Oxygen-containing compounds, particularly compounds wherein the oxygen is present in OH-groups, such as alcohols, sulfonic and carboxylic acids, or metal salts thereof, serve as lubricants for ceramic materials, particularly silicon nitride materials under high stress and high load conditions.

This invention relates to a method of lubricating silicon nitride ceramics and the like.
Advanced ceramics offer great potential for future engineering applications. Their unique blend of strength, wear and corrosion resistance and light weight enables technologies that were not possible otherwise. Technologies such as low heat rejection engines, advanced gas turbines, environmentally compatible fuel efficient diesel engines, and space structures all depend on the availability of such advanced materials. The brittleness of ceramics, however, causes concern in terms of reliability and durability, especially since effective reliable lubrication technology of ceramics does not currently exist. This limits the load carrying capacity of the ceramics and durability of the ceramic component.
Silicon nitride, e.g., Si.sub.3 N.sub.4, is the most promising ceramic for future applications in bearings, tools and engine components. The ability to lubricate these materials under high stress (boundary) conditions will become critical as the technology continues to mature.
In general, conventional lubricants rely on special chemical compounds to reduce friction and wear under high stress (boundary) conditions. One of the key concepts in boundary lubrication is that chemical reactions occur with the surface to produce a protective film. This is described in an article by S. M. Hsu, "Boundary Lubrication of Materials," MRS Bulletin, October 1991, pp. 54-58.
Many of the concepts of boundary lubrication on metal surfaces rely on chemical reaction with the metal surface and/or catalysis by the metal. This is easily understood because most metal system are chemically reactive. Current lubricants for iron-based systems are based on the reactions between P, S and Cl with iron. The resultant protective boundary lubricating films are rich in iron-organo-metallic compounds containing P, S and Cl.
Ceramic materials, however, contain substantially no iron (less than 0.2%). Further, ceramic materials are generally not considered to be reactive, relative to iron-based systems. In fact, ceramics are used in many applications because they are considered to be chemically inert and are thus, useful in high temperature and corrosive environments. Consequently, iron chemistry with conventional antiwear compounds would not be expected to be applicable to boundary layer lubrication of ceramic materials, such as silicon nitride.
Furthermore, one of the key roles of boundary lubricants in metal systems is to serve as a barrier film separating the two surfaces to prevent adhesion--a dominant wear mechanism in metal systems. Ceramic systems, on the other hand, are dominated by brittle fracture as a dominant wear mechanism. The mechanical strength, surface morphology, and film thickness for ceramics therefore are different from metal systems. To minimize fracture in ceramics, the dominant role of the lubricating films is to redistribute the asperity stresses in a contact. Therefore, the film should be thicker, stronger in shear strength, and faster reacting than films for metal systems. The distinction in the nature of wear mechanisms between metal systems and ceramic systems further supports the expectation that conventional concepts of boundary lubrication for metal systems would not be applicable to ceramic systems.
Prior art addressing the issue of Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 lubrication is sparse and inconclusive. Willermet used several material pairs (cast iron/cast iron, steel/steel, Si.sub.3 N.sub.4) and a pair of formulated lubricants to show that an oil soluble molybdenum containing compound reduced friction in an LFW-1 bench test for all material pairs, P. Willermet, "An Evaluation of Several Metals and Ceramics in Lubricated Sliding," ASLE Transactions, 30, 1, pp. 128-130, 1987. The oils were both SAE 30 with Zn dithiophosphate antiwear additive and an overbased detergent package containing Mg and boron. No wear data were provided. Klaus used a Ball-on-Three-Flat (BTF) wear tester to examine the performance of a SAE 5W-30 commercial oil on Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 specimens. He found that at 40 kg applied load, the formulated oil had lower wear than a straight mineral oil. It was not determined which components in the commercial oil were responsible for the lower wear, E. E. Klaus et al., "Lubricated Wear of Silicon Nitride," Lubrication Engineering, 47, pp. 679-687, 1991.
As to oxygen-containing compounds, Jahanmir, "Friction and Wear of Silicon Nitride Lubricated by Humid Air, Water, Hexadecane and Hexadecane+0.5 Percent Stearic Acid", STLE Transaction, 31, pp. 32-43 (1988), indicated that 0.5% stearic acid in hexadecane under low load reduced the wear of Si.sub.3 N.sub.4, however, no experimental evidence was offered to link direct chemical reaction with Si.sub.3 N.sub.4. Indeed, Habeeb, I. Mech. E C132/87, p. 555-564 (1987), found that 0.4% lauric acid in a 150 neutral base oil increased the wear of Si.sub.3 N.sub.4. Tsunai "Tribochemical wear of silicon Nitride in Water, n-Alcohols and Their Mixtures", Wear of Materials, p. 369-374 (1989) suggested that alcohols might react with Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 and SiC for lubrication, however, experiments were conducted only at unrealistically low sliding speeds of 0.002 m/s, and the chemicals were limited to linear alcohols of carbon number 10 or less. The proposed mechanism was based on a reaction study of C.sub.1 to C.sub.3 alcohols with Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 performed by Hattori, "Reactions of Silicon Nitride with Alcohols", the 56th Annual Meeting of Chem. Soc. Japan, Abstract, Vol. I, Tokyo, p. 790, April 1988, who did not present clear experimental evidence to support his proposal. Tsunai used Hattori's speculation on reaction mechanism even though Tsunai was unable to find the same reaction products in his wear tests. See also Hibi "Friction and Wear of Silicon Nitride in Water, n-Alcohols, Water-Methanol and Water-Glycol, "Bulletin of Mechanical Engineering Laboratory", No. 53 (1990).
Attention is also directed to Gates et al., "Effect of Selected Chemical Compounds on the Lubrication of Silicon Nitride," Tribology Transactions, 34, 3, pp. 417-425 (1991), which discloses that certain specific compounds show a lubrication effect upon silicon nitride.

Oxygen-containing organic compounds as boundary lubricants for silicon nitride ceramics

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Commerce


The present invention is related to location positioning systems, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for making accuracy improvements to a GPS receiver's navigation calculations. According to a first aspect, the invention includes maintaining a table of height attributes for major cities and urban areas around the world (contour table) in the GNSS chipset. The information in the table preferably includes latitude, longitude of the city along with height attributes of those cities, such as the average, min, max height and region boundary etc. Additional information such as average gradient could also be saved in the table. According to further aspects, when GPS signals are degraded in environments such as urban canyons, the height information can be obtained from the table and used to improve the navigation solution.

With the development of radio and space technologies, several satellites based navigation systems (i.e. satellite positioning system or "SPS") have already been built and more will be in use in the near future. Those systems with full global coverage are sometimes referred to as Global Navigation Satellite Systems ("GNSS"). SPS receivers, such as, for example, receivers using the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), also known as NAVSTAR, have become commonplace. Other examples of SPS and/or GNSS systems include but are not limited to the United States ("U.S.") Navy Navigation Satellite System ("NNSS") (also known as TRANSIT), LORAN, Shoran, Decca, TACAN, NAVSTAR, the Russian counterpart to NAVSTAR known as the Global Navigation Satellite System ("GLONASS"), any future Western European SPS such as the proposed "Galileo" program, or any other existing or future system such as the Chinese "Beidou" or "Compass" system. As an example, the U.S. NAVSTAR GPS system is described in GPS Theory and Practice, Fifth ed., revised edition by Hofmann-Wellenhof, Lichtenegger and Collins, Springer-Verlag Wien New York, 2001, which is fully incorporated herein by reference.
The U.S. GPS system was built and is operated by the United States Department of Defense. The system uses twenty-four or more satellites orbiting the earth at an altitude of about 11,000 miles with a period of about twelve hours. These satellites are placed in six different orbits such that at any time a minimum of six satellites are visible at any location on the surface of the earth except in the polar region. Each satellite transmits a time and position signal referenced to an atomic clock. A typical GPS receiver locks onto this signal and extracts the data contained in it. Using signals from a sufficient number of satellites, a GPS receiver can calculate its position, velocity, altitude, and time.
In environments where satellite signals are degraded, however, a GPS receiver often encounters problems in locking onto the signals that are needed for the calculation of position, velocity, altitude, and time. In a degraded signal environment, satellite signals can be weak or otherwise difficult for GPS receivers to lock on to. One example of a degraded signal environment is a tunnel through which a car equipped with a GPS receiver is driving. While the GPS receiver is in the tunnel, the satellite signals are completely obstructed and no lock can be acquired. As a result, the GPS receiver cannot accurately calculate its position and other navigational data (such as velocity, altitude, and time) while the car is in the tunnel. In addition, because GPS receivers typically utilize positioning algorithms that use navigational filters that account for the GPS receivers' last-known positions, the GPS receiver's position calculation when the car emerges from the tunnel can also be less accurate since accurate position calculations were not performed during the time that the car was in the tunnel.
Degraded signal environments are often encountered in urban areas, such as cities with many tall buildings. A city with many tall buildings contains "urban canyons", which are environments where streets cut through dense blocks of structures such as skyscrapers. In urban canyons, satellite signals are frequently not visible or are degraded due to the signals being partially or fully blocked by buildings, for example. Consequently, the problem of inaccurate position calculations by GPS receivers in degraded signal environments is especially acute in urban areas.
One way to improve the accuracy of a calculated GPS position is to make accuracy improvements with the aid of a map database. For example, personal navigation devices (PNDs) such as those available from Garmin and other manufacturers typically include extensive map databases covering entire countries or regions to provide real-time position displays and turn-by-turn directions among other things. Some attempts have been made to provide info from this map database back to the GPS receiver in real-time to aid in the receiver's navigation solution. However, this has been difficult to implement in practice because of the delays involved in the communications between the receiver and other PND components, for example. Another problem with this approach is that the accuracy improvements are limited because the accuracy improvements are performed only after the GPS position has already been calculated. A further problem is the amount of memory space needed to store map data for all points on the Earth.
The accuracy problem can also be addressed using network aiding in some devices having a combo chipset that does both location and connectivity. In other cases, the Navigation engine may hold onto a certain height (say 0 meters or mean sea level (MSL)) and compute a position solution. However, these attempted solutions also have drawbacks in added complexity and cost or reduced accuracy and performance.
Accordingly, a method and apparatus for making better accuracy improvements to a GPS receiver's position calculations in degraded signal environments remain desirable.

