In a remote diagnosis method for diagnosing by transmitting and receiving information between a support center system and a portable information processor by way of a communication system, an inspection unit for inspecting the object of inspection is installed in a function unit housing of the portable information processor, the portable information processor transmits the inspection data collected by the inspection unit to the support center system, and the support center system returns the result of diagnosis based on the received inspection data to the portable information processor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an on-line diagnosis method and system, and a portable information processor with wireless communication unit combined an inspection unit and a center system for the on-line diagnosis system.
More particularly, it relates to a diagnosis system which an inspector is able to using a portable personal computer not only for inspecting, adjusting or repairing an object device to be inspected, but also for requesting detail inspection, ordering parts for repairing, and settling the payment, efficiently in on-line processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the conventional diagnosis system of electric household appliances, telephone lines, power machines and passenger cars, the inspector brings the inspection kit to the site and inspects the object device, and analyzes the data collected by inspection kit in off-line process and adjusts or repairs the inspection object devices.
In the conventional diagnosis system, the inspector must bring the inspection kit to the site, and often change unexpectedly the inspection data and a format of report at the site depending on the sort of inspection. If such an unexpected event occurs at the site, the inspector must collect the data associated with inspection, return to the office to analyze the data. After then the inspector return back to the site to continue the job.
In other known system, the inspector collects data of the inspection object device, feeds the data to the personal computer through serial interface or the like. And then analyze the data based on the inspection data preliminarily stored in the personal computer. However, if the stored inspection data is insufficient or inappropriate, or if a highly professional knowledge is required in judging the data, the inspector could not sufficiently respond to the data at the site.
On the other hand, Japanese Laid-open Patent No. 3-4660 discloses a diagnosis system, in which upon mounting a specific inspection apparatus including computer system for making diagnosis the functionality of that automobile, the inspector collects data about computer system, and transmits the data to the support center by wireless communication, so that the support center diagnoses the state of the functionality of the automobile. In this disclosed technology, the inspection apparatus including computer system is not versatile or portable, and the inspector cannot get his job instruction menu and he cannot settle the payment to the customer through this inspection apparatus.
The invention is devised in the light of the prior art.
The portable information processor of the remote diagnosis system of the invention comprises a communication unit for exchanging information with the support center system, and a function unit housing for incorporating a detachable external unit. When the external unit is an inspection unit for inspecting the inspection object, the communication unit transmits the inspection data collected by the inspection unit to the support center system, and receives the support data about the inspection object based on the diagnosis result of the transmitted inspection data from the support center system.
The support center system of the remote diagnosis system of the invention comprises a communication unit for exchanging data with the portable information processor, and an inspection data diagnosis unit for diagnosing based on the inspection data received in the communication unit. The diagnosis result of the inspection data diagnosis unit is transmitted to the portable information processor.
The support center system of the remote diagnosis system of the invention further comprises a customer""s information memory recording customer""s information including at least the inspection request and address of customers, an inspector""s information memory recording inspector""s information including at least the skill level and schedule of inspectors, and a diagnosis job instruction unit for instructing a diagnosis job to the inspector in charge based on both the customer""s information recorded in the customer""s information memory and the inspector""s information recorded in the inspector""s information memory.

Remote diagnosis method and system, and portable information processor therefor

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A combustor for a gas turbine engine includes a sheet metal combustor wall having a plurality of cooling apertures therein immediately upstream of a corner between two intersecting combustor wall portions.

Cooling of gas turbine sheet metal combustor walls is typically achieved by directing cooling air through holes in the combustor wall to provide effusion and/or film cooling. These holes may be provided as machined cooling rings positioned around the combustor or effusion cooling holes in a sheet metal liner. Opportunities for improvement are continuously sought, however, to improve both cost and cost effectiveness.


The invention is directed to an improved motion control system for controlling multiple motion actuators associated with different axes for moving a member along a defined path. The system is intended to move a member along the defined path as a result of the coordinated motion of two or more essentially independent motion actuators. In accordance with the invention, instead of responding to a servo lag error between a commanded and actual position, the velocity along each axis for each path segment is established by a feedforward data file generated by "looking ahead" at input describing the full path and processing this data, together with machine specific data specifying the operational characteristics (or capabilities) of the machine (e.g. milling machine) to be operated.

The machine tool control and related arts are quite well developed and have given rise to a myriad of patents disclosing systems for controlling the motion of a movable member such as a cutting tool or work piece. Exemplary prior art systems are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.
______________________________________ 4,096,563 4,396,987 4,587,607 4,215,406 4,433,383 4,598,380 4,251,858 4,472,783 4,616,326 4,262,336 4,473,883 4,639,653 4,288,849 4,531,182 4,639,878 4,306,292 4,550,366 4,661,912 4,332,012 4,550,375 4,663,730 4,347,564 4,564,913 4,672,550 4,396,973 ______________________________________
Typically, such prior art systems cause a movable member to traverse a path described by an input NC part program which includes data, either incremental or absolute, defining path segments, as well as a nominal progression rate along the path. The input part program may be presented in the form of punched paper tape or other physical media or may be represented electronically. The input data is typically supplied to a command position synthesizer which generates continuously updated command position signals, each defining the desired instantaneous position for one of the axis actuators. More specifically, the command position signals are supplied to multiple position servo loops, each such loop controlling a different axis actuator. Typically, each position servo loop controls an axis actuator by producing a motor speed command proportional to the difference (error) between the commanded (or desired) position and an actual (or sensed) position. A speed regulating loop is generally associated with each position servo loop to improve the faithfulness with which the actuator reacts to the motor speed command. Without the speed regulating loop, the precision of the actuator would not only depend on position error, but on velocity error as well.
When operating at high speeds, such prior art systems generally exhibit inaccuracies on contoured paths because of servo lag error typically associated with position loops which create axis motion only in response to an error, i.e. difference between the commanded position and actual position. Feed rate along the path typically must be restricted to maintain the error within tolerable levels, thus compromising machine productivity and causing longer than optimal point to point positioning times.
More specifically, typical prior art systems use a "boxcar" interpolation scheme in which step-function position-change commands are input to a Type 1 position servo loop which acts as a filter. In this type of system, axis motion results from the error, or "lag" between the commanded and actual position. This error does not produce machining error on straight-line paths, but does result in corner and circle undercutting. The amount of undercut is related to the speed of traversal along the path; for example, a 1"diameter circle would be 0.020" undersize if executed at 100 IPM on a machine with a response of 16.7 rad/sec. Moreover, in addition to undercutting, conventional approaches exhibit relatively slow response times, and fail to exploit the full acceleration capabilities of the machine.
A further machine performance limitation imposed by conventional control systems is the limited part-program data input and processing rates which they are able to sustain. A complex path will consist of numerous short line and arc segments, requiring a significant amount of input data to define the path. Performance is then bounded by the read speed of the input system and the linear and circular data block processing time.


A method for in situ monitoring of a membrane of a membrane separation system comprises measuring a complex impedance of the membrane at a plurality of frequencies to provide an indication of the electrical conduction and electrical polarization properties of the membrane. The membrane based separation system for removing or reducing the concentration of materials carried in a fluid including a separation membrane has a first pair of electrodes separated by the membrane and arranged for measurement of the complex impedance of the membrane at a plurality of frequencies to provide the indication of the membrane properties. There may also be a second pair of electrodes separated by the membrane for injecting the stimulus current such that the injecting and monitoring functions are separated.

Membrane separation systems are used for a wide variety of processes in which it is desired to remove or reduce the concentration of certain materials in a fluid. In particular they are used to purify waste water effluents from industrial and domestic water use. They are also increasingly being used for producing fresh water from sea water or brackish water supplies by removing the salt, and other contaminants, from saline feed water.
The performance of membrane separation systems depends on many operational parameters such as the:
pressure of the feed fluid,
pressure of the permeate fluid (or flux),
pressure of the discard (or sludge),
cross flow velocity, the concentration,
the nature of the materials to be removed,
temperature etc.
The performance is also dependent on the intrinsic properties of the membrane material.
The overall operational capacity of a membrane increases with surface area. The size of the modules incorporating the membranes also increases with the area of the membranes. In one of the most common physical configurations the ratio of the membrane area to the volume of the module is minimized by wrapping the membranes in a spiral around a central permeate collection tube. In these so called "Spiral Wound" modules the membrane surfaces are kept apart by a spacer fabric which is usually made of polymer strands.
During operation, the surfaces of the membrane become covered with materials present in the feed solution to which the membrane is highly impermeable. The flux or fluid permeating through the membrane is then largely devoid of such materials. The materials rejected by the membrane are swept along by the cross flow and appear in the discarded fluid (also referred to as the sludge).
Under some circumstances, and after prolonged use of the system, some of the materials that are present in the sludge at high concentrations become attached to the membrane and in some circumstances become permanently attached to the surface. This is known as "Fouling". Fouling leads to a reduced permeate flux and can also lead to a decrease in the rejection characteristics of the membrane. Any reduction in the rejection characteristics has a significant negative impact, particularly on the performance of so called "Reverse Osmosis" membranes for removing salt from sea water or brackish feed water.
In particular, fouling in such membranes will give rise to reduced salt rejection and hence lower quality (higher salinity) permeate fluxes. Many factors contribute to the fouling process, including dynamic effects arising from concentration polarization layers at the membrane surface. From an operational point of view it is important to monitor the performance of the system and to take remedial steps to remove fouling of the membranes. The studies of Li et al (Journal of Membrane Science. 149 pp. 83-97, 1998), Kwon, Vigneswaran, Fane and Ben Aim R., in Separation and Purification. Technology, 19 pp. 169-181 (2000) and Zhang et al (Journal of Membrane Science. 282; 189-197, 2006) teach that the rate of fouling dramatically increases when a system is operated so that the permeate flux exceeds certain critical values.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.


