A method of facilitating a project bid process includes generating a buyer-associated bid request utilizing at least a portion of bid item selections of a stored bid item list, transmitting the buyer-associated bid request to at least one supplier for solicitation of a supplier bid response to be generated with the bid item selections utilized in the buyer-associated bid request, generating a supplier-associated bid request utilizing at least a portion of the bid item selections utilized in the buyer-associated bid request, and transmitting the supplier-associated bid request to at least one subcontracting entity for solicitation of a subcontracting-entity bid response to be generated with the bid item selections utilized in the supplier-associated bid request.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a method of and system for enabling and managing sub-contracting entities. More particularly, and by way of example, the present invention relates to electronically facilitating various aspects of sub-contracting entity (SCE) utilization relative to project work, including, but not limited to, SCE enablement, a project bid process, a requisition process, a spend process, and a performance-management process.
2. History of Related Art
It is a common business practice among services/goods providers, and particularly among primary suppliers of goods or services, within a project-work sector to utilize a second tier, and even subsequent lower-tiers, of supply-chain providers. These second tier and lower-tier providers are referred to as sub-contracting entities (SCEs). An SCE is any provider of goods and/or services that provides the goods and/or services with the consent of, and in conjunction with, a primary supplier of goods and/or services to a buyer. The SCEs are used to deliver, in part or in whole, project-work deliverables requested by end users or buyers. Use of the SCEs as described above may be made by an authorized supplier for various reasons, such as, for example, expansion of services/goods delivery capability, provision of goods/services to buyers when the primary supplier cannot logistically or technologically meet demand requirements, and reduction of primary supplier costs when the goods/services can be provided by an SCE at a more competitive cost.
Regardless of the underlying reasons that the SCEs are used, use of the SCEs is common within the project-work sector. In many instances, suppliers that utilize the SCEs in a sub-contracting activity do so in a manner that makes use by the suppliers of the SCEs virtually invisible to the buyer. Although use of the SCEs tends to provide the buyer with required project-work deliverable/outputs, the relatively-hidden nature of sub-contracting activities tends to cause at least one of the following to occur: 1) increased potential liability risks; 2) removal of control of SCE management from the buyer; 3) hiding of SCE costing/pricing data; 4) hiding of primary-supplier marginal additions to SCE costs/prices; 5) hindering the buyer from measuring SCE performance; 6) hindering the buyer from measuring performance associated with goods/services directly provided by primary suppliers; 7) reducing activity and data-processing auditing capabilities; and 8) hindering the ability of the buyer to efficiently manage the project-work commodity and take advantage of business opportunities that would be presented if the SCE activity were more visible and managed.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of and system for enabling and managing sub-contracting entities


A test circuit is adapted to test circuits having a high-frequency clock signal. The test circuit is positioned between a conventional tester and the circuit to be tested. The test circuit includes a frequency multiplication circuit which multiplies the clock signal of the conventional tester to produce a high-frequency clock signal. The test circuit also receives control signals from the conventional tester. The control signals are output to the circuit to be tested via a bus.

This application claims the benefit of German patent application DE10113458.4, currently pending, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The invention relates to a test circuit for testing a circuit clocked with a high-frequency clock signal, in particular a high-frequency DRAM memory.
DE 198 23 931 A1 discloses a test pattern generator circuit for an IC tester. In the test pattern generator circuit, pattern data from a pattern memory are applied in parallel form to a parallel/serial converter. The parallel/serial converter can be changed over, on the basis of a mode control signal, between a serial output mode, in which the data for a data word are provided in serial form for each test cycle, and a parallel/serial output mode, in which parallel data are provided in serial form during each test cycle.
FIG. 1 shows a test arrangement based on the prior art. In this case, a circuit to be tested (DUT: Device Under Test) is tested by a tester when the manufacturing process is complete. The circuit to be tested is a synchronous semiconductor circuit clocked with a clock signal, for example a DRAM memory. The circuit to be tested is connected to the tester via a control signal bus, a data bus and an address bus. The tester uses the control signal bus to apply various control signals to the circuit to be tested. If the circuit to be tested is a DRAM memory, control lines are used to apply, inter alia, the control signals CAS (CAS: Column Address Strobe), RAS (RAS: Row Address Strobe), WE (WE: Write Enable) and CS (CS: Chip Select). The CAS signal indicates to the memory to be tested that the address which is on the address bus is a column address, while the RAS control signal indicates to the memory that the address which is on the address bus is a row address. Using the CAS control signal and the RAS control signal allows an address bus with a relatively narrow address bus width to be used. The CS control signal selects the memory which is to be tested from a multiplicity of available memories.
The clock frequencies at which modern memories are operated are becoming higher and higher, and already DRAM memories are being manufactured which operate at a clock frequency of several hundred megahertz. The drawback of the test arrangement shown in FIG. 1 is that conventional testers are not designed for such high clock frequencies. Testers suitable for testing memory chips which are clocked at a very high clock frequency of several hundred megahertz are complex in terms of circuitry and are accordingly costly.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a test circuit which makes it possible to test a circuit clocked with a high-frequency clock signal using a conventional tester which outputs control signals at a comparatively low clock frequency.
The invention achieves this object by means of a test circuit having the features specified in patent claim 1.
The invention provides a test circuit for testing a circuit clocked with a high-frequency clock signal, where the test circuit has:
(a) a frequency multiplication circuit which multiplies the clock frequency of a clock signal, output by the tester, for producing the high-frequency clock signal by a frequency multiplication factor;
(b) a control signal input bus for receiving various external control signals for the circuit which is to be tested from the tester,
where each control signal is received in parallel via a plurality of control lines whose number is respectively equal to the frequency multiplication factor;
(c) a parallel/serial converter which is clocked with the high-frequency clock signal, is connected to the control signal input bus and outputs each control signal to the circuit to be tested via a control line of a control signal output bus; and
(d) a decoder circuit which is clocked with the high-frequency clock signal and produces internal control signals for the test circuit on the basis of the control signals which are on the control signal input bus.
The inventive test circuit has the particular advantage that the internal control signals required for the various circuit components in the test circuit are produced from the external control signals output by the tester for testing the circuit and thus do not need to be provided via additional control lines from the tester. In this way, the bus width of the control signal input bus is determined solely by the number of control signals required for the circuit which is to be tested, and is not increased by additional control signal lines for internal control signals in the test circuit. The bus width of the control signal input bus is therefore minimal.
In one preferred embodiment of the inventive test circuit, the test circuit is provided with a test data pattern generator which, on the basis of data control signals received from the tester via data control lines, applies stored test data patterns to a data comparison circuit and, via a data output driver and a data bus, to the circuit which is to be tested.
The data comparison circuit in the inventive test circuit preferably compares the output test data, received by the test circuit via the data bus and a data input driver from the circuit which is to be tested, with the test data patterns applied to the circuit to be tested.
The data input driver and the data output driver in the inventive test circuit are preferably activated by an internal read/write control signal produced by the decoder circuit.
The data comparison circuit in the inventive test circuit preferably indicates to the tester via an indicator line whether the output test data which are output by the circuit to be tested are identical to the test patterns applied to the circuit to be tested.
In this case, the data comparison circuit is preferably clocked with the high-frequency clock signal.
In one particularly preferred embodiment, the frequency multiplication factor is four.
The high-frequency clock signal preferably has a clock frequency of 400 MHz.
In one particularly preferred embodiment of the inventive test circuit, the signal delay times on the control lines of the control signal output bus are much shorter than the signal delay times on the control lines of the control signal input bus.
In one preferred embodiment, the test circuit is integrated in the circuit to be tested.
The inventive test circuit is preferably used for testing a DRAM memory.
Preferred embodiments of the inventive test circuit are described below with reference to the appended figures in order to explain features which are fundamental to the invention.


A compressor has a hub-side wall of a hub-side wall plate, a shroud-side wall that faces the hub-side wall and forms a diffuser path between the shroud-side wall and the hub-side wall, vanes that protrude from the hub-side wall plate into the diffuser path, and an actuator capable of changing the distance between the vanes and the shroud-side wall in accordance with a flow rate of air in the diffuser path. Adjacent ones of the adjacent vanes do not overlap with each other when viewed from a center axis of the compressor. When the actuator maximizes the distance between the vanes and the shroud-side wall, the distance between the vanes and the shroud-side wall is smaller than the distance between the hub-side wall and areas of the shroud-side wall that face the vanes.

Conventionally, there is known a centrifugal compressor in which guide blades (vanes) that are arranged between an impeller and a scroll and are provided in a diffuser flow path, the vanes decreasing and pressurizing a fluid having a speed increased by the impeller.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes an invention that controls the positions of vanes in accordance with the flow rate of air in a diffuser flow path (airflow rate). For example, the vanes protrude into the diffuser flow path for low airflow rates, and do not protrude into the diffuser flow path for high airflow rates.


