Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-187227 discloses the provision of an odor-generating alarm apparatus and an abnormal state warning method that are highly safe and have a very clear effect in attracting attention. The odor-generating alarm apparatus in this document includes an odor substance vessel, a driving unit, a detector, and a circuit as a control unit. The odor substance vessel stores an odor substance. The concentration of the odor substance in air at which the odor is so strong as to become unbearable for humans is lower that the no observed effect concentration of the odor substance. The driving unit releases the odor substance from the odor substance vessel. The detector detects the occurrence of an abnormal state and outputs a detection signal. The control unit receives input of the detection signal from the detector and has the driving unit release the odor substance in accordance with the detection signal.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 2008-508693 (International Publication No. WO2006/013396) discloses an apparatus that measures physical phenomena based on differences in ion mobility between substances. In particular, such publication discloses an ion mobility spectrometer with an ion filter in the form of at least one ion channel that includes a plurality of electrodes. With this ion mobility spectrometer, it is possible for the filler to selectively input ion types according to the potential applied to the conductive layer that changes over time. Such potential has a drive electric field component and a transverse electric field component, and in a preferred embodiment, the respective electrodes contribute to the generation of both the drive electric field component and the transverse electric field component. Such device can be used even without a drift gas flow.
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USPTO Backgrounds