A method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle in an edge portion, comprising: the first process where a plurality of first sheets made of a fiber-reinforced composite are laminated to each other, heated under a pressure and cooled under a pressure to provide a first flat plate-shaped laminate; the second process where the first flat plate-shaped laminate is softened by heating, placed on a first forming tool and formed by cooling under a pressure to prepare a simple shaped intermediate; and the third process where an edge portion of the simple shaped intermediate is heated under a pressure to form said joggle. A method for producing a preformed structure composed of the stepped semi-hardened product and a simple shaped semi-hardened product is also provided.

The present invention relates to a method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle made of a fiber-reinforced composite, and a method for producing a preformed structure composed of the stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle and a simple shaped semi-hardened product.
Stiffened panels made of a fiber-reinforced composite (prepreg) are light in weight and high in strength, to have been widely used for automobiles, ships, aircrafts, etc. The stiffened panels are generally produced by placing members for a skin and stiffeners (stringers and frames) each made of a fiber-reinforced composite on a forming tool to prepare an assembly, and by adhesive-forming the assembly by heating under a pressure using a pressure bag, etc. It is preferred that members composing the stiffeners are arranged on a skin member as a semi-hardened preformed structure, and completely hardened with the skin member, from the viewpoint of weight-reduction.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of the preformed structure. In a preformed structure 1 of FIG. 1, simple shaped semi-hardened products 2a and 2b are arranged at a predetermined interval as the stringer members, and joggles of stepped semi-hardened products 3a, 3b and 3c are piled on the simple shaped semi-hardened products 2a and 2b. Each semi-hardened products 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b and 3c has a T-shaped section of a base portion and a projecting portion, although they may have a section of C-shape, I-shape, etc.
Conventionally, the above-mentioned semi-hardened products have been produced by a method comprising the steps of: cutting fiber-reinforced composites many times to obtain desired lamination structures, respectively; laminating and forming the fiber-reinforced composites on a forming tool. However, this method necessitates complicated works, in particular, lamination of the fiber-reinforced composites on the forming tool is achieved by handwork to require much effort. Further, in the case of such a complicated shaped semi-hardened product that has a joggle, the above lamination is remarkably difficult, thereby failing to produce them with a uniform quality. Furthermore, in the case of producing a plurality of semi-hardened products, which have different shapes, lengths, etc., the above conventional method demands many forming tools for each products to increase production costs.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle made of a fiber-reinforced composite, where the stepped semi-hardened product of uniform, high quality can be stably produced with reduced processes and production costs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a preformed structure utilizing the above method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product, which can produce the preformed structure with reduced processes and production costs.
As a result of intensive research in view of the above objects, the inventor has found that a stepped semi-hardened product of high quality can be stably produced with reduced processes and production costs by a method where a flat plate-shaped laminate is provided by laminating a plurality of sheets made of a fiber-reinforced composite beforehand, a simple shaped intermediate is prepared by forming the flat plate-shaped laminate, and an edge portion of the simple shaped intermediate is heated under a pressure. The present invention has been accomplished by the finding.
Thus, a method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle in an edge portion according to the present invention comprises: the first process where a plurality of first sheets made of a fiber-reinforced composite are laminated to each other, heated under a pressure and cooled under a pressure to provide a first flat plate-shaped laminate; the second process where the first flat plate-shaped laminate is softened by heating, placed on a first forming tool and formed by cooling under a pressure to prepare a simple shaped intermediate; and the third process where an edge portion of the simple shaped intermediate is heated under a pressure to form the joggle.
The method for producing a stepped semi-hardened product of the present invention is suitable for producing such that having a T-shaped section.
In a method for producing a preformed structure of the present invention, the preformed structure is composed of a stepped semi-hardened product having a joggle and a simple shaped semi-hardened product each made of a fiber-reinforced composite,
the stepped semi-hardened product is produced by: the first process where a plurality of first sheets made of a fiber-reinforced composite are laminated to each other, heated under a pressure and cooled under a pressure to provide a first flat plate-shaped laminate; the second process where the first flat plate-shaped laminate is softened by heating, placed on a first forming tool and formed by cooling under a pressure to prepare a simple shaped intermediate; and the third process where an edge portion of the simple shaped intermediate is heated under a pressure to form the joggle,
the simple shaped semi-hardened product is produced by: the fourth process where a plurality of second sheets made of a fiber-reinforced composite are laminated to each other, heated under a pressure and cooled under a pressure to provide a second flat plate-shaped laminate; and the fifth process where the second flat plate-shaped laminate is softened by heating, placed on a second forming tool and formed by cooling under a pressure, and
the joggle of the stepped semi-hardened product is piled on the simple shaped semi-hardened product.
The method for producing a preformed structure of the present invention is suitable for producing such that composed of the stepped semi-hardened product and the simple shaped semi-hardened product each having a T-shaped section.

Method for producing fiber-reinforced composite semi-hardened product having joggle, and method for producing preformed structure using same


A high-strength, heat-resistant steel with improved formability is disclosed, which consists essentially of, by weight %:. ______________________________________ C: 0.05-0.30%, Si: not greater than 3.0%, Mn: not greater than 10%, Cr: 15-35%, Ni: 15-50%, Mg: 0.001-0.02%, B: 0-0.01%, Zr: 0-0.10%, Ti: 0-1.0%, Nb: 0-2.0%, Al: 0-1.0%, and Mo: 0-3.0%, W: 0-6.0%, (Mo + 1/2 W = 3.0% or less) ______________________________________. a balance of Fe and incidental impurities, of the impurities, oxygen and nitrogen being restricted to 50 ppm or less and 200 ppm or less, respectively, and the austenite grain size number being restricted to No. 4 or coarser.