An architecture for accessing data between different virtual disk formats. A virtual machine may be migrated or cloned from a first server that uses a first virtual disk format to a second server using a second virtual disk format. In response to an I/O request from the virtual machine, a real-time mapper compares the virtual disk format used by the virtual machine with the virtual disk format of the virtual disk that the request is directed to. If the formats are different, a set of mapping metadata is used to map between data of the different virtual disk formats. Due to the mapping being performed in real time, the virtual machine is able to operate upon the virtual disk without the need to perform a potentially costly format conversion of the virtual disk or the underlying data.

A "virtual machine" or a "VM" refers to a specific software-based implementation of a machine in a virtualization environment, in which the hardware resources of a real computer (e.g., CPU, memory, etc.) are virtualized or transformed into the underlying support for the fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications on the underlying physical resources just like a real computer.
Virtualization works by inserting a thin layer of software directly on the computer hardware or on a host operating system. This layer of software contains a virtual machine monitor or "hypervisor" that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently. Multiple operating systems run concurrently on a single physical computer and share hardware resources with each other. By encapsulating an entire machine, including CPU, memory, operating system, and network devices, a virtual machine is completely compatible with most standard operating systems, applications, and device drivers. Most modern implementations allow several operating systems and applications to safely run at the same time on a single computer, with each having access to the resources it needs when it needs them.
Virtualization allows one to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine, with each virtual machine sharing the resources of that one physical computer across multiple environments. Different virtual machines can run different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical computer.
One reason for the broad adoption of virtualization in modern business and computing environments is because of the resource utilization advantages provided by virtual machines. Without virtualization, if a physical machine is limited to a single dedicated operating system, then during periods of inactivity by the dedicated operating system the physical machine is not utilized to perform useful work. This is wasteful and inefficient if there are users on other physical machines which are currently waiting for computing resources. To address this problem, virtualization allows multiple VMs to share the underlying physical resources so that during periods of inactivity by one VM, other VMs can take advantage of the resource availability to process workloads. This can produce great efficiencies for the utilization of physical devices, and can result in reduced redundancies and better resource cost management.
How virtual machines are represented in the underlying storage depends on a virtual disk format used by the server or host on which the virtual machine is created. For example, ESXi and Hyper-V are two common formats that may be used in virtualization environments. A virtual machine created on a server or host running on the ESXi format will map to the virtual disk differently from a virtual machine created on a server or host running the Hyper-V format.
However, in many cases, it may be desirable to be able to move a virtual machine between servers or hosts running different virtual disk formats. For example, an organization may make a business decision to change the type of format used in their virtualization environment (e.g., from ESXi to Hyper-V, or vice versa), while desiring to be able to continue using their existing virtual disks. In some cases, a virtualization environment may contain a number of different servers running on different formats, wherein virtual machines may be moved between the different servers in the virtualization environment for load-balancing purposes.
Typically, in order to move a virtual machine between servers running different virtual disk formats, the virtual machine must be powered down. Once powered down, a conversion is performed on the virtual disk (e.g., reading the virtual disk data, performing a format conversion, and writing back the re-formatted virtual disk data). However, this type of conversion is typically time-consuming, and requires a large amount of storage overhead.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved approach for using virtual machines in a virtualization environment with different virtual disk formats.

Method and system for accessing data between different virtual disk formats in a virtualization environment


A traction current converter includes a line-side four-quadrant converter which is provided with turn-off power semiconductors that are implemented as current converter valves. Each of the power semiconductors is connected electrically back-to-back in parallel to a corresponding power diode. A regulating device has an output side which is connected to control terminals of the power semiconductors. Each of the power diodes is implemented as controllable power diode which can be connected on the control system side to a corresponding diode control device having an input side which is connected to control outputs of the regulating device. In this way, the four-quadrant converter of a traction current converter can be reliably operated without having to use power semiconductor modules with enlarged diode chip surface.

The invention relates to a traction converter having a line-side four-quadrant controller, which has power semiconductors which can be switched off as converter valves, each of which has a power diode connected electrically back-to-back in parallel with it, and having a regulation device which is linked on the output side to control connections for the power semiconductors which can be switched off.
In the case of traction drives, one aim is to keep the vehicle wattles-component demand as low as possible. A further aim is to ensure that signal circuits and telecommunications links are not influenced by current distortion, such as that which can occur in particular in the case of converter drives. In order to be as compatible as possible with the power supply system, traction converters are equipped with a line-side pulse-controlled converter. A line-side pulse-controlled converter such as this for a traction converter which generates a required DC voltage from a single-phase line voltage is referred to as a four-quadrant controller. The motors in the traction drive are fed via a load-side pulse-controlled inverter, which is fed from the DC voltage.
Power semiconductors which can be switched off are used with corresponding freewheeling diodes as converter valves for the four-quadrant controller. These freewheeling diodes are power diodes which are each connected electrically back-to-back in parallel with the corresponding power semiconductor. Power semiconductors and associated power diodes are normally arranged in a power semiconductor module. By way of example, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) are used as power semiconductors which can be switched off. pin diodes are used as power diodes, since the reverse voltages which occur are more than 100 V.
These pin diodes have a conducting-state voltage of about 2 V. The conducting-state voltage of high-blocking capacity pin diodes is higher than this, typically 4 V. In the case of pin diodes, the transition from the conducting-state range to the reverse-biased range does not take place instantaneously, since the charge that is stored in the pn junction must first of all be dissipated. The time required to do this is the storage time, which becomes greater the higher the conducting-state current was before the transition. For power diodes, this storage time is in the microsecond range.
During operation of the four-quadrant controller, in comparison to the pulse-control inverter on the motor side, the power diodes carry current for the majority of the time, and the power semiconductors carry current for the minority of the time. This leads to overloading of the power diodes when the power semiconductors are utilized well. In the past, this problem has been solved by using power semiconductor modules with an enlarged diode chip area.
Controllable diodes are known from the publication entitled: "Power Diodes with Active Control of Emitter Efficiency" by Dirk Drücke and Dieter Silber. These controllable diodes, which are also referred to as emitter controlled diodes (ECD), can assume one of two states by means of a control signal. In one stage, the amount of stored charge is very high and the conducting-state voltage is very low, while in the other state the amount of stored charge corresponds to a rapidly switching diode and the conducting-state voltage is higher. The first-mentioned state is reached as soon as a control signal that is applied to the control connection of the diode is low. When this control signal level changes from low to high, then the diode changes to the state with a low storage charge.
The invention is now based on the object of improving a known traction converter having a line-side four-quadrant controller in such a manner that there is no longer any need to use power semiconductor modules with an enlarged diode chip area.

Traction converter having a line-side four-quadrant controller, and method therefor


A hinge for a vehicle includes a stationary sheet metal hinge base adapted to attach to a vehicle, a sheet metal panel bracket adapted to attach to a vehicle panel, and a sheet metal hinge member operably connecting the hinge base and panel bracket. The panel bracket is slideably attached to the hinge member and movable between an extended position and a retracted final assembly position. The hinge member is also pivotally connected to the hinge base and rotatably movable through an arcuate path including a panel open position, a panel closed position and at least one intermediate position therebetween. The hinge member, when the panel bracket is in the extended position, is movable to the intermediate position in the arcuate path so that the panel is spaced from the vehicle to facilitate painting of the panel and the vehicle. The hinge member, when the panel bracket is in the retracted position, is movable to locate the panel relative to the vehicle in a final assembly position. Thus, the panel can be readily extended to facilitate painting and can be retracted for final panel fit during vehicle assembly without removing the panel from the vehicle.

The present invention concerns hinges, and in particular a vehicle hinge facilitating painting and assembly of the vehicle.
It is particularly advantageous to paint vehicle body panels simultaneously with the vehicle during assembly since this reduces or eliminates color mismatches and also provides assembly plant advantages such as reduced paint waste and labor. However, in modern vehicles, the body panels are positioned close to each other for improved appearance, reduced wind resistance and noise, and the like. Hence, some vehicle body panels are not positioned on the vehicle with enough clearance around the body panel edges to allow adequate painting of the body panel edges and the adjacent area on the vehicle. For example, in a sedan or minivan, the vehicle rear gate or trunk lid includes an edge adjacent the rear window lower sheet metal of the vehicle body, which edge and window lower sheet metal cannot be adequately painted if the rear gate is closed, but which edge shadows the rear window lower sheet metal if the rear gate is opened. Hence, present vehicle assembly techniques either include removing the rear gate lid, or include a special painting operation where the rear gate is painted in a first position and then painted again along the problem edge area with the rear gate held in a second position.
Thus, a hinge is desired to facilitate improved painting and assembly of a vehicle.


