A bonding wire for semiconductor includes: a core wire of copper or a copper alloy; a coating layer containing palladium and having a thickness of 10 to 200 nm; and an alloy layer formed on a surface of the coating layer. The alloy layer contains a noble metal and palladium and having a thickness of 1 to 80 nm. The noble metal is either gold or silver, and a concentration of the noble metal in the alloy layer is not less than 10% and not more than 75% by volume.

As a bonding wire for semiconductor used to connect an electrode on a semiconductor device to an external connection terminal (referred to as "bonding wire" hereunder), there has been mainly used, nowadays, a bonding wire (gold bonding wire) having a wire diameter of about 20 to 50 μm and being made of 4N gold (Au) with a high purity (4-Nine, a purity of 99.99% by mass or higher). In general, there has conventionally been performed ball bonding featuring a thermal compressive bonding technique with the aid of ultrasound, in order to bond the gold bonding wire to an electrode on a silicon chip serving as a semiconductor device, i.e., a method in which a general bonding device is used so as to pass the gold bonding wire through a jig called capillary, followed by heating and melting a front end of this bonding wire through an arc heat input, thus forming a ball thereon due to a surface tension, such ball being further pressed and bonded to the aforementioned electrode heated up to a temperature in a range of 150 to 300° C.
In contrast, there has conventionally been performed so-called wedge bonding to bond the gold bonding wire directly to an electrode without forming the aforementioned ball, when connecting the corresponding bonding wire to an external connection terminal such as a lead, a land or the like. In recent years, there have been observed rapid diversifications in a semiconductor mounting structure, material and connection technology. For example, in addition to the existing QFP (Quad Flat Packaging) using a lead frame, there have been put to practical use new mounting methods including: BGA (Ball Grid Array) using a substrate, a polyimide tape and the like; CSP (Chip Scale Packaging) and the like, with the external connection terminal being diversified. For this reason, a wedge bonding property has become more crucial than ever.
Further, since there is a growing need for miniaturization of semiconductor devices and performing thin-mounting accordingly, there have been increasingly employed: a low loop bonding technique featuring a low loop height of a bonding wire; a reverse bonding technique for releasing loops upward toward multilayered chips from a substrate side, and the like.
With resource prices escalating in recent days, there has also been a steep rise in the price of gold employed as a raw material of the gold bonding. Here, copper (Cu) has been considered a substitute for gold as a low-cost material for a bonding wire. However, since copper is more susceptible to oxidation than gold, it is difficult to store a simple copper bonding wire for a long period of time, and there cannot be achieved a favorable wedge bonding property with such bonding wire. Further, a ball formed on a front end of such simple copper bonding wire actually has to be formed under a reductive atmosphere so that the ball thus formed is not oxidized. Specifically, the reductive atmosphere around the ball is generally given using a gas prepared by mixing hydrogen (H2) of about 4% by volume into nitrogen (N2). However, it is still difficult to achieve such a favorable ball bonding property as is the case in the gold bonding wire. For those reasons, the copper bonding wire has not yet been widely employed in the LSI industry overall.
Here, in order to provide a solution to the oxidation of the copper bonding wire, there has been proposed a type of copper bonding wire with silver (Ag) coated on a surface of a copper wire. For example, in a patent document 1, although there is not disclosed a specific example of how a copper wire is coated with silver, there are disclosed kinds of both inner metals and surface coating metals for the bonding wire. Specifically, the inner metals are non-pure noble metals including aluminum (Al), copper, iron (Fe), an alloy of iron and nickel (FeNi) and the like. And, the surface coating metals are metals having corrosion resistance to moisture, salt content, alkalis or the like, such metals including gold and silver. Further, in a patent document 2, although there is not disclosed a specific example of how a copper wire is coated with silver, there is disclosed a copper bonding wire with a noble metal such as gold, silver or the like coated on a copper wire. According to the patent document 2, there can be achieved a further improved corrosion resistance property with the copper wire thus coated. A patent document 3 discloses a bonding wire composed of an aluminum (Al) wire or a copper wire, such aluminum wire or copper wire being further plated with a noble metal such as gold, silver or the like. The copper bonding wire according to the patent document 3 can provide a solution to corrosion and to thermal oxidation due to the plating, and allows a reliable bondability to be achieved with respect to a lead frame as is the case in the gold bonding wire. A patent document 4 discloses a copper bonding wire with a noble metal or anticorrosion metal coated on a surface of a high-purity copper extra fine wire, such noble metal, however, being not limited to silver. This composition allows surface oxidation of the corresponding copper bonding wire to be controlled (particularly, the presence of surface oxidation after being left for 10 days in the atmosphere). Further, a diameter of the aforementioned copper extra fine wire is 15 to 80 μm, and a coating layer formed in this case has an average layer thickness of 10 nm to 1 μm (the diameter of the wire is 25 μm, and the average layer thickness of the coating layer is actually 0.1 μm in an example). A patent document 5 discloses a copper bonding wire with silver coated on a surface of a copper fine wire, such silver coating being 0.001 to 0.01 times thicker than a diameter of the copper fine wire. Namely, when the diameter of the copper fine wire is 25 μm, the thickness of silver coated thereon is 0.02 to 0.3 μm. Such a kind of silver coating not only controls oxidation of copper, but also improves a ball formability.
Further, in order to provide a solution to oxidation of the copper bonding wire, there has been proposed a copper bonding wire with a noble metal, particularly, gold (Au) coated on a surface of a copper wire. For example, in the patent document 1, although there is not disclosed a specific example of how a copper wire is coated with gold, there are disclosed the kinds of both the inner metals and the surface coating metals for the bonding wire. Specifically, the inner metals are non-pure noble metals including aluminum (Al), copper, iron (Fe), an alloy of iron and nickel (FeNi) and the like. And, the surface coating metals are metals having corrosion resistance to moisture, salt content, alkalis or the like, such metals including gold and silver. A patent document 7 discloses a bonding wire composed of a core wire made of copper or a copper alloy containing tin, such core wire being further plated with gold so as to improve a breaking strength of the bonding wire. Further, in the patent document 2, although there is not disclosed a specific example of how a copper wire is coated with gold, there is disclosed the copper bonding wire with a noble metal such as gold, silver or the like coated on the copper wire. According to the patent document 2, there can be achieved a further improved corrosion resistance property with the copper wire thus coated. The patent document 3 discloses the bonding wire composed of the aluminum (Al) wire or the copper wire, such aluminum wire or copper wire being further plated with a noble metal such as gold, silver or the like. The copper bonding wire according to the patent document 3 can provide a solution to corrosion and to thermal oxidation due to the plating, and allows a reliable bondability to be achieved with respect to a lead frame as is the case in the gold bonding wire. The patent document 4 discloses the copper bonding wire with a noble metal or anticorrosion metal coated on the surface of the high-purity copper extra fine wire, such noble metal, however, being not limited to gold. This composition allows surface oxidation of the corresponding copper bonding wire to be controlled (particularly, the presence of surface oxidation after being left for 10 days in the atmosphere). Further, the diameter of the aforementioned copper extra fine wire is 15 to 80 μm, and the coating layer formed in this case has the average layer thickness of 10 nm to 1 μm (the diameter of the wire is 25 μm, and the average layer thickness of the coating layer is actually 0.1 μm in an example). A patent document 8 discloses coating of an outer periphery of a copper core wire with gold, such coating improving a bondability with respect to an electrode made of aluminum. A patent document 9 discloses a compound conductor composed of a core material that does not plastically deform, and an outer peripheral material softer than the core material and capable of undergoing plastic deformation. As an example, gold and a copper alloy are employed as the core material and the outer peripheral material, respectively, thus improving a connection strength between the conductive wire and a circuit. A patent document 10 discloses coating of an outside of a copper alloy with gold or a gold alloy, such coating preventing bonding wires from coming in contact with one another at the time of resin-sealing a semiconductor device. A patent document 11 discloses how pure gold is used to plate a surface of a wire rod made of an oxygen-free copper wire, and a bonding wire with a high signal conductivity and superior in high-frequency transmission accordingly. A patent document 12 discloses a bonding wire comprising: a core material mainly composed of copper; a dissimilar metal layer formed on the core material and made of a metal other than copper; and a coating layer formed on the dissimilar metal layer and made of an oxidation-resistant metal having a melting point higher than that of copper. The bonding wire according to the patent document 12 allows a spherical ball to be formed stably, and exhibits a superior adhesion between the coating layer and the core material.
However, with regard to the aforementioned copper bonding wires with silver or gold coated on the surfaces thereof, although there can be controlled surface oxidation of copper (particularly, progress of oxidation during storage), it is highly likely that the balls formed on the front ends of the bonding wires are deformed and fail to become spheres when performing bonding, thus preventing the corresponding copper bonding wires from being put to practical use. This is because, when coated with silver, such silver with a low melting point (melting point 961° C.) is preferentially melted as the front end of the bonding wire is being heated and melted through the arc heat input, whereas copper with a high melting point (melting point 1083° C.) is only partially melted at that time. Further, when coated with gold, copper with a large specific heat (380 J/kg·K) is not easily melted as the front end of the bonding wire is being heated and melted through the arc heat input, whereas gold with a small specific heat (128 J/kg·K) can be melted even with a small heat input at that time, thus bringing about a result in which gold in the multilayered structural body of copper and gold is preferentially melted. Further, as described in the patent document 5, there can be often formed a ball with a favorable shape if performing bonding under a reductive atmosphere (10% H2—N2). However, oxidation at the time of melting cannot be controlled if performing bonding under an atmosphere not containing hydrogen, thus making it difficult to perform bonding and impossible to form a ball with a favorable shape.
Meanwhile, instead of employing silver or gold, palladium (Pd) can also be conceivably used to coat a surface of a copper wire. In fact, the patent documents 2 through 4 also disclose palladium as a noble meal other than gold and silver used in the coating layers. Here, although the aforementioned documents do not specifically show a superiority of palladium, the truth is that palladium has a melting point (melting point 1554° C.) higher than that of silver and a specific heat (244 J/kg·K) larger than that of gold. Thus, when coated with palladium, there can be conceivably avoided a situation in which a spherical ball fails to be formed due to the fact that the coating layer is melted before the copper wire is melted to form the ball, as is the case in silver and gold. Namely, it is assumed that there can be simultaneously ensured both an oxidation resistivity of copper and the sphericity of the ball by coating the surface of the copper wire with palladium. The patent document 6 discloses how a diffusion layer is provided between a core wire and a coating layer (outer peripheral portion) of a double-layered bonding wire so as to improve an adhesion or the like of the corresponding coating layer. The patent document 6 discloses an example in which copper is employed as the core wire, and palladium is employed as the coating layer. With regard to such a kind of copper bonding wire coated with palladium, oxidation of copper is controlled, thereby not only allowing there to be achieved a superior long-term storageability and wedge bonding property, but also significantly reducing the possibility of oxidation of a ball being formed on a front end of the corresponding bonding wire. Accordingly, there can be formed a spherical ball by simply surrounding the ball with a nitrogen atmosphere prepared using a pure nitrogen gas, without using a hazardous gas such as hydrogen.

