A system and method for assessing and monitoring student academic achievement levels for purposes of identifying students at risk for not meeting minimum academic standards as measured using standardized tests, and for tracking or monitoring student academic performance levels. The system and method of the present invention comprises producing a pool of curriculum-independent General Outcome Measures (GOMs) of substantially equal difficulty for a particular grade level, and further comprises a system and method of assessing and monitoring students in that grade level using the pool of GOMs for the purpose of identifying those students at risk for not meeting minimum standardized test target scores and for tracking or monitoring student academic performance levels. The system comprises a database accessible remotely by authorized users through a network and user interface in which authorized users can remotely input student academic performance information and selectively retrieve that information for display through the user interface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of student academic assessment and more particularly to a system and method for assessing and monitoring student academic achievement for purposes of identifying students at risk for not meeting predetermined minimum academic standards or targets.
2. Description of the Related Art
Comprehensive standardized tests have long been used for assessing student academic achievement or aptitude. Such standardized tests include, for example, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). These and similar standardized tests are used to test a student's reading comprehension, writing, math and science skills. Educational entities use the students' scores from such standardized tests for comparison against predetermined minimum standards or targets set by the school, the school district, or federal or state agencies, in determining, for example, whether the student should move to the next grade level or whether the student should be retained or required to go to summer school or for purposes of determining whether the student is eligible for a special program.
In addition, standardized tests are used by educational entities and state and federal agencies for comparing academic performance between schools and school districts, for comparing academic performance of students among the different states of the union and for other types of demographic analysis. For example, the reading portion of the MCA test is well suited to provide a picture of a student's general reading skills at one place in time compared to other students in the school district, in the state, or in the country. When students are sampled appropriately, the MCA test allows school-to-school, school-to-state, and even state-to-state comparisons.
Standardized tests are typically given at the end of the school year, and the results are not usually received until well after the school year. Thus, this "after-the-fact" assessment information is not particularly useful to educators to inform instruction.
On Jan. 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) enacted in 1965. As published by the Department of Education, on its Internet web site "[The NCLB Act] changes the federal government's role in kindergarten-through-grade-12 education by asking America's schools to describe their success in terms of what each student accomplishes. The act contains the President's four basic education reform principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work."
Under the NCLB Act, "an 'accountable'education system involves the following steps: [1] The states create their own standards for what a child should know and learn for all grades. Standards must be developed in math and reading immediately. Standards must also be developed for science by the 2005-06 school year; [2] With standards in place, states must test every student's progress toward those standards by using tests that are aligned with the standards. Beginning in the 2002-03 school year, schools must administer tests in each of three grade spans: grades 3-5, grades 6-9, and grades 10-12 in all schools. Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, tests must be administered every year in grades 3 through 8 in math and reading. Beginning in the 2007-08 school year, science achievement must also be tested; [3] Each state, school district, and school will be expected to make adequate yearly progress toward meeting state standards. This progress will be measured for all students by sorting test results for students who are economically disadvantaged, from racial or ethnic minority groups, have disabilities, or have limited English proficiency; 4School and district performance will be publicly reported in district and state report cards. Individual school results will be on the district report cards; [5] If the district or school continually fails to make adequate progress toward the standards, then they will be held accountable."
With respect to school accountability, under the NCLB Act, "parents with a child enrolled in a school identified as in need of improvement for failing to meet the performance standards set by the state will be able to transfer their child to a beffer performing public school or public charter school. Additionally, for the first time, parents with children in a school identified as in need of improvement will be able to use federal education funds for what are called 'supplemental education services.' Those services include tutoring, after school services, and summer school programs." Id.
As a result of the NCLB Act, schools and school districts, now more than ever, are in need of an accurate, low-cost system that will allow them to assess individual students in order to identify which students are at risk for not meeting the state's minimum standards or targets for the state's particular standardized tests. By accurately identifying students at risk for failing the standardized tests, special attention may be given to those students to improve their individual academic performance in order to ensure that the school or school district meets the NCLB requirements, thereby avoiding the loss of students to other schools and increased federal or state scrutiny.
In addition to the need for an assessment program to ensure that schools meet the state's minimum standards or targets, it should be appreciated that schools now have a stronger incentive to not only meet, but exceed these minimum standards. For schools that can demonstrate that they provide higher quality education, they will be able to attract more students and will therefore obtain more federal and state funding. For similar reasons, private schools will also benefit from such an assessment system and method which can be used to demonstrate high academic achievement of its students. Parents wishing to send their students to private schools will naturally choose those private schools with high college placement and good academic reputations in order to ensure their children are provided with a quality education. Accordingly, there is a need in both the private and public educational systems for a low-cost accurate system and method for assessing and reporting a school's or school district's student achievement levels.
Related to the above needs, there is also a need to be able to monitor student achievement and cross-referencing such student achievement data with other important factors, such as the type of curriculum used, the teaching style used and which teachers have the greatest or least number of at risk-students. By cross-referencing such data on an individual and aggregate basis, parents, teachers, principles, superintendents and school boards will be able to more accurately determine which types of programs work more effectively than others or whether poor student achievement may perhaps lie with a particular curriculum, teacher or teaching style. Armed with such accurate and documented evidence, parents, teachers, schools, school districts, school boards and others having an interest in improving academic standards on a local, state or national level will be able to more accurately identify which teachers, which curriculums and which teaching styles provide better results than others. Appropriate corrective action may therefore be taken. Additionally, for teachers who have a demonstrated higher student achievement record, reward or incentive programs may be instituted in order to retain the best teachers and curriculums to continually improving the educational entity's overall student academic performance.
As identified above, under current practices most educational entities are only able to assess a student's academic performance after the student takes the standardized test. This after-the-fact assessment is of little use since it does not enable the educational entity to identify students at risk for failing the standardized tests beforehand so that specialized attention may be provided to those at-risk students. This inability to identify students for early intervention not only harms the student who may otherwise have benefited from early intervention, but it places the school at risk of losing students to better performing schools and being subject to state and federal scrutiny.
While certain educational entities may have the capability to develop their own internal assessment program to identify at-risk students, most educational entities do not have the available resources to do so, either financially or through qualified personnel. Furthermore even if resources were available to develop an internal assessment program, the results of such an internal assessment program may be of limited benefit and short lived unless the educational entity is devoted to implementing continual training of new assessors and continually updating and improving its assessment program.
There are a number of factors that effect the ability to implement a sound and accurate assessment program for use by different educational entities. First, the assessment system and method should be accurate in identifying those students at risk by providing a strong correlation between performance on the assessment tests and performance on the standardized tests used by the educational entity. Second in order for an educational entity on a limited budget to afford to implement an ongoing assessment program, the system and method should be low cost and require minimal training of the assessors. Third, the assessment program should employ assessment tests and grading methods that are "standard" among all users of the system in order to obtain accurate comparisons of the results between different students, classes, schools, and school districts. Fourth, the assessment tests should be "generic" or curriculum independent in order to obtain an accurate picture between classes, schools and school districts that may be employing different curriculums or different instructional materials for teaching their students. Fifth, there should be sufficient assessment tests within a grade-level of substantially equal difficulty for testing the students on an on-going basis without the student repeating the same assessment test. Finally, the assessment tests given to the students should be of short duration to minimize interruption and time away from class.
Accordingly, there is a need for an assessment system and method for use by educational entities which satisfies the foregoing factors while also satisfying the requirements of the NCLB Act or similar requirements and for meeting the high education standards parents properly expect from their children's schools.