A computer memory system for use with a user processor provides automatic memory operations independently of the user processor. The memory system includes a logical memory system which is accessed by the user processor through a binding register unit, enabling the user processor to allocate blocks and specify the length of the blocks. Data within the blocks can also be specified by the user by relative indexing with respect to a block specifier in the binding register unit. The user cannot access the memory directly, but must access the memory through the binding registers. The logical memory system is controlled by a separate memory management unit which manages the physical memory of the system and which manages the memory to have the logical memory system appearance to the user processor.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in memory systems, and more particularly to improvements in a memory system of the type which enable automatic memory operations independently of a user processor with which it is associated.
2. Background Information
The development of storage management systems has a long history with many related branches of research. Over the years, a great deal of attention has been given to the allocation and deallocation of memory structures. Many memory structures to this end are shown by Deitel, H. M., An Introduction to Operating Systems, Addison-Wesley, Mass., Chapter 7, 1982. Other major issues are discussed by Knuth, D., The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1: Fundamental Algorithms, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1968. The invention herein described is primarily concerned with heap managed memories which may be garbage collected. Heap managed means that the memory is allocated and freed (either explicitly or implicitly) without regard to the temporal order or the size of the memory unit under consideration. A garbage collected memory is one in which usable memory is automatically reclaimed, and the memory may be reorganized from time to time to efficiently utilize the space of the memory, as needed. A background survey of garbage collection techniques and related background materials is presented by Cohen, J. "Garbage Collection of Linked Data Structures", Computing Surveys, Vol. 13, No. 3, Sept. 1981, pp. 341-367, and also by P. Bishop, "Garbage Collection in a Very Large Address Space", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Working Paper 111, Sept. 1975.
Becoming of interest with the rapid development of artificial intelligence is the development of so-called "knowledge bases", large data bases, for use, for instance, in containing extremely large or complex information stores requiring dynamic organization. See, for example, Suwa, M., et al, "Knowledge Base Mechanisms", Preliminary Report on Fifth Generation Computer Systems, ICOT, 1980. Examples of some large data bases under consideration or implemented include, for instance, data bases which contain legal information, such as verbatim case reports, medical information for use in diagnosing possible diseases which present particular symptoms, certain patent information including abstracts, claims, and assignment information, yellow page listings of manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and so forth. In such data bases, it is often desirable to search through sometimes millions of words and characters to find the few, if any, occurrences of a particular set of words and characters, then identify a particular record (case, patent, diagnosis, etc.) related to the words and characters.
Presently, particular computer languages such as Lisp, and to a lesser extent, Pascal and Ada, are used to implement such heap allocated data bases (Lisp supporting garbage collected data bases, as well). In such traditional architectures where the memory allocation, de-allocation, garbage collection and compaction are provided, normally the language runtime support and the complier used has the responsibility for the garbage collection and compaction, and if a virtual memory system is provided, it is normally the responsibility of the hardware and operating system to manage the virtual memory system. Typically, for example, the operating system will normally use some type of demand paged LRU scheme for determining how to move pages between main memory and the backing store, and the garbage collector specifies which pages will be needed or which will no longer be needed.
As mentioned, in systems available today, storage is usually managed in the hardware, operating system, language, and data base. There are a large number of techniques in use, which, at best, result in local optimizations, but more often, do not work together symbiotically. These techniques are often difficult for the individual programmer to understand or manage.
Among the key problems often encountered by programmers is the individual word access speed, which is related directly to the speed of the particular memory used. Also, the speed of allocation presents a difficult problem if memory units are not either last-in first-out (LIFO) allocated or of constant size. Also, the time delay between a block of memory becoming available (that is, unreachable by any program) and the time that it is ready for reallocation is a frequently encountered problem. Additionally, the overall size of a virtual memory space is often of concern, since garbage collection costs increase with the size of the space being collected not with the amount of garbage being reclaimed. Finally, security or safety is a significant problem, since normally programs can ignore the actual structure of a memory organization, either intentionally or through inadvertence in program or memory design and blocks of data can easily be overwritten or obliterated entirely.
Reference is also made to copending patent application entitled "COMPUTER SYSTEM ENABLING AUTOMATIC MEMORY OPERATIONS" by Thatte et al, (Docket No. TI-10599) said application being assigned to the assignee hereof and incorporated herein by reference as background. The Thatte et al application describes a computer system having an associated CPU. The system enables automatic memory operations, in general, and the present invention discloses a particular implementation of the general system in which the user CPU can be provided entirely separate from the memory system.


An integrated circuit (IC) can dynamically manage memory communication paths between multiple processors and multiple memory modules. The IC can include upstream logic that performs data conversion and provides memory communication paths between each processor and a corresponding upstream port. An interconnect layer in the IC can be electrically coupled to the upstream ports to multiple downstream ports. An interconnect management processor electrically coupled to the interconnect layer can respond to received commands by executing an allocation program stored in a read-only memory (ROM) that dynamically establishes and terminates memory communication paths between the upstream ports and the downstream ports. A memory interface layer in the IC can be electrically coupled to the downstream ports and to the memory modules, and can provide, through corresponding memory physical interfaces, memory communication paths between the multiple downstream ports and corresponding memory modules.

The present disclosure generally relates to memory interface integrated circuits (ICs). In particular, this disclosure relates to an IC designed to provide elastic expansion of memory interfaces between multiple processor circuits and multiple memory modules.
A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) can be computer software, firmware or hardware that is used to create, provision and run virtual machines on a computer system. A computer on which a hypervisor is running at least one virtual machine may be defined as a "host" machine. Each virtual machine may be called a "guest" machine. The hypervisor may present guest machines with a virtual operating platform and may manage the execution of guest operating systems. A hypervisor may allow multiple instances of a variety of operating systems to share virtualized versions of hardware resources such as memory, disk storage space and internet protocol (IP) addresses.
Semiconductor memory devices or chips can be used in computers and other electronic systems to electronically store data. For example, instructions for a processor circuit and data processed by the processor circuit can both be stored in semiconductor memory chips. Such memory chips may be fabricated using a variety of semiconductor technologies. The time to access all data locations within a semiconductor memory chip is generally uniform, which can result in efficient storage and retrieval of data from any data location within the chip. Semiconductor memory chips can be "volatile" or "non-volatile" with regards to data retention during interruption of electrical power supplied to a chip. A volatile memory chip can lose data when the power supplied to the chip is interrupted, and a non-volatile chip is designed to retain data during power supply interruptions.

Elastic memory expansion chip architecture

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention provides a booster apparatus (10) for entraining gas in a flowing second fluid. The booster apparatus comprises a booster housing (116) for receiving a fluid. The booster apparatus has at least one inlet (123) through which a first fluid passes to be entrained in the second fluid when the second fluid is flowing through the booster housing. The present invention also provides a booster assembly (12) comprising a booster apparatus (10) and a fluid motive mechanism such as a turbine unit (11).

Water is critical to most aspects of society. It is therefore important that water is made readily available. In order to achieve this substantial infrastructure is required to transport water from a reservoir, such as a dam, to an outlet, such as a tap. The infrastructure typically comprises numerous pumps to pump the water through pipelines from one location to another.
The cost associated with transporting water is significant, particularly if water needs to be transported over significant distances, and/or over elevated obstacles, such as mountains, where the pressure head must be overcome. This cost increases substantially with every metre of head that water is required to overcome and is a constant cost regardless if the water is required to be transported for human consumption directly, for irrigation, pumped to head distribution reservoirs, for dewatering mines, and other water conveyance systems. This cost includes that attributable to infrastructure, but more significantly, the cost associated with providing the requisite power to operate the pumps for transporting the water through the pipeline.
Furthermore, the power required to run the pumps has a direct impact on the environment. The cost in terms of carbon emissions associated with production of the power will continue to increase, at least in developed countries. Also increased power requirements translate to increased carbon production which negatively affects the earth's atmosphere. As the demand on earth's diminishing fossil fuels increases, there is a greater focus on developing more efficient ways to utilise power.
The preceding discussion of the background to the invention is intended only to facilitate an understanding of the present invention. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgment or admission that any of the material referred to was part of the common general knowledge as at the priority date of the application.


Analyzing the mechanical state of an assembly modeled by a computer aided design system includes generating a model of a fastener and a part of the assembly. The fastener model includes an engaging region and the part model includes a receiving region to fastenably receive the engaging region. The fastener and the part are each represented by finite element representations that include elastically interconnected nodes. A tightening mesh interconnecting nodes of the engaging region and nodes of the receiving region is generated and a force applied between the nodes of the engaging and receiving region is determined based on a pre-tension force occurring upon engaging the engaging region with the receiving region.

