A via conductor connected to a mounting electrode near a corner portion of a circuit substrate is provided in a position in a corresponding mounting electrode, located closer to the center of the circuit substrate. Thus, concentration of a stress in a portion of the via conductor is effectively reduced, and a break, a chip, or a crack is prevented from occurring to the circuit substrate. Even if the portion located closer to the corner portion of the mounting electrode is peeled from the circuit substrate, the electrical characteristics of the circuit module are secured because disconnection between the corresponding mounting electrode and the via conductor is prevented.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit module including a circuit substrate in which a plurality of land-shaped mounting electrodes are provided on one main surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, further downsizing of mobile terminals has been desired, and further miniaturization and further lowering of heights of circuit modules (high-frequency electronic modules) to be mounted on the mother substrates or the like of mobile terminals has been requested, examples of the circuit modules including a Bluetooth module (registered trademark), a wireless LAN module such as WiFi, and an antenna switch module used for a cellular phone. Such a circuit module includes a circuit substrate where a semiconductor element such as a transistor, an FET, a diode, or an IC or a component such as a resistance element, a capacitor element, or an inductor element is mounted on the front surface of the circuit substrate and a plurality of land-shaped mounting electrodes are formed on the back surface thereof. In addition, since the miniaturization of circuit modules and the lowering of the heights thereof have been requested, the miniaturization of circuit substrates included in the circuit modules has been advanced, and the miniaturization of mounting electrodes formed on the circuit substrates has also been advanced.
With the progress of the miniaturization of mounting electrodes formed on a circuit substrate included in a circuit module in this way, there is a possibility that torsion or a stress is concentrated in a portion on which a mounting electrode in the circuit substrate configuring the circuit module is formed, and a break, a chip, a crack, or the like occurs in the circuit substrate, the torsion being applied to the circuit substrate when the circuit module is mounted on the mother substrate or the like at the time of the assembly of a mobile terminal, the stress being due to an impact or the like occurring, for example, when a mobile terminal has fallen that includes a mother substrate on which the circuit module is mounted via solder or the like.
In addition, the circuit module is repeatedly heated and cooled or an external impact is applied thereto, for example, when the circuit module is mounted on a mother substrate in a mobile terminal or the like and hence, in particular corner portions in the four corners of the circuit substrate may be curved or warped. Therefore, there is a possibility that a mounting electrode is peeled from the circuit substrate. In this way, when a break, a chip, or a crack has occurred in the circuit substrate or a mounting electrode has been peeled from the circuit substrate, a via conductor in the circuit substrate or a transmission line such as a wiring pattern formed within the circuit substrate is damaged, and hence, there is a possibility that a failure of the mobile terminal is caused.
Therefore, so as to prevent a break, a chip, or a crack from occurring in the circuit substrate or a mounting electrode from being peeled from the circuit substrate, it has been proposed that, as for four mounting electrodes formed close to four corners of a circuit substrate, corner portions closest to the four corners of the circuit substrate are cut off and chamfered For example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-26312, paragraphs [0001] to [0029], FIG. 1, or the like.
In other words, as illustrated in the bottom view of a circuit module of the related art in FIG. 5, in a circuit substrate 501 included in a circuit module 500, from among a plurality of rectangular-shaped mounting electrodes 502 formed on a main surface on a side to be mounted on a mother substrate, as for the four mounting electrodes 502 formed close to the four corners of the circuit substrate 501 and surrounded by dotted lines in the drawing, corners closest to the four corners are subjected to chamfering so that a chamfering amount c becomes a/5 to a/2 ("a" is the length of the shortest side of the mounting electrode 502). Since such a configuration is adopted, a stress applied to the circuit substrate 501 by an external impact such as torsion applied to the circuit substrate 501 is reduced, and a break, a chip, a crack, or the like are prevented from occurring in the circuit substrate 501. In addition, when curves or warps occur in the vicinity of the four corners of the circuit substrate 501 due to the heating or the cooling or the application of the external impact, in particular portions in the mounting electrodes 502, which are close to the four corners of the circuit substrate 501, are prevented from being peeled from the circuit substrate 501.
As illustrated in FIG. 5, as for the four mounting electrodes 502 formed close to the four corners of the circuit substrate 501, corners closest to the four corners of the circuit substrate 501 are subjected to chamfering, and hence, a break, a chip, a crack, or the like are prevented from occurring in the circuit substrate 501 due to the external impact or the mounting electrode 502 is prevented from being peeled due to the circuit substrate 501 being curved. However, the further improvement of the technique has been desired.


Systems and methods for determining an aircraft flightline delivery schedule are disclosed. In one embodiment a method includes receiving a set of milestones for delivery of the plurality of aircraft, receiving a set of costs for set of milestones, receiving a set of scheduling constraints, generating a network flow chart for each aircraft in the plurality of aircraft, the network flow chart having an order of milestones for delivery of the aircraft, determining a cost of delivery for each aircraft in the plurality of aircraft based on the network flow chart and the set of costs for the milestones, determining the aircraft flight line delivery schedule for delivery of the plurality of aircraft based on reducing a total cost for delivery of the plurality of aircraft, and outputting the determined aircraft flight line delivery schedule.

Aircraft go through several milestones after they roll out of the factory and into the flightlines and delivery centers for customers. The milestones include inspections, painting, ticketing, customer walkthroughs, manufacturer test flights, customer test flights, delivery, and the like. Many of these milestones may be scheduled in any order, and executing these milestones requires resources. For example, an aircraft may be in a paint hanger for several days while being painted, a flightline must be available to perform an inspection, and a flight crew must be available to perform test flights.
Different scheduling options include painting an aircraft before or after test flights and inspections, painting at a manufacturer facility or an outsourced facility and the like. When performing all the final delivery steps for multiple aircraft at the same time, determining an optimized schedule for the final delivery tasks for all aircraft easily becomes a time-consuming task. Given the sheer number of combinations and permutations of scheduling the events, it would be impossible to complete a flight line delivery schedule in a time period to be useful for the delivery of those aircraft without the use of computer processing equipment.
Present systems and methods for scheduling flight line delivery tasks of aircraft include compiling numerous spreadsheets and involves a manually intensive trial-and-error process of attempting to produce a flight line delivery schedule. This is an extremely time intensive effort and often produces sub-optimal results that have higher costs and delivery lead times than what could be achieved.

Flight line delivery scheduling systems and methods


Apparatus for cleaning an internal water line of a household appliance, in particular of a refrigerating device, includes a chamber which contains a cleaning substance or can be filled with the cleaning substance. An inlet connection is in communication with the chamber and configured identical to an inlet connection of the internal water line, and an outlet connection is in communication with the chamber and configured to complement the inlet connection of the apparatus.

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for cleaning an internal water line of a household appliance, in particular of a refrigerating device.
Refrigerating devices with an integrated ice-maker and/or cold water dispenser are enjoying increasing popularity. Refrigerating devices of this type usually have an internal water line which is connected to a mains water supply network in order to be able to immediately refill an integrated storage container of the cold water dispenser or a molded tray of the ice maker after each withdrawal, so that sufficient cold water or ice is available at any time. The water outlet points of the water dispenser and/or the ice maker are usually not provided with a hermetically closing stop valve, thereby rendering it possible for germs to spread from these water outlet points into the storage container and/or the internal water line of the device. It is therefore desirable to clean this internal water line from time to time. Such cleaning must usually be carried out by the service department of the refrigerating device manufacturer and is therefore both complicated for a user to organize and costly.

Apparatus and system for cleaning a water line


The present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus and method that can keep reduction in coding efficiency to a minimum. A scaling list is set that has values appropriate to a current block size for the current block to be quantized in an image to be coded, quantization is performed using the set scaling list, and coded data is generated by coding an acquired quantization coefficient. The present disclosure is applicable, for example, to an image processing apparatus, an image coding apparatus, an image decoding apparatus, and so on.

Recent years have seen efforts underway to standardize a coding scheme referred to as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) by JCTVC (Joint Collaboration Team-Video Coding), a joint standardization organization formed by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector) and ISO/IEC (International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission) with an aim of further improving coding efficiency beyond that with MPEG-4 Part10 (Advanced Video Coding; hereinafter denoted as AVC) (refer, for example, to NPL 1).
In HEVC, a TU (Transform Unit) can be set to a size from 4×4 pixels T032×32 pixels as a processing unit of an orthogonal transform process.


A method of forming an array substrate, the array substrate and a display device are provided. The method of forming the array substrate includes: in a case that a display unit is formed on one of two opposite surfaces of a base substrate and a driving circuit is formed on the other of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate, performing a roughening treatment on edge regions of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and a side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces, to form a roughened region; and forming, at the roughened region, a metal wiring connecting a signal input terminal of the display unit and a signal output terminal of the driving circuit.

