An image forming method suitable for forming a color proof is disclosed. The method comprises (1) a step for exposing a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, which is comprised of a support having thereon photographic component layers including a yellow image-forming blue-sensitive, a magenta image forming green-sensitive and a cyan image-forming red-sensitive emulsion layer, to light through a transparent black-and-white halftone image and (2) a step for processing the exposed light-sensitive material to form a color image, wherein the photographic component layers contain a yellow water-soluble dye, a magenta water-soluble dye and a cyan water-soluble dyes and reflective densities of the silver halide color photographic material measured with light of 450 nm, 550 nm and 700 nm are each not less than 0.8, and toe portion gradations of characteristic curves of yellow, magenta and cyan images formed in the light-sensitive material by the processing are each not less than 1.7, and the toe portion gradations of the yellow, magnet and cyan image have the following relation: EQU .vertline.1-.gamma..sub.A '/.gamma..sub.A .vertline..ltoreq.0.05. wherein .gamma..sub.A ' is toe portion gradiation of one of the images, and .gamma..sub.A is that of another one of the images.

In recent years, color light-sensitive materials have been diversified as seen in, for example, the color light-sensitive materials such as those for use in making color proofs. Light-sensitive materials to be used for these purposes are demanded to have characteristics comprising a high sharpness, being free of character blur, and high reproducibility of halftone dots and color balance for a color proof.
In the printing industry, the color proof is for a substitute process to curtail a trial printing step of the printing process of making prints from a color original. For the color proof, there are various known processes, including the silver halide photographic process, photopolymer transfer process, and toner transfer process.
In the photopolymer transfer process, the transfer process is not only so complicated that an image cannot be quickly obtained but also costly. In the toner transfer process, toner scattering occurs, so that it is not preferable from the environmental hygienic point of view. On the other hand, the silver halide photographic process is free of these shortcomings, less costly and well operable, so that a color proof can be rapidly finished up.
However, any of these commercially available color light-sensitive materials is inadequate in the reproducibility of halftone dots, so that a color proof having a correct color balance cannot be obtained. A high-sharpness color light-sensitive material having an antihalation layer containing colloidal silver is commercially available as well, but it has problems in that the whiteness of its background is deteriorated, its photographic gradation is softened, and so forth. Thus, there has been a demand for a color image forming method capable of giving a color proof having a high halftone reproducibility and color balance free of these problems.
As the method for improving the sharpness of a color light-sensitive material, there are known methods of:
(1) preventing irradiation by a water-soluble dye, PA0 (2) providing an antihalation layer containing colloidal silver or colloidal manganese, PA0 (3) raising the filling density of a white pigment in the polyolefin layer of a polyolefin-laminated reflection paper support, PA0 (4) thinning photographic component layers comprising a hydrophilic colloid, and PA0 (5) incorporating into photographic component layers a compound capable of releasing a development inhibitor at the time of developing.
The method (1) is utilized in those commercially available color light-sensitive materials for making color prints, but the water-soluble dye content of the material is so low that the reflection densities at wavelengths of 450 nm, 550 nm and 700 nm prior to developing the color light-sensitive material is lower than 0.5. Therefore, any color proof having an adequate sharpness and a correct color balance cannot be obtained.
The method (2) produces only an image inferior in the color balance as a color proof because the method deteriorates the white background of the image by a stain due to insufficient bleach-fix of colloidal silver as well as by a fog of silver halide of the light-sensitive material, and also heavily soften the photographic gradation. For this problem, Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 63034/1988 proposes a specific proportion of the gelatin and colloidal silver of the antihalation and adjacent auxiliary layers, and Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 63040/1988 proposes a specific thickness of the antihalation layer, but any of these proposals are still unable to provide satisfactory effects.
The method (3) is described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. publication Nos. 284763/1986, 270749/1986 and 270750/1986, but is unable to give any satisfactory image as a color proof.
The method (4) has its limits in thinning photographic component layers, thus being not so much effective as to improve sharpness.
And the method (5), although useful to emphasize the edge effect of an image having a low spatial frequency, is unable to produce any satisfactory image as a color proof.
In a color proof preparing method which uses a color light-sensitive material, various techniques for obtaining objective colors are disclosed.
For example, Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 141034/1978 describes preparation of a colored standard diagram and a method for determining an exposure time in accordance with the diagram. This method, however, although it enables the obtaining of objective yellow, magenta and cyan monochromatic densities, is unable to give any well color-balanced color proof comprising blue, green and red in the additive color process. Besides, the procedure for exposure in this method is complicated.
Japanese Patent O.P.I. publiCation No. 104335/1981 discloses a color proof making method which causes the overall photographic gradation of a light-sensitive material to be not less than 2.0. However, the publication makes no mention at all of the photographic gradations and the balance thereof at the toe of the characteristic curves of respective yellow, magenta and cyan color images. It describes examples of the color light-sensitive material including Fujicolor Paper 08, Fujichrome paper Type 31, Kodachrome 74RC. etc., but any of these are of a photographic toe gradation designed for making color paper prints from color films, and therefore not suitable for color proof making.
Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 1131139/1981 describes a method of making a color proof from a color light-sensitive material whose overall photographic gradation is not less than 2,0 and which, when exposed, contains other component colors. The method, however, is intended for correction of a discretional color, and is ineffectual in respect of the color balance.
Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 14651/1987 describes the use of a mask having dots in an exposure process. The method is to bring density changes to an image whose monochromatic densities are fixed, and has no relation with the color balance.

Method for forming a color proof having a specified toe gradation


A cutting device, including: a handle rotatable about a central axis; and at least one blade attached to the handle, a cutting edge of the at least one blade is at a first distance from the central axis; wherein the handle comprises an opening around the central axis configured to accommodate a protruded part on a surface to be cut. A method of using the cutting device is also disclosed.

Liquids, such as milk and juice, are sold in cartons made from cardboard or paper-like material, laminated with a plastic or a metal foil layer to make the cartons liquid-proof. To make it easy for dispensing the liquid, a spout is usually put on the carton.
In recent years, environmental concerns have prompted consumers to recycle a lot of containers, including milk and juice cartons. However, the spouts on the cartons are mostly made of some plastic materials that are different from the paper materials that make up the rest of the carton body. Thus, recycling this type of cartons would require an additional step of removing the spouts from the cartons for separate material recycling lines.
Cutting devices, such as box-cutters, knives, scissors, etc., may be used to remove the spout on a liquid carton. However, using such devices is cumbersome and dangerous, because of the fact that the geometry of the carton and the placement of the spout on the carton make the maneuvering of the cutter around the spout very awkward. Therefore, there is a need for a cutting device for removing the spouts from the liquid cartons easily and safely.


Verification of low-level rewriters such as binary rewriters involves “vanilla” rewriting a file to generate a rewritten low-level file without performing any optimization, compaction, or other substantive low-level code transformation during the rewrite. Then the metadata of the original low-level file is automatically compared with matching metadata of the rewritten low-level file for semantic equivalence. A properly functioning rewriter produces semantically equivalent files, whereas a defective rewriter may produce files whose metadata semantics differ. Comparison may distinguish composite metadata entities from self-contained metadata entities, and transitive closures of metadata may be compared. Comparison may also test for bitwise equality of self-contained metadata entities, and test for equality between respective flags, strings, fields, and/or methods of the original and rewritten files. Syntactic variants may be detected during comparison, and metadata may be converted into a canonical form to facilitate comparison.

Many computer programs begin as source code, which is relatively easy for human readers to understand and modify in comparison with lower level code such as intermediate language codes, byte codes, assembly codes, and machine language codes. Computer program source code is written and edited using text editors, version control systems, and other tools. Lower level codes are generated from source code, and/or from other lower level codes, using tools such as compilers, interpreters, linkers, and optimizers.
Some binary rewriters are tools that can be used to optimize binary codes by removing duplicate instructions, removing unreachable instructions, and removing duplicate data, for example. Binary rewriters do not make use of source code, but instead take lower level code as input and produce lower level code as output. In addition to their uses for optimization, binary rewriters have been used to insert security codes into binary executable code, to insert program instrumentation for performance profiling, and to obfuscate binary code in order to help protect confidential information about the code's structure and operations. The changes made in binary files by a binary rewriter are sometimes referred to as transformations, mutations, and/or optimizations, for example. Changes which do not produce functionally equivalent binary code are generally treated as errors in the binary rewriting process.


A semiconductor structure includes a first semiconducting channel having a plurality of vertical nanowires and a second semiconducting channel having a plurality of vertical nanowires. The first semiconducting channel and the second semiconducting channel are configured to be in a stacked configuration. The plurality of vertical nanowires of the first semiconducting channel are configured to be in alternating positions relative to the plurality of vertical nanowires of the second semiconducting channel.

