An inspection device for inspecting a granular product includes a feed tray having a receiving region for receiving the granular product and an imaging region and a vibration device configured to impart vibrations to the feed tray for moving granules of the granular product from the receiving region to the imaging region. The inspection device also includes an image capturing device configured to capture an image of a sample of the granular product in an image area of the imaging region. In addition, a method for inspecting a granular product includes disposing the granular product on a receiving region of a feed tray, vibrating the feed tray so as to induce a movement of the granular product from the receiving region of the feed tray to an imaging region of the feed tray, and capturing an image of a sample of the granular product in an image area of the imaging region.

The present invention relates generally to an inspection device and method, and more particularly to a device and method for inspecting a granular product.
In the production granular products including powders, there is a desire to inspect the product to determine various qualities of the product, such as size, shape and color characteristics of the granules and the presence and quantity of any impurities, as well as characteristics of those impurities. Other qualities that may be desired to be determined include flow characteristics of the granules and granule surface characteristics.
Granular products include powders as well as coarser mixtures of granules. Examples of granular products that may be inspected include pharmaceutical products, food products (rice, grain, cereals, flour, confections, sugar, etc.), cosmetic products, aggregates, ores, plastics and other petrochemical products, and many more.
Various methods and devices for performing such an analysis have been employed for these purposes which may employ laser diffraction, spectroscopy, and various forms of visual image analysis.
A problem in inspecting granular products, particularly when image analysis is employed, is in presenting the product to the image capturing device so as obtain an optimal image of the product. It is desired, for example, to have a controllable quantity of the product within the image area so that an image can be made of the desired quantity. In addition, it is desired to have a controlled and uniform spread of the material so that the image represents a fair sampling of the product. It is also desirable to be able to control a thickness of the spread of material in the image area, depending on what type of characteristics are being determined. In some cases a single layer of granules is required to achieve imaging of substantially all of the product, for example, if it is necessary to show the complete absence of a particular defect. In other cases, it may be desired to have less than a single layer, i.e., with space between the individual granules for improved inspection of individual granule characteristics. In still other cases, a thicker layer of granules may be desired when a sampling of the product characteristics is sufficient. It is also desired to present the granules to an image capturing device in an even manner, so that the granules being imaged are on a single plane and/or at a given distance from the imaging device.


A system and method for static detection and categorization of information-flow downgraders includes transforming a program stored in a memory device by statically analyzing program variables to yield a single assignment to each variable in an instruction set. The instruction set is translated to production rules with string operations. A context-free grammar is generated from the production rules to identify a finite set of strings. An information-flow downgrader function is identified by checking the finite set of strings against one or more function specifications.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to static program analysis and more particularly to string analyses that infer string values arising at runtime without executing a program to provide a function analysis for automatic detection and categorization of information-flow downgraders.
Description of the Related Art
The Information-Flow Security principle establishes that no "illicit flow" of information be allowed in a program. A flow is illicit if it allows untrusted information to be used in a trusted computation (an integrity violation) or if it allows secret information to be entirely or partly revealed to unauthorized users (a confidentiality violation). Integrity and confidentiality can be seen as dual problems by simply stating that there should not be any flow of information from "high" to "low", where "high" means "untrusted" in integrity and "secret" in confidentiality, and low means "trusted" in integrity and "public" in confidentiality.
Information can be tagged with information flow labels. Typically, information flow labels form a partially ordered set or even a lattice. If information-flow security was strictly enforced and no illicit flow of information was allowed, most programs would not work. To be information-flow secure, a program would have to be "partitioned" so that information tagged with a certain label "/" can only flow to program points that have been tagged with labels higher than or equal to "/". A program with these restrictions is very unlikely to be useful. For example, from an integrity point of view, a Web application is supposed to accept inputs from potentially untrusted users and use those inputs in trusted computations. E.g., an online banking program takes as input the account number and the password of a user (potentially untrusted or malformed information) and passes them to the backend database system where they are used in a trusted setting. In another example, an online bookstore takes as input the user ID and password of the customer and the title of the book that the customer wants to buy (all potentially untrusted or malformed information), and uses them to complete a transaction, etc.
From a confidentiality point of view, a Web application often releases data that has been computed based on secret information and, as such, should be considered secret as well. E.g., a banking application may reveal to any teller the last four digits of the social security number of any user, an online bookstore may reveal to any shop assistant the last four digits of any customer's credit card number, etc. Given that all these programs exhibit flows that allow "high" information to flow to "low" program points, all these programs would be rejected if information-flow security were simply enforced. To permit these programs to function, "high" information can be "downgraded" and become "low" enough to be used in "low" program points.
Downgrading translates itself into "endorsement" in integrity and "declassification" in confidentiality. For example, once a program has verified that the user-provided input to a Web application is a properly formatted string, the program can endorse that input, which now becomes trusted enough to be used in a trusted computation. Similarly, once a program has verified that the information extracted from a secret is not sufficient to reveal the secret itself, the program can declassify the extracted information, which now can become public enough to be revealed to a public listener.
TABLE 1Information-Flow SecurityIntegrityConfidentialityHighUntrustedSecretLowTrustedPublicDowngradingEndorsementDeclassification
A program can implement many downgraders. A program should not accept any "high" input to a "low" function unless that "high" input has been previously downgraded. Furthermore, a downgrader is specific for just a subset of the set of "low" functions. For example, an integrity "low" function that accepts an input in the form of a string, concatenates that string into a Structured Query Language (SQL) query, and then submits it to a database. The function will require its input not to contain semicolons and apostrophes, since such characters will be interpreted by the database as SQL commands. Therefore, any input to this "low" function should have undergone sanitization or endorsement, to make sure that such illicit characters are not there.
Only if a trusted sanitizer has verified the absence of such illicit characters will that initially untrusted string be accepted to be used in the SQL query. However, if the "low" function is not responsible for performing SQL queries, but rather for concatenating its string input value into HyperText Markup Language (HTML) code, then a different sanitization is necessary. The issue here is no longer to prevent SQL injections, but rather to prevent what are known as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. In this case, the sanitization function must check for absence of specific JavaScript tags, such as <script> and </scripts>.
Downgraders are often available in libraries, and are categorized based on the specifications of the corresponding "low" functions. Often, however, Web applications implement their own downgrading functions. This makes security static analysis of Web applications very complex. In fact, a static analysis for information-flow security should receive as input the signature of the downgrading functions as well as rules that map downgrading functions to the corresponding "low" functions. At that point, the static analysis can verify whether the input to a "low" function has always undergone proper downgrading, without any path leading to a "low" function unless its inputs have been properly downgraded. Unfortunately, when Web applications implement their own downgrades, it is very difficult to detect those downgraders and categorize them in a way that the static analysis for information-flow security can subsequently account for them.
The difficulties may include the following: 1. If manual code inspection is adopted, not all the source code may be available. Some code may have been produced and purchased by a third party. Therefore, manual code inspection for detection and categorization of information-flow downgraders may not be possible. Even if all the source code is available, manual code inspection may not be a feasible option given the large amount of code that needs to be inspected. In general, manual code inspection is error-prone, difficult, time consuming, and unreliable. 2. Dynamic analysis or testing could be used. However, the coverage of a dynamic analysis depends on the completeness of the test-case suite under use. In the absence of a complete suite of test cases, a dynamic analysis is not guaranteed to detect all the possible downgraders used by an application, and the categorization of the downgraders will be incomplete.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for static detection and categorization of information-flow downgraders

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A display system is disclosed. The display system includes a processor and a first display device having a first display surface and receiving display data from the processor. The display system also includes a second display device having a display area smaller than the first display device and moveable over the surface of the first display device. The second display device is either partially transparent or partially translucent. The display system also includes a sensor in communication with the processor and communicating location data to the processor. The location data is representative of the relative location of the first display to the second display. A program is configured to run on the processor and provides display data to the first and second display devices such that the display data prior to the second display device is based on the location data. A user of the system views a composite three-dimensional image when viewing the second display. The composite three-dimensional image is made up of a partial first image from the first display viewed through the second display and a partial second image from the second display.

