A method of manufacturing a plant finished product, comprising the step of processing a plant or a processed material thereof with high-temperature and high-pressure liquid, gas, or fluid.

In recent years, a demand for development of food or drink with a new aroma or taste is becoming increasingly stronger along with the diversification of the consumer's tastes. This is because it is possible to make a product different from others and to have superiority by imparting new aroma and taste to food and drink. However, in a case where an existing raw material is processed according to a conventional method, an obtainable flavor is nothing more than an extension of a conventional flavor even when the conditions of processing are changed. Thus, it is generally difficult to create an absolutely new flavor. Therefore, in order to impart an absolutely new flavor to food or drink, it is necessary to develop (1) a method for processing an existing raw material in a new manner, (2) a method for processing a new raw material in a conventional manner, and (3) a method for processing a new raw material in a new manner.
The decision of which methods among the above mentioned methods to use is made depending on the properties of food or drink to be manufactured. For example, since raw materials of beer are limited to malt, hops, rice, etc. in the Liquor Tax Law, the development of new raw materials for beer has limitations. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a technique for imparting a new flavor to beer by processing an existing raw material in a new manner.
On the other hand, in a case of happoushu or other drinks like beer ("happoushu" in the below descriptions), so long as it is manufactured using malt as a raw material and is effervescent, raw materials other than malt and manufacturing methods are not limited. Therefore, it is relatively easy to increase the variety of flavors of happoushu by the use of new raw materials. For example, in order to impart a new flavor to happoushu such as a beer-like beverage, an absolutely new raw material obtained by adding an additional other material to an existing raw material such as malt can be used (see, for example, Claim 1 etc. of Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 9-37756). However, it is not easy to obtain an absolutely new flavor as long as an existing raw material such as malt used now. Therefore, it is also necessary to develop a technique for imparting an absolutely new flavor to happoushu or the like by processing an existing raw material in a new manner.
Heretofore, various methods for processing existing raw materials such as malt have been developed. For example, in a case of beer manufacture, the specialty malt such as melanoidin malt or caramel malt is used as one of raw materials in order to control the color or flavor of beer products. Such specialty malt is manufactured by roasting malt at a higher temperature than usual in a process of malt manufacture to allow caramelization or the Maillard reaction to occur. Specifically, malt is normally roasted for about 2 to 6 hours at about 80° C. to stop germination. On the other hand, melanoidin malt is manufactured by roasting malt for about 2 to 6 hours at about 100 to 130° C. in open air, and caramel malt is manufactured by roasting malt for about 2 to 6 hours at about 130 to 160° C. in open air.
However, such a specialty malt manufacturing method involves a problem that input energy is large due to high temperature roasting. From the viewpoint of reduction in the input energy, technical developments to reduce the time for roasting is desired.
Further, the specialty malt manufacturing method also involves a problem in that substances contained in malt are oxidized, because malt is roasted in an open system where oxygen is continuously supplied. The such oxides produced have adverse effects on the quality of beer or happoushu. Among such oxides, lipid peroxides and aldehydes produced due to the oxidation of lipids contained in the malt deteriorate beer or happoushu in flavor. For example, an oxidized smell is given and a bad aftertaste is left on the tongue. In addition, such lipid peroxides and aldehydes also reduce head retention and impair flavor stability. For this reason, it is desired to develop a technique for suppressing the oxidation of lipids contained in raw materials when the raw materials such as malt are processed.
Under these circumstances, various methods for minimizing the oxidation of substances in the process of manufacturing alcoholic drink using malt or the like as a raw material are being actively investigated, and some methods have already been disclosed (see Japanese Patent Laid-open No. JP-A-2000-4866, No. 2000-2701, and No. 2002-131306). Further, a technique for removing lipids from raw materials by the use of supercritical CO2 has also been developed (see Japanese Patent No. 3255962). However, a technique for suppressing the oxidation of lipids contained malt to be used as a raw material in a process of manufacturing the malt has not yet been developed.

Method of manufacturing plant finished product


A delivery device for inserting an interbody implant into an intervertebral space in a patient has an elongate tube with a channel and is sized to fit in an intervertebral space. The elongate tube has a proximal portion, a distal portion, a longitudinal axis, and a window with a longitudinal axis. The window is disposed adjacent the distal portion of the elongate tube and the longitudinal axis of the window is offset from the longitudinal axis of the elongate tube. The channel is sized to receive the interbody implant, and also the channel is configured such that the interbody implant is advanced therealong from the proximal region toward the distal region. The interbody implant is deployed into the intervertebral space from the window.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to medical devices and methods. More specifically, the present invention relates to a device and method for delivering implants such as an interbody implant to a space such as an intervetebral space.
2. Background of the Invention
Whether from degenerative disease, traumatic disruption, infection or neoplastic invasion, alterations of the normal anatomical relationships between the spinal vertebrae can cause significant pain, deformity and disability. Spinal disease is a major health problem and procedures that surgically reconstruct the spinal column have become common procedures in the industrialized world.
Vertebral fusion may be accomplished by using an anterior, lateral or posterior approach and each has particular advantages and drawbacks. Frequently, circumferential fusion of the unstable level with fixation of both the anterior and posterior aspect of the spine is desired. This requires that patients undergo a combination of the aforementioned approaches. The anterior or lateral approaches are used to insert the bone graft into the disc space between the adjacent vertebrae while the posterior approach is used to place bone screws or similar fasteners that are used to immobilize the vertebral bodies. Other implants such as interbody devices may also need to be deployed.
Commercially available surgical instruments and methods of use have varying degrees of success. In some instances, the instruments have a large profile and can obstruct the surgical field, or they require excessive tissue retraction or bone decompression in order to fit in the treatment area. In other instances, the instruments and methods may not utilize the easiest pathway to the treatment area or provide adequate access. For example, in some intervertebral implantations of interbody devices, the surgeon may deliver the device laterally relative to the spinal midline thereby requiring more bone to be removed in order for the delivery device and implant to fit in the space. Bone removal is generally avoided when possible. Therefore it would be desirable to provide delivery devices and methods that permit a more medial delivery in order to reduce the amount of bone removal required. Additionally, interbody devices may have to be delivered individually thereby requiring more operating room time. Therefore, it would also be desirable if bilateral delivery of interbody implants could be performed. At least some of these objectives will be satisfied by the various embodiments disclosed in this specification.

Methods and apparatus for implanting an interbody device


A turbine system may include several air lines that extend from a compressor to a turbine, and the air lines may have valves. Additionally, the turbine system may also include several sensors that are coupled to the valves, several actuators that are coupled to the valves, and a controller that can send a command to set a valve position of one of the valves based at least partially on a valve position of another valve.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to turbine systems, and more specifically, to systems and methods for reducing airflow imbalances between air lines that are part of turbine systems.
Air lines are used to transfer an oxidant, such as compressed air, from one part of a turbine system to another. In some turbine systems, one or more air lines may be utilized to send compressed air from a compressor section to a turbine section of the turbine system. In such turbine systems more than one air line may be used to couple the compressor to the turbine. When using more than one air line, various systems and methods may be employed to control the airflow within the air lines of turbine systems.

Systems and methods for reducing airflow imbalances in turbines


A parallel computer system includes computing nodes to execute a parallel program for generating computing processes that perform computations and monitoring processes and forming a monitoring hierarchical structure, each monitoring process monitors a monitoring process and a computing process arranged immediately lower than the monitoring process, each of the computing nodes operating as the computing process when the computing process is allocated to the computing node and operating as the monitoring process when the monitoring process is allocated to the computing node. Each of the computing nodes allocated to the monitoring process performs processing that changes the hierarchical structure based on a first target value serving as a target value for the total number of subordinate computing processes of the allocated monitoring process and a second target value serving as a target value for the number of monitoring processes and computing processes arranged immediately lower than the allocated monitoring process.

