A method for continuous processing of two-level data on a system with a plurality of nodes for processing the data includes determining a system state representing at least one of actual or possible performance capabilities of the system, determining already processed data on the nodes, splitting and assigning high-level input data for processing with lower level data on one or more of the plurality of nodes according to the determined system state, processing requirements of the data and already processed data in a form of at least of lower level data on the nodes such that in case of the already processed data, data to be processed is compared with the already processed data, and input data is split and assigned to the plurality of nodes such that an amount of data to be exchanged for processing the input data on the respective nodes is minimized.

The analysis of large amounts of data has become more and more interesting due to the progress in computational power. One of the fields for an analysis of such "big data" is nowadays transportation: For example distributed sensors on handheld devices, vehicles, and roads can provide real-time traffic information that can be analyzed to improve transportation in general or in particular the traffic efficiency. Advances also in these data collecting technique models like induction, cellular sensing or the like have contributed to the abundance of geospatial data in urban traffic systems. Most of these urban traffic systems rely on so-called map-matching algorithms to predict the traffic situation in a geographic region, where the map represents roads, buildings or any content relevant elements.
These conventional map-matching algorithms depend on effective handling of near real-time traffic observation data which is usually very data-intensive. Such an intensive and continuous data stream as for example floating car data FCD causes, requires a rapid and parallel processing of the traffic data. Conventional systems based on map and reduce architectures distribute tasks to cope with large data sets. However, conventional distributed systems have the disadvantage that the transfer of information from one node to another node is limited and therefore represents one of the main bottlenecks. Conventional systems are therefore limited due to the time of accessing non-local information and/or memory access time.
In US 2013/0024479 A1 a method and system for processing a large data graph is shown using density-based processes which in turn use a map and reduce algorithm. In particular a density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise is shown using map-reduce as a model for acceleration of the clustering calculations of large graphs. The original graph is partitioned into a number of partial clustered graphs and each partition is processed on a respective node in a network system so that multiple partitions of the original graph are processed in parallel.
In U.S. Pat. No. 8,386,715 B2 a method and system for tile mapping is shown. In particular a method is shown in which a map with one or more tiles is requested. It is checked whether a tile object or a resource locator associated with the file object is stored in a cache and the tile object is then retrieved from the corresponding cache based on the resource locator.
In the non-patent literature of Rong Chen, Haibo Chen, and Binyu Zang, "Tiledmapreduce: optimizing resource usages of data-parallel applications on multicore with tiling", in Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Parallel architectures and compilation techniques, PACT, volume 10, pages 523-534, 2010 a tiled-map reduce method is shown. In particular a large map and reduce job is divided into a number of small subjobs and one subjob at a time is iteratively processed and the result of all subjobs is merged for output.
In the non-patent literature of Shin-Gyu Kim, Hyuck Han, Hyungsoo Jung, Hyeonsang Eom, and Heon Y Yeom, "Improving mapreduce performance by exploiting input redundancy", journal of information science and engineering, 27(3): 1137-1152, 2011 a method is shown for improving the performance of a map reduce algorithm using input redundancy. Data is cached if the same input file is read by different processes. This data is cached during the first access and then used from the caches subsequently. However, all data will be cached irrespective of its importance.
In the non-patent literature of Z. Xiao, H. Chen, and B. Zang, "A hierarchical approach to maximizing mapreduce efficiency" in Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT), 2011 International Conference on IEEE, 2011, pp. 167-168 a method to maximize mapreduce efficiency is shown. However the shown method suffers from the same problem, i.e. all data will be cached irrespective of its importance.
In the non-patent literature of the project "Memcached" available under http://memcached.org, data is cached based on a two level greedy method. Data is cached when requested by a node and further cached even if requested by another node. However, one of the problems is, that data is cached irrespective of its importance suffering the same problems as the methods mentioned above.
In the non-patent literature of Y. Zhao and J. Wu "Dache: A data aware caching for big-data applications using the mapreduce framework" a method is disclosed in which caching is based on the cached content. Intermediate results are stored based on the relevance of its content.
In the non-patent literature of W. Lu, W. Wand, K. Kimita, and T. Yokota "Decreasing FCD processing delay by deploying distributed processing system", in ITS Telecommunications Proceedings, 2006 6th International Conference on IEEE, 2006, pp. 206-209 floating a car data is loaded on multiple processors using a map and reduce method. No caching of maps is performed and hence for each data points the processors have to load maps from the disk memory.
In the non-patent literature of Q. Li, T. Zhang, and Y. Yu "Using cloud computing to process intensive floating car data for urban traffic surveillance", International Journal of Geographical Information Science, vol. 25, no. 8, pp. 1303-1322, 2011 a cloud based method is disclosed using a map-reduce algorithm for processing floating car data.
In the non-patent literature of F. Chen, M. Shen, and Y. Tang "Local path searching based map matching algorithm for floating car data", Procedia Environmental Sciences, vol. 10, pp. 576-582, 2011 a floating car data map-matching method is shown based on local path searching.

Method for the continuous processing of two-level data on a system with a plurality of nodes


A touch screen display device includes; a touch screen display panel including; first sensing lines which extend in a first direction, second sensing lines which extend in a second direction, and a plurality of touch sensors located at a plurality of sensing positions, each of which provides touch data or untouch data, a readout unit which reads the touch data or the untouch data and outputs the read data as sensing data corresponding to each of the sensing positions, and a sensing unit which groups the sensing positions into at least one pre-touch areas using the sensing data and which recognizes at least one touch positions using the pre-touch areas, wherein when first and third sensing positions from among first through third sensing positions provide the touch data while the second sensing position provides the untouch data, the sensing unit recognizes the untouch data as the touch data.

1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relates to a touch screen display device, and more particularly, to a touch screen display device with enhanced reliability.
2. Description of the Related Art
A touch screen display device is a display device having a touch screen function. A user may touch a point on a touch screen display device using a portion of the body to instruct the execution of a desired operation. Since display devices having the touch screen function provide an intuitive interface by which a user can easily input information, they are widely being used.
A touch screen display device includes a plurality of pixels which display images and a plurality of touch sensors which sense positions touched by a user. A gate signal and a data signal are typically transmitted to each pixel, and each touch sensor provides an output signal according to whether or not it has been touched.

Touch screen display device and method of driving the same


An electric apparatus has an enlarging display unit including a lens portion corresponding to a screen of a liquid crystal display that is a display part of the electric apparatus, and a slide portion attached on a frame portion and moving up or down the lens portion without steps. A distance from the lens portion to the display part is adjustable.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric apparatus, and more particularly to an enlarging display unit to be mounted on, for example, a screen of a liquid crystal display that is a display part of a laser printer, for enlarging the display part so that the display part can be easily seen when operating the electric apparatus such as the laser printer, especially for enlarging in a continuous manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display is employed for a display part for displaying an operation method for operating an electric apparatus such as laser printer, or an error message.
In such liquid crystal display, displayed characters are small due to a limitation on the size, and it was difficult for the aged or weak-sighted person to view such small characters, producing an operational error. Furthermore, since it is required that this kind of electric apparatus is reduced in the size and weight, this tendency of operational error was still more remarkable.
By the way, in view of the above-mentioned problems, a conventional enlarging display unit comprises a liquid crystal panel secured to a main body, a magnifying lens disposed in parallel to the liquid crystal panel, a support shaft for supporting the magnifying lens to be movable up or down with respect to the main body, engaging means for engaging with the support shaft to support the magnifying lens at a plurality of positions, urging means for urging the engaging means in a direction to be engaged with the support shaft, and engagement releasing means for releasing engagement of the engaging means with the support shaft against the urging means (e.g., refer to JP-UM-A-64-13028).


The present invention relates to methods and hybrids for the targeted modification of a nucleic acid-target region in a plant target structure using CRISPR/Cas systems. The invention specifically relates to methods and hybrids for directly obtaining a plant or plant material which comprises an editing of a nucleic acid introduced in a targeted manner into a meristematic cell. The hybrids can be introduced in a transient and/or stable manner. The invention also relates to novel plant-optimized introduction strategies. The invention further relates to a method for carrying out an in vitro screening assay in order to first check the suitable gRNA candidates in vitro with respect to their efficiency.

