A reference voltage generating circuit includes: a reference voltage generating circuit element including a first diode characteristic element and a second diode characteristic element, a density of a current flowing through the second diode characteristic element being different from a density of a current flowing through the first diode characteristic element, the reference voltage generating circuit element being configured to output a reference voltage generated based on a difference between voltages respectively applied to the first diode characteristic element and the second diode characteristic element; a first adjusting circuit element configured to adjust a first-order temperature coefficient of the reference voltage; and a second adjusting circuit element configured to adjust a second-order temperature coefficient of the reference voltage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reference voltage generating circuit configured to generate a predetermined reference voltage and a reference voltage source including the reference voltage generating circuit, particularly to a reference voltage generating circuit and a reference voltage source each having an excellent temperature characteristic.
2. Description of the Related Art
Reference voltage generating circuits configured to stably supply a predetermined reference voltage at any temperature have been known. FIG. 14 is a circuit diagram showing a basic configuration of a conventional reference voltage generating circuit. As shown in FIG. 14, a reference voltage generating circuit 110 includes a first path P10, a second path P20, and a differential amplifier 40. On the first path P10, a first diode characteristic element Q10, such as a diode or a bipolar transistor, and a first resistor R10 are connected in series to each other. The first diode characteristic element Q10 has a diode characteristic (current-voltage characteristic by PN junction). On the second path P20, a second diode characteristic element Q20 and a second resistor R20 are connected in series to each other. The density of a current flowing through the second diode characteristic element Q20 is different from that of a current flowing through the first diode characteristic element Q10. To the differential amplifier 40, a voltage V10 obtained after the voltage drop by the first resistor R10 and a voltage V20 obtained after the voltage drop by the second resistor R20 are input. Further, on the second path P20, a third resistor R30 is connected in series to the second resistor R20. Then, a voltage (in the example shown in FIG. 14, an output voltage of the differential amplifier 40) applied to the first resistor R10 and the second resistor R20 is output as a reference voltage VBG. In the reference voltage generating circuit configured as above, the third resistor R30 (and the second resistor R20) is adjusted based on a difference between voltages, respectively applied to the diode characteristic elements Q10 and Q20 which are different in the density of the flowing current from each other, such that temperature dependence of the reference voltage VBG is eliminated (such that a differential dVBG/dT of the reference voltage VBG by a temperature T becomes zero).
It is known that a fluctuation range of the obtained reference voltage VBG by temperatures becomes narrow, but strictly, the obtained reference voltage VBG quadratically fluctuates by temperatures. FIG. 15 is a graph showing a temperature dependence characteristic of the reference voltage obtained by the conventional reference voltage generating circuit. FIG. 15 shows that the reference voltage has a quadratic temperature dependence characteristic in an assumed temperature range (−50 to 150° C.). This is because although a first-order temperature coefficient of the reference voltage is canceled by the reference voltage generating circuit shown in FIG. 14, a second-order temperature coefficient of the reference voltage still exists.
As a method of eliminating this quadratic temperature dependence characteristic, it has been thought in theory that a current which quadratically fluctuates by temperatures is caused to flow through a current path of the reference voltage generating circuit shown in FIG. 14. However, if the circuit is configured to generate the current which quadratically fluctuates in accordance with the quadratic temperature dependence characteristic, it becomes complex, and such circuit is not realistic.
Here, to eliminate the temperature dependence characteristic, for example, a configuration has been proposed, in which a plurality of correction current generating circuits are provided, and correction currents respectively generated by the correction current generating circuits are respectively used in a plurality of temperature ranges (see PTL 1 for example). In addition, another configuration has been proposed, in which a PTAT current which linearly changes with respect to an absolute temperature is generated, and temperature compensation is performed by performing adjustments such that a difference between the PTAT current and a CTAT current proportional to a voltage applied to the diode characteristic element by using the PTAT current and a resistor becomes zero (see PTL 2 for example).

Reference voltage generating circuit and reference voltage source


A method for merging content channels is disclosed. The method includes identifying, by a processing device, target channels to merge into a result channel, wherein the result channel is formed in view of at least one set of users of the target channels viewing at least one of a same set or a similar set of content items from the target channels. The method further includes subscribing, by the processing device, the users of the target channels to the result channel and associating, by the processing device, the set of the content items of the target channels with the result channel.

On the Internet, social networks allow users to connect to and share information with each other. Many social networks include a content sharing aspect that allows users to upload, view, and share content, such as video content, image content, audio content, and so on (which may be collectively referred to as "media items" or "content items"). Such media items may include audio clips, movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, pictures, photos, other multimedia content, etc. Users may use computing devices (such as smart phones, cellular phones, laptop computers, desktop computers, netbooks, tablet computers) to use, play, and/or consume media items (e.g., watch digital videos, and/or listen to digital music).
The content sharing platforms can include one or more channels or one or more channels can be viewable over the Internet. A channel is a mechanism for providing certain media items and/or for providing access to media items to subscribers. Media items for the channel can be selected by a user, uploaded by a user, selected by a content provider, or selected by a broadcaster. Users can subscribe to one or more channels. When the content of a channel is optimized (e.g., focused or specialized) for a coherent audience of users, users of the content sharing platform are more likely to keep watching content items of the channel and/or to subscribe to the channel.


An etching method can improve etching accuracy as well as secure selectivity when forming a dummy gate of a fin-type field effect transistor. In the etching method, the dummy gate of a fin-type field effect transistor is formed with a target object. In the etching method, a gate material deposited between multiple fins is etched by using surface wave plasma. A pressure in the etching method is 50 mTorr (6.67 Pa) or more, a frequency of a power to be applied to a mounting table configured to mount thereon the target object is in a range of 10 Hz or more to 200 Hz or less, and the power is pulse-modulated such that a duty ratio as a ratio of an ON-time to a pulse cycle is 50% or less.

In a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device, some of multiple regions formed of different semiconductor materials are selectively etched (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2).
Patent Document 1 describes a method of plasma etching an etching target layer of a target object with a patterning mask of the target object. In this method, an etching process is carried out by cyclically switching an ON-state and an OFF-state of plasma power from each other and applying pulsed-bias power, which is synchronized with a cycle of the plasma power, to a mounting table. When the plasma power is in the ON-state and the bias power is in the ON-state, a reaction region is etched and reaction by-products are formed in the reaction region. When the plasma power is in the OFF-state and the bias power is in the OFF-state, the reaction by-products are removed from the reaction region. Thus, an etching rate becomes uniform regardless of a density of a device structure. Further, in Patent Document 1, it is described that if a single cycle is comprised of a successive ON-state and a successive OFF-state, a ratio of the ON-state to the single cycle may be in a range of 5% to 95% or 65% to 75%.
Furthermore, Patent Document 1 describes a method of combining a process of etching by continuously supplying plasma power with a process of etching by supplying pulsed-plasma power and pulsed-bias power. It is described that in the process of etching by continuously supplying plasma power, electron cyclotron resonance plasma, helicon wave plasma, inductively coupled plasma, or surface wave plasma is used as a plasma source.
Patent Document 2 describes a method of plasma etching an etching target layer of a target object with a patterning mask of the target object. It is described that microwave plasma is used as a plasma source and plasma damage to the target object is suppressed by performing a process with plasma under a relatively low electron temperature and a relatively high electron density.
In the method of Patent Document 2, bias power to be supplied to the target object via a mounting table is intermittently supplied by repeating a supply and a stop of the supply of the bias power. Further, Patent Document 2 describes conditions of a frequency and a duty ratio of the bias power intermittently to be supplied. Herein, assuming that a sum of a supply time of AC bias power and a stop time thereof is a total time, the duty ratio refers to a ratio of the supply time to the total time. In Patent Document 2, it is described that since the duty ratio is set to be higher than 0.5 and lower than 1, it is possible to accurately etch the target object into a desired shape. To be specific, it is described that since a thickness and a hardness of a protective film (reaction by-products) formed on a mask layer are higher than those of a protective film (by-products) formed on a bottom wall of a groove, it is possible to vertically etch the target object. Further, it is described that since the frequency of the bias power is in a range of 10 Hz to 30 Hz, an etching rate can be more uniform regardless of a width of a gap between masks.    Patent Document 1: Specification of U.S. Pat. No. 7,718,538    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2012-084872
However, a conventional etching method needs to be improved in order to achieve miniaturization accompanied with reduction in size of semiconductor devices. By way of example, in a recently employed fin-type field effect transistor, a gate material formed between protruding fins needs to be etched with a mask formed on the fin. Since the fin has a very fine structure, it is required to further improve etching accuracy as well as secure selectivity.