The present invention relates generally to the field of imaging devices. In particular, the invention relates to multi-planar or three-dimensional imaging devices. Further, the invention relates to apparatuses and methods for providing images having a three-dimensional effect using moveable overlapping planar imaging devices.
Liquid crystal display monitors have conventionally been used to produce three-dimensional images and images with a three-dimensional or multi-planar effect. For example, monitors such as ActualDepth LCD monitors available from Deep Video Imaging Limited of Hamilton, New Zealand utilize multiple LCD monitor layers which provide two physically separate image planes to provide a composite or merged three-dimensional image or three-dimensional effect image. Such imaging devices have been incorporated into a single monitor. However, such three-dimensional imaging devices require a substantial amount of processing power and electrical power in order to continually process the multi-planar images over the entire display screen on an ongoing or continuous basis. For low power, low cost, and/or portable or mobile devices, a need for substantial electrical power and substantial processing power is undesirable.
Accordingly, there is a need for non-conventional three-dimensional imaging devices that are not encumbered by the disadvantages associated with devices of the prior art. There is also a need for a large planar display device that is capable of displaying a two-dimensional image on a first planar surface and allowing three-dimensional imaging on a second display device, the second display device being smaller than the first display device and being moveable over the first display device.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a system and/or method that provides one or more of these or other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned needs.
An exemplary embodiment relates to a display system. The display system includes a processor. The display system also includes a first display device having a first display surface and receiving display data from the processor. The display system further includes a second display device having a display area smaller than the first display device and moveable over the surface of the first display device. The second display device is at least one of partially transparent and partially translucent. Further still, the display system includes a sensor in communication with the processor and communicating location data to the processor. The location data is representative of the relative location of the first display to the second display. Yet further still, the display system includes a program running on the processor and providing display data to the first and second display devices. The display data is provided to the second display device and is based on the location data. A user of the display system uses a composite three-dimensional image when viewing the second display. The composite three-dimensional image is made up of a partial first image from the first display viewed through the second display and a partial second image from the second display.
Another exemplary embodiment relates to a method of providing a first image to a display system user. The method includes providing an image on a first display. The method also includes detecting the location of a second display relative to the first display. Further, the method includes providing display data to the second display based on the detected location of the second display. Further still, the method includes merging the image from the first display through the second display, with a second image generated from the display data on the second display to create a three-dimensional image.
Further, an exemplary embodiment relates to a moveable display device configured for movement across a primary display surface, the primary display being in communication with a processing device. The moveable display device includes an at least partially-transparent display screen. The display screen includes electronically selectable pixelated display elements. The moveable display device also includes a wireless communications device receiving display data from the processing device. The display data is based on location data from a location sensor sensing the relative location of the moveable device and the primary display surface. The moveable display device generates a partial image based on the display data. A viewer of the second display device views a composite three-dimensional image generated from a partial image on the primary display and from the partial image on the moveable display device.
Alternative exemplary embodiments relate to other features and combination of features as may be generally recited in the claims.

Moveable display device for three dimensional image creation


A sublime type thermal transfer printer uses an ink sheet on which a fixing agent of a sublimation ink is coated and thermally transfers the fixing agent of the ink sheet onto a plain printing paper first, then thermally transfers an image on the ink sheet onto the area of the printing paper where the fixing agent is transferred by subliming an ink coated on the ink sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sublimation type thermal transfer printer in which images are thermally transferred to a sheet of paper by pressing a thermal head onto the back of an ink sheet to sublime the ink, and to an ink sheet used with the printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a side view of a sublimation type thermal transfer printer disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 63-91281(1988). In the figure, the reference numeral 1 designates a thermal head that is rotated about support at one end. At the tip of the thermal head 1 is mounted an ink sheet separation roller 1a. A platen 2, a cylindrical rubber roller, is disposed at a position opposite to the heating elements of the thermal head 1. The platen 2 has a clamper 12 which clamps a printing paper 3 and presses the printing paper 3 onto the surface of the platen 2. The printing paper 3 is special for sublimation thermal transfer printing and coated with a plastic image-receiving layer for fixing the sublimation ink on the surface thereof. A pair of transport rollers 11 are disposed in the upstream of the platen 2, which delivers the printing paper 3 to the platen 2 or discharges the printing paper 3 outside the printer. The printing paper 3 is pressed and held onto the platen 2 by the clamper 12 and is transported to the transfer position or the discharge position as the platen 2 is rotated. An ink sheet 4 wound around a takeup reel 5a and a supply reel 5b runs between the thermal head 1 and the platen 2 in the direction shown by an arrow. In the vicinity of the tip of the thermal head 1 are disposed photosensors 9 for detecting a start mark on the ink sheet 4.
FIG. 2 is a side view of a printer disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 1-290465(1989), which is similar to the one described above. The same or corresponding parts to those in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals, and explanation of such parts is omitted herein.
In the prior art of FIG. 2, the ink sheet 4 and the takeup and supply reels 5a and 5b are encased in a cassette 6, and the clamper 12 in FIG. 1 is replaced by a driving capstan roller 7 and a pinch roller 8 driven by the capstan roller 7, which transport the printing paper 3 to the transfer position or the discharge position. The printing paper 3 is pressed between the capstan roller 7 and the pinch roller 8 and discharged outside the printer. There are also provided a pair of photosensors 9 and 9 spaced apart in the crosswise direction of the ink sheet 4 in the vicinity of the tip of the thermal head 1. In FIG. 2, reference character A indicates the direction in which the printing paper 3 is transported during printing.
FIG. 3 is a plan view of the conventional ink sheet 4. Areas on a base film of the ink sheet 4 are sequentially coated with sublimation inks of yellow, magenta, and cyan in this order, in equal length shorter then the length of the transfer area of the printing paper 3. A start mark 4a coated with a black ink is interposed between the cyan and yellow areas on the ink sheet.
FIG. 4 is a plan view of another conventional ink sheet 4. The ink sheet 4 contains marks 4b, 4c and 4d respectively indicating the start of the yellow area, the magenta area and the cyan area, which are disposed at the beginning of the respective color area and each mark is coated with a black ink in different part from the other.
The operation of the first conventional printer using the ink sheet 4 of FIG. 3 will now be described. FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 are side views showing the printer in paper feeding, transfer printing, and paper discharging, respectively.
As shown in FIG. 5, the platen 2 is rotated to move the clamper 12 closer to the transport rollers 11 and 11 to position the clamper 12 at the paper feed position, then the clamper 12 is raised from the surface of the platen 2. Next, the transport rollers 11 and 11 are rotated in arrow directions as shown, to deliver the printing paper 3 to the clamper 12. When the leading edge of the printing paper 3 reaches the clamper 12, the clamper 12 is lowered to the surface of the platen 2 to firmly press and hold the leading edge of the printing paper 3 onto the platen 2. As the platen 2 is rotated, the printing paper 3 is wound around the surface of the platen 2 and is placed at the transfer position. At the same time, the takeup reel 5a reels up the ink sheet 4 until the photosensor 9 detects the start mark 4a on the ink sheet 4, thus readying the ink sheet 4 for printing.
Then, as shown in FIG. 6, the thermal head 1 is turned to press the ink sheet 4 onto the printing paper 3 held on the surface of the platen 2. When rotating the platen 2 in the arrow direction, the thermal head 1 is energized to sublime each color ink on the ink sheet 4 and transfer each color image to the printing paper 3. After the yellow ink is transferred, the magenta and cyan inks are transferred, in this order, to the same transfer area on the printing paper 3 which is moved back to the start position of the yellow ink transfer. When the clamper 12 passes beneath the thermal head 1, the thermal head 1 is temporarily turned upward to avoid contact with the clamper 12.
Since the length of each color area on the ink sheet 4 is shorter than the transfer area on the printing paper 3, each color ink is transferred a plurality of times for one transfer area by changing the transfer start position each time. The three color inks, yellow, magenta and cyan are thus successively transferred one on another to produce a full color print.
After the transfer process is completed, the thermal head 1 is turned upward, as shown in FIG. 7, and the platen 2 is rotated in the arrow direction as shown. The trailing edge of the printing paper 3 is then transported backward by the transport rollers 11 and 11 which are now rotating in the directions opposite to those in the paper feeding operation. Upon reaching the paper feed position, the clamper 12 releases the printing paper 3 which is then discharged from the printer only by the rotation of the transport rollers 11 and 11.
Next, the operation of the second conventional printer which uses the ink sheet 4 of FIG. 4 will be described below. FIGS. 2 and 8 show the printer in paper feeding and transfer printing, respectively, and FIG. 9 shows the printer in color change or paper discharge operations. In FIG. 9, the reference character B indicates the direction in which the printing paper 3 is moved backward when changing the ink color to be transferred.
With the thermal head 1 resting in standby position above the platen 2, as shown in FIG. 2, the printing paper 3 is delivered to the print start position as in the figure. The takeup reel 5a is rotated to reel up the ink sheet 4 until the mark 4b indicating the start of the yellow ink area on the ink sheet 4 is detected by the photosensors 9, thus readying the ink sheet 4 for printing.
Then, as shown in FIG. 8, the thermal head 1 presses the ink sheet 4 and the printing paper 3 onto the platen 2. The capstan roller 7 and the pinch roller 8 catch and press the printing paper 3 between and the pinch roller 8 follows the rotation of the capstan roller 7 thereby to transport the printing paper 3 in the arrow direction A. At the same time, the takeup reel 5a reels up and transports the ink sheet 4.
As the printing paper 3 is moved, prescribed electrical signals are applied to the thermal head 1 to selectively heat the heating elements in the thermal head 1. The heat is conducted to the ink sheet 4 so that the yellow ink is sublimed and fixed to the image receiving layer on the surface of the printing paper 3. When the yellow ink printing for one picture is completed, the thermal head 1 is moved apart from the platen 2 and is lifted upward as shown by dotted lines in FIG. 9.
The takeup reel 5a reels up to transport the ink sheet 4 until the mark 4c indicating the beginning of the magenta ink area on the ink sheet 4 is detected by the photosensors 9. The capstan roller 7 now is rotated in the opposite direction to the paper feed direction for printing, to move the printing paper 3 backward in the direction B. The capstan roller 7 is stopped to rotate when the printing paper 3 is positioned at the start position of printing as shown in FIG. 2.
Next, printing with magenta ink is performed in the same manner as the yellow ink printing. After that, as the start of the magenta ink printing, the printing paper 3 is moved backward to the print start position for printing with cyan ink. In this manner, the three color inks of yellow, magenta and cyan are sublimed and thermally transferred one on another to produce a full color image on the printing paper 3.
At the end of the transfer printing process, the takeup reel 5a is slightly rotated to move the ink sheet 4 by a small distance in order to take in the slack of the ink sheet 4 caused by the upward movement of the thermal head 1. Next, the capstan roller 7 is rotated in the same direction as in the transfer printing, to further transport the printing paper 3 in the direction A, thus discharging it outside the printer.
As described, the conventional sublimation type thermal transfer printer of the above construction requires the use of special printing paper consisting of a plastic image-receiving layer for fixing sublimation ink coated on a base film, and cannot use plain paper as in plain paper copiers. Therefore, the printing cost of color images is high.
On the other hand, a sublimation type thermal transfer printer capable of color printing on plain paper requires special control circuitry and control software for controlling the printer, which complicates the mechanism, increases the size of the printer, and requires a longer time to print out a color image.
Furthermore, with such printers, print quality is lower and less stable than the sublimation type thermal transfer printer that uses special treated paper precoated with an image receiving layer. Moreover, when using various kinds of printing paper, such as plain paper and special treated paper, of different thicknesses and surface friction coefficients, it is difficult, in such printers, to precisely control the transportation of every different kind of printing paper.