Nippon Steel & Sumikin Materials Co., Ltd.


A sealing device is to be fitted at a side of a bearing unit in order to seal a gap (15) between a stationary race (11) and a rotatable race (10) of the bearing unit. The device includes a relatively rigid reinforcing insert (16) of disc-annular shape, and a gasket (17) of relatively soft rubber or elastomeric material, over-moulded or vulcanized onto the insert (16). The gasket forms two opposite peripheral sealing portions (18, 19) intended to perform a static sealing action against the rotatable race (10) and a dynamic sealing action on the stationary race (11), respectively. The insert (16) includes magnetized or magnetizable material for forming, at predetermined angular zones or fields, a sequence of alternate and/or spaced north/south poles, in order to act as an encoder.

The present invention refers to a sealing device for bearings with an integrated encoder for detecting relative rotation between the races of a bearing unit.
Sealing devices fitted at the sides of a bearing unit in order to seal the gap between the bearing races are well known. Generally, these sealing devices are comprised of a metal reinforcing insert of disc-annular shape onto which there is over-moulded or vulcanized a gasket made of rubber or soft elastomeric material forming two peripheral sealing portions: an outer peripheral portion mounted on the stationary outer race of the bearing in order to perform a static sealing action against this race, and an inner peripheral portion with one or more dynamic sealing lips for sliding against the inner, rotatable bearing race.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,728 discloses a sealing device of the above-mentioned type wherein the conventional metal insert is replaced by a rigid annular insert of plastic polymeric material.
There are also known sealing devices for bearings incorporating a magnetic impulse ring or encoder fixed to a protective metal shield mounted on the rotatable bearing race. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,776,420. In use, the impulse ring faces a fixed sensor which detects the relative speed of rotation between the outer and inner bearing races.

Sealing device with an integrated encoder for bearings


A cardiac pacing system controls the progression of a cardiac disorder such as heart failure by delivering cardiac pacing to create or augment regional stress in the heart. The cardiac pacing is delivered intermittently, such as on a periodic basis, according to a cardiac stress augmentation pacing sequence that includes alternating pacing and non-pacing periods. One or more physiological signals are monitored for closed-loop control of the cardiac pacing using baseline characteristics of the cardiac disorder, acute cardiac stress created by the cardiac pacing, and/or risk associated with the cardiac pacing.

The heart is the center of a person's circulatory system. It includes an electro-mechanical system performing two major pumping functions. The left portions of the heart draw oxygenated blood from the lungs and pump it to the organs of the body to provide the organs with their metabolic needs for oxygen. The right portions of the heart draw deoxygenated blood from the organs and pump it into the lungs where the blood gets oxygenated. The pumping functions are accomplished by contractions of the myocardium (heart muscles). In a normal heart, the sinoatrial node, the heart's natural pacemaker, generates electrical impulses, known as action potentials, that propagate through an electrical conduction system to various regions of the heart to excite myocardial tissues in these regions. Coordinated delays in the propagations of the action potentials in a normal electrical conduction system cause the various regions of the heart to contract in synchrony such that the pumping functions are performed efficiently.
A blocked or otherwise damaged electrical conduction system causes irregular contractions of the myocardium, a condition generally known as arrhythmia. Arrhythmia reduces the heart's pumping efficiency and hence, diminishes the blood flow to the body. A deteriorated myocardium has decreased contractility, also resulting in diminished blood flow. A heart failure patient usually suffers from both a damaged electrical conduction system and a deteriorated myocardium. The diminished blood flow results in insufficient blood supply to various body organs, preventing these organs to function properly and causing various symptoms.
Without timely and effective treatment, a cardiac disorder may develop to an extent that significantly lowers the patient's quality of life and threats the patient's life. For example, heart failure may progress rapidly, with continuously deteriorating cardiac conditions and hemodynamic performance that could lead to inability to carry out daily activities and death. For these and other reasons, there is a need for controlling the progression of cardiac disorders, such as heart failure.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for closed-loop intermittent cardiac stress augmentation pacing


A new and distinct variety of Callistemon plant named ‘CNU07’ which is characterized by the combination of a compact and rotund growth habit, oblong inflorescence comprised of an abundance of white flowers, and the stability of all characteristics from generation to generation.

Parentage: 'CNU07' is the result of a controlled cross-pollination breeding program carried out by the inventor at a commercial plant breeding facility in Cobbitty, New South Wales, Australia in October of 2014. The inventor performed a controlled cross-pollination of the seed parent, Callistemon 'Hot Pink' (South African Plant Breeder's Rights grant number ZA 20043189) with Callistemon 'Mauve Mist' (unpatented), the pollen parent. The resulting seedlings were grown for two years to evaluate for new and distinct characteristics. In October of 2016, the inventor selected the new Callistemon plant for its compact growth habit and white flowers. This new and distinctive cultivar was given the name 'CNU07'.
Asexual Reproduction: Asexual reproduction of 'CNU07', by way of stem cuttings, was first initiated in 2016 in Cobbitty, New South Wales, Australia. Through greater than four subsequent generations, the unique features of this cultivar have proven to be stable and true to type.


A compressed air supply installation for operating a pneumatic installation, especially an air suspension installation of a vehicle, includes: an air supply unit and an air compression unit for supplying a compressed air supply unit with compressed air, a pneumatic connection, especially a bleeding line, comprising a bleeding valve system in the form of a controllable solenoid valve system and a bleeding port for bleeding air, and a pneumatic connection, especially a compressed air supply line, comprising an air drier and a compressed air port for supplying compressed air. The solenoid valve system comprises a primary valve and a secondary valve, which are actuatable by a controller of the solenoid valve system that is common to both valves and acts upon both valves.