Genome editing constitutes a molecular biological method by means of which specific modifications such as insertions, deletions or point mutations or combinations thereof can be introduced into the genome of a living organism. To this end, specific molecular instruments are required which firstly have nuclease activity, but above all can be guided to the target sequence to be modified with sufficient specificity to programme and carry out a specific and site-directed mutagenesis. In the past few years in plant biotechnology, specific genome editing has developed into an alternative to conventional cultivation and to transgenic strategies. However, tools which are currently available, such as zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) or "transcription activator-like effector nucleases" (TALENs) are only used in plant biotechnology to a limited extent because of occasional low efficiency and also because of the complex and costly design of the constructs.
A further molecular tool which has been widely used in recent years for precise and site-directed genome modification is the CRISPR nuclease-based system. These nucleases, including inter alia Cas (CRISPR associated gene) nuclease or Cpf1 nucleases, form part of the system described now in the literature as "CRISPR" systems (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat). This system was originally identified in 1987 when the lap gene of E. coli was analysed, when naturally occurring repeat sequences in the bacterial genome were identified. Later on it was discovered that these palindromic DNA repeat sequences of 20 to 50 nucleotides followed a pattern. The acronym CRISPR was then adopted (Jansen, R. et al, "Identification of genes that are associated with DNA repeats in prokaryotes", Mol. Microbiol., 2002, 43(6), 1565-1575), whereupon research focused even more closely upon bacteria. Finally, it was reported that the CRISPR locus constitutes a type of bacterial immune system and could confer immunity against phages (Barrangou et al "CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes" Science 2007, 315:1709.1712), wherein the invading phage DNA was initially installed as a protospacer into a CRISPR locus, the locus was then transcribed and finally the CRISPR-mediated silencing mechanism was activated.
Functional characterization gradually led to the system being exploited as a universal tool for genome modification of higher organisms. In the meantime, a large number of CRISPR/Cas systems have been described (see, for example Van der Oost et al "Unravelling the structural and mechanistic basis of CRISPR-Cas systems" Nature 2014, 482:331-338, Makarova et al., "An updated evolutionary classification of CRISPR-Cas systems", Nature Reviews Microbiology 13, 722-736); as yet, the analyses are still far from completed.
A further genome editing system with huge potential is now available thanks to the discovery and exploitation of the bacterial type II CRISPR system.
Five types (I-V) of CRISPR systems have been described so far (Barrangou et al., 2007, Science, 315(5819):1709-12; Bouns et al., 2008, Science, 321(5891): 960-4; Marraffini and Sontheimer, 2008, Science, 322(5909): 1843-5; Makarova et al., Nature Rev. Microbiol., 13, 722-736, 2015), wherein each system comprises a cluster of CRISPR-associated genes (Cas or others) and a CRISPR array belonging thereto. These characteristic CRISPR arrays are composed of repetitive sequences (direct repetitions, so-called repeats), in which short sections of non-repetitive sequences ("spacers") are embedded, wherein the spacers originate from short fragments of foreign genetic material (protospacers). The CRISPR arrays are subsequently transcribed into short CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs), wherein the crRNAs direct the Cas proteins or other effector nucleases of a CRISPR system to the respective target nucleic acid molecules, where cleavage occurs by means of Watson-Crick base pairing. The Type I and Type III CRISPR systems use complexes of Cas proteins and crRNAs for the recognition and subsequent cleaving of target nucleic acids (Wiedenheft et al., 2011, Nature, 477(7365):486-9). On the contrary, Type II CRISPR systems are recognized and cleaved in their natural form, their target DNA interacting with the RNA-directed nuclease Cas9 with two non-encoded RNAs, the crRNA, and a trans-activating RNA (tracrRNA) (Garneau et al., 2010; Sapranauskas et al., 2011, Nucleic Acids Res., 39(21); 9275-82; Deltcheva et al., 2011, Nature, 471(7340); 602-7). A possible Type IV CRISPR system has also been proposed (Makarova et al., Biol. Direct, 6(38), 2011).
The immune response mediated by CRISPR/Cas in natural systems requires CRISPR-RNA (crRNA), wherein the maturation of this guide RNA, which controls the specific activation of the Cas nuclease, varies significantly between the various CRISPR systems which have been characterized so far. Firstly, the invading DNA, also known as a spacer, is integrated between two adjacent repeat regions at the proximal end of the CRISPR locus. Type II CRISPR systems code for a Cas9 nuclease as a key enzyme for the interference step, which contains both a crRNA and also a trans-activating RNA (tracrRNA) as the guide motif. These hybridize and form double-stranded (ds) RNA regions which are recognized by RNAseIII and can be cleaved in order to form mature crRNAs. These then in turn associate with the Cas molecule in order to direct the nuclease specifically to the target nucleic acid region.
A recombinant CRISPR/Cas system, or in general, a CRISPR/nuclease system, enables a targeted DNA recognition and/or bonding through a small, individually tailored, non-encoding RNA (guide RNA or gRNA) in combination with a possibly modified nuclease, and the optional generation of a single- or double-strand break. Recombinant gRNA molecules can comprise both the variable DNA recognition region and also the nuclease interaction region and thus can be specifically designed, independently of the specific target nucleic acid and the desired nuclease (Jinek et. al., 2012, supra). As a further safety mechanism, PAMs (protospacer adjacent motifs) must be present in the target nucleic acid region; these are DNA sequences which in type II CRISPR system follow on directly from the Cas9/RNA complex-recognized DNA. The PAM sequence for the Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes is in fact "NGG" or "NAG" (Standard IUPAC nucleotide code) (Jinek et al, "A programmable dual-RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity", Science 2012, 337: 816-821). The PAM sequence for Cas9 from Staphylococcus aureus is "NNGRRT" or "NNGRR(N)". Further variant CRISPR/Cas9 systems are known. Thus, a Neisseria meningitidis Cas9 cleaves at the PAM sequence NNNNGATT. A Streptococcus thermophilus Cas9 cleaves at the PAM sequence NNAGAAW. Furthermore, by using modified Cas polypeptides, specific single-stranded breaks can be obtained. The combined use of Cas nickases with various recombinant gRNAs can also induce highly specific DNA double-stranded breaks by means of double DNA nicking. By using two gRNAs, moreover, the specificity of the DNA binding and thus the DNA cleavage can be optimized.
In addition to the CRISPR/Cas system, so-called CRISPR/Cpf1 systems have also been described recently, which are suitable as tools for the targeted genome editing in a manner analogous to that with CRISPR/Cas systems (see Zetsche et al., "Cpf1 Is a Singel RNA-Guides Endonuclease of a Class 2 CRISPR-Cas System," Cell, 163, pp. 1-13, October 2015). The CRISPR/Cpf1 system is also referred to as a Type V CRISPR system (Makarova et al., Nature Rev. Microbiol., 2015, above). In differing from a Cas9 nuclease of a Type II CRISPR/Cas system, a Cpf1 nuclease requires no additional trans-activating tracr-RNAs. Cpf1 recognizes T-rich PAM sequences, and cleaves the target DNA, producing "sticky ends," i.e. overhangs, while in contrast, Cas9 leaves "blunt ends." As with Cas nucleases, Cpf1 nucleases contain an RuvC-like endonuclease domain, while in contrast, they lack a second HNH endonuclease domain (Makarova & Koonin, Methods Mol. Biol., 1311, 47-75, 2015). While Type I, II and IV CRISPR systems are currently referred to as Class 1 systems, Type II and Type V systems are regarded as Class 2 (cf. Makarova et al., Nature Rev. Microbiol., 2015, above).
A DNA double-strand break inside a plant cell is repaired, either by "non-homologous end joining" (NHEJ) or "homologous recombination ((HR), also referred to as "homology-directed repair" (HDR)). Furthermore, in plants, so-called alternative end joining (AEJ) pathways have been described (Charbonnel C, Allain E, Gallego M E, White C I (2011) Kinetic analysis of DNA double-strand break repair pathways in Arabidopsis. DNA Repair (Amst) 10: 611-619).
It is therefore proposed in US 2015/082478 A1 that a separate HDR DNA repair vector be used, in order to introduce a double-strand break, which was previously obtained through a recombinant CRISPR/Cas system. Apart from the genetic modification of bacterial genomes, the modification of complex eukaryotic genomes constitutes a huge challenge since, because of the complexity of this genome, molecular tools have to be provided which can effect a specific genome modification without unwanted off-target effects, i.e. unwanted mutations or modifications within the genome or the non-genomic DNA of the target cell.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,697,359 B1 discloses that using CRISPR/Cas technology, eukaryotic genomes, in particular mammalian genomes can be modified, preferably for therapeutic purposes. In this regard, the expression of a target gene by specific introduction of a Cas9 endonuclease as well as a guide RNA (gRNA) is suppressed in a programmable manner. This gRNA is an essential element of every Cas9 CRISPR system, since it in fact guides the actual Cas nuclease specifically to the (genomic) target DNA. To this end, in addition, a tracr (trans-activating CRISPR RNA) sequence and a tracr mate sequence are disclosed for Cas9-CRISPR systems which can be included in the gRNA, wherein the tracr sequences hybridize and can thus be recognized. The use of CRISPR technology to modify complex plant genomes and the molecular tools required for this were not disclosed, however.
WO 2015/026885 A1, on the other hand, is especially concerned with the application of CRISPR/Cas technology in plants. Here, however, only an overall strategy and appropriate molecular tools are disclosed which necessarily require the subculture, selection and regeneration of plant calluses following the successful introduction of the CRISPR/Cas tools and thus do not allow a plant or plant material containing the desired DNA modification and which contains the desired DNA modification to be obtained directly.
An overview of the actual status of the development of the use of CRISPR/Cas technology for genome editing of plant genomes can be found in Bortesi & Fischer ("The CRISPR/Cas9 system for plant genome editing and beyond", Biotechnology Advances, 33, pages 41-52, 20 Dec. 2014). This reports, inter alia, on the problems with providing specific gRNAs for targeting in maize. Further, the problems of the high off-target mutation rates are discussed; these are not only observed when using CRISPR/Cas in mammalian cells, but are also observed when using them in plant cells; here, the design of the individual CRISPR/Cas tools is decisive in order, in the respective target cell/respective target organism, to obtain a site-directed targeted modification without off-target effects. Further, Bortesi & Fischer recognise that the CRISPR/Cas system can also be used for epigenetic modification of DNA since the CRISPR/Cas system can also be used to cleave methylated DNA, but state that as yet, no applications in plants are known.
Furthermore, Guilinger et al describe FokI nucleases which are used in the manner of nickases, and thus produce a higher specificity (Guilinger et al; Fusion of catalytically inactive Cas9 to FokI nuclease improves the specificity of genome modification, doi:10.1038/nbt.2909). However, Guilinger et al only present data for human cells, and not for plant cells.
Mali et al 2013 are concerned with the use of the CRISPR/Cas system in human cells, wherein here, nuclease-zero variants of Cas9 or aptamer-coupled gRNAs are used which may be fused to transcriptional activator domains (Mali, P., et al (2013), "CAS9 transcriptional activators for target specificity screening and paired nickases for cooperative genome engineering). However, Mali et al do not mention how and to what extent a corresponding system could be used in plant cells.
In summary, many of the strategies used today are only temporary or transient in the plant field, meaning that mutations occur in already differentiated cells, for example in leaves, but these mutations cannot be inherited via the germ line. Further, there are strategies which require a stable integration of the coding sequences including the required regulatory sequences such as promoters and terminators into the genome, via which a stable mutation can then be produced which is inherited from generation to generation. However, the CRISPR/Cas tools are still contained in the genome of the plant and thus also in potential plant products such as fruit and seeds, which is undesirable having regard to the risk assessment of the corresponding products.
Accordingly, the CRISPR/Cas strategy in plant biotechnology is still of low efficiency, but is also characterized by a difficult and expensive design of the construct as well as the frequent appearance of off-target effects. In addition, many of the current strategies are based on either integrating the CRISPR/Cas tools into the genome of a plant cell in a stable manner or introducing the CRISPR/Cas tools into cells of a differentiated tissue, for example into leaves. As a consequence, with the stable strategy, the individual tools such as Cas9 and not just the specific DNA modifications effected by them are inherited by the descendants. Upon transformation into differentiated cells and tissue, the mutation introduced by the CRISPR/Cas tools is only effective in the relevant cells, but cannot be inherited further via the germ line. Specifically with regard to the targeted development of positive traits in plants, comprising resistances, in particular to pests and environmental effects, e.g. cold, drought, saline content, increased yield, or herbicide resistances, the creation of reliable methods for targeted activation and deactivation, or for modification, of genomic material, as well as for silencing RNA inside a plant cell, is of major economical interest.
Regarding the selection of suitable gRNAs, in silico tools already exist, which enable identification of suitable gRNAs, and the subsequent production thereof (see: www.dna20.com/eCommerce/cas9/input), but there are currently no specific tools that could be used in important crop plants, which always have complex genomes. Moreover, the available tools provide no information regarding the actual effectiveness of a gRNA determined in silico, in a subsequent test in vitro or in vivo inside a plant cell.
Thus, there is a continuing need for the establishment of transient and also optionally inducible methods and constructs based, inter alia, on gRNAs and CRISPR nucleases or gRNAs and other effector domains, in order to carry out a desired modification of a target sequence in a target plant cell, wherein only the modification of the target sequence but not the construct is passed on to descendants. In addition, there is a substantial need for a CRISPR-based method which offers the possibility of carrying out a germ line modification directly in a plant cell or a plant tissue, so that the modification can be inherited and seeds can be immediately harvested from the plant resulting from the modified plant cell or tissue which contain the specific genome modification without having to carry out difficult and expensive intermediate steps. Finally, there is a need for specifically broadening RNA-directed DNA modification systems which are provided by the CRISPR/Cas tools, in which not only genomic target structures but any nucleic acid as the target structure can not only be modified in a controlled manner in the genome of a cell but also indeed in the cytosol or in plastids. In this regard, there is currently also a desire for suitable insertion systems, which allow the targeted insertion of CRISPR/Cas tools and thus allow the targeted modification of a target region inside a plant target structure.
Furthermore, there is a desire for efficient in vitro screening methods, by means of which it is possible to check the effectiveness of a gRNA inside a plant cell in an in vitro assay with a high output, and make reliable predictions, in order to avoid costly and lengthy attempts with plant material.
The ultimate goal is to optimize the precision of a genome editing approach, in particular for the modification of larger eukaryotic genomes, comprising plant genomes and genomes from animal organisms, in order to obtain fewer off-target effects, and ideally, to obtain an optimal repair of a targeted, inserted, double strand break, by creating a repair matrix, together with the actual genome modification tools.

