An immunoassay, e.g. ELISA, method and kit for determining (preferably quantitatively) an analyte adsorbed at a surface or present in a liquid sample, comprising binding the analyte to a solid phase, attaching a marker to the analyte, and detecting marker attached to the solid-phase. The invention proposes to use a combination of marker and detection (e.g. an enzyme-substrate combination) which is capable of producing a precipitate on a solid phase which carries the marker and to detect the binding of analyte to the solid phase by in-situ determining the change in surface mass of the solid phase due to the formation of the precipitate. Ellipsometry is an example of a technique suitable for determining the change of surface mass of the solid phase, which could be made of a silicon- or chromium-sputtered glass slide The invention shortens the assay time and/or improves the assay sensitivity, and allows to measure extremely low surface concentrations of analytes of interest.

The subject invention is in the field of immunoassays for determining, an analyte, especially an analyte adsorbed at a surface, or analyte as it occurs in a liquid sample in solution or at a particular location therein, such as at a specific surface.
More in particular, the invention relates to enzymelinked immunosorbance assays (ELISA""s) for determining the concentration of an analyte in a liquid sample, including its concentration in the bulk of the liquid sample or its concentration at a particular surface. Specifically, the present invention relates to new immunoassay methods and kits specifically adapted for carrying out these new immunoassay methods.
Immunoassays, such as ELISA""s, are widely used for the determination, either qualitative or, mostly, quantitative, of a nearly unlimited variety of organic substances, either of natural origin or synthetic chemical compounds, such as peptides, proteins, enzymes, hormones, vitamins, drugs, carbohydrates, etc., for various purposes, such as in particular for diagnostic purposes, but also for forensic applications, food quality control, and generally for any analytic purpose. All such substances to be assayed will be referred to herein generally as analytes.
Many different variants of ELISA methods exist. The description given hereunder aims at illustrating a typical ELISA technique. It does not pretend to be complete and should not be construed in any way as restricting the scope of the present invention. For example, in the following description, ELISA methods are described as comprising separate steps of incubating a sample with a first binding partner of the analyte and incubating the reaction product formed with a second binding partner of the analyte (herein binding partners of the analyte will sometimes be referred to as binding partners for the analyte). However, some existing ELISA embodiments do not comprise such separate incubation steps and allow the analyte to react simultaneously, or shortly one after the other, in one and the same incubation step, with both its first and second binding partners. Competitive ELISA""s are another example of ELISA variants not discussed in detail herein. The subject invention is in principle applicable to any and all ELISA variants, and to similar immunoassay methods which, strictly speaking, are not ELISA methods, e.g. because they do not involve the use of an enzyme.
In a typical ELISA, to detect the presence, or measure the concentration, of an analyte of interest, especially in a liquid sample, which may be a body fluid such as blood, plasma, serum, urine, saliva, sputum, etc., the sample is contacted with a first binding partner for the analyte, and the sample and the binding partner for the analyte are incubated for a sufficient time to allow analyte contained in the sample to bind to the binding partner.
A typical example of such a binding partner is an analyte-specific antibody, e.g. a monoclonal antibody with specificity for the analyte in question. However, other kinds of substances and structures may also qualify as a binding partner. For example, the natural receptor of the analyte in question could be useful as a binding partner, as well as other substances and structures to which the analyte can bind. The binding partner would normally be a specific binding partner, but this is not a requirement. It is even possible to work without a first binding partner and to immobilize (i.e. bind to a solid phase) the analyte either directly (e.g. by adsorption) or through a non-specifically binding linker substance. All of such variants are explicitly intended to be included in the scope of this invention. The words xe2x80x9canalyte adsorbed at a surfacexe2x80x9d as used herein refer to any method resulting in attachment or binding of analyte to a surface.
Usually, said first binding partner is used in an immobilized form, i.e. attached to a solid phase, such as polystyrene beads or the inner surface of the reaction container (e.g. a reaction tube or a well of a microtiter plate). The binding partner may be physically adsorbed onto the solid phase or, usually, be attached by covalent binding. According to some ELISA embodiments, the binding partner is attached by using a suitable coupling agent, and in others by using appropriate linker substances, such as biotin and (strept)avidin. In some ELISA embodiments, the immobilization of the binding partner is carried out after the incubation of the sample and binding partner, thereby allowing the reaction between analyte and binding partner to proceed in the liquid phase. To allow its subsequent immobilization, said binding partner may be applied in a biotinylated form. Immobilization can then be effected by using a solid phase carrying (strept)avidin.
As a result of this first reaction, any analyte present in the sample will have become bound to its binding partner and thereby to the solid phase. Usually after the liquid has been removed and the solid phase has been washed, steps are taken to make the result detectable. The solid phase having attached thereto the binding partner and analyte, if any, is contacted with a second binding partner for the analyte. Again, a specific binding partner is the rule, but not strictly required. Usually, this second binding partner carries a label/marker allowing its detection. In some ELISA embodiments, however, the second binding partner is used in unlabelled form and is labelled after its binding by using a labelled binding partner for the second binding partner. As an example thereof, the second binding partner may be a mouse antibody (either polyclonal or monoclonal) against the analyte in question, and after its binding to the analyte which had been attached via its first binding partner to the solid phase, a labelled goat anti-mouse IgG is used to attach a label to the immobilized complex.
In ELISA""S, the label consists of an enzyme capable of a detectable conversion of a substrate, e.g. a peroxidase such as horseradish peroxidase, capable of converting, in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, a substrate, such as 3,3xe2x80x25,5xe2x80x2-tetramethylbenzidine, into a coloured product.
Normally, after the enzyme-labelled reactant has been attached to the immobilized complex, the solid phase with complex bound thereto is washed before the actual detection phase is entered.
In the detection phase, substrate solution is added to the solid phase with attached complex and the conversion, if any, of the substrate is detected. To allow quantitative measurement of the analyte, the solid phase is incubated with the substrate solution for a fixed time, which should be sufficiently long to allow a substantial enzymatic conversion of the substrate into a coloured substance. After termination of the substrate-converting reaction the intensity of the colouration, which is proportional to the immobilized amount of enzyme, is measured by optical means, such as a photometer to measure the absorbance at a chosen wavelength, such as 450 nm.
A disadvantage of the existing ELISA techniques is that the adsorption and detection phases, to secure assay sensitivity, are very time consuming for low analyte concentrations. The rate of adsorption of analyte to the surface is proportional to the concentration of analyte in the solution, and thus will also become very low, even in well-stirred systems. To allow a reliable measurement of analytes present in a liquid at a concentration in the order of nanograms or even picograms per ml, the adsorption phase may require a reaction time of one to several hours.
Another disadvantage of the existing ELISA techniques is that they do not allow to measure extremely low surface concentrations of analytes, such as occur at the surface of biological (model) membranes.
An object of this invention is to provide a modified immunoassay, e.g. ELISA, technique allowing to reduce the incubation time in the adsorption and/or detection phase, or to increase the sensitivity of the assay, or both.
A further object of this invention is to provide a modified immunoassay, e.g. ELISA, technique which allows to measure analyte concentrations at a particular surface.
Another object of this invention is to provide products specifically adapted for carrying out such modified immunoassay techniques.
The invention pertains to a fundamental modification of the assay principle of immunoassays, e.g. ELISA""s, in which the measurement of the accumulation of enzyme product in the (bulk phase) solution is replaced by in-situ measurement of the accumulation of precipitate on a solid surface. The subject invention involves the use of a precipitate forming system, such as an enzyme-substrate combination which leads to the formation of a precipitate on a solid surface, and measurement of the surface mass, e.g. by ellipsometry or other surface mass measurement techniques.
By using this invention, very low concentrations of adsorbed analyte on the solid surface can be determined and the adsorption phase of analyte from the liquid to the surface can be substantially shortened. Also, the time-consuming build up of product concentration in the bulk liquid phase is no longer required, and is replaced by an adsorption of a thin layer of precipitate, of only molecular dimensions, on the solid surface. This modification implies a large increase in assay sensitivity and offers the possibility of much shorter assay times. It also allows to determine extremely low surface concentrations as may occur at the surface of biological (model) membranes.
Determination of analyte concentrations by xe2x80x98immunoprecipitationxe2x80x99 is a well known technique. The precipitate of analyte-antibody aggregates, formed by this method after addition of the precipitating antibody, is usually simply allowed to sediment, collected and weighed. In spite-of poor precipitation when either the analyte or the antibody is present in large excess, it has been shown that under well defined conditions this technique allows quantitative interpretation of data (see e.g. European patent application 0 368 462). In a more sensitive and rapid version of this technique, (latex) particles coated with antibody are added and aggregate formation is measured by light scattering. In this way, the time-consuming sedimentation is avoided and measurements may be completed in seconds. The present method is fundamentally different from these techniques. In said techniques the analyte is not concentrated at a solid/liquid interface and the amount of precipitate is not continually increasing in time, as when it is produced by an enzyme. Due to these factors, and due to a specific aggregation, such techniques have a limited sensitivity and generally do not allow measurement of analyte concentrations below the ng/ml range.
Analytical methods which involve an enzyme-directed formation of a (coloured) precipitate are known per se. Such a method is known for example in the field of immunocytochemistry. In this known method, to demonstrate the presence and/or localization of various tissue proteins in histological studies, a specific protein in the tissue is determined by first producing thin tissue sections, after freezing the tissue or using various forms of chemical fixation, and then adding antibodies which specifically recognize and bind to the protein. Excess antibodies are removed and then a second, enzyme-linked, antibody, for instance an IgG-HRP conjugate, is added. After removal of excess conjugate, a suitable substrate, such as 3,3xe2x80x2-diaminobenzidine (DAB), is added. If the specific protein is present in the tissue, a localized staining due to the formation of a DAB-derived precipitate will occur.
The present invention, however, does not relate to the localization and detection of proteins in tissue but to the detection and measurement of analyte (concentrations) adsorbed at solid surfaces or present in solutions. Furthermore, the subject invention applies a (preferably quantitative) measurement of surface mass (in the ng/cm2 range) whereas, in said known immunocytochemical method, qualitative results are obtained, usually by visual or. microscopic inspection. In some studies, the intensity of staining has been measured by applying optical density measurements, but the technique has never been combined with a technique for quantitative measurement of surface mass, such as ellipsometry or others. This would also be very difficult to perform because the thickness of tissue sections (micrometers) is of another order of magnitude than the thickness of the precipitate layers (nanometers) measured in the method of the present invention.
The prior art suggests to use immunoassays based on optical interference on specially prepared optically active receptive surfaces, coated by thin oxide-, nitride or polymer films. Using such pre-coating, the additional adsorption of a precipitate layer results in visually detectable colour changes. Such applications have been presented in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,136. Apart from visual detection of precipitate formation, measurement of the precipitate by ellipsometry was also applied. However, the various rinsing and/or drying steps required in these techniques preclude the high sensitivity that can be obtained by in-situ measurement. For the detection of very low analyte concentrations in. biological fluids like plasma, serum, blood, milk or urine, the a specifically adsorbed mass of other bulk substances, such as albumin, will often exceed the minute amounts of adsorbed precipitate, and rinsing or drying will cause changes in surface mass far surpassing the specific effect. In-situ measurement also offers the possibility of a one-step ELISA, in which the analyte, the conjugate and the chromogenic substrate are added together, without intervening washing or drying steps. In a normal ELISA this would be impossible, because the colour production by the excess of unbound conjugate would far surpass the colour production of the small amount of analyte-bound conjugate on the surface. In contrast, the presented technique only measures the precipitate produced by surface-bound conjugate. In addition to a higher sensitivity, the present use of in-situ measurement also allows a more rapid assay, because time-consuming rinsing and/or drying steps, with subsequent separate measurement of the precipitate, are avoided.
Another fundamental difference with the techniques described in the two mentioned patents is that no specially prepared optically active or polymer-coated surfaces are required according to the present invention. Such surfaces are expensive, just like the optically active slides used in techniques based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR), whereas cheap (disposable) reflecting surfaces, such as silicon wavers or chromium-sputtered glass slides, can be used in the present method.
The prior art suggests to use amplified ellipsometry as a means of enhancing the sensitivity of protein adsorption measurements [5]. In the prior art method concerned, the mass of the tagging antibody was increased by coupling it to silica particles. Antibody-coated gold particles have also been used, mainly combined with electron microscopy in localization studies [6]. Another prior art technique for amplification of surface mass uses biotinylated or analyte-coated liposomes [7,8].
These techniques are fundamentally different from the subject invention because they do not measure a continuing accumulation of precipitate per tagging molecule, but simply use heavier tags. Because of their slower diffusion towards the surface, the advantage of better detectability of such heavy tags has to be balanced against their slower adsorption, and this hampers the use of these methods for rapid assays.
The invention provides an immunoassay method for determining an analyte adsorbed at a surface or present in a liquid sample, comprising binding said analyte to a solid phase, attaching a marker to the analyte, and detecting marker attached to said solid-phase, wherein a combination of marker and detection means is used which is capable of producing a precipitate on a solid phase which carries the marker and binding of analyte to the solid phase is detected by in-situ determining surface mass of said solid phase due to formation of said precipitate.
Furthermore, the invention provides a kit for carrying out an immunoassay method for determining an analyte adsorbed at a surface or present in a liquid sample, wherein the kit comprises at least one means specifically adapted for carrying out the method according to the present invention.

Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepastnatuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO


A laundry apparatus comprising a housing having an exterior and defining a recess opening to the exterior and a hanging assembly slidably disposed in the recess. In a stored position the hanging assembly is disposed at least partially in the recess and in a use position the hanging assembly is disposed at least partially exteriorly of the recess.

To hang articles of clothing after treatment in a laundry apparatus, a hanging system may be provided in close proximity to a laundry apparatus. A hanging mechanism may be purchased after market separately from the laundry apparatus or may be an integrated component of the laundry apparatus. Some integrated hanging systems may be retractable into the laundry apparatus when not in use for aesthetics and to not take up workspace and not be visible when not in use.


In a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device having a pinned layer and upper and lower antiparallel-coupled free sublayers, to avoid loss in tunnel magnetoresistance, etching or milling of the free sublayer layer materials is stopped in the lower free sublayer. The total thickness of the free sublayers may be large to ease manufacture because the effective magnetic thickness of the free layer combination may be as small as desired by appropriately establishing a small difference between the thicknesses of the AP-coupled free sublayers. A contiguous hard bias material is centered on the free sublayers for stabilization.

In magnetic disk drives, data is written and read by magnetic transducers called "heads." The magnetic disks are rotated at high speeds, producing a thin layer of air called an air bearing surface (ABS). The read and write heads are supported over the rotating disk by the ABS, where they either induce or detect flux on the magnetic disk, thereby either writing or reading data. Layered thin film structures are typically used in the manufacture of read and write heads. In write heads, thin film structures provide high areal density, which is the amount of data stored per unit of disk surface area, and in read heads they provide high resolution.
The present invention is directed generally to devices that can be used, in some implementations, as heads for disk drives, and more particularly the present invention is directed to magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) devices. An MTJ device has at least two metallic ferromagnetic layers separated by a very thin nonmagnetic insulating tunnel barrier layer, wherein the tunneling current perpendicularly through the layers depends on the relative orientation of the magnetizations in the two ferromagnetic layers. The high magnetoresistance at room temperature and generally low magnetic switching fields of the MTJ renders it effective for use in magnetic sensors, such as a read head in a magnetic recording disk drive, and nonvolatile memory elements or cells for magnetic random access memory (MRAM).
In a MTJ device, one of the ferromagnetic layers has its magnetization fixed, such as by being pinned by exchange coupling with an adjacent antiferromagnetic layer, and the field of the other ferromagnetic layer is "free" to rotate in the presence of an applied magnetic field in the range of interest of the read head or memory cell.
To increase both sensitivity and output, the free layer may be established by two sublayers that are separated from each other by an antiparallel coupling. (AP-coupling) layer. Since the magnetic fields of the two free sublayers are antiparallel to each other, the effective magnetic thickness of the overall free layer that is established by the two sublayers is the difference in thickness between the sublayers.
To make an AP-coupled MTJ device, a lower free sublayer is established on the barrier that overlays the above-mentioned pinned stack, then the AP-coupling layer is deposited on the first free sub-layer, then an upper free sublayer is established on the AP-coupling layer. Next, the free layers are formed into a stack by protecting only the area of the free layer sought to be maintained and ion milling the remainder away, down to the barrier covering the pinned stack.
As critically recognized herein, during the above process the barrier might be unintentionally eroded because it is difficult to stop removing material exactly as the last of the free layer intended to be removed is indeed milled away. This results in a deleterious loss of tunnel magnetotresistance between the free and pinned stacks from shunting caused by a breakdown in the barrier and/or by redeposited material.
The present invention makes the additional critical observations. As understood herein, it is necessary for stabilization purposes to provide stabilization structure in MTJ devices, and one way to do this is to surround the free stack with a hard bias material. The present invention recognizes that for optimum stabilization, when so doing the hard bias layer ideally is centered around the free stack.
With these recognitions in mind, the invention herein is provided.

MTJ device with partially milled anti-parallel coupled bottom free layer

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.


A low residue soldering flux contains a non-subliming dibasic acid mixture of by weight about 15-30% succinic acid, 40-63% glutaric acid and 10-30% adipic acid, e.g., in a volatilizable organic solvent, formed as a rosin-containing or rosin-free flux. The dibasic acid mixture is capable of volatilizing during heat soldering to leave a soldered product (e.g., an electronic circuit board) essentially free from corrosion-promoting ionic residue. This eliminates the need for a residue-removing washing step.