Method and apparatus of using height aiding from a contour table for GNSS positioning


A method is described for encoding and decoding stored units of data representing entity/relationship (E/R) data, function calls, and file data by including a prefix with each unit of data which includes a length code, an action code, and a unit identifier code. The data units with prefixes are organized into a data stream by using rules described in a formal grammar. The data stream will typically be transmitted to another program inside the computer or to another computer--host or PWS. When received the data stream is parsed back into data units by reversing the encoding process. After the data units are recovered the appropriate action is taken to process the units. E/R data is entered into or updated in a repository, function calls are passed on to an E/R repository function or other program along with the specified parameters for execution, and file data is stored in standard files. Generated output is captured, encoded into a data stream and transmitted back to requesting PWS which then parses the data stream to recover the output data.

As used in the field of this invention, entities and relationships are special forms of data that are intended to represent information that is useful in the process of designing and writing computer programs. When this information is stored in a retrievable manner it can be used to aid in the development of computer programs. There are various commercial software systems available which are specially designed to manipulate entity/relationship (E/R) data. One of these systems is IBM's Repository Manager (RM). RM is a predominantly host computer based program. Users of RM may enter their data manually using dialog panels or custom programs may be developed to create, update and retrieve the data. RM provides a set of callable functions which can be accessed by other programs. New RM functions can be created by users as well. These callable functions typically require one or more parameters to perform correctly. It is standard practice in the industry for users to have a personal computer or programmable workstation (PWS) which is used to interface with host computer based programs. When the PWS is sharing the workload with the host, the system is said to be "cooperative". Many kinds of data, not only E/R data, are stored in files. These files may be located on either the host or the PWS.
There is a need for efficient ways to encode E/R data, function calls, and file data in a format which can be transmitted between a PWS and another computer.
Packaging data in a data format of self-describing units is known in the art. The use of grammars as a way of precisely defining syntax is also well known. An efficient comprehensive grammar for self-describing data stream of E/R related data which meets the described need is not found in the prior art.

System for encoding units of entity/relationship data to include prefixes with codes for length, action, and unit identifier

International Business Machines Corporation


Systems and methods for audience monitoring are provided that include receiving an input including a recording or live feed of an audience composed of several persons, detecting foreground of the input, performing blob segmentation of the input, and analyzing human presence on each segmented blob by identifying at least one person, identifying a spatial distribution of at least one identified person, determining a dwell time of at least one identified person, determining a temporal distribution of at least one identified person, and determining a gaze direction of at least one identified person. Such detecting provides the ability to track individual persons present in the audience, and how long they remain in the audience. The method also provides the ability to determine gaze direction of persons in the audience, and how long one or more persons are gazing in a particular direction.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to methods and system for monitoring an area in space via an image capturing device. More particularly, the present invention relates to monitoring an audience in an area in space.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of human detection technologies are well known in the art. Audience counting systems via video provide a count of people entering and exiting a particular passageway or establishment. For instance, an audience counting system may provide a beam, e.g., an infrared beam, across the passageway to be monitored. As people enter or exit the passageway, the beam is temporarily interrupted, and a counter increases by one increment each time the beam is interrupted, thus counting the number of people that have crossed the beam. The audience counting system detects this interruption and increments or decrements its net internal count of people entering the passageway.
In addition, other human counting systems that report on the direction of travel of people through a particular passageway are available, but these systems tend to be complex and expensive. For example, directional counting systems utilize a foot-activated pressure-sensitive platform at the entry point of the passageway. Based on a pressure profile related to the engagement of an individual's foot with the platform, the system predicts the direction of travel of the individual.
Other human counting systems are coupled with electronic article surveillance systems and an alarm management unit. In such systems, the alarm management unit accepts the electronic article surveillance data signal from the electronic article surveillance system, and a human count signal from the human counting system, for facilitating correlation of electronic article surveillance and human count data.
However, none of these techniques provides an accurate counting per unit of time and space, or an accurate evaluation of the gaze of one or more members, of an audience being monitored by, for example, a video camera.

Methods and systems for audience monitoring


A method for determining, from a plurality of satellites, a position of a mobile object having a reception device configured to receive satellite signals, includes performing a measurement of a plurality of pseudo-distances between the reception device and the plurality of satellites using the satellite signals. The method further includes correcting a result of the measurement using a surroundings model of surroundings of the mobile object to produce at least one corrected pseudo-distance. The surroundings model is indicative of at least one reflection plane of satellite signals.

Calculation of position solutions from GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals by means of trilateration can be confronted by a path of travel of some received signals not or not exclusively corresponding to a direct line of sight between receiver and transmitter. Such paths of signal travel are usually referred to as multipath propagation, since such signals can arrive at the receiver repeatedly at different times on account of multipath propagation. Current GNSS antenna receiver systems can attempt to reject undesirable signals of this kind, e.g. by means of backshot rejection, choke rings, narrowband correlators, etc., and to filter them out (FDE, fault detection and exclusion), etc. In this case, GNSS systems of this kind can in particular handle multipath effects that arise at a ground plane for the antenna on account of signal reflections.

Method and device for determining a position of a mobile object


A generator of the present invention is formed of ring permanent magnet trains 2 and 2' attached and fixed onto two orbits 1 and 1' about a rotational axis 3, magnetic induction primary cores 4 and 4' attached and fixed above outer peripheral surfaces of the ring permanent magnet trains 2 and 2' at a predetermined distance from the outer peripheral surfaces, magnetic induction secondary cores 5 and 5' attached and fixed onto the magnetic induction primary cores 4 and 4' and each having two coupling, holes 6 and 6' formed therein, tertiary cores 8 and 8' inserted for coupling respectively into two coupling holes 6 and 6' of each of the associated magnetic induction secondary cores 5 and 5' opposite to each other, and responsive coils 7 and 7'. The ring permanent magnetic trains 2 and 2' are formed of 8 sets of magnets with alternating N and S poles, and magnets associated with each other in the axial direction have opposite polarities respectively and form a pair.