System and method assessing student achievement


An image forming apparatus includes a color toner image forming portion, a transparent toner image forming portion, a heating portion, an obtaining portion that obtains information on an area where a gloss level should partly be increased and an area where the gloss level should partly be decreased in an image, and a controller controls the color toner image forming portion and the transparent toner image forming portion to form the color toner images and a first partial transparent toner image on a recording material, controls the heating portion to heat the color toner images and the first partial transparent toner image on the recording material, controls the transparent toner image forming portion to form a second partial transparent toner image on the recording material, and controls the heating portion to heat the second partial transparent toner image on the recording material based on information obtained by the obtaining portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus including a color toner image forming portion that can form a color toner image and a clear toner image forming portion that can form a clear toner image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently there is proposed an electrophotographic image forming apparatus in which a clear toner (transparent toner) is used. Various expressions can be performed by use of the clear toner to improve an added value of an output. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-251722 discusses an image forming apparatus in which the clear toner is used.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-251722, the image forming apparatus includes the color toner image forming portion that can form the color toner image and the clear toner image forming portion that can form the clear toner image, and the clear toner image is formed after the color toner image is formed on a recording material. According to the configuration of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-251722, a gloss process is performed to the color toner image on a recording material.
However, an image forming apparatus that obtains the output, in which an area where a gloss is partly decreased with respect to surrounding glosses and an area where the gloss is partly increased with respect to the surrounding glosses are mixed on a surface of the output recording material, is not proposed yet.
The present invention provides an image forming apparatus that obtains the output in which the area where the gloss is partly decreased with respect to the surrounding glosses and the area where the gloss is partly increased with respect to the surrounding glosses are mixed.


A method of removing blemishes from an image. The method receives a selection of an area of an image, divides the area into at least two interior sub-areas, and replaces the colors of each sub-area independently from each other sub-area.

In recent years, digital photography has become more popular. This increase in popularity has led to a proliferation of computer programs for editing images. These programs provide a variety of tools for organizing and editing images. Some of these programs include tools for removing blemishes from the image. Such blemishes include, for example, scratches and errant objects that were present in the original scene but are not wanted in the finished picture.
Prior blemish-removal tools often do not perform well in removing blemishes from some of the more complicated regions of images. For instance, they cannot remove blemishes satisfactorily from regions with one or more edges. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of this short-coming in prior blemish removal tools. Specifically, this figure illustrates a pastoral scene 100 that is disturbed by an earthworm 110 poking up out of the ground 112 and blocking part of the ground 112 and the sky 114. In this example, a blemish removal tool that provides a circular cursor 120 has been used (in a second scene 105) to select an area that encompasses the worm and the pixels around the worm within the circle.
In this example, the blemish removal tool does not account for the possibility that the selected area may overlap two different regions. Accordingly, FIG. 1 illustrates that in scene 107, which shows the results of using, the tool, that all the pixels within the selected area have been blurred from the outer edge of the area (blurring inward from edges is sometimes referred to as "inpainting"). The final result of using such a removal tool not only eliminates the worm, but also blends the sky 114 into the ground 112 and vice versa, as the tool does not recognize the edge in the image that is formed at the boundary between the ground and the sky. This blending is an undesirable distortion in the image.
Therefore, there is a need for a blemish removal tool that can remove blemishes from even complex regions, such as those that include one or more edges.


An improved field marker is provided which can be used on an agricultural implement of the type which includes wing folding. The field marker has an arm with a disk mounted on an outer end of the arm and a mounting system at the inner end of the arm for supporting the arm on the implement. The arm includes two portions which fold in a knee type action while the inner portion is folded through 90.degree. so that both portions lie along the side of the implement. The mounting assembly includes a fixed portion attached to the implement and a pivotal portion which moves about a horizontal axis. A spring biases the arm towards a raised position. In the extended position of the arm the spring force is overcome and the disk rests on the ground. As the arm retracts to the folded position and the effective weight decreases the spring forces lift the arm.

This invention relates to a field marker for mounting on an agriculture implement for generating a marked line on the ground indicative of the path of the implement.
Various types of field marker have been provided and one class of field markers known as disk markers include a disk which is carried on the outer end of the arm so the disk runs along the ground at the end of the arm and forms a furrow in the ground which is sufficient for the driver to see and to follow in the next path of the implement parallel to the path in which the furrow is formed.
Various designs of disk marker have been manufactured and proposed and generally the disk marker includes a mounting assembly which attaches to the implement and an arm which is pivotally mounted about an axis along the side of the implement so that the arm can raise and lower as the disk follows the contour of the land. In many cases the disk is moved into a retracted position simply by lifting the disk and the arm about the pivot axis to a raised position. This is suitable for sprayers and other similar implements in which the folding action of the implement for transportation takes place by pivoting a part of the implement about a vertical axis.
However in recent years it has become more popular to provide implements particularly cultivators, air seeders and packers in which the implement folds by way of wing sections which fold up about a horizontal axis parallel to the direction and movement of the implement. In many cases the implement also folds about a second axis so that in the folded position there is a centre portion remaining at ground level, two vertical portions at the sides of the centre portion and then two horizontal portions that project inwardly over the centre portion. For such implements the simple lifting field marker is totally impractical since it interferes with the folding action and hangs down in a totally uncontrolled manner.


A blower assembly includes a fan assembly configured to rotate about an axis and having a fan inlet ring that at least partially defines a fan inlet and a fan outlet. The blower assembly also includes a frame assembly coupled to the fan assembly and a recirculation damper coupled to the frame assembly. The recirculation damper and the fan inlet ring define an axial gap therebetween to reduce recirculation of an airflow discharged from the fan outlet.

The embodiments described herein relate generally to blower assemblies, and more particularly, to blower assemblies that reduce noise and increase efficiency in forced air or air circulating systems.
Many known commercial ventilation, heating, and air conditioning systems require air propulsion units. In addition to providing movement of air for such systems, air propulsion units may be used in combination with condenser units or to supplement other heat transfer operations. Some known air propulsion units are motor driven fans. These fans may be, for example, a plenum wheel driven by an electric motor.
At least some known blower assemblies include a plug fan with a plurality of circumferentially-spaced backward curved blades that are rotated by a motor to intake an airflow in an axial direction and exhaust the airflow in a radial direction. In such a configuration, the airflow exiting the fan may attach to the walls of the flow passage as soon as it exits the fan. As a result, an area of air recirculation may form which increases overall noise and also decreases the efficiency on the system.
At least some known blower assemblies include features on the fan or upstream of the fan to reduce recirculation. For example, at least some known fans include flow straighteners at the inlet of the fan. However, such flow straighteners can be expensive to manufacture and install. Furthermore, at least some known fans include specially designed blade profiles and features that are meant to reduce recirculation. However, such blade features may be difficult and expensive to manufacture.

Blower assembly and methods of assembling the same


A drug-eluting stent whose main body is made of a metal or a polymeric material, the surface of which is coated with a mixture including cilostazol and a bioabsorbable polymer, wherein the molecular weight of the bioabsorbable polymer is 40,000 to 600,000.

