A semiconductor device, comprising a semiconductor stacking body configured so as to sandwich an active layer by a p-type semiconductor layer and an n-type semiconductor layer and having plural regions along the active layer, plural electrodes provided on the p-type semiconductor layer or the n-type semiconductor layer and provided one for each of the plural regions, and a switch operatively connected to at least one of the plural electrodes for switching bias voltage application directions, is configured such that each of the plural regions is forward biased by a voltage applied via the electrode and becomes an amplification region when the switch is turned to one side, and is backward biased by a voltage applied via the electrode and becomes an attenuation region when the switch is turned to the other side.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device suitable for use in a semiconductor optical amplifier applicable to, for example, an optical communication system.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Following the recent increasing demand for communication, the wavelength division multiplexing communication system (WDM communication system) is being developed, which will enable large-capacity transmission through one optical fiber by multiplexing plural signal light waves of different wavelengths.
As an optical amplifier used in such an optical communication system, a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) having a wide wavelength band, compact, and capable of a low-power consuming operation is a promising one.
On the other hand, the application range of a large-capacity, high-speed photonic network is spreading to a metro access system close to subscribers. A photonic network applied to a metro access system has a flexible network configuration using an optical add drop multiplexer (OADM) etc.
An optical amplifier used in such a network system is required to be capable of carrying out an automatic gain control (AGC) and/or an automatic power control (APC) against the variations in the number of wavelengths to be multiplexed and the variations in the intensity of light to be input.
L. J. Christiansen et al. "2R Regeneration in Concatenated Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers and Electroabsorbers." European Conference on Optical Communications, September 2004 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 1) and Filip Ohman et al. "Semiconductor Devices for All-Optical Regeneration" ICTON 2003, We. B. 4, p. 41-46 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 2) have disclosed a proposal that an optical amplification region (SOA) and an electric field absorption region (EA; electro-absorber) are provided and the SOA is used under forward bias and the EA is used under backward bias.


A sticky note pad includes a stack of note sheets. Each of the note sheets includes: a substrate having a writing face and a back face opposite to the writing face, the back face having a central portion and a peripheral portion surrounding the central portion; and an adhesive layer positioned on the central portion of the back face.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sticky note pad that is re-attachable, more particularly to a sticky note pad having a stack of note sheets each of which is unlikely to warp and deform when the note sheet is torn off.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional sticky note pad 1 includes a plurality of note sheets 12, each of which has a back face coated with an adhesive layer 11 at a first end 122 of the back face. When tearing the note sheet 12 from the remaining note sheets 12, the tearing direction is from a second end 121 of the note sheet 12 that is distal from the adhesive layer 11 toward the first end 122 that is coated with the adhesive layer 11. During the tearing operation, the stress applied to the note sheet 12 accumulates at the first end 122 so that the second end 121 of the note sheet 12 becomes warped before the note sheet 12 is separated from the remaining note sheets 12. After the note sheet 12 is completely torn off, recovery of the note sheet 12 from warp is unlikely. Hence, after the note sheet 12 is stuck to an article, the second end 121 of the note sheet 12 tends to warp upwardly and may be folded when an external force is applied to the note sheet 12.
Furthermore, the warped note sheet 12 stuck to a page of a document is likely to fall off when an additional article, e.g., paper, is inserted into the same page of the document. The warped note sheet 12 is also likely to be attached to the inserted article.
Besides, the adhesive layer 11 is strip-shaped, and the covering area of the adhesive layer 11 is about 20% based on a surface area of the note sheet 12. It is well known that when the area of the adhesive layer 11 is increased, the adhesion of the note sheet 12 to an article can be improved. However, the amount of the adhesive for forming the adhesive layer 11 will be increased, accordingly.
Therefore, in order to overcome the warp problem and to reduce the amount of the adhesive without adversely affecting the adhesion ability of the note sheet 12, the conventional note pad 1 needs further improvement.


A refrigeration system/cycle includes two or more refrigeration stages, in which one or more of the warmer stages provide(s) cooling to partially compensate for heat leakage that would otherwise leak to the colder stage(s). The refrigeration system includes a single heat sink or multiple heat sinks. The refrigeration cycle can include a single cooling load or multiple cooling loads. The refrigeration system can be a cryogenic refrigeration cycle. The flow of working fluid can be DC (direct-current, continuous and uni-directional) or AC (alternating-current and oscillating). The refrigeration system can include Double-Cycle cooling action. The refrigeration system can include one (or more) thermal storage unit(s) (TSUs).

Refrigerators use input power to lift heat from a cold cooling load and reject heat to a warm heat sink. Refrigerators are hardware implementations of refrigeration cycles. Many different kinds of refrigeration cycles are used, depending on the application. For example, cryogenic refrigerators are refrigerators that provide cooling at cryogenic temperatures (which are typically defined as temperatures less than approximately 150 K), and cryogenic refrigerators typically use gas (often helium that remains single-phase) as the working fluid. Most space-based, long-life cryogenic refrigerators can be grouped into one of two categories, according to how the working fluid flows through the refrigerator: (1) DC-flow (direct-current, continuous, unidirectional flow) and (2) AC-flow (alternating-current, oscillating flow). DC-flow refrigerators include: Joule-Thomson coolers and Reverse-Brayton coolers. AC-flow refrigerators include Stirling coolers, Pulse-Tube coolers and Double-Cycle coolers. Double-Cycle coolers have two AC-flow sub-cycles (for example, Stirling or Pulse-Tube sub-cycles) that operate 180° out-of-phase (exactly out-of-phase). AC-flow refrigerators typically use regenerative heat exchangers ("regenerators"). As sub-cycles of Double-Cycle coolers, the regenerators of each of the sub-cycles are replaced by a recuperator, which transfers heat back and forth between the two sub-cycles.
The amount of cooling a refrigerators can achieve for a given amount of input power is limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The maximum amount of cooling per unit of input power is the Carnot Coefficient of Performance (Carnot COP):
                              COP          CARNOT                =                                            Q              CX                                      W              I                                =                                    T              C                                                      T                H                            -                              T                C                                                                        (        1        )            where:                COPCARNOT=Carnot Coefficient of Performance, (no units);        Qcx=Maximum Amount of Cooling, Watts;        WI=Input Power, Watts;        TC=Temperature of the Cooling Load, K; and        TH=Temperature of the Heat Sink, K.The actual COP achieved by a refrigerator must always be less than the Carnot COP, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The efficiency of a refrigerator is often expressed in terms of the percentage of the Carnot COP achieved by the refrigerator.
It is important for space-based cryogenic refrigerators to have high efficiencies. For example, space-based cryogenic refrigerators typically have efficiencies in the range of 1% to 10%, depending on the temperature of the cooling load. Highly efficient refrigerators require little power input and reject little heat. The power input to a space-based cryogenic refrigerator typically comes from solar panels, and waste heat is typically rejected by radiators. Large power inputs require large and heavy solar panels, and large heat rejection requires large and heavy radiators. The solar panels and radiators must be launched into orbit, and launch costs are typically $10,000 per lb. Therefore, high efficiencies for space-based cryogenic refrigerators minimize launch costs.
A large source of inefficiency in cryogenic refrigerators is heat leakage from the warm parts of the refrigerators to the cold parts. The heat leakage typically is comprised of two main components: (1) heat flow due to heat exchanger ineffectivenesses and (2) heat conduction through the materials from which the parts are made. In addition to the refrigerator's cooling load (for example, cryogenically cooled infrared detectors), the heat leakage represents an additional cooling load that the refrigerator must cool. For example, if a cryogenic refrigerator could lift 2 W of heat at an efficiency of 10% if there were no heat leakage, and if 1 W of heat leakage is actually present, then the refrigerator can accommodate only 1 W of heat from an external cooling load, and its efficiency is actually only 5%.
Heat leakage is especially troublesome for cryogenic refrigerators that provide cooling at very cold temperatures (for example, 10 K with a heat-sink temperature of 300 K). Both components of heat leakage are proportional to temperature difference, so the large temperature difference between cold load temperatures and warm heat-sink temperatures causes large heat leakage. Also, it is very difficult thermodynamically to produce very cold cryogenic temperatures. This fact is evident by studying equation 1: for a given heat-sink temperature, the Carnot COPs of refrigerators with cold load temperatures are low. Cryocoolers with cold load temperatures produce little cooling and require large power inputs, and the cryocoolers have large flows of working fluid and large components. Therefore, large amounts of heat are carried to the cold components by the large flows of working fluid (due to heat exchanger ineffectivenesses) and conduction is large through the large components with large cross-sectional areas. The large heat leakage subtracts from the small amount of cooling to produce little net cooling and low efficiencies.
A solution that mitigates the effects of heat leakage is to interrupt the flow of heat from the warm end to the cold end at warm temperatures and provide refrigeration at the warm temperatures to partially compensate for the heat leakage. As equation 1 indicates, the Carnot COPs of refrigerators that cool at warm temperatures are higher than the Carnot COP of refrigerators that cool at colder temperatures. Therefore, it is possible to provide refrigeration at warm temperatures to partially compensate for the heat leakage with smaller amounts of power input than if the heat is allowed to leak to components at colder temperatures.
A refrigerator that provides cooling at multiple temperatures is called a multi-stage refrigerator (or cooler). In some multi-state refrigerators, some of the working fluid is diverted (from the main flow to the colder stage, or stages) to warm stages, where the working fluid is expanded to provide refrigeration. Multi-stage refrigerators exist, but none (to the author's knowledge) have been built in which the sole purpose of the warm refrigeration stages is to partially compensate for heat leakage to the cold components of the refrigerator.
A thermal storage unit (TSU) is an adjunct device that allows a refrigerator to achieve a transient operational load profile that would be unachievable otherwise. For example, typical space missions require relatively large amounts of cooling for short time intervals (for example, for 9 minutes), but only modest amounts of cooling for the rest of the cycle (for example, for 81 minutes). The average cooling (in Watts) is the heat lifted (in Joules) divided by the cycle period (in seconds). The average cooling for a typical space mission is relatively small, but the relatively large peak cooling requirement must be met to satisfy mission requirements. A way to meet the average cooling with a low-capacity cooler and meet the peak cooling requirement is to use a thermal storage unit (TSU). A TSU discharges (provides cooling) during short time intervals when the cooling requirement is relatively large, and the low-capacity cooler charges the TSU (removes heat from the TSU) during the rest of the cycle when the cooling requirement is relatively small.
Therefore, a need exists for a multi-stage refrigeration cycle whose intermediate stage(s) interrupt heat leakage from the warm end to the cold end of the cycle and provide(s) refrigeration to partially compensate for the heat leakage.

