The invention is an attachment for airguns and/or similar devices powered by compressed gas. The unit is multi functional in that it facilitates rapid refilling of a connected gas supply vessel from a bulk supply source, without the necessity of removing the supply vessel from the airgun. The adaptor also provides the basic benefits of a simple expansion chamber, effectively providing compensation for periodic introduction of any liquid gas propellant from the gas supply vessel caused by handling or orientation of the airgun and/or aerosol supercharging.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to airguns and/or similar devices powered by compressed gas and more particularly by an adaptor that facilitates the rapid refilling of the gas containing supply vessel without the necessity for removing the supply vessel from the airgun.
2. BACKGROUND ART
A search of the background art directed to the subject matter of the present invention conducted in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office disclosed the following U. S. Letters Patent:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,155 which issued on Mar. 19, 1991 to Denis R. Gallagher. This patent covered a connector to an external air source for a gas operated gun, which includes a cartridge piercing receiving assembly adapted to engage a pressurized air source and connected externally to a gas operated gun.
Also discovered was U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,905 which issued on May 19, 1992 to John E. Pruitt et al. This patent teaches a carbon dioxide fill manifold for storing liquid and gaseous carbon dioxide by including means for dispensing the gaseous carbon dioxide, which provides a degree of protection against loss of carbon dioxide during a refilling procedure.
A thorough review of the above-identified patents indicates that none teach, disclose or claim the novel combination of elements and function found in the improved airgun compressed gas refill adaptor.
The use of carbon dioxide gas as a propellant in air guns is a well known and accepted practice. Such carbon dioxide gas is generally stored in a liquid state. Most airguns perform best when the propellant is used exclusively in a gaseous state. The actual product delivered from high pressure carbon dioxide (CO2) storage vessels is a variable mixture of liquid and gaseous CO2. The presence of liquid CO2 within the storage vessel sometimes creates a problem. In the past the usual procedure for refilling the supply vessel or CO2 tank connected to an airgun has required removal of the supply vessel from the airgun.
As can be anticipated there are multiple problems associated with removal of the supply vessel. It may be readily anticipated that this action exposes the user to escaping high pressure gas with the resultant related safety hazards. Secondly, repeated removal and reinstallation of the supply vessels cause wear on both the mechanical attachment and on the gas seals incorporated therein. Finally, the requirement to remove the supply vessel from the airgun makes the operation needlessly time consuming.

Multi function refill adaptor for gas operated airguns


A vehicle communication connection device and a method thereof are provided. The method includes determining at least one class identifier (CID) level applicable to a target application, determining at least one communication interface (CI) level applicable to the target application, mapping the determined CID level and the determined CI level to a predefined CID/CI mapping table, determining a final CID level to be used for the target application, and determining a final CI level corresponding to the determined final CID level.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
With the wide application of computing technology in the vehicle, technology development for safety and convenience of passengers including a driver has proceeding rapidly.
For convenience and safety of a user who uses the vehicle, various sensors and electronic controllers—that is, electronics—have been provided in the vehicle. Particularly, research has been actively conducted in various communication media for providing various applications and a corresponding application service for safety and convenience of a vehicle passenger.
An existing vehicle communication connection is to set communication data and communication media to be separately used for a corresponding application in response to the application loaded into the vehicle.
In other words, because communication data and communication media are set for each application in a fixed format in an existing vehicle communication connection manner, flexibility and efficiency of using resources are degraded for various communication and data transmission environments.
Particularly, when an additional communication medium (or technique) or a data transfer technique is applied, separate correction for each application loaded into the vehicle is unavoidable in an existing manner.

Vehicle communication connection device and method thereof


The method of this invention is directed to the rapid preparation of a whole blood sample for photooptical analysis. In the preferred embodiments of this method, a whole blood sample, lytic reagent system and immunological stain (optional) are contacted with the sample in a common reaction vessel (i.e. cuvette or test tube), with gentle asymmetric vortex mixing, so as to maintain the particulate matter of the sample at an essentially homogeneous concentration throughout the sample. An aliquot of the contents of the reaction vessel can, thereafter, be analyzed for identification and/or quantification of the analyte of interest. This process is conservative of the various endogenous constituents of the sample since virtually all of the manipulative steps involved in the preparation of the sample occur within a common vessel and any excess (unconsumed or unreacted) reagents and stain need not be separated from the sample during such preparation, thus, avoiding the multiple wash steps traditionally associated with this process. This process is uniquely applicable to the conservative preparation of aged whole blood samples (samples in which the endogenous nutrients have been essentially completely consumed) and whole blood samples from diseased state patients wherein the disease is manifest by changes in the morphology, total number and/or relative concentration of one or more of the lymphocyte subpopulations (i.e. B and/or T-cells).

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a method. More specifically, this invention concerns a unique process for the rapid preparation of particulate analytes, notably cells, cell organelles and the like, for analysis by photooptical means. This process is particularly well suited for analysis of cellular analytes which are present in small concentrations and/or where a change in their relative proportion to another cell population is diagnostically significant. The ability of this process to afford such advantage over the more traditional techniques is based upon the conservative nature of the preparation process. The term "conservative" as used herein is intended as descriptive of the ability of this process to preserve virtually all of the blood components, with the exception of erythrocytes, for later analysis. The integrity of the sample, with respect to the conserved components, also provides the first truly reliable means for the establishment of standards against which other samples can be measured. This process is particularly well adapted to analysis of aged samples of whole blood, and to blood samples from disease state patients, wherein cell integrityis difficult to maintain and thus an accurate analysis heretofore impossible. This process is particularly well suited for rapid preparation of whole blood samples for analysis by flow cytometry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The traditional techniques for the isolation and staining of the leukocyte fraction of whole blood has typically involved numerous physical manipulations of the sample and an inordinate number of wash steps. As has been appreciated and reported in the technical literature, these traditional techniques inherently result in some finite depletion of the leukocyte population from the sample; at least some alteration in the gross morphology of the leukocyte population which remain in the sample; at least some alteration in the markers on the surface of the leukocyte population; and, at least some displacement of the strain on the surface of the cell population of interest.
The techniques which have been used up to now in the preparation of leukocytes from whole blood samples for subsequent analysis have traditionally involved: (1) the preparation of a buffy coat fraction by controlled centrifugation of the whole blood sample, followed by staining with a fluorochrome labelled conjugate; (2) concurrent treatment of a whole blood sample with a lytic reagent and a fluorochrome labelled conjugate; or (3) the preparation of a buffy coat fraction by controlled centrifugation of the whole blood sample and thereafter subjecting the buffy coat sample to further enrichment by Ficoll-Paque density gradient centrifugation. Such enrichment permits the recovery of an interfacial layer containing enriched mononuclear cells which are thereafter stained with a fluorochrome labelled conjugate.
Each of the above preparative procedures is labor intensive, requires repeated physical manipulation of the fraction containing the leukocytes of interest and is time consuming. Where conventional centrifugation techniques are used to obtain an enriched leukocyte sample, cell loss will invariably take place and, thus accurate determination of the relative concentration of the cellular population of interest is virtually impossible. The shortcomings in the above procedures have been recognized for some time and at least one alterative has been proposed in the technical literature, articles by Caldwell, appearing in A.J.C.P., vol. 88:4 (1987) pp. 447-456; and et al, A.J.C.P., Vol. 86:5 (1986), pp. 600-607. The Caldwell articles, however, focus only upon one facet of this problem, which he believes to be the principle detractor from prior procedures. More specifically, Caldwell emphasizes that excessive washing of the leukocytes samples subsequent to staining and prior to analysis can introduce analytical error into the analysis, especially where leukocytes are observed in certain classes of diseased patients. Caldwell suggests adoption of a "no wash" technique to reduce processing time and analytical error which is inherent in the extensive manipulation treatment of the leukocyte sample prior to its ultimate analysis. The "no wash" technique proposed by Caldwell involves retention of the traditional techniques for preparation of an enriched lymphocyte fraction (i.e., Ficoll-Paque density gradient centrifugation, which itself contemplates multiple wash steps for removal of the Ficoll-Paque reagents). The enriched sample of lymphocytes is, thereafter, stained with a fluorochrome dye conjugated to a monoclonal antibody. Caldwell's improvement resides in the observation of enhanced fluorescence intensity in both background and positive peaks of a histogram when the unbound conjugate is allowed to remain in the sample. Caldwell attributes this observation of enhanced fluorescence intensity to his elimination of the wash steps after staining. He hypothesizes that the elimination of such wash step is less disruptive upon the stained lymphocyte fraction, thus, enabling preservation of the immunochemical bond between the conjugate and the surface markers on the cell population of interest. As is clearly evident from review of Caldwell's "no wash" procedure, the repeated trauma of mixing, vortexing and centrifugation is only somewhat reduced.
The "enrichment" of the leukocyte sample through the use of lytic reagents has not, up to now, proven to be a viable alternative to the more traditional centrifugation/density gradient techniques for partitioning the whole blood sample into its various fractions. The reason for this limitation is the inablity of prior lytic reagents to effect hemolysis of the erythrocyte fraction of whole blood without also traumatizing the leukocyte fraction of the sample. These lytic reagents typically cause both gross and subtle morphological changes in the leukocyte fraction and alternation in the surface markers on such cells. In the limited number of instances where lytic reagents have been used with some measure of success, additional reagents were required to be added to the sample to protect the leukocytes from lysis by the lytic reagent, see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,986 (to Brown, et al). As is evident from the review of the Brown patent, the physiological environment of the sample is modified dramatically by the addition of both lytic reagent and the solutes which are used to protect the leukocytes from lysis by the lytic reagent. The samples prepared in accordance with Brown's reagents and technique can be subjected to analysis by flow cytometry where differation of the three principle sub-populations is accomplished by conventional light scattering measurements. Because of the alteration in the physilogical environment of the sample, the integrity and immunochemical response of the surface markers on the leukocytes of the samples is altered as well. Thus, refinement in the analysis of the leukocyte fraction by immunochemical techniques is precluded. Moreover, where the leukocyte fraction is from a sample which is "aged" (not fresh) or a diseased patient sample, the sensitivity of the leukocytes to such harsh treatment is increased dramatically, thus, further limiting the usefulness of the Brown reagents and technique.
As is evident from the above discussion, both the physical and chemical trauma which can be effected upon the leukocyte fraction by the above procedures, is likely to damage a number of the cells within this fraction. Even more unfortunate, these procedures are more destructive of the leukocytes (i.e. lymphocytes) of disease state samples, Accordingly, the ability to analyze and monitor such disease state samples by traditional enrichment/staining techniques is severely limited. Where such analysis are to be performed, the more traditional centrifugation/density gradient enrichment protocols are preferred, since they are somewhat less disruptive of the lymphocytes than the effects of the lytic reagents.
The enhancement in accuracy and sensitivity observed by Caldwell in his "no-wash" procedure represents a step in the appropriate direction, however, further improvement is obviously necessary, particularly where relative cell population determinations are critical to an accurate analysis of the patients conditions. As is evident from the above discussion, none of the prior art techniques, even that described by Caldwell, provide a complete solution to this problem, since virtually every procedure, even those utilizing lytic reagents, occasion a statistically significant loss or destruction in one or more of the sub-populations of leukocytes; and at least 1 hour total preparation time. This loss is statistically more significant in dealing with an aged sample (i.e. a sample essentially totally deficient in endogenous nutrient) and disease state samples because of the relatively higher sensitivity of the nutritionally deprived cells, and cells indicative of the disease state of lysis by physical and chemical trauma.

