A portable apparatus for extracting and concentrating bioagents within a fluid medium includes a container with sample solution inlet port and traveling wave grids patterned on surfaces of the container. The traveling wave grids cause bioagents to migrate to a specified surface within the container and then to an extraction port. The traveling wave grids include a substrate, across which extend a collection of closely spaced and parallel electrically conductive electrodes, and a collection of buses providing electrical communication with the collection of conductive electrodes. A voltage controller provides a multiphase electrical signal to the collection of buses and electrodes of the traveling wave grids.

This disclosure relates generally to the field of electrophoretic separation of bio-agents and particles, and more particularly, to systems and devices for focusing the bio-agents into regions of relatively high concentrations.
Electrophoresis is a separation technique most often applied to the analysis of biological or other polymeric samples. It has frequent application to analysis of proteins and DNA fragment mixtures. The high resolution of electrophoresis has made it a key tool in the advancement of biotechnology. Variations of this methodology are used for DNA sequencing, isolating active biological factors associated with diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, myelomas, and leukemia, and establishing immunological reactions between samples on the basis of individual compounds. Electrophoresis is an extremely effective analytical tool because it does not affect a molecule's structure, and it is highly sensitive to small differences in molecular charge and mass.
Particles can be manipulated by subjecting them to traveling electric fields. Such traveling fields are produced by applying appropriate voltages to microelectrode arrays of suitable design. Traveling electric fields are generated by applying voltages of suitable frequency and phases to the electrodes.
This technique of using traveling electric fields relates to an important method for separation and sorting of large particles and cells referred to as dielectrophoresis. Dielectrophoresis is defined as the movement of a polarizable particle in a non-uniform electric field. Essentially, the force arises from the interaction of the field non-uniformity with a field-induced charge redistribution in the separated particle.
Particles are manipulated using non uniform electric fields generated by various configurations of electrodes and electrode arrays. As a general biotechnological tool, dielectrophoresis is extremely powerful. From a measurement of the rate of movement of a particle the dielectric properties of the particle can be determined. More significantly, particles can be manipulated and positioned at will without physical contact, leading to new methods for separation technology.
A powerful extension of dielectrophoresis separation is traveling wave dielectrophoresis (TWD) in which variable electric fields are generated in a system of electrodes by applying time varying electric potential to consecutive electrodes. Such a method of Traveling Wave Field Migration was described by Parton et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,859, herein incorporated by reference. Although satisfactory, a need for improved strategies and methodologies remains. In addition, dielectrophoresis requires higher voltage (˜100 V), higher frequencies (˜10 MHZ), and finer electrode pitch (<10 um).
A microfluidic device for electrophoretic separation of biomolecules such as DNA and protein was described by Dunphy et al. in "Rapid Separation and Manipulation of DNA by a Ratcheting Electrophoresis Microchip (REM)," Proceedings of IMECE2002, Nov. 17-22, 2002, New Orleans, La., No. IMECE2002-33564, herein incorporated by reference. The device utilizes thousands of electrodes along the length of a microchannel. An electrical potential is applied across the electrodes and selectively varied to separate molecules within the microchannel into two groups using a ratcheting mechanism. This mechanism does not employ traveling waves. Although directed to the separation of biomolecules, this strategy is based upon micro device technology and is not readily compatible with conventional laboratory equipment. Accordingly, a need exists for a device and technique for utilizing electrostatic traveling waves for selectively concentrating bio-agents and particles, and particularly, for subsequent analysis.
Detection of miniscule amounts of bio-agents, such as toxins, viruses, spores, etc., is important in the bio-sciences, particularly with respect to public health matters and the protection of emergency and military personnel. However, these bioagents are often life-threatening at miniscule concentrators and undetectable without concentration. Laboratory procedures may provide up to two orders of magnitude of concentration (e.g. ultra filtration) for biomolecules, but filtration is a lengthy process and requires a high-pressure source not readily available in the field. Therefore, there is a need for a compact, portable device to extract charged bio-agents (e.g. toxins, viruses, weaponized bacteria or their spores, or oocytes of harmful parasites, etc.) that are suspended in a liquid, concentrate them in a high viscosity medium and focus them into a detector.


A method, apparatus, system, and program for image processing are provided to perform operations of recognizing, reproducing, and enhancing an image, particularly one having character, symbol, or line-segment portions. An image obtainer obtains a multivalue image of color or grayscale. A brightness image generator generates a brightness image of the multivalue image, representing brightness values of respective pixels of the multivalue image. A topographic feature image generator generates a topographic feature image of the multivalue image, having a topographic feature corresponding to the brightness values. A topographic feature adder generates a binary image of the multivalue image, by using information contained in the topographic feature.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, apparatus, system, and program for image processing, and more particularly, a method, apparatus, system, and program for image processing, capable of recognizing, reproducing, and enhancing an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Future image processors will require a high ability of recognizing and reproducing an image, particularly one produced in low resolution.
For example, a color image is usually read by a color image scanner, taken by a digital camera (including the one incorporated in a portable phone), or copied by a digital color copier, with low resolution of about 200 dpi to 300 dpi, to achieve high image processing speed and to save a memory area. The low-resolution image is then transferred to another device as an image file having a predetermined format, such as TIF, JPEG, and GIF, for further image processing.
However, if the low-resolution image contains a character or line portion, that portion of the image may not be accurately recognized, or it may not be produced in high quality. This is particularly true when the image contains densely-arranged line segments, as the line segments may be wrongly recognized as a background of the image.

Method, apparatus, system, and program for image processing capable of recognizing, reproducing, and enhancing an image, and a medium storing the program


A self-cooled rotor for an electrical machine being internally provided with a cooling channel to carrying cooling fluid. The machine includes a further channel for carrying cooling fluid in proximity to a magnetic field generating means for cooling it, the two passages being connected to each other within the machine.

Rotors in high speed machines are generally operated in an environment where both mechanical frictional losses (windage) and electrical current losses (eddy currents) contribute to the heating of the rotor during operation. Therefore cooling of the rotor in such machines is an important factor when considering their design.
In a radial flux machine, the rotor is often configured as a drum, rotating inside an annular stator assembly, with shaft bearings at either end of the drum. Rare earth permanent magnets are typically mounted to the shaft of the rotor and project an electromagnetic field radially outwards from the drum in a pattern determined by the number and shape of the magnetic poles. As these machines operate at high surface speeds (over 150 m/s), it is generally required to place a retaining sleeve around the magnets to keep them in place on the shaft. The selection of material for this sleeve is driven by a requirement for low density, high stiffness and high strength but also by a requirement for high longitudinal electrical resistivity, to minimise the electrical losses that manifest themselves in the sleeve due to its close proximity to the stator windings.
These electrical losses are primarily due to harmonic currents in the stator and are controlled by careful design of the electromagnetic circuit. However, any material that sits in the air gap between the magnets on the rotor and the stator will be subject to these harmonics, generating losses due to eddy currents in these materials. Accordingly, a carbon fibre composite is often selected as the most suitable material for the retaining sleeve. However, even with the use of a high resistivity carbon fibre sleeve, there is still a need to consider the cooling of the magnet material and any pole spacers that sit between the magnets, as these will also be subject to heat build up due to electrical losses.
It is known to provide cooling air to the rotor by forcing air to flow through the small radial gap between the outer diameter of the rotor sleeve and the bore of the stator. The size of this gap is important to both the electromagnetic performance of the machine as well as in determining the magnitude of the friction losses between rotor and stator. These considerations mean that the air gap is preferably as small as possible without unduly increasing friction to an unacceptable level.
Problems can therefore occur when the rotor is relatively long, as this leads to a pressure gradient building up over the length of the rotor. A higher pressure ratio is therefore required to move sufficient air through the gap. In addition, this will mean that the cooling air is continuously heated from one end to the other, and hence the components within the rotor will see a temperature gradient from one end to the other. Higher temperatures will adversely affect the performance of both the permanent magnets and the carbon fibre sleeve, and therefore the temperature at the hot end of the shaft will be the determining factor in the required flow rate of cooling air. Increasing the mass flow rate of cooling air through the gap to limit the temperature rise will normally cause the friction losses to increase, compounding the problem.
An additional problem with the known methods of cooling rotors in high speed machines is that the carbon fibre sleeve acts as a thermal insulator for the magnets and rotor structure underneath. Therefore, any heat produced from electrical losses in the rotor under the sleeve will be more difficult to remove using the air forced over the outer diameter of the sleeve. In addition, with known methods, the pressure ratio required to move sufficient cooling air through the radial air gap needs to be generated from an external source such as a cooling fan or by virtue of other means, which increases the cost and complexity of the system.