The generator is a machine which converts mechanical energy obtained from sources of various types of energy such as physical, chemical or nuclear power energy, for example, into electric energy. Generators based on linear motion have recently been developed while most generators are structured as rotational type generators. Generation of electromotive force by electromagnetic induction is a common principle to generators regardless of their size or whether the generator is AC or DC generator.
The generator requires a strong magnet such as permanent magnet and electromagnet for generating magnetic field as well as a conductor for generating the electromotive force, and the generator is structured to enable one of them to rotate relative to the other. Depending on which of the magnet and the conductor rotates, generators can be classified into rotating-field type generators in which the magnetic field rotates and rotating-armature type generators in which the conductor rotates.
Although the permanent magnet can be used for generating the magnetic field, the electromagnet is generally employed which is formed of a magnetic field coil wound around a core to allow direct current to flow therethrough. Even if a strong magnet is used to enhance the rotational speed, usually the electromotive force produced from one conductor is not so great. Thus, in a generally employed system, a large number of conductors are provided in the generator and the electromotive forces generated from respective conductare serially added up so as to achieve a high electric power.
As discussed above, a usual generator produces electricity by mechanically rotating a magnet (or permanent magnet) or a conductor (electromagnet, electrically responsive coil and the like) while reverse current generated at this time by magnetic induction (electromagnetic induction) and flowing through the coil causes magnetic force which pulls the rotor so that the rotor itself is subjected to unnecessary load which reaches at least twice the electric power production.
FIG. 6 illustrates that the load as discussed above is exerted on a rotor in a rotating-field type generator mentioned above.
Referring to FIG. 6, a permanent magnet train 104 is arranged about an axis of rotation 106 such that N poles and S poles are alternately located on the outer peripheral surface of the train. At a certain distance outward from the outer periphery of permanent magnet train 104, a magnetic induction core 100 is arranged and a coil 102 is wound around magnetic induction core 100.
As permanent magnet train 104 rotates, the magnetic field produced in the coil by permanent magnet train 104 changes to cause induced current to flow through coil 102. This induced current allows coil 102 to generate a magnetic field 110 which causes a repulsive force exerted on permanent magnet train 104 in the direction which interferes the rotation of the magnet train.
For example, in the example shown in FIG. 6, the S pole of magnetic field 110 faces permanent magnet train 104. The S pole of permanent magnet train 104 approaches coil 102 because of rotation of permanent magnet train 104, resulting in the repulsive force as described above.
If reverse current flows in a responsive coil of an armature wound around a magnetic induction core of a generator so that the resulting load hinders the rotor fiom rotating, reverse magnetic field of the armature responsive coil becomes stronger in proportion to the electricity output and accordingly a load corresponding to at least twice the instantaneous consumption could occur.
If electric power of 100W is used, for example, reverse magnetic field of at least 200W is generated so that an enormous amount of load affects the rotor to interfere the rotation of the rotor.
All of the conventional generators are subjected to not only a mechanical primaly load, i.e. the load when the electric power is not consumed but a secondary load due to reverse current which is proportional to electric power consumption and consequently subjected to a load of at least twice the instantaneous consumption.
Such an amount of the load is a main factor of reduction of the electric power production efficiency, and solution of the problem above has been needed.


A borehole televiewer employs a transducer energized by repetitive voltage pulses for generating pulses of acoustic energy for transmission to the walls of a borehole and for detecting direct reflections of acoustic energy from the borehole walls. A detector converts the acoustic energy reflections into reflection signals. Those reflection signals are applied along with a reference signal representing a desired constant level for the peak amplitude of the reflection signals to an error amplifier. The output of the error amplifier controls the voltage pulses utilized to energize the transducer so as to maintain a constant level of peak amplitude for the reflection signals produced from the detected acoustic energy direction reflections from the borehole wall.

This invention relates to acoustic logging of boreholes and more particularly to a borehole logging system employing a borehole televiewer with automatic level control for the logging of the characteristics of the material forming the walls of the borehole.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,371,313 to Zemanek; 3,485,317 to Patel; 3,503,038 to Baldwin; 3,518,679 to Baldwin et al; and 3,718,204 to Groenendyke there are disclosed methods of and apparatus for scanning the walls of a borehole with acoustic energy. In these patents a borehole televiewer logging tool employs a transmitter and a receiver of acoustic energy which are rotated within the borehole. The transmitter is cyclically energized to provide a beam of acoustic energy pulses for scanning the walls of the borehole. Reflected acoustic pulses are received by the receiver between transmitted acoustic pulses and are converted to reflection signals for recording on an electron beam display device. A sweep signal is generated each time the acoustic energy beam is rotated through a 360.degree. scanning pattern. Such sweep signal is applied to the horizontal deflection plates of the display device to sweep an electron beam horizontally across the face of the display device. The reflection signals are applied to the Z-axis of the display device to intensity modulate the electron beam as the beam is swept across the face of the display device to provide a picture which is a function of the time or distance from the transmitter and receiver to the wall of the borehole and of the density of the borehole wall.
In both the above-described patents the combination of transducer rotation along with vertical movement of the borehole televiewer logging tool along the length of the borehole results in a continuous spiral of the borehole wall being scanned. The. resulting display is a picture of the density of the material forming the walls of the borehole at different depth points. This scanning of the borehole wall permits the determination of the actual configuration of the borehole. In addition, it permits the determination of anomalies which may exist at different depths in the borehole. For example, these anomalies may be a fault or a fracture in the formations traversed by the borehole.
In the aforementioned patents, the transmitter is an acoustic transducer cyclically energized by a suitable voltage pulser. As shown in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,485,317; 3,503,038 and 3,518,679, a particularly suitable pulser employs an oscillator, a rectifier and a capacitor. The capacitor is charged from a D.C. voltage supply. Each oscillator pulse causes the rectifier to conduct, thereby allowing the capacitor to discharge. A voltage generated by the discharge of the capacitor is coupled through a transformer to excite the transducer to generate an acoustic pulse.
Also in such patents, the acoustic reflections received by the transducer from the borehole walls are amplified and passed through a detector for producing an envelope of the amplified reflection signals. This envelope is applied to the Z-axis of a cathode ray tube display device.
Acoustic noise can be a problem when using the above described borehole logging systems since it is generally greater than electronic noise. It is therefore important to maintain as low an acoustic noise level as possible. In the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,518,679, the acoustic noise present in the detected reflection signals is lowered by use of a variable gain amplifier. However, in such patent the acoustic noise in the reflection signal is not reduced relative to the amplitude of the reflection signals but is merely a function of the gain selected. It is a specific object of the present invention to control the level of acoustic noise relative to the reflection signal irrespective of the gain to be applied to the reflection signal.

Borehole acoustic logging system having automatic reflection signal level control


A method of preparing a hologram of an object on holographic material by a holographic laser exposure, by illuminating the object with white light and capturing the luminance values of the object using a detector having a filter which simulates the response of the human eye to luminance values and which detector is placed as if it were along the axis of the laser to be used for the holographic exposure and storing the luminance information as a positive image, illuminating the object with incident light of substantially the same wavelength as the laser light to be used for the holographic exposure and capturing the reflectance values from the object using a detector which is placed as if it were along the axis of the laser to be used for the holographic exposure and storing the reflectance information as a negative image, carrying out a holographic exposure of the object on to holographic material there being present in the object beam between the laser and the object light modulation means which represents the sum of the stored luminance and reflectance information and processing the holographic material to fix the holographic fringes therein. Preferably the white light employed is specular white light.. The resultant hologram when reconstructed exhibits a similar reflectance and tonal range pattern to that of the object when viewed in a white light by the human eye.

This invention relates to the production of holograms and in particular to the production of holograms for display purposes
Display holograms often suffer from two major defects when reconstructed. The first defect is the appearance of highlights which emphasize areas or points on the holographic image of the object in a way which distorts the representation or renders it difficult to view the image in its entirety. The other defect could be called a subject failure. For example if the object were a box having green and blue sides, when viewed normally in white light the difference between the two colors and thus the sides of the box are readily apparent. However if a hologram of the box was made using a He:Ne laser the sides of the box whether blue of green may appear to reflect light equally. Thus when the hologram of the box is reconstructed the sides of the box cannot be distinguished from each other. In an extreme case if a hologram were taken of a group which comprised a figure of a white person and a figure of a black person both figures on reconstruction could appear to have almost identical skin tones because of their reflectivity at the wavelength of the laser used in the preparation of the hologram.
In the past efforts have been made to alleviate this problem by effecting alterations in the object itself. For example by painting the object to alter its colour or reflectivity.
Certain background prior art with regard to the laser exposure of objects to prepare a hologram therefrom is known to us. This includes two Patent Abstracts of Japan references, viz Volume 8 No. 31 (P-258) ]1468] Feb. 9, 1984 relating to JP-A-58184985 and Volume 3 No 38 (E-101) Mar. 30, 1979, relating to JA-A-54 17865. European patent application No. 128033 and British Patent Specification No. 1316677.

Method of preparing a color hologram suitable for display purposes


According to at least one embodiment, a system including a server is provided. The server includes a memory and at least one processor coupled to the memory. The at least one processor is configured to receive configuration information encoded in a QR code, the configuration information being based on one or more values of one or more configuration options for at least one programmable device. The at least one processor is also configured to determine if the configuration information is in accord with target configuration information and transmit a message indicating whether the configuration information is in accord with the target configuration information.

Technical Field
The technical field relates generally to installation and configuration of programmable devices and, more particular, to methods and systems of error-checking installations of programmable devices.
Discussion
Currently, when an electrician installs and configures a programmable device such as a meter, the electrician is required to make sure that all of the configuration options for the programmable device are correct. Each device may also have different configuration options that vary based on location and function, so it is common for configuration mistakes to occur while an electrician is setting a device's configuration. Any mistakes in configuration may not be observed until the system including the programmable device is activated.

