1. A system for removing linters from ginned cottonseeds, the system comprising:
a rotatable drum having an exterior surface and an interior surface, wherein the interior surface defines, at least in part, a cavity, wherein the cavity has a first longitudinal-end opening and a second longitudinal-end opening;
a flexible abrasive member coupled to and substantially covering the interior surface of the rotatable drum;
a frame for rotatably supporting the rotatable drum;
a first rotation device operably coupled to the rotatable drum for rotating the rotatable drum relative to the frame in a first direction such that a centrifugal force urges the cottonseeds in the rotatable drum against the flexible abrasive member;
a first end plate substantially covering the first longitudinal-end opening of the cavity;
a second end plate substantially covering the second longitudinal-end opening,
a cottonseed-introduction aperture fluidly coupled to the cavity for introducing cottonseeds having linters into the cavity;
a plurality of longitudinal brushes, each longitudinal brush of the plurality of longitudinal brushes is rotatably coupled to the first end plate and the second end plate and each longitudinal brush has brush elements that are configured to bias the cottonseeds having linters against the flexible abrasive member on the interior surface of the rotatable drum;
a second rotation device operably coupled to at least one of the plurality of longitudinal brushes, for rotating the at least one of the longitudinal brushes in a second direction;
a linter-removal aperture fluidly coupled to the cavity and to a reduced-pressure source for removing linters from the cavity; and
a seed-removal conduit fluidly coupled to the cavity for removing the cottonseeds after delinting.
2. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the first rotation device is operable to rotate the rotatable drum at a rotational speed greater than or equal to 100 revolutions per minute (RPM).
3. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the first rotation device is operable to rotate the rotatable drum at a rotational speed greater than or equal to 150 revolutions per minute (RPM).
4. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the rotatable drum has an aspect ratio greater than or equal to two.
5. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, further comprising:
a longitudinal doffer brush rotatably coupled to the first end plate and the second end plate and positioned to be in contact with the flexible abrasive member on the interior surface of the rotatable drum; and
a third rotation device coupled to the longitudinal doffer brush causing the longitudinal doffer brush to rotate in the first direction with a speed greater than at least twice the rotatable drum speed, whereby the doffer brush removes linters clinging to the flexible abrasive member.
6. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 5, further comprising a trough at least partially enclosing the doffer brush with a clearance from the rotatable drum such that cottonseeds cannot enter the trough.
7. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the frame comprises an upper frame and a lower frame, the first frame and second frame each having a first longitudinal end and a second longitudinal end, and wherein the first longitudinal end of first frame and the second frame are pivotally coupled, and further comprising a drive device for causing relative movement between the second longitudinal end of the first frame and the second longitudinal end of the second frame to thereby form a frame angle.
8. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 7, wherein the frame angle is greater than 5 degrees.
9. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 7, wherein the frame angle is in the range of 1 to 10 degrees.
10. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 7, wherein the frame angle is at least \u22122 degrees.
11. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the flexible abrasive member comprises a card wire brush having brush teeth with an angled portion that is angled in the same direction as the first direction of rotation.
12. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the plurality of longitudinal brushes substantially cover at least 90 degrees (in cross section) of the inside of the rotatable drum beginning at a lowest point within the cavity relative to a gravity field and spaced along the interior of the rotatable drum in the direction of rotation of the rotatable drum.
13. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, wherein the seed-removal conduit has a gate for controlled removal of cottonseeds from the cavity and wherein the cottonseed-introduction aperture is sized such that under reduced-pressure from the linter-removal aperture, a reduced-pressure is maintained in the cavity that is greater than \u2212100 mm Hg.