Conservative whole blood sample preparation technique


In a video display apparatus, a backlight for illuminating a liquid crystal panel is segmented into a plurality of areas. A frequency distribution processing unit calculates a dark pixel amount from the frequency distribution of the gradation values of pixels in a video image. A backlight control unit calculates a lower limit of luminance in each area included in the backlight so that the lower limit increases as the dark pixel amount becomes smaller. The backlight control unit adjusts the luminance in each area individually according to the gradation values in each portion of the video image, and adjusts the luminance in an area where the luminance is less than the lower limit to the lower limit. The difference in luminance between the areas illuminating dark portions of the video image is decreased, and the occurrence of luminance blur resulting from the difference in luminance between the areas is reduced.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a video display apparatus constructed using a liquid crystal panel and a backlight, and more specifically relates to a backlight luminance control apparatus which adjusts the quality of a video image by controlling the luminance distribution of the backlight and the video display apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, liquid crystal displays are widely used as video display apparatuses, such as monitor devices for computers, and television receivers. A liquid crystal display is constructed using a liquid crystal panel and a backlight for illuminating the liquid crystal panel from the back side, and displays a video image by controlling light from the backlight to be transmitted or blocked in each portion on the liquid crystal panel. Although many backlights use fluorescent tubes as their light sources, a backlight using light emitting diodes (LEDs) as the light source has also been developed. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-219234 discloses a video display apparatus using LEDs as the light source of the backlight.
A backlight using LEDs is constructed by arranging a large number of LEDs in a plane, and placed on the back side of the liquid crystal panel. The backlight is segmented into a plurality of areas which illuminate different positions on the liquid crystal panel, and the video display apparatus is capable of controlling the luminance in each area of the backlight individually. Each area of the backlight includes a plurality of LEDs and illuminates a portion of the liquid crystal panel. A video image displayed by the video display apparatus usually includes a relatively bright portion and a relatively dark portion. A portion of the liquid crystal panel which displays a bright portion of the video image needs to be illuminated by the backlight with high luminance, while the backlight can have lower luminance for a portion of the liquid crystal panel which displays a dark portion of the video image. Thus, by adjusting the luminance in each area of the backlight individually to increase the luminance in an area illuminating a portion of the liquid crystal panel which displays a bright portion of the video image and decrease the luminance in an area illuminating a portion which displays a dark portion, it is possible to reduce the power consumption of the video display apparatus while securing necessary luminance.

Backlight luminance control apparatus and video display apparatus


An assembly comprises a stiffener, a circuit substrate and an integrated circuit (IC) chip. The stiffener has a surface with a first region and a second region. The circuit substrate covers the first region, while the IC chip overlies at least a portion of each of the first and second regions. Moreover, the assembly further comprises a plurality of first solder bumps and a plurality of second solder bumps. The first solder bumps contact both the IC chip and the circuit substrate. The second solder bumps are larger than the first solder bumps, contact the IC chip and are disposed above the second region of the stiffener.

Direct chip attachment (DCA) refers to a semiconductor assembly technology wherein an integrated circuit (IC) chip is directly mounted on and electrically connected to its final circuit substrate instead of undergoing traditional assembly and packaging. Advantageously, the elimination of conventional device packaging in DCA both simplifies the manufacturing process and reduces the space that the IC chip occupies on the final circuit substrate. It also improves performance as a result of the shorter interconnection pathways between the IC chip and the circuit substrate.
Flip chips are frequently utilized in DCA applications. A flip chip comprises an IC chip with a multiplicity of solder bumps attached to the chip's bonding pads. During mounting, these solder bumps are directly attached to the circuit substrate. Once attached, the solder bumps serve several functions. Electrically, the solder bumps act to convey signals between the IC chip and circuit substrate. In addition, the solder bumps provide a thermal pathway to carry heat away from the IC chip. The solder bumps also serve to strengthen the mechanical attachment of the IC chip to the circuit substrate. Finally, the solder bumps act to form a space between the IC chip and the circuit substrate, preventing electrical contact between these elements. In the final stages of assembly, this space is usually filled with a nonconductive "underfill." The underfill protects the solder bumps from moisture or other environmental hazards, provides additional mechanical strength to the assembly, and compensates for any thermal expansion differences between the IC chip and the circuit substrate.
In flip-chip-on-flex (FCoF) applications, the circuit substrate is substantially flexible, while in flip-chip-on-board (FCoB) applications, the circuit substrate is substantially rigid. In either case, the surface of the circuit substrate nearest the flip chip typically comprises a plurality of conductive traces, many of which are attached to the solder bumps of the flip chip. These conductive traces are usually supported by an organic material and act to conduct electrical signals between the flip chip and other electronic devices. In contrast, the surface of the circuit substrate opposed to the flip chip is often attached to a metallic stiffener. In those applications where the circuit substrate is flexible, the stiffener prevents the circuit substrate from flexing in the region where it is attached to the flip chip. Moreover, the stiffener is generally attached to a support structure that acts as a heat sink to dissipate heat generated by the flip chip.
Since the stiffener is typically attached to the support structure, increasing the rate of heat flow to the stiffener acts to increase the overall rate of heat dissipation from the flip chip. In a typical assembly comprising a flip chip, circuit substrate and stiffener, it is the solder bumps, underfill and circuit substrate that serve to transport the heat generated by the IC chip portion of the flip chip to the stiffener. In many flip chip designs however, solder bumps are only placed along the periphery of the IC chip. Due to both the placement of the solder bumps in these "peripheral I/O" IC chips and their relatively small dimensions, heat dissipation from the IC chip to the stiffener is predominantly through the underfill and the circuit substrate. Unfortunately, the materials forming the underfill and circuit substrate are usually characterized by low thermal conductivities. As a result, these thermal pathways are often inadequate to obtain a desired heat flow. When heat flow from the IC chip portion of the flip chip to the support structure (i.e., heat sink) is inadequate, the IC chip's functions and/or speed must be reduced so that the IC chip does not exceed a temperature at which its lifetime is adversely affected.
Attempts to increase heat flow from the flip chip to the support structure in FCoF and FCoB applications include increasing the density of the conductive traces on the circuit substrate, increasing the thickness of the conductive traces, using higher thermal conductivity materials for the solder bumps, increasing the number of solder bumps and using higher thermal conductivity underfills. Unfortunately, these attempts typically result in only small improvements to the heat flow from the flip chip. Alternatively, an additional metal heat sink may be attached directly to a surface of the flip chip. While effective at increasing the heat flow from the flip chip, this solution results in added cost and may not be possible due to space constraints.
As a result, there is a need for improved flip chip and circuit substrate designs for use in FCoF and FCoB applications that enhance heat dissipation from the flip chip when compared to conventional designs.