A micro-LED display panel has the advantages of ultra-high pixel count, ultra-high resolution, low energy consumption and long life. Compared with Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED), Micro-LED display panel can reduce the distance between pixels to an um level to further optimize the display effect. Therefore, the micro-LED display device is becoming more and more popular in the market.
In a related art, in order to realize a large-size display of a Micro-LED display device, the plurality of small-size Micro-LED display panels need to be spliced together. A front surface and a back surface of each Micro-LED display panels need to be electrically connected. In the related art, the electrical connection between the front faces and back faces of the Micro-LED display panels is prone to misalignment and disconnection, resulting in poor display effects.
A method of forming an array substrate, an array substrate and a display device are provided in the present disclose.
In a first aspect, a method of forming an array substrate is provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure, including:
in a case that a display unit is formed on one of two opposite surfaces of a base substrate and a driving circuit is formed on the other of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate, performing a roughening treatment on edge regions of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and a side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces, to form a roughened region; and
forming, at the roughened region, a metal wiring connecting a signal input terminal of the display unit and a signal output terminal of the driving circuit.
Further, the forming, at the roughened region, the metal wiring connecting the signal input terminal of the display unit and the signal output terminal of the driving circuit includes:
oxidizing the roughened region to form an oxide layer at the roughened region;
immersing the oxide layer in a solvent containing metal ions, to deposit the metal ions at the roughened region to form a transition pattern; and
forming an electroplating layer by an electroplating process on the transition pattern serving as a electroplating seed layer, where the electroplating layer and the transition pattern together form the metal wiring connecting the signal input terminal of the display unit and the signal output terminal of the driving circuit.
Further, the oxidizing the roughened region to form the oxide layer at the roughened region includes:
immersing the roughened region in an oxidizing solution, forming the oxide layer at the roughened region.
Further, the oxidizing solution is a potassium permanganate solution.
Further, subsequent to the forming the oxide layer at the roughened region and prior to the immersing the oxide layer in the solvent containing the metal ions, the method further includes:
cleaning the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces, to remove portions not be oxidized.
Further, the metal ions are silver ions or copper ions.
Further, the method further includes:
performing the roughening treatment on the overall edge regions of two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces, and forming the roughened region,
performing an electroplating at the overall roughened region to form an electroplating layer;
determining a predetermined metal wiring region at the roughened region; and
etching and removing the electroplating layer outside the predetermined metal wiring region by a laser etching process, to form the metal wiring.
Further, the performing the electroplating at the overall roughened region is electroplating copper.
Further, the performing the roughening treatment on the edge regions of two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces to form the roughened region includes:
irradiating the edge regions of two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces by laser, to increase a roughness degree of the edge regions of two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces and forming the roughened region.
Further, the performing the roughening treatment on the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the side surface of the base substrate connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces to form the roughened region includes:
there exist a plurality of roughened regions spaced apart from each other, the plurality of roughened regions are in a one-to-one correspondence to the metal wirings, the metal wirings are formed within the roughened regions.
In a second aspect, an array substrate formed by the method hereinabove is further provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure, including:
the base substrate, where the display unit is formed on one of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate and the driving circuit is formed on the other of the two opposite surfaces of the base substrate, the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces and the side surface connecting the edge regions of the two opposite surfaces includes the roughened region;
the metal wiring, where the metal wiring is formed at the roughened region and is configured to connect the signal input terminal of the display unit and the signal output terminal of the driving circuit.
Further, an oxide layer formed by an oxidizing process is arranged at the roughened region, an electroplating seed layer formed by a metal ion deposition is arranged at the roughened region, where the metal wiring is formed on the electroplating seed layer by an electroplating process.
Further, the display units are arranged on an upper surface of the base substrate in an array form, the display unit include a thin film transistor array layer and a Micro LED, the thin film transistor array layer is between the Micro LED and the base substrate.
Further, the display unit and/or the driving circuit are covered by a peelable protective film.
Further, there exist a plurality of roughened regions spaced apart from each other, the plurality of roughened regions are in a one-to-one correspondence to the metal wirings.
In a third aspect, a display device including the array substrate hereinabove is further provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Method of forming array substrate, array substrate and display device

BEIJING BOE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.

Beijing BOE Technology Development Co., Ltd.


Aspects of the invention provide methods and architectures for enhancing the reliability of computer appliances and reducing the possibilities that human intervention is necessary in the event of a system failure or failure condition. The provided architecture is extensible and provides a generalized framework that is adaptable to many different types of computer appliances. One aspect of the invention provides a boot up redundancy component to ensure that a computer appliance can be appropriately booted. In the described embodiment, the appliance hard drive is configured with multiple partitions that can be utilized to boot the appliance thereby reducing the chances that the appliance will not boot. In addition, an architecture is disclosed that comprises one or more resource monitoring components that monitor an associated appliance resource for a failure condition. The resource monitoring components are programmed to attempt to remedy certain failure conditions that they detect. An appliance monitoring service is also provided and is programmed to attempt to remedy failure conditions that are not remedied by one or more of the resource monitoring objects.

This invention relates generally to computer appliances and, more particularly, concerns automated recovery and reliability methods and systems.
Computer appliances are becoming ever more popular. A xe2x80x9ccomputer appliancexe2x80x9d is a computing device that is similar in some respects to a general purpose computer. That is, a computer appliance can typically have many of the same constituent components that a general purpose computer has (e.g. one or more microprocessors, storage devices, memory, an operating system and the like). Computer appliances are different, however, because they typically have a fixed function that does not or cannot vary. Specifically, computer appliances are designed and programmed to implement very specific types of functionality. Many different types of computer appliances can exist. For example, a server appliance can be designed to implement functionalities that include file sharing, Internet sharing, and print sharing. Other types of appliances can include set top boxes that are used in connection with viewing multimedia presentations on a television, or hardware systems that are designed to control a home security system. In addition to having a fixed functionality, computer appliances are often characterized in that they sell for a price that is much less than that of a general purpose computer. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that computer appliances are designed to do only a limited number of things. In addition, computer appliances are often of a form factor that can be xe2x80x9ctransparentxe2x80x9d to the owner or user. That is, a user can simply xe2x80x9ctuckxe2x80x9d the computer appliance away and, after a while, may not even be aware that it exists (except for the fact that the appliance is implementing a functionality that the user desires). Another characterizing feature of some computer appliances is that they can lack a user display and/or other mechanisms that allow a user to interact with them (e.g. a keyboard, mouse input etc.). This is much different from a general purpose computer that typically has a display through which it can communicate with a user and user mechanisms such as a keyboard and mouse input. This is an important distinction when consideration is given to the problems that the current invention is directed to solving.
Computer appliances, by their very nature, are designed to execute software. That is, specific software applications and operating systems can be designed for operation in connection with the different appliances. And, because the functionalities of appliances can vary widely, so too can the software applications and operating systems with which they are used. Often times, software applications (such as device drivers) and operating systems for these computer appliances are designed by third parties known as original equipment manufacturers (or OEMs). As careful as designers of software and operating systems are, however, there are still instances when the software or a particular resource that is designed to operate on the appliance will fail. A xe2x80x9cresourcexe2x80x9d refers to any type of hardware, software, or firmware resource that is used by the appliance to implement its functionality. For example, hardware resources can include, without limitation, communication lines, printers and the like. Software resources can include, without limitation, software applications, memory managers and the like.
It is highly desirable that computer appliances operate in a dependable, reliable manner. If a computer appliance experiences a system failure, for whatever reason, an end user is not usually going to be able to fix it (other than perhaps by shutting the appliance down and restarting it). This is quite different from a general purpose computer which, in many instances, will use the display to advise the user that there has been a particular system failure and might display a graphic user interface (GUI) to step the user through a remedial procedure. Many times, though, the general purpose computer""s system failure will require specialized knowledge which the end user simply does not have. In that case, the end user may have to contact a xe2x80x9c1-800xe2x80x9d help line to have a trouble shooter fix the problem. At any rate, system failures typically require human intervention.
In the context of many computer appliances, system failures are even more difficult to fix because of the absence of a display or user interface to advise the user of a problem.
Accordingly, this invention arose out of concerns associated with improving the operability and reliability of computer appliances and further enhancing the user experience thereof.
Two primary goals for an ideal computer appliance are that: (1) it run for an extended period of time (i.e. months) without user intervention, and (2) it run without a disruption of user services.
To achieve these and other goals, aspects of the invention provide methods and architectures for enhancing the reliability of computer appliances and reducing the possibilities that human intervention is necessary in the event of a system failure or failure condition. The provided architecture is extensible and provides a generalized framework that is adaptable to many different types of computer appliances.
One aspect of the invention provides a boot up redundancy component to ensure that a computer appliance can be appropriately booted. In the described embodiment, a single hard disk is configured for use in a single computer appliance. A second disk (mirror disk) can also be used to enhance reliability. In this case the system BIOS will boot from the secondary disk (which is configured exactly like the primary disk) if the primary disk fails (e.g. a hardware failure). A first operating system is resident on the single hard disk and is configured for booting the computer appliance. In addition, a second operating system is resident on the single hard disk and is configured for booting the computer appliance. The second operating system serves as a back up for the first operating system in the event that the computer appliance cannot be booted from the first operating system.
Another aspect of the invention provides an appliance-booting method that first attempts to boot the appliance from a first partition of a hard drive containing a first operating system. If this attempt is unsuccessful, then a second attempt to boot the computer appliance is made from a second partition of the hard drive. The second partition contains a second operating system that is configured as a back up operating system for the first operating system. The backup operating system can serve as a xe2x80x9cpristinexe2x80x9d operating system (in that it only functions to restore the first or xe2x80x9cprimaryxe2x80x9d operating system to a working state) or a fully functional system providing end user services. The preferable configuration is for the backup operating system to serve as a xe2x80x9cpristinexe2x80x9d operating system. A pristine operating system restores the primary operating system by quick formatting the primary operating system partition and then installing a copy of the primary operating system onto the newly formatted partition. The pristine operating system can also restore configuration settings of end user services when service configuration checkpointing (i.e. saving changes to service configuration in a location accessible from both the primary and pristine operating systems) is employed from the primary operating system.
Another aspect of the invention makes use of a xe2x80x9cboot count variablexe2x80x9d. The boot count variable is a variable that keeps track of the number of times attempts are made to boot a particular appliance. Each time an attempt is made to boot the appliance from a selected disk partition, the boot count variable is incremented. When the boot count variable reaches a certain threshold value after the appliance has not been successfully booted from the selected disk partition, another disk partition is utilized, if available, to attempt to boot the appliance. In this manner, software redundancy is provided and reliability is enhanced.
Another aspect of the invention provides an architecture for use in monitoring for, and attempting to remedy failure conditions that are associated with various resources of a computer appliance. In the described embodiment, one or more resource monitoring components are provided. Individual resource monitoring components are programmed to monitor the status of an associated computer appliance resource and to detect a failure condition in which the resource cannot be used by the computer appliance for its intended purpose. At least some of the resource monitoring components are programmed to attempt to remedy the failure condition in the event that the resource monitoring component detects a failure condition. An appliance monitoring service is provided and is configured to be in communication with the resource monitoring components. The appliance monitoring service is programmed to attempt to remedy failure conditions that cannot be remedied by the resource monitoring components. In the described embodiment, the resource monitoring components are implemented as programming objects having callable interfaces. In addition, the appliance monitoring service comprises an appliance monitor object and a global recovery object having callable interfaces. The appliance monitoring object can be called by one or more of the resource monitoring objects to report a resource failure condition. The appliance monitoring object can then call the global recovery object which contains a collection of recovery algorithms that can be implemented to recover the appliance.
Embodiments of the invention provide an automated, flexible, extendable appliance recovery system that greatly reduces that chances that human intervention is needed to recover an appliance that has experienced a system failure. In addition, the inventive methods and systems reduce the possibility that a particular system failure will disrupt end user services.

