158 results about "Potential gradient" patented technology

The present invention is directed to a method of regulating gastrointestinal action in a subject using a stimulatory electrode and a sensor to provide retrograde feedback control of electrical stimulation to the GI tract. The invention is further directed to a method for reducing weight in a subject, again using a stimulatory electrode and a sensor to provide retrograde feedback control of electrical stimulation to the stomach. The invention is further directed to a method of providing electrical field stimulation to a gastrointestinal organ, as well as a method of providing an electrical potential gradient in a gastrointestinal organ. Further provided is a method of stimulating the vagus nerve of a subject. Additionally provided is a method of placing a device in the gastrointestinal tract or wall of a subject from the exterior of the subject, using a needle to insert the device.

The present invention is a power cell for directly converting ionizing radiation into electrical energy. The invented isotopic electric converter provides an electrical power source that includes an electronegative material layered in a semiconductor, to form a first region that has a high density of conduction electrons, and an electropositive material also layered in the semiconductor material to form a second region with a high density of holes. Said N-layers region and P-layers region are separated by a neutral zone of semiconductor material doped with a radioactive isotope, such as, but not limited to, tritium. No junction is formed between the N and P layers regions. Rather, the potential gradient across the neutral zone is provided by the difference between the work functions of the electronegative and electropositive electrodes. Electrical contacts are affixed to the respective regions of the first and second type conductivity which become the anode and cathode of the cell, respectively. Beta particles emitted by the tritium generate electron-hole pairs within the neutral zone, which are swept away by the potential gradient between the first and second regions, thereby producing an electric current.

The invention relates to a reaction cell for reactions between different types of ion species and a related mass spectrometer to analyze the ion products. The invention consists in an RF-operated straight ion guide with a side inlet, particularly suitable for reactions between positive and negative ion species, one ion species being fed in through the side inlet. Particularly favorable is an ion guide made up of a set of coaxial apertured diaphragms with a slight axial potential gradient. The reactions can be used for a fragmentation of multiply charged protein or peptide ions by electron transfer, or for the removal of excess charges of multiply charged biopolymer ions, for example.

A technique for improving the efficiency of injecting ions into the electrode unit of a funnel structure having high ion-transport efficiency is provided to improve the overall ion-transport efficiency. From an ionization chamber 1 for ionizing a sample under atmospheric pressure, ions are injected through a straight capillary pipe 3 into the inner space of the electrode unit 10 of a funnel structure composed of ring electrodes in a first intermediate vacuum chamber 4. The space for setting the capillary pipe 3 is formed by replacing one or more ring electrodes with C-shaped electrodes whose circumference portion is partially removed. Each C-shaped electrode is arranged so that the ions will be injected perpendicularly to the ion-transport direction. The injected ions lose energy due to collision cooling, become converged onto the ion-beam axis C due to the ion-confining effect of a radio-frequency electric field, and efficiently move toward the exit aperture along a potential gradient created by a direct-current electric field. The gas stream carrying the ions passes through the gaps of the ring electrodes, without increasing the gas pressure at the exit of the ring-electrode inner space and thereby deteriorating the degree of vacuum in the next stage.

The invention provides an infant brain magnetic resonance image partitioning method based on a fully convolutional network. The main content of the method comprises the multi-stream three-dimensionalfully convolutional network (FCN) with jump connection, partial transfer learning, training and testing and evaluation. According to the process of the method, first, a probability graph of each pieceof brain tissue is learned from a multi-modal magnetic resonance image; second, initial partitions of different brain tissue are obtained from the probability graphs and used for calculating a distance graph of each piece of brain tissue; third, spatial context information is simulated according to the distance graphs; and last, final partitioning is realized by use of spatial correlation information and the multi-modal magnetic resonance image, wherein the training process mainly comprises training data increasing, training patch preparation and iterative training, and various detection values are used for evaluation after testing is performed. Through the partitioning method, a white matter area, a grey matter area and a cerebrospinal fluid area are successfully divided, the potential gradient vanishing problem of multi-level deep supervision is relieved, training efficiency is improved, and partitioning performance is greatly enhanced.