Programs used in a parallel computer system including a plurality of computing nodes include a master-worker type parallel program. Master-worker type parallel programs include a single-layer master-worker type parallel program and a multi-layer master-worker type parallel program.
In a single-layer master-worker type parallel program, a computing task to be executed by the parallel program is divided into a plurality of subtasks. Each subtask may be executed on an arbitrary computing node belonging to a computer cluster. The subtask, execution of which is started, terminates within a finite time period in the absence of an abnormality in the computing node (e.g., a hardware fault or a software fault in the computing node).
There are times when execution of a given subtask depends on a result of execution of a different subtask. For example, when subtask A is dependent on a result of execution of subtask B, execution of subtask A is started after termination of execution of subtask B. Subtasks having no interdependence may be executed concurrently (in parallel).
In the single-layer master-worker type parallel program, one master process and a plurality of worker processes are generated. These processes are generated on computing nodes available for the parallel program (all computing nodes of a computing cluster may be available or computing nodes alone which are allocated units called jobs may be available).
The master process performs management and execution control of subtasks. Each worker process executes a subtask at the request of the master process. The master process searches for a subtask, execution of which may be started, and requests a worker process to execute the subtask. The requested worker process starts executing the subtask. When the execution of the subtask terminates, the worker process notifies the master process of the termination of the execution and results of the execution. The master process compiles execution results. With termination of execution of all the subtasks, the task of the parallel program terminates.
The master process also monitors the status (operation) of each worker process. The master process may sense whether a subtask is being normally executed by a method, such as periodical communication with each worker process. When a subtask terminates abnormally due to an abnormality in a computing node, the master process determines that a worker process having executed the abnormally terminated subtask is in an abnormal state. The master process excludes the worker process determined as being in an abnormal state from a group of available worker processes. At this time, the master process requests a different worker process to execute the subtask having been executed by the worker process determined as being in an abnormal state.
In a multi-layer master-worker type parallel program, one master process, a plurality of submaster processes having a fixed hierarchical structure, and a plurality of worker processes are generated. The master process does not directly monitor a worker process but monitors a submaster process. Each submaster process monitors a worker process subordinate to itself. In this manner, overall monitoring of the worker processes is performed.
For further information, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent publication No. 2011-118899, Japanese Laid-Open Patent publication No. 2005-242986, Japanese Laid-Open Patent publication No. 2003-280933, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent publication No. 2008-243216.
In a single-layer master-worker type parallel program, a single master process monitors all worker processes. This causes a monitoring load on the master process to increase in proportion to the number of worker processes. Thus, execution of a large-scale master-worker type parallel program may involve an enormous monitoring cost of a master process. In contrast, in a multi-layer master-worker type parallel program, the number of processes to be directly monitored by a master process and the number of processes to be directly monitored by each submaster process are smaller. This makes a monitoring load to be borne by one process lower than a monitoring load in the single-layer master-worker type parallel program.
The multi-layer master-worker type parallel program, however, suffers from the problem below. In the single-layer master-worker type parallel program, the master process alone is a process irrelevant to subtask execution. For this reason, one computing node alone which executes the master process is a computing node which does not perform actual computation processing. In contrast, in the multi-layer master-worker parallel type program, neither the master process not a submaster process executes a subtask. Since the multi-layer master-worker type parallel program has a larger number of computing nodes which do not perform actual computation processing than in the single-layer master-worker type parallel program, as described above, the multi-layer master-worker type parallel program suffers from the problem of lower efficiency of computing node utilization (node utilization efficiency).

Parallel computer system and method for controlling parallel computer system


An apparatus for winding or unwinding a cable from a flanged reel, comprising an assembly for rotatably supporting the reel and a reel drive including an endless belt tensioned around pulleys and frictionally engaging the peripheral edge of the reel flange. The advancement of the belt causes the reel to rotate in the desired direction. The invention also extends to a novel method for winding or unwinding cable from a flanged reel.

Multi-strand electrical power or communication cables are normally shipped and stored in a coiled condition on a flanged reel. A full reel of heavy-gage cable can be extremely heavy, weighing in excess of several hundred pounds, and it is difficult to handle when desired to wind or to unwind the cable from the reel.
Commercially available cable winding or unwinding devices designed to handle flanged reels are provided with an arm having a spindle to rotatably support a reel by its central opening. A drive pin mounted on the arm engages a recess on one of the reel flanges, which is spaced radially outwardly from the central opening of the reel. The drive pin is advanced along a circular path to rotate the reel in the desired direction.
This device is not entirely satisfactory because the installation of the reel on the support arm is a delicate procedure as it requires to manually pre-position the reel in a way to simultaneously align the central opening of the reel with the spindle of the supporting arm and the recess with the drive pin. This operation is labour-intensive especially with heavy reels.

Method and apparatus for winding or unwinding cable onto a reel


The electronic share server allowing user terminals to share a screen receives a connection request each from a sender's user terminal 100a and a receiver's user terminal 100b, 100c, issues an authentication number to specify the sender's user terminal 100a with which a screen is to be shared, in response to the connection request, allows the receiver's user terminal 100b, 100c to display a prompt to ask for an input of the authentication number, and receives screen sharing data from the sender's user terminal 100a and sequentially transfers the screen sharing data to the receiver's user terminal 100b, 100c, if the authentication number is correct; and counts the receiver's user terminal 100b, 100c to which the screen sharing data is transmitted and do not transmit the screen sharing data if the counted number of the receiver's user terminal is a predetermined number or more.

Recently, a public line network such as the Internet has allowed terminals to remotely share a screen to hold a meeting online. In such an online conference, a user's terminal is connected with the remotely-located other party's terminal, through a server, to display the screen of the user's terminal on that of the other party's terminal, and vice versa.
As disclosed in Patent Document 1, only specific IP addresses are permitted to access the server, and then the users are authenticated, so as to allow only specific users to participate in such an online conference.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Electronic share server, screen sharing method, and program for electronic share server


So as to reinforce a panel made of cellulosic fiberboard, bands of a reinforcing material, which is cementitious, are applied via spraying, as the panel is being conveyed, so as to cover a minor portion of the overall area of a given one of the expansive surfaces, and the panel is devoid of the reinforcing material except at the bands. The bands include two diagonal bands, each of which extends between diagonally opposite corners of the given one of the expansive surfaces, two longitudinal bands, each of which extends along a respective one of the longitudinal edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces, and two transverse bands, each of which extends along a respective one of the transverse edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces.

This invention pertains to a cellulosic fiberboard panel, which is reinforced in a novel manner, and to a novel method to reinforce a cellulosic fiberboard panel. This invention contemplates that reinforcing bands, which may be cementitious, are applied on an expansive surface of a cellulosic fiberboard panel.
Commonly, cellulosic fiberboard panels are made by severing each panel, via water jets or otherwise, from a continuous web of cellulosic fiberboard, as made on a fiberboard-making machine, such as a Fourdrinier machine, from cellulosic fibers, which may be wood fibers, bagasse fibers, or other cellulosic fibers. Cellulosic fiberboard panels are used widely in building construction, as wall sheathing, as insulating panels, as roofing underlayments, as flooring underlayments, and otherwise.
Characteristically, unless made, coated, or treated with cementitious materials, asphaltic materials, or other non-permeable materials, cellulosic fiberboard panels are permeable to water vapor. Because of their permeability to water vapor, cellulosic fiberboard panels are desirable for installations where mold or mildew might thrive unless water vapor that would be otherwise trapped could permeate such panels, such as installations of wall sheathing over spaced studs, at outer walls of buildings. However, as compared to plywood panels and to other building panels, cellulosic fibreboard panels are not as strong, unless reinforced.
As exemplified in numerous prior patents including U.S. Pat. Re. 32,329, which is a reissue of U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,405, and including U.S. Pat. No. 4,402,751, U.S. Pat. No. 4,406,703, U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,518, U.S. Pat. No. 5,744,078, U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,894, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,001,169, it has been known heretofore to blend cementitious materials with cellulosic fibers, whereby to make reinforced, water vapor-impermeable, cellulosic fiberboard panels.
In a panel made of cellulosic fiberboard and having two expansive surfaces, two longitudinal edges, and two transverse edges, each expansive surface having four corners and each expansive surface having an overall area, this invention provides an improvement wherein the panel has bands of a reinforcing material, for which a cementitious material is preferred. The bands cover a minor portion of the overall area of a given one of the expansive surfaces. The panel is devoid of the reinforcing material except at the bands.
The bands may include two diagonal bands, each of which extends between diagonally opposite ones of said corners of the given one of the expansive surfaces. The bands may include two longitudinal bands, each of which extends along a respective one of the longitudinal edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces. The bands may include two transverse bands, each of which extends along a respective one of the transverse edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces. Preferably, the bands include such diagonal, longitudinal, and transverse bands.
As a method to reinforce a panel made of cellulosic fiberboard and having two expansive surfaces, two longitudinal edges, and two transverse edges, each expansive surface having four corners and each expansive surface having an overall area, this invention provides a step of wherein applying bands of a reinforcing material, for which a cementitious material is preferred, so as to cover a minor portion of the overall area of a given one of the expansive surfaces, wherein the panel is devoid of the reinforcing material except at the bands.
Two diagonal bands of the reinforcing material may be thus applied so that each of the diagonal bands extends between diagonally opposite ones of said corners of the given one of the expansive surfaces. Two longitudinal bands of the reinforcing material may be thus applied so that each of the longitudinal bands extends along a respective one of the longitudinal edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces. Two transverse bands of the reinforcing material may be thus applied so that each of the transverse bands extends along a respective one of the transverse edges of the given one of the expansive surfaces. Preferably, such diagonal, longitudinal, and transverse bands are applied so as to extend as noted.

Method to reinforce cellulosic fiberboard panels via reinforcing bands on expansive surface


The present invention relates to a compact and highly dense engineered concrete binder composition and a method of producing the same. In particular, the engineered concrete binder composition comprises at least one mechano-chemically modified component.