Automated recovery of computer appliances


In order to solve the problem that the resolution of a back-scattered electron image without a contrast difference between materials with close atomic numbers is low, an image processing apparatus that performs an image process on a back-scattered electron image as an input image includes: a material peak detection unit that determines a peak luminance value with a peak of a frequency of a luminance histogram based on a luminance value obtained for each measurement position by using the input image as an input and information about material-dependent back-scattered electron generation efficiency, and that outputs the peak luminance value for each material; and an image information adjustment unit that emphasizes a material-dependent contrast on the basis of the input image and the peak luminance value for each material.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments discussed herein generally relate to an image processing technology.
2. Related Art
Observation of fine patterns is required in various fields, such as semiconductor manufacturing and medical fields. For example, in the semiconductor manufacturing field, semiconductor devices and the like have been integrated or decreased in size to increasingly higher degrees, and improvements in performance of charged particle beam apparatuses for observing and measuring such samples are desired. For example, in a scanning electron microscope (hereafter referred to as "SEM"), which is a type of charged particle beam apparatus, high resolution and reproducibility are required. Also, in order to achieve high resolution and reproducibility, contrast and brightness of an image for sample observation, measurement, or inspection by the SEM need to be properly adjusted, and there is a room for improvement in relevant image processing technology.
Signal electrons that are emitted by excitation of atoms at the surface of an observed sample upon irradiation with an electron beam and that have low energy are referred to as "secondary electrons". When an edge portion of a sample pattern with convex-concave, such as a semiconductor circuit pattern, is irradiated with an electron beam, the amount of secondary electron generated is increased by an edge effect, resulting in an image with an irregularity-dependent contrast.
Electrons that are re-emitted from the sample surface in the process of scattering of the electron beam within the sample are referred to as "back-scattered electrons". The back-scattered electrons are signal electrons with high energy. The back-scattered electrons provide an image with a contrast that depends on the sample (material) composition, rather than the convex-concave of the sample.
In recent years, due to the increasingly complex processes for semiconductors, magnetic heads and the like, measuring of low-step samples with no convex-concave on the observed sample surface is required. In this case, the amount of secondary electron signal that is detected is decreased because of the low step. Thus, improved image quality and length measurement accuracy can be obtained by detecting the back-scattered electrons instead of, or together with, the secondary electrons, and by enhancing the edge or contrast information by composing a signal or image on the basis of the back-scattered electrons. Detection through the back-scattered electrons is also possible even when a barrier for the secondary electrons is formed by charging of the surface of a sample, such as a sample containing insulator material, on the order of several to several dozens of volts due to the irradiation by the electron beam during SEM observation. Because the contrast of a back-scattered electron image is determined depending on the atomic number of the material, a sharp image can be obtained from a pattern of materials with a large atomic number difference.
JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-208044 A discloses a contrast and brightness adjustment method for obtaining an appropriate gradation. The method involves acquiring a bright image and a dark image with respect to an original image acquired with a predetermined contrast or brightness, extracting a dark portion from the bright image, extracting a bright portion from the dark image, and then composing the extracted dark portion image and bright portion image.
However, according to the image processing technology using the contrast adjustment method disclosed in the above publication, when a back-scattered electron image of a pattern containing materials with close atomic numbers is acquired, the image has a small contrast difference.
As one of the ways to increase contrast partly so as to provide an image contrast difference, intermediate luminance emphasis is known. This technology, however, has the problem that when the luminance of various materials is expressed in a histogram, waveforms in the histogram are overlapped between the materials, so that the range for luminance emphasis cannot be properly set.
Thus, it is difficult to obtain high resolution according to the related art including the above technology. When the resolution is low during image observation, length measurement reproducibility, for example, is decreased.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method


Systems and methods described provide and add significant functionality to virtual and augmented reality display systems. For example, when a user is “immersed” in a virtual reality environment, certain home environmental parameters may be changed, or may change state, and efforts at energy conservation can be automatically or semi-automatically initiated, at least temporarily, while the user is in the virtual reality environment. This allows the user to reduce energy consumption in their home while they are immersed in the virtual reality world by automatically turning down output to lights and other devices that the user does not need while in the headset. Users are further provided with the benefit of notifications during their virtual reality experience, bridging the gap of separation from the outside world with regard to security by allowing users to remain “in” a virtual reality environment while they are still alerted of important activity in their surroundings.

Virtual reality devices have gone from being the ambit of only highly-expensive military and scientific hardware to that of a relatively inexpensive consumer electronics device. The overall field of virtual reality includes both true virtual reality (VR) in which a headset fills the entire view of a user, and also augmented reality in which the user or viewer employs see-through lenses to embellish or augment a real-life scene with computer-generated imagery.
Particularly in the case of true virtual reality (termed herein just virtual reality or "VR"), a user feels considerable immersion in a scene. A problem is that the user is unaware of goings-on in their environment, and the sense of immersion can be undesirably lessened by worries about their environment, including questions of security, safety, and the like. In a worst-case scenario, the user may be unaware if a fire alarm or an intruder alarm is going off. Certain systems allow "camera mode", where external surroundings may be viewed, but such is a reactive solution, and does not allow proactive action to be taken.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.