The invention relates to two-dimensional quadrupole systems along whose axis an axial DC field is superimposed. The invention involves coating the hyperbolic or cylindrical surfaces of quadrupole systems with thin insulating layers and metal films thereupon and generating axial potential gradients or saddle ramps using appropriate electrical supply of DC potentials and superimposed RF voltages to the metal films. Systems of this type can be used in a plurality of ways, ranging from mass filters with high transmission to fragmentation cells with extremely low ion losses.

A method and apparatus for nucleation and growth of diamond by hot-filament DC plasma deposition. The apparatus uses a resistively heated filament array for dissociating hydrogen in the reactant gas. For two sided diamond growth, configurations of substrate-hot filament-grid-hot filament-substrate or substrate-hot filament-hot filament-substrate configuration are used. For the latter configuration, two independent arrays of filaments serve as both hot filament and grid, and AC or DC plasma is maintained between the filament arrays. For this and the other electrode configurations, the grid electrode is positively biased with respect to the hot filaments to maintain a plasma. The plasma potential gradient across the grid and the hot-filament draws ions from the plasma towards the filaments. To further increase deposition rates, the filament array is biased negatively with respect to the substrate holder so that a DC plasma is also maintained between the substrate and filament array. During nucleation, the filament adjacent to the substrate holder is biased positively relative to the substrate so that more ions are accelerated towards the substrate, which in turn enhances the flow of growth precursors towards the substrate resulting in a high diamond nucleation density on the substrate without the need for scratching or diamond-seeding pretreatment. This nucleation method simplifies the growth process and provides a convenient and economical means for heteroepitaxial growth of diamond nuclei on single crystal substrates like Si (100).

Provided is a side-to-side high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) including a generally cylindrically-shaped inner electrode having a length. Encircling the inner electrode is a generally cylindrically-shaped outer electrode assembly comprising at least first and second and third outer electrode segments. Each of the outer electrode segments has a channel extending therethrough and open at opposite ends thereof. In an assembled condition, the second a outer electrode segment is disposed intermediate the first and third outer electrode segments in an end-to-end arrangement, each one of the first and second and third electrode segments overlapping a different portion of the length of the inner electrode. An electrical contact is provided on at least one of the inner electrode and the second outer electrode segment for receiving a first direct current voltage between the inner electrode and the second outer electrode segment, and for applying an asymmetric waveform voltage to the at least one of the inner electrode and the second outer electrode segment. The second outer electrode segment is maintained at a different potential relative to the first and third outer electrode segments, such that a potential gradient is formed in a direction along the length of the inner electrode.

A high resolution scanning electron microscope collects secondary Auger electrons through its objective lens to sensitively determine the chemical make-up with extremely fine positional resolution. The system uses a magnetic high resolution objective lens, such as a snorkel lens or a dual pole magnetic lens which provides an outstanding primary electron beam performance. The Auger electrons are deflected from the path of the primary beam by a transfer spherical capacitor. The primary beam is shielded, by a tube or plates, as it traverses the spherical capacitor to prevent aberration of the primary beam and the external wall of the shield maintains a potential gradient related to that of the spherical capacitor to reduce aberration of the primary electron beam. The coaxial configuration of the primary electron beam and the collected secondary electron beam allows the Auger image to coincide with the SEM view.

A nanoscale oscillation device is disclosed, wherein two nanoscale droplets are altered in size by mass transport, then contact each other and merge through surface tension. The device may also comprise a channel having an actuator responsive to mechanical oscillation caused by expansion and contraction of the droplets. It further has a structure for delivering atoms between droplets, wherein the droplets are nanoparticles. Provided are a first particle and a second particle on the channel member, both being made of a chargeable material, the second particle contacting the actuator portion; and electrodes connected to the channel member for delivering a potential gradient across the channel and traversing the first and second particles. The particles are spaced apart a specified distance so that atoms from one particle are delivered to the other particle by mass transport in response to the potential (e.g. voltage potential) and the first and second particles are liquid and touch at a predetermined point of growth, thereby causing merging of the second particle into the first particle by surface tension forces and reverse movement of the actuator. In a preferred embodiment, the channel comprises a carbon nanotube and the droplets comprise metal nanoparticles, e.g. indium, which is readily made liquid.