A method and system for regulating engagement of a torque converter clutch (TCC) in a vehicle incorporating a transmission that is driven by an engine through a torque converter includes determining a non-linear slip profile based on vehicle operating parameters, calculating an actual TCC slip, calculating a TCC ramp pressure based on the non-linear slip profile and the actual TCC slip and regulating a TCC engagement pressure based on the TCC ramp pressure.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Vehicle powertrains typically include a prime mover, such as an internal combustion engine, a transmission and a coupling device that transfers drive torque from the prime mover to the transmission. The transmission multiplies the drive torque by an applied gear ratio to drive the vehicle's drivetrain. Exemplary transmissions include an automatic transmission having fixed gear ratios and a continuously variable transmission (CVT) having infinitely variable gear ratios.
The coupling device often includes a torque converter that provides a fluid coupling between an output shaft of the prime mover and an input shaft of the transmission. As the output shaft accelerates, the input shaft is induced to accelerate through the fluid coupling. Once the input shaft speed is sufficiently near to the output shaft speed, a torque converter clutch (TCC) is engaged to provide a direct drive between the output shaft and the input shaft.
In some instances, an electronic clutch control (ECC) mode switches from Off to On, wherein engagement of the TCC is regulated. More specifically, clutch slip is regulated until the clutch is fully engaged or locked-up. Traditional control strategies implement a plurality of look-up tables, which are time-consuming and costly to regulate. Furthermore, traditional control strategies are not always transparent to the vehicle occupants, decreasing the drivability or drive feel.


Image quality is improved by correcting printing position deviation arising between forward and reverse passes in the main scanning direction during bidirectional printing. An adjustment value is prepared with respect to at least one type of specific target dots other than those dots having the highest density out of the plural types of dots. Printing positions during forward and reverse main scanning passes are adjusted with the adjustment value to reduce printing positional deviation between forward and reverse main scanning passes.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a technology for printing on print media using a bidirectional reciprocating movement in a main scanning direction. The invention particularly relates to a technology for correcting printing position deviation between forward and reverse passes.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years color printers that emit colored inks from a print-head are coming into widespread use as computer output devices. In recent years, such color printers have been devised as multilevel printers able to print each pixel using a plurality of dots having different sizes. Such printers use relatively small ink droplets to form relatively small dots within a pixel region, and relatively large ink droplets to form relatively large dots within a pixel region. These printers can also print bidirectionally to increase the printing speed.
A problem that readily arises in bidirectional printing is that of deviation in printing position between forward and reverse printing passes in the main scanning direction caused by backlash in the main scanning drive mechanism and warping of the platen that supports the print media. JP-A-5-69625 is an example of a technology disclosed by the present applicants for solving this problem of positional deviation. This comprises of registering beforehand the printing deviation amount in the main scanning direction and using this printing deviation amount as a basis for correcting the positions at which dots are printed during forward and reverse passes.
However, in the case of bidirectional printing using multilevel printers, little consideration has been given to positional deviation arising between forward and reverse printing passes. Other problems include that while deviation may be corrected with respect to a particular one of the multiple colored inks, there is no correction of deviation in other ink colors. As a result, the deviation correction provides little improvement in the quality of the color image. The effect that positional deviation has on image quality is particularly large in middle tone regions.

Adjustment of printing position deviation during bidirectional printing


The invention relates to a method of using MPEG-7 in object segmentation to extract a desired moving or still image object. The method includes extracting the feature of an existing video object Plane (VOP) by MPEG-7 technique and storing it in an MPEG-7 database, segmenting an input image into a plurality of objects by using the watershed process, comparing each of the plurality of objects to the stored object descriptor feature, and extracting the shape and position of the most similar object in the input image.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of using MPEG standard in object segmentation, particularly, to a method of using MPEG-7 in object segmentation, which uses both human vision model and the jigsaw principle to recognize and recover the object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, video object segmentation methods are splitted into automatic and semiautomatic ones. The automatic schemes segment an object based on the object""s moving information while the semiautomatic one segments an object based on user-defined segmentation. Automatic mode cannot process a still object and semiautomatic mode is inconvenient. The MPEG-4 technique of video object segmentation is described as follows.
In MPEG-4, before coding, a motion estimation, an object segmentation, and a shape coding are applied to each object in a video or an image. As mentioned, video object segmentation is regarded as one of the key advantages of MPEG-4 technique.
In MPEG-4, the video content data can be segmented into a plurality of Video Object Planes (VOPs) based on requirements and the video content. The VOPs can be separately coded (compressed), stored and transferred. Also, the VOPs can be recomposed, deleted and replaced using the MPEG-4 standard system based on the application needs. Because a VOP is a basic unit of interaction, the success of applying MPEG-4 to various types of interactive multimedia is restricted in that the VOP can be effectively separated from video signal.
In the MPEG-4 video model, a frame can be defined by multiple video objects and a very high interaction with a user is enabled for developing in more applications. The user can access the objects freely as needed to form the desired frame. In MPEG-4 video, an image is regarded as the combination of video objects by the VOPs. However, there is no standard format for a video object in MPEG-4 other than a presentation model used to represent the video object. This is shown in FIG. 1 to be clearly seen in the concept of VOP. FIG. 2 is the structure of a VOP encoder and a VOP decoder. With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, in step S1 of FIG. 1 of the encoder section, we can see scene segmentation and depth layering in an object segmentation on this image in order to have the object definition on each segmented object. In step S2, the layered encoding action is performed on the segmented objects. At this point, the contour, motion, texture or coding information of each object is layered encoding as bitstreams through the multiplexer MUX, as shown in step S3, wherein the bitstreams include a background bitstream VOP1 and a broadcaster bitstream VOP2. In step S4, after the bitstream is transferred to the decoder, the demultiplexer DEMUX separately decodes the bitstreams VOP1 and VOP2. In step S5, the composition of the bitstreams VOP1 and VOP2 is performed to recover the original image.
In the technique view, MPEG-4 segments an image into different video objects to separately process the still and moving patterns in the image. The higher compression rate is used in the still background while the lower compression rate with respect to the still background is used in the moving foreground. In addition, when transferring the data, the background information is transferred only once; thereafter only the moving object information is transferred. Two kinds of information are composed on the client terminal. As such, the amount of data compressed and transferred can be greatly reduced.
However, the segmentation method above cannot solve the problems of still object segmentation and inconvenience.
An object of the invention is to provide a method of using MPEG-7 in an object segmentation, which uses both human vision model and the jigsaw principle to recognize and recover the object.
The invention provides a method of using MPEG-7 in an object segmentation, extracting the features of the object to build up a database, allowing the object to be recognized quickly from an image, regardless of whether the object is moving. The method includes the following steps. First, an object feature database is built up according to the MPEG-7 standardized definition. Second, watershed process is used to divide a video image frame into a plurality of objects when the video image frame exists. Third, each of the divided plurality of objects is compared to the object descriptor in the object feature database to find a target object. The most similar object including its shape and position in the video image frame is extracted as the target object based on the comparison result.

Method of using MPEG-7 standard in object segmentation


A medical filter has more than one pair of struts extending along an undulating path between a first and second end, which cooperate to define a first and second filter element having a plurality of cells, connected by a central portion with longitudinal strut sections. The struts extend between the first and second ends, and the struts tend to resiliently expand in radially outward directions from a compressed initial shape to an expanded deployed shape. In the expanded shape, the undulating path is defined by (i) a first portion of each pair of ribs extends substantially adjacent to each other for a distance from the first end, (ii) a second portion of each pair of ribs extends substantially adjacent to each other for a distance from the second end; and (iii) an intermediate portion of each one of a pair of ribs extends to curve away from each other.