Self-cooled rotor for an electrical machine


A transmission or gearbox assembly with fail-safe means for providing redundancy where failure can lead to loss of torque transmission between component parts of the assembly, the assembly comprising a plurality of first components in torque transmitting engagement and at least one second component associated with at least one of the first components, the second component being joined to the respective first component by a discontinuous joint. Preferably, each first component of the system has a corresponding second component joined thereto by a discontinuous joint.

Gearbox assemblies are provided in e.g. aircraft where aircraft parts, accessories, actuators are driven by power from the aircraft engine(s) via alternators and/or hydraulic pumps. Power from the aircraft engine drives alternators and/or hydraulic pumps and electrical and/or hydraulic power then powers actuators/electrical or hydraulic motors etc.
The rotational velocity of the motor is greater than that required or desired to drive the components, actuators, etc. and so a gearbox reduces or steps down the rotational velocity of the motor to a velocity suitable for the driven load. The gearbox reduces the rotational velocity using a number of intermeshed gears between the motor and a drive output to the parts to be driven. In reducing the rotational velocity of the motor output, torque is increased through the series of gear stages and associated shafts.
Such gearbox assemblies are used e.g. with actuators to control wing flaps, landing gear, tail flaps, Horizontal Stabilizer Trim Actuators (HSTA) also known as trimmable horizontal stabilizer actuators (THSAs) etc.
Gearbox actuator systems may be provided with brake mechanisms that prevent complete failure in the event of fracture of the power transmission shaft from the engine. One solution is known as no-back irreversibility brakes or NBB. This, in the event of shaft fracture, causes high deceleration followed by standstill, with excess kinetic energy dissipated by losses of the rotating shafts.
Such gearbox and transmission systems provide crucially important functions in aircraft, and failure of all or part of the system can be catastrophic. It is important, therefore, to perform regular and frequency safety inspections and maintenance on the many parts that make up these mechanically complex systems. This is, of course, costly and time consuming, but necessary for safety.
It is well-known that there are locations or components in a gearbox that are more vulnerable to failure than others.
It is an object of this disclosure to provide a gearbox assembly which is less vulnerable to catastrophic failure, without the need to increase safety inspections and maintenance.


In a silicon carbide semiconductor device, a plurality of trenches has a longitudinal direction in one direction and is arranged in a stripe pattern. Each of the trenches has first and second sidewalls extending in the longitudinal direction. The first sidewall is at a first acute angle to one of a (11-20) plane and a (1-100) plane, the second sidewall is at a second acute angle to the one of the (11-20) plane and the (1-100) plane, and the first acute angle is smaller than the second acute angle. A first conductivity type region is in contact with only the first sidewall in the first and second sidewalls of each of the trenches, and a current path is formed on only the first sidewall in the first and second sidewalls.

A conventional SIC semiconductor device includes a metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) having a trench gate structure, which can increase a channel density, so that a large current can flow in the SIC semiconductor device. In the MOSFET made of SIC, electrical characteristics drastically change with a plane direction of a plane on which a channel is formed. Especially, an angle of a trench formed by etching influences a plane direction and electronic characteristics. Thus, an angle of a trench is important in a MOSFET having a trench gate structure. Ideally, it is preferred that a trench sidewall on which a channel is formed is close to a (11-20) plane or a (1-100) plane, that is, a plane perpendicular to a (0001) plane or (000-1) plane, which can increase a channel mobility (see JP-A-H9-199724, which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,826).
Etching vertically with high accuracy is necessary in order that the trench sidewall is the (11-20) plane or the (1-100) plane, which can increase a channel mobility. It is known that SIC is generally dry-etched by reactive ion etching (RIE) or inductively coupled plasma (ICP) using SF6, Cl2, CF4 as etching gas. Ideally, it is preferred that a trench etching is performed vertically from a wafer surface.
However, because SIC is chemically stable substance, it is difficult to etch SIC vertically with high accuracy. Although it is ideal that an angle of a trench sidewall is vertical to the (0001) plane of a wafer surface as shown in FIG. 6A, actually, a trench sidewall inclines with respect to a plane perpendicular to the (0001) plane as shown in FIG. 6B.
Thus, the trench sidewall inclines with respect to the (11-20) plane or the (1-100) plane, which can increase the channel mobility, and a high channel mobility may not be obtained. When an inclination angle of the trench sidewall with respect to the (11-20) plane or the (1-100) plane is small, a decrease in the channel mobility is small. However, when the inclination angle is greater than a predetermined value, the channel mobility decreases, and a desired channel mobility may not be obtained.


An interference suppression method is provided. A method includes the following steps: determining, by a Femtocell, a set of Femtocells which generate interference with said Femtocell based on information measured by and feedbacked from subscribers which are served by said Femtocell, and delivering the cell IDs of all Femtocells in said set to a Femtocell gateway; establishing, by the Femtocell gateway, a relationship graph on interference among Femtocells according to information delivered from the Femtocells, and clustering the Femtocells based on said relationship graph; determining the range influenced by each Femtocell cluster; allocating resources to the Femtocells in each isolated cluster or in the range influenced by each cluster. It may ensure liable communications of Femtocell subscribers as possible, and/or may maximize spectrum efficiency and system capacity of the Femtocell layer as possible.

Appearances of numerous high data rate wireless communication standards indicate that wireless communication has entered into an epoch with a rapid increase in reliability and capacity. Cooper's law explains the increase of wireless communication capacity well: "Wireless capacity has doubled every 30 months over the last 104 years". For example, since American civil wireless communication system was spread and applied, wireless communication capacity has increased by nearly 1,000,000 times, wherein use of wider band has brought increase by 25 times, smaller time and frequency scheduling granularity has brought increase by 5 times, better modulation method has brought increase by 5 times, decreasing cell coverage area and transmission distance has brought increase by 1600 times. Huge benefits brought by decreasing cell coverage area are essentially brought by improving intensity of signals received and spatial frequency spectrum utilization rate, i.e. throughput on unit area. Therefore, appearance of a Femtocell which is a cell structure to provide in-building coverage with low cost and high data rate is of serious concern by researchers, operators and device manufacturers.
Macro-cells are regions of very large coverage area, coverage radius of which is about 1-30 km, and transmitting antennas of base stations usually are placed above surrounding buildings. Typically, there is no direct antenna between sending and receiving. While the Femtocells are wireless data access cells with low power and short distance, the coverage of which usually is 10-50 m, and takes wideband connections, such as fibers or xDSL (x Digital Subscriber Line, xDSL), as a return pass. Appearances of Femtocells earn widespread respect, and 3GPP LTE has incorporated it into R8 standard and named it Home Node B.
Surveys on use of mobile communications indicate that more than 50% voice communication and more than 70% data communication occurs in buildings. Meanwhile cities are growing fast, especially in China, where buildings in urban area are more intensive, and population density is also growing fast, and increasingly heavier loads has been caused, and the quality of coverage in building is also an urgent problem to be solved. Femtocells have achieved fast development in recent years, not only is the standardization very mature, but also various commercial networks and experimental networks are applied in many countries around the world. Therefore, in the near future, more and more families choose to install a Home Node B in home, some office buildings and shopping centers also choose to arrange a Home Node B to improve the coverage in buildings, whereby intensive Femtocell arrangement is possible to occur. In order to utilize precious frequency spectrum resources better, by multiplexing frequency on space to maximize system capacity, it's a better choice to overlapping deploy frequency resources of Femtocells and traditional macro-cells, but it's certain to bring interference between Femtocells. Under extreme condition, two Femtocells are placed on the two sides of a wall respectively and use the overlapped resources. Therefore, if there is no efficient interference suppression algorithms and resource allocation algorithms, communications of subscribers in a Femtocell edge cannot be ensured and it leads to insufferable dropping rate.