The present invention relates to heat-resistant steels which exhibit high strength even at high temperatures of 700.degree.-1150.degree. C. and which also exhibit superior formability.
HK 40 steels (25 Cr-20 Ni Heat-Resistant Cast Steels) have been widely used in the chemical industry in high-temperature devices. For example, they have been used as tubes for cracking furnaces of ethylene-manufacturing plants and tubes for reforming furnaces for producing hydrogen gas. However, since such tubes are produced by centrifugal casting, it is rather difficult to manufacture small diameter tubes, thinwalled tubes, and lengthy tubes, and the resulting tubes suffer from poor ductility and toughness.
Alloy 800H (0.08 C-20 Cr-32 Ni-0.4 Ti-0.4 Al) has been known as a material for making forged tubing. However, this alloy does not have a satisfactory high-temperature strength.
Recently, cracking furnaces of ethylene plants are being operated at higher temperatures than in the past so as to increase the yields of the products. Therefore, the materials which constitute cracking furnaces must have greater high-temperature strength than in the past.
There are many new materials for use in centrifugally cast tubing which have a higher level of strength than HK 40 steels. Some examples of these alloys are HP, HP-Nb, HP-Nb,W, and BST. Forged tubing materials which correspond to these new alloys are nickel-based alloys such as Hastelloy X (0.06 -21 Cr-9 Mo-1 Co-bal. Ni), Inconel 617 (0.06 C-21 Cr-8.5 Mo-12 Co-1 Al-bal.Ni), and Inconel 625 (0.04 C-21 Cr-9 Mo-3.5 Nb-bal.Ni). However, since these Ni-based alloys contain a great amount of the very expensive elements Mo and Ni, these alloys have problems with respect to economy and formability.
In order to increase reaction efficiency and perform reactions under stable conditions in various high-temperature apparatuses, there is a need for a forged tubing material which has excellent high-temperature strength and which can be used to manufacture lengthy piping with a small diameter.
Materials for use in cracking furnaces and reforming furnaces must have high-temperature strength and a particularly high creep rupture strength, since such materials are used at extremely high temperatures of about 700.degree.-1150.degree. C. Therefore, a centrifugally cast tube has been used for such purposes because it exhibits satisfactory high-temperature strength and is economical.
However, it is difficult to manufacture a lengthy tube with a thin wall and a small diameter by centrifugal casting. Furthermore, centrifugally cast tubes have unsatisfactory ductility and toughness, although centrifugally cast tubes with a high carbon content (0.4-0.5%) have excellent creep rupture strength. This is because eutectic carbide precipitates along the grain boundaries.
In forged tubes with a high carbon content, such precipitated eutectic carbides are broken during working including forging and extrusion, resulting in a large amount of undissolved carbides remaining in the matrix without in any way improving the creep rupture strength. In other words, it is necessary to carry out a different type of strengthening for forged piping material, since the presence of these eutectic carbides cannot be used for strengthening.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Disclosure No. 23050/1982, the inventors of the present invention proposed a heat-resistant forging steel in which high strength is achieved by utilizing grain boundary-strengthening elements as well as solid solution-strengthening elements. The proposed steel can exhibit greater high-temperature strength than forged tubing material such as Alloy 800H and centrifugally cast tubing material such as HK40. Its creep rupture strength is a maximum of 2.20 kgf/mm.sup.2 at 1000.degree. C. after 1000 hours, and in particular the strength is 1.70 kgf/mm.sup.2 for the steel (0.27 C-0.52 Si-1.16 Mn-24.42 Cr-24.8 Ni-0.48 Ti-0.34 Al-0.0040 B-bal.Fe). In addition, it can also exhibit satisfactory toughness, and it can be used to produce long, thin-walled tubes with a small diameter. However, it is necessary to increase the content of Mo and W to further strengthen the steel, although the formability is degraded by increasing the content of these elements. Therefore, the Ni content must be increased to achieve a stabilized structure and as a result, the alloy is less economical. In the abovedescribed patent publication, there is no reference to the nitrogen content at all.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Disclosure No. 21922/1975 discloses steel compositions similar to those mentioned above. In this application, 0.005-0.05% of magnesium is added to further improve high-temperature properties, and there is no mention of the nitrogen content. The resulting creep rupture strength is only at most 4.6 kgf/mm.sup.2 after 10.sup.3 hours and at most 3.0 kgf/mm.sup.2 after 10.sup.4 hours at 900.degree. C. Based on these data it is estimated that the creep rupture time at 1000.degree. C. and 2 kgf/mm.sup.2 is 391 hours (minimum)-2185 hours (maximum). In particular, the creep rupture time is 391 hours (minimum)-966 hours (maximum) for the steel (0.20 C-0.52 Si-1.1 Mn-22.8 Cr-25.1 Ni-0.53 Ti-0.56 Al-0.005 B-0.012 -Mg-bal. Fe).

