, and elastic deformation of the screw 1 threads occurs tending to dislodge the male screw 1, since the projecting part 7 of the male screw 1 presses against the flange plane 8 of the female screw 2, loosening and dislodging of the male screw 1 are prevented. as described above, in the case of the first embodiment of this invention, at least a projecting part is formed projecting from the male screw thread flank plane near the flank plane. when the male and female screws are engaged, since this projecting part presses against the female screw flank plane, the male screw does not loosen when the male and female screws are tightened and used. also, even should slack occur, since the projecting part presses against the flank plane of the female screw, the male screw does not dislodge, and a high reliability male screw can be provided at low cost. �second embodiment! following is a description of a second embodiment of this invention with reference to attached fig. 6. a female screw 2 according to this embodiment has a thread angle of 60 degrees, comprising two respectively symmetrical 30 degree angles with respect to the axial perpendicular. the screw thread pitch of the female screw 2 is formed slightly larger than the male screw pitch p at p+.alpha.. also, the male screw 1 has a thread angle of 60 degrees, comprising two respectively symmetrical 30 degree angles with respect to the axial perpendicular. the screw thread pitch is formed as p. since a screw according to the second embodiment is constructed in this manner, when the female screw 2 is engaged with the male screw 1 and slightly tightened, the advance side of the flank plane 6 of the female screw 2 thread presses against the advance side of the flank plane 8 of the male screw 1 thread, while because of the pitch dimension difference, the receding flank plane 8 of the female screw 2 is pressed by the receding side of the flank plane 6 of the male screw 1 thread. consequently, since the pressing flank planes exceed those of a conventional metric type female screw 2 and male screw 1 engagement, the thread load is distributed, and loosening and dislodging do not occur between the female screw 2 and male screw 1. fig. 7 shows a case wherein the female screw 2 pitch is formed by a slightly smaller amount a than the male screw 1 pitch p, and is thus p-.alpha.. operation of this screw is the same as described above. the above description of the second embodiment related to an example wherein the the pitch of the female screw 2 is formed as p+.alpha. or p-.alpha. with respect to the pitch p of the male screw 1. however, the description also applies to the opposite case, i.e., wherein the pitch of the male screw 1 is p+.alpha. or p-.alpha. with respect to the pitch p of the female screw 2. as described in the foregoing, according to the second embodiment, a dimensional difference is formed between the female and male screw thread pitches. when the female and male screws are engaged, the advance side flank plane of the female screw thread is contacted by the advance side flank plane of the male screw thread, while the receding flank plane of the female screw of the other thread is pressed by the receding side flank plane of the male screw of the other thread. since these are pressed together when tightened, the pressed flank planes are increased and loosening and dislodging do not occur between the female screw and male screw. consequently, screw detaching is absent, and since only a pitch difference is required, among the outstanding results is the ability to provide a high reliability screw at low cost. �third embodiment! following is a description of a third embodiment of this invention with reference to the attached fig. 8. as shown in fig. 8, the flank angle of the flank plane 8 of the female screw 2 is formed slightly larger (+.alpha.) than 30 degrees. as a result, distribution of the the contact pressure between the screw planes is uniform and matching thereof is excellent. torque radius reduction is prevented and strength is increased with respect to contact stress. the value of .alpha., according to loosening tests when a 10 mm nominal diameter metric hexagonal nut is tightened at 200 kgf-cm, is between approximately 1 degree 30 minutes and 3 degrees 30 minutes, with a preferred value from 2 degrees 00 (zero) minutes to 3 degrees 00 (zero) minutes. table 1 indicates test results when the third embodiment of this invention is applied to nuts with female threads. table 1 __________________________________________________________________________ nut a nut b nut c loosening torque loosening torque loosening torque kgf-cm kgf-cm kgf-cm standard time standard time standard time no. nut a nut (second) nut b nut (second) nut c nut (second) __________________________________________________________________________ 1 60 0 75 125 0 96 20 0 54 2 75 0 33 120 0 56 0 90 81 3 120 0 38 90 0 62 0 50 50 x 85 0 48 111.6 0 71 6.66 46.6 61.6 __________________________________________________________________________ in the table, the value of a is respectively 1 degree 20 minutes for nut a, 3 degrees 30 minutes for nut b and 5 degrees 45 minutes for nut c. in the cases of both nuts a and b, considerable residual torque remains even when the standard nuts are completely loosened, while the opposite effect is observed with nut c. this is attributed to less favorable engagement with the bolt when the angle .alpha. is increased to 5 degrees 45 minutes. consequently, the value .alpha. achieving the object of this invention is desired in the range of 1 degree 20 minutes to 3 degrees 30 minutes. as described above, according to the third embodiment of this invention, the thread half-angle of the female screw is made approximately 1 degree 20 minutes to 3 degrees 30 minutes larger with respect to the male screw, so that when the male screw is taken as the standard thread angle, the respective flank angles of the male and female screw load threads mutually contact at the crest of the male screw when loaded. as a result of this construction, without reducing the screw thread strength, the surface pressure can be made uniform during loading when tightening. since the torque radius can therefore be made large, loosening of the screws cannot easily occur. also, table 2 indicates examples of comparison tests of loosening prevention performance between cases wherein the female screw of this invention is applied to a uniform pressure nut, and various types of conventional nuts in general use. tests were conducted in regard to m6 nuts using a test instrument for measuring loosening in the shaft perpendicular direction. table 2 ______________________________________ nut type all metal all metal loosening loosening uniform nylon prevention prevention loosening standard press. flange flange flange percentage hex. nut flange nut nut nut a nut b ______________________________________ average value 60.5 1.6 5.2 4.1 1.8 (%) of 5 test samples ______________________________________ these test results indicate the loosening percentage of the uniform pressure nut declines at each step compared with the standard nut. also, compared with the generally used loosening prevention nut, the same or greater loosening prevention performance is observed.
157-749-813-055-307	US	[ "US" ]	H04L29/06	2012-07-10T00:00:00	2012	[ "H04" ]	network appliance	system, method, and device for providing services on a network. the device comprises a security assessor and a service provider unit. the security assessor is connected to the network and is configured to identify rights of an entity on the network. the service provider unit is connected to the network and the security assessor. the service provider unit comprises a discovery unit, an interaction unit, and an interest unit. the discovery unit identifies content available on the network. the interaction unit identifies interactions of the entity on the network. the interest unit identifies interests of the entity based on the identified interactions and the identified content. the service provider unit provides services to the entity on the network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the identified content and the identified interests of the entity.	1 . a device for providing services comprising: a security assessor connected to a network and configured to identify rights of an entity on the network; a service provider unit connected to the network and the security assessor, the service provider unit comprising: a content discovery unit that identifies first content on the network; an interaction unit that identifies interactions of the entity on the network; and an interest discovery unit that identifies interests of the entity based on the identified interactions and the first content identified by the discovery unit; and the service provider unit providing a service to the entity on the network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the first content and the identified interests of the entity. 2 . the device according to claim 1 , the service provider unit further comprising a new interest unit that identifies second content of interest to the entity based on at least one of the identified interests of the entity and the first content, wherein the service provider unit provides the service to the entity on the network, further based on the second content. 3 . the device according to claim 2 , the service provider unit further comprising a social network engine and a social network database connected to the social network engine, the social network engine providing a portion of the service based on third content stored in the social network database and the second content, wherein the social network engine updates the third content based on interactions between the social network engine and the entity. 4 . the device according to claim 3 the interest discovery unit further identifies the interests of the entity based on the third content in the social network database. 5 . the device according to claim 1 , the service provider unit further comprising a search engine database and a search engine, wherein the discovery unit indexes the first content and stores the indexed first content in the search engine database and the search engine delivers fourth content to the entity based on the indexed first content in the search engine database and a request by the entity. 6 . a system for providing services on comprising a network appliance comprising: a security assessor connected to a first network and configured to identify rights of an entity on the first network; and a service provider unit connected to the first network and the security assessor, the service provider unit comprising: a content discovery unit that identifies first content on the first network; an interaction unit that identities activities of the entity on the first network; and an interest discovery unit that identifies interests of the entity based on the identified activities and the first content; wherein the service provider unit provides a service to the entity on the first network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the first content and the identified interests of the entity. 7 . the system according to claim 6 , the service provider unit further comprising a new interest unit that identifies second content of interest to the entity based on at least one of the identified interests of the entity and the first content, wherein the service provider unit provides the service to the entity on the network, further based on the second content. 8 . the system according to claim 7 , the service provider unit further comprising a social network engine and a social network database connected to the social network engine, the social network engine providing a portion of the service to the entity on the first network, based on third content in the social network database and the second content, wherein the social network engine updates the third content based on interactions between the social network engine and the entity. 9 . the system according to claim 8 , the interest unit further identifies the interests of the entity based on the third content. 10 . the system according to claim 7 , further comprising an appliance provider attached to a second network, the appliance provider connected to the service provider unit, wherein the new interest unit requests content on the second network via the appliance provider based on the second content. 11 . a method of providing services implemented on a machine having at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to a network, the method comprising: identifying rights of an entity on the network, via the communication platform; identifying first content on the network, via the communication platform; identifying activities of the entity on the network, via the communication platform; identifying interests of the entity based on the identified activities and the first content; and providing a service to the entity on the network, based on the identified rights of the entity, and at least one of the first content and the identified interests of the entity. 12 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the service includes providing customized second content to the entity based on the interests of the entity. 13 . the method according to claim 12 , wherein the second content comprises a first portion including a selected part of the first content, and a second portion including third content, the third content from outside of the network, and the method further comprising indicating to the entity which is the first portion and which is the second portion. 14 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the provided service excludes portions of the first content that the entity has no rights to view. 15 . the method according to claim 11 , further comprising identifying third content outside of the network and of interest to the entity, via the communication platform; and providing the service to the entity on the network further based on the third content. 16 . a machine-readable tangible and non-transitory medium with information recorded thereon, wherein the information, when read by a machine, causes the machine to perform the following steps: identify rights of an entity on a network: identify first content on the network; record activities of the entity on the network; identify interests of the entity based on the recorded activities and the content available; and provide a service to the entity on the network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the first content and the identified interests of the entity. 17 . the machine-readable medium according to claim 16 , wherein the service includes providing customized second content to the entity based on the interests of the entity. 18 . the machine-readable medium according to claim 17 , wherein the second content comprises a first portion including a selected part of the first content, and a second portion including third content, the third content from outside of the network, and the steps further comprising indicating to the entity, which is the first portion and which is the second portion. 19 . the machine-readable medium according to claim 16 , wherein the service excludes portions of the first content that the entity has no rights to view. 20 . the machine-readable medium according to claim 16 , further comprising identifying third content outside of the network and of interest to the entity; and the service to the entity on the network further based on the third content.	background 1. technical field the present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for a network appliance. particularly, the present teaching is directed to methods, systems, and programming for providing a network appliance that provides services to users of a network. 2. discussion of technical background internet service providers such as search engines and social networking sites have invested considerable effort in building sophisticated techniques and services for users. however, the techniques and services developed do not extend to private intranets of for example, large companies. the companies do not wish to allow the above techniques and services into their private networks for reasons of privacy and competitive advantage. this leaves these companies to write and install their own software to provide internally services and techniques readily available on the internet. this process is inefficient and does not produce the high quality results of the commercial service providers on the internet. allowing the internet service providers to provide the above services to large companies internally on a network without the privacy and competitive advantage concerns, would allow the internet service providers a new stream of revenue, and allow the large companies high quality services at reduced cost. summary the teachings disclosed herein relate to methods, systems, and programming for providing services on an intranet. more particularly, the present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for providing services on an intranet with maintaining confidentiality and competitive advantage. in one example, a device for providing services on a network, is disclosed. the device comprises a security assessor and a service provider unit. the security assessor is connected to the network and is configured to identify rights of an entity on the network. the service provider unit is connected to the network and the security assessor. the service provider unit comprises a discovery unit, an interaction unit, and an interest unit. the discovery unit identifies content available on the network. the interaction unit identities interactions of the entity on the network. the interest unit identifies interests of the entity based on the identified interactions and the identified content. the service provider unit provides services to the entity on the network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the identified content and the identified interests of the entity. in another example, a system for providing services on a network comprising a network appliance, is disclosed. the system comprises a security assessor and a service provider unit. the security assessor is connected to the network and is configured to identify rights of an entity on the network. the service provider unit is connected to the network and the security assessor. the service provider unit comprises a discovery unit, an interaction unit, and an interest unit. the discovery unit identifies content available on the network. the interaction unit identifies activities of the entity on the network. the interest unit identifies interests of the entity based on the identified activities and the content available. the service provider unit provides services to the entities on the network, based on the rights of the entity, and at least one of the identified content and the identified interests of the entity. in a different example, a method of providing services on a network implemented on a machine having at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to the network, is disclosed. rights of entities on the network are identified via the communication platform. content available on the network is identified via the communication platform. activities of the entities on the network are identified via the communication platform. interests of the entities are identified based on the identified activities and the content available. services are provided to the entities on the network, based on the identified rights of the entities, and at least one of the identified content and the identified interests of the entities. other concepts relate to software for implementing the network appliance. a software product, in accord with this concept, includes at least one machine-readable non-transitory medium and information carried by the medium. the information carried by the medium may be executable program code and/or data regarding parameters in association with the network appliance operational parameters, such as information related to a configuration etc. in one example, a machine-readable tangible and non-transitory medium with information recorded thereon, is disclosed. the information, when read by a machine, causes the machine to perform the method steps. the machine identifies rights of entities on a network. the machine identifies content available via the network. the machine records activities of the entities on the network. the machine identifies interests of the entities based on the recorded activities and the content available. the machine provides services to the entities on the network, based on the rights of the entities, and at least one of the identified content and the identified interests of the entities. additional advantages and novel features will be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following and the accompanying drawings or may be learned by production or operation of the examples. the advantages of the present teachings may be realized and attained by practice or use of various aspects of the methodologies, instrumentalities and combinations set forth in the detailed examples discussed below. brief description of the drawings the methods, systems, and/or programming described herein are further described in terms of exemplary embodiments. these exemplary embodiments are described in detail with reference to the drawings. these embodiments are non-limiting exemplary embodiments, in which like reference numerals represent similar structures throughout the several views of the drawings, and wherein: fig. 1 is a high level depiction of a system including a network appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 2 depicts an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 3 depicts an example of search output from an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 4 depicts another example of search output from an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 5 depicts an example of social network output from an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 6 depicts an example of use of a social network from an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 7 depicts an example of news output from an appliance, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 8 is a flowchart for a method 800 of identifying interests of a user, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 9 is a flowchart for a method 900 of providing additional content to users on a network, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; fig. 10 is a flowchart for a method 1000 of providing additional content to users on a network, according to an embodiment of the present teaching; and fig. 11 depicts a general computer architecture on which the present teaching can be implemented. detailed description in the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth by way of examples in order to provide a thorough understanding of the relevant teachings. however, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present teachings may be practiced without such details. in other instances, well known methods, procedures, components, and/or circuitry have been described at a relatively high-level, without detail, in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring aspects of the present teachings. the present teaching relates to a network appliance. as noted above, internet service providers such as search engines and social networking sites have invested considerable effort in building sophisticated techniques and services for users. however, the techniques and services developed do not extend to private intranets. the companies do not wish to allow the above techniques and services from the internet into their private networks for reasons of privacy and competitive advantage. fig. 1 is a high-level depiction of a system 100 including an appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the system 100 further includes users 110 , a network 105 , a gateway and firewall 155 , a mail server 130 , a dns server 135 , and content sources 140 . the network 105 in system 100 can be a single network or a combination of different networks. for example, a network can be a local area network (lan), a wide area network (wan), a wireless network, a virtual network, or any combination thereof. a network may also include various network access points, wired or wireless access points such as base stations or internet exchange points 120 - a , through which a data source may connect to the network in order to transmit information via, the network. the gateway and firewall 155 , connects the network 105 to the internet 145 . the internet 145 allows the gateway and firewall to connect with the appliance provider 160 , content sources 165 , and additional users 115 . users 110 may be of different types such as users connected to the network via desktop connections ( 110 - b ), users connecting to the network via wireless connections such as through a laptop ( 210 - a ) a user may send a request to the appliance 150 via the network 105 and receive content related to the request from the appliance 150 through the network 105 . users 115 may also be connected to the network 105 via, the base stations 125 . internet 145 and gateway and firewall 155 . the additional users 115 may be of different types such as users connected to the network via desktop connections ( 115 - d ), users connecting to the network via wireless connections such as through a laptop ( 115 - c ), a handheld device ( 115 - a ), or a built-in device in a motor vehicle ( 115 - b ). a user may send a request to the appliance 150 via the network 105 and receive content related to the request from the appliance 150 through the network 105 . the additional users 115 may be connected to the network 105 using a virtual private network (vpn). in some embodiments, the users 110 , 115 may correspond to people using a particular device. in some embodiments, the users 110 , 115 may correspond to any entity using the network 105 . for example, the entities include network crawlers or spiders, applications, groups of users, network and system administrators etc. the content sources 140 include multiple content sources 140 - a , 140 - b . a content source may correspond to a web page host, a database, or files in a filing system. the appliance 150 may access information from any of the content sources 140 a , 140 b and rely on such information to respond to a request from a user. the content sources 165 include multiple content sources 165 - a , 165 - b . a content source may correspond to a web page host, a database, or files in a filing system. the appliance 150 may access information from any of the content sources 165 a , 165 b and rely on such information to respond to a request from a user. in some embodiments, the appliance 150 accesses the content sources 165 via the appliance provider 160 . in some embodiments, the appliance 150 is a stand-alone appliance with all of the hardware and software required to provide services to entities on an intranet. the quality of the services is similar to the quality of internet service providers on the internet 145 . the appliance 150 does not require internet access, or any access outside of the intranet to perform these functions. thus, the appliance 150 can be deployed on the company intranet without compromising privacy or competitive advantage. the appliance 150 provides services such as, for example, search for documents and files on the network 105 , social networking for users 110 and 115 , and the ability to automatically target customized content to users 110 , 115 based on the content on the intranet and the activities of users 110 , 115 . the network appliance, for example, can send to a user documents on the intranet that might be of interest and use to the user based on the content and activities of the user. for example, a user might discuss an issue with another user of the intranet over email. the network appliance can identify the subject matter of email and add content to the emails with suggestions of documents and other users that might help resolve the issue. the network 105 might be an intranet of a company, a government, a university, or any other entity that has an intranet. in some embodiments, the appliance 150 may communicate with the appliance provider 160 , via the gateway and firewall 155 and internet 145 . fig. 2 depicts the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the appliance 150 comprises a service provider unit 210 and security unit. 215 . the service provider unit 210 comprises an interaction, unit 220 , an interaction database 225 , a content discovery unit 230 , a search engine 235 , a search engine database 240 , an interest discovery unit 245 , a user-interest database 250 , a new interest, unit 270 , a social network engine 260 , and a social network database 255 . the above elements are connected to one another. in some embodiments, one or more of the above elements are connected to one another by a computer network, for example, computer network 205 . in some embodiments, one or more of the above elements are connected via a computer bus, or by virtue of being hosted on the same computer hardware. the computer network 205 is connected to the network 105 ( fig. 1 ). interaction unit 220 identifies interactions between entities on the network 105 . in some embodiments, the interaction unit 220 identifies the interactions between the users and the service provider unit 210 . in some embodiments, the interaction unit 220 identifies interactions between the entities on the network 105 and any other entities on the network 105 . in some embodiments, to record interactions on the network 105 , additional software is provided to the entities, for example, pc, servers, etc. on the network. 105 . the additional software ensures that any interactions are sent to interaction unit 22 . 0 to be identified. the interaction unit 220 stores the interactions in the interaction database 225 . the content discovery unit 230 searches the network 105 for content. in some embodiments, the content discovery unit 230 includes an intranet spider or intranet crawler. the content discovery unit 230 searches the network systematically for content stored on computers and servers in file systems and databases. the content discovery unit 230 indexes of the content identified on the network 105 . the content discovery unit 230 stores the index in search engine database 240 . the index stored in the search engine database 240 contains locations of the content identified and in some embodiments, keywords, and phrases associated with the content. the search engine database 240 may also store links and references between the identified content. for example, the search engine database 240 may store hyper-links, or any other links for each piece of content. in some embodiments, the search engine database 240 stores complete copies of content identified on the network 105 . in some embodiments, the content discovery unit 230 indexes the storage units of personal computers, tablet computers, cell phones, and any other devices connected to the network 105 . in some embodiments, the content discovery unit 230 searches devices connected to the network 105 via a vpn connection. for example, the devices of additional users 115 , as shown in fig. 1 , may be searched and indexed by the content discovery unit 230 . the search engine 235 searches for content on the network 105 based on requests by users, or entities on the network 105 . the search engine 235 accesses the search engine database 240 in response to a search request by a user or entity on the network 105 . the search engine 235 compares the requested search terms with data in the search engine database 240 to identify relevant content. in some embodiments, if the relevant content is found in the search engine database, the search engine 235 may send a link to the content in the search engine database. if the relevant content is not in the search engine database 240 , the search engine 235 may send a link to the content on the network 105 . in some embodiments, the search engine 200 and includes in any response to the search request, a summary of the content, with the link, to the content. in some embodiments, the search engine 235 ranks the identified content, and then sends the identify content listed in ranking order. the search engine 235 may rank the identified content based on, for example, the most recent content, most relevant to the search items, size of document, or the location of the content on the network 105 . the location on the network 105 may include, for example, databases, file systems, the internal web pages for the network 105 , external web pages that are accessible by users and entities outside of the gateway and firewall 155 , backup data, local storage for a pc on the network 105 , or storage on a flash memory drive attached to a pc on the network 105 , etc. the search engine may further rank the identified content based on the identity of the creator of the content, or any other ranking system independently established by the operator of the network 105 . for example, the network operator for the network 105 may rank documents based on importance. the social network engine 260 provides social networking services such as home pages, instant messaging, email, and links to documents and other users of interest to each user. the above information collected by the social network engine 260 is stored in the social network database 255 . the interest discovery unit 245 identities the interests of users based on the information stored in the interaction database 225 , the search engine database 240 , and the social network database 255 . the interest discovery unit 245 uses techniques such as latent dirichlet allocation, hierarchical dirichlet processes, or probabilistic latent semantic analysis of the stored information, as well as pattern matching techniques, keyword searches, etc. the interests of entities on the network are stored in the user-interest database 250 . the new interest unit 270 identifies new topics of interest for each user as the new topics are identified by the interest discovery unit 245 . the new interest unit 270 identifies the new topics based on information in the user-interest database 250 for the corresponding user. when new topics are identified, the new interest unit 270 queries the search engine database for content on the network 105 related to the new topic. the new interest unit 270 also queries the search engine database 240 for new content added to the network 105 . if the new interest unit 270 identifies new content, the new interest unit 270 queries the user-interest database 250 to find users interested in the new content added to the network 105 . the content identified by the new interest unit 270 for each user is sent to the social network engine 260 along with the identity of the corresponding user. the social network engine stores the identified content, or links to the identified content in the social network database along with data for the corresponding user and in some embodiments a time and date that the content was found. the social network engine incorporates the identified content into the corresponding user's home page, email, or messages at appropriate times, for example, when the user opens their homepage the first time each day. the social network engine also maintains a link, and a web page where a user can select and view a list of identified content that might be of interest. the security unit 215 comprises a security-assessor unit 273 and a security database 275 . the security-assessor unit 273 identifies the rights and privileges of the users on the network 105 and stores the rights and privileges of the users in the security database 275 . in some embodiments, the security-assessor unit 273 is capable of searching the network 105 for files corresponding to the security of the network. for example, the security-assessor unit 273 is capable of searching security files on servers and databases to find the rights and privileges of users. in other embodiments, the network administrator indicates the places on the network where security information is located so that the security-assessor unit 273 can access the rights and privileges for the users and store the rights and privileges in the security database 275 . in some embodiments, the security-assessor unit 273 does not store rights data in security database 275 , instead, the security-assessor unit 273 accesses the security files on the network 105 directly when any request is made. the social network engine 260 and the search engine 235 , query the security unit 215 regarding content to be delivered to the user. if the user does not have rights to content, then the content is not delivered to the user. fig. 3 depicts an example of search output 300 from the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. in this example, the user 305 is indicated as reception. the reception user has initiated a search for “paper” in the search box 310 . the search engine 235 , has delivered search results 315 for the network 105 . in some embodiments, the search engine 235 is able to send a search request to the appliance provider 160 ( fig. 1 ). the appliance provider performs a search of the internet 145 and delivers additional search results back to the search engine 235 . as shown in fig. 3 , the search engine 235 incorporates the internet search results 320 , as shown in fig. 3 . the reception user receives the results separated so that the reception user can see which content is from the network 105 and which content is from the internet 145 . the search results 315 are filtered for the rights and privileges of the reception user. fig. 4 depicts another example of search output 400 from the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. in this example, the user 405 is indicated as the head of r&d. the head of r&d has also initiated a search for “paper” in the search box 410 . the search engine has delivered search results 415 for the network 105 , and search results 420 , for the internet 145 . the head of r&d receives the results separated so that it can be seen which content is on the network 105 , and which content is on the internet 145 . the search results 415 are filtered for the rights and privileges of the head of r&d. the search results are similar for the head of r&d and reception. however, the head of r&d is able to view an additional piece of content 425 not available to reception. this piece of content is available to the head of r&d, because the head of r&d has privileges to this piece of content. the reception user does not have privileges to this content. fig. 5 depicts an example of social network output 500 from the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the output 500 shows the friends of the head of r&d. the social network engine 260 separates the friends 515 , corresponding to users on the network 105 from friends 520 , corresponding to users on the internet 145 . in some embodiments, the social networking engine places requests to the appliance provider 160 to obtain the friends 520 of the head of r&d on the internet 145 . in some embodiments, a friend may occur in both the network 105 and on the internet 145 . for example, jim appears on the list of friends, both as a friend on the network 105 and a friend on internet 145 . this allows the head of r&d to respond to jim either for company business or as a social friend from the same page. this makes it easier for the head of r&d to keep company information separate from public information. in some embodiments, the social network engine is capable of filtering messages, e-mail, and content sent, to ensure that company information is not sent out side of the company. further, the social network engine 260 is capable of filtering messages, e-mail, and content sent between users on the network 105 , to ensure that privileged information is not sent to users that do not have privilege for the information. thus, for example, the head of r&d can e-mail a link to jim as a user on the internet 145 , if the link is a public webpage on the network 105 . however, the head of r&d would not be able to send content on the network 105 that is not visible to users outside of the network 105 to jim as a user on the internet 145 . fig. 6 depicts an example of a use 600 of the social network of the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. in the use 600 , the head of r&d dicks on a link 625 to send a link for content to jim. the social network engine 260 , in response to the click opens a pop-up box 630 that allows the head of r&d to browse for the link to the content and send the content to jim. in this example, the head of r&d has selected a particular document 635 . the head of r&d then presses the send button 640 . the social network engine 260 sends a request to the security unit 215 requesting whether jim has privileges to the document 635 . in the example of fig. 6 , the security unit 215 indicates that jim does not have privileges to document 635 . therefore, the social network engine 260 generates a pop-up box 645 . the pop-up box 645 indicates that jim does not have access to the document 635 , and that, therefore, the document cannot be sent. by checking each document with the security unit 215 , the social network engine 260 , and the search engine 235 ensure that users without privilege do not see documents that they do not have privilege to. moreover, because users do not see links to documents that they do not have privileges to, those users are not even aware that the document exists, in some embodiments, the social network engine 260 and the search engine 235 , provide links to content, on the network 105 to which a user does not have rights or privileges. the user is then prevented from obtaining the link by the security mechanisms external to the appliance 150 . in some embodiments, the social network engine 260 and the search engine 235 do not provide the links to the documents to which a user does not have rights or privileges. however, the social network engine 260 and the search engine 235 , provide information indicating that useful content exists, and indicate, for example, a person that created the useful content, the manager in charge of the useful content, a department responsible for the useful content, etc. in some embodiments, the social network engine 260 and the search engine 235 , provide a link for the useful content that, when clicked sends a message to one of for example, the person that created the useful content, the manager in charge of the useful content, the department responsible for the useful content. the message indicates to the recipient, the user that would like to view the content and the content that the user would like to view. this allows the recipient to decide if the user should be given access to the content. the above mechanism allows, for example, the user to be notified about useful content in a manner that they can request this content without knowing the creator of the content, the owner of the content or the department the content belongs to, unless the relevant party response to the request by the user. fig. 7 depicts an example of news output 700 from the appliance 150 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. in the example of output 700 , the user, the head of r&d has requested daily news from the social network engine 260 . in some embodiments, the news output 700 is a part of the content delivered by the social network engine 260 . in some embodiments, the news output 700 may be generated by a different engine, for example, a corporate website. as with the search engine output and the other functions of the social network engine described above, the news items are listed separately for news items 710 on the network 105 and news items 715 on the internet 145 , in some embodiments, the news items 715 on the internet 145 are obtain by the social network engine 260 , requesting news items from appliance provider 160 . the social network engine 260 then combines the news items 710 on the network 105 with the news items 715 on the internet 145 into a single piece of content for the user. the social network engine checks each item of news, 710 to verify that the user is privileged to view the item of news 710 . if the user is not privileged to view the item of news, 710 , the item of news will not be displayed to the user. the news output 700 further comprises an advertisement 720 . the advertisement 720 is generated based on the user interests stored in the user-interest database 250 . in some embodiments, the new interest unit 270 requests advertisements from the appliance provider 160 based on the user interests stored in the user-interest database 250 . the owner of the network 105 may be compensated by the appliance provider 160 , based on the number of advertisements clicked by users of the network 105 . in some embodiments, the advertisements are sent by the appliance provider 160 to the new interest unit 270 . the new interest unit 270 then selects the advertisements from among the sent advertisements based on the user interests stored in the user-interest database 250 . in some embodiments, the advertisements may be provided by third parties, and the network owner may be compensated based on the number of clicks for the third-party advertisements. fig. 8 is a flowchart for a method 800 of identifying interests of users, according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the method begins at step 805 . at step 805 , the content discovery unit 230 identities content on the network, for example network 105 . in some embodiments, the content discovery unit 230 uses an intranet crawler or spider to discover the content on the network. in some embodiments, the network administrator directs the content discovery unit 230 to the content. when the content discovery is complete the method proceeds to step 810 . at step 810 , the content discovery unit 230 indexes and stores the content. the indexing process includes, for example, keyword searches, classification of content by topic discovery, pattern matching etc. when the indexing is complete the method proceeds to step 815 . at step 815 , the security-assessor unit 273 identifies rights of entities on the network, in some embodiments, the security-assessor unit 273 uses an intranet crawler or spider to discover the rights of entities on the network. in some embodiments, the network administrator directs the security-assessor unit 273 to the rights of entities. when the rights have been identified the method proceeds to step 820 at step 820 , the security-assessor unit 273 stores the identified rights of the users. when the rights have been stored, the method proceeds to step 825 . at step 825 , the interaction unit 220 identifies the actions of users on the network. in some embodiments, the interaction unit 220 identifies the actions of the users with the appliance 150 . in some embodiments, machines attached to the network 105 have additional software that directs the actions of the users to the interaction unit 220 . when the actions of the users have been identified the method proceeds to step 830 . at step 830 , the interaction unit 220 stores the identified actions of users. when the identified actions have been stored, the method proceeds to step 835 . at step 835 , the interest discovery unit. 245 identifies interests of users from the stored content, actions of users, and information in the social user database the interest discovery process includes, for example, keyword searches, classification of content by topic discovery, pattern matching etc. when the interests of users have been identified, the method proceeds to step 840 . at step 840 , the interest, discovery unit 245 stores the identified interests of the users. when the interests of the users have been stored, the method repeats from step 805 . in some embodiments, the above steps, 805 - 840 are performed continuously and in parallel. in some embodiments, the above steps, 805 - 840 are performed sequentially. fig. 9 is a flowchart for a method 900 of providing additional content to users on the network 105 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the method begins at step 905 . at step 905 , the new interest unit 270 identifies new content in the search engine database. new content corresponds to content found by the content discover unit 230 on the network 105 and stored in the search engine database 240 . when the search for new content is complete, the method proceeds to step 910 . at step 910 , the new interest unit 270 identifies new user interests in the user interest database. a new user interest corresponds to a user interest recently found by the interest discovery unit 245 and stored in the user-interest database 250 . when the search for new user interests is complete, the method proceeds to step 915 . at step 915 , the new interest unit 270 identifies users interested in the new content by querying the user interest database 250 . when the search for users interested in the new content is complete, the method proceeds to step 920 . at step 920 , the new interest unit 270 identifies content corresponding to the new user interests, by querying the search engine database 240 for content on the network 105 . when the search for content, corresponding to the new user interests is complete, the method proceeds to step 925 . at step 925 , the new interest unit 270 sends the new content and the corresponding user identity, and content corresponding to the new user interests to the social network engine 260 . the social network engine 260 stores the new content and the corresponding user identity, and content corresponding to the new user interests in the social network database 255 . when the information has been stored by the social network engine 260 , the method proceeds to step 930 . in some embodiments, the new interest unit 270 sends the new content and the corresponding user identity, and content corresponding to the new user interests to the search engine 235 . the search engine 235 stores the above information. when a search is performed using the search engine 235 by a user on the network, the search engine 235 may provide additional content to the user, based on the above information sent to the search engine 235 . at step 930 , the social network engine selects content from the new content for the corresponding user identity and content corresponding to the new interests of the user. the selection may be based on, for example, the time the content was sent by the new interest unit 270 , a comparison of the content with recent content requested by or sent to the user, the content of emails of messages sent or received by the user or other users on the network 105 . when the content is selected the method proceeds to step 935 . at step 935 , the social network engine combines the selected content with content requested by the user and delivers the content to the user. the combined content may be delivered in the form of a webpage, an e-mail, a message, or by any other method compatible with embodiments of the disclosure. when the combined content has been delivered to the user, the method repeats from step 905 . fig. 10 is a flowchart for a method 1000 of providing additional content to users on the network 105 , according to an embodiment of the present teaching. the method begins at step 1010 . at step 1010 , the new interest unit 270 identifies user interests for a user in the user interest database. when the interests of the user have been identified the method proceeds to step 1015 . at step 1015 , the new interest unit 270 requests additional content corresponding to the user interests. in some embodiments, the content may be requested from a server attached to the network 105 that contains information relevant to users of the network 105 . for example, the server may contain information regarding company policy. a user using the social network engine 260 or the search engine 235 may view content regarding company policy or discuss company policy in messaging or e-mail. the above interactions are recorded by interaction unit 220 and therefore recorded in news interest database 250 by interest discovery unit 245 . the new interest unit 270 is then able to request content relating to the above company policy from the server. in some embodiments, the new interest unit 270 requests content from the appliance provider 160 . the appliance provider 160 may have, for example, an encyclopedia from which to retrieve content related to the user interests. further, the appliance provider 160 may have, for example, advertising content from which to retrieve content related to the user interests. the new interest unit 270 may request content from a third party on the internet 145 . the third party may be, for example, an advertising agency with advertising content related to the user interests. a when the request for additional content is complete the method proceeds to step 1020 . at step 1020 , the new interest unit 270 receives the additional content corresponding to the user interests. when the content has been received the method proceeds to step 1025 . at step 1025 , the new interest unit 270 sends the received content to the social network engine 260 and the social network engine 260 stores the received content in the social network database 255 for the user. when the received content is stored the method proceeds to step 1030 . at step 1030 , the social network engine selects content from the received content. the selection may be based on, for example, the time the content was sent by the new interest unit 270 , a comparison of the content with recent content requested by or sent to the user, the content of emails of messages sent or received by the user or other users on the network 105 . when the content has been selected the method proceeds to step 1035 . at step 1035 , the social network engine combines the selected content into content requested by the user and delivers the content to the user. the combined content may be delivered in the form of a webpage, an e-mail, a message, or by any other method compatible with embodiments of the disclosure. when the combined content has been delivered, the method repeats from step 1010 fig. 11 depicts a general computer architecture on which the present teaching can be implemented and has a functional block diagram illustration of a computer hardware platform that includes user interface elements. the computer may be a general-purpose computer or a special purpose computer. this computer 1100 can be used to implement any components of the network appliance as described herein. for example, the interaction unit 220 , the content discovery unit 230 , the search engine 235 , the new interest unit 270 , the interest discovery unit 245 , the social network engine 260 , and the security-assessor unit 273 can all be implemented on a computer such as computer 1100 , via its hardware, software program, firmware, or a combination thereof. although only one such computer is shown, for convenience, the computer functions relating to the network appliance may be implemented in a distributed fashion on a number of similar platforms, to distribute the processing load. the computer 1100 , for example, includes com ports 1150 connected to and from a network connected thereto to facilitate data communications. the computer 1100 also includes a central processing unit (cpu) 1120 , in the form of one or more processors, for executing program instructions. the exemplary computer platform includes an internal communication bus 1110 , program storage and data storage of different forms, e.g. disk 1170 , read only memory (rom) 1130 , or random access memory (ram) 1140 , for various data files to be processed and/or communicated by the computer, as well as possibly program instructions to be executed by the cpu. the computer 1100 also includes an i/o component 1160 , supporting input/output flows between the computer and other components therein such as user interface elements 1180 . the computer 1100 may also receive programming and data via network communications. hence, aspects of the methods of delivering content on an intranet, as outlined above, may be embodied in programming program aspects of the technology may be thought of as “products” or “articles of manufacture” typically in the form of executable code and/or associated data that is carried on or embodied in a type of machine-readable medium tangible non-transitory “storage” type media include any or all of the memory or other storage for the computers, processors or the like, or associated modules thereof, such as various semiconductor memories, tape drives, disk drives and the like, which may provide storage at any time for the software programming. all or portions of the software may at times be communicated through a network such as the internet or various other telecommunication networks. such communications, for example, may enable loading of the software from one computer or processor into another, for example, from a management server or host computer into the hardware platform(s) of the network appliance. thus, another type of media that may bear the software elements includes optical, electrical and electromagnetic waves, such as used across physical interfaces between local devices, through wired and optical landline networks and over various air-links. the physical elements that carry such waves, such as wired or wireless links, optical links, or the like, also may be considered as media bearing the software. as used herein, unless restricted to tangible “storage” media, terms such as computer or machine “readable medium” refer to any medium that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution. hence, a machine-readable medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, a tangible storage medium, a carrier wave medium, or physical transmission medium. non-volatile storage media include, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as any of the storage devices in any computer(s) or the like, which may be used to implement the system or any of its components as shown in the drawings. volatile storage media include dynamic memory; such as a main memory of such a computer platform. tangible transmission media include coaxial cables, copper wires, and fiber optics, including the wires that form a bus within a computer system. carrier-wave transmission media can take the form of electric or electromagnetic signals, or acoustic or light waves such as those generated during radio frequency (rf) and infrared (ir) data communications. common forms of computer-readable media, therefore, include for example: a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a cd-rom, dvd or dvd-rom, any other optical medium, punch cards paper tape, any other physical storage medium with patterns of holes, a ram, a prom and eprom, a flash-eprom, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave transporting data or instructions, cables or links transporting such a carrier wave, or any other medium from which a computer can read programming code and/or data. many of these forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to a processor for execution. those skilled in the art will recognize that the present teachings are amenable to a variety of modifications and/or enhancements. for example, although the implementation of various components described above may be embodied in a hardware device, it can also be implemented as a software only solution—e.g., an installation on an existing server. in addition, network appliance and its components as disclosed herein can be implemented as a firmware, firmware/software combination, firmware/hardware combination, or a hardware/firmware/software combination. while the foregoing has described what are considered to be the best mode and/or other examples, it is understood that various modifications may be made therein and that the subject matter disclosed herein may be implemented in various forms and examples, and that the teachings may be applied in numerous applications, only some of which have been described herein. it is intended by the following claims to claim any and all applications, modifications, and variations that fall within the true scope of the present teachings.
160-786-612-536-404	US	[ "CN", "KR", "TW", "EP", "WO", "JP", "US" ]	C03C27/10,C03B23/023,B32B17/10,B60R13/02,C03B23/025,B60K35/00,B60K37/00,C03B23/03,C03C21/00	2019-05-03T00:00:00	2019	[ "C03", "B32", "B60" ]	component of a vehicle interior system	a component of a vehicle interior system is disclosed herein. the component comprises a frame and a glass plate. the glass sheet has a first bend formed by thermoforming and having a first bend radius. the glass sheet has a second bend formed by cold-forming and having a second bend radius, the second bend radius being less than the first bend radius. the glass sheet is adhered to the frame by an adhesive, and the adhesive is subjected to a greater stress in the region of the second bend than in the region of the first bend.	what is claimed is: 1. a method of forming a glass sheet, comprising the steps of: hot-forming a first bend radius in the glass sheet in a first region at or above a first temperature; cold-forming a second bend radius in the glass sheet over a second region at a second temperature below the first temperature, the second bend radius being greater than the first bend radius. 2. the method of claim 1, wherein the first temperature is at least a temperature at which the glass sheet has a viscosity of 10 12 poise. 3. the method of claim 1 or 2, wherein, during the step of hot-forming, the glass sheet is only at or above the first temperature in the first region and wherein the glass sheet is below the first temperature outside the first region. 4. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein, during the step of cold-forming, the entire glass sheet is at the second temperature which is in a range of from 20 °c to less than a glass transition temperature of the glass sheet. 5. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein the first bend radius at most 150 mm. 6. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein hot-forming comprises at least one of pressing a ram into the first region of the sheet to form the first bend radius or bending the glass sheet after heating the first region using an infrared laser. 7. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein the glass sheet is one of soda lime silicate glass, aluminosilicate glass, alkali aluminosilicate glass, or borosilicate glass. 8. the method of claim 7, wherein the glass sheet is chemically strengthened. 9. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein the glass sheet is combined with another glass sheet to form a laminate, wherein the glass sheet and the other glass sheet undergo the step of colding-forming together. 10. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein cold-forming further comprises adhering the glass sheet to a frame such that the glass sheet conforms to a shape of the frame. 11. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein a maximum thickness of the glass sheet measured between a first major surface and a second major surfaces is from 0.15 m to 2.0 mm. 12. the method of any of the preceding claims, wherein the glass sheet has a width and a length, wherein the width is from 1 cm to 50 cm, and the length is from 10 cm to 200 cm. 13. a component of a vehicle interior system, comprising: a frame; and a glass sheet comprising a first curvature formed by hot-forming and having a first bend radius and a second curvature formed by cold-forming and having a second bend radius, wherein the first bend radius is less than the second bend radius; wherein the glass sheet is adhered to the frame with an adhesive; and wherein the adhesive is under greater stress in a region of the second curvature than in a region of the first curvature. 14. the component of claim 13, wherein the frame comprises any one of a center console, a dashboard, an instrument panel, an arm rest, a pillar, a seat back, a floor board, a headrest, a door panel, a steering wheel and a portion of a housing of a free-standing display. 15. the component of claim 13 or 14, wherein the vehicle is any one of an automobile, a sea craft, or an aircraft. 16. the component of any of claims 13-15, comprising a third curvature formed by hot forming and having a third bend radius, wherein the third bend radius is less than the second bend radius and wherein the second curvature is arranged between the first curvature and the third curvature. 17. the component of claim 16, wherein the first curvature and the third curvature are both concave and the second curvature is convex. 18. the component of claim 17, further comprising a fourth curvature that is concave, wherein the third curvature is arranged between the second curvature and the fourth curvature. 19. the component of claim 16, wherein the first curvature, the second curvature, and the third curvature are all concave. 20. a method of forming a vehicle interior system, comprising the steps of: heating a glass sheet in a first region to at least a temperature at which the glass sheet has a viscosity of 10 12 poise (ti 0gi 2 temperature), the first region being less than the entire glass sheet; bending the glass sheet while the first region is at least ti ogi 2 temperature to form a first curvature having a first bend radius; adhering the glass sheet to a frame to form a second curvature having a second bend radius, the second curvature being adjacent to the first curvature, wherein the second bend radius is greater than the first bend radius. 21. the method of claim 20, wherein the first bend radius at most 150 mm. 22. the method of claim 20 or 21, wherein the step of bending comprises pressing a ram into the first region to form the first curvature. 23. the method of any of claims 20-22, wherein the step of heating comprises irradiating the glass sheet in the first region with a laser. 24. the method of any of claims 20-23, wherein the glass sheet is one of soda lime silicate glass, aluminosilicate glass, alkali aluminosilicate glass, or borosilicate glass. 25. the method of claim 24, wherein the glass sheet is chemically strengthened. 26. the method of claims 20-25, wherein a maximum thickness of the glass sheet measured between a first major surface and a second major surfaces is 0.15 mm to 2.0 mm. 27. the method of any of claims 20-26, wherein the glass sheet has a width and a length, wherein the width is from 1 cm to 50 cm, and the length is from 10 cm to 200 cm. 28. the method of any of claims 20-27, wherein the frame comprises any one of a center console, a dashboard, an instrument panel, an arm rest, a pillar, a seat back, a floor board, a headrest, a door panel, a steering wheel and a portion of a housing of a free-standing display. 29. the method of any of claims 20-28, wherein the vehicle is any one of an automobile, a sea craft, or an aircraft. 30. the method of any of claims 20-29, wherein the steps of heating and bending produce a third curvature having a third bend radius that is less than the second bend radius, wherein the second curvature is arranged between the first curvature and the third curvature. 31. the method of claim 30, wherein the first curvature and the third curvature are both concave and the second curvature is convex. 32. the method of claim 31 , wherein cold forming further produces a fourth curvature having a fourth bend radius that is greater than the first and third bend radii, wherein the fourth curvature is concave, and wherein the third curvature is arranged between the second curvature and the fourth curvature. 33. the method of claim 30, wherein the first curvature, the second curvature, and the third curvature are all concave.	combined cold forming and hot forming processes for increased design flexibility cross-reference to related applications [0001] this application claims the benefit of priority under 35 u.s.c. § 119 of u.s. provisional application serial no. 62/842801 filed on may 3, 2019 the content of which is relied upon and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. background [0002] the disclosure relates to vehicle interior systems including glass and methods for forming the same, and more particularly to vehicle interior systems including a curved glass article that is formed through hot and cold forming techniques. [0003] vehicle interiors include curved surfaces and can incorporate displays in such curved surfaces. the materials used to form such curved surfaces are typically limited to polymers, which do not exhibit the durability and optical performance as glass. as such, curved glass sheets are desirable, especially when used as covers for displays. existing methods of forming such curved glass sheets, such as thermal forming, have drawbacks including high cost, optical distortion, and surface marking. accordingly, applicant has identified a need for vehicle interior systems that can incorporate a curved glass sheet in a cost-effective manner and without problems typically associated with glass thermal forming processes. summary [0004] according to an aspect, embodiments of the disclosure relate to a method of forming a glass sheet. in the method, a first bend radius is hot-formed in the glass sheet in a first region at or above a first temperature. a second bend radius is cold-formed in the glass sheet over a second region at a second temperature below the first temperature. the second bend radius is greater than the first bend radius. [0005] according to another aspect, embodiments of the disclosure relate to a component of a vehicle interior system. the component includes a frame and a glass sheet. the glass sheet has a first curvature formed by hot-forming and having a first bend radius. the glass sheet has a second curvature formed by cold-forming and having a second bend radius. the first bend radius is less than the second bend radius. the glass sheet is adhered to the frame with an adhesive, and the adhesive is under greater stress in a region of the second curvature than in a region of the first curvature. [0006] according to still another aspect, embodiments of the disclosure relate to a method of forming a vehicle interior system. in the method, a glass sheet is heated in a first region to at least a temperature at which the glass sheet has a viscosity of 10 12 poise (ti ogi 2 temperature). the first region is less than the entire glass sheet. the glass sheet is bent while the first region is at least ti 0gi 2 temperature to form a first curvature having a first bend radius. the glass sheet is adhered to a frame to form a second curvature having a second bend radius. the second curvature is adjacent to the first curvature, and the second bend radius is greater than the first bend radius. [0007] additional features and advantages will be set forth in the detailed description which follows, and in part will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from that description or recognized by practicing the embodiments as described herein, including the detailed description which follows, the claims, as well as the appended drawings. [0008] it is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are merely exemplary, and are intended to provide an overview or framework to understanding the nature and character of the claims. brief description of the drawings [0009] the accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. the drawings illustrate one or more embodiment(s), and together with the description serve to explain principles and operation of the various embodiments. in the drawings: [0010] fig. 1 is a perspective view of a vehicle interior with vehicle interior systems, according to exemplary embodiments; [0011] fig. 2 depicts a side view of an embodiment of a glass article formed through hot- and cold- forming, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0012] fig. 3 depicts a side view of another embodiment of a glass article formed through hot- and cold- forming, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0013] figs. 4a-4c depict a first method of hot forming a glass sheet, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0014] figs. 5a and 5b depict a second method of hot forming a glass sheet, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0015] fig. 6 is side view of a glass sheet having a thinned region, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0016] fig. 7 is a perspective view of the glass sheet of fig. 6, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0017] fig. 8 is a perspective view of a glass sheet having a series of thinned regions, according to an exemplary embodiment; [0018] figs. 9a-9c depict a method of cold-forming a glass sheet, according to an exemplary embodiment; and [0019] fig. 10 depicts a perspective view of a glass sheet for hot and cold forming, according to an exemplary embodiment. detailed description [0020] reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. in general, a vehicle interior system may include a variety of different curved surfaces that are designed to be transparent, such as curved display surfaces and curved non-display glass covers, and the present disclosure provides such curved glass surfaces as well as methods for forming these curved surfaces from a glass material. forming curved vehicle surfaces from a glass material provide a number of advantages compared to the typical curved plastic panels that are conventionally found in vehicle interiors. for example, glass is typically considered to provide enhanced functionality and user experience in many curved cover material applications, such as display applications and touch screen applications, compared to plastic cover materials. [0021] accordingly, as will be discussed in more detail below, applicant has developed a glass article and related manufacturing processes that provide an efficient and cost effective way to form an article, such as a curved glass display and non-display surfaces for a vehicle interior system, utilizing a method involving localized hot forming and global cold forming a glass sheet or glass laminate. [0022] in particular embodiments, the glass sheet or laminate is first hot-formed to introduce sharp curves (i.e., having relatively smaller bend radii) followed by cold-forming to introduce gentler curves (i.e., having relatively larger bend radii). during hot-forming, the glass sheet or laminate is only heated locally in the region or regions where the bending will occur. thereafter, the glass sheet or glass laminate is cold-formed by attaching the hot-formed glass sheet or glass laminate to a frame with an adhesive. the frame defines the desired curvature of the glass sheet or glass laminate, and the adhesive secures the glass sheet or glass laminate into conformity with the frame. advantageously, the curved glass article can be made in an economical manner because heating only needs to be performed locally instead of globally over the entire sheet. previously, a sheet having tight bend radii had to be made entirely through hot-forming, which required heating the entire sheet during forming, which makes such forming a more expensive process. further, the size of the glass sheet that could be formed was limited by the heating and forming apparatuses. that is, the entire sheet would be heated and formed, meaning that the heating and forming apparatuses had to be able to accommodate the sheet. according to the present disclosure, by first hot forming locally and then globally cold forming, the tight bend radii can still be achieved. advantageously, the variety of operating designs in widened, including to a larger range of glass thicknesses and sizes of workpieces. further, precision of the formed part is increased because hot-forming is done locally, and cold-forming involves securing the glass sheet to a precisely shaped frame. additionally, the process of forming glass sheets using hot and cold forming is less expensive than the process of hot forming the entire sheet. [0023] fig. 1 shows an exemplary vehicle interior 1000 that includes three different embodiments of a vehicle interior system 100, 200, 300. vehicle interior system 100 includes a frame, shown as center console base 110, with a curved surface 120 including a curved display 130. vehicle interior system 200 includes a frame, shown as dashboard base 210, with a curved surface 220 including a curved display 230. the dashboard base 210 typically includes an instrument panel 215 which may also include a curved display. vehicle interior system 300 includes a frame, shown as steering wheel base 310, with a curved surface 320 and a curved display 330. in one or more embodiments, the vehicle interior system includes a frame that is an arm rest, a pillar, pillar-to-pillar, a seat back, a back seat or seats, a floor board, a headrest, a door panel, or any portion of the interior of a vehicle that includes a curved surface. in other embodiments, the frame is a portion of a housing for a free-standing display (i.e., a display that is not permanently connected to a portion of the vehicle). [0024] the embodiments of the curved glass article described herein can be used in each of vehicle interior systems 100, 200 and 300, amongst others. further, the curved glass articles discussed herein may be used as curved cover glasses for any of the curved display embodiments discussed herein, including for use in vehicle interior systems 100, 200 and/or 300. further, in various embodiments, various non-display components of vehicle interior systems 100, 200 and 300 may be formed from the glass articles discussed herein. in some such embodiments, the glass articles discussed herein may be used as the non-display cover surface for the dashboard, center console, door panel, etc. in such embodiments, glass material may be selected based on its weight, aesthetic appearance, etc. and may be provided with a coating (e.g., an ink or pigment coating) with a pattern (e.g., a brushed metal appearance, a wood grain appearance, a leather appearance, a colored appearance, etc.) to visually match the glass components with adjacent non-glass components. in specific embodiments, such ink or pigment coating may have a transparency level that provides for deadfront functionality. [0025] fig. 2 depicts an exemplary curved glass article 10 formed via the hot and cold forming method disclosed herein. as can be seen, the curved glass article 10 includes a glass sheet 12 having a first major surface 14 and a second major surface 16. the first major surface 14 is joined to the second major surface 16 by a minor surface 18. the glass sheet 12 is mounted to a frame 20. in particular, the frame 20 has a curved surface 22. the second major surface 16 of the glass sheet 12 substantially conforms to the curved surface 22. the second major surface 16 of the glass sheet 12 is joined to the frame 20, at least in regions, with an adhesive layer 24. [0026] as can be seen in fig. 2, the glass sheet 12 has at least a first curvature 26 with a tight bend radius that is created using hot forming and at least a second curvature 28 with a greater bend radius that is created using cold forming. in an embodiment, each first curvature 26 has a maximum bend radius of 150 cm. in other embodiments, each first curvature 26 has a maximum bend radius of 100 cm, and in still other embodiments, each first curvature 26 has a maximum bend radius of 50 cm. in embodiments, each second curvature 28 has a minimum bend radius that is greater than bend radius of the first curvature 26. for example, in embodiments, each second curvature 28 has a minimum bend radius of greater than 50 cm, greater than 100 cm, or greater than 150 cm. in embodiments, each second curvature 28 has a maximum bend radius of 5 m. in embodiments, the second curvature 28 has a bend radius of from 50 mm to 5 m. [0027] fig. 3 provides another embodiment of a glass article 10 including a glass sheet 12 attached to a frame 20. as can be seen in a comparison of figs. 2 and 3, the first curvatures 26 can be located in any of edge regions 30 or interior regions 32 or both edge regions 30 and interior regions 32. similarly, the second curvatures 28 can be located in any of edge regions 30 or interior regions 32 or both edge regions 30 and interior regions 32. further, the shapes of the glass articles 10 depicted in figs. 2 and 3 are merely illustrative of the myriad of shapes that can be created using the disclosed hot and cold forming method disclosed herein. [0028] in various embodiments, first major surface 14 and/or the second major surface 16 of glass sheet 12 includes one or more surface treatments or layers. the surface treatment may cover at least a portion of the first major surface 14 and/or second major surface 16. exemplary surface treatments include anti-glare surfaces/coatings, anti-reflective surfaces/coatings, and an easy-to-clean surface coating/treatment. in one or more embodiments, at least a portion of the first major surface 14 and/or the second major surface 16 may include any one, any two or all three of an anti-glare surface, an anti-reflective surface, and easy-to-clean coating/treatment. for example, first major surface 14 may include an anti-glare surface and second major surface 16 may include an anti-reflective surface. in another example, first major surface 14 includes an anti-reflective surface and second major surface 16 includes an anti-glare surface. in yet another example, the first major surface 14 comprises either one of or both the anti-glare surface and the anti-reflective surface, and the second major surface 16 includes the easy-to-clean coating. [0029] in embodiments, the glass sheet 12 may also include a pigment design on the first major surface 14 and/or second major surface 16. the pigment design may include any aesthetic design formed from a pigment (e.g., ink, paint and the like) and can include a wood- grain design, a brushed metal design, a graphic design, a portrait, or a logo. the pigment design may be printed onto the glass sheet. in one or more embodiments, the anti-glare surface includes an etched surface. in one or more embodiments, the anti-reflective surface includes a multi-layer coating. [0030] having described the shape of the glass articles 10, attention is now turned to the method of forming the glass articles 10. the first step in forming the glass articles 10 is hot- forming a glass sheet 12 to produce a first curvature 26. as mentioned above, the hot- forming is performed in such a way that the glass sheet 12 is only heated locally, i.e., in the region where bending occurs. in one embodiment depicted in figs. 4a-4c, the glass sheet 12 is heated locally with a local heater 34, such as a laser (e.g., an infrared laser). as shown in fig. 4a, the local heater 34 creates a heat band 36 in which the temperature of the glass sheet 12 is raised to a temperature at which the viscosity is at least 10 12 poise (referred to as “tiogi2”)· in embodiments, the local heater 34 raises the temperature of the glass sheet 12 such that viscosity is at least 10 11 poise (tiogii), at least 10 10 poise (tiogio), at least 10 9 poise (tio g 9), or at least 10 8 poise (tiogs). the temperature to achieve a particular viscosity will vary depending on the particular chemistry of the glass composition used to form the glass sheet 12. in embodiments, the temperature in the heat band 36 is in the range of 600 °c to 900 °c. [0031] upon achieving the desired hot-forming temperature in the heat band 36, a bending force 38 as shown in fig. 4b is applied to the glass sheet 12 so as to bend the glass sheet in the region of the heat band 36. the bending force 38 is applied via an actuation arm 40. depending on the degree of curvature desired, the local heater 34 may move along the glass sheet 12 such that the heat band 36 travels with the local heater 34. in this way, the first curvature 26 can be made to have a tighter bend radius as shown in fig. 4c. [0032] in another embodiment depicted in figs. 5a and 5b, the glass sheet 12 is hot-formed in a press 42. as shown in fig. 5 a, the glass sheet 12 is placed on a press form 44 having a surface 46 with the desired curvature. a press ram 48 exerts a bending force on the glass sheet 12 so that the glass sheet 12 conforms to the curvature of the press form 44 as shown in fig. 5b. in embodiments, the glass sheet 12 may be locally preheated to a temperature in the range of ti ogi 2 to ti og8 , e.g., using a local heater (such as an infrared laser) as shown in fig. 4a. additionally or alternatively, the press form 44 and/or press ram 48 may heat locally heat the glass sheet 12 for forming. [0033] in embodiments, a number of hot-forming operations are performed in sequential steps until the desired number of first curvatures 26 are formed into the glass sheet 12. in other embodiments, all of the first curvatures 26 may be formed in a single hot-forming step, e.g., involving multiple local heaters 34 and/or presses 42. [0034] after hot-forming the glass sheet 12, the glass sheet 12 is cold-formed. fig. 6 depicts an embodiment of a glass sheet 12 that has been locally thinned to facilitate bending during cold-forming. as can be seen, the glass sheet 12 has a first thickness t1 between the first major surface 14 and the second major surface 16, and a second thickness t2 in a thinned region 50. in fig. 6, the glass sheet 12 is only thinned on the side of the side of the first major surface 14; however, in other embodiments, the glass sheet 12 can be thinned on the sides of both the first major surface 14 and the second major surface 16. fig. 7 depicts a perspective view of the glass sheet 12 of fig. 6. as can be seen in fig. 7, the thinned region 50 extends along the entire length l of the glass sheet 12. however, in other embodiments, such as the embodiment shown in fig. 8, the first major surface 14 includes a series of thinned regions 50 across the length l of the glass sheet 12. by decreasing the thickness of the glass sheet 12 in the bending region of the first curvature 26, the bending force required to form the first curvature 26 is decreased. in embodiments, the bending force is proportional to t2 3 , and thus, the glass sheet 12 may be thinned to the degree necessary to achieve a particular bending radius. [0035] cold-forming takes place by attaching the glass sheet to a frame 20 as shown in figs. 9a-9c. as used herein, the terms“cold-bent,”“cold bending,”“cold-formed,” and“cold forming” each refer to curving the glass sheet at a cold-form temperature which is less than the glass transition temperature of the glass material of glass sheet 12. as shown in fig. 9a, the glass sheet 12 only has first curvatures 26. as shown in fig. 9b, a bending force 52 is applied to the glass sheet 12 to bring the glass sheet 12 into conformity with the frame 20, which introduces the second curvatures 28. the adhesive layer 24 holds the glass sheet 12 in conformity with the frame 20, and in embodiments, a press 54 and/or vacuum chamber 56 can be used to keep the glass sheet 12 in conformity with the frame 20 until the adhesive layer 24 cures. in embodiments, curing can be performing using, e.g., one or more of pressure, heat, or ultraviolet radiation, and a variety of adhesives are suitable for use in the adhesive layer 24. once the adhesive layer 24 cures, the glass article 10 will maintain its cold-formed shape as shown in fig. 9c. [0036] in embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 may include one or more pressure-sensitive adhesives, such as 3m™ vhb™ (available from 3m, st. paul, mn) and tesa® (available from tesa se, norderstedt, germany), or uv curable adhesives, such as delo dualbond® mf4992 (available from delo industrial adhesives, windach, germany). in embodiments, exemplary adhesives for the adhesive layer include toughened epoxy, flexible epoxy, acrylics, silicones, urethanes, polyurethanes, and silane modified polymers. in specific embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 includes one or more toughened epoxies, such as ep21tdcht-lo (available from masterbond®, hackensack, nj), 3m™ scotch-weld™ epoxy dp460 off-white (available from 3m, st. paul, mn). in other embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 includes one or more flexible epoxies, such as masterbond ep21tdc-2lo (available from masterbond®, hackensack, nj), 3m™ scotch-weld™ epoxy 2216 b/a gray (available from 3m, st. paul, mn), and 3m™ scotch-weld™ epoxy dp125. in still other embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 includes one or more acrylics, such as lord® adhesive 410/accelerator 19 w / lord® ap 134 primer, lord® adhesive 852/lord® accelerator 25gb (both being available from lord corporation, cary, nc), delo pur sj9356 (available from delo industrial adhesives, windach, germany), loctite® aa4800, loctite® hf8000. teroson® ms 9399, and teroson® ms 647-2c (these latter four being available from henkel ag & co. kgaa, dusseldorf, germany), among others. in yet other embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 includes one or more urethanes, such as 3m™ scotch-weld™ urethane dp640 brown and 3m™ scotch-weld™ urethane dp604, and in still further embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 includes one or more silicones, such as dow coming® 995 (available from dow coming corporation, midland, mi). in embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 may include at least two of any of the aforementioned adhesives, including pressure-sensitive adhesives, uv curable adhesives, toughened epoxies, flexible epoxies, acrylics, silicones, urethanes, polyurethanes, and silane modified polymers. [0037] as shown in fig. 9c, the glass article 10 is depicted with a continuous adhesive layer 24 extending across the width of the glass article 10. however, in embodiments, the adhesive layer 24 is only provided in the regions of the second curvatures 28, i.e., where the adhesive layer 24 is necessary to keep the glass sheet 12 in conformity with the frame 20. the regions of the first curvatures 26, having been hot-formed, do not need an adhesive to maintain their curvatures. if adhesive is applied in the regions of the first curvatures 26, the adhesive serves to secure the glass sheet 12 to the frame 20 in that region. in comparison to the first curvatures 26, the adhesive holding down the second curvatures 28 will be under delaminating stress. [0038] fig. 10 depicts an embodiment of a glass sheet 12 suitable for use in the presently disclosed hot- and cold-forming method. in embodiments, the glass sheet 12 has a thickness t1 (e.g., an average thickness measured between major surfaces 14, 16) that is in a range from 0.15 mm to 2 mm. in specific embodiments, t1 is less than or equal to 1.5 mm and in more specific embodiments, t1 is 0.4 mm to 1.3 mm. applicant has found that such thin glass sheets can be cold formed to a variety of curved shapes utilizing cold forming without breakage while at the same time providing for a high quality cover layer for a variety of vehicle interior applications. in addition, such thin glass sheets 12 may deform more readily, which could potentially compensate for shape mismatches and gaps that may exist relative to curved surface 22 and/or frame 20. [0039] in various embodiments, glass sheet 12 is formed from a strengthened glass sheet (e.g., a thermally strengthened glass material, a chemically strengthened glass sheet, etc.) in such embodiments, when glass sheet 12 is formed from a strengthened glass material, first major surface 14 and second major surface 16 are under compressive stress, and thus second major surface 16 can experience greater tensile stress during bending to the convex shape without risking fracture. this allows for strengthened glass sheet 12 to conform to more tightly curved surfaces. [0040] a feature of a cold-formed glass sheet is an asymmetric surface compressive between the first major surface 14 and the second major surface 16 once the glass sheet 12 has been bent to the curved shape. in such embodiments, prior to the cold-forming process or being cold-formed, the respective compressive stresses in the first major surface 14 and the second major surface 16 of glass sheet 12 are substantially equal. after cold-forming, the compressive stress in concave regions of the second major surface 16 increases such that the compressive stress on the second major surface 16 is greater after cold-forming than before cold-forming. in contrast, convex regions of the first major surface 14 experience tensile stresses during bending causing a net decrease in surface compressive stress on the first major surface 14, such that the compressive stress in the convex regions of the first major surface 14 following bending is less than the compressive stress in the first major surface 14 when the glass sheet is flat. the opposite is true for the concave regions of the first major surface 14 and for the convex regions of the second major surface 16. [0041] referring to fig. 10, additional structural details of glass sheet 12 are shown and described. as noted above, glass sheet 12 has a thickness t1 that is substantially constant and is defined as a distance between the first major surface 14 and the second major surface 16. in various embodiments, t1 may refer to an average thickness or a maximum thickness of the glass sheet. in addition, glass sheet 12 includes a width w1 defined as a first maximum dimension of one of the first or second major surfaces 14, 16 orthogonal to the thickness tl, and a length li defined as a second maximum dimension of one of the first or second major surfaces 14, 16 orthogonal to both the thickness and the width. in other embodiments, w1 and li may be the average width and the average length of glass sheet 12, respectively. [0042] in various embodiments, thickness tl is 2 mm or less and specifically is 0.1 mm to 2 mm. for example, thickness tl may be in a range from about 0.1 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.15 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.2 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.25 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.3 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.35 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.4 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.45 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.5 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.55 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.6 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.65 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.7 mm to about 1.5 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1.4 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1.3 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1.2 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1.1 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1.05 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 1 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.95 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.9 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.85 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.8 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.75 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.7 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.65 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.6 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.55 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.5 mm, from about 0.1 mm to about 0.4 mm, or from about 0.3 mm to about 0.7 mm. in other embodiments, the t1 falls within any one of the exact numerical ranges set forth in this paragraph. [0043] in various embodiments, width w1 is in a range from 5 cm to 250 cm, from about 10 cm to about 250 cm, from about 15 cm to about 250 cm, from about 20 cm to about 250 cm, from about 25 cm to about 250 cm, from about 30 cm to about 250 cm, from about 35 cm to about 250 cm, from about 40 cm to about 250 cm, from about 45 cm to about 250 cm, from about 50 cm to about 250 cm, from about 55 cm to about 250 cm, from about 60 cm to about 250 cm, from about 65 cm to about 250 cm, from about 70 cm to about 250 cm, from about 75 cm to about 250 cm, from about 80 cm to about 250 cm, from about 85 cm to about 250 cm, from about 90 cm to about 250 cm, from about 95 cm to about 250 cm, from about 100 cm to about 250 cm, from about 110 cm to about 250 cm, from about 120 cm to about 250 cm, from about 130 cm to about 250 cm, from about 140 cm to about 250 cm, from about 150 cm to about 250 cm, from about 5 cm to about 240 cm, from about 5 cm to about 230 cm, from about 5 cm to about 220 cm, from about 5 cm to about 210 cm, from about 5 cm to about 200 cm, from about 5 cm to about 190 cm, from about 5 cm to about 180 cm, from about 5 cm to about 170 cm, from about 5 cm to about 160 cm, from about 5 cm to about 150 cm, from about 5 cm to about 140 cm, from about 5 cm to about 130 cm, from about 5 cm to about 120 cm, from about 5 cm to about 110 cm, from about 5 cm to about 110 cm, from about 5 cm to about 100 cm, from about 5 cm to about 90 cm, from about 5 cm to about 80 cm, or from about 5 cm to about 75 cm. in other embodiments, w1 falls within any one of the exact numerical ranges set forth in this paragraph. [0044] in various embodiments, length li is in a range from about 5 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 50 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 100 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 150 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 200 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 250 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 300 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 350 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 400 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 450 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 500 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 550 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 600 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 650 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 650 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 700 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 750 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 800 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 850 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 900 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 950 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1000 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1050 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1100 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1150 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1200 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1250 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1300 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1350 cm to about 1500 cm, from about 1400 cm to about 1500 cm, or from about 1450 cm to about 1500 cm. in other embodiments, li falls within any one of the exact numerical ranges set forth in this paragraph. [0045] in embodiments, one or more of the glass sheets 12 can be incorporated into a laminate structure. for example, a second glass sheet can be locally hot-formed (e.g., as shown in figs. 4a-c and 5a-5b) and then cold-formed with a first glass sheet (essentially, the same steps as figs. 9a-9c with a second glass sheet 12 overlaid the first glass sheet 12). the glass sheets 12 may be joined by a polymer binder, such as polyvinyl butyral (pvb) or polycarbonate. such glass laminates are usable in a variety of contexts, including as a windshield for a vehicle. further, in embodiments, the laminate structure may be a partial laminate structure in which a glass sheet 12 is only joined in a region to another glass sheet 12. that is, the glass sheets 12 are not co-terminal in at least one of their length or width dimensions. additionally, in embodiments, the glass sheets 12 of the laminate or partial laminate structure have different thicknesses. [0046] the various embodiments of the vehicle interior system may be incorporated into vehicles such as trains, automobiles (e.g., cars, trucks, buses and the like), sea craft (boats, ships, submarines, and the like), and aircraft (e.g., drones, airplanes, jets, helicopters and the like). strengthened glass properties [0047] as noted above, glass sheet 12 may be strengthened. in one or more embodiments, glass sheet 12 may be strengthened to include compressive stress that extends from a surface to a depth of layer (dol). the compressive stress regions are balanced by a central portion exhibiting a tensile stress. at the dol, the stress crosses from a positive (compressive) stress to a negative (tensile) stress. [0048] in various embodiments, glass sheet 12 may be strengthened mechanically by utilizing a mismatch of the coefficient of thermal expansion between portions of the article to create a compressive stress region and a central region exhibiting a tensile stress. in some embodiments, the glass sheet may be strengthened thermally by heating the glass to a temperature above the glass transition point and then rapidly quenching. [0049] in various embodiments, glass sheet 12 may be chemically strengthened by ion exchange. in the ion exchange process, ions at or near the surface of the glass sheet are replaced by - or exchanged with - larger ions having the same valence or oxidation state. in those embodiments in which the glass sheet comprises an alkali aluminosilicate glass, ions in the surface layer of the article and the larger ions are monovalent alkali metal cations, such as li + , na + , k + , rb + , and cs + . alternatively, monovalent cations in the surface layer may be replaced with monovalent cations other than alkali metal cations, such as ag + or the like. in such embodiments, the monovalent ions (or cations) exchanged into the glass sheet generate a stress. [0050] ion exchange processes are typically carried out by immersing a glass sheet in a molten salt bath (or two or more molten salt baths) containing the larger ions to be exchanged with the smaller ions in the glass sheet. it should be noted that aqueous salt baths may also be utilized. in addition, the composition of the bath(s) may include more than one type of larger ions (e.g., na+ and k+) or a single larger ion. it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that parameters for the ion exchange process, including, but not limited to, bath composition and temperature, immersion time, the number of immersions of the glass sheet in a salt bath (or baths), use of multiple salt baths, additional steps such as annealing, washing, and the like, are generally determined by the composition of the glass sheet (including the structure of the article and any crystalline phases present) and the desired dol and cs of the glass sheet that results from strengthening. exemplary molten bath compositions may include nitrates, sulfates, and chlorides of the larger alkali metal ion. typical nitrates include kncb, nancte, l1no3, nasc and combinations thereof. the temperature of the molten salt bath typically is in a range from about 380°c up to about 450°c, while immersion times range from about 15 minutes up to about 100 hours depending on glass sheet thickness, bath temperature and glass (or monovalent ion) diffusivity. however, temperatures and immersion times different from those described above may also be used. [0051] in one or more embodiments, the glass sheets may be immersed in a molten salt bath of 100% nancte, 100% k o3, or a combination of nan03 and k o3 having a temperature from about 370 °c to about 480 °c. in some embodiments, the glass sheet may be immersed in a molten mixed salt bath including from about 5% to about 90% kno3 and from about 10% to about 95% nanc>3. in one or more embodiments, the glass sheet may be immersed in a second bath, after immersion in a first bath. the first and second baths may have different compositions and/or temperatures from one another. the immersion times in the first and second baths may vary. for example, immersion in the first bath may be longer than the immersion in the second bath. [0052] in one or more embodiments, the glass sheet may be immersed in a molten, mixed salt bath including nancte and knc (e.g., 49%/51%, 50%/50%, 51%/49%) having a temperature less than about 420 °c (e.g., about 400 °c or about 380 °c). for less than about 5 hours, or even about 4 hours or less. [0053] ion exchange conditions can be tailored to provide a“spike” or to increase the slope of the stress profile at or near the surface of the resulting glass sheet. the spike may result in a greater surface cs value. this spike can be achieved by a single bath or multiple baths, with the bath(s) having a single composition or mixed composition, due to the unique properties of the glass compositions used in the glass sheets described herein. [0054] in one or more embodiments, where more than one monovalent ion is exchanged into the glass sheet, the different monovalent ions may exchange to different depths within the glass sheet (and generate different magnitudes stresses within the glass sheet at different depths). the resulting relative depths of the stress-generating ions can be determined and cause different characteristics of the stress profile. [0055] cs is measured using those means known in the art, such as by surface stress meter (fsm) using commercially available instruments such as the fsm-6000, manufactured by orihara industrial co., ltd. (japan). surface stress measurements rely upon the accurate measurement of the stress optical coefficient (soc), which is related to the birefringence of the glass. soc in turn is measured by those methods that are known in the art, such as fiber and four point bend methods, both of which are described in astm standard c770-98 (2013), entitled“standard test method for measurement of glass stress-optical coefficient,” the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety, and a bulk cylinder method. as used herein cs may be the“maximum compressive stress” which is the highest compressive stress value measured within the compressive stress layer. in some embodiments, the maximum compressive stress is located at the surface of the glass sheet. in other embodiments, the maximum compressive stress may occur at a depth below the surface, giving the compressive profile the appearance of a“buried peak.” [0056] dol may be measured by fsm or by a scattered light polariscope (scalp) (such as the scalp-04 scattered light polariscope available from glasstress ltd., located in tallinn estonia), depending on the strengthening method and conditions. when the glass sheet is chemically strengthened by an ion exchange treatment, fsm or scalp may be used depending on which ion is exchanged into the glass sheet. where the stress in the glass sheet is generated by exchanging potassium ions into the glass sheet, fsm is used to measure dol. where the stress is generated by exchanging sodium ions into the glass sheet, scalp is used to measure dol. where the stress in the glass sheet is generated by exchanging both potassium and sodium ions into the glass, the dol is measured by scalp, since it is believed the exchange depth of sodium indicates the dol and the exchange depth of potassium ions indicates a change in the magnitude of the compressive stress (but not the change in stress from compressive to tensile); the exchange depth of potassium ions in such glass sheets is measured by fsm. central tension or ct is the maximum tensile stress and is measured by scalp. [0057] in one or more embodiments, the glass sheet may be strengthened to exhibit a dol that is described as a fraction of the thickness t1 of the glass sheet (as described herein). for example, in one or more embodiments, the dol may be equal to or greater than about 0.05t1, equal to or greater than about 0.1t1, equal to or greater than about 0.11t1, equal to or greater than about 0.12t1, equal to or greater than about 0.13t1, equal to or greater than about 0.14t1, equal to or greater than about 0.15t1, equal to or greater than about 0.16t1, equal to or greater than about 0.17t1, equal to or greater than about 0.18t1, equal to or greater than about 0.19t1, equal to or greater than about 0.2t1, equal to or greater than about 0.21t1. in some embodiments, the dol may be in a range from about 0.08t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.09t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.18t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.11t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.12t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.13t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.14t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.15t1 to about 0.25t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.24t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.23t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.22t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.21t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.2t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.19t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.18t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.17t1, from about 0.08t1 to about 0.16t1, or from about 0.08t1 to about 0.15t1. in some instances, the dol may be about 20 pm or less. in one or more embodiments, the dol may be about 40 pm or greater (e.g., from about 40 pm to about 300 pm, from about 50 pm to about 300 pm, from about 60 pm to about 300 pm, from about 70 pm to about 300 pm, from about 80 pm to about 300 pm, from about 90 pm to about 300 pm, from about 100 pm to about 300 pm, from about 110 pm to about 300 pm, from about 120 pm to about 300 pm, from about 140 pm to about 300 pm, from about 150 pm to about 300 pm, from about 40 pm to about 290 pm, from about 40 pm to about 280 pm, from about 40 pm to about 260 pm, from about 40 mih to about 250 mih, from about 40 mhi to about 240 mih, from about 40 mhi to about 230 mih, from about 40 mpi to about 220 mih, from about 40 mih to about 210 mih, from about 40 mpi to about 200 mih, from about 40 mhi to about 180 mm, from about 40 mhi to about 160 mih, from about 40 mih to about 150 mih, from about 40 mm to about 140 mpi, from about 40 mhi to about 130 mih, from about 40 mhi to about 120 mm, from about 40 mhi to about 110 mih, or from about 40 mih to about 100 mih. in other embodiments, dol falls within any one of the exact numerical ranges set forth in this paragraph. [0058] in one or more embodiments, the strengthened glass sheet may have a cs (which may be found at the surface or a depth within the glass sheet) of about 200 mpa or greater, 300 mpa or greater, 400 mpa or greater, about 500 mpa or greater, about 600 mpa or greater, about 700 mpa or greater, about 800 mpa or greater, about 900 mpa or greater, about 930 mpa or greater, about 1000 mpa or greater, or about 1050 mpa or greater. [0059] in one or more embodiments, the strengthened glass sheet may have a maximum tensile stress or central tension (ct) of about 20 mpa or greater, about 30 mpa or greater, about 40 mpa or greater, about 45 mpa or greater, about 50 mpa or greater, about 60 mpa or greater, about 70 mpa or greater, about 75 mpa or greater, about 80 mpa or greater, or about 85 mpa or greater. in some embodiments, the maximum tensile stress or central tension (ct) may be in a range from about 40 mpa to about 100 mpa. in other embodiments, cs falls within the exact numerical ranges set forth in this paragraph. glass compositions [0060] suitable glass compositions for use in glass sheet 12 include soda lime glass, aluminosilicate glass, borosilicate glass, boroaluminosilicate glass, alkali-containing aluminosilicate glass, alkali-containing borosilicate glass, and alkali-containing boroaluminosilicate glass. [0061] unless otherwise specified, the glass compositions disclosed herein are described in mole percent (mol%) as analyzed on an oxide basis. [0062] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may include sicte in an amount in a range from about 66 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 67 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 68 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 69 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 70 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 72 mol% to about 80 mol%, from about 65 mol% to about 78 mol%, from about 65 mol% to about 76 mol%, from about 65 mol% to about 75 mol%, from about 65 mol% to about 74 mol%, from about 65 mol% to about 72 mol%, or from about 65 mol% to about 70 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0063] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition includes ai2o3 in an amount greater than about 4 mol%, or greater than about 5 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition includes ai2o3 in a range from greater than about 7 mol% to about 15 mol%, from greater than about 7 mol% to about 14 mol%, from about 7 mol% to about 13 mol%, from about 4 mol% to about 12 mol%, from about 7 mol% to about 11 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 15 mol%, from about 9 mol% to about 15 mol%, from about 10 mol% to about 15 mol%, from about 11 mol% to about 15 mol%, or from about 12 mol% to about 15 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. in one or more embodiments, the upper limit of ai2o3 may be about 14 mol%, 14.2 mol%, 14.4 mol%, 14.6 mol%, or 14.8 mol%. [0064] in one or more embodiments, the glass article is described as an aluminosilicate glass article or including an aluminosilicate glass composition. in such embodiments, the glass composition or article formed therefrom includes s1o2 and ai2o3 and is not a soda lime silicate glass. in this regard, the glass composition or article formed therefrom includes ai2o3 in an amount of about 2 mol% or greater, 2.25 mol% or greater, 2.5 mol% or greater, about 2.75 mol% or greater, about 3 mol% or greater. [0065] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises b2o3 (e.g., about 0.01 mol% or greater). in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises b2o3 in an amount in a range from about 0 mol% to about 5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 3 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 2 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.5 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 5 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 3 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 2 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 1 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 0.5 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition is substantially free of b2o3. [0066] as used herein, the phrase“substantially free” with respect to the components of the composition means that the component is not actively or intentionally added to the composition during initial batching, but may be present as an impurity in an amount less than about 0.001 mol%. [0067] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition optionally comprises p2o5 (e.g., about 0.01 mol% or greater). in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises a non-zero amount of p2o5 up to and including 2 mol%, 1.5 mol%, 1 mol%, or 0.5 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition is substantially free of p2o5. [0068] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may include a total amount of r2o (which is the total amount of alkali metal oxide such as l12o, na20, k2o, rb20, and cs2o) that is greater than or equal to about 8 mol%, greater than or equal to about 10 mol%, or greater than or equal to about 12 mol%. in some embodiments, the glass composition includes a total amount of r2o in a range from about 8 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 18 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 16 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 14 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 12 mol%, from about 9 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 10 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 11 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 12 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 13 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 10 mol% to about 14 mol%, or from 11 mol% to about 13 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may be substantially free of rb20, cs2o or both rb20 and cs2o. in one or more embodiments, the r2o may include the total amount of l12o, na20 and k2o only. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may comprise at least one alkali metal oxide selected from l12o, na20 and k2o, wherein the alkali metal oxide is present in an amount greater than about 8 mol% or greater. [0069] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises na20 in an amount greater than or equal to about 8 mol%, greater than or equal to about 10 mol%, or greater than or equal to about 12 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the composition includes na20 in a range from about from about 8 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 18 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 16 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 14 mol%, from about 8 mol% to about 12 mol%, from about 9 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 10 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 11 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 12 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 13 mol% to about 20 mol%, from about 10 mol% to about 14 mol%, or from 11 mol% to about 16 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0070] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition includes less than about 4 mol% k2o, less than about 3 mol% k2o, or less than about 1 mol% k2o. in some instances, the glass composition may include k2o in an amount in a range from about 0 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 3.5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 3 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 2.5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 2 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1.5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.2 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.1 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 3.5 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 3 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 2.5 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 2 mol%, from about 0.5 mol% to about 1.5 mol%, or from about 0.5 mol% to about 1 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may be substantially free of k2o. [0071] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition is substantially free of l12o. [0072] in one or more embodiments, the amount of na20 in the composition may be greater than the amount of l12o. in some instances, the amount of na20 may be greater than the combined amount of l12o and k2o. in one or more alternative embodiments, the amount of l12o in the composition may be greater than the amount of na20 or the combined amount of na20 and k2o. [0073] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may include a total amount of ro (which is the total amount of alkaline earth metal oxide such as cao, mgo, bao, zno and sro) in a range from about 0 mol% to about 2 mol%. in some embodiments, the glass composition includes a non-zero amount of ro up to about 2 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises ro in an amount from about 0 mol% to about 1.8 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1.6 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1.5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1.4 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1.2 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 1 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.8 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 0.5 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0074] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition includes cao in an amount less than about 1 mol%, less than about 0.8 mol%, or less than about 0.5 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition is substantially free of cao. [0075] in some embodiments, the glass composition comprises mgo in an amount from about 0 mol% to about 7 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 6 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 5 mol%, from about 0 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 7 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 6 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 5 mol%, from about 0.1 mol% to about 4 mol%, from about 1 mol% to about 7 mol%, from about 2 mol% to about 6 mol%, or from about 3 mol% to about 6 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0076] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises zrch in an amount equal to or less than about 0.2 mol%, less than about 0.18 mol%, less than about 0.16 mol%, less than about 0.15 mol%, less than about 0.14 mol%, less than about 0.12 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises zrch in a range from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.2 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.18 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.16 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.15 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.14 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.12 mol%, or from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.10 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0077] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises sncte in an amount equal to or less than about 0.2 mol%, less than about 0.18 mol%, less than about 0.16 mol%, less than about 0.15 mol%, less than about 0.14 mol%, less than about 0.12 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises sn02 in a range from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.2 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.18 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.16 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.15 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.14 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.12 mol%, or from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.10 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0078] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may include an oxide that imparts a color or tint to the glass articles. in some embodiments, the glass composition includes an oxide that prevents discoloration of the glass article when the glass article is exposed to ultraviolet radiation. examples of such oxides include, without limitation oxides of: ti, v, cr, mn, fe, co, ni, cu, ce, w, and mo. [0079] in one or more embodiments, the glass composition includes fe expressed as fe203, wherein fe is present in an amount up to (and including) about 1 mol%. in some embodiments, the glass composition is substantially free of fe. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises fe203 in an amount equal to or less than about 0.2 mol%, less than about 0.18 mol%, less than about 0.16 mol%, less than about 0.15 mol%, less than about 0.14 mol%, less than about 0.12 mol%. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition comprises fe2cb in a range from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.2 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.18 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.16 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.15 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.14 mol%, from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.12 mol%, or from about 0.01 mol% to about 0.10 mol%, and all ranges and sub-ranges therebetween. [0080] where the glass composition includes ticte, ticte may be present in an amount of about 5 mol% or less, about 2.5 mol% or less, about 2 mol% or less or about 1 mol% or less. in one or more embodiments, the glass composition may be substantially free of ticte. [0081] an exemplary glass composition includes sicte in an amount in a range from about 65 mol% to about 75 mol%, ai2o3 in an amount in a range from about 8 mol% to about 14 mol%, na20 in an amount in a range from about 12 mol% to about 17 mol%, k2o in an amount in a range of about 0 mol% to about 0.2 mol%, and mgo in an amount in a range from about 1. 5 mol% to about 6 mol%. optionally, sn02 may be included in the amounts otherwise disclosed herein. it should be understood, that while the preceding glass composition paragraphs express approximate ranges, in other embodiments, glass sheet 12 may be made from any glass composition falling with any one of the exact numerical ranges discussed above. [0082] aspect (1) of this disclosure pertains to a method of forming a glass sheet, comprising the steps of: hot-forming a first bend radius in the glass sheet in a first region at or above a first temperature; cold-forming a second bend radius in the glass sheet over a second region at a second temperature below the first temperature, the second bend radius being greater than the first bend radius. [0083] aspect (2) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (1), wherein the first temperature is at least a temperature at which the glass sheet has a viscosity of 10 12 poise. [0084] [0085] aspect (3) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (1) or aspect (2), wherein, during the step of hot-forming, the glass sheet is only at or above the first temperature in the first region and wherein the glass sheet is below the first temperature outside the first region. [0086] aspect (4) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (3), wherein, during the step of cold- forming, the entire glass sheet is at the second temperature which is in a range of from 20 °c to less than a glass transition temperature of the glass sheet. [0087] aspect (5) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (4), wherein the first bend radius at most 150 mm. [0088] aspect (6) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (5), wherein hot-forming comprises at least one of pressing a ram into the first region of the sheet to form the first bend radius or bending the glass sheet after heating the first region using an infrared laser. [0089] aspect (7) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (6), wherein the glass sheet is one of soda lime silicate glass, aluminosilicate glass, alkali aluminosilicate glass, or borosilicate glass. [0090] aspect (8) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (7), wherein the glass sheet is chemically strengthened. [0091] aspect (9) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (8), wherein the glass sheet is combined with another glass sheet to form a laminate, wherein the glass sheet and the other glass sheet undergo the step of colding-forming together. [0092] aspect (10) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (9), wherein cold-forming further comprises adhering the glass sheet to a frame such that the glass sheet conforms to a shape of the frame. [0093] aspect (11) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (10), wherein a maximum thickness of the glass sheet measured between a first major surface and a second major surfaces is from 0.15 mm to 2.0 mm. [0094] aspect (12) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (1) through (11), wherein the glass sheet has a width and a length, wherein the width is from 1 cm to 50 cm, and the length is from 10 cm to 200 cm. [0095] aspect (13) of this disclosure pertains to a component of a vehicle interior system, comprising: a frame; and a glass sheet comprising a first curvature formed by hot-forming and having a first bend radius and a second curvature formed by cold-forming and having a second bend radius, wherein the first bend radius is less than the second bend radius; wherein the glass sheet is adhered to the frame with an adhesive; and wherein the adhesive is under greater stress in a region of the second curvature than in a region of the first curvature. [0096] aspect (14) of this disclosure pertains to the component of aspect (13), wherein the frame comprises any one of a center console, a dashboard, an instrument panel, an arm rest, a pillar, a seat back, a floor board, a headrest, a door panel, a steering wheel and a portion of a housing of a free-standing display. [0097] aspect (15) of this disclosure pertains to the component of aspect (13) or aspect (14), wherein the vehicle is any one of an automobile, a sea craft, or an aircraft. [0098] aspect (16) of this disclosure pertains to the component of any one of aspects (13) through (15), comprising a third curvature formed by hot forming and having a third bend radius, wherein the third bend radius is less than the second bend radius and wherein the second curvature is arranged between the first curvature and the third curvature. [0099] aspect (17) of this disclosure pertains to the component of aspect (16), wherein the first curvature and the third curvature are both concave and the second curvature is convex. [00100] [00101] aspect (18) of this disclosure pertains to the component of aspect (17), further comprising a fourth curvature that is concave, wherein the third curvature is arranged between the second curvature and the fourth curvature. [00102] aspect ( 19) of this disclosure pertains to the component of aspect ( 16), wherein the first curvature, the second curvature, and the third curvature are all concave. [00103] aspect (20) of this disclosure pertains to a method of aspect (20), comprising the steps of: heating a glass sheet in a first region to at least a temperature at which the glass sheet has a viscosity of 10 12 poise (tiogi2 temperature), the first region being less than the entire glass sheet; bending the glass sheet while the first region is at least ti ogi 2 temperature to form a first curvature having a first bend radius; adhering the glass sheet to a frame to form a second curvature having a second bend radius, the second curvature being adjacent to the first curvature, wherein the second bend radius is greater than the first bend radius. [00104] aspect (21) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (20), wherein the first bend radius at most 150 mm. [00105] aspect (22) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (20) or aspect (21), wherein the step of bending comprises pressing a ram into the first region to form the first curvature. [00106] aspect (23) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (22), wherein the step of heating comprises irradiating the glass sheet in the first region with a laser. [00107] aspect (24) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (23), wherein the glass sheet is one of soda lime silicate glass, aluminosilicate glass, alkali aluminosilicate glass, or borosilicate glass. [00108] aspect (25) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (24), wherein the glass sheet is chemically strengthened. [00109] aspect (26) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (25), wherein a maximum thickness of the glass sheet measured between a first major surface and a second major surfaces is 0.15 mm to 2.0 mm. [00110] aspect (27) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (26), wherein the glass sheet has a width and a length, wherein the width is from 1 cm to 50 cm, and the length is from 10 cm to 200 cm. [00111] aspect (28) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (27), wherein the frame comprises any one of a center console, a dashboard, an instrument panel, an arm rest, a pillar, a seat back, a floor board, a headrest, a door panel, a steering wheel and a portion of a housing of a free-standing display. [00112] aspect (29) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (28), wherein the vehicle is any one of an automobile, a sea craft, or an aircraft. [00113] aspect (30) of this disclosure pertains to the method of any one of aspects (20) through (29), wherein the steps of heating and bending produce a third curvature having a third bend radius that is less than the second bend radius, wherein the second curvature is arranged between the first curvature and the third curvature. [00114] aspect (31) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (30), wherein the first curvature and the third curvature are both concave and the second curvature is convex. [00115] aspect (32) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (31), wherein cold forming further produces a fourth curvature having a fourth bend radius that is greater than the first and third bend radii, wherein the fourth curvature is concave, and wherein the third curvature is arranged between the second curvature and the fourth curvature. [00116] aspect (33) of this disclosure pertains to the method of aspect (30), wherein the first curvature, the second curvature, and the third curvature are all concave. [00117] unless otherwise expressly stated, it is in no way intended that any method set forth herein be construed as requiring that its steps be performed in a specific order. accordingly, where a method claim does not actually recite an order to be followed by its steps or it is not otherwise specifically stated in the claims or descriptions that the steps are to be limited to a specific order, it is in no way intended that any particular order be inferred. in addition, as used herein, the article "a" is intended to include one or more than one component or element, and is not intended to be construed as meaning only one. [00118] it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the disclosed embodiments. since modifications, combinations, sub-combinations and variations of the disclosed embodiments incorporating the spirit and substance of the embodiments may occur to persons skilled in the art, the disclosed embodiments should be construed to include everything within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
165-771-373-627-228	IT	[ "CN", "US", "BR", "JP", "KR", "CL", "RU", "CO", "PL", "CU", "EP", "IT", "MX", "SG", "ES", "ZA", "AR", "PE", "AU", "MA", "TN", "WO", "CA" ]	D21B1/02,D21B1/12,D21B1/36,D21C1/06,C08B1/00,C13K1/02,C07H3/02,C07H3/06,C13K13/00,D21C1/02,D21B/,D21C/	2010-09-29T00:00:00	2010	[ "D21", "C08", "C13", "C07" ]	process for recovering sugars from a pretreatment stream of lignocellulosic biomass	the process is for pretreating a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock and comprises: soaking a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock wherein the soaked biomass is present as a mixture with a free liquid and wherein the free liquid comprises at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof, washing the mixture of the soaked biomass and the free liquid, wherein at least a portion of the free liquid containing at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof is separated from the soaked biomass to create a soaked washed biomass and at least one free liquid stream, compressing the soaked biomass to create a released liquid, separating the released liquid from the soaked biomass, and keeping at least a portion of the released liquid separate from any free liquid.	1. a process for the pretreatment of a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock wherein the process is comprised of a) soaking a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock wherein the soaked biomass is present as a mixture with a free liquid that is present in a state of matter selected from the group consisting of vapor and liquid states of matter and wherein the free liquid comprises at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof, b) washing the mixture of the soaked biomass and the free liquid, wherein at least a portion of the free liquid containing at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof is separated from the soaked biomass to create a soaked washed biomass and at least one free liquid stream, c) compressing the soaked washed biomass at a compression ratio to create a released liquid, d) separating the released liquid from the soaked washed biomass, and e) keeping at least a portion of the released liquid separate from any free liquid. 2. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the soaking is conducted in a soaking reactor and at least a portion of the released liquid is introduced into the soaking reactor. 3. the process according to claim 2 , wherein the separation of the portion of the free liquid from the soaked biomass is performed at more than one location prior to the compressing step. 4. the process according to claim 3 , wherein there is more than one washing step prior to the compressing step. 5. the process according to claim 2 , wherein there is more than one washing step prior to the compressing step. 6. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the ratio of the amount of liquid in the biomass feedstock plus the amount of liquid added to the amount of dry matter is within the range of 0.5:1 to 10:1. 7. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the ratio of the weight of free liquid removed to the amount of compressed liquid removed is in the range of 1:1 to 5:1. 8. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the separation of the portion of the free liquid from the soaked biomass is performed at more than one location prior to the compressing step. 9. the process according to claim 1 , wherein there is more than one washing step prior to the compressing step. 10. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the compression ratio applied to the soaked washed biomass is within the range of 1.5 to 10. 11. the process according to claim 1 , wherein the soaking is performed at a pressure of at least 1.5 bar and at a temperature of at least 110 degrees celsius to create a soaked biomass.	priority and cross references this patent application claims the priority from pct/ib2011/054293 filed on 29 sep. 2011 which claims priority from italian patent application number to2010a000792 filed on 29 sep. 2010, the teachings of both of which are incorporated in their entirety. background separate pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass prior to steam explosion is known in the art. wo 2009/108773 discloses a process for pretreating cellulosic biomass feed stock including: a first pressurized reactor receiving the feed stock, wherein the feed stock undergoes hydrolysis; a sealing device having a first pressurized coupling to a feedstock discharge port of the first pressurized reactor, and a second pressurized coupling to a second pressurized reactor; a drain for a liquid including dissolved hemi-cellulosic material extracted from the feed stock in at least one of the first pressurized reactor and the sealing and extraction device; the second pressurized reactor assembly receiving the pressurized feed stock from the sealing device at a pressure substantially greater than the pressure in the first pressurized reactor, wherein cells of the feed stock are infused with water in the second pressurized reactor; and an expansion device downstream of the second pressurized reactor assembly, wherein the expansion device rapidly releases the pressure of the feed stock discharged from the second pressurized reactor such that the feed stock undergoes a steam explosion reaction. the figures and embodiments of wo 2009/108733 all disclose the combining of all the liquid extraction streams that occur prior to the steam explosion reaction. because these configurations and embodiments teach the combination of all the streams, wo 2009/108733 fails to disclose a design which takes advantage of separating of the streams, therefore an improved design is needed which takes advantage of the separate streams. summary disclosed in the specification for a process to pretreat a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock comprised of: soaking a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock wherein the soaked biomass is present as a mixture with a free liquid and wherein the free liquid comprises at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof, washing the mixture of the soaked biomass and the free liquid, wherein at least a portion of the free liquid containing at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of glucose, xylose and respective oligomers thereof is separated from the soaked biomass to create a soaked washed biomass and at least one free liquid stream, compressing the soaked biomass to create a released liquid, separating the released liquid from the soaked biomass, and keeping at least a portion of the released liquid separate from any free liquid. as used in the present specification, the term “liquid” in the expression “free liquid” refers to matter that may be present in vapor and/or liquid states. it is further disclosed that the soaking is conducted in a soaking reactor and at least a portion of the released liquid is introduced into the soaking reactor. it is also disclosed that the ratio of the amount of liquid in the biomass feedstock plus the amount of liquid added to the amount of dry matter can be within the ranges of 0.5:1 to 10:1, 0.5:1 to 5:1, 0.8:1 to 10:1, 1:1 to 10:1, and 1:1 to 5:1. it is further disclosed that the ratio of the weight of free liquid removed to the amount of compressed liquid removed can be within the ranges of 1:1 to 5:1, 1.5:1 to 4:1 and 2:1 to 4:1. it is further disclosed that the separation of the portion of the free liquid from the soaked biomass is performed in more than one location prior to the pressing step and that there can be more than one washing step. it is further disclosed that the compression ratio of the compression step be within the range of 1.5 to 10. it is also disclosed that the soaking be performed at a pressure at least 1.5 bar and at a temperature of at least 110 degrees celsius to create a soaked biomass. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic of one of the embodiments of the invention. detailed description the feed stock for this process is a lignocellulosic biomass. lignocellulosic materials can be described as follows: apart from starch, the three major constituents in plant biomass are cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, which are commonly referred to by the generic term lignocellulose. polysaccharide-containing biomasses as a generic term include both starch and lignocellulosic biomasses. therefore, some types of feedstocks for pretreatment can be plant biomass, polysaccharide containing biomass, and lignocellulosic biomass. if the biomass is a polysaccharide-containing biomass and it is lignocellulosic, the pretreatment is often used to ensure that the structure of the lignocellulosic content is rendered more accessible to the enzymes, and at the same time the concentrations of harmful inhibitory by-products such as acetic acid, furfural and hydroxymethyl furfural remain substantially low. polysaccharide-containing biomasses according to the present invention include any material containing polymeric sugars e.g. in the form of starch as well as refined starch, cellulose and hemicellulose. relevant types of biomasses for pretreatment and subsequent precipitation according to the present invention may include biomasses derived from agricultural crops such as e.g.: starch e.g. starch containing grains and refined starch; corn stover, bagasse, straw e.g. from rice, wheat, rye, oat, barley, rape, sorghum; softwood e.g. pinus sylvestris, pinus radiate ; hardwood e.g. salix spp. eucalyptus spp.; tubers e.g. beet, potato; cereals from e.g. rice, wheat, rye, oat, barley, rape, sorghum and corn; waste paper, fiber fractions from biogas processing, manure, residues from oil palm processing, municipal solid waste or the like. the lignocellulosic biomass feedstock is preferably from the family usually called grasses. the proper name is the family known as poaceae or gramineae in the class liliopsida (the monocots) of the flowering plants. plants of this family are usually called grasses, or, to distinguish them from other graminoids, true grasses. bamboo is also included. there are about 600 genera and some 9,000-10,000 or more species of grasses (kew index of world grass species). poaceae includes the staple food grains and cereal crops grown around the world, lawn and forage grasses, and bamboo. poaceae generally have hollow stems called culms, which are plugged (solid) at intervals called nodes, the points along the culm at which leaves arise. grass leaves are usually alternate, distichous (in one plane) or rarely spiral, and parallel-veined. each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath which hugs the stem for a distance and a blade with margins usually entire. the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which helps discourage grazing animals. in some grasses (such as sword grass) this makes the edges of the grass blades sharp enough to cut human skin. a membranous appendage or fringe of hairs, called the ligule, lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath. grass blades grow at the base of the blade and not from elongated stem tips. this low growth point evolved in response to grazing animals and allows grasses to be grazed or mown regularly without severe damage to the plant. flowers of poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each spikelet having one or more florets (the spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes). a spikelet consists of two (or sometimes fewer) bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets. a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts called the lemma (the external one) and the palea (the internal). the flowers are usually hermaphroditic (maize, monoecious, is an exception) and pollination is almost always anemophilous. the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea; these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. the fruit of poaceae is a caryopsis in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall and thus, not separable from it (as in a maize kernel). there are three general classifications of growth habit present in grasses; bunch-type (also called caespitose), stoloniferous and rhizomatous. the success of the grasses lies in part in their morphology and growth processes, and in part in their physiological diversity. most of the grasses divide into two physiological groups, using the c3 and c4 photosynthetic pathways for carbon fixation. the c4 grasses have a photosynthetic pathway linked to specialized kranz leaf anatomy that particularly adapts them to hot climates and an atmosphere low in carbon dioxide. c3 grasses are referred to as “cool season grasses” while c4 plants are considered “warm season grasses”. grasses may be either annual or perennial. examples of annual cool season are wheat, rye, annual bluegrass (annual meadowgrass, poa annua and oat). examples of perennial cool season are orchardgrass (cocksfoot, dactylis glomerata ), fescue ( festuca spp), kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass ( lolium perenne ). examples of annual warm season are corn, sudangrass and pearl millet. examples of perennial warm season are big bluestem, indiangrass, bermudagrass and switchgrass. one classification of the grass family recognizes twelve subfamilies: these are 1) anomochlooideae, a small lineage of broad-leaved grasses that includes two genera ( anomochloa, streptochaeta ); 2) pharoideae, a small lineage of grasses that includes three genera, including pharus and leptaspis; 3) puelioideae a small lineage that includes the african genus puelia; 4) pooideae which includes wheat, barley, oats, brome-grass (bronnus) and reed-grasses ( calamagrostis ); 5) bambusoideae which includes bamboo; 6) ehrhartoideae, which includes rice, and wild rice; 7) arundinoideae, which includes the giant reed and common reed 8) centothecoideae, a small subfamily of 11 genera that is sometimes included in panicoideae; 9) chloridoideae including the lovegrasses ( eragrostis , ca. 350 species, including teff), dropseeds ( sporobolus , some 160 species), finger millet ( eleusine coracana (l.) gaertn.), and the muhly grasses ( muhlenbergia , ca. 175 species); 10) panicoideae including panic grass, maize, sorghum, sugar cane, most millets, fonio and blue-stem grasses. 11) micrairoideae; 12) danthoniodieae including pampas grass; with poa which is a genus of about 500 species of grasses, native to the temperate regions of both hemispheres. agricultural grasses grown for their edible seeds are called cereals. three common cereals are rice, wheat and maize (corn). of all crops, 70% are grasses. sugarcane is the major source of sugar production. grasses are used for construction. scaffolding made from bamboo is able to withstand typhoon force winds that would break steel scaffolding. larger bamboos and arundo donax have stout culms that can be used in a manner similar to timber, and grass roots stabilize the sod of sod houses. arundo is used to make reeds for woodwind instruments, and bamboo is used for innumerable implements. therefore a preferred lignocellulosic biomass is selected from the group consisting of the grasses. alternatively phrased, the preferred lignocellulosic biomass is selected from the group consisting of the plants belonging to the poaceae or gramineae family. another preferred lignocellulosic biomass is that biomass having at least 5% by weight of it dry matter as cellulose, or more preferably at least 10% by weight of its dry matter as cellulose. the process will be described herein by referring to fig. 1 . the lignocellulosic biomass feedstock which should contain at least 5% by weight cellulose of the dry matter in the feedstock, and more preferably at least 10% by weight, enters the soaking reactor via s 1 . steam is added to the soaking reactor at an exemplary rate of 0.5 kg stm/1 kg biomass feedstock to 10 kg stm/1 kg biomass feedstock, depending upon the severity chosen. the soaking reactor (first pressurized reactor) holds the biomass in the presence of steam for approximately 30 minutes to 3 hours or longer, again depending upon the severity desired. the soaking temperature can range 110° c. to 190° c., or even higher, but with diminishing returns. after soaking the solids/liquid/steam mixture is discharged via solid stream s 2 into the inclined reactor, at typically the same pressure of the soaking reactor. as shown in fig. 1 , there is a free liquid stream, l 1 , coming from the discharge screw. as the discharge screw may create some compression on the solid biomass, this stream, l 1 , may contain some released liquid as well. the solid biomass is carried up the inclined reactor with the cooled condensate or even added water flowing countercurrent to the solid flow and being removed via free liquid stream l 2 . what is meant by free liquid or free water is the water or liquid that can be removed by screening, filtering, gravity flow, without compress the solid mass. a free liquid stream does not necessarily have to be free from released liquid from compression, but at least 50% of the free liquid stream will be free liquid(s). preferably, a free liquid stream will have no more than 5% by weight released liquid. a free liquid will also contain the soluble products of the hydrolyzed lignocellulosic biomass, which includes acetic acid, glucose, xylose and the soluble oligomers thereof. the phrase released liquid means that this liquid, usually water containing other dissolved materials, has been released from the soaked biomass, generally released by pressing, squeezing, or otherwise compressing the soaked biomass so as to squeeze out or release the liquid, which is usually water, that is bound in the void areas. this could be accomplished by, but is not limited to, a filter press, a centrifuge, rollers, or a compression screw. as shown in fig. 1 , free liquid streams l 1 and l 2 are combined into h 1 , to holding tank 1. if there was only one free liquid stream, l 2 and h 1 would be the same. upon leaving the inclined reactor, the solid biomass is passed via stream s 3 to a compression zone in preparation for the steam explosion. the steam explosion occurs after passing through the compression zone. the compression zone will typically have a device to compress the solids and move the solids via stream s 4 to the steam explosion where the steam exploded solids are produced and passed to the next unit operation via solid stream s 5 . what has been discovered, as shown in table 1, is that a released liquid stream l 3 , which is the liquid stream containing at least 50% released liquid, preferably less than 5% by weight free liquid, obtained from pressing or compressing the washed solids has surprisingly virtually no sugars or compounds useful in the subsequent fermentation processes, but has a consistent amount of acetyl, which is the sum of the free acetic acid and the acetyls which can be converted to acetic acid. similarly, glucans is the sum of the glucose and the gluco-oligomers and gluco-polymer, i.e. cellulose. xylans is the sum of the xylose and xylo-oligomers and xylo-polymer, i.e. hemicellulose. the amount of compression in the compression step is expressed as the compression ratio applied to the soaked washed biomass and is preferably in the range of 1.5 to 10, with 1.5 to 5 being more preferable. therefore, the removal of released liquid stream, l 3 , is in itself an advantage. however, because of its acetic acid content, at least a portion of the released liquid stream, l 3 , obtained from pressing or compressing the solid biomass can be recycled to the soaking reactor which converts the hydrolysis which occurs in the soaking step from an auto-hydrolysis process to an acid catalyzed hydrolysis, where the acid is derived from the lignocellulosic biomass. the advantage of such acid hydrolysis is that there are no added acid compounds which are problematic to remove later—such as sulfuric acid. the released liquid stream can also be treated prior to introduction into the soaking reactor to remove any specific unwanted compounds, such as furfural. the stream could also be concentrated and further used in the process. or, the acetic acid could be recovered from the stream. as can be seen in table 1, free liquid streams l 1 and l 2 , captured as h 1 contain high amounts of sugars relative to released liquid stream, l 3 , and can be passed on to one or more specific treatments for the sugars contained in the streams or recombined with solid stream. the process can therefore be described as a process for pretreating a lignocellulosic biomass feed stock comprising: soaking a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock at a pressure in a range of at least 1.5 bar and up to 20 bar, and at a temperature of at least 110° c.; washing the soaked biomass and separating at least a portion of the free liquid wherein the free liquid contains at least one dissolved compound selected from the group consisting of acetic acid, glucose, xylose and the soluble oligomers thereof, compressing the soaked biomass wherein the compression applied to the soaked washed feedstock creates a released liquid and the released liquid is separated from the soaked biomass and at least a portion of the released liquid is not combined or mixed with the free liquid. as detailed in table 1, the released liquid is virtually sugar free and at least a portion of the released liquid can be added to the soaking reactor with the lignocellulosic biomass feedstock. as mentioned previously, the released liquid stream may have some free liquid in it. however, it is preferable that the separation of the free liquid be as complete as possible so that no free liquid enters the compression step. by no free liquid, it is meant that the free liquid entering the compression step be less than the amount of the released liquid, and preferably less than 5% of the amount of the free liquid. there may be an additional step of applying a pressure to the soaked, washed and compressed biomass in a range of 8 bar to 25.5 bar, and passing the feed stock to an expansion device downstream wherein the expansion device rapidly releases the pressure of the feed stock such that the feed stock undergoes a steam explosion reaction. the process can be further characterized in that the washing is done, only, or at least in part, by the liquid from the condensing steam of the soaking step. this would be done by cooling the material in the inclined reactor so that the condensate would condense at the top and run countercurrent to the flow of the solid soaked biomass moving up the inclined reactor. if desired, additional liquid could be added to wash the soaked biomass at any stage prior to the pressing step. the inclined reactor is not necessary, as the liquid removal could be done via a filter, a screen, or even a horizontal reactor. preferably, the reactor has a screw or other mechanism to lift or progress the soaked biomass solids through the reactor. the free liquid, usually water, can be separated from the soaked biomass at one location or multiple locations, provided it is done prior to the compression step and a sufficient amount of free liquid is separated so that substantially no sugars are present in the released liquid. substantially no sugars present in the released liquid means that the released liquid has less than 0.1% by weight of dissolved glucose, xylose and their respective oligomers, with 0.05% being more preferred, and 0.025% being the most preferred. it should be apparent to one of ordinary skill that one way to control the process is to control the amount of liquid exiting the process prior to the pressing step. by controlling the amount of liquid removed prior to the pressing step and knowing the amount of total liquid entering the process (e.g. liquid in the biomass, steam, wash liquid) one by definition controls the amount of liquid necessarily removed at the pressing step as it will include the excess liquid not previously removed, or free liquid, and the addition of the pressed liquid. it is believed that the amount of free liquid entering the compression step should be minimal as it will likely contain sugars and the released liquid from compression will contain substantially no sugars. it can be seen from table 1, that the ratio of the amount of liquid (in this case, the water in the feedstock plus the amount of water added) to the amount of dry matter in the feedstock can be in the range of 0.5:1 to 10:1, with 0.5:1 to 5:1 being a preferred range, with 0.8:1 to 10:1 being even more preferred, with 1:1 to 10:1 being a preferred range with 1:1 to 5:1 being the most preferred. the higher the ratio, the more liquid has to be removed and treated. it can be seen from table 1, that the ratio of the amount (weight) free liquid separated to the amount of released liquid separated is within the range of 1:1 to 5:1, more preferably 1.5:1 to 4:1, with 2:1 to 4:1 being most preferred. these amounts do not include the dry matter in the streams, which is the amount which remains after the water is evaporated from a sample. this process can be run as either a batch or continuous process. table 1codetest atest btest craw materialarundo donaxarundo donaxwheat strawtemperature(° c.)155155155pressure(bar)4.84.84.8residence time(min)11512570inoutinoutinoutfeedstockwaterh1l3feedstockwaterh1l3feedstockwaterh1l3flow rate(kg/h)44.6163.240.212.743.4110.045.815.927.8100.035.513.1dry(kg/h)35.02.50.134.03.00.225.02.70.1water(kg/h)9.6163.237.712.69.4110.042.815.82.8100.032.813.0composition (wet basis)glucans(% wt)28.36%0.85%0.00%28.36%0.84%0.01%38.53%0.93%0.00%xylans(% wt)20.00%2.47%0.00%20.00%2.53%0.00%27.16%2.94%0.00%furfural(% wt)0.00%0.12%0.10%0.00%0.08%0.15%0.00%0.05%0.09%5-hmf(% wt)0.00%0.03%0.00%0.00%0.02%0.00%0.00%0.01%0.00%acetyl(% wt)2.98%0.74%0.93%2.98%0.60%0.70%1.83%0.56%0.57%codetest dtest eraw materialrice strawsugarcane bagassetemperature(° c.)155155pressure(bar)4.84.8residence time(min)7050inoutinoutfeedstockwaterh1l3feedstockwaterh1l3flow rate(kg/h)43.190.051.119.143.2125.055.133.7dry(kg/h)39.02.10.236.01.90.1water(kg/h)4.190.049.019.07.2125.053.333.6composition (wet basis)glucans(% wt)32.70%1.19%0.01%30.59%0.18%0.01%xylans(% wt)16.91%2.21%0.00%21.36%1.45%0.00%furfural(% wt)0.00%0.11%0.17%0.00%0.05%0.10%5-hmf(% wt)0.00%0.02%0.00%0.00%0.01%0.00%acetyl(% wt)2.03%0.65%0.50%1.21%0.26%0.16% the compositional characteristics were determined using standard analytical methods, the followed procedures are: determination of structural carbohydrates and lignin in biomass laboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: apr. 25, 2008technical report nrel/tp-510-42618 revised april 2008 determination of extractives in biomasslaboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: jul. 17, 2005technical report nrel/tp-510-42619 january 2008 preparation of samples for compositional analysislaboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: sep. 28, 2005technical report nrel/tp-510-42620 january 2008 determination of total solids in biomass and total dissolved solids in liquid process samples laboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: mar. 31, 2008technical report nrel/tp-510-42621 revised march 2008 determination of ash in biomasslaboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: jul. 17, 2005technical report nrel/tp-510-42622 january 2008 determination of sugars, byproducts, and degradation products in liquid fraction process sampleslaboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: dec. 8, 2006technical report nrel/tp-510-42623 january 2008 determination of insoluble solids in pretreated biomass materiallaboratory analytical procedure (lap) issue date: mar. 21, 2008technical report nrel/tp-510-42627 march 2008 it should be evident that the claims are not limited to the embodiments of the specification, but that the inventors are entitled to the variations made by one of ordinary skill in the art.
167-552-608-817-345	US	[ "US", "WO", "EP", "JP", "CA", "KR" ]	A24F40/57,A24F40/10,A24F40/20,A24F40/46,A24F40/48,A24F40/51,A24F40/60,A24F40/485,A24F40/40,A24F40/53,A24F40/42,A24F40/65	2020-12-11T00:00:00	2020	[ "A24" ]	sleeve for smoking article	the present disclosure provides temperature regulating sleeves for use with smoking articles. in some embodiments, temperature regulating sleeves may include various components including an outer shell, an inner chamber at least partially defined within the outer shell and configured to receive at least a portion of a smoking article, an opening through the outer shell configured for egress of an aerosol therethrough, a power source positioned within the outer shell, at least one control component positioned within the outer shell, one or more sensors positioned in communication with the inner chamber, and one or more ventilation components positioned in communication with the inner chamber. in some embodiments, temperature regulating sleeves according to the disclosure may be capable of effecting an automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of at least a portion of a smoking article used therewith.	1 . a temperature regulating sleeve for a smoking article, the temperature regulating sleeve comprising: an outer shell; an inner chamber at least partially defined within the outer shell and configured to receive at least a portion of a smoking article; an opening through the outer shell configured for egress of an aerosol therethrough; a power source positioned within the outer shell; at least one control component positioned within the outer shell; one or more sensors positioned in communication with the inner chamber; and one or more ventilation components positioned in communication with the inner chamber; wherein the at least one control component is configured to receive one or more inputs produced by the one or more sensors, the one or more inputs being related to one or both of a temperature within the inner chamber and an airflow in the inner chamber; and wherein the at least one control component is configured to provide an output to the one or more ventilation components to effect automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of at least a portion of the smoking article. 2 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the outer shell comprises a thermally-insulating material. 3 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 2 , wherein the thermally-insulating material is a ceramic material, a plastic material, a carbonaceous material, or a combination thereof. 4 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the at least one control component, the one or more sensors, and the one or more ventilation components are in electrical communication. 5 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the one or more ventilation components each comprises an air passage extending through the outer shell and a damper, wherein the damper is configurable between an open position allowing air flow into the inner chamber and a closed position restricting air flow into the inner chamber. 6 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 5 , wherein the position of the damper is configured to be selectively controlled by the at least one control component. 7 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 5 , wherein the damper includes a heat-responsive material. 8 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 7 , wherein the heat responsive material is configured to spontaneously change between a closed position and an at least partially open position at approximately a chosen threshold temperature. 9 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the one or more sensors includes one or more temperature sensors and one or more flow sensors. 10 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 9 , wherein the one or more temperature sensors include one or more heat probes configured to be in a heat-detecting relationship with the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. 11 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , further comprising one or more heaters in electrical communication with the at least one control component. 12 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 11 , wherein the one or more heaters are configured to be selectively activated by the at least one control component. 13 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 11 , wherein the one or more heaters are configured to be in a heating relationship with one or more areas of the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. 14 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the one or more heaters include one or more thermoelectric generators. 15 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , further comprising one or more porous structures positioned within the outer shell and arranged relative to the opening in the outer shell such that the aerosol exiting through the opening passes one or both of through and around the one or more porous structures. 16 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 15 , wherein the one or more porous structures is configured to contain a non-tobacco flavored liquid, a tobacco extract or distillate, a flavoring agent, an aerosol precursor composition, and combinations thereof. 17 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , wherein the power source comprises one or both of a battery and a capacitor. 18 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , further comprising an input element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. 19 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 18 , wherein the input element is configured to one or both of control the supply of electric power from the power source to one or more components of the temperature regulating sleeve and control activation and deactivation of the temperature regulating sleeve. 20 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 1 , further comprising a feedback element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. 21 . the temperature regulating sleeve of claim 20 , wherein the feedback element is configured to provide one or more of feedback related to a number of puffs taken or remaining until expiration, a total puff time, a heat map showing a temperature gradient at various positions along the smoking article, and alerts for overheating and underheating at various positions along the smoking article.	background field of the disclosure the present disclosure relates to smoking articles and accessories for smoking articles, sometimes referred to as tobacco heating products, capable of heating tobacco materials without combusting the tobacco materials contained within the tobacco heating products. description of related art many smoking articles have been proposed through the years as improvements upon, or alternatives to, smoking products based upon combusting tobacco for use. some example alternatives have included devices wherein a solid or liquid fuel is combusted to transfer heat to tobacco or wherein a chemical reaction is used to provide such heat source. examples include the smoking articles described in u.s. pat. no. 9,078,473 to worm et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. such devices, commonly referred to as smoking articles or tobacco heating products, allow for tobacco materials to be heated without significant combustion or burning of the tobacco material. the point of the improvements or alternatives to smoking articles typically has been to provide the sensations associated with cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoking, without delivering considerable quantities of incomplete combustion and pyrolysis products. to this end, there have been proposed numerous smoking products, flavor generators, and medicinal inhalers which utilize electrical energy to vaporize or heat a volatile material, or attempt to provide the sensations of cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoking without burning tobacco to a significant degree. see, for example, the various alternative smoking articles, aerosol delivery devices and heat generating sources set forth in the background art described in u.s. pat. no. 7,726,320 to robinson et al.; and u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2013/0255702 to griffith, jr. et al.; and 2014/0096781 to sears et al., which are incorporated herein by reference. see also, for example, the various types of smoking articles, aerosol delivery devices and electrically powered heat generating sources referenced by brand name and commercial source in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2015/0220232 to bless et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. additional types of smoking articles, aerosol delivery devices and electrically powered heat generating sources referenced by brand name and commercial source are listed in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2015/0245659 to depiano et al., which is also incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. other representative cigarettes or smoking articles that have been described and, in some instances, been made commercially available include those described in u.s. pat. no. 4,735,217 to gerth et al.; u.s. pat. nos. 4,922,901, 4,947,874, and 4,947,875 to brooks et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,060,671 to counts et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,249,586 to morgan et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,388,594 to counts et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,666,977 to higgins et al.; u.s. pat. no. 6,053,176 to adams et al.; u.s. pat. no. 6,164,287 to white; u.s. pat. no. 6,196,218 to voges; u.s. pat. no. 6,810,883 to felter et al.; u.s. pat. no. 6,854,461 to nichols; u.s. pat. no. 7,832,410 to hon; u.s. pat. no. 7,513,253 to kobayashi; u.s. pat. no. 7,726,320 to robinson et al.; u.s. pat. no. 7,896,006 to hamano; u.s. pat. no. 6,772,756 to shayan; u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2009/0095311 to hon; u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2006/0196518, 2009/0126745, and 2009/0188490 to hon; u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2009/0272379 to thorens et al.; u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2009/0260641 and 2009/0260642 to monsees et al.; u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2008/0149118 and 2010/0024834 to oglesby et al.; u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2010/0307518 to wang; and wo 2010/091593 to hon, which are incorporated herein by reference. in yet another regard, certain types of cigarettes, such as those marketed commercially under the brand names “premier” and “eclipse” by r. j. reynolds tobacco company, have incorporated combustible fuel sources (e.g., carbonaceous fuel elements) that generate heat for the production of a smoke-like aerosol. see, for example, the types of smoking articles set forth in u.s. pat. no. 4,793,365 to sensabaugh et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,183,062 to clearman et al.; and u.s. pat. no. 5,551,451 to riggs et al.; and u.s. patent application publication nos. 2007/0023056 to cantrell et al.; 2007/0215167 to crooks et al; and 2007/0215168 to banerjee et al.; each of which is incorporated herein by reference. articles that produce the taste and sensation of smoking by heating tobacco, tobacco-derived materials, or other plant derived materials, without a significant degree of burning or combustion, have suffered from inconsistent and detrimental performance characteristics. in some instances, some smoking articles, particularly those that employ a traditional paper wrapping material, are also prone to scorching of the paper wrapping material overlying an ignitable fuel source, due to the high temperature attained by the fuel source in proximity to the paper wrapping material. generally, overheating of smoking articles can also cause unwanted scorching or burning of internal tobacco materials. this can reduce enjoyment of the smoking experience for some consumers and can mask or undesirably alter the flavors delivered to the consumer by the aerosol delivery components of the smoking articles. in further instances, traditional types of smoking articles can produce relatively significant levels of gasses, such as carbon monoxide and/or carbon dioxide, during use (e.g., as products of carbon combustion). in still further instances, traditional types of smoking articles may suffer from poor performance with respect to aerosolizing the aerosol forming component(s). accordingly, it can be desirable to provide smoking articles and accessories for smoking articles that can provide the sensations of cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoking, that does so without overheating the tobacco material and that does so with advantageous performance characteristics. brief summary the present disclosure relates to sleeves for smoking articles and, in particular, temperature regulating sleeves that may be configured to provide thermal regulation of a smoking article received therein. in one aspect of the present disclosure, for example, a temperature regulating sleeve for a smoking article may comprise an outer shell, an inner chamber at least partially defined within the outer shell and configured to receive at least a portion of a smoking article, an opening through the outer shell configured for egress of an aerosol therethrough, a power source positioned within the outer shell, at least one control component positioned within the outer shell, one or more sensors positioned in communication with the inner chamber, and one or more ventilation components positioned in communication with the inner chamber, wherein the at least one control component is configured to receive one or more inputs produced by the one or more sensors, the one or more inputs being related to one or both of a temperature within the inner chamber and an airflow in the inner chamber, and wherein the at least one control component is configured to provide an output to the one or more ventilation components to effect automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of at least a portion of the smoking article. in some embodiments, the outer shell may comprise a thermally-insulating material. in some embodiments, the thermally-insulating material may be a ceramic or a plastic material. in some embodiments, the at least one control component, the one or more sensors, and the one or more ventilation components are in electrical communication. in some embodiments, the one or more ventilation components each comprises an air passage extending through the outer shell and a damper, wherein the damper is configurable between an open position allowing air flow into the inner chamber and a closed position restricting air flow into the inner chamber. in some embodiments, the position of the damper is configured to be selectively controlled by the at least one control component. in some embodiments, the damper may include a heat-responsive material. in some embodiments, the heat responsive material can be configured to spontaneously change between a closed position and an open position at approximately a chosen threshold temperature. in some embodiments, the one or more sensors may include one or more temperature sensors and one or more flow sensors. in some embodiments, the one or more temperature sensors include one or more heat probes configured to be in heat-detecting relationship with the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. in some embodiments, a temperature regulating sleeve may further comprise one or more heaters in electrical communication with the at least one control component. in some embodiments, the one or more heaters may be configured to be selectively activated by the at least one control component. in some embodiments, the one or more heaters are configured to be in a heating relationship with one or more areas of the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. in some embodiments, the one or more heaters include one or more thermistors. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may further comprise one or more porous structures positioned within the outer shell and arranged relative to the opening in the outer shell such that the aerosol exiting through the opening passes one or both of through and around the one or more porous structures. in some embodiments, the one or more porous structures may be configured to contain a non-tobacco flavored liquid, a tobacco extract or distillate, a flavoring agent, an aerosol precursor composition, and combinations thereof. in some embodiments, the power source may comprise one or both of a battery and a capacitor. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may further comprise an input element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. in some embodiments, the input element is configured to one or both of control the supply of electric power from the power source to one or more components of the temperature regulating sleeve and control activation and deactivation of the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may further comprise a feedback element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. in some embodiments, the feedback element may be configured to provide one or more of feedback related to the number of puffs taken and/or remaining until expiration, total puff time and/or total puff time remaining, a heat map showing a temperature gradient at various positions along the smoking article, and alerts for overheating and underheating at various positions along the smoking article. the present disclosure includes, without limitation, the following embodiments. embodiment 1: a temperature regulating sleeve for a smoking article, the temperature regulating sleeve comprising: an outer shell; an inner chamber at least partially defined within the outer shell and configured to receive at least a portion of a smoking article; an opening through the outer shell configured for egress of an aerosol therethrough; a power source positioned within the outer shell; at least one control component positioned within the outer shell; one or more sensors positioned in communication with the inner chamber; and one or more ventilation components positioned in communication with the inner chamber; wherein the at least one control component is configured to receive one or more inputs produced by the one or more sensors, the one or more inputs being related to one or both of a temperature within the inner chamber and an airflow in the inner chamber; and wherein the at least one control component is configured to provide an output to the one or more ventilation components to effect automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of at least a portion of the smoking article. embodiment 2: the temperature regulating sleeve according to embodiment 1, wherein the outer shell comprises a thermally-insulating material. embodiment 3: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-2, wherein the thermally-insulating material is a ceramic or a plastic material. embodiment 4: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-3, wherein the at least one control component, the one or more sensors, and the one or more ventilation components are in electrical communication. embodiment 5: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-4, wherein the one or more ventilation components each comprises an air passage extending through the outer shell and a damper, wherein the damper is configurable between an open position allowing air flow into the inner chamber and a closed position restricting air flow into the inner chamber. embodiment 6: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-5, wherein the position of the damper is configured to be selectively controlled by the at least one control component. embodiment 7: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-5, wherein the damper includes a heat-responsive material. embodiment 8: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-5 and 7, wherein the heat responsive material is configured to spontaneously change between a closed position and an open position at approximately a chosen threshold temperature. embodiment 9: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-8, wherein the one or more sensors includes one or more temperature sensors and one or more flow sensors. embodiment 10: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-9, wherein the one or more temperature sensors include one or more heat probes configured to be in heat-detecting relationship with the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. embodiment 11: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-10, further comprising one or more heaters in electrical communication with the at least one control component. embodiment 12: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-11, wherein the one or more heaters are configured to be selectively activated by the at least one control component. embodiment 13: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-12, wherein the one or more heaters are configured to be in a heating relationship with one or more areas of the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. embodiment 14: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-13, wherein the one or more heaters include one or more thermistors. embodiment 15: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-14, further comprising one or more porous structures positioned within the outer shell and arranged relative to the opening in the outer shell such that the aerosol exiting through the opening passes one or both of through and around the one or more porous structures. embodiment 16: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-15, wherein the one or more porous structures is configured to contain a non-tobacco flavored liquid, a tobacco extract or distillate, a flavoring agent, an aerosol precursor composition, and combinations thereof. embodiment 17: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-16, wherein the power source comprises one or both of a battery and a capacitor. embodiments 18: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-17, further comprising an input element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. embodiment 19: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-18, wherein the input element is configured to one or both of control the supply of electric power from the power source to one or more components of the temperature regulating sleeve and control activation and deactivation of the temperature regulating sleeve. embodiment 20: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-19, further comprising a feedback element positioned on an outer surface of the outer shell. embodiment 21: the temperature regulating sleeve according to any of embodiments 1-20, wherein the feedback element is configured to provide feedback related to the number of puffs taken or remaining until expiration, total puff time or total puff time remaining until expiration, a heat map showing a temperature gradient at various positions along the smoking article, and alerts for overheating and underheating at various positions along the smoking article. these and other features, aspects, and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description together with the accompanying drawings, which are briefly described below. the invention includes any combination of two, three, four, or more of the above-noted embodiments as well as combinations of any two, three, four, or more features or elements set forth in this disclosure, regardless of whether such features or elements are expressly combined in a particular embodiment description herein. this disclosure is intended to be read holistically such that any separable features or elements of the disclosed invention, in any of its various aspects or embodiments, should be viewed as combinable unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. brief description of the figures having thus described aspects of the disclosure in the foregoing general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein: fig. 1 illustrates a side cross-sectional view of a temperature regulating sleeve for use with a smoking article, according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure; fig. 2 illustrates a highlighted view of the thermal regulating component including one or more temperature sensors, one or more flow sensors, one or more heaters, and one or more ventilation components in electrical communication with the at least one control component and the power source, according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure; fig. 3 illustrates a cut-away perspective view of an example ventilation component including both an air passage through the outer shell and a damper, according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure; and fig. 4 illustrates a side cross-sectional view of a temperature regulating sleeve for use with a smoking article, according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure. detailed description the present disclosure will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to example embodiments thereof. these example embodiments are described so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art. indeed, the disclosure may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. as used in the specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” “the” and the like include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. also, while reference may be made herein to quantitative measures, values, geometric relationships or the like, unless otherwise stated, any one or more if not all of these may be absolute or approximate to account for acceptable variations that may occur, such as those due to engineering tolerances or the like. as described hereinafter, example embodiments of the present disclosure relate to temperature regulating sleeves for use with smoking articles. as used herein, the term “smoking article” is intended to mean an article and/or device that provides many of the sensations (e.g., inhalation and exhalation rituals, types of tastes or flavors, organoleptic effects, physical feel, use rituals, visual cues such as those provided by visible aerosol, and the like) of smoking a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, without any substantial degree of combustion of any component of that article and/or device. as used herein, the term “smoking article” does not necessarily mean that, in operation, the article or device produces smoke in the sense of an aerosol resulting from by-products of combustion or pyrolysis of tobacco, but rather, that the article or device yields vapors (including vapors within aerosols that are considered to be visible aerosols that might be considered to be described as smoke-like) resulting from volatilization or vaporization of certain components, elements, and/or the like of the article and/or device. in some embodiments, smoking articles as used herein may be in the form of a tobacco heating product (thp), e.g., such as commonly referred to as heat-not-burn (hnb) devices, carbon tobacco heated products (cthp), and electric tobacco heated products (ethp). non-limiting examples of such devices to which any part or all of the present disclosure may be incorporated are described in u.s. pat. no. 4,793,365 to sensabaugh et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,183,062 to clearman et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,551,451 to riggs et al.; and u.s. patent application publication nos. 2007/0023056 to cantrell et al.; 2007/0215167 to crooks et al; and 2007/0215168 to banerjee et al., which are all incorporated herein by reference entirely. while the temperature regulating sleeves of the present disclosure are generally described herein below in terms of embodiments incorporating carbon-tip thp products in particular, it should be understood that the mechanisms, components, features, and methods may be embodied in many different forms and associated with a variety of smoking articles as noted herein above. accordingly, it should be understood that the description of the mechanisms, components, features, and methods of providing temperature regulating sleeves for smoking articles as disclosed herein are discussed in terms of embodiments relating to carbon-tip tobacco heating products by way of example only, and may be embodied and used with various other smoking articles. according to certain aspects of the present disclosure, it may be advantageous to provide a smoking article that is easy to use and that provides reusable components. in some embodiments, such smoking articles may include one or more removable cartridges (e.g., including at least a combustible carbonaceous material and a substrate material, e.g., such as tobacco) and a holder. some examples of holders and removable cartridge configurations that may be used in conjunction with the temperature regulating sleeves of the present disclosure (e.g., used as a smoking article as described herein) are described in u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/035,103, filed on jul. 13, 2018, and titled smoking article with detachable cartridge; u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/515,637, filed on jul. 18, 2019, and titled aerosol delivery device with consumable cartridge; u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/516,573, filed on jul. 19, 2019, and titled holder for aerosol delivery device with detachable cartridge; u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/516,601, filed on jul. 19, 2019, titled aerosol delivery device with sliding sleeve; u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/516,621, filed on jul. 19, 2019, and titled aerosol delivery device with clamshell holder for cartridge; u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/516,821, filed on july 19, and titled aerosol delivery device with rotatable enclosure for cartridge; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/516,932, filed on jul. 19, 2019, and titled aerosol delivery device with separable heat source and substrate; each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. in some embodiments, one or both of the holder or the removable cartridge (and/or any of their subcomponents) may have a variety of shapes, e.g., including, but not limited to, a substantially rectangular shape, such as a substantially rectangular cuboid shape, a substantially cylindrical shape, a small box shape, various pod mod shapes, a fob-shape, and/or various other hand-held shapes. in some embodiments, these smoking articles may be characterized as being vapor-producing articles or medicament delivery articles. thus, such articles or devices may be adapted so as to provide one or more substances (e.g., flavors, nicotine, and/or active ingredients) in an inhalable form or state. for example, inhalable substances may be substantially in the form of a vapor (i.e., a substance that is in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critical point). alternatively, inhalable substances may be in the form of an aerosol (i.e., a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas). for purposes of simplicity, the term “aerosol” as used herein is meant to include vapors, gases and aerosols of a form or type suitable for human inhalation, whether or not visible, and whether or not of a form that might be considered to be smoke-like. as noted above, temperature regulating sleeves of the present disclosure may be configured for use with tobacco heating products in some embodiments, for example, products using an ignitable heat source to heat a material to form an inhalable substance (e.g., such as carbon-tip heated tobacco products). in such smoking articles, the material is generally heated without combusting the material to any significant degree. that is, use of components of various smoking articles does not result in the production of smoke in the sense that aerosol results principally from by-products of combustion or pyrolysis of tobacco, but rather, use of those preferred systems results in the production of vapors resulting from heating, without burning or combusting, of the tobacco incorporated therein. in some example embodiments, suitable smoking articles for use with various embodiments described further herein below may be characterized as heat-not-burn cigarettes, and those heat-not-burn cigarettes most preferably incorporate tobacco and/or components derived from tobacco, and hence deliver tobacco-derived components in aerosol form. smoking articles themselves may provide many of the sensations (e.g., inhalation and exhalation rituals, types of tastes or flavors, organoleptic effects, physical feel, use rituals, visual cues such as those provided by visible aerosol, and the like) of smoking a cigarette, cigar or pipe that is employed by lighting and burning tobacco (and hence inhaling tobacco smoke), without any substantial degree of combustion of any component thereof. for example, the user of smoking articles in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure (e.g., when used in combination with temperature regulating sleeves according to the present disclosure) can hold and use that device much like a smoker employs a traditional type of smoking article, draw on one end of that piece for inhalation of aerosol produced by that piece, take or draw puffs at selected intervals of time, and the like. advantageously, the temperature regulating sleeves according to the present disclosure can be adapted to or configured to substantially prevent smoking articles from overheating (e.g., which causes unwanted scorching/burning of internal tobacco materials and charring of the tipping paper of cigarette rods), and/or substantially prevent uneven heating at various positions along the length of the smoking article (e.g., which can result in portions of the smoking article being overheated and portions of the smoking article being underheated). by substantially preventing overheating of smoking articles, the presently disclosed sleeves can be useful to reduce or prevent formation of negative sensory attributes and/or release of one or more compounds from the tobacco materials contained therein, particularly compounds that may arise from incomplete combustion (or pyrolysis) and/or degradation of tobacco cigarettes through heat (i.e., thermogenic degradation). in some embodiments, temperature regulating sleeves according to the present disclosure may be configured to provide temperature regulation of various smoking articles and, in particular, to prevent overheating or charring of such smoking articles and the components provided therein. in one aspect of the present disclosure, a temperature regulating sleeve 100 may comprise an outer shell 102 , e.g., such as the embodiments depicted in fig. 1 . in some embodiments, some or all of the outer shell 102 may comprise a lightweight and/or thermally stable material, e.g., such as a thermally-insulating material. in some embodiments, for example, the outer shell may provide an insulating quality which retains heat within the temperature regulating sleeve without becoming hot to the touch on the exterior surface. in some embodiments, the outer shell may be characterized as being thin-walled. in some embodiments, the outer shell may include more than one component, for example, the outer 102 shell may comprise an outer casing 102 a and an inner lining 102 b , e.g., as depicted in fig. 1 . in such embodiments, one or both of the outer casing and the inner lining may comprise a thermally-insulating material. for example, in some embodiments the inner lining may comprise a thermally insulating material, whereas the outer casing may comprise a non-insulating material that is more cost effective. in some embodiments, the inner lining may only be present in the section of the inner chamber receiving the smoking article, for example. the types of thermally-insulating materials used in the outer shell, or in the outer casing and/or the inner lining thereof, may vary. generally, suitable materials may include, for example, ceramics, polymeric materials, plastic-based materials, carbonaceous materials, and the like. in some embodiments, the outer shell or casing may comprise a non-conductive insulating material and/or construction including, but not limited to, an insulating polymer (e.g., plastic or cellulose), glass, rubber, ceramic, porcelain, a double-walled vacuum structure, or any combinations thereof. in certain other embodiments, the outer shell or casing may comprise a carbonaceous material, e.g., such as wood or wood-based composites. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may include a power source 104 positioned within the outer shell 102 . for example, the power source may be in the form of a battery or other electrical power source capable of providing current flow sufficient to provide various functionalities to the temperature regulating sleeve; e.g., such as powering of a heating source, powering of one or more sensors, powering of control systems, powering of indicators, and the like. these and other functionalities will be discussed further herein. in some embodiments, the power source may be adapted to or configured to deliver sufficient power to rapidly activate these one or more components within the temperature regulating sleeve and power the temperature regulating sleeve through use for a desired duration of time. in some embodiments, the power source is sized to fit conveniently within the temperature regulating sleeve so that the temperature regulating sleeve can be easily handled, e.g., such that the temperature regulating sleeve is not significantly larger than the smoking article itself. examples of useful power sources include lithium-ion batteries that may be rechargeable, e.g., a rechargeable lithium-manganese dioxide battery. in particular, lithium polymer batteries can be used as such batteries can provide increased safety. other types of batteries, e.g., n50-aaa cadnica nickel-cadmium cells, may also be used. additionally, a power source may be sufficiently lightweight to not detract from a desirable smoking experience. some examples of suitable power sources are described in u.s. pat. no. 9,484,155 to peckerar et al. and u.s. patent application publication no. 2017/0112191 to sur et al., filed oct. 21, 2015, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their respective entireties. in some embodiments, the power source may be a reusable and/or a rechargeable power source, e.g., which may include a solid-state battery, a thin-film solid-state battery, a rechargeable super capacitor, or the like and may be combined with any type of recharging technology, including connection to a wall charger, connection to a car charger, connection to a computer, a solar array of solar cells, a wireless charger, or other suitable charging connection. for example, in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may include any of a number of different terminals, electrical connectors or the like to connect to a suitable charger, and in some examples, to connect to other peripherals for communication. more specific suitable examples include direct current (dc) connectors such as cylindrical connectors, cigarette lighter connectors and usb connectors including those specified by usb 1.x (e.g., type a, type b), usb 2.0 and its updates and additions (e.g., mini a, mini b, mini ab, micro a, micro b, micro ab) and usb 3.x (e.g., type a, type b, micro b, micro ab, type c), proprietary connectors such as apple's lightning connector, and the like. the temperature regulating sleeve may directly connect with the charger or other peripheral, or the two may connect via an appropriate cable that also has suitable connectors. in examples in which the two are connected by cable, the sleeve and charger or other peripheral may have the same or different type of connector with the cable having the one type of connector or both types of connectors. in examples involving induction-powered charging, the temperature regulating sleeve may be equipped with wireless charging technology. for example, the temperature regulating sleeve may be configured to support inductive wireless charging technology and include an induction receiver to connect with a wireless charger, charging pad or the like that includes an induction transmitter and uses inductive wireless charging (including for example, wireless charging according to the qi wireless charging standard from the wireless power consortium (wpc)). or the power source may be recharged from a wireless radio frequency (rf) based charger. an example of an inductive wireless charging system is described in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2017/0112196 to sur et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. one or more connections may be employed to connect the power source to a recharging technology, and some may involve a charging case, cradle, dock, sleeve or the like. more specifically, for example, the outer shell of the temperature regulating sleeve may be configured to engage a cradle that includes a usb connector to connect to a power supply. or in another example, the outer shell may be configured to fit within and engage a sleeve that includes a usb connector to connect to a power supply. in these and similar examples, the usb connector may connect directly to the power source, or the usb connector may connect to the power source via a suitable power adapter. in some embodiments, the power source may comprise both a battery and a capacitor. the capacitors may be capable of discharging more quickly than the battery and can be charged between puffs, allowing the battery to discharge into the capacitor at a lower rate than if it were used to power the temperature regulating sleeve directly. for example, a super capacitor, e.g., an electric double-layer capacitor (edlc), may be used separate from or in combination with a battery. when used alone, the super capacitor may be recharged before use of the temperature regulating sleeve. thus, in some embodiments a temperature regulating sleeve may also include a charger component that can be attached to the temperature regulating sleeve between uses to replenish the capacitor. in some embodiments, the outer shell 102 of the temperature regulating sleeve may define an inner chamber 106 configured to receive at least a portion of a smoking article 108 and a first opening 110 configured for egress of aerosol therethrough (e.g., an aerosol generated by the smoking article during use). in some embodiments, the outer shell may comprise a second opening 112 configured for receiving the smoking article at least partially within the inner chamber 106 , wherein the smoking article has a mouth end 114 and a lighting end 116 (e.g., a combustible carbon tip, when the smoking article is a carbon tobacco heated product, or any other type of heat source). as noted above, the inner chamber 106 can receive at least a portion of the smoking article, for example, the inner chamber may be configured to retain at least a first portion 118 of the smoking article therein (e.g., wherein the first portion of the smoking article includes at least a substrate material, e.g., such as a tobacco material). for example, the smoking article 108 can be inserted into the second opening 112 such that the mouth end 114 of the smoking article is functionally aligned with the first opening 110 in the outer shell. such functional alignment can be an arrangement such that vapor/aerosol drawn through and/or exiting the mouth end 114 of the smoking article 108 can be transmitted to and through the first opening 110 . in some embodiments, the mouth end 114 of the smoking article may specifically be positioned proximate to the first opening 110 of the outer shell. preferably, when the smoking article 108 is fully inserted into the inner chamber 106 , a second portion 120 of the smoking article including the lighting end thereof 116 is exposed outside of the second opening 112 in the outer shell. in some embodiments, the inner chamber may comprise one or more ridges (e.g., as depicted at 121 in fig. 1 ) positioned along an interior wall 123 of the outer shell and configured to at least temporarily hold the smoking article in place after insertion into the outer shell. in some embodiments, for example, a plurality of ridges may extend longitudinally along the interior wall 123 of the inner chamber so as to provide a secure fit upon receiving the smoking article, e.g., as depicted in fig. 1 . in some embodiments, the inner chamber may additionally, or alternatively, comprise one or more depth guides (e.g., as depicted at 122 in fig. 1 ) positioned on the interior wall 123 of the outer shell to prevent the smoking article from being inserted past a defined distance into the inner chamber. it should be noted that alignment of the components within the temperature regulating sleeve of the present disclosure may vary across different embodiments. in various embodiments, temperature regulating sleeves, components within temperature regulating sleeves, and smoking articles used therewith may have a variety of overall shapes, including, but not limited to, an overall shape that may be defined as being substantially rod-like or substantially tubular-shaped. in some embodiments, for example, the outer shell and the inner chamber may be substantially cylindrical in shape. in other embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve (and/or any subcomponents) may have other hand-held shapes. for example, in some embodiments the temperature regulating sleeve may have a small box shape, a substantially rectangular cuboid shape, various pod mod shapes, or a fob-shape. temperature regulating sleeves and smoking articles used therewith may have varying cross-sectional shapes (e.g., circle, oval, square, triangle, etc.) all of which are intended to be encompassed by the present disclosure. thus, any language that is descriptive of the physical shape of the article may also be applied to the individual components thereof in various embodiments as described herein. in some embodiments, temperature regulating sleeves 100 according to the present disclosure may comprise at least one control component 124 positioned within the outer shell 102 and a thermal regulating component 126 positioned in communication with the inner chamber 106 (e.g., as depicted in fig. 1 ). as will be discussed further herein, the thermal regulating component may include various different individual components in different embodiments, including, but not limited to: one or more sensors (e.g., temperature and/or flow sensors), one or more ventilation components, and/or one or more heaters. generally, the thermal regulating component includes at least one sensor and at least one ventilation component as will be discussed further herein. the at least one control component 124 may be in electrical communication with the power source 104 and one or more additional components within the temperature regulating sleeve, as will be discussed further herein. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may comprise multiple control components that individually, or in combination, control the functionality of specific components within the temperature regulating sleeve. as will be discussed further herein, for example, the at least one control component may be configured to receive input data from one or more components within the temperature regulating sleeve (e.g., such as input from one or more sensors regarding temperature and/or flow within the sleeve), process the data received, and send an output (e.g., in the form of electronic feedback) to one or more components of the thermal regulating component (e.g., one or more ventilation components and/or one or more heaters) to ultimately effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of at least a portion of the smoking article. a suitable control component may include a number of electronic components, and in some examples may be formed of a printed circuit board (pcb). in some examples, the electronic components include processing circuitry configured to perform data processing, application execution, or other processing, control or management services according to one or more example implementations. the processing circuitry may include a processor embodied in a variety of forms such as at least one processor core, microprocessor, coprocessor, controller, microcontroller or various other computing or processing devices including one or more integrated circuits such as, for example, an asic (application specific integrated circuit), an fpga (field programmable gate array), some combination thereof, or the like. in some examples, the processing circuitry may include memory coupled to or integrated with the processor, and which may store data, computer program instructions executable by the processor, some combination thereof, or the like. in some example embodiments, the control component may include one or more input/output peripherals, which may be coupled to or integrated with the processing circuitry. more particularly, the control component may include a communication interface to enable wireless communication with one or more networks, computing devices or other appropriately-enabled devices. examples of suitable communication interfaces are disclosed in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2016/0261020 to marion et al., the content of which is incorporated herein by reference. another example of a suitable communication interface is the cc3200 single chip wireless microcontroller unit (mcu) from texas instruments. additional examples of suitable manners according to which the temperature regulating sleeve may be configured to wirelessly communicate are disclosed in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2016/0007651 to ampolini et al., and u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2016/0219933 to henry, jr. et al., each of which is incorporated herein by reference. additional control configurations and components (e.g., such as one or more input or feedback elements) are discussed in more detail herein below and may be incorporated into embodiments of temperature regulating sleeves as discussed herein. as noted above, in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may include various different components therein, e.g., such as one or more sensors and one or more ventilation components. in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component, and components thereof, may be positioned in communication with the inner chamber 106 of the outer shell so as to be in thermal communication with at least part of the first portion 118 of the smoking article 108 . for example, the thermal regulating component 126 may be positioned to be in thermal communication with a portion of the smoking article 108 that encompasses about 10% to about 90%, about 20% to about 80%, or about 30% to about 70% of the first portion 118 of the smoking article or of the overall length of the smoking article. the thermal regulating component 126 may be a single element or may be comprised of a plurality of individual elements that together form the component, e.g., as depicted in fig. 2 . a “thermal regulating component” as used herein, refers to any component, or combination of components, capable of effecting an automatic adjustment of the temperature of the first portion of the smoking article (e.g., through direct/indirect heating, an increase/reduction in air flow within the sleeve, an increase/reduction in temperature within the sleeve, and the like). for example, the thermal regulating component may include a variety of different individual components or combinations of components, e.g., one or more temperature sensors, and/or one or more flow sensors, and/or one or more heaters, and/or one or more ventilation components, and/or one or more additional components. it should be noted that such components may be used in a variety of different configurations and combinations and the specific configurations and/or combinations of components within the temperature regulating component is not intended to be limited to those specifically presented herein. for example, selection of the particular components for use within temperature regulating sleeves generally may vary depending on the type of smoking article, the types of individual components, the desired functionality of the sleeve, and the like. in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may be in electrical communication with the at least one control component 124 and/or the power source 104 . in embodiments wherein the thermal regulating component 126 comprises multiple individual components, for example, some or all of those components may be in electrical communication with each other and with the at least one control component and the power source. as depicted in fig. 2 , for example, the dashed lines represent the electrical connection between the control component, the power source, and various components of the thermal regulating component (e.g., the overall thermal regulating component, including various components thereof, being highlighted by the box labeled 126 ). in such embodiments, the at least one control component may be configured to control various functionalities of the temperature regulating sleeve based on input/feedback from these one or more components forming the overall thermal regulating component 126 . in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may include one or more sensors (e.g., such as one or more temperature sensors 128 , one or more flow sensors 130 , and combinations thereof) and one or more ventilation components 132 . in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may include one or more temperature sensors 128 . in some embodiments, the one or more temperature sensors 128 may be in electrical communication with the at least one control component 124 (e.g., such that the at least one control component receives an input related to temperature produced by the one or more temperature sensors) and optionally one or more additional components within the temperature regulating sleeve. for example, the at least one control component is configured to receive temperature readings from the one or more temperature sensors. in some embodiments, the one or more temperature sensors are selectively positioned along an interior wall 123 of the outer shell 102 . in some embodiments, the one or more temperature sensors can include one or more heat probes configured to be in a heat-detecting relationship with the at least a portion of the smoking article when received by the inner chamber. the one or more temperature sensors may be fully or at least partially recessed within the outer shell. in some embodiments, however, a portion of an individual temperature sensor may extend a distance inward from the outer shell (i.e., directed interiorly toward the inner chamber 106 ). examples of temperature sensors and configurations thereof within smoking articles generally are described in detail in u.s. pat. no. 10,117,460 to sears et al. and u.s. pat. no. 10,226,073 to bless et al., both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may additionally, or alternatively, include one or more flow sensors 130 . a “flow sensor” as used herein, generally refers to a sensor capable of measuring/sensing a rate of air flow and, a “flow” as used herein, generally refers to a flow rate of air. it should be noted that the flow being measured by the one or more flow sensors referenced herein generally refers to the rate of air flow across that sensor and more particularly between the interior wall of the outer shell and the smoking article. in some embodiments, the one or more flow sensors 130 may be in electrical communication with the at least one control component 124 (e.g., such that the at least one control component receives an input related to airflow/flow rate produced by the one or more flow sensors) and optionally one or more additional components within the temperature regulating sleeve. for example, the at least one control component can be configured to receive flow readings from the one or more flow sensors. in some embodiments, the one or more flow sensors may be selectively positioned longitudinally along an interior wall 123 of the outer shell. examples of air flow rate sensors and configurations thereof within smoking articles generally are described in detail in u.s. pat. no. 10,117,460 to sears et al. and u.s. pat. no. 10,226,073 to bless et al., both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may include one or more ventilation components 132 in communication with the at least one control component 124 and optionally at least one or more other components within the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, the one or more ventilation components 132 each comprise an air passage 132 a , extending from an interior wall 123 of the outer shell 102 to an outer wall 125 of the outer shell 102 , and a damper 132 b (e.g., as depicted in fig. 3 ). in some embodiments, the air passage may simply be in the form of a void, or tubular cutout, or a hole extending through the entirety of the outer shell 102 . for example, the linear dashed lines in fig. 3 represent a void in the outer wall 125 and the interior wall 123 of the outer shell 102 forming an air passage 132 a . in some embodiments, the damper 132 b may be in the form of a gate, a flap, or a retractable component capable of temporarily blocking the air passage. in some embodiments, the damper can be configurable between an open position allowing air flow into, or out of, the inner chamber (via the air passage) or a closed position restricting air flow into the inner chamber (via the air passage). generally, the damper is considered to be in an open position when the air passage is at least partially open, allowing at least some air flow into the inner chamber via the air passage. for example, the damper may be configurable in an open position such that at least 10%, at least 20%, at least 30%, at least 40%, at least 50%, at least 60%, at least 70%, at least 80%, at least 90%, or substantially all (100%) of the air passage is unobstructed. in some embodiments, the percentage obstruction of the air passage may be controlled by the at least one control component based on the desired flow rate of air into, or out of, the temperature regulating sleeve. movement of the damper 132 b between an open position (or a partially open position) and a closed position according to an example embodiment is represented by the dashed ellipse in fig. 3 , e.g., illustrating that the damper may be rotatable along a single axis such that it can be configured to be in either open (including partially open) or closed position. such a configuration is not meant to be limiting, for example, in some embodiments the damper may be retractable into the outer shell so as to provide a completely unobstructed air passage when the damper is 100% open. in some embodiments, for example, the position of the damper is configured to be selectively controlled by the at least one control component based on the temperature and/or flow readings received from the one or more temperature sensors and/or the one or more flow sensors (e.g., the at least one control component is configured to receive an input related to temperature and/or airflow produced by the one or more sensors and configured to provide an output to the one or more ventilation components to effect an automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article). for example, if the temperature within the temperature regulating sleeve exceeds a threshold amount, the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article by opening one or more of the ventilation components. likewise, if the temperature within the temperature regulating sleeve falls below a threshold amount, the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article by closing one or more of the ventilation components (e.g., to retain more heat within the sleeve). adjustment and/or control of the dampers is not meant to be limited by such a control configuration and other control configurations are contemplated. for example, the operation of the damper(s) and their control configurations may vary depending on the nature of the smoking article used therewith. in certain embodiments, for example, wherein the smoking article comprises a potentially combustible material, it may be advantageous to close (at least partially) the damper(s) in order to suppress oxygen access to the combustible material. in such an embodiment, the temperature sensors would serve as indicators of nascent, unwanted combustion, for example. the threshold temperature at which the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article may vary depending on the desired application of the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, for example, it may be advantageous for the threshold temperature to be approximately equal to the lowest temperature at which undesirable pyrolysis or combustion byproducts would form. thus, the threshold temperature may vary based on the type of smoking article to be used with the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, the threshold temperature may be in the range of about 100° c. to about 300° c., or about 150° c. to about 200° c. in some embodiments, the threshold temperature may be less than 250° c., less than 225° c., less than 200° c., less than 175° c., less than 150° c., or less than 125° c. in other embodiments, the damper may be completely, or at least partially, in the form of a heat responsive material that is activated at a predefined temperature. in such embodiments, the heat responsive material may be configured to change from a closed position to an open position (or partially open position) and vice versa when the surface temperature of the heat responsive material exceeds a threshold temperature (e.g., to effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article). example heat responsive materials that may be suitable may include, but are not limited to, heat-responsive polymer materials, heat responsive thermoplastic materials, heat responsive metallic materials, bilayer metal materials, and the like. the threshold temperature at which the heat-responsive material is trigged may vary depending on the desired application of the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, for example, it may be advantageous for the threshold temperature to be approximately equal to the lowest temperature at which undesirable pyrolysis or combustion byproducts would form. thus, the threshold temperature may vary based on the type of smoking article to be used with the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, the threshold temperature may be in the range of about 100° c. to about 300° c., or about 150° c. to about 200° c. in some embodiments, the threshold temperature may be less than 250° c., less than 225° c., less than 200° c., less than 175° c., less than 150° c., or less than 125° c. in some embodiments, the heat responsive material may comprise a shape-memory material. in some embodiments, the shape-memory material may be a shape-memory alloy. in other embodiments, the shape-memory material may be a shape-memory polymer. some descriptions of shape memory alloys can be found in u.s. pat. no. 10,080,388 to sebastian et al., and u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2018/0174500 to sebastian et al., which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. shape-memory alloys generally refer to a group of metallic materials that demonstrate the ability to return to some previously defined shape or size when subjected to an appropriate stimulus, which may vary across various embodiments. for example, in some embodiments the stimulus may comprise a change in temperature. in other embodiments, the stimulus may comprise a change in an electric or magnetic field. in other embodiments, the stimulus may comprise exposure to light. in other embodiments, the stimulus may comprise a change in ph level. in still other embodiments, the stimulus may comprise a chemical reaction. some shape-memory alloys are configured to change phase and/or crystal structure resulting in a shape memory effect. for example, some shape-memory alloys are capable of undergoing phase transitions in which their yield strength, stiffness, dimension and/or shape are altered as a function of temperature. generally, in the low temperature, or martensite phase, shape memory alloys can be elastically deformed and upon exposure to some higher temperature will transform to an austenite phase, or parent phase, returning to their shape prior to the deformation. some shape memory alloys may exhibit a one-way shape memory effect, an intrinsic two-way effect, or an extrinsic two-way shape memory effect depending on the alloy composition and processing history. some examples of suitable shape-memory alloy materials include, without limitation, nickel-titanium based alloys, indium-titanium based alloys, nickel-aluminum based alloys, nickel-gallium based alloys, copper based alloys (e.g., copper-zinc alloys, copper-aluminum alloys, copper-gold, and copper-tin alloys), gold-cadmium based alloys, silver-cadmium based alloys, indium-cadmium based alloys, manganese-copper based alloys, iron-platinum based alloys, iron-platinum based alloys, iron-palladium based alloys, and the like. the alloys can be binary, ternary, or any higher order so long as the alloy composition exhibits a shape memory effect, e.g., change in shape orientation, damping capacity, and the like. for example, in some embodiments the shape-memory alloys may comprise a composite of three elements (e.g., titanium, nickel, and copper). the transformation point can be tuned by using different combinations of the elements or changing the concentration of each element in the composite. additional examples of shape memory materials and applications can be found, for example, in u.s. application ser. no. 16/442,338 to hejazi et al., filed on may 24, 2019, shape memory material for controlled liquid delivery in an aerosol delivery device. in some embodiments, the thermal regulating component 126 may include one or more heaters 134 . in some embodiments, the one or more heaters 134 may be in electrical communication with the at least one control component 124 and optionally one or more other components within the temperature regulating sleeve. for example, the one or more heaters can be configured to be selectively controlled by the at least one control component based on the temperature and/or the flow readings received from the one or more temperature sensors and/or the one or more flow sensors (e.g., where the at least one control component is configured to receive an input related to temperature and/or airflow produced by the one or more sensors and configured to provide an output to the one or more heaters to effect an automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article). for example, if the temperature within the temperature regulating sleeve falls below a threshold amount, the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article by activating the one or more of the heaters (e.g., to apply more heat to the first portion of the smoking article). likewise, if the temperature within the temperature regulating sleeve exceeds a threshold amount, the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of a temperature of the first portion of the smoking article by shutting off one or more of the heaters. in some embodiments, the one or more heaters may be configured to be in direct contact with at least a portion of the smoking article, or the one or more heaters may not directly contact the smoking article at all. generally, the one or more heaters can be configured to be in a heating relationship with one or more areas of the at least a portion of the smoking article when appropriately distributed along the inner chamber. in some embodiments, the one or more heaters are in the form of metallic trace heaters, which may be positioned longitudinally along the interior wall 123 of the outer shell 102 . in some embodiments, the one or more heaters may be in the form of a conductive and/or inductive heat source. beneficially, the one or more heaters can be provided in a form that enables the one or more heaters to be positioned in intimate contact with or in close proximity to the smoking article (e.g. to provide sufficient heat to the smoking article through, for example, conduction, radiation, or convection). in various embodiments, a conductive heat source may comprise a heating assembly that comprises a resistive heating source. resistive heating sources may be configured to produce heat when an electrical current is directed therethrough. electrically conductive materials useful as resistive heating sources may be those having low mass, low density, and moderate resistivity and that are thermally stable at the temperatures experienced during use. useful heating sources heat and cool rapidly, and thus provide for the efficient use of energy. such heating sources may also permit relatively precise control of the temperature range experienced by the smoking article, especially when time based current control is employed. some example, non-limiting, materials that may be used as the electrically conductive material include carbon, graphite, carbon/graphite composites, metals, ceramics such as metallic and non-metallic carbides, nitrides, oxides, silicides, inter-metallic compounds, cermets, metal alloys, and metal foils. in particular, refractory materials may be useful. various, different materials can be mixed to achieve the desired properties of resistivity, mass, and thermal conductivity. in specific embodiments, metals that can be utilized include, for example, nickel, chromium, alloys of nickel and chromium (e.g., nichrome), and steel. materials that can be useful for providing resistive heating are described in u.s. pat. no. 5,060,671 to counts et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,093,894 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,224,498 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,228,460 to sprinkel jr., et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,322,075 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,353,813 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,468,936 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,498,850 to das; u.s. pat. no. 5,659,656 to das; u.s. pat. no. 5,498,855 to deevi et al.; u.s. pat. no. 5,530,225 to hajaligol; u.s. pat. no. 5,665,262 to hajaligol; u.s. pat. no. 5,573,692 to das et al.; and u.s. pat. no. 5,591,368 to fleischhauer et al., the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. as described above, the one or more heaters may be in the form of an inductive heat source. for example, in such embodiments, an inductive heat source may comprise a resonant transformer, which may comprise a resonant transmitter and a resonant receiver (i.e., a susceptor). in some embodiments, the resonant transmitters may comprise a foil material, a coil, a cylinder, or other structure configured to generate an oscillating magnetic field, and the resonant receiver may comprise one or more prongs that are configured to engage the first portion of the smoking article or may be positioned to surround the smoking article. in other embodiments, a resonant transmitter may comprise a helical coil configured to circumscribe the inner chamber in which the smoking article is received. in some embodiments, the helical coil may be positioned, for example, on the interior wall of the outer shell. other possible inductive heat sources and components thereof, including resonant transmitters and resonant receivers, are described in u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/799,365, filed on oct. 31, 2017, and titled induction heated aerosol delivery device, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. as noted above, the one or more temperature sensors may provide temperature readings to the at least one control component and the one or more flow sensors may provide flow readings to the at least one control component. any variety of sensors and combinations thereof can be incorporated, as already described herein. such sensors can be, for example, in direct contact with the one or more heaters and/or the one or more ventilation components. in some embodiments, for example, a regulator component, or multiple regulator components, may be provided in communication between the power source and the one or more heaters, with the regulator component being configured to selectively regulate current flow from the power source to the one or more heaters to control a temperature thereof based on output from the at least one control component. in some embodiments, the current regulating component can function to stop current flow to the resistive heating element once a defined temperature has been achieved. alternative temperature sensing arrangements may be used, such as logic control components to evaluate a resistance of the one or more heaters and to correlate such resistance to the temperature of the one or more heaters. in other instances, the one or more heaters may be engaged with the at least one control component via a feedback loop, wherein, for example, a comparator may compare a measured electrical parameter (i.e., voltage, current) at the one or more heaters to a desired set point, and adjust the output of that electrical parameter from the power source. as noted above, the at least one control component may be configured to receive input from multiple sensors simultaneously (e.g., related to temperature readings and/or airflow readings), all of which may be selectively positioned at various points along the interior wall of the outer shell so as to gather temperature readings and/or flow readings at various segments of the smoking article, and then the at least one control component is configured to provide an output to one or more ventilation components and/or one or more heaters to effect an automatic adjustment of at least a temperature of the smoking article. in some embodiments, for example as depicted in fig. 4 , the first portion of the smoking article 118 (same as the first portion referred to in fig. 1 ) may be referred to in relation to defined segments of the first portion of the smoking article (e.g., a first segment ( 118 a ), a second segment ( 118 b ), a third segment ( 118 c ), a further segment ( 118 d ), and so on, as depicted in fig. 4 ). in such embodiments, the at least one control component and the thermal regulating component (including the components thereof) can be configured to effect an automatic adjustment of the temperature of any specific segment of the first portion of the smoking article individually, or in combination (either simultaneously or consecutively) with any other segment of the first portion of the smoking article. for example, if the temperature measured by a temperature sensor positioned proximate to segment 118 a exceeds a threshold amount, this temperature reading is communicated to the at least one control component, and then the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of the temperature of segment 118 a of the smoking article, for example, by opening one or more ventilation components (via output from the at least one control component) positioned proximate to segment 118 a , without substantially affecting the temperature of any other segments. likewise, if the temperature measured by a temperature sensor positioned proximate to segment 118 d falls below a threshold amount, this temperature reading is communicated to the at least one control component, and the at least one control component may effect an automatic adjustment of the temperature of segment 118 d of the smoking article, for example, by closing one or more ventilation components (via output from the at least one control component) positioned proximate to segment 118 d and/or by selectively activating one or more heaters (via output from the at least one control components) positioned proximate to segment 118 d , without substantially affecting the temperature of any other segments. it should be noted that the particular examples and embodiments described herein above are not intended to be limiting with respect to the functionality, configuration, and/or selection of components of the thermal regulating component and generally, the at least one control component and the thermal regulating component (including the components thereof) as described herein can be configured to effect an automatic adjustment of the temperature of any segment, or segments, of the smoking articles used therein (e.g., either by altering the application of heat to the smoking article (via the one or more heaters) or by altering the air flow characteristics within the sleeve (via the one or more ventilation components). in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may be configured to harvest thermal energy that is generated within the temperature regulating sleeve and transfer such harvested energy (in the form of electrical energy) to various components within the temperature regulating sleeve. for example, in some embodiments, the one or more heaters 134 may include one or more thermoelectric generators 135 configured to store thermal energy generated within the temperature regulating sleeve and convert that stored energy into a usable electromagnetic form. a “thermoelectric generator” (teg) as described herein, sometimes referred to as a “seebeck generator,” is a solid state device that converts heat flux (temperature differences) directly into electrical energy through a phenomenon called the seebeck effect, a form of thermoelectric effect. generally, the conversion of thermal energy to electrical energy (via the seebeck effect) by the thermoelectric generator is substantially instantaneous because the thermoelectric materials in the thermoelectric generator generate power directly from the heat by converting temperature differences into electric voltage instantaneously. the one or more thermoelectric generators 135 may be in electrical communication with various other components within the thermal regulating component 126 (e.g., the one or more heaters, the power source, the at least one control component, and the like). for example, in some embodiments, the thermoelectric generator may be in electrical communication with a capacitor and/or the power source in order to supplement the principal power supply within the temperature regulating sleeve. use of one or more thermoelectric generators within the temperature regulating sleeve may be particularly advantageous when used to supplement a traditional power supply provided within the temperature regulating sleeve, e.g., to increase the efficiency of the temperature regulating sleeve and/or reduce the overall battery capacity required. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may include one or more additional components. the one or more additional components may be positioned within the outer shell, positioned on the outer surface of the outer shell, or attached separately thereto. the positioning and configuration of various components within the temperature regulating sleeve may vary. for example, as depicted in fig. 4 , the temperature regulating sleeve 100 may comprise one or both of an input element 136 and a feedback element 138 on an outer surface 125 of the outer shell 102 . generally, the input element 136 and/or the feedback element 138 are in electrical communication with the at least one control component 124 . the input element 136 may be included to allow a user to control one or more functions of the sleeve and/or to provide for activation or deactivation of the sleeve. any component or combination of components may be utilized as the input element for controlling the function of the temperature regulating sleeve. for example, one or more pushbuttons may be used as described in u.s. pub. no. 2015/0245658 to worm et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. likewise, a touchscreen may be used as described in u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/643,626, filed mar. 10, 2015, to sears et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. as a further example, components adapted for gesture recognition based on specified movements of the temperature regulating sleeve may be used as an input. see u.s. pub. 2016/0158782 to henry et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. in some embodiments, for example, the temperature regulating sleeve can incorporate a sensor or detector for control of supply of electric power to one or more components in the temperature regulating sleeve (e.g., the thermal regulating component) which can be controlled and/or activated manually (e.g., via a pushbutton, a touchscreen, etc.). as such, for example, there is provided a manner or method for turning off the power supply to the temperature regulating sleeve, and specific components thereof, when not in use, and for turning on the power supply to actuate or trigger the temperature regulating sleeve, and specific components thereof, during use. the temperature regulating sleeve may, in some embodiments, incorporate an additional control mechanism for controlling the specific amount of electric power to various components of the thermal regulating component during draw. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may alternatively, or additionally, include a feedback element 138 . generally, the feedback element may be configured for output and/or display of information to a user. for example, the feedback element may be configured to indicate the current lifetime of the smoking article, the number of puffs taken or remaining until expiration (e.g., a visual puff counter), the total puff time or remaining puff time until expiration, warnings if the user is puffing too aggressively (e.g., alerts for overheating and underheating), varying degrees of heating (e.g., overheating or underheating) along portions of the smoking article, and the like. in some embodiments, the smoking article may require a pre-heating period prior to aerosol generation. in such embodiments, the feedback element may be configured to indicate the time remaining in the pre-heat period and/or indicate when the temperature regulating sleeve is ready for use. the feedback element may be configurable to provide a variety of interactive functions or displays to a user of that device. for example, the feedback element may comprise a display that is configured to display a heat gradient map of the amount of heat being applied to separate portions of the smoking article contained within the inner chamber of the outer shell. in some embodiments, one or both of the input element and the feedback element may comprise a computer or computing device, such as a smartphone or tablet. in particular, the temperature regulating sleeve may be wired to the computer or other device, such as via use of a usb cord or similar protocol. in some embodiments, for example, the feedback element may be configured to send information to an electronic device via a wireless communication interface which may enable the temperature regulating sleeve to wirelessly communicate with one or more networks, computing devices or other appropriately-enabled devices. examples of suitable computing devices include any of a number of different mobile computers. more particular examples of suitable mobile computers include portable computers (e.g., laptops, notebooks, tablet computers), mobile phones (e.g., cell phones, smartphones), wearable computers (e.g., smartwatches) and the like. in other examples, the computing device may be embodied as other than a mobile computer, such as in the manner of a desktop computer, server computer or the like. and in yet another example, the computing device may be embodied as an electric beacon such as one employing ibeacon™ technology developed by apple inc. examples of suitable manners according to which the aerosol delivery device may be configured to wirelessly communicate are disclosed in u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/327,776, filed jul. 10, 2014, to ampolini et al., and u.s. patent application ser. no. 14/609,032, filed jan. 29, 2016, to henry, jr. et al., each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. the wireless communication interface may include, for example, an antenna (or multiple antennas) and supporting hardware and/or software for enabling wireless communication with a communication network (e.g., a cellular network, wi-fi, wlan, and/or the like), and/or for supporting device-to-device, short-range communication, in accordance with a desired communication technology. examples of suitable short-range communication technologies that may be supported by the communication interface include various near field communication (nfc) technologies, wireless personal area network (wpan) technologies and the like. more particular examples of suitable wpan technologies include those specified by ieee 802.15 standards or otherwise, including bluetooth, bluetooth low energy (bluetooth le), zigbee, infrared (e.g., irda), radio-frequency identification (rfid), wireless usb and the like. yet other examples of suitable short-range communication technologies include wi-fi direct, as well as certain other technologies based on or specified by ieee 802.11 and/or ieee 802.15.4 standards and that support direct device-to-device communication. the temperature regulating sleeve also may communicate with a computer or other device acting as an input via wireless communication. see, for example, the systems and methods for controlling a device via a read request as described in u.s. pub. no. 2016/0007561 to ampolini et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. in such embodiments, an app or other computer program may be used in connection with a computer or other computing device to input control instructions to the temperature regulating sleeve, such control instructions including, for example, the ability to alter heating along specific portions of the smoking article (e.g., via activation of one or more heaters), the ability to increase or decrease air flow along specific portions of the smoking article (e.g., via activation of one or more ventilation components), choosing the total particulate matter (tpm) provided per puff, choosing a specific heating profile to be implemented, choosing a modifiable resistance to draw, and the like. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may include one or more visual indicators or elements. in some embodiments, the visual indicator or element can be configured to perform a variety of functions, for example, to indicate an on/off status of the sleeve, to indicate a charging status and/or battery life, etc. one example of a suitable component is an indicator such as light-emitting diodes (leds), quantum dot-based leds or the like, which may be illuminated with use of the temperature regulating sleeve. examples of suitable led components, and the configurations and uses thereof, are described in u.s. pat. no. 5,154,192 to sprinkel et al.; u.s. pat. no. 8,499,766 to newton; u.s. pat. no. 8,539,959 to scatterday; and u.s. pat. no. 9,451,791 to sears et al., all of which are incorporated herein by reference. further indicators (e.g., a haptic feedback component, an audio feedback component, or the like) can be included in addition to or as an alternative to the led. additional representative types of components that yield visual cues or indicators, such as light emitting diode (led) components, and the configurations and uses thereof, are described in u.s. pat. no. 5,154,192 to sprinkel et al.; u.s. pat. no. 8,499,766 to newton and u.s. pat. no. 8,539,959 to scatterday; u.s. pat. pub. no. 2015/0020825 to galloway et al.; and u.s. pat. pub. no. 2015/0216233 to sears et al.; which are incorporated herein by reference. it is understood that not all of the illustrated elements are required. for example, an led may be absent or may be replaced with a different indicator, such as a vibrating indicator. yet other components are also contemplated, particularly those suitable for use with aerosol delivery devices may be incorporated into the temperature regulating sleeves of the present disclosure. for example, u.s. pat. no. 5,154,192 to sprinkel et al. discloses indicators for smoking articles; u.s. pat. no. 5,261,424 to sprinkel, jr. discloses piezoelectric sensors that can be associated with the mouth-end of a device to detect user lip activity associated with taking a draw and then trigger heating of a heating device; u.s. pat. no. 5,372,148 to mccafferty et al. discloses a puff sensor for controlling energy flow into a heating load array in response to pressure drop through a mouthpiece; u.s. pat. no. 5,967,148 to harris et al. discloses receptacles in a smoking device that include an identifier that detects a non-uniformity in infrared transmissivity of an inserted component and a controller that executes a detection routine as the component is inserted into the receptacle; u.s. pat. no. 6,040,560 to fleischhauer et al. describes a defined executable power cycle with multiple differential phases; u.s. pat. no. 5,934,289 to watkins et al. discloses photonic-optronic components; u.s. pat. no. 5,954,979 to counts et al. discloses means for altering draw resistance through a smoking device; u.s. pat. no. 6,803,545 to blake et al. discloses specific battery configurations for use in smoking devices; u.s. pat. no. 7,293,565 to griffen et al. discloses various charging systems for use with smoking devices; u.s. pat. no. 8,402,976 to fernando et al. discloses computer interfacing means for smoking devices to facilitate charging and allow computer control of the device; u.s. pat. no. 8,689,804 to fernando et al. discloses identification systems for smoking devices; and pct pat. app. pub. no. wo 2010/003480 by flick discloses a fluid flow sensing system indicative of a puff in an aerosol generating system; all of the foregoing disclosures being incorporated herein by reference. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve 100 may further comprise a mouthpiece 140 engaged with the first opening 110 of the outer shell 102 and arranged to interact with a mouth end 114 of the smoking article (e.g., as depicted in fig. 4 ). in some embodiments, the mouthpiece defines a channel 142 in fluid communication with the first opening of the outer shell such that a draw applied to the mouthpiece is communicated to the smoking article. the mouthpiece may be connected to the outer shell via various different mechanisms, for example, a screw-fit engagement, a press-fit engagement, a snap-fit engagement, a magnetic engagement, and the like. generally, the mouthpiece may be removable and/or replaceable. while the power source 104 and the control component 124 are positioned between the smoking article and the mouthpiece 140 in the depicted embodiment, it should be noted that other configurations are possible. for example, the power source 104 and/or the control component 124 may be embedded elsewhere in the outer shell 102 of the temperature regulating sleeve. in some embodiments, for example, the power source and/or the control component may be positioned within or embedded in the outer shell and proximate to the smoking article. in some embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve may further comprise one or more porous structures 144 positioned within the outer shell 102 and arranged relative to the first opening 110 in the outer shell 102 such that the aerosol exiting through the opening passes one or both of through and around the one or more porous structures 144 . in other embodiments, one or more porous structures may be positioned entirely, or at least partially, within the mouthpiece 140 (not pictured). in some embodiments, the aerosol generated by the smoking article when a user draws on the temperature regulating sleeve may flow through and/or around the one or more porous structures. in some embodiments, for example, the porous structure may be in the form of a filter or a porous material configured to contain a liquid material suitable for transferring one or more flavors or other components (e.g., such as an active ingredient) to the aerosol passing therethrough. in some embodiments, the porous structure may provide filtering capacity, if desired, and/or provide resistance to draw. in some embodiments, the filter may comprise discrete segments. for example, some embodiments may include a segment providing filtering, a segment providing draw resistance, a hollow segment providing a space for the aerosol to cool, a segment providing increased structural integrity, other filter segments, and any one or any combination of the above. in other embodiments, the mouthpiece 140 , itself, may include a chamber or void therein (downstream of the smoking article) that may be sized and/or shaped to provide for appropriate condensation and/or cooling of aerosol before drawn into the mouth of a user of the temperature regulating sleeve. in such embodiments, the chamber or void may contain a porous structure as discussed herein above to provide one or more of filtering capacity, cooling, and/or draw resistance. generally, the porous structure may be provided in a variety of forms including various different components therein. in some embodiments, for example, the porous structure may comprise one or more of an air gap, a hollow tube structure, phase change materials for cooling air, flavor releasing media, ion exchange fibers capable of selective chemical adsorption, aerogel particles as filter medium, and other suitable materials. some examples of possible phase change materials include, but are not limited to, salts, such as agno 3 , alcl 3 , tacl 3 , incl 3 , sncl 2 , ali 3 , and tii 4 ; metals and metal alloys such as selenium, tin, indium, tin-zinc, indium-zinc, or indium-bismuth; and organic compounds such as d-mannitol, succinic acid, p-nitrobenzoic acid, hydroquinone and adipic acid. other examples are described in u.s. pat. no. 8,430,106 to potter et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. the porous structure may be formed of various different materials, for example, in some embodiments the porous structure may be made of a cellulose acetate or polypropylene material. generally, any porous filter materials commonly used in the art would be suitable for forming the porous structure. in some embodiments, the porous structure may be configured to release a second aerosol when heated that can combine with aerosol released from the smoking article during use of the temperature regulating sleeve. in such embodiments, the porous structure may be configured to contain a non-tobacco flavored liquid (e.g., such as a nicotine solution), a tobacco extract or distillate, a flavoring agent, an aerosol precursor composition, and combinations thereof. in some embodiments, for example, the porous structure may be configured to be heated by a heater within the outer shell (e.g., such as one of the one or more heaters described herein above), thus producing an aerosol. any heater as defined herein above may be suitable for heating the porous structure. in such embodiments, heating of the porous structure can generate an aerosol that can combine with the aerosol generated by the smoking article during use of the temperature regulating sleeve. some aerosol precursor compositions that may be used in conjunction with the porous structure may include one or more acids such as levulinic acid, succinic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid, benzoic acid, fumaric acid, combinations thereof, and the like. inclusion of an acid(s) in liquid aerosol precursor compositions including nicotine may provide a protonated liquid aerosol precursor composition, including nicotine in salt form. in some embodiments, the aerosol precursor composition may comprise a variety of components including, by way of example, a polyhydric alcohol (e.g., glycerin, propylene glycol, or a mixture thereof), nicotine, tobacco, tobacco extract, and/or flavorants. in some examples, the aerosol precursor composition comprises glycerin and nicotine. representative types of liquid aerosol precursor components and formulations are set forth and characterized in u.s. pat. no. 7,726,320 to robinson et al., u.s. pat. no. 9,254,002 to chong et al., and u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2013/0008457 to zheng et al., 2015/0020823 to lipowicz et al., and 2015/0020830 to koller, as well as pct pat. app. pub. no. wo 2014/182736 to bowen et al., and u.s. pat. no. 8,881,737 to collett et al., the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. other aerosol precursors that may be employed include the aerosol precursors that have been incorporated in any of a number of the representative products identified above. also desirable are the so-called “smoke juices” for electronic cigarettes that have been available from johnson creek enterprises llc. still further example aerosol precursor compositions are sold under the brand names black note, cosmic fog, the milkman e-liquid, five pawns, the vapor chef, vape wild, boosted, the steam factory, mech sauce, casey jones mainline reserve, mitten vapors, dr. crimmy's v-liquid, smiley e liquid, beantown vapor, cuttwood, cyclops vapor, sicboy, good life vapor, teleos, pinup vapors, space jam, mt. baker vapor, and jimmy the juice man. implementations of effervescent materials can be used with the aerosol precursor, and are described, by way of example, in u.s. pat. app. pub. no. 2012/0055494 to hunt et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. further, the use of effervescent materials is described, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,639,368 to niazi et al., u.s. pat. no. 5,178,878 to wehling et al., u.s. pat. no. 5,223,264 to wehling et al., u.s. pat. no. 6,974,590 to pather et al., u.s. pat. no. 7,381,667 to bergquist et al., u.s. pat. no. 8,424,541 to crawford et al, u.s. pat. no. 8,627,828 to strickland et al., and u.s. pat. no. 9,307,787 to sun et al., as well as u.s. pat. app. pub. nos. 2010/0018539 to brinkley et al., and pct pat. app. pub. no. wo 97/06786 to johnson et al., all of which are incorporated by reference herein. as noted above, the one or more porous structures may additionally or alternatively include other active ingredients including, but not limited to, a nicotine component, botanical ingredients (e.g., lavender, peppermint, chamomile, basil, rosemary, ginger, cannabis, ginseng, maca, hemp, eucalyptus, rooibos, fennel, citrus, cloves, and tisanes), stimulants (e.g., caffeine and guarana), amino acids (e.g., taurine, theanine, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) and/or pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, medicinal ingredients (e.g., vitamins, such as b6, b12, and c, and/or cannabinoids, such as tetrahydrocannabinol (thc) and cannabidiol (cbd)). as used herein, a “flavoring agent” or “flavorant” refers to compounds or components that can be aerosolized and delivered to a user and which impart a sensory experience in terms of taste and/or aroma. non-limiting examples of flavoring agents can include, but are not limited to, vanilla, coffee, chocolate/cocoa, cream, mint, spearmint, menthol, peppermint, wintergreen, eucalyptus, lavender, cardamon, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, cascarilla, sandalwood, honey, jasmine, ginger, anise, sage, licorice, lemon, orange, apple, peach, lime, cherry, strawberry, terpenes, trigeminal senstates, and any combinations thereof. see also, leffingwell et al., tobacco flavoring for smoking products, r. j. reynolds tobacco company (1972), which is incorporated herein by reference. flavorings also may include components that are considered moistening, cooling or smoothening agents, such as eucalyptus. these flavors may be provided neat (i.e., alone) or in a composite, and may be employed as concentrates or flavor packages (e.g., spearmint and menthol, orange and cinnamon; lime, pineapple, and the like). representative types of components also are set forth in u.s. pat. no. 5,387,416 to white et al.; us pat. app. pub. no. 2005/0244521 to strickland et al.; and pct application pub. no. wo 05/041699 to quinter et al., each of which is incorporated herein by reference. in some instances, the flavoring agent may be provided in a spray-dried form or a liquid form. the flavoring agent may be a volatile flavor component. as used herein, “volatile” refers to a chemical substance that forms a vapor readily at ambient temperatures (i.e., a chemical substance that has a relatively high vapor pressure at a given temperature relative to a nonvolatile substance). typically, a volatile flavor component has a molecular weight below about 400 da, and often includes at least one carbon-carbon double bond, carbon-oxygen double bond, or both. in one embodiment, the at least one volatile flavor component comprises one or more alcohols, aldehydes, aromatic hydrocarbons, ketones, esters, terpenes, terpenoids, or a combination thereof. non-limiting examples of aldehydes include vanillin, ethyl vanillin, p-anisaldehyde, hexanal, furfural, isovaleraldehyde, cuminaldehyde, benzaldehyde, and citronellal. non-limiting examples of ketones include 1-hydroxy-2-propanone and 2-hydroxy-3-methyl-2-cyclopentenone-1-one. non-limiting examples of esters include allyl hexanoate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl hexanoate, isoamyl acetate, and 3-methylbutyl acetate. non-limiting examples of terpenes include sabinene, limonene, gamma-terpinene, beta-farnesene, nerolidol, thujone, myrcene, geraniol, nerol, citronellol, linalool, and eucalyptol. in one embodiment, the at least one volatile flavor component comprises one or more of ethyl vanillin, cinnamaldehyde, sabinene, limonene, gamma-terpinene, beta-farnesene, or citral. in one embodiment, the at least one volatile flavor component comprises ethyl vanillin. in still further embodiments, the temperature regulating sleeve 100 may comprise a barrier or a sealing component 146 positioned proximate the second opening 112 in the outer shell 102 and configured to restrict air flow into the temperature regulating sleeve. in particular, the barrier or sealing component 146 may create a non-air permeable barrier and/or seal surrounding the smoking article at the intersecting plane 148 of the second portion of the smoking article 120 (e.g., containing the heat source) and the first portion of the smoking article 118 (e.g., containing a substrate material for combustion). in such embodiments, the heat source may be in the form of a substantially non-air permeable heat source such that ambient air is prevented from passing through the heat source. likewise, the barrier or sealing component 146 prevents air from flowing around the heat source and entering the temperature regulating sleeve through the second opening 112 thereof. in some embodiments, the first portion of the smoking article 118 may comprise an air permeable wrapper and/or air inlets therein (not pictured) which are in communication with the one or more ventilation components 132 to allow air flow into the temperature regulating sleeve, via the ventilation components, to be communicated to the first portion of the smoking article during use of the temperature regulating sleeve. in certain embodiments, the smoking article itself may include a barrier or sealing component therein which separates the second portion of the smoking article 120 (e.g., containing the heat source) and the first portion of the smoking article 118 (e.g., containing a substrate material for combustion). in such embodiments, the barrier or sealing component within the smoking article may prevent air from flowing through the heat source in the second portion of the smoking article 120 and into the first portion of the smoking article 118 position downstream therefrom. in some embodiments, the first portion of the smoking article 118 may comprise an air permeable wrapper and/or air inlets therein (not pictured) which are in communication with the one or more ventilation components 132 to allow air flow into the temperature regulating sleeve, via the ventilation components, to be communicated to the first portion of the smoking article during use of the temperature regulating sleeve. many modifications and other embodiments of the disclosure will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which this disclosure pertains having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. therefore, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed herein and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
169-680-527-440-688	US	[ "WO", "US" ]	F01C1/063,F01C1/02,F01C1/077,F02B53/00,F01C21/10,F01C1/067,F02B33/36,F04C2/077,F04C9/00,F04C15/00,F04C28/08	2017-05-04T00:00:00	2017	[ "F01", "F02", "F04" ]	variable volume chamber for interaction with a fluid	variable volume chamber devices are disclosed. the chambers may be defined by the space between two complementary rotors. the volume of the chambers may vary as a function of the variation of relative rotational speeds of the two rotors.	what is claimed is: 1. a variable volume chamber device comprising: a first axial member; a first rotor mounted on the first axial member, said first rotor having: a generally cylindrical peripheral wall spaced from the first axial member; a first fluid port extending through the peripheral wall; a central opening surrounding the first axial member; a front wall extending away from the first axial member to the peripheral wall, said front wall defining a boundary for the central opening; a second fluid port extending through the front wall in the proximity of the central opening; a first rotor fin extending from the central opening along the front wall to the peripheral wall; a second axial member that is co-axial with the first axial member; a second rotor mounted on the second axial member and disposed at least in part within the first rotor peripheral wall, said second rotor having: a rear wall extending away from the second axial member to the peripheral wall, a central hub extending away from the rear wall and disposed within the first rotor central opening; a second rotor fin extending from the central hub along the rear wall to a location proximal to the peripheral wall; two fluid passages extending through the central hub; a first variable-speed driver connected to the first rotor; and a second variable-speed driver connected to the second rotor. 2. the variable volume chamber device of claim 1, further comprising; a cover surrounding the first rotor, said cover having a fluid intake opening and a fluid exhaust opening. 3. the variable volume chamber device of claim 1 , wherein the first rotor is configured to rotate at a variable first rotor rate, wherein the second rotor is configured to rotate at a variable second rotor rate, wherein the variable first rotor rate is greater than the variable second rotor rate during a first portion of a 360-degree rotation of the first rotor, and wherein the variable first rotor rate is less than the variable second rotor rate during a second portion of the 360-degree rotation of the first rotor. 4. the variable volume chamber device of claim 3, wherein each of the two fluid passages selectively register with the second fluid port as a result of variation of the variable first rotor rate, variation of the variable second rotor rate, or variation of both the variable first rotor rate and the variable second rotor rate. 5. the variable volume chamber device of claim 3, wherein a variable-speed driver selected from the group consisting of the first variable-speed driver and the second variable-speed driver, includes enmeshed non-circular gears. 6. the variable volume chamber device of claim 3, wherein the first variable-speed driver and the second variable-speed driver each include enmeshed non-circular gears. 7. the variable volume chamber device of claim 1, comprising: a plurality of first rotor fins extending from the central opening along the front wall to the peripheral wall, said first rotor fins being equally spaced and angularly offset from each other; and a plurality of second rotor fins extending from the central hub along the rear wall to a location proximal to the peripheral wall, said second rotor fins being equally spaced and angularly offset from each other, wherein the plurality of first rotor fins are interleaved with the plurality of second rotor fins to form a plurality of different neighboring rotor fin pairs each including one of the plurality of first rotor fins paired with one of the plurality of second rotor fins. 8. the variable volume chamber device of claim 7, wherein each of the plurality of different neighboring rotor fin pairs includes a first rotor fin and a second rotor fin having complementary inverse mating surfaces that form a variable volume chamber between the front wall and the rear wall. 9. the variable volume chamber device of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of first rotor fins has a greater thickness at a location proximal to the peripheral wall as compared with a location proximal to the central opening. 10. the variable volume chamber device of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of second rotor fins has a greater thickness at a location proximal to the peripheral wall as compared with a location proximal the central hub. 11. the variable volume chamber device of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of first rotor fins curves as it extends from the central opening along the front wall to the peripheral wall. 12. the variable volume chamber device of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of second rotor fins curves as it extends from the central hub along the rear wall to a location proximal to the peripheral wall. 13. the variable volume chamber device of claim 12, further comprising; a cover surrounding the first rotor, said cover having a fluid intake opening and a fluid exhaust opening. 14. the variable volume chamber device of claim 13, wherein the first variable-speed driver is configured to rotate the first rotor at a variable first rotor rate, wherein the second variable-speed driver is configured to rotate the second rotor at a variable second rotor rate, wherein the variable first rotor rate is greater than the variable second rotor rate during a first portion of a 360-degree rotation of the first rotor, and wherein the variable first rotor rate is less than the variable second rotor rate during a second portion of the 360-degree rotation of the first rotor. 15. the variable volume chamber device of claim 14, wherein each of the two fluid passages selectively register with the second fluid port as a result of variation of the variable first rotor rate, variation of the variable second rotor rate, or variation of both the variable first rotor rate and the variable second rotor rate. 16. the variable volume chamber device of claim 15, wherein the first variable-speed driver and the second variable-speed driver each include enmeshed non-circular gears. 17. the variable volume chamber device of claim 16, comprising: a first fluid port extending through the peripheral wall between each adjacent pair of the plurality of first rotor fins; and a second fluid port extending through the front wall for each adj acent pair of the plurality of first rotor fins. 18. the variable volume chamber device of claim 17, comprising: two fluid passages extending through the central hub for each adjacent pair of the plurality of second rotor fins. 19. a variable volume chamber device, comprising: a first rotor; a second rotor disposed adj acent to the first rotor, wherein the first rotor and the second rotor are configured to rotate independently relative to each other; a plurality of variable volume chambers formed in between the first rotor and the second rotor; a fluid inlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; a fluid outlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; a first variable-speed driver connected to the first rotor; and a second variable-speed driver connected to the second rotor, wherein a volume of each of the plurality of variable volume chambers varies in response to the variation of relative rotational speeds of the first variable-speed driver and the second variable- speed driver. 20. a variable volume chamber device, comprising: a first variable-speed driver; a second variable-speed driver; a plurality of variable volume chambers formed by cooperating first and second structures; a fluid inlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; and a fluid outlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers, wherein the first variable-speed driver is connected to the first structure and configured to rotate the first structure, wherein the second variable-speed driver is connected to the second structure and configured to rotate the second structure, and wherein a volume of each of the plurality of variable volume chambers varies in response to the variation of relative rotational speeds of the first variable-speed driver and the second variable- speed driver. 21. a method of pumping or compressing a fluid, comprising the steps of: providing a fluid to a variable volume chamber defined at least in part by a first wall and a second wall, wherein the first wall and second wall are configured to rotate independently of each other about a common axis; rotating the first wall at a variable first angular rate during a period of time; rotating the second wall at a variable second angular rate during the period of time; and changing the variable volume of the chamber so as to push the fluid through a variable volume chamber outlet by changing the variable first angular rate relative to the variable second angular rate during the period of time.	variable volume chamber for interaction with a fluid cross reference to related applications [0001] this application relates to and claims the priority of u.s. provisional patent application ser. no. 62/501,318, which was filed may 4, 2017; u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/965,009 which was filed april 27, 2018; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/970,206 which was filed may 3, 2018. field of the invention [0002] the present invention relates generally to variable volume chamber devices which act on fluids. background of the invention [0003] a variable volume chamber device (" vvcd") may be used to act on a fluid, such as in a pump or compressor. many fluid pumps and compressors use cooperative cylinder and piston arrangements that define a variable volume chamber to act on a gas or a liquid. in pumps and compressors, the motion of a piston may draw a gas or liquid into a variable volume chamber, and expel the gas or liquid to a downstream location or a compressor reservoir. [0004] variable volume chamber devices that use pistons are less efficient than desired, at least in part, due to the nature of the variable volume chamber used therein. it would be beneficial to decrease or eliminate these inefficiencies. for example, the pistons in piston type pumps and compressors must constantly accelerate, travel, deaccelerate, stop, and reverse their motion in the region of bottom dead center and top dead center positons to create a variable volume chamber. while this constantly reversing pumping motion of the piston produces a variable volume chamber formed between the piston head and the surrounding cylinder, it eliminates conservation of momentum, thereby reducing efficiency. accordingly, there is a need for variable volume chamber devices that preserve at least some of the momentum built up through repeated compressive and expansive motions. [0005] fluid pumps and compressors may be used to act on gasses and liquids for a myriad of different purposes, including without limitation to boost the pressure of intake air supplied for combustion in an internal combustion engine. boosting the pressure of air in internal combustion engines may benefit efficiency in many respects. superchargers provide one means for boosting air pressures, however, they add cost and weight, take up space, and require maintenance. accordingly, there is a need for superchargers that are superior to existing superchargers in terms of cost, weight, space utilization, and maintenance requirements. objects of the invention [0006] accordingly, it is an object of some, but not necessarily all embodiments of the present invention to provide variable volume chamber devices that preserve at least some of the momentum of the moving parts built up through repeated compressive and expansive events. the use of oscillating relative motion rotors to define variable volume chambers may permit built up momentum to be preserved. [0007] it is also an object of some, but not necessarily all embodiments of the present invention to provide improved internal combustion engine supercharger designs. embodiments of the invention may use oscillating relative motion rotors to define variable volume chambers to provide superchargers that are superior in terms of cost, weight, performance, maintenance and/or complexity. [0008] it is also an object of some, but not necessarily all embodiments of the present invention to provide variable volume chambers that may be used for non-power generating applications, such as for pumps and compressors. to this end, embodiments of the invention may use oscillating relative motion rotors to define one or more variable volume chambers that may act independently or in concert to pump or pressurize fluids. [0009] these and other advantages of some, but not necessarily all, embodiments of the present invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. summary of the invention [0010] responsive to the foregoing challenges, applicant has developed an innovative variable volume chamber device comprising: a first axial member; a first rotor mounted on the first axial member, said first rotor having: a generally cylindrical peripheral wall spaced from the first axial member; a first fluid port extending through the peripheral wall; a central opening surrounding the first axial member; a front wall extending away from the first axial member to the peripheral wall, said front wall defining a boundary for the central opening; a second fluid port extending through the front wall in the proximity of the central opening; a first rotor fin extending from the central opening along the front wall to the peripheral wall; a second axial member that is co-axial with the first axial member; a second rotor mounted on the second axial member and disposed at least in part within the first rotor peripheral wall, said second rotor having: a rear wall extending away from the second axial member to the peripheral wall, a central hub extending away from the rear wall and disposed within the first rotor central opening; a second rotor fin extending from the central hub along the rear wall to a location proximal to the peripheral wall; two fluid passages extending through the central hub; a first variable-speed driver connected to the first rotor; and a second variable-speed driver connected to the second rotor. [0011] applicant has further developed an innovative variable volume chamber device, comprising: a first rotor; a second rotor disposed adjacent to the first rotor, wherein the first rotor and the second rotor are configured to rotate independently relative to each other; a plurality of variable volume chambers formed in between the first rotor and the second rotor; a fluid inlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; a fluid outlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; a first variable-speed driver connected to the first rotor; and a second variable-speed driver connected to the second rotor, wherein a volume of each of the plurality of variable volume chambers varies in response to the variation of relative rotational speeds of the first variable-speed driver and the second variable-speed driver. [0012] applicant has still further developed an innovative variable volume chamber device, comprising: a first variable-speed driver; a second variable-speed driver; a plurality of variable volume chambers formed by cooperating first and second structures; a fluid inlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers; and a fluid outlet communicating with each of the plurality of variable volume chambers, wherein the first variable-speed driver is connected to the first structure and configured to rotate the first structure, wherein the second variable-speed driver is connected to the second structure and configured to rotate the second structure, and wherein a volume of each of the plurality of variable volume chambers varies in response to the variation of relative rotational speeds of the first variable-speed driver and the second variable-speed driver. [0013] applicant has still further developed an innovative method of pumping or compressing a fluid, comprising the steps of: providing a fluid to a variable volume chamber defined at least in part by a first wall and a second wall, wherein the first wall and second wall are configured to rotate independently of each other about a common axis; rotating the first wall at a variable first angular rate during a period of time; rotating the second wall at a variable second angular rate during the period of time; and changing the variable volume of the chamber so as to push the fluid through a variable volume chamber outlet by changing the variable first angular rate relative to the variable second angular rate during the period of time. [0014] it is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only, and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed. brief description of the drawings [0015] in order to assist the understanding of this invention, reference will now be made to the appended drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like elements. the drawings are exemplary only, and should not be construed as limiting the invention. [0016] figure 1 is an exploded view of an example embodiment of a vvcd. [0017] figure 2 is a prophetic graph of rotor angular position and clearance for the vvcd shown in figure 1. [0018] figure 3 is a prophetic graph of rotor angular velocity for the vvcd shown in figure 1. [0019] figures 4a-4c are cross-sectional plan views of rotors in the vvcd shown in figure 1 at different points of relative rotation. [0020] figure 5 is a pictorial view of an alternative embodiment vvcd front rotor including a phantom illustration of internal chambers. detailed description of embodiments of the invention [0021] reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. with reference to fig. 1, a first example embodiment of an oscillating relative motion rotor vvcd is illustrated. the vvcd may include an intake-exhaust manifold and cover 125, a front rotor 124, and a rear rotor 123. the front rotor 124 may be locked to a first axial member by a first shaft key, and the rear rotor 123 may be locked to a second axial member by a second shaft key. the first axial member and the second axial member may be co-axial and preferably nested one within the other to facilitate alignment of the two members. the front rotor 124 and the rear rotor 123 may rotate independently of each other. the manifold and cover 125 may incorporate a fluid inlet pocket and passage 134 and an exhaust passage 135. the cover 125 may surround the front rotor 124 and rear rotor 123. the front rotor 124 and the rear rotor 123 may include interior walls which collectively define a plurality of variable volume chambers. [0022] specifically, the front rotor 124 may include a front wall extending from the first axial member to an outer generally cylindrical wall. the portion of the front wall nearest the first axial member may form a front boundary for a central opening surrounding the first axial member. fluid outlet passages 131 may extend through the front wall of the front rotor 124 in the proximity of the central opening. the fluid outlet passages 131 may lead to the exhaust passage 135 in the intake- exhaust manifold and cover 125. the exhaust passage 135 may lead to the ambient environment, to a compressor reservoir, a pump passage, or some other location. a set of three front rotor 124 fins, spaced apart 120 degrees center-to-center, may project out from the front wall of the front rotor in the direction parallel with the center axis of the first axial member. the front rotor 124 fins may extend from locations proximal to the first axial member outward like spokes on a wheel to the outer generally cylindrical wall. the front rotor 124 fins may have a varied thickness along their length and may be curved. three fluid intake slits 119 may be provided around the outer generally cylindrical wall of the front rotor 124 at equal distances from each other and between each pair of front rotor fins. [0023] the rear rotor 123 may include a rear wall extending from the second axial member to an outer periphery. a set of three rear rotor 123 fins, spaced apart 120 degrees center-to-center, may project out from the rear wall in the direction parallel with the center axis of the second axial member. the rear rotor 123 fins may extend from a central hub to a location proximal to the generally cylindrical wall of the front rotor 124. the rear rotor 123 fins may have a varied thickness along their length and may be curved to compliment and mate intimately with the front rotor 124 fins. the front rotor fins and the rear rotor fins may project towards each other and each group of three fins may nest with the other group of three fins. a pair of two fluid output slits 132 and 133 may extend through the center hub of the rear rotor 123 between each neighboring pair of rear rotor 123 fins. each of the slits and passages 132 and 133 in a pairing may alternate registering with a single corresponding fluid outlet passage 131 in the front rotor 124 when alternate groups of chambers are near minimum volume. [0024] when assembled together, the front rotor 124 and the rear rotor 123 may operate cooperatively as follows. the fluid intake slits 119 allow fluid to enter the front rotor 124 from the fluid inlet pocket and passage 134 within the intake-exhaust manifold and cover 125. the fluid, such as air, may be drawn from the ambient environment. the fluid may enter into the portion of the area between two neighboring front rotor 124 fins that is not blocked off by the rear rotor 123 fin nested between the neighboring front rotor fins. the rear rotor 123 fins divide the three chambers defined by the front rotor 124 fins into three groups of mating chambers, for a total of six chambers. the rear rotor 123 fins, being of a preselected thickness at their outer edge, may selectively block the fluid intake slits 119 in the front rotor 124 when the rear rotor fins are at a center position in each of the three groups of mating chambers, but reveal the intake slits 119 to a first group of three chambers when the other group of three chambers is at a minimum volume, and vice-versa. [0025] the relative motion oscillating vvcd may be driven using interconnected first and second sets of non-circular orbi-lobe gears 126 and 127 {i.e., one type of variable-speed drivers). in this embodiment, the non-circular gears may be elliptical or oval gears. the first shaft key may lock the first set of gears 126 to the first axial member, and the second shaft key may lock the second set of gears 127 to the second axial member. a third axial member may extend between the first and second sets of gears 126 and 127 and may lock the two gear sets together to synchronize their rotations. the two vvcd components {i.e., the front rotor 124 and the rear rotor 123) may be geared at a 90-degree offset and the fins on the opposing rotors may located at a 60-degree displacement from each other. accordingly, the vvcd first and second shaft keys for the front rotor 124 and the rear rotor 123 may have a starting 30-degree offset from one-another. the first and second sets of gears 126 and 127 may provide two alternating speeds in four areas and four areas of speed transition per input shaft rotation. the external relative motion oscillating vvcd could also be driven by other drivers, such as an electronically controlled motion system, an oscillating mechanism, or by other gear types such as multi-lobe constant speed gearing, nautilus gears, or other gears which would allow the appropriate motion of the mechanism. [0026] with reference to figs. 1, 2 and 4a-4c, the relative motion oscillating vvcd may create a relative motion of the front rotor 124 fins and the rear rotor 123 fins by accelerating and decelerating each rotor between the two speeds provided by the gearing at alternating times. every time the two rotor angular velocity lines intersect as shown in fig. 2, a first group of three of the six chambers output fluid at the chamber minimum clearance angle as seen in fig. 3. the minimum clearance angles shown in fig. 3 translate to clearance distances of nearly zero between the front rotor 124 and rear rotor 123 fins due to the curved design of the fins themselves, which also accounts for the first group of chambers appearing to have larger minimum angular clearances than the other group. in the simulation described by figs. 2 and 3, the working fluid was air and the input shaft was driven at 120-degrees-per-second, which would drive the vvcd components at two speeds with the speed scaling factor being approximately 1.7 above and below the input speed. one input drive shaft rotation may generate four compressed air output cycles from the groups with the chambers alternating every other from the six half chambers of the vvcd. [0027] the output at the intersection of the front and rear rotor velocity lines is due to the chasing movement created where the front rotor 124 chases and catches the rear rotor 123, then the rear rotor 123 chases and catches the front rotor 124. during each chasing motion, fluid may pass through the fluid intake slits 119 into the space between the front rotor and the rear rotor 123, and thereafter be acted upon by the rotors. this may create a pseudo or relative motion oscillation without having the one rotor start, stop, reverse, and stop constantly while the other rotor remains stationary. this may allow the vvcd to conserve some momentum and increase the fluid output when compared with a piston compressor. like a piston compressor, the fluid output pulsing can be smoothed by using multiple chambers keyed at differing offset angles from the gear train to allow common gearing at a reduced cost but to create a more consistent and/or larger output volume and pressure. [0028] with reference to fig. 4a, the rear rotor fins are blocking the front rotor fluid intake slits 119 provided around the periphery of the rotor. a first group of three chambers is below atmospheric pressure if the design is equipped with one-way valves (not shown) on the outlet passages 131 or nearer to atmospheric pressure if it is not so equipped. the second group of three chambers is at or slightly above atmospheric pressure. during this time period, the front rotor is moving slowly and the rear rotor is moving briskly in comparison. as the drive shaft rotates counter-clockwise, the front rotor fins rotate clockwise. this causes three of the chambers to intake fluid while the other three chambers simultaneously act on the fluid in them. [0029] with reference to fig. 4b, the front rotor begins to accelerate as the rear rotor completes deceleration. fluid has entered the fluid intake slit 119 and filled the space between the rotors that is in communication with the fluid intake slits. during this time period, one of the fluid passages 132 and 133 leading to the chambers in the rear rotor may register with the fluid outlets 131 in the front rotor, causing the fluid between the rotors to push through the fluid outlets and through optional one-way valves (not shown). the fluid exiting the chambers may be added to the fluid in the exhaust passage in the intake-exhaust manifold and cover. [0030] with reference to fig. 4c, the rear rotor 123 fins have rotated clockwise, blocking the front rotor 124 fluid intake slits 119. this begins the compression or pump cycle for the second group of three chambers and leads to a fluid intake cycle for the first group of three chambers. during this time period, the front rotor moves briskly and the rear rotor moves slowly in comparison. one of the fluid passages 132 and 133 leading to the chambers in the rear rotor 123 may register with the fluid outlets 131 in the front rotor 124 as the drive shaft rotates. this leads to a new pumping or compression cycle. this process may repeat so that alternating groups of three chambers cycle through fluid filling and fluid pumping or compression processes. [0031 ] with reference to figs. 1 and 5, it may also be advantageous to shape the outside of the front rotor 124 with fluid directing ridges 154 adjacent to the fluid intake slits 119 to form a fan/pump/compressor between the intake-exhaust manifold and cover and the front rotor 124. it may also be advantageous to employ one-way valves (not shown) on the intake slits 119 and on the fluid outlet passages 131 to increase the volume and pressure that the compressor can produce by allowing the chambers to intake for a longer period. these one-way valves may also be employed per group of three chambers for reduced cost if the intake slit 119 number is increased from three to six with each intake slit being located at an offset distance from its original central location giving each chamber a separate intake slit (not shown). [0032] as will be understood by those skilled in the art, the invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. the elements described above are illustrative examples of one technique for implementing the invention. one skilled in the art will recognize that many other implementations are possible without departing from the intended scope of the present invention as recited in the claims. accordingly, the disclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention. it is intended that the present invention cover all such modifications and variations of the invention, provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
