A method and a device for encoding a high frequency signal, and a method and a device for decoding a high frequency signal are provided, which relate to encoding and decoding technology. The method for encoding a high frequency signal includes: determining a signal type of a high frequency signal of a current frame; smoothing and scaling time envelopes of the high frequency signal of the current frame and obtaining time envelopes of the high frequency signal of the current frame that require to be encoded, if the high frequency signal of the current frame is a non-transient signal and a high frequency signal of the previous frame is a transient signal; and quantizing and encoding the time envelopes of the high frequency signal of the current frame that require to be encoded, and frequency information and signal type information of the high frequency signal of the current frame.

In a speech and audio encoding algorithm, due to the limitation of the bit rate and the characteristics of the hearing sense of human beings, low frequency signals are normally encoded with priority, whereas high frequency signals are sometimes discarded. With the development of communication network, the limitations of bandwidth become less severe, so that higher requirements on tone quality can be met. The tone quality of signals can be well improved by increasing signal bandwidth, that is, by restoring the high frequency signals. When no bit or only a few bits are available, a bandwidth expansion technique is used. The bandwidth expansion technique is a technique of expanding the speech and audio signal bandwidth range to improve the signal quality. In recent years, the bandwidth expansion technique has been developed quickly, and it is commercially applied in some fields. The bandwidth expansion algorithm in G.729.1 and the Spectral Band Replication (SBR) in the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) are two bandwidth expansion algorithms that are extensively used in speech and audio compression presently.
The high frequency signals can be classified into transient signals and non-transient signals. A transient signal is a signal whose energy level has large instant changes in the time domain. In an existing method for encoding high frequency signals, when a high frequency signal is encoded, a transient signal and a non-transient signal can be encoded in different manners. But due to the development of the time-frequency transformation technique, the method for encoding a high frequency signal may no longer be compatible with the current time-frequency transformation technique. Therefore, the existing method for encoding a high frequency signal may degrade the performance of transient signals.
In an existing method for decoding a high frequency signal, a high frequency excitation spectrum is normalized according a calculated length of a frequency envelope. As a result, the deviation of the characteristics of the restored high frequency signal from the characteristics of the actual high frequency signal can be very large.

Method and device for encoding a high frequency signal, and method and device for decoding a high frequency signal