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications


A cooling system and method that significantly improves spray evaporative cooling by using a mixture of cooling fluids having different boiling points. The cooling fluid mixture is sprayed onto a surface to be cooled. Efficient cooling with reduced cooling fluid volume is provided by both evaporation of the more volatile component of the mixture as well as heating of the less volatile component which remains in contact with the surface being cooled. More uniform temperatures across the surface being cooled and a reduced risk of potentially damaging critical heat flux is achieved.

Removal of heat from electronic circuitry has become one of the limiting factors in the design and performance of most computer systems and many other electronic devices. Power dissipation of a computer increases approximately as the operating frequency squared. Thus, doubling the clock speed, roughly doubling computer system performance, will require nearly four times the power dissipation. Current microprocessors contain over one hundred million transistors. As the number of transistors increases with each new generation of microprocessor chips, the power draw and heat load (or total amount of heat) to dissipate during processor operation continues to increase. At the same time, the increasing processor heat loads coupled with smaller microprocessor footprints are causing the heat flux (heat load per unit area) to increase at a rapid rate.
Conventional cooling technologies such as fans and heat sinks are unable to absorb and transfer the excess heat dissipated by these new microprocessors. Attempts to cool these next generation microprocessors using conventional techniques are resulting in larger fans and larger heat sinks. The fans cause undesirable noise problems while metallic heat sinks add mass to computers and mechanical stress to the microprocessors to which they are attached. These mechanical factors can cause damage to the microprocessor during system transportation and handling.
Pumped liquid cooling systems have been used to provide improved thermal performance over conventional cooling technologies such as fan heat sinks and heat pipe heat sinks. Such systems typically include a cold plate heat sink that is attached to the microprocessor or other circuit to be cooled, a liquid-to-air heat exchanger, a single phase liquid pump, and connection tubing. A thermally conductive liquid coolant is circulated through the system by the pump. As the liquid passes through the cold plate heat sink, heat is transferred from the hot processor to the cooler liquid. The cold plate is designed in an attempt to maximize this heat transfer by maximizing the surface area to contact the cooling fluid flowing therethrough. For example, micro-channel cold plates utilize very fine fin channels through which the cooling fluid flows. Other cold plates employ powdered metal technology. Such cold plates use the high surface area density of bonded copper particles to enhance the effective heat transfer coefficient for heat dissipation. The hot liquid from the cold plate is then circulated through the liquid-to-air heat exchanger, that can be located at the rear of an electronic system enclosure or external to the enclosure. A system dedicated fan can be used to force air through the heat exchanger resulting in the transfer of heat to ambient air outside of the system enclosure. The cooled liquid then travels back through the system to repeat the process. Use of such closed liquid cooling systems is beginning to migrate from high performance computers to personal computers. It appears that liquid cooling systems will become more widely accepted and necessary in the future. However, even the best of such sealed pumped liquid cooling systems are limited in their ability to maintain low device temperatures without the use of refrigeration, and will not be able to satisfy the cooling demands of the next generation systems. This is because cold plates must be bonded to the outside of a chip package. Even a small amount of thermal resistance at the interface between the chip and the cold plate will create a large temperature difference between the cold plate and the chip. Without further innovation in the area of heat removal systems the development of a next generation computer design will be hampered.
One of very few practical ways to remove heat generated in the processing modules of very high-speed high-performance computers (supercomputers) is by forming sprays of small droplets that impinge on the heated surface forming a thin film of high velocity liquid directly on the computer chips. Heat is then transported from the surface by heating the flowing liquid and by boiling off some fraction of the liquid (two phase cooling). High heat removal rates are achieved because the liquid film is very well mixed by impinging spray droplets and bubbles formed by boiling. This mixing continually replenishes the supply of cool fluid at the heated surface. The limiting heat flux is reached when the liquid warms to its boiling point at any location on the surface being cooled. At this point the surface will dry out, the surface temperature will rise very quickly, and the device may be damaged. This method of heat removal is known as spray cooling, or spray evaporative cooling, and is a very efficient method of removing very high heat fluxes from small surfaces. Thus, spray evaporative cooling is growing in prominence and application in the cooling of electronics and laser diodes because of the need for high heat transfer in a small area in such applications.
The physical mechanisms of spray evaporative cooling are not completely understood. However, current research based on single nozzle spray systems suggests that less than 50% of the heat is removed through nucleate boiling, similar to boiling a pot of water on a stove. More than 50% of the heat is removed either directly by heating the flowing liquid film or by evaporation at the surface of the film. It also has been shown that the heat flux increases both with the area of the heated surface directly covered by the spray and by the flux of spray droplets impinging on the surface.
Current spray cooling systems and methods operate by spraying a dielectric fluid, e.g., Fluorinert 72 (FC-72), at a normal or other angle directly onto computer chips, from either above or below the chips, using a cone shaped spray. The objective is to create a thin film of cooling fluid on the surface to be cooled to remove heat through single phase and two phase convection. While such systems are adequate for most current computer systems and other electronic applications, the ability of such systems to remove heat has been pushed to its limits. For example, in such systems multiple nozzles often are used to direct multiple cone shaped cooling fluid sprays onto a surface to be cooled to increase the spray coverage area without increasing the package volume. However, in such systems the plumes of fluid that are sprayed from the nozzles tend to interact to create pockets of relatively low cooling fluid momentum, where the fluid tends to build up and where boiling often occurs. During the cooling process, bubbles are generated that cause greatly enhanced mixing so that heat is transported efficiently from the heated surface to the liquid surface. The temperature of the liquid surface is raised to the point that a large amount of evaporation occurs there, which is a safe and effective way to transport the heat away from the surface. Stagnation regions will stop the mechanical mixing, leading to bubble growth and dry out at the surface being cooled. Thus, the interaction of the sprays leads to inefficient cooling and liquid build-ups on the heated surface, creating regions of poor heat transfer and, therefore, non-uniform heat transfer across the surface of the chip. In the regions of poor heat transfer, the surface temperatures can rise significantly above the average surface temperature, causing the surface temperature to "run away", leading to catastrophic failure.
For optimal operation, it also is imperative that the coolant be removed from the spray region quickly and efficiently to prevent the buildup of warm liquid. Failures also can occur if the coolant liquid is not efficiently removed from the surface being cooled. Current spray cooling systems are limited in the ability to drain spray coolant after impacting a heated surface. In particular, in many such systems changing the orientation of the system even slightly will affect coolant drainage patterns, thereby adversely affecting the cooling ability of the system. This limits the application of current spray cooling systems in many applications where the system to be cooled is portable and thus subject to changes in orientation.
Thus, current spray cooling systems suffer from various limitations including low critical heat flux (burnout) conditions, non-uniform heat transfer over large areas (area coverage limitations), and orientation constraints due to draining patterns.
A partial solution to many of these limitations of conventional spray cooling systems is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/070,683, filed on Mar. 2, 2005, by the inventors of the present invention and entitled FULL COVERAGE SPRAY AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ORIENTATION-INDEPENDENT REMOVAL OF HIGH HEAT FLUX. This application describes a spray cooling system and method that significantly improves spray evaporative cooling by creating a directed momentum flow of cooling fluid across a surface to be cooled. A spray of cooling fluid is directed directly onto the surface of a work piece to be cooled at an angle with respect to the work piece surface so as to create a flow of cooling fluid in a substantially single direction along the work piece surface. The spray of cooling fluid may be delivered, for example, via a plurality of generally fan shaped sprays. The sprays are positioned and aligned to create cooling fluid coverage of the entire heated surface to be cooled without allowing interaction between the spray plumes in a manner that may cause areas of cooling fluid stagnation on the surface.
Further improvement in spray cooling effectiveness and efficiency may, nevertheless, be obtained. For example, research has found the highest heat removal rates are achieved through single phase (non-boiling) heat transfer, because the surface to be cooled remains in contact with the cooling liquid. In this case, however, significantly more cooling fluid is required to transport heat away from the surface being cooled than in a two phase cooling system where boiling may occur. This is because in two phase, or phase change systems, energy removed from the surface is stored by breaking the inter-molecular bonds holding the liquid molecules together. This process can absorb a very large amount of energy per unit mass of coolant. On the other hand, single phase cooling relies on sensible heating of the liquid, or increasing the temperature of the liquid, to store the energy removed from the surface. Thus, to take advantage of the cooling effectiveness of single phase cooling systems more cooling fluid is required along with bigger pumps and other mechanical systems to transport the greater amount of fluid through the system. This thus increases the cost, weight, and power consumption of the system. In addition, the temperature of the single-phase liquid will rise as heat is added, causing potentially large temperature variations across the surface being cooled, which may be quite undesirable.
What is desired, therefore, is an improved evaporative spray cooling system and method that can achieve improved cooling capacity using less cooling fluid volume, that provides more uniform cooling over a surface being cooled, and that reduces the likelihood of critical heat flux.

