The subject matter discloses a method for enabling computerized extensions, comprising receiving data concerning an extension required to a computerized application utilizing a process model, detecting an event received from the external entity and executing the computerized extension according to the event. The extension may be activated before after or during operation of the computerized application.

Business application vendors deliver business applications that implement a number of business processes. The users or consumers of those applications adapt the business processes using a multitude of vastly different customization activities, such as changing technical configuration settings, adding fields to existing configuration databases tables, programming custom code, adding the code to the shipped code base and the like. In addition, application vendors typically document the corresponding business processes using formal or semi formal graphical process notations, such as event-driven process chains, BPMN-based process diagrams and the like. The process models abstract from technical details and solely serve documentation purposes that help the application customers to understand the contained business processes.
In many cases, business applications customers require modifications and additions to the existing functionality. Such additions require a technical expert experienced in the specific application or in a specific module to which the extension is to be added. Further, known methods of extending computerized process suffer various disadvantages. For example, they require a high level of expertise for the specific process and for the specific extension; such expertise is not always accessible at the user or consumer's end. The above-mentioned configuration is not related to existing documentation of the process and does not cope with the current process model. Lastly, the methods above are inconsistent, as there is more than one way to customize a business application or process.

System and method for extending computerized applications


An Internet-based method and system permits users to list their real estate properties on a respective web site, edit their site, and create new web sites for additional listings. A feature of the invention provides for registering a domain name file for each new page and for E-mailing a request to register the new domain names. Such web site creation and editing may be made whenever the user wishes by simply accessing a home page, entering a corresponding service function such as editing an existing web site or creating a new web site. The user can then carry out the selected function from a personal computer over the Internet. The domain name may correspond to a parameter of the property such as its street address.

The present invention generally relates to advertising and selling of real estate and, more specifically, to online advertising and selling of real estate by enabling sellers to create individualized web sites for individual properties for sale.
The proliferation of personal computers having access to the Internet has significantly altered the way sellers and buyers can find each other to effect a mutually beneficial transaction. The buyer has the benefit of numerous search engines that can find web sites based upon selected words or phrases. The seller has the benefit of using one or more web sites with numerous pages and links to describe products, receive buyer information and selections, and effect the purchase.
One particular area of commerce that gains significantly from the technical innovations of the Internet is the real estate market. Buyers employ the Internet to search for available properties in particular neighborhoods, having certain features they desire, being offered within selected ranges of price, and so forth. Sellers, through their brokers, can offer their properties at a web site which can be used to present relevant data such as price, number of rooms, size, age, construction and to provide photographs of the properties. Such web sites are particularly useful when the product data remains relatively stable over time because changing the content of each page of a web site on a frequent basis such as every week or even every day, can be relatively inconvenient and costly.
Unfortunately, real estate offerings inherently undergo a rapid rate of change. Properties are sold or enter escrow and are taken off the market. New properties regularly become available. Prices of available properties change often to attract more potential buyers. Terms change such as whether a seller may be willing to carry a second mortgage and at what interest rate or the amount of earnest money required to hold a property during the escrow period. In any event, it is evident that the way real estate property is advertised and sold is not amenable to an Internet system in which relatively fixed web site presentations are inconvenient and costly to change or create on a frequent basis.
Various prior art patents provide real estate-related system and methods that are computer and/or Internet oriented. Of particular interest in this regard are the following references and examples:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,216, Aug. 11, 1998, for Method And System For Data Acquisition In A Multimedia Real Estate Data Base, is a system for data acquisition in a multimedia real estate database. The database contains textual information for each house for sale, an exterior image for each house, an interior image for each house, and a parameter indicating a portion of the exterior image corresponding to the interior image. All of the foregoing is in a common database format.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,850, May 19, 1998, for Real-Estate Method And Apparatus For Searching For Homes In A Search Pool For Exact And Close Matches According To Primary And Non-Primary Selection Criteria, is a real estate method for searching for homes in a search pool according to selection criteria. Selection features are selected and each item in the database is examined to determine if an item has a given search feature. If an item is an exact match to a given search feature, then that item is assigned full points. If an item closely matches the search feature, then the item is assigned partial points. Items with the highest total points are displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,025, Dec. 10, 1996, Apparatus And Method For Interactive Communication For Tracking And Viewing Data, is a system for acquiring and displaying information relating to a specific industry such as real estate. The information relates to a particular property, community, financing, demographics, et cetera and can be accessed by real estate agents and end users. When, where, and how often an advertisement and/or property is viewed is instantly recorded by the system. Viewership and response patterns can be retrieved by advertisers.
However, none of these prior art disclosures provides a system or method that is real estate oriented and which addresses the aforementioned problem of rapidly changing data including the need to frequently delete sold properties and add newly available properties.
In one aspect of the present invention, a method of advertising products and services through at least one web site on the Internet, such products and services having frequently changing parameters rendering it desirable for a seller to also frequently modify the web site to keep the advertising current; comprises a) providing a home web site; b) determining at the home web site whether a user is an existing customer or a new customer and linking to either of at least two alternative second web sites depending upon the determination; c) if the user is an existing customer, presenting user log-in data entry at the corresponding second web site; d) verifying that the log-in data is valid; e) offering the verified user a selection from a plurality of service functions, at least one of the functions being the creation of a new page for advertising an added product or service; f) linking the user who has selected the creation service function to a site creation page and permitting the user to select a new site layout and to enter data related to the added product or service; g) providing payment data entry to the user and verifying the payment data; and h) linking the user to a final page for finalizing the new site creation, updating appropriate database entries, and obtaining a file folder corresponding to a domain name for the new site.
In another aspect of the present invention, a system for advertising real estate on the Internet and permitting a user to add new linked web sites corresponding to additional real estate properties offered by the user comprises a plurality of computers each having an Internet browser and being connected for communication through an ISP to the Internet; at least one web server having a corresponding data base and being connected to the Internet, with the web server and corresponding data base having account and web site data for a plurality of users, each such user being assigned at least one web site page pertaining to at least one real estate property; and the server having a device for receiving data corresponding to a new real estate property listing, generating a corresponding new web site page, and creating a file having a corresponding domain name.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.

Method for advertising real estate over the internet


A semiconductor device is configured to prevent destruction of elements and/or miss-operation of the circuit by parasitic effects produced by parasitic transistors when a MOSFET of a bridge circuit is formed on a single chip. A Schottky junction is formed by providing an anode electrode in an n well region where a source region, a drain region, and a p well region of a lateral MOSFET. A Schottky barrier diode constituting a majority carrier device is connected in parallel with a PN junction capable of being forward-biased so that the PN junction is not forward-biased so that minority carriers are not generated, and thereby suppressing parasitic effects.

FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional constructional diagram of a MOSFET constituting a power semiconductor element employed in the output stage of a prior art intelligent switching device. In FIG. 10, an n well region 2 is formed at the surface of a p type semiconductor substrate 1 and a p well region 3 is formed at the surface of the n well region 2. An n+ source region 4 and n+ drain region 5 are formed at the surface of the p well region 3. In addition, a structure that moderates the electrical field of the PN junction between the n+ drain region 5 and p well region 3 is provided by forming an n offset region 6 of comparatively low concentration surrounding the n+ drain region 5. A gate electrode 8 is formed on the other side of a gate oxide film 7 at the surface of the p well region 3 that is sandwiched by the n+ source region 4 and the n offset region 6. A LOCOS oxide film 19 that is thicker than the gate oxide film 7 is formed at the edge of the gate electrode 8 on the drain side, with the object of moderating the electrical field directly below the gate electrode at the side edge. Also, a p+ contact region 9 is formed at the surface of the p well region 3 adjacent to the n+ source region 4 and is connected to a source electrode 10 in common with the n+ source region 4. In addition, an n+ contact region 12 is formed at the surface of the n well region 2 and is connected with an n well electrode 13.
In such a construction, since the p well region and n well region are both separated from the substrate by a PN junction, there is a high degree of freedom of design in regard to source potential and drain potential, and the construction is applicable to intelligent switching devices, in particular to applications having MOSFETs with a plurality of output stages, where the source potentials and drain potentials thereof are different. It should be noted that, although interlayer insulating films are provided between electrodes of different potential, such as between the gate electrode 8 and the source electrode 10, they are not shown in the following drawings.
Sometimes (see for example Laid-open Japanese Patent Publication Number H. 10-284731) parasitic action of the body diode of a MOSFET is suppressed by providing an embedded n+ region on a p substrate, providing an n epitaxial layer on top of that region, forming a Schottky barrier diode in this portion, and connecting it parallel in the same region with the body diode of the MOSFET.
Also, parasitic action of the body diode may be suppressed (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,065) by forming a Schottky barrier diode on the surface of the substrate (drain) region of the MOSFET, and connecting it parallel on the same chip with the body diode of the MOSFET.
FIG. 10 is an application circuit diagram of an intelligent switching device comprising a MOSFET with an output stage having a construction as shown in FIG. 9 mentioned above. FIG. 10 is a single phase bridge circuit construction, in which two MOSFETs Q3 and Q1 are connected in series between the power source potential Vcc and reference potential GND and two series-connected MOSFETs Q4 and Q2 are connected in parallel therewith. The load is connected between the connection point of MOSFET Q3 and MOSFET Q1 and the connection point of MOSFETs Q4 and MOSFET Q2; alternate switching between MOSFET Q1 and MOSFETs Q4 on the one hand, and MOSFET Q2 and MOSFET Q3 on the other hand is performed by supplying a signal from a drive circuit, not shown. By means of this switching, current can be made to flow in the load from left to right or in the opposite direction. Commonly, in such a circuit, the load is an inductive load such as a motor. However, in the case of an inductive load, if MOSFETs are employed having the complicated connection structure shown in FIG. 9, problems tend to arise due to parasitic effects.
FIG. 11 is a view given in explanation of the parasitic effects when a MOSFET according to FIG. 9 is used for MOSFET Q1 or MOSFET Q2. In FIG. 11, the condition where MOSFET Q3 or MOSFET Q4 are ON corresponds to the case where the n well region 2 of MOSFET Q1 or MOSFET Q2 is connected with Vcc, which is the highest potential. For simplicity of illustration of FIG. 11, the n offset region 6 and LOCOS oxide film 19, etc., shown in FIG. 9 are omitted.
Referring to FIG. 10, while MOSFET Q3 and MOSFET Q2 are ON so that current flows from the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the load (inductive load), if MOSFET Q3 is cut off, an e.m.f. trying to keep the current flowing in the inductive load is generated, causing the potential of the point of connection of MOSFET Q1 and MOSFET Q3 to become lower than the reference potential GND.
In FIG. 11, when the drain electrode 11 with respect to the source electrode 10 connected to GND potential becomes lower than the threshold voltage (˜0.7 V) of the PN junction, the p well region 3 and the PN junction of the n+ drain region 5 is forward-biased, causing base current to flow in the parasitic transistor Qp1 constituted by the n well region 2, the p well region 3 and the n+ drain region 5, causing the collector current of the parasitic transistor Qp1 to flow from Vcc toward the load. FIG. 13 shows this in the form of an equivalent circuit, in which the parasitic transistor Qp1 of FIG. 10 is added as a parasitic transistor Qp and a collector current Ic flows in accordance with the base current Ib.
Furthermore, with a MOSFET of this construction, it is also possible to connect the n well region 2 and drain region 5 by common wiring. FIG. 12 is a view given in explanation of the parasitic effect in this case. In this case, since the n well region 2-1 and the drain region 5 are at the same potential, the parasitic NPN transistor Qp1 in FIG. 11 is basically inactive. However, the PN junction between the p well region 3 and the drain region 5 and the PN junctions between the p well region 3 and the n well region 2-1 and between the p substrate 1 and n well region 2-1 are forward-biased. For example, if a MOSFET n well region 2-2, etc., is present on the high potential side, such as of MOSFET Q3 or MOSFET Q4, etc., in the vicinity of MOSFET Q1, a base current flows in the NPN parasitic transistor Qp2 shown as Qp2 in the FIG., and this parasitic transistor Qp2 is turned ON. If this is illustrated by an equivalent circuit, in the same way as in the case of FIG. 11, Qp2 corresponds to Qp of FIG. 13, and collector current flows from Vcc to the load.
Next, FIG. 14 is a view given in explanation of the parasitic effect produced in a MOSFET on the high potential side such as MOSFET Q3 or MOSFET Q4. In this case, since the drain of the MOSFET on the high potential side is connected with Vcc, which is the highest potential, a connection construction as shown in FIG. 14 is produced, in which the n well region 2 and drain region 5 are normally connected. First, in the circuit to FIG. 10, while MOSFET Q4 and MOSFET Q1 are ON so that current flows from the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the load, if MOSFET Q1 is cut off, an e.m.f. is generated such as to try to keep the current flowing in the inductive load, so that the source potential of the MOSFET Q3 becomes higher than Vcc. Consequently, in FIG. 14, the PN junctions between the p well region 3 and drain region 5 and between the p well region 3 and n well region 2 are forward-biased so that a base current Ib of the parasitic transistor Qp3 of the PNP in FIG. 14 flows, so that the parasitic transistor Qp3 is turned ON, causing current to flow from the load to GND. The equivalent circuit of this is shown in FIG. 15.
When such a parasitic effect is produced by parasitic transistors, not only can element destruction occur due to current concentration on reverse recovery of the PN junction of minority carriers generated by forward-biasing of the PN junction, but also there is the problem of latching up easily occurring due to various parasitic elements which exist in CMOS circuit for example.

High power semiconductor device having a schottky barrier diode


There is provided a connector comprising an electrically conductive member (48) fixed in position within a rotatable insulating body (42), the electrically conductive member (48) comprising at least one connection channel (72, 74), a biasing member (46) such as a torsion spring connected to the insulating body (42), and an insertion axis (94), wherein the rotatable insulating body (42) is formed with at least one tapered guide channel (44) in which is located an insertion axis and the insulating body (42) is rotatable from a first biased position in which the at least one tapered guide channel (44) is offset from the connection channel (72, 74) to a second biased position where the at least one connection channel (72, 74) is aligned with the insertion axis (94). The electrically conductive member (48) is rotatable against a biasing force of the biasing member (46) upon insertion of a conductor pin.

As the demand for increased signal and data throughput on broadband/CATV cable networks continues to rise, service providers strive to increase the bandwidth of their networks and the top operating frequencies rise.
Junction boxes used in these networks for splitting/combining RF signals, require low signal loss cable terminations that can pass RF signals and also high AC/DC current for powering line equipment. Traditionally this is achieved by screw clamping onto a cable conductor core within the junction box.
The impedance of the junction box needs to be matched to that of the network to allow effective signal transmission. As the operational signal frequency increases, the impedance matching of the cable terminations becomes more critical as signal attenuation due to impedance mismatch tends to increase with frequency. Screw clamping connectors are a poor impedance match to the cable network but are adequate at frequencies up to around 1 GHz but at frequencies above this they start to cause significant signal attenuation due to the impedance mismatch.

Electrical connector with rotatable biasing member


A circular cylindrical striker member 2 for a drilling machine adapted to transfer kinetic energy to an impulse receiving member 4. The striker member has a diameter dmax, and includes a side surface 12 and an impulse surface (6). The striker member is adapted to transfer the kinetic energy to the impulse receiving member by a ring shaped active surface of the impulse surface, wherein the ring shaped active surface is concentric with regard to the cross section of the striker member, has a diameter da, where da<dmax, and has a width wa that during the contact moment with the impulse receiving part is less than 0.2 dmax.

Hydraulic and pneumatic drilling machines comprise a striker member, e.g. a percussion piston, to transfer shock waves to an impact receiving member, e.g. a shank, which transfers these to the drill rod that via the boar crown penetrates the rock.
A percussion piston preferably strikes using a frequency of approximately 40-100 Hz and the stroke rate for the percussion piston is approximately 10 m/s, which thereby is subjected to high stresses.
If, for example, the percussion piston is exchanged after approximately 1000 hours it is during that time subjected to many load changes, which increases the risk for fatigue failure. It would be advantageous to increase the stroke rate to 12.5-13 m/s.
There are numerous ways to design the impact surface of the percussion piston. A number of known designs are schematically illustrated in FIGS. 2a-2c.
In FIG. 2a is shown a percussion piston having a plane impact surface and provided with a radius transition of 2 (shown in the figure) or 3 mm (R2, R3) to the side surface.
As an alternative, a chamfer angled in relation to the impact surface is provided, where the angle is within the interval of 15-45 degrees. This is illustrated in FIG. 2b.
According to still another alternative percussion pistons are provided with a radius covering the entire surface having a radius transition in the interval of 200-1000 mm (R200-R1000). This alternative is illustrated in FIG. 2c.
The British patent document GB-324265 is disclosed a hammer rock drill comprising a percussion piston having an impact surface shaped such that the load on the moving part decreases due to a working tool being mounted out of alignment. Therefore, the impact surface of the percussion piston has a spherical concave shape and the shank has a corresponding spherical convex shape.
In the published patent application GB-2136725 a drill hammer provided with a striker is known, where the striker has a truncated cone shaped striker head, i.e. the transition between the side surface and the impact surface is chamfered.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,199 an arrangement is disclosed applicable for rock drilling which includes a percussion piston and a shank.
And finally, the U.S. patent application US-2009/0133893 discloses a hand-held tool having a reciprocating percussion piston. The piston is provided with a spherical impact surface.
There exist both solid percussion pistons as well as percussion pistons provided with a central longitudinal opening.
The shank, to which the percussion piston transfers the shock wave, may be provided with a so called dowel hole at the surface hit by the percussion piston. The dowel hole is a centrally positioned hole which is related to the manufacture of the shank. The dowel hole may have a diameter of e.g. 8 mm.
The dowel hole incurs specific stresses upon the central parts of the impact surface of the percussion piston. Due to the large forces that the impact surface is subjected to it has been established that the central parts are subjected to material movements that briefly may be explained as the parts of the percussion piston above the dowel hole "moves" in the striking direction.
Herein it is important to mention that the shank wears out and replaces more often than the percussion piston.
In addition it has been established that due to wear out of e.g. bushings and so called guide sleeves the percussion piston does not hit the shank entirely straight in every strike. This results in high contact stresses at the contact surfaces.
Thus, in view of the above discussion of the prior art the object of the present invention is to achieve an improved design of the front part of the striker member that minimizes the stress concentration and thereby increases the life for the striker member which is economically favorable.