A methodology is described to reduce the complexity of filters for face recognition by reducing the memory requirement to, for example, 2 bits/pixel in the frequency domain. Reduced-complexity correlations are achieved by having quantized MACE, UMACE, OTSDF, UOTSDF, MACH, and other filters, in conjunction with a quantized Fourier transform of the input image. This reduces complexity in comparison to the advanced correlation filters using full-phase correlation. However, the verification performance of the reduced complexity filters is comparable to that of full-complexity filters. A special case of using 4-phases to represent both the filter and training/test images in the Fourier domain leads to further reductions in the computational formulations. This also enables the storage and synthesis of filters in limited-memory and limited-computational power platforms such as PDAs, cell phones, etc. An online training algorithm implemented on a face verification system is described for synthesizing correlation filters to handle pose/scale variations. A way to perform efficient face localization is also discussed. Because of the rules governing abstracts, this abstract should not be used to construe the claims.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure generally relates to image pattern recognition for use in various applications including automatic target recognition, face recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition, among others and, more particularly, to image pattern recognition using correlation filters.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
Ever since the advent of the optical frequency plane correlator or correlation filter (A. VanderLugt, IEEE Trans. Inf. Th., 10 (1964) 139), there has been considerable interest in using correlators for pattern recognition. Correlators are shift-invariant filters (i.e., no need to center the input face image during testing), which allow one to locate the object of interest in the input scene merely by locating the correlation peak. Thus, one may not need to segment or register an object in the input scene prior to correlation, as is required in many other image pattern recognition methods. Much of the earlier work in correlation-based pattern recognition was devoted to recognizing military vehicles in scenes. Correlators (or more correctly, correlation filters) can be used for recognition of other patterns such as fingerprints, face images, etc. Authenticating the identity of a user based on their biometrics (e.g., face, iris, fingerprint, voice, etc.) is a growing research topic with wide range of applications in e-commerce, computer security and consumer electronics. In authentication (also termed "verification"), a stored biometric is compared to a live biometric to determine if the live biometric is that of an authorized user or not. There is a wide range of computing platforms that can be used to host biometric authentication systems. With current desktop computing power, researchers may not have to worry about the complexity of the algorithms; however, embedding such verification modules in small form factor devices such as cell phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) is a challenge as these platforms are limited by their memory and computing power. In applications where these filters are stored directly on a chip (such as in system-on-chip implementations), the memory available may be limited. Therefore, it is desirable to devise correlation filters with reduced memory requirements.
The matched spatial filter (D. O. North, Proc. IEEE, 51 (1963) 1016) (MSF) is based on a single view of the target and is optimal (in the sense of yielding maximal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)) for detecting a completely known pattern in the presence of additive, white noise (noise with equal power at all frequencies). Unfortunately, MSFs are not suitable for practical pattern recognition because their correlation peak degrades rapidly when the input patterns deviate (sometimes even slightly) from the reference. These variations in the patterns are often due to common phenomena such as pose, illumination and scale changes. In optical implementations, the Matched Spatial Filter (MSF) is represented by a transparency, thus the transmittance of the filter is less than or equal to 1 at all spatial frequencies. This causes much of the incoming light to be attenuated causing low levels of light for the detector in the correlation plane. To address this issue, Homer and Gianino (J. L. Homer, and P. D. Gianino, Appl. Opt. 23, 812-816, 1984) suggested setting the filter magnitude to 1 at all frequencies. Thus the resulting filter contains only phase information and is known as the Phase-Only Filter (POF). POF has 100% light throughput efficiency.
In optical correlators, matched filters are represented on spatial light modulators (SLMs) which convert electrical inputs to optical properties such as transmittance and reflectance. Examples of SLMs are magneto-optic SLM (MOSLM) and liquid crystal display (LCD). The magneto-optic SLM can be operated in two levels of effective transmittance and to accommodate the limitations of the magneto-optic SLM, Psaltis et al. (D. Psaltis, E. G. Paek, and S. S. Venkatesh, Opt. Eng, 23, 698-704, 1984), and Homer and others (J. L. Homer and H. O. Bartlett, Appl. Opt. 24, 2889-2893, 1985, J. L. Homer and J. R. Leger, Appl. Opt. 24, 609-611, 1985), suggested the use of Binary Phase Only Filters (BPOF) which only use two levels in the filter. Psaltis et al. supra, suggested binarizing the real part of the matched spatial filter, while Homer and others, supra, suggested the binarization of the imaginary part of the matched spatial filter. Later, Cottrell et al. (D. M. Cottrell, R. A. Lilly, J. A. Davis, and T. Day, Appl. Opt. 26, 3755-3761, 1987) proposed the binarizing of the sum of the real and imaginary parts of the matched spatial filter. The main attribute of the BPOFs is that they are well suited for implementation on a binary SLM such as the magneto-optic SLM and were not designed specifically for digital implementations.
Dickey and Hansche (F. M. Dickey, and B. D. Hansche, Appl. Opt. 28, 1611-1613, 1989) extended the BPOF idea to the Quad-Phase Only Filters (QPOFs), that have 4 possible phase levels (namely ±π/4, ±3π/4) which could be implemented using two MOSLMs (each capable of providing only 2 phase levels) to effectively obtain the 4 phases needed in a QPOF. QPOFs are all-pass filters and they are based on a single image. A QPOF is an all-pass filter and has no ability to suppress noise. An effort to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the QPOF led to the development of the complex ternary matched filter (CTMF) defined below (F. M. Dickey, B. V. K. Vijaya Kumar, L. A. Romero, and J. M. Connely, Opt. Eng. 29, 994-1001,1990).HCTMF(u,v)=HR(u,v)+jHI(u,v)  (1)where HR (u,v), the real part of the filter transfer function HCTMF and HI (u,v), the imaginary part of HCTMF take on 3 levels (namely −1, 0 and +1) at each frequency (u,v).
However all the above filters are made from a single reference image and thus are sensitive to any distortions from this reference image. One approach to overcoming the distortion sensitivity of the MSF is to use one MSF for every view. However, this leads to the requirement to store and use a large number of filters that make this approach impractical. The alternative is to design composite filters that can exhibit better distortion tolerance than the MSFs. Composite filters (also known as Synthetic Discriminant Function or SDF filters)(C. F. Hester and D. Casasent, Appl. Opt., 19 (1980) 1758; B. V. K. Vijaya Kumar, Appl. Opt., 31 (1992) 4773) use a set of training images to synthesize a template that yields pre-specified correlation outputs in response to training images.
If matched filters are used, many filters would be needed, approximately one filter for each view. When one thinks of possible distortions (e.g., illuminations, expressions, pose changes, etc.), this is clearly too many filters to store and use. Therefore, Hester and Casasent, supra, introduced the concept of SDF filters in 1980. The first SDF filter required that the associated composite template be a weighted sum of training images with the weights chosen so that resulting correlation output values at the origin take on pre-specified (non-zero) values. This filter proved to be unattractive as it almost always led to sidelobes that are much larger than the correlation "peak" (the correlation value at the origin is loosely referred to herein as the correlation peak). Kumar (B. V. K. Vijaya Kumar, JOSA-A, 3 (1986) 1579) introduced the minimum variance SDF (MVSDF) formulation that minimized the output noise variance from the SDF filters. The sidelobe problem was addressed by the minimum average correlation energy (MACE) filters introduced by Mahalanobis et al. (A. Mahalanobis et al., Appl. Opt., 26 (1987) 3633). Refregier (Ph. Refregier, Opt. Lett., 16 (1991) 829) showed how to optimally trade off the noise tolerance and peak sharpness attributes of correlation filters. These and many other SDF filter developments were summarized in the tutorial review paper by Kumar (B. V. K. Vijaya Kumar, Appl. Opt., 31 (1992) 4773).
Correlation filters offer several advantages including shift-invariance (i.e., no need to center the input face image during testing), closed-form solutions, graceful degradation (i.e., loss of parts of input image results in slow loss of correlation peak) and ability to design built-in tolerance to normal impairments such as expression, illumination and pose changes. Correlation filters have been used widely in the areas of signal detection and automatic target recognition. As noted before, the matched filter is known to be optimal for detecting a known signal or image in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). When the noisy reference image or signal is input to the matched filter, its output is the cross correlation of the noisy input image with the reference image. If the noisy input contains a replica of the reference, the correlation output will have a large value (the "correlation peak") at a location corresponding to the location of the reference image in the input scene and small values elsewhere. The value of the correlation peak is a measure of the likelihood that the input scene contains the reference image and the location of the peak provides the location of the reference image in the input scene. Thus, matched filters are well suited for both detecting the presence of a reference image in a noisy input scene as well as locating it. However, as noted before, matched filters suffer from the problem that the correlation peak degrades significantly when the target object exhibits appearance changes due to normal factors such as illumination changes, pose variations, facial expressions, etc. Therefore, it is desirable to devise filters that are tolerant to such variability.
There are two main stages in correlation-based pattern recognition. First is the correlation filter design (also called "the enrollment stage") and the second is the use of the correlation filters (also called "the verification stage"). This correlation-based pattern recognition process is shown schematically in FIG. 1.
In the first stage (the enrollment or training stage), training images are used to design the correlation filter. The training images reflect the expected variability in the final image to be verified. For example, in designing a correlation filter for verifying the face of a person A, the person A's face images with a few expected variations (e.g., pose, expression, illumination) are acquired during the enrollment stage. These images are used to construct a correlation filter according to a carefully chosen performance metric and rigorously derived closed-form expressions. Most advanced correlation filter designs are in frequency domain. Thus, the training images are used to construct one or a few frequency-domain arrays (loosely called correlation "filters" or "templates") that are stored in the system. Once the filters are computed, the filter arrays are stored and there is no need to store the training images. The authentication performance of the system depends critically on these stored filters. They must be designed to produce large peaks in response to images (many not seen during training) of the authentic user, small values in response to face images of impostors, and be tolerant to noise in the input images. As some of these goals are conflicting, optimal tradeoffs may be devised.
In the second stage, the input test image (e.g., someone's face image) is presented for verification and/or identification. In verification problems, the user claims his/her identity and the task is to compare the input image to the claimed identity and decide whether they match or not. In the identification problem, the user input is matched against a database of stored images (or equivalently, filters) to see which stored template best matches the input image. In either case, the 2-D (two dimensional) fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the test input is first computed and then multiplied by the stored templates (i.e., filter arrays). Thereafter, an inverse FFT (IFFT) of that product is performed to obtain the correlation output. If the input matches the template/filter, a sharply-peaked correlation output is obtained as in FIG. 2A, and when the two do not match, a correlation output with less sharp peaks as in FIG. 2B is obtained. Thus, one can use sharpness of the correlation peak for verification or identification—sharp correlation peaks relate to the images from the authentic, whereas no large discernible peaks result from face images from impostors. It is noted here that those skilled in the art would recognize that FFT is an efficient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and, hence, the phrases "discrete Fourier transform" or "DFT" and "fast Fourier transform" or "FFT" are used interchangeably herein.
The following figure of merit, known as the peak-to-sidelobe ratio (PSR), is usually employed to measure the peak sharpness: First, the peak (i.e., the largest value) is located in the correlation output, and a small (e.g., of size 5×5) mask is centered at the peak. The sidelobe region is defined as the annular region between this small mask and a larger (e.g., of size 20×20) square also centered at the origin. The annular region may be rectangular or square or in any other suitable polygonal shape. The mean and standard deviation ("σ") of the sidelobe region are computed and used to estimate the PSR using Eq. (2). PSR estimation is depicted pictorially in FIG. 3.
                    PSR        =                              peak            -            mean                    σ                                    (        2        )            The small mask size and the larger square sizes are somewhat arbitrary and are usually decided through numerical experiments. The basic goal is to be able to estimate the mean and the standard deviation of the correlation output near the correlation peak, but excluding the area close to the peak. The PSR is unaffected by any uniform illumination change in the input image. Thus, for example, if the input image is multiplied by a constant "k" (e.g., uniform illumination), the resulting correlation output will also be multiplied by the same factor. Thus, peak, mean and standard deviation all increase by "k", making the PSR invariant to "k." This can be useful in image problems where brightness variations are present. The PSR also takes into account multiple correlation points in the output plane (not just the peak), and thus it can be considered to lead to a more reliable decision. In order for a test image to be declared to belong to the trained class, the correlation peak should not only be large, but the neighboring correlation values should be small. Thus, the final verification decision is based on examining the outputs of many inner products (correlation region around the peak), rather than just one inner product (the correlation peak value.
In the discussion below, 1-D (one dimensional) notation is used for convenience, but all equations can easily be generalized to higher dimensions. Let f1(n), f2(n), . . . , fN(n) denote the training images (each with L pixels) from the authentic class, and let F1(k), F2(k), . . . , FN(k) denote their Fourier transforms. Let H(k) denote the filter. Then the correlation output ci(n) when the input image is fi(n) is given as follows. Note that j=√{square root over (−1)}.
                                          c            i                                          (            n            )                          =                              1            L                                                        ∑                              k                =                1                            L                                                                                F                  i                  *                                                                  (                  k                  )                                                                          H                                                  (                  k                  )                                                                          exp                                                  [                                                            +                      j                                                                                2                                                π                                                                                (                                                      k                            -                            1                                                    )                                                                        n                                            L                                                        ]                                                                                (        3        )
In 2-D, let g(m,n) denote the correlation surface produced by the template h(m,n) in response to the input image f(m,n). Strictly speaking, the entire correlation surface g(m,n) is the output of the filter. However, the point g(0,0) is often referred to as "the correlation output or the correlation peak at the origin". By maximizing the correlation output at the origin, the real peak may be forced to be even larger. With this interpretation, the correlation peak is given by