Refrigeration system which compensates for heat leakage


A catalyst composition consisting essentially of (a) a crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite having a silica/alumina mole ratio of at least 10 (component A) in which at least 50% of its cationic sites are occupied by alkaline earth metal cations, (b) a refractory inorganic oxide having platinum and tin supported thereon (component B) and (c) indium (component C), the indium being supported on the zeolite in component A and/or the refractory inorganic oxide in component (B). A process for decomposing non-aromatic hydrocarbons in the presence of the catalyst composition, and a process for isomerizing C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon, particularly xylenes, in the presence of the catalyst composition.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a catalyst composition and its use. Specifically, it relates to a catalyst composition comprising a crystalline aluminosilicate zeolite and specific metals, and its use in the cracking of non-aromatic hydrocarbons and to the isomerization of C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbons.
More specifically, the present invention relates to an industrially advantageous catalyst composition which, when used in a process for isomerizing C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbons which comprises isomerizing a hydrocarbon feed stock containing a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture which has not reached its thermodynamic equilibrium composition and small amounts of non-aromatic hydrocarbons, separating a specific xylene isomer, preferably p-xylene, from the resulting isomerization reaction mixture and recycling the remaining hydrocarbon mixture to the isomerization reaction, causes the C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture in the hydrocarbon feed stock to reach the thermodynamic equilibrium composition, makes it possible to convert the non-aromatic hydrocarbons, which build up in the process and reduce the efficiency of the isomerization reaction, into components that can be easily removed out of the process, ensures a very little loss of the C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbons, particularly xylenes, and decreases very little in activity after continuous operation over a long period of time, the invention also pertains to its uses.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been an increasing demand for xylene, particularly p-xylene, in proportion to the increase of the demand for polyester fibers and films. A typical process for producing p-xylene comprises a step of separating p-xylene from a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture by a crystallization method or an adsorption method, a step of bringing the remaining hydrocarbon mixture into contact with a catalyst for isomerizing m-xylene and/or o-xylene to p-xylene to convert the xylenes in the remaining hydrocarbon mixture to a xylene isomeric mixture having a composition close to the thermodynamic equilibrium composition, and a step of recycling the isomeric mixture to the p-xylene separating step.
In the above process for producing p-xylene, it is required to bring the composition of the xylene isomeric mixture in the isomerization reaction mixture to the thermodynamic equilibrium composition as close as possible, inhibit side reactions which cause a loss of xylenes, such as disproportionation reaction and hydrogenating cracking reaction, and to convert ethylbenzene, which because of its boiling point close to the boiling point of the xylenes, is difficult to separate by an ordinary distillation operation, into a higher or lower boiling component easily separable by distillation. Industrially, it is very important to satisfy these requirements in order to increase the efficiency of the isomerization reaction and reduce the cost of the p-xylene production process.
On the other hand, the C.sub.8 aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures heretofore used as materials for isomerization of xylenes are industrially produced by solvent extraction of catalytically reformed oils and thermally cracked in accordance with, for example, the sulfolane method, UDEX method or arosolvan method, and distilling the separated extract. The composition of the C.sub.8 aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures obtained by this method typically consists of 5 to 20% by weight of ethylbenzene, 15 to 25% by weight of p-xylene, 30 to 60% by weight of m-xylene and 15 to 25% by weight of o-xylene.
However, since the above method of producing the C.sub.8 aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures includes the solvent extraction step, the cost of the resulting hydrocarbon mixtures becomes high because extra equipment and energy are required.
In recent years, various attempts have been made to increase the yield of aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene and xylene in the reforming of petroleum naphtha. In particular, as a result of improving a catalyst that induces dehydrogenating cyclization of paraffinic hydrocarbons, it became possible to carry out the dehydrogenating cylization under mild conditions at lower pressures. This resulted in an aromatic hydrocarbon mixture with a small content of non-aromatic hydrocarbons.
With this technical background, a method was suggested by which a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture having such a relatively small amount of non-aromatic hydrocarons as to make it usable as a starting material for xylene isomerization is obtained from a naphtha reformed oil by distillation treatment alone without using the solvent extraction step (Japanese Patent Publication No. 47231/1982). There was also proposed a process for producing a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture having a relatively low content of non-aromatic hydrocarbons, which comprises distilling a naphtha reformed oil, polymerizing olefins therein which are difficult to remove by distillation treatment alone and become a poison on the xylene isomerization reaction catalyst, and again distilling the residue (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 181036/1985). The amount of non-aromatic hydrocarbons in the resulting C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture so obtained is usually 0.05 to 3% by weight, typically 0.1 to 2% by weight. The non-aromatic hydrocarbon usually consist of 70 to 80% by weight of C.sub.8 -C paraffins and 20 to 30% by weight of C.sub.8 -C.sub.10 naphthenes.
If the C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture produced as above without going through the solvent extraction step can be directly used as a material in the xylene isomerization reaction, the cost of the material can be reduced, and the p-xylene manufacturers can offer p-xylene at a decreased price.
When the C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture containing a small amount of non-aromatic hydrocarbons is continuously used as a starting material for p-xylene production by isomerization of xylenes, the non-aromatic hydrocrbons gradually build up in the process because of the reduced ability of the catalyst to convert the non-aromatic hydrocarbons, and adversely affect the xylene isomerization reaction itself. For example, if the reaction conditions are rendered severe to elevate the above converging ability, the yield of xylene will be decreased and finally, it becomes necessary to purge the the accumulated non-aromatic hydrocarbons out of the process.
Thus, although various processes have been proposed to date for the production of a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture having a relatively low content of non-aromatic hydrocarbons, an industrial process for producing p-xylene using such a C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture as a material has not yet been perfected.
Recently, some literature references disclosing the intention of using the above raw material have been published. Examples are U.S. Pats. Nos. 4163028, 4312790, 4385195 and 4224141 and European Patent No. 102716 of Mobile Oil Corporation, U.S.A. Since in any of the methods disclosed in these references, the C.sub.8 -aromatic hydrocarbon mixture containing non-aromatic hydrocarbons is fed under very severe conditions (for example, at 427.degree. C. and 230 psig) onto zeolite whose acid activity is reduced, side-reactions (such as disproportion and ring-cleavage reaction) consequently occur, and a decrease in the yield of xylene is noted. Furthermore in the continuous feeding of the hydrocarbon stock under severe conditions, the activity of the catalyst decreases with time, and the activity of converting the non-aromatic hydrocarbons is also reduced. As a result, these components build up in the recycling system, and are likely to reduce the efficiency of p-xylene production.