Multi-mode fluid cooling system and method


The present disclosure describes methods of contrast enhancement and dual-cell display apparatus. The method includes receiving an RGB value of each second pixel of a displayed image, and determining a brightness value of each first pixel according to the RGB value of each second pixel. The method also includes determining a local brightness adjustment factor and a global brightness adjustment factor by performing statistics processing for local region brightness values and global image brightness values according to the brightness value of each first pixel; and calculating a brightness drive signal corresponding to the first pixel, according to the brightness value of each first pixel, the local brightness adjustment factor and the global brightness adjustment factor. The brightness drive signal adjusts a transmittance of a corresponding pixel of the first panel. The global brightness adjustment factor adjusts an output brightness value of a corresponding pixel of the first panel.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel itself does not have luminous characteristics, thus a light emitting source is needed to added behind the LCD panel. The LCD panel is provided with the background light by the light emitting source, and thus can display the image. FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a display apparatus, where the display apparatus includes a light emitting source 1 and a LCD panel 2, and the LCD panel 2 is provided with background light by the light emitting source 1, so that the LCD panel 2 can display the image.
When a panel's brightness is adjusted, an RGB coordinate system is generally converted into any one of a YCbCr coordinate system, a YUV coordinate system, an HSV coordinate system or an HIS coordinate system, and brightness and chromaticity are enhanced respectively to achieve adjustments of an overall contrast. Generally, the background light of different brightness is applicable to different local areas of a displayed image. For example, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a displayed image, where the local area of a first displayed image is a low brightness image, suitable for a low brightness background light, and the local area of a second displayed image is a high brightness image, suitable for a high brightness background light. When processing a color signal with a method of enhancing contrast, the luminance difference between frames is not considered usually. Obviously, adjusting the displayed contrast through the LCD panel by using a single light emitting source cannot meet the above requirements.

Method of enhancing contrast and a dual-cell display apparatus


Disclosed is a system for transmitting/receiving wireless power, the system includes a wireless power transmitter including an inverter that generates a first current using an input power source, a first resonant circuit to which the first current is applied to transmit a power signal, and a first controller that controls the inverter, and a wireless power receiver including a second resonant circuit that receives the power signal, an impedance varying unit that varies an impedance of the second resonant circuit, and a second controller that controls the impedance varying unit, wherein the first controller controls the inverter to spread a frequency spectrum of the power signal, and the second controller controls the impedance varying unit such that the second resonant circuit resonates with the power signal generated from the first resonant circuit of the wireless power transmitter. Additional various embodiments recognized through the specification are possible.

Wireless power transfer is a technology that supplies power to home appliances or electric vehicles wirelessly without using a cable. The wireless power transfer technology may include an inductive power transfer system (IPTS) method used for wireless charging such as a smartphone, a coupled magnetic resonance system (CMRS) method used for wireless charging such as an electric vehicle or a high speed railway, or a far-field microwave method used for power generation in space solar power generation.
In recent years, the wireless power transfer technology has been applied to electronic devices that aim for aesthetics or space efficiency. For example, wireless power transfer technology is being applied to display apparatus such as wall-mounted TVs.

System for transmitting/receiving wireless power and display apparatus comprising same system


The present invention discloses a method and device for controlling channel transmission. The control method includes: an MAC module receiving a resource configuration message; the MAC module parsing influence information from the resource configuration message, wherein the influence information indicates a radio bearer (RB) resource influenced by resource configuration; and during the resource configuration, the MAC module only pausing the data transmission borne by the RB resource influenced by the resource configuration. By way of the present invention, the RB resource not influenced by the resource configuration during the resource configuration can still carry out normal data transmission, avoiding the waste of RB resources not influenced by the resource configuration during the resource configuration.

The universal mobile telecommunications system (abbreviated, as UMTS) belongs to the 3rd Generation mobile communication system, and in particular, the UMTS consists of core network (abbreviated as CN). UMTS terrestrial radio access network (abbreviated as UTRAN) and user equipment (abbreviated as UE).
In particular, the interface between the UTRAN and the UE is a Uu interface, and over the Uu interface, the protocol stacks can be divided according to the functions thereof into: physical layer (layer 1), data link layer (layer 2) and network layer (layer 3). In this case, layer 1 is the physical layer, layer 2 includes modules such as radio link control (abbreviated as RLC), packet data convergence protocol (abbreviated as PDCP), media access control (abbreviated, as MAC), etc.; and the radio resource control sub-layer is located at the lowest layer of layer 3, belonging to the access layer, which mainly provides functions such as the control and management of the radio resources.
The UTRAN sends resource configuration messages to the radio resource controller (abbreviated as RRC) at the UE side via the Uu interface, and these resource configuration messages mainly include three types: radio bearer (abbreviated as RB) resource, transport channel (abbreviated as TrCH) resource and physical channel (abbreviated as PhyCH) resource, wherein the radio bearer resource consists of a logical channel (abbreviated as LogCH), a transport channel and a physical channel. In particular, the UTRAN establishes a channel for transmitting data and signaling between the UE and the network side by sending resource configuration to the RRC at the UE side. The RB is a channel for the UE and the equivalent layer 2 of UTRAN to provide service, including service RB and signaling RB, each RB includes one or two logical channels, the TrCH is between the RB and the PhyCH, the MAC is the mapping from the LogCH to the TrCH, the physical layer is the mapping from the TrCH to the PhyCH, and the LogCH is between the RLC and the MAC.
The resource configuration of the RRC in the connected state includes: establishment, reconfiguration and release of the RB; establishment, reconfiguration and release of the TrCH; and establishment, reconfiguration and release of the PhyCH.
However, the inventors have found in the related art that during the configuration update, the data transmission will be interrupted whether or not the channel is influenced, thus causing waste of channel resources, and affecting the transmission rate of relevant data.

Method and device for controlling channel transmission


A mobile terminal and an operating method thereof are provided. The operating method includes bookmarking a plurality of websites using a touch screen of the mobile terminal, and storing a plurality of images respectively corresponding to the bookmarked plurality of websites; displaying on the touch screen an image array including the stored plurality of images in such a manner to create a sense of distance; and if a drag signal is input via a touch screen, changing at least one of the sizes of the images in the image array, at least one image in the image array, and an arrangement of the images in the image array, according to a direction and distance corresponding to the input drag signal. Therefore, it is possible to easily access and manage bookmarked websites.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal and an operating method thereof, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal and an operating method thereof in which a plurality of images respectively corresponding to a plurality of bookmark web pages are stored and are arranged and displayed in such a manner to create a sense of distance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals are portable devices, which can provide users with various services such as a voice calling service, a video calling service, an information input/output service, and a data storage service. As the types of services provided by the mobile terminals diversify, an increasing number of mobile terminals have been equipped for various complicated functions such as capturing photos or moving pictures, playing music files or moving image files, providing game programs, receiving broadcast programs and providing wireless internet services, and have thus evolved into multimedia players.
Various attempts have been made to realize such complicated functions with hardware devices or software programs. Nowadays, users can be provided with various services by websites with their mobile terminals or the mobile terminals can store information regarding the users' favorite or frequently-visited websites by using a bookmark function.
In general, bookmarked websites stored in a mobile terminal may be displayed as a list or in a grid. However, if too many bookmarked websites are displayed as a list, they may not be able to be instantly recognized. Likewise, if too many bookmarked websites are displayed in a grid, the size of images respectively corresponding to the bookmarked websites may be too small to be instantly recognized.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop ways to effectively arrange and display a plurality of bookmarked websites regardless of number to allow a user to conveniently use the bookmark function.

Mobile terminal and operating method thereof


A memory device, which includes a memory layer having quantum dots uniformly dispersed in organic material disposed between an upper electrode layer and a lower electrode layer. The memory device is advantageous because it is nonvolatile and inexpensive, and realizes high integration and high speed switching. Further, size and distribution of the quantum dots may be uniform, thus realizing uniform memory behavior. Furthermore, the memory device is suitable for application to portable electronic devices that must have low power consumption, due to low operating voltages thereof.