14. The system for removing linters from a ginned cottonseed of claim 1, further comprising:
a longitudinal doffer brush rotatably coupled to the first end plate and the second end plate and positioned to be in contact with the flexible abrasive member on the interior surface of the rotatable drum;
a third rotation device coupled to the longitudinal doffer brush causing the longitudinal doffer brush to rotate in the first direction with a speed greater than at least twice the rotatable drum speed, whereby the doffer brush removes linters clinging to the flexible abrasive member;
wherein the first rotation device is operable to rotate the rotatable drum at a rotational speed greater than or equal to 100 revolutions per minute (RPM);
wherein the frame comprises an upper frame and a lower frame, the first frame and second frame each having a first longitudinal end and a second longitudinal end, and wherein the first longitudinal end of first frame and the second frame are pivotally coupled, and further comprising a drive device for causing relative movement between the second longitudinal end of the first frame and the second longitudinal end of the second frame to thereby form a frame angle;
wherein the flexible abrasive member comprises a card wire brush having brush teeth with an angled portion that angle away from the first direction of rotation;
wherein the plurality of longitudinal brushes substantially cover at least 90 degrees of the inside of the rotatable drum beginning at a lowest point within the cavity relative to a gravity field and spaced along the interior of the rotatable drum in the direction of rotation of the rotatable drum; and
wherein the seed-removal conduit has a gate for controlled removal of cottonseeds from the cavity and wherein the cottonseed-introduction aperture is sized such that under reduced-pressure from the linter-removal aperture, a reduced-pressure is maintained in the cavity that is greater than \u2212100 mm Hg.
15. A method for removing linters from ginned cottonseeds, the method comprising the steps of:
placing the ginned cottonseeds in a cavity of a rotatable drum having a flexible abrasive member coupled to an interior of the rotatable drum;
rotating the rotatable drum at a sufficient angular velocity such that the cottonseeds are urged against the flexible abrasive member by a centrifugal force;
using a plurality of longitudinal brushes to bias the cottonseeds against the flexible abrasive member;
whereby the linters are removed from the cottonseeds;
applying reduced pressure to the cavity to remove the linters from the cavity; and
removing the cottonseeds from the cavity.
16. The method of claim 15, further comprising batch processing the ginned cottonseeds.
17. The method of claim 15, further comprising performing a continuous processing of cottonseeds.
18. The method of claim 15, wherein the flexible abrasive member comprises a card wire brush.
19. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of rotating the rotatable drum comprises rotating the rotatable drum at an angular speed greater than 100 revolutions per minute.
20. The method of claim 15, further comprising applying an angle to the rotatable drum with respect to its longitudinal axis and a gravity field such that cottonseeds are urged to travel along the interior of the cavity from a first longitudinal end to a second longitudinal end.
21. A method of manufacturing a system for removing linters from ginned cottonseeds, the method comprising:
forming a rotatable drum having an exterior surface and an interior surface, wherein the interior surface defines, at least in part, a cavity, wherein the cavity has a first longitudinal-end opening and a second longitudinal-end opening;
coupling a flexible abrasive member to the interior surface of the rotatable drum;
rotatably coupling the rotatable drum to a frame;
operably coupling a first rotation device to the rotatable drum for rotating the rotatable drum relative to the frame in a first direction such that a centrifugal force urges the cottonseeds in the rotatable drum against the flexible abrasive member;
substantially covering the first longitudinal-end opening of the cavity with a first end plate;
substantially covering the second longitudinal-end opening with a second end plate;
forming a cottonseed-introduction aperture that is fluidly coupled to the cavity for introducing cottonseeds having linters into the cavity;
disposing a plurality of longitudinal brushes in the cavity, each longitudinal brush of the plurality of longitudinal brushes is rotatably coupled to the first end plate and the second end plate and each longitudinal brush has brush elements that are configured to bias the cottonseeds having linters against the flexible abrasive member on the interior surface of the rotatable drum;
operably coupling a second rotation device to at least one of the plurality of longitudinal brushes, for rotating the at least one of the longitudinal brushes in a second direction;
fluidly coupling a linter-removal aperture to the cavity and to a reduced-pressure source for removing linters from the cavity; and
fluidly coupling a seed-removal conduit to the cavity for removing the cottonseeds after delinting.
22. The method of manufacturing a system of claim 21, wherein the rotatable drum has an aspect ratio greater than or equal to two.