Low thermal resistance assembly for flip chip applications


The invention provides a gas turbine intake air filter unit, wherein flow resistance of intake air passing through a tertiary filter layer does not become unreasonably great despite the filter layers are increased from two stages to three stages, and a balance of collecting efficiency of the filter layers and the intake air flow resistance is optimized.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas turbine intake air filter unit, more specifically to improving technique of a filter unit for efficiently collecting dust contained in outside air aspirated into a gas turbine.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is popular in the industry, a gas turbine is provided with an intake air filter unit at an upstream side end portion of an intake duct communicating with an internal area of the gas turbine, for collecting fine dust contained in outside air aspirated by an air compressor. Since it has been a conventional understanding that operation of the air compressor would not be seriously disturbed provided that the intake air filter unit is capable of collecting dust of a particle diameter of approx. 5 xcexcm or larger, a two-stage intake air filter unit having two filter layers has conventionally been employed.
However, in such two-stage intake air filter unit, minute dust of a particle diameter of for instance less than 1 xcexcm that can pass through the filter layers adheres to a vane of the air compressor, leading to lower performance of the air compressor and further to a substantial output loss of the gas turbine, and resultantly the gas turbine cannot satisfy current demand for a high output. Employing filter layers having a higher collecting efficiency in the two-stage intake air filter unit could be a solution of the problem, however such a simple measure only causes disadvantages such as a shorter life span of the filter layers and need for frequently replacing the filter layers in short intervals. Besides, when replacing the filter layers operation of the gas turbine must be suspended in order to prevent intrusion of dust into inside the gas turbine, therefore availability factor of the gas turbine inevitably becomes lower.
Accordingly, as disclosed in JP-A No.7-253028, recently a three-stage intake air filter unit having three filter layers has been proposed, and has come to be put to trial. The filter unit disclosed in this Publication comprises a primary filter layer constituted of a panel type demister and a rolled strap type or streamer type prefilter, a secondary filter layer constituted of medium performance filters and a tertiary filter layer constituted of high performance filters, sequentially aligned from an upstream side in a direction of intake air flow.
In this case the panel type demister comprises unitary demisters formed into a plate shape by coating and bonding with a binder a multitude of small elastic bodies made of animal and vegetable fibers curled into a spring shape, and four rows of four pieces each, totally 16 pieces of such unitary demisters are disposed inside a casing located at an upstream side end portion of the intake duct.
Also, the rolled strap type and the streamer type prefilter are unitary filters made of a glass fiber or organic fibers such as acrylic fiber etc. The rolled strap type prefilter comprises a strap-shaped fiber filter medium spanned between a pair of rolls on which the fiber filter medium can be rolled, while the streamer type prefilter comprises a multitude of bags disposed in parallel close to one another with the respective openings fixed to a frame, and four rows of four pieces each, totally 16 pieces of either of such prefilters disposed inside the casing constitute the primary filter layer.
Further, the medium performance filter and the high performance filter are unitary filters comprising a high efficiency filter medium and a low efficiency filter medium closely layered, bent in zigzags with the projections and recesses thereof aligned with a direction of intake air flow and then set in a box, and four rows of four pieces each, totally 16 pieces of such unitary filters disposed at two positions inside the casing respectively constitute the secondary filter layer and the tertiary filter layer.
With respect to the foregoing three-stage intake air filter unit, in all of the primary filter layer, secondary filter layer and tertiary filter layer, the prefilters, medium performance filters and high performance filters that are the unitary filters of the respective filter layers are disposed on a plane that is orthogonal to a direction of intake air flow inside the intake duct, as shown in FIG. 1 of the aforementioned Publication.
More specifically, in the primary filter layer totally 16 pieces of the rolled strap type or streamer type prefilters are disposed on an identical plane, in the secondary filter layer totally 16 pieces of the medium performance filters are disposed on an identical plane, and in the tertiary filter layer totally 16 pieces of the high performance filters are disposed on an identical plane.
Under such configuration wherein the unitary filters are disposed on a plane in all of the filter layers, however, when the filter layers are increased from two stages to three stages, flow resistance hence pressure loss of the intake air passing through the tertiary filter layer may become unreasonably great because of insufficient intake air passing area of the tertiary filter layer, thereby disturbing smooth flow of the intake air and resultantly causing driving loss of an air compressor.
Accordingly a balance of collecting efficiency of the tertiary filter layer and intake air flow resistance becomes a critical issue to be explored, however at present development of an intake air filter unit focused on optimization of such balance has not yet been achieved, because of which such problems as adherence of minute dust to an air compressor and reduction of life span of filters and so forth have not been effectively solved.
In view of the foregoing problems, it is a technical object of the present invention to provide a gas turbine intake air filter unit, wherein flow resistance of intake air passing through a tertiary filter layer does not become unreasonably great despite the filter layers are increased from two stages to three stages, and a balance of collecting efficiency of the filter layers and the intake air flow resistance is optimized.
In order to solve the foregoing technical problem, the invention provides a gas turbine intake air filter unit, comprising a primary filter layer, a secondary filter layer, and a tertiary filter layer placed at an upstream side end portion of an intake duct that leads intake air into an internal area of a gas turbine and sequentially aligned from an upstream side; wherein the primary, secondary and tertiary filter layers respectively include a plurality of unitary filters; and the plurality of unitary filters of the tertiary filter layer are aligned in such a manner that at least a recess is formed toward a downstream side of the intake air flow.
Under such constitution, since the plurality of unitary filters in the tertiary filter layer are disposed so as to include at least a recess toward a downstream side of the intake air flow, intake air passing area is increased in proportion to the area of the recessed portion. Accordingly, increase of flow resistance, hence pressure loss of the intake air through the tertiary filter layer is properly restrained, therefore smooth flow of the intake air is secured and driving loss of the air compressor is prevented. Moreover, a balance of collecting efficiency of the three filter layers and the intake air flow resistance becomes extremely favorable, therefore adherence of minute dust to the air compressor and reduction of life span of filter layer can be effectively avoided. In addition, since the recess is formed in a direction of downstream side of the intake air flow, there is no likelihood of interference with the secondary filter layers located at an upstream side of the tertiary filter layer, and an optimum layout of the three filter layers can be maintained.
In this case, it is preferable that a downstream side end portion of the recess is located at an upstream side of a wind velocity reference line serving as an index of whether or not a turbulent flow of intake air causes noise and/or vibration. Here, the wind velocity reference line stands for a reference line by which to distinguish whether or not noise and/or vibration is generated in the tertiary filter layer by a turbulent flow of the intake air when the intake air flows into the intake duct from the filter unit, and specifically the reference line is an index showing whether or not flow velocity of the intake air inside the filter unit exceeds 5.7 m/sec. And since the intake air flow velocity is relatively slow in an upstream side area of the wind velocity reference line, such area is naturally an area where the noise or vibration is not generated. Consequently, such constitution effectively prevents generation of noise or vibration in the tertiary filter layer due to a turbulent flow of the intake air, while effectively maintaining the above described various advantages of forming a recess toward a downstream side in the tertiary filter layer.
Also, it is preferable that the recess is disposed so as to confront an upstream side end opening of the intake duct. By such configuration the recess of the tertiary filter layer falls on a path that a main stream of the intake air flowing toward the intake duct is passing through, i.e. a path where the intake air flow amount is the largest, therefore the intake air passing area is increased at an area where clogging by dust is most likely to take place. As a result, clogging by dust and increase thereby of flow resistance in the tertiary filter layer can be efficiently avoided.
In all the foregoing constitutions, it is preferable that the primary, secondary and tertiary filter layers are formed so as to cover the upstream end opening of the intake duct in a bag shape. Under such configuration, when the intake air flows into the intake duct through the primary, secondary and tertiary filter layers one after another, the intake air is introduced from various directions including a lateral portion of the intake air filter unit, in addition to an upstream side end portion of the intake air filter unit along the intake air flow direction inside the intake duct. Therefore, the intake air passing area of the three filter layers is substantially increased, and as a result untimely increase of the intake air flow resistance due to clogging by dust etc. can be restrained, and sufficient intake air passing area can still be secured by making the intake air filter unit more compact in dimensions. Also, in case where the primary, secondary and tertiary filter layers are formed in a bag shape, though a room for the tertiary filter layer inevitably becomes smaller compared with the primary and secondary filter layers, since a recess is formed in the tertiary filter layer as already described which is making the intake air passing area larger, unreasonable increase of the intake air flow resistance by having to pass through the tertiary filter layer can be effectively restrained.
Also, in the foregoing constitutions, it is preferable that each of the unitary filters of the primary filter layer and of the secondary filter layer is insert-fitted to a first fixing frame, and that each of the unitary filters of the tertiary filter layer is insert-fitted to a second fixing frame. In case where a recess is formed in the tertiary filter layer as above, the second fixing frame is formed in a bent shape according to a shape of the recess, while when the respective filter layers are formed in a bag shape the first fixing frame and the second fixing frame are respectively formed in a bent shape according to respective shapes of the filter layers. Consequently, providing only two fixing frames despite there are three filter layers contributes to reduction of number of parts, simplification of assembly and cost-saving.
Further, in the foregoing constitutions, it is preferable that a weather louver for integrating and refracting intake air flow is located at an upstream side of the primary filter layer. Under such arrangement, even when outside air contains rain water or mist the weather louver prevents such liquid from penetrating into the filter unit, therefore especially the primary filter layer can be kept from adherence of liquid, which results in a longer life span of the filter layer and prevention of corrosion inside the gas turbine.
In this case, it is preferable that the weather louver is formed so as to cover the upstream end opening of the intake duct in a bag shape. As a result of such arrangement, since the weather louver covers the entire area of the respective filter layers in case where the filter layers are formed in a bag shape as described above, the weather louver properly follows up a shape of the filter layers so as to securely restrain penetration of rain water etc.

