The exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a system, method and computer program products for a snippet based proximal search. A method comprises ranking the documents based on text that is similar to a text snippet. The ranking includes automatically generating proximity queries that include the text snippet, submitting the proximity queries, and collecting the document results. The method comprises selecting a plurality of highest ranked documents to form a subset of documents, extracting snippets from each document in the subset, and creating a vector space model for a set defined by a union of the extracted snippets and the text snippet. The method comprises ranking the extracted snippets according to their vector distances from the input text snippet, and ranking the documents within the subset of documents based on the ranking of the extracted snippets to determine a best matching document in view of the text snippet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information search and retrieval; and more particularly to a system, method and computer program products for a snippet based proximal search.
2. Description of Background
The ability to find relevant material from a large collection of documents (i.e., search or document retrieval), is a well known and long studied problem. The current approach of finding relevant material in a large collection of documents is based on submitting terms to a keyword index of the document corpus. But these indexes, once built, make a limiting assumption about the granularity of the search task. For inputs, the search index assumes that a few well chosen words or phrases represent a precise specification of the desired output. For outputs, the search index assumes that the best document is the one that in its entirety, best matches the input.
These assumption are not always accurate for every search problem. In some cases the desired input is a sentence or paragraph of text, which are not easily forced into a single Boolean query. In such cases, the natural desired output would not necessarily be the document whose entire text best matches the input text, but one in which some subsection of the document is very similar to the text input. So, the content of each document is not as important as the individual sentences and paragraphs that make up each document. The search index is basically built at the wrong level of detail to provide this information.

International Business Machines Corporation


A controller for a chiller includes processing electronics configured to detect a plurality of surge events. The processing electronics create a surge map by calculating and plotting a point for each detected surge event in an at least two dimensional coordinate system. The surge map is displayed through the use of an electronic display system. The surge map describes at least three conditions of the chiller when the surge event was detected through the use of axis and non-axis representations. The processing electronics are further configured to control at least one setpoint for the chiller using the calculated surge map.

The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for controlling chillers of chilled fluid systems.
A chiller controller typically uses one or more chiller control variables to control the operation of a chiller. These variables can be controlled to reduce the power consumed by the chiller, but such control can also cause a surge condition. It is challenging and difficult to develop systems and methods for controlling chillers for energy efficiency and to avoid surge conditions.

Methods and controllers for providing a surge map for the monitoring and control of chillers


A booster circuit includes a first capacitor and a second capacitor serially coupled between a first node and a second node through a third node; a third capacitor and a fourth capacitor serially coupled between a fourth node and a fifth node through a sixth node; a first switch coupling the third node with a power supply line when the fourth node is set to a first level; a second switch coupling the sixth node with the power supply line when the first node is set to the first level; a third switch transferring a plurality of electric charges of the sixth node to the second node; a fourth switch transferring a plurality of electric charges of the third node to the fifth node; a fifth switch coupling the second node with a voltage line; and a sixth switch coupling the fifth node with the voltage line.

A booster circuit is known that generates a high voltage by utilizing charging/discharging a capacitor and the coupling effect. In order to reduce an area of the circuit, for example, a capacitor of a booster circuit is formed by using an insulating film between a floating gate of a nonvolatile memory cell and a diffusion layer of a nonvolatile memory cell, and an insulating film between a control gate of a nonvolatile memory cell and a floating gate of a nonvolatile memory cell (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H6-283667).
In a booster circuit, when electric charges accumulated in a capacitor are discharged to a grounding wire etc., some of the electric charges do not contribute to generate a high voltage. Hence, an efficiency to generate a high voltage by the booster circuit decreases and thereby power consumption increases.

Booster circuit and semiconductor memory


A method of building a tire comprises providing an apexed bead with a first bead ribbon having a first bead portion including rubberized parallel extending bead wires. A first rubber apex leaf extends laterally from the first bead portion. A second bead ribbon has a second bead portion with rubberized parallel extending bead wires. A second rubber apex leaf extends laterally from the second bead portion. The second bead portion is located radially of said first bead portion to form a bead. The first and second apex leafs radially contact each other to form an apex with a substantially triangular cross-section taken in a plane extending transverse to the bead wires. The apex extends laterally from and integral with the bead. The apexed bead is placed radially of a cylindrically formed tire carcass ply. An axial end of the carcass ply is turned around the apexed bead. The apex portion is moved from an axial surface of the bead portion to a radial surface of the bead portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a bead and apex for a vehicle tire. In particular, the present invention relates to a bead and apex formed as an integral unit and to a method for making a tire incorporating such integral bead and apex unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A bead and an apex for use in the construction of a vehicle tire are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,809,106 discloses a bead ribbon having a bead portion with rubber located about parallel extending bead wires. A strip of rubber extends laterally outwardly and upwardly from one edge of the bead portion. The bead ribbon is wound spirally about itself a plurality of times to form a bead core ring. The bead core ring is placed around a carcass ply that is supported on a drum in a cylindrical form. The rubber strips extend axially inward along the carcass ply. The end of the carcass ply is then turned over the bead core ring. The assembly is then removed from the drum. When the assembly is shaped into its a toroidal form of a finished tire, the entire bead core ring is turned 90 degrees. The agglomeration of rubber formed by the rubber strips extend from the same surface of the bead portion that the rubber strips extended from originally. However, the agglomeration now forms a radially oriented apex.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,193 discloses forming a wire bead ring. The bead ring is then placed in a mold. A cavity in the mold is injected with unvulcanized rubber to form a bead assembly with an apex portion extending substantially radially of the bead ring.
Bead and apex assemblies, such as those referenced above, have certain disadvantages. For example, a bead that is typically used today is substantially inextensible and is extremely difficult to turn through a 90 degree angle. In fact, modern radial tire building operations and machines have been adapted to accept the relatively inextensible beads which are not turned any appreciable amount during construction of a vehicle tire. Furthermore, injecting uncured rubber about a bead ring requires an additional manufacturing step, additional handling and additional capital equipment in the form of the injection molding apparatus. All of these additions can be costly to the forming of an apexed bead.

Uniroyal Goodrich Licensing Services, Inc.


An approach to automatically detecting, classifying and/or highlighting abnormal structures such as brain aneurysms is based on three-dimensional studies of the brain vessels. The approach is applicable to effectively all currently available modalities of acquisition of the cerebral vessels, including magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), computed tomography angiography (CTA), and conventional catheter-based three-dimensional rotational angiography (3DRA).

This document relates to detection of vascular abnormalities, for example, detection of brain aneurysms.
Computer-aided systems have been proposed for locating possible aneurysm areas from an image of a vasculature volume, for example, to assist diagnosticians with their interpretations and to reduce diagnostic times. In general, prior detection schemes are dependent on the imaging modality, for example, because both the segmentation of the vessels and the false positive reduction use image characteristics.
The detection of brain aneurysms plays a key role in reducing the incidence of intracranial subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) which carries a high rate of morbidity and mortality. The majority of non-traumatic SAH cases are caused by ruptured intracranial aneurysms and accurate detection can decrease a significant proportion of misdiagnosed cases. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a serious cause of stroke which affects 30,000 patients in North America annually. SAH accounts for a quarter of cerebrovascular deaths, with 80% of the non-traumatic SAH cases being caused by a ruptured intracranial aneurysm. An intracranial aneurysm is a localized pathological dilatation of a blood vessel. It is reported that up to 2% of the general population harbors aneurysms. Most of these aneurysms are asymptomatic and remain undetected with only a small proportion proceeding to rupture and consequent SAH, with an annual incidence of approximately 1%. However, in the case of a ruptured aneurysm, the initial bleed is fatal in 10-20% of instances and despite improvements in patient management, the incidence of SAH has not declined over time and the morbidity rate is still reported between 25% and 50% in patients surviving aneurysm ruptures.
Detecting intracranial aneurysms from imaging scans is an important step in the prevention of aneurysmal SAH and its attendant complications, as treatment of aneurysms using endovascular or surgical methods carries a lower rate of complication when performed in unruptured versus ruptured aneurysms. Although aneurysm detection is currently performed visually by experienced diagnosticians, there is an increasing interest in computed-aided diagnostic (CAD) systems to assist diagnosticians and possibly improve diagnostic accuracy, while limiting missed detection.
Recent advancements in imaging technologies and the increasing use of less invasive computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in outpatient settings, has led to an increased detection of incidental, asymptomatic unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIA) during the routine evaluation of headache, dizziness, and trauma. While, with rare exceptions, the recommendation is for all unruptured symptomatic aneurysms to be treated, the management of asymptomatic UIA remains controversial. Recent studies estimate the annual rupture rate at only 0.1-0.2%, in contrast with earlier data which reported an annual rupture rate of 1-2%. Since preventive treatment carries risks of complications which increase with age, the decision to intervene and treat UIA needs to be balanced against the risk of rupture. To this end, the International Study of Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms (ISUIA) released the conclusions of two studies in 1998 and 2003 with the goal of defining an optimal treatment management of UIA. The size and location of the aneurysms were concluded to play important roles in predicting rupture risk and a threshold of 7 mm diameter was proposed.
Under the influence of ISUIA studies, the largest diameter of the aneurysm is a commonly used index to predict rupture. However, it is well known that many small aneurysms rupture, whereas other large aneurysms never do. The aspect ratio (aneurysm height/neck width) is another popular size index used to predict the risk of rupture, especially for small aneurysms which might be missed by the largest diameter measure. A threshold value of 1.6 was recommended for the aspect ratio (AR) to discriminate between unruptured and ruptured aneurysms. While proving useful in many cases, there are studies which report finding no statistically significant difference in AR between ruptured and unruptured aneurysms or dispute how to best use the measure.
Cerebral aneurysms have various shapes and sizes and like size, shape is likely to have an impact on the rupture risk. With advances in medical imaging, modalities such as 3D rotational angiography (3D-RA), computed tomography angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) can capture the complexity of the volumetric shape and offer the possibility to analyze aneurysms in a 3D environment. Still, the morphological characterization of brain aneurysms is an open research area.


