A service providing apparatus, a service consuming apparatus, and a service transmitting method are provided. The service providing apparatus is adapted to connect with the service consuming apparatus via a wireless network. Within a control channel period, the service providing apparatus schedules the services with the service consuming apparatus. Within a service channel period, the service providing apparatus provides a service resource to the service consuming apparatus according to the result of scheduling the services. If the service consuming apparatus does not send a service request signal to the service providing apparatus within the control channel period, the service consuming apparatus has to remain silent within the service control channel. By the arrangement, the problems caused from the characteristic of the link asymmetry of the wireless network can be solved.

Owing to advantages of wireless networks such as convenience in use, low deployment cost and high mobility, various wireless network standards have been developed rapidly in the modern network technologies. Although communication protocols of these wireless network standards vary greatly from each other, most of the wireless network standards have similar service architecture. Specifically, the service architecture of many wireless networks includes a service providing apparatus and a service consuming apparatus, in which network service resources are provided by the service providing apparatus to the service consuming apparatus. For instance, in a Vehicle-to-Roadside communication system of the telematics field, services are provided by a road side unit (RSU) to an on-board unit (OBU). In this kind of service architecture, the service providing apparatus has larger communication coverage while the service consuming apparatus has smaller communication coverage, which characteristic is known as the link asymmetry. The link asymmetry characteristic leads to a number of problems.
Now, the problems of a conventional wireless network caused by the link asymmetry will be explained with reference to a wireless network application scenario illustrated in FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C. A wireless network 10a illustrated in FIG. 1A comprises a service providing apparatus 11a and a service consuming apparatus 13a. More specifically, in the scenario illustrated in FIG. 1A, communication coverage of the service providing apparatus 11a covers the service consuming apparatus 13a, so signals transmitted by the service providing apparatus 11a can be received by the service consuming apparatus 13a. However, communication coverage 130a of the service consuming apparatus 13a does not cover the service providing apparatus 11a, so a response signal to be transmitted by the service consuming apparatus 13a to the service providing apparatus 11a will fail to be transmitted correctly to the service providing apparatus 11a. Consequently, it is impossible for the service providing apparatus 11a and the service consuming apparatus 13a to perform a handshake process with each other to establish a connection therebetween. This causes repeated transmission of the response signal by the service consuming apparatus 13a, which unnecessarily occupies the network bandwidth. This is the first problem caused by the link asymmetry.
Secondly, referring to FIG. 1B, a wireless network 10b illustrated therein comprises a service providing apparatus 11b, a first service consuming apparatus 13b and a second service consuming apparatus 15b. Particularly, when the first service consuming apparatus 13b and the second service consuming apparatus 15b are not covered by each other's communication coverage 130b, 150b, it means that they cannot confirm each other's presence in the network. Consequently, the first service consuming apparatus 13b and the second service consuming apparatus 15b may send service requests to the service providing apparatus 11b simultaneously without coordinating with each other. This causes the service request signals transmitted to the service providing apparatus 11b to generate serious interference, thereby increasing the loading of the service providing apparatus 11b. This is the second problem caused by the link asymmetry.
Next, the second problem caused by the link asymmetry will be further explained with reference to FIG. 1C. FIG. 1C is a schematic view illustrating a connection period 16 used by the wireless network 10b. The connection period 16 is divided into two kinds of sections, i.e., control channel periods 164, 168 and service channel periods 162, 166. Within the control channel period 164, the service providing apparatus 11b broadcasts service providing signals 180a, 180b. Upon receiving the service providing signals 180a, 180b, the service consuming apparatuses 13b, 15b transmit data within the service channel period 166; more specifically, the service consuming apparatus 13b transmits data 190a, and the service consuming apparatus 15b transmits data 190b. However, the time intervals within which the data 190a, 190b are transmitted are partially overlapped with each other, which leads to the so-called collision.
Referring further to FIG. 1D, a wireless network 10c illustrated therein comprises a service providing apparatus 11c, a first service consuming apparatus 13c and a second service consuming apparatus 15c. The third problem caused by the link asymmetry is that, signals of the second service consuming apparatus 15c will cause communication interference between the first service consuming apparatus 13c and the service consuming apparatus 11c. Specifically, because the second service consuming apparatus 15c is located within communication coverage 110c of the service providing apparatus 11c, the second service consuming apparatus 15c will be able to receive signals transmitted by the service providing apparatus 11c and transmit a response signal accordingly. However, as described above, because the communication coverage 150c of the second service consuming apparatus 15c does not cover the service providing apparatus 11c, the second service consuming apparatus 15c will transmit the response signal continuously. In this case, the second service consuming apparatus 15c will cause interference to the first service consuming apparatus 13c that is currently conducting service transmissions with the service providing apparatus 11c. In other words, because the communication coverage 150c of the second service consuming apparatus 15c also covers the first service consuming apparatus 13c, continuous transmission of the request signal by the second service consuming apparatus 15c when it receives no response from the service providing apparatus 11c will cause communication interference to the first service consuming apparatus 13c.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art to provide a solution that can overcome the drawbacks of the prior art so as to make data transmissions between the service providing apparatus and the service consuming apparatus more stable and efficient in various wireless networks.

Service providing apparatus, service consuming apparatus, and service transmitting method


The present invention relates to a flexible optical waveguide prepared by using a resin film for forming an optical waveguide for at least one of a lower cladding layer, a core layer and an upper cladding layer, wherein a ten point average roughness (Rz) on a surface of either one of the lower cladding layer and the upper cladding layer is 0.5 μm or more and 10 μm or less, a production process for the same and an optical module prepared by using the flexible optical waveguide. Provided are a flexible optical waveguide which is excellent in an adhesive property in compounding with an electric printed wiring board and turning a flexible optical waveguide into a multilayer, a production process for the same and an optical module prepared by using the flexible optical waveguide.

