The energy absorber is provided for interposing between a rigid beam and a bumper skin in order to absorb, by compression, the energy of impacts directed in a crumpling direction. The energy absorber comprises a set of ribs each of which extends parallel to the crumpling direction and each of which possesses a free edge for pressing against the beam. The set of ribs includes at least one rib arranged in the event of an impact so that its free edge remains pressed against the beam, while the rib itself buckles, and at least one other rib arranged in such a manner that in the event of an impact, its free end escapes from the beam, causing the rib to bend.

The present invention relates to an energy absorber and to an assembly constituted by an energy absorber and a rigid beam.
A bumper comprises an outer decorative covering, referred to as a xe2x80x9cskinxe2x80x9d, and an inner system for absorbing energy which, by deforming, consumes as much as possible of the energy of an impact so as to transmit as little as possible thereof to the vehicle.
In terms of impact, car manufacturers implement a set of specifications that envisage three categories of impact, namely: high speed impacts corresponding to a head-on impact of the vehicle against a rigid or deformable obstacle at a speed of 56 kilometers per hour (km/h) to 64 km/h, xe2x80x9cinsurancexe2x80x9d impacts such as those known as xe2x80x9cDannerxe2x80x9d impacts, at 15 km/h against a fixed wall, and small impacts or xe2x80x9cparking bumpsxe2x80x9d at a speed lying in the range 4 km/h to 8 km/h, such as defined in the standard ECE R42.
High speed impacts are taken into consideration for the purpose of protecting the occupants of the vehicle, whereas xe2x80x9cinsurancexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cparkingxe2x80x9d impacts, i.e. xe2x80x9csmallxe2x80x9d impacts correspond rather to the purpose of reducing repair costs.
High speed impacts are managed by associating the structure of the vehicle with safety systems that are included in the vehicle cabin.
xe2x80x9cInsurancexe2x80x9d impacts are managed by combining siderail extenders with the impact beam of the vehicle;
xe2x80x9cParkingxe2x80x9d bumps are sometimes managed by absorber systems placed between the skin and the beam of the vehicle, in the form of injected honeycomb structures.
The above types of impact are now associated with new requirements relating to impacts against pedestrians. Managing a pedestrian impact requires systems to be made more flexible and for them to behave in uniform manner over the entire width of the vehicle since such an impact must protect the pedestrian""s legs so as to limit severe and handicapping injuries. For this purpose, it is general practice to use a foam obtained by expanding a thermoplastic (polyphenylene ether (PPE) foam).
To reconcile the requirements relating to the above-mentioned impacts with those relating to pedestrian impacts, it is common practice to make a stack of a traditional system with a layer of foam. The foam absorbs the energy of pedestrian impacts, while the traditional system operates in the event of a higher energy impact, after the foam has been pressed in.
One of the problems with such a stack is its cost, which is very high, particularly because of the cost of the foam and of the handling that is needed for putting it into place on the system.
Another problem results from the depth which is needed to make the layer of foam effective. This dimension is directly related to the intrinsic characteristics of the material which define its ability to absorb energy and its maximum compression ratio. This leads to the front of the vehicle being made relatively large.
The present invention seeks to propose a novel configuration for absorbers that comply with requirements concerning impacts in all of the above-mentioned categories of impact, but which is particularly simple and much less expensive to implement.
The present invention provides an energy absorber for interposing between a bumper skin and a rigid beam, the beam having a bearing surface and at least one corner that presents an escape surface, the function of the energy absorber being to absorb by compression the energy of impacts directed along a crumpling direction and the absorber comprising a set of ribs, each of which extends parallel to the crumpling direction and presents a free edge for bearing against the beam.
In this energy absorber, said set of ribs comprises at least one rib arranged, in the event of an impact, so that its free edge remains pressed against the beam while said rib buckles, and at least one rib arranged in such a manner that in the event of an impact its free end begins by escaping from the beam by sliding over the escape surface, after which said rib slides over the corner of the beam and bends, moving further and further away from the crumpling direction.
The energy absorber of the invention does not require the presence of any foam and it can be obtained directly by molding plastics material under the same conditions as apply to molding the prior art honeycomb structure.
That is why the energy absorber of the invention is very inexpensive to provide.
The originality of the energy absorber of the invention lies in the fact that it has two types of rib, namely: one or more buckling ribs which, as in a honeycomb, absorb impact energy by compressing axially, and bending ribs which, unlike honeycomb ribs, slide over the corner of the beam with a friction force that increases as the beam gets closer to the base of the rib in question, since said rib forms an increasing angle relative to the direction of impact.
The advantage of these bending ribs is that they provide resistance to deformation that increases with increasing deformation of the energy absorber, which behavior is the converse of that of a buckling rib.
This makes it possible to reproduce the behavior of a foam without needing to use such a material.
In a particular embodiment of the invention, at least one of the ribs has a base portion, remote from its free edge, and provided with transverse stiffener means.
These transverse stiffening means reconstitute a honeycomb structure in the base portion of the rib.
In the invention, it is important for this base portion to extend over part of the rib only, since the rib must also have an end portion suitable for buckling or for bending in the vertical direction.
The invention also provides an assembly constituted by an energy absorber and a rigid beam having a bearing surface and at least one corner presenting an escape surface, for placing behind a bumper skin to absorb impact energy directed in a crumpling direction, the energy absorber comprising a set of ribs each of which extends parallel to the crumpling direction and possesses a free edge bearing against the beam, wherein the bearing surface of the beam is shaped in such a manner that the free edge of one rib cannot slide laterally over the beam in the event of crumpling in the crumpling direction, such that said rib buckles, wherein the corner of the beam is shaped in such a manner that in the event of crumpling in the crumpling direction, the free edge of a rib of the energy absorber escapes laterally from the beam by sliding over the escape surface, said rib then sliding over the corner and bending while moving further and further away from the crumpling direction, and wherein said set of ribs includes at least one rib arranged so that its edge bears against said corner surface of the beam, and at least one rib arranged so that its free edge bears against said bearing surface of the beam.
Advantageously, the bearing surface of the beam is constituted by a concave shape which holds the free ends of the ribs that are designed to buckle in order to prevent them from escaping from the beam, and thus prevent them from behaving like bending ribs.

Energy absorber for interposing between a rigid beam and a bumper skin, and an energy-absorbing assembly


A prediction calculator uses a prediction model to determine a predicted value of an amount of power to be generated by a power generation apparatus and a predicted value of an amount of power to be consumed by an appliance. The predicted values are associated with accuracy information. An operation planner makes an operation plan using the predicted values determined by the prediction calculator, a user schedule included in user setting information, and an electricity rate table or weather forecast information. When the accuracy of the predicted value is lower than a predetermined reference, the operation planner makes the operation plan only using other information without using the predicted value.

In recent years, a power generation apparatus and a power storage apparatus are installed in a home system, such as a home energy management system (HEMS), to implement management and control of energy.
Patent Literature 1, for example, discloses, as a technology for such a home system, a photovoltaic (PV) system capable of performing detailed prediction of an amount of solar radiation.