In designing mechanical part assemblies using computer aided design, manufacturing, and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) systems, it is useful to simulate and analyze the structural behavior of an assembly under operating conditions and the stresses experienced by the assembly under those operating conditions. Stress simulation and analysis operations are usually based on a geometrical discretization of the assembly using a finite element mesh representation of each part body in the assembly. Each mesh is usually comprised of nodes and elements interconnecting the nodes. These nodes and elements may take the form of solid elements such as tetrahedrons, hexahedrons, cubes, etc, surface elements such as triangles, quadrangles, and so-called 1-D elements such as bars and interconnecting links. Techniques for constructing such nodes and elements are described in, e.g., The Finite Element Method by O. C. Zienkiewicz and R. L. Taylor, McGraw Hill, 1989 [ref. 1], and The Finite Element Method by T. J. R. Hughes, Prentice-Hall, 1987 [ref. 2].
Existing stress analysis systems can work well with simple connections such as contact or fastened connections. However, more complex connections may not be dealt with in a fully satisfactory manner. One classical example of a complex connection is the tightening of a bolt in an assembly. The tightening of a bolt involves the application of a force, usually called a pre-tension force, that comes into play before other working loads. In some cases, CAD/CAM stress analysis systems ignore the complexity of such connections, or approximate them by treating them similarly to fastened connections. New systems and techniques for analyzing bolt and other pre-tensioned connections are to enable design engineers to better analyze assemblies of parts.


By an insertion/withdrawal mechanism, a wavefront division optical element is inserted to an optical path of a light via an optical system to be examined, or the inserted wavefront division optical element is withdrawn from the optical path. Thus, it becomes possible without using a half mirror to make the light via the optical system to be examined be received at a detector via the wavefront division optical element, or the light via the optical system to be examined be received at the detector without the wavefront division optical element. Therefore, the measurement precision of optical properties obtained based on a detection signal from the detector cannot be deteriorated due to a polarization property existing in the half mirror. Accordingly, optical properties of the optical system to be examined can be detected with high precision.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to optical property measuring apparatus and optical property measuring method, exposure method and exposure apparatus, and device manufacturing method, and more particularly to an optical property measuring apparatus that receives a light via an optical system to be examined with a detector and measures optical properties of the optical system to be examined and an optical property measuring method, an exposure apparatus that comprises the optical property measuring apparatus and an exposure method that utilizes the optical property measuring method, and a device manufacturing method in which the exposure apparatus and the exposure method are used.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an exposure apparatus that transfers a pattern formed on a mask or reticle (hereinafter generally referred to as 'reticle') onto an object such as a wafer coated with resist and the like or onto a glass plate (hereinafter referred to as 'wafer' as appropriate) via a projection optical system has been used in a lithographic process for manufacturing semiconductor devices, liquid-crystal displays and the like. As this type of exposure apparatus, in recent years, from the viewpoint of emphasizing the importance of throughput, projection exposure apparatus of a sequentially moving type are mainly used, such as the reduction projection exposure apparatus by the step-and-repeat method (the so-called stepper), and the scanning projection exposure apparatus by the step-and-scan method that is an improvement of the stepper.
In this type of exposure apparatus, it is important to accurately overlay and transfer a reduced image of a pattern of a reticle onto a shot area that has been already formed on the wafer. Therefore, it is required to adjust optical properties of a projection optical system and an illumination optical system so that a forming state of an image by the projection optical system becomes a desired state.
Thus, for the adjustment of optical properties described above, it is premised that the optical properties of optical systems such as the projection optical system are measured with good precision. For example, as image-forming characteristics of the projection optical system, conventionally, low-order aberrations that are known as Seidel's five aberrations were measured based on the exposure results of an image of a measurement pattern or the measurement results of an aerial image of the measurement pattern. In recent years, however, in order to cope with a finer device pattern according to higher integration of a semiconductor device, measurement of wavefront aberration that is a total aberration as the image-forming characteristics of the projection optical system has been relatively often performed.
The wavefront aberration of the projection optical system slightly changes before and after the projection optical system is installed into the body of the exposure apparatus. Therefore, various measuring units that measure the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system in the so-called on-body state (i.e. a state installed into the body of the exposure apparatus) are used. As one of this type of measuring units, a wavefront aberration measuring instrument by the Shack-Hartmann method using a microlens array is known.
A measurement principle of the wavefront aberration using the wavefront aberration measuring instrument is as follows. More specifically, a spherical wave generated from a pinhole formed on a reticle enters a projection optical system, and the light via the projection optical system enters the wavefront aberration measuring instrument fixed to a wafer stage. Then, a wavefront of the light at a pupil plane of the projection optical system is divided by a microlens array arranged in the vicinity of a plane conjugate with the pupil plane of the projection optical system, and an image of the pinhole (a spot image) is formed on an imaging plane of a CCD by each lens element making up the microlens array. In this case, the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system can be calculated by performing a predetermined computation based on a position deviation of each spot image from a datum point.
In order to accurately obtain the position deviation of each spot image from the datum point, it is required to measure a position and a shape of the pupil plane of the projection optical system, and a wavefront aberration measuring instrument having the following configuration is also known (e.g. refer to Patent Document 1): a half mirror is arranged inside the wavefront aberration measuring instrument, the light incident on the wavefront aberration measuring instrument is branched by the half mirror, and one branched beam enters a CCD via the microlens array and the other branched beam enters another CCD (a CCD for pupil measurement) without passing though the microlens array.
The half mirror has the following polarization properties. More particularly, the light reflecting off the half mirror has a high intensity of S polarization and a low intensity of P polarization, while the light passing through the half mirror has a low intensity of S polarization and a high intensity of P polarization. As a matter of course, there are slight differences in polarization properties depending on the material of a semi-transmissive film (reflective film having transmittance that is not zero) to be used for the half mirror, however, it is difficult to manufacture a semi-transmissive film having no polarization properties.
Meanwhile, with the projection exposure apparatus, it is likely that the aberration of the projection optical system (a projection lens) is different depending on a polarization direction, or it is also likely that an illumination light is polarized.
Therefore, with the wavefront aberration measuring instrument disclosed in Patent Document 1 described above, measurement precision could be deteriorated due to the polarization properties existing in the half mirror described above.
Besides the wavefront aberration measuring instrument by the Shack-Hartmann method described above, as a device to measure the wavefront aberration of the projection optical system, various interferometers (such as a Twyman-Green interferometer, a shearing interferometer, and a point diffraction interferometer) are also known. However, because most of these interferometers have a half mirror, the measurement precision could be deteriorated likewise, due to the polarization properties existing in the half mirror.
Patent Document 1: Kokai (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication) No. 2003-262948.

Optical property measuring apparatus and optical property measuring method, exposure apparatus and exposure method, and device manufacturing method


An optical pickup device wherein at least a high density disc such as HD-DVD is compatible with DVD, and securing an amount of light is compatible with correction of chromatic aberration. An a correcting element representing an optical system used for the aforementioned optical pickup device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical pickup device and to a correcting element used in the optical pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been made research and development on the so-called high density optical disc wherein recording density of an optical information recording medium (optical disc) has been enhanced by using a blue laser beam having a wavelength of about 400 nm, and thereby, a storage capacity has been increased.
As a standard of the high density optical disc, there are known, for example, the one wherein an image-side numerical aperture of an objective lens (NA) is about 0.85 and a protective substrate thickness is about 0.1 mm and the one wherein NA and a protective substrate thickness are controlled to be respectively about 0.65 and about 0.6 mm which are similar to those of a conventional DVD (digital versatile disc). In the following explanation, the high density optical disc whose NA and protective substrate thickness are respectively about 0.65 and about 0.6 mm will be indicated as "HD-DVD (High Density DVD)".
There are proposed various technologies relating to optical pickup devices each having compatibility between the high density optical disc of this kind and an optical disc which has been used widely such as DVD and CD (compact disc).
Incidentally, light flux wavelengths λ1, λ2 and λ3 used respectively for HD-DVD, DVD and CD are respectively about 400 nm, about 650 nm and about 780 nm, and protective substrate thickness t1, t2 and t3 are respectively about 0.6 mm, about 0.6 mm and about 1.2 mm.
To achieve compatibility among the optical discs in plural types of this kind, it is necessary to correct aberrations each being generated by a difference between wavelengths or a difference between protective substrate thicknesses, while securing an amount of a light flux used for each optical disc, and Japanese laid-open patent No. 2001-60336, for example, discloses a technology to provide a diffractive structure on an optical surface of an optical element that constitutes an optical pickup device.
The invention disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent No. 2001-60336 is an optical pickup device having an compatibility between HD-DVD and DVD or an compatibility among HD-DVD, DVD and CD, wherein chromatic aberration of HD-DVD is corrected by combining a diffractive optical element and an objective lens.
However, in the high density optical disc such as HD-DVD, a tolerance of a value of chromatic aberration in a light-converging spot is narrower than that of DVD, and it is necessary to secure an amount of light sufficiently, thus, in the invention disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent No. 2001-60336, correction of chromatic aberration has not always been sufficient.