A soldering flux is used to aid fusion of the parts being joined, by reacting with and dissolving their surface oxides or impurities while coating the surfaces against oxidation, during soldering at a temperature above the solder melting point.
Organic fluxes are typically based on water-insoluble rosin or water-soluble organic acid. Activated rosin fluxes are used in soldering electrical connections on printed circuit boards. Wave soldering is used for mass production circuit board soldering as by applying the flux, preheating the board, applying the solder (e.g., via a molten solder standing wave), cooling the board, and cleaning it to remove flux residue.
Such flux residue is mainly constituted of ionic (e.g., acidic or basic) substances, and is corrosive, or can hydrolyze to corrosive constituents in the presence of moisture (e.g., air moisture). This can lead to short circuits, noise generation, etc., in use of the circuit board product. These adverse results are effectively avoided by subjecting the soldered board to a cleaning step to remove the ionic substances.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,715,084 to Konig shows a flux of rosin activated by a chain-brominated higher aliphatic monocarboxylic acid or salt of 8-24 chain carbon atoms (e.g., alpha-bromolauric acid), in turpentine, that does not decompose at the soldering temperature. It is non-corrosive as the chain bromine is not ionic so that the compound does not hydrolyze to corrosive halide, as with acid or halide salt flux, or rosin flux activated by organic base halide (e.g., cetyl-pyridinium halide), wherein the halide as an anion can hydrolyze in air to corrosive acid halide. Brominated acids of less than 8 carbon atoms are excluded as being corrosive and of less surface activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,898,255 to Thompson et al. shows a non-corrosive printed circuit board flux of rosin activated by a combination of both an aliphatic monocarboxylic acid (e.g., formic, acetic or propionic acid) and an aliphatic dicarboxylic acid (e.g., oxalic, malonic, succinic, glutaric or adipic acid), in isopropanol, that does not splatter during soldering. The sole example given of a non-splattering flux is a mixture of rosin (mp 120.degree. C./248.degree. F.), formic acid (bp 100.degree. C./212.5.degree. F.) and glutaric acid (bp 200.degree. C./392.degree. F.), in isopropyl alcohol, in which the low glutaric acid content (about 1%) is said to prevent splattering, while the given melting and boiling points of the components are said to permit step-by-step deoxidation of the oxide surface being soldered.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,904,459 to Kubota shows a liquid, paste or solid flux for electrical application. The flux is based on rosin converted to pure, stable abietic acid amine salt (e.g., diethylene amine salt), that is insoluble and does not hydrolyze, and whose neutral resinous residue on soldering is non-corrosive and non-hygroscopic, unlike commercial rosin which, besides a 25-30% content of abietic acid (i.e., a monobasic organic acid), that has fluxing action, also has a resinous remainder that can cause soldered product defects.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,235,414 and 3,264,146 to Marks show a rosin-free food can soldering flux. It is formed as a relatively concentrated solution of a large percentage (e.g., 25 wt. parts) of an aliphatic dicarboxylic acid of 9-10 carbon atoms with at least 4 carbon atoms in the chain separating the carboxyl groups (e.g., azelaic or sebacic acid), or its anhydride or ester, that is modified by (e.g., 1.2 wt. parts) ethanolamine hydrochloride, in (e.g., 75 wt. parts) dimethylformamide as polar solvent. Such acids with 3 or less separating carbon atoms are undesired in forming monoanhydrides from a single molecule.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,932 to Aronberg shows a 10-80% polycarboxylic acid particulate suspension (e.g., adipic acid), in an aqueous solution of 0.2-5% soluble gum (remainder 15-89.8% water), as rosin-free soldering flux for bonding lead storage battery plate lugs to straps, in which the acid (e.g., adipic) does not sublime at the high (482.degree. C./900.degree. F.) bonding temperature. Use of the dry particulate acid alone, applied to the lugs after preheating, is less preferred.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,996 to Zado shows a mixture of rosin, an activator with both a halogen and a destabilizing substituent, such as a halogenated mono or dibasic organic acid (e.g., 2,3-dibromosuccinic acid), and a solder surfactant such as a polycarboxylic acid (e.g., adipic, sebacic or azelaic acid), or hydroxyl substituted polybasic acid, and/or keto acid (e.g., levulinic acid), in ethanol or isopropyl alcohol, and optionally a secondary activator (e.g., diethylamine hydrochloride) and a non-ionic foaming agent, as activated rosin flux of synergistic effect for printed circuit boards.
Zado notes that using rosin with the activator or solder surfactant alone does not provide the synergistic effect, and that the combination acid containing rosin flux of the above-discussed Thompson patent is too acidic and corrosive for practical use in electronics soldering.
The importance of a residue-free soldered connection is discussed in the article entitled: "Europeans find ways to phase-out CFCs," Electronic Packaging & Production, Vol. 29, No. 1, January 1989, pp. 26 and 28, Linda Smith-Vargo, Associate Editor. The article notes that fluxes used in printed circuit board applications leave residues that must be cleaned, typically by an organic liquid based on fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, but that in view of the need to reduce CFC emissions, due to environmental constraints, soldering procedures are needed that avoid CFCs yet produce a residue-free non-corrosive product.
It is desirable to have a flux for soldering metal connections in electrical applications such as printed circuit boards that does not produce a corrosion-causing and/or hydrolyzable ionic residue that requires a cleaning step for its removal.


Embodiments of the present invention are directed to an image processing system. The image processing system may comprise a content detection module having an input to receive a sequence of input pixels and configured to generate an adjustable parameter based on detected differences between adjacent pairs of input pixels, and a digital filter having an input for the sequence of input pixels and a control input coupled to an output of the content detection module. The digital filter may adjust filtering coefficients according to the parameter.

The present invention relates to scaling operations in a video processing system, to resize image content with minimal artifacts.
"Scaling" generally refers to processes that alter the size of an image. Scaling may be performed as a format conversion operation in a video system. For example, when video images of low resolution (e.g., 480 p) are displayed on a high resolution panel (e.g., a full high definition (1080 p) panel), the video images need to be scaled to 1080 p. This kind of conversion has been referred to as an up-conversion. Also, video images of high resolution may need to be converted to be displayed on a low resolution panel (e.g., 1080 p to 480 p) or a smaller display area (e.g., Picture in Picture (PIP)). This kind of conversion has been referred to as a down-conversion or decimation.
Typically, scaling involves adjusting size of video images to be displayed. For example, an 4:3 image frame with resolution of 480 p has 720×480, or 345,600 pixels and an 16:9 image frame with resolution of 1080 p has 1920×1080, or 2,073,600 pixels. Thus, additional pixels need to be added to perform an up-conversion from 480 p to 1080 p and existing pixels need to be eliminated and/or combined to perform a down-conversion from 1080 p to 480 p.
Traditionally, interpolation has been used to add additional pixels between existing pixels for an up-conversion and decimation has been used to eliminate and/or combining existing pixels. Both interpolation and decimation involve passing image data through signal filters (e.g., a low pass filter (LPF)). However, in a 2-dimentional filtering, there is no ideal LPF and one dimension filtering often deteriorates image content along the other dimension. Various techniques have been developed to perform the scaling and also reduce the undesirable artifacts. However, existing techniques involve complex hardware structures and do not reduce the undesirable artifacts effectively. For example, various undesirable artifacts, such as saw tooth phenomenon, edge blurring, ringing and moiré artifacts, can cause distortions to images and affect the image quality after either an up-conversion or a down-conversion, but the existing techniques using complex hardware structures do not reduce these undesirable artifacts effectively.
Accordingly, there is a need to for a scaling system that can resize image data with minimal artifacts but uses hardware structures of reduced complexity.

Content adaptive scaler based on a farrow structure


This disclosure concerns novel demethylpenclomedine analogs. Also disclosed are pharmaceutical compositions and methods for using such compositions to treat hyperproliferative disorders. In one embodiment the analogs are represented by the formula

Brain cancers resist standard cancer treatments. For example, the currently preferred treatment for cancer is surgical resection. However, few brain cancers are operable. As a result, these tumors typically are treated with radiation therapy. Unfortunately, cranial radiotherapy is dose-limited and often only has a palliative effect. Chemotherapeutic agents, when administered by systemic routes, usually have difficulty penetrating the blood-brain barrier, which yields a poor anti-cancer response.
The compound 3,5-dichloro-4,6-dimethoxy-2-(trichloromethyl)-pyridine, commonly referred to as penclomedine (PEN), has demonstrated promising activity against brain cancers, but in all clinical trials dose-limiting neurotoxicity was observed. Specifically, dose related neurotoxicity consisting of dysmetria, ataxia, and vertigo were observed when patients with advanced solid tumors were treated with penclomedine administered as a one hour infusion for 5 consecutive days.

As demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,391,893 to Struck et al., PEN is a prodrug that is metabolized to an active alkylating agent in vivo. One of PEN's metabolites, 4-demethylpenclomedine (DM-PEN) has been shown to be more active than PEN in various central nervous system (CNS) cancer models. Some early studies (Waud et al. Cancer Res. 1997, 57, 815-817) indicated that DM-PEN lacked the neurotoxicity of the parent compound. Unfortunately, however, the initial promise of DM-PEN has not been fulfilled. Thus, there exists a continuing need for anticancer agents of increased efficacy and decreased side effects.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Demethylpenclomedine analogs and their use as anti-cancer agents


In an image displaying device provided with a frame rate conversion (FRC) portion, the image quality deterioration in a moving image likely to include a plurality of the same consecutive images due to a FRC processing is prevented. The FRC portion (100) of the image displaying device includes a motion vector detecting portion (101) that detects motion vector information from an input image signal, an interpolation frame generating portion (106) that generates interpolation frames based on the motion vector information obtained by the motion vector detecting portion (101) and a same image detecting portion (105) that detects a case where the same images continue in the input image signal. In the case where the image of the (n−1)-th frame in the input image signal is substantially the same as the image of the n-th frame, interpolation image generating processing with the motion compensation processing made ineffective is performed between n-th frame and (n+1)-th frame to prevent that the interpolation image including a lot of errors is output.