High-strength, heat-resistant steel with improved formability and method thereof


The molding and transporting apparatus comprises a molding section for vertically blowing sand from above between a front die and a rear die that have vertically formed pattern faces, and thereafter, driving the front and rear dies and compacting the sand to produce a mold M, and for extruding the mold horizontally, a dividing mechanism for, before the sand is blown, vertically dividing the mold into front and rear portions, as needed, at the center of a molding space, a pouring port formation mechanism for forming a pouring port in the mold; and a form converter for selectively rendering an active operation for changing the form of the mold that is extruded from the molding section from the vertically split form to the horizontally split form, and a non-active operation for transporting the extruded mold to a pouring line, without changing the form of the mold. According to the molding and transporting apparatus and the method, performance of the molding and transportation processes by the vertical and the horizontal molding functions, reductions in size and manufacturing costs, and satisfactory compaction are ensured when either the active or the inactive mode is selected.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a molding and transporting apparatus, and a method therefor, for using molding sand to form a mold and for transporting the mold to a pouring step.
2. Related Arts
A well-known molding machine for producing a mold for casting blows sand into and fills a molding space between two dies, an upper and a lower or a front and a rear, in which a pattern having a desired shape is formed, while a compression plate tamps and compacts the sand. The completed casting mold is then relocated for a pouring step, and molten metal is poured into the cavity formed in the mold.
An example conventional molding machine is a horizontal molding machine wherein upper and lower dies, in the horizontal faces whereof complimentary patterns are formed, are supported by upper and lower shutterings arranged to provide an intervening gap, and whereby upper and lower molds are formed, by the main bodies of the upper and lower dies, that subsequently are aligned vertically and laminated.
Another type of conventional molding machine forms molds using shuttering supported front and rear dies wherefor complimentary recessed portions, i.e., comprising metal pouring patterns, are formed in the vertical faces, and ejects the obtained molds sequentially onto a flat plane where adjacent molds are closely aligned to define pouring cavities having the shape of a product.
The horizontal molding machine is superior in that when a horizontal mold requiring a core is manufactured, the core can be stably positioned and supported in the mold. Thus, with this machine, a simple core setting operation and a satisfactory precision product can be expected.
Since the horizontal molding machine is vertically divided by a match plate, which includes a model pattern portion, inserted into the middle of the molding space, the air-jet propulsion of molding sand must be performed from both sides of the main bodies of the dies. Therefore, because of the weight of sand, a sand tank is located above the molding section, and supply shooters, located at both sides of the main bodies of the dies, blow the sand horizontally. With this configuration, however, the size of the machine tends to be increased, as is the cost of manufacturing the shooter section, and the time required for the sand propulsion cycle is extended.
Furthermore, for the horizontal molding machine, the pattern is transferred by using the model that is formed in the match plate located in the middle of the molding space. In this case, when sand at both sides is compacted by the compression plates, and displacement of the sand is restrained merely by the unmoving flat face of the plate against which the mold is formed, an inferior mold is produced.
However, when a vertical molding machine is designed so that pattern plates bearing model patterns are located on the pressing face sides of the front and rear dies corresponding to the side faces of a mold, and for molding, the pattern plates are used to apply compression, sand closely attached to the model pattern is displaced and a satisfactory mold formation can be obtained.
According to this vertical molding machine, the pattern plates are arranged on both sides, and a pouring port can also be formed by using the pattern faces. Therefore, with a simple structure whereby sand from a sand tank located above is blown vertically, sand filling can be completed within a short period of time.
On the other hand, for the vertical molding machine, the sand mold is transported to the pouring step with the two vertically split molds closely aligned. Therefore, for a product for which a core is required, supporting the core in the mold becomes a problem, and formation of a mold may be difficult. Further, the core insertion operation and product precision may be adversely affected.
<Prior Arts>
As an conventional example, a flaskless molding machine has been proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho 59-220249. According to the flaskless molding machine shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 in this publication, right and left or upper and lower shutterings, which are supported by a guide shaft that rotates at a rotary shaft 4, are rotated between a molding station and a shuttering removal station, and a core insertion operation can be easily performed by rotating inferior shuttering receiving frames 21 and 22, which are attached to a rotation column 19, and a match plate receiving frame 23.
First, sand is vertically and linearly blown into the molding space and compacted. Thereafter, at the rotary shaft 4, the shutterings are rotated 90 degrees and moved to the shuttering removal station and a core is inserted. Thereafter, a shuttering removal cylinder synchronously descends to remove the upper and lower molds from the shutterings and to transport the obtained molds. Thus, the flaskless molding machine disclosed in this publication has the same advantages as are provided by both the conventional vertical molding machine and the horizontal molding machine.
However, for a flaskless molding machine, the installation of a molding station is required that covers the rotational range of the guide shaft, the diameter of which includes an opening margin for the shutters, and a shuttering removal and core insertion station is required that moves vertically, at a location within the rotational range wherein the guide shaft is arranged horizontally, and that performs the shuttering removal and the core insertion. As a result, the actual size of this molding machine is greatly increased, and not only is a large amount of vertical and horizontal installation space required, but also, manufacturing costs are increased.
Further, since the shutterings are slidably supported by the guide shaft, which pivots at the rotary shaft 4, a larger load is imposed on the guide shaft or the bearing of the rotary shaft 4. And therefore, the replacement cycle for these parts is shortened, increasing both maintenance costs and the power load.
Furthermore, the molding machine disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho 59-220249 has the single function of serving as a horizontal molding machine wherein a match plate 11 is located in the middle of the molding space and whereby molds are merely vertically laminated and transported to the pouring step. Thus, since the molding machine is designed so that molding sand is compacted from both sides by flat plates, and therefore a portion of sand to which a smaller pressing force is applied is pressed against the model pattern face, a definite problem exists in that an inferior mold formation process is performed and the product precision is deteriorated.

Molding and transporting apparatus and method therefor


A device for compensating the offset of an input stage having two current output legs, the first of which is connected to the input of a real stage pushing into this first leg a parasitic current; the device including a fake stage pushing a compensation current having a value equal to the value of the parasitic current divided by a predetermined factor greater than 1, this compensation current being amplified by an amplifier having a gain equal to said predetermined factor, before being pushed into the second output leg of the input stage.