Systems and methods for programmable device installations


A driving circuit for a display panel is disclosed, where the display panel comprises data lines. The driving circuit for the display panel includes a share line coupled to the data lines; a power supply circuit connected to the share line, and configured to provide a share voltage to the share line; and switch units coupled to the data lines, where each of the switch units has a first end coupled to the share line and a second end coupled to a corresponding one of the data lines, and the switch units are configured to, in a share phase, connect the data lines and transmit the share voltage on the share line to the data lines in response to a control signal. The display panel drive circuit can reduce the power consumption of a source drive circuit of the display panel.

A display panel generally includes a plurality of sub-pixel units distributed in an array, and each of the sub-pixel units can emit light of a specific color, so as to realize the display of the display panel.
In the related art, a display panel generally includes a plurality of data lines extending in a column direction, a plurality of scan lines extending in a row direction, a source driving circuit, and a gate driving circuit. Each of the data lines is connected to a plurality of sub-pixel units, the source driving circuit can transmit data signals to the plurality of data lines, the data signals may be configured to drive the sub-pixel units, and the gate driving circuit can send scan signals to the sub-pixel units row by row through the scan lines to realize the row-by-row driving of the sub-pixel units.
It should be noted that information disclosed in this part are provided only for acquiring a better understanding of the background of the present disclosure and therefore may include information that is not prior technology already known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Drive circuit for display panel, and drive method and display panel thereof


Data is imported into a word processor application, such as Lotus WordPro, on a non-Windows workstation. Data is set in power fields in a first platform using a script program attached to the first platform to retrieve data from a formatted text file into which an agent inserted the data from a second platform. The first platform may be a Lotus WordPro SmartMaster, the script program may be a Lotus script, and the second platform may be a Lotus Notes application.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to importing data into a word processor application. More particularly, it pertains to the importation of data into Lotus WordPro on a non-Windows workstation.
2. Background Art
In Lotus Notes version 4 (and below) and Lotus Word Pro 96, in a WIN-OS/2 environment (i.e., OS2), there is not an existing method for sharing data between a Notes document and a Word Pro document, aside from manually cutting and pasting data.
In accordance with the invention, one to many data fields may be passed from a Notes document to specified target fields in a WordPro document. In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, customized WordPro documents may be built dynamically using WordPro Smartmasters in a building block methodology.

International Business Machines Corporation


An apparatus, method, and system assess the trustworthiness of a design representation while maintaining its confidentiality and thwarting attempts at unauthorized access, misappropriation, and reverse engineering of confidential proprietary aspects of the design representation and/or its bit stream. A utility/tool is provided for trust assessment and verification of designs and/or bit streams. The utility/tool may be instantiated on a semiconductor device or implemented as a utility executable on a mobile computing device or other information processing system, apparatus, or network.

Known assessment/verification techniques conventionally used to develop trust in microelectronics design representations typically require the comprehensive exposure of the implementation details of the design. However, primarily out of concerns of propriety and trade secrecy, public exposure of such design details is typically not desired. Rather, what is needed and preferable is a better balance between the degree of exposure required for an accurate verification of a particular design representation and the amount of confidentiality/privacy that can be retained concerning the design. That is, it would be highly desirable to have access to a utility or tool that is capable of assessing and/or verifying the trustworthiness of a microelectronics device design representation without exposing either its actual design or bit stream implementation format details to access or scrutiny by the utility/tool user. For example, in the case of 3rd-Party Intellectual Property (3PIP), most IP vendors would like to keep certain physical and operational details undisclosed and confidential so as to safeguard their proprietary designs. In some cases, a bit stream format for the design implementation of a microelectronics device may itself have particular aspects that are proprietary. One noteworthy type of microelectronics device that may involve both proprietary implementation details (e.g., via 3PIP) and a proprietary design format is a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a type of reconfigurable semiconductor device that can be reprogrammed to provide new or different gate connection logic configurations. This is because an FPGA "Bitstream", being a sequence of binary bits used to describe the configuration data to be loaded into an FPGA or for specifying a particular logic design(s) implemented in an FPGA device, often utilizes proprietary formats which are typically closely held by the device vendors.
Presumably, the primary reason for using confidential proprietary bitstream formats for FPGA devices is to protect the logic designs deployed on these devices, each of which is uniquely specified by an associated bitstream design file that shares the confidential proprietary format. If Bitstream design file formats were made public or open-sourced, the intellectual property contained within deployed bitstreams could be accessed by third parties without permission. Some security conscious FPGA vendors may choose to make use of Bitstream encryption and/or other confidentiality measures. However, the bitstream format itself is usually always kept confidential to serve as either the only IP protection or as an element of a more comprehensive IP protection scheme.
Thus, in order to address the industry's concerns for maintaining the propriety of certain IP and to enhance the ability to do so while conducting a process of evaluation or verification of a microelectronics design representation, a novel method and utility/tool is disclosed herein for assessing/verifying the trustworthiness of a particular microelectronics device design without exposing the details of the design, or a corresponding design implementation bit stream format, to a user of the assessment/verification utility/tool.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The invention is directed to crosslinked water-soluble swellable polymers, methods for making same and their various uses. More particularly, the invention relates to a composition comprising expandable polymeric particles being made with 0.1-5% hydrophobic monomers and labile crosslinkers and stable crosslinkers, said particles mixed with a fluid. A particularly important use is as an injection fluid in petroleum production, where the expandable polymeric particles are injected into a well and when the heat and/or pH of the target zones in the formation cause degradation of the labile crosslinker and when the particle expands, the hydrophobic groups associate to form a hydrophobically associative polymer, thus diverting water to lower permeability regions and improving oil recovery.

Water injection used in oil production is where water is injected into the reservoir to stimulate production. Water is injected for two reasons: 1. For pressure support of the reservoir (also known as voidage replacement). 2. To sweep or displace the oil from the reservoir, and push it towards an oil production well. Normally only 20% of the oil in a reservoir can be extracted, but water injection increases that percentage (known as the recovery factor) and maintains the production rate of a reservoir over a longer period of time.
However, sweep recovery is limited by the so-called "thief zones," whereby water preferentially travels through the more porous regions of the reservoirs, bypassing less permeable zones. One means of further improving recovery is to block thief zones with a polymer or other material, thus forcing water through the less permeable regions.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,454,003; 6,984,; 7,300,973 describe polymeric microparticles whose properties change in response to particular stimuli. These patents describe an expandable crosslinked polymeric particle having an average particle diameter of about 0.05 to 10 microns. The particle is highly crosslinked with two crosslinkers, one that is stable and a second that is labile. The excess crosslinking makes the initial particles quite small, allowing efficient propagation through the pores of a reservoir. On heating to reservoir temperature and/or at a predetermined pH or other stimuli, the reversible (labile) internal crosslinks break, allowing the particles to further expand by absorbing additional injection fluid, usually water.
The unique properties of this particle allows it to fill the high permeability zones—commonly called thief zones or streaks—and then be expanded so that the swollen particles block the thief zones and subsequent injections of fluid are forced to enter the remainder of the reservoir, more effectively sweeping the reservoir. However, the method is limited in practice because subsequent injections always remove some of the polymer. Thus the thief zones become washed out and again present the problem of allowing the injection fluid to avoid entering the less permeable zones.
The reason for the washout is not certain, but our research suggests that the swollen polymer is not in gel form, thus although viscous, is a liquid and can be washed out of the porous media.
Another possible sweep fluid includes the hydrophobically associative polymers or HAPs. The solution properties of water soluble polymers will change on inclusion of hydrophobic groups into the polymer chain, and the primary factor causing the change is the associative tendency between the hydrophobic portions of the polymer when placed in an aqueous medium. The association leads to higher viscosity, but the viscosity increase is generally reversible at high shear rates. In addition, hydrophobically associative polymers are more stable in salt solutions than the corresponding unmodified water soluble polymer. See e.g., SPE 89413, SPE 113264, SPE 99441, and SPE 29008 discussing HAPs, their synthesis and use in enhanced oil recovery. However, HAPs per se are thick on injection and thus tend to limit the rate of injection.
What is needed in the art is a swellable polymeric particle that is less susceptible to loss under the conditions of use, but that is easily injected with less pressure requirements. In particular, a swellable polymer that is resistant to washout by subsequent fluid injections is needed, but the polymers will have utility in any application where swellable polymers are desired.