In high speed and high density signal transmission between electronic devices and between printed wiring boards, transmission through conventional electric wirings is restricted in a rise in a speed and a density due to barriers brought about by mutual interference and attenuation of signals. In order to break through such restrictions, investigated is a technology of connecting electronic devices and printed wiring boards to each other by means of light, so-called optical interconnection. Flexible optical waveguides having flexibility are considered to be suited to the light path from the viewpoints of easy connection to devices and substrates and easy handling.
When a flexible optical waveguide is integrated with an electric printed wiring board to turn them into a composite matter, an adhesive has to be used to adhere both. In general, an outer layer of a flexible optical waveguide, that is, a cladding layer is highly smooth, and a surface area thereof brought into contact with the adhesive can not sufficiently be secured. Accordingly, an adhesive strength exerted by an anchor effect can not be exhibited, and it is difficult to obtain a strong adhesive property.
Also, when a flexible optical waveguide is turned into a multilayer to highly integrate an optical circuit, a problem of the same adhesive property is brought about.
A polymer film optical waveguide is proposed as a flexible optical waveguide (e.g., refer to a patent document 1). A polymer film is prepared by applying a solution of a polymer on a substrate of silicon and the like by spin coating and baking it to form a lower cladding layer. A core layer is formed by the same method, and then a mask pattern is formed with a Si-containing photoresist and dry-etched to thereby form a core pattern. Thereafter, an upper cladding layer is formed by the same method as the method by which the lower cladding layer is formed. Finally, the optical waveguide is peeled off from the substrate to thereby prepare a flexible optical waveguide turned into a film. In particular, a thermally oxidized silicon substrate is used as the substrate in order to make it easy to peel off the optical waveguide, and a method in which the substrate is immersed in hydrofluoric acid is shown as a method by which the optical waveguide is peeled off from the above silicon substrate after forming the optical waveguide.
However, in the flexible optical waveguide described above, an outer layer surface of the cladding layer has a high smoothness, and therefore the adhesive property described above is a problem in compounding with an electric printed wiring board or turning a flexible optical waveguide into a multilayer.
A production process for the flexible optical waveguide described above takes time for forming the respective layers of a lower cladding layer, a core layer and an upper cladding layer, and a liquid material is applied on a substrate to form a film, so that control of the film thickness is complicated. In addition thereto, since the resin coated on the substrate is liquid before curing, the resin flows on the substrate, and it is difficult to maintain an evenness of the film thickness. Therein problems originating in that the material form is liquid are involved.
Further, silicon is used for the substrate, and therefore it is not suited for producing an optical waveguide having a size of 10 cm or more in a large quantity. Also, the production process described above has a dry etching step which is a high vacuum process, and dry etching has to be carried out for very long time in order to prepare a multiple mode optical waveguide comprising a thick core layer.    Patent document 1: JP 7-239422 A

Flexible optical waveguide, method for manufacturing such flexible optical waveguide, and optical module


Properties such as toxicity of substances may be determined by assaying properties, fates and effects of substances in an ex vivo metabolically active human organ or tissue under normothermic perfusion with a fluid containing a test substance. The data can be used as, for example, part of a submission to a government regulatory organization. Preferred methods use perfused endocrine gland organs or tissues to evaluate hormone or other bodily chemical disruption caused by substances and pre-donation diseased or injured organs or tissues.

The disclosure relates to using perfused human-derived organs and/or tissues, such as glandular organs and/or tissues, to evaluate hormone, or other bodily chemical, disruption caused by substances. Methods of the invention permit assessment of such substances using human organs and/or tissues, particularly organs unsuitable for transplantation, on an organ-by-organ or tissue-by-tissue basis.
Methodologies available for assessing properties, fates and effects of substances in humans span many levels of mammalian organization from in vivo studies to studies of isolated organs or tissues, tissue slices, cultured cell types, subcellular particles, multi-enzyme complexes and molecular interactions. In practice, these complex methods often result in considerable wasted time, effort and resources in many fields where substances may undergo several rounds of testing only to find that later testing or market experience reveals undesirable effects in humans, often with tragic consequences.
Historically, attempts to weed-out substances having an unacceptable benefit/risk ratio have relied on in vivo non-human animal studies using several species, such as rodent species. Limitations of toxicity studies in non-human species have long been, and still are, well recognized, but short of performing toxicity studies in humans in vivo there has been no viable alternative. Attempts have been made to bridge the gap between non-human testing and human effects using tissue preparations including subcellular particles, e.g., microsomes, primary cells and cells in culture, e.g., hepatocytes, and tissue slices. Although these in vitro tissue preparations generate much useful data, the farther the tissue preparation is from the whole organism, the greater the risk of false positives and false negatives. For example, false positives or false negatives may occur when assessing whether test substances are toxic when administered alone or with other co-administered substances. Moreover, there is no guarantee that pharmacokinetic/toxicity relationships in normal human tissues determined in vitro will be the same as in normal or diseased human tissues in vivo.
As it is not ethical to use humans for exploratory toxicity testing, the choice has been to perform in vivo testing on a variety of non-human animal species and/or in vitro testing using human biological samples. For example, drug testing using ex vivo human organs has been disclosed in the present assignee's published PCT Application No. WO 2005/074681 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/768,167 (the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety), which notes that organs unsuitable for transplantation may be used for such testing.
Studies have shown that human reproductive health may be linked to environmental substances that have oestrogenic, androgenic or related potentials. A number of observations have been made from human epidemiological studies that include reduced sperm counts, reduced fertility, increased incidence of testicular cancer and congenital birth defects in men and increased incidence of breast cancer in women possibly due to environmental substances. In various wildlife species, the occurrence of gross birth deformities, behavioral abnormalities and feminization/masculinization have been reported. Clearly, many concerns exist that such substances may adversely affect human reproductive health and other aspects of human well-being. See, e.g., Draft Detailed Review Paper: Appraisal of Test Methods for Sex-Hormone Disrupting Chemicals, from the Series on Testing and Assessment, OECD Environmental Health and Safety Publications, Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, France (1997).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Disclosed herein are an electrode assembly, an in-ear headphone, an in-ear headphone pair, and an electrode pair assembly, each for non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation. Each of the foregoing items includes a first electrode and a second electrode. An electrode assembly configured for insertion into an ear of a user includes a first electrode, a second electrode, and a shim positioned therebetween. An in-ear headphone or headphone pair may include the electrode assembly with a housing and a waveform generator. An electrode pair assembly may include a first electrode configured for insertion into a first ear of a user, and a second electrode configured for insertion into a second ear of the user. Certain embodiments further include audio components positioned within a housing of at least one in-ear headphone to deliver audio stimulation through a central channel of a first electrode or second electrode, respectively.