Power control device, operation plan planning method, and recording medium


A one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring is provided. A method for making a one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring is also provided. The one-dish frozen dinner product preferably includes a receptacle containing the one-dish frozen dinner product, a baking shield upstanding above the receptacle, and a shipping carton. Even more preferably, the baking shield is placed at the bottom of the receptacle containing the one-dish frozen dinner product and is configured for a nesting fit. The baking shield may have either a frustoconical sidewall or a concave trough-like sidewall.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring. This invention is also directed to a one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring packaged with the apparatus of this invention for baking products having an outer portion susceptible to overcooking. The present invention also provides methods for making one-dish frozen dinner products having an integral bread ring. The invention also pertains to apparatus for baking pies and the like food products, especially one-dish frozen dinner products having integral bread rings, which have an outer portion susceptible to overcooking. The invention is also directed to a kit for baking a food product, especially a one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring, which includes baking utensils packaged for commercial shipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bakers of food products, especially those in a commercial environment, have sought to reduce required cooking times without the risk of burning or overcooking sensitive portions of food items. Examples include various types of pie products, including pizza pies. These types of products typically include an outer crust which has been observed to be particularly susceptible to overcooking, due in part to the relatively low mass of the crust at the outer rim of the pie.
Various types of shields have been proposed to protect the sensitive outer portion of pie crusts. Examples of such shields are given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,045; U.S. Design Pat. No. 384,857; a xe2x80x9cPie Saverxe2x80x9d product is also commercially available from Nancy""s Kitchen/Beta Bake Products, Inc. of Lewiston, Me. Although the prior art arrangements provide certain improvements to baking shields, further improvements in baking shield performance and in adapting the baking shield for compact commercial packaging are still being sought. In addition, improvements in the manufacture of baking shields are also in demand, especially for high volume commercial products.
The present invention provides a one-dish frozen dinner product with an integral bread ring. The present invention also provides a one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring packaged with the apparatus of this invention for baking products having an outer portion susceptible to overcooking. The present invention also provides methods for making one-dish frozen dinner products having an integral bread ring.
The present invention also provides a kit for providing baked food products, such as pies and/or one-dish dinner products, including baking receptacles arranged in a commercial package. The present invention also provides baking kits of the above-described type which are quickly and easily deployed by a consumer, prior to baking. The present invention also provides baking utensils which are suitable for incorporation with a variety of prepared food product, in preparation for commercial shipment to a consumer. The present invention also provides baking shields offering improved performance despite volume expansion of the food product during cooking.
These and other benefits and advantages according to principles of the present are provided in a kit for shipping and preparing baked food products which has a sensitive outer marginal portion, including a frustoconical receptacle with a bottom, an open top, and an outer rim at the open top. The kit also has a food product disposed within said receptacle, below said outer rim, and a baking shield including an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom when in an installed position. The baking shield further includes an upper wall inwardly extending from said sidewall so as to form a central opening when in the installed position. The baking shield is stored at the bottom of the receptacle with a shipping carton surrounding the receptacle and the baking shield.
The present invention also provides a packaging kit for shipping baking utensils with a frustoconical receptacle with a bottom, an open top, and an outer rim at the open top. The kit also has a baking shield including an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom when in an installed position and an upper wall inwardly extending from said sidewall so as to form a central opening when in the installed position. The baking shield stored at the bottom of the receptacle, and a shipping carton surrounds the receptacle and the baking shield.
The present invention also provides a kit for preparing an uncooked or partially cooked pizza pie or frozen dinner product, having a frustoconical receptacle having a bottom, an open top, and an outer rim at the open top, a pizza pie or frozen dinner product disposed within the receptacle, and a baking shield including an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom. Additionally, the present invention provides a kit for preparing an uncooked or partially cooked one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring, having a frustoconical receptacle having a bottom, an open top, and an outer rim at the open top, one-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring disposed within the receptacle, and a baking shield including an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom. The baking shield also includes an upper wall inwardly extending from said sidewall so as to form a central opening, and the sidewall of the baking shield has a first frustoconical portion and a second annular portion.
If desired, the baking shield of the kits described above can be used separately in other applications. For example, advantages of the invention can be attained in a baking shield for protecting an outer sensitive portion of a food product, held in a receptacle which has an outer rim, during baking. The shield includes an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom, and an upper wall inwardly extending from said sidewall so as to form a central opening. The sidewall of the baking shield includes an annular trough portion which has a first end adjacent the outer rim of the receptacle and a second end extending toward the center of the receptacle.
Further benefits and advantages of the invention can be attained in another baking shield for protecting an outer sensitive portion of a food product, held in a receptacle which has an outer rim, during baking. The baking shield has an upstanding sidewall to engage the outer rim so as to be upstanding therefrom, and an upper wall inwardly extending from said sidewall so as to form a central opening. The sidewall of the baking shield has a frustoconical portion disposed between first and second annular portions. Other benefits and advantages of the invention, both as related to the baking apparatus and the one-dish frozen dinner product, will be apparent upon consideration of the present specification and drawings.

One-dish frozen dinner product having an integral bread ring and apparatus for shipping and preparing same


A system and process for rendering a virtual reality environment having an image-based background, which allows a viewer to move about and interact with 3D graphic objects in a virtual interaction space of the environment. This is generally accomplished by first rendering an image-based background, and separately rendering geometry-based foreground objects. The foreground objects are then integrated into the background, and a combined image is presented to the viewer.

1. Technical Field:
The invention is related to the rendering of a virtual reality environment for display to a viewer, and more particularly to a system and process for rendering such an environment having an image-based background and geometry-based foreground objects.
1Background Art:
Virtual reality is an attractive technology, which provides users an environment to navigate and play. This technology is often used as a platform for games, virtual tours, and virtual real estate, as well as for many other applications. Traditional virtual reality techniques are usually based on geometrical approaches where the generated scenes may consist of millions or billions of polygons. However, the geometrical modeling and rendering approach has several drawbacks. First, it is very labor-intensive to construct a synthetic scene. Second, in order to achieve a real-time performance, the complexity and rendering quality are usually limited by the rendering engine. And third, the requirement of certain accelerating hardware limits the wide application of the method.
Recently developed image-based modeling and rendering techniques [1,4] have made is possible to simulate photo-realistic environments. The advantages of image-based rendering methods are that the cost of rendering a scene is independent of the scene complexity and truly compelling photo-realism can be achieved since the images can be directly taken from the real world. One of the most popular image-based rendering software programs is Apple Computer, Incorporated""s QuickTime VR [1]. QuickTime VR uses cylindrical panoramic images to compose a virtual environment, therefore providing viewers with an immersive experience that can be viewed from a fixed viewpoint. However, an ideal virtual reality environment should provide a virtual 3D space about which a viewer can xe2x80x9cmovexe2x80x9d, and some virtual objects to interact with in the space. QuickTime VR makes an attempt at providing virtual objects by presenting pop-up objects to the viewer. Essentially, pop-up objects are 3D graphic objects presented to the viewer against the photo-realistic panoramic images representing the virtual environment. Unfortunately, because the panoramas only allow a viewer to view the scene from a fixed location, the viewer has no chance to experience 3D motion through the virtual environment.
Other approaches of image-based rendering [2, 3, 5, 6] that incorporate 3D graphic objects into scenes have also been studied. However, in these methods, the image-based scenes have to be reconstructed and represented by geometrical models again. Efforts are made on recovering reflection properties of the captured objects and lighting conditions of the scene. These methods inevitably involve much more interactions and manipulation since structure from motion is always a hard problem in vision technology. Briefly, in the rendering aspect, the problem in pure geometry-based virtual reality method is that the 3D rendering engine has to take into account all the geometrical objects in the scene even if a great part of them just acts as a background. Even worse, when a viewer only wants to interact with a small number of the rendered foreground objects, the selection engine has to process all the geometrical objects in the scene anywayxe2x80x94therefore greatly increasing the response time.
Thus, with current image-based virtual reality methods, either the viewer""s motions is restricted or the scenes have to be reconstructed via geometrical methods.
It is noted that in the preceding paragraphs, as well as in the remainder of this specification, the description refers to various individual publications identified by an alphanumeric designator contained within a pair of brackets. For example, such a reference may be identified by reciting, xe2x80x9creference [1]xe2x80x9d or simply xe2x80x9c[1]xe2x80x9d. Multiple references will be identified by a pair of brackets containing more than one designator, for example, [2, 3, 5, 6]. A listing of the publications corresponding to each designator can be found at the end of the Detailed Description section.
To present invention is directed toward a novel rendering system and process which allows viewers to freely move about and interact with 3D graphic objects in a virtual environment having an image-based background, without the need to reconstruct the background using geometric models. Essentially, this is accomplished by first rendering an image-based background, and next rendering geometry-based foreground objects. The foreground objects are then integrated into the background environment.
The image-based background scene can be captured and rendered via any appropriate image-based method. However, it is preferred that the system and process described in a co-pending U.S. patent application entitled xe2x80x9cScene Capturing and View Rendering Based On A Longitudinally Aligned Camera Arrayxe2x80x9d having Ser. No. 09/606,857 and a filing date of Jun. 28, 2000, be employed. Essentially, this system and process entails using a collection of images captured by a longitudinally aligned camera array, which rotates along a circle. The captured images are indexed and compressed for efficient rendering of the environment, without the need for explicit geometry.
The aforementioned geometry-based foreground objects can be rendered using any appropriate geometry-based 3D rendering engine. The selected 3D rendering engine is used to integrate 3D graphic object into the background scene. The 3D graphic objects are preferably integrated into the image-based background scene via overlapping approach that involves superimposing the objects onto the background scene. Viewers can move about in a virtual space defined by the image-based background rendering program and interact with the 3D graphic objects. In the case of the preferred rendering of the background environment, the viewer can move about and interact with 3D graphic objects in a 3D cylindrical space. It is also noted that the 3D graphic objects are introduced only if they are needed to interact with the viewers. This keeps the viewer""s virtual interaction space uncluttered with unnecessary objects and so significantly reduces the 3D graphic processing time.
The foregoing system and process for integrating geometry-based 3D graphic objects into an image-based background to produce a virtual reality environment has many advantages over the existing systems. For example, unlike traditional geometry-based virtual reality systems that must take into account all the geometrical objects in the scene, the 3D graphic rendering engine employed in the present invention need only deal with a small number of foreground 3D graphic objects. As indicted previously, this significantly reduces the 3D graphic processing time. In addition, there is no need for any geometrical reconstruction in rendering the background scene. This allows for the use of complex image-based background scenes. In fact, since the background scenes can be captured in any real scene, it is possible to tour or play games in very complicated scenes such as forests that are impractical to model via geometric methods. The image-based background scenes can also be made accessible through an Internet website so that others can download them and use them as backgrounds in their games or virtual tours. Furthermore, unlike existing geometry-based virtual reality systems, a viewer using the present system and process can move about in the virtual interaction space and observe the lateral and longitudinal parallaxes and lighting changes typical in a real scene. In addition, occlusions among the 3D graphic objects, as well as occlusions between 3D graphic objects and the background, can be readily portrayed.
In addition to the just described benefits, other advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description which follows hereinafter when taken in conjunction with the drawing figures which accompany it.