Stacking field-effect transistors (FETs) in the vertical direction gives an additional dimension for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) area scaling. In a typical CMOS layout, ninety percent of the time a first transistor is connected to at least a second transistor. For example, a drain of an n-type transistor is connected to the drain of a p-type transistor to form an inverter. Other arrangements, such as connections between the drain of a first transistor connected to the source of a second transistor, a drain of a first transistor connected to the drain of a second transistor, or a source of a first transistor connected to the source of a second transistor are also considered, where the first and second transistors may be any combination of n-type or p-type transistors.
Vertical field effect transistors (VFETs) have a unique structure that can help the stacking process. As opposed to planar CMOS devices, VFETs are oriented with a vertical fin channel disposed on a bottom source/drain and a top source/drain disposed on the fin channel. The gate runs vertically alongside the vertical fin channel. VFETs have been pursued as a potential device option for scaling CMOS to the 5 nanometer (nm) node and beyond.

Staggered stacked vertical crystalline semiconducting channels

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention disclosed a Universal Serial Bus (USB) apparatus. The apparatus includes: a signal detecting unit for detecting a packet signal transmitted from a USB host and generating an acknowledgment signal according to a detection result; an error detecting unit, coupled to the signal detecting unit, for generating a control signal according to the acknowledgment signal; and a frequency generating unit, coupled to the error detecting unit, for generating an output clock signal according to the control signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) apparatus and a method thereof, and more particularly, to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) apparatus without an accurate frequency oscillator and method thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a common serial transmitting interface utilized in computer systems. It is very convenient for USB to establish connections in a high transmission speed (e.g., 480 Mbps of USB 2.0). Therefore, USB is becoming a very popular transmitting interface, and almost every apparatus available on the market today is compatible with the USB protocol to provide a connecting interface with computer systems, such as portable card readers, portable storage apparatus, and scanners.
Normally, the transmitting frequency of the USB interface is required to have an accurate operating frequency. When operated at low-speed or full-speed (LS/FS) mode, the frequency error must be less than +/−2500 ppm, and when in high-speed (HS) mode, the frequency error must be less than +/−500 ppm. Therefore, an accurate oscillating signal source external to the USB chip is utilized to provide an accurate frequency to the USB chip to achieve the requirement of the frequency error. FIG. 1 illustrates a USB system 10 including a USB host 12, a USB apparatus 14 and an accurate oscillating signal source 16 such as a crystal oscillating component. A special oscillating apparatus can also be utilized to obtain the desired frequency accuracy.
However, the cost of the above-mentioned special oscillating apparatus is very high. Therefore, in the low-cost application fields, to develop a USB chip that does not require the accurate external oscillating signal source is very important.


A throttle valve sensor having at least two switches for detecting different positions of a throttle valve. The setting of the switching conditions of the switches is such that these switches can not be made OFF simultaneously, over the entire range of the degree of opening of the throttle valve. A detachment of a connector connecting the sensor to a control circuit causes the corresponding port voltage level to be that obtained when all of the switches are made OFF, and as a result, a quick and positive detection of a detachment of the connector can be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a throttle valve position sensor used as an electronic control device for an internal combustion engine, and in particular, to such a throttle valve position sensor provided with a plurality of switches for detecting different positions of the throttle valve.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an electronically controlled internal combustion engine for a vehicle, usually a throttle valve position sensor is used for detecting different positions of the throttle valve as a parameter of the engine operating condition. For this purpose, a conventional throttle valve position sensor is provided with a plurality of pairs of contacts (switches) which are made ON or OFF in accordance with different angular positions of the throttle valve, whereby it is possible to determine whether or not the throttle valve is actually in a designated position.
Usually, the computer controlled electronic engine control system is provided with a fail-safe function which determines whether or not the engine is operating properly, and warns the driver of any malfunction. The fail-safe system for the throttle position sensor is usually a means provided for determining whether a connector coupling the throttle position sensor to a microcomputer as a control circuit has been accidentally detached. Further, for the detection by the throttle position sensor of an idle position of a throttle valve of an internal combustion engine, while the engine is operating, a fail-safe system has been proposed wherein a counter is incremented every time the engine is started, and is cleared every time a signal from the idle switch is received. (see Japanese Unexamined Pat. Publication No. 63-28853). It is considered that, during a normal running of the engine, the throttle valve will be in the idling position at least once, and therefore, a zero value will be obtained at the counter when the engine is started, if the idle switch is operating properly. Accordingly, it is determined that a malfunction exists when the value of the counter is larger than a predetermined value. Namely, when the connecter to the idle switch is detached, a signal is not received from the idle switch, and accordingly, the counter is not cleared, whereby it is determined that a malfunction has occurred.
This prior art suffers from a drawback in that a certain amount of time must pass before the malfunction (detachment of the connector) is detected, since the present number of the counter cannot be obtained until after a repetition of a certain number of starting and stopping cycles of the engine, after the detachment of the connector. This problem becomes more serious when the prior art fail-safe technique is applied to the detection of the position of a switch denoting a position of the throttle valve, such as a fully-open position, which has a greater degree of opening than the idling position. This fully-open position switch is not always operated during a period from a starting of the engine to a stopping of the engine, and therefore, the counter maintains a cleared condition, and thus the detection of a malfunction is not possible.


A cigarette filter has a substantially cylindrical inner member of filter material surrounded by an outer member of filter material and a plugwrap. The density of the inner and outer members are typically different, and a flavorant is added to at least one of the members. Methods and apparatus for making the filter are also disclosed.

This invention relates to filters for cigarettes and other smoking articles, and more particularly to cigarette filters having multiple components which are selectively flavored and/or have various cigarette smoke flow characteristics. The invention also relates to methods and apparatus for making the foregoing filters.
Cigarette filters having two or more concentric filter components may have certain advantages. For example, they may facilitate the production of cigarettes which satisfy several competing criteria with respect to such factors as filter efficiency, taste, firmness, smoke stream distribution, dilution, etc. Prior art techniques for producing such filters have, however, relied heavily on heat (and especially steam) to partially fuse and thereby stabilize each filter component as it is formed (see, for example, Berger U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,026,306; 4,046,063; 4,064,791; and 4,355,995, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). Many desirable flavor additives are sensitive to heat and/or moisture. It is therefore difficult or impossible to add such flavorants to prior art composite filters. For example, commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 799,750, filed Nov. 19, 1985 (hereby incorporated by reference herein), discloses flavorant compositions (hereinafter generically referred to collectively as "PVA-flavorants", individually as "PVA-flavorant", or (where the flavor is menthol) as "PVA-menthol") which are activated to release their flavor by the addition of moisture. (The letters "PVA" are used in the foregoing terms merely to identify the referenced flavorants as being any of those disclosed in application Ser. No. 799,750, and not to imply that the referenced flavorants necessarily include polyvinylacetate, although the especially preferred PVA-flavorants do in fact include polyvinylacetate.) The intended source of activating moisture is the moisture in the tobacco smoke drawn through the filter when the cigarette is smoked. However, the steam used in making prior art composite filters also unavoidably activates previously applied PVA-flavorants to release their flavors, thereby increasing the difficulty of adding PVA-flavorants during the formation of composite filters (which is plainly an otherwise desirable time to add a flavorant to a filter).
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of this invention to provide improved composite cigarette filters.
It is another object of this invention to provide composite cigarette filters which can be more easily, successfully, and efficiently flavored, especially with PVA-flavorants.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide composite cigarette filters in which the various components have different flow characteristics and are selectively flavored to make more efficient use of the flavorant and/or to achieve various flavor objectives.
It is still another object of this invention to provide improved methods and apparatus for making composite cigarette filters, especially composite cigarette filters with the foregoing characteristics.

Flavored cigarette filters, and methods and apparatus for making same


A socket for a ball grid array integrated circuit package (BGA) with an array of electrical contacts that extend through holes in a slidable plate. The arrangement of spacing the holes and the electrical contacts therein provides entry openings that allow the ball contacts of a BGA package to enter the openings. The contacts are cupped or angled to mate with the side and top of the ball contacts of the ball grid array package. The contact surface of the ball grid array package is inserted into the socket without any interfering structure, and there may be guide surfaces to align the ball contacts with the openings. A manually rotatable cam actuated in one direction by an arm drives the plate parallel to the plane of the ball contacts to widen the openings to allow easy entry of the balls into the holes. Rotating the arm in the other directions drives the plate in the opposite direction reducing the openings. The arm is arranged at the side of the socket so as to not interfere with insertion or removal of the BGA itself. When the openings are reduced with a ball contact within the openings the balls are retained therein and electrical conductivity is provided between the ball contact and the socket electrical contact, and furthermore where the ends of the bifurcated contacts have sharp edges that penetrate any oxidation on the ball contacts to provide gas free connections. The bifurcated ends mates with the ball contacts near where the ball contacts attached to the BGA-package. This mating is above the equator of the ball and serves to retain the ball and so the BGA package itself in the socket.