Compressed air supply systems are used in vehicles of all types, especially to supply pneumatic spring units with compressed air. Pneumatic spring units can also comprise level control devices, with which the distance between vehicle axle and vehicle body can be adjusted. A pneumatic spring unit of a pneumatic system can comprise a number of air bellows, which are pneumatically connected to a common line (gallery) and can raise the vehicle body as their filling content increases and lower the vehicle body as their compressed air content decreases. With increasing distance between vehicle axle and vehicle body, or ground clearance, the spring deflections become greater and greater, and ground unevenness can also be overcome without contact with the vehicle body occurring. Such systems are used in off-road vehicles and in sport utility vehicles and the like (SUVs). Particularly in the case of SUVs, it is desirable in the case of high performance engines to provide the vehicle, on the one hand, with comparatively small ground clearance for high speeds on the road, and, on the other hand, with a comparatively large ground clearance for off-road duty. It is also desirable to implement a change of the ground clearance as quickly as possible, which increases the requirements with regard to speed, flexibility and reliability of a compressed air supply system.
A compressed air supply system for use in a pneumatic system with a pneumatic device, for example of a pneumatic spring unit, is operated with compressed air from a compressed air feed, for example in the range of a pressure level of between about 5 and 20 bar. The compressed air is made available to the compressed air feed by means of a compressed air generator (compressor). For supplying the pneumatic device, the compressed air feed is pneumatically connected to a compressed air port and, on the other side, is pneumatically connected to a vent port. Via a vent valve arrangement, the compressed air supply system and/or pneumatic device, by releasing air, can be vented towards the vent port.
For ensuring long-term operation of the compressed air supply system, an air drier is provided, with which the compressed air is to be dried. As a result, the accumulation of moisture in the pneumatic system is avoided, which, in the case of comparatively low temperatures, can otherwise lead to valve-damaging crystallization, and to other undesirable effects in the compressed air supply system and in the pneumatic device. An air drier has a desiccant, usually a granular bed, through which the compressed air can flow so that the desiccant—at comparatively high pressure—can absorb moisture contained within the compressed air by means of adsorption. An air drier can be designed as a regenerative air drier, if applicable. To this end, the dried compressed air from the pneumatic spring system can flow through the desiccant during each venting cycle—at comparatively low pressure—in counterflow relative to the filling direction. For this, the vent valve arrangement can be opened. For such a use—also referred to as pressure swing adsorption—it has proved to be desirable to design a compressed air supply system with flexibility and at the same time reliability. In particular, a comparatively rapid venting with a pressure swing, which is nevertheless adequate for a regeneration of the air drier, is desirable.
A solenoid valve for realizing a multiple function can be achieved with at least three connected pneumatic chambers—specifically for the pneumatic connection of functionally different, always separate pneumatic chambers that are provided with different levels of pressurization—with two separate lift armatures in a common excitation coil of the solenoid valve. Each of the lift armatures is associated with a different separate pneumatic chamber in each case. In principle, such a double-armature solenoid valve is known, for example, from DE 201 60 30 or from patent cases of the present applicant, such as DE 35 01 708 A1 or DE 10 2006 041 010 A1. The basic principle of operation of a double-armature solenoid valve can be gleaned from DE 10 2004 035 763 A1, for example, which is also a case of the present applicant.
A level control device for vehicles with air filters, with which a predetermined distance of the vehicle's framework from the vehicle's axle can be maintained by filling or emptying the pneumatic springs as a function of the vehicle's load, is known from the present applicant's DE 35 429 74 A1. The device includes a safety valve that can be controlled by the pressure in the pneumatic springs.
DE 199 11 933 B4 discloses a compressed air generator with an air drier with a first compressed air supply line, wherein the compressed air is directed through a desiccant, and with a second compressed air supply line without the compressed air being directed through the desiccant.
A compressed air supply system of the general type under consideration is disclosed in EP 1 165 333 B2 within the scope of a pneumatic system with a pneumatic spring unit. In addition to a separately blockable main vent line, this has a high-pressure vent line with an additional high-pressure vent valve in addition to the main vent valve—pneumatically operated by a control valve—in the main vent line and which is connected in parallel to the main vent line. The free flow cross section of the separate high-pressure vent valve is smaller than that of the main vent valve. Such a compressed air supply system is still open to improvement. It has been shown that during the venting of such a compressed air supply system via the high-pressure vent line, the venting of dry air, which is not used for the regeneration of the desiccant, is carried out. This amounts to an unnecessary waste of dry air, especially when a flexible, fast and yet reliable operation of the compressed air supply system, which is suitable for the above applications, with a correspondingly high operating rate should be required. Via the control valve, which is provided with a comparatively small nominal diameter, a main vent valve, which can be designed with a comparatively large nominal diameter, can therefore be pneumatically pre-controlled. However, such an arrangement, which is designed for the indirect connecting of a compressed air volume, is comparatively costly.

Compressed air supply installation, pneumatic system and method


This disclosure describes systems, methods, and apparatus for operating a plasma processing chamber. In particular, a periodic voltage function combined with an ion current compensation can be provided as a bias to a substrate support as a modified periodic voltage function. This in turn effects a DC bias on the surface of the substrate that controls an ion energy of ions incident on a surface of the substrate. A peak-to-peak voltage of the periodic voltage function can control the ion energy, while the ion current compensation can control a width of an ion energy distribution function of the ions. Measuring the modified periodic voltage function can provide a means to calculate an ion current in the plasma and a sheath capacitance of the plasma sheath. The ion energy distribution function can be tailored and multiple ion energy peaks can be generated, both via control of the modified periodic voltage function.

Plasma processing can benefit from precise control over ion energy and further from an ability to control an ion energy distribution function (IEDF) of ions incident on a substrate during processing. However, precise control is hampered by a lack of non-invasive and real-time means for monitoring ion energy and IEDF.
Additionally there are various metrics that can be monitored via a knowledge of ion current, II, and sheath capacitance, C2 (or Csheath). However, there is also a lack of systems and methods that can non-invasively and in real-time monitor these values.

Wide dynamic range ion energy bias control; fast ion energy switching; ion energy control and a pulsed bias supply; and a virtual front panel


An exemplary portable storage medium stores therein a program of an application. An exemplary information processing apparatus can execute the application. The storage medium stores a first data which is a program or data forming a part of the application and second data which is a program or data forming a part of the same application formed by the first data. The information processing apparatus reads the second data from the storage medium and installs the second data in the information processing apparatus. Further, the information processing apparatus starts and executes the application based on the first data stored in the storage medium and the installed second data.