Catalyst composition for cracking non-aromatic hydrocarbons and isomerizing C8-aromatic hydrocarbons

Onodera, legal representative; by Shiyou


An image transfer sheet and method is provided for transferring an image of the original to a hard target body made of metal, glass, ceramics, plastics, or similar materials. The image transfer sheet has a support base and a synthetic resin layer detachably bound thereon, preferably a water-soluble resin layer in between. The synthetic resin layer has a thickness in the range of 10 to 500 .mu.m, and preferably includes a first layer that is adhesive to the hard target body, and a second layer that is fixedly receivable active toner of electrostatic process copying machine or printers. First, by means of an electrostatic process copying machine or electrostatic printer, an image is transferred to the synthetic resin layer of the image transfer sheet, which is then released from the support base and applied to the target body. Consequently, the target body which now has the image transfer layer thereon is dried or heated to fixate the image transfer layer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image transfer sheet and method for transferring patterns, designs, photograph, and other images of an original via transfer paper onto metal, glass, ceramics, plastics, leather or other similar materials by means of an electrostatic process copying machine, electrostatic printer, hot-melt printer or sublimation printer. More specifically, this invention relates to such a method that is enhanced in its precision and definition, and also provided with facility in performing the transferring.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of methods have been proposed to transfer images of an original to metal, glass, ceramics, plastics and other materials, including screen process printing that is most widely adopted. These printing methods, however, fall short in cost effectiveness, especially when transferring a small number of images because they require an expensive, dedicated original for the transferring. Moreover, the plate making process for the original is time consuming, thus prolonging the overall process time to obtain the final product.
In order to solve the described shortcoming, a system was developed which, by employing copying machines or various types of printers, is able to perform image transfer inexpensively and in an expedited manner. This system utilizes a heat transfer sheet having a support layer and a thermal adhesive layer, instead of conventional sheets for use with copying machines or printers. According to this system, the image of the original is transferred to the surface of the heat transfer sheet. Then, a target body for the image is brought into contact with the surface of the heat transfer sheet. The target body and the heat transfer sheet are heated and press-bonded to each other, thereby transferring the image from the heat transfer sheet to the target body, together with the thermal adhesive layer.
Because the described system utilizes a special heat pressing machine in press-bonding the heat transfer sheet to the target body, it does not meet general purposes. Besides, the productivity of this system is poor. Further, the molding shape of the heat pressing machine limits the outer profile of the target body to which the image will be transferred.


The present disclosure provides an overheat protection device, an overheat protection method and an electrical device. The overheat protection device is used in an electrical device and includes a transparent window unit and an optically-controlled switch. The transparent window unit is made of a transparent material and arranged on a housing of the electrical device, and an inner surface of the transparent window unit is coated with a thermochromatic material film. The optically-controlled switch is arranged inside the housing of the electrical device and exposed to an ambient light beam through the transparent window unit. The optically-controlled switch is configured to turn off the electrical device when a spectrum of the received light beam is within a predetermined spectral range.

Currently, along with the development of the high-end smart TVs toward large size and high resolution, the power consumption of an integrated circuit (IC) has been increased continuously, which thus results in an increase in the heat generated thereby. When a temperature exceeds 120° C., performance characteristics of the IC will be adversely affected, and thereby both the quality and the service life of the TV are under threat. Hence, it is required to provide the TV with an overheat protection system.
Generally, a commonly-used overheat protection device is designed on the basis of the circuit, and a relatively large burden is caused on an electrical device itself, and particularly on a circuit structure of a small electrical device. Moreover, before the electrical device is shut down due to overheat, there is no visible overheat early-warning.

Overheat protection device, overheat protection method and electrical device

BEIJING BOE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


The invention provides a method and system for visualization of a data set, the method comprises: dividing the data set into a plurality of information layers based on different information dimensions; and visually processing the plurality of information layers based on different information dimensions, respectively, in order to present respective views of the plurality of information layers. In the present invention, by visualizing the data set through presenting different overviews of the data set from different information dimensions, respectively, the presentation of comprehensive information of the data set to a data set analyst is ensured while distortion of presented contents as well as visual clutter are prevented.

A social network is a social structure made of a plurality of nodes (which generally represent individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as financial relationship, interpersonal relationship, social relationship, etc. The social network as a nature structure emerges from our daily life and it may reveal quite a lot insight from the relationships among nodes.
Therefore, social network analysis becomes one of the most important research topics since year 1964, and has now moved to be a paradigm, with its own theoretical statements, methods, social network analysis software, and researchers.
For the social network analysis, visualization is an important technology that may provide great convenience. Currently, the visualization of the social network can be categorized into two major types. The first type is such a visualization method as illustrated in a node link diagram shown in FIG. 1(a), that only presents interdependency among nodes while ignoring context information of the nodes; and the second type is such a visualization method as illustrated in FIG. 1(b), that not only presents interdependency among nodes but also presents the context information of the nodes.
In the social network analysis, an analyst's study of the social network not only focuses on the topology of the social network, but also takes context information behind each node in the social network into account.
Therefore, since the first type of visualization method of the social network does not present context information behind nodes, it suppresses the easy development of the social network analysis.
Furthermore, in the second type of visualization method of the social network, even though the context information of nodes is presented, if the presentation layout is disordered, the social network analysis will also can not be facilitated to carry out effectively. For example, it may be seen that, in the visualization method illustrated in FIG. 1 (b), an extreme visual clutter is caused due to an inappropriate presentation manner in which a variety of context information of a huge number of nodes is presented simultaneously on a single view.
Furthermore, a data set of a network is usually multi-dimensional, i.e. contains a plurality of property information. However, in the second type of visualization method, in addition to the possible case of clutter of presentation layout as shown in FIG. 1 (b), there also exists a case of compression of high-dimension (a plurality of properties) of context information to low- dimension (one or few properties) of context information. In this case, since the majority of context information of nodes is omitted, a distortion of presented contents will be caused.
These above issues not only exist in the case of visualization of the social network, but also exist in the case of visualization of other content-based networks, such as SMS (Short Message Service) network, Internet, etc.

Method and system for visualization of data set

International Business Machines Corporation


An information processing apparatus includes a first and a second node devices, and a control device configured to control data transmission between the first and the second node devices, the control device being coupled to the first node device through a first path group including a plurality of paths and being coupled to the second node device through a second path group including a plurality of paths, the control device is configured to perform a communication test of the first path group and the second path group, and when a first failure is detected in a first path in the first path group, couple a third path other than the first path in the first path group with the first node device, couple a second path in the second path group with the second node device, and couple the third path and the second path with each other.

Typically, a super computer has a configuration in which a large number of calculators called nodes are coupled with each other through a network called interconnect. Communication through the interconnect is controlled by an interconnect control unit in each node. The interconnect control unit is also called an interconnect controller (ICC).
Recently, the processing performance of calculators has been significantly improved by highly improved performance of central processing units (CPUs). This has led to increase in the amount of data communicated between CPUs, and accordingly, a bandwidth desired for the interconnect has been increasing. It is difficult to obtain the desired bandwidth by electrical communication through metal wires, and thus the interconnect is increasingly achieved by optical communication, which provides a large bandwidth. The optical communication is achieved by using a conversion element configured to convert light and electricity, which is called an optical module. The optical module is roughly divided into two parts, a circuit part configured to communicate an electric signal with the interconnect control unit, and an optical element part configured to convert optical and electric signals.
A path through which nodes are coupled is called a link. Typically, one link includes a plurality of lanes as communication paths through which signals are transmitted and received. The interconnect control unit is provided with ports in a number equal to the number of links, and the ports are coupled with nodes different from each other.
The interconnect control unit has functionality called dynamic lane degeneracy. The dynamic lane degeneracy is functionality of cutting off, when failure is detected at a certain link, the problematic lane in the link and continuing communication operation by using any lane in order. For example, consider a case in which failure occurs at a light receiving element used by a particular link. In this case, the interconnect control unit detects an error such as excess of the number of times of packet retransmission over a defined value at the particular link. Having detected such an error, from which it is determined to be difficult to continue communication, the interconnect control unit executes lane degeneracy on the particular link. At execution of the lane degeneracy, the interconnect control unit determines which lane is to be cut off by using an error counter prepared for each lane. Specifically, the interconnect control unit compares count values of lanes and the values of the error counters, and determines a cutoff target to be any lane for which a larger number of errors are detected. Then, when a particular lane is cut off, the interconnect control unit executes link re-initialization to, for example, activate any lane other than the lane cut off.
For example, consider a case in which a particular link includes two lanes. When an error from which it is determined to be difficult to continue communication is detected at one of the lanes while the other lane is already degenerated, the particular link has no available lane. In this case, the interconnect control unit performs processing to deactivate on the particular link and cuts off the particular link from an in-system calculation resource.
Less research and development have been achieved in optical communication than in electrical communication, and the optical module tends to have a high failure rate as compared to any other device configured to process electric signals but not optical signals. For example, the optical module has a unique failure mode called sudden death, in which light emission from a light-emitting element suddenly is stopped. Moreover, recently, the amount of heat generation at the optical module has been increasing due to downsizing and increased density of the optical module as well as increase of communication speed in response to a request for increased interconnect transmission capacity. It is known that heat generation accelerates failure of the device, and is a factor of increase of the failure rate. For these reasons, the optical module tends to be more likely to fail than any other device, which is a main factor of the lane degeneracy and the link deactivation at interconnect.
Technologies as described below are disclosed as technologies related to such communication failure at, for example, a link or a lane. For example, in a conventional technology, the link deactivation is avoided by performing reallocation of physical and logic lanes when restriction exists on the number of logic lanes or a lane width for which degeneracy is possible. In another conventional technology, the state of lane degeneracy is resolved by using an unused physical lane. In another conventional technology, a path is divided into partial paths, failure detection is performed at each partial path, and switching is performed to a path bypassing a partial path at which failure has occurred. In another conventional technology, resources of paths are shared based on priority information provided to the paths. In another conventional technology of determining a place where failure occurs, a particular interval is specified on an optical path to perform a conduction test on a specified interval by using an optical signal. In another conventional technology, a multi-stage connection network is formed to perform communication through a bypass switch when a switch has failed. A citation list includes Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 2005-182485, 2013-200616, 2003-258851, 11-191754, and 05-111065, International Publication Pamphlet No. WO 2008/044646.