Image-based virtual reality player with integrated 3D graphics objects


An LED illumination system includes: a load including an LED lamp; and a power supply device, the LED lamp configured to be physically mounted on and demounted from the power supply device, the power supply device comprising: a current feedback control unit; a first voltage comparison unit configured to determine whether the load is in a mounted state; a voltage feedback control unit configured to decrease the voltage of the power supply device to a safe voltage when demounting, and to increase the voltage of the power supply device to perform the constant current control when mounting; and a semiconductor switch element connected in series between the load and the detection resistor, wherein the mounted and demounted states of the load is detected by a voltage of a main electrode of a high potential side of the semiconductor switch element.

Recently, an illumination apparatus using white LEDs have been commercialized as a replacement for existing fluorescent lamps in a field of illumination. The LED illumination apparatuses have a merit that a life span thereof is longer than the fluorescent lamps. Also, because mercury is used in the fluorescent lamps, the LED illumination apparatuses are favored in terms of environmental burden.
In white LED illumination apparatuses, LED lamps are typically driven by a step-down chopper type DC/DC converter or a fly-back type DC/DC converter. For the LED lamps, a plurality of LED elements are connected in series to each other, thereby constantly keeping an electric current flowing through the LED elements, reducing a brightness variation between each LED element, and also ensuring a light intensity required for illumination.
Further, in a case of LED lamps requiring a higher light intensity, a plurality of rows of LED elements, which are connected in series to each other as described above, are connected in parallel to each other to form an LED group, thereby ensuring a higher light intensity.
However, although the LED illumination apparatuses have a long lifetime as described above, the LED illumination apparatuses have a finite life span of several ten thousand hours, and thus the LED lamps have to be replaced after all. In addition, because the LED lamps are configured by a plurality of LED elements connected in series to each other, if only one of the plurality of LED elements is disconnected/shorted, the LED lamps lose an illumination function, or the electric current flowing through the LED elements is increased, thereby shortening the life span.
To solve disconnection/short problems of the LED elements, JP-A-H06-291732 discloses an LED apparatus including a plurality of LED rows, each of which has a plurality of LED elements connected in series to each other and are connected in parallel to each other, and an electric current flowing through each LED group is detected by a detection resistor, so that a disconnection is detected based on decrease in voltage of the detection resistor.
Further, JP-A-2008-258428 discloses an LED illumination apparatus including an LED group having a plurality of LED rows connected in parallel to each other, in which a circuit open state is detected when an abnormality is occurred and thus any of LED rows are disconnected, so that an electric current of magnitude corresponding to LED rows having an abnormality is redistributed over LED rows other than the disconnected LED rows.


A disk drive has a pair of transducers mounted to respective planar flexure seats for data transfer with the opposite sides of a rotating flexible magnetic disk. The transducers have their leads electrically connected to flexible printed circuit boards generally disposed on the back sides of the flexure seats, opposite to the front sides on which the transducers are mounted. Since the soldering of the transducer leads to the circuit boards on the back sides of the flexure seats, which has been the case heretofore, makes it difficult to reduce the thickness of the disk drive to an absolute minimum, each circuit board is shaped to include a pair of end portions extending through openings in one associated flexure seat and disposed on the front side of the flexure seat. The transducer leads are soldered to the end portions of the circuit boards on the front sides of the flexure seats.

This invention relates generally to apparatus for data transfer with a rotating data storage disk such as a flexible magnetic disk of three and a half inch diameter packaged in cassette form. More specifically, the invention pertains, in such rotating disk data storage apparatus, to an improved electrical connection of transducer leads to a flexible printed circuit board or equivalent conductor means.
The three and a half inch flexible magnetic disk and a disk drive for use therewith are both described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,157 to Takahashi. The magnetic disk is rotatably housed in a generally flat, boxlike envelope of relatively rigid plastic material, complete with a metal made sliding shutter, to make up a disk cassette. The envelope has a pair of apertures of rectangular shape to expose radial portions of the opposite sides of the magnetic disk. The sliding shutter also has a pair of apertures of approximately the same shape and size as the envelope apertures, which shutter apertures come into and out of register with the envelope apertures. The magnetic disk has a rigid hub of magnetic sheet metal attached centrally thereto. The hub has defined therein a central opening of square shape and an eccentric opening of rectangular shape.
When positioned in the associated disk drive, the magnetic disk has its central hub placed on a turntable which is much less in diameter than the disk. The turntable has a permanent magnet mounted thereon for attracting the disk hub. Disposed centrally on the turntable, a spindle engages in the central opening in the disk hub for centering the disk on turntable. A drive pin is disposed eccentrically on the turntable for driving engagement in the eccentric opening or slot in the disk hub, imparting the rotation of the turntable to the magnetic disk.
The disk drive for use with the three and a half inch disk has a pair of data transducers or read/write heads for data transfer with the opposite sides of the disk through the registered apertures in the envelope and the shutter. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,140 to Enami et al., assigned to the assignee of the instant application, one of the transducers is mounted via a planar flexure seat on a carriage movable radially of the disk. The other transducer is mounted via another planar flexure seat on a load arm which is hingedly mounted on the carriage for pivotal motion toward and away from the disk.
Usually, with this type of disk drive, the leads of each transducer were soldered to a conductive pattern on a flexible printed circuit board disposed on that side of the associated flexure seat opposite to the one on which the transducer was mounted. Each soldered connection rose to a height of 0.3 to 0.6 millimeter. Negligible as it might seem, the solder of such height represented a serious inconvenience in reducing the thickness of the disk drive to an absolute minimum, as is the current trend.
It might be contemplated to dispose the flexible printed circuit boards on the same side of the flexure seats as the transducers. This solution is unsatisfactory, however, because the circuit boards might then contact the envelope of the disk cassette. Particularly in the case where the envelope has the metal made sliding shutter, the conductive patterns on the circuit board might be short circuited to the destruction of the transducers.

Connection of transducer leads to a printed circuit board in rotating disk data storage apparatus


A process for conformally doping through the vertical and horizontal surfaces of a 3-dimensional vertical transistor in a semiconductor-on-insulator structure employs an RF oscillating torroidal plasma current to perform either conformal ion implantation, or conformal deposition of a dopant-containing film which can then be heated to drive the dopants into the transistor. Some embodiments employ both conformal ion implantation and conformal deposition of dopant containing films, and in those embodiments in which the dopant containing film is a pure dopant, the ion implantation and film deposition can be performed simultaneously.

High performance transistors can be implemented as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) semiconductor structures. The advantages of SOI technology follow from the ideal isolation between devices that are formed in separate semiconductor active layers that are islands on a common insulator (silicon dioxide) layer. Planar transistor structures formed in an SOI island are still limited in their performance by the presence of a PN junction between the source or drain and the surrounding semiconductor material. This last disadvantage is removed by the source-channel-drain structure as a three-dimensional monolithic membrane resting on the insulator layer and otherwise not touching any other semiconductor material. All the semiconductor (silicon) material is removed (etched away) except for the source-channel-drain elements. Because of the vertical protrusion of the source, channel, drain and gate of such three-dimensional devices above the insulator layer, such a structure can be referred to as a vertical transistor, and is described in Huff et al., "An Analytical Look at Vertical Transistor Structures", Solid State Technology, August 2004, pages 59-72. The height of such a structure above the insulator layer is equal to the thickness of the SOI silicon layer overlying the insulator layer. A gate is formed around the vertical sides and the top surface of the channel as an elongate 3-dimensional membrane transverse to the channel. Thus, each transistor principally consists of an elongate source-channel-drain membrane and an elongate gate membrane transverse to the channel membrane and essentially surrounding (on three sides) a portion of the channel membrane.
Because the vertical height of a vertical transistor is so great relative to its length and width, the source, drain and gate must be doped in such a manner that dopants are introduced through top surface and through the vertical side walls of the source-channel-drain membrane and the gate membrane. One way of accomplishing this may be to perform a dopant ion implantation step in three dimensions by tilting (rotating) the wafer during ion implantation about several axes so that the ions impinge on every vertical face of the vertical transistor structure. However, this technique is not ideal because nearby or neighboring vertical transistor structures may shadow some of the surfaces during ion implantation.
What is needed is a way of doping the source, drain and gate of a vertical transistor that avoids shadowing effects while providing a uniform distribution of dopant atoms throughout the source, drain and gate at high dopant concentrations.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Semiconductor on insulator vertical transistor fabrication and doping process


A universal fan blade mount for connecting an integral fan blade assembly having two or three or four fan blades to a fan blade rotor, wherein the fan blade mount includes an adapter plate having a plurality of peripheral holes each for accommodating a respective mounting pin of the fan blade assembly, at least one of the holes being configured to accommodate a mounting pin of any one of the fan blade assemblies.