Conventionally, there is a technology for, when an update is available for an application executed by an information processing apparatus, transmitting data (e.g., a patch file and the like) for updating the application to the information processing apparatus via a network.
An application can be provided by a method of providing the application from a server via a network, or a method of providing the application using a portable storage medium. In such a case where the application is provided using the storage medium, it is burdensome for a developer to create a program of the application to be stored in the storage medium.
Therefore, the present specification discloses an information processing system, an information processing apparatus which are capable of easily providing an application using a storage medium, a storage medium having stored therein an information processing program, a method of executing the application, and a storage medium having stored therein data of the application.
(1) An example of an information processing system described in the present specification includes a portable storage medium having stored therein a program of an application and an information processing apparatus capable of executing the application. The storage medium stores first data which is a program or data forming at least a part of the application and second data which is a program or data forming a part of the same application formed by the first data.
The information processing apparatus includes an install processing unit and an execution unit. The install processing unit reads the second data from the storage medium and installs the second data in the information processing apparatus. The execution unit starts and executes the application based on the first data stored in the storage medium and the installed second data.
The above "execution unit" may execute the application using the first data and the installed second data as in one exemplary embodiment described below, or may start an application using the first data and execute the application using the second data as in a modification described below.
According to the configuration of (1) described above, the storage medium stores the first data and the second data, and the information processing apparatus installs the second data and executes the application. Thus, a program of the application can be created simply by storing the first data and the second data in the storage medium, and this allows the workload on the developer of the application to be reduced. As a result, the application can be provided easily using the storage medium.
(2) The storage medium may store the program of the application as the first data and stores a program or data for making additions and/or changes to the program as the second data.
According to the configuration of (2) described above, the program or data for making additions and/or changes to the program of the first data is defined as the second data. Thus, in a case such as where the application is upgraded using the second data, the application into which the update has been reflected can be provided easily by the storage medium. For example, when a patch for upgrading the application is provided in a server, the workload on the developer can be reduced by using the patch as the second data.
(3) When a storage unit of the information processing apparatus does not have free data space for installing the second data, the execution unit may start and execute the application without using the second data but using the first data stored in the storage medium.
According to the configuration of (3) described above, even when the second data cannot be installed in the information processing apparatus, a user can use the application. Further, the workload on the developer can be reduced by intentionally not using the second data stored in the storage medium.
(4) The first data may be a program common to respective versions of the application. Further, the second data may be a program or data which differs for each version of the application.
According to the configuration of (4) described above, when the application is changed (upgraded) for a plurality of times, the developer can easily create the data of the application to be stored in the storage medium.
(5) The first data may be an initial version of the program of the application. Further, the second data may be patch data for upgrading the program of the first data.
According to the configuration of (5) described above, when the original program is upgraded using the patch data, the developer can easily create the data of the application to be stored in the storage medium.
(6) The execution unit may execute the application under a condition that the first data is referable or usable and execute the application using the second data together with the first data.
According to the configuration of (6) described above, the second data can be executed in the information processing apparatus under the condition that the second data is used together with the first data. Accordingly, even when the second data is illegally installed in another information processing apparatus, the application cannot be used without the storage medium (without the first data). Thus, according to the configuration of (6) described above, it is possible to prevent the application from being used illegally in a plurality of information processing apparatuses.
(7) The execution unit may enable start of the application under a condition that the first data is stored in the storage medium, and execute the application using the installed second data.
According to the configuration of (7) described above, the application program can be created more easily as compared to the case where data is read, during execution of the application, from both the storage unit in the information processing apparatus and the storage medium. Thus, the workload on the developer of the application can be reduced. Further, because the first data need not be read from the storage medium during the execution of the application, the information processing apparatus can perform the information processing concerning the application at high speed.
(8) The storage medium may be detachably attached to the information processing apparatus.
According to the configuration of (8) described above, the application can be provided to the information processing apparatus by means of the detachable storage medium.
(9) The information processing apparatus may further include a communication unit which obtains, when the second data is not installed, at least the same data as the second data from a predetermined server via a network. The install processing unit may install, when the second data is not installed, at least the data obtained from the server in the information processing apparatus.
According to the configuration of (9) described above, because the second data provided by the storage medium is the same as that provided by the server, the workload on the developer can be reduced.
(10) Another example of the information processing system described in the present specification is an information processing system capable of: accessing a portable storage medium having stored therein first data which is a program of an application; and executing the application. The information processing system includes a first obtaining unit, a second obtaining unit, and an execution unit. The first obtaining unit obtains, when second data which is a program or data for making additions and/or changes to the program of the first data can be obtained from a predetermined server via a network, the second data from the predetermined server. The second obtaining unit obtains, when the second data is stored in the storage medium, the second data from the storage medium. The execution unit starts and executes the application based on the first data stored in the storage medium and the obtained second data.
According to the configuration of (10) described above, similarly to the configuration of (1) described above, the workload on the developer of the application can be reduced, and the application can be provided easily using the storage medium. Further, because the second data provided by the storage medium is the same as that provided by the server, the developer need not create data for the storage medium. According to the configuration of (10) described above, the workload on the developer of the application can be reduced also by this reason. Further, according to the configuration of (10) described above, it is possible to increase opportunities for the information processing apparatus to obtain the second data, thereby allowing the user to more easily use the application after being updated.
(11) Further, an example of the information processing apparatus disclosed in the present specification is an information processing apparatus capable of executing a program of an application stored in a portable storage medium. The storage medium stores the program of the application and expansion data for making additions and/or changes to the application. The information processing apparatus includes an install processing unit and an execution unit. The install processing unit reads the expansion data from the storage medium and installs the expansion data in the information processing apparatus. The execution unit starts and executes the application based on the program of the application stored in the storage medium and the installed expansion data.
It is noted that the present specification discloses an information processing apparatus having the same functions as those of the information processing apparatuses in the information processing systems in the above (1) to (10), and discloses an information processing program which causes a computer to perform processes in the information processing apparatus. Furthermore, the present specification discloses a method of executing an application which is executed in the above (1) to (10). Still further, the present specification discloses a storage medium equivalent to that in the information processing systems in the above (1) to (9).
According to the information processing system, information processing apparatus, storage medium having stored therein an information processing program, method of executing an application, and storage medium having stored therein data of the application described above, the first data and the second data are stored in the storage medium, and the information processing apparatus installs the second data and executes the application. Thereby, the workload on the developer of the application can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to provide the application easily using the storage medium.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the exemplary embodiment will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Information processing system, information processing apparatus, storage medium having stored therein information processing program, method of executing application, and storage medium stored therein data of application


A heat transfer bladder system is incorporated into the interior of a laboratory work bench assembly and serves to control the temperature of a work surface of the work bench. The bladder contains a flowable media such as a fluid or gel which is heated or cooled so as to be able to control the temperature of the work bench work surface. The bladder system can include an external temperature control or an internal temperature control to control the temperature of the bladder fluid or gel. The bladder assembly may include through passages for adjunct instruments that can be used in conjunction with the work bench. The bladder can be formed from an elastomeric flexible material, or from a metal such as copper or stainless steel. The temperature control media can be circulated into and out of the bladder, or it can be contained in the bladder.