Concrete is among the most commonly and profusely used construction materials worldwide.
It is primarily a composite comprising coarse and fine aggregate with cement. Water is then added to obtain a slurry and this concrete slurry is used for different construction purposes.
The uses of concrete include, but are not limited to laying roads and pavements, construction of buildings, skyscrapers, dams, multi-story car parks and many others.
The use of concrete, however, is an environmentally unfriendly process as the production of cement is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore several other components are now used as a replacement for cement, and efforts are being made to obtain more eco-friendly concrete mixes, without compromising the properties of concrete.
Among the compounds used as a replacement for cement include pozzolanic materials. Pozzolans include a broad class of compounds that are siliceous or aluminous in nature. A few examples of pozzolanic materials include fly ash, silica fumes, granulated blast furnace slag, and metakaolin among others. While these materials do not contribute any properties to the concrete in themselves when pozzolanic materials are very finely ground they are able to react with the concrete components (calcium hydroxide and water) and enhance the cementitious properties.
The properties of concrete that are most desired include durability, which is the ability of concrete to resist deterioration caused overtime, workability which is ease of handling, setting and finishing, and strength which is the ability to bear high pressure and weight. The strength of concrete is a very important property in determining its use. For example, concrete compressive strength requirements can vary from 2500 psi (17 MPa) for residential concrete to 4000 psi (28 MPa) and higher in commercial structures. Higher strengths up to and exceeding 10,000 psi (70 MPa) are specified for certain applications.
The strength property of concrete develops as the concrete hardens over a few days after it has been set. During the phase the strength of the concrete develops, it is not available to use freely as the concrete is not able the bear the full pressure requirements required by it. This poses a problem as construction work is slowed down and the use of the construction is delayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,533 provides a hydratable cement powder which during the early stages of hydration produces an amount of ettringite equal to from about 40% to about 60% of the weight of the cement/water paste, said powder comprising, by weight, from about 18% to about 65% high alumina cement, from about 16% to about 35% calcium sulfate, from 0% to about 65% portland cement, and from 0% to about 8.5% extraneous lime, said portland cement and said extraneous lime being alternative or complementary sources of from about 3.5% to about 8.5% of calcium oxide during hydration of the cement powder.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,288 provides a concrete composition comprising a calcium oxide material, a pozzolanic material, and an alkali metal catalyst to obtain a low cost, high compressive strength cement mix.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,556 provides methods for forming very early setting, ultra high strength cement. The methods comprise forming a mixture of raw materials containing SiO2, Al2 O3, CaO, Fe2 O3, and SO3. This mixture is heated to an elevated temperature between 1,0000° C. and 1,2000° C. for a sufficient period of time to produce a clinker containing high concentrations of C4A3S.
In an effort to obtain early setting and early high strength concrete mixes, the Applicant previously proposed in Indian Patent No. 292690 a concrete binder composition having overall reduced clinker factor, wherein the said concrete binder composition comprises: at least one primary binder in a ratio of 10-60 weight percent, wherein the primary binder is selected from a primary material group having spontaneous hydration property; at least one secondary binder in a ratio of 40-90 weight percent, wherein the secondary binder is selected from a secondary material group having induced hydration property; wherein the said primary material group and the said secondary material group form a Macro-Micro-Nano particle lattice arrangement to increase the strength characteristics and durability index of the final concrete material. Entire contents of Indian Patent No. 292690 are incorporated herein.
The Applicant furthermore proposed in Indian Patent Application No. 201731027025 an engineered concrete binder composition comprising at least one hydraulic material; at least one pozzolanic material; and optionally at least one additive; an amount of the hydraulic material (W1) being in a range of 20 to 60 wt. % of the composition; an amount of the pozzolanic material (W2) being in a range of 40 to 90 wt. % of the composition; and an amount of the at least one additive (W3) being in a range of 0 to 15 wt. % of the composition; each of the hydraulic material and the pozzolanic material comprising a first fraction, a second fraction and a third fraction with: the first fraction having Blaine's fineness in a range of 3000 to 4000 cm2/gm and mode average particle size (MAPS) in a range of 70 to 80 microns; the second fraction having Blaine's fineness in a range of 10000 to 15000 cm2/gm and mode average particle size (MAPS) in a range of 20 to 30 microns; and the third fraction having Blaine's fineness in a range of 40000 to 50000 cm2/gm and mode average particle size (MAPS) in a range of 3 to 8 microns. Entire contents of Indian Patent Application No. 201731027025 are incorporated herein.
While efforts have been made to obtain early setting, high early strength concrete mixes these have fallen short as they often involve additional steps for manufacture and addition of several other components. This makes these compositions expensive and difficult to use especially in cases where dry packaged concrete is required. Thus there is a need to obtain a simplified early setting, high early strength concrete mix which is amenable for use and inexpensive.

Engineered concrete binder composition comprising mechano-chemically modified component and method of producing the same


A hybrid semiconductor device comprises a heat sink on which a plurality of semiconductor chips are mounted, an insulating substrate secured to the heat sink, conductive metallic layers formed on the insulating substrate, electrodes formed on the semiconductor chips, first thin metallic wires for connecting the electrodes and the conductive metallic layers together, conductive intermediate members integrally formed with the heat sink and located higher than the heat sink, second thin metallic wires for connecting the conductive intermediate members to points to which the first thin metallic wires are connected, and a molding member for sealing and securing the above-mentioned elements. With the above structure, jumpers are arranged in such a manner as not to short-circuit to the conductive metallic layers and other conductive members. Moreover, the hybrid semiconductor device can be manufactured at a low cost since its manufacturing process can reduce the number of steps.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device for use as a power device, and more particularly to a hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device wherein wires extending from a plurality of semiconductor chips mounted on a heat sink can intersect one another without causing any problem.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device, wherein a coil or other structural components are not monolithically formed on a semiconductor chip, is known as one type of semiconductor device. It is commercially available and is used in various technical fields. In the case where the hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device comprises a power element requiring a large amount of power, a lead frame made up mainly of a heat sink is used as a casing. Normally, a pair of semiconductor devices of the same type are mounted on the heat sink. In some cases, however, a power integrated circuit device such as a power IC or a Darlington circuit device and a general semiconductor device such as an MOS IC, a bipolar IC, or a logic device are mounted on the heat sink in combination.
FIG. 1A is a perspective view of a lead frame 30 used for fabricating a conventional hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device. The lead frame 30 is obtained by pressing a conductive metallic plate. The specific construction of the lead frame 30 is as follows:
A plurality of heat sinks 32 are provided between a pair of first frames 31 arranged in parallel to each other. A plurality of second frames 33a are also provided between the first frames 31 in such a manner that each second frame 33a is located between the adjacent heat sinks 32 and extends perpendicular to the first frames 31. Further, internal leads 33b are arranged perpendicular to the second frames 33a. One end of each internal lead 33b is free, while the other end is located above the region in the neighborhood of the center of the heat sink 32. Normally, the second frames 33a and the internal leads 33b are integrally formed as one body. As can be seen in FIG. 1A, the heat sinks 32 are located slightly lower than the first frames 31. A pair of projections 32a are formed on each side of the heat sink 32, and a pair of through-holes 31a are formed in each of the first frames 31. After fitting the projections 32a in the respective through-holes 31a, those through-holes 31a are crushed flat, thereby fixing the heat sink 32 and the first frames 32 together.
As is shown in FIG. 2, a pair of power ICs, that is, semiconductor chips 36 of the same type are mounted on the heat sink 32 in an ordinary manner (only one of the power ICs being shown in FIG. 2). Next, the pair of semiconductor chips 36 are secured to the heat sink 32 by use of an adhesive layer 37. Thereafter, the lead frame 30 is subjected to a bonding step. An active or passive region is formed in the power ICs 36 by doping the impurities. In the bonding step, at least one of the electrodes, wiring layers, and pads electrically connected to the active or passive region is connected to the internal lead 33b by means of a thin metallic wire 29. The electrodes, wiring layers, or pads are normally connected to external elements. Hereinafter, all portions, including the above three, that are subjected to bonding will be referred to simply as electrodes. In the bonding step, ordinary ball bonding or ultrasonic ball bonding is utilized. As is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the bonding first performed with respect to the thin metallic wire is ball bonding, and the bonding performed next is wedge bonding. The bonding with respect to the thin metallic wire is completed by performing these two kinds of bonding.
Since a hybrid resin-sealed semiconductor device includes various circuit components, a grounded point must be used in common to a plurality of power ICs, and the circuit components must be connected together in a predetermined fashion. As is shown in FIG. 2, therefore, a plurality of insulating substrates 38, formed of glass epoxy resin, are formed on the mounting positions on the heat sink 32. The insulating substrate 38 is secured to the heat sink 32 by use of the insulating adhesive material 28. The thin metallic wires 29 are used as jumpers. Prior to the bonding step, conductive coatings 40 are formed on the tops of insulating substrates 38 by deposition, and insulating layers 41 are provided for the prevention of a short circuit. In addition, as shown in FIG. 3, interlayer insulating film 42 is formed on about a half of the surface of each conductive coating 40 which is formed on insulating substrate 38. A second conductive layer 43 may be formed on the interlayer insulating film 42, for the connection between electrodes of the power ICs 36 if it is necessary. The distance between the insulating substrate 38 and the power IC 36 must be at least 0.2 mm. In the case where two insulating substrates 38 are formed, they are spaced from each other by at least 0.5 mm, and thin metallic wires 29 formed of Al, Au or Cu and having a diameter in the range between 25 .mu.m and 50 .mu.m are employed. An insulating protection film (not shown) is formed on both the conductive coatings 40 and the second conductive layer 43, so as to prevent coatings 40 and layer 43 from undesirably short-circuiting to other thin metallic wires 29.
With respect to the lead frame 30 fabricated as above, a normal resin sealing step is performed by use of the transfer mold process. Thereafter, the lead frame 30 is subjected to a cut and bend step to thus complete a semiconductor device.
As may be understood from the above, if the wires extending from the circuit portions on the insulating substrates intersect one another, a short circuit may be caused. To solve this problem, the following measures have been conventionally adopted: (1) to arrange the wires three-dimensionally by employing an insulating substrate comprising a conductive multi layer; and (2) to use the thin metallic wires as jumpers. However, measure (1) results in a high manufacturing cost since conductive layers have to be formed as a laminated structure. Measure (2) also results in a high manufacturing cost, due to an increase in the number of steps required. More specifically, if jumpers 29 are arranged over two conductive coatings 40, as is shown in FIG. 2, the wires have to be coated with an insulating protection material, so as to prevent a short circuit between the jumpers 29 and the conductive coatings 40 at the time of the resin sealing step.