Security and environmental control based on virtual reality headset usage


A valve seat device including a valve seat and a seat stiffener, the seat stiffener formed from a non-elastomeric material and positioned on a radially outward-facing surface of the valve seat, an outer diameter of the radially outward-facing surface of the valve seat being greater than an inner diameter of the seat stiffener.

Valves, such as a butterfly valve, are typically installed in a fluid system, such as a water system. For example, a valve can be useful in temporarily preventing flow from one portion of a fluid system to another portion of the fluid system. A valve that does not seal effectively or that does not continue to seal effectively after repeated opening and closing, however, can result in costly repairs, unnecessarily frequent maintenance, and sometimes additional costs resulting from the valve's failure to completely stop the flow of fluid through the fluid system.


Methods and systems for use with solar devices. The present invention may be used with solar panels, solar dishes, or any other devices for which an optimal exposure to the sun is desired. The present invention first adjusts an azimuth of the solar device until an optimal solar exposure, from an azimuth point of view, is achieved. Then, an altitude of the solar collector is adjusted until an optimal solar exposure, from an altitude point of view, is achieved. The invention also uses a load compensation mean to alleviate the amount of lifting or braking torque needed from the motor to tilt the solar collector.

The current boom in green or environmentally friendly technologies has led to renewed interest in solar energy. The fluctuating but invariably high price of oil in recent memory and recent advances in solar energy collection technologies have made it possible for even individuals to supplant their energy supply needs with solar energy. Solar energy farms (known more generically as solar farms) are also increasing in number, some of which are even sending the energy they have collected to the regular electricity utility companies.
One field in which there has not been as much interest or development has been in the efficiency of the solar energy collectors. One would think that it would be useful to have energy efficient solar energy collectors collecting solar energy. Unfortunately, such has not been the case as current solar energy collectors are still using energy inefficient large electric motors.
As is well-known, solar energy systems need to track the sun to maximize their performance. For some solar energy systems which use devices such as parabolic dish, parabolic trough and central tower systems, it is necessary to continuously track the sun throughout the day, while for photovoltaic (PV) cells, it is highly recommended for the PV panels to track the sun for higher efficiency. In the morning at sunrise, the sun has the lowest altitude angle which reaches the maximum at the solar noon and again starts to decrease to the minimum at the sunset. Thus, the solar collector (dish/panel) is at almost vertical position in the morning and slowly moves toward a near horizontal position by the solar noon and then slowly returns to the vertical position by the sunset. As the sun changes its position very slowly, the movement of the solar collector should also be very slow i.e. a movement of a few centimeters every few minutes.
Currently, high power motors are used to move the solar collectors. In some cases actuators have also been used but they are limited by their stroke length. As the solar collector moves from vertical to the horizontal position, the motor has to push against the collector weight. However, as the solar collector moves from the horizontal to vertical position, the weight of the solar collector provides additional force which pushes the solar collector down. In such situations, the motor may have to counterbalance the weight for controlled and precise small movements. Since the motor and the gearbox have to be attached very close to the axis of rotation of the solar collector, significantly large torque forces are required to move the solar collector from vertical towards the horizontal position. As well, large braking torque forces are required when the dish moves from horizontal towards vertical position.
Due to the significant power requirement that the above techniques require, some companies are using light weight materials such as fibreglass for dishes or solar collectors. However, such materials are expensive and also have major issues with durability. In particular, these materials are not ideal for withstanding wind forces. When a receiver is added to a parabolic dish system, the load that a motor has to move is further increased. For such cases, larger motors are required.
All of the above means that larger motors are currently used to counteract and counterbalance the weight of the solar panel/solar dish assembly. Because of the need for small, precise movements needed to track the sun throughout the day, large torque forces are required, necessitating larger energy consumption.
Another issue with current solar energy collection systems relates to the need to track the sun. Current systems use computers and dedicated hardware to continuously track the position of the sun and to continuously adjust the position of the solar panels/solar dishes to obtain the most efficient exposure to the sun. Current computer controlled systems can easily track the sun for any given day once the latitude and longitude of the location of the solar collection system is entered. As can be imagined, such computer controlled systems can be bulky and quite expensive. As well, such systems can be problematic as any errors in the entry of the longitude and latitude of the location of the solar collection system can throw off the computer's calculations, leading to less than optimal exposure to the sun of the solar panel/solar dish.
Based on the above, there is therefore a need for systems and devices that mitigate if not overcome the drawbacks of the prior art. Current systems are energy inefficient when it comes to the motors controlling the tilting of the solar collector and current solar tracking technologies require high precision entries as well as expensive equipment.


A broadcast message sending method and apparatus, and a mobile terminal is provided. The method includes: setting at least three broadcast queues in a system; putting a new broadcast message into one queue of the at least three broadcast queues according to a requirement for a response speed of each broadcast message and/or a service logic relationship between broadcast messages; sending broadcast messages in respective queues through the at least three broadcast queues.

In an ANDROID system, a broadcast mechanism may be used for data broadcasting between components.
Broadcast includes a system broadcast sent by the system and a broadcast customized by an application. The system broadcast, for example, may include a broadcast sent when the initiation of the system is finished, a broadcast sent when the screen is on, a broadcast sent when the screen is off, a broadcast sent when the lock screen is unlocked successfully, and so on. The sending for all above broadcasts is managed uniformly by the ANDROID system. The system puts broadcasts to be sent into a broadcast queue. As long as the queue is not empty, the broadcast messages waiting to be sent in the queue will be sent in sequence according to a first-in first-out rule.
The reception of the broadcast is based on a register manner. The system and the application both can be registered as a receiver of a certain broadcast, and one broadcast may have multiple receivers. When a certain broadcast is sent, the system sends the broadcast to all of the receivers in sequence, and after each receiver completes related operations, the system sends a next broadcast. Therefore, if there are relatively more broadcasts waiting to be sent in the broadcast queue or there are relatively more receivers of broadcast waiting to be sent in the broadcast queue, then the time from a point of sending a broadcast to a point that all the receivers receive the broadcast and complete the related processing is relatively long, causing message sending lag and poor user experience.

Broadcast message sending method and apparatus, and mobile terminal


The invention relates to a method of feeding a plurality of optical waveguides into a clamping device, between whose clamping jaws the optical waveguides are clamped in a side-by-side relationship in one plane. A simple and easily operatable method, which in subsequent production stages ensures the preservation of the relative position of the individual optical waveguides, is obtained in that the clamping device is placed such by means of form-locking elements in a fixed position at a housing member between two sorting forks of the sorting device that feed-in channels of the sorting forks are in alignment with a take-up channel of the clamping device, in that thereafter the optical waveguides are placed in the sorting forks and in the take-up channel which has previously been widened by loosening its clamping jaws, in that the optical waveguides are then pressed together by means of a slide-film material which is inserted into the threading channels and/or the take-up channel, in that the clamping action of the clamping jaws causes the optical waveguides to be clamped and finally the clamping device together with the optical waveguides contained therein is removed from the sorting device.

EP-A-0211221 discloses clamping devices for the fixed positioning of a plurality of parallel arranged optical waveguides, in which the optical waveguides are placed in a first position on a multiple tool. The clamping devices can be shifted along the multiple tool in the longitudinal and the transverse directions. They are moved in a second range for the preparation of their end faces and in a third range for the production of a welded joint. Said European Application does not disclose how the optical waveguides are threaded into the clamping devices.

Method of and device for feeding a plurality of optical waveguides into a clamping device


A method of handling an exception in a parallel system includes constructing a task object, executing a method with the task object, and catching an exception with the task object during execution of the method. The exception is propagated in response to the task object becoming inaccessible without the exception having been observed.

Software programs have been written to run sequentially since the beginning days of software development. Steadily over time, computers have become much more powerful, with more processing power and memory to handle advanced operations. This trend has recently shifted away from ever-increasing single-processor clock rates towards an increase in the number of processors available in a single computer resulting in a corresponding shift away from sequential execution toward parallel execution. Software developers want to take advantage of improvements in computer processing power to enable their software programs to run faster as new hardware is adopted. With parallel hardware, software developers arrange for one or more tasks of a particular software program to be executed in parallel (also referred to as concurrently), so that, for example, the same logical operation can utilize many processors at one time to thereby deliver better performance as more processors are added to the computers on which such software runs.
During software development, software code is tested and debugged using software development tools generally referred to as debuggers. Debuggers can view and track exceptions that occur when executing the software code. When an exception occurs, the debugger may notify a user (i.e., programmer) that an exception occurred and allow the user to choose a course of action, such as terminating execution or attempting to restart execution at the instruction that failed. An exception is a bundle of information that is propagated through the program using a means of flow control referred to as "exception handling." The initiation of exception handling for a given exception is referred to as "throwing" the exception. An exception may be thrown due to hardware errors, software errors, or to take advantage of the exception handling as a control flow mechanism. Exception handling can be more complex in a parallel system.