Optical pickup device and correcting element used in the optical pickup device


A word game system for playing multiple word games and its corresponding play methods are disclosed. The game system and the multiple word games are all based on the word scramble process—constantly and dynamically scrambling the playing pieces to form words by all the players all the time, hence extremely stimulating and entertaining. The game system and its specific set of playing pieces with proper ranking distribution, value point assignments, math function selections and incorporation of wild playing pieces support a host of brain stimulating games including Scramble Word, Scramble Poker and Scramble Ma-Jong. These word games are playable in English and other languages and playable as board, computer, broadcasting as well as board-less games.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a word game system with an assembly of game components and a set of play methods for the purpose of providing mind stimulation and entertainment which can improve human brain and physical health. The game system is based on the principle of dynamically, continuously and constantly scrambling alphabets in one's brains to form meaningful words to win score, which stimulates brain activities in a healthy way. The assembly of game components is created to (1) make such brain activities to be fun and not stressful, (2) support a number of games and a variety of play methods and (3) facilitate the play methods of 'word scramble process' based word games. The play methods of Scramble games are applicable to a variety of board games, card games, tile games, TV broadcast shows, interactive TV games, computer games and network or online interactive computer or cell-phone based games. The game system components and play methods implemented in TV and/or interactive TV renders them a mass entertainment game with participation of audience in television, cable and Internet broadcast through remote control. In any of the playing formats, the brain stimulation function is achieved by constantly, continuously and dynamically scrambling words during the games to stimulate and improve the players' brain and physical health. The present invention and its varying play methods are suitable for solitaire play and group play in physical presence such as in a family over a table, a classroom setting as well as for a large number of players over a network connection including computer network and wireless network such as Internet, TV broadcast, cell phone network, interactive Cable TV or any combined network providing player interaction.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's fast speed and schedule-driven work and social environment, people very much need to relax and spend time with family members and friends for both physical and mental health reasons. Consequently, many games have been invented to provide entertainment and family interaction. Unfortunately, many games are of the category that they do not stand the test of time because they don't provide the right challenge to people's brains. These are the "luck" games by throwing a die and following instructions or 'trivia' games causing brain clutter or the pulling-the-trigger games only stimulating finger and eye coordination with little thinking activities. In fact, some of the games are wasting precious time of young children whose brains are in the development stage which can be accelerated from healthy stimulation with proper learning games.
A few games that do endure years of test are all brain stimulating games challenging and entertaining. Examples are (1) Bridge—A English invention originated from Whist dated to 17th Century, Whist was said to come from Whisk which was called Trump, which was transformed from a French game called Triomph, (2) Chess—An invention dated back to 531 AD to India, (3) Scrabble—An American invention attributed to Alfred Butts in 1931, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., (4) Poker—traced back to Chinese 900 AD Domino cards and French 1480 Pogue card game and (5) Ma-Jong—Chinese game dated back at least 12th century and possibly earlier in simpler forms. These games stood the test of time mainly because they are both entertaining and brain stimulating and challenging. The Bridge and Chess are often contending for the throne of the most popular game in the world if one would include all card games and board games in the same category. However, they are sometimes viewed as too difficult to get young children and seniors to learn and play. Poker and Ma-jong are popular gambling games, but they are not appropriate for children to play. Word games such as Scrabble and crossword puzzles are considered learning games but they are not attracting children as much due to their play method which do not catch or have difficulty to maintain players' constant and continuous attention during the game play, especially for children.
Recently, there are clinical studies confirming the benefit of engaging brain stimulating activities for health.
Researchers have found that those who had engaged in stimulating activities throughout their life—everything from reading, doing crossword puzzles, and playing bridge, chess, or board games to visiting friends, practicing a musical instrument, and bicycling—were 2½ times less likely to get Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's disease is a mental condition that affects the portion of the brain that controls thought, memory, and language.
Brain-stimulating activities such as newspaper-reading, card games, puzzles and draughts had been shown in "the best study of the problem so far" to lower the risk of Dementia.
Human brain is like a muscle: Use it or lose it. Today's research offers evidence showing that taking steps to protect your brain can prevent a decreased memory and slowed wit. Mental exercise is crucial. It begins when parents read to their children. But it is never too late to stimulate the brain. Therefore, the general object of the present invention, collectively referred as 'Scrammble Games', which will become clear as a class of unique word games with descriptions below, is to provide a game system and a set of play methods for the general public, children and all ages, for the benefit of maintaining good physical and mental health. Another object is to provide family and group entertainment and learning. A number of games and their play methods are presented in the present invention.
Word Games are Created in a Particular Language.
The Scramble Games are extendable from English, an alphabetic language, such as Spanish, French, German, Russian, Arabic, or Italian and moreover are also extendable to non-alphabetical languages such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean when the non-alphabetical words are represented by a combination of symbols as a part of a small set of symbols such as radicals or when the non-alphabetical words are represented by a combination of alphabets taken from an alphabetical language or symbol system such as Zhu-Yin used in representation of Mandarin.

Word scramble games for stimulating brain and physical health


The invention relates to a multilayer composite film which is substantially free from polyvinyl chloride and polyolefins. In particular, the layers of the film may include an ABS material, a polystyrene material, and/or a polyester material. The material composition and thickness of composite film are such that the maximum tensile force generated when a test body including the composite film is subjected to a specified single-axis tensile testing procedure ranges between 30 Newtons and 280 Newtons.

The present invention concerns a multi-layer, substantially polyvinyl chloride and polyolefin-free composite film, in particular furniture film, including at least one carrier layer which has ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), in particular ABS with admixtures; and/or polystyrene; in particular polystyrene with admixtures and/or high-impact polystyrene, and/or polyester, in particular amorphous polyester copolymer.
When using thermoplastic decorative films in the furniture sector, particularly when high-shine surfaces are involved, high demands are made in terms of scratch resistance, abrasion resistance, chemical resistance, tension tearing resistance and optical values such as shine, long- and short-wave factors as well as surface fine roughness. Environmental awareness is also increasingly advancing into the furniture sector, so that demands are also additionally being made in terms of the material nature of the thermoplastic films. The materials and processes used at the present time do not always satisfy those conditions.
Furniture films of thermoplastic materials are produced for example by laminating/coating a thin scratch-resistant layer on to a pigmented polyvinyl chloride (PVC) carrier film and subsequently applying a primer layer at the rear side. Admittedly, PVC carrier films substantially satisfy all physical and optical requirements of furniture films, but, on the other hand, nowadays they are considered ecologically questionable. A more ecologically advantageous variant was marketed, using a base film of pigmented amorphous polyester copolymer, instead of the pigmented PVC base film, has been marketed. Further alternatives on a polyolefinic carrier basis are described in EP 0 987 102 A2, which discloses a base of polyethylene, a scratch-resistant coating, and also an overlay film of transparent amorphous polyester copolymer. In addition, EP 0 704 482 B1 discloses a plurality of structures in which polyolefins are homogenised with polymers of other chemical classes (styrene copolymers, polymethacrylates) and processed to constitute films for furniture and articles of furniture. EP 0 875 374 A2 describes a product for which a carrier film including polyolefins, ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymers), ASA (acrylonitrile-styrene-acrylic ester copolymers), AES (thermoplastic quadrupolymer of acrylonitrile-ethylene-propylene-styrene), PET (polyethylene terephthalate), or an amorphous polyester is laminated with an overlay film of an amorphous polyester. Japanese specification No 08311301 A describes an ABS film to which a defined addition of polycaprolactone is added as a processing aid for the calendering process. The ABS film may also contain between 5 and 50 percent by weight of methacrylate raw material.
Co-extruded panels of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and ABS are also known as high-shine film materials. Furniture films are produced in that case by co-extrusion with a wide-slot nozzle. An alternative form of processing involves thermoshaping of the films and subsequently adhering the film to wood fibre panels. A further alternative form of processing involves glueing on to flat surfaces and hot edging. In general terms, thermoplastic, high-shine furniture films and mats are processed by pressing, laminating, or shaping on wood or foam cores. In order to be able to process the films on existing machines, the films must satisfy defined technical conditions. In particular, the films must have, interalia, good thermoshapability at low temperatures (100° C.) and a corresponding processing window of between 90° and 120° C. In addition, the films should have improved surface properties (shine, long wave, short wave, UV (ultraviolet light) resistance, scratch resistance, chemical resistance) as well as good adhesion to wood materials, pieces of wood, or foam cores. Those demands are only partially or not at all fulfilled by the PVC-free films in the art, which are desired from an ecological point of view.

Multi-layer, substantially polyvinyl chloride- and polyolefin-free composite film


A color dental kit and method of specifying and illustrating coloring of synthetic dental elements such as individual teeth, crowns and the like to be made synthetically by imaging the individual teeth or crowns on a sheet of paper divided into light and dark incisal color tones. The color is effected with color pencils having a soft lead of the colors corresponding to gingival and incisal natural color shades. Some of the color pencils have leads for coloring specific color characteristics such as flaws including decalcification. The color pencils are provided in the color dental kit including therewith paper sheets on which imaging of the individual synthetic teeth and crowns is effected and the images are manually colored with the pencils as desired. These colored images provide positive dentition communication between and among dentists, patients and dental laboratory technicians.