The current advancement of medicine brings about a remarkable development of the treatment/prevention of various diseases such as infection disease, but patients of arteriosclerotic disease or the like which is caused by bad lifestyle tend to increase. In particular, patients of arteriosclerotic disease such as myocardial infarction, angina, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease are increasing more and more in Japan, in connection with the westernization of lifestyle and the aging. As a method for surely treating such arteriosclerotic disease, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (hereinafter, referred to as "PTA") is generally used, which is an angioplasty to surgically expand the stenosis or occluded part in blood vessel, for example, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty in coronary artery which is typical. The PTA which is operated for the stenotic or occlusive area in coronary artery is specifically referred to as Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty, (abbreviated as "PTCA").
The PTCA is a technique for recovering the blood flow, in which a balloon catheter (a tube having a balloon at its tip) or a stent is inserted from an arm or femoral artery, it is placed at a stenosis in the coronary artery, then the balloon attached at the tip is blown up to expand the stenotic blood vessel. This technique can expand an intravascular lumen in a lesion site to increase the blood flow in the intravascular lumen. The PTCA is used for the treatment of arteriosclerotic disease as well as shunt stenosis which arises at an arm of a hemodialysis patient.
In general, the PTCA-treated blood vessel is damaged such as detachment of endothelial cell and injury of elastic lamina, and the vascular intima grows because of the healing reaction in the vascular wall, thereby patients whose stenosis lesion site is opened by PTCA can suffer from restenosis at a rate of about 30 to 40%.
In more detail, the main cause of restenosis in human beings is thought to be the inflammatory process (adhesion/invasion of a monocyte) arising 1 to 3 days after the PTCA, and the forming process of intimal thickening (smooth muscle cell) whose growth is the most about 45 days after the PTCA. Once the restenosis comes up, it is necessary to do the PTCA again. Accordingly, the establishment of the method for the prevention and treatment has been desired.
Then, it has been suggested to try reducing the rate of restenosis by releasing a drug topically for a long time at a site for placement in a lumen, using a drug-dissolution type of a medical device (stent) for placement into a lumen wherein an anticancer agent or an immunosuppressive agent, as well as an anti-inflammatory agent or an inhibitor of smooth-muscle cell proliferation is supported on the surface of stent or balloon catheter which is made of metal or polymer material.
The drugs applied on a drug-eluting stent are generally limus-type drugs such as an anticancer agent and an immunosuppressive agent. These drugs have a potent effect to suppress the growth of vascular smooth muscle cell, so-called "intimal thickening" which is a main cause of restenosis, thanks to their potent cytotoxicity. On the contrary, these drugs can also strongly inhibit the regeneration of vascular endothelial cell, which can induce delayed in-stent thrombosis that is a big clinical problem. The incidence rate of delayed in-stent thrombosis is small, less than 1%, but, once the patient given with the stent suffers from the thrombosis, the patient can have a bad prognosis, i.e., can suffer a serious problem such as cardiac death.
In order to solve the problem, it has been actively studied now to suppress the inhibitory of the vascular endothelial cell regeneration, for example, by reducing the amount of the above-mentioned limus-type drugs applied on a stent. However, it seems that the problem cannot be completely solved when limus-type drugs are used.
It has been tried to use a drug such as probucol and cilostazol other than limus-type drugs, but, there has not been any practical drug eluting stents other than a stent of limus-type drugs yet.
Patent Reference 1 suggests a drug-eluting stent (hereinafter, abbreviated as "DES") wherein the body of a stent is coated with a biocompatible nanoparticle including a bioactive substance for the treatment, and a process thereof, which discloses a spherical crystallization technique as a process of a biocompatible nanoparticle.
However, a poorly water-soluble drug which is hardly dissolved in water such as probucol and cilostazol which have anti-thrombus activity is hard to be included in a biocompatible nanoparticle by spherical crystallization technique. Actually, when making probucol included in a particle by said spherical crystallization technique, the content of probucol in a PLGA nanoparticle was only about 0.5%, which indicates that little drug was included. Thus, according to the method of Patent Reference 1, it was impossible to prepare a medical device for placement into a lumen wherein the surface is coated with a sufficient amount of a poorly water-soluble drug.
Patent Reference 2 discloses a method of attaching a drug on a carrier by dipping a stent or a catheter which is a carrier to a solution of a drug which is water-insoluble and drying the carrier. In the method disclosed in Patent Reference 2, however, the attached amount was limited, accordingly it was difficult to attach a sufficient amount of a drug on a carrier. In addition, the attached drug was released in a short time, thereby it was also difficult to control the releasing time.
Patent Reference 3 discloses a drug-releasing control type of multilayered stent whose surface is coated with a drug ingredient and a biocompatible polymer as a second coating layer, wherein probucol is listed as one of the exemplified active ingredients. Patent Reference 4 discloses a medical device coated with a biocompatible substance comprising a medicinal ingredient, and Patent Reference 5 discloses a drug delivery system that uses a balloon and an implant prosthesis (stent) which are at least partially coated with a coating agent comprising a drug and a carrier. Further, both of Patent References 4 and 5 disclose probucol as a drug.
However, the methods disclosed in Patent References 3 to 5 had a problem that it takes excessive time to elute a drug and then it is difficult to obtain an enough efficacy of a drug, because a drug ingredient is released in tandem with the decomposition of the biocompatible polymer layer. These methods need to use a solvent which can dissolve both of a drug ingredient and a biocompatible polymer in preparing a liquid coating agent of the drug ingredient and the biocompatible polymer. However, it was restrictive to find such solvent from the viewpoint of the combination of a biocompatible polymer and a drug. Consequently, the methods had a problem of lacking versatility as a coating technique.
In addition, using cilostazol which is another poorly water-soluble drug and has platelet aggregation inhibition action and so on, the same application of the drug to a medical device has been tried (Patent References 3, 6 to 20). For example, Patent Reference 20 discloses a trial that a biocompatible particle is transformed to a nanoparticle thereof, and then a stent is coated with the nanoparticle and cilostazol particle by charge-based method, but the process to prepare it is very complicated. The other methods disclosed in prior art also have the same problem in the trials.