This invention relates to a method of heating or cooling the work surface of a laboratory work table and/or a laboratory hood. More particularly, this invention relates to heating of a work surface or hood by the insertion of a bladder system in the hood or the work surface. The use of a bladder system simplifies assembly, reduces labor involved, reduces cost, and also reduces the likelihood of leakage as compared to conventional systems. This invention is also related to the construction of such a bladder system.
Current laboratory tables and other surfaces are used to maintain a stable heated environment for the placement of specimens such as tissues, embryos and sperm, which require a steady temperature range. One example of this need is studying or working with mammalian cells which require a constant temperature of about 97xc2x0 F. These cells may be stored in incubators during their growth dormant stages and unused stages. These cells are removed from the incubator and taken to a controlled temperature work bench surface or work station for observation and/or manipulation. The work surface is made of stainless steel due to its anticorrosive nature and ability to maintain an evenly heated surface. Stainless steel is also durable and easy to clean.
The work surfaces are presently heated by one of two mechanisms. One involves the use of electric pads which are adhered to the underside of the work surface. The other involves the use of heated water which is circulated inside of the stainless steel work table structure.
The use of an electrically heated pad below the work surface has several problems in evenly heating the work surface. The electrically heated pads have a series of coils which heat various areas of the work surface and rely on heat sensors and relay systems which are embedded in the pads. The central area of the pads is the area where the heat control is most desirable. The stainless steel work surface has a tendency to lose a great deal of heat at its edges due to the fact that room temperature is less than the desired work surface temperature. Thus the colder edges draw heat away from the central areas of the work surface. This creates a temperature gradient across the work surface. The location of the temperature sensor maintains the desired temperature, but areas of the work surface which are spaced apart from the temperature sensor will have temperatures which may be several degrees lower than the desired temperature. The closer to the edges of the work surface, the lower the temperature.
For example, if the sensor is located in the middle of the pad and work surface, and the desired temperature is 97xc2x0 F., approximately halfway to the edge of the work surface, the temperature would be 95xc2x0 F., and at the edge of the work surface, the temperature would be 92xc2x0 F.
This variation in temperature would be maintained throughout the period of use of the work surface. When the sensor location temperature is reduced to 95xc2x0 F., which would be the trigger temperature for the temperature regulator to send an electrical surge through the coils to bring the surface temperature back to the desired temperature of 97xc2x0 F. An example of this is if the temperature of the center of the work table were to drop to 95xc2x0 F., the temperature of the intermediate areas of the table may drop to 92xc2x0 F., and the edges may drop to 90xc2x0 F. In that case, the regulator would send an electrical surge to reheat the pad which would reheat the center by 2xc2x0 to 95xc2x0 so as to satisfy the temperature requirements of the center of the pad, and then the regulator would shut off. The middle area of the work surface would also likely get a 2xc2x0 increase, as would the edges. Therefore, areas of the work surface will be less than the desired temperature throughout the operation of the work surface. Therefore, the aforesaid system is an undesirable manner of heating the work surface in question.
A more desirable solution to the problem is to use a heated fluid system wherein the fluid would be water, a gel, or some other flowable material. Currently employed heated water systems utilize a water pans which are adhered to the undersurface of the work surface. The water is heated with an external heated water bath which circulates water through the pan by means of an external heat pump. The water pan may be secured to the undersurface of the work surface by means on a silicone adhesive or by welding the pan to the undersurface of the work surface. Silicone adhesives are not desirable due to the fact that they will deteriorate and the water in the pan will then leak out of the pan. The welding option also has drawbacks which include scarring of the work surface by the welding temperatures, bowing of the work surface by the welding heat. The seals, whether by adhesives or welds, can also be deteriorated by contact with the heated water being circulated through the water pan. The present solutions to the problem of heating the work surface by means of circulating heated water through a pan attached to the undersurface of the work surface are thus flawed and undesirable.
An additional problem relating to the use of water pans relates to the use of optical instruments such as microscopes to observe the specimens on the work surface. When such optical instruments are used to observed the specimens, it will be necessary to provide light sources to illuminate the specimens, which light sources will be positioned below the work surface and the water pans. Thus, light pipes of some sort must be provided to pass light from the light sources through the water pans and the work surface. The current manner in which light is passed through the water pans, the water, and the work surface is by securing hollow tubes to the water pan and the work surface and passing the tubes through the heated water. Lenses are placed on the work surface at the top of the tubes. The securement of the hollow tubes may be by the use of adhesives or by welding. The same deterioration of the seal problems noted above occur when the heated water directly contacts the sealing adhesives and welds.
It would be desirable to provide a water heated system for controlling the temperature of a laboratory work surface, or other laboratory equipment which eliminates the problems which are incurred when the heating water directly contacts securement joints, such as adhesives or welds in the system.
This invention relates to the construction of a temperature controlled laboratory work surface system which is evenly heated or cooled by a fluid, such as water. The system of this invention utilizes a resilient bladder which is positioned adjacent to the work surface in a temperature transfer relationship with the work surface. The bladder is filled with a circulated heating or cooling fluid, such as water or some other fluid. The use of a bladder prevents the heating or cooling fluid from directly contacting the work surface.
The bladder may be made of pliable heat transfer materials such as rubber, polyvinyl, vinyl, Mylar, and urethanes; or the bladder may be formed from a metal such as copper or stainless steel. The bladder may be a unitary member, or may be composed of a series of interconnected members. A series of interconnected members allows the bladder to conform to several different patterns which may be required in different applications.
A template can be made from metal wiring which is capable of transferring radio wave frequencies (RF) to melt and seal the edges of the bladder or bladders. The template can be constructed so as to conform to the entire shape of the bladder, or it can be configured with different shapes which when sealed together in sequence will allow the bladder to vary in shape and size. One example of a bladder that can be used has a rectangular shape which measures from about twenty inches to about twenty eight inches in depth, and from about twenty four inches to about eighty inches in width. These length and depth dimensions will obviously depend on the size of the work surface being heated or cooled. The bladder can have a thickness which ranges between about one quarter inch to about six inches, again, depending on the size of the work table being heated or cooled. There can be at least one port into the bladder for the insertion of heating or cooling fluids thereinto. Preferably there will be a fluid inlet port and a fluid outlet port RF welded to or adhesively connected to the bladder. The spacing of the ports relative to each other should be such as to result in an even flow of water or air so as to result in an even distribution of the temperature-controlling fluid in the bladder. Variation of the thickness of the bladder material allows control of the bladder flexibility for various uses. The thickness of the bladder material will also determine the temperature transfer characteristics of the bladder when taken in conjunction with the heat transfer characteristics of the bladder material.
The bladder assembly is inserted between the underside of the work surface to be heated or cooled, and a lower bladder support pan on the lab table or work bench. The support pan serves to hold the bladder in place so as to maintain contact between the bladder and the work surface. The support pan also serves to retain the shape of the bladder and to prevent rupturing of the bladder.
Once properly positioned, the bladder can be heated or cooled by several different methods. One method is to use a heated or cooled air stream that is circulated through the bladder.
A second method involves the use of a hot or cold water pressure pump which circulates the temperature controlling water stream through the bladder.
A third method is to install a water-submersible electric coil inside of the bladder in order to heat water which may be circulated through the bladder or which may be sealed within the bladder.
A fourth method is to attach a heat source, such as a heating coil or a heating pad to the outside of the bladder, preferably to the undersurface of the outside of the bladder. The bladder may have a quiescent sealed fluid supply, or it may be provided with a circulating fluid supply. The heating coil or heating pad can heat the fluid from underneath the bladder, and the temperature of the fluid can be controlled by a sensor disposed inside of the bladder or outside of the bladder.
The temperature of the heating coil is preferably regulated by an external regulator which is operatively connected to the temperature sensor.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a laboratory table or work bench assembly which has a work surface which is heated or cooled by a fluid that is contained in a bladder which bladder is positioned inside of the table or work bench and is in heat transfer contact with the work surface.
It is another object of this invention to provide an assembly of the character described wherein the temperature-controlling media can be air, water or a flowable gel.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide a system of the character described wherein the temperature-controlling media is water, and the water is heated by a heating coil which is positioned inside or outside of the bladder.
It is another object of this invention to provide a system of the character described wherein the bladder is formed from a resilient material.

Bladder system for controlling the temperature of laboratory fume hoods and working surfaces


A battery management device and a mobile terminal are disclosed. The battery management device includes: a charging unit; a battery unit including at least two batteries; a power supply management circuit; and an isolation unit configured to communicate one or more of the batteries with the power supply management circuit and block the backward flow of current between batteries. The charging unit, the battery unit, the isolation unit and the power supply management circuit are successively connected.

With the continuous evolution and development of functions and performances of mobile terminals such as smart phones, the total power consumption of the mobile terminals is increasing. To improve the battery life of mobile terminals, the capacity and volume of batteries in such products are also increasing. However, the safety risk of a single battery cell with too large capacity and volume is also increasing. In recent years, there have been many mobile phone fire accidents at home and abroad. Particularly, mobile phones of a big foreign brand have caught fire several times. These fires are all finally determined to be caused by deficiencies in the large-capacity batteries. To properly avoid safety risks, two batteries or even more batteries have become a feasible solution.
At present, some mobile terminals such as mobile phones in the market have been designed with two batteries (cells). For example, in 6020 mAh batteries for mobile phones of a domestic brand, a design scheme of packaging two cells into one battery module is adopted. For a well-known foreign mobile phone brand, a design scheme of connecting a large-capacity battery and a small-capacity battery in series to supply power is used in one of the latest models of this brand. So, it seems that two batteries or even more batteries have gradually become a technical trend to increase the battery capacity while ensuring safety. Since the power supply voltage required by most of circuits in mobile terminals is very low, connecting multiple batteries in parallel to the power supply systems of the mobile terminals should be a main direction for the development of future multi-battery schemes.
However, when multiple batteries are connected in parallel to a power supply system of a mobile terminal, if the batteries are different in voltage, the batters cannot be directly connected in parallel. Otherwise, the difference in voltage between the batteries will result in the backward flow of current from a high-voltage battery to a low-voltage battery, which may result in serious safety hazards.