Striker member, and a drilling machine comprising a striker member


Processes, machines, and stored machine instructions are provided for estimating how many rows would be processed by a query. In one embodiment, model aggregating logic may generate a global model based on separate models for separate portions of a set of data. For example, the separate portions may be assigned to separate partitions of the set of data based at least in part on key values in the separate portions. Generating the global model may include generating an uncompressed model that includes components of the separate models before generating a compressed model to estimate the uncompressed model. Query analysis logic may use the global model to estimate how many rows would be processed by queries that, when executed, would access portion(s) of the set of data.

Many businesses live or die based on the efficiency and accuracy by which they can store, retrieve, process, and/or analyze data. "Data," as used herein, is digital information that is electronically stored on storage device(s). Data may be maintained on an individual storage device, such as a local hard disk or solid state drive, a CD-ROM, or a memory module. Alternatively, data may be distributed over multiple storage devices, such as storage devices that are working together to provide a cloud storage service or storage devices that are operating separately to store subsets of the data. One or more database servers may operate in parallel to provide read and/or write access to the data. Large sets of data, whether stored on one device or distributed among many devices, may consume a significant amount of storage space and/or processor time to store, retrieve, process, and/or analyze.
Data may be described in terms of fields and values. "Fields," as used herein, refer to containers or labels that provide contexts. "Values," as used herein, refer to information that is stored according to or in association with the contexts. For example, a single table may have many different columns that provide contexts for the values that are stored in the columns. The different columns may store different sets of data having different contexts, and the different sets of data may or may not be of different data types. In another example, a single document may have many attributes and/or elements that provide contexts for the values that are nested in the attributes and/or elements. Elements or attributes that share the same name, path, or other context may collectively store a set of data that shares the context. Different elements or attributes may store different sets of data having different contexts, and the different sets of data may or may not be of different data types.
To alleviate some of the overhead for storing, retrieving, processing, and/or analyzing large sets of data, some computer systems utilize metadata that is created and stored in association with the sets of data. "Metadata," as used herein, is data that describes other data. Metadata may describe data in a manner that allows the described data to be stored, retrieved, processed, and/or analyzed more efficiently or more accurately. For example, metadata for a given set of data may include a mean, median, mode, minimum, and/or maximum of the given set of data, such that these value(s) may be quickly retrieved without being recalculated each time the set of data is accessed. The metadata may be used to plan for data processing such that a data processor can effectively allocate resources for the data processing.
General statistics such as the mean, median, mode, minimum, or maximum value(s) may be helpful when storing, retrieving, processing, and/or analyzing a set of data. However, these general statistics are not always helpful for predicting whether a non-uniform set of data has specific values.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Generating estimates for query optimization


A method for determining a pose of an at least semi-autonomously driving vehicle with the aid of landmarks, the vehicle including detectors, with which the landmarks are detected, and a back-end server being provided, with which the landmark data of the landmarks are transmitted from a map to a vehicle control system of the vehicle, the method including at least the following steps: —communicating detection reports relating to detected landmarks from the vehicle control system to the back-end server, —sending data relating to environmental influences from an information service to the back-end server, which environmental influences have an effect on the detection of landmarks with the aid of the detectors of the vehicle, —statistically evaluating environmental influences on specific types of landmarks and —selecting landmarks as a function of the statistical evaluation and of instantaneous environmental influences and —transmitting the selection of landmarks from the back-end server to the vehicle control system.

A pose is understood in the technical sector to mean the spatial location of an object, namely the position and orientation of an object in a two-dimensional space or in a three-dimensional space.
The method for determining the pose of the vehicle is based at least additionally on landmarks of various types in the surroundings of the vehicle, whereby a pose basis may represent GPS data, for example. Pose data of the vehicle in this case based on GPS data may be augmented with data that are generated based on the recognition of landmarks. The orientation, for example, the driving direction of the vehicle, in particular, may be largely determined with the aid of landmarks. In this case, the accuracy of the determination of the pose of the vehicle based on landmarks is greater than the accuracy of the determination using GPS data. In semi-autonomously driving vehicles, in particular, in future, fully-autonomously driving vehicles, the pure GPS navigation for guiding the vehicle is no longer sufficient and new systems must be applied, which detect the immediate surroundings of the vehicle and assume the guidance of the vehicle, in particular, by recognizing landmarks. The term vehicle control system in this case includes essentially all components that are necessary for detecting the pose, for the evaluation of the data and, finally, for controlling the vehicle. The vehicle control system includes, in particular, detectors such as laser detectors, radar detectors, infrared sensors, capacitive sensors, LIDAR sensors and/or a video image capturing device.
For this purpose, German Published Patent Application No. 10 2014 206 901, for example, describes a method for determining the pose of an at least semi-autonomously driving vehicle in a surrounding area. The situation recognition in this method is based for one on a detection of the surroundings with the aid of a system of surroundings sensors, which includes ultrasonic sensors, laser sensors, radar sensors, infrared sensors and capacitive sensors, LIDAR sensors and/or a video image capturing device. The situation recognition in this case is intended to be based on the detection of objects outside the vehicle when the vehicle is moving in traffic, informers which also point to a particular situation being relevant. These may be, for example, visual markings, objects or boundaries. In addition or alternatively, additional technologies for localization may be used for improving the accuracy of the situation recognition, thus, geodata may be ascertained with the aid of a GPS system or digital maps with landmarks in combination with an odometry. Landmarks in this case are objects in the immediate surroundings of the vehicle, but also traffic signs, for example, such as traffic lights and the like, as well as roadway markings.
Thus, measuring data are used with the aid of detectors as a basis for sensing the surroundings of the vehicle, from which objects may be extracted with the aid of the detector algorithms. Based on these objects, it is possible to model the vehicle surroundings in order, for example, to consequently plan a trajectory for the host vehicle and to make other action decisions.
The quality of the surroundings model is largely a function of the system of surroundings sensors used. These differ in terms of the measuring properties with respect to accuracy and range depending on the system, and their efficiency is generally significantly a function of environmental conditions such as, for example, rain, fog, solar radiation or artificial illumination. For example, a roadway marking on a wet roadway, in particular, during darkness, may not reliably serve as a landmark, since a wet roadway, in particular, during darkness and in wet conditions may reflect, so that corresponding detectors may not be activated, however, other detectors continue to function in these weather conditions, for example, active light sources.
However, the influence factors do not affect all types of landmarks equally. Signal systems, for example, are generally easily detectable regardless of the weather conditions, whereas in the case of visually operating detection systems with actual objects in the immediate surroundings of the vehicle, for example, it is not possible to reliably model corresponding surroundings under all lighting conditions.
In addition to pieces of information based on sensor measurement data of the detectors on or in the vehicle, pieces of information from maps are increasingly used as an important additional source for the pose of the vehicle. These may be transmitted from a central map server or back-end server to the respective vehicle, referred to below simply as a back-end server. The pieces of surroundings information, which have been detected with the aid of the vehicle detectors, are then consolidated in the vehicle control system with the pieces of surroundings information, so that a mostly significantly higher quality for generating a surroundings model is achievable.
If all landmarks from the map are communicated with the aid of the back-end server to the vehicle control system, a significant information density is then created, which puts an unnecessary strain on the capacity of an available bandwidth of the communication channel between the back-end server and the vehicle control system of the vehicle. The computing capacity of the vehicle control system is also limited on the hardware side, so that it is desirable to reduce the amount of data transmitted by the back-end server to the vehicle control system and detector algorithms triggered as a result.

Micromechanical sensor and method for manufacturing a micromechanical sensor


Methods, apparatuses, and software can be provided for dynamic autonomous resource allocation and channel access in a cellular system uplink. A method can include measuring interference levels on uplink resources of a victim cell and calculating a probability of accessing channels of the uplink resources of the victim cell using the measured interference levels, including defining a suitable transmission power, and a highest value and a lowest value. The method can further include accessing a channel for which the probability of accessing has been calculated, when the probability meets a predetermined condition.

1. Field
Dynamic, autonomous resource allocation and channel access can take place while using an overlaying cellular system uplink. For example, a local node can make measurements and calculate a probability of access on various channels, either acting individually or in cooperation with other local nodes or cluster nodes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Resource allocation in femto cells may have various prerequisite requirements. For example, in a synchronization method for femto-cell base stations in uncoordinated communication networks, the femto cell in question can obtain synchronization information from one other base station, and can adjust its own clock in response to the synchronization information. The timing synchronization information can be identified from a strongest synchronization signal from among nearby uncoordinated base stations. The timing synchronization can accommodate clock offsets and frequency offsets. Autonomously communicating devices could then determine suitable timing for their local operation in the cellular system uplink.
Deployment of femto cells with flexible spectrum use aiming at utilizing opportunistically overlaying cellular system uplink resources may encounter certain challenges. For example, when the local nodes or the cognitive femto cell of interest are deployed far enough away from the "victim" eNB to avoid causing any interference to that eNB, the femto cell may not be able to determine whether it is far enough away from the eNB, or how to select the most suitable carrier.