This invention relates generally to the making of synthetic teeth, dental elements such as crowns and the like and more particularly to a color dental kit and a method of use of the kit for reproducing the appearance of natural dentition for communication between dentist, a patient and lab technicians.
Dental restorations have heretofore presented problems for dentists in communicating with lab technicians with respect to guiding the dental laboratory with respect to shade definition of colors desired on synthetic teeth, crowns, inlays, onlays and veneers and the like. Several techniques are employed by dentists for communicating their needs to dental laboratories. In some instances patients must visit the laboratory or the lab technician confers with the patient and the dentist which is generally a cumbersome method since laboratories are not readily accessible to the patients. Other dentists will take a photograph and transmit this to the laboratory. The most common method is by drawing the tooth and describing the color characteristics. The latter technique may appear to be a practical way for the dentist and lab to communicate but it is not effective because the communication is attempting to identify a highly complex color medium with a black/blue pen and white paper. The dentist then the lab may perceive the colors and tones of a color movie of a black and white television set for the communications are far from perfect. Another method is the use of a shade guide in which tooth simulations are made of porcelain on which the appearance of natural dentition and all lighting condition is attempted. The elements provide the physical color by which the dentist and lab technician can identify the color shades desired in a synthetic tooth or crown or the like.


A method for range finding of a target including: generating a first photon and a second photon identical to the first photon; transmitting the first photon towards the target and delaying the second photon by a time delay; receiving the first photon reflected from the target and the delayed second photon; interacting the reflected first photon and the delayed second photon to produce HOM interference; detecting photo-statistics at an output of the HOM interference; when the two photons are output at the same output port, repeating the above processes; when the reflected first single photon and the delayed second single photon are output at different output ports, changing the time delay and repeating the above processes; repeating the above processes for a number of times to arrive at a final estimate for a value of the time delay corresponding to the final estimate of the target range.

Optical ranging has become an important capability for imaging systems, offering 3D reconstruction of standoff targets and enabling tasks such as, target identification, characterization and orientation. Optical ranging may be performed by laser or radar. Typically, laser ranging is performed using a short pulsed laser, and a high-speed photodetector, measuring time of flight of the optical pulse and then calculating the distance to the target, given the speed of optical pulse (light). However, in a photon starved regime, for example in the dark, the minimum error that can be achieved using this technique is large, requiring long acquisition times to achieve reliable estimate of range to target.
Recent work has shown the limited capabilities of laser ranging systems operating in the low-photon limit that employ coherent state sources and direct detection receivers. For example, see, Baris I. Erkmen, and Bruce Moision, "Maximum Likelihood Time-of-Arrival Estimation Of Optical Pulses Via Photon-Counting Photodetectors," IEEE, ISIT 2009, Seoul, Korea, Jun. 28-Jul. 3, 2009 (hereinafter referred to as "[1]"), the entire contents of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference.
For example, in [1], an analytic model for the mean-square error of a maximum likelihood (ML) estimator was developed. Then, two phenomena that cause deviations from a Cramer-Rao bound at low signal photon flux was illustrated. The model accurately predicts the ML performance over all regimes that we considered. An approximation to the threshold at which the ML estimator fails to provide better than a random guess of the pulse arrival time was also derived.


Apparatus and methods are provided for handover robustness. In novel aspect, the UE receives a conditional handover (CHO) command from a source gNB containing a set of candidate cells with corresponding triggering conditions; detects a handover conditions for a target gNB belonging to the set of candidate cells; and performs HO procedure towards the target gNB. In one embodiment, the conditional HO command further configures a validity timer that controls a validity of handover conditions for the set of candidate cells. The validity timer is started upon receiving the conditional HO command, the validity timer is stopped upon detecting at least one events comprising a handover condition is met and a normal handover command is received, and the conditional HO command is set to be invalid upon the expiration of the validity timer.

In the current wireless communication network, handover procedure is performed to support mobility when UE moves among different cells. For example, in the current new radio (NR) system, only basic handover is introduced. The basic handover is mainly based on LTE handover (HO) mechanism in which network controls UE mobility based on UE measurement reporting. In the basic/normal handover, similar to LTE, the source gNB triggers handover by sending HO request to the target gNB. After receiving HO Request ACK from the target gNB, the source gNB initiates handover by sending HO command with target cell configuration.
Further, in addition to traditional voice and internet data services, the wireless network now needs to support many other services with various QoS requirements. For example, some services require ultra-reliability and low latency, such as remote control, aerial, industrial automation, industrial control, and Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). For such services, mobility performance with high reliability and low interruption time are required.
With the increased density of network deployment, the UE may experience more frequent handover due to the number of the cells and the radius of cells. compared to the LTE, the handover in high frequency range of the NR with beamforming may increase interruption time due to beam sweep delays. With smaller coverage, the beamforming also reduces the reliability of the wireless system. When the UE moves or rotates, the UE can experience very fast signal degradation. It may result in higher handover failure and high ping-pong rate. Therefore, handover becomes extremely challenging in high frequency environment than in low frequency. When handover failure or radio link failure (RLF) occurs, the UE needs to perform RRC connection re-establishment, which takes a long time and impairs the user experience dramatically. If RRC connection re-establishment fails, the UE will go to IDLE.
Improvements and enhancements are required for the mobility reliability and the reduction of handover failure rate and radio link failure rate.

Apparatus and mechanism to improve mobility robustness in wireless network


An illumination unit includes a plurality of light sources each including a solid-state light-emitting device configured to emit light from a light emission region including a single or a plurality of light-emitting spots. The solid-state light-emitting device includes a single chip or a plurality of chips each emitting light beam. Three or more of the light-emitting spots are provided within the whole light sources, to allow the whole light sources to emit light beams in two or more wavelength bands different from one another. Two or more of the plurality of the light sources include respective light-emitting spots which emit light in the same wavelength band.

The present disclosure relates to an illumination unit using a solid-state light-emitting device such as a laser diode (LD), and a projection display unit and a direct view display unit including the same.
In recent years, a projector to project a picture on a screen is used widely not only in offices but also in households. The projector generates image light by modulating light from a light source with a light bulb and produces a display by projecting the image light on a screen. Recently, a palm-size microprojector, a mobile telephone incorporating a microprojector, etc., begin to spread (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-134324).

Illumination unit having at least two solid state light sources in the same wavelength band


A lift arm device for an industrial vehicle includes a lift arm, a connecting rod and first and second cylinders. The lift arm has a front end to which a working implement is connected. The connecting rod is pivotally connected at one end to the lift arm and pivotally joined at the other end to the vehicle. Each of the first and second cylinders is pivotally connected at one end to the lift arm and pivotally joined at the other end to the vehicle.

The present invention relates to a lift arm device and an industrial vehicle having the lift arm device.
Japanese Patent No. 3133793 indicates that, in a skid steer loader having a loader boom which is mounted at a single pivotal axis to the frame of the skid steer loader, the outer front end of the loader boom travels along an arcuate path when the boom is raised or lowered, with the result that the forward reach of a working implement such as bucket provided at the front end of the loader boom tends to be shortened.
In order to solve such problem, the following construction is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3133793. A main lift arm section to which a bucket is attached is connected to the main frame of the loader through two links (or a rear lift arm link and a rigid link) and an actuator. Each of the two links and the actuator is connected at one end thereof to the main lift arm section through a pin and at the other end thereof to the main frame of the loader through a pin.
According to the Patent, the main lift arm can have a longer reach in the upper region of its path of movement, so that loading and unloading operation, such as unloading into a truck and making a higher pile, can be performed easily.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,826 discloses a lift truck which includes a boom whose proximal end is pivotally connected not directly to a mobile frame but to a support which can be moved horizontally in the longitudinal direction of the frame. When the boom is raised by one cylinder, the support is displaced by another cylinder. Thus, the front end of the boom travels in an almost vertical path, thereby increasing the load capacity. Each of the two cylinders is pivotally connected at one end thereof to the frame and at the other end thereof to the boom or the support.
In the skid steer loader disclosed in the above-cited Japanese Patent No. 3133793, a longer reach of the main lift arm section is obtained in the raised position of the lift arm. However, the skid steer loader has no degree of freedom for the path of movement of the lift arm. In order to change the path of movement that has been set once, the lift arm and its associated parts need to be modified significantly. Therefore, it has been hard for the conventional skid steer loader to be used under various conditions or for various specific purposes.
In the lift truck disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,826, the operation of the cylinder for displacing the support is determined by the control as shown in FIGS. 6 through 10 of the patent in accordance with the raised amount of the boom by the other cylinder. Thus, it is hard for the above lift truck to provide the degree of freedom for the path of movement of the lift arm. Furthermore, the lift truck having the support which is moved horizontally in the longitudinal direction of the frame needs to increase the displaced amount of the support for obtaining a longer reach of the boom in an upper raised position. Thus, a larger space is needed for movement of guide means for the support (or horizontal rod 18) and the support, which causes its raising and lowering device and hence the industrial vehicle to be made larger in size.