Battery management device and mobile terminal


A control apparatus for controlling first devices existing in an arbitrary place includes a first memory to store a plurality of device lists corresponding to a plurality of places respectively and each including device information items which indicate devices existing in corresponding one of the places, and a second memory to store a plurality of control information lists corresponding to the places respectively and each including control information items which indicate control operations for the devices existing in corresponding one of the places, and acquires first device information items indicating the first devices, detects an existence place of the first devices by comparing the first device information items with the device lists, and controls the first devices, based on one of the control information lists which corresponds to the existence place of the first devices.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control method and apparatus for controlling devices existing in arbitrary places, such as domestic devices or OA devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
So-called home robots or servers have been proposed as control apparatuses for controlling domestic devices including home appliances. Most conventional control apparatuses for domestic devices perform one-way control of the devices, using, for example, a robot with an infrared remote control function, as is described in, for example, document 1 ("Internet Compatible Robot: MARON-1", Fujitsu Journal, July, 2003, vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 285-292). Recently, however, so-called intelligent home appliances, which are connected to home networks and can check and control the states of home devices, have been researched and developed, thereby realizing more accurate control.
As home network schemes, protocols, such as Echonet (trademark) and universal plug-and-play (UPnP), have been proposed. Home robots or home servers detect home appliances in accordance with such protocols, and check or control their states. For instance, a home robot can activate an air conditioner in response to a user's voice request "Turn on the air conditioner", or can perform surveillance in response to an alarm raised by a crime-prevention sensor.
Further, document 2 (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-224670) discloses a home controller for controlling home appliances, in which the position of a user can be utilized as a control rule. For example, this controller can change the power-on time of an air conditioner in accordance with a change in the homecoming time of the user.
The above-mentioned home network protocols can only discriminate, for instance, the types of home appliances. To activate home appliances or carry out surveillance in response to the detection of an abnormality, it is necessary for the user to register, for instance, the locations of the air conditioner and crime-prevention sensor in relation to a map of the house stored in the robot. It is also necessary for the user to set, for example, which air conditioner should be activated when the voice request "Turn on the air conditioner" is issued, or to set which action program should be taken when the crime-prevention sensor generates an alarm.
Accordingly, in the case of the conventional home robot, when the user moves, along with the home robot, from the house to another place, such as their parents' house or country home, they must perform the above-described setting concerning the robot before moving. After the user moves from the house to another place, the to-be-controlled air conditioner, for example, is changed, therefore the correspondence between the map and home appliances set in the robot must be changed.
Further, the setting as to whether a certain behavior program should be executed may change even in the same situation. For instance, at home, the user may want the home robot to issue a message that washing has finished, whereas at their parents' house, they may not need the message. It is very troublesome if the user must perform a setting change whenever, for example, they move from one house to another house.
In light of the above, the prevent invention aims to provide a device control method and apparatus for easily realizing automatic changes in setting related to the control of devices when the control apparatus is carried from one place to another.


An image processing apparatus in which an erroneous discrimination about a convergence of a super resolution process can be eliminated and precision of the super resolution process can be improved is provided. The apparatus has: a distance measuring unit that measures a distance to an object; a deteriorated image reconstructing unit that reconstructs an image of the object by repetitive calculations; and an end discriminating unit that discriminates an end of an image reconstructing process. In the case of discriminating an end of the image reconstructing process, the end discrimination is made only to a specific distance layer based on information of the distance measured by the distance measuring unit or every distance layer based on the distance information.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image processing apparatus for reconstructing a deteriorated image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, in the case where an object was photographed by an image pickup apparatus such as a digital camera, there is a situation where when the image is seen later, it becomes a deteriorated image due to an out-of-focus or the like. In such a case, a trial to reconstruct the deteriorated image by a super resolution process is made and various kinds of algorithms for the super resolution are considered. For example, Irani and Peleg propose a typical method (hereafter "Irani-Peleg method") for reconstruction from a plurality of blur images in Improving Resolution by Image Registration CVGIP: GRAPHICAL MODELS AND IMAGE PROCESSING Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 231-239, May 1991.
The following equation (1) is used in an image reconstructing process of the Irani-Peleg method. According to such a system, an unknown original image is gradually presumed from the deteriorated image in a repetitive process. At this time, a norm (differential square sum of each pixel) of a pseudo blur image g(n) formed by convolving a point spread function (hPSF) showing a presumed blur to a just-previous reconstruction image f(n) shown in the equation (1) and a blur image g obtained by photographing is calculated and it is assumed to be f(n+1). That is, e(n) in the following equation (2) is calculated and a case where it is minimum is regarded as completion of the image reconstruction.
                                                                        f                                  (                                      n                    +                    1                                    )                                            =                                                f                                      (                    n                    )                                                  +                                                      (                                          g                      -                                              g                                                  (                          n                          )                                                                                )                                    ×                                                            h                      AUX                                        /                    c                                                                                =                                                f                                      (                    n                    )                                                  +                                                      (                                          g                      -                                                                        f                                                      (                            n                            )                                                                          ×                                                  h                          PSF                                                                                )                                    ×                                                            h                      AUX                                        /                    c                                                                                Equation                                                            (          1          )
where,                c: normalization constant        ω: spatial frequency
hAUX may be a function which satisfies0<|1−HPSF(ω)·HAUX(ω)/c|<1
with respect to all ω and HPSF is generally used.                H: Fourier transformation of he(n)=∥g(n)−g(0)∥  Equation (2)        where, ∥ ∥: norm showing the differential square sum or differential absolute value sum of each pixel.
An algorithm obtained by improving a typical Richardson-Lucy method using a Bayes presumption for a presumption of an original image has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-242746. Fifteen kinds of non-patent documents regarding the super resolution process have been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-195856.
A technique for measuring a distance to an object to be photographed and obtaining distance information of each pixel is also known. For example, a method called a stereo method of improving distance measuring precision at a far distance by combining a telescope to a technique for measuring a distance to an object to be photographed has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-257951.


Systems and methods are provided for data processing and storage management. In an illustrative implementation an exemplary computing environment comprises at least one data store, a data processing and storage management engine (B-File engine) and at least one instruction set to instruct the B-File engine to process and/or store data according to a selected data processing and storage management paradigm. In an illustrative operation, the illustrative B-File engine can generate a B-File comprising multiple buckets and store sample items in a random bucket according to a selected distribution. When the size of the B-FILE grows to reach a selected threshold (e.g., maximum available space), the B-File engine can shrink the B-File by discarding the largest bucket. Additionally, the B-File engine can append data to existing buckets and explicitly cluster data when erasing data such that data can be deleted together into the same flash block.

Recent technological trends in flash media have made it an attractive alternative for data storage in a wide spectrum of computing devices such as PDA's, mobile phones, embedded sensors, MP3 players, etc. The success of flash media for these devices is due mainly to its superior characteristics such as smaller size, lighter weight, better shock resistance, lower power consumption, less noise, and faster read performance than disk drives. While flash-memory has been the primary storage media for embedded devices from the very beginning, there is an increasing trend that flash memory will infiltrate the personal computer market segment. As its capacity increases and price drops, flash media can overcome adoption as compared with lower-end, lower-capacity magnetic disk drives.
Current practices allow for running a full database system on flash-only computing platforms and running a light-weight database system on flash-based embedded computing devices. However, flash has fundamentally different read/write characteristics from other non-volatile media such as magnetic disks. In particular, flash writes are immutable and once written, a data page must be erased before it can be written again. Moreover, the unit of erase often spans multiple pages, further complicating storage management. With current practices, these unique characteristics can be hidden from applications via a software layer called the Flash Translation Layer (FTL), which enables mounting and using a flash media like a disk drive. Using the FTL, conventional disk-based database algorithms and access methods will function correctly without any modification.
However, since the FTL needs to internally deal with flash characteristics, many algorithms designed for magnetic disks are not likely to yield the best attainable performance. For example, algorithms that overwrite data in place may work well with magnetic disks, but will perform poorly with flash media. Thus, in order to make a flash-based storage systems efficient, many algorithms need to be redesigned to take flash characteristics into account.
As a specific example, consider maintenance of a very large (e.g., several gigabytes) random sampling of an evolving data stream. In this context, random sampling is a approximation technique used in many applications including data mining, statistics, and machine learning. In many scenarios, the sample needs to be very large to be effective. For example, when the underlying data has a high variance, a very large sample is required to provide accurate estimates with suitably high confidence. Moreover, variance in the data is often magnified by standard database operators like selections and joins, increasing the size of the sample required to ensure a target approximation accuracy. Another example is sensor networks, where each sensor collects too many readings to store all of them in its limited storage, and transmitting all its readings to a base station expends too much of its limited battery. In such a case, it is desirable for the sensor to maintain a random sample of its readings. Operatively, queries can be pushed to the sensor nodes, and answered using the sample points falling within a specified time window. Humans or data mules traveling next to a sensor node can be used to retrieve its sample for offline data mining or statistical analysis purposes; while such mules minimize the energy cost of retrieving data, they typically pass by a sensor node far too infrequently to collect more than a sample of its readings. It is desirable that the sample maintained on the sensor node is large (in many cases, as large as possible) because (i) scientists deploying the sensors usually want to collect as much data as possible, and (ii) a very large sample helps ensure that there will be a sufficient number of sample points within every time-window of interest.
However, currently deployed sampling algorithms are lacking since they do not offer one or more of the following properties, the algorithm is suitable for streaming data, or any similar environment where a large sample must be maintained online in a single pass through the dataset; the algorithm must be efficient, in terms of latency or energy, on flash; i.e., it should be flash-aware and it should avoid operations (e.g., in-place updates) that are expensive on flash; and the algorithm should be tunable to both the amount of flash storage and the amount of standard memory (DRAM) available to the algorithm. Thus, the algorithm can be tunable to a specified bounded sample size, and DRAM-constrained embedded devices can use the algorithm, while less constrained devices can take advantage of the larger available DRAM.
For example, reservoir-sampling and geometric file are two algorithms for maintaining a bounded size sample. Both can be implemented to maintain a sample on flash media, but both require many in-place updates on flash and, hence, are very slow and energy expensive in flash. Moreover, geometric file has a large DRAM footprint, and hence is not suitable for most embedded systems.
It is appreciated that although current practices for the storage and management of data on flash media have been described to be lacking in the context of data sampling operations that such description is not inclusive of other operational deficiencies experienced when performing current practices. For example, such deficiency exist for other data management algorithms that require "expiring" old data. In such scenario, in an archival system, one may decide to expire old data in case available storage space does not allow for archiving all of the data. It is further appreciated that such deficiencies resulting from existing practices can be alleviated by systems and methods providing a B-File which allows for the efficient storage of "self-expiring" data on flash media and that can be deployed by various data storage and management algorithms including but not limited to sampling algorithms, archiving algorithms, etc.
From the foregoing it is appreciated that there exists a need for systems and methods to ameliorate the shortcomings of existing practices.