23. The method of manufacturing a system of claim 21, further comprising:
disposing a longitudinal doffer brush in the cavity and rotatably coupling the doffer brush to the first end plate and the second end plate and positioned to be in contact with the flexible abrasive member on the interior surface of the rotatable drum; and
operably coupling a third rotation device to the longitudinal doffer brush causing the longitudinal doffer brush to rotate in the first direction with a speed greater than at least twice the rotatable drum speed, whereby the doffer brush removes linters clinging to the flexible abrasive member.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method of discovering sequence patterns with variations comprising:
(a) accessing or acquiring a data set including a family and several families of sequences of same and different kinds;
(b) applying a pattern discovery technique or process to the sequences so as to generate a series of patterns with statistical significant association among their residuessites;
(c) grouping and aligning the similar patterns that may have different lengths into one or more Aligned Pattern Clusters that enable the analysis of multiple sequences that are closely or not closely related or are in substantially distal regions and across families; and
(d) discovering relations between Aligned Pattern Clusters to reveal distal functionalstructural associations within bio-sequences, and optionally extending these as between sequences which bind or interact with one another.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising using an information measure variable for each column in the Aligned Pattern Clusters, wherein the information measure can be used to measure aligned columns interdependencies.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the pattern discovery technique generates non-redundant, statistically significant associations between the sequences.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the pattern discovery function discovers a reduced list of non-redundant statistically significant association patterns, while the various residuessites associations of all patterns of the one or more Aligned Pattern Clusters are retained so as to capture or reveal the variations as well as the similarities therebetween.
5. The method of claim 1, comprising the further step of applying one or more statistical analysis methods to either generate additional variations or to support the analysis of the sequence patterns.
6. The method of claim 1, comprising the further step of using the Aligned Pattern Clusters to generate a knowledge-rich representation of the sequence patterns.
7. The method of claim 1, comprising the further step of introducing a separability measure thereby providing an autonomous method that is able to obtain separable and distinct sub-clusters from an Aligned Pattern Cluster without relying on prior knowledge or assumptions to reveal the inherent bio-information of sequence family andor biological interactions.
8. A system comprising one or more computers; the one or more computer comprising or being linked to a sequence pattern discovering utility, which when executed by a processor of the one or more computers:
(i) applies to a data set including a family of sequences a pattern discovery function so as to generate a series of similar patterns that may have different lengths; and
(ii) groups and aligns the similar patterns into one or more Aligned Pattern Clusters that enable the analysis of multiple sequences that are not closely related or are in substantially distal regions.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein one or more of the computers comprises or is linked to a display and the sequence pattern discovering utility includes or is linked to a visualization tool that uses the Aligned Pattern Clusters to generate a knowledge-rich representation of the sequence patterns.
10. The system of claim 8, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further executed by the processor of the one or more computers to:
(i) discover relations between Aligned Pattern Clusters to reveal distal functionalstructural associations within bio-sequences, and optionally extending these as between sequences which bind or interact with one another.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further executed by the processor of the one or more computers to:
(i) Discover co-occurring clustering relations between Aligned Pattern Clusters or within each Aligned Pattern Cluster.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein clusters of co-occurring relations suggest joint functionality.
13. A system for discovering sequence patterns with variations, the system comprising at least one server with a processor, the processor linked to a sequence pattern discovering utility, which when executed by the processor:
(a) accesses or receives a data set including a family and several families of sequences of same and different kinds;
(b) applies a pattern discovery technique or process to the sequences so as to generate a series of patterns with statistical significant association among their residuessites;
(c) groups and aligns the similar patterns that may have different lengths into one or more Aligned Pattern Clusters that enable the analysis of multiple sequences that are closely or not closely related or are in substantially distal regions and across families; and
(d) discovers relations between Aligned Pattern Clusters to reveal distal functionalstructural associations within bio-sequences, and optionally extending these as between sequences which bind or interact with one another.
14. The system of claim 13, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further operated to use an information measure variable for each column in the Aligned Pattern Clusters, wherein the information measure can be used to measure aligned columns interdependencies.
15. The system of claim 13, wherein the pattern discovery technique generates non-redundant, statistically significant associations between the sequences.
16. The system of claim 13, wherein the pattern discovery function discovers a reduced list of non-redundant statistically significant association patterns, while the various residuessites associations of all patterns of the one or more Aligned Pattern Clusters are retained so as to capture or reveal the variations as well as the similarities therebetween.
17. The system of claim 13, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further operated to apply one or more statistical analysis methods to either generate additional variations or to support the analysis of the sequence patterns.
18. The system of claim 13, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further operated to use the Aligned Pattern Clusters to generate a knowledge-rich representation of the sequence patterns.
19. The system of claim 13, wherein the sequence pattern discovering utility is further operated to introduce a separability measure thereby providing an autonomous method that is able to obtain separable and distinct sub-clusters from an Aligned Pattern Cluster without relying on prior knowledge or assumptions to reveal the inherent bio-information of sequence family andor biological interactions.