Communication bypass apparatus, method and non-transitory computer readable storage medium


The invention discloses an auxiliary balloon structure for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), which comprises a balloon head and a balloon body. When unexpanded, the balloon body has two conical ends and a cylindrical middle part. The conical ends are defined as a front and a rear conical part. The cylindrical middle part is provided with a mastoid structure. The front and rear conical parts are made of a semi-compliant material, while the cylindrical middle part is made of a non-compliant material.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) adopts a minimally invasive cardiac interventional catheter technique to perform artificial interventional heart valve replacement, has advantages such as no chest opening, low risk, simple operation, small trauma, fast recovery and few complications, and is especially suitable for patients with surgical contraindications or high-risk surgical patients.
In TAVR surgery, due to exceptional anatomical features of a valve and an aortic root, the local anatomical tissues of some patients are relatively hard, so that the balloon may slip during pre-expanding and therefore expand undesirably or fail to effectively expand. Such a condition will exert a strong impact on the release of a TAVR valve stent in the TAVR surgery, especially for a self-expanding artificial intervention heart valve. This may cause a failure in effective fit between the valve stent and the aorta wall after TAVR, that is, perivalvular leakage, to thereby affect the function of the heart valve. From a long-term perspective, the failure in effective expanding of the valve stent will lead to self-expanding of the valve stent in an irregular shape, and thus affect the shape and operation of the artificial valve, which is likely to increase fatigue of the artificial valve and consequently shortens the life of the artificial heart valve.

Auxiliary balloon structure for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR)


Computerized methods, systems, and computer-storage media for establishing and managing a transmission control protocol (TCP)-based tunnel (“tunnel”) are provided. The tunnel spans between a data center and a private enterprise network and connects endpoints, of a service application, that reside in each location. During communication, the endpoints transmit data packets over one or more channels (e.g., higher-level channel and lower-level channel) that comprise the tunnel. Each of the channels supports reliability mechanisms (e.g., congestion-control mechanism and loss-recovery mechanism) integrally running thereon, for ensuring complete data-packet delivery. To prevent unwarranted performance degradation caused by duplicative efforts of reliability mechanisms, a fabric controller is employed to selectively disable one or more of the reliability mechanisms individually. The selective disablement of the reliability mechanisms is invoked by predefined criteria, such as instructions from a service model or detected identity of a source/destination endpoint, and is invoked on a per network connection basis.

Large-scale networked systems are commonplace platforms employed in a variety of settings for running applications and maintaining data for business and operational functions. For instance, a data center (e.g., physical cloud computing infrastructure) may provide a variety of services (e.g., web applications, email services, search engine services, etc.) for a plurality of customers simultaneously. These large-scale networked systems typically include a large number of resources distributed throughout the data center, in which each resource resembles a physical machine or a virtual machine running on a physical host. When the data center hosts multiple tenants (e.g., customer programs), these resources are optimally allocated from the same data center to the different tenants.
Customers of the data center often require business applications running in a private enterprise network (e.g., server managed by the customer that is geographically remote from the data center) to interact with the software being run on the resources in the data center. In this instance, a network connection between components of the business application and components of the software running in the data center is established. This network connection typically utilizes network transport protocols, such as transmission control protocol (TCP), to facilitate reliable delivery of packets over the network connection.
This TCP-based network connection, or TCP connection, is responsible for managing end-to-end message transfers across the independently operating private enterprise network and data center. For example, these tools may manage error control, segmentation, flow control, congestion control, and application addressing (e.g., port numbers). In operation, problematic network behavior, such as network congestion, and lost packets can be detected and ameliorated by these tools by requesting retransmission of lost packets, and changing the rate at which packets are sent to reduce congestion.
When a TCP-based connection is being run on top of another TCP connection, the interplay between these mechanisms employed by the inner TCP connection and the outer TCP connection can result into exaggerated retransmissions and flow throttling that in turn causes significant drop in performance of the overall connection. As such, employing emerging technologies to disable one or more of the tools associated with the layer(s) of TCP-based communication would enhance the throughput and performance of an established network connection while still ensuring reliable packet delivery and congestion control.

Selectively disabling reliability mechanisms on a network connection


In a method for operating an internal combustion engine in which the fuel is injected into a combustion chamber of a pre-injection and a main injection quantity, the quantity of fuel for the pre-injection, which is selected depending on the combustion location, is injected before the top dead center of the gas exchange, and the fuel for the main injection is injected synchronously with the induction of the air. The method is used in connection with internal combustion engines, in particular for passenger and commercial motor vehicles.

The invention relates to a method for operating an internal combustion engine with direct fuel injection using a pre-injection fuel amount and a main injection fuel amount.
By way of example, DE 195 19 663 A1 discloses a method for operating an internal combustion engine with spontaneous ignition, in which in a first stage a homogenous, precompressed fuel/air mix which is not suitable for spontaneous ignition is provided in the working space, and in a second stage an additional quantity of the same fuel is injected into the working space in order to bring about the spontaneous ignition. In this case, the fuel/air mix is prepared by means of external mix formation and introduced into the working space, where it is compressed to close to the spontaneous ignition point. The injection of the additional quantity of fuel in the second stage takes place in finely atomized form, avoiding contact with the walls, so as to form a mix cloud in which, on the one hand, the fuel/air ratio is no greater than the stoichiometric mixing ratio and in which, on the other hand, the spontaneous ignition is achieved.
Furthermore, DE 198 52 552 C2 discloses a method for operating a four-stroke internal combustion engine which, at part load, forms a lean base mix from air, fuel and retained exhaust gas and, at full load, forms a stoichiometric mix. At part load, compression ignition takes place, whereas at full load spark ignition takes place. Furthermore, mechanically controlled exhaust-gas retention with switchable valve closure overlap and exhaust gas throttling is provided. An activation injection can be carried out into the retained exhaust gas. The quantity of retained exhaust gas, with the valve closure overlap activated, is controlled or preset as a function of the engine speed and engine load by an exhaust-gas throttle valve which is active for all the combustion chambers. The pressure present upon opening of the intake valves is equalized for the individual combustion chambers by a cylinder-selective, cycle-consistent activation injection.
A method for operating a four-stroke, reciprocating-piston internal combustion engine is also known from DE 198 10 935 A1. It is characterized by a homogenous, lean base mix of air, fuel and retained exhaust gas and by compression ignition and direct injection of the fuel into the combustion chamber. The volume of the combustion chamber changes cyclically. The combustion chamber can be filled with fresh gas through at least one intake valve, while the combustion exhaust gases can be at least partially expelled through at least one exhaust valve. In the part-load range and in the lower full-load range, the internal combustion engine is operated with compression ignition and preferably mechanically controlled exhaust-gas retention, whereas in the full-load range and high part-load range it is operated on the spark ignition cycle.
One drawback of the methods known from the above-mentioned documents is in particular that the temperature and the composition of the working gas change in the event of changes in load. The reactivity of the mix during compression ignition is likewise altered as a result, even to the extent of causing misfires if the working gas temperatures are too low.
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide a method for operating an internal combustion engine in which the changes in the working gas temperature and composition in the event of load changes can be taken into account and/or corrected.