Sublimation type thermal transfer printer and ink sheet used with the same


A bonnet for an automobile, having an outer member made from FRP and an inner member made from FRP and joined to the back-surface side of the outer member, wherein the outer member has a high-rigidity section having a rigidity higher than a rigidity of the central section of the outer member along an outer edge of the outer member, and the inner member is joined to the outer member at the high-rigidity section. While being achieved an advantage of weight lightening of the bonnet by making it from FRP, the rigidity at a required portion is efficiently increased without damaging moldability, a design feature of the bonnet surface can be maintained at a good level, and in addition, performance of the bonnet relating to the protection of a pedestrian at a collision accident etc. can also be sufficiently enhanced.

Recently, FRP bonnets for automobiles have been developed for a first purpose of weight lightening, and various structures are proposed aiming mainly to increase the strength and the rigidity of a required portion (for example, JP-A-2003-146252). An FRP bonnet is usually formed from an outer member with a high rigidity provided at a surface side and an inner member joined to the back-surface side of the outer member which has a stiffener structure with, for example, a hat shape in cross section. The high rigidity of the outer member is obtained, for example, by forming it thick or forming it as a sandwich structure in which a core material is interposed between FRP skin plates.
However, in a case where an outer member is formed thick, the weight thereof greatly increases, an advantage achieved by a bonnet with FRP is lost. On the other hand, if a sandwich structure is employed, although a high advantage of weight lightening can be obtained, when a large-area member such as a bonnet is molded as a sandwich structure over the entire area, it can be molded relatively easily in a case where the core material is thin, but the core material has to be formed thick in order to obtain a high rigidity, and therefore, the molding is associated with a fairly great difficulty from the viewpoint of giving a shape to the core material and processing the core material.
Further, although it is considered that the outer member is formed thin by designing the rigidity of the FRP inner member high and making the inner member exhibit a main rigidity of the bonnet, in this case, a line-like deformation due to a difference in rigidity, a so-called bonding line, frequently appears at a portion on a surface-side design surface of the outer member which corresponds to a joining portion between the thin outer member and the high-rigidity inner member, and the design feature of the surface may be damaged.
By the way, separately from the above-described problems in an FRP bonnet concerning weight lightening, providing of a required rigidity, easiness of molding, bonding line, etc., recently, enhancement of safety at a collision accident etc. has been required for an automobile, in particular, enhancement of performance for protecting a pedestrian at a collision accident etc. has been required, and in order to enhance this function as highly as possible, an excellent impact absorbing function has been required. When an automobile collides with a pedestrian, the pedestrian receives an impact load on the leg or the head against a front portion, a bonnet, etc. of the automobile, and particularly, in order to reduce deadly accidents, it is said that it is inevitable to reduce a damage to the head. With respect to this reduction of the damage to the head, a regulation value as an impact relaxation performance of a bonnet is being standardized, and in particular, a head injury criterion (HIC), which is calculated by an acceleration received by the head and the duration thereof, is required to be suppressed at a predetermined value or less.
Accordingly, paying attention to the above-described circumstances, it could be advantageous to provide a bonnet made from FRP for an automobile which can increase a rigidity of a required portion without damaging moldability while maintaining an advantage of weight lightening of the bonnet by making it from FRP, can maintain a design feature of the surface at a good level, and in addition, can sufficiently enhance the performance relating to protection of a pedestrian at a collision accident etc.


A compound or composite powder which includes metallic or ceramic whiskers embedded in a metallic or ceramic matrix as host material, the whiskers have a length between 5.times.10.sup.-6 m and 2.times.10.sup.-4 m and diameters between 2.times.10.sup.-7 m and 1.times.10.sup.-5 m, and are embedded in the matrix with a volume proportion of whisker content between 1 to 50% (by volume), the reference being to a pore-free compacted compound/composite material; the whiskers being made of SiC, Si.sub.-3 N.sub.-4, Al.sub.-2 O.sub.-3 or ZrO.sub.-2 and are embedded in a ceramic matrix being Al.sub.-2 O.sub.-3, Al.sub.-2 O.sub.-3 +from 5 to 40% ZrO.sub.-2 +from 0 to 5% Y.sub.-2 O.sub.-3 or ZrO.sub.-2 with 3 to 15% Y.sub.-2 O.sub.-3 or Si-nitride or Si-carbide. Alternatively the whiskers are made of Si.sub.-3 N.sub.-4, Al.sub.-2 O.sub.-3, ZrO.sub.-2 or W and the matrix is made of W, Mo, Fe, Ni, Co, Cu or an alloy thereof.