                              g                                (                          0              ,              0                        )                          =                              ∑                          ∑                                                f                                                        (                                          m                      ,                      n                                        )                                                                                h                                                        (                                          m                      ,                      n                                        )                                                                                =                                    f              T                                    h                                              (        4        )            where superscript T denotes the vector transpose and where f and h are the column vector versions of f(m,n) and h(m,n), respectively. In the discussion hereinbelow, matrices will be represented by upper case bold letters and vectors are by lower case bold letters.
Composite filters are derived from several training images that are representative views of the object or pattern to be recognized. In principle, such filters can be trained to recognize any object or type of distortion as long as the distortion can be adequately represented by the training images. The objective of a composite filter is to be able to recognize the objects from one class (even non-training images), while being able to reject objects from other classes. The optimization of carefully designed performance criteria offers a methodical approach for achieving this objective.
In the early SDF filter designs, the filter was designed to yield a specific value at the origin of the correlation plane in response to each training image. The hope was that such a controlled value would also be the peak in correlation plane. It was further theorized that the resulting filter would be able to interpolate between the training images to yield comparable output values in response to other (non-training) images from the same class. A set of linear equations describing the constraints on the correlation peaks can be written asX+h=u  (5)where h is the filter vector, superscript "+" (in X+) denotes the conjugate transpose, X=[x1 x2 . . . xN] is an L×N matrix with the N training image Fourier transform vectors (each with L elements, where L is the number of pixels in the image) as its columns, and u=[u1 u2 . . . uN]T is an N×1 column vector containing the desired peak values for the N training images. For training images from the desired class (also known as the true class), the constraint vales are usually set to 1 and for images from the reject class (also known as the false class), they are usually set to 0.
However, because the number of training images N is generally much fewer than the dimension L (i.e., the number of frequencies) of the filters, the system of linear equations in Eq. (5) is under-determined. By requiring that h is a linear combination of the training images, one can obtain a unique solution known as the equal correlation peak SDF (ECP-SDF).
The ECP-SDF suffers from the problem of large sidelobes. In practice, it is important to ensure that the correlation peak is sharp and that sidelobes are suppressed. One way to achieve this is to minimize the energy in the correlation plane. The minimum average correlation energy (MACE) filter minimizes the average correlation energy (ACE) defined below in Eq. (6) while satisfying the correlation peak constraints in Eq. (5).
                              E          ave                =                                            1              N                                                                  ∑                                  i                  =                  1                                N                                                                            ∑                  k                                                                                ∑                    l                                                                                                                                  H                                                                                (                                                          k                              ,                              l                                                        )                                                                                                                      2                                                                                                                                                              X                            i                                                                                (                                                          k                              ,                              l                                                        )                                                                                                                      2                                                                                =                                    h              +                                    Dh                                              (        6        )            where D is a diagonal matrix containing the average training image power spectrum along its diagonal. This leads to the closed form solution of the MACE filter shown in Eq. (7).h=D−1X(X+D−1X)−1u  (7)In the above equations, input images, frequency domain arrays and correlation outputs are assumed to be of size d×d and "N" is the number of training images. Further, h is a d2×1 column vector containing the 2-D correlation filter H(k,l) lexicographically reordered to 1-D, u is a column vector, and X is a d2×N complex matrix whose ith column contains the 2-D Fourier transform of the ith training image lexicographically reordered into a column vector. As is known in the art, in lexicographical reordering, an image is reordered by scanning it row-by-row and placing all the scanned elements in a vector (e.g., a column vector).
MACE filters have been shown to generally produce sharp correlation peaks. They are the first set of filters that attempted to control the entire correlation plane. However, MACE filters suffer from two main drawbacks. First, there is no built-in immunity to noise. Second, the MACE filters are often excessively sensitive to intra-class variations.
The minimum variance synthetic discriminant function (MVSDF) was developed to address the noise tolerance issue. Here, the filter h was designed to minimize the effect of additive noise on the correlation output. Let the noise be of zero mean and let C be the diagonal noise power spectral density (PSD) matrix in that the PSD of the noise is represented along the diagonal of C. Then the output noise variance (ONV) can be shown to be σ2=hTCh. The MVSDF minimizes σ2 while satisfying the conditions in Eq. (5). Here, C is a d2×d2 diagonal matrix whose diagonal elements C(k,k) represent the noise power spectral density at frequency k. Minimizing ONV (σ2) subject to the usual linear constraints of Eq. (5) leads to the following closed form solution:h=C−1X(X+C−1X)−1u  (8)The ECP-SDF is a special case of MVSDF in that it is obtained if the noise is white, i.e., if C is equal to I, the identity matrix, then the MVSDF is same as the ECP SDF.
The MACE filter yields sharp peaks that are easy to detect while the MVSDF is designed to be more robust to noise. Since both attributes (namely, sharp peaks and noise tolerance) are desirable in practice, it is desirable to formulate a filter that possesses the ability to produce sharp peaks and behaves robustly in the presence of noise. Refregier, supra, showed that one can optimally trade off between these two metrics (i.e., ONV and ACE). The resulting filter, named the Optimal Trade-off SDF (OTSDF) is given ash=T−1X(X+T−1X)−1u  (9)where T=(αD+√{square root over (1−α2)}C), and 1≧α≧0. It is noted here that when α=1, the optimal tradeoff filter reduces to the MACE filter given in equation (7), and when α=0, it simplifies to the noise-tolerant filter in equation (8).
The ECP-SDF filter and its variants such as MVSDF filter and MACE filter assume that the distortion tolerance of a filter could be controlled by explicitly specifying desired correlation peak values for training images. The hard constraints in Eq. (5) may be removed because non-training images always yield different values than those specified for the training images and no formal relation appears to exist between the constraints imposed on the filter output and its ability to tolerate distortions. In fact, it is unclear that even intuitively satisfying choices of constraints (such as the Equal Correlation Peak (ECP) condition) have any significant positive impact on a filter's performance. Finally, relaxing or removing the hard constraints should increase the domain of solutions.
Removing the hard constraints in Eq. (5) led to the introduction of the unconstrained MACE (UMACE) filter (A. Mahalanobis, B. V. K. Vijaya Kumar, S. R. F. Sims and J. F. Epperson, Appl. Opt.,33, 3751-3759,1994). Instead of constraining the peak value at the origin of the correlation output to take on a specific value, UMACE tries to maximize the peak at the origin while minimizing the average correlation energy resulting from the cross-correlation of the training images. This is done by optimizing the metric J(h) in Eq. (10).
                              J                                (            h            )                          =                                            h              +                                                  mm              +                                    h                                              h              +                                    Dh                                              (        10        )            which leads to the closed form solution in Eq. (11) for the UMACE filter.h=D−1m  (11)In equations (10) and (11), D is a diagonal matrix as defined earlier, and m denotes the Fourier transform of mean training image. It is noted that both MACE and UMACE filters yield sharp correlation peaks because they are designed to minimize the average correlation energy.
Adding noise tolerance to the UMACE filter, as was done to MACE filters, yields the unconstrained optimal trade-off SDF (UOTSDF) given in Eq. (12).h=(αD+√{square root over (1−α2)}C)−1m  (12)Varying α produces filters with optimal tradeoff between noise tolerance and discrimination. Typically, using α values close to, but not equal to 1 (e.g., 0.99) improves the robustness of MACE filters.
Advances in correlation filters include considering the correlation plane as a new pattern generated by the correlation filter in response to an input image. The correlation planes may be considered as linearly transformed versions of the input image, obtained by applying the correlation filter. It can then be argued that if the filter is distortion tolerant, its output will not change much even if the input pattern exhibits some variations. Thus, the emphasis is not only on the correlation peak, but on the entire shape of the correlation surface. Based on the above, a metric of interest is the average variation in images after filtering. If gi (m,n) is the correlation surface produced in response to the ith training image, we can quantify the variation in these correlation outputs by the average similarity measure (ASM) defined in Eq. (13).
                    ASM        =                              1            N                                                        ∑                              i                =                1                            N                                                                  ∑                m                                                                                ∑                  n                                                                                [                                                                                g                          i                                                                                (                                                      m                            ,                            n                                                    )                                                                    -                                                                        g                          _                                                                                (                                                      m                            ,                            n                                                    )                                                                                ]                                    2                                                                                (        13        )            where
            g      _                  (              m        ,        n            )        =            1      N                          ∑                  j          =          1                M                                    g          j                                  (                      m            ,            n                    )                    is the average of the N training image correlation surfaces. ASM is a measure of distortions or dissimilarity (variations) in the correlation surfaces relative to an average shape. In an ideal situation, all correlation surfaces produced by a distortion invariant filter (in response to a valid input pattern) would be the same, and ASM would be zero. In practice, reducing ASM improves the filter stability.
In addition to being distortion-tolerant, a correlation filter must yield large peak values to facilitate detection. Towards this end, one maximizes the filter's response to the training images on the average. However, no hard constraints are imposed on the filter's response to training images at the origin. Rather, it is desired that the filter should yield a large peak on the average over the entire training set. This condition is met by maximizing the average correlation height (ACH) metric defined in Eq. (14).
                    ACH        =                                            1              N                                                                  ∑                                  i                  =                  1                                N                                                                            x                  +                                                h                                              =                                    m              +                                    h                                              (        14        )            where m is the mean of all vectors. It is desirable to reduce the effect of noise by reducing ONV. To make ACH large while reducing ASM and ONV, the filter is designed to maximize the metric in Eq. (15).
                              J                                (            h            )                          =                                                          ACH                                      2                                ASM            +            ONV                                              (        15        )            The filter which maximizes this metric is referred to as the maximum average correlation height (MACH) (A. Mahalanobis et al., Appl. Opt., 33 (1994) 3751) filter.
The correlation filters previously described are presented as linear systems whose response to patterns of interest is carefully controlled by various optimization techniques. The correlation filters may also be interpreted as methods of applying transformations to the input data. Thus the correlation can be viewed as a linear transformation. Specifically, the filtering process can be mathematically expressed as multiplication by a diagonal matrix in the frequency domain.
The distance of a vector x to a reference mk under a linear transform H is given by
                              d          k                =                                                                          Hx                -                                  Hm                  k                                                                    2                    =                                                    (                                  x                  -                                      m                    k                                                  )                            +                                                  H              +                                                  H                                            (                                  x                  -                                      m                    k                                                  )                                                                        (        16        )            where superscript + denotes a conjugate transpose operation.
The filtering process transforms the input images to new images. For the correlation filter to be useful as a transform, it is required that the images of the different classes become as different as possible after filtering. Then, distances can be computed between the transformed input image and the references of the different classes that have been also transformed in the same manner. The input is assigned to the class to which the distance is the smallest. The emphasis is shifted from using just one point (i.e., the correlation peak) to comparing the entire shape of the correlation plane. These facts along with the simplifying properties of linear systems lead to a realization of a distance classifier in the form of a correlation filter. In the distance classifier correlation filter (DCCF) approach (A. Mahalanobis et al., Appl. Opt., 35 (1996) 3127) the transform matrix H is found that maximally separates the classes while making all the classes as compact as possible.
While the various filters discussed can provide good results, the physical implementation often requires complex computations and large memories. Thus, the need exists for a correlation filter that is computationally simple and that requires less memory than the existing art without compromising the results produced by the filter.