An automatic strap chute opening system for use in a strapping machine of the type having an openable, pivotable work surface for supporting a load to be strapped, and a strap chute defining a strap path through which the strapping material is passed. The chute is disposed in part below the surface and is openable to release the strapping material from the chute during the strapping operation. The chute opening system includes a torsional element operably connected to the strap chute for opening and closing the chute and an actuator operably connected to the torsional element. The coordinated movement of the actuator and torsional element corresponds with the opening or closing of the work surface.

The present invention is directed to a strapping machine chute opening system. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a strapping machine having a chute opening system that automatically opens the strap chute upon opening the work surface or table top of the machine.
Strapping machines are well known in the art for securing straps around loads. One type of known strapper is a stationary unit that includes a strapping head or weld head and drive mechanism mounted within a frame. A chute is mounted to the frame, through which the strapping material is fed. In a typical arrangement, a table-top or work surface is likewise mounted to the frame.
In a typical stationary strapper, the chute is mounted from about the work surface, and the strapping head is mounted below the work surface. Strap is fed (by a feed system) from a source or dispenser through the strapping head and chute and back to the strapping head, to pull the strap from the chute to around the load and to tension the strap around the load.
In the event a strap error occurs, the faulted strap is ejected from the strapping machine by the feed system. Typically, this process is carried out automatically to reduce operation time and attention. However, there are times that an operator must access the area below the work surface and times at which the operator must open the bottom leg of the chute (adjacent to the strapping head) in order to, for example, clear strap from the chute.
One known arrangement that provides both a work surface support function and a chute opening function uses a long, cantilevered arm with a spring that pivots upwardly to assist the opening function. The system is configured such that the spring is substantially tensioned when the work surface is in the down or operating position.
One drawback to this arrangement is that a "lighter" work surface is more likely to pivot slightly open which in turn isolates power to the strapper (through a keyed interlock). Moreover, if the work surface is replaced, it must be replaced with a surface of similar weight and configuration. In addition, because the spring is at tension when the work surface is open, the spring might not be able to provide sufficient force to then open the chute.
Accordingly, there is a need for a strapping machine having an automatic chute opening system. Desirably, such a system uses a cam surface to leverage the opening of the work surface for opening the chute.

Automatic chute opening system for strapping machine


A finished slat for a window covering includes both the structures and process for producing covered slats. A skeletal structure optimally constructed from a material such as wood or plastic, manufactured to a thickness which is much less than that of conventional slats, yet which is strong enough to support both the skeletal structure and a decorative covering and is rigid enough to avoid warping or sagging over time. The decorative covering may be made from a wide variety of materials, thus creating an infinite range of decorating possibilities; further, the covering may be embellished with artwork or trim according to the tastes of the user. The covering may be closed together around the skeletal structure using any of a variety of techniques, such as heat welding, glue, ultrasonic bonding, stitching, or any combination thereof.

Typically, where louvered window coverings, such as horizontal or vertical blinds, are used for decorative purposes and for controlling the transmission of light through a window, and especially where it is preferable to achieve a sophisticated aesthetic, the selection of affordable window coverings is severely limited.
It is most often the case that the higher-end louvered window treatments utilize thick, heavy slats which are constructed either from solid wood at least 3 mm thick or from an equally thick, equally dense and equally expensive composite manufactured to look and feel like genuine wood. However, using genuine wood slats can be prohibitively expensive because of the high costs of stain-grade wood, particularly in applications where multiple window treatments are necessary. Furthermore, costs can be compounded where windows are not a standard size and customization is required. Composite materials fashioned to look like genuine wood often present similar problems in terms of expense. Unfortunately, plantation shutters and other similarly rich-looking louvered alternatives are rarely a satisfactory substitute from an economic perspective because the grade and thickness of wood necessary to construct those kinds of window coverings still results in high manufacturing costs which must be passed along to the consumer. Of course, where an application requires vertical blinds, an owner currently has few if any alternatives to the more costly wood and synthetic wood-look blinds.
Another common problem with the use of conventional high-end louvered window coverings which utilize thick and heavy wood or wood-look slats is that a window treatment spanning even a standard or longer width window may begin to warp and sag over time, either because of the weight of materials typically used to manufacture the slats or because of the susceptibility of that material to changes in temperature and humidity. Windows that span an appreciable width may require a louvered window covering to be applied in several small sections rather than using a single window treatment which fully spans the width of the window, to avoid sagging and warping. Multiple narrow blind sets used to cover a single window result in a segmented look that is generally undesirable, but there are few alternatives currently available. One available alternative, albeit expensive, is plantation shutters. However, plantation shutters may not always be an option as it is often the case that they can only be used where the window to be treated has ample room for the shutters to be mounted inside the window frame. Even where outside-mount shutters are an option, the support structures between windows are often not wide enough or not substantial enough to support the hardware necessary to mount the shutters. Additionally, because the slats of plantation shutters covers only about 70% of the window (the other 30% of window coverage being attributable to the fixed frame portion of the shutters), the user generally has less control over light transmission than with traditional horizontal or vertical blinds. Finally, although the slats of plantation shutters are usually short enough so that warp and sag may not be issues, the cost of the shutters is still likely to be prohibitively high because large quantities of stain-grade wood are necessary for their manufacture.
Yet another difficulty facing those who desire quality window treatments is that, in homes or offices where construction may be less than optimal, i.e., where the walls may be constructed of an insubstantial material which is unsuitable for mounting a window treatment of any appreciable weight, the selection of available window treatments is further narrowed. There are very few, if any, window treatments currently available which are of a weight light enough to be installed in virtually any setting yet which still imply high quality and good taste.
Finally, manufacturing thick wooden slats for use in conventional louvered window coverings necessarily means consumption of large quantities of wood in the process. In addition to the associated economic costs, using large quantities of wood severely impacts the environment. The environmental effects are even greater where manufacturers may be using wood harvested from older hardwoods, which are extremely difficult if not impossible to renew. Moreover, the high grade of wood required for use in high-end blind systems results in a large volume of waste product attributable to slats that do not make the grade, thus creating more environmental waste as well as generating an additional manufacturing expense that will be passed to the consumer in the price of the window coverings.
What is therefore needed is a slat that is affordable, versatile, and functional, yet which is aesthetically pleasing to even the most discriminating user. The ideal slat will be incorporable into almost all horizontal or vertical louvered blind systems, and will have support structures optimally constructed from materials which may be as thin as 1.5 mm but which are strong enough to provide rigid support for a variety of decorative coverings. As a result, the ideal slat will be lightweight, relatively inexpensive, universally useable, and environmentally conservative.


Technologies for reducing series resistance are disclosed. An example method may comprise: forming a first layer on a temporary substrate; forming a second layer on the first layer; etching the first layer and the second layer to form a trench; electroplating a top electrode via the trench, wherein the top electrode partially formed on a top surface of the second layer; removing the first layer and the second layer; forming a curable layer on the temporary substrate and the top electrode; removing the temporary substrate from the curable layer and the top electrode; forming a cross-point device on the curable layer and the top electrode; forming a bottom electrode on the cross-point device; and forming a flexible substrate on the bottom electrode.

A crossbar circuit may include horizontal electrode rows and vertical electrode columns (or other electrodes) intersecting with each other, with cross-point devices formed at the intersecting points. The crossbar circuit may be used in code comparator, neural network, or other applications such as wearable devices.
Providing a large-scale crossbar circuit on a flexible substrate and yet low series resistance remains a technical challenge.