The present invention relates to a compound powder or composite whose particles are comprised of ceramic or metallic whiskers, thinly embedded in a host or matrix material, the powder being provided ultimately for the manufacture of construction parts which are expected to undergo significant wear.
The term whiskers is going to be used throughout and includes extremely thin fibers within conventional meaning as well as very thin poly-crystalline fibers of relatively short dimensions which may have some deteriorated mechanical properties, as poly-crystals themselves have, but are, for some reason or another, more easily to be manufactured. Generally speaking, with increasing relative proportions of the whisker content in an embedding matrix, it is more and more difficult to obtain a homogenic distribution of the whiskers within the matrix, if the usual, known, powder metallurgical methods and steps of making such a product are used. In cases, actually, it may become impossible to provide a reasonably homogeneous distribution of the whiskers.
In the case of fiber re-inforced compound material, the inclusion and embedment of homogeneously distributed whiskers, produce a modified pattern in the formation of cracks or ruptures, such as crack deflection, crack splitting, whisker delamination or whisker breakage. Macorscopically, this amounts to a significant increase in ductility (k.sub.i factor). A concurrent improvement in strength depends to a considerable extent on the chosen composition of the material and here particularly the combination with a whisker embedding matrix. A limiting factor here is internal tension that is produced for one reason or another. Ductility has to be improved as well as the strength, and that depends basically, and again from a macroscopic point of view, on the volume fraction (ratio) of the whisker content. It can, therefore, be explicated through the following relation, which is, at least, approximately true: EQU .sigma..sub.c =x.sub..mu. +x.sub.w .sigma..sub.c.sbsb.w EQU K.sub.c =x.sub..mu. k.sub.c.sbsb..mu. +x.sub.w k.sub.c.sbsb.w
Contrary to poly-crystalline fibers which are quite widely used in the production of compound or composite material, and particularly of a ceramic and metallic nature, the whiskers have a significantly higher strength. Normally, it can be expected that these whiskers have a strength which is the eight to ten-fold strength value of poly-crystalline fibers. With this particular property, of course, has great significance for the compound material.
The effect of the previously mentioned mechanism for enhancing and increasing ductility and strength, depends to a considerable extent on the degree of homogeneity as far as the spatially or volume distribution of the whiskers in the embedding matrix is concerned. Areas with the significantly increased whisker content can be interpreted as macro defects and are, in fact, even at relatively low loads, prone to trigger component fracture.
Conventionally, whiskers are included in the making of powder by superimposing certain steps upon the powder metallurgical steps generally. First, the whiskers are cleaned in acetone, and then they are de-agglomerated with ultra-sound within n-Hexane alcohol or water. It has also been suggested to treat the whiskers, in addition, with a tumbling blender. Subsequently, ball grinding is used to mix whiskers with a powder matrix material. It is inevitable that under such circumstances whiskers brake. The fractured pieces will normally have rather sharp edges and will, in fact, subsequently, lead to significantly high local concentration and tension within the embedding matrix. On the other hand, a homogenous distribution of the whiskers becomes more and more difficult, the higher the proportion in whiskers, if the known techniques are used.

Compound or composite powder with metallic or ceramic whiskers


A method of synchronizing multi-carrier systems is provided, wherein the method comprises inserting a predefined frequency domain signal into a signal on a transmitter side of a multi-carrier system and multi-carrier modulating the signal. Furthermore, the method comprises transmitting the multi-carrier modulated signal via a carrier channel to a receiving side of the multi-carrier system, and synchronizing the multi-carrier modulated signal by using the predefined frequency domain signal portion of the multi-carrier modulated signal.

Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a well known multi-carrier modulation technique which can provide significant robustness to channel with long delay spreads at the cost of a loss in spectral efficiency. It has been adopted in many standards such as, for instance, IEEE 802.11a/n and the Digital Video Broadcasting for Terrestrial and Handheld (DVB-T/H). In OFDM, N complex symbols are transmitted in parallel so that each complex symbol modulates a single sub-carrier within the available bandwidth. The OFDM transmitter efficiently modulates all the N sub-carriers through an N-point inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) efficiently implemented via a inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) algorithm. The output of the IDFT consists of N samples which are referred to as an OFDM symbol. The OFDM symbol is usually cyclically extended and transmitted over the air. The receiver matches the transmitter and, after the removal of the cyclic extension, performs a DFT to jointly demodulate all N sub-carriers. If the cyclic extension is at least as long as the maximum delay spread of the channel, if the channel is static during the duration of one OFDM symbol and if the receiver is perfectly synchronized to the transmitter, then the sub-carrier orthogonality is maintained at the receiver. Therefore, the data transmitted on each sub-carrier can be recovered with simple equalization algorithms. However, the receiver has to be synchronized with the transmitter both in frequency and time. The time synchronization in OFDM systems selects the block of samples to be processed by a receiver DFT. There is a significant amount of literature dealing with synchronization algorithms for OFDM systems. The most common methods use a cyclic extension to jointly detect the beginning of the OFDM symbol and correct the frequency offset. However, these methods are optimal only for non-frequency selective channels. In the presence of multipath channels, they only provide a coarse time synchronization which usually needs to be refined.

Method of synchronizing multi-carrier systems and multi-carrier system


The water heating apparatus has an upright cylindrical thermally insulated storage tank, an axially extending exhaust gas pipe passing centrally through the storage tank and a combustion chamber under the storage tank. An atmospheric gas burner, which has a complete premixing fuel gas/air supply system, is arranged within the combustion chamber. The exhaust gas pipe has a section extending within the combustion chamber, which preferably extends towards the bottom of the combustion chamber and has an end located a few centimeters from the bottom, so that the combustion gases have a longer dwell time in the combustion chamber and the exhaust gas pipe in order to improve heating efficiency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas-fired water heating apparatus, which comprises an upright cylindrical thermally insulated water tank, an axially extending exhaust gas pipe passing centrally through the water tank and a combustion chamber under the water tank, in which an atmospheric gas burner is arranged, which has a complete premixing fuel gas/air supply system.
2. Related Art
Gas-fired water heating apparatuses are marketed in many embodiments for different applications. They are used for providing hot water in living quarters or a home. A typical unit for example is the so-called boiler for a hot water supply.
The present invention especially relates to a special gas-fired water heating apparatus, the so-called "water heater" marketed in the USA. This water heater is widely distributed in the USA and is used, for example, in households, workplaces and small industrial operations to provide a free-standing hot water supply for supplying hot water, for example for a shower.
This "water heater" has a typical structure, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,510. The central component of the water heater is a cylindrical, longitudinally extended storage tank, through which an exhaust pipe extends and which stands freely on the ground on feet.
An atmospheric gas burner with suitable power is arranged in a combustion chamber under the storage tank, whose lower wall is cup-shaped. The hot exhaust gas including the combustion products from the gas burner acts on the bottom of the storage tank and subsequently rises through an elongated exhaust pipe. In this type of water heater the hot gas flowing upward in the exhaust pipe comes into contact with the interior surfaces of the exhaust pipe, while the water in the storage tank is in contact with the outer surfaces of the exhaust pipe. While the combustion proceeds, the water within the water tank is heated by heat conduction through the wall of the exhaust flue. In this type of water heater normally a longitudinal separating wall (baffle) is arranged within the exhaust gas pipe in order to improve the efficiency of the heat transfer through the wall of the exhaust gas pipe from the hot combustion air to the water within the water tank. Furthermore the outer surfaces of the storage tank are typically covered with thermal insulation, in order to reduce heat loss from the water both during heating of the water and after the combustion process is halted.
Increasingly strict legal regulations regarding avoiding accidents, especially when combustible vapors arrive in the open combustion region, and in regard to improvement of exhaust gas content, have led to developments in the water heater field, which provide a nearly completely closed combustion (burner) chamber, in which a complete premixing gas burner, a so-called pre-mix burner, is arranged.
This sort of water heater is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,739. The structure and arrangement of the prior art pre-mix burner in the closed combustion chamber is shown in the appended FIG. 1, which is taken from the above-mentioned U.S. patent. This figure is a cross-sectional view of a water heater with a water tank or storage tank 1 and a nearly closed combustion chamber 2, to which an exhaust gas pipe 3 is connected, which extends through the center of the water tank 1. The combustion chamber 2 and the storage tank 1 are insulated from the surroundings by thermal insulation 4. An atmospheric pre-mix burner 5 is arranged within the combustion chamber 2, which comprises a mixing chamber 6 and a spherical burner mat 7. A Venturi 8 is connected to the mixing chamber 6, which extends through the thermal insulation 4 until at the outer surface of the water heater. A nozzle 10 for supplying the fuel gas is arranged within the outer opening of the Venturi 8. Primary air is drawn through the outer entrance opening 9, while fuel gas from nozzle 10 flows into the Venturi 8. The primary air is then mixed by turbulence with the fuel gas in the mixing chamber 6.
Another embodiment of a water heater with a complete premixing atmospheric gas burner is described in U.S. Patent Application 2003/0111 023 A1. This known gas burner 5 has a planar rectangular burner mat.
Using an atmospheric complete pre-mixing gas burner in a water heating apparatus of the above-described type allows the gas burner to be placed centrally in the combustion space, i.e. the combustion chamber, in order to attain a uniform heat transfer in all directions or to all sides.
The exhaust gas flow is directed so that the hot exhaust gases, understood herein to be combustion air, flow more or less directly from the combustion chamber into the exhaust pipe, because of the existing typical structure of the combustion system in the above-described water heating apparatus with the central exhaust pipe, which is connected flush with the lower cup-shaped wall of the storage tank and extends upward from it.
This has the following consequences:
1. Heat transfer in the bottom region, usually characterized as the dome, is not complete; and
2. Hot exhaust gas flows though the "exhaust channel" at comparatively high speed, so that the efficiency is limited. It can be increased by the so-called "baffle" in the exhaust gas pipe, but that impairs the quality of the combustion in a disadvantageous way, since the exhaust gas ratio NOx/CO is poor.