Propagating unobserved exceptions in a parallel system


A processor or processor core has register file circuitry having a plurality of physical registers and a plurality of tag storing portions corresponding respectively to the physical registers. Each tag storing portion stores a tag representing a logical register ID allocated to the corresponding physical register. A register selection unit receives a logical register ID and selects one of the logical registers whose tag matches the received logical register ID. A tag changing unit changes the stored tags so as to change a mapping between at least one logical register ID and one of the physical registers. Such register circuitry permits a mapping between logical register IDs and physical registers to be changed quickly efficiently and can permit a desired physical register to be selected quickly.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to register file circuitry for use, for example, in a processor or processor core. The present invention also relates to a register renaming method for use, for example, in pipelined loops in such a processor or processor core.
2. Description of the Related Art
In high performance computing, the requirement for cyclic register renaming arises in the context of software-pipelined loops, where a high rate of instruction execution is usually required of the target machine (e.g. microprocessor). Execution time is often dominated by loop structures within the application program. To permit a high rate of instruction execution a processor may include a plurality of individual execution units, with each individual unit being capable of executing one or more instructions in parallel with the execution of instructions by the other execution units.
Such a plurality of execution units can be used to provide a so-called software pipeline made up of a plurality of individual stages. Each software pipeline stage has no fixed physical correspondence to particular execution units. Rather, when a loop structure in an application program is compiled the machine instructions which make up an individual iteration of the loop are scheduled for execution by the different execution units in accordance with a software pipeline schedule. This schedule is divided up into successive stages and the instructions are scheduled in such a way as to permit a plurality of iterations to be carried out in overlapping manner by the different execution units with a selected loop initiation interval between the initiations of successive iterations. Thus, when a first stage of an iteration i terminates and that iteration enters a second stage, execution of the next iteration i+1 is initiated in a first stage of the iteration i+1. Thus, instructions in the first stage of iteration i+1 are executed in parallel with execution of instructions in the second stage of iteration i.
In such software-pipelined loops there are typically several iterations of a loop in a partial state of completion at each moment. Hence, there may be several live copies of each value computed within the loop. To distinguish between these values, and to identify them relative to the current iteration, requires that the name of each value held in a register must change at well-defined moments during loop execution. These renaming points are known by the compiler, which also determines the register name required within each instruction to access each value depending on the iteration in which it was computed.
The name of a value held in a register is known to the programmer or compiler in terms of the register identifiers within each assembly-code instruction. The purpose of static register renaming is to define a scheme whereby these identifiers are translated at runtime into actual register numbers based on a translation scheme that can be predicted by the programmer or compiler.
For example, if a value X is assigned to register r1 in iteration 1, a typical renaming scheme would make that value available in register r2 in iteration 2 and in register r3 in iteration 3, and so on. It is the responsibility of the compiler or programmer to allocate register identifiers to each value in a way that ensures correct operation of the loop.
In software pipelined loops there are usually loop-variant values, i.e. expressions which must be reevaluated in each different iteration of the loop, that must be communicated between different instructions in the pipeline. To deal with such loop-variant values it is possible to store them in a so-called rotating register file. In this case, each loop-variant value is assigned a logical register number within the rotating register file, and this logical register number does not change from one iteration to the next. Inside the rotating register file each logical register number is mapped to a physical register within the register file and this mapping is rotated each time a new iteration is begun, i.e. each time a pipeline boundary is closed. Accordingly, corresponding instructions in different iterations can all refer to the same logical register number, making the compiled instructions simple, whilst avoiding a value produced by one iteration from being overwritten by a subsequently-executed instruction of a different iteration.
With such a register renaming scheme in operation, before an instruction can be executed by the processor it is first necessary, for each register access within a software-pipelined loop, to perform a register mapping process to translate the register identifiers into actual register numbers. This mapping is done at run time and hence places extra time demands on the processor in a highly time-critical activity. It is therefore desirable that the time taken to perform this mapping is as small as possible.
Our co-pending United Kingdom patent application number 0004582.3 describes mapping circuitry capable of carrying out this mapping. That mapping circuitry receives as an input value a logical register number and produces an output value, within a preselected range of allowable values, representing an actual physical register number. The circuitry produces two candidate output values in parallel, the first candidate output value differing by a first offset value from the received input value, and the second candidate output value differing by a second offset value from the received input value. For any input value within a preselected range of allowable input values, one of the first and second candidate output values is within the preselected output-value range and the other of those two values is outside that range. The circuitry determines which one of the first and second candidate output values is within that preselected output-value range and selects that candidate output value as the final output value. The determination of the in-range candidate output value is also carried out in parallel with the production of the first and second candidate output values themselves. Although this mapping circuitry operates desirably fast in most practical applications, it is desirable to provide register file circuitry in which the mapping can be carried out even more quickly.
Register file circuitry according to the invention comprises a plurality of physical registers, and a plurality of tag storing portions corresponding respectively to the physical registers. Each tag storing portion stores a tag representing a logical register ID allocated to the corresponding physical register. A register selection unit receives a logical register ID and selects that one of the physical registers whose tag matches the received logical register ID.
In one aspect of the invention, a tag changing unit changes the stored tags by transferring the tag stored in at least one tag storing portion into another one of the tag storing portions. In this way a mapping between at least one logical register ID and one of the physical registers can be changed.
In another aspect of the invention the tag changing unit changes the stored tags so as to change a mapping between at least one logical register ID and one of the physical registers, and the circuitry has a physical register designating unit capable of designating at least one physical register of the plurality as a statically-named physical register whose tag is not changeable by the tag changing unit.
In another aspect of the present invention the register file circuitry comprises a plurality of tag management units corresponding respectively to the physical registers. Each tag management unit includes a tag storing portion for storing a tag representing a logical register ID allocated to the unit""s corresponding physical register. Each tag management unit can change the tag stored in the tag storing portion of its own unit. Two or more of the tag management units are operable in parallel with one another to bring about a change in mapping between at least one logical register ID and one of the physical registers.
In still another aspect of the present invention there is provided register file circuitry for use in a processor having a series of pipeline stages for executing instructions. This register file circuitry comprises a first plurality of tag storing portions, corresponding respectively to the physical registers and provided at a first one of the pipeline stages of the series. Each of these tag storing portions stores a working tag representing a logical register ID allocated to the corresponding physical register. The circuitry also comprises a second plurality of tag storing portions, corresponding respectively to the physical registers, for storing respective committed tags corresponding respectively to the working tags. A committed tag updating unit is connected to the second plurality of tag storing portions and updates the committed tags as instructions progress through the pipeline stages. A working tag reloading unit is connected to the first and second pluralities of tag storing portions. When a last valid instruction prior to occurrence of an exception has reached a last one of the pipeline stages, the working tag reloading unit reloads each working tag with its corresponding committed tag.
Register file circuitry as set out above can be provided in a processor.
Another aspect of the present invention can provide a register renaming method for use in register file circuitry having a plurality of physical registers. The method comprises storing tags in a plurality of tag storing portions corresponding respectively to the physical registers. Each stored tag represents a logical register ID allocated to the corresponding physical register. The stored tags are changed by transferring the tag stored in at least one tag storing portion into another one of said tag storing portions so as to change a mapping between at least one logical register ID and one of the physical registers.


A cyclist helmet comprises a molded helmet body defining a recessed interior for receiving therein the head of the cyclist and a tail portion through which an air passage is formed with a first opening on the top surface of the helmet and a second opening located on the underside of the tail portion to allow air to flow therethrough and thus creating a negative pressure zone under the tail portion which provides a suction to exhaust the air inside the helmet interior. A fastening strip is provided to secure the helmet on the head of the cyclist.

Nowadays, helmets for protection of cyclists and motorcyclist are more and more required to provide a safe transportation of the riders. Motorcyclists are required to wear a helmet when riding in many countries. The development of the motorcyclist helmets is thus very prosperous worldwide.
On the other hand, the cyclist helmet is not so emphasized due to the fact that the cyclists are usually moving in a much lower speed than the motorcyclists. This apparently influences the development of the cyclist helmets. Although the cyclists acknowledge the importance of wearing a helmet in protecting their lives, some cyclists do not like to wear the helmet because the conventional design of the cyclist helmet is an enclosing structure around the head of the cyclists so that air ventilation and thus heat dissipation is very difficult. It may be tolerable in winter time, but definitely in-tolerable in summer due to the sun radiation and the high temperature environment. It is an important issue to develop a helmet which the cyclists are willing to wear in both summer and winter to reduce life losses in traffic accidents.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,350 discloses a streamlined helmet which has a plurality of air inlets formed on the top surface of the helmet to allow air to enter the helmet interior so as to achieve the air ventilation and heat dissipation. Such a streamlined helmet, however, has no air conducting means formed inside the helmet interior to help expulsion of the air out of the helmet and this considerably influences the ventilation effect of the helmet.
It is therefore desirable to have an air ventilation helmet which comprises air conducting means therein to help exhaustion of interior air out of the helmet so as to overcome the deficiency of the conventional helmet.