This non-provisional application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) on Korean Patent Application No. 2004-111925 filed on Dec. 24, 2004, which is herein expressly incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate, generally, to a memory device, and, more particularly, to a memory device including a memory layer having quantum dots uniformly dispersed in an organic material disposed between an upper electrode layer and a lower electrode layer, which is advantageous because it is nonvolatile and inexpensive, and realizes high integration, low power consumption, and high speed switching.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid development of the information and communication industries, the demand for various memory devices has drastically increased. In particular, memory devices used for portable terminals, various smart cards, electronic money, digital cameras, games, MP3 players, etc. must be nonvolatile, so that the recorded information is not lost even when no power is consumed. A typical representative of the nonvolatile memory is flash memory, which is formed of a silicon material and has monopolized the memory market.
However, conventional flash memory is disadvantageous because it may be recorded and erased a limited number of times and has a slow recording speed. Further, in order to manufacture flash memory having a high memory capacity, line width per unit area should be decreased, which increases process costs resulting in high costs to manufacture memory chips. Moreover, due to difficulties in chip manufacturing techniques it is difficult to further miniaturize the chips. Due to technical limitations imposed on manufacturing the conventional silicon flash memory, attempts to develop next-generation nonvolatile memory devices, which realize ultrahigh speeds, high capacities, low power consumption, and low prices while overcoming the physical limitations of the above memory devices, have been vigorously made.
The next-generation memory devices include, for example, ferroelectric RAM, magnetic RAM, phase change RAM, nanotube memory, holographic memory, organic memory, etc., depending on the kind of material constituting a unit cell in a semiconductor. Of these memory devices, organic memory achieves memory capability using bistable resistance values caused by applying voltage to an organic material layer positioned between upper and lower electrode layers. That is, the organic memory is a type of memory that is able to read and write data '0' and '1' while the resistance or capacitance of the organic material present between the upper and lower electrode layers is reversibly changed in response to electrical signals. Thus, the organic memory functions to solve the problems of processability, manufacturing costs and integration, while exhibiting the nonvolatile characteristics of conventional flash memory, and is widely expected to be the next-generation memory technology.
In this regard, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. Sho. 62-95882 discloses an electrical memory device using CuTCNQ (7,7,8,8-tetracyano-p-quinodimethane) as a charge transfer complex containing an organic metal. U.S. Serial No. 2002-163057 discloses a semiconductor device including a middle layer made of a mixture of an ionic salt such as NaCl or CsCl and a conductive polymer, interposed between upper and lower electrode layers. Such a device manifests switching/memory properties by charge separation in an electrical field. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,180 discloses a memory device using ferroelectricity depending on a crystalline phase of a fluorine based polymer, such as poly(vinyldifluoroethylene).
On the other hand, the manufacturing method of the conventional organic memory device further includes an electroforming process, which applies high voltage to the manufactured memory device. As such, the electroforming process is used to pulverize a metal for an electrode to ones of nm size and then allow the pulverized metal to move between organic layers (J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys., 35, 802 (2002)). In the electroformed memory device, an NDR (Negative Differential Resistance) section is formed, thus manifesting memory properties. However, since the electroforming process cannot control the size or size distribution of metal particles, the physical properties of the devices are inconsistent. At this time, memory behavior, as well as the operating voltage and operating current of the memory device, varies and contributes to inconsistent device properties, which reduces the reproducibility and results in severely defective products. To omit the electroforming process, methods of forming a metal layer embedded within the organic material have been proposed (Appl. Phys. Lett., 80, 2997 (2002) and Appl. Phys. Lett., 82, 1419 (2003)). As such, however, it is difficult to control the size of metal particles and interparticle intervals. Further, only when depositing the metal at a very low speed are desired memory properties obtained, and thus, the above method cannot be actually applied.


The present invention provides a boot for applying medicine to a foot for a variety of conditions. Wearing the boot allows one to perform job and domestic duties while treating a foot. The present invention has a sole beneath an upper with a waterproof interior. The sole has a generally foot shape in a variety of sizes. Additionally, the sole incorporates heating discs and appurtenant wiring. The wiring exits the sole and runs to a switch and a box containing batteries. To use the boot, a person places fluids, or water, and medicine into the boot. The person then inserts a foot into the boot and turns on the heating discs which then heat the sole and the fluids to a comfortable temperature.

For people, the feet endure much abuse in a lifetime. The feet bear the weight of a person and absorb the impact from walking, running, or moving. Feet also remain within socks and shoes for many hours of the day. When in socks and shoes, feet sweat and produce unhealthy conditions. Feet sometimes develop odors, fungi such as athlete's foot or jungle rot, ingrown toe nails, dry skin, and cracked skin, among other conditions. Those afflicted with diabetes also develop foot conditions requiring medicinal treatment.
When a person's feet exhibit one or more of these conditions, podiatrists and physicians recommend soaking feet in a medicinal solution. People often use a foot bath or other tub to soak their feet. During a soak, a person sits in a chair for a treatment. People also appreciate a warm soak for their sore feet. If a prescription calls for treatments many times a day, a person falls behind on the job. Fearing adverse actions about a job, a person may overlook treating their feet. Skipped treatments slow the healing of feet or worse the feet may deteriorate. Further, weakened feet may incapacitate a person for a lengthy period, longer than if treatment had been followed.