Large-scale crossbar arrays with reduced series resistance


Electronic equipment includes: a first substrate; a second substrate; and a harness that connects the first substrate and the second substrate with other. The first substrate includes: a conversion unit that outputs converted power converted from supply of power supplied by a power source, and a control unit that outputs a control signal used to control output of the supply of power to the second substrate. The second substrate includes: a semiconductor circuit operated by the supply of power and the converted power, and a connector that outputs the control signal to the power source. The harness includes a signal line of the control signal and a power line through which the converted power is supplied from the first substrate to the second substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic equipment and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a semiconductor circuit requiring a plurality of power sources and being set a condition in supplying power (such as prohibition of the input to an IO power without input to a core power). In an electronic substrate with such a semiconductor circuit mounted thereon, there is a concern that the semiconductor circuit may break down if the IO power is input while the core power is not supplied. Thus, it is necessary that a power supply condition be met. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-264792 discloses a technique to satisfy the power supply condition by providing a switch unit inside a semiconductor circuit.
Regarding the configuration with the switch as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-264792, which controls the power supply condition, the semiconductor circuit is likely to break down if a power harness is disconnected. Furthermore, inclusion of the switch, as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-264792, may complicate the configuration to lead to an increase in cost.

Electronic equipment and image forming apparatus


The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling traffic transmission time in an electronic device, and particularly, to an apparatus and a method for controlling traffic transmission time through alarm control in an electronic device. A method according to one embodiment of the present invention is a method for transmitting background traffic of an application installed in an electronic device having a communication function, and may comprise the steps of: when requested to store an alarm for transmission of background traffic by a predetermined application, setting one scheduling method among two or more scheduling methods depending on the characteristics of the traffic; generating and storing a scheduled alarm occurrence time by scheduling a requested alarm occurrence time on the basis of the determined scheduling method and a reference synchronization cycle; and, when the stored alarm time arrives, providing alarm information to the relevant application so that the background traffic can be transmitted.

With the development of electronic technology and communication technology, electronic devices capable of performing wireless communication have been widely used in our daily lives. Various types of application programs (hereinafter referred to as "applications") may be generally installed in such electronic devices capable of performing wireless communication. Such applications may be installed in advance in electronic devices by manufacturers of the electronic devices, or may be downloaded from specific servers onto the electronic devices as needed by users.
On the other hand, most electronic devices capable of performing wireless communication are portable electronic devices. For convenient portability of portable electronic devices, such as cellular phones, smart phones, tablet computers, and a notebook computers, many efforts have been made to achieve miniaturization and low power consumption of the portable electronic devices.
Further, the electronic devices capable of performing wireless communication have gradually reached a stage in which they can perform functions that are the same as or similar to the functions of the computers. Accordingly, most users are operating various types of applications using smart phones or tablet computers. Such applications may be periodically awaken to perform communication with a specific node of a network even if the electronic device is in an idle state.
As described above, if the electronic device is periodically awaken from an idle state and performs communication with the specific node of the network, it inevitably consumes power, and if respective applications are awaken at different times or at different time intervals to request traffics, waiting time in which the electronic device can be used is reduced.

Apparatus and method for controlling traffic transmission time in electronic device


An exemplary embodiment provides a switch mechanism of which key top portion can be tilted with a simple mechanism. The switch mechanism includes a housing portion, a key top portion arranged such that a partial surface thereof is exposed at a peripheral portion of the housing portion, and a switch portion which is arranged in the inside of the housing portion and can be pressed in response to pressing of the partial surface of the key top portion. The housing portion includes a side support portion which tilts the key top portion by supporting the key top portion from a side when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed.

Some of portable electronic devices, controllers, and the like have conventionally been provided with a switch mechanism at an end portion such as a shoulder portion of a housing.
Exemplary embodiments provide a switch mechanism of which key top portion can be tilted with a simple mechanism and an electronic device including the same.
An exemplary embodiment provides a switch mechanism including a housing portion, a key top portion arranged such that a partial surface is exposed at a peripheral portion of the housing portion, and a switch portion which is arranged in the inside of the housing portion and can be pressed in response to pressing of the partial surface of the key top portion. The housing portion includes a side support portion which tilts the key top portion by supporting the key top portion from a side when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed.
According to the exemplary embodiment, when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed, the side support portion supports the key top portion from the side. When the partial surface exposed at the peripheral portion of the housing portion is pressed, the key top portion is obliquely pressed, and hence force pressing the key top portion acts not only in the direction of pressing the key top portion but also on the side of the key top portion. Therefore, with support of the key top portion from the side by the side support portion, the key top portion can be tilted while it is supported by the side support portion. Therefore, a switch mechanism of which key top portion can be tilted with a simple mechanism without using a pin can be implemented.
In an exemplary embodiment, the housing portion is constructed such that the key top portion is tilted while a position where the side support portion and the key top portion are in contact with each other is varied when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed. Therefore, when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed, the key top portion can be tilted while a position where the side support portion and the key top portion are in contact with each other is varied. Thus, the key top portion can smoothly be tilted.
In an exemplary embodiment, the housing portion further includes a contact portion for supporting the key top portion from a direction of pressing of the key top portion when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed. Therefore, when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed, the contact portion can support the key top portion from the direction of pressing of the key top portion. Accordingly, displacement of the key top portion in the direction opposite to the direction of pressing can be suppressed by the contact portion. Thus, the key top portion can be tilted in a stable manner.
In an exemplary embodiment, the housing portion is constructed such that the key top portion is tilted while a position where the contact portion and the key top portion are in contact with each other is varied when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed. Therefore, when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed, the key top portion can be tilted while a position where the contact portion and the key top portion are in contact with each other is varied. Thus, the key top portion can smoothly be tilted.
In an exemplary embodiment, the housing portion further includes a support portion for supporting the key top portion from a direction opposite to a direction of pressing the key top portion when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed. Therefore, when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed, the key top portion can be supported by the support portion from the direction opposite to the direction of pressing the key top portion. Thus, the key top portion can smoothly be tilted.
In an exemplary embodiment, the key top portion further includes an engagement portion formed to protrude sideward from the key top portion and a cover portion forming a part of the partial surface of the key top portion. The key top portion is constructed to be supported by the side support portion between the engagement portion and the cover portion. Therefore, since the side support portion lies between the engagement portion and the cover portion, falling off of the key top portion from the housing portion can be suppressed. In addition, since the cover portion can cover the side support portion, exposure of the side support portion can be suppressed.
In an exemplary embodiment, the switch portion is arranged to be pressed by the key top portion as the key top portion is tilted while the key top portion is supported by both of the side support portion and the contact portion when the partial surface of the key top portion is pressed. Thus, as the key top portion is tilted while it is supported by both of the side support portion and the contact portion, the switch portion can be pressed in.
In an exemplary embodiment, a biasing portion which is arranged between the key top portion and the switch portion and capable of biasing the key top portion in a direction opposite to the direction of pressing is further provided. A biasing member can bias the key top portion in the direction opposite to the direction of pressing. Thus, the biasing portion can return the key top portion to a position before pressing.
In an exemplary embodiment, a falling-off prevention portion provided in the key top portion is further included, and the falling-off prevention portion is locked to the housing portion. Therefore, the falling-off prevention portion can prevent the key top portion from falling off from the housing portion.
An exemplary embodiment provides an electronic device including the switch mechanism described above. Thus, an electronic device including the switch mechanism of which key top portion can be tilted with a simple mechanism can be obtained.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the exemplary embodiments will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.