The subject matter of the instant invention relates to methods of enhancing harvesting of phages against a targeted host bacteria, as well as methods of identifying phages likely to have an enhanced propensity to infect and kill an infectious pathogenic bacteria in vivo, from samples comprising phages. The invention also relates to phage libraries, pharmaceutical compositions, methods of treatment, and phage-based diagnostic methods and methods of detecting bacteria related thereto.

MDR bacterial infections are an increasing problem for military and civilian populations alike. Military populations are at an especially increased risk for resistant bacterial infections as traumatic injuries sustained during combat and military service are highly susceptible to infection, and often require prolonged hospitalization, further increasing the risk of drug-resistant nosocomial infections. For example, MDR ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter spp.) are known to cause a significant number of the infectious complications in wounded service members, and these organisms greatly increase morbidity and mortality. Treatment options for these kinds of resistant infections are extremely limited and there is a paucity of new drugs in the pharmaceutical pipeline.
In recent years, phage therapy has re-emerged as a potential alternative treatment for MDR bacterial infections. Lytic phages (bacterial viruses) are extremely abundant obligate intracellular parasites that infect, replicate within, and kill very specific bacterial hosts, phage therapy has typically involved using combinations of different lytic phages deemed likely to target and kill a specific bacterial pathogen. Recently, advances in phage therapeutics and antibacterial phage therapy have played a role in several surprisingly highly successful eIND cases in the U.S., and in view of promising advances such as these in the field, there is continued interest in pursuing clinical trials investigating different therapeutic modalities comprising phages.
Notably, phages can be very strain-specific. Thus, in contrast to early efforts in the field of phage therapeutics, and as clearly demonstrated in recent clinical eIND cases, phage therapy may fundamentally require a significant amount of personalization. That said, whether the phage therapeutic comprises population level cocktails, engineered phages, or involves a phage library-to-cocktail personalized therapeutic approach, all of these modalities would benefit greatly from a coordinated and massive expansion of phage libraries against bacterial pathogens, including MDR pathogens such as the ESKAPE pathogens. See, e.g., US 2017/0368116 A1, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
In addition to clinical uses in antibacterial pharmaceutical compositions, phage specificity for its target bacterial host may be exploited clinically in methods of diagnosing bacterial infections via a phage-based diagnostic. By culturing clinical samples in the presence of a phage-based diagnostic, the increase in the phage population would indicate the presence of the phage's bacterial host. Thus, by monitoring the phage population, the identification of a specific bacterial pathogen(s) in a clinical sample can be achieved rapidly without the need for bacterial strain isolation. Moreover, phage specificity may also be exploited in methods of detecting bacteria in the environment or in industrial samples, again through the use of a phage-based diagnostic. See, e.g., U.S. Ser. No. 15/994,855 the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein. Significantly, since phages require a viable host in which to replicate, phages can discriminate between live bacterial cells and the presence of dead bacterial cells or cell debris, which other molecular detection technologies cannot manage. Thus, in addition to clinical applications in therapeutics and diagnostic methods, phages may also be employed in industrial settings, e.g., where the need to detect live bacterial contamination is a concern.
Phage-based methods of detection and diagnosis take advantage of the ability of a phage to infect and replicate within its bacterial host such that phage titer often increases 10 to even 100-fold in a single generation, constituting a massive increase in a specific "signal." This massive increase in the phage titer "signal" can be exploited for industrial and clinical purposes by monitoring the increase in phage titer using a number of techniques comprising, e.g., classical phage titer counts, quantitative real-time PCR, probes of the phage genome or other reporter constructs, nucleic acid hybridization or other molecular assays, fluorescence or immunofluorescence assays with labeled phage particles, etc.
While phage-based diagnostics and methods of detection represent a powerful tool, such methodologies are also constrained by the same lack of robust collections of phages which currently restricts the development of phage therapeutics. Indeed, phage specificity for its bacterial host is both a strength and a weakness of phage therapeutics; a major hindrance to the continued advancement of all available phage therapeutic modalities is the current lack of sufficiently diverse phage libraries which demonstrate promise for clinical and/or industrial use. Specifically, robust phage libraries against MDR bacterial pathogens, and especially against each of the ESKAPE pathogens, are urgently needed.
Establishing a diverse and robust phage library for clinical and/or industrial uses first requires the isolation of appropriate, relevant phages from the staggering number of phages in the wild. Traditionally, classical phage harvesting first involves mixing raw environmental water samples (rich in diverse phages) with culture media (often in powder form) and a high titer of bacteria against which phages are desired. Ideally, several different bacterial strains are provided with the culture media simultaneously (e.g., from 1-10 bacterial strains in some cases), and these added bacterial strains facilitate the expansion of any phage populations against said bacteria present in the sample. Typically, this mixed culture is then grown overnight at 37° C. with shaking (aerobically) to allow for phage expansion and the enrichment of phages against the said targeted bacteria. The phage-rich supernatant of this culture is then subjected to classical plaquing assays to identify whether phages against the targeted bacterial strain(s) are present in this expanded and mixed phage population. If such phages are present, they are isolated and purified. This general method is currently used for phage harvesting and library construction for both therapeutics and diagnostics.
Notwithstanding the usefulness of current conventional methods, the fact remains that classical phage harvesting methodologies have several limitations. For example, using currently available harvesting methods, any phages against the targeted bacterial strains in the mixed phage population of a phage harvesting culture will emerge based on an in vitro competition among all the phages present in the environmental sample. As such, it is contemplated herein that the "winners and losers" of this interphage competition may reflect, and depend upon, the culture conditions employed. As a result, there may be valuable phages present in a conventional harvesting culture that might have industrial and/or clinical uses against the targeted bacterial strains, but which get relentlessly out-competed in the milieu of classical in vitro harvesting culture conditions. Thus, it is contemplated herein that phage libraries built using only classical in vitro cultures and growth conditions cannot fully exploit the vast extent of phage diversity present in the wild.
While clearly indispensable to biomedical research, one of skill in the art appreciates the inherent limitations of in vitro cultures; while extremely useful, data provided from such cultures may not truly reflect the complexity of in vivo conditions. Thus, it is further contemplated herein that conventional harvesting cultures may enrich for phages from the wild that are specific to the targeted host bacteria when grown in the in vitro physiological conditions of the microbiological culture media, but not specific to the same target bacteria under in vivo conditions, i.e., when in the form of a "host-adapted bacteria" growing in a human or animal host. Thus, phage libraries for in vivo therapeutic and diagnostic use built using classical methods may be unfortunately skewed by comprising phages with limited usefulness for in vivo applications. Thus, taken together with interphage competition, phages which demonstrate in vitro specificity for a targeted bacterial strain not only may prove to have limited clinical use against said bacteria present under the physiological conditions of the human or animal host, but also such phages in in vitro harvesting cultures may actually be out-competing other phages in the culture that might be better able to infect the same target bacteria when host-adapted in vivo.
In view of the foregoing, there remains a need not only for improved methods of enhancing the isolation of different phages from the wild, e.g., from environmental samples, but also for improved methods for identifying phages which can infect and kill targeted bacterial pathogens, and especially host-adapted infectious pathogenic bacteria in vivo. Such improved methods would facilitate the creation of robust phage libraries of enhanced diversity for use in all types of industrial and clinical applications, including but not limited to clinical modalities comprising the use of personalized phage therapeutics with improved clinical efficacy, as well as for improved methods of detecting and/or diagnosing bacteria in both clinical and non-clinical settings via phage-based diagnostics.

Methods of identifying bacteriophages that can infect and kill host-adapted infectious pathogenic bacteria

The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of the Navy

The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of the Army


A dome (102) for a monitoring camera system comprises several monitoring cameras. The dome is formed from a transparent material, and has a toroidal shape with a rotational symmetry along a rotational angle (α) around a first axis of symmetry (S1). An outer segment of the dome, in section, has a shape further defined by a second axis of symmetry (S2) arranged at a first radius (R) from the first axis of symmetry (S1) and is orthogonal to the first axis. The outer segment has a curvature following a second radius (r) over an angle (β) around the second axis of symmetry (S2).