The present invention relates to operational amplifiers and in particular to a device for compensating the input offset voltage of an amplifier.
FIG. 1 very schematically shows an amplifier structure. This amplifier comprises a differential input stage 10 powered between a high potential Vcc and a low potential Vss. This stage can comprise multiple elementary gain stages comprised of transistors assembled as differential amplifiers. Stage 10 comprises a differential output comprised of two legs D+ and D- respectively carrying a direct current and a current of opposite phase, both proportional to the voltage present between two input terminals E+ and E- of stage 10. These currents in legs D+ and D- are added to a bias current Id. Legs D- and D+ are respectively connected to the input and to the output of a current mirror M1 coupled to the low potential Vss. Leg D+ is also connected to the input of an output stage 11 comprising a control stage 12 controlling, for example, via an output N and an output P the respective bases of "push-pull" connected transistors Q and QP.
FIG. 2 shows an exemplary constitution of a current mirror depending on the low potential Vss, which can be used for mirror M1 and for mirrors which will be described later. This mirror comprises two NPN transistors QMA and QMB, the emitters of which are connected to the low potential Vss, and the bases of which are connected to each other. The collector and the base of transistor QMB are connected to the emitter of a transistor QMC, the base of which is connected to the collector of transistor QMA. The input of the mirror corresponds to the collector of transistor QMA and the output to the collector of transistor QMC. The output current of such a mirror is substantially equal to the input current multiplied by the surface ratio of transistors QMB and QMA.
In the output stage 11 of FIG. 1, a current source IP connected to the high potential Vcc and a current source I.sub.N connected to the low potential Vss establish the bias currents of transistors of the control stage 12. A detailed exemplary schematic diagram of stage 12 providing a follower stage will be described later.
With this configuration, a current equal to the difference between the current in leg D+ and the current in leg D- is provided to the input of the control stage 12. If stage 12 is perfect, a same bias current Id is present in both legs D+ and D-, the current consumed by stage 12 from leg D+ being zero.
However, stage 12 always pushes (as shown) or pulls a parasitic current I.sub.O in leg D+. This parasitic current causes a bias current offset in legs D+ and D- which results in an input offset voltage V.sub.O which must be applied between terminals E+ and E- for compensating the current offset. This offset voltage V.sub.O is particularly great in fast amplifiers which comprise an input stage 10 with only one gain stage. Moreover, in fast amplifiers, the output stage has a high bias current and tends to therefore push a high parasitic current in leg D+.
In order to compensate for this disadvantage in conventional fast operational amplifiers, one of the bias currents of control stage 12, generally current I.sub.N, is adjusted after the manufacturing of the chip of the operational amplifier. This adjustment is generally achieved by laser trimming a resistor. This operation substantially increases the cost of the chip.
FIG. 3 shows in detail a conventional configuration of control stage 12 that provides a follower stage. The input of stage 12 corresponds to the bases of an NPN transistor QD.sub.1 and of a PNP transistor QDP.sub.1 connected in common collector configuration. Current sources IP and I.sub.N are respectively connected to the emitters of transistors QDP.sub.1 and QD.sub.1, and establish the bias current of these transistors. The emitters of transistors QDP.sub.1 and QD.sub.1 respectively correspond to the outputs N and P of control stage 12. With this configuration, transistor QDP.sub.1 and QD.sub.1 consume base currents of respectively Ip/.beta.p and I.sub.N /.beta..sub.N, where .beta.p and .beta..sub.N designate the respective gains of transistors QDP.sub.1 and QD.sub.1. Thus, parasitic current I.sub.0 is equal to: EQU I.sub.0 =IP/.beta..sub.P -I.sub.N /.beta..sub.N.
In general, on the same chip, the gains of the PNP transistors are independent of and lower than the gains of the NPN transistors. The values of currents I.sub.P and I.sub.N are selected in order to cancel the parasitic current I.sub.0 for typical values of gains .beta..sub.P and .beta..sub.N. However, in most cases where these gains are different from their typical values, a parasitic current I.sub.0 subsists. As previously mentioned, an expensive solution includes trimming the value of one of the currents I.sub.P and I.sub.N after manufacturing the chip.
FIG. 4 shows a solution used in conventional non-fast operational amplifiers (with more than one gain stage). As in FIG. 1, output legs D- and D+ of an input stage are connected to a current mirror M1. An output stage 11 pushes a parasitic current I.sub.0 in leg D+. Leg D- is connected to a fake stage 24 which has the same input characteristics as stage 11, i.e. it pushes a current I.sub.0 in leg D-.
With this configuration, legs D- and D+ are balanced and the input offset voltage of the amplifier is compensated.
However, fake stage 24, in order to have the same characteristics as stage 11, must comprise transistors having the same bias current as that of the corresponding transistors of stage 11. If this assembly is used in a fast operational amplifier, the power consumption of the amplifier is increased by approximately 40% for an amplifier already consuming a high current (for example about 20 mA). For this reason, fast operational amplifiers having a fake stage are not manufactured.


Certain examples of an apparatus, a printing system and a method are described that may be used for applying a fluid. In certain cases, an apparatus has a chamber arranged to receive fluid, the chamber being sealed at one or more ends by one or more respective end seals. In one case, at least one end seal is moveable along an axis of the chamber to adjust at least a volume of the chamber.

Some printing technologies require special substrate coating or priming treatment prior to the application of ink or toner. Generally this kind of treatment is performed at a stage when a print medium or substrate is fed from a roll, e.g. before cutting operations. Applying a priming treatment in this manner helps the treatment process to be stable and continuous. However, there are cases when a priming treatment needs to be applied to cut sheets of print media or substrate. For example, this may be the case for thick substrates or for cases where a priming fluid needs to be applied shortly before ink application for better ink adhesion. There are also cases where a print medium or substrate may vary in shape and/or size. For example, in a printing system with a variable cut sheet size a substrate coating may need to be applied to varying sizes of sheet.


Processes, machines, and stored machine instructions are provided for grouping interdependent fields. Field grouping logic may include specially configured machines and/or stored instructions that identify group(s) of interdependent fields of a data set. The field grouping logic may receive, from a client on a customizable interface, a request for interdependent fields in a data set and, in response, cause generation of an output object that identifies the similar fields in the data set. The field grouping logic may exclude field(s) of the data set that are not interdependent, are not frequently accessed, or do not consume much space in storage, even though the request may not identify which fields are interdependent. The output object identifies the similar fields in set(s) or list(s) of fields, or in a hierarchy or hierarchies of groups and sub-groups.