Dynamic autonomous resource allocation and channel access in cellular System Uplink


A vertical-type clothes press, in which clothes such as pants or the like held between a fixed board and a movable board can be pressed for smoothing or creasing, includes a mount base, a fixed board vertically mounted thereon and having a heater, a movable board having a hollow structure for hot-pressing clothes held between itself and the fixed board, a hinge mechanism which rotatably connects the lower ends of the fixed board and the movable board and mounts the movable board openably and closably on the fixed board opposite to each other, a lock mechanism for holding the movable board against the fixed board, a press sheet having one end attached to the connection between the fixed board and the movable board and rotatably provided between the movable board and the fixed board, reinforcements provided along the side end faces of the press sheet in a vertical direction, and a bias device provided on the opposite side of the hinge mechanism for pulling clothes or the like held between the fixed board and the movable board in a direction away from the hinge mechanism. A shift of the centroid becomes small when the movable board is open. Thus, the fixed board can be stably installed in a vertical direction, and a shift in position for the clothes to be pressed is prevented. Further, an operation for putting the clothes in order becomes easy and the clothes are equally smoothed and pressed.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a vertical-type clothes press in which clothes such as a pair of pants or the like held between a fixed board and a movable board can be pressed for smoothing or creasing.
2. Background of the Invention
Conventionally, this type of press, e.g. as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,499,109 and 3,145,490, generally has a fixed board vertically mounted on a mount base and a movable board rotatably coupled to said fixed board through a hinge mechanism provided at the lower end of this fixed board, whereby cloths such as pants or the like are held between the fixed board and movable board and then hot-pressed.
The both fixed and movable boards described above have lengths required for pressing the great part of clothes such as pants or the like, and are formed of thick wooden boards so as to provide a substantial pressing pressure when the clothes are pressed.
When it is required to set the clothes such as pants or the like on said vertical-type clothes press, the movable board is rotatably moved with the clothes toward the fixed board to press them therebetween, after the shape of the clothes is put in order on the movable board in the open state in which the movable board is inclined toward this side.
In one of the vertical-type clothes presses clothes are lifted up during the process which the movable board is moved with the clothes close to the fixed board, e.g. as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,885,803, 3,070,910, and 3,477,154.
However, there are the following problems in conventional vertical-type clothes press having such structure.
First of all, it is required to rotatably move the movable board in the direction away from the fixed board when clothes are set on the press. Especially, when the heavy movable board formed of a thick wooden board is in its open state, the centroid of the press shifts to the side of rotational movement of the movable board, so that, the fixed board vertically mounted on the base is unstable and easy to fall.
Namely, since the centroid of the entire press shifts in the open direction when the movable board is open, it is required to increase the whole mass of the mount base to accommodate for the shift of its centroid, in order to maintain the press steady. Consequently, the mount base becomes large-sized to occupy a wide space for installation, and in addition to this, such a big base may stumble or trip an operator's foot to hurt, and be an obstacle when an operator stands in front of the press to work.
Since a job for putting the clothes in order is performed on the movable board in the open state in which it is inclined on this side, an additional force exerts in the open direction on the said movable board in the open state to inevitably make said base large in size so as to mount the fixed board steady.
Secondly, in the case of finishing closes with this vertical-type clothes press, it is required to change the position of the clothes with the movable board up to the vertical state, since the movable board is moved toward the fixed board to press the clothes after the clothes are put in order on the side of the movable board inclined. Consequently, the clothes may move downward, or the shape put in order may also be in disorder.
For example, as shown in FIG. 21, a horizontal-type clothes press adapted to be placed on a flat floor in use has also been desired such that the clothes B put in order on the fixed board A placed in a horizontal state are held by a transparent thin sheet C, so as to prevent the clothes B from moving disorderly.
In this horizontal-type clothes press, the following procedures can be easily performed: the clothes B is set on the fixed board A mounted in a horizontal state; and the clothes B set is pre-held by sheet C. However, the thin sheet used for this horizontal-type clothes press easily bends and is not able to stand alone in the inclined or vertical state, so that in a vertical-type clothes press used in the inclined or vertical state, such a thin sheet can not pre-hold the clothes on the movable board to prevent the clothes from moving disorderly.
Thirdly, it is well known that a pair of exemplary pants D finished with this vertical-type clothes press, as shown in FIG. 22, become baggy at the front parts F of the cylindrical parts E corresponding to knees and creased at the rear parts G and the front parts H of the third joints by being worn.
In order to eliminate creases and bags produced at respective parts of such pants D, it has been also performed that the pants D are lifted up during the process in which the movable board comes close to the side of the fixed board. However, in the configuration as described above, the upper parts of the pants D are lifted up as the movable board comes close to the side of the fixed board, but the front parts F and rear parts G of knees are not substantially extended, so that a preferred smoothing effect can not be obtained.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

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Disclosed is a packaged semiconductor device. The device includes a die with an active surface having a plurality of electrical contacts, a back surface located opposite the active surface, and a plurality of side surfaces. The device also includes a first light blocking protective coating that covers at least a portion of the side surfaces of the die. Also, disclosed is a semiconductor wafer including an active surface and a back surface, the active surface having a multiplicity of electrical contacts. The wafer includes a plurality of channels formed in the active surface of the wafer, the channels being arranged in a grid that effectively divide the wafer into a plurality of dice, each die having a plurality of the electrical contacts; and a light blocking filler material that fills the channels. Further, disclosed is a stamp suitable for applying a light blocking filler material into grooves on a semiconductor wafer. The stamp includes a base plate; and a multiplicity of spaced apart fins arranged in a matrix of lines that define a grid sized to match the spacing of saw streets in an associated semiconductor wafer, each line of the matrix having a series of spaced apart fins. Next, disclosed is a wafer level method of packaging integrated circuits. The wafer level method includes cutting a matrix of channels in a semiconductor wafer; dispensing a light blocking filler material into the channels; and dicing the semiconductor wafer by cutting the wafer along the channels and through the light blocking filler material, wherein the dicing cuts are narrower than the channels such that some of the light blocking filler material covers at least portions of side walls of the dice that are singulated by the dicing operation.

One conventional wafer level CSP style, (commonly referred to as "flip chip" packaging), generally contemplates forming solder bumps (or other suitable contacts) directly on I/O pads (bump pads) formed on an IC die. FIG. 1 is a side view of a conventional flip chip type device. The flip chip 100 includes a die 102 that typically has a plurality of IC device structures in the active region 112. These IC device structures may include, for example, transistors and interconnect layers. The die 102 has a top surface (active surface or frontside) 104 that includes bump pads (not shown). Solder bumps 106 are formed on the bump pads of the top surface 104, which is opposite a bottom surface (backside) 108 of the die 102. In between the top surface 104 and bottom surface 108 are side surfaces 110. A plurality of flip chip dice 102 are typically formed on the surface of a wafer (not shown). After the dice 102 are formed on the wafer, each die 102 is separated from the wafer in a dicing or singulation operation.
Flip chip devices may be mounted in larger package structures or directly on a printed circuit board or other substrate. One problem that has been observed in some flip chip applications is the photo-generation of electrons within the die when a surface of the die is exposed to light. That is, the IC devices may have functional problems due to photogenerated carriers when a surface (e.g., 108, 104, 110) of the die (e.g. 102) is exposed to light, or the IC devices may be subject to an undesirable electrostatic shock during handling of the device subsequent to the dicing operation.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,352,881 and 6,023,094, disclose methods of addressing the problem by applying an opaque protective layer to the top surface and/or bottom surface of the flip chip die during wafer processing. That is, the backside and/or frontside of the wafer is coated with a protective film or fill material in order to block any light that may be incident on those respective surfaces. These patents contemplate applying the light blocking materials at the wafer level, which has significant costs advantages when compared to individually coating the dice after the wafer has been singulated.
Although the described wafer level flip chip packaging approaches work quite well, there are continuing efforts to provide further improved wafer level packaging processes and structures that facilitate the use of flip chip packages in even more application.

Method to dispense light blocking material for wafer level CSP


An optical system that includes a micro-mirror array optical modulator that can selectively modulate an incident light beam having a defined narrow spectral bandwidth to encode data thereon based on commands to an ON-state or an OFF-state of a micro-mirror. The micro-mirror array optical modulator can redirect light by diffraction and reflection to provide an output modulated light beam that exhibits a diffraction handedness dependent described by an arrangement of diffraction orders that depend in part on the narrow spectral bandwidth of light incident thereupon. An optical element has an optimized limiting aperture for defining portions of a modulated light beam that are blocked and remaining portions that are transmitted. An ON-state efficiency and an OFF-state contrast of an optically transmitted modulated light beam can depend on the diffraction handedness of the output modulated light beam relative to a size and a shape of the optimized limiting aperture.