Stress and anxiety are common emotional responses with differing levels of severity. In fact, over 40 million people in the U.S. are currently diagnosed with some form of anxiety disorder. There are many things that cause stress and anxiety, but the effects can seriously inhibit one's performance and drive, whether in the workplace, at school, at a public event, playing sports, social environments, etc. Some of the most significant effects include increased perspiration, elevated heart and breathing rate, high blood pressure, muscle tremors, and a list of others. It is not typically the stress itself that causes people to perform poorly, but rather these side effects of stress.
There are various methods to help reduce the effects of stress, but each is limited. Meditation and mindfulness are very popular and natural stress relief methods, but they take large amounts of time and discipline to perform, and the concept is difficult for many people to understand. Recreational drugs and alcohol can immediately help reduce the effects of stress, but they are not considered viable long term treatments and they come with potentially harmful side effects. Other prescription drugs like beta blockers can lower heart rate without any euphoric sensations, but they are expensive, have various side effects, and take a large amount of time before the drug starts to work. People who suffer from stress and anxiety need a solution that is inexpensive and drug-free with immediate relief and little or no side effects.
Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) helps reduce the effects of stress and anxiety and provides treatment for a list of other ailments (e.g., epilepsy). The vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) is part of the autonomic nervous system. It travels from the brain to the neck, chest, and heart where it regulates a list of automatic physiological functions (e.g., parasympathetic response of the heart, lungs, digestive tract, etc.). When it is depolarized (e.g., electrically stimulated), it simultaneously activates the parasympathetic response and deactivates the sympathetic response, resulting in a decreased heart rate and blood pressure. The vagus nerve can be directly stimulated via a pacemaker-like device with electrodes implanted in the neck. However, due to high cost and high risk procedures, invasive methods to stimulate the vagus nerve are not ideal for general stress and anxiety relief.
Alternatively, the vagus nerve can be non-invasively stimulated with electrodes placed in the ear canal or on the surface of the neck, but current methods of stimulating the vagus nerve through the neck or the ear both have limitations that prevent their widespread adoption. In particular, stimulation through the neck typically utilizes a sticky electrode, which requires a user's skin to be prepared with alcohol before each use and requires the user to remain still to prevent the electrode from falling off. Another way to stimulate through the neck is with a handheld device, which can be more comfortable, but inhibits the user's freedom and mobility, since the handheld device must be held against the user's neck for the duration of treatment.
Stimulating the vagus nerve through the ear is generally more appealing than through the neck, but it has its limitations as well. For example, some devices for stimulating the vagus nerve through the ear include electrodes that need to be soaked in a saline solution to work, which may cause the electrodes to be uncomfortable, easily dislodged, and require resoaking after each use (since the saline solution dries quickly). Other ear electrodes can stimulate the vagus nerve without requiring saline solution, but they are neither comfortable nor designed for recreational use by people with active lifestyles. For example, some ear electrodes include spherical metal tips to deliver current to the vagus nerve, but the stimulation is painful due to the low resistance and high current density of the metal electrodes.
These and other technical challenges impede widespread adoption by the public of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation.

In-ear electrode assembly for non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation

Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University


Provided herein is a system for occupiable space automation using neural networks that delivers scalable and more intelligent occupiable space automation that can continuously learn from user actions and experiences and adapt to specific needs of each individual occupiable space. The occupiable space automation control system is built based on brain inspired multi-layer neural network with plastic connectivity between neurons. The occupiable space automation control system is configured to (a) adaptively predict previously learned activity patterns and (b) alert about potentially harmful or undesired activity patterns of the plurality of periphery devices based on response events of the plurality of artificial neurons and coupling strengths of the plurality of synapses. The occupiable space automation control system is configured to automatically operate the at least one controller based on the predicted activity pattern and/or provide user alerts based on a detected harmful activity pattern.