A system for the treatment of exhaust gases includes an engine, an exhaust system, and a controller. The exhaust aftertreatment system is configured to accept exhaust gas from the engine and includes a particulate filter configured to filter particulate matter from the exhaust gas. A controller is configured to determine an actual temperature of the particulate filter during a regeneration process and analyze the actual temperature relative to a temperature deviation threshold. The controller is configured to adjust the temperature deviation threshold in real time based, at least in part, on an operating condition of the engine and a mass flow of the exhaust gas.

Passenger and commercial vehicles that use diesel engines may use a diesel particulate filter (DPF), a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), or both, to reduce emissions caused by exhaust gases. The diesel particulate filter is used to filter soot from the exhaust gases, while the diesel oxidation catalyst oxidizes the exhaust gases to reduce emissions. A regeneration process is used to remove the soot that collects on the diesel particulate filter.

Particulate filter regeneration process diagnostic


A boat hitch for latching or hitching the bow of a boat to a boat trailer to provide efficient and safe withdrawal of a boat from the water and hitching the boat to the trailer to enhance the safety factor in towing a boat and trailer over the highway. The boat hitch includes a pivotal latch structure mounted on the forward end portion of a boat trailer which is associated with a cam-type keeper on the bow of the boat in which the keeper includes a curved cam ramp extending from a shallow forward end to a rearward end having greater depth and a keeper surface generally extending vertically at the rearward end of the cam ramp. The latch includes a pivotal pawl that is locked in a vertical position in engagement with the keeper surface when the boat is locked on the trailer with the pawl being manually released and pivoted to a generally rearwardly extending horizontal position for releasing the boat to enable it to move off the trailer when launching the boat into a body of water.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a boat hitch and more specifically a structure for latching or hitching the bow of a boat to a boat trailer to provide efficient and safe withdrawal of a boat from the water and hitching the boat to the trailer to enhance the safety factor in towing a boat and trailer over the highway. The boat hitch includes a pivotal latch mounted on the forward end portion of a boat trailer which is associated with a cam-type keeper on the bow of the boat in which the keeper includes a curved cam ramp extending from a shallow forward end to a rearward end having greater depth and a keeper surface generally extending vertically at the rearward end of the cam ramp. The latch includes a pivotal pawl that is locked in a vertical position in engagement with the keeper surface when the boat is locked on the trailer with the pawl being manually released and pivoted to a generally rearwardly extending horizontal position for releasing the boat to enable it to move off the trailer when launching the boat into a body of water.


The present invention provides novel eukaryotic DNA sequences coding for native protoporphyrinogen oxidase (protox) or modified forms of the enzyme which are herbicide tolerant. Plants having altered protox activity which confers tolerance to herbicides are also provided. These plants may be bred or engineered for resistance to protox inhibitors via mutation of the native protox gene to a resistant form or through increased levels of expression of the native protox gene, or they may be transformed with modified eukaryotic or prokaryotic protox coding sequences or wild type prokaryotic protox sequences which are herbicide tolerant. Diagnostic and other uses for the novel eukaryotic protox sequence are also described. Plant genes encoding wild-type and altered protox, purified plant protox, methods of isolating protox from plants, and methods of using protox-encoding genes are also disclosed.

I. The Protox Enzyme and its Involvement in the Chlorophyll/Heme Biosynthetic Pathway
The biosynthetic pathways which leads to the production of chlorophyll and heme share a number of common steps. Chlorophyll is a light harvesting pigment present in all green photosynthetic organisms. Heme is a cofactor of hemoglobin, cytochromes, P450 mixed-function oxygenases, peroxidases, and catalases (see, e.g. Lehninger, Biochemistry. Worth Publishers, New York (1975)), and is therefore a necessary component for all aerobic organisms.
The last common step in chlorophyll and heme biosynthesis is the oxidation of protoporphyrinogen IX to protoporphyrin IX. Protoporphyrinogen oxidase (referred to herein as "protox") is the enzyme which catalyzes this last oxidation step (Matringe et al., Biochem. J. 260: 231 (1989)).
The protox enzyme has been purified either partially or completely from a number of organisms including the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Labbe-Bois and Labbe, In Biosynthesis of Heme and Chlorophyll, E. H. Dailey, ed. McGraw Hill: New York, pp. 235-285 (1990)), barley etioplasts (Jacobs and Jacobs, Biochem. J. 244: 219 (1987)), and mouse liver (Dailey and Karr, Biochem. 26: 2697 (1987)). Genes encoding protox have been isolated from two prokaryotic organisms, Escherichia coli (Sasarrnan et al., Can. J. Microbiol. 39: 1155 (1993)) and Bacillus subtilis (Dailey et aL, J. Biol. Chem. 269: 813 (1994)). These genes share no sequence similarity; neither do their predicted protein products share any amino acid sequence identity. The E. coli protein is approximately 21 kDa, and associates with the cell membrane. The B. subtilis protein is 51 kDa, and is a soluble, cytoplasmic activity.
Presently, too little is known about the protox enzyme to allow isolation of protox encoding genes from higher eukaryotic organisms (i.e. animals, plants and all other multicellular nucleate organisms other than lower eukaryotic microorganisms such as yeast, unicellular algae, protozoans, etc.) using known approaches.
In particular, many of the standard techniques for isolation of new proteins and genes are based upon the assumption that they will be significantly similar in primary structure (i.e. amino acid and DNA sequence) to known proteins and genes that have the same function. Such standard techniques include nucleic acid hybridization and amplification by polymerase chain reaction using oligonucleotide primers corresponding to conserved amino acid sequence motifs. These techniques would not be expected to be useful for isolation of eukaryotic protox genes using present structural information which is limited to prokaryotic protox genes since there is no significant structural similarity even among the known prokaryotic protox genes and proteins.
Another approach that has been used to isolate biosynthetic genes in other metabolic pathways from higher eukaryotes is the complementation of microbial mutants deficient in the activity of interest. For this approach, a library of cDNAs from the higher eukaryote is cloned in a vector that can direct expression of the cDNA in the microbial host. The vector is then transformed or otherwise introduced into the mutant microbe, and colonies are selected that are phenotypically no longer mutant.
This strategy has worked for isolating genes from higher eukaryotes that are involved in several metabolic pathways, including histidine biosynthesis (e.g. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/061,644 to Ward et al., incorporated by reference herein in its entirety), lysine biosynthesis (e.g. Frisch et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 228: 287 (1991)), purine biosynthesis (e.g. Aimi et al., J. Biol. Chem. 265: 9011 (1990)), and tryptophan biosynthesis (e.g. Niyogi et al., Plant Cell 5: 1011 (1993)). However, despite the availability of microbial mutants thought to be defective in protox activity (e.g. E. coli (Sasannan et al., J. Gen. Microbiol. 113: 297 (1979)), Salmonella typhimurium (Xu et al., J. Bacteriol. 174: 3953 (1992)), and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Camadro et al,. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 106: 724 (1982)), application of this technique to isolate cDNAs encoding eukaryotic protox enzymatic activity is at best unpredictable based on the available information.
There are several reasons for this. First, the eukaryotic protox cDNA sequence may not be expressed at adequate levels in the mutant microbe, for instance because of codon usage inconsistent with the usage preferences of the microbial host. Second, the primary translation product from the cloned eukaryotic coding sequence may not produce a functional polypeptide, for instance if activity requires a post-translational modification, such as glycosylation, that is not carried out by the microbe. Third, the eukaryotic protein may fail to assume its active conformation in the microbial host, for instance if the protein is normally targeted to a specific organellar membrane system that the microbial host specifically lacks. This last possibility is especially likely for the plant protox enzyme, which is associated in the plant cell with organelles not present in microbial hosts used in the complementation assay. In particular, the plant protox enzyme is associated with both the chloroplast envelope and thylakoid membranes (Matringe et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267:4646 (1992)), and presumably reaches those membrane systems as a result of a post-translational targeting mechanism involving both an N-terminal transit sequence, and intrinsic properties of the mature polypeptide (see, e.g. Kohorn and Tobin, Plant Cell 1: 159 (1989); Li et al., Plant Cell 3: 709 (1991); Li et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267: 18999 (1992)).
II. Involvement of the Protox Gene in Animal/Human Disease Conditions
The protox enzyme is known to play a role in certain human disease conditions. Patients suffering from variegate porphyria, an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by both neuropsychiatric symptoms and skin lesions, have decreased levels of protox activity (Brenner and Bloomer, New Engl. J. Med. 302: 765 (1980)). Due to the lack of knowledge regarding the human protox enzyme and its corresponding gene, options for diagnosing and treating this disorder are presently very limited.
III. The Protox Gene as a Herbicide Target
The use of herbicides to control undesirable vegetation such as weeds or plants in crops has become almost a universal practice. The relevant market exceeds a billion dollars annually. Despite this extensive use, weed control remains a significant and costly problem for farmers.
Effective use of herbicides requires sound management. For instance, time and method of application and stage of weed plant development are critical to getting good weed control with herbicides. Since various weed species are resistant to herbicides, the production of effective herbicides becomes increasingly important.
Unfortunately, herbicides that exhibit greater potency, broader weed spectrum and more rapid degradation in soil can also have greater crop phytotoxicity. One solution applied to this problem has been to develop crops which are resistant or tolerant to herbicides. Crop hybrids or varieties resistant to the herbicides allow for the use of the herbicides without attendant risk of damage to the crop. Development of resistance can allow application of a herbicide to a crop where its use was previously precluded or limited (e.g. to pre-emergence use) due to sensitivity of the crop to the herbicide. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,373 to Anderson et al. is directed to plants resistant to various irnidazolinone or sulfonamide herbicides. The resistance is conferred by an altered acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS) enzyme. U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,374 to Goodman et al. relates to plant cells and plants containing a gene encoding a mutant glutamine synthetase (GS) resistant to inhibition by herbicides that were known to inhibit GS, e.g. phosphinothricin and methionine sulfoximine. U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,659 to Bedbrook et al. is directed to plants that express a mutant acetolactate synthase which renders the plants resistant to inhibition by sulfonylurea herbicides. U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,602 to Somers et al. discloses plants tolerant to inhibition by cyclohexanedione and aryloxyphenoxypropanoic acid herbicides. The tolerance is conferred by an altered acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase(ACCase).
The protox enzyme serves as the target for a variety of herbicidal compounds. The herbicides that inhibit protox include many different structural classes of molecules (Duke et al., Weed Sci. 39: 465 (1991); Nandihalli et al., Pesticide Biochem. Physiol. 43: 193 (1992); Matringe et al., FEBS Lett. 245: 35 (1989); Yanase and Andoh, Pesticide Biochem. Physiol. 35: 70 (1989)). These herbicidal compounds include the diphenylethers {e.g. acifluorfen, 5-[2-chloro4-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-2-nitrobezoic acid; its methyl ester; or oxyfluorfen, 2-chloro-1-(3-ethoxy-4-nitrophenoxy)-4-(trifluorobenzene)}, oxidiazoles, (e.g. oxidiazon, 3-[2,4-dichloro-5-(1-methylethoxy)phenyl]-5-(1,1-dimethylethyl)- 1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-(3H)-one), cyclic irnides (e.g. S-23142, N-(4-chloro-2-fluoro-5-propargyloxyphenyl)-3,4,5,6-tetrahydrophthalirnide; chlorophthalim, N-(4-chlorophenyl)-3,4,5,6-tetrahydrophthalimide), phenyl pyrazoles (e.g. TNPP-ethyl, ethyl 2-[1-(2,3,4-trichlorophenyl)-4-nitropyrazolyl-5-oxy]propionate; M&B 39279), pyridine derivatives (e.g. LS 82-556), and phenopylate and its O-phenylpyrrolidino- and piperidinocarbamate analogs. Many of these compounds competitively inhibit the normal reaction catalyzed by the enzyme, apparently acting as substrate analogs.
The predicted mode of action of protox-inhibiting herbicides involves the accumulation of protoporphyrinogen IX in the chloroplast. This accumulation is thought to lead to leakage of protoporphyrinogen IX into the cytosol where it is oxidized by a peroxidase activity to protoporphyrin IX. When exposed to light, protoporphyrin IX can cause formation of singlet oxygen in the cytosol. This singlet oxygen can in turn lead to the formation of other reactive oxygen species, which can cause lipid peroxidation and membrane disruption leading to rapid cell death (Lee et al., Plant Physiol. 102: 881 (1993)).
Not all protox enzymes are sensitive to herbicides which inhibit plant protox enzymes. Both of the protox enzymes encoded by genes isolated from Escherichia coli (Sasarman et al., Can. J. Microbiol. 39: 1155 (1993)) and Bacillus subtilis (Dailey et al., J. Biol. Chem. 269: 813 (1994)) are resistant to these herbicidal inhibitors. In addition, mutants of the unicellular alga Chiamydomonas reinhardtii resistant to the phenylimide herbicide S-23142 have been reported (Kataoka et al., J. Pesticide Sci. 15: 449 (1990); Shibata et al., In Research in Photosynthesis, Vol.III, N. Murata, ed. Kluwer:Notherlands. pp. 567-570 (1992)). At least one of these mutants appears to have an altered protox activity that is resistant not only to the herbicidal inhibitor on which the mutant was selected, but also to other classes of protox inhibitors (Oshio et al., Z. Naturforsch. 48c: 339 (1993); Sato et al., In ACS Symposium on Porphyric Pesticides, S. Duke, ed. ACS Press: Washington, D.C. (1994)). A mutant tobacco cell line has also been reported that is resistant to the inhibitor S-21432 (Che et al.,. Z. Naturforsch. 48c: 350 (1993).