171-834-857-736-482	US	[ "US" ]	A61K47/02,A61K9/00,A61K9/20,A61K31/4439,A61K31/5415,A61K45/06,A61K47/40,A61K47/69,C08B37/16	2015-02-10T00:00:00	2015	[ "A61", "C08" ]	pharmaceutical compositions comprising meloxicam	disclosed herein are compositions comprising an nsaid such as meloxicam and/or rizatriptan in combination with a cyclodextrin and/or a carbonate or a bicarbonate. these compositions may be orally administered, for example, to improve the bioavailability or pharmacokinetics of the nsaid for the treatment of pain such as migraine, arthritis, and other conditions. also disclosed herein are methods of treating pain, such as migraine, comprising administering meloxicam and rizatriptan to a human being suffering from pain, such as migraine. for migraine, these methods may be particularly useful when the meloxicam and rizatriptan are administered while the human being is suffering from an acute attack of migraine pain or migraine aura. in some embodiments, the combination of meloxicam and rizatriptan may be administered in a manner that results in a t max of meloxicam of 3 hours or less.	1 . a method of treating migraine comprising: selecting a human migraine patient with a history of inadequate response to prior migraine treatments, and orally administering a dosage form to the migraine patient, wherein the dosage form comprises a combination of: 1) a complex of meloxicam with a sulfobutyl ether β-cyclodextrin (sbeβcd), 2) a bicarbonate, and 3) a rizatriptan, wherein the human migraine patient experiences reduction in phonophobia that lasts at least 24 hours after the dosage form is orally administered to the human migraine patient. 2 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains 400 mg to 600 mg of the bicarbonate. 3 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 5 mg to about 50 mg of meloxicam. 4 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 50 mg to about 200 mg of the sbeβcd. 5 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form is a solid oral dosage form having a shorter t max of meloxicam in the human being than a reference dosage form that: 1) contains the same amount of meloxicam, 2) does not contain an sbeβcd, and 3) does not contain a bicarbonate. 6 . the method of claim 5 , wherein the oral dosage form has been shown to have faster time to therapeutic plasma concentration in the human being as compared to the reference dosage form. 7 . the method of claim 1 , wherein about 1 mg to about 50 mg of the rizatriptan is present in the oral dosage form based upon the weight of the rizatriptan in the free base form. 8 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the rizatriptan is present in a salt form in an amount that is a molar equivalent of about 10 mg of the rizatriptan in the free base form. 9 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the rizatriptan is present as rizatriptan benzoate. 10 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 10 mg to about 30 mg of meloxicam. 11 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 20 mg of meloxicam. 12 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 15 mg of meloxicam. 13 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the sbeβcd has about 6 to about 7 sulfobutyl ether groups for each molecule of β-cyclodextrin. 14 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 50 mg to about 150 mg of the sbeβcd. 15 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 100 mg of the sbeβcd. 16 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the molar ratio of the sbeβcd to meloxicam is about 0.5 to about 2. 17 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the molar ratio of the sbeβcd to meloxicam is about 0.8 to about 1.2. 18 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the molar ratio of the sbeβcd to meloxicam is about 1. 19 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains about 10 mg to about 40 mg meloxicam, and about 5 mg to about 50 mg of rizatriptan. 20 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains sbeβcd that is in a weight ratio to rizatriptan that is within a range of about 1 to about 100. 21 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains sbeβcd that is in a weight ratio to rizatriptan that is about 10. 22 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the bicarbonate comprises sodium bicarbonate. 23 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form contains 500 mg of sodium bicarbonate. 24 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form has been shown to have a median t max of meloxicam that is less than about 90 minutes in fasted human subjects. 25 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the oral dosage form has been shown to have a median t max of meloxicam that is less than about 2 hours in fasted human subjects.	cross-reference to related applications this application is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/565,111, filed sep. 9, 2019; which is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 16/372,977, filed apr. 2, 2019, now u.s. pat. no. 10,426,839, which is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/988,104, filed may 24, 2018, now u.s. pat. no. 10,265,400; which is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/902,770, filed feb. 22, 2018, now u.s. pat. no. 10,029,010; which is a continuation of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/797,955, filed oct. 30, 2017, now u.s. pat. no. 10,058,614; which is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/132,130, filed apr. 18, 2016, now u.s. pat. no. 9,821,075; which is a continuation of international pat. app. no. pct/us2016/026991, filed apr. 11, 2016; which claims the benefit of u.s. prov. pat. app. nos. 62/114,215, filed feb. 10, 2015, and 62/259,993, filed nov. 25, 2015; the above u.s. patent application ser. no. 15/797,955 also claims the benefit of u.s. prov. pat. app. nos. 62/526,884, filed jun. 29, 2017, and 62/536,466, filed jul. 25, 2017; any of the above applications, u.s. patents issued from, or u.s. publications of any of the above applications are incorporated by reference in their entirety. background meloxicam, which has the structure: is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (nsaid) drug that exhibits anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antipyretic activities. the meloxicam mechanism of action may be related to prostaglandin synthetase (cyclo-oxygenase, cox) inhibition which is involved in the initial steps of the arachidonic acid cascade, resulting in the reduced formation of prostaglandins, thromboxanes and prostacylin. summary meloxicam and some other nsaids have poor aqueous solubility which may reduce bioavailability and slow the onset of pain relief resulting from their use. one means of increasing the solubility and bioavailability of meloxicam is through the use of cyclodextrins. cyclodextrin (also known as cycloamyloses) are generally cyclic polysaccharides which form a bucket-like shape. cyclodextrins help to increase bioavailability of other molecules because cyclodextrins are hydrophobic on the inside and hydrophilic on the inside which helps to facilitate the transport of molecules. the naturally occurring cyclodextrins include six, seven, and eight glucose units (α, β, and γ-cyclodextrin, respectively). however, synthetic cyclodextrins containing more or less glucose units are possible. in aqueous solutions, cyclodextrins can form complexes (i.e., an inclusion complex) with drugs by incorporating the drug into the center/hydrophobic portion of the cyclodextrin ring; although cyclodextrin compounds are also known to aggregate around a drug in a micelle-type structure. this ability of cyclodextrins may allow them to act as carriers to increase the bioavailability of less soluble drugs. some embodiments include an inclusion complex of meloxicam in a cyclodextrin. some embodiments include a dosage form comprising: 1) an inclusion complex of meloxicam and a cyclodextrin, or 2) meloxicam and a carbonate or a bicarbonate. some embodiments include a method of administering meloxicam orally, comprising orally administering a dosage form described herein to a patient in need of treatment. some embodiments include a method of administering meloxicam intravenously, comprising intravenously administering a dosage form described herein to a patient in need of treatment. disclosed herein are formulations for an inclusion complex of cyclodextrin and meloxicam with bicarbonate and methods of use thereof. disclosed herein are formulations and methods for delivering meloxicam with cyclodextrin to a subject by oral, enteral, intravenous, intramuscular, subcutaneous, intranasal, or other parenteral means. disclosed also are methods for treating pain and pain associated with conditions by delivering a dosage form with meloxicam, cyclodextrin, and bicarbonate by oral, enteral, intravenous, intramuscular, subcutaneous, intranasal, or other parenteral means to a subject. a combination of rizatriptan and meloxicam (referred to herein for convenience as a “subject combination”) may be used to treat a variety of pain conditions. rizatriptan has the structure as shown below. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 2 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 3 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 4 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 5 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 6 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 7 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 8 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 9 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 10 is another depiction of the results described in example 2 and contained in table 6. fig. 11 is a plot of meloxicam plasma concentration at various time points over the first 24 hours for an embodiment of a dosage form described herein and a commercially available meloxicam dosage form. fig. 12 is a plot of meloxicam plasma concentration at various time points over the first 24 hours for a dosage form of meloxicam/rizatriptan described in example 6 and a commercially available meloxicam dosage form. fig. 13 is a plot of rizatriptan plasma concentration at various time points over the first 12 hours for a dosage form of meloxicam/rizatriptan described in example 6 and a commercially available meloxicam dosage form. detailed description provided herein are dosage forms with nsaids (such as meloxicam) and cyclodextrin (optionally in an inclusion complex), and/or bicarbonate, and methods of treatment using the dosage form. a dosage form may be given enterally including, but not limited to, oral, sublingual, or rectal delivery, or parenterally including, but not limited to, intravenous, intramuscular, intranasal, or subcutaneous delivery. some methods include administration of a product that combines an nsaid that is formulated with: a) a cyclodextrin and/or b) a buffering agent. in some embodiments, the method involves treating a patient with a pharmaceutical formulation comprising meloxicam and a cyclodextrin and/or a carbonate/bicarbonate. method embodiments may also include treating a patient to increase the bioavailability of meloxicam in the patient or increase the rate at which the meloxicam becomes bioavailable. the combination of meloxicam, a cyclodextrin (such as sbeβcd), and a bicarbonate (such as sodium bicarbonate) may substantially increase the solubility and rate of absorption of meloxicam after oral administration, while maintaining its extended plasma concentration half-life in mammals, such as humans after oral administration. the combination of meloxicam, a cyclodextrin (such as sbeβcd), and a bicarbonate (such as sodium bicarbonate) may substantially increase the oral bioavailability of meloxicam in mammals, such as humans, after oral administration. unless otherwise indicated, any reference to a compound herein, such as meloxicam or rizatriptan, by structure, name, or any other means, includes pharmaceutically acceptable salts, alternate solid forms, such as polymorphs, solvates, hydrates, enantiomers, tautomers, deuterium-modified forms, or any other chemical species, such as precursors, prodrugs, or any other chemical species that may rapidly convert to a compound described herein under conditions in which the compounds are used as described herein. a subject combination may be given enterally including, but not limited to, oral, sublingual, or rectal delivery, or parenterally including, but not limited to, intravenous, intramuscular, intranasal, or subcutaneous delivery. in some embodiments, both meloxicam and rizatriptan are administered orally. in some embodiments, meloxicam is administered intravenously and rizatriptan is administered orally. in some embodiments, meloxicam is administered intramuscularly and rizatriptan is administered orally. normally, the combination of meloxicam and rizatriptan is administered so that the human being receives the meloxicam and rizatriptan within a short period of time with respect to one another. for example, the meloxicam and rizatriptan may be administered within about 2 hours, within about 1 hour, within about 30 minutes, within about 20 minutes, within about 15 minutes, within about 10 minutes, within about 5 minutes, or within about 1 minute of one another. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and rizatriptan are administered simultaneously, which for the purpose of this disclosure includes administration within about 5 minutes. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and rizatriptan are administered in a single dosage form. the term “treating” or “treatment” broadly includes any kind of treatment activity, including the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease in man or other animals, or any activity that otherwise affects the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals. the dosage form or the subject combination may be used to treat, or provide relief of, any type of pain including, but not limited to, migraine and other types of headache, inflammatory pain, musculoskeletal pain, neuropathic pain, chronic pain, acute pain, localized pain, systemic pain, cancer-related pain, acute pain, pain due to injury, pain due to illness (e.g., fever), post-operative pain, etc. in some instances, pain relief may be palliative, or pain relief may be provided independent of improvement of the disease or condition or the underlying cause of the disease or condition. for example, although the underlying disease may not improve, or may continue to progress, an individual suffering from the disease may experience pain relief. in some embodiments, the pain affects a muscle, nerve, cartilage, bone, ligament, tendon, tendon sheaths, bursae, or joint. migraine is a disabling neurological disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of pulsating head pain accompanied by nausea and sensitivity to light and sound. this pain may be moderate to severe, but is often severe and incapacitating, requiring bed rest. the headaches may affect one half of the head, may be pulsating in nature, and may last from 2 to 72 hours. associated symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light (photophobia), sound (phonophobia), or smell. the pain can be made worse by physical activity. migraines may be associated with an aura, which may be a short period of visual disturbance which signals that the headache will soon occur. in some embodiments, the human being who is being treated for migraine pain suffers from allodynia with their migraine attacks. allodynia, which is pain from normally non-painful stimuli (such as brushing hair, wearing glasses, taking a shower, etc.). patients having allodynia are believed to be less likely to respond well to triptan medications. current treatments are suboptimal, with more than 70% of sufferers reporting dissatisfaction with existing acute treatments. the most commonly reported reasons for patient dissatisfaction are slow onset of pain relief, inconsistent pain relief, and recurrence of pain during the same day. suboptimal acute treatment is associated with a significantly increased risk of new-onset chronic migraine, which may be prevented by improving acute treatment outcomes. administering a subject combination to a human being suffering from migraine, such as an acute attack of migraine pain or aura, may quickly result in a reduction in a migraine symptom, such as pain, nausea, vomiting, photophobia, or phonophobia, such as at or within about 5 minutes (intended as a shorthand for “at about 5 minutes, or within about 5 minutes”), at or within about 10 minutes, at or within about 30 minutes, at or within about 1 hour, at or within about 90 minutes, at or within about 2 hours, at or within about 2.5 hours, or at or within about 3 hours. in some embodiments, a human being experiences a reduction of, or complete relief from, pain, such as headache pain or migraine pain, nausea, vomiting, photophobia, and/or phonophobia, at or within about 1 hour, at or within about 90 minutes, at or within about 2 hours, at or within about 2.5 hours, or at or within about 3 hours. in some embodiments, the relief experienced, is greater than would be experienced by receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without meloxicam. in some embodiments, the relief experienced, is greater than would be experienced by receiving the same amount of meloxicam without rizatriptan. the combination of meloxicam and rizatriptan may have distinct dual mechanisms of action for the acute treatment of migraine. meloxicam is a potent, cox-2 preferential nsaid which is limited by slow absorption. rizatriptan is a potent 5-ht1 b/d agonist believed to have efficacy in migraine. observation of relief or reduction in a symptom at a specific period of time, such as “at 2 hours,” is useful because it allows the effectiveness of the treatment to be evaluated at a specific or consistent time point, which facilitates comparison between patients. observation of relief or reduction in a symptom within a specific period of time, such as “within about 2 hours,” is useful because it is desirable for relief or reduction of a symptom to occur as early as possible, and specifying that relief occur within a specified time sets a guideline in which it is desirable that relief occur. for some methods, administration of the subject combination may achieve a reduction in migraine pain, nausea, vomiting, photophobia, or phonophobia that lasts at least about one hour, at least about two hours, at least about three hours, at least about four hours, at least about six hours, at least about eight hours, about 8-24 hours, about 24 hours, or more than 24 hours. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater pain relief than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater pain relief than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater pain relief than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater pain relief than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from nausea than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from nausea than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from nausea than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from nausea than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from vomiting than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from vomiting than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from vomiting than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from vomiting than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from photophobia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from photophobia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from photophobia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from photophobia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from phonophobia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from phonophobia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from phonophobia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from phonophobia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has a history of inadequate response to prior migraine treatments. for example, if the human being is asked whether he or she was pain-free within two hours of treatment for most attacks, and given the option of answering “never,” “rarely,” “less than half the time,” or “half the time or more;” and the human being answers “never,” “rarely,” or “less than half the time,” then the human being has had an inadequate response to the treatment. similarly, if the human being is asked whether one dose of medication usually relieved the human being's headache and kept it away for at least 24 hours, and given the option of answering “never,” “rarely,” “less than half the time,” or “half the time or more;” and the human being answers “never,” “rarely,” or “less than half the time,” then the human being has had an inadequate response to the treatment. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that he or she was “never” pain-free within two hours of treatment for most attacks. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that he or she was “rarely” pain-free within two hours of treatment for most attacks. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that he or she was pain-free within two hours of treatment for most attacks “less than half the time.” in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that one dose of medication “never” relieved the respondent's headache and kept it away for at least 24 hours. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that one dose of medication “rarely” relieved the respondent's headache and kept it away for at least 24 hours. in some embodiments, the human being receiving the subject combination has indicated that one dose of medication relieved the respondent's headache and kept it away for at least 24 hours “less than half the time.” in some embodiments, the dosage form may also be administered to relieve arthritis pain. in some embodiments the dosage form may be administered to relieve other signs and/or symptoms of arthritis. examples of arthritis include, but are not limited to, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (pauciarticular and polyarticular course), osteoarthritis, erosive osteoarthritis, sero-negative (non-rheumatoid), arthropathies, non-articular rheumatism, peri-articular disorders, axial spondyloarthritis, transient osteoarthritis of the hip, vertebral crush fractures, osteoporosis, and neuropathic arthropathies including charcot's foot, axial spondyloarthritis including ankylosing spondylitis, and sapho syndrome. in other embodiments, the arthritis pain may be chronic or acute. in some embodiments the dosage form may be administered to relief the signs and/or symptoms of an arthritis including but not limited osteoarthritis for some methods, administration of the dosage form may achieve a reduction in pain that lasts at least about one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, six hours, at least about eight hours, about eight to about 24 hours, or about 24 hours. in other embodiments, administration of the dosage form may achieve a reduction in pain that is observed at about 10 minutes, at about 30 minutes, at about one hour, at about two hours, at about three hours, at about four hours, at about five hours, at about six hours, at less than 15 minutes, at less than 20 minutes, 30 minutes, at less than one hour, at less than two hours, at less than three hours, at about 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, or 60 minutes, or other time period bound by these ranges, after administration of the dosage form. in some embodiments, the dosage form may also be administered to relieve neuropathic pain, including diabetic peripheral neuropathy, post-herpetic neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia, monoradiculopathies, phantom limb pain, sciatica, pudendal neuralgia, and central pain. other causes of neuropathic pain may include, but are not limited to, cancer-related pain, lumbar nerve root compression, spinal cord injury, post-stroke pain, central multiple sclerosis pain, hiv-associated neuropathy, and radio-therapy or chemo-therapy associated neuropathy. the neuropathic pain treated may be chronic or acute. in some methods, the dosage form may be administered to relieve inflammatory pain including inflammatory musculoskeletal pain, pain due to injury, arthritis pain, and complex regional pain syndrome. in other embodiments, the inflammatory pain may be chronic or acute. arthritis refers to inflammatory joint diseases that can be associated with pain. examples of arthritis pain include but are not limited to pain associated with osteoarthritis, erosive osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, sero-negative (non-rheumatoid) arthropathies, non-articular rheumatism, peri-articular disorders, neuropathic arthropathies including charcot's foot, axial spondyloarthritis including ankylosing spondylitis, and sapho syndrome. the inflammatory joint disease treated may be chronic or acute. for some methods, the meloxicam may be administered to relieve musculoskeletal pain. examples of musculoskeletal pain may include, but are not limited to, back pain, low back pain (e.g., lumbosacral pain), neck pain, infection, cramps, tendonitis, epidondylitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, joint pain, fibromyalgia, pain due to injury, tunnel syndromes, pain associated with bone fractures, sprains, fibrous dysplasia, osteogenesis imperfecta, paget's disease of bone, transient osteoporosis, and transient osteoporosis of the hip. in other embodiments, the musculoskeletal pain may be chronic or acute. for some methods, administration of the dosage form or the subject combination may achieve a reduction in pain that lasts at least about one hour, at least about two hours, at least about three hours, at least about four hours, at least about six hours, at least about eight hours, about 8 to about 24 hours, or about 24 hours. in other embodiments, administration of the subject combination may achieve a reduction in pain that is observed at about 10 minutes, at about 30 minutes, at about one hour, at about two hours, at about three hours, at about four hours, at about five hours, at about six hours, at or within about 5 minutes, at or within about 10 minutes, at or within about 15 minutes, at or within about 20 minutes, at or within about 25 minutes, at or within about 30 minutes, at or within about 35 minutes, at or within about 40 minutes, at or within about 45 minutes, at or within about 50 minutes, or at or within about 60 minutes, at two hours or less, at three hours or less, or other time period bound by these ranges, after administration of the subject combination. a human being that is treated for a disease or condition with the dosage forms described herein may be of any age. for example the person may have an age of about 10 years to about 90 years, about 20 years to about 80 years, about 30 years to about 75 years, about 40 years to about 70 years, about 1 year to about 16 years, about 80 years to about 95 years, about 18 years or more, about 20 years or more, about 25 years or more, about 30 years or more, about 40 years or more, about 45 years or more, about 50 years or more, about 55 years or more, about 60 years or more, about 65 years or more, or any other age in a range bounded by, or between, these values. in some embodiments, a human being that is treated for a disease or condition with a dosage form comprising meloxicam or another nsaid has suffered from the pain or condition associated with the pain for at least 1 day, at least one week, at least 2 weeks, at least 1 month, at least 6 weeks, at least 2 months, at least 3 months, at least 6 months, or at least 1 year, or any duration in a range bounded by, or between, these values. a cyclodextrin used in a dosage form with meloxicam could include a cyclodextrin, a cyclodextrin derivative, and/or a salt thereof. an inclusion complex of meloxicam and cyclodextrin may be more water-soluble relative to the non-complexed meloxicam. the cyclodextrin may be a naturally-occurring cyclodextrin (e.g., α, β, or γ-cyclodextrins) or a synthetic cyclodextrin. in some embodiments, α-cyclodextrins, derivatives, or salts thereof may be used. α-cyclodextrins may include, but are not limited to, (2,3,6-tri-o-acetyl)-α-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-methyl)-α-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-octyl)-α-cyclodextrin, 6-bromo-6-deoxy-α-cyclodextrin, 6-iodo-6-deoxy-α-cyclodextrin, (6-o-tertbutyl-dimethylsilyl)-α-cyclodextrin, butyl-α-cyclodextrin, succinyl-α-cyclodextrin, (2-hydroxypropyl)-α-cyclodextrin, or combinations thereof. in some embodiments, β-cyclodextrins, derivatives, or salts thereof may be used. β-cyclodextrins may include, but are not limited to, hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin, 6-monodeoxy-6-monoamino-β-cyclodextrin, glucosyl-β-cyclodextrin, maltosyl-β-cyclodextrin, 6-o-α-d-glucosyl-β-cyclodextrin, 6-o-α-maltosyl-β-cyclodextrin, 6-azido-6-deoxy-β-cyclodextrin, (2,3-di-o-acetyl-6-o-sulfo)-β-cyclodextrin, methyl-β-cyclodextrin, dimethyl-β-cyclodextrin (dmβcd), trimethyl-β-cyclodextrin (tmβcd), (2,3-di-o-methyl-6-o-sulfo)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,6-di-o-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,6-di-o-ethyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-acetyl)-β-cyclodextrin, -(2,3,6-tri-o-benzoyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-ethyl)-β-cyclodextrin, 6-iodo-6-deoxy-β-cyclodextrin, 6-(dimethyl-tert-butylsilyl)-6-deoxy-β-cyclodextrin, 6-bromo-6-deoxy-β-cyclodextrin, monoacetyl-β-cyclodextrin, diacetyl-β-cyclodextrin, triacetyl-β-cyclodextrin, β-o-acetyl-2,6-di-o-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (6-o-maltosyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (6-o-sulfo)-β-cyclodextrin, (6-o-t-butyldimethylsilyl-2,3-di-o-acetyl)-β-cyclodextrin, succinyl-(2-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2,6-di-o-)ethyl-β-cyclodextrin, (2-carboxyethyl)-β-cyclodextrin (cmeβcd), hydroxyethyl-β-cyclodextrin (heβcd), (2-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin, (2-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (hpβcd), β-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (3hpβcd), (2,3-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (dhpβcd), butyl-β-cyclodextrin, methyl-β-cyclodextrin, silyl((6-o-tert-butyldimethyl)-2,3,-di-0-acetyl)-β-cyclodextrin, succinyl-β-cyclodextrin, (2-hydroxyisobutyl)-β-cyclodextrin, randomly methylated-β-cyclodextrin, branched-β-cyclodextrin, or combinations thereof. in other embodiments, a β-cyclodextrin may be a sulfoalkyl ether cyclodextrin, derivative, or salt thereof. examples of sulfoalkyl ether cyclodextrin derivatives may include, but are not limited to, sulfobutyl ether-β-cyclodextrin (e.g., sbeβcd, betadex, captisoll. in some embodiments, a sbeβcd may have about 4-8, about 5-8, about 4-7, about 6-7, or about 6.5 sulfobutyl ether groups per cyclodextrin molecule. in some embodiments, γ-cyclodextrins, derivatives, or salts thereof may be used. γ-cyclodextrins may include carboxymethyl-γ-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-acetyl)-γ-cyclodextrin, (2,3,6-tri-o-methyl)-γ-cyclodextrin, (2,6-di-o-pentyl)-γ-cyclodextrin, 6-(dimethyl-tert-butylsilyl)-6-deoxy-γ-cyclodextrin, 6-bromo-6-deoxy-γ-cyclodextrin, 6-iodo-6-deoxy-γ-cyclodextrin, (6-o-t-butyldimethylsilyl)-γ-cyclodextrin, succinyl-γ-cyclodextrin, hydroxypropyl-γ-cyclodextrin (2-hydroxypropyl)-γ-cyclodextrin, acetyl-γ-cyclodextrin, butyl-γ-cyclodextrin, or combinations thereof. in some embodiments, the dosage form may include a bicarbonate, such as sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, magnesium bicarbonate, calcium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, or a combination thereof. a bicarbonate may help to increase bioavailability of the meloxicam. in other embodiments, the dosage form may include a carbonate, derivatives, or salts thereof. examples of carbonates may include aluminum carbonate, ammonium carbonate, barium carbonate, calcium carbonate, cobalt(ii) carbonate, lanthanum carbonate, lithium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, manganese(ii) carbonate, potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, or combinations thereof. in some embodiments, enhanced bioavailability of the dosage form may be achieved in treating one of these conditions by administering a dosage form comprising a salt form of the meloxicam, by creating an inclusion complex with meloxicam and cyclodextrin, and/or by including a bicarbonate. this may allow a reduced molar amount of the meloxicam to be used as compared to other meloxicam dosage forms. unless otherwise indicated, any reference to a compound herein, such as meloxicam or a cyclodextrin, by structure, name, or any other means, includes pharmaceutically acceptable salts, alternate solid forms, such as polymorphs, solvates, hydrates, enantiomers, tautomers, deuterium-modified forms, or any other chemical species that may rapidly convert to a compound described herein under conditions in which the compounds are used as described herein. in some embodiments, use of a cyclodextrin, a carbonate, or a bicarbonate may improve the oral bioavailability of meloxicam by at least about 10%, at least about 20%, at least about 30%, at least about 40%, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, up to about 100%, up to about 200%, or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, these values as compared to administration of meloxicam alone. due to the improved bioavailability, the dosage form may contain, or a subject may receive, on a molar basis, less of the meloxicam than would otherwise be administered. for example, a dosage form may contain, or a mammal may receive, at least about 10 mole % less, at least about 20 mole % less, at least about 30 mole % less, at least about 40 mole % less, at least about 50 mole % less, at least about 60 mole % less, at least about 70 mole % less, at least about 80 mole % less, at least about 85 mole % less, and/or up to about 90 mole % less, 95 mole % less, or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, these values as would otherwise be administered of meloxicam. in other embodiments, use of other nsaids, opioids, or other pain medications may be reduced by at least about 5%, at least about 10%, at least about 15%, at least about 20%, at least about 25%, at least about 30%, at least about 35%, at least about 40%, at least about 45%, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, or at least about 90%, up to about 100%, as compared to the use of other nsaids, opioids or other pain medications without administration of meloxicam with cyclodextrin, carbonate, and/or bicarbonate. in some embodiments, a dosage form may contain meloxicam in an amount from about 1-50 mg; about 1-10 mg; about 1-5 mg; about 10-40 mg; about 1-35 mg; about 1-25 mg; about 1-15 mg; about 5-20 mg; about 5-10 mg; about 5-15 mg; about 10-20 mg; about 20-30 mg; about 30-40 mg; about 40-50 mg; about 5 mg; about 7.5 mg; about 10 mg; about 15 mg; about 30 mg; or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. these doses may be a safe dose for repeated administration, such as once hourly dosing to once daily dosing, twice daily dosing, dosing one to 12 times daily, doing 3, 4, 5, or 6 times daily, etc. in some embodiments, the meloxicam may be safely administered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 times, or about 3 to about 10 times a day, once a day, or less frequently, such as once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, etc. for some dosage forms, meloxicam forms a complex with the substituted-β-cyclodextrin or other another cyclodextrin which may be formulated into a solid dosage form. such a dosage form may be suitable for oral administration. a meloxicam-cyclodextrin inclusion complex may also be dissolved in water or another solvent to form a parenteral formulation. however, physical mixtures of meloxicam and the substituted-β-cyclodextrin or other cyclodextrins may also be used in oral or parenteral dosage forms. formation of an inclusion complex of meloxicam and a cyclodextrin may help to improve the properties of a dosage form. for some inclusion complexes, the meloxicam and the cyclodextrin (e.g., sbeβcd) may have a molar ratio of about 0.5-2 (a molar ratio of 0.5 is 0.5 moles of meloxicam to 1 mole of cyclodextrin), about 0.5-0.7, about 0.6-0.8, about 0.7-0.9, about 0.8-1, about 0.9-1.1, about 1-1.2, about 1.1-1.3, about 1.2-1.4, about 1.3-1.5, about 1.4-1.6, about 1.5-1.7, about 1.6-1.8, about 1.7-1.9, about 1.8-2, about 0.8-1.2, about 1, or any ratio in a range bounded by any of these values. for some dosage forms, a cyclodextrin (e.g., sbeβcd) may be employed in a weight ratio to the meloxicam within the range from about 1-1000 (e.g. 1 g of cyclodextrin per 1 g of meloxicam is a weight ratio of 1); about 1-20; about 1-10; about 1-15; about 2-4, about 3-5, about 4-6, about 5-7, about 6-8, about 7-9, about 8-10, or any weight ratio in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. for some dosage forms, a cyclodextrin (e.g., sbeβcd) may be employed in a weight ratio to the meloxicam within the range from about 0.001-1 (e.g. 0.1 g of cyclodextrin per 1 g of meloxicam is a weight ratio of 0.1); about 0.01-1; about 0.05-1; about 0.1-1; about 0.2-1; about 0.3-1, about 0.4-1, about 0.5-1, about 0.6-1, about 0.7-1, about 0.8-1, or any weight ratio in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. each type of cyclodextrin employed may have a different ratio. for some dosage forms, the cyclodextrin may be present in an amount from about 1-200 mg; 25-175 mg; about 50-150 mg; about 25-100 mg; about 75-150 mg; about 100-175 mg; about 20-80 mg; about 25-50 mg; about 60-100 mg; about 80-100 mg; about 80-120 mg; about 100-120 mg; about 100-140 mg; about 120-160 mg; about 140-180 mg; about 30-90 mg; about 40-80 mg; about 50-70 mg, about 55-65 mg, about 60-62 mg, or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. for some methods, the inclusion complex of meloxicam and cyclodextrin such as a substituted-β-cyclodextrin is delivered orally (for example by tablet, capsule, elixir, or the like). other potential routes of administration include intravenous, intramuscular, intranasal, lyophilized parenteral, subcutaneous, transdermal, transmucosal, or through other parenteral means. the meloxicam may also be delivered alone or non-complexed with cyclodextrin. some dosage forms contain a bicarbonate (e.g., sodium bicarbonate) in amount from about 1-2000 mg; about 1-1000 mg; about 100-1000 mg; about 200-800 mg; about 1-500 mg; about 1-200 mg; about 1-100 mg; about 50-750 mg; about 500-1000 mg; about 100-500 mg; about 100-300 mg; about 500-1000 mg; about 300-700 mg; about 400-600 mg; about 50-250 mg; about 250-750 mg; about 100-200 mg; about 200-300 mg; about 300400 mg; about 400-500 mg; about 410-510 mg; about 420-520 mg; about 430-530 mg; about 440-540 mg; about 450-550 mg; about 460-560 mg; about 470-570 mg; about 480-580 mg; about 490-590 mg; about 500-600 mg; about 600-700 mg; about 700-800 mg; about 800-900 mg; about 150-650 mg; about 350-850 mg; or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. some dosage forms contain a carbonate in amount from about 1-1000 mg; about 1-500 mg; about 1-200 mg; about 1400 mg; about 50-750 mg; about 500-1000 mg; about 100-500 mg; about 100-300 mg; about 200-800 mg; about 5004000 mg; about 300-700 mg; about 400-600 mg; about 50-250 mg; about 250-750 mg; about 100-200 mg; about 200-300 mg; about 300-400 mg; about 400-500 mg; about 500-600 mg; about 600-700 mg; about 700-800 mg; about 800-900 mg; about 150-650 mg; about 350-850 mg; or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. in some embodiments, the daily dose of meloxicam (e.g., an oral dose, a parenteral dose, etc.) is about 2-5 mg, about 2-6 mg, about 2-7 mg, about 2-8 mg, about 2-9 mg, about 2-10 mg, about 2-11 mg, about 2-12 mg, about 2-13 mg, about 2-14 mg, about 2-15 mg, about 2-16 mg, about 2-17 mg, about 2-18 mg, about 2-19 mg, about 2-20 mg, about 2-21 mg, about 2-22 mg, about 2-23 mg, about 2-24 mg, about 2-25 mg, about 2-26 mg, about 2-27 mg, about 2-28 mg, about 2-29 mg, about 2-30 mg, about 2-35 mg, about 2-40 mg, about 5-10 mg, about 10-15 mg, about 15-20 mg, about 20-25 mg, about 25-30 mg, about 30-35 mg, or any amount in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments, the weekly dose of meloxicam (e.g., an oral dose) is about 14000 mg; about 1-500 mg; about 10-250 mg; about 100-300 mg; about 10400 mg; about 10-150 mg; about 10-300 mg; about 20-150 mg; about 20-60 mg; about 30-70 mg; about 40-60 mg; about 50-70 mg; about 70-90 mg; about 90-110 mg; about 50 mg; about 55 mg; about 100-150 mg; about 30-100 mg; or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. the weekly dose may be given as a single dose, given once during the week, or may be given in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 individual doses during the week. in some embodiments, the monthly dose of meloxicam (e.g., an oral dose), or a dose administered over a period of a month, is about 5000 mg or less; about 4000 mg or less; about 3000 mg or less; about 2000 mg or less; about 1000 mg or less; about 700 mg or less; about 600 mg or less; about 1-4000 mg; about 14000 mg; about 10-1000 mg; about 504000 mg; about 10-600 mg; about 40-600 mg; about 50-600 mg; about 40-400 mg; about 50-200 mg; about 200-240 mg; about 240-280 mg; about 280-320 mg; about 320-360 mg; about 360-400 mg; about 400-450 mg; about 450-500 mg; about 500-600 mg; about 250-350 mg; about 100-600 mg; about 40-2000 mg; about 40-800 mg; about 100-900 mg; about 100-800 mg; about 40-1000 mg; about 50-1000 mg; about 100-1000 mg; or any monthly dose in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. a monthly dose may be given as a single dose, or as two or more individual doses administered during the month. in some embodiments, the monthly dose is administered in 2 or 3 bi-weekly doses. in some embodiments, the monthly dose is administered in 4 or 5 weekly doses. in some embodiments, the monthly dose is administered in 28 to 31 daily doses, or in 56 to 62 daily doses or more. in some embodiments, the monthly dose is administered in 5 to 15 individual doses during the month. the monthly dose may be administered for only 1 month, or may be repeatedly administered for 2 or more months. in other embodiments, the dosage form may be administered weekly for about one, two, three, four, or more consecutive weeks, every other week or bi-weekly, or once every three weeks. this regimen may be repeated once weekly, twice in a month, three times in a month, once monthly, once every two months, once every three months, or as directed by a medical professional. in certain embodiments, the pharmaceutical composition results in increased bioavailability (e.g., reduced t max , increased c max , increased auc, etc.) of the meloxicam from the dosage form as compared to a dosage form containing meloxicam but not containing a cyclodextrin, an acid inhibitor, or a buffering agent (such as a bicarbonate). in some embodiments, the bioavailability of meloxicam will increase with multiple dosing. for example, the bioavailability of meloxicam in the dosage form may increase after about 1-10 days of dosing; about 2-6 days of dosing; about 3-5 days of dosing; about 4-6 days of dosing; about 5-8 days of dosing; about 5 days of dosing; about 6 days of dosing; about 7 days of dosing; about 8 days of dosing; about 10 days of dosing; about 15 days of dosing; or time in any range bounded by, or between, any of these values; as compared to the bioavailability of meloxicam in a dosage form not containing a cyclodextrin, an acid inhibitor, or a buffering agent (such as a bicarbonate). some of the dosage forms may result in a desired range for an area under the plasma concentration curve (auc) of meloxicam. for example the dosage with meloxicam may result in an auc of meloxicam of about 1-150 μg·hr/ml; about 10-30 μg·hr/ml; about 20-40 μg·hr/ml; about 30-50 μg·hr/ml; about 40-60 μg·hr/ml; about 50-70 μg·hr/ml; about 60-80 μg·hr/ml; about 70-90 μg·hr/ml; about 80-100 μg·hr/ml; about 10-100 μg·hr/ml; about 50-150 μg·hr/ml; about 25-125 μg·hr/ml; about 75-150 μg·hr/ml; about 20-50 μg·hr/ml; about 40-70 μg·hr/ml; about 60-90 μg·hr/ml; about 80-110 μg·hr/ml; about 100-130 μg·hr/ml; about 120-150 μg·hr/ml; or any auc in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. unless otherwise indicated, the auc refers to the auc calculated to the last measured concentration (auc 0-t ), such as, over a period of 6 hours (auc 0-6 ), over a period of 12 hours (auc 0-12 ), over a period of 24 hours (auc 0-24 ), or extrapolated to infinity (auc 0-inf ). in example 3 below, the auc 0-24 of meloxicam in human beings for an oral dosage form containing sodium bicarbonate and sulfobutylether β-cyclodextrin (sbeβcd) was about 27 μg·hr/ml. this dosage form contained 15 mg of meloxicam. the 15 mg iv and intramuscular doses also provide an auc 0-24 of meloxicam in human beings that is about 27 μg·hr/ml. the auc of meloxicam is believed to be approximately dose proportional. so for this oral dosage form, or for an iv or intramuscular dosage form, a meloxicam dose of, for example, approximately 17 mg to about 30 mg would be expected to result in an auc 0-24 of meloxicam of about 30-50 μg·hr/ml. for some acute pain conditions, such as migraine and other types of headache, the auc for a short period after oral administration, such as an auc measured over 6 hours (or auc 0-6 ), may be of particular interest. for example, some dosage forms may result in an auc 0-6 of at least about 6 μg·hr/ml; at least about 7 μg·hr/ml; at least about 8 μg·hr/ml; at least about 9 μg·hr/ml; about 6-10 μg·hr/ml; about 7-11 μg·hr/ml; about 8-12 μg·hr/ml; about 9-13 μg·hr/ml; or any auc in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. in some embodiments, the dosage form may result in a c max of meloxicam of about 10-2500 ng/ml; about 100-2250 ng/ml; about 500-2000 ng/ml; about 1000-2500 ng/ml; about 1000-2000 ng/ml; about 100-900 ng/ml; about 750-1500 ng/ml; about 1250-2000 ng/ml; about 1500-2300 ng/ml; about 800-1200 ng/ml; about 1900-2400 ng/ml; about 50-500 ng/ml; about 400-950 ng/ml; about 900-1500 ng/ml; about 1100-2200 ng/ml; about 1300-1600 ng/ml; about 1200-1500 ng/ml; about 1400-2100 ng/ml; about 1500-1900 ng/ml; about 1600-2100 ng/ml; about 1700-2000 ng/ml; about 1800-2000 ng/ml; about 1900-2500 ng/ml; about 150-1700 ng/ml; about 1600-1800 ng/ml; about 1700-1900 ng/ml; about 1800-2000 ng/ml; about 1900-2100 ng/ml; about 2000-2200 ng/ml; about 2100-2300 ng/ml; about 2200-2400 ng/ml; about 2300-2500 ng/ml; about 2500-3000 ng/ml; or any c max in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. for example, a method described herein may reduce the t max of meloxicam. in some embodiments, the method may include treating a patient to achieve the t max of meloxicam in the patient within about 10 minutes; about 20 minutes; about 30 minutes; about 40 minutes; about 50 minutes; about 60 minutes; about 70 minutes; about 80 minutes; about 90 minutes; about 100 minutes; about 110 minutes; about 120 minutes; about 180 minutes; about 1-10 hr; about 2-9 hr; about 3-7 hr; about 4-6 hr; about 1-5 hr; about 2-7 hr; about 3-8 hr; about 4-9 hr; about 1-4 hr; about 2-5 hr; about 3-6 hr; about 4-7 hr; about 5-8 hr; about 6-9 hr; about 7-10 hr; after administration or any t max in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. in some embodiments, an oral dosage form may have a t max of meloxicam that is shorter than would be achieved by administering meloxicam by intramuscular injection. in some embodiments, an oral dosage form may have a t max of meloxicam that is shorter, or may increase meloxicam plasma levels at a faster rate, by a factor of at least about 1.5, about 2, about 3, about 4, about 5, about 6, about 7, about 8, about 9, about 10, about 12, about 15, about 20, or by a factor of about 1.5-1000, about 2-100, about 3-100, about 4-100, about 5-100, about 6-100, about 7-100, about 8-100, about 9-100, about 10-100, about 12-100, about 15-100, about 20-100, or by a factor in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments, a dosage form comprising meloxicam may result in a plasma concentration of meloxicam at 12 hours that is about 0.01-0.5 μg/ml; about 0.5-0.7 μg/ml; about 0.6-0.8 μg/ml; about 0.7-0.9 μg/ml; about 0.8-1 μg/ml; about 0.9-1.1 μg/ml; about 1-1.2 μg/ml; about 1.1-1.3 μg/ml; about 1.2-1.4 μg/ml; about 1.3-1.5 μg/ml; about 1.4-1.6 μg/ml; about 1.5-1.7 μg/ml; about 1.6-1.8 μg/ml; about 1.7-1.9 μg/ml; about 1.8-2 μg/ml; about 1.9-2.1 μg/ml; about 2-2.2 μg/ml; about 2.1-2.3 μg/ml; about 2.2-2.4 μg/ml; about 2.3-2.5 μg/ml; about 2.4-2.6 μg/ml; about 2.5-2.7 μg/ml; about 2.6-2.8 μg/ml; about 2.7-2.9 μg/ml; about 2.8-3 μg/ml; about 2.9-3.1 μg/ml; about 3-3.2 μg/ml; about 3.1-3.3 μg/ml; about 3.2-3.4 μg/ml; about 3.3-3.5 μg/ml; about 3.4-3.6 μg/ml; about 3.5-3.7 μg/ml; about 3.6-3.8 μg/ml; about 3.7-3.9 μg/ml; about 3.8-4 μg/ml; or any plasma concentration in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. in some embodiments, meloxicam is administered at a dose that results in a meloxicam plasma level (such as a c avg , or average plasma level) of about 0.01-0.5 μg/ml; about 0.5-0.7 μg/ml; about 0.6-0.8 μg/ml; about 0.7-0.9 μg/ml; about 0.8-1 μg/ml; about 0.9-1.1 μg/ml; about 1-1.2 μg/ml; about 1.1-1.3 μg/ml; about 1.2-1.4 μg/ml; about 1.3-1.5 μg/ml; about 1.4-1.6 μg/ml; about 1.5-1.7 μg/ml; about 1.6-1.8 μg/ml; about 1.7-1.9 μg/ml; about 1.8-2 μg/ml; about 1.9-2.1 μg/ml; about 2-2.2 μg/ml; about 2.1-2.3 μg/ml; about 2.2-2.4 μg/ml; about 2.3-2.5 μg/ml; about 2.4-2.6 μg/ml; about 2.5-2.7 μg/ml; about 2.6-2.8 μg/ml; about 2.7-2.9 μg/ml; about 2.8-3 μg/ml; about 2.9-3.1 μg/ml; about 3-3.2 μg/ml; about 3.1-3.3 μg/ml; about 3.2-3.4 μg/ml; about 3.3-3.5 μg/ml; about 3.4-3.6 μg/ml; about 3.5-3.7 μg/ml; about 3.6-3.8 μg/ml; about 3.7-3.9 μg/ml; about 3.8-4 μg/ml; about 0.1-20 μg/ml; about 0.5-15 μg/ml; about 0.5-10 μg/ml; about 5-15 μg/ml; about 10-20 μg/ml; about 7.5-15 μg/ml; about 2-10 μg/ml; about 1-8 μg/ml; about 1-6 μg/ml; about 1-2 μg/ml; about 0.5-3.5 μg/ml; about 0.5-7 μg/ml; about 12-20 μg/ml; about 8-12 μg/ml; about 1-4 μg/ml; about 4-7 μg/ml; about 7-11 μg/ml; about 11-15 μg/ml; about 15-19 μg/ml; about 16-20 μg/ml; or any amount of meloxicam plasma level in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. administration of a dosage form described herein may result in a decreased time to therapeutic plasma concentration of meloxicam. the therapeutic plasma concentration is the c avg for a 15 mg dose of mobic® meloxicam. in some embodiments, the time to therapeutic plasma concentration of meloxicam (t) is about 10-30 minutes, about 10-15 minutes, about 15-20 minutes, about 20-25 minutes, about 25-30 minutes, about 10-20 minutes, about 20-30 minutes, about 16-18 minutes, or about 17 minutes. a method described herein may reduce the t max of rizatriptan. for example, the method may achieve a t max of rizatriptan in the patient within about 50 minutes; within about 60 minutes; within about 70 minutes; within about 80 minutes; or within about 90 minutes; at about 40-60 minutes, at about 40-45 minutes, at about 45-50 minutes, at about 50-55 minutes, or about 55-60 minutes after administration, or any t max in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from allodynia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from allodynia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of meloxicam without the rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and two hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from allodynia than the human being would have experienced two hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. in some embodiments, the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered simultaneously (e.g. in a single dosage form, such as a single oral dosage form), and twenty-four hours after the meloxicam and the rizatriptan are administered, the human being experiences greater relief from allodynia than the human being would have experienced twenty-four hours after receiving the same amount of rizatriptan without the meloxicam. one embodiment is a method for reducing the risk of gastrointestinal side effects in people taking nsaids for pain relief and for other conditions, particularly during chronic treatment, and improving the bioavailability of the nsaid. in one embodiment, the method involves the administration of a product that combines: a) an agent that actively raises intragastric ph; and b) an nsaid that is formulated with a cyclodextrin. in another embodiment, the method involves the administration of a product that combines: a) an agent that actively raises intragastric ph; b) an nsaid that is formulated with a cyclodextrin; and c) a buffering agent. either short or long acting acid inhibitors can be effectively used in the dosage forms. this method has the added benefit of being able to protect patients from other gastrointestinal ulcerogens whose effect may otherwise be enhanced by the disruption of gastroprotective prostaglandins due to nsaid therapy. the meloxicam formulation in an aqueous parenteral form may include a buffer to adjust the ph of an aqueous formulation, within a range of about 2 to about 5; about 3.5 to about 5; about 5 to about 11; about 6 to about 9; about 6 to about 8; about 6 to about 7; or any other ph in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. the meloxicam formulation in an oral form may include a buffer to adjust the ph of stomach fluid within a range of about 2 to about 5; about 3.5 to about 5; about 5 to about 11; about 6 to about 9; about 6 to about 8; about 6 to about 7; or any other ph in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. examples of buffers suitable for use herein include sulfate buffers, phosphate buffers, borate buffers, carbonate buffers, citrate buffers, etc. in some embodiments, the dosage form may be formulated for oral administration, for example, with an inert diluent or with an edible carrier, or it may be enclosed in hard or soft shell gelatin capsules, compressed into tablets, or incorporated directly with the food of the diet. for oral therapeutic administration, the active compound may be incorporated with an excipient and used in the form of ingestible tablets, buccal tablets, coated tablets, troches, capsules, elixirs, dispersions, suspensions, solutions, syrups, wafers, patches, and the like. tablets, troches, pills, capsules and the like may also contain one or more of the following: a binder such as gum tragacanth, acacia, corn starch or gelatin; an excipient, such as dicalcium phosphate; a disintegrating agent such as corn starch, potato starch, alginic acid and the like; a lubricant such as magnesium stearate; a sweetening agent such as sucrose, lactose or saccharin; or a flavoring agent such as peppermint, oil of wintergreen or cherry flavoring. when the unit dosage form is a capsule, it may contain, in addition to materials of the above type, a liquid carrier. various other materials may be present as coating, for instance, tablets, pills, or capsules may be coated with shellac, sugar or both. a syrup or elixir may contain the active compound, sucrose as a sweetening agent, methyl and propylparabens as preservatives, a dye and flavoring, such as cherry or orange flavor. it may be desirable for material in a dosage form or pharmaceutical composition to be pharmaceutically pure and substantially non-toxic in the amounts employed. some compositions or dosage forms may be a liquid, or may comprise a solid phase dispersed in a liquid. the dosage form may further comprise a second therapeutically active agent, such as an acid inhibitor or an analgesic. in some embodiments, the dosage form may further comprise an acid inhibitor present in an amount effective to raise the gastric ph of a patient to at least 2, to at least 2.5, to at least 3, to at least 3.5, to at least 4, and more to at least 5, when one or more unit dosage forms are administered. the term “acid inhibitor” refers to agents that inhibit gastric acid secretion and increase gastric ph. specific h 2 blockers, also referred to as h 2 antagonists or histamine h 2 blockers or antagonists, that may be used include but are not limited to cimetidine, ranitidine, ebrotidine, pabutidine, lafutidine, loxtidine, famotidine, or combinations thereof. other agents that may be effectively used as acid inhibitors are the proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole, esomeprazole, pantoprazole, lansoprazole, dexlansoprazole, rabeprazole, pariprazole, leminoprazole and tenatoprazole. in some embodiments the daily dose of the acid inhibitor is about 1-200 mg, about 1-100 mg, about 1-50 mg, about 40-80 mg, about 5-50 mg, about 20-40 mg, about 10-50 mg, about 10-20 mg, about 20-40 mg, about 15-50 mg, about 30-60 mg, about 10 mg, about 20 mg, about 30 mg, about 40 mg or any other amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. examples of particular proton pump inhibitors include esomeprazole, present in unit dosage forms in an amount of between 5 mg and 50 mg; omeprazole, present in unit dosage forms in an amount of between 5 mg and 50 mg; lansoprazole, present in unit dosage forms in an amount of between 5 mg and 150 mg (and preferably at between 5 mg and 30 mg); and pantoprazole, present in unit dosage forms in an amount of between 10 mg and 200 mg. in some embodiments, the proton pump inhibitor is present in the dosage form in an amount of about 10-30 mg, about 20-40 mg, about 30-50 mg, about 40-60 mg, about 50-70 mg, about 60-80 mg, about 70-90 mg, or about 80-100 mg. recently, a newer class of acid inhibitor has been developed which competes with potassium at the acid pump. the compounds in this class have been referred to as “reversible proton pump inhibitors” or “acid pump antagonists” and may also be used. examples include azd-0865, ar-h047108, cs-526, pumaprazole, revaprazan and soraprazan (see wo9605177 and wo9605199). other compounds in this group are h-335/25 (astrazeneca, dialog file 128, accession number 020806); sch-28080 (schering plough, dialog file 128, accession number 009663); sch-32651 (schering plough, dialog file 128, accession number 006883) and sk&f-96067 (cas registry no. 115607-61-9). the second therapeutically active agent may include an analgesic such as a second non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, an opioid, a steroid, a triptan, etc. in some embodiments, the dosage form or treatment also further comprises administering a second non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug in an amount effective to reduce or eliminate pain or inflammation. the nsaid may include, but is not limited to, celecoxib, rofecoxib, lumiracoxib, valdecoxib, parecoxib, etoricoxib, cs-502, jte-522, l-745,337, ns398, aspirin, acetaminophen (considered to be an nsaid for the purposes of the present disclosure), ibuprofen, flurbiprofen, ketoprofen, naproxen, oxaprozin, etodolac, indomethacin, ketorolac, lornoxicam, meloxicam, piroxicam, droxicam, tenoxicam, nabumetone, diclofenac, meclofenamate, mefenamic acid, diflunisal, sulindac, tolmetin, fenoprofen, suprofen, benoxaprofen, aceclofenac, tolfenamic acid, oxyphenbutazone, azapropazone, phenylbutazone, or combinations thereof. it will be understood that, for the purposes of the present disclosure, reference to an acid inhibitor, nsaid, or analgesic agent will include all of the common forms of these compounds and, in particular, their pharmaceutically acceptable salts. the amounts of nsaids which are therapeutically effective may be lower in the current embodiments than otherwise found in practice due to potential positive kinetic interaction and nsaid absorption in the presence of an acid inhibitor, and or in the presence of a buffering agent. in other embodiments, the dosage form or treatment may further comprise administering an opioid in an amount effective to reduce or eliminate pain or inflammation. the opioid may include, but is not limited to, (dextro)propoxyphene, a-methylfentanyl, alfentanil, allylprodine, bezitramide, buprenorphine, butorphanol, carfentanyl, desmethylprodine, dextromoramide, dezocine, diacetylmorphine, dihydrocodeinone, dihydroetorphine, dimorphone, diphenoxylate, dipipanone, etorphine, fentanyl, ketobemidone, lefetamine, levacetylmethadol, levomethorphan, levorphanol, loperamide, meperidine, meptazinol, methadone, methylmorphine, morphine, nalbuphine, nalmefene, naloxone, naltrexone, nicomorphine, ohmefentanyl, oripavine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, pepap, paramorphine, pentazocine, phenazocine, piritramide, prodine, remifentanil, sufentanil, tapentadol, tilidine, tramadol, or combinations thereof. useful triptans may include sumatriptan, rizatriptan, naratriptan, eletriptan, donitriptan, almotriptan, frovatriptan, alvitriptan, zolmatriptan, etc. in some embodiments, the triptan comprises rizatriptan. in some embodiments, the dosage form may contain about 1-5 mg, about 2-6 mg, about 3-7 mg, about 4-8 mg, about 5-10 mg, about 6-11 mg, about 7-12 mg, about 8-13 mg, about 9-14 mg, about 10-15 mg, about 15-20 mg, or about 20-30 mg, of the triptan, such as rizatriptan, or any amount in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments; a dosage form comprising the subject combination may contain rizatriptan in an amount of about 1-50 mg; about 1-10 mg; about 10-20 mg; about 20-30 mg; about 30-40 mg; or about 40-50 mg; about 10-40 mg; about 1-35 mg; about 1-25 mg; about 1-15 mg; about 1-10 mg; about 5-20 mg; about 1-5 mg; about 2-6 mg; about 3-7 mg; about 4-8 mg; about 5-10 mg; about 6-11 mg; about 7-12 mg; about 8-13 mg; about 9-11 mg; about 9-14 mg; about 10-15 mg; about 11-16 mg; about 12-17 mg; about 13-18 mg; about 14-19 mg; about 15-20 mg; about 5-15 mg; about 0.5 mg; about 1 mg; about 1.5 mg; about 2 mg; about 2.5 mg; about 3 mg; about 3.5 mg; about 4 mg; about 4.5 mg; about 5 mg; about 6 mg; about 7 mg; about 7.5 mg; about 8 mg, about 9 mg, about 10 mg; about 15 mg; about 20 mg, about 25 mg, about 30 mg; or any amount in a range bounded by, or between, any of these values. for acute migraines, the amount of meloxicam and/or rizatriptan in a single dose, or the auc of the meloxicam and/or rizatriptan associated with a single dose, is of particular interest. for example, after a single dose, the symptoms may be relieved for an extended period of time, such that, in the short term, repeated doses may not be needed. for more continuous conditions, including more chronic, continuous, or frequent migraine symptoms, daily, weekly, or monthly doses may be of particular interest. for any amounts of rizatriptan described herein, salt forms of rizatriptan may be present in the amounts recited above, or amounts that are molar equivalents to these amounts for the rizatriptan free base. for example, assuming that the molecular weight of rizatriptan free base is 269.3 g/mol, 10 mg of rizatriptan is 37.1 mmol of rizatriptan. thus, a molar equivalent of 10 mg of rizatriptan free base would be the mass of 37.1 mmol of that salt form. for example, for the benzoate salt (mw=391.2 g/mol), the molar equivalent of 10 mg of the free base (or 37.1 mmol), would be 14.5 mg. these doses may be safe for repeated administration, such as 1, 2, 3, or 4 times a day, or repeated at an interval of 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, 6 days, 7 days, 8 days, 9 days, 10 days, 11 days, 12 days, 13 days, 14 days, 15 days, 16 days, 17 days, 18 days, 19 days, 20 days, 21 days, 22 days, 23 days, 24 days, 25 days, 26 days, 27 days, 28 days, 29 days, 30 days, 31 days, 4 weeks, 4-6 weeks, about 1-2 months, about 6 weeks, about 2-3 months, about 3-4 months, about 4-5 months, about 5-6 months, about 6-7 months, about 7-8 months, about 8-9 months, about 9-10 months, about 10-11 months, about 11-12 months, etc. a pharmaceutical composition may be in the form of a tablet or capsule that has: (a) the acid inhibitor; and/or (b) a buffering agent; and (c) the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (nsaid) present in an amount effective to reduce or eliminate pain or inflammation in a patient upon administration of one or more of said unit dosage forms. the components of the pharmaceutical composition may be in an immediate or extended release form individually or in total. the term “unit dosage form” as used herein refers to a single entity for drug administration. for example, a single tablet or capsule combining both an acid inhibitor and an nsaid would be a unit dosage form. a “unit dosage form” (or “unit dose form”) may also be referred to as a “fixed dosage form” (or “fixed dose form”) or “fixed dosage combination” (or “fixed dose combination”) and are otherwise interchangeable. in one embodiment, the unit dosage form is a multilayer tablet. in another embodiment, the unit dosage form is suitable for oral administration to a patient. in yet another embodiment, the unit dosage form is a tablet. in still another embodiment, the unit dosage form is a multilayer tablet comprising a single core and one or more layers outside of the core. some dosage forms may comprise a first layer comprising meloxicam, an sbeβcd, and a bicarbonate; and a second layer comprising a second therapeutically active agent and a bicarbonate. the first layer may contain, for example, any amount of meloxicam in one of the ranges recited above. for example, all of the meloxicam in the dosage form may be present in the first layer. the second layer may contain all of the second therapeutically active agent, such that any amount in the ranges recited above with respect to the second therapeutically active agent may apply to the second layer. in some embodiments, the first layer contains about 10-200 mg, about 50-150 mg, about 50-100 mg, about 70-120 mg, about 90-140 mg, or about 100 mg of the bicarbonate, such as sodium bicarbonate, or any amount of the bicarbonate in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments, the second layer contains about 100-500 mg, about 200-500 mg, about 300-500 mg, about 350-450 mg, about 380-420 mg, or about 400 mg of the bicarbonate, such as sodium bicarbonate, or any amount of the bicarbonate in a range bounded by any of these values. in some embodiments, the pharmaceutical composition may have an effective amount of meloxicam, a cyclodextrin, and a carbonate or bicarbonate to increase bioavailability of meloxicam. in other embodiments, the pharmaceutical composition may have an effective amount of meloxicam, sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin (sbeβcd), and sodium bicarbonate to increase bioavailability of meloxicam or reduce the t max of meloxicam. some oral dosage forms may have enteric coatings or film coatings. in some embodiments, a dosage form may comprise a tablet or a capsule having an enteric coating. in some embodiments, a dosage form may comprise a tablet or a capsule having a film coating. an embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to a pharmaceutical composition in unit dosage form suitable for administration to a patient, comprising: (a) esomeprazole, which may or may not be surrounded by an enteric coating; (b) sodium or potassium bicarbonate and/or sodium or potassium carbonate; and (c) meloxicam, which may or may not be formulated with a cyclodextrin, and which may or may not be surrounded by an enteric coating in certain embodiments, the pharmaceutical composition results in faster release or dissolution of the meloxicam from the dosage form as compared to a dosage form containing meloxicam but not containing the acid inhibitor, or not containing the buffering agent. the following embodiments are contemplated: embodiment 1 an inclusion complex of meloxicam in a cyclodextrin. embodiment 2 a dosage form comprising: 1) the inclusion complex of embodiment 1, or 2) meloxicam and a carbonate or a bicarbonate. embodiment 3 the dosage form of embodiment 2 comprising the inclusion complex, wherein the cyclodextrin comprises substituted β-cyclodextrin. embodiment 4 the dosage form of embodiment 3, wherein the substituted β-cyclodextrin is a sulfobutyl ether β-cyclodextrin (sbeβcd) or hydroxypropyl β-cyclodextrin (hpbcd). embodiment 5 the dosage form of embodiment 4, wherein the cyclodextrin is the sbeβcd. embodiment 6 the dosage form of embodiment 5, wherein the sbeβcd has about 6 to about 7 sulfobutyl ether groups for each molecule of β-cyclodextrin. embodiment 7 the dosage form of embodiment 6, wherein the meloxicam and the sbeβcd have a molar ratio of about 0.8 to about 1.2. embodiment 8 the dosage form of embodiment 6, wherein the meloxicam and the sbeβcd have a molar ratio of about 1. embodiment 9 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8, comprising a bicarbonate. embodiment 10 the dosage form of embodiment 9, wherein the bicarbonate comprises sodium bicarbonate. embodiment 11 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10, which is an oral dosage form. embodiment 12 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, or 11, wherein about 50 mg to about 200 mg of sbeβcd is present in the dosage form. embodiment 13 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12, wherein the carbonate or bicarbonate is present in an amount in a range of about 400 mg to about 600 mg. embodiment 14 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13, wherein the t max of meloxicam is decreased as compared to a dosage form not having a carbonate, a bicarbonate, or a cyclodextrin. embodiment 15 the method of embodiment 14, wherein the t max of meloxicam is achieved in the patient at a time in a range of about 10 minutes to about 180 minutes after administration. embodiment 16 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15, having an oral bioavailability of meloxicam that is higher than a dosage form not having a carbonate, a bicarbonate, or a cyclodextrin. embodiment 17 the dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20, further comprising an acid inhibitor. embodiment 18 the dosage form of embodiment 17, wherein the acid inhibitor is a proton pump inhibitor. embodiment 19 the dosage form of embodiment 18, wherein the proton pump inhibitor is esomeprazole. embodiment 20 the dosage form of embodiment 19, wherein about 30 mg to about 50 mg of esomeprazole is present in the dosage form. embodiment 21 a method of administering meloxicam orally, comprising orally administering a dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20 to a patient in need of treatment. embodiment 22 the method of embodiment 21, wherein the dosage form is administered to treat pain. embodiment 23 the method of embodiment 21, wherein the dosage form is administered to treat inflammatory pain. embodiment 24 the method of embodiment 21, wherein the dosage form is administered to treat osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. embodiment 25 a method of administering meloxicam intravenously, comprising intravenously administering a dosage form of embodiment 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, or 15, to a patient in need of treatment. example 1 the effect of varying amounts of potassium carbonate (k 2 co 3 ) and sodium bicarbonate (nahco 3 ) on the ph of acidic media was tested. the acidic media was chosen to simulate gastric conditions. k 2 co 3 or nahco 3 was added to 50 ml of a 0.01 n hcl solution (ph 2). the ph of the solution was measured after addition of the k 2 co 3 or nahco 3 . deionized water (240 ml) was then added to the mixture and ph was measured again. the results are shown in tables 1-4. table 1results with k 2 co 3 (0.01n hcl)k 2 co 3 (mg)ph252.84356.29458.05508.291009.4320010.1430010.3940010.5545010.58 table 2results with k 2 co 3 (0.01n hcl + water)k 2 co 3 (mg)ph20010.2730010.4640010.5745010.63 table 3results with nahco 3 (0.01n hcl)nahco 3 (mg)ph2005.283005.904006.444506.865008.237508.3010008.36 table 4results with nahco 3 (0.01n hcl + water)nahco 3 (mg)ph2005.413005.894006.114506.465008.337508.5410008.60 example 2 tablets containing meloxicam and combinations of a sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin (sbeβcd) (a cyclodextrin, containing about 6 to about 7 sulfobutyl ether groups for each molecule of β-cyclodextrin), k 2 co 3 , or nahco 3 were manufactured and tested for dissolution. tablets containing meloxicam alone (mobic®) were purchased and also tested for dissolution. the tested tablets are listed in table 5. meloxicam in the form of meloxicam/sbeβcd inclusion complexes was used in the tablets containing meloxicam and sbeβcd. the inclusion complexes were formed by mixing meloxicam and sbeβcd in an aqueous ph-adjusted solution. the ph of the solution was adjusted using buffering agents. the resulting soluble meloxicam/sbeβcd inclusion complexes were then spray dried. this spray-dried dispersion was used in the manufacture of the tablets containing sbeβcd. table 5tabletstablet a15 mg meloxicam + 25 mg k 2 co3tablet b15 mg meloxicam + 50 mg k 2 co3tablet c15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg k 2 co3tablet d15 mg meloxicam + 150 mg k 2 co3tablet e15 mg meloxicam + 500 mg nahco3tablet f15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcdtablet g15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcd + 25 mg k 2 co3tablet h15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcd + 50 mg k 2 co3tablet i15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcd + 100 mg k 2 co3tablet j15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcd + 150 mg k 2 co3tablet k15 mg meloxicam + 100 mg sbeβcd + 500 mg nahco3tablet l15 mg meloxicam (mobic ®) dissolution testing in acidic medium (chosen to simulate gastric conditions) was performed by placing the tablets in a 0.01 n hcl solution, at an agitation rate of 75 rpm, and vessel temperature of approximately 37° c. the results are presented in tables 6 and in figs. 1-10 . results at various time points (0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, and 120 minutes) are presented as percent (%) of meloxicam dissolved. table 6dissolution results601200 mins15 mins30 mins45 minsmins90 minsminstablet a0%23%17%15%13%12%11%tablet b0%27%20%17%16%17%15%tablet c0%31%26%25%24%23%21%tablet d0%30%26%25%24%23%22%tablet e0%50%66%77%84%92%95%tablet f0%26%17%14%12%11%10%tablet g0%48%39%26%20%16%14%tablet h0%44%30%22%17%16%13%tablet i0%32%33%27%21%16%15%tablet j0%26%27%19%15%12%11%tablet k0%85%86%86%86%86%86%tablet l0%2%2%2%2%2%2% dissolution of meloxicam was greater with the tablets containing various combinations of meloxicam and sbeβcd, k 2 co 3 , or nahco 3 , as compared to tablets containing meloxicam alone. for example, after 120 minutes, dissolution of meloxicam tablets containing nahco 3 was 95% as compared to 2% for tablets containing meloxicam alone. dissolution of meloxicam increasing with increasing amounts of k 2 co 3 in the absence of sbeβcd. however, in the presence of sbeβcd, increasing amounts of k 2 co 3 did not appear to increase meloxicam dissolution. at the highest dose of potassium bicarbonate tested, meloxicam dissolution in the presence of sbeβcd was reduced by approximately 50% as compared to meloxicam dissolution in the absence of sbeβcd at 120 minutes. dissolution of meloxicam with nahco 3 was significantly greater than that observed with the highest dose of k 2 co 3 at 15 minutes (50% versus 30%), and at 120 minutes (92% versus 23%). meloxicam dissolution in the presence of sbeβcd was also significantly greater with nahco 3 as compared to the highest dose of k 2 co 3 at 15 minutes (85% versus 26%), and at 120 minutes (86% versus 12%). nahco 3 in the presence of sbeβcd increased meloxicam dissolution more at 15 minutes as compared to potassium carbonate, which resulted in a reduction in dissolution. example 3 a bilayer tablet containing 1) an inclusion complex of sbeβcd with meloxicam, prepared as described below, and 2) sodium bicarbonate was prepared (sbeβcd-meloxicam/bicarbonate). the first layer contained an inclusion complex of 15 mg meloxicam and 100 mg sbeβcd, and 100 mg of sodium bicarbonate. the second layer contained 40 mg of esomeprazole and 400 mg of sodium bicarbonate. a total of 20 human subjects were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to treatment with the sbeβcd-meloxicam/bicarbonate tablets described above or mobic® tablets (15 mg meloxicam), once daily for 6 days under fasting conditions. on the first day of dosing, plasma samples were collected for concentration analysis of meloxicam at several time points. concentrations of meloxicam were determined using lc-ms/ms. pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated. the results are depicted in fig. 11 . the median t max for meloxicam, the trial's primary endpoint, was 9 times faster for the sbeβcd-meloxicam/bicarbonate tablets as compared to mobic® (0.5 hour versus 4.5 hours respectively, p<0.0001). the sbeβcd-meloxicam/bicarbonate tablets also demonstrated higher mean maximum plasma concentration (c max ) (p=0.0018), faster time to therapeutic plasma concentration (p<0.0001), and faster time to half-maximal plasma concentration (p<0.0001) as compared to mobic®. meloxicam in the form of meloxicam/sbeβcd inclusion complexes was used in the tablets containing meloxicam and sbeβcd. the inclusion complexes were formed by mixing meloxicam and sbeβcd in an aqueous ph-adjusted solution. the ph of the solution was adjusted using buffering agents. the resulting soluble meloxicam/sbeβcd inclusion complexes were then spray dried. this spray-dried dispersion was used in the manufacture of the tablets containing sbeβcd. example 4 a monolayer tablet containing 1) the inclusion complex of sbeβcd with meloxicam; 2) rizatriptan; and 3) sodium bicarbonate was prepared (sbeβcd-meloxicam/rizatriptan/bicarbonate). the monolayer tablet contained 20 mg of meloxicam, 10 mg of rizatriptan, and 500 mg of sodium bicarbonate. the inclusion complex was the same as the inclusion complex of example 3. dissolution testing of the tablets in acidic medium (chosen to simulate gastric conditions) was performed by placing the tablets in a 0.01 n hcl solution, at an agitation rate of 75 rpm, and vessel temperature of approximately 37° c. the results are presented in table 7. results at various time points (0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, and 120 minutes) are presented as percent (%) of meloxicam, and percent (%) of rizatriptan dissolved. table 7dissolution resultstime-point (minutes)601200 min15 min30 min45 minmin90 minminrizatriptan0%89%102%103%103%103%103%meloxicam0%79%92%93%93%93%94% as shown in table 7, the dissolution results of the tablets in example 4 are very similar to the dissolution result of example 3. therefore, we expected the pharmacokinetic properties, including bioavailability, t max of meloxicam, etc., of the tablets in example 4 to be similar to those described in example 3 and fig. 11 . this expectation turned out to be correct, as shown in the examples below. example 5 the monolayer tablet of example 4 was administered to six human subjects. on the first day of dosing, plasma samples were collected for concentration analysis of rizatriptan at several time points. concentrations of rizatriptan and meloxicam were determined using lc-ms/ms. pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated. the results for meloxicam were comparable to those reported for the bilayer dosage form of example 3. the median t max of rizatriptan was 0.75 hours and the mean c max of rizatriptan was 20.710 ng/ml. by comparison, the reported t max of the commercial rizatriptan dosage form, maxalt®, is 1.0-1.5 hours. example 6 a phase 1, randomized, single-dose, parallel-group clinical study was conducted to evaluate the pk, safety and tolerability of 1) a combination of meloxicam (20 mg), rizatriptan (10 mg), sbeβcd, and sodium bicarbonate (meloxicam/rizatriptan), as compared to 2) and maxalt® (10 mg rizatriptan), in healthy human volunteers after oral administration under fasted conditions. a total of 20 healthy, adult male or female volunteers were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive a single dose of meloxicam/rizatriptan, or maxalt® (10 mg rizatriptan). blood samples for pk analysis were collected pre dose and at multiple time points post dose. the pre-specified primary endpoint was t thera , the time to reach a therapeutic plasma concentration of meloxicam, defined as the c avg of meloxicam after administration of the highest approved dose (15 mg) of standard meloxicam, which is approximately 1000 ng/ml. pk results for the rizatriptan component of meloxicam/rizatriptan were compared to those for maxalt® (rizatriptan). pk results for the meloxicam (20 mg) component of meloxicam/rizatriptan from this trial were compared to pk results for mobic® (15 mg meloxicam) from example 3. phase 1 results meloxicam was rapidly absorbed after oral administration of meloxicam/rizatriptan (20 mg meloxicam/10 mg rizatriptan), with a median time to therapeutic plasma concentration (t thera ) of 17 minutes, the primary endpoint ( fig. 12 and table 8). median t max was 1 hour compared to 4.5 hours for 15 mg standard meloxicam (mobic®). the very short t max suggests the potential for meloxicam/rizatriptan to have rapid onset of action in treating migraine. mean plasma elimination half-life (t 1/2 ) for meloxicam was 18.2 hours after administration of meloxicam/rizatriptan, which compares to 21.5 hours for standard meloxicam. the long elimination half-life suggests the potential for meloxicam/rizatriptan to enhanced and sustained efficacy, and to reduce migraine pain recurrence. table 8meloxicam pharmacokinetic parameters for meloxicam/rizatriptanauc 0-inft 1/2 elc maxt maxt therastatistic(ng · hr/ml)(hr)(ng/ml)(hr) a(hr) an1010101010geometric46,86517.52,5321.00.29meansd11,9655.256070.5-2.50.20-0.61a t max and t thera present the value as a median or a range. rizatriptan was rapidly absorbed after oral administration of meloxicam/rizatriptan, with a t max of 0.64 hour (38 min), which compares to 0.88 hour for the same dose of standard rizatriptan (maxalt®) ( fig. 13 and table 9). systemic exposure measured using c max and auc were also numerically greater for rizatriptan after administration of meloxicam/rizatriptan versus standard rizatriptan. table 9rizatriptan pharmacokinetic parameters for meloxicam/rizatriptanand standard rizatriptanauc 0-inft 1/2(pg ·elc maxt maxstatistichr/ml)(hr)(ng/ml)(hr) ameloxicam/rizatriptann10101010(20 mg meloxicam/10geometric83,8001.9829,9910.64mg rizatriptan)meansd22,7870.2811,0410.5-2.5standard rizatriptann10101010(maxalt ®) (10 mggeometric71,8111.8123,2360.88rizatriptan)meansd24,2870.119,4760.5-2a t max presents the value as a median or a range. meloxicam/rizatriptan was well tolerated with no relevant differences in safety profile between the two treatment arms. there were no serious adverse events in the study. example 7 a phase 3, randomized, double-blind, multicenter, active- and placebo-controlled trial is carried out to assess the efficacy and safety of meloxicam/rizatriptan in the acute treatment of moderate and severe migraine, in patients with a history of inadequate response to prior acute migraine treatments. eligible patients are randomized in a 2:2:2:1 ratio to treatment with meloxicam/rizatriptan (20 mg meloxicam/10 mg rizatriptan, with sbeβcd and sodium bicarbonate as described in example 4 above), rizatriptan (10 mg) (rizatriptan arm), meloxicam (20 mg) with sbeβcd and sodium bicarbonate (meloxicam arm), or placebo. co-primary endpoints are freedom from headache pain, and freedom from the most bothersome migraine-associated symptom (nausea, photophobia, or phonophobia), two hours after dosing, for meloxicam/rizatriptan as compared to placebo. superiority of meloxicam/rizatriptan to the rizatriptan and the meloxicam arms (component contribution) will be established based on sustained freedom from headache pain from 2 hours to 24 hours after dosing (key secondary endpoint). eligible patients must have a history of inadequate response to prior acute migraine treatments, assessed using the migraine treatment optimization questionnaire (mtoq-4). the mtoq-4 is a validated questionnaire that assesses efficacy response to prior acute treatments based on four aspects (two-hour pain freedom, efficacy for at least 24 hours with one dose, ability to plan daily activities, and disruption of daily activities). it is expected that meloxicam/rizatriptan will show significant improvement over placebo and superiority over the rizatriptan and the meloxicam arms because of the rapid absorption and distinct dual mechanisms of action of meloxicam/rizatriptan described herein. example 8 a female migraine sufferer visits her physician in the hope of having relief from her migraine pain. her doctor gives her 10 mg rizatriptan (maxalt®), which she takes during her next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on her next visit, her doctor gives her 20 mg of meloxicam in a tablet also containing sbeβcd and 500 mg of sodium bicarbonate, which she takes during her next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on her next visit, her doctor gives her a tablet described in example 4 above. she reports that at 2 hours and 24 hours after taking the tablet, she has about 10-30% improvement in pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and/or phonophobia over what she experienced after taking meloxicam or rizatriptan alone. example 9 a male migraine sufferer visits his physician in the hope of having relief from his migraine pain. his doctor gives him 10 mg rizatriptan (maxalt®), which he takes during his next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on his next visit, his doctor gives his 20 mg of meloxicam in a tablet also containing sbeβcd and 500 mg of sodium bicarbonate, which he takes during his next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on his next visit, his doctor gives him a tablet described in example 4 above. he reports that at 2 hours and 24 hours after taking the tablet, he has about 30-60% improvement in pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and/or phonophobia over what he experienced after taking meloxicam or rizatriptan alone. example 10 a female migraine sufferer visits her physician in the hope of having relief from her migraine pain. her doctor gives her 10 mg rizatriptan (maxalt®), which she takes during her next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on her next visit, her doctor gives her 20 mg of meloxicam in a tablet also containing sbeβcd and 500 mg of sodium bicarbonate, which she takes during her next acute migraine. it provides some relief of pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and phonophobia, but not complete relief from these symptoms. on her next visit, her doctor gives her a tablet described in example 4 above. she reports that at 2 hours and 24 hours after taking the tablet, she has about 60-100% improvement in pain, nausea, allodynia, photophobia, and/or phonophobia over what she experienced after taking meloxicam or rizatriptan alone. unless otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing quantities of ingredients, properties such as amounts, percentage, and so forth used in the specification and claims are to be understood in all instances as indicating both the exact values as shown and as being modified by the term “about.” accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the specification and attached claims are approximations that may vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained. at the very least, and not as an attempt to limit the application of the doctrine of equivalents to the scope of the claims, each numerical parameter should at least be construed in light of the number of reported significant digits and by applying ordinary rounding techniques. the terms “a,” “an,” “the” and similar referents used in the context of describing the embodiments (especially in the context of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both the singular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by context. all methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. the use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”) provided herein is intended merely to better illuminate the embodiments and does not pose a limitation on the scope of any claim. no language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element essential to the practice of the claims. groupings of alternative elements or embodiments disclosed herein are not to be construed as limitations. each group member may be referred to and claimed individually or in any combination with other members of the group or other elements found herein. it is anticipated that one or more members of a group may be included in, or deleted from, a group for reasons of convenience and/or to expedite prosecution. when any such inclusion or deletion occurs, the specification is deemed to contain the group as modified thus fulfilling the written description of all markush groups if used in the appended claims. certain embodiments are described herein, including the best mode known to the inventors for carrying out the claimed embodiments. of course, variations on these described embodiments will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading the foregoing description. the inventor expects skilled artisans to employ such variations as appropriate, and the inventors intend for the claimed embodiments to be practiced otherwise than specifically described herein. accordingly, the claims include all modifications and equivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims as permitted by applicable law. moreover, any combination of the above-described elements in all possible variations thereof is contemplated unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. in closing, it is to be understood that the embodiments disclosed herein are illustrative of the principles of the claims. other modifications that may be employed are within the scope of the claims. thus, by way of example, but not of limitation, alternative embodiments may be utilized in accordance with the teachings herein. accordingly, the claims are not limited to embodiments precisely as shown and described.
172-679-110-871-001	US	[ "US" ]	C22C32/00	1973-01-22T00:00:00	1973	[ "C22" ]	iron-chromium-aluminum alloys with improved high temperature properties	a powder metallurgy product comprising iron and chromium, and/or aluminum and characterized by elongated grains that are stable at elevated temperatures. a method of producing such a product, including mechanically alloying a suitable powder charge, consolidating the mechanically alloyed powder, working the consolidated product so as to achieve therein a reduction of at least about 10%; and, then, heating the worked product to produce coarse elongated grains therein. the product produced according to the present invention exhibits good oxidation resistance and good room temperature and elevated temperature strength and ductility.	1. a powder metallurgy product consisting essentially of by weight, at least one element from the group consisting of about 10% to about 40% chromium and about 1% to about 10% aluminum, and up to about 10% nickel, up to about 20% cobalt, up to about 5% titanium, up to about 2% each of rare earth metal, yttrium, zirconium, columbium, hafnium, tantalum, silicon, and/or vanadium, up to about 6% each of tungsten and molybdenum, up to about 0.4% carbon, up to 0.4% manganese, and the balance iron, and further, including, by volume, about 0.1% to about 10% refractory dispersoid material selected from the group consisting of refractory metal oxide, metal carbide, metal nitride, metal boride, and combinations thereof, and having an average particle size of about 50a to 5000a and a melting point of at least about 2750.degree. f., said dispersoid material being in the form of particles distributed substantially uniformly throughout said product; said product having a density of at least about 98% theoretical and being characterized by elongated grains about 10 to 100 microns wide and about 50 to 2000 microns long, and said grains being substantially stable at temperatures up to at least about 2400.degree. f., said product being formed by consolidation of a mixture containing dispersoid particles or precursors thereof uniformly distributed through such mixture, and said product exhibiting substantially no loss in room temperature ductility upon exposure to 2400.degree. f for at least about 100 hours. 2. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, comprising, by weight, about 15% to 40% chromium, up to about 5% cobalt, up to about 6% nickel, up to about 7% aluminum, up to about 0.5% zirconium and up to about 1% titanium, and further comprising, by volume, about 0.25% to about 5% refractory dispersoid material. 3. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said aluminum is present in an amount of at least about 2%. 4. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said chromium is present in an amount of about 18% to about 26%. 5. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said refractory dispersoid material is selected from the group consisting essentially of refractory oxides, carbides, nitrides and/or borides of thorium, zirconium, hafnium, and/or titanium; refractory oxide of silicon, uranium, magnesium, calcium, beryllium, and/or aluminum; and rare earth oxide. 6. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said dispersoid material is distributed therethrough at an average interparticle distance of about 500a to about 2500a. 7. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 6, wherein said average interparticle distance is about 660a to about 1800a. 8. mill products, including sheet, bar, wire, tubing and plate, made of an alloy consisting essentially of, be weight, at least one element from the group consisting of about 10% to about 40% chromium and about 1% to about 10% aluminum, and up to about 10% nickel, up to about 20% cobalt, up to about 5% titanium, up to about 2% each of rare earth metal, yttrium, zirconium, columbium, hafnium, tantalum, silicon, and/or vanadium, up to about 6% each of tungsten and molybdenum, up to about 0.4% carbon, up to 0.4% manganese, and the balance iron, and further including, by volume, about 0.1% to about 10% refractory dispersoid material selected from at least one of the group consisting of a rare earth metal oxide, yttrium oxide and zirconium oxide and having an average particle size of about 50a to 5000a said mill products being characterized by elongated grains about 10 to 100 microns wide and about 50 to 2,000 microns long. 9. a hot consolidated mechanically alloyed product consisting essentially of by weight, at least one element from the group consisting of about 10% to about 40% chromium and about 1% to about 10% aluminum, up to about 10% nickel, up to about 20% cobalt, up to about 5% titanium, up to about 2% each of rare earth metal, yttrium, zirconium, columbium, hafnium, tantalum, silicon, and/or vanadium, up to about 6% each of tungsten and molybdenum, up to about 0.4% carbon, up to about 0.4% manganese, and the balance iron, and further, including, by volume, about 0.1% to about 10% refractory dispersoid material selected from the group consisting essentially of refractory metal oxide, metal carbide, metal nitride, metal boride, and combinations thereof, and having an average particle size of about 50a to 5000a and a melting point of at least about 2750.degree. f., said dispersoid material being in the form of particles distributed substantially uniformly throughout said product; said product having a density of at least about 98% theoretical and being characterized by elongated grains about 10 to 100 microns wide and about 50 to 2000 microns long, and said grains being substantially stable at temperaturs up to at least about 2400.degree. f. 10. a mechanically alloyed product as defined in claim 9, wherein said refractory dispersoid material comprises yttria. 11. a powder metallurgy product consisting essentially of by weight, at least one element from the group consisting of about 10% to about 40% chromium and about 1% to about 10% aluminum, and up to about 10% nickel, up to about 20% cobalt, up to about 5% titanium, up to about 2% each of rare earth metal, yttrium, zirconium, columbium, hafnium, tantalum, silicon, and/or vanadium, up to about 6% each of tungsten and molybdenum, up to about 0.4% carbon, up to 0.4% manganese, and the balance iron, and further, including, by volume, about 0.1% to about 10% refractory dispersoid material selected from at least one of the group consisting of a rare earth metal oxide, yttrium oxide and zircnium oxide, and having an average particle size of about 50a to 5000a, said dispersoid material being in the form of particles distributed substantially uniformly throughout said products; said product having a density of at least about 98% theroretical and being characterized by elongated grains about 10 to 100 microns wide and about 50 to 2000 microns long, and said grains being substantially stable at temperatures up to at least about 2400.degree. f. 12. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said dispersoid is introduced into the said mixture, as discrete dispersoid particles. 13. a powder metallurgy product as defined in claim 1, wherein said dispersoid is formed in-situ from an initial charge of a precursor metal convertible to an oxide and an oxide readily reducible with respect to said precursor metal.	conventionally-produced iron-based alloys containing chromium and aluminum exhibit oxidation resistance of a high order, even at elevated temperatures, but are of limited practical utility because they exhibit relatively low high-temperature strength, and are generally subject to extreme grain coarsening and grain boundary embrittlement when exposed for extended times to elevated temperatures. such alloys exhibit negligible room temperature ductility after exposure to high temperature for extended periods of time. as a result of these drawbacks, the use of such alloys has largely been restricted to high-temperature applications at which little strength is required, e.g., electrical resistance heating elements, and to lower temperature applications where corrosion conditions preclude the use of other materials. it is, therefore, desirable to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks so that such alloys can be used in various other high temperature applications requiring strength and corrosion resistance, such as turbines vanes, burner cans and blades. it appeared that the problem of drastic loss of ductility in such iron-base alloys upon long-time exposure of the materials to elevated temperature could be solved if the massive grain growth found to occur therein during such elevated temperature exposure could be prevented. the mechanical alloying process described in u.s. pat. no. 3,591,362 to benjamin, provides a method of uniformly distributing dispersoid particles at close spacings in such alloys. briefly, in the mechanical alloying process, as described in the above patent, the constituent metal particles of the starting powder charge are integrated together into dense composite particles without melting any of the constituents, this being done by dry milling the powder, usually in the presence of grinding media, e.g., balls, so as to apply to the powder charge, mechanical energy in the form of a plurality of repeatedly-applied high energy, compressive forces. such high energy forces result in the fracture, or comminution, of the original powder constituents and the welding together of the fragments so produced, as well as the repeated fracture and re-welding of the welded fragments, so that there is brought about a substantially complete codissemination of the fragments of the various constituents of the starting powder. the mechanically alloyed composite powder particles produced in this manner are characterized metallographically by cohesive internal structures in which the constituents are intimately united to provide an interdispersion of comminuted fragments of the starting constituents. very short distances across the areas corresponding to the fragments of initial materials in the composite particles can be created, e.g., on the order of 3 microns or 1 micron or less, and fine dispersoid particles present in the powder charge can be uniformly distributed throughout the composite particles at short interparticle spacings, e.g., one micron or less. the mechanical alloying process may be conducted in a variety of equipment, including a stirred ball mill, shaker mill, vibratory ball mill, planetary ball mill, and even certain ball mills provided attention is had to the ball-to-powder ratio of the charge and size of the mill, as taught by the above benjamin patent. it has been found particularly advantageous in obtaining optimum results to employ agitation milling under high energy conditions in which a substantial portion of the mass of the attritive elements, e.g., balls, is maintained kinetically in a highly activated state of relative motion. the milling is sufficiently energetic to reduce substantially the thickness of the initial metal constituents by impact compression resulting from collisions with the milling medium, e.g., grinding balls. it has been found advantageous that at least about 40%, e.g., 50% or 70% or even 90% or more, of the attritive elements be maintained in a highly activated state. by maintaining the attritive elements in a highly activated state of mutual collision in a substantially dry environment and throughout substantially the whole mass, optimum conditions are provided for comminuting and cold welding the constituents, accompanied by particle growth, to produce within each composite particle, a mechanically alloyed structure of the constituents. the resulting composite metal powder will be heavily cold worked and will reach a high hardness level, which becomes substantially constant ("saturation hardness") after a minimum milling time due to impact compression of the particles arising from repeated collision of the attritive elements upon the metal particles, such hardness level providing stored energy to the composite powder particles. in the interest of providing composite particles of substantially uniform composition and structure, milling is usually conducted beyond the point at which saturation hardness is reached. we have now discovered a powder metallurgy process for producing iron-base alloys containing chromium and/or aluminum, which is based upon the use of mechanically alloyed powders and which provides alloys having markedly improved properties over a range of temperatures up to at least about 2000.degree. f. we have also discovered processing cycles which provide such alloys with a stable, elongated grain structure having improved strength at elevated temperatures and having good ductility over a wide range of temperatures, permitting the prevision of mill products, including sheet, plate, wire, rod, tubing, etc., of greatly enhanced utility as compared to such articles produced by conventional means. such grains provide to the consolidated products significant improvement in the tensile and stress-rupture strengths and ductility at elevated temperatures. it is therefore an object of this invention to provide an iron base material having improved high temperature strength. it is a further object to provide such an iron base material that exhibits good room temperature ductility even after extended exposure to high temperature. it is still another object to provide an iron base material that exhibits grain-stability at elevated temperatures. these and other objects will become more apparent when taken in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying figures, wherein: fig. 1 is a photomicrograph taken at 50 diameters of an iron-base product made according to the present invention, which product was cold-rolled 50% and grain coarsened by heating at 2400.degree. f. 1 hour. fig. 2 is a photomicrograph taken at 100 diameters of a wire produced according to the present invention which wire was exposed to a temperature of 2400.degree. f. for 160 hours. example i 8.5 kilograms of a powder mixture comprising, by weight, 28.7% minus 100 mesh ferrochromium powder, 1% cobalt powder, having an average particle size of 5 microns, 61% minus 100 mesh iron powder, 6% minus 100 mesh ferroaluminum including 65% aluminum, 2.5% minus 100 mesh ferroaluminum including 65% aluminum and 10% cerium-free misch metal, 0.3% of ferrocolumbium including 67% columbium and 0.5% of ferrozirconium including 10% zirconium, was mechanically alloyed for a period of 18 hours in a 10-gallon capacity szegvari attritor. the mechanical alloying was carried out with 380 lbs. of 5/16-inch diameter steel balls, providing a ball-to-powder ratio of 20 to 1, at an impeller speed of 180 rpm and in an argon atmosphere provided by an argon stream flowing at 5 cubic feet per hour. a portion of the mechanically alloyed powder was canned and extruded at 1950.degree. f. from 31/2 inches to a 3/4-inch diameter bar which had the composition, by weight, 5.7% aluminum, 21.5% chromium, 0.9% cobalt, 0.16% manganese, 0.15% nickel, 0.016% zirconium, 0.035% carbon, 0.24% oxygen, (% niobium not determined), 0.12% nitrogen, and the balance essentially iron, the total dispersoid content, including rare earth oxides, of the bar being about 1%. a portion of the extruded bar was subsequently bar rolled at room temperature to a strain of 40% reduction in area, and annealed for 1 hour at 2400.degree. f. the bar exhibited grain growth as evidenced by grains having average dimensions of about 100 microns in width and about 1000 microns in length. another portion of the same extruded bar was coldbar rolled by 50% reduction in thickness and subjected to a grain-coarsening heat treatment at 2400.degree. f. for 2 hours, the resulting grains (fig. 1) having an average size of about 2000 microns long by about 100 microns wide. the thustreated bar survived a step-loaded stress-rupture test at 1900.degree. f. comprising 162.7 hours at 5,000 psi, 47.9 hours at 6000 psi, 24 hours at 7000 psi, and 24 hours at 8000 psi, with the final duration being 33.4 hours at 9000 psi. the bar broke with 2.5% elongation and 7% reduction in area. example ii an extrusion having the same composition as that described in example i was produced with a powder mixture and under the processing conditions similar to those described in example i, except that the mechanical alloying time in this instance was 12 hours. the extrusion, which was fine grained, was turned to a 0.4-inch diameter and drawn at room temperature to a 0.277-inch diameter rod which was then annealed at 2000.degree. f. for one hour and further drawn to about 0.1-inch diameter, i.e., a severe reduction of about 90%, without intermediate anneals. the wire was annealed at 2400.degree. f. for various times of 1/2 to 160 hours, the wire grains, after each of the annealing times being elongated in the working directions and being, on the average, about 200 microns long and about 20 microns wide, as illustrated in fig. 2, which is the grain structure of the 160 hour annealed wire. the relative uniformity of grain size of the wires annealed at the various temperatures indicates the grain stability that is present therein at elevated temperatures. for comparison, a commercially available 1/4-inch diameter wire of the composition by weight, 5.55% aluminum, 21.0% chromium, 0.85% cobalt, 0.1% manganese, 0.1% silicon, 0.25% titanium, 0.19% nickel, 0.19% rare earth metal, balance iron, was heated at 2400.degree. f. for 170 hours. the commercial wire, which had an average initial grain size of about 40 microns, exhibited very extensive, uncontrolled grain growth as a result of the high temperature heating, the grown grains of the commercial wire being essentially equiaxed and having an average size of 1200 microns. to determine the effects of exposure to high temperature or their room temperature properties, another piece of the above commercial wire and a second dispersion-strengthened wire, which was similar in composition to that above and was produced in the manner described above except that it was grain coarsened by heating for 1/2 hour at 2400.degree. f., were annealed at 2400.degree. f. for various times and then tested at room temperature. the various exposure times and the test results are indicated at table i, from which it can be seen that the commercial wire is embrittled after only a short exposure, (i.e., less than 2.5 hours) at 2400.degree. f., but that the grain coarsened wire is strong and ductile at room temperature even after 120 hours at 2400.degree. f. the poor ductility of the dispersionstrengthened wire in the as-drawn condition can be attributed to the severe cold working that it underwent in the drawing operation. table i ______________________________________ room temperature properties annealing time at 2400.degree. f. 0.2% y.s., u.t.s., el., r.a., (hours) (ksi) (ksi) (%) (%) ______________________________________ commercial 1/4" diameter wire bar 0 85.3 109 27.5 69.0 2.5 70 78 3.5 2.0 6.0 66 75 2.8 2.2 70.0 67 75 2.0 2.5 170.0 -- 57 <1.0 <1.0 0.10" diameter dispersion-strengthened drawn wire as drawn 176 204 0.0 0.0 120 86 110 15.0 -- ______________________________________ another commercial 1/4 inch-diameter wire bar and a third grain-coarsened 0.10 inch-diameter dispersion strengthened wire, which had been produced in the above manner and grain coarsened by heating at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour, were tested at 1900.degree. f. for, respectively, static mechanical properties, i.e., yield strength (y.s.), ultimate tensile strength (u.t.s.), elongation (el.) and reduction in area (r.a.) and stressrupture strength, the results being set out in table ii. table ii ______________________________________ 1900.degree. f. properties commercial wire 0.2% y.s., u.t.s., el., r.a., (ksi) (ksi) (%) (%) ______________________________________ 1.4 2.4 120 95 dispersion strengthened wire stress life (ksi) (hrs.) 5 13.3 ______________________________________ from these results, it is expected that the commercial wire would have a 1900.degree. f. stress-rupture life of about zero hours at stresses of about 22.4 ksi or higher. it appears therefore, that the grain-coarsened, dispersion-strengthened wire, exhibiting a 1900.degree. f. stress-rupture life at 5 ksi of 13.3 hours, is considerably superior to the commercial wire under these conditions. example iii a portion of the mechanically alloyed powder described in example i was canned and hot compacted in a closed extrusion container at 2100.degree. f. to form a 3-1/2 inch diameter compact having fine grain size. the compact was heated to 2100.degree. f. and rolled from 3-1/2 inch diameter round to a 3-inch square and then to a 2 inch thick rectangle which was cross-rolled to 1-inch thick plate. the plate was reheated to 2100.degree. f. and rolled to 0.25-inch plate. the plate was annealed at 1800.degree. f. for 2 hours, decanned by pickling and then cold-rolled to 0.190 inches, after which the plate was annealed at 2200.degree. f. for 1/2 hour to achieve grain coarsening. no difficulty was encountered in either hot or cold rolling. the sheet exhibits the same type of grain structure as that described in example ii, i.e., elongated grains of relatively large size (about 200 microns long and 20 microns wide) produced by grain growth. example iv various powder lots having compositions adjusted to provide product compositions shown in table iii were mechanically alloyed in a 10 gallon capacity szegvari attritor at an impeller speed of 180 rpm and under a dynamic argon atmosphere flowing at 5 cubic feet per hour for the mechanical alloying times given in table iii. table iii __________________________________________________________________________ total rare element weight percent earth oxide powder no.(1) c ni cr al co o n zr y.sub.2 o.sub.3 __________________________________________________________________________ 1 .04 .35 21.3 4.6 .93 .37 .09 .10 .18 2 .034 .26 21.7 4.6 .88 .36 .11 .11 .45 3 .025 .26 22.1 4.5 .89 .46 .05 .12 .72 4 .026 .24 20.7 4.3 .85 .35 .06 .03 .45 5 .029 .19 21.5 4.1 .80 .36 .06 .5 .44 6 .026 .21 21.9 4.2 .86 .47 .07 .08 .76 7 .034 .22 21.0 4.2 .79 .48 .09 .06 .76 __________________________________________________________________________ (1) = powder nos. 1 through 5, 6, and 7 mechanically alloyed for 15, 24, and 36 hours, respectively. balance of each powder essentially iron. each mechanically alloyed powder was canned in a 3-1/2 inch diameter mild steel can and consolidated without evacuation of the can by extruding at 2000.degree. f. to 3/4 -inch diameter bars, which were then turned to 0.664-inch diameter. when portions of the bars were heated at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour in an attempt to achieve grain coarsening therein, no grain coarsening resulted. bars produced from powder nos. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 were then individually rolled at room temperature to various reductions of 16 to 41%. a portion of each bar was removed after each reduction step, each of these portions then being heated at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour and inspected for grain coarsening, the results being given in table iv, where the consolidated products are assigned the same numbers as their corresponding powders. the dispersoid particles generally ranged in size from about 150a to about 500a, with average interparticle spacings of about 1100a for bar no. 1, about 800a for bar nos. 2, 4 and 5, and 7, these values occurring in both the extrusions and in the grain-coarsened products. table iv ______________________________________ grain coarsening (percent) cold reduction bar no. (2) 0% 16% 25% 35% 41% ______________________________________ 1 0 100 100 100 100 2 0 0 100 100 100 3 0 50 100 100 100 6 0 100 100 100 100 7 0 100 100 100 100 ______________________________________ (2) = each bar annealed at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour after cold rolling. from table iv, the bars that were tested, (i.e., nos. 1 to 3, 6 and 7) did not grain coarsen, i.e., secondary recrystallize, under the heating conditions employed until some cold deformation was produced therein. while bar no. 2 did not grain coarsen until the cold deformation thereof had reached 25%, bar nos. 1, 6 and 7 were fully grain coarsened and bar no. 3 was 50% grain coarsened after the 16% reduction and heat treatment. each one of these bars was fully grain coarsened, i.e., comprised substantially completely of coarse, elongated grains, after cold reductions of 25% or more and heat treatments at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour. example v various portions of each one of the extrusions, nos. 1 through 7, described in example iv were cold-rolled to achieve a 25% reduction therein and then heated for 1/2 hour at various temperatures from 1600.degree. to 2400.degree. f., after which the thus-treated bars were metallographically examined for the presence of coarse, elongated grains, the results being given in table v. table v ______________________________________ annealing temperature (.degree. f. for 1/2 hour) ______________________________________ bar no.(3) 1600 1800 1900 2000 2200 2400 ______________________________________ 1 100 100 -- 100 -- 100 2 0 0 -- 0 75 100 3 0 0 -- 0 100 100 4 30 100 -- 100 -- 100 5 0 0 -- 0 100 100 6 40 50 -- 100 -- 100 7 0 0 20 100 -- 100 ______________________________________ (3) = each bar cold rolled 25% reduction before anneal. from table v, all of the bars displayed a relatively coarse, elongated grain after cold rolling 25% reduction and heating for 1/2 hour at a temperature of 2400.degree. f. comparing bars no. 2 and 3 with bar no. 1, it appears that the grain coarsening temperature under these conditions, increases with higher dispersoid contents (table iii). comparing bars no. 4 and 5, it appears that the grain coarsening temperature under these conditions also increases with higher zirconium contents (see table iii), the zirconium being thought to form additional dispersoid material, such as an oxide, carbide or nitride. comparison of bars no. 3 and 6 leads to the conclusion that, under these conditions of cold work and heat treatment, the temperature needed for total grain coarsening decreases with longer mechanical alloying times. example vi various products made from the mechanically alloyed powders described in example iv were tested for 1900.degree. f. stress-rupture in the as-extruded, 25% cold worked, and 25% cold worked and grain coarsened (annealed at 2400.degree. f. for 1/2 hour) conditions, the results being given in table vi, where the bar numbers are the same as those of the corresponding powders. estimated 100-hour rupture stresses are also set out in table vi. table vi __________________________________________________________________________ 1900.degree. f. stress rupture (4) __________________________________________________________________________ estimated estimated estimated stress for stress for cold worked 25% stress for as extruded 100 hour cold worked 25% 100 hour annealed (1/22400.degree. 100 hour bar no. stress life elong., life (ksi) stress life elong., life (ksi) stress life elong., life __________________________________________________________________________ (ksi) 1 5 0.4 6.4 2.4 5 3.1 2.4 3.5 7 0.1 8.8 3.5 2 5 6.2 4.0 3.7 5 68.4 4.0 4.8 7 27.5 0.0 6.2 3 5 0.1 33.6 2.5 5 13.3 0.8 4.1 7 17.7 1.2 5.8 4 5 0.1 39.2 2.5 5 >350.0 -- >5.6 7 101.9 2.4 7.0 5 4 1.2 8.8 2.6 5 54.1 1.6 4.7 7 5.1 4.1 5.2 6 4 1.1 9.6 2.6 5 2.0 4.0 3.4 6 1.0 1.6 3.8 7 4 0.5 16.0 2.4 5 2.3 2.4 3.4 7 8.6 3.2 5.4 __________________________________________________________________________ (4) = all stresses in k.s.i.; all lives in hours; all elongations in %. from table vi, it can be seen that cold working to a 25% reduction generally results in increased 1900.degree. f. stress-rupture strengths and that the grain coarsened bars demonstrate further increases in 1900.degree. f. stress-rupture strength. it is noted from table v that specimens (bars no. 1 and 4) corresponding to bars no. 1 and 4 of table vi grain coarsen at temperatures below 1900.degree. f., so that these bars no. 1 and 4 in the cold-worked condition grain coarsened on heating up to the 1900.degree. f. test temperature and the subsequent 2400.degree. f. anneal for 1/2 hour had no apparent beneficial effect on their strength properties. although the present invention has been described in conjunction with preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that modifications and variations may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, as those skilled in the art will readily understand. such modifications and variations are considered to be within the purview and scope of the invention and appended claims.
174-253-918-691-016	KR	[ "US" ]	G06K5/00,G06Q30/06	2010-12-27T00:00:00	2010	[ "G06" ]	authentication system and authentication method using barcodes	disclosed is an authentication method using barcodes. the authentication method includes: converting into a first barcode and outputting, by a first user device, authentication related information provided from a service providing server; receiving, by a second user device, the first barcode; generating, by the second user device, signature information or authentication information on the authentication related information by using a signature key or a certificate; and providing, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server.	1 . an authentication method using barcodes, comprising: converting into a first barcode and outputting, by a first user device, authentication related information provided from a service providing server; receiving, by a second user device, the first barcode; generating, by the second user device, signature information or authentication information on the authentication related information by using a signature key or a certificate; and providing, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. 2 . the authentication method of claim 1 , wherein at the providing of the signature information or the authentication to the service providing server, the second user device provides the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server through the first user device. 3 . the authentication method of claim 2 , wherein the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server includes: converting into a second barcode and outputting, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information; receiving, by the first user device, the second barcode for the signature information or the authentication information; and transmitting, by the first user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. 4 . the authentication method of claim 1 , wherein at the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server, the second user device may transmit the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server through a wireless communication network. 5 . an authentication method using barcodes, comprising: receiving, by a first user device, at least one purchase information selected by a user in a purchase information list from a service providing server, and converting into at least one barcode and outputting the at least one purchase information; receiving, by a second user device, the at least one barcode to receive the at least one purchase information; generating, by the second user device, signature information or authentication information on the at least one purchase information by using a signature key or a certificate; and providing, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information to a payment service providing server for providing a payment service. 6 . the authentication method of claim 5 , wherein at the generating of the signature information or the authentication information, if one or a plurality of purchase information is sent from the first user device, the second user device generates the signature information or the authentication information for a part or all of the plurality of purchase information. 7 . the authentication method of claim 6 , wherein the plurality of purchase information is provided from a plurality of different service providing servers. 8 . the authentication method of claim 5 , wherein at the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server, the second user device provides the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server through the first user device. 9 . the authentication method of claim 5 , wherein the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server includes: converting into a second barcode and outputting, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information; receiving, by the first user device, the second barcode for the signature information or the authentication information; and transmitting, by the first user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server. 10 . an authentication system using barcodes, comprising: a service providing server configured to provide service to be authenticated by a user; a first user device configured to convert into the barcodes and output information provided from the service providing server; and a second user device configured to receive the barcodes output from the first user device, generate signature information or authentication information by using a signature key or a certification, and provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. 11 . the authentication system of claim 9 , further comprising a payment service providing server configured to receive the signature information or the authentication information from the second user device to provide a payment service for the service provided from the service providing server. 12 . the authentication system of claim 9 , wherein the service provided from the service providing server is any one of an internet banking service, a stock transaction service, an e-commerce service, and an administrative service.	cross-references to related applications the present application claims priority under 35 u.s.c 119(a) to korean application no. 10-2010-0136096, filed on dec. 27, 2010, and korean application no. 10-2011-0134807, filed on dec. 14, 2011, in the korean intellectual property office, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety set forth in full. background exemplary embodiments relate to an authentication system and an authentication method using bar codes, and more particularly, to an authentication system and an authentication method using bar codes capable of performing user authentication through bar codes or a separate communication network in personal terminal devices such as a smart phone, a mobile phone, or the like, are provided. a certificate, which is electronic information issued by a certificate authority (ca) for the purpose of verifying identity and preventing forgery and alternation of a document, repudiation of transaction, or the like, when performing e-commerce, is a kind of seal certificate for cyber trading. a user or a message may be authenticated through an electronic signature based on an official certificate or a private certificate. the authentication method is greatly used in the internet financial sector, but is diversely used for stock transaction, e-commerce, administrative service, or the like. generally, the certificate includes a public key of a user (or user related information) and a signature of a trusted third party, that is, the certificate authority (ca), verifying that the public key belongs to a specific user. when the user generates signature information on a specific message by using a signature key corresponding to his/her own public key, a verifier can use the public key of the user to verify validity of the given signature information. here, the signature key is information known to only the user, which is on the grounds that the user cannot deny the fact that worthwhile services are provided to the user. further, in addition to the traditional public key infrastructure certificate that is prevalently being used today, it is expected that certificates for various purposes, such as a device certificate for voice over internet protocol (voip), an anonymous certificate for anonymous authentication, or the like, and authentication method corresponding thereto are used in various applications. meanwhile, the certificate infrastructure electronic signature method has many advantages, but causes a problem of management for certificates in recent years. that is, the users frequently store the certificates in a hard disk of a computer for convenience of use. as such, when storing the certificates in a hard disk, since the computer is vulnerable to various types of security threats such as computer hacking, or the like, the signature key information may be easily leaked to the outside. therefore, in order to solve the problem, a public institution, or the like, has recommended that users use certain methods for storing and using a certificate and a signature key in a portable storage medium. however, the method for storing a certificate and a signature key in a separate portable storage medium is troublesome for users and the portable storage medium may be lost. therefore, the method for storing a certificate and a signature key cannot contribute to a fundamental solution. background art of the present invention is disclosed in the korean patent laid-open publication no. 10-2003-0035025 entitled “system for providing identification service using official certificate based on public key infrastructure and method thereof”. summary an embodiment of the present invention is directed to an authentication system and an authentication method using the bar codes capable of performing safely and conveniently user authentication using personal terminal devices are provided. an embodiment of the present invention relates to an authentication method using barcodes, including: converting into a first barcode and outputting, by a first user device, authentication related information provided from a service providing server; receiving, by a second user device, the first barcode; generating, by the second user device, signature information or authentication information on the authentication related information by using a signature key or a certificate; and providing, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. in one embodiment, at the providing of the signature information or the authentication to the service providing server, the second user device may provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server through the first user device. in one embodiment, the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server may include: converting into a second barcode and outputting, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information; receiving, by the first user device, the second barcode for the signature information or the authentication information; and transmitting, by the first user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. in one embodiment, at the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server, the second user device may transmit the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server through a wireless communication network. another embodiment of the present invention relates to an authentication method using barcodes, including: receiving, by a first user device, at least one purchase information selected by a user in a purchase information list from a service providing server, and converting into at least one barcode and outputting the at least one purchase information; receiving, by a second user device, the at least one barcode to receive the at least one purchase information; generating, by the second user device, signature information or authentication information on the at least one purchase information by using a signature key or a certificate; and providing, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information to a payment service providing server for providing a payment service. in another embodiment, at the generating of the signature information or the authentication information, the second user device may generate the signature information or the authentication information for a part or all of the plurality of purchase information. in another embodiment, the plurality of purchase information may be provided from a plurality of different services providing servers. in another embodiment, at the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server, the second user device may provide the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server through the first user device. in another embodiment, the providing of the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server may include: converting into a second barcode and outputting, by the second user device, the signature information or the authentication information; receiving, by the first user device, the second barcode for the signature information or the authentication information; and transmitting, by the first user device, the signature information or the authentication information to the payment service providing server. another embodiment of the present invention relates to an authentication system using barcodes including: a service providing server configured to provide service to be authenticated by a user; a first user device configured to convert into the barcodes and output information provided from the service providing server; and a second user device configured to receive the barcodes output from the first user device, generate signature information or authentication information by using a signature key or a certification, and provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server. in another embodiment, the authentication system further includes a payment service providing server configured to receive the signature information or the authentication information from the second user device to provide a payment service for the service provided from the service providing server. in another embodiment, the service provided from the service providing server may be any one of an internet banking service, a stock transaction service, an e-commerce service, an administrative service, or the like. brief description of the drawings the above and other aspects, features and other advantages will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: fig. 1 is a block diagram of an authentication system using bar codes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; fig. 2 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using bar codes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 2 ; fig. 4 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using bar codes in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention; fig. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 4 ; fig. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using bar codes in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention; and fig. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 6 . description of specific embodiments hereinafter, an authentication system and an authentication method using barcodes in accordance with embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. in describing an embodiment, a thickness of lines illustrated in the drawings, a size of components, etc., may be exaggeratedly illustrated for clearness and convenience of explanation. in addition, terms described to be below are terms defined in consideration of functions in the present invention, which may be changed according to the intention or practice of a user or an operator. therefore, these terms will be defined based on contents throughout the specification. a barcode is a code in which computer readable information is recorded. in recent years, research into a technology of recording information using at least two-dimensional barcode and transferring the recorded information has been actively conducted. in particular, electronic devices such as a smart phone, or the like, which is rapidly distributed, fundamentally include a camera capable of receiving barcodes, and therefore, can transmit and receive information using the barcodes even when the separate communication network is not used. therefore, an embodiments of the present invention are to provide the authentication system and the authentication method capable of safely performing the authentication by storing a certificate or a signature key in personal terminal devices such as a smart phone, a mobile phone, or the like, and performing the authentication using the stored certificate or signature key so as to physically separate the certificate or the signature key from the terminal devices that receive services such as internet banking, or the like. further, the barcodes disclosed in the specification may include a linear type of one-dimensional barcodes and a matrix-type of two-dimensional barcodes and three-dimensional barcodes. in particular, the two-dimensional barcode may include codes such as a quick response (qr) code, pdf417, datamatric, maxicode, or the like. fig. 1 is a block diagram of an authentication system using bar codes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. as illustrated in fig. 1 , an authentication system using bar codes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention is configured to include a first user device 10 , a second user device 20 , and a service providing server 30 . in this configuration, when services provided from the service providing server 30 are e-commerce involving purchases or settlements, the authentication system using the barcodes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention may be configured to further include a payment service providing server 40 . the first user device 10 accesses the service providing server 30 that provides services such as internet banking, stock transaction, e-commerce, administrative service, or the like, according to the input of the user. the first user device 10 may access the internet through wired and wireless communication networks such as a computer, a notebook, a net book, a tablet pc, or the like, and may be various electronic devices that can display specific information. when the service providing server 30 provides services to be authenticated by the user, the first user device 10 receives authentication related information required for the user authentication from the service providing server 30 , and converts into the barcodes and outputs the barcodes. in this case, the authentication related information means the related information is required for the user authentication. for example, the authentication related information on internet transfer services may include information such as a transfer bank, a transfer amount, an account holder's name, a remitter's name, or the like. in addition, when services provided by the service providing server 30 are e-commerce, the first user device 10 may receive the purchase information on goods to be purchased from the service providing server 30 and convert into the barcodes and output the barcodes. in this case, the purchase information may include the name, price, seller information, or the like, of goods. meanwhile, the first user device 10 includes a barcode generation module (not illustrated) that may just generate the barcodes, or may just generate the barcodes that include the authentication related information or the purchase information received by the barcode generation module (not illustrated) from the service providing server 30 , together with the authentication related information or the purchase information. in addition, the first user device 10 may include a barcode input module (not illustrated) such as a camera, a webcam, a barcode scanner, or the like, capable of receiving the barcodes output from the second user device 20 to be described below. the second user device 20 receives the barcodes output from the first user device 10 and reads the received barcodes to output and display the authentication related information or the purchase information recorded in the barcodes. the second user device 20 may preferably be personal terminal devices such as a smart phone, a mobile phone, pda, or the like, and the second user device 20 may include the barcode input module (not illustrated) capable of receiving the barcode such as a camera, a barcode scanner, or the like. then, the second user device 20 generates the signature information or the authentication information on the authentication related information or the purchase information by using the signature key or the certificate of the user that is stored in the second user device 20 , and provides the generated signature information or authentication information to the service providing server 30 . in this case, the second user device 20 may provide the aforementioned signature information or authentication information to the service providing server 30 through the first user device 10 and may be directly transmitted to the service providing server 30 through the separate communication network. the detailed process of allowing the second user device 20 to provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 will be described below. the service providing server 30 provides various services such as internet banking, stock transaction, e-commerce, administrative service, or the like, according to the request of the first user device 10 that is accessed for receiving the services. in this case, when the service providing server 30 performs the services to be authenticated by the user, the service providing server 30 provides the authentication related information required for the user authentication or the purchase information on the specific goods to the first user device 10 accessing the service providing server 30 . thereafter, the service providing server 30 performs the authentication by using the signature information or the authentication information received from the first user device 10 or the second user device 20 and when the authentication is completed, after the services requested from the first user device 10 are performed, the service performance results are provided to the first user device 10 requesting the services. when the services provided from the service providing server 30 are e-commerce involving the purchase or the settlement, the payment service providing server 40 receives, from the first user device 10 or the second device 20 , the purchase information provided from the service providing server 30 and the signature information or the authentication information generated from the second user device 20 to perform the authentication and the settlement and when the authentication and the settlement are completed, provides the purchase complete information to the service providing server 30 . meanwhile, the services provided from the service providing server 30 are not limited to the aforementioned examples, and the service providing server 30 may provide various services to be authenticated by the user. fig. 2 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using barcodes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention and fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 2 . hereinafter, the detailed operation of an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to figs. 2 and 3 . first, the first user device 10 accesses a web site provided from the service providing server 30 according to the input of the user (s 100 ) and requests the services provided to the service providing server 30 (s 102 ). when the user authentication is required for performing the services requested by the first user device 10 , the service providing server 30 provides the authentication related information required for the user authentication to the first user device 10 (s 104 ). in this case, the service providing server 30 may provide the barcode generation module that may convert the authentication related information into the barcodes, together with the authentication related information. further, the service providing server 30 may provide information on session random number, timestamp information, card number, one-time password (otp), or the like, for additional authentication. then, the first user device 10 uses the barcode generation module that is included therein or provided from the service providing server 30 to convert and generate the authentication related information into the barcode (s 106 ) and outputs the generated barcodes and displays the generated barcodes on the screen (s 108 ). then, the second user device 20 uses the barcode input module such as a camera, a barcode scanner, or the like, to receive the barcodes output from the first user device 10 (s 110 ) and reads the received barcodes to extract the authentication related information recorded in the barcode (s 112 ) and then, output the extracted authentication related information on the screen (s 114 ). next, the user can confirm whether the authentication related information output to the second user device 20 is valid. if it is determined that the authentication related information is valid, the second user device 20 uses the signature key or the certificate stored in the second user device 20 to generate the signature information or the authentication information (s 116 ). in this case, the second user device 20 may input the secret key information for generating the signature information or the authentication information from the user. thereafter, the second user device 20 uses the barcode generation module to convert the signature information or the authentication information into the barcodes (s 118 ) and output the generated barcodes on the screen (s 120 ). then, the first user device 10 uses the barcode input module such as a camera, a webcam, a barcode scanner, or the like, to receive the barcodes output from the second user device 20 (s 122 ) and reads the received barcode to extract the signature information or the authentication information recorded in the barcode (s 124 ) and then, provides the extracted authentication information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 (s 126 ). the service providing server 30 verifies the validity of the signature information or the authentication information provided from the first user device 10 to perform the authentication (s 128 ) and when the authentication is completed, performs the requested service (s 130 ) and then, provides the service performance results to the first user device 10 (s 132 ). during the process, the service providing server 30 may additionally verify the validity of the session random number, the timestamp information, the card number, or the one-time password that are first provided. fig. 4 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using barcodes in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention and fig. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 4 . in the aforementioned embodiments, the second user device 20 uses the signature key or the certificate to transmit the generated signature information or the authentication information to the first user device 10 through the barcode and the first user device 10 provides the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 . that is, the second user device 20 provides the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 through the first user device 10 . however, when the second user device 20 may access the internet through a mobile communication network or other wireless communication networks, the second user device 20 may directly provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 through the separate communication network. hereinafter, the difference between the authentication method using the barcodes in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention and the aforementioned embodiments will be mainly described with reference to figs. 4 and 5 . s 200 to s 216 in which the first user device 10 receives the authentication related information from the service providing server 30 and outputs the received authentication related information as the barcodes and the second user device 20 receives the barcodes output from the first user device 10 and uses the signature key and the certificate to generate the signature information or the authentication information are the same as s 100 to s 116 of an embodiment as described above and therefore, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. thereafter, the second user device 20 directly provides the generated signature information or authentication information to the service providing server 30 through the communication network (s 218 ). in detail, the second user device 20 may provide the signature information or the authentication information to the service providing server 30 through a mobile communication network or other various communication networks such as wi-fi, wibro, wimax, zigbee, bluetooth, or the like and the communication network used in the second user device 20 may be a separate communication network that is different from a communication network between the first user device 10 and the service providing server 30 . in addition, the second user device 20 may previously include information such as address, or the like, that may access the service providing server 30 or may be provided with the information from the first user device 10 . then, the service providing server 30 verifies the validity of the signature information or the authentication information provided from the second user device 10 to perform the authentication (s 220 ) and when the authentication is completed, performs the requested service (s 222 ) and then, provides the service performance results to the first user device 10 (s 224 ). similar to the aforementioned embodiments, the service providing server 30 may additionally verify the validity of the session random number, the timestamp information, the card number, or the one-time password that are first provided. fig. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation flow of an authentication method using barcodes in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention and fig. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of implementing an operation illustrated in fig. 6 . the aforementioned two embodiments describe the case in which the payment service providing server 40 is not provided. that is, the aforementioned two embodiments may be applied to the case in which the services to be authenticated by the user in the internet banking, the stock transaction, the administrative service, or the like, not involving the purchase or the settlement, are provided. however, when the services provided from the service providing server 30 are e-commerce involving the purchase or the settlement, the authentication system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention may be configured to further include a payment service providing server 40 for providing the payment services. in this case, the service providing server 30 may provide the purchase information on the goods such as the internet shopping mall and the payment service providing server 40 may provide the payment service when the goods are purchased. hereinafter, an authentication method in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to figs. 6 and 7 . first, the first user device 10 access the website provided from the service providing server 30 according to the input of the user (s 300 ) and requests the first purchase information selected by the user in the purchase information list provided from the service providing server 30 to the service providing server 30 (s 302 ). then, the service providing server 30 provides the first purchase information to the first user device 10 . in this case, the service providing server 30 may provide the barcode generation module that may convert the first purchase information into the barcodes, together with the first purchase information. then, the first user device 10 uses the barcode generation module that is included therein or provided from the service providing server 30 to convert and generate the first purchase information into the barcodes (s 306 ) and outputs the generated barcodes and display the generated barcodes on the screen (s 308 ). then, the second user device 20 uses the barcode input module such as a camera, a barcode scanner, or the like, to receive the barcodes output from the first user device 10 (s 310 ) and reads the received barcodes to extract the first purchase information recorded in the barcode (s 312 ) and then, store the extracted first purchase information (s 314 ). when the additional purchase is performed, the first user device 10 additionally selects and requests the second purchase information in the purchase information list provided from the service providing server 30 (s 316 ). the service providing server 30 provides the second purchase information to the first user device 10 (s 318 ) and the first user device 10 uses the barcode generation module that is included therein or provided from the service providing server 30 to convert and generate the second purchase information into the barcode (s 320 ) and outputs the generated barcodes and displays the generated barcodes on the screen (s 322 ). then, the second user device 20 uses the barcode input module such as a camera, a barcode scanner, or the like, to receive the barcodes output from the first user device 10 (s 324 ) and reads the received barcodes to extract the second purchase information recorded in the barcode (s 326 ) and then, store the extracted second purchase information (s 328 ). then, when the collection of the additional purchase information is not performed, the second user device 20 outputs and displays the stored first and second purchase information (s 330 ) and when the validity of the first and second purchase information is confirmed, uses the stored signature key or certificate of the user to generate the signature information or the authentication information (s 332 ). in this case, the second user device 20 may receive the secret key information for generating the signature information or the authentication information from the user, wherein the signature information or the authentication information may be generated for a part or all of the plurality of purchase information stored in the second user device 20 . thereafter, the second user device 20 provides the generated signature information or authentication information to the payment service providing server 40 through the separate communication network, together with the purchase information (s 334 ). in this case, the method for allowing the second user device 20 to provide the information to the payment service providing server 40 through the separate communication network is the same as the method for providing information to the aforementioned service providing server 30 and the detailed description thereof will be omitted. in addition, the second user device 20 may provide the information to the payment service providing server 40 through the first user device 10 as described above. then, the payment service providing server 30 verifies the validity of the signature information or the authentication information provided from the second user device 20 and verifies the validity of the purchase information to perform the authentication and when the authentication is completed, performs the settlement (s 336 ). then, the payment service providing server 30 provides the purchase completion information to the service providing server 30 (s 338 ) and the service providing server 30 provides the purchase completion information to the first user device 10 (s 340 ). meanwhile, an embodiment of the present invention describes, by way of example, the case in which the e-commerce service is performed by receiving the purchase information on two goods from the service providing server 30 of the same subject. however, unlike the case, an embodiment of the present invention may be applied even when the plurality of goods is purchased from the service providing server 30 of different subjects. that is, the user uses the first and second user devices 10 and 20 to receive the purchase information on the plurality of goods from the service providing server 30 of different subjects and stores the received purchase information in the second user device and then, generates the signature information and the authentication information on the stored purchase information and provides the generated signature information and authentication information to the payment service providing server 40 to simultaneously perform the authentication and the settlement. meanwhile, an embodiment of the present invention describes, by way of example, the case in which the information exchange is performed between the first user device 10 and the second user device 20 by using the barcodes, but is not limited thereto and may also use the pattern image capable of recording the information. in accordance with the authentication system and the authentication method using the barcodes of an embodiments of the present invention, when the services to be authenticated by the user are performed, the signature information or the authentication information of the user may be generated in the personal terminal device such as the smart phone, the mobile phone, or the like, and thus, the security for the signature key or the certificate may be enhanced. further, the exemplary embodiments of the present invention can allow the user to conveniently receive the services to be authorized by the user anytime and anywhere since the certificate or the secrete key of the user is stored in personal terminal devices always carried by the user. in addition, an embodiments of the present invention can perform the authentication via the barcodes. in recent years, most of personal terminal devices include the camera capable of receiving the barcodes not to cause the separately additional costs. finally, the exemplary embodiments of the present invention can safely perform the authentication through the separate communication network even when the devices capable of receiving the bar codes are not included in computer, notebook, or the like, since personal terminal devices such as a smart phone, or the like, capable of transmitting data through a separate communication network. when storing the certificates in a hard disk of a computer or usb memory, it is vulnerable to the security threats such as computer hacking or virus. according to the present invention, security can be enhanced through a physically separated key and certificate service domain. thus, users can use the authentication service using electronic signature safely in the public places like a pc room. the embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed above for illustrative purposes. those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.
174-837-468-715-170	JP	[ "WO", "EP", "JP", "US", "CN" ]	A44B19/26,A44B19/24,A44B19/30,A44B99/00,B65D33/25	2020-03-12T00:00:00	2020	[ "A44", "B65" ]	slider and slide fastener	in one fastener stringer (4b), a slider (5) is rotated so that a connection column (53) of the slider (5) is away from a fastener element (3b) provided in the fastener stringer (4b), and rotation of the slider (5) is stopped by collision between the fastener element (3b) and a flange part (54, 55) of the slider (5). at this time, the surface (26b) opposite to a tape and extending toward the flange part (54, 55) forms an angle of 45° or less with respect to the center line (x5) of the slider (5).	1. a slide fastener comprising: a pair of fastener stringers each of which including a fastener tape and a fastener element arranged along one side-edge of the fastener tape; and a slider that moves forward to couple the pair of fastener stringers and moves rearward to decouple the pair of fastener stringers, the slider including a top wing, a bottom wing, a connecting pillar connecting said wings, and a flange arranged at the top wing or the bottom wing, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of the pair of fastener tapes and, in just one separate fastener stringer of the pair of fastener stringers, when the slider stops turning due to collision between the flange and the fastener element after turning in a direction the connecting pillar moves away from the fastener element provided in said just one separate fastener stringer, the opposed tape side extending toward the flange forms an angle of less than or equal to 45° with respect to a center line of the slider. 2. the slide fastener according to claim 1 , wherein the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, and an angle between a side surface of the rear end and the center line of the slider is greater than or equal to 45°. 3. the slide fastener according to claim 1 , wherein d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes a length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider from the connecting pillar. 4. the slide fastener according to claim 1 , wherein in said just one separate fastener stringer, as the slider is pulled rearward while the slider stops turning as defined in claim 1 , a side surface of a rear end of the elongated protrusion slides on the opposed tape side of the fastener tape ( 2 b ) of said just one separate fastener stringer. 5. the slide fastener according to claim 1 , wherein the bottom wing has a partition extending rearward from the connecting pillar in a manner to face at least partially the elongated protrusion. 6. the slide fastener according to claim 1 , wherein the fastener tape has a tape base fabric and a water-resistant layer ( 2 n ) formed on the tape base fabric, and the slider includes a locking pawl with a pawl end capable of projecting into a passage for fastener elements in the slider through a pawl aperture formed at the elongated protrusion. 7. a slide fastener comprising: a pair of fastener stringers each of which including a fastener tape and a fastener element arranged along one side-edge of the fastener tape; and a slider that moves forward to couple the pair of fastener stringers and moves rearward to decouple the pair of fastener stringers, the slider including a top wing, a bottom wing, a connecting pillar coupling said wings, and a flange arranged at the top wing or the bottom wing, a stack ( 9 a , 9 b ) including the fastener tape and the fastener element being interposed between the top wing and the bottom wing, a top surface ( 21 ) of the fastener tape being contactable with the top wing, and the fastener element arranged on a bottom surface of the fastener tape being contactable with the bottom wing, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of the pair of fastener tapes, and the elongated protrusion has a length such that the stack ( 9 b ) does not enter a space between the elongated protrusion and the bottom wing when, in just one separate fastener stringer of the pair of fastener stringers, the slider is pulled rearward while having been turned in a direction the connecting pillar moves away from the fastener element provided in said just one separate fastener stringer. 8. the slide fastener according to claim 7 , wherein d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes the length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider from the connecting pillar and. 9. the slide fastener according to claim 7 , wherein the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, and an angle between a side surface of the rear end and a center line of the slider is greater than or equal to 45°. 10. the slide fastener according to claim 7 , wherein the slider has been turned so that the flange of the slider is in contact with the fastener element of said just one separate fastener stringer. 11. a slider for slide fastener, the slider comprising: a top wing; a bottom wing; and a connecting pillar coupling said wings, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of a pair of fastener tapes to be separated or adjoined by said slider, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes a length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider from the connecting pillar, and the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, an angle between a side surface of the rear end and a center line of the slider being greater than or equal to 45°. 12. the slider according to claim 11 , wherein the slider has a locking pawl with a pawl end capable of projecting into a passage for fastener elements in the slider through a pawl aperture formed at the elongated protrusion.	cross-reference to related applications this application is a us national stage application of international application pct/jp2020/010922, filed mar. 12, 2020, the contents of which are incorporated by reference. technical field the present disclosure relates to a slider and a slide fastener. background art patent literature 1 discloses that a top wing of slider is provided with a wedge-shaped elongated protrusion for spacing side-edges of fastener tapes. similar structures are disclosed also in figs. 4 and 5 of patent literature 2. citation list patent literature [ptl 1] japanese patent no. 3379004 [ptl 2] japanese patent no. 4072951 summary technical problem in some instances, a slider of slide fastener is moved along a fastener element in just one separate fastener stringer at one side (hereinafter referred to just as “just one separate stringer”) for a different purpose than decoupling and coupling a pair of fastener stringers. for example, when a slide fastener is sewn to clothes or the like, a slider could be an obstacle for the sewing work and may be moved along a fastener element in the just one separate stringer. there are cases where a slider is moved, just as play or killing time, in the just one separate stringer along the fastener element. a structure of slider, particularly a structure for defining movement trajectories of fastener tape and fastener element (e.g. the wedge-shaped elongated protrusion in patent literature 1) is designed with a precondition that a slider is moved for a purpose of decoupling and coupling a pair of fastener stringers. the present inventors have newly recognized that a slider designed with the precondition may possibly be not suitably adapted to a situation where it moves in the just one separate stringer along the fastener element. solution to problem slide fastener according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a pair of fastener stringers each of which including a fastener tape and a fastener element arranged along one side-edge of the fastener tape; and a slider that moves forward to couple the pair of fastener stringers and moves rearward to decouple the pair of fastener stringers, the slider including a top wing, a bottom wing, a connecting pillar connecting the wings, and a flange arranged at the top wing or the bottom wing, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of the pair of fastener tapes and, in just one separate fastener stringer of the pair of fastener stringers, when the slider stops turning due to collision between the flange and the fastener element after turning in a direction the connecting pillar moves away from the fastener element provided in the just one separate fastener stringer, the opposed tape side extending toward the flange forms an angle of less than or equal to 45° with respect to a center line of the slider. in some embodiments, the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, and an angle between a side surface of the rear end and the center line of the slider is greater than or equal to 45°. in some embodiments, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes a length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider from the connecting pillar. in some embodiments, in the just one separate fastener stringer, as the slider is pulled rearward while the slider stops turning as defined above, a side surface of a rear end of the elongated protrusion slides on the opposed tape side of the fastener tape of the just one separate fastener stringer. in some embodiments, the bottom wing has a partition extending rearward from the connecting pillar in a manner to face at least partially the elongated protrusion. in some embodiments, the fastener tape has a tape base fabric and a water-resistant layer formed on the tape base fabric, and the slider includes a locking pawl with a pawl end capable of projecting into a passage for fastener elements in the slider through a pawl aperture formed at the elongated protrusion. slide fastener according to another aspect of the present disclosure includes: a pair of fastener stringers each of which including a fastener tape and a fastener element arranged along one side-edge of the fastener tape; and a slider that moves forward to couple the pair of fastener stringers and moves rearward to decouple the pair of fastener stringers, the slider including a top wing, a bottom wing, a connecting pillar coupling the wings, and a flange arranged at the top wing or the bottom wing, a stack including the fastener tape and the fastener element being interposed between the top wing and the bottom wing, a top surface of the fastener tape being contactable with the top wing, and the fastener element arranged on a bottom surface of the fastener tape being contactable with the bottom wing, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of the pair of fastener tapes, and the elongated protrusion has a length such that the stack does not enter a space between the elongated protrusion and the bottom wing when, in just one separate fastener stringer of the pair of fastener stringers, the slider is pulled rearward while having been turned in a direction the connecting pillar moves away from the fastener element provided in the just one separate fastener stringer. in some embodiments, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes the length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider from the connecting pillar. in some embodiments, the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, and an angle between a side surface of the rear end and a center line of the slider is greater than or equal to 45°. in some embodiments, the slider has been turned so that the flange of the slider is in contact with the fastener element of the just one separate fastener stringer. a slider according to still another aspect of the present disclosure includes a top wing; a bottom wing; and a connecting pillar coupling the wings, wherein the top wing is provided with an elongated protrusion extending rearward so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides of a pair of fastener tapes to be separated or adjoined by the slider, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes a length of the elongated protrusion, and d 2 denotes a distance between the connecting pillar and a rear end of the slider, and the elongated protrusion has a rear end tapered to be narrower in width rearward, an angle between a side surface of the rear end and a center line of the slider being greater than or equal to 45°. in some embodiments, the slider has a locking pawl with a pawl end capable of projecting into a passage for fastener elements in the slider through a pawl aperture formed at the elongated protrusion. advantageous effects of invention according to an aspect of the present disclosure, it is facilitated to supply a slider suitably adapted to a situation where it moves in just one separate stringer along a fastener element. brief description of drawings fig. 1 is a top view of a slide fastener according to an aspect of the present disclosure. fig. 2 is a bottom view of the slide fastener according to an aspect of the present disclosure. fig. 3 is a schematic cross-sectional view of fastener stringers which are coupled. fig. 4 is a top view illustrating that a slider is placed in an intermediate position along a fastener element in just one separate stringer. fig. 5 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a slider. fig. 6 is a schematic view illustrating an inner surface of a top wing of slider. fig. 7 is a schematic view illustrating an inner surface of a bottom wing of slider. fig. 8 is a reference diagram for illustration of technical effect based on shortened length of elongated protrusion on a top wing of slider. dash-dot lines indicates position and trajectory of an opposed tape side. fig. 9 is a reference diagram with respect to a slider shown in fig. 2 of the patent literature 1. fig. 10 is a schematic illustration of schematic configuration of non-limiting exemplary slider with automatic stop function. fig. 11 is a schematic view of embodiment where a fastener tape is a water resistant tape. description of embodiments hereinafter, various embodiments and features will be described with reference to figs. 1 to 11 . a skilled person would be able to combine respective embodiments and/or respective features without requiring excess description, and would appreciate synergistic effects of such combinations. overlapping description among the embodiments are basically omitted. referenced drawings aim mainly for describing inventions and are simplified for the sake of convenience of illustration. the respective features should be appreciated as universal features not only effective to slide fasteners and sliders presently presented but also effective to other various slide fasteners and sliders not presented in the present specification. as shown in fig. 1 , a slide fastener 1 has a pair of left and right fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b . these stringers 4 a and 4 b are coupled as a slider 5 moves forward, and are decoupled (separated) as the slider 5 moves rearward. each stringer 4 a , 4 b has a fastener tape 2 a , 2 b and a fastener element 3 a , 3 b arranged at one side-edge of the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b . in the present specification, front-rear direction would be understood based on the movement of the slider 5 . up-down direction is orthogonal to the front-rear direction, and also is orthogonal to tape surfaces of the fastener tape (by which a thickness of the fastener tape is defined). left-right direction is orthogonal to the front-rear direction and the up-down direction. the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b is a single-layer or multi-layer thin flexible member with top and bottom tape surfaces 21 and 22 defining a thickness thereof (see fig. 3 ). the fastener tape may include a tape base fabric including a knitted structure or woven structure or mixture thereof. the knitted structure has higher elasticity or softness than the woven structure, and thus it is expected that it moves more easily (e.g. locally) following the motion of fastener element arranged the fastener tape. the fastener element 3 a , 3 b is a coil-like element made of a spirally wound mono-filament, and sewn to the tape surface 22 of the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b by an attachment yarn. the fastener element 3 a , 3 b is covered and concealed by the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b from above in a coupled state of the slide fastener 1 (i.e. not or hardly viewable for human eyes). note that, the extent of concealment of the fastener element 3 a , 3 b by the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b can be adjustable. furthermore, when the slide fastener 1 is viewed from below as illustrated in fig. 2 , the fastener element 3 a , 3 b is not concealed by the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b at all. the fastener element 3 a , 3 b should not be limited to a coil-like element, but resin-made or metal-made elements may be used in envisioned embodiments. the coil element is configured by a series of units consisting of an upper leg 31 , a lower leg 32 , a head 33 and a return portion 34 (see fig. 3 ). the upper leg 31 is arranged to be in contact with the tape surface 22 . the lower leg 32 is arranged apart from the tape surface 22 . the head 33 extends along the up-down direction to couple the upper leg 31 and the lower leg 32 , and has a wider filament-width compared with the filament-width of the upper leg 31 and the lower leg 32 in the front-rear direction. the return portion 34 extends to couple the upper leg 31 and the lower leg 32 in adjacent units. it is optional to arrange or not to arrange a core thread inside the spiral structure of the coil element. the slide fastener 1 further has front stops 8 a , 8 b arranged at the front end of the fastener element 3 a , 3 b to prevent the slider 5 from moving forward, and a rear stop 8 c that allows decoupling and separation of the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b . in the separate fastener stringer 4 b at one side (herein after referred to as just one separate stringer 4 b ) after separation of the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b , the slider 5 may move forward or rearward along the fastener element 3 b arranged thereon, as shown in fig. 4 . the slider 5 may be occasionally moved forward and rearward in the just one separate stringer 4 b for a purpose of ensuring easier sewing of the slide fastener 1 to cloths or just for play or killing time, although such a movement does not cause decoupling and coupling of the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b. a center line x 5 of the slider 5 is tilted relative to a line x 2 that is parallel to the elongation direction of the just one separate stringer 4 b (the front-rear direction). there are cases, when the slider 5 is pulled rearward in the just one separate stringer 4 b , the slider 5 is further tilted relative to the just one separate stringer 4 b , i.e. an angle between the line x 2 and the center line x 5 is increased. as described at the beginning, a structure of slider, particularly a structure for defining movement trajectories of fastener tape and fastener element is generally designed with a precondition that a slider is moved for a purpose of decoupling and coupling a pair of fastener stringers. the movement of the slider 5 in the just one separate stringer 4 b is out of consideration so to speak, and there is a possibility that the slider 5 is not suitably adapted to that instance. more detail discussion on the slider 5 will follow with reference to figs. 5-9 . the slider 5 has a top wing 51 , a bottom wing 52 , a connecting pillar 53 that connects these wings 51 and 52 , flanges 54 arranged at the top wing 51 , and flanges 55 arranged at the bottom wing 52 , and a pull-tab attachment portion 58 arranged on the top wing 51 , and a pull tab 59 attached to the pull-tab attachment portion 58 (see figs. 1 and 4 ). any material can be used for the slider 5 , but it may be made of metal or resin or ceramic. the slider 5 may be produced by assembling a locking pawl 60 (optionally a leaf spring 61 and a cap 62 in addition) described below (see fig. 10 ) to a slider body consisting of the top wing 51 , the bottom wing 52 , the connecting pillar 53 , the flanges 54 and the flanges 55 . y-shaped passage for fastener elements is formed by the top wing 51 , the bottom wing 52 and the connecting pillar 53 . the connecting pillar 53 extends in the up-down direction so as to separate the engaged fastener elements 3 a and 3 b . the connecting pillar 53 has a rear end 53 t tapered to be narrower in width rearward. the flanges 54 , 55 are arranged such that respective or engaged fastener elements 3 a and 3 b move in intended trajectory in the passage for fastener elements. stack 9 a , 9 b including the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b and the fastener element 3 a , 3 b (see fig. 3 ) is interposed between the top wing 51 and the bottom wing 52 . the tape surface 21 of the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b can be in contact with the top wing 51 (the inner surface thereof) and the flange 54 . the tape surface 22 of the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b can be in contact with the flange 55 . the fastener element 3 a , 3 b can be in contact with the bottom wing 52 (the inner surface thereof) and the flange 55 . the top wing 51 is provided with the elongated protrusion 56 extending rearward from the connecting pillar 53 so as to be interposed between opposed tape sides 26 a and 26 b of the pair of fastener tapes 2 a and 2 b (see fig. 3 ). the elongated protrusion 56 has a rear end 56 e tapered to be narrower in width rearward. left and right side surfaces 56 a and 56 b of the rear end 56 e gradually approach each other rearward. the side surface 56 a touches the opposed tape side 26 a , and the side surface 56 b touches the opposed tape side 26 b . apex 56 c of the rear end 56 e is formed by the side surfaces 56 a and 56 b . as the slider 5 is pulled rearward, the elongated protrusion 56 enters an interspace between the opposed tape sides 26 a and 26 b of the fastener tapes 2 a and 2 b , facilitating smoother disengagement of the fastener elements 3 a and 3 b by the connecting pillar 53 . note that the opposed tape sides 26 a and 26 b are sides (side faces) of the fastener tapes 2 a and 2 b , and which are arranged to face each other when the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b are to be decoupled or coupled by the slider 5 . the top wing 51 is provided with a shallow groove 51 j extending rearward from the elongated protrusion 56 , providing a space for the fastener tapes 2 a and 2 b to flee which are to be separated by the elongated protrusion 56 . the top wing 51 is provided with an element-pushing portion 51 u , suppressing displacement of the fastener elements 3 a and 3 b in the slider 5 . the bottom wing 52 is provided with a convex partition 52 j extending rearward from the connecting pillar 53 in a manner to face the elongated protrusion 56 so that a movement passage for the fastener elements 3 a and 3 b is partitioned. in a case where the partition 52 j is arranged, there is a possibility that the space for the stack 9 b to flee may be narrowed as the slider 5 moves in the just one separate stringer 4 b . if the partition 52 j were omitted, the stability of decoupling and coupling of the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b by the slider 5 may possibly be lowered. fig. 8 shows a condition in the just one separate stringer 4 b shown in fig. 4 where the slider 5 has stopped turning due to collision between the left flange 55 (in particular, a rear end thereof) and the fastener element 3 b after turning in a direction the connecting pillar 53 moves away from the fastener element 3 b on the just one separate stringer 4 b (in a counterclockwise direction when viewed from above (see an arrow in fig. 4 )). in fig. 8 , position and trajectory of the opposed tape side 26 b is indicated by dash-dot lines. in the present embodiment, the opposed tape side 26 b extending toward the flange 54 (alternatively the flange 55 if the flange 54 is not provided) forms an angle of less than or equal to 45° (e.g. 44°, 43°, 42°, 41°, 40°, . . . (enumeration of intermediate values is omitted) . . . , 15°) with respect to the center line x 5 of the slider 5 (see θ 4 ). additionally or alternatively, in some cases, the side surface 56 b of the rear end 56 e of the elongated protrusion 56 forms an angle of greater than or equal to 45° (e.g. 46°, 47°, 48°, 49°, 50°, . . . (enumeration of intermediate values is omitted) . . . , 75°) with respect to the center line x 5 of the slider 5 (see θ 2 ). in some cases, θ 2 is set to be 90°. in those cases, the slider 5 may be suitably adapted to a situation where it moves in the just one separate stringer 4 b along the fastener element 3 b . for example, as the slider 5 is turned and pulled rearward relative to the just one separate stringer 4 b as described above, it is suppressed that the fastener tape 2 b rides onto the elongated protrusion 56 (i.e. the stack 9 b enters a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 ) and that the rearward motion of the slider 5 is prevented or hindered. similar to the side surface 56 b , the side surface 56 a of the rear end 56 e of the elongated protrusion 56 may form an angle of greater than or equal to 45° relative to the center line x 5 of the slider 5 , but should not be limited to this. note that, as the slider 5 is turned and pulled rearward relative to the just one separate stringer 4 b as described above, the side surface 56 b of the rear end 56 e of the elongated protrusion 56 slides on the opposed tape side 26 b of the fastener tape 2 b of the just one separate stringer 4 b. usually, by forming the elongated protrusion 56 longer rearward, the fastener tapes 2 a and 2 b are moved apart in the left-right direction at a position farther from the connecting pillar 53 in advance, facilitating stable decoupling and coupling of the fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b . in the present embodiment, instead of forming the elongated protrusion 56 longer rearward, the length of the elongated protrusion 56 is set to be shorter. in particular, the elongated protrusion 56 has a length d 1 such that the stack 9 b does not enter a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 as, in the just one separate fastener stringer 4 b of the pair of fastener stringers 4 a and 4 b , the slider 5 is pulled rearward while having been turned in a direction the connecting pillar 53 moves away from the fastener element 3 b provided in the just one separate fastener stringer 4 b . accordingly, it is suppressed that the fastener tape 2 b rides onto the elongated protrusion 56 (i.e. the stack 9 b enters a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 ) and that the rearward motion of the slider 5 is prevented or hindered. in cases where the elongated protrusion 56 extends rearward from the connecting pillar 53 , the length d 1 of the elongated protrusion 56 is equal to a (maximum) distance of the rear end of the elongated protrusion 56 from the connecting pillar 53 and. in some cases, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.7 is satisfied in which d 1 denotes a length of the elongated protrusion 56 , and d 2 denotes a distance of a rear end of the slider 5 from the connecting pillar 53 . in some instances, d 1 /d 2 ≤0.65 or d 1 /d 2 ≤0.6 is satisfied. it is envisaged that, by shortening the elongated protrusion 56 , the condition of the angle between the opposed tape side 26 b and the center line x 5 of the slider 5 would be more easily satisfied. in embodiments where a pawl aperture 51 n is formed at the elongated protrusion 56 of the slider 5 , if the fastener tape 2 b rides onto the elongated protrusion 56 (i.e. the stack 9 b enters a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 ), the fastener tape 2 b may possibly be pressed into the pawl aperture 51 n and the tape surface 21 of the fastener tape 2 b may be scraped and damaged. such disadvantage may be avoided or suppressed by satisfying the condition of the angle between the opposed tape side 26 b and the center line x 5 of the slider 5 . description will follow referring to fig. 9 for a clearer understanding of the above-described feature. fig. 9 is prepared with reference to fig. 2 of the patent literature 1. similar to fig. 8 , fig. 9 shows a condition in the just one separate stringer 4 b where the slider 5 has stopped turning due to collision between the flange 55 (in particular, a rear end thereof) and the fastener element 3 b after turning in a direction the connecting pillar 53 moves away from the fastener element 3 b on the just one separate stringer 4 b (see an arrow in fig. 4 ). in a case of fig. 9 , the opposed tape side 26 b extending toward the flange 54 (alternatively the flange 55 if the flange 54 is not provided) forms an angle of greater than 45° with respect to the center line x 5 of the slider 5 (see θ 4 ′). similarly, the side surface 56 b of the rear end 56 e of the elongated protrusion 56 forms an angle of less than 45° with respect to the center line x 5 of the slider 5 (see θ 2 ′). in such a case, as the slider 5 is turned and pulled rearward relative to the just one separate stringer 4 b as described above, the fastener tape 2 b may possibly ride onto the elongated protrusion 56 (i.e. the stack 9 b may possibly enter a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 ) and the rearward motion of the slider 5 may be prevented or hindered. the slider 5 may be one with automatic stop function. in this instance, the slider 5 includes a locking pawl 60 with a pawl end 60 t capable of projecting into a passage for fastener elements in the slider 5 through a pawl aperture 51 n formed at the top wing 51 (e.g. at the elongated protrusion 56 ). the locking pawl 60 may be arranged to be elastically displaceable between a locking position (locking posture) and an unlocking position (unlocking posture) in accordance with operation of the pull tab 59 . for example, as illustrated in fig. 10 , a locking pawl 60 , a leaf spring 61 for urging the locking pawl 60 , and a cap 62 for accommodating these parts are provided. the locking pawl 60 has a pawl end 60 t capable of projecting into the passage for fastener elements from a pawl aperture 51 n . the pull tab 59 has an operating rod 59 k that moves the locking pawl 60 to the unlocking position where the pawl end 60 t does not project from the pawl aperture 51 n , thus it is unlocked. when the pull tab 59 is released from one's hand, the locking pawl 60 is urged by the leaf spring 61 to return to the locking position. various types are known for the locking pawl 60 , and should not be limited to the illustrated examples. for example, in another case, the locking pawl 60 is formed by bending a leaf spring, and is secured to the top wing 51 such that the pawl end 60 t of the locking pawl 60 projects from the pawl aperture 51 n. fig. 11 illustrates an instance where the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b is multi-layered. the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b has a tape base fabric 2 m and a water-resistant layer 2 n formed on the tape base fabric 2 m . the tape base fabric 2 m includes a woven structure or knitted structure or mixture thereof. the water-resistant layer 2 n is a resin layer (e.g. a transparent resin layer) formed onto the tape base fabric 2 m through coating or laminating. the water-resistant layer 2 n is a resin layer such as made of polyurethane, and having a lower softness than that of the tape base fabric 2 m. in an embodiments where the pawl aperture 51 n is formed at the elongated protrusion 56 of the slider 5 , if the fastener tape 2 b rides onto the elongated protrusion 56 (i.e. the stack 9 b enters a space between the elongated protrusion 56 and the bottom wing 52 ), the fastener tape 2 b may possibly be pressed into the pawl aperture 51 n and the tape surface 21 of the fastener tape 2 b may be scraped and damaged. if the fastener tape 2 a , 2 b has the water-resistant layer 2 n , the water-resistant layer 2 n may be scraped and damaged, and the commercial value of the slide fastener 1 and cloths with the slide fastener 1 would be deteriorated. such outcome may be avoided or suppressed by satisfying the condition of the angle between the opposed tape side 26 b and the center line x 5 of the slider 5 as described above. based on the above teachings, a skilled person in the art would be able to add various modifications to the respective embodiments. reference numerals in claims are just for reference and should not be referred for the purpose of narrowly construing the scope of claims. reference signs list 2 a , 2 b fastener tape3 a , 3 b fastener element4 a , 4 b fastener stringer5 slider51 top wing52 bottom wing53 connecting pillar56 elongated protrusion56 e rear end56 a , 56 b side surfaces
177-297-145-508-120	US	[ "US" ]	B65G49/07,H01L21/00,H01L21/677	2001-04-24T00:00:00	2001	[ "B65", "H01" ]	wafer boat elevator system and method	an apparatus for assisting the loading of a plurality of wafer boats into a multi-level wafer boat loading system ( 1 ) includes a vertical elevator mechanism ( 10 ) attached to the wafer boat loading system ( 1 ). a vertically movable horizontal wafer boat platform ( 18 b) is attached to a vertically movable carriage ( 31 ) included in the elevator mechanism and vertically movable along a linear track ( 30 ) therein. a control system ( 25 ) associated with the vertical elevator mechanism includes a processor for executing a stored program which stores information representing a plurality of elevation levels the plurality of cantilever paddles ( 5 ), respectively, and which responds to a selection signal corresponding to manual selection of one of the elevator levels to control a drive mechanism ( 22,27 ) which moves the wafer boat support platform ( 18 b) from an initial position to the selected elevator level. each of a plurality of heat shield devices ( 50 ) includes a heat reflector plate ( 51 ) that is movable in response to a controller ( 75 ) to advance the heat reflector plate ( 51 ) in front of a scavenger opening to prevent excessive heating in the boat loading region during wafer boat loading/unloading operations.	1. an apparatus for assisting the loading of a plurality of wafer boats through a scavenger device into a multi-level furnace including a vertical arrangement of horizontal furnace tubes, by means of a multi-level wafer boat loading system including a vertical arrangement of a plurality of horizontal cantilever paddles supported by a plurality of horizontally movable carriages movable along corresponding horizontal tracks, the apparatus comprising: 2. the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the program is configured to receive manually entered information representing a plurality of elevation levels and to store the plurality of elevation levels in the memory. 3. the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the control system includes a touch pad display screen adapted to display distinct touch pad areas corresponding to the elevation levels, respectively and produce the selection signal in response to pressing of one of the touch pad areas. 4. the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the program is configured to store information representing a home elevation of the wafer boat platform at a level which is convenient for manual placing of the wafer boats, loaded with semiconductor wafers, on the wafer boat support platform. 5. the apparatus of claim 4 wherein the program is configured to receive a home selection signal corresponding to manual selection of the home elevation. 6. the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the multi-level furnace includes a plurality of heat shield devices attached to the scavenger device, each including a heat reflector plate attached to a movable arm, the movable arm being attached to a carriage mechanism and movable in response to a drive mechanism, and a control system operable in response to a first control signal to advance the heat reflector plate in front of a corresponding opening of the scavenger device and into the mouth of a corresponding furnace tube, and also operable in response to a second control signal to withdraw the heat reflector plate from the mouth of the furnace tube and from the opening of the scavenger device to allow access to the interior of the furnace tube. 7. the apparatus of claim 6 including means for producing the first control signal in response to the presence of a corresponding horizontally movable carriage in a location wherein the horizontal cantilever paddle supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening of the scavenger device. 8. the apparatus of claim 7 including means for producing the second control signal in response to the absence of the corresponding horizontally movable carriage in the location wherein the horizontal cantilever paddle supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening of the scavenger device. 9. the apparatus of claim 1 including a pivot mechanism attached to the vertically movable carriage and the horizontal wafer boat platform to allow the horizontal wafer boat platform to be pivoted from a horizontal position to a vertical position when the horizontal wafer boat platform is not being used to support wafer boats. 10. a method for assisting the loading of a plurality of wafer boats through a scavenger device into a multi-level furnace including a vertical arrangement of horizontal furnace tubes, by means of a multi-level wafer boat loading system including a vertical arrangement of a plurality of horizontal cantilever paddles supported by a plurality of horizontally movable carriages movable along corresponding horizontal tracks, the method comprising: 11. the method of claim 10 and wherein the first cantilever paddle is located at elevation which is too high for the operator to conveniently and safely load the first boatload wafers onto the first cantilever paddle while standing on the floor. 12. the method of claim 11 including repeating steps (a) through (e) to load a second boatload of wafers on the first cantilever paddle. 13. the method of claim 10 including repeating steps (a) through (e) for a second cantilever paddle located at a second level which is located at an elevation which is too high for the operator to conveniently and safely load the second boatload of wafers onto the second cantilever paddle while standing on the floor. 14. the method of claim 10 including controlling flow of heat from the interiors of a plurality of semiconductor processing furnace tubes of a multi-level furnace through a scavenger device into a portion of a multi-level wafer boat loading system, the multi-level furnace including a vertical arrangement of the furnace tubes, the method further including 15. the method of claim 14 including producing the first control signal in response to the presence of a corresponding horizontally movable carriage in a location wherein the horizontal cantilever paddle supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening of the scavenger device. 16. the method of claim 15 producing the second control signal in response to the absence of the corresponding horizontally movable carriage in the location wherein the horizontal cantilever paddle supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening of the scavenger device.	background of the invention the invention relates to an inexpensive, simplified, mostly manual system for loading a plurality of boat loads of semiconductor wafers into a plurality of furnace tube is of a multi-level semiconductor processing furnace, and also to simultaneously protecting the wafer loading region from excessive heat emanating from open ends of the furnace tubes. commonly assigned u.s. pat. no. 5,765,982 by martin et al., issued jun. 16, 1998 discloses an example of a fully automated prior art wafer boat loading/unloading system. fig. 1a of u.s. pat. no. 5,765,982 shows a complex loading station for a semiconductor processing furnace. a queue mechanism 30 having a stationary base is loaded with up to eight boatloads of semiconductor wafers. the queue mechanism shifts the right hand boatload of wafers to an index position at the right end of queue mechanism such that a pair of horizontal elevator tines of a vertical elevator mechanism can pick up one boatload of wafers at a time in the manner of a fork lift, and raise them upward and into alignment with one of a number of horizontal loading assemblies. each loading assembly includes a carriage which moves horizontally on a track toward a semiconductor furnace tube located in a furnace cabinet on the right hand side of the furnace loading station so that up to eight boatloads of wafers supported on a horizontal cantilever paddle can be inserted into the hot zone of a corresponding furnace tube. a horizontal robotic mechanism is supported by vertical elevator. the horizontal robotic mechanism supports the tines which pick up one boatload of wafers and moves them horizontally to position each boatload of wafers, one at a time, over the paddle and lower it onto the paddle. after up to eight boatloads of wafers have been loaded onto cantilever paddle, the carriage supporting the paddle moves into the hot zone of the corresponding furnace tube. the entire operation is controlled by a controller 25 and an associated control console 15 which is mounted as shown. the foregoing system of u.s. pat. no. 5,765,982 is very expensive. the known fully automated wafer boat loading systems constitute one extreme of the prior art, and have been widely adopted by the larger semiconductor wafer fabrication concerns. the other extreme of the prior art constitutes manually loading/unloading all of the wafer boats, one at a time, wherein a worker, referred to as an operator, carries each wafer boat up or down a stepladder, supporting the loaded wafer boat by means of a conventional hand-held, fork-shaped pickup tool. this process is relatively inexpensive in that it requires very little capital investment, and is still widely used by smaller semiconductor wafer processing concerns. however, the fully manual loading/unloading technique has the shortcomings of being very stressful and dangerous for the operators, because each loaded standard wafer boat is very heavy. the manual wafer boat loading/unloading technique also has the shortcoming that it puts the very valuable work product, i.e., the partially processed semiconductor wafers, at risk. one reason for this shortcoming is that if the operator becomes unsteady on the stepladder and drops a wafer boat, the economic loss is likely to be very high, perhaps many thousands of dollars. another reason for the shortcoming is that during a completely manual wafer boat loading process, there is a substantial risk that the operator may mistakenly place one or more loaded wafer boats on the wrong cantilever paddle, which usually means that wafer boat gets loaded in the wrong processing furnace. since different furnaces in the same multi-level rack of furnace tubes may be performing different processes, this mistake can destroy or result in a great loss of value of the in-process wafers. it has long been known that most common injuries to operators performing fully manual wafer boat loading/unloading operations involve stumbling on the ladder steps or falling off of the ladder. the risk of this kind injury is greatly exacerbated by the substantial weight and precariousness of a boatload of wafers being held by means of a pickup tool and by the large amount of attention required to be focused by the operator on the task of maintaining stability of the boatload of wafers while climbing up or down the stepladder. the balancing act which the operator has to perform detracts substantially from the attention that needs to be given to safely climbing up and down the stepladder while supporting the wafer boat completely level. although the completely manual wafer boat loading technique and the automated wafer boat loading techniques have been known to those skilled in the art for many years, no one has ever provided a practical solution to the above described shortcomings of completely manual wafer boat loading/unloading processes other than to provide the above described automated wafer boat loading/unloading systems, which are very expensive. thus, there has long been an unmet need for a wafer boat loading system which is less costly than the highly automated systems of the prior art, and which is substantially safer than the known technique of manually carrying wafer boats up and down a stepladder to the higher cantilever paddles and placing the wafer boats thereon by means of a pickup tool. another problem associated with most, if not all, wafer boat loading/unloading techniques is that typically the temperatures within the furnace tubes often are from about 400 degrees to 1200 degrees centigrade. enough heat flows out of the mouths of the furnace tubes and through the adjacent openings of the scavenger device disposed between the furnace and the wafer boat loading station to cause the temperature in the vicinity of the wafer boat loading station to be too high for maintenance personnel, and also too high for operators who place wafer boats on the receiving queue or platform of the wafer boat loading station. when the temperature in the furnace tube reaches about 500 degrees centigrade, then the region outside the furnace to mouth may become hot enough tube cause problems for control circuitry located in the region. one reason for this is that some transistors and sensing devices can not tolerate such high temperatures. for example, some integrated circuits that might be used in automatic wafer boat loading systems must be operated below 80 degrees centigrade. in the past, furnace tube caps have been used to seal the open mouths of semiconductor processing furnace tubes during processing of semiconductor wafers therein, but no practical technique has been provided for preventing heat from escaping through the open mouths of the furnace tubes and associated scavenger devices during wafer boat loading and unloading procedures. thus, there has been an unmet need for an apparatus and technique for preventing loss of heat through the mouth of a furnace tube and through an associated scavenger device into the working region of a multi-level wafer boat loading system, and for keeping the temperature in the working region low enough to be suitable for maintenance personnel and low enough to be suitable for operation of control circuitry associated with the wafer boat loading system. summary of the invention accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a simplified wafer boat loading device which reduces the amount of physical effort required for an operator to manually load/unload boatloads of semiconductor wafers into/from a multi-level semiconductor processing furnace. it is another object of the invention to provide a wafer boat loading device which reduces the likelihood of physical injury to an operator who manually loads/unloads boatloads of semiconductor wafers into/from multi-level semiconductor processing furnaces. it is another object of the invention to provide a simplified wafer boat loading system which requires a minimum amount of space in the vicinity of a multi-level wafer boat loading system. it is another object of the invention to avoid the instability that results when an operator carries a boatload of semiconductor wafers up or down a ladder, using a conventional pickup tool. it is another object of the invention to avoid operator fatigue resulting from carrying boatloads of semiconductor wafers up and down a stepladder to accomplish loading/unloading the boatloads of semiconductor wafers into/from a processing furnace. it is another object of the invention to avoid the high cost of providing an automated semiconductor wafer boat loading system to solve the known problems associated with manual loading/unloading of semiconductor wafer boats to/from a cantilever paddle of a multi-level wafer boat loading station. it is another object of the invention to avoid errors wherein an operator inadvertently loads a boatload of semiconductor wafers onto the wrong cantilever paddle of a multi-level wafer boat loading system. it is another object of the invention to protect components of a wafer boat loading system from heat escaping through the mouth of a multi-level furnace and associated scavenger device during wafer boat loading/unloading operations. it is another object of the invention to provide a wafer boat loading device which avoids injuries to operators due to repetitive motion, and meets osha standards for ergonomic devices. briefly described, and in accordance with one embodiment thereof, the invention provides an apparatus for assisting the loading of a plurality of wafer boats into a multi-level furnace ( 70 ) including a vertical arrangement of horizontal furnace tubes ( 71 ), by means of a multi-level wafer boat loading system ( 1 ) including a vertical arrangement of a plurality of horizontal cantilever paddles ( 5 ) supported by a plurality of the corresponding carriages ( 3 ) movable along corresponding horizontal tracks ( 4 ). a vertical elevator mechanism ( 10 ) is attached in fixed relationship to the wafer boat loading system ( 1 ). a vertically movable horizontal wafer boat platform ( 18 b) is attached to a vertically movable carriage ( 31 ) which is included in the elevator mechanism and is vertically movable along a linear track ( 30 ) in the elevator mechanism in response to an electrical drive mechanism ( 22 , 27 ). a controller ( 25 ) for controlling the vertical elevator mechanism includes a memory storing a program and a processor coupled to the memory for executing the program to control the elevation of the platform ( 18 b). the program is configured to store information representing a plurality of elevation levels of the wafer boat support platform ( 18 b) adjacent to the plurality of cantilever paddles ( 5 ), respectively. the program also is configured to receive a selection signal produced by manual selection of one of the elevator levels and to control the electrical drive mechanism ( 22 , 27 ) in response to the selection signal to move the wafer boat support platform ( 18 b) from an initial position to the selected elevator level. the program is configured to receive manually entered information representing a plurality of elevation levels and to store the plurality of elevation levels in the memory. the controller ( 25 ) includes a touch pad display screen ( 16 ) adapted to display distinct touch pad areas corresponding to the elevation levels, respectively and produce the selection signal in response to pressing of one of the touch pad areas. the program also is configured to store information representing a home elevation of the wafer boat platform ( 18 b) at a level which is safe and convenient for manual placing of the wafer boats, loaded with semiconductor wafers, on the wafer boat support platform ( 18 b). the program also is configured to receive a home selection signal corresponding to manual selection of the home elevation. in one described embodiment, a scavenger device in communication with the multilevel furnace ( 70 ) includes a plurality of heat shield devices ( 50 ) each including a heat reflector plate ( 51 ) attached to a movable arm ( 52 ). the movable arm is attached to a carriage mechanism ( 56 ) and movable in response to a drive mechanism ( 54 ). a controller is operable in response to a first control signal to advance the heat reflector plate ( 51 ) in front of an opening ( 73 ) of the scavenger device adjacent to a mouth of a corresponding furnace tube ( 71 ) when the corresponding carriage supporting the cantilever paddle is in its home position. the control system also is operable in response to a second control signal to withdraw the heat reflector plate ( 51 ) from the opening ( 73 ) of the scavenger device to allow entry of the cantilever paddle into the interior of the furnace tube when the carriage supporting the cantilever paddle moves away from its home position toward the opening ( 73 ) of the scavenger device ( 72 ). brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a partial cutaway perspective view of a four-level wafer boat loading/unloading station for loading wafer boats into a semiconductor processing furnace and unloading wafer boats from the semiconductor processing furnace, with the elevator system 10 of the present invention attached. fig. 2 is a perspective view of part of the assembled elevator system 10 shown in fig. 1 . fig. 3 is an exploded perspective view of the part of the elevator system 10 shown in fig. 2 . fig. 4 is an exploded perspective view of the platform assembly 18 of elevator system 10 shown in fig. 1 . fig. 5a is a block diagram of controller 25 of fig. 3 . fig. 5b is a flowchart of the program executed by the controller 25 . fig. 6 is an exploded perspective view of an automatic heat reflecting/blocking mechanism for blocking heat from the mouth of a furnace tube during operation of the elevator system of the present invention. fig. 7 is an exploded perspective view of another automatic heat blocking mechanism for blocking heat from the mouth of furnace tube during operation of the elevator system of the present invention. fig. 8 is a partial perspective view of the four-level wafer boat loading apparatus of fig. 1 , adjacent to a scavenger attached to a four-level semiconductor processing furnace which is shown in dashed lines, with a plurality of the heat reflecting/blocking mechanisms of fig. 6 attached to the scavenger. detailed description of the preferred embodiments referring to fig. 1 , wafer boat loading/unloading station 1 (hereinafter referred to simply as wafer boat loading station 1 ) includes four conventional cantilevered wafer boat loading/unloading mechanisms 3 - 1 , 3 - 2 , 3 - 3 and 3 - 4 (hereinafter referred to simply as loading mechanisms), similar to those described in above mentioned u.s. pat. no. 5,765,982. (note that hereinafter, mechanisms 3 - 1 , 3 - 2 , 3 - 3 and 3 - 4 may be designated collectively as 3 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and also may be collectively designated simply as loading mechanisms 3 .) the same convention is used for various other elements described herein.) each loading mechanism 3 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 includes a carriage horizontally moveable on a longitudinal track 4 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , respectively. each loading mechanism 3 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 supports a horizontal cantilever paddle 5 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 that supports up to eight standard wafer boats loaded with semiconductor wafers (i.e., up to about 300 wafers). in fig. 1 , a boatload of semiconductor wafers 19 is shown on cantilever paddle 5 - 1 , ready to be carried into the hot zone of a semiconductor processing furnace tube 71 - 1 (see fig. 8 ) by cantilever paddle 5 - 1 . (alternatively, a single, much larger wafer boat of the kind commonly referred to as a long boat, rather than up to eight standard wafer boats, can be supported on a cantilever paddle and carried by it into the hot zone of the furnace tube.) wafer boat loading/unloading station 1 includes a base 2 having a front edge 2 a, and a top cover 8 having a front edge 8 a. a four-level elevator 10 has its lower end rigidly attached to the front edge 2 a of base 2 and its upper end rigidly attached to the front edge 8 a of the top cover 8 . elevator 10 supports a cantilever wafer boat platform assembly 18 and automatically carries up to eight standard boatloads of wafers up from a home elevation to a selected one of four predetermined elevations (referred to as level1, level2, level3, and level4) immediately adjacent to each of the four cantilever paddles 5 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , respectively, in response to pressing a corresponding touch pad area on a touch pad display screen 16 of a control console 15 attached to the front surface of elevator 10 . referring also to fig. 2 , elevator 10 includes a front cover panel 20 and control console 15 mounted on front cover panel 20 as shown. elevator 10 also includes a rear cover panel 21 . a vertical slot 12 is provided on either the right side or left side of elevator 10 between the side edges of front cover panel 20 and cover panel 21 . a bracket of the carriage 31 ( fig. 3 ) extends out of slot 12 and is attached to support wafer boat platform assembly 18 on which the wafer boats are manually placed. referring to fig. 3 , which is an exploded perspective view of elevator 10 (without the wafer boat support platform assembly 18 ), a vertical track 30 is rigidly attached to a vertical elongated backplate 32 . the above mentioned carriage 31 moves along vertical track 30 , supported by a chain 28 driven by a servo motor assembly 22 and a sprocket assembly 27 , which are similar to those in the assignee's commercially available ibal system. servo motor assembly 22 is enclosed within a housing 23 . chain 28 includes a left section 28 a that extends between sprocket assembly 27 and a stationary idler sprocket 29 which is attached to backplate 32 . chain 28 also includes a right section 28 b having an upper portion that is attached to carriage 31 and a lower portion that is also attached to carriage 31 , so that servo motor assembly 22 and sprocket assembly 27 operate under the control of a controller 25 to raise or lower carriage 31 , and with it, wafer boat support platform assembly 18 , which is rigidly attached to and supported by carriage 31 . controller 25 is supported by bottom plate 35 b, and causes wafer boat support platform assembly 18 to be moved vertically to the elevation of a selected one of four levels adjacent to the four cantilever paddles 5 - 1 , 5 - 2 , 5 - 3 , or 5 - 4 . this selection is accomplished by the operator by pressing a corresponding touch pad area of display screen 16 . the above mentioned backplate 32 is rigidly attached to rear cover plate 21 and to brackets 33 a and 33 b, which are utilized to attach the upper and lower ends of elevator 10 to the front edge 8 a of top cover 8 of wafer boat loading station 1 and to the front edge 2 a of base 2 . control console mounting plate 26 is rigidly attached to bottom plate 35 b, which is attached to backplate 32 . control console 15 supports touch pad display screen 16 and switch 17 , which are coupled to controller 25 . switch 17 functions as a power on/off switch and as an emergency stop switch. the touch pad display screen 16 in figs. 1-3 can display indicia representing the four above mentioned selectable elevations of wafer boat support platform assembly 18 . the four intended elevations are referred to as level1, level2, level3, and level4, wherein level1 is the top level and level4 the bottom level. touch pad display screen 16 also can display two additional elevations referred to as home and park, and also can display a stop command. the touch pad display screen 16 also can display a numeric keypad by means of which the values of the four different elevations and the park and home elevations can be entered and stored by controller 25 . as shown in fig. 1 , elevator 10 has attached thereto the above mentioned cantilever wafer boat support platform assembly 18 , which is adapted to support up to eight standard wafer boats or one long wafer boat. an exploded view of wafer boat support platform assembly 18 is shown in fig. 4 . referring to fig. 4 , cantilever wafer boat platform assembly 18 includes a bracket 18 a including two parallel vertical brace members 11 a and 11 b the vertical rear edges of brace members 11 a and 11 b are attached to a vertical backplate 11 c, which is attached by means of screws, as illustrated, to the vertical edge of the portion of carriage 31 extending through slot 12 . the vertical front edges of brace members 11 a and 11 b are rigidly attached to a vertical front plate 11 d. cantilever wafer boat platform assembly 18 also includes a wafer boat support platform 18 b including an elongated rectangular frame 13 a supporting a matching plate 13 b. a horizontal pivot block 40 is attached to the rear edges of frame 13 a. a pivot pin 41 extends through opposite ends of pivot block 40 into suitable bushings which are supported in a pair of bearing holes 38 disposed in the upper, inner, rear portions of brace members 11 a and 11 b, as shown. the foregoing pivot mechanism allows platform 18 b to be pivoted from a horizontal position, wherein the bottom of frame 13 a is supported by the upper edges of brace members 11 a and 11 b, to a vertical position (if no wafer boats are supported thereby), in order to allow better access to the cantilever paddles 5 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . a kickstand 42 is pivotally attached to the side rails of frame 13 a. the outer end of kickstand 42 engages a notch in element 1 e, which is rigidly attached to the inner face of vertical front plate 11 d, in order to retain wafer boat support platform 18 b in its vertical position. a set of wafer boat support rails 14 are attached to the upper surface of plate 13 b to support various types of wafer boats that can be loaded onto platform 18 b. preferably, plate 13 b and rails 14 are composed of suitable high-temperature materials, such as stainless steel, silicon carbide, high-temperature polyamide, or the like. referring to fig. 5a , controller 25 is provided on a small printed circuit board including a programmable logic controller integrated circuit which includes memory. prototypes of the present invention have been implemented by means of a commercially available (aromat fp0) programmable logic controller including five kilobytes of memory. controller 25 includes a bidirectional bus coupling it to touch pad display screen 16 and switch 17 . controller 25 executes a program in accordance with the flowchart shown in fig. 5 b. referring to fig. 5b , the program first enters block 80 and performs various conventional initialization procedures and also executes a subroutine to move wafer boat platform assembly 18 to its home position, which is a an ergonomically acceptable elevation at which operators can conveniently and safely place wafer boats on wafer boat support platform 18 b. the program then goes to decision block 81 and determines whether controller 25 is to operate in a completely manual mode or in an automatic mode. if the determination of decision block 81 is negative, the program executes a subroutine (not described herein) to control the elevation of wafer boat platform assembly 18 in response to pressing appropriate touch pad areas displayed on touch pad display screen 16 . otherwise, the program goes to block 83 , and displays an appropriate touch pad area (described hereinafter), and prompts the operator to touch the appropriate displayed touch pad area, and determines or reads the selected, i.e., desired, level for wafer boat platform assembly 18 from the touch pad display screen 16 . the program then goes to block 84 and executes a subroutine corresponding to the desired level so as to move wafer boat platform assembly 18 to that level. the program then goes to decision block 85 and determines if wafer boat platform assembly 18 is at either the home level or the park level. if it is at the home level, the program goes to block 86 and executes the home subroutine so as to move wafer boat platform assembly 18 to the home level, and returns to the entry point of decision block 81 . if the determination of decision block 85 is that wafer boat platform assembly 18 is at the park level, then the program goes to block 87 and executes a park subroutine so as to move wafer boat platform assembly 18 to the park level. the program then goes to decision block 88 and determines if the operator has selected the home level by pressing a corresponding displayed touch pad area on touch pad display screen 16 . if the determination is negative, the program returns to the entry point of block 87 , but if the determination is affirmative, the program goes to block 89 and executes the home subroutine so as to cause elevator 10 to move wafer boat platform assembly 18 to the home level, and then returns to the entry point of decision block 81 . (a specific list of program instructions for a particular processor or programmable logic controller to implement the flowchart of fig. 5b , including providing various appropriate status messages and user prompting messages, can be readily provided by one skilled in the art.) when the controller 25 of elevator 10 is initially turned on, touch pad display screen 16 displays eight rectangular touch pad areas. touch pad display screen 16 also displays the legends level1, level2, level3, level4, home, park, manual mode, and exit within the eight rectangular touch pad areas, respectively. if the operator then presses the touch pad area displaying level1, touch pad display screen 16 changes the display, which then displays two rectangular touch pad areas, one displaying the message moving to level1, and the other displaying stop. elevator 10 then automatically carries the wafer boat loads of semiconductor wafers to be processed (which have been previously placed on rails 14 of wafer boat support platform 18 b) to an elevation immediately adjacent to the cantilever paddle 5 - 1 , i.e., to level1. then touch pad display 16 displays a rectangular information area containing the message ready for level1 product transfer, and also displays two rectangular touch pad areas including the legends home and park, respectively. if the operator presses the touch pad area displaying home, touch pad display screen 16 displays a rectangular message area containing the message returning to home and a rectangular touch pad area displaying stop. when elevator 10 has completed returning wafer boat support platform 18 b to the home elevation at which wafer boats are loaded onto and unloaded from platform 18 b, touch pad display screen 16 displays a rectangular message area containing the message system at home position, and also displays a touch pad area displaying exit. if the operator presses the touch pad area displaying exit, touch pad display screen 16 displays the eight touch pad areas first described above. if the operator then presses the touch pad area displaying park, elevator 10 moves wafer boat support platform 18 b to a park level located above the top level (level1) and touch pad display screen 16 simultaneously displays the message moving to park position and a touch pad area displaying stop. (the park level allows wafer boat platform assembly 18 to be moved to a location above the other previously described levels, so as to get it out of the way of operators or maintenance personnel who need access to the cantilever paddles 5 , carriages 3 etc.) to operate the elevator 10 in conjunction with the multi-level wafer boat loading system 1 shown in fig. 1 , an operator uses the above mentioned pickup device to manually place the wafer boats on wafer boat support platform 18 b when the elevator is in the home position. with the control controller 25 and touch pad display screen 16 turned on, the operator then presses the appropriate touch pad displayed on touch pad display screen 16 to indicate the desired level number (meaning the level of cantilever paddle 5 - 1 , 5 - 2 , 5 - 3 , or 5 - 4 onto which the boatloads of wafers presently on wafer boat support platform 18 b are to be manually transferred). the elevator 10 then is automatically operated by controller 25 to raise the wafer boat support platform 18 a and the boatloads of wafers thereon to the selected level (level1, level2, level3 or level4) of the cantilever paddle on which the boatloads of wafers are to be loaded. to load wafer boats onto the cantilever paddles of the higher levels of wafer boat loading station 1 , e.g. for level1 and level 2, after the operator has manually placed up to eight standard wafer boats on wafer boat support platform 18 b and has pressed a touch pad area indicating level1 or level2, the operator then climbs up a stepladder, carrying only a pickup device, and uses the pickup device to transfer the loaded wafer boats, one at a time, from wafer boat support platform 18 b to the adjacent cantilever paddle at the selected level. the invention described above provides a practical solution to the above described problems of fully manual wafer boat loading techniques involving use of a stepladder to manually carry wafer boats to the upper cantilever paddles in multi-level wafer boat loading systems (the problems referred to including operator injuries, risk of damage to partially processed semiconductor wafers, and the risk of operator error in loading wafer boats into the wrong semiconductor processing furnaces). the operator needs only to carry the small, light wafer boat pickup device up the ladder, and the elevator automatically carries the loaded wafer boats unerringly to the selected level of the correct cantilever paddle. therefore, the operator is unlikely to inadvertently carry a loaded wafer boat up the stepladder and accidentally place it on the wrong cantilever paddle. the speed of loading/unloading wafer boats onto/from cantilever paddles by a skilled operator using the above described elevator system 10 is approximately the same as the speed of a typical fully automated wafer boat loading/unloading system. however, the cost of the elevator assembly 10 to customers is only about a third of the cost of a conventional fully automatic wafer boat loading station. referring to fig. 8 , a partial perspective view of the wafer boat loading/unloading station 1 a is shown in which the cantilever paddles 5 are shown but carriages 3 and tracks 4 are omitted for clarity of illustration. a multi-level furnace 70 , partially shown in dashed lines, and the associated scavenger 72 attached thereto, are shown on the left side of wafer boat loading/unloading station 1 a. the furnace 70 has four furnace tubes 71 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , but only furnace tube 71 - 1 is shown, for convenience. as is conventional, the mouths of the four furnace tubes 71 each extend three or four inches into a conventional scavenger box 72 , which functions to collect all of the toxic gases that flow out of the furnace tubes 71 so the gases can be safely exhausted from scavenger box 72 . the right side of scavenger 72 has openings 73 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 through which the free ends of the cantilever paddles 5 can pass to carry the boatloads of the semiconductor wafers into the hot zones of the four furnace tubes 71 , respectively. as mentioned above, the temperatures within the processing furnace tubes range from approximately 400 to approximately 1200 degrees centigrade. to prevent excessive amounts of heat from escaping through the mouths of the furnace tubes and through the scavenger openings 73 , after the scavenger openings 73 have been uncovered to allow loading/unloading of wafer boats into/from furnace tubes 71 , movable heat reflectors 51 are automatically controlled so as to move them directly in front of the scavenger door openings 73 in order to shield the wafer boat loading region from heat that otherwise would flow out all of the open mouths of the furnace tubes 71 and the corresponding scavenger openings 73 . still referring to fig. 8 , four automatic heat shield devices 50 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are attached to the left face of scavenger box 72 adjacent to the scavenger openings 73 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , respectively, wherein the automatic heat shield device devices 50 - 1 , 3 , 4 have their heat reflector plates 51 - 1 , 3 , 4 in a retracted configuration, i.e., withdrawn from the corresponding openings 73 of scavenger box 72 . however, automatic heat shield device 50 - 2 has its heat reflector plate 51 - 2 extended in front of scavenger opening 73 - 2 so as to reflect heat back into the furnace tube, and also to block flow of heat therefrom. each of automatic heat shield devices 50 can be a device as shown in subsequently described fig. 6 . the four heat shield devices 50 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 operate in response to control signals produced by the limit switches 66 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , respectively in fig. 1 so that whenever carriage mechanisms 3 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are in their left-most home positions as shown in fig. 1 , heat shield devices 50 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 extend their respective heat reflector plates 51 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 over the corresponding scavenger openings 73 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , to thereby prevent excessive increase in the temperature in the vicinity of the four cantilever paddles 5 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and thereby avoid exposure of maintenance personnel or operators to high temperatures. referring to fig. 6 , automatic heat shield device 50 , which is shown in an exploded perspective view, includes a heat reflector plate 51 mounted on the end of a movable arm 52 . heat reflector plate 51 includes a reflector plate 51 a supported by a plate 51 b. plates 51 a and 51 b are composed of suitable high temperature material, such as stainless steel. arrows 53 indicate the movement of arm 52 to move reflective plate 51 outward to block heat from the opening 73 of a scavenger device 72 of furnace 70 , and also to move the reflective plate 51 to a retracted position away from the scavenger opening 73 which allows loading/unloading of wafer boats into/from the furnace tube 71 . arm 52 is mounted on a movable carriage mechanism 56 , which in turn is supported on and movable along a linear drive track 55 by means of a servo motorized linear belt drive mechanism 54 . a control circuit 75 is included in housing 58 within which the linear track 55 and belt drive mechanism 54 are mounted. the housing 58 is covered by cover panels 57 , 58 a and 58 b. the above mentioned controller in housing 58 receives control signals via conductors 67 and 68 from the corresponding limit switches 66 - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 of fig. 1 , from a furnace controller (not shown), and from a manual override switch 57 a mounted on cover 57 . the first control signal 67 is produced by the corresponding limit switch 66 of fig. 1 in response to the presence of the corresponding horizontally movable carriage 3 in a location wherein the corresponding horizontal cantilever paddle 5 supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening 73 of the scavenger device 72 . the second control signal 68 is produced in response to the absence of the corresponding horizontally movable carriage 3 in the location wherein the horizontal cantilever paddle 5 supported by the horizontally movable carriage is fully withdrawn from the opening 73 of the scavenger device 72 . thus, when each cantilever-paddle-supporting-carriage 3 leaves its leftmost home position, the corresponding automatic heat reflector 51 moves away from scavenger opening 73 to allow the cantilever paddle to enter into the corresponding furnace tube 71 . when each cantilever-paddle-supporting-carriage 3 returns to its home position, the corresponding reflector 51 moves in front of the corresponding scavenger opening 73 to reflect heat back into the furnace tube 71 and prevent the temperature in the vicinity of the cantilever paddles from building up to an excessively high level. fig. 7 illustrates another similar automatic heat shield system in which the arm 52 supporting the heat reflective plate 51 is supported by a rotary, rather than linear, drive system including a servo motorized drive mechanism 61 mounted in a housing 54 along with a control system 61 and a cover 58 . while the invention has been described with reference to several particular embodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able to make the various modifications to the described embodiments of the invention without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention. it is intended that all elements or steps which are insubstantially different or perform substantially the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same result as what is claimed are within the scope of the invention.
179-334-903-772-581	US	[ "AU", "JP", "CA", "GB", "KR", "DE", "WO" ]	A47L5/30,A47L7/02,A47L9/04,A47L9/06,A47L11/40,A47L11/292	2017-04-20T00:00:00	2017	[ "A47" ]	cleaning apparatus with combing unit for removing debris from cleaning roller	a cleaning apparatus includes a combing unit including a series of spaced protrusions or teeth extending into a cleaning roller for preventing build up and removing debris (such as hair, string, and the like). the protrusions extend along a substantial portion of the cleaning roller and extend partially into the cleaning roller to intercept the debris as it passes around the roller. the protrusions have angled leading edges that are not aligned with a rotation center of the cleaning roller and are directed into or against a direction of rotation of the cleaning roller. the combing unit and protrusions have a shape and configuration designed to facilitate debris removal from the cleaning roller with minimal impact on the operation of the cleaning apparatus. the cleaning apparatus may include a surface cleaning head of an upright vacuum cleaner or sweeper or a robotic vacuum cleaner.	claims what is claimed is: 1. a cleaning apparatus comprising: a housing defining an opening on an underside of the housing; a cleaning roller mounted in the housing for directing debris into the opening; and a combing unit extending a substantial length of a cleaning surface of the cleaning roller and in contact with the cleaning roller, the combing unit including a series of spaced combing protrusions extending partially into the cleaning roller and having angled leading edges that are not aligned with a center of rotation of the cleaning roller, wherein the angled leading edges are directed into a direction of rotation of the cleaning roller, wherein the leading edges form an acute angle relative to a line extending from an intersection point of the leading edge and the cleaning roller to a rotation center of the cleaning roller. 2. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the spaced combing protrusions include spaced combing teeth extending from a back support, wherein the teeth have roots at the back support and tips at an opposite end from the roots, the teeth being wider at the roots than at the tips. 3. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein tips of the spaced combing protrusions contact the cleaning roller on a bottom half between a rotation center of the cleaning roller and a bottom contact surface of the cleaning roller. 4. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein tips of the spaced combing protrusions contact the cleaning roller on a top half above a rotation center of the cleaning roller. 5. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the acute angle is in a range of 5° to 50°. 6. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the acute angle is in a range of 20° to 30°. 7. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the spaced combing protrusions include spaced combing teeth extending from a back support to tips, and wherein at least some of the tips are rounded with a diameter in a range less than 3 mm. 8. the cleaning apparatus of claim 7, wherein at least some of the tips are rounded with a diameter in a range of 1 to 2 mm. 9. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least some of the combing protrusions have a curved profile with at least the leading edge forming a concave curve. 10. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least some of the combing protrusions have a triangular- shaped profile. 11. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the combing protrusions cover at least 90% of a cleaning surface of the cleaning roller. 12. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the combing protrusions are spaced 4 to 16 teeth per inch. 13. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the combing protrusions are spaced 7 to 9 teeth per inch. 14. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the combing protrusions have a thickness in a range of .5 to 2 mm. 15. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the combing protrusions are made of plastic. 16. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the spaced combing protrusions include spaced combing teeth extending from a back support to tips, and wherein the teeth engage the cleaning roller such that a root gap is formed between the back support and an outer portion of the cleaning roller. 17. the cleaning apparatus of claim 16, wherein the root gap is in a range of 1 to 3 mm. 18. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein the spaced combing protrusions extend into the cleaning roller about 15% to 35% of a radius of the cleaning roller. 19. the cleaning apparatus of claim of claim 18, wherein the cleaning roller includes nylon bristles having a diameter less than or equal to 0.15 mm and a length greater than 3 mm. 20. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, further including a brush roll mounted in the suction conduit, and wherein the cleaning roller is a leading roller. 21. the cleaning apparatus of claim 20, wherein the housing defines an inter-roller air passageway between lower portions of the brush roll and the leading roller and below the combing protrusions, the inter-roller air passageway being in fluid communication with the suction conduit. 22. the cleaning apparatus of claim 1, wherein an upper portion of the cleaning roller above the combing protrusions is outside of the suction conduit. 23. a robotic vacuum cleaner comprising: the cleaning apparatus as recited in claim 1. 24. a sweeper comprising: the cleaning apparatus as recited in claim 1; and a wand coupled at one end to the cleaning apparatus. 25. a stick vacuum comprising: the cleaning apparatus as recited in claim 1; a wand coupled at one end to the cleaning apparatus; and a hand vacuum removably coupled to an opposite end of the wand. 26. an upright canister vacuum comprising: the cleaning apparatus as recited in claim 1; a wand coupled at one end to the cleaning apparatus; and a removable canister coupled to the wand. 27. a surface cleaning head comprising: a housing having a front side and back side, the housing defining a suction conduit with an opening on an underside of the housing between the front side and the back side; a brush roll rotatably mounted to the housing within the suction conduit and at least a portion of the brush roll being proximate the opening of the suction conduit; a leading roller mounted to the housing in front of the brush roll and adjacent the opening of the suction conduit, wherein a front portion of the leading roller is at least partially exposed at the front side of the housing; and a combing unit extending a substantial length of a cleaning surface of the leading roller and in contact with the leading roller, the combing unit including a series of spaced combing protrusions extending partially into the leading roller and having angled leading edges that are not aligned with a center of rotation of the leading roller, wherein the angled leading edges are directed toward a direction of rotation of the leading roller, wherein the leading edges form an acute angle relative to a line extending from an intersection point of the leading edge and the cleaning roller to a rotation center of the cleaning roller. 28. a cleaning apparatus comprising: a housing defining an opening on an underside of the housing; a cleaning roller mounted in the housing for directing debris into the opening; and a combing unit extending a substantial length of a cleaning surface of the cleaning roller and in contact with the cleaning roller, the combing unit including a series of spaced combing protrusions extending partially into the cleaning roller and having angled leading edges that are not aligned with a center of rotation of the cleaning roller, wherein the angled leading edges are directed into a direction of rotation of the cleaning roller, wherein tips of the spaced combing protrusions contact the cleaning roller on a top half above a rotation center of the cleaning roller. 29. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the spaced combing protrusions include spaced combing teeth extending from a back support, wherein the teeth have roots at the back support and tips at an opposite end from the roots, the teeth being wider at the roots than at the tips. 30. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the leading edges form an acute angle relative to a line extending from an intersection point of the leading edge and the cleaning roller to a rotation center of the cleaning roller. 31. the cleaning apparatus of claim 30, wherein the acute angle is in a range of 5° to 50°. 32. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein at least some of the combing protrusions have a triangular- shaped profile. 33. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the combing protrusions cover at least 90% of a cleaning surface of the cleaning roller. 34. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the combing protrusions are spaced 4 to 16 teeth per inch. 35. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the combing protrusions are spaced 7 to 9 teeth per inch. 36. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the combing protrusions have a thickness in a range of .5 to 2 mm. 37. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the combing protrusions are made of plastic. 38. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the roller includes a relatively soft material arranged in a spiral pattern to facilitate capturing debris. 39. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, further comprising at least one sealing strip located on the underside of the housing along a rear side of the opening of the suction conduit and along at least a portion of left and right sides of the opening, and wherein the underside of the housing defines side edge vacuum passageways extending from left and right sides of the housing towards the opening of the suction conduit to direct air to the opening. 40. the cleaning apparatus of claim 28, wherein the housing includes at least one removable cover covering a roller chamber, wherein the roller is removable when the cover is in an open position.	cleaning apparatus with combing unit for removing debris from cleaning roller cross-reference to related applications [0001] the present application claims the benefit of u.s. provisional application no. 62/469,853, filed march 10, 2017 and is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application serial no. 15/331,045, filed oct. 21, 2016, which claims the benefit of u.s. provisional patent application serial no. 62/244,331 filed oct. 21, 2015, u.s. provisional patent application serial no. 62/248,813 filed oct. 30, 2015, and u.s. provisional patent application serial no. 62/313,394 filed march 25, 2016, all of which are fully incorporated herein by reference. the present application is also a continuation-in-part of international application no. pct/us2016/058148, filed on october 21, 2016, which is fully incorporated herein by reference. technical field [0002] the present disclosure relates to cleaners with cleaning rollers and more particularly, to a cleaning apparatus, such as a surface cleaning head for a vacuum cleaner, with a combing unit for removing debris from a cleaning roller such as a leading roller. background information [0003] vacuum cleaners generally include a suction conduit with an opening on the underside of a surface cleaning head for drawing air (and debris) into and through the surface cleaning head. one of the challenges with vacuum cleaner design is to control engagement of the suction conduit with a surface being cleaned to provide the desired amount of suction. if the suction conduit is spaced too far from a surface, the suction may be less because the air is flowing into the suction conduit through a greater surface area. if the suction conduit is directly engaged with the surface and thus sealed on all sides, air will stop flowing into the suction conduit and the suction motor may be damaged as a result. [0004] vacuum cleaners also generally use agitation to loosen debris and facilitate capturing the debris in the flow of air into the suction conduit. agitators are often used in the suction conduit of a surface cleaning head proximate a dirty air inlet to cause the agitated debris to flow into the dirty air inlet. if the agitator in the suction conduit is unable to loosen the debris or if the debris is too small, the suction conduit may pass over the debris without removing the debris from the surface. in other cases, the surface cleaning head may push larger debris forward without ever allowing the debris to be captured in the flow into the suction conduit (sometimes referred to as snowplowing). [0005] one example of an agitator is a cleaning roller such as a brush roll. a cleaning roller may be located within a suction conduit and/or may be located at a leading side of a suction conduit (e.g., a leading roller). one challenge with a leading roller in particular is the debris (e.g., hair) that becomes entangled around the roller. projections may be used to engage the roller to facilitate removal of debris, but existing structures are often not effective and/or interfere with the operation of the surface cleaning head. summary [0006] consistent with an embodiment, a cleaning apparatus includes a housing defining an opening on an underside of the housing for receiving debris, a cleaning roller mounted in the housing for directing debris into the opening, and a combing unit extending a substantial length of a cleaning surface of the cleaning roller and in contact with the cleaning roller. the combing unit includes a series of spaced combing protrusions extending partially into the cleaning roller and having angled leading edges that are not aligned with a center of rotation of the cleaning roller. the angled leading edges are directed into a direction of rotation of the cleaning roller. [0007] consistent with another embodiment, a surface cleaning head includes a housing having a front side and back side. the housing defines a suction conduit with an opening on an underside of the housing between the front side and the back side. a brush roll is rotatably mounted to the housing within the suction conduit and at least a portion of the brush roll is proximate the opening of the suction conduit. a leading roller is mounted to the housing in front of the brush roll and adjacent the opening of the suction conduit. a front portion of the leading roller is at least partially exposed at the front side of the housing. the surface cleaning head also includes a combing unit extending a substantial length of a cleaning surface of the leading roller and in contact with the leading roller. the combing unit includes a series of spaced combing protrusions extending partially into the leading roller and having angled leading edges that are not aligned with a center of rotation of the leading roller. the angled leading edges are directed toward a direction of rotation of the leading roller. brief description of the drawings [0008] these and other features and advantages will be better understood by reading the following detailed description, taken together with the drawings wherein: [0009] fig. 1 is a perspective view of a surface cleaning head including dual agitators and combing protrusions, consistent with an embodiment of the present disclosure. [0010] fig. 2 is a side cross-sectional view of the surface cleaning head shown in fig. 1 showing a flow path through a suction conduit. [0011] fig. 3 is an enlarged side cross-sectional view illustrating the leading roller and brush roll of the surface cleaning head shown in fig. 1. [0012] fig. 4 is an enlarged side cross-sectional view illustrating a leading roller and combing protrusions in the surface cleaning head shown in fig. 1. [0013] fig. 5 is a front perspective view of the front region of the surface cleaning head of fig. 1 without the leading roller and illustrating the combing protrusions. [0014] fig. 6 is an enlarged perspective view of one embodiment of a plurality of combing protrusions. [0015] fig. 7 is a front bottom view of the front region of the surface cleaning head of fig. 1 without the leading roller. [0016] fig. 8 is a front view the surface cleaning head of fig. 1. [0017] fig. 9 is a bottom view the surface cleaning head of fig. 1. [0018] fig. 10 is a perspective cross sectional view of combing protrusions engaging a cleaning roller, consistent with an embodiment of the present disclosure. [0019] fig. 11 is a side cross-sectional view of the combing protrusions engaging the cleaning roller. [0020] fig. 12 is a side perspective view of the combing protrusions shown in fig. 10. [0021] fig. 13 is a top perspective view of a section of the combing protrusions shown in fig. 10. [0022] figs. 14a-14d are top, front, bottom and side views of the section of combing protrusions shown in fig. 13. [0023] fig. 15a is a side cross-sectional view of the combing protrusions engaging a cleaning roller above an axis of rotation, consistent with another embodiment. [0024] fig. 15b is a side cross-sectional view of a combing protrusion having a curved leading edge engaging a cleaning roller, consistent with a further embodiment. [0025] fig. 16 is a perspective view of an upright vacuum cleaner including a surface cleaning head with dual rotating agitators and combing protrusions, consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure. [0026] fig. 17 is a perspective view of a stick type vacuum cleaner including a surface cleaning head with dual rotating agitators and combing protrusions, consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure. [0027] fig. 18 is a bottom perspective view of a robotic vacuum cleaner including a cleaning roller and combing protrusions, consistent with yet another embodiment of the present disclosure. detailed description [0028] a cleaning apparatus, consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure, includes a combing unit (also referred to as a debriding unit or rib) including a series of spaced protrusions or teeth extending into a cleaning roller for preventing build up and removing debris (such as hair, string, and the like). the protrusions extend along a substantial portion of the cleaning roller and extend partially into the cleaning roller to intercept the debris as it passes around the roller. the protrusions have angled leading edges that are not aligned with a rotation center of the cleaning roller and are directed into or against a direction of rotation of the cleaning roller. the combing unit and protrusions have a shape and configuration designed to facilitate debris removal from the cleaning roller with minimal impact on the operation of the cleaning apparatus. the cleaning apparatus may include a surface cleaning head of an upright vacuum cleaner or sweeper or a robotic vacuum cleaner. [0029] an embodiment of a surface cleaning head may include dual rotating agitators (e.g., a leading roller and a brush roll) and may be used to facilitate capturing of debris in the air flow into a suction conduit on the underside of the surface cleaning head. in this embodiment, the leading roller is generally positioned adjacent to and in advance of the opening of the suction conduit such that the leading roller engages debris and moves the debris toward the opening. at least a top half of the leading roller may be substantially outside of the flow path to the suction conduit and a bottom portion of the leading roller may be exposed to the flow path to the suction conduit. the rotating brush roll may be located in the suction conduit with the leading roller located in front of and spaced from the brush roll, forming an inter-roller air passageway between lower portions of the leading roller and the brush roll. in some embodiments, combing protrusions may contact the leading roller above the inter-roller air passageway to facilitate debris removal into the flow path. the surface cleaning head may also include a leading bumper that extends in front of the leading roller to protect a front portion of the leading roller and facilitate front edge cleaning. [0030] although specific embodiments of a surface cleaning head with a leading roller are shown, other embodiments of a cleaning apparatus with a combing unit are within the scope of the present disclosure. the cleaning apparatus with the combing unit may be used in different types of vacuum cleaners including, without limitation, an "all in the head" type vacuum, upright vacuum cleaners, canister vacuum cleaners, stick vacuum cleaners, robotic vacuum cleaners and central vacuum systems, and may be used in sweepers (e.g., low or no suction). the surface cleaning head with a leading roller may also include removable agitators (e.g., brush rolls) in openable agitator chambers, such as the type described in greater detail in u.s. patent no. 9,456,723 and u.s. patent application pub. no. 2016/0220082, which are commonly-owned and fully incorporated herein by reference. the leading roller may be similarly removable. [0031] as used herein, a "surface cleaning head" refers to a device configured to contact a surface for cleaning the surface by use of suction air flow, agitation, or a combination thereof. a surface cleaning head may be pivotably or steeringly coupled by a swivel connection to a wand for controlling the surface cleaning head and may include motorized attachments as well as fixed surface cleaning heads. a surface cleaning head may also be operable without a wand or handle. as used herein, "seal" or "sealing" refers to preventing a substantial amount of air from passing through to the suction conduit but does not require an air tight seal. as used herein, "agitator" refers to any element, member or structure capable of agitating a surface to facilitate movement of debris into a suction air flow in a surface cleaning head. as used herein, "soft" and "softer" refer to the characteristics of a cleaning element being more compliant or pliable than another cleaning element. as used herein, the term "flow path" refers to the path taken by air as it flows into a suction conduit when drawn in by suction. as used herein, the terms "above" and "below" are used relative to an orientation of the surface cleaning head on a surface to be cleaned and the terms "front" and "back" are used relative to a direction that a user pushes the surface cleaning head on a surface being cleaned (i.e., back to front). as used herein, the term "leading" refers to a position in front of at least another component but does not necessarily mean in front of all other components. [0032] referring to figs. 1-9, an embodiment of a surface cleaning head 100 with dual agitators and a combing unit is shown and described. the surface cleaning head 100 includes a housing 110 with a front side 112, and a back side 114, left and right sides 116a, 116b, an upper side 118, and a lower or under side 120. the housing 110 defines a suction conduit 128 having an opening 127 on the underside 120 of the housing (shown in figs. 2 and 3). the suction conduit 128 is fluidly coupled to a dirty air inlet 129, which leads to a suction motor (not shown) either in the surface cleaning head 100 or another location in the vacuum. the suction conduit 128 is the interior space defined by interior walls in the housing 110, which receives and directs air drawn in by suction, and the opening 127 is where the suction conduit 128 meets the underside 120 of the housing 110. [0033] the surface cleaning head 100 includes dual rotating agitators 122, 124, for example, a brush roll 122 and a leading roller 124. the brush roll 122 and leading roller 124 may be configured to rotate about first and second rotating axes (ra1, ra2). the rotating brush roll 122 is at least partially disposed within the suction conduit 128 (shown in figs. 2 and 3). the leading roller 124 is positioned in front of and spaced from the brush roll 122 and at least substantially outside the suction conduit 128. in some embodiments, at least an inside upper portion (e.g., upper half) of the leading roller 124 is not exposed to the primary air flow path (e.g., arrow 40) into the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128 while at least an inside of the bottom portion of the leading roller 124 is exposed to the primary flow path into the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128. [0034] other variations are possible where different portions of the leading roller 124 may be exposed or not exposed to the flow path into the suction conduit 128. in other embodiments, for example, a flow path may allow air to flow over the upper portion of the leading roller 124. the leading roller 124 may rotate about the second rotation axis ra2 located within a leading roller chamber 126. the leading roller chamber 126 may have a size and shape slightly larger than the cylindrical projection of the leading roller 124 when the leading roller 124 is rotating therein, for example, to form the flow path over the upper portion. [0035] the surface cleaning head 100 may include one or more wheels 130 for supporting the housing on the surface 10 to be cleaned. the brush roll 122 may be disposed in front of one or more wheels 130, 132 (see figs. 1 and 9) for supporting the housing 110 on the surface 10 to be cleaned. for example, one or more larger wheels 130 may be disposed along the back side 114 and/or one or more smaller middle wheels 132 may be provided at a middle section on the underside 116 of the housing 110 and/or along the left and right sides 116a, 116b. other wheel configurations may also be used. the wheels 130, 132 facilitate moving the surface cleaning head 100 along the surface 10 to be cleaned, and may also allow the user to easily tilt or pivot the surface cleaning head 100 (e.g., brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124) off of the surface 10 to be cleaned. the rear wheel(s) 130 and the middle wheel(s) 132 may provide the primary contact with the surface being cleaned and thus primarily support the surface cleaning head 100. when the surface cleaning head 100 is positioned on the surface 10 being cleaned, the leading roller 124 may also rest on the surface 10 being cleaned. in other embodiments, the leading roller 124 may be positioned such that the leading roller 124 sits just above the surface being cleaned. [0036] the rotating brush roll 122 may have bristles, fabric, or other cleaning elements, or any combination thereof around the outside of the brush roll 122. examples of brush rolls and other agitators are shown and described in greater detail in u.s. patent no. 9,456,723 and u.s. patent application pub. no. 2016/0220082, which are fully incorporated herein by reference. [0037] the leading roller 124 may include a relatively soft material (e.g., soft bristles, fabric, felt, nap or pile) arranged in a pattern (e.g., a spiral pattern) to facilitate capturing debris, as will be described in greater detail below. the leading roller 124 may be selected to be substantially softer than that of the brush roll 122. the softness, length, diameter, arrangement, and resiliency of the bristles and/or pile of the leading roller 124 may be selected to form a seal with a hard surface (e.g., but not limited to, a hard wood floor, tile floor, laminate floor, or the like), whereas the bristles of the brush roll 122 may selected to agitate carpet fibers or the like. for example, the leading roller 124 may be at least 25% softer than the brush roll 122, alternatively the leading roller 124 may be at least 30% softer than the brush roll 122, alternatively the leading roller 124 may be at least 35% softer than the brush roll 122, alternatively the leading roller 124 may be at least 40% softer than the brush roll 122, alternatively the leading roller 124 may be at least 50% softer than the brush roll 122, alternatively the leading roller 124 may be at least 60% softer than the brush roll 122. softness may be determined, for example, based on the pliability of the bristles or pile being used. [0038] the size and shape of the bristles and/or pile may be selected based on the intended application. for example, the leading roller 124 may include bristles and/or pile having a length of between 5 to 15 mm (e.g., 7 to 12 mm) and may have a diameter of 0.01 to 0.04 mm (e.g., 0.01-0.03 mm). according to one embodiment, the bristles and/or pile may have a length of 9 mm and a diameter of 0.02 mm. the bristles and/or pile may have any shape. for example, the bristles and/or pile may be linear, arcuate, and/or may have a compound shape. according to one embodiment, the bristles and/or pile may have a generally u and/or y shape. the u and/or y shaped bristles and/or pile may increase the number of points contacting the floor surface 10, thereby enhancing sweeping function of leading roller 124. the bristles and/or pile may be made on any material such as, but not limited to, nylon 6 or nylon 6/6. [0039] optionally, the bristles and/or pile of leading roller 124 may be heat treated, for example, using a post weave heat treatment. the heat treatment may increase the lifespan of the bristles and/or pile of the leading roller 124. for example, after weaving the fibers and cutting the velvet into rolls, the velvet may be rolled up and then run through a steam rich autoclave making the fibers/bristles more resilient fibers. [0040] the leading roller 124 may have an outside diameter dlr that is smaller than the outside diameter dbr of the brush roll 122. for example, the diameter dlr may be greater than zero and less than or equal to 0.8dbr, greater than zero and less than or equal to 0.7dbr, or greater than zero and less than or equal to 0.6dbr. according to example embodiments, the diameter dlr may be in the range of 0.3dbr to 0.8dbr, in the range of 0.4dbr to 0.8dbr, in the range of 0.3dbr to 0.7dbr, or in the range of 0.4dbr to 0.7dbr. as an illustrative example, the brush roll 122 may have an outside diameter of 48 mm and the leading roller 124 may have an outside diameter of 30 mm. while the leading roller 124 may have an outside diameter dlr that is smaller than the outside diameter dbr of the brush roll 122, the brush roll 122 may have bristles that are longer than the bristle and/or pile of the leading roller 122. [0041] positioning a leading roller 124 (having a diameter dlr that is smaller than the diameter dbr of the brush roll 122) in front of the brush roll 122 provides numerous benefits. for example, this arrangement decreases the height of the front side 112 of the surface cleaning head 100 (e.g., the housing 110) from the surface 10 to be cleaned. the decreased height of the front of the surface cleaning head 100 provides a lower profile that allows the surface cleaning head 100 to fit under objects (e.g., furniture and/or cabinets). moreover, the lower height allows for the addition of one or more light sources 111 (such as, but not limited to, leds), while still allowing the surface cleaning head 100 to fit under objects. [0042] additionally, the smaller diameter dlr of the leading roller 124 allows the rotating axis of the leading roller 124 to be placed closer to the front side 112 of the surface cleaning head 100. when rotating, the leading roller 124 forms a generally cylindrical projection having a radius that is based on the overall diameter of the leading roller 124. as the diameter of the leading roller 124 decreases, the bottom contact surface 140 (fig. 3) of the leading roller 124 moves forward towards the front side 112 of the surface cleaning head 100. in addition, when the surface cleaning head 100 contacts a vertical surface 12 (e.g., but not limited to, a wall, trim, and/or cabinet), the bottom contact surface 140 of the leading roller 124 is also closer to the vertical surface 12, thereby enhancing the front edge cleaning of the surface cleaning head 100 compared to a larger diameter leading roller. moreover, the smaller diameter dlr of the leading roller 124 also reduces the load/drag on the motor driving the leading roller 124, thereby enhancing the lifespan of the motor and/or allowing a smaller motor to be used to rotate both the brush roll 122 and leading roller 124. [0043] the rotating brush roll 122 may be coupled to an electrical motor (either ac or dc) to cause the rotating brush roll 122 to rotate about the first rotating axis. the rotating brush roll may be coupled to the electrical motor by way of a gears and/or drive belts. the leading roller 124 may be driven from the same drive mechanism used to drive the rotating brush roll 122 or a separate drive mechanism. an example of the drive mechanism is described in u.s. patent application serial no. 15/331,045, filed oct. 21, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference. other drive mechanisms are possible and within the scope of the present disclosure. [0044] in at least one embodiment, the brush roll 122 and the leading roller 124 rotate in the same direction directing debris toward the suction conduit 128, for example, counter clockwise as shown in fig. 3. this arrangement may reduce the number of parts (e.g., no clutch or additional gear train may be necessary), thereby making the surface cleaning head 100 lighter, reducing drivetrain loss (thereby allowing for smaller/less expensive motors), and less expensive to manufacture. optionally, the brush roll 122 and the leading roller 124 may rotate at same speed, thereby reducing the number of parts (e.g., no additional gear train necessary) and reducing drivetrain loss (thus, smaller/less expensive motor) and making the surface cleaning head 100 lighter and less expensive to manufacture. [0045] as shown in fig. 3, the leading roller 124 may be positioned within the housing 110 such that the bottom contact surface 140 is disposed closer to the surface 10 to be cleaned compared to the bottom contact surface 144 of the brush roll 122. this arrangement allows the leading roller 124 to contact a surface 10 (e.g., a hard surface) without the brush roll 122 contacting the hard surface 10. as may be appreciated, the leading roller 124 is intended to pick up debris from a hard surface 10 while the brush roll 122 is intended to primarily contact a carpet surface. this arrangement is therefore beneficial since it allows the leading roller 124 to form a seal between the front 112 of the surface cleaning head 100 with the hard surface 10, thereby enhancing airflow and suction with the hard surface 10. additionally, this arrangement reduces the drag/torque on the drive motor(s) since the brush roll 122 (in some embodiments) does not have to contact the hard surface 10. the reduced drag/torque may allow for a smaller, less expensive motor and/or may increase the lifespan of the motor. [0046] according to some embodiments, as shown in fig. 3, the leading roller 124 is spaced apart a distance li (which is greater than 0 mm) from the brush roll 122 such that the leading roller 124 does not contact the brush roll 122. the distance li allows for an inter- roller vacuum passageway 146 between lower portions of the brush roll 122 and the leading roller 124, which provides at least a portion of the flow path into the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128. the inter-roller vacuum passageway 146 allows for debris that is either picked up by (and/or removed from) the leading roller 124 to be entrained in the vacuum flow generated by the surface cleaning head 100 and/or to be picked up by the brush roll 122, thereby enhancing the cleaning efficiency of the surface cleaning head 100. additionally, the distance li reduces the load/drag on the motor(s), thereby enhancing the lifespan of the motor(s) and/or allowing smaller motors to be used to rotate both the brush roll 122 and the leading roller 124. [0047] one or both of the leading roller 124 and the brush roll 122 may be removable. the leading roller 124 may be removably coupled to the housing 110 of the surface cleaning head 100. for example, a portion of the housing 110 (such as, but not limited to, a portion of the left and/or right side 116a, 116b) may be removably/hingedly coupled thereto. to remove the leading roller 124, the removable portion may be unsecured/uncoupled from the rest of the housing 110, thereby allowing the leading roller 124 to disengage from a drive wheel and allowing the leading roller 124 to be removed from the leading roller chamber 126. other ways of removably coupling the leading roller 124 within the housing 110 are also possible and within the scope of the present disclosure. [0048] in some embodiments, the housing 110 of the surface cleaning head 100 may include a removable and/or hinged panel that allows the brush roll 122 to be removed. a shown in figs. 1 and 8, for example, the surface cleaning head 100 includes a panel 119 that may be removably and/or hingedly coupled to the housing 110. to remove the brush roll 122, the panel 119 may be disengaged from the housing 110 (e.g., removed) to allow the user to have access to a brush roll chamber 121. examples of removable panels or covers and removable brush rolls are described in greater detail in u.s. patent no. 9,456,723 and u.s. patent application pub. no. 2016/0220082, which are fully incorporated herein by reference. alternatively or additionally, the leading roller 124 may be removable in the same way. another example of a removable leading roller is described in u.s. patent application serial no. 15/331,045, filed oct. 21, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference. [0049] the ability to remove the brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124 from the surface cleaning head 100 allows the brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124 to be cleaned more easily and may allow the user to change the size of the brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124, change type of bristles on the brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124, and/or remove the brush roll 122 and/or the leading roller 124 entirely depending on the intended application. [0050] in some embodiments, the surface cleaning head 100 may also include a series of combing protrusions 150 (also referred to as debriding protrusions) in contact with the leading roller 124, as shown in greater detail in figs. 4-7. the combing protrusions 150 may be configured to remove debris (such as, but not limited to, hair, string, and the like) that may be wrapped around and/or entrapped/entrained in on the leading roller 124 as the surface cleaning head 100 is being used (e.g., without the user having to manually remove the debris from the leading roller 124). according to one embodiment, the combing protrusions 150 may contact only the leading roller 124 (e.g., the combing protrusions 150 may not contact the brush roll 122). some of the benefits of the combing protrusions 150 only contacting the leading roller 124 include increasing the lifespan of the leading roller 124. additionally, the combing protrusions 150 that only contact the leading roller 124 may reduce the load/drag on the motor, thereby allowing a smaller/less expensive motor to be used and making the surface cleaning head 100 lighter and less expensive to manufacture. [0051] in this embodiment, the combing protrusions 150 may include a plurality of spaced ribs 152 with angled edges 153 extending into contact with a surface of the leading roller 124. the spaced ribs 152 extend from a back support 151 with base portions 154 located therebetween to reinforce the spaced ribs 152. the back support 151 may be mounted within the leading roller chamber 126. the angled edges 153 of the spaced ribs 152 may be arranged at an angle a (see figs. 4 and 6) that is in the range of 15-20 degrees, for example, 20-25 degrees, such as 23.5 degrees. this example structure of the combing protrusions 150 may allow for increased strength and reduced frictional loses since less points may contact the leading roller 124. other shapes and configurations for the combing protrusions are also within the scope of the present disclosure. [0052] as shown in figs. 4 and 5, the combing protrusions 150 may be disposed at a height h above the bottom contacting surface 140 of the leading roller 124 and on a side or lower half of the leading roller 124. the placement of the combing protrusions 150 may help to prevent the combing protrusions 150 from contacting a carpet, thereby reducing drag on the surface cleaning head 100 and reducing the likelihood of the combing protrusions 150 damaging the carpet. this arrangement also allows the combing protrusions 150 to be exposed to the inter-roller vacuum passageway 146, thereby enhancing the removal of debris from the leading roller 124 by the combing protrusions 150. the combing protrusion 150 may also substantially prevent air from flowing through the combing protrusions 150 to the inside upper portion (e.g., upper half) of the leading roller 124. in other embodiments, a space may be formed between the outer surface of the leading roller 124 and the back support 151 such that air flows downward through the combing protrusions 150 to force debris into the air flow through the inter-roller vacuum passageway 146. [0053] as shown in fig. 7, an embodiment of the surface cleaning head 100 optionally includes an electrostatic discharge element (esd) 156. the esd 156 may reduce and/or prevent the buildup of electrostatic charge on the surface cleaning head 100. the esd 156 may include any known device for discharging electrostatic charge. according to one embodiment, the esd 156 may include barnet fibers woven between the openings in the back of the leading roller chamber 126. the barnet fibers may be arranged in close proximity to the combing protrusions 150 and/or leading roller 124 for discharging. for example, the esd 156 may be connected to a printed circuit board assembly (pcba) that dumps charge out to the neutral ac line. [0054] in some embodiments, the housing 110 may further include a bumper 160 forming a top part of the front side 112 of the housing 110, as shown in figs. 1, 3, 5, and 8. the bumper 160 may reduce potential damage to either the surface cleaning head 100 and/or other objects in the environment. a front portion of the leading roller 124 is exposed at the front side 112 of the housing 110, and the bumper 160 may extend around at least a top of the leading roller 124. in the example embodiment, the bumper 160 includes a lateral portion 162 extending laterally along the front side 112 of the housing 110 and side portions 164, 168 extending downwardly along left and right sides of the front side 112 of the housing 110. the side portions 164, 168 may extend to a point at or below the second rotation axis ra2 of the leading roller 124. [0055] the bumper 160 may optionally define one or more front edge vacuum passageways 168, 169 providing at least a portion of the air flow path. as shown in fig. 4, the bumper 160 may therefore generally form a seal with a vertical surface 12 (e.g., wall or the like) to improve front edge cleaning. the front edge vacuum passageways 168, 169 may allow for increased airspeed of the air being sucked into the surface cleaning head 100, thereby enhancing front edge cleaning. the bumper 160 may also include one or more lateral air passageways disposed in the lateral portion 162, which also allow for increased airflow along the front side 112. [0056] the bumper 160 may also include one or more compression elements 161, 163 (e.g., ribs) disposed on the lateral edge/section 162. the compression elements 161, 163 allow for increased resiliency and cushioning of the bumper 160. when the bumper 160 is pushed against the vertical surface 12 (fig. 4), the compression elements 161, 163 contact the surface 12 first and push the bumper 160 locally farther back than the rest of the bumper 160, thereby forming a gap on either side of the compression elements 161, 163. the gaps on either side of the compression elements 161, 163 form air paths allowing air to be drawn down in front of the leading roller 124, which may disturb dust and debris so that it can be directed into the air flow path toward the suction conduit. [0057] the bumper 160 may be formed as one piece with the housing 110 or may be formed as a separate piece secured within a groove and/or notch 165 formed between two or more pieces (e.g., an upper and lower portion 110a, 110b) of the housing 110, as shown in fig. 3. the groove and/or notch 165 may facilitate assembly of the housing 110 and the bumper 160 (e.g., between a headlight portion 110a and main portion 110b of the housing 110). [0058] in some embodiments, the surface cleaning head 100 may further include one or more floor sealing strips 170, 172 and side edge vacuum passageways 174 on an underside of the housing 110, as shown in figs. 1 and 9. the floor sealing strip(s) 170, 172 may include one or more sections extending outwardly from the housing 110 and having a length sufficient to at least partially contact the surface 10 to be cleaned. the floor seals strip(s) 170, 172 may include soft bristles, fabric material, rubber material, or other material capable of contacting the surface being cleaned to substantially prevent air flow into the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128 from the rear side. the sealing strips 170, 172 may also include a combination of elements or materials, such as bristles with a rubber strip extending along the strip between the bristles (e.g., with the bristles being longer than the rubber strip). [0059] in the example embodiment, a lateral floor sealing strip 170 extends along a rear lateral portion (e.g., behind the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128) and side sealing strips 172 extend partially along the left and right sides 116a, 116b. the side sealing strips 172 extend, for example, along a substantial portion of the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128 and are spaced from the leading roller 124 to define one or more side edge vacuum passageways 174 extending back towards the opening 127 of the suction conduit 128. because the leading roller 124 itself forms a seal with the surface 10 being cleaned, additional sealing strips are unnecessary along the front side 112. although separate strips 170, 172 are shown, one continuous sealing strip may be used. the floor sealing strips 170, 172 may enhance sealing between the surface cleaning head 100 and the floor 10, thereby enhancing the vacuum efficiency. [0060] the side edge vacuum passageways 174 may enhance the side edge cleaning efficiency of the surface cleaning head 100. side edge vacuum passageways 174 draw in air from the front 112 and the corner/sides 116a, 116b towards the suction conduit 128, thereby enhancing edge cleaning as well as front cleaning. at least one of the side edge vacuum passageways 474 may also direct air into the inter-roller air passageway 146 between the leading roller 124 and the brush roll 122 to facilitate removal of debris from the leading roller 124. as such, the side edge vacuum passageways 174 and the inter-roller air passageway 146 together provide at least a portion of the primary air flow path (e.g., as indicated by arrows 40) into the suction conduit 128. [0061] the side edge vacuum passageways 174 may be arranged at an approximately 45 degree angle with respect the longitudinal axis of the housing 110. in other embodiments, the angle of the side edge vacuum passageways 174 may be within 30 to 60 degrees with respect the longitudinal axis of the housing 110. although the side edge passageways are shown as angled straight passageways, other shapes and configurations (e.g., s shaped or curved) are also possible and within the scope of the present disclosure. [0062] referring to figs. 10-14d, a combing unit 1050 used for cleaning a cleaning roller 1024 in a cleaning apparatus is described in greater detail. the cleaning roller 1024 may be rotatably mounted in a housing, such as the surface cleaning head housing described above, with the combing unit 1050 engaging the cleaning roller 1024. the combing unit 1050 includes a series of spaced combing protrusions or teeth 1052 extending from a back support 1051 and extending partially into the cleaning roller 1024. although the illustrated embodiment shows the combing unit 1050 with teeth 1052 extending from a single back support 1051, the combing unit 1050 may also include teeth extending from multiple back supports. [0063] the combing unit 1050 may extend along a substantial portion of a length of the cleaning roller 1024 (i.e., more than half) such that the combing teeth 1052 remove debris from a substantial portion of the cleaning surface of the cleaning roller 1024. in an embodiment, the combing teeth 1052 may engage the cleaning surface of the cleaning roller 1024 along, for example, greater than 90% of a length of the cleaning surface of the cleaning roller 1024. the combing unit 1050 works particularly well with cleaning rollers that are designed to move hair and other similar debris away from a center of the roller 1024. [0064] the combing teeth 1052 have angled leading edges 1053 that are not aligned with a rotation center 1023 of the cleaning roller 1024. the angled leading edges 1053 are the edges that an incoming portion of the rotating cleaning roller 1024 hits first and are directed toward or into a direction of rotation (i.e., into arrow 1002) of the cleaning roller 1020. more specifically, the leading edge 1053 of a combing tooth 1052 forms an acute angle a relative to a line 1004 extending from an intersection point 1025 where the leading edge 1053 intersects with an outer surface of the cleaning roller 1024 to the rotation center 1023. in some embodiments, the angle a is in a range of 5° to 50° and more specifically in a range of 20° to 30° and even more specifically about °24 to 25°. [0065] in some embodiments, the combing teeth 1052 are positioned as close as possible to the bottom contact point 1040 of the cleaning roller 1024 but high enough to prevent being caught on a surface being cleaned (e.g., a carpet). the combing teeth 1052, for example, may be positioned just above the lowest structure on the housing of a cleaning apparatus. positioning the combing teeth 1052 closer to the bottom contact point 1040 of the cleaning roller 1024 allows debris to be intercepted and removed as soon as possible, thereby improving debris removal. [0066] in another embodiment, shown in fig. 15a, the combing unit 1050 may have other orientations and positions relative to the cleaning roller 1024 (e.g., above the rotation center 1023). in a robotic vacuum cleaner, for example, the combing unit 1050 may be positioned higher to prevent the combing teeth 1052 from interfering with the debris being deposited into a dust bin 1060. [0067] the combing teeth 1052 may extend into the cleaning roller 1024 to a depth in a range of 0% to 50% of the cleaning roller radius for a soft roller and 0% to 30% of the cleaning roller radius for a tufted brush roll. in one embodiment, the cleaning roller 1024 is a soft roller (e.g., nylon bristles with a diameter less than or equal to 0.15 mm and a length greater than 3 mm) and the combing teeth 1052 extend into the soft cleaning roller 1024 in a range of 15% to 35%. the combing protrusions 1052 may be positioned to provide a root gap or spacing between the back support 1051 and the outer surface of the cleaning roller 1024 such that air may flow between the cleaning roller 1024 and the back support 1051 and through the roots of the combing teeth 1052. the air flow through the roots of the combing teeth 1052 may help to dislodge debris that has been removed from the cleaning roller 1024 and to direct the debris into an air flow passageway toward a suction conduit of a cleaning apparatus. the root gap may have a width rg in a range of 1 to 3 mm and more specifically a range of 2 to 3 mm. the root gap rg may extend across an entire length of the combing unit 1050, or a root gap rg may be formed only in one or more sections along the length of the combing unit 1050 to form air channels only at those sections. in other embodiments, the back support 1051 of the combing unit 1050 may contact the outer surface of the cleaning roller 1024 to provide sealing and force air to flow under the cleaning roller 1024. [0068] in the illustrated embodiment (figs. 11 and 14d), the combing teeth 1052 have a triangular-shaped "tooth" profile with a wider base or root 1054 having a root width w r and a tip 1056 having a diameter d r . in general, the base or root 1054 may be wide enough to prevent the tooth 1052 from bending upward when contacted by the rotating cleaning roller 1024 and the tip 1056 may be sharp enough to catch the debris. in some embodiments, the tip 1056 may be rounded with a diameter in the range of less than 3 mm and more specifically in the range of 1 to 2 mm and even more specifically about 1.6 mm. the root width w r may be in a range of 5 to 6 mm. [0069] in another embodiment, shown in fig. 15b, combing teeth 1052' have a curved profile with curved leading edges 1053' forming a concave curve. in this embodiment, a line 1006 extending from the curved leading edge 1053' at the tip 1056 forms an angle a with the line 1004 extending from the intersection point 1025 to the rotation center 1023. the combing teeth 1052' with curved edges may be positioned and spaced similar to the teeth 1052 with straight leading edges 1053 as described and shown herein. [0070] in some embodiments, the combing unit 1050 includes combing teeth 1052 spaced 4 to 16 teeth per inch and more specifically 7 to 9 teeth per inch. the combing teeth 1052 may be made of plastic or metal and may have a thickness that provides a desired rigidity to prevent bending when engaged with the rotating cleaning roller 1024. in some embodiments, the combing teeth 1052 may have a thickness in a range of .5 to 2 mm depending upon the material. in one example, the combing teeth 1052 are made of plastic and have a thickness of 0.8 mm, a spacing s of about 2.4 mm, and a center-to-center spacing s c of about 3.3 mm. [0071] although the combing unit 1050 is shown with combing teeth 1052 having an equal spacing, a combing unit 1050 may also include teeth 1052 with different spacings including, for example, groups of equally spaced teeth. the combing unit 1050 may include a section at the center of the cleaning roller 1024 with no teeth and groups of combing teeth 1052 proximate ends of the cleaning roller 1024 where the hair and similar debris migrates during rotation. although the combing unit 1050 is shown with teeth 1052 having the same shape or tooth profile and dimensions, the combing unit 1050 may include teeth of different shapes, profiles dimensions and configurations at different locations along the combing unit 1050. [0072] figs. 16 and 17 illustrate examples of two different types of vacuum cleaners 1600, 1700 that may include a surface cleaning head 1602, 1702 with dual agitators including a leading roller 1624, 1724 and a combing unit (not shown), consistent with the embodiments described herein. the surface cleaning head 1602 with the leading roller 1624 may be used on an upright vacuum cleaner 1600 with a removable canister 1601 coupled to a wand 1604, such as the type described in u.s. patent application pub. no. 2015/0351596, which is commonly owned and fully incorporated herein by reference. the surface cleaning head 1702 with the leading roller 1724 may be used on a stick type vacuum cleaner 1700 with a removable handheld vacuum 1701 coupled at one end of a wand 1704, such as the type described in u.s. patent application pub. no. 2015/0135474, which is commonly owned and fully incorporated herein by reference. [0073] fig. 18 illustrates a robotic vacuum cleaner 1800 that includes a housing 1810 and a cleaning roller 1824 with a combing unit (not shown) as disclosed herein. the robotic vacuum cleaner 1800 may also include one or more wheels 1830 for moving about a surface to be cleaned. an example of the combing unit used in a robotic vacuum cleaner is disclosed in greater detail in u.s. provisional application no. 62/469,853, filed march 10, 2017, which is incorporated herein by reference. [0074] while the principles of the invention have been described herein, it is to be understood by those skilled in the art that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation as to the scope of the invention. other embodiments are contemplated within the scope of the present invention in addition to the exemplary embodiments shown and described herein. modifications and substitutions by one of ordinary skill in the art are considered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is not to be limited except by the following claims.