Surface mounted, high pin count integrated circuit packages have been dominated by quad flat packs (QFPS) with various pin configurations, for example, leadless, J-leaded, and gull wing leaded. These packages have closely spaced leads for making electrical connections distributed along the four edges of the flat packages. These packages have become limited by being confined to the edges of the flat pack even though the pin to pin spacing is small. To address this limitation, a new package, a ball grid array (BGA) is not so confined because the electrical contact points are distributed over the entire bottom surfaces of the packages. More contact points can be located with greater spacings than with the QFPS. These contacts are eutectic or solder balls, which facilitate flow soldering of the packages onto a printed circuit board.
Sockets that accept BGA's are necessary for testing, burn-in, re-programming, but are becoming popular for production use on printed circuit boards where the integrated circuit may need replacing and where the replacing is difficult and endangers the integrity of the complete board. One obstacle to production use of BGA sockets is the cost of the socket. Such sockets have been developed to satisfy the testing and bum-in needs. But these sockets often prove too expensive to be used in production. One such socket is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,293 to Pfaff. Two other such sockets are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,578,870 and 5,646,447 referenced above. The first above patent uses three plates including a bias plate, while the other two use springs. Typically such designs will be too expensive for production use.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a BGA socket needing few and simple physical operations to insert and extract an IC package and suitable for production uses.
Another object of the present invention is to provide electrical connections from the ball leads to the socket contacts and then to the runs on a printed circuit card that are reliable and of low resistance. It is a related object of the present invention to provide a contact design that provides a gas tight, reliable connection to the ball lead.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a socket where there are mechanical forces of the BGA ball leads only and none on the BGA package itself.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a BGA socket with no obstructions that need to be avoided when inserting and removing the BGA package.

Manually operated top loading socket for ball grid arrays


A vibration type driving apparatus capable of inhibiting wear in an elastic member and a contact member is provided. The vibration type driving apparatus is a vibration type driving apparatus relatively driving an elastic member given vibrations by an electric-mechanical energy conversion element and a contact member contacting the elastic member, wherein at least one of the elastic member and the contact member is formed by aluminum oxide ceramics containing 5 wt % to 40 wt % of zirconium oxide.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vibration type driving apparatus relatively driving an elastic member and a contact member contacting the elastic member.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vibration type driving apparatus (e.g., ultrasonic motor) causes an elastic member with a piezoelectric element fixed thereon to excite progressive and standing oscillatory waves by application of an alternating-current voltage to the piezoelectric element, thereby rotating a rotor kept in contact with the elastic member.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H05-252767 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H09-289785 are disclosed vibration type driving apparatuses in which a frictional member is provided in an area of an elastic member contacting a rotor, and for the material of the frictional member, polymeric materials and metallic materials are used.
In a conventional rod type vibration type driving apparatus, the surface of an elastic member made of brass is coated with an electroless nickel plating containing silicon carbide particles having a wear resistance. Alumite with aluminum subjected to an anodization treatment is used as a rotor. However, in the vibration type driving apparatus formed of the materials described above, drive time was relatively short for inhibiting an increase in wear loss amount.
Thus, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-42579 is disclosed a vibration type driving apparatus in which a frictional member is formed of ceramics excellent in wear resistance property, specifically aluminum oxide ceramics which is easy to obtain and inexpensive, for improving the lifetime of the frictional member and making it possible to use the frictional member in a wide range of applications. In this case, compared with the case where the electroless nickel plating containing silicon carbide particles is coated, the wear resistance is improved, thus making it possible to improve the lifetime of the vibration type driving apparatus.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-134858, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-199376 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-209983 is proposed a vibration type driving apparatus downsized so that the vibration type driving apparatus can be mounted on a small-sized device.
However, the aluminum oxide ceramics is poor in toughness compared with metallic materials, and therefore if the frictional member is formed of the aluminum oxide ceramics, cracking and chipping tend to occur in a production step such as processing. Moreover, it may be impossible to obtain a sufficient wear resistance in the drive of the vibration type driving apparatus.
Particularly, in the downsized vibration type driving apparatus, further enhancement of strength is required for an improvement in reliability of the elastic member, and development of a material resisting cracking and chipping and showing high strength and high toughness is desired for an abrasive member. The need for reduction of costs for the vibration type driving apparatus is strong, and it is thus preferable that material costs and production costs are low.


A slim camera which can be stably mounted on a tripod. The slim camera comprises a camera housing having a cavity in its bottom surface, and a tripod connecting element having a tripod connecting hole, the tripod connecting element being disposed in the cavity of the camera housing, which is movable so that the tripod connecting element can be moved between a retracted position where it does not extend outward from the housing, and an extended position where it does extend outward from the housing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slim camera, and more particularly, to a slim camera which can be stably mounted on a tripod.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the demand for slim cameras has increased, cameras have become smaller and more compact. However, even a camera employing a slim design should have certain fundamental functions, such as the ability to be stably mounted on a tripod.
FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a conventional camera 10 and a tripod 20. Referring to FIG. 1, a tripod connecting hole is formed in a bottom surface of the camera 10 and a mounting screw 21 of the tripod 20 is inserted into the tripod connecting hole so that the camera 10 is mounted on the tripod 20.
FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a lower portion of the camera illustrated in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a schematic partial cross-sectional view of a connected portion in which the camera 10 is mounted on the tripod 20.
Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, a tripod connecting hole 12 is formed in a bottom surface of a housing 11 of the camera 10, and a mounting screw 21 of the tripod 20 is inserted into the tripod connecting hole 12 so that the camera 10 is mounted on the tripod 20. In this case, a length l12 of the tripod connecting hole 12 formed in the housing 11 of the camera 10 is substantially the same as a length l21, of the mounting screw 21 of the tripod 20. Thus, a thickness d11, of the housing 11 is at least larger than the length l12 of the tripod connecting hole 12, and therefore also longer than the length l21 of the mounting screw 21 of the tripod 20. As a result, the thickness of the case 11 is increased, resulting in hindering the implementation of a slim camera.
A lower portion of the camera illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3 may be the same structure as that of a lower portion of another conventional camera illustrated in FIG. 4 so that the thickness d11 of the housing 11 can be reduced. Even in such a case, a portion, with which the mounting screw of the tripod is combined and in which the tripod connecting hole 12 is formed, is indented into the camera 10, resulting in the housing 11 having a thickness d10 so as to provide the length l12 of the tripod connecting hole 12 corresponding to the mounting screw. Thus, as the internal volume of the camera 10 is increased, it is not easy to implement a slim camera.
A method for reducing the size of a mounting screw of a tripod has been proposed so as to overcome the problem. In this case, the internationally standardized tripod cannot be used. In addition, a structure has been proposed, in which only a small-sized connecting hole is provided in the camera housing, and an auxiliary adaptor is combined with the small-sized connecting hole of the camera and the mounting screw of the tripod is inserted into the sufficiently sized tripod connecting hole of the auxiliary adaptor. Alternatively, a structure has been proposed, in which the camera is supported by a clip support implement and the mounting screw of the tripod is inserted into a tripod connecting hole formed in the clip support implement. However, in this case, an additional auxiliary adaptor or clip support implement needs to be carried in order to mount on the tripod.


A packing material for capillary electrophoresis comprises capillary electrophoresis in an apparatus having a capillary column, by charging a sample into an end of the capillary column and discharging the sample from the other end of the capillary column, is conducted using a capillary column prepared by packing the column with a packing material comprising glucomannan and then forming a gel in situ from the packed glucomannan. The packing material is packed into the capillary easily and forms a homogeneous gel therein which shows no damage by formation of bubbles and the like and thus can be utilized with stability, has superior health safety and is excellent with respect to biodegradation.

