Provided is a host vehicle position estimation device capable of accurately estimating the position of a host vehicle on a map even if there is no landmark that can be referred to on an image photographed using a camera. A host vehicle position is estimated on the basis of intermediate information about a landmark name and landmark distance for an intermediate object extracted from a photographed image of the surroundings of a host vehicle, distance information about the distance to the intermediate object, and landmark information stored beforehand about the landmark name and position.

In the conventional art, a car navigation system, an automatic driving system, and the like are widely known as a system using a host vehicle position on a map. A global positioning system (GPS) is known as technology which is used for the systems.
In the convention system, since a host vehicle position on a map has an error of about several meters, for example, there is a problem in that an intersection in which the vehicle has to make a turn is mistaken or a vehicle travels on a lane which does not guide the vehicle to a destination.
In order to solve such a problem, various techniques for estimating a host vehicle position on a map with higher accuracy have been studied. For example, PTL 1 discloses a technique of recognizing a landmark (a landmark which is a sign having a predetermined feature) present on a map from images photographed using a camera and estimating a host vehicle position on the map.
A self-position estimating device disclosed in PTL 1 includes landmark detecting means that detects a landmark, reliability acquiring means that acquires landmark reliability which is reliability of the landmark detected by the landmark detecting means, and self-position estimating means that estimates a self-position on the basis of a plurality of landmarks detected by the landmark detecting means, and the self-position estimating means sequentially selects the landmarks to be used to estimate the self-position from the landmark having highest landmark reliability.
According to the self-position estimating device disclosed in PTL 1, when a plurality of landmarks are extracted, it is possible to accurately recognize different landmarks and to estimate a self-position with high accuracy.


This invention provides a music/light synchronous control mechanism, comprising an overhead platform on a music bell, wherein said overhead platform has the first gear set driven by the shaft of said music bell, the second gear set driven by the spur gear in a music tumbler, a control mechanism, and a light contact switch mechanism. With the mechanic structure, this invention can control music and light to start/end them synchronously.

This invention is related to an improved decorative crystal ball structure, in particular a new crystal ball structure that has a music/light synchronous control mechanism, which controls the rhythm from a music bell and a decorative light through a mechanical drive synchronously.
Filled with liquid, a decorative crystal ball in home or office can highlight the models (trees, houses, castles, and characters) inside the crystal ball due to its convex effect.
Usually, the chassis of a crystal ball has a music mechanism, which can play music when its clockwork spring is fastened manually. In order to enhance the decorative effect, a light mechanism may also be mounted in the crystal ball to attain aural/visual effect at the same time.
Furthermore, a Voice IC may be devised in the crystal ball to synchronize the music/light mechanisms. Though music/light synchronization may be achieved with the Voice IC, the Voice IC has two obvious shortcomings:
High cost and high failure rate, resulting in high cost of the crystal ball;
The Voice IC cannot distinguish the type and origin of the music. Though the Voice IC should turn on the light according to the music from the music mechanism in design, it may actually be triggered by any sound source (e.g., TV or home audio system). Thus the music/light synchronization may be destroyed.
In consideration of above shortcomings, the inventor deems a mechanism for music/light synchronization that is better than the above Voice IC approach. With years of experience in crystal ball design and actual development and tests, the inventor provides a music/light synchronous control mechanism.
The main purpose of this invention is to provide a music/light synchronous control mechanism, which controls music and light from start to finish synchronously.
Another purpose of this invention is to provide a music/light synchronous control mechanism to attain music/light synchronization for above crystal ball and eliminate unexpected ignition of the light in the crystal ball.
Another purpose of this invention is to provide a music/light synchronous control mechanism, which substitutes the legacy Voice IC with an accurate and reliable structure to synchronize music/light for above crystal ball and decrease the cost of the crystal ball significantly.
The foregoing and other technical contents of the invention can be further realized with the drawings and detailed description of the preferred embodiment.


A number of embodiments of coils for mounting on spark plugs for supplying the voltage for firing the spark plugs. In each embodiment, all operative components are disposed below the upper end of the center electrode terminal of the spark plug for reducing the size requirements of the engine. In some embodiments, the coil is mounted at least in part independently of the spark plug so that the spark plug will not carry the full weight of the coil.

This invention relates to an ignition device for an internal combustion engine and more particularly to an improved coil and mounting arrangement for such engines.
It has been acknowledged that there are certain advantages in supplying small individual coils mounted adjacent each spark plug of the internal combustion engine for firing that respective spark plug. Although such arrangements have some advantages, the placement of coils in proximity to spark plugs can present certain design problems. This is particularly true in conjunction with compact engine configurations such as are typical in outboard motors. That is, in connection with an outboard motor there is considerable importance in simplicity and compactness of design and the previously proposed coil mounting arrangements where coils are mounted adjacent the individual spark plugs have not been satisfactory for application to outboard motors.
It is, therefore, a principal object to this invention to provide an improved, compact, coil, spark plug arrangement for an internal combustion engine.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved mounting arrangement for an individual coil for the spark plug of an internal combustion engine.
In many forms of coil mounting arrangements wherein the coil is mounted adjacent the spark plug of an internal combustion engine, the coil may be mounted directly on the spark plug. The previously proposed constructions for this purpose have had several disadvantages. In the first instance, the coils have tended to extend above the spark plug and thus increase significantly the height requirements of the engine to clear the spark plug and mounted coil. In addition, the mounting of the spark coil on the spark plug can put undue stress on the spark plug and may, in some instances, cause premature failure of the spark plug.
It is, therefore, a still further object of this invention to provide an improved compact mounting arrangement for the coil of an individual spark plug for an internal combustion engine.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a mounting arrangement for a positioning a coil adjacent a spark plug and wherein the spark plug need not carry the full weight of the coil.

Ignition device for internal combustion engine


A method of profiling endarterectomy patients for determining one or more post-operative risks includes steps comprising:                (a) obtaining a set of parameters which describe the patient, the set of parameters including at least one of: age of patient, E; smoking habits of patient, S; serum cholesterol concentration of patient, C; diabetes status of patient, D; blood pressure of patient, P;        (b) obtaining one or more samples of plaque tissue from endarterectomy treatment of the patient;        (c) isolating genetic material from the one or more samples of plaque tissue;        (d) determining genetic expression activities of a plurality of genes identified in the genetic material; and        (e) computing from the set of parameters in combination with the genetic expression activities one or more post-operative risks indicative of potential events to which the patient is susceptible as a consequence of the endarterectomy treatment.

"Endarterectomy" refers to a removal of material from an inside surface of the one or more arteries; the material on the inside surface is known as "plaque" and is often mechanically of a sticky flexible nature. An example of an endarterectomy procedure is Carotid endarterectomy (CEA), which is a surgical procedure employed to reduce a risk of stroke by at least partially correcting for stenosis, namely narrowing, in one or more common carotid arteries of the human body.
A natural process known as Atherosclerosis which occurs in the human body causes layers of plaque to form in the one or more arteries. In the carotid arteries atherosclerosis usually occurs in a fork where a common carotid artery divides into a corresponding internal carotid artery and a corresponding external carotid artery. The layers of plaque have a tendency to build up in the inner surfaces of the arteries, namely lumen, and cause narrowing and associated constriction of the arteries, thereby rendering blood supply to the human brain at least partially restricted. Pieces of the plaque, known as emboli, are susceptible to break off, namely become embolized, and travel up the internal carotid artery to brain regions, whereat the pieces risk blocking blood circulation, and thereby risk causing death of brain tissue which requires to be constantly furnished with oxygen and nutrients to survive.
In practice, it is found that the layers of plaque cause symptoms which are noticeable by patients themselves. The symptoms are often experienced as temporary or transitory strokes, namely transient ischemic attacks (TIA's). For purposes of conventional temporary diagnosis, TIA's last less than 24 hours; after 24 hours, TIA's are known as strokes.
In situations where the plaque does not manifest as noticeable symptoms, patients are still at a higher risk of stroke in comparison to a general human population, but not as high a risk for patients with symptomatic stenosis. An incident of stroke, including fatal stroke, is in a range of 1% to 2% per year. Surgical mortality as a result of executing endarterectomy lies often in a range of 1% to 2% of patients, but is susceptible to lying in a larger range of 1% to 10% in certain circumstances. Thus, execution of endarterectomy potentially provides potential benefits but also introduces additional risk.
In carotid endarterectomy, a surgeon opens a human carotid artery of a patient to be treated and mechanically removes plaque, namely a sticky fat-like material from the artery. A newer procedure, known as endovascular angioplasty, threads a catheter up from a groin region of the patient, around an aortic arch, and up a carotid artery to be de-plagued. The catheter employs a balloon-type structure to expand the artery, thereby providing an opportunity for a stent to be fitted to hold the artery open if required. In a plurality of clinical trials, a 30-day post-operative risk of heart attack, stroke, or even death was significantly higher when stenting was employed in comparison to just endarterectomy, namely 9.6% for stenting versus 3.9% for endarterectomy. The European International Carotid Stenting Study (ICSS) found that stents had almost double a rate of complications occurring in comparison to just endarterectomy.
When performing endarterectomy on patients, it is desirable to try to reduce a risk of post-operative complications, for example post-operative complications which can result in strokes, or worst case death, and also short- and longterm progression of atherosclerosis. Contemporary risk prediction methods for use in selecting appropriate post-operative treatments for endarterectomy patients involves assessing parameters indicative of:                (a) age of patient, E;        (b) smoking habits of patient, S;        (c) serum cholesterol concentration of patient, C;        (d) diabetes status of patient, D; and        (e) blood pressure of patient, P.
The risk prediction determines a degree of aftercare required, for example prescribed certain types of medication, or subjected to additional invasive treatments; the risk R and a suitable treatment strategy T are defined by Equations 1 and 2 (Eq. 1, Eq. 2):R=F1(E,S,C,D,P)  Eq. 1T=F2(E,S,C,D,P)  Eq. 2wherein F1 and F2 are multi-parameter functions.
A problem arising in practice is that Equations 1 and 2 (Eq. 1 & Eq. 2) are not sufficiently accurate, such that individuals susceptible to short-term and long term major cerebrovascular and cardiovascular ischemic events are not identified accurately. A more accurate risk prediction is desirable which will aid medical staff to treat high-risk patients more aggressively than others.