An apparatus and method of determining a potential at a surface of a sample in a polar liquid, for example, across an electrical double layer, includes the step of immersing the sample in a polar solution to form a potential gradient at the surface. A tip of a scanning probe microscope probe is then positioned in the solution generally adjacent the surface. During operation, the method includes measuring a potential of the probe. Relative scanning movement between the sample and the probe may be provided, and, in one mode of operation, a feedback signal is generated based on the measured potential. In that case, the tip may be moved generally orthogonal to the surface in response to the feedback signal to maintain a generally constant separation therebetween. The polar solution may have an associated ionic concentration, and the ionic concentration can be modified to tune the operation of the SEPM.

The present invention relates to a method for protection of power transformers and other power system components, which are vulnerable to geomagnetically induced currents, which comprises feeding from an overhead line / s or cable conductor / s one or more DC-diverter consisting of primary diverter windings and compensation windings applied on a respective magnetic core leg, which diverter is connected to critical busses, and diverting “quasi” direct current flowing on the overhead lines or cable conductors as a result of the earth surface potential gradients caused by geomagnetically induced currents, as well as a DC diverter to carry out the method.

A solid-state imaging device includes a semiconductor region of p-type; a buried region of n-type, configured to serve as a photodiode together with the semiconductor region; a extraction region of n-type, configured to extract charges generated by the photodiode from the buried region, having higher impurity concentration than the buried region; a read-out region of n-type, configured to accumulate charges, which are transferred from the buried region having higher impurity concentration than the buried region; and a potential gradient changing mechanism, configured to control a potential of the channel, and to change a potential gradient of a potential profile from the buried region to the read-out region and a potential gradient of a potential profile from the buried region to the extraction region, so as to control the transferring / extraction of charges.

To transfer signal charges at high speed with small noise, there is provided a charge transfer apparatus including a semiconductor substrate of one conductivity type, a charge transfer region of a conductivity type opposite to that of the semiconductor substrate that is formed in the semiconductor substrate and joined to the semiconductor substrate to form a diode, a signal charge input portion which inputs a signal charge to the charge transfer region, a signal charge output portion which accumulates the signal charge transferred from the charge transfer region, and a plurality of independent potential supply terminals which supply a potential gradient to the semiconductor substrate, wherein the signal charge in the charge transfer region is transferred by the potential gradient formed by the plurality of potential supply terminals.

A method for in-situ measuring the corrosion rate of a corroding site on an underground metal structure buried in soil, the structure being under cathodic protection. The structure-to-soil potential at varying depths above the pipeline is measured to a depth above, but not reaching the structure. These measurements are extrapolated to obtain data representing the structure-to-soil potential at the surface of the structure under the probe. The gradient of the electrical potential at this surface is used to calculate the corrosion rate of the defect. A special probe may be used to obtain the potential measurement data.

The present invention relates to a method for protection of power transformers and other power system components, which are vulnerable to geomagnetically induced currents, which comprises feeding from an overhead line / s or cable conductor / s one or more DC-diverter consisting of primary diverter windings and compensation windings applied on a respective magnetic core leg, which diverter is connected to critical busses, and diverting “quasi” direct current flowing on the overhead lines or cable conductors as a result of the earth surface potential gradients caused by geomagnetically induced currents, as well as a DC diverter to carry out the method.