B-file abstraction for efficiently archiving self-expiring data


An air tempering apparatus for use in an automotive vehicle having a duct through which air is directed into a passenger compartment. The apparatus comprises an air chilling unit having a variable refrigerating capacity of chilling the air in the duct, and an air reheating unit having a variable reheating capacity of reheating the chilled air in the duct. A control unit decreases the reheating capacity of the air heating unit as the chilled air temperature increases. The control unit decreases the refrigerating capacity of the air chilling means when the reheating capacity of the air reheating means is greater than a predetermined value and when the sensed humidity is less than a predetermined value.

This invention relates to an air tempering apparatus for use in an automotive vehicle having a duct through which air is directed into a passenger compartment.
Air tempering apparatus have sometimes utilized an air cooling heat exchanger for chilling air directed into a passenger compartment, and an air heating heat exchanger for reheating the chilled air to determine a final temperature of tempered air discharged into the passenger compartment. The air cooling heat exchanger includes an evaporator having a variable refrigerating capacity. The evaporator is associated with a variable displacement compressor. The compressor is controlled based upon ambient temperature and compartment temperature in such a manner as to have an increased displacement to increase the refrigerating capacity of the evaporator when the ambient temperature and/or the compartment temperature increases. With such conventional air tempering apparatus, however, the refrigerating capacity will increases to decrease the compartment humidity to a great extent having an adverse effect on the passenger's health, for example, during the daytime in summer. It may be considered to avoid such an adverse effect merely by decreasing the refrigerating capacity when the compartment temperature is less than a predetermined value. However, this results in an undesirable increase in the target tempered air temperature.


A light facility includes one or more batteries disposed in a housing, a processor device includes two power terminals coupled to the batteries and includes a switch terminal and a key terminal and three light terminals, a light device may be energized by the battery and includes a red light member, a green light member, and a blue light member coupled to the three light terminals of the processor device for being operated to generate red light, green light, and blue light, a switch is selectively coupled to either the switch terminal or the key terminal of the processor device for actuating the light device to generate lights, or gradually darkened light, or gradually brightened light.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light assembly, and more particularly to a light assembly having a light control or changing device or structure for controlling or actuating the light assembly to generate various light colors and/or to generate various light flashing or emitting modes or processes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typical light devices comprise one or more light bulbs or light emitting diodes energized by one or more batteries and controlled by one or more switches for controlling or actuating the light device to generate indicating or warning lights.
For example, the applicant has also developed a typical light device which is issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,464 to Tseng and which also comprises one or more light bulbs or light emitting diodes or light members energized by one or more batteries and controlled by one or more switches, and a vibrating switch is coupled to the integrated circuit for controlling or actuating the light device to generate indicating or warning lights.
The light members may be switched on and switched off or controlled by the vibrating switch, but the light members may not be controlled to generate lights of different time intervals. In addition, the light members also may not be controlled to generate lights of different light intensity or brightness or the like.
The present invention has arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described disadvantages of the conventional light devices.

Light assembly having light changing device


A microscope system includes a light source and an objective unit. The objective unit includes an objective optical system, including a small-diameter distal optical system arranged at an end brought near to or into contact with a specimen, for focusing light from the light source onto the specimen; a threaded mount at a coupling position; and an outer cylinder enclosing the small-diameter distal optical system. The microscope system further includes an imaging optical system for forming an image of light from the specimen through the objective optical system and a microscope main body for housing the imaging optical system. The objective unit is detachable from and attachable to the microscope main body with the threaded mount. Conditional expression Df/Da≦0.3 is satisfied, where Df represents the outer diameter of the outer cylinder and Da represents the outer diameter of the threaded mount.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to microscope systems and objective units used for applications such as the study and imaging of cellular function, and particularly to a microscope system and an objective unit suitable for in-vivo examination of animals, such as mammals.
2. Description of Related Art
Known laser-scanning confocal microscopes include apparatuses for examining cellular function by illuminating the surface of a specimen, such as a living organism, with excitation light to selectively detect fluorescence emitted from a predetermined depth in the specimen, as described on, for example, page 2 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei-3-87804 and FIG. 1 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei-5-72481.
These laser-scanning confocal fluorescence microscopes provide not only a general observation function of microscopes but also a function for acquiring images by scanning a laser beam focused on a minute spot of a specimen with a scanning device, such as a galvano mirror, to detect fluorescence emitted from the specimen.
The laser-scanning confocal microscopes have a resolution high enough to eliminate light other than light from the minute spot of interest, and are therefore advantageous in that they can acquire clear examination images with high S/N ratio.
A method for marking particular molecules, tissues, or cells of a living organism with a dye or fluorescent marker and observing them with a fluorescence microscope or a laser-scanning confocal microscope to examine molecule behavior in the cells or tissues is also known. Because some molecules in individual living organisms of mammals, such as mice, exhibit different behavior from those in cultured cells, it is necessary to examine biological tissues or cells of living organisms while they alive (in vivo). Furthermore, the objective lens of these laser-scanning confocal microscopes is in an infinity system and is constructed such that an image is formed at an imaging lens in the tube barrel (refer to, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei-7-306364).
Unfortunately, microscopes including these known laser-scanning confocal microscopes do not assume that various organs of small laboratory animals, such as rats and mice, are examined in vivo. In other words, to observe various organs of a small laboratory animal with a known laser-scanning confocal microscope, it is necessary to cut the skin and muscular tissue or perforate the skull to expose the organs. Furthermore, the size of such an incision or trephination needs to be quite large because the outer diameter of the objective lens to be brought close to the examination site is relatively large.
If this is the case, the small laboratory animal is damaged to such a considerable degree that time-lapse examination over an extended period of time becomes difficult, though observation is possible only for a short period of time after incision or trephination. It would be possible to suture the incision after examination and to cut open the examination site again for another examination at a later time. In general, however, incision itself causes such considerable damage to the small laboratory animal that examination of the animal under normal healthy conditions is difficult.


A system and method for signaling and indicating track relationship information in media files provides a mechanism for signaling the information of layered track groups and the information of multiple description coding (MDC) track groups, as well as a mechanism for signaling track relationship information in an efficient way. In local playback or unicast streaming applications, to select an independently decodable track for a certain media type, the information of alternate track groups is first found via the track relation box, and one track is selected from an alternate track group for the media type. If stream switching is desired, the switching track group information is found via the track relation box. In multicast applications with scalable or MDC streams, the tracks in a layered or MDC group are found via the track relation box and selected among all the layered or MDC groups.