A method of manufacturing a flash memory device wherein a stacked structure of an oxide and nitride or the reverse is applied to insulation spacers provided on sidewalls of gates for forming source/drain regions. After completing the source/drain regions, spacers are formed on sidewalls of the gates by using an oxide film as a contacting buffer, thus minimizing the interference between gates and reducing the stress to cells, overcoming the disturbance of threshold voltage.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to methods of manufacturing flash memory devices and, more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a flash memory device minimizing interference between gate lines, reducing stress to memory cells, and improving disturbance of threshold voltages.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In manufacturing transistors or flash memory devices, insulation spacers are formed on sidewalls of gate lines after constructing the gate lines. The insulation spacers are provided to prevent the gate lines from being connected to contact plugs that are subsequently formed. In addition, the insulation spacers are provided to ensure sufficient space between gate lines and source/drain regions in an ion implantation process for forming the source and drain regions in LVPMOS (low voltage PMOS) and LVNMOS (low voltage NMOS) fields. Unless the spaces between the gates lines and the source/drain regions are sufficiently defined, a short channel effect will be generated, which degrades electrical characteristics of the device.
The insulation spacer is usually made of an oxide film and a nitride film. When the spacer is formed of a nitride film, the nitride film is removed after forming source/regions through an ion implantation process. In this case, while there is an advantage of obtaining wider regions for source and drain contacts within the same area than in the case of using an oxide film alone, the nitride film remains at narrow spaces between the gate lines (specifically, wordlines of a NAND flash memory device). The dielectric constant of the nitride film is typically 6 to 8, which is larger than the dielectric constant of the oxide film (e.g., 3.6 to 3.9). Thus, an increase of interference effects between the gate lines and disturbance of threshold voltages results, which will be described in detail as follows.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are diagrams illustrating variations of threshold voltages in memory cells according to bias conditions of peripheral cells.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a string of a NAND flash memory device includes a drain selection transistor (not shown) connected in series between a bitline and a common source line, pluralities of memory cells (nine cells C13 through C21 are shown), and a source selection transistor (not shown). Here, 16, 32, or 64 memory cells are serially connected. This structure of the string is well known, so it will not be described in further detail.
In programming the 16th memory cell C16 in the structure of the string, a wordline assigned to the memory cell C16 is supplied with a pass voltage 10V. Also, a power source voltage or the pass voltage is applied to a selection line of the drain selection transistor and a source selection transistor, and 0V is applied to a bitline (not shown).
When the spacers are formed of the oxide film, the threshold voltage of the programmed memory cell C16 varies by about 0.144V due to interference from the pass voltage applied to the adjacent memory cells C15 and C17. Otherwise, when the spacers are formed of oxide and nitride films, the threshold voltage of the programmed memory cell C16 varies by 0.212V.
Referring to FIG. 1B, it can be seen that when the first memory cell C1 is programmed under the same condition, the interference by its adjacent memory cell C2 relatively decreases to lessen the variation of threshold voltage.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that the first memory cell C1 is less affected from the interference than is cell C16. Also, if the spacer includes a nitride film with a high dielectric constant, the effect of interference is more pronounced, to increase the variation in threshold voltage of the memory cell.

Method of manufacturing a flash memory device


Methods are provided for producing novel multicellular compositions comprising cancer cells together with pluripotent human stem cells, which are capable of proliferating and differentiating into various normal cell lines and tissue structures. These novel multicellular compositions are useful for investigating the properties of cancer cells in a normal human tissue microenvironment, and for studying interventions that will modulate these properties including devising, testing and screening therapeutic drugs.

There is at present no readily available experimental system in which human cancer cells can be grown in the context of a mixed population of normal differentiated human cells. Such an experimental system would be advantageous for investigating responses to anticancer therapies and for exploring biological aspects of cancer cell growth (e.g. tumor cell invasion, angiogenesis, proliferation, migration and metastasis among others). Pluripotent human embryonic stem cells (hESC) are capable of differentiating into many distinct normal cell types, which makes them and their derivatives suitable candidates for research and medical applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,926 discloses non-murine pluripotential cells, including human pluripotential cells, that have the ability to be passaged in vitro for at least 20 passages and which differentiate in culture into a variety of tissues.
EP Patent No. 380646 discloses to the use of leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF), in the isolation and propagation of embryonic stem cells in vitro.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,357 discloses a non-mouse pluripotential embryonic stem cell which can: (a) be maintained on feeder layers for at least 20 passages; and (b) give rise to embryoid bodies and multiple differentiated cell phenotypes in monolayer culture. The invention further provides a method of making a pluripotential embryonic stem cell comprising administering a growth enhancing amount of basic fibroblast growth factor, leukemia inhibitory factor, membrane associated steel factor, and soluble steel factor to primordial germ cells under cell growth conditions, thereby making a pluripotential embryonic stem cell.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,753,506 discloses a method of screening factors for the ability to promote the formation of embryonic stem cells, comprising combining primordial germ cells with a factor selected from the group consisting of fibroblast growth factor, leukemia inhibitory factor, membrane associated steel factor, and soluble steel factor with the factor to be screened and determining the formation of embryonic stem cells, whereas the formation of embryonic stem cells indicates a factor capable of promoting the formation of embryonic stem cells.
A method of enriching a population of mammalian cells for stem cells is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,888. The method comprises the steps of: providing in vitro a mixed population of mammalian cells whose genome comprises at least one nucleic acid construct encoding an antibiotic resistance gene operatively linked to a promoter which preferentially expresses said antibiotic gene in mammalian stem cells.
A method for culturing human embryonic stem cells in vitro for prolonged maintenance while preserving the pluripotent character of these cells, as well as a purified preparation of said cells, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,806. It is further disclosed that these embryonic stem cells also retain the ability, throughout the culture and after continuous culture for eleven months, to differentiate into all tissues derived from all three embryonic germ layers.
A method for selective ex-vivo expansion of stem cells is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,479,261. The method comprises the steps of separating stem cells from other cells and culturing the separated stem cells in a growth media comprising a modified human interleukin-3 polypeptide having at least three times greater cell proliferative activity than native human interleukin-3, in at least one assay selected from the group consisting of: AML cell proliferation, TF-1 cell proliferation and methylcellulose assay.
A method of inducing angiogenesis in a tissue of a mammal, comprising the step of implanting a microorgan within the tissue of the mammal, is disclosed in International Publication No. WO 01/00859. The microorgan is derived from said mammal or from another mammal, wherein the organ may be selected from the group consisting of a lung, a liver, a kidney, a muscle, a spleen, a skin and a heart.
A genetically modified micro-organ explant expressing at least one recombinant gene product and methods for generating thereof, wherein the micro-organ explant comprises a population of cells and maintains a microarchitecture of an organ from which it is derived and at the same time having dimensions selected so as to allow diffusion of adequate nutrients and gases to cells in the micro-organ explant is disclosed in International Publication No. WO 03/035851
A population of hESC which under appropriate culture conditions differentiate into a substantially high percentage of insulin producing cells in spontaneously formed aggregated embryoid bodies is disclosed in International Publication No. WO02/092756 which is assigned to the applicant of the present invention.
Partially committed progenitors derived from embryonic stem cells that express telomerase and not being terminally differentiated and hence are capable of continued proliferation, are disclosed in International Publication No. WO 03/066839 which is assigned to the applicant of the present invention.
Nowhere in the background art is it taught or suggested that a multicellular compositions comprising human embryonic stem cells and cancer cells of human origin may be cocultured and moreover useful for drug screening.

Multicellular compositions of pluripotent human embryonic stem cells and cancer cells

Technion Research and Development Foundation Ltd.


A first field of a data unit is analyzed to determine whether the data unit is marked as a particular type of data unit. If the data unit is marked as a particular type of data unit, a second field of the data unit is analyzed to determine whether characteristics of the second data field correspond to the particular type of the data unit. Determining whether the characteristics of the second field correspond to the type of data unit ensures that the data unit is properly marked with respect to type. The first field may indicate a particular priority or that the data unit is carrying voice data. The second field may carry voice data. The analysis of the fields may be done on a data unit by data unit basis, or on a stream basis.

The present invention related generally to networks and, more particularly, to systems and methods for protecting class of service.
Data transported through a network is often transferred in data units. To distinguish one type of data unit from another, data units may be marked with priority information. The class of service (CoS) field is an example of such priority marking. Priority fields may affect the way data is handled in the network. For example, data may be queued, dequeued, forwarded, and discarded in a certain manner based on priority.
Voice data is often marked as high priority because voice data is real-time data and therefore needs to be transported with a higher priority relative to other data. It has been proposed to assign a particular priority value to voice data in networks. This allows voice data to be identified and treated uniquely relative to other data. Problems may arise however, if a sender attempts to transmit non-voice data marked with a priority indicating it is voice data. The sender is attempting to give its non-voice data priority over other non-voice data. A network element, other than the sender, may also be configured to mark the priority field to indicate voice data is being transported when in fact the data is not voice data.
Data units marked incorrectly as voice data may cause problems in the network. For example, congestion may occur in the voice traffic and valid voice data may be dropped.
Thus, there is a need for adequately addressing these types of problems in a network.


Disclosed is a pressure measuring device, whose pressure sensor is protected against thermomechanical stresses, comprising a carrier, a support body arranged on the carrier, a pressure sensor arranged on the support body, a first joint including a joint material connecting the support body with the pressure sensor, and a second joint including a joint material connecting the support body with the carrier. The support body has on a face opposite the pressure sensor a first groove configured such that the first groove surrounds a joint area of the support body. The joint area of the support body and a footprint of the first joint are essentially equally large and significantly less than a base area of the pressure sensor opposite the first joint.