Swellable polymers with hydrophobic groups


An ICP A plasma reactor having an enclosure wherein at least part of the ceiling forms a dielectric window. A substrate support is positioned within the enclosure below the dielectric window. An RF power applicator is positioned above the dielectric window to radiate RF power through the dielectric window and into the enclosure. A plurality of gas injectors are distributed uniformly above the substrate support to supply processing gas into the enclosure. A circular baffle is situated inside the enclosure and positioned above the substrate support but below the plurality of gas injectors so as to redirect flow of the processing gas.

1. Field
The subject invention relates to plasma reactors and, especially to uniform gas distribution in inductively-coupled plasma reactors.
2. Related Art
Plasma reactors or chambers are well known in the art and are widely used in the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuits, flat panel displays, light emitting diodes, solar cells, etc. In a plasma chamber it is conventional to apply RF power to ignite and sustain the plasma inside the vacuum chamber. There are various manners in which the RF power can be applied, and each design has different characteristics, e.g., efficiency, plasma dissociation, uniformity, etc. One technology that is relevant to this disclosure is inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) chambers.
In inductively-coupled plasma processing chambers, an antenna, usually in the form of a coil, is used to transmit the RF power into the chamber. In order to couple the RF power from the antenna into the chamber, a dielectric window is provided at the location where the antenna is situated. In chambers for processing substrates, such as, e.g., silicon wafers, the substrate is situated on a chuck and the plasma is generated above the substrate. Therefore, the antenna is positioned over the ceiling of the chamber, such that the ceiling is made of a dielectric material or includes a dielectric window.
In plasma processing chambers, various gasses are injected into the chamber so that chemical and/or physical interaction of ions with the substrate can be used to generate the various features on the substrate by, e.g., etch, deposition, etc. In many such processes, one parameter of high importance is within-wafer process uniformity. That is, a process that is occurring at the center of the substrate should be of identical or highly similar characteristics as the process occurring at the edge of the substrate. Thus, for example, when performing an etch process, the etch rate at the center of the wafer should be the same as that at the edge of the wafer.
One parameter that helps in achieving good process uniformity is even distribution of process gases within the chamber. To achieve such uniformity, many chamber designs employ a showerhead situated above the wafer to uniformly inject the process gasses. However, as noted above, in ICP chambers, the ceiling must include a window for the RF power transmitted by the antenna. Consequently, such design does not lend itself to showerhead implementation of gas injection.
FIG. 1 illustrates a cross-section of a prior art ICP chamber design. ICP chamber 100 has a generally cylindrical metallic sidewall 105 and a dielectric ceiling 107, forming a tight vacuum enclosure that is pumped by vacuum pump 125. A pedestal 110 supports a chuck 115, which holds the substrate 120 to be processed. RF power from RF power supplier 145 is applied to antenna 140, which is generally in the form of a coil. Processing gas is supplied from gas source 150 via pipelines 155 into the chamber to ignite and sustain plasma, and thereby process the substrate 120. In standard ICP chambers, the gas is supplied into the vacuum enclosure either by circumference injectors/nozzles 130, by central nozzle 135, or both.
As can be appreciated from FIG. 1, the gas from the circumference injectors 130 is largely pumped out and is not effectively dissociated to reach the wafer 120 surface. Thus, much of the gas from the circumference injectors 130 may be processed at the edge of the wafer, but little reaches the center of the wafer 120, leading to non-uniformity. Conversely, gas provided from the central nozzle 135 is concentrated at the center of the wafer and is not used at the edge of the wafer, also leading to non-uniformity.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved ICP chamber design that improves gas distribution within the chamber to provide enhanced process uniformity.

ICP source design for plasma uniformity and efficiency enhancement

ADVANCED MICRO-FABRICATION EQUIPMENT, INC. ASIA


A shock consolidation material manufacturing method involves combining a nanoscale additive and ceramic nanoparticles to create a nano-powder, compacting the nano-powder mechanically, and performing shock-wave consolidation on the compacted nano-powder. The ceramic nanoparticles may be Yttria-stabilized tetragonal Zirconia (YSZ) or Samarium doped Ceria (SDC). The nanopowder may be CNT-YSZ or SDC-Na2CO3. The shock-wave consolidation may be performed with a laser, and may involve positioning the nano-powder on a support material, placing an ablative layer over the support material and nano-powder, placing a transparent re-usable capping layer over the ablative layer, and directing laser energy at the capping layer, turning an area of the ablative layer below the capping layer into plasma and generating shock waves through the nano-powder and support material.

Conventional material processing techniques are limited to the production of materials close to the equilibrium state with very large grains and the loss of nanostructure dimensionality.
Conventional powder metallurgy processing techniques typically prepare materials from a melt or using powder metallurgy techniques, such as hot pressing or sintering, and produce materials with relatively large grains crystallites) and result in the loss of nanostructural properties. Materials design and processing approaches at or close to the equilibrium state can impose limitations on the properties of resulting materials. The production of multiphase composites is difficult or impossible using such techniques. Fabrication of metal matrix, metal-ceramic or reinforced ceramic composites is considered industrially important however, owing to a wide range of applications such as gas turbine and piston engine parts, orthopedic implants, transparent laser materials, remote sensing, chem-bio detection and space vehicles. The difficulty of controlling metastable phases within the composites, the loss of filler nanostructure dimensionality and aggregation of dopant or damage in the bulk materials limits mass production and use.
Current methods of processing utilizing shockwave consolidation are limited to shapes and sizes that are amenable to gas gun and explosive consolidation systems.
Ceramic materials have been an active field of research over the last few decades owing to excellent physical properties including high temperature stability, chemical inertness, strength, and wear resistance. This makes them suitable for a wide range of applications when many conventional metallic components would fail. The major limitation to use is brittleness, which restricts use in structural applications, and thus a significant effort has been placed in increasing toughness through the use of second phase reinforcements such as particulates and long/short fibers. Similarly, the incorporation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), analogous to traditional micrometric fibers, is aimed at enhancing fracture toughness.
It is possible to incorporate carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon nanofibers into 3Y-TZP ceramics using HIP or Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), resulting in enhancement of mechanical and electrical properties. No significant enhancement is observed in fracture toughness, fracture strength or hardness however.
Tetragonal stabilized zirconia with 3 mol. % yttria (3Y-TZP) was down selected due to its relatively high strength and fracture toughness, ideal for many structural applications. It differs from other ceramics due to a stress-induced phase transformation. ZrO2 has three different crystallographic forms depending on temperature. It exhibits a transformation toughening mechanism due to transformation from the monoclinic to the tetragonal phase that increases crack propagation resistance. This mechanism makes ZrO2 much stronger compared to all other ceramic materials. Hence the true benefits of the reinforcement (second phase) n improving the mechanical properties of ceramic nanocomposite processed using thermal techniques is not clearly established.
Ceria is viewed as one of the most promising alternatives to yttrium stabilized zirconia for use in high temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) allowing lower temperature operation. Extensive development of ceria-based electrolytes has taken place. Super-ionic conductivity in samarium doped ceria nanocomposites is both theoretically and experimentally possible. This behavior may arise not from the SDC or Na2CO3 bulk, but from the interface between two constituent SDC and Na2CO3 phases, as illustrated in FIGS. 2A-B.
Solid sodium carbonate is a fast ionic conductor with negligible electronic conductivity at higher temperatures. The conductivity increases with increasing temperature. The pure salt exhibits a transition into a high temperature phase accompanied by a change of thermal expansion, rendering the production of al ng-term thermally stable sintered layer difficult. Na2CO3 is ferroelastic, developing a spontaneous strain below a phase transition from paraelastic to ferroelastic. Ferroelastic materials are defined as exhibiting multiple domains, or twins, which may be switched on with application of external stress. Such domain microstructures often result from phase transitions.
Na2CO3 has three synthetic polymorphs: two monoclinic (β and γ) and one hexagonal (α); these are stable in different temperature ranges. At 489° C., Na2CO3 undergoes β-monoclinic to α-hexagonal (C2/m P63/mmc) ferroelastic phase transition that is driven by a planar elastic instability. The transition is ideal, continuous m=2 ferroelastic phase transition and it is reported to show complete lattice melting predicted by Landau theory. Since the melting point (851° C.) is much higher than the ferroelastic transition, it is termed as "melt-like phase." These phase transitions have a significant effect on the stability and conductivity of core-shell nanoparticles. Amorphous carbonate in the SDC-Na2CO3 composites may be tightly bonded to the surface of SDC nanocrystals to form an intimate shell layer via a long-range interface interaction, thereby minimizing crystalline Na2CO3 formation. This may be responsible for enhanced transport properties of oxide ions in the SDC-Na2CO3 composite electrolyte.
Extensive research has been devoted to stabilizing the high temperature phase at lower ambient temperatures by doping and high pressure to enhance conductivity, but without much success. High density forms are required for application in SOFC or other electrochemical cells.
Needs exist for improved material manufacturing methods.