The motion picture industry is presently transitioning from traditional film-based projectors to digital or electronic cinema. This trend is accelerating due to the popularity of three-dimensional (3-D) movies. Even as digital cinema projection has matured and succeeded, largely based on the use of Digital Light Projection (DLP) technology, both the light sources and the DMD modulators have been evolving. In the case of lasers, high power compact visible lasers are becoming increasingly mature and cost competitive, enabling the development of laser digital cinema projectors. One such system is described in the paper "A Laser-Based Digital Cinema Projector", by B. Silverstein et al. (SID Symposium Digest, Vol. 42, pp. 326-329, 2011).
At the core of the DLP technology, which was developed by Texas Instruments, is the digital micro-mirror device (DMD), which is a spatial light modulator that includes an array of micro-mirrors. DMD spatial light modulators have been successfully employed in digital projection systems, including digital cinema devices that meet the DC2K digital cinema resolution standard. Efficiency measurements have been performed on such systems that use the DC2K chip and have found the efficiency optimizing principles to be valid; however, for systems utilizing the new DC4K chip the principle was not found to work as well.
Early in the development of the DMD device technology, the individual micro-mirrors 55 or pixels were relatively large, at ˜30 μm square. Subsequently, device resolution has improved, with progressively smaller pixels, evolving from ˜17 μm square in the late 1990's, to 13.8×13.8 μm for the 2K digital cinema projectors (2005), and more recently, reaching 7.5 μm×7.5 μm pixels with the DC4K devices (2011). The projector described by Silverstein et al used 2K resolution DMD devices for image light modulation, and various aspects of DMD device behavior were taken into account. As another example, in the paper "Laser Digital Cinema Projector," by G. Zheng et al., published in the Journal of Display Technology, Vol. 4 (2008), a laser projector is described that also uses the DC2K versions of the DMD devices, but with conventional DLP projection optics, including the TIR and Philips prism assembly. Notably, both Silverstein et al and Zheng et al describe projectors using the DC2K versions of the DMD devices, meaning that they were compliant with the DC1 digital cinema projection specification and provided "2K" horizontal resolution.
However, as noted above, the recently released DC4K devices have much smaller pixels to support the higher horizontal resolution standard. As the size of the micro-mirrors decreases, diffraction effects become increasingly important, and the micro-mirror array can be thought of as a programmable blazed grating. Diffraction becomes an even larger concern when laser light interacts with these small pixel and sub-pixel features. Essentially, diffraction effects cause an efficiency loss versus a plane mirrored surface as some light is directed into other diffracted orders, which the blaze then partially restores.
Some aspects of the diffractive behavior of the DMD devices have been considered in the literature. In particular, Texas Instruments provided some guidance concerning the interaction of laser light, in their publication "Using Lasers with DLP® DMD technology", TI Tech Note TI DN 2509927, September 2008. However, additional practical guidance on the diffraction behavior that aids projector design is needed. A subsequent paper "DMD diffraction measurements to support design of projectors for test and evaluation of multispectral and hyperspectral imaging sensors", by J. P. Rice et al., published in the SPIE Proc., Vol. 7210 (2009) provides infrared (IR) light diffraction efficiency measurements for IR optimized 2K resolution DMD devices. However, this paper does not discuss the optical propagation behavior of the diffracted light, and how that might affect projector design, whether in the IR or other spectral ranges.
In summary, as micro-mirror array spatial modulators such as the DMD devices have migrated to yet smaller pixel dimensions, and laser projection systems have become increasingly feasible, the specifics of the interaction of the laser light with the micro-mirrors, which are dynamic diffractive structures, becomes more important. Therefore, opportunity exists to better understand the subtleties of micro-mirror array diffraction behavior and optimize projector design accordingly.

Projector optimized for modulator diffraction effects


Even when the present position does not exist on a guide road after deviation from an established guide route, a guide road is identified and a more advantageous route is identified. Furthermore, only a minimum amount of required data are displayed on the map picture. The searching again is executed by taking the direction of progress of the car into consideration. Street names of the roads are displayed on the guide map, enabling a guide route to be easily recognized. A particular area is specified by a postal code number or by a telephone number, and the streets or the facilities in the specified area are displayed. This makes it easier to search the destination.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a navigation device. More specifically, the invention relates to a device which resets a guide route when a car (present position) has deviated from the guide route. The invention further relates to a device which is provided detailed road data by the operator. The invention further relates to a navigation device which makes it possible to easily set a destination.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional navigational device, a destination is set by a user and, then, a route to the destination is registered by manual operation, or the shortest route, the most suitable route or a recommended route to the destination is automatically found. The route to the destination is displayed as a guide route using a conspicuous line, such as thick line on a map picture, and the guidance is offered so that the car may move along the guide route. When the present position deviates from the guide route that is set at the time of departure, a new guide route is searched again starting from the present position.
Even when the car deviates from the guide route, however, the new guide route is not searched in case the present position is not included in the road data in the navigation device. That is, the guide route that was set at the time of departure is kept displayed or the guide route that was set at the time of departure is erased. Therefore, although there may exist another most suitable road to the destination in addition to the guide route that was set at the time of departure, the new most suitable road is not displayed as a new guide route. Besides, when the initially set guide route is erased, the driver quite loses his way to the destination. Moreover, when the start point of the newly searched route is located in a direction opposite to the direction of progress of the car, the driver must return to the start point.
The object of the invention, therefore, is to make it possible to search a guide route to a destination from a point on a guide road near the present position even when the present position does not exist on the guide road.
The navigation device is further equipped with a data storage medium (CD-ROM) storing road data covering over a predetermined range. Based upon the road data, a road map is displayed on the screen of the navigation device. This enables a moving body (car, other vehicle, such as a truck or bus, or any conveyance equipped with the invention), which will be called a car from here forward, to move favorably from the present position to the destination. The operator is furnished with various kinds of information, such as the name of a next intersection where the car should turn, the distance to the intersection, the direction of turn, etc.
The roads include those roads having street names in addition to national roads, such as Constitution Avenue, Washington Street, and Dachauer Street. According to the above-described navigation device, the operator is not informed of the name of a street into which he has entered when turning at the intersection.
When the name of the street has been widely known, therefore, it would be convenient if the operator is informed of the name of the street, like a signpost along the road indicating the name of the road. In such a case, the operator (driver) finds it better to learn the name of the street onto which he is going to proceed than to learn the name of the intersection where he should turn. In European countries and in the United States, in particular, every street has a name. Depending upon the guidance of the street names, therefore, it is possible to easily determine whether the direction in which the car is running is in agreement with the direction guided by the navigation device.
The object of the invention is as described below. That is, the street name of every road can be displayed on the picture, and the guidance route is displayed using the street name.
Using the navigation device, furthermore, the destination is set as described below. For instance, a mouse cursor is indicated on a map displayed on the screen of the navigation device. The cursor can be moved by the operator. The cursor is moved to any position on the map, and any point on the picture is specified as a destination. Alternatively, any building or facility is selected based upon the index data of telephone numbers and addresses in a list of various facilities stored in the CD-ROM, and the building or the facility is set as a destination.
When the destination is to be set using the conventional navigation device, as described above, the operator must be aware of the detailed address or the telephone number of the destination. When the operator is aware of neither the telephone number nor the detailed address of the destination, then, he must have the detailed map displayed to find the destination on the map. In this case, the map displayed on the navigation device may be scrolled to search for the destination.
The object of the invention is as described below. That is, the conditions for searching a desired destination are stepwisely changed, enabling the destination to be easily identified.


A gas laser oscillator including a discharge tube provided in a gas channel through which a laser gas circulates; an output command part outputting a power output command; a power supply part applying to the discharge tube a discharge tube voltage corresponding to a power output command value; a voltage detector detecting the discharge tube voltage; and a discharge start judging part judging if a discharge has been started in the discharge tube based on a ratio of change of the discharge tube voltage. The output command part increases the power output command value in steps by an increment obtained by dividing a power output command value corresponding to a discharge start voltage serving as a predetermined reference by a number of steps of 2 or more, at a step time interval determined by using as a reference the time required until the power supply part responds to the power output command.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas laser oscillator which has a function of judging a start of discharge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there has been known a gas laser oscillator which stores in advance a ratio of change of a discharge tube voltage relative to a command voltage to the laser power supply when discharge is normally carried out and judges that discharge has started when the difference between this ratio of change and the ratio of change of the discharge tube voltage which is measured when increasing the command voltage becomes within a threshold value. This gas laser oscillator is, for example, described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-222586A (JP2011-222586A). In the gas laser oscillator described in JP2011-222586A, the command voltage is made to increase in steps at a first time interval (for example, 0.1 sec to 1 sec) and a pulse-like command voltage (pulse voltage) is superposed over a head part of each step voltage at a second time interval (for example, 10 μsec to 100 μsec).
However, if the pulse voltage is superposed over the step voltage as the command voltage like in the gas laser oscillator described in JP2011-222586A, the current which flows through the laser power supply is liable to overshoot and overcurrent is liable to flow to the power device in the laser power supply. In order to prevent this, it is necessary to gradually increase the command voltage until start of discharge is judged. Therefore, a relatively long time is required for shift from a laser standby state to a laser working state.

Gas laser oscillator having function of judging start of discharge


An apparatus and method of measuring the mass of a test specimen located in a microgravity environment. The test specimen is attached to the free end of a cantilevered spring for joint vibration. The natural frequency of vibration of the spring and specimen are measured. The spring constant is calculated and compared with known masses having the same frequency and spring constant. When a match is found, the mass of the test specimen is known.