Home automation (HA), among other types of automation, is a growing industry. Many companies ranging from small start-ups to large corporations are developing various kinds of "smart" solutions for the home. Many of these efforts entail developing hardware platforms including a "typical" set of periphery devices (PDs) such as motion detectors, contact sensors, wall switches, outlet switches, thermostats, CO2 sensors, etc. However, such efforts fail to deliver true smart automation, as they lack the ability to learn from user actions and control PDs based on past use patterns. Without such capability, even assuming rapid development and adoption of PDs in households, HA applications remain very limited. Some examples of limited HA applications include: 1) controlling home devices from smart phone solutions or other similar solutions, e.g., using smart phone to turn On/Off lights and other devices in the house; and 2) using programming tools to create simple "rules", e.g., linking specific event (e.g., wall switch or motion sensor in one area of the house) to control devices (e.g., lights in other area). Such applications have limited applicability for everyday use for a variety of reasons. In real life, using automation to simply control home devices may not be faster or more convenient than the "old/classic" approach. For example, turning lights on or off may entail a user retrieving and unlocking his/her smartphone, starting or navigating to a specific program, and activating a button associated with the program. The foregoing steps may be substantially more time-consuming for the user than the traditional approach of activating a conventional wall switch. Further, writing even very simple programs to control specific devices based on time or events would require more time, effort, and/or understanding than most consumers are willing to expend. For example, VCR programming schedules for recording specific television programs were not widely adopted for similar reasons. But even if it were feasible to apply a conventional programming solution to control a few devices, such programming would lack scalability necessary for deploying HA in real houses and commercial buildings with potentially hundreds of smart devices.
Current products do not provide seamless utilization of automated devices in a home environment or other occupiable spaces. In other words, current products can't "predict" user intentions and control devices without explicit use of controllers or programming tools.
Accordingly, there is a need for scalable and more intelligent occupiable space automation that can continuously learn from user actions and experiences adapting to the specific needs of each individual occupiable space (e.g., household).
No admission is made that any reference cited herein constitutes prior art. Applicant expressly reserves the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinence of any cited documents.

Neural networks for occupiable space automation


A reference voltage generating circuit in a semiconductor memory apparatus comprises a driving control signal generating unit configured to generate a driving control signal according to a temperature variation, wherein the driving control signal generating unit is enabled in response to a power-up signal, a driving unit configured to control a voltage level, which is applied to a voltage transfer node, in response to the power-up signal and the driving control signal, and a reference voltage generating unit configured to generate a reference voltage when a voltage level on the voltage transfer node is higher than a predetermined voltage level.

1. Technical Field
The embodiments described herein relate to a semiconductor memory apparatus and, more particularly, to a reference voltage generating circuit of a semiconductor memory apparatus.
2. Related Art
Generally, as shown in FIG. 1, a reference voltage generating circuit of a conventional semiconductor memory apparatus includes a driving unit 10 and a reference voltage generating unit 20.
The driving unit 10 supplies a predetermined voltage level to a voltage transfer node (VT_Node) in response to a power-up signal 'Pwr'.
The reference voltage generating unit 20 generates a reference voltage Vref when the voltage level transferred to the voltage transfer node (VT_Node) is higher than a predetermined voltage level.
As shown in FIG. 2, the driving unit 10 includes first to third transistors P1, N1 and N2. The first transistor P1 has a gate that is connected to a ground voltage terminal VSS and a source to which an external power supply voltage VDD is applied from an external circuit. The second transistor N1 has a gate that is connected to a drain of the first transistor P1 and a source that is connected to the ground voltage terminal VSS. The third transistor N2 has a gate to which the power-up signal 'Pwr' is applied, a drain that is connected to the drain of the first transistor P1, and a source that is connected to the voltage transfer node (VT_Node).
If the external power supply voltage VDD is applied to the semiconductor memory apparatus, then the power-up signal 'Pwr' transitions to the voltage level of the external power supply voltage VDD and then transitions to the voltage level of the ground voltage VSS after a predetermined time.
The operation of the reference voltage generating circuit of the conventional semiconductor memory apparatus will be described below.
The gate of the first transistor P1 is tied to ground. Thus, it is always on and when the external power supply voltage VDD is applied to the source of the first transistor P1, then the voltage of node (S1) will be raised to a voltage level close to the supply voltage VDD.
The voltage on node (S1) will then be applied to the gate and the drain of the second transistor N1, turning the second transistor N1 on and establishing a constant voltage level on node (S1). At the same time, the third transistor N2 is turned on because the power-up signal 'Pwr' transitions to a level close to or the same as the external power supply voltage VDD, when the external power supply voltage VDD is applied.
The third transistor N2 transfers the voltage that is generated at node S1 to the voltage transfer node (VT_Node), where the first transistor P1 is connected to the second transistor N1.
Therefore, when the power-up signal 'Pwr' has a voltage level close to that of the external power supply voltage VDD, then the constant voltage level generated at node (S1) is applied to the voltage transfer node (VT_Node).
The reference voltage generating unit 20 generates the reference voltage Vref when a voltage level at the voltage transfer node VT_Node is higher than a predetermined voltage level.
Generally, the turn on voltage, i.e., the gate-source voltage of a transistor increases as the temperature goes down. Accordingly, as the temperature goes down, the gate-source voltage has to increase in order for the transistor to turn on.
However, in the third transistor N2 of the driving unit 10, the voltage level of the power-up signal 'Pwr', which is applied to the gate, may not be sufficient to turn on the third transistor N2 as the temperature goes down, because the voltage level of the power-up signal 'Pwr' does not vary with the temperature. Accordingly, the driving unit 10 may not be able to supply a sufficient voltage to the voltage transfer node (VT_Node) to cause the reference voltage generating unit to generate the reference voltage (Vref).

Circuit for generating reference voltage of semiconductor memory apparatus


A communications method and apparatus. The communications method includes: transmitting a first request to a network device through a first resource, where the first request is used to request beam failure recovery of a first cell or is used to request system information of the first cell, the first resource is a resource of a second cell, and the first cell and the second cell are serving cells of a same terminal; and receiving a first response corresponding to the first request from the network device. Therefore, when a terminal has a plurality of serving cells, the terminal may transmit a request across cells (or across carriers), to improve transmission reliability.