1. Technical Background
The present invention relates to medical devices, and more particularly to a retrievable medical filter.
2. Discussion
Some basic types of vascular filters are generally known, wherein a single filter element, mesh or member extends across the direction of flow inside a blood vessel. Several features may be desirable for vascular filters, including non-surgical or "percutaneous" delivery of the filter to a desired site, and expansion from a preferably small initial size to an expanded working size that matches the vascular anatomy at the desired site. Also, a vascular filter should preferably capture a sufficient percentage of thrombus, while allowing blood to flow freely through the filter.
Another desirable feature is a capability to remain reliably in the desired position in a patient's anatomy, referred to as "position retention." One simple attempt at position retention is to wedge a vascular filter against the blood vessel wall by sizing it with a dimension slightly larger than the inside diameter of the blood vessel. In addition, a vascular filter should preferably have a design whereby the filter is self-centering and stable in the vessel, such that the filter has a tendency not to "tilt", which might result in less effective capturing of thrombus. Some vascular filters may be used in the vena cava, and may be described in such event as a "vena cava filter."
A vascular filter may be delivered through a catheter in a compressed shape, the filter tending to resiliently expand within a blood vessel and to retain the desired position and orientation. The vascular filter tends to trap thrombus or particles, and resist their movement further downstream. The filter includes, in a position of use, an outer shape corresponding to the internal diameter of the blood vessel, and one or more filter elements extending across the vessel.
In the temporal sense, there are three types of filters: (i) permanent filters, intended for permanent implantation; (ii) temporary filters, intended for removal within a time period; and (iii) retrievable filters, in which the physician has the option to implant the filter permanently or to remove the filter after some time. In the case of a retrievable filter, the filter may be designed so that the physician can choose whether to retrieve the filter at a later date, after the filter has been in place for a while. This way, the physician can evaluate the performance of the filter and the patient's condition, before deciding whether to retrieve the filter or not.
Regarding retrieval, one factor is "endothelialization" or in-growth of the vessel wall and tissue around the structural members of the filter. In other words, endothelialization is the healing of the vessel inner surface by endothelial cells, and it is desirable to preserve these endothelial cells when removing a retrievable vascular filter. The improved designs of the present invention tend to minimize any impact during retrieval.
Prior vascular filters have a demonstrated track record of filtering clots due to their filter basket design. However, because of the tendency of neointimal tissue to grow over the struts and other filter elements, may cause the filter to become mechanically interlocked with the tissue. When the tissue develops sufficient strength, the filter may no longer be retrievable. For some prior retrievable filters, this may occur somewhere between two and three weeks following implantation.
There are several connection points where a filter may become interlocked with tissue, depending on the size of the vena cava or other body passage in which the device is placed. These include parallel struts between front and back filter baskets, at a shoulder or the filter basket, and at a diamond bifurcation.
According to the principles of the present invention, in order to retain the clot capturing capabilities of the filter baskets, these new filter baskets may be formed by laser-cutting a series of straight, parallel struts, and then shape-setting them in a way so that they closely resemble the filter baskets. As illustrated in the drawings, by forming the baskets from straight, parallel struts, all connections between struts are removed, so that the filter tends not to become interlocked with tissue.
The filter therefore may be retrievable for a longer time or possibly an indefinite period. It may also be desirable to have a filter which consists of two of these filter baskets, one caudal and one cranial, in order to prevent the filter from tilting. Further, in order to facilitate retrievability, it may also be desirable to connect both filter baskets in the middle, and for both filters to be sloped in the same manner as the caudal basket of the filter. In this manner, the outer legs of the filter can act as anchors to prevent migration of the filter.
This filter design provides the demonstrated clot capturing ability of the filter, but the filter elements are shaped from unconnected, straight parallel struts, which allow the filter to be removed from the tissue at a selected time without a tendency for affecting the vessel wall. This is because these struts are not physically connected to each other, and can separate during retrieval.
In addition, this type of filter is compatible with a bi-directional retrieval system. As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, because the filter struts are not physically attached to each other, as is the case with prior filters, the catheter can be inserted through the windows of the flower basket, without risking entanglement of the catheter. If the retrieval catheter is inserted through one of the windows of the flower basket, the window of the flower basket can be opened, as shown in FIG. 3, to allow the retrieval catheter to slip through.
It is also possible to change the filter basket by adding or subtracting even numbers of struts, so that the number of windows within the flower basket changes from six to five, seven, or some other number. It is also possible to change the direction that the flow baskets face. That is, the cranial basket can be oriented in the same direction as the cranial basket on another filter.
A vascular filter along the lines of the present invention may provide several advantages, including effectively capturing thrombus while allowing blood flow, and resisting endothelialization of the filter. In other words, the filter enables a physician to have a longer time before choosing whether to retrieve a retrievable filter.
A vascular filter may have an initial compressed shape, in which the filter may have essentially a tubular shape, and may be contained in a lumen or passage defined by a catheter.
After a distal tip of the catheter reaches a desired site for treatment, a wire mandrel or other deployment device may be used to push the filter out of the catheter. And when the filter is released from the catheter, it tends to resiliently expand from the initial compressed shape to an expanded shape. When a vascular filter is retrieved from a blood vessel, the entire filter is resiliently compressed to a relatively small diameter, for extraction through a catheter.
The term "filter" will be used interchangeably, to refer to either (i) a combination device including a resilient scaffold structure with a sleeve covering, or (ii) those portion(s) of the scaffold which operate to capture thrombus.
The term "tubular" is used in its broadest sense, to encompass any structure arranged a radial distance around a longitudinal axis. Accordingly, "tubular" includes any structure that (i) is cylindrical or not, such as for example an elliptical or polygonal cross-section, or any other regular or irregular cross-section; (ii) has a different or changing cross-section along its length; (iii) is arranged around a straight, curving, bent or discontinuous longitudinal axis; (iv) has an imperforate surface, or a periodic or other perforate, irregular or gapped surface or cross-section; (v) is spaced uniformly or irregularly, including being spaced varying radial distances from the longitudinal axis; (vi) has any desired combination of length or cross-sectional size.
A vascular filter may include a first and second filter section, arranged on either side of a body section. The body section and the filter sections thus enclose a space. Due to the elongated shape of the vascular filter, and the arranging of the first and second filter sections on either side of the body member, the present filter may have an enhanced filtering effect. In other words, two opportunities have been created for intercepting thrombus moving inside the blood vessel.
A central tubular section tends to resiliently exert slight outward pressure along a large section of contact area on the blood vessel wall. The sleeve distributes this outward pressure to a greater area. Accordingly, the filter tends to exert some small amount of pressure on the internal wall of the blood vessel, and tends to hold itself in place. The vascular filter will consequently tend not to shift position. In addition, because of this elongated shape the vascular filter tends to center itself within the lumen, and not to rotate transversely or tilt over.
In an example, a vascular filter may be formed out of one single piece, which provides advantages including simplicity.
When viewed along the longitudinal axis of the filter, the filter sections may have the shape of a regular polygon, and thus may provide several smaller filtering "cells". The purpose of these filtering cells is to intercept thrombus moving inside the blood vessel, and the smaller filtering cells tend to capture more thrombus. All the cells may be of the same size, to provide a uniform filtering effect.
The filter sections, as arranged according to an embodiment described above on either side of the tubular body section, may be identical in shape, thereby enhancing the simplicity of the vascular filter according to the present invention.
It is of course possible to build various vascular filters according to the present invention, by various techniques and of various materials to obtain the desired features. It should be noted that the present invention also relates to methods for manufacturing vascular filters, and for using vascular filters for medical treatment of a patient.
These and various other objects, advantages and features of the invention will become apparent from the following description and claims, when considered in conjunction with the appended drawings. The invention will be explained in greater detail below with reference to the attached drawings of a number of examples of embodiments of the present invention.


A lift and stretcher apparatus for a patient includes a base portion at least partially defined by an elongated portion extending generally in a first orthogonal direction and having a first end, a second end, and a central portion interposed there between; a frame having a first lateral portion extending in the first orthogonal direction and defining a first lateral portion distal end and a first lateral portion proximal end, a second lateral portion defining a second lateral portion distal end and a second lateral portion proximal end, a proximal portion, and a distal portion extending generally in a second orthogonal direction; a lifting portion interconnecting the base with the frame for moving the frame relative to the base generally in a third orthogonal direction; a first axle portion having; and a second axle portion.

Many times in a hospital or other care giving facility, a person is transferred from one bed or stretcher to another. Generally, the person is in a supine position. This maneuver may increase the risk that a person is undesirably handled in a manner that may cause injury. Further, more than one person may be required to transfer a person one bed or stretcher to another, thus requiring additional personnel or requiring an undesirable wait until additional personnel are available.
What is needed is a device or apparatus for moving a person in a supine position. A desirable device would permit a minimum number of people for the transfer and reduce the occurrences of inadvertent injury. The device needs to have features that allow it to be easily maneuvered in its role as a transporter yet be capable of fitting around the varied patient surfaces it will encounter as a supine lift.


The invention intends to provide a cell culture apparatus which is able to realize an adequate culture according to the culture state of cells while alleviating the labor of an operator. The cell culture apparatus includes a culture bag for causing the cells to proliferate, a cell inoculation cassette (or culture bag as an antibody stimulating and proliferation culture vessel) for stimulating the cells by an inducer for the proliferation, a culture medium cassette for storing a culture medium supplied to the culture bag and the cell inoculation cassette, a CCD camera 88 for acquiring images of the cells in the cell inoculation cassette, and an image processing computer and an operation control computer for determining the culture state (proliferation capability and proliferation ability of the cells) of the cells from the images of the cells acquired by the CCD camera, and causing a culture operation to be carried out on the basis of the determination.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cell culture apparatus, a cell culture method, a cell culture program and a cell culture system for evaluating the culture state of a cell and culturing the cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, cell culture, in particular, suspension cell culture used for an immune cell therapy is executed by human operation in most cases. For example, cells sampled from a patient are inoculated to a flask having an antibody (inducer) attached thereto together with a culture medium, and stored in an incubator. Then, the flask is taken out from the incubator every day to observe the culture state (for example, the state of proliferation) using a microscope or the like. When the proliferation is found, or when a predetermined time period has elapsed from the cell inoculation, the culture medium is added to the flask to culture the cell (for example, proliferation).
In the manual cell culture as described above, the daily operation is executed on the basis of a culture evaluation depending on the experience of a culture engineer, or the culture operation is executed homogenously for all the cells on the basis of a predetermined manual. Therefore, the culture (for example, proliferation) might not be sufficient depending on the sampled cells. In order to induce the proliferation ability of the cell which is different from patient to patient, to a maximum extent, an objective culture evaluation and the culture operation by the hour on the basis of this evaluation are necessary.
Part of such problem is solved in the culture of adherent cells as described in JP-A-2002-218995. In other words, in JP-A-2002-218995, the proliferation ability of the entire cell population is understood by observing the form of the individual adherent cells in a non-invasive and non-destructive manner through the images.
As an example which is used for the manual cell culture as described above, JP-A-2005-73566 discloses a cell culture system in which a plurality of canisters (storing units) are arranged in a single incubator (culture chamber) and culture vessels are stored in the canisters one by one for culturing cells. In this culture system, the culture environment is adapted to be the same for all the canisters in the single incubator.
However, in the case of the culture of suspension cells used for the immune cell therapy, devices for evaluating the culture state of the cells objectively or for culturing the cells on the basis of the evaluation do not exist.
In the manual cell culture including the cell culture system disclosed in JP-2005-73566, an operator who is engaged in the culture, is required to collect culture environment data in the incubator or the canisters and record the log of the culture operation such as change of the culture medium, which is a very complicated work. There is a probability that trouble in the cell culture cannot be known adequately.