Method and kit for performing profiling of endarterectomy patients


A method of moving a transfer member from a first image transfer position to a second non-image transfer position after transfer of a toner image. This method reduces toner and photoconductor drum degradation in image forming apparatuses.

The present invention relates generally to the field of image forming apparatuses and in particular to an image forming apparatus that reduces toner and photoconductor degradation during an image formation cycle. Embodiments of the present invention move a transfer member from a first image transfer position to a second non-image transfer position after transfer of a toner image to an image transfer media.
In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus toner degrades as it is worked by the rotation of agitator members during rotation of a photoconductive member and developer section. The effects of toner degradation are directly related to the quality of image formation. Toner degradation particularly reduces the quality of image formation where the toner has been churned and degraded by the toner agitating members but there has been no toner transfer to an image transfer media or media sheet. In this instance, the toner remains in the toner cartridge and is subject to further degradation by the agitating members during subsequent image formation cycles. This is particularly a concern with color toner cartridges which generally are not as frequently used as the black toner cartridge.
Photoconductor life is generally related to the number of photoconductor revolutions. Revolutions may occur both when a toner image is transferred from the photoconductor, and also when there is no transfer. Each instance may cause surface degradation, thereby reducing the number image transfers the photoconductor will be competent to complete.

Method for positioning transfer members within an image forming apparatus


A positive-electrode material for a lithium ion secondary battery contains a lithium complex compound that is represented by the formula: Li1+aNibMncCodTieMfO2+α, and has an atomic ratio Ti3+/Ti4+ between Ti3+ and Ti4+, as determined through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, of greater than or equal to 1.5 and less than or equal to 20. In the formula, M is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Mg, Al, Zr, Mo, and Nb, and a, b, c, d, e, f, and α are numbers satisfying −0.1≤a≤0.2, 0.7<b≤0.9, 0≤c<0.3, 0≤d<0.3, 0<e≤0.25, 0≤f<0.3, b+c+d+e+f=1, and −0.2≤α≤0.2.

Lithium ion secondary batteries are in widespread use as compact, lightweight secondary batteries with high energy density. For lithium ion secondary batteries, for example, lithium metal, lithium alloy, metal oxide, carbon, or the like is used as a negative-electrode material, while lithium-metal composite oxide with a layered structure is used as a positive-electrode material. As an example of such a positive-electrode material, there is disclosed a positive-electrode active material that exhibits high thermal stability when used for a positive electrode of a nonaqueous-electrolyte secondary battery, and has a high charge-discharge capacity (see Patent Literature 1 below).
The positive-electrode active material for a nonaqueous-electrolyte secondary battery described in Patent Literature 1 contains a powder of lithium-metal composite oxide represented by the general formula: LiNixM1-xO2 (x in the formula satisfies (4−Z)×x≥0.75, where Z is the average valence of Ni, and M in the formula represents at least one element whose average valence in the entire M is greater than or equal to 3). When a nonaqueous-electrolyte secondary battery that uses such a powder as a positive-electrode active material is charged up to a composition of Li0.25NixM1-xO2, the number of moles of quadrivalent Ni becomes less than or equal to 60% of the total number of moles of Ni and M.
According to Patent Literature 1, using the aforementioned positive-electrode active material can prevent a decrease in the initial capacity of the battery that would occur due to substitution of Ni with another element, and can, when the material is used for a positive electrode of a lithium ion battery, improve the thermal stability of the battery as long as the material satisfies the following conditions: the number of moles of quadrivalent Ni, which is thermally unstable, becomes less than or equal to 60% of the total number of moles of Ni and the added element M when the battery is charged up to a composition of Li0.25NixM1-xO2 that indicates the fully charged state.
There is also disclosed a method for producing surface-modified lithium-containing composite oxide that contains lithium-containing composite oxide particles and lithium-titanium composite oxide represented by the general formula: LipNxMyOzFa on the surface layers of the particles (see Patent Literature 2 below). In the general formula, N is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Co, Mn, and Ni, and M is at least one element selected from the group consisting of a transition metal element other than Co, Mn, and Ni; Al; Sn; and an alkaline-earth metal element, and satisfies 0.9≤p≤1.3, 0.9≤x≤2.0, 0≤y≤0.1, 1.9≤z≤4.2, and 0≤a≤0.05.
In the production method in accordance with the invention described in Patent Literature 2, a powder of lithium-containing composite oxide is first impregnated with a solution containing a lithium source and a titanium source dissolved therein. Then, heat treatment at 400 to 1000° C. is applied to the obtained lithium titanium-impregnated particles. The invention described in Patent Literature 2 is characterized in that the titanium content in the surface layer of the surface-modified lithium-containing composite oxide, which is obtained through the heat treatment, is 0.01 to 1.95 mol % relative to the lithium-containing composite oxide that is the base material. Accordingly, in Patent Literature 2, a method for producing surface-modified lithium-containing composite oxide is provided that can be advantageously used for a positive electrode of a lithium ion secondary battery, has a high discharge capacity and volume capacity density, is highly safe, and has excellent charge-discharge cycle durability, rate characteristics, and low production cost.

Positive-electrode material for lithium ion secondary battery, method for producing the same, and lithium ion secondary battery


A method, apparatus and computer readable storage medium are provided for determining absolute altitudes of individual floors represented by an indoor map. In the context of a method, location data is obtained representing at least one track of one or more users at least partially in a structure. The location data includes horizontal and vertical location information with the vertical location information representing an absolute altitude. The method also includes obtaining indoor map data representing different floors and indicating structural elements on the floors and determining track sections of the at least one track represented by the location data such that each track section can be assumed to be on a single floor. The method further includes at least partially comparing determined track sections with floors represented by the indoor map data and determining an absolute altitude of at least some of the floors represented by the indoor map data.