A grinding bit apparatus used in conjunction with a grinding machine. A water pump in the form of a cylindrically shaped member having a helical groove on the surface thereof is mounted on the drive shaft of the grinding machine, a lower end portion thereof being located in a water reservoir. A grinding bit is mounted to the drive shaft above the water pump and is passively connected with the water pump so as to rotate with the drive shaft. One or more washers are placed between the water pump and the grinding bit so as to selectively vary the location of the working surface of the grinding bit with respect to the work table. An annular collar openings is provided which depends from the work table to surround the water pump and any portion of the grinding bit below the work surface. In another aspect of the grinding bit apparatus, other diameter grinding bits may be passively mounted to the drive shaft above the water pump, including a small diameter grinding bit suitable for performing both grinding and drilling operations. A modified annular collar is provided which is elongated and has connected therewith an auxiliary work table at the height of the small diameter grinding bit, and has further connected therewith an inner annular flange so that the top end opening thereof is located suitably near the grinding bit. A pair of internal tabs attached to the inner annular flange serve to direct rising and rotating coolant water from the water pump to the working surface of the small diameter grinding wheel.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to grinding bit apparatus used in connection with grinding machines, particularly grinding machines of the class used for performing operations on stained glass panes. The present invention more particularly relates to an improved grinding bit apparatus having improved operational flexibility and improved operational performance.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Grinding machines generally incorporate a frame supporting a work holder or work table, a prime mover connected with the frame, a drive shaft connected with the prime mover, and a grinding bit connected with the drive shaft for performing a grinding operation on a workpiece. Variations on this scheme are plentiful, and the grinding bit may have various configurations ranging from an elongate cylindrical shape mounted axially with respect to the drive shaft to a wheel shape mounted horizontally with respect to the drive shaft.
In many instances, the heat generated from the grinding operation is excessive to the point that provision must be made for its removal and/or control. In these instances, air or water is fed to the grinding bit in order to serve as a coolant. Also, certain operations may benefit directly from the introduction of wash water on the grinding bit as an aid to the grinding process being performed on the workpiece.
There are a number of examples of grinding machines employing grinding bits which are cooled by water. U.S. Pat. No. 1,827,688 to Ley, dated Oct. 13, 1931, discloses a grinding machine utilizing a water reservoir beneath the bit and a screw-like formation located in the reservoir for spraying water up onto the grinding bit. U.S. Pat. No. 2,110,441 to Kasch, dated Mar. 8, 1938, discloses a grinding machine utilizing a grinding bit which is supplied with water coolant via operation of a propeller-shaped member located in the water reservoir beneath the grinding bit. U.S. Pat. No. 2,457,283 to Slatter, dated Dec. 28, 1948, discloses a grinding machine having a cup-shaped grinding bit cooled by water from a reservoir that is driven up a duct therein, and further having a tool holder in the form of an adjustable head supported on a standard adjacent the grinding bit. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 2,489,437 to Sandoz, dated Nov. 29, 1949, discloses a grinding machine having a spindle carrying a grinding bit in which water is used to cool the spindles and cool the grinding bit as it makes its way flowably thereto.
Grinding machines used to shape glass panes, such as glass panes used in the making of stained glass works, are provided with a vertical drive shaft to which is connected a cylindrically shaped bit, a work table for holding the glass pane perpendicularly with respect to the bit, and water transfer means to serve as a coolant and particle wash during the grinding operation. In this regard, the artisan's hand moves the glass pane on the work table into selective engagement with the grinding bit so as to achieve a desired finished product.
There are various structures known in the prior art to provide water to the bit during a grinding operation. One structure utilizes a sponge which partly rests in the water reservoir and makes contact with the grinding bit. While this structure is simple and inexpensive, it is subject to excessive wear may be accidentally knocked out of position, may not provide an adequate water supply to the grinding bit, and because the sponge accumulates particles during grinding, periodic cleaning thereof is required.
One grinding machine which provides a mechanically induced supply of water to the grinding bit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,357 to Gach, dated May 14, 1985. In this grinding machine, coolant water is supplied to the grinding bit by an impeller mounted to the drive shaft. A prime mover in the form of an electric motor drives the drive shaft from a location below the water reservoir, the drive shaft protruding vertically up from the reservoir. Below the grinding bit, and located within the reservoir, is an impeller rotatable with the grinding bit. Surrounding the impeller and the lower portion of the grinding bit is an annular collar that depends from the underside of a work table. In operation, when the drive shaft rotates, the impeller drives water from the reservoir up toward the working surface of the grinding bit, and the annular collar helps to contain the water driven by the impeller. At the top of the annular collar, whereat is provided a grinding bit opening in the work table, a frustoconical bevel (oriented upwardly toward the grinding bit) directs the coolant onto the working surface of the grinding bit.
The aforesaid device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,357 has the advantage of being able to supply water from a reservoir for cooling and washing of the grinding bit without the need for a sponge or complicated pumping and piping that may be otherwise present in industrial grinding machines. However, certain disadvantages still pertain. For example, the various impellers disclosed therein all have structures which serve to splash water toward the grinding bit by a general agitation of the water in the reservoir. This is inefficient and results in a poor water transfer rate compared with the amount of agitation that is produced in the reservoir. Further, there is no provision for axial adjustment of the work surface of the grinding bit relative to the work table so that wear-out of the grinding bit can be extended across the entire grinding surface of the grinding bit. Finally, there is no provision for replacement of the grinding bit with other sized grinding bits, in which certain of these grinding bits could perform other operations, such as drilling.
Importantly, too, prior art impellers, such as that disclosed hereinabove, will not raise water from the reservoir to a height above the work table. This limits the location of the grinding bit to a height only at the work table, thereby preventing the use of small diameter grinding hits which must, because of their small diameter, be mounted at the end of the drive shaft at a height above the work table.
Accordingly, what is needed is a grinding machine, particularly a grinding machine adapted for use with pane glass, which has none of the disadvantages of U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,357 discussed hereinabove.
In the prior art there are several examples of grinding machines which disclose structures of interest. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,775,908 to Meckler et al, dated Dec. 4, 1973, discloses a grinding machine particularly adapted for spectacles glass grinding having a fine grinding bit and a rough grinding bit arranged together on a bushing which is axially displaceable on the drive shaft of the machine. And further for instance, U.S. Pat. 4,446,657 to Asaeda et al, dated May 8, 1984, discloses a grinding bit having a sealing layer between the grinding portion thereof and the support portion thereof so that coolant water cannot penetrate into the support portion. And still further for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,538 to Green, dated Dec. 17, 1985, discloses a sander having a bit in the form of a sleeve covered by sandpaper which is axially supported at both ends by an arbor; the sleeve is axially positionable along the arbor so as to provide fresh bit surface as needed for sanding operations. Yet none of these offers solutions adoptable to provide a grinder machine of the type needed.


An automatic clutch control system (200) is provided featuring programs for establishing optimum clutch engagement starting position (CPO) under varying operating conditions. The programs include the steps of both slow and rapid clutch engagement and preferably the storage of the (CPO) determined as a fault signal whenever its fractional relationship to the previously stored optimum clutch engagement starting position (CPN) exceeds a predetermined fraction (C6) that is less than one.

Interest in improving vehicle performance has increased dramatically in recent years with one result being the development of a variety of automatic systems for maintaining and controlling various engine parameters.
Of particular interest in the recent past has been the desire to position the incipient or engagement starting position of the clutch so that it is optimized according to particular engine conditions such as engine speed, transmission oil temperature and clutch wear existing at the time. For example, it may be desired that the disengaged position be advanced a predetermined amount toward the engaged position to account for wear or in a direction away from the engaged position in the case of increasing transmission oil temperature or higher engine speeds.
One example of a method for controlling friction clutch operation is described in published British application GB 2231116A. Here, apparatus and method are disclosed for optimizing the engagement position of a friction clutch to achieve optimum driving comfort and to provide smooth driving operation resulting in lengthening the service life of the clutch as well as the life of the vehicle itself. More particularly the apparatus and method include means for detecting engine speed and transmission gear speed; means for measuring the clutch operating path; means for detecting the position of the fuel supply mechanism (i.e. throttle valve position); means for detecting the accelerator pedal position; means for detecting the idling position of the fuel supply mechanism; means for detecting the transmission position with neutral; means for detecting transmission gear change intent; a device for detecting the throttle valve end position; and an engine temperature measure. Signals provided by the above sensors are processed to provide an optimum position to which the friction clutch is moved between an open and closed condition by a piston driven mechanism so that the friction clutch's subsequent movement therefrom to a closed (engaged condition) is accomplished with optimal smoothness.
Another example of a clutch control system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,069, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Here, transmission oil temperature and transmission input shaft speed are both used as correction factors for adjusting the clutch starting position.
Yet another example of an automatic clutch control system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,678, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Here, engine speed, transmission input shaft speed and amount of accelerator pedal depression are used to adjust the clutch's engagement starting position.
The system of the present invention utilizes sensed parameters of engine speed, transmission input shaft speed, actual and predetermined clutch position in conjunction with optional sensed or calculated parameters such as rate of change of transmission input shaft speed, transmission oil temperature, rate of change of clutch position in a control system for optimizing the clutch engagement start position under various operating conditions that uniquely utilizes two different rates of clutch engagement as part of a program for determining optimum clutch incipient starting position. The system of the invention further preferably establishes and stores fault codes in memory indicative of when the incipient clutch position for particular sensed operating conditions (when the transmission is not in neutral) differs by more than a predetermined fraction that is less than one.


A nonvolatile integrated circuit memory device includes a memory cell array having a plurality of memory cells. A high voltage generating unit generates first, second, and third program voltages used in programming the memory cell array. A program control unit controls times of applying the second and third program voltages to the memory cell array responsive to the first program voltage. Programming methods for the nonvolatile integrated circuit memory devices are also provided.