Cell culture apparatus, cell culture method, cell culture program and cell culture system


Display enhancement improves performance of constrained display devices such as electrophoretic displays (EPDs). With display enhancement, a display controller rapidly writes area updates to the display, while a union of the area updates is maintained. Area updates which the display controller cannot present are discarded, while the union provides a representation of what area on the screen has been affected. A repair operation takes place which generates an area update encompassing the areas which may have been affected.

Electronic devices such as electronic book reader devices (eBook reader devices), cellular telephones, portable media players, desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers, netbooks, personal digital assistants, and the like, may provide a display device for user interaction. However, display devices may be limited in functionality or otherwise be constrained due to technology choices, which may result in varying responsiveness to user inputs. Thus, for such constrained displays, it would be desirable to provide a more consistent and responsive experience to users.


A thin-film magnetic head is constructed such that a main magnetic pole layer having a magnetic pole end face on a side of a medium-opposing surface opposing a recording medium, a write shield layer opposing the main magnetic pole layer on the medium-opposing surface side, a gap layer formed between the main magnetic pole layer and write shield layer, and a thin-film coil wound about the write shield layer or main magnetic pole layer are laminated on a substrate. This thin-film coil has a plurality of turn parts arranged at respective positions having different distances from the medium-opposing surface, while a non-expandable part made of an insulating material having a coefficient of thermal expansion smaller than that of a photosensitive resin is formed between the turn parts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thin-film magnetic head which performs a magnetic recording action by a perpendicular recording scheme, a method of manufacturing the same, a head gimbal assembly, and a hard disk drive.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, hard disk drives have remarkably been improving their areal recording density. The areal recording density of hard disks has recently reached and is about to exceed 160 to 200 GB/platter in particular. In keeping with this trend, thin-film magnetic heads have been required to improve their performances.
The thin-film magnetic heads can roughly be classified according to their recording schemes into those of longitudinal magnetic recording type and those of perpendicular magnetic recording type. The longitudinal magnetic recording scheme records data in a (longitudinal) direction within a recording surface of a hard disk (recording medium), while the perpendicular magnetic recording scheme records data such that the direction of recording magnetization formed in the hard disk is made perpendicular to the recording surface. The thin-film magnetic heads of perpendicular magnetic recording type have been considered more promising than those of longitudinal magnetic recording type, since they can realize a much higher recording density than that in the longitudinal magnetic recording scheme, while their recorded hard disks are less susceptible to heat fluctuation.
Conventional thin-film magnetic heads of perpendicular magnetic recording type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,504,675, 4,656,546, and 4,672,493 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-94997, for example.
Meanwhile, a conventional magnetic head of perpendicular magnetic recording type (perpendicular magnetic recording head which will also be referred to as "PMR" in the following) has a magnetic pole layer and a thin-film coil. The magnetic pole layer generates a recording magnetic field for recording data onto a recording medium by the perpendicular magnetic recording scheme. The thin-film coil generates a magnetic field corresponding to the data to be recorded on the recording medium.
As such a PMR, one equipped with a write shield layer has conventionally been known as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,656,546. The PMR equipped with the write shield layer has a structure shown in FIG. 39, for example. FIG. 39 is a sectional view showing the structure of a conventional PMR 500.
This PMR 500 has an insulating layer 501, a main magnetic pole layer 502, a medium-opposing surface (air bearing surface, which will also be referred to as "ABS") 503, and a gap layer 504. The PMR 500 also has a write shield layer 505, a thin-film coil 506, a photoresist 507, and a connecting part 508 connecting the main magnetic pole layer 502 and write shield layer 505 to each other.
The main magnetic pole layer 502 is formed on the insulating layer 501 and has a magnetic pole end part arranged on the ABS 503 side. The write shield layer 505 is magnetically connected to the main magnetic pole layer 502 at a position remote from the ABS 503, and opposes the main magnetic pole layer 502 while interposing the gap layer 504 therebetween on the ABS 503 side. The thin-film coil 506 is wound like a flat spiral about the connecting part 508, while their turns are insulated from each other by the photoresist 507.
The main magnetic pole layer 502 and write shield layer 505 are formed from a magnetic material, while the gap layer 504 is made of an insulating material such as alumina (Al2O3). The thin-film coil 506 is formed from a conductive material such as copper.

Thin-film magnetic head, method of manufacturing the same, head gimbal assembly, and hard disk drive


A door closure apparatus with boost for latching a door to which the apparatus is attached. The door closure includes two pivotal arms, an outer covering and an elongated housing. In the housing are a main piston with a rack to engage a pinion connected to rotate with one of the pivotal arms, a piston rod, a main spring, a divider wall, an adjustable main spring seat, a supplemental piston and a supplemental spring. The housing is filled with hydraulic fluid and is divided into three chambers with ports and passageways to move fluid during door opening, which stores energy in both the main and the supplemental springs, and door closing, which begins with energy from the main spring and latches with a boost of energy from the supplemental spring.

Door closure apparatus are in general use in commercial locations throughout the country and have been patented for decades. Unfortunately, the earlier devices disclosed here are often incompatible with ADA requirements.
Door closers and shock absorbers are known in the marketplace and are disclosed in several existing patents. By way of example, Scheck, Storandt and Feucht patented a door closure in 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 4,744,125 for a "Door Closer Transmission Including An Eccentric Pinion" that purports to disclose a device having a housing containing an outer piston and an inner piston, each piston being biased by its own compression spring that compresses with the opening of a door to which the door closer is attached. The outer piston includes a rack that engages a gear mounted to an axle that rotates upon door opening. The inner piston includes an abutment that is engaged by a rotating element also connected to the door-opening axle. Because of different geometries of the rack and the rotating element, the compression of the outer piston spring is linear as a function of the door-opening angle. The inner piston spring has a greater return force at small door angles but less force as the angle of opening increases. In 1998 U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,671 for a "Door Closer" issued to Kaser and purports to disclose an apparatus having a housing filled with hydraulic fluid, a main piston, an auxiliary piston, a rack, a closer shaft with a pinion, two strong compression springs, one weaker compression spring and various fluid passages and valves. When an attached door is opened the pinion and rack move the main piston to compress the strong compression springs and fluid is transferred. The weak spring remains in a compressed condition between the auxiliary piston and the main piston. After the door is opened and the opening force is released, the door quickly closes under the strong biasing force of the two strong compression springs during a first time phase. During a next second phase, the door closes more slowly because fluid is restricted through an overflow duct so that movement of the pistons is due to the weaker compression spring. If the door does close completely during the second phase, fluid again flows more freely and all three springs bias the door closed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,799 for a "Hydraulic Dashpot" issued in 1990 to Zachiesche and purports to disclose a dashpot with an automatic closure when a valve located between the dashpot and a hydraulic storage chamber is removed for inspection. The dashpot includes the usual cylindrical housing, a piston, first and second hydraulic chambers one to each side of the piston, a piston rod and oppositely placed connecting elements, one connected to the housing and the other to the rod. In communication with the hydraulic chambers are the pressurized hydraulic storage chamber, a feed line and two valves. In 1991 U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,607 issued for a "Hydraulic Dashpot For Pipeline Systems" to Hardtke and Bernert and purports to disclose a dashpot having a cylindrical housing, a piston separating front and rear cylinder chambers, a piston rod, and a connecting member affixed to the rod and another member affixed to the housing. A main control valve is provided with helical grooves to ensure that if the main control valve if blocked pressure compensation will occur between the front and rear cylinder chambers.
In 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,109 issued to Schnetz for a "Hydraulic Shock Absorber" and purports to disclose a shock absorber having a pressure dependent damping and piston stroke dependent damping so as to provide damping independent of the type and intensity of the motion to be damped. The shock absorber includes a piston dividing a high-pressure space from a low-pressure space, a piston rod and a compensatory piston. A relief valve handles damping caused by an increase in pressure. The relief valve includes transfer ducts and spring washers that react to the pressure to close the ducts gradually. This arrangement is useful for small energy, low speed impacts. Damping based the piston stroke is handled by a port through the piston and a stationary pin that progressively plugs the port as the piston moves toward the pin. This arrangement is useful with high energy, high-speed impacts.
In 2005, U.S. Pat. No. 6,863,163, for a "Self Leveling Vehicle Suspension Damper" issued to Oliver, Kruckemeyer, Bishop and Jensen, and purports to disclose a suspension damper capable of adjusting the height of a support vehicle while being concealed within the damper. The damper includes a reservoir tube forming an outer housing and an internal tube with a pressurized gas chamber, and a fluid chamber separated by a slidable gas piston. In the fluid chamber is a fluid piston and rod. The internal tube forms the usual fluid pumping chamber. Between the outer housing and the internal tube is a fluid reservoir. For adjusting height of the connected vehicle the internal tube has a number of holes and in the fluid reservoir between the housing and the internal tube is a moving first partition and a control second partition and a chamber between them. When the piston and rod are moving during a compression stroke pressure differences are created between the holes in the internal tube. This pressure is directed to the second partition and causes fluid to be added in the chamber between the partitions causing the first partition to move the first partition thereby reducing the volume available to pressurized gas. The lower volume increases gas pressure and exerts a on the rod so as to increase the height of the connected vehicle.