Method for operating an internal combustion engine


A ceiling-embedded air conditioner includes: a ceiling-embedded casing body that has an air suction path at the center of a lower surface and has an air blowoff path around the air suction path; a turbo fan that is disposed inside the casing body; a heat exchanger that is disposed inside the casing body on an outer peripheral side of the turbo fan; a bell-mouth that guides air sucked from the air suction path toward the inside of the turbo fan; and a rectifier that is provided on a back surface side of the bell-mouth at the air suction path side opposite to an air suction surface of the bell-mouth, the rectifier suppressing swirling airflows generated by part of air blown from the turbo fan swirling along the back surface of the bell-mouth in the same direction as a rotation direction of the turbo fan.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a ceiling-embedded air conditioner. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a ceiling-embedded air conditioner that suppresses swirling airflows generated on the back surface of a bell-mouth by rotation of a turbo fan.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ceiling-embedded air conditioner has a casing body including a heat exchanger and a blower (turbo fan). The casing body is embedded in a space formed between a ceiling slab and a ceiling panel. A flat square decorative panel is attached to the lower surface of the casing body. The decorative panel has an air inlet and an air outlet.
In the configuration described in JP-A-2012-2165, the casing body is a cuboid in shape. The turbo fan is disposed at the center of the casing body. The heat exchanger is disposed to surround the outer periphery of the turbo fan. A bell-mouth is provided between the air inlet and the turbo fan. The bell-mouth guides the air, which is taken into the casing body from the air inlet, to the inside of the turbo fan.
The turbo fan has a main plate, a shroud, and a plurality of blades. The main plate has a hub, to which a rotation shaft is fixed, at the center. The shroud is disposed to be opposite to the direction of axis of the rotation shaft relative to the main plate. The plurality of blades is disposed between the main plate and the shroud. The shroud has an opening at the center through which the bell-mouth is partially inserted into the turbo fan.
The bell-mouth has a base portion and a suction guide portion. The base portion is formed in a square shape corresponding to the shape of the air inlet. The suction guide portion is formed in a trumpet shape from the center of the base portion toward the inside of the turbo fan. As the turbo fan is driven, the air is sucked from the air inlet through the bell-mouth to the inside of the turbo fan (refer to JP-A-2012-2165, FIG. 2).
The air blown from the turbo fan is directed to the surrounding heat exchanger, and is heat-exchanged with a refrigerant through the spaces between heat-radiation fins in the heat exchanger. After that, the air is blown from the air outlet into the room through a blowing path. The blowing range of the turbo fan in the axial direction depends on the axial height of the outlet. In general, the axial height of the outlet is set to be lower than the height of the heat exchanger. This causes unevenness in wind speed distribution at the portion of the heat exchanger opposed to the outlet and the portion of the heat exchanger separated from the outlet. The unevenness results in unbalanced heat exchange.
As another problem, there is high blowing resistance at the back surface side of the blowing path opposite to the suction guide portion side of the bell-mouth. Accordingly, part of the air leaks from the gap formed between the bell-mouth and the turbo fan into the inside of the turbo fan (recirculation). Therefore, the air not passing through the heat exchanger is retained on the back surface side of the bell-mouth. As the turbo fan rotates, the retained air swirls along the back surface of the bell-mouth opposite to the air suction surface on the air inlet side. That is, swirling airflows are generated. The generation of the swirling airflows leads to reduction in the amount of wind flowing into the heat exchanger. This results in an unsmooth flow of air with lower heat-exchange efficiency.
According to the technique described in JP-A-2007-100548, radial ribs are provided on the back surface of the shroud to suppress loss of air blow. Accordingly, the air approaching the gap formed between the bell-mouth and the shroud is forcibly pushed back to the outside in radial direction.
However, the method described in JP-A-2007-100548 does not solve the swirling airflow problem and thus is less effective in preventing reduction in heat-exchange efficiency. In addition, providing the ribs may increase wind noise and vibration.


A method and apparatus for encoding the amplitude of frequency signals, into a temporal electrical spike pattern and a method for decoding the generated pattern by recognizing and classifying it with a correlating (associative pattern recognition) neuron like device. The first part of the system takes signals and converts their amplitude into a set of timed pulses. The timing of that pulse is a function of the amplitude of the incoming signal. Once a series of timed pulses have been created, they can be sent to a decoder. The decoder circuit uses bandpass filters and delays/gains a low pass summation. The recognition portion compares the timed input spikes with a known sample. Only when the input signals match the sample signals will the amplitudes be sufficient to meet the trigger threshold. When the output spike is generated, a pattern match has been found.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to neuromimetic homomorphic pattern recognition methods and apparatuses and particularly to neuromimetic homomorphic pattern recognition method and apparatuses that utilize time delay signal filtering and additive encoding and decoding.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Pattern recognition is defined as the automated identification of shapes. Homomorphic describes pattern recognition between sets of similar form but of different structure. "Neuromimetic" is defined as a device that functions in a biologically plausible way like neurons, but can be implemented electrically i.e., mimicking that structure.
Many systems today simulate, or attempt to simulate neural processors. For example, speech recognition is currently done using digital signal processing, Fourier transforms, and Hidden Markov Model techniques, etc.
Neurons are comprised of three parts: dendrites, the soma and the axon. The input structure is known as the dendrites. The central processing unit of the cell is the soma. Individual neurons are essentially feed forward devices. Currents from synapses (inputs) at the distal ends of the dendrites are integrated and collected near the soma. When a certain threshold is met, the soma generates a spike and resets its input level. The output of the soma is on the axon. The axon itself is similar to a dendrite in that it has a reverse type tree structure. It is commonly accepted that the axon's sole purpose is to carry the output signal to other neurons. It connects to them through synapses. The most commonly accepted biological model for a neuron is called the "Integrate and Fire" neuron.
As described by neuroscientists, when the nerve impulse is transferred across a synapse into a dendrite it becomes a post-synaptic potential, either excitatory or inhibitory. Individual neurons can typically have 4000-10000 input connections. These currents are integrated in the dendrite. When they reach a predetermined threshold, the soma produces a spike (pulse) onto the axon and resets the voltage on the dendrite to initial conditions. There is also something called the refractory period, which is the short time after a spike is generated in which a new spike cannot be generated (typically 1-2 ms). The time frame for generation of a spike is typically less than 20 ms (assuming that the appropriate number of input spikes is received to reach the threshold. Typically, about one percent of the input connections would need to receive a spike within the appropriate processing time frame in order for an output spike to be generated at all.
Models of neuron dynamics have been used for more than 100 years. Numerous examples of electrical circuits have been designed to replicate the "threshold and fire" action of a neuron.
A typical prior art speech recognition system uses digital signal processing (DSP) to compute the Fourier transform (FT) of a broadband input signal such as a speech utterance. It uses DSP and FT to compute the cepstral coefficients of the frequency spectrum. These features are then typically input into a neural network (Hidden Markov Model) to identify the spoken phonemes in the input speech signal.
A cepstrum (pronounced /'kE;pstrom/) is the result of taking the Fourier transform (FT) of the decibel spectrum as if it were a signal. Its name was derived by reversing the first four letters of "spectrum". The cepstrum can be seen as information about rate of change in the different spectrum bands. It was originally invented for characterizing the seismic echoes resulting from earthquakes and bomb explosions. It has also been used to analyze radar signal returns. It is now used as the primary feature vector for decoding the human voice and musical signals. For these applications, the spectrum is usually first transformed using the Mel frequency bands. The result is called the Mel frequency cepstral coefficients, or MFCCs. In the Mel frequency spectrum, the frequency bands are positioned logarithmically as to more closely approximate the human auditory system. It is used for voice identification, pitch detection and much more. Recently it is also getting attention from music information retrieval researchers. The cepstrum separates the energy resulting from vocal cord vibration from the "distorted" signal formed by the rest of the vocal tract. The cepstrum is also related to homomorphic sound theory.
As a simple example of how speech sounds are recognized, FIG. 1 illustrates the frequency and amplitude (spectrum) of the sound "ah" articulated at a base frequency (pitch) of 100 Hz by a male. Notice the only frequencies present in the spectrum are at the fundamental pitch (100 Hz) and at harmonics which are even multiples of the pitch. Note, FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 are reproduced from the book Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics, by Arthur Benade, New York, Oxford University Press, 1976. FIGS. 1 and 2 appear on page 371. FIG. 3 appears on page 373.
In FIG. 2, the same sound is being produced by a female at the base pitch of 220 Hz. The only frequency components present are again harmonics of the base. The spectral pattern for the sound "Ah" is the same whether spoken by the male speaker at 100 Hz or spoken by the female speaker at 220 Hz. The sound "Ah" is characterized by a similarity of form in each case but of different structure (Homomorphic). If we heard both of these sounds being produced, we would agree that the same "Ah" vowel is being produced, even though the second speaker has a pitch twice as high and with fewer (and different) overall frequency harmonics formed.
FIG. 3 is a graph of the spectral pattern of the vowel sound "Ah". Note that the spectral pattern for the sound "Ah" is the same whether spoken by the male speaker at 100 Hz or spoken by the female speaker at 220 Hz.