To ensure effective transmission of a service, a beamforming technology is introduced to a cell. To be specific, a base station concentrates energy of signals in a required direction, and transmits the signals to a terminal through a beam in the direction, improving a demodulation signal-to-noise ratio of the terminal and improving experience of a cell edge user. When quality of all serving beams of the terminal does not meet a condition, it indicates that a beam failure occurs. To ensure communication between the terminal and the base station, beam failure recovery (BFR) needs to be performed. To be specific, the terminal re-determines, in candidate beams, a candidate beam whose quality meets the condition, then transmits a BFR request (BFRQ) to the base station, and notifies, through the request, the base station of the candidate beam selected by the terminal, so that the base station uses the candidate beam as a serving beam for communication between the base station and the terminal. Currently, such a BFR solution is applied to a scenario in which the terminal has only one serving cell. However, when carrier aggregation (CA) and/or dual connectivity (DC) are/is configured for user equipment (UE), that is, the UE has a plurality of serving cells, how the UE transmits the BFRQ to the base station is an urgent problem to be resolved.

Communications method and apparatus for beam failure recovery of multiple serving cells


The embodiments herein relate to Sx protocol extension to support node PDR. In one embodiment, there proposes a method (500) in a first network node (301) configured as control plane function (CPF). The first network node (301) is coupled to a second network node (302) configured as user plane function (UPF) via an Sx interface. The method (500) comprising transmitting (S501) a message associated with a Packet Detection Rule (PDR) to the second network node (302) via the Sx interface, wherein the PDR is applicable to more than one Sx session. With embodiments herein, the CPF-UPF signaling throughput can be minimized significantly, and the memory footprint per Sx session can be decreased.

The third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Technical Specification TS 23.214 v14.2.0, which is incorporated herein by reference, specifies the overall stage 2 level functionality for control and user plane separation of Evolved Packet Core (EPC)'s Serving Gateway (SGW), Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW), and Traffic Detection Function (TDF). This enables a flexible placement of the separated control plane and user plane functions for supporting diverse deployment scenarios (e.g. central or distributed user plane function) without affecting the overall functionality provided by these EPC entities.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the architecture reference model in the case of separation between control plane and user plane. This architecture reference model covers non-roaming as well as home routed and local breakout roaming scenarios.
Furthermore, the usage of a combined SGW/PGW remains possible in a deployment with separated control and user planes. This is enabled by supporting an Sx interface with a common parameter structure for non-combined and combined cases. FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram showing the architecture reference model for a combined SGW/PGW in the case of separation between control plane and user plane.
Besides, 3GPP TS 29.244 v14.1.0, which is incorporated herein by reference, specifies the Packet Forwarding Control Protocol (PFCP) used on the interface between the control plane and the user plane function in a split SGW, PGW and TDF architecture in EPC. Sx protocol (PFCP) detailed in 3GPP TS 29.244 v14.1.0 provides a standard interface where a Control Plane (CP) can instruct a User Plane (UP) with the applicable Packet Detection Rules (PDRs), Forwarding Action Rule (FAR)-ID, Usage Reporting Rule (URR)-ID, Quality of Service Enforcement Rule (QER)-ID, . . . on per Sx session basis.


A calculation apparatus includes a control unit configured to calculate a necessary distance that is necessary for a vehicle to perform lane change from a first travel lane to a second travel lane by combining a first distance that the vehicle travels while the vehicle waits to start the lane change, a second distance that the vehicle travels while a speed of the vehicle is adjusted, and a third distance that the vehicle travels while executing the lane change.

A car navigation system (hereinafter referred to as a car navigation) configured to estimate the current position of the own-vehicle and guide the driver by displaying a road map, a path to a destination, and the like on a screen has been known. When a guide path is set in the car navigation, path calculation is typically performed to minimize the sum of link costs such as travel duration, distance, and fuel consumption amount from the origin to the destination by using digital map data (hereinafter referred to as map data) in which a road is treated as a link and an intersection is treated as a node. Such a function is called a path search function, and a Dijkstra algorithm and a wide range of algorithms based thereon have been used to achieve the function. It is assumed that information on a path searched by the car navigation is used not only for driver guide using screen display and voice but also by an automated driving vehicle to automatically travel to a destination.
The conventional car navigation sometimes searches for a path including an interval for which lane change is difficult. For example, such a path includes an interval in which a vehicle joins a main road including a plurality of lanes from the left side, changes lanes to the right side a plurality of times while traveling a short distance to the closest intersection, and turns right at the intersection. Such a path potentially causes problem to safety in guiding of the driver and control of an automated driving vehicle, and thus is not preferable. Patent Literature 1 discloses a navigation apparatus including a lane detection unit configured to detect the number of lanes that can be traveled in the traveling direction of the own-vehicle and a lane in which the own-vehicle is positioned, a congestion degree detection unit configured to detect the congestion degree of each lane that can be traveled in the traveling direction of the own-vehicle, a determination unit configured to determine the difficulty degree of right and left turning at a front-side intersection based on the detected number of lanes, the lane in which the own-vehicle is positioned, and the congestion degree, and a guide unit configured to guide a travel path in accordance with the determined difficulty degree of right and left turning.