The invention discloses a zinc oxide base high-potential gradient voltage-sensitive ceramic material and preparing method and application, which comprises the following parts: 100mol ZnO as main component, first accessory ingredient within Bi2O3, Co2O3, MnO2, Cr2O3, Ni2O3 with molar quantity at 0.5-1.2mol respectively, second accessory ingredient with 0.8-1.5mol Sb2O3, third accessory ingredient with 0.2-1.2mol Ho2O3 and or Er2O3, forth accessory ingredient with 0.002-0.005mol Al2O3. The preparing method comprises the following steps: blending each component together to make spraying slurry; spraying; drying; graining; proceeding dry pressing; moulding; sintering. The potential gradient of voltage-sensitive ceramic material is 300-500V / mm with non-linear coefficient is more than 50, which can be applied in the electric lightning arrester or other lightning protection overvoltage protection of electric electronic circuit due to strong pulse attack resistance ability.

The preparation method for high-potential gradient ZnO piezoresistor material comprises: with high-energy ball grinding technology, adding rare earth oxides included Bi2O3, Sb2O3, Cr2O3, Co2O3, MnO2, and Y2O3; sintering at 800Deg, and obtaining the product. The advantages of this invention comprises: simple process technology, low sintering temperature, fit to traditional device, well properties of the product, 5.50~5.64g / cm3 density, 1845.66~2233.33V / mm voltage-sensitive potential gradient, 21.3~25.8 nonlinear index, and 1.55~10.2ª–A drain current (given 0.75V1mA).

The present invention has an object to provide a scanning electron microscope which suppresses a potential gradient produced by preliminary charge without changing lens conditions of an electron microscope. As an aspect to achieve the above object, there is proposed a scanning electron microscope in which a scanning deflector is controlled so that a second beam is scanned to detect electrons released from a sample after scanning a first beam on the sample to charge the surface of the sample and the first beam is scanned so that charge density in a surrounding part within a scanned area by the first beam is increased relatively as compared with a center part within the scanned area by the first beam.

The present invention concerns a multiple replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system for use with electrostatic spraying device for use in spraying personal care and personal hygiene products. The electrostatic spraying device comprises at least one nozzle for electrostatically charged spray, an associated replaceable reservoir or cartridge for storing at least one electrostatically sprayable material, and a nozzle-ring configuration for generating the potential gradient electric field in the vicinity of the nozzles to such an extent that spraying is focused when the forward extremity of the nozzle-ring configuration is brought within a predetermine distance from an earthed target to be sprayed. The multiple replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system contains various electrostatically sprayable means for use by an associated electrostatic spraying device. The electrostatic spraying device is designed to be a portable, hand-held, self-contained, battery operated electrostatic multiple personal care and personal hygiene products releasing, with a multiple replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system. Additional embodiments of the present invention comprise nozzle-ring configuration and methods for effectively and efficiently releasing personal care and personal hygiene products stored in multiple replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system.

A method for preparing zinc oxide varistors includes: firstly, preparing sufficiently semiconducted crystal grains doped with zinc oxide; secondly, mixing the crystal grains with prepared inter-crystal phase components; and finally, forming the zinc oxide varistors by the sintering process. The difference between the method for preparing zinc oxide varistors and the known method for preparing zinc oxide varistors includes that the process of preparing the sufficiently semiconducted crystal grains doped with zinc oxide and the process of preparing high-impedance sintered powder are separated from each other. The method for preparing zinc oxide varistors has the advantages of increasing the potential gradient and the nonlinear coefficient of the zinc oxide varistors simultaneously and is applicable to manufacturing the zinc oxide varistors with the potential gradient ranging from 1200-9000V / mm and the nonlinear coefficient alpha ranging from 21.5 to 55.

The invention relates to two-dimensional quadrupole systems along whose axis an axial DC field is superimposed. The invention involves coating the hyperbolic or cylindrical surfaces of quadrupole systems with thin insulating layers and metal films thereupon and generating axial potential gradients or saddle ramps using appropriate electrical supply of DC potentials and superimposed RF voltages to the metal films. Systems of this type can be used in a plurality of ways, ranging from mass filters with high transmission to fragmentation cells with extremely low ion losses.