Ceiling fans are very popular for facilitating air circulation in homes and businesses and different manufacturers provide ceiling fans to the public. Owing to the fact that fan blades are constructed in varying lengths, rotors are available in a variety of diameters, and the mounts are manufactured to join fan blades to specific rotors, the fan blades of one manufacturer are generally not compatible with the mounting assembly of a different manufacturer's fan. Indeed, often different models of the same manufacturer are incompatible. This makes maintenance of a ceiling fan in the event of damage difficult and often dictates replacement of the complete fan assembly.
There is therefore a need for a universal fan blade adapter which can attach a fan blade to any conventional rotor, regardless of the spacing of the attachment holes on the rotor. Universal adapters for ceiling fans are well-known in the patent literature.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,751 (Marshall) discloses a universal fan blade mounting assembly including an elongated bar having flanges at each end. One of the flanges is shaped to cooperate with one end of a fan blade and the other flange is constructed for attachment to a ceiling fan rotor. The rotor connecting flange includes two holes therein and one of the holes is round for encircling a fastening screw. The other hole forms an arcuate slot. The hole and slot cooperate such that the elongated bar extends outwardly from the center of the rotor such that the functional relationship between the fan blade and the rotor may be maintained.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,694 discloses overhead ceiling fans having easily attachable and detachable blades.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,682 discloses a fan assembly in which a block member is connected to a rotor end casing and an arm member having a blade connected thereto is mounted to the block member.
These patents are merely representative of universal ceiling fan assemblies and in order to obviate the need to describe features that are known per se, their complete contents are incorporated herein by reference.
In addition to replacing broken fan blades, it is also often desirable to upgrade a ceiling fan so as to provide more power by replacing, for example, a two-blade fan to a three-blade fan and so on. At least some of the above-referenced patents appear to allow for this possibility by providing discrete fan blades, each of which can be fitted into an appropriate location of the fan assembly via an intermediate mounting adapter. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,694 requires that separate fan blades be attached to the fan motor via respective intermediate mounting arms.
But it is known to provide ceiling fans that have multiple blades all formed as a single integral unit. In this case, it would be preferable to attach the single fan blade assembly to the motor via a single-piece adapter thus reducing the number of components in the final assembly.
It is also known to attach fan blades to a flywheel of a ceiling fan. For example, Switchco sell ceiling fan parts for different makes of ceiling fan, including blade arms, pull chain switches, capacitors, flywheels, PC boards, and wall switches. One such flywheel is reproduced herein as FIG. 1. It is seen in FIG. 1 that the flywheel has multiple holes disposed around a periphery of the flywheel for accommodating six blades. The flywheel itself is screw-mounted to the motor shaft via a central boss and screw. Other flywheels for accommodating four blades are also available as are flywheels that can accommodate either four or five blades as shown in the following table.
# ofCatalog #Shaft SizeBladesCeiling FansF1616 MM (⅝″)4Tara, Sunbeam, Patton, Homestead,Home-Pride, and Pre 1980 Casablanca -F16M16 MM (⅝″)4 or 5Tara, Sunbeam, Patton, Homestead,Home-Pride, and Pre 1980 Casablanca -F1717 MM ( 43/64″)4Homestead, Quoizel, AmericanIndustries, Old Jacksonville, Key Largo,Great American, and 985-990 Fasco -F17M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Homestead, Quoizel, AmericanIndustries, Old Jacksonville, Key Largo,Great American, and 985-990 Fasco -F2020 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Kenroy, North American's Park Avenue,and AmericanaF2525 MM ( 1″)4 or 5Casablanca, Home Pride, Emerson, andU.S. FanFH17 MM ( 43/64″)4Hunter 52″ Comfort Breeze, Robbines,and Myers Part No. 83067FHN17 MM ( 43/64″)4Late Model Hunters, Robbins, and MyersPart No. 83147 and 83096FH4217 MM ( 43/64″)4Hunter 42″ Comfort Breeze, Robbins,and Myers Part No. 83060.FHS617 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade: This ModelFHS6/A17 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade:FHS66M17 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade:F174517 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, Litco's Sierra,and Some Gulf Coast -F1745M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, Litco's Sierra,and Some Gulf CoastF204520 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, and Litco'sSierraF803717 MM ( 43/64″)6Fasco Six Blade (948 & 962)F804717 MM ( 43/64″)5552, 548, 965, 960, 330, and 961 FascoFive BladeF807617 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Fasco and Others, This Flywheel HasThe Same Blade Arm Pattern As TheF25, Except It's For A 17 MM ShaftF8076M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Fasco and Others, This Flywheel HasThe Same Blade Arm Pattern As TheF25, Except It's For A 17 MM ShaftF205220 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Casablanca First Home, (988 Fasco),Concord Madison, and Sierra. Has FourHoles In The Center To Attach ToMotor + A Set ScrewF20M20 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Has Four Bolt Holes In The Center ToAttach Flywheel To Fan Motor + A SetScrew To Attach To Motor Shaft
So far as is known by the present Applicant, there is no known flywheel assembly that is adapted to accommodate three different types of integral fan blade assembly having respectively, 2, 3, or 4 blades.

Universal fan blade mount and ceiling fan employing same


There is provided a drying apparatus for covering an upper surface of the substrate with an uneven pattern formed thereon with a liquid film and subsequently drying the substrate, including: a first heat transfer part whose temperature is adjusted to a first temperature, wherein a first heat is transferred between the first heat transfer part and the substrate by a first temperature difference; a second heat transfer part whose temperature is adjusted to a second temperature different from the first temperature, wherein a second heat is transferred between the second heat transfer part and the substrate by a second temperature difference; and a controller configured to control the first temperature and the second temperature and to control a surface tension distribution of the liquid film so as to control an agglomeration of the liquid film.

A liquid processing system disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes a liquid processing apparatus for supplying a processing liquid to a substrate to perform liquid processing, and a controller for controlling the liquid processing apparatus. The liquid processing apparatus includes a holder for holding the substrate, and a first supplier for supplying a volatile fluid to a surface of the substrate held by the holder. As the volatile fluid, for example, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is used. The IPA is supplied to a pattern formation surface of the substrate. The controller causes the liquid processing apparatus to perform a volatile fluid supply process and an exposure process. The volatile fluid supply process is a process of supplying the volatile fluid from the first supplier to the surface of the substrate to form a liquid film on the surface of the substrate. The exposure process is a process of exposing the surface of the substrate from the volatile fluid. In the exposure process, the supply position of IPA is moved from the center of the substrate to the outer periphery of the substrate while rotating the substrate. Further, in the exposure process, the supply position of a nitrogen gas, which is set radially inward of the substrate with reference to the supply position of IPA, is moved from the center of the substrate to the outer periphery of the substrate while rotating the substrate.

Drying apparatus, substrate processing system, and drying method


A formal verification approach verifies data access and data propagation paths in a circuit design by proving the unreachability of path cover properties of the circuit design. A security path verification system receives an original circuit model of a circuit design, along with parameters identifying a first location within the circuit design that is a source of tainted data and a second location within the circuit design that is coupled to the first location. The security path verification system also receives a selection of portions of the circuit design to be excluded from the verification analysis. Using an abstracted version of the exclude portions, the security verification system generates a second circuit model of the circuit design for use in determining whether the tainted data can reach the second location from the first location within the circuit design.

This present disclosure relates generally to formal verification of circuit designs, and more particularly to formal verification methods of verifying data access and data propagation paths in multi-system circuits.
Devices such as mobile phones, gaming consoles, and set top boxes often include multiple computing devices that store, share, or otherwise access sensitive data. For example, sensitive data, such as encryption and decryption keys, may be designed to be read from secure locations within a computing device and sent to other secure functional components through secure channels within the device. Handling of sensitive data has related security requirements, which generally specify that (1) secure data and control information should not reach non-secure areas of the computing device and (2) non-secure data and control information should not propagate to secure areas of the computing device or interfere with secure operations performed by the computing device. The role of initiators (e.g., masters) and receivers (e.g., slaves) regarding one or a combination of data and control information are important when analyzing these requirements. Analysis regarding whether secure data and control information has passed through an encryption path or not is also important.
Overall, the process of integrating multiple intellectual property (IP) functional components to create multi-system circuits sometimes provides an unexpected path to secure areas of the computing device. The addition of test logic and associated test ports may create a path by which secure data may be accessed by an interface external to the computing device. The resulting path may create a security leak (i.e. violation to requirement 1 above) or an illegal modification or interference on a secure area (i.e. violation to requirement 2 above). Current techniques used to verify that a design is free from data security leaks or unintentional pathways creating unauthorized data access are insufficient.
Summary
Embodiments include a formal verification approach for verifying data access and data propagation paths in multi-system circuits by proving the unreachability of path cover properties of the circuit design. In one embodiment, a security path verification system receives an original circuit model of a circuit design. As used herein, the term "circuit model" may refer to a model of an entire circuit or any portion of a circuit. The security path verification system also receives parameters identifying a first location within the circuit design that is a source of tainted data and a second location within the circuit design that is coupled to the first location. To tune or optimize the formal verification process, the security path verification system may receive a selection of portions of the circuit design that include logic to be excluded from the verification analysis. Logic to be excluded is received by the security path verification system as an indication of a portion of the circuit design to be modeled as a black box, where the indicated portion is located along one more transmission paths between the first and second locations within the circuit design. Traditional analysis excludes the logic in the blackboxed module from the analysis and allows any arbitrary values at the outputs of such module. But to ensure that tainted data may still propagate through the excluded logic, the security path verification system replaces the excluded logic with a connectivity abstraction, intended to maintain the data propagation properties of the excluded logic. Traditional handling of blackboxed modules in formal verification of generic properties, in contrast, merely allows any arbitrary value to propagate to the outputs of the blackboxed module. The disclosed embodiments, however, use a functional representation of the blackboxed module, with not as much details as the actual circuit description of the module, but with details sufficient for security verification. The connectivity abstraction may be generated in netlist form or other appropriate representation. Using the connectivity abstraction, the security verification system generates a second circuit model of the circuit design by modifying the first circuit model with the abstracted version of the excluded portion of the circuit design. Using the second circuit model, the security verification system determines whether the tainted data can reach the second location within the circuit design from the first location within the circuit design. In one embodiment, formal verification may be used to verify whether the tainted data can reach the second location within the circuit design from the first location within the circuit design. By using a modified circuit model that includes the connectivity abstraction, the security verification system provides a tunable analysis environment that allows the propagation of tainted data. Furthermore, the security verification may involve restricting the analysis to only consider paths that go through or do not go through the specified signal paths. Accordingly, the disclosed embodiments yield verification results with a measurable level of completeness compared to other security path verification techniques.
For example, some security path verification techniques use structural analysis, which requires a user to manually trace of a path to verify the presence of a blocking agent. Such an approach is often impractical because of the tedious process of analyzing a very large number of potential paths. Moreover, structural analysis is often subjective, lacking a clear checking mechanism. Other security data path verification techniques use dynamic simulation methods, where user would generate different stimulus on the inputs of the system, simulating attacks done by a hacker. Yet, using this approach not all possible attacks can be covered by the engineer in reasonable time. Moreover, simulation tools currently available do not reliably detect if security requirements have been violated. These deficiencies increase the likelihood that security-related issues will not be discovered during the design/verification phase. And like structural analysis techniques, dynamic simulation methods also fail to yield to verification results with a measurable level of completeness.
The figures depict various embodiments of the present disclosure for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the embodiments described herein.