Methods for material synthesis and manufacturing using shock consolidation


Methods and systems are provided to deliver a neural stimulation (NS) therapy utilizing a first NS operating configuration to assist anti-tachycardia pacing (ATP) therapy in response to a detected tachyarrhythmia. Before and after delivering of the NS therapy, characteristic values are measured for a rate-related physiologic characteristic (rate RPC) and a stability-related physiologic characteristic (stability RPC). The rate RPC is indicative of a frequency of a reentrant circuit within the tachyarrhythmia. The stability RPC is indicative of a hemodynamic stability of the reentrant circuit. The pre-NS and post-NS characteristic values for the rate and stability RPCs are analyzed to determine a rate RPC difference and a stability RPC difference. Different ATP therapies are delivered based on the type associated with the tachyarrhythmia, the rate RPC difference and the stability RPC difference.

Neurostimulation systems (NS) are devices that generate electrical pulses and deliver the pulses to nerve tissue to treat a variety of disorders. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is the most common type of neurostimulation. In SCS, electrical pulses are delivered to nerve tissue in the spine typically for the purpose of chronic pain control. While a precise understanding of the interaction between the applied electrical energy and the nervous tissue is not fully appreciated, it is known that application of an electrical field to spinal nervous tissue can effectively mask certain types of pain transmitted from regions of the body associated with the stimulated nerve tissue. Applying electrical energy to the spinal cord associated with regions of the body afflicted with chronic pain can induce "paresthesia" (a subjective sensation of numbness or tingling) in the afflicted bodily regions. Thereby, paresthesia can effectively mask the transmission of non-acute pain sensations to the brain.
NS and SCS systems generally include a pulse generator and one or more leads. A stimulation lead includes a lead body of insulative material that encloses wire conductors. The distal end of the stimulation lead includes multiple electrodes that are electrically coupled to the wire conductors. The proximal end of the lead body includes multiple terminals, which are also electrically coupled to the wire conductors, that are adapted to receive electrical pulses. The distal end of a respective stimulation lead is implanted within the epidural space to deliver the electrical pulses to the appropriate nerve tissue within the spinal cord that corresponds to the dermatome(s) in which the patient experiences chronic pain. The stimulation leads are then tunneled to another location within the patient's body to be electrically connected with a pulse generator or, alternatively, to an "extension."
The pulse generator is typically implanted within a subcutaneous pocket created during the implantation procedure. In NS, the subcutaneous pocket is typically disposed in a lower back region, although subclavicular implantations and lower abdominal implantations are commonly employed for other types of neuromodulation therapies.
The pulse generator is typically implemented using a metallic housing that encloses circuitry for generating the electrical pulses, control circuitry, communication circuitry, a rechargeable battery, etc. The pulse generating circuitry is coupled to one or more stimulation leads through electrical connections provided in a "header" of the pulse generator. Specifically, feedthrough wires typically exit the metallic housing and enter into a header structure of a moldable material. Within the header structure, the feedthrough wires are electrically coupled to annular electrical connectors. The header structure holds the annular connectors in a fixed arrangement that corresponds to the arrangement of terminals on a stimulation lead.
Spinal cord stimulation is commonly used to treat neuropathic pain. More recently, spinal cord stimulation has been considered as a treatment for various cardiac management applications. These may include angina, heart failure (HF), as well as bradycardia and atrial and ventricular tachyarrhythmias including atrial fibrillation (AF).
Literature has discussed the potential to use SCS to suppress bradycardia and tachycardia. Increasing extrinsic neuronal inputs to the intrinsic cardiac nervous system can lead to self-termination of episodes of atrial tachyarrhythmia (AT) and/or fibrillation (AF) in intact hearts without the need for concomitant programmed electrical stimulation of atrial tissue. The proposed electronic and physiologic mechanism to utilize SCS therapy to terminate AF or AT is a complex interaction of sympatholytic and vagotonic signaling.
Many patients implanted with pacemaker or CRT device have prior history of AT and/or AF. In addition, a considerable amount of patients will develop AT and/or AF after device implantation. The pacemaker or CRT device is connected to one or more leads that are implanted or proximate to the heart. The pacemaker or CRT device delivers ATP therapy through the leads directly to cardiac tissue at one or more site(s) of interest. Conventional pacemakers and CRT devices generally operate independently, and without coordination, from other implanted devices such as neurostimulation systems.
More recently, it has been proposed to provide a system that selectively applies ATP therapy and NS therapy. The proposed system initiates an NS therapy to modify a tachyarrhythmia, and initiates ATP therapy to terminate the tachyarrhythmia.
However, a need remains for improved and increased coordination of NS therapy and ATP therapy.

Method and system to provide neural stimulation therapy to assist anti-tachycardia pacing therapy


A computer input device includes, in one embodiment, at least two accelerometers, at least two gyroscopes, and a processor within a housing. Signals from the accelerometers and the gyroscopes are utilized to determine the relative motion of the computer input device.

The importance of highly functional input devices for computing devices such as computers has grown in concert with the rise in functionality and speed of the computing devices themselves. One popular computer input device is the mouse. User-directed motion of a mouse is translated into motion of a cursor or other pointer on the computer display, and buttons, wheels, etc. on the mouse are utilized to, for example, select various images on the display. Conventional mechanical mice (or mouses) incorporate a roller ball. Sensors within the mouse detect the motion of the ball as the mouse is manipulated. However, the moving parts of mechanical mice frequently become contaminated with dust or other particulates, deleteriously impacting mouse performance.
One way to overcome the shortcomings of mechanical mice is to use optical sensors within the mouse to detect its motion. A mouse incorporating optical sensors, frequently termed an "optical mouse," includes a light source, such as a laser or light-emitting diode, and a photosensor. Light from the light source is transmitted toward and reflects off of a surface as the mouse is moved thereover and the photosensor detects the reflected light many times a second. Movement of the mouse is determined based on slight changes in the images created by the reflected light.
While optical mice have compensated for many of the shortcomings of mechanical mice, they have deficiencies of their own. In particular, the motion of an optical mouse over optically specular, transparent, or highly reflective surfaces is difficult to determine with a high degree of accuracy. Moreover, the light source requires a relatively large amount of power, which may compromise the lifetime of battery-powered wireless mice.

Computer input device with inertial instruments

THE CHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY, INC.


A liquid dispensing system for use with a bag having a pre-attached spigot includes a cavity arranged to receive the bag of liquid. A spigot-recess is configured to engage the spigot of the bag of liquid. A top plate assembly is locatable at or near the top of the system, the top plate assembly including a pressure plate arranged to apply a downward force on the bag of liquid. The system also includes a lifting plate arranged to apply an upward pressure on the bag of liquid.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to liquid dispensing systems, and more particularly to dispensing systems that receive and dispense liquid contained in a bag.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bag-in-box (BIB) type dispensing systems are known in the art. In terms of wine, for example, traditional BIB systems include a corrugated box including a removable perforated door on the front side near the bottom of the box. A bag or bladder filled with liquid and having a pre-attached spigot is positioned inside the box such that the spigot of the bag is near the perforated door. When the perforated door is removed, the spigot is accessible and positioned within the door for use. Traditional BIB systems are desirable for a variety of reasons including, inter alia, preventing or delaying oxidation of wine, lowering cost of manufacture, eliminating the risk of cork taint, and reducing environmental impact. For a variety of reasons, however, there are several problems with traditional BIB systems. For example, spigots are located at the bottom of the dispensing system, thereby requiring a user to lift the dispensing system or move the dispensing system to a countertop edge to create room for filling a glass. Additionally, in some situations gravity is insufficient to completely empty out the contents of the bag. Further, the aesthetic of the corrugated box may be unattractive to some consumers. Other types of traditional BIB systems likely suffer from similar problems.


In a location where a number of entities share a common area and where those entities wish to exclude unauthorized individuals yet desire access for a set of individuals from each entity, a system, using networking techniques, integrates a plurality of independent entity access control systems in which each system authorizes credentials from one of the plurality of entities to control access to each individual entity area.