Abstract: A weather louver 10, a primary filter layer 11, a secondary filter layer 12, and a tertiary filter layer 13 are sequentially disposed from an upstream side in the filter unit 1 installed at an upstream side end portion of an intake duct 2 communicating with a gas turbine 3, at least a recess 13e is formed toward a downstream side of the intake air flow Axe2x80x2 on an end face filter layer portion 13a that is a constituent of the tertiary filter layer 13 and is disposed orthogonally to the intake air flow Axe2x80x2 inside the intake duct 2.


A circuit configuration for a node of a bus system includes a transceiver circuit and a control circuit connected to the transceiver circuit. The transceiver circuit has an idle mode, in which it has a reduced power consumption in comparison with at least one operating mode, and the transceiver circuit is supplied with power in the at least one operating mode via a power supply unit integrated into the transceiver circuit. The control circuit is connected to the power supply unit to supply the control circuit with power in the idle mode, and the circuit configuration has a controllable voltage regulator which is coupled to the transceiver circuit in such a way that the voltage regulator is deactivated in the idle mode to reduce the power consumption and activated in the operating mode to supply power to the transceiver circuit and the control circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit configuration having a transceiver circuit and a bus system node having such a circuit configuration.
2. Description of Related Art
Control units, sensor systems and actuator systems in a motor vehicle or commercial vehicle in particular are often interconnected with the help of a communication system such as the bus system known by the FlexRay brand name. Communications traffic on the bus system, access mechanisms and receiving mechanisms, as well as error handling are regulated via a protocol. FlexRay is a fast, deterministic and error-tolerant bus system for use in motor vehicles in particular. The FlexRay protocol operates according to the principle of time division multiple access (TDMA), in which fixed time slots are assigned to subscribers and to the messages to be transmitted; during these time slots, the subscribers have exclusive access to the communications link. The time slots are repeated in a fixed cycle, so that the point in time when a message is transmitted over the bus is precisely predictable, and bus access is deterministic.
To optimally utilize the bandwidth for transmission of messages on the bus system, FlexRay subdivides the cycle into a static part and a dynamic part. The fixed time slots are in the static part at the beginning of a bus cycle. The time slots are dynamically predetermined in the dynamic part. Exclusive bus access is then enabled only for a short period of time, for the duration of at least one so-called minislot. The time slot is lengthened by the required time only if bus access occurs within a minislot. Bandwidth is thus used only if it is actually needed. FlexRay communicates via two physically separate lines, each at a data rate of max. 10 Mbit/sec. FlexRay may also be operated at lower data rates. Channels implemented via these lines correspond to the physical layer, in particular the so-called OSI (open system architecture) layer model. Two channels are used mainly for redundant and thus error-tolerant transmission of messages, but different messages may also be transmitted, which would then double the data rate. The messages are usually transmitted with the help of a differential signal, i.e., the signal transmitted over connecting lines is obtained from the difference between the individual signals transmitted over the two lines. The layer above the physical layer in the layer model is designed in such a way that an electrical or an optical transmission of the signal(s) over the line(s) or transmission by another route is possible.
When such a bus system is used in a vehicle in particular, care must be taken to ensure that the nodes of the bus system consume little power when not actually needed. This may be the case, for example, when functions to be executed by the nodes are not active or when the vehicle is not in operation. The nodes therefore have an idle mode in which a few parts of the nodes are deactivated. When changing from the idle mode to an operating mode, the microcontroller must be completely restarted, which takes a relatively long time. This results in a substantial delay in leaving the idle mode. The nodes of the bus system in the idle mode are thus able to respond to a certain event only with a relatively long response time.

Circuit configuration having a transceiver circuit for a bus system and nodes for a bus system


According to an example embodiment, a method of operating a semiconductor device includes applying a first voltage to the variable resistance device so as to change a resistance value of the variable resistance device from a first resistance value to a second resistance value that is different from the first resistance value, sensing first current flowing through the variable resistance device to which the first voltage is applied, determining a second voltage used to change the resistance value of the variable resistance device from the second resistance value to the first resistance value based on a distribution of the sensed first current, and applying the determined second voltage to the variable resistance device.

1. Field
Some example embodiments relate to semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to a variable resistance device, a semiconductor device including the variable resistance device, and/or a method of operating the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a need for memory devices that have high storage capacity and low power consumption increases, more research is being conducted into next-generation memory devices that are not only non-volatile but also do not need to be refreshed. Such a next-generation memory device is desired to have high integration characteristics of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), non-volatile characteristics of flash memory, high-speed operating characteristics of Static RAM (SRAM), and so on. Next-generation memory devices may include Phase change RAM (PRAM), Nano Floating Gate Memory (NFGM), Polymer RAM (PoRAM), Magnetic RAM (MRAM), Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM), and Resistive RAM (RRAM). From among the above next-generation memory devices, RRAM is based on the phenomenon that a path in which current flows is generated thus lowering electrical resistance when a sufficiently high current is applied to a nonconductive material. In this case, once the path is generated, the path may be canceled or regenerated by applying an adequate voltage to the nonconductive material.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Variable resistance device, semiconductor device including the variable resistance device, and method of operating the semiconductor device