Calculation apparatus and arithmetic method


Provided is a semiconductor device capable of reducing the resistance of the gate electrode of a transistor. The semiconductor device comprises a semiconductor substrate, a gate oxide film formed on the substrate, a gate formed on the gate oxide film, and a metal silicide layer formed on the top surface and the upper side surface of the gate.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a transistor of a semiconductor device having a silicide layer and a method of manufacturing the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, a gate of a transistor in a semiconductor device includes a polysilicon layer. The gate electrode may further include a silicide layer formed on the polysilicon layer for decreasing the resistance of the gate.
Hereinafter, a conventional method of manufacturing a transistor will be described with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.
Referring to FIG. 1A, an isolation film 20 is formed in a semiconductor substrate 10 by a Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) process to define an active region. Then, a gate oxide film 30 is formed on an active region of the semiconductor substrate 10, a gate 40 including a polysilicon layer is formed thereon, and an insulating spacer 41 is formed on both side walls of the gate 40. Then, an oxide film 50 is deposited on the entire surface of the substrate 10, and a photoresist pattern 60 is formed on the oxide film 50 by a photolithography process so as to expose a region for forming silicide.
Referring to FIG. 1B, the oxide film 50 exposed by the photoresist pattern 60 is etched by a wet etching process using a wet chemical such as a hydrofluoric acid to expose the region for forming silicide. Here, the region for forming silicide is the upper surface of the gate 40 and a portion of the semiconductor substrate 10 adjacent to the spacer 41.
Then, the photo resist pattern 60 is removed by a well-known method not shown in the drawings, and a silicide layer is selectively formed on the silicide region by a silicidation process to reduce the resistance of the gate 40.
However, during the wet etching process of the oxide film 50, chemicals remain due to the characteristics of the wet etching process, which may especially cause a faster etching process at the interface between films. Therefore, as shown FIG. 1B, a portion 'A' in which silicidation has to be prevented is exposed, and the silicide layer is formed on the portion 'A'. Further, the lateral etching 'B' of the gate oxide film 30 under the gate 40 may cause to damage the gate oxide film 30. Electrical properties of the device are deteriorated by the above-mentioned problems, thereby decreasing the yield and the reliability of the device.
Further, only the upper surface of the gate 40 is exposed, such that the supply of silicon atoms from the gate 40 for silicidation is not always as great as might be desired. Accordingly, a desired thickness and range of the silicide layer formed on the upper surface of the gate 40 cannot always be obtained. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to reduce the resistance of the gate 40 to a desired value, such that the pattern shrink of the device is not as effective as might be desired.

Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same


An apparatus and method for building metadata using a heartbeat of a clustered system are provided. The apparatus and method send portions of metadata for a computer system resource, to each of the other computer systems in the clustered system as a heartbeat data message. Upon receiving the heartbeat data message having the portion of metadata, the receiving computer systems store the portion of metadata in a temporary storage until all of the metadata is received. In subsequent heartbeat data messages, the remaining portions of the metadata are transmitted to the computer systems which, upon receiving all portions of the metadata, store the metadata in a secure location. If the sending computer system were to fail, the metadata stored in the secure location is read and used to takeover the resources of the failed computer system. In this way, the processing cycles used to read in the metadata from the resources of the failed computer system in the prior art are eliminated.

1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an improved computing device. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for building metadata using a heartbeat of a clustered system.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer clusters are generally used to perform a multitude of different computing functions because of their fault tolerance and load balancing capabilities. With a computer cluster, multiple computer systems are linked together in order to handle variable workloads or to provide continued operation in the event one fails. Each computer may be a multiprocessor system itself. For example, a cluster of four computers, each with four CPUs, would provide a total of 16 CPUs processing simultaneously. If one of the computers fails, one or more additional computers are still available and may actually take over the functions of the failed computer. In addition, load balancing mechanisms in the computer cluster are able to distribute the workload over the multiple computer systems, thereby reducing the burden on each of the computer systems.
Computer systems within the clustered system typically monitor each other""s presence using a heartbeat signal or xe2x80x9ckeep alivexe2x80x9d signal. Each computer system in the clustered system periodically sends out a heartbeat signal to the other computer systems in the clustered system essentially informing them that the sending computer system is still active and do not need their resources taken over by another computer system in the clustered system. If a heartbeat signal is not received from one of the computer systems in the clustered system, the other computer systems will determine that the computer system has failed.
When a member of the cluster has failed, i.e. when a heartbeat signal from one of the computer systems in the clustered system is not received by the other computer systems, or is otherwise not available to the clustered system, the other members of the clustered system must take over for the missing member. However, upon takeover of the functions of the missing system""s resource (typically hard disk storage), the remaining members must learn or surmise the configuration of the resources that the missing system was using. This is typically done by having the computer system that is taking over the resources read in the metadata from the resource. The metadata from the resource is data that describes the configuration of the resource, e.g. the file system, data areas, and the like.
The reading in of the metadata from the resource upon detection of a failed computing system in the clustered system may take many processor cycles to complete. In some instances, the reading in of this metadata may take upwards of several minutes to complete. In some clustered systems, a delay of multiple seconds or minutes may mean heavy financial losses. For example, in a clustered system that is used to handle financial transactions, stock purchasing and selling, or the like, a delay of several minutes may cause a large financial impact. Thus, it would be beneficial to have a method and apparatus for minimizing the amount of time necessary for a computer system to takeover the resources of a failed computer system in a clustered system.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for building metadata using a heartbeat of a clustered system. The present invention sends portions of metadata for a computer system resource, to each of the other computer systems in the clustered system as a heartbeat data message. Upon receiving the heartbeat data message having the portion of metadata, the receiving computer systems store the portion of metadata in a temporary storage until all of the metadata is received.
In subsequent heartbeat data messages, the remaining portions of the metadata are transmitted to the computer systems which, upon receiving all portions of the metadata, store the metadata in a secure location. If the sending computer system were to fail, the metadata stored in the secure location is read and used to takeover the resources of the failed computer system. In this way, the processing cycles used to read in the metadata from the resources of the failed computer system in the prior art are eliminated.