Methods and hybrids for targeted nucleic acid editing in plants using CRISPR/Cas systems


A method and apparatus for transmitting data and a method and apparatus for performing a task for process migration are provided. The method of transmitting data includes: determining a data transmission priority using at least one of information relating to data needed to continuously perform a task, that is currently performing, in an external device and information relating to data transmission means; determining transmission methods for each data based on the data transmission priority; and transmitting data to the external device according to the determined transmission methods.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting data and a method and apparatus for performing a task, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting data for process migration and a method and apparatus for performing a migrated process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data processing speed in computers (or processors) has gradually increased; however, further improvements in this regard are limited. Accordingly, a distribution system has been introduced as an alternative to further increase data processing speed. A plurality of computers interconnected through a network form a distribution system. Since data processing is executed by the plurality of computers in the distribution system, data processing speed is increased considerably.
Process migration is one technique used in the distribution system in order to transmit a process performed in a source device to a target device. When the process migration technique is used, a part of a task to be performed by an overloaded computer is performed by a less-loaded computer so that dynamic load balancing can be efficiently accomplished in the computers of the distribution system.
However, in the conventional art, when two or more processes are to migrate to a target device, the process migration order has not yet been determined so that a process to be performed firstly is sometimes performed later. Moreover, when only one process is to migrate, which data from among data needed to migrate the process should be firstly transmitted has not been yet determined so that a target device can perform the process only after all data is transmitted.
Meanwhile, according to the latest developments in information and communication technologies, the number of users who use more than two spatially separated computers has increased. An example will be given when one computer is used at work and another computer is used at home and a user moves to a different place while he/she performs a process using a computer at work. When performing another task using the processes performed or results obtained by performing the process is not urgent, problems may not occur. In this case, the user may move to a different place while the computer is turned on so as to perform the process automatically or the user may move to a different place after the performing of the task is temporarily stopped. However, when performing another task using the processes performed or the results obtained by performing the process is urgent, the above described case may not be applied. In this case, when the process currently performing is moved to the computer at home using a process migration technique, the process can be continuously performed using the computer at home.
As such, a process migration technique can be applied not only to a distribution system but also to spatially separated computers.
However, when the conventional process migration technique is applied to the distribution system, a network connection between the source device and the target device should be stable, otherwise the process migration cannot be performed.
Thus, as an alternative, a method of storing data needed for process migration from the source device in a mobile storage medium and transmitting the stored data to the target device has been proposed. However, when the storage capacity of the mobile storage medium is not sufficient, data to be written has not yet been determined so that data cannot be transmitted or data must be sequentially written, regardless of the importance. Moreover, even in an urgent case, for example, when a user cannot wait for the data to be transmitted, all data should be written and thus a data transmission time increases.

Method and apparatus for transmitting data and method and apparatus for performing data tasks


An amusement ride system includes: a shooting device adapted to shoot a projectile; an aiming facility operable by a user to aim the shooting device; and a triggering device operable by the user to fire the shooting device. The user rides the vehicle, aims the shooting device, and fires the device to shoot the projectile. A method for a ride includes: providing a shooting device; providing a plurality of projectiles; and aiming and shooting the projectiles utilizing the shooting device.

The present invention generally relates to rides and, more specifically, to an amusement ride system and method.
Existing interactive amusement rides use lasers, lights or other devices that are operated by guests to shoot at targets, which have a minimal cause-and-effect relationship to the reaction of the targets. Other rides may use water guns leaving the riders wet after the experience or may not be operated during colder seasons.
As can be seen, there is a need for an amusement ride system design providing interactive play shooting from a moving ride vehicle to interactive targets or other player/ride vehicles.


Complex, coupled photonic microdevices are formed to include sub-wavelength-sized radial perturbations sufficient to create resonant cavities, where these devices may be formed along the length of a single optical fiber and coupled together to form relatively complex photonic devices. By carefully selecting the placement and separation of these local radius variations, and using microfibers (or other suitable arrangements) to couple optical signals into and out of the device fiber, resonances in the form of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) are created in the device fiber such that a number of coupled microstructures (such as ring resonators) may be formed.

Miniature resonant photonic devices as known in the art are created from coupled high Q-factor cavities, for example, ring or photonic crystal resonators. The resonance is a result of circulating whispering gallery modes (WGMs) that are created within circular structures as an optical signal travels around the circumference of the structure, undergoing repeated internal reflections at near-grazing incidence. The leakage of light can be very small in these structures, leading to high intrinsic quality factors (Q factors). The Q factor is generally defined as a measure of energy loss relative to the energy stored in a resonator (or any type of oscillating device), characterized by the center frequency of a resonance divided by its bandwidth. The preferred "high Q" resonator is therefore associated with a relatively narrow and sharp-peaked resonance feature.
These miniature resonant photonic devices may be fabricated into more complex structures which can be coupled to each other and perform more complex functions (structures such as, for example, filters, dispersion compensators, delay lines, and the like), in a manner similar to conventional planar photonic resonant microstructures.
Conventional resonator structures are formed by creating features whose size is of the order of the wavelength of the propagating optical signal, or greater. For example, known rings or toroids or spheres are typically tens of microns in dimension. Such structures are commonly created using lithographic techniques (for example, etching a silicon material to create the feature pattern) with the undesirable result of surface roughness. The lithography-associated roughness leads to scattering of a propagating optical signal, reducing the Q factor of the device. In addition, the conventional fabrication process inaccuracies limit the precision with which multiple devices can be coupled together to form more complex structures. While it would be useful to create resonator structures with even smaller dimensions (i.e., sub-wavelength), which offers certain advantages in terms of performance, such smaller dimensions pose additional difficulties in fabrication. Thus, the required accuracy of sub-micron fabrication is difficult to achieve and the necessary techniques for achieving reproducible results of the accuracy required for optical devices have not yet been developed.