Pressure measuring devices serve for metrological registering of pressures, especially absolute pressures, relative pressures and pressure differences, and are used in industrial measurements technology.
In pressure measuring technology, so called semiconductor pressure sensors are frequently applied. Semiconductor sensors are, in the present state of the art, regularly produced using silicon, e.g., by applying Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology. They are embodied, e.g., as pressure sensor chips, which typically comprise a platform and a measuring membrane arranged on the platform.
These pressure sensors are very sensitive and are therefore, as a rule, deployed in a metal housing and supplied with the pressure to be measured via an interposed pressure transfer means filled with a pressure transfer liquid. Housing and pressure sensor are made of materials, which have very different coefficients of thermal expansion. Due to the mechanical connection between housing and pressure sensor required for the sensor mounting, thermomechanical stresses can occur, which affect the transfer behavior of the measuring membrane and therewith degrade the achievable accuracy of measurement and its reproducibility. This is true especially for a temperature dependent hysteresis of the measurement results.
For reducing temperature dependent stresses acting on the pressure sensor, DE 102007052364 A1 describes arranging the pressure sensor chip on a ceramic intermediate layer, which has a coefficient of thermal expansion adapted to the coefficient of thermal expansion of the semiconductor material of the pressure sensor. The intermediate layer is adhered directly to a metal carrier of the housing via an adhesive bond based on an elastic adhesive. Given as material of the carrier is Kovar. Kovar has a coefficient of thermal expansion of 6 ppm/K and lies therewith significantly nearer to the coefficient of thermal expansion of silicon of 2.6 ppm/K applied for pressure sensors than more common and significantly more cost-effective housing materials, such as, e.g., stainless steel with a coefficient of thermal expansion of 16 ppm/K.
In the case of the described pressure measuring device, the ceramic intermediate layer has a footprint, which is larger than the footprint of the pressure sensor arranged thereon. This has the result that, despite the comparatively well adapted coefficient of thermal expansion of the intermediate layer, thermomechanical stresses do act on the pressure sensor over the entire base area of the pressure sensor.
As an alternative to this, approaches are known in the state of the art, in which a reduction of temperature dependent stresses acting on the pressure sensor is achieved by arranging the pressure sensor on a free end of a pedestal, whose footprint is significantly less than the footprint of the pressure sensor mounted thereon.
Thus, e.g. in DE 102014119396 A1, a pressure measuring device is described comprising a carrier, a pedestal arranged on the carrier, a pressure sensor arranged on the pedestal, a first adhesive bond connecting the pedestal with the pressure sensor and a second adhesive bond connecting the pedestal with the carrier. In the case of this pressure measuring device, the pedestal is embodied as separate rod- or tube-shaped component, whose footprint is smaller than the footprint of the pressure sensor mounted thereon, and which is adhered in a recess provided in the carrier.
The smaller the footprint of the rod- or tube-shaped pedestal, the more difficult it is, however, to introduce the adhesive with sufficiently exact metering into the correspondingly small recess. Moreover, the precise orientation of rod or tubular shaped pedestal both in the case of the insertion into the recess, as well as also during the performance of the adhesive bonding, requires more care, the smaller the footprint of the pedestal is compared with its length.
This problem is met, e.g., in the manner described in DE 102015117737 A1, by providing the pressure sensor on a specially formed pedestal. This pedestal includes at the carrier a base with a comparatively large footprint, and adjoining the base with a significantly smaller footprint, a projection on which the pressure sensor is arranged. In such case, the base can have, e.g., on its end toward the carrier an outwardly surrounding recess, which receives excess adhesive.
Moreover, DE 102016107856 A1 describes reducing the thermomechanical coupling between a support body and a pressure sensor mounted on the support body by means of a joint by providing that a layer region of the support body directly adjoining the joint has a three-dimensional surface topography, which is embodied in such a manner that the joint area of the layer region facing the pressure sensor comprises surface portions distributed in a plane over the layer region, wherein the total surface area formed by the sum of the surface portions is less than the footprint of the joint. The surface portions can be mutually separated, for example, by grooves, which are introduced into the layer region by means of laser radiation or by means of an etching method and which have a groove depth of 300 μm to 700 μm and a groove breadth of 10 μm to 100 μm.
Both solutions have, however, the disadvantage that the pedestal, or the support body, as the case may be, are components, which are manufactured as separate parts and which have a comparatively complicated profiling and are, accordingly, complicated, time consuming and expensive to manufacture.

Pressure measuring device having a footprint of a first joint area of a support body


In a circuit board including a pad for mounting a ball grid array and a wiring, a mounting structure of the ball grid array, an electro-optic device, and an electronic device, the circuit board includes a pad for mounting the ball grid array, a wiring for connecting the pad and an external terminal, and a soldering resist having an opening portion exposing the pad and the wiring.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a circuit board, a mounting structure of a ball grid array, an electro-optic device, and an electronic device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a circuit board, a mounting structure of a ball grid array, an electro-optic device, and an electronic device, in which the printing margin of a soldering material is increased upon mounting the ball grid array on the circuit board by reflow processing.
2. Related Art
According to a widespread conventional method, a QFP (Quad Flat Package) is mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) as a mounting method corresponding to the fine pitch or the multi-pin structure of a lead terminal of a semiconductor device. According to the method, the QFP as a flat package having a large number of gull-wing lead terminals at four sides of the package is generally mounted on the PCB containing resin. Further, the QFP is used while it is electrically connected to a conductive portion of the PCB.
However, in accordance with the further fine pitch or multi-pin structure, the QFP has a problem that the reliability of the connection is deteriorated due to a short circuit caused by a soldering bridge upon mounting or the shortage of soldering. In addition, the QFP has another problem that the mounting area on the PCB is increased corresponding to an externally projected portion of the lead terminal from the package.
Then, in order to respond to the further fine pitch or multi-pin structure of the semiconductor device, a mounting method using a ball grid array (hereinafter, referred to a BGA) or a chip size package (hereinafter, referred to as CSP) and a printed circuit board for mounting it are proposed.
Referring to FIG. 25, a single printed-circuit board has semiconductor package lands 382 and 384 having different shapes and, on the printed-circuit board, lands to which terminals having the same function are connected by a pattern wiring 388. If changing the shape of the package mounted on the printed circuit board, the same printed-circuit board is used without manufacturing another printed-circuit board.
Further, according to another mounting method, an electric part in which the exchange and the maintenance of the BGA, etc. are not possible is soldered so as to prevent the soldering defect. As schematically shown in a flowchart of FIG. 26, specifically, a mounting method 290 includes: a step 291 of printing cream soldering on a predetermined position on the PCB; a step 292 of mounting, by a mounter, a semiconductor device with a bump such as the BGA (including a chip size package (CSP) with a pitch of not more than 0.8 mm) at a predetermined position on the PCB to which the cream soldering is printed; a step 293 of performing an X-ray inspection and of selecting whether or not the semiconductor device is defective; and a step 294 of heating only the nondefective semiconductor device passing the X-ray inspection by reflow processing and mounting.
Further, referring to FIGS. 27(a) to (d), according to another mounting method of the BGA, a cream soldering 312 is coated to a cave (recessed) portion 311 arranged on a board 310.
Specifically, referring to FIG. 27(a), the board 310 having a plurality of cave portions 311 on its surface is provided. Referring to FIG. 27(b), the cream soldering 312 is coated to the plurality of cave portions 311. Furthermore, referring to FIG. 27(c), a bump 317 of a BGA 315 is positioned to the plurality of cave portions 311. In addition, referring to FIG. 27(d), the bump 317 is mounted by reflow processing and is pressed and bonded.
According to another method, referring to FIGS. 28(a) to (c), a semiconductor device 345 with a bump is thermally bonded to a pad 341 of a board 343 via an Anisotropic Conductive Film (hereinafter, referred to as an ACF) 349.
According to the mounting method using the ACF 349, in the CSP in which the pitch of the bump 347 is narrow, for example, it is 0.1 mm to 0.5 mm, the short circuit between the adjacent bumps is efficiently prevented. Advantageously, a large number of bumps 347 are electrically connected.
However, on the convention printed-circuit board, upon mounting the semiconductor device with a fine bump, e.g., the BGA, a soldering material as a conductive material must be precisely printed onto a fine land (pad). Thus, the conventional printed-circuit board has a problem that the position for printing and the printing operation take a long time and the position of the printed soldering material is easily deviated from the pad. In particular, since the CSP has a further fine pitch as compared with the BGA, it is difficult to print the soldering material precisely and mount it on the land (pad) of the printed circuit board on which the FPC is easily modified.
According to the mounting method as shown in FIG. 26, the X-ray inspection must be performed before the heating using reflow processing. Therefore, the mounting method has a problem that the number of steps is increased, the manufacturing management is complicated, and the manufacturing time is long. Since the cream soldering must precisely be printed on the fine pad, the positioning for printing and the printing operation take a long time.
According to the mounting method as shown in FIG. 27, it is difficult to form the pad having the cave portion. Further, since the soldering must be precisely printed to the pad having the fine cave portion, the mounting method has a problem that the positioning for printing and the printing operation take a long time.
Further, the mounting method using the ACF has problems that not only the costs of the ACF are increased but also mounting simultaneously to another device is not performed. That is, the ACF which is thermally bonded and mounted, and the other device mounted by the soldering reflow processing must be mounted independently in consideration of the different mounting processes.
As a result of considering the above problems, it has been discovered that by providing a soldering resist having an opening portion which is open so that the entire or a part of the pad and wiring connected to the BGA is exposed, the coating margin (printing margin) of the soldering material is increased, the printing deviation due to the setting of an uneven portion of the resist is not caused, and thus the soldering material is coated precisely and easily. Further, the defect for connection is caused due to the deviation of printing of the soldering material. In this case, it is found that the soldering material out of the pad due to the printing deviation returns to the pad upon reflowing by its fluid property, irrespective of the deviation or uneven portion of the resist.
As such, it is an object of the present invention to provide a circuit board in which the mounting position of a BGA (including the CSP) is not deviated due to the coating defect of the soldering material when the BGA is mounted by reflow processing via the soldering material, a mounting structure of the BGA using the circuit board, an electro-optic device, and an electronic device.