Apparatus and method for building metadata using a heartbeat of a clustered system

International Business Machines Corporation


A signal generator for generating an output signal with a frequency that is a multiple of a frequency of a reference signal, the signal generator including an oscillator configured to generate the output signal in dependence on the reference signal and a control signal and a control circuit configured to generate the control signal to comprise a series of pulses in which one or more of the pulses is offset in phase relative to the reference signal, the control circuit thereby being capable of controlling the frequency and/or phase of the output signal.

The invention relates to an injection-locked oscillator and, in particular, to an injection-locked oscillator that utilises a pulse generator to maintain a phase-alignment between a reference signal and the signal output by the oscillator.
A phase-locked loop is a well known circuit for generating signals having a predetermined frequency relationship with a reference signal. In its most basic form, a phase-locked loop comprises an oscillator that is controlled by means of a feedback loop. The feedback loop takes the output of the oscillator, compares it with a reference signal and adjusts the oscillator accordingly. Typically the feedback loop comprises a divider for dividing the output signal, a phase comparator for comparing the phase of the divided signal with the reference signal and a charge pump for outputting a pulse of charge that either speeds up or slows down the oscillator, in dependence on the phase comparison. The phase-locked loop will also typically include a filter for removing spurious noise from the charge pulse before it reaches the oscillator input.
By incorporating a divider into the feedback loop, the phase-locked loop is able to output frequencies that are an integer multiple of the reference signal. Some phase-locked loops are able to output signals that are non-integer multiples of the reference signal. These phase-locked loops are known as "frac-N" phase-locked loops. Frac-N phase-locked loops comprise a fractional divider in the feedback loop. The fractional divider divides the output signal by a varying integer to achieve an output signal that is a non-integer multiple of the reference signal.
Although phase-locked loops are effective at generating signals having a wide range of different frequencies from a single frequency reference, they are not always suitable for low-power implementations. The phase comparator and the divider tend to be particularly power-hungry. Therefore, for some implementations it is preferred to use a different way of generating signals, such as injection locking.
Injection locking is a physical phenomenon whereby an oscillator synchronises with an external periodic signal when the frequency of that signal is sufficiently close to the natural frequency of the oscillator or one of the harmonics of that natural frequency. Suppose a signal of frequency ωi is injected into an oscillator having a free-running frequency of ω0. When ωi and ω0 are quite different, the oscillator outputs a signal containing beats of the two frequencies. However, as ωi approaches ω0 the beat frequency decreases until, as ωi enters what is known as the "locking range", the beats disappear and the oscillator starts to oscillate at ωi. Injection locking also happens when ωi is close to a harmonic or sub-harmonic of ω0, i.e. nω0 or 1/n ω0. Locking the oscillator to a harmonic of ω0 can be used for frequency division while locking the oscillator to a sub-harmonic of ω0 can be used for frequency multiplication.
In one implementation of an injection-locked oscillator a stream of narrow pulses is injected into the oscillator. This is shown generally in FIG. 1. The pulses may help to keep the oscillator synchronised with the injection frequency by periodically shorting the tank of the oscillator. An example of such a circuit is shown in FIG. 2, which shows a pulse generator 201 connected to an oscillator 202, which is in turn connected to an output buffer 203. The stream of pulses generated by the pulse generator control a switch 204 that shorts the capacitor bank of the oscillator when the pulse goes high. The pulse train frequency is set to a multiple or sub-multiple of the desired frequency, depending on whether frequency division or multiplication is required. The width of the pulses should preferably be set to be much less than the period of oscillation of the reference signal so that the quality factor Q of the tank is not too severely degraded.
FIG. 3 shows examples of the signals involved. The reference signal is shown at 301 with the stream of pulses output by the pulse generator shown at 302. As shown in the figure, each pulse corresponds to a rising edge of the reference signal. If the pulse occurs at the zero crossing of the oscillator signal (signal 305) it will have no effect on the output (assuming that the pulse is very narrow). If the shorting occurs either before or after the zero crossing of the oscillator signal, the oscillator signal is pushed towards the zero crossing point of the reference signal so that its own phase is either delayed (signal 303) or advanced (signal 304). The effect of the pulse is therefore to increase the frequency of the oscillator signal if it is late relative to the reference signal and to decrease the frequency of the oscillator signal if it is early relative to the reference signal. This periodic phase-shifting causes the average frequency of the oscillator to match the desired frequency.
Injection-locked oscillators are a compact, low power and elegant solution to replace a phase-locked loop. However, injection-locked oscillators have some major drawbacks because, by definition, if the oscillator signal is injection-locked to the reference signal it means that the phase of the oscillator signal sampled at the rising edge of the reference signal is constant. Therefore, the injection-locked oscillator is not capable of non-integer frequency multiplication or phase modulation.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved oscillator that combines the advantages of an injection-locked oscillator with the capability to perform non-integer frequency multiplication and phase modulation.


An artificial intelligence apparatus for recognizing speech by correcting misrecognized word includes a microphone and a processor. The processor is configured to obtain, via the microphone, speech data including speech of a user, convert the speech data into text by using an acoustic model and a language model, determine whether an uncertain recognition exists in an acoustic recognition result according to the acoustic model, determine whether the converted text is a normal sentence by using a natural language processing model if an uncertain recognition exists in the acoustic recognition result, determine a sentence most similar to the converted text among sentences pre-learned by using the language model if the converted text is not a normal sentence, replace the converted text with the determined most similar sentence, and generate a speech recognition result corresponding to the speech data by using the converted text.