Manipulation of protoporphyrinogen oxidase enzyme activity in eukaryotic organisms


Throttling recommendations for a systolic array may be arbitrated. Throttling recommendations may be received at an arbiter for a systolic array from different sources, such as one or more monitors implemented in an integrated circuit along with the systolic array or sources external to the integrated circuit with the systolic array. A strongest throttling recommendation may be selected. The rate at which data enters the systolic array may be modified according to the strongest throttling recommendation.

Integrated circuits provide a hardware solution for various processing tasks that is performant and efficient. Increasing numbers of processing tasks are offloaded from a host central processing unit (CPU) to integrated circuits to take advantage of these benefits. For example, the increasing popularity of including machine learning in various different applications, such as computer vision, speech recognition, machine translation, among others, has increased the use of integrated circuits that implement systolic arrays to perform processing tasks for machine learning. Systolic arrays offer a highly performant solution to execute large numbers of operations, such as multiply and accumulate, in parallel, increasing the speed of applications like machine learning that utilize such large numbers of operations.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. As used throughout this application, the word "may" is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words "include", "including", and "includes" mean including, but not limited to.
This specification includes references to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment." The appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment" or "in an embodiment" do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment. Particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner consistent with this disclosure.
"Comprising." This term is open-ended. As used in the appended claims, this term does not foreclose additional structure or steps. Consider a claim that recites: "An apparatus comprising one or more processor units . . . ." Such a claim does not foreclose the apparatus from including additional components (e.g., a network interface unit, graphics circuitry, etc.).
"Configured To." Various units, circuits, or other components may be described or claimed as "configured to" perform a task or tasks. In such contexts, "configured to" is used to connote structure by indicating that the units/circuits/components include structure (e.g., circuitry) that performs those task or tasks during operation. As such, the unit/circuit/component can be said to be configured to perform the task even when the specified unit/circuit/component is not currently operational (e.g., is not on). The units/circuits/components used with the "configured to" language include hardware—for example, circuits, memory storing program instructions executable to implement the operation, etc. Reciting that a unit/circuit/component is "configured to" perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not to invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112, paragraph (f), for that unit/circuit/component. Additionally, "configured to" can include generic structure (e.g., generic circuitry) that is manipulated by software or firmware (e.g., an FPGA or a general-purpose processor executing software) to operate in manner that is capable of performing the task(s) at issue. "Configure to" may also include adapting a manufacturing process (e.g., a semiconductor fabrication facility) to fabricate devices (e.g., integrated circuits) that are adapted to implement or perform one or more tasks.
"First," "Second," etc. As used herein, these terms are used as labels for nouns that they precede, and do not imply any type of ordering (e.g., spatial, temporal, logical, etc.). For example, a buffer circuit may be described herein as performing write operations for "first" and "second" values. The terms "first" and "second" do not necessarily imply that the first value must be written before the second value.
"Based On" or "Dependent On." As used herein, these terms are used to describe one or more factors that affect a determination. These terms do not foreclose additional factors that may affect a determination. That is, a determination may be solely based on those factors or based, at least in part, on those factors. Consider the phrase "determine A based on B." While in this case, B is a factor that affects the determination of A, such a phrase does not foreclose the determination of A from also being based on C. In other instances, A may be determined based solely on B.

Arbitrating throttling recommendations for a systolic array


A dynamoelectric machine having a superconducting magnet rotor and a method of magnetizing the superconducting magnet rotor. The superconducting magnet rotor provides a very strong magnetic field, potentially exceeding the field strength of high energy product permanent magnets.

The present invention relates generally to the construction and configuration of electrical machines including motors and generators. More specifically, the invention relates to an AC electrical machine featuring high output power, increased efficiency, and reduce size as a result of incorporating a diamagnetic rotor assembly having a trapped magnetic field.
Traditionally, AC machines have used either permanent magnet rotors or DC excited wound rotors to produce a rotating magnetic field linking stator windings mounted about the rotor. With the introduction of high magnetic strength permanent magnets, it became possible to build higher power density permanent magnet electrical machines as for example J. Denk, U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,180 herein incorporated by reference. These types of permanent magnet machines make efficient use of permanent magnets having a magnetic energy product up to 45 mega-gauss orsted, which are the strongest magnets presently available. There appears to be an upper limit on the magnetic product available from these new magnetic materials. Thus, the maximum power density for permanent magnet machines making use of the new magnets will also be limited.
It is therefore apparent that in order to significantly improve the power density of electrical machines of this type, the magnetic energy product of the rotor must be significantly increased.