In many real estate settings common areas may be shared among several different entities. These common areas must be crossed to gain access to the entities' private areas. For example in an office tower several large tenants share the lobby, parking areas and elevators. During off hours these common areas are restricted to authorized individuals. Each entity may wish access for thousands of individuals to these public areas in order to access their private space. As an example consider a high rise office tower housing several corporations each with thousands of employees. It is common practice for each entity to equip their personnel with electronically readable credentials (coded indicia) which serve as a key to access the entities' private areas. These credentials when used in conjunction with electrically controlled locks on the portals and computer databases are known as card access systems. The advantages of card access systems as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 2,714,201 Identification Selector at Column 1 lines 33-52 are well known to the owners and managers of these properties.
As these systems have proliferated it has become common for each entity within the building to purchase their own proprietary access control systems. The owners and managers of these properties desire to accommodate each entity's desire to grant access to authorized individuals yet deny access to all others. The property managers could either issue their own credentials to all authorized people, allow each entity to mount their own credential reader and controls on the building portals, have each entity periodically share a list of authorized credentials, or require the entities to expose their credential databases on a common network. Each of these techniques has significant disadvantages as described below.
Issuing everyone their own building management credential has several disadvantages. First, it requires the purchase and distribution of credentials for everyone authorized to use the common spaces afterhours. Typically the common area credentials are incompatible with the entity's proprietary standards for credentials. Therefore, this technique often requires the individuals to carry multiple credentials. Additionally, the building management must be kept abreast of each entity's personnel changes. The typical implementation is a manual system of faxed or emailed paper work. A common problem with a manual system is the building's database becoming "stale" with outdated information. The result can be terminated individuals still having access to the building and newly hired individuals being denied access because the system which transmits the changes from the tenant to the building management has broken down. The results can range from inconvenience for the new hires to a potentially dangerous situation where an aggressive terminated employee has afterhours access to the common areas.
Allowing each entity to mount their own credential reader and control system on the building portals results in an aesthetically disagreeable and confusing collage of credential readers at each of the building portals. Additionally if one of the controlling systems should fail often the buildings doors are either locked or unlocked at the wrong times and the resultant afterhours service requires both coordination of multiple vendors and extensive diagnostics on the part of the common area's management to determine which panel has failed. Even knowing which tenant's panel has failed then requires common area's management to know which vendor to call as some entities frequently change access control vendors.
If the tenant and the management can agree upon a specific credential technology then building management can update their database of valid access credentials based on a database extraction of the tenant's system. The issue of choosing a specific credential technology has been eased by the introduction of credential readers capable of reading multiple technologies. An example of a multi-technology credential reader is taught by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0057057 Synchronization Techniques In Multi-Technology/Multi-Frequency RFID Reader Arrays Page 1 Paragraph [0011] and embodied by the HID Model RP40 multiCLASS Reader 6125. http://www.hidglobal.com/documents/rp15_rp40_rpk40_ds_en.pdf
An example implementation of this technique was demonstrated by George Mallard's article "Future of access control tied to integration" in Access Control Magazine Volume 34, Number 10 Sep. 1991, page one. This solution works well and addresses the aesthetic and service problems of multiple credential readers at the building portals. This solution partially addresses the "stale" database problems because the download and processing cycles are typically a batch process it can take some time for the credential issued by the tenant to become active in the building's system. Additionally, the maintenance of the database transfer can be problematic and requires customization of both the entity's and the building management's access control systems software to accommodate the extraction and importing of each entity's authorized credential list. Finally, many companies have become reluctant to share a list of their credential holders with outside entities.
The Federal Government has addressed this same problem of authentication of credentials where several agencies need access to a shared portal. Their method of cross agency authentication is documented by the Backend Authentication Work Group prepared for the Federal Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB), "Framework for Interagency Authentication of Federal Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Cards", August 2006, http://www.smart.gov/iab/documents/FrameworkInteragencyAuthenticationFederalPIV.pdf. This method defines a protocol where one agency can query another agency's security database over a network. Where this method addresses the problem of multiple entity authentications, it does require each entity to expose their security database on a common network and all entities to conform to a standard protocol. On page seven of the report the authors note that "A secure means of transporting these messages must be devised". Further on page 12 the authors state "The most important aspect of this security (since the message payload will be encrypted) is that a gateway can trust that the message was sent by another trusted gateway". The Federal Government has the resources to implement the security required by this technique. However, in a commercial environment costs are a factor. Therefore, as is known to those skilled in the art, the cohabitation of databases on a common network is both expensive to implement and maintain and opens the possibility of unauthorized access to sensitive information. The standard protocol for exchange of information may not be supported by all entities and therefore require expensive modifications to their access control systems. These factors make the common protocol choice unattractive for commercial users.
The reader communicates the alphanumeric code read from the individual's credentials to the control panel utilizing serial data, clock plus data, or the Weigand interface well known to those skilled in the art. Serial data is sent using an interface standard such as defined by the RS485, RS232, RS422 or other standard. The Weigand interface was defined by Sensor Engineering in the early 1980's and is documented in the HID application note AN004.DOC prepared by Eric Sprik Sep. 21, 1998 page 9 www.hidqlobal.com/documents/0004 an en.pdf also the 2005 HID document "Understanding Card Data Formats" http://www.hidqlobal.com/documents/understandCardDataFormats_wp_en.pdf documents the Weigand message structure.
As gleamed from Tech Tip #5 within Mr. Sprik's AN004.DOC page 11, the structure of a common indicia coding are shown in FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B. A credential with an indicium facility code of 159 and a personal identification number of 2199 are illustrated in both Figures. This coding has 26 binary digits or bits formed from the two parity bits (301, 304), the eight facility code bits (302), and the sixteen personal identification number bits (303).
First refer to FIG. 3A to understand the error checking. The first parity bit (301) is set so that the count of bits with a value of 1 in the combined set of the parity bit (301) and the first twelve significant bits (307) is an even number, in this case six. This scheme is known as "even parity".
The second parity bit (304) is set so that the count of bits with a value of 1 in the combined set of the parity (304) and the last twelve significant bits (306) is an odd number, in this case seven. This scheme is known as "odd parity". Parity is used to insure the coding was correctly read from the credential.
Now refer to FIG. 3B to understand the structure of the indicia coding. The eight bits used for the facility code (302) defines a set of two hundred and fifty six unique facility codes. In FIG. 3B (302) the facility code shown is 159. The sixteen bits of the personal identification number (303) defines a set of sixty five thousand, five hundred and thirty six unique personal identification numbers. In FIG. 3B (303) the personal identification number is 2199.
An entity will be assigned a facility code so that their credentials will be distinct from every other entity's credentials. Consider telephone numbers, a person in Houston could have the same seven digit phone number as someone in New York. But the area codes make the phone number unique. In the same manner a twenty six bit credential from entity A may have the same personal identification number as someone from entity B. The facility codes make the credentials unique. Since this twenty six bit coding scheme was devised by Sensor Engineering in the late 1970's the success of access control equipment has outdated the twenty six bit coding scheme.
Newer schemes with many more bits both for the facility codes and the personal identification number have been devised which allows the manufacturer to enter into agreements that allow the entities to "own" their facility codes. This practice is documented in the 2005 HID white paper "Understanding the Corporate 1000" page 1 http://www.hidqlobal.com/documents/understandingCorp1000_wp_en.pdf. It should also be noted that some of these newer schemes have more parity bits and/or error checking and correction bits known to those skilled in the art. Essentially any of the techniques used for error checking and/or correction in serial data transmission, for example Cyclic Redundancy Checking can be employed for the credential indicia.
As taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,640 Access control system having centralized/distributed control at Column 9 lines 31-39 the basic architecture of electronic access control equipment is well known to those skilled in the art.
Referring to FIG. 2, the individual 200 approaches portal (209) and presents his credentials to reader (201). The electrically encoded identification is transmitted to control panel (202) via connection (206). The panel (202) then formats this identification into a message and transmits it to the monitoring computer (204) via communication line (203). This message is received by the computer (204). The computer (204) processes the message, typically by consulting a database of authorized users, and then returns a message that either authorizes or denies access to the portal (209). The panel (202) receives the message from communication line (203) and, if authorized, the individual is granted access to the portal (209) by the closure of an electrical contact within panel (202) releasing electrical locking device (208) via connection (205).
Only the access control panel (202) release circuitry is shown for the locking device (208a). Other circuitry required to provide life safety functionality and operate the lock have been omitted for clarity. Some examples omitted circuitry include the lock power supply, request to exit device, fire alarm interface, an exit button with time delay, and alarming functions to alert monitoring personnel that the lock has malfunctioned or has been propped open.
It should be noted that U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,484 Stand-alone access control system clock control at Column 2 lines 38-41 teaches that the cardholder database can be incorporated within the control panel (202).
The Laredo interface as produced by KMS Systems, Inc. which was demonstrated to the public at TechSec in Dallas February 2007 incorporated certain features used in the present invention. However, the Laredo system neither received broadcasts of the individual's credential request nor tested portions of the credential coding against a predefined list before transmitting the credential coding to the entity's legacy access control panel. Nor did the Laredo demonstrated transmit messages indicating a Deny, Time Expired, Handicap, or Invalid Facility Code.
A method to extend credential reader signals point to point over a network is illustrated by the Cypress Computer Systems, Inc. single reader extender model SIO-7200. http://cypressworld.net/index.htm?p=spec&cat=SIO-7200 and the dual reader version DPX-7200 http://www.cypressworld.com/CD/PDF/cutsheet/DPXCutSheet.pdf. As described on page one of the Cypress Computer System user manual, http://www.cypressworld.com/CD/PDF/Duprex/DPX-7200.pdf the 7200 series is a paired central and remote point to point network devices. The Nov. 18, 2004 setup document http://cypressworld.com/271101/CD/Duprex/Ethernet/AN-SY-DPX-7200-1_v100.pdf further illustrates this with the central device's IP address requiring the remote device's IP to be entered in the setup, page 8. Similarly the remote device's IP is required when setting up the central device. In contrast to a point to point system, the present invention described herein is a multipoint network system.
It should be noted that while the present invention incorporates some of the elements of a distributed database system as taught for example by U.S. Pat. No. 5,721,909 Distributed Database Architecture and Distributed Database Management System for Open Evolution at Column 1 lines 32-40, the present invention lacks points 3 ("true database not a collection of files that are stored at each node") and 4 ("the full functionality of a database management system"). In the present system, as each entity manages their own list of credentials (files) so that present the invention is not a true database. In the present system, by design, there is no mechanism or administrator feature that would allow a single entity to manage all the access control system's databases.