According to one embodiment, an electrostatic chuck includes a ceramic dielectric substrate including a sealing ring provided at a peripheral edge portion of the ceramic dielectric substrate, and an electrode layer including a plurality of electrode components. An outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate is provided to cause a spacing between the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate and an outer perimeter of the electrode layer to be uniform. The spacing between the outer perimeter of the electrode layer and the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate is narrower than a spacing of the electrode components. A width of the sealing ring is not less than 0.3 millimeters and not more than 3 millimeters. A width where the electrode layer overlaps the sealing ring is not less than −0.7 millimeters and not more than 2 millimeters.

An electrostatic chuck is used to attract and hold a processing object such as a semiconductor wafer, a glass substrate, etc., inside a plasma processing chamber that performs etching, CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition), sputtering, ion implantation, ashing, etc.
The electrostatic chuck is made by interposing an electrode between a ceramic base material such as alumina, etc., and by sintering. The electrostatic chuck applies electrical power for electrostatic attraction to the built-in electrode and attracts and holds the substrate such as the silicon wafer, etc., by an electrostatic force. A wafer processing apparatus includes such an electrostatic chuck.
In recent years, the plasma output in etching apparatuses that use plasma has been increasing. As the plasma output increases, the temperature of the wafer increases; and wafer temperature fluctuation is one cause of the decrease of process yields.
Conventionally, plasma has been used to clean the interior of the chamber regularly to remove residue and products adhered to the chamber inner surfaces. At this time, so-called waferless plasma cleaning may be performed in which processing of the surface of the electrostatic chuck is performed without covering the surface with a dummy wafer. When cleaning using waferless plasma cleaning, the surface of the electrostatic chuck is exposed directly to the cleaning plasma such as O2 gas, CF4 gas, etc.
Under such conditions, it is desirable for the electrostatic chuck to have plasma resistance, a high insulation breakdown voltage, and a long life.
However, for example, among electrostatic chucks, the chucking force is generated only on the electrode in a Coulomb-type electrostatic chuck. Accordingly, by providing the electrode at the lower portion of a sealing ring mounted at the outermost perimeter of the electrostatic chuck surface, the chucking force of the sealing ring portion increases; and highly efficient wafer cooling is possible. It is desirable for the electrode to have a configuration that is nearly a perfect circle to generate a uniform chucking force at the sealing ring portion and provide a uniform wafer temperature. For example, in the case where the configuration of the electrode is an ellipse, the electrode surface area of the minor axis portion of the ellipse is narrower than the electrode surface area of the major axis portion of the ellipse; therefore, the chucking force at the minor axis portion is lower than the chucking force at the major axis portion; the chucking force for attracting and holding the wafer is nonuniform in the surface; and the wafer cannot be cooled uniformly. Therefore, it is desirable for the electrode to be disposed uniformly up to the vicinity of the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate. If the electrode is disposed uniformly up to the vicinity of the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate, a uniform chucking force can be obtained in a wide area of the wafer; and the temperature distribution of the wafer can be set to be uniform. However, in the case where the electrode is disposed up to the vicinity of the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate, the insulating distance between the electrode of the ceramic dielectric substrate and the wafer which is the chucking object becomes short. Therefore, for example, when the configuration of the electrode is an ellipse, the insulating distance between the wafer and the electrode on the major axis side is shorter than the insulating distance between the wafer and the electrode on the minor axis side; therefore, there is a risk that the insulation breakdown voltage of the electrostatic chuck may undesirably decrease.
In JP-A 2003-504871 (Kohyo), a configuration is discussed in which an electrode extends on the outer side of a groove of a cooling gas in a Johnsen-Rahbek electrostatic chuck. However, because the electrode is provided in the interior of the ceramic dielectric substrate, it is difficult to easily and accurately detect the position of the electrode from outside the ceramic dielectric substrate. For example, it is necessary to perform the measurement using an ultrasonic flaw detector, etc., to ascertain the position of the electrode provided in the interior of the ceramic dielectric substrate; but the measurement accuracy of the ultrasonic flaw detector is, for example, about 0.5 millimeters (mm). Therefore, it is difficult to identify dimensions less than 0.5 mm when measuring using the ultrasonic flaw detector.
Also, because the position of the electrode after the sintering of the ceramic dielectric substrate is different according to the conditions when sintering such as the electrode outer diameter, the shrinkage factor of the ceramic dielectric substrate, etc., the distance from the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate to the electrode in the interior after the sintering fluctuates easily. Therefore, when performing grinding of the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate, if the grinding is performed undesirably up to a position proximal to the electrode, locations undesirably occur where the distance is short from the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate to the outer perimeter of the electrode. Thereby, a problem occurs in that the risk of dielectric breakdown is high.
Thus, an extremely difficult operation is necessary to accurately ascertain the position of the electrode of the interior of the ceramic dielectric substrate, perform grinding of the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate, and cause the outer perimeter of the electrode and the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate to be as proximal as possible. Therefore, in a conventional electrostatic chuck, a sufficiently ample margin is provided in the distance between the outer perimeter of the electrode and the outer perimeter of the ceramic dielectric substrate to reduce the risk of dielectric breakdown. However, as the distance between the outer perimeter of the electrode and the outer perimeter of the dielectric substrate is increased, the chucking force that is generated at the sealing ring of the electrostatic chuck outer perimeter portion undesirably decreases; and the temperature of the chucked wafer undesirably increases. Further, when the fluctuation of the distance between the outer perimeter of the electrode and the outer perimeter of the dielectric substrate is large, a problem occurs in that a portion of the wafer outer perimeter portion or the entire circumference of the wafer outer perimeter portion cannot be cooled uniformly.
In JP-A 2012-235037 (Kokai), a configuration is discussed in which a built-in electrode overlaps under an outermost perimeter sealing ring in a Coulomb-type electrostatic chuck cross-sectional view. However, the chucking force for attracting and holding the wafer is generated in the portion directly above the sealing ring overlapping the electrode. Therefore, one important component to provide a uniform wafer temperature distribution is to dispose the outer diameter of the electrode in the region where the electrode overlaps the sealing ring to be proximal to the outer perimeter of the electrostatic chuck, and to make the built-in electrode and the electrode outer diameter even more uniform.
In JP-A 2009-302346 (Kokai), a configuration is discussed in which the sealing ring width is widened to provide a configuration in which the built-in electrode overlaps under the outermost perimeter sealing ring. However, the plasma inside the process also erodes the ceramic dielectric. Therefore, the sealing ring surface which is a direct contact portion with the wafer may be eroded by the plasma; and the surface state of the sealing ring portion may fluctuate. Then, the chucking force at the sealing ring portion decreases; the wafer temperature distribution becomes nonuniform; the wafer temperature changes partway through the process, etc.; and the fluctuation of the surface state of the sealing ring portion undesirably causes the life of the electrostatic chuck to decrease.

Electrostatic chuck and wafer processing apparatus


A prediction system and method may include receiving a plurality of discrete applicant data inputs and a supporting document, the applicant data inputs and the supporting document being relevant to a permit application, providing a first predicted probability of approval of the permit application by comparing the discrete applicant data inputs with weighted criteria of previous applicant profiles stored in a first database, analyzing the supporting document to determine a second predicted probability of approval of the permit application by comparing the supporting document with previous applicant supporting documents stored in a second database, performing a sentiment analysis on external publically available information relevant to at least one aspect of the permit application to determine an impact score on the permit application, and determining an overall probability of success based on the first predicted probability, the second predicted probability, and the impact score.

Many businesses require the skills and expertise of temporary workers from other countries to improve business success and economic growth, and to deliver innovative solutions to clients. In some cases, a work permit application must be completed and approved to allow the temporary worker to work in a host country. Preparing a work permit application requires a significant time investment from the applicant or company seeking temporary work from other countries. For example, preparing a work permit application includes providing an upwards of a hundred or more pages of documents, in addition to securing letters of support from others, preparing resumes, certifications, awards, etc. The contents of the documents often times determines whether or not the work permit application will be granted by a governing authority. Certain content in the work permit application may lead to success with governing authorities and some content may lead to refusal.
Thus, a need exists to cognitively assess the work permit application to determine a likelihood that a work permit application will be granted or refused based on the content of the work permit application, prior to officially submitting the work permit application.