Indoor positioning requires novel systems and solutions that are specifically developed and deployed for this purpose. The "traditional" positioning technologies, which are mainly used outdoors, i.e. satellite and cellular positioning technologies, cannot deliver such performance indoors that would enable seamless and equal navigation experience in both environments. The required positioning accuracy (2-3 m), coverage (˜100%) and floor detection are challenging to achieve with satisfactory performance levels with the systems and signals that were not designed and specified for the indoor use cases in the first place. Satellite-based radio navigation signals simply do not penetrate through the walls and roofs for the adequate signal reception and the cellular signals have too narrow bandwidth for accurate ranging by default.
Several indoor-dedicated solutions have already been developed and commercially deployed during the past years e.g. solutions based on pseudolites (GPS-like short-range beacons), ultra-sound positioning, BTLE signals and Wi-Fi fingerprinting. What is typical to these solutions is that they require either deployment of totally new infrastructure (beacons, tags and so on) or manual exhaustive radiosurveying of the buildings including all the floors, spaces and rooms. This is rather expensive and will take a considerable amount of time to build the coverage to the commercially expected level, which in some cases narrowed the potential market segment only to very thin customer base e.g. for health care or dedicated enterprise solutions. Also, the diversity of these technologies makes it difficult to build a globally scalable indoor positioning solution, and the integration and testing will become complex if a large number of technologies needs to be supported in the consumer devices, such as smartphones.
For an indoor positioning solution to be commercially successful, that is, 1) being globally scalable, 2) having low maintenance and deployment costs, and 3) offering acceptable end-user experience, the solution needs to be based on an existing infrastructure in the buildings and on existing capabilities in the consumer devices. This leads to an evident conclusion that the indoor positioning needs to be based on technologies such as Wi-Fi- and/or Bluetooth (BT)-technologies that are already supported in almost every smartphone, tablet, laptop and even in the majority of the feature phones. It is, thus, required to find a solution that uses radio signals (e.g. Wi-Fi- and BT-radio signals) in such a way that makes it possible to achieve 2-3 m horizontal positioning accuracy, close to 100% floor detection with the ability to quickly build the global coverage for this approach.
One approach for radio-based indoor positioning that models e.g. the Wi-Fi-radio environment (or any similar radio e.g. Bluetooth) from observed Received Signal Strength (RSS)-measurements as 2-dimensional radiomaps and is hereby able to capture the dynamics of the indoor radio propagation environment in a compressable and highly accurate way. This makes it possible to achieve unprecedented horizontal positioning accuracy with the Wifi-signals only within the coverage of the created radiomaps and also gives highly reliable floor detection.
Huge volumes of indoor Wi-Fi-measurements data can be harvested via so called crowd-sourcing if the consumer devices are equipped with the necessary functionality to enable the Wi-Fi-data collection as a background process, naturally with the end-user consent. It could also be possible to use volunteers to survey the sites (buildings) in exchange of reward or recognition and get the coverage climbing up globally in the places and venues important for the key customers. However, the technical challenges related to the harvesting, processing, redundancy, ambiguity and storing the crowd-sourced data need to be understood and solved first, before the Wifi-radiomap creation can be based on the fully crowd-sourced data.
An essential part in crowd-sourcing of radio fingerprints for indoor spaces is an altitude reference of the mobile device and their accuracy. Altitude information is crucial, especially indoors, where received radio signal strengths in one horizontal location vary drastically as a function of the altitude/floor level. This variation is partly/mostly due to building structures.
In a 3D indoor positioning system, that is based on crowdsourced radio samples with 3D reference locations, the altitude information typically originates from global measurement sources such as GNSS and/or barometer measurements, for example. Therefore, the radio samples' reference locations include absolute altitude references, and the system is unaware of any local floor indexing system that single buildings or building maps may have.
However, to be usable for an end user, a 3D indoor positioning system must be combined with so called indoor maps, relative to which the location is indicated to the end user. In many of such indoor maps, however, the altitude is expressed as a floor index, while the absolute altitudes of the floors are not necessarily included in an indoor map. Instead, indoor maps typically only include building-specific floor indexing that cannot be directly linked to absolute altitude values.
The problem with that is that crowdsourcing-based 3D indoor positioning systems typically output the location in coordinates representing latitude, longitude and absolute altitude, while the indoor map can be shown only for coordinates representing latitude, longitude and floor index. Therefore, indoor maps that lack absolute floor altitudes cannot be directly combined with an afore-described indoor positioning system. This is because there is no straightforward way to convert a (global/absolute) altitude to a (local/relative) floor index.
One option would be to establish an indoor positioning system where the radio samples' altitudes are expressed as floor indices manually input by a user. In this approach the person, who collects the radio samples, needs to input the floor indices to the radio map according to the building-specific floor indexing system. However, this is not an option in the case of crowdsourcing-based radio sample collection, because no manual interference must be required.
Alternatively, it would be conceivable to automatically learn the floors in a building by looking at the (multi-modal) altitude distribution of the crowdsourcing-based radio sample collection. In theory, the matching of absolute altitudes and floor indices would be trivial; as there would be n altitudes for n floors. However, often some floors are used rarely or are even inaccessible, so that such a method might not detect all the floors that appear in the indoor map. Therefore, the matching of absolute altitudes and floor indices cannot in general be made unambiguously in such a way.
Another option would be to integrate absolute altitudes in the indoor map. However, indoor maps typically lack absolute altitudes for multiple reasons:                Floor indices are a more perceivable measure of altitude than absolute altitude for a human end user and therefore more useful in many applications.        Floor indices are typically visible in most buildings and therefore usable for navigation, while absolute altitudes are typically not visible.        Some indoor positioning systems are based on manually collected radio data, so here the altitude of the radio data can be expressed as a discrete floor index (given manually) rather than absolute altitude. This is only possible as the discrete floor index is given manually; an automatic collection of radio fingerprints would lead to absolute altitude measurements.        Using manually input floor indices can be preferred, because measuring the absolute altitude may not be straightforward, since GNSS measurement accuracy is low in the vertical dimension. This is due to bad satellite geometry; positioning signals of the satellites below the horizon level cannot be observed. Also, in general the quality of GNSS measurements is very low indoors.        Accuracy of a third-party map provider's indoor altitude data may not be reliable. The altitudes may have errors, for example, and different coordinate systems often cause confusion (e.g. between mean sea level altitude and a WGS 84 altitude).
For the abovementioned reasons, a system that utilizes indoor maps will benefit from determining the absolute altitudes of all the buildings' mapped floor levels in a consistent and scalable manner. Consistent means here that the absolute altitudes are expressed in the same coordinate system for each building, and scalable means that a large number of buildings can be mapped efficiently without manual labor.
If an indoor mapper wants to assign absolute altitudes to an indoor map, the altitudes must either be measured manually using e.g. a high-precision GNSS positioning system for each floor. Alternatively, if a 3D indoor positioning system gives the vertical location as an absolute altitude and the indoor map does not contain the absolute altitudes corresponding to the floor indices, a professional person must enter each floor and check which absolute altitude the 3D indoor positioning outputs in each floor. This way, each floor index can be assigned with an absolute altitude. However, even this process is expensive and non-scalable (requires human work) and error prone (how to guarantee that the indoor positioning system shows correct absolute altitude at each floor; a crowdsourcing-based indoor positioning system's accuracy may self-heal over time but the manually set absolute altitudes do not improve over time automatically).
Thus, currently, no automatic method for efficiently assigning the absolute floor altitudes of an indoor map's floor levels exists.

Determining of absolute altitudes of floors of a structure


An additional speed change mechanism (11) is incorporated in a vehicle-driving power transmission path of a tractor. The change mechanism is disposed within a main clutch housing (1) using axially spaced front and rear bearing support frames (6, 7) as supports for transmission shafts (9, 10, 11) associated to the mechanism. The front frame is fixedly mounted on a front surface of an internal flange (5) on the housing and may also be used as a support for preassembling the mechanism at the outside of clutch housing. The rear frame is fixedly mounted on a front surface of rear wall (1a) of the housing and may be varied in configuration in accordance with a given design of the change mechanism. An adaptability to various designs of the change mechanism is given while assuring an easy assemblage of the change mechanism into the clutch housing.

The purpose of providing a hollow shaft means, through which a power takeoff shaft means passes, between a clutch housing and transmission casing in the fashion set forth above is to enable an engine to drive the vehicle and an auxiliary implement such as a rotary tiller, mower or the like in manners different from each other. When a dual clutch is employed as a main clutch, it is fashioned such that transmission of the vehicle-driving power is cut off by a first-stage operation of the clutch and, then, transmission of the auxiliary implement-driving power is cut off by a second-stage operation of the clutch. When a separate power takeoff clutch is employed as shown, for example, in JP, A(U) No. 56-97128, a main clutch which can cut off only the transmission of vehicle-driving power is employed and a primary drive shaft in the implement-driving power transmission path is connected directly to the engine.
Tractors are used in conjunction with auxiliary implements for various purposes such as earth-moving, mowing or reaping, article-loading purposes and, thus, various transmissions of different designs are required. An economical way of providing different designs to tractor transmissions is that an additional transmission or speed-change mechanism is provided within a rear half of a clutch housing which includes a substantial dead space behind a main clutch. There have been proposed various structures for such additional transmission mechanism.
These prior art structures may be divided into two types. One of these types employs an additional casing as a support for an additional speed-change mechanism as shown, for example, in JP, A(U) No. 59-37131. The other type employs a support frame which is fixedly mounted in the clutch housing for supporting an additional speed-change mechanism or its transmission shafts, as shown, for example, in JP, A(U) No. 58-22557.
The structure of the former type involves a problem that it is relatively large in weight due to employment of the additional casing so that it is relatively hard to assemble same into the clutch housing. Further, an additional speed-change mechanism of a different design requires a different casing. Such casing is relatively large in size and, therefore, relatively expensive in cost.
The structure of the latter type employing a support frame is small in weight and, therefore, permits an easy assemblage into the clutch housing of a tractor. Cost of this structure is considerably low as compared to the structure employing an additional casing. However, in the prior art structure of this type, a single support frame is employed and transmission shafts are supported by the support frame and by a rear wall of the clutch housing. Such single support frame often requires, when the design of an additional speed-change mechanism is changed, a clutch housing having a rear wall of a different design.


A method and a device for automatically deactivating a coasting operating mode in a motor vehicle with an internal combustion engine is disclosed. An activated coasting operating mode is deactivated if the current vehicle speed exceeds a threshold value. The threshold value is set as the sum of a minimum vehicle speed and of a maximum permissible increase in speed.