Carbon nanotube needles and needle arrays are described in which the precursor pillars are etched by oxygen plasma treatment to provide tapered and/or sharp-tip needles. Processes, products by process, and devices incorporating the sharp-tip needles are further described.

In the last few decades, the development of new drugs that have much more potency has been a primary focus in the pharmaceutical field. However, the administration of such drugs has been limited due to poor absorption and enzymatic degradation in the gastrointestinal tract as well as painful delivery using intravascular injection. One feasible solution to solve these problems is by administering those drugs across the skin using a patch, although its therapeutic rates are very limited due to skin permeability. In recent years, substantial effort has been spent to overcome this difficulty by incorporating skin permeation enhancer, electric field, ultrasound, and microneedles in the drug delivery systems. Among these approaches, the use of microneedles appears most promising since they can provide holes to bypass the stratum corneum of a patient's skin with little or no pain.
Microneedles, especially when arranged in arrays, find use in obtaining biological fluid samples and for delivering drugs, agents, formulations or biological molecules across biological tissue barriers. The microneedles used for delivering one or more compounds may be categorized as luminal or dissolvable. Dissolvable microneedles include a polymer tip that dissolves when in contact with body fluid to deliver a drug, vaccine inoculation, or other therapeutic agent. As the designation implies, luminal microneedles are bodies that include a lumen therein.
The lumen in this class of microneedle may be used to deliver compounds (especially in connection with various reservoir means such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,482 or 8,257,324). Alternatively, the lumen may be used for analyte collection, in which case, an array of microneedles may be combined with analyte measurement systems to provide a minimally invasive fluid retrieval and analyte sensing system such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,749,792. Notable analytes of interest obtained from biological fluids include glucose and cholesterol.
Microneedles are sometimes made from stainless steel or other metals. Metal needles are subject to numerous disadvantages. Some of these include the manufacturing complexities associated with wire drawing, grinding, deburring, and clean-up steps of the manufacturing process. Further, impurities in the metals can cause oxidation and deterioration of the needles. Further examples of microneedle fabrication approaches include employing photolithography and electroplating. Ultimately, silicon-based or stainless steel-based microneedles are not attractive due to their high material and fabrication cost.
Other microneedles are fabricated employing micro-replication techniques, such as injection molding of a plastic material or the like. Such approaches enable a degree of design flexibility and cost savings.
However, the resulting products of all of the aforementioned fabrication techniques fail to offer many of the advantages associated with microneedles and microneedle arrays fabricated from carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNT-based microneedles have unmatched advantages due to their exceptional mechanical properties and simple fabrication process. Regarding ease of fabrication, they may be produced in large quantity by self-assembly to form a nanotube "carpet" of columns or pillars through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or such other processes as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,491,628 or US Publication Nos. 2003/0180472, 2008/0145616 or 2010/0247777. As to physical properties important to microneedle fabrication (aside from size in a relevant range), CNT-based microneedles offer superb column strength (i.e., an ability to withstand a compression load of at least 80 MPa), flexibility (as a measure of toughness against inadvertent damage in handling), and high aspect ratio.
In order to achieve such advantages, however, the so-called carpet of CNT pillars must be processed further in order to configure a workable microneedle array. Suitable processing techniques and the resulting array structures are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,955,644 and US Publications 2010/0196446, 2012/0021164 and 2012/0058170—all assigned to California institute of Technology (the assignee hereof) and all (together with their foreign counterparts) incorporated herein by reference in their entireties for all purposes. Moreover, such arrays may be further processed to produce superhydrophobic CNT arrays as described in US Publication No. 2011/0250376 (also to the assignee hereof and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety) through vacuum pyrolysis.
Different forms of improvement to such devices (e.g., as described in any U.S. Pat. No. 7,955,644 and US Publications 2010/0196446, 2011/0250376, 2012/0021164 and 2012/0058170) or other CNT microneedles or microneedle arrays are described herein.

Sharp tip carbon nanotube microneedle devices and their fabrication


A board-mountable connector is provided. The connector includes a shield and an insulative housing with a tongue. Terminals are supported by the housing in two rows and the rows extend from a mating interface to a board mounting interface. The terminals may be mounted to the board via surface mount technology in two rows that are at about 0.4 mm pitch. The two rows of terminals are configured in a signal, signal, ground triangular configuration so as to provide a triangular terminal arrangement that extends from the mating interface to the mounting interface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a board mounted electrical connector, more specifically to a board mounted electrical connector which has particular applicability for a 0.4 mm pitch connector in a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI).
2. Description of Related Art
As is known, input/output (I/O) connectors face competing demands. On the one hand, there is a common desire to provide more dense packing of terminals. On the other hand, there is an increasing desire for the data channels in the I/O connector to function at higher frequencies. These competing desires make it challenging to optimize a connector.
While the general desires are challenging, certain configurations of connectors need to be particularly dense because they are intended to be very small. When the density is reduced below 0.7 mm pitch, for example, the design of the connector becomes challenging and as the pitch is reduced below 0.6 mm, certain methods of mounting the connector (such as the use of thru-holes) becomes more difficult because the vias cannot be positioned close enough. Thus, for very small pitch connectors such as connectors with a 0.4 mm pitch between terminals, surface mount technology (SMT) basically becomes required. Even with SMT, however, it is difficult to provide a desirable signal transmission between the mating interface and the mounting interface because the proximity of the terminals makes it easy for energy moving through terminals to negatively affect the signals on other terminals (e.g., introduce unwanted noise). Therefore, improvements in the design of connectors suitable for small pitches, such as a 0.4 mm pitch, would be appreciated.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A control device (10) for a brake-power-assisted brake system of a vehicle having a first input device (26) for a supplied first information item (28) relating to a supplied assistance force (Fu) of a brake booster (14) of the brake-power-assisted brake system, a second input device (30) for a supplied second information item (32) relating to a total force (Fg) comprising the assistance force (Fu) and a driver braking force (FI) supplied by activation of an activation element (12) of the brake-power-assisted brake system, an evaluation device (36) which is configured to define a third information item relating to a proportional relationship between the total force (Fg) and the assistance force (Fu) taking into account the first information item (28) and the second information item (32), and an output device (44, 50) which is configured to supply at least one control signal (46, 52) to at least one component (14, 54) of the brake-power-assisted brake system taking into account the defined third information item relating to the proportional relationship between the total force (Fg) and the assistance force (Fu).