The present invention relates to integrated circuit devices and more particularly integrated circuit memory devices and methods for programming the same.
A variety of nonvolative integrated circuit (semiconductor) memory device types are known. One such nonvolatile semiconductor memory device that is capable of being electrically programmed, erased and read, NOR-type flash memory devices, are typically used in applications where information is read at a high speed, as such memories may support high frequency program and read operations relative to other types of nonvolatile memory devices.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a conventional flash memory cell 10. The flash memory cell 10 includes a source region 3 and a drain region 4, which are formed of N+ impurities and spaced apart from each other in a P-type semiconductor substrate (or bulk) 2. A gate oxide film 7, having a thickness less than 100 Å, is formed on a channel region between the source and drain regions 3, 4 of the semiconductor substrate 2. A floating gate 6 is formed on the gate oxide film 7. An interlayer dielectric film 9, such as an oxide/nitride/oxide (ONO) film, is formed on the floating gate 6, and a control gate 8 is formed on the interlayer dielectric film 9. For the structure of the flash memory cell 10, voltage terminals Vs, Vg, Vd, and Vb are shown as electrically connected to the source region 3, the control gate 8, the drain region 4, and the semiconductor substrate 2, respectively, in order to apply voltages thereto during programming, erasing, and reading operations and/or to read voltages therefrom.
The flash memory device 10 of FIG. 1 is typically programmed by channel hot electron (CHE) injection, toward a floating gate 6, generated in a channel area adjacent to the drain region 4. The CHE injection is typically induced by grounding the source region 3 and the P type semiconductor substrate 2, and applying a high voltage, of about 10V, to the control gate electrode Vg. In order to generate the hot electrons from the drain region 4, an appropriate positive voltage, such as about 5V to about 6V is applied thereto. When the flash memory cell 10 is programmed by applying voltages, negative charges are generally accumulated in the floating gate 6. The negative charges stored in the floating gate function to increase a threshold voltage of the programmed flash memory cell during a reading operation.
After programming of the flash memory cell, one known problem is a drain turn-on phenomenon that may become a major problem affecting the reliability of the flash memory cell and its operational characteristics.
As described above, to program a memory cell by means of the effect of the CHE injection, a high voltage of about 10V is applied to a wordline (i.e., the control gate) of a selected memory cell and a voltage of about 5V is applied to a bitline (namely, the drain) of a selected memory cell. During this operation, in deselected memory cells connected to the same bitline with the selected memory cell, although the wordline is grounded, a voltage from 0.7V to 0.8 V can be coupled to the floating gate 6 due to coupling capacitance (where a coupling rate is about 0.1) between the drain 4 and the floating gate 6. As a result, a considerable amount of sub-threshold leakage current may flow through the deselected memory cells. This is typically referred to as a drain turn-on problem. The greater the number of memory cells connected to the bitline in common, the more the sub-threshold leakage current generally flows through the deselected memory cells during a programming operation. When an excessive drain turn-on problem occurs, a undesirable voltage drop may occur along the bitline. This may cause a program voltage applied to a drain of the selected cell to be reduced, which may result in the deterioration of programming reliability.

Nonvolatile integrated circuit memory devices having staged application of program voltages and methods for programming the same


A counter flow indirect evaporative heat exchanger (10) having vertically stacked alternate counter flow wet (14) and dry (12) passages where the wet passages are wetted during operation of the heat exchanger by wetting means (50, 52, 53, 54, 70, 72, 74, 76) travelling vertically of the stack. Elongately wetting of a small plurality of the total number of passages (14, 12) of the heat exchanger (10) occurs at a time during vertical travel of the wetting means.

Throughout this description and the claims which follow, unless the context requires otherwise, the word "comprise", or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising", will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated integer or step or group of integers or steps.
The reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that that prior art forms part of the common general knowledge in Australia.
The principles of indirect evaporative cooling have been well known for many years. Early references to the principle of pre-cooling air through a combination of heat exchange and evaporation prior to evaporative cooling include SU 979796 by Maisotsenko. These principles have been exploited in a number of practical applications as shown in, say, U.S. Pat. No. 4,977,753 by Maisotsenko, and as further refined in U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,402, US Application 2004/0226698 by Reinders and in PCT/AU2006/000025 by James.
The practical devices as shown in the aforementioned disclosures present a number of difficulties to be ameliorated before those devices can operate to a standard that is satisfactory for a commercially viable product.
Of great practical importance in the provision of coolers is their size and shape which must be such as to fit and blend into the surroundings of, say, a domestic dwelling. While it has been traditional to mount direct evaporative coolers on rooves, the additional size and weight of indirect coolers of the same cooling capacity make this approach impractical. A similar problem presents itself when the working models of indirect evaporative coolers are positioned at ground level around the outside of a dwelling. The cooler may have a plan area which can be too large and use too much of the available space between, say, the wall of a building and a boundary fence.
Marketing of indirect evaporative coolers would be greatly enhanced if a cooler could be fitted into a package to be mounted against the outside wall of a dwelling and had dimensions which satisfied the following criteria:                A depth as small as practicable from the wall to the outside of the cooler.        A width limited by handling considerations.        A height only limited by clearance to the underside of any overhanging roof/eave members.
An ideal configuration, consistent with technical requirements for its operation and, considering the above, would typically project from a wall, against which it is mounted, a distance of no more than about 600 mm, a width of up to 900 mm and height limited to about 2100 mm.
The construction of a cooler within these parameters requires a radical departure from previously disclosed constructions of those devices. In all previous disclosures, certain dimensions of the heat exchanger core are defined by technical and/or practical restraints with only one dimension being able to be varied to increase the capacity of the heat exchanger.
The Maisotsenko device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,402 has a heat exchanger width and depth restrained by air flow and resistance considerations where capacity is determined by the height of the exchanger. The configurations of Reinders and James have the depth and height of the heat exchanger determined by technical considerations, while the width determines the capacity of the device. We believe that if the favourable characteristics of each of these configurations could be combined into a device, then a much more practicable indirect cooler could be developed for the marketplace.
However, each of the previously disclosed configurations has other technical and practical difficulties which make a ready combination of their advantages somewhat problematic.
The device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,402 requires horizontal heat exchanger plates with a wettable surface on one side and an impervious surface on the other. Water distribution throughout the wettable surface relies on a wickable media distributing water from a central trough with a combination of wicking along the surface and some gravitational assistance from a slight decline from the horizontal. Cooling to a low temperature requires water flow through the wetted surface to be as low as possible, and preferably just sufficient to replace the loss due to evaporation. Flushing of the wettable surfaces to remove any accumulation of salts left behind by evaporating water is not possible without significant degradation of the thermal performance of the air conditioner.
The Maisotsenko configuration, which progressively transfers a percentage of cooled air from the dry passage to the wet passage to provide evaporative cooling, compromises the temperature of the delivered air relative to other configurations, since the transferred air cannot be subjected to the full temperature difference offered by the heat exchanger.
The configuration offered by Reinders fully exploits the original principles of indirect evaporative cooling, but the heat transfer performance of the heat exchanger is compromised by its layout and construction. Heat transferring from the wet passage side to the dry passage side has to travel through relatively long distances of heat exchanger material, necessitating the use of high conductivity materials such as metals to achieve reasonable performance.
In both of the configurations used by Reinders and James, water distribution to the heat exchanger core is by irrigation of the top surface of the core, allowing water to flow down through the core to be collected in a reservoir below the core. This water flow through the core must be kept to a minimum while the cooler is in operation since any excess water flow over that required for evaporation will compromise the temperatures of the usable conditioned air that can be delivered by the cooler. The water flow requirement for thermal performance desirably includes the capability for it to flush residual salts from the core surfaces. A reasonable, practical compromise utilised by both Reinders and James is to periodically wet the core with an excess of water to flush out residual salts and fill the water retaining capability of the materials used to form the wet channels, followed by relatively long periods of operation without wetting. During this period, evaporation still takes place from water held in the wetted surfaces and full thermal performance of the cooler is achieved. This solution works well provided the wetting period is short, and the period between wettings is long.
An alternative revealed by James is to divide the core into separately wetted segments, each segment with its own, thermally separated, water circuit (pump, reservoir and distributor). This method allows for constant flushing of the core without degradation of thermal performance. While this alternative has been demonstrated to work in practical models, it is difficult to implement in viable production models.
A preferred solution is therefore to periodically wet the wet passages of the core with periods as long as possible between wettings to allow evaporation to take place and maximise the cooling capacity of the heat exchanger. This ideal becomes more difficult as the height of the heat exchanger is increased to take advantage of the preferred configuration of the overall indirect evaporative cooler. Water can only be added to the top of the core at a rate determined by the time it takes to trickle down through the wet passages. The wetting cycle must continue until water has spread through most of the vertical distance of the core, and to then be cut off allowing the excess water to flow all the way through the core and back to the reservoir. The cooling effect of the heat exchanger is compromised all the time that water is flowing through the wet passages, and only reverts to maximum cooling when all water flow has stopped. The taller the core, and hence the longer the wet passages, the longer will be the period required for wetting and the greater the proportion of time during which cooling is compromised. This situation becomes untenable with cores as tall as those required for the preferred geometry described above.