This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Multimedia applications include services such as local playback, streaming or on-demand, conversational and broadcast/multicast services. Technologies involved in multimedia applications include, among others, media coding, storage and transmission. Different standards have been specified for different technologies.
Scalable coding produces scalable media streams, where a stream can be coded in multiple layers. In scalable coding, each layer, together with the required lower layers, is one representation of the media sequence at a certain spatial resolution, temporal resolution, certain quality level or some combination of the three. A portion of a scalable stream can be extracted and decoded at a desired spatial resolution, temporal resolution, certain quality level or some combination thereof. A scalable stream contains a non-scalable base layer and one or more enhancement layers. An enhancement layer may enhance the temporal resolution (i.e., the frame rate), the spatial resolution, or simply the quality of the video content represented by a lower layer or part thereof. In some cases, data in an enhancement layer can be truncated after a certain location, or even at arbitrary positions, where each truncation position may include additional data representing increasingly enhanced visual quality.
SVC is an example scalable coding of video. The latest draft of the SVC standard is described in JVT-S202, "Joint Scalable Video Model JSVM-6: Joint Draft 6 with proposed changes," 19th Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland, April 2006, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
In multi-view video coding (MVC), video sequences output from different cameras, each corresponding to a view, are encoded into one bitsream. After decoding, to display a certain view, the decoded pictures belonging to that view are displayed. The latest draft of the MVC standard is described in JVT-T208, "Joint multiview video model (JMVM 1.0)," 20th JVT meeting, Klagenfurt, Austria, July 2006, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
In multiple description coding (MDC), an input media sequence is encoded into more than sub-streams, each of which is referred to as a description. Each description is independently decodable and represents a certain media quality. However, based on the decoding of one or more than one description, the additional decoding of another description can result in an improved media quality. MDC is discussed in detail in Y. Wang, A. Reibman, and S. Lin, "Multiple description coding for video delivery," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 93, no. 1, January 2005, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The file format is an important element in the chain of multimedia content production, manipulation, transmission and consumption. There is a difference between the coding format and the file format. The coding format relates to the action of a specific coding algorithm that codes the content information into a bitstream. In contrast, the file format comprises a system of organizing the generated bitstream in such way that it can be accessed for local decoding and playback, transferred as a file, or streamed, all utilizing a variety of storage and transport architectures. Further, the file format can facilitate the interchange and editing of the media. For example, many streaming applications require a pre-encoded bitstream on a server to be accompanied by metadata, stored in the "hint-tracks," that assists the server to stream the video to the client. Examples information that can be included in hint-track metadata include timing information, indications of synchronization points, and packetization hints. This information is used to reduce the operational load of the server and to maximize the end-user experience.
Available media file format standards include the ISO file format (ISO/IEC 14496-12), the MPEG-4 file format (ISO/IEC 14496-14), the AVC file format (ISO/IEC 14496-15) and the 3GPP file format (3GPP TS 26.244). There is also a project in MPEG for development of the SVC file format, which will become an amendment to AVC file format. In a parallel effort, MPEG is defining a hint track format for FLUTE (file delivery over unidirectional transport) sessions.
The ISO file format is the base for the derivation of all the other above-referenced file formats. All of these file formats, including the ISO file format, are referred to as the ISO family of file formats. According to the ISO family of file formats, each file, hierarchically structured, contains exactly one movie box which may contain one or more tracks, and each track resides in one track box. It is possible for more than one track to store information of a certain media type. A subset of these tracks may form an alternate track group, wherein each track is independently decodable and can be selected for playback or transmission, and wherein only track in an alternate should be selected for playback or transmission.
All tracks in an alternate group are candidates for media selection. However, it may not make sense to switch between some of those tracks during a session. For example, one may allow switching between video tracks at different bit rates and keep the frame size, but not allow switching between tracks of different frame sizes. In the same manner one may want to the enable selection (but not switching) between tracks of different video codecs or different audio languages. The distinction between tracks for selection and switching is addressed by introducing a sub-group structure referred to as switch groups. All tracks in an alternate group are candidates for media selection, whereas, tracks in a switch (sub)group are also available for switching during a session. Different switch groups represent different operation points, such as different frame size, high/low quality, etc.
The ISO file format supports hint tracks that provide cookbook instructions for encapsulating data to transmission packets and transmission of the formed packets according to certain timestamps. The hint track mechanism can be used by servers, such as streaming servers, for real-time audio-visual data. The cookbook instructions may contain guidance for packet header construction and include packet payload construction. In the packet payload construction, data residing in other tracks or items may be referenced, i.e. it is indicated by a reference which piece of data in a particular track or item is instructed to be copied into a packet during the packet construction process. The hint track mechanism is extensible to any transport protocols and, currently, the hint track format for Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP, IETF RFC 3550 (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3550.txt) (incorporated herein by reference in its entirety)) is specified and the hint track format for file delivery protocols over uni-directional channels, such as FLUTE (IETF RFC 3926 (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3926.txt) (incorporated herein by reference in its entirety)) and ALC (IETF RFC 3450 (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3450.txt) (incorporated herein by reference in its entirety)) is undergoing the standardization process.
As discussed above, the ISO family of file formats supports hint tracks. The draft SVC file format supports a data structure referred to as an extractor. An extractor is similar to a hint sample but is not specific to any transport protocol. An extractor references to a subset of the data of a media sample, where the referenced data corresponds to the data needed in that sample for the decoding and playback of a certain scalable layer.
For multicast applications with scalable media streams, information of a scalable stream may be stored in different tracks, with each track corresponding to a scalable layer or a number of contiguous layers. These tracks can be hint tracks as well as extractor tracks. As discussed herein, an "extractor track" refers to a track that contains extractors and possibly also non-extractor samples, e.g., media data units. This way, if layered multicast is applied, the sub-stream in each track can be sent in its own Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) session, and a receiver subscribes to a number of the RTP sessions containing the desired scalable layer and the lower required layers. These tracks are referred to as a layered track group. Tracks in a layered track group together form an independently decodable scalable stream, while decoding of the sub-stream corresponding to each individual track in a layered track group may depend on sub-streams corresponding to other tracks. The above also applies to multi-view video streams, where each view is considered as a scalable layer. Similarly, for a MDC stream, information of each sub-stream or description may also be stored in its own track. These tracks corresponding to all of the descriptions of a MDC stream are referred to as a MDC track group.
FLUTE, which is discussed at IETF Request for Comments (RFC) No. 3926 (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3926.txt) and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, has been widely adopted as the file delivery protocol for multicast and broadcast applications. FLUTE is based on the asynchronous layered coding (ALC) protocol, which is discussed in the IETF RFC 3450 (www.ietf/org/rfc/rfc3450.txt), and the layered coding transport (LCT) protocol, which is discussed in the IETF RFC 3451 (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3451.txt). FLUTE inherits all of the functionalities defined in the ALC and LCT protocols, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. LCT defines the notion of LCT channels to allow for massive scalability. The LCT scalability has been designed based on the Receiver-driven Layered Multicast (RLM) principle, where receivers are responsible of implementing an appropriate congestion control algorithm based on the adding and removing of layers of the delivered data. The sender sends the data into different layers, with each being addressed to a different multicast group.
In LCT, one or multiple channels may be used for the delivery of the files of a FLUTE session. A great flexibility is given to the FLUTE sender with regard to how the data is partitioned among the LCT channels. A common use case is to send the same data on all different LCT channels but at different bitrates. Additionally, the FLUTE sender may act intelligently to enable receivers to acquire all files of the FLUTE session by joining all channels for a shorter time than is normally required with one channel. In such a case, the data sent over each channel complements the data of other channels.
Information about the LCT channels of a FLUTE session, as well as how data is split between the different channels, is currently being defined in the FLUTE hint track specification. Such information will help the FLUTE server to select the right channels and merge them into the appropriate FLUTE session according to the target application. If a set of FLUTE hint tracks are independent from each other and only one of those hint tracks is intended to be processed during a FLUTE session, then they belong to an alternate track group, and at least a subset of them belong to one switching track group. If a set of FLUTE hint tracks are complementary to each other, they belong to a layered track group.
Current file format designs do not support the signaling of layered or MDC track groups. In addition, the current signaling of alternate or switching track groups is to include an alternate or switching group ID in a track-level data structure (a track header box for alternate track groups and a track selection box in a track-level user data box). This entails the parsing of all of the tracks in a movie box in order to obtain the information of alternate or switching track groups. If the number of tracks is great, then the parsing complexity is non-trivial.

System and method for indicating track relationships in media files