A video signal processing method includes the steps of processing an input video signal and outputting an output video signal, detecting a temporal feature from the input video signal, smoothing the temporal feature by filtering and outputting the smoothed temporal feature, and controlling processing performed in the processing step in accordance with the temporal feature smoothed in the smoothing step. In this method, the smoothing step switches a characteristic of the filtering in accordance with the attribute of the input video signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to video signal processing apparatuses, video signal processing methods, video signal processing programs, and storage media storing the video signal, processing programs, and is applicable to processing video signals generated by 2-3 pulldown. When temporal features of an input video signal are filtered to suppress variation in the temporal features, different filtering characteristics are used depending on the attribute of the input video signal. With this arrangement, even in processing of an input video signal generated by 2-3 pulldown, for example, stable video signal processing can be realized by effectively preventing deterioration of image quality due to a temporary change in the temporal features associated with a scene change.
2. Description of the Belated Art
In various video signal processing such as image enhancement, noise reduction, IP (interlace-progressive) conversion, and moving image compression, processing to be performed on an input signal is dynamically switched on the basis of temporal features of an input video signal. Temporal features herein refer to features of a video signal which change across consecutive fields or frames and are represented by a value indicating, for example, the amount of noise and the amount of motion. Specifically, the temporal features are calculated in units of pixels, blocks set in a field or a frame, fields or frames, or a predetermined number of fields or frames, etc. For example, the temporal features may be an inter-field or inter-frame difference in pixel values, a sum of the absolute values of the inter-field or inter-frame difference, a variance and a mean value of the difference, a pixel-based motion vector, a block-based motion vector, an encoding difficulty, etc.
FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating a basic configuration of a video signal processing apparatus which utilizes temporal features. In FIG. 12, a video signal processing apparatus 1 includes a temporal feature detecting unit 2, a control information generating unit 3, and a video signal processing unit 4. The temporal feature detecting unit 2 receives an input video signal S1 and detects a temporal feature 32. The control information generating unit 3 processes the temporal feature S2 and outputs control information S3 for controlling operations of the video signal processing unit 4. The video signal processing unit 4 processes the input video signal S1 and outputs an output video signal S4.
When the video signal processing to be performed by the video signal processing unit 4 is processing for reducing incise in the input video signal S1, the control information generating unit 3 processes the temporal feature S2 and generates the information control signal S3 on the basis of the temporal feature S2, so that the effect of the noise reduction processing increases with increasing noise in the input video signal S1. When the video signal processing to be performed by the video signal processing unit 4 is IP conversion, the control information generating unit 3 processes the temporal feature S2 and generates the information control signal S3 on the basis of the temporal feature S2, so that the effect of intra-field or intra-frame interpolation increases with increasing amount of motion contained in the input video signal S1. IP conversion refers to format conversion processing in which a video signal of an interlace format (interlace signal) is converted into a video signal of a progressive format (progressive signal) or vice versa, in this case, the video signal processing unit 4 performs format conversion on a video signal by interpolating a result of inter-field or inter-frame interpolation processing and a result of intra-field or intra-frame interpolation processing. The control information generating unit 3 controls an interpolation ratio applied to the interpolation operation using the information control signal S3.
In the video signal processing apparatus 1 having the above configuration, the temporal feature S2 detected by the temporal feature detecting unit 2 varies in time as illustrated in FIG. 13. Thus, the effect of processing of the output, video signal S4 varies in time along with the transition of the temporal feature S2. As a result, the visual quality of an image corresponding to the output video signal S4 is deteriorated.
To address this, a video signal processing apparatus 11 may be provided as illustrated in FIG. 15. Unlike the video signal processing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 12, the video signal processing apparatus 11 includes a temporal feature smoothing unit 12. The temporal feature smoothing unit 12 smoothes a temporal feature S2 detected by a temporal feature detecting unit 2 and generates a smoothed temporal feature S5, as illustrated in FIG. 13. Using the smoothed temporal feature S5, a control information generating unit 3 generates control information S3. As a result, as illustrated in a broken line in FIG. 14, the video signal processing apparatus 11 prevents an abrupt temporary change in the effect of various processing in an output video signal S4. Note that the temporal feature smoothing unit 12 may be implemented as, for example, an IIR (infinite impulse response) filter or an FIR (finite impulse response) filter.
Techniques related to such video signal processing based on a temporal feature have been developed. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-15327 discloses a method in which a level of image enhancement is changed on the basis of a result of determination using a temporal feature as to whether or not an image is a natural image. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-323635 discloses a technique relating to noise reduction processing. In this technique, a motion vector is used as a temporal feature and a reference value in measurement of a noise level is generated. In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-209716 discloses a method in which a noise level is measured from a temporal feature. Further, regarding IP conversion, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-82040 discloses a method in which a field sequence associated with a 2-3 pulldown process is detected from a temporal feature and processing is switched in accordance with a detection result.
However, when the input video signal S1 is processed by smoothing the temporal feature S2 using the temporal feature smoothing unit 12, the smoothed temporal feature S5 may fluctuate over a plurality of fields or frames due to a temporary change in the temporal feature S2 which is associated with a scene change or the like, as illustrated in FIG. 16 and FIG. 17. This temporary change in the temporal feature S2 affects processing of a plurality of fields or frames, resulting in deterioration of image quality. Mote that FIG. 16 and FIG. 17 illustrate cases where an IIR filter and an FIR filter are implemented, respectively, as the temporal feature smoothing unit 12.
In addition, as illustrated in FIG. 18, the input video signal may be an interlace video signal generated by 2-3 pulldown. In this case, in the input video signal S1, consecutive even fields or odd fields include fields corresponding to the same original frame, which are illustrated as fields A1 and fields C2 in FIG. 18. In processing of such an input video signal S1, when the temporal feature S2 across different frames are detected, no change in the temporal feature S2 will be detected between the fields A1 and between the fields C2. This results in an abrupt temporary decrease in the temporal feature S2 as illustrated in FIG. 19 and FIG. 20 which, for comparison, correspond to FIG. 16 and FIG. 17, respectively. Thus, this also affects processing of a plurality of fields and frames, as in the case of a scene change, resulting in deterioration of the image quality.

Apparatus, method, and program for video signal processing, and storage medium


Systems, apparatuses, and methods for scheduling maintenance jobs for computing assets implementing configuration items within a CMDB are described. The maintenance jobs include database backups. Two queues operate together to schedule a large number of jobs in a technique that is scalable while staying within resource constraints.

Networked computing systems allow multiple users and/or multiple companies to share computing resources and data. For example, cloud computing relates to the sharing of computing resources that are typically accessed via the Internet. A large number of servers may be configured to execute various programs, such as application servers, web servers, and/or database servers. Data may be stored for shared access systems, in which a group of users have access to common data for moving, sharing, deleting or editing the data. Maintenance of computing devices, including maintenance involving back up of databases, presents difficulties.


When a large load is exerted during restraint control of an engine of a jet propulsion boat, the drop of the engine revolution frequency causes a feeling of harsh braking. An engine revolution frequency control apparatus provided to prevent this problem includes a engine revolution frequency detector for detecting an engine revolution frequency, and threshold value setting units for setting first and second engine revolution frequency threshold values. The second threshold value is set to be higher than the first threshold value. An engine control unit includes an overspeed governing capability that starts restraint control for restraining rotation when the engine revolution frequency detected by the engine revolution frequency detector is more than said first threshold value when the engine is accelerating, and terminates restraint control when the engine revolution frequency is less than a second thresholds value during deceleration.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved engine revolution frequency control apparatus having an overspeed governing capability.
2. Description of Background Art
An engine has a prescribed allowable maximum revolution frequency, and operation exceeding this allowable maximum revolution frequency must be avoided in terms of protection of the engine. As an overspeed prevention technology, xe2x80x9cthe engine control apparatusxe2x80x9d disclosed in JP-A-9-126019 is known. This technology is such that a control unit suppresses and controls the engine revolution frequency when the pace of increase in engine revolution frequency reaches the prescribed value or larger.
The technology disclosed in the aforementioned patent gazette can prevent an abrupt increase in engine revolution frequency even when it occurs in the low speed area or medium speed area, because the pace of increase in revolution frequency is observed. However, since observation is made based on the pace of increase in revolution frequency, it is not able to detect that the engine revolution frequency is beyond the allowable maximum speed when the engine revolution frequency is increased relatively slowly.
The apparatus is adapted to restrain the engine revolution frequency when either the engine revolution frequency exceeds a prescribed value, or the pace of increase in revolution frequency exceeds a prescribed value is detected. However, the control system becomes complex, and restraint control of the engine is not implemented sufficiently to maintain the ride quality of the vehicle or the boat.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention is to provide an engine revolution frequency control apparatus in which a preferable overspeed governing capability can be achieved.
In order to solve the problem described above, the engine of the present invention includes a revolution frequency detecting means for detecting the engine revolution frequency and an engine control unit for controlling the engine revolution frequency. The engine control unit is provided with an overspeed governing capability that starts restraint control for restraining rotation when the engine revolution frequency detected by the engine revolution frequency detecting means exceeds a first threshold value during acceleration, and terminates restraint control when the engine revolution frequency is decreased to the value below a second threshold during deceleration, and the second threshold value of the engine revolution frequency is set to be higher than the first threshold value.
Restraint control of the engine revolution frequency may be realized by cutting or reducing supply of fuel, leaning of air-fuel mixture, delaying of the ignition timing, or reducing the number of times of ignition.
Even when restraint control is started by the fact that the engine revolution frequency exceeds the first threshold value, increase in revolution frequency continues for a while due to inertia. After that, when restraint control comes on or when a large load is exerted thereon, the engine revolution frequency starts to be reduced. When a large load is exerted, even when terminating restraint control at a certain threshold value, reduction of the engine revolution frequency continues for a while, which result in significant drop of the engine revolution frequency.
Therefore, according to the present invention, the second threshold value at which the restraint control is terminated is set to a value higher than the first threshold value at which restraint control of the engine revolution frequency is started, so that drop of the engine revolution frequency may be reduced.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.

Engine revolution control apparatus having overspeed governing capability


A structural design method of a product is provided. The method includes obtaining a preliminary design of a subsurface mesh structure by filling a body model of the product with spherical cells at preset positions of the body model and performing an finite element analysis and optimization; and optimizing, through a design method for optimizing functions, filling features of the spherical cells based on a simulation analysis so that the structure of the product satisfies a preset target.