Herbicidal compositions contain N-phosphonomethyglycine and alkyl phenol polyoxyalkylene surfactant which contains from about 50 to about 90 weight percent of alkyl phenol polyoxyethylene carboxylic acid.

This invention relates to novel herbicidal compositions, particularly aqueous solutions, containing the herbicide N-phosphonomethylyglycine (also known as glyphosate) and an alkyl phenol polyoxyalkylene carboxylic acid-containing surfactant.
N-phosphonomethylglycine, as well as analogous compounds including salts, and the herbicidal properties and formulations containing them, are described in numerous patents, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,799,758. This patent describes a number of compositions containing N-phosphonomethylglycine and analogous compounds and discloses that the incorporation of a surface-active agent into such compositions "greatly enhances their efficiency". A number of surface-active agents are disclosed in that patent.
The patent also mentions that because N-phosphonomethylglycine itself is relatively insoluble in water, it is generally preferred to utilize the more readily soluble derivatives of N-phosphonomethylglycine, including metal salts and salts of N-phosphonomethylglycine and strong acids, namely those having a pK of 2.5 or less, such as hydrochloric, sulfuric, phosphoric, trifluoracetic, trichloracetic, and the like.
A number of subsequent patents and patent applications describe in more detail particular surfactants which may be used with N-phosphonomethylglycine or its salts. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,414 describes compositions of N-phosphonomethylglycine containing certain alkyl polyoxyethylene phosphoric acid ester surfactants. European Patent Application 290,416 describes compositions containing N-phosphonomethylglycine or its salts and an alkoxylated amine having at the most 12 alkoxy groups per molecule. European Patent Application 472,310 describes new surfactant compositions for use with pesticides, including glyphosate, which comprise a polyoxyalkylene alkyl amine containing at least about 7 moles of an oxyalkylene group combined with a second compound which has the property of reducing eye irritantcy. Such eye irritant-reducing compounds include sulfated polyoxyalkylene alkyl phenols, polyoxyalkylene alcohol sulfates, mono- and di-(polyoxyalkylene alcohol)phosphates, mono- and di-(polyoxyalkylene alkyl phenol)phosphates, polyoxyalkylene alkyl phenol carboxylates and polyoxyalkylene carboxylates.
It is an object of the present invention to provide new phosphonomethylglycine-containing compositions, particularly aqueous solutions of N-phosphonomethylglycine which may be readily used for herbicidal application and control of undesirable plants.

Herbicidal formulations containing n-phosphonomethylglycine and alkyl phenol polyoxyalkylene carboxylic acid surfactant


A mobile radiography system includes a wheeled transport frame and a vertical column mounted on the transport frame. A boom is attached to the vertical column and to an x-ray tube head. A boom carriage allows movement of the boom along a track in the vertical column and includes a magnetic mechanism to lock the boom in the track at a desired height. An electromagnetic coil in the boom carriage is configured to disable the magnetic lock mechanism to allow vertical movement of the boom along the track.

The invention relates generally to the field of medical imaging, and in particular to portable radiographic imaging apparatus. More specifically, the invention relates to a mobile radiography apparatus including improved operational features.
Mobile carts are employed in medical facilities to move medical equipment between locations. One type of mobile cart includes an x-ray source used to capture digital x-ray images in a digital radiographic detector. Mobile x-ray apparatus are of particular value in intensive care apparatus (ICU) and other environments where timely acquisition of a radiographic image is important. Because portable carts can be wheeled around the ICU or other area and brought directly to the patient's bedside, a portable x-ray imaging apparatus allows an attending physician or clinician to have recent information on the condition of a patient and helps to reduce the risks entailed in moving patients to stationary equipment in the radiological facility.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.


An interactive toy for a child, the interactive toy having a body, a central processing unit (CPU), a wireless communication module, a memory module, a batter module, and a plurality of input/output modules. The body has an ornamental exterior, at least one input button, and a perforated surface section. The CPU includes an imbedded control logic for operating the toy. The wireless communication module is electrically connected for data exchange with the CPU. The memory module is electrically connected for data exchange with the CPU. The battery module is electrically connected to the CPU for providing electrical power. The plurality of input/output modules is electrically connected to the CPU for sending and receiving input signals between the child and the CPU.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
A typical toy capable of receiving a first user or child's input and providing audio output generally has a series of imbedded audio messages that are not changeable or updatable. The toy has to be reprogrammed with new imbedded messages by manipulation of the toy by a second user or parent.
While current toys achieve their intended purposes there is a need for a new interactive toy that can be remotely updated with new audio output and provide a true interactive experience between the child, the parent, and the toy.


A multi-beam luminous source apparatus, an optical scanning apparatus, and an image formation apparatus are provided. The multi-beam luminous source includes a first member for supporting a coupling lens and a second member for supporting a control substrate that supports a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL). The first member and the second member are joined with a screw at a reference plane that perpendicularly intersects an optical axis of the coupling lens. The second member includes a base member that supports the control substrate and a base member that includes a branch mirror, a convergent lens, and an optical detection sensor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a multi-beam luminous source apparatus, an optical scanning apparatus, and an image formation apparatus; and especially relates to a multi-beam scanner for an optical scanning apparatus used as a writing system of a digital copier, a laser beam printer, and the like, for scanning a surface of a photo conductor and the like simultaneously with two or more optical beams, and for forming an image at high speed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a tandem system multi-color image formation apparatus has been available, wherein photo conductor drums for different colors are arranged along a conveyance route of an imprint object, toner images in corresponding colors are formed at image formation stations of the corresponding colors, and the toner images are superposed to form a color image in one pass. This has contributed to increasing the image formation speed. Recently and continuing, with improvements in the speed, a simple printing with an on-demand printing system is available, wherein high quality image formation with homogeneity of images from print to print is increasingly required.
Further, as a technique of raising the recording speed, there is a method of raising the rotational speed of a polygon mirror for deflecting. However, this method requires higher power consumption, which generates heat that deforms the housing for accommodating an optical scanning apparatus. The deformation causes a displacement of a scanning position on a photo conductor. Examples of the deformation include a registration (toner) error and inclination of a scanning line. For this reason, the rotational speed of the polygon mirror cannot be raised too much if the homogeneity of the quality of image from print to print is to be maintained.
On the other hand, there is a multi-beam scanner for raising the recording speed, hence raising the speed of the optical scanning apparatus. The multi-beam scanner scans a surface of a scanning object with two or more beams such that two or more adjoining lines are simultaneously recorded. In this way, the speed is raised without raising the rotational speed of the polygon mirror.
Here, if the rotational speed of the polygon scanner is R (rpm), the moving speed of an imprint object is V (mm/s), the number of planes is N, recording density is D (dpi), and the number of luminous sources is m, the rotational frequency R of the polygon scanner is expressed by the following formula.R=(60/N)×(D/25.4)×V/m
Here, the number of the luminous sources is desired to be such that the rotational speed of the polygon scanner becomes less than a speed at which the housing deformation due to heat becomes a predetermined tolerance. In this aspect, it is effective to employ a semiconductor laser array wherein two or more luminous sources are monolithically arranged at intervals of dozens of μm.
For example, Patent Reference 1 proposes a multi-beam luminous source apparatus wherein a sub scanning interval of beam-spot arrays constituted by two or more luminous sources is adjusted by rotationally adjusting a luminous source unit that includes a semiconductor laser array around an optical axis of an image-formation optical system. Further, Patent Reference 2 discloses an image formation apparatus wherein two or more lines are simultaneously formed by carrying out a package scan using a two-dimensional-array unit.
[Patent Reference 1] Japanese Patent No. 3670858
[Patent reference 2] JPA 2003-211728

Multi-beam luminous source apparatus, an optical scanning apparatus, and an image formation apparatus


Perioperative patient blood glucose concentrations are determined by imposing patient effluent ultrafiltrate through a sample cell incorporated in an automated polarimeter. The device includes an optical platform, fluid handling subassembly, controlling electronics, and integration software. A stable collimated light source of known intensity and distinct specified wavelength is passed through an optical platform including a polarizer, retarder, bandpass filters, sample flow cell, analyzer and detector. The angular rotation of the transmitted light resulting from the glucose contained in patient ultrafiltrate collected in the sample flow cell is recorded and provides a measure of the glucose concentration.