Neuromimetic homomorphic pattern recognition method and apparatus therefor


The present invention relates to a safety apparatus (20) for monitoring charging of an electrical energy store in a motor vehicle (100), having at least one first sensor device (21a) and at least one second sensor device (21b), the two of which are each designed to capture motion data for the motor vehicle (100) and to provide said motion data as a sensor signal; and a control device (25) that is coupled to the at least one first sensor device (21a) and to the at least one second sensor device (21b) and that is designed to deactivate the at least one second sensor device (21b) while the electrical energy store is being charged and, if the control device (25) detects motion of the motor vehicle (100) on the basis of one of the provided sensor signals, to actuate at least one actuator device (30) of the motor vehicle (100) in order to brake the motor vehicle (100).

The present invention relates to a safety device for monitoring charging of an electrical energy store of a motor vehicle and a method for operating a safety apparatus for monitoring charging of an electrical energy store in a motor vehicle.
In motor vehicles with internal combustion engines, most control devices can be switched off after as short a run-down time as possible when the vehicle is parked. In contrast, in the case of electric vehicles, a new operating state, in comparison with vehicles with internal combustion engines, supervenes the charging of the batteries.
In particular, electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles, so-called plug-in hybrids, have an energy store which can be recharged from the electrical grid. Vehicles such as this have a grid connection for recharging the electrical energy store, often in the form of a plug-in connection. During the charging process, the motor vehicle is connected to a voltage supply via a charging cable.
DE 10 2010 062 369 A1 describes a charging device without potential isolation for motor vehicles: having a first switchable isolating device which is designed to open and/or to close at least the conductor through which current flows of a charging cable that couples the charging device to a supply grid, in order to produce or break potential isolation between vehicle ground and neutral conductor of the charging cable.
Furthermore, the charging device described in that document has a second switchable isolating device which is designed to open and/or to close at least one line which connects the vehicle high-voltage battery to the charging device and/or to a vehicle onboard grid; and a monitoring device which is designed to monitor a fault state of the charging device or of the motor vehicle and to transmit a corrective signal to the first and/or second isolating device on the basis of the fault state.
DE 10 2009 001 962 A1 describes a charging system for use in a vehicle with vehicle ground at earth potential, comprising a vehicle high-voltage grid containing a high-voltage battery with battery isolation device and optionally one or more consumers; a charging device which is conductively connected to the high-voltage battery and can be integrated in the vehicle and has a grid isolating device which is connectable to a charging grid via a grid plug.
The charging system described in that document also comprises one or more residual current circuit breakers for monitoring residual current during a charging process, wherein the residual current circuit breakers are arranged such that the charging system is isolatable from a connected charging grid via the residual current circuit breakers, a protective conductor which is connectable to the vehicle ground, and means for permanently monitoring the protective conductor function during a charging process, wherein the means are configured such that, if the protective conductor function is impaired, the battery isolating device of the high-voltage battery and the grid isolating device of the charging device are triggerable.
Moreover, in the charging system described in that document, means are provided for isolation monitoring of the vehicle high-voltage network and of the charging device before the start of a charging process, wherein the means are configured such that, if an isolation fault is detected, the battery isolating device of the high-voltage battery and the grid isolating device of the charging device are triggerable.

Safety apparatus for monitoring charging of an electrical energy store in a motor vehicle, and method for operating a safety apparatus for monitoring charging of an electrical energy store in a motor vehicle


A wide-angle optical lens assembly includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a first lens element, a second lens element, a third lens element, a fourth lens element, a fifth lens element, and a sixth lens element. The first lens element with negative refractive power has a concave image-side surface. The second lens element with refractive power has a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface. The third lens element has positive refractive power. The fourth lens element has positive refractive power. The fifth lens element with refractive power has an object-side surface and an image-side surface which both are aspheric. The sixth lens element with refractive power has a convex object-side surface, wherein the object-side surface and an image-side surface thereof are both aspheric. At least one of the second lens element and the fifth lens element has at least one inflection point.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a wide-angle optical lens assembly. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a compact wide-angle optical lens assembly applicable to electronic products.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, as the popularity of mobile electronic products with camera functionalities developed, the requirement for miniaturizing an image lens system is increasing. The sensor of a conventional photographing camera is typically a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image sensor or a CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) sensor. Since the semiconductor manufacturing technologies are advancing, the pixel size of sensors is reducing, and compact image lens system has gradually evolved toward the field of higher megapixels. Therefore, requirements for compact image lens system with better image qualities are expected.
The conventional compact optical systems mounted on the mobile electronic products, such as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 8,068,290, typically utilize a four-element lens structure. However, as the high quality portable devices, such as smart phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), have been in vogue, the pixels and the image qualities of the optical systems are raised quickly. The conventional four-element lens structure, therefore, no longer satisfies the requirements of high quality photograph.
Although the optical systems with five-element lens structure, such as optical systems with five-element lens structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,000,030 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,000,031, have been developed recently, the field of view is too insufficient to capture wide-angle images. In addition, as the wide-angle optical systems with five-element lens structure disclosed in US Application No. 2012/0069140, the aberration due to wide-angle is unable to be corrected efficiently by designing the five-element lens. On the other hand, since the insufficient brightness of the surrounded image problem also exists in the five-element lens design, the image quality is unable to be raised efficiently.


A method for operating a first communication node connected to an in-vehicle network is provided. The method comprises generating a header including a count field indicating a wraparound count for a presentation time of contents and a timestamp field indicating the presentation time, generating a payload field including the contents, and transmitting a frame including the header and the payload field to a second communication node connected to the in-vehicle network.

Electronic devices installed in a vehicle have been increased significantly in their number and variety along with recent digitalization of vehicle parts. Generally, the electronic devices may be used throughout the vehicle, for example, a power train control system (e.g., an engine control system, an automatic transmission control system, or the like), a body control system (e.g., a body electronic equipment control system, a convenience apparatus control system, a lamp control system, or the like), a chassis control system (e.g., a steering apparatus control system, a brake control system, a suspension control system, or the like), a vehicle network (e.g., a controller area network (CAN), a FlexRay-based network, a media oriented system transport (MOST)-based network, or the like), a multimedia system (e.g., a navigation apparatus system, a telematics system, an infotainment system, or the like), and so forth.
The electronic devices used in each of these systems are connected via the vehicle network, which supports functions of the electronic devices. For instance, the CAN may support a transmission rate of up to 1 Mbps and support automatic retransmission of colliding messages, error detection based on a cycle redundancy interface (CRC), or the like. The FlexRay-based network may support a transmission rate of up to 10 Mbps and support simultaneous transmission of data through two channels, synchronous data transmission, or the like. The MOST-based network is a communication network for high-quality multimedia, which may support a transmission rate of up to 150 Mbps.
The telematics system and the infotainment system, as most enhanced safety systems of a vehicle do, require higher transmission rates and system expandability. However, the CAN, FlexRay-based network, and the like may not sufficiently support such requirements. The MOST-based network, in particular, may support a higher transmission rate than the CAN or the FlexRay-based network. However, applying the MOST-based network to vehicle networks can be costly. Due to these limitations, an Ethernet-based network is often utilized as a vehicle network. The Ethernet-based network may support bi-directional communication through one pair of windings and may support a transmission rate of up to 10 Gbps.
The disclosure of this section is to provide background of the invention. Applicant notes that this section may contain information available before this application. However, by providing this section, Applicant does not admit that any information contained in this section constitutes prior art.

Method and apparatus for reproducing contents based on presentation time in automotive network


A machine learning system for ranking a collection of filtered propensity to failure metrics of like components within an electrical grid that includes a raw data assembly to provide raw data representative of the like components within the electrical grid; (b) a data processor, operatively coupled to the raw data assembly, to convert the raw data to more uniform data via one or more data processing techniques; (c) a database, operatively coupled to the data processor, to store the more uniform data; (d) a machine learning engine, operatively coupled to the database, to provide a collection of propensity to failure metrics for the like components; (e) an evaluation engine, operatively coupled to the machine learning engine, to detect and remove non-complying metrics from the collection of propensity to failure metrics and to provide the collection of filtered propensity to failure metrics; and (f) a decision support application, operatively coupled to the evaluation engine, configured to display a ranking of the collection of filtered propensity to failure metrics of like components within the electrical grid.