International Business Machines Corporation


A spark plug for an internal combustion engine, the spark plug having: an elongated center electrode having a center electrode tip at one end and a terminal proximate the other end; an insulator substantially surrounding the center electrode, the insulator having a channel formed in an exterior surface of the insulator; and an outer shell surrounding the insulator, the outer shell having a jamb nut portion and a distal end extending from the jamb nut portion, the distal end of the outer shell is aligned with the channel such that the distal end of the outer shell is received in and engages the channel of the outer shell.

This application relates generally to spark plugs for internal combustion engines and, more particularly, to a jamb nut to insulator interface that to reduce loads on the spark plug insulator.
Traditional spark plug construction includes an annular metal casing having threads near one end and a ceramic insulator extending from the threaded end through the metal casing and beyond the opposite end. A central electrode is exposed near the threaded end and is electrically connected through the insulator interior to a terminal which extends from the opposite insulator end to which a spark plug ignition wire attaches.
The force applied to seal the spark plug in the head is the result of torque transmitted by the threaded metal casing; hence, the threaded portion of the metal casing must be sturdy and of substantial size. A portion of the metal casing is formed to be engaged by a socket tool to provide torque to the threaded portion. The threaded portion is located away from the portion which is engaged by the socket tool.
To facilitate the controlled and efficient exhaust of gases from a combustion chamber, the valves are sometimes increased in size. This may necessitate a decrease in the size of the spark plug, a reduction in the size and sturdiness of the threaded metal casing end, and, in particular, a decrease in the inside diameter of the metal bore of the spark plug and in the combustion chamber wall area available to threadedly receive the spark plug.
The maximum diameter of the ceramic insulator is in turn determined by the size of the hex or jamb nut portion of the outer shell. Accordingly and for smaller hexes the barrel diameter of the ceramic insulator is reduced. The diameter ceramic insulator is also dictated by the clearance needed for shell hex and crimp along with the shoulder needed to keep the ceramic in place during a lifetime of operation.
In the past and for 14 mm and 16 mm spark plug hexes (12 mm spark plugs), the diameter of the ceramic insulator is different for each application and requires different ignition boots. For example, the 14 mm hex uses a 9.0 mm diameter ceramic barrel and the 16 mm hex uses a 10.5 mm diameter ceramic barrel.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a 14 mm hex spark plug that can use the larger diameter insulator of the 16 mm hex spark plug.
The decrease in the diameter of the spark plug may also reduce the spark plugs ability to hold onto its ground shield during removal. A higher strength steel jamb nut has been proposed to combat this problem however, a higher strength steel jamb nut is assembled to the insulator with higher loads than a lower strength steel jamb nut thus, the impact strength of the insulator may be negatively affected.
Accordingly, the inventor herein has recognized that it is desirable to provide a jamb nut to insulator interface that reduces loads upon the insulator. In addition, the inventor has recognized that it is also desirable to use smaller spark plug hex designs with ceramic insulator barrels and ignition wires typically associated with larger spark plug hex designs.


An apparatus for regulating the functioning of a patient's organ or duct includes an elongated member having a first end and a second end. A fastener is disposed on the first end of the elongated member. The fastener is configured to engage the second end of the elongated member so that the elongated member forms a loop around the organ or duct. A tension element is disposed for movement within the elongated member. A symmetrical drive system including a drive element associated with and engaging the tension element for causing the tension element to control the tension applied by the elongated member against a patient's body organ or duct is further provided. In accordance with an alternate embodiment an apparatus for regulating the functioning of a patient's organ or duct including an elongated member having a first end and a second end. A fastener is disposed on the first end of the elongated member. The fastener is configured to engage the second end of the elongated member so that the elongated member forms a loop around the organ or duct. A tension element is disposed for movement within the elongated member. The tension element is composed of a flexible first member and a flexible second member, wherein the flexible first member is movable relative to the flexible second member. A drive element is associated with and engages the tension element for causing the tension element to control the tension applied by the elongated member against a patient's body organ or duct.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to laparoscopic implanted restriction system designed to be implanted in the body of a patient around a biological organ having a pouch or duct to regulate functioning of the organ or duct. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an implantable telemetrically powered and controlled ring suitable for use as a gastric band to treat obesity or as an artificial sphincter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Obesity refers to a body weight that exceeds the body's skeletal and physical standards. One well recognized parameter used to measure obesity is Body Mass Index (BMI), because it takes into account patient height and not just weight. BMI is calculated by dividing weight by height squared and is expressed in kg/m2.
Obesity is well recognized as a serious health problem, and is associated with numerous health complications, ranging from non-fatal conditions to life-threatening chronic diseases. Surgical intervention generally is the treatment of choice for patients afflicted with morbid obesity. Such intervention not only mitigates the myriad of health problems arising from being overweight, but may also reduce the risk of early death of the patient. Left untreated, morbid obesity may reduce a patient's life expectancy by ten to fifteen years.
Morbidly obese patients as a group are poorly adapted to attain sustainable long-term weight loss using non-surgical approaches, such as strict diets combined with exercise and behavioral modification, even though such methods are acknowledged to be the safest. For this reason, there is a continuing need for direct intervention to provide effective, long-term treatments for morbid obesity. Three main surgical procedures are currently in use: Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass ("RYGB"), Vertical Banded Gastroplasty ("VBG") and Adjustable Gastric Banding ("AGB").
In RYGB a small stomach pouch is created and a Y-shaped section of the small intestine is attached to the pouch so that food bypasses the lower stomach, the duodenum and the first portion of the jejunum. The RYGB procedure is both restrictive, in that the small pouch limits food intake and malabsorptive, in that the bypass reduces the amount of calories and nutrients the body absorbs.
VBG employs a non-adjustable synthetic band and staples to create a small stomach pouch. AGB employs a constricting synthetic ring defining a gastric band that is placed around the upper end of the stomach to create an artificial stoma within the stomach. The band is filled with saline solution and is connected to a small reservoir/access-port located under the skin of the abdomen. The AGB band may be inflated, thereby reducing the size of the stoma, or deflated, thus enlarging the stoma, by puncturing the access-port with a needle and adding or removing saline solution. Both VBG and AGB are purely restrictive procedures, and have no malabsorptive effect.
It is sometimes necessary to re-operate, either to relieve the patient or to adjust or change the previously implanted band. In such cases, the previously implanted band must be cut and either removed or replaced. These operations are difficult to carry out, difficult for the patient to tolerate and costly.
Several attempts to overcome the drawbacks associated with hydraulically actuated gastric bands, are found in the prior art. For example U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,801 to Dargent et al. describes a surgically implanted gastroplasty system having a flexible tactile element that engages a motor-driven notched pulling member. The motor is powered and controlled by an inductive circuit, so that the diameter of the ring may only be changed by operation of an external remote control.
All of the foregoing surgical techniques involve major surgery and may give rise to severe complications. Recent developments have focused on the use of laparoscopic implantation of the gastric ring to minimize patient discomfort and recuperation time.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide apparatuses and methods for regulating functioning of a body organ or duct that provides high precision in controlling the degree of constriction imposed upon the organ or duct, without the drawbacks associated with prior control mechanisms.

Symmetrical drive system for an implantable restriction device


A drawer assembly for an appliance includes a drawer front including a retainer post extending from the drawer front, a handle including an indicator assembly, an attachment assembly for removably attaching the handle to the drawer front, and an electrical connection assembly passing through the attachment assembly to provide electrical power to the indicator assembly.

Various types of consumer appliances include handles that operate to open and close compartments such as drawers, chambers, and the like. For example, appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, and dishwashers include broad handles that may span a width of the appliance. However, conventional appliance handles are typically fixed to the appliance, e.g., using mechanical fasteners or the like. Removing these handles is typically a tedious and time-consuming process that requires the use of one or more tools to remove the fasteners and/or handle.
Conventional appliances also typically include one or more displays or indicators for communicating information to a user of the appliance. These displays require electrical power and their positioning is commonly restricted to those portions of appliance that may be hard-wired, e.g., such as on a cabinet or door front of the appliance.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to have an improved handle assembly for an appliance that obviates one or more of the above-mentioned drawbacks. More specifically, a handle assembly for an appliance that is quickly and easily removable, facilitates improved user interaction, and exhibits improved aesthetics would be particularly beneficial.

Quick release handle including lights and sound


A storage system includes a first device having a device manager, and a storage device to generate a domain with the first device. The storage device further includes a domain manager that sends a domain manager message to the first device in response to a discovery message transferred from the device manager. The device manager may register the first device in the domain based on a registration device message transferred according to the domain manager message, and may notify components of the first device. The registered components of the first device are deployed as components of an application program to process data stored in a storage media of the storage device such that a function of the storage device is dynamically extended.