A method for the fabrication of a gate stack, in particular in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories, uses a combination of a damascene process and a CMP process to produce a gate stack which includes a polysilicon section, a silicide section and a covering-layer section thereabove. The gate stack can be fabricated by using conventional materials, has a very low sheet resistance of  less than 1 ohm/unit area and may carry self-aligning contact sections.

The invention relates to a method for fabricating a gate stack in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories.
The integration of semiconductor circuits with a very large scale packing density requires gate stacks which have a very low sheet resistance (less than 5 to 10 ohms/unit area), in order to reduce time delays caused by inevitable RC paths. At the same time, the DRAM technology for the fabrication of compact bit cells requires the formation of self-aligning contact sections.
Heretofore, it has been attempted to solve those problems by using gate stacks formed of tungsten silicide. Unfortunately, gate stacks of that type have a high sheet resistance (for example approximately 25 ohms/unit area). If one attempts to reduce the sheet resistance by making the silicide layer thicker, the complexity of the processes is increased, since each stack etching process lasts longer and the contact etching process has to reach a deeper level. The use of lower-resistance silicides (CoSi2 or TiSi2) involves the problem of a stack of polysilicon and Co or Ti silicide not being able to be etched and having a low thermal stability during subsequent stack processes. Other types of gate stack materials, such as for example WN/W, are of limited use due to their insufficient stability under oxidizing process conditions.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a method for fabricating a gate stack, in particular in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories, which overcomes the hereinafore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known methods of this general type in such a way that the gate stack has a low resistance, can be fabricated by using conventional materials and is compatible with a self-aligning contact section.
With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method for fabricating a gate stack above a substrate section of a semiconductor memory covered by a gate oxide layer, in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories. The method comprises the following steps:
a) applying a polysilicon layer above the gate oxide layer;
b) applying a silicon nitride layer above the polysilicon layer as a mask layer for a subsequent damascene process;
c) selectively etching an opening, with a side wall and a base, into the silicon nitride layer, down to the polysilicon layer, in the relevant substrate section;
d) covering the silicon nitride layer, including the side wall and the base of the opening, with a Ti or Co layer;
e) converting the Ti or Co at the base of the opening into a silicide section through a conditioning process;
f) removing unsilicided Ti or Co;
g) forming a covering layer entirely over the substrate section, covering the silicon nitride layer and filling the opening above the silicide section;
h) removing the covering layer down to the silicon nitride layer, while retaining the covering layer in the opening;
i) selectively etching the silicon nitride layer down to the polysilicon layer, leaving a gate stack formed of TiSi2 or CoSi2 and a section of the covering layer remaining above the TiSi2 or CoSi2, in the opening;
j) selectively etching the polysilicon layer down to the gate oxide, with the gate stack functioning as a hard mask; and
k) applying a spacer wall around a periphery of the gate stack.
The fact that the method according to the invention, in a significant aspect, uses a damascene process (either nitride, as illustrated, or oxide) to form a thick, self-aligning silicide gate layer (either TiSi2 or CoSi2), on which a covering layer formed either of oxide or nitride can then be deposited, means that the invention is able to form self-aligning contacts. The gate stack achieves a sheet resistance of  less than 1 ohm/unit area and can be fabricated by using standard materials. This method can be used particularly advantageously for the fabrication of very large scale integrated semiconductor memories or for embedded memories.
Other features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in a method for fabricating a gate stack in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.
The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.

Method for fabricating a gate stack in very large scale integrated semiconductor memories


A RIP-based caching mechanism for bids in a distributed automatic route selection system for a network of PBXs. The PBXs are interconnected for propagating bid requests and replies therebetween. A cache table is maintained in each one of the PBXs for storing cached bid values for unused ones of the neighboring PBXs from whom replies have not been received responsive to a bid request. A subscribers table is also maintained in each PBX for identifying additional ones of the PBXs to whom bid value updates must be sent for updating their cache tables.

This invention relates in general to distributed information systems, and more particularly to Automatic Route Selection (ARS) using RIP caching in a distributed communication system.
Telecommunication systems have recently been designed for providing a variety of real-time services and features in an open distributed environment through the collaboration of a set of software components called agents. Such multi-agent systems are designed in such a way that they may adapt and evolve in the face of changing environments. One such multi-agent system is known as MANA (Multi-Agent Architecture for Networking Applications) developed by Mitel Corporation. Through the use of distributed agent architecture, the system meets high reliability levels and adapts to accommodate technological or service evolution. To achieve these goals, intelligence or learning mechanisms are provided to update service information derived from the operation of the agents. This information is used to redefine the agents and to reallocate resources for correcting failures and to meet the requirements of a defined service more precisely.
An application or service in a multi-agent system is mapped as a series of calls amongst agents to perform the service. Each agent specifies its type, quantity and quality of service (QoS) in order to provide for an overall application. Since multi-agent systems are implemented in an open environment, no agent has prior knowledge of any other agent. The only knowledge that an agent possesses is its requirements and capabilities to provide a specific type of service. Thus, an agent may be required to find other agents to fulfill certain of its service requirements. A calling agent (referred to herein as a Bid Manager) sends out a bid for services to a plurality of called agents (referred to herein as Bidders), each of whom may be capable of providing the necessary resources for the Bid Manager to complete its task. The Bid Manager receives and evaluates the bids from the various Bidders and selects the agent which has the best chance of success in performing the requested service. This is referred to herein as selecting the xe2x80x9clowest bidxe2x80x9d.
One example of a classic bidding mechanism of the foregoing type is disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,636 entitled Adaptive Method of Allocating Calls. According to this system, a Router Agent sends a call for bids to a plurality of Carrier Agents in order to determine the cost to complete a call by each of the Carrier Agents. The system then selects the cheapest bid. In the embodiment disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,636 all of the Bidders are running in the same PBX as the BidManager. However, in the case of a distributed telecommunications system, some of the bidding Carrier Agents may be running on one or more remote PBX""s that are linked with the local PBX through a leased line, as set forth in co-pending and commonly owned patent application Ser. No. 09/455,658 filed Dec. 7, 1999 and entitled Distributed Technique for Allocating Calls. In such a system it is important to optimize the bidding process to avoid having to request bids from each Bidder each time a service is requested. Requesting bids can be time-costly and therefore tend to be inapplicable in real-time applications such as Advanced Automatic Route Selection (AARS) as set forth in U.S. Patent 5,675,636. Optimizations to ease the burdens of giving and receiving bids can lower material and operational costs of systems especially in the case of distributed systems.
According to the present invention, the well-known RIP routing algorithm is applied to a caching mechanism for optimizing the bidding process in an AARS system. The RIP algorithm used in the Internet to route data (ref RFC 1058), requires each router to send to its neighbors a copy of its routing table with the distance (number of hops) that separates it from the different nodes of the network. However, the problem addressed by the present invention is not minimization of the number of hops between the nodes, but rather the cost between the terminal node of the path and the local carrier it uses to get to the actual destination. The inventors have realized that it is not realistic to hold all of the destinations in the world in a single table. This is especially true if the network is not owned or managed by a single entity. Therefore, the routing table generated by the system of the present invention consists of a finite number of nodes in the network of PBXs, and the most frequently used terminal destinations of the calls of the users of the PBX system. These destinations are then cached using the caching mechanism set forth in commonly owned patent application Ser. No. 09/768,129 filed Jan. 23, 2001 entitled Caching Mechanism to Optimize a Bidding Process Used to Select Resources and Services. Specifically, a caching mechanism is provided for storing the latest bids by one or more Bidders for a given bidding context.