As compared to conventional cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) primarily used for realizing moving images, LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) have a drawback, so-called motion blur, which is the blurring of outline of a moving portion perceived by a viewer when displaying a moving image. It is pointed out that this motion blur arises from the LCD display mode itself (see, e.g., Specification of Japanese Patent No. 3295437; "Ishiguro Hidekazu and Kurita Taiichiro, "Consideration on Motion Picture Quality of the Hold Type Display with an octuple-rate CRT", IEICE Technical Report, Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, EID96-4 (1996-06), p. 19-26").
Since fluorescent material is scanned by an electron beam to cause emission of light for display in CRTs, the light emission of pixels is basically impulse-like although slight afterglow of the fluorescent material exists. This is called an impulse display mode. On the other hand, in the case of LCDs, an electric charge is accumulated by applying an electric field to liquid crystal and is retained at a relatively high rate until the next time the electric field is applied. Especially, in the case of the TFT mode, since a TFT switch is provided for each dot composing a pixel and each pixel normally has an auxiliary capacity, the ability to retain the accumulated charge is extremely high. Therefore, the light emission is continued until the pixels are rewritten by the application of the electric field based on the image information of the next frame or field (hereinafter, represented by the frame). This is called a hold display mode.
Since the impulse response of the image displaying light has a temporal spread in the above hold display mode, spatial frequency characteristics deteriorate along with temporal frequency characteristics, resulting in the motion blur. Since the human eye can smoothly follow a moving object, if the light emission time is long as in the case of the hold type, the movement of image seems jerky and unnatural due to the time integration effect.
To improve the motion blur in the above hold display mode, a frame rate (number of frames) is converted by interpolating an image between frames in a known technology. This technology is called FRC (Frame Rate Converter) and is put to practical use in liquid crystal displaying devices, etc.
Conventionally known methods of converting the frame rate include various techniques such as simply repeating read-out of the same frame for a plurality of times and frame interpolation using linear interpolation between frames (see, e.g., Yamauchi Tatsuro, "TV Standards Conversion", Journal of the Institute of Television Engineers of Japan, Vol. 45, No. 12, pp. 1534-1543 (1991)). However, in the case of the frame interpolation processing using the linear interpolation, unnaturalness of motion (jerkiness, judder) is generated due to the frame rate conversion, and the motion blur disturbance due to the above hold display mode cannot sufficiently be improved, resulting in inadequate image quality.
To eliminate effects of the jerkiness, etc., and improve quality of moving images, a motion compensation processing using motion vectors is proposed. Since a moving image itself is captured to compensate the image movement in this motion compensation processing, highly natural moving images may be acquired without deteriorating the resolution and generating the jerkiness. Since interpolation image signals are generated with motion compensation, the motion blur disturbance due to the above hold display mode may sufficiently be improved.
Above Specification of Japanese Patent No. 3295437 discloses a technology of motion-adaptively generating interpolation frames to increase a frame frequency of a display image for improving deterioration of spatial frequency characteristics causing the motion blur. In this case, at least one interpolation image signal interpolated between frames of a display image is motion-adaptively created from the previous and subsequent frames, and the created interpolation image signals are interpolated between the frames and are sequentially displayed.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a schematic configuration of an FRC drive display circuit in a conventional liquid crystal displaying device and, in FIG. 1, the FRC drive display circuit includes an FRC portion 100 that converts the number of frames of the input image signal by interpolating the image signals to which the motion compensation processing has been given between frames of the input video signal, an active-matrix liquid crystal display panel 104 having a liquid crystal layer and an electrode for applying the scan signal and the data signal to the liquid crystal layer, and an electrode driving portion 103 for driving a scan electrode and a data electrode of the liquid crystal display panel 104 based on the image signal subjected to the frame rate conversion by the FRC portion 100.
The FRC portion 100 includes a motion vector detecting portion 101 that detects motion vector information from the input image signal and an interpolation frame generating portion 102 that generates interpolation frames based on the motion vector information acquired by the motion vector detecting portion 101.
In the above configuration, for example, the motion vector detecting portion 101 may obtain the motion vector information with the use of a block matching method and a gradient method described later or if the motion vector information is included in the input image signal in some form, this information may be utilized. For example, the image data compression-encoded with the use of the MPEG format includes motion vector information of a moving image calculated at the time of encoding, and this motion vector information may be acquired.
FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a frame rate conversion processing by the conventional FRC drive display circuit shown in FIG. 1. The FRC portion 100 generates interpolation frames (gray-colored images in FIG. 2) between frames with the motion compensation using the motion vector information output from the motion vector detecting portion 101 and sequentially outputs the generated interpolation signals along with the input frame signals to perform processing of converting the frame rate of the input image signal from 60 frames per second (60 Hz) to 120 frames per second (120 Hz).
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an interpolation frame generation processing of the motion vector detecting portion 101 and the interpolation frame generating portion 102. The motion vector detecting portion 101 uses the gradient method to detect a motion vector 111 from, for example, a frame #1 and a frame #2 shown in FIG. 2. The motion vector detecting portion 101 obtains the motion vector 111 by measuring a direction and an amount of movement in 1/60 of a second between the frame #1 and the frame #2. The interpolation frame generating portion 102 then uses the obtained motion vector 111 to allocate an interpolation vector 112 between the frame #1 and the frame #2. An interpolation frame 113 is generated by moving an object (in this case, an automobile) from a position of the frame #1 to a position after 1/120 of a second based on the interpolation vector 112.
By performing the motion-compensated frame interpolation processing with the use of the motion vector information to increase a display frame frequency in this way, the display state of the LCD (the hold display mode) can be made closer to the display state of the CRT (the impulse display mode) and the image quality deterioration can be improved which is due to the motion blur generated when displaying a moving image.
In the motion-compensated frame interpolation processing, it is essential to detect the motion vectors for performing the motion compensation. Proposed as the motion vector detecting method are, for example, the pattern matching methods described in "a method for detecting motion in a television image" of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 55-162683 and "a method for asymptotically detecting an image motion vector" of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 55-162684, or the iterative gradient methods described in "an image movement amount detecting mode" of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 60-158786 or "an initial deflection mode in estimating motion of a moving image" of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 62-206980.
Especially, the motion vector detecting mode according to the latter iterative gradient method is smaller and may detect the motion vectors more accurately compared to the pattern matching method. That is, in the motion vector detecting method according to the iterative gradient method, each frame of digitalized television signals is divided into blocks of a previously given size, for example, with m by n pixels including m pixels in the horizontal direction and n lines in the vertical direction and the calculations of the iterative gradient method are applied for each block based on the signal gradient in the screen and a physical reaction of a signal differential value between corresponding screens to estimate a movement amount.
Meanwhile, a moving image has a high correlation between frames and continuity in time scale. A pixel or block moving in a certain frame also moves with a similar movement amount in the subsequent frames or previous frames in many cases. For example, in the case of a moving image in which a ball rolling from right to left in the screen is shot, an area of the ball moves with the similar movement amount in any of the frames. That is, a motion vector often has continuity between consecutive frames.
Therefore, by referring to a result of the motion vector detection in the previous frame, the motion vector detection in the subsequent frame may be performed more easily or more accurately. The Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 62-206980 proposes a method that as an initial value for estimating a movement amount, from the motion vector candidates that have been already detected in a plurality of surrounding blocks including a block corresponding to the detected block, an optimum one for the motion vector detection in the detected block is selected as an initial displacement vector and the calculation of the gradient method is started from the value close to a true motion vector in the detected block so that the number of the calculations of the gradient method is reduced to detect the true motion vector, for example, by performing the calculation of the gradient method twice.
FIG. 4 shows an example of a motion vector detecting portion that performs vector detection with reference to a result of the motion vector detection in the previous frame. This explains an example of an internal configuration of the motion vector detecting portion 101 included in the FRC portion 100 of the image displaying device shown in FIG. 1 in detail. The vector detecting portion 101 has a frame delaying portion 1, an initial displacement vector selecting portion 2, a motion vector calculating portion 3, a vector memory 4 and a zero-vector holding portion 5, and acquires, for each of the detected blocks, a motion vector that represents a direction and a size of the motion between corresponding blocks, for example, of an input image signal of the immediately previous frame that has been delayed by the frame delaying portion 1 and an input image signal of the current frame.
The initial displacement vector selecting portion 2 selects an optimum motion vector as an initial displacement vector in the detected block by using a candidate vector group selected from motion vectors that have been already detected and accumulated in the vector memory 4 and a length-zero-vector (hereinafter referred to as zero-vector) supplied from the zero-vector holding portion 5. The motion vector calculating portion 3 uses the selected initial displacement vector as a starting point to acquire the true motion vector in the detected block, for example, by performing the calculation of the iterative gradient method twice.
Furthermore, the true motion vector calculated by the motion vector calculating portion 3 is stored in the vector memory 4 and is used as a candidate of the initial displacement vector for the motion detection processing in the next frame. When a moving object moves through and a background appears in a certain area of the screen, the movement amount changes rapidly from a certain level to zero, but this change may also be followed by adding zero-vector to the candidates of the initial displacement vector. This method is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-301622.
Furthermore, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 06-217266 discloses "a motion vector detection circuit" in which a method for detecting an initial displacement vector of motion between blocks of image signals that are away from at least one or more field or frame each other is proposed to further improve accuracy of the motion vector detection. Also in the block matching method, efficient motion vector detection is thought to be performed by changing a search order with reference to the result of the motion vector detection in the previous frame. In this way, by using the already-detected motion vector for detecting the motion vector, for example, a real time processing of the frame rate conversion is possible.