The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus capable of measuring the mass of a specimen by subjecting the mass to a vibrational load and comparing the measured frequency of vibration to frequencies of known masses. In particular, the present invention is directed to an apparatus for determining the mass of a specimen located in a microgravity environment. Such a microgravity environment will exist on the International Space Station (ISS) or any craft in near Earth orbit.
A problem confronts scientists when attempting to monitor the mass of a quantity of fluid present in a container located in a microgravity environment. For example, on the ISS it would be difficult to economically monitor the changing mass of a life-sustaining fluid because the mass of the fluid could not be accurately determined due to the microgravity. There is no known approach which utilizes information obtained in a gravity environment to determine the mass of a specimen located in a microgravity environment. Whether the test specimen is in fluid or solid form, the problem of determining the mass microgravity has proven difficult if not impossible.
There clearly is a need for a measuring apparatus and method capable of determining the mass of a test specimen maintained in a microgravity environment. There is also a need for a measuring apparatus capable of repeatedly providing accurate readings regardless of changes in the mass or its environment. There is, moreover, a need of a measuring apparatus, i.e., scale, that is compact in size, of minimum weight and as economical as possible to construct.
In one aspect of the present invention recognizes a mass of a test specimen is measured by subjecting the mass to either a constant vibrational load i.e., forced vibration, or by subjecting the mass to a mechanical impulse i.e., free vibration. In either instance, the specimen vibrates at a specific frequency indicative of the mass of the specimen. By performing a number of similar tests in a gravity environment, it is possible to determine the calibration frequencies achieved by a number of specimens of differing mass. By comparing the frequency of the specimen tested in the microgravity environment with the set of pre-determined frequency calibration curves established for known masses, the mass of the test specimen is determined.
In another aspect of the present invention, a test specimen located in a microgravity environment and having a mass to be determined is attached to a freely vibrating spring. As the spring is repeatedly vibrated, a sensor measures the frequency of vibration. By calculating the spring constant and referring to a previously determined spring constants for given masses, it becomes possible to determine the mass of the test specimen
In another aspect of the invention, a test specimen located in microgravity is contained within a tank attached to a vibrating mount. The tank also includes a pressurized gas separated from the fluid test specimen by a flexible member which may take the form of a bellows or a bladder. The vibrating mount repeatedly oscillates in order to determine the natural frequency of vibration of the mount, from which the spring constant of the mount can be calibrated. This, in turn, may be used to determine the mass of the test specimen.
In a yet further aspect of the present invention, a fluid specimen located in a microgravity environment is located within a tank including a bellows and pressurized Nitrogen on the other side of the bellows. The vibrating mount takes the form of a cantilevered beam bolted at one end to a rigid structure. During operation, a sensing element achieves maximum sensitivity in monitoring the frequency of vibration of the vibrating mount, the tank and the fluid test specimen. A device referred to as a xe2x80x9cpingerxe2x80x9d supplies a mechanical impulse to induce a natural frequency of any object to which the pinger is attached. The pinger serves to oscillate the vibrating mount, thus providing xe2x80x9cin situxe2x80x9d readings of the undamped natural vibration frequency of the tank and fluid test specimen.
In order to determine the mass of the fluid, the spring constant of the vibrating mount is first calculated with a known mass and measured frequency of natural vibration of the mass. The unknown mass of fluid can then be determined by comparing the frequency of vibration of the test fluid with the frequencies of vibration of known masses. Preferably, known frequencies may be used to create a set of frequency calibration data. Though the spring constant of the of the vibrating mount and tank may vary slightly through differing amplitudes under differing gravity conditions, these minor variations may be easily compensated for in the set of pre-determined calibration curves.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method is disclosed for measuring the mass of a test specimen located in a microgravity environment. The specimen may be mounted on the free end of a spring member having an opposite end attached to a rigid member. As the spring and mass are forced to vibrate, a sensor measures the natural frequency of vibration. The spring constant may then be calculated and knowing the frequency of vibration for known masses utilizing a spring with the same constant, it is possible to determine the mass of the test specimen.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method is disclosed for measuring the mass of a fluid in a microgravity environment. The fluid may be deposited in a tank on one side of a flexible member which take the form of a bellows or a bladder with a pressurized gas located on the opposite side of the bellows to maintain pressure on the fluid. The tank may be attached to the free end of a cantilevered spring which is forced to vibrate. A sensor is positioned to monitor the frequency of vibration, allowing the spring constant to be determined. This can be compared to the vibration of known masses in a full gravity environment under a spring with the same constant to determine the mass of the fluid.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.

Apparatus and method for measuring mass in a microgravity environment


A fiber optic gyroscope includes a sensing coil formed of ordinary single mode fiber and a module including polarization maintaining optical fibers. A clockwise beam guided by a polarization maintaining fiber passes through a polarizer before being input to the sensing coil. The polarization module includes means for providing an unpolarized counterclockwise beam to the sensing coil and means for phase modulating a predetermined polarization component. The module also depolarizes the clockwise beam after it has transversed the sensing coil. The clockwise and counterclockwise waves are both unpolarized when they combine in an optical coupler before impinging upon a detector that produces an electrical signal indicative of changes in the interference pattern to indicate rotation of the coil.