Distributed automatic route selection using RIP caching


An augmented reality system includes left and right transparent eyepieces through which a user can view the real world and which serve to couple imagewise modulated light into the user's eyes in order to display virtual content components of a mixed reality experience. The system further includes left and right speakers and a facility for user spatial manipulation of virtual objects. The system produces spatialized audio that has a virtual sound source position fixed to one or more virtual objects that are spatially manipulated by the user. Thus the system provides more realistic visual and auditory presentation of virtual components of a mixed reality experience.

Significant steps in the development of display technology include: the magic lantern, film based motion pictures, television, and modern digital video display technologies implemented in personal computers and mobile devices. Recently virtual reality headgear has been introduced. Such virtual reality headgear includes a pair of displays positioned close to and in front of the user's eyes and lenses intervening between the displays and the user's eyes to allow the user to focus on the displays. When using such virtual reality headgear the user is completely immersed in a virtual world and substantially cut off from the real world. Protracted use of virtual reality systems can induce "virtual reality sickness" which may be due to flaws in the realisticness of the sensation of the virtual environment. For example the sensory stimulus received via the vestibular system which is dependent on the user's dynamics in the real world may conflict with sensory stimulus of motion in the virtual world. It is believed that the human perception systems are highly attuned to integrating disparate, visual, auditory, touch, taste, smell and vestibular stimuli, and contradictory sensations causes sensory discord which can cause the human physiological systems to transition to a low functionally (virtual reality sickness) state that inhibits further engagement in the causative activity.
It would be desirable to provide a presentation of virtual content with achieves higher fidelity to the sensory perception that would be achieved if the virtual content were real.

Augmented reality system with spatialized audio tied to user manipulated virtual object


A power toothbrush has a superior brushing effect achieved by a brush member which is given a reciprocal motion in the axial direction while at the same time the brush member itself is given a rotary motion and which has a simple construction and is of low cost. A drive shaft is mounted in a casing in such a way that it is free to move in the axial direction. The rotation of a drive motor mounted inside the casing is converted into a reciprocating motion and transmitted to the drive shaft by a first transmission mechanism. A rotary brush member is rotatably mounted on the end of an attachment connected to the drive shaft, and the reciprocating motion, in the axial direction, of the attachment is converted into a rotary motion and transmitted to the rotary brush member by a second transmission mechanism.

Many power toothbrushes have been proposed in the past, and a wide variety of power toothbrushes have been put on sale. Representative examples of these include types in which an attachment with a brush member on the end is fitted to a case in such a way that the attachment is free to move relative to the case and is also removable, and this attachment is driven by a motor mounted inside the case such that the attachment moves in the direction of its length, and types in which the brush member itself is driven instead of the attachment.
For example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. JP 55963/1986, there is disclosed a power toothbrush in which the brush head vibrates finely. In Japanese Patent Publication No. JP 64204/1986, there is disclosed a power toothbrush in which a toothbrush fitted to a drive shaft is driven so that it moves reciprocally either in its axial direction or perpendicular to its axial direction. In Japanese Patent Publication No. JP 79410/1986, there is disclosed a power toothbrush in which the stroke of the axial reciprocating motion of the toothbrush can be changed.
In the conventional types of power toothbrush mentioned above, in power toothbrushes in which the toothbrush is made to vibrate finely, in case the whole toothbrush is gripped firmly, the fine vibration is absorbed and the actual movement of the brush member becomes almost zero, and consequently the brushing effect is poor. In power toothbrushes in which the brush member is mounted on an attachment part (corresponding to the shape of a normal toothbrush) and the attachment part is caused to move, the brush member itself is fixed to the attachment and does not move relative to it. In the types in which the brush member itself rotates, the attachment part on which the brush member is mounted does not move.
An object of the present invention is to provide a power toothbrush having a superior brushing effect, achieved by an attachment on which a brush member is mounted, which is given a reciprocal motion in the axial direction while at the same time the brush member itself is given a rotary motion, and which has a simple construction and is of low cost.


A wall-mountable programmable electronic thermostat for controlling an HVAC system is described. The thermostat includes a circular wall-mountable backplate with a central opening to allow for the passage of HVAC wires for electrical connection to the thermostat. The head unit body is also circular and is removeably mountable to the back plate. A plurality of wedge-shaped wiring terminals are mounted on the backplate for making a tool-free connection to HVAC wires. Each wiring terminal has button that a user can depress while a wire is inserted in a wire hole. The terminals are arranged along one or more circular arcs about the central opening of the backplate such that the wire holes face the central opening and the buttons are located close to the outer periphery of the backplate.

In designing a wall-mounted thermostat that is relatively sleek and small it is nevertheless desirable to allow for terminals that have ease of access and ease of installation. In particular it is desirable to allow for ease of wall mounting and for ease of connection of the control wires to the terminals. Thermostat wires are often solid wires of relatively heavy gauge. As a result the wires protruding from a small hole in the wall are rather stiff and may be difficult to bend and otherwise manipulate and to attach properly to thermostat connection terminals. Also it is desirable to have a tool free method of wire connection (i.e. without the use screws and/or the use of screw driver).
It is to be appreciated that although exemplary embodiments are presented herein for the particular context of HVAC system control, there are a wide variety of other resource usage contexts for which the embodiments are readily applicable including, but not limited to, water usage, air usage, the usage of other natural resources, and the usage of other (i.e., non-HVAC-related) forms of energy, as would be apparent to the skilled artisan in view of the present disclosure. Therefore, such application of the embodiments in such other resource usage contexts is not outside the scope of the present teachings.

Thermostat with wiring terminals configured for spatial compactness and ease of wire installation


LED lighting devices/systems having air quality detection functions and methods for detecting air quality using the LED lighting devices/systems are provided. Exemplary LED lighting device includes an air quality detection unit configured to detect air quality parameter; a controller unit connected to the air quality detection unit to process data corresponding to the air quality parameter; an LED light source assembly controlled by the controller unit and configured to provide lighting; and an LED driver and power supply unit connected to drive the LED light source assembly, and to supply power to the entire LED lighting device. Exemplary LED lighting system includes at least two nodes each including an LED lighting device. By combining an air quality detection unit with an LED lighting device that are widely distributed and installed, the disclosed LED lighting devices/systems thus provide real-time and convenient air quality monitoring.

LED devices have been widely used in various lighting areas (e.g., for a low-carbon lifestyle) and may provide advantages including energy conservation, environmental protection, controllable lighting, solid state lighting, and long operational lifetime. As environmental problems become more of a concern, there have been growing emphases and considerations on environmental protection and management. It is therefore desirable to have a device with convenient air pollution monitoring function to facilitate settings of regional environmental standards and to help control/management of industrial and agricultural productions. Existing air quality detection devices are large and relatively expensive. Further, their operations and maintenance often require specialized operators and involve cumbersome processes.
Thus, there is a need to overcome these and other problems of the prior art and to provide LED lighting devices/systems having air quality detection functions, and methods for detecting air quality using the LED lighting devices/systems.

LED lighting device, system, and method with air quality detection


The present invention provides a liquid crystal display panel having a narrower frame region than in the conventional art. The liquid crystal display device of the present invention includes a liquid crystal layer 42 interposed between a first substrate 10 and a second substrate 20, and a sealant portion 32 that surrounds the liquid crystal layer, the sealant portion 32 being made of a sealant containing a photocurable resin and conductive beads. The first substrate 10 includes a recess 14a in which an organic insulating film 14 is not present in a non-display region. At least a portion of a black matrix 22a overlaps the recess 14a. A portion of the sealant portion 32 is disposed in the recess 14a. An opposite electrode 24 is not formed in a region of the second substrate 20 that faces the recess 14a.