A method and such a device are known from WO 2005/084995 A1.
A conventional motor vehicle with an internal combustion engine can become slower due to the engine drag torque when a driver takes their foot off the accelerator pedal. In the case of a relatively severe negative gradient the engine drag torque can be insignificant. This also depends on the mass of the vehicle, the current vehicle speed and the currently engaged gear speed.
In motor vehicles with an internal combustion engine and automatic transmission there is what is commonly referred to as a "coasting operating mode" in which the drive train is automatically opened if the driver takes their foot off the accelerator pedal. The internal combustion engine can be idled in the coasting operating mode or switched off entirely, for example, in the case of an automatic start/stop system. In the coasting operating mode, the engine drag torque is eliminated in order to save fuel.
Various driver interactions such as, for example, propulsion requests or braking requests through activating the accelerator pedal, brake pedal or activating the gear speed selector lever can cause the drive train to close, i.e. caused the coasting operating mode to terminate. With this general logic, a driver has control over the activation and deactivation of the coasting operating mode and they can choose between the coasting operating mode and rolling with the engine drag torque.
It is to be expected that drivers adapt their driving style to the presence of the coasting operating mode. This means that the driver does not expect the vehicle to become significantly slower if the driver takes their foot off the accelerator pedal. However, the vehicle behavior in the coasting operating mode is different if the road on which the vehicle is currently driving has a negative gradient or a negative gradient occurs further along the route. In particular, in the coasting operating mode the vehicle becomes faster on a moderate negative gradient.
In order to solve this problem, the abovementioned document WO 2005/084995 A1 proposes deactivating a currently activated coasting operating mode automatically even when the current vehicle speed exceeds, or significantly exceeds, a threshold value. This threshold value may be a value which is preset by the driver or set automatically as a function of the current negative gradient and/or of a negative gradient lying ahead. The current negative gradient or negative gradient lying ahead is to be determined using satellite navigation.
Determining the current negative gradient or a negative gradient lying ahead using satellite navigation is complex.
One possibility is to consider calculating the vehicle acceleration in the direction of travel either by differentiating the vehicle speed or measuring it directly and automatically deactivating a coasting operating mode if the calculated or measured vehicle acceleration exceeds a threshold value. However, differentiation of the vehicle speed can result in a noisy acceleration signal.

Method and device for controlling a coasting operating mode in a motor vehicle with an internal combustion engine


A method for processing a multimedia content previously digitally encoded into an audio-video stream and transmitted from a distribution platform for the purposes of on-demand transmission to a plurality of receiving terminals includes the following steps: applying a demultiplexing function to the audio-video stream, said function being arranged to generate at least one group of data streams; applying a transformation to each data stream; segmenting each data stream; storing the at least one group of segmented data streams in a memory; carrying out, only in response to a request issued by a receiving terminal among the plurality of receiving terminals, the following steps: selecting, on the basis of the request, at least one data stream of at least one group of stored data streams; and transmitting the at least one selected data stream to the receiving terminal that issued the request.

In recent years, the distribution of digital television has undergone multiple changes. New audiovisual services such as video-on-demand (VOD) or catch-up TV have developed and have led to the development of network infrastructures offering greater bandwidth to facilitate providing such services, in addition to traditional television distribution (broadcast).
These developments have led to the creation of a new type of services, called OTT (Over-The-Top) or bypass services, providing multi-screen delivery of multimedia content (video and audio in particular) over the Internet. The involvement of a traditional network operator in controlling the distribution of content is superfluous to the operation of OTT services. OTT services are provided through so-called unmanaged networks, meaning networks whose quality of service (QoS) or bandwidth varies for each customer and varies over time.
However, the network infrastructures supporting these OTT services reach their limits when the number of clients is too large. OTT service providers are therefore unable to control the quality of service experienced by the end user. OTT services are provided point-to-point, with each client having its own connection for downloading multimedia content. Also, as the number of clients increases, the bandwidth consumed also increases, which leads to overloading the upstream equipment of the OTT service providers and also to overloading the downstream distribution networks of the end user. This overload is exacerbated by the many media content distribution formats, which requires OTT service providers to maintain and manage multiple versions of the same content in different formats.
In addition, content providers have limited control over the load on distribution platforms. OTT protocols are centered on the client software. This software can therefore decide the bit rate it will request of the distribution platform without taking into account its capacities and limits, which can result in saturation of the distribution platform.
The present invention improves the situation.

Method and system for processing multimedia content within a metropolitan area network


A coincidence arbitration system for a sorting cytomteter which detects and sorts particles using a flow chamber and a stream of droplets. Those droplets containing selected particles are sorted by selectively applying a charge thereto and passing the droplets through deflection plates. After detection, the particle data is delayed and analyzed to make sort decisions. The delay is for a period of one and one fourth droplet time periods less than the time the particle is formed into a droplet. At the time the command is issued creating the charge on the droplet to be formed, the coincidence arbitration circuit looks four quarter droplet times ahead and behind of the event to determine whether a coincidence is occurring, and if so, whether the coincidence is with a similar type of particle or a different type of particle. Based on this information, appropriated sort or no-sort commands are issued.

In the past it has been suggested that particles, such as blood cells, may be detected and separated using a device known as a flow cytometer. The fluorescent dye treated cells are injected into a narrow jet stream surrounded by an electrically conductive sheath of fluid. Light, such as from a laser beam, is directed at the passing particles and various parameters, such as front and side light scatter and various fluorescent wavelengths of light may be detected to identify the cell. As the jet stream of fluid containing the cells exits the flow chamber, a mechanism, such as an ultrasonic or acoustic wave generator, cause the stream to be broken into a series of individual droplets. The detected cells will then be entrapped within one droplet and the individual droplets may be sorted into different containers to obtain a sample of desired cells.

Coincidence arbitration in a flow cytomery sorting system


Wax-like esterification products derived from optionally partially saponified hard paraffin oxidation products and mono- or multivalent alcohols, which are suitable particularly as lubricants for plastics processing, are formed in the melt with particularly high degrees of esterification and without discolorization. The conversion is conducted at 160.degree. to 220.degree. C. in the presence of zinc salts such as zinc stearate.

This invention relates to an improved esterification process for the oxidation products of synthetic hard paraffins.
It is a fact that esterification reactions have been the subject of substantial research. Thus, it is known to accelerate the esterification of lower fatty acids, which proceeds slowly in the absence of catalysts, by using mineral or Lewis acids. This involves a conversion of the poorly reacting cation which the nucleophilic oxygen atom of the alcohol enters into an addition with. This technique, however, becomes less effective as soon as higher fatty acids are involved, partly because of their lesser mobility, partly because the carboxyl function becomes less reactive.
On the other hand, in contrast to the esterification of lower fatty acids which with alkali form an undesirable stable carboxylate anion, the esterification of higher fatty acids with glycols can be accelerated by alkali hydroxide (Pardun, Seifen-Ole-Fett-Wachse 106, 65, 27 (1981)). Moreover, it is also known that various metal powders, oxides and salts can catalyze the esterification of fatty acids.
However, these processes cannot be applied to synthetic waxes, as has been stated in DE-AS 22 01 862 and DE-AS 24 32 215.
DE-AS 22 01 862 describes the esterification of polyethylene oxidation products with moro- or multivalent alcohols in the presence of sulphuric acid. According to its examples, however, no more than half of the waxy acids present in terms of the acid number can be esterified at 115.degree. C.; at higher temperatures undesirable discolorations have to be expected. The desired complete esterification cannot, accordingly, be attained readily; as a result the specification refers to a low esterification readiness and long reaction periods. The need for a subsequent acid neutralization is also disadvantageous.
Consequently, there remains a need to provide a solution to this longstanding technical problem.

Process for the manufacture of wax-like esterification products

Chemische Werke Huels Aktiengesellschaft


The invention provides a contactless sensor device operable for sensing water vapor or a predetermined chemical vapor including a thin film, wherein the thin film includes a nanostructured sensing layer and a soft magnetic layer disposed directly adjacent to the nanostructured sensing layer. The thin film has a first mass, a first density, and a first magnetostrictive resonance frequency prior to the nanostructured sensing layer adsorbing a predetermined amount of a predetermined vapor and a second mass, a second density, and a second magnetostrictive resonance frequency subsequent to the nanostructured sensing layer adsorbing the predetermined amount of the predetermined vapor. The sensor device also includes a driving coil disposed indirectly adjacent to and at a predetermined distance from the thin film, the driving coil operable for generating an alternating-current magnetic field used to query a shift in the magnetostrictive resonance frequency of the thin film. The sensor device further includes a measuring coil disposed indirectly adjacent to and at a predetermined distance from the thin film, the measuring coil operable for measuring and quantifying the shift in the magnetostrictive resonance frequency of the thin film.

The scientific and technological interest in miniaturized humidity and chemical vapor sensor devices has grown in recent years. The need for such sensor devices spans a wide range of industries and applications, such as the medical instrumentation, food and agriculture, paper, automotive, electric appliance, petrochemical, fuel cell, and semiconductor industries, as well as the military, in, for example, humidity, chemical vapor, organic vapor, and gas sensing applications. The wide range of environments that these sensor devices may be exposed to severely limits the candidate materials that may be used to build the sensor devices. A number of humidity and chemical vapor sensor devices have been developed and built for specific applications. However, none of these sensor devices demonstrates a suitable combination of the desired robustness, sensitivity, selectivity, stability, size, simplicity, reproducibility, reliability, response time, resistance to contaminants, and longevity. Thus, what are still needed are humidity and chemical vapor sensor devices, among other sensor devices, that exploit the high sensitivity of the magnetostrictive resonance frequency of soft magnetic thin films to changes in mass and the unique properties of certain porous nanostructured thin films, nanoparticles, nanorods, nanotubes, and nanofibers, including their high adsorption potential, high adsorption rate, high desorption rate, high chemical stability, and heat release characteristics associated with the physisorption of water vapor and chemical vapor molecules.