This invention relates generally to rotation sensors and particularly to fiber optic rotation sensors. Still more particularly, this invention relates to fiber optic rotation sensors including polarization maintaining optical fiber.
A fiber optic ring interferometer typically comprises a loop of fiber optic material that guides counter-propagating light waves. After traversing the loop, the counter-propagating waves are combined so that they constructively or destructively interfere to form an optical output signal. The intensity of the optical output signal varies as a function of the interference, which is dependent upon the relative phase of the counter-propagating waves.
Fiber optic ring interferometers have proven to be particularly useful for rotation sensing. Rotation of the loop creates a relative phase difference between the counter-propagating waves in accordance with the well known Sagnac effect. The amount of phase difference is a function of the angular velocity of the loop. The optical output signal produced by the interference of the counter-propagating waves varies in intensity as a function of the rotation rate of the loop. Rotation sensing is accomplished by detecting the optical output signal and processing it to determine the rotation rate.
In order to be suitable for inertial navigation applications, a rotation sensor must have a very wide dynamic range. The rotation sensor must be capable of detecting rotation rates as low as 0.01 degrees per hour and as high as 1,000 degrees per second. The ratio of the upper limit to lower limit to be measured is approximately 10.sup.9.
Some familiarity with polarization of light and propagation of light within an optical fiber will facilitate an understanding of the present invention. Therefore, a brief description of the concepts used to describe the propagation and polarization of a light wave in a fiber will be presented.
An optical fiber comprises a central core and a surrounding cladding. The refractive index of the cladding is greater than that of the core. The diameter of the core is so small that light incident upon the core-cladding interface remains in the core by internal reflections.
It is well-known that a light wave may be represented by a time-varying electromagnetic field comprising orthogonal electric and magnetic field vectors having a frequency equal to the frequency of the light wave. An electromagnetic wave propagating through a guiding structure can be described by a set of normal modes. The normal modes are the permissible distributions of the electric and magnetic fields within the guiding structure, for example, a fiber optic waveguide. The field distributions are directly related to the distribution of energy within the structure. The normal modes are generally represented by mathematical functions that describe the field components in the wave in terms of the frequency and spatial distribution in the guiding structure. The specific functions that describe the normal modes of a waveguide depend upon the geometry of the waveguide. For an optical fiber, where the guided wave is confined to a structure having a circular cross section of fixed dimensions, only fields having certain frequencies and spatial distributions will propagate without severe attenuation. The waves having field components that propagate with low attenuation are called normal modes. A single mode fiber will propagate only one spatial distribution of energy, that is, one normal mode, for a signal of a given frequency.
In describing the normal modes, it is convenient to refer to the direction of the electric and magnetic fields relative to the direction of propagation of the wave. If only the electric field vector is perpendicular to the direction of propagation, which is usually called the optic axis, then the wave is a transverse electric (TE) mode. If only the magnetic field vector is perpendicular to the optic axis, the wave is a transverse magnetic (TM) mode. If both the electric and magnetic field vectors are perpendicular to the optic axis, then the wave is a transverse electromagnetic (TEM) mode.
None of the normal modes require a definite direction of the field components; and in a TE mode, for example, the electric field may be in any direction that is perpendicular to the optic axis. The direction of the electric field vector in an electromagnetic wave is the polarization of the wave. In general, a wave will have random polarization in which there is a uniform distribution of electric field vectors pointing in all directions permissible for a given mode. If all the electric field vectors in a wave point in only a particular direction, the wave is linearly polarized. If the electric field consists of two orthogonal electric field components of equal magnitude phase shifted by 90 degrees from each other, the electric field is circularly polarized, because the net electric field is a vector that rotates around the propagation direction at an angular velocity equal to the frequency of the wave. If the two linear polarizations are unequal or phased other than 90 degrees from each other, the wave has elliptical polarization. In general, any arbitrary polarization can be represented by the sum of two orthogonal linear polarizations, two oppositely directed circular polarizations or two counter rotating elliptical polarizations that have orthogonal major axes.
The boundary between the core and cladding is a dielectric interface at which certain well-known boundary conditions on the field components must be satisfied. For example, the component of the electric field parallel to the interface must be continuous. A single mode optical fiber propagates electromagnetic energy having an electric field component perpendicular to the core-cladding interface. Since the fiber core has an index of refraction greater than that of the cladding; and light impinges upon the interface at angles greater than or equal to the critical angle, essentially all of the electric field remains in the core by internal reflection at the interface. To satisfy both the continuity and internal reflection requirements, the radial electric field component in the cladding must be a rapidly decaying exponential function. An exponentially decaying electric field is usually called the evanescent field.
The velocity of an optical signal depends upon the index of refraction of the medium through which the light propagates. Certain materials have different refractive indices for different polarizations. A material that has two refractive indices is said to be birefringent. The polarization of the signal propagating along a single mode optical fiber is sometimes referred to as a mode. A standard single mode optical fiber may be regarded as a two mode fiber because it will propagate two waves of the same frequency and spatial distribution that have two different polarizations. Two different polarization components of the same normal mode can propagate through a birefringent material unchanged except for a velocity difference between the two polarizations.
Circular birefringence, linear birefringence, and elliptical birefringence are each described with reference to different polarization modes. If a material exhibits circular birefringence, the polarization of a light wave is expressed as a combination of two counter-rotating components. One of the circular polarizations is referred to as "right-hand circular" while the other is referred to as "left-hand circular". In a non-birefringent material both right hand and left hand circular polarizations travel at the same velocity. The counterrotating electric field vectors of the circularly polarized components of the light represent the polarization modes for circular birefringence. If the light is linearly polarized, the circular polarization vectors are in phase with one another and are of equal amplitude. If the light is elliptically polarized, the circular polarization vectors are of unequal amplitudes or phase. In general, elliptically polarized light may have varying degrees of ellipticity; and the polarization may range from linearly polarized at one extreme to circularly polarized at the other extreme.
In a circularly birefringent material, the velocity of propagation of one circular polarization vector is greater than the velocity of propagation of the counterrotating polarization vector. Similarly, in a material that is linearly birefringent, the propagation velocity of the light in one of the linearly polarized modes is greater than the propagation velocity of the light in the other normal linearly polarized mode. Elliptical birefringence results when both linear birefringence and circular birefringence exist at a point in a material through which the light wave is propagating. The elliptical birefringence affects the polarization of light in a complex manner which depends, in part, upon the relative magnitudes of the linear birefringence and the circular birefringence.
In summary, any polarized light can be represented by two circularly polarized waves having proper phase and amplitude; two elliptically rotating components or two perpendicular linearly polarized electric field components.
It is well known that to minimize errors in many fiber optic systems it may be desirable to have light of a known polarization state at selected points for input to optical devices whose operation is polarization dependent. The state of polarization is particularly important in some optical fiber rotation sensors. In a fiber rotation sensing system that uses polarized light drift errors due to changes in polarization are determined by the quality of the polarizer.
A linear polarization state in a fiber optic rotation sensor is typically achieved with some type of linear polarizer such as the fiber optical polarizer described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,386,822 to Bergh. The polarization state input to the polarizer is arbitrary in general. The polarizer couples light of undesired polarizations out of the fiber and permits light having only a selected desired polarization to propagate through the fiber. Bergh discloses a fiber optic polarizer including a length of optical fiber mounted in a curved groove in a quartz substrate. The substrate and a portion of the optical fiber are ground and polished to remove a portion of the cladding from the fiber to form an interaction region. The portion of the fiber in the groove is convexly curved as viewed toward the polished surface. The birefringent crystal mounted on the substrate over the interaction region in close proximity to the core of the fiber optical material. The crystal is positioned to partially intersect the path of light propagating in the optical fiber so that evanescent field coupling couples light of undesired polarizations from the optical fiber into the crystal.
Bias error is the primary source of error in using fiber optic Sagnac rings as rotation sensors. The bias of a rotation sensor is the signal output when there is no signal input. If the bias is constant, then it may be subtracted from the output signal when there is a signal input to determine the response of the rotation sensor to the input signal. However, the bias does not remain constant over time and temperature variations.
The principal source of bias error in fiber gyroscopes results from an imperfect polarizer and polarization cross coupling in the fiber. An ideal polarizer should have an infinite extinction ratio. The extinction ratio of a polarizer is the ratio of the intensity of the undesired polarization in the output signal to its intensity in the input signal. This error source was first identified by Kintner, Opt. Lett., Vol. 20, No. 6, p. 154 (1981). Polarization instability manifests itself in optical interferometric systems in a manner analogous to signal fading in classical communications systems.
Fiber optic gyroscopes operating with poalrized light require polarizers having extinction ratios in excess of 100 dB to keep bias errors below 0.01 deg/hr. Previous fiber optic gyroscopes using unpolarized light require extinction ratios in the 60-100 dB range and require the use of high quality polarization maintaining (PM) fiber throughout the gyroscope. Benefits of using PM fiber in fiber optic gyroscopes are reduced polarizer extinction ration requirements and reduced bias error due to the Faraday effect. It is also unnecessary to use active polarization control when PM fiber is used to form the gyroscope. However, PM fiber is so expensive that it is impractical to use it throughout a fiber optic gyroscope.


A light condensing lens includes a plurality of lenses disposed side by side in a splitting direction of a view angle to condense incident light over a range corresponding to respective split portions of the view angle. The view angle is split in a direction orthogonal to an optical axis of the incident light.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technical field of light condensing lenses and three-dimensional distance measuring apparatuses. More particularly, the present invention relates to the technical field of light condensing lenses for condensing laser light on a light receiving element including a plurality of lenses disposed side by side in a splitting direction of a view angle to secure a sufficient amount of light received by the light receiving element and to reduce the light receiving area of the light receiving element.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are some distance measuring apparatuses that measure the distance to an object to be measured using laser light as measurement light.
Examples of such distance measuring apparatuses include an apparatus that modulates laser light and irradiates an object to be measured with the modulated laser light to measure a distance by detecting the phase difference between the light emitted from a laser light source toward the object to be measured and the light incident on a light receiving element after being reflected by the object to be measured.
Other examples include a distance measuring apparatus that emits a laser pulse to an object to be measured to measure a distance by measuring the round-trip period of the laser pulse from the emission from a laser light source to the incidence on a light receiving element after the laser pulse is reflected by the object to be measured.
The distance measuring apparatuses described above may be, for example, incorporated in an industrial robot to measure the distance from the robot to an object to be measured provided around the robot, incorporated in a vehicle to measure the distance between vehicles, and so forth. The distance measuring apparatuses may also be incorporated in a gaming device to measure the distance from a predetermined position to a user as an object to be measured.
In some distance measuring apparatuses, a light projecting mirror is turned in a predetermined direction to linearly scan an object to be measured with laser light reflected by the light projecting mirror in order to measure a two-dimensional distance (see Japanese Patent No. 3908226, Japanese Patent No. 3875665, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-162659, for example).
In other distance measuring apparatuses, the entire apparatus is turned about a turning axis that is different from the turning axis of a light projecting mirror, or a group of prisms is turned to expand a scanning region for an object to be measured in order to measure a three-dimensional distance (see Japanese Patent No. 4059911 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-98379, for example).
In still other distance measuring apparatuses, scanning is repeatedly performed with laser light using a galvano mirror or a MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) mirror as a light projecting mirror to measure a two-dimensional or three-dimensional distance.

Light condensing lens and three-dimensional distance measuring apparatus


According to the present invention, there is provided a method for reliably storing data in a computer system. The method includes receiving a piece of data to be stored at a storage system. In addition, the method includes writing a first copy of the data to the storage system according to a first data redundancy scheme. Also, the method includes writing a second copy of the data to the storage system according to a second data redundancy scheme. Also, the system includes maintaining metadata of the data written to the storage system according to the second data redundancy scheme. In addition, the method includes copying the data written to the storage system according to the second data redundancy scheme to a backup storage system, wherein the copying is performed in response to a defined condition being met. Moreover, removing the data written to the storage system according to the second data redundancy scheme after it has been copied to the backup storage system.