Method of making a dynamoelectric machine with superconducting magnet rotor


Surveillance system endpoints communicate with each other to send and receive presence information. The surveillance endpoints may react to the received presence information. For example, if one surveillance camera stops functioning, one or more other cameras can react to the presence information, or lack thereof, sent from the malfunctioning camera. Thus, one or more of the other cameras can cover the area normally covered by the malfunctioning camera. Thus, the surveillance endpoints can automatically react to presence events in a network of surveillance endpoints.

Surveillance has become important to many organizations, property owners, businesses, security agencies, etc. Generally, surveillance is conducted either by people or with various sensors. The sensors can include motion detectors, weight sensitive sensors, infrared sensors, audio sensors, video cameras, etc. The information from the sensors is generally provided to a person, security firm, police, or other entity that can respond to a possible problem.
Video cameras are generally used more widely than other sensor systems. An example video camera 100 is shown in FIG. 1A. A depiction of what the camera 100 displays on a monitor is shown in FIG. 1B. The camera 100 can have a defined field of vision represented by box 102 and defined generally by lines 104 and 106. The field of vision 102 is the area of a scene that can be viewed and recorded by the camera 100. The camera 100 may also be able to pan. Panning is the physical movement of a camera 100 generally sweeping along one or more planes of motion. The range of the pan is represented by box 108 and defined by lines 110 and 112. The cameras may also be able to tilt, which is similar to panning in a vertical plane. Further, the camera 100 may be able to zoom. Zooming is the action of changing the focal length of the lens on the camera to enlarge an image in the field of vision 102. An enlarged view of a subject 114 is shown in box 116, which is an enlargement of area.
A camera network 120 is shown in FIG. 1C. Here, several cameras 100a through 100e view a larger area. Each camera can have its own field of vision 104 to 106 and panning range 110 to 112. However, when the area to be covered is too large to be recorded by one camera, the several cameras 100a through 100e are used in concert to cover the area. Thus, as a subject 114 travels along path 122, the cameras 110a through 100e can view and record the subject 114 over the area.
While many cameras can execute panning or zooming, most video cameras or other surveillance devices have little intelligence. The cameras cannot change or control their own operation. Generally, the cameras are controlled by a separate system that is operated by a person. Thus, a camera network generally requires several people to operate the cameras over a day, week, month, etc. Further, if an event occurs, the security event requires the personnel that operate the camera network to respond. As such, events can be missed if the security personnel are not attentive.

Utilizing presence information for the purpose of enhanced surveillance


Amine-substituted copolymers that may include an amine-substituted pyrrolidine-2,5-dione moiety. Polyamic acids and polyimides, which may be formed by contacting an amine substituted copolymer with a dianhydride, or a dianhydride and a diamine. Articles, such as wires, having a surface on which a polyimide is disposed. Methods for forming polymers.

Magnet wire, also referred to as winding wire or magnetic winding wire, is utilized in a wide variety of electric machines and devices, such as inverter drive motors, motor starter generators, transformers, etc. Magnet wire typically includes polymeric enamel insulation formed around a central conductor. The enamel insulation is typically formed by applying a varnish onto the magnet wire and curing the varnish in an oven to remove solvents, thereby forming a thin enamel layer. This process is repeated until a desired enamel build or thickness has been attained.
Polymeric materials utilized to form enamel layers are intended for use under certain maximum operating temperatures. Additionally, electrical devices may be subject to relatively high voltage conditions that may break down or degrade the wire insulation. For example, an inverter may generate variable frequencies that are input into certain types of motors, and the variable frequencies may exhibit steep wave shapes that cause premature motor winding failures. As a further example, modern high voltage, high current motors, such as those used in electric automobiles, can generate strong corona fields. These strong fields can degrade wire enamels.
There remains a need for materials, including wire enamels, which perform better in strong corona fields, including materials with reduced crystallinity and/or less solution viscosity.

Amine-substituted pyrrolidine-2,5-dionyl copolymers, polyimides, articles, and methods


A portable multi-modal physics and environmental based signature information collection, analysis, and alerting apparatus, device and method capable of operating independently of vehicle diagnostic or alerting systems. Device uses algorithms and models to calculate, determine, and detect signature anomalies from accelerometer and other imbedded sensors for anomaly response to individual situations within the Automotive Global Information Grid. Wireless infrastructure provisioning of uniquely identified publisher and subscriber Automotive Network Centric Enterprise Services host subscriber and device holder as a persistent publisher presenting signature information on operational and environmental status and conditions. Onboard signature collection and anomaly detection device supports ISO MME and manufacture defined data formats, standard crash analysis algorithms based on ISO, SAE, FMVSS, CMVSS, EuoNCAP. Communications infrastructure is multi-modal providing auto alert capabilities. Machine to machine interface employs W3C standard telematics, event mark-up language, and the wireless communications utilizes cell phone, satellite, and other communications platforms.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to motor vehicles and, more specifically, to vehicle and personal service monitoring and alerting systems with capabilities, which overcome systems limitations of those warning systems that are hard-wired to proprietary onboard diagnostic and reporting systems, through a highly portable device enabled to detect a broad range of normal and emergency situations employing mathematic and rule based anomaly detection, modeling, and reporting of multiple mode signatures.
This invention comprises a portable device having communications infrastructure and sensor data to support multi-modal detection of emergency situations, geographic location, communication and confirmation of said situations to a Global Information Grid Network Centric Enterprise Service Center of automated and human agents and recording information from the Network Centric Enterprise Service Center emergency call center, which in turn communicates the location and emergency situation to appropriate emergency personnel. The device is designed to be extremely portable and configurable to move from vehicle to personal use as the user requires.
The legacy of this device is drawn from autonomous unmanned air and ground vehicles which utilize many sensor inputs to characterize, assess, and respond to the vehicle's environment. Adaptation of these micro-sensors and sophisticated algorithmic processing of the incoming sensory data allows for high confidence of detection of composite signatures associated Grid and its associated Network Centric Enterprise Services Architecture is drawn from the open systems Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) methodology which expounds best practices for the next generation of internet operations, communications, collaboration, security, interoperability, and services.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are other systems designed for motor vehicle component monitoring. While these systems may be suitable for the purposes for which they where designed, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.
It is thus desirable to provide a vehicle monitoring and alerting system incorporating a plurality of component sensors that conditionally communicate with a remote depository that aggregates vehicle data creating a queryable database that may initiate a vehicle alert from a call center.
It is further desirable to provide emergency assistance through real time acquisition of the vehicle location, which can then be relayed to an emergency response team.

Vehicle and personal service monitoring and alerting systems


An adjustable support for a speed bag includes a base and a telescoping support column. The column is pivotably connected to the base and movable between a folded position and a deployed upright position. The support further includes a cantilever arm having a first end pivotably connected to an upper column portion of the column, and a speed bag platform is secured adjacent a second end of the cantilever arm. The cantilever arm is movable between a first folded position and a second cantilever position. A platform locking mechanism releasably secures the cantilever arm in the second cantilever position, whereby the pivoting and telescoping column and the pivoting cantilever arm and speed bag platform allow the speed bag to be deployed and used at a plurality of heights and orientations.

The instant invention relates to a support structure for a speed bag, and more particularly to a portable and adjustable support structure.
Speed bag work is an important part of training for boxers, and those participating in martial arts of all kinds. Speed bag work is an excellent way to enhance fitness as well as speed and hand and eye coordination while getting a complete body workout. Many people wanting to participate in boxing or martial arts, or similar sports, or people who wish to enjoy a different form of exercise would like to learn to use a speed bag, but access to speed bag equipment is usually limited to those with gym or fitness center memberships where speed bags are installed. Thus, use of speed bags is unavailable to many.
One reason that access to speed bags is limited is that speed bag platforms are typically mounted to a ceiling or wall, are bulky and are permanently exposed. Homeowners, and those who rent, in most cases, do not want to mount a speed bag in their home because ceiling and/or wall damage can occur during installation and use. Also, a mounted speed bag is limited in the way it is used and can only be used easily by those of a certain height. It is impossible to adjust the height of a permanently mounted speed bag, restricting use by individuals of varying heights or anyone with a physical impediment or a person who is wheelchair bound.