Indirect evaporative cooler construction


A simple to construct and utilize apparatus mounts a trolling motor control pedal and a seat in a fishing boat to provide optimum user comfort and control. A substantially planar plate has a control pedal mounted on its top surface near a first end of the plate, and has a sleeve for receiving the pedestal or post of a seat (chair) near the second end of the plate. Extending downwardly from the bottom surface of an intermediate portion of the plate is a shaft mounting the plate to the boat deck for rotation about a substnatially vertical axis of rotation. Beneath the pedestal-receiving sleeve is a rubberized non-skid material adhesively secured to the bottom surface of the plate to engage the boat deck and retard movement of the plate when a fisherman's weight is on the chair.

A variety of fishing boats have trolling motors which are controlled by a control pedal to allow a fisherman the free use of his or her hands. Such boats also desirably have a seat structure, such as a chair, for use by the fisherman both for safety and comfort. In the past there have been numerous proposals for supporting apparatus used to mount the trolling motor control pedal and chair for movement together, or independently of each other, in order to provide comfort, ease of control, and versatility of user movement, While such proposals have often been able to accomplish the desired end results, usually the strucures for accomplishing the desired results are complex and/or expensive. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,500 shows a proposal in which a control pedal for a trolling motor and a chair are mounted for movement together, both rotatable about a vertical axis with respect to a boat deck, and the chair also rotatable about a second vertical axis with respect to the control pedal. However the structure used to mount the chair and control pedal is large and expensive, and the structure is moved to various positions, and maintained in those positions, by a motorized gear box.
According to the present invention, apparatus is provided which provides for positive mounting of the position of a control pedal with respect to a fisherman's chair, allows both of them to be manually rotated about a vertical axis provided in the boat deck of a bass boat or the like, allows rotation of the chair with respect to the control pedal, and retards movement of the control pedal and chair support from a position to which it has been moved --just like in the sophisticated, complex and expensive prior art proposals--yet in a simple and inexpensive manner. This is primarily accomplished according to the invention by providing a support structure in the form of a simple substantially planar plate, having a non-skid material on the bottom surface thereof underneath a portion of the plate supporting a chair pedestal or post. The control pedal is also simply mounted in the plate at an end thereof opposite the chair pedestal mount, and a smiple downwardly extending shaft supports the plate for rotation about a first vertical axis with respect to the boat deck.
According to one aspect of the present invention, apparatus facilitating control of a trolling motor is provided comprising the following elements: A support struture having a top surface and a bottom surface, and first and second ends spaced from each other. Means for mounting the support structure for rotation about an axis, the mounting means extending outwardly from the bottom surface of the support structure between the first and second ends thereof. Means for mounting a trolling motor control pedal adjacent the first end of the support structure on the top surface of the support structure. Means for mounting a seat structure adjacent the second end of the support structure on the top surface of the support structure; and support structure movement-retarding means mounted on the bottom surface of the support structure adjacent the second end thereof, and below the seat structure mounting means to resist movement of the support structure to a position to which it has been moved if the movement-retarding means engages a boat deck surface beneath it. The support structure preferably comprises a substantially planar plate, the movement-retarding means a rubberized non-skid material adhesively secured to the bottom surface of the plate beneath the seat support, the seat suport comprises a sleeve for receiving a pedestal or post extending upwardly from the top surface of the plate, the rotation mounting means comprises a shaft and spacer washer mounted to and extending downwardly from the bottom of the plate, and the pedal-receiving means comprises surface manifestations (such as one or more apertures formed by upturning flanges from the surface of the plate) which engage a pedal.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a simple apparatus--which can be used in association with bass boats or the like--is provided which has the following elements: a substantially planar plate having a top surface and a bottom surface, a first end, and a second end. A sleeve connected to the plate top surface adjacent the second end thereof and extending upwardly from the top surface; and a shaft connected to the bottom surface of the plate roughly intermediate the first and second ends of the plate, and extending downardly from the bottom of the plate. The apparatus also preferably comprises a non-skid material connected to the plate bottom surface beneath the sleeve; and surface manifestations formed in the plate adjacent the first end thereof, and including at least one aperture in the plate or flange upstanding from the plate.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fishing boat seat and trolling motor control pedal support structure assembly mounted in a fishing boat having a boat deck, trolling motor control pedal, and a trolling motor. The support structure assembly comprises: A support struture having a top surface and a bottom surface, and first and second ends spaced from each other. Means for mounting the support structure to the boat deck for rotation about a first substantially vertical axis, the mounting means extending outwardly from the bottom surface of the support structure between the first and second ends thereof into or through the boat deck. Means for mounting the trolling motor control pedal adjacent the first end of the support structure on the top surface of the support structure. A seat structure including a pedestal or post. Means for mounting the seat structure pedestal or post adjacent the second end of the support structure on the top surface of the support structure extending so that the seat structure is mounted above the boat deck, and so that the seat structure is rotatable about a second substantially vertical axis, spaced from the first axis, with respect to the support structure; and support structure movement-retarding means mounted on the bottom surface of the support structure adjacent the second end thereof, and below the seat structure mounting means to resist movement of the support structure to a position to which it has been moved if the movement-retarding means engages the boat deck beneath it. The support structure preferably comprises a substantially planar plate and the movement-retarding means preferably comprises rubberized non-skid material secured to the bottom surface of the support plate just above the boat deck, so that the weight of a human sitting on the seat structure causes the material to come in contact with the boat deck.
It is the primary object of the pesent invention to provide a simple yet versatile and effective mechanism providing fisherman comfort, safety, and optimum control in fishing using fishing boats with trolling motors. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention, and from the appended claims.

Support apparatus for use in a fishing boat


In a compressor of an exhaust gas turbocharger for an internal combustion engine including a compressor wheel which is rotatably mounted in a compressor inlet duct and an auxiliary rotor wheel arranged so as to be movable axially between a coupled position in engagement with the compressor wheel and a decoupled position, disengaged from the compressor wheel, an adjustable guide vane structure is provided which is movable by an adjusting element together with the auxiliary rotor wheel and a contoured flow control ring for controlling the combustion air flow to the compressor wheel and to the auxiliary rotor wheel.

The invention relates to a compressor in an exhaust gas turbocharger for an internal combustion engine wherein the compressor includes a compressor wheel and adjacent the compressor wheel, an auxiliary rotor wheel which is axially movable and can be coupled to the compressor wheel for rotation therewith, and to a method for operating such a compressor.
DE 100 61 847 A1 describes an exhaust gas turbocharger for an internal combustion engine, which exhaust gas turbocharger has an exhaust gas turbine arranged in the exhaust system of the internal combustion engine and has a compressor arranged in the intake tract, with an auxiliary rotor wheel being mounted in the compressor inlet duct upstream of the compressor wheel of the compressor, the auxiliary rotor wheel being separate from, and arranged coaxially with respect to the compressor wheel. The auxiliary rotor wheel is intended to positively influence the operating behavior of the compressor since the surge limit of the compressor is moved in the direction of lower volume flow rates and the choke limit is moved in the direction of higher volume flow rates. The auxiliary rotor wheel, which rotates independently of the compressor wheel, is driven by an electric motor.
It is known from the document DE 100 49 198 A1 to arrange an adjustable blocking element in the inlet duct of a compressor, upstream of the compressor wheel, for variably adjusting the effective cross section of the inlet duct. This design offers the advantage that the cross-section of the compressor inlet duct is variably adjustable, likewise making it possible to manipulate the operating behavior of the compressor. It is for example possible in particular to influence the flow speed and the angular momentum of the supplied combustion air, for example to increase the flow inlet speed of the supplied air by means of a constriction of the cross section. At low loads and speeds, the compressor can be used as an air-driven turbine (so-called cold air turbine mode) utilizing a pressure drop across the compressor to drive the compressor wheel. This pressure drop corresponds to a throttle action in the intake tract, which offers the advantage that the internal combustion engine can be fundamentally operated without a throttle flap. A further advantage is that the charger speed can be kept at a minimum level even at low loads and speeds of the internal combustion engine.
An exhaust gas turbocharger for an internal combustion engine is known from DE 100 50 161 Al, the compressor of which is arranged in the intake tract of the internal combustion engine and is driven by the exhaust gas turbine. A compressor wheel which, when driven, sucks combustion air from the atmosphere and compresses it to an increased charge pressure is rotatably mounted in the compressor inlet duct which is formed in the compressor housing. In order to increase efficiency in particular in low load and speed ranges, it is possible to activate an electric motor comprising a rotor, which rotor is mounted coaxially with respect to the compressor wheel, upstream in the compressor inlet duct, and a stator which is fixed to the housing. Additional combustion air is sucked in by the rotor, which rotates independently of the compressor wheel, when the electric motor is activated. The rotor of the electric motor can also be moved into a coupled position in which it is connected in a positively locking fashion to the compressor wheel, so that the compressor wheel is also driven when the electric motor is activated.
It is the object of the present invention to improve the operating behavior of an exhaust gas turbocharger of an internal combustion engine, in particular for providing a fast charge air pressure build-up during low loads and low engine speeds.