Fiber-based photonic microdevices with sub-wavelength scale variations in fiber radius


In a mooring assembly for a vessel, comprising a moonpool defined in the vessel, a turret is rotatably mounted within the moonpool with an upper main bearing for transmitting horizontal and vertical loads between the vessel and turret and with a lower secondary bearing for substantially transmitting horizontal loads between the vessel and the turret. Mooring lines are attached to the lower region of the turret that comprises a number of circumferentially spaced torsion box like torsion members each extending substantially vertically. The torsion members resist bending in a circumferential direction that is greater than in a radial direction. The lower secondary bearing is defined by outwardly facing bearing members attached to said torsion members and an inwardly facing bearing ring attached to the moonpool. In a situation in which a torsion member is not loaded horizontally by a respective mooring line its bearing member does not engage the ring.

The discussion below is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
The invention relates to a mooring assembly for a vessel, comprising a moonpool defined in the vessel, a turret rotatably mounted within the moonpool by means of an upper main bearing for transmitting horizontal and vertical loads between the vessel and turret and by means of a lower secondary bearing for substantially transmitting horizontal loads between the vessel and the turret, and mooring lines attached to the lower region of the turret.
Ideally the lower secondary bearing transmits the major part of the mooring forces (which are caused by the mooring lines) in a horizontal direction to the vessel. Practically, however, it is difficult to avoid that a substantial part of these forces are reacted by the upper main bearing, causing severe stresses, particularly in the turret and in the upper main bearing.
One suggested solution for this problem is to decrease the diameter of at least a lower part of the turret such as to reduce its resistance against bending. As a result the turret may bend under horizontal mooring forces, causing the lower secondary bearing to transmit most of the horizontal loads. A disadvantage, however, is that such a reduction of diameter of the turret reduces the available space for risers (or other elements such as, for example, a disconnectable buoy member) Further such a reduction of diameter may decrease the ability of the turret to transmit circumferential loads.


The invention relates generally to conveying systems, for moving work pieces from work station to work station including conveyors which generally move at a constant speed and include load carrying units which can be coupled for movement therewith between work stations and uncoupled from the conveyor so that they will be stationary at the work stations while work is done on a work piece carried by the load carrying units. More particularly, the present invention pertains to improved systems, methods, and apparatuses for providing locomotion and control to a conveyor system including surface-mounted drive system and adjustable, automatic take-up system with floating drive chassis. The present invention also pertains to elevated conveyor systems comprising many of the same components as the surface-mounted conveyor systems.

In the manufacturing industry today, many manufacturers utilize conveyor systems for easily and quickly moving products through various stages of the manufacturing process. For example, in the furniture industry, a piece of furniture may be placed on a conveyor cart connected to a conveyor system which passes through sanding stations, paint booths, finishing stations, hardware stations, etc. Existing conveyor systems typically consist of a series of conveyor carts upon which various items may be placed, a drive chain housing secured to the floor of the manufacturing facility through which a drive chain passes which pulls the conveyor carts, and a drive mechanism for providing locomotion to the chain and thereby moving the conveyor carts.
Examples of known conveying systems are set forth in a number of U.S. patents including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,438,702; 4,638,740; 4,644,869; 4,770,285; 4,944,228; 4,947,978; 5,065,678; 5,299,680; 5,368,152; 5,538,126; 5,549,050, which Applicant hereby incorporates by reference in their entirety. In these conveyor systems, the load carrying units are provided with vertically movable pins for engaging and disengaging with movable endless chains which move at a constant and continuous speed. Many different means have been used for moving these vertical pins from an engaging to a disengaging position and problems have been encountered in maintaining these pins in a disengaged position as the endless chain continues to move beneath the pins. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,944,228; 5,368,152; 5,538,126; and 5,549,050, which Applicant hereby incorporates by reference in their entirety, teach various means for stabilizing the engaging pins in a disengaged position.
Other embodiments of these conveying systems include overhead conveyers for propelling a carrier moveably along a track by an endless conveyor chain disposed within the track. The carrier is detachably connected to the chain and includes an uncoupling assembly for detaching the carrier from the chain. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,378,440; 6,827,200; and 6,843,358, which Applicant hereby incorporates by reference in their entirety, relate to various overhead conveyers.
In typical conveying system configurations, the drive mechanism of current conveyor systems must be placed below the level of the drive chain (i.e., below the surface of the floor). To do this, a large cavity must be created in the manufacturing room floor directly adjacent to and beneath the drive chain housing and drive chain. This cavity houses the drive mechanism. Such a configuration is required in current conveyor systems because as the system operates, the drive chain wears and settles, thus creating excess chain or "slack" in the drive chain. By placing the drive mechanism below the drive chain housing (i.e., below the surface of the floor), excess chain may be collected in the cavity. Normally, the excess chain has a tendency to bind up and become tangled; however, allowing the chain to collect in the cavity allows gravity to act on the excess chain and provide the tension necessary to prevent the excess chain from binding up or tangling. That is, the excess chain exiting the drive mechanism simply hangs freely until pulled up into the drive chain housing.
One problem with mounting the drive mechanism below the drive chain housing in a large floor cavity is that creating the sub-surface cavity is difficult, fixed and expensive. The cavity may be several feet across in width and may extend several feet into the floor beneath the drive chain housing. As most manufacturing facility floors are made of concrete or other similar material, creating such a large cavity in this type of material is both laborious and expensive. Further, the placement of the cavity may be dictated by the specific design of the manufacturing facility floor. For instance, sub-surface pipes, electrical wiring, or other objects may prevent the cavity from being located in certain otherwise desirable locations. As a result, a manufacturing line may need to be re-designed or otherwise modified to account for the placement of the drive mechanism and its cavity, adding yet additional costs and delaying installation of the conveyor system.
An additional issue with existing drive systems is that they may "lose center." A system loses center when the tow pin for a cart on the chain drive system drifts one or more links from its original starting chain link when moving through the drive portion of a conveyor system. Methods including using "pushers" or other mechanical means to keep a cart "on center" do not completely correct for the problem.
Keeping center is critical for timing sensitive operations such as automotive assembly. In such operations, the exact distance between carts on the conveyor system must be kept at all times to ensure that carts spend the correct amount of time at any given assembly station or point on the conveyor system. If center is not kept, the carts may drift apart or together, and may not arrive at assembly stations at the correct time, or may spend too little or too much time at any given point on the conveyor system.
What is needed is a solution to address the various problems associated with current conveyor systems, including the sub-surface drive mechanism of current conveyor systems and further including the tendency of current drive systems to "lose center" when in operation.

Systems, methods, and apparatus for improved conveyor system


First, a dual basis B− of B of modulo N is obtained by classical computation. Next, quantum computation is performed using the periodicity of a point sequence included in a sum set of sets obtained by parallel translation of a lattice L(B) by integral multiples of t for a plurality of integers, and an n-dimensional rj=(rj1, . . . , rjn) and rj0 are obtained for j=1, . . . , m. Subsequently, by classical computation, the closest vector rj(c)=(rj1(c), . . . , rjn(c))∈L(B−) of the n-dimensional vector rj, and the difference vector rj(d)=rj−rj(c)=(rj1(d), . . . , rjn(d)) corresponding to rj(c) are obtained.