A typical monitoring camera system comprises a camera head arranged on a base. The base may be provided with a fastening arrangement so as to allow for fastening to a socket or a structure. The camera head may be movable by means of motors or manually to allow for a pan and/or tilt motion. A protective dome, commonly having a hemispheric shape, is generally removably and immovably arranged on the base so enable enclosure of the camera head. It protect the camera head from physical impacts, dust, rain, etc. The protective dome is transparent at least for the wavelength interval relevant for the particular monitoring application. As the camera head pans and tilts the protective dome remains static, there are also versions that allow for the protective dome to move with the camera head, at least when performing a panning motion.
Recently there has been an increased interest in arranging several camera heads on a joint base and having a joint protective dome, resulting in increasingly large protective domes. The present invention mainly relates to domes designed for such a purpose, although the findings may be applied in single-camera arrangements as well.
The arrangement of several camera heads on such a joint base opens up for several opportunities for improvements of which the present invention is one.

Protective dome for monitoring camera system


A semiconductor memory cell structure and method for forming the same. The memory cell is formed on a surface of a substrate and includes an active region formed in the substrate, an epitaxial post formed on the surface of the substrate over the active region. The epitaxial post has at least one surface extending outwardly from the surface of the substrate and another surface opposite of the surface of the substrate. A gate structure is formed adjacent to at least a portion of all the outwardly extending surfaces of the epitaxial post, and a capacitor formed on an exposed surface of the epitaxial post.

The present invention relates in general to memory circuits, and more particularly, to dynamic random access memory cells and a method for forming the same.
Random access memory (xe2x80x9cRAMxe2x80x9d) cell densities have increased dramatically with each generation of new designs and have served as. one of the principal technology drivers for ultra large scale integration (xe2x80x9cULSIxe2x80x9d) in integrated circuit (xe2x80x9cICxe2x80x9d) manufacturing. However, in order to accommodate continuing consumer demand for integrated circuits that perform the same or additional functions and yet have a reduced size as compared with available circuits, circuit designers continually search for ways to reduce the size of the memory arrays within these circuits without sacrificing array performance.
With respect to memory ICs, the area required for each memory cell in a memory array partially determines the capacity of a memory IC. This area is a function of the number of elements in each memory cell and the size of each of the elements. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an array 100 of memory cells 110 for a conventional dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device. Memory cells 110 such as these are typically formed in adjacent pairs, where each pair is formed in a common active region 120 and share a common source/drain region that is connected to a respective digit line via a digit line contact 124. The area of the memory cells 110 are said to be 8F2, where F represents a minimum feature size for photolithographically-defined features. For conventional 8F2 memory cells, the dimension of the cell area is 2Fxc3x974F. The dimensions of a conventional 8F2 memory cell are measured along a first axis from the center of a shared digit line contact 124 (1/2F), across a word line 128 that represents an access transistor (1F), a storage capacitor 132 (1F), an adjacent word line 136 (1F), and half of an isolation region 140 (1/2F) separating the active region 120 of an adjacent pair of memory cells (i.e., resulting in a total of 4F). The dimensions along a second perpendicular axis are half of an isolation region 150 on one side of the active region 120 (1/2F), the digit line contact 124 (1F), and half of another isolation region 154 on the other side of the active region 120 (1/2F) (i.e., resulting in a total of 2F).
In some state-of-the-art memory devices, the memory cells for megabit DRAM have cell areas approaching 6F2; Although this is approximately a 25% improvement in memory cell area relative to conventional 8F2 memory cells, as previously described, a further reduction in memory cell size is still desirable. Therefore, there is a need for a compact memory cell structure and method for forming the same.
The present invention is directed to a semiconductor memory cell structure. The memory cell is formed on a surface of a substrate and includes an active region formed in the substrate, an epitaxial post formed on the surface of the substrate over the active region. The epitaxial post has at least one surface extending outwardly from the surface of the substrate and another surface opposite of the surface of the substrate. A vertical transistor is formed in the epitaxial post having a gate structure that is formed adjacent to at least a portion of all the outwardly extending surfaces of the epitaxial post. The memory cell further includes a memory cell capacitor formed on an exposed surface of the epitaxial post.

Memory cell and method for forming the same


A novel method and interface is provided for conducting read data transfers between an initiator device on a single-transaction bus and a target device on a split-transaction bus. Embodiments of the present invention permit the initiator device to xe2x80x9cpostxe2x80x9d a read request for a specified amount of data from a specified address on the split-transaction bus to an interface that resides between the single-transaction bus and the split-transaction bus. The requested read data is then retrieved over the split-transaction bus and presented in a high-speed memory within the interface for direct access by the initiator device over the single-transaction bus. Latency is avoided because the initiator device is not required to wait for the emergence of the requested read data from the split-transaction bus but, instead, may continue to perform other activities on the single-transaction bus and then obtain the requested read data at a later time.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of the present invention generally pertains to the transfer of digital information in a computer system and, more particularly, to the transfer of digital information between buses in a computer system.
2. Background
The term xe2x80x9cbus,xe2x80x9d as used herein, generally refers to a set of hardwire lines, or conductors, used for transferring digital information among the components of a computer system. A bus may be used, for example, to transfer digital information between chips, expansion boards, and processor/memory subsystems within a computer system. A bus transaction typically involves an initiator device (the bus master), and a target device (the bus slave), each of which are interfaced to the bus. The initiator device initiates a transaction by sending command and address information over the bus to the target device, which services the transaction. For example, in a system where the initiator device is a host processor and the target device is a memory, the host processor may initiate bus transactions to read data from or write data to the target memory.
Bus transactions may be executed in a xe2x80x9csingle-transactionxe2x80x9d mode or a xe2x80x9csplit-transactionxe2x80x9d mode. In a single-transaction mode, the initiator device must remain committed to a given transaction until the transaction has fully completed. Consequently, an initiator device performing a write on a single-transaction bus cannot perform further transactions on the bus until the designated target device has accepted the write data. Similarly, an initiator device performing a read on a single-transaction bus cannot perform further transactions on the bus until the designated target device has returned the requested read data. In contrast, in a split-transaction mode, each bus transaction is split into two largely independent parts: a request that is issued by the initiator device and a reply that is issued by the target device. As a result, an initiator device operating on a split-transaction bus is free to perform other transactions on the bus after issuing a request, even though a reply has not yet been received from the designated target device.
The PCI bus, as defined by the PCI Local Bus Specification Rev. 2.2 (published by the PCI Special Interest Group), is an example of a bus architecture that utilizes a single-transaction method of operation. In accordance with PCI bus protocols, when a target device requires an extended period of time to respond to a transaction, it may suspend the transaction so that the PCI bus can be used by other devices to perform other transfer operations in the interim. The suspension of the transaction by the target is termed a xe2x80x9cdisconnect.xe2x80x9d Because the PCI bus is a single-transaction bus, the initiator device will continue to xe2x80x9cretryxe2x80x9d the transaction in response to the disconnect until such time as the transaction may complete.
Where the initiator device is the bridge between a CPU or other host device and the PCI bus, the inability of the initiator device to make further PCI bus accesses until the transaction has completed can result in a degradation of system bandwidth. To address this issue, conventional PCI bus bridges offer the ability to post, or queue, write operations from the initiator device, thus permitting a host CPU to issue writes and then continue on to issue other bus transactions without delay. Unfortunately, the read path is not amenable to such a solution. If the desired data from the target device is not read-cacheable, as in the case of data from real-time status registers or read-modified memories such as FIFOs, the host must wait for the read data to be produced by the target device before it can perform further transactions on the PCI bus. As a result, a target device that is slow to respond to PCI reads will essentially force the CPU to wait while the host-PCI bus bridge retries the read until it completes.
When bridging a single transaction bus, such as the PCI bus, to a split-transaction bus, the latency for producing read data can be substantial since a request for read data must be sent and a response received on the split-transaction bus before the read data can be presented to the PCI side of the bridge. This latency equates directly to a loss of CPU bandwidth when a host CPU on the PCI bus is attempting to read registers or other memories on the split-transaction bus that store non-cacheable data.
This concept may be illustrated in reference to FIG. 1, which depicts a conventional single-transaction to split-transaction bus bridge application 100. As shown in FIG. 1, a host CPU 102 resides on a single-transaction bus 104 and a set of registers 106 resides on a split-transaction bus 108. The single-transaction bus 104 is interfaced to the split-transaction bus 108 via the conventional bus bridge 110. The conventional bus bridge 110 includes a bridge control state machine 114 that provides the necessary handshaking functionality between the single-transaction bus 104 and the split-transaction bus 108, and a read FIFO 112 for the temporary buffering of requested read data retrieved from the split-transaction bus 108 for immediate transfer over the single-transaction bus 104.
FIG. 2 depicts the potential latencies involved when the host CPU 102 of FIG. 1 performs a direct read access to the bus bridge 110 to obtain data from the registers 106. In particular, FIG. 2 shows potential bus activity on the single transaction bus 104 and the split-transaction bus 108 during such an access. As shown in FIG. 2, after the host CPU 102 initiates a read to the bus bridge 110 at block 202a, the bus bridge 110 responds by issuing a read request on the split-transaction bus 108, shown in block 206. Because the bus bridge 110 must wait to receive a read response from the registers 106, the bus bridge 110 eventually issues a disconnect to the host CPU 102. In response to the disconnect, the host CPU 102 will continue issuing reads to the bus bridge 110 in accordance with a single-transaction mode of operation. If the time required for the bus bridge 110 to receive a read response from the registers 106 is long, the host CPU 102 may receive numerous disconnects. These attempted reads and disconnects are denoted as blocks 202a through 202n in FIG. 2. Eventually, the bus bridge 110 receives a read response from the registers 106, as shown in block 208, and the requested data is transferred from the registers 106 to the read FIFO 112 in the bus bridge 110. Because the data is now available in the bus bridge 110, the data will be transferred from the bus bridge 100 to the host CPU 102 during the next attempted read by the host CPU 102 and the read will complete, as shown in block 204.
The total latency for this example read data transfer is equal to the time periods d1+d2+d3 denoted in FIG. 2. The time period d1 corresponds to the latency involved in issuing the read request on the split-transaction bus 108. The time period d2 is the latency involved in receiving a response and read data from the registers 106 over the split-transaction bus 108. Finally, the time period d3 is the latency between the time that the bus bridge 110 receives the response and read data from the registers 106 and the time that the host CPU 102 retries the read access and the read completes.
As illustrated by FIG. 2, the time period d2 represents the largest portion of the total latency and is roughly equal to the amount of CPU processing time wasted waiting for the read data to emerge. This waste of bandwidth becomes significant in applications where a memory on the split-transaction bus is read repeatedly and often by a host CPU. An example of this may be found in a cable modem termination system (CMTS) line card application in which a host processor is coupled via a PCI bus to a BCM3212 CMTS MAC integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by Broadcom Corporation of Irvine, Calif. In such an application, it is contemplated that the host processor will issue thousands of reads per second to obtain statistical MIB (Management Information Base) data from memory devices residing on the internal split-transaction bus of the CMTS MAC IC.
What is desired then, is a method and interface for improving the efficiency of read data transfers between an initiator device on a single-transaction bus and a target device on a split-transaction bus. In particular, the desired method and interface should avoid the latency due to disconnects and retries that occur in a conventional single-transaction to split-transaction bus bridge application.
The present invention provides a novel method and interface for conducting read data transfers between an initiator device on a single-transaction bus, such as a PCI bus, and a target device on a split-transaction bus. In embodiments, the interface includes a command register, read request generation logic, read response routing logic, and a read data memory. The initiator device writes a read command to the command register over the single-transaction bus. In response to the writing of the read command, the read request generation logic generates a read request and issues it over the split-transaction bus. The read response routing logic receives a response to the read request from the target device over the split-transaction bus and routes read data associated with the response to the read data memory for storage purposes. The read data stored in the read data memory is then read accessible to the initiator device over the single-transaction bus.
In embodiments, the command information specifies a quantity of requested data words and the request generated by the read request generation logic includes the specified quantity of requested data words.
In further embodiments, the interface also includes an address register that is written to by the initiator device over the single transaction bus, and the read request generated by the read request generation logic includes address information written to the address register by the initiator device.
In still further embodiments, the read request generated by the read request generation logic includes a unique source identifier assigned by the read request generation logic. The unique source identifier is also included in the response to the read request and is used by the read response routing logic to route the read data associated with the response to the read data memory.
In alternate embodiments, the read data memory comprises a random access memory.
In other alternate embodiments, the interface also includes write control logic that receives the read data associated with the response from the read response routing logic and, for each of one or more data words within the read data, generates a value corresponding to an address in the read data memory and stores the data word at that address in the read data memory. The write control logic may also write status information to a status register within the interface that indicates that the read data associated with the response is available in the read data memory. Additionally, the write control logic may transmit an interrupt signal over an interrupt line within the interface in response to receiving the read data associated with the response, the interrupt signal for alerting the initiator device that the read data associated with the response is available in the read data memory.
The invention is advantageous in that it improves the efficiency of read data transfers between an initiator device on a single-transaction bus and a target device on a split-transaction bus. In particular, embodiments of the present invention avoid the latency due to disconnects and retries that occur in a conventional single-transaction to split-transaction bus bridge application.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description that follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the system and method particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Method and interface for improved efficiency in performing bus-to-bus read data transfers