As larger-sized liquid crystal display panels have come to be widely used in recent years, the one-drop filling (ODF) method for forming a liquid crystal layer between a pair of substrates is replacing the conventional vacuum injection method. The one-drop filling method includes the following steps:
(1) On one of the pair substrates, a pattern is formed using a sealant, surrounding the region in which the liquid crystal layer is to be formed. The sealant pattern is formed by drawing a pattern using the sealant supplied by, for example, a dispenser.
(2) A liquid crystal material is dropped in the region surrounded by the sealant pattern.
(3) Under a low pressure atmosphere, the other substrate is bonded on the aforementioned substrate with the liquid crystal material interposed therebetween. Then the sealant is cured.
Since the pattern formed of the sealant must completely surround the region in which the liquid crystal layer is to be formed with the one-drop filling method, at least one joint must be formed in the sealant pattern.
Characteristics of the sealant pattern formed with the one-drop filling method will be described with reference to FIG. 3.
FIG. 3 shows an example of four pieces of liquid crystal display panels manufactured using a mother substrate. The mother substrate 20 includes four opposite substrates (typically, color filter substrates), and each display region 20D includes an opposite electrode (not shown) and color filters (not shown) arranged with the corresponding pixels. The same reference numeral is used for the mother substrate and the opposite substrate. Furthermore, the opposite substrate 20 includes a black matrix (light shielding layer) 22, which surrounds the display region 20D, and the black matrix 22 defines the outer edges of the display region 20D. Although FIG. 3 illustrates TFT substrates 10 as separated for each liquid crystal display panel, actually, a mother substrate having four TFT substrates 10 thereon, similar to the case with the mother substrate 20, is prepared and coupled to the mother substrate 20. Necessary circuit elements, including TFTs, pixel electrodes, gate signal wiring, and source signal wiring, for example, are formed on each display region 10D of the four TFT substrates 10, respectively. The TFT substrate 10 and the opposite substrate 20 are fixed to each other by a sealant portion 32. The sealant portion 32 is formed outside the black matrix 22. Glass substrates for the TFT substrate 10 and the opposite substrate 20, are referred to as "glass substrate 11" and "glass substrate 21," respectively.
A portion outside the display region 10D or 20D on the liquid crystal display panel is called a non-display region (or a frame region) and is preferably made as narrow as possible. The black matrix 22 and the sealant portion 32 are disposed in the non-display region.
On the other hand, the black matrix 22 must have enough width in order to prevent any extraneous light from entering the display regions 10D and 20D. Inadequate light shielding would lower the quality of the black color display and have a significant effect on the image quality. In order to satisfy both of these requirements, the sealant portion 32 must be formed very close to the outer edges of the black matrix 22 with a high degree of precision.
The sealant portion 32 formed by the drawing method, however, includes at least one joint portion 32b. This joint portion 32b of the sealant tends to become thicker than a sealant extension portion 32a. Here, the sealant extension portion 32a refers to the sealant portion excluding the joint portion 32b, and the width of the sealant extension portion 32a is fairly constant. The extension portion 32a is where a sealant pattern is drawn with a sealant using a nozzle of a dispenser, for example, as it moves relative to the substrate surface. Therefore, the resulting width of the sealant extension portion 32a is determined by the rate of deposition of the sealant and the speed of the nozzle movement. For this reason, the width of the extension portion 32a is stable. On the other hand, the joint portion 32b includes a portion where the sealant is first deposited (sealant pattern start point). The amount of sealant initially deposited on the start point depends on the amount of the sealant that has accumulated at the tip of the nozzle. This, in turn, is affected by a variation in the time required for positioning the nozzle (including height positioning) and a variation in the amount of sealant left in the nozzle tip when the nozzle leaves the substrate at the end point of the sealant pattern. Since the amount of sealant deposited at the start/end points of a sealant pattern drawing is variable as described above, and a joint must be formed there, the width of the joint portion 32b tends to become wider than that of the extension portion 32a.
FIG. 4(a) and FIG. 4(b) are enlarged views of the sealant joint portion and its vicinity. FIG. 4(a) is a plan view, and FIG. 4(b) is a cross-sectional view taken along the line 4B-4B′ in FIG. 4(a).
As described above, when the sealant pattern becomes wide at the joint portion 32b, that portion of the sealant pattern can overlap the black matrix 22. Sealants containing photocurable resin (including those that are also thermally curable) are widely used, and when such sealant is exposed to radiation (typically ultraviolet (UV) radiation) from the side of the opposite substrate 20, a portion 32′ of the sealant that overlaps the black matrix 22 is not adequately cured, and as a result, the uncured components of the photocurable resin can dissolve into the liquid crystal material. Such dissolved components, in particular ionic components, can cause a reduced reliability of the liquid crystal display panel, such as decreased ability to hold voltages and alignment failure.
Furthermore, the sealant pattern width tends to become wider at corners of a sealant pattern, because the movement of a nozzle of a dispenser, for example, slows down there. Therefore, the problem that a portion 32′ of the sealant that overlaps the black matrix 22 as shown in FIG. 5(a) and FIG. 5(b) cannot be adequately cured sometimes occurs at the corner portions of the sealant patterns as well. Here, FIG. 5(a) and FIG. 5(b) are enlarged views of a corner portion of a sealant pattern and its vicinity. FIG. 5(a) is a plan view, and FIG. 5(b) is a cross-sectional view taken along the line 5B-5B′ of FIG. 5(a).
The inventor of the present invention disclosed in Patent Document 2 a liquid crystal display device in which the width of the sealant pattern is prevented from becoming wider by providing a region(s) having an extra space between a CF substrate and a TFT substrate (hereinafter "wide-gap region") at the joint portion of the sealant pattern or at the corners of the sealant pattern. The wide-gap regions are formed by providing a recess(es) in the surface of the opposite substrate or the TFT substrate, on the side facing the liquid crystal layer. In the wide-gap region(s), a portion of the sealant is absorbed inside the recess(es), which prevents the sealant from spreading inward on the substrate surface. An example of the method for forming a recess on the surface of the substrate is disclosed, in which a recess(es) or a through hole(s) is(are) made at a predetermined location(s) on a resin film formed on the TFT substrate. The entire contents of Patent Document 2 are hereby incorporated by reference.


A method for expanding an end of a pipe made of plastics having shape memory with the aid of an expander tool having a tool head having an expansion member arranged to be insertable inside the end of the pipe. The method includes steps of measuring the temperature of the pipe to be expanded, adjusting at least one of the expansion control parameters of the tool head on the basis the measured temperature of the pipe, and expanding the end of the pipe utilizing the adjusted expansion control parameter of the tool head. The expander tool includes a temperature sensor for measuring temperature of the pipe to be expanded and/or ambient temperature, and an electronic control unit for adjusting at least one of the expansion control parameters of the tool head on the basis the measured temperature value.

It is a known fact that pipes made of plastics having shape memory, such as pipes made of PE (polyethylene), PEX (cross-linked polyethylene), PE-RT (Polethylene of Raised Temperature resistance), UHMWPE (Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene) after being expanded have a shrinking speed which depends on the temperature of the pipe. In cold ambient temperature the temperature of the pipe is low and the shrinking speed is low whereby more force is needed to expand the pipe because the pipe is stiffer than in warm weather. When the ambient temperature is warm, the pipe is warm and less force is needed because the pipe is more elastic. In general, shape-memory polymers are polymeric smart materials that have the ability to return from a deformed state (temporary shape) to their original (permanent) shape. Despite of the ambient temperature, in usual installation conditions, the shape memory will return the part to the original shape. Heat or any other stimulus is not needed to cause the returning to the shape.
In practice, the installer has needed to manually control the number of expansion cycles depending on the temperature of the environment. The problem is that the quality of the pipe joint (tightness) much depends on the skills of the installer. The installer may easily apply less or more expansion cycles than optimum in particular temperature conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,555,577 discloses a device and procedure for expanding the end of a plastic pipe. The document discloses adjusting radial distance between spreading surfaces based on ambient temperature.

Method for expanding an end of a pipe and expander tool


A transmission device includes a first rotating member and a ring for synchronizing the first rotating member and a second rotating member relative to each other. The first rotating member is provided with a plurality of first recesses for receiving a plurality of protrusions provided on the synchronizing ring. The first rotating member has one said first recess for each of said protrusions. The first rotating member is provided with one or more second recesses making the total number of first and second recesses exceeding the number of said protrusions.