Quantum computers have been expected to have a computation capability far superior to current computers in some application fields. One of famous quantum algorithms is a quantum algorithm disclosed by Shor in 1994 to solve efficiently factorization and discrete logarithm problems. Because of this disclosure, various quantum algorithms that bring out computation capabilities of quantum computers have been researched. In particular, quantum algorithms have been actively researched that solve, at high speed, combinatorial optimization problems, which cannot be efficiently solved by classical computers. With encouragement by a recent artificial intelligence boom, machine learning using a quantum computer (quantum machine learning) has been attracting attentions. Jacob Biamonte, Peter Wittek, Nicola Pancotti, Patrick Rebentrost, Nathan Wiebe, Seth Lloyd, Quantum Machine Learning, Nature 549, pp. 195-202. (2017). doi:10.1038/nature23474 (hereinafter referred to as Non-patent literature 1) is a paper that reviews recent research progresses pertaining to the quantum machine learning.
Box 1 Table in Non-patent literature 1 summarizes comparisons between quantum machine learning and classical machine learning. Among the comparisons, there are machine learning systems using a quantum computer exhibited to achieve learning efficiently; the systems encompass learning in linear support vector machines. What plays a main role in applications to these systems is a quantum algorithm that is called HHL (Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd) algorithm.
[Non-patent literature 2] Aram W. Harrow, Avinatan Hassidim, Seth Lloyd, Quantum algorithm for solving linear systems of equations, Phys. Rev. Lett. vol. 15, no. 103, pp. 150502 (2009)
The HHL algorithm is based on a phase estimation algorithm also used in Shor's algorithm, and can achieve efficient learning of linear systems. However, systems, such as deep neural networks, which have a wide industrial application range and in which development of their high-speed algorithms heavily affect society, are typically nonlinear. Consequently, the systems cannot be efficiently learned using the HHL algorithm.
Non-patent literature 1 introduces learning in classical Boltzmann machines and quantum Boltzmann machines as applications to learning in nonlinear systems of quantum computers. The learning of a classical Boltzmann machine quantum computer can be achieved only by limited operations. Consequently, experiments are performed using quantum annealers, which have already been commercialized. It has been theoretically proved that the amount of computation and the number of data samples required for learning are √N though the learning in the quantum Boltzmann machine using hardware is in a preparatory stage. However, the Boltzmann machine is a type of a stochastic recurrent neural network, and is a special system as a neural network. The quantum learning algorithm described above is inapplicable to the learning in a feed-forward neural network, which is typically used as a deep neural network.
The learning of the weights of each layer in the feed-forward neural network can be reduced to a problem of solving a linear equation having errors. This is a problem similar to a lattice problem called LWE (learning with errors) used for next-generation post-quantum public-key cryptography and the like. The lattice problem typified by the shortest vector problem is a fundamental problem used not only for artificial intelligence but also for next-generation cryptography. A method of dealing with this problem on a current computer (hereinafter also called "classical computer") and a quantum computer has been researched in detail. Hereinafter a method through a classical computer and a method through a quantum computer are separately described.
A most typical classical algorithm for solving a lattice problem is a lattice reduction algorithm. Given a basis of a vector space, a lattice reduction algorithm computes a new basis so that each pair of vectors in the basis is nearly orthogonal. Accordingly, for all pairs of basis vectors, the algorithm repeatedly performs operations, each of which is similar to the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. The length of the shortest vector obtained by the lattice reduction algorithm exponentially increases with the length of the shortest vector intended to be obtained, in the worst case.
As quantum algorithms for solving a lattice problem, for example, the methods of Oded Regev, Quantum Computation and Lattice Problems, SIAM Journal on Computing, Vol 33, No. 3, pp. 738-760, (2004) (hereinafter referred to as Non-patent literature 3) and T. Laarhoven and M. Mosca and J. van de Pol, Finding shortest lattice vectors faster using quantum search, Designs, Codes and Cryptography, Vol 7. No 2, pp. 375-400 (2015) (hereinafter referred to as Non-patent literature 4) have been proposed. Non-patent literature 3 creates a quantum state called dihedral coset state based on the closest vector problem, and obtains a solution using quantum Fourier transform. Non-patent literature 4 searches for a solution using probability amplitude amplification. Unfortunately, none of the methods is guaranteed to solve the lattice problem efficiently. That is, a quantum algorithm that efficiently solves the lattice problem has not been found.

Transformation apparatus, decision apparatus, quantum computation apparatus, and quantum machine learning system

NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION


Solvent-based flexographic or rotogravure inks are formulated to provide good pin-holing performance at high-speed printing conditions by combining the ink ingredients such the Maron-Pierce MPF (Maximum Packing Fraction) of the resulting ink is below 42 volume percent at a shear of either 10 reciprocal seconds or 2100 reciprocal seconds or both.

Flexography is one method of printing words and images onto foil, plastic film, corrugated board, paper, paperboard, cellophane, or even fabric. In fact, since the flexographic process can be used to print on such a wide variety of materials, it is often the best graphic arts reproduction process for package printing.
The anilox cylinder serves as the heart of the flexographic press. The use of an ink-metering anilox cylinder, which is engraved with a cell pattern, enables an even and fast ink transfer to the printing plate. The configuration of the cells in the anilox roller, the pressure between the rollers, and the use of a doctor blade mechanism control the amount of ink transferred to the printing plate. The shape and volume of the cells are chosen to suit the anilox surface (chrome or ceramic), the doctoring system, the press capabilities, the printing substrate, and the image type (solid or halftone). Advances in anilox technology have resulted in laser-engraved ceramic anilox rollers offering tougher and longwearing rollers with greatly improved ink release characteristics compared to conventional mechanically engraved chrome roller technology.
Flexography prints can be made with a flexible printing plate that is wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The plate is usually made of natural or synthetic rubber or a photosensitive plastic material called photopolymer. It is usually attached to the plate cylinder with double-sided sticky tape. Flexography is a relief printing process, meaning that the image area on the printing plate is raised above the non-image area.
The image area receives the ink from the anilox roller, which is transferred to the print substrate when the latter is pressed with support of the impression cylinder against the printing plate. Flexography is a direct method, that is, the printing plate transfers the ink directly to the substrate.
Due to improved registration, the most popular type of press is the CI press (central-impression) where printing units are arranged around a single central impression cylinder.
In general, the higher the speed of the press, the wider the press will be. When the press is wider and faster, the diameter of the anilox roller must be greater in order to prevent damage to the roller due to deflection and bending. A 50-inch (ca 127 cm) machine has a 6-inch (ca 15 cm) diameter anilox cylinder. The dwell time between the chamber and the ink transfer nip is shorter.
Linear speeds in excess of 1800 ft/min (ca 0.549 km/min) are considered high speed for printing flexible substrates, and presses with the capability of printing at a linear speed of 3300 ft/min (ca 1 km/min) are now appearing on the market.
The linear speed of 3300 ft/min (ca 1 km/min) is equal to a linear velocity of 35 miles per hour (ca 56.3 km/hr), and conventional plates and the double-sided sticky tape will eject from the press at this speed. In place of plates and double-sided sticky tape, direct laser engraved elastomer sleeves are used for printing at these velocities. The usual chambered doctor blade has a two-inch gap between the blades, and the dwell time for this distance at 3300 ft/min (ca 1 km/min) is less than the time of a high speed shutter on a 35 mm camera. In that interval, the air must be displaced from the cells of the anilox, ink must enter the cells, and the air must be cycled out from the chamber.
At linear speeds up to 2300 ft/min (ca 0.701 km/min), normal motors can be used; however, at linear speeds over 2300 ft/min water-cooled motors are required.
Many printers require inks and coatings to print at high speeds in order to improve the cost effectiveness of their operations. Flexographic printing linear speeds generally range up to 2000 ft/min (ca 0.609 km/min), and that speed can be expected to increase. At increasing linear speeds, for example greater than 1200 ft/min (ca 0.366 km/min), and especially 1800 ft/per minute (ca 0.549 km/min), the printability of the ink begins to deteriorate and print defects can be observed. This defect can be described as uniformly dispersed, irregularly shaped missed areas of printing. These defects are believed to result from the inability of the ink to wet out the surfaces of the printing blanket or plate or the substrate, or from the distinct mechanistic demands associated with a high speed printing press configuration as discussed in the above paragraphs.
Gravure printing is an example of intaglio printing. It uses a depressed or sunken surface for the image so that the image areas is generally honey comb shaped cells or wells that are etched or engraved into a printing cylinder. The unetched areas of the cylinder represent the non-image or unprinted areas. The cylinder rotates through an ink bath and excess ink is wiped off the cylinder by a flexible steel doctor blade. The ink remaining in the recessed cells forms the image by direct transfer to the substrate (paper or other material) as it passes between the plate cylinder and the impression cylinder.
Gravure inks are fluid inks with a very low viscosity that allows them to be drawn into the engraved cells in the cylinder then transferred onto the substrate. Flexographic and gravure inks are very similar and the basic constituents are essentially the same.
The transfer of ink to the substrate is one of the most important factors affecting the quality of the final printed product. However, due to dynamics of linear high-speed presses, conventional inks used for slower speeds will breakdown at high speeds, creating print defects. Any print defect will negatively affect productivity and the inherent printing advantages of using linear high-speed presses.
Typical flexographic/gravure printing inks contain resins, solvents, colorants, and additives. The resins include rosin esters, polyamides, polyurethanes, nitrocellulose, and others. The solvents are often based on alcohols, acetates, glycol ethers, and possibly other solvent classes.
Suspensions form the backbone of several industrial materials such as coatings, inks, paints, ceramics and cosmetics. The control and improvement of the rheology and stability of such materials in chemical engineering processes have been a significant concern of scientists and engineers for decades. The solids loading or solids content of a suspension has also a major impact on its end-use properties, such as for instance, the quality of the coating color in later printing process or the color density in printing inks. As the solids content of a suspension is a critical factor in its rheological, process and end-use properties, it is of tremendous significance to obtain the optimum properties of the suspension providing the right solids content with the desired rheological, process and end-uses properties. The fact that there could be some impact of the solids content and its maximum threshold, the so-called maximum packing fraction, on rheology, process and end-use properties was recognize but has not been investigated, K. and van de Ven, T. G. M., "Comparisons of modified effective medium theory with experimental data on shear thinning of concentrated latex dispersions," J. Rheol., 54, 1-26 (2010); Larson, R. G., The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids, (Oxford University Press Inc., New York, N.Y., 1999).
The traditional remedies to improve the print quality of a flexographic ink suggested lowering the viscosity of the existing low- and moderate-speed inks in order to obtain the corresponding version of the ink suitable for high-speed conditions. It was believed that reducing viscosity would lead to a better leveling and improve the pin holing. While it is true that pin holing is a result of poor leveling, reducing the ink viscosity by adding more solvent did not improve the pin holing issue.
In general, the solids content of a coating color or an ink system should provide the required end-use properties, such as the coverage and the color of the final product. To reach this requirement, coaters and printers face a dilemma: on one hand, the solids content should be beyond a minimum to provide the desired coverage and color; but on the other hand, runnability requirements limit the high end of solids content. Therefore, coaters and printers must compromise by trial and error in order to find a condition with high solids content system that has an acceptable runnability.
It has now been found that the Maximum Packing Fraction (MPF) is a parameter which allows one to optimize ink formulation. Here it is important to note that the important aspect in evaluating the runnability of a coating color or ink is not its solids content alone. Instead, the important aspect is how far the solids content is distant from the MPF. For example, two ink systems with the same solids content, e.g., 35 vol %, can have totally different runnability or end-use properties if they have different MPF's, e.g. 50 vol % and 65 vol %, respectively. The reason is that the one system with a MPF of 65 vol % will lose a significant amount of its solvent content when going from 35 vol % and getting close to a solid-like state of 65 vol %, viz. a 30 vol % difference, while the other system needs only to lose solvent in going from 30 vol % to 50 vol %, viz. 15 vol %. Thus, the second system needs to eliminate half the solvent amount that the first system must eliminate to get to the same solid-like condition. Such differences have major impacts on both runnability and the end-use properties. It has been found that the MPF can be used as a key parameter to design a formulation.
The impact of solids content on various runnability and end-use parameters are reported in the literature. Ascanio, G., Carreau, P. J., Reglat, O. and Tanguy, P. A., "Extensional properties of coating colors at high strain rates," TAPPI Adv. Coat. Fundam. Symp. 8th, Chicago, Ill., 172-182 (May 8-10, 2003); Backfolk, K., Grankvist, T. and Triantafillopoulos, N., "Slip rheology of coating colors containing calcium carbonate pigments with narrow particle size distributions," TAPPI Adv. Coat. Fundam. Symp., 8th, Chicago, Ill., 148-165 (May 8-10, 2003). However, the application of the MPF as a formulating tool to design a formulation leading to a superior runnability has not been recognized.