Many businesses live or die based on the efficiency and accuracy by which they can store, retrieve, process, and/or analyze data. "Data," as used herein, is digital information that is electronically stored on storage device(s). Data may be maintained on an individual storage device, such as a local hard disk or solid state drive, a CD-ROM, or a memory module. Alternatively, data may be distributed over multiple storage devices, such as storage devices that are working together to provide a cloud storage service or storage devices that are operating separately to store subsets of the data. One or more database servers may operate in parallel to provide read and/or write access to the data. Large sets of data, whether stored on one device or distributed among many devices, may consume a significant amount of storage space and/or processor time to store, retrieve, process, and/or analyze.
Data may be described in terms of fields and values. "Fields," as used herein, refer to containers or labels that provide contexts. "Values," as used herein, refer to information that is stored according to or in association with the contexts. For example, a single table may have many different columns that provide contexts for the values that are stored in the columns. The different columns may store different sets of data having different contexts, and the different sets of data may or may not be of different data types. In another example, a single document may have many attributes and/or elements that provide contexts for the values that are nested in the attributes and/or elements. Elements or attributes that share the same name, path, or other context may collectively store a set of data that shares the context. Different elements or attributes may store different sets of data having different contexts, and the different sets of data may or may not be of different data types.
To alleviate some of the overhead for storing, retrieving, processing, and/or analyzing large sets of data, some computer systems utilize metadata that is created and stored in association with the sets of data. "Metadata," as used herein, is data that describes other data. Metadata may describe data in a manner that allows the described data to be stored, retrieved, processed, and/or analyzed more efficiently or more accurately. For example, metadata for a given set of data may include a mean, median, mode, minimum, and/or maximum of the given set of data, such that these value(s) may be quickly retrieved without being recalculated each time the set of data is accessed. The metadata may be used to plan for data processing such that a data processor can effectively allocate resources for the data processing.
General statistics such as the mean, median, mode, minimum, or maximum value(s) may be helpful to plan for storing, retrieving, processing, and/or analyzing a set of data. However, these general statistics are of limited utility, especially when storing, retrieving, processing, and/or analyzing multiple sets of data that may or may not be meaningfully related to each other.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.


Disclosed herein is a demodulation apparatus including: an operation determination block configured to determine whether the demodulation apparatus operates as part of either a first device or a second device with which the demodulation apparatus communicates, the first device being configured to ASK-modulate and transmit data, the second device being configured to load-modulate and transmit data; and first and second demodulation control blocks.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a demodulation apparatus, a demodulation method, and an electronic device. More particularly, the invention relates to a demodulation apparatus, a demodulation method, and an electronic device for resolving the problem of a so-called null state thereby enhancing the accuracy of demodulation independent of the reception environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent years have witnessed widespread acceptance of noncontact IC cards (e.g., FeliCa (registered trademark)). A variety of demodulation methods have been proposed for communication using such IC cards.
Ordinary noncontact IC card reader/writers have experienced the following problem regarding the demodulation of a transmitted signal load-modulated by a noncontact IC card: upon load modulation, the so-called null state can occur if there is a particular distance between the noncontact IC card and the reader/writer. The null state is a state where communication is not established due to the inability to demodulate the received signal. This state is brought about when there is no amount of change in the direction of amplitude whereas there exists an amount of change in the phase direction.
One proposed method of countering the problem above involves supplementing an ordinary amplitude change detector with a phase change detection circuit so that one of the outputs from these two types of circuits may be selected (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-118070; called Patent Document 1 hereunder). In determining the output to be selected, the technique proposed by Patent Document 1 references a transmission channel code (sync code) and the result of an average amplitude level having been calculated.
More specifically, digital demodulators described in Patent Document 1 each include a transmission channel code detection circuit and an average amplitude level calculation circuit in addition to circuits for performing demodulation and bit decoding. Detection signals coming from the transmission channel code detection circuit and the average amplitude level calculation circuit are used by a controller in selecting one of output signals from the digital demodulators. The output signal thus selected is fed to an output selector. Based on the selection signal from the controller, the output selector selects and outputs one of the demodulated signals coming from the digital demodulators.
According to Patent Document 1, the selective demodulation process outlined above permits demodulation in the null state.

Demodulation apparatus, demodulation method, and electronic device


An amusement toy including a head having at least a partial facial image, and an elastically deformable mouth associated with the head. The mouth has an undeformed dimension in the absence of a deforming force and is capable of deforming such that a deformed dimension of the mouth is at least 20% greater than the undeformed dimension of the mouth. The deformation of the mouth of the toy alters the facial image presented by the head, making a "scary face." The removal of the force causes the mouth to return to substantially its undeformed dimension. A body of the amusement toy is preferably attached to the head such that the center of gravity of the toy is below the elastically deformable mouth. A method for providing amusement includes the steps of providing a head, applying a force to a mouth associated with the head to deform the mouth from an undeformed width to a deformed width that is at least 20% greater than the undeformed width, and subsequently removing the force from the mouth, such that the mouth returns to substantially the undeformed width. The deformation of the mouth alters the facial image of the amusement toy to make a "scary face."

This invention relates generally to amusement devices for children, and more particularly to dolls and other figurines used by children for amusement purposes.
Small children, e.g., children that are 2-3 years old, often find great enjoyment in simple amusements. For example, a child may enjoy making a "scary face" to provoke a mock fear reaction from his or her parents, other cooperative adults, and sophisticated children. One way that a child can make a scary faces is to place his two forefingers in the corners of his mouth, and then widen his mouth by pulling with his fingers. When performed in the audience of a cooperative adult, e.g., a parent or grandparent, or another child, this will hopefully provide the mock fear response in the viewer, to the hilarious amusement of the child performing the "scary face."
While the making of "scary faces" can be an amusing pastime for the child, the adults involved often quickly tire of the game. It would therefore be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for extending the amusement aspects of this activity for both the child and the adult participants.

Doll head with an elastically deformable mouth


In some aspects, a surgical system for taking advantage of capacitive coupling is presented. The surgical system may include: a monopolar energy generator; a surgical instrument configured to transmit electrosurgical energy through the electrode to tissue of a patient at a surgical site; and at least one detection circuit configured to: measure an amount of conductivity in a return path of the electrosurgical energy; determine that the amount conductivity in the return path falls below a predetermined threshold; and transmit a signal to cause the monopolar generator to increase current leakage in the surgical system by increasing alternating current frequency in the electrosurgical energy generation. The monopolar energy generator may further include a sensor configured to determine that a monopolar energy circuit is completed by detecting that the current leakage has reached a ground terminal in the monopolar energy generator.