The detrimental effects of elevated perioperative blood glucose have been reported in a large and growing body of peer-reviewed medical publications. Pre-operative and intraoperative hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia have been reported as independent risk factors for postoperative complications, including infection and death. In modern surgical suites there are limited space and personnel available for monitoring patient blood analytes, though studies have shown the importance for tightly controlled glucose during cardiothoracic and other major surgical procedures. The current method for monitoring patient blood glucose is to obtain a sample of the patient's blood and have it sent to the hospital lab for analysis, or to a nearby point-of-care laboratory system. These procedures lack sufficient accuracy, take too long, and require that limited staff take time away from critical functions to draw a blood sample, analyze it, or send it off to the hospital's lab for analysis (and wait for results). The time lag between sampling and delivery of results is detrimental to optimum blood glucose management.
The "Portland Protocol" (Furnary 2004), where insulin is continuously provided to the patient during open heart surgical procedures, was developed to keep blood glucose from rising above 180 mg/dL, but does not address hypoglycemic (low blood glucose) conditions that lead to other postoperative complications. Tight glucose control, targeting concentrations between 80-120 mg/dL has been shown in published studies to reduce postoperative complications. These complications include mediastinitis or deep sternal wound infection, loss of mental acuity, respiratory infections, and death. Reduced mortality, reduced morbidity, lower incidence of surgical site infections, enhanced long term survival, and reduction in lost mental acuity are benefits of maintaining blood glucose concentrations below 180 mg/dL. Of the seventy-five percent of patients that lose some mental acuity during surgery about 50% regain normal function over the next year. Hypoglycemia during surgery has been associated with this loss, and more frequent monitoring of patients before, during, and after surgery to maintain optimal blood glucose events will provide for faster healing and improved patient outcomes.
There are currently no automated blood glucose monitoring systems utilized to monitor critically ill patients or perioperatively. Some companies have developed implantable monitors for use in critical care settings, but none for intraoperative monitoring.
Prior art products include an implantable catheter that would be expected to add complexity to the number of attachment's (IV's, monitors, oxygen, etc.) to the patient. It is used in conjunction with an injectable compound that provides fluorescence in the presence of glucose. Little is known about how this might interact with the hemoconcentrator or heart-lung bypass process, in addition to a lack of measurement precision and sensitivity.
Another prior art product provides an implantable sensor that takes readings from interstitial fluid collected via microdialysis and transmits them via RFID to a monitor within five feet of the patient. It has received CE Mark as a Class II A medical device. It has been designed for use in clinical settings by healthcare professionals, but requires calibration with inaccurate and labor intensive fingerstick or laboratory analysis.
While continuous monitors based on microdialysis technologies for diabetic patients have been released to market in the United States, they are not stand-alone monitors, and require that the patient calibrate and make adjustments to treatment (insulin injection or medication) based on readings from old inaccurate existing finger-stick method and monitor, or confirmation readings from clinical laboratory devices.
The current method for measuring glucose during surgery is to draw a blood sample and send it to the hospital's lab for analysis and wait for results to be returned to the surgical suite. Time between testing and receipt of results can be more than an hour, and presumably because of this, patient sampling is done at least on an hourly basis during cardiothoracic surgeries that last on average about six hours, which does not provide sufficiently frequent measurement to permit timely adjustment of insulin and/or glucose.
Over the past decade, the occurrence of one of the worst postoperative complications, namely deep sternal wound infection, has been increasing. Rates that used to be 1% or less are now occurring in 2-3% of cases, and in some hospital systems in more than 4%. The incidence of diabetes, and therefore the number of diabetic patients undergoing surgery has increased, pushing mortality, morbidity, and hospitals costs upwards.
A variety of clinical procedures have been implemented that have helped slow the increase in the incidence of deep sternal wound infections, but none has addressed it as sufficiently as shown in the clinical studies over the past four years. These measures include antibiotic treatments, wound care solutions (platelet rich plasma), hand washing, and reduction of surgical personnel moving in and out of the surgical suite.
Microdialysis based continuous monitors remain targeted at the much larger consumer monitor market, and have not yet been applied successfully to perioperative monitoring, and continue to be used as ancillary products to track trends as opposed to adjusting or directing treatment, due to their lack of sufficient accuracy and necessary precision.
The prior art includes an injectable product that glows in the presence of glucose, however the results obtained are general in nature and not sufficiently specific to provide guidance in therapeutic treatment. Microdialysis based monitors incorporate a minimally invasive sensor that is implanted in the skin of the patient. Most utilize RFID or Bluetooth technology to transmit measurement data to the monitors, again with high costs and insufficient measurement precision.
The prior art also includes a number of devices that measure blood glucose, none of which has been applied to the specifications or the working environment found in cardiothoracic and other major surgeries, or intensive care units. Most require too much hands-on effort, frequent calibration, implantables, transmission radio frequencies, or other issues that would preclude their providing the required accurate, safe, convenient, and automated real-time measurement system that displays results on-demand.
Conventional methods for relatively crude industrial measurement of chiral analytes (sugars such as glucose) are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,342. This polarimeter consisted of a light source, collimating lens, a primary polarizer to establish a reference point for measurement of optical rotation, a sample cell through which a continuous stream of crude syrup was circulated, and a measuring circuit that determined the extent of optical rotation caused by the sample through an appropriate output signal. Visible light sources in the 400-700 nm wavelength were typical with this type of polarimeter. The minute concentrations of glucose that are present in the human body are far below the sensitivity provided by such polarimeters.
It is well known that glucose in solution is an optically active material. Due to its molecular structure it will cause the plane of polarization of light to be passing through the solution to be changed. The quantitative relationship between the amount of polarization rotation, the glucose concentration, and the length of the optical path through which the light travels has been clearly established. This is expressed mathematically as:Aθ=α*L*C Where:                Δθ is the polarization change in degrees;        α is the specific rotation constant dependent on the specified glucose type and the wavelength of the light source;                    α: 56.5 degrees per decimeter per gram per milliliter for a-d-glucose at a wavelength of 633 nanometers;                        L is the path length of the optical path containing the glucose solution in decimeters (dm) where (1 dm: 10 cm, or 10 centimeters); and        C is the concentration of the glucose solution in grams (g) per 100 milliliters (ml) of solution or g/dL (from "Sugar Analysis" 3rd Edition, Browne & Zerban, John Wiley & Sons, 1941, page 263).
For the clinically meaningful glucose concentration of 40 to 400 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter) and a path length of 5 cm (centimeters) the observed rotation ranges from about 0.0112° to 0.11275° for a wavelength of 633 nanometers (nm) As the wavelength of the light source is increased the specific rotation decreases, to a value of 26.3° per decimeter per gram per milliliter for a-d-glucose at a wavelength of 900 nanometers. At that wavelength the rotation in the above case is reduced to 0.0052 and 0.052° respectively.
If the assumption is made that there is about a 10% change in the optical transmission through the 5 cm path of a flow cell; then a 5 cm path length through the flow cell should produce about 0.0042 to 0.047° of polarization rotation. Thus, a usable system must have a basic sensitivity on the order of about 0.0042° degrees, i.e., 14 arc-second, or 70 microradians, with a 5 cm flow cell.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,231 by Cote, et al., describes a non-invasive glucose sensor which utilizes a pair of polarizers, a quarter wave plate and a motor driven polarizer which produces a constant amplitude phase modulated beam. This beam is split into two beams, one of which passes through the sample and the other which is employed as a reference. By phase demodulation of the two beams, each incident on a different detector, a measure of glucose concentration in an optical cell is determined. Measurements are proposed to be made transversely through the eye's anterior chamber. This approach suffers in sensitivity of measurement (according to the authors) which is probably due to noise problems associated with the motor driven phase modulator as well as other unidentified problems.
"Multispectral Polarimetric Glucose Detection using a Single Pockels Cell", Optical Engineering, Vol. 33, pp 2746 (1994) by King, et al., describes a system which employs a pair of polarizers, a quarter wave plate, and a Pockels cell modulator which are configured as a polarization spectrometer. They employed the output from a lock-in amplifier which is "filtered using a leaky integrator" and then fed back to a compensator circuit which was eventually summed with the driver oscillator output and then input to the Pockels cell driver to null the AC signal in the system. Again, noise levels in the system represent the major problem in achieving the required sensitivity. The reported data show a scatter that is unacceptable for a working blood glucose sensor.
Similarly, Pockels cell modulation has been employed for differential analysis of chiral analytes in flow cells (U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,326). By applying oscillating voltage to the Pockels cell, alternating beams of circular and linearly polarized light are produced. Greater sensitivity is achieved through effectively removing noise by subtracting the rotation angles calculated for each of the beams.
The analysis techniques for chiral analytes such as glucose have been improved in the area of noise reduction. There are various single beam methods utilizing electronic or optical means to filter noise (as an example, WO 01/06918). Additional methods utilize dual beams either by comparison to a reference cell (U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,059), mixing out of phase sinusoidal signals (U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,327), switching between a signal and reference beam (U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,528), or using a two frequency laser source with two orthogonal linear polarized waves (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,896,198 and 6,327,037). Glucose measurement is based on ascertaining the change in optical rotation (transmission) from the optical null point.
The inventor has developed patented prior art utilizing modulated sources (U.S. Pat. No. 6,999,808, U.S. Pat. No. RE39642, U.S. Pat. No. RE40316, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,407) demonstrating methods and devices for precisely extracting signals out of the noise, and provided greater sensitivity and stability than required. The methods therein described suffer from a common problem of cost and complexity that reduce their commercial utility from a practical standpoint.
Thus, there remains a need to provide a more practical, cost effective, and accurate automated method for quantifying the change in optical rotation introduced by a chiral analyte, such as glucose, by reducing the noise associated with the measurement and moving away from predictive mathematics in favor of direct measurement.