Portable, adjustable support structure for a speed bag


An object management system and data processing system which enable the containment relationships among a plurality of resource managers to be changed without affecting client applications which use services of those resource managers. A tree manager maintains tree structure data that defines the containment relationships among resource managers, together with identification data that is used to distinguish between them. From this tree structure data, an object manager builds a containment tree to grasp the containment relationships among the resource managers. When a client application issues an operation request to one of the resource managers, a message processor receives and forwards it to the object manager. The object manager then searches the containment tree to find identification data of a relevant resource manager for which the received operation request should be destined, thus sending the request to the found destination resource manager. This centralized approach of object management facilitates addition and removal of resource managers to/from the tree structure data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object management system, a data processing system, a computer-readable medium containing an object management program, and a computer-readable medium containing a data processing program. More Particularly, the present invention relates to an object management system which manages relationships among objects constituting a network system, by using a hierarchical containment tree model. The present invention also relates to a data processing system which operates with objects being organized in a hierarchical structure. The present invention further relates to a computer-readable medium containing an object management program or data processing program designed to cause a computer system to function as the above object management system or data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telecommunication Management Network (TMN), a standard developed by the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication standardization sector (ITU-T), provides a common framework for management of a distributed environment where a plurality of networks are interconnected. This ITU-T recommendation uses layered containment tree models to describe the relationships among objects that constitute a system to be managed. Typical TMN applications may include network management systems (NMS) which manage nodes on a synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) network, for example.
FIG. 41 is a block diagram of a conventional network management system, where two client applications 1100 and 1200 are allowed to make access to shared resources. The two client applications 1100 and 1200 have their own message processors 1110 and 1210 and tree managers 1120 and 1220, respectively. The message processors 1110 and 1210 transmit and receive messages to/from a plurality of resource management objects, or resource managers (RMs) 1131 to 1136, through an interface 1141. Those resource managers 1131 to 1136 control creation and deletion of managed objects (MOs) 1131a to 1136a which execute various processes necessary for operating the network system. Tables 1121 and 1221 in the tree managers 1120 and 1220 provide the message processors 1110 and 1210 with necessary data for resource management (S311 and S321). Based on the retrieved data, the message processors 1110 and 1210 make access to relevant resource management objects 1131 to 1136 to perform desired operations and receive their results (S312 and S322).
The tree managers 1120 and 1220 are responsible for maintaining containment trees 1122 and 1222 which describe the relationships among objects. To this end, each of the tree managers 1120 and 1220 has a resource management information base (RMIB), which is held in the aforementioned tables 1121 and 1221 in a fixed manner. The containment trees 1122 and 1222, produced from such table data, are used to manage communication address information to reach the resource managers 1131 to 1136. Note that, in the prior-art system, the client applications 1100 and 1200 manage their own containment trees 1122 and 1222 independently. When the system is started up or shut down, the resource managers 1131 to 1136 notify both tree managers 1120 and 1220 of creation or deletion of objects (S313 and S323).
The client applications 1100 and 1200 can grasp the relationships among objects by making access to RMIB maintained in their local tables 1121 and 1221. In the prior-art system, however, it is hard to change the containment tree structure since each client application has its own RMIB in a fixed manner. That is, the relationships among objects are determined at the system design phase and client applications include such object relationships when they are developed. Once the system is established in such a way, it is not allowed, basically, to change the containment tree structure to add or remove some resource managers. This means that a large amount of work is necessary to modify the client applications to implement a change in the containment tree.
Again, a plurality of client applications keep their own containment trees, meaning that there exist a plurality of containment trees in a system. To maintain their consistency, resource managers are required to exchange messages to/from those client applications. As client applications and resource managers increase in number, the frequency of their interactions would be raised, thus causing a problem in information traffic.
Taking the above into consideration, an object of the present invention is to provide an object management system which allows the relationships among resource managers to be modified without affecting client applications, and also reduces the amount of information exchanged for object management operations.
Further, it is another object of the present invention to provide a data processing system which allows the relationships among resource managers to be changed without affecting client applications, and also reduces the amount of information exchanged for management operations.
To accomplish the first object note above, according to the present invention, there is provided an object management system which manages the relationships among resource managers that control managed objects by using a hierarchical containment tree model. This system comprises the following elements: a message processor which receives an operation request directed toward one of the resource managers; a tree manager which maintains tree structure data that defines containment relationships among the resource managers, together with identification data that is used to distinguish between the resource managers; and an object manager which examines the tree structure data maintained in the tree manager to find the identification data of a destination resource manager for which the received operation request should be destined, and sends the operation request to the destination resource manager.
To accomplish the second object of the present invention, there is provided a data processing system for managing relationships among a plurality of objects by using a hierarchical containment tree model. This system comprises the following elements: a message processor which receives an operation request directed toward one of the resource managers; a tree manager which maintains tree structure data that defines containment relationships among the resource managers, together with identification data that is used to distinguish between the resource managers; and an object manager which examines the tree structure data maintained in the tree manager to find the identification data of a destination resource manager for which the received operation request should be destined, and sends the operation request to the destination resource manager.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate preferred embodiments of the present invention by way of example.

Object management system and data processing system with centralized mechanism for managing containment relationships among objects


An exposure apparatus exposes a substrate in a vacuum atmosphere through an optical system. The apparatus includes a partition which separates a first space including at least part of the optical system from a second space adjacent to it, and includes an opening to pass light through it. The apparatus further includes a first pressure regulator which regulates the pressure in the first space, a second pressure regulator which regulates the pressure in the second space, and a controller which outputs manipulated variables for the first and second pressure regulators. The controller outputs the manipulated variables for the first and second pressure regulators to change the pressure in the first space and the pressure in the second space in the range of a vacuum to the atmospheric pressure while maintaining a pressure relationship in which the pressure in the first space is higher than that in the second space.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure apparatus, a pressure control method for the same, and a device manufacturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The manufacture of a fine semiconductor element such as a semiconductor memory or logic circuit by the photolithography technique employs a reduction projection exposure apparatus. The reduction projection exposure apparatus projects and transfers a circuit pattern formed on a reticle (or a mask) onto a wafer or the like by a projection optical system.
The minimum dimension (resolution) that the reduction projection exposure apparatus can transfer is proportional to the wavelength of light used for exposure and inversely proportional to the numerical aperture (NA) of the projection optical system. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the resolution. Hence, along with the recent demand for further micropatterning of the semiconductor element, the wavelength of exposure light has been decreasing. More specifically, the wavelength of the exposure light has been decreasing to an ultrahigh-pressure mercury lamp (i-line (with a wavelength of about 365 nm)), a KrF excimer laser (with a wavelength of about 248 nm), and an ArF excimer laser (with a wavelength of about 193 nm) in this order.