Image displaying device and method, and image processing device and method


Distributed application virtualization provides for the distribution, configuration and control of multiple application components, layered file systems, and configuration settings that may be applied on top of an operating system of each system configured to work in conjunction with other systems within a single distributed virtualization layer. A distributed software virtualization manager or service handles communication between systems within each distributed virtual layer. One distributed virtualization operation activates components, selected based on user-defined parameters, on systems across the network belonging to a selected distributed virtual application layer. Other virtualization operations, whether local and/or distributed, include capturing file system and configuration activity associated with the detected event and storing data representative of the captured file system and configuration activity to a virtual layer, such as a local or distributed application layer.

In computing, file system and registry libraries are typically used to maintain data descriptive of the configuration of a computing device. A file system generally includes data for translating a physical sector of a memory disc to a logical structure. The logical structure can be used by a computer operating system to access data stored in physical memory. Registry libraries generally include configuration data such as setup, user preference, software, hardware, and system parameters information. In a network having a large number of computing devices and associated users, each computer system may have user customizations that result in unique file systems on each system.
Certain operations, when executed by a computing device, introduce changes to file system and/or registry data. For example, operations may cause such data to be created, deleted, or modified. In some situations, changes to the file system or registry data may be undesirable or unmanageable, or may introduce instability into a computing system. As an example, when a computer program is conventionally installed to a computing device, the file system and/or registry data is typically updated. These changes can cause the computing device to become susceptible, or more susceptible than before, to potential problems such as unwanted deletions of configuration data, data redundancies, computer program versioning issues, execution of unwanted processes, inoperability of computer programs, corruption of registered application interfaces, and conflicts between computer programs. Network operations may spread these changes to systems through out the network.
Such problems are exacerbated for a network system administrator or organization maintaining a network and/or group of computer systems having a large number of computing devices and associated users. In such a configuration, events such as rogue installations of computer programs can easily introduce any of the problems listed above. Finding and correcting such problems can be very difficult and time consuming, if not impossible, in a large network and/or complex computer system.
To a certain degree, conventional system restore technologies can be used to restore individual file system and registry settings to a previous state when a problem is introduced into a specific individual computing system. Conventional individual system restore technologies typically capture static snapshots of an individual computing system configuration. Such snapshots must be captured prior to any problems occurring and stored in a manner that is available when problems do occur. As system restore snapshots must cover the entire computing system, they can tie up significant memory resources in each computing system within a network. Unfortunately, application of these snapshots is also limited to individual computing systems and often may not be universally applied to other network systems. The limited application of system snapshots is particularly apparent when the computer systems are using different base operating systems. Coordination of network-wide system restore operations can also tie up significant memory resources in each network administering system within a network.


A channel emulator reads a record of captured radio signal data of a group of cellular base stations in a fielded cellular network from a memory. Based on the record of the captured radio signal data, the channel emulator generates a simulation of a radio environment of the fielded cellular network. In one aspect, the simulation generates a number of live cellular base station signals fewer than the group of cellular base stations in the fielded cellular network. In another aspect, a terrain environment model is applied based on the captured radio signal data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems, methods, and computer readable media for wireless device testing.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless network operators and device manufacturers typically perform field drive testing to evaluate device performance and prove capabilities.
However, field drive testing is complex and the testing environment is not well controlled. As a result, troubleshooting of events which occur during drive testing scenarios typically requires extensive repetition of the field drive tests. This kind of testing is time consuming and expensive, making it difficult to do more than the most basic functional testing over a limited set of configurations and underlying conditions.
Additionally, since different wireless devices may respond quite differently to the same RF scenarios, the field drive tests are typically repeated for each of the different devices.
In or around the year 2000, Spirent Communications, Inc. provided Qualcomm Inc. with technology that tested mobile handsets based on previously gathered field RF measurements. Also in or around the year 2000, Kyocera Wireless Corp. bought Qualcomm Inc.'s terrestrial Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless handset business. It is believed that the technology described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868 assigned to Kyocera Wireless Corp., is derived from the technology provided by Spirent Communications, Inc. to Qualcomm Inc., and that this technology provided by Spirent Communications, Inc. to Qualcomm Inc. is cumulative to the contents of U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868 assigned to Kyocera Wireless Corp. U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868 is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868 describes a technology which is limited in that, a maximum of 6 emulated base station signals are generated by 6 emulated base stations to correspond to a maximum of 6 CDMA channels recorded at any point on a city street, such a base station emulator generates one emulated base station signal for each recorded channel. One would not modify the technology described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868 to emulate a larger number of recorded channels with a smaller number of emulated channels, because the need simply does not arise, according to U.S. Pat. No. 7,508,868.
It is therefore desirable to provide methods and systems for testing wireless devices addressing the various issues discussed above.


Container-image layers can be managed. For example, a computing device can determine a first score for a first layer of a container image and a second score for a second layer of the container image. The computing device can determine that the first score corresponds to a first storage destination among several possible storage destinations. The computing device can also determine that the second score corresponds to a second storage destination among the possible storage destinations. The second storage destination can be different from the first storage destination. The computing device can then store (i) the first layer in the first storage destination based on the first layer being correlated to the first score, and (ii) the second layer in the second storage destination based on the second layer being correlated to the second score.

Computers use operating systems to manage system processes and resources. Some operating systems, such as the Linux operating system, include a low-level software component for managing system processes and resources. The low-level software component is called a "kernel." The kernel can provide features, such as namespaces and cgroups, for isolating processes and resources from one another. These features can be used to segregate processes and resources (e.g., memory, CPU processing power, and network resources) into isolated virtual-environments called "containers." Containers can be deployed from image files, which can be referred to as images.
An image can include multiple layers of software or libraries, along with metadata indicating a relationship between the layers. Images are typically stored in a registry (e.g., Docker Hub™) that is maintained by a server, which stores all of the layers for a particular image together in the same storage device, such as a local hard disk.


E-fuses and techniques for fabrication thereof using dielectric zipping are provided. An e-fuse device includes: a first dielectric layer disposed on a substrate; at least one first electrode of the e-fuse device present in the first dielectric layer; a second dielectric layer disposed on the first dielectric layer; vias present in the second dielectric layer, wherein at least one of the vias is present over the at least one first electrode and has a critical dimension CDA″, wherein the vias adjacent to the at least one via having the critical dimension CDA″ each have a critical dimension of CDB″, and wherein CDB″>CDA″; a liner disposed in each of the vias; and a metal that serves as a second electrode of the e-fuse device disposed in each of the vias over the liner. A method of operating an e-fuse device is also provided.

Electronic fuses (e-fuses) are components that can be fabricated in an integrated circuit design. Like a conventional fuse, an e-fuse initially provides a low-resistance, electrically conductive path. That electrically conductive path is broken when the e-fuse is ruptured. Conversely, an anti-fuse performs the opposite function. Namely, an anti-fuse initially has a high resistance that can be switched to a low-resistance, electrically conductive path.
E-fuses and anti-fuses can be fabricated using standard metallization processes such as a copper dual damascene process. With a dual damascene process, lithography and etching techniques are used to pattern features such as trenches and vias in a dielectric. When the trenches are formed before the vias, it is often referred to as a trench-first process. Alternatively, when the vias are formed before the trenches, it is often referred to as a via-first process. The features are then filled with a metal such as copper.
The size of e-fuses fabricated by such conventional fabrication techniques are generally limited by the resolution of the lithography process. However, it may be desirable to employ e-fuses with sub-lithographic dimensions, provide lower switching current and better programming efficiency.
Thus, techniques for fabricating sub-lithographic e-fuses would be desirable.

International Business Machines Corporation


A method and apparatus for copying and blending a source region of an image into a target region of an image is presented herein. Specifically, a method is described for generating a difference color map from colors sampled in a source region and colors sampled just outside of a target region. The difference color map is applied to the source region stored. The results are stored in the target region. If no additional input has been received to modify the source region or the target region, then a larger difference color map may be generated and used to copy and blend the source region into the target region. A source region may appear to be better blended into the target region if a larger difference color map is used.