Data is one of the most important assets of an organization especially as organizations rely more and more on data processing systems for their daily operations. Any loss of data or even loss of access to the data is therefore potentially very costly. For example, an hour of down time for a system handling brokerage operations has been estimated to cost eight million dollars.
Current methods for preventing data loss include using RAID (redundant arrays of inexpensive disks) Using RAID protection alone is, however, not sufficient or cost effective. Furthermore, the industry and technology trends (e.g., building cost-effective storage systems with low-end SATA disks) are such that increasingly higher degrees of redundancies are needed, which is costly both in terms of dollars and performance. RAID protection is therefore typically augmented by periodically copying the data onto a secondary system such as a tape library in a process referred to as backup. When the primary system fails, the data can be retrieved from the secondary system through a process called restore. If the data is copied to a system that is geographically separated from the primary system, the data will be available to allow the organization to continue its business even after a disaster at the primary site. This is usually referred to as remote copying or mirroring. A straightforward approach for backup and restore is to blindly (i.e. without considering the block contents) perform a block-by-block copy from the primary system to the secondary system and vice versa. This, however, results in a lot of unnecessary data copying which wastes processing and network bandwidth. In addition, backup and restore have to be performed on entire volumes of data. As both the retention period and the amount of data stored grow, such an approach is increasingly impractical.
An alternative is to perform the backup at the file level in which case the system knows when a file was last updated so that it can choose to backup only those files that have been updated since the last backup. Backing up only the updated files is called incremental backup. File-level backup also makes it possible to selectively backup and restore files. Backing up only the updated files does not, however, work well for important applications such as databases that store data in very large files. This is because an entire file is transferred to the secondary system even when only a single byte of that file is changed. Ideally, we want the system to perform "true" incremental backup, copying to the secondary system only the portions of the data that have actually changed. Detecting the changed portions is however difficult and requires substantial processing and I/O. For example, the system would have to keep previous versions of the data or summaries (e.g., hash values) of previous versions, and perform comparisons. Besides the problems outlined above, current approaches for data protection work independently, often performing a lot of redundant processing (e.g., backup and remote copy). More importantly, they do not offer a holistic or integrated way to manage and reduce data loss. For instance, RAID protects all the data in an array to the same extent even though some are more important (e.g., more recently written) and some have already been backed up. This is clearly not optimal from the overall perspective of reducing data loss. There remains therefore a great need for a holistic approach to reliably store data and to efficiently perform true incremental backup and remote copy. The present invention satisfies this need by preferentially handling data that has yet to be copied to a secondary system.

System and method for reliably storing data and providing efficient incremental backup and asynchronous mirroring by preferentially handling new data

International Business Machines Corporation


Analogs of CCK-tetrapeptides, which analogs have the formula ##STR1## wherein A, B, D, R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.3, and R.sup.4 are specifically defined, having activity as CCK antagonists, useful in the treatment or prevention of disorders of the gastrointestinal, central nervous, appetite regulating or pain regulating systems.

Cholecystokinins (CCK) are a family of polypeptide hormones. CCK and a 33 amino acid fragment of CCK (CCK.sub.33) were first isolated from hog intestine. (Mutt and Jorpes, Biochem. J., 125,628, 1981). Recently the CCK.sub.33 fragment has been found in the brain, where it appears to be the precursor of two smaller fragments, an octapeptide CCK.sub.8 and a tetrapeptide CCK.sub.4 (Dockray, Nature, 264, 4022, 1979).
CCK.sub.8, the carboxyl terminal octapeptide fragment of CCK, is the smallest CCK fragment that remains fully biologically-active. (Larsson and Rehfeld, Brain Res. 165,201-218, 1979). The localization of CCK fragments in the cortex of the brain suggests that CCK may be an important neuromodulator of memory, learning and control of primary sensory and motor functions. CCK and its fragments are believed to play an important role in appetite regulation and satiety. (Della-Fera, Science. 206,471, 1979; Gibbs et al., Nature, 289, 599, 1981; and Smith, Eating and Its Disorders, Raven Press, New York, p. 67, 1984).
CCK antagonists (B. J. Gertz in Neurology and Neurobiology, Vol 47, Cholecystokinin Antagonists, Wang and Schoenfeld, eds., Alan R. Liss, Inc., New York, N.Y., pp. 327-342, 1988; Silverman et al., Am J Gastroent, 82(8), 703-8, 1987) are useful in the treatment and prevention of CCK-related disorders of the gastrointestinal (GI) (Lotti et al., J. Pharm Exp Therap, 241(1), 103-9, 1987), central nervous (CNS) (Panerai et al., Neuropharmacology, 26(9), 1285-87, 1987) and appetite regulatory systems of animals, especially man. CCK antagonists are also useful in potentiating and prolonging opiate induced analgesia and thus have utility in the treatment of pain. (Faris et al., Science 226, 1215, 1984; Rovati et al., Clinical Research, 34(2), 406A, 1986; Dourish et al., European J. Pharmacology, 147, 469-72, 1988). Disease states that may be treated with CCK antagonists are disorders of gastric emptying, gastroesophageal reflux disease (Setnikar et al, Arzn Forsch./Drug Research, 37(II) 10, 1168-71, 1987), pancreatitis, pancreatic and gastric carcinomas (Douglas et al., Gastroent, 96, 4629, 1989; Beauchamp et al., Am Surg. 202, 313-9, 1985), disorders of bowel motility, biliary dyskinesia, anorexia nervosa, hypoglycemia (Rossetti, Diabetes, 36, 1212-15, 1987; Reagan, European J. Pharmacology, 144, 241-3, 1987), gallbladder disease, and the like.
Previously four distinct chemical classes of CCK receptor antagonists have been reported. The first class comprises derivatives of cyclic nucleotides as represented by dibutyryl cyclic GMP (Barlos et al., Am, J. Physiol., 242, G161, 1982) and references sited therein). The second class is represented by the C-terminal fragments of CCK (see Jensen et al., Biochem. Biophys. Acta, 757, 250 1983) and Spanarkel, J. Biol. Chem. 258, 6746, 1983). The third class comprises amino acid derivatives of glutamic acid and tryptophan as indicated by proglumide (and its analogs) and benzotript, very simple analogs of CCK (see Hahne et al., Proc. Natl. Acad, Sci. U.S.A., 78, 6304, 1981 and Jensen et al., Biochem. Biophys. Acta. 761,269, 1983). The fourth and most recent class is comprised of 3-substituted benzodiazepines, represented by L-364,718 (see: Evans et al., Proc. Natl, Acad, Sci, U.S.A., 83 4918, 1986).
With the exception of certain substituted benzodiazepines and recently reported analogs of proglumide (Makovec et al., Arzneim.-Forsch./Drug Res. 36,(I), 98-102, 1986; European Patent Application No. 0,272,228; PCT Patent Application No. WO 88/05774), all of these compounds are relatively weak antagonists of CCK usually demonstrating IC.sub.50 's between 10.sup.-4 and 10.sup.-6 M. The benzodiazepine CCK antagonists or their metabolites may have undesirable effects in vivo due to their interaction with benzodiazepine or other receptors.
The C-terminal pentapeptide fragment of CCK is the same as the C-terminal pentapeptide fragment of another polypeptide hormone, gastrin Gastrin, like CCK, exists in the GI system. Gastrin antagonists are useful in the treatment and prevention of gastrin related disorders of the GI system such as ulcers, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome and central G cell hyperplasia. There are no effective receptor antagonists of the in vivo effects of gastrin. (Morely, Gut Pept. Ulcer Proc., Hiroshima Symp. 2nd, 1, 1983). A recent report (Bock J. Med. Chem., 32, 13-16, 1989) discloses potent in vitro gastrin antagonists.
Analogs of proglumide have also been disclosed by Freidinger (U.S. Pat. 4,860,938) and Nadzan and Kerwin (U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,978), but both require a carboxylate or carboxyalkyl terminal group, respectively, and neither possesses the novel combinations of activity and selectivity of the instant invention.


A method of producing alkoxysilanes and precipitated silicas from biogenic silicas is provided. In a first step, biogenically concentrated silica is mixed with a liquid polyol to obtain a mixture, and then the mixture is heated. In a second step, a base is added to obtain a reaction mixture. In a third step, the reaction mixture is filtered to remove the carbon enriched RHA or other undissolved biogenic silica and recover the solution of alkoxysilane and alcoholate. In a fourth step, alkoxysilane is purified by filtering, distilling, precipitating or extracting from the original reaction solution to precipitate various forms of silica. In a final step, residual base present in alkoxysilane is neutralized to eliminate the residual alkali metal base.

The present invention relates to a method of producing alkoxysilanes and precipitated silicas from biogenic silicas. Many plants ranging from diatoms to grasses to trees take soluble silica from water sources and transport it within their systems and deposit it in various forms and places ranging from the shells of diatoms, to the cells of hard woods, to rice hulls and stalks. In the majority of instances the transport systems involved in the biosilification process are not designed to also transport heavy metals. Consequently biogenically deposited silica is relatively free of heavy metal impurities making it a prospective source for high purity silicon containing materials ranging from alkoxysilanes to silica to silicon nitride to silicon carbide to silicon metal. Biogenically produced silica can be defined as being a sustainable resource as for example in the case of any currently grown silica accumulating plant. Their availability in industrially meaningful quantities as byproducts of existing human efforts to produce food and fiber makes this resource commercially important.
For example, according to Non-Patent references 1 to 4, rice hulls are produced in 100 million ton quantities annually as a generally undesirable byproduct of rice milling. They can contain 12-20 wt % silica in an amorphous, high surface area form. There are now multiple studies in the patent and open literature on the recovery of silicon containing materials from rich hulls. Thus, rice hulls and rice hull ash have been used as a starting point to make solar grade silicon, silicon carbide, silicon nitride and also to recover relatively pure silica through dissolution with a base such as alkali or alkaline earth carbonates or hydroxides, tetramethylammonium or choline hydroxide as noted in the following references and references used in these papers which are incorporated herein as prior art.

Method of producing alkoxysilanes and precipitated silicas from biogenic silicas