Lift arm device for industrial vehicle, industrial vehicle having the same and method of raising and lowering lift arm


Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a method and a device for estimating optimal resources for server virtualization. The method comprises receiving input data relating to requirements of server virtualization from a user device. The method further comprises filtering the input data by applying filtering rules. The method further comprises generating current landscape information of a plurality of servers using the filtered input data. The method further comprises determining values of virtualization parameters for a plurality of target servers using the current landscape information and predefined rules. The method further comprises determining landscape information of the plurality of target servers using the current landscape information and the values of virtualization parameters for estimating optimal resources for server virtualization.

In recent years, server integration to consolidate hundreds of servers incorporation into less number of high performance servers has drawn attention. It is an object to consolidate systems operated on multiple servers into one server using virtualization technique and to reduce operation and maintenance cost. In this regard, the IT industry is going through transformational phase with physical servers getting virtualized, applications dynamically moving across servers, software defined data centers, etc. The server sizing for IT Infrastructure project is the key for successful IT infrastructure business. IT vendors as well as customers face a huge challenge in this area.
Today, the server sizing process is manual and people centric. There are no standard, accepted principles or practices for the same. Conventionally, to respond to a request for proposal of high investment from the customer, about 20-30 IT personnel typically work for 2-3 weeks in a closed room environment. The solutions and sizing requirement are discussed, and debated many times. There is no agreeable conclusion till the last day, which is acceptable to all.
Therefore, the current process for server sizing includes a manual and complicated process. The manual process is time consuming and requires a large amount of resources. At the end, the manual server sizing process may not give accurate results.

Method and device for estimating optimal resources for server virtualization


A bus support system is disclosed that accommodates three-wire three-phase circuitry and four-wire three-phase circuitry. A main bus support element is designed to receive horizontal bus bars and vertical bus bars for installation in an electrical enclosure. The main support element is supplemented by an add-on bus support element where a neutral bus is required for four-wire three-phase operation.

The present invention relates generally to the field of packaged electrical systems, such as for the distribution of power signals to controlled equipment. More particularly, the invention relates to a bus support system for electrical enclosures that can accommodate busses for four-wire three-phase systems and three-wire three-phase systems.
Electrical enclosures for use with power electronic equipment and switch gear are known and have been used for many years. In industrial applications, for example, such switch gear, as well as semi-conductor power electronic circuits, programmable logic controllers, motor controllers, and so forth, are often housed in large electrical enclosures. The enclosures are often divided into separate compartments or segments in which related equipment and circuits may be disposed. Access to the components may be had through a door, with separate doors typically being provided for separate compartments in large enclosures. Enclosures of this type are currently in use in systems commonly known as motor control centers (MCCs).
Such systems are configured in different ways for different markets, particularly in international markets. For example, in certain markets the systems may accommodate three-wire three-phase power, while in others the systems are designed for four-wire three-phase power. In general, all three-phase power systems carry power over three conductors in sinusoidal waveforms that are offset from one another by 120° of phase difference. Four-wire systems add a fourth neutral conductor to the three power conductors. Such configurations may respond to requirements of local electrical codes, national or regional power grids or systems, customs, and so forth.
Manufacturers of such electrical systems must generally accommodate both three-wire and four-wire three-phase power configurations. The need to provide for power busses for the three power phases, along with a fourth power bus for a neutral conductor can, however, add to either the cost of all systems or to the number of different systems that must be manufactured, assembled and stocked by the system providers. That is, if a universal system is equipped for four-wire three-phase power, additional cost is built into the systems where only three-wire three-phase power is needed by the customer. Conversely, systems built only for three-wire three-phase power are simply unsuitable for use where four-wire three-phase power is required.
There is a need, therefore, for improved electrical system configurations that can accommodate both three-wire three-phase power and four-wire three-phase power. There is a particular need for a system that can be easily and economically configured for different markets based upon a single physical standard.

Vertical neutral bus and support for motor control center


A cartridge tube for a grenade capable of being fired by a live round of a weapon has a bullet trap to stop the bullet and a plug made of a deformable material to prevent the fragments produced when the bullet impacts on the bullet trap from escaping from the cartridge tube. The plug bears against a wall positioned between the plug and the bullet trap. The wall is attached to the cartridge tube and is substantially perpendicular to the center-line of the tube. The wall is positioned at a distance from the bullet trap along the center-line of the cartridge tube, thus establishing an empty space between the wall and the bullet trap.

The present invention concerns a rifle grenade and, more precisely, the cartridge tube which is disposed at one end of the said grenade whereby it can be placed on the barrel of a rifle.
The cartridge tube of a rifle grenade contains a bullet trap according to prior art which, by stopping the bullet, allows the grenade to be fired by means of any kind of munition and in particular a live cartridge.
The deceleration of the bullet by the trap generates metal fragments (such as pieces of the bullet casing) and these fragments are ejected in the direction of the firer when the grenade leaves the barrel of the rifle.
These fragments are ejected even more violently when an additional propellant charge is placed in the cartridge tube. Attempts have already been made to limit or prevent such ejections by placing a plate made of elastic material at the entry to the bullet trap.
Reference may be made for example to French patent 1599746 which describes a bullet trap on which a plate made of an elastic plastics material is placed. The plate is penetrated by the bullet and closes again immediately thereafter, thus preventing fragments from being ejected towards the firer.
French patent 2517820 also describes a bullet trap for rifle grenades which incorporates a steel trap with a washer made of a damping material arranged inside a support tube. The trap is closed by a woven nylon cap the function of which is to protect the firer against the bullet fragments and which is tightly fitted or bonded to both the cartridge case and the trap.
Experience shows that these solutions are unsatisfactory and that bullet fragments are still projected out of the cartridge tube.

Cartridge tube for rifle grenade capable of retaining the bullet fragments


A flow control valve includes a housing defining a cavity therein. The housing has an input port for receiving a gas from a gas supply, and an output port for delivering the gas to a gas cylinder. The cavity defines a staging area fluidly connected to the input port, a delivery area fluidly connected to the output port, and a pressurization area fluidly connected to a feedback sensing port. The feedback sensing port is configured to receive pressurized fluid that is pressurized to a pressure level representative of a pressure level of gas delivered to the gas cylinder. The flow control valve includes a piston slidably positioned in a channel extending between the pressurization area and the delivery area. The position of the piston changes a rate of flow of gas through the flow control valve. The piston position moves in response to a pressure at the feedback sensing port.

The subject matter described herein relates generally to systems for filling a gas cylinder.
Current cylinder filling products require the operator of the equipment to manually adjust a restrictor valve to control the rate at which air is transferred into a cylinder for storing a gas, such as a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) or self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) cylinder. If the cylinder(s) are filled too rapidly, the air heats up to such a degree that expansion of the air creates a condition causing the cylinder to be less than completely filled when the air subsequently cools down. Additionally, when the cylinder is filled too slowly this creates an inefficient use of the operator's time. The filling process may be dependent on the skill level of the operator experience as the valve may require continuous adjustment to achieve an optimal filling rate.
In order to help achieve the optimum fill rate known cylinder filling products may include an automatic flow control valve. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a currently known automatic flow control valve 45. The automatic flow control valve 45 may incorporate a needle valve 50 controlled through a spring 52 and a piston 54 that is acted upon by storage pressure. As such, when the storage pressure is high, the needle valve 50 closes to restrict the gas flow rate through the automatic flow control valve 45. However, the gas flow rate may be controlled in proportion to storage pressure. This may be disadvantageous in that the needle valve may remain at its most restricted position if the storage pressure remains high, even as the pressure in the cylinder being filled increases resulting. The restricted positioning of the needle valve may result in a steadily decreasing gas flow rate. Other known systems utilize a manual control to control the gas flow rate. FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate a schematic of a known gas cylinder filing system with manual control. As shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, the cylinder filling system utilizes a manually operated control valve 56 to control the amount of pressure delivered to one or more cylinders 58 from a compressor 60.


The track counter for optical disk in accordance with the present invention, that counts the number of tracks a light beam passes upon when an optical head moves over an optical disk in the radial direction, comprises a passage signal generating circuit for detecting based on a reflected light of the light beam from the optical disk, that the light beam passed upon a track and for releasing a passage signal on that occasion, a counter that counts the passage signals released by the passage signal generating circuit, a count suspending circuit for forecasting that the light beam will pass upon a specific position of a track and for suspending the count by the aforementioned counter of the passage signals during this forecasted period, and a count value compensating circuit for assuming, when the count of the passage signals is suspended by the count suspending circuit, the number of tracks the light beam passed upon during that period, and for adding this assumed number to the count value of the counter. This track counter for optical disk is arranged such that it is able to count accurately the number of tracks the light beam passed upon even when the light beam passed upon the ID sections of a track, or when the passage upon a track cannot be detected because of a scratch on the surface of the disk or the like. Thereby, when the optical head moves and slides, the access speed may be enhanced.