This disclosure is related, generally and in various aspects, to surgical systems utilizing radio frequency (RF) energy in electrosurgery.
Electrosurgical systems typically utilize a generator to supply electrosurgical energy (e.g., alternating current at radiofrequency levels) to an active electrode that applies the electrosurgical energy to a surgical site of a patient's body. The surgical instrument may utilize the energy to perform various types of surgery, such as cutting tissue or coagulating tissue, depending on the need. Monopolar electrosurgery involves applying the surgical instrument to the patient tissue using a single active electrode, and completes the electrical circuit through the patient by a patient return electrode. This return electrode is typically connected back to the monopolar energy generator. However, capacitive coupling is an ever present problem in this system, and may potentially cause undesired burns at initially unknown locations on the patient's body. It is desirable to take into account the capacitive coupling so as to minimize or eliminate unintended patient damage.

Increasing radio frequency to create pad-less monopolar loop


A multi-structural query system performs a high-level multi-dimensional query on a multi-structural database. The query system enables a user to navigate a search by adding restrictions incrementally. The query system uses a schema to discover structure in a multi-structural database. The query system leaves a choice of nodes to return in response to a query as a constrained set of choices available to the algorithm. The query system further casts the selection of a set of nodes as an optimization. The query system uses pairwise-disjoint collections to capture a concise set of highlights of a data set within the allowed schema. The query system further comprises efficient algorithms that yield approximately optimal solutions for several classes of objective functions.

With the growing importance of managing massive repositories of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, an important task for database research is the development of frameworks that support a rich set of analytical operations on such large scale. A primary goal for these systems is to achieve a high degree of abstraction in defining the underlying concepts (schema, objects, queries), so that the framework gives rise to a coherent and principled architecture for efficient information management rather than an assortment of ad hoc solutions.
Considering for example, a large collections of media articles that can be segmented by a number of "dimensions":                By time: articles from April 2004, or from 1978;        By content type: articles from newspapers, or from magazines, and within magazines, from business magazines, or from entertainment magazines;        By geography: articles from the U.S., or from Europe, and within Europe, from France or from Germany;        By topic: articles about a war, a hurricane, or an election, and within these topics, by subtopic.These different dimensions may be correlated; for instance, knowing the content type may give information about the topics. The initial dimension in this list (time) can be viewed as numerical and as the example shows, a user may be interested in intervals of time at various granularities. The other dimensions in this list (content type, geography, and topic) can be viewed as hierarchical.
Because of the rich nature of the data (in this case, documents), a user is interested in probing the data with queries that are much richer than those in a typical database system. For example, a user is interested in the following types of queries:                What are the ten most common topics in the collections?        From 1990 to 1995, how did articles break down across geography and content type?        Which subtopics caused the sudden increase in discussion of the war? Are these subtopics different among European newspapers?        Break the early 1990s into ten sub-periods that are most topically cohesive, and explain which topics were hot during each period.        Break documents that mention the President by topic so that they are most closely aligned with different content types, to capture how different types of media with different audiences focused on particular topics.
These queries are rather "fuzzy": there is not necessarily a clear "right answer." These queries are further unlike standard database queries in that these queries are resolved not by, for example, searching indices, but instead by an optimization procedure. Furthermore, these queries seek to provide the user with the highlights or salient characteristics of the data set.
An ability to use "fuzzy" queries is especially useful in business intelligence systems and systems using multi-faceted search. Multi-faceted search is used, for example, on product websites. A user searches for products on a site that matches selected criteria, restricting results to a type of product, a product cost, etc. Conventional multi-faceted search technologies require that search restrictions be placed concurrently. However, this approach can return a null set, with no results. The user then has no clear idea of what restrictions to change to obtain results for the query.
The business intelligence systems and systems using multi-faceted search comprise objects. For a business intelligence system, the object can be a transaction; for the system using a multi-faceted search, the object can be a product. Each object comprises different dimensions of ancillary data. A product can have price, manufacturer, features, etc., as dimensions. A transaction can have geography of the transaction, amount of the transaction, product type involved in the transaction, etc.
Several conventional query systems or approaches have addressed a variety of techniques for formulating queries for repositories of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. One conventional formulation for queries distinguishes between measures, which are numerical and are the target of aggregations, and dimensions, which are often hierarchical. However, this distinction is not required, and there are formulations in which both are treated uniformly.
Another conventional approach describes a formulation in which each dimension is a lattice, and a joint lattice is defined over multiple dimensions. Although this technology has proven to be useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. It would be desirable to perform optimizations over a resulting multi-dimensional lattice rather than to characterize the set of possible queries and hence the candidate materializations that may be considered.
One conventional approach describes, in the context of a cube operator, aggregation functions that may be distributive, algebraic, or holistic. Another conventional approach considers the "BIKM" problem of unifying business intelligence and knowledge management, by creating data cubes that have been augmented by additional information extracted through text analysis.
Yet another conventional approach proposes that online analytical processing systems may support multiple query frameworks, possibly at different levels of granularity. There have been a number of such approaches suggesting frameworks that move beyond traditional hypothesis-driven query models into discovery-driven models. Some of these conventional approaches have utilized data mining to extract association rules on cubes. Another conventional approach identifies areas of the data space that are likely to be surprising to the user. The mechanisms of this approach allow the user to navigate a product lattice augmented with indicators suggesting which cells at a particular location are surprising, and which paths lead to surprising cells. This conventional approach produces exceptions at all levels of the cube, rather than at the leaves. One conventional approach considers partitions of the cube to summarize the "semantics" of the cube; all elements of a partition belong to the same element of a particular type of equivalence relation.
In general, conventional approaches to querying multi-dimensional data specify certain nodes of a multi-dimensional lattice for which results may be computed; these nodes are, for example, all the months of 2003 crossed with all the products in a certain category. Further characteristics of conventional online analytical processes comprise a single entry for each cell of a cube in a fact table and dimensions that are required to be leveled or fixed-depth. In terms of business intelligence systems and systems using multi-faceted search, these conventional systems require well-defined queries.
Although conventional approaches have proven useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. What is needed is a search technology that allows a user to focus on discovery and exploration of data, allowing a user to formulate higher-level, less structured queries to search for trends or discover previously unknown correlations in data. Thus, there is a need for a system, a computer program product, and an associated method for performing a high-level multi-dimensional query on a multi-structural database. The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.