SCR system for treating the exhaust gases of an internal combustion engine, this system comprising a line for feeding a urea solution into the exhaust gases and a pump capable both of feeding the urea solution into the exhaust gases and of purging at least one part of the line by sucking a gas therethrough by means of a suction device, this system also comprising a control unit capable of activating and/or deactivating the operation of the pump and that of the suction device in a sequential manner in the course of one and the same purge procedure.

Legislations on vehicle and heavy goods vehicle emissions stipulate, amongst other things, a reduction in the release of nitrogen oxides NOx into the atmosphere. One known way to achieve this objective is to use the SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) process which enables the reduction of nitrogen oxides by injection of a reducing agent, generally ammonia, into the exhaust line. This ammonia may derive from the pyrolytic decomposition of an ammonia precursor solution, whose concentration may be the eutectic concentration. Such an ammonia precursor is generally a urea solution.
With the SCR process, the high levels of NOx produced in the engine during combustion at optimized efficiency are treated in a catalyst on exiting the engine. This treatment requires the use of the reducing agent at a precise concentration and of extreme quality. The solution is thus accurately metered and injected into the exhaust gas stream where it is hydrolysed before converting the nitrogen oxide (NOx) to nitrogen (N2) and water (H2O).
In order to do this, it is necessary to equip the vehicles with a tank containing an additive (generally urea) solution and also a device for metering the desired amount of additive and injecting it into the exhaust line.
Given that the aqueous urea solution generally used for this purpose (eutectic solution containing 32.5 wt % of urea) freezes at −11° C., it is necessary to provide a heating device to liquefy the solution in order to be able to inject it into the exhaust line in the event of starting in freezing conditions.
Moreover, with a view to facilitating the operation, the re-starting of the system in case of freezing and to prevent the often flexible tubing that transports the urea from bursting, it is advantageous to purge the conduits after operating the system. In particular, it is advantageous to purge the line connecting the additive tank to the injector (or injection line) and the return line, where appropriate.
Several systems have been provided in the prior art for this purpose.
Thus, Application WO 2006/064028 in the name of the Applicant proposes an SCR system where purging of the line(s) takes place by sucking the exhaust gases through the injector using the pump of the system, which for this purpose either rotates in the opposite direction or is associated with a valve that makes it possible to reverse the flow. The advantage of this system is its simplicity and the reduced number of modifications that must be made to it in order to add this function (this is because it suffices to choose a pump that rotates in both directions or to provide a 4-way valve in the system).
This document also mentions the fact that it is preferable not to purge directly after shutting off the engine as the gases might be too hot and might damage certain parts of the system. For this purpose it recommends a temperature control in order to adjust the time delay before purging.
However, it would appear that this problem is not, in reality, truly critical (no doubt because as soon as the engine is shut off, the temperature in the exhaust pipe drops rapidly) and that, in addition, it may be prevented by choosing to suck up air from outside the exhaust pipe (and not the air/gases in said pipe). Conversely, if the purge is started immediately after the engine is shut off, there is a risk of spraying urea into the exhaust pipe and/or over the catalyst. This phenomenon is capable of causing the premature ageing of the catalyst and also corrosion problems in the exhaust pipe following the release of ammonia.

SCR system and method for the purging thereof


The following resist composition of chemical amplification type, which is excellent in transparency to light beams and dry etching properties and gives a resist pattern excellent in sensitivity, resolution, evenness, heat resistance, etc.