A corona igniter (20) for emitting a radio frequency electric field and providing a corona discharge (24) includes a central electrode (22) at a positive voltage, a grounded metal shell (30), and an insulator (28) with an abruption (34) extending radially outward relative to the central electrode (22). The abruption (34) is typically an increase of at least 15% of a local thickness (t) of the insulator (28) over less than 25% of a nose length (1) of an insulator nose region (74). The abruption (34) is typically one flank (82) of a protrusion or a notch, and the flank (82) faces the shell (30). The abruption (34) reverses the electric field and voltage potential gradient along the insulator outer surface (32), repels charged ions away from the insulator (28), and thus prevents the formation of a conductive path between the central electrode (22) and the shell (22).

The present invention concerns a replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system for use with electrostatic or electrohydrodynamic (EHD) spraying device for use in spraying personal care and personal hygiene products. The electrostatic spraying device comprises at least one nozzle for electrostatically charged spray, an associated replaceable reservoir or cartridge for storing at least one electrostatically sprayable material, a special arranged grounding configuration for conducting away cumulated electrostatic field away from the spraying nozzles region and sprayed target, and a nozzle-ring configuration for generating the potential gradient electric field in the vicinity of the nozzles to such an extent that spraying is focused when the forward extremity of the nozzle-ring configuration is brought within a predetermine distance from an earthed target to be sprayed. The replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system contains various electrostatically sprayable means for use by an associated electrostatic spraying device. The electrostatic spraying device is designed to be a portable, hand-held, self-contained, battery or adaptor operated electrostatic personal care and personal hygiene products releasing, with a replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system. Additional embodiments of the present invention comprise nozzle-ring configuration, adjustable nozzle configuration, compressible configuration, one controllable material conducting gate configuration and methods for effectively and efficiently releasing personal care and personal hygiene products stored in replaceable reservoirs or cartridges system.

The invention relates to soil body osmotic coefficient measurement method and device based on electroosmosis, belonging to the technical field of measurement of soil body osmotic coefficients. The soil body osmotic coefficient measurement method is characterized by comprising the steps of: putting a saturated specimen into a cylindrical container made of insulating materials, sealing one end of the saturated specimen by using a cathode-sealed electrode plate, isolating from a water tank by using an anode permeable electrode plate, injecting water in the water tank, applying a direct current voltage between the cathode electrode plate and the anode electrode plate, rapidly forming a reverse hydraulic gradient of the saturated specimen under the electroosmosis, enabling the hydraulic gradient to be in balance with potential gradient rapidly, measuring the potential gradient ie and the hydraulic gradient ih under the balance state, coupling to obtain keie+khih=o under the balance state because an electroosmosis coefficient ke is known, and computing to obtain the soil body osmotic coefficient kh. The invention can greatly reduce the measurement time of a low-permeability clay electroosmosis coefficient, improves the measurement efficiency and the accuracy of the measurement result, and effectively lowers the cost; and the measurement device has high automatism and simple and easy test operation, and is beneficial to popularization.

An object of the invention is to reduce the beam drift in which the orbit of the charged particle beam is deflected by a potential gradient generated by a nonuniform sample surface potential on a charged-particle-beam irradiation area surface, the nonuniform sample surface potential being generated by electrification made when observing an insulating-substance sample using a charged particle beam. Energy of the charged particle beam to be irradiated onto the sample is set so that generation efficiency of secondary electrons generated from the sample becomes equal to 1 or more. A flat-plate electrode (26) is located in such a manner as to be directly opposed to the sample. Here, the flat-plate electrode is an electrode to which a voltage can be applied independently, and which is equipped with a hole through which a primary charged particle beam can pass. Furthermore, a voltage can be applied independently to a sample stage (12) on which the sample is mounted. Here, the sample stage's surface directly opposed to the sample is formed into a planarized structure with no projections and depressions thereon. Also, diameter D of the hole provided in the flat-plate electrode (26) and distance L between the flat-plate electrode (26) and the sample are set such that a relation of D / L≦1.5 is satisfied.