The invention relates to control devices for a booster brake system of a vehicle. The invention also relates to a method for operating a booster brake system of a vehicle.
In order to permit a driver of a vehicle to comfortably activate an activation element of a brake system such as, for example, a brake pedal, a brake system frequently has a brake booster. The brake system with a brake booster is often referred to as a booster brake system.
A brake booster is configured to supply an assistance force which, in addition to a driver braking force which is applied to the activation element by the driver, brings about braking of at least one wheel. Suitable brake boosters are described, for example, in DE 10 2005 024 577 A1, DE 10057 557 A1 and DE 103 27 553 A1.
However, in a conventional booster brake system, a functional failure or functional impairment of the brake booster or of a component which interacts with the brake booster can occur. In this case, the brake booster is generally no longer suitable for supplying a sufficiently strong assistance force. In such a situation, the driver must therefore apply a relatively large driver braking force to the activation element of the booster brake system. In particular, it may be the case here that the driver does not notice the restricted or failed functional capability of the brake booster until relatively late and therefore has to react very suddenly. It is therefore desirable to embody a brake booster in such a way that even in the case of a restricted or failed functional capability of the brake booster or a component which interacts with the brake booster a good level of driving comfort is ensured for the driver.

Control devices for a booster brake system of a vehicle and method for operating a booster brake system of a vehicle


A method of mapping red-green-blue-green (RGBG) format data to red-green-blue (RGB) format data, the method including receiving three RGBG pixel values for mapping to four RGB pixel values, the RGBG and RGB pixel values including red color components, green color components, and blue color components, mapping the red and blue color components and first three green color components of the RGBG pixel values to first three RGB pixel values, and mapping last three green color components of the RGBG pixel values to the red, green, and blue color components of a fourth RGB pixel value according to a mapping pattern.

Currently, the field of computing appears to be generally experiencing an increase of data. For example, in certain applications, such as video processing, generated data appears to be growing at an exponential rate. This rate of data growth has, in some cases, outpaced the increase in capacity of storage systems. Therefore, many computational systems store data in compressed form. As stored data may need to be consumed in uncompressed form, there is a need to decompress the stored data before it can be further processed.
In high definition display devices image compression is often used to lower transmission bandwidth and reduce memory utilization. Such display devices may have an internal codec that performs the image compression and decompression operations. The codec may be designed to handle only a particular data format (e.g., red-green-blue (RGB) data or red-green-blue-green (RGBG) data) and may be unsuitable for handling a data format for which it was not designed. For example, an RGB codec may not be suitable for handling input RGBG image data.
What is desired is a device capable of efficiently translating data of one format to another format, which matches the internal codec.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the present disclosure, and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.


An embodiment of the invention provides a color filter substrate comprising first black matrixes; color resin units; and a protection layer. Each of the color resin units is formed between two adjacent first black matrixes, the protection layer is formed on the first black matrixes and the color resin units, second black matrixes are formed, each corresponding to one first black matrix, on the protection layer for blocking reflected light from the first black matrixes from entering TFT channel regions on an array substrate to be provided to oppose the color filter substrate.

The invention relates to a liquid crystal filter, a color filter substrate and a manufacturing method thereof.
A Liquid crystal display (LCD) device comprises an array substrate and a color filter substrate assembled together with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The array substrate comprises gate lines, data lines, pixel electrodes and thin film transistors (TFTs) that are formed thereon. The gate lines and data lines cross each other and define pixel regions, in which the TFTs and the pixel electrodes are formed. The gate lines provide gate signals (e.g., ON signal) for the TFTs, and the data lines provide data signals for pixel electrodes in the pixel regions. Images in gray scales are displayed by controlling the twisting or deflecting of the liquid crystal in the liquid crystal material. The color filter substrate comprises black matrixes, color resin units, a protection layer and a common electrode layer that are formed thereon. The color resin units may comprise red, blue and green resin units. Black matrixes are disposed on the color filter substrate for separating color resin units and preventing light from leaking.
The black matrixes on the color filter substrate are generally formed on positions corresponding to the gate lines, the data lines and the TFTs formed on the array substrate. In this way, light incident from the color filter substrate side can be blocked by the black matrixes so that light from outside can not be incident on the channel regions of the TFTs, ensuring the electrical characteristics of the TFTs. However, it is found that light from the array substrate side (such as light from the backlight provided under the array substrate) may result in degradation of the electrical characteristics of the TFTs. Researches show that when light from the backlight is incident on the black matrixes at an inclined angle, even if the black matrixes may absorb most of the light, a part of the light is reflected by the black matrixes and incident into channel regions of TFTs, which causes the TFTs to generate a relatively large leakage current. Increase of the leakage current of the TFTs makes voltage sustaining rate decrease, which causes an abnormal black display in normal white mode such that contrast ratio is degraded.

Liquid crystal display, color filter substrate and manufacturing method thereof

Beijing BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.


A method is provided for fusion-splicing with a laser beam at least two optical components to a different optical component, the different optical component (e.g., an optical element such as a lens) having a surface that has a comparatively larger cross-sectional area than a surface of the other optical components (e.g., at least two optical fibers). The method comprises: (a) aligning the optical components along an axis; (b) turning on a directional laser heat source to form the laser beam; (c) directing the laser beam to be collinear with those optical components having a smaller cross-sectional area; (d) ensuring that the laser beam strikes the surface of the optical component having the larger cross-sectional area at normal or near normal incidence so that absorption of the laser beam is much more efficient on the surface; (e) adjusting the power level of the laser beam to reach a temperature equal to or higher than the softening temperature of the surface of the optical component having the larger cross-sectional area to form a softening region thereon, thereby achieving the fusion-splicing; and (f) turning off the laser.

Splicing of one optical fiber to another or of one optical fiber to an optical waveguide is known. Such splicing can be done by a variety of techniques, including fusion-splicing, which involves localized melting in the region of the splice.
The following references disclose fusion-splicing of fiber to fiber or fiber to silica-waveguide: (1) R. Rivoallan et al, "Monomode fibre fusion-splicing with CO.sub.2 laser", Electronics Letters, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp.54-55, 1983; (2) R. Rivoallan et al, "Fusion-splicing of fluoride glass optical fibre with CO.sub.2 laser", Electronics Letters, Vol. 24, No.12, pp.756-757, 1988; (3) N. Shimizu et al, "Fusion-splicing between optical circuits and optical fibres", Electronics Letters, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp.96-97, 1983; (4) T. Shiota et al, "Improved optical coupling between silica-based waveguides and optical fibers", OFC'94 Technical Digest, pp.282-283; and (5) H. Uetsuka et al, "Unique optical bidirectional module using a guided-wave multiplexer/demultiplexer", OFC'93 Technical Digest, p. 248-249. In both cases (fiber-fiber or fiber-waveguide), the masses to fuse are very small and of similar size. The fusion does not require careful thermal balance between the two components involved and can be done with a laser beam impinging from the side.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,006 entitled "Optical Fiber Termination Including Pure Silica Lens And Method Of Making Same", issued to K. J. Warbrick on Apr. 12, 1988, discloses fusion-splicing an undoped (pure) silica rod to a single mode fiber to fabricate a collimator, employing an electric arc. However, this is an extremely complicated method and has limited applications.
The present practice in the art often requires the attachment of optical fibers to other optical elements such as lenses, filters, gratings, prisms, and other components which have a much larger cross-sectional area than the optical fibers. The most often utilized processes for attaching optical fibers to the larger optical elements include (1) bonding the fiber faces directly to the optical element with adhesives or (2) engineering a complex mechanical housing which provides stable positioning of air-spaced fibers and optical elements throughout large changes in environmental conditions.
The use of adhesives in the optical path of such devices is undesirable due to the chance of degradation of the adhesive over time. On the other hand, spacing the fibers a fixed distance away from the optical elements by utilizing complex mechanical housings requires the use of anti-reflection coatings at all air-glass interfaces in order to minimize losses of optical energy through the device. The presence of air-glass interfaces also provides a source of back-reflected light into the optical fibers. This back-reflected light is a source of noise in many communication networks, and effectively limits transmission bandwidth of such communication networks.
In previous art, it has been shown that positioning an angle cleaved fiber or polished fiber in proximity to the angle polished face of a collimating lens results in excellent collimation and excellent performance characteristics. However, these existing technologies for assembling collimators require very labor intensive active alignment techniques. The alignment techniques include manipulating the position of the fiber relative to the lens in three linear axes and three rotational axes during final assembly. If a collimator can be built that effectively makes the fiber and the lens a single piece, then alignment can be reduced to two linear and two rotational axes during the fusion process and there is no need for alignment during final assembly, thereby reducing costs dramatically.
A key performance parameter to be minimized in collimator assemblies is back reflection of light down the fiber. By butt-coupling or fusion-splicing a fiber to a lens of the same refractive index, there is no apparent interface to cause back reflection. The beam is then allowed to diverge in the lens and does not see an index break surface until it exits the lens. By then, the beam is so diffused that the amount of light that can return to the fiber core is extremely small.
Many advances can be made in the optoelectronics and telecommunications markets if one is able to fusion-splice a single mode optical fiber directly to a collimating lens, a filter, a grating, a prism, a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) device, or any other optical component of comparatively larger cross-sectional area. More generally, these advances can be made if one is able to fuse optical components of substantially different cross-sectional areas.
Thus, a need remains for a method of fusion-splicing optical components of significantly different cross-sectional areas.