The present invention relates to a novel resist composition containing a fluoropolymer. More particularly, it relates to a resist composition which is useful as a chemical amplification type resist useful for fine processing employing various light beams, such as far ultraviolet rays such as KrF laser or ArF laser, vacuum ultraviolet rays such as F2 laser or X-rays.
In recent years, along with the progress in fine circuit patterns in the process for producing semiconductor integrated circuits, a photoresist material having high resolution and high sensitivity is desired. As the circuit patterns become fine, a short wavelength of a light source for an exposure apparatus becomes essential. In an application to lithography employing an excimer laser of 250 nm or shorter, a polyvinyl phenol type resin, an alicyclic acrylic type resin or a polynorbornane type resin has, for example, been proposed, but no adequate resolution and sensitivity have been obtained.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a resist composition which is particularly excellent in transparency to light beams and dry etching properties, as a chemical amplification type resist and which gives a resist pattern excellent in sensitivity, resolution, evenness, heat resistance, etc.
The present invention is the following invention which has been made to solve the above-described problems.
A resist composition which comprises a fluoropolymer (A) comprising monomer units (a) of a fluorovinyl monomer having xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR (wherein R is a C1-10 alkyl group) and monomer units (b) of an alicyclic ethylenic monomer, an acid-generating compound (B) which generates an acid upon irradiation with light, and an organic solvent (C).
Now, the composition of the present invention will be described in detail.
The fluoropolymer (A) comprising, as essential components, monomer units (a) of a fluorovinyl monomer having xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR and monomer units (b) of an alicyclic ethylenic monomer (hereinafter, monomers forming the respective monomer units will be referred to as (fluoro)monomer (a) and monomer (b), respectively).
The fluoromonomer (a) is a compound having an addition-polymerizable ethylenic double bond and preferably has fluorine atoms other than the fluorine atoms in xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR. xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR may be bonded to a carbon atom of the ethylenic double bond, but is preferably bonded to a carbon atom other than the carbon atom of the ethylenic double bond. Further, the ethylenic double bond is preferably an ethylenic double bond having fluorine atoms bonded, as represented by CF2xe2x95x90C.
The fluoromonomer (a) is preferably a compound represented by the following formula (1):
CF2xe2x95x90CF(O)n(CF2)mORxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(1)
(wherein n is 0 or 1, m is an integer of from 1 to 5, and R is a C1-10 alkyl group).
The fluoromonomer (a) represented by the formula (1) is more preferably a compound wherein n is 0 or 1, m is from 1 to 3, and R is a C1-3 alkyl group. As the fluoromonomer (a), a fluoroalkene such as CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2OCH3, CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2OC2H5, CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2OC3H7, CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2CF2OCH3, CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2CF2OC2H5 or CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2CF2OC3H7, and a fluorovinyl ether such as CF2xe2x95x90CFOCF2CF2OCH3, CF2xe2x95x90CFOCF2CF2OC2H5 or CF2xe2x95x90CFOCF2CF2OC3H7 may, for example, be specifically mentioned. These monomers may be used alone or in combination as a mixture of two or more of them.
Further, a monomer such as CF2xe2x95x90CFCF2OR can be synthesized by a reaction of a perfluoroallyl halide with a metal alkoxide (I. L. Knunyants et al, Chem. Abs., 52, 251(1958)).
Further, a monomer such as CF2xe2x95x90CFO(CF2)mOR can be synthesized by reacting the corresponding acid fluoride with hexafluoropropylene oxide, followed by pyrolysis (U.S. Pat. No. 4,358,412).
The alicyclic ethylenic monomer (b) is an alicyclic hydrocarbon having an addition-polymerizable ethylenic double bond. Some of the carbon atoms constituting the ring of the alicyclic hydrocarbon may be substituted by a bivalent atom such as an oxygen atom or a bivalent group such as xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94. The ethylenic double bond may be present in the alicyclic ring or may be present outside of the alicyclic ring, or such double bonds may be present in the ring and outside the ring (usually, any one of the ethylenic double bonds would be involved in the polymerization reaction). Further, the alicyclic ring may be a single ring, a condensed polycyclic ring or any other ring. Further, the monomer (b) may have fluorine atoms or may have fluorine atoms, other hetero atoms or substituents. In a case where the monomer (b) has fluorine atoms, the monomer (b) is a compound which does not have the above-described xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR.
One of the monomers (b) is a monomer having an ethylenic double bond on at least one carbon atom constituting the alicyclic ring. Namely, it is a monomer having an ethylenic double bond between the adjacent carbon atoms among the carbon atoms constituting the alicyclic ring (a monomer having an ethylenic double bond in the alicyclic ring) or a monomer having an ethylenic double bond between a carbon atom constituting the alicyclic ring and a carbon atom outside of the alicyclic ring. In the monomer having an ethylenic double bond in the alicyclic ring, it may have two or more ethylenic double bonds in the alicyclic ring. The former monomer may, for example, be a cycloalkene or a bicycloalkene, and the latter monomer may, for example, be a monomer represented by the after-mentioned formula (3).
Another one of the monomers (b) is a monomer having an ethylenic double bond outside the alicyclic ring. It may, for example, be a cycloalkane, a bicycloalkane or a tricycloalkane having a vinyl group, a vinyloxy group, an allyl group or the like bonded thereto.
The following compounds may, for example, be mentioned as specific alicyclic ethylenic monomers (b). Vinyl cyclohexane, vinyl adamantane, vinyl norbornanes, vinyl bicyclooctane, cyclohexyl vinyl ether, adamantyl vinyl ethers, norbornyl vinyl ethers, bicyclooctyl vinyl ethers, norbornenes, norbornadienes, a compound represented by the following formula (2), and a compound represented by the following formula (3).
xe2x80x94CF2xe2x80x94OR in the fluoropolymer (A) will be cleaved under an acidic condition and will be converted to the corresponding ester group or an acid fluoride group. The ester group or the acid fluoride group will react with an alkaline aqueous solution (a developer) and will be converted to an alkali salt of a carboxylic acid, whereby the polymer will be water-soluble. Namely, the fluoropolymer (A) exhibits a developability when it is coexistent with the acid-generating compound (B).
The molar ratio of the monomer units (a) to the monomer units (b) in the fluoropolymer (A) is preferably such that monomer units (a)/monomer units (b)=30 to 70/70 to 30. If the proportion of the monomer units (a) is smaller than this, the light transmittance and the developability tend to be low, and if the proportion of the monomer units (b) is smaller than this, the heat resistance and etching durability tend to be low.
The fluoropolymer (A) may contain monomer units of a copolymerizable monomer, preferably a radical polymerizable monomer, other than the monomer units (a) and the monomer units (b), within a range not to impair its properties. The proportion of such other monomer units is preferably at most 15 mol %, based on the total monomer units.
The molecular weight of the fluoropolymer (A) is not particularly limited so long as it can be uniformly dissolved in the after-mentioned organic solvent and can be uniformly coated on a substrate. However, its number average molecular weight as calculated as polystyrene is usually from 1,000 to 100,000, preferably from 2,000 to 20,000. If the number average molecular weight is less than 1,000, troubles are likely to result, such that the resulting resist pattern tends to be defective, the film remaining rate after the development tends to be low or the shape stability during the thermal treatment of the pattern tends to be low. On the other hand, if the number average molecular weight exceeds 100,000, the coating property of the composition is likely to be poor, or the developability is likely to be low.
The fluoropolymer (A) can be obtained by copolymerizing the prescribed proportions of the above-mentioned Monomers in the presence of a polymerization initiating source. Such a polymerization initiating source is not particularly limited so long as it is capable of letting the polymerization reaction proceed radically. It may, for example, be a radical-generating agent, light or ionizing radiation. Particularly preferred is a radical-generating agent, such as a peroxide, an azo compound or a persulfate.
The method for the polymerization is also not particularly limited, and it may, for example, be so-called bulk polymerization in which monomers may be subjected to polymerization as they are, solution polymerization which is carried out in a fluorohydrocarbon, a chlorohydrocarbon, a fluorinated chlorohydrocarbon, an alcohol, a hydrocarbon or any other organic solvent, which is capable of dissolving the monomers, suspension polymerization which is carried out in an aqueous medium in the absence or presence of a suitable organic solvent, or emulsion polymerization which is carried out by adding an emulsifier to an aqueous medium. The temperature or the pressure of the polymerization is not particularly limited. However, the temperature is preferably set within a range of from 0 to 200xc2x0 C., preferably from room temperature to 100xc2x0 C. The pressure is preferably within a range of at most 10 MPa, particularly preferably within a range of at most 3 MPa.
As the acid-generating compound (B) which generates an acid upon irradiation with light, it is possible to employ an acid-generating compound which is commonly used for a chemical amplification type resist material. Namely, an onium salt such as a diaryl iodonium salt, a triaryl sulfonium salt, an aryl phenyl diazonium salt or a trialkyl sulfonium salt, or a trichloromethyl-s-triazine may, for example, be mentioned.
The organic solvent (C) is not particularly limited, so long as it is capable of dissolving both components of the fluoropolymer (A) and the acid-generating compound (B). An alcohol such as methyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol, a ketone such as acetone, methyl isobutyl ketone or cyclohexanone, an acetate such as ethyl acetate or butyl acetate, an aromatic hydrocarbon such as toluene or xylene, a glycol monoalkyl ether such as propylene glycol monomethyl ether or propylene glycol monoethyl ether, or a glycol monoalkyl ether ester such as propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate or carbitol acetate, may, for example, be mentioned.
The proportions of the respective components in the resist composition of the present invention are usually such that per 100 parts by mass of the fluoropolymer (A), the acid-generating compound (B) is from 0.1 to 20 parts by mass, and the organic solvent (C) is from 50 to 2,000 parts by mass. Preferably, per 100 parts by mass of the fluoropolymer (A), the acid-generating compound (B) is from 0.1 to 10 parts by mass, and the organic solvent (C) is from 100 to 1,000 parts by mass.
To the resist composition of the present invention, a surfactant to improve the coating property, a nitrogen-containing basic compound to adjust the acid-generating pattern, and an adhesion-assisting agent to improve the adhesion with the substrate or a storage stabilizer to increase the storage stability of the composition, may, for example, be optionally incorporated. Further, the resist composition of the present invention is preferably employed in such a manner that the respective components are uniformly mixed, followed by filtration by means of a filter of from 0.2 to 2 xcexcm.
The resist composition of the present invention is coated on a substrate such as a silicone wafer, followed by drying to form a resist film. As the coating method, spin coating, cast coating or roll coating may, for example, be employed. The formed resist film will be irradiated with light via a mask having a pattern drawn thereon, followed by development treatment to form a pattern.
The light beams for the irradiation may, for example, be ultraviolet rays such as g-line having a wavelength of 436 nm or 1-line having a wavelength of 365 nm, far ultraviolet rays or vacuum ultraviolet rays, such as KrF laser having a wavelength of 248 mm or F2 laser having a wavelength of 157 nm, or X-rays. The resist composition of the present invention is a resist composition useful particularly for an application where ultraviolet rays having a wavelength of at most 200 nm (hereinafter referred to as short wavelength ultraviolet rays) are used as the light source.
As the development treatment solution, various alkali aqueous solutions are employed. Specifically, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide and triethylamine may, for example, be mentioned.