Method and apparatus for automated measurement of chiral analyte concentration


Graft polymers are prepared by reacting thermoplastic copolymers comprised of alkenyl aromatic monomers and carboxylic acid moieties such as .alpha.,.beta.-unsaturated dicarboxylic acid anhydrides with mono-amine functionalized polyoxyalkylene ethers. The graft polymers are useful for the production of formed products such as injection molded articles and in blends or alloys with other thermoplastic resins such as polystyrene.

Styrenic resins having .alpha.,.beta.-unsaturated carboxylic acid moieties incorporated therein have long been known to be useful plastics for the production of molded articles having good heat resistance. However, these materials tend to be rather brittle, decreasing their utility in end-use applications wherein they will be subjected to repeated impact or flexing. A common solution to this problem is to incorporate a high molecular weight hydrocarbon-based rubber or elastomer such as a butadiene-containing polymer into the styrene resin so as to improve the toughness and impact properties. Although this approach works well and is practiced commercially on a large scale, it suffers from the disadvantage that the styrenic resin is typically rendered opaque (non-transparent) by the introduction of the rubber. In certain applications such as packaging, however, a non-brittle clear resin having good flexibility and resistance to cracking would be highly desirable. Currently available impact-modified styrene/carboxylic acid moiety copolymers are generally not suitable for such uses.

Graft polymer compositions containing mono-amine functionalized polyoxyalkylene ethers


An image processing apparatus includes a scanning unit for generating a scan image by scanning a document; a first determination unit to determine whether the scan image has a skew; a second determination unit to determine a type of the skew according to a determination result; and an image correction unit to perform a different type of correction on the scan image according to the type of the skew.

1. Field
The embodiments relate to an image processing apparatus and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image processing apparatus generates, by using an image sensor, a scan image digitalized from an image included in a document. During a process of generating a scan image, the scan image may be slanted or distorted due to various reasons. The slant or distortion may occur at a top edge, a left edge, or the top and left edges of the scan image. Accordingly, a method of accurately correcting distortion of a scan image according to the type of distortion is required.


A light tunnel with a gradient filter layer includes a light tunnel body and a gradient filter layer. In this case, the gradient filter layer is disposed at a light emerging side. The transmission rate at the central area of the gradient filter layer is smaller than the transmission rate at the edge area of the gradient filter layer.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a light tunnel and, in particular, to a light tunnel with a gradient filter layer.
2. Related Art
Image projection system is one of the most popular products in the optoelectronic industry. The most known technologies include the cathode ray tube (CRT) technology, the digital light processing (DLP) technology, the reflective liquid crystal technology, the transmissive liquid crystal technology, and the likes. Herein, the DLP and reflective liquid crystal technologies both utilize a light tunnel for improving the luminance uniformity.
Hereinafter, a DLP is taken as an example for illustrating the function of the light tunnel in the DLP.
The DLP is digitally controlled and is operated with utilizing the light-reflecting principle. The light beam is firstly generated from a light source and then focused with a lens. After that, the light beam passes through a color filter such as including a red filter, a green filter and a blue filter. Next, the light beam achieves a digital micro-mirror device (DMD). The DMD includes a plurality of movable micro-mirrors and driving electrodes for controlling the tilt angle and rotating time of the micro-mirrors. After being reflected with the DMD, the light beam can be projected on a screen through a projection lens for generating an image.
With reference to FIG. 1, in a DLP 10, a light source 11 emits a light beam, which then passes through an UV/IR cut filter 12 and color wheel 13. After that, the light beam passes through a light tunnel 14 and a lens 15, and then reaches the reflective mirror 16. The reflective mirror 16 reflects the light beam to the DMD 17 obliquely. After processed with the DMD 17, the light beam goes to a projection lens 18 so as to be projected on a screen 19 for generating the image.
The light tunnel 14 is used to guide the light beam (e.g. to change the progressing direction of the light beam) and to collimate the light beam. In addition, the light tunnel 14 can improve the luminance uniformity and control the aspect ratio of the projected light. The light tunnel 14 is also known as a light rod, an integration rod, a light pipe or a rod lens.
Since the light beam is reflected to the DMD 17 obliquely, the paths of different parts of the reflected light beam from the reflective mirror 16 to the DMD 17 are not equivalent. Thus, the light beam may not be focused on the DMD 17, causing that the area of the light beam reaching one surface of the DMD 17 is increased. As a result, the light reaching the surface of the DMD 17 has reduced brightness and lower luminance uniformity.
In the conventional DLP 10, the DMD 17 includes a control circuit 171 for controlling the tilt angle of each DMD 17 to generate gray-scaled images according the red, blue and green gray signals of the video signals.
However, to generate image with uniform luminance, the control circuit 171 of the DMD 17 must process a pre-compensation of the light beam. This will reduce the gray level that the DMD 17 can provide, so as to affect the final image quality.
It is therefore an important subjective of the invention to provide a light tunnel with a gradient filter layer for the problem of reduced gray level caused by the pre-compensation process.


Accommodation training apparatus is modified to include electroencephalography apparatus for monitoring the patient's brainwaves. This permits a patient to be trained to enter, and to remain in, the alpha state, even with the eyes open and with something to look at.. A two-dimensional CCD matrix is used to receive reflected-back radiation from the eye. A computer is connected to the matrix and permits the patient to be trained for correction of conditions such as strabismus, nystagmus and eccentric fixation by identifying whether the patient's eye is moving or whether the patient's state of accommodation is changing.. An LCD matrix is used to present variable visual information to the patient's eye. This facilitates training the patient for dichotic learning.. Advantageously, electromyography apparatus is used to monitor the tension of one of the patient's muscles, advantageously the frontalis muscle.