The feature size of semiconductor elements is shrinking rapidly, while the photolithography technique using ultraviolet-range exposure light as described above has its limitations. To transfer a very fine circuit pattern of 0.1 μm or less efficiently, a reduction projection exposure apparatus (to be referred to as an "EUV exposure apparatus" hereinafter) using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light having a wavelength of about 10 nm to 15 nm, shorter than that of ultraviolet light, has been developed.
As an EUV light source in the EUV exposure apparatus, for example, a laser plasma source is used. The laser plasma source irradiates a target member placed in a vacuum chamber with a high-intensity pulse laser beam to generate a high-temperature plasma. The EUV light with a wavelength of about, e.g., 13 nm, which is emitted by the plasma is used as the exposure light. As the target member, a thin metal film, an inert gas, a droplet, or the like is used. The target member is supplied into the vacuum chamber by a mechanism such as a gas jet. To increase the average intensity of the EUV light emitted from the target, the higher the repetition frequency of the pulse laser, the better. Usually, the pulse laser is operated with a repetition frequency of several kHz.
In the wavelength region of the EUV light, light absorption by a substance is very large. A refractive optical system utilizing inflection of light, which is used with visible light or ultraviolet light, is not practical, because its EUV light transmittance with respect to an optical element such as a lens is low, and accordingly a reflective optical system is used. As the reticle, a reflective reticle is used, on which a pattern to be transferred is formed by an absorbent arranged on a mirror.
EUV light is largely absorbed by gases. For example, assume an environment where molecules containing carbon such as hydrocarbon remain in a region filled with 10-Pa air. In this environment, light irradiation causes carbon to gradually attach to the surface of an optical member. Carbon absorbs EUV light to decrease the reflectance of the optical member. To prevent carbon from attaching to the surface of the optical member, the region where the optical member to be irradiated with EUV light is arranged must be maintained at a pressure of at least 10−4 Pa or less and preferably 10−6 Pa or less.
In the exposure apparatus, the operation of loading a wafer coated with a resist as a photosensitive agent into the exposure apparatus from the outside and unloading the wafer after transferring the circuit pattern of the reticle to the wafer repeats. A wafer stage has driving mechanisms such as a moving mechanism for scanning and exposure and a transport mechanism which transports the wafer, and accordingly has a very large surface area. These mechanisms generate gases. It is, therefore, very difficult to maintain a wafer stage space within such a low pressure range as mentioned previously.
Furthermore, the resist applied on the wafer is an organic substance, although it is heated and baked before exposure. Thus, when the resist is loaded into the vacuum, the organic substance that forms the resist, a carbon compound resulting from the organic substance by decomposition, and the like vaporize. The vaporized substance diffuses in the exposure apparatus maintained at the vacuum. As the wafer is loaded into the exposure apparatus from the outside, it is difficult to remove air components such as moisture attaching to the wafer within a short period of time before loading the wafer, and the air components are released gradually in the vacuum. Such gases (to be referred to as an outgas hereinafter) emitted from the wafer, the resist, and the constituent components of the exposure apparatus cause contaminants such as carbon to attach to the surface of the optical member. Then, the optical member cannot obtain desired optical characteristics. It may be possible to enhance the vacuum state by using a large-capacity exhaust pump or the like. In this case, carbon-containing molecules or moisture must be prevented from scattering in the exposure apparatus, particularly to the region where the mirror or reticle, the reflectance of which may decrease as carbide attaches, is arranged.
In view of this, a partition may be provided between the wafer stage space and the projection optical system space. An opening may be formed in only a portion of the partition corresponding to the light path where EUV light for exposure passes, to prevent diffusion of the outgas from the wafer stage space into a projection optical system space. Similarly, a partition having an opening in only a light path can be provided between the projection optical system space and a reticle stage space, and between the reticle stage space and an illumination optical system space. To suppress diffusion of the outgas, the opening that connects the two spaces must be formed in the vicinity of the wafer where the EUV light focuses, and also be as small as possible.
Merely forming an opening in the partition may not sufficiently allow the opening to have a desired conductance. A wall having a sufficiently thick opening so as not to block the EUV light path can be set. If the thickness of the opening part is variable, the conductance can be regulated to suit the situation. As the mirror of the projection optical system suppresses optical aberration, the EUV light desirably enters the mirror almost perpendicularly. The mirror that constitutes the optical system also must be arranged close to the wafer or reticle, further adding limitations on the shape of the opening.
To prevent diffusion of the outgas to the projection optical system space, a high-purity inert gas may be supplied. This increases the pressure in the projection optical system space to be higher than that in the wafer stage space, thereby preventing diffusion and inflow of the outgas (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-57154 corresponding to US Publication No. 2005-0030504 A1). As the inert gas, high-purity helium gas, high-purity nitrogen gas, or the like is used. Supply of high-purity helium does not largely attenuate the EUV light in light path space from the light source to the wafer. When compared to a case wherein the entire light path space is maintained at a high vacuum, the attenuation merely changes by as little as several % or less.
When using a gas plasma source as the light source, a filter that selectively transmits only EUV light can be used in the light path, so the gas components of the source will not influence the illumination optical system. As the filter, for example, a Zr filter may be used. The transmittance, however, is about 50% with a 0.5-mm thick filter, and decreases greatly.
In the exposure apparatus, when performing periodic maintenance or parts exchange, vacuum in the space must be broken, and the space must be opened to the atmosphere. In a general vacuum device, when breaking vacuum in the space, the space to break vacuum and the space not to break vacuum are disconnected. An inert gas or dry air is supplied into the space, and the space is pressurized until reaching the atmospheric pressure, thus opening the space to the atmosphere. In the EUV exposure apparatus, however, as the opening and mirror are arranged in the vicinity of the wafer or reticle, it is difficult to provide a mechanism to close the opening. For this reason, when the space is opened to the atmosphere, the wafer stage space communicates with the projection optical system space through the opening, and the gas may shift between the two spaces. In breaking vacuum in a case wherein spaces with different vacuum degrees and outgas amounts coexist through an opening, as in the EUV exposure apparatus, the following problems arise in accordance with the initial pressures in the respective spaces.
(1) When the projection optical system space is maintained at a high vacuum and the wafer stage space has a pressure higher than that in the projection optical system space during exposure, if vacuum of the exposure apparatus is broken, the outgas diffuses and flows to the low-pressure projection optical system space.
(2) When an inert gas is supplied to the projection optical system space during exposure so the projection optical system space has a pressure higher than that in the wafer stage space, when vacuum is broken, the pressure gradient between the projection optical system space and wafer stage system cannot be maintained, as shown in FIG. 13. Then, the outgas may diffuse and flow to the projection optical system space.
If these problems occur, the outgas substance attaches to the surface of the optical element, and desired optical characteristics cannot be obtained. If the outgas diffused in the projection optical system space, degassing from the projection optical system space during re-evacuation takes time to decrease the evacuation efficiency. Such decrease in evacuation efficiency leads to an increase in downtime of the apparatus.
As described above, in the EUV exposure apparatus, an opening formed in the partition between the space where the outgas amount is little and the space where the outgas amount is large makes isolation of the two spaces incomplete. Consequently, the outgas can diffuse from the space where the wafer stage and reticle stage are arranged and the outgas amount is accordingly large, to the space where the projection optical system is arranged or the space where the illumination optical system is arranged, causing a problem.
Hence, in the exposure apparatus having a plurality of vacuum regions which are incompletely isolated from each other, to suppress the outgas from diffusing from the space where the outgas amount is large to the space where the outgas amount is small, when breaking vacuum, is sought for.