Contactless humidity/chemical vapor sensor device and associated method of fabrication


A universal motor comprises a stator interposed between a housing and a novel plastic bracket. The plastic bracket is a unitary piece that not only defines a plurality of terminal receptacles but also supports the motor's outboard bearing. In some embodiments, the plastic bracket also includes an integral post for supporting a spring that urges a carbon brush against the motor's commutator.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention generally pertains to series-wound universal motors and more specifically to the electrical terminals of such a motor.
2. Description of Related Art
The universal motor is a single-phase commutated motor with wound field coils in series with a wound rotor armature. Due to their high power-to-weight ratio, universal motors are particularly useful for powering handheld tools and various small household appliances such as vacuum cleaners. Since handheld tools and small appliances are often portable, they may be subject to jarring, vibration and mechanical shock, thus their motors should be designed to withstand such handling. Moreover, small tools and appliances are often mass-produced, so their motors need to be quick and easy to assemble.
The current inventor, Dennis Mancl, discloses a good example of a mass-produced universal motor in U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,016; which is specifically incorporated by reference herein. The patented motor includes several motor terminal assemblies that serve the purpose of wiring the shunts, which extend from the commutator brushes.
A drawback of the patented design, however, is that each terminal assembly for the shunts includes at least two parts, a nylon terminal pocket and a SIAMEZE terminal (SIAMEZE is a trademark of Tyco Electronics Corporation of Bermuda with an Tyco Electronics business segment in Harrisburg, Pa.), and these terminal assemblies are actually subassemblies, which in turn are attached to the motor in some manner, thereby creating yet another assembly. The multiple parts and assemblies can increase the motor's cost and perhaps decrease its ability to withstand shock and vibration.
Moreover, the SIMAMEZE terminals disclosed in the '016 patent by Mancl are used for wiring shunts, which are stranded wires. Since stranded wire is typically comprised of relatively delicate strands, wire-pinching SIMAMEZE terminals can possibly damage such strands, thus SIMAMEZE terminals are arguably more suited for solid wires than for the stranded shunts of commutator brushes.
Consequently, a need exists for a robust universal motor that is quick and easy to assemble.


Error correction in network packets using lookup tables are disclosed herein. The method can include extracting soft information from copies of a network packet, using the soft information to select positions in a payload of the network packet with uncertain values of bits, changing values at the positions to a combination of values to obtain a modified payload of the network packet, and calculating the CRC for the modified payload. When the modified payload matches an error detection code in the network packet, errors in the payload are corrected.

Neural networks can be used to estimate positions of unreliable bits in a network packet based on corrupted copies of the network packet. However, neural networks may have computational complexities higher than desirable for practical applications. Thus, estimating positions of unreliable bits in the network packet can require optimizing a neural network for that specific purpose.


An apparatus for data compression includes an identifier which identifies a plurality of irredundant patterns in a data set, and an extractor which extracts at least a portion of the plurality of irredundant patterns from the data set to generate a compressed data set.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, system and method for data compression and, in particular, an apparatus, system and method for data compression which use irredundant patterns.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data compression methods are partitioned traditionally into lossy and lossless. Typically, lossy compression is applied to images and more in general, to signals susceptible to some degeneracy without lethal consequence. On the other hand, lossless compression is used in situations where fidelity is of the essence, which applies to high quality documents and perhaps most notably to text files.
Lossy methods rest mostly on transform techniques whereby, for instance, cuts are applied in the frequency, rather than in the time domain of a signal. By contrast, lossless textual substitution methods are applied to the input in native form, and exploit its redundancy in terms of more or less repetitive segments or patterns.
When textual substitution is applied to digital documents such as fax, image or audio signal data, one could afford some loss of information in exchange for savings in time or space. In fact, even natural language can easily sustain some degrees of indeterminacy where it is left for the reader to fill in the gaps.
For example, FIG. 10 illustrates two versions of the opening passage from the Book 1 of the Calgary Corpus. These versions are equally understandable by an average reader and yet when applied to the entire book the first variant requires 163,837 less bytes than the second one, out of 764,772.
In practice, the development of optimal lossless textual substitution methods is made hard by the circumstance that the majority of the schemes are NP-hard. Obviously, this situation cannot improve with lossy ones. As an approximation, heuristic off-line methods of textual substitution can be based on greedy iterative selection.
For example, at each iteration, a substring w of the text x is identified such that encoding all instances of w in x yields the highest possible contraction of x. This process is repeated on the contracted textstring, until substrings capable of producing contractions can no longer be found. This may be regarded as inferring a "straight line" grammar by repeatedly finding the production or rule that, upon replacing each occurrence of the "definition" by the corresponding "nonterminal", maximizes the reduction in size of the current textstring representation.
Recent implementations of such greedy off-line strategies compare favorably with other current methods, particularly as applied to ensembles of otherwise hardly compressible inputs such as biosequences. They also appear to be the most promising in terms of the achievable approximation to optimum descriptor sizes.
Off-line methods can be particularly advantageous in applications such as mass production of CD-ROMs, backup archiving, and any other scenario where extra time or parallel implementation may warrant the additional effort imposed by the encoding.
The idea of trading some amount of errors in reconstruction in exchange for increased compression is ingrained in Rate Distortion Theory, and has been recently revived in a number of papers, mostly dealing with the design and analysis of lossy extensions of Lempel-Ziv on-line schemata.

Apparatus, system and method for data compression using irredundant patterns

International Business Machines Corporation


An appliance is provided having one or more racks or shelves the position of which may be adjusted vertically. Multiple different positions along the vertical direction can be made available for selection by a user of the appliance. The rack can also be supported from multiple locations to increase its load capacity.

Oven appliances conventionally include one or more racks whereby multiple food items can be placed into the oven for cooking operations. In order to accommodate food items and cooking utensils of different sizes, a typical construction includes horizontal protrusions formed directly into the side walls of the oven cavity on which the racks can be slid in and out of the oven cavity. The racks and protrusions are designed so that the user can remove the rack from the protrusions at one vertical level and reinstall the rack at a different vertical level, which the user may select based on e.g., the height of the food items or utensils, the number of items being cooked, the type of food being cooked, and/or other factors.
Such conventional design may present challenges to some users of the appliance, however. For example, some users may find the removal and reinstallation of the rack so as to adjust the vertical height to be cumbersome or difficult. Additionally, the protrusions are commonly formed by stamping metal sheets to form the side walls of the oven cavity. The number of vertical levels may be limited to e.g., only four or five within the oven cavity. Thus, the amount of vertical adjustability can be quite limited and, therefore, unsatisfactory to some users.
Other systems have been proposed to provide vertical adjustability for the racks or shelves within an appliance. Typically, however, these constructions are also limited to fixed number of a relatively few locations at which the racks or shelves can be placed within the appliance. Some constructions may also have limitations on the amount of weight that can be supported.
Accordingly, an appliance having vertically adjustable racks or shelves would be useful. An appliance also having features that allow for an increased selection of vertical locations to which the racks of shelves can be adjusted would also be useful.

Appliance with vertically adjustable rack


A vertically operable hitch includes a horizontal support member with the forward end journaled in the receiver of a tow vehicle. An upright post on the support member has a carrier operably mounted thereon for selective vertical movement along the post. A hitch ball is mounted on the carrier for selective connection to the tongue of a towed trailer to thereby selectively raise and lower the hitch ball.

(Not applicable)
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hitches for the towing of trailers, and more particularly to an improved hitch with a hitch ball that may be raised and lowered on a vertical axis to tilt a towed trailer.
(2) Background Information
Trailers used for the transport of equipment such as lawnmowers and the like typically require the user to attach a ramp to the rearward end of the trailer in order to load and unload the equipment. While this is not necessarily a huge endeavor there are several drawbacks to such a procedure.
First, the ramp is typically a pair of runways that will receive the opposing sets of wheels of a tractor or similar vehicle. Arranging the runways to align with the wheels of the vehicle requires perfect alignment, so that the tractor will not fall off the runways during the loading or unloading operation.
Other types of trailers have the ramp pivotally connected to the rearward edge of the trailer, and then the ramp is pivoted to an upright position while the trailer is towed. While this overcomes many of the problems associated with the separate and independent runways, it still requires the user to slowly lower a relatively heavy and ungainly ramp from a vertical position to a lowered position, and vice versa. The ramp can be of such weight that this becomes a two-person job, and also requires the user to bend over to raise or lower the ramp, which can lead to back problems.
Yet other trailers are provided with a tiltable bed, pivotally attached to a wheeled frame. Such a trailer permits the user to tilt the trailer bed until the rearward edge is close to the ground, to thereby permit loading and unloading. While this solution eliminates the use of ramps, the weight of the trailer bed and the equipment on the bed, can cause the trailer to tilt quickly and hit the ground, if not carefully controlled. Such control typically requires great strength of the user, unless the load is distributed very carefully on the trailer bed. In addition, the trailer requires a specially built frame, which requires more maintenance, as well as adding significant cost to the manufacture of the trailer.
It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide an improved hitch for towed trailers, which is vertically operable to raise and lower the hitch ball.
Another is to provide an improved hitch that allows the user to selectively tilt a towed trailer, and lock the trailer in the tilted position.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a vertically operable hitch that may be used on conventional trailers of many types, without modification to the trailer.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
The vertically operable hitch of the present invention includes a horizontal support member with the forward end journaled in the receiver of a tow vehicle. An upright post on the support member has a carrier assembly operably mounted thereon for selective vertical movement along the post. A hitch ball is mounted on the carrier assembly for selective connection to the tongue of a towed trailer to thereby selectively raise and lower the hitch ball.