Image editing applications allow users to copy a region, a "source" region, from one image into another region, a "target" region, of an image. The target region may or may not be from the same image that the source region is copied from. However, simply copying a region into another region, even if part of the same image, may look unnatural. This is because the human visual system is more sensitive to contrast than intensity values.
FIGS. 1A-1D illustrate copying a source region into a target region using conventional copying techniques. Specifically, FIG. 1A is an image containing a colored cube. FIG. 1B illustrates an image containing a plate. FIG. 1C illustrates an image resulting from simply copying a source region from FIG. 1A into a target region in FIG. 1B. As illustrated in FIG. 1C, the boundary between the source region and the target region causes the source region to appear to be artificially placed into FIG. 1C.
Various methods, such as poisson blending, have been created to blend a source region into a target region, so that the source region appears to be naturally occurring in the target region. FIG. 1D illustrates an image resulting from copying a source region from FIG. 1A into a target region in FIG. 1B using poisson blending.
Poisson blending, like many image processing methods, may be computationally expensive. A user may not be able to quickly view results while making adjustments to the source region or the target region.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Efficiently copying and blending a source region into a target region


A user device (110) is connected to a web server (120) via a network (130). An owner (140) communicates with the web server and has a communication channel (141) to the user device. The owner initiates an URI assignment request to the user device and obtains the device credentials via the communication channel (141). The owner provides the credentials to the web server via a communication channel (121). The web server sends the credentials to the user device which compares the credentials with its memory (110a) and replies with the URI status. The web server sends the URI assignment to the user device which accepts and confirms back to the web server which sends a locking message to the user device. The owner can revoke the URI using a password that is verified by the user device, which deletes the URI. An advantage is that the owner can acquire the URI without being the owner of domain.

With the expansion of the internet, more and more user devices and electronic appliances are connected to the internet. It is expected that the user devices and the electronic appliances can exchange information with little manual user intervention. The internet web will not only be used to present information to the user, but also used for machines to communicate with each other.
A number of standardization efforts have been done to achieve the vision of a semantic web e.g. the standard Semantic Web Activity (W3C). This semantic web is a web of data, utilizing common formats for integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources. It also standardizes the common language for recording how the data relates to the real world objects. One of the basic requirements is to provide a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to each individual resource on the internet web. Consequently, every resource on the web needs a unique identity so that it can be identified and referred to in the communication process. The network connected user devices and electronic appliances belong to the main group of resources to be used. The W3 C and The Internet Task Force (IETF) defined standards, and these standards defined the usage and format of the URI.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,654,796-B1, a method involves assigning an IP address for a cluster, and establishing a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) connection from a management station to a network device. A network device management request with the URI indicating the network device and management data is received. A forwarding HTTP connection is established from the network device to an expansion network device indicated by the URI.

Method and device for uniform resource identifier handling of user device


Direct coupling type motor for drum type washing machine having a stator which can reduce material required for fabrication, and a weight after fabrication, simplify a fabrication process, and can be mounted on a fixing side, such as a tub or a bearing housing securely, and a rotor which can enhance rigidity an outer rotor and protect a surface of the outer rotor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to drum type washing machines, and more particularly, to an outer rotor type BLDC motor applicable to a direct coupling type drum type washing machine, and a method for fabricating the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In general, a drum type washing machine washes laundry by using a friction force between a drum rotated by a driving power of a motor and laundry in a state detergent, washing water, and the laundry are introduced into the drum, shows almost no damage to, and entangling of the laundry, and has pounding, and rubbing washing effects.
In the related art drum type washing machines, there are an indirect coupling type in which the driving power is transmitted from the motor to the drum through a belt wound on a motor pulley and a drum pulley indirectly, and a direct coupling type in which a rotor of a BLDC motor is coupled to the drum directly, to transmit the driving power from the motor to the drum, directly.
The type in which the driving power of the motor is transmitted to the drum, not directly, but indirectly through the motor pulley and the drum pulley, has much energy loss in the course of power transmission, and causes much noise in the course of power transmission.
According to this, for solving the problems of the indirect coupling type drum type washing machines, it is the present trend that use of the direct coupling type drum type washing machines with the BLDC motor is increasing, as example of which there are Korean Laid Open Patent Nos. 2001-37517, and 2001-37518.
A related art direct coupling type drum type drum type washing machine and a structure of a motor thereof will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6, briefly. FIG. 1 illustrates a longitudinal section of a related art drum type washing machine.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art drum type washing machine is provided with a tub 2 mounted on an inside of a cabinet 1, and a drum 3 rotatably mounted on a central portion of an inside of the tub 2. There is a motor in rear of the tub 2, wherein a stator 6 is secured to a rear wall of the tub, and a rotor 5 surrounds the stator 6, and is connected to the drum 3 with a shaft passed through the tub.
In the meantime, there are a door 21 mounted on a front of the cabinet 1, and a gasket 22 between the door 21 and the tub 2.
There are hanging springs 23 between an inside surface of an upper portion of the cabinet 1, and an upper portion of an outside circumferential surface of the tub 2, and a friction damper 24 between the inside surface of a lower portion of the cabinet 1, and a lower portion of the outside circumferential surface of the tub 2.
FIG. 2 illustrates a perspective exterior view of the stator in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 illustrates a perspective view of a divisional type core DC applied to the stator in FIG. 2.
In a related art method for fabricating the core, a sheet of metal plate is pressed to form a unit core having Ts 151, a base portion 150, and projected portions 500 opposite to the Ts 151 each for forming fastening hole 500a therein, the unit cores are stacked to form a unit core assembly, and the unit core assemblies are connected to each other in a circumferential direction, to complete fabrication of the stator core, called the divisional core DC.
The projected portion 500 provides the fastening hole 620a for fastening the stator 6 to the rear wall of the tub, and serves to endure a fastening force of a bolt.
However, the method for fabricating the stator 6 by means of the divisional cores DC has, not only a complicate fabrication process, but also loss of much material.
Therefore, even if a helical type core HC is favorable, in which a sheet of steel plate having the Ts 151 and the base portions 150 is stacked turning in a helix for reducing the material loss, and making the fabrication process simple, since it is required to bend the sheet of metal punched out in a shape of a stripe into the helix, the helical core has a drawback in that the projected portion for fastening the stator to the tub can not be formed on an inner side of the core.
This is because, if the projected portion 500 is formed on the inner side of the core in fabrication of the helical core HC, a large width of the core at a portion having the projected portion formed thereon impedes bending of the core.
Therefore, currently, for employing the helical type core HC, a stator structure is required, in which a function the same with the projected portion of the divisional core DC is made to be carried out, not by the core itself, but by other portion.
For reference, a reason why it is important to secure an adequate rigidity of the projected portion having the fastening hole formed in for fastening the stator to the tub is as follows.
The washing machine in which the drum is directly rotated by the BLDC motor has the stator mounted on a rear portion of the tub, directly. In a case of the motor for a large capacity drum type washing machine with more than 1.5 kg of stator net weight, and a spinning speed in a range of 600˜2000 RPM, it is liable that a fastened portion of the stator 6 is broken due to the stator weight, and vibration, shaking, and deformation of the rotor 5 in the high speed rotation.
Particularly, in a case of the drum type washing machine, in which the BLDC motor is used, and the stator 6 is secured to the tub rear wall, where an axis direction of the stator 6 is substantially parallel to ground, the vibration generated during operation of the washing machine causes intensive damage to the fastening portion of the stator 6 to the tub
Thus, an adequate rigidity of the projected portion having the fastening hole formed wherein is very important in fastening the stator 6 to the tub.
A related art outer rotor will be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.
Referring to FIGS. 5 and 6, because the outer rotor R pressed of a steel plate (hereafter called as "steel plate rotor") has a stepped portion along a circumferential direction formed a sidewall 120 extended from a circumference of a bottom 110 of the rotor frame 100 perpendicular to a bottom 100 surface, to support magnets M when the magnets M are attached to an inside surface of the sidewall 120 of the rotor frame 100, fabrication of the outer rotor is easy.
Moreover, there are a plurality of radial cooling fins 130 around a center portion of the bottom 110 of the rotor frame 100 of the steel plate rotor R to blow air toward the stator (not shown) to cool down heat generated at the stator.
The cooling fins 130 are lanced toward an opened side of the rotor, and openings formed by the lancing serve as vent holes.
There are embossed portions 150 between adjacent cooling fins 130 on the bottom 110 of the rotor frame 100 for reinforcing strength of the rotor, and there are drain holes 160 in the embossed portions 150 for draining water.
However, the related art steel plate rotor R has the following problems.
Despite of anti-rusting heat treatment of a surface of the related art steel plate rotor R, rust occurs on a portion of the surface scratched during transportation or other situations.
The surface of the rotor also corrodes due to chemical reaction of detergent stuck to the surface of the rotor as the drum type washing machine is used for a long time.
In the meantime, during the spinning for water extraction, the sidewall 120 of the related art steel plate rotor 100 throbs intensely due to electromagnetic interaction (attraction and repulsion) with the stator, leading to increase noise.