Hydraulic door closure apparatus with boost


A method of forming expandable downhole tubing (10) comprises the steps of: providing a tubing section (12) of a first diameter; forming apertures in the tubing section (12); and then reducing the diameter of the apertured tubing section.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of manufacturing a tube, and in particular to a method of manufacturing an expandable tube.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within the oil and gas exploration and production industry there have been recent significant developments in relation to the use of slotted expandable tubulars. Such tubulars comprise metal tubing sections in which the tubing wall defines a multiplicity of longitudinal overlapping slots. Once run downhole, the tubing may be expanded to a larger diameter, such expansion being accommodated by deformation of the metal in the tubing wall, and with the slots assuming the form of diamond-shaped apertures. Such slotted tubing has seen application as a support for unconsolidated formations, and as the base pipe for expandable sandscreens.
Currently, slotted tubing is manufactured by cutting slots in extruded tube using CNC abrasive water jetting techniques, or in some cases by the use of laser technology; an example of this is described in PCT/GB98/03478. These manufacturing methods produce a very high quality product, but are time-consuming; a 30-40 foot joint of tubing may take three to four hours to machine.
It is among the objectives of embodiments of the present invention to provide a less time-consuming method of producing slotted tubing.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of forming expandable downhole tubing, the method comprising the steps of:
providing a tubing section of a first diameter;
forming apertures in the tubing section; and
reducing the diameter of the apertured tubing section.
The reduced diameter tubing section may be subsequently expanded.
The apertures may axially overlap, but need not do so.
The apertures may be formed by any convenient means, most preferably by punching the apertures in the tubing section, which may be accomplished more easily when the tubing is positioned on a punching mandrel. Of course other aperture forming methods may be utilised, including drilling or other cutting methods.
The reduction in diameter of the apertured tubing may be achieved by any convenient method, most preferably by drawing the tubulars through reducing dies or swages.
The apertures may be of any convenient form, including diamond-shaped, circular, square, rectangular, hexagonal, oval or dog-bone-shaped. Typically, the apertures will be oriented and positioned to create an open lattice structure similar to an expanded or partially expanded conventionally slotted tubing. In the reduced diameter tubing, the apertures will generally tend to assume a more longitudinal slot-like form, and in some instances may partially or completely close.
In most metal tubulars, the diameter reduction step will produce a degree of work-hardening, however in many metals, such as low carbon and alloy steels, the extent of work hardening would not be such to create difficulties in re-expansion. However, the reduced diameter tubing section may be subject to annealing, or some other stress-relieving process, to facilitate subsequent expansion.
If desired, the reduced diameter tubing could be flattened and reeled, for example as described in WO00 26500, for transportation and subsequent unflattening.
In further aspects of the invention, expandable tubing may be produced by:
providing tubing; and
forming apertures in the wall of the tubing by parting the material of the tubing.
The parting may be achieved by shearing or punching, and in one embodiment the tubing wall may be passed between appropriate punching rollers.
As the parting of the material, typically a metal, creates little if any waste or scrap, this method may prove more economic than methods in which apertures are formed by removal of material.
In other aspects of the invention, tubing may be produced by:
forming apertures in a sheet of a first width;
forming the sheet into a tube of a first diameter; and
reducing the diameter of the tube.
Alternatively, the width of the apertured sheet may be reduced prior to forming the sheet into a tube.
In another aspect of the present invention, tubing may be produced by:
forming apertures in a sheet by parting the sheet material; and
forming the apertured sheet into an expandable tube.
This aspect of the invention has the advantage that there is no waste material produced in the creation of the apertures.
Preferably, the apertures are created by shearing or punching, for example by being passed between a pair of punch rollers. This will tend to create an uneven sheet, which may be flattened before being formed into a tube.
In the aspects of the invention utilising sheet, the tube may be formed by any convenient method, and the edges of the sheet may be welded, or joined by other methods, for example by means of mechanical fasteners.
The sheet may initially be formed into a flattened tube and subsequently unflattened.
In certain of the above aspects of the invention the tubing may be dipped or coated in a fluid material which subsequently hardens or solidifies, the material filling the apertures in the tubing wall. On subsequent expansion of the tubing the material may tear or elongate. This aspect of the invention may also be utilised in relation to conventional slotted or apertured tubing.
The material preferably closes the apertures in the tubing wall such that the tubing wall is rendered fluid tight, and may be pressure-tight, at least in one radial direction. In particular, where wedge-shaped apertures are formed in the tubing wall, that is where the diameter, width or length of an aperture is greater towards the outer surface of the wall than towards the inner surface of the wall, the tubing wall may be pressure-tight with respect to external pressure; this aperture configuration will occur as a matter of course where for example, vertical or straight-sided apertures are cut in a sheet which is then formed into a tube having a longitudinal seam. The material filling the apertures, for example zinc from hot dip galvanising or an elastomeric coating from spraying the tube exterior with a curable rubber composition, will form wedge-shaped plugs in the apertures, and even relatively soft or ductile material may withstand external pressure as the wedges of material will tend to be pushed down into the apertures. This may facilitate running the tubing into a bore, as the tubing may then be run safely through a lubricator or packing into a pressurised well.
The references above to apertures are primarily intended to refer to openings in the tubing wall. However, those of skill in the art will realise that many of the effects and benefits of the invention may be achieved by only weakening or thinning the tubing wall material, and not necessarily by forming a through passage or complete parting of the material. For example, it may be sufficient to punch the wall to create a line or area of weakness which will subsequently fail or extend to allow subsequent expansion. Of course this offers the advantage that the tubing is, initially at least, pressure-tight.


Plug means (10, 18) for lockable sealing of a passage opening with a support surface (19) intended for positioning the plug means. Simple lockability and demountability are brought about by virtue of the plug means comprising a sealing plug (15) for interaction with the sides of the passage opening, a retaining means (12), connected to the sealing plug, for interaction with a hook means (20) connected to the passage, and a flexible resilient connecting element (14) between the sealing plug and the retaining means.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to plug means, arrangement or member for providing a lockable sealing function at a passage opening, and that has a support surface intended for properly positioning the plug means.
2. Background
Today""s environmental requirements relating to internal combustion engines specify that crankcase ventilation of the engine should pass through oil-separation arrangements intended for such purpose. Additionally, the crankcase is to be designed so that the risk of leakage to the environment is minimized.
There are also fire safety requirements for flammable liquids such as engine oil specifying that such liquids should not be permitted to spread from a vehicle, even in the event of engine break-down or other trouble. In the event of an engine seizure, for example, great overpressures can arise inside the crankcase. To meet the requirements, it should not be possible for such overpressures to cause, for example, dipstick that extends down into the crankcase to be pressured out of its normal mounting position. Although the oil level in an internal combustion engine can be monitored electronically, it is still advantageous to be able to visually inspect the condition of the oil, and particularly, its level in the engine.
Dipsticks with locking means are known; for example, bayonet-style mounts and the like are known which make it possible to rotate the dipstick into a locking position. There is always a risk, however, that locking will not be correctly effected and the sealing function can be lost. Still further, the known plug means can be troublesomely unwieldy, and therefore it is desirable for a plug means of this nature to be easy to handle by an operator and adapted to be easily guided into and out of its locking position without difficulty.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to produce a lockable plug means that is easy to demount (remove) and also to fit into a locked use configuration.
To this end, the present plug means is characterized by a sealing plug adapted for interaction with the sides of the passage opening and having a retaining means connected to the sealing plug for interaction with a hook means connected to the passage. A flexible and resilient connecting element is provided between the sealing plug and the retaining means. By virtue of this design of the plug means, the retaining means can easily be guided into or out of its retaining position against the action of the flexible resilient connecting element.
It should be appreciated that further advantageous and illustrative embodiments of the invention are possible, and in fact will emerge to those persons skilled in the art by way of the present disclosure.


The disclosure describes novel methods and apparatuses for accessing test compression architectures (TCA) in a device using either a parallel or serial access technique. The serial access technique may be controlled by a device tester or by a JTAG controller. Further the disclosure provides an approach to access the TCA of a device when the device exists in a daisy-chain arrangement with other devices, such as in a customer's system. Additional embodiments are also provided and described in the disclosure.