A porous mesh structure has a broad application prospect because it is characterized by light weight, versatility and designability, has excellent mechanical properties such as high specific strength, high specific stiffness, high tenacity and high energy absorption, and has special properties such as shock absorption, heat dissipation, sound absorption, electromagnetic shielding and permeability. A porous structure with closed pores has a low heat transfer coefficient and may be used for heat insulation, and a porous structure with open pores has a flow channel and may be used for heat dissipation. Designability facilitates design optimization of mechanical and heat dissipation structures.
A topological optimization design method of a heat conduction channel uses a heat dissipation performance descriptive index based on a geometric average temperature as an objective function to construct an optimization model for a heat dissipation structure design and makes a sensitivity analysis of the objective function to obtain a conceptual design of a heat conduction channel characterized by distribution of optimal heat conduction material; and, while keeping structural features unchanged, enables distribution of materials with high heat conductivity to be simply regularized and to have a smooth boundary, so as to obtain a design of a heat conduction channel with high conductivity that facilitates engineering use.
3 dimensions (3D) printing is also known as rapid prototyping manufacturing or additive manufacturing. The principle of the 3D printing is described as follows. A 3D physical digital model (CAD file) is discretized into a sliced model, and then the sliced model is converted into a treading track of a print head, and materials are continuously added to the printout through the print head. With the materials being continuously added according to a printing track and being printed layer by layer, a physical printout is finally formed. Unlike subtractive manufacturing in the traditional manufacturing industry, the 3D printing follows an addition rule. The 3D printing directly converts a design in a computer into a model and directly manufactures parts or products without using traditional cutting tools, fixtures and machine tools. The 3D printing can directly convert a virtual digital physical model into a product, simplifying the production process, reducing material production costs and shortening the design and development cycle of the product. As a result, it is possible to produce any part with a complex structure. The 3D printing is also an important technical means of implementing designability of microstructures and performance of materials. Consumables used for the 3D printing include materials such as plastic, rubber, metal, powder, nylon, film, resin, paraffin, gypsum, nylon filament, titanium and ceramic. The 3D printing makes production of goods enter a new phase and makes organization mode of the production flat. The 3D printing has a potential for hugely emancipating the productive forces and thus can greatly improve social productivity.
In the related art, it is difficult to use additive manufacturing to mold light-weight and high-strength components and parts for some product structures like aero-engines.

SOUTH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF CHINA


Methods, system and apparatus are provided for controlling third harmonic voltages when operating a multi-phase machine in an overmodulation region. The multi-phase machine can be, for example, a five-phase machine in a vector controlled motor drive system that includes a five-phase PWM controlled inverter module that drives the five-phase machine. Techniques for overmodulating a reference voltage vector are provided. For example, when the reference voltage vector is determined to be within the overmodulation region, an angle of the reference voltage vector can be modified to generate a reference voltage overmodulation control angle, and a magnitude of the reference voltage vector can be modified, based on the reference voltage overmodulation control angle, to generate a modified magnitude of the reference voltage vector. By modifying the reference voltage vector, voltage command signals that control a five-phase inverter module can be optimized to increase output voltages generated by the five-phase inverter module.

Electric machines are utilized in a wide variety of applications. For example, hybrid/electric vehicles (HEVs) typically include an electric traction drive system that includes an alternating current (AC) electric motor, which is driven by a power converter with a direct current (DC) power source, such as a storage battery. Motor windings of the AC electric motor can be coupled to inverter sub-modules of a power inverter module (PIM). Each inverter sub-module includes a pair of switches that switch in a complementary manner to perform a rapid switching function to convert the DC power to AC power. This AC power drives the AC electric motor, which in turn drives a shaft of HEV's drivetrain. Traditional HEVs implement two three-phase pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter modules and two three-phase AC machines (e.g., AC motors) each being driven by a corresponding one of the three-phase PWM inverter modules that it is coupled to.
Many modern high performance AC motor drives use the principle of field oriented control (FOC) or "vector" control to control operation of the AC electric motor. In particular, vector control is often used in variable frequency drives to control the torque applied to the shaft (and thus finally the speed) of an AC electric motor by controlling the current fed to the AC electric motor. In short, stator phase currents are measured and converted into a corresponding complex space vector. This current vector is then transformed to a coordinate system rotating with the rotor of the AC electric motor.
Recently, researchers have investigated the possibility of using multi-phase machines in various applications including electric vehicles. As used herein, the term "multi-phase" refers to more than three-phases, and can be used to refer to electric machines that have three or more phases. One example of a multi-phase electric machine is a five-phase AC machine. In a five-phase system, a five-phase PWM inverter module drives one or more five-phase AC machine(s).
While the possibility of using five-phase systems (e.g., five-phase inverter and motor configurations) in HEVs is being explored, a lot of work remains to be done before these systems can actually be implemented. For instance, in the context of five-phase electrical drives implemented in an HEV, high torque for any given rotation speed is desirable since the maximum torque available allows faster acceleration and deceleration of the HEV, and for better dynamic performance during driving.
It would be desirable to increase output power and available mechanical torque generated by the multi-phase machine so that the efficiency and dynamic performance of the multi-phase machine can be improved. Other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.

Methods, systems and apparatus for controlling third harmonic voltage when operating a multi-phase machine in an overmodulation region


A process for feed oil refining for production of lubricating oil, by using an equipment for lubricating oil production including a fulfural refining unit, a hydrotreating unit and a ketone dewaxing unit, all connected in series. In this process, operations associated with the switch of feed oil are conducted by carrying out the first to seventh step groups successively. Each step group is initiated when a given time has passed since the start of the previous step group, or when the value of a particular measurement item has reached a target value, or when the value of a particular measurement item has shown a change. First, in the first step group, the amount of feed oil supplied to each unit, etc. is adjusted and, in the second step group, the feed oil to the furfural refining unit is switched. After this switch of feed oil, the operating conditions of the hydrotreating unit and the ketone dewaxing unit are changed so as to keep pace with the change of feed oil when the feed oils to the units have shown respective viscosity changes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for refining a feed oil of petroleum type to produce a lubricating oil. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for refining a feed oil to produce a lubricating oil, wherein the switch between feed oils can be conducted in a short time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In refining a feed oil of petroleum type to produce a lubricating oil, an equipment for lubricating oil production is generally used which comprises a furfural refining unit (hereinafter referred to as FRU in some cases), a hydrotreating unit (hereinafter referred to as HTU in some cases) and a ketone dewaxing unit (hereinafter referred to as KDU in some cases). FRU has at least an extraction column, a heater fixed to the extraction column and a rotating disc contactor provided in the extraction column, and is for refining a feed oil using a furfural type solvent. HTU has at least a reactor and is for reacting a feed oil supplied from FRU, with hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst. KDU has at least a plurality of filters and is for adding a ketone type solvent (e.g. mixture of methyl ethyl ketone or methyl isobutyl ketone or acetone and benzene or toluene) to a feed oil supplied from HTU, at least two times (primary addition and secondary addition) to cool the feed oil and then subjecting the cooled feed oil to filtration to remove the precipitate (mainly wax) present in the cooled feed oil. These units are connected in the order of FRU, HTU and KDU, and the product oil of one unit is used as a feed oil for the next unit. It is generally preferable that no intermediate storage tank be provided between two adjacent units.
A process for refining a feed oil to produce a lubricating oil by using such an equipment for lubricating oil production is described. First, in FRU, non-paraffinic components (e.g. resinous component) are removed from a feed oil by the use of a furfural type solvent, and the components not dissolved in the solvent are sent to a next unit (HTU) as a product oil having an improved viscosity index. The furfural type solvent is removed in a solvent recovery system and circulated for reuse. Then, in HTU, the product oil of FRU is reacted with hydrogen on a catalyst under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure to remove the impurities (e.g. sulfur compounds) present in the product oil. The resulting oil is treated in a stripper of HTU to remove the gas components (e.g. hydrogen). The refined oil supplied from HTU is sent to KDU and is mixed with a ketone type solvent consisting of, for example, methyl ethyl ketone and benzene or toluene. The mixture is cooled under given conditions and the wax components precipitated as crystals in the mixture are removed by filtration. By the above operation can be obtained a final product (a lubricating oil) having improved low-temperature properties including improved fluidity.
The feed oil used in the above equipment, i.e. the feed oil supplied to FRU is produced from a crude oil via various steps of atmospheric distillation, vacuum distillation, propane deasphalting, etc., is stored in a feed oil tank provided upstream of the equipment for lubricating oil production, and is supplied from the tank. In this case, a plurality of feed oils are prepared depending upon the type of the crude oil used and the desired properties of the lubricating oil to be produced, and a desired lubricating oil is produced by selecting an appropriate feed oil.
In ordinary process plants including the above equipment for lubricating oil production, the control system for operation aims at control of operation in steady state. In the above equipment for lubricating oil production, it is desired to maintain the viscosity, viscosity index and pour point of a lubricating oil to be produced as a final product, at given levels. Hence, the operation of said equipment is controlled so that the operation conditions necessary for treating a feed oil of certain properties to produce a lubricating oil of desired properties are maintained. Therefore, it is conducted, for example, to control, by feed back, the amount of the feed oil to be supplied to the heating furnace so that the outlet temperature of the heating furnace for feed oil is kept constant, or to control, by feed back, the operation conditions of the pump for feeding a solvent into the extraction column so that the flow rate of the solvent in the extraction column is kept constant.
In an equipment for lubricating oil production, such as mentioned above, when the feed oil is switched from one kind to another kind, the equipment is in a non-steady state during the switch period. Herein, the non-steady state refers to a state in which as a result of the switch of the kind of feed oil, i,e, the change of the properties of lubricating oil (final product), the viscosity, etc. of lubricating oil see transitional changes. The lubricating oil obtained during a non-steady state is neither the one corresponding to the feed oil before switch nor the one corresponding to the feed oil after switch, and is an off-specification product. Therefore, for the effective operation of the equipment for lubricating oil production, it is necessary to make the non-steady state as short as possible and reduce the amount of the off-specification product obtained during said state.
In the equipment for lubricating oil production, the control system for operation has conventionally aimed at control of operation in steady state. Hence, the time period of non-steady state operation cannot be made short (the total time required for the switch of feed oil is typically about 10 hours); a large amount of an off-specification lubricating oil is generated; and the procedure associated with the switch of feed oil is complicated, posing a big burden on operators.