Outer rotor type motor for drum type washing machine and method for fabricating the same


The invention relates to a transit modulator for jittering a signal (U.sub.in) comprising a memory (3), a clock generator (2) connected to said memory (3) and generating a jitter free input clock (T) as well as a further clock generator (5) connected to said memory (3) and generating a jittered output clock (T.sub.j).. It is the object of the invention to provide a transit modulator which allows any kind of signals and thus also non-binary digital signals to be jittered.. This object is accomplished according to the invention by a transit modulator in which an A/D converter (1) is pre-connected and a D/A converter (4) is post-connected to said memory (3).

A transit modulator of this type is for example disclosed in the service manual for the K4312 SDH/PDH analyser of Siemens AG (pages 5-5 and 9-36). In this prior art transit modulator, a memory as well as associated electronic components for storage and output is integrated in an ASIC (application specific IC) module. Using the prior art transit modulator, binary digital signals may be jittered.


A multichip package having a main die coupled to one or more daughter dies is provided. The main die may include embedded universal interface blocks (UIB) each of which can be used to interface with a corresponding daughter die to support high bandwidth parallel or serial communications. Each UIB may include an integrated processor subsystem and associated pattern sequencing logic to perform interface initialization and margining operations. Each UIB may perform simultaneous accesses to a daughter die across one or more channels. Each UIB may also include multiple phase-locked loop circuits for providing different clock signals to different portions of the UIB and a 2× clock phase generation logic. Each UIB may include multiple IO modules, each of which may optionally include its own duty cycle correction circuit. Each IO module may include buffer circuits, each of which may have a de-emphasis control logic for adjusting buffer drive strength.

This relates generally to integrated circuit packages, and more particularly, to integrated circuit packages with more than one integrated circuit die.
An integrated circuit package typically includes an integrated circuit die and a substrate on which the die is mounted. The die can be coupled to the substrate through bonding wires or solder bumps. Signals from the integrated circuit die may then travel through the bonding wires or solder bumps to the substrate.
As demands on integrated circuit technology continue to outstrip even the gains afforded by ever decreasing device dimensions, more and more applications demand a packaged solution with more integration than possible in one silicon die. In an effort to meet this need, more than one die may be placed within a single integrated circuit package (i.e., a multichip package). As different types of devices cater to different types of applications, more dies may be required in some systems to meet the requirements of high performance applications. Accordingly, to obtain better performance and higher density, an integrated circuit package may include multiple dies arranged laterally along the same plane or may include multiple dies stacked on top of one another.
For example, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) die and an accompanying memory die may be mounted on a common interposer substrate. An interface block may be included for facilitating communications between the ASIC die and the memory die. This interface block is, however, configured to only support the communications protocol associated with that particular memory die. While this may provide optimal performance for this particular configuration, the interface block is incapable of supporting communications with a wide variety of different memory dies and other types of daughter dies.
It is within this context that the embodiments described herein arise.


Systems and methods for separating a suspension of plasma and platelets from whole blood rotate a chamber about an axis to create within the chamber a low-G zone radially close to the axis and a high-G zone spaced radially further from the axis than the low-G zone. The systems and methods introduce whole blood into an inlet region of the chamber to initiate separation of red blood cells toward the high-G zone of the inlet region. This creates a strong flow of plasma that moves radially toward the low-G zone of the inlet region and elutes platelets into suspension with it. The systems and methods direct the radial flow of plasma and eluted platelets within the inlet region to a port in the inlet region for transport out of the chamber. The systems and methods also drag the interface into this radial plasma flow, eluting even the largest of platelets into suspension for collection.

Today blood collection organizations routinely separate whole blood by centrifugation into its various therapeutic components, such as red blood cells, platelets, and plasma.
Conventional blood processing systems and methods use durable centrifuge equipment in association with single use, sterile processing chambers, typically made of plastic. The centrifuge equipment introduces whole blood into these chambers while rotating them to create a centrifugal field.
Whole blood separates within the rotating chamber under the influence of the centrifugal field into higher density red blood cells and platelet-rich plasma. An intermediate layer of white blood cells and lymphocytes forms an interface between the red blood cells and platelet-rich plasma.
In conventional blood separation systems and methods, platelets lifted into suspension in the PRP can settle back upon the interface. The platelets settle, because the radial velocity of the plasma undergoing separation is not enough to keep the platelets in suspension. Lacking sufficient radial flow, the platelets fall back and settle on the interface. This reduces processing efficiencies, lowering the effective yield of platelets.

Enhanced yield platelet collection systems and methods


In a halftone phase shift mask blank comprising a transparent substrate and a halftone phase shift film thereon, the halftone phase shift film is composed of a silicon base material consisting of silicon, nitrogen and 0-6 at % of oxygen, has a refractive index n of at least 2.4, an extinction coefficient k of 0.4-0.7, and a thickness of 40-67 nm. The halftone phase shift film is thin enough to be advantageous for photomask pattern formation, has chemical resistance against chemical cleaning, and maintains a necessary phase shift for phase shift function and a necessary transmittance for halftone function.

In the field of semiconductor technology, research and development efforts are continued for further miniaturization of pattern features. Recently, as advances including miniaturization of circuit patterns, thinning of interconnect patterns and miniaturization of contact hole patterns for connection between cell-constituting layers are in progress to comply with higher integration density of LSIs, there is an increasing demand for the micropatterning technology. Accordingly, in conjunction with the technology for manufacturing photomasks used in the exposure step of the photolithographic microfabrication process, it is desired to have a technique of forming a more fine and accurate circuit pattern or mask pattern.
In general, reduction projection is employed when patterns are formed on semiconductor substrates by photolithography. Thus the size of pattern features formed on a photomask is about 4 times the size of pattern features formed on a semiconductor substrate. In the current photolithography technology, the size of circuit patterns printed is significantly smaller than the wavelength of light used for exposure. Therefore, if a photomask pattern is formed simply by multiplying the size of circuit pattern 4 times, the desired pattern is not transferred to a resist film on a semiconductor substrate due to optical interference and other effects during exposure.
Sometimes, optical interference and other effects during exposure are mitigated by forming the pattern on a photomask to a more complex shape than the actual circuit pattern. Such a complex pattern shape may be designed, for example, by incorporating optical proximity correction (OPC) into the actual circuit pattern. Also, attempts are made to apply the resolution enhancement technology (RET) such as modified illumination, immersion lithography or double exposure (or double patterning) lithography, to meet the demand for miniaturization and higher accuracy of patterns.
The phase shift method is used as one of the RET. The phase shift method is by forming a pattern of film capable of phase reversal of approximately 180 degrees on a photomask, such that contrast may be improved by utilizing optical interference. One of the photomasks adapted for the phase shift method is a halftone phase shift mask. Typically, the halftone phase shift mask includes a substrate of quartz or similar material which is transparent to exposure light, and a mask pattern of halftone phase shift film formed on the substrate, capable of providing a phase shift of approximately 180 degrees and having an insufficient transmittance to contribute to pattern formation. As the halftone phase shift mask, Patent Document 1 (JP-A H07-140635) proposes a mask having a halftone phase shift film of molybdenum silicide oxide (MoSiO) or molybdenum silicide oxynitride (MoSiON).
For the purpose of forming finer images by photolithography, light of shorter wavelength is used as the light source. In the currently most advanced stage of lithography process, the exposure light source has made a transition from KrF excimer laser (248 nm) to ArF excimer laser (193 nm). The lithography using ArF excimer laser light of greater energy was found to cause damages to the mask, which were not observed with KrF excimer laser light. One problem is that on continuous use of the photomask, foreign matter-like growth defects form on the photomask. These growth defects are also known as "haze". The source of haze formation was formerly believed to reside in the growth of ammonium sulfate crystals on the mask pattern surface. It is currently believed that organic matter participates in haze formation as well.
Some approaches are known to overcome the haze problem. With respect to the growth defects formed on the photomask upon long-term irradiation of ArF excimer laser light, for example, Patent Document 2 (JP-A 2008-276002) describes that if the photomask is cleaned at a predetermined stage, then it can be continuously used.
As the exposure dose of ArF excimer laser light irradiated for pattern transfer increases, the photomask is given damage different from haze; and the size of the mask pattern changes in accordance with the cumulative irradiation energy dose, as reported in Non-Patent Document 1 (Thomas Faure et al., "Characterization of binary and attenuated phase shift mask blanks for 32 nm mask fabrication," Proc. of SPIE, vol. 7122, pp 712209-1 to 712209-12). This problem is that as the cumulative irradiation energy dose increases during long-term irradiation of ArF excimer laser light, a layer of a substance which is considered to be an oxide of the pattern material grows outside the film pattern, whereby the pattern width changes. It is also reported that the mask once damaged cannot be restored by cleaning with AMP (aqueous ammonia/hydrogen peroxide) as used in the above-mentioned haze removal or with SPM (sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide). It is believed that the damage source is utterly different.
Non-Patent Document 1 points out that upon exposure of a circuit pattern through a halftone phase shift mask which is the mask technology useful in expanding the depth of focus, substantial degradation is induced by pattern size variation resulting from alteration of a transition metal/silicon base material film such as MoSi base material film by irradiation of ArF excimer laser light (this degradation is referred to as "pattern size variation degradation"). Then, in order to use an expensive photomask over a long period of time, it is necessary to address the pattern size variation degradation by irradiation of ArF excimer laser light.
As pointed out in Non-Patent Document 1, the pattern size variation degradation by irradiation of short wavelength light, typically ArF excimer laser light does scarcely occur when light is irradiated in a dry air atmosphere. Exposure in a dry air atmosphere is regarded as a new approach for inhibiting the pattern size variation degradation. However, the control of a dry air atmosphere adds an extra unit to the exposure system and gives rise to electrostatic and other problems to be managed, leading to an increased expense. Under the circumstances, it is necessary to enable long-term exposure in a common atmosphere that does not need complete removal of humidity (typically having a humidity of around 50%).
The photomasks used in the lithography using ArF excimer laser light as light source include halftone phase shift masks having a halftone phase shift film of a silicon base material containing a transition metal, typically molybdenum. This silicon base material is mainly composed of a transition metal and silicon, and further contains oxygen and/or nitrogen as light element (e.g., Patent Document 1). Suitable transition metals used include Mo, Zr, Ta, W, and Ti. Among others, Mo is most often used (e.g., Patent Document 1). Sometimes a second transition metal is added (e.g., Patent Document 3). For the light-shielding film, silicon base materials containing a transition metal, typically molybdenum are also used. However, when a photomask using such transition metal-containing silicon base material is exposed to a large dose of high-energy radiation, the mask undergoes significant pattern size variation degradation by irradiation of high-energy radiation. Then the service lifetime of the photomask is shorter than the requirement.
It is a serious problem that when a photomask pattern on a halftone phase shift mask is irradiated with short-wavelength light, typically ArF excimer laser light, the photomask pattern for exposure experiences a variation of line width, that is, "pattern size variation degradation." The permissible threshold of pattern width differs with the type of photomask pattern, especially the pattern rule applied thereto. If variations are small, the mask may be further used by correcting the exposure conditions and resetting the irradiation conditions of an exposure system. For example, in the lithography for forming semiconductor circuits complying with the pattern rule of 22 nm, the variation of mask pattern line width must fall within approximately ±5 nm. However, if a pattern width variation is large, there is a possibility that the variation has an in-plane distribution on the photomask. Also in the further miniaturization technology, an auxiliary pattern having an ultrafine size of less than 100 nm is formed on the mask. For the purpose of pattern miniaturization on these masks and from the aspect of an increase of mask processing cost by complication of mask pattern, there is a need for a halftone phase shift mask film which experiences minimal pattern size variation degradation and allows for repeated exposure.