The optical disk is receiving a lot of attention as a recording device capable of recording large quantities of information. However, the recording/reproducing apparatus of the optical disk presents the disadvantage that its access speed is slow compared with a conventional magnetical disk apparatus, and the improvement of this access speed has been a subject of research in recent years.
The structure of an optical disk will be described with reference to FIG. 7.
Tracks 22 are formed in a concentric or spiral manner on the disk surface of an optical disk 21. The FIG. 7(a) illustrates the case of concentric tracks 22. These tracks 22 are, as illustrated in detail in FIG. 7(b), long continuous physical protuberant portions which cross sections are trapezoidal (hereinafter referred to simply as protuberant portions), previously formed on the disk surface. Or these tracks 22 may be, as illustrated in detail in FIG. 7(c), long continuous phYsical variations previously formed on the disk surface by modifying the composition of the materials in specified sections of the recording surface, by making these sections only in a crystallized phase and the other sections in an amorphous phase, or the like. The write once type or rewritable type optical disk 21 is arranged so that the information from a user is recorded on the tracks 22 or in the intervals between the tracks 22. Moreover, ID sections 23, wherein information such as the track number, a synchronizing signal is previously recorded, are in some instances formed at a proper location on each of these tracks 22, by interrupting intermittently the protuberant portions of the disk surface as shown in FIG. 7(b), or by modifying intermittently physical property such as the variation of the reflectance ratio or the phase transition, as shown in FIG. 7 (c).
When the optical disk 21 is loaded in the recording/reproducing apparatus, a light beam 24 from an optical head, not shown, is irradiated on the disk surface, as shown in FIG. 7(b). The light beam 24, beside executing the recording and the reproduction of the user's information, is also responsible for reading the information recorded in the above-mentioned ID sections 23 and for obtaining a tracking error information, through the variation in the amount of light of a reflected light from a track 22. When the random access of the user's information is carried out, the optical head is moved and slides in the radial direction of the optical disk 21, and the light beam 24 is controlled so that it is irradiated on a prescribed track 22, or on a prescribed interval between two tracks 22.
Hence, in order to access the optical disk rapidly, as mentioned earlier, a track counter for counting the number of tracks 22 the light beam 24 passes upon, and for detecting that the light beam 24 reached the prescribed track 22 when the optical head moves and slides, becomes indispensable.
The operation of a conventional track counter will be described with reference to FIG. 8.
In the optical head, a RES signal indicating the tracking error and a REF signal indicating the increase or reduction (variation) in the amount of reflected light, may be obtained from the reflected light of the light beam 24. The RES signal is a signal which detected that the light beam 24 deviated from a track 22 or from the center of an interval between two tracks 22 through the widely known 3-beam method or push-pull method, and is used in the tracking servo.
The REF signal is a signal which detected the variation in the amount of light of the reflected light from an optical disk 21, and is used for reading the information recorded in the above-mentioned ID sections 23 and the like.
As shown in FIG. 8, when the light beam 24 passes consecutively upon the tracks 22 as the optical head moves and slides, the RES signal shows a substantially sinusoidal waveform which equilibrium state is the zero level. As for the REF signal, it shows a substantially sinusoidal waveform which equilibrium state is the reference voltage Vr. The RES signal and the REF signal have a phase difference of almost .+-.90.degree. according to the passage direction of the light beam 24. Moreover, as in reality the optical disk 21 is rotating, the light beam 24 passes upon the tracks 22 not at right angles, but in the diagonal direction with respect to the longitudinal direction of the tracks 22.
Among the points where the level of the RES signal equals zero (hereinafter referred to as zero cross points), the zero cross points where the RES signal passes from a positive to a negative direction, indicate that the light beam 24 is positioned on the center of an interval between two tracks 22, as it is clearly illustrated the figure. Hence, if a ZC signal in which a pulse rises at each of these zero cross points, is generated, it becomes possible to detect the number of tracks 22 the light beam 24 passes upon by counting the pulses of the ZC signal.
Also, by checking whether the REF signal is higher or lower than the reference voltage Vr at a zero cross point where the above-mentioned RES signal passes from a negative to a positive direction, there may be detected whether the phase difference of both signals is positive or negative. For example, by generating a DIR signal which is in the high level when the REF signal is higher than the reference voltage Vr and in the low level when the REF signal is lower than the reference voltage Vr, the passage direction of the light beam 24 may be detected based on the DIR signal.
Thereby, up to now, for example the count up or down of an updown counter used to be determined according to the DIR signal, and the number of tracks 22 the light beam 24 passed upon used to be detected by counting the pulses of the ZC signal with this updown counter.
However, in some instances, ID sections 23 are formed on specific positions as mentioned earlier, on each track 22 of the optical disk 21 When the light beam 24 moves along a track 22, at these ID sections 23, as shown in FIG. 9, the interference action of the reflected lights varies because of the interruption in the protuberant portion and the REF signal has pulsations centered on the reference voltage Vr. Thereby, the track number information and the like, recorded in the ID sections 23 as outlined earlier, may be read by detecting whether this REF signal is higher or lower than the reference voltage Vr.
However, when such ID sections 23 are formed on each track 22, as shown in Fig. 10, when the optical head moves and slides and the light beam 24 crosses the ID sections 23, turbulence is generated in the RES signal and the REF signal. That is, the zero cross points of the RES signal become ambiguous, since the tracking error cannot be detected in the interrupted sections of the protuberant portions of the tracks 22, as shown in the figure. The waveform of the REF signal is also disturbed on a large scale for the similar reason. However, as the turbulence of the waveform of this REF signal is further complicated, it is omitted in the figure.
Therefore, an accurate number of tracks 22 the light beam 24 passed upon cannot be detected when the light beam 24 crosses the ID sections 23, by merely determining the count up or down based on the DIR signal and by counting the pulses of the ZC signal, like in a conventional track counter. Moreover, such a thing does not happen only when ID sections 23 are formed on the tracks 22, but also when a turbulence is generated in the waveforms of the RES signal and the REF signal because of a scratch on the optical disk 21 or the like.
Accordingly, the conventional track counter for optical disk used to present the problem that the improvement of the information access speed was hindered, because the light beam, controlled based on the number of tracks it passed upon, could not be moved quickly to a desired track.


A transportation refrigeration unit (TRU) system is provided and includes a damper assembly configured to direct air flows through first or second pathways and an evaporator disposed in the first pathway, a coil element surrounded by phase change material (PCM) and disposed in the second pathway and a routing assembly configured to direct refrigerant through the evaporator or the coil element. With the PCM pre-cooled, the damper and routing assemblies are controllable to respectively direct the air flows through the first pathway and the refrigerant through the evaporator when first conditions are met and to respectively direct the air flows through the second pathway when second conditions are met.

The present disclosure relates to transportation refrigeration systems and, more particularly, to a transportation refrigeration system with thermal storage using phase change material (PCM).
A transportation refrigeration unit (TRU) is typically used in the transportation of perishable items. A TRU can be installed on a truck, for example, serves to maintain an environment within an interior of the trailer of the truck, in which perishable items are often stored, at a certain temperature range while the perishable items are being transported.
Operations of the TRU can be based on the vapor compression cycle in which a fluid, such as refrigerant, is used to cool air that is driven into the trailer. In a vapor compression cycle, the refrigerant enters a compressor as a superheated vapor and is compressed within the compressor to a higher pressure and a higher temperature. The hot, compressed superheated vapor is then condensed within a condenser by air flowing across the coil or tubes of the condenser whereby heat is rejected from the system and carried away by the air. Next, the condensed refrigerant is routed as a saturated or subcooled liquid through an expansion valve where it undergoes an abrupt reduction in pressure resulting in an adiabatic flash evaporation of a part of the refrigerant and lowers the temperature of the liquid and vapor refrigerant mixture to where it is colder than the temperature of the interior of the trailer. The cold mixture is then routed through the coil or tubes in an evaporator whereupon a fan circulates warm air in the enclosed space across the coil or tubes carrying the cold liquid and vapor refrigerant mixture. The warm air evaporates the liquid part and the circulating air is cooled and thus lowers the temperature of the interior of the trailer. The refrigerant is then routed back toward the compressor as the superheated vapor.
Often TRUs operate at varying conditions. At low load conditions, current TRU designs need to frequently turn on and off to handle small loads. This can lead to lower energy efficiency, large fluctuations of cabin air temperatures and shortened component lives. For a TRU system that is driven at least in part by battery power, such lower efficiencies result in reduced work time of the battery and shortened battery life.