One of the major findings of the U.S. Department of Energy's "Grid 2030" strategy is that "America's electric system, 'the supreme engineering achievement of the 20th century' is aging, inefficient, congested, incapable of meeting the future energy needs [ . . . ]." Reliability will be a key issue as electrical grids transform throughout the next several decades, and grid maintenance will become even more critical than it is currently. A 2007 survey by the NERC stated that "aging infrastructure and limited new construction" is the largest challenge to electrical grid reliability out of all challenges considered by the survey. The Smart Grid will bring operations and maintenance more online—moving the industry from reactive to proactive operations. Power companies keep historical data records regarding equipment and past failures, but those records are generally not being used to their full extent for predictive maintenance and assisting grid reliability.
Most power grids in U.S. cities (e.g., electrical grids in the Northeast and other mature cities) have been built gradually over the last 120 years. This means that the electrical equipment (transformers, cables, joints, terminators, and associated switches, network protectors, relays, etc.) vary in age; for instance, at least 5% of the low voltage cables in Manhattan were installed before 1930, and a few of the original high voltage feeder sections installed during the Thomas Edison era are still in active use in NYC. In NYC there are over 94,000 miles of high voltage underground distribution cable, enough to wrap around the earth three and a half times. Boston has 3,000 miles of underground cable and many other cities have similarly large underground electric systems.
Maintaining a large grid that is a mix of new and old components is more difficult than managing a new grid (for instance, as is being laid in some parts of China). The U.S. grid is generally older than many European grids that were replaced after WWII, and older than grids in places where infrastructure must be continually replenished due to natural disasters (for instance, Japan has earthquakes that force power systems to be replenished).
The Smart Grid will not be implemented overnight. For instance, according to the Brattle Group, the cost of updating the grid by 2030 could be as much as $1.5 trillion. The major components of the Smart Grid will (for an extended period) be the same as the major components of the current grid, and new intelligent meters must work with the existing equipment. Converting to a Smart Grid has been compared to "replacing worn parts of a 747 while it's in the air." To create the Smart Grid of the future, one must work with the electric grid that is there now. As grid parts are replaced gradually and as smart components are added, the old components, including cables, switches, sensors, etc., will still need to be maintained. Further, the state of the old components should dictate priorities for the addition of new smart switches and sensors, particularly in the secondary network.
The key to making Smart Grid components effective is to analyze where upgrades would be most useful, given the current system. Consider the analogy to human patients in the medical profession, a discipline for which many of the machine learning algorithms and techniques used for the Smart Grid were originally developed and tested. While each patient is made up of the same kinds of components (analogous to feeders, transformers, manholes, and joints), they wear and age differently, with variable historic stresses and hereditary factors (analogous to different vintages, loads, manufacturers) so that each patient must be treated as a unique individual. Nonetheless individuals group into families, neighborhoods, and populations (analogous to feeders, networks, boroughs) with relatively similar properties. The Smart Grid must be built upon a foundation of helping the electrical grid components (patients) improve their health, so that the networks (neighborhoods) improve their life expectancy, and the population (boroughs) lives more sustainably.
A need exists for proactive predictive maintenance programs for electrical grid reliability. There is also a need to make use of existing data resources, including data resources that were not originally obtained or designed for predictive purposes (e.g., maintenance record or a maintenance requests).

The Trustees of Columbia University in the city of New York


A manufacturing method for a single crystal of calcium fluoride by which it is possible to obtain a single crystal of calcium fluoride with adequately small double refraction, which can be used in optical systems for photolithography, and in particular, a single crystal of calcium fluoride with a large diameter (.o slashed. 200 mm or larger) having superior optical properties, which can be used for photolithography with a wavelength of 250 nm or less. A manufacturing method for a single crystal of calcium fluoride, having its optical properties improved through an annealing process in which a single crystal of calcium fluoride is contained in a sealable container, and said container is sealed and vacuumed, followed by, a process of heating with a heater arranged external to said container so that the temperature inside said container is raised to a first temperature, which is lower than the melting point of said single crystal of calcium fluoride, a process by which the temperature inside said container is maintained at said first temperature for a designated period of time, and a process by which the temperature inside said container is lowered to room temperature, wherein, the maximum temperature of the annealing process is set to be a first temperature within the range of 1020 to 1150.degree. C. Also provided is a manufacturing method for a single crystal of calcium fluoride having its optical properties improved through an annealing process such that, its maximum temperature during the thermal process is set to a first temperature which is within the range of 1020 to 1150.degree. C., and which is maintained for a designated period of time, and its cooling speed for reaching a second temperature, which is in the range of (or around) 600 to 800.degree. C., from said first temperature is set to be 1.2.degree. C./hour or less, or its cooling speed for reaching a second temperature, which is in the range of (or around) 700 to 900.degree. C., from said first temperature is set to be 1.2.degree. C./hour or less.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method for a single crystal of calcium fluoride with a large diameter (.o slashed. 200 mm or greater) and superior optical properties, which can be used appropriately in an optical system as the lens and windows of various devices using KrF, ArF excimer lasers and F.sub.2 lasers (such as a stepper, CVD device, or nuclear fusion device), and in particular, for photolithographic devices with a wavelength of 250 nm or less (such as photolithographic devices that utilize KrF, ArF excimer lasers and F.sub.2 lasers), and a single crystal of calcium fluoride for photolithography (a wavelength of 200 nm or less).
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Currently, VLSI has been experiencing increasingly higher integration and higher functionalization. In the field of theoretical VLSI progress is being made on a "system on a chip" in which larger systems are loaded on a chip. Along with this, microscopic processes and higher integration have been required for wafers, for example of silicon, which is the substrate. In photolithography, in which microscopic patterns of integrated circuits are exposed and transcribed on a wafer, for example of silicon, an exposing device called a stepper has been used.
Using DRAM as an example of VLSI, recently, a capacity of 256 M or more has been realized and the width of the processed line has become very small (0.35 .mu.m or less). Therefore, the projection lens of the stepper, which is the key to photolithographic technology, requires superior image formation performance (resolution, focal depth).
The resolution and focal depth are determined by the wavelength of the light used for the exposure and the numerical aperture (NA) of the lens. When the exposure wavelength .lambda. is the same, smaller patterns have a larger angle of diffracting light, and therefore, unless the NA of the lens is large, the diffracting light cannot enter. In addition, the shorter the exposing wavelength .lambda., the smaller the angle of the diffracting light, and therefore, a small NA for the lens is acceptable.
The resolution and the focal depth are expressed in the following formulas:
Resolution=k1*.lambda./NA, and PA1 Focal depth=k2*.lambda./(NA).sup.2 PA1 where k1 and k2 are proportional constants.
From the formulas above, it is understood that in order to improve the resolution, it is desirable to increase the NA of the lens (to enlarge the diameter of the lens) or to shorten the exposure wavelength .lambda.. Shortening .lambda. is more advantageous from the point of view of the focal depth.
First, the shortening of the wavelength of light is described. The exposure wavelength .lambda. has continued to become shorter, and steppers that use KrF excimer laser light (wavelength of 248 nm) as the light source have appeared on the market. There are very few optical materials that can be used for photolithography in the short wavelength range of 250 nm or less. There have been two kinds of materials, calcium fluoride and silica glass that have been used.
Next, the enlargement of the diameter of the lens is described. Simply having a large diameter is not enough. A silica glass or a single crystal of calcium fluoride with superior optical properties, such as uniformity of the refractive index, is required. Here, an example of a manufacturing method for a single crystal of calcium fluoride from the prior art is described. A single crystal of calcium fluoride has been manufactured through the Bridgeman method (Stockburger method, crucible lowering method). In the case of a single crystal of calcium fluoride used in the range of ultraviolet or vacuum ultraviolet light, natural calcium fluoride is not used as the material. In general, a high-purity material produced through chemical synthesis is used. Although it is possible to use powdered material, in this case, there is significant mass reduction during fusing, and therefore, normally, half-fused products or the crushed form are used.
First, a crucible filled with said material is placed in a growth device. Then, the inside of the growth device is maintained with a vacuumed atmosphere of 10.sup.-3 to 10.sup.-4 Pa. Next, the temperature inside the growth device is raised to the melting point of the calcium fluoride or higher, and the material inside the crucible is fused. At this point, in order to prevent temporal changes of the temperature inside the growth device, the temperature is controlled by a constant electrical output or a high-precision PID control.
At the stage of crystal growth, gradual crystallization occurs from the bottom of the crucible by lowering the crucible at a speed of 0.1 to 5 mm/h. The crystal growth is finished at the point when it is crystalized to the top portion of the fused liquid. Then, it undergoes simple and gradual cooling, avoiding sudden cooling, so that the grown crystal (ingot) will not be cracked. When the temperature inside the growth device is reduced to room temperature, the device is released to the normal atmosphere and the ingot is removed.
In the case of calcium fluoride for small-sized optical parts and windows where uniformity is not required, after the ingot is cut out, it is processed to the final product via a process such as rounding. In the case of a single crystal of calcium fluoride used in, for example, the projection lens of a stepper, which requires high uniformity, simple annealing is applied to the ingot. Then, after it is cut and processed to the appropriate size for the product with a given purpose, further annealing is applied.
In Patent Publication Tokukai Heisei 8 (1996)-5801, there is a disclosure of calcium fluoride for photolithography in which the optical path difference due to double refraction in either direction of the 3 axes is 10 nm/cm, when it is used in the specific wavelength band of 350 nm or less. The influence that the optical path difference imparts to the imaging performance of the optical system is expressed as a numerical value which is the multiple of the wavelength (such as .lambda./10), and the smaller the coefficient, the smaller the influence.
For example, with an optical path difference of 10 nm, when the wavelength .lambda.=248 nm, the optical path difference becomes 10/248=0.040.lambda., and when .lambda.=193 nm, the optical path difference becomes 10/193=0.052.lambda.. In other words, even with the same optical path difference of 10 nm, the result is that a .lambda. of 193 nm has a greater effect and the imaging performance becomes worse. Therefore, for the projection lens of a stepper that be used with the next generation ArF excimer laser (wavelength of 193 nm), an optical path difference of 10 nm/cm is not adequate enough. Thus, calcium fluoride with an even smaller optical path difference due to double refraction is required.
Hereinafter, the optical path difference per unit length due to double refraction is simply called double refraction. Also, in general, this double refraction is often called strain. This is because even if there is no double refraction in the material itself, double refraction is often generated due to strains.
As described above, calcium fluoride is manufactured through the Bridgeman method. After calcium fluoride is grown through the Bridgeman method, the calcium fluoride is gradually cooled at a rate at which it will not crack (or to the extent that cutting is possible) and then it is taken out as an ingot. Sometimes, an ingot is directly cut to size for a given purpose, however, the greater the mass, the greater the double refraction and the nonuniformity of the refraction, index. Therefore, said ingot is cut into multiple blocks and then goes through a further annealing process so that the quality is improved.
From the point of view of productivity, in general, the period of this annealing process has, in the past, been one to two weeks. Therefore, the cooling speed during the cooling stage, which takes a large percentage of the time of the entire annealing process, has been set to be 10 to 5.degree. C./hour. However, a single crystal of calcium fluoride obtained through this type of annealing (thermal process) for a single crystal of calcium fluoride has problems in that the refractive index has poor uniformity and the double refraction is too large. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a single crystal of calcium fluoride that can be used in an optical system for photolithography. In particular, the problem existed in which a single crystal of calcium fluoride with a large diameter (.o slashed. 200 mm or greater) that could be used for photolithography with at wavelength of 250 nm or less could not be obtained.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a manufacturing method for calcium fluoride and calcium fluoride that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to the limitations and disadvantages of the related art.