Halftone phase shift mask blank, halftone phase shift mask, and pattern exposure method


An infrared sensor includes a base plate having a membrane portion at the center thereof an a thick portion around the membrane, a thermocouple unit having a hot side contact member formed on the membrane portion and a cool side contact member formed on the thick portion, a heater formed near the thermocouple unit, a hot side thermo-sensitive resistor formed on the membrane portion and a cool side thermo-sensitive resistor formed on the thick portion. The heater, the hot side thermo-sensitive resistor and the cool side thermo-sensitive resistor are made of the same material as the hot side contact or the cool side contact. Therefore, additional manufacturing step is not necessary to form the heater and the resistors.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an infrared sensor that is constituted of a substrate having a membrane and a thermo couple.
2. Description of the Related Art
JP-A-7-181082 discloses an infrared sensor that is constituted of a base plate having a membrane formed therein and a thermocouple unit located on the base plate. As shown in FIG. 6, the base plate 1 is constituted of a silicon substrate 1a, an insulation coating 2 formed on the silicon substrate 1a and an infrared radiation absorbing member 3. The central portion of the silicon substrate 1a is thinned by etching to form the membrane Ma. Such an infrared sensor detects an incident infrared radiation at the membrane Ma by the thermocouple unit T, which is so called a thermopile. The thermopile is constituted of a plurality of couples of thermocouple elements (e.g., Tm and Tn shown in FIG. 1) that are connected in series. Each couple of the thermocouple elements is constituted of a hot side contact Th and a cool side contact Tc and arranged to detect an electromotive force generated between the contacts Th and Tc. The hot side contact Th is disposed on the membrane Ma and the cool side contact is disposed on a portion of the silicon substrate 1a outside the membrane Ma, where the heat capacity is much larger than the heat capacity of the membrane. The infrared radiation absorbing member 3, which is made of a carbon-mixed resin, is disposed to cover the hot side contact Th. One thermocouple element is made of an aluminum film, and the other thermocouple element is made of a polycrystalline silicon film.
When the infrared radiation absorbing member 3 absorbs an infrared radiation, the temperature of the hot side contact Th, which is disposed on the membrane Ma, becomes much higher than the cool side contact Tc, because the membrane has much smaller heat capacity than the portion of the silicon substrate 1a outside the membrane Ma. The difference in temperature is detected by the thermocouple unit T, hence an amount of infrared radiation can be detected.
However, if no signal is provided by the infrared sensor although an infrared radiation may exist, it is difficult to know the cause of providing no signal although the cause may be a disconnection of the thermocouple or some other portion.
The infrared sensor disclosed in JP-A-7-181082 provides a diagnosis circuit that has a infrared ray radiating member under the cold side contact Tc. The infrared ray radiating member is occasionally energized to heat the cold side contact Tc to test the operation of the thermocouple unit T. However, it is almost impossible to carry out such a test until the infrared sensor has been assembled. In addition, the infrared ray radiating member necessitates additional manufacturing steps of the infrared sensor, resulting in production cost increase.


A fluid pressure flare relief valve is formed by a valve body having axially aligned inlet and outlet tubular ends forming a passageway adapted to be interposed in a fluid line. The valve body is circumferentially enlarged and provided with a lateral opening normally closed by a double-wall valve head forming a valve head chamber. The enlarged valve body portion contains a box-like chamber integral with the downstream end portion of the valve for communication therewith and normally closing the valve passageway. The chamber forming box member is line drilled to form a pair of apertures normally closed by a pair of pistons mounted on a piston rod. One end of the rod extends outwardly through the valve head. A small diameter piston contained by a cylinder projecting into the valve head surrounds the piston rod and is connected therewith for supporting one end of a pressure release pin having its other end supported by a pin cage. Fluid pressure against the small piston and one of the pair of pistons unbalances the other piston for movement of the rod toward the pressure release pin which collapses and opens the valve passageway when a predetermined pressure is in the upstream end portion of the valve.

1. Field of the invention.
This invention relates to fluid pressure relief and, more particularly, to a normally closed relief valve interposed in a natural gas flare system in which its purpose is to relieve pressure when it reaches a predetermined set point.
In the chemical industry, tanks containing toxic fluid are connected in parallel with a waste or discharge line for conducting toxic fluid spills or overflow to a safe point of disposal.
This invention provides a pressure relief valve which is interposed in the waste disposal line and normally closes the line unless excess pressure in the upstream end of the line exceeds a predetermined value. The relief valve then opens to permit the toxic fluid to flow through the line without any of the toxic fluid polluting the environment at or near the position of the relief valve.
2. Description of the prior art.
I do not know of any spring loaded non-reclosing relief valves which may be interposed in a fluid line which normally closes the line but opens it under a predetermined value of excess pressure and capable of being pressure balanced on the downstream end.


This floating support for an offshore structure such as a wind generator in particular, of the type including an element in the form of a support mast (16), the upper part of winch is associated with the structure and the lower part of winch is associated with elements (18) in the form of float and with ballast-forming elements (17), is characterized in that the elements (18) in the form of a float have an overall shape winch widens out from the lower part of the element (16) in the form of a mast, allowing two stable positions of the support to be defined, one of the positions being a lying-down position and the other a position standing up on the elements in the form of a float.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a floating support for an offshore structure such as a wind generator in particular.
More particularly, the invention relates to such a floating support that comprises means in the form of a support mast, the upper part of which is associated with the structure, such as for example with the nacelle of a wind generator, and the lower part of which is associated with means in the form of a float and with ballast-forming means, the means in the form of a float also being able to be associated with ballast-forming means.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wide varieties of floating supports of this type are already known in the state of the art.
Thus for example, a floating support comprising elongate floats with axes parallel to the axis in the form of a support mast and arranged regularly around them is already known.
This floating support is then put in the water in the vertical position after assembly, deballasted and partially ballasted. The nacelle is then assembled on the corresponding end of the mast-forming means using a crane and supplementary ballast is added to float in an area where the depth allows it.
The floating support is then towed onto the exploitation site in the vertical position. Other floating supports having different structures are also known, but their on-site installation is done in a manner relatively close to that previously described. One can thus see that these different floating supports have a certain number of drawbacks, in particular their assembly, handling, and in particular transport to the exploitation site.
In fact, these different floating supports must be assembled and towed in the vertical position.
The assembly in particular of the nacelle to the end of the mast then requires the use of extremely significant lifting means that are difficult to implement on the site.

Floating support for offshore structure such as a wind generator in particular