An alignment device for hole saw includes a first alignment member having a first end having an outer width slightly less than an inner diameter of the hole saw and serves as an alignment bearing surface therefor and a second end configured with a nose to be received adjacent a hole of a work piece and a draw bar and tightening member therewith for drawing the first alignment member against the work piece in a manner wherein the nose is self centering within the hole and thereby maintaining the first alignment member in a predetermined aligned position with respect to the work piece.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an alignment device for a hole saw and method for guiding hole boring tools and more particularly pertains to an alignment device for a hole saw and method used for enlarging existing holes in a work piece, such as a door.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There exist a number of hole saw guides within the prior art. With respect to the invention, such hole saw guides have been employed for the purpose of enlarging existing holes as is the case where small hole exists in a door, for example, where a lock previously existed and a larger hole is required to install a larger lock in the door. In such case, various hole saw guides have been used.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,326 to Converse discloses a hole saw guide for alignment of a hole saw used to enlarge an existing hole. The hole saw guide includes a perforated cylindrical plug fitted to an existing hole. The perforation accepts the hole saw pilot drill member permitting free rotation. The perforated cylindrical plug includes a stop which prevents passage of the plug through the existing hole. The problem with this type of device is that the plug is limited to a particular existing hole size and must be friction fit and requires a hammer to install and remove.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,310 to Martensen discloses a device for use in combination with a hole saw of the type including a cylindrical hollow body having a circular lower cutting edge, a top mandrel with a shank in engagement with a chuck of a drill and a pilot bit for guiding the hole saw when cutting a new opening in a work piece having a predrilled opening, in which the center of the new opening lies within the predrilled opening. The device includes a dowel plug having a plurality of holes therethrough, wherein a pilot bit of the hole saw can be positioned in a rotatable manner into one of the holes in the dowel plug on center or off center with the predrilled opening in the work piece. The problem with this type of device is that the plug tends move when operating the hole saw thus not providing an off angled opening for the lock to be disposed therein.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,486 to Damico discloses a hole saw guide used to position a hole saw while forming a new hole of larger diameter with or without maintaining concentricity with the existing hole. The Damico invention permits enlargement of an existing hole by employing a plurality of screws and locking nuts or sliding arms to engage the existing hole sidewalls and thereby locating a guide hole for the pilot drill of a larger hole saw. The Damico invention means for assuring concentricity of the enlarged hole with respect to the existing hole includes adjustable arms or screws which engage the sidewalls of the existing hole. Since there is no provision for maintaining an isometric relationship of the independently adjustable arms or screws there cannot be an assurance of concentricity without difficult and tedious readjustment.
The background art has made efforts to attempt to form and enlarge holes using various hole enlargement devices. The prior devices while somewhat useful fail to provide an adequate solution and there remains a need to improve the art. The present invention substantially fulfills this need. The present invention achieves its intended purposes, objects, and advantages through a new, useful and unobvious combination of method steps and elements. The prior patents and commercial techniques do not suggest the present invention as disclosed and claimed herein.

Alignment device for a hole saw and method of enlarging a hole using same


This application relates to the field of communications technologies and discloses a transmitter device and a signal processing method. m transmit antenna groups of the transmitter are configured to send m training signals under control of the processor. A target feedback antenna of the transmitter is configured to receive, under control of the processor, a first mixed signal obtained by superimposing the m training signals in space, where a phase difference between the first mixed signal and a second mixed signal obtained by superimposing in space the m training signals received by a receiver device falls within a preset range. A processor of the transmitter is configured to: perform DPD parameter estimation and pre-distortion processing on a to-be-sent signal. The m transmit antenna groups are further configured to send, under control of the processor, the to-be-sent signal on which pre-distortion processing has been performed.

Compared with a conventional multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) technology, a large-scale MIMO technology uses dozens or even hundreds of transmit antennas. After combined with a beamforming technology, the large-scale MIMO technology can effectively improve spectral efficiency, power efficiency, coverage, and communication reliability of a wireless communications system.
In a large-scale MIMO system, an independent power amplifier (PA) link is usually configured for each transmit antenna. This means that a quantity of power amplifiers of a transmitter device in the large-scale MIMO system also reaches dozens or even hundreds. In this case, to reduce system energy consumption, efficiency of the power amplifier needs to be improved, which reduces a linearity of the power amplifier. Serious in-band distortion and out-of-band distortion occur when a signal passes through a low-linearity power amplifier.
To resolve the contradiction between the efficiency and the linearity of the power amplifier, an additional linearization technology may be used based on nonlinear characteristics of the power amplifier. A digital pre-distortion (DPD) technology has become one of commonly used linearization technologies in a communications system because of its simple structure, wide application scope, and stable performance. Therefore, an effective digital pre-distortion architecture needs to be designed.

Transmitter device and signal processing method


An email system using keys to open the server to receive messages. A message is created on a client, along with a request for the server to accept the message. The server will not even accept the message, unless the key is received. The key may be validated on many different levels of security; including length, or encryption code, or mathematical calculation. If the key is validated, the message can be received, either immediately, or later via a session code.

E-mail is an effective form of communication; however, is a very desirable target for advertising. Accordingly, the prevalence of Spam, or unwanted e-mail, has significantly increased over e-mail systems. This has led to spam filters which filter out the spam, but have a side effect of filtering out other e-mails which may not be spam. This has led many to believe that e-mail, as a medium, is itself flawed.
It is very difficult to effectively block e-mail from spammers based on characteristics of the email. Spammers use heuristic techniques to avoid the Spam filters. Even if the Spam is filtered, this typically only prevents the spam from reaching the user's mailbox. The sheer amount of Spam may overwhelm an email server.
The process of sending a text message from a sender to a recipient is well established. The process of conventional e-mail is defined by a number of different interacting protocols and servers.
In conventional e-mail, a personal computer 100 runs an e-mail client 102. Well-known e-mail clients include Microsoft outlook and Outlook express. The e-mail client may be a standalone client, or may be a modified e-mail client running within a web page such as "Hotmail". The e-mail client lists the messages in the user's mailbox by headers, and allows the user to select and read the e-mail that is associated with that header. An e-mail client also allows creation of new messages and sending of the new messages.
The e-mail client communicates with an e-mail server 120 at the user's local Internet Service provider, here shown as "domain" 99, in order to send and receive messages over the Internet 110 or more generally over any network connection. The server receives e-mail messages from a client 102, and forms a list of those messages. The server 120 typically includes a processor or computer of some type, running the special email programs that are described herein.
The mechanics of the e-mail system operate by using three different protocols, known as SMTP, POP3 and IMAP. The SMTP server listens on port 25 to receive its emails. In order to send an e-mail, the e-mail client 102 interacts with the SMTP server 130 at the domain 99.
If the message is for another mailbox within the same domain, then the SMTP server 130 sends the message to the local POP3 server 140. The POP3 server 140 handles delivery of local messages to the local mailboxes, such as 145. This mailbox is really a queue that is formed to provide the message to some other email client, when that client logs in to the POP3 server 140.
If the message is intended for another domain, the SMTP server communicates with a domain name server or DNS 135. The DNS stores a database, which is updated from the Internet, that stores the IP address for all domains. The DNS provides the IP address to the SMTP 130.
In order to streamline all the operations, software called a "picker" often operates to look at messages stored on the SMTP server's hard drive, and carries out the mechanics of analyzing the message headers for destination, communicating with the DNS, and looking for an available port for the SMTP server on the desired domain.
Once this is completed, the SMTP server 130 sends the message using the IP address that it obtained from the DNS server 135, to another server 150 at another domain 149. The SMTP server 130 communicates with the corresponding SMTP server 155 at domain 149. The message is transferred to the SMTP server 155 at domain 149. Since SMTP server 155 recognizes that the message is for a local mailbox, it provides the message to its local POP3 server 160, which queues the message to a local mailbox 165.
The program for sending mail is often an open-source program known as Sendmail™ which also includes the ability to queue messages which cannot be sent immediately.
In order to receive local mail, the e-mail client 102 communicates with the POP3 server 140 in its local domain 120. The POP3 server maintains a collection of text files, one for each e-mail that has been sent or received. Each time a new e-mail is received, it adds that e-mail to its recipient file, or mailbox. The POP3 server provides the e-mail client 102 with contents of its mailbox, and then deletes them.
An IMAP server may be used in addition to or in place of POP3. IMAP allows the e-mail into folders which stay on the server.
For a large e-mail server, there may be many pickers operating at once, e.g. 50 to 100 pickers. Each of these pickers are obtaining information from the SMTP server's hard drive, moving messages one at a time from the hard drive. Data throughput limitations are often caused by this operation.
A spam filter may operate anywhere within the chain shown above, but most often runs between the email client and the POP3 server that holds the emails for the email client. This means that all the spam emails must be received by the SMTP server, and by the POP3 server and handled, processed, and stored.


A method and apparatus is provided for securing a region in a memory of a computer. According to one embodiment, the method comprises halting of all but one of a plurality of processors in a computer. The halted processors entering into a special halted state. Content is loaded into the region only after the halting of all but the one of the plurality of processors and the region is protected from access by the halted processors. The method further comprises placing the non-halted processor into a known privileged state, and causing the halted processors to exit the halted state after the non-halted processor has been placed into the known privileged state.