Manufacturing method for calcium fluoride and calcium fluoride for photolithography


A memory module may include a plurality of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, each of which may have one or more data input/output (D/Q) terminals. The memory module may include data redriving/retiming circuits connected to the D/Q terminals of the plurality of DRAM chips. The data redriving/retiming circuits may provide isolation between a system memory bus and the D/Q terminals of the DRAM chips.

1. Field
This disclosure relates to memory modules for use in computers and other applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Random access memory devices are widely used for working memory in computers and other electronics devices. Static random access memory (SRAM) devices will store data for as long as electrical power is applied to the memory device. Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) memory devices provide large memory capacity than SRAM devices, but the data stored in DRAM devices must be periodically refreshed. Synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) devices load commands and data based on a clock signal, which allows the memory devices to be synchronized with a computer bus. Double data rate SDRAM devices (DDR SDRAM) load and output data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal such that the data rate is double the clock rate. Current generation DDR3 SDRAM devices are operable at clock rates of up to 800 MHz.
Random access memory devices are commonly packaged on dual inline memory modules, or DIMMs, which may be plugged into mating connectors on a computer motherboard. Memory devices and DIMMs are generally designed in accordance with specifications published by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC). JEDEC is the semiconductor engineering standardization body of the Electronic Industries (EIA), a trade association that represents all areas of the electronic industries in the United States.
Throughout this description, elements appearing in figures are assigned three-digit reference designators, where the most significant digit is the figure number and the two least significant digits are specific to the element. An element that is not described in conjunction with a figure may be presumed to have the same characteristics and function as a previously-described element having a reference designator with the same least significant digits.

Redriven/retimed registered dual inline memory module


A method is provided for predicting pulse width modulated switching sequences for a multi-phase multi-level converter. With a first predicted switching sequence, due to multi-phase redundancies, equivalent switching sequences are determined. From the equivalent switching sequences, one switching sequence optimal with respect to a predefined optimization goal is selected. The selected switching sequence is used to switch the converter.

A multi-level controller may be used for controlling a multi-phase electrical machine. The multi-level converter includes a phase module for each phase generating a number of different output voltages dependent on the design of the phase module. For example, a two-level phase module generates two output voltages (+UDC, 0) and a three-level phase module generates three output voltages (+UDC, 0, −UDC). A phase module may include a plurality of electrical switches, such as power semiconductor switches, which generate the output voltage of the respective phase according to a switching pattern or switching state, which describes which switches of the phase module are conducting (on) and which switches are blocking (off).
There are several possibilities (e.g., modulation methods) for generating these switching patterns.
For example, switching patterns may be determined with the concept of optimized pulse patterns (OPP). With optimized pulse patterns, a motor's operation may be based on pre-calculated switching patterns that achieve a certain minimization objective, such as the elimination of certain harmonics or the minimization of the total harmonic distortion of the motor current. However, when the motor speed or the amplitude of the voltage or both go below a certain threshold value, the number of pulses required for an optimized pulse pattern is so high that it may become prohibitive. Moreover, at such low values of the motor speed and/or voltage, the usage of optimized pulse patterns does not provide an advantage in terms of the produced value of total harmonic distortion of the motor current, when compared to other methods, such as pulse width modulation (PWM).
Thus, in the case of low motor speed and/or voltage, the concept of pulse width modulation (PWM) may be used. Here, for example, the average value of the output voltage over a modulation cycle that has to be fed to the electrical machine may be controlled by switching between the possible output voltages with a high frequency compared to the fundamental frequency of the AC output voltage.
Another possibility is to use the concept of direct torque control (DTC), in which states of the motor, for example, the torque and the magnetic flux, are estimated and are controlled to stay within their hysteresis bands by switching when the respective variable error reaches its upper or lower limit.
When any modulation method is used for the operation of a converter, in particular for one with a five-level topology, a key challenge arises: the proper choice of the actual converter switching patterns that reproduce the required output voltages while balancing the internal voltages of the converter (for example neutral point potential, floating capacitor voltages).

Method and controller for controlling an electrical converter configured for generating an AC current for at least two phases


The present invention provides a device for transferring replacement fluid from a first to a second fluid system and for transferring overflow fluid from the second fluid system to the first fluid system. Replacement and overflow fluid is transferred between systems by first and second flow paths respectively, each flow path including a filter to prevent particle contamination between the systems.

The auxiliary oil system of an aircraft gas turbine engine is a closed circuit fluid system that circulates oil through the integrated-drive generator system of the engine as well as oil-air and oil-fuel heat exchangers. Like other closed circuit systems, the auxiliary oil system normally experiences a lack of oil consumption. Consequently, service checks are generally made infrequently and then primarily to determine whether there has been an oil depletion. The failure to frequently service such a closed circuit fluid system can lead to the creation of sludge, a deterioration in the fluid, e.g., an increase in oil acidity, or fluid depletion due to leakage or vapor loss, among other problems. Furthermore, these problems can be exacerbated as the operating temperature regime of the closed circuit system increases.
Engine subsystems serviced by the auxiliary oil system, such as the integrated-drive generator, may be adversely affected by the above-recited problems. As a result, such subsystems may fail over a period of many hours of service use. Accordingly, failure potential is dependent at least in part upon the peak and average temperatures reached by the oil. It is possible to reduce the possibility of break down by decreasing the operating temperature of the auxiliary system through the use of larger oil-fuel heat exchangers and by increasing oil-air heat exchanging. Obviously, the former is undesirable on an aircraft where space can be at a premium and weight is an important consideration, and the latter results in decreased engine efficiency. Conversely, the system could be operated at higher temperatures and engine efficiency could be increased if the frequency of service and, thus, complete oil replacement in the auxiliary system were increased. More frequent service would increase labor costs, however.
In contrast to the auxiliary oil system, the main oil system of a gas turbine engine is continuously monitored and serviced because some amount of engine oil is normally consumed during engine operation. Thus, unlike the closed circuit auxiliary oil system, the main engine oil system does not suffer from the previously mentioned deficiencies. While it may seem desirable to wed these systems, they presently cannot be joined during operation because particle contamination present in one system could damage the components serviced by the other system and, ultimately, could lead to an engine shutdown.