A microsurgical bipolar forceps may include an actuation structure, a hypodermic tube, a first electrical conductor, and a second electrical conductor. The actuation structure may include an actuation structure distal end, an actuation structure proximal end, and a plurality of actuation limbs. The hypodermic tube may be disposed in the actuation structure. The first electrical conductor may be disposed in the hypodermic tube and the actuation structure wherein the first electrical conductor is electrically connected to a bipolar cord. The second electrical conductor may be disposed in the hypodermic tube and the actuation structure wherein the second electrical conductor is electrically connected to the bipolar cord. A compression of the actuation structure may be configured to decrease a distance between a first jaw of the first electrical conductor and a second jaw of the second electrical conductor.

A variety of complete surgical procedures and portions of surgical procedures may be performed with bipolar forceps, e.g., bipolar forceps are commonly used in dermatological, gynecological, cardiac, plastic, ocular, spinal, maxillofacial, orthopedic, urological, and general surgical procedures. Bipolar forceps are also used in neurosurgical procedures; however, the use of bipolar forceps in neurosurgical procedures presents unique risks to patients if the surgeon is unable to both visually and tactilely confirm that an electrosurgical procedure is being performed as intended. Accordingly, there is a need for a bipolar forceps that allows a surgeon to both visually and tactilely confirm that an electrosurgical procedure is being performed as intended. After an electrosurgical procedure is performed as intended, cauterized tissue may adhere to the electrodes of the bipolar forceps which must be removed before another electrosurgical procedure may be performed effectively. Accordingly, there is a need for a bipolar forceps that reduces adherence of cauterized tissue to electrodes. Some surgical procedures require cauterization of extremely small tissues, e.g., some surgical procedures require access to extremely small tissues disposed several inches below a surface of a surgical site. Accordingly, there is a need for a microsurgical bipolar forceps.


Recording/reproducing information signals to/from a recording medium appropriately even though the clearance from the signal recording surface of the recording medium to an optical head slider becomes significantly small. An optical head slider 10 includes a sliding member 11 which is floated and slides on a recording medium 4 at the time of recording/reproducing signals to/from the recording medium 4, a hemispheric objective lens 12 which is bonded to the sliding member 11, and a magnetic field generating means 16, which is mounted to the bottom of the sliding member 11 which faces the recording medium 4. The sliding member 11 is made of the same material as that of the optical lens 12, and a flat surface of the optical lens 12 is bonded to the top surface of the sliding member 11.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical head slider for use in an optical head for recording/reproducing information signals to/from a recording medium such as an optical disc, a method for manufacturing the optical head slider, and a recording and/or reproducing apparatus for recording/reproducing information signals to/from a recording medium by the use of an optical head having the optical head slider.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, there have been proposed optical discs, such as a magneto-optical disc and phase change type optical disc, to/from which information signals are recorded/reproduced by irradiating a beam to the signal recording surface thereof. So as to record many information signals to an optical disc to the utmost, attempts to enlarge recording density thereof have been made enthusiastically.
Along with the attempts to enlarge recording density of an optical disc, attempts to improve recording density have been made as to an optical pick up which records/reproduces information signals to/from an optical disc. That is, the optical pick up has reduced its spot size of a beam to be irradiated to the signal recording surface of an optical disc.
Especially, recently, the techniques of a floating type head slider of a hard disc drive have been employed to configure an optical head slider by mounting an optical lens to a sliding member. That is, there is proposed an optical head slider which is floated by a predetermined clearance and slides on the signal recording surface of an optical disc and whose optical lens condenses a beam led by an optical fiber to irradiate the condensed beam to the signal recording surface of an optical disc.
In case such an optical head slider is used in an optical disc drive, the clearance between the optical lens and the signal recording surface of an optical disc can significantly be reduced compared with that which does not use the optical head slider and irradiates a beam from an optical head to the signal recording surface of an optical disc. Thus, a lens of a high NA (numerical aperture) can be used, and the spot size of a beam to be irradiated to the signal recording surface of an optical disc can be reduced.
In the above-described optical disc drive, the optical lens is required to be unitedly mounted to the optical head slider such that the bottom of the optical lens is located at the bottom of the optical head slider which faces the optical disc. The optical lens is fixed at an opening provided at the optical head slider by undergoing glass fusion or adhesion using UV (ultraviolet) curing type organic adhesive.
FIG. 1 shows a sectional view of a conventional optical head slider 100. As shown, the optical head slider 100 has a sliding member 102 which is floated and slides on the signal recording surface of a magneto-optical disc 101 at the time of recording/reproducing information signals to/from the magneto-optical disc 101, and an objective lens 103 which is fixed to the sliding member 102. The sliding member 102 has an optical fiber 104 and a deflection mirror 105 built therein. A laser beam L led by the optical fiber 104 falls on the objective lens 103 via the deflection mirror 105, and is condensed by the objective lens 103, and then falls on a signal recording layer 101a of the magneto-optical disc 101.
The sliding member 102 further has a thin-film coil 106 for applying a magnetic field to the magneto-optical disc 101 at the time of recording information signals, and a terminal 107 which is electrically connected to the thin-film coil 106. The thin-film coil 106 is so located at the lower part of the sliding member 102 facing the magneto-optical disc 101 as to wind around the objective lens 103 to form a thin film. On the other hand, the terminal 107 is formed by filling conductive material into an opening 108 which penetrates the sliding member 102 along the thickness direction thereof such that the end thereof is shared with the end of the thin-film coil 106.
The sliding member 102 is mounted to the end of a supporting arm 109 which is mounted to the optical disc drive. The laser beam L scans the signal recording surface of the rotated magneto-optical disc 101 when the supporting arm 109 is caused to pivot along the radial direction of the magneto-optical disc 101.
Thus configured optical bead slider 100 receives an airflow generated due to the rotation of the magneto-optical disc 101, and is floated by a predetermined clearance from the signal recording surface of the magneto-optical disc 101, while irradiating the laser beam L condensed by the objective lens 103 to the signal recording layer 101a of the magneto-optical disc 101 to record/reproduce information signals to/from the magneto-optical disc 101. When recording information signals, the thin-film coil 106 generates a magnetic field of a predetermined intensity, and applies the magnetic field to a portion of the signal recording layer 101a of the magneto-optical disc 101 to which the laser beam L is irradiated.
The optical head slider 100 is provided with an opening 113 which penetrates the sliding member 102 along the thickness direction thereof, and the objective lens 103 is fit into the opening 113 and fixed to the sliding member 102 by undergoing glass fusion or adhesion using UV (ultraviolet) curing type organic adhesive 110.
The lower part of the optical head slider 100 is made up of the lower part of the sliding member 102, objective lens 103, thin-film coil 106 and adhesive 110. So, at the time of polishing the bottom of the optical head slider 100, there are generated micro-irregularities being of the order of 100 nm to 200 nm due to the hardness difference between their materials.
In case of irradiating a beam of a reduced spot size to the magneto-optical disc 101 by the use of the high NA lens to enlarge recording density, the clearance between the optical head slider 100 and the signal recording surface of the magneto-optical disc 101 becomes significantly small. So, when dust is attached to the micro-irregularities of the floating surface or the bottom of the optical head slider 100, the magneto-optical disc 101 is caused to crash frequently due to the reduced clearance. Furthermore, the dust attached to the floating surface of the optical head slider 100 is burned, and such burned dust cannot be removed or cleaned up even though organic solvent is used.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks by providing an optical head slider of a high reliability which can appropriately record/reproduce information signals to/from a recording medium even though the clearance from the signal recording surface of the recording medium becomes significantly small and of a configuration which can facilitate the manufacturing thereof.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing the optical head slider easily with high accuracy.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a recording and/or reproducing apparatus having an optical head using the optical head slider.
According to the present invention, there is provided an optical head slider including:
a sliding member which is floated and slides on a recording medium at the time of recording/reproducing signals to/from the recording medium;
an optical lens having a spherical surface and a flat surface, which is bonded to the sliding member; and
means for generating a magnetic field, which is mounted to the bottom of the sliding member which faces the recording medium;
wherein the sliding member is made of the same material as that of the optical lens, and the flat surface of the optical lens is bonded to the top surface of the sliding member, so that a sum of a thickness of the optical lens and that of a basal plate becomes the radius of curvature of the spherical surface of the optical lens.
With the optical head slider, the optical lens and sliding member, made of the same material as that of the optical lens, are bonded to each other by the optical contact which does not raise optical problems, and the sliding member configures a part of the optical lens. Thus, the optical head can be manufactured easily and reduced in size.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a method for manufacturing an optical head slider including the steps of:
a first step of bonding an optical lens having a spherical surface and a flat surface to a basal plate which is to be an sliding member;
a second step of bonding a reinforcing block being provided with an opening into which the objective lens is fit to the basal plate;
a third step of polishing the bottom surface of the basal plate which faces the recording medium so that the sum of the thickness of the optical lens and that of the basal plate becomes the radius of curvature of the spherical surface of the optical lens;
a fourth step of polishing the top surface of the reinforcing block so that the sliding member becomes of a predetermined thickness; and
a fifth step of cutting the basal plate into individual sliding members.
With the method for manufacturing an optical head slider, a plurality of optical lenses are positioned and arranged on the sliding member being made of the same material as that of the optical lenses, and the optical lenses and sliding member are so bonded by thermocompression bonding as to be united and optically uniform. Furthermore a plurality of reinforcing blocks each being provided with the opening into which the objective lens is fit are positioned and bonded to the sliding member, and the sliding member is polished so that the sum of the thickness of the optical lens and that of the sliding member becomes the radius of curvature of the spherical surface of the optical lens. Thus, a plurality of optical head sliders can be manufactured in one lot. That is, by undergoing above-described manufacturing process, the optical head slider reduced in size can be manufactured easily with high accuracy. With the manufacturing method, a large quantity of optical head sliders each of a stable quality can be manufactured, which can desirably reduce the manufacturing cost.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a recording and/or reproducing apparatus which has an optical head for recording/reproducing information signals to/from a recording medium,
wherein the optical head has a head slider for scanning the rotated recording medium and an arm for supporting the head slider,
the head slider has a sliding member which is floated and slides on the recording medium at the time of recording/reproducing signals to/from the recording medium, an optical lens which is bonded to the sliding member, and means for generating a magnetic field, which is mounted to the bottom of the sliding member which faces the recording medium, and
the optical lens has a spherical surface and a flat surface.
With the recording and/or reproducing apparatus, the sliding member can appropriately record/reproduce information signals to/from a recording medium even though the size thereof is reduced.
These objects and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Optical head slider, method for manufacturing optical head slider, and recording and/or reproducing apparatus