1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a novel capillary column for capillary electrophoresis. More particularly, it relates to a capillary column which employs a packing material for capillary electrophoresis which can be easily packed into a capillary, can form a homogeneous gel in the capillary, shows no damage on the formed gel by formation of bubbles and the like, thus, can be utilized with stability and is favorably utilized for separation and analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, amino acids and the like.
2. Description of the prior art
Electrophoresis has been utilized for the analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, decomposition products thereof and other like various substances. The electrophoresis comprises various methods, such as gel electrophoresis, filter paper electrophoresis, isoelectric point electrophoresis and the like. Because a gel generally prevents occurrence of convection and protects the sample from adverse effects of reactions such as generation of gas at the electrode, it is a favorable medium for fractionating proteins and nucleic acids and the like to narrow bands.
Capillary electrophoresis is a method of gel electrophoresis preformed in a gel packed in a capillary. As the gel for this method, polyacrylamide gel which does not show electroosmosis is generally utilized.
Recently, a method of utilizing agarose which is a natural polysaccharide as the gel for the capillary was proposed (Journal of Chromatography, Volume 458, Pages 303-312 (1988)). A method of utilizing Curdlan.RTM. which is a .beta.-glucan as a gel for the electrophoresis was also proposed (Analytical Sciences, Volume 7, Pages 811-812 (October 1991)).
However, polyacrylamide gel has problems: (1) bubbles tend to be formed by contraction of volume during the preparation of gel (polymerization) and unfavorable phenomena frequently take place, such as damage of the gel by the formation of bubbles during the preparation of the gel or during the operation of the electrophoresis; (2) the operation of packing the packing material into the capillary is complicated and requires skill; (3) because unstable crosslinking agents must be utilized, preparation of homogeneous gel is not easy and the operation must be completed in a short time; and (4) because acrylamide reportedly has an adverse effect on health, care must be taken to avoid an adverse effect on health.
The method of utilizing agarose as the gel for the capillary has the fatal problem that agarose is mechanically weak and flows out of the capillary during the electrophoresis. Furthermore, the gel formed by agarose becomes heated during the operation of the electrophoresis and the rise of temperature causes melting of the gel. This is another cause of the flowing out of the capillary. Thus, a sample mixture cannot be separated with good reproducibility by the electrophoresis utilizing the capillary column (namely gel-filled capillary) packed with agarose gel.
According to the published method of utilizing curdlan as the gel, a column of 3.5 nun diameter was used. The column of this size cannot be regarded as a capillary column. Also, the molecular weight of Curdlan.RTM. is so low (at most 100,000) that it is required to pack Curdlan.RTM. into a column at high concentration like 15 weight % as described in the above mentioned journal in order to use it as the separation column. It is very difficult to pack the material of such a high concentration into an ordinary capillary whose diameter is generally less than 1 mm. Furthermore, in a column of this concentration, high molecular weight components like proteins or nucleic acids cannot be separated even though low molecular weight components may be separated.

Capillary column packed with glucomannan gel for capillary electrophoresis and methods for making and using same


A system for facilitating a mortgage fulfillment process between a mortgage processor computing device and a borrower computing device is provided. The system comprises a mortgage operations module and a borrower interface module that are configured to allow for the communication and display of an identification of a plurality of required mortgage application documents, the association of a data file with one or more of the plurality of required mortgage application documents, the communication of the associated data file, and displaying an indicia that such data file was communicated. A method for implementing the processes described herein is also provided.

The current lifecycle for processing a mortgage loan includes four steps—origination, processing, underwriting and closing/funding. The processing of a mortgage loan is typically a time consuming process. The average cycle time for processing a mortgage loan through all four steps is approximately forty-five days, wherein forty-two of those days are spent in the last three steps, which is referred to as the operations cycle. Mortgage processing companies are scored (NPS/CSAT) on the level of service that they provide their customers, which factors in the amount of time it takes to close/fund a loan. Any inefficiencies in the operations cycle due to delays in communications between the loan processor and the borrower cause delays in cycle time and has a direct impact on the customer service scores.
In a typical loan processing cycle, the loan processor and borrower communicate using regular mail and telephone, and documents requested by the loan officer may be sent by the borrower to the loan processor by mail or through email. FIGS. 1 and 2 provide an exemplary illustration of a traditional loan closing calendar and corresponding contacts that are made by the loan processor to the borrower. During the operations cycle, the borrower may not be aware of the documents that the processor may still need in order to continue to process the loan, and there is no coordinated technical solution for the loan processor to remind the borrower of documents that still may be needed. Further, the borrower may be unaware of how much longer it will take to process the loan, which may cause the borrower to become frustrated during the operations cycle. The current process for processing a loan and providing for communication between the borrower and the loan officer is inefficient. Also, once the loan officer finally receives the loan documents from the borrower, the loan officer will manually review the loan documents and enter the relevant information into the loan origination documents. The manual review and entering of the relevant information into the loan origination documents may result in errors that introduce further inefficiencies into the current loan processing system and unsatisfactory to maintain consumer satisfaction.
As such, there is a need for a system and method that will address one or more of the above-referenced drawbacks. The present invention addresses these needs as well as other needs.

Computer-implemented mortgage processing system and method for facilitating a mortgage fulfillment process


A communication apparatus includes a processor to perform determining whether a current state of the communication apparatus is a master station state or a slave station state; controlling to perform, in a first case where it is determined that the current state of the communication apparatus is the master station state, a first type communication with the target apparatus to enable the target apparatus to participate in the specific wireless network, and controlling to transmit, in a second case where it is determined that the current state of the communication apparatus is the slave station state, transmits a communication request to perform a second type communication to enable the target apparatus to participate in the specific wireless network between the master station apparatus and the target apparatus.

There is a technology relating to wireless communication based on a WFD (Wi-Fi Direct) mode. In the WFD mode, a pair of wireless communication apparatuses performs wireless communication referred to as G/O (Group Owner) negotiation when establishing a new wireless network. Thereby, it is determined that one wireless communication apparatus operates as a G/O device of the wireless network and the other wireless communication apparatus operates as a client device of the wireless network.


A test apparatus for measuring the rate (volume as a function of time) of surface water runoff infiltration inflow into a manhole that includes a portable liquid impervious barrier that can retain a predetermined volume of water and sized to extend and encompass a manhole cover and the manhole supporting structure, the barrier including a waterproof gasket along its base, and a liquid level measuring device positioned inside the barrier that can determine first and second liquid levels within the barrier as a function of time. When the liquid impervious barrier is filled with water, the device is actuated when a particular water level is reached. After liquid has infiltrated into the manhole structure, the level will drop in the barrier and when a predetermined low level is reached, the measuring device will compute the time lapsed and the volume that has left the barrier. The barrier also includes one or more apertures to ensure that a predetermined volume of liquid is in the barrier at the beginning of the test.

This invention relates generally to a test apparatus for measuring surface runoff water infiltration into a manhole and specifically to an apparatus used to simulate and measure the infiltration inflow rate of surface runoff water (or other liquids) into one covered manhole and its surrounding support structure on site.
Surface water, caused usually by rain fall, infiltrates sanitary sewer systems which greatly increases the treatment volume demands on municipal sewage treatment systems. If surface water runoff is allowed to infiltrate into a sewer system, the overall volume of sewage treatment increases and therefore costs increase greatly in areas where there are large annual rain falls and commensurate infiltration. The unnecessary treatment of surface runoff water often can overwhelm a sewer plant capacity which itself then causes overflows of unprocessed sewage into streams and other bodies of water, damaging the environment.
In the past it has been difficult to quantitatively determine the additional water volume due to infiltration that is added to an entire sewer system caused by surface runoff resulting from runoff inflow into each single manhole and its supporting structure. Because manhole covers and their supporting structures are not identical, the infiltration inflow rates can be different at each manhole site. At the present time it is difficult to identify which particular manholes in a sewer system are responsible for high or unacceptable infiltration inflow rates.
The present invention provides a portable, low cost test device that can be employed on site at any manhole to determine the rate of volume of water flow as a function of time that can infiltrate through the manhole cover and its supporrrng surface.
Manhole covers allow surface water to enter sanitary sewers during rain fall because each manhole cover includes required vent holes to prevent gas build-up in the sewer line and pick holes to allow for removal of the manhole cover. Often a loose fit exists between the manhole supporting structure and the manhole cover which provides for runoff water inflow areas.
The prior art shows a device that has been used to measure waste water volumes within sewer systems in U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,652 issued to Venuso Jan. 11, 1983. A device for measuring liquid flow rates within a sewer system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,308 issued to Joritsma on June 2, 1987. These devices do not provide for the test measurement of the surface water infiltration inflow rate about a manhole (cover and supporting equipment) but measure sewage flow rates within the sewer lines.
The present invention can provide objective, accurate evidence of the overall infiltration inflow rate of surface water into a sewer system to those who deal with runoff drainage problems or sanitary sewage systems.
The information that can be obtained from Applicant's invention will allow a corporate utility that is responsible for a sewage treatment plant to determine cost effective solutions for installing surface water diversion equipment available in the marketplace on predetermined manhole covers. With the use of an infiltration inflow test apparatus, the need for installing manhole diverter equipment at every manhole in a sewer system is eliminated. The test apparatus can identify those manhole structures with high inflow infiltration that need the installation of surface water diverter equipment and identify those manhole covers that do not need diverter equipment, greatly reducing diversion equipment installation and maintenance costs for the sewer utility.
It is essential that the test equipment not influence the test results and that the test environment most naturally simulates those conditions that exist when surface runoff water accumulates by rain fall at and over the manhole cover. While in operation, the present invention does not disturb the manhole cover or its supporting equipment but interacts with the manhole cover and support structure as normally in place, thereby providing realistic, accurate test measurements on site without any change of the manhole or its surroundings during the test.