Disclosed is a touch panel including an upper conductive layer; a lower conductive layer facing the upper conductive layer with an interval between the upper conductive layer; a capacitive sensing unit that detects a coordinate position by a capacitive coupling under a condition where a predetermined electric potential is applied to the upper conductive layer; and a resistive sensing unit that detects a coordinate position based on an electric potential at a position where the upper conductive layer and the lower conductive layer contact under a condition where a potential gradient is generated on either one of the upper conductive layer and the lower conductive layer.

The invention relates to high-performance zinc oxide composite ceramic voltage dependent resistor material and a preparation method, which belongs to the technical field of electronic ceramic preparation and application. The ceramics takes zinc oxide as main phase, adopts praseodymium oxide as nonlinear initial phase, adopts a small amount of oxides of Co, Cr, Fe or W as potential gradient and nonlinear reinforcing agent, and comprises the following components by mole percent: 80 to 95 percent of ZnO, 0.01 to 15 percent of Pr6O, 0.01 to 10.0 percent of CoO, 0.01 to 8.0 percent of Cr2O3, 0.0 to 5.0 percent of Fe2O3 and 0.0 to 3.0 percent of WO3. The material preparation method comprises the following processing step in sequence: mixing->high-energy ball milling->drying->mixing and pelletizing->sifting->compression moulding forming->sintering->silver-layer coating. The voltage dependent resistor material has the advantages that the crystal grain is fine, the microscopic structure is uniform, the potential gradient E (the potential gradient value corresponding to 1 mA / cm<2> current density) is increased to 570 to 750 V / mm, the nonlinear coefficient alpha is 24 to 32, and the leakage current IL (the current density value corresponding 75 percent E) is 0.004 to 0.006 mA / cm<2>, and has excellent over-all electrical properties. The voltage dependent resistor material can be used for manufacturing the lightning arresters of ultra high voltage / extra high voltage power systems, and can realize the miniaturization of the lightning arrester. The invention can also be used for manufacturing cell phones and household appliance chip or multiplayer chip voltage dependent resistors.

The invention discloses a method for evaluating the damage severity degree of an external anticorrosive coating of a pipeline, which comprises the following steps of: applying a specific detection signal to the pipeline, detecting and positioning a damaged point of the external anticorrosive coating of the pipeline by using an alternating-current ground-potential gradient method, and recording the potential difference value of the point; measuring and recording the buried depth of the pipeline at the damaged point of the external anticorrosive coating of the pipeline; measuring and recording the currents of a pipeline current surveying and mapping system on both sides of the damaged point of the external anticorrosive coating of the pipeline, so as to obtain the average of the two currents as the current value of the pipeline current surveying and mapping system for correction at the damaged point; according to the measured potential difference value, the signal current flowing in and out of the damaged point, the distance value of an A-shaped frame and the buried depth at the center of the pipeline, calculating the corrected potential difference value; evaluating the damage severity degree of the external anticorrosive coating of the pipeline by an evaluation criteria. By adopting the method for evaluating the damage severity degree of the external anticorrosive coating of the pipeline, disclosed by the invention, the severity degree of the damaged point of the anticorrosive coating of the pipeline can be evaluated accurately, thereby facilitating the engineering construction.

The material for producing voltage-sensitive zinc oxide resistor includes micron level ZnO 35-80 wt%, nano level ZnO 15-55 wt%, Bi2O3 1-6 wt%, Co2O3 0.1-2 wt%, MnO2 0.1-2 wt%, Sb2O3 1-6 wt% and RE element 0.01-1 wt% and it also may contains Cr2O3 0.1-2 wt%. The voltage-sensitive zinc oxide resistor valve sheet made of the said material has potential gradient as high as 580 V / mm, leakage current of about 1.0 microampere, voltage ratio of about 1.05, dash current of about 2000 A and excellent comprehensive performance.