Use of a laser to fusion-splice optical components of substantially different cross-sectional areas


The present invention relates to a bismuth molybdate-based composite oxide catalyst having a microporous zeolite coating layer on the surface thereof and thus having high selectivity for 1,3-butadiene, a method of preparing the same, and a method of preparing 1,3-butadiene using the same. The catalyst has a microporous zeolite coating layer, and thus enables only gaseous products (light) to selectively pass through the zeolite coating layer, improving selectivity for 1,3-butadiene.

1,3-butadiene is an intermediate product of petroleum chemicals in a petrochemical market, and demands for 1,3-butadiene and its value are gradually increasing. Naphtha cracking, direct dehydrogenation of n-butene, and oxidative dehydrogenation of n-butene are known as a method of preparing such 1,3-butadiene. However, the naphtha cracking process which occupies 90% or more of 1,3-butadiene supplied to the market has shortcomings in that energy consumption is high due to a high reaction temperature and also other fractions in addition to 1,3-butadiene are redundantly produced because the naphtha cracking process is not an exclusive process only for the production of 1,3-butadiene. Furthermore, the direct dehydrogenation of n-butene is not suitable for a commercial process for the production of 1,3-butadiene because it is not only thermodynamically unfavorable but also endothermic and thus requires high-temperature and low-pressure conditions to produce 1,3-butadiene with high yield.
The oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of n-butene which produces butadiene through oxidative dehydrogenation of n-butene produces 1,3-butadiene by removing two hydrogen atoms from n-butene using oxygen as a reactant so that stable water is produced as a product. Thus, the ODH is very advantageous thermodynamically, and is exothermic contrary to the direct dehydrogenation, so that 1,3-butadiene can be obtained with high yield even at a low temperature compared with the direct dehydrogenation. Therefore, a process of producing 1,3-butadiene through the oxidative dehydrogenation of n-butene may be an effective and exclusive production process satisfying increasing demands for 1,3-butadiene. Therefore, studies on a method of producing 1,3-butadiene having high selectivity by improving efficiency through the oxidative dehydrogenation of n-butene are being carried out.
Under the aforementioned background, while studying a bismuth molybdate-based composite oxide catalyst having high selectivity for 1,3-butadiene, the present inventors completed the present invention by finding that a catalyst having a microporous zeolite coating layer on the surface thereof not only enables products to selectively pass through the zeolite coating layer to thereby have high selectivity for 1,3-butadiene, but also simplifies phases of products by discharging solid organic by-products as a gas phase, which makes it easy to perform a purification process on products.

Bismuth molybdate-based catalyst having zeolite coating layer, method of preparing the same, and method of preparing 1,3-butadiene using the same


A refrigeration device includes a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve, an evaporator, intake electromagnetic valves and exhaust electromagnetic valves, two-position three-way electromagnetic valves or two-position five-way electromagnetic valves, a cylinder group, a volume-variable airproof container, two-position two-way electromagnetic valves and a generator. The cylinder group is composed of two or more cylinders, refrigerant flows successively through the compressor, the intake electromagnetic valves, the cylinder group, the exhaust electromagnetic valves, the condenser, the expansion valve and the evaporator and finally enters the compressor from the evaporator, the cylinder group can do work to generate electricity through atmospheric pressure in the volume-variable airproof container and compensates for electric energy consumed by the compressor, and therefore the electric energy can be saved.

We know that a traditional refrigeration device consumes very much power, and the traditional refrigeration device can not uses outside atmospheric pressure to work to generate electricity and compensates for electric energy consumed by the compressor, and the world faces the problems of global warming and increasing depletion of fossil fuels.


In the case of vehicle variants of one “vehicle family”, different fenders and different front opening hoods adjoining the fenders are attached to forward vehicle structures by means of identical supporting members. For this purpose, the supporting members have connection planes for the upper end sections of the fenders, which are situated horizontally above one another. Thus, a different course of the joints, such as between a fender and an opening hood, and differently shaped body panels can be achieved in the case of vehicle variants at comparatively low cost by use of this common supporting member.

This application is a continuation of International Patent Application No. PCT/EP03/14164 filed on Dec. 12, 2003, designating the United States of America, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Priority is claimed based on German Patent Application No. DE 103 01 183.8 filed on Jan. 15, 2003, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a supporting member for a fender of a vehicle, as described, for example, in German Patent Document DE 41 83 392 A1 (corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,035), as well as to a plurality of vehicle variants having such a supporting member.
It is an object of the invention to indicate a process by which, particularly in the case of variants within a vehicle series, a different exterior appearance of a vehicle is achieved while the development costs and manufacturing costs are as low as possible.
This object is achieved according to certain preferred embodiments of the invention by providing a supporting member for a fender of a motor vehicle, characterized in that the supporting member has at least two mutually offset connection areas on which the upper end areas of at least two different fenders can be mounted.
In this case, it is a core idea to further develop a supporting member for a fender such that it has at least two different connection areas for fastening a fender. Thus, uniform supporting members can be used for two or more vehicle variants which differ with respect to their exterior at least in the area of the fender and/or of the front opening hood. This results in a reduction of the variety of parts, connected with a lowering of the manufacturing costs because the logistics in the vehicle body shell are simplified and the production of the supporting members is less expensive in larger piece numbers.
As a result of the fastening of the fenders of the individual vehicle variants to different connection areas of the uniform supporting member, a different course of the joints between the fender and the front opening hood is obtained for the vehicle variants, which, together with the different exterior shape of the fenders and the front opening hoods decisively influences the exterior appearance of a vehicle.
The invention can be used with considerable advantages particularly in the case of "derivatives" within a vehicle series which differ, for example, in the shape of their vehicle body (sedan, coupe, fast back, combination model, convertible, roadster). By means of the invention, it therefore particularly becomes possible to produce derivatives within one "vehicle family" of a different exterior appearance. Another field of application relates, for example, to model redesigns of vehicles in the case of which the exterior appearance is to be changed at costs which are as low as possible.
According to a preferred further development of the invention, the supporting member is stepped in a staircase shape. The individual steps of the supporting member can have a different width and/or height along its longitudinal course corresponding to the desired contour of the fender and/or the front opening hood. This can influence the course of the joints in all three directions in space.
Preferably, the individual connection areas of the supporting member extend approximately horizontally. A slight deviation from the horizontal line, as a rule, is caused by the vehicle contour which normally rises slightly in the forward area. By means of the construction of two or more connection areas situated above one another for the fenders of the individual vehicle variants, it becomes possible to allow the joint between the fender and the front opening hood to extend at different levels and thus at least give the visual impression that the height of the vehicle differs in the forward area. In a similar manner, a variation of the position of the joint in the transverse direction of the vehicle provides an appearance with respect to the vehicle width. As a result, for example, in the case of sporty variants of a vehicle series, the connection of the fender can take place lower and/or farther to the outside than in the case of a sedan of the same series.
In addition to the above-described variation of the height and width position of the separating line, the course of the separating line can naturally be influenced in all three directions in space, using correspondingly designed fenders and front opening hoods while the supporting members are uniform.
The invention can preferably be used in the forward area of a motor vehicle. For the purpose of a linguistic simplification, the wording of the claims is therefore limited to fenders and front opening hoods. However, in principle, the wording of the claims also comprises supporting members for the rearward area of vehicles in the same manner as vehicles which have a correspondingly designed rearward area for a uniform supporting member with several connection areas for the rearward side wall areas, the upper end sections of the side wall areas directly adjoining a rear opening of such a vehicle.
A possible embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the drawing and will be described in detail in the following.