Advances in microprocessor and communication technologies have opened up many opportunities for applications that go beyond the traditional ways of doing business. Electronic commerce and business-to-business transactions are now becoming popular, reaching the global markets at a fast rate. Unfortunately, while modern microprocessor systems provide users convenient and efficient methods of doing business, communicating and transacting, they are also vulnerable to unscrupulous attacks. Examples of these attacks include virus, intrusion, security breach, and tampering, to name a few. Computer security, therefore, is becoming more and more important to protect the integrity of the computer systems and increase the trust of users.
In the context of operating systems, computer security is determined initially by establishing that you are loading (or have loaded) a trustable operating system. A trustable operating system is where the user or a third party may later inspect the system and determine whether a given operating system was loaded, and if so, whether or not the system was loaded into a secure environment.
However, when booting a normal operating system it is necessary to boot a wide variety of code components. Even if you could choose what code component should be loaded, the operating system contains such an extremely large amount of code that it is difficult to establish the operating system's specific identity and whether you should choose to trust it, i.e. whether it was loaded into a secure environment.
In a multi-processor environment, it may be particularly difficult to determine whether the operating system can be trusted. This is because each of the central processing units (CPUs), or sometimes even a system device, can execute a code stream that can potentially alter and compromise the integrity of the code that was loaded. Consequently, at least at the operating system level, it is often necessary to assume that the operating system is trustworthy. Such assumptions may prove to be false and can lead to catastrophic failures in computer security.

Method and apparatus for loading a trustable operating system


An improved ram-type blowout preventer having an improved resilient ram packer which includes an upper retainer plate and a lower retainer plate which each have a front face with a central recess therein, a back and sides, resilient end elements bonded between the plates at the sides and having facing surfaces extending from front to back and a resilient insert shaped to be positioned between said plates and between said end elements with sides mating with the shape of the facing surfaces of the end elements.

The present invention relates to an improved blowout preventer and particularly to an improved blowout preventer in which a portion of the packer which is subject to the most wear may be easily and quickly replaced.
Prior to the present invention blowout preventers have long had rams which carried a packing element on their front face which is adapted to seal against both the face of the opposite packer and around a string positioned in the recesses of the opposed packers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,639 discloses a ram-type blowout preventer with a ram front packer which is replaceable. In one form of this prior patent, the replaceable portion of the ram front packer extends completely across the front of the packer and in another form the replacement form of the packer extends immediately around the pipe engaging recess of the packer. In both forms the packer and the insert have interengaging elements which retain the insert in the front face of the packer. The insert element of both forms included both upper and lower retaining plates having the same shape as the insert and bonded thereto so that the complete assembly could be removed and a new insert inserted into the main body of the packer.


An optical disk substrate is disclosed, which is molded from a terpolymer composed of (A) an aromatic vinyl monomer, (B) cyclohexylmaleimide, and (C) at least one compound selected from the group consisting of (meth)acrylonitrile, isobornyl (meth)acrylate and cyclohexyl (meth)acrylate, with the cyclohexyl maleimide being copolymerized in an amount of from 5 to 60 wt % of said terpolymer. The optical disk substrate exhibits high heat resistance, low water absorption and low birefringence.

Optical disks have been used not only in the video and audio fields but also in the field of computer as document files, external memories and the like. Since semiconductor laser is used for recording and reproducing information on the optical disks, substrates for the optical disks are required to have high heat resistance, high transparency, low water absorption and low birefringence. The optical disk substrates are also required to be produced at high productivity. In order to meet these requirements, various substrate materials are used depending on use of the optical disks: polycarbonate resins (hereinafter abbreviated as PC) are used in compact disks (CD); polymethyl methacrylate resins (PMMA) are used in video disks (LVD); and glass, PC or PMMA is used in optical disks serving as document files.
Erasable-DRAW (direct read after write) optical disks such as external memories for computers which are capable of information recording, erasure and reproduction require substrates exhibiting more heat-resistant, less moisture absorption and less birefringence than the conventional substrates for CD, LVD and document files. In an attempt to satisfy this need, various PCs and low-moisture-absorption PMMAs have been proposed, as described, for example, in JP-A-58-179224, JP-A-60-166322, JP-A-60-130611, JP-A-60-147416 and JP-A-61-36307. (The term "JP-A" used herein means an unexamined published Japanese patent application.) However, PCs are low in molding efficiency and disk substrates produced therefrom experience an increased degree of birefringence. Substrates made of PMMAs are satisfactory with respect to birefringence but they do not exhibit good moisture absorption and good heat resistance at the same time. The use of reinforced glass has also been proposed, but in order to form pregrooves, the so-called "2P" process must be employed and this results in a very low productivity. In addition, the pre-grooved glass substrate is liable to crack. Thus, the substrate materials previously proposed are not completely satisfactory in terms of various physical properties and productivity.


For automatic recognition of the authenticity of items in sheet form such as bank notes, for example in an automatic service machine, the transparency of each bank note is examined in predetermined spectral ranges. The measuring system is arranged between units of a transport system and, in a passage opening formed from a collector and a diffuser, produces a narrow read-out light beam which extends transversely over a scanning plane. The bank note is conveyed through the read-out light beam, and the light which shines through the bank note in the read-out area is collected in the collector and passed to a photosensitive detector. An evaluation device forms a single measurement value in respect of transparency in the spectral range for each of the successively scanned read-out areas, and compares the measurement values of the bank note being tested with pattern signals stored in a memory of the evaluation device.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a testing apparatus for an item in sheet form, and in particular to such testing apparatus provided with a measuring system having a light source and a photosensitive detector.
Such testing apparatus is advantageously used in bank note acceptors such as those used in automatic service machines.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Testing apparatus of this kind is known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 3 761 876 and 4 319 137, in which a bank note is optically scanned line by line by means of a linear array of a plurality of detectors. Each line is broken down into an equal number of picture elements, in accordance with the number of detectors. It is also known from U.S. Pat. No. 4 319 137 that the items which are judged genuine may also have patterns from a predetermined set, and that the items are transported by means of endless belts.
Swiss Patent Specification No. 661 603 describes a transport system which provides for careful transportation of bank notes of different sizes by means of endless belts.
It is also known from European Patent Application Serial No. 109 490 for only small surface portions of the bank note to be examined in a reflection mode, in order to detect soiling of or damage to the bank note.
European Patent Application Serial No. 198 819 describes a method in which the light which experiences a spectral variation due to the entire surface of the bank note in a transmission or a reflection mode is analyzed by at least one detector in order to establish the authenticity of the bank note, irrespective of its position in the testing device.

Device for optically scanning sheet-like documents


An orientation sensor includes variable resistance elements within the sensor, the variable resistance elements forming an electric circuit with a conductive ball or drop of conductive material. The resistance of the electric circuit uniquely identifies the orientation of the apparatus. A method of determining the orientation of an apparatus includes measuring the resistance of a circuit completed between two conductive members in the apparatus, and determining the position of a freely movable conductive member in the apparatus from the measured resistance.

The present invention relates generally to orientation sensors, and more specifically to gravity-based orientation sensors.
Orientation sensors are used in many applications. When orientation in two or three dimensions is required by an apparatus, orientation sensors are used. For example, computer peripheral equipment with non-traditional use parameters, including virtual reality apparatuses, wireless mice, non-pad using mice, and the like may all have and use orientation sensors.
Currently, there are many orientation sensors that are truly no more than level sensors. Often, such sensors use an air bubble in some sort of fluid to determine whether an object is level with respect to gravity. One example of such a sensor is a level or carpenter level. A carpenter level indicates only whether the object on which it is placed is level, but does not indicate the angle of inclination. Further, a carpenter level only indicates level with respect to one degree of freedom.
Various apparatuses having chambers and movable drops of mercury have been employed to determine orientation. Such apparatuses, for example that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,900, include two intersecting toroidal chambers orthogonal disposed, the chambers used to determine orientation of the apparatus. In a first embodiment, discrete electrodes are used to determine the position of the drop of mercury. In a second embodiment, reflective properties of the drop of mercury are used to determine position of the drop within a chamber. The second embodiment requires a light transmissive chamber and a source of light. The first embodiment is subject to error since the discrete electrodes only allow for discrete position determination within the chamber.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an orientation sensor having multiple degrees of freedom, and also having a less discrete measurement parameter.
The present invention overcomes the problems of the prior art by providing an orientation sensor which provides orientation information in a gravimetric apparatus. In one embodiment, a freely movable drop of a conductive fluid moves gravimetrically within a chamber, bridging a gap between a first conductive ring and a second variable resistance member. The conductive fluid completes a circuit of a specific resistance, the specific resistance uniquely identifying the position of the conductive fluid in the chamber.
In one embodiment, the chamber measures changes in orientation in a single degree of freedom. In another embodiment, the variable resistance member extends in more than one direction so that the position of the conductive fluid in the chamber has more than one degree of freedom. In still another embodiment, the outer conductive member is a sphere, and traces are run along the inner surface of the sphere, the traces being separated by substantially the same distance for their entire length. The traces are routed along the interior of the sphere, substantially covering the entire interior surface of the sphere. A conductive ball or member, such as a metal bearing or the like, is free to move about the interior of the sphere. The bearing will come to rest covering two traces, creating a circuit therebetween. The resistance of this circuit will uniquely identify the position of the bearing within the sphere, allowing for full three-dimensional orientation sensing of the orientation of the sphere.
A method embodiment for determining the orientation of an apparatus embodiment of the present invention includes determining the position of a freely movable conductive member in an object, measuring the resistance between two contacts bridged by the conductive member, comparing the measured resistance to known resistance tables, and determining the orientation of the object from the position of the conductive member.
Other embodiments are described and claimed.