System and method for performing a high-level multi-dimensional query on a multi-structural database

International Business Machines Corporation


A transfer function calculation unit is configured to calculate a transfer function from a sound source installed in a predetermined target direction to each microphone of a microphone array, and a determination unit is configured to determine whether or not the microphone array is normal on the basis of a difference amount between a transfer function to each microphone and a predetermined ideal transfer function to each microphone.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a test device and a test method.
Description of Related Art
A microphone array including a plurality of microphones is used for recording of multi-channel acoustic signals. A multi-channel acoustic signal recorded by such a microphone array is used for sound source separation for separation into sound on a speaker basis according to speaking of a plurality of speakers or sound source localization for determining a direction of a sound source. In a sound source separation or sound source localization process, information on a difference in transfer characteristics from a sound source according to a difference in position between microphones is used.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication, First Publication No. 2015-154207 discloses an acoustic processing device that calculates a sound reception position of an acoustic signal and a sound source direction on the basis of acoustic signals of a plurality of channels.

Test device and test method for microphone arrays


A control device includes a cylinder pressure sensor, a driving condition detector, a reference crank angle setter, a reference cylinder pressure calculator, an EGR ratio estimator, and a controller. The cylinder pressure sensor detects a cylinder pressure inside a cylinder. The driving condition detector detects a driving condition in an internal combustion engine. The reference crank angle setter calculates, according to the driving condition, a reference crank angle immediately before which mixture gas starts combusting. The reference cylinder pressure calculator calculates a reference cylinder pressure at the reference crank angle based on temperature characteristics of a heat capacity ratio of the mixture gas under a condition. The EGR ratio estimator calculates an EGR ratio based on a pressure difference between the reference cylinder pressure and the cylinder pressure at the reference crank angle. The controller controls the internal combustion engine according to the EGR ratio.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a control device for an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known a conventional EGR ratio estimating method which involves detecting an amount of fresh air to be taken into a cylinder by an airflow sensor, calculating a total amount of gas to be taken into the cylinder based on an intake pressure detected by an intake pressure sensor, and estimating an EGR ratio from the amount of fresh air and the total amount of gas. In the case of using this estimating method for a low-pressure EGR device (EGR device which takes in an exhaust gas from a downstream side of a turbine of a turbocharger and recirculates the exhaust gas back to an upstream side of a compressor in an intake passage), however, it is difficult to estimate the EGR ratio with high accuracy because the external EGR gas needs to flow a relatively long passage leading to the cylinder, and accordingly reaches the inside of the cylinder with a long time lag.
As another conventional EGR ratio estimating method, a method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-231995 has been known, for example. This estimating method is based on the assumption that a state change of a mixture gas in a compression stroke of the internal combustion engine is a polytropic change, and that a heat capacity ratio of the mixture gas varies depending on its composition. More specifically, an in-cylinder pressure sensor detects in-cylinder pressures P1, P2 at two predetermined crank angles CA1, CA2 in the compression stroke, and a heat capacity ratio κ of the mixture gas is calculated from the in-cylinder pressures P1, P2 and cylinder volumes V1, V2 corresponding to the crank angles CA1, CA2 in accordance with the following formula:κ=log(P1/P2)/log(V2/V1).
Then, the EGR ratio is calculated based on the calculated heat capacity ratio κ by referring to a predetermined table in which a relationship between the heat capacity ratio and the EGR ratio (EGR gas concentration) is defined.

Control device for internal combustion engine


Auto-detecting an action on a merchant service and rendering an offer button to display an offer redeemable based on the action. A user accesses a merchant service and an indication of the action is communicated to an offer system that maintains an account for the user. The offer system determines whether the user has an offer applicable to a purchase with the merchant. The user device presents an offer button rendered to indicate that the first offer is available for redemption by the user. The user initiates an action on the merchant service and the user device communicates an indication of the action to the offer system. The offer system determines if the user has a second offer applicable to a purchase with the merchant based on the action taken by the user and the offer button is rendered to indicate that the second offer is available for redemption.

Merchants offer coupons or rebates as incentives for purchasing particular products. Traditionally, coupons are distributed in a paper format. A user redeems the coupon by taking the physical coupon to a merchant and purchasing a product that satisfies the terms of the coupon. Other forms of traditional coupons include rebates for purchasing particular products, wherein after purchasing a product that satisfies the terms of the rebate offer, the user fills out and returns required forms to request the rebate.
More recently, merchants have offered electronic offers. Such offers may be linked to merchant loyalty cards, wherein a user enrolls in a merchant's loyalty program and receives a loyalty card. A user then associates certain discounts to the loyalty card and redeems these discounts by presenting the loyalty card (or some form of identifying information, such as a telephone number) and the method of payment to the merchant when purchasing the discounted products. Alternatively, coupons and offers are distributed through electronic media, forums, and social networks.
With the advent of online marketplaces and shopping applications for smart devices, users can copy/paste, click a link, or otherwise manually enter offer codes when completing a transaction with a merchant to receive a discount associated with the code. The user is required to search for codes that apply to the merchant and/or the items in the user's shopping basket.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A socket connector with loosening-proof structure includes an insulating housing which defines insert holes in a front surface thereof and at least a receiving hole at one side thereof. The insulating housing has an upper cover and a lower cover. Electric terminals are received in the insulating housing respectively. Every electric terminal has a fix arm, an elastic arm locating at one side of the fix arm and a connecting portion extending from the rears of the fix arm and the elastic arm for connecting with a cable member. The elastic arm defines a guide portion at the front. The inner side of the guide portion defines a hook which tilts rearward to form a bevel plane. A button is configured in the receiving hole of the insulating housing. The button protrudes inward to form a shaft which is against the elastic arm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a socket connector, and more particularly to a socket connector with loosening-proof structure for electrically connecting with a mating connector steadily.
2. The Related Art
As rapid development of electrical technology, many electrical connectors are used in variety of electric devices for electrically connecting with electric devices. A conventional electrical connector includes a socket connector and a mating connector. In order to make a secure connection between the socket connector and the mating connector, a lock mechanism is defined in the art of the electrical connector.
Refer to U.S. Pat. No. 6,558,183, which discloses an electrical connector with a lock mechanism, including a casing, a pair of lock members and a pair of release buttons. The lock member has a lock arm and a pawl extending from the lock arm. The pawls project beyond a front surface of the casing and are located on opposite sides of a front portion of the casing. The release buttons are detachably supported by opposite inner sides of the casing. The electrical connector engages with a mating connector, and the pawl engages with a counterpart lock portion of the mating connector to secure the electrical connector to the mating connector. Depress the release buttons inwardly to disengage the electrical connector from the mating connector.
As mentioned above, the electrical connector adds two lock members to secure the electrical connector to the mating connector. The structure of the design is complicated and the manufacture cost is increased. Therefore, an improved loosening-proof electrical connector needs to be designed to overcome the shortcomings of the described electrical connector.