The invention relates to brainwave training, electromyography training, dichotic learning and accommodation training.
It is known that then a subject is in the alpha state (i.e. is in the state in which the brain emits alpha waves), the subject's performance improves; nervous tension is reduced, reaction times decrease, attention becomes heightened, etc. Alpha training has consequent been investigated as a technique by which, e.g., athletic performance can be improved.
However, alpha training has heretofore been carried out with the subject's eyes closed. This is because it has generally been believed that a subject cannot enter the alpha state then the subject has open eyes and something to look at. As a result, persons those performance depends upon vision (e.g. fighter pilots, target shooters etc.) have heretofore been unable to benefit from open-eye alpha training.
The present invention proceeds from the discovery that existing beliefs regarding the alpha state are erroneous. In particular, the present invention proceeds from the discovery that a subject can be trained to enter the alpha state not only with eyes open, but with the eyes detected upon a visual image. Furthermore, the present invention proceeds from the discovery that accommodation training is--contrary to conventional wisdom in the art--a most efficient way in which to accomplish alpha training.
Brainwave training is also considered useful for children with learning disabilities. Such children tend to be in the theta state (i.e. in the state in which their brains emit theta waves) and also tend to be hyperopic. It has now been discovered that such children may be treated by alpha training, implemented by accommodation training.
As previously practiced, accommodation training has been directed to improving the subjects vision. U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,828 discloses apparatus which directly measures, in real time, the refraction of the eye. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,533,221 and 4,660,945 disclose that apparatuses of this type can, with appropriate use of biofeedback techniques, be used to train a patient to improve his or her visual focusing ability even in the absence of corrective lenses. In these devices, the refraction of the eye is measured and used to produce a tone to which the patient may listen. The patient may then be trained to be able to control his eye focusing by, e.g., learning how to drive up the pitch of the tone. Training programs of this sort are known by the general term "accommodation training".
It has now been discovered that accommodation training can be used for alpha training, and not merely for vision improvement. It can now be shown that most if not all subjects have an accommodation window. When the subject focuses to an accommodation level which is within this window, the subject's muscle tension diminishes and the subject enters the alpha state. The accommodation training is so programmed that the subject is taught how to enter the alpha state so as to facilitate entry into the alpha state when this is required by the performance demands of, e.g., athletic competition, air combat, etc.
Individuals such as fighter pilots, etc. are required to process many channels of information simultaneously. For example, if a pilot spots a potential threat, he must determine from the threat's behavior whether the threat is hostile or not. Additionally, the pilot must be aware of the condition of his aircraft and must be prepared, as required, to respond to commands from his superiors, to take evasive action or to attack the threat. To accomplish all these objectives simultaneously, the pilot must be able to, e.g., interpret the outputs from his instrument panel, to hear and respond to commands from his communications equipment, to steer and control his aircraft and to monitor the behavior of the threat, all at the same time.
This cognitive process, by which a subject learns to deal with different channels of information simultaneously, is known as dichotic learning. It has now been discovered that by modifying apparatus which was previously used for accommodation training alone, a subject can be trained in dichotic learning.
One object of the invention is to improve existing apparatus for accommodation training so as to make it useful for open-eye alpha training of patients (like Olympic athletes and fighter pilots) who entirely lack common vision disorders. Another object is to improve existing apparatus for accommodation training so as to make it useful for training patients in dichotic learning.
Still another object is to generally improve on known equipment of this general type.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, conventional accommodation training equipment is modified by providing electroencephalography (EEG) apparatus for monitoring of a patient's brainwaves. By teaching the patient to remain in the alpha state while performing vision and/or hearing related exercises, the patient may be trained to enter and remain in the alpha state where circumstances require this or make it advantageous. In preferred embodiments, electromyography (EMG) apparatus is also provided for monitoring muscle tension; such apparatus advantageously monitors the tension of the frontalis muscle and may also be used to monitor the tension of other muscles as well.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, EMG training can be carried out using the electromyography apparatus referenced above. This is useful when the patient reaches a plateau where progress in alpha training is temporarily blocked.
In accordance with still another aspect of the invention, conventional accommodation training equipment is modified by providing apparatus to project images onto the patient's eyes in response to video signals. This permits the patient to be trained in dichotic learning.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, a two-dimensional photosensitive matrix, such as a two-dimensional CCD matrix, is used instead of the linear CCD array which has been used before. This has the unexpected advantage that, by using a computer, it becomes possible to distinguish between changes in accommodation and changes in eye position. As a result, it is possible to train individuals who suffer from multiple vision disorders. Additionally, it is much easier to use the apparatus because the computer can be programmed to register baseline information about the patient and to monitor, on a real time basis, deviations from such baseline information. This avoids the need for repeated manual readjustments of the apparatus, which would otherwise be necessary.

Methods and apparatus for use in alpha training, EMG training and dichotic learning


A sheet for thermoforming is comprised of a material which is compatible with PET and which has slower crystallinity and a crystallization temperature which is at least 77° C. greater than its glass transition temperature, more preferably a crystallization temperature greater than 151° C. The material may be coextruded into a sheet with a first PET material, such that when thermoformed into a formed part the layers of second material are engaged with each other in the molded parts and for being subjected to heat sealing.

The present invention relates to sheet material for thermoforming containers in general, and more particularly to sheet materials which are suitable for recycling.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a plastic resin widely used in consumer products and containers, such as in many disposable beverage containers. PET plastic offers the desirable property of being readily recyclable. Systems are in place in many regions of the world to collect, aggregate, and transport the used PET material objects and to submit them to processors for conversion into flakes for reuse in other applications. This recycled PET (RPET), can then be extruded into sheet form or otherwise formed into other objects, reducing the quantities of plastic waste committed to incineration or landfills. PET is well suited to being prepared in a transparent or amorphous form, and may readily be molded into a desired shape through conventional molding techniques such as thermoforming.
Prior to the development of widespread and accessible plastic recycling systems, other plastic materials were frequently used in consumer products and containers, among them Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. PVC plastic is also readily thermoformed into desired shapes, and is also adaptable to forming sealed containers by using a variety of heat sealing techniques to cause thin sheets of like PVC plastic to be welded together to thereby form a tamper-resistant seal. Yet recycling techniques for PVC plastic are not as advanced as those for PET plastic, and can be costly. As a result, in many applications there is a desire to substitute PET plastic materials where once PVC plastic had been used. There are many advantages to using a recognized environmentally friendly material such as PET.
Many retail containers are fabricated of transparent sheet material which permits the merchandised contents to be directly viewable by the consumer. To prevent pilferage, products, especially small and valuable items, may be enclosed in larger plastic containers which have sealed margins which may only be opened by a sharp implement or shears. This sealing is usually brought about at the point of filling the container with product by subjecting the overlapping flanges of a clam-shell or two-part container to any of a number of heat-sealing processes. These processes include radio frequency heat sealing, ultrasonic heat sealing, bar heat sealing, and UV sealing. The equipment to carry out these processes is well known in the art, and has been employed in many installations for years, and has been acquired often at great cost. Some of these processes, while providing exemplary service in joining PVC materials, function very poorly with conventional PET materials.
There are two types of joints or connections between plastic elements which in common language are referred to as heat seals, yet which are of a radically different nature. The first is of a primarily temporary nature, and may be referred to as a peelable seal. In a peelable seal two plastic elements are joined by being heated, but the bond between the two elements is weak. As a result, when the bond is subjected to pulling forces the bond between the two elements will fail well before the failure of the underlying plastic. The second type of bond, also sometimes referred to as a heat seal, is of a more permanent nature, and will be referred to herein as a "weld". In a welded heat seal, the two plastic elements are so securely joined to one another that when subjected to a pulling test, the plastic elements will themselves fail before the bond separates. For example, the ASTM D638-03 Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Plastics may be used to determine whether a successful weld has been formed. For retail containers intended to restrict pilferage, a welded heat seal is desirable.
Unfortunately, a weld between sheets of conventional PET material is difficult to form by heat sealing. Although PET is naturally a crystalline resin, it can be made into an amorphous, and hence transparent, material. Crystalline PET (CPET) is opaque. As the amorphous PET is heated above its crystallization temperature, it will return to a crystalline state, and will lose its transparency. Moreover, the material in this state will fail to form a suitable welded bond. The difficulty in forming a heat-seal weld between two PET sheets is this: In order to form a good weld, the plastic material must be heated above its glass transition temperature, but if the materials are heated too much they will become crystalline, and therefore incapable of properly bonding; yet the difference between the glass transition temperature and the crystallization temperature of conventional PET materials may be far too narrow an operating window for many conventional heat sealing processes.
PET may be modified by copolymerization to produce amorphous copolyesters such as PETG, available from EastmanChemical and SKchemicals. With amorphous copolyesters, the "operating window" of temperatures is expanded, and repeatable welding becomes more readily obtainable. PETG gives very good heat sealing performance. However, PETG is much more expensive than PET. Different resins may be combined into a single sheet of plastic material through the coextrusion process, in which two materials are simultaneously extruded to form a single sheet with distinct layers in intimate contact with one another. Although a lower-cost composite sheet might be formed with a thin layer of the more costly PETG coextruded with PET or RPET, the PETG is different enough from PET that it makes recycling difficult. For example, the glycol component of PETG can make recycling difficult. Hence where recycling of materials is desired PET and PETG should not be mixed.
What is needed is a sheet material for PET plastic container which can be economically fabricated and heat sealed to provide pilferage resistant seals, which is recyclable, and which is also readily used in connection with existing heat-sealing equipment designed for use with PVC materials.

Thermoformable heat-sealable PET sheet material


Disclosed is a mobile phone provided with: a main body that can be put in a storage state or a usage state by changing the relative positions or relative orientations of a first unit and a second unit; a wireless communication unit (23) that transmits and receives email; a state detection unit (29) that detects whether the main body is in the storage state; a side key (24) that the user can press; a memory unit (28) that stores email information including email addresses and message bodies; and a control unit (20). The control unit measures how long the side key (24) is depressed, and if the state detection unit (29) has detected the storage state, then in accordance with the length of time for which the side key (24) was depressed, the control unit uses the wireless communication unit (23) to transmit, as an email, email information that is assigned to said length of time and stored in the memory unit (28).

Mobile phones, PCs (Personal Computers), PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and/or the like have become popular as communication terminals.
Such communication terminals are equipped with functions for transmitting and receiving email. Furthermore, when transmitting email using such communication terminals, complex keystrokes and button operation are necessary in order to launch the email function, read email addresses from memory, and input message text into the email input screen.
In addition, with this kind of communication terminal, even when transmitting predetermined message text to certain recipients such as family or friends, complex keystrokes and button operation are necessary, which undercuts convenience.
In contrast, a mobile phone (communication terminal) is known with which email can be transmitted to specific recipients such as family or friends through relatively simple keystrokes (for example, see Cited Literature 1).
With such a mobile phone, email addresses are stored in memory assigned to specific keys, and by pressing the specific key continuously for at least a prescribed time, that email address is called up to the email input screen as the recipient, enabling message text to be input and for the email to be transmitted after inputting.

Communication terminal having email transmission functionality, method for transmitting email, and computer-readable recording medium