Integrated circuits and methods for fabricating integrated circuits are provided. In an embodiment, an integrated circuit includes a standard cell having a first boundary, a second boundary opposite the first boundary, a third boundary interconnecting the first and second boundaries, and a fourth boundary opposite the third boundary and interconnecting the first and second boundaries. The standard cell further includes parallel active areas extending from the first boundary to the second boundary. Also, the standard cell has parallel gate strips extending from the third boundary to the fourth boundary and over the active areas. A cut mask overlies the gate strips. An interconnect is positioned overlying the cut mask and forms an electrical connection with a selected gate strip.

Conventionally, layouts of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) are designed by arranging circuit elements called standard cells. A standard cell has a functional block, such as an AND gate, an OR gate, or a flip-flop, and an internal wiring pattern designed in advance. In large scale integration (LSI) design, standard cells registered in a library are generally aligned in rows and are wired using channels between the rows to realize a desired LSI.
Standard cells include active areas on which many gates are formed. Typically, the last gate formed on the active area (the gate formed nearest the end of the active area formed on the standard cell) exhibits problems. Specifically, the transistor represented by the last gate has performance problems including contact problems, yield problems, and variability problems. These problems arise from the inability to achieve a well-controlled, desirable structure at the end of the active area. For example, under current processing, gates formed at ends of active areas are troubled by undesirable epitaxial growth, facets, undercutting caused by wet etches, and undesirable material left in the topography.
In order to avoid the problems faced by the last gate on an active area, attempts have been made to arrange circuits to avoid having a last gate. However, there is necessarily a last gate somewhere in the design. Other attempts have formed a dummy gate at the end of the active area, with a full active overlap. However, such a design uses a significant amount of area. Another strategy has been to add half of a dummy gate along with an active area tuck under the dummy gate. Again, this method uses a significant amount of area.
In order to avoid the problems associated with the last gate, it is envisioned herein that the active area not be bounded by a standard cell. Rather, each standard cell can be provided with an active area that extends from cell boundary to cell boundary. When arranged, adjacent cells have aligned active areas and form a continuous active area. As a result, last gates are minimized or eliminated.
In order to utilize a continuous active area, gates on each side of the interface between standard cells must be isolated. Specifically, NMOS gates must be tied to ground and the PMOS gates must be tied to the power rail. Yet conventional tying methods, such as vias, result in use of a significant amount of IC area, leading to the design problems associated with the dummy gate methods noted above.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide integrated circuits and methods for fabricating integrated circuits having continuous active areas. In addition, it is desirable to provide integrated circuits and methods for fabricating integrated circuits which provide for electrical connection between gate strips and interconnects without taking up additional IC space. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.

Integrated circuits having a continuous active area and methods for fabricating same


A cutting machine of the present invention for cutting a material to be cut, which is placed on a table, with a rotating saw blade, includes an imaging device, a determination device and a stopping device. The imaging device takes a video image of an area on the table and outputs the video image. The determination device makes a determination on whether or not a number of pixels of a specific color, which is previously set, exceeds a predetermined threshold in one frame of image constituting the video image outputted from the imaging device. The stopping device stops rotation of the saw blade when it is determined by the determination device that the number of pixels of the specific color exceeds the predetermined threshold.

The present invention relates to a cutting machine that cuts a material to be cut, which is placed on a table, with a saw blade.
There is a known conventional cutting machine, such as a circular sawing machine. The cutting machine includes a table for placing thereon a material to be cut as a cutting object, a disk-shaped saw blade projecting upward above an upper surface of the table, an electric motor for rotating the saw blade, and others. By using the cutting machine, an operator can cut the material to be cut at a desired point by moving the material to be cut on the table to press the material to be cut against the rotating blade.
There have been proposed some mechanisms for avoiding contact of the operator's hand with the saw blade regarding the above cutting machine. One of the mechanisms is as described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0096425. In the mechanism, when an operator's hand is detected in a previously defined zone, a pin is pushed out by an explosive or the like, and a tip end of the pin penetrates the rotating saw blade, thereby stopping the rotating saw blade. According to the mechanism, it is possible to stop rotation of the saw blade before the operator's hand touches the saw blade.

Cutting machine, control unit and recording medium


A method for treating a solid surface exposable to protein solutes is provided that reduces interactions of the protein solutes with the surface. Thus, a small bore capillary tube, useful for electrophoretic separation, comprises a reduced interaction phase coated along the bore that includes a terminal moiety covalently bound in the reduced interaction phase through at least one heteroatom. This terminal moiety includes a plurality of halogen atoms, and preferably is an aryl pentafluoro.

Capillary zone electrophoresis ("CZE") in small capillaries (less than or equal to 75.mu.) was first demonstrated by Jorgenson and Lukacs, and has proven useful as an efficient method for the separation of small solutes. J. Chromatog., 218 (1981), page 209; Anal. Chem., 53 (1981), page 1298. The separation process relies upon an electroosmosis effect generally described as the flow of a liquid in contact with a solid surface under the influence of a tangentially applied electric field. Attractive factors for electrophoretic separations by capillary zone electrophoresis are the small sample sizes, little or no sample pretreatment, and the potential for quantification and recovery of biologically active samples.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,300, inventors Zare et al., issued June 23, 1987 describes theories and equipment for electrokinetic separation processes employing a laser-excited fluorescence detector. The system described by Zare et al. includes a fused silica capillary with a 75.mu. inside diameter.
Unfortunately, one of the single greatest disadvantages of capillary zone electrophoresis lies when attempts are made to separate macromolecules such as proteins. Separations of macromolecules by CZE leads to untoward interactions of the biopolymers with the silica capillary wall.
Jorgensen et al. had noted that separation of model proteins, such as cytochrome, lysozyme and ribonuclease A, in untreated fused silica capillaries with a phosphate buffer at pH 7 was accompanied by strong tailing, and suggested this might be caused by Coulombic interactions of the positively charged proteins and the negatively charged capillary wall. Jorgensen et al., Science, 222 (1983) page 266.
Lauer et al., Analytical Chemistry, 58 (1986), page 166, has reported that the Coulombic repulsion between proteins and the capillary wall of silica capillaries can overcome adsorption tendencies of the proteins with the capillary wall. They demonstrated separations of model proteins (ranging in molecular weight from 13,000 to 77,000) by varying the solution pH relative to the isoelectric point (pI) of the proteins to change their net charge. However, disadvantages of this approach are that silica begins to dissolve above pH 7, which shortens column life and degrades performance, only proteins with pI's less than the buffer pH can be analyzed, which drastically reduces the range of useful analysis, and interactions which are not Coulombic may still occur even with proteins bearing a net negative charge due to the complexity of protein composition and structure.
Another approach to the problem of biopolymer, or protein, interactions has been to increase ionic strength. It has been demonstrated that this concept works in principle, but heating is also increased as ionic strength is increased. This heating tends to degrade the efficiency of separation.
Yet another approach to the problem of undesirable protein interactions with the capillary wall has been to coat the eleotrophoresis tube with a mono-molecular layer of non-crosslinked polymer. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,201, inventor Hjerten, issued July 14, 1987 describes a method for preparing a thin-wall, narrow-bore capillary tube for electrophoretic separations by use of a bifunctional compound in which one group reacts specifically with the glass wall and the other with a monomer taking part in a polymerization process. This procedure results in a polymer coating, such as polyacrylamide coating, and is suggested for use in coating other polymers, such as poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinylpyrrolidone). However, this method and capillary tube treatment tends to destroy the electroosmotic flow, and efficiencies are still rather low. These rather low efficiencies suggest that undesirable protein-wall interactions are still occurring.