179-978-117-687-711	US	[ "US" ]	G01M3/28	2003-09-18T00:00:00	2003	[ "G01" ]	leak detection system	a leak detection system capable of automatically detecting a leak in a pressurized piping system. a pressure decay test is utilized to test for leaks in the piping system. disruption to users of the piping system is reduced by only performing the pressure decay test when there is no user demand on the piping system. thus, a leakage test is performed by first determining whether there is user demand on the piping system and proceeding with a pressure decay test only if there is no user demand present. if user demand is initiated during the performance of a pressure decay test, the system detects the user demand and halts the pressure decay test until the user demand stops.	1. a system useful for detecting a leak in a pressurized piping system having a main supply line and a plurality of branch fluid supply lines in communication with the main supply line, said system comprising: control logic; one and only one user demand detector selected from the group consisting of a flow switch and a flow meter, the user demand detector capable of determining whether user demand is present in the pressurized piping system, and the user demand detector being in communication with the control logic; one and only one single pressure decay detector in communication with the control logic; and a shutoff valve in communication with the control logic. 2. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the control logic is designed to close the shut-off valve whenever pressure decay has been detected and no user demand has been detected. 3. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the user demand detector consists essentially of the flow switch. 4. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the user demand detector consists essentially of the flow meter. 5. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the pressure decay detector comprises a pressure switch. 6. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the user demand detector and the pressure decay detector are in close proximity to the control logic. 7. a system according to claim 1 , wherein the user demand detector, the pressure decay detector, and the shu-toff valve are positioned in a normal operation line between a fluid entry valve and a fluid exit valve, and there is a by-pass valve in a by-pass line between the fluid entry valve and the fluid exit valve. 8. a system according to claim 7 , wherein the user demand detector and the pressure decay detector are in close proximity to the control logic.	field of the invention the present invention generally relates to detecting leaks in pressurized piping systems used for conveying a liquid. a pressure decay test is performed during times when there is no user demand on the piping system, minimizing, if not precluding, disruption to users of the piping system. background of the invention leaks from water pipelines that can occur in a building, whether residential, commercial, or institutional, are highly undesirable. over time, leaking water can be a significant and unnecessary expense. moreover, water leakage from a broken or leaking water line can cause severe damage if left undetected for too long a period. the prior art teaches numerous methods and devices for detecting a leak in a piping system and then automatically shutting off the supply to the piping system in order to minimize the waste and damage caused by the leak. however, heretofore the prior art approaches are generally insufficiently reliable, too complex, or too expensive to be effectively utilized in many applications. accordingly, there is still a long felt need in the industry for improved approaches to detecting a leak in a piping system and then automatically shutting off the supply to the piping system in order to minimize damage caused by the leak. summary of the invention the present invention provides for leak detection systems that are capable of automatically detecting a leak in a pressurized piping system. the present invention utilizes a pressure decay test to test for leaks in the piping system. systems of the present invention also test for user demand on the piping system before initiating a pressure decay test in order to minimize or eliminate disruption to a user of the piping system. thus, a leakage test is performed by first determining whether there is user demand on the piping system and proceeding with a pressure decay test only if there is no user demand present. if user demand is initiated during the performance of a pressure decay test, the system detects the user demand and halts the pressure decay test until the user demand stops. description of the drawings the present invention is illustrated by way of example in the following drawings in which like references indicate similar elements. the following drawings disclose various embodiments of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. the drawings are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. fig. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a leak detection system according to the present invention. fig. 2 shows a flowchart that illustrates an example method of the present invention. detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention in the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the present invention may be practiced. it should be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. for example, the present specification primarily addresses the use of the present invention in conjunction with a water line such as would be found delivering potable water to a residential home, a commercial building, or an institutional building. however, one of ordinary skill in the art, after gaining an understanding of the present invention, will appreciate that the present invention can be advantageously utilized in conjunction with piping systems conveying liquids other than water, preferably non-compressible liquids. the present invention utilizes a pressure decay test (also commonly referred to as a hydrostatic test) to test for leaks in a pressurized piping system, such as a common piping system supplying potable water from a residential water supply line to various outlets in the residence, such as appliances and faucets. thus, a leakage test according to the present invention comprises a pressure decay test. the pressure decay test is performed by first shutting off the supply of liquid into the piping system to be tested and then monitoring the pressure in the piping system over time to determine whether there is pressure decay. if no pressure decay is detected, then it is determined that there is no leak present. once the supply of liquid to the piping system is shut off, no appreciable pressure decay will be detected unless a volume of liquid is removed from the piping system. however, removing even a small amount of liquid from the piping system, such as would occur if a leak is present, will cause a significant pressure decay in the piping system. a volume of liquid can be removed from the piping system either by user demand or by a leak in the piping system. accordingly, it is an important aspect of the present invention that detected pressure decay during periods of no user demand is indicative of a leak in the piping system. since a pressure decay test requires the supply to the piping test to be shut off during performance of the pressure decay test, the pressure decay test will disrupt normal use of the piping system if the pressure decay test is performed during periods when there is a user demand on the system. therefore, the present invention applies the pressure decay test during times when there is no user demand on the piping system. in this manner, the pressure decay test does not disrupt the normal use of the piping system. accordingly, when performing a leakage test on a piping system in accordance with the present invention, the piping system is first tested to see if there is any user demand. if there is user demand present then performance of the pressure decay test is delayed until a later time when no user demand is detected. when no user demand is detected, the pressure decay test is performed. if, during the performance of a pressure decay test, no pressure decay is detected over a preset duration of time, the leak test is complete and the supply to the piping system is reopened as no leak has been detected. however, if pressure decay is detected during the performance of the pressure decay test, the pressure decay may be due to a leak in the piping system or it may be due to user demand initiated during the performance of the pressure decay test. accordingly, upon detecting pressure decay during the pressure decay test period, the present system checks for user demand. if pressure decay has been detected and no user demand is present, then a leak has been detected. if user demand is present, the system preferably waits until no user demand is present and then restarts the pressure decay test. in preferred embodiments of the present invention, a signal is issued to users of the piping system whenever a leak has been detected. the signal may be any appropriate signal, such as an audible signal or the illuminating of a light. generally, leak detection systems according to the present invention comprise control logic, a user demand detector in communication with the control logic, a pressure decay detector in communication with the control logic, and a shut-off valve in communication with the control logic. typically, the leak detection system is installed in the main supply to a piping system. for example, when used to detect a leak in a residential water piping system, the point of installation is typically just after any main water meter present or just after the point of entry into the residential building from a supply well pump. the user demand detector may utilize any means useful for determining whether a user of a piping system is drawing liquid from the piping system (that is, a user demand is present). in preferred embodiments, the leak detection system checks for user demand by checking for liquid flow in the piping system. if the leak detection system is checking for user demand prior to the start of a leakage test, the shut-off valve is already open and the system checks for liquid flow to determine if user demand is present. if, however, the leak detection system is checking for user demand after pressure decay has been detected during a leakage test, the system first reopens the shut-off valve and then checks for liquid flow to determine if user demand is present. if detected pressure decay is due to a leak, the reopening of the shut-off valve will cause the pressure to increase and no appreciable flow will be detected. however, the presence of at least a minimum user flow rate after reopening the shut-off valve is an indication that a user demand is present. because of potential fluctuations in the flow of liquid in the piping system, preferred embodiments of the present leak detection system may not determine that user demand is present unless a preset minimum liquid flow has been continuously detected for a brief period. for example, when used in residential water piping systems, leak detection systems have effectively determined user demand is present when a minimum flow is continuously detected for a period of about 0.5 seconds or more. in a typical residence, any user demand, such as turning on a water faucet, running a dishwasher, running a washing machine, or activating an ice maker, will cause water to flow through the main supply line at a rate greater than or equal to about 0.2 gallons per minute (“gpm”). accordingly, in one embodiment the minimum user flow rate is set at about 0.2 gpm and a detected flow rate of greater than or equal to about 0.2 gpm is taken as an indication that user demand is present. in one preferred embodiment, the user demand detector comprises a flow switch. flow switches are known in industry and are typically preset to detect a minimum flow rate. during operation of a typical flow switch, a flow rate greater than or equal to the minimum flow rate (for example, 0.2 gpm) keeps a contact closed, allowing the flow switch to generate an electrical signal. on the other hand, if the flow rate drops below the minimum, then the contact opens, preventing the generation of the signal. this signal, indicating whether the contact is open or not, is communicated to the control logic. typically, the communication is provided by an electrical connection (such as one or more wire connections) as is known in the electrical arts. however, the present invention contemplates that this signal could be communicated to the control logic utilizing wireless communication techniques. wireless communications might be useful, for example, in a system that utilized one or more flow switches positioned at a distance from the control logic. for example, the present invention contemplates placing a flow switch near one or more points of user demand (for example, faucet, shower, etc.), which may be a significant distance from the control logic. typically, the present invention utilizes a single flow switch positioned near the control logic and in communication with the control logic via an electrical connection. in another embodiment, the user demand detector comprises a flow meter. flow meters are known in industry. unlike flow switches, a flow meter will measure the flow rate. this measured flow rate is then compared with the minimum flow rate (for example, 0.2 gpm) to determine if there is user demand. if the measured flow rate is less than the minimum, it is determined that no user demand exists. the measured flow rate can be communicated to the control logic and then compared to the minimum flow rate or the measured flow rate can be first compared to the minimum flow rate and the result (that is, whether user demand or not) can be communicated to the control logic. similar to the use of a flow switch described above, the flow meter can be in communication with the control logic via an electrical connection or via wireless communication techniques. the pressure decay detector may utilize any means useful for determining whether pressure decay is present. a determination as to whether pressure decay is present is made by shutting off the liquid supply to the piping system and measuring the pressure in the piping system over time to see if the pressure drops below a predetermined minimum acceptable pressure. a preferred pressure decay detector comprises a pressure switch. pressure switches are known in industry. typically, a pressure switch contains a contact that remains closed whenever the monitored pressure is greater to or equal to a predetermined minimum pressure. the closed contact allows the pressure switch to generate an electronic signal that can be communicated to the control logic. similarly, whenever the pressure drops below the minimum pressure the contact opens. accordingly, the control logic can monitor whether the contact is open or closed (that is, whether the pressure is below a minimum pressure or not). alternately, a pressure decay detector may comprise a device that measures the pressure in the piping system and communicates the measured pressure to the control logic where the communicated pressure can be compared to a predetermined minimum acceptable pressure. similar to the user demand detector, the pressure decay detector can be in communication with the control logic via an electrical connection or via wireless communication techniques. the minimum acceptable pressure should be chosen such that the pressure in the piping system being monitored would rarely, if ever, drop below the minimum acceptable pressure absent liquid being withdrawn from the piping system either by user demand or by a leak. for example, the water pressure in a water piping system for a residence is typically from about 55 psig to about 100 psig. in one embodiment of the present invention, a minimum acceptable pressure of about 15 psig has been advantageously utilized. although the water pressure in the piping system may vary from time to time or residence to residence, the water pressure will rarely, if ever, drop below about 15 psig. the shut-off valve is used to shut off the liquid supply to the piping system. when the shut-off valve is closed, no liquid can flow into the piping system from the supply. during normal use of the piping system by a user, the shut-off valve is open. shut-off valves useful in accordance with the present invention are known in industry and are sometimes referred to as electric solenoid valves. preferred shut-off valves use electrical power to stay open and close if the power is shut off. accordingly, preferred shut-off valves will automatically close, shutting off the supply of liquid to a piping system, if there is a power failure to the electrical power supply. the shut-off valve is in communication with the control logic. similar to the user demand detector and the pressure decay detector, the shut-off valve can be in communication with the control logic via an electrical connection or via wireless communication techniques. the communication between the control logic and the shut-off valve allows the control logic to control the shut-off valve by opening and closing it at appropriate times. the control logic comprises electronic circuitry useful for initiating leakage tests, determining whether a leak is present, and shutting off the shut-off valve when the control logic has determined a leak is present. the control logic may be implemented utilizing a programmable logic controller (“plc”) as is known in the electronic arts or by other means, such as a printed circuit board, for example. upon gaining an understanding of the teachings of the present specification, one or ordinary skill in the electronic arts should be able to implement the control logic according to the present invention without undue experimentation. the control logic periodically initiates a leakage test. for a water piping system in a residence, the leakage test typically is initiated every few hours. the time between initiated leakage tests may be referred to herein as the leakage test frequency. the control logic contains a clock or timing circuitry to keep track of the amount of elapsed time between leakage tests. such clock or timing circuitry is general known in the electronic arts and may be referred to herein as the leakage test frequency timer. when the clock indicates that the time elapsed since the last leakage test is equal to or greater than the leakage test frequency, the control logic initiates another leakage test. when a leakage test is initiated, the control logic first utilizes the user demand detector to determine whether user demand is present. in preferred embodiments, the control logic provides an indication to the user of the leak detection system whenever a user demand test is being performed. in one embodiment, this indication is provided by lighting an led on a front panel of the leak detector system. for example, if the user demand detector comprises a flow switch or a flow meter as described above, the control logic determines whether the flow rate is less than a preset minimum user flow rate. if so, then no user demand is present. on the other hand, if the flow rate is greater than or equal to the minimum user flow rate (that is, user demand is present), then the leakage test is stopped. the control logic can then wait until the flow rate drops below the minimum user flow rate, upon which time the leakage test is restarted. in preferred embodiments, the control logic waits until either the flow rate drops below the minimum user flow rate or a preset maximum allowable demand time has been exceeded. in the case where the flow rate drops below the minimum user flow rate, the leakage test is restarted. in the case where the maximum allowable demand time has been exceeded, the shut-off valve is closed. when a leakage test is initiated and no user demand is present, the control logic initiates a pressure decay test. upon initiating a pressure decay test, the control logic communicates a signal to the shut-off valve to close, isolating the main supply to the piping system. this signal may comprise simply shutting off the power to an electrical solenoid valve, causing it to close. in preferred embodiments, the control logic also provides an indication to the user whenever a pressure decay test is being performed. in one embodiment, this indication is provided by lighting an led on a front panel of the leak detector system. once the shut-off valve is closed, the control logic begins monitoring the pressure in the piping system and continues monitoring the pressure for a predetermined amount of time. this predetermined amount of time may be referred to herein as the pressure decay test time or pressure decay test duration. in preferred embodiments, the pressure decay test time can be set by a user of the leak detection system. for typical residence water piping systems a pressure decay test time of about 30 seconds has been used effectively. if the monitored pressure does not drop below a minimum acceptable pressure and the pressure decay test time has elapsed, then it is determined that no leak is present. the control logic then reopens the shut-off valve and again utilizes the leakage test frequency timer to determine when the next leakage test should be initialized. if the monitored pressure drops below a minimum acceptable pressure before the pressure decay test time has elapsed, then liquid has been removed from the piping system and the control logic determines whether the liquid was removed via a leak or via user demand (user opening a faucet, turning on an appliance, etc.). the control logic tests for user demand by first reopening the shut-off valve, which was closed to initiate the pressure decay test, and then utilizing the user demand detector as described above. if no user demand is present, it is determined that the removal of liquid from the piping system is due to a leak in the piping system. once it is determined a leak is present, the control logic closes the shut-off valve, and it remains closed until the leak detection system is reset. preferably, a warning signal is issued, indicating a leak has been detected. typically, a user of the leak detection system will find and fix the leak and then reset the leak detection system. when the leak detection system is reset, the shut-off valve is opened and the leakage test frequency timer is restarted. on the other hand, if user demand is present, then the leakage test is stopped. the control logic can then wait until no user demand is present, upon which time the leakage test is restarted. in preferred embodiments, the control logic waits until either the user demand stops or a preset maximum allowable demand time has been exceeded. in the case where the user demand stops, the leakage test is restarted. in the case where the maximum allowable demand time has been exceeded, the shut-off valve can be closed in the same manner as when a leak is detected. examples fig. 1 shows an embodiment of a leak detection system 100 according to the present invention. the leak detection system 100 can be advantageously installed in a residence to detect and limit damage from leaks in the residence's water piping system. the leak detection system 100 is attached to the main water supply to the residence by a first piping joint 102 and is attached to the residence's piping system by a second piping joint 104 . the leak detection system 100 comprises three valves that are manually opened and closed. during normal operation of the leak detection system 100 , the first valve 106 is closed and the second valve 108 and third valve 110 are open. thus, water enters the leak detection system 100 through the first piping joint 102 , flows through the first valve 108 , flows through the second valve 110 , and exits the leak detection system 100 through the second piping joint 104 . however, a user of the leak detection system 100 can put the leak detection system 100 into a by-pass mode by closing the second valve 108 and the third valve 110 and opening the first valve 106 . the leak detection system 100 may be put into by-pass mode, for example, to facilitate maintenance or repairs. in by-pass mode, water flows straight through from the first piping joint 102 to the second piping joint 104 and does not flow through the second valve 108 or the third valve 110 . accordingly, when the leak detection system 100 is in by-pass mode, the disconnect unions 112 can be loosened and the bottom portion of the leak detection system 100 can be removed, making maintenance, repair, or replacement easier. during normal use of the leak detection system 100 (that is, when it is not in by-pass mode) and there is user demand, water will flow through the second valve 108 , through the shut-off valve 114 , through the flow switch 116 and through the third valve 110 . the flow switch 116 is used to determine whether user demand is present. the flow switch 116 is preset to detect a minimal water flow rate (for example, 0.2 gpm). flow switches, such as the flow switch 116 in the leak detection system 100 of fig. 1 , are commercially available. the flow switch 116 is in communication with the control logic in the control box 118 via electrical wires 122 . whenever there is user demand, the control logic keeps track of how long the user demand is present. if the period of user demand exceeds a user determined maximum user demand time, the control logic communicates a signal to the shut-off valve 114 to close, stopping water flow through the leak detection system 100 , and therefore, stopping water flow to the piping system. the control logic is in communication with the shut-off valve 114 via the electrical wiring 124 . whenever the maximum user demand time is exceeded, the control logic in the leak detection system 100 will also cause a system fault indicator 128 to light, indicating to a user why the leak detection system 100 was shut down. a user of the leak detection system 100 can set the maximum user demand time from 1 minute to 99 minutes by adjusting the demand set dial 126 . once the leak detection system 100 has been shut down, a user of the leak detection system 100 can reset the leak detection system 100 by depressing the system reset button 136 . resetting the leak detection system 100 opens the shut-off valve 114 and resets the leakage test frequency timer. the control box 118 houses the control logic of the leak detection system 100 . the control box 118 also comprises a power on indicator 138 , a demand testing indicator 140 , and a leak testing indicator 142 . the power on indicator 138 is typically a light source, such as an led, and is illuminated whenever there is electrical power supplied to the system. the demand testing indicator 140 is typically a light source, such as an led, and is illuminated whenever a user test demand is being performed. the leak testing indicator 142 is typically a light source, such as an led, and is illuminated whenever a pressure decay test is being performed. the leak detection system 100 is powered by plugging the power cord 120 into a standard 120-volt outlet. the control logic initiates a leakage test according to a preset leakage test frequency. for use with residential water piping systems, the leakage test frequency is set such that a leakage test is performed every few hours. when it is time to perform a leakage test, the control logic checks the flow switch 116 for user demand. if the flow switch 116 detects user demand the start of the leakage test is delayed until there is no user demand present. if the flow switch 116 does not detect user demand, then a leakage test is initiated. the control logic initiates the leakage test by first closing the shut-off valve 114 , stopping water from flowing through the leak detection system 100 and into the piping system. the control logic then begins to monitor the pressure switch 130 . the pressure switch 130 is monitored for a preset amount of time, which is referred to herein as the pressure decay test time. a user of the leak detection system 100 can set the pressure decay test time from 1 second to 99 seconds by adjusting the test set dial 132 . for residential water piping systems, a pressure decay test time setting of about 30 seconds can be advantageously utilized. the pressure switch 130 detects if the pressure in the piping system drops below a predetermined minimal acceptable pressure. for residential water piping systems a minimal acceptable pressure of 15 psig can be advantageously utilized. pressure switches, such as the pressure switch 130 in the leak detection system 100 of fig. 1 , are commercially available. if the pressure switch 130 detects that the pressure has dropped below the minimal acceptable pressure, then the control logic initiates a test to determine if there is user demand. although presence of user demand is determined before the leakage test is initiated, this test for user demand is performed because a user may create user demand (by turning on a faucet, for example) during the period between initiating a leakage test and determining that the pressure has decreased below the minimal acceptable pressure. the control logic performs this test for user demand by first opening the shut-off valve 114 and then checking the flow switch 116 to determine if the minimum user flow rate has been detected by the flow switch 116 . in some applications, fluctuations in flow rate may exist for a brief period after reopening the shut-off valve 114 . the control logic may account for these fluctuations in flow rate by delaying for a short time (for example, about 0.5 seconds) before checking the flow switch 116 for user demand. alternately, the control logic may check that the flow switch 116 has detected a minimal user flow rate continuously for a short period (for example, at least about 0.5 seconds) before determining that user demand is present. if the test for user demand performed during a leakage test shows that no user demand is present, then there is a leak in the piping system and the control logic sends a signal to the shut-off valve 114 to close, stopping water flow through the leak detection system 100 , and therefore, stopping water flow to the piping system. whenever a leak has been detected, the control logic in the leak detection system 100 will also cause a leak detected indicator 134 to light, indicating to a user why the leak detection system 100 was shut down. while the leak detection system 100 is shut down, a user can find and repair the detected leak. a user of the leak detection system 100 can reset the leak detection system 100 by depressing the system reset button 136 . on the other hand, if the test for user demand performed during a leakage test shows that there is user demand present, the control logic keeps the shut-off valve 114 open and waits until no user demand is detected, at which time the leakage test is restarted. fig. 2 shows a flowchart that illustrates an example method 200 of the present invention. the method 200 is one example of a method that can be used to implement a leakage test according to the present invention. it should be noted that the method 200 is just one example of a method that can be utilized in producing leak detection systems of the present invention. upon attaining an understanding of the present specification, one of ordinary skill in the electrical arts will be able to produce control logic (that is, circuitry and other electronic components) capable of implementing methods of the present invention. the system utilizes a leakage test frequency timer to determine when to start a leakage test 202 . upon starting the leakage test 202 , the system determines whether user demand is present 204 . if user demand is present, a demand timer is started 206 . the demand timer keeps track of how long user demand is present. the current demand time is compared to the maximum user demand time 208 . if the maximum user demand time is exceeded 210 the system can be shut down by closing the shut-off valve, shutting off the liquid supply to the system. if the maximum user demand time is not exceeded the system determines whether user demand is present 212 . if no user demand is present, the system starts the leakage test timer 214 . if user demand is present, the system continues to determine whether the maximum demand time has been exceeded 208 and whether user demand is present 212 until either the maximum demand time is exceeded 210 or there is no longer user demand. when there is no user demand present or any detected user demand has stopped, a pressure decay test is started by first starting a pressure decay test timer 214 . the system then checks for pressure decay 216 in the piping system. if pressure decay is detected, the system checks for the presence of user demand 218 . if no user demand is present, then a leak has been detected 220 and the system can be shut down. if user demand is present, the pressure decay test is halted, the user demand timer is started 206 , and the system proceeds as described above until either no user demand is present or the maximum user demand time has been exceeded 210 . if no pressure decay has been detected, the system checks to determine if the pressure decay test time has expired 222 . if the pressure decay test time has expired, then the pressure decay test is complete and no leak has been found. however, if the pressure decay test time has not expired, then the system continues checking for pressure decay 216 and checking to determine if the pressure decay test time has expired 222 until either pressure decay has been detected or the pressure decay test time has expired. the present specification describes a leak detection system capable of automatically detecting a leak in a pressurized piping system. the present invention utilizes a pressure decay test to check for leaks in the piping system. the present invention utilizes a user demand test to reduce disruption to users of the piping system by only performing the pressure decay test when no user demand is present. while the present invention has been described in detail with respect to specific embodiments thereof, it will be appreciated that those skilled in the art, upon attaining an understanding of the foregoing, may readily conceive of alterations to, variations of and equivalents to these embodiments. accordingly, the scope of the present invention should be assessed as that of the appended claims and by equivalents thereto.
180-181-112-298-255	TW	[ "US" ]	H05B37/00,H05B37/02,H05B44/00	2011-12-20T00:00:00	2011	[ "H05" ]	lighting apparatus and light emitting diode device thereof	a lighting emitting diode (led) device includes a first adjust module and a second adjust module. the first adjust module includes at least one first led and has a first internal impedance having a first characteristic curve. a range covered by the first characteristic curve includes a first incomplete conduction region and a first conduction region. as the current increases from zero value and up, the first internal impedance decreases exponentially in the first incomplete conduction region, is approximately linear in the first conduction region. the second adjust module includes an impedance-providing component and an electronic component coupled in series. the second adjust module is coupled in parallel with the first adjust module. the second adjust module has a second internal impedance having a second characteristic curve. the first characteristic curve and the second characteristic curve match one another.	1. a light emitting diode (led) device, comprising: a first adjustment module having a first internal impedance, the first adjustment module comprising at least one first led and coupled to receive a first current, a first characteristic curve representing a relationship between the first internal impedance and the first current with a range of the first characteristic curve including a first incomplete conduction region and a first conduction region, wherein in the first incomplete conduction region the first internal impedance decreases exponentially as the first current increases, and wherein the first internal impedance is approximately linear in the first conduction region; and a second adjustment module, comprising an impedance-providing component and an electronic component coupled in series and coupled to receive a second current, the second adjustment module and the first adjustment module coupled in parallel, the second adjustment module having a second internal impedance, a second characteristic curve representing a relationship between the second internal impedance and the second current with a range of the second characteristic curve including a second incomplete conduction region and a second conduction region, wherein in the second incomplete conduction region the second internal impedance decreases exponentially as the second current increases, and wherein the second internal impedance is approximately linear in the second conduction region, wherein the first characteristic curve and the second characteristic curve match one another. 2. the led device of claim 1 , wherein the impedance-providing component comprises a semiconductor component or a thermistor having a positive temperature coefficient. 3. the led device of claim 1 , wherein the electronic component comprises a diode, a zener diode, an led, a diode array, a zener diode array, or an led array. 4. the led device of claim 1 , further comprising: a third adjustment module that comprises at least one second led, the third adjustment module coupled in series with the first adjustment module and with the second adjustment module, respectively. 5. the led device of claim 4 , wherein the at least one first led emits light of a first wavelength, and wherein the at least one second led emits light of a second wavelength that is different from the first wavelength. 6. the led device of claim 5 , wherein the at least one first led and the at least one second led comprise a red led and a blue led, respectively.	cross-reference to related application this application is a continuation-in-part of u.s. patent application ser. no. 13/347,630, filed on jan. 10, 2012, which claims the priority benefit of taiwan patent application no. 100101135, filed on jan. 12, 2011. this application claims the priority benefit of taiwan patent application no. 100147471, filed on dec. 20, 2011. the entirety of the above-mentioned patent applications are hereby incorporated by reference and made a part of this specification. background 1. technical field the present invention relates to a lighting apparatus and the structure of a light emitting diode (led) device thereof and, more particularly, to an led device with reduced attenuation in brightness (luminous decay, light decay, light attenuation, light decline or light degradation) and a technique that reduces attenuation in brightness in red led caused by an increase in temperature. 2. description of related art with demand for environmental protection on the rise, the utilization of leds for illumination in people's daily life has become an inevitable trend. according to conventional technologies, blue and red led chips are often used in lighting apparatuses that provide warm lighting and for which yellow and red phosphors are used during the manufacturing thereof. as the time in operation of this type of lighting apparatuses increases, the ambient temperature surrounding the lighting apparatus typically rises accordingly. in particular, as red leds typically have more pronounced attenuation in brightness compared to blue leds, the attenuation in brightness (luminous decay, light decay, light attenuation, light decline or light degradation) is generally more severe in red leds than in blue leds. as such, the lighting provided by conventional lighting apparatuses tends to change drastically over time and the lighting performance of such lighting apparatuses is severely impaired. therefore, it is important for designers in this field to provide lighting apparatuses that are capable of long and stable operation with high efficiency in lighting. summary the present invention provides an led device that is capable of effectively reducing the attenuation in brightness in a string of red leds thereof caused by an increase in temperature. the present invention further provides a lighting apparatus that is capable of effectively reducing the attenuation in brightness in a string of red leds thereof caused by an increase in temperature. advantageously, the lighting apparatus can emit light under high ambient temperature such that the emitted light still satisfies the requirement of the 7-step macadam and, optimally, the requirement of the 4-step macadam. in one aspect, an led device may comprise a first led, at least one impedance-providing component, and a driver. the first led may have an internal impedance and may be configured to emit light of a first wavelength. the at least one impedance-providing component may be coupled in parallel with the first led, and may provide an internal impedance having a value that varies in positive proportion with a variation in an ambient temperature. the driver may be respectively coupled in series with the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component. the driver may provide a drive current divided to flow through the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component according to the internal impedance and the internal impedance. in one embodiment, the drive current is divided into a first partial drive current that flows through the first led and a second partial drive current that flows through the at least one impedance-providing component. a ratio between a value of the first partial drive current and a value of the second partial drive current may be proportional to a ratio between a value of the internal impedance provided by the at least one impedance-providing component and a value of the internal impedance of the first led. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component may comprise a plurality of impedance-providing components each of which providing a respective shunt impedance having a respective value that varies in positive proportion with the variation in the ambient temperature. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component, a thermistor, a transistor, or a diode having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, the led device may further comprise a second led that is respectively coupled in series with the driver, the first led, and the at least one impedance-providing component. the second led may be configured to emit light of a second wavelength. in one embodiment, the second led, the first led, and the driver may be coupled in series such that the second led is coupled between the driver and the first led or the first led is coupled between the driver and the second led. in one embodiment, the second led may comprise a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. in another aspect, an led device may comprise a first led, at least one impedance-providing component, a string of one or more second leds, and a driver. the first led may have an internal impedance and may be configured to emit light of a first wavelength. the at least one impedance-providing component may be coupled in parallel with the first led and provide an internal impedance having a value that varies in positive proportion with a variation in an ambient temperature. the string of one or more second leds may be respectively coupled in series with the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component. each of the one or more second leds may be configured to emit light of a respective wavelength that is less than the first wavelength. the driver may be respectively coupled in series with the first led, the string of one or more second leds, and the at least one impedance-providing component. the driver may provide a drive current to the string of one or more second leds. the drive current is divided to flow through the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component according to the internal impedance and the internal impedance. in one embodiment, the drive current is divided into a first partial drive current that flows through the first led and a second partial drive current that flows through the at least one impedance-providing component. a ratio between a value of the first partial drive current and a value of the second partial drive current may be proportional to a ratio between a value of the internal impedance provided by the at least one impedance-providing component and a value of the internal impedance of the first led. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component may comprise a plurality of impedance-providing components each providing a respective shunt impedance having a respective value that varies in positive proportion with the variation in the ambient temperature. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component, a thermistor, a transistor, or a diode having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, the first led may comprise a red led, and the string of one or more second leds may comprise a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. in one embodiment, the led device may further comprise a string of one or more third leds that is respectively coupled in series with the driver, the first led, the string of one or more second leds, and the at least one impedance-providing component. each of the one or more third leds may be configured to emit light of a respective wavelength that is less than the first wavelength. in one embodiment, the string of one or more third leds may be coupled in series and between the driver and the first led. in one embodiment, the first led may comprise a red led, and the string of one or more third leds may comprise a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. in one aspect, a lighting apparatus comprising a first led, at least one impedance-providing component, a second led and a driver is provided. the first led has an internal impedance and a first light decay. the at least one impedance-providing component is coupled in parallel with the first led. the at least one impedance-providing component provides an internal impedance having a value that varies in positive proportion with a variation in an ambient temperature. the second led is respectively coupled in series with the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component. the second led has a second decay. the first light decay is more severe than the second light decay. the driver is respectively coupled in series with the first led, the second led and the at least one impedance-providing component. the driver provides a drive current to the second led. the drive current is divided to flow through the first led and the at least one impedance-providing component according to the internal impedance and the internal impedance. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component comprises a semiconductor component, a thermistor, a transistor, or a diode having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, a third led is respectively coupled in series with the first led, the second led, the at least one impedance-providing component and the driver. the third led has a third light decay. in one embodiment, the first light decay is more severe than the third light decay. in one embodiment, the third led is coupled in series and between the driver and the first led. in one embodiment, the first led comprises a red led. the second led comprises a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. the third led comprises a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. in one embodiment, the drive current is divided into a first partial drive current that flows through the first led and a second partial drive current that flows through the at least one impedance-providing component. a ratio between a value of the first partial drive current and a value of the second partial drive current is proportional to a ratio between a value of the internal impedance provided by the at least one impedance-providing component and a value of the internal impedance of the first led. in one aspect, a lighting apparatus may comprise an led device. the led device may include a first led, at least one impedance-providing component, and a driver. the first led may have an internal impedance and may be configured to emit light of a first wavelength. the at least one impedance-providing component may be coupled in parallel with the first led and may provide an internal impedance having a value that varies in positive proportion with a variation in an ambient temperature. the driver may be respectively coupled in series with the first led, and the at least one impedance-providing component. the driver may provide a drive current that is divided into a first partial drive current that flows through the first led and a second partial drive current that flows through the at least one impedance-providing component. a ratio between a value of the first partial drive current and a value of the second partial drive current may be proportional to a ratio between a value of the internal impedance provided by the at least one impedance-providing component and a value of the internal impedance of the first led. in one embodiment, the at least one impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component, a thermistor, a transistor, or a diode having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, the lighting apparatus may further comprise a string of one or more second leds that is respectively coupled in series with the first led and the driver. each of the one or more second leds may be configured to emit light of a respective wavelength that is less than the first wavelength. in another embodiment, the lighting apparatus may additionally comprise a string of one or more third leds that is respectively coupled in series with the driver, the first led, and the string of one or more second leds. each of the one or more third leds may be configured to emit light of a respective wavelength that is less than the first wavelength. in one embodiment, the string of one or more third leds may be coupled in series and between the driver and the first led. in one embodiment, the first led may comprise a red led. the string of one or more second leds may comprise a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. the string of one or more third leds may comprise a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. in one embodiment, each of the at least one first led may be coupled in parallel with a respective one of the at least one impedance-providing component. the lighting apparatus may further comprise a plurality of strings of one or more second leds. each string of one or more second leds may be respectively coupled in series with a respective one of the at least one first led and the driver. each led of each string of one or more second leds may be configured to emit light of a respective wavelength that is less than the first wavelength. in one aspect, an led device may comprise a first adjustment module and a second adjustment module. the first adjustment module may comprise at least one first led and may have a first internal impedance, and may be coupled to receive a first current. a first characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the first internal impedance and the first current with a range of the first characteristic curve including a first incomplete conduction region and a first conduction region. in the first incomplete conduction region the first internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the first current increases. the first internal impedance may be approximately linear in the first conduction region. the second adjustment module may comprise an impedance-providing component and an electronic component coupled in series, and may be coupled to receive a second current. the second adjustment module and the first adjustment module may be coupled in parallel. the second adjustment module may have a second internal impedance. a second characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the second internal impedance and the second current with a range of the second characteristic curve including a second incomplete conduction region and a second conduction region. in the second incomplete conduction region the second internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the second current increases. the second internal impedance may be approximately linear in the second conduction region. the first characteristic curve and the second characteristic curve may match one another. in one embodiment, the impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component or a thermistor having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, the electronic component may comprise a diode, a zener diode, an led, a diode array, a zener diode array, or an led array. in one embodiment, the led device may further comprise a third adjustment module that comprises at least one second led. the third adjustment module may be coupled in series with the first adjustment module and with the second adjustment module, respectively. in one embodiment, the at least one first led may emit light of a first wavelength, and the at least one second led may emit light of a second wavelength that is different from the first wavelength. in one embodiment, the at least one first led and the at least one second led may comprise a red led and a blue led, respectively. in one aspect, an led device may comprise a first led array and a second led array coupled in series with an impedance-providing component. the first led array may have a first internal impedance, and may be coupled to receive a first current. a first characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the first internal impedance and the first current. the serially-coupled second led array and the impedance-providing component may be coupled in parallel with the first led array and receiving a second current. the serially-coupled second led array and the impedance-providing component may have a second internal impedance. a second characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the second internal impedance and the second current. the first characteristic curve and the second characteristic curve may match one another. in one embodiment, a range of the first characteristic curve may include a first incomplete conduction region and a first conduction region; in the first incomplete conduction region the first internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the first current increases; the first internal impedance may be approximately linear in the first conduction region; a range of the second characteristic curve may include a second incomplete conduction region and a second conduction region; in the second incomplete conduction region the second internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the second current increases; and the second internal impedance may be approximately linear in the second conduction region. in one embodiment, each of the first led array and the second led array may respectively comprise an array of a plurality of red leds. in one embodiment, the first internal impedance may be approximately equal to an internal impedance of the second led array. in one embodiment, the impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component or a thermistor having a positive temperature coefficient. in one aspect, an led device may comprise a first led array and a second adjustment module. the first led array may have a first internal impedance and may be coupled to receive a first current. a first characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the first internal impedance and the first current with a range of the first characteristic curve including a first incomplete conduction region and a first conduction region. in the first incomplete conduction region the first internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the first current increases. the first internal impedance may be approximately linear in the first conduction region. the second adjustment module may be coupled to receive a second current. the second adjustment module and the first adjustment module may be coupled in parallel. the second adjustment module may have a second internal impedance. a second characteristic curve may represent a relationship between the second internal impedance and the second current with a range of the second characteristic curve including a second incomplete conduction region and a second conduction region. in the second incomplete conduction region the second internal impedance may decrease exponentially as the second current increases. the second internal impedance may be approximately linear in the second conduction region. the first characteristic curve and the second characteristic curve may match one another. in one embodiment, the second adjustment module may comprise an impedance-providing component and an electronic component coupled in series. in one embodiment, the impedance-providing component may comprise a semiconductor component or a thermistor having a positive temperature coefficient. in one embodiment, the electronic component may comprise a diode, a zener diode, an led, a diode array, a zener diode array, or an led array. in one embodiment, the second adjustment module may comprise a second led array, and each of the first led array and the second led array may respectively comprise an array of a plurality of red leds. in one embodiment, the first internal impedance may be approximately equal to an internal impedance of the second led array. in one embodiment, the led device may further comprise a third adjustment module coupled in series with the first led array and with the second adjustment module, respectively. in one embodiment, the first led array may comprise at least one first led. the third adjustment module may comprise at least one second led. the at least one first led may emit light of a first wavelength, and the at least one second led may emit light of a second wavelength that is different from the first wavelength. in one embodiment, the at least one first led and the at least one second led may comprise a red led and a blue led, respectively. to facilitate better understanding of the features of and benefits provided by the present invention, implementation examples are provided in the detailed description section below with reference made to the accompanying drawings. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. fig. 2a is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. figs. 2b and 2c are diagrams showing a relationship between the lighting efficiency and relative brightness of an led device and the ambient temperature. fig. 3a is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention. fig. 3b is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with still another embodiment of the present invention. fig. 4 is a block diagram of a lighting apparatus in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. fig. 5a is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with one with yet another embodiment of the present invention. fig. 5b is a diagram showing a relationship between impedance and current with respect to an embodiment of the present invention. fig. 6a is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with one other embodiment of the present invention. fig. 6b is a diagram showing a relationship between impedance and current with respect to an embodiment of the present invention. fig. 6c is a diagram showing a relationship between impedance and current with respect to another embodiment of the present invention. fig. 7 is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with a further embodiment of the present invention. fig. 8a is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with still a further embodiment of the present invention. fig. 8b is a block diagram of an led device in accordance with yet a further embodiment of the present invention. detailed description of preferred embodiments fig. 1 illustrates an led device 100 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. the led device 100 includes a driver 110 , a string of one or more red leds 120 , and an impedance-providing component 130 . the driver 110 provides a drive current id. the driver 110 may include a current generator that utilizes a voltage-controlled current source or an independent current source to provide the drive current id, which is stable. as current generating devices capable of providing a stable drive current are well known in the art, in the interest of brevity detailed description of the driver 110 will not be provided. the string of one or more red leds 120 includes a quantity of n of leds 121 coupled in series, where n is a positive integer. fig. 1 illustrates one exemplary implementation, and n is equal to 1 in fig. 1 . when the quantity of leds in the string of one or more red leds 120 is greater than 1, the n leds are coupled in the same direction (e.g., positively biased with respect to the driver 110 ) and in series. the impedance-providing component 130 is coupled in parallel with the string of one or more red leds 120 . the impedance-providing component 130 provides an internal impedance rd the value of which depends on the ambient temperature surrounding the impedance-providing component 130 . that is, according to kirchhoff's current laws, the drive current id provided by the driver 110 is divided into a first partial drive current id 1 and a second partial drive current id 2 . the first partial drive current id 1 and the second partial drive current id 2 flow through the string of one or more red leds 120 and the impedance-providing component 130 , respectively. the value of the drive current id is equal to the sum of the value of the first partial drive current id 1 and the value of the second partial drive current id 2 . more specifically, a voltage drop across the string of one or more red leds 120 is the same as a voltage drop across the impedance-providing component 130 . moreover, a ratio between the value of the first partial drive current id 1 and the value of the second partial drive current id 2 is proportional to a ratio between a value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 and a value of an internal impedance of the string of one or more red leds 120 . notably, in at least one embodiment, the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 varies in positive proportion with a variation in the ambient temperature. for example, when the ambient temperature increases, the internal impedance rd increases proportionally. in short, when the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 is greater than the value of the internal impedance of the string of one or more red leds 120 , the value of the first partial drive current id 1 is greater than the value of the second partial drive current id 2 . conversely, when the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 is less than the value of the internal impedance of the string of one or more red leds 120 , the value of the first partial drive current id 1 is less than the value of the second partial drive current id 2 . when the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 is equal to the value of the internal impedance of the string of one or more red leds 120 , the drive current id is equally divided between the first partial drive current id 1 and the second partial drive current id 2 . based on the description above, it is clear that, when the led device 100 is in operation for a long period of time, the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 increases corresponding to an increase in the ambient temperature over time. as the value of the internal impedance rd increases, the value of the first partial drive current id 1 that flows through the string of one or more red leds 120 also increases. the increase in the first partial drive current id 1 due to an increase in the ambient temperature effectively compensates for a decrease, or attenuation, in the brightness of the string of one or more red leds 120 that would result due to an increase in the ambient temperature had there been no such compensation. additionally, the value of the internal impedance rd provided by the impedance-providing component 130 is selected based on the temperature-dependent attenuation in brightness of the string of one or more red leds 120 and a relationship between the brightness of the string of one or more red leds 120 and the drive current id. in at least one embodiment, the impedance-providing component 130 may comprise a thermistor with a positive temperature coefficient. when the leds 121 of the string of one or more red leds 120 comprise red led chips, the impedance-providing component 130 may be a semiconductor component having a positive temperature coefficient, e.g., a transistor or a diode with a positive temperature coefficient, fabricated during the chip fabrication process. fig. 2a illustrates an led device 200 in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. the led device 200 includes a driver 210 , a string of one or more red leds 220 , and a plurality of impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m. compared with the previous example, the led device 200 includes a quantity of m of impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m, where m is a positive integer. each of the impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m is coupled in parallel with the string of one or more red leds 220 . moreover, the plurality of impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m provide a plurality of shunt impedance each having a respective value that varies in positive proportion with a variation in the ambient temperature. in the illustrated example, the string of one or more red leds 220 includes three leds coupled in series. the driver 210 provides a drive current id that is divided into a plurality of partial drive currents id 1 , id 21 -id 2 m. the values of the partial drive currents id 1 , id 21 -id 2 m depend on the values of the internal impedance of the plurality of impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m and a value of the internal impedance of the string of one or more red leds 220 . more specifically, the partial drive current id 1 flows through the string of one or more red leds 220 to cause the string of one or more red leds 220 to emit light. additionally, a voltage drop across the string of one or more red leds 220 is the same as a respective voltage drop across each of the plurality of the impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m. figs. 2b and 2c illustrate a relationship between the lighting efficiency and relative brightness of an led device and the ambient temperature, respectively. as shown in fig. 2b , a curve 210 shows a relationship between the lighting efficiency of a conventional led device and the ambient temperature, where the conventional led device includes a string of one or more red leds having two leds coupled in series without any impedance-providing component. a curve 220 shows a relationship between the lighting efficiency of a proposed led device and the ambient temperature, where the proposed led device includes a string of one or more red leds having two leds coupled in series and one or more impedance-providing components coupled in parallel with the string of one or more red leds. more specifically, the string of one or more red leds of the conventional led device indicated by the curve 210 suffers a large attenuation in brightness when the ambient temperature is greater than 50° c. in contrast, the string of one or more red leds of the proposed led device indicated by the curve 220 does not suffer a noticeable attenuation in brightness until the ambient temperature is greater than 60° c. as shown in fig. 2c , a curve 230 shows a relationship between the relative brightness of lighting of a conventional led device and the ambient temperature, where the conventional led device includes a string of one or more red leds having two leds coupled in series without any impedance-providing component. a curve 240 shows a relationship between the relative brightness of lighting of a proposed led device and the ambient temperature, where the proposed led device includes a string of two red leds coupled in series and two impedance-providing components that are coupled in parallel with each other and in parallel with the string of two red leds. a curve 250 shows a relationship between the relative brightness of lighting of another proposed led device and the ambient temperature, where the proposed led device includes a string of three red leds coupled in series and three impedance-providing components that are coupled in parallel with each other and in parallel with the string of three red leds. more specifically, when the ambient temperature is 100° c., the attenuation in brightness in the string of one or more red leds indicated by the curve 230 is 44%, the attenuation in brightness in the string of two red leds indicated by the curve 240 is 28%, and the attenuation in brightness in the string of three red leds indicated by the curve 250 is merely 15%. fig. 3a illustrates an led device 200 in accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention. compared with the example shown in fig. 2a , the led device 200 in fig. 3a further includes an led string 260 . the led string 260 and the string of one or more red leds 220 are coupled in series with the driver 210 , and receive the drive current id to emit light. the led string 260 includes one or more non-red leds. in the example shown, the led string 260 includes a plurality of non-red leds 261 - 263 that are coupled in series. a current input terminal of the led 261 is coupled to a current output terminal of the string of one or more red leds 220 . the current input terminal of the led 261 is further coupled to a respective current output terminal of each of the plurality of impedance-providing components 231 - 23 m. with the addition of the led string 260 , the color of the light emitted by the led device 200 may be changed. fig. 3b illustrates an led device 300 in accordance with still another embodiment of the present invention. compared with the example shown in fig. 3a , the led device 300 includes two strings of non-red leds, namely a string of one or more non-red leds 260 and a string of one or more non-red leds 280 . the string of one or more non-red leds 280 may be coupled in series between the driver 210 and the string of one or more red leds 220 . in various embodiments, the strings of one or more non-red leds 260 and 280 may be placed in various locations in the circuit and still be coupled in series with the driver 210 and the string of one or more red leds 220 . furthermore, the quantity of strings of one or more non-red leds is not limited to the two strings 260 and 280 . of course, the quantity of leds in each of the strings of one or more non-red leds 260 and 280 is not limited to 3. in various embodiments, the proposed technique may be implemented with each of the strings of one or more non-red leds 260 and 280 including at least one non-red led. additionally, the attenuation in brightness (luminous decay, light attenuation, light decay, light decline or light degradation) is generally more severe in red leds than in non-red leds. in one embodiment, either or both of the strings of one or more non-red leds 260 and 280 may include one or more blue leds. in one embodiment, the strings of one or more non-red leds 260 and 280 may include one or more non-red leds of one or more other colors such as, for example, a blue led, a green led, a yellow led, an orange led, an ultraviolet led, a near blue led, a white led, or a combination thereof. fig. 4 illustrates a lighting apparatus 400 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. the lighting apparatus 400 includes a driver 410 , a plurality of strings of one or more blue leds 421 - 423 , a plurality of strings of one or more red leds 431 - 433 , and a plurality of impedance-providing components 441 - 443 . the driver 410 generates a plurality of drive currents ida 1 -ida 3 that are provided to the strings of one or more blue leds 421 - 423 , respectively. more specifically, after flowing through the string of one or more blue leds 421 , the drive current ida 1 is divided to flow through the impedance-providing component 441 and the string of one or more red leds 431 . after flowing through the string of one or more blue leds 422 , the drive current ida 2 is divided to flow through the impedance-providing component 442 and the string of one or more red leds 432 . after flowing through the string of one or more blue leds 423 , the drive current ida 3 is divided to flow through the impedance-providing component 443 and the string of one or more red leds 433 . the wavelength of the light emitted by each of the strings of one or more red leds 431 - 433 is greater than the wavelength of the light emitted by each of the strings of one or more blue leds 421 - 423 . in general, each non-red led in the present invention is selected such that the wavelength of the light emitted by a red led is greater than the wavelength of the non-red led. the driver 410 may utilize a current mirror to mirror the drive current ida 1 to provide the drive currents ida 2 and ida 3 . as circuits of current mirrors are well known in the art, in the interest of brevity a detailed description thereof will not be provided herein. with respect to the compensation for the attenuation in the brightness of the strings of one or more red leds 431 - 433 using the impedance-providing components 441 - 443 , since an example and the principle of operation have been provided above, in the interest of brevity a detailed description thereof will not be provided herein. fig. 5a illustrates an led device 500 in accordance with one with yet another embodiment of the present invention. as shown in fig. 5a , the led device 500 includes an led array 510 and an impedance-providing component 520 . the led array 510 includes numerous leds. the impedance-providing component 520 and the led array 510 are electrically coupled together in parallel. the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 varies according to an ambient temperature. the impedance-providing component 520 may include a semiconductor component or a thermistor such as, for example, a positive temperature coefficient (ptc) semiconductor component or thermistor, and is used to compensate for variation in the brightness of illumination by leds due to temperature. in other words, the driving current id is divided into first driving current id 1 and second driving current id 2 according to kirchhoff's current law. the first driving current id 1 is further sub-divided when flowing through multiple series of leds of the led array 510 . the second driving current id 2 flows through the impedance-providing component 520 . thus, the value of the driving current id is equal to the sum of the values of the first and second driving currents id 1 , id 2 . moreover, a voltage drop across the led array 510 and a voltage drop across the impedance-providing component 520 are equal. the values of the first and second driving currents id 1 , id 2 are determined by a ratio between the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 and the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 . notably, in one embodiment, the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 varies in positive proportion to a variation in the ambient temperature. in one embodiment, when the impedance-providing component 520 includes a ptc semiconductor component or thermistor, the internal impedance rd varies in positive proportion to a variation in the ambient temperature. that is, with a rise in the ambient temperature, the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 increases; and when the ambient temperature drops the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 decreases. simply put, when the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 is great than the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 , the value of the first driving current id 1 is greater than the value of the second driving current id 2 . conversely, when the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 is less than the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 , the value of the first driving current id 1 is less than the value of the second driving current id 2 . of course, when the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 is equal to the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 , the driving current id is equally divided between the first driving current id 1 and the second driving current id 2 . from the description above, those skilled in the art would appreciate that, after the led device 500 has been in operation for a long period of time, the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 increases as the ambient temperature rises with passage of time. with an increase in the internal impedance rd, the first driving current id 1 which flows through the led array 510 also increases accordingly. the increase in the first driving current id 1 corresponding to an increase in the ambient temperature effectively compensates for an attenuation in the brightness of the led array 510 that would have occurred without such compensating effect. this effectively compensates for the characteristic of light decay of leds. fig. 5b illustrates a relationship between impedance and current with respect to an embodiment of the present invention. the following description refers to both figs. 5a and 5b . in one embodiment, when the led array 510 includes numerous red leds, an equivalent internal impedance rd 1 thereof is measured and shown as the characteristic curve 510 a. the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 is measured and shown as the characteristic curve 520 a, which is approximately a straight line in the range of 0˜46 ma and becomes a generally upward curve for current values greater than 46 ma. the characteristic curve 520 a shows that, for relatively small currents, the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 is at an approximately constant and small value. on the other hand, for relatively large currents, the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 has a generally rising value. the characteristic curve 510 a of fig. 5b is measured using three strings of red leds coupled in parallel with the value of current varying in a wide range including an incomplete conduction region 530 a and a conduction region 530 b. the incomplete conduction region 530 a ranges between 0 ma and 23 ma. the conduction region 530 b ranges between 23 ma and 80 ma or a range above 23 ma. in the incomplete conduction region 530 a, the value of the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 increases exponentially as the current decreases to approach and surpass the value of the internal impedance rd of the impedance-providing component 520 , resulting in impedance mismatch. in the conduction region 530 b, the value of the internal impedance rd 1 is linear as the value of current increases and maintains an approximately constant value that is less than the value of the internal impedance rd. on the other hand, the characteristic curve 520 a is linear for the range of 0˜46 ma and maintains an approximately constant value. given that the value of the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 is different under currents of different values, impedance mismatch between that of the led array 510 and the impedance-providing component 520 . under a low current (e.g., for a current equal to or less than 15 ma), a majority portion of the current flows through the impedance-providing component 520 with a minority portion of the current flowing through the led array 510 . accordingly, a color temperature offset of about 2000 k (degree kelvins) may occur in the led array 510 as a result of inability to achieve desired luminous efficiency under a current in the range of 15 ma to 80 ma or even 200 ma. it is noteworthy that implementations of the led array 510 are not limited to red leds, and that the values of current and impedance may be different from those shown depending on actual implementations. fig. 6a illustrates an led device 600 in accordance with one other embodiment of the present invention. fig. 6b illustrates a relationship between impedance and current with respect to an embodiment of the present invention. the following description refers to both figs. 6a and 6b . to improve the issue of color temperature offset, the led device 600 includes an led array 510 and an adjustment module 550 . the adjustment module 550 includes an impedance-providing component 520 and an led array 540 coupled in series. the adjustment module 550 is coupled in parallel with the led array 510 . in one embodiment, the adjustment module 550 plays the role of variation in impedance and does not contribute to brightness. in another embodiment, the adjustment module 550 not only provides variation in impedance but also contributes to brightness. the led array 510 includes multiple first leds and has an internal impedance rd 1 which exhibits the property of the characteristic curve 510 a. in the interest of brevity, detailed description of the characteristic curve 510 a is not repeated herein. the led array 540 may include one or more diode, one or more zener diode or one or more led, and may exhibit similar or identical property as that of the led array 510 . in one embodiment, an internal impedance of the led array 540 is approximately equal to the internal impedance rd 1 of the led array 510 . the adjustment module 550 has an equivalent internal impedance rd 2 . the internal impedance rd 2 may exhibit similar or identical property as that of variations of the characteristic curve 550 _ 1 - 550 _ 4 . in one embodiment, the impedance-providing component 520 is a ptc thermistor and the led array 540 is a red array. the characteristic curve 550 _ 1 measures the variation in impedance of a ptc thermistor having an internal impedance of 15 ohms at room temperature and the red led array in series. the characteristic curve 550 _ 2 measures the variation in impedance of a ptc thermistor having an internal impedance of 150 ohms at room temperature and the red led array in series. the characteristic curve 550 _ 3 measures the variation in impedance of a ptc thermistor having an internal impedance of 300 ohms and the red led array in series. the characteristic curve 550 _ 4 measures the variation in impedance of a ptc thermistor having an internal impedance of 450 ohms and the red led array in series. for relatively small currents, relative to the characteristic curve 510 a, the characteristic curves 550 _ 4 , 550 _ 3 , 550 _ 2 and 550 _ 1 exhibit a consistently increasing trend as the value of current decreases. for relatively large currents, the characteristic curves 550 _ 4 , 550 _ 3 , 550 _ 2 and 550 _ 1 exhibit a linear relationship and each maintains an approximately constant value. among them, the characteristic curves 550 _ 4 , 550 _ 3 , 550 _ 2 and 550 _ 1 decrease in value in that order. the characteristic curves 550 _ 4 , 550 _ 3 and 550 _ 2 are apart from the characteristic curve 510 a, while the characteristic curves 510 a and 550 _ 1 overlap. the range covered by the characteristic curves 550 _ 4 , 550 _ 3 , 550 _ 2 and 550 _ 1 include an incomplete conduction region 530 a and a conduction region 530 b. the incomplete conduction region 530 a ranges between 0 ma and 23 ma. the conduction region 530 b ranges between 23 ma and 80 ma or a range above 23 ma. fig. 6c illustrates a relationship between impedance and current with respect to another embodiment of the present invention. the following description refers to fig. 6c . ideally, under room temperature (e.g., 25° c.), it is desired that the ptc thermistor has an internal impedance approximately close to zero. in one embodiment, under room temperature (e.g., 25° c.), the design of the impedance-providing component 520 may be chosen such that the spacing between two characteristic curves can be reduced. for example, under room temperature and for an impedance value of 15 ohms, the characteristic curves 510 a and 550 _ 1 of the impedance-providing component 520 overlap and appear to be identical. that is, as the characteristics in variation of impedance corresponding to current are identical and overlap each other, applications thereof can be in the incomplete conduction region and the conduction region. in other words, the internal impedance rd 1 varies similarly as does the internal impedance rd 1 . although the above example pertains to the case of 15 ohms, other embodiments are not limited thereto. moreover, the driving current id is divided into driving currents id 1 and id 3 . the driving currents id 1 and id 3 flow through the led array 510 and adjustment module 550 , respectively. as the values of impedance of the two corresponding characteristic curves decrease exponentially as the value of the respective current increases, or as the linear portions of the two characteristic curves have similar proportion, the internal impedance rd 2 and the internal impedance rd 1 maintain a similar proportion from a relatively small value of current (e.g., close to zero current) to a relatively large current (e.g., driving current during normal operation). the driving current id 3 is similarly proportional to the driving current id 1 , thus achieving a stable effect. accordingly, even though the driving currents id 1 and id 3 may be in the incomplete conduction region, the internal impedances rd 1 and rd 2 can still vary in similar proportion so that the driving current id 3 will not be much greater than the driving current id 1 . thus, a constant ratio between the currents flowing through the led array 510 and the adjustment module 550 can be maintained with embodiments of the present invention, thereby aiding the led array 510 in actually achieving brightness while minimizing a range of color temperature offset. therefore, other than dynamically adjusting light to minimize the range of color temperature offset, the led device 200 can also compensate for brightness under high temperature to thereby avoid the issue of light decay due to high temperature. on the other hand, if the characteristic curves 510 a and 550 _ 1 of component(s) used are very similar so as to overlap in terms of the relationship between internal impedance and current, the range of color temperature offset can be further minimized. accordingly, although a circuit design such as that shown in fig. 5a can compensate for light decay in leds, a color temperature offset of 2000k in the led array 510 can still occur for values of current between 15 ma and 200 ma. with respect to the circuit design shown in fig. 6a , the color temperature offset can be reduced to 200k or lower from 2000k when the characteristic curves 510 a and 550 a overlap. thus, the issue of color temperature offset due to change in temperature or operating current in conventional led devices can be mitigated or avoided in the led device 200 . fig. 7 illustrates an led device 700 in accordance with a further embodiment of the present invention. the following description refers to fig. 7 . in one embodiment, relative to the example shown in fig. 6a , the led device 700 further includes an led array 750 . the led array 750 is coupled in series with the led array 510 and with the adjustment module 550 , and emits light with the driving current id flowing through. the led array 510 may include multiple red leds, and the led array 750 may include multiple non-red leds 751 - 755 that are coupled in series. more specifically, a current input terminal of the led 751 is electrically coupled to a current output terminal of a red led of the led array 510 as well as to a current output terminal of the impedance-providing component 520 . with the addition of the led array 750 , the color of light emitted by the led device 700 can be changed. the leds of the led array 750 may be coupled in parallel, in series, or in a parallel-series combination. of course, the number of non-red leds in the led array 350 is not limited to five as shown in fig. 7 . depending on the actual implementation, the led array 750 may include at least one non-red led. furthermore, light decay in red leds tends to be more severe and in a greater magnitude than in non-red leds. in one embodiment, the red leds emit light of a first wavelength and the non-red leds emit light of a second wavelength that is different from the first wavelength. in one embodiment, the non-red leds in the led array 350 may be blue leds or leds of other color such as, for example, green leds, yellow leds, orange leds, purple leds, near-blue leds or white leds. in view of the above, an led device of the present invention may be generally descried as follows. more specifically, fig. 8a illustrates an led device 800 a in accordance with still a further embodiment of the present invention. referring to fig. 8a , the led device 800 a includes a first adjustment module 810 and a second adjustment module 820 . the first adjustment module 810 includes at least one first led 812 . the second adjustment module 820 includes an impedance-providing component 422 and an electronic component 424 that are coupled in series. the first adjustment module 810 and the second adjustment module 820 are coupled in parallel. the impedance-providing component 822 may include a ptc semiconductor component or thermistor. the electronic component 824 may include a diode, zener diode, led, diode array, zener diode array or led array, and is not limited thereto, so long as its characteristic curve and that of the first led 812 are similar or identical. more detailed description related to the characteristic curves is provided below. in operation, the first adjustment module 810 has a first internal impedance, and the second adjustment module 820 has a second internal impedance. the first internal impedance has a corresponding first characteristic curve (e.g., the characteristic curve 510 a of fig. 6b or 6 c). the first characteristic curve covers a range that includes a first incomplete conduction region (e.g., region 630 a in fig. 6b ) and a first conduction region (e.g., region 630 b in fig. 6b ). the first internal impedance decreases exponentially as the current increases from zero in the first incomplete conduction region, and is approximately linear in the first conduction region. the second internal impedance has a corresponding second characteristic curve (e.g., the characteristic curve 550 a of fig. 6b or 6 c). the second characteristic curve covers a range that includes a second incomplete conduction region (e.g., region 630 a in fig. 6b ) and a second conduction region (e.g., region 630 b in fig. 6b ). the second internal impedance decreases exponentially as the current increases from zero in the second incomplete conduction region, and is approximately linear in the second conduction region. the first and the second characteristic curves match one another in the incomplete conduction region as well as in the conduction region. the driving current id is divided into driving currents id 1 and id 3 , and the value of the driving current id is equal to the sum of the values of the driving currents id 1 and id 3 . as the first and the second characteristic curves match one another, the driving currents id 3 and id 1 vary as the driving current id varies and maintain in the same proportion. thus, embodiments thereof can further minimize the range of color temperature offset. fig. 8b illustrates an led device 800 b in accordance with yet a further embodiment of the present invention. referring to fig. 8b , relative to the example illustrated in fig. 8a , the led device 800 b further includes a third adjustment module 830 . the third adjustment module 830 includes at least one second led 832 . the at least one first led 812 emits light of a first wavelength, and the at least one second led 832 emits light of a second wavelength that is different from the first wavelength. the third adjustment module 830 is respectively coupled in series with the first adjustment module 810 and the second adjustment module 820 , and receives the driving current id to emit light. with the addition of the third adjustment module 430 , the led device 400 b can change the color of the emitted light. for example, the at least one first led 812 and the at least one second led 832 may be red led and blue led, respectively, yet the present invention is not limited thereto. the terms “internal resistance”, “internal impedance”, “resistance value” and “impedance” as used in the above description are intended to have the same meaning, with ohm being the unit. the term “ambient temperature” as used in the above description may refer to the ambient temperature of an led device, led array, led(s), led chip(s), adjustment module, diode array or impedance-providing component. in any of the above-described led arrays, the leds may be coupled in parallel, in series, or in a parallel-series combination. additionally, one or more led of the led array 510 may be led chips, led packages or any combination thereof. aforementioned leds may include leds that emit red light, green light, blue light, white light or any combination thereof. white leds may include blue led chips and yellow phosphor, and may include red led chips or red phosphor. moreover, aforementioned white leds may include one or more red led chip, green led chip and blue led chip, may also include yellow phosphor, and may further include red phosphor. furthermore, aforementioned phosphors may be evenly, unevenly or gradually distributed in the translucent encapsulant of the aforementioned leds in terms of density. in short, embodiments of the led device of the present invention include a first adjustment module and a second adjustment module coupled in parallel, with the first adjustment module including at least one led and with the second adjustment module including an impedance-providing component and an electronic component coupled in series. with the first characteristic curve of the first adjustment module matching the second characteristic curve of the second adjustment module, the led device can dynamically adjust the emitting light to minimize the range of color temperature offset as well as compensate for light decay due to high temperature. additionally, embodiments of the led device of the present invention may be utilized for indoor illumination, outdoor illumination, backlight applications and indicator applications. in summary, by coupling one or more impedance-providing components in parallel with a string of one or more red leds, the present invention provides an internal impedance having a value that depends on the ambient temperature. correspondingly, the value of a partial drive current of a drive current provided by the driver that flows through the string of one or more red leds varies in accordance with the variation in the value of the internal impedance. thus, the partial drive current that flows through the string of one or more red leds is adjusted according to the ambient temperature, thereby effectively compensating for the attenuation in brightness due to a rise in ambient temperature. this technique allows a lighting apparatus to emit light under high ambient temperature such that the emitted light still satisfies the requirement of the 7-step macadam and, optimally, the requirement of the 4-step macadam. in order to allow an impedance-providing component to effectively sense the ambient temperature to vary the partial drive current that flows through a string of one or more red leds, a distance between the impedance-providing component and the leds of the string of one or more red leds is no more than 5 centimeters. this distance is ideally less than 4 centimeters and optimally less than 3 centimeters. this design allows the impedance-providing component to effectively sense the ambient temperature so that the value of its shunt impedance varies proportionally according to a variation in the ambient temperature. in various embodiments, the leds described herein may be in the form of led chips, led packages, or a combination thereof. a lighting apparatus in accordance with the present invention may be used in combination with any of the commercially available lighting modules, such as a40, a60, mr16, par30, par38 or gu10, with the use of yellow phosphor to produce white light. moreover, red phosphor may be added to enhance color saturation. furthermore, led devices in accordance with the present invention may be used in indoor lighting apparatuses, outdoor lighting apparatuses, backlight modules, and indicator devices. although specific embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the foregoing and other variations in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. the scope of the present invention is defined by the claims provided herein.
182-072-452-055-145	US	[ "US" ]	G06F3/0481,G06F17/22,H04L12/58,G06F15/16,G06F3/0484,G06F3/0482,G06F9/44,H04W4/08,H04W4/14	2015-09-25T00:00:00	2015	[ "G06", "H04" ]	linking selected messages in electronic message threads	embodiments of the present invention provide methods, computer program products, and systems for linking selected messages in electronic message threads. in one embodiment, related messages are identified and graphic elements associated with a first message are displayed on a user interfaces. responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element, a second message can be viewed, where the second message either responds to the first message or is responded to by the first message. displaying graphical elements associated with related messages can eliminate potential confusion between users in group messages.	1 . a method comprising: identifying, by one or more computer processors, a set of related messages, wherein the set of related messages includes at least a first message and a second message related to the first message; displaying, by one or more computer processors, in a user interface displaying the first message, a graphical element associated with the first message; and responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element, displaying, by one or more computer processors, in the user interface, a visual indication that identifies the second message; wherein the second message is one of the following: a message that responds to the first message or a message that the first message responds to. 2 . the method of claim 1 , further comprising: displaying, by one or more computer processors, in the user interface, a graphical element associated with the second message; responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element associated with the second message, displaying, by one or more computer processors, in the user interface, a visual indication that identifies the first message. 3 . the method of claim 1 , wherein displaying the visual indication that identifies the second message includes highlighting the second message in the user interface. 4 . the method of claim 3 , further comprising: responsive to receiving a user interaction with the highlighted second message, displaying, by one or more computer processors, a visual indication that identifies the first message. 5 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the graphical element is an icon associated with a respective user corresponding to the second message. 6 . the method of claim 5 , further comprising: adding, by one or more computer processors, one or more symbols to the first message, wherein each symbol is associated with one of the following: messages that respond to the first message and messages that the first message responds to. 7 . the method of claim 6 , further comprising: responsive to receiving a user interaction with one of the symbols, displaying, by one or more computer processors, one or more icons associated with users corresponding to messages related to the first message. 8 . the method of claim 6 , wherein the one or more symbols include at least one of an up arrow and a down arrow, wherein the up arrow is associated with messages that respond to the first message, where the down arrow is associated with messages that the first message responds to. 9 . a computer program product comprising: one or more computer readable storage media and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to identify a set of related messages, wherein the set of related messages includes at least a first message and a second message related to the first message; program instructions to display in a user interface displaying the first message, a graphical element associated with the first message; and program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element, display a visual indication that identifies the second message; wherein the second message is one of the following: a message that responds to the first message or a message that the first message responds to. 10 . the computer program product of claim 9 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to display in the user interface, a graphical element associated with the second message; program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element associated with the second message, display a visual indication that identifies the first message. 11 . the computer program product of claim 9 , wherein the graphical element is an icon associated with a respective user corresponding to the second message. 12 . the computer program product of claim 11 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to add one or more symbols to the first message, wherein each symbol is associated with one of the following: messages that respond to the first message and messages that the first message responds to. 13 . the computer program product of claim 12 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with one of the symbols, display one or more icons associated with users corresponding to messages related to the first message. 14 . the computer program product of claim 12 , wherein the one or more symbols include at least one of an up arrow and a down arrow, wherein the up arrow is associated with messages that respond to the first message, where the down arrow is associated with messages that the first message responds to. 15 . a computer system comprising: one or more computer processors; one or more computer-readable storage media; program instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to identify a set of related messages, wherein the set of related messages includes at least a first message and a second message related to the first message; program instructions to display in a user interface displaying the first message, a graphical element associated with the first message; and program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element, display a visual indication that identifies the second message; wherein the second message is one of the following: a message that responds to the first message or a message that the first message responds to. 16 . the computer system of claim 15 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to display in the user interface, a graphical element associated with the second message; program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with the graphical element associated with the second message, display a visual indication that identifies the first message. 17 . the computer system of claim 15 , wherein the graphical element is an icon associated with a respective user corresponding to the second message. 18 . the computer system of claim 17 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to add one or more symbols to the first message, wherein each symbol is associated with one of the following: messages that respond to the first message and messages that the first message responds to. 19 . the computer system of claim 18 , wherein the program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media further comprise: program instructions to, responsive to receiving a user interaction with one of the symbols, display one or more icons associated with users corresponding to messages related to the first message. 20 . the computer system of claim 18 , wherein the one or more symbols include at least one of an up arrow and a down arrow, wherein the up arrow is associated with messages that respond to the first message, where the down arrow is associated with messages that the first message responds to.	background of the invention the present invention relates generally to the field of electronic messages, and more particularly to grouping electronic messages. typically, individuals can engage in multi-party message conversations using electronic message services, such as text messages. when responding to an electronic message, users of electronic message services can select a few options to select whom they send the message to. for example, users involved with a group message can typically select a “reply” option, which enables a user to respond to all participants of the group message. generally, user messages sent in reply to a group message (e.g., a group chat) are displayed to their recipients in order of receipt. summary embodiments of the present invention provide methods, program products, and systems for linking selected messages in electronic message threads. in one embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided comprising: identifying a set of related messages, wherein the set of related messages includes at least a first message and a second message related to the first message; displaying in a user interface displaying the first message, a graphical element associated with the first message; and responsive to receiving a user interaction with a visual indication, displaying the second message; wherein the second message is one of the following: a message that responds to the first message or a message that the first message responds to. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a block diagram of a computing environment, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating operational steps of linking messages in electronic message threads, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating operational steps for creating a graphical element, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; figs. 4a-4c are example screenshots of a user interface displaying messages before and after creating a graphical element, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; figs. 5a and 5b are example screenshots of a user interface displaying before and after graphical elements displaying linked messages, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and fig. 6 is a block diagram of internal and external components of the computer systems of fig. 1 , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. detailed description embodiments of the present invention recognize that in multi-party message conversations, messages and responses to those messages can be misinterpreted by users. in some instances, multiple questions from different users may be asked and a response to any one of those questions may be misinterpreted as a response for the other questions. for example, a group message between three users (alpha, beta, gamma) can have two questions a and b from user alpha and beta respectively. a response by user gamma could be misinterpreted as a response to either question a or b. typically, to distinguish between responses, a user (e.g., user gamma) would have to manually identify and provide enough textual detail for other users (e.g., alpha and beta) to discern which question is being answered. embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to eliminate potential confusion between users in group messages. in this manner, as discussed in greater detail in this specification, embodiments of the present invention can be used to continue message conversations without having to manually identify which responses correspond to each other. fig. 1 is a functional block diagram of computing environment 100 , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. computing environment 100 includes computer system 102 , mobile computer system 110 , and mobile computer system 108 . computer system 102 , mobile computer system 110 , and mobile computer system 108 can be desktop computers, laptop computers, specialized computer servers, mobile devices, or any other computer systems known in the art. in certain embodiments, computer system 102 , mobile computer system 110 , and mobile computer system 108 represent computer systems utilizing clustered computers and components to act as a single pool of seamless resources when accessed through network 106 . for example, such embodiments may be used in data center, cloud computing, storage area network (san), and network attached storage (nas) applications. in certain embodiments, computer system 102 , mobile computer system 110 , and mobile computer system 108 represent virtual machines. in general, computer system 102 , mobile computer system 110 , and mobile computer system 108 are representative of any electronic devices, or combination of electronic devices, capable of executing machine-readable program instructions, as described in greater detail with regard to fig. 6 . computer system 102 includes message analysis program 104 . message analysis program 104 communicates with mobile computer system 108 and mobile computer system 110 to receive messages from mobile computer systems 108 and 110 to create a visual indication of linked messages for user interfaces (not shown) of mobile computer systems 108 and 110 based, at least in part, on content of the messages as well as the relationship each message has to previous messages, as discussed in greater detail with regard to figs. 2-3 . in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can be stored locally on mobile computer systems 108 and 110 . in this embodiment, a relationship between a selected message and a subsequent message can be a parent/child relationship (e.g., a selected message, and a response to the selected message). multiple messages sent to more than one individual can be designated as having a sibling relationship (e.g., two or more messages sent in parallel to multiple recipients). for example, one person may send a message asking a question to three other people. the messages generated in response to the question can be identified as siblings. in this embodiment, each message is associated with metadata that can be used to classify and identify each respective message. for example, each message is associated with a respective message id that distinguishes that message from another. the message id can also indicate the author of the message. each message is also associated with a corresponding timestamp that indicates when the message was transmitted. in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 can identify relationships between messages and use those relationships to create visual indications of those relationships which can eliminate confusion between responses to messages. for example, in a group message between four individuals alpha, beta, gamma, and delta, individuals alpha, beta, and gamma can send messages m 1-3 . messages m 1-3 each ask a different question addressed to individual delta. individual delta responds to questions posed in messages m 1-3 by generating messages m 4-6 containing the following content: “yes”, “no”, and “yes”, respectively. message analysis program 104 can identify parent/child relationships exist between messages m 1 and m 4 , between messages m 2 and m 5 , and between messages m 3 and m 6 . message analysis program 104 can use the identified parent/child relationships to create graphical elements for a user interface displaying messages. the term “graphical element” as used herein, refers to a visual indication displayable by the user interface that denotes relationships between messages (e.g., a parent/child relationship) and/or identifies participants of those messages. generally speaking, graphical elements are capable of being interacted with by users of the user interface. for example, responsive to a user interaction with a graphical element associated with a first message, message analysis program 104 can display a visual indication that corresponds to a second message that responds to the first message, as described later in this specification. in this embodiment, a graphical element can be one or more symbols (e.g., arrows) for each respective message displayed in the user interface. for example, a “down arrow” at the end of a message denotes a parent message while an “up arrow” denotes a child message. in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can use any number of combination of symbols and/or characters to denote parent and child relationships. in another embodiment, a graphical element may be a visual indication other than a combination of symbols and/or characters. for example, a graphical element can be a visual indication that includes highlighting related messages (e.g., parent/child relationship), where the related messages themselves are capable of being interacted with by users of the user interface. in another embodiment, a graphical element may also serve as a visual indication that is displayed in response to receiving a user interaction with a different graphical element. continuing the above example, a user may select graphical element a (e.g., clicking on graphical element a on a computer screen) associated with a first message and the resulting visual indication is a highlighted graphical element (e.g., graphical element b) associated with a second message, where the second message responds to the first message. in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can create a visual indication by moving identified responses (e.g., child message) in a position directly beneath parent messages. for example, in a group message between four individuals alpha, beta, gamma, and delta, individuals alpha, beta, and gamma can send messages m 1-3 . messages m 1-3 each ask a different question addressed to individual delta. individual delta responds to questions posed in messages m 1-3 by generating messages m 4-6 containing the following content: “yes”, “no”, and “yes”, respectively. message analysis program 104 can identify parent/child relationships exist between messages m 1 and m 4 , between messages m 2 and m 5 , and between messages m 3 and m 6 . message analysis program 104 can then create a visual indication by moving message m 4 directly beneath message m 1 , moving message m 5 beneath message m 2 , and moving message m 6 beneath message m 3 . in this embodiment, a user interface displaying messages can have icons associated with users followed by content of a sent message of the user. for example, a group message (e.g., a group text) between three users, alpha, beta, and gamma can have the following user interface display for a user device (e.g., mobile phone) that has three messages m 1-3 : the icon of user alpha followed by the content of message m 1 ; the icon of user beta followed by the content of message m 2 generated in response to message m 1 ; and the icon of user gamma followed by the content of message m 3 , also generated in response to message m 1 1 . in general, the user interface displaying messages sent by one or more users can be implemented with any combination of one or more message interface applications. continuing the above example, message analysis program 104 can create a graphical element for the user interface by adding a “down arrow” to the end of the content of message m 1 to denote that message m 1 is a parent message. for messages m 2 and m 3 , message analysis program 104 can add “up arrows” to each respective message to indicate a child relationship to message m 1 . message analysis program 104 can display a visual indication to show the identified relationships (e.g., subsequent messages generated in response to a message or messages that are being responded to). in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 can, responsive to a user selecting a graphical element (e.g., an up or down arrow) display one or more icons of users next to the added arrow (e.g., to show a message that responds to an earlier message) that enlarge when a message is selected to identify participants that have responded to the selected message, as discussed in greater detail, with regard to figs. 5a and 5b . continuing the above example, message mi includes a “down arrow” that denotes that it is a parent message. message analysis program 104 can include a visual indication that, responsive to a user selecting message m 1 , enlarges the icons associated with users that have responded to message m 1 . for example, responsive to selecting message m 1 , message analysis program 104 can display enlarged icons associated with users beta and gamma to show that users beta and gamma have responded to message m 1 . conversely, message analysis program 104 can, responsive to selecting a “child message”, display an enlarged icon of the user who generated the “parent message”. for example, responsive to selecting message m 2 , the icon for user alpha (i.e., the person who generated message m 1 which has been identified as the parent message) is enlarged and displayed. mobile computer systems 108 and 110 communicate with message analysis program 104 via network 106 to receive graphical elements indicating linked messages from an originating message device to a receiving message device. in this embodiment, mobile computer system 108 and 110 are cellular devices (i.e. mobile phones). in general, mobile computer system 108 and 110 can be implemented with any device capable of sending and receiving messages. the term “messages”, as used herein, refers to any electronic communication medium known in the art. for example, a message can be a text message, e-mail, multimedia message service (mms) message, etc. the phrase, “originating message device”, as used herein, refers to a communication device (e.g., mobile computer system 108 ) that is used, for illustrative purposes, as a device that initiates a message. the phrase, “receiving message device”, as used herein, refers to a communication device (e.g., mobile computer system 110 ) that is used as the device that receives a message. for illustrative purposes, this embodiment may be discussed with respect to mobile computer system 108 serving as the originating message device and mobile computer system 110 serving as the receiving message device. it should be understood that either mobile computer system can serve as the originating message device while the other serves as the receiving message device. network 106 can be, for example, a local area network (lan), a wide area network (wan) such as the internet, or a combination of the two, and include wired, wireless, or fiber optic connections. in general, network 106 can be any combination of connections and protocols that will support communications between computer system 102 , mobile computer system 108 , and mobile computer system 110 , in accordance with a desired embodiment of the invention. fig. 2 is a flowchart 200 illustrating operational steps of linking messages in electronic message threads, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. in step 202 , message analysis program 104 receives input from mobile computer system 108 . in this embodiment, an input may be an original message (i.e., a parent message) or a response to an original message (i.e., a child message). in this embodiment, a user may specify that the input is an original message or a response to an original message. for example, a user may specify that the input responds to a particular message. responsive to receiving the input from the user, message analysis program 104 can then identify parent/child relationships between messages. in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can receive inputs from one or more components of computing environment 100 . in another embodiment, message analysis program 104 can identify an original message (i.e., a parent message) or a response to an original message (i.e., a child message) using natural language processing. in other words, message analysis program 104 can identify relationships between messages using natural language processing. for example, message analysis program 104 can use natural language annotations (e.g., sentence splitting, tokenization, pos tagging, chunking, dependency parsing, and anaphora resolution, etc.) to process the semantics of the text. in step 204 , message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element for a user interface that displays messages for mobile computer system 108 . in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element for the user interface displaying messages by adding arrows to indicate message relatedness, linking related messages, and listing icons of users associated with the linked messages, as discussed in greater detail with regard to fig. 3 . in step 206 , message analysis program 104 returns the graphical element for the user interface that displays messages to mobile computer system 108 and 110 . in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 returns the graphical element by transmitting the graphical element to mobile computer systems 108 and 110 via network 106 . fig. 3 is a flowchart 300 illustrating operational steps for creating a graphical element, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. for example, the operational steps of flowchart 300 can be performed at step 204 of flowchart 200 . in step 302 , message analysis program 104 adds arrows to messages of the user interface displaying messages. in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 adds arrows to messages based, at least in part on message relatedness (e.g., parent/child relationship). for example, message analysis program 104 can add arrows to the end of messages to denote relationships (e.g., parent/child relationship). in this embodiment, a “down arrow” indicates a parent message. conversely, an “up arrow” denotes a child message. in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can use any combination of symbols to denote message relatedness. an example output of step 302 is discussed in greater detail with regard to figs. 4a and 4b . where one parent message has more than one child messages that respond to the parent message, message analysis program 104 can add a number following the “down arrow” to indicate the number of child messages that have responded to the parent message. for example, two subsequent child messages can respond to a parent message. message analysis program 104 can then add a down arrow to the parent message and a number two in front of the arrow to indicate that two separate child messages have responded. conversely, where one child message responds to multiple parent messages, message analysis program 104 can add a number following the “up arrow” to show that the child message responds to more than one parent message. for example, in a group message between four users, alpha, beta, gamma, and delta, users alpha, beta, and gamma may generate messages m 1-3 , respectively. user delta generates two messages m 4 and m 5 and has indicated that message m 4 responds to message m 1 and m 2 , while message m 5 responds to message m 3 . message analysis program 104 can then add down arrows at the end of messages m 1-3 . message analysis program 104 also adds up arrows to the ends of messages m 4 and m 5 . message analysis program 104 can then add a number two in front of the up arrow to denote that message m 4 responds to multiple parent messages (e.g., messages m 1 and m 2 ). in step 304 , message analysis program 104 links related messages. in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 links related messages by associating parent and child messages so that responsive to selecting one, retrieves the other. for example, a group message can have three messages m 1-3 . message m 1 is an original, parent message. message m 2 is an unrelated parent message. message m 3 is a child message that responds to message m 1 . message analysis program 104 can link messages m 1 and m 3 so that by selecting message m 1 , the user interface scrolls over unrelated messages (e.g., message m 2 ) and displays message m 3 . in step 306 , message analysis program 104 lists icons associated with users that corresponds to each linked related message. in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 can list icons at the end of each linked message (i.e., next to the added arrow) to denote users associated with linked messages. for example, a group message can have three messages m 1-3 . message m 1 is an original, parent message associated with icon a of user alpha. message m 2 is an unrelated parent message associated with icon b of user beta. message m 3 is a child message that responds to message m 1 and is associated with icon c of user gamma. message analysis program 104 displays miniature icons a and c at the end of message m 1 . an example output of step 306 is discussed in greater detail with regard to figs. 4c and 5b . in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 can enlarge the miniature icons responsive to selecting a linked message. continuing the above example, a user may select linked message m 1 . responsive to selecting linked message m 1 , message analysis program 104 can enlarge icons associated with users alpha and gamma. in this embodiment, a message may be selected via a touch screen and pressing an area of the screen that corresponds to the message and holding the point for a user-defined number of seconds. in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can hide the miniature icons and display them responsive to a user selecting an option to display the miniature icons. for example, in a touch screen display, an option may be selecting an area of a screen display. responsive to a user selecting an area of the screen display, message analysis program 104 can display the miniature icons. optionally, message analysis program 104 can scroll to the response of a parent message responsive to a user selecting the miniature icon. continuing the above example, responsive to selecting linked message m 1 , message analysis program 104 can enlarge icons associated with users alpha and gamma. responsive to a user selecting the icon associated with user alpha, message analysis program 104 can scroll through the group message (i.e., to skip over message m 2 ) to display the response of user alpha (e.g., to display message m 3 ). accordingly, by performing the operational steps of fig. 3 , message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element that users can interact with to avoid potential confusion in a group message. in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element to users by: identifying relationships between messages based, at least in part on the content of the message; adding up and down arrows to differentiate between parent and child messages; and listing icons associated with users to enable a user to identify which users have responded to messages. figs. 4a-4c are example screenshots of a user interface displaying messages before and after creating a graphical element, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. in this example, a group message comprising five messages between five users (e.g., alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon) is described. each user is associated with a unique icon that identifies and distinguishes one user from the next. each message sent by users is displayed after its respective user's icon. in this example, five users are planning a group activity. fig. 4a is an example screenshot of a group message before message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element for linked messages. in this example, icon 414 denotes user alpha, and message 402 denotes user alpha's message. message 402 comprises text that asks the other users a question and suggests mountain climbing as the group activity. icon 416 denotes user beta along with user beta's message 406 . message 406 is generated in response to message 402 . the contents of message 406 indicate that user beta agrees with the suggestion contained in message 402 . icon 418 denotes user gamma and message 408 denotes user gamma's message. the contents of message 408 respond to message 402 but do not agree with the proposal of message 402 . instead the contents of message 408 indicate that user gamma suggests going to the park as an alternative. icon 420 denotes user delta and message 410 denotes user delta's message. the contents of message 410 indicate that user delta is in agreement. however, the contents of message 410 do not specify to which message (e.g., message 402 or message 408 ) user delta is in agreement with, which can cause confusion among the users. message analysis program 104 can create visual indications to eliminate this confusion as shown and described in figs. 4b and 4c . figs. 4b and 4c are example screenshots of graphical elements that message analysis program 104 creates. for example, the screenshot of fig. 4b may be generated at step 302 and 306 of flowchart 300 . in this example, message analysis program 104 has identified that: message 402 is a parent message; message 406 is a child message that was generated in response to message 402 ; message 408 responds to message 402 and is a parent message because the contents of message 408 do not answer the question posed in message 402 ; message 410 is a child message of message 408 ; and that message 412 is a child of message 402 . in fig. 4b , message analysis program 104 creates a graphical element that depicts the relationships described above. arrows 424 and 432 are added to message 402 to denote that message 402 is a parent message for more than one child message. arrow 426 is added to message 406 to indicate that it is a child message. similarly, arrow 428 is added to message 408 to denote a parent message while arrow 430 denotes message 410 as a child message. arrow 434 is added to message 412 to show that message 412 is also a child message. fig. 4c is an example screenshot of miniature icons added to the linked messages which help illustrate which messages and users correspond to each other. for example, the screenshot of fig. 4c may be generated at step 306 of flowchart 300 . in this example, a user has selected area 436 which is associated with message 402 . responsive to selecting area 436 , icons 416 a and 422 a are displayed. in this example, icons 416 a and 422 a are miniature icons of 416 and 422 , respectively. thus, selecting message 402 by selecting area 436 , allows a user to visually see the users who have responded to message 402 (e.g., icon 416 and 422 which correspond to users beta and epsilon). conversely, selecting message 412 by touching area 438 displays icon 414 a. in this example, a user has selected icon 422 a. responsive to receiving a user selection of icon 422 a, message analysis program 104 can display the child message that responds to message for 402 (e.g., message 412 ). in this embodiment, message analysis program 104 scrolls past other messages (e.g., messages 406 , 408 , and 410 ) not linked to the selected message (e.g., 402 ) which then allows a user to jump to message 412 . in other embodiments, message analysis program 104 can display the linked messages in any manner known in the art. figs. 5a and 5b are example screenshots of a user interface displaying before and after visual indications displaying linked messages, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. for example, fig. 5a is a screenshot before message analysis program 104 has created a graphical element. in this example, five users (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon) have a group message. user epsilon is a teacher and is identified by icon 526 . users alpha, beta, gamma, and delta are caretakers of students taught by epsilon and are identified by icons 518 , 520 , 522 , and 524 , respectively. each caretaker is asking user epsilon a question about the caretaker's respective student, generating messages 502 , 504 , 506 , and 508 , respectively. in this example, user epsilon generates messages 510 , 512 , 514 , and 516 to respond to messages 502 , 504 , 506 , and 508 , respectively. instead of responding with simple “yes” and “no” answers, user epsilon has to include enough detail in user epsilon's response to indicate which message user epsilon is responding to. fig. 5b is an example graphical element created by message analysis program 104 . in this example, message analysis program 104 has identified that two messages, messages 542 and 544 are child messages. specifically, message analysis program 104 has identified that message 542 responds to message 502 and that message 544 responds to messages 504 , 506 , and 508 . message analysis program 104 has added arrows 528 , 530 , 532 , and 534 that indicate messages 502 , 504 , 506 , and 508 are all parent messages. message analysis program 104 has also added arrows 536 and 538 to denote that messages 542 and 544 are child messages, respectively. in instances where a child message responds to more than one message (e.g., message 544 responds to messages 504 , 506 , and 508 ), message analysis program 104 can add the number of messages that child message responds to. in this example, arrow 538 indicates that message 544 responds to three different parent messages. in this example, a user has selected area 540 which displays icons 520 a, 522 a, and 524 a which indicate the icons belonging to the users whose message has been responded to. fig. 6 is a block diagram of internal and external components of a computer system 600 , which is representative of the computer systems of fig. 1 , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. it should be appreciated that fig. 6 provides only an illustration of one implementation and does not imply any limitations with regard to the environments in which different embodiments may be implemented. in general, the components illustrated in fig. 6 are representative of any electronic device capable of executing machine-readable program instructions. examples of computer systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be represented by the components illustrated in fig. 6 include, but are not limited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thin clients, thick clients, laptop computer systems, tablet computer systems, cellular telephones (e.g., smart phones), multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, network pcs, minicomputer systems, mainframe computer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices. computer system 600 includes communications fabric 602 , which provides for communications between one or more processors 604 , memory 606 , persistent storage 608 , communications unit 612 , and one or more input/output (i/o) interfaces 614 . communications fabric 602 can be implemented with any architecture designed for passing data and/or control information between processors (such as microprocessors, communications and network processors, etc.), system memory, peripheral devices, and any other hardware components within a system. for example, communications fabric 602 can be implemented with one or more buses. memory 606 and persistent storage 608 are computer-readable storage media. in this embodiment, memory 606 includes random access memory (ram) 616 and cache memory 618 . in general, memory 606 can include any suitable volatile or non-volatile computer-readable storage media. software is stored in persistent storage 608 for execution and/or access by one or more of the respective processors 604 via one or more memories of memory 606 . persistent storage 608 may include, for example, a plurality of magnetic hard disk drives. alternatively, or in addition to magnetic hard disk drives, persistent storage 608 can include one or more solid state hard drives, semiconductor storage devices, read-only memories (rom), erasable programmable read-only memories (eprom), flash memories, or any other computer-readable storage media that is capable of storing program instructions or digital information. the media used by persistent storage 608 can also be removable. for example, a removable hard drive can be used for persistent storage 608 . other examples include optical and magnetic disks, thumb drives, and smart cards that are inserted into a drive for transfer onto another computer-readable storage medium that is also part of persistent storage 608 . communications unit 612 provides for communications with other computer systems or devices via a network (e.g., network 106 ). in this exemplary embodiment, communications unit 612 includes network adapters or interfaces such as a tcp/ip adapter cards, wireless wi-fi interface cards, or 3g or 4g wireless interface cards or other wired or wireless communication links. the network can comprise, for example, copper wires, optical fibers, wireless transmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/or edge servers. software and data used to practice embodiments of the present invention can be downloaded to computer system 102 through communications unit 612 (e.g., via the internet, a local area network or other wide area network). from communications unit 612 , the software and data can be loaded onto persistent storage 608 . one or more i/o interfaces 614 allow for input and output of data with other devices that may be connected to computer system 600 . for example, i/o interface 614 can provide a connection to one or more external devices 620 such as a keyboard, computer mouse, touch screen, virtual keyboard, touch pad, pointing device, or other human interface devices. external devices 620 can also include portable computer-readable storage media such as, for example, thumb drives, portable optical or magnetic disks, and memory cards. i/o interface 614 also connects to display 622 . display 622 provides a mechanism to display data to a user and can be, for example, a computer monitor. display 622 can also be an incorporated display and may function as a touch screen, such as a built-in display of a tablet computer. the present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computer program product. the computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of the present invention. the computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that can retain and store instructions for use by an instruction execution device. the computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but is not limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device, an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, a semiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. a non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of the computer readable storage medium includes the following: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (ram), a read-only memory (rom), an erasable programmable read-only memory (eprom or flash memory), a static random access memory (sram), a portable compact disc read-only memory (cd-rom), a digital versatile disk (dvd), a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such as punch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructions recorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. a computer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construed as being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulses passing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmitted through a wire. computer readable program instructions described herein can be downloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computer readable storage medium or to an external computer or external storage device via a network, for example, the internet, a local area network, a wide area network and/or a wireless network. the network may comprise copper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wireless transmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/or edge servers. a network adapter card or network interface in each computing/processing device receives computer readable program instructions from the network and forwards the computer readable program instructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium within the respective computing/processing device. computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations of the present invention may be assembler instructions, instruction-set-architecture (isa) instructions, machine instructions, machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as smalltalk, c++ or the like, and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “c” programming language or similar programming languages. the computer readable program instructions may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. in the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (lan) or a wide area network (wan), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the internet using an internet service provider). in some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example, programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (fpga), or programmable logic arrays (pla) may execute the computer readable program instructions by utilizing state information of the computer readable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry, in order to perform aspects of the present invention. aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. it will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer readable program instructions. these computer readable program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. these computer readable program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can direct a computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises an article of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects of the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. the computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other device to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computer implemented process, such that the instructions which execute on the computer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. the flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods, and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. in this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. for example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. it will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions. the descriptions of the various embodiments of the present invention have been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. the terminology used herein was chosen to best explain the principles of the embodiment, the practical application or technical improvement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodiments disclosed herein.
183-984-786-931-676	US	[ "CA", "AU", "JP", "EP", "US" ]	A61B5/00,A61B5/01,A61B5/021,A61B5/024,A61B5/03,A61G12/00,G16H50/20,A61B5/0205	2013-03-14T00:00:00	2013	[ "A61", "G16" ]	methods, systems, and devices for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient	methods, systems, and devices are provided for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient. in one embodiment, a display screen can include information related to a physiological parameter being measured from a patient. the information can include a current value based on values of the physiological parameter gathered from the patient over a period of time. the display screen can indicate whether or not the current value is within a predetermined normal range for the physiological parameter and whether or not the current value is within a predetermined goal range for the physiological parameter. the goal range can be nested within the normal range. if the current value moves outside the normal range, an alarm can be triggered. a goal alarm can be triggered if the current value is within the normal range but falls outside the goal range.	a system, comprising: a display screen (300); and a processor configured to: receive a plurality of values of a physiological parameter measured from a patient over a period of time, determine if a current value based on the received values is within a normal range of the physiological parameter, cause an alarm indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, the alarm indicator not being displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to be within the normal range, receive an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator from a user if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, cause an alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) in response to an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator, until the current value returns to within the normal range, determine if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range being nested within the normal range, and cause a goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, the goal indicator not being displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range. the system of claim 1, wherein the physiological parameter is at least one of intracranial pressure (icp), cerebral perfusion pressure (cpp), mean arterial blood pressure (map), oxygen saturation (po2), heart rate, and temperature. a method, comprising: receiving a plurality of values of a physiological parameter measured from a patient over a period of time; determining if a current value based on the received values is within a normal range of the physiological parameter; causing an alarm indicator to be displayed on a display screen (300) if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, the alarm indicator not being displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to be within the normal range; receiving an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator from a user if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, causing an alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) in response to an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator until the current value returns to within the normal range, determining if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range being nested within the normal range; and causing a goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, the goal indicator not being displayed on the display screen (300) if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range. the method of claim 3, wherein causing the goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) comprises changing a color shown in a first portion of the display screen (300), and causing the alarm indicator to be displayed on the display screen (300) comprises changing a color shown in a second portion of the display screen (300). the method of claim 3, further comprising determining if a plurality of the values match a predetermined pattern, the goal indicator not being displayed on the display screen (300) if the plurality of values are determined to match the predetermined pattern even if the current value is determined to be within the goal range. the method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined pattern comprises at least one of the plurality of values continuously increasing toward an upper limit of the normal range and the plurality of values continuously decreasing toward a lower limit of the normal range. the method of claim 5, wherein a number of the plurality of values is a predetermined number. the method of claim 3, wherein the display screen (300) is attached to a housing, and wherein the determining if the current value is within the normal range, the causing the alarm indicator to be displayed, the determining if the current value is within the goal range, and the causing the goal indicator to be displayed are performed by a processor disposed in the housing, or remotely located from the housing. a method, comprising: receiving data representing a value of a physiological parameter over a time period, the physiological parameter being measured from a patient; displaying, on a monitoring screen (300), a current value based on the received values; determining if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range having a predetermined upper limit and a predetermined lower limit; if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, causing a visual goal indicator indicating that the current value is within the goal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300), the goal indicator not being displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range; determining if the current value is within a normal range of the physiological parameter, the normal range having a predetermined upper limit that is greater than the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and having a predetermined lower limit that is less than the predetermined lower limit of the goal range; and if the current value is determined to be outside the normal range: causing a visual alarm indicator indicating that the current value is outside the normal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300), the alarm indicator not being displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if the current value is determined to be within the normal range; and causing a visual alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300), if an acknowledgement of said visual alarm indicator is received from a user, until the current value returns to within the normal range. the method of claim 9, wherein causing the visual goal indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300) comprises changing a colour shown in a first portion of the monitoring screen (300) adjacent the current value, and causing the visual alarm indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300) comprises changing a colour shown in a second portion of the monitoring screen (300) adjacent the current value. the method of claim 9, wherein the goal indicator is not displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if the alarm indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen (300), and the alarm indicator is not displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if the goal indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen (300). the method of claim 9, further comprising: continuously repeating the determining if the current value is within the goal range so as to continuously update on the monitoring screen (300) whether or not the goal indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen (300); and continuously repeating the determining if the current value is within the normal range so as to continuously update on the monitoring screen (300) whether or not the alarm indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen (300). the method of claim 9, further comprising: receiving data representing a value of a second physiological parameter over the time period, the second physiological parameter being measured from the patient; and changing at least one of the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range based on an current value of the value of the second physiological parameter over the time period. the method of claim 9, further comprising: receiving data representing a value of one or more additional physiological parameters over time, each of the one or more additional physiological parameters being measured from the patient; displaying, on the monitoring screen (300), a graphical representation of an current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters over the time period; determining if the current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters is within a respective goal range for each of the one or more additional physiological parameters, each of the respective goal ranges having a predetermined upper limit and a predetermined lower limit; if the current value of any of the one or more additional physiological parameters is determined to be within its associated goal range, causing a visual goal indicator indicating that the current value is within the goal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300), the goal indicator for the one or more additional physiological parameters not being displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if its associated current value is determined to be outside its associated goal range; determining if the current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters is within a respective normal range for each of the one or more additional physiological parameters, each of the respective normal ranges having a predetermined upper limit that is greater than the predetermined upper limit of its associated goal range and having a predetermined lower limit that is less than the predetermined lower limit of its goal range; and if the current value of any of the one or more additional physiological parameters is determined to be outside its associated normal range, causing a visual alarm indicator indicating that the current value is outside the normal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen (300), the alarm indicator for the one or more additional physiological parameters not being displayed on the monitoring screen (300) if its associated current value is determined to be within its associated normal range. the method of claim 9, further comprising setting the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range in response to a manual user input indicating the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range. the method of claim 9, further comprising pre-programming the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range based on a typical normal range of the physiological parameter. the method of claim 3 or claim 9, wherein the physiological parameter is at least one of intracranial pressure (icp), cerebral perfusion pressure (cpp), mean arterial blood pressure (map), oxygen saturation (po2), heart rate, and temperature. a computer readable medium having stored thereon a program, that when executed, performs the method of any of claims 3 to 17.	field the present disclosure relates generally to methods, systems, and devices for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient. background patient monitoring can take a variety of forms and can gather a wide variety of physiological data. the display of such data, including what is displayed and how it is displayed, can affect the ability of caregivers, such as doctors and nurses, to interpret and act on the data. for example, intracranial pressure (icp) is a standard monitoring modality for traumatic brain injury patients. medical guidelines may prescribe threshold values for intracranial pressure. the guidelines of the brain trauma foundation, for example, indicate that clinical action should be taken to reduce intracranial pressure if the intracranial pressure exceeds 20-25 mmhg. however, numerous factors can cause transient changes to intracranial pressure, including patient physiology, monitoring system noise, and actions taken by a caregiver. to monitor a patient, caregivers typically use monitoring devices such as the codman icp express device 100, which is shown in fig. 1 , available from codman & shurtleff, inc. of raynham, ma. as shown, the device 100 has a display of intracranial pressure and a display of systolic and diastolic values for the intracranial pressure, as well as an alarm. a caregiver can look at the display to ascertain the intracranial pressure. caregivers also use charts, e.g., a caregiver can manually record an event in a chart associated with a patient. one drawback with current monitoring devices is that the devices only provide a limited amount of patient data. caregivers thus only have a limited picture of a patient's condition from a monitoring device on which to base decision making regarding treatment of the patient. it can therefore be difficult for caregivers to make clinical decisions based on the patient data displayed on a monitoring device without taking additional time to review other patient records, e.g., paper files. taking this additional time can adversely affect patient treatment, particularly in critical care situations, such as situations involving traumatic brain injury patients, where treatment delays can greatly exacerbate injuries or otherwise be particularly problematic. moreover, such considerations are applicable not just to intracranial pressure, but to a wide variety of patient monitoring modalities involving other physiological parameters. us 2011/0298621 discloses a method of generating alerts in a patient monitoring system. the method comprises steps of monitoring a physiological parameter of interest within a plurality of physiological parameters, tracking data values of the physiological parameter for each predetermined interval, determining a data range for data values of the physiological parameter, each data range comprising a first limit and a second limit, comparing the data values of the physiological parameter with the data range and generating a visual alert when the data value of the physiological parameter falls outside the data range. accordingly, there remains a need for improved methods, systems, and devices for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient. summary methods, systems, and devices are provided for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient. according to the invention, a system is provided that includes a display screen and a processor. the processor is configured to receive a plurality of values of a physiological parameter measured from a patient over a period of time, determine if a current value based on the received values is within a normal range of the physiological parameter, cause an alarm indicator to be displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, the alarm indicator not being displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to be within the normal range, receive an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator from a user if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, cause an alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the display screen in response to an acknowledgement of an alarm indicator, until the current value returns to within the normal range, determine if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range being nested within the normal range, and cause a goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, the goal indicator not being displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range. the physiological parameter can be at least one of intracranial pressure (icp), cerebral perfusion pressure (cpp), mean arterial blood pressure (map), oxygen saturation (po 2 ), heart rate, and temperature. in another aspect, a method is provided, according to the invention, the method includes receiving a plurality of values of a physiological parameter measured from a patient over a period of time; determining if a current value based on the received values is within a normal range of the physiological parameter; causing an alarm indicator to be displayed on a display screen if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, the alarm indicator not being displayed on the display if the current value is determined to be within the normal range; receiving an acknowledgement of an alarm acknowledgement of an alarm indicator from a user if the current value is determined to not be within the normal range, causing an alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the display screen in response to an acknowledgment of an alarm indicator until the current value returns to within the normal range, determining if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range being nested within the normal range; and causing a goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, the goal indicator not being displayed on the display screen if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range. the method can vary in any number of ways. for example, causing the goal indicator to be displayed on the display screen can include changing a color shown in a first portion of the display screen, and causing the alarm indicator to be displayed on the display screen comprises changing a color shown in a second portion of the display screen. for another example, the physiological parameter can be at least one of icp, cpp, map, po 2 , heart rate, and temperature. the method can include determining if a plurality of the values match a predetermined pattern. the goal indicator can not be displayed on the display screen if the plurality of values are determined to match the predetermined pattern even if the current value is determined to be within the goal range. the predetermined pattern can include at least one of the plurality of values continuously increasing toward an upper limit of the normal range and the plurality of values continuously decreasing toward a lower limit of the normal range. a number of the plurality of values can be a predetermined number. the display screen can be attached to a housing. in some embodiments, the determining if the current value is within the normal range, the causing the alarm indicator to be displayed, the determining if the current value is within the goal range, and the causing the goal indicator to be displayed can be performed by a processor disposed in the housing. in some embodiments, the determining if the current value is within the normal range, the causing the alarm indicator to be displayed, the determining if the current value is within the goal range, and the causing the goal indicator to be displayed can be performed by a processor remotely located from the housing. a computer readable medium is provided in accordance with the invention, that has stored thereon a program that when executed, performs the method defined in any of the appended method claims. in another method according to the invention, the method includes receiving data representing a value of a physiological parameter over a time period, the physiological parameter being measured from a patient; displaying, on a monitoring screen, a current value based on the received values; determining if the current value is within a goal range of the physiological parameter, the goal range having a predetermined upper limit and a predetermined lower limit; if the current value is determined to be within the goal range, causing a visual goal indicator indicating that the current value is within the goal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen, the goal indicator not being displayed on the monitoring screen if the current value is determined to not be within the goal range; determining if the current value is within a normal range of the physiological parameter, the normal range having a predetermined upper limit that is greater than the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and having a predetermined lower limit that is less than the predetermined lower limit of the goal range; and if the current value is determined to be outside the normal range; causing a visual alarm indicator indicating that the current value is outside the normal range to be displayed on the monitoring screen, the alarm indicator not being displayed on the monitoring screen if the current value is determined to be within the normal range; and causing a visual alarm acknowledgement indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen, if an acknowledgement of said visual alarm indicator is received from a user, until the current value returns to within the normal range. in some embodiments, the physiological parameter can be at least one of icp, cpp, map, po 2 , heart rate, and temperature. the method can have any number of variations. for example, causing the visual goal indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen can include changing a color shown in a first portion of the monitoring screen adjacent the current value, and causing the visual alarm indicator to be displayed on the monitoring screen can include changing a color shown in a second portion of the monitoring screen adjacent the current value. for another example, the goal indicator can not be displayed on the monitoring screen if the alarm indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen, and the alarm indicator can not be displayed on the monitoring screen if the goal indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen. for yet another example, the method can include continuously repeating the determining if the current value is within the goal range so as to continuously update on the monitoring screen whether or not the goal indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen, and continuously repeating the determining if the current value is within the normal range so as to continuously update on the monitoring screen whether or not the alarm indicator is displayed on the monitoring screen. for another example, the method can include receiving data representing a value of a second physiological parameter over the time period and changing at least one of the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range based on an current value of the value of the second physiological parameter over the time period. the second physiological parameter can be measured from the patient. for another example, the method can include setting the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range in response to a manual user input indicating the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range. for yet another example, the method can include pre-programming the predetermined upper limit of the goal range and the predetermined lower limit of the goal range based on a typical normal range of the physiological parameter. in some embodiments, the method can include receiving data representing a value of one or more additional physiological parameters over time. each of the one or more additional physiological parameters can be measured from the patient. the method can also include displaying, on the monitoring screen, a graphical representation of an current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters over the time period, and determining if the current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters is within a respective goal range for each of the one or more additional physiological parameters. each of the respective goal ranges can have a predetermined upper limit and a predetermined lower limit. if the current value of any of the one or more additional physiological parameters is determined to be within its associated goal range, a visual goal indicator indicating that the current value is within the goal range can be caused to be displayed on the monitoring screen. the goal indicator for the one or more additional physiological parameters can not be displayed on the monitoring screen if its associated current value is determined to be outside its associated goal range. the method can also include determining if the current value of each of the one or more additional physiological parameters is within a respective normal range for each of the one or more additional physiological parameters. each of the respective normal ranges can have a predetermined upper limit that is greater than the predetermined upper limit of its associated goal range and can have a predetermined lower limit that is less than the predetermined lower limit of its goal range. if the current value of any of the one or more additional physiological parameters is determined to be outside its associated normal range, a visual alarm indicator indicating that the current value is outside the normal range can be caused to be displayed on the monitoring screen. the alarm indicator for the one or more additional physiological parameters can not be displayed on the monitoring screen if its associated current value is determined to be within its associated normal range. brief description of drawings this invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: fig. 1 (prior art) is a schematic diagram of a monitoring device; fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of a device for providing a user interface on a display of the device; fig. 3 is an embodiment of a monitor window of a medical monitoring system, the monitor window showing current information for a plurality of physiological parameters; fig. 4 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 including current information for a subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 5 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 including current information for another subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 6 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 including an indication that an extraventricular drain related to one of the physiological parameters is in an open state; fig. 7 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 including an alarm for an icp one of the physiological parameters; fig. 8 shows the monitor window of fig. 5 including an alarm for the subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 9 shows the monitor window of fig. 7 including an alarm acknowledgement for the icp one of the physiological parameters; fig. 10 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 including a goal indicator for an icp one of the physiological parameters; fig. 11 shows the monitor window of fig. 5 including a goal indicator for the subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 12 shows the monitor window of fig. 10 including a goal indicator for an oxygen saturation one of the physiological parameters; fig. 13 is a shows the monitor window of fig. 12 including an alarm for a mean arterial pressure / blood pressure and heart rate ones of the physiological parameters; fig. 14 is an embodiment of a hybrid window of the medical monitoring system of fig. 3 , the hybrid window showing current information for a plurality of physiological parameters and trends information for a subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 15 shows the hybrid window of fig. 14 including current information for another subset of the physiological parameters; fig. 16 shows the hybrid window of fig. 14 including an alarm for an icp one of the physiological parameters; fig. 17 shows the hybrid window of fig. 16 including an alarm acknowledgement for the icp one of the physiological parameters; fig. 18 shows the hybrid window of fig. 14 including a goal indicator for an oxygen saturation one of the physiological parameters; fig. 19 shows the hybrid window of fig. 17 including a goal indicator for an oxygen saturation one of the physiological parameters; fig. 20 shows the hybrid window of fig. 18 when the medical monitoring system is undocked; and fig. 21 shows the monitor window of fig. 3 when the medical monitoring system is undocked; detailed description certain exemplary embodiments will now be described to provide an overall understanding of the principles of the structure, function, manufacture, and use of the devices and methods disclosed herein. one or more examples of these embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. those skilled in the art will understand that the devices and methods specifically described herein and illustrated in the accompanying drawings are non-limiting exemplary embodiments and that the scope of the present invention is defined solely by the claims. the features illustrated or described in connection with one exemplary embodiment may be combined with the features of other embodiments. such modifications and variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention further, in the present disclosure, like-numbered components of the embodiments generally have similar features, and thus within a particular embodiment each feature of each like-numbered component is not necessarily fully elaborated upon. additionally, to the extent that linear or circular dimensions are used in the description of the disclosed systems, devices, and methods, such dimensions are not intended to limit the types of shapes that can be used in conjunction with such systems, devices, and methods. a person skilled in the art will recognize that an equivalent to such linear and circular dimensions can easily be determined for any geometric shape. sizes and shapes of the systems and devices, and the components thereof, can depend at least on the anatomy of the subject in which the systems and devices will be used, the size and shape of components with which the systems and devices will be used, and the methods and procedures in which the systems and devices will be used. methods, systems, and devices are provided for monitoring and displaying medical parameters for a patient. in general, the methods, systems, and devices can facilitate monitoring of a patient, such as when the patient is being treated at a hospital or other medical facility at which the patient's condition can require regular observation. the methods, systems, and devices can allow the displaying and monitoring of one or more physiological parameters of the patient. this monitoring and display can facilitate identification of changes in the patient's condition that may require a doctor's assessment and/or may require an adjustment of the patient's treatment, e.g., administration of medication(s), administration of oxygen, adjustment of one or more settings of an implanted medical device, adjustment of an elevated limb's position, additional hydration, movement to another hospital unit, etc. generally, as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, the earlier the change in the patient's condition can be detected, the more time medical personnel can have to assess and effectively address the change. the methods, systems, and devices described herein can facilitate quick detection and identification of changes in the patient's condition, thereby facilitating quick, effective treatment of the patient. in one embodiment, a display can be configured to show a display screen that includes information related to a physiological parameter being measured from a patient. the information can include a current value based on values of the physiological parameter gathered from the patient over a period of time. examples of the current value include an average of gathered values, an average of a calculated index (e.g., an average of peak gathered values, an average of a rate of change of the gathered values, etc.), a median of gathered values, a rate of change of gathered values, a correlation (e.g., prx, rap index, autocorrelation, an average of autocorrelation, etc.), a maximum value among the gathered values, a minimum value among the gathered values, a root mean square (rms), peak-to-peak values, etc. the display screen can indicate whether the current value is within a predetermined normal range for the physiological parameter. the normal range can generally indicate values of the physiological parameter that are not a cause for concern, e.g., the patient is stable and does not need immediate assessment and/or treatment change. if the current value moves outside the normal range, e.g., falls below a lower limit of the normal range or rises above an upper limit of the normal range, an alarm can be triggered. the alarm can include any one or more alarms, such as a flashing symbol shown on the display screen, a color change on the display screen, a lit-up light near the display screen, an audible sound at a nurse's station outside a room that has the patient and the display screen therein, a page to an attending physician, etc. the display screen can also indicate whether the current value is within a predetermined goal range for the physiological parameter. the goal range can generally indicate a targeted range of values within the normal range that reflect the physiological parameter being optimally stabilized within the normal range. the goal range can thus be fully contained within the normal range, e.g., the goal range can delimit the normal range. the normal range and the goal range can thus cooperate to provide on the display screen a more complete picture of the physiological parameter for the patient. the display screen can indicate whether the current value is within the goal range by displaying a goal indicator thereon. the goal indicator can be adjacent the current value displayed thereon and can be, e.g., a highly color-contrasted portion of the display screen, a symbol shown on the display screen, a lit-up light near the display screen, etc. if the current value moves outside the goal range, e.g., falls below a lower limit of the goal range or rises above an upper limit of the goal range, a goal alarm can be triggered. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal alarm can include removing the goal indicator from the display screen. in this way, an attending nurse and/or other medical personnel can look at the display screen and quickly determine based on presence or absence of the goal indicator whether or not the patient's physiological parameter is within the goal range. by seeing the goal indicator and thus knowing that the patient's physiological parameter is within the goal range, the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel can be assured that the physiological parameter is not reflecting a need for the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel to examine or otherwise assess the patient's condition. similarly, if the goal indicator is not shown on the display screen, the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel can quickly determine that the patient may need attention and can consequently quickly decide to take a closer look at the patient's condition, e.g., by checking the numerical current value of the physiological parameter on the display screen, by taking a current assessment of the patient (e.g., temperature, blood pressure, etc.), by checking other information displayed on the display screen, etc. the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel can thus quickly assess patient status by viewing the display screen and without having to evaluate actual parameter values, e.g., no numerical values need be known to or evaluated by the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel to identify the patient's status. quickly assessing the patient in this way can allow the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel to perform other job tasks (e.g., moving on to check on another patient) and/or can allow the patient to be treated before the patient's condition further deteriorates, e.g., before the physiological parameter's average has a chance to move outside the normal range. the goal indicator can be sufficiently visually discernible on the display screen from a distance, e.g., by being large and/or highly color-contrasting. the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel thus need not get as close to the display screen as is typically done when viewing a medical monitor, and/or the attending nurse and/or other medical personnel need not even go into the patient's room, get close to the patient, and/or assess the patient's condition as related to the physiological parameter because the goal indicator can be visible from the room's door and/or at another relatively large distance. therefore, time can be spent on other job tasks and/or in treating patients with more time-sensitive needs, room clutter can be reduced by having fewer people entering the patient's room if the display is located therein, and/or chances of patient infection can be reduced by having fewer people entering the patient's room if the display is located therein. the goal indicator can be silent, which can facilitate having a quiet care setting, which can generally make a hospital or other medical care facility less stressful and/or can help patients rest and recover. the physiological parameter can include any one or more variables that can be monitored from a patient, as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art. if a display screen shows current values for a plurality of physiological parameters, the display screen can indicate whether or not each one of the physiological parameters is within its own predetermined normal range, e.g., can trigger an alarm if any one of the physiological parameters falls outside its associated predetermined normal range, and whether or not each one of the physiological parameters is within its own predetermined goal range, e.g., can trigger a goal indicator to be removed from the display screen if any one of the physiological parameters falls outside its associated predetermined goal range. the one or more physiological parameters monitored from a patient can vary due to one or more factors such as medical context (e.g., neurological, cardiac, neonatal, etc.), available supplies, doctor preference, etc. examples of physiological parameters include intracranial pressure (icp), mean arterial blood pressure (map), cerebral perfusion pressure (cpp), oxygen saturation (po 2 ) (which can be obtained by, e.g., using an invasive oxygen sensor or a pulse oximeter) such as oxygen saturation in brain tissue (pbo2), heart rate, temperature, pressure reactivity index (prx), pressure-volume compensatory reserve (rap) index, fluid pressure in an implantable restriction device (e.g., a gastric band, etc.), flow rate through an implantable valve (e.g., a cerebral shunt valve, etc.), gastric ph level, eeg, tissue impedance, etc. in a neurological context, exemplary monitored physiological parameters include icp, cpp, map, pbo2, heart rate (hr), and brain temperature (tb). the displays described herein can be realized as part of virtually any device, e.g., a monitoring device, a personal computer, a workstation, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a smartphone, or other computing device. the device can include processing circuitry configured to receive data from one or more sensors configured to gather physiological data from a patient, configured to compare sensor data to stored predetermined ranges, etc. a wide variety of displays, such as cathode ray tubes (crts), liquid crystal display (lcd) screens, touchscreens, etc., can be configured to display screens in response to a signal received from the processing circuitry, as a person skilled in the art will appreciate. moreover, a wide variety of software packages can be executed on the device and/or used to develop the screens and other elements, including, for example, flash macromedia or custom software. fig. 2 shows an exemplary embodiment of a device (e.g., a medical monitoring device) that can include a display screen configured to show information. the device 200 can include one or more displays 202 configured to show screens such as those described herein. the display(s) 202 can be configured to receive signals from processing circuitry 204, which can include a processor, a video card, and/or virtually any type of electronic circuitry. the processing circuitry 204 can be configured to execute software to draw appropriate screens in response to data from one or more input devices 206, e.g., representing user input, and/or data from one or more sensing devices 208. the input device(s) 206 can include devices configured to provide an input to the device 200 such as pointing devices, keyboards, buttons, microphones, soft-keys, touchscreens, etc. the input device(s) 206 can be configured to be communicatively coupled to the processing circuitry 204 via a device interface 210. the sensing device(s) 208 can include devices configured to sense and report on a physiological parameter. examples of the sensing device(s) 208 include icp transducers, temperature sensors, blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters, evoked potentials, etc. the sensing device(s) 206 can be configured to be communicatively coupled to the processing circuitry 204 via a device interface 212. a memory 214 can be configured to be coupled to the processing circuitry 204 and be configured to store data, such as monitoring software, data from the sensing device(s) 208, predetermined ranges, patient data, etc. the device 200 can include an alarm mechanism 216 configured to providing an alarm, e.g., a visual alarm, an auditory alarm, a textual alarm, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, a housing 218 of the device 200 can house, e.g., have disposed therein and/or have attached thereto, the display(s) 202, the memory 214, the alarm 216, the processing circuitry 204, and the interfaces 210, 212. in this way, the device 200 can be a self-contained unit. the device 200 can thus be portable, wireless, and/or easily connected to wired power supplies in a variety of different locations. the elements included in the housing 218 can vary. for example, although shown in fig. 2 as separate devices, e.g., not included a housing 218 having the display(s) 202, the memory 214, the alarm 216, the processing circuitry 204, the interfaces 210, 212 disposed therein, the input devices 206 and sensing devices 208 can be integrated into the device 200, e.g., included the hosing 218. additionally, although the display(s) 202 are shown in fig. 2 as being integrated with the device 200, e.g., attached to the housing 218, one or more of the display(s) 202 can be separate from the device 200. fig. 3 shows an exemplary embodiment of a display screen 300 of a monitoring device configured to display medical information related to a patient. the display screen 300 can generally be configured as a user interface of a medical monitoring system. the display screen 300 can include a plurality of tabs, each of the tabs corresponding to a certain type or arrangement of information related to the patient. a display screen can be configured to only show one type or arrangement of information related to a patient, in which case the display screen can lack tabs. each of the tabs can be configured to be selected by a user so as to display the tab's corresponding type or arrangement of information. in the illustrated embodiment, the display screen 300 includes a monitor tab 302, a hybrid tab 304, a trends tab 306, and a future tab 308, but the display screen 300 can include more or less than four tabs. the monitor tab 302 is selected in fig. 3 so as to show a monitor window 310 on the display screen 300. the hybrid, trends, and future tabs 304, 306, 308 can each be selected so as to show, respectively, a hybrid window, a trends window, and a future window on the display screen 300, as discussed further below. the monitor window 310 can be configured to show information based on one or more physiological parameters in a current time period. the current time period can be a predetermined amount of time that can be a default, preprogrammed time period, e.g., preprogrammed into a processor, or can be customized for a particular patient. the current time period can be, e.g., in a range of about five to sixty seconds, in a range of about five to ten seconds, a single heartbeat, the most recent few heartbeats of the patient, etc. the current time period can be adjustable. in some embodiments, to receive user input of this nature, the medical monitoring device can include or be configured to couple to an input device, such as a touchscreen, keypad, touchpad, pointing device, mouse, button, knob, dial, etc. as in the illustrated embodiment, the display screen 300 can include a touchscreen configured to allow the current time period to be adjusted when a user activates a caregiver preferences menu or soft button 312. adjustment of the current time period can allow for various clinical protocols, as such protocols that can require tracking of a parameter over different time periods. trend time periods, future time periods, normal ranges, and goal ranges for the various physiological parameters, discussed further below, can be similarly adjusted. in the illustrated embodiment, the monitor window 310 shows current information for icp, map/bp, hr, external ventricular drainage (evd) icp (e.g., an icp measurement performed with an external fluid coupled sensor that is connected to the evd system) shown as "icp 2: evd," cpp, pbo2, and tb, but as mentioned above, any one or more parameters can be monitored and/or calculated, and information for any one or more type of current values based on the physiological parameters can be shown on the monitor window 310. the information displayed can be based on data received by the monitoring device in any of a variety of ways, as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, e.g., via a codman microsensor icp transducer (available from codman & shurtleff, inc. of raynham, ma), via an integra camino® icp transducer (available from integra lifesciences corporation of plainsboro, nj), via a blood pressure monitor, via a temperature sensor attached to the patient, etc. for each of the physiological parameters, the monitor window 310 can be configured to show a textual display of parameter information for the current time period and/or a graphical display of parameter information for the current time period. in the illustrated embodiment, the monitor window 310 includes a textual display 314 and a graphical display 316 for icp, a textual display 318 and a graphical display 320 for map/bp and hr, a textual display 322 and a graphical display 324 for evd icp, a textual display 326 for cpp, a textual display 328 for pbo2, and a textual display 330 for tb. which one or more of the physiological parameters have a textual display only, have a graphical display only, or have both a textual display and a graphical display can be user-adjusted, such as by dragging and dropping displays on the touchscreen or activating the preferences button 312. in some instances, data may not be received for a certain physiological parameter, such as if a sensing device for the certain physiological parameter is not attached to the patient or if a sensing device for the certain physiological parameter attached to a patient has not been electronically connected to a processor that processes data to be displayed on the display screen 300. if data is not received for one or more physiological parameters, textual and graphical display(s) for those one or more physiological parameters can be absent from the monitor window 310, both the textual display(s) and the graphical display(s) for those one or more physiological parameters can be present on the monitor window 310 but lack any numerical or graphed data, or one of the graphical display(s) and textual display(s) for those one or more physiological parameters can be absent from the monitor window 310 while the other of the graphical display(s) and textual display(s) for those one or more physiological parameters can be present on the monitor window 310. by having at least one of the textual display(s) and the graphical display(s) for those one or more parameters present on the monitor window 310, it can be easier for a user observing the monitor screen 310 to determine, based on a lack of data in those graphical and/or textual display(s), that those one or more parameters are not being monitored or that the sensing device(s) for those one or more parameters are not properly configured. the present textual and/or graphical display(s) for those one or more parameters can each include at least one data absence indicator, e.g., a textual message, a warning symbol, etc., indicating that data is not being received. fig. 4 shows an example of the monitor window 310 in which data is being received for a plurality of physiological parameters, e.g., icp, map/bp and hr, and cpp, and is not being received for another plurality of physiological parameters, e.g., evd icp, pbo2, and tb. the monitor window 310 in this illustrated embodiment thus lacks graphical displays for evd icp, pbo2, and tb and lacks any numerical data in the textual displays 322, 328, 330 for evd icp, pbo2, and tb. in the illustrated embodiment, the textual displays 322, 328, 330 for evd icp, pbo2, and tb each include a data absence indicator in the form of a textual message, "not connected" in the evd icp and tb displays 322, 330 and "not installed" in the pbo2 display 328. fig. 5 shows an example of the monitor window 310 in which data is being received for a single physiological parameter, e.g., icp, and is not being received for a plurality of physiological parameters, e.g., map/bp and hr, cpp, evd icp, pbo2, and tb. the monitor window 310 in this illustrated embodiment thus lacks graphical displays for map/bp and hr, cpp, evd icp, pbo2, and tb and lacks any numerical data in the textual displays 320, 322, 326, 328, 330 for map/bp and hr, cpp, evd icp, pbo2, and tb. in the illustrated embodiment, the textual displays 320, 322, 326, 328, 330 for map/bp and hr, cpp, evd icp, pbo2, and tb each include a data absence indicator in the form of a textual message, "not connected" in the map/bp and hr, evd icp, cpp, and tb displays 320, 322, 326, 330 and "not installed" in the pbo2 display 328. referring again to fig. 3 , the textual display for each physiological parameter can include numerical data regarding the physiological parameter for the current time period, and the graphical display for each physiological parameter can include a graphical illustration of the numerical data for the current time period. for ease of discussion, the textual display 314 and the graphical display 316 for icp are discussed below as representative examples of textual and graphical displays for a physiological parameter shown on the monitor window 310. textual and graphical displays for other physiological parameters shown on the monitor window 310 can be similarly configured. additionally, icp is shown in the icp textual and graphical displays 314, 316 in units of mmhg, but icp can be displayed in any appropriate unit. similarly, other physiological parameters shown on the monitor window 310 can be displayed in any appropriate units. the graphical display 316 can represent icp graphically with a waveform or graph line 332 plotted over the current time period. however, virtually any graphical representation can be used, such as a graph line, a bar graph, a plot of discrete data points, and/or other pictorial display. the graphical display 316 in the illustrated embodiment plots via the graph line 332 icp values gathered and/or calculated during the current time period. however, the graphical display 316 can show (e.g., via a graph line and/or other pictorial display) values of another statistic based on icp, e.g., a mean value of the physiological parameter calculated over a sample period, e.g., every two to three seconds, a median value, a normalized value, a systolic value, a diastolic value, wave amplitude, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, if the monitor window 310 shows information for a plurality of physiological parameters, as in the illustrated embodiment, the same statistic(s) are shown on the monitor window 310 for each of the parameters, thereby facilitating quick identification and understanding of the displayed information. the textual display 314 can represent icp textually and/or pictorially. in the illustrated embodiment, the textual display 314 includes information related to an average of icp values gathered and/or calculated during the current time period including a current average (e.g., the current average intracranial pressure), a current actual value (e.g., a most recently measured and/or calculated icp value), a normal range for the current average, and a goal range for the current average. although a current value related to icp is an average of gathered values in the illustrated embodiment, as mentioned above, other current values can be shown instead of or in addition to the average of gathered values, e.g., an average of a calculated index (e.g., an average of peak gathered values, an average of a rate of change of the gathered values, etc.), a median of gathered values, a rate of change of gathered values, a correlation (e.g., prx, rap, autocorrelation, an average of autocorrelation, etc.), a maximum value among the gathered values, a minimum value among the gathered values, a root mean square (rms), peak-to-peak values, etc. the current average can be shown textually and/or graphically. in the illustrated embodiment, the current average is shown textually with a numerical value 334. the average icp value in the illustrated embodiment is 15 mmhg. as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, the numerical value 334 shown on the monitor window 310 can be an exact average value or can be a rounded value, e.g., rounded to a nearest whole number (as in the illustrated embodiment), rounded to one decimal place, rounded to two decimal places, etc. the current actual value can be shown textually and/or graphically. in the illustrated embodiment, the current actual value is shown graphically with a current value mark 336 on and/or adjacent a normal range scale. the current value mark's position along the normal range scale can indicate the current actual value's numerical value. the current icp value in the illustrated embodiment is 7 mmhg. the normal range can be shown textually and/or graphically. in the illustrated embodiment, the normal range is shown graphically with the normal range scale. the normal range scale can have an upper normal limit 340 that corresponds to a predetermined upper limit of the normal range, and the normal range scale can have a lower normal limit 342 that corresponds to a predetermined lower limit of the normal range. in the illustrated embodiment, the upper normal limit 340 for icp is 30 mmhg, and the lower normal limit 342 for icp is -10 mmhg. the normal range can be predetermined based on a normal range for typical patients and can be preprogrammed into the system. alternatively, the normal range can be predetermined by being customized for the patient, e.g., determined by a doctor treating the patient and entered into the system including the display. in an exemplary embodiment, the normal range can be preprogrammed into the system as the normal range for typical patients, thereby setting the normal range for typical patients as a default normal range. by way of example, a typical normal range for icp is about 0 to 20 mmhg, a typical normal range for cpp is about 50 to 150 mmhg, a typical normal range for tb is about 36 to 37.5°c, and a typical normal range for map is about 70 to 110 mmhg. the normal range can optionally be readjusted by a user, e.g., be customized for the patient, such as by activating the preferences button 312. in an exemplary embodiment, each of the physiological parameters can have its own predetermined normal range. each of the predetermined normal ranges can be independent from one another. however, one or more of the predetermined normal ranges can be defined by one or more of the other predetermined normal ranges, e.g., a predetermined normal range for cpp being based on a predetermined normal range for icp and a predetermined normal range for map. the goal range can be shown textually and/or graphically. in the illustrated embodiment, the goal range is shown graphically with a goal range scale 344. the goal range scale 344 can be on and/or adjacent the normal range scale, as in the illustrated embodiment, which can facilitate comparison of the normal range and the goal range and/or can facilitate simultaneous comparison of the current icp value, e.g., as indicated by the current value mark 336, with the normal range and the goal range. the goal range mark's position along the normal range scale can indicate the goal range. the goal range is also shown textually in the illustrated embodiment with an upper goal limit 346 that corresponds to a predetermined upper limit of the goal range and with a lower goal limit 348 that corresponds to a predetermined lower limit of the goal range. in the illustrated embodiment, the upper goal limit 346 for icp is 14 mmhg, and the lower goal limit 348 for icp is 8 mmhg. the goal range can be predetermined based on an optimal range within the normal range for typical patients and can be preprogrammed into the system. by way of example, a predetermined goal range for icp can be about 5 to 15 mmhg, a predetermined goal range for cpp can be about 70 to 90 mmhg, a predetermined goal range for tb can be about 36.5 to 37.1 °c, and a predetermined goal range for map can be about 80 to 100 mmhg. alternatively, the goal range can be predetermined by being customized for the patient, e.g., determined by a doctor treating the patient and entered into the system. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal range can be preprogrammed into the system as the goal range for typical patients, thereby setting the goal range for typical patients as a default goal range. the goal range can optionally be readjusted by a user, e.g., to be customized for the patient, such as by activating the preferences button 312. as shown, the goal range can be nested within the normal range, e.g., fall entirely within the normal range. in other words, the upper limit 346 of the goal range can be less than the upper limit 340 of the normal range, and the lower limit 348 of the goal range can be greater than the lower limit 342 of the normal range. in an exemplary embodiment, each of the physiological parameters can have its own predetermined goal range. each of the predetermined goal ranges can be independent from one another. however, one or more of the predetermined goal ranges can be defined by one or more of the other predetermined goal ranges, e.g., a predetermined goal range for cpp being based on a predetermined goal range for icp and a predetermined goal range for map. the textual displays and/or the graphical displays for any one or more of the physiological parameters shown in the monitor window 310 can include other information regarding their respective physiological parameters. for example, still using icp as a representative example, the textual display 314 can include a sensing device position indicator 338 that indicates a position (e.g., (l/r parenchyma, l/r ventricle, or lumbar) of a sensing device (not shown) sensing icp from the patient so as to gather icp values therefrom. the position can be entered manually. although the sensing device position indicator 338 is included in the textual display 314 in the illustrated embodiment, the sensing device position indicator 338 can be included in the graphical display 316. in the illustrated embodiment, the sensing device position indicator 338 indicates that the sensing device sensing icp is located in a right side of the patient's brain in an upper region thereof. for another example, the textual display 322 and/or the graphical display 324 for evd icp can indicate textually and/or graphically whether or not the evd having the evd icp is an open state or a closed state. as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, a default state of an evd is typically the closed state. fig. 3 thus indicates that the evd is in the closed state by not providing any particular textual or graphical indication regarding the evd's open or closed state. fig. 6 illustrates an embodiment in which the evd is indicated as being in the open state, e.g., that the evd opened to relieve excess cerebral spinal fluid (csf) in the brain. the open state is indicated in the fig. 6 embodiment with a textual evd state indicator 350 ("open") in the evd textual display 314, a second textual evd state indicator 352 ("open") in the evd graphical display 316, and a graphical evd state indicator in the form of background shading in the evd graphical display 316. the textual evd state indicators 350, 352 can have other configurations (e.g., "open state," "evd open," "closed," "evd closed," etc.), and the graphical evd state indicator can also have other configurations (e.g., a schematic illustration of an open evd device, etc.) referring again to fig. 3 , the display screen 300 can include a wide variety of other features and display a wide variety of other data. the display screen 300 can include one or more static features configured to be on the display screen 300 regardless of which of the tabs 302, 304, 306, 308 is currently selected. for example, the display screen 300 can include any one or more of a patient id window 354 that identifies the patient (e.g., by name, number, code, etc.); a help button 356 configured to be user-activated so as to provide technical assistance (e.g., access to a user manual, ability to search frequently asked questions, etc.); a screen lock button 358 configured to be user-activated so as to temporarily pause or freeze the information on the currently displayed window (which is the monitor window 310 in fig. 3 ), which can be advantageous for training purposes and/or to examine a particular aspect of the display in more detail; a history button 360 configured to be user-activated so as to provide historical sensed data for the patient and/or other patient records; a manual entry button 362 configured to be user-activated so as to provide access to an event marking screen for inputting marked events on the currently displayed window; a print button 364 configured to be user-activated so as to provide the ability to print the currently displayed window or portion(s) thereof (e.g., print to an attached printer or a printer integrated into the medical monitoring device); a current date/time indicator 366; a power connector 368 that indicates whether or not the device is connected to external electrical power; a charge indicator 370 that indicates a current charge of a battery included in the monitoring device; a docking indicator 372 that indicates whether or not the device is docked at a docking station (e.g., a bedside docking station, etc.); an alarm silence button 374 configured to be user-activated for acknowledging an alarm and/or silencing an audible alarm in those embodiments in which the monitoring device includes an audible alarm for indicating that the average of one or more physiological parameters is out of limit (e.g., outside the normal range, etc.); etc. embodiments of providing historical sensed data and embodiments of marking events are described in further detail in u.s. pat. pub. no. 2009/0005703 entitled "medical monitor user interface" filed june 27, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. one or more static features may only be shown on the monitor window 310 in response to a trigger event, such as the alarm silence button 374 being configured to appear only when the an out-of-limit condition is determined, the docking indicator 372 only appearing to indicate an undocked device, etc. the relative sizes and locations of the various windows, symbols, text, icons, etc. of the monitor window 310, and for other windows that can be shown on the display screen 300, are exemplary in nature. a person skilled in the art will appreciate that any of the various windows, symbols, text, icons, etc. of the display screen 300 can have virtually any size and virtually any location. the textual display and/or the graphical display for each of the physiological parameters icp, map/bp and hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb shown on the monitor window 310 can be configured to be observed by a user, e.g., viewed on the screen 300, so as to assess the patient's condition. to facilitate assessment of the patient's condition, an alarm can be provided if any of the physiological parameters fall outside their associated normal range. the alarm can be provided in a variety of ways. in an exemplary embodiment, when an average of one of the physiological parameters, e.g., icp, map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb, shown on the monitor window 310 falls outside its associated predetermined normal range, the alarm can be triggered. in other words, when an average of one of the physiological parameters increases to be above the predetermined upper normal limit for that physiological parameter or decreases to be below the predetermined lower normal limit for that physiological parameter, the alarm can be triggered. in other words, when the physiological parameter's average falls outside the normal range as determined by the device's processor, the processor can cause the device's alarm to activate. as mentioned above, the alarm can include any one or more alarms, as such as a flashing symbol shown on the display screen 300, a color change on the display screen 300, a lit-up light near the display screen 300, an audible sound at a nurse's station outside a room that has the patient and the display screen 300 therein, a page to an attending physician, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, the alarm for an out-of-normal-range physiological parameter can include at least an audible sound and a color change on the display screen 300 within the textual display for the out-of-normal-range physiological parameter. the audible sound can include any sound, as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, e.g., a ringing bell sound, a series of beeps, a siren sound, etc. the color change can include changing a color of at least a portion of a background of the out-of-normal-range physiological parameter's textual display. in an exemplary embodiment, a majority portion of the background of the out-of-normal-range physiological parameter's textual display can change from a first color to a second, different color in response to the physiological parameter's average moving out of the normal range. color is generally easily discernable even from a relatively large distance, e.g., at a distance from a door of a patient's room to the display screen within the patient's room. the alarm can thus be easily detected from a relatively large distance, even if the alarm does not include a traveling audible sound. the second color can highly contrast with the first color, which can help highlight the color change by allowing the second color to be clearly visible as an atypical color on the screen 300, and hence be indicative of a special condition, e.g., an out-of-normal-limit parameter. examples of exemplary first color/second color pairs include black/white, black/red, white/red, black/yellow, a color on one side of the color wheel/a color directly opposite the color on the color wheel, grey/red, etc. the first and second colors can each be any color, and can be solid, patterned, flashing, textured, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, the first color can be non-flashing, and the second color can be flashing, e.g., alternating between at least two different colors (e.g., at least two colors each highly contrasting with the first color). the first color can be the same for all of the textual displays on the display screen 300, which can facilitate identification of any out-of-normal-range parameters. in the illustrated embodiment, as shown in fig. 3 , each of the textual displays 314, 318, 322, 326, 328, 330 has a background of a first color, which in the illustrated embodiment is black. as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art, any characters (e.g., text and/or symbols) or images within a textual display that changes from the first color to the second color, as well as from the second color to the first color, can also change color in order for the characters and images to be visible in the textual display regardless of the textual display's background color(s). additionally, the graphical display for the out-of-normal-range parameter can change color, include an alarm symbol therein, etc., in addition to or instead of the out-of-normal-range parameter's textual display including the alarm. fig. 7 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 after the average icp falls outside its predetermined normal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is the average exceeding the upper normal limit 340, e.g., the current average value 334 of 22 mmhg being above the upper normal limit 340 of 20 mmhg. in response to the icp average falling outside the normal range, an alarm was triggered, thereby changing a majority portion 378 of the background for the icp textual display 314 from a first color, e.g., black, in fig. 3 to a second color, e.g., red, in fig. 7 . the majority portion 378 in the illustrated embodiment includes a portion of the icp textual display 314 that includes the current average value 334, the upper and lower goal limits 346, 348, and the sensing device position indicator 338. a minority portion 380 of the background for the icp textual display 314 changed from the first color in fig. 3 to a second color, e.g., white, in fig. 7 . the minority portion 380 in the illustrated embodiment includes a portion of the icp textual display 314 that includes the normal range scale, the upper and lower normal range limits 340, 342 and the goal range scale 344. the display screen 300 showing an alarm for icp in fig. 7 in the form of a background color change also includes an alarm in the form of an alarm symbol 376 shown in the icp textual display 314. the alarm symbol includes a warning triangle and exclamation points in the illustrated embodiment, but the alarm symbol can include any one or more of a variety of text and/or symbols, e.g., the word "alarm," a star, a bell, etc. the alarm symbol 376 is within the icp textual display 314, e.g., within the out-of-normal-range parameter's textual display, in the illustrated embodiment, but the alarm symbol 376 can be adjacent the out-of-normal-range parameter's textual display, within the out-of-normal-range parameter's graphical display, and/or adjacent the out-of-normal-range parameter's graphical display. in the illustrated embodiment of fig. 7 , the map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb physiological parameters are within their respective normal ranges such that alarms are not shown for any of map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb. although only one alarm is shown in fig. 7 , any one or more of the parameters on the screen 300 can, in any combination thereof, have alarms therefor. fig. 8 shows another embodiment of the display screen 300 after the average icp falls outside its predetermined normal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is the average exceeding the upper normal limit 340, e.g., the current average value 334 of 22 mmhg being above the upper normal limit 340 of 20 mmhg. fig. 8 shows the alarm being triggered from the monitor window 310 of fig. 5 in which data is being received for a single physiological parameter, icp. the alarm in fig. 8 includes, similar to fig. 7 , a majority portion 382 of the background color of the icp textual display 314 changing colors (black to red), a minority portion 384 of the background color of the icp textual display 314 changing colors (black to white), and the alarm symbol 376 being present within the icp textual display 314. the icp average decreasing below the lower normal limit 342 and the other physiological parameters on the screen 300 falling outside their respective normal ranges can trigger an alarm similar to that discussed with respect to the icp alarms of figs. 7 and 8 . a duration of the alarm can be determined and stored, e.g., in a storage unit, which can facilitate evaluation of the patient's condition, e.g., if displayed on the screen 300. in other words, start and stop times of the alarm can be saved. when an alarm is triggered, the alarm can persist, e.g., a sound can continue sounding, the textual display's background color can remain the second color, the textual display's background color can flash, a warning light attached to the display can continue flashing, etc., until the alarm is acknowledged by a user and/or until the out-of-normal range parameter's average falls back within the normal range. the alarm can be acknowledged in a variety of ways, such as by activating the alarm silence button 374. in an exemplary embodiment, the alarm silence button 374 can appear only when an alarm is triggered. when the alarm is acknowledged, the display screen 300 can continue to indicate that the out-of-normal-range parameter is outside the normal range until the parameter returns to within the normal range. in this way, the display screen 300 can indicate that the alarm condition has been observed by at least one medical practitioner, e.g., nurse, doctor, etc. thus, any subsequent observer of the display screen 300 while the alarm condition persists can determine from the display screen 300 that the alarm has been previously observed and is likely being tended to as needed. the display screen 300 can display an acknowledged alarm in a variety of ways. in an exemplary embodiment, the acknowledged alarm for an out-of-normal-range physiological parameter can include at least a color change on the display screen 300 within the textual display for the out-of-normal-range physiological parameter. the portion(s) of the out-of-range parameter's textual display that changed to indicate the alarm can change again similar to that discussed above regarding the change from the first color to the second color., e.g., change from the second color to a third color that is different from the first color and the second color. the change to the third color can be similar to that discussed above regarding the change from the first color to the second color. the third color can highly contrast with each of the first color and the second color, which can help highlight the color change by allowing the third color to be clearly visible as an atypical color on the screen 300, and hence indicative of a special condition, e.g., an acknowledged out-of-normal-limit parameter. examples of exemplary first color/second color/third color trios include black/white/red, black/red/white, white/red/black, black/yellow/red, the three primary colors, etc. the third color can be any color, and can be solid, patterned, flashing, textured, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, the second color can be solid and non-flashing, and the third color can be a non-flashing pattern including a same color as the second color. e.g., a second color being red and a third color being stripes in the second color and another color. the third color can be the same for all of the textual displays on the display screen 300, which can facilitate identification of any acknowledged out-of-normal-range parameters. fig. 9 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 after acknowledgement of the alarm of fig. 7 . in response to the alarm being acknowledged, e.g., in response to activation of the alarm silence button 374, an acknowledgement was triggered, thereby changing the majority portion 378 of the background for the icp textual display 314 from the second color, e.g., red, in fig. 7 to a third color, e.g., white, in fig. 9 . the minority portion 380 of the background for the icp textual display 314 did not change from fig. 7 to fig. 9 . the alarm symbol 376 can remain present on the display screen 300 even after the alarm has been acknowledged, as shown in fig. 9 . similar to that discussed above regarding the alarm for the normal range, to facilitate assessment of the patient's condition, a goal alarm can be provided if any of the physiological parameters are outside their associated goal range. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal alarm can be provided for a physiological parameter when the physiological parameter is outside its associated goal range and is within its associated normal range. the goal alarm can indicate to medical personnel, e.g., an attending nurse, a doctor, etc., that the patient may need assessment and/or treatment because the physiological parameter associated with the goal alarm is not in an optimal range and therefore may be heading outside its normal range. in other words, the patient's condition may be deteriorating but can be assessed and/or the patient can be treated prior to the patient being in a more dire condition. the goal alarm can thus function in a preventative way. the goal alarm can be provided in a variety of ways. in an exemplary embodiment, when an average of one of the physiological parameters, e.g., icp, map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb, is within its associated predetermined goal range, and hence is also within its associated normal range, a goal indicator can be shown on the display screen 300. in other words, when an average of one of the physiological parameters is within its associated goal range, e.g., below its associated predetermined upper goal limit and above its associated predetermined lower goal limit, the goal indicator can be triggered to be displayed on the screen 300 for that physiological parameter. the device's processor can be configured to determine whether the physiological parameters' averages are within their respective the goal ranges and can be configured to cause the goal indicator to be shown on the screen 300. the statuses of the physiological parameters shown on the display screen 300 can thus be quickly assessed by checking the display screen 300, e.g., by a user looking at the display screen, to determine if a goal indicator is present on the screen 300 for each of the physiological parameters. the goal alarm for a physiological parameter can, in an exemplary embodiment, include absence of the goal indicator from the screen 300 for that physiological parameter. based on the presence of a goal indicator on the screen 300 for a physiological parameter, a medical practitioner need not examine actual numerical values on the display screen 300 for the parameter having the goal indicator associated therewith to determine that that parameter is within an acceptable range, thereby saving time and/or helping to reduce errors in determining whether the patient's measured parameters are within an acceptable range. a goal indicator being present on the screen 300 for each of the physiological parameters can indicate that each of the parameters is within its associated goal range, thereby indicating that the physiological parameters point to the patient being in relatively good condition. a medical practitioner can thus conclude based on the presence of the goal indicators for all of the parameters that the patient need not be assessed and/or treated at this time. the medical practitioner can, however, nevertheless determine to assess and/or treat the patient at this time based on any other number of factors, such as to maintain a regular schedule of patient assessments. correspondingly, based on the absence of a goal indicator from the screen 300 for a physiological parameter, the medical practitioner need not examine actual numerical values on the display screen 300 for the parameter not having a goal indicator associated therewith to determine that the parameter is not within an acceptable range, thereby saving time and/or helping to reduce errors in determinations of whether the patient's measured parameters are within an acceptable range. a goal indicator not being present on the screen 300 for any of the physiological parameters can indicate that none of the parameters are within their associated goal ranges. no goal indicators and no normal range alarms being present on the screen 300 for any of the parameters can indicate that despite the patient's physiological parameters being within their respective normal ranges, assessing and/or treating the patient at this stage may be advisable, e.g., to help prevent the patient's condition from deteriorating outside the normal range of any of the physiological parameters. a medical practitioner can thus conclude based on the presence of the goal indicators for none of the parameters that the patient should be assessed and/or treated at this time. the medical practitioner can, however, nevertheless determine to not assess and/or treat the patient at this time based on any other number of factors, such as to first allow for consultation with colleague(s). similarly, a goal indicator not being present on the screen 300 for at least one but less than all of the physiological parameters can indicate that at least one of the parameters its outside its associated goal range and that assessing and/or treating the patient at this stage may be advisable. the goal indicator can be provided in a variety of ways. the goal indicator can include any one or more indicators, such as a highly color-contrasted portion of the screen, a symbol shown on the display screen, a lit-up light near the display screen, etc. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal indicator can be visually discernable and silent, e.g., non-audible, which can allow the goal indicator to be non-intrusively provided. the goal indicator can be shown on the display screen 300 adjacent its associated physiological parameter displayed on the screen 300, which can facilitate associating a goal indicator with its associated physiological parameter among a plurality of parameters shown on the screen 300. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal indicator for an in-goal-range physiological parameter can include at least a color change on the display screen 300 within the textual display for the in-goal-range physiological parameter. the color change can include changing a color of at least a portion of a background of the in-goal-range physiological parameter's textual display. in an exemplary embodiment, a minority portion of the background of the in-goal-range physiological parameter's textual display can change from a first color to a second, different color in response to the physiological parameter's average being within the goal range. as mentioned above, color is generally easily discernable even from a relatively large distance. the goal indicator can thus be easily observed from a relatively large distance, even if the goal indicator does not include any audible sound. the second color can highly contrast with the first color, as discussed above within respect to the alarm for out-of-normal-range parameters, which can help highlight the color change by allowing the second color to be clearly visible as an atypical color on the screen 300, and hence indicative of a special condition, e.g., an in-goal-limit parameter. the first and second colors can vary, as discussed above regarding the alarm for an out-of-normal-limit parameter. also similar to that discussed above, the graphical display for the in-goal-range parameter can change color, include a goal indicator symbol therein, etc., in addition to or instead of the in-goal-range parameter's textual display. the goal indicator can optionally include a trend indicator that indicates whether its associated physiological parameter's average is increasing or decreasing. the trend indicator can reflect an increasing or decreasing trend of the physiological parameter over the current time period or over another time period, e.g., one hour, twenty-four hours, a trend time period discussed further below, a time period corresponding to an attending medical practitioner's shift, etc. the trend indicator indicating a trend corresponding to the trend time period can allow trends information to be accessible on the monitor window 310 without having to switch to the hybrid window or the trends window, both discussed further below. the trend indicator can have a variety of configurations. examples of the trend indicator include an arrow that points up to indicate an increasing average trend or that points down to indicate a decreasing average trend; a textual message of "rising," "increasing," etc. to indicate an increasing average trend or "falling," "decreasing," etc. to indicate a decreasing average trend; etc. the trend indicator can be positioned within and/or adjacent to its associated physiological parameter's textual display. in an exemplary embodiment, the trend indicator can positioned within the goal indicator within the associated physiological parameter's textual display, e.g., an arrow within a goal indicator color in the textual display. fig. 10 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 when the average icp is within its predetermined goal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is the average being less than the upper goal limit 346, being less than the upper normal limit 340, being greater than the lower goal limit 348, and being greater than the lower normal limit 342, e.g., the current average value 334 of 10 mmhg being less than the upper goal limit 346 of 14 mmhg, being less than the upper normal limit 340 of 20 mmhg, being greater than the lower goal limit 348 of 8 mmhg, and being greater than the lower normal limit 342 of -10 mmhg. in response to the icp average being within the goal range, a goal indicator was triggered, thereby causing the minority portion 380 of the background for the icp textual display 314 from a first color, e.g., black, in fig. 3 to be a second color, e.g., green, in fig. 10 . in an exemplary embodiment, a color indicating a goal indicator can be different than and be highly contrasting with the color indicating an alarm, e.g., green for a goal indicator and red for an alarm. as discussed above regarding the normal range alarm, the minority and majority portions of the screen 300 can vary. the goal indicator 380 is within the icp textual display 314, e.g., within the in-goal-range parameter's textual display, in the illustrated embodiment, but the goal indicator 380 can be adjacent the in-goal-range parameter's textual display, within the in-goal-range parameter's graphical display, and/or adjacent the in-goal-range parameter's graphical display. although only one goal indicator is shown in fig. 10 , any one or more of the parameters on the screen 300 can, in any combination thereof, have goal indicators therefor. in general, the higher a number of goal indicators present on the screen 300, the more likely that the patient is overall in a relatively good condition, and the lower the number of goal indicators present on the screen 300, the less likely that the patient is overall in a relatively good condition. the number of goal indicators present on the screen 300 can thus be configured as an indicator of the patient's overall condition. a user, e.g., a medical practitioner, etc., observing the screen 300 can thus use the number of goal indicators present on the screen 300 in determining whether to assess and/or treat the patient. in other words, even without seeing or otherwise determining numerical values of any the patient's physiological parameters, the user can determine whether to assess and/or treat the patient, which can facilitate quick decision-making, help reduce errors in reading numbers from the screen 300, help reduce errors in comparing current numerical values to predetermined range(s), and/or facilitate quick patient care. because color is generally easily discernable even from a relatively large distance, as discussed above, the goal indicator(s) for the physiological parameter(s) on the screen 300 can facilitate assessment of the patient's overall condition without a medical practitioner or other user even having to go into a patient's room and/or get close to the patient. fig. 11 shows another embodiment of the display screen 300 when the average icp is within its predetermined goal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is as discussed above with respect to fig. 10 . fig. 11 shows the goal indicator being triggered from the monitor window 310 of fig. 5 in which data is being received for a single physiological parameter, icp. the goal indicator in fig. 11 includes, similar to fig. 10 , a minority portion 384 of the background color of the icp textual display 314 changing colors (black to green). fig. 12 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 when the averages of a plurality of physiological parameters are within their respective goal ranges. in the illustrated embodiment, icp is within its predetermined goal range as discussed above with respect to fig. 10 , and pbo2 is within its predetermined goal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is the pbo2 average of 22 mmhg being less than an upper goal limit of 23 mmhg, being less than an upper normal limit 386 of 30 mmhg, being greater than a lower goal limit of 17 mmhg, and being greater than a lower normal limit 388 of 0 mmhg. fig. 12 shows the goal indicators for icp and pbo2 being triggered from the monitor window 310 of fig. 3 . the goal indicators in fig. 12 includes, similar to fig. 11 , a minority portion 384 of the background color of the icp textual display 314 changing colors (black to green) and a minority portion 390 of the background color of the pb02 textual display 328 changing colors (black to green). in the illustrated embodiment, the evd icp, cpp, and tb physiological parameters are outside their respective goal ranges and within their respective normal ranges such that alarms and goal indicators are not shown for any of the evd icp, cpp, and tb. fig. 13 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 when at least one of the physiological parameters is within its respective goal range and when at least one other of the physiological parameters is outside its respective normal range. in the illustrated embodiment, the icp and pbo2 physiological parameters are within their respective goal ranges as discussed above regarding fig. 12 , the evd icp, cpp, and tb physiological parameters are outside their respective goal ranges and within their respective normal ranges as discussed above regarding fig. 12 , and the map/bp physiological parameter is outside its normal range, e.g., by being below its predetermined lower limit for its normal range. the map/bp alarm is shown in fig. 13 as having been acknowledged similar to that discussed above regarding the acknowledgement of the icp alarm of fig. 9 . although only two goal indicators and only one alarm are shown in fig. 13 , any combination of any of the parameters on the screen 300 can have goal indicators or alarms therefor. a duration of the goal state can be determined and stored, e.g., in a storage unit, which can facilitate evaluation of the patient's condition, e.g., if displayed on the screen 300. in other words, start and stop times of the goal indicator's presence on the screen 300 can be saved. when a goal indicator is triggered for a physiological parameter, the goal indicator can persist until the parameter falls outside its associated goal range. the goal indicator can thus be configured to continuously indicate in-goal-range status of its associated physiological parameter. in an exemplary embodiment, the goal indicator can be configured to be non-removable, e.g., user input cannot cause the goal indicator to be removed from the screen 300. in other words, a goal indicator can be configured to always be present on the screen 300 for its associated physiological parameter unless the parameter is out of goal range. in this way, the screen 300 can be configured to always provide an indication of each parameter's goal range status. the screen 300 can thus be configured to continuously provide goal range status information in a consistent way, e.g., with a textual display's minority portion remaining a same color if within the goal range and remaining same color if outside the goal range, thereby facilitating unambiguous assessment of parameters' goal range statuses. the goal indicator can, however, be configured to be removed from and/or altered on the screen 300, such as by being acknowledged similar to that discussed above regarding acknowledgement of the alarm. the screen 300 can thus include a goal indicator acknowledgement button (not shown) similar to the alarm silence button 374. as discussed above, a goal indicator can be triggered for a physiological parameter, e.g., icp, map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb, in response to its average being within its predetermined goal range. additionally or alternatively, a goal indicator can be triggered for a physiological parameter in response to a pattern of individual values for the physiological parameter gathered from the patient being consistent with a predetermined pattern of values for the physiological parameter. in other words, a goal alarm can be triggered in response to a pattern of individual values varying from a predetermined pattern of values. as discussed above, triggering the goal alarm can cause the goal indicator for that physiological parameter to be removed from the screen 300, if the goal indicator for that physiological parameter was already present thereon, or cause the goal indicator for that physiological parameter to remain off the screen 300, if the goal indicator for that physiological parameter was already not present thereon. the goal indicator can thus be configured to not be present on the screen 300 in some circumstances for a parameter even when the parameter's current value is within that parameter's goal range. in this way, the goal indicator can be configured to indicate whether or not the physiological parameter is trending to be outside its associated goal range and/or outside its associated normal range. the patient's condition can thus be assessed and/or treated before the patient's condition further deteriorates, e.g., before the physiological parameter's average has a chance to be outside the normal range and/or outside the goal range. the predetermined pattern of values can include a variety of different patterns. in an exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a predetermined number of immediately successive gathered or calculated values each increasing from its immediately preceding gathered or calculated value. in other words, if a predetermined number of values successively increase, e.g., indicating an upward trend, the goal alarm can be triggered for that parameter. the predetermined number can be any number two or greater, and in an exemplary embodiment is at least ten, e.g., such that the eleventh increased value in a row can trigger the goal alarm. the predetermined number can vary between different parameters, e.g., a higher predetermined number for physiological parameters that are gathered more frequently than other physiological parameters. in another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a predetermined number of immediately successive gathered or calculated values each decreasing from its immediately preceding gathered or calculated value. in other words, if a predetermined number of values successively decrease, e.g., indicating a downward trend, the goal alarm can be triggered for that parameter. the predetermined number can be any number two or greater, and in an exemplary embodiment is at least ten, e.g., such that the eleventh decreased value in a row can trigger the goal alarm. the predetermined number can vary between physiological parameters, e.g., a higher predetermined number for physiological parameters that are gathered more frequently than other physiological parameters. in yet another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a gathered or calculated value being a predetermined threshold amount greater than its immediately preceding value. in other words, the predetermined trend can include a sudden spike up in value. the predetermined threshold amount can vary between different parameters, e.g., a higher predetermined threshold amount for physiological parameters that are gathered more frequently than other physiological parameters. in another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a gathered or calculated value being a predetermined threshold amount less than its immediately preceding value. in other words, the predetermined trend can include a sudden spike down in value. the predetermined threshold amount can vary between different parameters, e.g., a lower predetermined threshold amount for physiological parameters that are gathered less frequently than other physiological parameters. in another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a gathered or calculated value being a predetermined threshold amount greater than the current average value for that parameter. in other words, the predetermined pattern can include a sudden spike up in value. the predetermined threshold amount can vary between different parameters, e.g., a higher predetermined threshold amount for physiological parameters that are gathered more frequently than other physiological parameters. in another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include a gathered or calculated value being a predetermined threshold amount less than the current average value for the parameter. in other words, the predetermined pattern can include a sudden spike down in value. the predetermined threshold amount can vary between different parameters, e.g., a lower predetermined threshold amount for physiological parameters that are gathered less frequently than other physiological parameters. in another exemplary embodiment, the predetermined pattern can include one or more of the physiological parameters meeting a predetermined condition, thereby triggering a goal alarm for a different one or more of the physiological parameters. in other words, one or more of the physiological parameters can be cross-correlated with one or more others of the physiological parameters such that values of the one or more of the physiological parameters can affect the one or more others of the physiological parameters. for example, cpp can be cross-correlated with icp and map such that if one or both of icp and map fall outside their respective goal ranges and/or fall outside their respective normal ranges, a goal alarm can be triggered for cpp, e.g., a goal indicator for cpp can be removed from the screen 300 if not already absent from the screen 300. in other words, the predetermined condition can be, for example, icp and/or map falling outside their respective goal ranges and/or fall outside their respective normal ranges. for another example, map/bp can be cross-correlated with icp such that if one of icp and map/bp is increasing, e.g., its average is increasing, and the other one of icp and map/bp is decreasing, e.g., its average is decreasing, a goal alarm can be triggered for both icp and map/bp. in other words, the predetermined condition can be, for example, one of icp and map/bp increasing and the other one of icp and map/bp decreasing. icp and map/bp both relate to pressure, so if one of icp and map/bp is increasing while the other of icp and map/bp is decreasing over the same current time period, the patient may be in distress even if icp and map/bp are both within their goal ranges. for another example, map/bp can be cross-correlated with icp such that if icp is increasing or decreasing opposite from map/bp, e.g., icp's average is increasing and map/bp's average is decreasing, or icp's average is decreasing and map/bp's average is increasing, a goal alarm can be triggered for icp. in other words, the predetermined condition can be, for example, icp's average trending opposite to that of map/bp's average. predetermined numbers, predetermined threshold amounts, and predetermined conditions for predetermined patterns can each, same or different from one another, be a default, preprogrammed value, e.g., preprogrammed into a processor, or can be customized for a particular patient. the device can be configured to consider any number of predetermined patterns. in other words, any number of predetermined patterns can be preprogrammed into the device such that the goal alarm can be configured to be triggered based on any one or more predetermined patterns and/or based on the goal range. in some embodiments, alarms related to the predetermined normal ranges for physiological parameters can be based on predetermined patterns similar to that discussed above regarding predetermined goal ranges. as mentioned above, selection of the hybrid tab 304 on the display screen 300 can cause a hybrid window to be shown on the screen 300. the hybrid window can be configured to show information for one or more physiological parameters over a current time period and can show information for the one or more physiological parameters over another time period, also referred to herein as a "trend time period," that is different from the current time period. the hybrid window can thus facilitate comparison of current information with previously gathered information, which can facilitate a more long term analysis of the patient's physiological parameters. the information for the one or more physiological parameters over the current time period can include information similar to that discussed above regarding the information that can be shown on the monitor window. the information for the one or more physiological parameters over the other time period can include information that can be shown on the trends window. the hybrid window can thus be configured as a hybrid of the monitor window and the trends window. the information displayed in the hybrid window for each of the physiological parameters can be based on data received by the monitoring device in any of a variety of ways, as discussed above. for each of the physiological parameters shown on the screen, the hybrid window can be configured to show at least one of a textual display of parameter information for the current time period and a graphical display of parameter information for the current time period, and at least one of a textual display of parameter information for a trend time period and a graphical display of parameter information for the trend time period. in an exemplary embodiment, the trend time period can be longer than the current time period, e.g., fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, ninety minutes, one hundred minutes, etc., although virtually any time period can be used as the trend time period. in some embodiments, the trend time period can be hours, days, or longer, and can be adjustable as discussed above with respect to the current time period. the trend time period can entirely precede the current time period or can overlap at least partially with the current time period. in some embodiments, the trend time period can correspond to requirements of a particular physiological parameter. for example, the trend time period can correspond to a time period pertinent to icp monitoring and thereby allow a caregiver to review this trend time period. various embodiments of displaying trends for a physiological parameter on a display screen are described in further detail in u.s. pat. pub. no. 2009/0005703 . fig. 14 shows an embodiment of a hybrid window 392 on the display screen 300. as mentioned above, the hybrid window 392 can include one or more static features, such as the patient id window 354, the help button 356, the screen lock button 358, the history button 360, the manual entry button 362, the print button 364, the current date/time indicator 366, the power connector 368, the charge indicator 370, the docking indicator 372, and the alarm silence button 374. in the illustrated embodiment, the hybrid window 392 shows information over the current time period for icp in an icp textual display 394 and an icp graphical display 396, map/bp in a map/bp textual display 398 and a map/bp graphical display 400, hr in the map/bp textual display 398, evd icp in an evd textual display 402, cpp in a cpp textual display 404, pbo2 in a pbo2 textual display 406, and tb in a tb textual display 408, but as mentioned above, any one or more physiological parameters can be monitored and displayed, and current information for any one or more physiological parameters can be shown on the hybrid window 392 in textual displays and/or graphical displays. in the illustrated embodiment, the hybrid window 392 shows information over the trend time period for icp in an icp trends window 410, for map/bp in a map/bp trends window 412, for cpp in a cpp trends window 414, for pbo2 in a pbo2 trends window 416, and for tb in a tb trends window 418, but any one or more physiological parameters can be monitored and displayed, and trends information for any one or more physiological parameters can be shown on the hybrid window 392 in textual displays and/or graphical displays similar to the textual displays and graphical displays discussed above regarding the monitor window. which one or more of the physiological parameters have a textual display only, have a graphical display only, or have both a textual display and a graphical display can be user-adjusted, such as by dragging and dropping displays on the touchscreen or activating the preferences button 312. as shown in the embodiment of fig. 14 , the hybrid window 392 can display a trendline in each of the icp trends window 410, the map/bp trends window 412, the cpp trends window 414, the pbo2 trends window 416, and the tb trends window 418 as related to each of their respective physiological parameters. the trendline for each of the physiological parameters can represent its associated physiological parameter graphically via a graph line, however virtually any graphical representation can be used, such as a bar graph, a plot of discrete data points, and/or other pictorial display. each of the icp trends window 410, the map/bp trends window 412, the cpp trends window 414, the pbo2 trends window 416, and the tb trends window 418 in the illustrated embodiment plots via the trendline their respective physiological parameter's values gathered and/or calculated during the trend time period. however, a trends window can show (e.g., via a graph line and/or other pictorial display) values of another statistic based on its associated physiological parameter, e.g., a mean value of the physiological parameter calculated over a sample period, e.g., every two to three seconds, a median value, a normalized value, a systolic value, a diastolic value, wave amplitude, etc. in some instances, data may not be received for a certain physiological parameter, as mentioned above, such that those missing physiological parameter(s) can be absent from the hybrid window 392. fig. 15 shows an example of the hybrid window 392 in which data is being received for a plurality of physiological parameters, e.g., icp, map/bp and hr, and cpp, and is not being received for a plurality of physiological parameters, e.g., evd icp, pbo2, and tb. the hybrid window 392 in this illustrated embodiment thus lacks graphical displays for evd icp, pbo2, and tb over the current time period, lacks textual displays for evd icp, pbo2, and tb over the trend time period, lacks graphical displays for evd icp, pbo2, and tb over the trend time period in the pbo2 graphical display 416 and in the tb graphical display 418, and lacks any numerical data in the textual displays 402, 406, 408 for evd icp, pbo2, and tb. in the illustrated embodiment, the textual displays 402, 406, 408 for evd icp, pbo2, and tb each include a data absence indicator in the form of a textual message, "not connected" in the evd icpand tb displays 402, 408 and "not installed" in the pbo2 display406. similar to that discussed above regarding the monitor window 310, the textual display(s) and/or the graphical display(s) for each of the physiological parameters icp, map/bp and hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb shown on the hybrid window 392 can be configured to be observed by a user so as to assess the patient's condition. to facilitate assessment of the patient's condition, an alarm can be provided if any of the physiological parameters fall outside their associated normal range, also similar to that discussed above regarding the monitor window 310. in an exemplary embodiment, when an alarm for a physiological parameter is triggered, the monitor portion of the hybrid window 392 for that physiological parameter can be configured to indicate the alarm, while the trends portion of the hybrid window 392 for that physiological parameter can be configured to not change in response to the alarm condition, e.g., not change color, not include an alarm symbol thereon, etc. not changing the trends portion of the hybrid window 392 in response to the alarm condition can reflect that current conditions are in an alarm state rather than indicate that an error exists in the longer-term trend of the physiological parameter reflected in any trends display in the hybrid window 392 for that physiological parameter. the trends portion of the hybrid window 392 for that physiological parameter can, however, be configured to change in response to the alarm similar to that discussed above regarding the monitor window. fig. 16 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 after the average icp falls outside its predetermined normal range, which in the illustrated embodiment is the average exceeding the upper normal limit, e.g., the current average value of22 mmhg being above the upper normal limit of 20 mmhg. in response to the icp average falling outside the normal range, an alarm was triggered, thereby changing a majority portion 420 of the background for the icp textual display 394 from a first color, e.g., black, in fig. 14 to a second color, e.g., red, in fig. 16 , and thereby causing an alarm symbol 422 to be shown in the icp textual display 394. although only one alarm is shown in fig. 16 , any one or more of the parameters on the screen 300 can, in any combination thereof, have alarms therefor. the embodiment shown in fig. 16 does not alter the icp graphical display 396 or the icp trends portion of the hybrid window 392, e.g., the icp trends window 410, in response to the detected alarm condition for icp. an alarm on the hybrid window 392 can be acknowledged similar to that discussed above regarding the monitor window. fig. 17 shows an embodiment of the display screen 300 after acknowledgement of the alarm of fig. 16 . in response to the alarm being acknowledged, e.g., in response to activation of the alarm silence button 374, an acknowledgement was triggered, thereby changing the majority portion 420 of the background for the icp textual display 394 from the second color, e.g., red, in fig. 16 to a third color, e.g., white, in fig. 16 . a minority portion 424 of the background for the icp textual display 394 did not change from fig. 16 to fig. 17 . the alarm symbol 422 can remain present on the display screen 300 even after the alarm has been acknowledged, as shown in fig. 17 . also similar to that discussed above regarding the monitor window, a goal alarm can be provided on the hybrid window 392 based on any one or more factors, e.g., if any of the physiological parameters are outside their associated goal range and/or any of the physiological parameters deviate from one or more predetermined trends. fig. 18 shows an embodiment of the hybrid window 392 of fig. 14 after the average pbo2 has changed to be within its predetermined goal range. in response to the pbo2 average being within the goal range, a goal indicator was triggered, thereby changing a minority portion 424 of the background for the pbo2 textual display 406 from a first color, e.g., black, in fig. 14 to a second color, e.g., green, in fig. 18 . the embodiment shown in fig. 18 does not alter the pbo2 trends portion of the hybrid window 392, e.g., the pbo2 trends window 416, in response to the detected goal condition for pbo2. fig. 19 shows an embodiment of the hybrid window 392 of fig. 14 when at least one of the physiological parameters has changed within its respective goal range, e.g., pbo2 similar to that discussed above regarding fig. 18 , and when at least one other of the physiological parameters is outside its respective normal range and has been acknowledged as being so, e.g., icp similar to that discussed above regarding fig. 17 . fig. 20 shows an embodiment of the hybrid window 392 of fig. 18 when the device is undocked, e.g., is running from an on-board power supply such as a battery. the undocked state of the device can be indicated in any one or more ways, such as by changing a background color of the display screen 300 (e.g., from white in fig. 18 to yellow in fig. 20 , changing the docking indicator 372(e.g., from a docked icon in fig. 18 to an undocked icon in fig. 20 ), a textual identifier (e.g., "undocked" on the screen 300 in fig. 20 ), etc. providing clear notice of the device being undocked can help prevent the device from running out of power, going out of range, etc. fig. 21 similarly shows an embodiment of the monitor window 310 of fig. 3 when the device is undocked. as mentioned above, the relative sizes and locations of the various windows, symbols, text, icons, etc. shown for the hybrid window 392 of figs. 14-20 and the monitor window 310 of fig. 21 are exemplary in nature. as mentioned above, selection of the trends tab 306 on the display screen 300 can cause a trends window (not shown) to be displayed on the screen 300. the trends window can include information similar to the trends information that can be shown in the hybrid window, as discussed above. as also mentioned above, various embodiments of providing trends information are discussed further in u.s. pat. pub. no. 2009/0005703 . as mentioned above, selection of the future tab 308 on the display screen 300 can cause a future window (not shown) to be displayed on the screen 300. the future window can show information for one or more physiological parameters in a future time period that is after the current time period. the future time period can be a predetermined amount of time that can be a default, preprogrammed time period, e.g., preprogrammed into a processor, or can be customized for a particular patient. the future time period can be, e.g., in a range of about five to sixty seconds, in a range of about five to ten seconds, a single heartbeat, a most recent few heartbeats of the patient, etc. the future time period can be adjustable similar to that discussed above, such as when a user activates the preferences menu or soft button 312. adjustment of the future time period can allow for various clinical protocols, as such protocols can require tracking of a parameter over different time periods. any one or more physiological parameters can be shown on the future window. the information displayed for each of the physiological parameters can be based on data received by the monitoring device in any of a variety of ways, as discussed above. for each of the physiological parameters, the future window can be configured to show a textual display of parameter information for the future time period and/or a graphical display of parameter information for the future time period, similar to the textual and graphical displays discussed above. which one or more of the physiological parameters have a textual display only, have a graphical display only, or have both a textual display and a graphical display can be user-adjusted, such as by dragging and dropping displays on the touchscreen or activating the preferences button 312. the future data can be shown in the future window in any one or more ways, such as by scatter plots, spider plots, plotting one parameter against another, plotting one parameter against another within a specific period of time, 3d plot (where the third axis is time). the parameter information shown on the future window can be based on analysis of actual parameters values gathered from the patient. in other words, the information for a physiological parameter in the future time period can include projections of future parameter values based on actual values of that parameter gathered from the patient. future parameter values for a physiological parameter can be extrapolated from the actual values gathered from the patient for that parameter using any one or more extrapolation techniques, as will be appreciated by a person skilled in the art. examples of extrapolation techniques include linear extrapolation, linear extrapolation, conic extrapolation, and polynomial extrapolation. various software known in the art can be used to perform such extrapolation, such as fityk (available under gnu general public license), ch (marketed by softintegration, inc. of davis, california), zunzun.com (online curve fitting), and savetman.com (online curve fitting using least squares fit with weights). the future data can be correlated (e.g., autocorrelated and/or cross correlated) and/or the future data can be manipulated for frequency analysis. figs. 3-19 are directed to user interfaces in a neurological context, e.g., for use in monitoring a patient with a traumatic brain injury. however, the methods, systems, and devices described herein are applicable in other medical contexts and can be used in monitoring a patient having virtually any ailment(s). also, while figs. 3-19 use icp, map/bp, hr, evd icp, cpp, pbo2, and tb as exemplary physiological parameters, this is by way of illustration only. the methods, systems, and devices described herein can be applied to virtually any physiological parameters of a patient. a person skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention has application in conventional minimally-invasive and open surgical instrumentation as well application in robotic-assisted surgery. the devices disclosed herein can also be designed to be disposed of after a single use, or they can be designed to be used multiple times. in either case, however, the device can be reconditioned for reuse after at least one use. reconditioning can include any combination of the steps of disassembly of the device, followed by cleaning or replacement of particular pieces and subsequent reassembly. in particular, the device can be disassembled, and any number of the particular pieces or parts of the device can be selectively replaced or removed in any combination. upon cleaning and/or replacement of particular parts, the device can be reassembled for subsequent use either at a reconditioning facility, or by a surgical team immediately prior to a surgical procedure. those skilled in the art will appreciate that reconditioning of a device can utilize a variety of techniques for disassembly, cleaning/replacement, and reassembly. use of such techniques, and the resulting reconditioned device, are all within the scope of the present application. one skilled in the art will appreciate further features and advantages of the invention based on the above-described embodiments. accordingly, the invention is not to be limited by what has been particularly shown and described, except as indicated by the appended claims.
184-168-244-059-642	US	[ "US" ]	C03B5/43,C04B35/12,H05B3/03	1990-08-28T00:00:00	1990	[ "C03", "C04", "H05" ]	electrode blocks and block assemblies	electrode blocks and multiple-piece assemblies are provided for electric, glass-melting furnaces to reduce the occurrence and extent of cracking which occurs in monolithic electrode blocks from thermal stresses induced by a high temperature gradient between such blocks or the block assembly and a fluid-cooled electrode and from thermal shock encountered in repositioning the electrode. an insert block of a high thermal stress and glass corrosion/erosion resistant refractory material is configured to receive an electrode assembly. a holder block, which may be of the same material or another material, including a material having less thermal stress strength or less glass corrosion/erosion resistance than the insert block material, has a passageway therethrough to receive at least part of the insert block with electrode assembly therethrough. densified chromic oxide with zirconia is presently preferred as the insert block composition while fusion cast azs is presently preferred for the holder block receiving the insert block.	1. an electrode block assembly for use with electrode means melting glass in a glass melting furnace receiving the block assembly, the block assembly comprising: a first block of a first refractory composition, the first block having a passageway therethrough configured to receive at least part of an electrode means extended entirely through the first block; and a second block of a second refractory composition, the second block having a passageway therethrough configured to receive at least part of the first block and an electrode means extended entirely through the first block. 2. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 wherein the thermal shock damage resistance of the first refractory composition is greater than the thermal shock damage resistance of the second refractory composition. 3. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 wherein the first refractory composition is selected from the group consisting essentially of zircon, tin oxide, chromic oxide, zirconia, titania and combinations thereof, at least a portion of the zirconia being unstabilized. 4. the electrode block assembly of claim 3 wherein the first refractory composition consists essentially of, by weight about 80 to 97% cr.sub.2 o.sub.3 and about 2 to 12% zro.sub.2, about 1 to 8% tio.sub.2, at least a portion of the zro.sub.2 being unstabilized. 5. the electrode block assembly of claim 3 wherein the second refractory composition is selected from the group consisting essentially of tin oxide, chromic oxide, alumina, zirconia, titania, zircon, azs and combinations thereof. 6. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 in combination with electrode means adapted for melting glass within a furnace, the passageway of the first block being sized and shaped to permit at least part of the electrode means to be extended entirely through the first block along the first block passageway, the electrode means including conductor means for passing electric current therethrough and fluid means for cooling at least part of the conductor means along the first block passageway, the first block passageway further permitting at least an end of the conductor means to be fed therethrough into a glass melting furnace receiving the combination. 7. the combination of claim 6 in further combination with the glass melting furnace, the electrode block assembly forming part of an inner surface of a wall of the furnace defining an interior open glass-melting area of the furnace, at least part of the electrode means passing entirely through the passageway of the first block into the interior open area of the furnace. 8. the combination of claim 7 wherein the second block is formed of a second, substantially uniform refractory composition having a thermal shock damage resistance less than the thermal shock damage resistance of the first refractory composition. 9. the combination of claim 7 wherein the second block is formed of a second, substantially uniform refractory composition having a glass corrosion resistance less than a glass corrosion resistance of the first refractory composition. 10. the electrode of claim 1 wherein the block assembly second refractory composition is the same uniform refractory composition as the first refractory composition. 11. the electrode block assembly of claim 10 in combination with the electrode means, the electrode means being sized and shaped whereby at least part of the electrode means can be extended entirely through the first block along the first block passageway, the electrode means including conductor means for passing electric current therethrough and fluid means for cooling at least part of the conductor means along the first block passageway, the first block passageway further permitting at least an end of the conductor means to be fed therethrough into a glass melting furnace receiving the combination. 12. the combination of claim 11 in further combination with the glass melting furnace, the first refractory block forming part of an inner surface of a wall of the furnace defining an interior open glass-melting area of the furnace, at least the conductor means passing through the passageway of the first block into the interior open area of the furnace. 13. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 wherein the passageway of the second block has a closed perimeter surrounding the received portion of the first block. 14. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 wherein the passageway of the first block is empty before receiving the electrode means. 15. the combination of claim 14 wherein the passageway of the second block has an integral perimeter entirely surrounding the received portion of the first block. 16. the combination of claim 12 wherein the passageway of the second block has an integral perimeter entirely surrounding the received portion of the first block, the second refractory block also forming part of the inner surface of the wall of the furnace defining the interior open glass-melting area. 17. the electrode block assembly of claim 1 wherein the first block has 6 an integral outer perimeter entirely surrounding the passageway therethrough and wherein the passageway of the second block has an integral perimeter surrounding at least about one half of the outer perimeter of the first block. 18. the combination of claim 14 wherein the first block has an integral outer perimeter entirely surrounding the passageway therethrough and wherein the passageway of the second block has an integral perimeter surrounding at least about one half of the outer perimeter of the first block. 19. the combination of claim 12 wherein the first block has an integral outer perimeter entirely surrounding the passageway therethrough and wherein the passageway of the second block has an integral perimeter surrounding at least about one half of the outer perimeter of the first block, the second refractory block also forming part of the inner surface of the wall of the furnace defining the interior open glass-melting area.	field of the invention this invention relates to electrically heated glass-melting furnaces and, in particular, to refractory blocks receiving electrodes used in such furnaces. background of the invention electrodes are sometimes used as the sole or auxiliary heating sources in glass-melting furnaces. the electrodes are typically positioned in the glass-melting furnaces by being extended through the walls of such furnaces. typically, an "electrode block" of uniform composition is provided forming a portion of the wall and having a closed perimeter interior opening or passageway through which the electrode is extended into the furnace. for many reasons, molybdenum is a generally accepted electrode material for use in glass-melting furnaces. one problem molybdenum experiences is that it oxidizes when heated above 500.degree. c. to overcome this problem, a common approach has been to provide the electrode in an assembly including a holder which supports the electrode and which circulates a cooling fluid such as water, inert gas or both about a portion of the electrode which is not covered by glass and therefore subject to oxidation. fluid cooling creates a wide thermal gradient between the surface of the fluid-cooled electrode assembly and the surrounding refractory electrode block, particularly at the innermost surface of the block forming the exposed inner surface or "hot face" of the furnace where the glass is melted and temperatures are greatest. the wide thermal gradient can cause cracking of the electrode block. the cracking involved is commonly referred to as "star cracking" an spreads radially outwardly from the electrode opening or passageway through the block. a crack on the hot face of the block encourages glass penetration which can lead to increased erosion/corrosion of the block. in some instances, the consumption of electrode material is compensated for by inserting additional electrode material into the furnace. to do this with a conventional fluid-cooled electrode assembly, it has been necessary to stop the flow of cooling fluid. after insertion of the electrode material, cooling fluid is once again circulated through the assembly. this operation induces thermal shock stress in the electrode block surrounding the electrode assembly. again, both type of thermal stresses (gradient induced and shock induced) tend to be relieved by cracking of the electrode block. there is always a concern with glass melting furnaces, which may be run continuously for months and even years, that increased erosion/corrosion due to cracking can necessitate the premature shutdown of the furnace and possible economic losses accompanying such shutdown. summary of the invention the invention is directed to the solution of the problem of thermal cracking induced in conventional electrode blocks of electrically heated glass-melting furnaces and, correspondingly, to solving the problem of premature erosion/corrosion of such blocks due to thermal stress cracking. in one aspect, the invention is an electrode block assembly for use with electrode means melting glass in a glass-melting furnace receiving the block assembly. the block assembly comprises a first block of a first refractory composition and a second block of a second refractory composition. the first block has a passageway therethrough configured to receive at least part of an electrode means extended entirely through the first block. the second block has a passageway therethrough configured to receive at least part of the first block and an electrode means extended entirely through the first block passage. in another aspect, the invention is a first refractory block including a passageway therethrough configured to receive at least part of a glass-melting electrode assembly extended entirely through the first block to permit the first block to be installed with the electrode assembly as at least part of a wall of an electrically heated glass-melting furnace, the first refractory block being formed of a first substantially uniform refractory composition consisting essentially of by weight about 80 to 97% cr.sub.2 o.sub.3, about 1 to 8% tio.sub.2, and about 2 to 12% zro.sub.2, at least a portion of the zirconia being unstabilized. brief description of the drawings the foregoing summary and the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention will be better understood when read in conjunction with the appended drawings. for the purpose of illustrating the invention, there is shown in the drawings various embodiments including embodiments presently preferred. it should be understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown. in the drawings: fig. 1 is a diagrammatic cross elevation of a portion of a conventional, electric glass-melting furnace taken along the lines 1--1 of fig. 2; fig. 2 is a diagrammatic cross plan view of the furnace portion of fig. 1 along the lines 2--2; fig. 3 is a diagrammatic partially broken away view of a conventional electrode assembly installed in an electrode block assembly of the furnace of figs. 1 and 2; fig. 4a is a diagrammatic representation of the electrode block assembly of figs. 1-3 at the inner surface of the wall facing and defining the interior glass-melt area of the furnace of figs. 1 and 2; fig. 4b is a diagrammatic elevation view of an alternate configuration of the electrode block assembly on the inner wall surface of the furnace; fig. 5a is a simplified diagrammatic cross-elevation view of the electrode block assembly of figs. 1-4a; and figs. 5b through 5h are diagrammatic cross-elevations of alternate electrode block assemblies of the present invention. detailed description of embodiments referring to the drawings, like reference numerals identify like elements throughout. figs. 1 and 2 depict diagrammatically in different cross-sectional views, the construction of a forward or delivery section of a conventional, electric, textile fiber glass-melting furnace, indicated generally at 10. the furnace 10 would include an upstream portion, electrically heated in the same manner, in which raw materials would be initially melted. in such a furnace 10, electricity is the sole source of heating. in addition to all-electric furnaces, some glass-melting furnaces use electricity for auxiliary heating at certain locations in combination with another heat source, such as flamed natural gas, to heat the interior of the furnace. referring first to fig. 1, the furnace 10 is typically constructed by layering various refractory blocks to form a base, indicated generally at 12, side walls, indicated generally at 14 and 16, and a roof, indicated generally at 18. inner surfaces of the base 12, side walls 14 and 16 and roof 18 facing and defining the boundaries of an interior open area within the furnace, indicated generally at 20, within which the glass is melted. blocks of differing refractory compositions are typically used in constructing such furnaces 10. the composition of the blocks forming the inner exposed surface 13 of the base 12 and inner exposed surfaces 15 and 17 of side walls 14 and 16, respectively, which are in direct glass/slag contact, may be fused cast azs of densified zircon, for example, for thermal shock and glass-corrosion resistance. the block(s) providing the inner surface 19 of the roof also may be the same material as surfaces 13, 15 and 17, or a less expensive, less glass-corrosion resistant composition if not in continuous or regular glass/slag contact. for example, materials such as densified zircon can be used as the roof material with azs inner walls or a lesser grade of zircon can be used with densified zircon inner walls. the outer, surrounding blocks may be of an even less expensive and less glass-corrosion resistant composition, such as pressed fire brick. construction of the internal open melt area in other portions of the furnace would generally be the same. other combinations of refractory materials, brick arrangements and furnace layouts and designs have been used and are known to those of ordinary skill in this art and no attempt will be made to enumerate all of the possible combinations or variations which have been or which may be used in glass furnace construction. there is provided in the side wall 16 in fig. 1 an electrode block assembly, indicated collectively at 22, comprising a first refractory block, sometimes hereinafter also referred to as the insert block, and a second refractory block 26, sometimes hereinafter also referred to as the holder or receiver block. as is best seen in fig. 2, a plurality of the electrode block assemblies 22 are provided along an indicated length of the furnace in both of the sidewalls 14 and 16. each first or insert block 24 includes a preferably centrally located passageway or opening therethrough, indicated generally at 28, which is configured, by sizing and shaping, to receive at least part of an electrode means, indicated in phantom at 40 in fig. 2. at least part of the electrode means 40 extends entirely through the passageway 28 of the first block 24. each second block 26 of each electrode block assembly 22 also includes a passageway therethrough and indicated generally at 32, configured to receive at least part of the first block 24. in the embodiment depicted in figs. 1 and 2, the passageway 32 through the second block 26 is cylindrical and centrally located and receives the entirety of the first block 24. the first block 24 may simply be fitted into the passageway 32 of second block 26 or the two blocks may be bonded together using conventional ceramic bonding compositions suitable for use with the materials selected for the blocks 24 and 26. except for the provision of the electrode block assemblies 22 of the present invention, the construction of the furnace 10 is otherwise conventional. fig. 3 depicts one of a variety of known molybdenum electrode assemblies, indicated diagrammatically at 40, mounted in the electrode block assembly 22. the electrode assembly 40 includes an electrode in the form of a molybdenum conductor or rod 42 centrally positioned in a holder, indicated generally at 44, surrounding conductor 42. the conductor 42 passes electric current therethrough for melting glass within the furnace. holder 44 in the depicted embodiment includes a generally cylindrical housing 46 mounting a generally annular nose cone 47 at an end of the housing 46 closest to the interior 20 of the furnace 10. piping 48 is provided extending into the housing 46, meandering through the nose cone 47 and extending out of the housing 46 again to permit water or other cooling fluid to be circulated into the housing 46 and through the nose cone 47 to cool the molybdenum electrode 42. the first block passageway 28 consists of a first portion 28a extending from the exposed inner surface 17 of the interior furnace wall 16 of a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of conductor 42. a second portion 28b of the passageway 28, contiguous with the first portion 28a, is of a larger diameter for receiving the holder assembly 44 including the nose cone 47 end of the housing 46. the passageway 28 through the insert block 26 is preferably closely configured in size and shape to the electrode assembly so that only very small gaps exists between the conductor 42 and the housing 46 and the walls of the passageway 28 into which molten glass from the interior of the furnace 10 is permitted to penetrate. preferably, the gaps are at least about one millimeter in width to permit glass penetration. larger gaps may be necessary or desirable to permit greater glass penetration. preferably too, the glass seal is permitted to extend into an annular space provided between the conductor 42 and the nose cone 47 within the housing 46 to permit molten glass to be pulled within the holder 44 to eliminate any air pockets which might cause problems in the heat-transition zone. the cooling fluid, which is circulated through the piping 48 by suitable means such as a pressurized source or pump, indicated diagrammatically at 49, cools not only the molybdenum conductor 42 but also the molten glass entering these narrow areas so as to form a glass seal indicated generally at 50 between the electrode assembly 40 and the passageway 28 through the insert 24 and between the nose cone 47 and the conductor 42. an electrical connection to the conductor 42 is indicated generally at 52. in addition, it is also possible to position a thermocouple or other temperature-sensing means (not depicted) within the assembly 44 to monitor the temperature of the conductor 42 where the electrode is likely to be exposed closest to the glass seal 50. the electrode assembly 40 depicted is merely exemplary. other types of electrode assemblies of molybdenum and other materials are known or are being considered for use and would be suitable in connection with the present invention. these include other designs in which water or other liquid is simply sprayed into the interior of a housing and allowed to drain off from the housing, in which an inert gas is sealed within the housing and around the conductor and in which fluid is circulated directly through the electrode, dispensing with the need for a separate housing-type holder. it is also possible to feed the conductor 42 of the depicted electrode assembly 40 further into the interior open area 20 housing the melted glass. this is done by stopping the flow of fluid to the piping 48 and permitting the conductor 42 to heat up in the area of the glass seal 50 until the glass seal 50 is softened sufficiently to permit the conductor 42 to be pushed through the seal 50 and further into the furnace 10. the end of the conductor 42 exposed outside the furnace can be suitable configured for example by the provision of a threaded bore, so as to receive a comparably sized and threaded male member at the end of a second molybdenum rod. in this way, a virtually endless length of molybdenum conductor can be fed into the furnace 10. fig. 4a depicts a front elevation view of the electrode block assembly 22 of figs. 1 through 3 as it would be seen on the inner surface 17 of the wall 16 of the furnace 10 in which the first block 24 and at least an upper portion and side portions (hidden in figs. 1 and 3) of the second block 26 are exposed, forming apart of the inner surface 17 of that wall 16. fig. 4b depicts one possible alternate configuration of the outer surface of an electrode block assembly 22' forming part of the exposed inner surface 17 (and/or 15) of the furnace wall 16 (and/or 14). embodiment 22 of the electrode block assembly depicted in figs. 1 through 4a is depicted again in fig. 5a and includes a generally cylindrical first block or insert 24 received in a central cylindrical passageway 32 of a generally rectangular second block 26. figs. 5b through 5h depict seven other possible alternative electrode block assembly configurations, indicated generally at 22b-22h, including seven alternative configurations to the shape of first block or insert 24b-24h and of the corresponding shape of the passageway 32b-32h through a second block 26b-26h. if desired, a conventional, electrical insulator 54 can be provided around the electrode assembly 40 where the electrical connection 52 is exposed. since at least the initial envisioned use of the electrode block assemblies of the present invention is to receive fluid-cooled electrode assemblies, an important consideration is the ability of the composition of the insert or first block (hereinafter sometimes also referred to as the "first composition") to resist glass corrosion/erosion and to sustain thermal stress both from a wide thermal gradient between the insert and the cooled electrode assembly and from thermal shock encountered when feeding more of the conductor into the furnace during operation. it is presently envisioned and preferred to use a densified chromic oxide composition for the first or insert block which receives the electrode assembly. the envisioned chromic oxide composition believed to be most suited for this use consists essentially of, by oxide analysis, up to about ninety-seven percent by weight chromic oxide, up to about eight percent by weight titania and up to about twelve percent by weight zirconia, at least a portion of the zirconia preferably all of the zirconia being unstabilized. it is presently preferred that at least about two percent by weight of the zirconia is unstabilized to provide adequate thermal shock damage resistance. up to about four percent by weight of other oxides and metals, which are inseparably present in the raw materials combined to form the refractory may remain in the refractory as well. chromic oxide compositions within this range are disclosed and discussed in detail in pending application ser. no. 358,776 entitled "chromic oxide refractories with improved thermal shock resistance", filed may 26, 1989 and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. two specific chromic oxide compositions are presently preferred. the first combines about seventy-nine percent by weight chrome sesquioxide (cr.sub.2 o.sub.3) particles with about four percent by weight titania particles and about three percent by weight unstabilized zirconia particles together with about fourteen percent by weight of particles of a densified chromic oxide grog plus any desired processing aids such as plasticizers and/or binders. the grog may be formed by sintering about ninety-six percent by weight chrome sesquioxide with four percent by weight titania. the grog refractories may be new pieces fired specifically for this use or used glass furnace brick of this composition, cleaned and crushed for this purpose. also, firing rejects and eventually recycled bricks of the preferred composition or similar compositions with zirconia also could be used as sources of all or some of the grog. the second presently preferred composition combines particles in a ratio of about forty-two percent by weight chrome sesquioxide, 1.75% by weight titania, three percent by weight unstabilized zirconia with the balance to one-hundred percent by weight supplied by the densified chromic oxide grog referred to above. the chrome sesquioxide and titania are preferably pigment grade. the zirconia is preferably a high purity, fine monoclinic zirconia having a median diameter of about 1.5 microns and a cumulative mass of about thirty-five percent by weight less than one micron in diameter as referred to in the above-referenced application. the particle size distribution of the grog is preferably the fifty percent -325 mesh distribution also disclosed in the above-referenced paten application. the chromic oxide compositions described in the above-referenced patent application, particularly the preferred compositions, show markedly superior ability to sustain thermal stress induced both by temperature gradients and by thermal shock in comparison to prior known densified chromic oxide compositions lacking the zirconia addition. these thermal stress resistance chromic oxide compositions further maintain high corrosion/erosion resistance comparable to the original densified chromic oxide compositions lacking the zirconia addition. although the exposure of chrome on the hot face is a concern in certain types of glass furnaces, due to possible coloration of the glass, the present invention offers an improvement over prior monolithic electrode block designs in that only the insert need be made of chromic oxide. furthermore, a configuration of that insert can be selected which minimizes the chromic oxide actually exposed at the hot face, to minimize the chrome/glass contact area. it is currently envisioned to use fusion-cast, void free azs as the preferred refractory material for the second or insert-receiving block 24 of the assembly. such compositions are described, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,119,472 entitled "freebonded fusion-cast azs refractory grain", incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. the compositions which are currently believed to be preferred are compositions identified as azs-1 and -2 in that patent or very comparable compositions. the preferred compositions are used in their original fusion cast form and are not rebonded as is further disclosed in that patent. other possible compositions which are candidates for use as either or both of the insert and receiver blocks 24 and 26 are densified zircon, with or without zirconia added for enhanced thermal shock resistance. contemplated compositions are disclosed generally in u.s. pat. application ser. no. 404,819 entitled "zircon refractories with improved thermal shock resistance", filed sep. 8, 1989, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. the zircon compositions with added, unstabilized zirconia are particularly preferred as the compositions of the insert or first block of the assemblies of the present invention due to the enhanced thermal shock damage resistance capability of that material over previous densified zircon compositions lacking the zirconia additive. the preferred specifications for the molybdenum electrode are 99.95% minimum purity, about 1.25 to 2 inches in diameter, 10.2 gm/cc minimum density, 50-150 micron grain diameter homogeneous throughout the rod and free from surface cracks. in some instances, electrode rod diameters may range as high as six inches. in most instances, type 302 stainless steel is suitable for construction of the holder assembly 44. however, type 310 stainless steel, which has a higher heat resistance, may be preferred for special applications. it is the expectation that the electrode block assemblies of the present invention will reduce if not eliminate the star cracking problem encountered by previous monolithic electrode blocks, or, at the very least, contain the cracking to the insert block 24. the present invention further has the potential to reduce corrosion/erosion around the electrode by permitting the use of a material with a greater erosion/corrosion resistance as the insert material. however, there is no requirement that the insert block 22 be of a different chemical composition than the holder block 24 or other blocks of the furnace. indeed, as was mentioned above, it may be found in some application that the primary benefit of the present invention is to limit any cracking which occurs to the insert. also, many of the proposed configurations of the electrode block assemblies of the present invention, if suitably installed on a side wall of a furnace, may permit removal and replacement of an insert without total furnace shutdown. while thermal shock resistant chromic oxide and azs compositions referred to above are the presently preferred compositions for the insert and holder blocks, respectively, of the assemblies of the present invention, other refractory materials which would be suitable for use in one or both types of blocks include, but are not limited to zircon, alumina, tin oxide and zirconia and combinations thereof preferably with appropriate densifying agents. although the insert and holder blocks which have been discussed thus far each includes a passageway in the form of a generally centrally located, radially symmetric opening extending through each block, it is further possible that either or both of the insert and holder blocks may be provided by two or more individual refractory elements in which the passageway for receiving the electrode means or the insert block, respectively, is formed by a suitably shaped outer surface of each individual block. for example, an insert block may be provided by two semiannular refractory members each having a pair of opposing semicylindrical surfaces adapted to receive and fit over approximately one-half of an electrode assembly and within a cylindrical passageway 32 through a receiver block 26. similarly, two or more separate refractory elements may be suitably configured to each receive part of an insert block between them. while preferred and other embodiments have been described and modifications thereto suggested, one of ordinary skill will appreciate that other modifications may be made without departing from the broad inventive concepts thereof. it should be understood, therefore, that the invention is not limited to the particular embodiments disclosed but is intended to cover any modifications which are within the scope and spirit of the invention, as defined by the appended claims.