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft


A connector for a connection assembly for providing electrical power to a submersible electrical component in a deepwater environment, such as a subsea well, includes a ceramic body having a metallized inner passageway. A conductive contact extends through the passageway and has a contact end and a cable connecting end. A conductive sleeve is disposed about an outer surface of the ceramic body. The ceramic body is retained within a connector housing that has an interface chamber and a cable retaining chamber. The contact end of the connector contact is disposed within the interface chamber, and the cable connecting end of the contact is disposed within the cable retaining chamber. The sleeve is attached to the housing to provide a seal between the interface chamber and the cable retaining chamber. When the connector is engaged with a complementary connector, a Faraday cage is provided within the interface chamber to manage the electrical field about the connection interface between the connectors.

The present invention generally relates to a connector for use in a deepwater application, such as in a subsea oil or gas well.
A subsea oil or gas well includes various pieces of equipment which must be capable of withstanding harsh environmental conditions, including large temperature variations, high pressure differentials, thermal shock, and highly corrosive and abrasive surroundings. A conventional subsea well 10 is shown in FIG. 1 in which a wellhead 12 is located on the seabed 14. The well 10 may include a tubing string 16 which extends inside a casing 18 that lines a wellbore 19. The tubing string 16 includes a passageway for purposes of communicating well fluid to the wellhead 12. To aid in producing the fluid, the tubing string 16 may include an electrical submersible pump 20. The pump 20 typically is powered from the wellhead 12 by one or more electrical power cables 22. For instance, for a three-phase pump, three electrical cables 22 may extend from the wellhead 12 to the pump 20.
Due to the very nature of its operation, the electrical submersible pump 20 is surrounded by well fluid. A connection assembly 24 is used to connect the power cables 22 to the motorhead of the pump 20. The sealed connections formed by the assembly 24 should ideally maintain their integrity even in the relatively high temperature, high pressure and wet conditions that are present in the subsea well 10. The sealed connections also should maintain their integrity for long periods of time to avoid the costly task of removing and replacing the cables 22, pump 20 and/or the connection assembly 24 during the production life of the well 10.
Such a connection assembly may also be useful in deepwater (i.e., depths generally in excess of 1000 meters) applications other than a subsea well in which an electrical feedthrough must withstand a high temperature and high pressure environment. Thus, for instance, such a connection assembly may be used to provide an electrical connection to any of a variety of electrical submersible components, such as a transformer, multi-phase pump, subsea separator, etc.
Thus, there is a continued need for electrical connection assemblies that maintain their integrity in the harsh environmental conditions of a deepwater application.

Connector assembly for use with an electrical submersible component in a deepwater environment


An embodiment of the present invention provides a liquid crystal display mother panel comprising: a color filter substrate; an array substrate opposite to the color filter substrate; and a primary sealant element, a secondary sealant element, primary spacers and secondary spacers disposed between the color filter substrate and the array substrate. The secondary spacers have a height different from that of the primary spacers, and the primary spacers and the secondary spacers maintain a same distance between the color filter substrate and the array substrate when they are against structural layers on the two substrates, respectively.

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display (LCD) mother panel and a method of manufacturing the same.
Thin film transistor-liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs) have been becoming more and more popular because of its merits such as small volume, low power consumption, no radiation and low cost.
A TFT-LCD comprises a color filter substrate and an array substrate arranged opposite to each other. During attaching the color filter substrate and the array substrate to each other during manufacture of the TFT-LCD, some members, including primary spacers, secondary spacers, a primary sealant element and a secondary sealant element, can be interposed between the two substrates so as to support and maintain a uniform distance between the two substrates.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating a structure obtained by attaching the color filter substrate to the array substrate, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view of a conventional structure by attaching a color filter substrate and an array substrate taken along a line A-A in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a mother panel 100 comprising the color filter substrate 1, the array substrate 2 and members between the color filter substrate 1 and the array substrate 2 includes a plurality of panels 3. A primary sealant element 4 is disposed at periphery of each individual panel 3, and primary spacers 5 are dispersed in a region (i.e., display region) surrounded by the primary sealant element 4. The primary spacers 5 serve to maintain a uniform distance between the color filter substrate 1 and the array substrate 2 in each individual panel 3 after the attaching. Meanwhile, a secondary sealant element 6 is disposed between adjacent individual panels 3 and outside each individual panel 3, that is, at a dummy region of the LCD mother panel 100. Secondary spacers 7 are dispersed between the secondary sealant element 6 and the primary sealant element 4 so as to maintain a uniform distance between the color filter substrate 1 and the array substrate 2 attached to each other at a region between adjacent panels 3. Liquid crystal material is filled in the space surrounded by the primary sealant element 4 between the color filter substrate 1 and the array substrate 2.
With performing a vacuum-attaching step for the above described LCD mother panel 100, there are following problems: when the vacuum state is broken and the LCD mother panel 100 is in the air, the substrate is subject to different supporting force at both sides of the primary sealant element 4 due to same atmospheric pressure but different spacers at both sides of the primary sealant element 4, as shown in FIG. 3. It may cause that the individual panel 3 has a varying thickness in the peripheral region (about the primary sealant element 4) and thus liquid crystal molecules are aligned abnormally, deteriorating display quality of the LCD panel.

Liquid crystal display mother panel comprising primary spacers and secondary spacers wherein the primary spacers are surrounded by a primary sealant element

Beijing Boe Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.


The compounds of this invention are 5- or 6-deoxy hexose monosaccharides having a saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycle at the 5- or 6-position bound through the nitrogen atom. The saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycle substituent is shown by the following formula: ##STR1## where X is CH.sub.2, NH or O; and n ranges from 3-6. These hexose monosaccharides may also be ethereally substituted at least one other position. The compounds exhibit anti-proliferative and anti-inflammatory activity. Methods of preparation, pharmaceutical compositions containing the compounds and methods of treating inflammatory and/or autoimmune disorders employing the compounds are disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to 5- or 6-deoxy hexose monosaccharides having a saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycle at the 5- or 6-position bound through the nitrogen atom and a method for their preparation. These compounds exhibit anti-proliferative and anti-inflammatory activity and are useful for treating mammals with inflammatory and/or autoimmune disorders. This invention also relates to pharmaceutical compositions containing the disclosed compounds and to methods of treating inflammatory and/or autoimmune disorders employing the disclosed compounds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Certain monosaccharides and their derivatives are known to have therapeutic value in the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. Monosaccharides, particularly the hexoses, are well known compounds. Synthesis of derivatives of these sugars can be accomplished by synthetic techniques which are known in the art.
To prepare derivatives of the monosaccharides it is common to block or protect one or more of the hydroxyl groups with acetal blocking groups such as isopropylidene or cyclohexylidene, and only leave one or two hydroxyl groups free to undergo further reaction. Various blocking groups, and methods are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,715,121 and 4,056,322 and incorporated here by reference. For example, to prepare a derivative of .alpha.,D-glucose which is blocked in its furanose ring structure, the 1,2- and 5,6-hydroxyl groups can be blocked using an isopropylidene blocking group and the 3-position left open to undergo further reaction. After the reaction to derivatize the 3-position is complete, the blocking groups may be selectively removed to allow for further derivatization at other positions if desired.
Various derivatives of six carbon sugars, as well as synthetic methods, are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. Re. 30,354, Re. 30,379, Re. 32,268, 4,056,322, 4,735,934, 4,738,953, 4,996,195 and 5,010,058 copending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 07/658,311 and 07/757,817. The disclosures of these documents are incorporated here by reference. The therapeutic activity of monosaccharides and their derivatives is also disclosed in the above documents.
Two well known derivative of .alpha.,D-glucofuranose, having beneficial therapeutic properties is amiprilose, 1,2-O-isopropylidene 3-O-3'-(N,N'-dimethylamino-n-propyl)-.alpha.,D-glucofuranose, and its hydrochloric acid salt, amiprilose HCl (THERAFECTIN.RTM.). These compounds are known to have anti-inflammatory activity and demonstrated utility in managing the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. More generally, these compounds have activity as immunomodulators, and therefore have a therapeutic effect on other autoimmune disorders such as psoriasis, eczema or lupus.
Deoxy derivatives of 1,2-O-isopropylidene-.alpha.,D-glucofuranose are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,058. That patent describes methods of preparing deoxy derivatives of 1,2-O-isopropylidene-.alpha.,D-glucofuranose, and the use of such compounds in treating mammals with inflammatory and/or autoimmune deficiency disorders.
While some prior art monosaccharide derivatives have shown beneficial therapeutic activity, high doses of these monosaccharides, such as THERAFECTIN.RTM., are often needed to be effective and produce the desired results. Because therapy for those inflammatory and autoimmune disorders is often midterm or long-term, there is a need to develop potent, nontoxic compounds which can be orally administered to promote ease of treatment and patient compliance.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide new compounds that exhibit significantly greater potency than available compounds, such as THERAFECTIN.RTM..
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the compounds, pharmaceutical compositions and methods of treatment pointed out in the appended claims.