A growing number of electrical devices, which may be ICs or embedded cores within ICs, are being tested using test compression architectures (TCA), such as Mentor's TestKompress™ embedded deterministic test technology, incorporated herein by reference. Fundamentally a TCA consists of three elements, a decompressor circuit, a parallel scan path arrangement, and a compactor circuit. The decompressor circuit receives compressed input data from one or more inputs from a tester, decompresses the compressed input data into parallel stimulus patterns that are input to parallel scan paths. The compactor circuit receives parallel response patterns that are output from the parallel scan paths, compacts the response patterns down to one or more compressed data outputs that are input to the tester. A first advantage of TCAs is that they allow a large number of shorter length parallel scan paths to be accessed using only a small number of compressed data inputs and compressed data outputs. A second advantage of TCAs is that they reduce the amount of test data that needs to be transmitted between the tester and device under test, since the test data is compressed. The present disclosure provides methods and apparatuses for enabling a device TCA to be accessed for testing using either a parallel bus of compressed input and compressed output test signals or a serial bus of a compressed input and compressed output test signals.
While the example of FIG. 2 shows SE being low in state 202 and high in state 204, the logic levels of SE for these states could be reversed if desire.
Most known decompressors 104 utilize a linear feedback state machine (LFSM) in conjunction with a phase shifter circuit to produce the output patterns that are applied to the SI inputs of the parallel scan paths 108. In the referenced Mentor TestKompress™ technology, the LFSM is referred to as a ring generator which is a particular type of linear feedback shift register. The ring generator receives the CI input data and, in response, produces pseudo random input patterns to the phase shifter. The phase shifter responds to the pseudo random input patterns to output stimulus input (SI) patterns to the parallel scan paths. The CI input data modifies the output patterns from the ring generator to allow the phase shifter to produce the desired stimulus pattern input to the parallel scan paths.
Most known compactors 106 utilize XOR gating trees that input the scan outputs (SO) from the parallel scan paths and compress them, via XOR gating, into compacted signals that can be output on the CO outputs. While simple compactors may only use XOR gating trees, more sophisticated compactors, such as the compactor used the reference Mentor TestKompress™ technology, may use XOR gating trees in combination with masking circuitry to allow masking off unknown scan outputs (SO) from the parallel scan path scan to prevent the unknown scan outputs from corrupting the compacted signals output on the CO outputs. If the compactor contains masking circuitry it can receive masking data (MD) from the decompressor 104 and control from SC and SE to load the masking data, as shown in dotted line in FIG. 1.
FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a device 402 with a TCA 102 being connected to an external parallel tester 404 via parallel CI (PCI), parallel CO (PCO), SC, and SE interface signals to allow TCA test patterns to be applied to the device. This example is typical of how the device manufacturer would test the device.
FIG. 5 illustrates the tester 404 of FIG. 4 operating the SC and SE signals to perform a TCA scan cycle. The scan cycle includes a capture operation 502 that Captures response data and Resets the decompressor to a starting seed state, i.e. state 202 of FIG. 2, followed by a shift operation 504, whereby the tester inputs PCI data to the TCA decompressor 104 and receives PCO data from the TCA compactor 106, i.e. state 204 of FIG. 2. The response capture and decompressor reset operation is indicated in this and following timing diagrams as CR. The shift operation 504 continues until the parallel scan paths are filled with stimulus data and emptied of response data. The scan cycle of FIG. 5 repeats 508 until all the TCA test patterns have been applied and the TCA test is complete.
FIGS. 4 and 5 have illustrated an example of how a tester 404 can access a device's TCA 102 for testing when a connection can be made between the tester and the device's TCA interface. As seen in FIG. 4 the connection between the tester and device TCA requires a direct connection for the PCI signals, a direct connection for the SC signal, a direct connection for the SE signal and a direct connection for the PCO signal.
The present disclosure, as will described in detail below, identifies how to modify a TCA to allow the TCA to be selectively accessed using parallel CI and parallel CO signals coupled to high cost parallel testers as shown in regard to FIG. 4 or using serial CI (SCI) and serial CO (SCO) signals coupled to low cost serial testers. Additionally, the disclosure identifies how to test a device TCA using low cost JTAG controllers.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Programmable test compression architecture input/output shift register coupled to SCI/SCO/PCO


A filter is provided having more than one density of media, or more than one type of media. Three or four types of media may be arranged. Some or all of the media may be of different density material from each other. A spacer grid separates at least two of the media apart. One or more flanges on the spacer each respectively space apart two of the media from each other at a location. The one or more flanges provide a respective flow path through the flange.

Vehicle parts such as engines and transmissions are often used with various oils or other internal fluids. Various filters are known to remove contaminants or other materials from the fluids. In the case of transmissions, for example, filters having a housing that encloses a filter media such as a felt-like media are used, with the fluid passing through the media under pressure or suction applied to the filter on the inlet or outlet side.
An example of a filter is described in US20120012517A1.
When the fluid is at a colder temperature, some fluids become highly viscous and thus may create a large pressure drop compared to warm operation.

IBS FILTRAN KUNSTSTOFF-METALLERZEUGNISSE GMBH


An improved process for flash-spinning plexifilamentary film-fibril strands is provided. A 5 to 30 and preferably 10 to 20 percent solution of polymer, preferably linear polyethylene, is formed in a spin fluid that consists essentially of 50 to 90 weight percent methylene chloride and 10 to 50 percent of a halocarbon, which preferably is chlorodifluoromethane, 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane, 1,1-difluoroethane, 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoro-2-chloroethane or 1,1-difluoro-1-chloroethane. The solution is then flash-spun to form high quality plexifilamentary strands. The process avoids the use of halocarbon solvents that could be ozone-depletion hazards.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to flash-spinning of polymeric plexifilamentary film-fibril strand. More particularly, the invention concerns an improved process in which the strand is flash-spun from mixtures of methylene chloride and a co-solvent.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Blades and White, U.S. Pat. No. 3,081,519, describes a flash-spinning process for producing plexifilamentary film-fibril strands from fiber-forming polymers. A solution of the polymer in a liquid, which is a non-solvent for the polymer at or below its normal boiling point, is extruded at a temperature above the normal boiling point of the liquid and at autogenous or higher pressure into a medium of lower temperature and substantially lower pressure. This flash spinning causes the liquid to vaporize and thereby cool the plexifilamentary film-fibril strand that forms from the polymer. Preferred polymers include crystalline polyhydrocarbons such as polyethylene and polypropylene.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,081,519 the following liquids are useful in the flash-spinning process: aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, etc.; aliphatic hydrocarbons such as butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, octane, and their isomers and homologs; alicyclic hydrocarbons such as cyclohexane; unsaturated hydrocarbons; halogenated hydrocarbons such as methylene chloride, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, ethyl chloride, methyl chloride; alcohols; esters; ethers; ketones; nitriles; amides; fluorocarbons; sulfur dioxide; carbon disulfide; nitromethane; water; and mixtures of the above liquids. The patent further states that the flash-spinning solution additionally may contain a dissolved gas, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, methane, propane, butane, ethylene, propylene, butane, etc. Preferred for improving plexifilament fibrillation are the less soluble gases, i.e., those that dissolve to a less than 7% concentration in the polymer solution under the spinning conditions.
Many examples of U.S. Pat. No. 3,018,519 and British Patents 891,943 and 891,945 describe flash-spinning of polyethylene from methylene chloride or from methylene chloride with a co-solvent. However, the resultant products are generally unsatisfactory for producing plexifilamentary film-fibril strands of the quality required for commercial production of spunbonded sheet products. Commercial spunbonded products made from polyethylene plexifilamentary film-fibril strands have been successfully produced with the polyethylene being flash-spun from trichlorofluoromethane (Freon-11). Although Freon-11 has been used extensively for this purpose, the escape of such a halocarbon into the atmosphere has been implicated as a serious source of depletion of the earth's ozone. A general discussion of the ozone-depletion problem is presented, for example, by P. S. Zurer, "Search Intensifies for Alternatives to Ozone-Depleting Halocarbons", Chemical & Engineering News, pages 17-20 (Feb. 8, 1988). The substitution of methylene chloride for trichlorofluoromethane in the commercial flash-spinning process should avoid the ozone depletion problem, but plexifilamentary film-fibril strands of polyethylene which are flash-spun from methylene chloride, with or without co-solvent, as exemplified in the referred-to patents, are inadequate; they do not meet the high fibrillation quality of the strands produced by the commercial process which employs trichlorofluoromethane as the spin solvent.
An object of this invention is to provide an improved process for flash-spinning polyethylene plexifilamentary film-fibril strand of high quality from a fluid that should not present ozone-depletion hazards,

Flash-spinning of polymeric plexifilaments


A scanning apparatus which scans a document, includes: a scanning section which includes a scanning area and which scans the document in the scanning area; a control device which includes a position information capturing section which captures a position information indicating a position of the document on the scanning area when the document is scanned by the scanning section and a processing section which performs a plurality of processes with respect to an image data of the document scanned by the scanning section based on the position information captured by the position information capturing section.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image scanning apparatus, an information processing apparatus, a program and a scanning system which add a plurality of pieces of information to scanned image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional electronic filing apparatus which optically scans a drawing, a document, etc., and stores scanned image data into a recording medium such as an optical disc, when the scanned image data are stored into the recording medium, titles and/or search keywords of the scanned image data are previously registered to make a database thereof so as to quickly search an image data desired to be found from the image data stored in the recording medium. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No.H07-93348 suggests an image information processing apparatus which includes: a scanning means which scans an image information from a document; a character recognition means which recognizes characters positioned at a portion corresponding to a predetermined position of the document, from the image information scanned by the scanning means; and a storage means which stores a scanned image information associated with the character recognized by the character recognition means, and titles and/or search keywords for searching desired image information can be registered.