Circuit board, mounting structure of ball grid array, electro-optic device and electronic device


A method of identifying a historical alert that is similar to an alert associated with a detected deviation from an operational state of a device includes receiving feature data including time series data for multiple sensor devices associated with the device and receiving an alert indicator for the alert. The method includes processing a portion of the feature data that is within a temporal window associated with the alert indicator to generate feature importance data for the alert. The feature importance data includes values indicating relative importance of each of the sensor devices to the alert. The method also includes identifying one or more historical alerts that are most similar, based on the feature importance data and stored feature importance data, to the alert.

Equipment, such as machinery or other devices, is commonly monitored via multiple sensors that generate sensor data indicative of operation of the equipment. An anomalous operating state of the equipment may be detected via analysis of the sensor data and an alert generated to indicate the anomalous operating state. The alert and the data associated with generating the alert can be provided to a subject matter expert (SME) that attempts to diagnose the factors responsible for the anomalous operating state. Accurate and prompt diagnosis of such factors can guide effective remedial actions and result in significant cost savings for repair, replacement, labor, and equipment downtime, as compared to an incorrect diagnosis, a delayed diagnosis, or both.
Historical alert data may be accessed by the SME and compared to the present alert to guide the diagnosis and reduce troubleshooting time. For example, the SME may examine historical alert data to identify specific sets of sensor data associated with the historical alerts that have similar characteristics as the sensor data associated with the present alert. To illustrate, an SME examining an alert related to abnormal vibration and rotational speed measurements of a wind turbine may identify a previously diagnosed historical alert associated with similar values of vibration and rotational speed. The SME may use information, referred to as a "label," associated with the diagnosed historical alert (e.g., a category or classification of the historical alert, a description or characterization of underlying conditions responsible for the historical alert, remedial actions taken responsive to the historical alert, etc.) to guide the diagnosis and determine remedial action for the present alert.
Ideally, automation would be used to perform such comparisons to historical alerts and to transfer the label(s) associated with the most similar historical alert(s) to the present alert to reduce delay and increase effectiveness in diagnosing the alert. However, comparisons of sensor data to historical sensor data are affected by factors such as changes over time for measurements associated with the normal operating state of a particular machine (also referred to as an "asset"), such as due to maintenance, startups, shutdowns, and changes in external environment, differences in measurements associated with normal operating states among a group of physically different assets of the same type, changes in the environment of one or more of the assets, and changes over time for measurements associated with the normal operating state of such assets, such as due to wear, repair, or resetting of the assets.


Hypertensive mammals may be treated to lower mean blood pressure by administering a calcium channel blocking agent together with one or both of a calcium supplement and Vitamin D. The hypotensive effect of this combination is synergistic and the dose response is more predictable than the administration of any of these agents singly.

Calcium channel blockers were identified as a method for the control of hypertension, as reported by Fleckenstein et al., Z. Kreislaufforsch, 56, 716 (1967), and are routinely used in the control of hypertension. Three calcium channel blockers are currently of clinical significance in the United States, verapamil, nifedipine and diltiazem. All three achieve their anti-hypertensive effect by inhibiting the entry of calcium ions into vascular smooth muscle. The ultimate effect is vasodilation.
Hypertensive hormones, such as the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), the vitamin D system, and the parathyroid hypertensive factor (PHF), are all causative factors in stimulating the increase of calcium ions in vascular smooth muscle. PHF is disclosed and described in copending patent application Serial No. 327,450.
It has been found that calcium supplements, in dietary form, may inhibit the RAS, PHF and vitamin D systems, [Park et al., Am. J. Physiol., 235, F22 (1978); Park et al., Am. J. Physiol., 240, F70 (1981); Hotchen et al., Am. J. Cardio., 62, 41G (1988); Bukoski et al., B.B.R.C., 147, 1330 (1987); Inoue et al., B.B.R.C., 152, 1388 (1988); Baran et al., J. Clin. Invest., 77, 1622 (1986); Lewanczuk et al., Am. J. Hypertens. (in press)] and are, therefore, beneficial in decreasing calcium uptake in vascular smooth muscle. An untoward effect of calcium supplementation is that the increased bio-availability of calcium partially negates the inhibitory effect on the endocrine system. Calcium channel blockers, by limiting the uptake of calcium in vascular smooth muscle, are beneficial, but have been found to stimulate some endocrine systems, such as the RAS system. [Kotchen et al., Am. J. Cardiol., 62 41G (1988); Matsumara et al., J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther., 241, 1000 (1978); Resnick et al., Fed. Proc., 45, 2739 (1986)]. Utilization of calcium channel blockers may be limited by excessive vasodilation, negative inotropy, excessive depression of the sinus nodal rate, atrial-ventricular nodal conduction disturbances and interference with non-vascular smooth muscle contraction. A combination therapy which minimizes the amount of calcium channel blocker required to achieve the desired anti-hypertensive effect is desirable.

Method and treatment for hypertension using combination therapy involving exogenous calcium and calcium channel blockers


A pharmaceutical dosage form comprising gelatin encapsulating a pharmaceutical composition wherein said composition is at least about 6% (weight %) ethanol and lipid wherein said lipid comprises at least about 60% (weight %) and a method of protecting gelatin from deterioration is disclosed.

The pharmaceutical art has long recognized the utility of gelatin as a "shell" material for the encapsulation of medicaments into a convenient dosage form. Gelatin is easily processed and may be colored with various pharmaceutically acceptable colorants. Gelatin is generally divided into Type A for acid extracted gelatin and Type B for base extracted gelatin. Combinations of gelatin are useful in this art. As used in the pharmaceutical art gelatin is prepared in a mixture with water and glycerin or other plasticizer to the desired flexibility. The amount of water and glycerin is frequently varied with a view to the desired final hardness of the shell. Commonly those skilled in the art use hard (0.4:1 glycerin to gelatin) for oral, oil-based, or shell softening products and those destined for hot humid climates, medium (0.6:1) for oral, tube, vaginal oil-based, water-miscible or shell-hardening products and those destined for temperate climates, and soft (0.8:1) for tube, vaginal, water-miscible based or shell-hardening products and those destined for cold dry areas. A draw back to the use of gelatin is its propensity deteriorate by drying out and cracking or becoming brittle.
Ethanol and other alcohols are well known pharmaceutical diluents, excipients and solvents used in compounding numerous dosage forms. Alcohol is also a drying agent and thus limited in its use with gelatin. It is generally understood that a gelatin preparation such as a gelatin capsule must be less than about 5% ethanol lest the ethanol dry the gelatin and cause unacceptable deterioration of the gelatin.
The Theory and Practice of Industrial Pharmacy, 3rd Ed., p402, Leon Lachman et al.; Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia (1986) states that water-miscible liquids which are also volatile cannot be major gelatin capsule constituents. Alcohol is specifically cited as such a constituent and about 5% of encapsulated material is stated to be the maximum amount.
Thus a very useful article would be a gelatin pharmaceutical dosage form that can encapsulate medicaments with over 5% ethanol and not deteriorate.


A fastening assembly, used for fixedly fastening a first and a second structure (1100, 1200) of a device together, comprises an anchoring block (1500), an insert plate (1400), and a screw (1300). The first structure is provided with a hole (1110). The anchoring block, fixedly arranged on the second structure, includes two parallel holding flanges (1510, 1512) and two parallel protruding ribs (1520), wherein the holding flange (1510) further includes a slot (15101). The protruding ribs extend approximately perpendicular to the two holding flanges on two sides thereof. The insert plate is held between the holding flanges, and is provided with a threaded hole (1410) and a pair of hooked clamping members (1420) that respectively tightly clamp the protruding ribs. The screw extends through the hole of the first structure and engages in the threaded hole of the insert plate to fixedly fasten the first and second structures of the device together.