Compressor in an exhaust gas turbocharger of an internal combustion engine and method for operating the compressor


In the invention a pellicle mounting structural principle is provided whereby a membrane for protection of an X-ray mask is interchangeably positioned with proper spacing between the X-ray mask and the resist on the wafer in which the pattern produced by the X-ray exposure is to be formed. The mounting principle employs a combined assembly of, a membrane and spacer member subassembly together with a means for seectably separable retention to the supporting structural portion of the mask The principle accommodates membrane materials that may not be flexible and provides an ability to remove the membrane for cleaning or replacement and to removal and reassembly with ease in reestablishing the spacing with respect to the mask. The means for the selectably separable retention to the supporting structural portion of the mask involves the use of springs and elastomers, securing to the sides of the supporting structural mask ring and the bonding of the spacer member directly to the mask.

The manufacturing of semiconductor integrated circuit devices is dependent upon the accurate replication of generated patterns onto the surface of a device substrate. This is usually accomplished by the production of a computer generated pattern into a chromium layer on a quartz substrate, and the pattern is then transferred via optical lithography. The replication operation is effected using a variety of processes; such as subtractive, for example etching; additive, for example deposition; and, by using such material modification techniques as oxidation, and ion implantation. Heretofore in the art, optical lithography, which is a projection printing technique has been employed in the replication process. In optical lithography the mask is located some distance from the wafer to be exposed and a four or five times reduction between the mask image and the wafer image can be involved, which simplifies both the lithography and mask production and in turn provides tolerance of defects.
As the art is progressing, the desire for greater density, is making the use of X-ray replication directly on the wafer very attractive. The considerations in using X-ray replication however are quite formidable. The X-ray technique involves proximity replication so that the X-ray mask images are made the same size as the final images on the wafer. Because of the one-to-one relationship of the image on an X-ray mask and the image formed on the wafer, any position errors in building the X-ray mask are replicated one for one onto the wafer. Thus, the position accuracy requirements for the fabrication of X-ray masks are very difficult to achieve and, as a result, X-ray masks are expensive to fabricate. In use, particles unavoidably settle on masks, but the ability, previously available in optical lithography, of keeping settled particles outside of the depth of focus window in the replication so that the particle is highly de-focused and does not print, is no longer available in the X-ray proximity replication. In some situations a particle that settled on a mask can absorb X-ray photons and must be removed. A major source of a settling particle problem comes from the effect of the X-ray energy on the resist material that form the desired patterns. When the x-ray resist is irradiated, organic material is released from the resist Because X-ray lithography is a proximity printing process, this material will travel the short distance between the mask and the wafer and then land on the x-ray mask. In particular, this material is prone to bonding to the x-ray mask absorber pattern. In a short time, this organic material begins to attenuate the x-rays resulting in longer exposure times, dimensional control problems, and pattern defects. This accumulation of contamination would ordinarily necessitate cleaning of the x-ray mask. However, due to the expense and fragility of the x-ray masks, and the risk involved with cleaning them, this is not considered to be a reasonable solution.
It is therefore important to protect the relatively delicate and not easily cleaned X-ray masks from contaminants and mechanical damage due to scratches and the like without introducing mechanical stresses that may affect the placement accuracy.
There has been some activity in the art directed to this problem in U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,836 in which a protective structure is described which provides a membrane that would lie between the mask and the wafer to assist in protecting the mask from contamination.
As progress with membranes advances a need is being encountered for less fragile and easier to mount structures.

X-ray mask pellicles and their attachment in semiconductor manufacturing

International Business Machines Corporation


A vehicle part cover including a methacrylic-based resin (I) having a weight average molecular weight measured by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) of 65,000 to 300,000,                the methacrylic-based resin (I) comprising:        50 to 97% by mass of a methacrylate monomer unit (A);        3 to 30% by mass of a structural unit (B) having a ring structure in its main chain, and being at least one selected from the group consisting of a maleimide-based structural unit, a glutaric anhydride structural unit, a glutarimide-based structural unit, and a lactone ring structural unit; and        0 to 20% by mass of another vinyl monomer unit (C) that is copolymerizable with a methacrylate monomer.

Methacrylic-based resins represented by methyl polymethacrylate (PMMA) have high transparency, and are hence widely used in fields such as optical materials, vehicle parts, construction materials, lenses, housewares, OA devices, and lighting equipment.
Among these fields, in the field of covers used for vehicle parts, from the perspectives of scratch resistance and transparency, methacrylic-based resins are frequently used.
Recently, among vehicle parts to be mounted in a vehicle, vehicle interior parts have been increasingly installed in positions that tend to be exposed to direct sunlight from the perspectives of design of the vehicle interior, visibility of the instruments, and the like. Such vehicle interior parts tend to be subjected to high-temperature conditions more often than before, and need to have higher heat resistance.
Further, among vehicle parts, even for vehicle exterior parts applications, such as tail lamps and vehicle lamps, there is a need to reduce the thickness of the molded pieces to reduce weight. However, the heat resistance of conventional methacrylic-based resins is insufficient, and distortion can occur when exposed to high-temperature conditions unless the part has a certain thickness. Therefore, there is a need for a methacrylic-based resin with higher heat resistance than that of conventional ones.
In addition, among vehicle parts such as those described above, there are parts requiring transparency, such as an instrument cover and a tail lamp cover, which are required to allow a driver wearing polarized sunglasses to see through so that such driver can see the inside thereof.
When a resin having high birefringence is used as a material for such a part, it may be difficult to see inside through the part due to moire patterns resulting from distortion that was produced during molding.
To solve problems relating to visibility such as those described above, one option may be to increase the molding temperature so as to reduce molding distortion. However, the material needs to have even higher thermal stability.
In view of the above-described conventional situation, there are cases in which, from the perspective of heat resistance, a polycarbonate resin is used for the material of a vehicle part cover. However, since polycarbonate resins have poor scratch resistance and weatherability, a hard coat needs to be applied to the surface to impart scratch resistance and weatherability. As a result, there are the problems of limitations in the shape and an increase in costs.
In response to such problems, a resin having a methyl methacrylate homopolymer, for example, as a main component has been proposed as an acrylic-based resin having improved heat resistance (e.g., refer to Patent Literature 1). Further, a tail lamp lens that uses a maleic anhydride copolymer has been proposed (e.g., refer to Patent Literature 2).

Vehicle part cover including methacrylic-based resin


A miniature atomic clock with pulse mode operation. The clock includes: a local oscillator; a dual-frequency laser source; a pulsing element to pulse the output signal from the source according to a Ramsey-type interrogation sequence having pulses with duration T1 separated by intervals with duration T2; an alkaline vapour microcell; a photodiode; a feedback control loop for controlling the microwave frequency of the local oscillator; and a feedback control loop for controlling the optical frequency of the source by using a pulse control block receiving the output signal from the photodiode and the interrogation sequence, and providing a correction signal to the source. During the period T1, the block extracts an error signal from the output signal received from the photodiode and generates the correction signal from the error signal. During the period T2, the block resets the error signal to zero and generates the correction signal by extrapolation.