Position-based image scanning, processing and storage


An apparatus for monitoring the closed position of a locking gas cap (10) with a magnet (32) disposed at or in the locking gas cap and a solenoid (42) disposed at the tank connection pipe (12), the locking gas cap (10) having a torque limiter (36), and the magnet (32) being coupled with the torque limiter in such a manner, that it reaches a position, in which the solenoid (42) is triggered, only when the limiting torque is reached.

The invention relates to an apparatus for monitoring the closed position of a locking gas cap, with a magnet disposed at or in the locking gas cap and a magnetic switch disposed at the tank connection pipe.
An apparatus of this type is described in the DE 44 04 014 A1 and serves to monitor the closed position of the locking gas cap of a motor vehicle so that, when the locking gas cap is not closed or closed incompletely, a warning signal appears on the dashboard of the vehicle.
In the case of the known apparatus, the locking gas cap has a bayonet catch and the magnet is disposed in such a manner, that it is in the vicinity of a reed switch, when the bayonet catch is locked. Depending on the construction, the reed switch is thus either open or closed when the locking gas cap reaches the locked position. Preferably, the reed switch is constructed so that it is closed in the locked position and that an associated evaluating circuit causes a warning signal to be displayed when the circuit of the reed switch is interrupted.
Since the magnetic field of the magnets cannot be localized to a narrow limited space, the position of the locking gas cap can be determined only relatively inaccurately according to this principle. For many tank caps, the locking gas cap is constructed as a screw-in plug. However, even in the case of bayonet-like tank caps, screw pitch surfaces are usually provided, which ensure that the plug, in the closed position, is pressed firmly against an associated seal. The possibility therefore exists that the locking gas cap is not turned completely into the end position, in which the tank opening is sealed reliably and in which a subsequent loosening of the locking gas cap due to vibrations is prevented because of the frictional engagement. However, because of the aforementioned inaccuracy in determining the position, the reed switch would also respond in such a case, so that the correct closing of the locking gas cap cannot be indicated reliably.

Apparatus for monitoring the closed position of a locking gas cap


A ferrule end-surface polishing apparatus for polishing an end-surface of a ferrule for an optical fiber is provided. The apparatus includes a ferrule holder having a holder block capable of sandwiching a cylindrical portion of a ferrule, and a guide block for guiding the ferrule to the holder block; a polisher having a rotatable polishing board for polishing an axial end-surface of the ferrule held by the ferrule holder; and a ferrule transfer device for transferring and loading the ferrule into the ferrule holder, and for removing the ferrule therefrom after polishing. With this configuration, the ferrule polishing operation is automated.

The present invention relates to a ferrule end-surface polishing apparatus for polishing an end-surface of a ferrule for an optical fiber, and more particularly, to a ferrule end-surface polishing apparatus suitable for automated polishing of a ferrule end-surface.
In a conventional apparatus for polishing an end-surface of a ferrule for an optical fiber, for example, as described in JP-A-6-179161, an end portion of a ferrule is securely held by a holding means, and an end-surface of the ferrule is pressed onto an eccentrically rotating polishing platform at a constant pressure to polish the end-surface of the ferrule.
In the foregoing conventional apparatus, however, no consideration has been given to automatization which is essential to accommodate a significant increase in demand for optical fiber products in the future. The aforementioned known example discloses automation of polishing alone through the rotation of a polishing machine, and discloses that mounting and holding of ferrules, replacement of polishing paper, and so on are manually performed. For this reason, there has been a problem that the automatization is difficult. Specifically explaining, in the aforementioned conventional apparatus, a ferrule is mounted by inserting the ferrule into a hole slightly larger than the outer diameter of the ferrule (for example, approximately 0.005 mm), made in a ferrule holder, and holding the ferrule with fixing nuts at a fixed height and a fixed angle.
The replacement of polishing paper involves operations such as removing a ferrule holder with a ferrule mounted therein, and replacing polishing paper attached on a rotating disk. The insertion of a ferrule into a hole in the ferrule holder is difficult even with human""s hands since even slight inclination would result in a chape. Its automatization would require a highly accurate positioning machine and a highly accurate sensor, but is practically not feasible. In addition, for the replacement of polishing paper, it is difficult, even with human""s hands, to remove a metal-made holder, which is made thick for ensuring a rigidity, with a ferrule mounted therein, leading to a likelihood of breaking an optical fiber.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for polishing an end-surface of a ferrule, which facilitates the automatization.
To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a ferrule end-surface polishing apparatus having holding means for holding a ferrule, and a turntable for rotating and holding polishing paper for polishing an end-surface of the ferrule held by the holding means, wherein the holding means comprises two holder blocks which are movable to each other and have holders formed at opposing portions thereof, and a guide block disposed above the holder blocks for guiding the ferrule moved down from above between the two block holders.

Apparatus and method for polishing end-surface of ferrule


To provide a resistance change element which can reduce the current required to switch the state to the high resistance state from the low resistance state. The resistance change element according to the exemplary embodiment includes three or more electrodes, none of the electrodes supplying ion to a resistance change material (205). It includes a material (206) which does not show resistance change arranged between an electrode (207) and the resistance change material (205), and current pathways formed at two electrodes (204) other than the electrode (207).