High speed solvent-based flexographic/rotogravure printing inks


A printing apparatus executes printing by arranging plural printheads, each including a plurality of print elements in a direction of a print width so as to obtain the print width corresponding to a width of a printing medium and conveying the printing medium in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the print width. The printing positions of part of the print elements of a first printhead in the direction of the print width overlap with part of the print elements of a second printhead in the direction of the print width. The apparatus includes a conveyor for conveying the printing medium, a mutual complementary printer performing mutual complementary printing in the overlap portion by the overlapped print elements, and a time divisional driving controller for dividing the plurality of print elements of each of the plural printheads into a plurality of blocks, with each block composed of a predetermined number of print elements, and for time-divisionally driving the predetermined number of print elements included in each block. The predetermined number differs from a number of print elements included in the overlap portion, and the time divisional driving controller controls the driving sequences of the overlapped print elements of the plural printheads to coincide with each other.

In recent years, OA equipment such as a computer, wordprocessor, and copying machine are becoming popular, and many printing apparatuses to be used for this equipment have been developed. Especially, inkjet printing apparatuses are superior to printing apparatuses employing other printing methods because of the easily attainable high resolution, high operation speed, quietness, and low cost. Recent OA equipment are required to be capable of color printing. To meet this requirement, a lot of color inkjet printing apparatuses have also been developed.
An inkjet printing apparatus discharges ink from nozzles to a printing medium, thereby forming an image. Particularly, to increase the print speed, a printhead with a plurality of ink orifices and liquid channels being integrated is used as a printhead in which a plurality of print elements are integrated and arrayed. A printing apparatus coping with color printing generally comprises a plurality of printheads (to be referred to as a multi-head hereinafter).
For color image printing, various factors such as color development, tonality, and uniformity must be taken into consideration, unlike monochrome printers that print only characters and numbers. Especially as for the uniformity, slight variations in nozzle to nozzle in the multi-head manufacturing process influence the amount and direction of ink discharge from each nozzle during color image printing. This finally appears as density unevenness in an image, resulting in a poor image quality.
A detailed example will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 17 is a view showing an image density when ink is properly discharged. FIG. 18 is a view showing an image density when errors occur in an ink discharge amount and direction.
Referring to FIGS. 17 and 18, reference numeral 91 denotes a printhead; 92, an ink discharge nozzle (to be referred to as a nozzle hereinafter); 93, an ink droplet discharged from the nozzle 92; 94, a printing medium; and 95, a printed dot formed on the printing medium.
When all nozzles discharge ink droplets with the same size in the same direction, as indicated by a in FIG. 17, the printed dots 95 with the same size are formed on the printing medium 94, as indicated by b in FIG. 17. As a result, a uniform image without density unevenness is obtained as a whole, as indicated by c in FIG. 17.
In fact, the discharge amount and direction vary between the nozzles, as described above. Hence, if printing is executed without any correction, the size and discharge direction of the ink droplets 93 discharged from the nozzles 92 vary, as indicated by a in FIG. 18. Consequently, the printed dots 95 are formed on the printing medium 94 in different sizes or at unexpected positions, as indicated by b in FIG. 18. According to b in FIG. 18, a blank portion (a portion without printed dots) exists in the nozzle array direction, or conversely, the printed dots 95 overlap more than necessary to increase the printing density. Alternatively, a white stripe is formed, as can be seen at the center of b in FIG. 18. The set of printed dots formed in this manner shows a density distribution indicated by c in FIG. 18 in regard to the nozzle array direction.
As a result, the density variation is normally perceived as density unevenness by the human eye.
To solve the density unevenness, a method of executing divisional printing by repeatedly scanning a printhead in the same region of a printing medium and a method of executing divisional printing by disposing a plurality of printheads have been proposed conventionally.
As a head structure including a plurality of printheads, a so-called dual head structure in a serial printer and a structure having a so-called full-line printhead with a print width corresponding to the width of a printing medium in a line printer are known.
To achieve high-speed printing highly demanded recently, a line type inkjet printing apparatus is also known which comprises a full-line printhead having a print width equal to or more than the width of a printing medium and limits relative movement of the printhead and printing medium to one.
Full-line printheads include an "integrated line type" printhead having a full-line print width by one print element substrate on which nozzle arrays for discharging ink are arranged, and a "bonded-head line type" printhead which increases the print width by bonding a plurality of print element substrates with a short print width.
Even for the "bonded-head line type" printhead, many methods of arraying print element substrates are known. For example, print element substrates are arranged in a line at an interval to form one printhead. A region between the print element substrates where no printing is performed is printed by using another printhead. Alternatively, a printhead using a so-called "overlap" method is known in which print element substrates are arrayed to execute printing in the same region by the plurality of print element substrates provided on one printhead.
In a printhead which has an array of a plurality of print elements each having an ink orifice and an electrothermal transducer for generating discharge energy to discharge ink from the ink orifice, power required for driving these print elements is large. Hence, a time divisional driving method is widely known which divides a plurality of print elements into a plurality of blocks and sequentially drives the blocks (e.g., Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. 8-72245).
According to this method, for example, a plurality of print elements are put into one block. Several or several ten driving integrated circuits each capable of simultaneously driving one print element in one block are arranged on a single substrate. Image data corresponding to the print elements is input, and the driving integrated circuits are time-divisionally driven, desired printing on a printing medium such as a printing paper sheet can be executed. In such time divisional driving, if adjacent print elements are driven simultaneously, the liquid channels mutually suffer pressure interference by pressure generated upon ink discharge. The printing density may change due to the pressure interference (crosstalk). Hence, it is desirable that simultaneous or continuous driving of adjacent print elements is inhibited, as is conventionally known.
To achieve high-quality printing by the conventional line type inkjet printing apparatus that implements high-speed printing, it is supposed to be effective to arrange a plurality of printheads and execute divisional printing by using the plurality of printheads. However, from the viewpoint of the cost, size, and power consumption of the printing apparatus, the number of the plurality of printheads is practically two or four at most.
Some of the conventional serial type inkjet printing apparatuses employ a multi-pass printing method using eight passes or more. It is difficult to implement an image quality equal to or better than that of the serial type by using a line type printhead.


The present invention discloses a method for transferring a thin film from a first substrate to a second substrate comprising the steps of: providing a transfer structure and a thin film provided on a surface of a first substrate, the transfer structure comprising a support layer and a film contact layer, wherein the transfer structure contacts the thin film; removing the first substrate to obtain the transfer structure with the thin film in contact with the film contact layer; contacting the transfer structure obtained with a surface of a second substrate; and removing the film contact layer, thereby transferring the thin film onto the surface of the second substrate.