CPT miniature atomic clocks with pulse mode operation allow for an improvement in performance in relation to CPT miniature atomic clocks with continuous mode operation.
An architecture of CPT miniature atomic clock with pulse mode operation has already been demonstrated and described in the following article: Abdel Hafiz et al., "Symmetric autobalanced Ramsey interrogation for high-performance coherent-population-trapping vapor-cell atomic clock", APL 112 244102 2018.
As far as the inventors are aware, this architecture is the only known architecture to date.
As shown in FIG. 1, a CPT miniature atomic clock 100 with pulse mode operation comprises, according to this known technique:                a local oscillator 125 having a microwave frequency;        a dual-frequency laser source 102 receiving an output signal 129 from the local oscillator 125 and having an optical frequency. The frequency deviation between the spectral components of the output signal (laser beam) of the dual-frequency laser source 102 is equal to the frequency of the local oscillator 125;        means 300 configured to pulse the laser beam of the dual-frequency laser source 102, according to a Ramsey-type interrogation sequence 144 (also called "Ramsey sequence") comprising pulses with a duration T1 separated by intervals with a duration T2. More precisely, the means 300 comprise an optical switch 301, placed between the dual-frequency laser source 102 and a formatting optical element 103, and which is controlled by the interrogation sequence 144. FIG. 2 shows the Ramsey sequence 144 and the pulse (laser beam) signal 140 obtained at the output of the optical switch 301, from the output signal (laser beam) of the dual-frequency laser source;        an alkaline vapour microcell 104 receiving (via the formatting optical element 103) the pulsed laser beam 140 and using coherent population trapping. Once out of the alkaline vapour microcell 104, the pulsed laser beam carries, on its light intensity, a piece of comparison information between the microwave frequency of the local oscillator 125 and a microwave frequency setpoint. This microwave frequency setpoint is the resonance frequency of the hyperfine structure of the atoms of the alkaline vapour of the microcell 104;        a photodiode 105 receiving an output signal from the alkaline vapour microcell 104. The photodiode 105 transforms the pulsed light intensity into an electrical signal 106 that also carries the comparison information between the microwave frequency of the local oscillator 125 and the microwave frequency setpoint;        a feedback control loop for controlling the microwave frequency 500, receiving a signal 114 (resulting from the filtering of the output signal 106 of the photodiode 105 by a first filter 127) and configured to control the microwave frequency of the local oscillator 125 at the microwave frequency setpoint (resonance frequency of the hyperfine structure of the atoms of the alkaline vapour of the microcell 104); and        a feedback control loop for controlling the optical frequency 400, configured to control the optical frequency of the dual-frequency laser source 102 at an optical frequency setpoint.
More precisely, the feedback control loop for controlling the microwave frequency 500 comprises a pulse control block SERVO_1 that generates and provides a first correction signal δ_c_1 to the local oscillator 125, in order to control the microwave frequency with it. In other terms, the interpretation of the signal 114 by the pulse control block SERVO_1 generates an error signal (comparison signal) δ_e_1, which is negative or positive according to the result of the aforementioned comparison. According to the error signal δ_e_1, the pulse control block SERVO_1 generates a correction signal (retroaction signal) δ_c_1 acting on the microwave frequency of the local oscillator 125. The element SERVO_1 is therefore a control and regulation element the objective of which is to retroact the microwave frequency of the local oscillator 125 so as to minimise its difference with the microwave resonance frequency of the alkaline vapour of the microcell 104.
In a particular implementation shown in FIG. 3, the pulse control block SERVO_1 comprises:                a modulation block 32 generating a modulation signal mod_1 used on the one hand by the local oscillator 125 to modulate its output signal, and on the other hand by a synchronous detection block 31 presented hereinbelow (for carrying out demodulation steps internal to the synchronous detection block 31 which will result in the filtering then in the extracting of an error signal δ_e_1);        the synchronous detection block 31 carrying out a demodulation of the signal 114 coming from the filter 127 (downstream from the photodiode 105), according to the modulation signal mod 1, and generating an error signal δ_e_1. In other terms, the synchronous detection block 31 makes it possible to extract an error signal δ_e_1 from the signal 114; and        a correction/hold block 33 (with 0-order hold) receiving the error signal δ_e_1 and generating the correction signal δ_c_1 (of which the application on the local oscillator 125 has for objective to minimise the error signal δ_e_1).
FIG. 5 shows the operation of the pulse control block SERVO_1 of FIG. 3, by showing chronograms of the signal referenced as 140 in FIGS. 1 and 2, as well as of the signals referenced as mod_1, δ_e_1 and δ_c_1 in FIG. 3. Thus, in the case of a CPT atomic clock with pulse mode operation, the pulse control block SERVO_1 samples, at the frequency of the Ramsey sequence 144, the signal 114 coming (via the filter 127) from the photodiode 105. Given that the modulation frequency of the modulation signal mod_1 is typically twice as low than the frequency (1/(T1+T2)) of the Ramsey sequence, the sampling at the frequency of the Ramsey sequence makes it possible to generate a value of the error signal δ_e_1 for each state of the modulation signal mod_1. Conventionally, a correction is calculated and a system of the 0-order hold type is used to generate the correction signal δ_c_1 and make it continuous. At each new value of the error signal δ_e_1, a new value of the correction signal is generated, then maintained until the availability of a new value of the error signal. The feedback control loop for controlling the microwave frequency thus carried out has a bandwidth limited by the frequency of the Ramsey sequence.
The feedback control loop for controlling the optical frequency 400 comprises:                a separator 149, placed between the dual-frequency laser source 102 and the optical switch 301, making it possible to divert a portion of the light beam from the dual-frequency laser source to a second alkaline vapour microcell 143;        the second alkaline vapour microcell 143. Once out of the second alkaline vapour microcell 143, the laser beam (non-pulsed) carries, on its light intensity, a piece of comparison information between the optical frequency of the dual-frequency laser source 102 and an optical frequency setpoint. This optical frequency setpoint is the optical frequency of the atoms of the alkaline vapour of the second microcell 143;        a second photodiode 141, receiving an output signal from the second alkaline vapour microcell 143. The second photodiode 141 transforms the light intensity into an electrical signal 146 that also carries the comparison information between the optical frequency of the dual-frequency laser source 102 and the optical frequency setpoint;        a second filter 142, receiving the output signal 146 from the second photodiode 105 and generating a signal 145;        a non-pulsed control block SERVO_2, that receives the signal 145 and that generates and provides a correction signal δ_c_2 to the dual-frequency laser source 102, in order to control the optical frequency with it. The control block SERVO_2 operates without discontinuity.
In a particular implementation shown in FIG. 4, the pulse control block SERVO_2 comprises:                a modulation block 42 generating a modulation signal mod_2 used by the dual-frequency laser source 102 to modulate its output signal;        a synchronous detection block 41 carrying out a demodulation of the signal 145 coming from the second filter 142 (downstream from the second photodiode 141), according to the modulation signal mod_2, and generating an error signal δ_e_2; and        a correction block 43 receiving the error signal δ_e_2 and generating the correction signal δ_c_2.
A disadvantage of this known technique is that it does not have optimum characteristics in terms of size and cost, due to the fact that the feedback control loop for controlling the optical frequency 400 requires various components such as the separator 149, the second alkaline vapour microcell 143 and the second photodiode 141. In other terms, this known technique aims to provide a miniature atomic clock that has a size/cost/performance compromise that is highly oriented on performance, to the detriment of the size and of the cost.
Another disadvantage of this known technique is that the optical switch 301, that makes it possible to pulse the output signal received from the dual-frequency laser source 102, must imperatively be placed between the separator 149 and the alkaline vapour microcell 104 so that the control block SERVO_2 operates without discontinuity and therefore the feedback control loop for controlling the optical frequency 400 generates without discontinuity an optimum correction signal δ_c_2. In other terms, there is no freedom for the implementation of means 300 configured to pulse the output signal received from the dual-frequency laser source 102.
The inventors have detected a need for a CPT miniature atomic clock, with pulse mode operation and which has a new size/cost/performance compromise, oriented towards low cost and small size, while still degrading performance as little as possible.

Miniature atomic clock with pulse mode operation