Exposure apparatus, pressure control method for the same, and device manufacturing method


In a multi-mode interference waveguide (MMI) of a sheet shape spreading in the length direction and the width direction, the length of the multi-mode interference waveguide is set to such a length that the unique mode interferes in the length direction, thereby reducing the coupling loss when inputting/outputting the signal light. The multi-mode interference waveguide has a maximum refraction factor portion in the thickness direction and has such a refraction factor distribution that the refraction factor is reduced as departing from the maximum refraction factor portion. Thus, it is possible to suppress mode dispersion in the thickness direction of the multi-mode interference waveguide and obtain a high transmission rate in the order of 10 Gb/s.

Research has been performed on an optical device using an optical transmission line which optical device is suitable for optical communication systems and the like. It is expected that such an optical device will be applied to an optical data bus sheet for data exchange between optical circuits and applied to an optical splitter for splitting a signal beam and an optical combiner for combining signal beams. Of the optical transmission lines, a multi-mode optical transmission line, which is inexpensive compared to a single-mode optical transmission line, can take the place of a conventional electronic circuit.
An example of the multi-mode optical transmission line is a sheet-form multi-mode optical transmission line. For example, Document (3) discloses an optical bus circuit board provided with: a sheet-form transparent medium whose refractive index is homogeneous; a laser diode array that makes a signal beam incident on an incident end surface of the transparent medium; and a photodiode array that receives the signal beam having exited from the exit side end surface of the transparent medium. In the optical bus circuit board disclosed in Document (3), the incident beam emitted from the laser diode array is repetitively totally reflected in the direction of the thickness and in the direction of the width inside the transparent medium, exits from the entire area of the exit side end surface as the exiting beam, and is received by the photodiode array.
Moreover, Document (2) discloses, like Document (3), an optical splitter provided with: a sheet-form transparent medium whose refractive index is homogeneous; a laser diode that makes a signal beam incident on the transparent medium; and a plurality of optical fibers that receives the signal beam having exited from the transparent medium. In the optical splitter described in Document (2), a light diffusing layer is provided on the incident side end surface so that the signal beam is efficiently diffused inside the transparent medium within a short distance. In Document (2), the incident beam is also repetitively totally reflected in the direction of the thickness and in the direction of the width within the transparent medium, exits from the entire area of the exit side end surface as the exiting beam, and is received by the photodiode array.
Moreover, Document (1) discloses a sheet-form optical data bus having a refractive index distribution such that the highest refractive index is provided at the center in the direction of the thickness and the refractive index is decreased with distance from the center. In the optical data bus described in Document (1), the mode dispersion of multiple modes is reduced by the refractive index distribution. In Document (1), the incident beam also exits from the entire area of the exit side end surface as the exiting beam.
On the other hand, there is a technology in which an optical waveguide that transmits a signal beam in multiple modes in the direction of the width is disposed between a single-mode optical transmission line on the incident side and a single-mode optical transmission line on the exit side. This optical waveguide has a predetermined size L in the direction of the length which size L is determined by a uniform refractive index n of the optical waveguide, the basic mode width W0, in the direction of the width, of the optical waveguide and the wavelength λ of the transmitted signal beam. The optical waveguide generates the exiting beam by the eigenmodes of the signal beam interfering with each other in the direction of the length, based on the size L in the direction of the length (Documents (4) to (8), (11)).
Moreover, in recent years, in the field of optical communications, a wavelength division multiplexing (referred to also as WDM) method has been examined in which, in order to increase the communication capacity, a plurality of signals is superimposed on a signal beam of different wavelengths to be multiplexed and transmitted on the same optical transmission line. In the WDM method, optical devices such as an optical demultiplexer that demultiplexes signal beams of different wavelengths and an optical multiplexer that multiplexes signal beams of different wavelengths play an important role.
A conventional example is known that realizes such an optical demultiplexer and an optical splitter by use of the technology in which an optical waveguide that transmits a signal beam in multiple modes in the direction of the width is disposed between a single-mode optical transmission line on the incident side and a single-mode optical transmission line on the exit side (Documents (9), (12) to (15)). These conventional optical demultiplexer and optical splitter are connected to the incident side single-mode waveguide and to the exit side single-mode waveguide, and are provided with the optical waveguide that transmits a signal beam in multiple modes in the direction of the width. In the optical devices described in Documents (9) and (12) to (15), a multiplex signal beam of two wavelengths that are different from each other is transmitted in the incident side single-mode waveguide and made incident on the optical waveguide. The size, in the direction of the width, and the size, in the direction of the length, of the optical waveguide are set so that the exiting beam is generated in a different position on the exit end by the eigenmodes of the signal beam interfering with each other in the direction of the length.
Moreover, Document (10) discloses a method of manufacturing an optical device provided with an incident side beam converter, an optical waveguide and an exit side beam converter. The optical device manufacturing method of Document 10 describes that the optical waveguide is formed by enclosing a fluid material in a glass substrate. Moreover, Document (10) particularly discloses that the incident side beam converter and the exit side beam converter are provided with a refractive index distribution by successively laminating materials having different refractive indices (see Document (10), FIG. 4 and the corresponding description).
In a case where the multi-mode optical transmission line is made of a homogeneous medium, when a signal beam is transmitted, the physical optical path length (phase velocity) differs among the modes. For this reason, a phenomenon occurs in which the intensity distribution of the exiting beam varies depending on the length of the optical transmission line.
Moreover, when the length of the multi-mode optical transmission line is long to an extent that exceeds 100 mm, since the group velocity differs among the optical paths, a phenomenon occurs in which the signal waveform of the transmitted beam changes.
As described above, when a mode dispersion occurs which is a phenomenon in which the phase velocity or the group velocity differs among the modes, the signal beam cannot be transmitted while the intensity distribution of the incident beam is maintained to the exit side.
To solve the above-mentioned problem, an optical transmission line provided with a refractive index distribution is proposed. A signal beam propagating through a medium having a refractive index distribution draws a curved (meandering) beam locus based on the refractive index distribution. By applying this phenomenon, even if the physical optical path lengths of the optical paths are different from each other, the optical path length thereof can be made the same as each other by the difference in refractive index. Therefore, by appropriately setting the refractive index distribution, a multi-mode optical transmission line can be obtained since the mode dispersion is suppressed.
For example, Document (1) describes an optical device provided with laminated sheet-form optical transmission lines and having a refractive index distribution in the direction in which the sheet-form optical transmission lines are laminated. The sheet-form optical transmission lines described in Document (1) are capable of transmitting a gigabit-class high-frequency signal in multiple modes since the mode dispersion is suppressed by the refractive index distribution.
Such an optical device requires a structure for making a signal beam incident on the sheet-form optical transmission lines and making the signal beam to exit from the sheet-form optical transmission lines. In the optical device described in the above-described Document (1), a signal beam is made parallelly incident in the signal beam transmission direction from one end of the sheet-form optical transmission lines, and parallelly exits in the signal beam transmission direction from the other end of the sheet-form optical transmission lines (FIGS. 1 and 9 of Document (1)).
Moreover, a technology is known in which the optical waveguide (sheet-form optical transmission line) is provided with a mirror for perpendicularly bending the optical axis of the signal beam and the optical waveguide is coupled to the outside (FIGS. 1 and 2 of Document (16)). In the optical waveguide described in Document (16), the signal beam incident from a direction perpendicular to the transmission direction is bent by a mirror disposed at 45 degrees from the signal beam transmission direction and is incident on the optical waveguide. Moreover, the signal beam transmitted through the optical waveguide is bent by a mirror disposed at 45 degrees from the signal beam transmission direction and exits in a direction perpendicular to the transmission direction (see FIGS. 1 and 2 of Document (16)).
List of the Documents
(1) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-111738(FIG. 3)
(2) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-329962(FIG. 2)
(3) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-147351(FIG. 1)
(4) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-050330(FIG. 1)
(5) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-183710(FIG. 1)
(6) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Hei 1-156703(FIG. 1)
(7) U.S. Pat. No. 4,087,159 (FIG. 1)
(8) U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,045 (FIG. 1)
(9) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Hei 8-201648 (pages 2 to 5, FIG. 11)
(10) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No.2003-043285 (FIG. 4)
(11) Lucas B. Soldano and Eric C. M. Pennings, "Optical Multi-Mode Interference Device Based on Self-Imaging: Principles and Applications", Vol. 13, No.4 Journal of Lightwave Technology, April, 1995
(12) F. Rottmann, A. Neyer, W. Mevenkamp, and E. Voges, "Integrated-Optic Wavelength Multiplexers on Lithium Niobate based on Two-Mode Interference", Journal of Lightwave Technology" Vol. 6, No. 6 June, 1988
(13) M. R. Paiam, C. F. Janz, R. I. MacDonald and J. N. Broughton, "Compact Planar 980/1550-nm Wavelength Multi/Demultiplexer Based on Multimode Interference" IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 7, No. 10, October, 1995
(14) K. C. Lin and W. Y. Lee, "Guided-wave 1.3/1.55 μm wavelength division multiplexer based on multimode interference", IEEE Electronics Letters, Vol. 32, No. 14, Jul. 4, 1996.
(15) Baojun Li, Guozheng Li, Enke Liu, Zuimin Jiang, Jie Qin and Xun Wang, "Low-Loss 1×2 Multimode Interference Wavelength Demultiplexer in Silicon-Germanium Alloy" IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Vol. 11, No. 5, May, 1999
(16) Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Sho 62-35304(FIG. 1, FIG. 2)

Optical device, optical device manufacturing method, and optical integrated device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods and devices for formatting a database. The method can include clustering, into each block, a set of sequence of elements from each column of a database; generating a file storing one or more blocks having the clustered set of sequences of elements; providing a first table storing file schema information that associates the elements with the file; and providing a second table for storing block schema information that associates the columns with the one or more blocks.

In a relational database, data is represented as a two-dimensional table of rows and columns. In current solutions, the data can be stored in row-oriented and column-oriented formats.
A row-oriented Database Management System (DBMS) stores data tables by row. Row-oriented systems are designed to efficiently return data for an entire row, or record, in as few operations as possible. This matches the common use-case where the system is attempting to retrieve information about a particular object or product information for an online shopping system. By storing the record's data in a single block on the disk, along with related records, the system can quickly retrieve records with a minimum of disk I/O operations. However, in Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) queries, not each value of a row is of same significance. Row-oriented systems are not efficient at performing queries when only a few columns of a row are desired for queries.
A columnar or column-oriented DBMS stores data tables by column. The values of one column in a table are stored in one column file. This is designed to efficiently support OLAP queries where often only a few columns instead of an entire row are of interest in a table. In a columnar format, data of a particular column or a few columns can be retrieved without performing I/O operations on the columns that are not queried. In addition, compression on the values of one column can be more effective as they are of the same type, which has been proven to be a considerable saving on I/O cost for many typical OLAP queries. By storing data in columns rather than rows, the database can more precisely access the data it needs to answer a query rather than scanning and discarding unwanted data in rows. Query performance is improved for certain workloads. However, as values of all the columns of a single row spread across different column files, accessing a row requires accessing all corresponding column files. Since many typical Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) queries often request such operations, I/O costs are inevitably increased in columnar systems.
Both columnar and row databases can use traditional database query languages like SQL to load data and perform queries, and can become the backbone in a system to serve data for common extract, transform, load and data visualization tools. In current solutions, a relational database can be stored in a row-oriented format in one copy and in a column-oriented format in another copy such that a system can benefit from both formats, however, at the cost of consumption of resources.

Row-column formatting for relational databases


A two-wheeled self-balancing scooter includes a scooter body, two wheels separately located at two ends of said scooter body, a wheel motor built in each said wheel, a control circuit and a power supply fixed inside the scooter body and configured for controlling the movement of the two wheels, wherein the scooter body is made of a single frame, a connector fixed to each of said wheel wherein the single frame connects with each wheel through the connector, a pressure sensor located between each connector and the single frame wherein the pressure sensors are electrically linked with said control circuit, wherein the control circuit controls different speeds between said two wheels to complete a turn according to the different pressures detected at the pressure sensor at each wheel when the gravity center of the user shifts towards one wheel at turning.

The instant disclosure relates to a two-wheeled self-balancing scooter.
With the continuous rise of living standards, people have become more focused on improvement of the quality of life. Fitness exercise, recreation and entertainment have become an indispensable part of people's lives. Fitness and entertainment equipment of various forms has been emerging in an endless stream. Self-balancing scooters that are easy to operate have become a trendy product for young people nowadays. Self-balancing scooters are small-sized and easy to operate with attractive appearance and have been favored by consumers. Today's self-balancing scooters in the market are mainly single-wheeled balancing scooters and two-wheeled balancing scooters, among them two-wheeled balancing scooters are safer and more suitable as scooters. However, the two-wheeled balancing scooters currently available in the market are still not perfect. The frame of a two-wheeled self-balancing scooter in the market is comprised of the left part and the right part. When the two-wheeled self-balancing scooter makes a turn, the frame revolves against the ground on one side, which is not safe and is likely to result in accidents.


A vehicular rearview assembly that has a rounded outer perimeter edge to satisfy safety standards and contains an EC element having a complex peripheral ring, a front surface that is fully observable from the front of the assembly, and a user interface with switches and sensors that activate and configure, in cooperation with electronic circuitry of the assembly, pre-defined function(s) or device(s) of the assembly in response to the user input applied to the user interface. A complex peripheral ring may include multiple bands the structures of which is adapted to provide for specified optical characteristics of light, reflected off of the ring. Electrical communications between the electronic circuitry, the mirror element, and the user interface utilize connectors configured to exert a low contact force, onto the mirror element, limited in part by the strength of adhesive affixing the EC element to an element of the housing of the assembly.