The moving map composer (MMC) is a device that allows a user to manipulate different sources of map data into a single map for presentation on a display. The MMC has an ability to extract a predetermined area of map coverage defined by sets of latitude and longitude points, or non-orthogonal areas of map coverage, the smallest of which is a segment. A bitmap is a representation of an available map coverage for a given area selected by a user having a "set", or "1" bit to indicate a segment is present, and a "clear", or "0" bit to indicate a segment is missing. The size of the bitmap is determined dynamically to assure a two-bit buffer zone of clear bits around a polygon's maximum extent. If the user selected polygon crosses one or more maps, the polygon is subdivided into several new polygons. Once the total map coverage desired has been defined, what available map sources are determined and the resulting subset is displayed, if the resulting coverage is acceptable, the user may transfer the data to the display.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to a method and apparatus for displaying a selected geographic area on a video display and more specifically to the providing of a user-friendly graphical interface that defines a template and builds an aircraft optical disk image (AODI) from the data available within the given template's boundaries.
2. Description of the Related Art
The current techniques for defining and building an aircraft optical disk image (AODI) utilizes a specialized computer system to define and build map coverages. An AODI is an image file consisting of several groups, or subdirectories, of map tiles, or segments, that are arranged in hash tables. Each subdirectory is identified in an AODI superdirectory by its map scale and zone, and its starting address.
Rectangles are used to define the bounds of an area of desired coverage. If a nonrectangular area of coverage is desired, the current technique can only approximate the coverage. This is accomplished by using multiple rectangles of varying size. This technique does not provide an accuracy check to verify the exact latitude/longitude or row/column extent of the coverage. The extent of the AODI coverage is estimated by interpolating between the edges of the AODI coverage and the latitude/longitude markings on a base map. Although an approximated outline of the coverage bounds is available utilizing the current techniques, this outline reflects neither missing segments in the data nor does it show individual segments. Further, current techniques are capable of only defining map coverage in non-polar regions (below 51.degree. N and above 51.degree. S).
Present technology is capable of calculating the size of an individual subdirectory of an AODI. However, there is no current capability to determine the complete AODI size before writing the individual subdirectories to the aircraft optical disk (AOD). This reduces the ability to fully utilize all of the AOD space when a margin of error is included in the computations. Neither can polar data be defined, viewed, or created with the current mapstation technology. Although areas of coverage can be deleted or modified using the previously discussed rectangular method, there is no method of precisely adding or deleting individual segments within a coverage.
If two data sources overlap and one of the sources is more current than the other, the current technology does not provide a means for controlling the order in which the data sources are selected for an AODI build. Once entered into a database, the data sources are stagnant and cannot be changed or replaced unless all data sources are relogged into the database. Utilizing current technology, each subdirectory is built, the subdirectory is written to the AOD, and then the subdirectory is erased from a computer hard disk and a new one built. The multiple subdirectories cannot be merged into a single AODI or saved to a computer hard disk.

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


A spectrometer comprising an optical cavity, a light source capable of producing light at one or more wavelengths transmitted by the cavity and with the light directed at the cavity, a detector and optics positioned to collect light transmitted by the cavity, feedback electronics causing oscillation of amplitude of the optical signal on the detector at a frequency that depends on cavity losses, and a sensor measuring the oscillation frequency to determine the cavity losses.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to absorption spectroscopy, particularly to cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy.
2. Description of Related Art
Note that the following discussion refers to a number of publications by author(s) and year of publication, and that due to recent publication dates certain publications are not to be considered as prior art vis-a-vis the present invention. Discussion of such publications herein is given for more complete background and is not to be construed as an admission that such publications are prior art for patentability determination purposes.
The field of cavity-enhanced spectroscopy has been the focus of intense activity as a result of the high sensitivity that can be obtained from a compact and relatively simple apparatus. The apparatus includes a light source, a detector, and an optical cavity that contains the sample to be measured (typically a gas or liquid, but sometimes an optical component), together with some means of quantifying the light transmitted through the cavity.
Cavity enhancement refers to the increase in absorption signal (relative to a single pass measurement) when light passes through an optical cavity of two or more mirrors, typically formed by depositing dielectric coatings on their surfaces to achieve power reflectivity >99%. Resonant light from inside the cavity leaks out through the mirrors with a characteristic time scale known as the cavity lifetime. The spacing of the mirrors depends on the application but is typically in the range from about one millimeter to about one meter. By measuring a cavity-enhanced signal, a spectrum of the sample can be recorded, or the optical losses due to the sample can be estimated. These losses can be used to quantify the amount of sample in the cavity, for instance the concentration of methane in a sample of room air. High sensitivity to small optical losses is obtained in part because light that enters the cavity makes a large number of passes through the cavity before it leaks out through one on the mirrors to a detector. There are a large number of variations on the method. The field has been reviewed, e.g., in Gagliardi, G., et al., Cavity-Enhanced Spectroscopy and Sensing, Springer Series in Optical Sciences (Book 179) (2014), Paldus, B. A., et al., "An historical overview of cavity-enhanced methods", Canadian Journal of Physics 83(10), 975-999 (2005), and Busch, K. W., et al., Cavity-ringdown spectroscopy: an ultratrace-absorption measurement technique (Vol. 720), American Chemical Society (1999).
A variety of detection methods can be used with continuous wave (CW) light sources. The simplest approach—"integrated cavity output spectroscopy"—measures the average optical power transmitted through the cavity. This approach has the advantage of simple implementation, but the disadvantage that the signal depends not just on losses in the cavity, but also on losses in the optical path outside the cavity and on variations in the efficiency of both the source and the detector.
In the "Ring-down" approach, the amplitude of the light source is modulated rapidly compared to the cavity lifetime, for instance using an acousto-optical modulator to deflect a laser, or by modulating the current injected into a semiconductor device such as a light emitting diode. Light shines on the cavity and after it has built up to a sufficient level, the beam is shut off and the decay of light from the cavity is recorded—the "cavity ring-down." This approach has the advantage that the shape of the decay curve can be analyzed. In the simplest case, the shape is a single exponential decay, which is characterized by a single time constant, τ. A variety of effects can lead to multi-exponential decay, which may require a more sophisticated analysis to determine precisely the cavity losses. A disadvantage of the ring-down approach is that the recording rate has to be significantly faster than the cavity lifetime. This high recording rate becomes especially problematic when the cavity lifetime is short.
Phase Shift Cavity Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy or Cavity Attenuated Phase Shift Spectroscopy, Herbelin, J. M. et al., "Sensitive measurement of photon lifetime and true reflectances in an optical cavity by a phase-shift method", Applied Optics, 19(1), 144-147 (1980); Engel, G. S., et al., "Innovations in cavity enhanced laser absorption spectroscopy: Using in situ measurements to probe the mechanisms driving climate change", In Earth Science Technology Conference, Laser Sensor Technologies (2003); Kebabian, P. L., et al., "Detection of nitrogen dioxide by cavity attenuated phase shift spectroscopy", Analytical Chemistry 77(2), 724-728 (2005), measures losses in a cavity by measuring the phase shift of the modulation frequency of modulated light transmitted through the cavity. The amplitude of the light incident on the cavity is modulated. A fixed modulation frequency f is usually chosen to be close to 2π/τ to optimize sensitivity to changes in τ. Because the amplitude of the light incident on the cavity is modulated, the amplitude of the light transmitted through the cavity is also modulated, but the amplitude of the modulation and its phase change as a result of the time spent on average in the cavity. When the cavity exhibits simple exponential decay, the phase, θ, of the transmitted light is shifted by:tan(θ)=−2πfτ.
Thus, a measurement of the cavity phase shift θ is equivalent to a measurement of ring down time T, and both can be related to the losses in the cavity and hence of the concentration of analytes in the cavity. U.S. Patent Publication No. 20120212731 to Loock extends this approach by describing a method for measuring the phase shift of a cavity at several modulation frequencies in order to account for multi-exponential decay waveforms in the cavity. This method also allows the use of two light sources, each modulated at its own frequency, for detecting simultaneously in more than one wavelength band. The modulation frequencies are chosen ahead of time such that they and their harmonics don't interfere. Once these modulation frequencies have been chosen, Loock measures the phase of the transmitted signal. All these phase shift cavity enhanced methods require the accurate measurement of a phase. Furthermore, all these methods require the choice of a modulation frequency that optimizes the sensitivity of the spectrometer. The sensitivity may degrade if large concentrations of an analyte are present, which would cause a significant change in τ such that the modulation frequency f was no longer about equal to 2π/τ. The calibration of the spectrometer depends on the calibration of the phase shift measurement. If the phase shift measurement is implemented by separate analog x and y demodulations, then gain errors between the x and y channels can introduce calibration errors. If the phase measurement is implemented by digital means, then digitization effects may limit the resolution with which the phase can be measured. For instance, the SR830 digital lock-in amplifier from Stanford Research has a phase resolution of 0.01 degrees. This is equivalent to a noise level of about 0.00017 of the detected light. This is one hundred times greater than the shot noise of a 100 nW optical signal in a 1 Hz bandwidth. Thus, detection with such a lock-in amplifier will not achieve the full theoretical precision. Furthermore, digital phase detection methods are difficult to apply at high frequencies associated with cavities that have short storage times.
The "NICE-OHMS" method is presented in Ye, J., et al., "Cavity-enhanced frequency modulation spectroscopy: advancing optical detection sensitivity and laser frequency stabilization", Optoelectronics and High-Power Lasers & Applications (pp. 85-96), International Society for Optics and Photonics (1998) and Ye, J., et al., "Using FM Methods with Molecules in a High Finesse Cavity: A Demonstrated Path to <10-12 Absorption Sensitivity", in ACS Symposium Series (Vol. 720, pp. 233-256), American Chemical Society (1999). The authors use modulation of the wavelength of the light source at a frequency that exactly matches the free spectral range of the cavity. The modulation frequency is therefore fixed. Power builds up in the cavity at the laser wavelength and at the sidebands that match cavity resonances. Under this condition, the amplitude of the light transmitted through the empty cavity is not modulated. When a wavelength-dependent absorption feature is present, it interacts more strongly with one of the sidebands, and this unbalances the transmitted power so that the light transmitted by the cavity is modulated. The information about the concentration of the absorbing species is carried by the amplitude of the modulation.
Many researchers have used modulation techniques to lock the wavelength or frequency of a laser to a particular cavity resonance. Typically, the wavelength of the light source is modulated by a small amount compared to the cavity width, and the light transmitted or reflected by the cavity is measured by lock-in demodulation. The wavelength of the laser or the length of the cavity is adjusted so that the cavity mode and the laser maintain an alignment in wavelength. In the work of Romanini, D., et al. "Optical—feedback cavity—enhanced absorption: a compact spectrometer for real-time measurement of atmospheric methane." Applied Physics B 83.4, 659-667 (2006), optical feedback from the cavity to a laser caused the laser to lock to a particular cavity mode by adjusting the laser frequency. In neither of these cases is the information about cavity losses encoded as a variable modulation frequency.
A number of researchers have used information about the phase and amplitude of spectroscopic signals to improve the spectrometer. U.S. Pat. No. 7,805,980 to Kosterev describes a photoacoustic gas analysis spectrometer in which a relatively high modulation frequency for the light source is chosen so that the time lag associated with conversion of the absorbed optical energy into an acoustic wave results in significant phase shift. The information about the concentration of the analyte is contained in the amplitude of the acoustic signal, while the phase of the signal at some pre-determined frequency confirms the identity of the analyte. When two analytes absorb light of the same wavelength, it is still possible to distinguish the concentrations of the two by choosing a detection phase that is orthogonal to the interfering analyte. U.S. Patent Publication No. 20110214479 to Kachanov discloses a photoacoustic gas detection apparatus that includes lock-in detection by multiplying a signal by a sine and cosine reference function that have a constant phase relative to a modulation function. The frequency of the modulation function is chosen to match the resonant condition that enhances the signal from the acoustic cavity-microphone system. The concentration information is derived from the amplitude of the detected signal. All these photoacoustic approaches require the measurement of the amplitude of a signal from a microphone to determine the concentration of a species in the spectrometer.
Other arguably related references in the field include U.S. Patent Publication No. 20130083328 to Koulikov, U.S. Pat. No. 6,924,898 to Deck, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,301,639 to Kebabian.