Provided are a method and apparatus to measure in real time the hearing ability of a user in a game environment of a mobile device. The method includes generating a series of sound patterns and visual patterns for a combination of a specific frequency and level of sound, and extracting ear characteristics of the user based on the user's responses to the series of sound patterns and visual patterns.

1. Field of the General Inventive Concept
The present general inventive concept relates to a method and apparatus to measure hearing ability of a user of a mobile device, and also, to a method and apparatus to measure in real time ear characteristics of a user in an environment of a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to recent surveys, one in ten people suffer from hearing loss that could affect the normal perception of voices, music, or other sounds. Although rapid industrialization has improved standards of living, it has also led to increased noise and environmental contamination that can cause hearing loss.
Most people seldom notice their hearing loss. As people tend to not notice their acoustic environment, they are exposed to factors that can cause hearing loss, without taking any protection measures.
In recent years the use of mobile multimedia appliances such as portable FM radios, mp3 players and portable music players (PMPs) has dramatically increased. These appliances provide straightforward access to music, moving pictures and audio signals. These mobile devices can adopt various forms of entertainment and useful applications. In addition, the designs of chips and the durability of batteries have improved sound quality and playback time. It is also possible to listen to music at a high volume by using earphones and other audio receiving devices, without interrupting other people. However, exposure to high sound energy may cause many users to experience hearing loss.
Therefore, there is a need for mobile devices that can inform the user of his/her current hearing ability by measuring the hearing ability, as well as providing optimal sound quality according to the ear frequency characteristics of the user.
Conventional methods of measuring the hearing ability of a user involve reproducing an audio signal and inquiring whether the user can hear the audio signal or not. However, these limited conventional methods do not provide the user any interest or motivation to repeat or continue hearing ability measurements.

Method and apparatus to measure hearing ability of user of mobile device


A deployable aerodynamic decelerator structure includes a ring member disposed along a central axis of the aerodynamic decelerator, a plurality of jointed rib members extending radially from the ring member and a flexible layer attached to the plurality of rib members. A deployment device is operable to reconfigure the flexible layer from a stowed configuration to a deployed configuration by movement of the rib members and a control device is operable to redirect a lift vector of the decelerator structure by changing an orientation of the flexible layer.

Conventionally, entry, descent and landing (EDL) technology utilizes a rigid aeroshell structure for both aerodynamic braking and thermal protection of a payload. Typically, the rigid aeroshell structure has a size that is constrained by the launch vehicle carrying the rigid aeroshell structure (i.e., the size is constrained to a size that fits within the launch vehicle). Due to such size limitations of the rigid aeroshell structure, the mass of the payload for which the rigid aeroshell structure is designed is also limited. The limitations of size and the resulting mass that can be packaged within the rigid aeroshell structure often results in a severe entry condition.
Increasingly, large missions and campaigns to near and far solar system destinations, such as inner and outer planets and moons, as well as human and sample return to Earth, are planned. Such large missions and campaigns require large payloads and heatshield structures capable of safely and effectively landing the payload at these destinations.
The effectiveness of the rigid aeroshell structure for aerodynamic braking and thermal protection is dependent upon, among other factors, the size of the structure and the density of the atmosphere in which the rigid aeroshell structure is utilized. For a planet such as Mars, the atmosphere is not dense enough to allow typical rigid aeroshell structures to be effective for payloads over approximately two metric tons (mT). However, the Martian atmosphere is dense enough to cause significant heating from aerodynamic friction during descent.
Further, typical EDL technologies utilize a reaction control system (RCS) using propulsive thrust for directional control of the payload during descent. However, conventional propulsive thrust technologies may be inefficient and inadequate for large payloads.

Transformable and reconfigurable entry, descent and landing systems and methods

The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA)


To notify the control information necessary for uplink MIMO transmission while reducing overhead, generated is a UL grant having the PMI/RI field and non-transmission/swap flag field of 1 bit indicative of a transport block made non-transmission and the presence or absence of a swap of control information between two transport blocks corresponding to a value of the PMI/RI field, a downlink control channel signal including the UL grant is transmitted to a mobile station apparatus, and the transport block made non-transmission and the presence or absence of a swap of control information between two transport blocks is determined from the non-transmission/swap flag of the UL grant.

In UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) networks, for the purpose of improving spectral efficiency and further improving data rates, by adopting HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), it is performed exploiting maximum features of the system based on W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). For the UMTS network, for the purpose of further increasing high-speed data rates, providing low delay and the like, Long Term Evolution (LTE) has been studied.
In the 3G system, a fixed band of 5 MHz is substantially used, and it is possible to achieve transmission rates of approximately maximum 2 Mbps in downlink. Meanwhile, in the LTE-scheme system, using variable bands ranging from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz, it is possible to achieve transmission rates of maximum 300 Mbps in downlink and about 75 Mbps in uplink. Further, in the UMTS network, for the purpose of further increasing the wide-band and high speed, successor systems to LTE have been studied (for example, LTE Advanced (LTE-A)). For example, in LTE-A, it is scheduled to increase 20 MHz that is the maximum system band in LTE specifications to about 100 MHz. Further, it is scheduled to increase four antennas that are the maximum number of transmission antennas in LTE specification to eight antennas.
Moreover, in the LTE-scheme system (LTE system), MIMO (Multi Input Multi Output) systems are proposed as radio communication techniques for transmitting and receiving data using a plurality of antennas and improving a data rate (spectral efficiency) (for example, see Non-patent Document 1). In the LTE system, two modes, spatial multiplexing transmission mode (SU-MIMO (Single User MIMO)) and transmission diversity transmission mode, are defined as downlink MIMO transmission modes. The spatial multiplexing transmission mode is to spatially multiplex signals of a plurality of streams in the same frequency and time to transmit, and is effective at increasing a peak data rate. The transmission diversity transmission mode is to transmit signals of the same stream subjected to space-frequency (time) coding from a plurality of antennas, and is effective at improving reception quality of a cell-edge user due to the transmission antenna diversity effect.
In such a MIMO system, proposed are techniques (rank adaptation) for optimally controlling the number of layers of spatial multiplexing corresponding to reception conditions in each mobile station receiver. In the rank adaptation, based on downlink channel information (reception SIRN, inter-antenna fading correlation), a base station transmitter performs control for transmitting information to a mobile station receiver good in the channel state by the spatial multiplexing transmission mode, while transmitting information to a mobile station receiver poor in the channel state by the transmission diversity transmission mode.

Communication control method, base station apparatus and mobile station apparatus


A system and method for requesting, providing, and displaying data relating to performance of a network is disclosed. In one aspect, the method and system include allowing a user to select the at least one system from which data is requested, identify at least one data type for which data is requested, select a sampling interval for sampling data for the at least one data type, and identify a time period for which data of the at least one data type is requested. In an second aspect, the method and system include receiving the request, retrieving at least one value for the at least one data type if the at least one data type is available on the at least one system, and calculating an average value for the sampling interval. The method and system include saving the average value for the sampling interval in a report and repeating the retrieving, calculating, and saving steps for each sampling interval in the time period. In a third aspect the method and system further include merging the report for each of the portion of the plurality of systems to provide a composite report. During the merge, differences in the reports are accounted for. In a fourth aspect, the method and system graphically display the data by plotting the at least one average value for the at least one data type of each of the portion of the plurality of systems.