184-203-261-232-583	US	[ "MX", "AU", "CN", "WO", "JP", "EP", "ES", "DE", "CA", "BR", "DK", "AT" ]	A61M5/315,A61M5/32,A61M5/50,A61M5/34	2000-01-04T00:00:00	2000	[ "A61" ]	retracting needle syringe.	retracting needle syringe (20) includes barrel (22) having chamber (24), open proximal end (25) and open distal end (26). the plunger has an elongated cavity (34) in its distal end and a sealing cover element (35). needle assembly (40) includes needle cannula (41) having inner hub with distal end connected so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the chamber. a flange on the inner hub is connected to an outer hub and a spring is contained between the hubs. a release element is movably connected to the flange and has a sharp proximal end projecting into the chamber. distal motion of the plunger causes the sharp proximal end to cut through the cover element and the release element to dissociate an outer portion of the flange from an inner portion of the flange allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula into the cavity.	what is claimed is: 1. an operable retracting needle syringe comprising: a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end and an open distal end; a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, a cover element on said distal end of said plunger sealing said cavity; a needle assembly at said distal end of said barrel including a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said proximal end of said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub and said chamber, a flange on said hub, an outer hub having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said proximal end of said outer hub so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said distal end of said outer hub, a release element movably connected to a proximal end of said flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of said flange from an inner portion of said flange, said release element having a distal end and a sharp proximal end projecting into said chamber; and wherein distal motion of said plunger with respect to said barrel will cause said sharp proximal end of said release element to contact and cut through said cover element and said distal end of said release element to dissociate said outer portion of said flange from said inner portion of said flange allowing said spring to expand and move said needle cannula far enough into said cavity so that said distal end of said cannula is positioned proximally of said distal end of said outer hub. 2. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said release element includes a sharp distal edge. 3. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said cover element is a stopper having a side portion which contacts said inside surface of said barrel. 4. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said cover element further includes a projection extending distally outwardly from said cover element, sized and shaped to fit within inside said release element. 5. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said cover element is made of an elastomeric material selected from the group of thermoplastic elastomers, natural rubber, synthetic rubber and combinations thereof. 6. the syringe of claim 1 further including a discontinuity on said outer hub, a circular collar at said distal end of said barrel having a thread which engages said discontinuity on said outer hub so that said needle assembly may be removed from said barrel by rotational movement of said needle assembly with respect to said barrel. 7. the syringe of claim 1 further including a flange on said proximal end of said plunger, said flange being shaped and positioned to be adjacent to said proximal end of said barrel when said plunger is in its distal-most position with respect to said barrel. 8. the syringe of claim 7 further including a discontinuity on said proximal end of said barrel for engaging said flange on said plunger rod when said plunger is in its distal- most position with respect to said barrel to resist proximal motion of said plunger with respect to said barrel. 9. the syringe of claim 1 further including an elongated needle shield removably engaging said syringe and covering said needle cannula. 10. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said spring is a coil spring. 11. the syringe of claim 1 wherein said release element is made of metal. 12. an operable retracting needle syringe comprising: a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end and an open distal end; a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, a stopper at said distal end of said plunger having a side portion contacting said inside surface and a cover element portion for sealing said cavity; a needle assembly at said distal end of said barrel including a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said proximal end of said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub and said chamber, a flange on said hub, an outer hub having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said proximal end of said outer hub so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said distal end of said outer hub, a release element movably connected to a proximal end of said flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of said flange from an inner portion of said flange, said release element having a sharp distal end and a sharp proximal end projecting into said chamber; and wherein distal motion of said plunger with respect to said barrel will cause said sharp proximal end of said release element to contact and cut through said cover element and said sharp distal end of said release element to cut through said flange to said outer portion of said flange from said inner portion of said flange allowing said spring to expand and move said needle cannula far enough into said cavity so that said distal end of said cannula is positioned ^roximally of said distal end of said outer hub. 13. the syringe of claim 12 further including a discontinuity on said outer hub, a circular collar at said distal end of said barrel having a thread which engages said discontinuity on said outer hub so that the needle assembly may be removed from said barrel by rotational movement of the needle assembly with respect to said barrel. 14. the syringe of claim 12 further including a flange on said proximal end of said plunger, said flange being shaped and positioned to be adjacent to said proximal end of said barrel when said plunger is in its distal-most position with respect to said barrel. 15. the syringe of claim 12 wherein said cover element further includes a projection extending distally outwardly from said cover element, sized and shaped to fit within inside said release element. 16. the syringe of claim 12 wherein said spring is a coil spring. 17. an operable retracting needle assembly for use with a syringe assembly including a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end, an open distal end, a circular collar at said distal end having a thread on its surface, a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, and a cover element on said distal end of said plunger sealing said cavity, comprising: a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said proximal end of said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub, a flange on said hub, an outer hub having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said proximal end of said outer hub so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said distal end of said outer hub, a discontinuity on said outer hub positioned and shaped to engage said thread on said barrel so that said needle assembly may be connected and removed from said barrel by rotational movement of said needle assembly with respect to said barrel, and a circular release element movably connected to a proximal end of said flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of said flange from an inner portion of said flange, said release element having a distal end and a sharp proximal end for projecting into said chamber. 18. the needle assembly of claim 17 wherein said release element includes a sharp distal edge (for dissociation of said outer flange from said inner flange by cutting action of said sharpened distal end). 19. the needle assembly of claim 17 further including an elongated needle shield removably engaging said outer hub and covering said needle cannula. 20. an operable retracting needle assembly for use with a syringe assembly including a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end, an open distal end, a circular collar at said distal end having a thread on its surface, a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, and a cover element on said distal end of said plunger sealing said cavity, comprising: a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said proximal end of said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub, a flange on said hub, an outer hub having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said proximal end of said outer hub so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said distal end of said outer hub, a discontinuity on said outer hub positioned and shaped to engage said thread on said collar so that said needle assembly may be connected and removed from said barrel by rotational movement of said needle assembly with respect to said barrel, and a circular release element movably connected to a proximal end of said flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of said flange from an inner portion of said flange, said release element having a distal end and a sharp proximal end for projecting into said chamber and an elongated needle shield removably engaging said outer hub and covering sad needle cannula. 21. the needle assembly of claim 20 wherein said release element includes a sharp distal edge. 22. an operable retracting needle syringe comprising: a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end and an open distal end; a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, a cover element on said distal end of said plunger sealing said cavity; a needle assembly at said distal end of said barrel including a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said proximal end of said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub and said chamber, a flange on said hub, an outer hub connected to said distal end of said barrel having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said distal end of said barrel so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said distal end of said outer hub, a release element movably connected to a proximal end of said flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of said flange from an inner portion of said flange, said release element having a distal end and a sharp proximal end projecting into said chamber; and wherein distal motion of said plunger with respect to said barrel will cause said sharp proximal end of said release element to contact and cut through said cover element and said distal end of said release element to dissociate said outer portion of said flange from said inner portion of said flange allowing said spring to expand and move said needle cannula far enough into said cavity so that said distal end of said cannula is positioned proximally of said distal end of said outer hub. 23. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said release element includes a sharp distal edge (for dissociation of said outer flange from said inner flange by cutting action of said sharpened distal end). 24. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said cover element is a stopper having a side portion which contacts said inside surface of said barrel. 25. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said cover element further includes a projection extending distally outwardly from said cover element, sized and shaped to fit within inside said release element. 26. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said cover element is made of an elastomeric material selected from the group of thermoplastic elastomers, natural rubber, synthetic rubber and combinations thereof. 27. the syringe of claim 22 further including a flange on said proximal end of said plunger, said flange being shaped and positioned to be adjacent to said proximal end of said barrel when said plunger is in its distal-most position with respect to said barrel. 28. the syringe of claim 22 further including an elongated needle shield removably engaging said syringe and covering said needle cannula. 29. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said spring is a coil spring. 30. the syringe of claim 22 wherein said release element is made of metal. 31. an operable retracting needle syringe comprising: a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end and an open distal end; a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with said inside surface of said barrel, said plunger having a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in said distal end of said plunger, a cover element on said distal end of said plunger sealing said cavity; a needle assembly at said distal end of said barrel including a needle cannula having a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to said needle cannula so that said lumen is in fluid communication with said open proximal end of said hub and said chamber, a flange on said hub having a dissociable outer portion and an inner portion, an outer hub having a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough, said flange being connected to said proximal end of said outer hub so that said needle cannula projects distally outwardly from said distal end of said outer hub, a compressed spring contained between said inner hub and said said outer hub, means in said distal end of said barrel for cutting through said cover element and dissociating said outer portion of said flange from said inner portion of said flange for allowing said spring to expand and move said needle cannula far enough into said cavity so that said cannula is positioned proximally of said distal end of said outer hub. 32. the syringe of claim 31 wherein said cover element is a stopper having a side portion which contacts said inside surface of said barrel. 33. the syringe of claim 31 further including means for allowing the removal of said needle assembly from said barrel by rotational movement of said needle assembly with respect to said barrel. 34. the syringe of claim 31 further including a flange on said proximal end of said plunger, said flange being shaped and positioned to be adjacent to said proximal end of said barrel when said plunger is in its distal-most position with respect to said barrel.	retracting needle syringe field of the invention the present invention relates to syringes and needle assemblies. more particularly, the present invention relates to a syringe and needle assembly having structure allowing for the automatic withdrawal of the needle cannula into the syringe barrel after use. background in recent years there has developed an increased concern regarding the transfer of disease, infection or the like to syringe users and healthcare professionals who accidentally or through negligent handling stick themselves with hypodermic needles while disposing of used hypodermic needle containing products. in many areas in a hospital, where needle cannula products are used, disposal bins are provided so that a syringe or other needle cannula product may be immediately discarded in a safe rigid container. however, there are areas of medical practice, such as emergency rooms, where disposal containers may not be readily available or practical, and where products having self-contained safety features are desirable. in theory, after such a syringe is used to inject medication or for another purpose, a safety device contained within the syringe or needle assembly is activated to prevent further contact with the sharp needle tip. one type of safety syringe includes structure which allows the withdrawal of the hypodermic needle into the syringe barrel to minimize the chance of further contact with the sharp needle tip. one such prior art retractable needle syringe includes a frangible zone which allows the separation of the forward wall of the barrel, which is connected to the hypodermic needle, from the sidewall of the barrel. the syringe also contains structure on the interior of the forward wall and the exterior of the piston for selectively attaching the piston to the forward wall so that the user can forcibly twist the piston to break the frangible structure and draw the forward wall, including the hypodermic needle, into the syringe barrel. this design requires a compromise in the design of the syringe barrel. the barrel must be strong enough to remain intact during normal use yet weak enough to be sheared apart by any user regardless of strength. the prior art also includes retractable needle syringes. these syringes have structure that engages a needle carrier allowing the needle carrier to be forcibly disengaged from the syringe barrel, by action of the plunger rod, and withdrawn into the syringe barrel. many prior art retractable needle syringes have deficiencies similar to that described above. in particular, the needle or the needle carrier of the retractable needle syringe must be securely held by the syringe barrel during normal use which often includes substantial hydraulic pressures experienced during injection especially with highly viscous liquids, and forces including piercing rubber stoppers with medication vials. the syringe barrel must hold the needle carrier to a degree that it will not be overcome by the forces of normal use and will still be disengageable through forces applied to a plunger rod which extends from the open proximal end of the syringe barrel. many prior art retractable needle syringe designs when made with sufficient strength to withstand the forces of normal use have a needle carrier which cannot be easily disengaged. on the other hand, easy disengagement of the needle or the needle carrier can lead to a structure which may not withstand the forces of normal use. this is especially true with needle carriers which are structured to allow a needle assembly to be installed and removed so that the user can select the hypodermic needle size at the time of use. these syringes must also resist the high torque and forces of needle installation and removal. in addition, retractable needle syringes require a two-handed withdrawal procedure which increases the difficulty of use. the prior art also includes retracting needle syringes which include a spring loaded needle assembly which is held in position during normal use of the syringe assembly and a hollow plunger rod which is sealed during normal use of the syringe assembly so that medication may not enter the plunger rod cavity. these syringes must have structure to allow release of the spring loaded needle and the opening of the plunger rod cavity so that the needle may enter the plunger rod cavity after the syringe is used for its intended purpose. the retracting needle syringes have similar design problems as those recited hereinabove for retractable needle syringes. in particular, the cavity in the plunger rod must be sealed so that medication cannot enter the plunger rod during use. this seal must sometimes withstand high hydraulic pressures when injecting relatively viscous medication through small needles and still be capable of being easily unsealed and to allow access by the needle assembly. likewise, the needle assembly must be firmly held in place through the forces of injection and still be disengageable so that it may retract into the syringe barrel and into the plunger rod. some of the prior art retracting needle syringes use plugs to cover the plunger rod cavity leading to an arguably difficult situation since the plug may fail during the injection process. likewise, some use plugs to hold the needle assembly in place which can arguably become dislodged during use causing fear of the syringe. further, these designs do not allow for a replaceable needle assembly thus depriving the healthcare worker of the option of choosing the appropriate needle size for the injection or procedure being performed. although the prior art teaches many different retractable needle syringes and retracting needle syringes have the capacity to withdraw or allow the needle to enter the syringe barrel or the plunger rod there is still a need for a simple, straight-forward, reliable, easily fabricated retracting needle syringe having a well-sealed plunger rod cavity which can easily be unsealed at the time of needle retracting. there is also a need for a retracting needle syringe having adequate structural integrity to withstand the forces of injection and while the spring can still be easily and intentionally released to allow the needle assembly to enter the plunger rod cavity. there is also a need for a retracting needle syringe having replaceable spring-loaded needle assemblies to allow selecting the proper needle size at the time of use and to facilitate prefilling. summary of the invention the present invention relates to an operable retracting needle syringe including a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end and an open distal end. a plunger is slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with the inside surface of the barrel. the plunger has a distal end, a proximal end, an elongated cavity in the distal end of the plunger and a cover element at the distal end of the plunger sealing the cavity. a needle assembly at the distal end of the barrel includes a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough. an inner hub includes an open proximal end and a distal end connected to the proximal end of the needle cannula so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the open proximal end of the hub and the chamber in the barrel. the inner hub includes a flange. an outer hub has a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough. the flange of the inner hub is connected to the outer hub so that the needle cannula projects distally outwardly from the distal end of the outer hub. a compressed spring is contained between the inner hub and the distal end of the outer hub. a circular release element is movably connected to a proximal end of the flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of the flange from an inner portion of the flange. the release element has a distal end and a sharp proximal end projecting into the chamber of the barrel, wherein distal motion of the plunger with respect to the barrel will cause the sharp proximal end of the release element to contact and cut through the cover element and the distal end of the release element to dissociate the outer portion of the flange from the inner portion of the flange allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula far enough into the cavity so that the distal end of the cannula is positioned proximally of the distal end of the outer hub. another embodiment of the present invention includes an operable retracting needle assembly for use with a syringe assembly having a barrel with an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end, an open distal end, a circular collar at the distal end having a thread on its surface, a plunger slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with the inside surface of the barrel. the plunger has a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in the distal end of the plunger, and a cover element on the distal end of the plunger sealing the cavity. the needle assembly comprises a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen therethrough. an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to the proximal end of the needle cannula so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the open proximal end of the hub. a flange is positioned on the hub. an outer hub includes a proximal end, a distal end, and a passageway therethrough. the flange is connected to the outer hub so that the needle cannula projects distally outwardly from the distal end of the outer hub. a compressed spring is contained between the inner hub and the outer hub. a discontinuity on the outer hub is shaped to engage the thread on the circular collar so that the needle assembly may be connected and removed from the barrel by rotational movement of the needle assembly with respect to the barrel. a circular release element is movably connected to the proximal end of the flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of the flange from an inner portion of the flange. the release element has a distal end and a sharp proximal end which projects into the chamber of the barrel when the needle assembly is attached to the barrel. an elongated needle shield is removably engaged to the outer hub and covers the needle cannula. another embodiment of the present invention includes an operable retracting needle syringe comprising a barrel having an inside surface defining a chamber, an open proximal end, and an open distal end. a plunger is slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with the inside surface of the barrel. the plunger has a distal end and a proximal end, an elongated cavity in the distal end of the plunger, and a cover element on the distal end of the plunger sealing the cavity. a needle assembly at the distal end of the barrel includes a needle cannula having a proximal end, a distal end, and a lumen therethrough, an inner hub having an open proximal end and a distal end connected to the proximal end of the needle cannula so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the open proximal end of the hub and the chamber. the inner hub includes a flange. an outer hub connected to the distal end of the barrel has a proximal end, a distal end and a passageway therethrough. the flange is connected to the distal end of the barrel so that the needle cannula projects dismally outwardly from the distal end of the outer hub. a compressed spring is contained between the inner hub and the distal end of the outer hub. a circular release element is movably connected to a proximal end of the flange at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion of the flange from an inner portion of the flange. the release element has a distal end and a sharp proximal end projecting into the chamber, wherein distal motion of the plunger rod with respect to the barrel causes the sharp proximal end of the release element to contact and cut through the cover element and the distal end of the release element to dissociate the outer portion of the flange from the inner portion of the flange allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula far enough into the cavity so that the distal end of the needle cannula is positioned proximally of the distal end of the outer hub. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a perspective view of the retracting needle syringe of the present invention. fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the syringe of fig. 1. fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the syringe of fig. 1 taken along line 3-3. fig. 4 is the syringe of rg. 1 illustrating a replaceable needle assembly. fig. 5 is an enlarged partial cross-sectional view of the syringe of fig. 3. fig. 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the syringe of fig. 3 illustrating the cutting of the plunger cover. fig. 7 is an enlarged cross-sectional view illustrating the syringe of fig. 3 with the needle cannula retracted. fig. 8 is an alternative embodiment of the needle assembly of the present invention. fig. 9 is another alternative embodiment of the retracting needle syringe of the present invention. detailed description while this invention is satisfied by embodiments in many different forms, there are shown in the drawings and will be herein described in detail, preferred embodiments of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered exemplary of the principles of the invention and not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the embodiments illustrated. the scope of the invention will be measured by the appended claims and their equivalents. referring to figs. 1-7, an operable retracting needle syringe 20 includes a syringe assembly 21 having a barrel 22 and a plunger 29. the barrel includes inside surface 23 defining a chamber 24, an open proximal end 25 and an open distal end 26. the plunger is slidably positioned in fluid-tight engagement with inside surface 23 of the barrel. the plunger has a distal end 31, a proximal end 32 and an elongated cavity 34 in the distal end of the plunger. in this preferred embodiment, a stopper 35 is positioned on the distal end of the plunger and includes a cover element portion 37 and a sealing portion 38. it is preferred that the cover element 37 further include a projection 39 extending distally outwardly from the cover element. the function of projection 39 will be explained in more detail ' hereinafter. retracting needle syringe 20 also includes a needle assembly 40 at the distal end of the barrel. the needle assembly includes a needle cannula 41 having a proximal end 43, a distal end 44 and a lumen therethrough. an inner hub 46 includes an open proximal end 47 and a distal end 48 which is connected to the proximal end of the needle cannula so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the open proximal end of the hub and chamber 24 of the barrel. inner hub 46 also includes flange 50. an outer hub 56 includes a proximal end 57, a distal end 58 and a passageway 59 therethrough. in this preferred embodiment flange 50 is connected directly to outer hub 56 so that needle cannula 41 projects distally outwardly from distal end 58 of the outer hub. in this embodiment, flange 50 is connected to outer hub through a snap-fit arrangement wherein portions of the outside diameter of the hub are larger than the corresponding portions of the inside diameter of the outer hub so that during assembly the inner hub may be pressed to the outer hub and held there securely without additional elements or steps. however, the inner hub flange may be connected to the outer hub in many ways, either directly or indirectly, through the use of adhesives, welding, sheet metal retainers, intermediate elements and the like, and the snap fit arrangement illustrated in the preferred embodiment is merely representative of these many possibilities. a compressed spring 63 is contained between the inner hub and the distal end of the outer hub. the compressed spring in this embodiment is preferably a coil compression spring. other types of springs or elastomeric elements may be used to perform the spring function however a coil spring is preferred because of its compact size and the ability to easily design the spring to provide the forces necessary for the proper operation of the present invention. a circular release element 65 is movably connected to a proximal end 53 of flange 50 at a position which separates a dissociable outer portion 51 of the flange from an inner portion 52 of the flange. the release element includes a distal end 67 and a sharp proximal end 68 projecting into the chamber of the barrel. retracting needle syringe 20 preferably, but not necessarily, includes an elongated needle shield having an open proximal end 71, a distal end 73 and a sidewall 74 therebetween defining a recess 75 in the shield. the shield removably engages the syringe and covers the needle cannula. the shield helps protect the needle cannula from contamination before use. in this embodiment, the shield preferably frictionally engages portions of outer hub 56. however, it is within the purview of the present invention to provide a shield which engages portions of the syringe barrel. in this preferred embodiment, needle assembly 40 is removably attached to barrel 22. to accomplish this result, a circular collar 27 is positioned on the distal end of barrel 22 and includes a thread 28 on its surface which engages a discontinuity 61 on outer hub 56 so that the needle assembly may be removed from the barrel by rotational movement of the needle assembly with respect to the barrel. a wide variety of structures can be provided to allow the removal and attachment of the needle assembly to the barrel. the thread can be placed on the needle assembly and the discontinuity on the collar or both the needle assembly on the collar can have thread-like structures. in addition, the thread or discontinuity on the collar can be on the exterior of the collar and the needle assembly outer hub having an internal structure adapted to engage the external structure on the syringe barrel. a bayonet-type structure can also be provided to connect the needle assembly to the barrel. these structures are all within the purview of the present invention and the structure illustrated is merely representative of these many possibilities. it is an important feature of this embodiment of the present invention that the needle assembly is removably connected to the barrel. this allows the flexibility to interchange needles and syringes to obtain the appropriately sized needle and syringe combination for the desired drug type and injection site. in addition, the structure of the preferred embodiment allows the installation and removal of the needle assembly from the barrel using the same motions required for the installation and removal of the standard hypodermic needle from a standard hypodermic syringe so that no additional training is required for the healthcare worker. in use, the retracting needle syringe of the present invention can be filled using known methods such as withdrawing injectable liquid from a vial having a pierceable stopper. the syringe may then be used to inject liquid into a patient, an i.v. set, a catheter or other suitable delivery device. as best seen in figs. 5 and 6 projection 39 is provided on cover element 37 in order to help expel all of the liquid in the chamber. this is another important feature of the present invention since many prior art retractable and retracting needle syringes leave liquid in the barrel at the end of the injection process. projection 39 is sized and shaped to fit inside release element 65 so that the liquid contained in the volume described by that portion of the release element projecting into the chamber can be expelled through the lumen of the cannula. many prior art retracting and retractable needle syringes require an additional distal movement of the plunger to allow the withdrawal of the needle cannula into the barrel. the volume of the barrel swept by this additional motion is the volume of wasted medication which can also be expelled into the environment during the needle withdrawal process. after the liquid in the chamber is injected, the user can apply additional force to the proximal end of the plunger to move the plunger distally with respect to the barrel. this motion will cause the sharp proximal end 68 of release element 65 to contact and cut through cover element portion 37 to open the distal end of elongated cavity 34 so that the needle cannula may enter therein. in this preferred embodiment stopper 35 including cover element portion 37 is made of an elastomeric material selected from the group of thermoplastic elastomers, natural rubbers, synthetic rubber and combinations thereof. release element 65 is preferably made of a hard material which will hold its sharp edge long enough to cut through the cover element and, as would be explained hereinafter, the flange. a hard plastic may suffice however metal such as stainless steel is preferred. in the preferred embodiment, as best illustrated in fig. 5, length b of projection 39 is preferably greater than length c, the distance release element 65 projects into the chamber. accordingly, when the plunger is moved to its distal position as illustrated in fig. 6, projection 39 will be compressed and stretched adjacent areas of the cover element making them easier for the release element to cut. as the plunger is moved distally with respect to the barrel distal end 67 of the release element will dissociate the outer portion 51 of flange 50 from inner portion 52 of the flange allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula far enough into the elongated cavity of the plunger, as best illustrated in fig. 7, so that the distal end of the cannula is positioned proximally of the distal end of the outer hub. in this embodiment, the distal end of the release element includes a sharp distal edge so that the outer portion of the flange is preferably dissociated from the inner portion of the flange by the cutting action of the sharp distal edge of the release element through the thin section 54 of the flange which separates outer portion 51 from inner portion 52. it should be noted that reaction of the contact between the sharp distal edge of the release element and thin section 54 may be cutting, breaking or a combination of both. in this embodiment the release element is partially contained in circular groove 55 of flange 50. the circular groove and the release element are sized and shaped so that the released element is movably connected to the flange through contact of the release element with respect to the circular groove. the circular groove also provides for the thin section 54 which is preferably cut by the release element. although the release element is shown as a cylindrical metal element with sharp edges on both ends, the release element does not have to be a cylinder but may be a stepped element with the cutting edges having different diameters at each end. this will allow cutting a larger hole in the distal end of the plunger rod and a smaller dimension in the flange so that the flange will more easily fit in the elongated cavity of the plunger. this structure is one of the important advantages of the present invention over retracting and retractable needle syringes of the prior art. first, in the present invention, as opposed to many retractable needle syringes, the continued motion of the plunger with respect to the barrel is all that is needed to cause the needle assembly or the needle cannula to automatically retract into the syringe barrel. this is a simple one-handed continuation of the injection stroke and it is not a separate process involving rotation of the plunger and pulling the needle back into the barrel. also, many prior art designs rely on a balance of forces. for example, the distal end of the plunger rod is sealed with a plug which frictionally engages the plunger rod. in this instance, the plug must be secure enough to withstand a sometimes severe hydraulic pressures of injecting viscous medications through small needles and withdrawing the same medication into the syringe. at the same time the plug's connection to the plunger rod must be weak enough so that a person of ordinary strength can cause it to be dislodged at the end of the injection process. this balancing of forces is further complicated by long-term storage wherein the plastic parts will creep and change their size creating the possibility of the distal end of the plunger rod opening before the injection process is complete. this will cause the medication to enter the plunger rod and not the cannula. likewise, using plugs and other structures to hold the needle in an extended position raises the same issues. in the present invention, distal end of the plunger is securely sealed and the needle cannula is securely positioned in its extended position. at the end of the injection, the additional motion of the plunger rod allows the release element to cut through cover element and the flange. accordingly, both of these elements can be made much stronger than necessary for sustaining the integrity of the syringe assembly during the injection process and thus insuring against failure due to excessive or unexpected forces. at the end of the process the elements are cut to release them rather than being disengaged. accordingly, the present design allows for more secure structure for holding the needle cannula in its extended position and for sealing the plunger rod than many prior art structures. upon completion of the injection process and the cutting of the cover element and the dissociation of the outer portion of the flange the needle cannula will be propelled into the syringe barrel and plunger so that it no longer protrudes through the distal end of the outer hub. the syringe is now in a condition where it is safe for further handling to deliver to an appropriate disposal device. plunger 29 also includes flange 33 at its proximal end. as best illustrated in fig. 7, the flange is shaped and positioned to be adjacent to the proximal end of the barrel when the plunger is in its distal-most position with respect to the barrel. in this preferred embodiment the flange is preferably flush with or recessed within the proximal end of the barrel so that the user can no longer grab the flange and pull the plunger rod in a proximal direction. this is an important feature of the present invention and helps prevent tampering with the syringe after use and provides a clear indication to the healthcare worker that the syringe is used. the proximal end of the syringe barrel can also contain structure which allows the flange to pass thereby and lock in its distal-most position. in this embodiment, the proximal end of the barrel further includes discontinuities 30. when the plunger is pushed to its distal-most position with respect to the barrel and the needle cannula is released and positioned inside the plunger, flange 33 will be in position to engage discontinuities 30 which will lock the plunger in the barrel and prevent further motion of the plunger with respect to the barrel. fig. 8 illustrates an alternative embodiment of the needle assembly of the present invention. needle assembly 140 includes a needle cannula 141 connected to an inner hub 146 having an open proximal end 147 and a distal end 149 connected to proximal end 143 of the needle cannula so that lumen 145 of the needle cannula is in fluid communication with open proximal end 147. the inner hub also includes flange 150. an outer hub 156 includes a proximal end 157, a distal end 158 and a passageway 159 therethrough. the flange is connected to the proximal end of the outer hub so that the needle cannula projects distally outwardly from the distal end of the outer hub. a spring 163 is contained between the inner hub and the outer hub. a release element 165 is movably connected to the proximal end of flange 150 at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion 151 of the flange from an inner portion 152. the release element includes a sharp proximal end 168 and a distal end 167 which is less sharp than proximal end 168 or blunt. the needle assembly of this embodiment functions similarly to the needle assembly in the embodiment of figs. 1-7. when this needle assembly is connected to a syringe which has been used to inject liquid, further distal motion of the plunger with respect to the barrel will cause the sharp proximal end of the release element to contact and cut through the cover element on the plunger. also, the distal end of the release element will dissociate the outer portion of the flange from the inner portion of the flange for allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula into the plunger. in this embodiment, the dissociation of the outer portion of the flange from the inner portion bf the flange is caused by breaking thin frangible section 154 which separates the outer and the inner portions of the flange. accordingly, the flange material should be chosen to be relatively brittle and/or moldable into a thin cross-section which is easily fractured by forces transferred through the release element. fig. 9 illustrates another alternative embodiment of the present invention. this embodiment functions similarly to the embodiment of rgs. 1-7. however, this embodiment is structurally different. in this embodiment, a retracting needle syringe 220 includes a syringe barrel 222 having an inside surface 223 defining a chamber 224. a plunger 229 is positioned in fluid-tight engagement with the inside surface of the barrel. the plunger includes a distal end 231 and an elongated cavity 234 in the distal end. a cover element 237 on the distal end of the plunger seals the cavity. this cover element can be a separate element attached to the distal end of the plunger or it can be integrally molded and formed with the plunger such as through injection molding. a separate element covering the end of the plunger is preferred. plunger 229 also includes a stopper element in the form of o-ring 230 or other structure which provides for the fluid-tight engagement between the plunger and the inside surface of the barrel. other structure to provide fluid-tight engagement can include the plunger itself without any intermediate element. a needle assembly 240 at the distal end of the barrel includes a needle cannula 241 having a proximal end 243, a distal end 244 and a lumen therethrough. an inner hub 246 has an open proximal end 247 and a distal end 249 connected to the proximal end of the needle cannula 241 so that the lumen is in fluid communication with the open proximal end of the hub and the chamber. the inner hub also includes a flange 250. an outer hub 256 is connected to distal end 226 of the barrel and includes a proximal end 257, a distal end 258 and a passageway 259 therethrough. flange 250 is connected to distal end 226 of the barrel so that the needle cannula projects distally outwardly from the distal end of the outer hub. in the embodiment of figs. 1-7 the flange on the inner hub is connected directly to the outer hub. in this embodiment, the flange on the inner hub is connected indirectly to the outer hub through the distal end of the syringe barrel. a spring 263 is contained between the inner hub and the distal end of the outer hub. a release element 265 is movably connected to a proximal end of flange 250 at a location which separates a dissociable outer portion 251 of the flange from an inner portion 252. the release element includes a sharp distal end 267 and a sharp proximal end 268. in this embodiment, the outer hub engages the distal end of the barrel through a snap fit arrangement, and the needle assembly is not intended to be removable from the barrel. also, the inner hub can be integrally formed with the barrel during the time of injection molding of the barrel with the release element being an insert in the molding process. as with the embodiment of figs. 1-7 distal motion of the plunger with respect that the barrel will cause the sharp proximal end of the release element to contact and cut through cover element 237 and the distal end of the release element will separate the outer portion and the inner portion allowing the spring to expand and move the needle cannula far enough into the cavity of the plunger so that the distal end of the cannula is positioned proximally of the distal end of the outer hub.
184-957-845-165-012	US	[ "WO", "JP", "EP", "US" ]	B32B5/14,B82B1/00,B82B3/00,B82Y30/00,B82Y40/00,C01B32/05,C01B32/16,C01B32/168,C01B32/17,D01F9/12,D02G3/22,B32B5/26,C01B31/02,D03D15/00,B32B5/02,D02G3/02,D04H13/00	2010-12-01T00:00:00	2010	[ "B32", "B82", "C01", "D01", "D02", "D03", "D04" ]	articles and methods related to the formation of nanostructure reinforced structures	nanostructure reinforced articles and related systems and methods are generally described.	claims 1. an article, comprising: a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of fibers has an average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure, wherein at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures have lengths of at least about 5 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers. 2. an article, comprising: a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that all ends of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. 3. an article, comprising: a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that the longitudinal axes of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. 4. an article, comprising: a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that the lengths of the elongated nanostructures span at least 2 fibers. 5. an article, comprising: a first fiber having a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; a second fiber having a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer and a second longitudinal axis; and an elongated nanostructure and/or a bundle of elongated nanostructures positioned between the first and second fibers such that the elongated nanostructure and/or assembly of elongated nanostructures are in contact with the first fiber and the second fiber. 6. a method of making an article, comprising: associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein: each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, the plurality of fibers has an average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions, and at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures have lengths of at least about 5 times the average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers. 7. a method of making an article, comprising: associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein: each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that all ends of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. 8. a method of making an article, comprising: associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein: each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that the longitudinal axes of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. 9. a method of making an article, comprising: associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein: each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that the lengths of the elongated nanostructures span at least 2 fibers. 10. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the fibers are arranged as tows of fibers. 11. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the fibers are woven. 12. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the elongated nanostructures are arranged as a plurality of strips of elongated nanostructures. 13. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the fibers comprise carbon, a1 2 0 3 , si0 2 , glass, basalt, a cellulosic material, a metal, and/or a polymer. 14. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the nanostructures comprise nanotubes, nanofibers, and/or nanowires. 15. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the nanostructures comprise carbon-based nanostructures. 16. an article or method as in claim 15, wherein the carbon-based nanostructures comprise carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, and/or carbon nanowires. 17. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures have an aspect ratio of at least about 10: 1. 18. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least about 50% of the fibers have an aspect ratio of at least about 10: 1. 19. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures are substantially aligned. 20. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of at least a portion of the fibers are substantially aligned. 21. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the smallest angle defined by the longitudinal axes of the aligned elongated nanostructures and the longitudinal axes of the adjacent aligned fibers is between about 45° and about 90°. 22. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein a binding material is present between the fibers, between the nanostructures, and/or between the fibers and the nanostructures. 23. an article or method as in claim 22, wherein the binding material comprises at least one of a monomer, a polymer, a ceramic, and a metal. 24. an article or method as in claim 23, wherein the binding material comprises at least one of an epoxy, a polyurethane, polyvinyl alcohol, and a silane. 25. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures are substantially straight. 26. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures are bent and/or curved. 27. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of the fibers are substantially straight. 28. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the longitudinal axes of the fibers are bent and/or curved. 29. an article or method as in any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures include longitudinal axes arranged such that the majority of the lengths of the longitudinal axes are tangential to the fibers with which the elongated nanostructures are in contact. 30. an article as in claim 5, wherein the elongated nanostructure and/or bundle of elongated nanostructures are in direct contact with the first fiber and the second fiber. 31. an article as in any one of claims 5 and 30, wherein a longitudinal axis of at least one of the elongated nanostructures is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the first fiber and/or the longitudinal axis of the second fiber. 32. an article as in any one of claims 5 and 30-31, wherein the longitudinal axis of the first fiber is substantially orthogonal to the longitudinal axis of the second fiber. 33. an article as in any one of claims 5 and 30-32, wherein the first fiber and the second fiber are part of a woven fabric or a non- woven fabric.	articles and methods related to the formation of nanostructure reinforced structures related applications this application claims priority under 35 u.s.c. § 119(e) to u.s. provisional patent application serial no. 61/418,784, filed december 1, 2010, and entitled "articles and methods related to the formation of nanostructure reinforced structures," which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. technical field nanostructure reinforced structures and related systems and methods are generally described. background elongated nanostructures can be used to enhance the structural properties of materials. for example, carbon nanotubes can be used in composites, which are heterogeneous structures comprising two or more components, the combination taking advantage of the individual properties of each component as well as synergistic effects if relevant. larger scale fibers, such as carbon fibers, have also been used for similar purposes. for example, composites can also be made by arranging larger scale fibers (e.g., carbon fibers) within a binding material. however, many structures including carbon nanotubes and/or larger scale fibers have deficient mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical properties. accordingly, improved materials and methods are desirable. summary articles and methods related to the formation of nanostructure reinforced structures are provided. the subject matter of the present invention involves, in some cases, interrelated products, alternative solutions to a particular problem, and/or a plurality of different uses of one or more systems and/or articles. in one aspect, articles are provided. in certain embodiments, the article comprises a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of fibers has an average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure, wherein at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures have lengths of at least about 5 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers. in some embodiments, the article comprises a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that all ends of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. the article comprises, in certain embodiments, a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that the longitudinal axes of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. in some embodiments, the article comprises a plurality of fibers, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; and a plurality of elongated nanostructures arranged in association with the plurality of fibers to form a cohesive structure such that the lengths of the elongated nanostructures span at least 2 fibers. in certain embodiments, the article comprises a first fiber having a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer; a second fiber having a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer and a second longitudinal axis; and an elongated nanostructure and/or a bundle of elongated nanostructures positioned between the first and second fibers such that the elongated nanostructure and/or assembly of elongated nanostructures are in contact with the first fiber and the second fiber. in one aspect, a method of making an article is described. the method comprises, in certain embodiments, associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, the plurality of fibers has an average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions, and at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures have lengths of at least about 5 times the average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers. in some embodiments, the method comprises associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that all ends of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. the method comprises, in some embodiments, associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that the longitudinal axes of at least about 50% of the elongated nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. in certain embodiments, the method comprises associating a plurality of fibers and a plurality of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein each of the plurality of fibers has a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the plurality of elongated nanostructures are arranged between the plurality of fibers such that the lengths of the elongated nanostructures span at least 2 fibers. in some embodiments, the method comprises associating a first fiber, a second fiber, and an elongated nanostructure and/or a bundle of elongated nanostructures with each other to form a cohesive structure, wherein each of the first fiber and the second fiber has a smallest cross-sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, and the elongated nanostructure and/or bundle of elongated nanostructures are positioned between the first and second fibers such that the elongated nanostructure and/or assembly of elongated nanostructures are in contact with the first fiber and the second fiber. other advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of various non-limiting embodiments of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying figures. in cases where the present specification and a document incorporated by reference include conflicting and/or inconsistent disclosure, the present specification shall control. brief description of the drawings non-limiting embodiments of the present invention will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying figures, which are schematic and are not intended to be drawn to scale. in the figures, each identical or nearly identical component illustrated is typically represented by a single numeral. for purposes of clarity, not every component is labeled in every figure, nor is every component of each embodiment of the invention shown where illustration is not necessary to allow those of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention. in the figures: fig. 1 is an exemplary schematic illustration of a portion of an article comprising an arrangement of fibers and elongated nanostructures, according to one set of embodiments; figs. 2a-2b are exemplary perspective and cross-sectional schematic illustrations of a fuzzy fiber composite article; figs. 3a-3c are exemplary schematic illustrations of arrangements of elongated nanostructures and fibers, according to some embodiments; figs. 4a-4b are, according to certain embodiments, schematic illustrations of arrangements of elongated nanostructures and fibers; figs. 5a-5m are schematic illustrations of arrangements of elongated nanostructures and fibers, according to some embodiments; figs. 6a-6d are (a) an exemplary schematic illustration of an assembly of carbon nanotubes and carbon fibers and (b-d) exemplary scanning electron microscrope (sem) images of a fractured composite comprising a plurality of carbon nanotubes (cnts) and a plurality of carbon fibers, infused with a polymeric binder; figs. 7a-7f are, according to some embodiments, (a) an exemplary schematic illustration of an assembly of carbon nanotubes and carbon fibers, (b) a photograph of carbon fiber assemblies, (c) a schematic illustration of an electronic testing arrangement and corresponding results, (d) a photograph of a mechanical testing apparatus, (e) exemplary plots of flexural modulus and strength, and (f) exemplary sem images of fractured composite structures; and figs. 8a-8b are, according to one set of embodiments, (a) a schematic illustration of a resin application apparatus and (b) exemplary sem images of fractured composite structures. detailed description nano structure reinforced structures and related systems and methods are generally described. in some embodiments, a plurality of fibers (e.g., carbon fibers, glass fibers, etc.) can be associated with a plurality of elongated nanostructures (e.g., carbon nanotubes) to form a cohesive structure. in some embodiments, the plurality of fibers can have a first scale (e.g., having smallest cross- sectional dimensions of at least about 1 micrometer) and the elongated nanostructures can have a second, relatively small scale (e.g., having largest cross-sectional diameters of less than about 100 nanometers). the elongated nanostructures can be arranged between and/or around the fibers in a variety of configurations, for example, by stacking, weaving, winding, bending, or otherwise arranging the nanostructures and fibers such that they are associated with each other to form the cohesive structure. in some embodiments, the fibers and elongated nanostructures can be arranged such that they form 3-dimensional architectures. for example, elongated nanostructures can be incorporated into the spaces between collimated or woven fibers to form composite tows, laminae, and/or laminates. in some embodiments, a binding material (e.g., a polymeric material such as an epoxy) can be added to the cohesive structure to form, for example, a composite material. the plurality of nanostructures and/or fibers (and/or sub-portions of the plurality of nanostructures and fibers) may be provided such that their longitudinal axes are substantially aligned and, in some cases, continuous from end to end of the sample. the elongated nanostructures can be arranged such that all ends of a majority of the nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. in some cases, the elongated nanostructures can be arranged such that the longitudinal axes of a majority of the nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. the presence of the elongated nanostructures can impart advantageous mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical properties to and/or enhance the mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical properties of the cohesive structure, relative to the mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical properties that would be observed in the absence of the nanostructures but under otherwise essentially identical conditions. for example, incorporating elongated nanostructures into the cohesive structure might enhance the fracture toughness, yield strength, electrical conductivity, and/or thermal conductivity of the cohesive structure. advantageously, the elongated nanostructures within the articles described herein can be relatively long, e.g., as measured relative to the thicknesses of fibers, plies, and/or laminates within the structure. for example, in some embodiments, one or more of the elongated nanostructures can have a length of at least about 5 times the average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers within the article. in some embodiments, elongated nanostructures can be wrapped around fibers and/or groups of fibers, and/or can extend through groups of fibers. the elongated nanostructures, in certain embodiments, do not extend radially from the fibers within the composite article, as might be observed, for example, in a fuzzy-fiber where elongated nanostructures are grown from the surface of a fiber. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures and the fibers can be produced separately and assembled to form the article (e.g., a composite article) under relatively benign conditions (e.g., at room temperature and/or pressure). thus, in some such embodiments, the conditions under which the elongated nanostructures are grown, under which fibers are formed, and/or under which binding materials are added (which can include, for example, exposure to high temperatures, reactive chemicals, high pressures, and the like) do not impact the structural integrity of the nanostructures, fibers, and/or binding material. the various architectures described herein can also be realized using processes consistent with many forms of advanced composite processing such as prepregging, tape-pregging, tow spreading, infusion, resin transfer molding (rtm), hand lay-up, resin film infusion (rfi), and the like. the fibers and elongated nanostructures described herein can also be assembled such that their spacing is specifically tailored, for example, to selectively reinforce specific regions within the assembled article (e.g., a composite article). fig. 1 is an exemplary schematic illustration of a portion 100 of an article comprising an arrangement of fibers 110 and elongated nanostructures 112. it should be understood that, in all of the embodiments described herein, wherever single fibers and single elongated nanostructures are described or illustrated in the figures, any single fiber can be replaced by bundles of fibers and/or any single elongated nanostructure can be replaced by bundles of elongated nanostructures. that is to say, single fibers, and/or bundles of fibers (including strips of fibers, tows of fibers, yarns of fibers, and the like) can all be interchanged; and/or single nanostructures and/or bundles of nanostructures (including strips of nanostructures, tows of nanostructures, yarns of nanostructures, and the like) can all be interchanged, depending on the particular application. for example, referring to fig. 1, in some embodiments, any of fibers 110 can be replaced with a bundle of fibers (e.g., tens of fibers, hundreds of fibers, thousands of fibers, etc.), which can be arranged in a tow, a strip, a yarn, or any other suitable configuration. in some embodiments, any of elongated nanostructures 112 can be replaced with a bundle of elongated nanostructures (e.g., tens of elongated nanostructures, hundreds of nanostructures, thousands of nanostructures, etc.) which can be arranged in a tow, a strip, a yarn, or any other suitable configuration. generally, a bundle of objects (e.g., elongated nanostructures, fibers) includes a plurality of the objects arranged with each other such that they are in contact with at least one other member of the bundle, with or without auxiliary adhesive, i.e., without an adhesive that would not be inherently present in or on the objects of the bundle. in certain embodiments, the bundle of objects can itself form a cohesive structure. for example, in certain embodiments, a bundle of elongated nanostructures can include a plurality of nanostructures that are entangled with each other (e.g., and, optionally, having longitudinal axes that are substantially aligned with each other) such that the plurality of nanostructures forms a cohesive structure. as another example, a bundle of fibers can include a plurality of fibers that are entangled with each other such that they form a cohesive structure. specific examples of bundles of objects include, but are not limited to, strips, tows, yarns, and the like. in certain embodiments in which elongated structures form the bundle, the elongated structures within the bundle can be in contact with at least one other elongated structure in the bundle along substantially the entire lengths of the longitudinal axes of the elongated structures within the bundle. for example, in some embodiments, the bundle comprises a tow of elongated nanostructures arranged such that the nanostructures extend from one end of the tow to the other, and each of the nanostructures is in contact with at least one other nanostructure within the tow. similarly, the bundle could comprise a tow of fibers arranged such that the fibers extend from one end of the tow to the other, and each of the fibers is in contact with at least one other fiber within the tow. in certain embodiments, a bundle of objects (e.g., elongated nanostructures, fibers) can be arranged in a strip. generally, a strip includes a relatively thin thickness and a relatively long length and width. in certain embodiments, a strip of elongated nanostructures or fibers can include a thickness, a first dimension orthogonal to the thickness, and the second dimension orthogonal to the thickness and the first dimension, wherein the first and second dimensions are at least about five times, at least about 10 times, at least about 50 times, or at least about 100 times longer than the thickness. in certain embodiments, at least one of the first and second dimensions is at least about 50 times, at least about 100 times, at least about 500 times, or at least about 1000 times longer than the thickness of the strip. in certain embodiments, the components (e.g., elongated nanostructures or fibers) within the strip can be substantially aligned along a direction of the strip. for example, in certain embodiments, elongated nanostructures or fibers can be substantially aligned along the longest dimension of the strip, or they can be substantially aligned along a dimension orthogonal to the thickness and the longest dimension of the strip. a bundle of objects (e.g., elongated nanostructures, fibers) can also be arranged in a tow or a yarn, in certain embodiments. generally, a tow refers to a bundle in which a plurality of substantially continuous filaments (e.g., elongated nanostructures or fibers arranged side by side) are arranged to form an elongated bundle. generally, a yarn refers to a bundle in which a plurality of substantially discontinuous filaments (e.g., elongated nanostructures or fibers that are arranged side by side and/or end to end) are arranged to form an elongated bundle. the discontinuous filaments within a yarn can be held together in a cohesive structure, for example, by twisting or otherwise entangling the discontinuous filaments. the longitudinal axes of the filaments within a tow and/or a yarn can be arranged such that they are substantially parallel to the length of the tow and/or the yarn. in certain embodiments, a tow and/or a yarn can be configured such that it has a relatively long length in one direction and is relatively short in directions orthogonal to length. for example, in certain embodiments, a tow and/or a yarn can have a length that is at least about 10 times, at least about 50 times, at least about 100 times, or least about 1000 times the maximum cross- sectional dimension of the tow and/or yarn. in certain embodiments, yarns and/or tows of fibers and/or elongated nanostructures can be woven, stacked, or otherwise assembled to form fabrics such as woven or non-woven fabrics. in some such embodiments, fibers (e.g., single fibers and/or bundles of fibers) can be assembled to form a fabric, and elongated nanostructures (e.g., single elongated nanostructures and/or bundles of elongated nanostructures) can be positioned among and between the fibers to provide structural support and/or enhanced electrical conductivity. in certain embodiments, the elongated nanostructures and the fibers can be arranged in association with each other such that they form a cohesive structure. generally, cohesive structures are structures that can be bent, moved, or otherwise manipulated without falling apart. for example, fibers and elongated nanostructures can form a cohesive structure when they are spatially arranged relative to each other such that the fibers and/or nanostructures do not substantially disassociate from each other when the structure is bent, moved, or otherwise manipulated. in some embodiments, components (e.g., fibers and/or elongated nanostructures) of a cohesive structure can be held together by weaving, entanglement, or otherwise arranging the components such that frictional forces keep them together. the components of a cohesive structure can be held together by forces stronger than van der waals forces, in certain embodiments. for example, in some embodiments, the components of the cohesive structure can be held together by covalent bonds and/or by adhesive forces (e.g., using a binder). while the elongated nanostructures illustrated in fig. 1 are shown as being completely aligned without entanglement, the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures could be entangled in certain embodiments. in addition, while the fibers illustrated in fig. 1 are not entangled, the longitudinal axes of the fibers could be entangled in certain embodiments. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures are in direct contact with the fibers, while in other embodiments, one or more materials can be positioned between the elongated nanostructures and the fibers. for example, in certain embodiments, the elongated nanostructures and the fibers can be in direct contact such that the nanostructures tangentially contact the fibers, as illustrated in fig. 1. in other embodiments, a binding material can be positioned between the elongated nanostructures and the fibers. for example, the fibers can be part of a prepreg material, in which case a binding material within the prepreg can be positioned between the elongated nanostructures and the fibers. in certain embodiments, a relatively large number of the elongated nanostructures (e.g., at least about 50%, at least about 75%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures) within a cohesive structure can be positioned such that the shortest distance between the nanostructure and a fiber is less than about 10 times, less than about 5 times, or less than about 2 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the fibers within the structure. the fibers described herein can comprise elongated structures with aspect ratios of at least about 5: 1, at least about 10: 1, at least about 50: 1, at least about 100: 1, at least about 1000: 1, or larger. the fibers can be made out of a variety of suitable materials. for example, in certain embodiments, the fibers comprise carbon, a polymer, an aluminum oxide, a silicon oxide, a cellulosic material, basalt, and/or a metal. the fibers described herein can have relatively large cross- sectional dimensions. in some embodiments, each of the plurality of fibers within an article can have a smallest cross- sectional dimension of at least about 1 micrometer, at least about 5 micrometers, or at least about 10 micrometers. as used herein, the "smallest cross- sectional dimension" of a structure refers to the smallest distance between two opposed boundaries of an individual structure that may be measured. in some embodiments, the average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers can be at least about 1 micrometer, at least about 5 micrometers, or at least about 10 micrometers. the "average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions" of a plurality of structures refers to the number average. as used herein, the term "elongated nanostructure" refers to elongated chemical structures having a diameter less than about 100 nanometers and a length resulting in an aspect ratio greater than about 10, greater than about 100, greater than about 1000, greater than about 10,000, or greater. one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that elongated nanostructures can be single molecules (e.g., in the case of some nanotubes) or can include multiple molecules bound to each other (e.g., in the case of some nanofibers). in some cases, the elongated nanostructure may have a maximum cross- sectional diameter of less than about 100 nm, less than about 50 nm, less than about 25 nm, less than about 10 nm, or, in some cases, less than about 1 nm. a "maximum cross- sectional diameter" of an elongated nanostructure, as used herein, refers to the largest diameter between two points on opposed outer boundaries of the elongated nanostructure, as measured perpendicular to the length of the elongated nanostructure (e.g., the length of a carbon nanotube). the "average of the maximum cross- sectional diameters" of a plurality of structures refers to the number average. the elongated nanostructure can have a cylindrical or pseudo-cylindrical shape. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructure can be a nanotube, such as a carbon nanotube. other examples of elongated nanostructures include, but are not limited to, nanofibers and nanowires. in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, the plurality of fibers have relatively large cross-sectional dimensions, compared to the cross-sectional dimensions of the elongated nanostructures. in some embodiments, the fibers described herein can have smallest cross- sectional dimensions that are at least about 10 times, at least about 50 times, or at least about 100 times larger than the maximum cross- sectional diameters of the elongated nanostructures within the assembled article. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can be relatively long, for example, relative to the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the fibers. referring back to the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, the lengths 113 of elongated nanostructures 112 can be substantially longer than the smallest cross-sectional dimension of the fibers (illustrated as dimension 114 for the bottom fiber). in some embodiments, at least a portion of the elongated nanostructures can have a length of at least about 5 times, at least about 10 times, at least about 50 times, at least about 100 times, at least about 500 times, or at least about 1000 times the average of the smallest cross-sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers (and, in certain embodiments, lengths of less than about 10 15 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers). in some embodiments, at least about 25%, at least about 50%, at least about 75%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures within a structure can have a length of at least about 5 times, at least about 10 times, at least about 50 times, at least about 100 times, at least about 500 times, or at least about 1000 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers (and, in certain embodiments, lengths of less than about 10 15 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers). in some cases, relatively short elongated nanostructures can be included in the articles described herein. for example, in some embodiments, the articles can include elongated nanostructures with lengths that are less than about 5 times, less than about 2 times, less than about 1 time, or less than about 0.5 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the plurality of fibers. as a specific example, in some embodiments, the articles or structures described herein can include a mix of relatively long elongated nanostructures (e.g., having any distribution of lengths described elsewhere) and relatively short elongated nanostructures (e.g., having any distribution of lengths described elsewhere). in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can be arranged within the article such that they do not extend radially outward from the fibers, as might be observed in "fuzzy fiber" composite articles such as those illustrated in fig. 2a (a perspective-view schematic illustration) and fig. 2b (a cross-sectional schematic illustration). by orienting the elongated nanostructures such that they do not extend radially outward from the fibers, relatively long elongated nanostructures can be used. in addition, the elongated nanostructures can assume a wide variety of positions relative to those that can be achieved when the elongated nanostructures extend radially outward from the fibers. in some embodiments, the plurality of elongated nanostructures within an article can be arranged such that all ends of at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures are not in direct contact with any adjacent fibers. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, elongated nanostructures 112 include two ends 116, and each of ends 116 of each of elongated nanostructures 112 are not in direct contact with any of fibers 110. in contrast, in fig. 2b, ends 116 of nanostructures 112 are in contact with fibers 110. in certain embodiments in which the elongated nanostructures comprise more than two ends (e.g., three ends in the case of an elongated nanostructure in which one of the terminal portions is bifurcated), each of the more than two ends can be free of contact with fibers. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can be arranged such that their longitudinal axes do not intersect adjacent fibers within the article. as used herein, a "longitudinal axis" refers to an imaginary line that includes the geometric center of the cross-section of the base of the elongated nanostructure and the geometric center of the cross-section of the tip of the elongated nanostructure, and continues beyond the ends of the elongated nanostructure in a direction corresponding to the tangent of the curvature of the elongated nanostructure at its end. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, elongated nanostructures 112 include longitudinal axes 120 (illustrated as dotted lines). one of ordinary skill in the art would understand the term geometric center and how to measure the geometric center of the cross-sections of the base and the tip of a elongated nanostructure. in some embodiments, the plurality of elongated nanostructures within an article can be arranged such longitudinal axes of at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures do not intersect any adjacent fibers. in some embodiments, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures within the article or structure include longitudinal axes arranged such that the majority of the length of the longitudinal axis (e.g., at least about 50%, at least about 75%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, or at least about 99% of the length of the longitudinal axis within the nano structure) is tangential to the fibers with which the elongated nanostructure is in closest proximity (e.g., in contact with). i.e., in this embodiment, the longitudinal axes of this set of nanostructures do not intersect fibers in closest proximity. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, each of elongated nanostructures 112 includes a longitudinal axis 120 that, along its entire length, is tangential to fibers 110 (with which nanostructures 112 are in contact). in contrast, in figs. 2a-2b, each of nanostructures 112 includes a longitudinal axis that intersects at least one fiber 110; each of nanostructures 112 includes one end in contact with a fiber (resulting in a first intersection between the longitudinal axis of the elongated nanostructure and a first fiber), and in many cases, the nanostructures include opposite ends that are pointed toward the bulk of another fiber (resulting in a second intersection between the longitudinal axis of the elongated nanostructure and a second fiber). thus, none of elongated nanostructures 112 in figs. 2a-2b are tangential to fibers 110. in some embodiments, the longitudinal axis of a fiber and/or of elongated nanostructures may be a substantially straight line. for example, longitudinal axes 120 of elongated nanostructures 112 in fig. 1 are substantially straight lines. it should be understood, however, that in some embodiments, the longitudinal axis of a fiber and/or of an elongated nanostructure can be curved or bent. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in figs. 5b-5d (which are described in detail elsewhere herein), elongated nanostructures 112 include longitudinal axes that are bent in an l- shape. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can be substantially longer than the spaces between adjacent fibers within the article or structure. accordingly, the lengths of the elongated nanostructures can span multiple fibers within the structure. a length of an elongated nanostructure is said to span a fiber when the length of the nano structure crosses a first plane tangent to a first side of the fiber and a second plane, parallel to the first plane, tangent to a second side of the fiber opposite the first side. in some embodiments, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the elongated nanostructures within a structure (e.g., a composite structure) span at least about 2, at least about 5, at least about 10, at least about 50, at least about 100, at least about 1000, at least about 10,000, at least about 100,000 or at least about 1,000,000 fibers within the structure. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, the longitudinal axes 120 of each of elongated nanostructures 112 span three fibers 110. figs. 3a-3b include schematic illustrations outlining an exemplary process of assembling elongated nanostructures and fibers. in this set of embodiments, elongated nanostructures (e.g., carbon nanotubes) are grown on growth substrate 310 and arranged in rows. the nanostructures can be arranged in rows by, for example, depositing a growth catalyst on the growth substrate and patterning the catalyst (e.g., using photolithography, screen printing, or any other suitable method) such that it forms rows on the growth substrate. upon growing the nanostructures using the catalyst (e.g., via chemical vapor deposition), rows of nanostructures corresponding to the rows of catalyst can be formed. of course, elongated nanostructures can be grown in rows using other suitable methods. for example, in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can be grown as a substantially evenly distributed forest, and the nanostructures can be repositioned in rows by applying a first external force to the sides of the nanostructures, which can compress adjacent nanostructures closer together, resulting in the formation of rows. in some embodiments, a second external force (orthogonal to the first external force) can be applied to the nanostructures to form bundles of nanostructures. systems and methods for growing nanostructures (e.g., aligned nanostructures) are described, for example, in international patent application serial no. pct/us2007/011914, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as wo 2007/136755 on november 29, 2007; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/227,516, filed november 19, 2008, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as us 2009/0311166 on december 17, 2009; international patent application serial no. pct/us07/11913, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "nano structure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2008/054541 on may 8, 2008; international patent application serial no. pct/us2008/009996, filed august 22, 2008, entitled "nanostructure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2009/029218 on march 5, 2009; u.s. patent application serial no. 11/895,621, filed august 24, 2007, entitled "nanostructure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as us 2008/0075954 on march 27, 2008, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. referring back to figs. 3a-3b, once the nanostructures have been arranged in rows, fibers can be inserted between the nanostructures. fibers can be inserted between the nanostructures using any suitable process, for example, by manual insertion or by using an automated system. in fig. 3b, fibers 110 have been arranged such that their longitudinal axes extend within the trenches between nanostructures 112. as mentioned elsewhere, fibers 110 can be of any suitable form factor (e.g., a fiber fabric, a fiber tow, a unidirectional cloth, etc.). in some embodiments, after the fibers have been assembled between the nanostructures, the nano structure/fiber architecture can be released from the growth substrate. before or after the nano structure/fiber architecture is released, a binding material (e.g., comprising a polymer such as an epoxy) can be dispersed between the nanostructures and the fibers using any suitable procedure (e.g., capillarity wetting, resin infusion transfer molding (rtm), hand lay-up, oxidative-cvd (o-cvd), initiated- cvd (i-cvd), etc.). in some embodiments, after the fibers and nanostructures have been assembled, an external force can be applied to the assembly to spatially densify the nanostructures and the fibers. in some instances, an external force can be applied to the assembly to spatially densify the nanostructures and the fibers before and/or after a binding material is added to the assembly to form a composite. while the embodiments illustrated in figs. 3a-3b illustrate articles in which the nanostructures are arranged in rows, it should be understood that other arrangements are also possible. for example, in some embodiments, the nanostructures can be arranged in rows and columns of nanostructure bundles, and the fibers can be arranged within the spaces between the rows and/or columns of nanostructure bundles. fig. 3c includes an exemplary top-view schematic illustration of one such set of embodiments. in fig. 3c, nanostructures 112 have been arranged in a 3x4 matrix, and fibers 110 have been arranged such that they lie within the spaces formed between the nanostructures. while assembly of nanostructures grown on a growth substrate has been illustrated in figs. 3a-3b, it should be understood that, in other embodiments, the nanostructures can be removed from the growth substrate after they are formed but prior to being assembled with the fibers or the nanostructures. for example, in certain embodiments, nanostructures (e.g., rows, sheets, yarns, tows, etc.) can be removed from substrate 310 and subsequently assembled with fibers 110 (to assume any form factor described herein) in the absence of a substrate. the act of removing the nanostructures can comprise transferring the nanostructures directly from the surface of a growth catalyst or growth substrate to a surface of a receiving substrate. in some embodiments, the act of removing the nanostructures can comprise application of a force with a mechanical tool, mechanical or ultrasonic vibration, a chemical reagent, heat, or other sources of external energy, to the nanostructures, the growth catalyst, and/or the surface of the growth substrate. in some cases, the nanostructures may be removed by application of compressed gas, for example. in some cases, the nanostructures may be removed (e.g., detached) and collected in bulk, without attaching the nanostructures to a receiving substrate, and the nanostructures may remain in their original or "as-grown" orientation and conformation (e.g., in an aligned "forest") following removal from the growth substrate. systems and methods for removing nanostructures from a substrate, or for transferring nanostructures from a first substrate to a second substrate, are described in international patent application serial no. pct/us2007/011914, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," and u.s. patent application serial no. 12/618,203, filed on november 13, 2009, entitled "controlled-orientation films and nanocomposites including nanotubes or other nanostructures," published as u.s. patent publication no. 2010/0196695, on august 5, 2010, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. in some embodiments, the nanostructures can be produced without the use of a growth substrate and assembled with the fibers (e.g., as individuated nanostructures, bundles of nanostructures, strips of nanostructures, or in other forms) in the absence of a substrate. fig. 1 illustrates a set of embodiments in which a strip of elongated nanostructures (or a strip of bundles of elongated nanostructures) are arranged adjacent a strip of fibers (or a strip of bundles of fibers). however, other arrangements are also possible. for example, in some embodiments, interlaminar, intralaminar, inter-tow, inter- fiber, and inter- fibergroup architectures can be produced using the methods described herein. in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 4a, a single fiber (or a single bundle of fibers) are arranged adjacent a row of elongated nanostructures (or a row of nanostructure bundles). in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 4b, the fibers are arranged in a 3x3 matrix and positioned adjacent a row of elongated nanostructures. in some embodiments in which the elongated nanostructures are used for interlaminar reinforcement, the elongated nanostructures can cross the interlaminar interface surface. in some instances, the fibers and/or the strip of elongated nanostructures can extend a very long length in the direction of dimension 180 in figs. 4a-4b (e.g., at least about 100 times, at least about 1000 times, at least about 10,000 times, at least about 10 6 times, or at least about 10 9 times the average of the smallest cross- sectional dimensions of the fibers), as fibers and strips of elongated nanostructures can be grown/produced continuously. fig. 5 a includes a schematic illustration of another exemplary arrangement of elongated nanostructures and fibers. in fig. 5a, rows of fibers 110 and elongated nanostructures 112 are stacked on each other. the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures 112 can extend along vector 510 in some embodiments, while in other embodiments, the longitudinal axes of nanostructures 112 can extend along vector 512 (or along any other suitable direction). in some embodiments, the assembly of nanostructures and fibers can be folded, bent, twisted, or otherwise mechanically manipulated. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5b, assembly 500 in fig. 5a has been folded in the direction of arrows 520 to form assembly 500b including a right angle at point 522. bending, folding, twisting, or otherwise mechanically manipulating assemblies of nanostructures and/or fibers can be performed by using a mold, in some embodiments. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5b, the assembly 500 is folded to form assembly 500b, which conforms to the right angle formed within mold 560. while a right angle is illustrated in fig. 5b, it should be understood that the nanostructures and/or fibers can be folded to produce any suitable angle. in some embodiments, the assembly of nanostructures and fibers can be densified, for example, by applying an external force in the direction of arrows 530. in some embodiments, fibers and/or nanostructures within the assembly can be folded, bent, twisted, or otherwise mechanically manipulated. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5c, nanostructures 112 within assembly 550 have been bent such that they form right angles between fibers 110. fig. 5d includes a close-up view of region 531 in fig. 5c, illustrating the angle formed by nanostructures 112a between fibers 110 within region 532. in some embodiments, the assembly of nanostructures and fibers can be densified, for example, by applying an external force in the direction of arrows 530. in certain embodiments, bundles of elongated nanostructures (e.g., strips, toes, yarns, or other bundles of elongated nanostructures) can be used to substantially fill small spaces within a composite structure. in this way, the elongated nanostructures can be used to occupy void spaces within a composite, similar to filler structures known as "noodles" in composites manufacturing. bundles of elongated nanostructures can be used in place of or in addition to traditional noodle structures. positioning the elongated nanostructures in this way can reinforce the structure within small spaces. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5b, a strip of elongated nanostructures has been used to fill the space adjacent the right angle at point 522. in other embodiments, bundles of elongated nanostructures can be used to fill rounded corners or corners defining relatively small angles (e.g., angles of 60° or less, angles of 45° or less, angles of 30° or less, or angles of 15° or less). multiple assemblies of elongated nanostructures and fibers can be joined to form larger assemblies of elongated nanostructures and fibers, in some embodiments. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5e, assembly 500c is formed by joining a plurality of assemblies 500b. fig. 5f includes a schematic cross- sectional illustration of another type of assembly that can be formed using the methods described herein. in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5f, assemblies 600 can be formed by folding elongated nanostructures to form acute angles (e.g., angles of about 45° in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5f), and a larger assembly 500d can be formed by joining a plurality of assemblies 600. in some embodiments, the assembly of nanostructures and fibers can be densified, for example, by applying an external force in the direction of arrows 530. fig. 5g includes a schematic illustration of yet another set of embodiments. in this set of embodiments, elongated nanostructures 112 are arranged between fibers 110, which can be in the form of, for example, a stack or a weave. as mentioned elsewhere, while strips of elongated nanostructures are illustrated in fig. 5g, it should be understood that individuated nanostructures, one or more bundles of nanostructures, or other configurations of nanostructures can be used in addition to or in place of the strips of nanostructures illustrated in fig. 5g. structures such as those illustrated in fig. 5g can be useful, for example, in thin laminates in, for example, small satellites (e.g., cubesat). in certain embodiments, fibers and elongated nanostructures can be arranged such that the elongated nanostructures reinforce areas in which the fibers would otherwise come into contact. in some embodiments, a cohesive structure comprises a first fiber and a second fiber, and an elongated nanostructure and/or a bundle of elongated nanostructures positioned between the fibers such that the elongated nanostructure and/or bundle of elongated nanostructures are in contact with the first and second fibers. for example, in fig. 3b, the middle strip of elongated nanostructures is in direct contact with fibers on either side of the middle strip. similarly, in figs. 5a-5g, many of the bundles of elongated nanostructures are positioned such that they are between and in contact with two or more fibers. in certain embodiments, the elongated nanostructure (or bundle of elongated nanostructures) can be positioned such that the elongated nanostructure(s) is between two (or more) fibers and in direct contact with the two (or more) fibers. an example of such an arrangement is illustrated in fig. 3b. in other embodiments, the elongated nanostructure (or bundle of elongated nanostructures) can be positioned such that the elongated nanostructure(s) is between two (or more) fibers and in indirect contact with the two (or more) fibers. generally, two objects are in indirect contact when at least one path can be traced between the two objects while remaining within a solid material, even though the two objects are not directly touching. for example, a fiber and an elongated nanostructure bonded by an adhesive positioned between the fiber and the elongated nanostructure would be in indirect contact because a path can be traced from the fiber to the elongated nanostructure while remaining in a solid material (i.e., the adhesive). in certain embodiments, two elongated objects in indirect contact with each other are be positioned such that the shortest distance between the two elongated objects is less than about 5 times, less than about 2 times, or less than about 1 time the maximum cross- sectional dimension of the smaller of the two elongated objects. for example, a fiber and an elongated nanostructure can be in indirect contact, in certain cases, when the shortest distance between the fiber and the elongated nanostructure is less than about 5 times, less than about 2 times, or less than about 1 time the maximum cross- sectional dimension of the elongated nanostructure. in some embodiments, elongated nanostructures (or bundles of elongated nanostructures) can be positioned between fibers (or bundles of fibers) at one or more positions where the fibers overlap, as might be observed in a stack or weave of fibers (or a stack or weave of bundles of fibers). positioning elongated nanostructures in this way can inhibit the degree to which fibers (or bundles of fibers) come into direct contact with each other, thereby limiting (and in certain cases, eliminating) mechanical degradation. generally, elongated structures (e.g., fibers) are said to overlap when their longitudinal axes form an angle of at least about 15° with each other and their longitudinal axes intersect when viewed from at least one angle. in certain embodiments, the shortest distance between two overlapping elongated structures is less than about 5 times, less than about 2 times, or less than about 1 time the maximum cross sectional dimension of the smaller of the two overlapping structures. the region in which two elongated structures overlap generally refers to the region in which the longitudinal axes intersect. figs. 5j-5k illustrate one set of embodiments in which nanostructure bundles 112 are positioned between fibers 110 such that the nanostructure bundles are in contact with the fibers within regions of overlap. fig. 5j is a top-view schematic illustration, while fig. 5k is a side view schematic illustration. in fig. 5j-5k, fibers 110 are arranged in a weave. in other embodiments, the fibers can be arranged in a stacked configuration, as shown, for example, in fig. 5l (top-view) and fig. 5m (side-view of fig. 5l). in certain embodiments, the elongated nanostructure(s) can be positioned between two fibers (or bundles of fibers) whose longitudinal axes are arranged at an angle relative to each other. for example, in certain cases, the longitudinal axes of the fibers can be substantially orthogonal to each other, as illustrated in figs. 5j-5m. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructure(s) are positioned between two fibers (e.g., within a region of overlap) whose longitudinal axes form an angle of at least about 15°, at least about 30°, at least about 45°, at least about 60°, or at least about 75°. in certain embodiments, the elongated nanostructures (or bundles of elongated nanostructures) can be arranged such that the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures are substantially aligned with at least one adjacent fiber. for example, in fig. 5j, the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures within bundle 112a can be substantially aligned in the direction of arrow 800, which is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of fiber 110a. in certain embodiments, the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures within bundle 112b are substantially aligned in the direction of arrow 810, which is substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of fiber hob. as mentioned elsewhere herein, external forces can be applied to the nanostructures and/or fibers, before and/or after assembly, to increase the density of the nanostructures and/or fibers within the assembly. application of a force to the nanostructures, fibers, and/or assemblies of nanostructures and fibers can produce articles with relatively high volume fractions of fibers (v f ) and/or relatively high volume fractions of nanostructures (vns). not wishing to be bound by any particular theory, compaction of organizations of nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes (e.g., aligned carbon nanotubes such as those observed in vertical arrays) can be relatively easy, in some embodiments, because the modulus in the direction orthogonal to the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures can be relatively low (e.g., about 1 mpa), whereas the stiffness in the axial direction (along the longitudinal axis) can be hundreds of mpa. the application of external forces to a plurality of nanostructures is described, for example, in u.s. patent application serial no. 12/618,203, filed november 13, 2009, entitled "controlled-orientation films and nanocomposites including nanotubes or other nanostructures," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2010/0196695 on august 5, 2010, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. the elongated nanostructures and/or fibers can be arranged, in some embodiments, such that a relatively high volume fraction of the article or structure is occupied by the fibers and/or elongated nanostructures (i.e., there can be little open space between adjacent fibers and elongated nanostructures). in some embodiments, the percentage of the volume of the article or structure occupied by fibers and/or elongated nanostructures can be at least about 20%, at least about 30%, at least about 40%, at least about 50%, or at least about 60%. the systems and methods described herein may be used to produce substantially aligned nanostructures or may involve the use of substantially aligned nanostructures, in some embodiments. the substantially aligned nanostructures can have sufficient length and/or diameter to enhance the properties of a material when arranged on or within the material. in some embodiments, the set of substantially aligned nanostructures may be formed on a surface of a growth substrate, and the nanostructures may be oriented such that the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures are substantially non-planar with respect to the surface of the growth substrate. in some cases, the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures are oriented in a substantially perpendicular direction with respect to the surface of the growth substrate, forming a nanostructure array or "forest." the alignment of nanostructures in the nanostructure "forest" may be substantially maintained, even upon subsequent processing (e.g., transfer to other surfaces, between and/or along fibers, and/or combining the forests with secondary materials such as polymers), in some embodiments. systems and methods for producing aligned nanostructures and articles comprising aligned nanostructures are described, for example, in international patent application serial no. pct/us2007/011914, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes"; and u.s. patent no. 7,537,825, issued on may 26, 2009, entitled "nano-engineered material architectures: ultra- tough hybrid nanocomposite system," which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. in some embodiments, it can be advantageous to incorporate substantially aligned nanostructures and/or fibers, as aligned nanostructures and/or fibers can enhance the degree to which binding materials can be interspersed between the nanostructures and/or fibers (e.g., via capillary wetting). in addition, in some embodiments, substantially aligned nanostructure and/or fibers can be relatively easy to compress, relative to those that are not aligned, as described elsewhere. in some embodiments, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the longitudinal axes of the elongated nanostructures are positioned relative to at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, at least about 95%, at least about 99%, or substantially all of the longitudinal axes of the fibers such that the smallest angle defined by the longitudinal axes of the aligned elongated nanostructures and the longitudinal axes of the adjacent aligned fibers is between about 45° and about 90°, between about 60° and about 90°, between about 75° and about 90°, between about 85° and about 90°, or between about 88° and about 90°. for example, in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 1, the nanostructures and fibers are arranged such the smallest angles formed between substantially all of the of the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures and substantially all of the fibers are about 90°. in the set of embodiments illustrated in fig. 5h the nanostructures and fibers are arranged such the smallest angles formed between substantially all of the of the longitudinal axes of the nanostructures and substantially all of the longitudinal axes of the fibers are about 45°. as mentioned elsewhere herein, composite articles can be formed by including a binding material between the fibers, between the nanostructures, and/or between the fibers and the nanostructures in some embodiments. the binding material (or a precursor to a binding material) can be formed between the nanostructures and/or fibers using any suitable method. for example, in some embodiments, the binding material (or a precursor to the binding material) can be deposited via capillary wetting, resin infusion transfer molding (rtm), hand lay-up, oxidative chemical vapor deposition (o-cvd), initiated chemical vapor deposition (i-cvd), and the like. a variety of types of binding materials can be used in association with the embodiments described herein. in some cases, the binding material (e.g., a polymer binding material) can be selected to uniformly "wet" the nanostructures and/or fibers, and/or selected to bind one or more laminates. in some cases, the binding material may be selected to have a particular viscosity, such as 50,000 cps or lower, 10,000 cps or lower, 5,000 cps or lower, 1,000 cps or lower, 500 cps or lower, 250 cps or lower, or, 100 cps or lower. in some embodiments, the binding material may be selected to have a viscosity between 150-250 cps. in some cases, the binding material may comprise a monomer, a polymer, a ceramic, a metal, and/or a silane. the binding material can be further processed, in some embodiments, to support the nanostructures and/or fibers. in some cases, the polymer material may comprise a thermoset or thermoplastic. for example, in some embodiments, the binding material can comprise thermoset materials such as epoxy, rubber strengthened epoxy, bmi, pmk-15, polyesters, vinylesters, and the like, and/or thermoplastic materials such as polyamides, polyimides, polyarylene sulfide, polyetherimide, polyesterimides polyarylenes polysulfones polyethersulfones polyphenylene sulfide, polyetherimide, polypropylene, polyolefins, polyketones, polyetherketones, polyetherketoneketone, polyetheretherketones, polyester, and analogs and mixtures thereof. in some embodiments, the binding material can comprise a polyurethane and/or a polyvinyl alcohol. specific examples of thermosets include microchem su-8 (uv curing epoxy, grades from 2000.1 to 2100, and viscosities ranging from 3 cps to 10,000 cps), buehler epothin (low viscosity, -150 cps, room temperature curing epoxy), west systems 206 + 109 hardener (low viscosity, -200 cps, room temperature curing epoxy), loctite hysol 1c (20-min curing conductive epoxy, viscosity 200,000 - 500,000cps), hexcel rtm6 (resin transfer molding epoxy, viscosity during process -10 cps), hexcel hexflow vrm 34 (structural vartm or vacuum assisted resin transfer molding epoxy, viscosity during process -500 cps). examples of thermoplastic include polystyrene, or microchem pmma (uv curing thermoplastic, grades ranging from 10 cps to -1,000 cps).in one embodiment, the polymer material may be pmma, epothin, westsystems epon, rtm6, vrm34, 977-3, su8, or hysollc. the addition of binding materials to assemblies of elongated nanostructures (e.g., aligned nanostructures) is described, for example, in international patent application serial no. pct/us2007/011914, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as wo 2007/136755 on november 29, 2007; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/227,516, filed november 19, 2008, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as us 2009/0311166 on december 17, 2009; international patent application serial no. pct/us 07/11913, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "nanostructure- reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2008/054541 on may 8, 2008; international patent application serial no. pct/us2008/009996, filed august 22, 2008, entitled "nano structure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2009/029218 on march 5, 2009; u.s. patent application serial no. 11/895,621, filed august 24, 2007, entitled "nanostructure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as us 2008/0075954 on march 27, 2008; and u.s. patent application serial no. 12/618,203, filed november 13, 2009, entitled "controlled- orientation films and nanocomposites including nanotubes or other nanostructures," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2010/0196695 on august 5, 2010, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. the use of chemical vapor deposition to add binding materials to assemblies of elongated nanostructures is described, for example, in u.s. patent application serial no. 12/630,289, filed december 3, 2009, entitled "multifunctional composites based on coated nanostructures," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2010/0255303 on october 7, 2010, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. a variety of types of fibers can be used in association with the articles, systems, and methods described herein. in some embodiments, the fibers can comprise carbon (e.g., in the case of carbon fibers), a polymer (e.g., extruded polymeric filaments), a1 2 0 3 , a silicon oxide (e.g., glass fibers such as those comprising si0 2 ), a cellulosic material (e.g., cotton, rayon, and the like), basalt (e.g., basalt fibers) and/or a metal. the fibers can be arranged in any suitable manner. for example, in some cases, multiple fibers can be arranged in one or more tows. in some embodiments, the fibers and/or bundles of fibers can be woven, knitted, or otherwise assembled to form a fabric. in some embodiments, the elongated nanostructures can comprise elongated carbon-based nanostructures. as used herein, the term "elongated carbon-based nano structure" refers to elongated nanostructures having a fused network of aromatic rings and comprising at least about 30% carbon by mass. in some embodiments, the elongated carbon-based nanostructures may comprise at least about 40%, at least about 50%, at least about 60%, at least about 70%, at least about 80%, at least about 90%, or at least about 95% of carbon by mass, or more. the term "fused network" might not include, for example, a biphenyl group, wherein two phenyl rings are joined by a single bond and are not fused. example of elongated carbon-based nanostructures include carbon nanotubes (e.g., single- walled carbon nanotubes, double- walled carbon nanotubes, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, etc.), carbon nanowires, carbon nanofibers, and the like. in some embodiments, the elongated carbon-based nanostructures described herein may comprise carbon nanotubes. as used herein, the term "carbon nanotube" is given its ordinary meaning in the art and refers to a substantially cylindrical molecule or nanostructure comprising a fused network of primarily six-membered rings (e.g., six- membered aromatic rings) comprising primarily carbon atoms. in some cases, carbon nanotubes may resemble a sheet of graphite formed into a seamless cylindrical structure. it should be understood that the carbon nanotube may also comprise rings or lattice structures other than six-membered rings. the ends of the carbon nanotubes can be capped (i.e., with a curved or nonplanar aromatic structure) or uncapped. in some embodiments, carbon nanotubes can have maximum cross- sectional diameters on the order of nanometers and a length on the order of millimeters, or, on the order of tenths of micrometers, resulting in an aspect ratio greater than 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 10 6 , 10 7 , 108 , 109 , or greater. examples of carbon nanotubes include single- walled carbon nanotubes (swnts), double-walled carbon nanotubes (dwnts), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (mwnts) (e.g., concentric carbon nanotubes), inorganic derivatives thereof, and the like. in some embodiments, the carbon nanotube is a single- walled carbon nanotube. in some cases, the carbon nanotube is a multi- walled carbon nanotube (e.g., a double- walled carbon nanotube). in some cases, the carbon nanotube may have a maximum cross- sectional diameter of less than about 100 nm, less than about 50 nm, less than about 25 nm, less than about 10 nm, or, in some cases, less than about 1 nm. the following patents and patent applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties for all purposes: international patent application serial no. pct/us2007/011914, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as wo 2007/136755 on november 29, 2007; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/227,516, filed november 19, 2008, entitled "continuous process for the production of nanostructures including nanotubes," published as us 2009/0311166 on december 17, 2009; international patent application serial no. pct/us 07/11913, filed may 18, 2007, entitled "nano structure- reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2008/054541 on may 8, 2008; international patent application serial no. pct/us2008/009996, filed august 22, 2008, entitled "nano structure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as wo 2009/029218 on march 5, 2009; u.s. patent application serial no. 11/895,621, filed august 24, 2007, entitled "nanostructure-reinforced composite articles and methods," published as us 2008/0075954 on march 27, 2008; u.s. patent no. 7,537,825, issued on may 26, 2009, entitled "nano-engineered material architectures: ultra- tough hybrid nanocomposite system"; u.s. patent application serial no. 11/895,621, filed august 24, 2007, entitled "nanostructure-reinforced composite articles," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2008/0075954 on march 27, 2008; u.s. provisional patent application 61/114,967, filed november 14, 2008, entitled "controlled-orientation films and nanocomposites including nanotubes or other nanostructures"; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/618,203, filed november 13, 2009, entitled "controlled-orientation films and nanocomposites including nanotubes or other nanostructures," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2010/0196695 on august 5, 2010; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/630,289, filed december 3, 2009, entitled "multifunctional composites based on coated nanostructures," published as u.s. patent application publication no. 2010/0255303 on october 7, 2010; u.s. patent application serial no. 12/847,905, filed july 30, 2010, entitled "systems and methods related to the formation of carbon-based nanostructures"; u.s. provisional patent application no. 61/264,506, filed november 25, 2009, and entitled "systems and methods for enhancing growth of carbon-based nanostructures"; and u.s. provisional patent application serial no. 61/418,784, filed december 1, 2010, and entitled "articles and methods related to the formation of nanostructure reinforced structures." the articles, systems, and methods described herein may be combined with those described in any of the patents and/or patent applications noted above. all patents and patent applications mentioned herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety for all purposes. the following examples are intended to illustrate certain embodiments of the present invention, but do not exemplify the full scope of the invention. example 1 this example describes the fabrication of a composite material comprising carbon nanotubes and carbon fibers. first, a tow of unidirectional carbon fibers (with thicknesses of a few micrometers and lengths of about 100 mm) was slightly wet in an aerospace grade epoxy resin (rtm6). a strip of aligned carbon nanotubes (about 150 micrometers thick, about 1.5 centimeters wide, and about 1 millimeter long) was attached to the slightly wet carbon fiber tow. four of the carbon fiber tows (with carbon nanotubes attached) were assembled by hand in the orientation shown in fig. 6a. the carbon nanotube strips appeared only at the center of the specimen because they were 15 mm long whereas the tow length was about 100 mm. the specimen was then infused with rtm6 epoxy resin using a hand-lay up process and cured. the composite specimen was machined and broken manually. the fracture surface was imaged using scanning electron microscopy (sem), as shown in figs. 6b-6d. the sem images clearly show carbon fiber/epoxy regions and regions of carbon nanotubes/epoxy (fig. 6b). the carbon fiber filaments were partially pulled out from the resin during the fracture process, showing a clean surface. the carbon nanotubes remain embedded in the resin rich area, in the middle region of the carbon fiber tows (figs. 6c-6d). in the fractured surfaces of the epoxy resin, the carbon nanotubes were partially pulled out from the resin (fig. 6d). example 2 this example describes the fabrication and testing of a composite article including a prepreg and strips of aligned carbon nanotubes. in this example, four strips of aligned carbon nanotubes and five prepreg sheets were used. the prepreg material contained aligned, unidirectional carbon fibers. the carbon fibers had diameters of several micrometers and were positioned in an uncured polymeric binding material. the prepreg sheets were cut from a larger prepreg sheet having a thickness of about 150 micrometers. each of the five cut prepreg sheets had a thickness of about 150 micrometers, a width of about 3 millimeters, and a length of about 300 millimeters. the carbon fibers were substantially aligned in the length direction (i.e., the 300 millimeter dimension). the carbon nanotube strips were prepared by depositing a catalyst on a wafer in 100 micrometer by 15 millimeter strips, and growing the nanotubes from the catalyst using standard chemical vapor deposition (cvd) techniques. the carbon nanotubes were grown to a height of about 1.5 millimeters. after growth, the aligned carbon nanotubes were removed from the growth substrate to form strips each having a length of about 1.5 millimeters, a width of about 15 millimeters and a thickness of about 100 micrometers. the carbon nanotubes were substantially aligned along the length (i.e., the 1.5 millimeter dimension) of the strips. the prepreg sheets and the carbon nanotube strips were assembled by hand in the orientation illustrated in fig. 7a. for purposes of illustration, fig. 7a is illustrated as a partial cross- section. in the assembled sample, the prepreg strips extended about 150 micrometers in the x-direction (referring to the coordinate axes illustrated in fig. 7a), about 3 millimeters in the y-direction, and about 300 millimeters in the z- direction. in the assembled sample, the carbon nanotube strips extended about 100 micrometers in the x-direction, about 1.5 millimeters in the y-direction, and about 15 millimeters in the z-direction. accordingly, when assembled as illustrated in fig. 7a, the carbon nanotubes were located near the center of the specimen. after assembling the carbon nanotube strips and prepreg sheets, the assembled part was compressed in the direction of arrows 700. after assembly, the part was cured in an autoclave and the (uncured) epoxy resin in the prepreg strips flowed into the carbon nanotube strips to form a hierarchical composite "comparative" samples were fabricated in the same manner, but without including the carbon nanotube strips. three comparative samples were fabricated, and five samples including carbon nanotube strips were fabricated. the fabricated samples are shown in fig. 7b. each sample was tested for simple dc electrical resistivity in two directions: one direction along the alignment of the carbon fibers and another direction along the alignment of the carbon nanotubes (and substantially orthogonal to the alignment of the carbon fibers). the results of these tests are illustrated in fig. 7c. the samples including carbon nanotube strips and the comparative samples (without carbon nanotube strips) both exhibited in-plane resistivities of about 1 ohm cm when measured in a direction along the orientation of the carbon fibers. when measured in a direction orthogonal to the orientation of the carbon fibers, the samples including the aligned carbon nanotube strips exhibited in-plane resistivities of about 12 ohm cm. the comparative samples without carbon nanotube strips exhibited much higher in-plane resistivities of about 40 ohm cm. these electrical conductivity results indicated that the presence of the electrically conductive carbon nanotubes enhanced the electrical conductivity of the assembled samples. in addition, each sample was tested for in-plane mechanical properties. a standard bend test at a load rate of 1 mrn/min was performed, which allowed for the extraction of the elastic modulus in the direction of the sample along which the carbon fibers were aligned. the testing apparatus is shown in fig. 7d, and the test results are summarized in fig. 7e. the results indicate that the flexural modulus (e f ) and strength (a f ) were not substantially affected by the presence of the carbon nanotubes, indicating that the process described in this example did not substantially damage the carbon fibers. this result was significant because other attempts to modify carbon fibers with carbon nanotubes (e.g., fuzzy fibers) have, in some cases, damaged the carbon fibers. the slight increase in flexural strength was within statistical significance, and the overall sample showed that the in-plane properties of the composite were maintained. it is expected that additional tests (e.g., mode i fracture and open-hole compression testing) will reveal the positive impact of the presence of carbon nanotubes in larger specimens. finally, scanning electron microscopy (sem) images of cross-sections of the samples were obtained, as shown in fig. 7f. the sem images revealed the presence of polymeric binding material positioned between the carbon nanotubes in the fractured samples. example 3 this example describes the fabrication and testing of a composite article including dry fibers and strips of aligned carbon nanotubes. in this example, four strips of aligned carbon nanotubes and five tows of carbon fibers were used. the assembled geometry was similar to that of example 2, and is illustrated in fig. 7a. the carbon fiber tows contained aligned, unidirectional carbon fibers, without epoxy or other binding materials. the carbon fibers had diameters of several micrometers. each of the five carbon fiber tows had a thickness of about 150 micrometers, a width of about 3 millimeters, and a length of about 300 millimeters. the carbon fibers were substantially aligned in the length direction (i.e., the 300 millimeter dimension). the carbon nanotube strips were prepared by depositing a catalyst on a wafer in 100 micrometer by 15 millimeter strips, and growing the nanotubes from the catalyst using standard chemical vapor deposition (cvd) techniques. the carbon nanotubes were grown to a height of about 1.5 millimeters. after growth, the aligned carbon nanotubes were removed from the growth substrate to form strips each having a length of about 1.5 millimeters, a width of about 15 millimeters and a thickness of about 100 micrometers. the carbon nanotubes were substantially aligned along the length (i.e., the 1.5 millimeter dimension) of the strips. the carbon fiber tows and the carbon nanotube strips were assembled by hand in an orientation similar to that illustrated in fig. 7a. in the assembled sample, the carbon fiber tows extended about 150 micrometers in the x-direction (referring to the coordinate axes illustrated in fig. 7a), about 3 millimeters in the y-direction, and about 300 millimeters in the z-direction. in the assembled sample, the carbon nanotube strips extended about 100 micrometers in the x-direction, about 1.5 millimeters in the y-direction, and about 15 millimeters in the z-direction. after assembly, the samples were put into a standard resin infusion setup and rtm6 epoxy was infused into the dry assembly, as shown in fig. 8a. the specimens were then cured. comparative samples were also made using a similar process, but without including the carbon nanotube strips. each sample was tested for simple dc electrical resistivity in several in-plane directions, similar to those described in example 2. when measured in a direction orthogonal to the orientation of the carbon fibers, the samples including aligned carbon nanotube strips exhibited in-plane electrical resisitivities that were much lower than the in-plane resisitivities of the samples without aligned carbon nanotube strips. in addition, the through-thickness electrical conductivities of the samples (i.e., electrical conductivities along the x-axis in fig. 7a) were measured. the samples including strips of carbon nanotubes exhibited electrical conductivities of about 9x10 " s/m, while the samples without the strips of aligned carbon nanotubes exhibited electrical conductivities of only about 3x10 " s/m. finally, sem images of the samples were taken, as illustrated in fig. 8b. the sem images revealed the presence of the carbon nanotubes, and epoxy between the carbon nanotubes, in the final composites. while several embodiments of the present invention have been described and illustrated herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision a variety of other means and/or structures for performing the functions and/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of the advantages described herein, and each of such variations and/or modifications is deemed to be within the scope of the present invention. more generally, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that all parameters, dimensions, materials, and configurations described herein are meant to be exemplary and that the actual parameters, dimensions, materials, and/or configurations will depend upon the specific application or applications for which the teachings of the present invention is/are used. those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalents to the specific embodiments of the invention described herein. it is, therefore, to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are presented by way of example only and that, within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereto, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described and claimed. the present invention is directed to each individual feature, system, article, material, kit, and/or method described herein. in addition, any combination of two or more such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods, if such features, systems, articles, materials, kits, and/or methods are not mutually inconsistent, is included within the scope of the present invention. the indefinite articles "a" and "an," as used herein in the specification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to the contrary, should be understood to mean "at least one." the phrase "and/or," as used herein in the specification and in the claims, should be understood to mean "either or both" of the elements so conjoined, i.e., elements that are conjunctively present in some cases and disjunctively present in other cases. other elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified by the "and/or" clause, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified unless clearly indicated to the contrary. thus, as a non-limiting example, a reference to "a and/or b," when used in conjunction with open-ended language such as "comprising" can refer, in one embodiment, to a without b (optionally including elements other than b); in another embodiment, to b without a (optionally including elements other than a); in yet another embodiment, to both a and b (optionally including other elements); etc. as used herein in the specification and in the claims, "or" should be understood to have the same meaning as "and/or" as defined above. for example, when separating items in a list, "or" or "and/or" shall be interpreted as being inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, but also including more than one, of a number or list of elements, and, optionally, additional unlisted items. only terms clearly indicated to the contrary, such as "only one of or "exactly one of," or, when used in the claims, "consisting of," will refer to the inclusion of exactly one element of a number or list of elements. in general, the term "or" as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicating exclusive alternatives (i.e. "one or the other but not both") when preceded by terms of exclusivity, such as "either," "one of," "only one of," or "exactly one of." "consisting essentially of," when used in the claims, shall have its ordinary meaning as used in the field of patent law. as used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase "at least one," in reference to a list of one or more elements, should be understood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more of the elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including at least one of each and every element specifically listed within the list of elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the list of elements. this definition also allows that elements may optionally be present other than the elements specifically identified within the list of elements to which the phrase "at least one" refers, whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified. thus, as a non-limiting example, "at least one of a and b" (or, equivalently, "at least one of a or b," or, equivalently "at least one of a and/or b") can refer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, a, with no b present (and optionally including elements other than b); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, b, with no a present (and optionally including elements other than a); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionally including more than one, a, and at least one, optionally including more than one, b (and optionally including other elements); etc. in the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitional phrases such as "comprising," "including," "carrying," "having," "containing," "involving," "holding," and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. only the transitional phrases "consisting of and "consisting essentially of shall be closed or semi-closed transitional phrases, respectively, as set forth in the united states patent office manual of patent examining procedures, section 2111.03. what is claimed is:
185-210-869-073-72X	JP	[ "JP", "US" ]	H01L29/786,H01L21/336,H01L21/8242,H01L27/10,H01L27/108,H01L21/265,H01L21/02,H01L29/66	2011-11-30T00:00:00	2011	[ "H01" ]	method for forming oxide semiconductor film and method for manufacturing semiconductor device	an oxide semiconductor film is formed over a substrate. a sacrifice film is formed to such a thickness that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance injected into the oxide semiconductor film in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film. oxygen ions are injected as the injected substance into the oxide semiconductor film through the sacrifice film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region, and then the sacrifice film is removed. further, a semiconductor device is manufactured using the oxide semiconductor film.	1. a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film comprising the steps of: forming an oxide semiconductor film over a substrate; forming a sacrifice film over the oxide semiconductor film; injecting oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor film through the sacrifice film; and completely removing the sacrifice film after injecting oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor film, wherein the sacrifice film is formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film. 2. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 1 , wherein the oxide semiconductor film is formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, and wherein the sacrifice film is formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. 3. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 1 , wherein the oxygen ions are injected so that an amount of change in a concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions in a depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is 40% or less on the basis of a concentration at a local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions. 4. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 1 , wherein the sacrifice film is removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and chemical mechanical polishing. 5. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 1 , wherein the sacrifice film has such a thickness that a local maximum of a concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected into the oxide semiconductor film in a depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film, and wherein oxygen ions are injected into the oxide semiconductor film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region. 6. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 1 , wherein oxygen ions are injected by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method. 7. a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device comprising the steps of: forming an oxide semiconductor film over a substrate having an insulating surface; forming a sacrifice film over the oxide semiconductor film; injecting oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor film through the sacrifice film; removing the sacrifice film after injecting oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor film; forming an island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the oxide semiconductor film into which the oxygen ions are injected; forming a gate insulating film over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; forming a gate electrode over the gate insulating film so as to overlap with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film with the gate insulating film positioned between the gate electrode and the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; partly exposing the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the gate insulating film; and forming a source electrode and a drain electrode over the partly exposed island-shaped oxide semiconductor film, wherein the sacrifice film is formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film. 8. the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device according to claim 7 , wherein the oxide semiconductor film formed over the substrate having the insulating surface is formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, and wherein the sacrifice film is formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. 9. the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device according to claim 7 , wherein the oxygen ions are injected so that an amount of change in a concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions in a depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is 40% or less on the basis of a concentration at a local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions. 10. the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device according to claim 7 , wherein the sacrifice film is removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and chemical mechanical polishing. 11. the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device according to claim 7 , further comprising the steps of: forming a base insulating film over the substrate, and performing heat treatment after forming the gate insulating film so that oxygen is diffused into a region from an interface between the base insulating film and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film, wherein either or both of the gate insulating film and the base insulating film is formed using an oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment. 12. the method for manufacturing a semiconductor device according to claim 7 , wherein the sacrifice film has such a thickness that a local maximum of a concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected into the oxide semiconductor film in a depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film, and wherein oxygen ions are injected into the oxide semiconductor film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region. 13. the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film according to claim 7 , wherein oxygen ions are injected by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method.	background of the invention 1. field of the invention the present invention relates to a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film or an insulating film, and to a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device with the use of the oxide semiconductor film or the insulating film. note that a semiconductor device in this specification refers to general devices which can function by utilizing semiconductor characteristics; for example, a semiconductor element such as a transistor, a semiconductor circuit including a semiconductor element, an electro-optical device such as a display device, and an electronic device are all semiconductor devices. 2. description of the related art transistors used for most flat panel displays typified by a liquid crystal display device and a light-emitting display device are formed using silicon semiconductors such as amorphous silicon, single crystal silicon, and polycrystalline silicon provided over glass substrates. further, transistors formed using such silicon semiconductors are used in integrated circuits (ics) and the like. in recent years, attention has been drawn to a technique in which, instead of a silicon semiconductor, a metal oxide exhibiting semiconductor characteristics is used for transistors. note that, in this specification, a metal oxide exhibiting semiconductor characteristics is referred to as an oxide semiconductor. for example, a technique is disclosed in which a transistor is manufactured using zinc oxide or an in—ga—zn—o-based oxide as an oxide semiconductor and the transistor is used as a switching element or the like of a pixel of a display device (see patent documents 1 and 2). further, concerning a transistor using an oxide semiconductor, a technique in which oxygen is introduced into an oxide semiconductor by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method is disclosed (see patent document 3). reference [patent document 1] japanese published patent application no. 2007-123861[patent document 2] japanese published patent application no. 2007-96055[patent document 3] japanese published patent application no. 2011-199272 summary of the invention however, in an oxide semiconductor, charge is generated owing to an oxygen vacancy caused therein. part of oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor serves as a donor to generate an electron that is a carrier. therefore, the threshold voltage of a transistor in which an oxide semiconductor is used for an active layer including a channel formation region (hereinafter referred to as a transistor using an oxide semiconductor) is easily shifted in the negative direction because of oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor, and the transistor is likely to have normally-on characteristics. thus, in order to obtain favorable transistor characteristics of the transistor using an oxide semiconductor, oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor are preferably filled (or compensated for). for the filling of the oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor, the oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor may be compensated for with externally supplied oxygen. for example, the oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor can be filled by injecting oxygen ions by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method. furthermore, in the transistor using an oxide semiconductor, the thickness of the active layer (oxide semiconductor) is reduced in some cases so that an electric field from a gate electrode is sufficiently applied to the active layer. in the case where oxygen ions are injected into an oxide semiconductor film by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method, the oxygen ions need to be injected at a low acceleration voltage so as to be injected accurately at a desired injection concentration. as the acceleration voltage is lowered, a beam current generated by a space-charge effect decreases and longer time is needed to inject oxygen ions. further, as the acceleration voltage is lowered, the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions has a more distinct local maximum with a larger concentration gradient in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor. consequently, the lowering of the acceleration voltage for oxygen ion injection leads to a non-uniform concentration of the injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor, and thus, oxygen vacancies might not be sufficiently filled. in short, in the transistor using an oxide semiconductor, there is a possibility that injection of oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor at a low acceleration voltage cannot achieve sufficient filling of oxygen vacancies, resulting in insufficient correction of the normally-on characteristics. in view of the above, an object of one embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film into which oxygen ions are uniformly injected. another object of one embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device having favorable electrical characteristics with the use of the oxide semiconductor film. in general, as the acceleration voltage is raised, the concentration gradient of an injected substance in the depth direction of an injection target becomes smaller and the concentration distribution of the injected substance comes closer to a uniform distribution (substantially uniform distribution) in the depth direction. in other words, the concentration gradient of the injected substance becomes gentler. however, as the acceleration voltage is raised, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance is shifted in the depth direction of the injection target. therefore, in the case where the thickness of the injection target is small, it is difficult to inject oxygen ions properly into a desired injection position. note that a “concentration distribution” in this specification means a “dose profile” and can be replaced with the term “dose profile” as appropriate. in one embodiment of the present invention, a sacrifice film is formed over an oxide semiconductor film so that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance in the depth direction of an injection target is located in a region of the oxide semiconductor film, and oxygen ions are injected as the injected substance into the oxide semiconductor film at a high acceleration voltage so that the local maximum of the depth-direction concentration distribution of the injected substance injected into the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region. one embodiment of the present invention is a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film including the steps of forming an oxide semiconductor film over a substrate; forming a sacrifice film having such a thickness that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance injected into the oxide semiconductor film in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film; and injecting oxygen ions as the injected substance into the oxide semiconductor film through the sacrifice film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region, and then removing the sacrifice film. in the above embodiment, the oxide semiconductor film can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, and the sacrifice film can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. oxygen vacancies in an oxide semiconductor can be filled not only by direct injection of oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor, for example, by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method, but also by formation of an oxide semiconductor film over an insulating film containing oxygen. in the latter case, the oxide semiconductor film is preferably subjected to heat treatment while being in contact with the insulating film. when oxygen is contained in the insulating film uniformly in the depth direction of the insulating film, oxygen is uniformly injected from the insulating film into the oxide semiconductor film, so that oxygen vacancies can be sufficiently filled. that is, one embodiment of the present invention can be applied not only to an oxide semiconductor film but also to an insulating film. specifically, it is possible to form a sacrifice film so that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance in the depth direction of an insulating film is located in a region of the insulating film, particularly in the vicinity of a surface of the insulating film, and to inject oxygen ions into the insulating film at a high acceleration voltage so that the local maximum of the depth-direction concentration distribution of the injected substance injected into the insulating film is located in the region or in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film. in one embodiment of the present invention, an insulating film is formed over a substrate; a sacrifice film having such a thickness that the local maximum of the depth-direction concentration distribution of an injected substance injected into the insulating film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the insulating film to a surface of the insulating film; oxygen ions are injected into the insulating film through the sacrifice film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the insulating film is located in the region, and then the sacrifice film is removed; and an oxide semiconductor film is formed over the insulating film over which the sacrifice film is removed. in the above embodiment, the insulating film can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm, and the sacrifice film can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. an oxide semiconductor film or an insulating film is formed by the above method, whereby the amount of change in the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film or the insulating film can be 40% or less on the basis of the concentration at the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance. in the above embodiment, the acceleration voltage at which the oxygen ions are injected is changed depending on the density and thickness of the injection target; therefore, the injection is performed at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the injection target can be located in a region of a film formed under the sacrifice film. in general, as described above, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance in the depth direction of an injection target is shifted in the depth direction by raising the acceleration voltage; therefore, the acceleration voltage is preferably high. in the above embodiment, the sacrifice film can be removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and a chemical mechanical polishing method. in the above embodiment, the sacrifice film can be formed using a material that is the same as or different from that for the film formed under the sacrifice film. by forming the sacrifice film with the use of a material that is different from that for the film formed under the sacrifice film, the sacrifice film can be easily removed by utilizing etching selectivity at the removal of the sacrifice film. by forming the sacrifice film with the use of the same material as the film formed under the sacrifice film, the time taken to form the film of one embodiment of the present invention can be shortened, and impurities which might be attached to the film formed under the sacrifice film in the case where the sacrifice film is formed using a material that is different from that for the film formed under the sacrifice film can be reduced. in the manufacture of a transistor using an oxide semiconductor, at least an oxide semiconductor film functioning as a channel formation region can be formed by the above method for forming an oxide semiconductor film. one embodiment of the present invention is a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device including the steps of forming an oxide semiconductor film over a substrate having an insulating surface; forming a sacrifice film having such a thickness that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance injected into the oxide semiconductor film in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film; injecting oxygen ions as the injected substance into the oxide semiconductor film through the sacrifice film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the region, and then removing the sacrifice film; forming an island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the oxide semiconductor film into which the oxygen ions have been injected; forming a gate insulating film over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; forming a gate electrode over the gate insulating film so as to overlap with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film with the gate insulating film positioned between the gate electrode and the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; partly exposing the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the gate insulating film; and forming a source electrode and a drain electrode over the partly exposed island-shaped oxide semiconductor film. in the manufacture of a transistor using an oxide semiconductor, a base insulating film or the like of the transistor can be formed by the above method for forming an insulating film. one embodiment of the present invention is a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device including the steps of forming a base insulating film over a substrate; forming a sacrifice film having such a thickness that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of an injected substance injected into the base insulating film in the depth direction of the base insulating film is located in a region from an interface between the substrate and the base insulating film to a surface of the base insulating film; injecting oxygen ions as the injected substance into the base insulating film through the sacrifice film at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected substance in the depth direction of the base insulating film is located in the region, and then removing the sacrifice film; forming an oxide semiconductor film over the base insulating film into which the oxygen ions have been injected; forming an island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the oxide semiconductor film; forming a gate insulating film over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; forming a gate electrode over the gate insulating film so as to overlap with the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film with the gate insulating film positioned between the gate electrode and the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film; partly exposing the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film by processing the gate insulating film; and forming a source electrode and a drain electrode over the partly exposed island-shaped oxide semiconductor film. further, when the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution is located in the vicinity of the surface of the base insulating film, the distance which the oxygen ion travels to the oxide semiconductor film formed over the base insulating film can be shortened; thus, oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film can be effectively filled. accordingly, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. when oxygen ions are injected into an injection target such as an oxide semiconductor film or an insulating film by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method, not only the injected oxygen ions but also impurities attached to the injection target are put into the injection target owing to a knock-on effect. if a transistor is manufactured using such an injection target including impurities, the transistor might have unfavorable electrical characteristics. in contrast, by forming a sacrifice film, and then injecting oxygen ions and removing the sacrifice film as in one embodiment of the present invention, impurities included in an injection target can be reduced, and thus, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. according to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film into which oxygen ions are uniformly injected can be provided. furthermore, according to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device having favorable electrical characteristics with the use of the oxide semiconductor film can be provided. brief description of the drawings in the accompanying drawings: figs. 1a to 1e are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film; figs. 2a to 2e are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for forming an insulating film; figs. 3a to 3d are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 4a to 4d are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 5a and 5b are a cross-sectional view and a top view illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 6a and 6b are a top view and a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a transistor; figs. 7a to 7d are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 8a to 8c are cross-sectional views illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 9a and 9b are a cross-sectional view and a top view illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor; figs. 10a and 10b are a top view and a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a transistor; fig. 11a is a circuit diagram illustrating an example of a semiconductor memory device, and fig. 11b is a graph showing electrical characteristics thereof; fig. 12a is a circuit diagram illustrating an example of a semiconductor memory device, and fig. 12b is a graph showing electrical characteristics thereof; fig. 13a is a block diagram illustrating a specific example of a cpu, and figs. 13b and 13c are circuit diagrams each illustrating part of the cpu; figs. 14a to 14d are perspective views each illustrating an example of an electronic device; fig. 15 is a graph showing a calculated oxygen ion concentration distribution in the depth direction of an injection target; fig. 16a is a diagram illustrating the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected into the oxide semiconductor film in the steps of figs. 1a to 1e , and fig. 16b is a diagram illustrating the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected into the insulating film in the steps of figs. 2a to 2e ; fig. 17 is a graph showing a calculated oxygen ion concentration distribution in the depth direction of an injection target; and figs. 18a and 18b are a top view and a cross-sectional view of a transistor used for evaluation. detailed description of the invention hereinafter, embodiments and examples of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. note that the present invention is not limited to the following description and it is easily understood by those skilled in the art that the modes and details of the present invention can be variously changed without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. therefore, the present invention should not be construed as being limited to the description in the following embodiments and examples. in addition, in the following embodiments and examples, the same portions or portions having similar functions are denoted by the same reference numerals or the same hatching patterns in different drawings, and description thereof will not be repeated. note that, in each drawing in this specification, the size, the film thickness, or the region of each component is exaggerated for clarity in some cases. therefore, embodiments of the present invention are not limited to such scales. note that terms such as “first”, “second”, and “third” in this specification are used in order to avoid confusion among components, and the terms do not limit the components numerically. therefore, for example, the term “first” can be replaced with the term “second”, “third”, or the like as appropriate. functions of a “source” and a “drain” are sometimes replaced with each other when the direction of current flow is changed in circuit operation, for example. therefore, the terms “source” and “drain” can be used to denote the drain and the source, respectively, in this specification. embodiment 1 in this embodiment, a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film in which oxygen is contained uniformly in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is described with reference to figs. 1a to 1e and fig. 16a . figs. 1a to 1e are schematic cross-sectional views illustrating a method for forming an oxide semiconductor film, which is one embodiment of the present invention. first, an oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed over a substrate 101 (see fig. 1a ). the oxide semiconductor film 103 may be formed using any of metal oxide materials (oxide semiconductor materials) given below by a chemical vapor deposition (cvd) method, a sputtering method, a molecular beam epitaxy (mbe) method, or a pulsed laser deposition (pld) method, and is preferably formed by a sputtering method. the oxide semiconductor film 103 may have an amorphous structure or a crystalline structure. for the oxide semiconductor film 103 , a metal oxide material containing at least indium (in) or zinc (zn) is preferably used. in particular, the metal oxide material preferably contains in and zn. specific examples of a material for the oxide semiconductor film 103 are indium oxide, tin oxide, zinc oxide, an oxide material containing two kinds of metals, such as an in—zn-based oxide material, a sn—zn-based oxide material, an al—zn-based oxide material, a zn—mg-based oxide material, a sn—mg-based oxide material, an in—mg-based oxide material, or an in—ga-based oxide material, an oxide material containing three kinds of metals, such as an in—ga—zn-based oxide material, an in—al—zn-based oxide material, an in—sn—zn-based oxide material, a sn—ga—zn-based oxide material, an al—ga—zn-based oxide material, a sn—al—zn-based oxide material, an in—hf—zn-based oxide material, an in—la—zn-based oxide material, an in—ce—zn-based oxide material, an in—pr—zn-based oxide material, an in—nd—zn-based oxide material, an in—sm—zn-based oxide material, an in—eu—zn-based oxide material, an in—gd—zn-based oxide material, an in—tb—zn-based oxide material, an in—dy—zn-based oxide material, an in—ho—zn-based oxide material, an in—er—zn-based oxide material, an in—tm—zn-based oxide material, an in—yb—zn-based oxide material, an in—lu—zn-based oxide material, or an in—ni—zn-based oxide material, and an oxide material containing four kinds of metals, such as an in—sn—ga—zn-based oxide material, an in—hf—ga—zn-based oxide material, an in—al—ga—zn-based oxide material, an in—sn—al—zn-based oxide material, an in—sn—hf—zn-based oxide material, or an in—hf—al—zn-based oxide material. for example, an in—ga—zn-based oxide material means an oxide containing in, ga, and zn as main components and there is no limitation on the atomic ratio of in, ga, and zn. in the case where an in—zn-based oxide material is used for the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the atomic ratio of in to zn is greater than or equal to 0.5 and less than or equal to 50, preferably greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to 20, further preferably greater than or equal to 1.5 and less than or equal to 15. when the atomic ratio of in to zn is in the above range, the field-effect mobility of a transistor using an oxide semiconductor can be improved. here, when the atomic ratio of the compound is in:zn:o=x:y:z, the relation of z>1.5x+y is preferably satisfied. a material represented by the chemical formula, inmo 3 (zno) m (m>0) may be used for the oxide semiconductor film 103 . here, m represents one or more metal elements selected from zn, ga, al, mn, sn, hf, and co. for example, ga, ga and al, ga and mn, or ga and co may be used as m. next, a sacrifice film 105 is formed over the oxide semiconductor film 103 (see fig. 1b ). there is no particular limitation on the sacrifice film 105 as long as oxygen ions injected later can pass therethrough. for example, the sacrifice film 105 can be formed using a material that is the same as or different from that for the oxide semiconductor film 103 formed under the sacrifice film 105 . specific examples of a material that can be used for the sacrifice film 105 and is different from that for the oxide semiconductor film 103 are a metal oxide such as molybdenum oxide, cerium oxide, or magnesium oxide and an insulator such as silicon oxide. here, a material that is different from that for the oxide semiconductor film 103 is used for the sacrifice film 105 . note that the case where the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 is used for the sacrifice film 105 is described later. the sacrifice film 105 is provided in order to locate, at the time of injecting oxygen ions later, the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film 103 in a region from an interface between the substrate 101 and the oxide semiconductor film 103 to an interface between the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 (a surface of an oxide semiconductor film 109 described later). the thickness of the sacrifice film 105 varies depending on the thickness of the oxide semiconductor film 103 or the acceleration voltage at which oxygen ions are injected later. for example, in the case where the thickness of the oxide semiconductor film 103 is greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, the sacrifice film 105 can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. note that the sacrifice film 105 can be formed by a method similar to that for the oxide semiconductor film 103 . next, oxygen ions 107 are injected into the oxide semiconductor film 103 through the sacrifice film 105 (see fig. 1c ). the oxygen ions 107 are injected into the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 , so that the oxide semiconductor film 109 and a sacrifice film 111 are formed (see fig. 1d ). the oxygen ions 107 can be injected by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method. the acceleration voltage at which the oxygen ions 107 are injected is changed depending on the densities and thicknesses of the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 . whichever method is employed, the injection is performed at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions 107 is located in the region from the interface between the substrate 101 and the oxide semiconductor film 103 to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film 103 . in other words, the injection is performed at a high acceleration voltage, considering the densities and thicknesses of the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 . since the oxygen ions 107 are injected through the sacrifice film 105 , the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be located in the region from the interface between the substrate 101 and the oxide semiconductor film 103 to the interface between the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 . here, fig. 16a schematically illustrates the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions 107 in a region surrounded by dotted lines in fig. 1d . note that fig. 16a is an enlarged view of the region surrounded by the dotted lines, where the horizontal axis represents the depth from a surface of the sacrifice film 111 and the vertical axis represents the concentration of the injected oxygen ions 107 . further, fig. 16a illustrates the oxide semiconductor film 109 and the sacrifice film 111 over the substrate 101 , and a concentration distribution 112 of the injected oxygen ions 107 . the oxygen ions 107 are injected through the sacrifice film 105 at a high acceleration voltage in the above manner, whereby a local maximum 113 of the concentration distribution 112 of the oxygen ions 107 can be located in the region from an interface between the substrate 101 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 to an interface between the oxide semiconductor film 109 and the sacrifice film 111 . in addition, the concentration gradient of the oxygen ions 107 injected in the above manner is gentle as indicated by the concentration distribution 112 . that is, by injecting the oxygen ions 107 at a high acceleration voltage, the oxygen ions 107 can be injected so that the amount of change in the concentration distribution at least in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film 109 is small. specifically, the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be 40% or less on the basis of the concentration at the local maximum 113 of the concentration distribution. note that the injection of the oxygen ions 107 at a high acceleration voltage can also make the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the sacrifice film 111 small. moreover, by setting the acceleration voltage high as described above at the time of injecting the oxygen ions 107 into the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the time taken to inject the oxygen ions 107 at a desired concentration can be shortened. since the oxygen ions 107 are injected to fill oxygen vacancies caused in the oxide semiconductor film 103 , it is preferable that only oxygen ions be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 103 . for this reason, the oxygen ions 107 are preferably injected by an ion implantation method, in which mass separation is performed. next, the sacrifice film 111 is removed, so that the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 in which the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution in the depth direction of the film is located and the amount of change in the concentration distribution is small is exposed (see fig. 1e ). since the above method enables the oxygen ions 107 to be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 103 uniformly in the depth direction, oxygen vacancies caused in the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be sufficiently filled. that is, the oxide semiconductor film 109 is an oxide semiconductor film in which oxygen vacancies are sufficiently filled. the sacrifice film 111 can be removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and a chemical mechanical polishing method, and is preferably removed by wet etching because it is the easiest method. since the sacrifice film 111 is formed using a material that is different from that for the oxide semiconductor film 109 , the sacrifice film 111 can be removed under a condition where the etching rates differ between the sacrifice film 111 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 (condition where the etching selectivity is high); thus, the sacrifice film 111 can be easily removed. after the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the oxygen ions 107 are injected and the sacrifice film 111 is removed, whereby impurities attached to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be prevented from being put into the oxide semiconductor film 103 by a knock-on effect. as a result, impurities included in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. alternatively, in this embodiment, the sacrifice film 105 may be formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 . specifically, the oxide semiconductor film 109 may be formed in such a manner that a thick oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed to have a first region which is to be the oxide semiconductor film 109 in the end and a second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 , oxygen ions are injected through the second region at a high acceleration voltage, and the second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 is removed. in the case where the thickness of the first region is greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm, the thickness of the second region may be greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. also in the case where the sacrifice film 105 is formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 , by injecting oxygen ions into the first region through the second region at a high acceleration voltage, the oxygen ions are injected so that the amount of change in the concentration distribution at least in the depth direction of the first region is small. then, the second region into which the oxygen ions have been injected is removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and a chemical mechanical polishing method; thus, the oxide semiconductor film 109 in which the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the first region is small can be formed. note that, at the removal of the second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 , the etching rate of the first region is equal to that of the second region (the etching selectivity is low); therefore, it is preferable that the time for removal of the second region be controlled in consideration of the thickness and etching rate of the second region. further, in the case where the sacrifice film 105 is formed using a material that is different from that for the oxide semiconductor film 103 , impurities generated in the formation of the sacrifice film 105 might be attached to the interface between the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 , and these impurities might remain on the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 obtained in the end. however, formation of the sacrifice film 105 using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 can reduce impurities remaining on the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 obtained in the end. moreover, the time taken to form the oxide semiconductor film of one embodiment of the present invention can be shortened. as described above, in the case where oxygen ions are injected into a thin oxide semiconductor film, a sacrifice film is formed over the oxide semiconductor film and the oxygen ions are injected at a high acceleration voltage as in one embodiment of the present invention; consequently, an oxide semiconductor film into which the oxygen ions are uniformly injected and in which oxygen vacancies are sufficiently filled can be formed. moreover, according to one embodiment of the present invention, the time taken to inject the oxygen ions into the oxide semiconductor film can be shortened, and the oxide semiconductor film into which the oxygen ions are uniformly injected and in which oxygen vacancies are sufficiently filled can be formed with higher productivity. in the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film in this embodiment, an oxide semiconductor film is formed over a substrate; alternatively, an insulating film may be formed over a substrate and then an oxide semiconductor film may be formed over the insulating film. in this case, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in a region from an interface between the insulating film and the oxide semiconductor film to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film, and the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is small. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 2 in this embodiment, a method for forming an insulating film in which oxygen is contained uniformly in the depth direction of the insulating film is described with reference to figs. 2a to 2e and fig. 16b . figs. 2a to 2e are schematic cross-sectional views illustrating a method for forming an insulating film, which is one embodiment of the present invention. first, an insulating film 203 is formed over the substrate 101 (see fig. 2a ). the insulating film 203 may be formed by a cvd method, a sputtering method, an mbe method, or a pld method. there is no particular limitation on the insulating film 203 as long as it is an insulator. for example, an oxide insulating film of silicon oxide or the like, a nitride insulating film of silicon nitride or the like, an oxynitride insulating film of silicon oxynitride or the like, or a nitride oxide insulating film of silicon nitride oxide or the like can be used. note that silicon oxynitride refers to a substance that contains more oxygen than nitrogen. for example, silicon oxynitride contains oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen in ranges of 50 at.% to 70 at.%, 0.5 at.% to 15 at.%, 25 at.% to 35 at.%, and 0 at.% to 10 at.%, respectively. further, silicon nitride oxide refers to a substance that contains more nitrogen than oxygen. for example, silicon nitride oxide contains oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen in ranges of 5 at.% to 30 at.%, 20 at.% to 55 at.%, 25 at.% to 35 at.%, and 10 at.% to 25 at.%, respectively. note that the above ranges are ranges for cases where measurement is performed using rutherford backscattering spectrometry (rbs) or hydrogen forward scattering spectrometry (hfs). moreover, the total of the percentages of the constituent elements does not exceed 100 at.%. next, the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the insulating film 203 (see fig. 2b ). the sacrifice film 105 is provided in order to locate, at the time of injecting oxygen ions later, the local maximum of the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the insulating film 203 in a region from an interface between the substrate 101 and the insulating film 203 to a surface of the insulating film 203 (corresponding to an interface between the insulating film 203 and the sacrifice film 105 in fig. 2b ), particularly in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film 203 . the sacrifice film 105 may be formed using a material that is the same as or different from that for the insulating film 203 formed under the sacrifice film 105 . for example, the sacrifice film 105 can be formed using a metal oxide such as molybdenum oxide, cerium oxide, or magnesium oxide or an insulating film that can be used for the insulating film 203 . here, a material that is different from that for the insulating film 203 is used for the sacrifice film 105 . the case where the same material as the insulating film 203 is used for the sacrifice film 105 is described later. the thickness of the sacrifice film 105 varies depending on the thickness of the insulating film 203 or the acceleration voltage at which oxygen ions are injected later. for example, in the case where the thickness of the insulating film 203 is greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm, the sacrifice film 105 can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. note that the sacrifice film 105 may be formed by a method similar to that in embodiment 1. next, the oxygen ions 107 are injected into the insulating film 203 through the sacrifice film 105 (see fig. 2c ). the oxygen ions 107 are injected into the insulating film 203 and the sacrifice film 105 , so that an insulating film 205 and the sacrifice film 111 are formed (see fig. 2d ). the oxygen ions 107 can be injected by a method similar to that in embodiment 1. that is, the injection is performed at such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions 107 is located in the region from the interface between the substrate 101 and the insulating film 203 to the surface of the insulating film 203 , particularly in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film 203 . in other words, the oxygen ions 107 are injected into the insulating film 203 and the sacrifice film 105 at a high acceleration voltage. by injecting the oxygen ions 107 into the insulating film 203 through the sacrifice film 105 at a high acceleration voltage, the local maximum of the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the insulating film 203 can be located in the region from the interface between the substrate 101 and the insulating film 203 to the interface between the insulating film 203 and the sacrifice film 105 (a surface of the insulating film 205 described later), particularly in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film 203 (in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film 205 described later). here, fig. 16b schematically illustrates the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions 107 in a region surrounded by dotted lines in fig. 2d . note that fig. 16b is an enlarged view of the region surrounded by the dotted lines, where the horizontal axis represents the depth from a surface of the sacrifice film 111 and the vertical axis represents the concentration of the injected oxygen ions 107 . further, fig. 16b illustrates the insulating film 205 and the sacrifice film 111 over the substrate 101 , and the concentration distribution 112 of the injected oxygen ions 107 . the oxygen ions 107 are injected through the sacrifice film 105 at a high acceleration voltage in the above manner, whereby the local maximum 113 of the concentration distribution 112 can be located in the region from an interface between the substrate 101 and the insulating film 205 to an interface between the insulating film 205 and the sacrifice film 111 . in addition, the concentration gradient of the oxygen ions 107 injected in the above manner is gentle as indicated by the concentration distribution 112 . that is, the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the insulating film 205 can be small. specifically, the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the insulating film 205 can be 40% or less on the basis of the concentration at the local maximum of the concentration distribution. note that the injection of the oxygen ions 107 at a high acceleration voltage can also make the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the sacrifice film 111 small. also in this embodiment, the oxygen ions 107 are preferably injected by an ion implantation method, in which mass separation is performed. next, the sacrifice film 111 is removed, so that the surface of the insulating film 205 is exposed (see fig. 2e ). as in embodiment 1, the sacrifice film 111 can be removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and a chemical mechanical polishing method, and is preferably removed by wet etching because it is the easiest method. in the case where the sacrifice film 111 is formed using a material that is different from that for the insulating film 205 , the sacrifice film 111 can be removed under a condition where the etching rates differ between the sacrifice film 111 and the insulating film 205 (condition where the etching selectivity is high); thus, the sacrifice film 111 can be easily removed. after the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the insulating film 203 , the oxygen ions 107 are injected and the sacrifice film 111 is removed, whereby impurities attached to the surface of the insulating film 203 can be prevented from being put into the insulating film 203 by a knock-on effect. as a result, impurities included in the insulating film 205 can be reduced. as described above, in this embodiment, the sacrifice film 105 may be formed using the same material as the insulating film 203 . specifically, the insulating film 205 may be formed in such a manner that a thick insulating film 203 is formed to have a first region which is to be the insulating film 205 in the end and a second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 , oxygen ions are injected through the second region at a high acceleration voltage, and the second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 is removed. in the case where the thickness of the first region is greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm, the thickness of the second region may be greater than or equal to 20 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. also in the case where the sacrifice film 105 is formed using the same material as the insulating film 203 , by injecting oxygen ions into the first region through the second region at a high acceleration voltage, the oxygen ions are injected so that the amount of change in the concentration distribution at least in the depth direction of the first region is small. then, the second region into which the oxygen ions have been injected is removed by any one of wet etching, dry etching, and a chemical mechanical polishing method; thus, the insulating film 205 in which the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the first region is small can be formed. note that, at the removal of the second region functioning as the sacrifice film 105 , the etching rate of the first region is equal to that of the second region (the etching selectivity is low); therefore, it is preferable that the time for removal of the second region be controlled in consideration of the thickness and etching rate of the second region. further, in the case where the sacrifice film 105 is formed using a material that is different from that for the insulating film 203 , impurities generated in the formation of the sacrifice film 105 might be attached to the interface between the insulating film 203 and the sacrifice film 105 , and these impurities might remain on the surface of the insulating film 205 obtained in the end. however, formation of the sacrifice film 105 using the same material as the insulating film 203 can reduce impurities remaining on the surface of the insulating film 205 obtained in the end. in the case where oxygen vacancies in an oxide semiconductor are filled by the method described in embodiment 1, by the way, oxygen ions are directly injected into an oxide semiconductor film by an ion implantation method, an ion doping method, or the like. these methods might largely degrade the crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film. thus, an oxide semiconductor film is formed over the insulating film described in this embodiment and then heat treatment may be performed, whereby oxygen can be diffused from the insulating film into the oxide semiconductor film. unlike in the case of the method described in embodiment 1, oxygen ions are not directly injected into the oxide semiconductor film; therefore, oxygen vacancies can be filled without a large degradation in the crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film. further, in the insulating film formed by the method described in this embodiment, the local maximum of the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the insulating film can be located close to the surface of the insulating film, and the amount of change in the concentration distribution can be small. accordingly, when an oxide semiconductor film is formed over the insulating film, the distance which oxygen travels to the oxide semiconductor film can be shortened. consequently, oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film formed over the insulating film can be efficiently filled. as described above, in the case where oxygen ions are injected into a thin insulating film, a sacrifice film is formed over the insulating film and the oxygen ions are injected at a high acceleration voltage as in one embodiment of the present invention; consequently, an insulating film into which the oxygen ions are injected uniformly in the depth direction can be formed. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 3 in this embodiment, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device with the use of the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film described in embodiment 1 is described. note that a transistor using an oxide semiconductor is described as an example of the semiconductor device in this embodiment. in addition, the method for forming an oxide semiconductor film described in embodiment 1 can be applied to the manufacture of transistors having a variety of structures, such as a top-gate transistor, a bottom-gate transistor, and a dual-gate transistor; a top-gate transistor is described here as an example. figs. 3a to 3d are schematic cross-sectional views illustrating a method for manufacturing a transistor using an oxide semiconductor in this embodiment. first, the substrate 101 is prepared. although there is no particular limitation on the substrate 101 , it is preferable that the substrate 101 have an insulating surface and at least heat resistance high enough to withstand heat treatment performed later. for example, a glass substrate of aluminosilicate glass, aluminoborosilicate glass, barium borosilicate glass, or the like; a ceramic substrate; a quartz substrate; or a sapphire substrate can be used. alternatively, a single crystal semiconductor substrate or a polycrystalline semiconductor substrate of silicon, silicon carbide, or the like; a compound semiconductor substrate of silicon germanium or the like; or the like can be used. alternatively, a substrate obtained by forming an insulating film over a surface of a semiconductor substrate of silicon or the like or a surface of a conductive substrate formed of a metal material can be used. note that a glass substrate is used as the substrate 101 in this embodiment. a base insulating film may be provided over the substrate 101 . in this embodiment, a base insulating film 303 is formed over the substrate 101 . there is no particular limitation on the base insulating film 303 as long as it is an insulator. for example, an oxide insulating film of silicon oxide or the like, a nitride insulating film of silicon nitride or the like, an oxynitride insulating film of silicon oxynitride or the like, or a nitride oxide insulating film of silicon nitride oxide or the like can be used. the base insulating film 303 may be formed by any one of a cvd method, a sputtering method, an mbe method, and a pld method, and is preferably formed by a sputtering method. the thickness of the base insulating film 303 may be greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm; here, a 300-nm-thick oxide insulating film is formed. next, the oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed over the base insulating film 303 (see fig. 3a ). the oxide semiconductor film 103 may be formed as in embodiment 1. the thickness of the oxide semiconductor film 103 may be greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm; in this embodiment, the oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed to a thickness of 20 nm. note that, in the case where an in—zn-based oxide material is selected for the oxide semiconductor film 103 from the materials given in embodiment 1, the atomic ratio of in to zn is greater than or equal to 0.5 and less than or equal to 50, preferably greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to 20, further preferably greater than or equal to 1.5 and less than or equal to 15. when the atomic ratio of in to zn is in the above range, the field-effect mobility of the transistor manufactured can be improved. here, when the atomic ratio of the compound is in:zn:o=x:y:z, the relation of z>1.5x+y is preferably satisfied. it is preferable that the oxide semiconductor film is the one which is highly purified and hardly contains impurities such as copper, aluminum, and chlorine. in the manufacturing process of the transistor, steps in which these impurities are not mixed or attached to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film are preferably selected as appropriate. in the case where the impurities are attached to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film, the impurities on the surface of the oxide semiconductor film are preferably removed by exposure to oxalic acid or dilute hydrofluoric acid or plasma treatment (such as n 2 o plasma treatment). specifically, the copper concentration of the oxide semiconductor film is lower than or equal to 1×10 18 atoms/cm 3 , preferably lower than or equal to 1×10 17 atoms/cm 3 . in addition, the aluminum concentration of the oxide semiconductor film is lower than or equal to 1×10 18 atoms/cm 3 . further, the chlorine concentration of the oxide semiconductor film is lower than or equal to 2×10 18 atoms/cm 3 . accordingly, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. further, just after being formed, the oxide semiconductor film is preferably in a supersaturated state in which oxygen is contained in a proportion higher than that in the stoichiometric composition. for example, in the case where the oxide semiconductor film is formed by a sputtering method, the film formation is preferably performed under the condition where the proportion of oxygen in a deposition gas is high, in particular, in an oxygen atmosphere (oxygen gas: 100%). when the film formation is performed in the state where the proportion of oxygen in the deposition gas is high, in particular, in an atmosphere containing an oxygen gas at 100%, release of zn from the film can be suppressed even at a deposition temperature higher than or equal to 300° c. the oxide semiconductor film is preferably highly purified by sufficient removal of impurities such as hydrogen or by supersaturation with oxygen through sufficient supply of oxygen. specifically, the hydrogen concentration of the oxide semiconductor film is lower than 5×10 18 atoms/cm 3 , preferably lower than or equal to 1×10 18 atoms/cm 3 , further preferably lower than or equal to 5×10 17 atoms/cm 3 . the concentration of hydrogen in the oxide semiconductor film (the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the oxide semiconductor film 109 described later, or an oxide semiconductor film 305 described later) in the manufacturing process of the transistor is measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry (sims). next, the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the oxide semiconductor film 103 (see fig. 3b ). the sacrifice film 105 is formed to such a thickness that, at the time of injecting oxygen ions later, the local maximum of the concentration distribution in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film 103 is located in a region from an interface between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 103 to an interface between the oxide semiconductor film 103 and the sacrifice film 105 (a surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 described later). the thickness and formation method of the sacrifice film 105 may be similar to those in embodiment 1. in this embodiment, the sacrifice film 105 is formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 . therefore, the oxide semiconductor film 103 corresponds to the first region described in embodiment 1, and the sacrifice film 105 corresponds to the second region described in embodiment 1. note that the sacrifice film 105 is formed to a thickness of 20 nm in this embodiment; that is, a 40-nm-thick oxide semiconductor film is formed in this embodiment. next, the oxygen ions 107 are injected into the oxide semiconductor film 103 through the sacrifice film 105 , so that the oxide semiconductor film 109 and the sacrifice film 111 into which the oxygen ions 107 are injected are formed (see fig. 3c ). the oxygen ions 107 may be injected as in embodiment 1. that is, the oxygen ions 107 may be injected at a high acceleration voltage. specifically, the oxygen ions 107 are injected at an acceleration voltage of 20 kv. next, the sacrifice film 111 is removed, so that the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 is exposed (see fig. 3d ). the sacrifice film 111 may be removed as in embodiment 1. in this embodiment, the sacrifice film 111 is removed by wet etching. note that, since the same material is used for the oxide semiconductor film 109 and the sacrifice film 111 , the etching rates thereof are equal to each other. thus, the etching rate of the oxide semiconductor film 109 and the sacrifice film 111 is calculated in advance, and the sacrifice film 111 is removed under the control of the etching time, which is determined in consideration of the etching rate and the thickness of the sacrifice film 111 . in the oxide semiconductor film 109 obtained through the above steps, oxygen ions are injected so that the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction is small; therefore, oxygen vacancies are sufficiently filled throughout the region from an interface between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 . accordingly, electrons caused by oxygen vacancies are reduced in a transistor manufactured using the oxide semiconductor film 109 , and thus, the transistor has favorable electrical characteristics. further, since the oxygen ions 107 are injected throughout the region from the interface between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 , the interface state density between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. accordingly, in a transistor manufactured using the oxide semiconductor film 109 , carrier trapping at the interface between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 , which can occur in the operation of the transistor or the like, is suppressed; thus, the transistor has excellent reliability. furthermore, after the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the oxygen ions 107 are injected and the sacrifice film 111 is removed, whereby impurities attached to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be prevented from being put into the oxide semiconductor film 103 by a knock-on effect. as a result, impurities included in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. accordingly, electrical characteristics of a transistor manufactured using the oxide semiconductor film 109 are prevented from deteriorating owing to such impurities, and thus, the transistor has favorable electrical characteristics. moreover, as described in embodiment 1, by forming the sacrifice film 105 using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film 103 in the formation process of the oxide semiconductor film 109 , impurities remaining on the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. accordingly, electrical characteristics of a transistor manufactured using the oxide semiconductor film 109 are prevented from deteriorating owing to such impurities, and thus, the transistor has favorable electrical characteristics. heat treatment may be performed after the oxide semiconductor film 109 is formed. by the heat treatment, the degree of crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film 109 is increased. in addition, the concentration of impurities (such as hydrogen and moisture) in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced, so that defect density can be reduced. the heat treatment may be performed in at least one atmosphere of an oxidation atmosphere, an inert atmosphere, a reduced-pressure atmosphere, and a dry-air atmosphere. preferably, heat treatment is performed in an inert atmosphere or a reduced-pressure atmosphere and then heat treatment is further performed in an oxidation atmosphere or a dry-air atmosphere. the heat treatment may be performed at a temperature higher than or equal to 150° c. and lower than or equal to 650° c., preferably higher than or equal to 250° c. and lower than or equal to 500° c., further preferably higher than or equal to 300° c. and lower than or equal to 450° c. a resistance heating method, a lamp heating method, a method using a heated gas, or the like may be used in the heat treatment. an oxidation atmosphere refers to an atmosphere containing an oxidation gas. an oxidation gas is oxygen, ozone, nitrous oxide, or the like, and it is preferable that the oxidation gas does not contain water, hydrogen, and the like. for example, the purity of oxygen, ozone, or nitrous oxide introduced into a heat treatment apparatus is higher than or equal to 8n (99.999999%), preferably higher than or equal to 9n (99.9999999%). the oxidation atmosphere may be a mixture of an oxidation gas and an inert gas. in this case, the atmosphere contains an oxidation gas at a concentration at least higher than or equal to 10 ppm. by performing heat treatment in an oxidation atmosphere, the density of oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. an inert atmosphere refers to an atmosphere containing an inert gas such as nitrogen or a rare gas as a main component. specifically, in an inert atmosphere, the concentration of a reactive gas such as an oxidation gas is lower than 10 ppm. by performing heat treatment in an inert atmosphere, the concentration of impurities included in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be reduced. a reduced-pressure atmosphere refers to an atmosphere with a pressure of a treatment chamber of lower than or equal to 10 pa. by performing heat treatment in a reduced-pressure atmosphere, the concentration of impurities included in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can become low as compared with the case of employing an inert atmosphere. a dry-air atmosphere refers to an atmosphere with a dew point lower than or equal to −40° c., preferably lower than or equal to −50° c. and with an oxygen content of approximately 20% and a nitrogen content of approximately 80%. the dry-air atmosphere is a kind of oxidation atmosphere. since the dry-air atmosphere is relatively low in cost, it is suitable for mass production. then, the oxide semiconductor film 109 is processed, so that the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 305 is formed (see fig. 4a ). note that, unless otherwise specified, “processing” means formation of a film having a desired shape by performing etching treatment with the use of a resist mask formed by a photolithography method and then removing the resist mask. the above heat treatment that can be performed on the oxide semiconductor film 109 may be performed after the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 305 is formed. next, a gate insulating film 307 is formed over the island-shaped oxide semiconductor film 305 . the gate insulating film 307 may be formed to have a single-layer structure or a stacked-layer structure using a material that can be used for the base insulating film 303 . in addition, the gate insulating film 307 may be formed by a method similar to that for the base insulating film 303 . the thickness of the gate insulating film 307 is preferably greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 200 nm, further preferably greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 50 nm. here, a 20-nm-thick silicon oxynitride film is formed as the gate insulating film 307 . note that, after the gate insulating film 307 is formed, heat treatment similar to the heat treatment that can be performed after the formation of the oxide semiconductor film 109 may be performed. the heat treatment here can also increase the degree of crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film 305 , and can lower the concentration of impurities (such as hydrogen and moisture) in the oxide semiconductor film 305 to reduce defect density. next, a conductive film is formed over the gate insulating film 307 and processed, so that a gate electrode 309 is formed (see fig. 4b ). as the conductive film, a metal film containing a metal element selected from aluminum, chromium, copper, tantalum, titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, manganese, and zirconium; an alloy film containing any of these metal elements as a component; an alloy film containing any of these metal elements in combination; or the like can be used. alternatively, an alloy film containing aluminum and one or more metal elements selected from titanium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium, neodymium, and scandium; or a nitride film of the alloy film may be used. further, the conductive film used to form the gate electrode 309 may have a single-layer structure or a stacked-layer structure of two or more layers. for example, a single-layer structure of an aluminum film containing silicon, a two-layer structure in which a copper film is stacked over a copper-magnesium-aluminum alloy film, a two-layer structure in which a titanium film is stacked over an aluminum film, a two-layer structure in which a titanium film is stacked over a titanium nitride film, a two-layer structure in which a tungsten film is stacked over a titanium nitride film, a two-layer structure in which a tungsten film is stacked over a tantalum nitride film, and a three-layer structure in which a titanium film, an aluminum film, and a titanium film are stacked in this order are given. the conductive film used to form the gate electrode 309 can also be formed using a light-transmitting conductive material such as indium tin oxide, indium oxide containing tungsten oxide, indium zinc oxide containing tungsten oxide, indium oxide containing titanium oxide, indium tin oxide containing titanium oxide, indium zinc oxide, or indium tin oxide to which silicon oxide is added. the conductive film can also be formed to have a stacked-layer structure including a film of the above light-transmitting conductive material and the above metal film. there is no particular limitation on the thickness of the conductive film used to form the gate electrode 309 , and the thickness may be determined as appropriate in consideration of the time taken for the formation or the like. note that the conductive film can be formed by any one of a cvd method, a sputtering method, an mbe method, a pld method, and a vacuum evaporation method. in addition, the gate electrode 309 also functions as a gate wiring. next, an interlayer insulating film 311 is formed over the gate insulating film 307 and the gate electrode 309 . the interlayer insulating film 311 may be formed to have a single-layer structure or a stacked-layer structure using a material that can be used for the base insulating film 303 . in addition, the interlayer insulating film 311 may be formed by a method similar to that for the base insulating film 303 . next, the interlayer insulating film 311 and the gate insulating film 307 are processed so that the oxide semiconductor film 305 is partly exposed; thus, an opening 313 a and an opening 313 b are formed (see fig. 4d ). a conductive film is formed in contact with the partly exposed oxide semiconductor film 305 in the opening 313 a and the opening 313 b , and the conductive film is processed, so that a source electrode 315 a and a drain electrode 315 b are formed (see fig. 5a ). the conductive film may be formed using a material that can be used for the conductive film used to form the gate electrode 309 by a method similar to that for the conductive film used to form the gate electrode 309 . note that there is no particular limitation on the thickness of the conductive film to be processed into the source electrode 315 a and the drain electrode 315 b , and the thickness may be determined as appropriate in consideration of the time taken for the formation or the like. in addition, the source electrode 315 a and the drain electrode 315 b also function as a source wiring and a drain wiring, respectively. note that, although not illustrated, an insulating film including a resin may be formed over the interlayer insulating film 311 . fig. 5b is a schematic top view of the transistor manufactured by the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment. figs. 3a to 3d , figs. 4a to 4d , and fig. 5a each illustrate a cross section taken along dashed-dotted line a-b in fig. 5b . meanwhile, the base insulating film 303 and/or the gate insulating film 307 may be formed using an oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment. the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment can be formed by a sputtering method. in the case where the oxide insulating film (specifically a silicon oxide film) is formed by a sputtering method, a silicon target or a quartz target is used as a target, and oxygen or a mixed gas of oxygen and argon is used as a sputtering gas. to release oxygen by heat treatment means that the amount of released oxygen which is converted into oxygen atoms is greater than or equal to 1.0×10 18 atoms/cm 3 , preferably greater than or equal to 3.0×10 20 atoms/cm 3 , in a thermal desorption spectroscopy (tds) analysis. here, a method in which the amount of released oxygen is measured by being converted into oxygen atoms using tds analysis is described below. the amount of released gas in tds analysis is proportional to the integral value of a spectrum. therefore, the amount of released gas can be calculated from the ratio between the integral value of a measured spectrum and a reference value of a standard sample. the reference value of a standard sample refers to the ratio of the density of a predetermined atom contained in a sample to the integral value of a spectrum. for example, the number of oxygen molecules (n o2 ) released from an insulating film can be found according to formula 1 with the tds analysis results of a silicon wafer containing hydrogen at a predetermined density, which is the standard sample, and the tds analysis results of the insulating film. here, all spectra having a mass number of 32 which are obtained by the tds analysis are assumed to originate from an oxygen molecule. ch 3 oh, which is a gas having a mass number of 32, is not taken into consideration on the assumption that it is unlikely to be present. further, an oxygen molecule including an oxygen atom having a mass number of 17 or 18, which is an isotope of an oxygen atom, is not taken into consideration either because the proportion of such a molecule in the natural world is minimal. n h2 is the value obtained by conversion of the number of hydrogen molecules desorbed from the standard sample into density. s h2 is the integral value of a spectrum of the standard sample which is analyzed by tds. here, the reference value of the standard sample is set to n h2 /s h2 . s o2 is the integral value of a spectrum of the insulating film which is analyzed by tds. α is a coefficient which influences the intensity of the spectrum in the tds analysis. japanese published patent application no. h6-275697 can be referred to for details of formula 1. note that the above value of the amount of released oxygen is obtained by measurement with a thermal desorption spectroscopy apparatus produced by esco ltd., emd-wa1000s/w using a silicon wafer containing hydrogen atoms at 1×10 16 cm −3 as the standard sample. further, in the tds analysis, oxygen is partly detected as an oxygen atom. the ratio between oxygen molecules and oxygen atoms can be calculated from the ionization rate of the oxygen molecules. note that, since the above a includes the ionization rate of the oxygen molecules, the number of released oxygen atoms can also be estimated through the evaluation of the number of released oxygen molecules. note that n o2 is the number of the released oxygen molecules. the amount of released oxygen which is converted into oxygen atoms is twice the number of the released oxygen molecules. as the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment, an oxide insulating film which contains oxygen in a proportion higher than that in the stoichiometric composition can be used. typical examples include a silicon oxide film, a silicon oxynitride film, an aluminum oxide film, an aluminum oxynitride film, a gallium oxide film, a hafnium oxide film, and an yttrium oxide film, each of which contains oxygen in a proportion higher than that in the stoichiometric composition. in this manner, the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment is used as the base insulating film 303 and/or the gate insulating film 307 and the above heat treatment is performed, whereby oxygen can be diffused into the region from the interface between the base insulating film 303 and the oxide semiconductor film 109 to the surface of the oxide semiconductor film 109 ; thus, oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film 109 can be further filled. in order to obtain such an oxygen-supersaturated state through supply of sufficient oxygen, insulating films (such as sio, films) containing excess oxygen are preferably provided in contact with the oxide semiconductor film (the oxide semiconductor film 103 , the oxide semiconductor film 109 , or the oxide semiconductor film 305 ) so that the oxide semiconductor film is positioned therebetween. note that the thicker the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment is, the more oxygen that can be released is contained therein; therefore, in the case where much oxygen needs to be diffused into the region, the oxide insulating film is preferably formed to be thick. in addition, the hydrogen concentration of the insulating film containing excess oxygen is also important because it has an effect upon electrical characteristics of the transistor. the reason for this is described later in an example. in addition, blocking films (such as aluminum oxide films) for suppressing release of oxygen from the oxide semiconductor film are preferably provided so as to be positioned outside the insulating films containing excess oxygen with the oxide semiconductor film positioned between the blocking films. the oxide semiconductor film is positioned between the insulating films containing excess oxygen or the blocking films, so that the oxide semiconductor film can be in a state in which oxygen is contained in a proportion approximately the same as that in the stoichiometric composition or a supersaturated state in which oxygen is contained in a proportion higher than that in the stoichiometric composition. for example, in the case where the oxide semiconductor film is formed of igzo and the stoichiometric composition is in:ga:zn:o=1:1:1:4 [atomic ratio], the ratio of oxygen atoms is larger than 4. note that a dopant may be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 305 with the use of the gate electrode 309 as a mask to form a low-resistance region 316 a and a low-resistance region 316 b . in the oxide semiconductor film 305 , a region into which the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 305 is not injected is a high-resistance region 314 . fig. 6a is a schematic top view of a transistor including the low-resistance region 316 a , the low-resistance region 316 b , and the high-resistance region 314 . fig. 6b is a schematic cross-sectional view of the transistor, which illustrates a cross section taken along dashed-dotted line a-b in fig. 6a . the transistor has the same structure as the transistor illustrated in figs. 5a and 5b except for the low-resistance regions 316 a and 316 b and the high-resistance region 314 . as the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 305 , one or more of helium, boron, nitrogen, fluorine, neon, aluminum, phosphorus, argon, arsenic, krypton, indium, tin, antimony, and xenon may be used. note that the dopant may be injected by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method. the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 305 may be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 305 by performing plasma treatment or heat treatment in an atmosphere containing the dopant. it is preferable to employ an ion implantation method. after the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 305 is added by an ion implantation method, heat treatment may be performed in an inert atmosphere or a reduced-pressure atmosphere. by forming the low-resistance regions in the oxide semiconductor film 305 in the above manner, the contact resistance between the source and drain electrodes 315 a and 315 b and the oxide semiconductor film 305 can be reduced, which leads to improvement in on-state characteristics of the transistor manufactured. according to the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment, oxygen vacancies in an oxide semiconductor film serving as a channel formation region can be sufficiently filled and electrons caused by such oxygen vacancies are reduced; consequently, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. further, in the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment, an oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment is used as a base insulating film and/or a gate insulating film and heat treatment is performed, whereby oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film serving as the channel formation region can be filled. thus, this method can achieve shorter-time filling of oxygen vacancies than in the case where the oxide insulating film is not used, and the transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured with higher productivity. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 4 in this embodiment, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device with the use of the method for forming an insulating film described in embodiment 2 is described. note that a transistor using an oxide semiconductor is described as an example of the semiconductor device also in this embodiment. in addition, the method for forming an insulating film described in embodiment 2 can be applied to the manufacture of transistors having a variety of structures, such as a top-gate transistor, a bottom-gate transistor, and a dual-gate transistor; a top-gate transistor is described here as an example. in this embodiment, figs. 7a to 7d , figs. 8a to 8c , figs. 9a and 9b , and figs. 10a and 10b are used. first, the substrate 101 is prepared. the substrate 101 may be similar to that in embodiment 3. next, the insulating film 205 is formed as a base insulating film over the substrate 101 , and the oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed over the insulating film 205 (see fig. 7a ). the insulating film 205 serving as the base insulating film can be formed by the method described in embodiment 2 (see figs. 2a to 2e ). thus, in the insulating film 205 , the local maximum of the concentration distribution of injected oxygen ions is located in a region from an interface between the substrate 101 and the insulating film 205 to a surface of the insulating film 205 , particularly in the vicinity of the surface of the insulating film 205 . further, oxygen ions are injected into the insulating film 205 uniformly in the depth direction of the insulating film 205 . furthermore, as the amount of injected oxygen ions is increased, the amount of oxygen contained in the insulating film 205 formed by the method described in embodiment 2 can be increased so as to exceed that in the stoichiometric composition; thus, the insulating film 205 functions as the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment, which is described in embodiment 3. in addition, as the amount of injected oxygen ions is increased, the thickness of the insulating film 205 formed by the method described in embodiment 2 can be reduced. the insulating film 205 can be formed to a thickness greater than or equal to 5 nm and less than or equal to 500 nm. in this embodiment, the sacrifice film 105 is formed using the same material as the insulating film 203 , and the insulating film 205 is formed to a thickness of 20 nm. after the sacrifice film 105 is formed over the insulating film 203 , the oxygen ions 107 are injected and the sacrifice film 111 is removed, whereby impurities attached to a surface of the insulating film 203 can be prevented from being put into the insulating film 203 by a knock-on effect. as a result, impurities included in the insulating film 205 can be reduced. accordingly, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics which are prevented from deteriorating owing to such impurities can be manufactured. as described in embodiment 2, by forming the sacrifice film 105 using the same material as the insulating film 203 in the formation process of the insulating film 205 , impurities remaining on the surface of the insulating film 205 can be reduced. accordingly, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics which are prevented from deteriorating owing to such impurities can be manufactured. the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be formed as in embodiment 3. in this manner, the oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed over the insulating film 205 which contains oxygen in a proportion higher than that in the stoichiometric composition, whereby oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be filled. heat treatment may be performed after the oxide semiconductor film 103 is formed. by the heat treatment, the degree of crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film 103 is increased. in addition, the concentration of impurities (such as hydrogen and moisture) in the oxide semiconductor film 103 can be reduced, so that defect density can be reduced. details of the heat treatment may be similar to those in embodiment 3. further, the above heat treatment enables oxygen to be diffused into a region from an interface between the insulating film 205 and the oxide semiconductor film 103 to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film 103 to fill oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film 103 , so that an oxide semiconductor film 321 in which oxygen vacancies are filled can be formed (see fig. 7b ). electrons caused by oxygen vacancies are reduced in a transistor formed using the oxide semiconductor film 321 in which oxygen vacancies are filled, and thus, the transistor has favorable electrical characteristics. further, since the oxygen ions 107 are injected throughout the region from an interface between the insulating film 205 and the oxide semiconductor film 321 to a surface of the oxide semiconductor film 321 , the interface state density between the insulating film 205 and the oxide semiconductor film 321 can be reduced. accordingly, carrier trapping at the interface between the insulating film 205 and the oxide semiconductor film 321 , which can occur in the operation of the transistor or the like, is suppressed; thus, a transistor having excellent reliability can be manufactured. as the following steps, the oxide semiconductor film 321 is processed to form an oxide semiconductor film 325 (see fig. 7c ), the gate insulating film 307 is formed (see fig. 7d ), the gate electrode 309 is formed (see fig. 8a ), the interlayer insulating film 311 is formed (see fig. 8b ), the interlayer insulating film 311 is processed to form the opening 313 a and the opening 313 b (see fig. 8c ), and the source electrode 315 a and the drain electrode 315 b are formed (see fig. 9a ). details of the steps are similar to those in embodiment 3. note that, although not illustrated, an insulating film including a resin may be formed over the interlayer insulating film 311 . fig. 9b is a schematic top view of the transistor manufactured by the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment. figs. 7a to 7d , figs. 8a to 8c , and fig. 9a each illustrate a cross section taken along dashed-dotted line a-b in fig. 9b . note that, as in embodiment 3, a dopant may be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 325 with the use of the gate electrode 309 as a mask to form a low-resistance region 327 a and a low-resistance region 327 b . in the oxide semiconductor film 325 , a region into which the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 325 is not injected is a high-resistance region 329 . fig. 10a is a schematic top view of a transistor including the low-resistance region 327 a , the low-resistance region 327 b , and the high-resistance region 329 . fig. 10b is a schematic cross-sectional view of the transistor, which illustrates a cross section taken along dashed-dotted line a-b in fig. 10a . the transistor has the same structure as the transistor illustrated in figs. 9a and 9b except for the low-resistance region 327 a , the low-resistance region 327 b , and the high-resistance region 329 . as the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 325 , one or more of helium, boron, nitrogen, fluorine, neon, aluminum, phosphorus, argon, arsenic, krypton, indium, tin, antimony, and xenon may be used. note that the dopant may be injected by an ion implantation method or an ion doping method. the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 325 may be injected into the oxide semiconductor film 325 by performing plasma treatment or heat treatment in an atmosphere containing the dopant. it is preferable to employ an ion implantation method. after the dopant that reduces the resistance of the oxide semiconductor film 325 is added by an ion implantation method, heat treatment may be performed in an inert atmosphere or a reduced-pressure atmosphere. by forming the low-resistance regions in the oxide semiconductor film 325 in the above manner, the contact resistance between the source and drain electrodes 315 a and 315 b and the oxide semiconductor film 325 can be reduced, which leads to improvement in on-state characteristics of the transistor. according to the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment, oxygen vacancies in an oxide semiconductor film serving as a channel formation region can be sufficiently filled and electrons caused by such oxygen vacancies are reduced; consequently, a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. further, in the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment, an oxide semiconductor film is formed over a base insulating film into which oxygen ions are injected so that the amount of change in the concentration distribution in the depth direction is small and then heat treatment may be performed, whereby oxygen can be diffused from the base insulating film into the oxide semiconductor film to fill oxygen vacancies. thus, oxygen ions are not directly injected into the oxide semiconductor film; therefore, oxygen vacancies can be filled without a large degradation in the crystallinity of the oxide semiconductor film. accordingly, deterioration in electrical characteristics due to a large degradation in crystallinity can be suppressed, and a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. furthermore, according to the method for manufacturing a transistor described in this embodiment, the local maximum of the concentration distribution in the depth direction can be located close to a surface of the base insulating film, and the amount of change in the concentration distribution can be small. accordingly, when an oxide semiconductor film is formed over the base insulating film, the distance which oxygen ion travels to the oxide semiconductor film can be shortened. consequently, oxygen vacancies in the oxide semiconductor film can be efficiently filled, and a transistor having favorable electrical characteristics can be manufactured. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 5 in this embodiment, the oxide semiconductor film in the above embodiment is described. the oxide semiconductor film in the above embodiment may have an amorphous structure or a crystalline structure, and preferably has a crystalline structure. as the oxide semiconductor film having a crystalline structure, a single crystal oxide semiconductor film, a polycrystalline (also referred to as polycrystal) oxide semiconductor film, or the like can be used; it is preferable to use a c-axis aligned crystalline oxide semiconductor (caac-os) film. the caac-os film is not completely single crystal nor completely amorphous. the caac-os film is an oxide semiconductor film with a crystal-amorphous mixed phase structure where crystal parts are included in an amorphous phase. note that, in most cases, the crystal part fits inside a cube whose one side is less than 100 nm. from an observation image obtained with a transmission electron microscope (tem), a boundary between an amorphous part and a crystal part in the caac-os film is not clear. further, with the tem, a grain boundary in the caac-os film is not found. thus, in the caac-os film, a decrease in electron mobility due to the grain boundary is suppressed. in each of the crystal parts included in the caac-os film, a c-axis is aligned in a direction parallel to a normal vector of a surface where the caac-os film is formed or a normal vector of a surface of the caac-os film, triangular or hexagonal atomic arrangement is formed when seen from the direction perpendicular to the a-b plane, and metal atoms are arranged in a layered manner or metal atoms and oxygen atoms are arranged in a layered manner when seen from the direction perpendicular to the c-axis. note that, among crystal parts, the directions of an a-axis and a b-axis of one crystal part may be different from those of another crystal part. in this specification, a simple term “perpendicular” includes a range from 85° to 95°. in addition, a simple term “parallel” includes a range from −5° to 5°. in the caac-os film, the distribution of crystal parts is not necessarily uniform. for example, in the formation process of the caac-os film, in the case where crystal growth occurs from a surface side of the oxide semiconductor film, the proportion of crystal parts in the vicinity of the surface of the oxide semiconductor film is higher than that in the vicinity of the surface where the oxide semiconductor film is formed in some cases. further, when an impurity is added to the caac-os film, the crystal part in a region to which the impurity is added becomes amorphous in some cases. since the c-axes of the crystal parts included in the caac-os film are aligned in the direction parallel to the normal vector of the surface where the caac-os film is formed or the normal vector of the surface of the caac-os film, the directions of the c-axes may be different from each other depending on the shape of the caac-os film (the cross-sectional shape of the surface where the caac-os film is formed or the cross-sectional shape of the surface of the caac-os film). note that, when the caac-os film is formed, the direction of the c-axis of the crystal part is the direction parallel to the normal vector of the surface where the caac-os film is formed or the normal vector of the surface of the caac-os film. the crystal part is formed by film formation or by performing treatment for crystallization such as heat treatment after film formation. in a transistor formed using the caac-os film, a change in electrical characteristics due to irradiation with visible light or ultraviolet light is small. therefore, the transistor has highly reliable electrical characteristics. in the case where the oxide semiconductor film in the above embodiment is the caac-os film, the substrate is heated to a temperature higher than 200° c. and lower than or equal to 700° c., preferably higher than 300° c. and lower than or equal to 500° c., further preferably higher than or equal to 400° c. and lower than or equal to 450° c. during the formation of the oxide semiconductor film (the oxide semiconductor film 103 in the above embodiment). the oxide semiconductor film is formed while the substrate is heated in this manner, whereby the caac-os film can be formed. further, in the case where the oxide semiconductor film in the above embodiment is the caac-os film, the base insulating film preferably has sufficient planarity. specifically, the film serving as a base is provided so as to have an average surface roughness (ra) of 1 nm or less, preferably 0.3 nm or less, further preferably 0.1 nm or less. when the average surface roughness ra is less than or equal to the above value, a crystal region is easily formed in the oxide semiconductor film. note that the average surface roughness ra is obtained by expanding, into three dimensions, arithmetic mean surface roughness that is defined by jis b 0601:2001 (iso4287:1997) so as to be applicable to a curved surface. the average surface roughness ra can be expressed as an “average value of the absolute values of deviations from a reference surface to a designated surface” and is defined by formula 2. here, the designated surface is a surface which is a target of roughness measurement, and is a quadrilateral region which is specified by four points represented by the coordinates (x 1 , y 1 , f(x 1 , y 1 )), (x 1 , y 2 , f(x 1 , y 2 )), (x 2 , y 1 , f(x 2 , y 1 )), and (x 2 , y 2 , f(x 2 , y 2 )). moreover, s 0 represents the area of a rectangle which is obtained by projecting the designated surface on the xy plane, and z 0 represents the height of the reference surface (the average height of the designated surface). the average surface roughness ra can be measured with an atomic force microscope (afm). note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 6 in this embodiment, an example of manufacturing a semiconductor memory device with the use of the transistor described in the above embodiment is described. as typical examples of a volatile semiconductor memory device, there are a dynamic random access memory (dram) which stores data in such a manner that a transistor included in a memory element is selected and charge is accumulated in a capacitor, and a static random access memory (sram) which holds stored data using a circuit such as a flip-flop. typical examples of a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device include a flash memory which has a node between a gate and a channel region of a transistor and stores data by holding charge in the node. the transistor described in the above embodiment can be applied to part of transistors included in the above semiconductor memory device. first, a volatile memory to which the transistor described in the above embodiment is applied is described with reference to figs. 11a and 11b . a memory cell includes a bit line bl, a word line wl, a sense amplifier samp, a transistor tr, and a capacitor c (see fig. 11a ). it is known that the voltage held in the capacitor c is gradually decreased with time as shown in fig. 11b owing to the off-state current of the transistor tr. after a certain period of time, the voltage originally raised from v 0 to v 1 by charging is decreased to va which is a limit for reading data 1. this period is called a holding period t_ 1 . in the case of a two-level memory cell, refresh operation needs to be performed within the holding period t_ 1 . when the transistor described in the above embodiment is used as the transistor tr, the holding period t_ 1 can be made longer because the off-state current of the transistor is small. that is, the interval between refresh operations can be longer. accordingly, power consumption can be reduced. for example, a dram including a transistor which is formed using an oxide semiconductor film and has an off-state current less than or equal to 1×10 −21 a, preferably less than or equal to 1×10 −24 a, can hold data for several days to several decades without being supplied with power. as described above, with the use of the transistor of one embodiment of the present invention, a volatile memory with high reliability and low power consumption can be obtained. further, the transistor of one embodiment of the present invention has excellent on-state characteristics; thus, by applying the transistor of one embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to provide a semiconductor memory device capable of high-speed operation, in which charge can be quickly accumulated in the capacitor c. next, a nonvolatile memory to which the transistor described in the above embodiment is applied is described with reference to figs. 12a and 12b . fig. 12a is a circuit diagram of a nonvolatile memory. the nonvolatile memory includes a transistor tr_ 1 , a word line wl_ 1 connected to a gate of the transistor tr_ 1 , a source line sl_ 1 connected to a source of the transistor tr_ 1 , a transistor tr_ 2 , a source line sl_ 2 connected to a source of the transistor tr_ 2 , a drain line dl_ 2 connected to a drain of the transistor tr_ 2 , a capacitor c, a capacitor line cl connected to one terminal of the capacitor c, and a node n connected to the other terminal of the capacitor c, a drain of the transistor tr_ 1 , and a gate of the transistor tr_ 2 . the nonvolatile memory described in this embodiment utilizes change in the threshold voltage of the transistor tr_ 2 , which depends on the potential of the node n. for example, fig. 12b shows a relation between a voltage vcl of the capacitor line cl and a drain current id_ 2 flowing through the transistor tr_ 2 . the voltage of the node n can be controlled with the transistor tr_ 1 . for example, the potential of the source line sl_ 1 is set to vdd. in this case, when the potential of the word line wl_ 1 is set to be higher than or equal to a potential obtained by adding vdd to the threshold voltage vth of the transistor tr_ 1 , the potential of the node n can be high. further, when the potential of the word line wl_ 1 is set to be lower than or equal to the threshold voltage vth of the transistor tr_ 1 , the potential of the node n can be low. thus, either a vcl-id_ 2 curve (n=low) or a vcl-id_ 2 curve (n=high) can be obtained. that is, when n=low, id_ 2 is small at a vcl of 0 v; accordingly, data 0 is stored. further, when n=high, id_ 2 is large at a vcl of 0 v; accordingly, data 1 is stored. in this manner, data can be stored. here, when the transistor described in the above embodiment is used as the transistor tr_ 1 , the off-state current of the transistor can be significantly reduced; therefore, unintentional leakage of charge accumulated in the node n by flowing between the source and the drain of the transistor tr_ 1 can be suppressed. therefore, data can be held for a long period. by using the transistor of one embodiment of the present invention, the threshold voltage of the transistor tr_ 1 is controlled, which enables a reduction in voltage necessary for writing. thus, power consumption can be made small as compared with that of a flash memory or the like. note that the transistor described in the above embodiment may be used as the transistor tr_ 2 . the transistor has excellent on-state characteristics. accordingly, a semiconductor memory device including the transistor can operate at high speed. as described above, by using the transistor of one embodiment of the present invention, a semiconductor memory device having high reliability for a long period and low power consumption and being capable of high-speed operation can be obtained. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 7 a central processing unit (cpu) can be formed with the use of the transistor described in the above embodiment or the semiconductor memory device described in the above embodiment for at least part of the cpu. fig. 13a is a block diagram illustrating a specific structure of a cpu. the cpu illustrated in fig. 13a includes an arithmetic logic unit (alu) 1191 , an alu controller 1192 , an instruction decoder 1193 , an interrupt controller 1194 , a timing controller 1195 , a register 1196 , a register controller 1197 , a bus interface (bus i/f) 1198 , a rewritable rom 1199 , and a rom interface (rom i/f) 1189 over a substrate 1190 . a semiconductor substrate, an soi substrate, a glass substrate, or the like is used as the substrate 1190 . the rom 1199 and the rom interface 1189 may each be provided over a separate chip. obviously, the cpu illustrated in fig. 13a is just an example in which the structure is simplified, and an actual cpu may have various structures depending on the application. an instruction that is input to the cpu through the bus interface 1198 is input to the instruction decoder 1193 and decoded therein, and then input to the alu controller 1192 , the interrupt controller 1194 , the register controller 1197 , and the timing controller 1195 . the alu controller 1192 , the interrupt controller 1194 , the register controller 1197 , and the timing controller 1195 conduct various controls in accordance with the decoded instruction. specifically, the alu controller 1192 generates signals for controlling the operation of the alu 1191 . while the cpu is executing a program, the interrupt controller 1194 judges an interrupt request from an external input/output device or a peripheral circuit on the basis of its priority or a mask state, and processes the request. the register controller 1197 generates an address of the register 1196 , and reads/writes data from/into the register 1196 in accordance with the state of the cpu. the timing controller 1195 generates signals for controlling operation timings of the alu 1191 , the alu controller 1192 , the instruction decoder 1193 , the interrupt controller 1194 , and the register controller 1197 . for example, the timing controller 1195 includes an internal clock generator for generating an internal clock signal clk 2 based on a reference clock signal clk 1 , and supplies the internal clock signal clk 2 to the above circuits. in the cpu illustrated in fig. 13a , a memory element is provided in the register 1196 . as the memory element in the register 1196 , the semiconductor memory device described in embodiment 6 can be used. in the cpu illustrated in fig. 13a , the register controller 1197 selects operation of holding data in the register 1196 in accordance with an instruction from the alu 1191 . that is, the register controller 1197 selects whether data is held by an element which inverts a logic (logic value) or a capacitor in the memory element included in the register 1196 . when data is held by the element which inverts a logic (logic value), a power supply voltage is supplied to the memory element in the register 1196 . when data is held by the capacitor, the data in the capacitor is rewritten, and supply of the power supply voltage to the memory element in the register 1196 can be stopped. the power supply can be stopped by providing a switching element between a memory element group and a node to which a power supply potential vdd or a power supply potential vss is supplied, as illustrated in fig. 13b or fig. 13c . circuits illustrated in figs. 13b and 13c are described below. figs. 13b and 13c each illustrate an example of a structure including the transistor described in the above embodiment as a switching element for controlling supply of a power supply potential to a memory element. the memory device illustrated in fig. 13b includes a switching element 1141 and a memory element group 1143 including a plurality of memory elements 1142 . specifically, as each of the memory elements 1142 , the memory element described in the above embodiment can be used. each of the memory elements 1142 included in the memory element group 1143 is supplied with the high-level power supply potential vdd through the switching element 1141 . further, each of the memory elements 1142 included in the memory element group 1143 is supplied with a potential of a signal in and the low-level power supply potential vss. in fig. 13b , as the switching element 1141 , a transistor in which a semiconductor with a wide band gap such as an oxide semiconductor is used for an active layer is used, and the switching of the transistor is controlled by a signal siga supplied to a gate thereof. note that fig. 13b illustrates a structure in which the switching element 1141 includes only one transistor; however, one embodiment of the present invention is not limited thereto. the switching element 1141 may include a plurality of transistors. in the case where the switching element 1141 includes a plurality of transistors functioning as switching elements, the plurality of transistors may be connected to each other in parallel, in series, or in combination of parallel connection and series connection. in fig. 13c , an example of a memory device in which each of the memory elements 1142 included in the memory element group 1143 is supplied with the low-level power supply potential vss through the switching element 1141 is illustrated. the supply of the low-level power supply potential vss to each of the memory elements 1142 included in the memory element group 1143 can be controlled by the switching element 1141 . when a switching element is provided between a memory element group and a node to which the power supply potential vdd or the power supply potential vss is supplied, data can be held even in the case where operation of a cpu is temporarily stopped and the supply of the power supply voltage is stopped; accordingly, power consumption can be reduced. for example, while a user of a personal computer does not input data to an input device such as a keyboard, the operation of the cpu can be stopped, so that power consumption can be reduced. although the cpu is given as an example, the transistor or the semiconductor memory device can also be applied to an lsi such as a digital signal processor (dsp), a custom lsi, or a field programmable gate array (fpga). note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. embodiment 8 in this embodiment, examples of an electronic device including at least one of the transistors, the semiconductor memory devices, and the cpu described in the above embodiments are described. fig. 14a illustrates a portable information terminal. the portable information terminal illustrated in fig. 14a includes a housing 9300 , a button 9301 , a microphone 9302 , a display portion 9303 , a speaker 9304 , and a camera 9305 , and has a function as a mobile phone. fig. 14b illustrates a display. the display illustrated in fig. 14b includes a housing 9310 and a display portion 9311 . fig. 14c illustrates a digital still camera. the digital still camera illustrated in fig. 14c includes a housing 9320 , a button 9321 , a microphone 9322 , and a display portion 9323 . fig. 14d illustrates a double-foldable portable information terminal. the double-foldable portable information terminal illustrated in fig. 14d includes a housing 9630 , a display portion 9631 a , a display portion 9631 b , a hinge 9633 , and an operation switch 9638 . part or whole of the display portion 9631 a and/or the display portion 9631 b can function as a touch panel. by touching an operation key displayed on the touch panel, a user can input data, for example. by applying one embodiment of the present invention, the performance of an electronic device can be improved. note that the structures, methods, and the like described in this embodiment can be used as appropriate in combination with any of the structures, methods, and the like described in the other embodiments and examples. example 1 in this example, a concentration distribution of oxygen ions in the depth direction of an oxide semiconductor film or an insulating film is described. in this example, calculation results of a concentration distribution in the case where oxygen ions are injected into an oxide semiconductor film are described. the conditions given below were used for the calculation of the concentration distribution in this example. <structure for calculation> as a structure of an injection target for the calculation, a structure including a 20-nm-thick oxide semiconductor film and a 20-nm-thick sacrifice film thereover, which is an oxide semiconductor film formed using the same material as the oxide semiconductor film, is used. in other words, the structure of the injection target for the calculation is the structure having the first region and the second region, which is described in the above embodiment; specifically, the injection target is an oxide semiconductor film having a 20-nm-thick first region and a 20-nm-thick second region. <structure of oxide semiconductor film> the oxide semiconductor film for the calculation is formed using an in—ga—zn-based oxide material, and specifically, has a composition of in:ga:zn:o=3:1:2:8 (atomic ratio). the density of the oxide semiconductor film is 6.8 g/cm 3 . <oxygen ion for calculation> as the oxygen ion injected into the first region and the second region, an oxygen ion with a mass number of 16 is used. <injection condition of oxygen ion> in the calculation in this example, the oxygen ions are injected under two conditions, condition a and condition b. in condition a, the acceleration voltage is 20 kv and the dose is 1.5×10 16 cm −2 . in condition b which is a comparative example, the acceleration voltage is 5 kv and the dose is 5.0×10 16 cm −2 . the acceleration voltage in condition a is such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution is located in the first region of the oxide semiconductor film as described in the above embodiment. the acceleration voltage in condition b is set so that the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution is located in the second region (sacrifice film) of the oxide semiconductor film. in addition, the doses differ between condition a and condition b; the doses are selected so that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected at the acceleration voltage in condition a can be equal to the local maximum of the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected at the acceleration voltage in condition b. fig. 15 shows oxygen ion concentration distributions calculated under the above conditions. in fig. 15 , the horizontal axis represents the depth from a surface of the second region (sacrifice film), and the vertical axis represents the concentration of injected oxygen ions. it is confirmed from fig. 15 that, under condition a, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is located in the first region. on the other hand, it is confirmed that, under condition b, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions is located in the second region (sacrifice film). it is also confirmed that, under condition a, the amount of change in the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the oxide semiconductor film is small at least in the first region. specifically, the largest change in the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions in the first region is a 29% drop from the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions. under condition b, in contrast, the largest change in the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions in the second region (sacrifice film) is a 91% drop from the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions. the results indicate that oxygen ions can be injected into the oxide semiconductor film (first region, in particular) more uniformly under condition a than under condition b. fig. 15 also shows that the area of a region under a solid line, which denotes the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected under condition a, in the depth range from 20 nm to 40 nm (total amount of oxygen ions) is larger than the area of a region under a dotted line, which denotes the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected under condition b, in the depth range from 20 nm to 40 nm (total amount of oxygen ions). accordingly, it can be confirmed that, in the case where the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected under condition a is equal to that under condition b, injection of oxygen ions at a high acceleration voltage as under condition a is preferable because the total amount of oxygen ions in a region into which the oxygen ions are intended to be injected can be larger. the following is indicated by the above results: in the case where oxygen ions are injected into a thin oxide semiconductor film, the oxygen ions can be uniformly injected by forming a sacrifice film over the oxide semiconductor film and injecting the oxygen ions at a high acceleration voltage as in one embodiment of the present invention. example 2 in this example, a concentration distribution of oxygen ions in the depth direction of an oxide semiconductor film or an insulating film is described. in this example, calculation results of a concentration distribution in the case where oxygen ions are injected into an insulating film are described. <structure for calculation> as a structure of an injection target for the calculation, a structure including a 200-nm-thick insulating film and a 300-nm-thick sacrifice film thereover, which is an insulating film formed using the same material as the insulating film, is used. in other words, the structure of the injection target for the calculation is the structure having the first region and the second region, which is described in the above embodiment; specifically, the injection target is an insulating film having a 200-nm-thick first region and a 300-nm-thick second region. <structure of insulating film> the insulating film for the calculation is formed using silicon oxide, and specifically, is a silicon oxide film having a composition of si:o=1:2 (atomic ratio). the density of the insulating film is 2.2 g/cm 3 . <oxygen ion for calculation> as the oxygen ion injected into the first region and the second region, an oxygen ion with a mass number of 16 is used. <injection condition of oxygen ion> in the calculation in this example, the oxygen ions are injected under two conditions, condition c and condition d. in condition c, the acceleration voltage is 160 kv and the dose is 1.9×10 16 cm −2 . in condition d which is a comparative example, the acceleration voltage is 50 kv and the dose is 1.0×10 16 cm −2 . the acceleration voltage in condition c is such an acceleration voltage that the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution is located in the first region of the insulating film as described in the above embodiment. the acceleration voltage in condition d is set so that the local maximum of the oxygen ion concentration distribution is located in the second region (sacrifice film) of the insulating film. in addition, the doses differ between condition c and condition d; the doses are selected so that the local maximum of the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected at the acceleration voltage in condition c can be equal to the local maximum of the concentration distribution of oxygen ions injected at the acceleration voltage in condition d. fig. 17 shows oxygen ion concentration distributions calculated under the above conditions. in fig. 17 , the horizontal axis represents the depth from a surface of the second region (sacrifice film), and the vertical axis represents the concentration of injected oxygen ions. it is confirmed from fig. 17 that, under condition c, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions in the depth direction of the insulating film is located in the first region. on the other hand, it is confirmed that, under condition d, the local maximum of the concentration distribution of the injected oxygen ions is located in the second region (sacrifice film). in the case where the method for forming an insulating film described in this example is used in the manufacture of the semiconductor device described in the above embodiment, for example, the second region (sacrifice film) is removed later. therefore, for the evaluation of the insulating films formed under the two conditions, condition c and condition d, the concentration distribution of the oxygen ions injected into the first region is important. referring to a curve in the range from 300 nm on the horizontal axis, the result under condition c in fig. 17 shows that the oxygen ion concentration at 300 nm on the horizontal axis is approximately 2.5 times lower than the oxygen ion concentration at 400 nm on the horizontal axis. in contrast, the result under condition d in fig. 17 shows that the oxygen ion concentration at 0 nm on the horizontal axis is approximately 44 times lower than the oxygen ion concentration at 100 nm on the horizontal axis. accordingly, the following can be confirmed: by providing a second region (sacrifice film) over an insulating film and injecting oxygen ions at a high acceleration voltage, the oxygen ions can be uniformly injected into the insulating film as compared with the case where the oxygen ions are directly injected. the following is indicated by the above results: in the case where oxygen ions are injected into a thin insulating film, the oxygen ions can be uniformly injected into the insulating film by forming a sacrifice film over the insulating film and injecting the oxygen ions at a high acceleration voltage as in one embodiment of the present invention. example 3 in this example, an effect of the hydrogen concentration of an insulating film containing excess oxygen, which corresponds to the oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment described in the above embodiment, upon electrical characteristics of a transistor is described. specifically, hydrogen was intentionally added to the insulating film containing excess oxygen, and the hydrogen concentration was evaluated by sims. a method for fabricating samples is described below. first, a glass substrate was prepared and a 300-nm-thick silicon oxide film was formed over the glass substrate by a sputtering method. the silicon oxide film was formed using a quartz target at a pressure of 0.4 pa, a power of 1.5 kw (13.56 mhz), and a substrate temperature of 100° c. during film formation. four kinds of samples were prepared. note that the samples were formed under the same conditions except for the flow rates of an oxygen gas (o 2 ), a deuterium gas (d 2 ), and an argon gas (ar) which were gases used for the formation of the silicon oxide film. table 1 shows sample names, the respective flow rates of the gases used for the formation of the silicon oxide film, and d (deuterium atom) concentrations and h (hydrogen) concentrations in the silicon oxide films at a depth of 30 nm. note that the d 2 proportion in the deposition gas (d 2 /(o 2 +ar+d 2 ) for each of the samples was as follows: 0 vol % for sample 1; 0.005 vol % for sample 2; 0.50 vol % for sample 3; and 2.50 vol % for sample 4. table 1dhsampleo 2ard 2d 2concentrationconcentrationname[sccm][sccm][sccm]proportion[atoms/cm 3 ][atoms/cm 3 ]sample252500%5.1e+156.4e+191sample2524.99750.00250.005%1.6e+191.4e+202sample2524.750.250.5%5.6e+207.2e+193sample2523.751.252.5%7.2e+201.9e+194 table 1 shows that the d concentration of the silicon oxide film becomes higher as the d 2 proportion in the deposition gas is increased. next, transistors were fabricated using samples 1 to 4 shown in table 1. fig. 18a is a top view of a transistor used for evaluation. fig. 18b is a cross-sectional view taken along dashed-dotted line c-d in fig. 18a . note that a protective insulating film 2118 , a gate insulating film 2112 , an insulating film 2102 , and the like are not illustrated in fig. 18a for clarity. the transistor illustrated in fig. 18b includes a substrate 2100 , the insulating film 2102 which is provided over the substrate 2100 and contains excess oxygen, an oxide semiconductor film 2106 provided over the insulating film 2102 , a pair of electrodes 2116 provided over the oxide semiconductor film 2106 , the gate insulating film 2112 provided to cover the oxide semiconductor film 2106 and the pair of electrodes 2116 , a gate electrode 2104 overlapping with the oxide semiconductor film 2106 with the gate insulating film 2112 positioned therebetween, and the protective insulating film 2118 provided over the gate electrode 2104 and the gate insulating film 2112 . here, any of samples 1 to 4 shown in table 1 was used as the insulating film 2102 . note that the thickness of the insulating film 2102 was 300 nm. in addition, a glass substrate was used as the substrate 2100 ; a 20-nm-thick igzo film (formed using a target having a composition of in:ga:zn=1:1:1 [atomic ratio]) was used as the oxide semiconductor film 2106 ; a 100-nm-thick tungsten film was used as the pair of electrodes 2116 ; a 30-nm-thick silicon oxynitride film was used as the gate insulating film 2112 ; a stack of a 15-nm-thick tantalum nitride film and a 135-nm-thick tungsten film which were provided in this order from the gate insulating film 2112 side was used as the gate electrode 2104 ; and a 300-nm-thick silicon oxynitride film was used as the protective insulating film 2118 . the transistor having the above structure was subjected to a bt stress test. note that, in the transistor used for the measurement, the channel length (l) was 10 μm, the channel width (w) was 10 μm, and the length (lov) of a portion where the gate electrode 2104 overlaps with each of the pair of electrodes 2116 was 1 μm (2 μm in total). a method of the bt stress test is described below. first, a drain current (id) of the transistor was evaluated under the conditions where the substrate temperature was 25° c., the drain voltage (vd) was 3 v, and the gate voltage (vg) was swept from −6 v to 6 v. characteristics of the transistor at this time are referred to as characteristics of the transistor obtained before the bt stress test. next, vd and vg were set to 0.1 v and −6 v, respectively, the substrate temperature was set to 150° c., and these conditions were kept for one hour. next, the applications of vd and vg and heating were stopped. then, id was evaluated under the conditions where the substrate temperature was 25° c., vd was 3 v, and vg was swept from −6 v to 6 v. characteristics of the transistor at this time are referred to as characteristics of the transistor obtained after the bt stress test. table 2 shows the threshold voltage (vth) and the field-effect mobility (μ fe ) before and after the bt stress test. note that sample names in table 2 correspond to those in table 1, and the above description can be referred to for the formation conditions of the insulating film 2102 . table 2before bt stresstestafter bt stress testsamplevthμ evthμ fename[v][cm 2 /vs][v][cm 2 /vs]sample 10.948.61.177.8sample 20.828.61.038.2sample 30.898.81.057.8sample 40.718.70.432.5 table 2 shows that μ fe of sample 4 is largely lowered after the bt stress test. further, characteristics of transistors having smaller l were evaluated. as a result, variation in vth in the negative direction was larger in sample 4 than in the other samples. as described above, a transistor in which a silicon oxide film is in contact with an oxide semiconductor film has abnormal characteristics when the d concentration of the silicon oxide film is 7.2×10 20 atoms/cm 3 . as the results indicate, in the case where the hydrogen concentration of an insulating film containing excess oxygen is higher than or equal to 7.2×10 20 atoms/cm 3 , variation in initial characteristics of a transistor is increased, a channel length (l) dependence is increased, and the transistor significantly deteriorates owing to a bt stress test; therefore, the hydrogen concentration of the insulating film containing excess oxygen is lower than 7.2×10 20 atoms/cm 3 . in other words, in one embodiment of the present invention, the hydrogen concentration of an oxide semiconductor film is preferably lower than 5×10 18 atoms/cm 3 , and the hydrogen concentration of an insulating film containing excess oxygen is preferably lower than 7.2×10 20 atoms/cm 3 . the above results indicate that a high hydrogen concentration of an insulating film containing excess oxygen, which is an oxide insulating film from which part of oxygen is released by heat treatment, leads to deterioration in electrical characteristics of a transistor. this application is based on japanese patent application serial no. 2011-262636 filed with the japan patent office on nov. 30, 2011, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
187-372-733-303-05X	SE	[ "EP", "SE", "WO", "JP" ]	G02F1/35,C08F20/10,C09K19/38,G02F1/13,G02F1/355,G02F1/361	1995-02-08T00:00:00	1995	[ "G02", "C08", "C09" ]	liquid-crystalline polymer material	the invention relates to an organic polymer having a fixed polar structure which is characterized in that it consists of a densely cross-linked polymerization product of monomers, for which monomers it holds that a) at least a part of the monomers exhibit a tilted smectic phase, b) at least a part of the monomers have one or more chiral centres, c) at least a part of the monomers are provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups so that a polar axis exists transversely to the longitudinal direction of the monomers, and d) the monomers are provided with polymerizable groups, intended for cross-linking and chosen among acrylate, methacrylate, styrene or other polymerizable groups intended for cross-linking. the invention also concerns a process for producing the polymeric material and use thereof in optical components.	1. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure, characterized in that it consists of a densely cross-linked polymerization product of monomers, for which monomers it holds that a) at least a part of the monomers exhibit a tilted smectic phase, b) at least a part of the monomers have one or more non- racemicchiral centres, c) at least a part of the monomers are provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups so that a polar axis exists transversely to the longitudinal direction of the monomers, and d) the monomers are provided with polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking and which are in the form of acrylate, methacrylate, styrene or other polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking, with these polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking being present in the monomers at one or both ends of the monomers, and at both ends of the monomers in at least some of the monomers, with the cross-linked monomers being fixed, in the polymer, in their position and direction with regard to the electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups, i.e. the polar axis, so that the polymer is macroscopically aligned in a polar manner and forms a thermally and mechanically stable material having non-linear optical properties. 2. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure according to claim 1 , characterized in that the monomers exhibit a structure selected from among the following: a) compounds of the formula i, in which r rι 4 can be h, z, oz, oh, f or cl, where z is methyl or ethyl; k, 1, p, q and r are 0 or 1 ; q and t are co, c0 2 , oco, cos, sco, ch 2 0, och 2 , n=ch, ch=n, ch=ch, c≡c, n=n or non; with x being an electron donor, electron acceptor or hydrogen, and y being an electron donor or hydrogen if x is an electron acceptor or hydrogen, and y being an electron acceptor or hydrogen if x is an electron donor or hydrogen; a and d are identical or different and are or', sr', nr'r", coor', ocor', cosr', scor*, nr'cor" or ncor'cor", where r' and/or r" represent a straight or branched alkyl chain having 5-12 carbon atoms, i.e. primary, secondary or tertiary penty hexyl, heptyl, octyl, nonyl, decyl, undecyl or dodecyl, which can be chiral or non-achira with or without the said polymerizable group at the end, and completely, partially or not at all perfluorinated, with it being possible to replace methylene groups in the chain with oxygen atoms or ester units, with it being possible, in those cases where chirality is present, for the chiral centres to be substituted by z, f, cl, oh, oz, nh 2 , nz 2 or cf 3 , with z being defined as above, where r' can be h if r" is as above, and r" can be h if is as above, with, if chirality is present, d being chiral, b) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings contains one or more heteroatoms selected from among n, o, s and b, c) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with 5- or 7-membered hetero-aromatic rjngs, with the heteroatoms being selected from among n, o, s and b, d) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with cycloaliphatic rings having 5-7 carbon atoms in the ring, and e) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with 5-, 6- or 7-membered ali-phatic heterocyclic rings having n, o, s or b in the ring. 3. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure accordin to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it includes a monomer which is in a tilted smectic phase and which has, at both ends, polymerizable groups intended for cross-linking, together with a monomer which has a polymerizable group at one end, one or more chir centres and one or more electron-donating and or electron-accepting groups. 4. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the polymer includes only one type of monomer which fulfils points a)-d). 5. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure according to claim 3, characterized in that the cross-linkable monomer is also provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups. 6. polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the electron-donating and or electron-accepting groups are attached to the monomer which has one or more chiral centres. 7. process for producing a polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid- crystalline structure, characterized in that monomers, for which monomers it holds that a) at least a part of the monomers exhibit a tilted smectic phase, b) at least a part of the monomers have one or more chiral centres, c) at least a part of the monomers are provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups so that a polar axis exists transversely to the longitudinal direction of the monomers, and d) the monomers are provided with polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking and which are in the form of acrylate, methacrylate, styrene or other polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking, with these polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking being present in the monomers at one or both ends of the monomers, and at both ends of the monomers in at least some of the monomers, which exhibit a tilted smectic phase are aligned in a polar order by an external electric field, and subsequently crosslinked at the selected polymerizable groups by photopolymerization to fix the polar alignment permanently. 8. use of a polar organic polymer having a tilted liquid-crystalline structure, characterized in that the polymeric mate-rial is produced by means of monomers, for which monomers it holds that a) at least a part of the monomers exhibit a tilted smectic phase, b) at least a part of the monomers have one or more chiral centres, c) at least a part of the monomers are provided with one or more electron-donating and or electron- accepting groups so that a polar axis exists transversely to the longitudinal direction of the monomers, and d) the monomers are provided with polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking and which are in the form of acrylate, methacrylate, styrene or other polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking, with these polymerizable groups which are inten-ded for cross-linking being present in the monomers at one or both ends of the monomers, and at both ends of the monomers in at least some of the monomers, which exhibit a tilted smectic phase when mixed, being orientated in an external electric field, so that a macroscopic polar alignment is produced by means of the transverse polar axes of the monomers being rotated in the same direction, after which crosslinking of the monomers which have been aligned in this way is brought about by photopo-lymerization, and the polar alignment is fixed permanently in this manner.	liquid-crystalline polymer material the present invention relates to a material in the form of a polymer having a chiral tilted smectic structure which can be used, for example, for optical components on printed-circuit boards. state of the art a series of application areas exist where solid organic materials having non-linear optical (nlo) properties can be included to fulfil various functions. the most important area is in optical communication, and it is this area, in particular, which is forcing the pace of research on nlo materials. many demands are made on the materials for ensuring that they are of practical use. the ideal material should primarily have the following properties. large non-linear response - small optical losses short response time thermal stability up to 250°c good mechanical properties high optical damage threshold - chemical stability ability to be shaped into thin films processability while it has proved difficult to manufacture a material which meets all these requirements, certain properties become more important than others depending on the specific applications which may be under consideration. the electronics industry demands components which operate in the wavelength range of 600-1550 nm so that they are suitable for fibre optics. the components should withstand temperatures from -40 to 200°c, and they should be stable for at least 10 years. according to the american military standard, the components should withstand continuous use at 125°c. the main reason why organic materials have attracted increasing interest in the non-linear optics field in recent years has been because of their structures, which can afford non-linear optical coefficients at the molecular level (molecular hyperpolariz- ability) which far exceed the coefficients of the inorganic crystals, such as, for example, linb0 3 , which are commercially available today. it is the combination of an aligned structure and a strong dipole which provides the nonlinear optical effects. the processability of the polymers, and their good mechanical properties, have, in turn, increased the interest in these materials still further. for a material to exhibit optical non-linearity of the socalled second order, it must be non-centrosymmetric, which implies that it is macroscopically oriented in a polar manner, at least in the sense that the polarizability does not exhibit mirror symmetry. obtaining a high degree of polar orientation in organic materials is a major problem. attempts to achieve polar alignment have been made by orienting different types of organic or polymeric materials in electric fields. this has resulted either in materials which have been poorly oriented or in materials in which the dipoles have relaxed with time. hitherto, the mechanical and thermal stability of polymeric liquid- crystalline materials has been well below the desired performance characteristics. consequently, the liquid-crystalline polymer materials which have hitherto been proposed have been poled electrets, i.e. materials which are non-polar per se and which exhibit a certain degree °f artificial, thermo.dynamically unstable, polar alignment. wo 92/20058 describes surface-stabilized ferro- electric liquid crystals which are used to obtain a monomer whose polymerization in sufficiently thin layers (approximately 2 μm) between electrode-coated glass plates can be reversed in an electri field. these monomers suffer from the disadvantage that they depend on the glass plates, with their surface conditioning, and on the electric field, for maintenance of the polar alignment. it is thus desirable to produce a polymer material which exhibits permanent polar alignment and nonlinear optic effects, and which is mechanically and thermally stable, without being dependent upon the glass plates or the electric field, and where the layer can be made to be thicker than 2 μm. such a material has a great potential for producing cheap optical components for the electronics industry. applications can be to control light on optical printed-circuit boards, to control the refractive index with electric fields, to control the wavelength of light, etc. see j. lindstrόm, (1991) icke-linjara optiska material (non-linear optical materials), foa report c 20843-2.4, issn 0347- 3694 with regard to non-linear optics and second order effects. object of the present invention the object of the present invention is to supply a novel type of polymer material which permanently exhibits non-linear optical activity, and to supply a process for producing this material. this material is to be mechanically and thermally stable over wide temperature ranges and easy to machine and handle. summary of the invention it has now been found, surprisingly, that this object can be achieved with an organic polymer having a fixed polar structure, which is characterized in that it consists of a densely cross-linked polymerization product of monomers, for which monomers it holds that a) at least a part of the starting monomers exhibit a tilted smectic phase, b) at least a part of the starting monomers have one or more chiral centres, c) at least a part of the starting monomers are provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron- accepting groups so that an electric dipole moment or a non-nύrror-symmetrical polarizability exists transversely to the longitudinal direction of the monomers, and d) the monomers are provided with polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking and which are in the form of acrylate, methacrylate, styrene or other polymerizable groups which are intended for cross-linking, with these polymerizable groups intended for cross-linking being present in the monomers at one or both ends of the monomers, and at both ends of the monomers in at least some of the starting monomers, with the cross- linked monomers being fixed, in the polymer, in their position and direction with regard to the electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups, i.e. the polar axis, so that the polymer is macroscopically aligned in a polar manner and forms a thermally and mechanically stable material having non-linear optical properties, which material is easy to shape and machine for manufacturing components. manufacturing this polymer is a delicate procedure. one requirement is that the surface conditions must be very strictly controlled if the tilted smectic phase is to become a perfect monocrystal. the polymerization must be extremely well controlled and must not be allowed to affect the optically active parts of the molecule. the phase prop¬ erties must not be destroyed by the polymerization. it is important that the cross-linking is complete in order to ensure the stability of the macroscopic polar alignment. as a result of all this, manufacture of the polymer material according to the invention is far from being trivial. a preferred embodiment of the invention is an organic polymer having a fixed polar alignment which is characterized in that the monomers exhibit a structure selected from among the following: a) compounds of the formula i, in which rι-rι can be h, z, oz, oh, f or cl, where z is methyl or ethyl; k, 1, p, q and r are 0 or 1; q and t are co, c0 2 , oco, cos, sco, ch 2 0, och 2 , n=ch, ch=n, ch 2 - ch 2 , ch=ch, c≡c n=n or non; with x being an electron donor, electron acceptor or hydrogen, and y being an electron donor or hydrogen if x is an electron acceptor or hydrogen, and y being an electron acceptor or hydrogen if x is an electron donor or hydrogen; a and d are identical or different and are or', sr', nrtt", coor', ocor', cosr', scor', nr'cor" or ncor'cor", where r* and/or r" represent a straight or branched alkyl chain having 5-12 carbon atoms, i.e. primary, secondary or tertiary pentyl hexyl, heptyl, octyl, nonyl, decyl, undecyl or dodecyl, which can be chiral or non chiral, with or without the said polymerizable group at the end, and completely, partially or not at all perfluorinated, with it being possible to replace methylene groups in the chain with oxygen atoms or ester units, with it being possible in those cases where chirality is present, the chiral centres can be substituted by z, f, cl, oh, oz, nh 2 , nz 2 or cf 3 with z being defined as above, where r' can be h if r" is as above, and r" can be h if r' is as above, with, if chirality is present, d being chiral, b) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings contains one or more heteroatoms selected from among n, o, s and b, c) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with 5- or 7-membered heteroaromatic rings, with the heteroatoms being selected from among n, o, s and b, d) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with cycloaliphatic rings having 5-7 carbon atoms in the ring, and e) compounds of the formula i, but in which one or more of the aromatic rings is/are replaced with 5-, 6- or 7-membered aliphatic heterocyclic rings having n, o, s or b in the ring. another embodiment of the invention is an organic polymer having a fixed polar structure which is characterized in that it includes a monomer which is in tilted smectic phase and which has, at both ends, polymerizable groups intended for cross- linking, together with a monomer which has a polymerizable group at one end, and which has one or more chiral centres, with at least one of the monomers being provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups. still another embodiment of the invention is an organic polymer having a fixed polar structure which is characterized in that only one type of monomer which fulfils points a)-d) is included in the polymer. it is particularly preferable for the electron-donating and/or electron- accepting groups to be attached to the monomer which has one or more chiral centres. the invention also relates to a process for producing an organic polymer having a fixed polar structure, wherein the monomers in the tilted smectic phase are aligned in a polar order by an external electrical field, and subsequently cross-linked at the selected polymerizable groups by photopolymerization to fix the polar alignment permanently. the invention also relates to the use of the polymer material in optical components. definitions a smectic liquid-crystalline phase is understood to mean a liquid-crystalline phase having a layered structure. in certain smectic phases, the longitudinal axis of the molecules which are aligned in parallel forms an angle with the normal of the layer, the so-called tilt angle. this angle should be as large as possible in order to achieve the best non-linear optical properties of the material. a pyroelectric material is understood to mean a material which has a macroscopic polar order, which material consequently exhibits a permanent macroscopic polarization different from zero in its thermodynamic equilibrium state. the electric polarization of the material is a function of temperature. a ferroelectric material is understood to mean a material which has a macroscopic polar order and whose polarization can be reversed using an external electric field, when the external electric field reverses direction. a special case of such a material where the molecular polarization alternates from layer to layer, together with the tilt angle of the molecules having opposite direction in two adjacent layers in the absence of an external field, is called antiferroelectric material. antiferroelectric materials thus form a subclass of ferroelectric materials. antiferroelectric and ferroelectric liquid crystals can both be made to change the molecular orientation and thus the direction of polarisation according to the direction of an applied external electrical field, while for pyroelectric liquid crystals the orientation is fixed. both pyroelectric, ferroelectric and antiferroelectric liquid crystals belong to the family of tilted smectic liquid crystals, which among themselves display several different variants. with regard to ferroelectric, antiferroelectric and pyroelectric materials, see also rόmpp chemie lexikon, ninth edition, pages 1331 and 3702, respectively. this literature citation is hereby incorporated by reference. molecular hyperpolarizability is understood to mean a molecular parameter which appears in a material composed of molecules having non-linear optical properties. see also wo 92/20058. a strong hyperpolarizability implies a capacity for strong polari- zation, which can be achieved by the monomers being provided with electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups. an electron-donating or, respectively, an electron-accepting group is a group which has the capacity to donate electron density or, respectively, positive charge density to, preferably, an aromatic ring. dense cross-linking is understood to mean a high degree of cross-linking. the expression "at least a part of for describing the monomers is understood to mean a sufficient quantity for achieving the property which is sought by means of adding that particular monomer. the expression is also understood to mean a part of one and the same monomer. all the sought-after proper-ties can be present in a single monomer. that the polymer material according to the invention is macroscopically polar means that the material as a whole has a polar axis, i.e. that either a polarization is present which is different from zero or the polarizability is different in two opposite directions, i.e. that the polarizability does not exhibit mirror symmetry. this implies that the material is helix-free and that the polarization is uniform with regard to direction and size. furthermore, the polarization is permanent and does not alter time. that the polymer material according to the invention is processable means that it can be machined and shaped for manufacturing components. optical components are, according to the invention, understood to mean, in particular, components which are intended to be used on printed-circuit boards, in optical communication, for telecommunication, for optoelectronics, for controlling the refractive index using an electric field, for producing frequency doubling, for controlling and guiding optical waves, for regulating the colour of light, for acting as a circuit breaker, and the like. short description of the figures so that the present invention can be readily understood and implemented, it will be described in more detail below with reference to the attached figures, of which: - fig. 1 shows the reactions for synthesizing a bifunctional monomer according to example 1 below, fig. 2 shows the reactions for synthesizing a monofunctional chiral monomer having an electron-accepting group according to example 3, fig. 3 shows a phase diagram for different mixtures of the monomers ϋ according to example 1 and k) according to example 3, in which i denotes isotropic phase, sa, sc and se, respectively, denote chiral smectic a phase, c phase and e phase, respectively, and c denotes crystalline phase, fig. 4 shows how li/i depends on the angle of rotation a and the external electrical field which is applied to the polymer material. the monomers and their preparation the polymer material according to the invention places a number of specific demands on the monomer system employed, i.e. the mixture of monomers. the system must be chiral and have a tilted smectic phase (in order to make the system ferroelectric) so that it can be aligned in a polar manner, be cross-linkable so that a stabilized material can be formed, and at the same time be designed for non-linear optics, i.e. be hyperpolarizable. while all these properties are desirable, they are difficult to achieve in one monomer. for this reason, the system is designed as a mixture of two or more monomers, with a copolymer being obtained on polymerization. however, it is theoretically possible to meet all the demands using one and the same monomer. a substantial amount of synthesis work, with regard to finding suitable electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups which are compatible with a monomer in tilted smectic phase and which also permit cross-linking, has been required in order to produce monomers which meet these demands. if one of the miscible monomers has one or more chiral centres and the other exhibits a tilted smectic phase, the resulting mixture then acquires a chiral tilted smectic phase. it is also possible to conceive of having four monomers which fulfil the four requirements individually. it is easier to work with mixtures of monomers. it is possible to conceive of all combinations of the four requirements, apart from the fact that the chiral monomer should be provided with one or more electron-donating and/or electron- accepting groups in order to achieve the best result. a great advantage of using organic materials in accordance with the invention is provided by the possibilities of modifying the molecular structure. the flexibility of the molecular structure makes it possible to maximize the properties which are of interest. the properties of the different monomers are selected on the basis of those properties which it is desired to reinforce in the final polymer. for example, three of the properties can be introduced into one monomer, and four or five other monomers can then be added in order to obtain a strong fourth property. it is also possible to conceive of up to 20 or 30 monomers in the mixture. for example, a chiral tilted smectic phase may be desired which exists over a wider temperature range. if each individual monomer has a chiral tilted smectic phase which exists over a fairly narrow temperature range, a mixture which has a phase over a wider range can be obtained if many different monomers are mixed together. the temperature interval over which the tilted smectic phase exists should be at least approximately 10°c. see figure 3. it will be evident to the person skilled in the art that other liquid-crystalline phases having titled molecules with respect to the layers can be used in place of smectic c, i.e. smectic f, smectic i, smectic g, smectic h, smectic j, smectic k, or combinations of these phases, and with the c phase. these phases differ from each other as a result of the molecular packing within the smectic layers differing. the smectic c phase is that which is most used due to the fact that it has the lowest viscosity and is the easiest to predict before carrying out the synthesis. the monomer syntheses for the purpose of the invention are unique. however, it is possible to conceive of a large number of molecular elements which can be combined so as to meet the four demands which are placed on the monomers: that they exhibit a tilted smectic phase, are chiral, are polar and are cross-linkable, with the different elements being responsible for one or more properties. consequently, the choice of monomer is not crucial as long as the four demands are met. all known and conceivable monomers and monomeric elements can be used. in order to increase the hyperpolarizability, the monomers can be provided with electron-donating and/or electron-accepting groups. the aim is to have as strong dipole as possible, for example -n0 2 in combination with -nh 2 . examples of electron- donating groups are -cn, -n0 2 , -s0 2 r, -ch(cn) 2 and -cho and examples of electron- donating groups which can be used are -oh, -sh, -nh 2 , -nr 2 , -or or -sr, with r representing an alkyl, aryl, alkylaryl or arylalkyl group or a fluorinated variant of any one of these. it is conceivable and desirable to have polarizing groups on all the monomers in the mixture. the more and the better groups, the better are the non-linear properties. however, each change in the structure of the monomers can result in that the correct liquid-crystalline phase not will be obtained. monomers which have a polymerizable group intended for cross-linking in the form of an acrylate, meth-acrylate, styrene or other suitable polymerizable group intended for cross-linking, at one end or at both ends of the monomers, are here termed mono-functional and bifunctional monomers, respectively. in polymerized form, the monofunctional monomers will have a free end while bifunctional monomers are polymerized at both ends and therefor act as cross-linkers. the crosslinks may also connect the molecules in such a way that the hyperpolarizable groups will be extended over several monomers transversely or longitudinally. the following are examples of monomer combinations which should be possible to use in accordance with the invention: . ° ? with chirality being indicated by a dot under the formula the aim of the monomer synthesis was first to produce bifunctional liquid- crystalline compounds exhibiting the sc phase. the intention of the bifimctionality of the monomers is to provide the possibility of cross-linking of the material and thermally stabilize the structure. in the second place, the aim was to produce chiral liquid- crystalline monomers which behave in a ferroelectric manner when they are mixed with the first-mentioned type of monomer. two examples of monomer syntheses in accordance with the invention are given in examples 1 and 3 below. in example 1, two cross-linkable compounds were prepared which exhibited a smectic c phase and which differed from each other in that one possessed acrylate groups and the other methacrylate groups as polymerizable groups: in example 3, two chiral monomers were prepared which were provided with a dipole group. they differed from each other in that the polymerizable group was an acrylate group in the one case and a methacrylate group in the other: these examples are only illustrative and are not limiting as regards the choice and combinations of groups in the monomers or the process for synthesizing the monomers. the underlined numerals relate to the compounds in figures 1 and 2, in which the reaction series are reproduced schematically. in the synthesis of the monomers, and in the poly-merization, the following chemicals are used: 4'-hydroxy-4-biphenylcarboxylic acid (j_), 8-bromo-l-octene, 11- bromo-1-undecene, 3,4-dihydro-2h-pyran, dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (dcc), 4- dimethylaminopyridine (dmap), 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (9-bbn) (0.5m in thf, i.e. tetrahydrofuran), hydrogen peroxide (35% by weight in water), triethylamine, acryloyl chloride, meth-acryloyl chloride, 4,4'-dihydroxybiphenyl (97%), bromoundecanol, p-toluenesulphonic acid (p-tsa), 4-hydroxy-3-nitrobenzoic acid (98%), (s)-(+)-2-octanol (99%), diethylazodicarboxylate (dead), triphenylphosphine (tpp), dioxane and dimethylformamide (dmf) purchased from aldrich. hydroquinone (4) was purchased from bdh chemicals ltd. 2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyldiphenylphosphine oxide (lucirin™), which was purchased from basf, was used as a photo-initiator. all the substances were used without further purification. the compounds were chemically characterized by means of 1h nmr on a 250 mhz bruker, and, if necessary, by means of ftir on a perkin-elmer 1760x. the purity was measured by means of hplc, varian. all the literature citations which are referred to in this description are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference. example 1 two monomers according to the invention were prepared in steps 1 -9 as described below, see figure 1. 1. preparation of ethyl 4-(4-hydroxy)phenylbenzoate (2) compound 1 (5.27 g, 24.60 mmol) was dissolved in a solution of 17 ml of ethanol (99.5% by volume) and 10 ml of benzene. sulphuric acid was added in catalytic quantity and the mixture was refluxed at 100°c for 24 hours. the reaction mixture was poured into water and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off and washed three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the yellow-white powder was dissolved in trichloromethane, where unreacted compound i precipitated. the trichloromethane solution was filtered and evaporated, resulting in a white crystalline powder. yield: 4.79 g (89%). η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l=1.42 (t, 3h, -ch.-ch,. 4.40 (q, 2h, -ch 7 cha 6.95 (d,2h, 3'-h and 5 -h), 7.53 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 7.61 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h), 8.10(d,2h,3-h and 5-h). 2. preparation of 4'-( 11 -undecenyloxy)-4-biphenylcarboxylic acid (3) compound 2 (6.0 g, 24.77 mmol) was dissolved in 30 ml of ethanol. potassium hydroxide (85% by weight) (1.88 g, 28.41 mmol), dissolved in 10 ml of ethanol, was then added dropwise to the solution. this turned the solution yellow, with the colour being due to the phenolate ion which had been formed. potassium iodide (1.08 g, 6.44 mmol) and 11-bromo-l-undecene (5.76 g, 24.77 mmol) were added. the solution was decolorized during 24 hours of boiling to reflux. potassium hydroxide (4.90 g, 74.31 mmol) was then added in order to effect alkaline hydrolysis of the ester. the potassium salt which formed precipitated and was filtered from the solution. in order to form the carboxylic acid, the salt was dissolved in a mixture of 30 ml of acetic acid and 30 ml of ethanol and the whole was stirred at 120°c for one hour. the final product, a white crystalline powder, pre-cipitated when the solution was cooled, and was filtered off. the reaction was monitored by ftir, with the carbonyl peak of the salt at 1628 cm "1 shifting to 1669 cm "1 for the acid. yield: 6.00 g (66%) of 3. η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l=1.34 (m,12h, -och 2 ch 2 (ch2) 6 -), 1.80 (p, 2h, -och,ch 7 - , 2.05 (q, 2h, chk-hch ), 4.01 (t,2h, -ochj-), 4.93 (d, ih, ch 2 =ch-cis), 4.98 (d.lh.ch 7 =ch- trans), 5.79 (m,lh,ch 2 =ch-), 6.98(d,2h,3'-h and 5'-h), 7.55 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 7.65 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h), 8.11 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h). 3. preparation of 4-(2-tetrahydropyranyloxy)phenol (5) compound 4 (15.0 g, 136.23 mmol) was dissolved in diethyl ether, together with a catalytic quantity of p-tsa, at room temperature. 3,4-dihydro-2h-pyτan was added dropwise and the solution was stirred at room temperature for one hour. a mixture of ethanol and ammonia (1/1) (volume/volume) was added until the solution became alkaline. the reaction mixture was poured into water and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off and washed three times with water, dried with magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the product was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane etoac as eluent), which gave a white crystalline powder. yield: 7.40 g (56%). 1h nmr (cdcl 3 ): l=1.65 (m, 4h, 1.87 (m 2h, -ch?ch- ,3.62(m, ih, -chjocho-), 3.94 (m, ih, -ch^ocho-), 4.64 (s, ih, hoar-), 5.27(t, ih, -ch-), 6.73(d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h), 6.95 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h). 4. preparation of 4-(2-tetrahydropyτanyloxy)-l-(l 1- undecenyloxy)benzene (6) compound 5 (5.0 g, 25.74 mmol) and potassium carbonate (10.67 g, 77.22 mmol) were dissolved in dmf and the solution was then stirred at room temperature for one hour. 8-bromo-l-octene (4.92 g, 25.74 mmol) or 11-bromo-l -undecene (6.00 g, 25.74 mmol) was added at room temperature. the temperature was raised to 100°c and the solution was stirred for 24 hours. the dmf was then removed by distillation under vacuum (30°c, 10 mm hg). the reaction mixture was poured into water and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off an washed three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the product was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent). the final product 6 was in the form of white crystals. yield: 5.60 g (65%) for 6. l h nmr (cdc1 3 ): l=1.30 (m, 4h+12h, -ch 7 ch 7 ch 7 ocho- + ch 2 =chch 2 -(ch 2 ) 6 -), 1.66 (m, 2h, ch 2 choo-), 1.86 (m, 2h, och 7 ch 7 -). 2.07 (m, 2h, ch2=chch 2 -), 3.60 (m, ih, -ch ? ocho-), 3.91 (t, 2h, -och,(ch 7 w), 3.94 (m, ih, -ch 2 0cho-), 4.94 (d, ih, ch 7 =ch-, cis), 5.00 (d, ih, ch 7 =ch-, trans), 5.28 (t, ih, -ocho-), 5.81 (m, ih, ch 2 =ch-), 6.81 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h), 6.98 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h). 5. preparation of 4-(l l-undecenyloxy)phenol (7) compound 6 (5.60 g, 16.74 mmol) was dissolved in 20 ml of ethanol at room temperature. hydrochloric acid was added in catalytic quantity at room temperature while stirring the solution thoroughly. the solution was stirred for one hour and was then poured into water and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off and washed three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the remaining product consisted of white crystals. yield: 4.23 g (90%) for 7. η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l=1.28 (m, 12h, chr=chch,(ch,)λ 1.74 (p, 2h, ochjcϋr), 2.04 (q, 2h, ch2=chch 2 -), 3.80 (t, 2h, -och 7 ch 7 -), 4.92 (d, ih, ch,=ch-. cis), 4.98 (d, ih, ch,=ch-. trans), 5.50 (m, ih, ch 2 =ch-), 6.76 (s, 4h, 2-h, 3-h, 5-h and 6-h). 6. preparation of 4-( 11 -undecenyloxy)phenyl 4-(4-( 11 -un- decenyloxy)phenyl)benzoate (8) compound 3 (0.50 g, 1.36 mmol), compound 7 (0.48 g, 1.36 mmol), dcc (0.37 g, 1.77 mmol) and dmap (0.025 g, 0.20 mmol) were dissolved in 15 ml of dichloromethane and the solution refluxed for 24 hours. the reaction mixture was then cooled to -5°c for 30 minutes in a freezer. the carb-amide which had formed from dcc and unreacted compound 3 were precipitated and filtered off from the solution. the solvent was evaporated off and the resulting solid was recrystallized twice from ethanol in order to give white crystals. yield: 0.69 g (85%). thermal characterization is shown in table 1. η nmr (cdc1 3 ):l=1.31 (m, 24h, ch 2 =chch 2 (ch 2 ) 6 -, 1.79 (m, 4h, -och ? ch,-), 2.05 (m, 4h,ch2=chcu 2 -), 3.95 (t, 2h, -araroch,ch,- . 4.01 (t, 2h, -aroch,ch,-). 4.93 (d, 2h, ch 2 =ch-, cis), 5.00 (d, 2h, ch,=ch-. trans), 5.82 (m, 2h, ch 2 =ch-), 6.94 (d, 2h, 3"-h and 5"-h), 7.01 (d, 2h, 3η and 5'-h), 7.12 (d, 2h, 2"-h and 6"-h), 7.59 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 7.69 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 8.23 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h). 7. preparation of 4-( 11 -hydroxyundecyloxy)phenyl 4-(4-( 11 - hydroxyundecyloxy)phenyl)benzoate (9) all the glass equipment was dried overnight in an oven at 150°c in order to avoid destroying the hygroscopic 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (9-bbn). compound 8 (1.00 g, 1.67 mmol) was added to a 100 ml flask, which was flushed with argon for 30 minutes 40 ml dry. thf was added through a septum and the solution was stirred at room temperature for 30 minutes in the argon atmosphere. 9-bbn (0.5 m in thf) (10 ml, 5 mmol) was then added through a septum and the solution was stirred at room temperature for a further 20 hours in the argon atmosphere. 10 ml of ethanol were added and oxidation was carried out by adding hydrogen peroxide (35% by volume) (3 ml, 30 mmol). the solution was stirred for one hour and then poured into water. white crystals were precipitated and filtered off from the solution. yield: 1.05 g (99%). thermal characterization is presented in table 1. the product was not soluble in deuterated chloroform, acetone or dmso; as a consequence, there was no η nmr charac- terization. ftir (kbr): 3334 cm "1 (o-h stretching); 2928-2851 cm "1 (aliphatic c-h stretching); 1744 cm '1 (c=0 stretching); 1618 cm "1 (aromatic c=c stretching); 1517 cm "1 (aromatic carbon-to-carbonyl carbon stretching); 1299-1217 cm "1 (several c-0 stretching frequencies). 8. preparation of 4-( 11 -acryloy loxyundecyloxy )pheny 1 4-(4-(l l-acryloyloxyundecyloxy)phenyl)benzoate (\0) compound 9 (0.50 g, 0.79 mmol) was dissolved in 40 ml of thf at 60°c and the solution was stirred for one hour. triet-hylamine (0.24 g, 2.37 mmol) was added. acryloyl chloride (0.22 g, 2.05 mmol), dissolved in 10 ml of thf, was then slowly added dropwise while stirring the solution thoroughly. the chloride salt of triethylamine precipitated over 20 hours at 60°c while the reaction mixture was being stirred. the reaction mixture was poured into water (10% by weight ammonium chloride) and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off and washed three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the pro-duct was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, he-xane etoac as eluent). the solvent was evaporated off and the resulting solid substance was recrystallized twice from ethanol in order to afford white crystals. yield: 0.30 g (50%). purity (hplc) 99%. thermal characterization is shown in table 1. η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.32 (m, 28h, ch 2 =chch 2 (ch 2 ) 7 -), 1.66 (m, 4h, -cooch 7 ch 7 -), 1.80 (m, 4h, - arochzchjr), 3.95 (t, 2h, -araroch,ch,-). 4.01 (t, 2h, -aroch 7 ch 7 -), 4.16 (t, 4h, -coocha 5.82 (d, 2h, ch?=ch-. cis), 6.11 (m, 2h, ch 2 -ch-), 6.40 (d, 2h, ch 7 =ch-, trans), 6.93 (d, 2h, 3"-h and 5"-h), 7.00 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.13 (d, 2h, 2"-h and 6"-h), 7.59 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 7.64 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 8.22 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h). 9. preparation of 4-(l l -methacryloyloxyundecyloxy)phenyl 4-(4-(l l-methacryloyloxyundecyloxy)phenyl)benzoate (11) compound 9 (0.54 g, 0.85 mmol) was dissolved in 40 ml of thf at 60°c and the solution was stirred for one hour. tri-ethylamine (0.34 g, 3.40 mmol) was added. acryloyl chloride (0.23 g, 2.55 mmol), dissolved in 10 ml of thf, was then added slowly dropwise while stirring the solution thoroughly. the chloride salt of triethylamine precipitated out over 20 hours at 60°c while the reaction mixture was stirred. the reaction mix-ture was poured into water (10% by weight ammonium chloride) and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phase was separated off and washed three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the product was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane-zetoac as eluent). the solvent was evaporated off and the re-sulting solid substance was recrystallized twice from ethanol in order to yield white crystals. yield: 0.30 g (48%). it was not possible to measure the purity by hplc since the compound was not soluble in acetonitrile. thermal characterization is pre-sented in table 1. ! h nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.30 (m, 28h, ch 7 =chch 7 (ch ? ) 7 - , 1.65 (m, 4h, -cooch 2 chr), 1.77 (m, 4h, -aroch 7 ch 7 - , 1.93 (s, 6h, (ch 7 =cch 3 qo-k 3.95 (t, 2h, -araroch^ch ), 4.01 (t, 2h, -aroch ? ch 7 - , 4.12 (t, 4h, -cooch,- - 5.51 (s, 2h cu 2 =ch-, cis), 6.08 (s, 2h, chr=ch-, trans), 6.93 (d, 2h, 3"-h and 5"-h), 7.00 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.13 (d, 2h, 2"-h and 6"-h), 7.59 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 7.64 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 8.22 (d, 2h, 2-h and 6-h). example 2 compounds in example 1 were subjected to thermal cha-racterization on a perlάn-elmer dsc-7 using a heating cooling speed of 10°c/min. dsc denotes differen- tial scanning calo-rimetry. hot-stage microscopy using polarized light (leitz ortholux pol bkii equipped with a mettlel fp82 hot stage and an fp80 central processor) was employed for the thermal and mor-phological characterizations. patterns from small-angl x-ray scattering (saxs) of the different liquid-crystalline phases were registered with a statton camera, which was equipped with a resistive oven, using cu ki radiation from a philips pw 1830 generator. table 1. liquid-crystalline phases and phase transitions for compounds 8 and 9-11 from example 1 , according to optical microscopy, dsc 1 and saxs measurements. compound phase transitions (0c) during heating. cooling: 8 c84s b 117s c 160s a 181i il76s a 154s c 112s b 72c 9 c86s e 143s c 160s a 170i il65 a 160s c 127s e 70c 1t c42s e 89s c 118s a 128i i25s a 1 15s c 81s e 58c ui c84s e 90s c 123s a 130i il27s a 122s c 74s e 53c 1. the data refer to the second heating and the first cooling 2. c: cystalline; s e : smectic e; sβ." smectic b; s c : smectic c; s a : smectic a; i: isotropic 3. compounds mixed with inhibitor (hydroquinone) (0.1 % by weight) in order to prevent spontaneous thermal polymerization the sc phases in table 1 are in a thermodynamically stable state since they occur both during heating and cooling. example 3 a further two monomers according to the invention were prepared in steps 1 -9 described below. see figure 2. 1. preparation of 4-hydroxy-4'-(2-tetrahydropyranyloxy)biphenyl (1) dihydropyran ( 1.82 g, 21.7 mmol) was added dropwise to a mixture of 4,4'-dihydroxybiphenyl (7.92 g, 43.0 mmol) and p-tsa (0.34 g, 1.7 mmol) in dioxane (50 ml) and thf (10 ml) at room temperature. the reaction mixture was stirred for 15 minutes. the reaction was then stopped by adding an etoh/nh 3 mixture (1/1 volume/volume) until the solution was somewhat alkaline. it was then diluted with dichloromethane (100 ml) and mixed with an aqueous solution of nahc0 3 (15% by weight). the precipitate was filtered off and washed once with dichloromethane. the filtrates were collected and the organic phase was filtered off. the aqueous phase was extracted once again with dichloromethane. all the organic solvents were collected, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the remaining solid substance was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent), giving white crystals. yield: 2.67 g (48%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.65 (m, 4h, 1.87 (m, 2h, -ch 2 ch-), 3.62 (m, ih, -qlocho-), 3.94 (m, ih, -ch^ocho-), 5.21 (s, ih, hoar-), 5.47 (t, ih, -ch-), 6.85 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 7.10 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.42 (m, 4h, 2-h, 6-h, 2'-h and 6'-h). 2. preparation of 4-( 11 -hydroxyundecyloxy)-4 , -(2-tetrahydropyranyloxy)biphenyl (2) compound i (2.80 g, 10.3 mmol), potassium hydroxide (0.70 g, 14.4 mmol) and ethanol (40 ml) were mixed and stirred at 60°c for one hour before 1 1-bromo-l-undecanol (2.86 g, 11.4 mmol) was added. the mixture was boiled at reflux for 16 hours and then poured into water. the aqueous phase was extrac-ted three times with dichloromethane and the organic layer was then dried using magnesium sulphate an evaporated. the result-ing solid substance was recrystallized from hexane/etoac (95/5) (volume/volume) in order to give white crystals. yield: 3.65 g (80%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ); l = 1.31 (m, 14h, -(ch 2 ) 7 ch 2 ch 2 oh), 1.54-1.68 (m, 6h, ch ? ch 7 ch 7 ocho- and -ch 2 ch 2 oh), 1.80-1.90 (m, 4h, -ch ? ch- and -chjchzoar), 3.62 (m, 3h, -ch^ocho- and -ch 2 cu 2 0h), 3.94 (m, 3h, -chjocho- and -ch ? ch,oarl 5.47 (t, ih, -ch-), 6.96 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 7.10 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.46 (m, 4h, 2-h, 6-h, 2'-h and 6'-h). 3. preparation of 4- [( 11 -acryloyloxy)undecyloxy ]-4'-(2- tetrahydropyranyloxy)biphenyl (3) and 4-[(l l-methacryloyloxy)undecyloxy]-4'-(2- tetrahydropyranyloxy)biphenyl (4) acryloyl chloride or methacryloyl chloride was dis-solved in dry thf (10 ml) and this solution was added dropwise to a stirred solution of compound 2 (4.08 g, 9.25 mmol) and triethylamine (1.40 g, 13.88 mmol) in dry thf (25 ml) at 0°c. after six hours, the reaction mixture was poured into a 15% by weight solution of ammonium chloride and the whole was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the organic phases were col-lected, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the re-maining solid substance was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent), giving white crystals. yield: 2.74 g (58%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.31 (m, 14h, and -ch 2 ch 2 oco-), 1.80-1.90 (m, 4h, -ch?ch- and ci^ch^ar), 3.62 (m, ih, -ch 2 0cho-), 3.94 (m, 3h, -ch -ocho- and -ch 2 ch 2 oar), 4.15 (t, 2h, ch 7 ch 7 oco- ), 5.47 (t, ih, -ch-), 5.84 (d, ih, ch^ch-, cis), 6.14 (d, ih, ch 2 =ch-), 6.37 (d, ih, ch 2 =ch-, trans), 6.96 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 7.10 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.46 (m, 4h, 2-h, 6-h, 2'-h and 6'-h). 4. preparation of 4-hydroxy-4'-[(l 1 -acryloyloxy)undecyloxy]biphenyl (5) and 4- hy droxy-4'- [( 11 -methacryloyloxy)undecyloxy]biphenyl (6) compound 3 or 4 (2.74 g, 5.37 mmol) was dissolved in a mixture of ethanol (25 ml) and thf (5 ml) at room temperature. hydrochloric acid (5 ml) was added and the solution became milky and then clear after a while. after 1 hour, the reaction was stopped and the reaction mixture was poured into water. the mixture was extracted three times with dichloromethane. the or-ganic layers were then collected, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated in order to give white crystals after recrys-tallization from ethanol. yield: 1.42 g (63%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.31 (m, 14h, -(ch^c^oco-), 1.63 (m, 2h, -chjchsoco-), 1.78 (m, 2h, -ch 2 ch 2 oar), 3.98 (m, 2h, -ch ? ch 7 oar), 4.15 (t, 2h, ch 7 ch 7 oco-). 4.78 (2, ih, hoar-), 5.84 (d, ih, ch^ch, cis), 6.14 (d, ih, ch 2 =ch-), 6.37 (d, ih, ch ch-, trans), 6.89 (d, 2h, 3-h and 5-h), 6.96 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.46 (m, 4h, 2-h, 6-h, 2'-h and 6'-h). 5. preparation of ethyl 4-hydroxy-3-nitrobenzoate (7) 4-hydroxy-3-nitrobenzoic acid (10.0 g, 54.6 mmol), sulphuric acid (1 ml), ethanol (>99%), (15.1 ml, 327.9 mmol) and benzene (10 ml) were added to a single- necked 100 ml round-bottomed flask which was fitted with a benzene-filled dean-stark trap and a condenser. the temperature was raised to 105°c and the reaction mixture was stirred for 24 hours. the solvents were then evaporated off and the crude product was dissolved in dichloromethane (200 ml), which solution was extracted twice with an aqueous solution of nahc0 3 (15% by weight) and twice with water. the organic phase was separated off, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. pale yellow crystals were obtained. yield: 10.6 g (92%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 1.40 (t, 3h, ch 3 ), 4.40 (q, 2h, -ch 2 ch 3 ), 7.21 (m, ih, 5-h), 8.23 (d, ih, 6-h), 8.81 (s, ih, 2-h), 10.17 (s, ih, -oh). 6. preparation of ethyl 4-[(r)-(+)-2-octyloxy]-3-nitrobenzoate (8) a mixture of (s)-(+)-2-octanol (3.00 g, 20.8 mmol) and dead (3.50 g, 20.8 mmol), dissolved in diethyl ether (10 ml), was added dropwise to a solution of compound 7 (4.40 g, 20.8 mmol) and tpp (5.40 g, 20.8 mmol), and the whole was stirred at room temperature for three days. the precipitated triphenylphosphine oxide was filtered off and the solvent was evaporated off. the resulting, untreated, product was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent), giving a yellow oil. yield: 5.93 g (85%), 1h nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 0.87 (m, 3h, 1.27 (m, 8h, -(ch 2 ) 4 ch 3 ), 1.40 (t, 6h, -chch 3 and -och 2 ch 3 ), 1.67 (m, ih, -chch 2 -), 1.81 (m, ih, -chch 2 -), 4.38 (q, 2h, -ochjch-,), 4.60 (m, ih, -ch-), 7.09 (m, ih, 5-h), 8.15 (d, ih, 6-h), 8.43 (s, ih, 2-h). 7. preparation of 4-[(r)-(+)-2-octyloxy]-3-nitrobenzoic acid (9) compound 8 (1.20 g, 3.72 mmol) and potassium hydroxide (0.62 g, 11.2 mmol) were mixed in ethanol (30 ml) and this reaction mixture was stirred at 50°c for three hours. it was then acidified with hydrochloric acid and poured into water. the reaction mixture was then extracted three times with dichloro-methane. the organic phases were collected and washed twice with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated to afford a yellow oil which solidified when it was allowed to stand. yield: 1.02 g (93%), η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 0.87 (m, 3h, -(ch 2 ) 5 ch 3 ), 1.27 (m, 8h, -(ch 2 ) 4 ch 3 ), 1.40 (d, 3h, -chch 3 ), 1.67 (m, ih, -chch 2 -), 1.81 (m, ih, -chch 2 -), 4.62 (m, ih, -ch-), 7.11 (m, ih, 5-h), 8.21 (d, ih, 6-h), 8.50 (s, ih, 2-h). 8. preparation of 4"-[(l l-acryloyloxy)undecyloxy]-4'-biphenyl 4-[(r)-(+)-2- octyloxy]-3-nitrobenzoate q0) compound 5 (1.25 g, 3.03 mmol), compound 9 (0.89, 3.03 mmol), dcc (0.81 g, 3.94 mmol) and dmap (55 mg, 0.46 mmol) were dissolved in dichloromethane (15 ml) and the solution was stirred at room temperature for two days. the reaction mixture was then diluted with dichloromethane (100 ml) and extracted three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the product was purified by column chromatography (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent), which give white crystals after recrystallization from ethanol/hexane (90/10) (volume/volume). yield: 1.56 g (75%), thermal characterization: c56s a 62i, i61s a l lc, η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 0.87 (m, 3h, -(ch 2 ) 5 ch 3 ), 1.31 (m, 22h, -(ch 2 ) 7 ch 2 ch 2 oco- and -(ch^cha), 1.40 (d, 3h, chch 3 ), 1.63 (m, 3h, -chjchsoco- and -chch 2 -), 1.78 (m, 3h, -ch^c^oar and -chch 2 -), 3.98 (m, 2h, -ch 7 ch ? oar). 4.15 (t, 2h, -ch ? ch ? oco-), 4.62 (m, ih, -ch-), 5.84 (d, ih, cϋ €h-, cis), 6.14 (d, ih, ch 2 =ch-), 6.37 (d, ih, ch^ch-, trans), 6.99 (d, 2h, 3"-h and 5"-h), 7.17 (m, ih, 5-h), 7.26 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.49 (d, 2h, 2"-h, 6"-h), 7.58 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 8.30 (d, ih, 6-h), 8.50 (s, ih, 2-h). 9. preparation of 4"-[(l l-methacryloyloxy)undecyloxy]-4'-biphenyl 4-[(r)-(+)-2- octyloxy]-3-nitrobenzoate (11) compound 6 (1.42 g, 3.35 mmol), compound 9 (0.99 g, 3.35 mmol), dcc (0.91 g, 4.41 mmol) and dmap (60 mg, 0.51 mmol) were dissolved in dichloromethane (15 ml) and the solution was stirred at room temperature for two days. the reaction mixture was then diluted with dichloromethane (100 ml) and the whole was extracted three times with water, dried using magnesium sulphate and evaporated. the product was purified by column chromato-graphy (silica gel, hexane/etoac as eluent), which afforded white crystals after recrystallization from ethanol hexane (90/10). yield: 1.78 g (75%), thermal characterization: c43s a 60i, i57s a 17c, η nmr (cdc1 3 ): l = 0.87 (m, 3h, -(ch schj), 1.31 (m, 22h, -(ch 2 ) 7 ch 2 ch 2 oco- and -(ch 2 ) 4 ch 3 ), 1.40 (d, 3h, -chch 3 ), 1.63 (m, 3h, -ch^ch^co- and -chch 2 -), 1.78 ( , 3h, -ch 2 h 2 oat and -chch 2 -), 1.94 (s, 3h, 3.98 (m, 2h, -ch,ch,oar). 4.15 (t, 2h, -ch 7 ch 7 oco-.. 4.62 (m, ih, -ch-), 5.54 (s, ih, ch 2 =cch 3 -, cis), 6.09 (s, ih, ch 2 =cch 3 -, trans), 6.99 (d, 2h, 3"-h and 5"-h), 7.17 ( ih, 5-h), 7.26 (d, 2h, 3'-h and 5'-h), 7.49 (d, 2h, 2"-h, 6"-h), 7.58 (d, 2h, 2'-h and 6'-h), 8.30 (d, ih, 6-h), 8.50 (s, ih, 2-h). example 4 a polymer according to the invention was prepared from the monomers from examples 1 and 3 in the following manner. 70 mole% of the bifunctional monomer ϋ from example 1 and 30 mole% of monomer jo from example 3, together with 1 part of initiator to 250 parts of monom mixture calculated on the number of mole, were mixed. the mixture was first heated to iso-tropization and then cooled to smectic a* phase. cells were produced from two glass plates having electrodes of indium tin oxide (ito) coated with a 1000 a layer of sio. the inner side of the glass plates was covered with a aligning layer of spun-on and longitudinally brushed polyimide, which orientes the liquid-crystal molecules along the glass surface. the cell, having a distance of 2 μm between the plates and the d mensions of approximately 1x2 cm, was supplied with the monomer mixture by means of capillary filling at a temperature corresponding t smectic a* phase. isotropic phase can also be used. the aligning layer ensured that a book-shelf structure in smectic a* phase was automatically obtained, which structure w then retained after transition to smectic c* phase. with the aid of an electric field, which was generated between the electrodes on the glass plates, using 15-30 v (typically 20 v) dc the spontaneous polarization was rendered uniform in smectic c* phase, in the direction of the field and in the whole sample, because the transverse polarization of the monomers is rotated into the same direction. when the original c material possesses helical alignment, the latter will be straightened out in the electric field and the material will remain permanently helix-free after the polymerization. a ferroelectric monodomain is achieved in this manner. due to the fact that the optic axis in such an aligned sample possesses a unique direction parallel to the cell surfaces, the degree of orientation can be monitored in a pola-rization microscope since total extinction is obtained when the optic axis is parallel or perpendicular to the polarizer. it is also possible to orient the sample by means of shearing in smectic a* phase prior to illumination with uv light. the electric field was maintained and, once good orientation of the monomer mixture had been achieved, the cell was illuminated with uv light from an osram ultra- vitalux lamp, for instance during 20 minutes with a 300 w lamp, as a result of which the polar alignment was fixed permanently by means of photo-induced poly-merization of the structure. consequently, the alignment remains after the voltage has been switched off and it is not possible, either, to reverse the orientation in the material by reversing the field. it is also not possible, after the polymerization, to see any phase transitions when the temperature is raised or lo-wered (20-150°c). thus, the uniform book-shelf structure was locked in place by the polymerization. the direction of the macroscopic polar alignment of the sample, i.e. the resultant direction in which the electron-accepting groups of the monomers were pointing, was perpendi-cular to the plane of the film. in-situ photopolymerization of liquid-crystalline acrylates and diacrylates has been described by d.j. broer et al, macromol. che . 1988, 189, 185; 1989, 190, 19 and 2255. the photopolymerization allows the mesophase of the monomer prior to polymerization to be selected appropriately, since the temperature can be chosen at will. another great ad-vantage is that tailor-made components can be produced using a light mask which screens off the uv light during photo-lithography of the monomer mixture such that the polymerized area assumes a certain desired form. other polymerization pro¬ cedures can also be used provided that the polymerization can be carried out at a temperature at which an appropriate mesophase exists. the layer can also be made to be thicker than 2 μm, for example 5 μm, which is an important advance in relation to previously known materials. example 5 the properties of the novel polymer material from example 4 were investigated with regard to liquid-crystalline phases, thermal stability and processability, as follows. studies of thermal decomposition were carried out on a perkin-elmer tga7. dichroic infrared measurements, when in vesti -gating the thermal stability of aligned samples, were carried out on an ftir perkin-elmer 1760x. dichroic denotes exhibiting dichroism. polymer networks of the s a , s c and s e * types were formed by both polyp 0) and poly(ϋ), depending on the poly-merization temperature. the structures of the liquid-crystal-line-like polymer networks of poly(lθ) were confirmed by x-ray investigations. the thermal stability of the alignment was investi-gated by infrared dichroism in accordance with the procedure of f. sahlen et al., polymer, in press 1996. the dichroic ratio was calculated and the normalized dichroic ratio was plotted against the temperature. it was observed that the alignment de-creased somewhat with increasing temperature but was restored again completely on cooling. the final thermal stability of the polymer network was approximately 360°c; the polymer decomposes above this tempe-rature. the electronics industry requires that, for soldering onto printed-circuit boards, the material which is employed should withstand at least 250°c; previously known non-linear optical materials do not meet this criterion. the polymeric film which is formed is a thermoset plastic which is one single network exhibiting dense cross-linking. components can potentially be mass- produced from the po-lymer which has been prepared. they can be manufactured both as machinable thin films and as bulk material. an alternative to machining is to use a light mask to screen off the uv light du-ring photolithography of the monomer mixture so that the poly-merized area assumes a certain desired form. example 6 the pockels effect was measured in order to determine the non-linear optical properties of the material. the pockels effect, or the linear electrooptical effect, signifies that the refractive index is altered by the influence of an applied external electri- cal field. the procedure using crossed polari-zers was used. the method and the apparatus are described in the article by c.p.j.m. van der vorst and c. j.m. van weerdenburg, nonlinear optical properties of organic materials iii, 1990, spie vol. 1337, 246-257. the apparatus principally consisted of the following components. a 10 mw, 632.8 nm hene laser (melles griot) was used to generate a laser beam which was passed through a polarizing prism which was rotated 45° to the left, seen from the laser. after that, the polarized laser beam was passed through the sample at an angle ω, the so-called angle of rotation, with 90° corresponding to the laser beam impinging perpendicularly to the surface of the sample. the sample was located between the same glass plates which were used during the polymerization in example 4. the beam was then passed through a soleil-babinet compensator (wavelength range 250-3500 nm, phase retardation 0-2s±l% at 546 nm and 0-ls±0.5% at 1000 nm) and after that through a polarizing prism which was rotated 45° to the right, seen from the laser. the polarizing prisms had an extinction of <10 "5 (melles griot). after this polarizing prism, the intensity i of the beam was measured with a detector having a si photo-diode (melles griot). in front of the detector, a filter was located which transmitted 632.8 nm, fwhm 3±0.6 nm (melles griot). in addition, a function generator (stanford research systems ds 355) and a lock-in amplifier (stanford research systems sr 850 dsp) were used. an electrical field was applied perpendicularly straight across the sample. the voltage which generates the field was a direct-current voltage having an overlaid alternating voltage whose amplitude was less than the direct-current voltage. figure 4 shows a graph in which δl/i is plotted against the angle of rotation ω for different strengths of the electric field which is applied over the material. δl/i is given as a normalized value, i.e. the highest value is set at 1 and remaining values are calculated relative to this value. at its highest, the absolute value of the signal was approximately 10 "5 . it is evident from the graph that δl/i is proportional to the strength of the electric field and that δl/i varies with the angle of rotation. this is explained by the external electric field modulating the refractive index of the material, as a result of which the intensity i is modulated due to the non-linear optical properties of the material. figure 4 consequently demonstrates that a non-linear response can be obtained in accordance with the invention. the material has been stable as regards the measured values shown in figure 4 for more than two months, i.e. up until today. the measured results showed that the material from example 4 exhibited non-linear optical activity.