Frequency-feedback cavity enhanced spectrometer


This application discloses a display panel and a display device. The display panel includes a substrate, source driving chips, and gate chips. The source driving chip includes two sets of pins. The two sets of pins are respectively located on a first side and a second side of a same source driving chip. The gate chips are connected to different sets of pins.

Statements herein only provide background information related to this application, and do not necessarily constitute related art.
With the development and progress of science and technology, a liquid crystal display becomes a mainstream product of displays due to a thin body, power saving, and low radiation, etc. and is widely used. Most of the liquid crystal displays in the market are backlight liquid crystal displays and include a liquid crystal panel and a backlight module. A working principle of the liquid crystal panel is to place liquid crystal molecules between two parallel glass substrates, and apply a driving voltage on the two glass substrates to control a rotation direction of the liquid crystal molecules, to refract light from the backlight module to produce images.
A thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) gradually takes the leading position in the display field due to its low power consumption, excellent picture quality, and high production yield, etc. Similarly, the thin film transistor-liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal panel and a backlight module. The liquid crystal panel includes a color film substrate (CF Substrate, also called a color filter substrate), a thin film transistor substrate (TFT Substrate) and a mask, and there are transparent electrodes on relative inner sides of the substrates. A layer of liquid crystal molecules (LC) is sandwiched between the two substrates. The display causes poor bonding of a flexible printed circuit board, affecting a use effect of the display and view experience of people.


Apparatuses and methods for adjusting the track pitches of the tracks on a data storage tape. In one variation, the method comprises adjusting the observed pitch between the tracks by applying variable amounts of pressure on the surface of the tape. In another variation, the pressure is applied to a localized region on the tape. The pressure can be modulated to induces a change in the physical characteristic of the tape in and around the area where pressure is applied. In another aspect, an apparatus is configured with a magnetic read-head for detecting written tracks on a magnetic tape, and an actuator is provided to apply pressure on the tape to control the track pitch of the written tracks.

Magnetic tape servo tracking systems' accuracies continue to improve over time, where currently, the traditional servo error, PES (Position Error Signal), is no longer the most significant tracking error. Many tape servo and tracking technologies are able to demonstrate performance capability in the sub one micron for PES errors.
In examining the contribution of position errors to the total off-track budget, it is evident that core pitch and track pitch mismatch fast becoming the dominant limitation. Unfortunately, the pitch related errors are embedded into the multi-channel flexible tape's geometrical limitations, and it is well understood that traditional servo control have difficulties in correcting pitch related errors as caused by the read-head or media. For example, typical off-track component caused by pitch error is in the range of 1-2 microns, and pitch error is by far the largest component of off-track error in the next generation tape drives. While this error may be insignificant in a tape drive within an error budget in the range of 8-10 microns, the same error would be unacceptable for next generation products with much higher track density.
It is also important to note that advances in tape guide and improvements in servo technology as applied to current tape systems are fast approaching the point of diminishing return. For example, in a guiding and servo system that could reduce the position error by half, the benefit to the system is a little more than a fraction of a micron (e.g., 0.1-0.2), as only one core could benefit. However, the "mismatch" between the tape tracks and head cores is at least one order of magnitude higher. Therefore, in the next generation systems the track pitch error is a major limiting factor towards increasing track densities.
In a system with dedicated servo technologies that use "surrogate servo sensors", such as optical or magnetic heads, the accuracy is further limited by the system's inability to observe this mismatch as seen by the various data transducers or head cores. Therefore, only the static portion of the error could be corrected. The system would not be able to accommodate the dynamic changes in track pitches along the length of the tape.
In addition, it is well known in the tape industry that mismatch between the read-head (e.g., head cores, etc.) and the multiple data tracks written on a given tape can be a significant contributing cause of off-track error. Typically mismatch can be caused by two factors. First, when data is interchanged between two drives, the respective heads introduce core pitch mismatch between the two written data sets. With the advances of thin film head technology, mismatch has been reduced in comparison with traditional ferrite heads designs. However, at ultra high track densities, such as 10K TPI (Tracks Per Inch) and beyond, this mismatch becomes very significant. The second mismatch error contributor, which can occur even at lower TPI, is the differences in the expansion characteristic between the head and tape media due to environmental changes. The media can expand significantly due to thermal and/or hydroscopic variations.
Therefore, there is a need for methods and apparatuses that permit a magnetic tape drive to compensate for the dynamic changes in track pitches on the magnetic data storage tapes. In particular, the ability to adaptively modify track pitches of the magnetic tape to match the transducers on a magnetic read-head can enhance the performance of tape drives that utilize magnetic tapes with high track density.