1. Field of the General Inventive Concept
Exemplary embodiments relate to an electronic device, and more particularly, relate to a storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Storage devices such as hard disks may be connected to a host via interfaces, such as PATA, SATA, SCSI, SAS and the like. ATA/SCSI command sets may be defined on such interfaces to allow inter-communication between the storage device and the host. The ATA/SCSI command sets may be based on block-based commands in common. Command sets may provide commands for reading and writing data from and to storage device by the block (e.g., 512-byte).
As another storage device, a Solid State Drive (hereinafter, referred to as SSD) may be formed of a plurality of flash memory chips. The SSD performance may differentiate according to how data is arranged within flash memory chips. In case of a block-based interface, it is difficult to ascertain the hardware configuration within the SSD. That is, although the hardware configuration of the SSD is known, interfaces are limited to make use of the hardware configuration of the SSD. Further, since all SSDs have different hardware configurations from one another, it is difficult to practically optimize a file system of each SSD.

Storage device to extend functions dynamically and operating method thereof


Built-in self-test (BIST) microcontroller integrated circuit adapted for logic verification. Microcontroller includes a plurality of hardware description language files representing a hierarchical description of the microcontroller, the plurality of hardware description language files including a library of circuit design elements, a plurality of library design circuit elements adapted to store a uniquely defined set of input and output signals to enable a logic BIST, and a plurality of latches adapted to store a plurality of values corresponding to a behavioral profile of a test clock.

An At Speed Structural Test (ASST) capability to application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) offerings is disclosed in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/906,407, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. The ASST test structures described here are programmable and test clock domain by clock domain. These structures are programmable through scan chains and provide a chip fully constrained for manufacturing test. A fully constrained design is one where control of the on board clock generation circuits (PLLs and clock formatters) are under scan programming control for manufacturing test. In order to perform these tests, design for test (DFT) logic was added to the chip design in a manner which facilitates the inclusion of an At Speed LBIST described in this patent. These controls are slow (not at functional speeds) and the logic in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/906,407 causes the at speed clock responses to occur.
The state of the art today is for a custom LBIST to be designed for each chip design. This custom LBIST design is very labor insensitive, time consuming and requires an intimate knowledge of the design and engineering expertise. Each design is unique and not reusable.
The ASST approach described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/906,407 is a DFT process which results in a fully constrained chip in which the phase locked loop (PLL) operation, turning clocks off and on, setting up clock trees for test are under test control through programming bits. The programming necessary for ASST testing is determined from the manufacturing test for the specific chip, and the testing is accomplished by loading scan bits in the design. This ASST structure can then be coupled with a microcontroller which can be supplied with scan bits determined during manufacturing test generation to deliver a LBIST solution.

Microcontroller for logic built-in self test (LBIST)


A new Petunia plant particularly distinguished by smaller flower size with a magenta flower color and a mounding/semi-upright plant habit, is disclosed.

The present invention comprises a new and distinct variety of Petunia, botanically known as Petunia hybrida and hereinafter referred to by the variety name 'KLEPH20490'. 'KLEPH20490' is a selection from a cross-pollination of the proprietary female Petunia line 'PH-2014-0777' (unpatented) and the proprietary male Petunia line 'PH-2015-1208' (unpatented).
In July of 2016, the female Petunia line 'PH-2014-0777' and the male Petunia line 'PH-2015-1208' were cross pollinated in Latina, Italy and seeds were obtained. The seeds were sown and plants were grown for evaluation. A plant line was selected in April 2017 in Latina, Italy and named 'KLEPH20490'. In May 2017, 'KLEPH20490' was first vegetatively propagated by terminal tip cuttings and tissue culture in Latina, Italy. 'KLEPH20490' was found to reproduce true to type in successive generations of asexual propagation via tissue culture and terminal tip cuttings.


A method for producing a document suitable for mailing to a recipient including the steps of determining preferences of the mail recipient and compiling a selection of messages relating to recipient preferences in a format accommodating variable data printing. The compilation of messages is printed on sheets of material which are arranged to form a multi-sheet stack. The stack is then bound along an edge to produce a personalized information package such as a catalog, coupon booklet, brochure or magazine suitable for mailing. The binding step may be performed by deformation binding to eliminate the use of consumable binding materials such as glue, staples, clips, etc.

Conventional store or retail catalogs typically contain advertisements for merchandise from a single merchant or from several retailers/merchants having a common product or product theme. Catalogs distributed for the purpose of mail order are generally distributed to customers having a previous buying history with the merchant and/or sent to mail recipients who financially or demographically are more likely to respond favorably to the merchant's product. With respect to the latter, the cost and time in connection with postage and shipping typically precludes a merchant from contacting/communicating with potential customers from all financial, geographic, racial and/or ethnic backgrounds. Without more data and information about the preferences and interests of mail recipients, a merchant has little choice but to distribute such communications to a large audience in an effort to reach those who may have a genuine interest.
This approach to advertising results in numerous unwanted/unsolicited mailpieces (e.g., catalogs, brochures, and other printed paraphernalia) being discarded without, in many instances, being opened/reviewed. It will be appreciated that this method of communicating depletes natural resources (e.g., wood for paper) and places an increased burden on the environment, e.g., filling landfills and taxing recycling efforts. Exacerbating these drawbacks and disadvantages are catalogs and brochures which advertise the full spectrum of a merchant's product line and, consequently, will almost assuredly, contain information that is not of interest to the mail recipient.
While, in the past, merchants/retailers were limited in their ability to acquire data concerning customer preferences (i.e., limited to historical data of a customer's purchases with a merchant), the Internet or World Wide Web has provided a powerful business tool useful for developing preference data and information. With the Internet's continuously improving capabilities, market research can be performed in a timely manner and with a far greater level of fidelity. As a result, such data can be made available to enterprises for the purpose of "targeting" their customer audience. The value of such data and information is dependent upon a myriad of factors, though, a principal driver is cost avoidance. That is, by avoiding the cost and time associated with mailing catalogs to disinterested recipients, significant savings are achievable.
Directly related to the use of the Internet for obtaining market data and information is the use of electronic mail communications to reach potential customers. The cost of such e-mail advertisements is a fraction of that associated with direct mailing, and, consequently, this medium of advertising has grown significantly. Ironically, this growth appears to be occurring in spite of other market data which supports the contrary. That is, advertising by direct mail produces a more favorable response (i.e., positive response) than e-mail or Internet advertising. Consequently, merchants are faced with the dilemma of choosing the medium, i.e., direct mail vs. e-mail, which will yield the most cost efficient solution. When choosing, the merchant must consider whether the cost saved by e-mail advertising will offset and/or outperform the increased revenues generated by direct mail advertising.
Therefore, a need exists for an economically viable method for direct mail communications and advertising which optimizes customer response.

Personalized document and method for making same


A multi-point locking arrangement is provided. The multi-point locking arrangement includes a primary lock bolt and an auxiliary lock bolt offset from the primary lock bolt. The multi-point locking arrangement, in an embodiment, uses a single actuation motion to transition between locked and unlocked states. The locking arrangement may also include a lockout device that prevents transitioning from the unlocked state to the locked state when the lockout device is not actuated. The locking arrangement may include a biased auxiliary strike plate that cooperate with the auxiliary lock bolt to provide improved alignment and a tighter seal.

Multi-point locking arrangements are typically used with door assemblies when it is desired to have a very secure locking relationship between two separate door components. The two separate door components could be a hinged panel (e.g. a hinged door) and a doorjamb; a sliding door and a doorjamb; a pair of hinged panels; etc.
The use of the multi-point locking arrangement provides multiple engagement locations between the door components to provide the improved engagement between the two components. Unfortunately, the increased securement comes at the price of increased complexity in the lock assembly, which can make these types of lock assemblies for doors difficult to actuate. More particularly, these types of lock assemblies may require a higher level of torque to actuate the various lock bolts.
As such, these types of lock assemblies often require a multi-step actuation procedure where the user first actuates a handle of the door assembly used to manipulate the latch and then a thumb turn or keyed lock cylinder is actuated to effectuate final locking of the lock assembly. The use of the handle helps the user generate greater torques to manipulate the more complex or resistive lock assembly between the locked and unlocked states. A further problem is created due to this type of arrangement. Namely, users often cannot figure out how to work the lock assembly as they are often not use to having to perform two separate manipulations to lock and unlock a door lock. This can lead to the user trying to force the key or thumb turn resulting in damage to the lock assembly.
The present invention provides improvements over the current state of the art.

Multi-point lock with single actuation and mishandling device and self-aligning engagement