Graphene and other layered material such as boron nitride (BN) comprise two-dimensional sheets of atoms or ions bound together in which the effective thickness of the sheet is in the order of atomic or molecular thicknesses (usually less than 2 nm), which is far smaller than the lateral dimensions of the order of micrometers up to centimeters. These and other thin-film materials such as thin Si layers, InGaAs, copper-indium-gallium-arsenide layers, have numerous potential applications as the conductor, semiconductor or insulator in electronic, optoelectronic, optical, sensor and thermal devices, and for mechanical strength and toughness applications, for storage, or for surface-modifying applications including sensors.
A key processing challenge to the development of a number of these practical applications however is the lack of a suitable method to pattern and transfer these films from their growth substrate to the target substrate, in a way that is reliable, robust, and suitable for manufacturing without damaging the properties of the transferred film. This is particularly challenging because the thin films are often in the single or few atomic sheet form, and are hence very fragile.
X. S. Li et al (Science 2009, 324:1312; ECS Transactions, 2009, 19:41) described one method in which a copper (Cu) growth substrate is etched away to release graphene onto the target substrate that is brought into contact with floating graphene in the etchant solution. This method does not provide for any possibility to register the transferred sheet to the target substrate. It also greatly limits applications because the target substrate may not be compatible with the etchant solution, which may further be a source of contamination.
X. Liang et al (Nano Lett. 2007, 7:3840) described the use of a thermal-release (TR) glue layer based on a resinous material that acts as a room-temperature glue to the graphene sheet together with a hard stamp made of silicon, to extract multilayer graphene sheets from a HOPG crystal, and deposit onto another thermal-curable glue layer or hydrophilic silicon oxide surface. Because it uses a glue layer to attach the graphene to the silicon stamp, the transfer of graphene to the target substrate depends crucially on the relative strength of adhesion to the target vs. the TR glue at the release temperature. This requires typically a glue layer to also be present on the target or a high surface energy substrate (such as hydrophilic silicon oxide surfaces). This greatly limits the applicability of this method because the target surface may not generally have a glue layer or a strongly adhesive surface, particularly for electronic, semiconductor and insulator applications. Furthermore the glue layer may cause structural damage to the graphene and severely contaminate the surfaces of the transferred 2-d layered material. A similar method is disclosed by Bae S. et al (Nature Nanotech, 2010, 5:574; ACS Nano, 2011, 6:2096), which also employs the thermal release tape as the support and transfer material and the process is carried out via a roll-to-roll method.
L. Song et al (ACS Nano 2009, 3:1353) described the use of gold as an adhesion layer to the patterned graphene film, and a thermal-release (TR) tape as the pressure-sensitive adhesive to adhere to the gold film to lift the gold/graphene composite film off the substrate. The assembly is then contacted onto the desired target substrate, and heated to the release temperature of the TR tape to release the gold/graphene composite film onto the target substrate. The gold is then attached off by standard potassium iodide etchant. This approach relies on strong adhesion between the target substrate and the graphene to successfully compete with the TR tape for the graphene, and requires a glue layer or a high energy surface to be present at the desired target substrate. In addition, the use of gold (or other metal) as the adhesion layer to transfer graphene causes general incompatibility with substrates that cannot tolerate gold (or other metal) etchants.
Similarly, S. Unarunotai et al (Appl. Phys. Lett. 2009, 95:202101; ACS Nano, 2010, 4:5591) described the use of gold and other metal films as an adherent layer on graphene to adhere to a pressure-sensitive polyimide tape. The entire assembly is then peeled off the substrate and laid on a target substrate. The polyimide tape is then etched off in oxygen plasma and the gold film etched off in a gold etchant. Such a peeling method would cause severe deformation and fracturing of the graphene film as revealed by the intensity of the defect band in Raman spectroscopy.
J. D. Caldwell et al (ACS Nano, 2010, 4:1108) also employs a related competitive adhesion approach by exfoliating graphene film from SiC using a thermal release tape. This transfer method leaves behind small areas of graphene on SiC surface because of poor conformal contact with the thermal release tape. An improvement of this method is also described (Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene, and Associated Devices Hi, Vol. 7761 (Eds: D. Pribat, Y. H. Lee, M. Razeghi), Spie-Int Soc Optical Engineering, Bellingham 2010) in which a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) layer is introduced between the thermal release tape and graphene. However, this method still relies on achieving a stronger adhesion of graphene to the target substrate than the thermal release tape.
M. J. Allen et al (Adv. Mater. 2009, 21:2098) describe the use of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) stamp to pick up graphene oxide sheets and few-layer graphenes (FLG) respectively deposited on a first substrate, to transfer to a second substrate. The transferred film quality via such direct physical exfoliation is poor and unreliable as evident by the optical images in that report. The two key problems in this method are that (i) the PDMS stamp does not have high affinity for the graphene sheets, and (ii) the graphene sheets that do adhere to the PDMS stamp may not transfer off to the target substrate if the adhesion between the graphene and the target is not high enough.
X. S. Li et al (Nano Lett. 2009, 9:435), X. S. Li et al (Science, 2009, 324:1312) and A. Reina et al (The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2008, 112:17741; Nano Letters, 2009, 9:30) use a polymer film of poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) to act as a "carrier" film for the graphene sheet when the growth substrate is etched off. The PMMA/graphene composite film is then laid onto the target substrate and PMMA dissolved in acetone to transfer the graphene film. The chief disadvantage of this approach is that "carrier" film is fragile, and prone to warping, stretching or bending and wrinkling that causes micro-cracking and mechanical damage of the graphene sheet. Furthermore the inherent stress that is frozen in during the formation of the carrier film also causes deformation of the film (warping) which damages (fractures) the graphene film during transfer, thereby degrading its quality and limiting its application. Such methods would also not allow patterning underlying patterns on the target substrate. If patterned films are desired, these would have to be separately defined, and the carrier film method does not provide any possibility of accurate patterning on the target substrate.
It is clear that the above methods depend on having a first adhesive layer that adheres to the graphene sheet as a stamp or a carrier sheet, and achieves transfer to the target substrate by making the target surface even more strongly adhesive such as through the use of a second adhesive layer. This imposes stringent requirements on the nature of the substrate. Further, the use of adhesives may not be compatible with most applications in electronics and semiconductors, and further, the methods do not provide allowance of patterning a substrate.
The methods of the state of the art typically damage the thin film sheets by stress/strain during transfer due to warping, stretching or bending of the carrier film, and also allow contamination by the adhesion (glue) layer that cannot be generally removed, because the transferred graphene or thin film sheets cannot be subjected to harsh cleaning processes without damage. Moreover, some of the transfer methods require the use of a final chemical etching and/or cleaning step to remove the first adhesion layer which further limits the general compatibility with a number of substrates and manufacturing processes. The use of thermal-release tapes also inevitably causes stretching deformation and fracture of the attached thin film, and is inherently incompatible with accurate placement of patterned films on the target substrate. In addition, none of these transfer processes permits the simultaneous patterning of the 2-d thin films.
There is therefore a need for an improved process to transfer thin films from one substrate to another.


A method of making an inkjet printhead comprises forming at least one ink ejection element 18 on a surface 14 of a substrate 10 and forming a slot 12 in the substrate to provide fluid communication between an ink supply and the ink ejection element. A protective coating 26 is applied to the surface of the substrate prior to forming the slot. The protective coating comprises a non-polymeric material which is capable of forming a covalent bond with the substrate and is removed from the substrate without damaging the ink ejection element following slot formation.

Inkjet printers operate by ejecting small droplets of ink from individual orifices in an array of such orifices provided on a nozzle plate of a printhead. The printhead may form part of a print cartridge which can be moved relative to a sheet of paper and the timed ejection of droplets from particular orifices as the printhead and paper are relatively moved enables characters, images and other graphical material to be printed on the paper.
A typical conventional printhead is fabricated from a silicon substrate having thin film resistors and associated circuitry deposited on its front surface. The resistors are arranged in an array relative to one or more ink supply slots in the substrate, and a barrier material is formed on the substrate around the resistors to isolate each resistor inside a thermal ejection chamber. The barrier material is shaped both to form the thermal ejection chambers, and to provide fluid communication between the chambers and the ink supply slot. In this way, the thermal ejection chambers are filled by capillary action with ink from the ink supply slot, which itself is supplied with ink from an ink reservoir in the print cartridge of which the printhead forms part.
The composite assembly described above is typically capped by a metallic nozzle plate having an array of drilled orifices which correspond to and overlie the ejection chambers. The printhead is thus sealed by the nozzle plate, but permits ink flow from the print cartridge via the orifices in the nozzle plate.
The printhead operates under the control of printer control circuitry which is configured to energise individual resistors according to the desired pattern to be printed. When a resistor is energised it quickly heats up and superheats a small amount of the adjacent ink in the thermal ejection chamber. The superheated volume of ink expands due to explosive evaporation and this causes a droplet of ink above the expanding superheated ink to be ejected from the chamber via the associated orifice in the nozzle plate.
Many variations on this basic construction will be well known to the skilled person. For example, a number of arrays of orifices and chambers may be provided on a given printhead, each array being in communication with a different coloured ink reservoir. The configurations of the ink supply slots, printed circuitry, barrier material and nozzle plate are open to many variations, as are the materials from which they are made and the manner of their manufacture.
The typical printhead described above is normally manufactured simultaneously with many similar such printheads on a large area silicon wafer which is only divided up into individual printhead dies at a late stage in the manufacture. FIG. 1 is a plan view of the front surface of a substantially circular silicon wafer 10 typically used in the manufacture of printheads. The wafer 10 has a large number of slots 12 each extending fully through the thickness of the wafer. In FIG. 1 the slots 12 are grouped in threes, as would be the case where the wafer is to be used in the manufacture of printheads for colour printing. The rear surface (not seen in FIG. 1) of the wafer 10 has grooves running vertically between each group of three slots 12 and horizontally between each row of slots 12 so that ultimately the wafer can be divided up, for example, using a conventional dicing saw into individual "dies" each containing one group of three slots 12.
In the final printhead each slot 12 supplies ink to one or more ink ejection chambers disposed along one or both sides of the slot on the front surface of the wafer. Although, for reasons of mass production, the ink supply slots 12 are almost always formed in the undivided wafer 10, they can be formed at any of a number of different stages of production. However, although the slots 10 can be formed in the initial "raw" wafer, as seen in FIG. 1, it is preferred to form the slots when the front surface of the wafer already bears the thin film resistors and other circuitry. This is because an unslotted wafer presents an uninterrupted front surface for the application and patterning of the various layers forming the thin film circuitry. If the slots were present they would need to be temporarily blocked off, for example, in the manner disclosed in European Patent Application No. EP 1,297,959, or other measures would need to be taken to avoid leaving undesired materials in the slots.
However, if the slots are formed when the front surface of the wafer already bears the thin film circuitry, the latter needs to be covered with a protective coating to avoid damage to the delicate and critical thin film structures. A coating of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is conventionally used to protect these structures. For example, a typical protective coating is built up by applying five successive layers of PVA each approximately 2.5 microns thick.
The slots 12 are conventionally formed by laser machining or sand blasting, usually from the rear surface of the wafer. Laser machining is preferred since sand blasting leads to dimensional instability and chipping. However, we have found that conventional PVA coatings provide acceptable protection for the critical thin film structures only when slotting with relatively low power lasers, e.g. 7.5 W lasers, and then only when slotting from the rear surface of the laser. The reason is that the high plasma temperature associated with higher power lasers, such as 15 W and 20 W lasers, tends to lift the PVA coating at the edges of the slot when breaking through the front surface (whether from the front or rear), so that the laser machining plasma gets under the edges of the PVA to damage the thin film circuitry and deposit wafer debris thereon. Quite apart from the desirability of reducing the damage caused by higher power lasers, it would be desirable to be able to effect slotting from the front surface of the wafer since then the wafer can be slotted simultaneously from both the front and rear surfaces to improve throughput.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved method of making an inkjet printhead in which these disadvantages are avoided or mitigated.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


The invention generally relates to systems and methods for transferring ions for analysis. In certain embodiments, the invention provides a system for analyzing a sample including an ionizing source for converting molecules of a sample into gas phase ions in a region at about atmospheric pressure, an ion analysis device, and an ion transfer member operably coupled to a gas flow generating device, in which the gas flow generating device produces a laminar gas flow that transfers the gas phase ions through the ion transfer member to an inlet of the ion analysis device.

In the field of analytical chemistry, the demand for direct sampling under ambient conditions has increased, and this has led to the development of a variety of ambient ionization sources. Ambient ionization sources ionize analytes in the ambient environment (in situ) with no intrinsic requirement for sample preparation. This advantage allows real-time, on- site detection, saving time and resources.
A typical set-up that uses an ambient ionization source to analyze ions from a sample is configured such that the ionization source is uncoupled from a mass analyzer, such as a mass spectrometer (MS). The mass spectrometer must be located sufficiently close to the ionization source (on the order of about 2 cm or less) so that the ions that are generated will transfer to an inlet of the mass spectrometer. The opening of the MS inlet is typically smaller than 700 μm, due to the fact that a vacuum must be maintained inside a manifold where ions are mass analyzed. In applications in which the ions are generated far from the MS inlet (on the order of about 5 cm), it is difficult, if not impossible, to transfer the ions to the mass analyzer. Thus the distance between the ambient ionization source and the mass analyzer limits the use of these ambient ionization sources.
Further, the ions generated from an ionization source at atmospheric pressure, such as an electrospray ionization (ESI) or desorption electrospray ionization (DESI), also have a wide angular dispersion. The intake of the ions by the MS inlet of a small opening is relatively inefficient. In an application in which analytes over a large area need to be analyzed or monitored simultaneously, it is highly desirable that the ions generated be transferred into the MS inlet at high efficiency.
There is a need for devices that can facilitate transfer of ions from an ambient ionization source to an inlet of a mass spectrometer.

Systems and methods for transfer of ions for analysis


Of a sensing part and a mounting part of an oil level sensor mounted to a sensor mounting opening at a bottom portion of an oil pan of an engine, an undersurface of the mounting part exposed to the outside of the oil pan is located above the lowest part of the oil pan by a distance, and the mounting part is disposed in a recessed part formed on an undersurface of the oil pan and is covered with a cover plate. Therefore, the weight of the engine does not directly act on the mounting part of the oil level sensor when the engine is directly placed on a floor surface. Further, even in a state in which the engine is mounted on a vehicle body, the mounting part of the oil level sensor can be also effectively protected at the time of colliding with a flying stone, riding on a curbstone, jacking up or the like.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mounting structure of an oil sensor for mounting the oil sensor which detects a parameter of engine oil to a sensor mounting opening provided at a bottom portion of an oil pan which is located below a cylinder block of an engine and stores the engine oil.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-83935 discloses a structure including an oil deterioration sensor which detects the deterioration degree of engine oil based on a pH value and which is disposed at a bottom portion of an oil pan in order to determine the replacement time of the engine oil of an automobile engine. The oil deterioration sensor includes a sensing part which accommodates therein a sensing element, and a mounting part which supports the sensing part; and the sensing part is inserted upward from an opening formed at the bottom portion of the oil pan, and the mounting part is fixed to the bottom portion of the oil pan.
However, in this conventional structure, the entire mounting part of the oil deterioration sensor protrudes downward from the flat bottom portion of the oil pan, and therefore, not only the weight of the engine is likely to directly act on the oil deterioration sensor when the engine is directly placed on the floor surface, but also there is a possibility that the oil deterioration sensor cannot be sufficiently protected at the time of colliding with a flying stone, riding on a curbstone, jacking up or the like in a state in which the engine is mounted on a vehicle body.


An information processing apparatus includes a history acquisition section configured to acquire history data including a history indicating that a plurality of selection subjects have selected selection objects; a learning processing section configured to allow a choice model to learn a preference of each selection subject for a feature and an environmental dependence of selection of each selection object in each selection environment using the history data, where the choice model uses a feature value possessed by each selection object, the preference of each selection subject for the feature, and the environmental dependence indicative of ease of selection of each selection object in each of a plurality of selection environments to calculate a selectability with which each of the plurality of selection subjects selects each selection object; and an output section configured to output results of learning by the learning processing section.

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.
As a method for predicting what a selection subject (e.g., a consumer) selects from among multiple options (e.g., multiple commercial products), there is known conjoint analysis using a logit model as described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2013-109470, 2005-316756, 2001-175761, 2011-65504, 2006-85558, and O. Chapelle and Z. Harchaoui, "A Machine Learning Approach to Conjoint Analysis," Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 17, L. K. Saul, Y. Weiss, and L. Bottou, Eds., 2005, pp. 257-264. In this method, the features of options are vectorized to perform a logistic regression analysis of the preference vector of a targeted person on the features of options and an actually selected option in order to build a prediction model for estimating a preference of the selection subject to predict a selection object that the selection subject will select in the future.
Here, since the conjoint analysis using a conventional logit model is based on the premise of a situation in which an option matching a preference is selected from among options recognized by a selection subject, the options recognized by the selection subject need to be specified explicitly in learning data. However, in normal learning data such as purchase data, only a commercial product selected by a consumer is recorded without recording with which commercial product the consumer has compared the commercial product to select the commercial product, and this cannot lead to the prediction of a selection object after considering the options recognized by the selection subject.
Further, the consideration of the options by the selection subject may be influenced by an environment at the time of selection, such as the cognitive bias and/or a point-of-sale situation, as well as the features of and preferences to the options. However, in the conjoint analysis using the conventional logit model, such an influence of the environment at the time of selection is not considered, and this makes it difficult to estimate a precise preference of the selection subject by excluding the influence of the environment.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Predicting a consumer selection preference based on estimated preference and environmental dependence

International Business Machines Corporation


A starting material for injection molding of a metal powder including from 38 to 46% by volume of an organic binder and the balance of spherical iron powder with an average particle size from 2 to 6 .mu.m, which provides a sintered part having a density ratio of higher than 94%, by conducting injection molding, debinding and sintering in a non-oxidizing atmosphere at a temperature lower than the A.sub.3 transformation point of carbon steel.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a starting material for injection molding of metal powder, as well as a method of producing sintered parts using such starting material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Powder metallurgy has been developed as a method of producing those parts having complicated shapes at reduced cost.
As compared with conventional methods using uniaxial pressing, the injection molding method has particularly advantageous features in that it is comparable with the former in view of the mass productivity and can produce those three dimensional structural products of thin-walled small parts that can not be produced by the uni-axial pressing.
In addition, since fine powders can be molded by the use of the injection molding, sintered parts at high density can be obtained. As a result, it is possible to improve mechanical properties, magnetic properties, corrosion resistance, etc.
The injection molding process for a metal powder comprises a kneading step of kneading the metal powder with an organic binder to obtain a starting material for injection molding of the metal powder, a step of applying injection molding to the starting material as in the case of plastic molding thereby obtaining a molded parts, a debinding step of removing the binder from the molded parts by applying heat treatment, etc. to the molded parts and a step of sintering the debound molded parts, which are conducted successively.
The process comprising such steps has been known in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. Sho 57-16103 and Sho 59-229403.
In the above mentioned technique, however, although the sinterin9 temperature is as high as about 1150.degree. C. or above, it is not possible to stably obtain the density ratio of sintered parts (ratio of the apparent density to the theoretical density) of greater than 95%.
Further, none of the disclosed techniques is economically disadvantageous since high sintering temperature has to be applied.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 59-229403 discloses an injection molding method for a mixture comprising a metal powder with an average particle size of greater from 1 to 50 .mu.m and from 35.8 to 60.7 % by volume of a binder. However, the density ratio obtained for the powder when sintered at a sintering temperature of 1200.degree. C. for 30 min is only from 82 to 93 %.
In view of such situations, it has been demanded for obtaining a starting material for injection molding of a metal powder capable of stably obtaining the density ratio of greater than 94 % as well as for the method of producing a sintering product therefrom.

Starting material for injection molding of metal powder