A car telephone is disclosed that is included in a car telephone system and selectively operable in a car-mounted mode or in a portable mode. A portable unit and a telephone antenna constitute a mobile car telephone set, while a car antenna, a power amplifier unit, a curled cord, and a connection unit constitute a car-mounted telephone together with the portable unit. The car telephone operates in a unique manner in a car-mounted mode. The power amplifier unit converts a received signal from a base station included in the system to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal by a receiving mixer and feeds the IF signal to the curled cord. The IF signal is transferred to a demodulator included in the portable unit over a coaxial cable incorporated in the curled cord and the connection unit. Therefore, the transmission loss of the signal to the portable unit particular to the coaxial cable is noticeably reduced, whereby the constants of the circuits included in the car telephone can be selected with unprecedented freedom.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a car-mounted booster for plug-in connection with a mobile telephone set, or portable unit as referred to hereinafter, included in a cellular car telephone system. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with such a booster which reduces the loss of high frequency signals due to the connection with the portable unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional car telephone is selectively operable in a portable mode in which a portable unit is removed from a booster, or in a car-mounted mode in which it is plugged in the booster. In the portable mode, the portable unit uses a built-in telephone antenna for transmission of communication signals. In the car-mounted mode, the portable unit is plugged in a car-mounted apparatus made up of a connection unit, which is removably connected, to the portable unit a curled cord connected to the connection unit by a coaxial cable, a power amplifier unit connected to the curled cord and fixed in place in, for example, a luggage compartment, and a car antenna connected to the power amplifier unit.
In the portable mode, the portable unit modulates a carrier signal generated by a first frequency synthesizer by a communication signal and other signals to thereby produce a first transmit signal to be transmitted. The telephone antenna converts the first transmit signal to a radio frequency (RF) signal and then sends it to a base station. The telephone antenna also functions to convert an RF signal sent from the base station to a first received signal, and a receiving amplifier amplifies the first received signal. A first receiving mixer is included in the portable unit and generates a first intermediate frequency (IF) signal in response to the amplified first received signal and a first local oscillation signal generated by a second frequency synthesizer. A demodulator produces a demodulated signal including a communication signal and other signals from the first IF signal.
When the user connects the portable unit to the connection unit and then turns on booster ON means incorporated in the connection unit, the power amplifier unit is activated to set up the car-mounted mode. Then, the user is capable of holding a conversation with a remote base station using the portable unit as a car telephone. As an RF signal sent from the base station comes in through the car antenna, the power amplifier unit effects low noise amplification with a weak second received signal based on the RF signal by a preamplifier and feeds the amplified second received signal to the portable unit. On receiving a first transmit signal from the portable unit, the power amplifier unit amplifies or boosts the signal using the power amplifier and feeds the resulting second transmit signal to the car antenna. In this manner, the power amplifier unit serves to increase the communicable distance between the car telephone and the base station. The power amplifier unit includes two duplexes, i.e., one on the car antenna side for separating the second transmit signal and the second received signal and the other on the portable unit side for separating the first transmit signal and the second received signal undergone low noise amplification.
The RF signal applicable to the car telephone system lies in, for example, the 800 MHz band as prescribed by AMPS (Advanced Mobile Telephone System), and the transmit signal and the received signal are different in frequency from each other. The received signal fed from the power amplifier unit to the portable unit has the same frequency as the RF signal sent from the base station. The frequency of the IF signal is often selected to be about 90 MHz. Since the curled cord is about 5 meters long, it has to be small size, light weight and, in addition, flexible. To meet these requirements, a high frequency signal transmission cable corresponding to a 1.5D-2 W (or RG-174/U as prescribed by MIL standards) coaxial cable is used for the propagation of the second received signal. With such a coaxial cable, however, the transmission loss of the received signal over the curled cord amounts to about 4.3 dB. Since the loss of received signal due to a high frequency signal transmission cable is substantially proportional to the square root of frequency, the transmission loss ascribable to the curled cord will be further aggravated if the RF signal of a car telephone system is shifted to the 1.5 GHz band, such shift which is now under investigation.
The problem with the conventional car telephone is that the total reception noise factor is low since it compensates for the loss of received signals ascribable to the high frequency signal transmission cable of the curled cord and the two duplexers of the power amplifier unit by increasing the amplification gain of the receiving amplifier of the portable unit. Moreover, since the portable unit has no margins as to the voltage to be supplied, power consumption, and volume, the circuit arrangement of the receiving amplifier and that of the receiving mixer are limited. The receiving mixer, for example, causes intermodulation to occur due to the limited circuit arrangement thereof, thereby degrading the reception characteristics.

Car-mounted booster for plug-in connection with mobile telephone set


According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an optical apparatus includes an optical filter array which comprises a plurality of optical filter elements, wherein at least one of the optical filter elements is adapted for tuning to two or more wavelengths.

Optical transmission systems, including optical fiber communication systems, have become an attractive alternative for carrying voice and data at high speeds. In addition to the pressure to improve the performance of optical communication systems, there is also increasing pressure on each segment of the optical communication industry to reduce costs associated with building and maintaining an optical network.
One technology used in optical communication systems is wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). As is well known, WDM pertains to the transmission of multiple signals (in this case optical signals) at different wavelengths down a single waveguide, providing high-channel capacity. Typically, the optical waveguide is an optical fiber.
For purposes of illustration, according to one International Telecommunications Union (ITU) grid a wavelength band from 1530 nm to 1565 nm is divided up into a plurality of wavelength channels, each of which have a prescribed center wavelength and a prescribed channel bandwidth; and the spacing between the channels is prescribed by the ITU grid. For example, one ITU channel grid has a channel spacing requirement of 100 GHz (in this case the channel spacing is referred to as frequency spacing), which corresponds to channel center wavelength spacing of 0.8 μnm. With 100 GHz channels spacing, channel "n" would have a center frequency 100 GHz less than channel "n+1" (or channel n would have a center wavelength 0.8 nm greater than channel n+1). The chosen channel spacing may result in 40, 80, 100, or more wavelength channels across a particular passband.
In WDM systems it may be useful to employ tunable optical filters in this demultiplexing process. For example, tunable optical filters may be useful in reconfigurable optical networks to facilitate a number of operations including demultiplexing. Moreover, the drive to reduce network costs and operation costs has placed a value on flexibility that has not previously existed; and that may be provided by tunable optical filters.
Unfortunately known tunable optical filters suffer certain implementation and performance drawbacks (e.g., suitably sharp cutoff outside of the passband of the filter; suitably low polarization dependent loss; and suitably low chromatic dispersion, some or all of which tend to degrade over the tuning range of conventional tunable filters).
Because the known tunable optical filters have unacceptable drawbacks, there exists a need for optical filter elements which overcome at least the drawbacks described above.

Tunable optical filter array and method of use

Abstract: According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an optical apparatus includes a monolithic optical filter array which further includes at least one tunable optical filter element. The optical apparatus also includes a tuning mechanism which tunes the tunable optical filter element to extract a signal of a particular wavelength from an optical signal which includes a plurality of wavelengths.

Abstract: According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method for selectively extracting optical signals of particular wavelengths includes providing a monolithic optical filter array which further includes at least one tunable optical filter element. The method also includes tuning the tunable optical filter element to extract a signal of a particular wavelength from an optical signal which includes a plurality of wavelengths.


A method, terminal, server, and a system for providing a service are provided. In a method of providing a plurality of applications pursuant to identifying a tag by a user terminal, the user terminal identifies the tag to obtain tag information and transmits a request for a service to a service providing server, which then obtains a plurality of application identification information corresponding to the tag information and generates and provides to the user terminal an applications list corresponding to the plurality of application identification information.

1. Technical Field
Exemplary embodiments relate to a method, terminal, server, and a system for providing a plurality of related applications to a user pursuant to identifying one tag.
2. Background Art
With the rapid progress of the telecommunication technologies, there have been efforts to develop so-called ubiquitous environments, in which telecommunication devices can be applied to real life in a natural, convenient way without being restricted by time and space. Indispensable to building these ubiquitous environments is the wireless identification technology, representative of which includes Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Near Field Communication (NFC), in which telecommunication devices can detect and identify one another remotely and effectively.
The wireless identification technology, which is an area of the automatic identification technology, such as barcodes, magnetic sensors, IC cards, etc., uses ultra-short waves or long waves to wirelessly identify data stored in a microchip, thereby allowing a reader to identify a tag attached to an object.
The conventional wireless identification technology simply displays tag information stored in the tag or provides a service by accessing an Object Directory Service (ODS) server based on the tag information to connect to an Object Information Service (OIS) server, in which real information is located. In this kind of conventional wireless identification technology, a single tag has one connection address only.

Method, terminal, server, and system for providing a service