188-500-760-425-01X	US	[ "JP", "DE", "WO", "EP", "AT" ]	B22D23/00,B29C41/36,B29C67/00	1990-07-11T00:00:00	1990	[ "B22", "B29" ]	method for producing a free-form solid-phase object from a material in the liquid phase	a free-form, three-dimensional, solid-phase object (30) is produced from droplets (24) of liquid-phase material having appreciable surface tension and well-defined solidification properties. the liquid-phase material is ejected from an ejection head (20) in sets of droplets onto a substrate (98). the temperature, frequency, size, and trajectory of the droplets and the relative speed of motion between the substrate and the ejection head are adjusted to compensate for the physical properties of the liquid-phase material and the heat dissipation characteristics of the growing object to form a desired object (212).	claims 1. a method for producing within a controlled environment a free-form, three-dimensional, solid-phase object from a material in the liquid phase, the material in the liquid phase displaying appreciable surface tension and well-defined solidification properties, comprising: ejecting within the controlled environment a first set of droplets of predetermined diameter of liquid- phase material at a predetermined frequency from an ejection head positioned at a first ejection position toward a first target position; and ejecting within the environment a second set of droplets of predetermined diameter of liquid-phase material at a predetermined frequency from the ejection head at a second ejection position toward a second target position such that the second set of droplets contacts the first set of droplets prior to solidification of the first set of droplets to produce a free-form, three-dimensional, solid-phase object of desired shape. 2. the method of claim 1, further comprising adjusting the predetermined frequency in relation to the solidification properties of the liquid-phase material to develop the desired shape of the object. 3. the method of claim 1, further comprising adjusting the frequency at which the droplets of liquid- phase material are ejected in relation to the heat dissipation properties of the object to develop the desired shape of the object. 4. the method of claim 1 in which the liquid- phase material is a molten metal. 5. the method of claim 1 in which the ejection head includes an orifice of variable diameter from which the droplets are ejected, and further comprising adjusting the diameter of an orifice of the ejection head in relation to the surface tension of the liquid-phase material to develop the desired shape of the object. 6. the method of claim 1, further comprising adjusting the predetermined temperature of the liquid- phase material in relation to the surface tension and solidification properties of the liquid-phase material to develop the desired shape of the object. 7. the method of claim 1 in which the first target position is located on a surface of a substrate. 8. the method of claim 7 in which the temperature of the substrate is adjusted to form the object in the desired shape. 9. the method of claim 7 in which the size of the substrate is adjusted to form the object in the desired shape. 10. the method of claim 1 in which the object is non-porous. 11. the method of claim 1 in which the first and second ejection positions are the same position.	method for producing a free-form solid-phase object from a material in the liquid phase technical field the present invention relates to producing three-dimensional, free-form, solid-phase objects and, in particular, to producing such objects in a droplet by droplet fashion from a material in the liquid phase. background of the invention conventional techniques for producing three- dimensional objects typically include assembling, machining, deforming, or casting. assembly often involves gluing or welding individual components of moderate size together, while machining and deforming often involve removing material from or stressing the shape of preformed objects. casting, on the other hand, typically involves the injection of a liquid solution or polymer or a molten material into a mold. casting is not, however, easily employed for manufacturing large objects or objects containing internal voids because polymerization and solidification are difficult to control within a mold. casting is also a generally expensive method for generation of objects having custom shapes, especially for objects needed in small quantities. u.s. pat. no. 4,655,492 of masters, which is herein incorporated by reference, recently described a method for constructing free-form objects from particulate matter in a manner that circumvents some of these problems. masters directs individual particles of ceramic material to particular locations in a three-dimensional coordinate system and attaches the particles with adhesives to a seed point or previously deposited particles, gradually constructing an object of desired shape. masters also describes the use of droplets of a water slurry containing ceramic particles which freezes upon impact with a seed point or previously deposited particles. the water is then presumably removed by lyophilization, creating a porous ceramic object. in either of these methods, the rate of deposition is independent of the type of particles used, and the time delay between deposition of the particles does not substantially affect the shape or solidity of the intended object. the method of masters would not, therefore, work well if it were applied to nonparticulate matter, such as materials in the liquid phase, especially those having well-defined solidification properties such as freezing points or polymerization initiators. in particular, masters' slurry-droplet method would not work well for forming objects from molten salts, molten metals, or certain polymers. such droplets take an irregular shape upon impact, and, if they freeze immediately, they retain that shape. the objects thus formed are typically irregular, weak, and porous. summary of the invention an object of the present invention is, therefore, to provide a method for producing a free-form solid-phase object from a material in the liquid phase. another object of this invention is to provide such a method that controls the rate of deposition of the material in the liquid phase as well as characteristics of the environment to produce a strong, regular, nonporous, three-dimensional object of predetermined shape. a further object of this invention is to provide such a method for forming such an object from a molten metal or salt. the method of the present invention employs a system for repetitively ejecting fine droplets of a material in the liquid phase, many times a second, along a common trajectory. the droplets impact and coalesce with a substrate of either seed surface material or previously ejected droplets to form a spheroid. the shape and dimensions of the spheroid are determined primarily by environmental conditions, surface tension and solidification properties of the material, and size and ejection frequency of the droplets ejected from an ejection head. when the substrate is moved relative to consecutively ejected droplets so that they impact towards one end of the spheroid, they meld with the spheroid, elongating it into a relatively smooth rod-like shaped object or bead which cools and solidifies at an originating end while continuing to lengthen at a growing end. unlike the slurry of masters, the droplets do not solidify on impact. they add bulk to the growing or liquid end of a bead, causing it to swell to a diameter wider than the diameter of the droplets. as the droplets impact toward an edge of the growing end of the bead, the turbulence they create extends the borders of the bead quickly in the direction of that edge, substantially controlling the direction of bead growth. a strong, dense, solid-phase object of any predetermined shape can be produced in this manner. additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of an object forming system of the present invention showing an isometric view of object formation. figs. 2a and 2b are respective isometric and cross sectional side views showing horizontal bead formation in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. figs. 3a and 3b are cross sectional side views showing the effects of gravity, surface tension, and deposition rate with respect to bead formation. fig. 4 is an isometric view showing vertical bead formation. figs. 5a and 5b are respective isometric and cross sectional side views showing formation of a wall from layers of beads. fig. 6 is an isometric view showing formation of a hollow cylinder in accordance with the method and system of present invention. fig. 7 is an isometric view showing formation of a hollow sphere. detailed description of preferred embodiments fig. 1 shows a preferred embodiment of an object forming system 10 of the present invention. system 10 employs an ejection head 20 within an enclosure 22 that provides a controllable environment to expel droplets 24 of a material in the liquid phase toward a predetermined position on a surface 26 of a substrate 28 to form a spheroid object 30. with reference to figs. 1 and 2, a relatively smooth rod-shaped object or bead 40 can be produced by moving ejector head 20 relative to surface 42 of substrate 44 and ejecting consecutive droplets 46 toward a growing end 48 of bead 40. droplets 46 meld with growing end 48 of bead 40 while previously expelled droplets solidify toward a seed point or an originating end 50. manipulation of several factors such as the gravity, temperature, and pressure of the environment; the surface tension, solidification temperature, or polymerization characteristics of the droplet material; and the size of or rate at which the droplets are expelled from the ejection head can greatly affect the diameter, smoothness, solidity, and strength of bead 40. for example, gravitational forces tend to flatten the shape of bead 40, as shown in fig. 3a, thereby partly offsetting the tendency of surface tension to give bead 40 a rounded cross section as shown in fig. 3b. the effect of gravity is more obvious for wide beads 40a that result from rapid deposition of the liquid-phase material than the effect of gravity is for narrow beads 40b. the balance between surface tension and density of the liquid- phase material also largely determines the height of a bead. with reference to fig. 2b, the points at which the droplets impact on the growing end of bead 40 define only its midline 60 but not its width 62. the midline 60 of bead growth is unrelated to width 62 or height 64 of bead 40. the width of bead 40 is also varied by changing the mass of liquid-phase material that is delivered per unit time, preferably by controlling the ejection frequency or the droplet size. the material choice largely determines an appropriate temperature range for smooth solidification without flattening. then the droplet size or ejection frequency is typically adjusted to form a bead 40 of desired width 62. applicant notes that for most applications the droplet size is preset and the ejection frequency is varied. more frequent finer droplets generally provide smoother beads 40 and objects 30 than less frequent larger droplets. during creation of bead 40, an orifice 70 of ejection head 20 should preferably be positioned as close to the substrate surface 42 as possible without touching the growing end 48 of bead 40. the proximity of orifice 70 to surface 42 and growing end 48 makes small inaccuracies in ejection trajectories less important and allows the droplets 46 to retain most of their heat. such inaccuracies can be more significant if the droplets are ejected horizontally or from an ejection bead at an angle, as opposed to vertically downwards as shown in fig. 1. however, decreasing the gap between the ejection head and growing end 48 reduces the amount of time droplets 46 are subject to gravitational forces and thereby typically reduces the inaccuracies resulting from such nonvertical trajectories. with reference to fig. 4, a vertical bead 80 having a circular cross section can also be constructed if impacting droplets 82 are directed toward midline 84 of a growing end 86 of vertical bead 80. as with horizontal beads, the diameter of bead 80 largely depends on the temperature, density, and surface tension of the liquid- phase material. the selection of material largely determines the density, surface tension, and temperature range for impacting droplets 82. the diameter of bead 80 can, however, be adjusted by controlling the diameter of orifice 70, the frequency at which ejection head 20 emits droplets 82, and the temperature of the liquid-phase material within the temperature range. these factors should be maintained within ranges that prevent solidification on impact as well as prevent dripping down along a side of growing vertical bead 80. with reference to figs. 5a and 5b, walls 90 of larger objects can be constructed by laying beads on top of or next to one another. for example, fig. 5a shows an upper bead 92 being laid on top of a lower bead 94, and fig. 5b shows a side view of wall 90 on surface 96 of substrate 98. as droplets 100 impact growing end 102 of upper bead 92, they partly melt lower bead 94 before both beads solidify, thereby bonding beads 92 and 94 together. additional beads may be added to bead 92 to produce infinitely high walls 90. walls with both simple and compound curves may be constructed by controlling the position of the substrate 98 relative to the position of ejection head 20 and the extent to which upper bead 92 is offset relative to lower bead 94. thus, the present invention makes possible the creation of hollow cylinders, spheres, toroids, as well as other more complex shapes. the strength of the bond between beads 92 and 94 largely depends on the extent to which lower bead 94 melts when upper bead 92 is laid on top of it. more melting occurs when either the impacting liquid-phase material is hotter or when the lower bead 94 is warmer. temperatures that are too low may result in weaker bonds, and temperatures that are too high may cause slumping of wall 90. thus, the temperatures of lower bead 94 as well as impacting droplets 100 are preferably controlled within well-defined temperature ranges to avoid weak bond formation or excessive thermal build-up. also, the extent to which lower bead 94 melts when upper bead 92 is deposited upon it largely determines width 108 of wall 90. for whenever t e temperature of the liquid-phase material is relatively high, half r more of the volume of lower bead 94 may melt, thereby causing walls 90 to be thicker. higher deposition temperatures also tend to decrease effective height 110 of each bead, typically entailing the use of additional beads to achieve a wall 90 of a given height. the diameter of orifice 70 also affects the width and therefore the strength of wall 90. hence by varying the size and frequency of the droplets, the relative speed of motion between substrate 98 and ejection head 20, and the deposition temperature of the liquid- phase material to control the extent to which each upper bead 92 melts its respective lower bead 94, a variety of wall thicknesses may be generated. overheating of an object or structure made from a wall 90 may result if the liquid-phase material is laid down too rapidly. the maximum permissible rate depends on the ambient temperature relative to the melting point of the material, the thermal conductivity of the material, and the current geometry of the object that has already been laid down. molten metals, for example, may be laid down relatively quickly because their melting points are typically greater than ambient temperatures and their high thermal conductivity allows a greater portion of the object being constructed to contribute to heat dissipation. molten metals are thus the preferred material for utilizing the present invention. because most molten metals when exposed to air become coated with an oxide layer that typically interferes with bonding, the controllable environment within enclosure 22 shown in fig. 1 preferably contains an inert gas atmosphere or vacuum. it is preferable to build small objects from narrow beads or bead layers because thin walls dissipate the heat from their own generation more efficiently than do thicker walls. small objects have less surface area for dissipating heat and, therefore, cannot tolerate as high a temperature or liquid-phase material deposition rate as can larger objects. the ability of a particular object under construction to dissipate heat can generally be gauged by determining the path length of a bead around the object. the longer path length, the more rapidly the liquid-phase material can be deposited without causing the object to slump from overheating. the mass and temperature of substrate 98 also affect the geometry of the first few bead layers. a relatively cold substrate surface 96 will cool lower bead 94 more significantly than upper bead 92 or subsequent beads further from substrate 98. in addition, less of lower bead 94 will melt during deposition of upper bead 92 than will melt of upper bead 92 during deposition of a subsequent bead. a cold substrate may, therefore, produce more distinct and weaker joints between lower bead 94 and upper bead 92 than between upper bead 92 and a subsequent bead. this effect gradually decreases between subsequent beads further from substrate 98. the resulting inconsistency in joint formation produces objects of less regular shape and interbead bond strength. however, increasing the speed and temperature at which an upper bead 92 is deposited on a cold (ambient room temperature) lower bead 94 produces a stronger and more regular wall 90. for example, a 19 mg/ m tin bead 92 deposited at a speed of 22 mm/sec and a temperature of 400 β c on similarly deposited bead 94 that was allowed to cool for two minutes, exhibited better bonding than a similar bead 92 deposited at a speed of 10.6 mm/sec. in addition, if substrate 98 is too thin or is a thermal insulator, an even more noticeable effect is produced. lower bead 92 will not substantially solidify, and deposition of upper bead 92 and subsequent beads will result in a puddle of liquid-phase material. to substantially eliminate these effects and the effect of cold bonding, a preferred embodiment of the present invention employs a preheated metallic substrate having a thickness 112 substantially equaling the intended width 108 of wall 90. the temperature of substrate 98 is preferably raised initially to an equilibrium temperature that the wall 90 or the object is likely to reach during its construction. this equilibrium temperature is preferably only slightly below the solidification temperature of the liquid-phase material for structures or objects that are built up rapidly, and closer to ambient temperature for large walls or structures built up slowly. the strongest walls having the least obvious junction between bead layers are produced at just below the temperature that causes slumping. although regulating the temperature of the liquid-phase material and substrate 98 is substantially straightforward, controlling the temperature of wall 90 or the object under construction entails careful consideration of the factors previously discussed. with reference to fig. 6, the construction of a small hollow, spiral ribbed cylinder 120, having a height 122 of 36 mm and a diameter 124 of 20 mm, is described below in accordance with the principles of the present invention. although objects like cylinder 120 can be produced in accordance with the aid of a sophisticated computerized system resembling that used by masters, this invention can be practiced with relatively simple equipment because, unlike the invention of masters, small inaccuracies in trajectory do not substantially determine the final shape of such objects. to create cylinder 120, molten tin under a static head of about 80 mm was passed through a valve 130 and out of ejection head 132 through a 0.5 mm diameter orifice 134. molten tin droplets 138 at 350°c were produced by a vibrating plunger 140 glued to a five watt audio speaker 142 that was powered by an amplifier 144 receiving signals from a voltage pulse generator 146. plunger 140 alternately opened and closed valve 130 in response to the vibration frequency of speaker 142 to eject droplets 138 of approximately 5 mg at a rate of 30 droplets per second at 350°c from ejection head 132. droplets 138 were directed towards a target surface 160 on a 3 mm thick aluminum sheet 162 surrounded by an argon atmosphere at room temperature. sheet 162, which was operatively connected to the drive shaft of a motor (not shown) , was rotated at a rate of about 8.8 seconds per revolution, and droplets 138 were directed onto the sheet 162 towards a point about 8 mm from spin axis 164. a gap 166 between orifice 134 and target surface 160 was preferably maintained at about 2 mm by lowering sheet 162 as cylinder 120 grew taller. because sheet 162 was initially relatively cool, beads 170 toward bottom 172 of cylinder 120 were only 3 mm wide and the junctions 174 between neighboring beads 170 were about 1.36 mm apart. near top 176 of cylinder 120, where target surface 160 was warmer, beads 170 were about 3.7 mm thick and the unction-to-junction distance was only about 0.94 mm. the rate, about 150 mg per second, of deposition of the liquid-phase material was close to the limit for such a small cylinder 120. increasing the rate would have resulted in the slumping of cylinder 120. preferably, the time to lay each bead 170 is kept substantially constant regardless of the diameter 124 of cylinder 120. however, because the path length for bead 170 deposition for the construction of cylinder 120 is its circumference, a cylinder 120 having a larger diameter 124 will tolerate a higher liquid-phase material deposition rate. as a result, large and small diameter cylinders 120 require almost equal time to produce, time variations mostly resulting from differences in the number of bead layers rather than from differences in the path length. with reference to fig. 7, when a hollow sphere 190 is constructed, the path length is constantly changing. the liquid-phase material deposition rate is preferably initially relatively slow but is increased as the path length increases. after equatorial bead 192 is laid, the liquid-phase material deposition rate is then gradually slowed as the path length decreases. fig. 7 also illustrates another simple method of creating an object. for creation of sphere 190, a wire 194 is fed through one or more joints 196 to an ejection head 198 where wire 194 is melted so that droplets are ejected onto edge 200 of growing wall 202. ejection head 198 may be designed to ride along the solidified part of wall 202 at a given rate so that little control of ejection head motion is necessary. the space within the walls of a hollow object such as sphere 190 may be filled with liquid-phase material to generate a solid object such as a ball. this filling process is preferably accomplished by ejecting droplets at a high rate so that the liquid-phase material flows away from a central impact point until it reaches the walls. in order to prevent excessive heat accumulation and slumping, the filling process is preferably performed incrementally as the walls themselves are constructed. for creation of less regular shapes, the use of more sophisticated equipment such as computerized automated design (cad) and computerized automated manufacturing (cam) systems resembling those used with milling machines can be adapted and employed in accordance with the present invention. such combination of systems is described below with reference to object forming system 10 shown in fig. 1. cad system 210 with input from an image and/or a user designs a desired object 212 in terms of a set of locations having position coordinates defined within a three dimensional coordinate system. the coordinate positions are fed into cam system 214 which converts them into a sequence of movements of servo-mechanisms 204 and 206 that determine the relative positions of ejection head 20 and surface 26 and thereby the placement of droplets 24. the conversions incorporate surface tension and solidification properties of the specific liquid-phase material as well as heat dissipation properties for the shape of desired object 212 as it is constructed. cam system 214 maximizes the properties for strength, uniformity, or smoothness and appropriately adjusts the temperature of substrate 28 and material source 216 via an environmental control unit 220. cam system 214 also regulates valve 218 to determine the frequency at which droplets 24 are ejected from ejection head 20 or adjusts the diameter of orifice 70 to control the size of droplets 24. cam system 214 may also employ environmental control unit 218 to regulate the pressure and temperature within enclosure 22. although metals are the preferred material for this method, non-metallic crystalline materials such as salts, which have a clear transition to the solid state, may also be used. this method does not work so well for glasses and plastics, which have no set transition temperature at which they become rigid. it will be obvious to those having skill in the art that many changes may be made in the above-described details of the embodiments presented herein of the present invention without departing from the underlying principles throughout. for example, two ejection heads may be employed to produce wide beads. the scope of the present invention should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.
189-516-456-228-727	US	[ "EP", "CN", "US", "WO" ]	H04L12/28,G06F3/00,G06V30/224,H04L12/24,F24F11/30,F24F120/20,H04L41/08,H04L41/084,H04L67/02,H04L67/50,F24F11/00,G05B19/409,G06K7/14,H04N7/18	2016-07-22T00:00:00	2016	[ "H04", "G06", "F24", "G05" ]	migration of settings from a non-connected building controller to another building controller	a heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning (hvac) controller configured to control at least part of an hvac system of a building. the hvac controller may include a user interface and a controller. in response to a selection by a user at the user interface, the controller may assemble and present via the user interface an output that encodes settings in a machine readable form. the controllermay display the encoded settings on the display with fixed segments of a fixed segment display. an application program code on a remote device may be utilized to capture the displayed fixed segments that encode the settings in an image. the captured image of fixed segments may be decoded at the remote device or may be sent to a remote computing device for processing and/or decoding.	1 . a heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning (hvac) controller configured to control at least part of an hvac system of a building, the controller referencing settings that are customizable by a user for a particular installation, the hvac controller comprising: a user interface; a controller operably coupled to the user interface, the controller configured to at least partially control the hvac system of the building based, at least in part, on the settings; and in response to a selection by a user via the user interface, the controller is configured to assemble and present via the user interface of the hvac controller an output that encodes two or more of the settings in a machine readable form. 2 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein: the user interface includes a button; and selection of the button by the user causes the controller to assemble and present via the user interface the output that encodes the two or more of the settings in a machine readable form. 3 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein the user interface comprises a display and the output comprises a set of alphanumeric characters displayed on the display that encodes the two or more of the settings in a machine readable form. 4 . the hvac controller of claim 3 , wherein the set of alphanumeric characters can be captured by a camera of a mobile device, and then read via optical character recognition (ocr). 5 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein the user interface comprises a fixed segment display comprising a plurality of fixed segments configured to form menus to interact with a user of the hvac controller during operation of the hvac controller, and wherein the output encodes two or more of the settings via a plurality of data bits, wherein each of at least two of the plurality of fixed segments are activated or deactivated to designate a corresponding one of the plurality of data bits. 6 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein the user interface comprises a display and the output comprises one or more of a bar code and a quick response (qr) code displayed on the display that encodes the two or more of the settings in a machine readable form. 7 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein the output comprises one or more of an audible output and a pulsed light output that encodes two or more of the settings in a machine readable form. 8 . the hvac controller of claim 1 , wherein the two or more of the settings encoded in the output comprise one or more of a model number for the hvac controller, a type of hvac equipment connected to the hvac controller, a model number of equipment connected to the hvac controller, one or more hvac controller installer settings, and one or more hvac schedule parameters. 9 . a computer readable medium having stored thereon in a non-transitory state a program code for use by a computing device connectable to a network, the program code causing the computing device to execute a method for obtaining settings from a non-network connected building control device, comprising: receiving from a user a request for obtaining settings from a building control device; in response to receiving the request, initiating a camera operation of a camera in communication with the computing device to capture an image of an output displayed by the building control device, wherein the output displayed by the building control device provides two or more of the settings encoded in a machine readable form; capturing an image of the output displayed by the building control device with the camera; and transmitting the image and/or the two or more of the settings from the computing device to a remote device via the network. 10 . the computer readable medium of claim 9 , further comprising using optical character recognition (ocr) to convert the output captured in the image into a computer readable data set. 11 . the computer readable medium of claim 10 , further comprising decoding the computer readable data set to produce the two or more of the settings encoded in the output displayed by the building control device. 12 . the computer readable medium of claim 10 , further comprising sending at least part of the computer readable data set to a remote server for decoding to produce the two or more of the settings encoded in the output displayed by the building control device. 13 . the computer readable medium of claim 9 , wherein further comprising transmitting the captured image to a remote server for further processing. 14 . the computer readable medium of claim 13 , wherein further comprising receiving from the remote server the two or more of the settings that were encoded in the output displayed by the building control device. 15 . the computer readable medium of claim 14 , further comprising displaying the received two or more of the settings on a display of the computing device. 16 . a method of exporting settings of a non-network connected heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning (hvac) controller, the method comprising: assembling and displaying via a user interface of the hvac controller an output that provides two or more of the settings of the hvac controller encoded in a machine readable form; capturing an image of the output displayed by the hvac controller; and processing the captured image to decode the two or more of the settings of the hvac controller to produce the two or more settings encoded in the output. 17 . the method of claim 16 further comprising sending the two or more settings to a network connected hvac controller for use by the network connected hvac controller. 18 . the method of claim 17 wherein the network connected hvac controller is a replacement for the non-network connected hvac controller. 19 . the method of claim 16 , wherein the image is captured by a camera of a mobile computing device, and the mobile computing device also processes the captured image to decode the two or more of the settings of the hvac controller. 20 . the method of claim 16 , wherein the image is captured by a camera of a mobile computing device, and the mobile computing device is configured to send the captured image to a remote server, and the remote server processes the captured image to decode the two or more of the settings of the hvac controller. 21 . the method of claim 16 , further comprising: capturing an image of a first output displayed by the hvac controller, wherein the first output provides two or more of the settings of the hvac controller encoded in a machine readable form; capturing an image of a second output displayed by the hvac controller, wherein the second output provides two or more of the settings of the hvac controller encoded in a machine readable form; combining information in the image of the first output with information in the image of the second output during processing of the images to decode the settings of the hvac controller encoded in the output. 22 . the method of claim 16 , wherein the output displayed by the hvac controller provides encoded error detection codes, the method further comprising: requesting a user to re-capture an image of the output displayed by the hvac controller in response to detecting an error during decoding of the error detection codes.	technical field the present disclosure pertains to building control systems such as heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning (hvac) systems, security systems, lighting systems and the like. more particularly, the present disclosure pertains to transferring settings and/or data from a non-connected building controller to another building controller. background building control systems are used to control conditions within a building or other structure. example building control systems include hvac systems, security systems, and lighting systems. hvac systems, for example, are often used to control the comfort level within a building or other structure. hvac systems typically include an hvac controller that controls various hvac components of the hvac system in order to affect and/or control one or more environmental conditions within the building. in many cases, an hvac controller provides control signals to various hvac components of the hvac system, sometimes via a number of control wires that extend through the wall. some hvac controller have a wired or wireless connection to a network, while other hvac controllers are non-connected and do not have a wired or wireless connection to a network. improvements in the hardware, user experience, and functionality of such hvac controllers would be desirable. summary the present disclosure relates generally to building control systems, and more specifically, to transferring of settings and/or data from a non-connected building controller to another building controller. in a particular example of the present disclosure, an hvac controller may be configured to control at least part of an hvac system of a building, where the hvac controller may reference settings that may be customizable by a user for a particular installation. while an hvac controller is used here as an example, it is contemplated that the present disclosure can be applied to any suitable building controller, as desired. the illustrative hvac controller may include a user interface and a controller operably coupled to the user interface. the controller may be configured to at least partially control the hvac system of the building based, at least in part, on settings customizable by a user. in some cases, in response to a selection by a user via the user interface, the controller may be configured to assemble and present via the user interface an output that encodes two or more of the settings and/or other data in a machine readable form. in another example of the present disclosure, a computer readable medium may be provided that may include a program code stored thereon in a non-transitory state. the program code may be used by a computing device connectable to a network, where the program code may cause the computing device to execute a method for obtaining settings from a non-network connected building controller. the method may include receiving a request from a user for obtaining settings from a building control device. in some cases, in response to receiving the request, the program code may initiate a camera operation of a camera in communication with the computing device to capture an image of an output displayed by the building control device. the output displayed by the building control device may provide two or more of the settings encoded in a machine readable form, which may or may not be in a human readable form. the method in the program code may further include capturing an image of the output displayed by the building control device with the camera. in some cases, the image and/or the two or more of the settings may be transmitted from the computing device to a remote device via a network. in some examples, a method may allow for exporting settings of a non-network connected hvac controller. the method may include assembling and/or displaying via a user interface of the hvac controller an output that provides two or more of the settings of the hvac controller encoded in a machine readable form. in this example method, an image of the output displayed by the hvac controller may be captured. in some cases, the captured image may be processed to decode the two or more of the settings of the hvac controller to produce the two or more settings encoded in the output. these settings may then be transferred to another hvac controller, such as when the non-connected hvac controller is being replaced or upgraded with another hvac controller. the preceding summary is provided to facilitate an understanding of some of the features of the present disclosure and is not intended to be a full description. a full appreciation of the disclosure can be gained by taking the entire specification, claims, drawings, and abstract as a whole. brief description of the drawings the disclosure may be more completely understood in consideration of the following description of various illustrative embodiments of the disclosure in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which: fig. 1 is a schematic view of an illustrative hvac system servicing a building or other structure; fig. 2 is a schematic view of an illustrative hvac controller that may facilitate access and/or control of the hvac system of fig. 1 ; fig. 3 is a schematic view of an illustrative hvac control system that may facilitate access and/or control of the hvac system of fig. 1 ; fig. 4 is a perspective view of an illustrative hvac controller that may be used in an hvac control system; fig. 5 is schematic block diagram showing some illustrative components of the hvac controller assembly of fig. 4 ; fig. 6 is a schematic flow diagram of an illustrative method for transferring settings and/or data from a first hvac controller to a second hvac controller; figs. 7a-7c are schematic views of illustrative screens of an hvac controller showing encoded information; figs. 8a-8f are schematic views of illustrative screens of an hvac controller showing a method for initiating an hvac controller to encode settings and/or data on the user interface of the hvac controller; fig. 9 is a schematic flow diagram showing an illustrative method for encoding settings and/or data on the user interface of an hvac controller; fig. 10 is a schematic view of an hvac controller having a screen depicting alignment features and a screen number; fig. 11a is a schematic diagram of an hvac controller screen depicting encoded information; fig. 11b is a schematic diagram of an hvac controller screen depicting the same information encoded in fig. 11a with a one bit change; fig. 12 is a schematic flow diagram of an illustrative process of using the encoded information; fig. 13 is a schematic flow diagram of an illustrative decoding process; figs. 14a and 14b are schematic flow diagrams of an illustrative decoding process; fig. 15 is a schematic diagram depicting an image processing step of an illustrative decoding process; and fig. 16 is a schematic diagram depicting an image processing step of an illustrative decoding process. while the disclosure is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specifics thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail. it should be understood, however, that the intention is not to limit aspects of the disclosure to the particular illustrative embodiments described. on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the disclosure. description the following description should be read with reference to the drawings wherein like reference numerals indicate like elements. the drawings, which are not necessarily to scale, are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. in some of the figures, elements not believed necessary to an understanding of relationships among illustrated components may have been omitted for clarity. all numbers are herein assumed to be modified by the term “about”, unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. the recitation of numerical ranges by endpoints includes all numbers subsumed within that range (e.g., 1 to 5 includes 1, 1.5, 2, 2.75, 3, 3.80, 4, and 5). as used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” include the plural referents unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. as used in this specification and the appended claims, the term “or” is generally employed in its sense including “and/or” unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. it is noted that references in the specification to “an embodiment”, “some embodiments”, “other embodiments”, etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is contemplated that the feature, structure, or characteristic may be applied to other embodiments whether or not explicitly described unless clearly stated to the contrary. the present disclosure is directed generally at building automation systems. building automation systems are systems that control one or more operations of a building. building automation systems can include hvac systems, security systems, fire suppression systems, energy management systems and other systems. while hvac systems with hvac controllers are used as an example below, it should be recognized that the concepts disclosed herein can be applied to building automation systems more generally. fig. 1 is a schematic view of a building 2 having an illustrative heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (hvac) system 4 . while fig. 1 shows a typical forced air type hvac system, other types of hvac systems are contemplated including, but not limited to, boiler systems, radiant heating systems, electric heating systems, cooling systems, heat pump systems, and/or any other suitable type of hvac system, as desired. the illustrative hvac system 4 of fig. 1 includes one or more hvac components 6 , a system of ductwork and air vents including a supply air duct 10 and a return air duct 14 , and one or more hvac controllers 18 . the one or more hvac components 6 may include, but are not limited to, a furnace, a heat pump, an electric heat pump, a geothermal heat pump, an electric heating unit, an air conditioning unit, a humidifier, a dehumidifier, an air exchanger, an air cleaner, a damper, a valve, and/or the like. it is contemplated that the hvac controller(s) 18 may be configured to control the comfort level in the building or structure by activating and deactivating the hvac component(s) 6 in a controlled manner. the hvac controller(s) 18 may be configured to control the hvac component(s) 6 via a wired or wireless communication link 20 . in some cases, the hvac controller(s) 18 may be a thermostat, such as, for example, a wall mountable thermostat, but this is not required in all embodiments. such a thermostat may include (e.g. within the thermostat housing) or have access to one or more temperature sensor(s) for sensing ambient temperature at or near the thermostat. in some instances, the hvac controller(s) 18 may be a zone controller, or may include multiple zone controllers each monitoring and/or controlling the comfort level within a particular zone in the building or other structure. in the illustrative hvac system 4 shown in fig. 1 , the hvac component(s) 6 may provide heated air (and/or cooled air) via the ductwork throughout the building 2 . as illustrated, the hvac component(s) 6 may be in fluid communication with every room and/or zone in the building 2 via the ductwork 10 and 14 , but this is not required. in operation, when a heat call signal is provided by the hvac controller(s) 18 , an hvac component 6 (e.g. forced warm air furnace) may be activated to supply heated air to one or more rooms and/or zones within the building 2 via supply air ducts 10 . the heated air may be forced through supply air duct 10 by a blower or fan 22 . in this example, the cooler air from each zone may be returned to the hvac component 6 (e.g. forced warm air furnace) for heating via return air ducts 14 . similarly, when a cool call signal is provided by the hvac controller(s) 18 , an hvac component 6 (e.g. air conditioning unit) may be activated to supply cooled air to one or more rooms and/or zones within the building or other structure via supply air ducts 10 . the cooled air may be forced through supply air duct 10 by the blower or fan 22 . in this example, the warmer air from each zone may be returned to the hvac component 6 (e.g. air conditioning unit) for cooling via return air ducts 14 . in some cases, the hvac system 4 may include an internet gateway or other device 23 that may allow one or more of the hvac components, as described herein, to communicate over a wide area network (wan) such as, for example, the internet. in some cases, the system of vents or ductwork 10 and/or 14 can include one or more dampers 24 to regulate the flow of air, but this is not required. for example, one or more dampers 24 may be coupled to one or more hvac controller(s) 18 , and can be coordinated with the operation of one or more hvac components 6 . the one or more hvac controller(s) 18 may actuate dampers 24 to an open position, a closed position, and/or a partially open position to modulate the flow of air from the one or more hvac components 6 to an appropriate room and/or zone in the building or other structure. the dampers 24 may be particularly useful in zoned hvac systems, and may be used to control which zone(s) receives conditioned air from the hvac component(s) 6 . in many instances, one or more air filters 30 may be used to remove dust and other pollutants from the air inside the building 2 . in the illustrative example shown in fig. 1 , the air filter(s) 30 is installed in the return air duct 14 , and may filter the air prior to the air entering the hvac component 6 , but it is contemplated that any other suitable location for the air filter(s) 30 may be used. the presence of the air filter(s) 30 may not only improve the indoor air quality, but may also protect the hvac components 6 from dust and other particulate matter that would otherwise be permitted to enter the hvac component. in some cases, and as shown in fig. 1 , the illustrative hvac system 4 may include an equipment interface module (eim) 34 . when provided, the equipment interface module 34 may, in addition to controlling the hvac components 6 under the direction of the thermostat, be configured to measure or detect a change in a given parameter between the return air side and the discharge air side of the hvac system 4 . for example, the equipment interface module 34 may measure a difference in temperature, flow rate, pressure, or a combination of any one of these parameters between the return air side and the discharge air side of the hvac system 4 . in some cases, the equipment interface module 34 may be adapted to measure the difference or change in temperature (delta t) between a return air side and discharge air side of the hvac system 4 for the heating and/or cooling mode. the delta t for the heating and cooling modes may be calculated by subtracting the return air temperature from the discharge air temperature (e.g. delta t=discharge air temperature−return air temperature) in some cases, the equipment interface module 34 may include a first temperature sensor 38 a located in the return (incoming) air duct 14 , and a second temperature sensor 38 b located in the discharge (outgoing or supply) air duct 10 . alternatively, or in addition, the equipment interface module 34 may include a differential pressure sensor including a first pressure tap 39 a located in the return (incoming) air duct 14 , and a second pressure tap 39 b located downstream of the air filter 30 to measure a change in a parameter related to the amount of flow restriction through the air filter 30 . in some cases, the equipment interface module 34 , when provided, may include at least one flow sensor that is capable of providing a measure that is related to the amount of air flow restriction through the air filter 30 . in some cases, the equipment interface module 34 may include an air filter monitor. these are just some examples. when provided, the equipment interface module 34 may be configured to communicate with the hvac controller 18 via, for example, a wired or wireless communication link 42 . in other cases, the equipment interface module 34 may be incorporated or combined with the hvac controller 18 . in some instances, the equipment interface module 34 may communicate, relay or otherwise transmit data regarding the selected parameter (e.g. temperature, pressure, flow rate, etc.) to the hvac controller 18 . in some cases, the hvac controller 18 may use the data from the equipment interface module 34 to evaluate the system's operation and/or performance. for example, the hvac controller 18 may compare data related to the difference in temperature (delta t) between the return air side and the discharge air side of the hvac system 4 to a previously determined delta t limit stored in the hvac controller 18 to determine a current operating performance of the hvac system 4 . fig. 2 is a schematic view of an illustrative hvac controller 18 (e.g., a thermostat) that may facilitate accessing and/or controlling the hvac system 4 of fig. 1 . as discussed above, the hvac controller 18 may communicate with the one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 via a wired or wireless link 20 . the hvac controller 18 in fig. 2 may be a connected hvac controller 18 that is connectable to a network, or may be an non-connected hvac controller 18 that may not be capable of connecting to a network (other than the wired or wireless link 20 to one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 ). fig. 3 is a schematic view of an illustrative hvac control system 50 that may facilitate remote access and/or control of the illustrative hvac system 4 shown in fig. 1 . the hvac control system 50 may be considered a building automation system or part of a building automation system. the illustrative hvac control system 50 may include an hvac controller, as for example hvac controller 18 (see fig. 1 or 2 ), that is configured to communicate with and control one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 . as discussed above, the hvac controller 18 may communicate with the one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 via a wired or wireless link 20 . additionally, the hvac controller 18 may communicate over one or more wired or wireless networks that may accommodate remote access and/or control of the hvac controller 18 via another device such as a smart phone, tablet, e-reader, laptop computer, personal computer, key fob, or the like. as shown in fig. 3 , the hvac controller 18 may include a first communications port 52 for communicating over a first network 54 , and in some cases, a second communications port 56 for communicating over a second network 58 . in some cases, the first network 54 may be a wireless local area network (lan), and the second network 58 (when provided) may be a wide area network or global network (wan) including, for example, the internet. in some cases, the wireless local area network 54 may provide a wireless access point and/or a network host device that is separate from the hvac controller 18 . in other cases, the wireless local area network 54 may provide a wireless access point and/or a network host device that is part of the hvac controller 18 . in some cases, the wireless local area network 54 may include a local domain name server (dns), but this is not required for all embodiments. in some cases, the wireless local area network 54 may be an ad-hoc wireless network, but this is not required. in some cases, the hvac controller 18 may be programmed to communicate over the second network 58 with an external web service hosted by one or more external web server(s) 66 . a non-limiting example of such an external web service is honeywell's total connect comfort™ web service. the hvac controller 18 may be configured to upload selected data via the second network 58 to the external web service where it may be collected and stored on the external web server 66 . in some cases, the data may be indicative of the performance of the hvac system 4 . additionally, the hvac controller 18 may be configured to receive and/or download selected data, settings and/or services sometimes including software updates from the external web service over the second network 58 . the data, settings and/or services may be received automatically from the web service, downloaded periodically in accordance with a control algorithm, and/or downloaded in response to a user request. in some cases, for example, the hvac controller 18 may be configured to receive and/or download an hvac operating schedule and operating parameter settings such as, for example, temperature set points, humidity set points, start times, end times, schedules, window frost protection settings, and/or the like from the web server 66 over the second network 58 . in some instances, the hvac controller 18 may be configured to receive one or more user profiles having at least one operational parameter setting that is selected by and reflective of a user's preferences. in still other instances, the hvac controller 18 may be configured to receive and/or download firmware and/or hardware updates such as, for example, device drivers from the web server 66 over the second network 58 . additionally, the hvac controller 18 may be configured to receive local weather data, weather alerts and/or warnings, major stock index ticker data, traffic data, and/or news headlines over the second network 58 . these are just some examples. depending upon the application and/or where the hvac user is located, remote access and/or control of the hvac controller 18 may be provided over the first network 54 and/or the second network 58 . a variety of remote wireless devices 62 may be used to access and/or control the hvac controller 18 from a remote location (e.g. remote from the hvac controller 18 ) over the first network 54 and/or second network 58 including, but not limited to, mobile phones including smart phones, tablet computers, laptop or personal computers, wireless network-enabled key fobs, e-readers, and/or the like. in many cases, the remote wireless devices 62 are configured to communicate wirelessly over the first network 54 and/or second network 58 with the hvac controller 18 via one or more wireless communication protocols including, but not limited to, cellular communication, zigbee, redlink™, bluetooth, wifi, irda, dedicated short range communication (dsrc), enocean, and/or any other suitable common or proprietary wireless protocol, as desired. in some cases, an application program code (i.e. app) stored in the memory of the remote device 62 may be used to remotely access and/or control the hvac controller 18 . the application program code (app) may be downloaded from an external web service, such as the web service hosted by the external web server 66 (e.g. honeywell's total connect comfort™ web service) or another external web service (e.g. itunes® or google play). in some cases, the app may provide a remote user interface for interacting with the hvac controller 18 at the user's remote device 62 . for example, through the user interface provided by the app, a user may be able to change operating parameter settings such as, for example, temperature set points, humidity set points, start times, end times, schedules, window frost protection settings, accept software updates, take pictures of thermostat screens, encode/decode data, transfer data to/from thermostats, and/or the like. communications may be routed from the user's remote device 62 to the web server 66 and then, from the web server 66 to the hvac controller 18 connected to the second network. in some cases, communications may flow in the opposite direction such as, for example, when a user interacts directly with the hvac controller 18 to change an operating parameter setting such as, for example, a schedule change or a set point change. the change made at the hvac controller 18 may be routed to the web server 66 and then from the web server 66 to the remote device 62 where it may be reflected by the application program executed by the remote device 62 . in some cases, a user may be able to interact with the hvac controller 18 via a user interface provided by one or more web pages served up by the web server 66 . the user may interact with the one or more web pages using a variety of internet capable devices to effect a setting or other change at the hvac controller 18 , and in some cases view usage data and energy consumption data related to the usage of the hvac system 4 . in some cases, communication may occur between the user's remote device 62 and the hvac controller 18 without being relayed through a server such as external server 66 , for example, through a camera, a listening device, a data link, etc. these are just some examples. fig. 4 is a perspective view of an illustrative thermostat assembly 80 . in some instances, the thermostat assembly 80 may be considered as an example of the hvac controller 18 referenced in figs. 1 and 2 . in some instances, and with particular reference to fig. 4 , the thermostat assembly 80 may include a thermostat 82 having a display 86 with a touch sensitive screen 88 , and a wall mountable connector 84 . as will be illustrated, the wall mountable connector 84 may be configured to accommodate field wires that enter from a rear of the wall mountable connector 84 . when so provided, the wall mountable connector 84 may provide an electrical connection between terminals (not shown) of the thermostat 82 and field wires (not illustrated) of the hvac system 4 ( figs. 1 and 2 ). in the example shown, the wall mountable connector 84 may also provide a mechanical connection to the thermostat 82 and thus may be used to secure the thermostat 82 in place relative to a vertical surface such as a wall. in some cases, the wall mountable connector 84 may provide electrical and mechanical connections to the thermostat 82 in a compact design, and may be configured to accommodate a variety of different thermostats models. an example of different thermostats that may be accommodated by the wall mountable connector 84 may include a non-connected thermostat that is not configured to connect to a network such as network 56 or network 58 , and a connected thermostat that is configured to be connect to a network such as network 56 or network 58 . fig. 5 is a schematic block diagram of an illustrative hvac controller 18 . as discussed above with reference to fig. 2 , the hvac controller 18 may be a non-connected hvac controller that can only connect to and control hvac components but cannot connect to a network such as network 56 or network 58 . alternatively as discussed above with respect to fig. 3 , the hvac controller 18 may be a connected hvac controller that can connect to a network such as network 56 or network 58 through which the hvac controller may be accessed and/or controlled from a remote location over the first network 54 and/or the second network 58 using a remote wireless device 62 such as, for example, a smart phone, a tablet computer, a laptop or personal computer, a wireless network-enabled key fob, an e-reader, and/or the like. in some instances, the hvac controller 18 may be a thermostat, but this is not required in all instances. when the hvac controller 18 is connected hvac controller, the hvac controller 18 may include a communications block 90 having a first communications port 92 for communicating over a first network (e.g. wireless lan) and/or a second communications port 94 for communicating over a second network (e.g. wan or the internet). when the hvac controller 18 is a non-connected hvac controller, the hvac controller 18 may not include the communications block 90 . the first communications port 92 , when provided, may be a wireless communications port including a wireless transceiver for wirelessly sending and/or receiving signals over a first wireless network 54 . similarly, the second communications port 94 may be a wireless communications port including a wireless transceiver for sending and/or receiving signals over a second wireless network 58 . in some cases, the second communications port 94 may be in communication with a wired or wireless router or gateway for connecting to the second network, but this is not required. in some cases, the router or gateway may be integral to the hvac controller 18 or may be provided as a separate device. additionally, the illustrative hvac controller 18 may include a processor or controller (e.g. microprocessor, microcontroller, etc.) 96 and a memory 98 operatively coupled to the processor or controller 96 . the hvac controller 18 may also include a user interface 108 operatively coupled to the processor or controller 96 , but this is not required, where the user interface 108 may include the display 86 and/or a touch sensitive screen 88 . in some cases, hvac controller 18 may include a timer (not shown). the timer may be integral to the processor 64 or may be provided as a separate component. the memory 98 of the illustrative hvac controller 18 may be in communication with the processor or controller 96 . the memory 98 may be used to store any desired information, such as the aforementioned control algorithm, set points, schedule times, diagnostic limits such as, for example, differential pressure limits, delta t limits, configuration settings such as, for example, cycles per hour, number of heating stages, number of cooling stages, humidifier present, and the like. the memory 98 may be any suitable type of storage device including, but not limited to, ram, rom, eprom, flash memory, a hard drive, and/or the like. in some cases, the processor 96 may store information within the memory 98 , and may subsequently retrieve the stored information from the memory 98 . in many cases, the hvac controller 18 may include an input/output block (i/o block) 100 for providing one or more control signals to the hvac system 4 . for example, the i/o block 100 may communicate with one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 . the hvac controller 18 may have any number of wire terminals for receiving control wires for one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 . different hvac systems 4 may have different hvac components and/or type of hvac components 6 , which may result in different wiring configurations. in some cases, the i/o block 100 may communicate with another controller, which is in communication with one or more hvac components 6 of the hvac system 4 , such as a zone control panel in a zoned hvac system, equipment interface module (eim) (e.g. eim 34 shown in fig. 1 ) or any other suitable building control device. the hvac controller 18 may also include one or more sensors 102 such as for example, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, an occupancy sensor, a proximity sensor, and/or the like. in some cases, the sensor(s) 102 of the hvac controller 18 may include an internal temperature sensor, but this is not required. alternatively, or in addition, the hvac controller 18 may communicate with one or more remote temperature sensors, humidity sensors, occupancy sensors, and/or other sensors located throughout the building or structure. additionally, the hvac controller may communicate with a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and/or other sensors located outside of the building or structure for sensing an outdoor temperature and/or humidity if desired. the user interface 108 , when provided, may be any suitable user interface that permits the hvac controller 18 to display and/or solicit information, as well as accept one or more user interactions with the hvac controller 18 . for example, the user interface 108 may permit a user to locally enter data such as temperature set points, humidity set points, fan set points, starting times, ending times, schedule times, diagnostic limits, configuration settings, responses to alerts, and the like. in one embodiment, the user interface 108 may be a physical user interface that is accessible at the hvac controller 18 , and may include a display 86 and/or a distinct keypad. the display 86 may be any suitable display. in some instances, a display may include or may be a liquid crystal display (lcd), and in some cases an e-ink display, fixed segment display, a light emitting diode (led) display, or a dot matrix lcd display. in one example, where the display 86 may be a fixed segment display, the fixed segment display may include a plurality of fixed segments at fixed locations that form characters, icons, and/or menu items to interact with a user of the hvac controller 18 and/or provide information to a user of the hvac controller 18 . alternatively or in addition, the user interface 108 may be a touch screen lcd panel or other touch sensitive screen that functions as both display and keypad. the touch screen lcd panel may be adapted to solicit values for a number of operating parameters and/or to receive such values, but this is not required. in still other cases, the user interface 108 may be a dynamic graphical user interface. as discussed above, some hvac controllers 18 may be non-connected hvac controllers while others may be connected hvac controllers. in some cases, it may be desirable to replace or upgrade a non-connected hvac controller 18 to another hvac controller such as a connected hvac controller 18 . in such scenarios, an installer must typically manually determine and then re-enter the settings of the non-connected hvac controller 18 into the replacement hvac controller. this can be time consuming, tedious and error prone. a technique is described herein for transferring settings and/or data (e.g., isu settings, user preferences, schedules, set points, hvac configuration settings) from a non-connected hvac controller 18 to another hvac controller 18 is disclosed herein. additionally or alternatively, the technique may be used for assisting in remote trouble shooting and/or diagnostics of a non-connected hvac controller 18 by transferring settings and/or data to from the non-connected hvac controller 18 to a connected device, and then uploading the settings and/or data to a remote site for review and/or analysis sometimes by a contractor or the like. fig. 6 depicts a schematic of an illustrative flow for transferring settings and/or data from a non-connected hvac controller 18 a to a connected hvac controller 18 b . as shown in fig. 6 , the non-connected hvac controller 18 a may be configured to encode the settings and/or data and display the encoded settings and/or data on its user interface 108 . a remote device 62 may be used to capture in image of the user interface 108 of the non-connected hvac controller 18 a , and thus an image of the encoded settings and/or data. the image may be processed to decode the encoded settings and/or data. the decoded settings and/or data may then be uploaded to the connected hvac controller 18 b . in some cases, the remote device 62 may perform the image processing to decode the encoded settings and/or data. in other cases, the remote device 62 may simply transfer the captured image to another device, such as a server in the cloud 114 , which then performs the image processing. in some cases, the connected hvac controller 18 b may be connected to the server in the cloud 114 , and the server may upload the decoded settings and/or data to the connected hvac controller 18 b. the remote device 62 may include memory (e.g., a computer readable medium) that includes program code for use and/or execution by the remote device 62 . in response to receiving a request, such as a request received via the user interface of the remote device 62 , the program code may initiate a camera operation of a camera of the remote device to capture the encoded information that is displayed on the user interface 108 of the non-connected hvac controller 18 a . a user may use the remote device 62 to capture a photo of the encoded information displayed on the user interface 108 of the non-connected hvac controller 18 a . in some cases, the program code may cause the remote device 62 to display a button 110 that may be selectable once the remote device 62 or a program running thereon is ready to capture the encoded information displayed on the non-connected hvac controller 18 a . once the encoded information has been captured by the remote device 62 , a button 112 may become selectable on the remote device 62 to send or transmit the captured image to a user account on a server in the cloud 114 , where the user account may be associated with an owner of the non-connected hvac controller 12 . alternatively, the program code or other program code on the remote device 62 may processes the image or a portion of the image using, for example, optical character recognition (ocr) or other image processing techniques, to decode the coded information in the image. the remote device 62 may then send or transmit the captured image to the user account on a server in the cloud 114 , where the user account may be associated with an owner of the non-connected hvac controller 12 . a connected hvac controller 18 b , which has been associated with the server and the user account, may then receive the settings and/or data of the non-connected hvac controller 18 a automatically or in response to a selection via the user interface 108 of the connected hvac controller 18 b. alternatively or in addition to using a server in the cloud 114 , the remote device 62 may send the captured image and/or decoded information directly a contractor and/or a directly to a connected hvac controller 18 b . in some cases, if some image processing and decoding occurs in the cloud 114 (e.g., at a remote server 66 ), the decoded information may be send to the remote device 62 for viewing by the user. as noted above, the settings and/or data of an hvac controller 18 (e.g. a non-connected hvac controller 18 a ) may be displayed in an encoded manner on the display 86 . in the examples depicted herein, the encoded settings and/or data may be displayed using fixed segments of a fixed segment display, where at least some of the fixed segments on the display may be activated/deactivated to encode the particular settings and/or data of the hvac controller. in some cases, there may be more encoded information than can be displayed using the fixed segments on a single screen. when this occurs, the encoded information may be displayed on a series of screens, where the number of screens in the series of screens may be dependent on an amount of encoded information that is to be displayed. the remote device 62 may then take an image of each screen, resulting in a series of images that each include encoded information. in some cases, a marker screen may be presented between each screen that includes encoded settings and/or data. the marker screen may be a screen that is easily identifiable to the image processor, such as a checkerboard pattern, a large “x”, a blank screen, or any other suitable pattern. in some cases, the remote device 62 may capture a video of the series of screens, and the video may be processed to decode the encoded information presented in the series of screens. although the examples herein depict encoded information displayed as fixed segments on a fixed segment display, the encoded information may be provided in one or more other ways. for example, the encoded information may be provided as encoded static and/or moving alphanumeric characters on the display 86 , encoded static and/or changing bar codes on the display 86 , encoded static and/or changing quick response (qr) codes on the display 86 , encoded static or changing pictures on the display 86 , encoded video on the display, encoded sound sequences (e.g., a pulsed sound or other sound sequence), encoded light sequences (e.g., a pulsed light or other light sequence via the display 86 and/or an led or the like), and/or any other suitable encoded signal that can be perceived and captured by the remote device 62 . although a camera (e.g., a camera of a remote device 62 ) is primarily discussed herein as being used to capture encoded information presented by an hvac controller 18 , other devices may be used to capture the encoded information. for example, a video camera, a microphone, a bar code reader, a qr code reader, and/or any other suitable capture device may be used to capture encoded information provided by an hvac controller. figs. 7a-7c depict an example set of three screens displayed on a display 86 that encode settings of an hvac controller 18 . in the example of figs. 7a-7c , three screens 116 a - 116 c are used to display the encoded settings. in the examples of figs. 7a-7c , the screen number may be indicated by a screen number indicator 118 , where the fixed segments utilized for the screen number indicator 118 may not be representative of encoded data from the hvac controller 18 other than to indicate what set of encoded data is currently being displayed on the display of the hvac controller 18 a . fig. 7a depicts encoded data on a first encoded screen 116 a of a series of three screens, as indicated by screen number indicator 118 showing “set 1”. fig. 7b depicts encoded data on a second screen 116 b of the series of three screens as indicated by screen number indicator 118 showing “set 2”. fig. 7c depicts encoded data on a third screen 116 c of the series of three screens as indicated by screen number indicator 118 showing “set 3”. a data encoding module of an hvac controller 18 may encode information (e.g. settings and/or data) of the hvac controller 18 (e.g. non-connected hvac controller 18 a ) into a machine readable form. in some cases, to activate the data encoding module, a user may need to navigate through a menu structure of the hvac controller to a data encoding activation screen. figs. 8a-8f depict an example flow for activating the data encoding module, but it is contemplated other buttons, screens, and/or flows for activating the data encoding module may be used. in fig. 8a , hvac controller 18 may display a home screen 120 on the display 86 , which shows the time 122 , current temperature 124 , a fan status 126 , an hvac system status 128 , a back button 130 represented by “−”, a mode button 132 , a menu button 134 , a fan button 136 , and a forward button 138 represented by “+”. from the home screen 120 , a user may begin by selecting the menu button 134 at the same time as the forward button 138 in order enter an installer setup screen 140 (see fig. 8b ). in some cases, requiring selection of two or more buttons simultaneously may help prevent a homeowner from inadvertently entering the installer setup screen. an example installer setup screen 140 is depicted in fig. 8b , which shows a menu item indicator 142 that, in this case depicts installer set up (isu), a back button 130 , a forward button 138 , a select button 144 , and a home button 146 . one may scroll to menu items other than “isu” by selecting the forward button 138 . once a desired menu item is displayed (e.g., the installer set up (isu) in this case) at the menu item indicator 142 , the user may select the designed menu by selecting the forward button 138 simultaneously with the select button 144 , or in some cases, just the select button 144 . an example isu menu screen 148 is depicted in fig. 8c , which shows an isu option indicator 150 , a back button 130 , a forward button 138 , a select button 144 , and a home button 146 . one may scroll to isu options other than “upgd” by selecting the forward button 138 . once a desired isu option is display at the isu option indicator 150 , a user may activate the selected ids option by selecting the select button 144 . in fig. 8c , the “upgd” option corresponds to an “upgrade” option for use in aiding the installer upgrade the non-connected hvac controller 18 a to another hvac controller 18 b. in some cases, in response to selecting the upgd option, the hvac controller 18 may prompt a user to activate an application program code on a remote device 62 that may be used to capture encoded screens, but this is not required. in any event, the hvac controller 18 may then activate the data encoding module to encode information (e.g. settings and/or data) of the hvac controller 18 (e.g. non-connected hvac controller) into a machine readable form on the display 86 . an example first encoded information screen 116 a is depicted in fig. 8d , which depicts encoded information 152 , a screen number indicator 118 , a back button 130 , and a forward button 138 . as discussed above, the encoded information 152 may take the form of a pattern of activated/deactivated fixed segments on the display 86 . once the first encoded information screen 116 a is provided on the display 86 , a user may photograph it with a remote device 62 . in some cases, an application program code on the remote device 62 may cause a camera of the remote device 62 to take a photograph of the first encoded information screen 116 a . illustratively, the hvac controller 18 may flash a light, flash certain characters, or provide any other trigger to provide an indication to the application program code of the remote device 62 that the encoded information is ready to be captured, but this is not required. in some cases, once the image of the encoded information has been captured by the remote device 62 and processed by the remote device 62 and/or remote server 66 , the application program code on the remote device 62 may prompt the user to advance to the next screen on the hvac controller 18 , which may be a second encoded information screen 116 b , by selecting the forward button 138 . an example second encoded information screen 116 b is depicted in fig. 8e , which depicts encoded information 152 , a screen number indicator 118 , a back button 130 , and a forward button 138 . in the example shown, although “home” and “menu unlock” are depicted adjacent buttons on the user interface 108 , these labels are used to indicate encoded information rather than the actual function of the adjacent button. once the second encoded data screen 116 b has been depicted on the display 86 , a user may photograph the screen encoded 116 b with the remote device 62 in a manner similar to that described above with respect to the first encoded information screen 116 a . in some cases, once the image of the encoded information has been captured by the remote device 62 and processed by the remote device 62 and/or remote server 66 , the application program code on the remote device 62 may prompt the user to advance to the next screen on the hvac controller 18 , which may be a third encoded information screen 116 c , by selecting the forward button 138 . an example of a third encoded information screen 116 c is depicted in fig. 8f , which depicts encoded information 152 , a screen number indicator 118 , a back button 130 , and a forward button 138 . although “fan cancel” is depicted adjacent a button on the user interface 108 , this label is used to indicate encoded information rather than the function of the adjacent button. once the third encoded information screen 116 c is depicted on the display 86 , a user may photograph the encoded screen 116 c with the remote device 62 in a manner similar to that described above with respect to the first and second encoded information screens 116 a - 116 b . in some cases, once the image of the encoded information has been captured by the remote device 62 and processed by the remote device 62 and/or remote server 66 , the application program code on the remote device 62 may prompt the user to advance to the next screen, if any, on the hvac controller 18 by selecting the forward button 138 . alternatively, if all of the encoded information screens have been displayed by the hvac controller 18 , the application program code on the remote device 62 may prompt a user to exit the upgd option by selecting the forward button 138 and a further button (e.g., a button adjacent the forward button as seen in fig. 8f ) simultaneously. exiting the upgd option may return the display 86 of the hvac controller 18 to the home screen 120 , as shown in fig. 8f , a menu screen, or other screen. the information (e.g., settings and/or other data) of the hvac controller 18 may be encoded through any suitable technique. an example technique, as referred to above, may include encoding data using fixed segments of a fixed segment display. fig. 9 depicts an example flow diagram illustrating how information of an hvac controller 18 may be encoded using fixed segments of a fixed segment display. as shown in fig. 9 , information (e.g., settings and/or data 154 ) of an hvac controller 18 may be converted to binary bits (0s and 1s) of an information word 156 . the information word 156 may have predefined fields, wherein each field may correspond to a setting or data field to be communicated. each field may have a sufficient number of bits to accommodate all valid values for the corresponding setting or data field. each bit may then be assigned to a corresponding fixed segment on the fixed segment display. a value of “1” for that bit may be represented by the corresponding fixed segment being activated, while a value of “0” for that bit may be represented by the corresponding fixed segment being deactivated. in some cases, the information word 156 may be split into one or more partitions 158 , such as a first partition 158 a and a second partition 158 b , as shown in fig. 9 . although two partitions are shown in fig. 9 , one partition or more than two partitions may be utilized depending on an amount of information to be encoded. in the examples of figs. 7a-7c and 8a-8f , one partition may be created for each screen 116 a - 116 c . in one example, each partition may hold 53 bits, where 45 bits are available for encoded data and 8 bits may be used for error correction bits. however, this is not required and it is contemplated any number of bits may be utilized per partition and the number of bits may be allocated between encoded information bits and error correction bits, as desired. the error correction bits may be set in accordance with a cyclic redundancy check (crc) or one or more other error correction techniques, as desired. once the bits have been partitioned, a set of error correction bits 160 may be appended to each partition 158 . in one example, a first set of error correction bits 160 a may be associated with a first set of bits 156 a , and a second set of error correction bits 160 b may be associated with a second set of bits 156 b . after the information from the hvac controller 18 has been encoded into bits and in some cases partitioned, the partitions 158 (e.g., first partition 158 a and second partition 158 b ) may be converted to a corresponding set of fixed segments for display on encoded data screens 116 a and 116 b . in some case, and as noted above, if a bit has a value of 1, the corresponding fixed segment on the fixed segment display may be activated, while if the bit has a value of 0, the corresponding fixed segment on the fixed segment display may be deactivated. not all fixed segments on a fixed segment display may be utilized for displaying encoded information. for example, as discussed above, the display 86 may include a screen number indicator 118 . additionally or alternatively, the display may include one or more alignment markers 162 that may or may not include at least a portion of the screen number indicator 118 . alignment markers 162 may be used to help ensure a proper amount of the display 86 of the hvac controller 18 is captured in an image by the remote device 62 and/or to ensure proper alignment of an image of the display 86 by the remote device 62 for decoding of the encoded information screen. in one example of alignment markers 162 , fig. 10 depicts fixed segments (e.g., a warning symbol with an “!” inside a triangle, and forward and back arrows) used as alignment markers 162 . other fixed segments may be used as alignment markers 162 , as desired. fig. 11a is a schematic diagram of an hvac controller screen depicting encoded information. fig. 11b is a schematic diagram of an hvac controller screen depicting the same information encoded in fig. 11a with a one bit change. in figs. 11a and 11b , the highlighted fixed segment locations 164 may be used for error correction bits 160 , and the boxed fixed segment 166 may be used to indicate which fixed segment is displayed in response to an associated bit changing from a value of “0” in fig. 11a to value of “1” in fig. 11b . although other settings of an hvac controller 18 may change and/or be modified, figs. 11a and 11b may depict a change of operating the hvac controller 18 in fahrenheit, which has a bit value of “0”, to operating the hvac controller 18 in celsius, which has a bit value of “1”. this change is apparent from figs. 11a and 11b , as there is an empty box 166 in fig. 11a and the box 166 in fig. 11b is shown to be activated. the fixed segments depicted in the highlighted fixed segment location 164 also change from the screen depicted in fig. 11a to the screen depicted in fig. 11b . this is because the fixed segments in the highlighted fixed segment location 164 represent error correction bits, which were updated when the one bit fahrenheit versus celsius change occurred. once encoded information is displayed on the display and captured by the remote device 62 , the encoded information may be extracted and decoded by the remote device 62 and/or a server in the cloud or the like. in some cases, encoded information may be captured in an image, the image may be processed to extract and decode the encoded information. in one example of processing an image, an optical character recognition (ocr) program may be utilized to convert the image(s) to characters that can be recognized and/or analyzed by a computer (e.g., a computer readable data set). once the image has been processed into a machine readable format through the ocr program or other tool, the image may be analyzed to detect and decode the encoded data. fig. 12 depicts another example decoding process. in this example, a captured first encoded screen 116 a may be segmented to identify where fixed segments are located. in fig. 12 , for simplicity purposes, only a portion of the fixed segment locations have been segmented showing seven blocks representative of the days of the week. in this example, where a day of the week is present, a bit associated with that box may be considered to have a value of “1” and where a day of the week is not present, a bit associated with that box may be considered to have a value of “0”. as a result, the fixed segments of the seven boxes depicted in fig. 12 have an associated bit sequence of “0010101”. these bits are then converted into hvac controller information (e.g., settings), and in some cases may be saved in a user account in the cloud 114 , sent to an internet connected hvac controller 18 , and/or stored at the remote device 62 . although decoding only seven fixed segment locations in the first encoded data screen 116 a is shown in fig. 12 , other fixed segment locations may be decoded in a similar manner to determine further encoded hvac controller information. fig. 13 is a flow diagram of an illustrative decoding process, which on a general level may include the steps depicted in fig. 9 , among others, but in reverse order. for example, the captured encoded information screens (e.g., first encoded data screen 116 a and second encoded data screen 116 b ) may be analyzed with a processing program to place the screens in a machine readable format. once the processing of the encoded information screens has occurred, the fixed segment locations on the respective encoded information screens may be converted to bit values and organized according to partitions 158 (e.g., a first partition 158 a and a second partition 158 b ). once it is confirmed that the error correction bits are converted as expected, the first partition 158 a and the second partition 158 b may be combined to form the information word 156 associated with information of the hvac controller. the information word 156 may then be decoded into settings and/or data 154 (e.g., hvac controller settings) and stored for later use and/or sent for analysis. as discussed, any desired technique may be utilized to decode the encoded data from an image of a screen depicting the encoded information. figs. 14a and 14b depict a schematic flow diagram of an illustrative decoding method 200 . at step 202 , inputs may be received, where the inputs may be one or more images of one or more screens (e.g., encoded data screens 116 a , 116 b , 116 c ). at step 204 , an application program stored on the remote device 62 or at a remote server 66 may detect and/or filter lines and cluster and/or average lines identified in an image. for example, if a plurality of lines adjacent one another and running the same direction are identified, the application program code may combine and/or average those lines into a single line. at step 206 , the application program code may identify a left (l), a right (r), a top, (t), and a bottom (b) line for defining the screen (e.g., one of encoded screens 116 a , 116 b , 116 c ) in the captured image. then, at step 208 a decision may be made as to whether too many, too few, or the right number of lines have been identified in the image. if too few or too many lines have been identified, the application program code may return to step 204 to detect and average lines again. if the application program retries to identify lines more than a pre-set number of times, the application program code may request a user to re-take a photograph of the screen of the hvac controller 18 . if the correct number of lines (e.g., a number of lines within a range of a number of lines or an exact number of lines) have been identified, the application program may proceed to step 210 . at step 210 , the application program code may form rectangles from the identified lines, where the rectangles are used to identify the screen. the formed rectangles may be formed according to parameters (e.g., a minimum size, etc.). the rectangles may be identified at step 212 and sorted at step 214 according to an aspect ratio of an expected image of a screen. at step 216 the sorted rectangles may be identified and at step 218 the rectangles may be further sorted according to detection of alignment markers 162 and a best rectangle defining the capture screen image may be identified at step 220 . turning to fig. 14b , which is a continuation of the flow diagram of fig. 14a , at step 222 a screen as defined by the identified best rectangle may be cropped and converted to grayscale to provide the screen in a standard shape and/or format at step 224 . at step 226 , fixed segments may be classified as being on or off by comparing and/or matching the standardized screen image to a template. fig. 15 depicts an illustrative example of template matching. for each fixed segment location (e.g., as identified by box 170 in fig. 15 for the fixed segment heat) template matching either expects to identify the fixed segment is displayed or is not displayed. to ensure a fixed segment is properly identified as being displayed or not, the template matching system may determine multiple times whether the fixed segment is present in the fixed segment location. for example, on a first try, the template matching may determine if the fixed segment is present by looking at the entire box 170 as one, then it may determine if the fixed segment is present by looking at each half of the box 170 , then it may determine if the fixed segment is present by looking at each third of the box 170 , and then it may determine if the fixed segment is present by look at each fourth of the box 170 . although four iterations are described, more or fewer iterations may be utilized. once the iterations have been completed, the template matching may combine its findings and determine whether it can indicate a fixed segment is displayed or is not displayed. returning to fig. 14b at step 228 , the application program code may determine whether the template matching was unsure about whether a fixed segment was on or off in the image. if it is determined the template matching was unsure about whether a fixed segment was on or off, uncertain fixed segments or fixed segment locations may be analyzed with an edge classifier at step 230 . in some cases, an edge classifier may utilize a sobel filter and/or otsu thresholding, but this is not required and other techniques may be used. illustrative photographs that have had an illustrative edge classifier applied thereto are depicted in fig. 16 . when an edge classifier has been applied to a photographed screen, the edge classifier may determine a fixed segment is displayed if many edges are found at a fixed segment location and may determine a fixed segment is not displayed if only a few edges or no edges are found at a fixed segment location. as seen in fig. 16 , the edge identifier may indicate the fixed segment at the fixed segment location of box 172 a is displayed and may indicate the fixed segment at the fixed segment location of box 172 b is not displayed. although it is not required, edge classifying may be used as a secondary classifier relative to a primary classifier of template matching. returning to fig. 14b , once the segments have been classified with an edge classifier to determine if fixed segments are on or off, the application program code proceeds to step 232 and identifies all fixed segments as either being on or off. similarly, if the template matching is sure it has identified all of the fixed segments in the image as being on or off, the application program proceeds to step 232 and identifies all fixed segments as either being on or off. once the fixed segments of a screen have been identified as being on or off in step 232 , the application program may compute the bits used for error detection and determine at step 236 if the bits for error detection match an expected sequence. if an error is detected at step 236 , the application program code may ask a user to re-take the photo at step 238 . if no error is detected (e.g., the error detection bits match the expected bit sequence), the encoded data bits from the screen may be identified at step 240 and this may occur on the remote device 62 or at the remote server. once the encoded data bits from the screen have been identified, the application program code at step 242 may determine whether the screen is the last in a sequence of screens (e.g., screens 116 a - 116 c or other sequence of screens). the application program code may make this determination automatically or it may prompt a user for an indication. if there is one or more subsequent screens to capture, the application program code at step 244 may ask a user to capture a next screen with the remote wireless device 62 and repeat the previous steps of method 200 . once the encoded data bits from the last screen have been obtained, all of the bits may be decoded from binary code (e.g., 0s and 1s) to hvac controller data values (e.g., isu settings) at step 246 . alternatively, encoded data bits may be decoded from binary to hvac controller data values directly after receiving the encoded data bits from a screen without waiting for the encoded data bits from all screens associated with an hvac device 18 . although it is not depicted in the flows of figs. 14a and 14b , the application program code may perform a check of key settings of the hvac controller 18 to determine if the encoding and decoding process was successful and to help ensure the obtained data values are accurate and complete. then, the hvac controller data values may be outputted at step 248 to a further hvac controller 18 (e.g., an internet connected device), to a contractor, to a user account associated with the hvac controller 18 from which the screens were obtained, and/or to one or more other location. in some cases, the decoded hvac controller data values may be outputted from the remote device 62 via text message, email, social media message/post, and/or other communication. those skilled in the art will recognize that the present disclosure may be manifested in a variety of forms other than the specific embodiments described and contemplated herein. accordingly, departure in form and detail may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure as described in the appended claims.
189-966-582-068-38X	US	[ "US", "WO" ]	G11C11/16,H10B61/00,H10N50/01,H10N50/10,H10N50/80,H01L27/22,H01L43/02,H01L43/12,H01L43/08	2019-05-02T00:00:00	2019	[ "G11", "H10", "H01" ]	method of making magnetoresistive memory cell over a selector pillar	a spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) device includes a sot mram cell containing a first two terminal selector element, a nonmagnetic metallic assist plate, and a magnetic tunnel junction located between the first two terminal selector element and the nonmagnetic metallic assist plate, and a circuit selection element selected from a transistor or a second two terminal selector element electrically connected to the nonmagnetic metallic assist plate of the sot mram cell.	1. a method of forming a magnetoresistive memory device, comprising: forming first electrically conductive lines over a substrate; forming a two-dimensional array of pillars each comprising a selector element over the first electrically conductive lines; forming a layer stack over the two-dimensional array of pillars, the layer stack comprising an unpatterned magnetic free layer, an unpatterned magnetic reference layer and an unpatterned tunneling dielectric layer located between the unpatterned magnetic free layer and the unpatterned magnetic reference layer; and patterning the layer stack to form a two-dimensional array of vertical stacks over the two-dimensional array of pillars, wherein each of the vertical stacks comprises a magnetic free layer, a magnetic reference layer and a tunneling dielectric layer located between magnetic free layer and the magnetic reference layer; and forming second electrically conductive lines over the two-dimensional array of vertical stacks; wherein the selector element comprises an ovonic threshold switch material portion. 2. the method of claim 1 , wherein the ovonic threshold switch material portion comprises a chalcogenide material. 3. the method of claim 1 , wherein the pillars comprise rectangular pillars. 4. the method of claim 3 , wherein each of the rectangular pillars includes a stack of the ovonic threshold switch material portion and a metal pillar structure. 5. the method of claim 3 , further comprising forming an insulating liner in line trenches located between the rectangular pillars prior to forming the layer stack. 6. the method of claim 5 , wherein the layer stack is formed over the two-dimensional array of rectangular pillars and over the insulating liner. 7. the method of claim 1 , wherein: the layer stack further comprises a synthetic antiferromagnetic material layer stack; and the unpatterned magnetic reference layer comprises a portion of the synthetic antiferromagnetic material layer stack. 8. the method of claim 7 , wherein: each of the vertical stacks further comprises a synthetic antiferromagnetic structure; and each magnetic reference layer comprises a portion of the synthetic antiferromagnetic structure. 9. the method of claim 1 , wherein the magnetic free layer comprises cofe or cofeb. 10. the method of claim 9 , wherein the magnetic reference layer comprises cofe or cofeb. 11. the method of claim 10 , wherein the tunneling dielectric layer comprises mgo. 12. the method of claim 10 , wherein the magnetic free layer, the magnetic reference layer and the tunneling dielectric layer form a magnetic tunnel junction. 13. the method of claim 1 , wherein the step of patterning the layer stack comprises: forming a patterned photoresist layer over the layer stack; and etching the layer stack using the patterned photoresist layer as a mask. 14. the method of claim 1 , wherein each of the vertical stacks comprises a magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) cell. 15. the method of claim 14 , wherein the two-dimensional array of vertical stacks comprises a two-dimensional array of mram cells. 16. the method of claim 15 , wherein the two-dimensional array of mram cells has a same two-dimensional periodicity as the two-dimensional array of pillars. 17. the method of claim 16 , wherein the two-dimensional array of pillars comprises a two-dimensional array of rectangular pillars. 18. the method of claim 17 , wherein the mram cells are not rectangular. 19. the method of claim 17 , wherein at least one sidewall of the mram cells is laterally offset from a corresponding sidewall of the underlying rectangular pillar.	field the present disclosure relates generally to the field of magnetic memory devices, and particular to a spin-orbit-torque magnetoresistive memory cell with an integrated selector element and methods of manufacturing the same. background spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) devices (also known as magnetic random access memory devices) use switching of magnetization direction of a free magnetic layer by injection of an in-plane current in an adjacent conductive layer, which is referred to as a spin-orbit-torque (sot) layer. unlike spin-torque-transfer (stt) magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) devices in which the electrical current is injected along a direction perpendicular into a magnetic tunnel junction, the write operation is performed by flowing an electrical current through the sot layer. the read operation of a sot memory cell is performed by passing electrical current through the magnetic tunnel junction of the sot memory cell. summary according to an aspect of the present disclosure, a spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) device includes a sot mram cell containing a first two terminal selector element, a nonmagnetic metallic assist plate, and a magnetic tunnel junction located between the first two terminal selector element and the nonmagnetic metallic assist plate, and a circuit selection element selected from a transistor or a second two terminal selector element electrically connected to the nonmagnetic metallic assist plate of the sot mram cell. according to another aspect of the present disclosure a method of forming a magnetoresistive memory device includes forming first access lines over a substrate, forming a two-dimensional array of circuit selection elements electrically connected to the first access lines, forming a two-dimensional array of discrete nonmagnetic metallic assist plates such that a first end portion of each of the discrete nonmagnetic metallic assist plates is electrically connected to a respective circuit selection element of the two-dimensional circuit selection elements, forming a two-dimensional array of vertical stacks on the two-dimensional array of discrete nonmagnetic metallic assist plates, wherein each of the vertical stacks comprises from top to bottom, a first selector element, a magnetic reference layer, a tunneling dielectric layer and a magnetic free layer, and forming read lines over the two-dimensional array of vertical stacks, wherein each of the read lines is electrically connected to upper ends of a respective subset of the first selector elements. brief description of the drawings fig. 1a is a schematic side-cross sectional view of a spin-orbit-torque magnetoresistive random access memory cell. fig. 1b is a schematic diagram of a memory array device including spin-orbit-torque magnetoresistive random access memory cells of the embodiments of the present disclosure in an array configuration. fig. 1c is a first exemplary configuration for a unit cell of the memory array device of fig. 1b . fig. 1d is a second exemplary configuration for a unit cell of the memory array device of fig. 1b . fig. 2a illustrates a perspective view of an array region of a first exemplary spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. fig. 2b illustrates electrical current flow during a write operation of the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. fig. 2c illustrates electrical current flow during a read operation of the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. fig. 3 illustrates a perspective view of an array region of a second exemplary spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. figs. 4-12 are perspective views illustrating a sequence of processing steps that can be employed to form the second exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. figs. 13-21 are perspective views illustrating a sequence of processing steps that can be employed to form the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array or the second exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array of the present disclosure. detailed description as discussed above, the present disclosure is directed to a spin-orbit-torque magnetoresistive memory cell with an integrated selector element and methods of manufacturing the same, the various aspects of which are discussed herein in detail. the drawings are not drawn to scale. multiple instances of an element may be duplicated where a single instance of the element is illustrated, unless absence of duplication of elements is expressly described or clearly indicated otherwise. same reference numerals refer to the same element or to a similar element. elements having the same reference numerals are presumed to have the same material composition unless expressly stated otherwise. ordinals such as “first,” “second,” and “third” are employed merely to identify similar elements, and different ordinals may be employed across the specification and the claims of the instant disclosure. as used herein, a first element located “on” a second element can be located on the exterior side of a surface of the second element or on the interior side of the second element. as used herein, a first element is located “directly on” a second element if there exist a physical contact between a surface of the first element and a surface of the second element. as used herein, an “in-process” structure or a “transient” structure refers to a structure that is subsequently modified. as used herein, a “layer” refers to a material portion including a region having a thickness. a layer may extend over the entirety of an underlying or overlying structure, or may have an extent less than the extent of an underlying or overlying structure. further, a layer may be a region of a homogeneous or inhomogeneous continuous structure that has a thickness less than the thickness of the continuous structure. for example, a layer may be located between any pair of horizontal planes between, or at, a top surface and a bottom surface of the continuous structure. a layer may extend horizontally, vertically, and/or along a tapered surface. a substrate may be a layer, may include one or more layers therein, and/or may have one or more layer thereupon, thereabove, and/or therebelow. as used herein, a “layer stack” refers to a stack of layers. as used herein, a “line” or a “line structure” refers to a layer that has a predominant direction of extension, i.e., having a direction along which the layer extends the most. as used herein, a “field effect transistor” refers to any semiconductor device having a semiconductor channel through which electrical current flows with a current density modulated by an external electrical field. as used herein, an “active region” refers to a source region of a field effect transistor or a drain region of a field effect transistor. a “top active region” refers to an active region of a field effect transistor that is located above another active region of the field effect transistor. a “bottom active region” refers to an active region of a field effect transistor that is located below another active region of the field effect transistor. as used herein, a “conductive material” refers to a material having electrical conductivity greater than 1.0×10 5 s/cm. as used herein, an “insulating material” or a “dielectric material” refers to a material having electrical conductivity less than 1.0×10 −6 s/cm. as used herein, a “metallic material” refers to a conductive material including at least one metallic element therein. all measurements for electrical conductivities are made at the standard condition. magnetization switching via spin-orbit torque (sot) is a promising alternative to direct spin-transfer torque (stt) for writing bits in magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) cells. a typical sot mram cell 180 shown in fig. 1a includes a nonmagnetic heavy metal sot layer 200 with strong spin-orbit coupling with, and in contact with, a magnetic layer, which is a free layer 136 that can switch magnetization directions. when an electric write current laterally passes through the sot layer 200 , spin current is generated in a direction perpendicular to the electrical current via the spin hall effect (she). the spin current exerts a torque on the magnetization of the magnetic layer, i.e., the free layer 136 . thus, the sot layer 200 assists in the transition of the magnetization direction in the free layer 136 through the spin hall effect. thus, the sot layer 200 is also referred to as metallic assist layer, i.e., a metallic layer that assists the magnetic transition in the free layer 136 . since very little electrical current flows through the magnetic tunnel junction 130 including the free layer 136 , the sot mram cells 180 exhibit higher endurance with lower write error rate than stt mram cells. in addition, sot mram cells 180 require lower write-energy than stt mram cells. finally, sot switching can achieve nanosecond, and even sub-ns writing speeds. in one embodiment, the reference layer 126 may be a component layer within a synthetic antiferromagnetic structure (saf structure) 132 . the saf structure 132 can include a fixed ferromagnetic layer 122 having a fixed magnetization, the reference layer 126 having a magnetization that is antiparallel to the fixed vertical magnetization of the fixed ferromagnetic layer 122 , and an antiferromagnetic (afm) coupling layer 124 located between, and providing an antiferromagnetic coupling between, the fixed ferromagnetic layer 122 and the reference layer 126 . the reference layer 126 may comprise one of ni, fe, co, b, ge, mn, and/or alloys of ni, fe, b, ge, mn, and/or combinations and mixtures thereof, such as nife, cofe, or cofeb, and/or co/pt, co/pd, or co/ni superlattices. the magnetic moment of the reference layer 126 may be in the plane of the layer or perpendicular to the plane of the layer. the barrier layer 134 may be made of a nonmagnetic metal such as cu or ag, or an insulating material such as alumina, mgo, or hfo. the free layer 136 may comprise one of ni, fe, co, b, ge, mn, and/or alloys of ni, fe, b, ge, mn, and/or combinations and mixtures thereof, such as nife, cofe, or cofeb. the magnetic moment of the free layer 136 may be in the plane of the layer or perpendicular to the plane of the layer, however, it's orientation is always collinear with that of the reference layer; i.e. they are either both in-plane or both perpendicular to the plane of their layers. the sot layer 200 may be made of a material having large spin-orbit coupling strength, such as pt, ta, w, hf, ir, cubi, cuir, aupt, auw, ptpd, ptmgo, or a topological insulator such as alpha-sn. the sot mram cell 180 can include the magnetic tunnel junction (mtj) 130 , which is a pair of magnetic layers ( 126 , 136 ) separated by a tunneling dielectric layer 134 (e.g., a mgo layer). one of the two magnetic layers known as a reference layer 126 is typically coupled to a pinning layer 122 and made magnetically stiff through a phenomenon of exchange bias. the pinning layer 122 is typically an antiferromagnetic (afm) material layer (for example an irmn layer) in the case of an in-plane reference layer, and is typically a co/pt multilayer in the case of the magnetization is perpendicular to the film plane. the reference layer 126 and the pinning layer 122 may be portions of a synthetic antiferromagnetic structure (saf structure) 132 . in a saf structure, the layer adjacent to the pinning layer is known as the pinned layer 124 . a thin coupling layer 125 (such as a ruthenium layer) is provided between the pinned layer 124 and the reference layer. the thickness of the coupling layer 125 can be selected such that the magnetization of the reference layer 126 is anti-parallel to the magnetization of the pinned layer 124 . the magnetic moments of the pinned layer 124 and the reference layer 126 are typically chosen to minimize the stray fields from the saf 132 , although they can be unbalanced if some amount of stray field is desirable. the second magnetic layer known as the free layer 136 is free to switch between two known configurations, creating a memory effect where the resistance of the mtj 130 is either high or low to represent “0” or “1”. as shown in fig. 1a , the sot mram cell 180 can have the afm layer 122 above the top magnetic layer (which in this embodiment is the reference layer 126 ) to form a top-pinned type sot mram cell 180 . alternatively, the positions of reference layer 126 and free layer 136 in the mtj 130 can be reversed and the afm layer 122 may be located below the bottom magnetic layer 126 (which in this embodiment is also the reference layer) to form a bottom-pinned sot mram cell. in the bottom-pinned sot mram cell, the sot layer 200 is formed above the mtj 130 . during sensing (i.e., reading) operation, a read current i rd may flow between terminal 1 (which is electrically connected to the saf 132 and the afm layer 122 ) and terminal 3 (which is electrically connected to one end of the sot layer 200 ) through the tunnel junction 130 . during a programming (i.e., writing) operation, a write current i wr between the terminal 2 and terminal 3 (which is electrically connected to the other end of the sot layer 200 ). a fraction of the spin current can flow up and into (and down and out of) the nonmagnetic sot layer 200 to induce the transition of the magnetization of the adjacent free layer 136 . the write current does not flow through the tunnel junction 130 to terminal 1 . thus, the read and write currents flow in different (e.g., perpendicular) directions. prior art sot mram cells are fabricated as a 3-terminal device that requires two transistors to control the write operation and the read operation. this results in larger bit-cell footprint, and makes it difficult to scale down the device for high areal density. in this case, two transistors are electrically connected to teach sot mram cell 180 . a first “read” transistor is electrically connected to terminal 1 , while a second “write” transistor is electrically connected to terminal 2 of the sot mram 180 . the two transistors take up device area and decrease the overall device density. furthermore, the read and write transistors are connected to the top and the bottom terminals respectively, which complicates the fabrication process. in order to increase the operational speed and to reduce the write error rate, a large overdrive current is often used for prior art sot mram cells. a larger transistor is used for a large drive current, which further reduces the device density. various embodiments of the present disclosure provide a higher density sot mram that includes a combination of a transistor and a selector element for each sot mram cell 180 , or two selector elements for each sot mram cell 180 , instead of two transistors for each conventional sot mram cell. by reducing the number of transistors used for each sot mram cell from two to one or zero, the device density is increased. referring to figs. 1b-1d , a schematic diagrams is shown for spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory devices including an array of unit cells { 180 , ( 160 or 320 )} of embodiments of the present disclosure in an array configuration. each unit cell { 180 , ( 160 or 320 )} includes a combination of a magnetoresistive memory cell 180 and a transistor 160 , or a combination of a magnetoresistive memory cell 180 and a selector element 320 . the magnetic memory device can be configured as a magnetoresistive random access memory (mram) device 500 containing magnetoresistive memory cells, i.e., sot mram cells 180 . as used herein, a “mram device” refers to a magnetoresistive memory device containing cells that allow random access, e.g., access to any selected memory cell upon a command for reading the contents of the selected memory cell. the mram device 500 of an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a memory array region 550 containing an array of unit cells {( 180 , 160 ), ( 180 , 320 )} located at intersections of word lines (which may comprise first electrically conductive lines 30 as illustrated or as second electrically conductive lines 90 in an alternate configuration) and bit lines (which may comprise second electrically conductive lines 90 as illustrated or as first electrically conductive lines 30 in an alternate configuration). each unit cell {( 180 , 160 ), ( 180 , 320 )} can include a series connection of a sot mram cell 180 and a transistor 160 as illustrated in fig. 1c , or can include a series connection of a sot mram cell 180 and a selector element 320 as illustrated in fig. 1d . access lines 40 are provided to each cross-point at which a word line intersects a bit line. thus, the mram device 500 is in a cross-point array configuration with additional access lines 40 that access a row of transistors 160 , a column of transistors 160 , a row of selector elements 320 , or a column of selector elements 320 . a bias line 70 having a fixed voltage (such as a power supply voltage or electrical ground voltage) may be connected to a node of the unit cells {( 180 , 160 ), ( 180 , 320 )} as needed. the mram device 500 contains a row decoder 560 connected to the word lines, sense circuitry 570 (e.g., a sense amplifier and other bit line control circuitry) connected to the bit lines, a column decoder 580 connected to the bit lines, and a data buffer 590 connected to the sense circuitry. in the first embodiment, the mram device 500 can contain an access line decoder 520 connected to access lines 40 if transistor circuit selection elements are used to write to a respective sot mram cell 180 . multiple instances of the magnetoresistive memory cells 180 are arranged in an array configuration that forms the mram device 500 . it should be noted that the location and interconnection of elements are schematic, and the elements may be arranged in a different configuration. further, the sot mram cell 180 of the embodiments of the present disclosure may be manufactured as a discrete device, i.e., a single isolated device. referring to figs. 2a-2c , an array region of a first exemplary spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory array 300 of the first embodiment of the present disclosure is illustrated. the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array is magnetoresistive memory device that includes a two-dimensional array of spin-orbit-torque (sot) mram cells 180 in a top-pinned configuration. it should be understood that the array 300 may be turned up-side down to form the sot mram cells 180 in a bottom-pinned configuration. each of the sot mram cells 180 comprises a vertical stack including, from top to bottom, an optional metallic capping material portion 110 , a first selector element 120 , a magnetic junction 130 and a sot layer 200 . the first selector elements 120 are also referred to as upper selector elements in this embodiment. each magnetic junction 130 includes a magnetic reference layer 126 having a fixed magnetization direction, a nonmagnetic barrier layer 134 , such as a tunneling dielectric layer, and a magnetic free layer 136 configured to have a magnetization direction that is parallel or antiparallel to the fixed magnetization direction of the reference layer 126 . the magnetic junction 130 may be a magnetic tunnel junction. in one embodiment, the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array 300 may be a rectangular periodic array. the metallic capping material portions 110 can include a metallic material such as ta, tin, tan, carbon, and/or wn. the magnetic junction 130 can include any magnetic junction suitable for providing a sot mram cell 180 , such as cofe or cofeb magnetic reference and free layers ( 126 , 136 ) separated by a tunneling dielectric layer, such as an mgo layer 134 . the first selector elements 120 can include any suitable two terminal selector element, such as a first diode threshold switch material (e.g., materials for p-n semiconductor diode, p-i-n semiconductor diode, schottky diode or metal-insulator-metal diode) or a first ovonic threshold switch material. the ovonic threshold switch material is a material that behaves as a conductor above a critical electrical field thereacross and behaves as an insulator below the critical electrical field thereacross. in one embodiment, the first ovonic threshold switch material can be a chalcogenide compound, such as a telluride compound, a selenide compound, a selenide-telluride compound, or a sulfide-selenide-telluride compound. exemplary ovonic switch materials include, but are not limited to zinc telluride compounds (such as zn 1-x te x ), germanium telluride compounds, germanium selenide compounds doped with a dopant selected from as, n, and c, such as a ge—se—as. in one embodiment, the ovonic threshold switch material layer can include, and/or can consist essentially of, a geseas alloy, a znte alloy, a gese alloy, a seas alloy, a gete alloy, or a site alloy. the first exemplary spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory array 300 includes a two-dimensional array of discrete nonmagnetic metallic assist plates (i.e., sot layers) 200 for the respective sot mram cells 180 . the discrete metallic assist plates (i.e., sot layers) 200 configured to provide rotating spin transfer torque to a respective free layer 136 to assist switching of the magnetization direction of the respective free layer 136 during programming. the discrete metallic assist plates 200 can comprise, and/or consist essentially of, at least one heavy elemental metal to maximize spin transfer across the interface between the free layer 136 and the discrete metallic assist plates 200 . in one embodiment, the elemental metal can have an atomic number in a range from, and including, 72 to, and including, 79. for example, the at least one elemental metal can include one or more of hf, ta, w, re, os, ir, pt, and au. in one embodiment, the discrete metallic assist plates 200 can comprise, and/or consist essentially of, tungsten. in other words, in an embodiment, the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is made of an elemental metal which is undoped and unalloyed other than unavoidable impurities that are introduced during manufacturing at trace levels. in one embodiment, the discrete metallic assist plates 200 can have a respective rectangular shape, and may be elongated along the first horizontal direction hd 1 , which in one embodiment can be parallel to the direction of the bit lines 90 in fig. 1b . in one embodiment, each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 contacts a bottom surface of a respective one of the free layers 136 . in one embodiment, each sot mram cell 180 contains one respective, discrete metallic assist plate (i.e., sot layer) 200 . in this embodiment, the two-dimensional array of discrete metallic assist plates 200 and the two-dimensional array 300 of sot mram cells 180 have a same two-dimensional periodicity. in one embodiment, each of the two-dimensional array of discrete metallic assist plates 200 and the two-dimensional array 300 of sot mram cells 180 can be a rectangular periodic array having a first pitch along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and a second pitch along the second horizontal direction hd 2 (which in one embodiment may be parallel to the direction of the word lines 30 in fig. 1b ). in one embodiment, each free layer 136 can contact a center portion of a top surface of a respective one of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 . in the embodiment of figs. 2a-2c , read lines 100 are provided over the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 . in one embodiment, the read lines 100 may comprise the bit lines 90 illustrated in fig. 1b or may be electrically connected to the bit lines 90 . in other device configurations, the read line 100 may the word lines 30 illustrated in fig. 1b or may be electrically connected to the word lines 30 if the word lines are instead connected to read circuitry. the read lines 100 can be metal lines that laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 , and are laterally spaced apart along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . in this embodiment, the read lines 100 are electrically connected to upper ends of a respective subset of the first selector elements located within a respective row of the sot mram cells 180 . the metallic capping material portion 110 , if present, contacts the first selector element 120 and contacts a bottom surface of a respective one of the read lines 100 . a row of the sot mram cells 180 can be activated by each read line 100 . one circuit selection element can be provided per sot mram cell 180 . the circuit selection element may be selected from a transistor and a second two terminal selector element. first access lines and second access lines laterally extending along mutually perpendicular directions can be provided. the first access lines and the second access lines can be the word lines 30 and the access lines 40 illustrated in fig. 1b . in one embodiment, the first access lines can be the word lines 30 and the second access lines can be the access lines 40 . alternatively, the first access lines can be the access lines 40 and the second access lines can be the word lines 30 . generally, the first access lines and the second access lines can be configured to activate electrical current flow through a selected one of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 by activating a respective transistor circuit selection element. referring back to figs. 1b and 2a-2c , in one embodiment, the circuit selection elements can include transistors 160 . one transistor 160 can be provided per sot mram cell 180 . each transistor 160 can include a gate electrode 165 electrically connected to a respective one of the first access lines (e.g., to one of the word lines 30 controlled by the row decoder 560 ), a first active region 162 (which may be one of a source region and a drain region) electrically connected to a respective one of the second access lines (e.g., to one of the access lines 40 controlled by the access line decoder 520 ), and a second active region 168 (which may be another of the source region and the drain region) connected to a first end portion of a respective one of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 . thus, the first end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is electrically connected to a respective second active region 168 of the two-dimensional array of transistors 160 , and the opposite second end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is electrically connected to a common node having a same electrical potential, such as to electrical ground. a two-dimensional array of transistors 160 can be manufactured on a substrate employing methods known in the art, and the first access lines and the second access lines can be formed as metal interconnect structures overlying or underlying the field effect transistors and embedded in metal-interconnect-level dielectric material layers. as noted above, in an alternative embodiment, the array 300 may be turned up-side down to form the sot mram cells 180 in a bottom-pinned configuration. fig. 2b illustrates a write operation on a selected sot mram cell 180 . in this case, a programming current i wr flows through the discrete metallic assist plate 200 located adjacent to the free layer 136 of a respective sot mram cell 180 . a programming voltage v write can be applied to the first active region 162 of the transistor 160 electrically connected to the selected sot mram cell 180 by the access line decoder 520 through a respective access line 40 , and a gate turn-on voltage can be applied to the gate electrode 165 of the transistor 160 electrically connected to the selected sot mram cell 180 by the row decoder 520 through a respective word line 40 . the transistor 160 connected to the selected sot mram cell 180 is turned on to provide the programming current i wr . fig. 2c illustrates a read operation on a selected sot mram cell 180 . the transistor 160 connected to the selected sot mram cell 180 is turned on with a read voltage v read which is lower than the write voltage v write (such as v read =α×v write in which α is in a range from 0.1 to 0.9) at the first active region 162 , and the read line 100 connected to the selected sot mram cell 180 is biased at a voltage that is the negative of the complement of the read voltage v read . for example if a read voltage v read of 0.5v is applied to the first active region, then −0.5v can be applied to the read line 100 by the column decoder 580 and the sense amplifier circuitry 570 . the read voltage v read is greater than the threshold voltage v threshold of the first selector elements 120 , which is the minimum voltage across a first selector element 120 that is needed to turn on the first selector element 120 . the read current i rd flows through the mtj 130 of a sot mram cell 180 being read between its discrete metallic assist plate 200 and its read line 100 . referring to fig. 3 , a second exemplary spin-orbit-torque (sot) magnetoresistive memory array 400 of a second embodiment of the present disclosure is illustrated, which can be derived from the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array of figs. 2a-2c by employing a second selector element 320 for each sot mram cell 180 instead of the transistor 160 . the second selector elements 320 are also referred to as lower selector elements if the mram cell 180 is in the top-pinned configuration. if the sot mram cell 180 is in the bottom-pinned configuration, then the cell is turned upside down and the second selector elements 320 become the upper selector elements. the second selector elements 320 can include a second diode or a second ovonic threshold switch material, and can have a higher threshold voltage than the first selector elements 120 . programming (write) operations can be performed by turning on a respective second selector element 320 which is electrically connected to a respective discrete metallic assist plate (i.e., sot layer) 200 , and read (sense) operations can be performed by turning on a respective first selector element 120 electrically connected to the respective read line 100 . first access lines 310 and second access lines 390 laterally extending along mutually perpendicular directions are provided. for example, the first access lines 310 may comprise write lines (e.g., word lines 30 shown in fig. 1b or lines which are electrically connected to the word lines 30 shown in fig. 1b ) which laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 , and the second access lines 390 may comprise ground lines which laterally extend along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . the first access lines 310 and the second access lines 390 can be configured to activate electrical current flow through a selected one of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 by activating a respective second selector element 320 which comprises the circuit selection element in this embodiment. in one embodiment, a first end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is electrically connected to a respective one of the first access lines 310 through a respective one of the second selector elements 320 , and a second end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is electrically connected to a respective one of the second access lines 390 . in one embodiment, the first end portion and the second end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 can be laterally spaced apart along the first horizontal direction hd 1 , and each of the second access lines 390 laterally extends along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . the second horizontal direction hd 2 can be perpendicular to the first horizontal direction hd 1 . each of the second access lines 390 can contact bottom surfaces of second end portions of a respective column of discrete metallic assist plates 200 that are arranged along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . each of the second access lines 390 can also be connected to the electrical ground. in one embodiment, each first end portion of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is connected to an underlying one of the first access lines 310 by a rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) including a stack of a respective one of the second selector elements 320 and a respective metal pillar structure (e.g., metal electrode) 330 . the rectangular pillar has a same width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 as the underlying one of the first access lines 310 as will be described in more detail below. in one embodiment, each second access line 390 that is located between neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) is laterally equidistant from the neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ). in this case, the second access lines 390 can be formed by a self-alignment method that is described below. in one embodiment, the first access lines 310 extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and underlies the second access lines 390 , and a row of second selector elements 320 is located between each one of the first access lines 310 and first end portions of a respective overlying row of discrete metallic assist plates 200 that are arranged along the first horizontal direction hd 1 . an insulating liner 380 is located between each one of the second access lines 390 and the underlying first access lines 310 . in one embodiment, a vertical spacing between the second access lines 390 and the first access lines 310 (i.e., the height of the insulating spacer 380 ) is the same as a lateral spacing between one of the second access lines 390 and respective neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ). figs. 4-12 are perspective views illustrating a sequence of processing steps that can be employed to form the second exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array 400 of the second embodiment of the present disclosure. referring to fig. 4 , a layer stack including a first metal layer 310 l, a lower selector material layer 320 l, and a second metal layer 330 l can be deposited over a substrate 10 including an insulating top surface. the insulating top surface may be provided, for example, by forming semiconductor devices (such as field effect transistors for the various circuitry illustrated in fig. 1b ) on a semiconductor substrate, and by forming at least one insulating layer thereupon. metal interconnect structures may be embedded within the at least one insulating layer. the metal interconnect structures may be configured to provide electrical contact to the first access lines 310 and the second access lines 390 to be subsequently formed. alternatively, an insulating substrate may be used instead and the circuitry illustrated in fig. 1b may be formed on the side of the array 400 instead of below the array 400 . the first metal layer 310 l includes at least one metallic material to be patterned into first access lines 310 . the lower selector material layer 320 l includes a second ovonic threshold switch material or a second diode material to be subsequently patterned into a two-dimensional array of second selector elements 320 . the second metal layer 330 l includes at least one metallic material to be subsequently patterned into a two-dimensional array of metal pillar structures 330 . referring to fig. 5 , a first photoresist layer 337 is applied over the second metal layer 330 l, and is lithographically patterned to form a line and space pattern that extends along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and alternates along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . the line and space pattern may be a periodic pattern having a uniform pitch along the second horizontal direction hd 2 , which is herein referred to as a second pitch. referring to fig. 6 , an anisotropic etch is performed to transfer the line and space pattern of the first photoresist layer 337 through the stack of the second metal layer 330 l, the lower selector material layer 320 l, and the first metal layer 310 l. remaining portions of the first metal layer 310 l include first access lines 310 that laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and have a uniform width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . remaining portions of the lower selector material layer 320 l include selector material rails 320 r that laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and have the uniform width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . remaining portions of the second metal layer 330 l include metal rails 330 r that laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and have the uniform width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . the first photoresist layer 337 can be removed, for example, by ashing. referring to fig. 7 , a dielectric matrix material layer 340 can be formed by depositing a dielectric material such as silicon oxide, and by planarizing the top surface of the dielectric material. for example, chemical mechanical planarization (cmp) may be employed to planarize the dielectric matrix material layer 340 . the planarized top surface of the dielectric matrix material layer 340 can be coplanar with the top surfaces of the metal rails 330 r. the dielectric matrix material layer 340 can include a plurality of dielectric rails that laterally extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and has a respective uniform vertical cross-sectional shape along vertical planes that are perpendicular to the first horizontal direction hd 1 . referring to fig. 8 , a second photoresist layer 347 is applied over the metal rails 330 r and the dielectric matrix material layer 340 , and is lithographically patterned with a line and space pattern that extends along the second horizontal direction hd 2 alternates along the first horizontal direction hd 1 . referring to fig. 9 , an anisotropic etch process can be performed to transfer the pattern of the second photoresist layer 347 through the dielectric matrix material layer 340 , the metal rails 330 r, and the selector material rails 320 r. each remaining patterned portion of the metal rails 330 r constitutes a metal pillar structure 330 . each remaining patterned portion of the selector material rails 320 r constitutes a second selector element 320 . each contiguous set of a metal pillar structure 330 and a second selector element 320 constitutes a rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) having a rectangular horizontal cross-sectional area. thus, the first access lines 310 extending along the first horizontal direction and an overlying two-dimensional array of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) can be provided. each of the rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) includes a stack of a respective one of the second selector elements 320 (which can be diodes or ovonic threshold switch material portions) and a respective metal pillar structure 330 . the ovonic threshold switch material portions are herein referred to as lower ovonic threshold switch material portions or second ovonic threshold switch material portions. the metal pillar structures 330 include top surfaces, which are a two-dimensional array of conductive surface portions. the two-dimensional array of conducive surface portions of the metal pillar structures 330 are herein referred to as a first subset of the conductive surface portions in contrast to a second subset of conductive surface portions to be subsequently formed. the remaining portions of the dielectric matrix material layer 340 include dielectric strips including periodic castellations, i.e., a periodic arrangement of protruding portions. the castellations of the dielectric strips of the dielectric matrix material layer 340 can have the same periodicity along the first horizontal direction hd 1 as the rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ). each rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) can have a same width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 as an underlying first access line 310 . line trenches laterally extending along the second horizontal direction hd 2 can be formed between neighboring columns of the rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) that are arranged along the second horizontal direction hd 2 . each line trench is located between two columns of castellations of multiple strips of the dielectric matrix material layer 340 . referring to fig. 10 , an insulating layer 380 l is deposited in the line trenches and over the castellations of the dielectric matrix material layer 340 and the two-dimensional array of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ). the insulating layer 380 l includes an insulating material such as silicon oxide. the thickness of the insulating layer 380 l is selected to be less than one half of the width of each line trench, and is less than the depth of each line trench. referring to fig. 11 , at least one metallic material is deposited in remaining volumes of the line trenches. the thickness of the at least one metallic material is selected such that the remaining volumes of the line trenches are filled with the at least one metallic material. the at least one metallic material can include, for example, a metallic nitride liner material (such as tin, tan, or wn) and a metal fill material (such as w, cu, al, co, ru, mo, etc.). referring to fig. 11 , portions of the at least one metallic material and the insulating layer 380 l that overlie the horizontal plane including the top surfaces of the metal pillar structures 330 can be removed by a planarization process, which can employ chemical mechanical planarization and/or at least one recess etch process. each remaining portion of the at least one metallic material constitutes a second access line 390 . each remaining portion of the insulating layer 380 l constitutes an insulating liner 380 . each insulating liner 380 fills a bottom portion and a peripheral portion of a respective line trench, and a second access line 390 is formed in a remaining volume of the respective line trench. top surfaces of the second access lines 390 include a second subset of the conductive surface portions, on which second end portions of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 are subsequently formed. the first access lines 310 and the second access lines 390 laterally extend along mutually perpendicular directions over the substrate 10 . a two-dimensional array of circuit selection elements such as the second selector elements 320 can be connected to the first access lines 310 . the two-dimensional array of circuit selection elements can include second ovonic threshold switch material portions. generally, the two-dimensional array of circuit selection elements is configured to electrically connect a selected one of the first access lines 310 and a selected one of the second access lines 390 to a selected conductive surface portion or a selected pair of conducive surface portions. in the structure illustrated in fig. 12 , the two-dimensional array of second selector elements 320 is configured to electrically connect each of the first access lines 310 to a respective metal pillar structure 330 . if transistors 160 of the first embodiment are used as the circuit selection elements, then the two-dimensional array of circuit selection elements can be configured to electrically connect a selected one of the first access lines 310 to a respective electrode or via structure that is electrically connected to a second active region 168 of a respective transistor 160 . in one embodiment, each first end portion of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 is connected to an underlying one of the first access lines 310 by a rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) including a stack of a respective one of the second selector elements 320 and a respective metal pillar structure 330 . the rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) has a same width along the second horizontal direction hd 2 as the underlying one of the first access lines 310 . in one embodiment, each second access line 390 that is located between neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) is laterally equidistant from the neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) because the insulating liners 380 have a same lateral thickness on both sides of the second access line 390 . further, the lateral thickness of vertically extending portions of the insulating liners 380 can be the same as the vertical thickness of bottom portions of the insulating liners 380 . in this case, a vertical spacing between the second access lines 390 and the first access lines 310 can be the same as a lateral spacing between one of the second access lines 390 and respective neighboring columns of rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ). figs. 13-21 are perspective views illustrating a sequence of processing steps that can be employed to form the first exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array 300 or the second exemplary sot magnetoresistive memory array 400 of the first and second embodiments of the present disclosure. referring to fig. 13 , a metallic material layer 200 l, a first magnetic material layer 136 l, a nonmagnetic barrier material layer 134 l, a synthetic antiferromagnet material layer stack 132 l, an upper selector material layer 120 l, and a metallic capping material layer 110 l can be sequentially deposited as blanket layers (i.e., unpatterned layers). the metallic material layer 200 l includes the material of, and has the same thickness as, the discrete metallic assist plates 200 described above. the first magnetic material layer 136 l includes the material of, and has the same thickness as, the free layer 136 described above. the nonmagnetic barrier material layer 134 l includes the material of, and has the same thickness as, the nonmagnetic barrier layer (i.e., tunneling dielectric layer) 134 described above. the synthetic antiferromagnet material layer stack 132 l includes the material stack of the saf structure 132 described above. the upper selector material layer 120 l includes the material of, and has the same thickness as, the first selector element 120 described above. the metallic capping material layer 110 l includes the material of, and has the same thickness as, the metallic capping material portion 110 described above. referring to fig. 14 , a protective layer 107 can be applied over the metallic capping material layer 110 l, and can be patterned to cover a two-dimensional array of discrete areas. this patterning could be achieved with photolithography, nanoimprint lithography, or another suitable method. the protective layer 107 could be photoresist, or some etch mask that has created from the original patterning material via some image transfer process. each discrete area can be located between a respective neighboring pair of a rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) and an adjacent second access line 390 in a plan view, i.e., in a top-down view. in one embodiment, each discrete area can be located midway between a respective neighboring pair of a rectangular pillar ( 320 , 330 ) and an adjacent second access line 390 in a plan view referring to fig. 15 , an anisotropic etch process is performed to transfer the pattern in the photoresist layer 107 through the layer stack including the first magnetic material layer 136 l, the nonmagnetic barrier material layer 134 l, the synthetic antiferromagnet material layer stack 132 l, the upper selector material layer 120 l, and the metallic capping material layer 110 l. the metallic material layer 200 l can be employed as an etch stop layer. a two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 is formed. the photoresist layer 107 can be subsequently removed, for example, by ashing. the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 can have the same two-dimensional periodicity as the rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ) located underneath. referring to fig. 16 , a sacrificial matrix material layer 103 can be applied over the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 , and can be planarized to provide a planar surface. the sacrificial matrix material layer 103 may be a polymer material, a carbon-based material (such as amorphous carbon), or a spin-on-glass. the sacrificial matrix material layer 103 may be a self-planarizing material, or may be planarized by chemical mechanical planarization. referring to fig. 17 , a photoresist layer 117 can be applied over the sacrificial matrix material layer 103 , and can be lithographically patterned to form a two-dimensional array of discrete polygons or a discrete curvilinear shape. in one embodiment, the two-dimensional array of discrete polygons or a discrete curvilinear shape can be a two-dimensional array of rectangles having the same periodicity as the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 . in one embodiment, the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 can be entirely covered by the patterned portions of the photoresist layer 117 . referring to fig. 18 , an anisotropic etch process can be performed to transfer the pattern of the photoresist layer 117 through the sacrificial matrix material layer 103 and through the metallic material layer 200 l. the metallic material layer 200 l is patterned into a two-dimensional array of discrete metallic material plates that are employed to assist magnetic transition in the free layers through the spin hall effect. as such, the discrete metallic material plates are herein referred to as discrete metallic assist plates 200 . the photoresist layer 117 can be subsequently removed, for example, by ashing. remaining portions of the sacrificial matrix material layer 103 can be removed by a solvent or by ashing. the two-dimensional array of discrete metallic assist plates 200 can be formed such that a first end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 contacts a top surface of a respective conductive surface portion within a first two-dimensional array of conductive surface portions, and a second end portion of each of the discrete metallic assist plates 200 contacts a top surface of a respective conductive surface portion within a second two-dimensional array of conducive surface portions. the first two-dimensional array of conductive surface portions can include top surfaces of the metal pillar structures 330 , and the second two-dimensional array of conductive surface portions can include surface portions of the second access lines 390 that has an areal overlap with the first access lines 310 . each of the sot mram cells 180 comprises a vertical stack including, from top to bottom, a first selector element 120 , a fixed magnetization (i.e., reference) layer 122 having a fixed magnetization direction, a tunneling dielectric layer 134 , free layer 136 configured to have a magnetization direction that is parallel or antiparallel to the fixed magnetization direction and discrete metallic assist plate 200 . the first selector elements 120 can comprise first ovonic threshold switch material portions or first diodes. in one embodiment, the first access lines 310 extend along the first horizontal direction hd 1 and underlies the second access lines 390 , and a row of second selector elements 320 is located between each one of the first access lines 310 and first end portions of a respective overlying row of discrete metallic assist plates 200 . referring to fig. 19 , a dielectric material layer 106 can be deposited and can be planarized to provide a top surface that is coplanar with the top surfaces of the metallic capping material portions 110 . referring to fig. 20 , a photoresist layer 127 can be deposited over the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 , and can be lithographically patterned to form line trenches in which top surfaces of a respective row sot mram cells 180 are physically exposed. referring to fig. 21 , a metallic material can be selectively deposited in the line trenches. the photoresist layer 127 and portions of the deposited metallic material overlying the photoresist layer 127 can be lifted off. the read lines 100 are formed by lift-off over the two-dimensional array of sot mram cells 180 . each of the read lines 100 is electrically connected to upper ends of a respective subset of the first selector elements 120 located within a respective row of the sot mram cells 180 . alternatively, a metallic material may be blanked deposited over the sot mram cells and then photolithographically patterned to form the read lines 100 a unit memory cell 180 of the embodiments of the present disclosure includes a first two terminal selector element 120 and a single transistor 160 , or a combination of a first two terminal selector element 120 and a second two terminal selector element 320 . traditional sot mram cells require two select transistors per sot mram cell. thus, the devices of the embodiments of the present disclosure can achieve a higher device density. furthermore, by forming the first selector element 120 during the same patterning steps as the mtj 130 , complex transistor formation and its electrical connection to mtj 130 are avoided. still further, the one embodiment of the present disclosure provides second access lines 390 that are self-aligned to rectangular pillars ( 320 , 330 ), thereby reducing the number of lithographic steps needed to pattern the device structure. if a large overdrive current is used, then only a single large transistor of the first embodiment may be included per memory cell which reduces the device density compared to two large transistors per memory cell. although the foregoing refers to particular preferred embodiments, it will be understood that the disclosure is not so limited. it will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art that various modifications may be made to the disclosed embodiments and that such modifications are intended to be within the scope of the disclosure. where an embodiment employing a particular structure and/or configuration is illustrated in the present disclosure, it is understood that the present disclosure may be practiced with any other compatible structures and/or configurations that are functionally equivalent provided that such substitutions are not explicitly forbidden or otherwise known to be impossible to one of ordinary skill in the art. all of the publications, patent applications and patents cited herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
192-238-630-556-947	CN	[ "EP", "CN", "KR", "US", "WO" ]	H04M1/02,G06F1/16	2019-03-15T00:00:00	2019	[ "H04", "G06" ]	rotary shaft mechanism and mobile terminal	this application provides a rotating shaft mechanism and a mobile terminal. connecting rods and swing arms are rotatably connected to a main shaft assembly, and during rotation connection, the swing arms and the connecting rods rotate around different axes, so that the swing arms and the connecting rods rotate and slide relative to each other, and the swing arms or the connecting rods drive support plates to rotate, to form, during folding, space enclosed by the main shaft assembly and the support plates to accommodate a folded part of a flexible display, thereby improving a bending effect of the flexible display. in addition, the connecting rods rotate, and the swing arms slide and rotate relative to the rotating shaft, so that thickness of a folded folding mechanism is approximately equal to thickness of two stacked housings, thereby improving an effect of the folded mobile terminal.	a rotating shaft mechanism, applied to a foldable mobile terminal, wherein the rotating shaft mechanism comprises: a main shaft assembly; a swing arm assembly, comprising at least one connecting rod group and at least one swing arm group, wherein each connecting rod group comprises two connecting rods that are correspondingly disposed on two sides of the main shaft assembly and that are rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly; each swing arm group comprises swing arms respectively disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly, and each swing arm is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly; an axis around which each swing arm rotates and an axis around which a corresponding connecting rod rotates are different axes, and each are parallel to a length direction of the main shaft assembly; and each swing arm is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to at least one connecting rod located on a same side; and a support assembly, comprising support plates correspondingly disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly, wherein each support plate is rotatably connected to a swing arm located on a same side, is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to a connecting rod located on the same side; or each support plate is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly, and is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to a swing arm located on a same side, wherein an axis around which the support plate is rotatably connected to the swing arm or rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly is parallel to the length direction of the main shaft assembly, wherein when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly rotate to a first position in directions towards each other, the corresponding connecting rods or the swing arms drive the two support plates to rotate to a second position in directions towards each other, and the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose folding space for accommodating a flexible display of the mobile terminal. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 1, wherein axes around which the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group rotate are symmetrically disposed on two sides of axes around which two swing arms in a corresponding swing arm group rotate. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a sliding direction of the connecting rod is perpendicular to an axial direction of the connecting rod, and when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly rotate to the first position in the directions towards each other, the corresponding connecting rods slide to positions close to the axes around which the swing arms rotate. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a first arc-shaped sliding slot in a one-to-one correspondence with each swing arm is disposed on the main shaft assembly, and a first arc-shaped arm slidably assembled in the corresponding first arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on each swing arm. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 4, wherein the main shaft assembly comprises a main outer shaft and a main inner shaft fixedly connected to the main outer shaft, and each first arc-shaped sliding slot comprises a concave arc-shaped groove disposed on the main outer shaft and an arc-shaped surface that is disposed on the main inner shaft and that covers the arc-shaped groove. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 4, wherein the main shaft assembly comprises a main outer shaft and a main inner shaft fixedly connected to the main outer shaft, and the first arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on the main inner shaft or the main outer shaft. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 4, wherein the first arc-shaped arms correspondingly disposed on the two swing arms in each swing arm group are disposed in a staggered manner. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein gears are respectively disposed on two opposite ends of the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group, and the two gears engage with each other. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 8, wherein a cavity for accommodating the two engaging gears is disposed in the main shaft assembly. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 9, further comprising: a limiting mechanism, configured to limit relative positions at which the connecting rods rotate relative to the main shaft assembly. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 10, wherein the limiting mechanism comprises a first cam that rotates synchronously with each connecting rod, and a second cam that is disposed opposite to each first cam, wherein protrusions and notches that engage with each other are respectively disposed on opposite surfaces of the first cam and the second cam that are disposed opposite to each other, and one of the first cam and the second cam can slide relative to the main shaft assembly; and the limiting mechanism further comprises: an elastic part configured to push the first cam or the second cam to slide towards the other corresponding cam. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 11, wherein the limiting mechanism further comprises a camshaft fixedly connected to each connecting rod, the camshaft penetrates the first cam and the second cam that are disposed opposite to each other, the first cam can rotate synchronously with the camshaft, and the second cam can rotate relative to the camshaft. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 11, wherein there are at least two connecting rod groups, an elastic part is disposed between two second cams corresponding to any two adjacent first cams, and two ends of the elastic part press against the two second cams. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein a notch in a one-to-one correspondence with the corresponding connecting rod is disposed on each swing arm, and the connecting rod is at least partially located in the corresponding notch. the rotating shaft mechanism according to claim 14, wherein first sliding slots are disposed on two sides of the notch on each swing arm, and first protrusions slidably assembled in the first sliding slots are disposed on the corresponding connecting rod. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 15, wherein a second sliding slot is disposed on each support plate, and a second protrusion slidably assembled in the second sliding slot is disposed on the corresponding connecting rod or swing arm. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 15, wherein each support plate is rotatably connected to the corresponding swing arm by using first pin shafts; or a second arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on each support plate, and a second arc-shaped arm slidably assembled in the second arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on a support arm corresponding to each support plate. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the main shaft assembly has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, wherein the first surface is a surface used to support the flexible display, and when the rotating shaft mechanism is unfolded to support the flexible display, the first surface is flush with a surface that is of the support plate and that is used to support the flexible display. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 18, further comprising: a flexible blocking layer, wherein the flexible blocking layer is fixedly connected to the surface that is of the main shaft assembly and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display, and two ends of the flexible blocking layer are suspended, and are used to be inserted into two housings of the mobile terminal. the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 18, further comprising: a flexible blocking layer, wherein the flexible blocking layer is fixedly connected to the surface that is of the main shaft assembly and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display; and at least one swing arm is rotatably connected to a swing rod, and each swing rod is slidably connected to the flexible blocking layer. a mobile terminal, comprising: the rotating shaft mechanism according to any one of claims 1 to 20, two housings, and a flexible display fixedly connected to the two housings, wherein the two housings are arranged on two sides of the main shaft assembly, and each housing is fixedly connected to the swing arm located on a same side. the mobile terminal according to claim 21, wherein the flexible display is connected to the support plates by using adhesive.	cross-reference to related applications this application claims priority to chinese patent application no. 201910196567.3 , filed with the chinese patent office on march 15, 2019 and entitled "rotating shaft mechanism and mobile terminal", which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. technical field this application relates to the field of mobile terminal technologies, and in particular, to a rotating shaft mechanism and a mobile terminal. background as a flexible foldable display technology becomes increasingly mature, a flexible foldable terminal product is bound to be a major trend in the future. a foldable terminal product (for example, an electronic device such as a foldable mobile phone, a foldable tablet, or a foldable computer) needs to meet relatively high reliability, relatively good operation experience, and a relatively good id appearance, so that the foldable terminal product can be accepted by consumers. a foldable mobile phone is used as an example. different from a previous flip mobile phone, because a display of a flexible foldable mobile phone is continuously foldable, to ensure that the foldable display is not pulled or squeezed, an appearance of a structural design of the product is greatly deformed at a bending part of a rotating shaft in a middle part. however, a common structure cannot achieve such a large deformation amount. therefore, in a flexible foldable terminal product, a special hinge needs to be designed for a bent and deformed part, to meet requirements such as operation experience, an appearance, and reliability of a structural design of the product. however, thickness of a bent part of a folded hinge used in the prior art is greater than thickness of a structural design, affecting an effect of a folded terminal. summary this application provides a rotating shaft mechanism and a mobile terminal, to improve a folding effect of the mobile terminal. according to a first aspect, a rotating shaft mechanism is provided. the rotating shaft mechanism is applied to a foldable mobile terminal and is used as a folding mechanism of the mobile terminal. the rotating shaft mechanism is fixedly connected to two housings of the mobile terminal, and when the mobile terminal is folded, the two housings rotate around the rotating shaft mechanism to implement folding. when the rotating shaft mechanism is specifically disposed, the rotating shaft mechanism includes a main shaft assembly, a swing arm assemblies, and a support assembly. the main shaft assembly is a support piece, and the swing arm assembly is configured to connect the support assembly and the main shaft assembly. a movement manner of the support assembly is changed by using the swing arm assembly, to improve a folding effect of the mobile terminal. the swing arm assembly includes at least one connecting rod group and at least one swing arm group. each connecting rod group includes two connecting rods that are correspondingly disposed on two sides of the main shaft assembly and that are rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly. each swing arm group includes swing arms that are respectively disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly, and the swing arms are configured to be fixedly connected to the two housings of the mobile terminal. in addition, each swing arm is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly, and an axis around which each swing arm rotates and an axis around which a corresponding connecting rod rotates are different axes, and each are parallel to a length direction of the main shaft assembly. each swing arm is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to at least one connecting rod located on a same side. when the swing arm assembly supports the support assembly, the support assembly includes support plates correspondingly disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly, and each support plate is rotatably connected to a swing arm located on a same side and is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to a connecting rod located on the same side, or each support plate is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly, and is slidably connected to and can rotate relative to a swing arm located on a same side. an axis around which the support plate is rotatably connected to the swing arm or rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly is parallel to a length direction of the main shaft assembly. during use, when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly rotate to a first position in directions towards each other, the corresponding connecting rods or the swing arms drive the two support plates to rotate to a second position in directions towards each other, and the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose folding space for accommodating a flexible display of the mobile terminal. in addition, the connecting rods rotate, and the swing arms rotate relative to the main shaft assembly, so that thickness of the folded folding mechanism is approximately equal to thickness of the two stacked housings, thereby improving an effect of the folded mobile terminal. in addition, the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose the space for accommodating the flexible display, thereby improving a bending effect of the flexible display. when the rotation axes of the swing arms and the connecting rods are specifically disposed, the axes around which the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group rotate are symmetrically disposed on two sides of the axes around which the two swing arms in the corresponding swing arm group rotate. when the connecting rod slides relative to the swing arm, a sliding direction of the connecting rod is perpendicular to an axial direction of the connecting rod, and when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly rotate to the first position in the directions towards each other, the corresponding connecting rods slide to positions close to the axes around which the swing arms rotate. during relative rotation between the connecting rod and the swing arm, the connecting rod slides towards an end that is of the swing arm and that is slidably connected to the main shaft assembly. when the swing arms are slidably assembled with the main shaft assembly, first arc-shaped sliding slots in a one-to-one correspondence with the swing arms are disposed on the main shaft assembly, and first arc-shaped arms slidably assembled in the corresponding first arc-shaped sliding slots are disposed on the swing arms. when the main shaft assembly is specifically disposed, the main shaft assembly includes a main outer shaft and a main inner shaft fixedly connected to the main outer shaft. each first arc-shaped sliding slot includes a concave arc-shaped groove disposed on the main outer shaft and an arc-shaped surface that is disposed on the main inner shaft and that covers the arc-shaped groove. a structure of the first arc-shaped sliding slot is implemented through assembly. in addition to the foregoing manner of disposing the first arc-shaped sliding slot, another manner may be alternatively used. for example, the main shaft assembly includes a main outer shaft and a main inner shaft fixedly connected to the main outer shaft. the first arc-shaped sliding slots are disposed on the main inner shaft or the main outer shaft, facilitating disposing of structures of the first arc-shaped sliding slots. when the swing arms are specifically disposed, the first arc-shaped arms correspondingly disposed on the two swing arms in each swing arm group are disposed in a staggered manner, thereby increasing lengths of slidable connection parts between the swing arms and the main shaft assembly, and further improving structural stability. when the connecting rods are specifically disposed, gears are respectively disposed on two opposite ends of the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group, and the two gears engage with each other. the two engaging gears are disposed, so that the connecting rods can move synchronously, thereby ensuring synchronization between the two housings when the mobile terminal is folded. when the gears cooperate with the main shaft assembly, a cavity for accommodating the two engaging gears is disposed in the main shaft assembly. the two gears are located in the cavity, and the two gears are rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly. rotatable connection between the connecting rods and the main shaft assembly is implemented through rotatable connection between the two gears and the main shaft assembly. in addition, to ensure a state of the unfolded or folded mobile terminal, the main shaft assembly further includes a limiting mechanism, configured to limit relative positions at which the connecting rods rotate relative to the main shaft assembly. rotation of the connecting rods relative to the main shaft assembly is limited by using the limiting mechanism, to limit a folded and unfolded state of the mobile terminal. the limiting mechanism may use different structures. for example, in a specific implementation solution, the limiting mechanism includes a first cam that rotates synchronously with each connecting rod, and a second cam that is disposed opposite to each first cam. protrusions and notches that engage with each other are disposed on opposite surfaces of the first cam and the second cam that are disposed opposite to each other, and one of the first cam and the second cam can slide relative to the main shaft assembly. the limiting mechanism further includes an elastic part configured to push the first cam or the second cam to slide towards the other corresponding cam. rotation positions of the connecting rods and the main shaft assembly can be limited through cooperation between the protrusions and the notches on the first cam and the second cam. when the first cam is specifically disposed, the first cam and the gear are coaxially disposed. when the cam is correspondingly connected to the connecting rod, the limiting mechanism further includes: a camshaft fixedly connected to each connecting rod, the camshaft penetrates the first cam and the second cam that are disposed opposite to each other, the first cam can rotate synchronously with the camshaft, and the second cam can rotate relative to the camshaft. a coaxial effect of the first cam and the second cam is ensured by using the camshaft. the elastic part may be a compression spring, and the camshaft penetrates the compression spring. the camshaft is used as a guiding structure. when the limiting mechanism is specifically disposed, when there are at least two connecting rod groups, an elastic part is disposed between two second cams corresponding to any two adjacent first cams, and two ends of the elastic part press against the two second cams. the two second cams are driven by using the same elastic part, thereby simplifying a structure. when the swing arm cooperates with the connecting rod, the swing arm may be slidably connected to one or more connecting rods. when the swing arms specifically cooperate with the connecting rods, notches in a one-to-one correspondence with the corresponding connecting rods are disposed on the swing arms, and the connecting rods are at least partially located in the corresponding notches, thereby reducing thickness after the connecting rods and the swing arms are connected. when the swing arm is specifically slidably connected to the connecting rod, first sliding slots are disposed on two sides of the notch on each swing arm, and first protrusions slidably assembled in the first sliding slots are disposed on the corresponding connecting rod. when the support plate is slidably connected to the swing arm or the connecting rod, a second sliding slot is disposed on each support plate, and a second protrusion slidably assembled in the second sliding slot is disposed on the corresponding connecting rod or swing arm. when the support plate is rotatably connected to the swing arm, each support plate is rotatably connected to the corresponding swing arm by using first pin shafts; or a second arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on each support plate, and a second arc-shaped arm slidably assembled in the second arc-shaped sliding slot is disposed on a support arm corresponding to the support plate. the support plate may rotate relative to the swing arm in different manners. in a specific implementable solution, the main shaft assembly has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, and the first surface is a surface used to support the flexible display. when the rotating shaft mechanism is unfolded to support the flexible display, the first surface is flush with a surface that is of the support plate and that is used to support the flexible display. the disposed first surface is flush with the surface that is of the support plate and that supports the flexible display, thereby improving an effect of supporting the flexible display. in a specific implementable solution, the mobile terminal further includes a flexible blocking layer. the flexible blocking layer is fixedly connected to the surface that is of the main shaft assembly and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display, and two ends of the flexible blocking layer are suspended, and are used to be inserted into the two housings of the mobile terminal. the flexible blocking layer can block the notches on the main shaft assembly, thereby improving an appearance effect of the mobile terminal. in a specific implementable solution, the mobile terminal further includes a flexible blocking layer. the flexible blocking layer is fixedly connected to the surface that is of the main shaft assembly and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display, at least one swing arm is rotatably connected to a swing rod, and the swing rod is slidably connected to the flexible blocking layer. two ends of the flexible blocking layer are fixed by using the swing rod. in a specific implementable solution, the flexible blocking layer is an elastic steel plate or an elastic plastic plate. according to a second aspect, a mobile terminal is provided. the mobile terminal includes the rotating shaft mechanism described in any one of the foregoing implementations, two housings, and a flexible display fixedly connected to the two housings. the two housings are arranged on two sides of the main shaft assembly, and each housing is fixedly connected to a swing arm located on a same side. during use, when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly rotate to a first position in directions towards each other, corresponding connecting rods or the swing arms drive the two support plates to rotate to a second position in directions towards each other, and the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose folding space for accommodating the flexible display of the mobile terminal. in addition, the connecting rods rotate, and the swing arms rotate relative to the main shaft assembly, so that thickness of a folded folding mechanism is approximately equal to thickness of the two stacked housings, thereby improving an effect of the folded mobile terminal. in addition, the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose the space for accommodating the flexible display, thereby improving a bending effect of the flexible display. in a specific implementable solution, the flexible display is connected to the support plates by using adhesive. the flexible display is connected to the support plates by using adhesive, thereby improving a folding effect of the flexible display. in a specific implementable solution, a flexible blocking layer is inserted into the two housings. a folding effect of the mobile terminal is improved by using the disposed flexible blocking layer. brief description of drawings fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an unfolded mobile terminal according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 2 is a schematic exploded diagram of a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a mobile terminal in a folded state according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a rotating shaft mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 5 is a schematic exploded diagram of a rotating shaft mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a swing arm assembly and a main shaft assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 7 is a schematic exploded diagram of a swing arm assembly and a main shaft assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 8 is a schematic exploded diagram of a swing arm assembly and a main shaft assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 9 is a schematic exploded diagram of a connecting rod group and a main shaft assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 10 is a schematic exploded diagram of a swing arm group and a main shaft assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of a limiting mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 12 is a schematic exploded diagram of a limiting mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of another limiting mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 14 is a schematic assembly diagram of another limiting mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 15 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support assembly and a swing arm assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of end faces of a support assembly and a swing arm assembly according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 17a and fig. 17b are schematic diagrams of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during unfolding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 18 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during rotation according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 19a and fig. 19b are schematic diagrams of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during folding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 20 is another schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 21 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during unfolding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 22 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during folding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 23 is another schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 24 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during unfolding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 25 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a support plate and a swing arm during folding according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 26 is a schematic exploded diagram of a flexible blocking layer and a swing arm according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 27 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a flexible blocking layer and a swing arm according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 28 is a schematic structural diagram of another flexible blocking layer according to an embodiment of this application; fig. 29 is a schematic diagram of cooperation between a flexible display and a rotating shaft mechanism according to an embodiment of this application; and fig. 30 is another schematic diagram of cooperation between a flexible display and a rotating shaft mechanism according to an embodiment of this application. description of embodiments to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of this application clearer, the following further describes this application in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. to facilitate understanding of a rotating shaft mechanism provided in the embodiments of this application, the following first describes an application scenario of the rotating shaft mechanism. the rotating shaft mechanism is applied to a mobile terminal, and particularly, to a mobile terminal whose display can be bent, for example, a mobile phone, a pda, a notebook computer, or a tablet computer. however, regardless of which type of mobile terminal is used, the mobile terminal includes a structure shown in fig. 1 : a left housing 20, a rotating shaft mechanism 10, a right housing 30, and a flexible display 40. referring to fig. 1 and fig. 2 together, the rotating shaft mechanism 10 is rotatably connected to the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, and the rotating shaft mechanism 10 rotates to enable the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 to rotate relative to each other. the flexible display 40 covers the left housing 20, the right housing 30, and the rotating shaft mechanism 10, and is separately connected to the left housing 20, the right housing 30, and the rotating shaft mechanism 10 (a connection manner may be adhesive connection or the like), to form the structure shown in fig. 1 . during use, the mobile terminal has two states: an unfolded state and a folded state. first, referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 shows the mobile terminal in the unfolded state. in this case, the rotating shaft mechanism 10 is unfolded, and the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 are arranged on two sides of the rotating shaft mechanism 10 and are unfolded. in this case, the flexible display 40 is unfolded. during bending, the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 rotate relative to each other, and the rotating shaft mechanism 10 rotates. after being folded, the mobile terminal is in a state shown in fig. 3 . in this case, the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 are stacked relative to each other, and the flexible display 40 is bent along with the left housing 20 and the right housing 30. to facilitate understanding of the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application, the following describes a structure of the rotating shaft mechanism 10 in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. first, referring to fig. 4 and fig. 5 , fig. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of the rotating shaft mechanism 10, and fig. 5 is a schematic exploded diagram of the rotating shaft mechanism 10. the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application mainly includes three parts: a main shaft assembly 11, swing arm assembly, and a support assembly. the main shaft assembly 11 is a support piece and plays a role of a rotating shaft. the swing arm assembly is configured to connect the two housings of the mobile terminal, and the support assembly is configured to form a structure supporting the flexible display 40. in addition, the swing arm assembly is further used as connecting piece to connect the support assembly and the main shaft assembly 11. this embodiment is described below in detail with reference to specific accompanying drawings. still referring to fig. 4 and fig. 5 , an overall structure of the main shaft assembly 11 provided in this embodiment of this application is a semi-cylinder, and side surfaces of the main shaft assembly 11 include a first surface and a second surface connected to the first surface. the first surface is a plane and is used to support the flexible display 40, and the second surface is an arc-shaped cylindrical surface. for ease of description, a length direction of the main shaft assembly 11 is defined. as shown in fig. 2 and fig. 3 , the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11 is a direction of axes around which the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 rotate. when the main shaft assembly 11 is specifically disposed, the main shaft assembly 11 may use different structures. as shown in fig. 5 , the main shaft assembly 11 includes two parts, namely, a main inner shaft 112 and a main outer shaft 111, and the main inner shaft 112 is fixedly connected to the main outer shaft 111. referring to fig. 4 and fig. 5 together, the main inner shaft 112 and the main outer shaft 111 are detachably and fixedly connected by using screws. certainly, in addition to the connection manner shown in fig. 4 , the main inner shaft 112 may be fixedly connected to the main outer shaft 111 by using a buckle or a rivet. when the main inner shaft 112 and the main outer shaft 111 are specifically disposed, the first surface is a surface of the main inner shaft 112, and the second surface is a surface of the main outer shaft 111. certainly, it should be understood that a split structure used by the main shaft assembly 11 is merely a specific example. the main shaft assembly 11 provided in this embodiment of this application may alternatively use another structure. in addition, when the main shaft assembly 11 supports the swing arm assembly, a structure corresponding to the swing arm assembly is disposed on the main shaft assembly 11. for ease of understanding of an internal structure of the main shaft assembly 11, the following describes a structure in the main shaft assembly 11 with reference to the swing arm assembly. referring to fig. 5 and fig. 6 together, the swing arm assembly provided in this embodiment of this application includes two main structures: a connecting rod group and a swing arm group. the connecting rod group is configured to connect the swing arm group and the main shaft assembly 11, and the swing arm group is configured to be connected to the housings. a quantity of the connecting rod groups and a quantity of the swing arm groups may be determined according to a requirement, for example, one swing arm group and one connecting rod group are disposed, or two swing arm groups and two connecting rod groups are disposed, or two swing arm groups and three connecting rod groups are disposed. one swing arm group may correspond to one connecting rod group, or one swing arm group may correspond to a plurality of connecting rod groups, and this may be determined according to an actual requirement during specific disposing. as shown in fig. 5 and fig. 6 , two swing arm groups and two connecting rod groups are used in the structures shown in fig. 5 and fig. 6 , and the swing arm groups are in a one-to-one correspondence with the connecting rod groups. however, it should be understood that in the swing arm assembly provided in this embodiment of this application, one swing arm group may correspond to two connecting rod groups or another correspondence may be used. first, the connecting rod groups are described. in this application, the connecting rod groups have a same structure. as shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8, fig. 7 and fig. 8 show structures of connection between the connecting rod groups in the two swing arm assemblies in fig. 5 and the main shaft assembly 11. it can be learned from fig. 7 and fig. 8 that the two connecting rod groups are connected to the main shaft assembly 11 in a same manner. therefore, one connecting rod group is used as an example. as shown in fig. 5 , the connecting rod group includes two connecting rods. for ease of description, the two connecting rods are named a left connecting rod 14a and a right connecting rod 14b. when the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are disposed, the two connecting rods are correspondingly disposed on two sides of the main shaft assembly 11. as shown in fig. 8 , the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are arranged on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 in the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11, and are rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11. for ease of describing a rotation relationship between a connecting rod assembly and the main shaft assembly 11, description is provided by using an example in which the main shaft assembly 11 includes the main outer shaft 111 and the main inner shaft 112. still referring to fig. 5 and fig. 6 , the main outer shaft 111 is an arc-shaped housing, and a groove is disposed in the arc-shaped housing. when the main outer shaft 111 is fixedly connected to the main inner shaft 112, the main inner shaft 112 covers the groove to form a cavity 113 shown in fig. 9 . the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are separately inserted into the cavity 113. in addition, an end of each of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b inserted into the cavity 113 is connected to a shaft 143, and the shaft 143 is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11. during specific connection, grooves having a semicircular cross section are designed on each of the main inner shaft 112 and the main outer shaft 111, holes having a circular cross section are formed after the main inner shaft 112 and the main outer shaft 111 are assembled, and the holes having a circular cross section fit with the shafts 143 of the connecting rods. certainly, circular holes may be alternatively disposed on the main inner shaft 112 or the main outer shaft 111, so that the shafts 143 penetrate the holes. when the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b rotate, the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b can rotate around the shafts 143, to rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11. when the shafts 143 are specifically disposed, referring to fig. 8 and fig. 9 together, the shafts 143 around which the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b rotate are parallel to the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11. in this case, axes around which the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b rotate are parallel to the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11. still referring to fig. 7 and fig. 8 , the connecting rod is strip-shaped. referring to fig. 9 together, one end of each of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b is located in the main shaft assembly 11, and the other end extends to the outside of the main shaft assembly 11. in addition, notches fitting with the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are correspondingly disposed on the main outer shaft 111, so that the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b have relatively large rotation space. in addition, the end that is of each of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b and that is exposed outside the main shaft assembly 11 is used to be slidably connected to a swing arm in the swing arm group. for ease of understanding of a connection relationship between the connecting rod group and the swing arm group, a structure of the swing arm group is described below in detail. first, referring to fig. 7 and fig. 8 , the swing arm group provided in this embodiment of this application includes two swing arms. for ease of description, the two swing arms are named a left swing arm 13a and a right swing arm 13b, and the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are configured to be fixedly connected to the two housings of the mobile terminal. referring to fig. 2 and fig. 5 together, the left swing arm 13a is fixedly connected to the left housing 20, and the right swing arm 13b is fixedly connected to the right housing 30. during specific fixed connection, a bolt or a screw may be used for fixed connection. in this case, the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b move synchronously with the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, respectively. when the two swing arms are specifically disposed, the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11. more specifically, the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are arranged on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 in the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11. the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are connected to the connecting rods and the main shaft assembly 11 in a same manner. therefore, the left swing arm 13a is used as an example for description. when the left swing arm 13a is specifically connected to the main shaft assembly 11, the left swing arm 13a is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11. in addition, an axis around which the left swing arm 13a rotates is different from an axis around which the corresponding connecting rod rotates. although the left swing arm 13a and the corresponding connecting rod rotate around different axes, both the axis around which the left swing arm 13a rotates and the axis around which the corresponding connecting rod rotates are parallel to the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11. when the left swing arm 13a is specifically rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11, fig. 10 shows a specific structure of rotatable connection between the left swing arm 13a and the main shaft assembly 11. during specific disposing, a first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 is disposed in the main shaft assembly 11, and the left swing arm 13a is slidably assembled in the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114. when the left swing arm 13a slides relative to the main shaft assembly 11, the left swing arm 13a simultaneously rotates relative to the main shaft assembly 11. referring to fig. 5 together, when the main shaft assembly 11 includes the main inner shaft 112 and the main outer shaft 111, an arc-shaped surface is disposed in the main inner shaft 112, and the arc-shaped surface is a convex arc-shaped surface. in addition, during specific disposing, the arc-shaped surface is opposite to the first surface of the main inner shaft 112. correspondingly, a concave arc-shaped groove is disposed on the main outer shaft 111, and the arc-shaped groove and the main outer shaft 111 are disposed on a surface opposite to the second surface. as shown in fig. 10 , when the main outer shaft 111 is fixedly connected to the main inner shaft 112, the arc-shaped surface covers the arc-shaped groove to form the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114. certainly, the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 may be alternatively directly formed on the main outer shaft 111 or the main inner shaft 112 by using an integral structure. in this case, when the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 is disposed, the first arc-shaped sliding slot may be directly fabricated on the main outer shaft 111 or the main inner shaft 112 when the main outer shaft 111 or the main inner shaft 112 is fabricated. when this fabrication manner is used, precision of a sliding slot during fabrication can be improved, and it facilitates assembly of the swing arm. when the left swing arm 13a is slidably assembled in the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114, a first arc-shaped arm 132 configured to be slidably assembled in the corresponding first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 is disposed on the left swing arm 13a. as shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8, fig. 7 and fig. 8 show that the first arc-shaped arm 132 is disposed on the left swing arm 13a, and one end of the first arc-shaped arm 132 is fixedly connected to one end of the left swing arm 13a. however, it should be understood that in the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application, a quantity of corresponding first arc-shaped arms 132 of a swing arm is not limited. one first arc-shaped arm 132 may be disposed on one swing arm, as shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8 , or a plurality of first arc-shaped arms 132, for example, two, three, or four first arc-shaped arms, may be disposed on one swing arm. however, regardless of a quantity of used first arc-shaped arms 132, all the first arc-shaped arms 132 are slidably assembled in the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114. as shown in fig. 10 , the first arc-shaped arm 132 is assembled in the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114, and a radian of the first arc-shaped arm 132 is the same as a radian of the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114. therefore, when the left swing arm 13a slides, the left swing arm 13a slides in a length direction of the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114. because the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 is an arc-shaped sliding slot, during sliding, the left swing arm 13a may rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 in directions indicated by arrows shown in fig. 10 . the directions are rotation directions of the left swing arm 13a. it can be learned from fig. 10 that when the left swing arm 13a slides, the left swing arm 13a may slide in an arc-shaped direction defined by the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114, and can rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 while sliding. when the left swing arm 13a is fixedly connected to the left housing 20, rotation of the left swing arm 13a relative to the main shaft assembly 11 may drive the left housing 20 to rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11, to unfold or fold the mobile terminal. still referring to fig. 7 and fig. 8 , when the right swing arm 13b is specifically disposed, a manner of connection between the right swing arm 13b and the main shaft assembly 11 is the same as that of the left swing arm 13a. therefore, details are not described herein again. however, when a first arc-shaped arm 132 of the right swing arm 13b is specifically disposed, the first arc-shaped arm 132 may be disposed in a manner different from the manner of disposing the first arc-shaped arm 132 on the left swing arm 13a. as shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8 , when the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are specifically disposed, the first arc-shaped arms 132 of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are staggered. the staggering means that there is a position difference between the first arc-shaped arms 132 correspondingly connected to the two swing arms, in an axial direction of the main shaft assembly 11. after the first arc-shaped arms 132 are assembled in the main shaft assembly 11, the first arc-shaped arm 132 of the left swing arm 13a and the first arc-shaped arm 132 of the right swing arm 13b are arranged in rows in the axial direction of the main shaft assembly 11. when the first arc-shaped arms are disposed in this manner, as shown in fig. 10 , the first arc-shaped arm 132 of the left swing arm 13a may be in relatively large contact with the main shaft assembly 11, that is, a length of the first arc-shaped arm 132 extending into the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 is relatively long. the left swing arm 13a shown in fig. 10 is used as an example. when the mobile terminal is folded, the left swing arm 13a rotates relative to the main shaft assembly 11 by 90 degrees, and therefore drives the first arc-shaped arm 132 to rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 by over 90 degrees. a contact length between the first arc-shaped arm 132 and the main shaft assembly 11 shown in fig. 10 is obviously greater than 90 degrees. therefore, it is ensured that the first arc-shaped arm 132 does not slide out of the first arc-shaped sliding slot 114 in a folded state, thereby improving stability when the entire swing arm is slidably connected to the main shaft assembly 11. certainly, when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 uses a plurality of swing arm groups, the foregoing disposing manner may also be used. in this case, the first arc-shaped arms 132 correspondingly disposed on the two swing arms in each swing arm group are disposed in a staggered manner. in addition, fig. 10 shows only a specific implementation solution. in the swing arm group provided in this embodiment of this application, the first arc-shaped arms 132 of the two swing arms may be alternatively symmetrically disposed. in this case, the first arc-shaped arms 132 of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are symmetrically disposed. because the axis around which the connecting rod rotates is different from the axis around which the swing arm rotates, when the swing arm and the left connection rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11, the swing arm and the connecting rod slide and rotate relative to each other. therefore, when the swing arm is connected to the connecting rod, the swing arm is slidably connected to the corresponding connecting rod, and the connecting rod and the swing arm can rotate relative to each other. referring to fig. 6 and fig. 7 together, fig. 6 and fig. 7 show a specific manner of connection between the swing arm and the connecting rod. when the swing arms in the swing arm group are connected to the connecting rods in the connecting rod, the two swing arms in the swing arm group are connected to the corresponding connecting rods in a same manner. therefore, the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a are used as an example for description. referring to fig. 7 and fig. 8 together, fig. 7 and fig. 8 are schematic exploded diagrams of left swing arms 13a in different swing arm groups and left connecting rods 14a. during specific assembly of the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a, first sliding slots 131 are disposed on the left swing arm 13a, and correspondingly, first protrusions 141 are disposed on the left connecting rod 14a. during slidable assembly, the first protrusions 141 slide in the first sliding slots 131, to implement slidable connection between the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a. when the first protrusions 141 slide, the first protrusions 141 may rotate relative to the first sliding slots 131, so that the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a rotate when sliding relative to each other. in addition, to avoid occurrence of interference when the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11, when the left swing arm 13a is disposed, a notch (not marked in the figure) is disposed on the left swing arm 13a, and when the left connecting rod 14a is connected to the left swing arm 13a, the left connecting rod 14a is at least partially located in the notch on the left swing arm 13a. disposing the notch can effectively reduce thickness of the main shaft assembly 11 after assembly, facilitating fitting with the flexible display 40 of the mobile terminal. specifically, the notch may be formed when the left swing arm 13a is fabricated. for example, when the left swing arm 13a uses an integral structure, a notch may be directly fabricated on the left swing arm 13a. the notch may be directly formed when the left swing arm 13a is fabricated, or the notch may be formed by using a tool after the left swing arm 13a is fabricated. certainly, the swing arm may be alternatively of an assembly structure. as shown in fig. 7 , a structure of the swing arm includes two parts: a first portion and a second portion. the first portion is connected to the first arc-shaped arm 132, the first portion is strip-shaped, and the second portion is 7-shaped. during connection, the first portion is connected to a horizontal part of the second portion, so that a notch is formed between the first portion and a vertical part of the second portion. when the first sliding slots 131 and the first protrusions 141 are specifically disposed, there are two first sliding slots 131, and the two first sliding slots 131 are disposed on two opposite side walls of the notch on the swing arm. in addition, when the first sliding slots 131 are disposed, the first sliding slot 131 may be a line groove or an arc-shaped groove, and may be disposed according to a requirement during specific disposing. for example, the first sliding slot 131 in fig. 8 is a line groove. correspondingly, there are also two first protrusions 141, and the two first protrusions 141 are correspondingly disposed on two sides of the left connecting rod 14a. in the foregoing embodiment, a manner of connection between the right swing arm 13b and the right connecting rod 14b is the same as the manner of connection between the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a. therefore, details are not described herein again. when the axes of the swing arms and the corresponding connecting rods are specifically disposed, the two swing arms in each swing arm group may be rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly around a same axis or around different axes. axes around which the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group rotate are symmetrically disposed on two sides of the axes around which the two swing arms in the corresponding swing arm group rotate. referring to fig. 9 and fig. 10 together, as shown in fig. 10 , when the axes around which the swing arms rotate are specifically disposed, the axes around which the swing arms rotate are virtual axes and are located outside the first surface. referring to fig. 9 together, as shown in fig. 9 , the shafts 143 around which the connecting rods rotate are located in the main shaft assembly 11. therefore, shafts around which the swing arms rotate are located above the shafts around which the connecting rods rotate, and the shafts 143 corresponding to the two connecting rods are symmetrically located on two sides of the axes around which the swing arms rotate. when the swing arm group cooperates with the connecting rod group, notches in a one-to-one correspondence with the corresponding connecting rods are disposed on the swing arms, and the connecting rods are at least partially located in the corresponding notches. when the first sliding slots 131 are disposed, the first sliding slots 131 are disposed on two sides of the notch on each corresponding swing arm. the first protrusions 141 slidably assembled in the first sliding slots 131 are disposed on the corresponding connecting rod, to implement slidable connection between the swing arm and the corresponding connecting rod. when the connecting rod slides relative to the swing arm, a sliding direction of the connecting rod is perpendicular to an axial direction of the connecting rod. when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 rotate to a first position in directions towards each other, the two swing arms are relatively close to each other, and the mobile terminal is in the folded state. the corresponding connecting rods slide to positions close to the axes around which the swing arms rotate. when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 rotate in opposite directions to the unfolded state, the two swing arms are arranged on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11, and the connecting rods slide, relative to the corresponding swing arms, to ends of the swing arms away from the main shaft assembly 11. it can be learned from the foregoing description that when the mobile terminal is switched from the unfolded state to the folded state, when the connecting rods slide relative to the corresponding swing arms, the connecting rods slide from sides of the swing arms away from the main shaft assembly 11 to sides of the swing arms close to the main shaft assembly 11. when the mobile terminal is switched from the folded state to the unfolded state, when the connecting rods slide relative to the corresponding swing arms, the connecting rods slide from sides of the swing arms close to the main shaft assembly 11 to sides of the swing arm away from the main shaft assembly 11. it should be understood that although each swing arm corresponds to one connecting rod in fig. 7 and fig. 8 , in the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application, a quantity of swing arms and a quantity of corresponding connecting rods are not limited, for example, each swing arm corresponds to two, three, four, or another different quantity of connecting rods. to be specific, any solution can be applied to this embodiment of this application provided that each swing arm is slidably connected to at least one connecting rod located on a same side. in addition, when the swing arm assembly are used, when the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 rotate relative to each other, the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are driven to rotate relative to each other. to ensure synchronization between the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, gears 142 are respectively disposed on opposite ends of the two connecting rods in each connecting rod group. still referring to fig. 7 and fig. 9 , one gear 142 is disposed on each of opposite ends of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b. to be specific, a gear 142 is disposed on each of an end of the left connecting rod 14a and an end of the right connecting rod 14b that are located in the cavity 113, and the two gears 142 engage with each other when the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are assembled. when the end of the left connecting rod 14a and the end of the right connecting rod 14b are located in the cavity 113 of the main shaft assembly 11, the two gears 142 are located in the cavity 113, and the shafts around which the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 respectively penetrate the two gears 142. when the left connecting rod 14a or the right connecting rod 14b rotates, the engaging gears 142 drive the other connecting rod to rotate, to implement synchronous rotation between the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b. further, the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b drive, by using the swing arm group, the two housings to be unfolded or folded synchronously. when the mobile terminal is used, the mobile terminal needs to be stable in a specific state, for example, in the folded state or the unfolded state. therefore, when the rotating shaft mechanism is disposed, a limiting mechanism 18 is disposed for relative rotation between the left housing 20 and the right housing 30. for example, relative positions at which the connecting rods rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 are limited, and positions at which the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b rotate relative to each other may be limited by using the limiting mechanism 18, to further limit relative positions of the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 of the mobile terminal. alternatively, relative positions at which the swing arms rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 may be limited. to be specific, positions at which the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b rotate relative to each other are limited, to further limit a relative position relationship between the left housing 20 and the right housing 30. when the limiting mechanism is specifically disposed, different structures may be used. the following describes the structures with reference to the accompanying drawings. first, for each connecting rod group, when the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b engage by using the gears 142, such a selection may be made that only a rotation position of the left connecting rod 14a is limited, or only a rotation position of the right connecting rod 14b is limited, or rotation positions of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are limited at the same time. when there is no gear 142 engaging between the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b, the rotation positions of the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b need to be limited at the same time. however, regardless of which limiting manner is used, a same limiting structure is used for the connecting rods. therefore, the following gives description that both the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b are limited. referring to fig. 11 and fig. 12, fig. 11 shows a cooperation relationship between the limiting mechanism 18 and the connecting rods, and fig. 12 is a schematic exploded diagram of the limiting mechanism 18 and the connecting rods. in the structures shown in fig. 11 and fig. 12 , the limiting mechanism 18 includes a first cam 181 that rotates synchronously with each connecting rod, and a second cam 182 disposed opposite to each first cam 181. protrusions and notches that engage with each other are disposed on opposite sides of the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 that are disposed opposite to each other. when the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 are disposed, one of the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 may slide relative to the main shaft assembly 11, to implement engaging and disengaging between the notches and the protrusions. when the relative sliding between the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 is specifically set, both the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 may slide, or the second cam 182 may be fixed while the first cam 181 may slide, or both the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 may slide. when the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 are specifically disposed, as shown in fig. 11 and fig. 12 , the first cam 181 and the corresponding gear 142 are coaxially disposed. when the gear 142 and the corresponding cam are specifically coaxially disposed, the gear 142 of each connecting rod is coaxially and fixedly connected to one camshaft 183, and the camshaft 183 is a shaft around which the connecting rod rotates. the camshaft 183 penetrates the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 that are disposed opposite to each other, and the first cam 181 can rotate synchronously with the camshaft 183. during specific implementation, the camshaft 183 uses a rectangular shaft, and correspondingly, a flat hole corresponding to the rectangular shaft is correspondingly disposed on the second cam 182, so that when the camshaft 183 rotates, the first cam 181 can rotate synchronously with the gear 142, and the second cam 182 can rotate relative to the camshaft 183. during specific implementation, when the camshaft 183 is a rectangular shaft, a through hole that the camshaft 183 penetrates is disposed on the second cam 182. therefore, the second cam 182 can rotate relative to the camshaft 183. in addition, the second cam 182 is fixed (cannot rotate) relative to the main shaft assembly 11. when the connecting rod rotates, the protrusions and the notches on the first cam 181 may continuously fit with the protrusions and the notches on the second gear 142, to implement limitation at different positions. certainly, when the connecting rod is not connected to the gear 142, the camshaft is disposed on the end that is of the connecting rod and that is located inside the main shaft assembly 11. when the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 perform relative limiting, thrust is needed to push the first cam 181 or the second cam 182 to slide towards the other corresponding cam, so that the protrusions and the notches on the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 can engage with each other. during specific implementation, an elastic part is used for implementation. the elastic part may be specifically a compression spring 184 or elastic rubber. in the structure shown in fig. 11 , the compression spring 184 is used as the elastic part. during use, as shown in fig. 12 , the compression spring 184 is sleeved on the camshaft 183, and a limiting sheet or a limiting snap ring 185 is disposed on one end of the camshaft 183, two ends of the compression spring 184 press against the first cam 181 and the limiting sheet or the limiting snap ring 185. when the gear 142 rotates, the first cam 181 is driven to rotate, and the disposed compression spring 184 pushes the first cam 181 to press against the second cam 182, so that the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 rotate relative to each other. still referring to fig. 11 , in positions of the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 shown in fig. 11 , the first cam 181 is away from the gear 142, and the second cam 182 is close to the gear 142. however, it should be understood that a relative position relationship between the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 is not limited to that shown in fig. 11 . in the limiting mechanism 18 provided in this embodiment of this application, the first cam 181 may be close to the gear 142, and the second cam 182 may be away from the gear 142. referring to fig. 13 and fig. 14 together, fig. 13 shows another limiting mechanism 18. one pair of first cam 181 and second cam 182 is added in the limiting mechanism 18. in other words, in the limiting mechanism 18 shown in fig. 13 , cooperation between two pairs of first cams 181 and second cams 182 is used. a manner of cooperation between each pair of the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 is the same as the manner shown in fig. 11 . therefore, details are not described herein again. when the two pairs of first cams 181 and second cams 182 are used, two ends of the compression spring 184 are disposed between the two first cams 181. referring to fig. 11 and fig. 13 together, when the second cams 182 are disposed, the second cams 182 need to be fixed relative to the main shaft assembly 11. however, the second cams 182 may be disposed in different manners. as shown in fig. 11 and fig. 12 , the two second cams 182 use an integral structure, so that when the camshafts 183 rotate, the second cams 182 do not rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11. certainly, another manner may be alternatively used. for example, the two second cams 182 are separately disposed, but corresponding grooves are disposed inside the main shaft assembly 11 to fix the two second cams 182. in this manner, the second cams 182 can also be fixed relative to the main shaft assembly 11. for the limiting mechanism 18, positions of the housings of the mobile terminal may be alternatively limited by limiting rotation of the swing arms. referring to the structures shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8 , when the staggered first arc-shaped arms 132 are used between the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b, when the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b rotate, the two first arc-shaped arms 132 have two opposite surfaces, and an elastic protrusion and a slot may be respectively disposed on the two surfaces. the disposed elastic protrusion and slot cooperate with each other, to limit rotation positions of the two swing arms, and play a limiting role. it should be understood that cooperation between the elastic protrusion and the slot is a common engaging manner in the field, and therefore a structure thereof is not described in detail. in addition, when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 includes at least two connecting rod groups, each connecting rod group corresponds to one pair of the first cam 181 and the second cam 182 for limiting. however, when the elastic part is disposed, one elastic part may be used to provide an elastic force needed by the first cam 181. in this case, an elastic part is disposed between two second cams 182 corresponding to any two adjacent first cams 181, and two ends of the elastic part press against the two second cams 182. alternatively, two ends of the elastic part specifically press against the two first cams 181. whether the elastic part specifically presses against the first cams 181 or the second cams 182 may be determined based on actual positions for disposing the cams, so that a quantity of used elastic parts can be reduced, to simplify an entire mechanism. it can be learned from the foregoing description that the first cams 181 and the second cams 182 can limit the rotation positions of the swing arms, and a damping function is implemented through cooperation between the disposed first cams 181 and second cams 182. a damping force in a process of folding the mobile terminal can be increased, to provide an adjustable damping force or better folding operation experience. referring to fig. 2 and fig. 4 together, when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 supports the flexible display 40, the flexible display 40 is supported by using the support assembly, thereby improving an effect of supporting the flexible display 40. when the support assembly is specifically disposed, referring to fig. 5 , the support assembly includes two support plates, and the two support plates are correspondingly disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11. to be specific, the two support plates are disposed on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 in the length direction of the main shaft assembly 11. as shown in fig. 4 , when the main shaft assembly 11 has the first surface and the second surface opposite to the first surface, the first surface is a surface used to support the flexible display 40, and the support plate also has a surface used to support the flexible display 40. when the support plates rotate to a particular position, for example, a position shown in fig. 2 , the rotating shaft mechanism is unfolded and can support the flexible display. in this case, the first surface is approximately flush with the surface that is of the support plate and that is used to support the flexible display 40, so that the flexible display 40 can be evenly supported. being approximately flush means that the first surface is flush with the surface that is of the support plate and that supports the flexible display 40, or there is a particular error between the first surface and the surface. the disposed first surface is flush with the surface that is of the support plate and that supports the flexible display 40, thereby improving an effect of supporting the flexible display 40. when the two support plates are specifically disposed, for ease of description, the support plates are divided into a left support plate 12a and a right support plate 12b. the left support plate 12a is correspondingly connected to the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a that are on a left side, and the right support plate 12b is connected to the corresponding right swing arm 13b and right connecting rod 14b. however, during specific connection, different disposing manners may be used, and the following separately describes the manners with reference to the accompanying drawings. referring to fig. 15 and fig. 16, fig. 15 and fig. 16 show a specific connection manner. in structures shown in fig. 15 and fig. 16 , a connection manner of the left support plate 12a is the same as a connection manner of the right support plate 12b. therefore, the left support plate 12a is used as an example for description. as shown in fig. 15 and fig. 16 , the left support plate 12a is rotatably connected to the left swing arm 13a. during specific connection, the left support plate 12a is rotatably connected to the left swing arm 13a by using first pin shafts 16. referring to fig. 5 together, two ends on a left side of the left support plate 12a (a placement direction of the left support plate 12a in fig. 5 is used as a reference direction) are respectively rotatably connected to the two left swing arms 13a by using the first pin shafts 16. in addition, the left support plate 12a is slidably connected to the left connecting rods 14a, and the left support plate 12a can rotate relative to the left connecting rods 14a. referring to fig. 17a together, fig. 17a shows a specific manner of connection between the left support plate 12a and the left connecting rods 14a. a second sliding slot 121 is disposed on the left support plate 12a, a second protrusion is disposed on the corresponding left connecting rod 14a, and the second protrusion is slidably assembled in the second sliding slot 121. the second protrusion shown in fig. 17a is a second pin shaft 17, and the second pin shaft 17 is slidably assembled in the second sliding slot 121. when the left support plate 12a and the left connecting rod 14a slide relative to each other, because the left connecting rod 14a and the left swing arm 13a may rotate relative to each other, the left support plate 12a is also driven to rotate relative to the left connecting rod 14a. for ease of understanding of a rotation manner of the left support plate 12a, the following describes the rotation manner with reference to the specific accompanying drawings. first, referring to fig. 17a and fig. 17b, fig. 17a and fig. 17b show states of the support plates, the swing arms, and the connecting rods of the rotating shaft mechanism when the mobile terminal is in the unfolded state. in the structure shown in fig. 17a , the left support plate 12a is flush with the first surface, and the second pin shaft 17 on the left connecting rod 14a is located on a left side of the second sliding slot 121. in this case, as shown in fig. 17b , the left housing 20, the rotating shaft mechanism 10, and the right housing 30 are sequentially unfolded, and the flexible display 40 covering the left housing 20, the rotating shaft mechanism 10, and the right housing 30 is unfolded. when the mobile terminal needs to be folded, as shown in fig. 18, fig. 18 shows a state when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 rotates to a particular angle. in this case, it can be learned that the left connecting rod 14a and the left swing arm 13a rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11. in addition, because the left swing arm 13a and the left connecting rod 14a rotate around different axes, the left connecting rod 14a and the left swing arm 13a slide and rotate relative to each other. in addition, the second pin shaft 17 slides to a position in the middle of the second sliding slot 121, and the second pin shaft 17 drives the left support plate 12a to rotate towards the left swing arm 13a. when the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 are folded in place (that is, the mobile terminal is in the folded state), as shown in fig. 19a and fig. 19b , the second pin shaft 17 is located on a rightmost end of the second sliding slot 121, and when the left support plate 12a and the left swing arm 13a are driven by the second pin shaft 17, the left support plate 12a and the left swing arm 13a are close to each other or there is a relatively small gap between the left support plate 12a and the left swing arm 13a. in this case, the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 rotate to the first position in the directions towards each other, the corresponding connecting rods and the swing arms drive the two support plates to rotate to a second position in directions towards each other, and the support plates and the main shaft assembly enclose folding space for accommodating the flexible display of the mobile terminal. specifically, as shown in fig. 19a , the support plates and the main inner shaft 112 enclose space similar to a triangle. referring to fig. 19b together, when the flexible display 40 is folded, a folded area of the flexible display 40 forms a bend similar to a droplet shape. when the right support plate 12b is disposed, a connection manner of the right support plate 12b is the same as the foregoing connection manner of the left support plate 12a. therefore, details are not described herein again. it can be learned from the foregoing description that the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b in the disposed connecting rod group drive the left support plate 12a and the right support plate 12b to move. because the axis around which the connecting rod rotates is different from the axis around which the swing arm rotates, the first protrusions 141 are designed on the connecting rod, and the first sliding slots 131 are designed on the swing arm. when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 rotates for folding, the first sliding slots 131 on the swing arm and the first protrusions 141 on the connecting rod drive the connecting rod to rotate, and synchronization is implemented through engaging between the gears 142. in addition, in a folding process, a phase difference generated when the connecting rod and the swing arm rotate around different axes is used, and the second protrusion on the connecting rod drives the support plate to rotate, to evenly support the display in the unfolded state, and provide sufficient accommodation space for the display in the folded state. still referring to fig. 19a and fig. 19b , when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 is folded, the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b rotate relative to the main shaft assembly 11 when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 rotates. in addition, when the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b rotate, the left support plate 12a and the right support plate 12b are driven to rotate. after the rotating shaft mechanism is completely folded, the left support plate 12a and the right support plate 12b rotate relative to the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b to form concave space. the concave space not only can accommodate the display when the rotating shaft mechanism is completely folded, but also can ensure that a non-adhesive area of the flexible display 40 has sufficient space for concaveness without arching in the folding process. in addition, after the rotating shaft mechanism is completely folded, there is no large gap between the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 on the two sides, and the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 can be completely folded, to achieve equal thickness of a structural design in the folded state. when the support plate is rotatably connected to the corresponding swing arm, in addition to that the foregoing first pin shafts 16 are used, another manner may be used. for example, a second arc-shaped sliding slot 122 is disposed on each support plate. a second arc-shaped arm 133 slidably assembled in the second arc-shaped sliding slot 122 is disposed on the swing arm corresponding to each support plate. the rotating shaft mechanism 10 shown in fig. 20, fig. 21 , and fig. 22 is used as an example. when the left support plate 12a and the left swing arm 13a are specifically disposed, the second arc-shaped sliding slot 122 is disposed on the left support plate 12a, and correspondingly, the second arc-shaped arm 133 slidably assembled in the second arc-shaped sliding slot 122 is disposed on the left swing arm 13a, and an assembly relationship thereof is similar to rotatable connection between the left swing arm 13a and the main shaft assembly 11. when the left support plate 12a rotates relative to the left swing arm 13a, as shown in fig. 21 and fig. 22 , when the left support plate 12a rotates to different positions, limiting is performed based on a sliding position of the second arc-shaped arm 133 in the second arc-shaped sliding slot 122. for a specific cooperation relationship, refer to the foregoing cooperation relationship between the left swing arm 13a and the main shaft assembly 11. in addition, cooperation between the right support plate 12b and the right swing arm 13b is similar, and details are not described herein again. certainly, in addition to the foregoing listed state, an embodiment of this application further provides another support plate disposing manner. the left support plate 12a is still used as an example. when the left support plate 12a is specifically disposed, as shown in fig. 23 and fig. 24 , the left support plate 12a is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11, and the left support plate 12a is slidably connected to the left swing arm 13a. as shown in fig. 24 , a right side (a placement direction of the support plate in fig. 24 is used as a reference direction) of the left support plate 12a is rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11 by using a pin shaft, and a left side is also slidably connected to the left swing arm 13a by using a pin shaft. in addition, a corresponding sliding slot is correspondingly slidably assembled on the left swing arm 13a. when the mobile terminal is folded, as shown in fig. 25 , the left support plate 12a rotates relative to the main shaft assembly 11. in addition, because there is a relative sliding and rotation relationship between the left swing arm 13a and the main shaft assembly 11, the pin shaft disposed on the left swing arm 13a drives the left support plate 12a to rotate. a connection manner of the right support plate 12b is the same as the connection manner of the left support plate 12a. therefore, details are not described herein again. in this case, when the swing arms located on the two sides of the main shaft assembly 11 rotate to the first position in the directions towards each other, the corresponding swing arms drive the two support plates to rotate to the second position in the directions towards each other, so that the support plates and the main shaft assembly 11 enclose folding space for accommodating the flexible display of the mobile terminal. it can be learned from the foregoing description that when each support plate is specifically disposed, the support plate may be rotatably connected to the swing arm located on a same side and may be slidably connected to the connecting rod located on the same side, or the support plate may be rotatably connected to the main shaft assembly 11 and may be slidably connected to the swing arm located on a same side, so that the rotating shaft mechanism 10 forms a support form of three door panels (the left support plate 12a, the main inner shaft 112, and the right support plate 12b), to match support solutions in different scenarios, ensure that the display is evenly and properly supported, and provide sufficient accommodation space for the folded display. in addition, when the flexible display 40 is accommodated, the folded mobile terminal may be of equal thickness, to avoid a bulge caused by folding. when the main shaft assembly is specifically disposed, as shown in fig. 5 , notches (not marked in the figure) are disposed on the main outer shaft 111, so that the connecting rods can be exposed outside the main shaft assembly 11 and are connected to the swing arms. when the mobile terminal is in the folded state, the notches are exposed and affect an appearance of the mobile terminal. therefore, the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application further provides a flexible blocking layer 15. the flexible blocking layer 15 may be made of an elastic material, for example, an elastic steel plate or an elastic plastic plate. when the mobile terminal is folded, the flexible blocking layer 15 can rotate with the rotating shaft mechanism 10. when the flexible blocking layer 15 is specifically disposed, different connection manners may be used. in a connection manner, the flexible blocking layer 15 is fixedly connected to a surface that is of the main shaft assembly 11 and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display 40, that is, the flexible blocking layer 15 is fixed to the second surface of the main outer shaft 111. in addition, during specific connection, the flexible blocking layer 15 may not be connected to the main outer shaft 111, or may be connected to the main outer shaft 111 in the following manner: adhesive connection, riveting, welding, or the like. two ends of the flexible blocking layer 15 are respectively suspended on two sides of the main outer shaft 111. in addition, as shown in fig. 26 , when the rotating shaft mechanism 10 is fixedly connected to the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, the two ends of the flexible blocking layer 15 may be inserted into and press against the left housing 20 and the right housing 30. in this case, when the mobile terminal is observed from a side that is of the mobile terminal and that faces away from the flexible display 40, the disposed flexible blocking layer 15 can block the notches. during bending, the two ends of the flexible blocking layer 15 press against the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, so that the flexible blocking layer 15 is driven to be elastically deformed and rotate along with the rotating shaft mechanism 10. certainly, in addition to the foregoing manner, the flexible blocking layer 15 may be alternatively disposed in another manner. for example, the flexible blocking layer 15 is fixedly connected to the surface that is of the main shaft assembly 11 and that faces away from the surface supporting the flexible display 40, that is, the flexible blocking layer 15 is fixed to the second surface of the main outer shaft 111. in addition, during specific connection, the fixed connection may be implemented in an adhesive connection manner or another connection manner. in addition, in the disposed swing arm group, at least one swing arm is rotatably connected to a swing rod 19, and the swing rod 19 is slidably connected to the flexible blocking layer 15. referring to fig. 26 and fig. 27 together, fig. 26 and fig. 27 show a case in which swing rods 19 are disposed in a swing arm group. when the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b are specifically disposed, each of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b is rotatably connected to the swing rod 19, and the swing rods 19 are slidably connected to the flexible blocking layer 15. during specific disposing, a pin shaft 151 corresponding to each swing rod 19 is disposed on the flexible blocking layer 15, and the pin shaft 151 is clamped onto a sliding slot disposed on the swing rod 19, and can limit movement of the flexible blocking layer 15 in a direction perpendicular to a surface that is of the flexible blocking layer 15 and that faces the main shaft assembly 11. when the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b rotate, relative displacements of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b and the flexible blocking layer 15 during rotation are offset by rotation of the swing rods 19 and sliding of the pin shafts 151 in the sliding slots. it should be understood that the foregoing shows a case in which the swing rod 19 is disposed on each of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b. however, in this embodiment of this application, the swing rod 19 may be disposed on only one of the swing arms, or the swing rods may be disposed on a plurality of swing arms. in addition, fig. 26 and fig. 27 show a case in which the swing rod 19 is disposed on each of the left swing arm 13a and the right swing arm 13b. however, in the rotating shaft mechanism 10 provided in this embodiment of this application, the swing rods 19 may be alternatively disposed on the left connecting rod 14a and the right connecting rod 14b. the principle of the swing rods 19 is similar, and only positions of the swing rods 19 are changed. therefore, details are not described herein again. it can be learned from the foregoing description that in a process of folding the structural design, the flexible blocking layer 15 may always match an outline of the main outer shaft 111 of the rotating shaft, to play a role of appearance shielding at any moment in the folding process. the flexible blocking layer 15 may be fixed to the outside of the main outer shaft 111 by using a process such as adhesive connection, riveting, or welding. as shown in fig. 28 , the flexible blocking layer 15 may be designed as an assembly. a middle area 152 of the flexible blocking layer 15 is a bendable area formed by a flexible structural piece, and areas 153 on two sides are non-bending areas formed by rigid structural pieces. in this case, the flexible blocking layer 15 includes the rigid structural pieces located on the two sides, the flexible structural piece, and four pin shafts 153. the rigid structural pieces and the flexible structural piece may be connected in an adhesive connection manner or a welding manner, and the pin shafts 153 and the rigid structural pieces are connected by using a process such as riveting or welding. the pin shafts 153 may be slidably connected to the sliding slots on the swing rods 19. in addition, an embodiment of this application further provides a mobile terminal. the mobile terminal includes the rotating shaft mechanism 10 described above, two housings, and a flexible display 40 fixedly connected to the two housings. the two housings are arranged on two sides of the main shaft assembly 11, and each housing is fixedly connected to a swing arm located on a same side. as shown in fig. 1 and fig. 2 , the mobile terminal includes a left housing 20 and a right housing 30. the left housing 20 and the right housing 30 are fixedly connected to a left swing arm 13a and a right swing arm 13b in the rotating shaft mechanism 10, respectively. in addition, the flexible display 40 is divided into five areas, which are respectively an a1 area, a b1 area, a c area, a b2 area, and an a2 area divided by dashed lines in fig. 1 . the a1 area and the a2 area are fixedly connected to the left housing 20 and the right housing 30, respectively, and are attached to upper surfaces of the two housings by using adhesive during specific fixed connection. in addition, the b 1 area and the b2 area correspond to areas of a left support plate 12a and a right support plate 12b, and the c1 area corresponds to an area of a first surface of a main outer shaft 111. there are two specific adhesive connection manners in which the b1 area, the b2 area, and the c1 area are specifically connected to a first surface of the rotating shaft mechanism 10, the left support plate 12a, and the right support plate 12b. sectional views of the mobile terminal in a folded state in the two adhesive connection manners are respectively fig. 29 and fig. 30 , and are separately described below. in a first adhesive connection manner, the a1 area is connected to the left housing 20 by using adhesive, the a2 area is connected to the right housing 30, and the b 1 area, the b2 area, and the c area are not coated with adhesive and are non-adhesive areas of the flexible display 40. the display in the folded state is shown in fig. 29 . the non-adhesive areas of the flexible display 40 are of a droplet shape. in a second adhesive connection manner, the a1 area of the display is connected to the left housing 20 by using adhesive, the a2 area of the display is connected to the right housing 30, the b1 area is connected to the left support plate 12a of the rotating shaft mechanism 10 by using adhesive, the b2 area is connected to the right support plate 12b of the rotating shaft mechanism 10 by using adhesive, and the c area is not coated with adhesive and is a non-adhesive area of the display. the display in the folded state is shown in fig. 30 , and the non-adhesive area of the display is of a semi-arc shape. during use, when the rotating shaft mechanism is unfolded, the main shaft assembly 11 and the support plates are configured to support the flexible display 40 of the mobile terminal. when the support plates rotate to a second position, because there is relative sliding between the swing arms and the main shaft assembly 11, when the support plates rotate to the second position, the main shaft assembly 11 and the support plates enclose space for accommodating a folded part of the flexible display 40. in addition, connecting rods rotate, and the swing arms slide and rotate relative to the rotating shaft, so that thickness of a folded folding mechanism is approximately equal to thickness of the two stacked housings, thereby improving an effect of the folded mobile terminal. in addition, the support plates and the main shaft assembly 11 enclose the space for accommodating the flexible display 40, thereby improving a bending effect of the flexible display 40. it can be learned from the foregoing description that no relative sliding is generated between the display of the mobile terminal and the left housing and the right housing 30, and the rotating shaft in the folded state provides sufficient concave space for the display, so that the non-adhesive area of the flexible display 40 is hidden in the concave space in the droplet shape or the semi-arc shape. the structural design in the folded state is of equal thickness, and there is no large gap between the housings on the two sides. in addition, when a flexible blocking layer 15 is used for blocking, the flexible blocking layer 15 is inserted into the two housings and presses against the two housings. for details, refer to the descriptions in fig. 26 and fig. 27 . a folding effect of the mobile terminal is improved by using the disposed flexible blocking layer 15. the foregoing descriptions are merely the embodiments of this application, but are not intended to limit the protection scope of this application. any variation or replacement readily figured out by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in this application shall fall within the protection scope of this application. therefore, the protection scope of this application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.
193-523-086-356-165	US	[ "US" ]	G10L19/00,G10L19/02,G10L19/06,G10L19/08,G10L21/02,H03M13/35	1990-12-05T00:00:00	1990	[ "G10", "H03" ]	methods for speech transmission	the performance of speech coding in the presence of bit errors is improved. the quantized parameter bits are grouped into several categories according to their sensitivity to bit errors. more effective error correction codes are used to encode the most sensitive parameter bits, while less effective error correction codes are used to encode the less sensitive parameter bits. this method improves the efficiency of the error correction and improves the performance if the total bit rate is limited. the perceived quality of coded speech is improved. a smoothed spectral envelope is created in the frequency domain. the ratio between the actual spectral envelope and the smoothed spectral envelope is used to enhance the spectral envelope. this reduces distortion which is contained in the spectral envelope.	1. a method of encoding speech wherein the speech is encoded using a speech model characterized by model parameters, wherein the speech is broken into time segments and for each segment model parameters are estimated and quantized, and wherein at least some of the quantized model parameters are coded using error correction coding, said method comprising the steps of: using a first type of error correction coding to code the quantized model parameters in a first group, using a second type of error correction coding to code the quantized model parameters in a second group, the first group containing quantized model parameters that are more sensitive to bit errors than are the quantized model parameters in the second group, the first type of error correction coding adding a greater number of additional bits than the second type of error correction coding. 2. the method of claim 1 wherein the first and second types of error correction coding are golay codes and hamming codes, respectively. 3. the method of claim 1 or 2 wherein soft decision decoding is employed in decoding at least one of the groups of quantized model parameters. 4. the method of claim 1 or 2 wherein error rates are estimated using the error correction codes. 5. the method of claim 4 wherein one or more model parameters are smoothed across a plurality of segments based on estimated error rates, and wherein said model parameters have values. 6. the method of claim 5 wherein the model parameters smoothed include voiced/unvoiced decisions. 7. the method of claim 5 wherein the model parameters smoothed include parameters for at least one of the following speech coders: multi-band excitation (mbe) speech coder, improved multi-band excitation (imbe) speech coder, or sinusoidal transform speech coder (stc). 8. the method of claim 5 wherein the value of one or more model parameters in a previous segment is repeated in a current segment when the estimated error rate for the parameters exceeds a predetermined level. 9. a method of encoding speech wherein the speech is encoded using a speech model characterized by model parameters, wherein the speech is broken into time segments and for each segment model parameters are estimated and quantized, and wherein at least some of the quantized model parameters are coded using error correction coding, and wherein speech is synthesized from decoded quantized model parameters, said method comprising the steps of: using the error correction coding during synthesis to estimate an error rate, repeating in a current segment one or more model parameters from a previous segment when the error rate for the quantized model parameters exceeds a predetermined level. 10. the method of claim 1, 2 or 9 wherein the quantized speech model parameters are those associated with at least one of the following speech coders: a multi-band excitation (mbe) speech coder, an improved multi-band excitation (imbe) speech coder, a linear prediction speech coder, a channel speech coder, a homomorphic speech coder, a sinusoidal transform speech coder (stc), and a code-excited linear prediction (celp) speech coder. 11. a method of decoding speech wherein the speech is decoded and synthesized using a speech model characterized by model parameters, wherein the model parameters have been quantized and encoded, and wherein at least some of the quantized model parameters are decoded using error correction decoding, said method comprising the steps of: using a first type of error correction decoding to decode the quantized model parameters in a first group, using a second type of error correction decoding to decode the quantized model parameters in a second group, the first group containing quantized model parameters that are more sensitive to bit errors than are the quantized model parameters in the second group, the first type of decoding utilizing a greater number of additional bits than the second type of decoding. 12. the method of claim 11 wherein the first and second types of error correction decoding are golay code decoding and hamming code decoding, respectively. 13. the method of claim 11 or 12 wherein the quantized speech model parameters are those associated with at least one of the following speech coders: a multi-band excitation (mbe) speech coder, an improved multi-band excitation (imbe) speech coder, a linear prediction speech coder, a channel speech coder, a homomorphic speech coder, a sinusoidal transform speech coder (stc), and a code-excited linear prediction (celp) speech coder. 14. a method of enhancing speech wherein a speech signal is broken into segments, and wherein frequency domain representations of a segment is determined to provide an unsmoothed spectral envelope of the segment, and speech is synthesized from an enhanced spectral envelope, said method comprising the steps of: smoothing the unsmoothed spectral envelope of the segment to generate a smoothed spectral envelope generating the enhanced spectral envelope by increasing the amplitude of the smoothed spectral envelope in at least some frequency regions for which the unsmoothed spectral envelope has greater amplitude than the smoothed spectral envelope, and decreasing the amplitude of the smoothed spectral envelope in at least some frequency regions for which the unsmoothed spectral envelope has lesser amplitude than the smoothed spectral envelope, thereby generating an enhanced spectral envelope in which the amplitudes in some regions are increased above the amplitudes of the smoothed spectral envelope and the amplitudes in other regions are decreased below the amplitudes of the smoothed spectral envelope. 15. the method of claim 14 wherein the frequency domain representation of the unsmoothed spectral envelope is the set of spectral amplitudes forming parameters of at least one of the following speech coders: multi-band excitation (mbe) speech coder, improved multi-band excitation (imbe) speech coder, or sinusoidal transform speech coder (stc). 16. the method of claim 14 or 15 wherein the smoothed spectral envelope is generated by estimating a low-order model from the unsmoothed spectral envelope. 17. the method of claim 16 wherein the low-order model is one of the following models: an all-pole model, a cepstral model, or a polynomial model. 18. the method of claim 14 or 15 wherein the smoothed spectral envelope is generated by convolving the unsmoothed spectral envelope with a smoothing function.	background of the invention relevant publications include: j. l. flanagan, speech analysis, synthesis and perception, springer-verlag, 1972, pp. 378-386, (discusses phase vocoder-frequency-based speech analysis-synthesis system); quatieri, et al., "speech transformations based on a sinusoidal representation", ieee tassp, vol, assp34, no. 6, december 1986, pp. 1449-1986, (discusses analysis-synthesis technique based on a sinusoidal representation); griffin, "multiband excitation vocoder", ph.d. thesis, m.i.t, 1987, (discusses an 8000 bps multi-band excitation speech coder); griffin, et al., "a high quality 9.6 kbps speech coding system", proc. icassp 86, pp. 125-128, tokyo, japan, apr. 13-20, 1986, (discusses a 9600 bps multi-band excitation speech coder); griffin, et al., "a new model-based speech analysis/synthesis system", proc. icassp 85, pp. 513-516, tampa, fla., mar. 26-29, 1985, (discusses multi-band excitation speech model); hardwick, "a 4.8 kbps multi-band excitation speech coder", s.m. thesis, m.i.t, may 1988, (discusses a 4800 bps multi-band excitation speech coder); mcaulay et al., "mid-rate coding based on a sinusoidal representation of speech", proc. icassp 85, pp. 945-948, tampa, fla., mar. 26-29, 1985, (discusses the sinusoidal transform speech coder); campbell et al., "the new 4800 bps voice coding standard", mil speech tech conference, nov. 1989, (discusses error correction in low rate speech coders); campbell et al., "celp coding for land mobile radio applications", proc. icassp 90, pp. 465-468, albequerque, n. mex. apr. 3-6, 1990, (discusses error correction in low rate speech coders); levesque et al., error-control techniques for digital communication, wiley, 1985, pp. 157-170, (discusses error correction in general); jayant et al., digital coding of waveforms, prentice-hall, 1984, (discusses quantization in general); makhoul, et.al. "vector quantization in speech coding", proc. ieee, 1985, pp. 1551-1588, (discusses vector quantization in general); digital voice systems, inc., "inmarsat-m voice coder", version 1.1, dec. 5, 1990, (discusses 6.4 kbps imbe speech coder for inmarsat-m standard), jayant et al., "adaptive postfiltering of 16 kb/s-adpcm speech", proc. icassp 86, pp. 829-832, tokyo, japan, apr. 13-20, 1986, (discusses adaptive postfiltering of speech). the contents of these publications are incorporated herein by reference. the problem of speech coding (compressing speech into a small number of bits) has a large number of applications, and as a result has received considerable attention in the literature. one class of speech coders (vocoders) which have been extensively studied and used in practice is based on an underlying model of speech. examples from this class of vocoders include linear prediction vocoders, homomorphic vocoders, sinusoidal transform coders, multi-band excitation speech coders, improved multi-band excitation speech coders and channel vocoders. in these vocoders, speech is characterized on a short-time basis through a set of model parameters. the model parameters typically consist of some combination of voiced/unvoiced decisions, voiced/unvoiced probability measure, pitch period, fundamental frequency, gain, spectral envelope parameters and residual or error parameters. for this class of speech coders, speech is analyzed by first segmenting speech using a window such as a hamming window. then, for each segment of speech, the model parameters are estimated and quantized. the quantized model parameters may be combined with additional error correction data and then transmitted. in order to reconstruct speech, the quantized model parameters are used to synthesize speech using the speech model. in some speech coding applications such as communications, speech coding is used to reduce the amount of data that must be transmitted. in this case, the received bits may differ from the transmitted bits due to noise in the transmission channel. this problem also exists in other applications such as speech storage where bit errors are caused by noise and other limitations in the storage medium. in these instances the presence of bit errors in the speech data may cause the synthesized speech to suffer significant quality degradation. one approach to combat this problem is to use error correction codes or error detection codes. in this approach, the bits representing the speech model parameters are converted to another set of bits which are more robust to bit errors. the use of error correction or detection codes typically increases the number of bits which must be transmitted or stored. the number of extra bits which must be transmitted is usually related to the robustness of the error correction or detection code. in most applications, it is desirable to minimize the total number of bits which are transmitted or stored. in this case the error correction or detection codes must be selected to maximize the overall system performance. another problem in this class of speech coding systems is that limitations in the estimation of the speech model parameters may cause quality degradion in the synthesized speech. subsequent quantization of the model parameters induces further degradation. this degradation can take the form of reverberant or muffled quality to the synthesized speech. in addition background noise or other artifacts may be present which did not exist in the original speech. this form of degradation occurs even if no bit errors are present in the speech data, however bit errors can make this problem worse. typically speech coding systems attempt to optimize the parameter estimators and parameter quantizers to minimize this form of degradation. other systems attempt to reduce the degradations by post-filtering. in post-filtering the output speech is filtered in the time domain with an adaptive all-pole filter to sharpen the format peaks. this method does not allow fine control over the spectral enhancement process and it is computationally expensive and inefficient for frequency domain speech coders. the invention described herein applies to many different speech coding methods, which include but are not limited to linear predictive speech coders, channel vocoders, homomorphic vocoders, sinusoidal transform coders, multi-band excitation speech coders and improved multiband excitation (imbe) speech coders. for the purpose of describing this invention in detail, we use the 6.4 kbps imbe speech coder which has recently been standardized as part of the inmarsat-m (international marine satellite organization) satellite communication system. this coder uses a robust speech model which is referred to as the multi-band excitation (mbe) speech model. the mbe speech model was developed by griffin and lim in 1984. this model uses a more flexible representation of the speech signal than traditional speech models. as a consequence it is able to produce more natural sounding speech, and it is more robust to the presence of acoustic background noise. these properties have allowed the mbe speech model to be used for high quality low-rate speech coders. let s(n) denote a discrete speech signal obtained by sampling an analog speech signal. in order to focus attention on a short segment of speech over which the model parameters are assumed to be constant, the signal s(n) is multiplied by a window w(n) to obtain a windowed speech segment or frame, s.sub.w (n). the speech segment s.sub.w (n) is modelled as the response of a linear filter h.sub.w (n) to some excitation signal e.sub.w (n). therefore, s.sub.w (.omega.), the fourier transform of s.sub.w (n), can be expressed as s.sub.w (.omega.)=h.sub.w (.omega.)e.sub.w (.omega.) (1) where h.sub.w (.omega.) and e.sub.w (.omega.) are the fourier transforms of h.sub.w (n) and e.sub.w (n), respectively. the spectrum h.sub.w (.omega.) is often referred to as the spectral envelope of the speech segment. in traditional speech models speech is divided into two classes depending upon whether the signal is mostly periodic (voiced) or mostly noise-like (unvoiced). for voiced speech the excitation signal is a periodic impulse sequence, where the distance between impulses is the pitch period. for unvoiced speech the excitation signal is a white noise sequence. in traditional speech models each speech segment is classified as either entirely voiced or entirely unvoiced. in contrast the mbe speech model divides the excitation spectrum into a number of non-overlapping frequency bands and makes a voiced or unvoiced (v/uv) decision for each frequency band. this approach allows the excitation signal for a particular speech segment to be a mixture of periodic (voiced) energy and aperiodic (unvoiced) energy. this added flexibility in the modelling of the excitation signal allows the mbe speech model to produce high quality speech and to be robust to the presence of background noise. speech coders based on the mbe speech model use an algorithm to estimate a set of model parameters for each segment of speech. the mbe model parameters consist of a fundamental frequency, a set of v/uv decisions which characterize the excitation signal, and a set of spectral amplitudes which characterize the spectral envelope. once the mbe model parameters have been estimated for each segment, they are quantized and transmitted to the decoder. the decoder then reconstructs the model parameters and synthesizes a speech signal from the mbe model parameters table 1 ______________________________________ bit allocation among model parameters parameter number of bits ______________________________________ fundamental frequency 8 voiced/unvoiced decisions k spectral amplitudes 75-k ______________________________________ efficient methods for quantizing the mbe model parameters have been developed. these methods are capable of quantizing the model parameters at virtually any bit rate above 2 kbps. the 6.4 kbps imbe speech coder used in the inmarsat-m satellite communication system uses a 50 hz frame rate. therefore 128 bits are available per frame. of these 128 bits, 45 bits are reserved for forward error correction. the remaining 83 bits per frame are used to quantize the mbe model parameters, which consist of a fundamental frequency .omega..sub.0, a set of v/uv decisions .nu..sub.k for 1.ltoreq.k.ltoreq.k, and a set of spectral amplitudes m.sub.l for 1.ltoreq.l.ltoreq.l. the values of k and l vary depending on the fundamental frequency of each frame. the 83 available bits are divided among the model parameters as shown in table 1. the fundamental frequency is quantized by first converting it to its equivalent pitch period using equation (2). ##equ1## the value of p.sub.0 is typically restricted to the range 20.ltoreq.p.sub.0 .ltoreq.120 assuming an 8 khz sampling rate. in the 6.4 kbps imbe system this parameter is uniformly quantized using 8 bits and a step size of 0.5. this corresponds to a pitch accuracy of one half sample. the k v/uv decisions are binary values. therefore they can be encoded using a single bit per decision. the 6.4 kbps system uses a maximum of 12 decisions, and the width of each frequency band is equal to 3.omega..sub.0. the width of the highest frequency band is adjusted to include frequencies up to 3.8 khz. the spectral amplitudes are quantized by forming a set of prediction residuals. each prediction residual is the difference between the logarithm of the spectral amplitude for the current frame and the logarithm of the spectral amplitude representing the same frequency in the previous speech frame. the spectral amplitude prediction residuals are then divided into six blocks each containing approximately the same number of prediction residuals. each of the six blocks is then transformed with a discrete cosine transform (dct) and the d.c. coefficients from each of the six blocks are combined into a 6 element prediction residual block average (prba) vector. the mean is subtracted from the prba vector and quantized using a 6 bit non-uniform quantizer. the zero-mean prba vector is then vector quantized using a 10 bit vector quantizer. the 10 bit prba codebook was designed using a k-means clustering algorithm on a large training set consisting of zero-mean prba vectors from a variety of speech material. the higher-order dct coefficients which are not included in the prba vector are quantized with scalar uniform quantizers using the 59-k remaining bits. the bit allocation and quantizer step sizes are based upon the long-term variances of the higher order dct coefficients. there are several advantages to this quantization method. first, it provides very good fidelity using a small number of bits and it maintains this fidelity as l varies over its range. in addition the computational requirements of this approach are well within the limits required for real-time implementation using a single dsp such as the at&t dsp32c. finally this quantization method separates the spectral amplitudes into a few components, such as the mean of the prba vector, which are sensitive to bit errors, and a large number of other components which are not very sensitive to bit errors. forward error correction can then be used in an efficient manner by providing a high degree of protection for the few sensitive components and a lesser degree of protection for the remaining components. this is discussed in the next section. summary of the invention in a first aspect, the invention features an improved method for error correction (or error detection) coding of the speech model parameters. the new method uses at least two types of error correction coding to code the quantized model parameters. a first type of coding, which adds a greater number of additional bits than a second type of coding, is used for a group of parameters that is more sensitive to bit errors. the other type of error correction coding is used for a second group of parameters that is less sensitive to bit errors than the first. compared to existing methods, the new method improves the quality of the synthesized speech in the presence of bit errors while reducing the amount of additional error correction or detection bits which must be added. in preferred embodiments, the different types of error correction include golay codes and hamming codes. in a second aspect, the invention features a further method for improving the quality of synthesized speech in the presence of bit errors. the error rate is estimated from the error correction coding, and one or more model parameters from a previous segment are repeated in a current segment when the error rate for the parameters exceeds a predetermined level. in preferred embodiments, all of the model parameters are repeated. in a third aspect, the invention features a new method for reducing the degradation caused by the estimation and quantization of the model parameters. this new method uses a frequency domain representation of the spectral envelope parameters to enhance regions of the spectrum which are perceptually important and to attenuate regions of the spectrum which are perceptually insignificant. the result is that degradation in the synthesized speech is reduced. a smoothed spectral envelope of the segment is generated by smoothing the spectral envelope, and an enhanced spectral envelope is generated by increasing some frequency regions of the spectral envelope for which the spectral envelope has greater amplitude than the smoothed envelope and decreasing some frequency regions for which the spectral envelope has lesser amplitude than the smoothed envelope. in preferred embodiments, the smoothed spectral envelope is generated by estimating a low-order model (e.g. an all-pole model) from the spectral envelope. compared to existing methods this new method is more computationally efficient for frequency domain speech coders. in addition this new method improves speech quality by removing the frequency domain constraints imposed by time-domain methods. other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments and from the claims. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a flow chart showing a preferred embodiment of the invention encoder in which different error correction codes are used for different model parameter bits. fig. 2 is a flow chart showing a preferred embodiment of the invention decoder in which different error correction codes are used for different model parameter bits. fig. 3 is a flow chart showing a preferred embodiment of the invention in which frequency domain spectral envelope parameter enhancement is depicted . description of preferred embodiments of the invention in our invention we divide the quantized speech model parameter bits into three or more different groups according to their sensitivity to bit errors, and then we use different error correction or detection codes for each group. typically the group of data bits which is determined to be most sensitive to bit errors is protected using very effective error correction codes. less effective error correction or detection codes, which require fewer additional bits, are used to protect the less sensitive data bits. this new method allows the amount of error correction or detection given to each group to be matched to its sensitivity to bit errors. compared to the prior art, this method has the advantage that the degradation caused by bit errors is reduced and the number of bits required for forward error correction is also reduced. the particular choice of error correction or detection codes which is used depends upon the bit error statistics of the transmission or storage medium and the desired bit rate. the most sensitive group of bits is typically protected with an effective error correction code such as a hamming code, a bch code, a golay code or a reed-solomon code. less sensitive groups of data bits may use these codes or an error detection code. finally the least sensitive groups may use error correction or detection codes or they may not use any form of error correction or detection. the invention is described herein using a particular choice of error correction and detection codes which was well suited to a 6.4 kbps imbe speech coder for satellite communications. in the 6.4 kbps imbe speech coder, which was standardized for the inmarsat-m satellite communciation system, the 45 bits per frame which are reserved for forward error correction are divided among [23,12] golay codes which can correct up to 3 errors, [15,11] hamming codes which can correct single errors and parity bits. the six most significant bits from the fundamental frequency and the three most significant bits from the mean of the prba vector are first combined with three parity check bits and then encoded in a [23,12] golay code. a second golay code is used to encode the three most significant bits from the prba vector and the nine most sensitive bits from the higher order dct coefficients. all of the remaining bits except the seven least sensitive bits are then encoded into five [15,11] hamming codes. the seven least significant bits are not protected with error correction codes. prior to transmission the 128 bits which represent a particular speech segment are interleaved such that at least five bits separate any two bits from the same code word. this feature spreads the effect of short burst errors over several different codewords, thereby increasing the probability that the errors can be corrected. at the decoder the received bits are passed through golay and hamming decoders which attempt to remove any bit errors from the data bits. the three parity check bits are checked and if no uncorrectable bit errors are detected then the received bits are used to reconstruct the mbe model parameters for the current frame. otherwise if an uncorrectable bit error is detected then the received bits for the current frame are ignored and the model parameters from the previous frame are repeated for the current frame. the use of frame repeats has been found to improve the perceptual quality of the speech when bit errors are present. the invention examines each frame of received bits and determines whether the current frame is likely to contain a large number of uncorrectable bit errors. one method used to detect uncorrectable bit errors is to check extra parity bits which are inserted in the data. the invention also determines whether a large burst of bits errors has been encountered by comparing the number of correctable bit errors with the local estimate of the error rate. if the number of correctable bit errors is substantially greater than the local estimate of the error rate then a frame repeat is performed. additionally, the invention checks each frame for invalid bit sequences (i.e. groups of bits which the encoder never transmits). if an invalid bit sequence is detected a frame repeat is performed. the golay and hamming decoders also provide information on the number of correctable bit errors in the data. this information is used by the decoder to estimate the bit error rate. the estimate of the bit error rate is used to control adaptive smoothers which increase the perceived speech quality in the presence of uncorrectable bit errors. in addition the estimate of the error rate can be used to perform frame repeats in bad error environments. this aspect of the invention can be used with soft-decision coding to further improve performance. soft-decision decoding uses additional information on the likelihood of each bit being in error to improve the error correction and detection capabilities of many different codes. since this additional information is often available from a demodulator in a digital communication system, it can provide improved robustness to bit errors without requiring additional bits for error protection. the invention uses a new frequency domain parameter enhancement method which improves the quality of synthesized speech. the invention first locates the perceptually important regions of the speech spectrum. the invention then increases the amplitude of the perceptually important frequency regions relative to other frequency regions. thepreferred method for performing frequency domain parameter enhancement is to smooth the spectral envelope to estimate the general shape of the spectrum. the spectrum can be smoothed by fitting a low-order model such as an all-pole model, a cepstral model, or a polynomial model to the spectral envelope. the smoothed spectral envelope is then compared against the unsmoothed spectral envelope and perceptually important spectral regions are identified as regions where the unsmoothed spectral envelope has greater energy than the smoothed spectral envelope. similarly regions where the unsmoothed spectral envelope has less energy than the smoothed spectral envelope are identified as perceptually less important. parameter enhancement is performed by increasing the amplitude of perceptually important frequency regions and decreasing the amplitude of perceptually less important frequency regions. this new enhancement method increases speech quality by eliminating or reducing many of the artifacts which are introduced during the estimation and quantization of the speech parameters. in addition this new method improves the speech intelligibility by sharpening the perceptually important speech formants. in the imbe speech decoder a first-order all-pole model is fit to the spectral envelope for each frame. this is done by estimating the correlation parameters, r.sub.0 and r.sub.1 from the decoded model parameters according to the following equations, ##equ2## where m.sub.l for 1.ltoreq.l.ltoreq.l are the decoded spectral amplitudes for the current frame, and .omega..sub.0 is the decoded fundamental frequency for the current frame. the correlation parameters r.sub.0 and r.sub.1 can be used to estimate a first-order all-pole model. this model is evaluated at the frequencies corresponding to the spectral amplitudes for the current frame (i.e. k.multidot..omega..sub.0 for 1.ltoreq.l.ltoreq.l) and used to generate a set of weights w.sub.l according to the following formula. ##equ3## these weights indicate the ratio of the smoothed all-pole spectrum to the imbe spectral amplitudes. they are then used to individually control the amount of parameter enhancement which is applied to each spectral amplitude. this relationship is expressed in the following equation, ##equ4## where m.sub.l for 1.ltoreq.l.ltoreq.l are the enhanced spectral amplitudes for the current frame. the enhanced spectral amplitudes are then used to perform speech synthesis. the use of the enhanced model parameters improves speech quality relative to synthesis from the unenhanced model parameters.
193-630-151-789-498	US	[ "US" ]	A23L1/30,A61K38/00	2010-11-18T00:00:00	2010	[ "A23", "A61" ]	recombinant apases nucleic acid sequences	the various embodiments herein provide nucleic acid sequences isolated from pseudomonas putida strain p13 encoding a novel family of apases including a phytase and a sugar phosphatase which are highly active at a temperature of 60° c. and at a broad range of ph and withstand the harsh conditions of food processing and digestive system of animals. the enzymes are active at a wide temperature range of 20° c. to 75° c. and at a ph of 5. the embodiments also provide a method of production of the novel apases. the embodiments also provide a method of isolation and cloning of novel apases.	1 . a recombinant acid phosphatase (apase) composition for food and feed comprising: a phytase wherein the phytase includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3; and a sugar phosphatase wherein the sugar phosphatase includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. 2 . the composition according to claim 1 , wherein the recombinant apase composition is active at a temperature range of 20° c.-75° c. and at a ph of 5, and wherein the recombinant apase composition has a maximum activity at an optimum temperature of 60° c. 3 . the composition according to claim 1 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 includes 249 amino acid residues and wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 is derived by encoding an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1. 4 . the composition according to claim 1 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4 includes 462 amino acid residues and wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4 is derived by encoding an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2. 5 . the composition according to claim 3 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 is obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. 6 . the composition according to claim 4 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 is obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. 7 . the composition according to claim 3 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 has an activity for sodium phytase. 8 . the composition according to claim 4 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 has an activity for glucose-6-phosphate and d-fructose-6-phosphate. 9 . the composition according to claim 1 , wherein the phytase has a molecular weight of 27 kda with a k m value of 0.237 mm, a v max value of 0.281 mmol min −1 mg −1 and a specific activity of 281.7 umg −1 . 10 . the composition according to claim 1 , wherein the sugar phosphatase has a molecular weight of 50 kda with a k m value of 1.34 mm, a v max value of 0.466 mmol min −1 mg −1 and a specific activity of 466 umg −1 . 11 . a method of producing a recombinant apase composition for food and feed comprising the steps of: isolating a dna sequence from pseudomonas putida strain p13; digesting the isolated dna sequence using a restriction enzyme; transferring the digested dna sequence to a vector; expressing the transferred dna sequence in a host; producing the recombinant apase. 12 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the dna sequence includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 and an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2. 13 . the method according to claim 12 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 is encoded to derive an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 to obtain a phytase. 14 . the method according to claim 13 , wherein the phytase includes the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3. 15 . the method according to claim 12 , wherein the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 is encoded to derive an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4to obtain a sugar phosphatase. 16 . the method according to claim 15 , wherein the sugar phosphatase includes the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. 17 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the restriction enzyme is selected from a group comprising of ecori, sali, and hindiii. 18 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the vector is selected from a group comprising of escherichia coli dh5α, bluescript ks - and pgem-t easy vector. 19 . the method according to claim 11 , wherein the host includes a biological cell. 20 . the method according to claim 16 , wherein the biological cell is selected from a group comprising of prokaryotic cell and eukaryotic cell.	iranian national science foundation sponsors the present invention for international filing. background 1. technical field the embodiments herein generally relate to enzymes of apases family. the embodiments herein more particularly relate to nucleic acid sequences coding for novel apases enzymes family. 2. description of the related art during the last two decades, apases including phytases have attracted considerable attention for both research and industrial applications in the areas of nutrition, environmental protection and health. monoesteric phosphatases (ec 3.1.3) commonly known as acid phosphatases (apases), catalyze the hydrolysis of phosphoric ester bonds of various substrates including phosphorylated sugars, lipids, proteins and nucleotides (boyer et al., 1961). these enzymes are encoded by a highly diverse set of genes. thaller and colleagues (1998) placed prokaryotic non-specific apases (nsap) in three distantly related families a, b and c on the basis of shared conserved motifs despite of lack of overall sequence similarities. nsaps are secreted enzymes which are produced as soluble periplasmic proteins or as membrane-bound lipoproteins, which are usually able to dephosphorylate a broad range of substrates and exhibit optimal catalytic activity at acidic to neutral ph values. class a encompasses a group of bacterial apases which have a molecular mass around 25 kda and carry a signature sequence motif defined as gsypsght. class b apases contain a polypeptide with a molecular mass of approximately 25 kda for which fdiddtvlfssp could be proposed as family motif sequence. class c nsap are a group with a molecular mass around 30 kda and share four conserved aspartate residues. at the sequence level, class c enzyme appear to be related, although distantly, to class b and also to some plant acid phosphatases. because of the presence of four invariant aspartate (d) residue within the most conserved domain among class b and c bacterial nsaps and some plant apases, rossolini and coworkers (1998) proposed a superfamily of dddd phosphohydrolyses. considering much higher sequence diversity in eukaryotic apases, feizi and malboobi classified plant apases into five distinct families with almost no similarities among them, even among the conserved family motifs. considering the whole set of known apases in arabidopsis thaliana and oryza sativa as representatives of the dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plants, the defined families were named as purple apase (pap), histidin apase (hap), haloacid dehalogenase related apase ((had)-hrp), phospholipid apase (plp) and sure apase (sap) families based on specific criteria and sequence similarities within them. these researchers proposed that the necessity for phosphate homeostasis for cellular survival has been the selective force which favored structural adaptations of various superfamily members toward apase activity to target as many alternative substrate types as possible. then, divergent evolution within the families allowed broadening of substrate subtypes. for instance, these analogous families encompass four types of known phytase enzymes: hap, pap, cystein apase (cp) and a prokaryotic one named β-propeller phytase or bpp that are distinct both in terms of amino acid sequence and tertiary structure (lung et al., 2008; mullaney and ullah 2005). with respect to the important agricultural and industrial applications of apases, isolation of relevant genes has been of great interest and several gene isolation methods have been utilized. a subset of these enzyme, named phytase, belongs to a special class of phosphomonoesterases [myo-inositol hexakisphosphate phosphorylase] and is capable of initiating the stepwise release of phosphate from phytate [myo-inositol (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) hexakisphosphate], the major storage form of phosphate in plant (greiner et al., 2002). for instance, phytases are now used as an animal feed additive to assist digestion of plant material for simple-stomached animals by liberating phosphate (cromwell et al., 1995; igbasan et al., 2001; leesen et al., 2000; simons et al., 1990; miksch et al., 2002). the inorganic phosphate supplementation in the diets for simple-stomached animals can be reduced by including adequate amounts of phytase, and as a result, the fecal phosphate excretion of these animals can be reduced by as much as 50% (arjula et al., 2009). therefore, the utilization of phytase enzyme has been proposed as a means to reduce the level of phosphate pollution in the residuals of industries involving intensive animal production such as poultry or fish. apases have a wide distribution in plants, microorganisms and also in some animal tissues (greiner et al., 1993; dvorakova 1998; konietzny and greiner 2002). recent research has shown that microbial apases are the most promising ones for biotechnological application in terms of cost, ease of production and processing (pandey et al., 2001). apases have been detected in various bacteria, such as bacillus sp. (choi et al., 2001; kerovuo et al., 1998; kim et al., 1998; shimizu 1992), pseudomonas sp. (irving and cosgrove 1971; richardson and hadobas 1997), pseudomonas syringae (cho et al. 2003), escherichia coli (golovan et al. 2000; greiner et al. 1993), enterobacter (yoon et al., 1996), klebsiella sp. (greiner et al., 1997), citrobacter braakii (kim et al., 2003), lactobacillus sanfranciscensis (de angelis et al. 2003), pantoea agglomerans (greiner 2004) and pseudomonas putida (malboobi et al., 2009). also, several bacterial phytase-encoding genes have been cloned from bacillus sp. (kim et al., 1998), escherichia coli (rodriquez et al., 1999; golovan et al., 2000), klebsiella sp. (sajidan et al., 2004), obesumbacterium proteus (zinin et al., 2004), pseudomonas syringae (cho et al., 2005), yersinia intermedia (huang et al., 2006), and citrobacter sp. (luo et al., 2007). for lactic acid bacteria, however, the results were inconsistent; a few strains seem to have a quite low phytase activity, while for the majority of strains no phytase activity was detected. recently it was shown that lactic acid bacteria isolated from sourdoughs exhibited a considerable phytate degrading capacity (de angelis et al., 2003). among the different lactic acid bacterial strains isolated from sourdoughs, lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, which is considered as a key sourdough lactic acid bacterium, was identified as the best phytase producer. the apases produced by fungi are extracellular, whereas the enzymes from bacteria are mostly cell associated. the only bacteria showing extracellular phytase activity are those of the genera bacillus and enterobacter. the apases of escherichia coli have been reported to be periplasmatic enzymes and phytase activity in selenomonas ruminantium and mitsuokella multiacidus was found to be associated with the outer membrane (d'silva et al., 2000). apart from fungi and bacteria, apases including phytase have been isolated and characterized from cereals such as triticale, wheat, maize, barley and rice and from beans such as navy beans, mung beans, dwarf beans and california small white beans that generally have lower enzyme activities than the bacterial ones. in general, legumes and oilseeds exhibit a 10-fold lower activity compared to cereals (vohra and satyanarayana 2003; konietzny and greiner 2002). since certain apases have preferred substrate ranges (shamsuddin 2002, vucenik et al., 2003, oh et al., 2004), apases may find biotechnological applications in food processing to improve meal quality in particular for the reduction of phytate contents in feed and food (lei et al., 2001; vohra and satyanarayana 2003; haefner et al., 2005), in diagnostic kits as an stable, strong indicator enzyme and in mining industry as bioleaching agent. depending on the application, an apase in which there is commercial interest, certain criteria should be met. enzymes used as feed additives should be effective in releasing phosphates from phytate in the digestive tract, stable to resist inactivation by heat from feed processing and storage, and cost-effective for production. thermo stability is a particularly important issue since feed pelleting is commonly performed at temperatures between 65° c. and 95° c. although an after-spray apparatus for pelleted diets and/or chemical coating of phytase may help by passing the hot steps, thermostable phytases are still better candidates for feed supplements (arjula et al., 2009). so far naturally occurring apases having the required level of thermo stability for application in animal feed have not been found in nature (lei et al., 2001). up till now, two main types of apases have been identified; acid apases with an optimum ph around 5.0 and alkaline apases with an optimum ph around 8.0 (oh et al., 2004). most of the so far described microbial apases belong to the acidic ones and their ph optima range from 4.0 to 5.5. due to the shortage in nonrenewable resources of phosphorus, costs of production and environmental pollution concerns, there is a great desire to utilize apases, particularly in the area of food and feed production. such enzymes must possess certain criteria for industrial applications such as high specific activity, thermo stability and activity in a broad range of ph. hence there is a need for a cost effective and competitive production of apases with high yield, high specific activity and required purity level for desired industrial applications. the above mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein and which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification. objectives of the embodiments the primary object of the embodiments herein is to provide a recombinant apases enzyme encompassing a phytase and a sugar phosphatase. another object of the embodiments herein is to provide a recombinant apases enzyme which is active at high temperature and at a broad range of ph to withstand the harsh conditions of food processing and digestive system of animals. yet another object of the embodiments herein is to provide a recombinant apases enzyme which can be used in a variety of processes requiring conversion of phosphate compounds to release inorganic phosphate such as in fertilizing plants, poultry, dairy, fishery and human food. yet another object of the embodiments herein is to provide recombinant apases enzyme which does not match any of the previously described prokaryotic and eukaryotic apase families neither for the overall sequence nor for the shared motifs. yet another object of the embodiments herein is to provide a recombinant apases enzyme which shows divergence from major facilitator superfamily i.e. mfs family. yet another object of the embodiments herein is to provide a novel group of apases family. yet another object of the embodiments herein is to provide a rapid and efficient method for production of recombinant apases enzyme. these and other objects and advantages of the embodiments herein will become readily apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. summary the various embodiments herein provide a novel family of apases encompassing a phytase and a sugar phosphatase that are active at high temperature and a broad range of ph, mainly in acidic condition, such that they can stand harsh conditions in food processing and in digestive system of animals. the apases is obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13 isolated from soil. the embodiments herein provide recombinant apase nucleic acid sequences comprising seq id no: 1 and seq id no: 2. according to one embodiment herein, the seq id no: 1 encodes for a phytase enzyme and have an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3. according to another embodiment herein, the seq id no: 2 encodes for a sugar phosphatase enzyme and have an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. the seq id no: 1 encodes for 249 amino acid residues while the seq id no: 2 encodes for 462 amino acid residues. the nucleic acid sequences are obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. the optimum temperature for activity of the enzyme is 20° c. to 75° c. the optimum temperature for maximum activity is 60° c. the optimum ph for activity of the enzyme is 5. the molecular weight the phytase enzyme is 27 kda with k m value as 0.237 mm and v max value as 0.281 mmol min −1 mg −1 . the specific activity of the phytase enzyme is 281.7 umg-1 of protein. the molecular weight of the sugar phosphatase enzyme is 50 kda with k m value as 1.34 mm and v max value 0.466 mmol min −1 mg −1 . the specific activity of sugar phosphatase enzyme is 466 umg −1 . according to one embodiment, a phytase and a sugar phosphatase comprises the amino acid sequence essentially according to seq id no: 3 and seq id no: 4. according to one embodiment, a method to produce recombinant apases having an amino acid sequence essentially according to seq id nos: 3 & 4 being active at 60° c. and having optimum acidic ph for their activity. dna sequences essentially according to seq id nos: 1 & 2 encoding amino acid sequences essentially according to seq id nos: 3 & 4 are digested from their corresponding vector and transferred into expression vectors which allow high expression of these genes. the newly cloned genes are expressed in prokaryotic or even eukaryotic hosts to produce active recombinant enzymes. the produced enzymes may be used intracellular or extracted from the cells to be used for hydrolysis of phosphate compounds. according to one embodiment, a recombinant acid phosphatase (apase) composition for food and feed comprises a phytase wherein the phytase includes amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 and a sugar phosphatase wherein the sugar phosphatase includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. the recombinant apase is active in a temperature range of 20° c.-75° c. and at a ph of 5, wherein an optimum temperature is 60° c. the seq id no: 3 includes at least 249 amino acid residues and wherein the seq id no: 3 is derived by encoding a seq id no: 1. the seq id no: 4 includes at least 462 amino acid residues and wherein the seq id no: 4 is derived by encoding a seq id no: 2. the seq id no: 1 and seq id no: 2 are obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. the molecular weight of the phytase herein is 27 kda and has a specific activity of 281.7 umg −1 whereas the molecular weight of the sugar phosphatase is 50 kda having a specific activity of 466 umg −1 . according to one embodiment, a method of producing a composition of recombinant apases for food and feed wherein dna sequences are first isolated from pseudomonas putida strain p13. then, the dna sequences are digested using a restriction enzyme. the digested dna sequences are transferred to a vector. the transferred dna sequences are expressed in a host and the recombinant apase is thus produced. the dna sequences include seq id no: 1 & seq id no: 2, wherein the seq id no: 1 encodes for seq id no: 3 and wherein the seq id no: 2 encodes for seq id no: 4. the restriction enzyme includes ecori, sali, or hindiii. the vector includes escherichia coli dh5α, bluescript ks - and pgem-t easy vector. the host includes prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell. according to one embodiment, a cloning strategy of a novel phytase gene obtainable from pseudomonas putida strain p13 wherein the dna sequence is essentially according to seq id nos: 1 & 2 which are isolated and cloned into various plasmid vectors. these and other aspects of the embodiments herein will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. it should be understood, however, that the following descriptions, while indicating preferred embodiments and numerous specific details thereof, are given by way of illustration and not of limitation. many changes and modifications may be made within the scope of the embodiments herein without departing from the spirit thereof, and the embodiments herein include all such modifications. brief description of the drawings the other objects, features and advantages will occur to those skilled in the art from the following description of the preferred embodiment and the accompanying drawings in which: fig. 1 shows a nucleic acid sequence mentioned as seq id no. 1, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 2 shows a nucleic acid sequence mentioned as seq id no. 2, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 3 shows nucleic acid sequence mentioned as seq id no. 3, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 4 shows nucleic acid sequence mentioned as seq id no. 4, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 5 shows a top view of a petridish containing bcip medium showing the growth of two strong apase-expressing clones, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 6a shows the restriction map of the dna inserts of the isolated clone a, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 6b shows the restriction map of the dna inserts of the isolated clone b, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 7a shows dendrograms for clustering of bacterial phytase and apase sequences representatives in comparison to known phytase classes such as hap, cp, pap and bpp, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 7b shows dendrograms for clustering of bacterial phytase and apase sequences representatives in comparison to known nsaps classes such as a, b and c, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 8 shows clustering of novel apases with representatives of 18 families belonging to mfs, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 9a shows a protein band of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) for phytase, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 9b shows a protein band of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) sugar phosphatase, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 10a shows a graph representing the activities of apase encoded by the isolated genes of phytase at different ph conditions, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 10b shows a graph representing the activities of apase encoded by the isolated genes of sugar phosphatase at different ph conditions, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 11a shows a graph representing the activities of apase encoded by the isolated genes of phytase at different temperature conditions, according to one embodiment herein. fig. 11b shows a graph representing the activities of apase encoded by the isolated genes of sugar phosphatase at different temperature conditions, according to one embodiment herein. detailed description of the embodiments in the following detailed description, a reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which the specific embodiments that may be practiced is shown by way of illustration. the embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the embodiments and it is to be understood that the logical, mechanical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the embodiments. the following detailed description is therefore not to be taken in a limiting sense. the various embodiments herein relate to isolation and cloning of two novel dna sequences from a bacterial strain ( p. putida strain p13) encoding a novel family of apases including a phytase (myo-inositol hexakisphophate phosphodydrolyase) and a sugar phosphatase enzyme by functional screening of constructed genomic libraries. phytase catalyses the hydrolysis of myo-inositol hexakisphosphate to inorganic phosphate and lowers myo-inositol phosphates and in some cases even myo-inositol. similarly, sugar phosphatases hydrolyze a variety of sugar-phosphate compounds to their moiety plus a phosphate ion. according to an embodiment, a recombinant acid phosphatase (apase) composition for food and feed comprises a phytase and a sugar phosphatase. the phytase includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 and the sugar phosphatase includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. the recombinant apase composition is active in a temperature range of 20° c.-75° c. and at a ph of 5. the recombinant apase composition has a maximum activity at an optimum temperature of 60° c. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 includes 249 amino acid residues. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 is derived by encoding an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 is obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 has an activity for sodium phytase. the phytase has a molecular weight of 27 kda with a km value of 0.237 mm, a vmax value of 0.281mmol min-1 mg-1 and a specific activity of 281.7 umg-1. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4 includes 462 amino acid residues and the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4 is derived by encoding an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 is obtained from pseudomonas putida strain p13. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 has an activity for glucose-6-phosphate and d-fructose-6-phosphate. the sugar phosphatase has a molecular weight of 50 kda with a km value of 1.34 mm, a vmax value of 0.466 mmol min-1 mg and a specific activity of 466 umg-1. a method of producing a recombinant apase composition for food and feed involves isolating a dna sequence from pseudomonas putida strain p13. the isolated dna sequence is digested using a restriction enzyme. the digested dna sequence is transferred to a vector. the transferred dna sequence is expressed in a host to produce the recombinant apase. the dna sequence includes an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 and an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 1 is encoded to derive an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 to obtain a phytase. the phytase includes the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3. the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 2 is encoded to derive an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4to obtain a sugar phosphatase. the sugar phosphatase includes the amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 4. the restriction enzyme is selected from a group comprising of ecori, sali, and hindiii. the vector is selected from a group comprising of escherichia coli dh5α, bluescript ks- and pgem-t easy vector. the host includes a biological cell. the biological cell is selected from a group comprising of prokaryotic cell and eukaryotic cell. according to an embodiment herein, the novel dna sequences (seq id no: 1 and seq id no: 2) are isolated and cloned from p. putida strain p13. the dna sequences for a novel enzyme essentially has an amino acid sequence according to seq id no: 3 and seq id no: 4. the isolated genes encoding apases described herein are grouped with major facilitator superfamily (mfs) members. mfs transporters are single-polypeptide secondary carriers capable of transporting small molecules including sugar phosphates. pao and colleagues (1998) have classified members of mfs into 17 (or possibly 18) distinct families. these novel apases are grouped with family 12 and 14, known as sialate: h+ symporter (shs) and anion: cation symporter (acs) family, respectively (for a review see pao et al., 1998). the embodiments herein clearly show that the new members of msf family i.e. the novel apases have phosphatase activity. apparently, the embodiments herein describe a convergent evolution of apases through which some members of other protein families are neo-functionalized to enzymes that is essential for adaptation to harsh environmental conditions. biochemical analysis showed that while both have a broad substrate range, seq id no: 1 encoding seq id no: 3 has substrate preference for sodium phytate. the other novel gene, seq id no: 2 encoding seq id no: 4, hydrolyses glucose-6-phosphate and d-fructose-6-phosphate at higher rates. according to one embodiment herein, the phytase-encoding gene (seq id no:1 encoding seq id no:3) releases all phosphate molecules from phytate except for ip2 while myo-inositol pentakisphosphate is the final product of phytate dephosphorylation by the enzyme related to seq id no:2 encoding seq id no:4. all known microbial acid phytate-degrading enzymes release five of the six phosphate residues of phytate to generating myo-inositol(2)monophosphate as the final product (greiner et al., 2001; sajidan et al., 2004; wyss et al., 1999). similarly, some apases encoding genes have been reported to be able to release only one of phosphates from phytate (greiner 2004, herter et al., 2006). the embodiments herein are supported with following examples. the examples set forth are not meant to limit the scope in any manner. example 1 screening for isolation of apase-encoding genes p. putida strain p13 that produce strong apases activity was isolated from alkaline soils as a source of genomic dna. escherichia coli dh5α were isolated as the host for recombinant plasmids. bluescript ks- plasmids were used for library construction and sub-cloning procedures. moreover, production of recombinant enzymes and subsequent purification were carried out in pgem-t easy vector. basic recombinant dna procedures were performed as described by sambrook and russell (2001). genomic library was constructed by complete or partial digestion of p. putida strain p13 genomic dna with ecori, sali or hindiii. the dna fragments were ligated into digested and dephosphorylated pbluescript ks-, with t4 dna ligase by overnight incubation at 22° c. the ligation mixture was used to transform e. coli dh5α cells by electroporation. electroporation was carried out by gene pulser ii (bio-rad). a single pulse of 1.8 kv was applied with a capacitance of 25 μf and resistance of 500 ohm. screening for apase-encoding genes was performed on sperber medium containing 50 mg/l bcip (5-boromo 4-choloro 3-indolyl phosphate). sperber medium consist of g/l: agar, 16; μlucose, 10; na-phytate, 2.5; yeast extract, 0.5; cacl2, 0.10; mgso4, 0.25; ph, 7.2 supplemented with 100 μg/ml ampicillin. colonies of e. coli transformants were then plated onto the selective medium to screen for apase positive clones. the presence of apase activity was monitored by the intensity of blue stain of bacterial colonies. fig. 5 shows a petri dish containing bcip medium showing the growth of two strong apase-expressing clones. with respect to fig. 5 , the arrows show two intensely blue-stained clones that appeared to carry the same apase-encoding genes later. example 2 sub-cloning of recombinant apases by screening p. putida p13 genomic library, a number of apase positive (pho+) clones were identified. restriction maps were used to group the isolated clones. all open reading frames (orfs) within the genomic clones were sub-cloned by either restriction digest or dna amplification with specific primers. fig. 6a shows the restriction maps of the dna inserts of the isolated clone a. fig. 6b shows the restriction maps of the dna inserts of the isolated clone b. with respect to figs. 6a and 6b , the thick bars show the sub-cloned fragments carrying apase-encoding genes. initial sizes of clone a and b were 8 and 7 kb, respectively. the open reading frames within the sub-cloned fragments, with the length of 1.5 and 2.4 kb, encode proteins with high apase activities. the pcr fragments were cloned into pgem-t easy vector prior to transformation of e. coli dh5α and plated on sperber medium containing bcip as shown in example 1. the sequence encompassing only orf responsible for phytase activity of clone a was amplified with specific primers (5′ gaa ttc atg gcc ttt cac cca at 3′ and 5′ aag ctt tca acg tgc ccg ccg 3′). similarly, orf corresponding to gene encoding a sugar apase within clone b was amplified by the use of specific primers (5′ gaa ttc atg agc gga ttc cag aag 3′ and 5′ aag ctt tca cgc ctg ggc agg g 3′). the pcr products were ligated into pgem-t easy vector. transformation of the competent e. coli cells was done by freeze and thaw for which 100 mg of ligation mix was added. the suspension was carefully mixed with pipette tip and incubated on ice for 30 min. a heat shock at 42° c. for 45 sec was applied followed by incubation on ice for another 2 min. 800 μl of lb (lysogeny broth) was added and the bacterial suspension was incubated at 37° c. for 1 h. aliquots of the suspension were spread evenly on lb supplemented with an appropriate antibiotic. the plates were incubated at 37° c. overnight. after 14 to 16 hrs, single colonies were picked and inoculated for plasmid mini preparation. example 3 phylogenetic analysis of the novel apases blastx and/or blastp searches were performed in a non-redundant set of protein databases (altschul et al., 1997) using the isolated nucleotide sequence and deduced amino acid sequences as queries. multiple sequence alignments of dna and amino acid were carried out using clustal w algorithm within mega 4.0 software package (tamura et al., 2007). phylogenetic trees for the retrieved apases were constructed by using neighbor-joining method. to do these, the phylogenetic relationship of the isolated sequences with each class of phytases (hap, pap, cp and bpp) or nsaps (class a, b and c) were assessed separately. as no significant similarity was found among them, then, representative sequences for each group were used to form dendrograms. fig. 7a show dendrogerams for clustering of bacterial phytase and apase sequences representatives in comparison to known phytase classes, hap, cp, pap and bpp. with respect to fig. 7a , it shows that there is no relationship between the isolated apase-encoding genes from pseudomonas putida and known phytase classes, hap, cp, pap and bpp. fig. 7b show dendrogerams for clustering of bacterial phytase and apase sequences representatives in comparison to known nsaps classes a, b and c, according to one embodiment herein. with respect to fig. 7b , it can be seen that there is no relationship between the isolated apase-encoding genes from pseudomonas putida and nsaps classes a, b and c. the isolated apase-encoding genes fall into a separate group when compared to the known phytases and nsap classes. multiple sequence alignments of dna and amino acid and subsequent phylogenetic analyses indicated that the isolated apase-encoding genes have no sequence similarities with either the known phytase classes (hap, pap, cp and bpp) or with the nsaps (class a, b and c). although some biochemical features such as optimum ph and temperature of the isolated genes is similar to haps and nsaps class a, there is no similarity for their amino acid sequence and even for the known motifs such as rhgxrxp and gsypsght, respectively. alternatively, the isolated genes encoding apases described in the embodiments were grouped with families 12 and 14 belong to mfs family known as sialate h+ symporter (shs), and anion-cation symporter (acs). fig. 8 shows clustering of novel apases with representatives of 18 families belonging to mfs. with respect to fig. 8 , each data in phylogenetic tree consist of the name of bacteria, msf subfamily and gene identification. the positions of the two proteins encoded by the isolated gene, seq id no: 3 and seq id no: 4 indicate high similarity with the family 12, sialate h+ symporter family and the family 14, anion-cation symporter family, respectively. data presented clearly show that the new members of msf family have phosphatase activity. apparently, this is another case of convergent evolution of apases through which some members of other protein families are neo-functionalized to enzymes that is essential for adaptation to harsh environmental conditions. example 4 expression and purification of the recombinant apase enzymes cell growth and lysis positive transformant e. coli colonies containing pgem-t easy vector carrying either seq id no: 1 or 2 were picked and grown at 37° c. in lb medium supplemented with 100 μg/l ampicillin for 16 hrs. the culture was then re-inoculated into fresh lb medium (1:100 dilutions) containing 100 μg/l ampicillin and grown aerobically at 37° c. after 20 hr of incubation, cells were harvested by centrifugation at 10,000 rpm and 4° c. for 15 min. to purify the recombinant enzymes, the bacteria were lysed by the following procedure: (1) cells were repeatedly frozen at −80° c. for 10 min and thawed at room temperature for 20 min for three times before re-suspending in 20 mm sodium acetate buffer, ph 5.0; (2) cell walls were broken down further by addition of 10 mg/ml lysosyme and incubating for 3 h at room temperature; (3) cell rupture by sonication for 1 min which was repeated five times on ice. cell debris was removed by centrifugation at 15,000 rpm and 4° c. for 30 min and the supernatant was used for enzyme purification by fplc (pharmacia fplc system 500, pharmacia, uppsala, sweden) run at a flow rate of 1 ml/min and 25° c. mono s hr 5/5 chromatography the dialyzed supernatant of previous step in 20 mm sodium acetate buffer with ph 5.0 was loaded onto a mono s hr 5/5 column equilibrated with 20 mm sodium acetate buffer having ph 5.0. the column was washed with the same buffer for 30 min and then with a gradient consisting of 0-1 m nacl in 20 mm sodium acetate buffer with ph 5.0 for 100 min. two ml fractions were collected and those containing apase activity were pooled. sephacryl chromatography the apase activity-containing fractions from the previous step were loaded onto a 16/60 sephacryl s-200 hr column equilibrated with 20 mm sodium acetate buffer having ph 5.0 and containing 0.2 m nacl. the maximum loading volume per nm was 1 ml. example 5 molecular size estimation of the novel apase enzymes to estimate the molecular mass of the apase enzymes, the purified proteins were gel-filtered on 16/60 sephacryl s-200 hr equilibrated with 20 mm sodium acetate buffer having ph 5.0 containing 0.2 m nacl. the column was calibrated with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (mr=120,000), creatine kinase (mr=81,000), bovine serum albumin (mr=68,000), b-lactoglobulin (mr=40,000) and myoglobin (mr=17,000). sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) was performed according to laemmli (1970) using a 10% acrylamide gel. gels were stained by coomassie brilliant blue g-250. fig. 9a shows a protein band of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) for phytase. fig. 9b shows a protein band of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (sds-page) sugar phosphatase. with respect to figs. 9a and 9b , m and e represent protein markers and semi-purified proteins, respectively. sequence analysis reveals that orf within seq id no: 1 encodes a protein with of 249 residues as shown in seq id no: 3 and a calculated molecular mass of 26.7 kda. gel filtration of the enzyme on a calibrated sephacryl s-200 column gave an approximate molecular mass of 30000±1500 da with elution position being measured by determination of the enzyme activity. the estimated molecular mass by sds-page was quite close to the calculated mass 27 kda. with respect to fig. 9a , for phytase which corresponds to seq id no: 3, the protein band appeared at 27-kd. therefore, molecular weight of the novel recombinant phytase was assigned to 27 kda. similarly, an orf within seq id no: 2 were found to encode a protein with 462 amino acid residues and a calculated molecular mass of 50 kd as shown in seq id no: 4. with respect to fig. 9b , the molecular mass and homogeneity of the enzyme preparation were shown by sds-page and gel filtration. gel filtration of the enzyme on a calibrated sephacryl s-200 column gave a molecular mass of 50000±1500 da with elution position being measured by determination of enzyme activity. with respect to fig. 9b , for sugar apase which corresponds to seq id no: 4, the protein band appeared at 50-kd. accordingly, the estimated molecular mass by sds-page was 50 kda. example 6 substrate specificity apase activity was determined at 37° c. in 350 μl of 100 mm sodium acetate buffer, ph 5.0, containing 5 mm of various substrates as described in table 1. table 1 shows the degradation comparisons of different substrates by the purified enzymes encoded by the genes described in the embodiments herein. table 1 show a list of different substrates s. nosubstrateactivity (%)activity (%)1.glucose-6-phosphate20 ± 3.4100 ± 9.12.d-fructose-6-phosphate17 ± 2.265 ± 9.63.beta-glycero phosphate1.3 ± 0.21.6 ± 0.24.1-naphthyl phosphate0.64 ± 02.6 ± 0.15.2-naphthyl phosphate2.8 ± 27.2 ± 46.p-nitrophenyl phosphate14 ± 522 ± 4.37.pyridoxal phosphate2.92 ± 22 ± 0.38.amp00.64 ± 0.29.atp0.28010.nadp0.52011.gtp0012.sodium phytate100 ± 620 ± 6 the enzymes were incubated in 100 mm acetate buffer (ph 5) containing 1.5 mm of each substrate at 37° c. for 30 min and the released orthophosphate was measured as described in the text. the highest values for the preferred substrates, sodium phytate and glucose-6-phosphatase, were assigned as 100 percent. each data point represents mean±sd of duplicate assay. the middle and the last columns show activity data for seq id no: 3 and seq id no: 4, respectively. the enzymatic reactions began by adding 10 μl of the purified enzymes to the assays. after incubating for 30 min at 37° c., the liberated phosphate was measured according to the ammonium molybdate method (heinonen and lahti, 1981) with minor modifications. 1.5 ml of a freshly prepared acetone ammonium molybdate (aam) reagent consisting of acetone/5 n h 2 so 4 /10 mm ammonium molybdate (2:1:1 v/v/v) and 100 μl 1.0 m citric acid were added to the assay mixture. any cloudiness, if present, was removed by centrifugation prior to the measurement of absorbance at 355 nm. to calculate the enzyme activity, a calibration curve was produced over the range of 5-600 nmol phosphate (e=8.7 cm2/nmol). one unit of activity was defined as the amount of enzyme required to liberate 1 μmol phosphate per min at 37° c. blanks were run by adding aam solution prior to adding the enzyme. as shown in table 1, both apases described in herein have a broad range of substrates. however, strong preference of sodium phytate was apparent for seq id no: 3 encoded by seq id no: 1. two preferred substrates, glucose-6-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate, for seq id no: 4 encoded by seq id no: 2 share a sugar moiety. example 7 biochemical properties of the recombinant apases enzyme kinetics studies performed on semi-purified enzyme samples by the assay of inorganic phosphate liberated from na-phytate or glucose 6-phosphate for seq id no: 3 and 4, respectively. for the ph profile, enzyme activity was assayed using the following buffers: glycine-hcl, ph 2.0-3.5; sodium acetate-acetic acid, ph 3.5-6.0; tris-acetate, ph 6.0-7.0; tris-hcl, ph 7.0-8. fig. 10a shows a graph representing the activities (on y axis) of apase encoded by the isolated genes of phytase at different ph conditions (on x axis). fig. 10b shows a graph representing the activities (on y axis) of apase encoded by the isolated genes of sugar phosphatase at different ph conditions (on x axis). each data point represents mean±sd of duplicated assays. the activities of phytase (seq id no: 3) and sugar phosphatase (seq id no: 4) in various ph were assessed by using a series of buffering reagents at final concentration of 100 mm and 37° c. the activities were expressed by taking the maximum activity as 100 percent. from the figure, it is clear that the maximum activity was shown at a ph of 5. the optimal ph for activity of apase enzymes (seq id nos: 3 and 4) is 5.0. fig. 11a shows a graph representing the activities (on y axis) of apase encoded by the isolated genes of phytase at different temperature conditions (on x axis). fig. 11b shows a graph representing the activities (on y axis) of apase encoded by the isolated genes of sugar phosphatase at different temperature conditions (on x axis). the optimum temperature was determined within temperatures ranging from 20° c. to 75° c. the optimal temperature for activity of apase enzymes (seq id nos: 3 and 4) is 60° c. in order to determine the kinetic parameters of the apase enzymes expressed by isolated genes, k m and v max were estimated by measuring the release of the phosphate ion during hydrolysis using formation of a soluble phospho-molybdate complex in the aam solution. the km value is a measure of the affinity of the substrate for the enzyme wherein vmax is the maximum velocity or rate at which the enzyme catalyzes a reaction. the kinetic parameters were calculated from a lineweaver-burke plot (bisswanger 2002). for the hydrolysis of phytase (seq id no: 3) k m and v max were 0.237 mm and 0.281 mmol min −1 mg −1 , respectively. the specific activity of the phytase was 281.7 umg −1 of protein. the purified recombinant protein of sugar phosphatase (seq id no: 4) displayed specific activity of 466 umg −1 protein against glucose-6-phosphate with a k m of 1.34 mm and a v max of 0.466 mmol min −1 mg −1 . example 8 enzyme thermal stability enzyme stability was examined by the following procedure. enzyme were treated at 25, 37, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85 and 90 degree celsius for 15 min prior to incubation at room temperature for 1 hour and assayed as described above. the activity of the recombinant phytase (seq id no:3) was not lost when incubated at various temperatures up to 55° c. while at 60, 65 and 70° c. only 36%, 9% and 3% of its activity was retained, respectively. no activity was detected when the reaction was pretreated at 80° c. or above. the enzyme activity of the recombinant sugar phosphatase (seq id no: 4) showed no significant difference up to 60° c. while with increasing temperature the enzyme activity decreased sharply suggesting a complete inactivation. example 9 degradation pathway of apase genes in order to determine the pathway of phytate degradation and also the final product of enzyme degradation for the novel apases described in herein, time-coursed enzymatic reactions were carried out and the products were monitored on a high-pressure liquid chromatography (hplc) column. the enzymatic reaction was started at 37° c. by addition of 50 μl of the purified enzyme. the enzymatic reaction was consisted of 350 μl 0.1 m sodium acetate buffer with ph 5.0 and containing 1.5 mm sodium phytate. 100 μl samples were removed periodically and the reaction was stopped by heat treatment (95° c., 10 min). then, 20 μl of each sample was nm through hplc column (column: ultrasep es100 rp18, bischoff, leonberg, germany; hplc: pharmacia lkb lcc2252, uppsala, sweden) and peaks for each possible degradations product were identified by comparing to known myo-inositol phosphate standards as described by sandberg and ahderinne (1986). hplc analysis showed the difference between two apases described herein both in terms of the number and the order of hydrolysis of phosphate from phytate. hplc analysis illustrated that the phytase-encoding gene (seq id no:1 encoding seq id no:3) released all phosphate molecules from phytate except for ip2 while myo-inositol pentakisphosphate is the final product of phytate dephosphorylation by the enzyme related to seq id no:2 encoding seq id no:4. although the embodiments have been described in some detail by way of illustration and example for the purposes of clarity of understanding, it is clearly not limited thereby and this invention encompass any changes and modifications that may be practiced within the scope of the appended claims by ones skilled in the art. the foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fully reveal the general nature of the embodiments herein that others can, by applying current knowledge, readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments without departing from the generic concept, and, therefore, such adaptations and modifications should and are intended to be comprehended within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments. it is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation. therefore, while the embodiments herein have been described in terms of preferred embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments herein can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. although the embodiments herein are described with various specific embodiments, it will be obvious for a person skilled in the art to practice the invention with modifications. however, all such modifications are deemed to be within the scope of the claims. it is also to be understood that the following claims are intended to cover all of the generic and specific features of the embodiments described herein and all the statements of the scope of the embodiments which as a matter of language might be said to fall there between.
194-477-114-953-488	DE	[ "DE", "EP", "AT", "US", "ES" ]	H02M3/158,G05F1/613,G05F1/585,H01F27/28,H02M3/28	2004-09-07T00:00:00	2004	[ "H02", "G05", "H01" ]	voltage converter	a junction (vs3) between inductance coil (llii) and capacitor (cii) is connected by semiconductor device (tii) to common potential (p). junction (vs4) between capacitor and cathode of diode (dii) is attached to p, through inductance coil while anode of diode is connected with negative output (mua) and negative pole of capacitor whose positive pole is connected with common potential while voltage output is attached to capacitor.	1. voltage regenerator (vt) including at least a first regenerator stage (vt i ) and a second regenerator stage (vt ii ), each said regenerator stage having an input connection, with a first input subvoltage (u ei ) and a second input subvoltage (u eii ), respectively, attached at each input connection, and which added together form an input voltage u e , said first and second regenerator stages having first and second output connections, respectively, whereby at the first output connection of the first regenerator stage, with reference to a common potential (p), there is a positive output subvoltage (u ai ), and at the second output connection of the second regenerator stage, with reference to the common potential (p), there is a negative output subvoltage (u aii ), the output subvoltages (u ai ) and (u aii ) added together producing said output voltage (u a ), the first and second regenerator stages, at the input sides, being connected to a dc or ac high voltage net of a board system power supply, said high voltage net having a transient voltages (u trans ) and oscillating at about 400 v–1500 v, the first and second regenerator stages, at the output sides, providing a ruled intermediate circuit voltage of about 600 v–750 v dc or 1000 v ac for supplying an electronic system, the first regenerator stage comprising a first shunt branch with a first inductance coil (l li ), a first capacitor (c 1 ) and a first diode (d 1 ), an input terminal (pue) being connected to a first junction of the first inductance coil (l li ) and by way of a first input capacitor (c ei ) the with common potential (p), a first junction (vs 1 ) between the first inductance coil (l li ) and the first capacitor (c 1 ) being connected by way of a first semiconductor switching device (t 1 ) with common potential (p), a second junction (vs ii ) between the first capacitor (c 1 ) and an anode of the first diode (d 1 ) being connected by way of a first shunt inductance (l q1 ) with the common potential (p) and on the output side, a cathode of the first diode (d 1 ) is attached to an output terminal (pua) which by way of a first connecting capacitor (c ai ) is connected with common potential (p), the second regenerator stage (vt ii ) comprising a second shunt branch, in which a second inductance coil (l lii ), a second capacitor (c ii ) and a second diode (d ii ) are arranged and an input terminal (mue) of the second regenerator stage (sw ii ) is connected with a connection of the second inductance (l lii ) as well as with a first pole of a second input capacitor (c eii ), having second pole attached to the common potential (p), a third junction (vs 3 ) between the second inductance (l lii ) and the second capacitor (c ii ) being attached to the common potential (p), a fourth junction (vs 4 ) between the second capacitor (c ii ) and an anode of the second diode (d ii ) being connected to the common potential (p) via a second shunt inductance (l qii ), an anode of the second diode (d ii ) being connected with a negative output (mua) and a negative pole of a second output capacitor (c ii ) having a positive pole connected with the common potential (p), and the output subvoltage (ua ii ) being attached to the second output capacitor (c aii ) and a control unit (cu) being connected on the common potential (p), by means of which the first and the second semiconductor switching device (t i , t ii ) is controllable synchronously. 2. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the inductance coils (l li , l qi , l lii , l qii ) are choking coils having a common magnetic core. 3. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the voltage transformer (vt) comprises a control unit for potential-free activation of at least the semiconductor switching device (t ii ). 4. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the semiconductor switching devices (t i , t ii ) comprise igbt or fet transistors. 5. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein on one shunt branch having the shunt inductance coils (l qi , l qii ), a current measurement device (im i , im ii ) is provided, the measured current corresponding to the output current (i ai , i aii , i a ). 6. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit (cu) related to potential (p) by means of differential operational amplifiers measures the input voltage u e for t on pilot control. 7. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit (cu) related to potential p by means of differential operational amplifiers measures output voltage u a in terms of actual size. 8. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein as a result of differential measurement, potential (p) is not unsymmetrically loaded and when off-loading does not unsymmetrically become pue/mue. 9. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein by means of addition/subtraction of the shunt branch currents (i ai , i aii ), a lack of symmetry in the regenerator stages (vt i , vt ii ) is ascertainable. 10. voltage regenerator according to claim 1 , wherein the regenerator stages (vt i , vt ii ) comprise at the output connections an isolation transformer stamped with the current.	background of the invention the invention concerns a voltage transformer. the switching alignment of a dual buck converter with connected choking coils is familiar from u.s. pat. no. 5,932,995. this is used to lower an alternating high input voltage without a ground potential to a controlled output voltage. for this purpose the plan is to connect the choking coils of two independent buck converters. the input voltage is thereby fed through the input connectors of two buck converters, with the result that the common potential is made symmetrical through linkage of the choking coils and simultaneous switching of the switching devices. customary switching alignments involve a buck converter whose output voltage is constantly lower than the input voltage. from de-a-195 15 210 we know that part of the switching network is designed for the regeneration of an input voltage loaded with alternations that fits in an input circuit in the form of a sepic topology. the switching alignment involves a buck-boost converter. de-a-2 111 222 is concerned with symmetrical switching for externally activated transistor-direct current converters through the use of an analog-digital transformer for the pulse-width control of the signal transistors. this is designed to create a measuring circuit voltage with polarity dependent on the symmetry of the impulse currents by the currents transmitted in isolated primary coils of the converter by means of the current transformer and a common integrated switching mechanism. as a result of the voltage the controlling rectangle alternating voltage delivered by a synchronizing pulse generator through a measurement transformer to the analog digital transformer at the measurement transformer output in the sense of a pulse width control is influenced. the currents will thereby become symmetrical. in de a-198 00 105 there is an electrical current voltage transformer that is especially well known for high input voltages. this contains a primary side, which displays several sequentially switched partial systems, each one of which has at least one transistor circuit breaker and its own assigned transformer coil, as well as a secondary side through which the subsystems are linked to a common load output. in addition, the semiconductors of the primary or input stage are symmetrically loaded according to voltage, while the semiconductor voltage load corresponds to the input voltage segmented by the number of subsystems plus the inter-circuit voltage that fits on the primary side of the transformer. thanks to the transformer, a collective bunching of the single-stage outputs is achieved in a common output. summary of the invention proceeding from this, the invention under consideration has the basic problem of developing an electrical voltage transformer of the kind that is mentioned in the introduction so that an output concentration of several stages is possible with or without a transformer, the purpose being to improve efficiency and lower the cost. the switching alignment contained in the invention will achieve the goal of an input voltage that by way of example can have voltage limits of 450 v at the lower end and 1500 v at the upper end and that is smaller, equal to, and larger than the output or inter-circuit voltage that is produced. it will be made available in such a way that its total output is larger in combination with the input voltage than the maximum semiconductor voltage of the semiconductor devices (transistors/diodes) that are used. as a result semiconductors can be used whose quality of switching performance is more efficient and of optimal cost. the switching alignment offers the further advantage that the collective, concentrated voltage output is twice as great as the inter-circuit voltage and is available without potential isolation. the voltage transformer projected by the invention can be termed a “double regenerator.” it consists of a first subsystem that displays a positive output subvoltage related to a ground potential and a second subsystem that produces a negative output subvoltage related to this ground potential. the output voltage is based on the sum of the individual output subvoltages. in order to achieve an improved standard of symmetry in the individual transformer stages, it is planned in accordance with preferable further development that the inductances developed as choking coils demonstrate a collective magnetic core. since the reference potential designated as ground potential is a statistical potential that constantly corresponds to half the input voltage and half of the output voltage, a controlling/regulating activation switch controller for the voltage transformer will preferably be placed on this potential. electrometry is generated in the preferred manner in each of the shunt branches shown for the shunt inductances by a shunt measurement or an electrical power sensor in the form of a power transformer whose individual measurements can be added to a current value, or a lack of symmetry in the currents can be discovered. with reference to this ground potential, the input voltage will be called upon for the derivative of the t on time by means of a simple differential operational amplifier, and likewise by way of a differential operational amplifier, the output voltage will be drawn upon for the derivative of the actual-value controlled variable. the semiconductor devices in the shunt branches have a control up to undefined potential with at least one switching device, as a result of which a control unit with potential-free control and 0–360° control will be used. as the reference potential is for ground potential, that is, for half the input voltage, the benefit of reduced airways and crawl spaces will be gained. in the preferred implementation form the semiconductor devices are developed as igbt or fet transistors. brief description of the drawings further details, benefits, and hallmarks of the invention are revealed not only in the claims and in the features one can derive from them—alone and/or in combination—but also in the following description of favorable implementation examples. shown in : fig. 1 one form of implementation of a double sepic transformer and fig. 2 a second form of implementation of the double sepic transformer with potential isolation. description of the preferred embodiments fig. 1 shows a model wiring diagram of a two-stage voltage transformer vt, which also can be termed a double regenerator. voltage transformer vt consists of at least two transformer stages, vt i and vt ii, each of which presents a sepic or modified topology. in addition a subvoltage u ei of the input voltage u e is attached to the first transformer stage vt i, which, with reference to common potential p (ground potential) produces a positive output subvoltage u ai at the discharge point of transformer stage vt i. moreover, a second transformer stage vt ii is planned, which, from subvoltage u eii of input voltage u e , produces a negative output voltage −u aii with reference to common potential p. thus by switching transformer stages vt i and vt ii on the output side, output voltage u a as the sum of output subvoltages u ai , and u aii is available. the first transformer stage vt i includes a shunt branch, proceeding from input terminal pue, that displays an inductance coil l ii , capacitor c 1 , as well as diode c aii . input terminal pue of the first transformer state vt i is connected to a junction of inductance coil l li as well as to the first pole of capacitor c e1 , the second pole of which is connected to common potential p. subvoltage u ei of input voltage u e is attached to capacitor c ei . junction vsi between inductance coil l li and capacitor c 1 is connected by way of semiconductor t 1 with common potential p. junction vs 2 lies between capacitor c 1 and an anode of diode d 1 by way of inductance coil l qi and current measurement device im 1 at common potential p. a cathode of diode d 1 is connected with positive output pua and a positive pole of output capacitor c ai , whose negative pole is connected with common potential p. output subvoltage u ai of output voltage u a is attached at capacitor c ai . the second transformer stage vt ii includes a horizontal branch, issuing from input terminal mue, which shows an inductance coil l lii , a capacitor c 1i , and a diode d 1i . input terminal mue of the second transformer stage vt ii is connected with a terminal of inductance coil l lii , as well as with a first pole of capacitor c eii , the second pole of which is connected to common potential p. subvoltage u eii of input voltage u e is attached to capacitor c eii . junction vs 3 between inductance coil l lii and capacitor c 1i is connected to common potential p by way of semiconductor device t ii . junction vs 4 between capacitor c 1i and a cathode of diode d 1i is located by way of inductance coil l qii and current measurement device im 1i at common potential p. an anode of diode d 1i is connected to negative output mua and a negative pole of output capacitor c aii , the positive pole of which is linked with common potential p. output subvoltage u aii of output voltage u a is attached at capacitor c aii . the voltage transformer vt for upgraded input voltages u e is primarily structured for the electronic systems business (inverters/battery load systems/ac converters) at 600–750 vdc and 1000 v ac, for example, whereas with input voltage u e , a voltage in the range of 400±u e ±1500 v is available. this holds for the contemporary state of semiconductor technology, but it can surely be applied to all other rated voltages. the topology described above leads to the conclusion that from input voltage u e , which is smaller, equal or larger than an output voltage u a or an inter-circuit voltage to be constructed, an output voltage is produced which in its totality with the input voltage u e plus a transient voltage u trans is greater than the electric strength of semiconductor devices ti, tii, di, and dii of the individual branches. in the voltage transformer vt business—for example, in a railway power network—one must deal with transient voltages in the range of u trans ≈2000 v. given the known switching topologies in the current state of technology, semiconductor devices with electrical strengths of more than 2000 v would therefore have to be used. in the case before us, an input voltage u e in the range of 450 to 1500 v and 660 v output voltage at semiconductor devices ti or tii with symmetrical activation of transformer stages vti, vtii 750 v+330 v is attached, that is, half of the total input and output voltages (1500 v+660 v)÷2=1080 v. by switching off the power level when transients begin, these can amount to a doubling of the voltage of individual switching devices when ul plus transient voltages are present. the result is that semiconductor devices can be installed which in their electrical strength are below the voltage levels produced by input voltage and transient voltage. these semiconductor devices have a quicker switching response, are smaller in size, and are less costly. given a synchronized activation (identical extent of voltage time) of semiconductors ti and tii, the shunt branch creating common potential p is bereft of power. only in the case of a synchronized inequality or, as the case may be, a time-staggered activation of shunt current flows a, a , b, b in the shunts of voltage transformer stages vti or vtii do currents flow over shunts c, d, and e. when activation is symmetrical, the shunt currents are also identical, i.e., a= a , al= al , b= b , and bl= bl . since the semiconductor switching devices, in particular semiconductor transistors like igbt or fet transistors, have varying reference potentials, activation of at least one transistor t 1 and tii by means of potential-free 0°–360° activation must occur. electrometry in the shunt inductance coils lqi, lqii is preferably accomplished by shunt resistance or by potential-free current transformers such as lem transformers (lem registered trademark). this current corresponds to current i a . input subvoltages u ei and u ei , in accordance with the topology of the invention, are 50% lower, i.e., at input voltage u e in the area of 450 to 1500 v u ei and u eii are in the area of 225 to 750 v. thus very fast and less expensive semiconductors with a maximum voltage in the area of 1200 v can be installed. furthermore, a “tangible” output voltage of, for example, u a =660 v is available at the output point, in which case, provided that common potential p, given synchronized (simultaneous/staggered) activation, is symmetrical at half the input voltage, that is to say at output voltage u a . as an alternative to the form of implementation represented in fig. 1 , a pulsating alternating voltage, as is common in 1000 v/16 ⅓ hz and 1500 v/50 hz networks in railway technology, can be used. in this case the dc-dc converter vt can be activated with a pfc control circuit, which is described as an example in de 195 05 417 a1. in the switching alignment described above it is unimportant whether the installed input voltage at hand is one with dc voltage or with ac voltage with preferably 16.3/50/60 or 400 hz sinusoid, trapezoid, or rectangle voltage. the control unit (cu) is located in potential p and for measurement of the output voltage is connected to pua and mua. for control of the t on time, input voltage pue and pum are measured. in addition junctions for current measurement i ai and i aii , are provided by the shunt voltages. fig. 2 shows an additional implementation form of the double sepic transformer with potential isolation whereby output capacitors c ai and c aii are each replaced by a primary coil t 1 . 1 or t 2 . 1 of an isolation transformer t 1 , t 2 . in addition, each secondary coil t 1 . 2 , t 2 . 2 has output subvoltage u ai or u aii attached. on the output side, secondary coils t 1 . 2 , t 2 . 2 can each be switched sequentially or in parallel form according to current or voltage needs, whereby output stages vt 1 and vtii occur symmetrically.
194-771-620-933-188	US	[ "US", "CN" ]	G01R33/07,H01L43/06,H01L43/10,H01L43/14,H10N52/00,H10N50/85,H10N52/01,G01R33/00,H01L43/04	2020-11-27T00:00:00	2020	[ "G01", "H01", "H10" ]	magnetic field sensor and methods of fabricating a magnetic field sensor	a magnetic field sensor may include a semiconductor structure having a planar surface, and first, second, and third sensing devices. the semiconductor structure may include a semiconductor member having a two-dimensional electron gas therein, and an insulator member disposed on the semiconductor member. the first sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface. the second sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a second axis parallel to the planar surface, and orthogonal to the first axis. the third sensing device may be configured to sense a magnetic field along a third axis normal to the planar surface. each of the first, second, and third sensing devices may be formed in the semiconductor structure and may include electrodes that extend from the insulator member to the two-dimensional electron gas.	1 . a magnetic field sensor comprising: a semiconductor structure having a planar surface, wherein the semiconductor structure comprises a semiconductor member having a two-dimensional electron gas layer therein, and further comprises an insulator member disposed on the semiconductor member; a first sensing device formed in the semiconductor structure, wherein the first sensing device comprises a first plurality of electrodes, and wherein the first sensing device is configured to sense a magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface; a second sensing device formed in the semiconductor structure, wherein the second sensing device comprises a second plurality of electrodes, and wherein the second sensing device is configured to sense a magnetic field along a second axis parallel to the planar surface, the second axis being orthogonal to the first axis; and a third sensing device formed in the semiconductor structure, wherein the third sensing device comprises a third plurality of electrodes, and wherein the third sensing device is configured to sense magnetic field along a third axis normal to the planar surface, wherein all electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes, extend from the insulator member to the two-dimensional electron gas layer. 2 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes, and the third plurality of electrodes are identical in height. 3 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein all electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes, and the third plurality of electrodes are identical in material composition. 4 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the first sensing device and the second sensing device is a vertical hall-effect sensor. 5 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein the semiconductor member comprises: a first layer comprising a iii-v compound; and a second layer on the first layer, the second layer comprising a further iii-v compound, wherein a junction between the first layer and the second layer comprises the two-dimensional electron gas layer. 6 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 5 , wherein the iii-v compound is gan, and wherein the further iii-v compound is algan. 7 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein the insulator member comprises: a first insulator layer; and a second insulator layer on the first insulator layer, wherein the second insulator layer is different from the first insulator layer. 8 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 7 , wherein the first insulator comprises aluminium oxide. 9 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 7 , wherein the second insulator comprises silicon dioxide. 10 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein the first plurality of electrodes are arranged in a line parallel to the second axis, and wherein the second plurality of electrodes are arranged in a line parallel to the first axis. 11 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 10 , wherein each of the first plurality of electrodes and the second plurality of electrodes comprises: two side input electrodes; two output electrodes arranged between the two side input electrodes; and a central input electrode arranged between the two output electrodes. 12 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 11 , wherein the first sensing device and the second sensing device comprise the same central input electrode. 13 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 1 , wherein the third plurality of electrodes comprises: two input electrodes, wherein an input line connects the two input electrodes; and two output electrodes, wherein an output line connects the two output electrodes, wherein the output line is orthogonal to the input line. 14 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 13 , wherein the two input electrodes are arranged equidistant from the output line, and wherein the two output electrodes are arranged equidistant from the input line. 15 . the magnetic field sensor of claim 13 , wherein the input line is 45 degrees relative to each of the first axis and the second axis. 16 . a method of fabricating a magnetic field sensor, the method comprising: forming a semiconductor structure having a planar surface, wherein the semiconductor structure comprises a semiconductor member having a two-dimensional electron gas layer therein and further comprises an insulator member disposed on the semiconductor member; forming a first sensing device in the semiconductor structure, wherein the first sensing device comprises a first plurality of electrodes, and wherein the first sensing device is configured to sense a magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface; forming a second sensing device in the semiconductor structure, wherein the second sensing device comprises a second plurality of electrodes, and wherein the second sensing device is configured to sense a magnetic field along a second axis parallel to the planar surface, the second axis being orthogonal to the first axis; and forming a third sensing device in the semiconductor structure, wherein the third sensing device comprises a third plurality of electrodes, and wherein the third sensing device is configured to sense a magnetic field along a third axis normal to the planar surface; wherein the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes, and the third plurality of electrodes extend from the insulator member to the two-dimensional electron gas layer. 17 . the method of claim 16 , wherein forming each of the first sensing device, the second sensing device, and the third sensing device comprises: forming cavities in the semiconductor structure; and depositing a conductive material into the cavities to form the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes, and the third plurality of electrodes. 18 . the method of claim 16 , wherein forming the semiconductor structure comprises: forming the semiconductor member; and forming the insulator member on the semiconductor member. 19 . the method of claim 18 , wherein forming the semiconductor member comprises: disposing a iii-v compound on a substrate; and disposing another iii-v compound on the iii-v compound. 20 . the method of claim 18 , wherein forming the insulator member comprises: disposing a first insulator material on the semiconductor member; and disposing a second insulator material on the first insulator material.	technical field various embodiments relate to magnetic field sensors and methods of fabricating a magnetic field sensor. background magnetic field sensors are widely used in various applications, including inertial measurement units, power electronics, automotive and aviation. one type of magnetic field sensor is the hall-effect sensor. a hall-effect sensor produces an output signal proportional to the magnetic field that it is measuring. hall-effect sensors are typically made of silicon due to low cost, ease of manufacturing and compatibility with integrated circuits. however, silicon-based components begin to break down at temperatures beyond 200° c. moreover, silicon-based hall-effect sensors suffer from low electron mobility and a large offset error. the output signal that a hall-effect sensor produces in the absence of magnetic field is known as the offset error. a large offset error diminishes the sensitivity of the hall-effect sensor, and renders it unsuitable to work in a low magnetic field environment. summary according to various embodiments, a magnetic field sensor may include a semiconductor structure having a planar surface. the semiconductor structure may include a semiconductor member having a two-dimensional electron gas (2deg) therein, and may further include an insulator member disposed on the semiconductor member. the magnetic field sensor may further include a first sensing device, a second sensing device and a third sensing device formed in the semiconductor structure. the first sensing device may include a first plurality of electrodes. the first sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface. the second sensing device may include a second plurality of electrodes. the second sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a second axis. the second axis may be parallel to the planar surface and may be orthogonal to the first axis. the third sensing device may include a third plurality of electrodes. the third sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a third axis normal to the planar surface. all electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes may extend from the insulator member to the 2deg. according to various embodiments, a method of fabricating a magnetic field sensor may include forming a semiconductor structure. the semiconductor structure may have a planar surface, and may include a semiconductor member and an insulator member disposed on the semiconductor member. the semiconductor member may have a 2deg. the method may further include forming a first sensing device, a second sensing device and a third sensing device in the semiconductor structure. the first sensing device may include a first plurality of electrodes. the second sensing device may include a second plurality of electrodes. the third sensing device may include a third plurality of electrodes. the first sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface. the second sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a second axis. the second axis may be parallel to the planar surface and may be orthogonal to the first axis. the third sensing device may be configured to sense magnetic field along a third axis normal to the planar surface. all electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes may extend from the insulator member to the 2deg. brief description of the drawings in the drawings, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different views. the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. in the following description, various embodiments are described with reference to the following drawings, in which: fig. 1 shows a perspective schematic view of a magnetic field sensor according to various non-limiting embodiments. fig. 2a shows a cross-sectional schematic view of the magnetic field sensor taken on the line 1 a- 1 a or the line 1 b- 1 b of fig. 1 . fig. 2b shows a cross-sectional schematic view of the magnetic field sensor taken on the line 1 c- 1 c or the line 1 d- 1 d of fig. 1 . figs. 3a to 3c show perspective schematic views of the first, second and third sensing devices of the magnetic field sensor, respectively. fig. 4 shows timing diagrams of the magnetic field sensor operating in a first operating mode, according to various non-limiting embodiments. fig. 5 shows timing diagrams of the magnetic field sensor operating in a second operating mode, according to various non-limiting embodiments. figs. 6a to 6c show perspective schematic views that illustrate a method of fabricating the magnetic field sensor, according to various non-limiting embodiments. figs. 7a, 7b and 7c show cross-sectional schematic views taken on the line 1 b- 1 b that correspond to figs. 6a, 6b and 6c , respectively. fig. 8 shows a flow diagram of a method for fabricating a magnetic field sensor according to various non-limiting embodiments. description the embodiments generally relate to magnetic field sensors. more particularly, some embodiments relate to magnetic field sensors that include hall-effect sensors. these magnetic field sensors are capable of sensing magnetic field in three-dimensions, and are also compatible with 2deg platforms. aspects of the present invention and certain features, advantages, and details thereof, are explained more fully below with reference to the non-limiting examples illustrated in the accompanying drawings. descriptions of well-known materials, fabrication tools, processing techniques, etc., are omitted so as not to unnecessarily obscure the invention in detail. it should be understood, however, that the detailed description and the specific examples, while indicating aspects of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, and are not by way of limitation. various substitutions, modifications, additions, and/or arrangements, within the spirit and/or scope of the underlying inventive concepts will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure. approximating language, as used herein throughout the specification and claims, may be applied to modify any quantitative representation that could permissibly vary without resulting in a change in the basic function to which it is related. accordingly, a value modified by a term or terms, such as “approximately”, “about,” is not limited to the precise value specified. in some instances, the approximating language may correspond to the precision of an instrument for measuring the value. further, a direction is modified by a term or terms, such as “substantially” to mean that the direction is to be applied within normal tolerances of the semiconductor industry. for example, “substantially parallel” means largely extending in the same direction within normal tolerances of the semiconductor industry and “substantially perpendicular” means at an angle of ninety degrees plus or minus a normal tolerance of the semiconductor industry. the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular examples only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. as used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. it will be further understood that the terms “comprise” (and any form of comprise, such as “comprises” and “comprising”), “have” (and any form of have, such as “has” and “having”), “include (and any form of include, such as “includes” and “including”), and “contain” (and any form of contain, such as “contains” and “containing”) are open-ended linking verbs. as a result, a method or device that “comprises,” “has,” “includes” or “contains” one or more steps or elements possesses those one or more steps or elements, but is not limited to possessing only those one or more steps or elements. likewise, a step of a method or an element of a device that “comprises,” “has,” “includes” or “contains” one or more features possesses those one or more features, but is not limited to possessing only those one or more features. furthermore, a device or structure that is configured in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed. as used herein, the terms “may” and “may be” indicate a possibility of an occurrence within a set of circumstances; a possession of a specified property, characteristic or function; and/or qualify another verb by expressing one or more of an ability, capability, or possibility associated with the qualified verb. accordingly, usage of “may” and “may be” indicates that a modified term is apparently appropriate, capable, or suitable for an indicated capacity, function, or usage, while taking into account that in some circumstances the modified term may sometimes not be appropriate, capable or suitable. for example, in some circumstances, an event or capacity can be expected, while in other circumstances the event or capacity cannot occur—this distinction is captured by the terms “may” and “may be.” fig. 1 shows a perspective schematic view of a magnetic field sensor 100 according to various non-limiting embodiments. the magnetic field sensor 100 may include a semiconductor structure 140 . the semiconductor structure 102 may have a planar surface 104 . in the following, the terms “horizontal” and “vertical” are used to denote the orientation of devices with respect to the planar surface 104 , where “horizontal” refers to an orientation that is parallel to the planar surface 104 while “vertical” refers to an orientation that is normal to the planar surface 104 . also, in the terms “in-plane” and “out-of-plane”, “plane” refers to the planar surface 104 or a plane that is parallel to the planar surface 104 . the x-axis 170 and the y-axis 172 are in-plane, while the z-axis 174 is out-of-plane. the x-axis 170 , the y-axis 172 and the z-axis 174 are orthogonal to one another. the magnetic field sensor 100 may further include a substrate 102 . the substrate 102 may be provided under the semiconductor structure 140 and may support the semiconductor structure 140 . the semiconductor structure 140 may include a semiconductor member 150 and an insulator member 160 . the semiconductor member 150 may include a first layer 152 and a second layer 154 . the first layer 152 may be arranged on the substrate 102 . the second layer 154 may be arranged on the first layer 152 . the first layer 152 may include a first iii-v compound while the second layer 154 may include a second iii-v compound. each of the first iii-v compound and the second iii-v compound may include a iii-nitride compound, for example, gallium nitride (gan). for example, the first layer 152 may include gan. for example, the second layer 154 may include algan. the first and second layers 152 , 154 may have different bandgaps such that a 2deg layer 106 is formed at a junction of the first and second layers 152 , 154 . the electron gas of the 2deg layer 106 includes electrons that are at least substantially confined to movement in two dimensions only, but is tightly confined in the third dimension. the insulator member 160 may be arranged on the semiconductor member 150 . the insulator member 160 may include a first insulator layer 162 and a second insulator layer 164 . the second insulator layer 164 may be arranged on the first insulator layer 162 . the first insulator layer may include an oxide, for example aluminum oxide. the second insulator layer 164 may also include an oxide, for example, silicon dioxide. the magnetic field sensor 100 may further include a first sensing device 110 , a second sensing device 120 and a third sensing device 130 (not labelled in fig. 1 for clarity of the figure). the first, second and third second sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 will be described further with respect to figs. 2a, 2b, 3a to 3c, 4 and 5 . according to various non-limiting embodiments, the semiconductor structure 140 may further include a transistor, such as a high electron mobility transistor (hemt). the first layer 152 may be a buffer layer of the transistor. the second layer 154 may be a barrier layer of the transistor. the insulator member 160 may include the dielectric layer of the transistor. the channel of the transistor may be part of the 2deg layer 106 . fig. 2a shows a cross-sectional schematic view of the magnetic field sensor 100 taken on the line 1 a- 1 a or the line 1 b- 1 b of fig. 1 . the cross-sectional view taken on the line 1 a- 1 a shows a cross-section of the first sensing device 110 while the cross-sectional view taken on the line 1 b- 1 b shows a cross-section of the second sensing device 120 . the line 1 b- 1 b is parallel to the x-axis 170 while the line 1 a- 1 a is parallel to the y-axis 172 . the cross-sectional views taken on the line 1 a- 1 a and the line 1 b- 1 b may be at least substantially similar, or identical. in other words, the first sensing device 110 and the second sensing device 120 may be at least substantially similar, but may be oriented perpendicularly to one another. as such, the description of the first sensing device 110 also applies to the second sensing device 120 . both the first sensing device 110 and the second sensing device 120 may be formed in the semiconductor structure 140 and may each include a respective vertical hall-effect device. the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 may be configured to detect magnetic field components parallel to the planar surface 104 . the first sensing device 110 may include a first plurality of electrodes. the first plurality of electrodes may include side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′, output electrodes 206 , 206 ′, and a central input electrode 202 . the first plurality of electrodes may be arranged along the line 1 a- 1 a. the output electrodes 206 , 206 ′ may be arranged between the side input electrode 204 and the other side input electrode 204 ′. the central input electrode 202 may be arranged between the output electrode 206 and the other output electrode 206 ′. each electrode of the first plurality of electrodes may extend from the insulator member 160 to within the semiconductor member 150 . in particular, the first plurality of electrodes may extend from the second insulator layer 164 to the 2deg layer 106 , or even to the first layer 152 . when the first sensing device 110 is in operation, voltages are applied to the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ such that a potential difference is formed between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrode 204 , as well as between the central input electrode 202 and the other side input electrode 204 ′. the voltages applied to the two side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ may be identical such that the potential difference between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrode 204 is at least substantially equal to the potential difference between the central input electrode 202 and the other side input electrode 204 ′. an electrical current 220 flows between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrode 204 and an electrical current 220 ′ flows between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrode 204 , as a result of the respective potential differences. the electrical current 220 may be at least substantially identical in magnitude as the electrical current 220 ′, but these two electrical currents may be opposite in directions. when there are magnetic field components 224 along the x-axis 170 , forces 222 and 224 are generated. these forces 222 , 224 deflect electrons or charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 , thereby generating changes in voltage at the output electrodes 206 , 206 ′ of the first sensing device 110 . the voltage, i.e. potential difference, between the output electrodes 206 , 206 ′ of the first sensing device 110 may be indicative of the magnetic field strength along the x-axis 170 . the voltage between the output electrodes 206 , 206 ′ of the first sensing device 110 may be proportional to the magnetic field strength along the x-axis 170 . the second sensing device 120 may also include a second plurality of electrodes. similar to the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes may also include side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′, output electrodes 216 , 216 ′, and a central input electrode 202 . the second plurality of electrodes may be arranged along the line 1 b- 1 b. the second sensing device 120 may share a common central input electrode 202 with the first sensing device 110 . in other words, the same central input electrode 202 may be used to provide an input voltage to both the first sensing device 110 and the second sensing device 120 . the first plurality of electrodes may intersect the second plurality of electrodes, at the central input electrode 202 . in alternative embodiments, the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 may have separate central input electrodes 202 . like the first sensing device 110 , when the second sensing device 120 is in operation, voltages are applied to the side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′ and the central input electrode 202 . when there are magnetic field components 224 along the y-axis 172 , forces 222 and 224 are generated. these forces 222 , 224 deflect electrons or charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 , thereby generating changes in voltage at the output electrodes 216 , 216 ′ of the second sensing device 120 . the voltage between the output electrodes 216 , 216 ′ of the second sensing device 120 may be indicative of the magnetic field strength along the y-axis 172 . the voltage between the output electrodes 216 , 216 ′ of the second sensing device 120 may be proportional to the magnetic field strength along the y-axis 172 . fig. 2b shows a cross-sectional schematic view of the magnetic field sensor 100 taken on the line 1 c- 1 c or the line 1 d- 1 d of fig. 1 . the line 1 d- 1 d is perpendicular to the line 1 c- 1 c and intersects the line 1 c- 1 c. the cross-sectional view taken on the line 1 c- 1 c shows a cross-section of a first half of the third sensing device 130 while the cross-sectional view taken on the line 1 d- 1 d shows a cross-section of a second half of the third sensing device 130 . the cross-sectional views taken on the line 1 c- 1 c and the line 1 d- 1 d may be at least substantially similar, or identical. in other words, the first half of the third sensing device 130 and the second half of the third sensing device 130 may be at least substantially similar, but may be oriented perpendicularly to one another. the line 1 c- 1 c may be 45 degrees relative to each of the x-axis 170 and the y-axis 172 . the line 1 c- 1 c may intersect the first plurality of electrodes, as well as the second plurality of electrodes. the line 1 c- 1 c may also bisect the first plurality of electrodes, as well as the second plurality of electrodes, such that the central input electrode 202 is visible in the cross-sectional views taken on the lines 1 c- 1 c or 1 d- 1 d. the arrangement of the first half and the second half of the third sensing device 130 may be interchangeable. the third sensing device 130 may be configured to detect magnetic field components that are orthogonal, i.e. normal, to the planar surface 104 . the third sensing device 130 may include a third plurality of electrodes. the third plurality of electrodes may include a pair of input electrodes 208 , 208 ′ arranged along the line 1 c- 1 c and a pair of output electrodes 210 , 210 ′ arranged along the line 1 d- 1 d. an imaginary input line may connect the input electrode 208 to the input electrode 208 ′ while an imaginary output line may connect the output electrode 210 to the output electrode 210 ′. the input line may be orthogonal to the output line. the output line may intersect the input line. the input electrodes 208 and 208 ′ may be arranged equidistant from the second direction, while the output electrodes 210 and 210 ′ may be arranged equidistant from the first direction. the input electrodes 208 , 208 ′ may be arranged on opposite sides of the central input electrode 202 . similarly, the output electrodes 210 , 210 ′ may be arranged on opposite sides of the central input electrode 202 . like the first and second plurality of electrodes, each electrode of the third plurality of electrodes may extend from the insulator member 160 to within the semiconductor member 150 . in particular, the third plurality of electrodes may extend from the second insulator layer 164 to the 2deg layer 106 , or even to the first layer 152 . when the third sensing device 130 is in operation, a potential difference is applied between the input electrodes 208 , 208 ′. an electrical current 230 flows from the input electrode 208 to the other input electrode 208 ′, as a result of the potential difference. when there are magnetic field components 234 along the z-axis 174 , force 232 is generated. the force 232 deflect electrons or charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 , thereby generating changes in voltage at the output electrodes 210 , 210 ′. the voltage between the output electrodes 210 , 210 ′ may be indicative of the magnetic field strength along the z-axis 174 . the voltage between the output electrodes 210 , 210 ′ may be proportional to the magnetic field strength along the z-axis 174 . figs. 3a to 3c show perspective schematic views of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 and 130 of the magnetic field sensor 100 , respectively. some reference numerals are omitted in these figures for clarity. referring to fig. 3a , when the first sensing device 110 is in operation, a voltage v c1 may be applied to the central input electrode 202 and a voltage v a1 may be applied to each of the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′. the input voltage, v in1 may be the potential difference across the central input electrode 202 and each of the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′. in other words, v in1 =v a1 −v c1 . as described with respect to fig. 2a , the input voltage causes electrical currents to run between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ in two opposite directions. alternatively, instead of an input voltage, input electrical currents may be provided to the first sensing device 110 . the input currents may be injected, or forced into the first sensing device 110 , through the central input electrode 202 or the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′. the interaction between the electrical currents and an in-plane magnetic field in the x-axis 170 produces a magnetic force in the semiconductor structure 140 that acts on the charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 . consequently, electrical current flows between the output electrodes 206 , 206 ′ and voltages v b1 and v d1 are measured at the output electrodes 206 and 206 ′ respectively. the output voltage of the first sensing device 110 , also referred herein as the hall voltage, vh 1 , may be the potential difference between the output electrodes 206 and 206 ′ of the first sensing device 110 . in other words, v h1 =v b1 −v d1 . referring to fig. 3b , the second sensing device 120 may operate similarly to the first sensing device 110 . a voltage v a2 may be applied to the central input electrode 202 and a second input voltage v a t may be applied to each of the side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′ such that the potential difference v in2 across the central input electrode 202 and each of the side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′ is v a2 −v c2 . the input voltage causes electrical currents to run between the central input electrode 202 and the side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′ in two opposite directions. alternatively, instead of an input voltage, input electrical currents may be injected, or forced into the second sensing device 120 , through the central input electrode 202 or the side input electrodes 214 , 214 ′. the interaction between the electrical currents and an in-plane magnetic field in the y-axis 172 produces a magnetic force in the semiconductor structure 140 that acts on the charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 . as a result, a current is induced between the output electrodes 216 , 216 ′ and voltages v b2 and v d2 are measured at the output electrodes 216 and 216 ′ respectively. the hall voltage, v h2 , of the second sensing device 120 may be the potential difference between the output electrodes 216 and 216 ′. in other words, v h2 =v b2 −v d2 . referring to fig. 3c , when the third sensing device 130 is in operation, a voltage v a3 may be applied to the input electrode 208 and a voltage v c3 may be applied to the other input electrode 208 ′. the input voltage of the third sensing device 130 , v in3 may be the potential difference across the input electrodes 208 , 208 ′. in other words, v in3 =v a3 −v c3 . as described with respect to fig. 2b , the input voltage causes an electrical current to run between the input electrodes 208 , 208 ′. alternatively, instead of applying the input voltage, the electrical current may be injected, or forced into the third sensing device 110 , through one of the input electrodes 208 , 208 ′. the interaction between the electrical current and an out-of-plane magnetic field in the z-axis 174 produces a magnetic force in the semiconductor structure 140 that acts on the charge carriers in the 2deg layer 106 . consequently, electrical current flows between the output electrodes 210 , 210 ′ and voltages v b3 and v a3 are measured at the output electrodes 210 ′ and 210 , respectively. the hall voltage of the third sensing device 130 , v h3 , may be the potential difference between the output electrodes 210 and 210 ′. in other words, v h3 =v b3 −v d3 . the magnetic field sensor 100 may be superior in performance, as compared to a silicon-based hall-effect sensor. for example, the electron mobility of the magnetic field sensor 100 at room temperature may be in a range of about 1500 to about 2000 cm 2 /v·s, while the electron mobility of a silicon-based hall-effect sensor is typically about 1200 cm 2 /v·s. the high electron mobility of the magnetic field sensor 100 may allow it to achieve high sensitivity and a low offset error. in addition, the magnetic field sensor 100 may be thermally stable up to about 800° c. further, the magnetic field sensor 100 is compatible with existing gan or 2deg fabrication processes and as such, incurs a low marginal fabrication cost when it is fabricated together with other gan or 2deg devices. fig. 4 shows timing diagrams of the magnetic field sensor 100 operating in a first operating mode, according to various non-limiting embodiments. fig. 4 includes a timing diagram 402 of the reference clock, a timing diagram 404 of the first sensing device 110 , a timing diagram 406 of the second sensing device 120 , and a timing diagram 408 of the third sensing device 130 . in the first operating mode, the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 may operate concurrently. as shown in the timing diagrams 404 and 406 , the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 may switch on and off at the same time. in other words, their operation cycles may coincide. during the on duration of the sensing devices, input voltage v in1 may be applied across the central input electrode 202 and each of the side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ of the first sensing device 110 , and input voltage and v in2 may be applied across the central input electrode 202 and each of the side input electrodes 214 , 214 of the second sensing device 120 . v in1 and v in2 may be at least substantially identical in magnitude. the third sensing device 130 may operate at the same frequency as the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 . the operating cycle of the third sensing device 130 may be offset from the duty cycles of the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 . in other words, the third sensing device 130 may switch on operate when the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 are off. in other words, the third sensing device 130 may operate alternately with each of the first and second sensing devices 110 , 120 . each of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may operate at the same frequency as the reference clock. each of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may operate at 50% duty cycle. fig. 5 shows timing diagrams of the magnetic field sensor 100 operating in a second operating mode, according to various non-limiting embodiments. fig. 5 includes a timing diagram 502 of the reference clock, a timing diagram 504 of the first sensing device 110 , a timing diagram 506 of the second sensing device 120 , and a timing diagram 508 of the third sensing device 130 . the second operating mode may differ from the first operating mode, in that operations of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may be offset relative to one another. in other words, at any one time, only one sensing device may be operating. the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may operate sequentially instead of concurrently. the duty cycle of each of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may be one-third. figs. 6a to 6c show perspective schematic views that illustrate a method of fabricating the magnetic field sensor 100 , according to various non-limiting embodiments. figs. 7a, 7b and 7c show cross-sectional schematic views taken on the line 1 b- 1 b that correspond to figs. 6a, 6b and 6c , respectively. referring to figs. 6a and 7a , the method may include a process 600 a. the process 600 a may include forming the semiconductor member 150 . the process 600 a may include disposing a first iii-v compound on a substrate 102 to form a first layer 152 . the process 600 a may further include disposing a second iii-v compound over the first layer 152 to form a second layer 154 . the first and second iii-v compounds may have dissimilar band gaps, such that they form a heterojunction between the first and second layers 152 , 154 . electrons may accumulate at the interface between the first layer 152 and the second layer 154 , thereby forming the 2deg layer 106 . referring to figs. 6b and 7b , the method may include a process 600 b. the process 600 b may include forming the insulator member 160 on the semiconductor member 150 . the process 600 b may include disposing a first insulator material on the semiconductor member 150 to form a first insulator layer 162 . the process 600 b may further include disposing a second insulator material on the first insulator layer 162 to form a second insulator layer 164 . the resulting device may be referred herein as the semiconductor structure 140 . referring to fig. 6c and 7c , the method may include a process 600 c. the process 600 c may include forming the first sensing device 110 , the second sensing device 120 and the third sensing device 130 in the semiconductor structure 140 . the process 600 c may include forming the first plurality of electrodes which includes a central input electrode 202 , two side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ and two output electrodes 206 , 206 ′. the process 600 c may further include forming the second plurality of electrodes, which like the first plurality of electrodes, also includes a central input electrode 202 , two side input electrodes 204 , 204 ′ and two output electrodes 206 , 206 ′. the process 600 c may further include forming the third plurality of electrodes which includes two input electrodes 208 , 208 and two output electrodes 210 , 210 ′. in other words, the process 600 c may include forming all the electrodes of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 . the process 600 c may include forming cavities in the semiconductor structure 140 , for example, by etching. the cavities may be formed through the insulator member 160 and the second layer 154 , to reach the first layer 152 . the process 600 c may include depositing a conductive material into the cavities, to form the electrodes. all the cavities formed in the semiconductor structure 140 may have the same depth and therefore, all of the electrodes of the first, second and third sensing devices 110 , 120 , 130 may be at least substantially identical in height. also, as all the electrodes may be formed from the same deposited conductive material, all of the electrodes may be identical in material composition. in alternative embodiments, the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes may not have the same height. in alternative embodiments, the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes may have different material compositions. following the process 600 c, conventional back end of line (beol) processes may be carried out to form interconnects, for example between the magnetic field sensor and other devices. fig. 8 shows a flow diagram 800 of a method for fabricating a magnetic field sensor 100 , according to various non-limiting embodiments. the method may include forming a semiconductor structure 140 in 802 . 802 may include the processes 600 a and 600 b described with respect to figs. 6a, 6b, 7a and 7b . the semiconductor structure 140 may have a planar surface 104 . the semiconductor structure 140 may include a semiconductor member 150 having a 2deg 106 layer. the semiconductor structure 140 may include an insulator member 160 and a semiconductor member 150 under the insulator member 160 . the method may further include forming a first sensing device 110 in the semiconductor structure 140 in 804 . the first sensing device 110 may include a first plurality of electrodes and may be configured to sense magnetic field along a first axis parallel to the planar surface 104 . the method may further include forming a second sensing device 120 in the semiconductor structure 140 , in 806 . the second sensing device 120 may include a second plurality of electrodes and may be configured to sense magnetic field along a second axis parallel to the planar surface 104 . the second axis may be perpendicular to the first axis. the method may further include forming a third sensing device 130 in the semiconductor structure 140 , in 708 . the third sensing device 130 may include a third plurality of electrodes and may be configured to sense magnetic field along a third axis. the third axis may be normal to the planar surface 104 . all electrodes of the first plurality of electrodes, the second plurality of electrodes and the third plurality of electrodes may extend from the insulator member 160 to the 2deg layer 106 . each of 804 , 806 , and 808 may be part of the process 600 c described with respect to figs. 6c and 7c . each of the first sensing device 110 , the second sensing device 120 , and the third sensing device 130 may be patterned and etched simultaneously. the invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. the foregoing embodiments, therefore, are to be considered in all respects illustrative rather than limiting the invention described herein. scope of the invention is thus indicated by the appended claims, rather than by the foregoing description, and all changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are intended to be embraced therein.
194-968-542-176-407	KR	[ "WO", "CN", "US" ]	G06F17/30,G06F17/28,G06N20/00,G06F16/33,G06F40/30,G06N3/00	2015-11-24T00:00:00	2015	[ "G06" ]	electronic device and operating method thereof	a method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may include: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; transmitting a query including the keyword; and performing an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword.	1 . a method of operating an electronic device comprising: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; transmitting a query comprising the keyword to an external device; and performing an operation corresponding to the analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. 2 . the method of claim 1 , further comprising acquiring receiver information on a receiver that performs a keyword analysis, wherein the transmitting of the query includes transmitting the query comprising the keyword and the receiver information, and the keyword analysis is performed by an electronic device corresponding to the receiver information. 3 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the acquiring of the keyword comprises: performing natural language processing on each of the plurality of text messages; and generating the keyword using a natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages. 4 . the method of claim 3 , wherein the generating of the keyword using the natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages comprises: comparing a preset template with the natural language processing result; and generating the keyword based on a comparison result. 5 . the method of claim 3 , wherein the generating of the keyword using the natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages comprises: applying one of a machine learning or deep learning algorithm to the natural language processing result; determining an intent of each of the plurality of text messages based on a result of applying one of the machine learning or deep learning algorithm; and generating the keyword based on the intent of each of the plurality of text messages. 6 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the acquiring of the plurality of text messages comprises: acquiring a plurality of first text messages in a first period; and acquiring a plurality of second text messages in a second period. 7 . the method of claim 6 , wherein the acquiring of the keyword comprises: generating a first keyword corresponding to the plurality of first text messages; and generating a second keyword corresponding to the plurality of second text messages. 8 . the method of claim 7 , wherein the generating of the second keyword includes generating the second keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of second text messages and at least one of the first keyword and the plurality of first text messages. 9 . the method of claim 1 , further comprising acquiring additional information, wherein the acquiring of the keyword includes generating the keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages and the additional information. 10 . the method of claim 9 , wherein the acquiring of the additional information includes acquiring additional information associated with the analysis result of the plurality of text messages or acquiring independent additional information from the plurality of text messages. 11 . the method of claim 1 , wherein the acquiring of the plurality of text messages comprises: acquiring a plurality of user voices; and acquiring the plurality of text messages by converting the plurality of user voices into text. 12 . an electronic device comprising: a communication module comprising communication circuitry; a processor comprising processing circuitry that is electrically connected to the communication circuitry of the communication module; and a memory that is electrically connected to the processor, wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which, when executed by processing circuitry of the processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising, acquiring a plurality of text messages, acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages, transmitting a query comprising the keyword to an external device using the communication circuitry of the communication module, and performing an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. 13 . the electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which, when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the processor to perform further operations comprising, acquiring receiver information on a receiver that performs a keyword analysis and transmitting the query comprising the keyword and the receiver information using the communication circuitry of the communication module, and an electronic device corresponding to the receiver information is configured to perform the keyword analysis. 14 . the electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which, when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the processor perform further operations comprising, performing natural language processing on each of the plurality of text messages and generating the keyword using a natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages. 15 . the electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the processor to perform further operations comprising, comparing a preset template with the natural language processing result and generating the keyword based on a comparison result. 16 . the electronic device of claim 14 , wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the processor to perform further operations comprising, applying a machine learning or deep learning algorithm to the natural language processing result to determine intent of each of the plurality of text messages based on a result of applying the machine learning or deep learning algorithm, and generating the keyword based on the intent of each of the plurality of text messages. 17 . the electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the memory stores an instruction for the processor, which when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the processor to perform further operations comprising, acquiring a plurality of first text messages in a first period and acquiring a plurality of second text messages in a second period. 18 . a method of operating an electronic device comprising: displaying, on a display, an execution screen of a chat application running on the electronic device; displaying, on the execution screen, a plurality of text messages received from another electronic device through communication circuitry of a communication unit and a plurality of text messages input through input circuitry of an input unit of the electronic device; determining an external device that is capable of providing information based on at least one of the plurality of text messages displayed on the execution screen; receiving information from the determined external device; and displaying the received information on the display. 19 . the method of claim 18 , wherein the plurality of text messages displayed on the execution screen and the received information are chronologically arranged and displayed on the execution screen. 20 . the method of claim 18 , wherein a user interface (ui) capable of receiving an input is displayed on the execution screen.	cross-reference to related application this application is based on and claims priority under 35 u.s.c. §119 to korean application serial nos. 10-2015-0165070 and 10-2016-0107179, which were filed in the korean intellectual property office on nov. 24, 2015 and aug. 23, 2016, respectively, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. technical field the present disclosure relates generally to an electronic device and an operating method thereof, and for example, to an electronic device that processes an acquired text and an operating method thereof. background recently, programs or algorithms that are capable of analyzing a voice uttered by a user or a text input by a user to capture user intent have been actively developed. for example, conventional programs or algorithms are capable of converting an input user voice into text and performing natural language processing on the text. natural language processing may be an artificial intelligence technology that covers the understanding, generation, and analysis of human language and may be used to understand the role of each component in a text. in addition, a separate user intent analysis algorithm analyzes a natural language processing result to analyze natural language included in a text. a conventional electronic device may analyze, for example, a text separated by one sentence, may identify user intent, and may perform an operation corresponding to the identified user intent. however, the conventional electronic device is capable of analyzing user intent only when a text separated by one sentence includes a clear referent, and thus has difficulty in identifying accurate user intent. summary the present disclosure is provided to address the foregoing problem or other problems, and various example embodiments of the present disclosure may provide an electronic device and an operation method thereof that are capable of analyzing a plurality of texts to more clearly capture user intent and to perform a corresponding operation. a method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may include: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; transmitting a query including the keyword to an external device; and performing an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may include: a communication module comprising communication circuitry; a processor comprising processing circuitry that is electrically connected to the communication module; and a memory that is electronically connected to the processor, wherein the memory may store instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing circuitry of the processor to acquire a plurality of text messages, to acquire a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages, to transmit a query including the keyword to an external device using the communication circuitry of the communication module, and to perform an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. a method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may include: displaying, on a display, an execution screen of a chat application running in the electronic device; displaying, on the execution screen, a plurality of text messages received from another electronic device through communication circuitry of a communication unit and a plurality of text messages input through input circuitry of an input unit of the electronic device; determining an external device that is capable of providing information based on at least one of the plurality of text messages displayed on the execution screen; receiving information from the determined external device; and displaying the received information on the display. the plurality of text messages displayed on the execution screen and the received information may be chronologically arranged and displayed on the execution screen. a user interface (ui) element that is capable of receiving an input (e.g., a user input) may be displayed on the execution screen. according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure, there may be provided an electronic device and an operation method thereof that are capable of analyzing a plurality of texts to more clearly capture the intent of a user or a plurality of users and to perform a corresponding operation. accordingly, when a plurality of texts occurs in a conversation between a plurality of users, the intents of the plurality of users may be more clearly identified. further, when a single user utters or inputs a plurality of texts at intervals, the intent of the user may also be more clearly identified. brief description of the drawings the above and other aspects, features, and advantages of the present disclosure will be more apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals refer to like elements, and wherein: fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example electronic device and a network according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments; fig. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example program module according to various example embodiments; fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 5a and fig. 5b are diagrams illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 6 is a diagram illustrating example acquisition of a text message according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 7a and fig. 7b are flowcharts illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 8a is a diagram illustrating example natural language analysis by an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 8b is a diagram illustrating an example template according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 8c is a diagram illustrating an example result of applying a machine learning or deep learning algorithm to a pattern by user intent according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 10a is a diagram illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 10b is a diagram illustrating example generation of a keyword according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 10c is a diagram illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 10d is a diagram illustrating an example process of generating a keyword according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 12a and fig. 12b are flowcharts illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example receiver server according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 15 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 16a, 16b and fig. 16c are flowcharts illustrating example generation of a keyword further using additional information according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 17a, 17b, 17c and fig. 17d are diagrams illustrating example generation of a keyword further using additional information according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example operation of an electronic device in an internet of things (iot) environment according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 20 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 21a and fig. 21b are diagrams illustrating an example process of processing a user voice from a single user according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 23 is a diagram illustrating an example operation of an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; fig. 24 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure; and fig. 25a, 25b and fig. 25c are diagrams illustrating an example case in which an electronic device invokes an indoor iot device and communicates therewith according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. detailed description hereinafter, various example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. however, it should be understood that there is no intent to limit the present disclosure to the particular forms disclosed herein; rather, the present disclosure should be understood to cover various modifications, equivalents, and/or alternatives of the various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in describing the drawings, similar reference numerals may be used to designate similar constituent elements. as used herein, the expression “have”, “may have”, “include”, or “may include” refers to the existence of a corresponding feature (e.g., numeral, function, operation, or constituent element such as component), and does not exclude the existence of one or more additional features. in the present disclosure, the expression “a or b”, “at least one of a or/and b”, or “one or more of a or/and b” may include all possible combinations of the items listed. for example, the expression “a or b”, “at least one of a and b”, or “at least one of a or b” refers to all of (1) including at least one a, (2) including at least one b, or (3) including all of at least one a and at least one b. the expression “a first”, “a second”, “the first”, or “the second” used in various example embodiments of the present disclosure may modify various components regardless of the order and/or the importance but does not limit the corresponding components. for example, a first user device and a second user device indicate different user devices although both of them are user devices. for example, a first element may be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element may be termed a first element without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. it should be understood that when an element (e.g., first element) is referred to as being (operatively or communicatively) “connected,” or “coupled,” to another element (e.g., second element), it may be directly connected or coupled directly to the other element or any other element (e.g., third element) may be interposer between them. on the other hand, it may be understood that when an element (e.g., first element) is referred to as being “directly connected,” or “directly coupled” to another element (second element), there are no element (e.g., third element) interposed between them. the expression “configured to” used in the present disclosure may be exchanged with, for example, “suitable for”, “having the capacity to”, “designed to”, “adapted to”, “made to”, or “capable of according to the situation. the term “configured to” may not necessarily imply “specifically designed to” in hardware. in some situations, the expression “device configured to” may refer, for example, to a situation in which the device, together with other devices or components, “is able to”. for example, the phrase “processor adapted (or configured) to perform a, b, and c” may refer, for example, to various processing circuitry, including, such as, for example, and without limitation, a dedicated processor (e.g., embedded processor) only for performing the corresponding operations or a generic-purpose processor (e.g., central processing unit (cpu) or application processor (ap)) that can perform the corresponding operations by executing one or more software programs stored in a memory device. the terms used herein are merely for the purpose of describing various example embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of other example embodiments. as used herein, singular forms may include plural forms as well unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. unless defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical and scientific terms, have the same meaning as those commonly understood by a person skilled in the art to which the present disclosure pertains. such terms as those defined in a generally used dictionary may be interpreted to have the meanings equal to the contextual meanings in the relevant field of art, and are not to be interpreted to have ideal or excessively formal meanings unless clearly defined in the present disclosure. in some cases, even where the term is defined in the present disclosure should not be interpreted to exclude embodiments of the present disclosure. an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may include at least one of, for example, a smart phone, a tablet personal computer (pc), a mobile phone, a video phone, an electronic book reader (e-book reader), a desktop pc, a laptop pc, a netbook computer, a workstation, a server, a personal digital assistant (pda), a portable multimedia player (pmp), a mpeg-1 audio layer-3 (mp3) player, a mobile medical device, a camera, and a wearable device, or the like, but is not limited thereto. according to various example embodiments, the wearable device may include at least one of an accessory type (e.g., a watch, a ring, a bracelet, an anklet, a necklace, a glasses, a contact lens, or a head-mounted device (hmd)), a fabric or clothing integrated type (e.g., an electronic clothing), a body-mounted type (e.g., a skin pad, or tattoo), and a bio-implantable type (e.g., an implantable circuit), or the like, but is not limited thereto. in addition, the electronic device may wirelessly receive power from a wireless power transmitter and thus may be called wireless power receiver. according to some example embodiments, the electronic device may be a home appliance. the home appliance may include at least one of, for example, a television, a digital video disk (dvd) player, an audio, a refrigerator, an air conditioner, a vacuum cleaner, an oven, a microwave oven, a washing machine, an air cleaner, a set-top box, a home automation control panel, a security control panel, a tv box (e.g., samsung homesync™, apple tv™, or google tv™), a game console (e.g., xbox™ and playstation™), an electronic dictionary, an electronic key, a camcorder, and an electronic photo frame, or the like, but is not limited thereto. according to another example embodiment, the electronic device may include at least one of various medical devices (e.g., various portable medical measuring devices (a blood glucose monitoring device, a heart rate monitoring device, a blood pressure measuring device, a body temperature measuring device, etc.), a magnetic resonance angiography (mra), a magnetic resonance imaging (mri), a computed tomography (ct) machine, and an ultrasonic machine), a navigation device, a global positioning system (gps) receiver, an event data recorder (edr), a flight data recorder (fdr), a vehicle infotainment devices, an electronic devices for a ship (e.g., a navigation device for a ship, and a gyro-compass), avionics, security devices, an automotive head unit, a robot for home or industry, an automatic teller's machine (atm) in banks, point of sales (pos) in a shop, or internet device of things (e.g., a light bulb, various sensors, electric or gas meter, a sprinkler device, a fire alarm, a thermostat, a streetlamp, a toaster, a sporting goods, a hot water tank, a heater, a boiler, etc.), or the like, but is not limited thereto. according to some example embodiments, the electronic device may include at least one of a part of furniture or a building/structure, an electronic board, an electronic signature receiving device, a projector, and various kinds of measuring instruments (e.g., a water meter, an electric meter, a gas meter, and a radio wave meter), or the like, but is not limited thereto. in various example embodiments, the electronic device may be a combination of one or more of the aforementioned various devices. according to some example embodiments, the electronic device may also be a flexible device. further, the electronic device according to an example embodiment of the present disclosure is not limited to the aforementioned devices, and may include a new electronic device according to the development of technology. hereinafter, an electronic device according to various example embodiments will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. in the present disclosure, the term “user” may indicate a person using an electronic device or a device (e.g., an artificial intelligence electronic device) using an electronic device. an electronic device 101 in a network environment 100 according to various example embodiments is described with reference to fig. 1 . the electronic device 101 may include a bus 110 , a processor (e.g., including processing circuitry) 120 , a memory 130 , an input/output interface (e.g., including input/output circuitry) 150 , a display 160 , and a communication module (e.g., including communication circuitry) 170 . in some example embodiments, at least one of the components may be omitted or an additional component may be further included in the electronic device 101 . the bus 110 may include, for example, a circuit that connects the components 110 to 170 to each other and delivers communications (for example, control messages and/or data) between the components. the processor 120 may include various processing circuitry, such as, for example, and without limitation, one or more of a central processing unit (cpu), an application processor (ap), and a communication processor (cp). the processor 120 may control, for example, at least one different component of the electronic device 101 and/or may perform an operation relating to communication or data processing. the memory 130 may include a volatile and/or nonvolatile memory. the memory 130 may store, for example, a command or data related to at least one different component of the electronic device 101 . according to an example embodiment, the memory 130 may store software and/or a program 140 . the program 140 may include, for example, a kernel 141 , middleware 143 , an application programming interface (api) 145 , and/or an application program (or “application”) 147 . at least part of the kernel 141 , the middleware 143 , and the api 145 may be designated as an operating system (os). the kernel 141 may control or manage system resources (for example, the bus 110 , the processor 120 , the memory 130 , or the like) used to perform an operation or function implemented in other programs (for example, the middleware 143 , the api 145 , or the application program 147 ). further, the kernel 141 may provide an interface that allows the middleware 143 , the api 145 , or the application program 147 to access an individual component of the electronic device 101 to thereby control or manage the system resources. the middleware 143 may serve as a relay so that, for example, the api 145 or the application program 147 communicates with the kernel 141 to exchange data. further, the middleware 143 may process one or more requests for operations received from the application program 147 according to priority. for example, the middleware 143 may assign at least one application program 147 a priority for using a system resource (for example, the bus 110 , the processor 120 , the memory 130 , or the like) of the electronic device 101 . the middleware 143 may process the one or more requests for operations according to the priority assigned to the at least one application program, thereby performing scheduling or load balancing for the one or more requests for operations. the api 145 is, for example, an interface for the application 147 to control a function provided from the kernel 141 or the middleware 143 and may include, for example, at least one interface or function (for example, a command) for file control, window control, image processing, or text control. the input/output interface 150 may include various input/output circuitry configured to serve as an interface that delivers a command or data, which is input from, for example, a user or different external device, to a different component(s) of the electronic device 101 . further, the input/output interface 150 may output a command or data, which is received from a different component(s) of the electronic device 101 , to the user or different external device. the display 160 may include, for example, a liquid crystal display (lcd), a light emitting diode (led) display, an organic light emitting diode (oled) display, a microelectromechanical systems (mems) display, and an electronic paper display, or the like, but is not limited thereto. the display 160 may display, for example, various types of content (for example, a text, an image, a video, an icon, a symbol, or the like) for the user. the display 160 may include a touch screen and may receive touch, gesture, proximity, or hovering inputs using, for example, an electronic pen or a user body part. the communication module 170 may include various communication circuitry configured to establish communication, for example, between the electronic device 101 and an external device (for example, a first external electronic device 102 , a second external electronic device 104 , or a server 106 ). for example, the communication module 170 may be connected to a network 162 via wireless communication or wire-based communication to communicate with the external device (for example, the second external electronic device 104 or the server 106 ). the wireless communication may use, for example, a cellular communication protocol, which may be ,for example, at least one of long-term evolution (lte), lte-advanced (lte-a), code division multiple access (cdma), wideband cdma (wcdma), universal mobile telecommunications system (umts), wireless broadband (wibro), and global system for mobile communications (gsm). further, the wireless communication may include, for example, short-range communication 164 . the short-range communication 164 may include, for example, at least one of wireless fidelity (wi-fi), bluetooth, near field communication (nfc), and global navigation satellite system (gnss). the gnss may include, for example, at least one of a global positioning system (gps), a global navigation satellite system (glonass), a beidou navigation satellite system (hereinafter, “beidou”), and galileo, which is the european global satellite-based navigation system, depending on a use area or bandwidth. in the present disclosure, “gps” may be interchangeably used with “gnss” hereinafter. the wire-based communication may include, for example, at least one of universal serial bus (usb), high definition multimedia interface (hdmi), recommended standard 232 (rs-232), and plain old telephone service (pots). the network 162 may include a telecommunications network, which may be, for example, at least one of a computer network (for example, a local area network (lan) or wide area network (wan)), the internet, and a telephone network. the first and second external electronic devices 102 and 104 may each be a device of a type that is the same as, or different from, the electronic device 101 . according to an example embodiment, the server 106 may include a group of one or more servers. according to various example embodiments, all or part of the operations performed in the electronic device 101 may be performed in another electronic device or a plurality of electronic devices (for example, the electronic devices 102 and 104 or the server 106 ). according to an example embodiment, when the electronic device 101 needs to perform a function or service automatically or by request, the electronic device 101 may request another electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 , or the server 106 ) to perform at least some functions related to the function or service, instead of, or in addition to, autonomously performing the function or service. the other electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 , or the server 106 ) may perform the requested functions or additional function and may transmit the result to the electronic device 101 . the electronic device 101 may provide the requested function or service by using the same received result or additionally processing the result. to this end, cloud computing, distributed computing, or client-server computing technologies may be used. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire a plurality of text messages, to acquire a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages, to transmit a query to an external device including the keyword using the communication module 170 , and to perform an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire receiver information on a receiver that performs a keyword analysis and to transmit the query including the keyword and the receiver information using the communication module, and the keyword analysis may be performed by an electronic device corresponding to the receiver information. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , on execution, to perform natural language processing on each of the plurality of text messages and to generate the keyword using a natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to compare a preset template with the natural language processing result and to generate the keyword based on a comparison result. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to apply a machine learning, artificial intelligence or deep learning algorithm to the natural language processing result, to determine intent of each of the plurality of text messages based on an application result, and to generate the keyword based on the intent of each of the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , on execution, to acquire a plurality of first text messages in a first period and to acquire a plurality of second text messages in a second period. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to generate a first keyword corresponding to the plurality of first text messages and to generate a second keyword corresponding to the plurality of second text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to generate the second keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of second text messages and at least one of the first keyword and the plurality of first text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire additional information and to generate the keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages and the additional information. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire additional information associated with the analysis result of the plurality of text messages or to acquire independent additional information from the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may further include a microphone (not shown) that acquires a plurality of user voices, and the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire the plurality of text messages by converting the plurality of user voices acquired from the microphone. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the display 160 may display an execution screen of a chat application running in the electronic device. the memory 130 may store an instruction to control the processor 120 , upon execution, to display a plurality of text messages, which is input to the electronic device 101 or received from another electronic device, on the execution screen of the chat application, to receive an analysis request for the plurality of text messages, to transmit a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages through the communication circuitry of the communication module 170 upon the analysis request, and to receive an analysis result of the keyword and displaying the received analysis result of the keyword on the execution screen of the chat application. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the memory 130 may store an instruction for the processor 120 , upon execution, to acquire a plurality of text messages, to acquire a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages, and to perform an operation corresponding to the keyword. fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example electronic device 201 according to various example embodiments. the electronic device 201 may include, for example, the whole or part of the electronic device 101 illustrated in fig. 1 . the electronic device 201 may include one or more processors (for example, aps) (e.g., including processing circuitry) 210 , a communication module (e.g., including communication circuitry) 220 , a subscriber identification module (sim) 224 , a memory 230 , a sensor module 240 , an input device (e.g., including input circuitry) 250 , a display 260 , an interface (e.g., including interface circuitry) 270 , an audio module 280 , a camera module 291 , a power management module 295 , a battery 296 , an indicator 297 , and a motor 298 . the processors 210 may include various processing circuitry configured to run, for example, an os or an application program to control a plurality of hardware or software components that are connected to the processors 210 and may perform various kinds of data processing and operations. the processors 210 may be configured, for example, as various processing circuitry (e.g., including a cpu), a system on chip (soc), or the like, but is not limited thereto. according to an example embodiment, the processors 210 may further include a graphic processing unit (gpu) and/or an image signal processor. the processors 210 may include at least part (for example, a cellular module 221 ) of the components illustrated in fig. 2 . the processors 210 may load a command or data received from at least one of other components (for example, a nonvolatile memory) into a volatile memory to process the command or data and may store various kinds of data in the nonvolatile memory. the communication module 220 may have a configuration that is the same as, or similar to, that of the communication module 170 in fig. 1 . the communication module 220 may include, various communication circuitry including, for example, and without limitation, a cellular module 221 , a wi-fi module 223 , a bluetooth module 225 , a global navigation satellite system (gnss) module 227 (for example, a global positioning system (gps) module, a glonass module, a beidou module, or a galileo module), a near field communication (nfc) module 228 , and a radio frequency (rf) module 229 . the cellular module 221 may provide, for example, a voice call, a video call, a text messaging service, or an internet service through a communication network. according to an example embodiment, the cellular module 221 may perform identification and authentication of the electronic device 201 in a communication network using the sim (for example, an sim card) 224 . according to an example embodiment, the cellular module 221 may perform at least part of the functions provided by the processors 210 . according to an example embodiment, the cellular module 221 may include a communication processor (cp). the wi-fi module 223 , the bluetooth module 225 , the gnss module 227 , and the nfc module 228 may each include a processor to process data transmitted and received via the respective modules. according to an example embodiment, at least part (for example, two or more) of the cellular module 221 , the wi-fi module 223 , the bluetooth module 225 , the gnss module 227 , and the nfc module 228 may be included in one integrated circuit (ic) or ic package. the rf module 229 may transmit and receive, for example, a communication signal (for example, an rf signal). the rf module 229 may include, for example, a transceiver, a power amplifier (amp) module (pam), a frequency filter, a low noise amplifier (lna), an antenna, or the like. according to another example embodiment, at least one of the cellular module 221 , the wi-fi module 223 , the bluetooth module 225 , the gnss module 227 , and the nfc module 228 may transmit and receive an rf signal through a separate rf module. the sim 224 may include, for example, a card including an sim and/or an embedded sim and may include unique identification information (for example, an integrated circuit card identifier (iccid)) or subscriber information (for example, an international mobile subscriber identity (imsi)). the memory 230 (for example, a memory 130 ) may include, for example, an internal memory 232 or an external memory 234 . the internal memory 232 may include, for example, at least one of a volatile memory (for example, a dynamic random-access memory (dram), a static ram (sram), a synchronous dynamic ram (sdram), or the like) and a nonvolatile memory (for example, a one-time programmable read-only memory (otprom), a programmable rom (prom), an erasable and programmable rom (eprom), an electrically erasable and a programmable rom (eeprom), a mask rom, a flash rom, a flash memory (for example, an nand flash, an nor flash, or the like), a hard drive, or a solid state drive (ssd)). the external memory 234 may further include a flash drive, for example, a compact flash (cf), a secure digital (sd), a micro secure digital (micro-sd), a mini secure digital (mini-sd), an extreme digital (xd), a multi-media card (mmc), a memory stick, or the like. the external memory 234 may be functionally and/or physically connected to the electronic device 201 through various interfaces. the sensor module 240 may measure, for example, physical quantities or may detect an operation state of the electronic device 201 and convert measured or detected information into an electrical signal. the sensor module 240 may include, for example, at least one of a gesture sensor 240 a, a gyro sensor 240 b, a barometric pressure sensor 240 c, a magnetic sensor 240 d, an accelerometer 240 e, a grip sensor 240 f, a proximity sensor 240 g, a color sensor 240 h (for example, a red, green, and blue (rgb) sensor), a biometric sensor 2401 , a temperature/humidity sensor 240 j, an illumination sensor 240 k, and an ultraviolet (uv) sensor 240 m. additionally or alternatively, the sensor module 240 may include, for example, an e-nose sensor, an electromyography (emg) sensor, an electroencephalogram (eeg) sensor, an electrocardiogram (ecg) sensor, an infrared (ir) sensor, an iris sensor, and/or a fingerprint sensor. the sensor module 240 may further include a control circuit to control at least one or more sensors belonging thereto. in an example embodiment, the electronic device 201 may further include a processor configured, as a part of the processors 210 or separately from the processors 210 , to control the sensor module 240 , thereby controlling the sensor module 240 while the processors 210 are in a sleep state. the input device 250 may include various input circuitry, such as, for example, and without limitation, a touch panel 252 , a (digital) pen sensor 254 , a key 256 , or an ultrasonic input device 258 . the touch panel 252 may use, for example, at least one of an electrostatic type, a pressure-sensitive type, an infrared type, and an ultrasonic type. further, the touch panel 252 may further include a control circuit. the touch panel 252 may further include a tactile layer to provide a user with a tactile response. the (digital) pen sensor 254 may, for example, be part of the touch panel or include a separate recognition sheet. the key 256 may include, for example, a physical button, an optical key, or a keypad. the ultrasonic input device 258 may detect ultrasonic waves generated in an input tool through a microphone (for example, a microphone 288 ) and may identify data corresponding to the detected ultrasonic waves. the display 260 (for example, a display 160 ) may include a panel 262 , a hologram device 264 , or a projector 266 . the panel 262 may include a configuration that is the same as, or similar to, that of the display 160 of fig. 1 . the panel 262 may be configured, for example, to be flexible, transparent, or wearable. the panel 262 may be formed with the touch panel 252 in a single module. the hologram device 264 may display a three-dimensional image in the air using the interference of light. the projector 266 may project light onto a screen to display an image. the screen may be disposed, for example, inside or outside the electronic device 201 . according to an example embodiment, the display 260 may further include a control circuit to control the panel 262 , the hologram device 264 , or the projector 266 . the interface 270 may include various interface circuitry, such as, for example, and without limitation, a high-definition multimedia interface (hdmi) 272 , a universal serial bus (usb) 274 , an optical interface 276 , or a d-subminiature (d-sub) 278 . the interface 270 may be included, for example, in the communication module 170 illustrated in fig. 1 . additionally or alternatively, the interface 270 may include, for example, a mobile high-definition link (mhl) interface, an sd card/mmc interface, or an infrared data association (irda) interface. the audio module 280 may convert, for example, a sound and an electrical signal reciprocally. at least some components of the audio module 280 may be included, for example, in an input/output interface 150 illustrated in fig. 1 . the audio module 280 may process sound information input or output, for example, through a speaker 282 , a receiver 284 , earphones 286 , or the microphone 288 . the camera module 291 is a device that takes, for example, a still image and a video. according to an example embodiment, the camera module 291 may include one or more image sensors (for example, a front sensor or a rear sensor), a lens, an image signal processor (isp), or a flash (for example, an led, a xenon lamp, or the like). the power management module 295 may manage, for example, the power of the electronic device 201 . according to an example embodiment, the power management module 295 may include a power management integrated circuit, a charger integrated circuit (ic), or a battery or fuel gauge. the power management integrated circuit may have wire-based and/or wireless charging methods. the wireless charging methods may include, for example, a magnetic resonance method, a magnetic induction method, or an electromagnetic wave method, and may further include an additional circuit for wireless charging, such as a coil loop, a resonance circuit, or a rectifier. the battery gauge may measure, for example, the remaining battery charge, the charging voltage, the current, or temperature of the battery 296 . the battery 296 may include, for example, a rechargeable battery and/or a solar battery. the indicator 297 may display a specific state of the electronic device 201 or a component thereof (for example, the processors 210 ), which may be, for example, a booting state, a message state, or a charging state. the motor 298 may convert an electrical signal into mechanical vibrations and may generate vibrations or a haptic effect. although not shown, the electronic device 201 may include a processing device for supporting a mobile tv (for example, a gpu). the processing device for supporting the mobile tv may process media data in accordance with digital multimedia broadcasting (dmb), digital video broadcasting (dvb), or mediaflo™ standards. fig. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example program module according to various example embodiments. according to an example embodiment, the program module 310 (for example, the program 140 ) may include an os that controls resources related to an electronic device (for example, the electronic device 101 ) and/or various applications (for example, the application program 147 ) that run on the os. the os may be, for example, android, ios, windows, symbian, tizen, bada, or the like. the program module 310 may include a kernel 320 , middleware 330 , an api 360 , and/or an application 370 . at least part of the program module 310 may be preloaded onto the electronic device or may be downloaded from an external electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 , the server 106 , or the like). the kernel 320 (for example, the kernel 141 ) may include, for example, a system resource manager 321 and/or a device driver 323 . the system resource manager 321 may perform control, allocation, or recovery of system resources; according to an example embodiment, the system resource manager 321 may include a process manager, a memory manager, or a file system manager. the device driver 323 may include, for example, a display driver, a camera driver, a bluetooth driver, a shared memory driver, a usb driver, a keypad driver, a wi-fi driver, an audio driver, or an inter-process communication (ipc) driver. the middleware 330 may provide, for example, a function commonly needed for applications 370 or may provide the application 370 with various functions through the api 360 so that the application 370 may efficiently use limited systems resources in the electronic device. according to an example embodiment, the middleware 330 (for example, the middleware 143 ) may include at least one of a runtime library 335 , an application manager 341 , a window manager 342 , a multimedia manager 343 , a resource manager 344 , a power manager 345 , a database manager 346 , a package manager 347 , a connectivity manager 348 , a notification manager 349 , a location manager 350 , a graphic manager 351 , and a security manager 352 . the runtime library 355 may include, for example, a library module used by a complier to add a new function through a programming language while the application 370 is running. the runtime library 355 may perform functions for input/output management, memory management, or arithmetic function. the application manager 341 may manage, for example, the life cycle of at least one application among the applications 370 . the window manager 342 may manage graphic user interface (gui) resources used for a screen. the multimedia manager 343 may identify formats that are necessary to play various media files and may encode or decode a media file using a codec suitable for a corresponding format. the resource manager 344 may manage resources, such as a source code, a memory, or a storage space, for at least one application among the applications 370 . the power manager 345 may operate with, for example, a basic input/output system (bios) to manage a battery or power supply and may provide information on power necessary for an operation of the electronic device. the database manager 346 may generate, retrieve, or change a database to be used for at least one application among the applications 370 . the package manager 347 may install or update an application distributed in the form of a package file. the connectivity manager 348 may manage wireless connectivity, for example, via wi-fi or bluetooth. the notification manager 349 may display or report an incoming message, an appointment, and an event including a proximity notification in a manner that does not disturb a user. the location manager 350 may manage location information on the electronic device. the graphic manager 351 may manage a graphic effect to be provided for the user or a user interface related to the graphic effect. the security manager 352 may provide overall security functions necessary for system security or user authentication. according to an example embodiment, at least some functions of the execution manager 353 may be included in the api 360 or the application 370 . according to an example embodiment, when the electronic device (for example, the electronic device 101 ) has phone features, the middleware 330 may further include a telephony manager to manage a voice or video call function of the electronic device. the middleware 330 may include a middleware module that forms combinations of various functions of the foregoing components. the middleware 330 may provide a specialized module for each type of an os in order to provide a differentiated function. further, the middleware 330 may dynamically delete some of the existing components or add new components. the api 360 (for example, the api 145 ) is, for example, a set of api programming functions and may be provided with a different configuration depending on an os. for example, one api set for each platform may be provided in android or ios, while two or more api sets for each platform may be provided in tizen. the application 370 (for example, the application program 147 ) may include one or more applications that are capable of performing functions of, for example, a home 371 , a dialer 372 , an sms/mms 373 , an instant message (im) 374 , a browser 375 , a camera 376 , an alarm 377 , a contact 378 , a voice dial 379 , an email 380 , a calendar 381 , a media player 382 , an album 383 , a clock 384 , or a health care (for example, for measuring exercising or blood sugar), an environmental data application (for example, for providing atmospheric pressure, humidity, or temperature data), or the like. according to an example embodiment, the application 370 may include an application (hereinafter, “information exchange application” for convenience of description) that supports information exchanges between the electronic device (for example, the electronic device 101 ) and an external electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 ). the information exchange application may include, for example, a notification relay application for relaying specific information to the external electronic device or a device management application for managing the external electronic device. for example, the notification relay application may include a function of relaying notification information, which is generated in another application (for example, the sms/mms application, the email application, the health care application, the environmental data application, or the like) of the electronic device, to the external electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 ). additionally, the notification relay application may receive notification information, for example, from the external electronic device and provides the notification information to the user. the device management application may manage (for example, install, delete, or update), for example, at least one function (for example, a function of turning on/turning off the external electronic device itself (or some components) or adjusting the brightness (or resolution) of a display) of the external electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 ) communicating with the electronic device, an application operating in the external electronic device, or a service (for example, a call service or message service) provided by the external electronic device. according to an example embodiment, the application 370 may include an application (for example, a health care application of a mobile medical device) assigned according to an attribute of the external electronic device (for example, the electronic device 102 or 104 ). according to an example embodiment, the application 370 may include an application received from the external electronic device (for example, the server 106 or the electronic device 102 or 104 ). according to an example embodiment, the application 370 may include a third party application that may be downloaded from a preloaded application or the server. the illustrated components of the program module 310 , according to the example embodiments, may be named different terms depending on an os type. according to various example embodiments, at least part of the program module 310 may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware (e.g., circuitry), or combinations of at least two or more. at least part of the program module 310 may be implemented (for example, run) by, for example, a processor (for example, the processor 210 ). at least part of the program module 310 may include, for example, a module, a program, a routine, sets of instructions, or a process to perform one or more functions. fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. the embodiment of fig. 4 is described in greater detail with reference to fig. 5a and fig. 5b . fig. 5a and fig. 5b are diagrams illustrating an example electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 410 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. for example, a text message may refer, for example, to a text including at least one of letters, numbers, and symbols. in an example embodiment, a text message may be separated by a data format. for example, user a and user b may exchange text messages with each other using a chat application. user a may input a text to send in a chat window, and may input a preset send command after completely inputting a text in the chat window. the chat application may transmit a text message including the input text to another electronic device according to the send command and may display a text message received from the other electronic device. in another example embodiment, a text message may be separated by a natural language processing result. for example, the electronic device 101 may identify an ending word of a sentence based on a text analysis result and may separate a text message using the ending word of the sentence. in this example, a text group defined as one sentence may be separated as one text message. in still another example embodiment, a text message may be separated by time. for example, the electronic device 101 may separate, as one text message, a group of texts that are successively input without a pause. in this example, when texts are successively input to exceed a preset pause, the electronic device 101 may acquire groups of texts that are input before the pause as one text message. accordingly, the text message may include one or more sentences. as described above, a text message may be separated by various criteria. according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of texts input or received from another electronic device. the electronic device 101 may also acquire a plurality of texts processed in an application, for example, a chat application. the electronic device 101 may perform text-to-speech (tts) processing on a plurality of user voices, which is acquired from the outside through a microphones, thereby acquiring a plurality of texts. for example, as illustrated in fig. 5a , the electronic device 101 may display a chat application execution screen 510 on the display 160 . the electronic device 101 may run the chat application and, accordingly, may display the chat application execution screen 510 . the electronic device 101 may display text messages 511 , 513 , and 515 received from another electronic device (not shown) and may display text messages 512 and 514 input by a user. it would be easily understood by a person skilled in the art that the chat application may be any application that enables the transmission and reception of text messages between both electronic devices. the electronic device 101 may display a graphic user interface to distinguish histories of text messages transmitted and received by chat participants as in fig. 5a . as illustrated in fig. 5a , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages including the text messages from the user and the text messages received from the other electronic device. in operation 420 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages. the electronic device 101 may analyze each of the text messages and may acquire a keyword using an analysis of each text message. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may match an analysis result of each of the plurality of text messages with a template, thereby generating a keyword. the electronic device 101 may apply a machine learning or deep learning algorithm that analyzes user intent from an analysis result of each of the plurality of text messages, thereby generating a keyword. a keyword generation process according to various example embodiments will be described in greater detail below with reference to fig. 8a to fig. 8c . in the example embodiment of fig. 5a , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword of “movie, this sunday.” for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire a text corresponding to time of “this sunday” based on a natural language analysis result of a text message 511 of “what are you doing on this sunday.” for example, the electronic device 101 may identify, based on the natural language analysis result, that “this sunday” of the text message 511 is the text corresponding to time and that “what are you doing?” is a text corresponding to a verb. natural language analysis may be used to determine the role of each component of a text message in a sentence, and the electronic device 101 may analyze each component of the plurality of text messages based on a natural language analysis result. in addition, the electronic device 101 may acquire a text corresponding to an object of “movie” based on a natural language analysis result of a text message 513 of “okay. see a movie?” the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword of “movie, this sunday” using an analysis result of the text messages 511 and 513 . the electronic device 101 may previously store an algorithm for classifying a text corresponding to time and a text corresponding to an object as a keyword and may acquire a keyword based on a result of applying the algorithm. the electronic device 101 may acquire an object, for example, “plans” or “what you want to see,” from other text messages 512 , 514 , and 515 , and may include the object in the keyword or may exclude the object via filtering. the electronic device 101 may previously store a database of objects having slightly ambiguous meanings and may exclude these objects from the keyword generation process. the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword based on user intent acquired by analyzing the text messages 511 to 515 using the machine learning or deep learning algorithm. the electronic device 101 may analyze the text message 512 to determine user intent as “plans” and may analyze the text messages 511 and 513 to determine user intent as “to see a movie this sunday.” the electronic device 101 may analyze the text message 511 to analyze the intent of the user asking about a counterpart's schedule this sunday and may analyze, through the machine learning or deep learning algorithm, that the text message 513 for additional asking after the above asking indicates an activity to perform at the time. as described above, the electronic device 101 may use various methods to analyze a keyword, and a person skilled in the art would easily understand that any kind of method may be used without restriction as long as it can analyze a keyword using a plurality of text messages. in operation 430 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the acquired keyword. for example, as illustrated in fig. 5a , the electronic device 101 may display a graphic user interface 516 to request a keyword analysis result and may transmit the query including the keyword to the server 106 corresponding to a designation of the graphic user interface 516 . in operation 440 , the server 106 may analyze the keyword included in the query. the server 106 may refer, for example, to any electronic device that stores an algorithm or program capable of analyzing a keyword. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the server 106 may also forward the keyword to another electronic device, which will be described in greater detail below. for example, the server 106 may analyze the keyword of “movie, this sunday” acquired from the electronic device 101 to acquire a movie schedule for this sunday. in operation 450 , the server 106 may transmit a response including a keyword analysis result to the electronic device 101 . in operation 460 , the electronic device 101 may operate using the keyword analysis result. for example, as illustrated in fig. 5b , the electronic device 101 may display a graphic user interface 520 including the keyword analysis result of the movie schedule for this sunday received from the server 106 . for example, since a conventional electronic device provides an analysis result of one text message only, that is, provides an analysis result of “this sunday” in the text message 511 , inaccurate information is provided. in addition, since the conventional electronic device provides an analysis result of “movie” in one text message 513 , inaccurate information is provided. on the other hand, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may operate according to a keyword analysis result based on a plurality of text messages, thereby providing information to further satisfy user intent. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the server 106 may receive the plurality of text messages, instead of the keyword acquired based on an analysis result of the plurality of text messages. the server 106 may analyze the plurality of received text messages to generate a keyword and may transmit an analysis result of the generated keyword to the electronic device 101 . a keyword generation process of the server 106 may be the same as the keyword generation process of the electronic device 101 . in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may autonomously analyze a keyword without making a request for a keyword analysis to another electronic device. in another example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may immediately implement a command corresponding to a keyword. fig. 6 is a diagram illustrating example acquisition of a text message according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. as illustrated in fig. 6 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of user voices 611 and 612 uttered by a plurality of users 601 and 602 . the electronic device 101 may include, for example, a microphone, and may convert the user voices 611 and 612 into electrical signals through the microphone. the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on the user voices 611 and 612 , thereby acquiring a plurality of text messages corresponding to the user voices 611 and 612 . the electronic device 101 may process, as one text message, a result of converting user voices successively acquired without a preset pause. in addition, the electronic device 101 may process a user voice using a voiceprint. for example, even when the two users 601 and 602 utter users voices at the same time, the electronic device 101 may separately process the user voices 611 and 612 , which are uttered by the respective users 601 and 602 , using voiceprints. for example, as illustrated in fig. 5a , the users 601 and 602 may utter the user voices 611 and 612 having contents of “what are you doing on this sunday?”, “i don't have special plans.”, “okay. see a movie?”, “yes. what movie do you want to see?”, and “well. what movies are playing now?” the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on the user voices 611 and 612 to acquire text messages as illustrated in fig. 5a . when a keyword analysis result request is detected, the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages and may acquire a keyword analysis result as a response to the query. accordingly, the electronic device 101 of fig. 6 may display the graphic user interface 520 including the keyword analysis result as illustrated in fig. 5b . as described above, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may acquire a plurality of text messages in various manners. fig. 7a and fig. 7b are flowcharts illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. referring to fig. 7a , in operation 710 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. as described above, the electronic device 101 may acquire a text message including a text or may acquire a text by performing tts processing on a user voice. in operation 720 , the electronic device 101 may perform the natural language analysis of each of the plurality of text messages. fig. 8a is a diagram illustrating example natural language analysis by an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages 810 , 820 , 830 , 840 , and 850 . the electronic device 101 may perform the natural language analysis of a text message 810 , thereby determining that “this” 813 in the text message 810 is a text corresponding to time, “sunday” 814 is a text corresponding to time, “on” 812 is a text corresponding to a postposition, and “what are you doing” 811 is a text corresponding to a verb. the electronic device 101 may also perform the natural language analysis of other text messages 820 , 830 , 840 , and 850 to determine the attributes of included components 821 , 822 , 823 , 824 , 831 , 832 , 833 , 841 , 842 , 843 , 844 , 845 , 851 , 852 , and 853 . in operation 730 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using, for example, a natural language analysis result and a template. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may store a template 860 illustrated in fig. 8b . the template 860 may include at least one item 861 , and information 862 may be mapped by at least one item 861 . for example, the electronic device 101 may store the template 860 including a time item 863 , a date item 864 , a location item 866 , and an interest item 867 . the electronic device 101 may store, as the information 862 , a component corresponding to an item of the template 860 among natural language analysis results, thereby generating a keyword. for example, the electronic device 101 may map the time item 863 or date item 864 to components 813 and 814 corresponding to time and may store the components 813 and 814 as information 865 . the electronic device 101 may map the interest item 867 to the component 833 corresponding to an object and may store the component 833 as information 868 . the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using the information 862 mapped to the item 861 of the template. for example, in the example embodiment of fig. 8b , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword of “11.15, movie.” for example, the electronic device 101 may replace a text of “this sunday” with a text of 11.15 and may store the text of 11.15. as described above, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may generate a keyword based on a comparison with the template 860 . fig. 7b is a flowchart illustrating an example learning-based keyword generation process according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. operation 710 and operation 720 are described above, and thus repeated descriptions thereof are omitted herein. in operation 731 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword by applying a machine learning or deep learning algorithm to a natural language analysis result. for example, as illustrated in fig. 8c , the electronic device 101 may apply the machine learning or deep learning algorithm to a pattern by user intent analyzed in advance and may also apply the machine learning or deep learning algorithm to the plurality of acquired text messages. accordingly, the electronic device 101 may map information 872 by conversation topic 871 in the template 870 . the electronic device 101 may determine user intent by abstraction levels 873 , 874 , 876 and 878 to store the user intent or counterpart intent as information. for example, it is assumed that a higher abstraction level denotes clearer user intent. for example, the electronic device 101 may determine through the analysis of a text message 840 that user intent is to decide a movie 875 . for example, the electronic device 101 may determine user intent by text messages 810 , 820 , 830 , 840 , and 850 . the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using user intent more specifically determined among user intents determined by text messages. for example, the electronic device 101 may determine that “to see” 877 is specific counterpart intent in the text message 810 and may determine that “to watch a movie” 879 is specific counterpart intent in the text message 830 . the electronic device 101 may determine a text corresponding to more specific user intent through machine learning or deep learning. the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword of “this sunday, to watch a movie” using a result of applying machine learning or deep learning to a plurality of texts. fig. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. the embodiment of the fig. 9 is described in greater detail with reference to fig. 10a to fig. 10d . in operation 910 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages in a first period. in operation 915 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a first keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages in the first period. in operation 920 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the first keyword. in operation 925 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the first keyword and may operate using the analysis result of the first keyword. fig. 10a is a diagram illustrating the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure, in which it is assumed, for example, that the electronic device 101 displays a graphic user interface after fig. 5a . the electronic device 101 may display a graphic user interface 1011 including a today's box office chart as the analysis result of the first keyword of “this sunday, movie.” for example, the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the first keyword of “this sunday, movie” and may receive and display information on the today's box office chart as a response to the query. in operation 930 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages in a second period. for example, the first period and the second period may be divided on the basis of an operation based on a keyword analysis request or keyword analysis result. for example, as illustrated in fig. 10a , after displaying the graphic user interface 1011 corresponding to the keyword analysis result, the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages 1012 and 1013 . the electronic device 101 may display the plurality of text messages 1012 and 1013 on a chat application execution screen 1010 . in operation 935 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a second keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages in the second period. for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire the second keyword based on a template. the electronic device 101 may independently acquire the second keyword from the plurality of text messages in the second period, while the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may acquire the second keyword based on the plurality of text messages in the first period and the plurality of text messages in the second period. the electronic device 101 may acquire the second keyword based on the first keyword and the plurality of text messages in the second period. fig. 10b is a diagram illustrating the generation of a keyword according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. the electronic device 101 may generate the second keyword based on information 1062 by item 1061 of a template 1060 . for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire information 1066 of nov. 15 for a date item 1065 and information 1070 of movie for an interest item 1069 based on the text messages in the first period. meanwhile, the electronic device 101 may acquire information 1064 of a.m. for a time item 1063 , information 1068 of gangnam for a location item 1067 , and information 1070 of ring and booking for the interest item 1069 based on the text messages in the second period. an information acquiring method of the electronic device 101 based on the text messages in the second period may be the same as a method of acquiring information in the first period and has been described above, and thus a repeated description thereof is omitted herein. in the example embodiment of fig. 10b , the electronic device 101 may generate the second keyword of “nov. 15, a.m., gangnam, movie, ring, booking.” in another example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword of “a.m., gangnam, ring, booking” based on the analysis result of the text messages in the second period and may combine the keyword with the first keyword in the first period of “nov. 15, movie” to generate the second keyword of “nov. 15, a.m., gangnam, movie, ring, booking.” in operation 940 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the second keyword. in operation 945 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the second keyword and may operate using the analysis result of the second keyword. for example, the electronic device 101 may transmit the query including the second keyword of “nov. 15, a.m., gangnam, movie, ring, booking” and may receive an analysis result thereof. the electronic device 101 may display a graphic user interface 1071 including the received analysis result, for example, as in fig. 10c . for example, the graphic user interface 1071 may include a hyperlink to a booking screen 1072 of a movie booking site. the electronic device 101 may further acquire a plurality of text messages 1072 and 1073 in a third period after the second period and may display the plurality of acquired text messages 1072 and 1073 . the electronic device 101 may analyze the text messages 1072 and 1073 in the third period to generate a third keyword. for example, the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword illustrated in fig. 10d using an analysis result of the text messages in the third period. referring to fig. 10d , the electronic device 101 may generate the third keyword of “nov. 15, a.m., gangnam, movie, ring, b 1 and b 2 booked” 1076 for the interest item 1069 using the text messages 1072 and 1073 in the third period and the text messages in the first and second periods. when a designation of a graphic user interface 1074 corresponding to a request for the analysis of the third keyword is detected, the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the third keyword. a server (not shown) may process the third keyword to book b 1 and b 2 for the movie ring at a gangnam branch in the morning on nov. 15 and may transmit a booking result as a response to the electronic device 101 . the electronic device 101 may display the received response, that is, a message 1075 indicating that the booking has been completed. as described above, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may analyze a plurality of text messages respectively acquired in a plurality of periods, not in one period, thereby generating a plurality of keywords corresponding to the respective periods. when the electronic device 101 generates a keyword corresponding to one period, the electronic device 101 may refer to a text message or keyword corresponding to a period that is different from the one period. fig. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 1110 , the electronic device 101 may display a chat application execution screen. in operation 1120 , the electronic device 101 may display a plurality of texts allocated to a chat application. for example, the chat application execution screen may be configured such that a text message input to the electronic device 101 and a text message received from another electronic device are displayed on one screen. the chat application is configured to dispose the text message input to the electronic device 101 at one side and to dispose the text message received from the other electronic device at another side, thus allowing a user to easily distinguish the text message input by the user and the text message input by a counterpart. in operation 1130 , the electronic device 101 may display an analysis request icon for the plurality of texts. in operation 1140 , the electronic device 101 may detect a designation of the analysis request icon for the plurality of texts. the electronic device 101 may display the analysis request icon for the texts, and may request the analysis of the texts when the icon is designated. in another example embodiment, when a text requesting the analysis of the texts is input, the electronic device 101 may display the input text and may request the analysis of the texts. in operation 1150 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword by analyzing the plurality of texts. in operation 1160 , the electronic device 101 may transmit the keyword. in operation 1170 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the keyword. in operation 1180 , the electronic device 101 may display the analysis result of the keyword on the chat application execution screen. fig. 12a and fig. 12b are flowcharts illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 1210 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 1215 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages. since operation 1210 and operation 1215 have been previously described in detail, repeated descriptions thereof are omitted herein. in operation 1220 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the acquired keyword and receiver information. fig. 13 is a diagram of the electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. as illustrated in fig. 13 , the electronic device 101 may receive information on a receiver to analyze a plurality of text messages 1311 to 1315 and may display input information 1316 . for example, the user may want “a cinema” to perform the analysis of the plurality of text messages 1311 to 1315 and accordingly may input a text message including the receiver information as the information 1316 . the electronic device 101 may display the input information 1316 on a chat application screen 1310 for user's confirmation. in operation 1225 , the server 106 may identify the receiver information. in operation 1230 , the server 106 may transmit the query including the keyword to a receiver server 1200 corresponding to the receiver information. the server 106 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may store a database of receiver information in advance and may forward the query including the keyword using the database. the server 106 may store a database in which receiver information in a semantic form from the electronic device 101 is mapped to an identifier of the receiver and, accordingly, may map various forms of receiver information to a specific receiver server. for example, when receiver information input by the user is received even in diverse input forms, for example, “a,” “a theater,” and the like, instead of “a cinema,” the server 106 may determine the receiver information as “a cinema” and may forward the query to a receiver server 1200 of “a cinema.” in operation 1235 , the receiver server 1200 may analyze the keyword included in the query. in operation 1240 , the receiver server 1200 may transmit a response including an analysis result of the keyword to the server 106 . in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the server 106 may also transmit identification information on the electronic device 101 , along with the query, to the receiver server 1200 , in which case the receiver server 1200 may transmit the analysis result of the keyword directly to the electronic device 101 , not via the server 106 . in operation 1245 , the server 106 may generate a user interface (ui) corresponding to the analysis result of the keyword. in operation 1250 , the server 106 may transmit a response including the ui to the electronic device 101 . in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the server 106 may also transmit the analysis result of the keyword directly to the electronic device 101 . in operation 1255 , the electronic device 101 may display the ui included in the response. in operation 1260 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a user input through the ui. in operation 1265 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a command corresponding to the user input to the receiver server 1200 directly or via the server 106 . in operation 1270 , the receiver server 1200 may operate corresponding to the received command. fig. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example receiver server according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in an example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may transmit receiver information and a keyword 1401 to the server 106 . the server 106 may store a store list database 1410 as an example of a receiver information database. the store list database 1410 may store receiver information, for example, a text corresponding to a receiver, mapped to an identifier of a store. for example, the server 106 may store a store list database illustrated, for example, in table 1. table 1textidentifiera, a cinema, a movie, a theatera cinemab, b hospital, b dermatology clinic, b skinb dermatology clinicc, c shoes, d clothing store, d t-shirt, ef small businesssunglassesassociation as listed in table 1 , the server 106 may store a semantic text mapped to an identifier. accordingly, when receiver information relating to, for example, “a movie” is received along with a keyword from the electronic device 101 , the server 106 may transmit a query including the keyword to a receiver server of a cinema. meanwhile, small business owners may have difficulty in managing an individual server, and thus the small business owners may manage a small business integration server in association. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a small business integration server 1420 may include a booking management server 1421 , a customer account server 1422 , a store account server 1423 , and an information database by store 1424 , or the like, but is not limited thereto. the booking management server 1421 may perform a booking when the query includes booking information. the customer account server 1422 may manage user accounts. the store account server 1423 may manage the accounts of store managers. the information database by store 1424 may store individual information on a joining store. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a server by company 1430 may be configured as an individual receiver server. the server by company 1430 may include a booking management server 1431 , a customer account server 1432 , and an information database by store 1433 , or the like, but is not limited thereto. the small business integration server 1420 or the server by company 1430 may analyze or process the keyword included in the query. further, the small business integration server 1420 or the server by company 1430 may transmit an analysis result or processing result to the electronic device 101 . fig. 15 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 1510 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 1520 , the electronic device 101 may perform the natural language analysis of each of the plurality of text messages. in operation 1530 , the electronic device 101 may acquire additional information. for example, the additional information may refer to all information that can be acquired through routes other than a route for acquiring the text messages. for example, the electronic device 101 may include information from another application that is different from an application for acquiring the text messages. in operation 1540 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using a natural language analysis result, the additional information, and a template. in operation 1550 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the acquired keyword. in operation 1560 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the keyword. in operation 1570 , the electronic device 101 may operate using the analysis result of the keyword. hereinafter, the generation of a keyword using various pieces of additional information will be described in greater detail with reference to fig. 16a to fig. 16c . fig. 16a to fig. 16c are flowcharts illustrating example generation of a keyword further using additional information according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. fig. 16a to fig. 16c are described in greater detail with reference to fig. 17a to fig. 17d . fig. 17a to fig. 17d are diagrams illustrating example generation of a keyword further using additional information according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. referring to fig. 16a , in operation 1610 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 1620 , the electronic device 101 may perform natural language analysis of each of the plurality of text messages. for example, as illustrated in fig. 17a , the electronic device 101 may run a chat application to display a chat application execution screen 1710 on the display 160 . the electronic device 101 may display the plurality of acquired text messages 1711 to 1714 . in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a text message analysis request may be input as a text message 1714 . a text of “@” in the text message 1714 may be preset to indicate receiver information. in operation 1630 , the electronic device 101 may acquire user schedule information as additional information. for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire user schedule information from a schedule management application. the electronic device 101 may identify a date and time when the user has no schedule using the user schedule information received from the schedule management application. for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire information indicating that dates and times when the user has no schedule are 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. on nov. 20, nov. 21, and nov. 22 as illustrated, for example, in fig. 17b . as illustrated in fig. 16b , in operation 1631 , the electronic device 101 may acquire user location information as additional information. for example, the electronic device 101 may acquire user location information from a gps management application. for example, the electronic device 101 may identify that the location of the user is gangnam, seoul. the electronic device 101 may acquire a user location history and may identify that the location of the user on a day and a date with no schedule is gangnam, seoul, as illustrated, for example, in fig. 17b . in operation 1640 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using a natural language analysis result, the user schedule information, and a template. alternatively, in operation 1641 of fig. 16b , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using a natural language analysis result, the user location information, and a template. for example, as illustrated in fig. 17b , the electronic device 101 may acquire “to get rid of acne, to cure acne” for an interest item of an item 1721 in a template 1720 as a result of analyzing the text messages. the electronic device 101 may acquire information 1722 on a time, a date, and a location for the item 1721 using the additional information. in operation 1650 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the acquired keyword. in operation 1660 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the keyword. in operation 1670 , the electronic device 101 may operate using the analysis result of the keyword. for example, as illustrated in fig. 17c , the electronic device 101 may receive and display a keyword analysis result 1715 including an available time for b dermatology clinic. the keyword analysis result 1715 may include, for example, a hyperlink 1716 for booking. referring to fig. 16c , in operation 1610 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 1620 , the electronic device 101 may perform natural language analysis of each of the plurality of text messages. in operation 1632 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a history associated with a natural language analysis result. for example, it is assumed that the electronic device 101 acquires a keyword of “nov. 15, movie” as a natural language analysis result as in fig. 8b . the electronic device 101 may acquire, as a history associated with a keyword of “nov. 15,” a history indicating that the user has a spare time from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m on sunday and spends time, usually in gangnam, seoul. further, the electronic device 101 may acquire, as a history associated with a keyword of “movie,” a movie booking history indicating that the user usually watches an action movie. in operation 1642 , the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using a natural language analysis result, the acquired history, and a template. for example, as illustrated in fig. 17d , the electronic device 101 may acquire information 1761 of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., information 865 of nov. 15, information 1762 of gangnam, seoul, and information 1763 of action movie as histories respectively for a time item 863 , a date item 864 , a location item 866 , and an interest item 867 . accordingly, the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword of “nov. 15, 11 a.m to 3 p.m., gangnam, seoul, movie, action movie.” in operation 1650 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the acquired keyword. in operation 1660 , the electronic device 101 may receive an analysis result of the keyword. in operation 1670 , the electronic device 101 may operate using the analysis result of the keyword. as described above, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may generate a keyword further using various pieces of additional information, such as user schedule information, user location information, or a history associated with a text analysis result, in addition to the text analysis result. fig. 18 is a diagram illustrating an operation of an electronic device in an internet of things (iot) environment according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. as illustrated in fig. 18 , the electronic device 101 may communicate with another electronic device 1820 . in the iot environment, the electronic device 101 and the other electronic device 1820 may be assigned respective ip addresses in various formats, for example, ipv4 or ipv6, and may transmit and receive data using various types of short-range communications (for example, bluetooth, bluetooth low energy, zig-bee, near field communication (nfc), and infrared communication) and the assigned ip addresses. alternatively, the electronic device 101 may transmit and receive data to and from the other electronic device 1820 based on various communication methods without using an ip address. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 101 may include a microphone to acquire an outside voice and a short-range communication module and a cellular module to perform short-range communication with the other electronic device 1820 . the electronic device 101 may acquire user voices 1811 and 1812 uttered by persons 1801 and 1802 through the microphone. the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on the user voices 1811 and 1812 to acquire a plurality of text messages corresponding to the user voices 1811 and 1812 . the electronic device 101 may process, as one text message, a result of converting user voices successively acquired without a preset pause. in addition, the electronic device 101 may process a user voice using, for example, a voiceprint. for example, even when the two users 1801 and 1802 utter users voices at the same time, the electronic device 101 may separately process the user voices 1811 and 1812 , uttered by the respective users 1801 and 1802 , using voiceprints. for example, as illustrated in fig. 5a , the users 1801 and 1802 may utter the user voices 1811 and 1812 having contents of “what are you doing on this sunday?”, “i don't have special plans.”, “okay. see a movie?”, “yes. what movie do you want to see?”, and “well, what movies are playing now?” the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on the user voices 1811 and 1812 to acquire text messages as illustrated in fig. 5 a. when a keyword analysis result request is detected, the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages through the cellular module and may acquire a keyword analysis result as a response to the query. the electronic device 101 may transmit 1825 the keyword analysis result to the other electronic device 1820 through the short-range communication module. the other electronic device 1820 may display the keyword analysis result 1830 received from the electronic device 101 . in another example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may autonomously perform a keyword analysis and may transmit 1825 a result of the keyword analysis autonomously performed to the other electronic device 1820 . as described above, the electronic device 101 may also perform the transmission of the received keyword analysis result to the other electronic device 1820 . fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 1910 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of voices in a first period. in operation 1920 , the electronic device 101 may convert the plurality of acquired voices to acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 1930 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages. in operation 1940 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the keyword. in operation 1950 , the electronic device 101 may acquire an analysis result of the query. in operation 1960 , the electronic device 101 may output the analysis result or may transmit the analysis result to another displayable electronic device. fig. 20 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. the example embodiment of fig. 20 will be described in greater detail with reference to fig. 21a and fig. 21b . fig. 21a and fig. 21b are diagrams illustrating an example process of processing a user voice from a single user according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 2010 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of user voices in a first period. for example, as illustrated in fig. 21a , the electronic device 101 may acquire user voices 2101 , 2102 , and 2103 respectively at a first time t 1 , a second time t 2 , and a third time t 3 in the first period. the user voices 2101 , 2102 , and 2103 may be uttered by a single user 2100 . meanwhile, in fig. 21 , the electronic device 101 may, for example be configured as a watch-type wearable device. in operation 2020 , the electronic device 101 may convert the plurality of acquired voices to acquire a plurality of text messages. when a preset text (for example, @) is included among the plurality of text messages, the electronic device 101 may determine the text as a text message analysis request. when the text message analysis request is detected, the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages in operation 2030 . in operation 2040 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the keyword and may receive and display a keyword analysis result. for example, as illustrated in fig. 21b , the electronic device 101 may display a keyword analysis result 2110 on the display 160 . meanwhile, when the electronic device 101 is configured as a watch-type wearable device, the electronic device 101 may perform the transmission of the query directly to the server (not shown) or the reception of the analysis result directly from the server through the cellular module or may perform the transmission of the query or the reception of the analysis result via another electronic device (for example, a smartphone) through short-range communication. fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 2210 , the electronic device 101 may acquire at least one user voice. in operation 2220 , the electronic device 101 may analyze the at least one user voice. in operation 2230 , the electronic device 101 may output a voice using an analysis result of the user voice. for example, the electronic device 101 may store a chat algorithm in advance and may output audibly or visually output a text corresponding to a text message of the user voice. for example, as illustrated in fig. 23 , the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on a user voice 2301 uttered by a user 2300 at a first time t 1 to acquire a text of “what am i going to do on sunday?” the electronic device 101 may be configured, for example, as a robot. the electronic device 101 may include a microphone and a speaker. the electronic device 101 may previously store a chat algorithm that is capable of outputting a relevant response to a user-input text. the electronic device 101 may acquire a response of “i have time in the morning” as a result of applying the chat algorithm to the text of “what am i going to do on sunday?” the electronic device 101 may perform tts processing on the response of “i have time in the morning” to be output as a voice 2302 or to be output in a visual form through a display (not shown). the electronic device 101 may output the voice 2302 , for example, with reference to user schedule information. the electronic device 101 may also apply the chat algorithm to a user voice 2303 detected at a second time t 2 to output a response 2304 . the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages at the first time t 1 and the second time t 2 . meanwhile, the electronic device 101 may acquire a voice 2305 including a text message analysis request and receiver information at a third time t 3 . in operation 2240 , the electronic device 101 may convert the user voice and the output voice into texts. the electronic device 101 may acquire not only a text message received from the user but also a text message output by the electronic device 101 . in operation 2250 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword using a plurality of converted texts. the electronic device 101 may generate a keyword using both the text message received from the user and the text message output by the electronic device 101 . the electronic device 101 may acquire a keyword of “sunday, a.m., movie,” instead of a keyword of “sunday, movie,” by using a text message 2302 output by the electronic device 101 . in operation 2260 , the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the keyword. in operation 2270 , the electronic device 101 may receive a query analysis result. in operation 2280 , the electronic device 101 ay operate using the query analysis result. for example, as illustrated in fig. 23 , the electronic device 101 may output a voice 2306 including the query analysis result. fig. 24 is a flowchart illustrating an example method of operating an electronic device according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. in operation 2410 , the electronic device 101 may acquire a plurality of text messages. in operation 2420 , the electronic device 101 may analyze the plurality of text messages to acquire a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages. a process in which the electronic device 101 acquires a keyword corresponding to a plurality of text messages has been described in detail, and thus a repeated description thereof is omitted herein. in operation 2430 , the electronic device 101 may perform an operation corresponding to the keyword. for example, the electronic device 101 may transmit a query including the keyword corresponding to the keyword. alternatively, the electronic device 101 may set up a preset operation of inputting the keyword in a web browsing application and displaying a keyword processing result from the web browsing application. the electronic device 101 may store a command corresponding to the keyword in advance and may implement the command or may transmit the command to another electronic device. for example, the electronic device 101 according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may not only receive an analysis result of the keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages but may also autonomously perform an operation corresponding to the keyword. fig. 25a to fig. 25c are diagrams illustrating an example case where an electronic device invokes an indoor iot device and communicates therewith according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure. for the convenience of description, the iot device is illustrated as a refrigerator, without being limited thereto. fig. 25a illustrates the electronic device 101 , the iot device 2525 , a first server 2521 , and a second server 2523 . the iot device 2525 may be, for example, a refrigerator installed indoors. the first server 2521 may be, for example, a shopping mall server, without being limited thereto. the second server 2523 may be, for example, a server that manages an indoor iot device, without being limited thereto. the electronic device 101 may display an execution screen 2503 of a chat application running in the electronic device on the display 160 . the electronic device 101 may display, on the execution screen, a plurality of text messages received from another electronic device through a communication unit and a plurality of text messages input through an input unit of the electronic device. for example, when user a runs the chat application in the electronic device 101 , messages 2505 , 2506 , and 2507 exchanged between user a and user b may be displayed on a screen 2503 . user a may input text messages 2505 and 2507 through the input unit of the electronic device. user b may input a text message 2506 through the other electronic device, and the other electronic device may transmit the input text message to the electronic device. the electronic device 101 may display the received text message 2506 on the screen 2503 . the electronic device 101 may determine an external device to provide information for user a based on the plurality of messages displayed on the screen. the electronic device 101 may acquire the plurality of text messages 2505 , 2506 , and 2507 through the chat application. the electronic device 101 may extract a keyword from the plurality of text messages 2505 , 2506 , and 2507 and may be provided with information from the external device based on the extracted keyword. the electronic device 101 may transmit and receive data to and from the external device in order to be provided with information from the external device. methods in which the electronic device 101 extracts a keyword from a text message and disposes and displays a text message on a screen have been described in fig. 4 to fig. 10 , and thus detailed repeated descriptions thereof are omitted. the external device may be the first server 2521 , the second server 2523 , or the refrigerator 2525 . for example, when user a asks user b “what do you want to eat for dinner?” 2505 and user b replies “pizza” 2506 , the electronic device 101 may determine that the two people are having a conversation about food from the words “dinner,” “eat,” and “pizza” and may retrieve a food-related device among iot devices installed indoors. the electronic device may receive information from a determined external device. the food-related device may be, for example, a refrigerator or micro wave oven (mwo). when user a inputs a message of “have ingredients in the fridge?,” the electronic device 101 may extract keywords of “fridge” and “ingredients” from the message and may check an inventory of food ingredients stored in the refrigerator. for example, the electronic device 101 may retrieve an external device to transmit and receive data to and from based on a word (keyword) extracted from the plurality of text messages 2505 , 2506 , and 2507 and may transmit and receive data to and from the retrieved external device. for example, the data may be a command to control the external device or data to be provided to the external device. the electronic device 101 may request an inventory of ingredients from the refrigerator 2525 based on the text message 2507 and may display a message 2508 related to the request on the screen. the electronic device 101 may receive “the inventory of food ingredients” from the refrigerator 2525 and may display the received inventory of food ingredients on the screen 2503 on which the application is running. here, the plurality of text messages 2505 , 2506 , and 2507 and the information 2508 received from the refrigerator may be chronologically arranged and displayed on the execution screen. the electronic device 101 may display a ui element 2509 within the text message 2508 in order to provide information on the inventory of food ingredients in the refrigerator 2525 . the ui element 2509 may be a button. the ui element may receive a user input. when user a selects the button 2509 , the inventory of food ingredients in the refrigerator may be displayed on the screen. the inventory of food ingredients may be displayed within the text message 2508 or be displayed on a separate pop-up window, without being limited thereto. for example, the inventory of food ingredients may be provided by a voice guidance. in an example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may receive the inventory of food ingredients in the refrigerator 2525 through the second server 2523 . the second server 2523 may be a server that manages an indoor iot device, may manage data on the state and condition of the indoor iot device in a database form, and may transmit the data on the indoor iot device to another device including the electronic device 101 . referring to fig. 25b , the electronic device 101 may display the inventory of food ingredients 2531 on the screen according to a user input of selecting the button 2509 illustrated in fig. 25a . on the screen of the inventory of food ingredients 2531 , food ingredient images 2532 , 2534 , 2536 , and 2538 and the names and expiration dates of food ingredients may be displayed. the food ingredient images 2532 , 2534 , 2536 , and 2538 may be acquired through a camera mounted on the refrigerator or through the first server (shopping mall server) 2521 . the names and expiration dates of food ingredients may be acquired through the first server 2521 . the electronic device 101 may check an inventory of ingredients to be additionally purchased based on the text message and may provide the inventory of ingredients to the user. referring to fig. 25c , the electronic device may display an inventory of new ingredients 2551 to be purchased on the screen. the electronic device 101 may extract a keyword of “pizza” from the text message 2506 in fig. 25a and may retrieve a recipe for “pizza” through the first server. the electronic device 101 may compare necessary food ingredients for “pizza” and the inventory of food ingredients in the refrigerator based on a retrieval result and may generate the inventory of new ingredients 2551 to be purchased. the inventory of new ingredients 2551 to be purchased may include food ingredient images 2552 , 2554 , and 2556 and the names and prices of food ingredients. the electronic device 101 may transmit information on food ingredients included in the inventory of new ingredients 2551 to be purchased to the first server (shopping mall server) 2521 through user's confirmation. for example, the electronic device 101 may order the new ingredients to be purchased through user's confirmation. in an example embodiment, the electronic device 101 may automatically order food ingredients by referring to the inventory of new ingredients 2551 to be purchased, without user's confirmation. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a method of operating an electronic device may include: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; transmitting a query including the keyword to an external device; and performing an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the method may further include acquiring receiver information on a receiver that performs a keyword analysis, wherein the transmitting of the query transmits the query including the keyword and the receiver information, and the keyword analysis is performed by an electronic device corresponding to the receiver information. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the acquiring of the keyword may include: performing natural language processing on each of the plurality of text messages; and generating the keyword using a natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the generating of the keyword using the natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages may include: comparing a preset template with the natural language processing result; and generating the keyword based on a comparison result. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the generating of the keyword using the natural language processing result of each of the plurality of text messages may include: applying a machine learning or deep learning algorithm to the natural language processing result; determining the intent of each of the plurality of text messages based on an application result; and generating the keyword based on the intent of each of the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the acquiring of the plurality of text messages may include: acquiring a plurality of first text messages in a first period; and acquiring a plurality of second text messages in a second period. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the acquiring of the keyword may include: generating a first keyword corresponding to the plurality of first text messages; and generating a second keyword corresponding to the plurality of second text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the generating of the second keyword may include generating the second keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of second text messages and at least one of the first keyword and the plurality of first text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the method may further include acquiring additional information, wherein the acquiring of the keyword may include generating the keyword using an analysis result of the plurality of text messages and the additional information. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the acquiring of the additional information may include acquiring additional information associated with the analysis result of the plurality of text messages or may acquire independent additional information from the plurality of text messages. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, the acquiring of the plurality of text messages may include: acquiring a plurality of user voices; and acquiring the plurality of text messages by converting the plurality of user voices. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a method of operating an electronic device may include: displaying an execution screen of a chat application running in the electronic device; displaying a plurality of text messages input to the electronic device or received from another electronic device, on the execution screen of the chat application; receiving an analysis request for the plurality of text messages; transmitting a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages upon the analysis request; and receiving an analysis result of the keyword and displaying the received analysis result of the keyword on the execution screen of the chat application. in various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a method of operating an electronic device may include: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; and performing an operation corresponding to the keyword. each of the components of the electronic device according to the present disclosure may be implemented by one or more components and the name of the corresponding component may vary depending on a type of the electronic device. in various example embodiments, the inspection apparatus may include at least one of the above-described elements. some of the above-described elements may be omitted from the electronic device, or the inspection apparatus may further include additional elements. further, some of the components of the electronic device according to the various example embodiments of the present disclosure may be combined to form a single entity, and thus, may equivalently execute functions of the corresponding elements prior to the combination. the term “module” as used herein may, for example, refer to a unit including one of hardware (e.g., circuitry), software, and firmware or a combination of two or more of them. the “module” may be interchangeably used with, for example, the term “unit”, “logic”, “logical block”, “component”, or “circuit”. the “module” may be the smallest unit of an integrated component or a part thereof. the “module” may be the smallest unit that performs one or more functions or a part thereof. the “module” may be mechanically or electronically implemented. for example, the “module” according to the present disclosure may include at least one of processing circuitry, an application-specific integrated circuit (asic) chip, a field-programmable gate arrays (fpga), and a programmable-logic device for performing operations which has been known or are to be developed hereinafter. according to various example embodiments, at least some of the devices (for example, modules or functions thereof) or the method (for example, operations) according to the present disclosure may be implemented by a command stored in a computer-readable storage medium in a programming module form. when the command is executed by one or more processors (for example, the processor 120 ), the one or more processors may execute a function corresponding to the command. the computer-readable storage medium may, for example, be the memory 130 . the computer readable recoding medium may include a hard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic media (e.g., a magnetic tape), optical media (e.g., a compact disc read only memory (cd-rom) and a digital versatile disc (dvd)), magneto-optical media (e.g., a floptical disk), a hardware device (e.g., a read only memory (rom), a random access memory (ram), a flash memory), and the like. in addition, the program instructions may include high class language codes, which can be executed in a computer by using an interpreter, as well as machine codes made by a compiler. the aforementioned hardware device may be configured to operate as one or more software modules in order to perform the operation of the present disclosure, and vice versa. the programming module according to the present disclosure may include one or more of the aforementioned components or may further include other additional components, or some of the aforementioned components may be omitted. operations executed by a module, a programming module, or other component elements according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure may be executed sequentially, in parallel, repeatedly, or in a heuristic manner. further, some operations may be executed according to another order or may be omitted, or other operations may be added. according to various example embodiments of the present disclosure, a storage medium stores commands, wherein the commands are set for at least one processor to perform at least one operation when executed by the at least one processor, and the at least one operation may include: acquiring a plurality of text messages; acquiring a keyword corresponding to the plurality of text messages by analyzing each of the plurality of text messages; transmitting a query including the keyword; and performing an operation corresponding to an analysis result of the keyword after receiving the analysis result of the keyword. various example embodiments disclosed herein are provided merely to easily describe technical details of the present disclosure and to aid in understanding of the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure. therefore, it should be understood that all modifications and changes or modified and changed forms based on the technical idea of the present disclosure fall within the scope of the present disclosure.
196-359-452-410-596	AU	[ "WO", "US", "AU", "CA" ]	A63B61/02,E04H12/00,A63B71/00,E04H12/22,E04H17/00,E04G21/32	2019-03-08T00:00:00	2019	[ "A63", "E04" ]	a post hole cover	the present invention relates to a post hole cover comprising a cover portion adapted to substantially overlie a post hole and one or more ground-engaging members extending from the cover portion, wherein the cover portion includes one or more installation portions adapted to facilitate installation of the post hole cover over the post hole.	claims 1. a post hole cover comprising a cover portion adapted to substantially overlie a post hole and one or more ground-engaging members extending from the cover portion, wherein the cover portion includes one or more installation portions adapted to facilitate installation of the post hole cover over the post hole. 2. a post hole cover according to claim 1 wherein the cover portion is substantially dome shaped. 3. a post hole cover according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein an upper surface of the cover portion is provided with one or more grip portions. 4. a post hole cover according to claim 3 wherein the one or more grip portions comprise a plurality of annular ribs extending at least partway about the cover portion. 5. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the post hole cover is provided with one or more handle portions. 6. a post hole cover according to claim 5 wherein the one or more handle portions comprise at least a pair of recesses, slots or channels extending into an upper surface of the cover portion. 7. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the post hole cover is provided with one or more reinforcing members adapted to increase one or more of the strength, rigidity, load-bearing capability and durability of the post hole cover. 8. a post hole cover according to claim 7 wherein the one or more reinforcing members are provided on a lower surface of the cover portion. 9. a post hole cover according to claim 7 or claim 8 wherein the one or more reinforcing members comprise ribs. 10. a post hole cover according to claim 9 wherein the ribs are in contact with the lower surface of the cover portion along their entire length. 1 1. a post hole cover according to claim 9 or claim 10 wherein the post hole cover comprises a first plurality of ribs extending in a first direction and a second plurality of ribs extending in a second direction. 12. a post hole cover according to claim 1 1 wherein the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of about 90° to one another. 13. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the one or more ground-engaging members extend from a lower surface of the cover portion. 14. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the ground-engaging members extend at an angle of between about 85° and about 95° to the periphery of the cover portion. 15. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the ground-engaging members are shaped so as to form one or more points adapted to penetrate a ground surface adjacent the post hole. 16. a post hole cover according to claim 15 wherein the ground-engaging members are substantially triangular in shape, with a point or apex of the triangle adapted to penetrate the ground surface. 17. a post hole cover according to claim 15 or claim 16 wherein the ground- engaging members are adapted to penetrate the ground surface to such a depth that at least a portion of the cover portion is located in abutment with the ground surface. 18. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the installation portions are adapted to provide one or more regions of the post hole cover to which pressure is applied to facilitate penetration of the ground surface by the ground-engaging members. 19. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the installation portions comprise substantially planar portions of the cover portion. 20. a post hole cover according to claim 19 wherein the substantially planar installation portions comprise lands, shoulders or recesses in an upper surface of the cover portion. 21. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein each of the one or more installation portions at least partially overlies, or is positioned adjacent, a ground-engaging member. 22. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the post hole cover is stackable post hole cover. 23. a post hole cover according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the post hole cover is fabricated from a polycarbonate, or combination of polycarbonbates.	a post hole cover technical field [0001 ] the present invention relates to a cover. in particular, the present invention relates to a post hole cover. background art [0002] there are many industries in which post holes (also referred to as pier holes) are dug. for instance, in the building industry, post holes are dug to accommodate the piers or stumps of a building or structure under construction. post holes are also dug during the construction of fences and retaining walls, or the installation of telegraph poles. [0003] after forming a post hole, but before a post is placed therein, an open post hole can present a significant injury risk to people in the area. in addition, during rain events, post holes can fill with water and dirt or debris, requiring the use of external pumps to clear the hole. further, cave-ins in wet post holes can result in further excavation being required, thereby increasing costs. [0004] in practice, workers cover post holes with pieces of wood (such as plywood) or erect temporary barriers around post holes to prevent injury. however, these measures do not entirely eliminate the risk of injury: a person that stands on a relatively flimsy plywood cover could fall through and into the post hole. [0005] thus, there would be an advantage if it were possible to provide a post hole cover that was quick and easy to install and remove, but that reduced or eliminated the safety risks associated with temporary covers. [0006] it will be clearly understood that, if a prior art publication is referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that the publication forms part of the common general knowledge in the art in australia or in any other country. summary of invention [0007] the present invention is directed to a post hole cover, which may at least partially overcome at least one of the abovementioned disadvantages or provide the consumer with a useful or commercial choice. [0008] with the foregoing in view, the present invention in one form, resides broadly in a post hole cover comprising a cover portion adapted to substantially overlie a post hole and one or more ground-engaging members extending from the cover portion, wherein the cover portion includes one or more installation portions adapted to facilitate installation of the post hole cover over the post hole. [0009] in the present specification, the term“post hole” is used to describe holes dug for any suitable purpose, and is intended to encompass such things as holes dug for telegraph posts, piers or stumps, fence posts, tree planting, retaining walls, street signs, traffic lights or the like. it is intended that the term“post hole” encompasses other holes, such as drill holes for exploration in the mining, oil and gas industries, blast holes, and so on. [0010] the cover portion may be of any suitable size, shape or configuration. however, it is envisaged that the cover portion may be of sufficient width or diameter to substantially overlie the post hole with which it is being used. preferably, the cover portion is adapted to entirely overlie the post hole with which it is being used. thus, it is envisaged that the post hole cover of the present invention may be fabricated in a number of different sizes in order to cover post holes of varying diameter. [001 1 ] in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the cover portion may be substantially circular in shape. however, it is envisaged that the cover portion could be any other suitable shape, such as square, rectangular, triangular, oval or the like. the cover portion could also be of an irregular shape. it will be understood that the feature of shape referred to herein refers to the shape of the cover portion when viewed from above (i.e. in plan view). [0012] the cover portion may be of any suitable cross-sectional shape. for instance, the cover portion may be substantially planar across at least a portion of its diameter. in this embodiment of the invention, the cover portion may be provided with a handle portion extending outwardly from the cover portion. [0013] more preferably, the cover portion has a non-planar cross-sectional shape. in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the cover portion may include a raised region. preferably, the raised region may be a substantially central region of the cover portion. thus, in this embodiment of the invention, the cover portion may be provided with an apex in the central region thereof. alternatively, the cover portion may be provided with a convex shape such that the central region of the cover portion is located at a height above the periphery of the cover portion. thus, it is envisaged that the cover portion may be substantially dome shaped. by providing the cover portion with a dome shape, the post hole cover may be relatively resistant to breakage or damage in the event that it is stepped on or an object is placed thereon. [0014] the post hole cover may be adapted to support any suitable weight thereon. however, it is envisaged that the post hole cover may be of sufficient strength to support at least the weight of a human being thereon. thus, the post hole cover may be adapted to support at least about 100kg thereon. more preferably, the post hole cover may be adapted to support at least about 150kg thereon. even more preferably, the post hole cover may be adapted to support at least about 200kg thereon. [0015] in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the cover portion may be provided with one or more grip portions. more preferably, an upper surface of the cover portion may be provided with one or more grip portions. the grip portions may be of any suitable form, although it is envisaged that the grip portions may be provided so as to provide a more stable footing to a person that steps on the post hole cover, particularly in wet conditions. in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the grip portions may comprise regions of relatively high grip material. alternatively, the grip portions may be one or more projections, lands or the like. in a most preferred embodiment of the invention, the grip portions may comprise one or more ribs extending at least partially about the cover portion. in some embodiments of the invention, a plurality of ribs may be provided, the plurality of ribs being provided spaced apart from one another between the periphery of the cover portion and the central region thereof. preferably, the grip portions comprise a plurality of annular ribs extending at least partway about the cover portion (and, in particular, the central region of the cover portion). [0016] in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the post hole cover may be provided with one or more handle portions. the handle portions may be provided at any suitable location on the post hole cover, although in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the handle portions may be provided on the cover portion. [0017] it is envisaged that the handle portions could extend outwardly from the cover portion. more preferably, however, the handle portions may extend into the upper surface of the cover portion in order to avoid creating a trip hazard. the handle portions may be of any suitable form to allow a user to hold the post hole cover by the handle portions, and may include one or more finger holes, hand grips or the like, or any suitable combination thereof. in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the handle portions may comprise at least a pair of recesses, slots, channels or the like into which a user may at least partially insert their fingers in order to grip the post hole cover. the at least a pair of recesses, slots or channels may be oriented at any suitable angle to one another. preferably, however, the at least a pair of recesses, slots or channels are positioned substantially parallel to one another. [0018] the handle portions may be provided at any suitable location on the cover portion. however, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the handle portions may be provided in the central region of the cover portion. [0019] in some embodiments of the invention, the post hole cover may be provided with one or more reinforcing members. the reinforcing members may be of any suitable form, although it is envisaged that the one or more reinforcing members may be adapted to increase one or more of the strength, rigidity, load-bearing capability and durability of the post hole cover (for instance, when a person stands on the post hole cover, or an object is placed on the post hole cover). [0020] in a preferred embodiment, the one or more reinforcing members may be provided on the cover portion. more preferably, the one or more reinforcing members may be provided on a lower surface of the cover portion. even more preferably, the one or more reinforcing members may be provided on a central region of the lower surface of the cover portion, although it is envisaged that the reinforcing members may extend from the central region to at least partway to the periphery of the cover portion. thus, in this embodiment, it is envisaged that the one or more reinforcing members may be located on the opposed surface of the cover portion to the highest portion thereof. [0021 ] the one or more reinforcing members may comprise one or more projections. preferably, the one or more projections extend outwardly from the lower surface of the cover portion. in some embodiments of the invention, the one or more projections may be relatively elongate. in these embodiments, it is envisaged that the one or more projections may comprise ribs. preferably, the ribs are in contact with the lower surface of the cover portion along their entire length. [0022] the ribs may all extend in the same direction as one another. alternatively, the ribs may extend in two or more directions. in a preferred embodiment, at least one rib may extend in a first direction, and at least one rib may extend in a second direction, the second direction being different to the first direction. most preferably, a first plurality of ribs may extend in a first direction, while a second plurality of ribs may extend in a second direction. preferably, the first plurality of ribs and the second plurality of ribs intersect one another. [0023] the first direction and the second direction may be oriented at any suitable angle to another. preferably, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of between about 10° and about 170° to one another. more preferably, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of between about 30° and about 150° to one another. still more preferably, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of between about 50° and about 130° to one another. yet more preferably, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of between about 70° and about 1 10° to one another. most preferably, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of about 90° to one another. [0024] in some embodiments of the invention, the post hole cover may comprise at least one rib extending in a third direction. in other embodiments of the invention, the post hole cover may include at least one rib extending in a fourth direction. more preferably, a third plurality of ribs may extend in a third direction, while a fourth plurality of ribs may extend in a fourth direction. preferably, the third direction is different to the fourth direction. more preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are different to both the first direction and the second direction. preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are oriented at an angle of between about 10° and about 170° to one another. more preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are oriented at an angle of between about 30° and about 150° to one another. still more preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are oriented at an angle of between about 50° and about 130° to one another. yet more preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are oriented at an angle of between about 70° and about 1 10° to one another. most preferably, the third direction and the fourth direction are oriented at an angle of about 90° to one another. [0025] in a particular embodiment of the invention, the first direction and the second direction are oriented at an angle of approximately 45° to each of the third direction and the fourth direction. [0026] preferably, the ribs extending in the third direction and the fourth direction may be located so as to abut or intersect at least one rib extending in the first and/or second direction. it is envisaged that, in some embodiments of the invention, at least one of the ribs extending in the third direction and the fourth direction may extend to a point at or adjacent the periphery of the post hole cover. [0027] it is envisaged that the provision of the ribs extending in the third direction and the fourth direction may serve to increase one or more of the strength, rigidity, load-bearing capability and durability of the post hole cover. [0028] in some embodiments of the invention, it is envisaged that the handle portions may comprise one or more side walls and/or base walls forming the recesses, slots or channels. in this embodiment of the invention, the one or more side walls and/or base walls ay be associated with, or form a part of, the reinforcing members. [0029] as previously stated, the post hole cover includes one or more ground- engaging members extending from the cover portion. the ground-engaging members may extend from any suitable portion of the cover portion and at any suitable angle thereto. in a preferred embodiment, the ground-engaging members extend from the lower surface of the cover portion. [0030] it is envisaged that the ground-engaging members may engage the ground near the rim of the post hole. thus, in other embodiments, the ground- engaging members may extend from the periphery of the cover portion. it will be understood that the ground-engaging members may not engage the ground immediately adjacent to the rim of the post hole, as the ground immediately adjacent to the rim of the post hole may be unstable and could cave in. therefore, it is envisaged that a margin will be left between the rim of the post hole and the point at which the ground-engaging members engage the ground surface. the margin will vary depending on a number of factors, such as the amount of moisture in the soil, climatic conditions, the type of soil and so on. [0031 ] preferably, the ground-engaging members extend substantially downwardly from the cover portion. thus, in some embodiments of the invention the ground-engaging members extend at an angle of between about 85° and about 95° to the periphery of the cover portion. more preferably, the ground-engaging members extend at an angle of about 90° to the periphery of the cover portion. [0032] the ground-engaging members may engage the ground in any suitable manner. for instance, the ground-engaging members may be located in abutment with the ground surface. more preferably, at least a portion of the ground-engaging members penetrates the ground surface. in this way, the post hole cover may effectively secured or anchored to the ground surrounding the post hole. this prevents accidental removal or movement of the post hole cover that would otherwise expose the open post hole. [0033] the ground-engaging members may penetrate the ground surface in any suitable manner. preferably, however, the ground-engaging members may be shaped so as to facilitate penetration of the ground. for instance, the ground- engaging portions may be shaped so as to form one or more points adapted to penetrate the ground surface adjacent to the post hole. thus, in a particular embodiment of the invention, the ground-engaging portions may be substantially triangular in shape, with a point or apex of the triangle adapted to penetrate the ground surface. the ground-engaging members may include a penetration portion, such as one or more teeth, blades or the like adapted to penetrate the ground surface. the penetration portion may be formed separately from the ground- engaging member and be adapted for fixed or removable attachment thereto. more preferably, the penetration portion may be formed integrally with the ground- engaging member. [0034] the post hole cover may be provided with any suitable number of ground- engaging members, and it will be understood that the number of ground-engaging members may vary depending on the size of the post hole cover, the nature of the ground surface, the shape of the cover portion and so on. preferably, however, the post hole cover may be provided with at least a pair of ground-engaging members. the ground-engaging members may be spaced at any suitable distance from one another about the periphery of the cover portion. preferably, the ground-engaging members are positioned substantially equidistantly from one another about the periphery of the cover portion. [0035] in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the post hole cover includes at least three ground-engaging members. in one specific embodiment, the post hole cover includes four ground-engaging members. [0036] the ground-engaging members may be of any suitable length, and it will be understood that the length of the ground-engaging members may vary depending on the size of the post hole cover, the type of ground surface and so on. the ground-engaging members on a post hole cover may be all substantially the same length. alternatively, at least one ground-engaging member may be of a different length to other ground-engaging members on the same post hole cover. [0037] the ground-engaging members may penetrate the ground surface to any suitable depth. however, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the entire ground-engaging member penetrates the ground surface. in this embodiment, the ground-engaging members penetrate the ground surface to such a depth that at least a portion of the cover portion (and, more specifically, at least a portion of the periphery of the cover portion) is located in abutment with the ground surface. not only does this ensure that the post hole cover is securely anchored in place, but it also minimises or eliminates the risk of a person tripping over a post hole cover installed such that a gap between the ground surface and the periphery of the cover portion is present. in addition, by locating at least a portion of the periphery of the cover portion in abutment with the ground surface, accidental removal or movement of the post hole cover from over the post hole may be reduced or eliminated. [0038] in some situations, such as when the ground is wet or soft, or the soil is particularly loose, the post hole cover may penetrate the ground under its own weight. alternatively, a user may provide a downward force to the post hole cover with their hands. [0039] in other situations, such as when the ground is relatively dry, the soil is compacted and so on, a user may make use of the installation portions in order to facilitate the installation of the post hole cover over the post hole. [0040] the installation portions may be of any suitable form. preferably, however, the purpose of the installation portions is to provide one or more regions of the post hole cover to which pressure may be applied to facilitate penetration of the ground surface by the ground-engaging members. [0041 ] pressure may be applied to the installation portions using any suitable technique. for instance, a person may apply pressure to the installation portions using their hands, feet or the like. more preferably, a user may use a tool (such as, but not limited to, a hammer, mallet or the like) to apply pressure to the installation portions. in this embodiment of the invention, it is envisaged that the installation portions may comprise regions of the cover portion that are reinforced or fabricated from impact-resistant materials in order to withstand impact from the tool. [0042] in some embodiments, the installation portions may form part of the convex surface of the cover portion. more preferably, however, the installation portions may be formed so that the force applied by the user to the installation portion is directed substantially downwardly so as to more efficiently assist in achieving penetration of the ground surface by the ground-engaging members. thus, in this embodiment of the invention, the installation portions may comprise substantially planar portions of the cover portion. in this way, the installation portions may be oriented at approximately 90° to the vertical, so that a force applied to the installation portions is directed substantially downwardly (i.e. substantially vertically downwardly). [0043] preferably, the substantially planar installation portions may comprise lands, shoulders or recesses in the cover portion (collectively referred to hereinafter as“lands” for convenience). the lands may be provided at any suitable location on the cover portion, although in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the lands may be provided in the upper surface of the cover portion. even more preferably, the lands may be provided at or adjacent the periphery of the cover portion. it is envisaged that the lands may effectively comprise cut-out portions of the cover portion. it is envisaged that providing lands in this manner may be advantageous as it may reduce or eliminate damage to the cover portion that may occur if a tool such as a hammer is impacted on the convex surface of the cover portion. [0044] in other embodiments of the invention, the installation portions may be raised portions. thus, in this embodiment of the invention, the installation portions may comprise shoulders, lands or the like that are positioned above the surface of the cover portion adjacent to the installation portions. [0045] the installation portions may be of any suitable size. preferably, the installation portions may be of at least sufficient size that a told such as a hammer or mallet may be impacted on the installation portions without contacting any other part of the post hole cover. in other embodiments of the invention, the installation portions may be of at least sufficient size to accommodate at least a portion of a user’s footwear (such as a shoe or boot). in some embodiments of the invention, the installation portions may be reinforced. any suitable method of reinforcing the installation portions may be used. for instance, the thickness of material in the installation portions may be increased relative to the rest of the post hole cover, or the installation portions may be at least partially fabricated from an impact-resistant material. [0046] the installation portions may be provided at any suitable location in the cover portion. preferably (and as previously stated) the installation portions may be provided at or adjacent the periphery of the cover portion. more preferably, the at least one of the installation portions may be associated with a ground-engaging member. in this embodiment of the invention, it is envisaged that the installation portion may at least partially overlie, or be positioned adjacent, a ground-engaging member. [0047] in a most preferred embodiment of the invention, each ground-engaging member may be associated with an installation portion. in particular, an installation portion may at least partially overlie, or be positioned adjacent, each ground- engaging portion. in this way, the force applied to the installation portions may be applied in the vicinity of the ground-engaging portions so as to enhance the penetration of the ground surface by the ground-engaging members. [0048] in some embodiments of the invention, it is envisaged that at least one installation portion may be provided that does not at least partially overlie, or be positioned adjacent, a ground-engaging member. similarly, it is envisaged that at least one ground-engaging member may be provided that is not at least partially overlain by an installation portion. [0049] in some embodiments of the invention, the radius of the cover portion may be the same about its entire circumference. alternatively, the radius of the cover portion may vary about its circumference. in some embodiments of the invention, the radius of the cover portion in the vicinity of the ground-engaging members may be greater than the radius of the cover portion between adjacent ground-engaging members. by providing the cover portion with a greater radius in the vicinity of the ground-engaging members, it is envisaged that two or more of the post hole covers may be stacked together for ease of storage or transportation. thus, the post hole cover of the present invention may be a stackable post hole cover. [0050] the post hole cover of the present invention may be fabricated from any suitable material, or combination of materials. preferably the post hole cover may be fabricated from a relatively strong, rigid and/or durable material. for instance, the post hole cover may be fabricated from a polymeric material, a metal or metal alloy, wood, fibreglass or a combination thereof. preferably, the post hole cover is fabricated from a polymeric material. any suitable polymeric material may be used, although in a preferred embodiment of the invention the polymeric material may be a polycarbonate, or combination of polycarbonates. the post hole cover may be fabricated using any suitable technique, such as, but not limited to, casting, moulding or the like. preferably, the post hole cover is of unitary construction. [0051 ] in some embodiments of the invention, the material from which the post hole cover is fabricated may be provided with certain properties. for instance, the post hole cover may be fabricated from a uv-resistant material, a chemical-resistant material, a fire resistant material, an impact resistant material or the like, or any suitable combination thereof. [0052] it is envisaged that the post hole cover may be fabricated in any suitable colour. preferably, however, the post hole cover may be fabricated in a colour having relatively high visibility. thus, the post hole cover may be fabricated from a coloured material, or a material to which a relatively high visibility dye or colour has been added. any suitable high visibility colour may be used, such as, but not limited to, yellow, green, orange, pink, a fluorescent or phosphorescent colour, or a combination thereof. [0053] in some embodiments of the invention, the upper surface of the cover portion may be provided with indicia. any suitable indicia may be used, and may include safety information, use information, safe work load information and the like. the indicia may be provided on the cover portion using any suitable technique. for instance, the indicia may be printed, etched, engraved, and so on on the surface of the cover portion. [0054] it is envisaged that, in order to remove a post hole cover from over the post hole (such as when the post hole is to be filled), a user may pull the cover out of the ground. this may be possible in particular when the ground is wet or the soil is particularly loose. however, in other situations (such as when the ground if dry or the soil is compacted) a user may be required to lever the cover out of the ground. this may be achieved using any suitable technique, although it is envisaged that a tool such as a shovel or crowbar may be used. the tool may be positioned under the periphery of the cover portion and then the tool used as a lever to extract the cover from the ground. [0055] it is envisaged that the post hole cover of the present invention may be reusable. [0056] the present invention provides numerous advantages over the prior art. by securely positioning a durable cover over a post hole, the risk of injury to a worker caused by either stepping on a flimsy cover, or by stepping into an uncovered post hole, may be reduced or eliminated. in addition, placing a cover over a post hole reduces or eliminates the influx of water and debris into the post hole, thereby ensuring that the post hole is in condition for use at all times without requiring additional drainage or the like. [0057] the present invention allows for the easy and efficient installation of the post hole cover, as well as reducing or eliminating the risk of the unwanted or accidental removal of the cover from its position over the post hole. [0058] further, the post hole cover of the present invention is both stackable and reusable. [0059] any of the features described herein can be combined in any combination with any one or more of the other features described herein within the scope of the invention. [0060] the reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that the prior art forms part of the common general knowledge. brief description of drawings [0061 ] preferred features, embodiments and variations of the invention may be discerned from the following detailed description which provides sufficient information for those skilled in the art to perform the invention. the detailed description is not to be regarded as limiting the scope of the preceding summary of the invention in any way. the detailed description will make reference to a number of drawings as follows: [0062] figure 1 illustrates a top isometric view of a post hole cover according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0063] figure 2 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a post hole cover according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0064] figure 3 illustrates a side view of a post hole cover according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0065] figure 4 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a pair of post hole covers according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0066] figure 5 illustrates a top isometric view of a post hole cover according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0067] figure 6 illustrates a schematic view of a post hole cover when in use according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0068] figure 7 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a post hole cover according to an embodiment of the present invention. [0069] figure 8 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a pair of post hole covers according to an embodiment of the present invention. description of embodiments [0070] figure 1 illustrates a top isometric view of a post hole cover 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole cover 10 includes a cover portion 1 1 , a plurality of ground-engaging members 12 depending from the cover portion 1 1 and a plurality of installation portions 13. [0071 ] in the embodiment of the invention illustrated in figure 1 , the cover portion is generally circular. flowever, the radius of the cover portion 11 varies about the circumference. specifically, in the regions of the cover portion 11 in which the ground-engaging members 12 are located, the radius of the cover portion 1 1 is greater than the regions 14 between adjacent ground-engaging members 12. in this way, a number of post hole covers 10 may be stacked on top of each other (best seen in figure 4). this improves the ease with which the post hole covers 10 can be stored and transported. [0072] the cover portion 1 1 is generally convex in shape, with a central region 15 of the cover portion 1 1 located at a height above the periphery 16 of the cover portion 1 1. in this way, the cover portion 1 1 is generally in the shape of a dome. [0073] a plurality of annular (or semi-annular) ribs 17 is located on the upper surface of the cover portion 1 1. the ribs 17 are spaced apart from one another between the central region 15 and the periphery 16 of the cover portion 11. the ribs 17 provide additional grip for a user that steps or stands on the upper surface of the cover portion 1 1. this is particularly of assistance in wet conditions so as to reduce or eliminate the risk of injury to workers. [0074] the central region 15 of the cover portion 11 includes a pair of channels 18 extending into the upper surface of the cover portion 1 1. the pair of channels 18 are positioned substantially parallel to one another. the pair of channels 18 act as handles and allow a user to partially insert their hand into the channels 18 to grip the post hole cover 10. [0075] as previously stated, the post hole cover 10 includes a plurality of ground- engaging members 12. the ground-engaging members 12 extend substantially downwardly from at or adjacent the periphery 16 of the cover portion 1 1. it is envisaged that, in use, the cover portion 1 1 will be positioned so as to overlie a post hole (not shown) and the ground-engaging members 12 will engage the ground surface near the rim of the post hole. [0076] in the embodiment of the invention shown in figure 1 , the ground- engaging members 12 are spaced equidistantly from one another about the periphery 16 of the cover portion 1 1. the ground-engaging members 12 are substantially triangular in shape and are oriented such that an apex or point 19 of each ground-engaging member 12 is adapted to penetrate the ground surface, thereby securing or anchoring the post hole cover 10 to the ground. [0077] the post hole cover 10 of figure 1 has the same number of ground- engaging members 12 as installation portions 13, and each installation portion 13 is associated with a ground-engaging member 12. specifically, each installation portion 13 is located on the cover portion 1 1 so as to overlie, or be positioned adjacent, a ground-engaging member 12. [0078] in use, it is envisaged that a user will position the post hole cover 10 over a post hole (not shown). once in position, the user will apply a downward force to the post hole cover 10 such that the ground-engaging members 12 penetrate the ground surface to secure the post hole cover 10 in place over the post hole. in the embodiment of the invention shown in figure 1 , a user may impact a hammer or mallet (not shown) on the installation portions 13 in order to secure the post hole cover 10 to the ground. [0079] the installation portions 13 are formed as recesses in the cover portion 1 1 , and are provided with a substantially planar surface 20 on which the user impacts a hammer or mallet (not shown). the planar surface 20 in the installation portions 13 assists in ensuring that the force of the impact is directed downwardly into the ground-engaging members 12 (particularly when, as in figure 1 , the installation portions 13 overlie, or be positioned adjacent, the ground-engaging members 12). flowever, by providing the installation portions 13 as recesses in the cover portion 1 1 , damage to the cover portion 1 1 by impacting a hammer or mallet thereon may be reduced or eliminated. [0080] figure 2 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a post hole cover 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole cover 10 of figure 2 is identical to that shown in figure 1. [0081 ] in figure 2, the lower surface 21 of the cover portion 1 1 may be seen. the lower surface 21 is provided with a plurality of reinforcing members in the form of a first set of ribs 22a extending in a first direction and a second set of ribs 22b extending substantially perpendicularly to the first set of ribs 22a. the first set of ribs 22a and the second set of ribs 22b intersect one another so as to provide additional strength to the cover portion 1 1. the ribs 22a, 22b extend from the central region 15 of the cover portion 11 towards the periphery 16 thereof. [0082] the walls of the handle portions 18 that extend into the upper surface of the cover portion 1 1 also form reinforcing members in the lower surface 21 of the cover portion 11. [0083] in figure 2, the recesses formed by the installation portions 13 may be seen. it may also be seen that the installation portions 13 overlie, or are positioned adjacent, a central portion of each ground-engaging member 12. [0084] figure 3 illustrates a side view of a post hole cover 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. in this figure, the convex shape of the cover portion 1 1 may be seen. by providing the cover portion 1 1 with a convex shape, the cover portion 1 1 effectively forms a dome with the highest point located in the central region 15 of the cover portion 1 1 sloping down to the periphery 16. [0085] it is envisaged that, when the post hole cover 10 is in use, the ground- engaging members 12 will penetrate the ground surface to substantially their full height. in this way, the periphery 16 of the cover portion 1 1 will be located in abutment with, or close proximity to, the ground surface. [0086] figure 4 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a pair of post hole covers 10a, 10b according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole covers 10a, 10b are shown stacked on top of one another, for example for storage or transportation. [0087] in order to stack the covers, the upper cover 10a is positioned so that the ground-engaging members 12a are positioned in the regions 14b between adjacent ground-engaging members 12b of the lower cover 10b. as the radius of the cover 10b is greater where ground-engaging members 12b are located than in the regions 14b between adjacent ground-engaging members 12b, the ground-engaging members 12a are able to be located in the regions 14b, thereby allowing the covers 10a, 10b to be stacked on top of each other. [0088] figure 5 illustrates a top isometric view of a post hole cover 100 according to an alternative embodiment of the present invention. the post hole cover 100 is similar to that shown in figures 1 to 4 in that is includes a cover portion 101 , a plurality of ground-engaging members 102 and a plurality of installation portions 103. flowever, some differences exist. [0089] in the embodiment of the invention shown in figure 5, ground-engaging members 102 are provided around substantially the entire periphery 104 of the cover portion 101. the ground-engaging members 102 located adjacent the installation portions 103 are larger than the ground-engaging members 102a located between adjacent installation portions 103. in addition, the central region 105 of the cover portion 101 is substantially planar. [0090] the central region 105 is provided with a handle member 106 that extends substantially upwardly therefrom. the handle portion 106 includes an opening 107 therein, via which a user may grip the handle portion 106 to carry or move the post hole cover 100. [0091 ] the installation portions 103 of the post hole cover 100 illustrated in figure 5 extend upwardly from the cover portion adjacent the periphery 104 thereof. each of the installation portions 103 is positioned to overlie, or at least be located adjacent to, a ground-engaging member 102. [0092] the installation portions 103 all include a planar surface 108 on which a user may impact a hammer or mallet (not shown) in order to provide the downward force required for the ground engaging members 102 (and also 102a) to penetrate the ground surface. in this way, the post hole cover 100 may be secured or anchored to the ground over a post hole (not shown). [0093] figure 6 illustrates a schematic view of a post hole cover 1 10 when in use according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole cover 110 is of slightly different construction to those illustrated in figures 1 to 5. flowever, the principle of use is the same for all of the post hole covers illustrated in the figures. [0094] in figure 6, a post hole 1 1 1 has been dug into the ground from a surface 1 12 thereof. in order to minimise or eliminate injury to workers (through accidentally stepping into the post hole 1 1 1 ), the cover 1 10 is placed over the post hole 1 11 so that the cover portion 113 entirely overlies the post hole 1 11. [0095] initially, the ground-engaging members 1 14 are located so as to abut the ground surface 112. a user will them impact a tool such as a hammer or mallet (not shown) in the installation portions 1 15 in order to force the ground-engaging members 1 14 to penetrate the ground surface 1 12. the ground-engaging members 1 14 penetrate the ground to their full height so that the periphery of the cover portion 1 13 is located in abutment with, or close proximity to, the ground surface 112. this not only ensures that the cover 1 10 is securely retained in place (therefore reducing the likelihood of the accidental or unwanted removal or movement of the cover 1 10) but also reduced or eliminates a trip hazard that could occur if a relatively large gap was present between the ground surface 1 12 and the periphery of the cover portion 1 13. [0096] it is envisaged that, in order to remove the cover 1 10 when the post hole 1 1 1 is to be filled, a user may pull the cover 110 out of the ground. this may be possible in particular when the ground is wet or the soil is particularly loose. however, in other situations (such as when the ground if dry or the soil is compacted) a user may be required to lever the cover 1 10 out of the ground. this may be achieved using any suitable technique, although it is envisaged that a tool such as a shovel or crowbar (not shown) may be used. the tool may be positioned under the periphery of the cover portion 1 13 and then the tool used as a lever to extract the cover 1 10 from the ground. [0097] figure 7 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a post hole cover 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole cover 10 of figure 7 is similar to that illustrated in figure 2, in that the lower surface 21 of the cover portion 1 1 may be seen. the lower surface 21 is provided with a plurality of reinforcing members in the form of a first set of ribs 22a extending in a first direction and a second set of ribs 22b extending substantially perpendicularly to the first set of ribs 22a. the first set of ribs 22a and the second set of ribs 22b intersect one another so as to provide additional strength to the cover portion 1 1. the ribs 22a, 22b extend from the central region 15 of the cover portion 11 towards the periphery 16 thereof. [0098] however, the cover 10 shown in figure 7 differs from that of figure 2 in that the cover 10 of figure 7 includes a third set of ribs 22c extending in a third direction and a fourth set of ribs 22d extending in a fourth direction. the third set of ribs 22c and the fourth set of ribs 22d are positioned at an angle of approximately 90° to one another, and at an angle of approximately 45° to each of the first set of ribs 22a and the second set of ribs 22b. [0099] in figure 7, it may be seen that each of the third set of ribs 22c and the fourth set of ribs 22d abuts or intersects at least one of the first set of ribs 22a and/or the second set of ribs 22b at a first end thereof. each of the third set of ribs 22c and the fourth set of ribs 22d extends outwardly from the central region 15 of the cover 10 to a point at or adjacent the periphery 16 thereof. [0100] figure 8 illustrates a bottom isometric view of a pair of post hole covers 10a, 10b according to an embodiment of the present invention. the post hole covers 10a, 10b are shown stacked on top of one another, for example for storage or transportation. [0101 ] the manner in which the post hole covers 10a, 10b of figure 8 are stacked is essentially the same as that shown in figure 4. however, the post hole covers 10a, 10b of figure 8 are identical to the post hole cover of figure 7. [0102] in the present specification and claims (if any), the word‘comprising’ and its derivatives including‘comprises’ and‘comprise’ include each of the stated integers but does not exclude the inclusion of one or more further integers. [0103] reference throughout this specification to‘one embodiment’ or‘an embodiment’ means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. thus, the appearance of the phrases‘in one embodiment’ or‘in an embodiment’ in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more combinations. [0104] in compliance with the statute, the invention has been described in language more or less specific to structural or methodical features. it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to specific features shown or described since the means herein described comprises preferred forms of putting the invention into effect. the invention is, therefore, claimed in any of its forms or modifications within the proper scope of the appended claims (if any) appropriately interpreted by those skilled in the art.
196-514-335-837-379	KR	[ "US" ]	G06N3/063	2021-11-10T00:00:00	2021	[ "G06" ]	neuron circuit with one biristor and two transistors, and devices including the same	according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a neuron circuit may be provided. the neuron circuit includes a biristor that includes a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from a first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground and outputs a collector signal through the collector electrode, and a voltage divider that is enabled by the collector signal, performs voltage division on an operating voltage by using values of resistances included therein, and outputs an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to a second synapse circuit.	1 . a neuron circuit, comprising: a biristor including a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from a first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground, the biristor being configured to output a collector signal through the collector electrode; and a voltage divider configured to be enabled by the collector signal, to perform voltage division on an operating voltage by using resistances included in the voltage divider, and to output an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to a second synapse circuit. 2 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the biristor is a bipolar npn transistor, wherein a base electrode of the bipolar npn transistor is in a floating state. 3 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the biristor is a silicon-on-insulator transistor. 4 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the biristor is a transistor that includes a substrate functioning as a back gate. 5 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 1 , wherein: the voltage divider includes: a first transistor including a first electrode connected with a voltage line supplying the operating voltage, a second electrode connected with an output node outputting the output voltage, and a first control terminal connected with the collector electrode; and a second transistor including a third electrode connected with the output node, a fourth electrode connected with the ground, and a second control terminal receiving a control voltage, the first transistor has a first resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider, and the second transistor has a second resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider. 6 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 5 , wherein: the first transistor is one of an n-type mosfet, a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor, and the second transistor is one of an n-type mosfet, a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor. 7 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 5 , wherein: each of the first transistor and the second transistor is implemented as a mosfet, each of the first electrode and the third electrode is one of a drain electrode and a source electrode, each of the second electrode and the fourth electrode is the other of the drain electrode and the source electrode, and each of the first control terminal and the second control terminal is a gate electrode. 8 . the neuron circuit as claimed in claim 5 , wherein: each of the first transistor and the second transistor is implemented as a bipolar transistor, each of the first electrode and the third electrode is one of a collector electrode and an emitter electrode, each of the second electrode and the fourth electrode is the other of the collector electrode and the emitter electrode, and each of the first control terminal and the second control terminal is a base electrode. 9 . a neural processing unit comprising a neuromorphic circuit that includes: a first synapse circuit; a second synapse circuit; and a neuron circuit connected between the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit, the neuron circuit including: a biristor including a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from the first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground, the biristor being configured to output a collector signal through the collector electrode; and a voltage divider configured to be enabled by the collector signal, to perform voltage division on an operating voltage by using resistances included in the voltage divider, and to output an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to the second synapse circuit. 10 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 9 , wherein each of the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit includes a nonvolatile memory device. 11 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 9 , wherein each of the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit includes a volatile memory device. 12 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 9 , wherein: the biristor is implemented as a bipolar npn transistor, and a base electrode of the bipolar npn transistor is in a floating state. 13 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 9 , wherein: the voltage divider includes: a first transistor including a first electrode connected with a voltage line supplying the operating voltage, a second electrode connected with an output node outputting the output voltage, and a first control terminal connected with the collector electrode; and a second transistor including a third electrode connected with the output node, a fourth electrode connected with the ground, and a second control terminal receiving a control voltage, the first transistor has a first resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider, and the second transistor has a second resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider. 14 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 13 , wherein: the first transistor is one of an n-type mosfet, a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor, and the second transistor is one of an n-type mosfet, a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor. 15 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 13 , wherein: each of the first transistor and the second transistor is implemented as a mosfet, each of the first electrode and the third electrode is one of a drain electrode and a source electrode, each of the second electrode and the fourth electrode is the other of the drain electrode and the source electrode, and each of the first control terminal and the second control terminal is a gate electrode. 16 . the neural processing unit as claimed in claim 13 , wherein: each of the first transistor and the second transistor is implemented as a bipolar transistor, each of the first electrode and the third electrode is one of a collector electrode and an emitter electrode, each of the second electrode and the fourth electrode is the other of the collector electrode and the emitter electrode, and each of the first control terminal and the second control terminal is a base electrode. 17 . a data processing device comprising a neural processing unit, wherein the neural processing unit includes a neuromorphic circuit that includes: a first synapse circuit; a second synapse circuit; and a neuron circuit connected between the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit, the neuron circuit including: a biristor including a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from the first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground, the biristor being configured to output a collector signal through the collector electrode; and a voltage divider configured to be enabled by the collector signal, to perform voltage division on an operating voltage by using resistances included in the voltage divider, and to output an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to the second synapse circuit. 18 . the data processing device as claimed in claim 17 , wherein: the biristor is implemented as a bipolar npn transistor, and a base electrode of the bipolar npn transistor is in a floating state. 19 . the data processing device as claimed in claim 18 , wherein: the voltage divider includes: a first transistor including a first electrode connected with a voltage line supplying the operating voltage, a second electrode connected with an output node outputting the output voltage, and a first control terminal connected with the collector electrode; and a second transistor including a third electrode connected with the output node, a fourth electrode connected with the ground, and a second control terminal receiving a control voltage, the first transistor has a first resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider, and the second transistor has a second resistance of the resistances included in the voltage divider. 20 . the data processing device as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the data processing device is a mobile device or an internet of things device.	cross-reference to related applications this application claims priority under 35 u.s.c. § 119 to korean patent application nos. 10-2021-0154130 filed on nov. 10, 2021, and 10-2022-0048365 filed on apr. 19, 2022, in the korean intellectual property office, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. background 1. field embodiments of the present disclosure described herein relate to a neuron circuit, and more particularly, relate to a neuron circuit including one bistable resistor (hereinafter referred to as a “biristor”) and two transistors, and devices including the same. 2. description of the related art in the era of the 4th industrial revolution, artificial intelligence systems are being actively developed. among the artificial intelligence systems, a neuromorphic computing system that gets out of the existing von neumann architecture, which consumes a lot of energy, is in the spotlight. neuromorphic computing refers to a way to implement artificial intelligence operations through the imitation of the human brain in hardware. even though the human brain performs very complex functions, the brain consumes only 20 watts (w) of energy. because neuromorphic computing mimics the structure of the human brain itself, neuromorphic computing makes it possible to perform the following abilities superior to existing computing: the ability to associate, the ability to infer, the ability to recognize, and the ability to process data. in particular, as an example of neuromorphic computing, spiking neural networks (snns) are called the third-generation artificial neural network model. the snns that are a neural network model based on the biological learning and signal transmission of the biological brain reduce a considerable amount of energy consumption. for this reason, the snns are being actively developed. among hardware components for implementing the snns, a neuron circuit is implemented with a leaky integrate-and-fire (lif) neuron circuit that receives a current signal from a previous synapse circuit and transmits a voltage signal to a next synapse circuit as firing when a level of the received current signal exceeds a given level. a complex circuit that includes a capacitor, an integrator, a comparator, and a reset circuit is used for the neuron circuit performing the lif operation. however, because the actual human brain has 100 billion neurons, there is a need to improve the degree of integration of neuronal circuits. summary according to an embodiment, a neuron circuit includes a biristor that includes a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from a first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground and outputs a collector signal through the collector electrode, and a voltage divider that is enabled by the collector signal, performs voltage division on an operating voltage by using values of resistances included therein, and outputs an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to a second synapse circuit. according to an embodiment, a neural processing unit (npu) includes a neuromorphic circuit. the neuromorphic circuit includes a first synapse circuit, a second synapse circuit, and a neuron circuit connected between the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit. the neuron circuit includes a biristor that includes a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from the first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground and outputs a collector signal through the collector electrode, and a voltage divider that is enabled by the collector signal, performs voltage division on an operating voltage by using values of resistances included therein, and outputs an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to the second synapse circuit. according to an embodiment, a data processing device includes a neural processing unit (npu) including a neuromorphic circuit. the neuromorphic circuit includes a first synapse circuit, a second synapse circuit, and a neuron circuit connected between the first synapse circuit and the second synapse circuit. the neuron circuit includes a biristor that includes a collector electrode receiving a constant input current from the first synapse circuit and an emitter electrode connected with a ground and outputs a collector signal through the collector electrode, and a voltage divider that is enabled by the collector signal, performs voltage division on an operating voltage by using values of resistances included therein, and outputs an output voltage corresponding to a result of the voltage division to the second synapse circuit. the biristor includes a bipolar npn transistor, and a base electrode of the bipolar npn transistor is in a floating state. the voltage divider includes a first transistor that includes a first electrode connected with a voltage line supplying the operating voltage, a second electrode connected with an output node outputting the output voltage, and a first control terminal connected with the collector electrode, and a second transistor that includes a third electrode connected with the output node, a fourth electrode connected with the ground, and a second control terminal, the first transistor has a first value of the resistance values, and the second transistor has a second value of the resistance values. brief description of the drawings features will become apparent to those of skill in the art by describing in detail example embodiments with reference to the attached drawings in which: fig. 1 is a block diagram of a neuromorphic circuit including synapse circuits and neuron circuits according to an example embodiment. fig. 2 is a circuit diagram of a first neuron circuit of fig. 1 , which includes one biristor and two transistors. fig. 3a is a diagram illustrating a waveform of an output signal to a time of a first neuron circuit illustrated in fig. 2 . fig. 3b is a diagram illustrating a waveform of a current flowing to two serially-connected transistors illustrated in fig. 2 . fig. 4 is a view illustrating a scanning electron microscope image of a biristor illustrated in fig. 2 . fig. 5 is a block diagram of a data processing device including a neural processing unit (npu) including a neuromorphic circuit illustrated in fig. 1 . detailed description neuromorphic engineering, which may include neuromorphic computing including a neuron circuit according to an example embodiment, may be applied to a very-large-scale integration (vlsi) system that includes electronic circuits for the purpose of mimicking neuro-biological architectures present in a nervous system. a neuromorphic computer or neuromorphic chip that includes neuron circuits according to an example embodiment includes all devices that use physical artificial neurons (e.g., physical artificial neurons manufactured by using silicon (or semiconductor)) for the purpose of performing computations. the neuromorphic circuit that includes a neuron circuit according to an example embodiment may be a circuit that is capable of efficiently processing a large amount of data through imitating nerve cells and synapses of the human brain. fig. 1 is a block diagram of a neuromorphic circuit including synapse circuits and neuron circuits according to an example embodiment. referring to fig. 1 , a neuromorphic circuit 100 that is implemented with an integrated circuit (ic) may include a plurality of synapse circuits 110 _ 1 to 110 _ n and a plurality of neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n . herein, “n” is a natural number of 3 or more. the neuromorphic circuit 100 refers to a neural network of circuits composed of artificial neurons or nodes. each of the synapse circuits 110 _ 1 to 110 _ n may be implemented as a volatile memory device or a nonvolatile memory device. for example, each of the synapse circuits 110 _ 1 to 110 _ n may include a static random access memory (sram), a resistive memory (rram or reram), a memory resistor (alternatively referred to as “memristor”), a charge trap flash (ctf) memory, a phase-change memory (pcm), a ferroelectric random access memory (feram), or the like. each of the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n may perform a leaky integrate-and-fire (lif) function, and may be enabled according to a constant input current output from each of the synapse circuits 110 _ 1 to 110 _ n . each of the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n may divide an operating voltage supplied to each of the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n by using values of resistances included therein, and thus may adjust a magnitude or a pulse width of an output voltage of each of the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n . the lif function refers to a function of receiving a current signal output from a previous synapse circuit and transmitting a voltage signal to a next synapse circuit as firing when a level of the received current signal is equal to or greater than a given level. accordingly, each of the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n may also be called an lif neuron. fig. 2 is a circuit diagram of a first neuron circuit of fig. 1 , which includes one biristor and two transistors. because the neuron circuits 120 _ 1 to 120 _ n illustrated in fig. 1 are identical to each other in structure and operation, the structure and operation of the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 will be described as representative. referring to figs. 1 and 2 , the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 includes one bistable resistor (hereinafter referred to as a “biristor”) 121 and two transistors tr 1 and tr 2 . the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 receives a constant input current iin1 from the first synapse circuit 110 _ 1 and outputs a first output voltage v out 1 , whose magnitude and pulse width are adjusted, to the second synapse circuit 110 _ 2 . the biristor 121 , which is also called a single-transistor neuron, may be implemented with a bipolar npn transistor. the bipolar npn transistor 121 includes a base electrode being in a floating state, a collector electrode er 1 _ 1 supplied with the constant input current iin1 from the first synapse circuit 110 _ 1 , and an emitter electrode er 1 _ 2 connected with a ground vss. a symbol of the biristor 121 is expressed by a bistable hysteric loop of current-voltage (i-v) characteristics by a single-transistor latch (stl) phenomenon. a first control electrode of the first transistor tr 1 is connected with the collector electrode er 1 _ 1 of the biristor 121 . a first electrode er 2 _ 1 of the first transistor tr 1 is connected with a voltage line 125 _ 1 supplying an operating voltage vdd. a second electrode er 2 _ 2 of the first transistor tr 1 is connected with an output terminal 125 _ 2 . a second control voltage v g 2 is supplied to a second control electrode of the second transistor tr 2 . a first electrode er 3 _ 1 of the second transistor tr 2 is connected with the output terminal 125 _ 2 . a second electrode er 3 _ 2 of the second transistor tr 2 is connected with the ground vss. according to example embodiments, the first transistor tr 1 may be implemented with an n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (mosfet), a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor. also, the second transistor tr 2 may be implemented with an n-type mosfet, a p-type mosfet, a bipolar npn transistor, or a bipolar pnp transistor. for example, when each of the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 is implemented with the mosfet, each of the first electrodes er 2 _ 1 and er 3 _ 1 may be one of a drain electrode and a source electrode, each of the second electrodes er 2 _ 2 and er 3 _ 2 is the other of the drain electrode and the source electrode, and each of the control electrodes is a gate electrode. also for example, when each of the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 is implemented with the bipolar transistor, each of the first electrodes er 2 _ 1 and er 3 _ 1 may be one of a collector electrode and an emitter electrode, each of the second electrodes er 2 _ 2 and er 3 _ 2 is the other of the collector electrode and the emitter electrode, and each of the control electrodes is a base electrode. the biristor 121 may perform a function of enabling the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 . the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 function as a voltage divider 125 . the voltage divider 125 , composed of the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 , may modulate a magnitude and a pulse width of the first output voltage v out 1 for the purpose of reducing power consumption and energy consumption of the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 and the second synapse circuit 110 _ 2 . when the constant input current iin1 is supplied to the collector electrode er 1 _ 1 of the biristor 121 , a collector signal v g 1 (e.g., a voltage or a current) of the collector electrode er 1 _ 1 is supplied to the first control electrode of the first transistor tr 1 . when the second transistor tr 2 is turned on depending on a second control signal (e.g., the second control voltage v g 2 ) supplied to the second control electrode of the second transistor tr 2 , the first output voltage v out 1 of the output terminal 125 _ 2 according to the voltage division rule is expressed by equation 1 below: in equation 1, r tr1 represents a resistance value of the first transistor tr 1 (first resistance), and r tr2 represents a resistance value of the second transistor tr 2 (second resistance). fig. 3a is a diagram illustrating a waveform of an output signal to a time, for a first neuron circuit illustrated in fig. 2 . fig. 3a shows a result of simulation that is made under the condition that the constant input current iin1 is 5 na, a threshold voltage of the first transistor tr 1 is 2 v, a threshold voltage of the second transistor tr 2 is 0 v, the operating voltage vdd is 1 v, and a voltage of the second control signal (e.g., the second control voltage v g 2 ) is 0.2 v. referring to fig. 3a , when the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 are implemented in the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 , a magnitude mag2 and a pulse width tp2 of the first output voltage v out 1 of the output terminal 125 _ 2 decreases considerably, compared to a magnitude mag1 and a pulse width tp1 of the collector electrode er 1 _ 1 of the biristor 121 when the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 are not implemented in the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 . fig. 3b is a diagram illustrating a waveform of a current flowing to two serially-connected transistors illustrated in fig. 2 . a waveform of a current i 2t flowing through the first and second transistors tr 1 and tr 2 under conditions identical to the conditions of fig. 3a is illustrated in fig. 3b . the current i 2t determines energy consumption of the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 . as the magnitude mag2 and the pulse width tp2 of the first output voltage v out 1 of the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 decreases, energy consumption of the second synapse circuit 110 _ 2 connected with the first neuron circuit 120 _ 1 may decrease. fig. 4 is a view illustrating a scanning electron microscope (sem) image of a biristor illustrated in fig. 2 . referring to fig. 4 , the biristor 121 includes a substrate 121 _ 1 , a floating body 121 _ 2 , an emitter 121 _ 3 , a collector 121 _ 4 , and a base 121 _ 5 . according to an example embodiment, the emitter electrode er 1 _ 2 may be connected with the emitter 121 _ 3 , and the collector electrode er 1 _ 1 may be connected with the collector 121 _ 4 . the substrate 121 _ 1 may be formed of a hole barrier material or an electron barrier material. for example, when the substrate 121 _ 1 is formed of a silicon-on-insulator (soi), the biristor 121 is a silicon-on-insulator transistor (soi transistor). for example, the substrate 121 _ 1 may be a p-type soi wafer, the orientation of which is <100>. the substrate 121 _ 1 may function as a back gate applying a voltage bias, and the hole barrier material (or the electron barrier material) and the floating body 121 _ 2 may be sequentially formed on or above the substrate 121 _ 1 . the hole barrier material (or the electron barrier material) may be formed of a buried oxide. the floating body 121 _ 2 may be formed on or above the hole barrier material (or the electron barrier material), and holes (or electrons) generated by impact ionization may be integrated in the floating body 121 _ 2 , which makes a neuron operation possible. the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 are formed on opposite sides of the floating body 121 _ 2 . each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 may be formed of one of n-type semiconductor, p-type semiconductor, and metal silicide. a type of each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 may be different from a type of the floating body 121 _ 2 . for example, when each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 is p-type semiconductor, the floating body 121 _ 2 may be n-type semiconductor. also for example, when each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 is n-type semiconductor, the floating body 121 _ 2 may be p-type semiconductor. each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 may be formed by at least one of diffusion, solid-phase diffusion, epitaxial growth, selective epitaxial growth, ion implantation, and subsequent heat treatment. when a current output from a previous synapse circuit is input to each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 , a voltage signal of a spike shape may be output from each of the emitter 121 _ 3 and the collector 121 _ 4 . for example, when a current output from a previous synapse circuit (e.g., first synapse circuit 110 _ 1 ) is input to collector 121 _ 4 (e.g., first collector electrode er 1 _ 1 ), voltage level (e.g., v g 1 ) may be formed on collector 121 _ 4 (e.g., first collector electrode er 1 _ 1 ). the base 121 _ 5 may be formed of one of n-type polysilicon, p-type polysilicon, and metal, and the metal may include aluminum (al), molybdenum (mo), chromium (cr), palladium (pd), platinum (pt), nickel (ni), titanium (ti), tantalum (ta), tungsten (w), silver (ag), titanium nitride (tin), tantalum nitride (tan), or a combination thereof. a width “w” of the base 121 _ 5 may be 180 nm, and a length “l” of the base 121 _ 5 may be 380 nm. the biristor 121 may further include an insulating layer for insulating the floating body 121 _ 2 and the base 121 _ 5 . the insulating layer may include silicon oxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride, aluminum oxide, hafnium oxide, hafnium oxynitride, zinc oxide, zirconium oxide, hafnium zirconium oxide (hzo), or a combination thereof. fig. 5 is a block diagram of a data processing device including a neural processing unit (npu) including a neuromorphic circuit illustrated in fig. 1 . referring to fig. 5 , a data processing device 200 may include a system bus 201 , a processor 210 , a neural processing unit (npu) 220 , a system memory 230 , a nonvolatile memory device 240 , and a communication device 250 . the communication device 250 is called connectivity. examples of the data processing device 200 include an artificial intelligence computing device, a mobile device, an internet of things device (iot device), a drone with a camera, and the like. examples of the mobile device include a smartphone, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a mobile internet device (mid), a personal digital assistant (pda), a handheld game console, a portable media player, a digital camera, a wearable computer, and the like. examples of the wearable computer include a smartwatch, a head-mounted display (hmd), smart glasses, and the like. the devices 210 , 220 , 230 , 240 , and 250 may exchange information (or data) with each other through the system bus 201 . the processor 210 may collectively indicate at least one of a central processing unit (cpu), a graphics processing unit (gpu), and a data processing unit (dpu). according to an example embodiment, the processor 210 may refer to an application processor (ap). the npu 220 refers to a processor that is optimized for the learning and execution of the artificial intelligence processing data through a structure such as a neural network of the human brain. the npu 220 includes the neuromorphic circuit 100 described with reference to figs. 1 to 4 . the system memory 230 may be implemented with a physical memory device such as a random access memory (ram), or a virtual memory device. data processed or to be processed by the processor 210 or the npu 220 may be stored in the system memory 230 . data processed by, or to be processed by, the processor 210 or the npu 220 may be stored in the nonvolatile memory device 240 . the nonvolatile memory device 240 may be implemented with, e.g., an rram (or reram), a memristor, a ctf memory, a pcm, an feram, or the like. the data processing device 200 may exchange signals (or information) with an external device through the communication device 250 . the communication device 250 may collectively refer to one or more of a wi-fi communication module, an nfc communication module, a bluetooth communication module, etc. a neuron circuit according to an example embodiment may be implemented with one bistable resistor and two transistors performing a role of a voltage divider. thus, it may be possible to decrease a magnitude of an output voltage of the neuron circuit and a pulse width of the output voltage at the same time. as the magnitude and the pulse width of the output voltage of the neuron circuit decrease, energy consumption of neuromorphic hardware including the neuron circuit may decrease. as described above, embodiments may provide a neuron circuit that is composed of one biristor and two transistors, which may decrease a magnitude of an output voltage and simultaneously decrease a pulse width of the output voltage, and electronic devices including the neuron circuit. example embodiments have been disclosed herein, and although specific terms are employed, they are used and are to be interpreted in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purpose of limitation. in some instances, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the filing of the present application, features, characteristics, and/or elements described in connection with a particular embodiment may be used singly or in combination with features, characteristics, and/or elements described in connection with other embodiments unless otherwise specifically indicated. accordingly, it will be understood by those of skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as set forth in the following claims.
196-704-324-824-836	US	[ "US" ]	A61B1/005,A61B1/31,A61B5/06,A61B8/00,A61B34/20,A61B90/00,A61B90/98,A61B19/00,A61B5/05,A61B1/00	2003-03-07T00:00:00	2003	[ "A61" ]	instrument having radio frequency identification systems and methods for use	one rfid equipped instrument includes an elongate body with a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips spaced along the length of the elongate body. one system used for determining the position of an instrument includes an instrument; a plurality of radio frequency identification chips attached to the instrument; a reader connected to an antenna and adapted to communicate with each radio frequency identification chip using the antenna. one method for determining the position of an instrument using radio frequency identification chips includes providing a radio frequency identification chip reader and antenna; providing an instrument having a longitudinal axis and comprising a plurality of radio frequency identification chips placed along the longitudinal axis; moving the instrument relative to the antenna; and using information about a radio frequency identification chip detected by the antenna to determine the position of the instrument.	1. a system for determining a position of an endoscopic instrument, the system comprising: an endoscopic instrument comprising an elongate body portion configured to be inserted along a path from a reference position; a sensing circuit disposed along a length of the elongate body portion, wherein the sensing circuit changes state in response to a change in environment as the elongate body portion is moved along the path, and wherein the sensing circuit is configured to provide a variable output based on the change in state; an insertion depth determining system in signal communication with the sensing circuit to receive the variable output, the insertion depth determining system being configured to output a depth of insertion of the elongate body portion along the path, as measured from the reference position, based on the received variable output; and a storage device configured to store data indicating the depth of insertion as the elongate body portion is moved along the path, wherein the sensing circuit comprises a plurality of individual electrical switches configured to change between open and closed states in response to at least one of interaction with electrically conductive material, a change in pressure, a change in moisture, a change in ph, a change in temperature, and a change in light, and wherein the variable output is a differing resistance respectively associated with a closed state of each of the plurality of individual electrical switches. 2. the system of claim 1 , wherein the insertion depth determining system is configured to map the variable output relative to the elongate body portion of the endoscopic instrument to determine the depth of insertion. 3. a system for determining a position of an endoscopic instrument, the system comprising: an endoscopic instrument comprising an elongate body portion configured to be inserted along a path from a reference position; a plurality of individual electrical switches consecutively disposed along a length of the elongate body portion, wherein open and closed states of the switches are changeable based on a position of the elongate body portion relative to the path; and an insertion depth determining system in signal communication with the plurality of individual electrical switches to receive a variable output, the insertion depth determining system being configured to output a depth of insertion of the elongate body portion along the path, as measured from the reference position, based on the received variable output. 4. the system of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of individual electrical switches form a continuous circuit. 5. the system of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of individual electrical switches are positioned at predetermined intervals along the length of the elongate body portion. 6. the system of claim 5 , wherein the predetermined intervals between the plurality of individual electrical switches determine accuracy of determining the position of the endoscopic instrument. 7. the system of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of individual electrical switches include at least one of a membrane switch, a force sensitive resistor, or a light detecting transducer. 8. the system of claim 7 , wherein the light detecting transducer includes at least one of a photoemissive detector, a photoconductive cell, a photovoltaic cell, a photodiode, or a phototransistor. 9. the system of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of individual electrical switches are disposed in parallel in a continuous circuit. 10. the system of claim 3 , wherein the variable output is resistivity. 11. the system of claim 3 , wherein the open and closed states are changeable in response to at least one of interaction with electrically conductive material, a change in pressure, a change in moisture, a change in ph, a change in temperature, and a change in light. 12. the system of claim 3 , wherein the variable output is a differing resistance respectively associated with a closed state of each of the plurality of individual electrical switches.	cross reference to related applications this application is a continuation application of u.s. patent application ser. no. 11/648,408 (filed dec. 28, 2006), which is a continuation-in-part of u.s. application ser. no. 10/384,252 (filed mar. 7, 2003), which claims the benefit of u.s. provisional application no. 60/755,255 (filed dec. 30, 2005), which are all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. field of the invention the present invention relates generally to endoscopes and endoscopic medical procedures. more particularly, it relates to methods and apparatus for tracking the insertion and/or withdrawal of a flexible endoscope along a tortuous path, such as for colonoscopic examination and treatment. background of the invention an endoscope is a medical instrument for visualizing the interior of a patient's body. endoscopes can be used for a variety of different diagnostic and interventional procedures, including colonoscopy, bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy and video endoscopy. colonoscopy is a medical procedure in which a flexible endoscope, or colonoscope, is inserted into a patient's colon for diagnostic examination and/or surgical treatment of the colon. a standard colonoscope is typically 135-185 cm in length and 12-19 mm in diameter, and includes a fiberoptic imaging bundle or a miniature camera located at the instrument's tip, illumination fibers, one or two instrument channels that may also be used for insufflation or irrigation, air and water channels, and vacuum channels. the colonoscope is usually inserted via the patient's anus and advanced through the colon, allowing direct visual examination of the colon, the ileocecal valve and portions of the terminal ileum. insertion of the colonoscope is complicated by the fact that the colon represents a tortuous and convoluted path. considerable manipulation of the colonoscope is often necessary to advance the colonoscope through the colon, making the procedure more difficult and time consuming and adding to the potential for complications, such as intestinal perforation. steerable colonoscopes have been devised to facilitate selection of the correct path though the curves of the colon. however, as the colonoscope is inserted farther and farther into the colon, it becomes more difficult to advance the colonoscope along the selected path. at each turn, the wall of the colon must maintain the curve in the colonoscope. the colonoscope rubs against the mucosal surface of the colon along the outside of each turn. friction and slack in the colonoscope build up at each turn, making it more and more difficult to advance and withdraw the colonoscope. in addition, the force against the wall of the colon increases with the buildup of friction. in cases of extreme tortuosity, it may become impossible to advance the colonoscope all of the way through the colon. another problem which arises, for example, in colonoscope procedures, is the formation of loops in the long and narrow tube of the colonoscope. such loops may arise when the scope encounters an obstacle, or gets stuck in a narrow passage. instead of progressing, the scope forms loops within the patient. in an attempt to proceed in insertion of the colonoscope, excess force may be exerted, damaging delicate tissue in the patient's body. the physician may proceed with the attempted insertion of the endoscope without realizing there is a problem. through a visual imaging device the user can observe images transmitted from the distal end of the endoscope. from these images and from knowledge of the path the endoscope has followed, the user can ordinarily determine the position of the endoscope. however, it is difficult to determine the endoscope position within a patient's body with any great degree of accuracy. this becomes even more difficult when attempting to determine endoscopic positioning using, e.g., automatically controlled endoscopic devices, as described in u.s. pat. no. 6,468,203; u.s. patent application ser. no. 09/969,927 filed oct. 2, 2001; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/229,577 filed aug. 27, 2002; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/087,100 filed mar. 1, 2002; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/139,289 filed may 2, 2002, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. another method used to determine the configuration of the endoscope is x-ray imaging. yet another method used is magnetic field positioning, which avoids the x-ray exposure to the patient and the operator. such a method typically uses magnetic position determination via low frequency magnetic fields to determine the position of a miniature sensor embedded within the endoscope tube. based on the position of the sensor at sequential time periods, an image of the configuration of the endoscope tube is produced. another method involves the placement of a series of markings on the endoscope that can aid the physician in proper placement of the device in the patient's body during a procedure. these markings can include bands, dots, lettering, numbering, colors, or other types of indicia to indicate position or movement of the device within the body. visually distinguishable marks are often located at regular predetermined intervals. such a system of indicia can be made to be visible under fluoroscopy by the use of certain radiopaque metals, or compounds incorporated into or printed on the device. however, each of these methods are limited in their flexibility and applicability when the position of the endoscope within a patient's body is desired with any accuracy. furthermore, such conventional position determination methods in many cases may also fail to account for the real-time position of the endoscope during advancement and/or withdrawal into the patient. summary of the invention the information on the length of an endoscope or colonoscope inserted into a body organ within a patient may be used to aid in mapping the body organ, anatomical landmarks, anomalies, etc., and/or to maintain real-time knowledge along the entire length of the endoscope position within the body. this is particularly useful when used in conjunction with various endoscopes and/or colonoscopes having a distal steerable portion and an automatically controlled proximal portion which may be automatically controlled by, e.g., a controller. examples of such devices are described in detail in the following granted patents and applications: u.s. pat. no. 6,468,203; u.s. patent application ser. no. 09/969,927 filed oct. 2, 2001; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/229,577 filed aug. 27, 2002; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/087,100 filed mar. 1, 2002; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/139,289 filed may 2, 2002, each of which has been incorporated by reference above. one method for determining endoscopic insertion depth and/or position is to utilize a fully instrumented endoscopic device which incorporates features or elements configured to determine the endoscope's depth of insertion without the need for a separate or external sensing device and to relay this information to the operator, surgeon, nurse, or technician involved in carrying out a procedure. another method is to utilize a sensing device separate from and external to the endoscope that may or may not be connected to the endoscope and which interacts with the endoscope to determine which portion of the endoscope has passed through or by a reference boundary. the external sensing device may also be referred to herein interchangeably as a datum or datum device as it may function, in part, as a point of reference relative to a position of the endoscope and/or patient. this datum may be located externally of the endoscope and either internally or externally to the body of the patient; thus, the interaction between the endoscope and the datum may be through direct contact or through non-contact interactions. an instrumented endoscope may accomplish measurement by polling the status of the entire scope (or at least a portion of the scope length), and then determining the endoscope position in relation to an anatomical boundary or landmark such as, e.g., the anus in the case of a colonoscope. the polled information may be obtained by a number of sensors located along the length of the device. because the sensed information may be obtained from the entire endoscope length (or at least a portion of its length), the direction of endoscope insertion or withdrawal from the body may be omitted because the instantaneous status of the endoscope may be provided by the sensors. aside from endoscopes being instrumented to measure insertion depth, other endoscope variations may be used in conjunction with a separate and external device that may or may not be attached to the body and which is configured to measure and/or record endoscope insertion depth. this device may be referred to as an external sensing device or as a datum or datum device. these terms are used interchangeably herein as the external sensing device may function, in part, as a point of reference relative to a position of the endoscope and/or patient. this datum may be located externally of the endoscope and either internally or externally of the body of the patient; thus, the interaction between the endoscope and the datum may be through direct contact or through non-contact interactions. moreover, the datum may be configured to sense or read positional information by polling the status of sensors, which may be located along the body of the endoscope, as the endoscope passes into the body through, e.g., the anus. the datum may be positioned external to the patient and located, e.g., on the bed or platform that the patient is positioned upon, attached to a separate cart, or removably attached to the patient body, etc. if the patient is positioned so that they are unable to move with any significant movement during a procedure, the datum may function as a fixed point of reference by securing it to another fixed point in the room. alternatively, the datum may be attached directly to the patient in a fixed location relative to the point of entry of the endoscope into the patient's body. for instance, for colonoscopic procedures the datum may be positioned on the patient's body near the anus. the location where the datum is positioned is ideally a place that moves minimally relative to the anus because during such a procedure, the patient may shift position, twitch, flex, etc., and disturb the measurement of the endoscope. therefore, the datum may be positioned in one of several places on the body. one location may be along the natal cleft, i.e., the crease defined between the gluteal muscles typically extending from the anus towards the lower back. the natal cleft generally has little or no fat layers or musculature and does not move appreciably relative to the anus. another location may be directly on the gluteal muscle adjacent to the anus. in one alternative embodiment, there is provided an instrument having an elongate body; and a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips spaced along the length of the elongate body. additionally, the instrument may include a covering over the elongate body that contains the plurality of radio frequency identification chips. additionally, the instrument may include a plurality of hinged segments along the length of the elongate body wherein each hinged segment of the plurality of hinged segments contains at least one uniquely identified radio frequency identification chip of the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips. alternatively, an antenna of at least one radio frequency identification chip of the plurality of radio frequency identification chips wraps at least partially around at least one hinged segment of the plurality of hinged segments. in another embodiment, the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips are evenly spaced along the length of the elongate body. in another alternative, the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips are spaced at different intervals along the length of the elongate body. additionally, the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips operate at a frequency of about 13.56 mhz or a frequency of about 2.45 ghz. in one embodiment, the one or more one radio frequency identification chips are contained within a 2 mm spacing along the length of the elongate body. in another embodiment, the one or more radio frequency identification chips are contained within a 1 cm spacing along the length of the elongate body. in yet another alternative, each radio frequency identification chip of the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips is encoded with position information about the location of the radio frequency identification chip on the elongate body. in another alternative embodiment, there is provided a system for determining the position of an instrument including an instrument; a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips attached to the instrument; a reader connected to an antenna and adapted to communicate with each radio frequency identification chip in the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips using the antenna. in another embodiment, the system includes a uniquely identified radio frequency identification chip separate from the radio frequency identification chips attached to the instrument and positioned within the detectable field of the antenna to always be detected by the reader without regard to the position of the instrument. in another alternative, least one radio frequency identification chip in the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips attached to the instrument is configured to transmit an authentication code. in another alternative, the antenna and the radio frequency identification chips are configured to operate at a frequency of about 13.56 mhz or 2.45 ghz. in one embodiment, the instrument is an endoscope or a colonoscope. in another embodiment, the instrument is a segmented instrument having a controllable distal tip and a plurality of controllable proximal segments. in one embodiment, the antenna in the system is straight. in another alternative, the antenna has a circular shape sized to allow the instrument to pass through the circular shape. in one aspect, the circular shape is a circle. in another alternative, there is provided a flexible substrate wherein the uniquely identified radio frequency identification chip separate from the radio frequency identification chips attached to the instrument and the antenna are mounted. in one aspect, the flexible substrate includes an aperture sized to allow the passage of the instrument. in yet another aspect, there is provided a method for determining the position of an instrument using radio frequency identification chips by providing a radio frequency identification chip reader and antenna; providing an instrument having a longitudinal axis and comprising a plurality of radio frequency identification chips placed along the longitudinal axis; moving the instrument relative to the antenna; and using information about a radio frequency identification chip detected by the antenna to determine the position of the instrument. in one aspect, the moving step includes passing the instrument through a hoop formed by the antenna. another aspect includes providing information about the position of the instrument relative to the antenna to a system used to control the instrument. in one aspect, the step of providing a radio frequency identification chip reader and antenna comprises placing the antenna adjacent an opening in the body of a mammal. additionally, the opening may be a natural opening or a surgically created opening. in another aspect, the using step comprises using information about a radio frequency identification chip detected by the antenna to determine the position of the instrument relative to the antenna. in another aspect, the information about a radio frequency identification chip includes an indication that the radio frequency identification chip has entered the opening in the body of the mammal. in one embodiment, the indication is that the reader no longer detects the radio frequency identification chip. brief description of the drawings fig. 1a shows an example of an endoscope having an electrical circuit throughout the length of the instrument. fig. 1b shows an example of the device of fig. 1a prior to being inserted into a patient. fig. 1c shows a device sensing its position as it is advanced through the anus of the patient. fig. 1d shows a cross-sectional view of one variation of the endoscope of fig. 1a . figs. 2a and 2b show an endoscopic device having a series of individual sensors or switches for sensing its insertion depth or position. fig. 3a shows another example of an endoscope which may have a number of sensors positioned along the length at discrete locations. fig. 3b shows the device of fig. 3a with individual sensor wires leading to each of the sensors along the length. fig. 4 shows another example in which pairs of sensor wires may be placed along the length of the endoscope terminating at discrete locations. figs. 5a to 5d show another example of an endoscope in which the endoscope position may be determined in part by the resistance measured between adjacent sensor rings. fig. 6 shows an example of an algorithm which may be utilized for determining and recording insertion depth of an endoscope. figs. 7a and 7b show an example of an endoscope which may utilize an external device for determining endoscope position. fig. 7c shows another example of an endoscope having a non-uniform diameter utilizing an external device for determining endoscope position. fig. 8 shows another example of an external device which may be used to determine endoscope position. fig. 9 shows another example of an external device which may be used to detect sensors positioned on the endoscope. fig. 10 shows one example of determining endoscope insertion and/or withdrawal using at least two sensors. figs. 11a and 11b show examples of plots indicating sensor readings from the two sensors of fig. 10 which may be used to determine whether the endoscope is being advanced or withdrawn. figs. 12a to 12d show at least four situations, respectively, on how the direction of travel for the endoscope may be determined using the two sensors of fig. 10 . fig. 13 shows an example of an algorithm which may be utilized for determining the endoscope direction of travel. fig. 14 shows a simplified example for determining endoscope position with an external device. fig. 15 shows an example illustrating the positioning which may be utilized for an external device with an endoscope. fig. 16 shows a schematic variation utilizing a single magnetic device and multiple sensors. figs. 17a and 17b illustrate one example for sensing individual segments of an endoscopic device as it passes the sensor. fig. 18 shows another example for sensing individual segments of an endoscopic device having discrete permanent magnets or electromagnets positioned along the endoscope. figs. 19a and 19b illustrate another example for sensing individual segments of an endoscopic device using multiple permanent magnets or electromagnets. fig. 20 shows only the vertebrae of an endoscopic device, for clarity, with discrete permanent magnets or electromagnets positioned along the endoscope. figs. 21a and 21b show side and cross-sectional views, respectively, of another example for magnet positioning along the endoscope. figs. 22a and 22b show another example for applying ferrous material, other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field, permanent magnets, or electromagnets along the endoscope. fig. 23 shows another example in which magnets or ferrous material, or other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field, may be positioned along an elongate support or tool which may then be positioned within the working lumen of a conventional endoscope. figs. 24a to 24c show various examples for attaching ferrous materials or other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field to individual vertebrae of an endoscope. figs. 25a and 25b show examples of alternative sensing mechanisms using, e.g., force measurement. figs. 26a and 26b show another example of alternative sensing mechanisms using, e.g., a rotatable wheel having discrete permanent magnets or electromagnets integrated within or upon the wheel. fig. 27 shows one example of a datum which may be positioned along or within the natal cleft. fig. 28 shows another example of a datum which may also be aligned along or within the natal cleft using a flexible and elongate member. figs. 29a and 29b show one possible configuration for the datum sensor. figs. 30 a and 30 b show another example of datum positioning for securing the sensor to the patient. fig. 31 shows another example of a datum for use with a sensor within a disposable substrate. figs. 32a and 32b show another example of a datum which may be positioned on a single cheek adjacent to the anus. figs. 33a to 33c show another example of a datum which may also be positioned on a single cheek adjacent to the anus. fig. 34 shows yet another example of a datum which may also be positioned on a single cheek adjacent to the anus. fig. 35 shows yet another example of a datum having multiple sensors which may also be positioned on a single cheek adjacent to the anus. fig. 36 shows an example of an encased datum. fig. 37 shows an example of a datum which may be placed upon both cheeks while spanning the natal cleft. figs. 38a and 38b show an example of a datum which may be used to encircle the endoscope when in use. fig. 39 shows an example of a datum which may be incorporated into the fabric of an undergarment in the region surrounding the anus. fig. 40 illustrates a perspective view of a controllable instrument having a plurality of rfid tags along its length. fig. 41 is a view of a segmented controllable instrument having rfid tags on each segment. figs. 42a and 42b illustrate perspective and end views, respectively, of a segmented instrument having rfid tags located on each segment. figs. 43a and 43b illustrate exploded and assembled views, respectively of the rfid tag used in the embodiments of figs. 42a and 42b . fig. 44 illustrates an rfid system adapted to determine the position of an rfid equipped instrument. figs. 45 and 46 show one variation in using an rfid equipped controllable instrument used in conjunction with external sensing device or datum. fig. 47 illustrates another variation of an rfid equipped controllable instrument used in conjunction with a datum located a distance from the instrument. figs. 48, 49 and 50 are perspective views of alternative embodiments of flexible substrates used to support a reader antenna and rfid tag. fig. 51 illustrates a flow chart of one embodiment of a method for using rfid techniques to determine the position of an instrument. detailed description of the invention a determination of the length of an endoscope or colonoscope inserted into a body organ within a patient, or generally into any enclosed space, is useful information which may be used to aid in mapping the body organ, anatomical landmarks, anomalies, etc., and/or to maintain real-time knowledge of the endoscope position within the body. the term endoscope and colonoscope may be used herein interchangeably but shall refer to the same type of device. this is particularly useful when used in conjunction with various endoscopes and/or colonoscopes having a distal steerable portion and an automatically controlled proximal portion which may be automatically controlled by, e.g., a controller. examples of such devices are described in detail in the following granted patents and applications: u.s. pat. no. 6,468,203; u.s. patent application ser. no. 09/969,927 filed oct. 2, 2001; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/229,577 filed aug. 27, 2002; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/087,100 filed mar. 1, 2002; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/139,289 filed may 2, 2002, each of which has been incorporated by reference above. there are at least two different approaches which may be utilized in determining endoscopic insertion depth and/or position when an endoscope has been inserted within the body. one method is to utilize a fully instrumented endoscopic device which incorporates features or elements which are configured to determine the endoscope's depth of insertion and to relay this information to the operator, surgeon, nurse, or technician involved in carrying out a procedure. another method is to utilize a sensing device separate from and external to the endoscope and which interacts with the endoscope to determine which portion of the endoscope has passed through or by a reference boundary. the external sensing device may also be referred to herein interchangeably as a datum or datum device as it may function, in part, as a point of reference relative to a position of the endoscope and/or patient. this datum may be located externally of the endoscope and either internally or externally to the body of the patient; thus, the interaction between the endoscope and the datum may be through direct contact or through non-contact interactions. instrumented endoscopes one method of determination for endoscopic insertion depth and/or position is through an endoscopic device which may be configured to determine its depth of insertion. that is, an endoscopic device may be configured to indicate the portion of the endoscope that has been inserted into a body organ without the need for a separate or external sensing device. this type of determination may reflect an endoscope configured such that its depth measurement is independent of its progress during insertion or withdrawal into the body organ and instead reflects its depth instantaneously without regards to its insertion history. such an endoscopic device may accomplish this, in part, by polling the status of the entire scope (or at least a portion of the scope length), and then determining the endoscope position in relation to an anatomical boundary or landmark such as, e.g., the anus in the case of a colonoscope. the polled information may be obtained by a number of sensors located along the length of the device, as described in further detail below. because the sensed information may be obtained from the entire endoscope length (or at least a portion of its length), the direction of endoscope insertion or withdrawal from the body may be omitted because the instantaneous status of the endoscope may be provided by the sensors. directional information or history of the endoscope position during an exploratory or diagnostic procedure may optionally be recorded and/or stored by reviewing the endoscope time history of insertion depth. one variation is seen in fig. 1a which shows endoscope assembly 10 . endoscope 12 may be configured to have at least a single circuit 14 wired through the length of the shaft of endoscope 12 . circuit 14 may also be wired through only a portion of the shaft length or through a majority of the shaft length depending upon the desired proportion of the shaft that the operator, surgeon, or technician desires to act as a sensor. the single circuit 14 may thus configure the endoscope 12 to function as a single continuous sensor. depending upon the type of sensors implemented, as described in further detail below, changes in an output variable received by the sensors may be measured and recorded. the degree of change in the output variable may then be correlated to the length of the endoscope 12 inserted into the body. the change in the output variable may also be based upon varying environmental factors experienced by the endoscope 12 . for instance, one example of an environmental factor which may instigate changes in the output variable sensed by the circuit 14 may include pressure sensed from the surrounding tissue, e.g., from the anus, where endoscope 12 is initially inserted into the body. another factor may include changes in electrical conductivity, e.g., from the tissue, when the endoscope 12 is inserted into the body. endoscope 12 may alternatively be configured to detect and correlate the length of the endoscope 12 remaining outside the body rather than inside the body to indirectly calculate the insertion depth. moreover, the endoscope 12 may additionally detect and correlate both the length of the endoscope 12 remaining outside the body as well as the length of endoscope 12 inserted within the body. alternatively, endoscope 12 may sense the location of the orifice or anus 20 along the length of the device and then calculate either the length remaining outside the body or the insertion length relative to the position of anus 20 . another example of changing environmental factors leading to a change in an output variable is shown in figs. 1b and 1c , which show an example of endoscope assembly 10 configured as a capacitive sensing endoscopic device. as seen in fig. 1b , patient 18 may be positioned upon table and/or grounding pad 16 which may be connected to electrical ground 22 . fig. 1c shows endoscope 12 inserted within anus 20 of patient 18 . prior to or while endoscope 12 is inserted in patient 18 , a constant input current may be provided to endoscope 12 and the voltage may be measured in accordance. endoscope 12 may thus act as a plate within a capacitor while grounding pad 16 placed under patient 18 may function as a second opposing plate to endoscope 12 , as represented in the schematic 24 . the resulting capacitance between endoscope 12 and grounding pad 16 may be calculated based upon the value of the current, i, over a time period, t, and/or upon the measured difference in phase shift between the input frequency and the resulting frequency. as endoscope 12 is inserted or withdrawn from anus 20 , the calculated capacitance will vary according to differences in the dielectric constants between the tissue of patient 18 and that of air. this capacitance change may be constantly monitored and mapped against the length of endoscope 12 to indicate the length of insertion within patient 18 . another variation on endoscopic sensing may utilize resistivity rather than capacitance. for instance, continuous circuit 14 may be configured into a single printed circuit with an overlay of conductive printed carbon. fig. 1d shows one variation on a cross-section of endoscope 12 which may be configured as such. as seen, conductive printed carbon layer 25 may be positioned circumferentially within printed flex circuit 26 while surrounding endoscope interior 28 . the endoscope 12 may be optionally covered by an outer jacket or sheath 27 to cover the endoscope and its electronics. in use, when the endoscope 12 is inserted into the patient 18 through, e.g., the anus 20 , pressure from the surrounding tissue at the point of insertion into the body may force contact between carbon layer 25 and flex circuit 26 within endoscope 12 and thereby close the circuit 14 at the point of insertion. as endoscope 12 is inserted and withdrawn from anus 20 , the contact point between carbon layer 25 and flex circuit 26 will vary according to where the pressure is applied at the point of insertion and the resistance of the circuit 14 at any one time may be measured and mapped against the length of endoscope 12 to indicate the length of insertion within anus 20 . another variation is shown in figs. 2a and 2b , which show an endoscopic device having a series of individual sensors or switches for sensing its insertion depth or position. endoscope 30 is shown as having a continuous circuit with a plurality of open, individual switches or conductive sections 32 positioned along the length of the device 30 . switches, s 1 to s n , may be positioned at regular intervals along endoscope 12 . the spacing between the switches may vary and may depend upon the desired degree of accuracy in endoscope position determination. switches may be positioned closely to one another to provide for a more accurate reading, while switches spaced farther apart from one another may provide for a less accurate determination. moreover, the switches may be positioned at uniform distances from one another, or alternatively they may be spaced apart at irregular intervals, depending upon the desired results. the switches may also take a variety of electrically conductive forms, e.g., membrane switches, force sensitive resistors (fsr), etc. another variation on the type of switch which may be used is light-detecting transducers. the switches s 1 to s n , may be configured as one of a variety of different types of photo-sensitive switches, e.g., photoemissive detectors, photoconductive cells, photovoltaic cells, photodiodes, phototransistors, etc. the switches s 1 to s n , may be located at predetermined positions along the length of the endoscope 30 . as the endoscope 30 is inserted into the patient 18 , the change in ambient light from outside the patient 18 to inside the patient 18 may result in a voltage change in the switches inserted within the body 18 . this transition may thereby indicate the insertion depth of the endoscope 30 within the body 18 or the length of the endoscope 30 still located outside the body 18 . the types of photo-sensitive switches aforementioned may have a current running through them during a procedure, with the exception of photovoltaic switches, which may be powered entirely by the ambient light outside the body 18 . fig. 2b shows a schematic representation 34 of the device of fig. 2a . as shown, switches, s 1 to s n , may be configured such that they are in parallel to one another. insertion or withdrawal of the endoscope 12 within patient 18 may activate or close a switch through, e.g., interaction with electrically conductive tissue, pressure from the anus closing the switch, changes in moisture or ph, temperature changes, light intensity changes, etc. the closing of a particular switch will vary according to how deep the endoscope 12 is inserted within the anus 20 . when a particular switch is electrically activated, a corresponding resistance value, ranging from r 1 to r n , may be measured and then mapped against the endoscope 12 to indicate the length of insertion. another variation is shown in figs. 3a and 3b which show an endoscope 40 having a number of sensors positioned along the length of the endoscope 40 at discrete locations. in this variation, a number of sensor wires may be placed along the length of the endoscope 12 such that each wire terminates at subsequent locations along the endoscope 12 , as shown in fig. 3b . although only three wires are shown, this is merely intended to be illustrative and any number of fewer or additional wires may be utilized depending upon the desired length of the endoscope 12 to be instrumented. the placement of the distal ends of sensor wires 46 ′, 48 ′, 50 ′ may coincide with the number of vertebrae or links of the endoscope 12 structure. the sensor wires 46 ′, 48 ′, 50 ′ may be simply routed through-within the endoscope 12 length or they may be placed along the exterior of the device. the distal ends of the wires may be exposed to allow for communication with the tissue or they may alternatively be each connected to corresponding conductors 42 which divide the endoscope 12 up into a number of segments 44 . these optional conductors 42 may be formed in the shape of rings to allow for circumferential contact with the tissue. each sensor wire 46 ′, 48 ′, 50 ′ may thus be in electrical communication with a corresponding conductor 46 , 48 , 50 , respectively, and so on, depending upon the number of wires and corresponding conductors utilized. the individual sensors may also be networked together on a single bus and more complex networking and placement of sensors may also be implemented to yield additional information, e.g., rotational position of the endoscope 12 . the proximal ends of the sensor wires 46 ′, 48 ′, 50 ′ may each be connected to a corresponding processor 52 , 54 , 56 , respectively, such that the length of the endoscope 12 inserted within the anus 20 may be determined by polling the status of each individual sensor wire 46 ′, 48 ′, 50 ′. fig. 4 shows another endoscopic assembly variation 60 in which corresponding pairs of wire sensors may be positioned along an endoscope 62 body. a first pair 64 of wire sensors may extend along the endoscope 62 and terminate at a first distal location; a second pair 66 of wire sensors may also extend along the endoscope 62 and terminate at a second distal location which is proximal of the first distal location; and a third pair 68 of wire sensors may also extend along the endoscope 62 and terminate at a third distal location which is proximal of the second distal location, and so on. any number of wire pairs may be used and the distances between each of the first, second, third, etc., distal locations may be uniform or irregular, depending upon the desired measurement results. this variation 60 may operate in the same manner as above by measuring which pair of wire sensors is disrupted when inserted or withdrawn from a patient. yet another example is shown in figs. 5a to 5d which shows endoscope assembly 70 which may comprise an endoscope 72 having at least one or more, preferably at least two or more, conductive sensors 74 positioned along the length of endoscope 72 . sensors 74 may be in the shape of rings and may be further configured to measure resistance between each adjacent ring. fig. 5b is a detailed view of a portion of endoscope 72 which shows first sensor 76 and adjacent second sensor 78 . each sensor 76 , 78 may be connected to a separate sensor wire 76 ′, 78 ′ such that the electrical resistance, e.g., r 1 , between adjacent sensors, e.g., sensors 76 , 78 , may be measured when contacting a region of tissue. fig. 5c shows sensors 76 , 78 contacting tissue 79 . as the endoscope 72 is advanced or withdrawn from the tissue, resistance values between adjacent sensors may be measured to determine the position of the endoscope 72 within the patient 18 . as seen in fig. 5d , resistance values may be subsequently measured between each adjacent sensor, shown as sensors 1, 2, 3, etc., as the device is advanced into patient 18 . this may be accomplished, in part, by correlating measured resistance values between sensors where r≈∞. when sensors are measured outside of the body, and r<< when sensors are measured inside the body when surrounded by tissue. as mentioned above, other output variables aside from pressure or force, capacitance, and resistance measurements may also be employed to determine endoscopic insertion depth. for instance, moisture or ph sensors may be utilized since moisture or ph values change dramatically with insertion into the body. temperature or heat flux sensing may also be utilized by placing temperature sensors, e.g., thermistors, thermocouples, etc., at varying locations along the endoscope body. temperature sensing may take advantage of the temperature differences between air and the body. another alternative may include heating or cooling the interior of the endoscope at ranges above or below body temperature. thus, the resultant heat flux into or out of the endoscope, depending upon the interior endoscope temperature, may be monitored to determine which portion of the endoscope are in contact with the body tissue. another alternative may include light sensing by positioning light sensors at locations along the endoscope body. thus, light intensity differences may be determined between outside and inside the body to map endoscope insertion depth. alternatively, sound waves or other pressure waves, ultrasound, inductive proximity sensors, etc., may also be utilized. in utilizing sensors positioned upon the endoscope body, an algorithm may be utilized for determining and recording the insertion depth of the endoscope within a patient, as shown in fig. 6 . this variation on an algorithm operates on the general principle that each of the sensors are triggered sequentially as the endoscope is inserted or withdrawn from the patient. a register may be used to record and keep track of the latest insertion depth, i.e., the most recent and valid triggered sensor. the endoscope and algorithm may be configured such that sensor readings that are considered valid are those readings which are triggered by the same sensor or adjacent sensors such that insertion, withdrawal, or no motion may be indicated. other sensor triggers can be ignored or rejected while valid sensor triggers may cause the register to update. such an algorithm may be implemented with any of the devices described above to eliminate false measurements and to maintain accurate insertion depth measurements. step 80 indicates the start of the algorithm as the endoscope waits for a sensor to be triggered 82 . if a sensor has not been triggered 84 , the algorithm would indicate a “no” and the device would continue to wait for a trigger signal. upon an indication that a sensor has been triggered 84 , a comparison of the triggered signal takes place to compare whether the sensed signal is from an adjacent sensor 85 by comparing the triggered sensor information to stored register information in sensor register 88 . if the triggered signal is not from an adjacent sensor, the signal is rejected as a false signal 87 and the endoscope goes back to waiting for a sensor to be triggered 82 . however, if the triggered signal is from an adjacent sensor when compared to the value stored in register 88 , register 88 is updated 86 with the new sensor information and the endoscope then continues to wait for another sensor to be triggered 82 . endoscopes using external sensing devices aside from endoscopes being instrumented to measure insertion depth, other endoscopes may be used in conjunction with a separate device configured to measure and/or record endoscope insertion depth. this separate device may be referred to as an external sensing device or as a datum or datum device. these terms are used interchangeably herein as the external sensing device may function, in part, as a point of reference relative to a position of the endoscope and/or patient. this datum may be located externally of the endoscope and either internally or externally to the body of the patient; thus, the interaction between the endoscope and the datum may be through direct contact or through non-contact interactions. moreover, the datum may be configured to sense or read positional information by polling the status of sensors or transponders, which may be located along the body of the endoscope, as the endoscope passes into the body through, e.g., the anus. alternatively, the datum may be configured to detect sensors or transponders only within a limited region or area. the datum may be positioned external to the patient and located, e.g., on the bed or platform that the patient is positioned upon, attached to a separate cart, or removably attached either internally or externally to the patient body, etc. figs. 7a and 7b show one variation in using an endoscope assembly 90 in conjunction with external sensing device or datum 96 . datum 96 may be positioned externally of patient 18 adjacent to an opening into a body cavity, e.g., anus 20 for colonoscopic procedures. datum 96 may accordingly have a sensor or reader 98 located next to opening 100 , which may be used as a guide for passage of endoscope 92 therethrough into anus 20 . endoscope 92 may be configured to have a number of tags 94 , e.g., sensors, transponders, etc., located along the body of endoscope 92 . these tags 94 may be positioned at regular intervals along endoscope 92 . the spacing between the tags 94 may vary and may also depend upon the desired degree of accuracy in endoscope position determination. tags 94 may be positioned closely to one another to provide for a more accurate reading, while tags 94 spaced farther apart from one another may provide for a less accurate determination. moreover, tags 94 may be positioned at uniform distances from one another, or alternatively they may be spaced apart are irregular intervals, depending upon the desired results. moreover, tags 94 may be positioned along the entire length of endoscope 92 or only along a portion of it, depending upon the desired results. as shown in fig. 7b , as endoscope 92 is passed through datum 96 via opening 100 and into anus 20 , reader 98 located within datum 96 may sense each of the tags 94 as they pass through opening 100 . accordingly, the direction and insertion depth of endoscope 92 may be recorded and/or maintained for real-time positional information of the endoscope 92 . any number of technologies may be utilized with tags 94 . for instance, one variation may have tags 94 configured as rf identification tags or antennas. reader 98 may accordingly be configured as a rf receiving device. each tag 94 may be encoded with, e.g., position information such as the distance of a particular tag 94 from the distal end of endoscope 92 . the reader 98 may be configured to thus read in only certain regions or zones, e.g., reader 98 may read only those rf tags passing through opening 100 or only those tags adjacent to anus 20 . alternatively, the rf tags may be configured to transmit the status of, e.g., pressure switches as described above, to datum 96 to determine the length of insertion. another variation on tags 94 may be to configure the tags for ultrasonic sensing. for example, each tag 94 may be configured as piezoelectric transducers or speakers positioned along the endoscope 92 . the reader 98 may thus be configured as an ultrasonic receiver for receiving positional information from tuned transducers or tags 94 each of which relay its positional information. alternatively, optical sensors may be used as tags 94 . in this variation, each tag 94 may be configured as a passive encoded marker located on an outer surface of endoscope 92 . these markers may be in the form of a conventional bar code, custom bar code, color patterns, etc., and each may be further configured to indicate directional motion, i.e., insertion or withdrawal. furthermore, each tag 94 may be configured as active encoded markers, e.g., leds which may be blinking in coded patterns. reader 98 may thus be configured as an optical sensor. another alternative may be to configure tags 94 and reader 98 for infrared (ir) sensing in which case ir emitters may be positioned along the length of endoscope 92 such that each ir emitter or tag 94 is configured to emit light at a specific frequency according to its position along the endoscope 92 . reader 98 may thus be configured as an ir receiver for receiving the different frequencies of light and mapping the specific frequency detected against the length of endoscope 92 . yet another alternative may be to have tags 94 configured magnetically such that a magnetic reader in datum 96 can read the position of the device, as described in further detail below. yet another alternative may be to configure the datum and endoscope assembly as a linear cable transducer assembly. in this variation, reader 98 may be configured as a transducer having a cable, wire, or some other flexible member extending from reader 98 and attached to the distal end of endoscope 92 . while the datum 96 remains external to the patient and further remains in a fixed position relative to the patient, the endoscope 92 may be advanced within the patient while pulling the cable or wire from reader 98 . the proximal end of the cable or wire may be attached to a spool of cable or wire in electrical communication with a multi-turn potentiometer. to retract the cable or wire when the endoscope 92 is withdrawn, the spool may be biased to urge the retraction of the cable or wire back onto the spool. thus, the change of wire length may be correlated to an output of the reader 98 or of the potentiometer to a length of the extended cable and thus the length of the endoscope 92 inserted within the patient. yet another alternative may be to mount rollers connected to, e.g., multi-turn potentiometers, encoders, etc., on datum 96 . these rollers may be configured to be in direct contact with the endoscope 92 such that the rollers rotate in a first direction when endoscope 92 is advanced and the rollers rotate in the opposite direction when endoscope 92 is withdrawn. the turning and number of revolutions turned by the rollers may be correlated into a length of the insertion depth of endoscope 92 . yet another alternative may be to use the endoscopes, or any of the endoscopes described herein, in conjunction with conventional imaging technologies which are able to produce images within the body of a patient. for instance, any one of the imaging technologies such as x-ray, fluoroscopy, computed tomography (ct), magnetic resonance imaging (mri), magnetic field location systems, etc., may be used in conjunction with the endoscopes described herein for determining the insertion depth. in yet another alternative, the datum may be used to sense the positional information from the endoscope through the use of one or several pressure sensors located on the datum, e.g., datum 96 . the pressure sensor may be positioned upon datum 96 such that it may press up against the endoscope 92 as it is advanced or withdrawn. this pressure sensor may be configured, e.g., as a switch, or it alternatively be configured to sense certain features on the endoscope 92 , e.g., patterned textures, depressions, detents, etc., which are located at predetermined lengths or length intervals to indicate to the pressure switch the insertion depth of endoscope 92 . yet another alternative is to sense changes in the diameter of the endoscope body inserted into the patient, as seen in fig. 7c . the insertion length of the endoscope may have multiple sections each having a unique diameter, e.g., a distal most section 102 may have the smallest diameter and each successive proximal section 104 , 106 may have incrementally larger diameters. alternatively, successive sections may have alternating diameter sizes where a first section may have a first diameter, a second section may have a second larger diameter, and the third section may have a diameter equal to the first diameter or larger than the second diameter, and so on. the differences in endoscopic diameter may be used to detect the endoscopic insertion depth by using a datum 108 which may be configured to maintain contact with the endoscope and move according to the diameter changes of the endoscope, as shown by the arrows. this diameter referencing device and method may be used independently or in conjunction with any of the other methods described herein as a check to ensure that the position of the endoscope concurs with the results using other methods of sensing. fig. 8 shows another example in endoscope assembly 110 in which endoscope 112 may have a number of sensors or tags 114 located along the body of the endoscope 112 . as endoscope 112 is advanced or withdrawn from anus 20 , datum 116 , which may be mounted externally of the patient and at a distance from endoscope 112 , may have a receiver or reader 118 configured in any of the variations described above. for instance, receiver or reader 118 may be adapted to function as a rf receiver, ultrasonic receiver, optical sensor, or as any of the other variations described above, to read only those tags 114 adjacent to anus 20 and to map their position on the endoscope 112 and thus, the length of insertion. if reader 118 were configured as an optical sensor, it may further utilize a light source, e.g., led, laser, carbon, etc., within datum 116 . this light source may be utilized along with a ccd or cmos imaging system connected to a digital signal processor (dsp) within reader 118 . the light may be used to illuminate markings located at predetermined intervals along endoscope 112 . alternatively, the markings may be omitted entirely and the ccd or cmos imaging system may be used to simply detect irregularities normally present along the surface of an endoscope. while the endoscope is moved past the light source- and reader 118 , the movement of the endoscope may be detected and correlated accordingly to indicate insertion depth. fig. 9 shows another variation with endoscope assembly 120 in which endoscope 122 may have a number of sensors 124 located along the length of endoscope 122 . these sensors 124 may be configured as hall-effect type sensors, as will be described in greater detail below. the datum 126 may be configured as a ring magnet defining an endoscope guide 128 therethrough such that the magnetic field is perpendicularly defined relative to the sensors 124 . thus, sensors 124 may interact with magnet 126 as they each pass through guide 128 . as a hall sensor 124 passes through datum 126 , the sensor 124 may experience a voltage difference indicating the passage of a certain sensor through datum 126 . these types of sensors will be described in greater detail below. in order to determine the direction of the endoscope when it is either advanced or withdrawn from the patient, directional information may be obtained using any of the examples described above. another example is to utilize at least two or more sensors positioned at a predetermined distance from one another. fig. 10 shows one variation illustrating sensor detection assembly 130 with first sensor 132 and second sensor 134 . first and second sensors 132 , 134 may be positioned at a predetermined distance, d, from one another. as endoscope 136 is advanced or withdrawn past sensor assembly 130 , the direction of travel 138 of endoscope 136 may be determined by examining and comparing the signals received from each sensor 132 , 134 . by determining which sensor has a rising edge or input signal first received relative to the other sensor, the direction of travel 138 may be determined. as shown in fig. 11a , plot 140 generally illustrates signals received from first sensor 132 . from position x=1 to position x=2, a rise in the signal is measured thus sensing a peak in advance of the signal measured from position x=1 to position x=2 in plot 142 , which is the signal received from second sensor 134 , as seen in fig. 11b . thus, a first direction of travel, e.g., insertion, may be indicated by the relative comparisons between signals in plots 140 and 142 . if endoscope 136 were traveling in the opposite direction, e.g., withdrawal, second sensor 134 would sense a peak in advance of first sensor 132 . a more detailed description for determining the endoscope's direction of travel follows below. figs. 12a to 12d illustrate various cases for determining endoscopic direction of travel using first sensor 150 and second sensor 152 . first and second sensors 150 , 152 are preferably at a predetermined distance from one another while an endoscope is passed adjacent to the sensors. for the purposes of this illustration, a direction to the right shall indicate a first direction of travel for an endoscope device, e.g., insertion into a body, while a direction to the left shall indicate a second direction of travel opposite to the first direction, e.g., withdrawal from the body. fig. 12a shows a situation in which first sensor 150 measures a voltage less than the voltage measured by second sensor 152 , as indicated by plot 154 . if first and second sensors 150 , 152 both measure a decrease in voltage, this may indicate a motion of the endoscope to the right while an increase voltage in both first and second sensors 150 , 152 may indicate a motion of the endoscope to the left. fig. 12b shows another situation in which first sensor 150 measures a voltage greater than the voltage measured by second sensor 152 , as indicated by plot 156 . if first and second sensors 150 , 152 both measure an increase in voltage, this may indicate a motion of the endoscope to the right. however, if both first and second sensors 150 , 152 measure a decrease in voltage, this may indicate a motion of the endoscope to the left. fig. 12c shows another situation where first sensor 150 measures a voltage equal to a voltage measured by second sensor 152 , as shown by plot 158 . in this case, if first sensor 150 measures an increase in voltage prior to second sensor 152 also measuring an increase in voltage, this may be an indication of the endoscope moving to the right. on the other hand, if second sensor 152 measures an increase prior to first sensor 150 measuring an increase in voltage, this may indicate movement of the endoscope to the left. fig. 12d shows a final situation in plot 160 where first sensor 150 again measures a voltage equal to a voltage measured by second sensor 152 . in this case, the opposite to that shown in fig. 12c occurs. for instance, if the voltage measured by first sensor 150 decreases prior to the voltage measured by second sensor 152 , this indicates a movement of the endoscope to the right. however, if second sensor 152 measures a voltage which decreases prior to a decrease in voltage measured by first sensor 150 , this may indicate a movement of the endoscope to the left. fig. 13 shows one variation of an algorithm which may be implemented as one method for determining whether an endoscope is being advanced or withdrawn from the body. fig. 13 illustrates how the various determinations described above may be combined into one variation for an algorithm. as seen, the algorithm begins with step 170 . in step 172 an initial step of determining whether first sensor 150 measures a voltage greater than second sensor 152 is performed. if first sensor 150 does measure a voltage greater than second sensor 152 , then a second determination may be performed in step 174 where a determination may be made as to whether the voltages measured by both sensors 150 , 152 are increasing or not. if both voltages are increasing, step 178 may indicate that the endoscope is being inserted. at this point, the position of the endoscope and its fractional position, i.e., the distance traveled by the endoscope since its last measurement, may be determined and the algorithm may then return to step 172 to await the next measurement. if, however, first sensor 150 does not measure a voltage greater than second sensor 152 in step 172 , another determination may be performed in step 176 to determine whether the voltages measured by sensors 150 , 152 are equal. if the voltages are not equivalent, the algorithm proceeds to step 180 where yet another determination may be performed in step 180 to determine if both voltages are increasing. if they are not, then step 178 is performed, as described above. if both voltages are increasing, then step 184 may indicate that the endoscope is being withdrawn. at this point, the position of the endoscope and its fractional position, i.e., the distance traveled by the endoscope since its last measurement, may again be determined and the algorithm may then return to step 172 to await the next measurement. in step 176 , if the voltages measured by first sensor 150 and second sensor 152 are equivalent, then the algorithm may await to determine whether a peak voltage is detected in step 182 . if a peak voltage is detected, step 186 increments the insertion count. however, if a peak is not detected, then step 188 decrements the insertion count. regardless of whether the insertion count is incremented or decremented, the algorithm may return to step 172 to await the next measurement. endoscopes using magnetic sensing devices one particular variation on measuring endoscopic insertion depth may utilize magnetic sensing, in particular, taking advantage of the hall effect. generally, the hall effect is the appearance of a transverse voltage difference in a sensor, e.g., a conductor, carrying a current perpendicular to a magnetic field. this voltage difference is directly proportional to the flux density through the sensing element. a permanent magnet, electromagnet, or other magnetic field source may be incorporated into a hall effect sensor to provide the magnetic field. if a passing object, such as another permanent magnet, ferrous material, or other magnetic field-altering material, alters the magnetic field, the change in the hall-effect voltage may be measured by the transducer. fig. 14 illustrates generally hall effect sensor assembly 190 which shows conductor or sensor 192 maintained at a distance, d, as it is passed over magnets 194 , 196 , 198 at distances x 1 , x 2 , x 3 , respectively. each magnet may be positioned such that the polarity of adjacent magnets is opposite to one another or such that the polarity of adjacent magnets is the same. as sensor 192 is passed, voltage differences may be measured to indicate which magnet sensor 192 is adjacent to. fig. 15 shows one variation illustrating the general application for implementing hall effect sensors for endoscopic position measurement. as shown, sensor assembly 200 illustrates one variation having magnet 202 with first sensor 204 and second sensor 206 adjacent to magnet 202 . magnet 202 may be a permanent magnet or it may also be an electromagnet. first and second sensors 204 , 206 are connected to a power supply (not shown) and are positioned from one another at a predetermined distance. both sensors 204 , 206 may also be located at a predetermined distance from magnet 202 . a general representation of endoscope 208 is shown to reveal the individual links or vertebrae 210 that may comprise part of the structure of the endoscope, as described in further detail in any of the references incorporated above. each vertebrae 210 is shown as being schematically connected to adjacent vertebrae via joints 212 which may allow for endoscope articulation through tortuous paths. endoscope 208 may be passed by sensor assembly 200 at a predetermined distance as it is inserted or withdrawn from an opening in a patient. each or a selected number of vertebrae 210 may be made of a ferrous material or other material that may alter or affect a magnetic field or have ferrous materials incorporated in the vertebrae 210 . thus, as endoscope 208 passes first and second sensors 204 , 206 , the ferrous vertebrae 210 may pass through and disrupt a magnetic field generated by magnet 202 and cause a corresponding voltage measurement to be sensed by sensors 204 , 206 . direction of travel for endoscope 208 , i.e., insertion or withdrawal, as well as depth of endoscope insertion may be determined by applying any of the methods described above. another variation is shown in fig. 16 which illustrates a schematic representation 220 of hall effect sensing in which the sensors may be located on the endoscope 226 itself. magnet 222 may be positioned adjacent to, e.g., the anus of a patient, such that endoscope 226 passes adjacent to magnet 222 when inserted or withdrawn from the patient. endoscope 226 may have a number of discrete hall switches 228 positioned along the body of endoscope 226 . as endoscope 226 passes magnet 222 , the magnetic field lines 224 may disrupt a switch 228 passing adjacently. hall switches 228 may be bipolar, unipolar, latched, analog, etc. and may be used to determine the total resistance ri 2 in order to determine insertion length of the endoscope 226 . figs. 17a and 17b show another variation for hall sensor positioning. fig. 17a shows a sensor assembly 230 adjacent to an individual vertebrae 232 of an endoscope. a single vertebrae 232 is shown only for the sake of clarity. as seen, when vertebrae 232 is directly adjacent to magnet 234 , magnetic flux lines 238 are disrupted and are forced to pass through sensor 236 . flux lines 238 passing through sensor 236 may cause a disruption in the current flowing therethrough and may thus indicate the passage of the endoscope. fig. 17b shows the assembly of fig. 17a when endoscope 230 has been advanced or withdrawn fractionally such that magnet 234 is positioned inbetween adjacent vertebrae 232 and 232 ′. when a vertebra is not immediately adjacent to magnet 234 , flux lines 238 ′ may return to their normal undisturbed state such that sensor 236 is also undisturbed by magnetic flux. the resumption of current within sensor 236 may indicate that endoscope 230 has been moved relative to sensor assembly 230 . fig. 18 shows another variation in assembly 240 where a discrete magnet 248 may be positioned on individual vertebrae 242 to produce a more pronounced effect in sensor measurement. magnets 248 may be positioned along the longitudinal axis of the endoscope for creating a uniform magnetic field radially about the endoscope. discrete magnets 248 may be permanent magnets or they may alternatively be electromagnets. in either case, they may be placed on as many or as few vertebrae or at various selected positions along the endoscope body depending upon the desired measurement results. as shown, when vertebrae 242 having discrete magnet 248 mounted thereon is brought into the vicinity of magnet 244 , the interaction between the magnets produces an enhanced flux interaction 250 such that hall sensor 246 is able to sense a more pronounced measurement. the polarity of each individual magnet 248 located along the endoscope body may be varied from location to location but the polarity of adjacent magnets on the endoscope body are preferably opposite to one another. alternatively, a number of magnets each having a unique magnetic signature may be placed at predetermined positions along the length of the endoscope. each magnet 248 may be mapped to its location along the endoscope so when a magnet having a specific magnetic signature is detected, the insertion depth of the endoscope may be correlated. the magnets 248 may have unique magnetic signatures, e.g., measurable variations in magnetic field strength, alternating magnetic fields (if electromagnets are utilized), reversed polarity, etc. figs. 19a and 19b show yet another variation in assembly 260 in which more than one magnet may be used in alternative configurations. a first magnet 262 may be positioned at an angle relative to a second magnet 264 such that the combined flux lines 268 interact in accordance with each magnet. thus, the polarity of each magnet 262 , 264 may be opposite to one another as shown in the figures. sensor 266 may be positioned such that the undisturbed field lines 268 pass through sensor 266 . as vertebrae 270 is passed adjacent to sensor 266 , the disturbed flux lines 268 ′, as shown in assembly 260 ′ in fig. 19b , may be altered such that they no longer pass through sensor 266 due to the interaction with vertebrae 270 . alternatively, the field lines 268 passing through sensor 266 may be altered in strength as vertebrae 270 passes. fig. 20 shows yet another variation in which discrete magnets may be placed on each individual vertebrae of an endoscope assembly. as shown, sensor assembly 280 shows only the vertebrae 282 of an endoscope for clarity. discrete magnets 284 having a first orientation may be placed on alternating vertebrae 282 while magnets 286 having a second orientation may be placed on alternating vertebrae 282 inbetween magnets 284 . thus, when the endoscope is moved, e.g., along the direction of travel 292 , flux lines 288 having alternating directions on each vertebrae 282 can be sensed by sensor 290 . the measured alternating flux lines may be used as an indication of endoscope movement in a first or second direction. each of the magnets may be positioned along the periphery of the vertebrae on a single side; however, they may also be positioned circumferentially, as described below in further detail. figs. 21a and 21b show side and cross-sectional views, respectively, of another alternative in magnet positioning. fig. 21a shows a side view of endoscope assembly 300 in which a number of magnets 304 having a first orientation may be positioned circumferentially about endoscope 302 . a number of magnets 306 having a second orientation opposite to the first orientation may also be positioned circumferentially about endoscope 302 separated a distance, d, longitudinally away from magnets 304 . with discrete magnets positioned circumferentially about endoscope 302 , the rotational orientation of endoscope 302 becomes less important as it passes sensor 308 in determining the insertion depth of the device. fig. 21b shows a cross-sectional view of the device of fig. 21a and shows one example of how magnets 304 may be positioned about the circumference. although this variation illustrates magnets 304 having a “n” orientation radially outward and a “s” orientation radially inward of endoscope 302 , this orientation may be reversed so long as the adjacent set of circumferential magnets is preferably likewise reversed. moreover, although seven magnets are shown in each circumferential set in the figure, any number of fewer or more magnets may be used as practicable. fig. 22a shows yet another variation in which endoscope 310 may have discrete circumferentially positioned magnets 312 placed at each vertebrae 312 on an outer surface of the endoscope 310 . as endoscope 310 is passed into anus 20 , hall sensor 314 may be positioned adjacent to anus 20 such that sensor 314 is able to read or measure the discrete magnets 312 as they pass into anus 20 . fig. 22b shows yet another variation in which endoscope assembly 320 may have endoscope 322 in which individual vertebrae 326 may have some ferromagnetic material 328 integrated or mounted onto or within the vertebrae 326 . the ferromagnetic material 328 may be in the form of a band, coating, or other non-obstructive shape for integration onto vertebrae 326 or for coating over portions of vertebrae 326 . a sheath or skin 324 may be placed over the vertebrae 326 to provide for a lubricious surface. inbetween vertebrae 326 , non-magnetic regions 330 may be maintained to provide for the separation between vertebrae 326 and between ferromagnetic material 328 . moreover, ferromagnetic material 328 may be applied retroactively not only to endoscopes having vertebrae, but also other conventional endoscopes for which a determination of insertion depth is desired. as endoscope 322 passes magnet 332 , sensor 334 may detect disturbances in flux lines 336 as the regions having the ferromagnetic material 328 passes. additionally, endoscope 322 may be passed at a distance, h, from sensor 334 which is sufficiently close to enable an accurate measurement but far enough away so as not to interfere with endoscope 322 movement. fig. 23 shows yet another variation in which conventional endoscopes may be used with any of the hall sensor datum devices described herein. as shown, elongate support or tool 337 may have a number of magnets 338 , or ferrous material or other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field, positioned along the tool at predetermined intervals. magnets 338 may be positioned along the length of tool 337 such that the adjacent magnets are either alternating in polarity or uniform in polarity. furthermore, magnets 338 may be made integrally within the tool 337 or they may be made as wireforms or members which may be crimped about tool 337 . tool 337 may be positioned within the working lumen 339 of any conventional endoscope for use with a datum device as described herein. the inclusion of the tool 337 may then enable the determination of insertion depth of a conventional or instrumented endoscope. if a conventional endoscope is used, tool 337 may be securely held within the working lumen 339 during an exploratory procedure. tool 337 may optionally be removed during a procedure to allow for the insertion of another tool and then reinserted within lumen 339 at a later time to proceed with the insertion and/or withdrawal of the endoscope. figs. 24a to 24c show perspective views of alternative variations for attaching permanent magnets, ferrous materials, or other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field, onto individual vertebrae. fig. 24a shows one variation in which vertebrae 340 may be manufactured with a notch or channel 342 circumferentially defined along its outer surface 344 . a ring made of a ferrous material or other material that may alter or affect a magnetic field, such as permanent magnets, may be placed within notch 342 . fig. 24b shows another variation in which a formed ring 348 made of a permanent magnet or other such materials may be separately formed and attached onto vertebrae 346 . fig. 24c shows yet another variation in which a wire form 354 made from a ferrous material or other material that may alter or affect a magnetic field, such as a permanent magnet, may be placed within notch 352 of vertebrae 350 . alternatively, ferrous powder may be molded into a circumferential shape and placed within notch 352 . another alternative may be to simply manufacture the entire vertebrae from a ferrous metal or simply cover a vertebrae or a portion of the vertebrae with a ferrous coating. another alternative for utilizing hall sensors is seen in figs. 25a and 25b . the variation in fig. 25a may have a fixed platform 360 upon which a magnet 364 may be mounted. a pressure sensor or microforce sensor 362 may be placed in between magnet 364 and platform 360 . as an endoscope is passed adjacent to magnet 364 , the magnet 364 may be attracted to vertebrae 366 as it passes adjacently. vertebrae 366 may optionally include ferrous materials or other materials that may alter or affect a magnetic field as described above to enhance the attraction and/or repulsion. as magnet 364 is pulled or repulsed by the magnetic force, pressure sensor 362 may record the corresponding positive or negative force values for correlating to endoscope insertion depth. fig. 25b shows another example in which magnets 368 may be attached to a pressure gauge 370 , e.g., a chatillon® gauge made by ametek, inc. as the endoscope passes magnets 368 at some distance, h, the attraction and/or repulsion between magnets 368 and vertebrae 366 may be accordingly measured by gauge 370 and similarly correlated to endoscope insertion depth. yet another variation is shown in figs. 26a and 26b in assembly 380 . rather than utilizing the linear motion of an endoscope past a static datum, a rotatable datum 382 may be used to record insertion length. datum wheel 382 may be configured to rotate about pivot 384 while sensing the movement of endoscope 386 , which shows only schematic representations of the vertebrae for clarity. the datum wheel 382 may have a number of magnets 398 incorporated around the circumference of wheel 382 . each magnet may be arranged in alternating pole configurations or alternatively in the same pole arrangement. each of the magnets 398 are also preferably spaced apart from one another at intervals equal to the linear distances between the magnets 388 , 390 or permanent magnet located along the body of endoscope 386 . ferrous materials, or materials that may otherwise alter a magnetic field, may be used in place of the permanent magnets. as endoscope 386 is moved past datum wheel 382 , wheel 382 rotates in corresponding fashion with the linear movement of endoscope 386 past the datum 382 . the rotation of datum wheel 382 that results when endoscope 386 is moved past can be sensed by a variety of methods. one example includes rotary optical encoders, another example includes sensing the movement of magnets 398 on datum wheel 382 as they rotate relative to a fixed point as measured by, e.g., hall effect sensors or magnetoresistive sensors. as datum wheel 382 rotates with the linear movement of endoscope 386 , datum wheel 382 may directly touch endoscope 386 or a thin material may separate the wheel 382 from the body of endoscope 386 . fig. 26b shows one variation of an assembly view of datum wheel 382 which may be rotatably attached to housing 392 . housing 392 may be connected to stem or support 394 , which may extend from housing 392 and provide a support member for affixing datum wheel 382 to the patient, an examination table, a stand, or any other platform. support 394 may also be used to route any cables, wires, connectors, etc., to housing 392 and/or datum wheel 382 . the associated sensors and various support electronics, e.g., rotary encoders, magnetic field sensors, etc., may also be located within housing 392 . support 394 may further include an optional flexible joint 396 to allow datum wheel 382 to track the movement of endoscope 386 as it passes into or out of a patient. examples of external sensing devices the external sensing devices, or datum, may function in part as a point of reference relative to a position of the endoscope and/or patient, as described above. the datum may accordingly be located externally of the endoscope and either internally or externally to the body of the patient. if the patient is positioned so that they are unable to move with any significant movement during a procedure, the datum may function as a fixed point of reference by securing it to another fixed point in the room, e.g., examination table, procedure cart, etc. alternatively, the datum may be attached directly to the patient in a fixed location relative to the point of entry of the endoscope into the patient's body. the datum variations described herein may utilize any of the sensing and measurement methods described above. for instance, for colonoscopic procedures the datum may be positioned on the patient's body near the anus. the location where the datum is positioned is ideally a place that moves minimally relative to the anus because during such a procedure, the patient may shift position, twitch, flex, etc., and disturb the measurement of the endoscope. therefore, the datum may be positioned in one of several places on the body. one location may be along the natal cleft, i.e., the crease defined between the gluteal muscles typically extending from the anus towards the lower back. the natal cleft generally has little or no fat layers or musculature and does not move appreciably relative to the anus. another location may be directly on the gluteal muscle adjacent to the anus. one variation for the datum for positioning along the natal cleft 408 is shown in fig. 27 . datum 400 may have sensor 402 positioned in the distal tip of the sensing device, which may be placed adjacent to anus 20 . the datum itself may be positioned within the natal cleft 408 and temporarily held in place on the patient with adhesive 406 . the datum may have a connector 404 extending via a wire or cable for connection to a processor (not shown). another variation is shown in fig. 28 in which the datum 410 may have a base comprising a substrate. the substrate may have an adhesive side that may be placed against the small of the patient's back. an elongate flexible member or arm 412 may extend from the substrate and lie within or against the natal cleft such that the distal end 414 of member 412 is adjacent to anus 20 . distal end 414 may have a sensor mounted within for sensing the movement of an endoscope as it is passed through anus 20 . the flexible member 412 may be secured along the natal cleft using, e.g., adhesive tape, to prevent excessive movement of the device. figs. 29a and 29b show a detailed view of a variation of the datum device 410 of fig. 28 . fig. 29a shows another view for possible positioning of datum 410 on patient 18 . the substrate may be positioned proximal of anus 20 while member 412 extends along the natal cleft for positioning sensor tip 414 proximally adjacent to anus 20 . fig. 29b shows datum 410 laid out and having a substrate 420 upon which sensors and electronics may be positioned. substrate 420 , as mentioned above, may have an adhesive backing for temporary placement against the patient 18 . moreover, datum 410 , or any of the other datum examples described herein, may be optionally configured to be disposable for one-time use on a patient. support electronics 422 may optionally be placed upon substrate 420 and sensor 426 may be positioned within the distal end 414 at or near the end of the flexible member or arm 412 . an optional magnet 428 may be positioned along member 412 proximally of sensor 426 . connector 424 may extend via a wire or cable from datum 410 for connection to a processor. another variation is shown in figs. 30a and 30b which shows datum substrate 430 having sensor 436 positioned within the distal end of elongate flexible assembly 434 for placement adjacent to anus 20 . connector 432 may be provided for connection to a processor. here, elongate assembly 434 may be secured against or within the natal cleft by use of, e.g., an adhesive strip 438 . fig. 30b shows a cross-sectional top-down view of elongate assembly 434 positioned against the natal cleft. a sponge, silicone wedge, or some other wedging device 440 may be positioned inbetween elongate assembly 434 and adhesive strip 438 to ensure secure positioning of the datum device relative to anus 20 . fig. 31 shows another variation on the datum device which may utilize a disposable substrate. datum assembly 450 may have substrate 452 for placement against the patient. a retaining pocket 454 may be defined within or upon substrate 452 and it may be configured to allow for a reusable electronic sensor assembly 458 to be placed within pocket 454 . sensor assembly 458 may have a wire or cable 462 extending therefrom and it may further have a sensor 460 positioned or potted upon sensor assembly 458 . the sensor assembly 458 may be positioned within pocket 454 by slipping sensor assembly 458 through an opening 456 defined within substrate 452 and sensor assembly 458 is preferably positioned within pocket 454 such that sensor 460 is positioned at the distal end of substrate 452 to allow for positioning adjacent the anus. another variation for positioning a datum is directly on the gluteal muscle adjacent to the anus. generally, the sensor and associated circuitry may be incorporated into a patch or small chassis that may then be attached to the muscle adjacent to the anus. the entire datum assembly may optionally be mounted onto a bandage-like package with an adhesive backing. figs. 32a and 32b show a variation in datum 470 which is formed into a small chassis having connector 472 extending therefrom. datum 470 may be attached temporarily to patient 18 via adhesive 474 adjacent to anus 20 . a guide, ramp, or other similar structure 476 for situating, orienting, or guiding endoscope relative to datum 470 may be optionally incorporated into the device. fig. 33a shows another variation of the device in datum 480 . in this example, datum 480 may be in the form of a patch with sensor 482 positioned thereon. the device may be placed upon one of the gluteal muscles such that sensor 482 is adjacent to anus 20 . fig. 33b shows a detailed view of how datum 480 may be positioned upon the gluteal muscle adjacent to anus 20 . adhesive 484 may be placed over datum 480 to temporarily hold it onto the gluteal muscle as shown. fig. 33c shows an example of how datum 480 may interact with endoscope 486 as it is advanced or withdrawn from anus 20 . because datum 480 may have a relatively small diameter, d, discomfort may be reduced for the patient and close proximity to anus 20 may be assured. as endoscope 486 moves past datum 480 , the sensors within datum 480 may measure the insertion depth. zone 488 shows generally the zone of operation, i.e., the region within which the operator's or surgeon's hands generally operate during a colonoscopy procedure. because of the small diameter of datum 480 and its position adjacent anus 20 , it is generally out of the way of the operator or surgeon during a procedure and thereby allows for unhindered operation of the endoscope 486 while maintaining accurate measurement or sensing with datum 480 . fig. 34 shows yet another variation in datum 490 which may have a substrate with sensor 494 mounted at one end. support electronics 492 may be optionally mounted on datum 490 and wire or cable 496 may be used to transmit the measured signals from sensor 494 . datum 490 may be in a triangular shape for placement upon a single gluteal muscle, as shown, such that a vertex of the substrate is positioned adjacent to anus 20 to allow sensor 494 to sense or measure signals as endoscope 498 is advanced or withdrawn into anus 20 . although shown in this variation in a triangular pattern, this is not intended to be limiting and is intended merely to illustrate one possible shape for the datum. another variation is shown in fig. 35 in which datum 500 may incorporate multiple sensors. datum 500 may be placed on a single gluteal muscle and it may define an insertion region 508 at which the anus of the patient may be positioned. each of the sensors 502 , 504 , 506 may thereby be configured to sense or read the endoscope as it passes through or past the insertion region 508 . although three sensors are shown in this configuration, fewer or more sensors may be utilized depending upon the configuration of the datum 500 and the desired signal processing results. fig. 36 shows yet another variation in which datum 510 may be encased in a rigid housing. datum 510 may thus encapsulate support electronics 512 within with sensor 514 directed towards one end of the housing. the housing may incorporate a connector 516 attached via a wire or cable extending from the datum 510 . the rigid housing may be temporarily adhered to the patient on a gluteal muscle in the same fashion as described above. fig. 37 shows yet another variation in which datum 520 may be configured to extend across the natal cleft to position an opening defined in the datum over the anus of the patient. as shown, an adhesive substrate 522 may be configured, e.g., into a “butterfly” configuration. substrate 522 may have at least two wings or flaps 524 for adhering to each gluteal muscle across the natal cleft while sensor 526 and support electronics 528 may be contained adjacent an opening 534 defined at or near the center of substrate 522 . sensor 526 and support electronics 528 may be potted or contained within a housing 530 on substrate 522 . connector 532 may be attached via a wire or cable for connection to a processor. a datum device may also be configured to encircle an endoscope as it passes into the body. such a datum configuration may be useful when using sensing technology such as rf. in the case of rf, the datum may be in a looped configuration to facilitate the exchange of rf signals with components or sensors mounted along the endoscope, as described above. one variation of a looped datum configuration is shown in figs. 38a and 38b . as shown, datum 540 may have a loop 542 defined at a distal end to function as a signal receiver, e.g., rf signals, and/or as a guide loop. the datum 540 may be aligned along the natal cleft 408 and secured in place with adhesive tape 544 . a connector 546 may be attached to datum 540 via a wire or cable at a first end of datum 540 while sensor 548 may be positioned at the opposing end of datum 540 . sensor 548 may be positioned adjacent to anus 20 , while loop 542 encircles the opening of anus 20 . the loop 542 may define an insertion region 550 through which an endoscope may be passed. the loop 542 may be made of a thin, flexible material such as mylar and it optionally have an adhesive backing for placement upon the tissue surrounding anus 20 . although shown in a circle configuration, loop 542 may be in a variety of looped configuration and is not limited by its shape. yet another variation is shown in fig. 39 where a supporting garment 560 , e.g., a pair of underpants, may define an opening 562 in the region surrounding the anus 20 . a loop 564 may be incorporated into the fabric such that the loop surrounds the opening 562 . the fabric in the middle of loop 564 may either be removable at the time of the procedure or omitted altogether. connection to the loop 564 may be made through connector 566 , which can be connected via a wire or cable extending from, e.g., the waistband, front, or side of garment 560 . aside from colonoscopy, other applications may include uses in minimally invasive surgery (mis). mis typically depends upon the use of long, thin tools for insertion into the body via small incisions, e.g., often through a cannula. instruments typically employed during mis may include rigid endoscopes, laparoscopes, thoracoscopes, needle drivers, clamps, etc. because each of these tools must pass through an opening in the body, a datum device may be used adjacent to that body opening for tracking instrument insertion depth. in situations where cannulas are used, the cannula itself may be instrumented through one of the methods described above. for other types of endoscopy procedures, various types of flexible endoscopes may be used, e.g., upper endoscopes, duodenoscopes, sigmoidscopes, bronchoscopes, neuroscopes, ent scopes, etc. any of the devices and methods described above may be utilized and configured to maintain insertion depth for any of these types of endoscopes. for instance, for flexible endoscopes that enter the body transorally, a mouthpiece configured as a datum may be utilized. in another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an instrument, system and method for the use of rfid technology to the sensing of position. a series of rfid tags are affixed to an object that passes in close proximity to an rfid reader & antenna. the passage of the series of rfid tags allows the position of the object to be determined by identifying the rfid tags that respond to queries by the reader. specifically, one application of this concept relates to sensing the depth of insertion of a flexible endoscope into a patient during an endoscopic procedure. this application describes an application specific to colonoscopy. the techniques, methods, components and systems described herein may be used with any flexible endoscope and any endoscopic procedure. other related concepts are described in u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/384,252 published as u.s. patent application no. 2004/0176683, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. there are 4 major families of rfid technologies, categorized by their operating frequencies: 1. low frequency (lf): 125 khz-135 khz 2. high frequency (hf): 13.56 mhz 3. ultra-high frequency (uhf): 868 mhz-928 mhz 4. microwave: 2.45/5.8 ghz the embodiments described herein may be implemented within any of the above listed rfid families. hf rfid has the following advantages: 1. operates at frequencies that are not highly absorbed by water or living tissue 2. mature technology with many readily available components 3. compact components 4. high read rates (<0.25 s) 5. anti-collision (multiple rfid tags may be read simultaneously) other rfid families share some of these advantages; however hf is the only family that combines them all at the same time. the primary advantage of microwave rfid is the relatively small size of the rfid chip. the hitachi μ-chip, for example, is about 0.4 mm×0.4 mm. this size allows the chip to be placed in nearly any location along, within or about an instrument. rfid tags, readers and antennas are well known and widely commercially available. a typical rfid (radio frequency identification) system is comprised of 4 basic elements: (1) rfid reader module; (2) rfid reader antenna, (3) rfid reader antenna cable and (4) rfid tag, chip or sensor. rfid reader module the rfid reader module is the source of the rf carrier wave used both to provide power to responding rfid tags, and to create the base carrier over which rf communications are achieved. the reader module can be off-the-shelf module such as the obid® rfid reader system provided by feig electronic gmbh located in weilburg, germany or the skyemodule m1 provided by skyetek, inc. located in westminster, colo. the reader may include an anti-collision mechanism that allows for the orderly processing of responses from two or more rfid tags within the reader field range. reader modules may be designed from conventional modular components or custom designed. typically rfid readers are configured to operate with rfid tags that comply with iso-15693, iso-14443 and hf epc, for example. readers have a read range based on a number of factors such as antenna type (internal vs. external), surrounding structure that may interfere with operation and operating frequency. for example, an hf rfid reader may have a read range or reader field range of 9 cm with an internal antenna or 20 cm with an external antenna. in another example, a microwave rfid reader may have a reader field range of 1 m or more. embodiments of the present invention utilize the entry and departure of individual rfid tags from a reader field range to determine the position of an instrument. rfid reader antenna the rfid reader antenna is the antenna used to broadcast the rf carrier wave created by the rfid reader module, and to receive the signal created by the rfid tag. the antenna is selected based on the operating frequency for the rfid system. rfid reader antenna cable the rfid reader antenna cable is a conventional wired connection between the reader module and the reader antenna, typically impedance matched. rfid tags an rfid tag is a conventional transponder that is excited and queried by an appropriate rfid reader assembly based on the operating frequency of the rfid system in use. rfid tags are passive ics that receive power from the rf signal from the reader and generate electric power from the received rf signal. the rfid tag then transmits its id or data to the reader. the response of a typical rfid tag may include but is not limited to: tag serial number, tag data field, placement within an item (i.e., distance from the distal end of an instrument or placement about the perimeter of an instrument) and/or sensor inputs. a typical rfid tag is comprised of an rfid integrated circuit (chip), an antenna, and discrete electronic components (e.g. inductors, capacitors, resistors, etc.). rfid tags are also referred to as short range contactless memory chips. numerous various chips are commercially available and manufactured by stmicroelectronics of geneva, switzerland, among others. another rfid ic is the μ-chip provided by hitachi, ltd., japan. the rfid tag and reader may also be programmed to provide a number of other features such as: anti-clone, authentication, unique id, and/or challenge/response. rfid tags may also include writable memory. one use of the writable memory would be to write the position orientation or other position information onto a specific tag as the instrument is assembled or as part of a tag initiation process. in this manner, the unique identification of a tag may be associated with a position on, in or about an instrument or component of an instrument. one exemplary write application would be to write onto tag memory the location of the tag relative to the distal end of the instrument. the write process may also include information related to the orientation of the tag on a portion of the instrument. exemplary orientations may include 0, 90, 180 or 270 degree relative positions on a component of the instrument such as a vertebra or other structural member. a plurality of rfid tags are provided on, in, about or along an instrument. figs. 45, 46, 47, and 41 provide non-limiting examples for various placement arrangements on, about or along an instrument. additional specific but non-limiting examples of rfid tag placement include: a. rfid tags that are built into, or added onto, a articulating vertebra or other structural member of an instrument.b. rfid tags that are constructed into a stand alone structure that is then added-onto the structure of or a component of an instrument. one example is the rf bobbin illustrated in figs. 43a and 43b . as illustrated, the rfid ic and antenna is fabricated into a hoop that then slides over an exiting structural component of an instrument. figs. 42a and 42b illustrate the rf bobbin in figs. 43a and 43b in place on two hinged segments of an instrument.c. rfid tags may be placed in a variety of positions relative to the segments or sections of an instrument. i. the rfid tag may be placed inside or formed within a segment or section ring.ii. the rfid tag may be placed outside of a ring such as within the instrument skin or outer barrier that covers the instrument. the rfid tag may be placed on, in or along a component between instrument structure and instrument skin such as the mesh or tube sleeve 606 illustrated in fig. 42a . strips of rfid tags (such as a plurality of μ-chips for example) may be located in various positions along or about the instrument as illustrated in figs. 44, 41, 40, 45, 46 , and 47 .d. the number and placement of rfid tags on an individual vertebra, segment or structural element include, without limitation: i. one rfid tag per vertebraii. multiple rfid tags per vertebra or other structural component of an instrumentiii. one tag per multiple vertebrae, segment or section. in addition to providing a number of rfid tags on, in, along or about an instrument, it is to be appreciated that different function and types of rfid tags can be used, such as, for example: a. lf, hf, uhf, or microwave operating frequency.b. more than one tag per vertebra or per structural component of an instrument.c. rfid tags that respond only with their serial number (“bar code” style) in circumstances where no other storage or reporting of data is possible.d. rfid tags may provide bar code plus other parameter, e.g., rotational position or “torque”, switch open/closed, temperature, etc.e. rfid tags may be used to help determine scope shape and/or position or other descriptors. other exemplary functions include triangulation of rfid tag position, based on signal strength for example, including rfid for triangulation to determine position and/or rotation of scopef. advanced technology and compact design rfid chips such as the μ-chip or the so called “grain of sand” rfid tags from hitachi, ltd. in some embodiments, the reader antenna is designed in the form of a “patch,” or a flexible substrate or structure (see, for example, figs. 27-39, 48, 49, and 50 ) that supports the reader antenna and provides an aperture sized to receive an instrument. the substrate may include an adhesive backing so that it may be affixed to a surface while in use. one exemplary use is that the flexible substrate is affixed to a patient near the point of entry into the body. at least one rfid tag may be used near the antenna (i.e., within the reader field range) for anti-cloning or anti-counterfeiting functions and to continuously verify function of the reader module. a plurality of rfid tags may be provided on or in the instrument to assist in determining, for example, the depth of insertion of the instrument, instrument function and/or performance. an rfid reader antenna may also optionally be provided with an rfid tag built into or located near the antenna. many details of various reader antenna alternatives are illustrated in figs. 48, 49 and 50 . one benefit of placing an rfid tag that remains within the reader field range is that the reader will always see one “known good” tag. the ability of the reader to be able to query a known tag may be used to verify system operation or to authenticate an antenna assembly (i.e., the antenna patch, see figs. 27-34 adapted for rfid applications and figs. 48, 49 and 50 ). the “known good” tag may also be used to confirm the rfid positioning system is functioning properly. the system described herein provides a programmable device that is manufactured as part of a single-use medical device for the purpose of determining calibration, manufacturer, operator and other information. these functions are accomplished without a conventional wired interface. instead, these functions are accomplished using a radiofrequency interface provided by the reader antenna and the rfid tag for real time device operation or performance monitoring. additionally, the use of a “known good” tag provides an operational check of rfid reader antenna circuitry to verify integrity of the cable and antenna. another feature is an anti-counterfeiting or anti-clone feature: an rfid tag may be assigned a code unique to the system. system software could be require identification of a “recognized” tag prior to operation of the system. an embedded rfid tag in the flexible antenna substrate may be used to prevent counterfeiting and ensure that the device remains a single-use medical device. counterfeiting is prevented or discouraged because of the unique code that can be programmed into the memory of the rfid tag thereby making the single-use medical device difficult for others to copy. in order to prevent counterfeiting, an rfid tag integrated circuit and antenna may be fabricated into a single-use device. the single use device has an integrated rfid antenna. when connected to an rfid reader, the rfid antenna can read tags in the vicinity as well as the integrated tag. software inside the rfid reader will perform a check of the single-use device by reading the rfid tag to ensure the attached single-use devices in genuine. if a known rfid tag is not read, the software will prevent use of the single-use device. in addition, the rfid tag embedded the antenna serves as an indicator that the rfid reader antenna is connected to the rfid reader. when the rfid reader is unconnected, the rfid tag in the single-use device will not be seen by the rfid reader. rfid reader antenna mount, patch or substrate could be, preferably, disposable, but could also be made to be reusable. fig. 40 illustrates an instrument having an elongate body 640 . the elongate body includes a distal end 645 . the instrument has working channel 602 , a camera 608 and fiber optic bundle 609 . in one embodiment, the instrument is an endoscope or a colonoscope. in another embodiment, the instrument is a segmented instrument having a controllable distal tip and a plurality of controllable proximal segments. a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips 614 are spaced along the length of the elongate body 640 . the chips 614 may be evenly spaced or spaced at different intervals along the length of the elongate body. in one embodiment, more than one radio frequency identification chip is contained within a 2 mm spacing along the length of the elongate body. in another embodiment, one or more radio frequency identification chips are contained within a 1 cm spacing along the length of the elongate body. in one alternative embodiment, each radio frequency identification chip of the plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips is encoded with position information about the location of the radio frequency identification chip on the elongate body. for example, each chip could be encoded to contain the distance from the chip to the distal end 645 . in another example, the rfid chips attached to an instrument are configured to transmit an authentication code. an antenna 614 a is provided for each chip 614 . the drawing is not to scale and the antenna 614 a may be longer and have a different shape or orientation relative to the elongate body than illustrated. the covering 607 is placed over the elongate body and contains the plurality of radio frequency identification chips 614 . an additional optional covering (not shown) may be placed over the covering 607 and chips 614 . the chips 614 may also be embedded within a covering 607 , between layers of a multilayered laminate structure. alternatively, the chips 614 and antennas 614 a could be mounted on an adhesive backing and secured to the covering 607 . optionally, the chips 614 and antennas 614 a on the adhesive backing could be encapsulated in a protective biocompatible covering. fig. 41 illustrates an elongate body 640 including a plurality of hinged segments 630 along the length of the elongate body. the embodiment illustrated in fig. 41 also includes a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips 614 spaced along the length of the elongate body. in this embodiment, the radio frequency identification chips are evenly spaced along the length of the elongate body 640 because they are placed on, in or about similarly sized segments 630 . each hinged segment 630 includes segment hinges 626 . adjacent segment hinges 626 join to form a hinged connection 625 between each hinged segment 630 . in the illustrated embodiment, each hinged segment 630 contains at least one uniquely identified radio frequency identification chip 614 . while illustrated in the same position on each segment 630 , the rfid chip 614 may be positioned in a different location on each segment or may be in the same location in similarly oriented segments. here, similarly oriented segments may be determined by the location of the hinged connection 625 as being on the top/bottom (i.e., 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions) or the sides (3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions). a cross section of an the rfid reader antenna 710 is also illustrated. it may be continuous ring that partially or completely encircles the elongate body 640 . as the instrument advances in the direction of the arrow, chips 614 to the left of the antenna 710 will eventually enter the reader field range and become detected while chips to the right of the antenna 710 will eventually leave the reader field range and no longer respond. figs. 42a and 42b illustrate perspective and end views, respectively, of another alternative embodiment of an instrument having a plurality of rfid tags 614 . the instrument 600 includes an elongate body 640 and a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips 614 spaced along the length of the elongate body. this embodiment also includes a plurality of hinged segments 630 along the length of the elongate body. two segments 630 and segment hinges 626 are visible. one hinged connection 625 is visible and many more are present under skin or cover 607 but cannot be seen in this view. as in fig. 41 , fig. 42a illustrates an embodiment where each hinged segment of the plurality of hinged segments contains at least one uniquely identified radio frequency identification chip 614 . fig. 42a is a perspective, partial section view of an rfid enabled segmented, controllable instrument 600 . the hinged segment links 630 form an articulating backbone that articulated along alternating hinged connections 625 . the interior of the segment links 630 are hollow and are used to house the other components of the instrument 600 . a working channel 602 , water channel 603 , air supply line 604 , camera assembly 608 , light fiber bundle 609 and steering tube coils 605 pass through the segment link interior. an organizing spacer 601 (best seen in fig. 42b ) fixes the relative position of the various components. an insertion tube skin 606 and skin 607 encapsulate the instrument 600 . an rfid bobbin 613 a is best seen in figs. 43a and 43b . the bobbin 613 is a circular structure adapted to fit over the hinged segments without interfering with the segment movement. the bobbin 613 includes a recess 613 b to stow the antenna rfid tag antenna 616 . in this way the chip or a component of the chip wraps at least partially around at least one hinged segment. depending on the rfid operating frequency, the dimensions of the hinged segments or other design criteria, the rfid antenna may wrap around the bobbin several times. the rfid chip 614 is attached to adhesive tape 617 and connected to antenna 616 with solder 619 . an appropriate label 618 may be applied to the bobbin for identification and inventory purposes. the entire bobbin assembly is enclosed using heatshrink 615 . fig. 44 illustrates a system for determining the position of an instrument 700 . the system 700 includes an instrument 640 and a plurality of uniquely identified radio frequency identification chips (i.e., sa-sk) attached to the instrument. a reader 705 is connected to an antenna 710 . the reader 705 is adapted to communicate with each radio frequency identification chip using the antenna 710 . as illustrated, the antenna 710 has a circular shape sized to allow the instrument 640 to pass through the circular shape. in one embodiment, the circular shape is a circle. other shapes, such as oval, oblong or other shapes suited to allow the passage of instruments are also possible. when the reader 705 provides energy to the antenna 710 a field f (indicated by the arrows looping around antenna 710 ). the field f is used by the reader 705 to power and communicate with the rfid chips sa-sk. the reader 705 has a reader field range 715 (indicated by the dashed lines) within which the reader can communicate with the rfid chips. if the antenna 710 is used to create a reference position r that approximately divides the reader field range into a +d direction and a −d direction. in this convention, +d indicates that the instrument 640 is moving to an increased depth with relation to the reference position r. movement by the instrument in the opposition direction, −d, indicates decreasing depth or withdrawal of the instrument with regard to the reference position r. in this way, the position of an individual rfid chip may be determined relative a reference position r or with respect to the reader field range 715 . knowing the position of individual rfid tags can then be used to determine the position of the instrument 640 . figs. 45 and 46 show one variation in using an endoscope assembly 90 in conjunction with external sensing device or datum 96 configured similar to the substrate 740 . datum 96 may be positioned externally of patient 18 adjacent to an opening into a body cavity, e.g., anus 20 for colonoscopic procedures. datum 96 may include the rfid reader 98 located next to opening 100 , which may be used as a guide for passage of endoscope 92 . with proper placement next to the body, the opening 100 in the datum 96 may be used to guide the endoscope 92 there through into anus 20 . endoscope 92 may be configured to have a number of rfid tags 94 located along the body of endoscope 92 . these tags 94 may be positioned at regular intervals along endoscope 92 . the spacing between the rfid tags 94 may vary and may also depend upon the desired degree of accuracy in endoscope position determination. rfid tags 94 may be positioned closely to one another to provide for a higher resolution reading, while rfid tags 94 spaced farther apart from one another may provide for a lower resolution determination. moreover, rfid tags 94 may be positioned at uniform distances from one another, or alternatively they may be spaced apart are irregular intervals, depending upon the desired results. moreover, rfid tags 94 may be positioned along the entire length of endoscope 92 or only along a portion of it, depending upon the desired results. as shown in fig. 46 , as endoscope 92 is passed through datum 96 via opening 100 and into anus 20 , rfid reader 98 located within datum 96 may sense each of the rfid tags 94 as they pass through opening 100 . accordingly, the direction and insertion depth of endoscope 92 may be recorded and/or maintained for real-time positional information of the endoscope 92 . fig. 47 shows another example in endoscope assembly 110 in which endoscope 112 may have a number of rfid tags 114 located along the body of the endoscope 112 . as endoscope 112 is advanced or withdrawn from anus 20 , datum 116 (includes an rfid reader connected to an antenna 118 ), which may be mounted externally of the patient and at a distance from endoscope 112 , may have a receiver or reader 118 configured in any of the variations described above. for instance, receiver or reader 118 may be adapted to function as a rfid reader as in any of the other variations described above. the reader may be placed a distance d from the opening 20 and at various orientations relative to the endoscope based upon several factors such as the operating frequency and interference caused by surrounding structures. the distance d and orientation are selected so that the endoscope 92 remains within the reader field range. as illustrated, the reader 116 is only reading those tags 114 adjacent to anus 20 and outside of the body. the rfid tags indicated in phantom are no longer read by the reader. the reader may be adapted to communicate with the control system 703 used to control the endoscope. in addition, the output from the reader 116 may be used to map rfid tag positions on the endoscope 112 and thus, the length of insertion of the endoscope 112 into a natural or surgically created body opening. figs. 48, 49 and 50 illustrate alternative embodiments of a flexible substrate that is used to support the reader antenna 710 and the rfid chip 614 u that is separate from the rfid chips 614 attached to the instrument. fig. 48 illustrates a stingray shaped substrate 740 . 1 having an aperture 773 sized to allow passage of an instrument. the antenna 710 is positioned about the aperture 773 and is connected to the reader (not shown) via wires 711 and suitable connector 712 . the rfid chip 614 u is placed on the substrate 740 . 1 and within the reader field range so that it is always detected by antenna 710 . fig. 740.2 also contains an rfid chip 614 u (present but not shown in figs. 48-50 ), an antenna 710 and an aperture 773 . the substrate 740 . 2 differs from substrate 740 . 1 by slots 793 that are used to form flaps 791 . reinforcement elements or battens 788 are also provided in the substrate 740 . 2 for added support. the substrate 740 . 3 differs from the other substrates by different sized slots 793 that are used to form various flaps 791 . fig. 51 illustrates flow chart 5100 for an embodiment of a method for determining the position of an instrument using radio frequency identification chips. first, there is the step of providing a radio frequency identification chip reader and antenna (step 5105 ). next, there is the step of providing an instrument having a longitudinal axis and comprising a plurality of radio frequency identification chips placed along the longitudinal axis (step 5110 ). next, the instrument is moved relative to the antenna (step 5115 ). finally, the step of using information about a radio frequency identification chip detected by the antenna to determine the position of the instrument (step 5120 ). an additional and optional step would be providing information about the position of the instrument relative to the antenna to a system used to control the instrument. one exemplary control system includes an electronic motion controller and actuators to facilitate the articulation of a steerable, articulating instrument having rfid features and functionalities as described herein. additional details of the control system and controllable segmented instruments may be found in: u.s. pat. no. 6,468,203; u.s. patent application ser. no. 09/969,927 filed oct. 2, 2001; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/229,577 filed aug. 27, 2002; u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/087,100 filed mar. 1, 2002; and u.s. patent application ser. no. 10/139,289 filed may 2, 2002, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. in one alternative embodiment, the moving step 5115 includes passing the instrument through a hoop formed by the antenna. the step of providing a radio frequency identification chip reader and antenna may also include placing the antenna adjacent an opening in the body of a mammal. the opening in the body of a mammal may be a natural opening or an opening that is created surgically. in another alternative embodiment, the using step 5120 includes using information about a radio frequency identification chip detected by the antenna to determine the position of the instrument relative to the antenna. additionally or alternatively, the information about a radio frequency identification chip may include an indication that the radio frequency identification chip has entered the opening in the body of the mammal. one indication may be that the reader no longer detects the radio frequency identification chip. the reader would not be able to detect a tag if the rf energy is being absorbed by the surrounding tissue as in the case of using rfid systems in some uhf and microwave frequencies. the applications of the devices and methods discussed above are not limited to regions of the body but may include any number of further treatment applications. other treatment sites may include other areas or regions of the body. additionally, the present invention may be used in other environments such as exploratory procedures on piping systems, ducts, etc. modification of the above-described assemblies and methods for carrying out the invention, and variations of aspects of the invention that are obvious to those of skill in the art are intended to be within the scope of the claims.
197-190-801-095-922	US	[ "EP", "WO", "US", "AU", "JP", "DE", "CN" ]	H01R13/652,H01R13/514,H01R13/646,H01R13/658,H01R12/00,H01R13/648,H01R13/502	2002-05-06T00:00:00	2002	[ "H01" ]	differential signal connectors with esd protection	a connector assembly for connecting differential signal circuits on two different circuit boards has a connector housing formed from an insulative material with a conductive coating on the surfaces thereof and with cavities formed therein to receive terminal assemblies. each internal cavity may have an elongated portion that extends transversely across the housing and a plurality of leg portions in communication with the elongated portion to define passages between opposite side of the connector. each cavity is suited for holding a terminal assembly having at least one pair of differential signal terminals. the terminals have opposing compliant tail portions, and interconnecting portions that are partially encapsulated by an insulative outer shell. two shells are combined together to form a single terminal assembly. the terminal assemblies are identical in shape so that they may be inserted into any of the cavities of the housings, thereby imparting a measure of modularity to the connectors.	claims: 1. a connector assembly for use in connecting differential signal circuits on two different circuit boards together, comprising: an insulative housing including a plurality of cavities defined in said housing, the cavities extending completely through said housing between opposite surfaces thereof; said housing having a conductive coating formed on at least some exterior surfaces thereof including on the surfaces of said plurality of cavities for providing a reference ground surrounding each of said cavities, said housing further including a plurality of ground terminal members associated therewith which are in electrical contact with said conductive exterior surfaces for electrically connecting said conductive surfaces to ground circuits on said circuit boards; and, a plurality of terminal assemblies received in said plurality of cavities, each of the terminal assemblies including at least one differential signal terminal pair, said at least one signal terminal pair including tail portions at each end of the terminal assembly for connecting the terminal pairs to circuits on said circuit boards, and intermediate portions which interconnect said tail portions together, said terminal assemblies being at least partially held within said cavities. 2 the connector assembly of claim 1, wherein said tail portions of each terminal pair are compliant. 3. the connector assembly of claim 1, wherein an insulative material is formed about said terminal pairs between the tail portions. 4. the connector assembly of claim 3, wherein recesses are defined in said insulative material along said terminal pairs to tune the high frequency impedance of the terminal pairs. 5. the connector assembly of claim 1, wherein said connector assembly is elongated, thereby defining a centerline along the length of said connector assembly and said cavities defined in the connector assembly in one surface thereof are elongated in a direction transverse to that of the centerline, and a plurality of smaller cavities are defined in an opposite surface of the connector assembly, said plurality of smaller cavities in communication with each of said elongated cavities to define a plurality of passages through said connector assembly. 6. the connector assembly of claim 5, wherein said terminal assemblies each comprise an insulative and elongated base portion adapted to fit into one of said elongated cavities and a plurality of insulative leg portions extending from each base portion adapted to fit into respective ones of said plurality of smaller cavities, with one terminal signal pair disposed in each of said leg portions and through the elongated base portion, said terminal pairs having tail portions extending from the leg portions and from the elongated base portion at opposite surfaces of said connector assembly. 7. a terminal assembly for use in a connector which connects circuits on two different circuit boards together, comprising: an insulative base portion having a plurality of surfaces, one of the surfaces of the base portion defining a bottom surface of the terminal assembly; a plurality of leg portions extending from said base portion, one of the surfaces of the leg portions defining a top surface of the terminal assembly; at least one terminal disposed in each leg and extending through said base portion, the terminal having a body portion and two opposing compliant pin tail portions that projecting out from said terminal assembly top and bottom surfaces for mating with holes in said circuit boards. 8. the terminal assembly of claim 7, wherein said base portion includes a plurality of openings formed therein that expose said terminal body portions in order to define air gaps between said terminal body portions and a connector into which said terminal assembly is inserted. 9. the terminal assembly of claim 8, wherein said terminal assembly is formed from two interengaging halves, each of the two halves having engagement means for joining the two halves together into said terminal assembly.	board-to-board connector with compliant mounting pins background of the invention the present invention relates generally to high-speed connectors, and more particularly, to connectors suitable for use in high-speed data transmission with interstitial ground arrangements between groups of differential signal pairs. hi the field of data transmission, the computer and server industries attempt to constantly increase the speed at which their products can transmit and receive data. most specifications for these type components now call for minimum speeds of 1 gigabit per second. such connectors typically utilize differential signaling, meaning that the signal terminals are arranged in pairs of terminals so as to take advantage of the benefits of differential signaling. however, with the use of differential signaling certain problems arise. a designer needs to bring multiple grounds into the connector in order to ensure signal isolation. a typical approach to providing the grounds in such a connector would be to utilize a single ground in each differential signal pair. this approach may unduly increase the size of the connector and render it ineffective for its intended application. also, with the use of separate ground terminals for each differential pair, the total number of circuits that can be supported by the connector depends on the number of terminals the connector is designed to support. hence, if a connector requires ground terminals for each differential pair, the connector will be longer in size and possibly increase the size of the electronic components with which it is used to the extent where it is undesirable to use from a circuit board real estate perspective typically, there is a gap in the interface between the connector and the associated circuit board. it is well-known that such gaps can cause undesirable discontinuities in impedance values at higher frequencies that are used in data transmission. additionally, some applications require a differential signal connector that can interconnect a plurality of differential signal circuits on two printed circuit boards that are spaced apart in generally parallel planes, that is, one circuit board is positioned above or below the other circuit board. in such applications, the differential signal connector is interposed between the two circuit boards and the electrical connections therebetween may cause undesired levels of stress to be applied to at least some of the terminals of the connector or to the circuit boards at the connector-circuit board interface. a need therefore exists for a high speed connector that accommodates differential signals that minimizes impedance discontinuities throughout the connector and at the connector-circuit board interface. a need also exists for providing a plurality of differential signal pairs through the connector, and at the same time, providing a plurality of ground terminals that separate the differential signal pairs into discrete groups of signal pairs, and which also provide an affinity across the connector to circuit board interface for the differential signal pairs to maintain relatively constant impedance through the connector, especially at the connector to circuit board interface. a need also exists for a high speed connector of the interposer type that accommodates differential signals. there is also a need for such a connector in which the differential terminal pairs have compliant tail portions to reduce stresses on the terminal pairs and on the circuit boards at the connector-circuit board interface. the present invention provides connectors of the "docking" and "interposer "styles and terminal assemblies used in such connectors that overcome the aforementioned disadvantages. the present invention provides an interposer type connector for interconnecting a plurality of differential signal circuits between spaced apart circuit boards that overcomes the aforementioned disadvantages. summary of the invention accordingly, it is a general object of present invention to provide a high-speed connector assembly for use in transmitting differential signals between two electronic components. another object of the present invention is to provide such connector assemblies in the docking and interposer styles for use with such differential signal applications. a further object of the present invention is to provide a differential signal connector assembly that uses a circuit board interface with a plurality of interstitial ground terminals that separate differential signal pairs of the connector into discrete groups and which also to provide an affinity to ground for adjacently located differential signal pairs to control the impedance across the connector to circuit board interface at a desired value or range of such values. a still further object is to provide a differential signal connector assembly for connecting two circuit boards together, the connector assembly including interengaging plug and receptacle connector components that each house a plurality of terminal assemblies, the terminal assemblies being received within cavities of the plug and receptacle connector components, and the connector assembly utilizing a plurality of ground terminals located at interstitial positions between groups of differential signal pairs at the connector to circuit board interface. yet another object of the present invention is to provide the plug and receptacle connector components with conductive exterior surfaces that serve as associated grounds to the differential signal and terminal assemblies supported by the connector components and which are electrically coupled to the ground terminals.. still another object of the present invention is to provide terminal assemblies for use in a differential signal connector of the interposer type that interconnect differential signal circuits on two spaced-apart circuit boards, with each terminal assembly supporting a plurality of differential signal pairs within passages of a connector housing yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved connector for use with the transmission of differential signals wherein the connector has a conductive housing that houses a plurality of sets of differential signal terminal pairs and wherein the connector housing includes a plurality of ground terminals located at interstitial positions on the connector housing and between groups of differential signal pairs at the connector to circuit board interface. a further object of the present invention is to provide a connector for use in differential signal applications, the connector including an insulative housing having a plurality of internal cavities, a plurality of terminal assemblies received within the cavities, each of the terminal assemblies including a plurality of conductive terminals defining a plurality of differential pairs of signal terminals, the terminals of the terminal assemblies including distinct contact, tail and interconnecting terminal portions, the terminal contact portions being at least partially surrounded by portions of the connector components, the exterior surfaces of these portions being coated with a conductive material that is connected to a ground circuit when the connector component is mounted to a circuit board so that the terminal differential pair contact portions have associated ground portions encompassing them. another object of the present invention is to provide an interposer type connector assembly for differential signal applications between spaced-apart circuit boards that has compliant tail portions on the differential signal pairs. still another object of the present invention is to provide terminal assemblies for a differential signal connector of the interposer type that maybe easily and inexpensively manufactured. yet another object of the present invention is to provide terminal assemblies of the differential signal type that are formed as complementary halves, with engagement means on each half for engaging the two halves into a unitary terminal assembly. a still further object of the present invention is to provide sets of terminals having varying lengths, with at least one set of the terminals having shorter contact lengths than the other terminals so as to provide a means for determining full mating of the connectors of the connector assembly of the invention when the shorter length terminals are mated to their opposing terminals. yet still another object of the present invention is to provide interengageable plug and receptacle connectors with two-part housings, each including upper and lower housings, the upper and lower housings having a plurality of spaced-apart cavities formed therein, the cavities in the lower housings extending in one direction and the cavities in the upper housings extending in a second direction different than the first direction so that when mated together, the plug and receptacle housings have a plurality of internal l-shaped cavities, each of which receives a terminal assembly therein, the terminal assemblies having a plurality of differential signal pairs disposed therein, the terminal assemblies including corresponding engaging plug and receptacle terminal assemblies. yet another object of the present invention is to provide a high speed connector for interconnecting two electronic components together, such as two circuit boards, the connector having a interposer configuration with a plurality of differential signal terminal pairs supported by the connector housing, the terminal pairs having compliant pins portions as their contact and tail portions. a still further object of the present invention is to provide terminal assemblies of identical shape for insertion into passages of the connector housing, the terminal assemblies each supporting a plurality of differential signal terminals, the terminals having varying lengths, with some of the terminals having a shorter length than the other terminals so as to provide a means for determining full mating of the connectors of the comiector assembly when the shorter terminals are mated to their opposing terminals. still another object of the present invention is to provide a connector assembly that utilizes interengaging male and female connector components for transferring differential signals between two electronic components, the male and female connector components having a plurality of contacting elements that engage each other in a specific mating sequence so that a plurality of ground elements contact each other as the two connector components are mated together to ensure ground contact during mating and separating of the connector components. these and other objects of the present invention are accomplished by the structure of the connector assembly. in one principal aspect of the present invention and as exemplified by one embodiment of the invention, a connector assembly is provided with opposing and interengageable first and second connector components. each of the two components preferably includes upper and lower housing formed from an insulative material, with cavities formed therein that receive terminal assemblies. the upper and lower housings are formed with internal cavities that extend in different directions. these cavities are aligned together when the upper and lower housings are assembled together to define a plurality of l-shaped internal cavities in the first and second connector components. in another important aspect of the present invention, the upper and lower housings are each coated on the exterior surfaces with a conductive coating which may be accomplished by plating the same with a conductive material. preferably, all of the surfaces of the housings are plated and are com ected to one or more ground circuits disposed on one or more circuit boards. the lower housings may include slots disposed in their portion faces that receive separately formed terminals in order to provide a series of ground connection points and to provide redundancy of connection. in another important aspect of the present invention, the connector components are formed as respective interengaging male and female or plug and receptacle connectors, each with a plurality of cavities. each cavity contains a terminal assembly of either plug or receptacle structure, which assembly may further include either a plurality of power terminals or differential signal terminals. in either instance, the terminals have contact portions, tail portions and intercomiecting portions that are partially encapsulated by an insulative outer shell. the shell forms a support framework in the form of a skeleton and two half-frames are combined together to form a single terminal assembly containing a t least two different, differntial signal terminal pairs. the terminal assemblies are all identical so that they may be inserted into any of the cavities of the housings. the plug-style terminal assemblies are typically held in the receptacle connector housing, while the receptacle-style terminal assemblies are typically held in the plug connector housing. the plug-style assemblies have contact blade portions in which terminals are embedded and exposed, while the receptacle-style assemblies have contact blade portions that extend out from the insulative body portion and which are spread apart from each other so that when the two connectors are mated together the receptacle-style contact blades extend into cavities of the receptacle connector and make contact with the plug-style assembly contact blades. both connector housings are further provided with contact blades formed as parts of the housing and which make contact with each other when the connector housings are mated together. in another principal aspect of the present invention and as exemplified by two different embodiments of the invention, connector assemblies of either the docking-type or the interposer- type for interconnecting a plurality of differential signal pairs between circuit boards, are provided with interstitial ground terminals disposed between certain of the differential signal pairs at the connector to circuit board interface. this interstitial ground arrangement subdivides the differential signal pairs in the connector into discrete groups, and further provides an affinity for the differential signal pairs to ground at the connector to circuit board interface to better maintain a low impedance for the high frequency differential signals thereacross. the connectors of the docking style preferably include upper and lower housings formed from an insulative material, with cavities formed therein that receive terminal assemblies. the upper and lower housings are formed with internal cavities that extend in different directions. these cavities are aligned together when the upper and lower housings are assembled together to define a plurality of l-shaped internal cavities in the first and second connector components. preferably, the upper and lower housings are each coated on the exterior surfaces with a conductive coating which maybe accomplished by plating the same with a conductive material. preferably, all of the surfaces of the housings are plated and are connected to one or more ground circuits disposed on one or more circuit boards. the lower housings may include slots, or recesses, disposed in their mounting faces that receive separately formed terminals in order to provide a plurality of ground connection points and to provide redundancy of ground connection. the connector components are formed as respective interengaging male and female (or plug and receptacle connectors), each having a plurality of cavities formed therein. each cavity contains a terminal assembly of either a plug or receptacle structure, which assembly may further include either a plurality of power terminals or differential signal terminals. in either instance, the terminals typically include contact portions, tail portions and interconnecting portions that are partially encapsulated by an insulative outer shell. the shell forms a block and two such blocks are combined together to form a terminal assembly. the blocks are identical in shape other than for an engagement means that serves to hold two of the blocks together as a single assembly. the connector of the interposer style preferably has an elongated and insulative housing with a plurality of cavities defined in the housing between opposite sides thereof. the housing may have attachment or fastening means disposed at the opposite ends thereof. on one side of the housing, the cavities are elongated and disposed transversely to a longitudinal axis of the housing, and preferably the centerline of the housing, and are separated from each other by interior walls that also extend in the same transverse of direction. on an opposite side of the connector, a plurality of smaller cavities are defined in the housing and communicate with the elongated cavities to provide a plurality of individual passages completely through the housing between the opposite sides. these passages may be characterized as being generally "e" shaped. preferably, all of the surfaces of the housing are coated with a conductive material, including in the passages through the housing. the terminal assemblies are all virtually identical so that they may be inserted into any of the cavities of the housings, thereby impacting a measure of modularity to the connectors. the plug-style wafers are typically held in the receptacle connector housing, while the receptacle-style wafers are typically held in the plug connector housing. the plug-style wafers have contact blade portions in which terminals are embedded and exposed, while the receptacle-style wafers have contact blade portions that extend out from the insulative body portion and which are spread apart from each other, so that when the two connectors are mated together the receptacle- style contact blades extend into cavities of the receptacle connector and make contact with the plug-style wafer contact blades. in either the docking or interposer connector styles for interconnecting a plurality of differential signals between circuits on circuit boards, the interstitial ground arrangement preferably includes a plurality of ground terminals located at interstitial positions between small groups of differential signal pairs. for example, terminal lugs having a plurality of ground terminals may be inserted into slots defined in the conductive walls of the connector that separate the channels in which the differential signal pairs are located. thus, each ground terminal will be adjacently located to a least one differential signal pair. in yet another example, terminal lugs having two ground terminals may be disposed adjacently to three differential signal pairs, with the terminal lugs being located generally equidistant from the differential signal pairs. these and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be clearly understood through a consideration of the following detailed description. brief description of the drawings in the course of this detailed description, the reference will be frequently made to the attached drawings in which: fig. 1 is a perspective view of a receptacle connector housing used in connector assemblies constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention; fig. 2 is a top plan view of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1; fig. 3 is a rear elevational view of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1; fig. 4 is a front elevational view of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1; fig. 5 is a vertical cross-sectional view of the top connector component of the connector housing of fig. 1, taken along lines 5-5 thereof; fig. 6 is a horizontal partial cross-sectional view of the top connector component of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1 taken along lines 6-6 thereof; fig. 7 is a vertical cross-sectional view of the engagement area of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1 taken along lines 7-7 thereof; fig. 8 is a bottom plan view of the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1. fig. 9 is a bottom plan view of a connector lower housing capable of use with both the plug and receptacle connector housings of the present invention. fig. 10 is a perspective view of the lower housing of fig. 9; fig. 11 is a vertical sectional view of the lower housing of fig. 10, taken along lines 11- 11 thereof; fig. 12 is a partial enlarged bottom plan view of the lower housing of fig. 11 ; fig. 12a is a perspective view, taken from the bottom, of an assembled receptacle connector with one terminal assembly in place therein and with three of the housing ground terminal sets illustrated as exploded from the connector; fig. 13 is a perspective view of a plug connector housing constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention; fig. 14 is a front elevational view of the plug connector of fig. 13; fig. 15 is an enlarged detail view of the right end of fig. 14; fig. 15a is an enlarged detail view of one end of the plug connector of fig. 15, taken from the rear thereof; fig. 16 is a vertical sectional view of the plug connector of fig. 13, taken along lines 16- 16 thereof; fig. 17 is a partial horizontal sectional view of the plug connector of fig. 13 taken along lines 17-17 thereof; fig. 18 is an elevational view of a signal terminal assembly constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention and used in the receptacle connector housing of fig. i; fig. 19 is an elevational view of the opposite side of the signal terminal assembly of fig. 18; fig. 20a is a rear elevational view of the signal terminal assembly of fig. 19, taken along lines a-a thereof; fig. 20b is a front elevational view of the signal terminal assembly of fig.19, taken along lines b-b thereof; fig. 20c is a top plan view of the signal terminal assembly of fig. 19, taken along lines c-c thereof; fig. 21 is an elevational view of a power terminal assembly constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention and suitable for use in the receptacle connector housing of fig. 1; fig. 22 is a side elevational view of a terminal assembly used for either signal or power terminals in the plug connector housing of fig.13 ; fig. 23a is a frontal elevational view of the terminal assembly of fig. 22; fig. 23b is a rear elevational view of the terminal assembly of fig. 22; fig. 23c is a top elevational view of the terminal assembly of fig. 22; fig. 24 is an elevational side view of the other side of the terminal assembly of fig. 22; fig. 25 a is a perspective view of the plug connector component mounted to either of two circuit boards; fig. 25b is a side elevational view of a plug and a receptacle connector component mounted to circuit boards mated together, illustrating how with the connector assemblies of the present invention, either a standard mating (with the circuit boards arranged in generally the same plane) or an inverted mating (with the circuit boards arranged in two different, but parallel planes); fig. 25c is a cross-sectional side elevational view illustrating the two connector components in line together immediately prior to their mating together; fig. 26 is a perspective view of a retainer clip used to hold either of the receptacle or plug connector upper housings to their associated lower housings; fig. 27 is a perspective view of a ground terminal that is insertable into the lower connector housings for providing a connection between the lower connector housings of circuit boards; fig. 28 is a plan view of a set of six terminals stamped in place within a carrier strip for use in a terminal assembly; fig. 29 is a perspective view of the carrier strip of fig. 28 with insulative housings, or body portions molded thereto; figs. 30a-30d are perspective views that sequentially illustrate the steps taken to form one of the plug or receptacle connector components; figs. 31 a and 3 ib are schematic views illustrating the isolation of differential signal terminals at both the mating interface and at the circuit board interface of the connectors of the invention, respectively; fig. 32 is a an enlarged sectional, horizontal detail view of the plug and receptacle connector housing top halves mated together, illustrating the end engagement members and the housing central electrostatic discharge mating members in engagement with their corresponding opposing engagement components; fig. 33 is the same view as fig. 32, but with a terminal assembly in place within the plug and receptacle connector housings; fig. 34 is an enlarged detail view of the engagement end of the plug and receptacle housings mated together, and taken from the rear thereof in order to illustrate the engagement therebetween; fig. 34a is a side elevational view of the plug connector housing of fig. 13, taken along lines 34a-34a.; fig. 35 is a top plan view of two of the terminal assemblies shown in a mated condition; fig. 36 is a perspective view of the two terminal assemblies of fig. 25 in their mated condition; fig. 37 is a perspective view of an alternate embodiment of a connector constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention illustrated in place connecting two circuit boards together; fig. 38 is an exploded view of the assembly of fig. 37; fig. 39 is a perspective view of the interposer, a board-to-board connector used in the assembly of fig. 37; fig. 40 is an exploded view of the connector of fig. 37; fig. 41 is a top plan view of connector of fig. 37; fig. 42 is a bottom plan view of connector of fig. 37; fig. 43 is a front side elevational view of connector of fig. 37; fig. 44 is an end elevational view of connector of fig. 37; fig. 45 is a perspective view of a terminal assembly used in connector of fig. 37; fig. 46 is an exploded view of the terminal assembly of fig. 45 showing the two assembly halves before assembly; fig. 47 is a side elevational view of one of the terminal assembly halves of fig. 45; fig. 48 is a top plan view of the terminal assembly of fig. 45; fig. 49 is a side elevational view of the terminal assembly of fig. 45; fig. 50 is a sectional view taken transversely through the connector housing of fig. 37 along lines 50-50 thereof and illustrating how the terminal assembly fits into the housing; fig. 51 is a sectional view taken transversely through the connector housing of fig. 37 along lines 51-51 thereof and illustrating how the ground members fit in the housing; fig. 52 is a longitudinal sectional view through the connector housing of fig. 37 taken along lines 52-52 thereof; fig. 53 is a perspective view of an alternate, vertical embodiment of connectors of the present invention; fig. 54 is an exploded view of fig. 53; fig. 55 is a perspective view of a terminal assembly used in the connector of figs. 54 and 55; fig. 56 is a perspective view of another embodiment of the invention, illustrating a combined docking and interposer connector structure; fig. 57 is an exploded view of fig. 56; fig. 58 is an exploded view of a terminal assembly utilized in the connector of fig. 56; and, fig. 59 is a perspective view of another embodiment of the connector assembly of fig. 56. detailed description of the preferred embodiments connector housing structure figs. 25a-c illustrate a pair of circuit boards 30, 31 to which are mounted a pair of connectors 40, 60. these two connectors 40, 60 are interengageable with each other so as to connect the circuits on the two circuit boards together. of these two comiectors 40 and 60, one is considered a receptacle 40 in that it is a female portion that receives a complementary and mating male plug portion 60. these two connectors 40, 60 are interengageable with each other so as to connect the circuits on the two circuit boards together. as is well-known, the two circuit boards can each carry electrical components, examples of which include but are not limited to microprocessors, memory devices but also including analog circuitry as well. electrical components on the circuit boards are electrically coupled to conductors in the connector portions 40 and 60. both connectors extend partially past the edges 32, 33 so that they may be used to provide a connector that enables the "docking" of one circuit board to, or with, another circuit board, or of two electronic components together. the two connectors 40, 60 may be considered as making up a single connector assembly 35 in one embodiment of the invention. when the two connector portions 40 and 60 are coupled together such that the conductors in each portion 40 and 60 engage, the electrical components on circuit boards to which the portions 40 and 60 are attached can be themselves electrically coupled together through the connector portions 40 and 60. in figs. 25b & 25c, a plug connector 60 is shown mounted to one of two circuit boards 30. in instances where the connector is mounted to a circuit board and the circuit board 30 lies beneath the connector component, such a mounting is considered to be a "standard" mounting. fig. 25c illustrates the two connectors arranged to mate with each other in such a standard mounting arrangement. in such a standard mounting, the two circuit boards to which the connector components are mounted will generally lie in the same plane as shown along the bottom of fig. 25c. hi another instance, the connector component may be mounted in an "inverted" fashion where one circuit board 30 is raised above the other and lies generally in a second, but parallel plane. this is shown in figs. 25a-25b. fig. 25c further illustrates the two connectors arranged to mate with each other in such a standard mounting arrangement. the connectors of the invention are useful in both such mounting applications and are further useful in the transmission of high speed electrical signals between circuits on the two circuit boards. figs. 1-4 illustrate one of the connectors 40 of the assembly 35 and the one that is considered as a receptacle connector. the connector 40 has a front, or mating face, 41 that engages with an opposing connector 60, at a top face 42, two side faces 43, a rear face 44 and a bottom face 45. the connector 40 itself includes a two-part assembly that preferably includes upper and lower housing components, respectively numbered 47 and 48. fig. 5-7 illustrate the upper housing 47 in cross-section. as illustrated, the upper housing 47 has a plurality of horizontal passages, or cavities 49, that extend through the depth (or length) of the upper housing 47 to the mating face 41, and from the rear of the upper housing 47 to the front hollow receptacle portion 46. the cavities 49 of the upper housing 47 are defined by internal walls 50, 51 that are preferably formed integrally with the housing, such as during the molding of the housing and which extend crosswise to each other, preferably in the horizontal (50) and vertical (51) directions. these internal walls 50, 51 intersect with each other at a series of nodes that cooperatively define the cavities 49. the purpose of these cavities 49 will be explained in detail below. on the outer sides of the receptacle 46, two other receptacles 52 (fig. 4) are formed which receive projecting plug portions of an opposing connector as described below. the vertical walls 51 may be formed, at their leading edges 56, with ground contact blade portions 57 that extend forwardly into the receptacle area 46. these will engage opposing parts of the opposing connector. the upper and lower housings 47, 48 are formed with a stepwise profile along their mating interfaces 54, 55. in this manner, the lower housings 48 are given a hermaphroditic nature, meaning they may be used with the upper housings of both the plug and receptacle connectors 60, 40, respectively. the lower housing 48 is illustrated in figs. 8-10. in fig. 10, it can be seen that the lower housing 48, with its vertical walls 51, has a series of vertical cavities 58a formed therein. these vertical cavities 58a mate with the horizontal cavities 49 of the upper housing 47 and when mated together, a series of l-shaped cavities, or passages, are formed within, or internally of, the combined housings. as seen in figs. 5 and 8, the upper receptacle housing 47 has a series of horizontal walls 50 that have different lengths, which will accommodate insertion of the terminal assemblies therein. as seen in fig. 9, the bottom face 45 of the lower housing 48 has openings 58b that communicate with its cavities 58 a. fig. 13 illustrates the upper housing 61 of the plug connector component 60 of the connector assembly 35. as seen in figs .13-16 the upper housing 61 has a plurality of internal cavities 62 that are arranged in rows and columns, preferably in the same spacing as the rows and columns of internal cavities 62 of the receptacle connector upper housing . as shown in fig 16, the upper housing 61 has a plurality of horizontal sidewalls 63 and vertical walls 64 (fig. 15) which intersect together to define the individual cavities 62. the vertical walls 64 of the plug connector upper housing 61 are tapered as shown in fig 17 and their leading edges project forwardly to a location near the front face 66 of the upper housing 61. the contact blade portions 56 of the receptacle connector upper housing 40 will mate with and engage the leading edges of the vertical walls of the plug connector upper housing, and because of the conductive plating on these surfaces, will provide a reliable electrical connection between the two connector components 40, 60 when mated together. interstitial ground at circuit board interface h accordance with one primary aspect of the present invention, an interstitial ground arrangement is provided on the face of connector 40 or 60 that interfaces with circuit boards 30 or 31. such interstitial ground arrangements for the connector of the docking type is best seen in figs. 12a and 3 ib. a plurality of transversely extending walls 51 subdivide the lower housing 48 into a plurality of channels, such as channels 58a, 58b (fig. 12) into which differential signal pairs 99 are inserted, as seen in fig. 3 ib. as seen in figs. 12 &12a, a slot 83 may be provided in every other transverse wall 51 for receiving a ground terminal assembly 84 therein. these conductive ground terminals 84 are shown in greater detail in fig. 27. the ground terminals 84 serve to connect the entire extent of the lower housing 48 to ground circuits of the circuit boards 30, 31. the structure of these ground terminals 184 is shown in fig. 27, and each terminal 184 includes a housing retention portion 186 and a terminating portion 187. the housing retention portion 186 of each such terminal preferably includes a pair of planar heads 188, which are indented, or dimpled, to form a projecting part 188 a on one side of the head 188 which provides an interference fit with the ground terminal-receiving slot 83. the terminating portion 187 includes one or more tails 189, shown as compliant pins of the "eye of needle" variety, which includes a center opening 187 a surrounded by deformable sidewalls of the tail, as is known in the art. when ground terminals 84 are inserted into slots 83 of transverse walls 51, as shown in the examples of figs. 12a and 3 ib, each ground terminal assembly 84 will be adjacently disposed to differential signal pairs 99 located in channels 58, including channels 58a, 58b. preferably, the ground terminals 187 are not necessarily aligned with the rows and columns defined by the differential signal terminals 99, but are instead disposed at an intermediate or diagonal position between the differential signal terminals 99. thus, in the examples of figs. 12a and 3 ib, each ground terminal 187 on the ground terminal assembly 84 will be located approximately equidistant from four differential signal terminal pairs. the ground terminal assemblies 84 will also subdivide the differential signal terminal pairs into blocks of six. of course, as shown in fig. 3 ib, additional slots 83a could be provided in every transverse wall 51 , such that the terminal assemblies would subdivide the differential signal terminal pairs into rows of three (or even a single differential signal terminal pair), if so desired. the terminal tails 189 of the ground terminal assemblies 84 will connect to ground circuits or planes in circuit boards 30, 31, and the ground terminals will thereby provide an affinity for differential signals in adjacent differential signal pairs 99 through the interface between the lower connector assembly 48 and the associated circuit board. this will serve to provide a lower impedance across the connector to circuit board interface for the differential signals, and will also avoid discontinuities in impedance thereacross. the use of these ground terminals between distinct sets of differential signal terminal pair tails serves to significantly reduce the ground path from any one pair or signal terminal to ground in comparison to an ordinary connector housing equipped only with a pair of ground lugs 900 (fig. 10) that are typically disposed at the opposite ends of the housing along the mounting face thereof. of course, the ground terminal assemblies 84 could alternatively be arranged along the longitudinal walls of the lower housing 48, instead of on the transverse walls 51 as shown in figs. 12a and 31b. as with the illustrated embodiment, it would be preferable to have the ground terminal assemblies disposed adjacently to sets or groups of differential signal pairs 99. in yet another possible variation of the disclosed embodiment, the ground terminal assemblies 84 could be disposed on both the transverse and longitudinal walls of the lower housing 48 adjacently to sets or groups of differential signal pairs 99. integral ground structure of connector housing preferably, the surfaces of both the upper and lower housings 47, 48 are coated with a conductive material such as a thin layer of metal. this is suitably accomplished by way of plating the plastic or insulative material from which the housings are formed with a metal coating on substantially all of their exterior surfaces. this technique is known in the art as "plated plastic". this conductive plating serves at least two purposes. one such purpose is that the plating provides a continuous conductive surface that extends along the housing-board interface of the connector housing which commons the plurality of discrete ground terminals 84 together. a second purpose is to provide a proximate and reliable reference ground to the differential signal terminals of each differential signal terminal pairs in their extent through the connector and particularly through the cavities 49 of the connector housing. an improved grounding interface is also provided between mating connectors, such as the docking connectors 40, 60 shown in fig. 25 which provides for a sequential mating sequence between the two connectors. as seen in figs. 5 and 6, a plurality of engagement members illustrated as tabs or fingers 57, extend from wall 56 into the hollow receptacle portion 46 of upper housing portion 47. when housing 47 is covered with a conductive surface, fingers 57 are also provided with a conductive surface. as seen in fig. 34, the fingers 57 may be disposed along opposite sides of wall 56, such as finger 57a disposed along the right side of wall 56 and fingers 57b disposed along the left side of wall 56, with the fingers 57a, 57b being considered as forming a "column" of fingers. the fingers 57a, 57b in each such column are preferably spaced horizontally apart from each other a distance 570, which is shown best in fig. 6 and which is preferably slightly less than the thickness of the opposing housing vertical wall front parts 64a. this relationship provides a reliable interference fit between the connectors as shown in fig. 32. this mating occurs last and after contact is made between the contact arms 350 (explained below) and the outer walls of the housings, and the terminals. fig. 33 shows the difference in length between the terminals of the terminal assemblies and the contact fingers 57, with the length of most of the terminals being longer so that they will mate before the housing fingers 57 mate with their opposing walls 64a. the interference fit between the fingers 57 and the walls 64a also serve to hold and maintain the connectors together in engagement. as seen in figs. 33 and 34, plug connector 60 has a plurality of stepped walls 64 with a narrower stepped end 64a. walls 64 also have an electrically conductive surface. thus, when connectors 40, 60 are mated, both sides of the stepped ends 64a of walls 64 are contacted and gripped between fingers 57a and 57b to provide a means of making electrical contact between connectors 40, 60. it will also be appreciated that the mated combination of the stepped walls 64 with the fingers 57 provides a relatively continuous conductive passage about the differential signal pairs such that the impedance seen by the differential signal pairs at the interface of connectors 40, 60 is relatively uniform without any significant discontinuities. as shown in fig 14, the plug connector upper housing 61 preferably includes a pair of engagement plugs 70 that are useful in blind-mate applications and which extend longitudinally of the upper housing 61 and which are received within the channels, or receptacles 72, that are formed on the outer sides of the receptacle connector upper housing 40, as shown in figs. 6 and 7. although these plugs 70 are used to locate the two connectors together in mating alignment (and as such, may be made different or larger to provide a means for polarizing the engagement of the two connectors), the plugs 70 do not immediately make contact with the opposing connector due to tolerances. rather, that is accomplished by way of contact members that are formed as part of the engagement plugs 70. the contact members (arms 350) make contact through respective contact with the inner surfaces 355 of their respective engagement holes 52 formed in the receptacle connector as shown in figs. 7, 34 & 34a. these members are shown as contact arms 350 that are cantilevered out from the base of the engagement plug 70 and this structure is shown best in figs. 15, 15a & 34a, and they terminate in flexible contact points 351. this cantilevered structure permits them to be spaced from the plug 70 a distance that is slightly greater than the distance to the inner surface 355 of the opposing holes 52 and they will deflect upon contact with the holes so that the contact points make the first contact when the connectors are mated together and are the last to break contact when the connectors are pulled apart from each other. fig. 31 a and 3 ib illustrate the overall isolation of the differential signal pairs obtained by the present invention. in the mating interface, each differential signal pair is held within an enclosure of at least four walls of each of the two connector components. because the walls are plated with a conductive material, they will serve to define a ground that encompasses each differential signal pair. this ground serves to isolate each such pair at the mating interface. the ground isolation continues through the connector component through the lower housing portion thereof, where the vertical legs of the terminal assemblies are encompassed on four sides by plated portions of the connector component lower housing, thus obtain a similar, if not identical isolation as obtained in the mating interface. a ground potential for signals on the terminal assembly is provided by the conductive surface on the interior walls of the volumes 59. because the differential signal pairs are substantially surrounded by a conductive surface embodied as the connector halves and thereby electrically shielded from electrostatic discharge (esd) the signal- to-noise ration is improved over the prior art. moreover, by adjusting the spacing and geometry of the connector halves, impedance can be adjusted as well. that there are three, sequentially-made ground connections established before the differential signals are made further insures suppression of esd pickup. terminal assembly fig. 18 illustrates a terminal assembly 80 that houses a plurality of conductive terminals 81 within an insulative body or support frame portion 83. the terminal assembly 80, by way of its body portion 83, may be considered as having horizontal legs 84 that are separated by intervening slots 85 that receive horizontal walls 50, 60 of the upper housing 40, 61 and also vertical legs 86 that are separated by intervening slots 87 that receive vertical walls 51 of the lower housing 48. the slots 85 and 87 are separated by intervening web portions 302 which extend along an axis "rd" shown in fig 18. the insulative body portion 83 is preferably formed on them after the stamping as illustrated in fig 29, and preferably by insert molding. fig. 18 illustrates one side 90 of the terminal assembly 80, while fig. 19 illustrates the other side 91 of the terminal assembly 80. the two halves, or pieces, are mirror images of each other and each includes, on opposing sides thereof, raised engagement bosses 94 or engagement recesses 95. the two halves are assembled together along a central dividing line, as illustrated best in figs 20a-20c, and the insulative body portions may include a plurality of slots, or openings formed therein 96 which overlie portions of the terminal interconnecting portions. these openings, as shown in the drawings follow the path p of the terminals through the terminal assembly. each of the terminals 81 disposed in the terminal assemblies of this particular embodiment preferably includes an l-shaped terminal that has a contact portion 98 at one end thereof, a tail portion 99 at the other end thereof and an intermediate interconnecting portion 100 that connects the contact and tail portions 98, 99 together. as shown in fig. 20c, the teraiinal interconnecting portions are preferably maintained in a selected spacing "ds1" by the body portions 83 and the space between the terminal interconnecting portions 100 is filled with the dielectric material from which the body portion 83 is molded. figs. 18-20c illustrate a male terminal assembly in which the contact portions 98 of the terminals 81 are embedded within the insulative body portion 83, and when combined with the other half of the terminal assembly, two such contact portions are presented for every horizontal row, or level, of terminals. these terminals are connected to a differential signal circuit, meaning that they carry the same magnitude voltage signal but of different polarity, as is known in the art, i.e., +0.5 volts and -0.5 volts. the two differential signal terminals are separated by the insulative body portion, typically molded from a dielectric material so as to provide an optimal spacing to maintain the electrical affinity that differential signals have for each other. three such pairs of differential signal terminals are shown in each of the signal terminal assemblies of figs. 18-19, and each such pair is further spaced apart from each other in the vertical direction, as shown in fig. 20b. fig. 21 illustrates a terminal assembly 100 that is suitable for use with power terminals 101 and one of the power terminal pairs 102 (or even a single terminal) is shorter than the rest and its leading edge is moved back from the other terminals to provide a means for indicating the proper mating and engagement (electrically) of the two connector components. this is accomplished by having the lengths of the opposing receptacle terminals, as explained below, be of the same length and one of the pairs will not fully contact each other until the difference in length l is overcome, h other words, the middle power terminal 102 shown in the terminal assembly of fig 21 , will not be contacted until the opposing terminal assembly of an opposing connector is inserted substantially all the way in the facing connector. this difference in length may also be used with signal terminals, and when so used, may be used with status detection circuits for determining when the connectors are mated or unmated. figs. 22-24 illustrate various aspects of a receptacle terminal assembly 109 in which conductive terminals 110 are molded into a body portion 111. the terminal contact portions 112 are not embedded in any of the body material, but rather extend outwardly therefrom in a cantilevered fashion as shown to form free ends 113 that are spaced apart from each other, as shown in fig. 23 c. the free ends 113 of the terminals 110 may have curved contact faces 114 formed thereon which are separated by a spacing "d". these free ends 113 slide over the contact ends 97 of the other terminal assemblies 80 and make a reliable electrical contact therebetween. fig. 33 shows a cross-sectional view of the docking connectors 40, 60 of fig. 25 for engaging two spaced apart circuit boards 31, 34 with the terminal assemblies 80, 109 in engagement. it will be appreciated that at least some of the terminal assemblies in connector 40 maybe the power terminal assemblies 100 shown in fig. 21 in which some of the terminals, such as terminal 102, are shorter. figs. 35 and 36 further illustrate the engagement of terminal assemblies 80, 109. terminal assemblies 80, 100 preferably have wedge-shaped nose portions 97 that will slidingly separate the curved contact faces 114 of terminals 112 of the receptacle terminal assembly 109 as connectors 40, 60 and terminal assemblies 80, 109 are mated together. thereafter, curved contact faces 114 of receptacle terminal assembly 109 will contact terminals 98 disposed on nose portions 97, which are best seen in fig. 18. in this manner, three pairs of differential signal pairs are connected together by the compliant terminals 99 of terminal assembly 40 to circuit board 34 in fig. 25 to three pairs of differential signal pairs by compliant terminals 99 of terminal assembly 60 to circuit board 31. it can be seen that the terminals follow a defined terminal path "p" in their support frames as shown in fig. 22. figs. 30a-d illustrate the assembly sequence of the connector components of the invention. first of all, the terminal assemblies are formed by combining two half frames to form single terminal assemblies in which one or more differential signal terminal pairs are supported. the terminal assemblies are then inserted into the upper housing, with one assembly being received in each of the vertical slots of the upper housing so that the projecting arms of each terminal assembly will extend into and be received by the horizontal cavities of the upper housing. once all the terminal assemblies 80, 100 are inserted into the individual connector upper housing 47, the lower housing 48 is attached to the upper housing and the terminal assemblies as shown in fig. 30d. then a retainer 125 is attached to the connector component and engaged to the upper and lower housings 47, 48. as illustrated in fig. 26, the retainer 125 includes an angled member that extends for approximately less than the width of the upper and lower connector housings of the two connectors 40, 60. a series of slots 125a are formed along one edge of the retainer 125 and these slots engage either ribs 420 (fig. 1) or lugs 421 (fig. 13), both of which are disposed on the top of the upper connector housing components of the two connector members 40, 60. a series of openings 125b are formed in the opposite side of the retainer 125 and these openings fit over and engage complementary-shaped posts 422 that are formed along the back wall of the connector component lower housings as shown in fig. 30d. fig. 31 illustrates the electrical isolation of the differential signal pairs obtained by the present invention. in the mating interface, each differential signal pair is held within an enclosure of at least four walls of each of the two connector components for a significant extent of the path p of the differential signal pair. because the walls of the cavities 49 are plated with a conductive material, they will serve to define a ground that encompasses each differential signal pair. this ground serves to isolate each such pair at the mating interface. the openings in the terminal assemblies that expose the terminal interconnecting portions to the ground surfaces of the connector structure assist in tuning the impedance of the differential signal pair, in that they create a plurality of air gaps (with a dielectric constant of about 1.0) between the terminals and the housing conductive walls the ground isolation continues through the connector component through the lower housing portion thereof, where the vertical legs of the terminal assemblies are encompassed on four sides by plated portions of the connector component lower housing, thus obtaining a similar, if not identical isolation as obtained in the mating interface. vertical interposer structure figs. 37-38 illustrate another style of connector that is particularly suitable for use in board-to-board applications. this connector 200 is used mostly as an "interposer", or element that extends between and separates two components, in this instance, the two components are circuit boards 210, 212. the connector 200 is shown in use with two ganged shielding cages 215 that are mounted to opposite surfaces of a first circuit board 210. card edge connectors 216 are applied to the opposing surfaces 210a, 210b and fit within openings 218 formed in the shielding cages 215 so as to communicate with hollow passages, or receptacles 219 defined in the cages 215, each of which typically receives a module or adapter such as a gbic, or the like. in order to connect the circuitry on the first circuit board 210 to circuitry on the second circuit board 212, an interposer connector 200 of the present invention is utilized. turning to fig. 39, the connector 200 is separately shown in a perspective view. connector 200 can be seen to include a supporting housing 220, fastening means 226, signal terminal assemblies 240 and ground connection terminals 230. as illustrated in the exploded view of fig. 40, the connector housing 220 has an elongated body portion 221 that extends longitudinally between two opposing ends 222 of the housing 220. the housing 220, as shown in the top view of fig. 42, has a plurality of elongated passages 223 that extend transversely across a centerline "c" thereof. these passages 223 are spaced apart from each other and are separated from each other by intervening walls 224, which may also be considered as extending transversely. the passages 223 do not have a uniform configuration through the housing 220. as best seen in fig. 50, each passage 223 has an elongated hollow base portion 223a that transversely extends across most of the width of the housing 220 and a plurality of smaller hollow portions 223b that communicate with the larger base portion 223 a and which may be considered as sub- passages that extend vertically from the base portion. in this example, each of the passages 223 includes a single larger hollow base portion 223a and four smaller hollow base portions 223b. the passages 223 may be considered as having a general u-shape or e-shape with the base portions 223a thereof being the base of the letters and the thin portions 223b being the legs of the "u" or the "e". thus, as shown in the bottom view of the connector housing 220 in fig. 41, the four sets of legs 247 of each terminal assembly 240 extend into the smaller passages 223b such that signal terminals 261 project from the bottom surface of connector housing 220. the signal terminals 261 are arranged in differential signal pairs 260 at the top and bottom surfaces of connector housing 220, as seen in many of the figures including figs. 41-43 and 52, and in the figures showing the terminal assemblies, including figs. 45 and 48-49. as shown in figs. 46 and 47, the terminal assemblies have complementary shapes so that they fit in the passages in the manner shown in fig. 50. whereas the passages 223 on the bottom of the housing in fig. 42 have a uniform rectangular appearance, the passages 227 on the top surface of the housing in fig. 41 have a segmented appearance with four such passages 227 being shown opening to the exterior for each rectangular passage 223. as explained in greater detail below, each such passage preferably contains a single differential signal pair of two associated, conductive terminals. as with the prior embodiment, all of the exterior surfaces of the connector are preferably covered with a conductive material. one or more portions may be formed with the connector housing in the form of standoffs 225 shown in fig. 40 that project outwardly and which may serve to hold the connector housing away from the surface of the circuit board. these standoffs may also be plated so that they may be connected to ground traces on the opposing circuit board(s). in order to provide additional grounding connections, a plurality of ground terminal assemblies 230 are provided. these are similar in size, function and shape to the ground terminals 84 depicted in fig. 27, and each such assembly 230 includes, as shown in fig. 35, opposing head portions 231 that are inserted into corresponding slots or openings 280 formed in the top and bottom faces of the connector housing, tail portions 232 that are received within and through hole openings in the circuit boards. the head and tail portions 231 and 232 each constitute a single terminal 233, and sets of these terminals are interconnected by a single interconnecting bar 234. this bar 234 permits the terminals to be singulated, or separated, from a continuous strip of terminals into discrete sets. by joining the terminals together in sets, the need for inserting individual terminals is eliminated. in a manner similar to the docking style connector 40, 60, a plurality of transversely extending walls 224 subdivide the housing 220 into a plurality of cavities 223, such as the elongated cavities 223 a on the side illustrated in fig. 42 and the smaller rectangular cavities 233b. as described below, a terminal assembly 240 with a plurality of differential signal pairs is inserted into cavities 223a, with one differential signal pair disposed in each of cavities 223b. in this example of figs. 37-52, slots 280 are provided in every other transverse wall 224 for receiving a ground terminal assembly 230 therein. these conductive ground terminals 230 are shown in greater detail in fig. 51. the ground terminals 230 serve to connect both side of interposer connector 200 to ground circuits and planes of the circuit boards 210, 212 shown in fig. 37. the structure of these ground terminals 230 is shown in fig. 51, and each terminal 232 includes a retention portion 231 and a terminating portion 261. the retention portion 231 of each such terminal preferably includes a pair of planar heads, which are indented, or dimpled, to form a projecting part on one side of the head to provide an interference fit with the ground terminal receiving slot 280. compliant pins 232 are preferably of the eye of the needle variety as discussed above with respect to ground terminal assembly 84, which includes a center opening surrounded by deformable sidewalls of the tail, as is known in the art. when ground terminals 230 are inserted into slots 280 of transverse walls 224, as shown in the examples of figs. 12a and 3 ib, each ground terminal assembly 230 will be adjacently disposed to differential signal pairs 260 located in channels 223, including channels 223a, 223b. preferably, the ground terminals 232 are not aligned with the rows and columns defined by the differential signal terminals 260, but are instead disposed at an intermediate or diagonal position between the differential signal terminals 260. thus, in the examples of figs. 41-42, each of three ground terminals 232 on the ground terminal assembly 230 will be located approximately equidistant from four differential signal pairs 260. the ground terminal assemblies 230 will also subdivide the differential pairs into blocks or groups of eight. of course, as shown in figs. 41- 42, additional slots 280a could be provided in every transverse wall 224, such that the terminal assemblies would subdivide the differential signal pairs into rows of four, if so desired. since the terminals 232 of the ground terminal assemblies 230 will connect to ground circuits or planes in circuit boards 210, 212, the ground terminals will provide an affinity for differential signals in adjacent differential signal pairs 260 through the interfaces on both side of interposer connector 200 and the associated circuit boards. this will serve to provide a lower impedance across the connector to circuit board interfaces for the differential signals, and will also avoid discontinuities in impedance thereacross. of course, the ground terminal assemblies 230 could alternatively be arranged along the longitudinal walls of the housing 220 in slots 280b, instead of on the transverse walls 224, as shown in fig. 41. as with the illustrated embodiment, it would be preferable to have the ground terminal assemblies disposed adjacently to sets or groups of differential signal pairs 260. in yet another possible variation of the disclosed embodiment, the ground terminal assemblies 230 could be disposed on both the transverse and longitudinal walls of the housing 220 adjacently to sets or groups of differential signal pairs 260. fig. 45 illustrates a terminal assembly 240 that is received within one of the passages 223 of the connector housing. this assembly maybe formed from two halves 241 and 242, as shown in fig. 46, that are press fit together to form the single terminal assembly 240 of fig. 45. in this example, the two terminal assembly halves 241, 242 are identical to each other. fig. 48 illustrates a top view of the terminal assembly 240 in its assembled form, and fig. 49 illustrates a corresponding side view. it will be understood that the terminal assemblies 240 may be formed as a single piece assembly but that the use of two interengaging halves 241 and 242 may facilitate manufacturing and assembly. each assembly half 241 and 242 includes a suitable first engagement means, shown as projecting posts 244 and openings 245. these engagement members are preferably located as shown on the opposite sides of a centerline m of the terminal assembly halves. each terminal assembly half 241 and 242 further has a wide body or base portion 246 that has a width generally equal to the width of the connector passage 223 in which the formed assembly is received. individual leg portions 247 are joined to the body portions 246, preferably by way of integrally molding the two portions as a single piece. these leg portions 247 may also be considered as vertical extensions of the body or base portion 246, in order to partially encase each terminal 261 in an electrically insulative material, such as a plastic and preferably a dielectric material. in order to provide tuning of the impedance between associated differential signal terminal pairs, the terminal assembly base and extension portions 246 and 247 may include recesses 248 that are formed therein to define air-containing cavities that are aligned with the terminals. in this manner, the impedance of the differential signal pairs may be easily tuned. when the terminal assembly halves 241 and 242 of fig. 46 are combined as shown in figs. 45, 48 and 49, each terminal assembly leg portion 247a contains, or houses, a single differential signal terminal pair, such as the pair 260 shown in the terminal assembly 240 of figs. 45, 48 and 49. as seen in cross-sectional view of fig. 52, when the terminal assemblies 240 are assembled in comiector 200, the differential signal pairs 260 extend vertically from the top side to the bottom side of comiector 200, and ground terminals 230 are disposed between every second set of differential signal pairs. an advantage of the symmetrical design of the terminal assembly 240 is that it may be inserted into connector housing 220 without concern for its angular orientation, e.g., whether it is at 0° or at 180° to the corresponding passages 223, 227. of course, ground terminals 230 could alternatively be disposed between each pair of differential signal pairs, if so desired. the engagement opening 245 of the terminal assemblies 240 may include internal ribs 249 to maintain a reliable, interference fit with the mating post 244. the front and rear faces of each terminal may include engagement arms, or wings 250 which press against the inner walls of the housing passages. both such arms are preferably located along the terminal assembly base portion 246. the terminal assembly extension leg portions 247 have a preselected height r as shown in fig. 46 around which each differential signal terminal pair is surrounded by the conductive exterior surfaces that are present along the interior of the housing passages 227 shown in fig. 40. the head portions 231 of the ground terminal sets 230, as shown in fig. 51, extend into the housing in their slots 280 in the areas between the terminal body portions, such that ground terminals 232 project upwardly from the top surface and downwardly from the bottom surface of the connector housing 220. with reference to fig. 45, each differential signal pair 260 is provided with a pair of tail portions 261 that are interconnected by an intervening body portion 262, most of which is supported within the outer insulative material of the terminal assembly 240. the tail portions 261 preferably include an eye of needle structure 270, known in the art, in which a hole 271 is punched in the terminal body to form two thin legs 272 that are slightly bowed outwardly. the tail portions 261 thus provide compliant electrical terminals on both sides of the connector 200. nested interposer connector structure figs. 53-55 illustrate another embodiment on the invention 600 which uses a single receptacle member 601 that is constructed for vertical orientation on a circuit board 31 and which is also preferably used for differential signal applications. the receptacle member includes an insulative housing formed as a single piece and is provided with a central opening 603 that receives a plurality of terminal assemblies 605 therein, arranged in internal cavities 609 as described in the other embodiments. the receptacle member 601 has one or more engagement holes 602 arranged at opposite ends thereof that receive the blind-mate or position assurance engagement plugs 70 of the corresponding plug member 60. as shown in fig. 54, the terminal assemblies 605 are arranged adjacent each other and they have base portions 620 which are received with the receptacle cavities 609. the connector 601 also includes a plurality of individual ground terminals 627 of the type shown and described hereinabove which are received in slots (not shown) in the bottom face of the connector 601 and which are arranged so as to separate the differential signal terminals into discrete groups. both the ground terminal and signal terminal tail portions are received within corresponding holes, or vias 640, that are formed in the circuit board 31. the terminal assemblies 605 include an insulative support frame, as illustrated best in fig. 55, which supports one or more differential signal pairs of terminals having contact portions 625 which are supported on opposing surfaces of the free ends of the terminal assemblies 605 and tail portion 626 which extend out of the base portions 620, and which are shown as having compliant, eye-of-needle shapes. slots 631 are formed in the terminal assemblies which serve to separate the pairs of differential signal terminals. openings 632 maybe formed in the terminal assembly body portions which communicate with and expose portions of the terminal body portions to air for the purposes of providing areas adjoining the terminals which have an dielectric constant of almost 1.0. these openings will face the inner walls of the receptacle connector 601 (not shown) in the same manner as described above for the other embodiments. the exterior surfaces of these receptacle connector 601 are also preferably plated with a conductive material so that each differential signal terminal pair will have a reference ground surrounding it. the terminal assemblies may be formed from two interengaging halves that utilize openings 634 and posts 635 to hold the assemblies together. fig. 56 illustrates another embodiment of an interposer style connector having a housing 800 with its exterior surfaces plated with a conductive material, a plurality of cavities formed therein which extend between opposing sides of the connector housing 800 and which receive a plurality of terminal assemblies 820 formed from two insulative dielectric support halves 820a, 820b and which support conductive terminals 821. these terminal assemblies also include one or more slots 824 that separate differential signal terminal pairs, and openings 825 that expose the surface of the terminals 821 to air within the housing cavities. (fig. 58.) the housing 800 is shown to include two enlarged ends 805 which house mounting means that will typically include a nut 828, which, in association with a screw 829, the connector housing 800 may be secured to a circuit board 804. a web 810 is also preferably formed as part of the connector housing 800 that extends lengthwise between the enlarged ends 805. this web 810 not only subdivides the housing 800 into top and bottom 815, 814 spaces but also serves to prevent the ends 805 from bowing out of alignment during the manufacturing thereof, typically injection molding. these spaces 815, 814 maybe considered as nests which may accommodate other similar comiectors, such as the docking receptacle connector 802 shown in figs. 57 and 59. the wbe may be slotted to accommodate the ribs or other projections on the connector 802. a second connector 1802 may be mounted to a circuit board 1804 that is attached to the top mating face of the connector housing 800 so that its docking receptacle connector 1802 will be accommodated in the nest or space 815 above the web 810. it will be understood that the various embodiments of the invention permit a plurality of differential signal pairs to have their impedance tuned by virtue of the terminal assemblies of the invention and to be significantly electrically isolated from each other by the conductive outer surfaces of the connectors of the invention. the use of the interstitial grounds of the invention improve speed in the interface with the circuit board and the compliant pin mounting aspect which may also be used in non differential signal applications, will improve the reliability of mating and permit the connectors to be removed and repaired, if necessary. while the preferred embodiment of the invention have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims.
197-258-256-566-837	JP	[ "US", "KR", "WO", "EP" ]	G06K19/06,G07D7/00,G07D7/04,G07D7/12,G07D7/02,G07F19/00	1998-12-07T00:00:00	1998	[ "G06", "G07" ]	method of checking authenticity of sheet with built-in electronic circuit chip	a method of checking sheets as to forgery thereof, the sheet being provided with an electronic circuit chip from which information can be read cut or written and having visible information. the method includes a step of encrypting the visible information of the sheet and storing the encrypted visible information in the electronic circuit chip, and a step of determining discriminatively the authenticity of the sheet by comparing the visible information of the sheet with the information stored in the electronic circuit chip.	1. a system for detecting forgery of a sheet, said system including a forgery detecting device and a memory device which are connected via a network, said forgery detecting device including a control unit, a scanning unit and a discriminating unit, said sheet including information obtainable by said scanning unit and an electronic circuit chip which stores a unique number, said memory device storing unique information correlated with said unique number, said unique information being unique to said sheet, said electronic circuit chip or a combination of the sheet and the electronic circuit chip, said control unit reading out said stored unique number from said electronic circuit chip provided in said sheet, said control unit obtaining from said memory device said stored unique information correlated with said unique number and unique to said sheet, said electronic circuit chip or a combination of the sheet and the electronic circuit chip, said scanning unit acquiring said information obtainable by said scanning unit, by scanning said sheet, and said discriminating unit comparing said unique information unique to said sheet, said electronic circuit chip or a combination of the sheet and the electronic circuit chip with said information obtained by scanning said sheet to discriminatively determine whether the information acquired from said sheet is authentic. 2. a forgery detecting system according to claim 1 , wherein said forgery detecting device includes a transmitter and a receiver, said transmitter is responsive to an instruction from said control unit to supply electric power to said sheet by transmission of an electric wave, said electronic circuit chip provided in said sheet is responsive to supply of electric power by said electric wave to transmit said unique number stored therein, and said receiver is responsive to reception of said transmitted unique number to output the same to said control unit. 3. a forgery detecting system according to claim 1 , wherein said memory device encrypts the information unique to said sheet, said electronic circuit chip or a combination of the sheet and the electronic circuit chip when taken out by said control unit, said forgery detecting device includes a decrypting unit, and said decrypting unit decrypts the information unique to said sheet, said electronic circuit chip or a combination of the sheet and the electronic circuit chip when taken out by said control unit and outputs the decrypted information to said control unit. 4. a forgery detecting system according to claim 1 , wherein said memory device is provided in said sheet having said electronic circuit chip. 5. a forgery detecting system according to claim 1 , wherein said forgery detecting device comprises an output unit, and said control unit outputs a result of said discrimination by said discriminating unit to said output unit. 6. a forgery detecting system according to claim 1 , wherein said forgery detecting device comprises an image processing unit, and said image processing unit image-processes information from said sheet by scanning the sheet, and outputs a result of the image-processing therefor to said discriminating unit.	this is a continuation application of u.s. ser. no. 09/857,271, filed nov. 27, 2001 now u.s. pat. no. 6,659,353 which is a 371 of pct/jp99/06798 filed dec. 13, 1999. technical field the present invention relates to management of sheets having visible information. background art for preventing forgery of sheets such as valuable papers, bank notes, documents and the like which carry visible information, there have heretofore been adopted such measures as printing a fine or detailed pictorial pattern and/or characters or the like on the sheet, pasting a hologram on the sheet or impressing a watermark in the sheet while details of these measures being kept in secrecy in an attempt to make it difficult to forge or counterfeit the sheet. further, inspection of the sheet as to forgery can be carried out by comparing the optical information of printing position on the sheet, fineness of pattern lines, color density or brightness, etc. with the corresponding information of the genuine sheet. furthermore, sheet management such as counting of the number(s) of the sheets has heretofore been performed manually or physically with a machine on a sheet-by-sheet basis. at present, however, technological progress in this field has made it possible to impress the watermark, hologram and the like, and now the information such as mentioned previously can be printed with a high accuracy which is comparable to that of the genuine sheet even though the printing procedure may differ. such being the circumstances, difficulty is encountered in detecting the forgery solely by relying on the comparison of the optical information. additionally, it is noted that in the case of bonds of a same species, the optical information of pictorial pattern or the like which can be used for checking or detecting the forgery remains identical for all the bonds and that the information inherent to the bond such as the bond id number or the like is not used for the inspection of the forgery. consequently, once a pictorial pattern of a given bond was counterfeited, there may arise such risky situation that a great number of bonds printed with the counterfeit pattern and having the inherent information such as the id numbers rewritten are fabricated on a mass-production scale or the contents of the bonds are easily counterfeited. besides, in conjunction with such management of the sheets as counting of the number thereof, etc., it is noted that the volume, species, sizes, etc. of the sheets which can be handled at one stretch are limited although it depends on the scale of the managing system. consequently, a time-consuming troublesome procedure or a large scale of the managing system is required for the management of a large number of sheets. on the other hand, it is also known to manage articles by affixing so-called radio tags onto articles to be managed. however, reliability of the congestion controlling function of the conventional radio tags generally used at present is not so high. accordingly, employment of the radio tag is not suited for the cases where very high reliability is required as in the case of management of the valuable papers, bank notes and so forth. disclosure of invention thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a structure of sheets having visible information such as bonds, exchange tickets, paper currencies, various labels, documents or the like which allows the counterfeit, if any, to be detected without difficulty, a method of manufacturing such sheets, an apparatus for manufacturing the same, a method of checking the sheets as to the forgery, and an apparatus for detecting the forged or counterfeit sheets. moreover, it is another object of the present invention to provide a system capable of handling speedily once a large number of sheets under management which differ from one another in respect to the species and the size with high reliability by using a small-scale apparatus, a method of implementing the same and a sheet therefor. for achieving the object mentioned above, the present invention teaches that an electronic circuit chip from or in which information can be read or written is incorporated in the sheet. further, it is taught that information inherent to each sheet is encrypted or a digital signature is generated for affixation, whereon the encrypted information or the digital signature or both of them are stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip or another storing means. at this juncture, it is contemplated with the phrase “another storing means” to mean another electronic circuit chip mounted on one and the same sheet or a storage medium (e.g. memory, hard disk or the like) provided externally of the sheet. when the information is to be stored in the storage medium provided externally of the sheet, the information should be stored in the state associated with the id (identification) information stored in the chip on the sheet. as the intrinsic or inherent information to be stored, there may be mentioned, for example, visible information which the sheet intrinsically or inherently presents (inclusive of the id number differing from one to another sheet) or physical/chemical information of the electronic circuit chip. further, shapes or geometrical factors of distinctively discernible sheet constituent elements, physical or chemical information of other discernible materials or elements inserted or embedded in the sheet can be used as the inherent information which is intrinsic to the sheet. besides, relative positions of the sheet constituent element(s) and the discernible material or element relative to the electronic circuit chip can equally be used as the inherent information. thus, by comparing the information available from the electronic circuit chip or the external storing means with the information acquired by actually scanning the sheet, it is possible to check the sheet as to the forgery thereof. further, the sheet according to the present invention incorporates an electronic circuit chip, i.e., so-called built-in electronic circuit chip, which includes a means for transmitting intermittently signals indicative of the information inherent to the individual sheets (hereinafter also referred to as the sheet-inherent information), respectively, with every random transmission interruption period and a means for stopping the transmission in response to a stop command. on the other hand, the management system according to the present invention is designed to receive the sheet-inherent signals from the individual sheets to thereby manage a plurality of sheets concurrently. more specifically, upon reception of the sheet-inherent signal from a given sheet, the management system performs recognition processing for that sheet to thereby send a stop command which is valid only for that sheet. in case the management system can not correctly receive a plurality of signals sent concurrently, the management system does not issue the stop command but waits for till the signals inherent to the individual sheets, respectively, are sent again. the signals sent from all the sheets can be received within a predetermined time period. in this way, the sheets can be managed. additionally, species of the sheets can discriminatively be specified on the basis of the information inherent to the individual sheets. furthermore, by using a means for transmitting a ratio wave over a limited coverage range and by performing recognition processing for the sheets while moving the above-mentioned means along the direction in which the sheets are stacked, the ratio or frequency at which the signals are simultaneously sent from a plurality of sheets can be reduced. thus, management of the sheets can be carried out at a high speed with enhanced reliability. thus, the forgery checking method according to the present invention is designed for checking a sheet such as bond, document or the like as to forgery thereof, each of which sheets is provided with an electronic circuit chip from or in which information can be read out or written and has visible information, the method being characterized in that the visible information of the sheet mentioned above is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip mentioned above, and that authenticity of the sheet is decided by making use of the visible information of the sheet and the information stored in the electronic circuit chip. more specifically, the method is characterized by making decision as to the authenticity of the sheet by comparing the visible information of the sheet with the information stored in the electronic circuit chip. further, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that physical or chemical information of sheet constituent elements which can be discerned externally of the sheet is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip. furthermore, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that relative position information of the above-mentioned sheet constituent elements relative to the electronic circuit chip is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip. further, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that the above-mentioned information and digital signature information for that information are stored in the electronic circuit chip. furthermore, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that the above-mentioned information is stored in at least two electronic circuit chips incorporated in a single sheet, that the sheet is decided to be a forged one when difference is found in a greater number of pieces of information than a proper threshold value which is determined on the basis of information elements such as the number of pieces of information stored in the electronic circuit chip, accuracy and the like, and that the sheet is decided to be an authentic one when difference is found in a number of pieces of said information which is equal to or smaller than the above-mentioned threshold value. further, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that the electronic circuit chip is mounted on the sheet at a random position thereof, that the above-mentioned information is acquired by scanning the sheet after mounting of the electronic circuit chip, and that the above-mentioned information is encrypted or alternatively a digital signature is generated and affixed to the above-mentioned information or alternatively the above-mentioned information is encrypted with a digital signature being generated to be affixed to the encrypted information and then stored in the electronic circuit chip. furthermore, the forgery checking method according to the present invention resides in a method of checking the sheet as to forgery thereof by making use of the information acquired by scanning the sheet and the information stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip, which method is characterized in that information inherent to the electronic circuit chip is stored in that electronic circuit chip, and the above-mentioned information to be stored in the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip is stored in another storing means differing from the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip while establishing correspondence with information inherent to the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip. additionally, a sheet management system provided by the present invention is characterized by a means for receiving signals from sheets having respective electronic circuit chips mounted thereon, each of the electronic circuit chips being comprised of a means for transmitting intermittently a sheet-inherent signal with every random transmission interruption periods and a means for stopping the transmission in response to reception of a stop command, a means for emitting a radio wave over a limited coverage while being moved along a direction in which the sheets are stacked, and a means for performing identification of the sheet upon reception of the signal from that sheet to thereby send the stop command valid only for that sheet, while waiting for a predetermined time unless the signal is received. incidentally, the phrase “physical or chemical information” of the electronic circuit chip and the sheet constituent elements used in the description of the present invention includes information indicating their respective features such as dimensions, masses, materials and the like. additionally, the phrase “visible information” used in the description of the present invention includes information indicated visibly by print, watermark, surface unevenness, pasted thing, display of a display element or the like. further, the visible information may also subsume such information which can be discerned by touch. furthermore, the term “sheet” used in the description of the present invention connotes a card or the like having a thickness and rigidity. further, the term “forgery” or “counterfeit” used in the description of the present invention subsumes substitution or reproduction. furthermore, the term “management” used in the description of the present invention subsumes counting of the number of sheets, discrimination of the species, summing of face amounts of valuable papers and so forth. brief description of drawings fig. 1 is a view showing a circuit implemented in the form of an electronic circuit chip and a sheet on which the circuit is mounted according to a first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 2 is a view showing a configuration of a manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing a forged sheet according to the first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 3 is a flow chart for illustrating a procedure of manufacturing a forged sheet according to the first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 4 is a view showing a hardware structure of a forgery checking system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 5 is a view showing a software structure of the forgery checking system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 6 is a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet detecting procedure according to the first embodiment of the present invention. fig. 7 is a view showing sheet constituent elements and relative position information of the sheet constituent elements relative to an electronic circuit chip according to a second embodiment of the present invention. fig. 8 is a flow chart for illustrating a procedure of manufacturing a forged sheet according to the second embodiment of the invention. fig. 9 is a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet detecting procedure according to a third embodiment of the present invention. fig. 10 is a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet detecting procedure according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention. fig. 11 is a view showing sheets and a configuration of a sheet management system according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention. fig. 12 is a view showing a structure of the sheet according to the sixth embodiment of the present invention. fig. 13 is a flow chart for illustrating a sheet management procedure according to the sixth embodiment of the present invention. fig. 14 is a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet detecting procedure according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention. best mode for carrying out the invention (first embodiment) in the following, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described. at first, reference is made to fig. 1 which shows a sheet having information visibly recorded on a surface thereof, an electronic circuit chip mounted on the sheet and elements designed for performing the information read-out operation for the electronic circuit chip. in the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes a sheet having an electronic circuit chip mounted thereon, wherein the sheet has a surface printed with information 12 . numeral 13 denotes the electronic circuit chip for which information read-out operation can be performed. the electronic circuit chip is implemented by integrating an electronic circuit on a silicon chip. a capacitor 14 and an antenna 15 serve as the elements for allowing the information read-out operation to be performed for the electronic circuit chip 13 in a contactless manner relative to the sheet 11 . stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 is the information intrinsic to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof. when a radio wave is applied externally to the sheet 11 , an electric current is induced in the antenna 15 under the effect of this radio wave, as a result of which electric charges are stored in the capacitor 14 . thus, the electronic circuit chip 13 is put into operation to carry out communication of the information through the medium of the antenna 15 . incidentally, in the case of the instant embodiment of the invention, the circuit is implemented for the contactless communication. however, the circuit may be designed for performing contact-type communication. in that case, terminals appearing on the sheet surface are found, whereupon an electric power is supplied thereto via a source terminal to thereby put the electronic circuit chip into operation for allowing communication of information to be carried out via a communication terminal. fig. 2 is a view showing a configuration of a manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing the sheet 11 according to the instant embodiment. in the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a device or unit for writing information in the electronic circuit chip 13 . numeral 22 denotes a device or unit for mounting the electronic circuit chip 13 on the sheet 11 . numeral 23 denotes a device or unit for printing visible information on the sheet. numeral 24 denotes a scanner instrument or unit designed for scanning the surface and the internal of the sheet. reference numeral 25 denotes a unit which is in charge of controlling the information processing as well as operations of the devices or units mentioned above. next, referring to fig. 3 which shows a flow chart for illustrating a procedure of manufacturing the sheet 11 according to the instant embodiment of the invention, description will be made of the sheet manufacturing procedure. at first, contents to be printed on the sheet are encrypted by the processing unit 25 (step 31 ). subsequently, the encrypted information is written in the electronic circuit chip 13 by means of the write unit 21 (step 32 ). the electronic circuit chip 13 mentioned above is then mounted on the sheet 11 by using the mounting unit 22 (step 33 ). finally, the surface information 12 is printed on the sheet 11 by using the printer unit 23 (step 34 ). then, the sheet is finished. in this conjunction, it should be mentioned that although the information is printed in the case of the instant embodiment, any other appropriate methods may equally be resorted to so far as the visible information can be displayed. next, description will turn to a method of detecting a forged sheet by reference to figs. 4 to 6 . a hardware structure of a forged sheet checking system is shown in fig. 4 , while a software structure of the forged sheet checking system is shown in fig. 5 . fig. 6 shows a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet checking procedure according to the instant embodiment of the invention. at first, a control module 52 issues a command to a transmitter unit 41 for commanding it to send a radio wave toward the sheet 11 for thereby feeding an electric power to the sheet 11 (step 61 ). the electronic circuit chip 13 supplied with electric power through the medium of the radio wave sends out the information stored therein by way of the antenna 15 , the signal as sent out being received by a receiver unit 42 (step 62 ). the control module 52 transfers the information from the receiver unit 42 to a decrypting module 53 which responds thereto by decrypting the information (step 63 ). a scanner unit 43 scans the surface of the sheet 11 and the internal structure thereof (step 64 ). the control module 52 transfers the image or the like information as acquired to the processing module 55 which responds thereto by executing information processing such as image processing or the like (step 65 ). a discriminating module 54 compares the decrypted information originating in the electronic circuit chip 13 and transferred from the decrypting module 53 with the information acquired by scanning the sheet 11 and transferred from the processing module 55 (step 66 ). when both the data coincide with each other, it is decided that the information 12 on the sheet surface is genuine, whereas in case both the data differ from each other, then decision is made that the information 12 on the sheet surface is counterfeit (step 67 ). the control module 52 causes the output unit 44 to generate display information indicative of the result of the decision made by the discriminating module 54 or alternatively causes the other means to output the information indicative of the decision output of the discriminating module. the operations and the processings described above by reference to figs. 5 and 6 can be realized by executing a program stored in the memory 46 by means of the cpu 45 . in the case of the instant embodiment, the information 12 inherent to the sheet surface, i.e., the sheet-inherent information, is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 upon manufacturing of the sheet, as described hereinbefore by reference to in fig. 3 . in case the information 12 on the sheet surface is altered or falsified, the information 12 becomes different from that resulting from the decryption of the encrypted information stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 . accordingly, with the aid of the forgery checking system 47 , the alteration of the information on the sheet surface can be detected by comparing both the information. in this conjunction, it is noted that rewriting of the information stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 so as to have the same content as the information of the sheet surface having been altered is practically impossible because the cypher has to be solved. in this manner, the teaching of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment is effective for preventing the alteration of the sheet surface information. in the encryption described above, when the information stored in the electronic circuit chip is important or the volume of the information is large, the public key cryptosystem should preferably be adopted while the common key cryptosystem may advantageously be employed in the case where the authenticity of the sheet must be checked at a high speed. when the public key cryptosystem is adopted, the memory as required may be of a small capacity because the length of the key is short with high security being ensured because of impossibility of estimating the encrypting key from the key for decryption. on the other hand, the common key cryptosystem allows the decryption of data to be speedily performed. it should further be added that when an only-once-writable electronic circuit chip is used as the electronic circuit chip 13 for storing the information not encrypted, rewriting of the information stored in that electronic circuit chip can be prevented, which is thus effective for preventing the sheet from being altered. further, by encrypting the information and writing it in the only-once-writable electronic circuit chip, there can be realized a further fortified rewrite protecting means effective for preventing the forgery of the sheet. according to the teaching of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment, not only the information common to the sheets of a same species such as the information of watermark, pattern and/or the like but also the information inherent to the individual sheets, respectively, such as security number or the like is written in the electronic circuit chip. accordingly, even if a plurality of sheets having the visible information which coincides with that stored in the electronic circuit chip could be reproduced from a given sheet, then the inherent information such as the bond id numbers of the reproduced sheets are identical with one another. consequently, in case the counterfeit sheets are mass-produced, there arises contradiction or contradictiousness that the sheets of the same id number exist simultaneously at different places or locations, which can readily lead to revelation of the counterfeit reproduction of the sheet. in that case, the id number of the reproduced sheets may be registered in a computer 49 connected to the forgery checking system 47 via a network 48 to thereby make it impossible to use the reproduced sheets subsequently. in this way, counterfeit reproduction of the sheet can effectively be suppressed. furthermore, in the case of the instant embodiment of the invention, the physical or chemical information of the electronic circuit chip 13 is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip. since much advanced technique is required for manufacturing the electronic circuit chip 13 in a very fine or miniature structure, reproduction of such electronic circuit chip is rendered impossible by managing the chip manufacturing technology by the manufacturer or the issuer of the sheet. even if the other portion of the sheet 11 than the electronic circuit chip 13 should be reproduced with the information stored in the electronic circuit chip being reproduced, it is yet possible to detect the counterfeit reproduction of the electronic circuit chip by comparing the information concerning the size or dimensions of the electronic circuit chip as obtained by measurement with the information stored in the electronic circuit chip by means of the forgery checking system 47 . at this juncture, it should be mentioned that measurement of the size of the electronic circuit chip is not restricted to the straightforward measurement based on the image information but may be performed indirectly on the basis of the radio wave reception range. by way of example, a plurality of fine electronic circuit chips of miniature size are mounted in an array as closely as possible on the sheet within a predetermined region. in that case, when a number of radio waves corresponding to that of the electronic circuit chips are received from the predetermined region of the sheet upon reception of the signals from these electronic circuit chips, it can then be decided at the least that the size of the electronic circuit chip is smaller than the prescribed one. in this conjunction, it is to be mentioned that manufacturing of the counterfeit electronic circuit chip in the substantially same small size as the normal one encounters a great difficulty. accordingly, even if the information stored in the electronic circuit chip could be reproduced, it is nevertheless impossible to mount a same number of the counterfeit fine electronic circuit chips within the predetermined region. this feature of the instant embodiment of the invention is equally effective for prevention of the counterfeit reproduction of the sheet. as is apparent from the above, the teachings of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment are very effective for the prevention of forgery such as alteration, counterfeit reproduction thereof and the like. in the foregoing description, it has been presumed that the information 12 recorded on the sheet surface is used as the visible information carried by the sheet. however, the invention is never restricted thereto but any type of information can be made use of so far as it is visible. by way of example, visible information impressed internally of the sheet such as, for example, watermark may be used to this end. furthermore, although it has been described that the physical or chemical information employed is that of the electronic circuit chip. however, the physical or chemical information of other sheet constituent elements which can discriminatively be identified and which are difficult to fabricate may be used. more specifically, in the case where the material of the sheet is paper, information of the paper fibers may be used as the information of concern or alternatively an discernible object which is difficult to manufacture may be embedded in the sheet so that information thereof can be used. (second embodiment) next, description will be made of a second embodiment of the present invention. according to the teachings of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment, information of relative position of an externally discernible sheet constituent element relative to the electronic circuit chip is encrypted to be stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 . by comparing this relative position information with the relative position information acquired by measuring or scanning the sheet 11 actually, check is performed as to whether or not the sheet is a forged one. at first, reference is made to fig. 7 which shows discernible sheet constituent elements and relative position information of the sheet constituent elements relative to the electronic circuit chip. in the figure, reference numeral 71 designates a side of the sheet 11 and numeral 72 designates a relative position of the side 71 relative to the electronic circuit chip 13 . further, relative position information of visible object 73 on the sheet surface such as patterns or the like is designated by numeral 74 while the relative position information of constituent elements 75 resident internally of the sheet such as paper fibers relative to the electronic circuit chip is designated by numeral 76 with relative position information of another electronic circuit 77 to the electronic circuit chip being designated by reference numeral 78 . at least one of the relative position information 72 , 74 , 76 and 78 mentioned above is stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 . now, reference is made to fig. 8 which illustrates a procedure of manufacturing the sheet according to the instant embodiment of the invention. after the electronic circuit chip 13 has been mounted on the sheet 11 at a random position (step 81 ), printing is performed on the sheet 11 (step 82 ). then, by scanning the sheet 11 , the relative position information described above is acquired (step 83 ), whereon the information as acquired is encrypted (step 84 ) to be subsequently written in the electronic circuit chip 13 mounted (step 85 ). parenthetically, in the case of the instant embodiment of the invention, it is presumed that the sheet 11 made of paper is employed. however, material of the sheet 11 is not restricted to paper but other type of sheet can be employed so far as the material thereof is not homogeneous. in the procedure now under consideration, mounting of the electronic circuit chip 13 , writing of the information in the electronic circuit chip 13 , printing on the sheet 11 and scanning or measurement are carried out by using the devices or units employed in carrying out the first embodiment of the invention. with the arrangement according to the instant embodiment described above, even if the electronic circuit chip 13 can be reproduced, it is difficult to embed the reproduced electronic circuit chip 13 in the sheet 11 made of nonhomogeneous material at the same position as the position where the genuine electronic circuit chip 13 is embedded in the authentic sheet 11 , involving an error in respect to the mounting position. for this reason, the manufacturer of the electronic circuit chip 13 and the issuer of the sheet 11 can easily perform the check of the sheet without need for enhancing the accuracy for the mounting position of the electronic circuit chip 13 , whereas for the forgers, high-precision techniques will be required for mounting the electronic circuit chip and for controlling the printing position. this feature is effective for preventing the forgery of the sheet. further, in the instant embodiment of the invention, the relative position information of constituent element located very closely to the electronic circuit chip may be included in the information to be stored upon storage of the relative position information 72 , 74 , 76 or 78 in the electronic circuit chip 13 . in that case, it is expected that frequency at which contraction/expansion or breakage of the sheet occurs in a gap area intervening between the electronic circuit chip 13 and the sheet constituent element positioned closely thereto can be decreased, and at the same time the accuracy of the position information can be increased. for these reasons, in checking the sheets as to the authenticity thereof, the detection accuracy can be enhanced with the probability of erroneous detection or recognition being decreased. (third embodiment) now, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described. the instant embodiment differs from the first or second embodiment in that the information to be stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 is not encrypted but stored intactly as plaintext which is affixed with a digital signature. the digital signature gives the guarantee that the relevant text has not been falsified. only the person who knows a private key is capable of creating the digital signature. a forger who does not know the private key may falsify or forge the plaintext but he or she can not newly create a digital signature that ensures the authenticity of the plaintext. thus, falsification of the sheet can be detected by checking the authenticity of the digital signature. fig. 9 shows a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet checking procedure according to the instant embodiment, which procedure is executed by the cpu 45 in the system configuration shown in fig. 4 . the processing illustrated in fig. 9 can be realized by executing the program stored in the memory 46 by means of the cpu 45 . at first, the information stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 is read out by the relevant receiver unit 42 (step 91 ). for acquiring the information to be compared with the information as read out, the sheet 11 is scanned by the scanner unit 43 (step 92 ), and information processing such as an image processing or the like is carried out by the processing module 55 . the discriminating module 54 compares both the information acquired in the steps 91 and 92 , respectively (step 93 ). when both the information differ from each other, the forgery checking system 47 decides that the sheet 11 is a forged one (step 94 ). on the other hand, when coincidence is found between both the information, the affixed digital signature information is transferred to the discriminating module 54 by the control module 52 , whereon authenticity of the digital signature is verified (step 95 ). when the verification results in that the digital signature is justifiable, the forgery checking system 47 decides that the sheet is an authentic one. on the contrary, when the result of the verification is unjustifiable, the forgery checking system 47 decides that the sheet is a forged one (step 96 ). in this way, according to the teaching of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment, forgery of the sheet can be detected already at the stage of the step 94 , which means that the steps 95 and 96 can be omitted. thus, it is expected that the time taken for checking the counterfeitness of the sheet can be shortened when compared with the case where the encrypted information is used as described hereinbefore in conjunction with the first or second embodiment. further, in the system according to the instant embodiment, when transmission error takes place in the course of communication, verification of the digital signature will result in incorrectness. in that case, appropriate measurement such as rereading or the like can be taken. thus, acquisition of erroneous information can be avoided. as described previously, in the case of the instant embodiment, the plaintext information affixed with digital signature is stored in the electronic circuit chip 13 intactly without undergoing encryption, being affixed with the digital signature. it should however be mentioned that the information encrypted and affixed with the digital signature may equally be stored in the electronic circuit chip. furthermore, in the case of the instant embodiment, the digital signature is affixed for assuring that the information is not altered. however, instead of the digital signature, a falsification detecting code based on the common key cryptosystem may be affixed. since the common key cryptosystem allows the verification processing to be executed at a higher speed when compared with the public key cryptosystem which is primarily adopted for the digital signature, the time required for detection of the forged sheet can further be shortened. (fourth embodiment) next, referring to fig. 4 and fig. 10 , a fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described. in the case of the instant embodiment, genuineness of the sheet is decided synthetically by adopting a sheet 11 in which a plurality of electronic circuit chips 13 are incorporated. fig. 10 shows a flow chart illustrating a processing procedure according to the instant embodiment. the processing procedure illustrated in fig. 10 can be realized by executing a program stored in the memory 46 by means of the cpu 45 . at first, the sheet 11 is scanned by the scanner unit 43 to thereby acquire the information about the number and the positions of the electronic circuit chips 13 incorporated in the sheet 11 (step 101 ). in succession, internal information stored in the individual electronic circuit chips 13 is acquired by means of the receiver unit 42 (step 102 ), whereon elementary information such as the number, accuracy, priorities and the like of the information are evaluated properly to thereby deduce a threshold value. the sheet 11 is scanned (step 104 ) and a counter value is set to “0” (zero) (step 105 ). the information acquired in the step 102 is compared with the information acquired in the steps 104 on a per-information basis (step 106 ). when difference is found between both the information (step 107 ), the counter value is incremented by “1” (one) (step 108 ). when comparison has completed for all the information (step 109 ), it is checked whether or not the counter value is smaller than the threshold value inclusive (step 10 a). unless the counter value exceeds the threshold value, it is decided that the sheet is genuine, whereas when the counter value exceeds the threshold value, decision is made that the sheet is a forged one (step 10 a). according to the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment, even when the sheet is wrinkled, bent or broken in the vicinity of the electronic circuit chips 13 , bringing about deviation in the relative positions between the electronic circuit chips 13 and the peripheries, the frequency or possibility of the genuine sheet being mistaken for the forged sheet can be reduced. parenthetically, an appropriate evaluation method (evaluating expression) and a proper threshold value may previously be determined on the basis of the various internal information (e.g. the elementary information such as the number, accuracy, priority and the like of the information) stored in the electronic circuit chips 13 so that the detecting unit can make decision upon checking of the sheet as to the authenticity or genuineness in accordance with the predetermined evaluation method mentioned above. (fifth embodiment) now, a fifth embodiment of the present invention will be described by reference to fig. 14 . according to the teaching of the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment, the identification number inherent to the electronic circuit chip 13 is stored in the electronic circuit chip, and additionally information intrinsic to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof is stored in a storing means other than the above-mentioned electronic circuit chip while establishing correspondency to the identification number of the electronic circuit chip mentioned above. now, description will turn to a method of detecting a forged sheet by reference to fig. 4 , fig. 5 and fig. 14 . a hardware structure of a forgery checking system in carrying out the method according to the instant embodiment is shown in fig. 4 , while a software structure of the forgery checking system is shown in fig. 5 . fig. 14 shows a flow chart for illustrating a forged sheet checking procedure according to the instant embodiment of the invention. at first, the control module 52 issues a command to the transmitter unit 41 for sending a radio wave in the direction toward the sheet 11 for thereby feeding an electric power to the sheet 11 (step 61 ). the electronic circuit chip 13 supplied with the electric power through the medium of the radio wave sends out the inherent information stored therein by way of the antenna 15 , the signal as sent out being received by the receiver unit 42 (step 62 ). the control module 52 issues a command to the transmitter unit 41 to send the inherent information to the computer 49 connected via the network 48 (step 141 ). upon reception of the inherent information (step 142 ), the computer 49 extracts the information corresponding to the received inherent information from among the information inherent to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof held in correspondence to the inherent information, to thereby send the extracted information to the forgery checking system 47 after encryption (step 143 ). the receiver unit 42 receives the information from the computer 49 (step 144 ) to transfer it to the control module 52 . the control module 52 in turn transfers the information to the decrypting module 53 which responds thereto by decrypting the information (step 63 ). the scanner unit 43 scans the surface of the sheet 11 and the internal structure thereof (step 64 ). the control module 52 transfers the image information and others as acquired to the processing module 55 which responds thereto by executing the information processing such as image processing or the like (step 65 ). the discriminating module 54 compares the decrypted information transferred from the computer 49 by way of the decrypting module 53 with the information acquired by scanning the sheet 11 as transferred from the processing module 55 (step 66 ). when both the data coincide with each other, it is then decided that the information 12 on the sheet surface is authentic, whereas in case both the data differ from each other, decision is then made that the information 12 on the sheet is counterfeit (step 67 ). the control module 52 commands the output unit 44 to output the information which conforms with the result of the decision made by the discriminating module 54 through a display or the like means. the operations and the processings described above by reference to figs. 5 and 14 can be realized by executing a program stored in the memory 46 by means of the cpu 45 . in the case of the instant embodiment, the information inherent to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof is stored in the computer 49 . consequently, even when an unwritable electronic circuit chip is employed, forgery can equally be prevented similarly to the case of the first, second, third or fourth embodiment of the present invention. as a result of this, the circuit scale of the electronic circuit chip can be made smaller and thus the chip can be manufactured inexpensively in a reduced size. thus, the invention incarnated in the instant embodiment is effective for realizing the prevention against forgery of the sheet at a low cost. parenthetically, it should be added that although the computer 49 is employed as the destination for storing the information inherent to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof in the case of the instant embodiment of the present invention, it goes without saying that a storing means other than the computer such as a flash memory card, an electronic circuit chip, etc. may be used. by way of example, a plurality of inexpensive unwritable electronic circuit chips 13 storing the number inherent to the sheet 11 may be incorporated in the sheet 11 while the information inherent to the sheet 11 or the electronic circuit chip 13 or the combination thereof may be stored in one writable electronic circuit chip. in that case, substantially same degree of readability as in the case where a plurality of expensive writable electronic circuit chips are mounted can be realized without using a plurality of expensive writable electronic circuit chips. further, it is also possible to combine the first to fifth embodiments described heretofore. (sixth embodiment) next, description will be directed to a sixth embodiment of the present invention. fig. 11 is a view showing sheets and a configuration of a sheet management system, and fig. 13 is a flow chart for illustrating a sheet management procedure. by referring to figs. 11 and 13 , description will be made of a sheet managing method according to the instant embodiment. referring to fig. 11 , the sheet managing method according to the instant embodiment will be described. reference numeral 111 denotes a transmitter unit which is designed for feeding an electric power to the sheet through the medium of a radio wave and sending a command to the sheet. the transmitter unit is disposed movably along the direction in which the sheets are stacked. numeral 112 denotes a receiver unit designed for receiving signals emitted from the sheets. numeral 113 denotes an output unit designed for outputting management statuses of the sheets. numeral 114 denotes a control unit designed for controlling the transmitter unit 111 , the receiver unit 112 and the output unit 113 . numeral 115 generally denotes a system designed for management of the sheets. mounted on each sheet 116 at a peripheral portion thereof are an antenna 117 , a capacitor 118 and an electronic circuit chip 119 , respectively, for the purpose of enabling contactless communication with the management system 115 . the electronic circuit chip 119 mounted on the sheet 116 incorporates therein a random number generating means (random number generating program executed by the cpu or a dedicated circuit), a storing means (a register, a memory or the like) for storing the inherent information (e.g. visible information such as an identification number, species, face amount, etc.), a signal transmitting means and a signal receiving means. when the radio wave is applied to the antenna 117 from the transmitter unit 111 , a potential difference is induced in the antenna 117 , as a result of which electric charges are stored in the capacitor 118 . thus, electric power is supplied to the electronic circuit chip 119 (step 135 ). the electronic circuit chip 119 then generates a random number (step 131 ). on the basis of the random number as generated, a signal indicative of the above-mentioned information inherent to the sheet 116 is intermittently sent out with every transmission interruption period changing at random (step 132 ). upon reception of this signal by the receiver unit 112 (step 136 ), the control unit 114 performs recognition and registration of the relevant sheet 116 (step 137 ), whereon a stop command valid to only that sheet 116 is issued from the transmitter unit 111 (step 138 ). upon reception of the stop command (step 133 ), the sheet 116 stops the transmission from that time on (step 134 ). in case the system can not correctly receive the signals sent from the plural sheets due to superposition of the signals (step 136 ), the management system 115 does not issue the stop command but waits for till the signal inherent to the sheet is sent again. since the inherent signal as sent intermittently at random interval, the signals sent from all the sheets can be received after lapse of a predetermined time period (step 139 ). the control unit 114 manages the sheets with the information inherent to the individual sheets. the management statuses of the sheets are outputted through the output unit 113 . by using the transmitter unit 111 having the radio wave coverage limited and recognizing the sheets while moving the transmitter unit along the direction in which the sheets are stacked, the ratio at which the signals emitted from the plural sheets are received concurrently can be reduced. thus, management of the plural sheets can be carried out at a high speed with enhanced reliability. as can now be appreciated, by virtue of the arrangement according to the instant embodiment of the invention, a large number of sheets of different species and/or sizes can be managed in the stacked state at a stretch with high reliability with the apparatus of a small size. by way of example, those sheets which are required to be managed with high reliability such as registered mail, paper currency, certificate of share/stock, gift certificate, etc. can individually be managed in the state stacked or put together, being bundled by a belt or a cord, packaged or contained in a bag, which contributes to reduction of the time taken for the management of the sheets as well as prevention of missing and stealage. parenthetically, the sheet according to the instant embodiment of the invention is not restricted to the structure described above. namely, the sheet is required to be equipped with an information hold unit 121 , a transmitter unit 122 and a receiver unit 123 , as is shown in fig. 12 , but need not necessarily include the antenna 117 , the capacitor 118 and the electronic circuit chip 119 . although the embodiments of the invention have been described on the presumption that they are applied to managements of sheets and cards, the present invention is never restricted thereto. other objects having visible information may be handled without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. industrial applicability as is apparent from the foregoing description, according to the teachings of the present invention, it is possible to make it difficult to forge or counterfeit the sheet carrying the visible information such as bond, gift certificate, paper currency, document and the like. besides, even if the sheet should be forged, detection thereof can be facilitated. furthermore, a large number of sheets differing one another in respect to the species and the size can speedily be managed at a stretch with high reliability by the apparatus of a small scale.