This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application serial no. 91 206921, filed May 15, 2002.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to fastening assemblies and, more particularly, to a fastening assembly that can be arranged within a space having a reduced profile to fixedly fasten two structures together.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the requirement for information access and processing is increased, information appliances particularly become more popular. xe2x80x9cInformation appliancesxe2x80x9d broadly embrace electronic devices that are provided with the functions of telecommunication and/or internet access.
A typical type of information appliance is the personal digital assistant (PDA). A PDA usually includes the functions of scheduler, event recording, telecommunication, electronic phonebook, etc.
As shown in FIG. 1, to fixedly fasten two plastics structures 100, 200 of the PDA, i.e., top and bottom covers of the PDA together, a traditional fastening assembly uses a threaded insert nut 400 that is securely accommodated within a boss 210, provided on one plastics structure 200, via ultrasonic welding. The insert nut 400 is externally formed with grooves to enhance its fastening effect to the boss 210. The two plastics structures 100, 200 are fixedly attached to each other by a screw 300 extending through a hole 110 of the plastics structure 100 and threadedly engaging in the insert nut 400.
With the above traditional fastening assembly, the fastening of the insert nut 400 within the boss 210 can be effectively achieved only at the condition that a required minimum height of the boss 210 is satisfied. If the height is insufficient, the insert nut 400 can not be fixedly attached within the boss 210, which results in that the screw 300 and the insert nut 400 cannot have a secure engagement therebetween and the plastics structures 100, 200 can not be fastened securely together.
Since the size of the PDA is increasingly reduced as miniaturization techniques are developed, lower profile is available for the disposition of the fastening assembly. The traditional fastening assembly as described above therefore becomes an obstacle to further size reduction.
An aspect of the invention is therefore to provide a fastening assembly that can fasten two structures (for example, top and bottom covers) of an electronic device (for example, a PDA) together without the need of a boss element so that the mount height needed by the fastening assembly is reduced, thereby enabling the electronic device to have a compact design.
To accomplish the above and other objectives, the invention provides a fastening assembly that is used for fixedly fastening a first and a second structure of an electronic device together. The electronic device has a low profile. The first structure is provided with a hole. The fastening assembly comprises an anchoring block, an insert plate, and a screw. The anchoring block, fixedly arranged on the second structure, includes upper and lower parallel, horizontally-extending holding flanges and two parallel, vertically-extending protruding ribs. The upper holding flange further includes a slot. The protruding ribs extend approximately perpendicular to the holding flanges on two sides thereof. The insert plate, formed from an approximately flat plate, is fixedly held between the holding flanges and is further provided with a threaded hole and a pair of hooked clamping members. The threaded hole is placed correspondingly to the slot of the upper holding flange, and each hooked clamping member tightly clamps one protruding rib to fasten the insert plate with the anchoring block. The screw extends through the hole of the first structure and the slot of the upper holding flange to threadedly engage in the threaded hole of the insert plate to thereby securely fasten the first and second structures together.
In accordance with the above and other objectives, the attachment of the insert plate to the anchoring block is further secured according to various manners such as ultrasonic welding, adhesion or insert molding.
The above fastening assembly is dimensionally adaptable in accordance with the mount height available within the device meanwhile ensuring an effective fastening of the two structures.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

Fastening assembly for attaching structures


According to a signal generating circuit including a delay-locked loop, a driving device including the signal generating circuit, and an image capturing apparatus including the signal generating circuit, when a rising edge designation signal for designating a predetermined rise time and a falling edge designation signal for designating a predetermined fall time are input, the signal generating circuit selects, from among a plurality of delay signals, a first delay signal rising at the time designated by the rising edge designation signal and a second delay signal rising at the time designated by the falling edge designation signal and outputs an output signal rising at the predetermined rise time and falling at the predetermined fall time by performing arithmetic processing on the first delay signal and the second delay signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal generating circuit including a delay-locked loop, to a driving device for a solid-state imaging device, the driving device including the signal generating circuit, and to an image capturing apparatus including the signal generating circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in order to improve the performance of various types of electronic equipment, such electronic equipment has included a plurality of semiconductor devices combined in a complex manner. Also, the plurality of semiconductor devices has been operated in synchronization with each other at a predetermined timing.
For example, in image capturing apparatuses, such as digital cameras and video cameras, a solid-state imaging device, a signal-processing device, a memory device, and the like are operated in synchronization with each other at a predetermined timing using a driving device.
In order to operate a plurality of semiconductor devices at a predetermined timing, known electronic equipment includes a signal generating circuit for generating a signal that changes at the predetermined timing.
A signal generating circuit for generating an output signal that changes at a predetermined timing using a delay-locked loop (hereinafter, referred to as a DLL) for generating a plurality of delay signals obtained by delaying a reference signal by predetermined time intervals and an arithmetic circuit prepared in advance is known (for example, see PCT Japanese Translation Patent Publication No. 6-500673).
The signal generating circuit having such an arrangement generates the output signal that changes at the predetermined timing by causing the arithmetic circuit to perform predetermined arithmetic processing on some delay signals from among the plurality of delay signals generated by the DLL.
In the known signal generating circuit described above, the use of the arithmetic circuit installed in the signal generating circuit in advance allows generation of an output signal that changes at a predetermined timing from delay signals generated by the DLL. Thus, only an output signal that changes at fixed rise time and fall time is generated. Therefore, an output signal that changes at a desired timing cannot be generated.
Consequently, the known signal generating circuit cannot generate signals that change at various timings used for various types of electronic equipment. Thus, the known signal generating circuit lacks of versatility.
Also, in the known signal generating circuit, in order to generate a signal that changes at a timing suitable for the equipment used, it is necessary to design an arithmetic circuit again. Thus, a great deal of time and effort is required for the development of signal generating circuits.

Signal generating circuit including delay-locked loop and semiconductor device including signal generating circuit


Prefetching and caching persistent objects is disclosed. The system creates a structure context used to identify a set containing a first object and other related objects. The objects have attributes, where each attribute is identified by a name. Upon a fetch of an attribute in the first object, the system also fetches related data. The related data includes other attributes in the object, and attributes in the other objects of the set having the same name as the attribute fetched for the first object.

This invention relates generally to computer data storage systems, and more particularly to prefetching and caching objects from a data storage system.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawing hereto: Copyright (copyright) 1998, 1999, Microsoft Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
The number of applications that use object-oriented techniques and languages continues to increase at a rapid pace. This growth in object-oriented applications has resulted in a corresponding growth in the use of object databases and repositories. Object databases and repositories provide for the persistent storage of object data in the same way that a conventional database provides for the storage of tables containing data. Object repositories and object-oriented databases are similar in that they both store data in an object format, however repositories in addition typically provide for the storage of metadata, that is, data about the object data, along with the object data. This metadata typically comprises information such as object formats and interfaces, object versions, check-in/check-out dates and personnel, database schemas, etc.
An object, as is known in the art, is a data structure that has a persistent state. The persistent state consists of attributes, which comprise scalar values and object references. A scalar value is a value such as a string, integer or boolean. An object reference specifies one side of a binary relationship between two objects that refer to each other. In other words, the reference is to another object, which in turn refers back to the referring object. Each attribute is identified by a name, and each attribute has a data type. The data type for an attribute identifies either the type of scalar value for the attribute or the type of relationship defined by the attribute.
In addition to attributes, the state of an object includes structures. A structure contains a group of attributes that are organized according to a particular data structure. This data structure can be a collection (also referred to as a set), sequence, array, table, or record structure. Each structure conforms to a named structure type, which defines the particular data structure (collection, sequence, array, etc.) and the types of attributes the structure can contain. Like any attribute, an attribute in a structure can be a scalar value or object reference. A structure that contains object references is called an object structure.
In addition to being part of the state of an object, a structure can exist independently of other objects. For example, a structure may contain a group of objects that is the result returned by a data storage system when it executes a query.
A persistent object can also have operations. The operations can be read and write operations that are generic, in that they apply to all types of objects, or that are customized, in that they apply only to particular objects or to particular types of objects. This invention applies to persistent objects with any kinds of operations, whether they are generic or customized.
Each object conforms to one or more types, where each type is identified by a name. An object type defines a set of attribute types and/or structure types that an object of the given type can contain.
An object is typically an instance of a class. A class is a body of code that implements one or more object types. The class includes code to produce new objects of each type that it implements and code to perform various operations on objects of types that it implements and on attributes and structures of such objects. The types of operations performed vary depending on the class, and generally include read and write operations for the attributes and structures of an object.
An object-oriented application generally accesses objects or collections of objects one at a time in a serial fashion. In addition, it tends to also retrieve a small data item on each of these accesses. For example, an application may iterate through a collection of objects, examining one or more attributes in each object of the collection. Alternatively, an application may examine a current object, and based on data in the object or on other factors, invoke an operation to cause the data storage system to retrieve another related object based on a relationship between the current object and the related object.
While object-oriented databases and repositories provide a consistent mechanism for object persistence, the serial manner in which object-oriented applications access objects in persistent storage can cause undesirable performance degradation. In a typical data storage system, each access to a data item incurs a relatively high fixed overhead to interface with the persistent storage, and a relatively low incremental cost to actually retrieve the desired data item. This access cost is compounded by the fact that a large number of accesses are typically required to obtain moderate amounts of data related to a particular object or grouping of objects.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a mechanism to increase the performance of object-oriented systems. The mechanism should allow applications to access objects using current methods, while taking advantage of common patterns of use to decrease the time required to access objects.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
The systems and methods presented implement various strategies to prefetch relevant data items when an application first accesses an initial data item included in the state of an object. For the purposes of this application, prefetching means retrieving data for an object or related objects prior to an explicit request for access to the data by the application.
One such system for performing prefetches comprises a data storage system that provides persistent storage for object data comprising the state of the object. The data storage system uses an underlying physical storage system to actually store the data on a persistent storage unit. The physical storage system could be a hardware device, such as a disk, or a combination of hardware and software, such as a relational database system operating on a computer and disk. The data storage system includes software components that implement various strategies to prefetch data and store the data in a cache. The cache can be located in memory allocated to the data storage system, in memory allocated to an application using the data storage system to fetch object data, or in a physical storage system allocated to the data storage system. The data storage system or application to which the cache memory is allocated could be on a server system, a middle-tier system, or a client system.
In one method used to prefetch data, a data storage system provides access to an initial object whose state includes a structure that contains one or more other objects. The structure that contains those other objects is called the xe2x80x9cstructure contextxe2x80x9d of those other objects. The system creates a structure context description that xe2x80x9cremembersxe2x80x9d the objects in the structure and associates that structure context description with every object in the structure. When data for an attribute is fetched from one object in the structure (i.e. the object""s structure context), data for the corresponding attribute is prefetched from the other objects in the structure, incurring a minimal incremental cost per item prefetched. The prefetched attribute data is held in a cache for later use. If the application later needs attribute data from an object in the structure, the system retrieves the attribute data from the cache if it is present, thereby avoiding the high fixed overhead cost of accessing the persistent storage for each attribute that can be successfully retrieved from the cache.
In an alternative method, a structure may be the result returned by the data storage system when it executes a query. The data storage system stores the structure, creates a structure context description that remembers the identifier of the stored structure, and associates that structure context description with every object in the structure. As before, when data for an attribute is fetched from one object in the structure, data for the corresponding attribute is prefetched from the other objects in the structure and held in a cache for later use.
The prefetch strategies summarized above, and various other methods implementing prefetch strategies, will be described in detail in the next section.