Anti-proliferative and anti-inflammatory compounds: 5- or 6-deoxy hexose monosaccharides having a saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycle at the 5- or 6-position bound through the nitrogen atom


In a semiconductor device having a thin film transistor in which a gate insulator film and a semiconductor layer are formed on a gate electrode layer, and a portion of the semiconductor layer is connected to a specific gate electrode layer through a contact hole formed in the gate insulator film, a static random access memory is constituted by memory cells in each of which a conductive layer stacked on the upper layer side of the semiconductor layer through an insulator layer is inserted in the contact hole formed in the gate insulator film, and the portion of the semiconductor layer is electrically connected to the specific gate electrode layer through the conductive layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a static random access memory (SRAM) having a thin film transistor (TFT) as a load transistor. In addition, the present invention relates to a semiconductor memory device having a gate insulator film, which is different from that formed in a memory portion, in a peripheral circuit portion.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a semiconductor device such as an SRAM, a TFT is used as a load transistor to obtain a high integration level. In the SRAM, a driver transistor and a selector transistor are formed on the surface of a semiconductor substrate, and a thin film such as a semiconductor layer is formed on these transistors through an interlayer insulator, thereby forming a TFT serving as a load transistor. The TFT used as the load transistor of the SRAM has a bottom gate structure in which a gate electrode layer is formed on the lower layer side of a semiconductor layer through a gate insulator film.
In the steps in manufacturing the SRAM, since a portion of a polysilicon layer constituting the semiconductor layer must be connected to a specific gate electrode layer located on the lower layer side of the semiconductor layer, a contact hole is formed in the gate insulator film, and the polysilicon layer serving as the semiconductor layer is stacked on the gate insulator film by CVD or the like to be inserted in the contact hole. In this case, before the polysilicon layer serving as the semiconductor layer is formed by CVD, a native oxide formed on the surface of the gate electrode layer exposed in the contact hole must be removed by photo-etching.
However, the light etching causes the following problem. That is, a silicon oxide film constituting the gate insulator film is dipped in a photo-etching solution to degrade the quality of the gate insulator film.
When the thickness of the polysilicon layer constituting the semiconductor layer is decreased to suppress a leakage current from the TFT serving as the load transistor, since the polysilicon layer is also used as a power supply line connected to the TFT, the wiring resistance of the power supply line is increased, and the ON current of the TFT is disadvantageously decreased.
In addition, as the memory cell size of the SRAM is decreased, the capacitance of a storage node is decreased, and a resistance to soft errors is decreased.
A transistor having a breakdown voltage higher than that of each of memory cells may be formed at a portion of a peripheral circuit, arranged around a region having the memory cells, for driving the memory. In the high voltage transistor, since a high electric field is applied to a gate insulator film, the gate insulator film has a thickness larger than that of a transistor having a normal power supply voltage. However, even when the thickness of the gate insulator film of the high voltage transistor is different from that of a normal transistor, the high voltage transistor and the normal transistor have different subthreshold voltages. Therefore, an impurity is selectively ion-implanted in the semiconductor substrate to control both the transistors to have almost equal threshold voltages.
FIGS. 1A to 1F show a conventional method of manufacturing a semiconductor device having a P-channel high voltage transistor and a P-channel normal transistor. In this conventional method, as shown in FIG. 1A, wells 12 and 13 are formed in an Si substrate 11 as a region for forming the high voltage transistor and a region for forming the normal transistor, respectively. Although the wells 12 and 13 are of an N type, the well 12 has a concentration lower than that of the well 13.
Thereafter, a P.sup.- -type diffused layer 14 is formed in the well 12 to extend a depletion layer formed by a drain voltage in the high voltage transistor. Local oxidation is performed to the resultant structure to form an SiO.sub.2 film 15 serving as a field oxide, and gate oxidation is performed to the resultant structure to form an SiO.sub.2 film 16 having a thickness of about 200 .ANG. as shown in FIG. 1B.
As shown in FIG. 1C, a resist 17 is patterned to cover only a region of the SiO.sub.2 film 16 on which the gate oxide of the high voltage transistor is to be formed. The resultant structure is etched using the resist 17 as a mask to selectively remove the SiO.sub.2 film 16.
After the resist 17 is removed, gate oxidation is performed to the resultant structure again, and as shown in FIG. 1D, an SiO.sub.2 film 21 having a thickness of about 200 .ANG. is formed in a region from which the SiO.sub.2 film 16 is removed. At the same time, an SiO.sub.2 film 22 having a thickness of about 300 .ANG. is formed by the remaining SiO.sub.2 film 16.
As shown in FIG. 1E, a resist 23 is patterned to cover only a region prospectively serving as the channel region of the high voltage transistor. Boron 24 is ion-implanted in the Si substrate 11 using the resist 23 and the SiO.sub.2 film 15 as masks to control the threshold voltage of the normal transistor to be formed in the well 13.
In the high voltage transistor, the impurity concentration of the well 12 is determined at the beginning such that a desired threshold voltage is obtained with respect to the thickness of the SiO.sub.2 film 22 without ion implantation of the boron 24. In contrast to this, the threshold voltage of the normal transistor to be formed in the well 13 and the threshold voltage of an N-channel transistor (not shown) are simultaneously controlled by the ion implantation of the boron 24. For this reason, since the impurity concentration of the well 13 is excessively high with respect to the thickness of the SiO.sub.2 film 21 to obtain a desired threshold voltage, the boron 24 is ion-implanted in the well 13.
As shown in FIG. 1F, after the resist 23 is removed, a poly-Si film 25 is deposited on the entire surface of the resultant structure by CVD, an impurity is doped in the poly-Si film 25, and the poly-Si film 25 is patterned to form gate electrodes. Sidewalls constituted by SiO.sub.2 films 26 are formed on the side surfaces of the poly-Si films 25.
Boron or the like is ion-implanted in the resultant structure using the poly-Si films 25 and the SiO.sub.2 films 15 and 26 as masks to form P.sup.+ -type diffused layers 27 serving as the source/drain regions of the transistors in the wells 12 and 13. Thereafter, an A1 electrode wiring or the like are formed in the conventionally known steps. In this manner, a high voltage transistor 31 and a normal transistor 32 are formed in the wells 12 and 13, respectively.
However, in the prior art shown in FIGS. 1A to 1F, as is apparent from the steps in FIGS. 1C to 1E, when the SiO film 16 is to be etched to cause the thicknesses of the gate oxides of both the transistors to be different from each other, and the boron 24 is to be ion-implanted to control the threshold voltage of the normal transistor, the different resists 17 and 23 are used as masks. For this reason, the number of steps of forming and removing the masks is large, and the number of additional steps required for forming the high voltage transistor 31 and the normal transistor 32 on the same chip is increased, thereby increasing production cost.

Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing same