Abstract: A method is provided which can be used to accurately determine the boiling points of middle to heavy petroleum residues (AEBP of 250-1400 degrees F.) using temperatures well below their decomposition temperatures. The method involves the use of a capillary supercritical fluid chromatography apparatus, and consists of a calibration run followed by a measurement run. First, a temperature T1 (between 100 degrees C. and 180 degrees C.) is established in a gas chromatographic (GC) oven of the SFC apparatus, and that temperature is maintained throughout the method. Then a calibration run is performed on a calibration standard using a pressure program, and a calibration function is calculated using the known boiling points of the calibration standard. Then the test sample is run using the same pressure program and the calibration function is used to calculate the boiling point distribution of the test sample.

Abstract: A ski exercise device is provided having at least two parallel rails held in a fixed relationship by brace elements at the ends. A carriage is provided for riding along the rails, and a first resilient element provides a restoring force on the carriage directed toward the center of the rails. Platforms for a user's feet are pivotally attached to the carriage off-center from the centerline of the platforms so that the natural action by a user in shifting weight from one platform to the other platform in operation causes the respective platforms to pivot in the correct direction to simulate the action of parallel skiing. The first resilient element is fastened to the carriage at about a mid-point. One end of the first resilient element in the preferred embodiment passes around a roller attached to one of the end brace elements, extends back toward the middle of the rails, and is clamped at a clamp assembly attached to an additional brace element between the rails.

Abstract: An intense, relatively inexpensive X-ray source (as compared to a synchrotron emitter) for technological, scientific, and spectroscopic purposes. A conical radiation pattern produced by a single foil or stack of foils is focused by optics to increase the intensity of the radiation at a distance from the conical radiator.

Abstract: Automated apparatus transfers SMDs with leads for contacting mounting pad surfaces of surface mount PCBs from containers to nests on a rotatable dial, such that the nests support the SMDs by the leads without touching the body of an SMD. At a test station an elevator device elevated the nest to place an SMD in the nest in a test socket positioned above the dial so the SMD leads connect to test circuitry through contacts in the test socket. In a preferred embodiment the test socket is the base of a manual insert test socket and the nest performs the function of the lid of a manual insert test socket.

Abstract: A seal ring presses against a wafer on a CVD chuck continuously around the outer periphery of the wafer, and with sufficient force to hold the backside of the wafer against the chuck, so no CVD material may deposit on the backside of the wafer. The seal ring has one surface for contacting the frontside of the wafer and a second surface that extends close to the CVD chuck, so the edge of the wafer is also excluded from CVD coating. With use of the wafer seal ring apparatus and method, CVD coating is confined to the frontside of a wafer. In a preferred embodiment, an apparatus with a slide operated by a cam lever and a tension spring for moving the seal ring and pressing it against a wafer on a CVD chuck is used with each of multiple chucks attached to a rotatable turret within a CVD chamber.

Abstract: Apparatus is provided for propelling a bicycle. In a preferred embodiment a crank and a sprocket are included which are rotatable relative to one another and have a common center of rotation. A guide fixedly attached to the sprocket constrains a sliding member having a hole through which an arm of the crank passes, such that rotation of the crank relative to the sprocket urges the sliding member along the guide. A compression spring disposed between a shoulder on the guide and the sliding member is compressed as the sliding member is urged along the guide. Hence, during a power stroke, an applied force on the crank causes the crank to advance rotationally ahead of the sprocket position during the first half of the stroke, urging the sliding member along the guide and compressing the spring. The spring stores the work of compression during the first half of the stroke as potential energy. During the second half of the stroke the spring releases the stored potential energy to the sprocket.

Abstract: The invention provides a method for diagnosis of genetic abnormalities or other genetic conditions which can be readily automated. The method is used to determine the presence or absence of a target sequence in a sample of denatured nucleic acid and entails hybridizing the sample with a probe complementary to a diagnostic portion of the target sequence (the diagnostic probe), and with a probe complementary to a nucleotide sequence contiguous with the diagnostic portion (the contiguous probe), under conditions wherein the diagnostic probe remains bound substantially only to the sample nucleic acid containing the target sequence. The diagnostic probe and contiguous probe are then covalently attached to yield a target probe which is complementary to the target sequence, and the probes which are not attached are removed.

Abstract: This invention relates to Catadioptric Telescopes having concave spherical mirror reflectors as the primary objective and a refractive correction element for reducing the spherical aberration of the primary mirror, and more particularly to a fast, aberration-free flat field telescope employing a spherical primary mirror and unique sub-aperture sized corrector made preferably of one plano-concave lens element and one plano-convex element both of the same kind of glass. This unique corrector also simultaneously corrects aberrations of the primary including its field curvature. The telescope requires no aspherics and is capable of easy adaptation to a Newtonian style configuration.

Abstract: A new high quality, low cost, thin-film magnetic recording member is provided, which has a coercive field strength greater than 650 Oe, a saturation magnetization greater than 10,000 Gauss, and a squareness ratio of 0.9 or larger. The member includes a substrate on which is directly sputter deposited a chromium layer, without the use of an intervening nickel-containing layer between the substrate and the chromium. A nickel-cobalt recording layer is then sputter deposited directly onto the chromium layer. In the preferred mode, the start of that nickel-cobalt deposition begins less than 100 seconds after the chromium deposition is terminated and is followed by the sputtering of a protective layer. Before the chromium deposition, the substrate is preheatead to drive off adsorbed gases, and to establish the proper conditions for the chromium deposition. The substrate is also heated during the time between when the chromium deposition ends and the nickel-cobalt deposition begins.

Abstract: A method whereby a low frequency, randomly varying magnetic field is generated by a device such that it interacts with the earth's geomagnetic field to eliminate rodents and similar pests both above and below ground which inhabit an area surrounding the device. The method is not limited to, but may comprise an electro-magnetic system that energizes and de-energizes one or more of a plurality of electric coils according to a predetermined sequence, thereby generating a specific low frequency magnetic field over a defined zone of influence. This magnetic field modulates and interacts with the earth's natural magnetic field (the geomagnetic field) thus inducing remanent defensive instinct responses in rodents and similar pests residing within the zone of influence. The effect, of the method, is to interfere with the pest's primitive survival and navigational instincts necessary for survival.

Abstract: A package handling apparatus for presenting circuit packages to a test head is provided which uses a soft handling approach throughout the system. The handler works with a plurality of sticks, with each stick adapted for holding a plurality of packages in a substantially horizontal linear array, with the linear array defining a linear axis for the stick. The handler includes an input elevator element for receiving a first stick loaded with a first package, for moving the first stick vertically to an index level. An input drive moves the first stick horizontally to an index position. A first pick-up removes the first package from the first stick and then moves the first package to a stage pick-up position. A stage element receives the first package, and presents it to the test head for testing. Once tested, the stage element moves the package to a stage exit position. A stage pick-up then places the first package in a stage row stick.

Abstract: A test cassette is provided for testing tape tensioning devices in tape recorders and players. The test cassette has a at least one of a supply reel and a takeup reel which has two circular arc portions of different radius. In a preferred embodiment, one of the circular arc portions has the radius of a substantially full reel of tape, and the other has the radius of a substantially empty reel of tape. In operation the test cassette simulates the conditions of a full reel and the conditions of a substantially empty reel with each revolution of the reel, and the extremes of operation of a tape tensioning device can be quickly and easily tested.

Abstract: A magnetic recording disk composed of a substrate, a magnetic layer, and a protective/lubricative carbon layer is etched and has oxygen embedded into the surface of the disk. This carbon/oxygen surface is extremely smooth, and wears better than prior art disks not having oxygen imbedded in the surface. This altered layer enables a magnetic disk to undergo over twice the number of start/stop cycles without incurring damage from magnetic transducers used to read information from the recording than similar disks prepared without oxygen in the outer layer. A method of plasma etching is used to embed the oxygen into the surface.

Abstract: An apparatus is configured to pick up and hold a pin grid array (PGA) and to automatically align it in that process by using the electrical lead pins themselves of the pin grid array as the indexing element for the pick up process. Included are a plurality of grippers, each of the grippers having an alignment surface for engaging from outside the rectangular perimeter of lead pins on the PGA, at least one side of the rectangular perimeter of the pins, each of the grippers having a gripper indexing surface. The apparatus also includes a base for holding the PGA and the plurality of grippers. The base has a base indexing surface for each gripper indexing surface, the base having a spring element for pulling on each of the grippers so as to bring each of the gripper indexing surfaces into juxtaposition with its respective base indexing surface.

Abstract: A method is provided for detecting up to four classes of oligonucleotides which have been separated by gel electrophoresis. The method entails labeling members of each class of oligonucleotide with dyes selected from separate sets of dyes so that members of the same class are labeled with dyes from the same set. The four sets of dyes of the invention consist of derivatives of fluorescein, 2',7'-dimethoxy-4', 5'-dichlorofluorescein, tetramethylrhodamine, and rhodamine X carboxylic or sulfonic acid, respectively. Dyes from these sets are spectrally resolvable under conditions of gel electrophoresis.

Abstract: A digital compass (20) has a sensing coil (60) wound on an elongated strip of high direct current permeability magnetic material. The sensing coil (60) is connected to a sensing circuit (56). The sensing coil and sensing circuit are responsive to the Earth's magnetic field to provide an oscillating signal at an output (28) of the sensing circuit (56) which varies in frequency with orientation of the at least one sensing coil (60) with respect to the Earth's magnetic field. A microprocessor (36) is connected to receive information inputs from the oscillating signal. The microprocessor converts the information inputs to an indication of orientation of the sensing coil with respect to the Earth's magnetic field based on the frequency of the oscillating signal. A display (52) receives the orientation indication from the microprocessor.

Abstract: An apparatus and process are used to cyclicly degrade a peptide to be sequenced, arriving at a set of amino acid residues for each cycle. The amount of each amino acid residue is quantitatively measured in each set, then a background level is fit to each cycle to obtain a background fit. A measure of dispersion is then calculated for the background fit, and the measured amounts of amino acid residues in each cycle are normalized relative to the background fit. The largest normalized background-corrected residue amount in each cycle then provides a sequence assignment that can be used for further correction steps if desired.

Abstract: Apparatus is provided for mounting an electronic component having a pressure sensitive active area, which apparatus permits the component to expand and contract with changes in temperature and which does not introduce stresses into the active area of the component. The apparatus includes a cradle which, when attached to a substrate, forms a partial enclosure of the component but which leaves the active area unobscured. A packaging system is also provided wherein the bottom of the cavity of the lower portion of a standard integrated circuit package forms the substrate to be used in conjunction with the cradle for containing the electronic component.

Abstract: A process and apparatus for quantitating chromatographic information uses a discrete, linear, translation invariant filter function a.sub.N.sup..alpha., where N is a measure of the filter function width and .alpha. is a parameter whose value determines signal to noise characteristics of the filter function. First a chromatographic analysis of a sample is performed to obtain a first chromatogram. Then the first chromatogram is filtered with the filter function, with N set to approximate the width of peaks obtained in the first chromatogram, and .alpha. is set to filter out high frequency noise from the first chromatogram to obtain a second chromatogram having a first filtered baseline. The second chromatogram is then filtered with .alpha. set to resolution enhance peaks in the second chromatogram to obtain a third chromatogram having a baseline which is substantially the same as the first filtered baseline.

Abstract: A warning light system is provided for a vehicle powered by an engine employing an engine brake. The warning system takes a signal from an electrical control line associated with the engine brake and uses the signal to initiate a time delay. After the time delay, a switch is activated, turning on a warning light to warn drivers of other vehicles of the deceleration of the vehicle equipped with the warning light system.