An extended addressing system for allowing use of existing circuit boards but obtaining more address space is disclosed. If given bits in the address value indicate that a former system board address is being presented previously unutilized higher order bits are used as a slot identifier that slot's AEN signal is made low, while all the remaining AEN signals to each slot are made high to disable operation. All the AEN lines remain low as an existing circuit board address is presented or a memory operation is occurring. All the AEN lines go high during a DMA operation.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to interchangeable circuit board addressing systems for computer systems, and more particularly, to extended yet backwardly compatible circuit board addressing systems.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Microprocessors and the personal computers which utilize them have become more powerful in recent years. Microprocessors having word sizes of 32 bits are now available. In the past 8 bits was conventional. Sixteen bit capacity only recently became widely available in personal computers.
Concomitantly with the growth in power of microprocessors, new uses for personal computer systems have arisen. The uses are varied and, as a result, have different requirements for the various subsystems forming the complete computer system. For example, personal computers used primarily for word processing have relatively modest requirements for installed memory and processor subsystems, have very high performance requirements for the mass storage subsystem and have varying requirements for the display subsystem, depending on the exact application, such as high resolution desk-top publishing or simple letter production, being performed. A data storage and retrieval-oriented system needs larger amounts of memory, a faster processor, may have lesser mass storage requirements and generally has minimal display requirements. Complex spread-sheet applications require very large amounts of memory, high performance processors, average capability mass storage subsystems and have display requirements which vary depending on whether complex graphic presentations are desired. Simple spread-sheet applications need standard amounts of memory, average performance processors, average capability mass storage subsystems and have the same display requirements as complex spread-sheet applications. Computer automated design systems require a large amount of memory, very high performance processors, high performance mass storage systems and very high performance display components.
As illustrated above, while the varying requirements for subsystems that form the complete personal computer system dictate variety, economies of volume production require manufacturing a personal computer system with as many common features as possible. This tension between variety and uniformity has resolved itself in personal computer systems through the development of basic units that vary only processor performance levels. Further inclusion of interchangeable subsystem modules is the means used by the customer to achieve variety. For instance, a basic personal computer unit is likely to contain a power supply, provisions for physically mounting various mass storage devices and a system board incorporating a microprocessor, microprocessor-related circuitry, connectors for receiving circuit boards containing other subsystems, circuitry related to interfacing the circuit boards to the microprocessor, and in some instances, memory. The use of connectors and interchangeable circuit boards allows users to install subsystems of the desired capability.
The use of interchangeable circuit boards has necessitated the development of an interface bus standard. An interface bus standard permits subsystems to be designed so that problems do not result from incompatible decisions made either by personal computer unit designers or circuit board designers. The use of interchangeable circuit boards and an interface standard, commonly called a bus specification, was incorporated into the original International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) personal computer, the IBM PC.
As mentioned initially and as has become inevitable in the computer and electronics industry, the capabilities of personal computer components have increased dramatically. Memory component prices have dropped and capacities increased. Performance rates and capacities of mass storage subsystems have increased, generally by the incorporation of hard disk units for the previous floppy disk units. Video processor technology has improved so that high resolution color systems are reasonably affordable. These developments strain the capabilities of existing IBM compatible personal computers systems. In particular, software and hardware configuration problems become evident in the devices which attempt to utilize the input/output space available with the Intel Corporation 8088, 8086, 80286, and 80386 microprocessors together with the IBM PC standards.
It has become commonplace for a user to desire to upgrade the user's original input/output subsystems as well as to add new input/output devices in connection with the bigger and faster microprocessors. The user desires to upgrade and improve input/output subsystems without replacing the user's existing application programs or present input/output devices and controllers. Both existing applications programs and present input/output devices represent a significant investment in time and money to the user. Furthermore, users prefer not having to install input/output controller boards into specific system board slots.
Implementing the user's desire to upgrade and improve the user's input/output systems is further complicated by the interface bus standard for use with computer systems related to or compatible with products produced by IBM. That interface bus has evolved through a complicated expansion path resulting from the need to overcome limitations of earlier processors, operating systems and designs. A present crucial limitation of the prior art IBM interface bus standard is that the interface bus standard limits addressing the input/output space of the circuit boards to ten bits of address space. One fourth of that space (the condition where the two most significant bits are zero) has been preserved for use by the system board and is not available to the input/output circuit boards. Hence, only a very limited amount of input/output space is available. Over time and based on usage, portions of this address area have been reserved for particular input/output devices and their controllers. The remaining amount of input/output space is limited. The remaining allocable input/output circuit board address space in IBM PC and PC compatible systems is saturated by existing input/output devices. There is insufficient address space to allocate to new advanced input/output devices and controllers that can use the size and speed of new microprocessors to advantage. Integrating a variety of new and sophisticated input/output devices and control boards with their new applications programs, well suited to the new high speed microprocessors, into a system that can still fully utilize existing input/output devices and application programs has become extremely difficult.
The above difficulty results because under the IBM conventional system input/output circuit boards know when they are addressed by decoding no more than ten bits of an input/output address word communicated through a common bus. Knowledge of its own allocated address locations within the address space defined by ten bits is fixed in the circuit boards. E.g., the circuit board knows if it is addressed when some upper bit subset of the input/output address word corresponds with a fixed code.
It would be futile with the existing system, without more, to allocate more bits to the input/output address space to extend in this manner the addressing space available. Existing boards do not decode those higher bits spaces. Thus, existing boards, ignorant of the higher bits content, might interfere with the new boards attempting to utilize this extended input/output space (an effect referred to as "mirroring").
Of course, users could discard all existing circuit boards and their application programs and convert to new boards and new programs. However, significant amounts of user energy, time and money has been expended in developing and procuring the existing circuit boards and programs. It is a goal of the present invention to provide a standard addressing system that provides for the continued use of the existing input/output devices, circuit boards and application programs.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an addressing system for IBM compatible personal computer systems that takes advantage of the enhanced memory and processor speed and size made possible by recent advances in the computer and electronics fields while preserving the capacity to utilize existing input/output devices, circuit boards and applications programs together with additional novel input/output devices, circuit boards and application programs.

Extended input/output circuit board addressing system