197-331-382-072-676	US	[ "WO", "US", "AU" ]	H04M11/00	1994-12-23T00:00:00	1994	[ "H04" ]	system and method for programming electronic devices from a remote site	a system is provided for programming home electronic devices. the system includes a computer for converting information needed to program the electronic device which is communicated from the consumer to a representative at the site of the computer into data for programming the home electronic device. the computer communicates the programming data over telephone lines to a programming module at the consumer's location which receives the data communicated over the telephone lines from the computer. the programming module is then coupled to a home electronic device using a plug and socket, infrared link, ac line modulation or some other method of transferring data and the programming data communicated to the programming module from the computer is transferred to the home electronic device. the system is especially appropriate for data which must be programmed into a home electronic device as part of its initial setup.	what is claimed is: 1. a system for programming an electronic device comprising: means for converting information needed to program said electronic device into programming data for said electronic device, said means for converting comprising means for receiving said information needed to program said electronic device; means for communicating said programming data from said means for converting information to a programming module; means for linking said programming module to said electronic device; and means for transferring said programming data from said programming module to said electronic device through said means for linking. 2. the system of claim 1 wherein said means for receiving comprises a telephone. 3. the system of claim 1 wherein said means for communicating comprises a telephone link utilizing a series of coded audio tones. 4. the system of claim 3 which further comprises said programming module comprises a telephone. 5. the system of claim 3 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 6. the system of claim 1 wherein: said programming module comprises a plug; said electronic device comprises a socket; and said means for linking comprises said plug and said socket. 7. the system of claim 1 wherein: said programming module comprises a remote control transmitter; said electronic device comprises a remote control receiver; and said means for linking comprises said remote control transmitter and said remote control receiver. 8. the system of claim 7 wherein: said remote control transmitter comprises an infrared transmitter; and said remote control receiver comprises an infrared receiver. l 9. the system of claim 8 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 10. the system of claim 9 wherein said programming module comprises a universal 5 remote control transmitter. 11. the system of claim 7 wherein: said remote control transmitter comprises an ac line modulation transmitter; and 10 said remote control receiver comprises an ac line modulation receiver. 12. the system of claim 1 wherein said means for converting comprises means for encrypting said programming data using an element of real time as an encryption key. 15 13. the system of claim 1 wherein said means for converting comprises means for embedding into said programming data, the date on which said programming data has been converted. 14. a system for programming a plurality of electronic devices comprising: 0 means for converting information needed to program a selected set of said electronic devices into programming data for said selected set of electronic devices, said means for converting comprising means for receiving said information needed to program said selected set of electronic devices; means for communicating said programming data from said means for 5 converting information to a programming module; means for separately linking said programming module to each of said selected electronic devices; and means for transferring said programming data from said programming module to each of said selected electronic devices through said means for separately linking. 0 15. the system of claim 14 wherein said means for receiving comprises a telephone. 16. the system of claim 14 wherein said means for communicating comprises a telephone link utilizing a series of coded audio tones. 5 17. the system of claim 16 wherein said programming module comprises a telephone. 18. the system of claim 16 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 19. the system of claim 14 wherein: said programming module comprises a plug; each of said selected electronic devices comprises a socket, wherein each of said sockets are connectable to said plug; and said means for separately linking comprises said plug and each of said sockets. 20. the system of claim 14 wherein: said programming module comprises a remote control transmitter; each of said selected electronic devices comprises a remote control receiver; and said means for separately linking comprises said remote control transmitter and each of said remote control receivers. 21. the system of claim 20 wherein: said remote control transmitter comprises an infrared transmitter; and said remote control receivers comprise infrared receivers. 22. the system of claim 21 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 23. the system of claim 22 wherein said programming module comprises a universal remote control transmitter. 24. the system of claim 20 wherein: said remote control transmitter comprises an ac line modulation transmitter; and said remote control receivers comprise ac line modulation receivers. 25. the system of claim 14 wherein said means for converting comprises means for encrypting said programming data using an element of real time as an encryption key. 26. the system of claim 14 wherein said means for converting comprises means for embedding into said programming data, the date on which said programming data has been converted. l 27. the method of programming an electronic device comprising the steps of: communicating information needed to program said electronic device from the location of said electronic device to a remote programming site converting said information into programming commands for said electronic 5 device; downloading said programming commands from said remote programming site to said electronic device. 28. the method of claim 27 wherein the step of communicating comprises 10 communicating said information using a telephone connection. 29. the method of claim 27 wherein said step of converting comprises the step of encrypting said programming commands using an element of real time as an encryption key and wherein said step of downloading comprises the step of decrypting said programming 15 commands. 30. the method of claim 27 wherein said step of converting comprises the step of embeds the current date into said programming data and wherein said step of downloading comprises the step of comparing said date embedded into said programming data with the 0 output of a clock. 31. the method of programming an electronic device comprising the steps of: establishing a communication link between a consumer and a programming assistant; 5 communicating information needed to program said electronic device from the consumer to the programming assistant; converting said information into programming commands for said electronic device; downloading said programming commands to a programming module; 0 establishing a data linking between said programming module and said electronic device; and transferring said programming data from said programming module to said electronic device. 5 32. the method of claim 31 wherein the step of communicating comprises communicating said information using a telephone connection. 33. the method of claim 32 wherein said programming module comprises a telephone. 34. the method of claim 32 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 35. the method of claim 31 wherein said step of establishing a data link comprises establishing a plug and socket connection between said programming module and said electronic device. 36. the method of claim 31 wherein said step of establishing a data link comprises establishing a remote control connection between said programming module and said electronic device. 37. the method of claim 36 wherein said step of establishing a data link by establishing a remote control connection comprises establishing a data link by establishing an infrared remote control connection. 38. the method of claim 37 wherein said programming module comprises a telephone. 39. the method of claim 37 wherein said programming module comprises a cordless telephone. 40. the method of claim 36 wherein said step of establishing a data link by establishing a remote control connection comprises establishing a data link by establishing an ac line modulation remote control connection. 41. the method of claim 31 wherein said step of converting comprises the step of encrypting said programming commands using an element of real time as an encryption key and wherein said step of downloading comprises the step of decrypting said programming commands. 42. the method of claim 31 wherein said step of converting comprises the step of embeds the current date into said programming data and wherein said step of downloading comprises the step of comparing said date embedded into said programming data with the output of a clock. 43. an appliance programming module for programming a variety of home electronic appliances comprising: means for receiving at least one set of appliance programming data for at least one of said appliances; means for coupling said appliance programming module to one of said appliances; and means for transferring said at least one set of appliance programming data to said one of said appliances. 44. the appliance programming module of claim 43 wherein the means for coupling comprise a standardized plug. 45. the appliance programming module of claim 43 wherein the means for coupling comprise an infrared transmitter. 46. the appliance programming module of claim 43 wherein the means for coupling comprise an ac line modulator. 47. the appliance programming module of claim 43 wherein the means for receiving comprise a microphone and a decoder. 48. the appliance programming module of claim 43 wherein the appliance programming module comprises a telephone wherein said means for receiving comprise said telephone. 49. the appliance programming module of claim 43 further comprising means for transmitting programming information for generating said programming data. 50. the appliance programming module of claim 49 wherein the means for transmitting programming information comprise means for transmitting programming information including identification information for said one of said appliances. 51. a home electronic appliance comprising: means for receiving programming data from an external appliance programming module capable of supplying programming data to a variety of home electronic appliances. 52. the home electronic appliance of claim 51 wherein said means for receiving programming data comprises a standardized socket. 53. the home electronic appliance of claim 51 wherein said means for receiving programming data comprises an infrared receiver. 54. the home electronic appliance of claim 51 wherein said means for receiving programming data comprises an ac line demodulator.	system and method for programming electronic devices from a remote site background of the invention in the electronic age, our homes are filled with various household electronic appliances. these range from computers to audio-visual equipment to thermostats to kitchen appliances. all of these electronic devices need to be set-up with initial information such as the current time of day and date and other information depending on the device. the most common information that must be programmed into household appliances is the current time of day. almost every household appliance that requires some programming or initial set up requires the consumer to enter the current time. unfortunately, this seemingly simple process is not as simple as one would hope, as can be seen by how often comics and sitcoms base jokes on the infamous flashing "12:00" on consumer's vcrs. even so, the life of consumers would not be so bad if they only had to set the time on each of their household appliances once. however, every time the locality switches between standard and daylight savings time, every time the power goes out and every time an appliance gets unplugged, the consumer has to reprogram the time of day on each affected appliance. when an appliance has more data that has to be entered every time the power goes out, such as automatic sprinkler timers, this problem is magnified many fold. summary of the invention the system and method embodying the present invention solve this problem b providing a programming module for receiving the setup information for a number of hom electronics devices. the system provides a computer, operated by a programming assistan who consumers can call on the telephone. consumers tell the programming assistant wha appliances they use in their homes, the models and brands of these appliances and detail regarding how these appliances should be programmed. the programming assistant enter this information into the computer. the computer generates codes containing setu information for the consumer's appliances that are downloaded over the telephone line to th programming module that the consumer holds near the earpiece of their telephone. th programming module is then connected, by a plug, infrared link or other type of connection to the consumer's appliances one by one. when the programming module is connected t an appliance, it programs that appliance with set up information that was downloaded fro the computer, such as the current date and time of day and other information depending o the appliance. brief description of the dra ings fig. 1 is a block diagram schematic showing a system for appliance programming according to this invention. fig. 2 is a block diagram schematic of one embodiment of the audio tone decoder shown in fig. 1. fig. 3 is a block diagram schematic of an alternate embodiment of the audio tone decoder shown in fig. 2. fig. 4 is a block diagram schematic showing an alternative embodiment of the system shown in fig. 1. fig. 5 is a block diagram schematic showing a second alternative embodiment of the system shown in fig. 1. fig. 6 is a block diagram schematic showing a third alternative embodiment of the system shown in fig. 1. fig. 7 is a block diagram schematic showing a fourth alternative embodiment of the system shown in fig. 1. fig. 8 is a flow diagram of a method of using the embodiments shown in figs. 1-7. detailed description fig. 1 depicts a system embodying the present invention, for setting up a number of appliances in a consumer's home, such as appliance 10, includes a programming module 20, and a remote site programming center 40. each appliance 10 includes an appliance microprocessor 12, an appliance memory 14 and a socket 16 connected to an i/o interface of the appliance microprocessor. the programming module 20 includes a module microprocessor 22 that is connected to a module random access (ram) memory 24, a plug 26, an audio tone decoder 28, a battery 30 and an led indicator 32. the audio tone decoder is further connected to a microphone 34. the remote site programming center 40 provides work spaces for a number of household electronic appliance programming assistants ("programming assistants") 42. each programming assistant is supplied with a computer 44. in various alternatives, the computer is either a stand alone microcomputer, a microcomputer connected to a computer network (not shown) or a terminal connected to a larger computer, such as a mainframe (not shown). consumers and programming assistants communicate over standard telephones 46a and 46b and telephone lines 48. the computer 44 includes a real time clock that keeps track of the current time of day and the date. the computer can convert this real time into the correct real time for any locality, even those in different time zones when certain information, such as the state or zip code is entered into the computer. the computer also includes a database which contains information regarding a variety of consumer appliances. each appliance is referenced by brand, model number, appliance type, features and descriptions of the exterior appearance. the data stored for each appliance depends on the type of information that can be programmed into that particular model and brand of appliance. listed below are a variety of household appliances that might be programmed with the programming module system and examples of what type of information is stored in the computer 44 of the present system. setback thermostats: there are commercially available thermostats that are generally programmed to set the temperature of the thermostat at different temperatures at different times of day. for example, a consumer, on weekdays in the winter, may generally want the thermostat to be set to 68° during the time between 6:00 until 8:00 a.m. and between 6:00 and 11:00 p.m., but set to 58° during the other times of the day. during the weekends in winter, a consumer may want the thermostat to be set at 68° from 8:00 a.m. until midnight and at 58° between midnight and 8:00 a.m. thus, the thermostats generally allow at least two different programs to be programmed at once. the consumer can select between these programs for use on particular days of the week. some programmable thermostats allow programming in even more detail. of course, the thermostat must be programmed with and keep track of the current time of day and the day of the week. when the weather turns warmer, consumers often reprogram their thermostat with teniperatures for controlling an air conditioner. during the weekdays the thermostat may be programmed at 78° between 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. and 88° between 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. unfortunately, the change in seasons is not predictable and there are often times when the consumer may have to change between an air conditioning schedule and a heating schedule several times during the months in the spring and fall. the present system allows the consumer to easily perform this reprogramming by simply making a phone call, holding a programming module to the phone and then connecting the programming module to the thermostat. automatic sprinklers: automatic sprinklers often can be programmed with such information as what days of the week to water, how long to leave each set of sprinklers on for and what time of day to water. as with the thermostat, changes in the seasons force periodic reprogramming of this information. house light timers: house light timers are programmed to turn on and off one or more lights within a house at programmed times. many of these timers also included dimming functions. thus, the brightness of lights may also be programmable. programmable telephones: many telephones, including cellular phones may be programmed with a number of phone numbers that are dialed by the consumer pressing a limited number of keys. many of these phones also have the ability to store alphanumerics names with the phone numbers. answering machines: besides the programming of any features found in telephones (see above), answering machines often have other programmable features, such as setting the number of rings before the answering machine answers, using a "toll-saver" feature that answers after a different number rings depending on whether there is a message on the answering machine and setting a time limit on how long of a message the answering machine will record. clocks / clock radios: most modern houses contain countless appliances that have electronic clocks that must be set every time the power goes off or the time switches between daylight savings and standard time. further, clock radios have one or more alarm times that must be programmed. fax machines: like many phones, fax machines often store a number of speed dial numbers and sometimes associated alphanumeric names. further, fax machines usually must be programmed with header information that appears at the top or bottom of every page sent by the fax machine. this header information usually includes the phone number from which the fax machine is sending the fax, and some alphanumeric identification of the individual or company who owns the fax machine. based on information provided to a programming assistant by a consumer, the data needed to program the consumer's electronic devices are downloaded from computer 44, over standard telephone lines 48, to the programming module 20. the programming data is carried over the telephone lines using a series of audio tones that are emitted from the consumer's telephone 46a and received by the microphone 34 in the programming module. the programming module is then connected to each of the electronic devices, such as appliance 10, by the consumer inserting plug 26 into socket 16. in order for plug 26 to be compatible with all appliances equipped with this programming system, socket 16 must be a universal type of socket that is the same on every appliance to be used with the system. the programming data for the appliance that the programming module is connected to is then downloaded from the module memory 24 to the appliance memory 14, completing the programming of the appliance. in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, alternate embodiments of the decoder 28 and microphone 34 combination are shown in figs. 2 and 3. fig. 2 shows a combination with an amplifier 50 which leads into a dtmf decoder 52. dtmf tones are received by the microphone 34 from the receiver 46a. each dtmf tone is amplified and decoded by amplifier 50 and dtmf decoder 52 to produce the numerical value represented by the dtmf tone. depending on the specific type of dtmf decoder which is utilized, either a serial or parallel representation of the decoded numeric value is sent to an i/o input of the microprocessor 22 of the programming module 20. the microphone and decoder assembly shown in fig. 3 is less expensive than the assembly shown in fig. 2 that uses a dtmf decoder 52, but the data transfer rate is slower. the system shown in fig. 3 utilizes just two single frequency signals rather than many dual frequency signals as in the dtmf system shown in fig. 2. the first signal, a tone of approximately 3000 hz, is used to signify a binary "one" and the second signal, a tone of approximately 500 hz, is used to signify "zero. " the telephone earpiece 46a generates a stream of these audio signals, which are then picked up by microphone 34. the signals are passed through amplifier 59, through high pass filter 56 and sent through a final amplifier 58. the bandwidth of the high pass filter 56 is 1000 - 5000 hz, to include just the "one" tone of approximately 3000 hz. the output of the final amplifier 58 is connected to an i/o port of the microprocessor 22. a series of these two tones are transmitted over the telephone line, representing a binary series. a short period of no signal is included between each tone in the series of tones so that two consecutive 500 hz or two consecutive 3000 hz signals are interpreted as two sequential signals and not one long signal. in an alternative embodiment, the series of signal tones are sent at a predetermined clock speed. a decoder (not shown) is included between the microphone and decoder assembly shown in fig. 3 and the microprocessor 22 that converts the 3000 hz signals to high electrical signals and converts the 500 hz signals to low electrical signals that are sent to a serial input into the microprocessor. the decoder also sends a clock signal simultaneously sent to the microprocessor with each high or low signal. in an alternative embodiment, shown in fig. 4, the plug 26 in the programming module 20 and the socket 16 in the appliance 10 are replaced by ir transmitter 60 in the programming module 20a and ir receiver 62 in the appliance 10a, respectively. in this embodiment, instead of the programming data being downloaded from the module memory 24 to the appliance memory 14 through a plug and socket connection, the programming data is downloaded from the module memory 24 to the appliance memory 14 using the ir link between the programming module and the appliance created by ir transmitter 60 and ir receiver 62. the use of an ir link in the alternative embodiment shown in fig. 4 allows further flexibility in packaging the programming module. for example, the ir programming module 20a can be combined with telephone 46a, eliminating the microphone 34, which can increase the reliability and speed of the data downloading from computer 44. this combination is possible because the telephone/ir programming module combination does not have to be physically connected to each appliance as is the case with the programming module 20 shown in fig. 1. in the same way, the ir programming module can be combined with any device that is connected to a telephone line, such as an answering machine, fax machine or personal computer. the only difference in the audio tone data transfer method from the computer 44 to the programming module in these embodiments is that a special "attention" tone needs to precede the rest of the data so that the telephone or device connected to a telephone line is alerted that data is to be decoded from the following audio tones. one limitation to the telephone/ir programming module combination is that there has to be a direct line of sight from the telephone to each appliance to be programmed. this does present a problem if the appliance to be programmed is in a different room than the telephone/ir programming module combination. a solution to this problem is to combine the ir programming module with a cordless telephone or radio frequency transmitting and receiving device. in this arrangement, the cordless telephone/ir programming module combination can be moved to be with a direct line of sight with any appliance that is to be programmed. this packaging arrangement also provides most or all of the hardware necessary to implement a universal remote control in the cordless telephone/ir programming module combination. various embodiments of such a combination of a cordless telephone and universal remote control is disclosed in more detail in application serial no. 08/332994, entitled "universal remote with built-in phone and vcr plus", filed on november 1, 1994, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. another solution to this problem is solve by the embodiment shown in fig. 5. the system shown in fig. 5 is the same as the system shown in fig. 1, except that the telephone 46a in fig. 1 is replaced with telephone 47 in fig. 5 and programming module 20b does not include the microphone 34 or decoder 28. telephone 47 is equipped with a socket 47a of the same type as socket 16. thus, programming module can be connected, with plug 2 to telephone 47 through socket 47a. this configuration allows the flexibility of being abl to have the telephone located remotely from the appliances being programmed, but at th same time save hardware costs by removing the microphone and decoder from th programming module 20. another advantage of any of the telephone/programming module combinations is th data which is stored in the telephone/module memory can be communicated back to th central computer 44. this feature is discussed in more detail in the discussion of fig. below. it is noted that any of the embodiments shown in figs. 1 and 4 discussed above an fig. 6 below can be modified to include two-way communication links of various form know to those skilled in the art. on such modification involves replacing the microphon 34 with a combination microphone/speaker. in a further alternative embodiment, shown in fig. 6, the plug 26 in the programmin module 20 and the socket 16 in d e appliance 10 shown in fig. 1 are replaced by modul ac line modulator 64 in programming module 20c and appliance ac line modulator 70 i appliance 10b, respectively. the module ac line modulator is connected to the module a power cord 66 supplying power to the programming module which is, in turn, connected t a standard ac wall outlet 68. the appliance ac line modulator is connected to applianc ac power cord 72 which is, in turn, connected to standard ac wall outlet 74. ac wa outlets 68 and 74 are connected to each other through standard ac house wiring 76. in thi embodiment, instead of the programming data being downloaded from the module memor 24 to the appliance memory 14 through a plug and socket connection, the programming dat is downloaded from the module memory 24 to the appliance memory 14 using the we known technique of ac line modulation. one technique for transmitting signals on ac line is described in more detail in u.s. patent no. 4,418,33 to schwarzbach, et al., issue november 29, 1983 the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if s forth fully herein. in yet another embodiment (not shown) the programming module can be provided wit an appliance. in this embodiment, the module microprocessor 22 and module memory 2 can be used as the appliance microprocessor 12 and appliance memory 14 when th programming module is plugged into the appliance. this embodiment saves the apparen duplication of components in the embodiments shown in figs. 1, 4, 5 and 6, but require that the programming module be plugged into its appliance for the appliance to operate. in another embodiment, shown in fig. 7, the use of telephones 46a and 47 shown i figs. 1 and 4-6 in the downloading of data to the programming module 20d is eliminate by replacing the microphone 34 in figs. 1 and 4-6 with modular telephone socket 35. telephone 46b is still necessary in the system, however, for the consumer to communicat orally with the customer service representative as discussed more fully below in connection with fig. 8. the utilization of the programming system is shown in the flow diagram of fig. 8. to begin, in block 78, a consumer will call the remote site programming center 40 over standard telephone lines 48. the telephone number for the remote site programming center can be a normal toll number, a toll-free "800" number or a fee per call or fee per minute "900" number. in block 80, the user identifies the programming module by reading an unique identification number that is imprinted onto each programming module. the programming assistant then enters this identification number into the computer 44. in block 82, the computer then determines if the identification number has been used before with the system. if the identification number has been used before, the computer will retrieve all the information that has been previously given to the programming assistants by a consumer using that identification number and stored in the computer. on the other hand, if the programming module is being used for the first time, the identification number will not be found in the computer's storage and the computer, in block 86, sets asides a record in its storage for information regarding this new programming module. it is important to store the programming module identification numbers and information given by the consumer so that future programming and communication between the consumer and the programming assistant are easier. for example, a consumer may have an electronic setback thermostat which he or she programs using a programming module. the first time the consumer uses the system, in the summer, the consumer provides a summer/air conditioning type thermostat schedule to the programming assistant, who in turn helps the consumer use his or her programming module to program the setback thermostat. a typical temperature for the thermostat during the summer may be 80°. when the first cold snap of the coming winter occurs, the consumer will want to change the programming on the setback thermostat to control the heater instead of the air conditioner. a common thermostat setting during this time may be 68°. the consumer may utilize the system to make this programming change. because the previous programming information has been stored in the computer, the programming assistant need not get certain information from the consumer, like the brand and model of the setback thermostat to be programmed using the programming module. when the winter settings are given by the consumer, they are stored in the computer. meanwhile, the summer settings are not discarded, but remain stored in the computer. this is because the consumer may want to revert to a summer/air conditioning thermostat program when a relatively hot spell occurs only weeks after the first cold snap. if all past programming information for that programming module is stored, the consumer can simply ask the programming assistant to change the thermostat back to summer/air conditioning settings. in the alternative embodiments described above in which the programming module 20, 20a, 20b, 20c or 20d are connected to the programming computer 44 with a two-wa communication link, such as when the programming module is combined or connecte directly with a telephone or other device that includes a wired telephone interface such as a answering machine, fax machine or personal computer (e.g., figs. 5 and 7) or th microphone in figs. 1, 4 and 6 are replaced with speaker/microphones, before step 80, i step 79, a simple handshaking protocol is employed so that both the computer and th programming module are in synchrony as to which device is transmitting audio tones an which device is receiving audio tones. once this two way communication link an handshaking protocol is established, the steps shown in blocks 80 through 86 can be full automated since some or all of the information provided by the consumer to the programmin assistant in these blocks, including the programming module identification number, can b stored in the module memory. further, all of the previous programming information th is normally stored by the computer 44 in its storage can be stored instead in the memory o the programming module/telephone. most newer telephones and especially answerin machines, fax machines and personal computers have large amounts of memory and ther would not be an impediment to storing the previous programming information in this memor instead of at the central computer 44. returning to the general case, the thermostat example above is also useful i illustrating the step that occurs in block 88. in block 88, the user identifies the appliance that the user wants to have programmed. if a particular identified appliance has bee previously programmed using the system, the programming assistant will inform the user o the previous ways that appliance has been programmed. in this case, the user may choos to have the appliance programmed in one of these previous ways or may provide new o supplemental information to facilitate programming the appliance. if a particular identifie appliance is being programmed for the first time, the programming assistant will help th user provide enough information to allow the programming of the appliance as the use wishes. in any of the embodiments employing a two-way communication link with th computer 44, as much of the information provided by the consumer to the programmin assistant in block 88 as is contained in the memory of the programming module can b automatically uploaded to the computer 44. this information includes the brand and mode of telephone-connected device with which the programming module is combined to facilitat the programming of that device. further, the programming module and the appliances ar preferably programmed so that before any data is downloaded from the computer 44 plugging the programming module into an appliance will cause the appliance to transfe appliance identification information, such as brand and model number into the programmin module so that this information can automatically be uploaded to computer 44 in step 88. in block 90, the programming assistant enters the selection of stored information about the identified appliance or enters the information needed to program the appliance as desired into the computer. in the two-way communication embodiments, this step is limited to entering information that is not uploaded from the programming module to the computer 44 in step 88. according to the entered information, in block 92, the computer retrieves stored information if such stored information is selected and stores new information when new information is entered. from the retrieved information or the new information, the computer generates the necessary programming data and downloads this data, in block 94, through the standard telephone lines 48 to the programming module. in block 96, the user transfers the programming data that has been just downloaded to the programming module to the identified appliances. the precise manner in which this transferring is done depends on the embodiment of programming module being used. in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the user plugs the programming module into the identified appliance. the transfer of data in this case can be initiated by a variety of ways. one way is to have either the programming module or each appliance constantly send an attention signal through either plug 26 or socket 16, respectively. the other device (the appliance or the programming module, respectively) will then be set to continuously scan its socket or plug for the attention signal. when the attention signal is detected, the device receiving the attention signal then returns a "receive" signal and any of the myriad of handshaking protocols can be employed to transfer the data. another way to initiate the transfer of the data is to have buttons or switches on both the programming module and the appliance which are both activated once the plug 26 is inserted into the socket 16. these buttons or switches may be designed so that the user activates them, or, as in a preferred embodiment, the switches are included with the plug 26 and socket 16, so that the initiation of the transfer of data occurs automatically when the programming module is plugged into the appliance. in the embodiments shown in figs. 4 and 6, the communication link between the programming module and the appliances to be programmed is for the most part permanent. in the case of the ir link shown in fig. 4, the only thing that must happen before the communication link is established is that the programming module be position with a line of sight to the appliance to be programmed. in either case, the appliances usually are waiting at all times to receive commands or data through their ir receivers or their ac line demodulators. thus, to initiate the transfer of data, the user must first indicate to the programming module which appliance is to be programmed and then cause the programming module to begin the transfer. the selection of the appliance to be programmed can be performed in manners well known in the art, including providing an lcd display on the programming module which is capable of displaying appliance description, scroll up and down keys. the programming module can be caused to begin the transfer by the operation of a "transfer" key or control on the programming module. regardless of the technique used to initiate the downloading of data from the programming module to the appliance, a confirmation signal is given to the consumer when the downloading is complete. in the embodiments shown in figs. 1 and 4-7, the confirmation is given by causing led 32 to flash. in the alternative embodiment discussed above where the microphone 34 is replaced with a combination microphone/speaker so that a two-way communication link can be established, led 32 is removed and confirmation is given by an audio tone generated by the microphone/speaker after the downloading is complete. in another embodiment of programming module 20, 20a, 20b, 20c and 20d, the programming module includes a real time clock. the clock is implemented with the module microprocessor 22, module memory 24 and battery 30. implementing a clock in the programming module allows the consumer to use the programming module to download just the real time to each of his or her electronic appliances at any time. the clock of the programming module need only be set once with the assistance of a programming assistant. after that, the battery will allow the clock to keep accurate time. a capacitor or additional battery backup may be provided to allow the user to change worn out batteries without having to reset the clock. in another embodiment, the data downloaded from the computer 44 to the programming modules 20, 20a, 20b, 20c and 20d is encrypted to prevent unauthorized use of the programming system. the programming modules of this embodiment include a description circuit or a set of microprocessor instructions stored in memory that would contain the description technique being utilized. if the programming modules include a real time clock as described above, the encryption key can be based on real time. thus, once the real time is downloaded from the computer 44, all subsequent data can be encrypted using a real time based encryption technique. in yet another embodiment, each set of programming data downloaded from the computer 44 would have the current date embedded in the programming data. this allows the programming data to have a limited lifespan. this is accomplished by including a feature in the programming module that prevents the downloading of programming data with an embedded date that is more than a predetermined number of days, such as a week, away from the current date. it is thought that the system and method of programming household appliances of the present invention and many of its attendant advantages will be understood from the foregoing description and it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the parts thereof without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention or sacrificing all of its material advantages, the form hereinbefore described being merely a preferred or exemplary embodiment thereof.
198-085-279-735-107	US	[ "US" ]	G01T1/32,H01L31/118	1993-05-20T00:00:00	1993	[ "G01", "H01" ]	solid state detector for polarized x-rays	a solid state x-ray detector has a set of bilayers formed on its front surface. each bilayer includes a spacing layer and an absorbing layer which have different indexes of refraction, and the impinging x-rays strike the bilayers at an angle which satisfies the bragg condition. as a result, x-rays polarized in one direction are substantially reflected while x-rays polarized in an orthogonal direction pass through the bilayers for detection by the solid state x-ray detector.	1. a solid state polarized x-ray detector which comprises: a solid state x-ray detector for producing an electric current which is indicative of the flux density of x-rays impinging on a substantially flat surface; a bilayer formed on the flat surface and including a spacing layer of a first material and an absorbing layer of a second material said first and second materials having substantially different indexes of refraction and a front surface on the bilayer being oriented at an angle .theta. with respect to the direction of the impinging x-rays such that a substantial portion of the impinging x-rays polarized in the direction in the plane of the front surface are reflected while a substantial portion of the impinging x-rays polarized in direction orthogonal thereto pass through the bilayer to impinge the flat surface of the solid state x-ray detector. 2. the polarized x-ray detector as recited in claim 1 in which a plurality of said bilayers are formed on the flat surface, one on top of the other. 3. the polarized x-ray detector as recited in claim 1 in which the first material is selected from a first group including silicon, carbon, boron and beryllium and the second material is selected from a second group including rhodium, tungsten, molybdenum, cobalt and platinum. 4. the polarized x-ray detector as recited in claim 1 in which the angle .theta. is set to satisfy the bragg condition: .eta..lambda.=2d sin .theta. where .lambda. is the wavelength of the impinging x-rays, d is the thickness of said bilayer and .eta. is a whole number.	background of the invention the field of the invention is radiation detectors and, more particularly, solid state x-ray detectors used singly or in arrays. x-ray flux density is usually measured in one of two ways. first, a scintillation element may be used to convert the impinging x-rays into a luminescent intensity which is detected by a separate photomultiplier tube or a silicon photosensitive device. such detectors are described, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 5,103,092. or second, photovoltaic or photoconductive solid state diodes that are directly sensitive to impinging x-rays may be used to produce electric currents. such x-ray detectors are disclosed, for example, in u.s. pat. nos. 2,885,562; 3,598,997; 3,329,815; 4,926,052; and 5,103,100. such x-ray detectors may be used singly, or they may be combined to form arrays of detectors. in some applications, it is desirable to polarize the x-rays that impinge on the x-ray detector. one such application is described, for example, in u.s. pat. no. 4,227,082, where a separate polarizer element is mounted in front of the x-ray detector. this approach can become awkward and expensive in some applications where polarized x-rays are required. for example, when an array of x-ray detectors are employed the use of separate polarizer elements is complex. or, when the polarizer is to be rotated to observe the polarization characteristics of an x-ray source, the resulting structure is awkward and expensive. summary of the invention the present invention relates to a solid state x-ray detector in which a polarizer is integrally formed as part of the x-ray detector. more particularly, the present invention includes a solid state x-ray detector which presents a substantially flat surface for receiving x-rays to be detected; a multilayer polarizing structure formed on the flat surface and including alternating layers of a material having a relatively high index of refraction and a material having a relatively low index of refraction; and means for mounting the solid state x-ray detector such that the x-rays strike the flat surface at an angle such, that the multilayer polarizing structure reflects substantially more x-rays having a first polarization than x-rays having a second, orthogonal polarization. a general object of the invention is to provide a solid state x-ray detector which is sensitive to x-ray polarization. the multilayer polarizing structure is comprised of alternating layers of materials which are deposited on the surface of the x-ray detector using well known methods such as sputter deposition. these layers are very thin and become an integral part of the x-ray detector. the direction of polarization is determined by the angle and orientation at which the resulting structure is positioned with respect to the impinging x-rays. another object of the invention is to provide a polarized x-ray detector which is inexpensive to make and convenient to use. the multilayer polarizing structure is formed as additional steps during the manufacture of the solid state x-ray detector. these additional steps of depositing the alternating layers may use the same technology employed to form the x-ray detector itself. no additional mechanical support is needed for the polarizing structure, thus reducing its cost and making it very easy to revolve the detector or to build arrays of polarized x-ray detectors. the foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear from the following description. in the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which there is shown by way of illustration a preferred embodiment of the invention. such embodiment does not necessarily represent the full scope of the invention, however, and reference is made therefore to the claims herein for interpreting the scope of the invention. brief description of the drawings fig. 1 is a view in cross section of an x-ray detector diode which employs the polarization structure of the present invention; fig. 2 is a pictoral view of the x-ray detector diode of fig. 1 illustrating its orientation; and fig. 3 is a pictoral view of an array of x-ray detector diodes of fig. 1. description of the preferred embodiment referring particularly to fig. 1, the semiconductive x-ray detector device includes a semiconductor substrate 10 of the p-conductivity type having a front surface 11 and a back surface 12. an n-conductivity type semiconductor region 13 is formed in the front surface of the substrate 10 to form a pn junction 14 between the semiconductor regions 10 and 13. the edge 15 of this pn junction 14 forms a circle on the substantially flat front surface 11. when x-rays impinge on the surface 11, electrons and holes are produced in pairs at the junction 14 and a current flows in a circuit (not shown) which includes the diode. the amount of current flow is a direct measure of the incident x-ray flux density. there are numerous semiconductor x-ray detector diodes known to the art and the present invention may be applied to any of them. as will now be described, the polarization structure is formed on the front surface 11 using the same methods and equipment employed to manufacture the diode itself. an x-ray diode such as that described in by l. r. canfield, j. kerner and r. korde, in applied optics, 28, 3940 (1989) and r. korde, l. r. canfield and b. wallis in spie, 932, 153-160 (1988) are typical of the devices to which the present invention may be applied. referring still to fig. 1, the polarizing structure is comprised of alternating layers 20 and 21 of materials which have a substantially different index of refraction for the impinging x-rays. each such bilayer 22 is approximately 90 angstroms thick and is formed by deposition of a twenty angstrom absorbing layer 21 of rhodium and a seventy angstrow spacing layer 20 of silicon. in the preferred embodiment, twenty of these bilayers 22 are deposited on the front surface 11 of the x-ray detector diode using a sputter deposition process. the resulting x-ray detector 24 presents a substantially flat front surface 25 that is parallel to the front surface 11 of the x-ray detector diode. when the structure is oriented such that x-rays impinge at an angle .theta. with respect to the front surface 25, the bilayers 22 reflect or absorb 90% of the x-rays polarized in the plane of the front surface 25 (s) while they absorb 60% of the x-rays polarized in the orthogonal direction (p). for 100 kev x-rays, the polarization structure thus provides a factor of four difference in the sensitivity of the x-ray detector diode to the (s) (p) polarization. in other words, 40% of the (p) polarized x-rays are detected while only 10% of the (s) polarized x-rays are detected. the materials selected for the bilayers 22 as well as the number of bilayers used will depend on a number of factors, including the energy of the x-rays and their strength. the degree of polarization depends on both the selection of materials and the number of bilayers used. the more bilayers used, the greater the polarization sensitivity. but, a larger number of bilayers also reduces the x-ray flux reaching the detector diode, and as a result, an increased number of bilayers 22 reduces the signal-to-noise ratio of the x-ray detector 24. materials suitable for the absorbing layer 21 are listed in table a and those suitable for the spacing layer 20 are listed in table b. polarized sensitivity is maximized when the angle .theta. is set to satisfy the bragg condition .eta..lambda.=2d sin.theta. where: .lambda.=x-rays wavelength; d=bilayer thickness; .theta.=angle of incidence; and .eta.=a whole number. table a ______________________________________ rhodium tungsten molybdenum cobalt platinum ______________________________________ table b ______________________________________ silicon carbon boron beryllium ______________________________________ while the bilayers 22 are deposited by sputtering in the preferred embodiment, other methods may be used. for example, evaporation deposition, molecular beam epitaxy or chemical vapor deposition may be used, and will depend primarily on the manufacturing equipment and expertise available. referring particularly to fig. 2, the polarized x-ray detector 24 is an integral unit which may be used in a number of applications. in one application, a single polarized x-ray detector 24 is mounted to a base 30 which rotates about an axis 31. the front surface 25 is disposed at an angle 0 with respect to the rotary axis 31 which satisfies the bragg condition in accordance with the above formula. as a result, when the rotary axis 31 is aligned with the impinging x-rays 33, the signal produced by the polarized x-ray detector 24 will vary in magnitude as a function of x-ray polarization as it is rotated about the axis 31. in other words, during one revolution about the axis 31 the polarized x-ray detector 24 will produce a signal which indicates by its strength how the impinging x-rays 33 are polarized. in another application shown in fig. 3, an array 40 of nine polarized x-ray detectors 24 are employed to measure the polarization of x-rays impinging orthogonal to the front surface 25 of a central reference detector 24a. the front surfaces 25 of the remaining eight detectors 24 are tilted at the bragg angle .theta. in the directions indicated by the arrows to measure the impinging x-rays at eight different polarizing angles. the signals produced by the nine x-ray detectors 24 provide an accurate indication of x-ray flux density and the degree to which the x-rays are polarized. it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that other applications are easily implemented with the integral polarized x-ray detector 24. additional detectors 24 optimized for other wavelengths and x-ray energy levels may be added to the array 40 or additional detectors 24 optimized for other wavelengths and x-ray energy levels may be mounted as in fig. 2 for rotation about axis 31.
198-519-564-899-202	US	[ "US", "KR", "BR", "AU" ]	G03F7/20,G21K1/00,G21K1/06	1990-10-31T00:00:00	1990	[ "G03", "G21" ]	use of a kumakhov lens for x-ray lithography	an x-ray lithography device which utilizes a kumakhov lens is disclosed. this device is capable of using both small area sources and synchrotron sources. this device provides improved x-ray control, precision and accuracy. also provided is a method of x-ray lithograph which incorporates a kumakhov lens.	1. an x-ray lithographic system comprising a kumakhov lens. 2. a system of claim 1, wherein the kumakhov lens is located between an x-ray source and a mask. 3. a system of claim 2, wherein the x-ray source is a point source. 4. a system of claim 2, wherein the x-ray source is a non-point source. 5. a system of claim 4, wherein the x-ray source is a synchrotron providing a horizontally divergent beam. 6. a system of claim 3, wherein the kumakhov lens captures a divergent beam produced by the x-ray source and focuses it into a quasi-parallel beam. 7. a system of claim 3, wherein the kumakhov lens has channeling elements of compound curvature which capture a divergent beam produced by the x-ray source and focus it into a quasi-parallel beam of higher intensity. 8. a system of claim 1, wherein the kumakhov lens comprises a plurality of bent tubes. 9. a system of claim 8, wherein at least one bent tube is a bundle of capillaries. 10. a system of claim 2, where the lens to mask distance is sufficient to homogenize any difference in beam intensity caused by the discrete pattern of the tubes and capillaries. 11. a system of claim 2, wherein the x-ray source produces a beam and a filter is used to control the beam intensity across the beam cross-section. 12. a system of claim 5, wherein the kumakhov lens collects the horizontally divergent beam and focuses it into a quasi-parallel beam. 13. a system of claim 1, wherein the kumakhov lens performs energy band selection. 14. a system of claim 13, wherein the energy band selection is accomplished by selective absorption. 15. a system of claim 13, wherein the energy band selection is accomplished by selective transmission. 16. a system of claim 2, wherein the kumakhov lens modifies the cross-section of a beam produced by the x-ray source. 17. a system of claim 2, wherein the kumakhov lens changes the direction of a beam produced by the x-ray source. 18. a system of claim 2, wherein the kumakhov lens splits a beam produced by the x-ray source. 19. a system of claim 1, where the kumakhov lens is located between a mask and a resist. 20. a system of claim 19, wherein the kumakhov lens reduces the cross-section of a beam. 21. a system of claim 19 further comprising a point source, a kumakhov lens capable of capturing a divergent beam emitted by the point source, means for holding the mask, and a kumakhov lens capable of reducing beam cross-section. 22. a system of claim 19, wherein the mask is incorporated into a kumakhov lens in the system. 23. a method for x-ray lithography, which comprises: providing a source of radiation; focusing the radiation from the source through a kumakhov lens; and passing the focused radiation through a mask. 24. a method of claim 23 further comprising passing the radiation exiting the mask through a filter and through a second kumakhov lens to narrow the beam, then contacting the radiation with a resist. 25. a method for x-ray lithography, which comprises: providing a source of radiation; focusing the radiation from the source through a kumakhov lens to form a quasi-parallel beam; focusing the quasi-parallel beam through a second kumakhov lens to form a beam having an energy within a preselected band; and passing the beam through a mask. 26. a method of claim 25 further comprising focusing the beam having an energy that is within a preselected band through a third kumakhov lens to produce a beam having preselected shape prior to passing the beam through a mask.	background of the invention x-ray lithography utilizes a variety of sources including x-rays emitted from a small area (point-sources) and synchrotron generated x-rays to generate an image. unfortunately, x-ray lithographic systems have been limited by the inability to adequately manipulate the x-ray beam. x-ray optics incur several difficulties not encountered in the visible or infra-red (ir range). refraction in passing through media of a different refractive index cannot be used because of the strong absorption of photons with sufficient energy to excited or ionize electronic levels inside the media. diffraction and interference phenomena can be used to deflect x-rays using bragg scattering in single crystals, in multi-layer mirrors or by using zone and phase plates. although these approaches are useful in many applications, they are very energy (wave length) selective and cannot be used to control x-ray beams having a broad energy spectrum. the use of reflection has also been limited because surfaces of all known materials have very low reflection coefficients for x-radiation at large angles of incidence. grazing-incidence optics have been developed based on the phenomenon of total external reflection of x-rays. this is widely used in synchrotron radiation facilities where flat mirrors are used for deflection and curved mirrors are used for focusing parallel beams. these mirrors typically use a single reflection. such devices have an extremely small angular aperture due to the small value of the total-external-reflection angle (milliradians at kev energies). point-source x-ray lithography using existing equipment is limited by the following: intensity. the sources currently in development lack the intensity to achieve an exposure time which approaches production requirements. modifications attempted to increase intensity are not only expensive, but by pushing the sources harder potentially decrease reliability, reduce source life and increase debris generation at the source which can damage the mask. radial magnification. because the beam from the source to the mask is divergent there is increasing distortion as the edge of the field is reached. distortion may be reduced by adjusting the feature size and shape in the mask. unfortunately, as gap tolerance becomes more critical, mask and wafer flatness requirements increase, alignment becomes increasingly difficult, field size is limited, and the same masks cannot be used on a synchrotron. penumbral blur. the sources have a size large enough that illumination of the mask by different points of the x-ray generating area produce a blurring of the features projected on to the wafer. this lack of definition in the edge of the images projected limits the achievable minimum feature size. source position instability. to the extent that x-ray spots are not be in the exact same position each pulse, feature patterns projected on the resist have decreased definition. synchrotron-source x-ray lithography is not intensity limited and has a beam which does not show significant divergence of any significance in the vertical direction. the beam, however, is very flat, normally 0.5-2.0 mm thick, is horizontal, and has a divergence in the horizontal plane which can be 6 degrees or larger. because the beam is flat and the area to be exposed can be multiples of a cm square, either the wafer and mask must be moved to get a scan or a mirror in the beam line must be rotated to cause the beam to scan across the desired area. horizontal beams require that the masks and wafer be vertical rather than horizontal as is more commonly used with optical steppers. the horizontal beam divergence causes the majority of the beam to be wasted with only a small portion of the beam reaching the mask and wafer at the end of the long beam lines. the subject invention provides a solution to the long felt need in the art for an improved system of x-ray lithography. the subject invention provide the benefits of improved x-ray control, precision and accuracy. summary of the invention the subject invention provides an x-ray lithographic system comprising a kumakhov lens. an x-ray source is required and the kumakhov lens is typically located between x-ray source and a mask. the x-ray source may be a point source or a non-point source, such as a synchrotron. a kumakhov lens may also be located between a mask and a resist. the subject invention also teaches a method for x-ray lithography, which comprises: providing a source of radiation; focusing the radiation from the source through a kumakhov lens; and passing the focused radiation through a mask. this method may also add a kumakhov lens to form a quasi-parallel beam and a second kumakhov lens to focus the beam into a preselected band of energies. brief description of the figures fig. 1: a schematic representation of a system showing a source, a kumakhov lens and a mask. x-rays generated at the source transverse the kumakhov lens, and proceed to the mask. fig. 2: a schematic representation of a system showing a source, a kumakhov lens and a mask. x-rays generated at the source transverse the kumakhov lens, and proceed to the mask. the beam exiting the kumakhov lens is narrower than in fig. 1. fig. 3a: a schematic representation of a system having a source, a kumakhov lens, a mask and a wafer. g=mask/wafer gap .theta.=lens capture angle (sr) .delta.=radial magnification fig. 3b: shows a schematic representation of the x-rays traversing the mask and hitting the wafer. .theta.=maximum beam divergence from axis .rho.=penumbral blur fig. 4: a representation of the magnified beam cross-section taken at a position to the butt end of the lens. fig. 5a: a schematic representation of a system which uses a divergent beam synchrotron, a kumakhov lens for focusing the beam to quasi-parallel, a kumakhov lens for energy band reflection and kumakhov lens for beam shaping. fig. 5b: a representation of the beam cross-section taken along planes a--a and b--b. fig. 6a: a representation of synchrotron radiation coming off a synchrotron ring. fig. 6b: represents the transformation of synchrotron radiation into a large cross-section with small divergence and filtration of higher energy photons. fig. 7: a schematic representation of projected lithography including an x-ray source, a first kumakhov lens, mask filter, a second kumakhov lens and a resist. fig. 8: a representation of the second kumakhov lens for projection lithography. detailed description of the invention the subject invention overcomes the traditional difficulties in controlling x-rays by using multiple small-angle (i.e., less than the critical angle) reflections to direct radiation. by using specially shaped surfaces, including hollow capillaries, multiple reflection has been demonstrated to control x-ray beams over wide frequency and angular ranges. most kumakhov lenses to date have been made of large numbers of curved hollow capillaries. using a kumakhov lens between the x-ray source and the mask-wafer combination provides control over beam shape, intensity, direction, and energy distribution. the subject system includes a kumakhov lens which controls x-ray beams by multiple reflections along very smooth boundaries of condensed media which have special shapes which ensure that a sufficient portion of the beam never makes a reflection at an angle larger than the critical angle of total external reflection. use of windows and choice of vacuum or gaseous medium for the system or portions of the system is consistent with this invention. point source x-ray lithography for point-source x-ray lithography, the kumakhov lens selected is one capable of capturing a divergent beam and focusing that x-ray beam into a quasi-parallel beam oriented at the mask. figs. 1 and 2 represent examples of the invention. fig. 2 is the preferred embodiment for most applications because it delivers a higher intensity beam. the lens may be constructed using any multi-layer structure where the x-rays reflect at angles less than the critical angle, but the recommended embodiment is to use bent tubes such as capillaries or bundles of capillaries. capillaries may vary in a inner diameter and may have submicron exit diameters. the cross-section of the lens can vary, but will normally be the shape of the area to be exposed on the mask and wafer with the exit end of the lens sized a little larger than the area to be exposed. the tube sections of the kumakhov lens may be extended different distances on the butt end of the lens to control the intensity across the beam section. in another embodiment, the tubes may be non-uniformly spaced to control beam intensity or may be flared. the system can be designed so the lens redirects the beam along a different axis, but this is not usually desirable since it causes a decrease in beam intensity and alternative beam orientation can be achieved by a design which places the source and lens in another location. by use of the subject system (see fig. 3) several benefits are obtained: (1) increased intensity without pushing sources to their limit. because the source output is collected over the solid angle .phi., more of the source power is transmitted to the wafer. and because the lens output is close to parallel, the distance to the mask is not as critical because the beam intensity does not drop off with the square of the distance. (2) elimination of radial magnification because the beam is uniform in direction and divergence across its cross section. this reduces sensitivity to gap control between mask and wafer; reduces sensitivity to mask and wafer flatness; and avoids need to compensate for run-out when constructing the mask. (3) increased field size. the field size is not limited by radial magnification or parallax and can be controlled by the design of the lens to meet the requirements. lenses with 7 cm.times.7 cm beams or greater are producible. (4) decreased penumbral blur. .rho.=2 sin .theta., independent of s, l.sub.1, l.sub.2, and l.sub.3. the penumbral blur can be further decreased by using lens channels such as capillaries which are flared at the end, thereby reducing .theta.. decreased penumbral blur. .rho.=2sin .phi., independent of s, l.sub.1, l.sub.2, and l.sub.3. the penumbral blur can be further decreased by using lens channels such as capillaries which are flared at the end, thereby reducing .phi.. (5) decreased sensitivity to source position instability. because the lens accepts x-rays from the same image focal area and focuses x-rays in the same direction, even if the source position were to shift and effect the intensity delivered to the mask, the geometric relationship between beam direction, mask and wafer would not be affected. (6) separation of source from mask. not only does the production of a quasi-parallel beam by a kumakhov lens allow the sample and source to be separated by a large distance, it also physically separates the source and sample so that line of sight transmission of material evaporated or sputtered from the source does not get onto the mask or sample. this is particularly serious for electron beam and laser sources and can also be a problem with plasma sources. even a small amount of contaminant on a sample can be disastrous and on a thin mask can seriously degrade the performance and shorten the useful lifetime of the mask. (7) selected band width. a kumakhov lens can filter out undesirable photon energies. filtering out higher energy photons is normally very difficult. but by using the kumakhov lens energy photons can be filtered out and by using a reflection angle which exceeds the fresnel angle (critical angle of total external reflection) of the high energy photons. this selective filtering is possible as the fresnel angle decreases as photon energy increases. because there are discrete channels in the lens, the intensity of x-rays exiting the lens have some variations across the cross-section as shown in fig. 4 for a lens composed of circular capillary channels. this may be corrected by positioning the lens sufficiently far from the mask for the small angular beam divergence from each channel to homogenize the intensity across the lens cross section. alternatively, the lens may be rotated. these methods of achieving microhomogeneity with kumakhov lenses are discussed more completely in the parent patent application. because portions of the x-ray beam exiting the lens farthest from the center axis of the lens are typically at lower intensity due to the lens geometries, modifications to the lens such as selectively lengthening channels, or using of a filter, can be made to avoid a drop in intensity in the beam at increasing distance from the center axis of the beam. synchrotron-source x-ray lithography the synchrotron-source designed x-ray lithography system uses a kumakhov lenses or lens to capture a divergent beam and focus it into a quasi-parallel beam, or reshape the beam to expose a more two dimensional area without needing to scan, redirect the beam to another orientation, split the beam into multiple orientations, select a portion of the energy band, or combinations of these by using complex lenses or combinations of lenses (fig. 5). (1) tailoring beam shape and increasing of beam efficiency. the photon beam from a synchrotron is a fan shaped beam, typically about 6 degrees in angular width in the horizontal direction and about 1 mm in height in the vertical direction. the sample to be irradiated is typically 2.times.2 cm currently, but could increase to 4.times.4 cm with improvements in mask design. by using a kumakhov lens, beam shape can be changed from the fan to a quasi-parallel beam of appropriate size and shape for the sample. this avoids the necessity to sweep the beam or move the sample in order to cover the sample area. it also allows the entire sample to be irradiated simultaneously and not sequentially. under current design, the beam line for x-ray lithography using low energy x-rays must be at least 10 meters in length to provide sufficient distance to allow fast acting valves to close and to isolate the electron storage ring ultra high vacuum from vacuum accidents at the sample. this means that only a small percentage of the fan is incident on the sample. with a kumakhov lens, more than 25 percent of the fan can be incident on the sample at any one time, taking into account transmission losses in the lens. (2) changing beam direction. since the beam from a synchrotron is in the shape of a thin horizontal fan, it is necessary for the sample-mask combination to be vertical so that it is perpendicular to the beam. in many optical lithography processing lines it is standard for wafers to proceed through the processing line horizontally, where the mask alignment and stepping has been designed for horizontal operation. transformation to vertical positioning is non-trivial because of the thin masks and precise positioning needed for x-ray lithography. it is possible by using a kumakhov lens to convert the x-ray beam from a horizontal to a vertical direction. there will undoubtedly be absorption losses involved but the total transmission efficiency is expected to be greater than 10%. (3) switching of synchrotron beam. the use of kumakhov lenses to control direction and deflection of x-ray beams allows beams to be directed more flexibly into different lines or different positions on the same line. concern has been expressed about the dependence of synchrotron based x-ray lithography on reliability of the accelerator and storage ring. to avoid unscheduled interruptions, it may be necessary to have two storage rings in operation simultaneously, then if one goes down the other can still deliver x-rays. the problem is how to serve the same lithography station from either or both of two storage rings. the kumakhov lens can be used for such switching operations. (4) selecting energy band. because the energy desired for any particular x-ray lithography process is much narrower than the very broad energy spectrum from a synchrotron, incorporating a kumakhov lens to control the energies transmitted is beneficial. the control can be exercised through selective absorption by choice of the lens materials and selective transmission by selective of the lens design parameters. filtering out higher energy photons is normally very difficult. but by using kumakhov lens described in the parent application, higher energy photons can be filtered out by using a reflection angle which exceeds the fresnel angle (critical angle of total external reflection) of the high energy photons. this selective filtering is possible as the fresnel angle decreases as the photon energy increases. this results in very effective filtration. for example, if energies higher than 1 kev are not desired, it is possible by this method to filter out about 96% of 2 kev photons while only reducing 1 kev intensity by about 15% to 20%. the considerations which apply to synchrotron-source based x-ray lithography would also be applicable if non-point-source x-ray lithography sources become available. projection x-ray lithography projection x-ray lithography refers to x-ray lithography where there is a demagnification between the mask and the image on the resist. this enables the features on the mask to be larger than the features of the device created from the image. known projection x-ray lithography efforts are in the research stage with no devices demonstrating feasibility for commercial use. much current effort focuses on devices which would use multiple reflections from multi-layer curved mirrors. this method would use electromagnetic radiation in the vacuum ultra violet or very low energy x-ray spectra. the primary problem is the extreme difficulty of making curved mirrors of the multi-layer materials with the requisite smoothness. the subject invention for projection x-ray lithography is based on capillary optics. fig. 7 shows an embodiment using an isotropic source. after the source there is a kumakhov lens, which transforms divergent radiation into a quasi-parallel beam; this beam falls on a pattern or mask, passes through a filter, a second kumakhov lens, and then falls on the resist. the filter is not required, but enhances performance by making the beam striking the resist uniform across its cross-section. without correction, the beam would be weaker further from the central axis because capillaries there are bent over a larger angle, leading to higher beam losses. such a filter could be placed either between the first lens and the mask or between the mask and the second kumakhov lens as shown in fig. 7. other methods of achieving beam uniformity may also be utilized. fig. 8 shows a kumakhov lens between the mask and resist the capillaries decrease in diameter. the preferred embodiment is for the inner diameter of the capillaries to decrease from d.sub.0 to d.sub.1. it is also possible to have some or all of the reduction in total cross-section be from a reduction in the wall thickness between capillaries. however, it is very difficult to construct such a lens where the wall thicknesses decrease more rapidly than the inner diameters. theoretically, it is possible to have capillaries of constant diameter which are positioned spaced apart at the entrance end and close packed at the exit end of the lens. to use this device for submicron lithography, it is necessary that d.sub.1 be a fraction of the feature size desired. the minimum value of d.sub.1 cannot be less than c/wp where c is the speed of light and wp is the plasma frequency of the capillary's material. the value of c/wp is approximately 100 .ang.. if d.sub.1 is too small the diffractive divergence becomes too large. for example, if the situation was x-rays at e=1 kev and .lambda. (wavelength)=12 .ang., d.sub.1 =120 .ang. then the diffractive divergence, .theta. would be about 10.sup.-2 rad, (.theta.=.lambda./d.sub.1). it is not necessary that the capillaries have a circular cross-section. the resist should be placed at a distance from the kumakhov lens, which is equal to or greater than l=d/.theta. where d is the thickness of the capillary walls and .theta. is the divergence of the beam leaving the kumakhov lens. this condition is necessary for mixing beams from neighboring capillaries. at the same time l should not be so great as to prevent mixing of beams from capillaries which are located far from each other. such a device can also be used with a synchrotron as a source. in some cases when using a synchrotron source it may be possible to not use a kumakhov lens before the mask. however, the preferred embodiment is where there is a kumakhov lens between the synchrotron source and mask. as mentioned elsewhere in this patent, this lens can be used for reshaping the cross-section of the beam, redirecting the beam, controlling divergence, and controlling the energy band width. another embodiment is where the mask or pattern in fig. 7 is not a separate element by is incorporated into the end of the kumakhov lens or into the kumakhov lens. upon reading the above specification, variations and alternative embodiments will become obvious to one skilled in the art and are to be considered within the scope and spirit of the subject invention. the subject invention is only to be limited by the claims which follow and their equivalents.
198-570-273-286-899	US	[ "JP", "EP", "WO", "CN", "US", "BR" ]	A61B17/072,B25J19/00,A61B17/068,A61B17/11,A61B17/16,A61B18/14,A61B90/00	2017-06-20T00:00:00	2017	[ "A61", "B25" ]	systems and methods for controlling displacement member velocity for a surgical instrument	a motorized surgical instrument is disclosed. the surgical instrument includes a displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at an end effector, a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position, and a control circuit coupled to the motor. the control circuit is configured to receive a signal indicative of force from a sensor, the signal indicative of the force applied by a closure tube to the end effector, determine a closure force applied by the closure tube to the end effector; determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of an expected closure force, and set a motor velocity to drive the motor at a velocity that corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected force.	a surgical instrument comprising: a displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at an end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: receive a signal indicative of force from a sensor, the signal indicative of the force applied by a closure tube to the end effector; determine a closure force applied by the closure tube to the end effector; determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of an expected closure force; and set a motor velocity to drive the motor at a velocity that corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected force. the surgical instrument of claim 1, further comprising a sensor coupled to the control circuit, the sensor configured to detect a force exerted at an interaction point between the end effector and the closure tube. the surgical instrument of claim 2, wherein the closure force comprises the force exerted at the interaction point between the end effector and the closure tube. the surgical instrument of any preceding claim, wherein the control circuit is configured to retrieve the expected closure force from a memory. the surgical instrument of any preceding claim, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. the surgical instrument of any preceding claim, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. the surgical instrument of any preceding claim, further comprising: an end effector; and a closure tube coupled to the end effector, the closure tube configured to apply a closure force to the end effector. a surgical instrument comprising: a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position; a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: determine the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieve an expected closure force; determine whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and set the motor to drive the displacement member at a velocity, wherein the velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force. the surgical instrument of claim 8, further comprising a sensor coupled to the control circuit, the sensor configured to detect the closure force. the surgical instrument of claim 9, wherein the sensor is disposed at an interaction point between the closure system and the end effector. the surgical instrument of any of claims 8-10, wherein the control circuit is configured to retrieve the expected closure force from a memory. the surgical instrument of any of claims 8-11, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the comparing. the surgical instrument of any of claims 8-12, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. the surgical instrument of any of claims 8-13, further comprising: an end effector; and a closure tube coupled to the end effector, the closure tube configured to apply a closure force to the end effector. a method of controlling a motor in a surgical instrument, the surgical instrument comprising a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position, a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector, a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the method comprising: determining the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieving an expected closure force; determining whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and setting a motor velocity for driving the motor, wherein the motor velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force.	technical field the present disclosure relates to surgical instruments and, in various circumstances, to surgical stapling and cutting instruments and staple cartridges therefor that are designed to staple and cut tissue. background in a motorized surgical stapling and cutting instrument it may be useful to control the velocity of a cutting member or to control the articulation velocity of an end effector. velocity of a displacement member may be determined by measuring elapsed time at predetermined position intervals of the displacement member or measuring the position of the displacement member at predetermined time intervals. the control may be open loop or closed loop. such measurements may be useful to evaluate tissue conditions such as tissue thickness and adjust the velocity of the cutting member during a firing stroke to account for the tissue conditions. tissue thickness may be determined by comparing expected velocity of the cutting member to the actual velocity of the cutting member. in some situations, it may be useful to articulate the end effector at a constant articulation velocity. in other situations, it may be useful to drive the end effector at a different articulation velocity than a default articulation velocity at one or more regions within a sweep range of the end effector. during use of a motorized surgical stapling and cutting instrument it is possible that the force to close the closure member and the rate of change of closure force experienced by the end effector may vary and the firing velocity may not be suitable. therefore, it may be desirable to control the firing velocity of the cutting member or the firing member based on the closure force experienced by the end effector. it also may be desirable to measure the load experienced by the closure member and control the velocity or rate of the cutting member or the firing member based on decreasing load on the closure member. summary in one aspect, a surgical instrument is provide. the surgical instrument comprising: a displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at an end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: receive a signal indicative of force from a sensor, the signal indicative of the force applied by a closure tube to the end effector; determine a closure force applied by the closure tube to the end effector; determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of an expected closure force; and set a motor velocity to drive the motor at a velocity that corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected force. in another aspect, the surgical instrument comprises a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position; a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: determine the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieve an expected closure force; determine whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and set the motor to drive the displacement member at a velocity, wherein the velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force. in another aspect, a method of controlling a motor in a surgical instrument is provided. the surgical instrument comprising a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position, a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector, a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the method comprising: determining the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieving an expected closure force; determining whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and setting a motor velocity for driving the motor, wherein the motor velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force. the method may further comprising retrieving, by the control circuit, the expected closure force from the memory. the method may also further comprising sensing, by a sensor coupled to the control circuit, a force exerted by the closure system at an interaction point with the end effector. the method may also further comprising determining, by the control circuit, the closure force exerted by the closure system. the method may also further comprising comparing, by the control circuit, a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and determining, by the control circuit, whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. the method may also further comprising comparing, by the control circuit, a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected force and determining, by the control circuit, whether closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. the present invention advantageously enables control of the velocity of the displacement member based on the closure force experienced by the end effector. for example, if the closure force exceeds an expected closure force, this indicates that the displacement member force is less than an expected displacement member force and the control circuit of the surgical instrument can compensate by increasing the velocity at which the displacement member is translated. alternatively, if the closure force is less than an expected closure force, this indicates that the displacement member force is greater than an expected displacement member force and the control circuit of the surgical instrument can compensate by decreasing the velocity at which the displacement member is translated. figures the novel features of the aspects described herein are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. these aspects, however, both as to organization and methods of operation may be better understood by reference to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. fig. 1 is a perspective view of a surgical instrument that has an interchangeable shaft assembly operably coupled thereto according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 2 is an exploded assembly view of a portion of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 3 is an exploded assembly view of portions of the interchangeable shaft assembly according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 4 is an exploded view of an end effector of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. figs. 5a-5b is a block diagram of a control circuit of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 spanning two drawing sheets according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 6 is a block diagram of the control circuit of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 illustrating interfaces between the handle assembly, the power assembly, and the handle assembly and the interchangeable shaft assembly according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 7 illustrates a control circuit configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 8 illustrates a combinational logic circuit configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 9 illustrates a sequential logic circuit configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 10 is a diagram of an absolute positioning system of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 where the absolute positioning system comprises a controlled motor drive circuit arrangement comprising a sensor arrangement according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 11 is an exploded perspective view of the sensor arrangement for an absolute positioning system showing a control circuit board assembly and the relative alignment of the elements of the sensor arrangement according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 12 is a diagram of a position sensor comprising a magnetic rotary absolute positioning system according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 13 is a section view of an end effector of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 showing a firing member stroke relative to tissue grasped within the end effector according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 14 illustrates a block diagram of a surgical instrument programmed to control distal translation of a displacement member according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 15 illustrates a diagram plotting two example displacement member strokes executed according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 16 illustrates a cross-sectional view of an end effector of a surgical instrument according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 17 is a sectional view of an anvil and closure tube sensor arrangement, wherein the anvil is in an open position according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 17a is a detail view of a distal end of a closure tube including a sensor arrangement according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 18 is a sectional view of an anvil and closure tube sensor arrangement, wherein the anvil is in a closed position according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 19 is a sectional view of an anvil and closure tube sensor arrangement, wherein the anvil is in an open position according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 20 is a sectional view of an anvil and closure tube sensor arrangement, wherein the anvil is in a closed position according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 21 is a diagram plotting expected versus actual closure tube force, displacement member force, and motor velocity over the course of a clamping and firing operation of the surgical instrument according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 22 is a detail view of the transition period of the diagram plotting closure tube force over the course of a clamping and firing operation of the surgical instrument depicted in fig. 21 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 23 is a detail is a detail view of a time interval of the transition period of the diagram plotting closure tube force over the course of a clamping and firing operation of the surgical instrument depicted in fig. 21 according to one aspect of this disclosure. [0032] fig. 24 is a detail is a detail view of a time interval of the transition period of the diagram plotting closure tube force over the course of a clamping and firing operation of the surgical instrument in fig. 21 according to one aspect of this disclosure. fig. 25 is a logic flow diagram of a process depicting a control program or a logic configuration for controlling the velocity of the displacement member according to the closure tube force according to one aspect of this disclosure. description certain aspects are shown and described to provide an understanding of the structure, function, manufacture, and use of the disclosed devices and methods. features shown or described in one example may be combined with features of other examples and modifications and variations are within the scope of this disclosure. the terms "proximal" and "distal" are relative to a clinician manipulating the handle of the surgical instrument where "proximal" refers to the portion closer to the clinician and "distal" refers to the portion located further from the clinician. for expediency, spatial terms "vertical," "horizontal," "up," and "down" used with respect to the drawings are not intended to be limiting and/or absolute, because surgical instruments can used in many orientations and positions. example devices and methods are provided for performing laparoscopic and minimally invasive surgical procedures. such devices and methods, however, can be used in other surgical procedures and applications including open surgical procedures, for example. the surgical instruments can be inserted into a through a natural orifice or through an incision or puncture hole formed in tissue. the working portions or end effector portions of the instruments can be inserted directly into the body or through an access device that has a working channel through which the end effector and elongated shaft of the surgical instrument can be advanced. figs. 1-4 depict a motor-driven surgical instrument 10 for cutting and fastening that may or may not be reused. in the illustrated examples, the surgical instrument 10 includes a housing 12 that comprises a handle assembly 14 that is configured to be grasped, manipulated, and actuated by the clinician. the housing 12 is configured for operable attachment to an interchangeable shaft assembly 200 that has an end effector 300 operably coupled thereto that is configured to perform one or more surgical tasks or procedures. in accordance with the present disclosure, various forms of interchangeable shaft assemblies may be effectively employed in connection with robotically controlled surgical systems. the term "housing" may encompass a housing or similar portion of a robotic system that houses or otherwise operably supports at least one drive system configured to generate and apply at least one control motion that could be used to actuate interchangeable shaft assemblies. the term "frame" may refer to a portion of a handheld surgical instrument. the term "frame" also may represent a portion of a robotically controlled surgical instrument and/or a portion of the robotic system that may be used to operably control a surgical instrument. interchangeable shaft assemblies may be employed with various robotic systems, instruments, components, and methods disclosed in u.s. patent no. 9,072,535 , entitled surgical stapling instruments with rotatable staple deployment arrangements, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. fig. 1 is a perspective view of a surgical instrument 10 that has an interchangeable shaft assembly 200 operably coupled thereto according to one aspect of this disclosure. the housing 12 includes an end effector 300 that comprises a surgical cutting and fastening device configured to operably support a surgical staple cartridge 304 therein. the housing 12 may be configured for use in connection with interchangeable shaft assemblies that include end effectors that are adapted to support different sizes and types of staple cartridges, have different shaft lengths, sizes, and types. the housing 12 may be employed with a variety of interchangeable shaft assemblies, including assemblies configured to apply other motions and forms of energy such as, radio frequency (rf) energy, ultrasonic energy, and/or motion to end effector arrangements adapted for use in connection with various surgical applications and procedures. the end effectors, shaft assemblies, handles, surgical instruments, and/or surgical instrument systems can utilize any suitable fastener, or fasteners, to fasten tissue. for instance, a fastener cartridge comprising a plurality of fasteners removably stored therein can be removably inserted into and/or attached to the end effector of a shaft assembly. the handle assembly 14 may comprise a pair of interconnectable handle housing segments 16, 18 interconnected by screws, snap features, adhesive, etc. the handle housing segments 16, 18 cooperate to form a pistol grip portion 19 that can be gripped and manipulated by the clinician. the handle assembly 14 operably supports a plurality of drive systems configured to generate and apply control motions to corresponding portions of the interchangeable shaft assembly that is operably attached thereto. a display may be provided below a cover 45. fig. 2 is an exploded assembly view of a portion of the surgical instrument 10 of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the handle assembly 14 may include a frame 20 that operably supports a plurality of drive systems. the frame 20 can operably support a "first" or closure drive system 30, which can apply closing and opening motions to the interchangeable shaft assembly 200. the closure drive system 30 may include an actuator such as a closure trigger 32 pivotally supported by the frame 20. the closure trigger 32 is pivotally coupled to the handle assembly 14 by a pivot pin 33 to enable the closure trigger 32 to be manipulated by a clinician. when the clinician grips the pistol grip portion 19 of the handle assembly 14, the closure trigger 32 can pivot from a starting or "unactuated" position to an "actuated" position and more particularly to a fully compressed or fully actuated position. the handle assembly 14 and the frame 20 may operably support a firing drive system 80 configured to apply firing motions to corresponding portions of the interchangeable shaft assembly attached thereto. the firing drive system 80 may employ an electric motor 82 located in the pistol grip portion 19 of the handle assembly 14. the electric motor 82 may be a dc brushed motor having a maximum rotational speed of approximately 25,000 rpm, for example. in other arrangements, the motor may include a brushless motor, a cordless motor, a synchronous motor, a stepper motor, or any other suitable electric motor. the electric motor 82 may be powered by a power source 90 that may comprise a removable power pack 92. the removable power pack 92 may comprise a proximal housing portion 94 configured to attach to a distal housing portion 96. the proximal housing portion 94 and the distal housing portion 96 are configured to operably support a plurality of batteries 98 therein. batteries 98 may each comprise, for example, a lithium ion (li) or other suitable battery. the distal housing portion 96 is configured for removable operable attachment to a control circuit board 100, which is operably coupled to the electric motor 82. several batteries 98 connected in series may power the surgical instrument 10. the power source 90 may be replaceable and/or rechargeable. a display 43, which is located below the cover 45, is electrically coupled to the control circuit board 100. the cover 45 may be removed to expose the display 43. the electric motor 82 can include a rotatable shaft (not shown) that operably interfaces with a gear reducer assembly 84 mounted in meshing engagement with a with a set, or rack, of drive teeth 122 on a longitudinally movable drive member 120. the longitudinally movable drive member 120 has a rack of drive teeth 122 formed thereon for meshing engagement with a corresponding drive gear 86 of the gear reducer assembly 84. in use, a voltage polarity provided by the power source 90 can operate the electric motor 82 in a clockwise direction wherein the voltage polarity applied to the electric motor by the battery can be reversed in order to operate the electric motor 82 in a counter-clockwise direction. when the electric motor 82 is rotated in one direction, the longitudinally movable drive member 120 will be axially driven in the distal direction "dd." when the electric motor 82 is driven in the opposite rotary direction, the longitudinally movable drive member 120 will be axially driven in a proximal direction "pd." the handle assembly 14 can include a switch that can be configured to reverse the polarity applied to the electric motor 82 by the power source 90. the handle assembly 14 may include a sensor configured to detect the position of the longitudinally movable drive member 120 and/or the direction in which the longitudinally movable drive member 120 is being moved. actuation of the electric motor 82 can be controlled by a firing trigger 130 that is pivotally supported on the handle assembly 14. the firing trigger 130 may be pivoted between an unactuated position and an actuated position. turning back to fig. 1 , the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 includes an end effector 300 comprising an elongated channel 302 configured to operably support a surgical staple cartridge 304 therein. the end effector 300 may include an anvil 306 that is pivotally supported relative to the elongated channel 302. the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 may include an articulation joint 270. construction and operation of the end effector 300 and the articulation joint 270 are set forth in u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263541 , entitled articulatable surgical instrument comprising an articulation lock, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 may include a proximal housing or nozzle 201 comprised of nozzle portions 202, 203. the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 may include a closure tube 260 extending along a shaft axis sa that can be utilized to close and/or open the anvil 306 of the end effector 300. turning back to fig. 1 , the closure tube 260 is translated distally (direction "dd") to close the anvil 306, for example, in response to the actuation of the closure trigger 32 in the manner described in the aforementioned reference u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263541 . the anvil 306 is opened by proximally translating the closure tube 260. in the anvil-open position, the closure tube 260 is moved to its proximal position. fig. 3 is another exploded assembly view of portions of the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 may include a firing member 220 supported for axial travel within the spine 210. the firing member 220 includes an intermediate firing shaft 222 configured to attach to a distal cutting portion or knife bar 280. the firing member 220 may be referred to as a "second shaft" or a "second shaft assembly". the intermediate firing shaft 222 may include a longitudinal slot 223 in a distal end configured to receive a tab 284 on the proximal end 282 of the knife bar 280. the longitudinal slot 223 and the proximal end 282 may be configured to permit relative movement there between and can comprise a slip joint 286. the slip joint 286 can permit the intermediate firing shaft 222 of the firing member 220 to articulate the end effector 300 about the articulation joint 270 without moving, or at least substantially moving, the knife bar 280. once the end effector 300 has been suitably oriented, the intermediate firing shaft 222 can be advanced distally until a proximal sidewall of the longitudinal slot 223 contacts the tab 284 to advance the knife bar 280 and fire the staple cartridge positioned within the channel 302. the spine 210 has an elongated opening or window 213 therein to facilitate assembly and insertion of the intermediate firing shaft 222 into the spine 210. once the intermediate firing shaft 222 has been inserted therein, a top frame segment 215 may be engaged with the shaft frame 212 to enclose the intermediate firing shaft 222 and knife bar 280 therein. operation of the firing member 220 may be found in u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263541 . a spine 210 can be configured to slidably support a firing member 220 and the closure tube 260 that extends around the spine 210. the spine 210 may slidably support an articulation driver 230. the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 can include a clutch assembly 400 configured to selectively and releasably couple the articulation driver 230 to the firing member 220. the clutch assembly 400 includes a lock collar, or lock sleeve 402, positioned around the firing member 220 wherein the lock sleeve 402 can be rotated between an engaged position in which the lock sleeve 402 couples the articulation driver 230 to the firing member 220 and a disengaged position in which the articulation driver 230 is not operably coupled to the firing member 220. when the lock sleeve 402 is in the engaged position, distal movement of the firing member 220 can move the articulation driver 230 distally and, correspondingly, proximal movement of the firing member 220 can move the articulation driver 230 proximally. when the lock sleeve 402 is in the disengaged position, movement of the firing member 220 is not transmitted to the articulation driver 230 and, as a result, the firing member 220 can move independently of the articulation driver 230. the nozzle 201 may be employed to operably engage and disengage the articulation drive system with the firing drive system in the various manners described in u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263541 . the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 can comprise a slip ring assembly 600 which can be configured to conduct electrical power to and/or from the end effector 300 and/or communicate signals to and/or from the end effector 300, for example. the slip ring assembly 600 can comprise a proximal connector flange 604 and a distal connector flange 601 positioned within a slot defined in the nozzle portions 202, 203. the proximal connector flange 604 can comprise a first face and the distal connector flange 601 can comprise a second face positioned adjacent to and movable relative to the first face. the distal connector flange 601 can rotate relative to the proximal connector flange 604 about the shaft axis sa-sa ( fig. 1 ). the proximal connector flange 604 can comprise a plurality of concentric, or at least substantially concentric, conductors 602 defined in the first face thereof. a connector 607 can be mounted on the proximal side of the distal connector flange 601 and may have a plurality of contacts wherein each contact corresponds to and is in electrical contact with one of the conductors 602. such an arrangement permits relative rotation between the proximal connector flange 604 and the distal connector flange 601 while maintaining electrical contact there between. the proximal connector flange 604 can include an electrical connector 606 that can place the conductors 602 in signal communication with a shaft circuit board, for example. in at least one instance, a wiring harness comprising a plurality of conductors can extend between the electrical connector 606 and the shaft circuit board. the electrical connector 606 may extend proximally through a connector opening defined in the chassis mounting flange. u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263551 , entitled staple cartridge tissue thickness sensor system, is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263552 , entitled staple cartridge tissue thickness sensor system, is incorporated by reference in its entirety. further details regarding slip ring assembly 600 may be found in u.s. patent application publication no. 2014/0263541 . the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 can include a proximal portion fixably mounted to the handle assembly 14 and a distal portion that is rotatable about a longitudinal axis. the rotatable distal shaft portion can be rotated relative to the proximal portion about the slip ring assembly 600. the distal connector flange 601 of the slip ring assembly 600 can be positioned within the rotatable distal shaft portion. fig. 4 is an exploded view of one aspect of an end effector 300 of the surgical instrument 10 of fig. 1 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the end effector 300 may include the anvil 306 and the surgical staple cartridge 304. the anvil 306 may be coupled to an elongated channel 302. apertures 199 can be defined in the elongated channel 302 to receive pins 152 extending from the anvil 306 to allow the anvil 306 to pivot from an open position to a closed position relative to the elongated channel 302 and surgical staple cartridge 304. a firing bar 172 is configured to longitudinally translate into the end effector 300. the firing bar 172 may be constructed from one solid section, or may include a laminate material comprising a stack of steel plates. the firing bar 172 comprises an i-beam 178 and a cutting edge 182 at a distal end thereof. a distally projecting end of the firing bar 172 can be attached to the i-beam 178 to assist in spacing the anvil 306 from a surgical staple cartridge 304 positioned in the elongated channel 302 when the anvil 306 is in a closed position. the i-beam 178 may include a sharpened cutting edge 182 to sever tissue as the i-beam 178 is advanced distally by the firing bar 172. in operation, the i-beam 178 may, or fire, the surgical staple cartridge 304. the surgical staple cartridge 304 can include a molded cartridge body 194 that holds a plurality of staples 191 resting upon staple drivers 192 within respective upwardly open staple cavities 195. a wedge sled 190 is driven distally by the i-beam 178, sliding upon a cartridge tray 196 of the surgical staple cartridge 304. the wedge sled 190 upwardly cams the staple drivers 192 to force out the staples 191 into deforming contact with the anvil 306 while the cutting edge 182 of the i-beam 178 severs clamped tissue. the i-beam 178 can include upper pins 180 that engage the anvil 306 during firing. the i-beam 178 may include middle pins 184 and a bottom foot 186 to engage portions of the cartridge body 194, cartridge tray 196, and elongated channel 302. when a surgical staple cartridge 304 is positioned within the elongated channel 302, a slot 193 defined in the cartridge body 194 can be aligned with a longitudinal slot 197 defined in the cartridge tray 196 and a slot 189 defined in the elongated channel 302. in use, the i-beam 178 can slide through the aligned longitudinal slots 193, 197, and 189 wherein, as indicated in fig. 4 , the bottom foot 186 of the i-beam 178 can engage a groove running along the bottom surface of elongated channel 302 along the length of slot 189, the middle pins 184 can engage the top surfaces of cartridge tray 196 along the length of longitudinal slot 197, and the upper pins 180 can engage the anvil 306. the i-beam 178 can space, or limit the relative movement between, the anvil 306 and the surgical staple cartridge 304 as the firing bar 172 is advanced distally to fire the staples from the surgical staple cartridge 304 and/or incise the tissue captured between the anvil 306 and the surgical staple cartridge 304. the firing bar 172 and the i-beam 178 can be retracted proximally allowing the anvil 306 to be opened to release the two stapled and severed tissue portions. figs. 5a-5b is a block diagram of a control circuit 700 of the surgical instrument 10 of fig. 1 spanning two drawing sheets according to one aspect of this disclosure. referring primarily to figs. 5a-5b , a handle assembly 702 may include a motor 714 which can be controlled by a motor driver 715 and can be employed by the firing system of the surgical instrument 10. in various forms, the motor 714 may be a dc brushed driving motor having a maximum rotational speed of approximately 25,000 rpm. in other arrangements, the motor 714 may include a brushless motor, a cordless motor, a synchronous motor, a stepper motor, or any other suitable electric motor. the motor driver 715 may comprise an h-bridge driver comprising field-effect transistors (fets) 719, for example. the motor 714 can be powered by the power assembly 706 releasably mounted to the handle assembly 200 for supplying control power to the surgical instrument 10. the power assembly 706 may comprise a battery which may include a number of battery cells connected in series that can be used as the power source to power the surgical instrument 10. in certain circumstances, the battery cells of the power assembly 706 may be replaceable and/or rechargeable. in at least one example, the battery cells can be lithium-ion batteries which can be separably couplable to the power assembly 706. the shaft assembly 704 may include a shaft assembly controller 722 which can communicate with a safety controller and power management controller 716 through an interface while the shaft assembly 704 and the power assembly 706 are coupled to the handle assembly 702. for example, the interface may comprise a first interface portion 725 which may include one or more electric connectors for coupling engagement with corresponding shaft assembly electric connectors and a second interface portion 727 which may include one or more electric connectors for coupling engagement with corresponding power assembly electric connectors to permit electrical communication between the shaft assembly controller 722 and the power management controller 716 while the shaft assembly 704 and the power assembly 706 are coupled to the handle assembly 702. one or more communication signals can be transmitted through the interface to communicate one or more of the power requirements of the attached interchangeable shaft assembly 704 to the power management controller 716. in response, the power management controller may modulate the power output of the battery of the power assembly 706, as described below in greater detail, in accordance with the power requirements of the attached shaft assembly 704. the connectors may comprise switches which can be activated after mechanical coupling engagement of the handle assembly 702 to the shaft assembly 704 and/or to the power assembly 706 to allow electrical communication between the shaft assembly controller 722 and the power management controller 716. the interface can facilitate transmission of the one or more communication signals between the power management controller 716 and the shaft assembly controller 722 by routing such communication signals through a main controller 717 residing in the handle assembly 702, for example. in other circumstances, the interface can facilitate a direct line of communication between the power management controller 716 and the shaft assembly controller 722 through the handle assembly 702 while the shaft assembly 704 and the power assembly 706 are coupled to the handle assembly 702. the main controller 717 may be any single core or multicore processor such as those known under the trade name arm cortex by texas instruments. in one aspect, the main controller 717 may be an lm4f230h5qr arm cortex-m4f processor core, available from texas instruments, for example, comprising on-chip memory of 256 kb single-cycle flash memory, or other non-volatile memory, up to 40 mhz, a prefetch buffer to improve performance above 40 mhz, a 32 kb single-cycle serial random access memory (sram), internal read-only memory (rom) loaded with stellarisware® software, 2 kb electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (eeprom), one or more pulse width modulation (pwm) modules, one or more quadrature encoder inputs (qei) analog, one or more 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (adc) with 12 analog input channels, details of which are available for the product datasheet. the safety controller may be a safety controller platform comprising two controller-based families such as tms570 and rm4x known under the trade name hercules arm cortex r4, also by texas instruments. the safety controller may be configured specifically for iec 61508 and iso 26262 safety critical applications, among others, to provide advanced integrated safety features while delivering scalable performance, connectivity, and memory options. the power assembly 706 may include a power management circuit which may comprise the power management controller 716, a power modulator 738, and a current sense circuit 736. the power management circuit can be configured to modulate power output of the battery based on the power requirements of the shaft assembly 704 while the shaft assembly 704 and the power assembly 706 are coupled to the handle assembly 702. the power management controller 716 can be programmed to control the power modulator 738 of the power output of the power assembly 706 and the current sense circuit 736 can be employed to monitor power output of the power assembly 706 to provide feedback to the power management controller 716 about the power output of the battery so that the power management controller 716 may adjust the power output of the power assembly 706 to maintain a desired output. the power management controller 716 and/or the shaft assembly controller 722 each may comprise one or more processors and/or memory units which may store a number of software modules. the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) may comprise an output device 742 which may include devices for providing a sensory feedback to a user. such devices may comprise, for example, visual feedback devices (e.g., an lcd display screen, led indicators), audio feedback devices (e.g., a speaker, a buzzer) or tactile feedback devices (e.g., haptic actuators). in certain circumstances, the output device 742 may comprise a display 743 which may be included in the handle assembly 702. the shaft assembly controller 722 and/or the power management controller 716 can provide feedback to a user of the surgical instrument 10 through the output device 742. the interface can be configured to connect the shaft assembly controller 722 and/or the power management controller 716 to the output device 742. the output device 742 can instead be integrated with the power assembly 706. in such circumstances, communication between the output device 742 and the shaft assembly controller 722 may be accomplished through the interface while the shaft assembly 704 is coupled to the handle assembly 702. the control circuit 700 comprises circuit segments configured to control operations of the powered surgical instrument 10. a safety controller segment (segment 1) comprises a safety controller and the main controller 717 segment (segment 2). the safety controller and/or the main controller 717 are configured to interact with one or more additional circuit segments such as an acceleration segment, a display segment, a shaft segment, an encoder segment, a motor segment, and a power segment. each of the circuit segments may be coupled to the safety controller and/or the main controller 717. the main controller 717 is also coupled to a flash memory. the main controller 717 also comprises a serial communication interface. the main controller 717 comprises a plurality of inputs coupled to, for example, one or more circuit segments, a battery, and/or a plurality of switches. the segmented circuit may be implemented by any suitable circuit, such as, for example, a printed circuit board assembly (pcba) within the powered surgical instrument 10. it should be understood that the term processor as used herein includes any microprocessor, processors, controller, controllers, or other basic computing device that incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit (cpu) on an integrated circuit or at most a few integrated circuits. the main controller 717 is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. it is an example of sequential digital logic, as it has internal memory. the control circuit 700 can be configured to implement one or more of the processes described herein. the acceleration segment (segment 3) comprises an accelerometer. the accelerometer is configured to detect movement or acceleration of the powered surgical instrument 10. input from the accelerometer may be used to transition to and from a sleep mode, identify an orientation of the powered surgical instrument, and/or identify when the surgical instrument has been dropped. in some examples, the acceleration segment is coupled to the safety controller and/or the main controller 717. the display segment (segment 4) comprises a display connector coupled to the main controller 717. the display connector couples the main controller 717 to a display through one or more integrated circuit drivers of the display. the integrated circuit drivers of the display may be integrated with the display and/or may be located separately from the display. the display may comprise any suitable display, such as, for example, an organic light-emitting diode (oled) display, a liquid-crystal display (lcd), and/or any other suitable display. in some examples, the display segment is coupled to the safety controller. the shaft segment (segment 5) comprises controls for an interchangeable shaft assembly 200 ( figs. 1 and 3 ) coupled to the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) and/or one or more controls for an end effector 300 coupled to the interchangeable shaft assembly 200. the shaft segment comprises a shaft connector configured to couple the main controller 717 to a shaft pcba. the shaft pcba comprises a low-power microcontroller with a ferroelectric random access memory (fram), an articulation switch, a shaft release hall effect switch, and a shaft pcba eeprom. the shaft pcba eeprom comprises one or more parameters, routines, and/or programs specific to the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 and/or the shaft pcba. the shaft pcba may be coupled to the interchangeable shaft assembly 200 and/or integral with the surgical instrument 10. in some examples, the shaft segment comprises a second shaft eeprom. the second shaft eeprom comprises a plurality of algorithms, routines, parameters, and/or other data corresponding to one or more shaft assemblies 200 and/or end effectors 300 that may be interfaced with the powered surgical instrument 10. the position encoder segment (segment 6) comprises one or more magnetic angle rotary position encoders. the one or more magnetic angle rotary position encoders are configured to identify the rotational position of the motor 714, an interchangeable shaft assembly 200 ( figs. 1 and 3 ), and/or an end effector 300 of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ). in some examples, the magnetic angle rotary position encoders may be coupled to the safety controller and/or the main controller 717. the motor circuit segment (segment 7) comprises a motor 714 configured to control movements of the powered surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ). the motor 714 is coupled to the main microcontroller processor 717 by an h-bridge driver comprising one or more h-bridge field-effect transistors (fets) and a motor controller. the h-bridge driver is also coupled to the safety controller. a motor current sensor is coupled in series with the motor to measure the current draw of the motor. the motor current sensor is in signal communication with the main controller 717 and/or the safety controller. in some examples, the motor 714 is coupled to a motor electromagnetic interference (emi) filter. the motor controller controls a first motor flag and a second motor flag to indicate the status and position of the motor 714 to the main controller 717. the main controller 717 provides a pulse-width modulation (pwm) high signal, a pwm low signal, a direction signal, a synchronize signal, and a motor reset signal to the motor controller through a buffer. the power segment is configured to provide a segment voltage to each of the circuit segments. the power segment (segment 8) comprises a battery coupled to the safety controller, the main controller 717, and additional circuit segments. the battery is coupled to the segmented circuit by a battery connector and a current sensor. the current sensor is configured to measure the total current draw of the segmented circuit. in some examples, one or more voltage converters are configured to provide predetermined voltage values to one or more circuit segments. for example, in some examples, the segmented circuit may comprise 3.3v voltage converters and/or 5v voltage converters. a boost converter is configured to provide a boost voltage up to a predetermined amount, such as, for example, up to 13v. the boost converter is configured to provide additional voltage and/or current during power intensive operations and prevent brownout or low-power conditions. a plurality of switches are coupled to the safety controller and/or the main controller 717. the switches may be configured to control operations of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ), of the segmented circuit, and/or indicate a status of the surgical instrument 10. a bail-out door switch and hall effect switch for bailout are configured to indicate the status of a bail-out door. a plurality of articulation switches, such as, for example, a left side articulation left switch, a left side articulation right switch, a left side articulation center switch, a right side articulation left switch, a right side articulation right switch, and a right side articulation center switch are configured to control articulation of an interchangeable shaft assembly 200 ( figs. 1 and 3 ) and/or the end effector 300 ( figs. 1 and 4 ). a left side reverse switch and a right side reverse switch are coupled to the main controller 717. the left side switches comprising the left side articulation left switch, the left side articulation right switch, the left side articulation center switch, and the left side reverse switch are coupled to the main controller 717 by a left flex connector. the right side switches comprising the right side articulation left switch, the right side articulation right switch, the right side articulation center switch, and the right side reverse switch are coupled to the main controller 717 by a right flex connector. a firing switch, a clamp release switch, and a shaft engaged switch are coupled to the main controller 717. any suitable mechanical, electromechanical, or solid state switches may be employed to implement the plurality of switches, in any combination. for example, the switches may be limit switches operated by the motion of components associated with the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) or the presence of an object. such switches may be employed to control various functions associated with the surgical instrument 10. a limit switch is an electromechanical device that consists of an actuator mechanically linked to a set of contacts. when an object comes into contact with the actuator, the device operates the contacts to make or break an electrical connection. limit switches are used in a variety of applications and environments because of their ruggedness, ease of installation, and reliability of operation. they can determine the presence or absence, passing, positioning, and end of travel of an object. in other implementations, the switches may be solid state switches that operate under the influence of a magnetic field such as hall-effect devices, magneto-resistive (mr) devices, giant magneto-resistive (gmr) devices, magnetometers, among others. in other implementations, the switches may be solid state switches that operate under the influence of light, such as optical sensors, infrared sensors, ultraviolet sensors, among others. still, the switches may be solid state devices such as transistors (e.g., fet, junction-fet, metal-oxide semiconductor-fet (mosfet), bipolar, and the like). other switches may include wireless switches, ultrasonic switches, accelerometers, inertial sensors, among others. fig. 6 is another block diagram of the control circuit 700 of the surgical instrument of fig. 1 illustrating interfaces between the handle assembly 702 and the power assembly 706 and between the handle assembly 702 and the interchangeable shaft assembly 704 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the handle assembly 702 may comprise a main controller 717, a shaft assembly connector 726 and a power assembly connector 730. the power assembly 706 may include a power assembly connector 732, a power management circuit 734 that may comprise the power management controller 716, a power modulator 738, and a current sense circuit 736. the shaft assembly connectors 730, 732 form an interface 727. the power management circuit 734 can be configured to modulate power output of the battery 707 based on the power requirements of the interchangeable shaft assembly 704 while the interchangeable shaft assembly 704 and the power assembly 706 are coupled to the handle assembly 702. the power management controller 716 can be programmed to control the power modulator 738 of the power output of the power assembly 706 and the current sense circuit 736 can be employed to monitor power output of the power assembly 706 to provide feedback to the power management controller 716 about the power output of the battery 707 so that the power management controller 716 may adjust the power output of the power assembly 706 to maintain a desired output. the shaft assembly 704 comprises a shaft processor 719 coupled to a nonvolatile memory 721 and shaft assembly connector 728 to electrically couple the shaft assembly 704 to the handle assembly 702. the shaft assembly connectors 726, 728 form interface 725. the main controller 717, the shaft processor 719, and/or the power management controller 716 can be configured to implement one or more of the processes described herein. the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) may comprise an output device 742 to a sensory feedback to a user. such devices may comprise visual feedback devices (e.g., an lcd display screen, led indicators), audio feedback devices (e.g., a speaker, a buzzer), or tactile feedback devices (e.g., haptic actuators). in certain circumstances, the output device 742 may comprise a display 743 that may be included in the handle assembly 702. the shaft assembly controller 722 and/or the power management controller 716 can provide feedback to a user of the surgical instrument 10 through the output device 742. the interface 727 can be configured to connect the shaft assembly controller 722 and/or the power management controller 716 to the output device 742. the output device 742 can be integrated with the power assembly 706. communication between the output device 742 and the shaft assembly controller 722 may be accomplished through the interface 725 while the interchangeable shaft assembly 704 is coupled to the handle assembly 702. having described a control circuit 700 ( figs. 5a-5b and 6) for controlling the operation of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ), the disclosure now turns to various configurations of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) and control circuit 700. fig. 7 illustrates a control circuit 800 configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) according to one aspect of this disclosure. the control circuit 800 can be configured to implement various processes described herein. the control circuit 800 may comprise a controller comprising one or more processors 802 (e.g., microprocessor, microcontroller) coupled to at least one memory circuit 804. the memory circuit 804 stores machine executable instructions that when executed by the processor 802, cause the processor 802 to execute machine instructions to implement various processes described herein. the processor 802 may be any one of a number of single or multi-core processors known in the art. the memory circuit 804 may comprise volatile and non-volatile storage media. the processor 802 may include an instruction processing unit 806 and an arithmetic unit 808. the instruction processing unit may be configured to receive instructions from the memory circuit 804. fig. 8 illustrates a combinational logic circuit 810 configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) according to one aspect of this disclosure. the combinational logic circuit 810 can be configured to implement various processes described herein. the circuit 810 may comprise a finite state machine comprising a combinational logic circuit 812 configured to receive data associated with the surgical instrument 10 at an input 814, process the data by the combinational logic 812, and provide an output 816. fig. 9 illustrates a sequential logic circuit 820 configured to control aspects of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) according to one aspect of this disclosure. the sequential logic circuit 820 or the combinational logic circuit 822 can be configured to implement various processes described herein. the circuit 820 may comprise a finite state machine. the sequential logic circuit 820 may comprise a combinational logic circuit 822, at least one memory circuit 824, and a clock 829, for example. the at least one memory circuit 820 can store a current state of the finite state machine. in certain instances, the sequential logic circuit 820 may be synchronous or asynchronous. the combinational logic circuit 822 is configured to receive data associated with the surgical instrument 10 an input 826, process the data by the combinational logic circuit 822, and provide an output 828. in other aspects, the circuit may comprise a combination of the processor 802 and the finite state machine to implement various processes herein. in other aspects, the finite state machine may comprise a combination of the combinational logic circuit 810 and the sequential logic circuit 820. aspects may be implemented as an article of manufacture. the article of manufacture may include a computer readable storage medium arranged to store logic, instructions, and/or data for performing various operations of one or more aspects. for example, the article of manufacture may comprise a magnetic disk, optical disk, flash memory, or firmware containing computer program instructions suitable for execution by a general purpose processor or application specific processor. fig. 10 is a diagram of an absolute positioning system 1100 of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) where the absolute positioning system 1100 comprises a controlled motor drive circuit arrangement comprising a sensor arrangement 1102 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the sensor arrangement 1102 for an absolute positioning system 1100 provides a unique position signal corresponding to the location of a displacement member 1111. turning briefly to figs. 2-4 , in one aspect the displacement member 1111 represents the longitudinally movable drive member 120 ( fig. 2 ) comprising a rack of drive teeth 122 for meshing engagement with a corresponding drive gear 86 of the gear reducer assembly 84. in other aspects, the displacement member 1111 represents the firing member 220 ( fig. 3 ), which could be adapted and configured to include a rack of drive teeth. in yet another aspect, the displacement member 1111 represents the firing bar 172 ( fig. 4 ) or the i-beam 178 ( fig. 4 ), each of which can be adapted and configured to include a rack of drive teeth. accordingly, as used herein, the term displacement member is used generically to refer to any movable member of the surgical instrument 10 such as the drive member 120, the firing member 220, the firing bar 172, the i-beam 178, or any element that can be displaced. in one aspect, the longitudinally movable drive member 120 is coupled to the firing member 220, the firing bar 172, and the i-beam 178. accordingly, the absolute positioning system 1100 can, in effect, track the linear displacement of the i-beam 178 by tracking the linear displacement of the longitudinally movable drive member 120. in various other aspects, the displacement member 1111 may be coupled to any sensor suitable for measuring linear displacement. thus, the longitudinally movable drive member 120, the firing member 220, the firing bar 172, or the i-beam 178, or combinations, may be coupled to any suitable linear displacement sensor. linear displacement sensors may include contact or non-contact displacement sensors. linear displacement sensors may comprise linear variable differential transformers (lvdt), differential variable reluctance transducers (dvrt), a slide potentiometer, a magnetic sensing system comprising a movable magnet and a series of linearly arranged hall effect sensors, a magnetic sensing system comprising a fixed magnet and a series of movable linearly arranged hall effect sensors, an optical sensing system comprising a movable light source and a series of linearly arranged photo diodes or photo detectors, or an optical sensing system comprising a fixed light source and a series of movable linearly arranged photo diodes or photo detectors, or any combination thereof. an electric motor 1120 can include a rotatable shaft 1116 that operably interfaces with a gear assembly 1114 that is mounted in meshing engagement with a set, or rack, of drive teeth on the displacement member 1111. a sensor element 1126 may be operably coupled to a gear assembly 1114 such that a single revolution of the sensor element 1126 corresponds to some linear longitudinal translation of the displacement member 1111. an arrangement of gearing and sensors 1118 can be connected to the linear actuator via a rack and pinion arrangement or a rotary actuator via a spur gear or other connection. a power source 1129 supplies power to the absolute positioning system 1100 and an output indicator 1128 may display the output of the absolute positioning system 1100. in fig. 2 , the displacement member 1111 represents the longitudinally movable drive member 120 comprising a rack of drive teeth 122 formed thereon for meshing engagement with a corresponding drive gear 86 of the gear reducer assembly 84. the displacement member 1111 represents the longitudinally movable firing member 220, firing bar 172, i-beam 178, or combinations thereof. a single revolution of the sensor element 1126 associated with the position sensor 1112 is equivalent to a longitudinal linear displacement d1 of the of the displacement member 1111, where d1 is the longitudinal linear distance that the displacement member 1111 moves from point "a" to point "b" after a single revolution of the sensor element 1126 coupled to the displacement member 1111. the sensor arrangement 1102 may be connected via a gear reduction that results in the position sensor 1112 completing one or more revolutions for the full stroke of the displacement member 1111. the position sensor 1112 may complete multiple revolutions for the full stroke of the displacement member 1111. a series of switches 1122a-1122n, where n is an integer greater than one, may be employed alone or in combination with gear reduction to provide a unique position signal for more than one revolution of the position sensor 1112. the state of the switches 1122a-1122n are fed back to a controller 1104 that applies logic to determine a unique position signal corresponding to the longitudinal linear displacement d1 + d2 + ... dn of the displacement member 1111. the output 1124 of the position sensor 1112 is provided to the controller 1104. the position sensor 1112 of the sensor arrangement 1102 may comprise a magnetic sensor, an analog rotary sensor like a potentiometer, an array of analog hall-effect elements, which output a unique combination of position signals or values. the absolute positioning system 1100 provides an absolute position of the displacement member 1111 upon power up of the instrument without retracting or advancing the displacement member 1111 to a reset (zero or home) position as may be required with conventional rotary encoders that merely count the number of steps forwards or backwards that the motor 1120 has taken to infer the position of a device actuator, drive bar, knife, and the like. the controller 1104 may be programmed to perform various functions such as precise control over the speed and position of the knife and articulation systems. in one aspect, the controller 1104 includes a processor 1108 and a memory 1106. the electric motor 1120 may be a brushed dc motor with a gearbox and mechanical links to an articulation or knife system. in one aspect, a motor driver 1110 may be an a3941 available from allegro microsystems, inc. other motor drivers may be readily substituted for use in the absolute positioning system 1100. a more detailed description of the absolute positioning system 1100 is described in u.s. patent application no. 15/130,590 , entitled systems and methods for controlling a surgical stapling and cutting instrument, filed on april 15, 2016, the entire disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. the controller 1104 may be programmed to provide precise control over the speed and position of the displacement member 1111 and articulation systems. the controller 1104 may be configured to compute a response in the software of the controller 1104. the computed response is compared to a measured response of the actual system to obtain an "observed" response, which is used for actual feedback decisions. the observed response is a favorable, tuned, value that balances the smooth, continuous nature of the simulated response with the measured response, which can detect outside influences on the system. the absolute positioning system 1100 may comprise and/or be programmed to implement a feedback controller, such as a pid, state feedback, and adaptive controller. a power source 1129 converts the signal from the feedback controller into a physical input to the system, in this case voltage. other examples include pulse width modulation (pwm) of the voltage, current, and force. other sensor(s) 1118 may be provided to measure physical parameters of the physical system in addition to position measured by the position sensor 1112. in a digital signal processing system, absolute positioning system 1100 is coupled to a digital data acquisition system where the output of the absolute positioning system 1100 will have finite resolution and sampling frequency. the absolute positioning system 1100 may comprise a compare and combine circuit to combine a computed response with a measured response using algorithms such as weighted average and theoretical control loop that drives the computed response towards the measured response. the computed response of the physical system takes into account properties like mass, inertial, viscous friction, inductance resistance, etc., to predict what the states and outputs of the physical system will be by knowing the input. the controller 1104 may be a control circuit 700 ( figs. 5a-5b ). the motor driver 1110 may be an a3941 available from allegro microsystems, inc. the a3941 driver 1110 is a full-bridge controller for use with external n-channel power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (mosfets) specifically designed for inductive loads, such as brush dc motors. the driver 1110 comprises a unique charge pump regulator provides full (>10 v) gate drive for battery voltages down to 7 v and allows the a3941 to operate with a reduced gate drive, down to 5.5 v. a bootstrap capacitor may be employed to provide the above-battery supply voltage required for n-channel mosfets. an internal charge pump for the high-side drive allows dc (100% duty cycle) operation. the full bridge can be driven in fast or slow decay modes using diode or synchronous rectification. in the slow decay mode, current recirculation can be through the high-side or the lowside fets. the power fets are protected from shoot-through by resistor adjustable dead time. integrated diagnostics provide indication of undervoltage, overtemperature, and power bridge faults, and can be configured to protect the power mosfets under most short circuit conditions. other motor drivers may be readily substituted for use in the absolute positioning system 1100. having described a general architecture for implementing aspects of an absolute positioning system 1100 for a sensor arrangement 1102, the disclosure now turns to figs. 11 and 12 for a description of one aspect of a sensor arrangement 1102 for the absolute positioning system 1100. fig. 11 is an exploded perspective view of the sensor arrangement 1102 for the absolute positioning system 1100 showing a circuit 1205 and the relative alignment of the elements of the sensor arrangement 1102, according to one aspect. the sensor arrangement 1102 for an absolute positioning system 1100 comprises a position sensor 1200, a magnet 1202 sensor element, a magnet holder 1204 that turns once every full stroke of the displacement member 1111, and a gear assembly 1206 to provide a gear reduction. with reference briefly to fig. 2 , the displacement member 1111 may represent the longitudinally movable drive member 120 comprising a rack of drive teeth 122 for meshing engagement with a corresponding drive gear 86 of the gear reducer assembly 84. returning to fig. 11 , a structural element such as bracket 1216 is provided to support the gear assembly 1206, the magnet holder 1204, and the magnet 1202. the position sensor 1200 comprises magnetic sensing elements such as hall elements and is placed in proximity to the magnet 1202. as the magnet 1202 rotates, the magnetic sensing elements of the position sensor 1200 determine the absolute angular position of the magnet 1202 over one revolution. the sensor arrangement 1102 may comprises any number of magnetic sensing elements, such as, for example, magnetic sensors classified according to whether they measure the total magnetic field or the vector components of the magnetic field. the techniques used to produce both types of magnetic sensors encompass many aspects of physics and electronics. the technologies used for magnetic field sensing include search coil, fluxgate, optically pumped, nuclear precession, squid, hall-effect, anisotropic magnetoresistance, giant magnetoresistance, magnetic tunnel junctions, giant magnetoimpedance, magnetostrictive/piezoelectric composites, magnetodiode, magnetotransistor, fiber optic, magnetooptic, and microelectromechanical systems-based magnetic sensors, among others. a gear assembly comprises a first gear 1208 and a second gear 1210 in meshing engagement to provide a 3:1 gear ratio connection. a third gear 1212 rotates about a shaft 1214. the third gear 1212 is in meshing engagement with the displacement member 1111 (or 120 as shown in fig. 2 ) and rotates in a first direction as the displacement member 1111 advances in a distal direction d and rotates in a second direction as the displacement member 1111 retracts in a proximal direction p. the second gear 1210 also rotates about the shaft 1214 and, therefore, rotation of the second gear 1210 about the shaft 1214 corresponds to the longitudinal translation of the displacement member 1111. thus, one full stroke of the displacement member 1111 in either the distal or proximal directions d, p corresponds to three rotations of the second gear 1210 and a single rotation of the first gear 1208. since the magnet holder 1204 is coupled to the first gear 1208, the magnet holder 1204 makes one full rotation with each full stroke of the displacement member 1111. the position sensor 1200 is supported by a position sensor holder 1218 defining an aperture 1220 suitable to contain the position sensor 1200 in precise alignment with a magnet 1202 rotating below within the magnet holder 1204. the fixture is coupled to the bracket 1216 and to the circuit 1205 and remains stationary while the magnet 1202 rotates with the magnet holder 1204. a hub 1222 is provided to mate with the first gear 1208 and the magnet holder 1204. the second gear 1210 and third gear 1212 coupled to shaft 1214 also are shown. fig. 12 is a diagram of a position sensor 1200 for an absolute positioning system 1100 comprising a magnetic rotary absolute positioning system according to one aspect of this disclosure. the position sensor 1200 may be implemented as an as5055eqft single-chip magnetic rotary position sensor available from austria microsystems, ag. the position sensor 1200 is interfaced with the controller 1104 to provide an absolute positioning system 1100. the position sensor 1200 is a low-voltage and low-power component and includes four hall-effect elements 1228a, 1228b, 1228c, 1228d in an area 1230 of the position sensor 1200 that is located above the magnet 1202 ( figs. 15 and 16 ). a high-resolution adc 1232 and a smart power management controller 1238 are also provided on the chip. a cordic processor 1236 (for coordinate rotation digital computer), also known as the digit-by-digit method and volder's algorithm, is provided to implement a simple and efficient algorithm to calculate hyperbolic and trigonometric functions that require only addition, subtraction, bitshift, and table lookup operations. the angle position, alarm bits, and magnetic field information are transmitted over a standard serial communication interface such as an spi interface 1234 to the controller 1104. the position sensor 1200 provides 12 or 14 bits of resolution. the position sensor 1200 may be an as5055 chip provided in a small qfn 16-pin 4x4x0.85mm package. the hall-effect elements 1228a, 1228b, 1228c, 1228d are located directly above the rotating magnet 1202 ( fig. 11 ). the hall-effect is a well-known effect and for expediency will not be described in detail herein, however, generally, the hall-effect produces a voltage difference (the hall voltage) across an electrical conductor transverse to an electric current in the conductor and a magnetic field perpendicular to the current. a hall coefficient is defined as the ratio of the induced electric field to the product of the current density and the applied magnetic field. it is a characteristic of the material from which the conductor is made, since its value depends on the type, number, and properties of the charge carriers that constitute the current. in the as5055 position sensor 1200, the hall-effect elements 1228a, 1228b, 1228c, 1228d are capable producing a voltage signal that is indicative of the absolute position of the magnet 1202 in terms of the angle over a single revolution of the magnet 1202. this value of the angle, which is unique position signal, is calculated by the cordic processor 1236 is stored onboard the as5055 position sensor 1200 in a register or memory. the value of the angle that is indicative of the position of the magnet 1202 over one revolution is provided to the controller 1104 in a variety of techniques, e.g., upon power up or upon request by the controller 1104. the as5055 position sensor 1200 requires only a few external components to operate when connected to the controller 1104. six wires are needed for a simple application using a single power supply: two wires for power and four wires 1240 for the spi interface 1234 with the controller 1104. a seventh connection can be added in order to send an interrupt to the controller 1104 to inform that a new valid angle can be read. upon power-up, the as5055 position sensor 1200 performs a full power-up sequence including one angle measurement. the completion of this cycle is indicated as an int output 1242, and the angle value is stored in an internal register. once this output is set, the as5055 position sensor 1200 suspends to sleep mode. the controller 1104 can respond to the int request at the int output 1242 by reading the angle value from the as5055 position sensor 1200 over the spi interface 1234. once the angle value is read by the controller 1104, the int output 1242 is cleared again. sending a "read angle" command by the spi interface 1234 by the controller 1104 to the position sensor 1200 also automatically powers up the chip and starts another angle measurement. as soon as the controller 1104 has completed reading of the angle value, the int output 1242 is cleared and a new result is stored in the angle register. the completion of the angle measurement is again indicated by setting the int output 1242 and a corresponding flag in the status register. due to the measurement principle of the as5055 position sensor 1200, only a single angle measurement is performed in very short time (∼600µs) after each power-up sequence. as soon as the measurement of one angle is completed, the as5055 position sensor 1200 suspends to power-down state. an on-chip filtering of the angle value by digital averaging is not implemented, as this would require more than one angle measurement and, consequently, a longer power-up time that is not desired in low-power applications. the angle jitter can be reduced by averaging of several angle samples in the controller 1104. for example, an averaging of four samples reduces the jitter by 6db (50%). fig. 13 is a section view of an end effector 2502 of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) showing an i-beam 2514 firing stroke relative to tissue 2526 grasped within the end effector 2502 according to one aspect of this disclosure. the end effector 2502 is configured to operate with the surgical instrument 10 shown in figs. 1-4 . the end effector 2502 comprises an anvil 2516 and an elongated channel 2503 with a staple cartridge 2518 positioned in the elongated channel 2503. a firing bar 2520 is translatable distally and proximally along a longitudinal axis 2515 of the end effector 2502. when the end effector 2502 is not articulated, the end effector 2502 is in line with the shaft of the instrument. an i-beam 2514 comprising a cutting edge 2509 is illustrated at a distal portion of the firing bar 2520. a wedge sled 2513 is positioned in the staple cartridge 2518. as the i-beam 2514 translates distally, the cutting edge 2509 contacts and may cut tissue 2526 positioned between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. also, the i-beam 2514 contacts the wedge sled 2513 and pushes it distally, causing the wedge sled 2513 to contact staple drivers 2511. the staple drivers 2511 may be driven up into staples 2505, causing the staples 2505 to advance through tissue and into pockets 2507 defined in the anvil 2516, which shape the staples 2505. an example i-beam 2514 firing stroke is illustrated by a chart 2529 aligned with the end effector 2502. example tissue 2526 is also shown aligned with the end effector 2502. the firing member stroke may comprise a stroke begin position 2527 and a stroke end position 2528. during an i-beam 2514 firing stroke, the i-beam 2514 may be advanced distally from the stroke begin position 2527 to the stroke end position 2528. the i-beam 2514 is shown at one example location of a stroke begin position 2527. the i-beam 2514 firing member stroke chart 2529 illustrates five firing member stroke regions 2517, 2519, 2521, 2523, 2525. in a first firing stroke region 2517, the i-beam 2514 may begin to advance distally. in the first firing stroke region 2517, the i-beam 2514 may contact the wedge sled 2513 and begin to move it distally. while in the first region, however, the cutting edge 2509 may not contact tissue and the wedge sled 2513 may not contact a staple driver 2511. after static friction is overcome, the force to drive the i-beam 2514 in the first region 2517 may be substantially constant. in the second firing member stroke region 2519, the cutting edge 2509 may begin to contact and cut tissue 2526. also, the wedge sled 2513 may begin to contact staple drivers 2511 to drive staples 2505. force to drive the i-beam 2514 may begin to ramp up. as shown, tissue encountered initially may be compressed and/or thinner because of the way that the anvil 2516 pivots relative to the staple cartridge 2518. in the third firing member stroke region 2521, the cutting edge 2509 may continuously contact and cut tissue 2526 and the wedge sled 2513 may repeatedly contact staple drivers 2511. force to drive the i-beam 2514 may plateau in the third region 2521. by the fourth firing stroke region 2523, force to drive the i-beam 2514 may begin to decline. for example, tissue in the portion of the end effector 2502 corresponding to the fourth firing region 2523 may be less compressed than tissue closer to the pivot point of the anvil 2516, requiring less force to cut. also, the cutting edge 2509 and wedge sled 2513 may reach the end of the tissue 2526 while in the fourth region 2523. when the i-beam 2514 reaches the fifth region 2525, the tissue 2526 may be completely severed. the wedge sled 2513 may contact one or more staple drivers 2511 at or near the end of the tissue. force to advance the i-beam 2514 through the fifth region 2525 may be reduced and, in some examples, may be similar to the force to drive the i-beam 2514 in the first region 2517. at the conclusion of the firing member stroke, the i-beam 2514 may reach the stroke end position 2528. the positioning of firing member stroke regions 2517, 2519, 2521, 2523, 2525 in fig. 18 is just one example. in some examples, different regions may begin at different positions along the end effector longitudinal axis 2515, for example, based on the positioning of tissue between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. as discussed above and with reference now to figs. 10-13 , the electric motor 1122 positioned within the handle assembly of the surgical instrument 10 ( figs. 1-4 ) can be utilized to advance and/or retract the firing system of the shaft assembly, including the i-beam 2514, relative to the end effector 2502 of the shaft assembly in order to staple and/or incise tissue captured within the end effector 2502. the i-beam 2514 may be advanced or retracted at a desired speed, or within a range of desired speeds. the controller 1104 may be configured to control the speed of the i-beam 2514. the controller 1104 may be configured to predict the speed of the i-beam 2514 based on various parameters of the power supplied to the electric motor 1122, such as voltage and/or current, for example, and/or other operating parameters of the electric motor 1122 or external influences. the controller 1104 may be configured to predict the current speed of the i-beam 2514 based on the previous values of the current and/or voltage supplied to the electric motor 1122, and/or previous states of the system like velocity, acceleration, and/or position. the controller 1104 may be configured to sense the speed of the i-beam 2514 utilizing the absolute positioning sensor system described herein. the controller can be configured to compare the predicted speed of the i-beam 2514 and the sensed speed of the i-beam 2514 to determine whether the power to the electric motor 1122 should be increased in order to increase the speed of the i-beam 2514 and/or decreased in order to decrease the speed of the i-beam 2514. u.s. patent no. 8,210,411 , entitled motor-driven surgical cutting instrument, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. u.s. patent no. 7,845,537 , entitled surgical instrument having recording capabilities, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. force acting on the i-beam 2514 may be determined using various techniques. the i-beam 2514 force may be determined by measuring the motor 2504 current, where the motor 2504 current is based on the load experienced by the i-beam 2514 as it advances distally. the i-beam 2514 force may be determined by positioning a strain gauge on the drive member 120 ( fig. 2 ), the firing member 220 ( fig. 2 ), i-beam 2514 (i-beam 178, fig. 20 ), the firing bar 172 ( fig. 2 ), and/or on a proximal end of the cutting edge 2509. the i-beam 2514 force may be determined by monitoring the actual position of the i-beam 2514 moving at an expected velocity based on the current set velocity of the motor 2504 after a predetermined elapsed period t 1 and comparing the actual position of the i-beam 2514 relative to the expected position of the i-beam 2514 based on the current set velocity of the motor 2504 at the end of the period t 1 . thus, if the actual position of the i-beam 2514 is less than the expected position of the i-beam 2514, the force on the i-beam 2514 is greater than a nominal force. conversely, if the actual position of the i-beam 2514 is greater than the expected position of the i-beam 2514, the force on the i-beam 2514 is less than the nominal force. the difference between the actual and expected positions of the i-beam 2514 is proportional to the deviation of the force on the i-beam 2514 from the nominal force. such techniques are described in attorney docket number end8195usnp, titled systems and methods for controlling motor velocity of a surgical stapling and cutting instrument, by inventors frederick e. shelton, iv et al., filed june 20, 2017, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. fig. 14 illustrates a block diagram of a surgical instrument 2500 programmed to control distal translation of a displacement member according to one aspect of this disclosure. in one aspect, the surgical instrument 2500 is programmed to control distal translation of a displacement member 1111 such as the i-beam 2514. the surgical instrument 2500 comprises an end effector 2502 that may comprise an anvil 2516, an i-beam 2514 (including a sharp cutting edge 2509), and a removable staple cartridge 2518. the end effector 2502, anvil 2516, i-beam 2514, and staple cartridge 2518 may be configured as described herein, for example, with respect to figs. 1-13 . the position, movement, displacement, and/or translation of a liner displacement member 1111, such as the i-beam 2514, can be measured by the absolute positioning system 1100, sensor arrangement 1102, and position sensor 1200 as shown in figs. 10-12 and represented as position sensor 2534 in fig. 14 . because the i-beam 2514 is coupled to the longitudinally movable drive member 120, the position of the i-beam 2514 can be determined by measuring the position of the longitudinally movable drive member 120 employing the position sensor 2534. accordingly, in the following description, the position, displacement, and/or translation of the i-beam 2514 can be achieved by the position sensor 2534 as described herein. a control circuit 2510, such as the control circuit 700 described in figs. 5a and 5b , may be programmed to control the translation of the displacement member 1111, such as the i-beam 2514, as described in connection with figs. 10-12 . the control circuit 2510, in some examples, may comprise one or more microcontrollers, microprocessors, or other suitable processors for executing instructions that cause the processor or processors to control the displacement member, e.g., the i-beam 2514, in the manner described. in one aspect, a timer/counter circuit 2531 provides an output signal, such as elapsed time or a digital count, to the control circuit 2510 to correlate the position of the i-beam 2514 as determined by the position sensor 2534 with the output of the timer/counter circuit 2531 such that the control circuit 2510 can determine the position of the i-beam 2514 at a specific time (t) relative to a starting position. the timer/counter circuit 2531 may be configured to measure elapsed time, count external evens, or time external events. the control circuit 2510 may generate a motor set point signal 2522. the motor set point signal 2522 may be provided to a motor controller 2508. the motor controller 2508 may comprise one or more circuits configured to provide a motor drive signal 2524 to the motor 2504 to drive the motor 2504 as described herein. in some examples, the motor 2504 may be a brushed dc electric motor, such as the motor 82, 714, 1120 shown in figs. 1 , 5b , 10 . for example, the velocity of the motor 2504 may be proportional to the motor drive signal 2524. in some examples, the motor 2504 may be a brushless direct current (dc) electric motor and the motor drive signal 2524 may comprise a pulse-width-modulated (pwm) signal provided to one or more stator windings of the motor 2504. also, in some examples, the motor controller 2508 may be omitted and the control circuit 2510 may generate the motor drive signal 2524 directly. the motor 2504 may receive power from an energy source 2512. the energy source 2512 may be or include a battery, a super capacitor, or any other suitable energy source 2512. the motor 2504 may be mechanically coupled to the i-beam 2514 via a transmission 2506. the transmission 2506 may include one or more gears or other linkage components to couple the motor 2504 to the i-beam 2514. a position sensor 2534 may sense a position of the i-beam 2514. the position sensor 2534 may be or include any type of sensor that is capable of generating position data that indicates a position of the i-beam 2514. in some examples, the position sensor 2534 may include an encoder configured to provide a series of pulses to the control circuit 2510 as the i-beam 2514 translates distally and proximally. the control circuit 2510 may track the pulses to determine the position of the i-beam 2514. other suitable position sensor may be used, including, for example, a proximity sensor. other types of position sensors may provide other signals indicating motion of the i-beam 2514. also, in some examples, the position sensor 2534 may be omitted. where the motor 2504 is a stepper motor, the control circuit 2510 may track the position of the i-beam 2514 by aggregating the number and direction of steps that the motor 2504 has been instructed to execute. the position sensor 2534 may be located in the end effector 2502 or at any other portion of the instrument. the control circuit 2510 may be in communication with one or more sensors 2538. the sensors 2538 may be positioned on the end effector 2502 and adapted to operate with the surgical instrument 2500 to measure the various derived parameters such as gap distance versus time, tissue compression versus time, and anvil strain versus time. the sensors 2538 may comprise a magnetic sensor, a magnetic field sensor, a strain gauge, a pressure sensor, a force sensor, an inductive sensor such as an eddy current sensor, a resistive sensor, a capacitive sensor, an optical sensor, and/or any other suitable sensor for measuring one or more parameters of the end effector 2502. the sensors 2538 may include one or more sensors. the one or more sensors 2538 may comprise a strain gauge, such as a micro-strain gauge, configured to measure the magnitude of the strain in the anvil 2516 during a clamped condition. the strain gauge provides an electrical signal whose amplitude varies with the magnitude of the strain. the sensors 2538 may comprise a pressure sensor configured to detect a pressure generated by the presence of compressed tissue between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. the sensors 2538 may be configured to detect impedance of a tissue section located between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518 that is indicative of the thickness and/or fullness of tissue located therebetween. the sensors 2538 may be is configured to measure forces exerted on the anvil 2516 by the closure drive system 30. for example, one or more sensors 2538 can be at an interaction point between the closure tube 260 ( fig. 3 ) and the anvil 2516 to detect the closure forces applied by the closure tube 260 to the anvil 2516. the forces exerted on the anvil 2516 can be representative of the tissue compression experienced by the tissue section captured between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. the one or more sensors 2538 can be positioned at various interaction points along the closure drive system 30 ( fig. 2 ) to detect the closure forces applied to the anvil 2516 by the closure drive system 30. the one or more sensors 2538 may be sampled in real time during a clamping operation by a processor as described in figs. 5a-5b . the control circuit 2510 receives real-time sample measurements to provide analyze time based information and assess, in real time, closure forces applied to the anvil 2516. a current sensor 2536 can be employed to measure the current drawn by the motor 2504. the force required to advance the i-beam 2514 corresponds to the current drawn by the motor 2504. the force is converted to a digital signal and provided to the control circuit 2510. using the physical properties of the instruments disclosed herein in connection with figs. 1-14 , and with reference to fig. 14 , the control circuit 2510 can be configured to simulate the response of the actual system of the instrument in the software of the controller. a displacement member can be actuated to move an i-beam 2514 in the end effector 2502 at or near a target velocity. the surgical instrument 2500 can include a feedback controller, which can be one of any feedback controllers, including, but not limited to a pid, a state feedback, lqr, and/or an adaptive controller, for example. the surgical instrument 2500 can include a power source to convert the signal from the feedback controller into a physical input such as case voltage, pulse width modulated (pwm) voltage, frequency modulated voltage, current, torque, and/or force, for example. the actual drive system of the surgical instrument 2500 is configured to drive the displacement member, cutting member, or i-beam 2514, by a brushed dc motor with gearbox and mechanical links to an articulation and/or knife system. another example is the electric motor 2504 that operates the displacement member and the articulation driver, for example, of an interchangeable shaft assembly. an outside influence is an unmeasured, unpredictable influence of things like tissue, surrounding bodies and friction on the physical system. such outside influence can be referred to as drag which acts in opposition to the electric motor 2504. the outside influence, such as drag, may cause the operation of the physical system to deviate from a desired operation of the physical system. before explaining aspects of the surgical instrument 2500 in detail, it should be noted that the example aspects are not limited in application or use to the details of construction and arrangement of parts illustrated in the accompanying drawings and description. the example aspects may be implemented or incorporated in other aspects, variations and modifications, and may be practiced or carried out in various ways. further, unless otherwise indicated, the terms and expressions employed herein have been chosen for the purpose of describing the example aspects for the convenience of the reader and are not for the purpose of limitation thereof. also, it will be appreciated that one or more of the following-described aspects, expressions of aspects and/or examples, can be combined with any one or more of the other following described aspects, expressions of aspects and/or examples. various example aspects are directed to a surgical instrument 2500 comprising an end effector 2502 with motor-driven surgical stapling and cutting implements. for example, a motor 2504 may drive a displacement member distally and proximally along a longitudinal axis of the end effector 2502. the end effector 2502 may comprise a pivotable anvil 2516 and, when configured for use, a staple cartridge 2518 positioned opposite the anvil 2516. a clinician may grasp tissue between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518, as described herein. when ready to use the instrument 2500, the clinician may provide a firing signal, for example by depressing a trigger of the instrument 2500. in response to the firing signal, the motor 2504 may drive the displacement member distally along the longitudinal axis of the end effector 2502 from a proximal stroke begin position to a stroke end position distal of the stroke begin position. as the displacement member translates distally, an i-beam 2514 with a cutting element positioned at a distal end, may cut the tissue between the staple cartridge 2518 and the anvil 2516. in various examples, the surgical instrument 2500 may comprise a control circuit 2510 programmed to control the distal translation of the displacement member, such as the i-beam 2514, for example, based on one or more tissue conditions. the control circuit 2510 may be programmed to sense tissue conditions, such as thickness, either directly or indirectly, as described herein. the control circuit 2510 may be programmed to select a firing control program based on tissue conditions. a firing control program may describe the distal motion of the displacement member. different firing control programs may be selected to better treat different tissue conditions. for example, when thicker tissue is present, the control circuit 2510 may be programmed to translate the displacement member at a lower velocity and/or with lower power. when thinner tissue is present, the control circuit 2510 may be programmed to translate the displacement member at a higher velocity and/or with higher power. in some examples, the control circuit 2510 may initially operate the motor 2504 in an open-loop configuration for a first open-loop portion of a stroke of the displacement member. based on a response of the instrument 2500 during the open-loop portion of the stroke, the control circuit 2510 may select a firing control program. the response of the instrument may include, a translation distance of the displacement member during the open-loop portion, a time elapsed during the open-loop portion, energy provided to the motor 2504 during the open-loop portion, a sum of pulse widths of a motor drive signal, etc. after the open-loop portion, the control circuit 2510 may implement the selected firing control program for a second portion of the displacement member stroke. for example, during the closed loop portion of the stroke, the control circuit 2510 may modulate the motor 2504 based on translation data describing a position of the displacement member in a closed-loop manner to translate the displacement member at a constant velocity. fig. 15 illustrates a diagram 2580 plotting two example displacement member strokes executed according to one aspect of this disclosure. the diagram 2580 comprises two axes. a horizontal axis 2584 indicates elapsed time. a vertical axis 2582 indicates the position of the i-beam 2514 between a stroke begin position 2586 and a stroke end position 2588. on the horizontal axis 2584, the control circuit 2510 may receive the firing signal and begin providing the initial motor setting at t 0 . the open-loop portion of the displacement member stroke is an initial time period that may elapse between t 0 and t 1 . a first example 2592 shows a response of the surgical instrument 2500 when thick tissue is positioned between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. during the open-loop portion of the displacement member stroke, e.g., the initial time period between t 0 and t 1 , the i-beam 2514 may traverse from the stroke begin position 2586 to position 2594. the control circuit 2510 may determine that position 2594 corresponds to a firing control program that advances the i-beam 2514 at a selected constant velocity (vslow), indicated by the slope of the example 2592 after t 1 (e.g., in the closed loop portion). the control circuit 2510 may drive i-beam 2514 to the velocity vslow by monitoring the position of i-beam 2514 and modulating the motor set point 2522 and/or motor drive signal 2524 to maintain vslow. a second example 2590 shows a response of the surgical instrument 2500 when thin tissue is positioned between the anvil 2516 and the staple cartridge 2518. during the initial time period (e.g., the open-loop period) between t 0 and t 1 , the i-beam 2514 may traverse from the stroke begin position 2586 to position 2596. the control circuit may determine that position 2596 corresponds to a firing control program that advances the displacement member at a selected constant velocity (vfast). because the tissue in example 2590 is thinner than the tissue in example 2592, it may provide less resistance to the motion of the i-beam 2514. as a result, the i-beam 2514 may traverse a larger portion of the stroke during the initial time period. also, in some examples, thinner tissue (e.g., a larger portion of the displacement member stroke traversed during the initial time period) may correspond to higher displacement member velocities after the initial time period. fig. 16 illustrates a cross-sectional view of an end effector 912 of a surgical instrument according to one aspect of this disclosure. the end effector 912 is one aspect of the end effector 300 ( figs. 1 and 4 ) that may be adapted to operate with surgical instrument 10 ( fig. 1 ) to measure the various derived parameters such as gap distance versus time, tissue compression versus time, and anvil strain versus time. accordingly, the end effector 912 may include one or more sensors configured to measure one or more parameters or characteristics associated with the end effector 912 and/or a tissue section captured by the end effector 912. the end effector 912 may comprise a first sensor 920 and a second sensor 926. in various examples, the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 may comprise, for example, a magnetic sensor such as, for example, a magnetic field sensor, a strain gauge, a pressure sensor, a force sensor, an inductive sensor such as, for example, an eddy current sensor, a resistive sensor, a capacitive sensor, an optical sensor, and/or any other suitable sensor for measuring one or more parameters of the end effector 912. although the illustrated end effector 912 comprises two sensors, additional or fewer sensors can be employed. the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 may comprise, for example, a magnetic field sensor embedded in an anvil 914 and configured to detect a magnetic field generated by a magnet 924 embedded in a jaw member 916 and/or the staple cartridge 918. the anvil 914 is pivotally rotatable between open and closed positions. the strength of the detected magnetic field may correspond to, for example, the thickness and/or fullness of a bite of tissue located between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. in certain instances, the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 may comprise a strain gauge, such as, for example, a micro-strain gauge, configured to measure the magnitude of the strain in the anvil 914 during a clamped condition. the strain gauge provides an electrical signal whose amplitude varies with the magnitude of the strain. in some aspects, one or more sensors of the end effector 912 such as, for example, the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 may comprise a pressure sensor configured to detect a pressure generated by the presence of compressed tissue between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. in some examples, one or more sensors of the end effector 912 such as, for example, the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 are configured to detect the impedance of a tissue section located between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. the detected impedance may be indicative of the thickness and/or fullness of tissue located between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. the sensors of the end effector 912 such as, for example, the first sensor 920 may be configured to measure the gap 922 between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. in certain instances, the gap 922 can be representative of the thickness and/or compressibility of a tissue section clamped between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. the gap 922 can be representative of the force applied to the anvil 914 to compress the tissue. in one aspect, the gap 922 between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916 can be measured by positioning a magnetic field sensor on the anvil 914 and positioning a magnet on the jaw member 916 such that the gap 922 is proportional to the signal detected by the magnetic field sensor and the signal is proportional to the distance between the magnet and the magnetic field sensor. it will be appreciated that the location of the magnetic field sensor and the magnet may be swapped such that the magnetic field sensor is positioned on the jaw member 916 and the magnet is placed on the anvil 914. the sensors of the end effector 912 such as, for example, the first sensor 920 may be configured to measure one or more forces exerted on the anvil 914 by the closure drive system 30. for example, the first sensor 920 can be at an interaction point between the closure tube 260 ( fig. 3 ) and the anvil 914 to detect the closure forces applied by the closure tube 260 to the anvil 914. the forces exerted on the anvil 914 can be representative of the tissue compression experienced by the tissue section captured between the anvil 914 and the jaw member 916. in certain aspects, the first sensor 920 and/or other sensors can be positioned at various interaction points along the closure drive system 30 ( fig. 2 ) to detect the closure forces applied to the anvil 914 by the closure drive system 30. the first sensor 920 and/or the second sensor 926 may be sampled in real time during a clamping operation by a processor as described in figs. 5-10 , for example, and more particularly, the system 970. the processor receives realtime sample measurements to provide analyze time based information and assess, in real time, closure forces applied to the anvil 914. figs. 17-20 are sectional views of an anvil and closure tube sensor arrangement with the anvil 914 in opened and closed positions according to one aspect of this disclosure. as discussed above in respect to fig. 16 , the surgical instrument can include a sensor 6600 or a sensor assembly that is configured to measure a force exerted on the anvil 914 by the closure system. in one aspect, the closure system comprises a closure tube 260. in one such example, the sensor 6600 can be positioned at an interaction point between the proximal end 6500 of the anvil 914 and the distal end 6502 of the closure tube 260. when the closure tube 260 is translated distally to close the anvil 914, the distal end 6502 of the closure tube 260 contacts the proximal end 6500 of the anvil 914, as depicted in figs. 18 and 20 . the sensor 6600 positioned at this interaction point can therefore measure the absolute or relative degree of force exerted by and between the closure tube 260 and the anvil 914. the sensor 6600 may include strain gauges; hydraulic, pneumatic, piezoelectric, and capacitive load cells; piezoelectric crystal force transducers; and any other type of device capable of sensing pressure or force exerted between the anvil 914 and the closure tube 260. the sensor 6600 can be operably coupled to a processor and/or control circuit as described in figs. 5-10 and 14 , for example, such that the output from the sensor 6600 is sampled or received by the processor and/or control circuit for utilization thereby. the output of the sensor 6600 can be provided as a digital signal. the sensor 6600 may be positioned at the distal end 6502 of the closure tube 260 as depicted in figs. 17-18 . the sensor 6600 may comprise one or more strain gauges 6504. the strain gauges 6504 can be configured to sense an axial or longitudinal strain experienced by the closure tube 260 as it contacts the anvil 914. the strain gauges 6504 may be arranged in a wheatstone bridge. in another aspect, the sensor 920 may be positioned at the proximal end 6500 of the anvil 914, as depicted in figs. 19-20 . in this aspect, the sensor 6600 can, for example, comprise a movable member 6512 that is operably coupled to a load cell 6514 that is configured to sense a degree of force from contact with the distal end 6502 of the closure tube 260. the aforementioned examples can additionally be applied interchangeably to either of the anvil proximal end 6500 and the closure tube distal end 6502. in still other aspects, the sensor 6600 can comprise one or more force sensing devices disposed on both the anvil proximal end 6500 and the closure tube distal end 6502. fig. 21 is a diagram 6700 plotting expected versus actual closure tube force, displacement member force, and motor velocity over the course of a clamping and firing operation of the surgical instrument. in the following description of the diagram 6700, reference should also be made to figs. 17-20 . the diagram 6700 includes a first graph 6702 plotting closure tube force 6710 relative to time 6708, a second graph 6704 plotting displacement member force 6712 relative to time 6708, and a third graph 6706 plotting motor velocity 6714 relative to time 6708. the x-axis plotting time 6708 for each of the first graph 6702, the second graph 6704, an the third graph 6706 are normalized and aligned such that they correspond to a single clamping and firing operation executed by the surgical instrument. each clamping and firing operation executed by the surgical instrument is delineated into three time periods between the start time 6750 and the end time 6752: the closure time period t c , the transition time period t t , and the firing time period t f . in the first graph 6702, the expected closure tube force 6716 is plotted across each of the closure time period t c , the transition time period t t , and the firing time period t f . the expected closure tube force 6716 is the expected force that is exerted or experienced by the closure tube 260 when the closure tube 260 is holding the end effector clamped shut. the expected closure tube force 6716 can be measured, for example, by a sensor 6600 configured to detect a force at an interaction point between the closure tube 260 and the anvil 914, as described above. in the second graph 6704, the expected displacement member force 6720 is likewise plotted across these successive time periods. the expected displacement member force 6720 is the expected force that the displacement member 1111 ( fig. 10 ) is exerted or experienced by the displacement member 1111 as it is translated distally through the end effector to cut and/or staple clamped tissue. in various aspects, the expected closure tube force 6716, the expected displacement member force 6720, and the expected motor velocity 6724 have been modeled or determined experimentally for a given set of conditions, such as the tissue thickness, the type of operation being performed (cutting, stapling, or a combination thereof), and the type of cartridge. the particular expected closure tube force 6716, expected displacement member force 6720, and expected motor velocity 6724 depicted in figs. 21-24 are merely illustrative, however. the expected closure tube force 6716, the expected displacement member force 6720, and the expected motor velocity 6720 can be stored in the memory of the surgical instrument of the surgical instrument and accessed during the operation thereof. the expected closure tube force 6716, the expected displacement member force 6720, and the expected motor velocity 6720 can be stored as algorithms executed by the processor performing run-time calculations, a series of discrete values in a look-up table, a linear or nonlinear best curve fit formula based on the characterization data, or any other such format. the closure time period t c begins at the start time 6750 when the operator initiates the use of the surgical instrument by closing the anvil 914, jaw member 916, and/or staple cartridge 918 ( fig. 16 ) to clamp a tissue at the end effector. the end effector is closed by a closure system that receives an input from the operator and exerts a closure force on the end effector. in one aspect, the closure system comprises a closure tube 260 configured to exert a closure force on the end effector as the closure tube 260 is translated distally. the expected closure tube force 6716 has an initial ramp up period 6754 as the closure tube 260 bears against the corresponding portion of the end effector, causing the end effector to close and clamp or engage the tissue. after the initial ramp up phase 6754, the expected closure tube force 6716 then has a decline phase 6756 as the clamped tissue relaxes. when the clamped tissue relaxes, the closure tube 260 is required to exert less force to keep the tissue clamped by the end effector. the relaxation response from the clamped tissue can be due to, for example, fluid egress from the clamped area and/or a mechanical response from the clamped tissue. the decline phase 6756 of the expected closure tube force 6716 asymptotically approaches a steady state value ctf 1 over the closure time period t c until the displacement member 1111 begins advancing. once the displacement member 1111 begins advancing, i.e., is fired, there is a transition time period t t in the expected closure tube force 6716 as the end effector transitions from being held clamped shut solely by the closure tube 260 to being held clamped shut by a combination of the closure tube 260 and the i-beam 178 ( fig. 4 ). as described in more detail above, as the displacement member 1111 is advanced distally, portions of the i-beam 178 engage the staple cartridge 304 and/or anvil 306, causing the i-beam 178 to hold the end effector shut during the stapling and/or cutting operation. the i-beam 178 holding the end effector shut as it translates therethrough causes the expected closure tube force 6716 to decline 6758 from ctf 1 to ctf 2 because less force is required to be exerted by the closure tube 260 to maintain the end effector in the clamped position. conversely, the expected displacement member force 6720 increases 6762 through the transition time period t t . the increase 6762 in the expected displacement member force 6720 is caused by the increased load experienced by the displacement member 1111 as it exerts a force to maintain the end effector in the clamped position and experiences a load or resistance from the tissue being cut and/or stapled by the i-beam 178. as described in further detail below, the closure tube force and the displacement member force are thus inversely related to each other. the firing of the displacement member 1111 is initiated by a corresponding increase 6766 in the expected motor velocity 6724. once the transition time period t t has ended, the expected closure tube force 6716 gradually declines 6760 during the firing time period t f when the i-beam 178 advances through the end effector to staple and/or cut the clamped tissue. conversely, the expected linear displacement force 6720 has a generally sinusoidally shaped decline phase 6764 through the firing time period t f . in one aspect, each peak during the sinusoidal decline phase 6764 corresponds with, for example, the firing of a staple into the clamped tissue by the i-beam 178. with each staple, the force experienced or exerted by the displacement member 1111 decreases for a time period, prior to ramping up again prior to the firing of a subsequent staple. furthermore, the overall expected displacement member force 6720 gradually declines over the sinusoidal decline phase 6764 because the amount of force required to advance the i-beam 178 through tissue decreases as the tissue is clamped and/or stapled. the stapling and/or cutting operation of the clamped tissue is completed at the end time 6752. the force experienced by the closure tube 260 and the force experienced by the displacement member 1111 are inversely related to each other during the transition time period t t because the more force the displacement member 1111 experiences, the more slowly it advances through the clamped tissue. the more slowly the displacement member 1111 advances, the less the i-beam 178 takes over from the closure tube 260 in holding the end effector shut. the less the i-beam 178 takes over from the closure tube 260, the more force is experienced by the closure tube 260. therefore, monitoring the actual closure tube force 6718 can effectively be utilized as a proxy to indirectly monitor the function of the displacement member 1111, which is characterized by the force it experiences at it advances, i.e., the actual displacement member force 6722. in one aspect, if the actual closure tube force 6718 is higher than the expected closure tube force 6716, then that means that the actual displacement member force 6722 is lower than the expected displacement member force 6720. when the actual displacement member force 6722 is low, then the load experienced by the displacement member 1111, i.e., the tissue resistance experienced by the i-beam 178, may correspondingly be lower than expected. when the i-beam 178 is encountering low resistance from the tissue, then the motor velocity can be increased in order to advance the i-beam 178 faster. it can be desirable to increase the velocity of the i-beam 178 when low tissue resistances are encountered in order to decrease the amount of time taken by the cutting and/or stapling operation by the surgical instrument. accordingly, if the actual closure tube force 6718 is lower than the expected closure tube force 6716, then that means that the actual displacement member force 6722 is higher than the expected displacement member force 6720. when the actual displacement member force 6722 is high, then the load experienced by the displacement member 1111, i.e., the tissue resistance experienced by the i-beam 178, may correspondingly be higher than expected. when the i-beam 178 is encountering high resistance from the tissue, then the motor velocity can be decreased in order to advance the i-beam 178 at a slower rate. it can be desirable to decrease the velocity of the i-beam 178 when high tissue resistances are encountered in order to avoid overloading the motor and to avoid staple malformations caused by the staples not being sufficiently driven through the tissue. fig. 22 is a detail view of the transition period t t of the first graph 6702 depicted in fig. 21 according to one aspect of this disclosure. in ideal conditions, the closure tube force behaves in a known manner that is illustrated in one aspect by the expected closure tube force 6716; however, when the surgical instrument is utilized in practice, the actual performance of the surgical instrument will vary due to deviations from expected tissue conditions, environmental factors, and other such variables. as the actual closure tube force 6718 is detectable and the inverse relationship between the closure tube force and the displacement member force is known, the surgical instrument can, in some aspects, be configured to adjust the motor driving the displacement member 1111 to compensate for the variable or unexpected load encountered thereby when deviations in the actual closure tube force 6718 from the expected closure tube force 6716 are detected. as the expected closure tube force 6716 can represent the preferred operational state for the surgical instrument, it can thus be desirable to adjust the actual closure tube force 6718 to match the expected closure tube force 6716 throughout the course of a clamping and firing operation executed by the surgical instrument. it should be noted that figs. 21-24 merely depict examples for the actual closure tube force 6718 and the actual displacement member force 6722 in order to illustrate the principles of various aspects of the surgical instrument. the actual closure tube force 6718 and the actual displacement member force 6722 will vary with each use of the surgical instrument according to varying tissue conditions, varying environmental conditions, the types of operations being performed by the surgical instrument, and so on. in one aspect, the transition time period t t is divided into a series of discrete time intervals t 0 , t 1 , ... t n . at each time interval, the control circuit samples the actual closure tube force 6718, calculates or retrieves the expected closure tube force 6716 for the given time interval, and then compares the actual closure tube force 6718 to the expected closure tube force 6716. if the actual closure tube force 6718 is within a threshold of the expected closure tube force 6716, then no action is taken by the surgical instrument. no action is taken by the surgical instrument because, as is discussed above, if the actual closure tube force 6718 is equal or within a tolerance range of the expected closure tube force 6716, then the actual displacement member force 6722 is within an acceptable range of the expected displacement member force 6720. conversely, if the actual closure tube force 6718 is not within a threshold of the expected closure tube force 6716, then it is known that the actual displacement member force 6722 is not within an acceptable range of the expected displacement member force 6720 and the surgical instrument can adjust the velocity at which the displacement member 1111 is translated in order to compensate. the threshold can include, for example, a percentage range or a set value from the expected closure tube force 6716. referring back to fig. 21 , the third graph 6706 depicts various examples of the behavior of the motor velocity driving the i-beam 178 during the firing time period t f reflecting the relationship between the actual closure tube force 6718 and the actual displacement member force 6722. after the initial incline phase 6766 as the i-beam 178 is fired during the transition time period t t , the motor velocity will correspond to whether the actual closure tube force 6718 is above, within, or below a threshold of the expected closure tube force 6716. if the i-beam 178 is encountering lower than expected resistance, i.e., the displacement member force is less than expected and the closure tube force is greater than expected, then the motor velocity will quickly increase 6772 to a maximum velocity v 1 to translate the i-beam 178 at the fastest possible velocity. if the i-beam 178 is encountering expected resistance, i.e., the displacement member and closure tube forces are within acceptable tolerance ranges, then the motor velocity will gradually increase 6768 over the course of the firing stroke of the i-beam 178. if the i-beam is encountering higher than expected resistance, then the motor velocity will dip 6726 one or more times as the higher than expected resistance is encountered by the i-beam 178 in order to avoid overloading the motor. in some aspects, the surgical instrument can be configured to not dip 6726 the motor velocity below a set minimum velocity v 2 . the motor velocity decreases 6770 to zero as the completion of the firing stroke of the i-beam 178. fig. 25 is a logic flow diagram of a process 6800 depicting a control program or a logic configuration for controlling the velocity of the displacement member according to the closure tube force according to one aspect of this disclosure. in the following description of the process 6800, reference also should be made to figs. 14 and 17-20 . accordingly, the process 6800 first initiates 6802 a firing stroke of the displacement member 2520, which causes the displacement member 2520 to advance distally into the end effector 2502. prior to the firing stroke being initiated 6802, tissue has already been clamped by the end effector 2502 due to the action of the closure tube 260. after the firing stroke has been initiated 6802, in one aspect, the control circuit 2510 then determines 6804 the actual closure force cf a applied by the closure drive system 30 at a time t x . in some aspects, the actual closure force cf a can be sensed directly by a sensor configured to detect a force or strain exerted or experienced by the closure tube 260 against the anvil 834 or staple cartridge 2518 at an interaction point. in other aspects, the actual closure tube force cf a can be determined indirectly by, for example, sensing a force or strain exerted or experienced by a mechanical linkage connecting the closure trigger 32 and the closure tube 260 in maintaining the end effector 2502 in a clamped position. the process 6800 as executed by the control circuit 2510 next determines 6806 the expected closure tube force cf e corresponding to the particular time t x . in one aspect, the control circuit 2510 determines 6806 the expected closure tube force cf e by retrieving the value of the expected closure tube force cf e corresponding to the time t x from a look-up table stored, for example, in a memory of the surgical instrument. in another aspect, the control circuit 2510 determines 6806 the expected closure tube force cf e by calculating the value of the expected closure tube force cf e according to an algorithm executed by the control circuit 2510. the process 6800 as executed by the control circuit 2510 next determines 6808 whether the actual closure force cf a falls within a threshold of the expected closure tube force cf e . in one aspect, the control circuit 2510 determines 6808 whether the actual closure force cf a falls within a threshold of the expected closure tube force cf e by directly comparing the two values to determine whether they fall within a threshold of each other. in another aspect, the control circuit takes a derivative of a best fit curve of the expected closure tube force 6716 and the actual closure tube force 6718 over a time interval from a preceding time t x-1 to the current time t x to determine whether the rate of change of the actual closure tube force 6718 is within a threshold of the expected closure tube force 6716. in another aspect as illustrated in figs. 23 and 24 , the control circuit calculates a first difference δ a between the actual closure tube force value the expected closure tube force value of the prior time t x-1 and a second difference δ e between the expected closure tube force value and the expected closure tube force value of the prior time t x-1 . the control circuit then compares the differences δ a , δ e at the time t x to determine whether the first difference δ a falls within a threshold ± x of the second difference δ e . for example, fig. 23 depicts a time interval wherein the actual closure tube force 6718 exceeds the expected closure tube force 6716. as illustrated in fig. 23 , at time t 1 the control circuit 2510 determines the actual closure tube force value 6902 and the expected closure tube force value 6900 corresponding to time t 1 . the control circuit 2510 next calculates a first difference δ 1a between the actual closure tube force value 6902 the expected closure tube force value 6904 of the prior time t 0 and a second difference δ 1e between the expected closure tube force value 6900 and the expected closure tube force value 6904 of the prior time t 0 . the control circuit then compares the differences δ 1a , δ 1e at the time t 1 to determine whether the first difference δ 1a falls within a threshold ± x of the second difference δ 1e . as the first difference δ 1a is greater than the second difference δ 1e + x (i.e., the actual closure tube force value 6902 is above the tolerance threshold from the expected closure tube force value 6900 at time ti), then the actual displacement member force 6722 is less than the expected displacement member force 6720 and the control circuit 2510 of the surgical instrument can compensate by increasing the velocity at which the i-beam 2514 is translated. as another example, fig. 24 depicts a time interval wherein the actual closure tube force 6718 is less than the expected closure tube force 6716. as illustrated in fig. 24 , at time t 3 the control circuit 2510 determines the actual closure tube force value 6908 and the expected closure tube force value 6906 corresponding to time t 3 . the control circuit 2510 next calculates a first difference δ 3a between the actual closure tube force value 6908 the expected closure tube force value 6910 of the prior time t 2 and a second difference δ 3e between the expected closure tube force value 6906 and the expected closure tube force value 6910 of the prior time t 2 . the control circuit then compares the differences δ 3a , δ 3e at the time t 3 to determine whether the first difference δ 3a falls within a threshold ± x of the second difference δ 3e . as the first difference δ 3a is less than the second difference δ 3e - x, then the actual displacement member force 6722 is greater than the expected displacement member force 6720 and the control circuit 2510 of the surgical instrument can compensate by decreasing the velocity at which the displacement member 1111 is translated. if the actual closure tube force cf a falls outside the tolerance range of the expected closure tube force cf e , then the process 6800 proceeds along the no branch and the control circuit 2510 adjusts 6810 the velocity of the displacement member, such as, for example, the i-beam 2514. in the example in which the displacement member is the i-beam 2514, the velocity at which the i-beam 2514 is translated is adjusted according to whether the actual closure tube force cf a fell above or below the threshold range of the expected closure tube force cf e . if the actual closure tube force cf a was above the threshold range of the expected closure tube force cf e , as depicted in fig. 23 , then the control circuit 2510 generates a motor set point signal 2522 that is provided to the motor controller 2508 to drive the motor 2504 at a velocity that is greater than the current velocity at which the motor 2504 is set. conversely, if the actual closure tube force cf a was below the threshold range of the expected closure tube force cf e , as depicted in fig. 24 , then the control circuit 2510 generates a motor set point signal 2522 that is provided to the motor controller 2508 to drive the motor 2504 at a velocity that is less than the current velocity at which the motor 2504 is set. in one aspect, the adjustment applied to the motor 2504 can be a fixed value. in another aspect, the adjustment applied to the motor 2504 can be proportional to the degree to which the actual closure tube force cf a is above or below the threshold range of the expected closure tube force cf e . in yet another aspect, the adjustment applied to the motor 2504 can be calculated by the control circuit 2510 according to a linear or nonlinear function. if the actual closure tube force cf a is within the tolerance range of the expected closure tube force cf e , then the process 6800 proceeds along the yes branch and the control circuit 2510 next determines 4084 whether the stroke of the i-beam 2514 is completed. alternatively, after the velocity of the i-beam 2514 is adjusted 6810, the control circuit 2510 likewise next determines 6812 whether the stroke of the i-beam 2514 is completed. if the firing stroke is complete, then the process 6800 proceeds along the yes branch and the process 6800 is completed 6814. if the firing stroke is not complete, then the process 6800 proceeds along the no branch and continues a loop of determining 6804 the actual closure tube force cf a , determining 6806 the expected closure tube force cf e , determining 6808 whether they are within a threshold of each other, and adjusting 6810 to the velocity of the i-beam 2514 accordingly for each subsequent time interval t x+1 , t x+2 , ... t x+n . stated differently, the process 6800 continues to monitor the closure tube force and adjust the velocity of the i-beam 2514 accordingly until the cutting and/or stapling operation is completed. the function or process 6800 described herein may be executed by any of the processing circuits described herein, such as the control circuit 700 described in connection with figs. 5-6 , the circuits 800, 810, 820 described in figs. 7-9 , the microcontroller 1104 described in connection with figs. 10 and 12 , and/or the control circuit 2510 described in fig. 14 . aspects of the motorized surgical instrument may be practiced without the specific details disclosed herein. some aspects have been shown as block diagrams rather than detail. parts of this disclosure may be presented in terms of instructions that operate on data stored in a computer memory. an algorithm refers to a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result, where a "step" refers to a manipulation of physical quantities which may take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. these signals may be referred to as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers. these and similar terms may be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. generally, aspects described herein which can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof can be viewed as being composed of various types of "electrical circuitry." consequently, "electrical circuitry" includes electrical circuitry having at least one discrete electrical circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one integrated circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one application specific integrated circuit, electrical circuitry forming a general purpose computing device configured by a computer program (e.g., a general purpose computer or processor configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein, electrical circuitry forming a memory device (e.g., forms of random access memory), and/or electrical circuitry forming a communications device (e.g., a modem, communications switch, or optical-electrical equipment). these aspects may be implemented in analog or digital form, or combinations thereof. the foregoing description has set forth aspects of devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples, which may contain one or more functions and/or operation. each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. in one aspect, several portions of the subject matter described herein may be implemented via application specific integrated circuits (asics), field programmable gate arrays (fpgas), digital signal processors (dsps), programmable logic devices (plds), circuits, registers and/or software components, e.g., programs, subroutines, logic and/or combinations of hardware and software components. logic gates, or other integrated formats. some aspects disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running on one or more processors (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more microprocessors), as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of this disclosure. the mechanisms of the disclosed subject matter are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative aspect of the subject matter described herein applies regardless of the particular type of signal bearing medium used to actually carry out the distribution. examples of a signal bearing medium include the following: a recordable type medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk drive, a compact disc (cd), a digital video disk (dvd), a digital tape, a computer memory, etc.; and a transmission type medium such as a digital and/or an analog communication medium (e.g., a fiber optic cable, a waveguide, a wired communications link, a wireless communication link (e.g., transmitter, receiver, transmission logic, reception logic, etc.). the foregoing description of these aspects has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. it is not intended to be exhaustive or limiting to the precise form disclosed. modifications or variations are possible in light of the above teachings. these aspects were chosen and described in order to illustrate principles and practical application to thereby enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the aspects and with modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. it is intended that the claims submitted herewith define the overall scope. various aspects of the subject matter described herein are set out in the following numbered examples: example 1. a surgical instrument comprising: a displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at an end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: receive a signal indicative of force from a sensor, the signal indicative of the force applied by a closure tube to the end effector; determine a closure force applied by the closure tube to the end effector; determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of an expected closure force; and set a motor velocity to drive the motor at a velocity that corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected force. example 2. the surgical instrument of example 1, further comprising a sensor coupled to the control circuit, the sensor configured to detect a force exerted at an interaction point between the end effector and the closure tube. example 3. the surgical instrument of example 2, wherein the closure force comprises the force exerted at the interaction point between the end effector and the closure tube. example 4. the surgical instrument of example 1 through example 3, wherein the control circuit is configured to retrieve the expected closure force from a memory. example 5. the surgical instrument of example 1 through example 4, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. example 6. the surgical instrument of example 1 through example 5, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. example 7. the surgical instrument of example 1 through example 6, further comprising: an end effector; and a closure tube coupled to the end effector, the closure tube configured to apply a closure force to the end effector. example 8. a surgical instrument comprising: a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position; a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector; a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the control circuit configured to: determine the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieve an expected closure force; determine whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and set the motor to drive the displacement member at a velocity, wherein the velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force. example 9. the surgical instrument of example 8, further comprising a sensor coupled to the control circuit, the sensor configured to detect the closure force. example 10. the surgical instrument of example 9, wherein the sensor is disposed at an interaction point between the closure system and the end effector. example 11. the surgical instrument of example 8 through example 10, wherein the control circuit is configured to retrieve the expected closure force from a memory. example 12. the surgical instrument of example 8 through example 11, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the comparing. example 13. the surgical instrument of example 8 through example 12, wherein the control circuit is configured to compare a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected force and to determine whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. example 14. the surgical instrument of claim 8 through example 13, further comprising: an end effector; and a closure tube coupled to the end effector, the closure tube configured to apply a closure force to the end effector. example 15. a method of controlling a motor in a surgical instrument, the surgical instrument comprising a closure system configured to apply a closure force to an end effector to transition the end effector between an open position and a closed position, a displacement member coupled to the closure system, the displacement member movable between a first position and a second position to effect a motion at the end effector, a motor coupled to the displacement member, the motor configured to drive the displacement member between the first position and the second position; and a control circuit coupled to the motor, the method comprising: determining the closure force exerted by the closure system; retrieving an expected closure force; determining whether the closure force is within a tolerance of the expected closure force; and setting a motor velocity for driving the motor, wherein the motor velocity corresponds to the closure force relative to the expected closure force. example 16. the method of example 15, further comprising retrieving, by the control circuit, the expected closure force from the memory. example 17. the method of example 15 through example 16, further comprising sensing, by a sensor coupled to the control circuit, a force exerted by the closure system at an interaction point with the end effector. example 18. the method of example 17, further comprising determining, by the control circuit, the closure force exerted by the closure system. example 19. the method of example 15 through example 18, further comprising comparing, by the control circuit, a value of the closure force to a value of the expected closure force and determining, by the control circuit, whether the closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison. example 20. the method of example 15 through example 19, further comprising comparing, by the control circuit, a first difference between the closure force and a prior expected closure force and a second difference between the expected closure force and the prior expected force and determining, by the control circuit, whether closure force is within a threshold of the expected closure force based on the results of the comparison.
198-642-490-411-641	US	[ "US" ]	G06F9/44	2008-04-16T00:00:00	2008	[ "G06" ]	method for transforming data from a model into a secondary model to optimize code generation	a method for generating code includes receiving an eclipse modeling framework (emf) model representing data in a structure from a source code application, parsing data from an emf model, transforming parsed data into a secondary model, the secondary model being configured for a destination data structure, and generating code through java emitter templates (jet) based upon the secondary model.	1 . a method for generating code, comprising: receiving a software development platform model representing data in a structure from a source code application; parsing data from said software development platform model; defining a flat structure of a secondary model for code generation; transforming parsed data into the secondary model, said parsed data comprising a subset of said data within said software development model, said secondary model being configured for a destination data structure; and generating code through an object oriented source code template based upon said secondary model.	technical field the present disclosure generally relates to the field of code generation, and more particularly to a method for transforming data from a model to a secondary model to optimize code generation. background when utilizing existing code generation techniques with jet(java emitter templates) and emf(eclipse modeling framework), a model is employed to represent the structure of the data. the model representing the structure of the data may be used to generate code. this data is held in a logical format to represent the source application, but is not utilized for complex code generation. this can lead to slow cumbersome code generation routines, which are difficult to maintain. the structure of the source model is still useful for some artifact generation and therefore its structure is not changed. summary the present disclosure is directed to a method for generating code. in an embodiment, method for generating code includes receiving an eclipse modeling framework (emf) model representing data in a structure from a source code application, parsing data from an emf model, transforming parsed data into a secondary model, the secondary model being configured for a destination data structure, and generating code through java emitter templates (jet) based upon the secondary model. it is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not necessarily restrictive of the present disclosure. the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate subject matter of the disclosure. together, the descriptions and the drawings serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. brief description of the drawings the numerous advantages of the disclosure may be better understood by those skilled in the art by reference to the accompanying figures in which: fig. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for generating code. detailed description reference will now be made in detail to the subject matter disclosed, which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings. referring to fig. 1 , a flow diagram illustrating a method 100 for generating code is shown. method 100 for generating code may include receiving an eclipse modeling framework (emf) model representing data in a structure from a source code application 110 , parsing data from an emf model 120 , defining structure of a secondary model for code generation 130 , transforming parsed data into a secondary model 130 , the secondary model being configured for a destination data structure 140 , and generating code through java emitter templates (jet) based upon the secondary model 150 . a method and system for model-driven development may introduce a secondary model from a first model that represents the same data in a different structure. this second structure may store the data in a logical format for the required generated code. this allows code generation to be more efficient as the structure of the secondary model allows the parser to act in a much more effective way, and allows vastly simplified jet templates to be used and maintained. conventional systems for generating code may employ an emf model and execute an eclipse transformation upon the emf model to generate code using jet. through an additional step in the middle of this process, the data is taken from the source emf model and the structure of that data is transformed to suit a secondary model. it is then the structure of the data stored in this secondary model that is passed into the code generation routines. where as the source model's structure is dependant on the data in the source application, the secondary model structure suits the structure of the destination data, and can be designed to allow jet templates to generate code in a performant way. for example, tooling and runtime may be based around a deeply nested metamodel that is suitable for generating a user interface. however as well as ui, implementation source code is also generated from the same metamodel. in that case, using the deeply nested structure would lead to complex and under performing jet templates that would iterate through the whole model at code generation time to ensure all the properties were added to the generated code. instead we transform the model into a flat structure suitable for code generation allowing the jet transform to only loop through a small part of the model. in summary, instead of a typical scenario where one model which represents data in a structure from a source application is being used to generate code, a second model is introduced which represents the target data. an additional transformation then takes place to restructure the data before the code is generated. the source models structure is optimized for storing data from the source application, and the new secondary model's structure is optimized to store that data in way most useful to the target application, in this case a jet template. in the present disclosure, the methods disclosed may be implemented as sets of instructions or software readable by a device. further, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods disclosed are examples of exemplary approaches. based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the method can be rearranged while remaining within the disclosed subject matter. the accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not necessarily meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented. it is believed that the present disclosure and many of its attendant advantages will be understood by the foregoing description, and it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the components without departing from the disclosed subject matter or without sacrificing all of its material advantages. the form described is merely explanatory, and it is the intention of the following claims to encompass and include such changes.
198-730-709-742-040	US	[ "DK", "CA", "EP", "ES", "US", "WO" ]	F03D1/00,F03D1/06,F03D13/10,B66C1/66,B66C13/08,B66D1/60,B23P19/04,B23P6/00	2014-09-09T00:00:00	2014	[ "F03", "B66", "B23" ]	system and method for removing and/or installing a rotor blade of a wind turbine	the present disclosure is directed to a system and method for lifting and/or removing a rotor blade to and from a wind turbine. in one embodiment, the system includes an up-tower pulley mounted on an up-tower location of the wind turbine, first and second ground winches, a pulley cable from the first ground winch over the up-tower pulley and attached to the rotor blade, a guide line attached between an up-tower location of the wind turbine and the second ground winch, a guide pulley mounted on the guide line, and a guide cable from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade. thus, the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line during lifting and removing of the rotor blade so that the guide cable can control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower during lifting and removing of the rotor blade.	a method for removing a rotor blade (22) from atop a tower (12) of a wind turbine (10), the method comprising: installing at least one up-tower pulley (180,182) at an up-tower location of the wind turbine; attaching a pulley cable (116) from a first ground winch (112) over the up-tower pulley to the rotor blade; attaching a guide line (108) from a second ground winch (114) to an up-tower location of the wind turbine; attaching a guide pulley (118) to the guide line (108), wherein the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line; attaching a guide cable (120) from the guide line (108) over the guide pulley to the rotor blade (22) so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade (22) relative to the tower as the rotor blade is being lowered; and lowering the rotor blade by coordinated winch operation to a location on or adjacent to a support surface (14) of the wind turbine (10). the method of claim 1, further comprising positioning the rotor blade (22) being removed in a substantially six o'clock position and lowering the rotor blade (22) an initial vertical distance from a rotor of the wind turbine before attaching the up-tower pulley (180,182). the method of claim 1, wherein lowering the rotor blade (22) by coordinated winch operation to a location on or adjacent to the support surface (14) of the wind turbine (10) further comprises lowering the rotor blade (22) by coordinated winch operation until the rotor blade reaches a predetermined location and rotating the rotor blade (22) to a horizontal resting position by coordinated winch operation. the method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined location is determined by a stopping point of the up-tower pulley (180,182), wherein the stopping point of the up-tower pulley is controlled by at least one of the following: an additional winch, a controlled pulley cable, an additional pulley, or a fixed line. the method of claim 1, further comprising attaching a third pulley to an attachment point at the rotor and attaching an additional pulley cable from a third ground winch over the third pulley to the guide pulley to control a location of the guide pulley along the guide line (108). the method of claim 1, further comprising attaching an additional pulley cable between an up-tower location of the wind turbine (10) and the guide pulley to control a location of the guide pulley along the guide line (108), wherein the additional pulley cable comprises a fixed length. the method of claim 1, wherein the step of attaching the guide cable from the guide line (108) over the guide pulley to the rotor blade (22) further comprises attaching the guide cable to a blade tip of the rotor blade. the method of claim 1, further comprising positioning the first and second winches (112,114) on top of each other. the method of claim 1, further comprising positioning the first and second winches (112,114) at a 90-degrees angle with respect to each another and the tower (12). a method for lifting a rotor blade (22) of a wind turbine (10) from a support surface (14) to a rotor, the method comprising: attaching a pulley cable (116) from a first ground winch (112) over an up-tower pulley (180,182) at an up-tower location of the wind turbine to the rotor blade; attaching a guide line (108) from a second ground winch (114) to an up-tower location of the wind turbine, wherein the guide line comprises a guide pulley (118) configured thereon, the guide pulley configured to move along the guide line as the rotor blade is being lifted; attaching a guide cable (120) from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower as the rotor blade is being lifted; and lifting the rotor blade (22) via the pulley cable by coordinated ground winch operation to the rotor. the method of claim 10, further comprising positioning the rotor blade (22) being removed in a substantially six o'clock position and lowering the rotor blade an initial vertical distance from the rotor before attaching the up-tower pulley. the method of claim 10, wherein lifting the rotor blade (22) via the pulley cable by coordinated ground winch operation to the rotor further comprises: lifting the rotor blade (22) via the pulley cable by coordinated ground winch operation to a predetermined location; rotating the rotor blade (22) from a horizontal position to a vertical position via the pulley cable and the guide cable by coordinated ground winch operation; and lifting the rotor blade (22) via the pulley cable by coordinated ground winch operation to the rotor in the vertical position. a system for lifting and removing a rotor blade (22) of a wind turbine (10) to and from a rotor (20) installed atop a wind turbine tower (12), the system comprising: at least one up-tower pulley (180,182) mounted on an up-tower location of the wind turbine (10); a first ground winch (112) and a second ground winch (114) disposed at a location at or adjacent to a support surface (14) of the tower; a pulley cable (116) from the first ground winch (112) over the up-tower pulley and attached to the rotor blade; a guide line (108) attached between the second ground winch (114) and an up-tower location of the wind turbine; a guide pulley (118) mounted on the guide line (108), wherein the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line (108) during lifting and removing of the rotor blade (22); and a guide cable (120) from the guide line (108) over the guide pulley to the rotor blade (22) so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade (22) relative to the tower (12) during lifting and removing of the rotor blade (22). the system of claim 13, further comprising: a third pulley attached to an up-tower location of the wind turbine (10); and a pulley cable from a third ground winch over the third pulley to the guide pulley to control a location of the guide pulley along the guide line (108). the system of claim 13, further comprising a pulley cable between an up-tower location of the wind turbine (10) and the guide pulley to control a location of the guide pulley along the guide line (108), wherein the pulley cable comprises a fixed length.	field of the invention the present disclosure relates generally to wind turbines, and more particularly to systems and methods for removing and/or installing a rotor blade of a wind turbine. background of the invention wind power is considered one of the cleanest, most environmentally friendly energy sources presently available, and wind turbines have gained increased attention in this regard. a modern wind turbine typically includes a tower, generator, gearbox, nacelle, and one or more rotor blades. the rotor blades capture kinetic energy of wind using known airfoil principles. the rotor blades transmit the kinetic energy in the form of rotational energy so as to turn a shaft coupling the rotor blades to a gearbox, or if a gearbox is not used, directly to the generator. the generator then converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy that may be deployed to a utility grid. typically, to initially install a rotor blade onto the wind turbine hub and/or to remove one of the existing rotor blades from the hub, a significantly large crane must be transported to the wind turbine site in order to provide a means for raising and/or lowering the rotor blade relative to the hub. unfortunately, it is often extremely expensive to both transport the crane to the wind turbine site and operate the crane for the amount of time necessary to install and/or remove the rotor blade(s). as a result, the costs of employing such large cranes currently accounts for a significant portion of the overall costs associated with initial wind turbine installations and rotor blade maintenance operations. accordingly, improved methods and related systems for removing and/or installing wind turbine rotor blades that do not require the use of a significantly large crane would be welcomed in the technology. us 2007/290426 a1 discloses a prior art system for lifting and removing a rotor blade of a wind turbine to and from a rotor installed atop a wind turbine tower. brief description of the invention aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description, or may be obvious from the description, or may be learned through practice of the invention. in one aspect, the present disclosure is directed to a method for removing a rotor blade from a rotor of a wind turbine installed atop a wind turbine tower. the method includes attaching at least one up-tower pulley to an up-tower location of the wind turbine, e.g. the rotor. another step includes attaching a pulley cable from a first ground winch over the up-tower pulley to the rotor blade, e.g. the blade root. still another step includes attaching a guide line from a second ground winch to an up-tower location of the wind turbine. the method also includes attaching a guide pulley to the guide line, wherein the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line. a further step includes attaching a guide cable from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade, e.g. at the blade tip, so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower as the rotor blade is being lowered. a next step includes lowering the rotor blade by coordinated winch operation to a location on or adjacent to a support surface of the wind turbine. in another aspect, the present disclosure is directed to a method for lifting a rotor blade from a support surface to a rotor of a wind turbine installed atop a wind turbine tower. the method includes attaching a pulley cable from a first ground winch over an up-tower pulley at an up-tower location of the wind turbine, e.g. the rotor, to a blade root of the rotor blade. still another step includes attaching a guide line from an up-tower location of the wind turbine to a second ground winch, wherein the guide line has a guide pulley configured thereon. further, the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line during installation of the rotor blade. the method also includes attaching a guide cable from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower as the rotor blade is being lifted. a next step includes lifting the rotor blade via the pulley cable by coordinated ground winch operation to the rotor such that the rotor blade may be installed onto the rotor. in yet another aspect, the present disclosure is directed to a system for lifting or removing a rotor blade of a wind turbine to and from a wind turbine tower. the system includes at least one up-tower pulley mounted on an up-tower location of the wind turbine (e.g. the rotor), first and second winches disposed at a location at or adjacent to a support surface of the tower, a pulley cable from the first ground winch over the up-tower pulley and attached to the rotor blade, a guide line attached between the second ground winch and an up-tower location of the wind turbine, a guide pulley mounted on the guide line, and a guide cable from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade. the guide pulley is configured to move along the guide line during lifting and removing of the rotor blade and the guide cable is configured to control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower during lifting and removing of the rotor blade. these and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. brief description of the drawings a full and enabling disclosure of the present invention, including the best mode thereof, directed to one of ordinary skill in the art, is set forth in the specification, which makes reference to the appended figures, in which: fig. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a wind turbine according to one embodiment of the present disclosure; fig. 2 illustrates a perspective view of a rotor blade according to one embodiment of the present disclosure; fig. 3 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 1 , particularly illustrating a rotor blade to be removed from the wind turbine positioned in a generally vertical orientation relative to a support surface of the wind turbine and a blade sock installed onto the rotor blade; fig. 4 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 3 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade lowered to an initial vertical height and a blade sock installed onto the rotor blade; fig. 5 illustrates a close-up, partial perspective view of the rotor blade and the hub shown in fig. 4 , particularly illustrating one embodiment of a lowering system including support cables secured to the rotor blade and extending through both a pitch bearing of the wind turbine and corresponding cable translation devices positioned within the hub; fig. 6 illustrates a cross-sectional view of the rotor blade and the pitch bearing shown in fig. 5 prior to the rotor blade being lowered from the hub, particularly illustrating a pair of the support cables and cable translation devices of the lowering system shown in fig. 5 ; fig. 7 illustrates a top-down view of the pitch bearing shown in figs. 5 and 6 , particularly illustrating the circumferentially positioning of the cable translation devices around the pitch bearing relative to a tower reference line extending radially from the center of the wind turbine tower through the center of the pitch bearing; fig. 8 illustrates a similar cross-sectional view to that shown in fig. 6 , particularly illustrating a variation of the blade lowering system shown in fig. 6 in which each pair of support cables secured to the rotor blade includes one support cable in operative association with a corresponding cable transition device and another support cable extending through the pitch bearing without being received within a cable translation device; fig. 9 illustrates a close-up, partial perspective view of the rotor blade and the hub shown in fig. 4 , particularly illustrating another embodiment of a lowering system including support cables secured to the rotor blade and corresponding cable translation devices positioned within the hub; fig. 10 illustrates a close-up, partial perspective view of the interface between the rotor blade and the pitch bearing shown in fig. 9 prior to the rotor blade being lowered from the hub, particularly illustrating a support cable coupled between a support nut installed within the blade root and a corresponding cable translation device positioned within the hub; fig. 11 illustrates a perspective view of the support nut shown in fig. 10 ; fig. 12 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 4 , particularly illustrating a pulley cable coupled between the rotor blade and a first winch via one or more up-tower pulleys and a guide line having a guide pulley mounted thereto, wherein the guide line is mounted between the rotor and a second winch; fig. 13 illustrates one embodiment of a pulley arrangement that may be utilized to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub according to the present disclosure; fig. 14 illustrates another embodiment of a pulley arrangement that may be utilized to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub according to the present disclosure; fig. 15 illustrates a further embodiment of a pulley arrangement that may be utilized to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub according to the present disclosure; fig. 16 illustrates yet another embodiment of a pulley arrangement that may be utilized to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub according to the present disclosure; fig. 17 illustrates an even further example of a pulley arrangement that may be utilized to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub according to the present disclosure; fig. 18 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 12 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade being rotated to a horizontal position as the blade is being lowered via the pulley cable and the guide cable of the guide line; fig. 19 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 18 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade being held in a substantially horizontal position; fig. 20 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 12 , particularly illustrating an additional pulley cable mounted between the rotor blade and the guide pulley to control a location of the guide pulley; fig. 21 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 20 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade being rotated to a substantially horizontal position; fig. 22 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 21 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade in a substantially horizontal position; fig. 23 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 12 , particularly illustrating a third pulley mounted to the rotor and having an additional pulley cable over the third pulley between the guide pulley and a third winch, wherein the additional pulley cable is configured to control a location of the guide pulley; fig. 24 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 23 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade being rotated to a substantially horizontal position; fig. 25 illustrates another perspective view of the wind turbine shown in fig. 23 , particularly illustrating the rotor blade in a substantially horizontal position; fig. 26 illustrates a top view of one embodiment of a layout of the wind turbine and the winches of the present disclosure, particularly illustrating the first and second winches positioned at a 90-degree angle with respect to each other and the tower; and fig. 27 illustrates a top view of another embodiment of a layout of the wind turbine and the winches of the present disclosure, particularly illustrating the first and second winches positioned adjacent to or atop one another. detailed description of the invention reference now will be made in detail to embodiments of the invention, one or more examples of which are illustrated in the drawings. each example is provided by way of explanation of the invention, not limitation of the invention. in fact, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. for instance, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield a still further embodiment. thus, it is intended that the present invention covers such modifications and variations as come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. generally, the present subject matter is directed to various methods for removing rotor blades from and/or installing rotor blades onto a wind turbine. specifically, as will become apparent from the description provided below, the disclosed methods may allow for the removal and installation of rotor blades without the use of a large, expensive crane, thereby significantly reducing the costs associated with blade removal and/or blade installation. for example, in several embodiments, to lower a rotor blade from a hub of the wind turbine, at least one up-tower pulley is attached to an up-tower location of the wind turbine, e.g. the rotor. additionally, a pulley cable is attached from a main or first ground winch over the up-tower pulley to a blade root of the rotor blade and may be used to lower the rotor blade relative to the hub. a guide line having a guide pulley mounted thereto is also attached to the rotor and a second ground winch. thereafter, a guide cable can be attached from the guide line over the guide pulley to the rotor blade so as to control an orientation of the rotor blade relative to the tower as the rotor blade is being lowered. the pulley cable(s), in combination with the guide line and the guide cable, may then be used to lower the rotor blade onto and/or adjacent to a support surface of the rotor blade. accordingly, the rotor blade may be lowered in a controlled manner by coordinated winch operation. as will be described below, such method steps may also, in several embodiments, be reversed to allow for the installation of a rotor blade onto a wind turbine. it should be appreciated that, in addition to the disclosed methods, the present subject matter is also directed to a system for removing rotor blades from and/or installing rotor blades onto a wind turbine. specifically, the system may generally include any combination of the various components described herein as being used during the performance of any of the disclosed methods. referring now to the drawings, fig. 1 illustrates a side view of one embodiment of a wind turbine 10. as shown, the wind turbine 10 generally includes a tower 12 extending from a support surface 14 (e.g., the ground, a concrete pad or any other suitable support surface). in addition, the wind turbine 10 may also include a nacelle 16 mounted on the tower 12 and a rotor 18 coupled to the nacelle 16. the rotor 18 includes a rotatable hub 20 and at least one rotor blade 22 coupled to and extending outwardly from the hub 20. for example, in the illustrated embodiment, the rotor 18 includes three rotor blades 22. however, in an alternative embodiment, the rotor 19 may include more or less than three rotor blades 22. each rotor blade 22 may be spaced about the hub 20 to facilitate rotating the rotor 19 to enable kinetic energy to be transferred from the wind into usable mechanical energy, and subsequently, electrical energy. for instance, the hub 20 may be rotatably coupled to an electric generator (not shown) positioned within the nacelle 16 to permit electrical energy to be produced. referring now to fig. 2 , a perspective view of one of the rotor blades 22 shown in fig. 1 is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. as shown, the rotor blade 22 includes a blade root 24 configured for mounting the rotor blade 22 to the hub 20 of a wind turbine 10 ( fig. 1 ) and a blade tip 26 disposed opposite the blade root 24. a body 28 of the rotor blade 22 may extend lengthwise between the blade root 24 and the blade tip 26 and may generally serve as the outer shell of the rotor blade 22. as is generally understood, the body 28 may define an aerodynamic profile (e.g., by defining an airfoil shaped cross-section, such as a symmetrical or cambered airfoil-shaped cross-section) to enable the rotor blade 22 to capture kinetic energy from the wind using known aerodynamic principles. thus, the body 28 may generally include a pressure side 30 and a suction side 32 extending between a leading edge 34 and a trailing edge 36. additionally, the rotor blade 22 may have a span 38 defining the total length of the body 28 between the blade root 24 and the blade tip 26 and a chord 40 defining the total length of the body 28 between the leading edge 34 and the trailing edge 36. as is generally understood, the chord 40 may vary in length with respect to the span 38 as the body 29 extends from the blade root 24 to the blade tip 26. moreover, as shown in fig. 2 , the rotor blade 22 may also include a plurality of t-bolts or root attachment assemblies 42 for coupling the blade root 22 to the hub 20 of the wind turbine 10. in general, each root attachment assembly 42 may include a barrel nut 44 mounted within a portion of the blade root 24 and a root bolt 46 coupled to and extending from the barrel nut 44 so as to project outwardly from a root end 48 of the blade root 24. by projecting outwardly from the root end 48, the root bolts 46 may generally be used to couple the blade root 24 to the hub 20 via a pitch bearing 150 ( fig. 5 ) of the wind turbine 10. for example, the pitch bearing 150 may define a plurality of bolt holes 151 ( figs. 6-7 ) configured to receive the root bolts 48. additionally, as will be described below, a portion of such root bolts 46 may also be utilized when the rotor blade 22 is being removed from and/or installed onto the hub 20. various embodiments of methods for removing a rotor blade 22 from a wind turbine 10, including various system components that may be used in performing such methods, will now be described with reference to figs. 3-27 . it should be appreciated that, although the methods will generally be described with reference to removing a rotor blade 22 from a wind turbine 10, the various method steps and system components disclosed herein may similarly be used to install a rotor blade 22 onto a wind turbine 10 by simply reversing the order in which the method is performed. it should also be appreciated that, although the methods will be described herein as being performed in a particular order, the methods may generally be performed in any suitable order that is consistent with the disclosure provided herein. referring particularly to fig. 3 , the rotor blade 22 to be removed may be initially rotated to a vertically downward position (e.g., a six o'clock position) such that the blade 22 has a generally vertical orientation relative to the support surface 14 of the wind turbine 10. for example, as shown in fig. 3 , the rotor blade 22 is extending vertically downward from the hub 20 such that the blade tip 26 is pointing towards the support surface 14. it should be appreciated that, due to a tilt angle and/or cone angle of the wind turbine 10, the rotor blade 22 may be angled slightly away from the tower 12 when moved to the vertically downward position. in several embodiments, once the rotor blade 22 is rotated to the vertically downward position, an optional blade sock 100 may be installed onto the blade 22 to provide attachment points for various cables and/or lines of the present disclosure and/or to provide protection to the rotor blade 22. further, as shown in fig. 3 , the blade sock 100 may be installed at an intermediate location 102 defined between the blade root 24 and the blade tip 26. in one embodiment, the intermediate location 102 may correspond to a location defined along an outboard section of the rotor blade 22, such as at a location spaced apart from the blade root 24 by a distance 104 that is greater that about 50% of the blade span 38 ( fig. 2 ). for example, the distance 104 may range from about 50% of the span 38 to about 95% of the span 38, such as from about 65% of the span 38 to about 95% of the span 38 or from about 75% of the span 38 to about 90% of the span 38 and any other subranges therebetween. still referring to fig. 3 , to install the blade sock 100 onto the rotor blade 22, one or more lift cables 106 may be secured to the blade sock 100 and may extend upward to an up-tower location, such as at a location on and/or within the hub 20 or the nacelle 16. for instance, in one embodiment, the lift cable(s) 106 may extend upward from the blade sock 100 to personnel located within and/or on top of the hub 20 or the nacelle 16. regardless, the lift cable(s) 106 may be used to lift the blade sock 100 vertically upwards relative to the support surface 14 to allow the sock 100 to be installed around the rotor blade 22 at the intermediate location 102. for instance, the blade sock 100 may define a closed shape configured to extend around the outer perimeter of the rotor blade 22. thus, when lifting the blade sock 100 via the lift cable(s) 106, the sock 100 may be carefully aligned with the rotor blade 22 such that the blade tip 26 is received within the sock 100. it should be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the system and method as described herein can operate without the use of the blade sock 100. in such an embodiment, the cables and/or guide cables as described herein may be attached directly to the rotor blade 22. referring now to fig. 4 , the rotor blade 22 may be initially lowered from the hub 22 by an initial vertical distance 146. as will be described below, such initial lowering of the rotor blade 22 may allow for one or more up-tower pulleys 180, 182 to be coupled between the blade 22 and another up-tower component of the wind turbine 10, thereby providing a means for further lowering the rotor blade 22 in the direction of the support surface 14 according to the present disclosure. thus, the initial vertical distance 146 may generally correspond to any suitable distance that allows for the installation of the pulley(s) and any associated pulley cable(s) or pulley cable(s). for example, in one embodiment, the initial vertical distance 146 may generally range from about 2 feet to about 15 feet, such as from about 3 feet to about 10 feet or from about 5 feet to about 10 feet and any other subranges therebetween. referring now to figs. 5-7 , one embodiment of suitable components that may be included within a lowering system to initially lower the rotor blade 22 from the hub 20 is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. specifically, fig. 5 illustrates a partial perspective view of the hub 20, the rotor blade 22 and the pitch bearing 150 of the wind turbine 10 after the blade 22 has been lowered from the hub 20 by the initial vertical distance 146. fig. 6 illustrates a partial, cross-sectional view of the interface between the rotor blade 22 and the pitch bearing 150 prior to the blade 22 being lowered relative to the hub 20. additionally, fig. 7 illustrates a top view of the pitch bearing 150 of the wind turbine 10, particularly illustrating the relative circumferential positioning of the system components utilized to initially lower the rotor blade 22 relative to the hub 20. it should be appreciated that, for purposes of illustration, only the inner race of the pitch bearing 150 is shown in fig. 7 . as is generally understood, the pitch bearing 150 may also include an outer race configured to be coupled to the hub 20. as such, when the inner race is rotated relative to the outer race of the pitch bearing 150, the rotor blade 22 may be pitched about its pitch axis. as particularly shown in figs. 5 and 6 , to allow the rotor blade 22 to be initially lowered, several of the root bolts 46 extending through the bolt holes 151 defined in the pitch bearing 150 may be removed and replaced with suitable support cables 152. for example, as shown in fig. 5 , in one embodiment, eight of the root bolts 46 have been removed and replaced with corresponding support cables 152. in doing so, the remainder of the root bolts 46 may be initially maintained in engagement with the pitch bearing 150 (e.g., via suitable attachment nuts (not shown)) to allow the rotor blade 22 to continue to be supported by the hub 20 until the rotor blade 22 is ready to be lowered. in general, the support cables 152 may correspond to any suitable cables that are capable of supporting the weight of the rotor blade 22 as it is being lowered relative to the hub 20. for example, in several embodiments, each support cable 152 may correspond to a steel cable or any other suitable wire rope that has a rated load capacity sufficient to handle the weight of the rotor blade 22. in another embodiment, each support cable 152 may correspond to a metal chain or any other suitable elongated cable-like object. moreover, it should be appreciated that each support cable 152 may generally be configured to define any suitable length that permits the cables to be utilized to lower the rotor blade 22 away from the hub 20 by the initial vertical distance 146. in addition, the support cables 152 may generally be configured to be coupled to the rotor blade 22 using any suitable attachment means. for example, as shown in the illustrated embodiment, a stud end 154 ( fig. 6 ) of each cable 152 may be coupled to a threaded cable stud 156 configured to be screwed into one of the barrel nuts 44 extending within the blade root 24. in such an embodiment, a swaged or other suitable connection may be formed between the root end 154 of each cable 152 and each cable stud 156 to securely couple to the cables 152 to the corresponding studs 156. in other embodiments, the support cables 152 may be coupled to the blade root 24 using any other suitable means, such as by coupling each support cable 152 to a suitable mounting fixture configured to be secured to the blade root 24. it should be appreciated that, in embodiments in which the support cables 152 are coupled to the blade root 24 via the threaded cable studs 156, each cable stud 156 may generally be configured to define any suitable length 157. as shown in fig. 6 , in one embodiment, the length 157 of each cable stud 156 may be substantially equal to a corresponding length 159 of the root bolts 46. alternatively, as shown in the embodiment of fig. 8 , the length 157 of each cable stud 156 may be less than the length 159 of the root bolts 46. as shown in figs. 5 and 6 , each support cable 152 may be configured to be in operative association with a suitable cable translation device 158 positioned within the hub 20. in general, each cable translation device 158 may correspond to any suitable device that allows for the rotor blade 22 to be safely and securely moved relative to the hub 20 using the support cables 152. for example, in several embodiments, each cable translation device 152 may correspond to a fluid-driven actuator (e.g., a hydraulic or pneumatic actuator) configured to be in operative association with a corresponding support cable 152 to allow the rotor blade 22 to be lowered and/or raised relative to the hub 20. specifically, in a particular embodiment of the present subject matter, each cable translation device 158 may be configured as a hollow lifting/lowering cylinder or as a single strand jack designed to incrementally lower and/or raise the rotor blade 22. for example, as shown in fig, 6 , each device 158 may include a cylinder 160 configured to be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 (e.g., via suitable bolts and/or other mechanical fasteners (not shown)) and a hollow piston 162 configured to receive one of the support cables 152. the piston 162 may generally be configured to be actuated and retracted relative to the cylinder 160 by supplying/expelling a pressurized fluid to/from the cylinder 160 (e.g., via fluid port 164). in addition, each cable translation device 158 may include an upper clamping mechanism 166 positioned directly above the piston 162 and a lower clamping mechanism 168 positioned directly below the piston 162. as is generally understood, the upper and lower clamping mechanisms 166, 168 may be configured to alternatively clamp the support cable 152 as the piston 162 is actuated and retracted, thereby allowing each translation device 152 to lower or raise the rotor blade 22 in short increments with each actuation/retraction of the piston 162. additionally, in several embodiments, a stop block 170 may be configured to be installed around each support cable 152 directly above its corresponding cable translation device 158. in general, each stop block 170 may be configured to serve as a built-in safety feature providing a mechanical stop for each support cable 152 in the event of failure of one of the cable translation devices 158. for example, as particularly shown in fig. 6 , each support cable 152 may include a plurality of lugs 172 spaced apart incrementally along the cable's length. in such an embodiment, an opening or slot (not shown) may be defined through each stop block 170 that is dimensionally larger than the cable 152, thereby allowing the cable 152 to pass through the stop block 170 as it is being lowered relative to the translation device 158. however, given their increased size, the lugs 172 may not be capable of passing through the opening or slot defined in each stop block 170. accordingly, in the event of failure of one of the cable translation devices 158, the lug 172 positioned immediately above the corresponding stop block 170 may come into contact with and engage an upper surface of the block 170, thereby preventing further motion of the support cable 152 relative to the translation device 158. in contrast, during normal operation, the stop blocks 170 may be continuously repositioned along the support cable 152 as each lug 172 is lowered down onto and/or adjacent to its corresponding stop block 170. for example, as indicated by the dashed lines in fig. 6 , when one of the lugs 172 is lowered down into and/or adjacent to one of the stop blocks 170, the stop block 170 may be removed from the support cable 152 and repositioned above such lug 172 to allow the support cable 152 to continue to be lowered through the translation device 158. it should be appreciated that, in general, each support cable 152 and corresponding translation device 158 may be configured to be installed at any suitable location around the circumference of the blade root 24 and pitch bearing 150. however, in several embodiments, the cables/devices 152, 158 may be grouped in pairs spaced apart around the blade root 24 and pitch bearing 150. for example, as shown in fig. 7 , in one embodiment, each pair of the cable translation devices 158 may be configured to be positioned around the pitch bearing 150 at circumferential locations generally adjacent to a reference line 174 oriented perpendicularly to a tower reference line 176 extending radially from the center of the wind turbine's tower 12 through the center of the pitch bearing 150. specifically, as shown, each pair of the cable translation devices 158 may generally be spaced apart circumferentially from the reference line 174 by an angle 178 equal to less than about 45 degrees, such as less than about 40 degrees or less than about 35 degrees. of course, in such an embodiment, the support cables 152 may similarly be secured to the blade root 24 at a corresponding circumferential location relative to the reference line 174. such positioning of the cables/devices 152, 158 adjacent to the reference line 174 may, in certain rotor blade configurations, allow for the rotor blade 22 to be slightly angled away from the tower 12 as the blade 22 is being lowered relative to the hub 20 due to the location of the blade's center of gravity. as indicated above, in one embodiment, eight support cables 152 and corresponding translation devices 158 may be installed to assist in lowering the rotor blade 22 relative to the hub 20. however, in other embodiments, any other suitable number of support cables 152 and translation devices 158 may be utilized to lower the rotor blade 22 relative to the hub 20. for instance, in one embodiment, the rotor blade 22 may be lowered using only four cables/devices 152, 158 or using only two cables/devices 152, 158. additionally, in other embodiments, only a portion of the support cables 152 coupled to the rotor blade 22 may be configured to be in operative association with corresponding cable translation devices 158. for instance, fig. 8 illustrates an alternative embodiment to the embodiment shown in fig. 6 . as shown in fig. 8 , for each pair of support cables 152 extending from the blade root 24, one of the cables 152 may be configured to be in operative association with a corresponding translation device 158 positioned within the hub 20. in such an embodiment, each support cable 152 not associated with a translation device 158 may simply be used to provide additional support for the rotor blade 22 as it is being lowered. in addition, such support cables 152 may also be configured to be utilized in connection with the stop blocks 170 described above. for instance, as shown in fig. 8 , the stop block 170 may be positioned directly above the pitch bearing 150 to allow the stop block 170 to be engaged between one of the cable lugs 172 and the pitch bearing 150 in the event of failure of one or more of the translation devices 158 installed on any of the other support cables 152. it should be appreciated that, in further embodiments of the present subject matter, the rotor blade 22 may be configured to be initially lowered from the hub 20 using any other suitable lowering means known in the art. for instance, as an alternative to the fluid-driven cable translation devices 158 described above, the cable translation devices may correspond to winches positioned within the hub 20. in such an embodiment, the support cables 152 may be unwound from each associated winch in order to initially lower the rotor blade 22 from the hub 20. in another embodiment, the support cables 152 may be replaced with elongated threaded rods. in such an embodiment, the threaded rods may be received within a suitable translation device (e.g., a screw jack) configured to allow the rods to be moved relative to the device, thereby allowing the rotor blade 22 to be lowered relative to the hub 20. referring now to figs. 9-11 , another embodiment of suitable components that may be included within a lowering system to initially lower the rotor blade 22 from the hub 20 an initial vertical distance 146 is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. specifically, fig. 9 illustrates a partial perspective view of the hub 20, the rotor blade 22 and the pitch bearing 150 of the wind turbine 10 after the blade 22 has been lowered from the hub 20 by the initial vertical distance 146. fig. 10 illustrates a partial, perspective view of the interior of the hub 20 at the interface between the rotor blade 22 and the pitch bearing 150 prior to the blade 22 being lowered relative to the hub 20. additionally, fig. 11 illustrates a perspective view of one embodiment of a modified barrel-type support nut 300 configured for use in the illustrated lowered system in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. as particularly shown in figs. 9 and 10 , to allow the rotor blade 22 to be initially lowered, several of the root bolts 46 extending through the bolt holes 151 defined in the pitch bearing 150 may be removed. the existing barrel nuts 44 associated with such bolts 46 may then be replaced with cylindrically-shaped support nuts 300, with each support nut 300 being configured to allow a corresponding support cable 302 to be coupled to the blade root 24. for example, as shown in fig. 9 , in one embodiment, four of the existing barrel nuts 44 may be removed and replaced with suitable support nuts 300. in doing so, the remainder of the root bolts 46 may be initially maintained in engagement with the pitch bearing 150 (e.g., via suitable attachment nuts 304 ( fig. 10 ) to allow the rotor blade 22 to continue to be supported by the hub 20 until the rotor blade 22 is ready to be lowered. it should be appreciated that the support nuts 300 may generally have any suitable configuration that allows each support nut 300 to be inserted through the blade root 24 in place of one of the existing barrel nuts 44 as well as to provide a means for coupling each support cable 302 to the rotor blade 22. for example, in one embodiment, each support nut 300 may be configured as a modified barrel nut. for instance, as shown in fig. 11 , each support nut 300 may include a threaded opening 306 extending vertically through the support nut 300 to allow a corresponding root bolt 46 or other suitable threaded member to be coupled to the nut 300 and extend vertically therefrom. in addition, each support nut 300 may include a laterally extending threaded opening 308 defined through one of the sides of the nut 300. as shown in fig. 11 , such opening 308 may allow for a suitable coupling device 310 (e.g., a swivel eye, mount ring, mount hook or any other suitable attachment mechanism) to be secured to the support nut 300 for coupling each support cable 302 to the rotor blade 22. as indicated above, in one embodiment, four support nuts 300 may be installed through the blade root 24 in place of the existing barrel nuts 44 to allow four corresponding support cables 302 to be coupled to the rotor blade 22. however, in other embodiments, any other suitable number of support nuts 300 may be secured within the blade root 24 to provide a means for coupling a corresponding number of support cables 302 to the rotor blade 22, such as by installing less than four support nuts 300 within the blade root 24 (e.g., two or three support nuts) or greater than four support nuts 300 within the blade root 24 (e.g., five, six or more support nuts). additionally, it should be appreciated that the support nuts 300 may be configured to be maintained in position relative to the rotor blade 22 using any suitable attachment means. for instance, in one embodiment, once a given support nut 300 is inserted within the blade root 24, a corresponding root bolt 46 may be inserted through the pitch bearing 150 and screwed into the vertically extending opening 306 of the support nut 300 in order to secure the nut 300 within the blade root 24. alternatively, as shown in fig. 10 , an alignment pin 312 may be configured to be inserted through the pitch bearing 150 and screwed into the vertically extending opening 306 of each support nut 300. in such an embodiment, each alignment pin 312 may generally be configured for attachment within the corresponding support nut 300 in a manner similar to the existing root bolts 46 and, thus, may include a threaded end 314 for engaging the threaded opening 306 of the support nut 300. however, as shown in fig. 10 , each alignment pin 312 may define a vertical height or length 316 that is greater than the length 159 ( fig. 6 ) of the root bolts 46. accordingly, the alignment pins 312 may also be utilized to align the rotor blade with pitch bearing as the rotor blade (or a different rotor blade with the alignment pins installed therein) is being lifted up onto the hub. in a further embodiment, the support nuts 300 may be secured within the blade root 24 using the threaded cable studs 156 of the support cables 152 described above with reference to figs. 5-8 . in such an embodiment, the support cables 152 may be utilized as additional safety features for the system as the rotor blade 22 is being lowered relative to the hub 20. for example, as described above with reference to fig. 8 , the disclosed stop blocks 170 may be utilized without the cable translation devices 158 to allow each block 170 to serve as a mechanical stop between the pitch bearing 150 and the adjacent lugs 172 of the support cables 152 as the rotor blade 22 is being lowered. it should also be appreciated that each support nut 300 may generally be configured to be installed within the rotor blade 22 at any suitable circumferential location around the blade root 24. however, in several embodiments, the support nuts 300 may be configured to be installed at the same or similar locations to the circumferential locations for the cables/devices 152/158 described above with reference to fig. 7 . for instance, in one embodiment, the support nuts 300 may be configured to be installed within the blade root 24 at circumferential locations spaced apart from the reference line 174 by a given angle 178 ( fig. 7 ), wherein the angle is generally equal to less than about 45 degrees. referring particularly to figs. 9 and 10 , in several embodiments, each support cable 302 may be configured to extend from one of the support nuts 300 to a corresponding cable translation device 318 positioned within the hub 20. as shown in fig. 10 , in one embodiment, the cable translation device 318 may correspond to cable hoists (including chain hoists) configured to be mounted to and/or supported by any suitable wind turbine component(s) positioned within the hub 20 (e.g., the hub gusset(s), joist(s) and/or any other suitable component(s)). as is generally understood, cable hoists may be configured to allow suitable cables to be passed therethrough in a controlled manner. thus, in the present application, such cable hoists may be utilized to safely and effectively lower the rotor blade 22 relative to the hub 20. it should be appreciated that, in alternative embodiments, the cable translation devices 318 may correspond to any other suitable devices and/or mechanisms that allow for the rotor blade 22 to be lowered relative to the hub 20 via the corresponding support cables 302. for instance, in another embodiment, the cable translation devices 318 may correspond to winches positioned within the hub 20. it should also be appreciated that, similar to the support cables 152 described above, each support cable 302 may generally correspond to any suitable elongated cable-like object that has a rated load capacity sufficient to handle the weight of the rotor blade 22. for instance, as shown in the illustrated embodiment, the support cables 302 are configured as metal chains. however, in other embodiments, the support cables 302 may correspond to steel cables or any other suitable wire ropes. moreover, it should be appreciated that each support cable 302 may generally be configured to define any suitable length that permits the cables 302 to be utilized to lower the rotor blade 22 away from the hub 20 by the initial vertical distance 146. referring now to fig. 12 , after lowering the rotor blade 22 from the hub 20 by the initial distance 146 ( fig. 4 ), one or more up-tower pulleys 180, 182 may be used to couple one or more pulley cables or cables 116 between the rotor blade 22 and a main or first ground winch 112 supported on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14. for example, as shown in fig. 12 , the pulley cable 116 may be configured to be operatively coupled around one or more up-tower pulleys 180, 182 coupled to the rotor blade 22 and/or to one or more up-tower components of the wind turbine 10 (e.g., the rotor 18 or the pitch bearing 150). by coupling the pulley cable 116 between the first winch 112 and the rotor blade 22 via the pulleys 180, 182, the pulley cable 116 may be slowly unwound or otherwise released from the winch 112, thereby allowing the rotor blade 22 to lowered from the hub 20 in a controlled manner. it should be appreciated that, as the rotor blade 22 is being lowered using the pulley cable 116, the system and method of the present disclosure also utilizes a guide line 108 configured to control the orientation of the rotor blade 22 as the blade 22 is being lowered. specifically, as shown in fig. 12 , by securing the rotor blade 22 to the guide line 108 via a guide cable 120 over guide pulley 118, the rotor blade 22 may be maintained a safe distance away from the tower 12. in addition, the guide line 108, in combination with the guide cable 120 and the guide pulley 118, may also be utilized to rotate the rotor blade 22 into a generally horizontal position prior to lowering the blade 22 onto and/or directly adjacent to support surface 14, which is described in more detail in regards to figs. 18 and 19 . referring now to figs. 13-16 , various examples of different up-tower pulley arrangements are illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. specifically, in each example shown in figs. 13-16 , one or more pulleys 180 are coupled to the pitch bearing 150 and one or more pulleys 182 are coupled to the rotor blade 22. however, in other embodiments, the pulley(s) 180 may be configured to be coupled to any other suitable up-tower component(s) of the wind turbine 10 in addition to the pitch bearing 150. for instance, as an alternative to coupling the up-tower pulley(s) 180 to the pitch bearing 150, such pulley(s) 180 may be coupled to the hub 20 (e.g., by coupling the pulley(s) 180 within the interior of the hub 20), the nacelle 16 or any other suitable up-tower component of the wind turbine 10. as shown in fig. 13 , in one embodiment, a single pulley 180 may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 and pulleys 182a, 182b may be coupled to the blade root 24 of the rotor blade 22. in such an embodiment, pulley 180 may, for example, be vertically aligned with one of the pulleys 182a, 182b (e.g., pulley 180a) on a first side of the blade/bearing 22, 150, with the other pulley (e.g., pulley 182b) being positioned on an opposite of the blade 22. additionally, as shown in fig. 13 , a pulley cable 116 may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 (or the hub 20) at an attachment location 192 such that the cable 116 may be operatively coupled around the pulleys 180, 182a, 182b as the line 116 extends between the attachment location 192 and the first winch 112 ( fig. 12 ) positioned on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 of the wind turbine 10. thus, as the lifting cable 116 is unwound from or otherwise released by the first winch 112, the cable 116 may follow a path (as indicated by arrows 194) extending from pulley 180 around pulley 182a and then around the pulley 182b as the rotor blade 22 is lowered. in another embodiment, as shown in fig. 14 , up-tower pulleys 180a, 180b may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 and pulleys 182a, 182b may be coupled to the blade root 24 of the rotor blade 22. in such an embodiment, pulley 180a may, for example, be vertically aligned with one of the pulleys 182a, 182b (e.g., pulley 182a) on a first side of the blade/bearing 22, 150, with the other pulley 182b being positioned on an opposite of the blade 22. additionally, pulley 180b may be positioned at a location defined horizontally between pulleys 182a and 182b. moreover, as shown in fig. 14 , a lifting cable 116 may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 (or the hub 20) at an attachment location 192 such that the cable 116 may be operatively coupled around the up-tower pulleys 180a, 180b, 182a, 182b as the cable 116 extends between the attachment location 192 and the first winch 112 ( fig. 12 ) positioned on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 of the wind turbine 10. thus, as the pulley cable 116 is unwound from or otherwise released by the winch 112, the cable 116 may follow a path (as indicated by arrows 194) from pulley 180a around pulley 182a and then from pulley 180b around pulley 182b as the rotor blade 22 is being lowered. in a further embodiment, as shown in fig. 15 , up-tower pulleys 180a, 180b may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 and pulleys 182a, 182b may be coupled to the blade root 24 of the rotor blade 22. however, unlike the example shown in fig. 14 , pulley 180a may be vertically aligned with one of the pulleys (e.g., the first blade pulley 182a) on a first side of the blade/bearing 22, 150 and pulley 180b may be vertically aligned with pulley 182b on an opposite of the blade/bearing 22, 150. additionally, as shown in fig. 15 , a lifting cable 116 may be coupled to the blade root 24 at an attachment location 192 such that the cable 116 may be operatively coupled around the pulleys 180a, 180b, 182a, 182b as the cable 116 extends between the attachment location 192 and the first winch 112 ( fig. 12 ) positioned on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 of the wind turbine 10. thus, as the pulley cable 116 is unwound from or otherwise released by the winch 112, the cable 116 may follow a path (as indicated by arrows 194) extending from pulley 180a around pulley 182a and then from pulley 180b around pulley 182b as the rotor blade 22 is being lowered. as yet another example, as shown in fig. 16 , up-tower pulley 180 may be coupled to the pitch bearing 150 and up-tower pulley 182 may be coupled to the blade root 24 of the rotor blade 22. in such an embodiment, one or both of the pulleys 180, 182 may correspond to a double pulley. for instance, as shown in fig. 16 , pulley 180 is configured as a double pulley and, thus, includes double pulley slots 195 and 196 for receiving a cable. additionally, as shown in fig. 16 , a lifting cable 116 may be coupled to the blade root 24 at an attachment location 192 such that the cable 186 may be operatively coupled around the pulleys 180, 182 as it extends between the attachment location 192 and the first winch 112 ( fig. 12 ) positioned on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 of the wind turbine 10. thus, as the lifting cable 116 is unwound from or otherwise released by the winch 112, the cable 116 may follow a path (as indicated by arrows 194) extending from pulley slot 195 of pulley 180 around pulley 182 and then back around pulley slot 196 of pulley 180. referring now to fig. 17 , yet another embodiment of a suitable pulley arrangement is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present subject matter. as shown in fig. 17 , up-tower pulleys 180a, 180b may be supported adjacent to the hub 20 by corresponding support straps 214 extending around the remaining "rabbit-eared" rotor blades 22. specifically, up-tower pulley 180a may be supported by a first support strap 214 extending around one of the remaining rotor blades 22 and up-tower pulley 180b may be supported by a second support strap 216 extending around the other remaining rotor blade 22. in such an embodiment, pulleys cables 116a, 116b may be configured to be coupled between the rotor blade 22 and the first winch(es) 112 supported on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14. thus, as the pulley cables 116a, 116b are unwound from or otherwise released by the winch(es) 112, each cable 116a, 116b may extend up to and around its corresponding up-tower pulley 180a, 180b (as indicated by arrows 194) to allow the rotor blade 22 to be lowered relative to the hub 20 in a controlled manner. referring to figs. 12 , 18 , and 19 , a guide line 118 is attached from a second ground winch 114 to an up-tower location of the wind turbine 10, e.g. the rotor 18, and control an orientation of the rotor blade 22 as it is being lowered to the support surface 14. more particularly, the guide line 108 includes a guide pulley 118 mounted thereto and a corresponding guide cable 120 configured over the guide pulley 118 and attached to the rotor blade 22. thus, the guide pulley 118 is configured to move along the guide line 108 during raising and/or lifting of the rotor blade 22 such that the guide pulley 118 can move with the rotor blade 22 and the guide cable 120 can maintain contact with the rotor blade 22. the guide line 108 may be attached to the up-tower location of the wind turbine 10 using any suitable means. for example, in one embodiment, the guide line 108 may have a stud end (similar to the support cables of fig. 5 ) that may be coupled to a threaded cable stud configured to be screwed into a corresponding nut extending within the up-tower location of the wind turbine 10. in other embodiments, the guide line 108 may be coupled to the up-tower location of the wind turbine 10 using any other suitable means, such as by coupling the guide line 108 to a suitable mounting fixture configured to be secured to the up-tower location of the wind turbine 10. in certain embodiments, the guide line 108 may correspond to a steel cable or any other suitable wire rope that has a rated load capacity sufficient to support at least a portion of the weight of the rotor blade 22. thus, the guide line 108 is configured to control the orientation of the rotor blade 22 as it is being raised or lowered. further, it should be understood that the guide cable 120 may be attached to the rotor blade 22 using any suitable means. for example, in certain embodiments, the guide cable 120 may be attached to the optional blade sock 100 (as shown) or may be attached to the rotor blade 22 directly, e.g. by being wrapped around the blade tip 26. referring particularly to figs. 18 and 19 , upon installation of one or more pulleys 180, 182, the rotor blade 22 may be lowered down onto and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 using the associated pulley cables 116 and guide line 108. in doing so, the guide line 108, which is coupled to the rotor blade 22 via guide pulley 118 and guide cable 120) may be used to control the orientation of the rotor blade 22 as the blade 22 is lowered from the hub 20. for example, as indicated above, as the rotor blade 22 begins to be lowered in the direction of the support surface 14 via the pulley cables 116, the pulley block 118 is configured to move along the guide line 108 to control the orientation of the rotor blade 22 relative to the tower 12. more specifically, the guide line 118 can be controlled (e.g., via a secondary winch 114) in a manner that prevents the rotor blade 22 from contacting the wind turbine tower 12, such as by using the guide line 108 to angle the rotor blade 22 away from the tower 12. additionally, as the rotor blade 22 is further lowered towards the support surface 14, the guide line 108 and corresponding guide cable 120 may be utilized to rotate the rotor blade 22 into a generally horizontal position in order to prevent the blade tip 26 from contacting the support surface 14 and to properly orient the rotor blade 22 relative to the support surface 14, as particularly illustrated in fig. 19 . for example, in various embodiments, the rotor blade 22 may be lowered until the blade 22 reaches a predetermined location. in certain embodiments, the predetermined location is determined by a stopping point of the up-tower pulleys 180, 182. more specifically, the stopping point of the up-tower pulleys 180, 182 may be controlled by an additional winch, a controlled pulley cable, an additional pulley, a fixed-length line, or similar. further, when the rotor blade 22 reaches the predetermined location relative to the support surface 14, the guide line 108 can be designed such that the guide cable 120 has typically reached an end of the guide line 108. in addition, the guide cable 120 defines a predetermined length. thus, once the rotor blade 22 reaches the predetermined location, the guide cable 120 maintains contact with the blade tip 26, while the first winch 112 continues to lower the blade root 24 such that the rotor blade 22 rotates to a generally horizontal position. for example, as shown in fig. 19 , the rotor blade 22 may be rotated so as to have a horizontal orientation extending generally parallel to the support surface 14. the pulley cable(s) 116 and the guide cable 120 may then be used to lower the rotor blade 22 down onto the support surface 14 or onto suitable blade supports positioned on the support surface 14. referring now to figs. 20-22 , another embodiment of a method for lowering the rotor blade 22 from the rotor 18 to the support surface 14 is illustrated. the embodiment operates similar to the embodiment of fig. 12 , but also includes an additional pulley cable 122 coupled to the rotor 18 and the guide pulley 118 so as to control the location of the guide pulley 118 such that contact between the guide cable 120 and the rotor blade 22 is maintained. thus, as the rotor blade 22 is lowered, the additional line 122 prevents the guide cable 120 from losing contact with the rotor blade 22 (e.g. by slipping off of the blade tip 26). in addition, the additional pulley cable 122 can control the location of the guide pulley 118 such that the pulley 118 is not overextended past a length of the guide line 108. further, as shown, the additional pulley cable 122 can have a fixed length or an adjustable length. referring now to figs. 23-25 , still another embodiment of a method for lowering the rotor blade 22 from the rotor 18 to the support surface 14 is illustrated. similar to the embodiment of figs. 20-22 , the illustrated embodiment includes an additional pulley cable 126 configured to control the location of the guide pulley 118 so as to maintain contact between the guide cable 120 and the rotor blade 22. in addition, the illustrated embodiment includes a third pulley 134 attached to an attachment point at an up-tower location, e.g. the rotor 18, such that the additional line 126 is attached from a third ground winch 124 over the third pulley 134 to the guide pulley 118 to control a location of the guide pulley 118 along the guide line 108. thus, as the rotor blade 22 is lowered, the additional line 126 prevents the guide cable 120 from losing contact with the rotor blade 22 (e.g. by slipping off of the blade tip 26). in addition, the additional pulley cable 126 can control the location of the guide pulley 118 such that the pulley 118 is not overextended past a length of the guide line 108. further, as shown, the additional pulley cable 126 can have a fixed length or an adjustable length. it should also be appreciated that the present subject matter is also directed to methods for installing a rotor blade 22 onto a wind turbine 10. as indicated above, such installation methods may be performed simply by reversing the various method steps described above for removing a rotor blade 22 from a wind turbine 10. specifically, the rotor blade 22 to be installed onto the wind turbine 10 may be initially placed on and/or adjacent to the support surface 14 at a location proximal to the wind turbine tower 12. a suitable pulley cable 116 may then be coupled between the rotor blade 22 and a first winch 112 using one or more up-tower pulley(s) 180, 182. in addition, an optional blade sock 100 may be installed onto the rotor blade 22 at an intermediate location 102 on the blade 22. the pulley cable(s) 116 and the guide cable 120 may then be utilized to initially raise the rotor blade 22 away from the support surface 14. thereafter, as the pulley cable(s) 116 of the first winch 112 is used to further raise the rotor blade 22 (i.e. the blade root 24) towards the hub 20, the guide cable 120 mounted onto the guide line 108 may be used to control the orientation of the rotor blade 22 (i.e. the blade tip 26) relative to the tower 12, such as by using the guide cable 120 to allow the rotor blade 22 to rotate from a generally horizontal position to a generally vertical position. once the rotor blade 22 is raised to a location adjacent to the hub 20 (e.g., such that the blade 22 is spaced apart from the hub 20 by the vertical distance 146 ( fig. 9 ), suitable support cables 152, 302 may be coupled to the rotor blade 22 and corresponding cable translation devices 158 may be installed within the hub 20. thereafter, the pulleys 180, 182 may be removed to allow the translation devices 158, 318 to be used to raise the rotor blade 22 to a location directly adjacent to the hub 20 such that the root bolts 46 are received within the corresponding bolt holes 151 defined in the pitch bearing 150. the root bolts 46 may then be secured to the pitch bearing 150 (e.g., using suitable attachment nuts) in order complete the installation of the rotor blade 22 onto the hub 20. referring now to figs. 26 and 27 , it should be understood that the first, second, and third winches 112, 114, 124 as described herein may have any suitable location relative to the wind turbine 10 and/or each other. for example, as shown in fig. 26 , the main winch 112 is positioned at a 90-degrees angle with respect to the secondary winch 114 and the tower. in another embodiment, as shown in fig. 27 , the first and second winches 112, 114 are positioned on the same skid or on top of each other. in still additional embodiments, the first and second winches 112, 114 may be positioned at any other suitable location. this written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the invention, including making and using any devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. the patentable scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims.

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