Ultra high track density adaptive head core track pitch control


A hygiene assurance system utilizing a plurality of individual sensors having a correlating fixture or entrance, a camera for identifying the user and a plurality of visual and audible signals to ensure a user of a bathroom facility washes ones hands for at least 16 seconds to complete a satisfactory hand washing operation before leaving the area. Additionally the present invention provides sensors having individual controls for what predetermined parameters must be met to activate said sensor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a hygienic assurance system and, more specifically, to a room providing a standard bathroom facility having the addition of a plurality of sensors to control and initiate a plurality of visual and audible signals used to ensure and remind users to wash their hands along with recording and indicating means to enforce and identify users in violation of a required hygienic practice post operative of using said facilities.
Comprising the present invention are a plurality of sensors mounted to an entrance that is also monitored by a camera that relays to a second set of sensors that detect the usage of a toilet or urinal that then require a third set of sensors to be satisfied in the appropriate usage of a wand washing fixture to complete a required bathroom usage regiment.
If the user does not satisfy the predetermined hygiene requirements a plurality of visual and audible indicators are flashed or sounded to remind the user to meet hygiene requirements until they are met, in the case where the user ignores the presented protocol a recording means such as a camera or video recorder may be utilized along with sensor records to identify said user and provide evidence of disregard for hygiene procedure for later reprimanding of the user by the facilities owner or hygiene enforcer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are other hygiene systems designed for ensuring the washing of hands. Typical of these is U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,120 issued to O'Connell on Feb. 10, 1976.
Another patent was issued to Davies on Aug. 19, 1986 as U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,085. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,589 was issued to Evans et al. on Mar. 11, 1997 and still yet another was issued on Sep. 14, 1999 to Evens et al. as U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,924.
Another patent was issued to Cohen et al. on May 22, 2001 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,317. Yet another U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,193 was issued to Saraya on Feb. 25, 2003. Another was issued to Wildman et al. on Apr. 27, 2004 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,727,818 and still yet another was issued on Dec. 13, 2005 to as U.S. Pat. No. 6,975,231.
Another patent was issued to Jacques on Jun. 9, 1999 as European Patent No. EP0921506. Yet another PCT Patent No. WO0133529 was issued to Wildman on Oct. 30, 2000. Another was issued to Path-X international Inc. on Oct. 9, 2003 as PCT Patent No. WO03082351 and still yet another was issued on Jul. 22, 2005 to Rentikil International as Brittish. Patent No. GB2425388.

Hygienic assurance system for monitoring the hand washing of an individual


A centrifugal-pendulum vibration absorbing device comprising having a support member coupled to a rotary element that is rotated by power from a drive device, and a mass body coupled to the support member so as to swing about a pendulum fulcrum and rotate about a center of gravity. An order of vibration of the mass body is determined on the basis of an order of vibration to be damped generated by the drive device in consideration of at least a rotational angle of the mass body about the pendulum fulcrum and a rotational angle of the mass body about the center of gravity.

The present invention relates to a centrifugal-pendulum vibration absorbing device including a support member coupled to a rotary element that is rotated by power from a drive device and a mass body supported by the support member so as to be swingable, and to an order setting method for the centrifugal-pendulum vibration absorbing device.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Centrifugal-pendulum vibration absorbing device and order setting method for the same


Disclosed embodiments provide a luminaire device including a power supply, and a three-way light module installed within a housing. The device includes an input end which is connected to the power grid, and an output end is connected to a three-way LED light module through the power supply and a control module, and an LED driver. The group corresponds to the series connection current module. The device also includes a dimmer, the output of the dimmer is connected to the power input of the lamp, and the power output is passed through a signal detection unit. A centralized control unit such as a microcontroller receives the adjustable signal of the dimmer, and the controller controls the current modules of the 3 LED modules. This enabled the feature of precise adjustments of brightness and correlated color temperature (CCT) of the device.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting is currently available in a wide variety of home and industrial products. The rapid development of LED technology leads to more products and improved manufacturing efficiency, which also results in lower prices. The reduced power requirements as compared with incandescent lighting enables portable lighting applications such as flashlights, vehicle lights, and more.
Color temperature defines the color appearance of a white LED. CCT is defined in degrees Kelvin; a warm light is around 2700K, moving to neutral white at around 4000K, and to cool white, at 5000K or more. Since it is a single number, CCT is simpler to communicate than chromaticity or SPD, leading the lighting industry to accept CCT as a shorthand means of reporting the color appearance of "white" light emitted from electric light sources.
Lighting plays an important role in the design and usability of interior spaces. Different situations may call for different lighting conditions. For example. the ideal lighting for use while preparing a meal in the kitchen may be different from the ideal lighting for watching a movie after dinner. It is therefore desirable to have improvements in lighting control.

3-way dimming brightness and color temperature control


A method and apparatus of detecting a rogue optical network unit (ONU) is provided. An optical line terminal (OLT) detects an abnormal upstream transmission to determine a plurality of rogue ONU candidates, and transmits a sleep allow message instructing a transition to a sleep mode to each of the plurality of rogue ONU candidates. The OLT detects the rogue ONU among the plurality of rogue ONU candidates based on upstream transmissions from the plurality of rogue ONU candidates in the sleep mode. Since the detection of the rogue ONU is performed in the sleep mode, the remaining ONUs can transition from the sleep mode to the normal mode after the detection of the rogue ONU is completed, thereby making it possible to rapidly resume upstream communication.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical network, and more particularly, to a method of detecting a rogue ONU, and an OLT and PON system using the same.
2. Related Art
A cable, a fiber optic, and a broadband connecting technology such as wireless have been widely distributed. In a communication network between a subscriber and a service provider, it is difficult to provide reliable high-quality voice/video services.
A passive optical network (PON) system connects an optical network unit (ONU) and an optical line terminal (OLT) through an optical line in a point-to-multipoint connection manner.
The OLT, which is a source of the PON, is disposed in a central office of a service provider. Downstream from the OLT is transmitted to a plurality of ONUs.
The PON system uses time division multiplexing in order to transmit upstream from the ONU to the OLT. Each ONU transmits the upstream only within a defined time interval according to upstream bandwidth allocation transmitted by the OLT.
When the ONU terminal of any terminals does not transmit upstream according to the upstream bandwidth allocation within a specific time interval, the ONU terminal of other subscribers cannot normally communicate with the OLT. In this case, in order to search the malfunctioning subscriber ONU terminal, there is a problem of searching subscriber terminals distributed within several tens of kilometers one by one.
Further, an optical power splitter disposed in a remote node is a passive device equally dividing the optical power by the number of ports, which cannot serve to intercept abnormal upstream transmission.
The rogue ONU implies an ONU that hinders the upstream communication of other normal ONUs by not transmitting upstream within a specific time interval according to the upstream bandwidth allocation information transmitted by the OLT, as described above. Physically, the rogue ONU implies an ONU that does not turn-off transmission laser of an optical transceiver of the ONU according to the upstream bandwidth allocation information.
The ONU should transmit upstream only within the time interval allocated to the ONU. The rogue ONU may deteriorate services of the normal ONUs. Therefore, the detection of a rogue ONU is one of the important issues in the PON system.
Disclosed are various methods in order to detect the rogue ONU. There is proposed a method of detecting the received optical signals by adding a hardware device to a receiving end of the optical transceiver of the OLT. As another example, there is proposed a method of sequentially disabling an operation of the rogue ONU candidates in a software manner. However, according to these methods, it takes much time to detect the rogue ONU. In addition, after the detection of the rogue ONU is completed, it takes much time to return normal ONUs to normal operation.

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


Controlled access to enterprise services is provided for a mobile device in a communication system, via a mobile gateway having a first server and a second server. The first server of the gateway is arranged behind a firewall of the enterprise network and is coupled between the second server and one or more enterprise servers of the enterprise network. The second server is arranged in front of the enterprise firewall and is configured for communication with an operator network associated with the mobile device. The gateway controls interaction between the mobile device and the one or more enterprise servers such that access to one or more associated enterprise services is provided in a secure manner.

Recent advances in wireless technologies and enterprise networks have made it increasingly desirable to provide secure remote access to enterprise services, such as e-mail, voice mail, web access, and presence-based services, to users who may be traveling, telecommuting or otherwise in a location remote from the enterprise itself. For example, such users will generally want to be able to access an enterprise e-mail server or voice messaging system (VMS) from a mobile device, such as a mobile telephone or personal digital assistant (PDA). It is apparent that substantial improvements in productivity can be achieved by extending enterprise services to the mobile environment, at least in part through more efficient communication and collaboration among teams, groups and organizations.
Unfortunately, conventional techniques have been unable to provide desired levels of security and efficiency for remote access to enterprise services. For example, mobile network operators currently allow corporate clients to access certain corporate services, such as e-mail and voice mail, through mobile telephones. However, these and other conventional arrangements are unduly limited in terms of the particular enterprise services, device configurations, communication protocols and access mechanisms that can be supported, and in certain cases may provide a level of security that is completely inadequate for communication of highly confidential business information.
Accordingly, a need exists for solutions that allow enterprises to extend customized services to a wide array of different types of mobile devices while maintaining full control over access to their networks.