System for integrating multiple access controls systems


The present invention is directed to an apparatus and process for heat treating wafers, such as semiconductor wafers, in thermal processing chambers. In particular, the apparatus of the present invention includes an electrical heating element positioned along the edges of a wafer contained in the thermal processing chamber. The electrical heating element which can be made, for instance, from silicon, silicon carbide or graphite, radiates heat towards the edges of the wafer during processing. The heating element is designed to compensate for heat losses that occur at the wafer's edge.

A thermal processing chamber as used herein, refers to a device that rapidly heats objects, such as semiconductor wafers. Such devices typically include a substrate holder for holding a semiconductor wafer and a light source that emits light energy for heating the wafer. During heat treatment, the semiconductor wafers are heated under controlled conditions according to a preset temperature regime. For monitoring the temperature of the semiconductor wafer during heat treatment, thermal processing chambers also typically include radiation sensing devices, such as pyrometers, that sense the radiation being emitted by the semiconductor wafer at a selected wavelength. By sensing the thermal radiation being emitted by the wafer, the temperature of the wafer can be calculated with reasonable accuracy.
Many semiconductor heating processes require a wafer to be heated to high temperatures so that various chemical and physical transformations can take place as the wafer is fabricated into a device. During rapid thermal processing, which is one type of processing, semiconductor wafers are typically heated by an array of lights to temperatures, for instance, from about 400.degree. C. to about 1,200.degree. C., for times which are typically less than a few minutes. During these processes, one main goal is to heat the wafers as uniformly as possible.
Problems have been experienced in the past, however, in being able to maintain a constant temperature throughout the wafer due to heat loss that occurs at the edge of the wafer. For instance, due to the increased surface area to volume ratio, the edges of semiconductor wafers tend to lose more heat by radiation than the surfaces of the wafer. Many thermal processing chambers are also constructed such that the central region of the wafer is surrounded by highly reflective surfaces, while the edges of the wafer face less reflective surfaces. This arrangement causes the wafer to heat up nonuniformly and for the edges of the wafer to have an increased tendency to loose heat in comparison to the top and the bottom of the wafer.
The above problems with heat loss through the edges of the wafer can further be compounded if the wafer is exposed to a flow of gas during heat treatment. In particular, when the wafer is exposed to a flow of gas, increased convective cooling may occur at the edges of the wafer. Ultimately, these energy losses can create different temperatures zones within the wafer during heat treatment, which adversely impacts upon the ability of the process to produce precise and uniform semiconductor devices.
Currently, in order to diminish the effect of heat losses, passively heated slip-free rings are sometimes placed adjacent to the edges of the wafer. For instance, slip-free rings, which are usually made from silicon or silicon carbide, are designed to surround the wafer so that the wafer is positioned within the inside diameter of the ring. During operation of the thermal processing chamber, the ring absorbs energy being emitted by the heater lamps and then radiates the energy back to the edges of the wafer. The ring can also reflect thermal radiation being emitted by the edge of the wafer back onto the wafer. In this manner, the passively heated ring compensates for heat loss at the edge of the wafer and also reduces convective cooling of the wafer if process gases are flowing through the chamber.
Although providing improvements in the ability to more uniformly heat semiconductor wafers, passive slip-free rings used in the past do present a number of limitations and disadvantages. For instance, the slip-free rings can absorb large amounts of energy from the heat source that is used to heat the wafers, thus increasing energy demands for the system. Also, because the slip-free rings are passively heated, the rings must be designed to effectively absorb heat. Consequently, the rings can only have a limited number of shapes.
Another problem that has been experienced in the past with slip-free rings is the ability to maintain the ring in alignment with a semiconductor wafer that is being heated. Further, passively heated rings offer little control over the rate at which the rings are heated or cooled. It would be desirable if the temperature of the rings could be controlled in conjunction with a heat treating process.
In this regard, various attempts have been made in the past to design heating elements that are heated by electrical resistance and shaped to surround the wafer. For instance, such heating elements are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,469,529 to Mimura, U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,977 to Arai, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,227 to Shimizu and U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,228 to Mimura, et al.. In these references, the heating elements include a filament, such as made from a metal, that is surrounded by a tube made of, for instance, silica glass.
Further improvements in methods and devices for compensating for heat loss at a wafer's edge, however, are still needed. As will be made apparent from the following description, the present invention is directed to further improvements in such devices.

Heating element for heating the edges of wafers in thermal processing chambers


An integrated circuit (IC) package with a plurality of contact leads and a plurality of contact pads disposed on a surface of the IC package is disclosed. The contact pads may be used as test probes for testing the IC. Having a plurality of contact pads may create more test locations on the IC package. The size of the IC package may also be reduced by using contact pads instead of contact leads for testing. A socket body for the IC package is also disclosed. The socket body has a plurality of contactors extending outward from the socket body. The contactors may have different heights to contact each of the contact pads and contact leads on the IC package. The contactors may be adjustable to different heights. In some embodiments, a portion of the contactors may be compressed when and IC package is placed in the socket body.

The present invention relates generally to integrated circuits (ICs). More specifically, the invention relates to IC packages with additional contact points without increasing the size of the IC package.
Integrated circuits are used in almost all digital systems. Different types of integrated circuits with different types of packages cater to the needs of various applications. As portable applications like digital cameras and mobile phones require extremely small form-factors, the size of the device used in many of these applications should be minimized. Normally, the size of the device used is determined by the I/O requirement of the application that the device is used for. For example, an application that needs to have a certain number of I/Os will need to use a device that can meet that requirement. As these devices need to go through a series of tests, there needs to be resources on the device for testing. Therefore, the package of the device needs to have a sufficient number of leads to accommodate a variety of requirements.
The I/O requirement for a design is usually more than what is needed to test the device. A bigger package is generally needed when more I/Os are needed in a design. However, there are also cases where the total I/O requirement is less than what is needed to fully test the device. Therefore, the smallest device/package combination is determined by the minimum amount of test pins required to test the device in the package. Test requirements or test I/Os needed to test an IC device in a package is generally limited to the number of leads on the package. For example, a design might need only 16 I/Os but the minimum test requirement for the device used might be more than 16 I/Os. Hence, the minimum package size will be determined by the test requirement in this case because more leads are needed for testing than for I/Os. In other words, the lead count on a package must fulfill not only the I/O requirement of a design, but also the number of test pins needed to test the device in the package.
If the test program needed for testing an IC or a design requires more I/Os than available on a given package, then the device/package combination cannot be made. The size of a device, and subsequently the size of the package of the device, is therefore generally determined by the I/O requirement of a design. In cases where the total number of I/Os required in a design is less than the number of test pins needed to test the device used, the size of the package is still determined by the number of test pins needed and not the actual I/O requirement. It is not possible to use a smaller package even though the number of I/Os needed is significantly less.
However, because the size of the device and subsequently, the size of the package matters in some cases, the ability to have a device/package combination with less I/O count than is required for testing is desired. It is also advantageous to have a smaller package size which is not limited by the number of leads needed for testing the device in the package. It is further desirable to have leads of different elevations and to have the ability to test a device in a package at different elevations so that custom packages with the minimum required lead count can be used without affecting the test requirements for the IC device.

IC package for pin counts less than test requirements