The present invention relates to capacity management on a network and more particularly to a method and system for reducing the size of reports generated in order to describe the performance of a particular system in the network.
Capacity management is of increasing interest for a network containing a plurality of systems. Capacity management refers to the monitoring of and upkeep of systems in a network and the network as a whole. The network may contain servers, computer systems for individual users of the network, mainframes, printers, or other systems. Depending on the size of the network, the network could be made up of only a few systems or thousands of systems. A user known as a network administrator is typically responsible for ensuring that individual portions of the network function and that the network as a whole functions.
In order to ensure that the network functions, a user can examine performance data for the systems in the network. In particular, a user such as a network administrator keeps track of monitors for each system. A monitor is an attribute of a particular system. For example, monitors include central processing unit (xe2x80x9cCPUxe2x80x9d) utilization, disk space available, disk work load, the number of bytes sent by the system, and the number of bytes received by the system. Typically, the monitors of each system vary over time.
Previously, the user employed a mainframe for capacity management. More recently, conventional applications which allow a user to perform capacity management without requiring a mainframe have been developed. Such conventional applications allow to a user employ a system in the network to query the systems within the network and receive information relating to each system""s monitors. A user receives information relating to performance data by requesting performance data from selected systems. Typically, a user formulates such a conventional request by including the type of data in which the user is interested and the time period over which the user wishes to receive data. For example, the type of data requested could include a variety of monitors. The time period for which a user wishes to receive data is typically a day, a week, or a month. The conventional request is then sent from the user""s system to those systems in the network from which the user desires data.
In response to the conventional request, a conventional system generates a conventional report and sends the conventional report to the system of the user formulating the request. In order to be able to generate the conventional report, each system typically saves relating to certain monitors. Typically, data is saved at relatively short intervals, such as every minute or every five minutes. In order to allow a user to determine trends in performance of the system over time, this data is saved for a relatively long period of time, such as the previous day or month. When the conventional request for performance data is received, the system opens a file containing the performance data, selects the appropriate monitors, and writes the values of the monitors to the conventional report. The conventional report is then sent to the user""s system. Once the user has the conventional reports from the selected systems available, the user can determine how the selected systems are performing and, therefore, how the network as a whole is performing.
Although conventional applications allow a user to examine performance data, a system interacting with such a conventional application may generate an extremely large report. For example, suppose the conventional systems save the values of their monitors every five minutes and the time period for which performance data is requested is a year. If the conventional request asks for data for a variety of monitors, then the report from a single conventional system could be several megabytes in length. A user may have requested the conventional report from several systems in the network. These conventional reports may take a great deal of time to send. The user""s system may also wait for these conventional reports to be returned. Thus, system resources are tied up by the conventional reports. This problem is exacerbated if the reports are sent via the internet or other extended network.
Another problem is encountered once the reports reach the user""s system. If a conventional composite report is generated on the user""s system from conventional reports, the user""s system may take a long time to generate the conventional composite report. Where the size of each conventional report is large, the delay in generating the conventional composite may be unacceptable. Moreover, both the conventional reports and the conventional composite report may require a great deal of space in order to be saved. This may also be unacceptable. Finally, if the user wishes to graphically display the contents of the report, a conventional application for graphically displaying data may require an inordinate amount of memory to function. This may also adversely affect system performance. Some of these issues may be overcome by storing data relating to the monitors only once per day on the user""s system, rather than continuously on each system. However, in this case, the network is incapable of producing reports for a user at any given time. Thus, it may be difficult for a user to diagnose problems relating to a particular system or the network as a whole.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for reducing the size of a report containing performance data without unduly sacrificing necessary information. The present invention addresses such a need.
The present invention provides a method and system for requesting, providing, and displaying data relating to performance of a network. In one aspect, the method and system comprise allowing a user to select the at least one system from which data is requested, identify at least one data type for which data is requested, select a sampling interval for sampling data of the at least one data type, and identify a time period for which data of the at least one data type is requested. In this aspect, the method and system may also comprise identifying an inclusion time specifying at least one interval within the time period for which data for the at least one data type is sampled. Also in this aspect, the method and system may also comprise requesting minimum and maximum data. In a second aspect, the method and system comprise receiving a request including the data discussed above. In this aspect, the method and system comprise retrieving at least one data point for the at least one data type if the at least one data type is available on the at least one system and calculating an average value for the sampling interval if there is more than one data point for the sampling interval. In this aspect, the method and system further include saving the average value for the sampling interval in a report and repeating the retrieving, calculating, and saving steps for each sampling interval in the time period. In this aspect, the method and system may also include performing the retrieving, calculating and saving steps only during the inclusion times within the time period. In this aspect, the method and system may also comprise saving minimum and maximum data if requested. In a third aspect the method and system further comprise providing a report including the data saved above for a portion of a plurality of systems on a network and merging the report for each of the portion of the plurality of systems to provide a composite report. When merging the reports, differences in the reports are accounted for. In a fourth aspect, the method and system graphically display the data by plotting at least one average value for each of the at least one data type of each of the portion of the plurality of systems. In this aspect, the method and system may also comprise plotting the minimum value and the maximum value for each average value. Also in this aspect, the method and system may also comprise plotting average values, minimum values and maximum values only for specified inclusion times.
According to the system and method disclosed herein, the present invention is capable of reducing the size of reports generated thereby increasing overall system performance and facilitating capacity management.

Method and system for providing performance data

International Business Machines Corporation


Disclosed is an X-ray exposure apparatus comprising a chamber, filled with X-ray low attenuation gas for guiding X-rays, generated from an X-ray source, to an X-ray window, a gas supplying portion, provided to supply X-ray low attenuation gas into the chamber and having a portion with a small-diameter passage cross section formed at least at a part thereof, a gas discharging portion, provided to discharge gas from the chamber and having a portion with a small-diameter passage cross section formed at least at a part thereof, and a flow-rate controller for controlling a flow rate of the gas to be supplied to the gas supplying portion to thereby control pressure in the chamber, whereby pressure in the chamber is made equal to or slightly higher than atmospheric pressure by setting the small-diameter portion of the gas supplying portion smaller than that of the gas discharging portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an X-ray exposure apparatus which exposes a semiconductor wafer or the like using X-rays that are generated by the radiation of a synchrotron (SOR) or electron-ray excitation, or X-rays that are generated by plasma or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent semiconductor devices are designed with higher integration so that the minimum line width of the pattern of a VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) circuit reaches the order of submicrons. Exposure apparatuses, which are used in fabricating VLSI devices, expose a semiconductor wafer or the like using X-rays that are generated by the radiation of a synchrotron (SOR) or electron-ray excitation, or X-rays that are generated by plasma or the like.
Such an X-ray exposure apparatus is designed in such a way that X-rays, which are generated from an X-ray source placed in vacuum and are led into a chamber filled with gaseous helium through a window formed by a beryllium foil, transfers a mask pattern on a wafer, placed in the air, through an X-ray mask.
Since the attenuation of X-rays is significant in this X-ray exposure apparatus, it is necessary to keep the low-attenuation atmosphere for X-rays (helium atmosphere) at high purity. As the X-ray mask are very thin, the difference between the pressure in the chamber and the atmospheric pressure should be controlled at high precision in order to prevent those members from being deformed or damaged.
A helium chamber for an X-ray exposure apparatus, as disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 1-181518 and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 1-181521, has been proposed as one conventional technique of controlling the chamber pressure.
In this conventional technique, the difference between the chamber pressure and atmospheric pressure can be controlled to about +3 mmH.sub.2 O or +0.2 mmHg due to the difference in specific weight between H.sub.2 O and Hg being 1:13.6). However, the present inventors have conducted various experiments and simulation and found that with the difference between the chamber pressure and atmospheric pressure being 0.2 mmHg, a typical X-ray mask, e.g., an X-ray mask having a membrane thickness of 1 .mu.m and a size of about 25 mm on each side, causes deformation of about 15 .mu.m. In the X-ray exposure apparatus, it is considered to perform a close exposure with the gap between the mask and the wafer being set to about 30 .mu.m. If the mask deforms 15 .mu.m for the 30-.mu.m gap, accurate exposure will not be accomplished.
In a pressure control of about 0.2 mmHg, as described above, since the amount of mask deformation is too large, an accurate exposure cannot be realized. For this reason, finer control on the pressure difference is demanded.
Also, in a case of monitoring oxygen concentration, if the oxygen concentration in the chamber is measured by an oxygen monitor with a suction pump for sucking sample gas, the pressure in the chamber varies. For this reason, it is difficult to satisfy the above demand for the pressure control.