The present invention generally relates to electro-optic (EO) devices and apparatus incorporating such devices. In particular, the invention relates to electro-optic devices used in architectural windows or vehicular rearview mirror elements.
Electro-optic rearview mirror elements are becoming more common in vehicular applications with regard to both inside and outside rearview mirrors and mirror assemblies, whether on the driver's or the passenger's side. Such electro-optic rearview mirrors are automatically controlled to vary the reflectivity of the mirror in response to rearward and forward aimed light sensors so as to reduce the glare of headlamps in the image reflected to the driver's eyes. Typical electro-optic elements, when incorporated in vehicular rearview mirror assemblies, will have an effective field of view (as defined by relevant laws, codes and specifications) that is less than the area defined by the perimeter of the element itself. Often, the effective field of view of the element is limited, at least in part, by the construction of the element itself and/or an associated bezel.
Typically, a vehicular rearview assembly (for example, an autodimming assembly such as, generally, EO mirror assembly and, in particular, an electrochromic, EC, assembly, or an assembly including a prismatic element) includes a mirror element that is at least partially encased in a casing or housing element, sometimes with a bezel portion of the housing element that encompasses at least a portion of the edge surface of the mirror element and that mechanically cooperates (via snapping elements or other integration mechanism) with the remaining portion of the housing element. Typically, either the mirror element or the assembly itself is spatially (for example, angularly) alterable by the driver (for example, via a pivot assembly) to adjust a rearward field of view associated with the rearview assembly.
Various attempts have been made to provide a mirror element having an effective field of view substantially equal to the area defined by its perimeter. As shown in FIG. 1, depicting a cross-sectional portion of a typical rearview assembly employing an EC element, the subassembly 100 includes an EC mirror element 110, a bezel 112, and a carrier plate 117. The subassembly may further include gaskets 120 and 122 that are placed on either side of the EC element 110 to form a secondary seal around the periphery of the element 110. The EC element 110 includes a front substantially transparent element or substrate 130 typically formed of glass and having a front surface 130a and a rear surface 130b. The EC element 110 further includes a rear element 140, which is spaced slightly apart from the element 130. A seal 146 is formed between elements 130 and 140 about their periphery so as to define a sealed chamber 147 therebetween, in which an EC medium is provided. As known in the art, elements 130 and 140 preferably have electrically conductive layers (serving as electrodes, not shown) on the surfaces facing the chamber such that an electrical potential may be applied across the EC medium. These electrodes are electrically isolated from one another and are separately coupled to a power source (not shown) by means of corresponding bus connectors (connector 148b is shown in a specific implementation, as an electrically-conducting clip). To facilitate attachment of bus connectors to corresponding electrically-conducting layers, elements 130 and 140 are typically mutually offset so that one bus connector may be secured along a bottom edge of one of the elements and another bus connector may be secured to the top edge of the other element. The bus connectors (such as the connector 148b) may be spring clips (similar to those disclosed in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,064,509 and 6,062,920) and are configured to ensure that they remain physically and electrically coupled to the electrode layers on the inward-facing surfaces of elements 130 and 140. Alternatively, the bus connectors may include an electrically-conductive member such as a thin-film or foil that electrically extends a corresponding conductive layer to the back of the assembly over an edge surface of at least one of the elements 130, 140 (as discussed, for example, in commonly-assigned U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/505,458, 12/563,917). In a specific implementation, such electrical extension may include a portion that wraps around an edge of a corresponding substrate. Once the EC element 110 has been manufactured and bus connectors have been configures, then the mirror subassembly 100 may be formed. As shown in FIG. 1, a bezel 112, the function of which is to mechanically support the element retained by the bezel, may include a front lip 151 extending over a portion of the front surface 130a of the front element 130. While the width D1 of such lip may vary, it typically extends over a sufficient portion such as 5 mm, for example, of the front surface 130a to obscure a person's view of the seal 146 and protect the seal 146 from possible degradation caused by ambient UV light.
Prior to inserting the electrochromic mirror element 110 in the bezel 115, an optional front gasket 120 may be provided behind the front lip 151 so as to be pressed between the front surface 130a of the front element 130 and the inner surface of the front lip 151 of bezel 112. The mirror element 110 is then placed in bezel 112 and an optional rear gasket 122 may be provided along the periphery of the back surface of element 140. In lieu of, or in addition to front and/or rear gaskets 120, 122 the bezel/mirror interface area may be filled or potted with a sealing material such as urethane, silicone, or epoxy. A carrier plate 117, which is typically formed of an engineering grade rigid plastic or a similar material as used for bezel 112, is then pressed against the rear surface of element 140 with the gasket 122 compressed therebetween. A plurality of tabs (not shown) may be formed inside of the bezel such that carrier plate 117 is snapped in place so as to secure mirror element 110 within the bezel. The carrier plate 117 is typically used to mount the mirror subassembly within an exterior mirror housing. More specifically, a specific positioner (not shown) may also be mounted within the mirror housing and mechanically coupled to the carrier plate 117 for enabling remote adjustment of the position of the mirror subassembly within the housing. Various embodiments with reduced lip of the bezel has been also discussed in prior art.
While the above-described structures are readily manufacturable, various styling concerns have arisen that often require not only elimination of a conventional bezel but addressing various structural and functional problems generated by such change.

Automotive rearview mirror with capacitive switches


A control system for an internal combustion engine, the control system receiving an input signal from an engine speed sensor, receiving an input signal from an engine knock sensor, advancing the spark timing of the internal combustion engine until a knock signal is received from the knock sensor, and, in response to receipt of a knock signal from the knock sensor, retarding the spark timing of the internal combustion engine until a knock signal is no longer received from the knock sensor and thereafter maintaining a substantially constant spark timing until the signal received from the engine speed sensor indicates a change in engine speed.

The invention relates generally to ignition systems for internal combustion engines. More particularly, the invention relates to electronic ignition systems for marine propulsion devices.
Previously known electronic ignition systems for internal combustion engines generally receive a signal from an engine knock sensor and provide a signal for advancing or retarding engine spark timing in response to the signal received from the sensor. This procedure is performed in an attempt to operate the internal combustion engine at optimum efficiency. Some such ignition systems constantly adjust timing in an attempt to maintain, for a given speed, maximum timing advance without knock. A problem with such systems is that the internal combustion engine frequently encounters knock conditions, because the engine is continuously operated proximate the knock threshold.
The prior art also provides an internal combustion engine including an ignition system responsive to a knock sensor, wherein timing is greatly retarded in response to a fault of the knock sensor. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,602. A problem with this design is that, upon fault of the knock sensor, closed loop control of spark timing versus engine speed is completely abandoned in favor of large retardation, thereby resulting in poor fuel economy.
The prior art also provides marine propulsion devices including ignition interruption means for assisting transmission shifting. See, for example, Dretzka et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,622. In these devices engine ignition is generally interrupted when a switch communicating with a shift lever detects movement of the lever, if sufficient shift resistance is encountered. A load sensing device senses shift resistance to movement of a clutch member into or out of engagement with a bevel gear of a transmission, and the engine ignition is interrupted, during shifting, if the shift resistance exceeds a predetermined value. A problem with such a design is that if an operator of the marine propulsion device is slow in actuating the shift lever, the engine ignition may be interrupted for a sufficiently long period that the engine may stall.
The prior art further provides ignition systems designed to skip firing of certain cylinders at certain engine speeds, for the purpose of fuel economy. However, these designs are not particularly addressed to the problem of assisting shifting. A problem may also arise, in skip firing designs, if the same cylinders are continually skipped, thereby creating a gas buildup, which could lead to a backfire condition.

Ignition system for marine propulsion device


A method and system for intelligent bit recovery identifies toggling bits, which change in value from one read to the next, and examines a subset of potential bit patterns. The subset is a fraction of the potential bit patterns, and is based on an understanding of the flash memory and the problems that may cause the toggling bits. The intelligent bit recovery may analyze at least one aspect of the flash memory to identify a problem, or plurality of problems, that is potentially causing the toggling bits, and to select the subset of potential bit patterns as potential solutions. The subset of potential bit patterns examined by the intelligent bit recovery is a small fraction of the entire set of potential bit patterns.

Flash memory is composed of flash memory cells that store bits, with a flash memory Single Level Cell (SLC) storing a single bit and a flash memory Multi-Level Cell (MLC) storing multiple bits. When reading the stored bits from the flash memory cells, the bits may toggle from one read to the next. These bits are termed toggle bits. The toggle bits are information that are stored on the tail of a particular state of a flash memory cell, and are intrinsically invalid as the toggle bits are in-between normal states.
One solution to the problem of toggling bits is to iteratively test each of the possible values of the toggling bits. For example, a page in flash memory may have N toggling bits. This solution iteratively flips through the N toggling bits (potentially through each of the 2N possibilities), testing the possibilities using an error correction algorithm until the error correction algorithm indicates that one of the possibilities is valid. However, this solution is time-intensive (potentially requiring testing of 2N possibilities) and may not yield the correct result (since the error correction algorithm may indicate that multiple of the 2N possibilities are "valid").
Another solution is to read the flash memory cell several times and use the majority count to decide if the toggling bit should be a one or zero. Then, the data pattern is again fed into a decoding algorithm or other error correction algorithm in order to determine if a valid code word results. However, the values of the toggling bits are often erratic, so that a majority count may not yield the correct result.
Still another solution is to add more parity bytes and use a more complex error correction decoder. Parity bytes and error correction coding are typically used to correct for errors in reading the flash memory cells. The additional parity bytes and more complex decoder, while potentially correcting for the toggling bits, may overly complicate the operation of the flash memory.

Intelligent bit recovery for flash memory