Mobile gateway for secure extension of enterprise services to mobile devices


The amplifier circuit includes at least one amplification branch having an input transistor, an output transistor, having a source terminal connected to the input terminal and a drain terminal connected to a first output terminal, and a gain raising stage, having an input and an output connected to the source terminal and, respectively, to a gate terminal of the output transistor. The amplifier circuit includes, moreover, a compensation capacitor connected between the gate terminal and the drain terminal of the output transistor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a class AB operational amplifier having high gain and low settling time.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is known, speed and accuracy are requirements of primary importance in a great number of analogue electronic circuits, but the optimization of both is difficult, as contrasting needs must be satisfied. In fact, in application such as, for example, switched capacitors circuits, samplers and analogue-to-digital converters of algorithmic, sigma-delta or pipeline type, speed and accuracy depend on the behavior in transient state of the operational amplifiers. In particular, speed requires both a high cutoff frequency and substantially a single pole behavior, whereas it is necessary to increase the DC gain to improve accuracy. The need to raise the cutoff frequency leads to design single-stage amplifiers, preferably implemented with short channel MOS transistors with high bias currents; on the contrary, to obtain a high DC gain it is preferable to use multistage amplifiers, having long channel MOS transistor with low bias currents.
A number of solutions have been proposed to overcome these problems, such as the use of double or triple xe2x80x9ccascodexe2x80x9d stages, for example. However, although the double xe2x80x9ccascodexe2x80x9d stages do not impair high frequency performances, they do not allow sufficiently high DC gain values to be reached; triple xe2x80x9ccascodexe2x80x9d stages, on the other hand, allow a satisfactory gain to be obtained, but they considerably limit both the phase margin and the output dynamics of the operational amplifiers, so they can be used only in a limited field of applications.
Alternatively, transconductance stages can be dynamically biased, by reducing the bias currents according to time. In this case, however, the settling is very slow, so that these circuits are not suitable for use in high frequency applications.
A third solution has been proposed in xe2x80x9cA Fast Settling CMOS Op Amp for SC Circuits with 90-dB DC Gainxe2x80x9d, by K. Bult and G. J. G. M. Geelen, IEEE Journal of Solid-State circuitsxe2x80x9d, Vol. 25, N. 6, pages 1379-1384. In this case, in a xe2x80x9ccascodexe2x80x9d stage, gain raising stages are used to increase the overall gain of the operational amplifier up to quite high levels (about 90 dB), guaranteeing a high cutoff frequency. However, a drawback of this solution is that a pole-zero doublet is added in the operational amplifier bandwidth. As is known, the time constant of the pole-zero doublet must be lower than the dominant time constant, which determines the cutoff frequency, otherwise the frequency performances may be significantly deteriorated. This limitation is disadvantageous especially when the circuit comprises numerous operational amplifiers, having different working conditions (for example different capacitive and/or resistive loads). In this case, in fact, in order to ensure that in each operational amplifier the time constant of the pole-zero doublet is smaller than the respective dominant time constant, conditions must be imposed which may cause the settling times of the operational amplifiers themselves not to be uniform. Consequently, non linear phenomena may occur which, for example in the case of analogue-to-digital converters of sigma-delta type, can adversely affect the accuracy of the whole device.
The present invention provides an operational amplifier having improved gain with respect to frequency and improved response time with respect to input stimulus.
According to an embodiment of the present invention a class AB operational amplifier having high gain and low settling time is provided by an amplification branch; an input transistor; an output transistor having a source terminal connected to the input transistor and a drain terminal connected to a first output terminal; and a gain raising stage having an input and an output connected to the source terminal and, respectively, to a gate terminal of the output transistor; wherein the gain raising stage includes at least one compensation capacitor connected between the gate terminal and the drain terminal of the output transistor.

Class AB operational amplifier having high gain and low settling time


A knit garment blank includes a tubular body portion having a first section knit with desired stitches and second sections knit with yarn from selected spaced courses of the first section, for example, such as every fourth course. In each second section, selected spaced courses continuing from the first section are looped through other selected spaced courses. At a given course during knitting, needles knitting the front of the first section and the second sections are pressed off and a plurality of courses appending from the remaining stitches of the course forms a rear panel. A brief is formed by cutting away selected portions of the blank to define leg openings and sewing a crotch piece to the body and the rear panel.

Garments such as briefs or panties have been made by knitting a tubular blank on a circular knitting machine and cutting out areas on opposite sides that form leg openings when the front and rear ends of the blank are sewn together. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,115, guide lines for the cutting operation may be formed in the blank by a distinctive stitch such as a tuck stitch in a jersey knit or by knitting the entire area to be cut out with a distinctive stitch so that the line of demarcation between it and the rest of the blank serves as a cutting guide. It is estimated that this process wastes about 20% of the yarn depending on the particular design of the brief or panty. In the highly competitive garment industry this amount of waste is very significant.
In my patent application bearing the same title as this application and filed concurrently herewith, a blank is described that eliminates much of the waste yarn. A tubular body is knit with 360.degree. courses down to a given course in which a majority of the needles are pressed off and the remaining needles continue to knit so as to form a rear panel for the brief. Notches are cut in either side of the body from the course that is pressed off, and the rear panel is also cut to shape. A brief or panty is made by sewing one end of a crotch piece to the rear panel and sewing the other end to the central portion of the tubular body so as to form leg openings on either side that can be trimmed in any desired manner.
In an application by Michael J. Bolin, entitled: "Garment Blank With Special Disposable Section" that is filed concurrently herewith, a tubular blank is provided with a first section that is to be used in the garment and second sections in the form of notches on opposite sides of the blank that are to be cut out so as to form leg openings when the front and rear ends of the blank between the notches are sewn together. The second sections are knit with yarn from spaced courses to that its area is a fraction of what it would be if it were knit with yarn from all courses, thereby reducing the amount of yarn that is wasted. At the same time, however, the second sections prevent the first section from curling and thereby interfering with cutting along specially provided nearby guidelines and sewing trimming to the edge thus formed.


Disclosed is an improved approach to implement virtualization objects in a virtualization system. The virtualization object from a first namespace is cloned as a snapshot that is accessible within a second namespace. To implement this, the virtualization object can be mounted as a target (implemented as a snapshot) that is locally accessible to the host.

A "virtual machine" or a "VM" refers to a specific software-based implementation of a machine in a virtualization environment, in which the hardware resources of a real computer (e.g., CPU, memory, etc.) are virtualized or transformed into the underlying support for the fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications on the underlying physical resources just like a real computer.
Virtualization works by inserting a thin layer of software directly on the computer hardware or on a host operating system. This layer of software contains a virtual machine monitor or "hypervisor" that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently. Multiple operating systems run concurrently on a single physical computer and share hardware resources with each other. By encapsulating an entire machine, including CPU, memory, operating system, and network devices, a virtual machine is completely compatible with most standard operating systems, applications, and device drivers. Most modern implementations allow several operating systems and applications to safely run at the same time on a single computer, with each having access to the resources it needs when it needs them.
Virtualization allows one to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine, with each virtual machine sharing the resources of that one physical computer across multiple environments. Different virtual machines can run different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical computer.
One reason for the broad adoption of virtualization in modern business and computing environments is because of the resource utilization advantages provided by virtual machines. Without virtualization, if a physical machine is limited to a single dedicated operating system, then during periods of inactivity by the dedicated operating system the physical machine is not utilized to perform useful work. This is wasteful and inefficient if there are users on other physical machines which are currently waiting for computing resources. To address this problem, virtualization allows multiple VMs to share the underlying physical resources so that during periods of inactivity by one VM, other VMs can take advantage of the resource availability to process workloads. This can produce great efficiencies for the utilization of physical devices, and can result in reduced redundancies and better resource cost management.
Many types of objects may be employed to implement a virtualization system. An "image" is a special type of object that that includes components of a virtual machine that is intended to run in the virtualization environment. The image is often maintained as a file, which includes a copy of the operating system, desktop, applications, and/or other components for the execution environment for a running VM. The VM would essentially use the image to "boot up" within the virtualization system. For example, an Windows 7 image can be maintained that correspond to the Windows 7 operating environment, where the image also includes a set of designated applications to run in that Windows 7 operating environment. In operation, that image can be used to boot up a new VM to allow a user to run a virtual Windows 7 desktop in the virtualization system.
FIG. 1A illustrates one possible approach that can be taken to implement images for virtualization. In this approach, an image repository 104 is employed to hold image objects, such as object 108a. A host 110 may include a hypervisor 130 and a host storage device 106. Assume that there is a desire to a start a VM 102 at host 110 using image object 108a from the repository 104. This can be implemented by copying the image object 108a from repository 104 into the storage device 106 that is local to host 110. By creating a full copy 108b of the image object 108a at the host 110, this allows the host 110 to boot the VM 102 with a local copy 108b of the image object 108a that is locally accessible to the host 110.
However, there are numerous possible downsides associated with this approach. One source of inefficiency is that the entirety of the image needs to be copied from the image repository to the host. This can result in the consumption of an inordinate amount of storage space at the host, particularly if there are a large number of images that need to be copied and/or if the images have large file sizes. Furthermore, a significant amount of time and computing expense may need to be incurred to perform the copy operation that makes the local copy of the image at the local host.
Therefore, there is a need for a more efficient approach to implement virtualization objects, such as image files, that are stored in a remote repository.

Method and system for implementing virtual machine images