Halogenated surface with reduced protein interaction


A hinge with a limitation function has a shaft, which is mounted with a stationary seat, a male segment, a resilient member, a washer and a rotatable seat, and engages a nut to fasten the above elements. When the movable display panel rotates in relative to the main unit, the movable display panel rotates the rotatable seat, and the rotatable seat further rotates the shaft. The male segment also rotates in relative to the female segment; meanwhile, the head is rotate along the fastening portion. When the lugs are engaged in the notches respectively, the display panel is positioned at a certain position, the plane face is against the fastening portion so that the shaft cannot rotate continuously to the same direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hinge for a portable electronic device, and more particularly to a hinge with a limitation function.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays portable electronic devices such as notebook computers, personal translators, personal digital assistants (PDA) are well received by consumers. The above electronic devices normally comprise a display panel and a main unit. The display panel is coupled to the main unit by means of a hinge, so the user only has to pivot the display panel in relative to the hinge to operate or to close the devices. The conventional hinge has a male segment and a female segment oppositely mounted. The female segment has a detent, and the male segment has a protruding portion that engages the detent. If the user pivot the display panel excessively, the female segment and the male segment will be separated, which tends to damage the display panel.
Therefore, the invention provides an improved hinge with limitation function to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.


An images combination processing system has a CCD or an imaging element including CCDs for picking up an image, compression processing portions for applying JPEG compression, etc. to image data in respective areas into which a picked-up image is divided, a buffer for storing temporarily compressed data that were processed by the compression processing portions, a compressed data combining portion for reading the compressed data being processed by respective compression processing portions from the buffer and combining them into one image file, and a storage media. Each compression processing portion has a restart marker inserting portion for inserting restart markers into the compressed data while circulating eight types of restart markers and also inserting a special restart marker into a rearmost portion of the compressed data, and a data length counter for counting a data length of the compressed data to which the restart markers are inserted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an images combination processing system, an images combination processing method, and an images combination processing program for executing combination processing of split images.
The present invention also relates to an images combination processing system, an images combination processing method, and an images combination processing program for executing combination processing of partial images that constitutes a picked-up image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image data of an image picked up by a digital camera or the like are often subjected to the compression process. One of compression processes is "JPEG system". However, since the compression based on the JPEG system is processed in unit of a sheet of image, a time required for the compression process is prolonged if a data size of the image is large. In particular, since the imaging devices of the digital cameras that are put nowadays on the market have a large number of pixels, the data size per one original image is large.
Therefore, in the solid state imaging device set forth in JP-A-2002-84493, the processes such as the YC conversion, the JPEG compression, etc. are applied in parallel to 2-channel output signals that are output from the solid state imaging device having left/right horizontal 2-channel outputs. Also, as shown in FIG. 15, restart markers indicated by the numbers 1 to 8 are inserted separately into JPEG data 50, 51 on each channel respectively at the time of JPEG compression process, and then two JPEG files (JPEG 0, JPEG 1) into which the restart marker are inserted are written into a memory respectively.
Then, upon generating one image file by combining these two JPEG files, each JPEG file is read in a time-series from the memory, then the reading of the JPEG file is switched when the restart marker is detected, and then the restart marker is replaced. For example, when the restart marker 1 is detected during when the JPEG 0 file is being read, the reading of the JPEG 1 file is started by switching the reading of the file, then the restart marker is replaced with the restart marker 2 when the restart marker 1 is again detected there, and then the reading of the JPEG 0 file is started. The left/right image data being divided into two JPEG files are combined by repeating above operations, so that one image is generated.
As a result, according to the solid state imaging device set forth in JP-A-2002-84493, a plurality of JPEG file images can be combined into one image. Also, since the JPEG compressing process is applied in parallel to the image data being picked up by the solid state imaging device, the processing speed can be enhanced.
JP-A-2002-84493 is known as a related art.
However, in the solid state imaging device set forth in JP-A-2002-84493, when a plurality of JPEG files are combined, the reading of the JPEG file is switched while detecting the restart marker. Therefore, the process becomes complicated, and as a consequence, it takes much time to execute the combining process.

Images combination processing system, images combination processing method, and images combination processing program


Certain aspects and embodiments of the present invention are directed a sand control device cleaning system that can be disposed in a wellbore through a fluid-producing formation. The sand control device cleaning system can include a housing and a fluid communication structure. The housing can be coupled to a section of a tubing string of a well system. A portion of the housing or a container disposed within the housing can store a dissolving material. A dissolving fluid that can dissolve or otherwise remove particulate material can be formed from the dissolving material. The fluid communication structure can communicate the dissolving fluid from the housing to a sand control device coupled to the section of the tubing string.

Particulate materials, such as sand, may be produced during the production of hydrocarbons from a well system traversing a subterranean formation. The production of sand can restrict productivity, erode components of the well system, impede wellbore access, interfere with the operation of downhole equipment, and present disposal difficulties. A well system can include devices and procedures for sand control. Sand control can include preventing sand, silt, or other particulate material from entering a wellbore or near-wellbore area of a well system.
An example of a sand control device is a sand screen coupled to sections of a tubing string of a well system. A sand screen can filter particulate material from production fluid by allowing the production fluid to flow through the sand screen and by preventing particulate material in the production fluid from passing through the sand screen. One example of a sand screen is a wire wrapped helically around a perforated piece of pipe. The helically wrapped wire is spaced and/or gauged based on the average size of the particle to be filtered. Another example of a sand screen is a mesh filter. A mesh filter can include a group of fibers or other materials that are woven perpendicularly to another group of fibers or other materials, thereby forming pores allowing the flow of fluid through the mesh filter.
Filtering of particulate material can cause a sand screen or other sand control device to become obstructed by filtered particulate material and other debris, thereby reducing or preventing the flow of production fluid through the sand screen. One solution to reduce obstruction of a sand screen can include inserting a component such as a wash pipe into a production tubing to communicate a cleaning material, such as an acid, to the sand control device. Such a cleaning material can dissolve particulate material and other debris obstructing a sand control device. Such solutions can present a disadvantage by increasing the number of components to be deployed and operated within a well system.
It is therefore desirable to remove particulate material and other debris obstructing a sand control device without inserting additional components into the wellbore.


Mat (1) for mounting a pollution control element in a housing, comprising inorganic fibre material. At an edge surface (20) of the mat a plurality of fibres (30) are heat fused to form fusion volumes (90). The average number of fusion volumes per square millimetre of the edge surface is at least 100, and at least 80% of the fusion volumes have a projected size of between 10 μm and 100 μm.

Pollution control devices are employed on motor vehicles to control atmospheric pollution. Such devices include catalytic converters and diesel particulate filters or traps. These devices include a pollution control element. For example, catalytic converters typically contain a ceramic or metal monolithic structure that supports the catalyst. The catalyst oxidizes carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, and reduces the oxides of nitrogen in engine exhaust gases to control atmospheric pollution. In addition, diesel particulate filters or traps typically contain a wall flow filter in the form of a honeycombed monolithic structure, usually made from porous crystalline ceramic materials. Each of these devices has a metal housing (typically stainless steel) which holds or mounts the pollution control element. Such pollution control elements are typically fragile and susceptible to vibration or shock damage and breakage. The damaging forces may come from rough handling or dropping during engine assembly, from engine vibration or from travel over rough roads.
Such pollution control elements are also typically subject to damage due to high thermal shock, such as from contact with road spray. To protect the pollution control element, especially the ceramic monolithic type, and to prevent exhaust gases from passing between the pollution control element and the surrounding housing (thereby bypassing the catalyst or filter), mounting mats are disposed between the pollution control element and the housing. Some mounting mats and insulating elements (e.g., end cone insulation) include mostly inorganic fibres, with inorganic or organic binders, fillers and the like. Such mounting mats are commonly die cut, using metal blades, or laser cut out of larger sheets of inorganic fibre material.
Mounting mats such as the mats of the present disclosure are mostly cut out of a larger sheet of fibre material. It has been found that using a cutting blade or other such device to mechanically cut out mounting mats or insulation elements (e.g. end cone insulation) from such sheets of inorganic fibre material often results in the inorganic fibres being fractured or broken rather than actually cut. Because the fibres fracture, a substantial amount of fibre dust results from the mechanical cutting operation. The generation of dust from binder and/or filler materials may result as well. Such dust remains in the cut-out mats. Later, when the mounting mat or end cone insulation is incorporated into the pollution control device, dust escapes from the fibre material of the mat and can cause itching or skin irritation problems for the workers handling these mats. It is therefore desirable to reduce the amount of fibres and dust exiting the mat through its edge surfaces. The present disclosure is directed to reducing the amount of dust that escapes from such mats, especially while being handled during a pollution control device assembly operation.
Attempts to solve this problem have been made before. The international patent application WO 2006/055188 A1, for example, mentions inorganic fibre mounting and insulating sheet materials for use in pollution control devices with at least one edge of the inorganic fibre sheet material having at least one group of two or more fibres fused together.
Similarly, the U.S. Pat. No. 7,951,731 B2 addresses a problem of fibre scattering and, in one aspect, mentions an inorganic fibre mat including an inorganic fibre aggregated body which includes inorganic fibres, where at least a part of the inorganic fibres located on a surface of the inorganic fibre aggregate body is fused to each other by heat.

Mounting mat for pollution control elements