Nonvolatile memories that are widely used in a market include flash memories or memories having a SONOS (Silicon Oxide Nitride Oxide Silicon) laminated structure. These memories are manufactured by using a technique to change the threshold voltage of a semiconductor transistor by the charge stored in an insulating film arranged above a channel region of the semiconductor transistor.
Microfabrication is essential to increase capacitance of a semiconductor transistor. Nowadays, however, it is difficult to even microfabricate a single semiconductor transistor having no charge accumulative function. Consequently, the semiconductor transistor only has a switching function to select memory cells read and written. A memory element is divided from the semiconductor transistor like a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). It is promoted to continue increasing capacitance of the semiconductor transistor by promoting microfabrication of each of these elements.
In order to continuously microfabricate an information memory function, it is studied to use a resistance change element as a memory element that uses an electrical element which can turn electrical resistance into signals having two or more values by some electrical stimulus. In a method of storing charge in a capacitance like DRAM, quantity of charge is decreased by microfabrication and degradation of the signal voltage is unavoidable. However, as electronic resistance takes the finite value even with microfabrication unless it is in the superconductive state, it is considered that there is an advantage to continue microfabrication if there is a principle and a material which change resistance value.
There exist several techniques to change electrical resistance by some electrical stimulus. One of the techniques that is advanced the most is a memory device to take advantage of switching crystal layers (amorphous crystals) that have different electrical resistances by double or triple figures by applying the current to a chalcogenide semiconductor. This memory device is typically called phase-change memory.
On the other hand, Metal/Metal oxide/Metal (hereinafter called MIM type) structure which has metal oxide sandwiched between electrodes is known to cause a resistance change upon application of high voltage or current. The present invention mainly relates to a MIM type resistance change element.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the MIM type resistance change element. In FIG. 1, numeral 1 indicates an upper first electrode of the MIM type resistance change element. Numeral 2 indicates a resistance change material made of metal oxide. Numeral 3 indicates a lower second electrode of the MIM type resistance change element.
Non-Patent Document 1 discloses the resistance change element using Nickel Oxide (NiO). In 1950-1960, a phenomenon that resistance values are changed by voltage or current in a variety of materials were researched and reported.
FIG. 2 shows current-voltage characteristics of the MIM type resistance change element shown in FIG. 1. The resistance change element maintains a high-resistive OFF state or a low-resistive ON state in a nonvolatile manner even after it has been turned off and can switch resistance states by applying prescribed voltage or current stimulation when it is necessary. FIG. 2 shows an example of current-voltage characteristics of ON state and OFF state.
Applying a voltage of Vt1 or more to the high-resistive OFF state element, it is turned into the low-resistive ON state and shows current-voltage characteristic shown in FIG. 2(b). Then, applying a voltage of Vt2 or more to ON state element shown in FIG. 2(b), it is turned into the high-resistive OFF state and shows current-voltage characteristic shown in FIG. 2(a) again. The MIM type resistance change element can switch the state shown in FIG. 2(a) and that shown in FIG. 2(b) repeatedly. This characteristic can be used as a nonvolatile memory cell or a nonvolatile switch for switching circuits. In addition, the reference value that is criterion for high resistance or low resistance is not limited. Every reference value can be used if it is possible to switch high resistance and low resistance relatively. Note that 10 kΩ is favorably used as a reference value for example.
Additionally, in the MIM type resistance change element including metal oxide, a current pathway which is used in the low resistance state is not formed in the whole electrode surface, but is a regional current pathway 4 which is approximately several nm, or not more than several tens of nm in diameter as schematically shown in FIG. 3.
FIG. 4 shows electrode area dependencies of the resistance value in the low resistance state in the MIM type resistance change element of parallel plate type. Note that dependent properties shown in FIG. 4 are those in the case that NiO is used as the resistance change material of the current pathway 4 like Non-Patent Document 1. As shown in FIG. 4, the resistance value in the low resistance state is hardly depend on electrode area, and the low resistance state is kept by the current pathway 4 formed regionally. Therefore, in the case of applying the MIM type resistance change element as a memory element, the electrical resistance in the high resistance state is higher with the microfabrication and the electrical resistance in the low resistance state is almost unchanged. The resistance ratio between the states can be made higher. Consequently, it may be said that the MIM type resistance change element is a memory element suitable for microfabrication.
As shown in FIG. 5, however, there is a problem that the lower the resistance value in the low resistance state is, the more current a two-terminal MIM type resistance change element needs when switching to the high resistance state. Thus, when a fuse/anti-fuse type switching element which can repeatedly switch resistance states is realized, the problem described above is a major issue.
The two-terminal MIM type resistance change element needs a high-capacity power supply circuit (a driver) when switching the state to the high resistance state from the low resistance state. The point of power consumption and the point of increased manufacturing cost owing to increased chip area are also major issues.
A resistance change element having three or more terminals is also a semiconductor transistor. For example, a MOS transistor having a gate terminal of Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) type can adjust the conductance between a source and a drain by controlling carrier density induced at depleted layer width of a semiconductor under the gate, that is, the interface between an insulator and the semiconductor by applying a voltage to the gate terminal. The amount of carriers induced in this case is approximately 10^18(cm^−3)˜10^20(cm^−3) in volume density.
A three-terminal type element having a semiconductor material in place of metal oxide is disclosed in Patent Document 1 and 2, for example. In Patent Document 1 and 2, an element which has a structure like a MOS type semiconductor transistor having metal oxide in place of semiconductor part is disclosed. They have multiterminal arrangement like semiconductor transistor having a source, a drain and a gate.
The resistance change element is the same as the semiconductor transistor on the point that charge is induced at the interface between the metal oxide and the insulator by the electric field generated in the gate terminal. However, the resistance change element is widely different from the semiconductor transistor in that the operating principle of the resistance change element is to change the conductance of whole surface under the gate electrode by producing the metal-insulator transition of the oxide material by the induced charge. The resistance change element needs to change the amount of charge of 10^21˜10^22(cm^−3) or more in volume density to produce the metal-insulator transition. This charge density is 100 times as much as that which is necessary to drive the MOS type semiconductor transistor.
Consequently, the resistance change element needs to generate an extremely high electric field just below the gate. A material for the insulator under the gate needs to have not only low interface state density but extremely high insulation breakdown voltage. This is a major obstacle to realize it.
In the present invention, the filamentary current pathway 4 with an extremely small cross-sectional area is formed between the electrodes corresponding to the source and the drain. The present invention is widely different from Patent Document 1 and 2 in that the current pathway 4 is maintained even after the power off in a nonvolatile manner. The current pathway 4 is formed by the structural change of microscopic area by minimal migration of metal or oxygen in a crystal, which is not so called metal-insulator transition by the control of the amount of charge in the material, as described below.
Another additional electrode controls or assists forming or breaking of the tiny current pathway 4. The high electric field to induce the metal-insulator transition is not needed. Additionally, in Patent Document 1, a tunnel insulator is provided between the source/drain electrode and the metal-insulator transition material in the MOS type transistor. In the present invention, the tunnel insulator is not needed. This point is also widely different.
Further, there exists a prior art document filed before the present invention which discloses a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device having an ion-conducting layer (see for example Patent Document 3).
Patent Document 3 discloses the nonvolatile memory device including a substrate, a switching element formed on the substrate, and a storage node connected to the switching element, in which the storage node has a lower electrode connected to the switching element and used as ion source, a data store layer formed over the lower electrode, a part of the data store layer being isolated from the lower electrode, a lateral electrode having a side face connected to the part of the data store layer isolated from the lower electrode, the lateral electrode being isolated from the lower electrode, and an upper electrode formed on the data store layer.    [Patent Document 1]    Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-319342    [Patent Document 2]    Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-129839    [Patent Document 3]    Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-59914    [Non-Patent Document 1]    J. F. GIBBONS and W. E. BEADLE 'SWITCHING PROPERTIES OF THIN NiO FILMS' Solid-State Electronics, Vol. 7, P. 785-797, 1964.

Resistance change element, semiconductor memory device, manufacturing method and driving method thereof


Various technologies described herein pertain to active noise cancellation in the interior of a vehicle. In exemplary embodiments, a microphone mounted on the vehicle outputs an audio signal indicative of noise emitted by a noise source. A computing system of the vehicle determines a position of the noise source based upon sensor signals output by sensors mounted on the vehicle. The computing system further determines a position of a passenger in the vehicle based upon a sensor mounted inside the vehicle. The computing system generates a complementary signal that is configured to attenuate the noise based upon the audio signal, the position of the noise source, and the position of the passenger. The complementary signal is then output by way of a speaker in the interior of the vehicle.

An autonomous vehicle (AV) is a motorized vehicle that can operate without a human driver. An exemplary autonomous vehicle includes a plurality of sensor systems, such as but not limited to, a lidar sensor system, a camera sensor system, and a radar sensor system, amongst others. The autonomous vehicle operates based upon sensor signals output by the sensor systems.
Some vehicles include systems and components that are intended to mitigate various types of noise that result during operation of the vehicle. For instance, some vehicles include components that are intended to isolate the interior of the vehicle from the engine compartment in order to reduce audible engine noise in the interior of the vehicle. Some vehicles also include dampening components that are intended to dampen noise-causing vibrations of various parts of the vehicle. Passive approaches to noise mitigation in vehicles generally still allow significant noise in the interior of the vehicle, however, given the size, weight, and aesthetic constraints for noise mitigation components.
Active noise cancellation now finds application in headphones. Conventionally, active noise cancellation headphones incorporate a microphone, processing circuitry, and a speaker (ordinarily the same speaker used to output whatever the listener is listening to). The microphone is positioned in close proximity to the listener's ear and receives ambient noise from the listener's environment. The microphone outputs an audio signal indicative of the received noise. The processing circuitry receives the audio signal output by the microphone and generates a phase-shifted signal that is 180° out of phase with the audio signal. The phase-shifted signal is then output by the speaker, which is also positioned in close proximity to the listener's ear. This approach may be suitable to attenuate ambient noise when there is a microphone and a speaker positioned close to a listener's ear (e.g., within three inches of the listener's ear), but this approach exhibits poor performance when the microphone used to detect the noise and/or the speaker used to output the phase-shifted signal are farther away from the listener.

Systems and methods for active noise cancellation for interior of autonomous vehicle


The present invention is related to a process for reducing solid waste volume and landfill mass. More particularly, the process of the present invention is directed to reducing organic waste with or without production and collection of a useful product. The process of the present invention involves supplying at least one oxidizing agent in the presence of an aqueous medium into organic materials. The oxidizing agent oxidizes and breaks down a portion of these materials. After addition of the oxidizing agent, at least one species of microorganism may be supplied into the channel and the microorganism consumes the oxidized organic material.

Virtually all types of human activities generate various types of waste or by-product materials. Many of these materials can be processed to yield substrates that are or may be readily converted into a useful product. Such conversion is desirable for at least three interrelated reasons. First, conversion reduces the load of material that ultimately must be disposed of via traditional waste management methods; second, conversion saves natural resources by more fully utilizing raw products; and third, conversion not only may save energy but may in fact contribute to the supply of energy yielding materials.
Waste has varied forms and characteristics. In terms of the regulation of waste disposal pursuant to federal statutes, rules and regulations, many waste materials are characterized as municipal solid waste pursuant to 42 USC 691 et seq. Other categories of waste materials include animal waste either as it exists in confined animal production facilities or as it may be found in confinement ponds or lagoons. Other wastes from specific industries that may, but are not necessarily included as municipal solid waste, include materials produced during food processing and rendering, wood and timber processing, and chemical and petroleum manufacturing and processing.
Municipal solid waste, more commonly known as trash or garbage, consists of everyday items such as paper, food scraps and yard trimmings that are disposed of and may ultimately end up at landfills. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in 2001 U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 229 million tons of municipal solid waste, which amounts to approximately 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day, up from 2.7 pounds per person per day in 1960. Although source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting can divert portions of municipal solid waste from disposal, a large amount of waste must still must be placed in landfills.
Modern landfills are expensive facilities that require a great deal of funding to build and maintain. Landfills must be built in suitable geological areas away from faults, wetlands, flood plains, or other restricted areas. Typically, liners formed from geomembrane or plastic sheets reinforced with two feet of clay on the bottom and sides of landfills must be installed. In addition, general maintenance including insect and rodent control and ground water monitoring add to landfill costs. Also, closure and postclosure care which includes covering landfills and providing long-term care of closed landfills can further add to costs.
A need currently exists for an improved process for reducing solid waste volume and landfill mass. In particular, a need exists for a process that can reduce the volume of municipal solid waste.

Process for reducing solid waste volume and landfill mass