Transmissions usually have synchronizers for shifting gears. For example, an idle gear wheel that is journaled on an output shaft and connected to a gear wheel arranged on an input shaft, can be connected to the output shaft by a synchronizer. The synchronizer has a sleeve that is brought into engagement with a dog ring of the idle gear wheel by means of teeth. The sleeve is connected to a hub by means of a spline joint. The hub is in turn rotationally locked relative to the output shaft. Thus, when the sleeve and the dog ring are engaged, the idle gear wheel and the output shaft are rotationally locked relative to each other via the synchronizer and torque can be transferred.
When shifting gears, before displacement of the sleeve for engaging the dog ring, the rotation speeds of the idle gear wheel and the sleeve have however to be synchronized. For this reason, friction rings can be used, and particularly an intermediate synchronizing ring provided with protrusions or cams for engagement with corresponding recesses or windows of the idle gear wheel can be used. Usually the recesses are arranged on the inside of the dog ring which can be welded onto a shaft extension of the idle gear wheel. During synchronisation, the intermediate ring is engaged with the dog ring and rotates with the idle gear wheel. When the idle gear wheel and the sleeve are synchronized, the sleeve is brought into engagement with the dog ring.

NINGBO GEELY AUTOMOBILE RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT CO.


The invention relates to a method and arrangement (100) for storing and playing back TV programs, in particular to the improved method and device (100) for operating a PVR, in particular a network PVR (102). The inventive device for storing and playing back the TV programs comprises means for selecting a storable TV program, means (102, 108) for recording a TV program and means (104, 102, 108) for playing back, in a time delayed manner, said recording during a recordable TV program. Said arrangement also comprises means for determining the beginning time of transmission of the recordable TV program and means for determining the total advertising duration which passes on the screen during the TV program transmission. Said invention makes it possible to determine, as soon as possible, a time to start an advertising-free playing back according to the beginning of transmission, the total duration of the advertising and to advise a user thereabout.

After decades of tape-based analog video recorders being the only means whereby home users could record and conveniently store programs screened on antenna, cable or satellite TV, with the availability of fast and at the same time inexpensive video processors and high-performance video codecs such as, say, MPEG2 (1994) and MPEG4 (1998) a number of mainly hard-disk-based digital machines providing not only straight video recording but also a number of convenience features have become available in recent years.
The term personal video recorder (PVR), or sometimes digital video recorder (DVR), is frequently used for this new generation of devices. While these modern machines can of course be used like conventional VCRs for simple recording and subsequent playback of programs, they are capable of much more than that. For example, a frequently used feature of a PVR is what is referred to as time shifting, whereby the user can begin replaying a program even while it is still recording. Thanks to the high-performance hardware of a modern PVR, the picture quality achieved is superior to that of a conventional VHS or S-VHS tape machine.
Time-shifted viewing also allows the user to "pause" a program initially being viewed live, e.g. to take a telephone call, and to resume playback later, it appearing to the user that he has actually paused the live screening and continued it later. In the background, however, pressing of the "Pause" button by the user has caused the user's PVR to record the current program, and pressing the "Pause" button again results, on the one hand, in the recorded program continuing to be recorded and, on the other, allows it to played back already.
Another very popular feature of a PVR is the ability to skip lengthy sections in a recording with minimal delay. Often this is used during playback to skip blocks of commercials contained in the recorded program. A number of services have become established around this capability which facilitate locating the boundaries of the blocks of commercials, e.g. by storing the start and end of a block as points in time relative to the beginning of a program as a recording index, thereby enabling the commercials to be automatically skipped during playback.
In addition to specially adapted entertainment electronics, multimedia PCs with suitable software are also increasingly being used as PVRs (known as home theater PCs, HTPCs). Technically there is virtually no difference between a specialized PVR and a PC PVR; both have a large (disk) memory, sufficient processor power and suitable video codecs.
By means of configurable software or firmware, both platforms are able to offer the user additional functions, such as program search, thematically geared to his favorite programs. The common feature of both platform variants is that recording takes place locally on the user's premises and the quantity of recordable programs is limited by the local disk memory. It is therefore often possible to transfer recorded programs from the device's internal memory to writable media such as re(writable) CDs or DVDs. However, this involves a cost factor and, not least, the price of a PVR is also considerable. And even PVRs suffer from the problem that recording several programs simultaneously also requires a plurality of PVRs. More expensive multi-tuner machines solve this problem only to a limited extent, as there will always be fewer tuners than TV stations and, in addition, PVR hardware that is of sufficiently high performance for one channel reveals its limitations when required to record a plurality of channels simultaneously.
To be able to offer users all the advantages of a PVR without them having to invest in a PVR, the White Paper "Network PVR: Everything on Demand", Jay Schiller, nCube Corporation, proposes a network PVR whereby storage, encoding logic and codecs are held available in the cable network by a provider. The user gets a unit with which he can select programs to be stored and can retrieve stored programs which are then transmitted to the user in real time by means of a broadband connection. Such a device can be much less powerful than a PVR or an HTPC. At the same time the user can rent virtually unlimited storage space on the PVR server, while the operator of the PVR server only needs to keep one copy of each program which is then distributed as required to those users who have stored that program in their (virtual) store.
In a development, a network PVR of this kind can be designed so as to eliminate "programming" of the network PVR by the user, instead of which the user has access to all the shows in its program list of, for example, the last 4 weeks.
The aforementioned functions of time-shifting and fast skipping of advertising content are frequently manually combined by PVR users, whereby users record a live program, start viewing said program later in time-shift mode and progressively approach the live transmission by skipping the broadcast advertising content. Both in the case of standalone PVRs and in the case of network PVRs, a user must manually estimate how much time is used within the screening of a program for advertising content in order to be able to determine the optimal starting time for the time-shifted playback of this recording. If he starts the playback too early, his program will be interrupted by commercials at any rate toward the end. If he starts too late, although he can enjoy a commercial-free program, he was obliged to wait longer than necessary.

Method and arrangement for storing and playing back TV programs


A vehicle headlamp assembly, a reflector for the headlamp assembly, and a method for generating a supplementary beam using the reflector are provided. The vehicle headlamp assembly includes a light source and a reflector. The reflector includes a plurality of facets. Each facet of the plurality of facets is configured to contribute to a section of a beam pattern of a light beam of the headlamp assembly by reflecting light emitted by the light source.

Motor vehicles contain numerous lighting devices for both interior and exterior illumination. For example, exterior vehicle lighting devices may perform stop lamp functions, tail lamp functions, headlamp functions, daytime running light functions, dynamic bending light functions, and fog lamp functions. Numerous studies have found that nighttime visibility is a key to highway safety.
In an effort to improve vehicle and pedestrian safety, most governments promulgate some form of safety regulations that specify motor vehicle lighting performance requirements. This helps to ensure adequate illumination of the roadway and enhance the visibility of motor vehicles on the roads so that their presence is perceived and their signals are understood in daylight, in darkness, and in conditions of reduced visibility.
In addition, in North America, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) testing has become very important. Customers often require a IIHS rating of 'Good'. Current bi-function modules typically do not have an IIHS rating of 'Good'. Often the performance of the high beam (HB) is not sufficient to achieve the IIHS rating of 'Good'. A possible solution is to add a supplementary low beam (LB) or HB.
What is needed as recognized by the present inventor is a supplementary module that increase illumination on IIHS HB targets (to reduce demerits) without exceeding regulatory limits, such as SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) H-V limits of 75,000 candelas.
The "background" description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as conventional art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as conventional art against the present disclosure.


Managing digital rights of content based on trusted relationships including: tagging the content as using encryption and specifying a retrieval method that is used to request a decryption key so that the content is live streamed to a client device a client device; transmitting an affiliation token to a trusted agent, wherein the trusted agent relays the affiliation token onto the client device based on requirement and identifier of the client device; receiving a request from the client device for the decryption key, which includes a value from the affiliation token to identify the trusted relationships; and verifying the request and providing the decryption key to the client device, wherein the client device uses the decryption key to decrypt the live streaming content for playback. Keywords include digital rights management and trusted relationship.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital rights management for live streaming, and more specifically, to digital rights management for live streaming based on trusted relationships.
2. Background
In some systems that provide live streaming content to personal computers or IP-enabled devices such as IPTV, Blu-ray disc player, and Home Audio devices, any device can access encrypted content and a public key to decrypt the content because the uniform resource identifier (URI) and/or uniform resource locator (URL) to the encrypted content and the key are listed in the live streaming playlist. These systems lack the methodology to manage access rights for encrypted content based on an established relationship. Further, these systems do not provide a way for a service provider to specify the use of content encryption and an appropriate hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) method to acquire the decryption key and/or live streaming content.

Digital rights management for live streaming based on trusted relationships

Sony Network Entertainment International LLC