The present disclosure relates to an artificial intelligence apparatus and a method for recognizing speech by correcting misrecognized word. Specifically, the present disclosure relates to an artificial intelligence apparatus and a method for determining whether a misrecognition has occurred in an acoustic model and recognizing speech by correcting misrecognized word in the acoustic model.
Recently, apparatuses for performing control by receiving sound are increasing. Apparatuses such as artificial intelligence speakers or smartphones for providing a speech recognition function recognize speech uttered by users and perform control corresponding to a result of recognition or provide a response.
A recognition model for speech recognition includes an acoustic model (AM), a language model (LM), and a natural language processing (NLP) model. If a misrecognition occurs in an acoustic model, speech recognition is highly likely to fail even if the performance of the language model and the natural language processing model is excellent. Therefore, there is a need to improve speech recognition performance by determining whether a misrecognition has occurred in an acoustic model and correcting the misrecognition.

Artificial intelligence apparatus and method for recognizing speech by correcting misrecognized word


Methods for reducing oxygen content in an oxidized annealed metal nitride film comprising exposing the film to a plasma.

For metal silicide (e.g., titanium silicide) integration schemes, metal (e.g., titanium) and/or metal nitride (e.g., titanium nitride) films are deposited on clean substrate (e.g., silicon) surfaces and annealed to form metal silicide (e.g., TiSi) films. After deposition of a metal film, metal silicide film, and/or metal nitride film, an air break or oxygen exposure may occur prior to annealing. The metal nitride film becomes oxidized and the contact resistance increases. There is a need for methods to reduce oxygen in post-annealed oxidized metal nitride films. There is also a need for methods of reducing resistivity of oxidized annealed metal nitride films to improve contact resistance.


A method and apparatus for interpolating data on a data grid having a plurality of data grid points to provide an interpolated data value at an interpolated point offset from a data grid point by offsets x, y, the method comprising the steps of obtaining a data value and a plurality of derivative values for each of a set of data grid points defining a sub-grid, defining a 4×4 data value matrix from the data values and derivative values, defining a plurality of 4×4 transformation matrices, calculating a 4×4 coefficient matrix from the transformation matrices and the data value matrix, defining a x vector based on the offset x and a y vector based on the offset y, and calculating the interpolated data value from the x vector, y vector and coefficient matrix.

For applications with datasets disposed in a grid, it is often necessary to interpolate the values between the available data points. For example, for meteorological data the data may include elements such as temperature, humidity and pressure, the data points disposed on a grid, and potentially at different altitude levels within the geographical grid. For applications such as weather forecasting, the data is used as an input to simulations, which can then extrapolate likely parameters from the initial dataset. In many cases, however, the scale of the required forecast and hence of the necessary simulation may be at a different scale to that of the original gridded data, and in the circumstances it is necessary to generate interpolated data points, that is additional data points located between the original data points, on a different scale. It is known generate interpolated data points within a data grid using a 16×16 transformation matrix. It will be apparent that the processing associated with doing a matrix algebra using a 16×16 matrix for every required interpolated data point is extremely substantial, and as such a way of reducing the computational load is desirable

Method and system for interpolating data


A process for preparing a diffusion barrier on a semiconductor substrate which comprises: conducting remote plasma-enhanced metal organic chemical vapor deposition of a thin film of TiN.sub.x on said substrate using an organotitanium compound under a flow of H.sub.2 plasma, wherein x ranges from 0.1 to 1.5, provides a TiN.sub.x thin film having a low carbon content and low specific resistivity.

Recently, TiN.sub.x has drawn attention as an important material for ultra large scale integrated circuits (ULSIC) having a line width of 0.5pm or less; a TiN.sub.x thin film is used as a diffusion barrier to protect shallow silicon junctions in the formation of Al contacts on a silicon wafer (J-Y Yun and S- W Rhee, Korean J. Chem. Eng., 13(5), 510(1996)).
Such diffusion barrier is required to have a low specific resistivity among others, and the specific resistivity of a TiN.sub.x film is influenced by the presence of impurities such as carbon and oxygen, structural defects such as vacancies, and also by the size of the grains that constitute the film. The grain size varies with the process conditions such as the deposition temperature, and in general, as the grain size becomes larger, the specific resistivity of the film becomes lower. It is particularly important to minimize impurity content of a TiN.sub.x film if it is intended for use as a diffusion barrier.
Chemical vapor deposition(CVD) has been widely used in the preparation of TiN.sub.x films, wherein inorganic compounds such as titanium tetrachloride (TiCl.sub.4) or organotitanium compounds such as tetrakis-dimethylamidotitanium (TDMAT) and tetrakis-diethylamidotitanium(TDEAT) are generally employed as precursors (I. J. Raaijmakers, Thin Solid Films, 247, 85(1994); S. R. Kurtz and R. G. Gordon, Thin Solid Films, 140, 277(1986))).
CVD of TiN.sub.x using TiC.sub.4 is disadvantageous in that the deposition temperature ranging from 500 to 600 C is generally too high for the ULSIC application, and also that chlorine may be incorporated in the final TiN.sub.x film, causing a corrosion problem (I. J. Raaijmakers, loco citato).
Further, CVD of TiN.sub.x using organotitanium compounds often entails problems such as carbon contamination, a low step coverage and high specific resistivity. For example, when a TiN.sub.x film is deposited by a CVD process using an organotitanium compound in the presence of gaseous ammonia as a reaction gas, ammonia reacts with the precursor in the gas phase to form particles. The particles thus formed get incorporated into the TiN.sub.x film and the smoothness of the film surface becomes deteriorated, leading to an increase in the specific resistivity (J. A. Prybyla et al., J. Electrochem. Soc., 140, 2695(1993)).
To avoid such problems, a thermal decomposition process which uses an organometallic compounds in the absence of ammonia has been suggested. However, this process gives a high level of contaminants and the resulting film has a high specific resistivity (I. J. Raaijmakers, loco citato).

Process for preparation of diffusion barrier for semiconductor