Process for feed oil refining for production of lubricating oil

Nippon Petroleum Refining Company, Limited


Disclosed is a technique of providing a large-capacity magnetic storage device at high device manufacturing yield while keeping the reliability, the magnetic storage device enabling recording on a perpendicular magnetic recording medium having distribution of characteristics in the circumferential direction as well at high track density of 500 kTPI or more that would be expected from the average characteristics of the medium. A recording condition from is selected for each sector from a parameter table that stores a set of at least two types of recording conditions by a microwave assisted magnetic recording head including a magnetic recording pole and a high-frequency magnetic field oscillator in the magnetic storage device, and information is recorded for each sector based on the condition.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic storage device equipped with a function of assisting magnetization reversal of a perpendicular magnetic recording medium by applying high-frequency magnetic field, and a method for controlling the same.
2. Background Art
The growth of the Internet environment and newly provided data centers along with penetration of cloud computing have increased the amount of information generated in recent years. There is no doubt that magnetic storage devices such as magnetic disk devices (HDD) having the highest recording density and excellent bit cost play the leading role for storage in the "age of big data". To this end, magnetic storage devices have to have larger capacity and further increasing recording density supporting this is must.
As a magnetic recording technique for higher-density recording, microwave assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) has been proposed, in which high-frequency magnetic field in a microwave band is applied to a perpendicular magnetic recording medium so as to excite precession of medium magnetization for magnetic recording on a perpendicular magnetic recording medium having large magnetic anisotropy while reducing the switching magnetic field. In recent years, practical and micro-structured high-frequency Spin Torque Oscillator (STO) has been proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 7,616,412 B2, for example, which is configured to rapidly rotate spins by spin torque, thus generating high-frequency magnetic field. WO 2010/053187 A1 then discloses a method of making a high-frequency magnetic field oscillator generate high-frequency magnetic field (circularly polarized high-frequency magnetic field) rotating in the direction of the precession of the magnetization of the perpendicular magnetic recording medium to be magnetization-reversed so as to be suitable for the polarity of the magnetic recording field, thus effectively inducing the magnetization reversal. In this way, research and development for implementation of the microwave assisted magnetic recording has become active.
Thus the pace of research and development for implementation of the microwave assisted magnetic recording has been hastened in recent years, and JP 2011-113621 A discloses, in order to achieve the reliability of a high-frequency oscillator necessary to implement such microwave assisted magnetic recording and to keep such oscillation with reliability, a magnetic head driving control apparatus configured to, in a state of applying magnetic recording field, supply a high-frequency oscillator driving signal at a level higher than an ordinary level only for a prescribed effective time in response to an input write gate.
As techniques for perpendicular magnetic recording media, JP 2010-231866 A and JP 2006-73176 A, for example, propose a method for manufacturing a perpendicular magnetic recording medium, capable of yielding favorable magnetic properties and recording/reproducing properties, in which the direction of exhausting material gas used for sputtering film formation and the position of erosion (eroded area to be sputtered) of a target material are devised so as to improve the in-plane distribution of the magnetic properties without degrading productivity or increasing cost.
As techniques for magnetic recording devices, JP 2008-47277 A discloses a data recording method including the steps of: measuring coercive force distribution of a magnetic recording medium, and then when the ambient temperature is higher than a room temperature, preferentially selecting a recording area having a relatively high coercive force for data recording and when the ambient temperature is lower than a room temperature, preferentially selecting a recording area having a relatively low coercive force for data recording, whereby reliability of data recording can be maintained without changing the magnetic recording field of the magnetic head and irrespective of a change in temperature.

Microwave assisted magnetic recording and magnetic storage device


In an industrial installation equipped with a sensor, a method is provided for checking the sensor and providing a measurement sequence associated with the sensor. Monitoring occurs for a thermodynamic parameter of a monitored fluid circulating in the industrial installation, by sensing the fluid using the sensor while the industrial installation is operating and by collecting and processing an electric signal emitted by the sensor using the measurement sequence. A perturbation is produced of fluid origin of the thermodynamic parameter while the installation is operating and the fluid circulates in the installation in order to act on a sensitive element of the sensor and cause a modification of the electric signal emitted by the sensor. The method performs collecting and analyzing of the modified signal from the sensor using the measurement sequence.

In industrial installations, use is generally made for monitoring the installation of measurement sensors supplying information about various parameters representing the running of a process within the industrial installation.
Customarily, industrial installations using at least one fluid involved in the process performed comprise sensors for measuring thermodynamic parameters of the fluid, such as pressure sensors, flow sensors, temperature sensors or fluid level sensors. In particular, in nuclear power stations, use is made of numerous sensors which measure and monitor thermodynamic parameters of a heat exchange fluid of the nuclear power station.
Certain sensors are used only when the nuclear power station experiences an incident or when an accident occurs, or alternatively, during phases of limited duration while the power station is operating.
Such sensors are associated with a measurement sequence that allows an electric signal supplied by the measurement sensor to be collected and processed.
When it is necessary to have a sensor and its measurement sequence available in a situation where an incident or an accident has occurred, information is not generally available that will make it possible to guarantee that the sensor and its measurement sequence are actually available to supply the necessary information. This is because the availability tests performed on the sensors and their measurement sequence may have been carried out in a period very far removed, in terms of time, from the time when use of the sensor becomes necessary. For example, the situation may arise where the availability tests on the sensors of a nuclear power station were performed before the power station was started up, and the use of the sensors if an incident or accident occurs arises only a very long time after the power station has been started up, for example a year or more after start-up.
In certain situations it is absolutely essential to have sensors and their measurement sequence available, even though it is not possible to obtain information regarding the availability of these sensors and measurement sequences while the installation is operating.
In certain industrial installations, particularly in nuclear power stations, availability tests are carried out periodically on the monitoring sensor measurement sequences, but these tests relate only to the electrical part of the measurement sequence and do not allow the influence on the sensor of a thermodynamic parameter of a fluid present inside the industrial installation to be verified. It is therefore not possible to be sure that the sensors and their measurement sequence are capable, at a given moment, of supplying the information that is essential if the industrial installation experiences abnormal operating conditions.
As a result, and in particular in the case of nuclear power stations, it has proved to be extremely desirable to have a method for checking the availability of sensors on the nuclear power station in operation that can be carried out at any time.
Hitherto such a method for checking sensors and in particular for checking sensors that measure and monitor thermodynamic parameters of a fluid in a nuclear power station while it is operating has not been available.
In order to make functional checks on the sensor itself, independently of its measurement sequence, tests are carried out on test benches, after the sensor has been removed from the installation. Such a method does not allow the sensor itself and its measurement sequence to be checked simultaneously.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,685 the pressure of a fluid in a chamber of a sensor in contact with a sensitive element of the sensor is modulated using a piezoelectric element placed in the chamber of the sensor. The modulating of the pressure, in order to check the sensor, entails energizing the piezoelectric element with an electric current, and this may present disadvantages in certain applications.