Socket connector with loosening-proof structure


A closure system for a container which is capable of being manufactured as a single integrated unit. The closure system includes a bellows member which carries a closure member between a closed position and an open position.

A wide variety of containers include closure systems which allow for the alternate opening and closing of the container without removal of a cap portion from the container. Examples of such systems are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,958 issued to Amos; U.S. Pat. No. 1,958,414 issued to Bogeaus; U.S. Pat. No. 3,321,114 issued to Croyle; U.S. Pat. No. 3,193,154 issued to Bross; U.S. Pat. No. 529,221 issued to Wagner; U.S. Pat. No. 2,207,816 issued to Packer; U.S. Pat. No. 2,768,771 issued to Beutel; U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,958,430 and 1,958,434 issued to Hartog; U.S. Pat. No. 2,699,885 issued to McClure; U.S. Pat. No. 85,521 issued to Gardner; U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,520 issued to Sarris; U.S. Pat. No. 564,242 issued to Burlich; U.S. Pat. No. 218,698 issued to Beardsley; and U.S. Pat. No. 1,247,497 issued to Brown.
These previous expedients each provide a means by which a first portion of a closure device is movable with respect to a second portion of the closure device. This relative movement allows the closure device to be placed into either an open position in which the contents of a container can flow out of the container or a closed position in which the contents of the container are restricted from flowing out of the container. The elements which are movable with respect to one another have heretofore been manufactured separately and assembled together to provide a single closure device with at least two component parts moving relative to each other.
The use of several component parts in the manufacture of any product is often avoided for several reasons. One important consideration is, of course, the cost of production. Manufacturing costs are increased in proportion to the number of component parts needed for each closure device. In addition, the time for assembling each of the component parts increases the cost of the device.
Another important consideration in the manufacture of closure devices is quality, particularly the ability of the system to prevent leaking when the device is in its closed position. When more than one component part is used, the integrity of each component part, as well as their precise and accurate assembly, presents several unwanted opportunities for failure in the overall quality of the final assembled device.
For these and other reasons, there has been a long felt need to provide closure devices having as few component parts as possible.
The use of bellows to provide a device of unitary construction with individual portions which are movable with respect to one another is well known in devices such as accordions and collapsible bottles of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 32,379, and the freshness and tamper monitoring closure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,730.
However, previous expedients have failed to recognize the possibility of using flexible or bellow-type construction on closure devices for eliminating the many problems inherent in manufacturing closure devices with several component parts.


A sensing system including multiple sensor node devices and an analysis device, wherein: each of the multiple sensor node devices has a sensor that measures a measurement target and acquires data values, a learning unit that, based on the data values, learns a model used to estimate the data values at an installation position of the sensor, and a communication unit that transmits learning result data indicating a learning result from the learning unit; and the analysis device has a spatial analysis unit that estimates a spatial distribution of the data values based on the learning result data from each of the multiple sensor node devices and the installation positions of the respective sensor node devices.

A number of technologies have been proposed for reducing the communication volume in systems for transmitting and receiving sensor measurement data.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes a sensor network system comprising multiple sensor nodes including sensors, and an application device for processing sensor information indicating events detected by the sensors. The sensor nodes compute contribution levels, which indicate the degree of influence that the sensor information has on the resolution of the sensor information distribution overall, and preferentially transmit the sensor information having higher contribution levels.
Thus, in the sensor network system described in Patent Document 1, it is possible to arrange for the sensor information distribution obtained by the application device to be composed of sensor information having high contribution levels (including a large amount of information). This sensor network system is able to reduce the traffic volume between the sensor nodes and the application device. For this reason, in regions requiring high precision and resolution in the sensor information distribution, it is possible to reduce the data that is lost due to congestion or the like.

Sensing system, sensor node device, sensor measurement value processing method, and program


A system for radiographic inspection of an object includes a radiation source located on one side of the object and a radiation detector located on another side of the object, being positioned to receive radiation from the radiation source. At least one motion sensor is associated with the radiation detector, the radiation source, or the object, for detecting motion. The magnitude of motion of the components is compared to a pre-established limit value. The imaging process is conducted when the magnitude of any motion is less than the limit value.

This invention relates generally to radiographic inspection and more particularly to a method of radiographic inspection of large objects such as airframes.
Aircraft, including their fuselages and nacelles, and other large structures, often require periodic inspection to verify their structural condition. This may be done visually or with non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques. Because of the complicated physical structure of aircraft fuselages and nacelles, radiographic inspection, such as X-ray inspection, is used to avoid the disassembly of overlapping components, insulation, wall coverings, etc. Modern digital electronic detectors are replacing X-ray film in many X-ray inspection applications. It is often difficult to position these detectors in contact with the inspected structure. Thus the detector and the structure are often not in physical contact and do not always move together. This results in blurred images and reduced ability to discern defects. This condition is further exacerbated with electronic detectors as geometric magnification and/or extended exposure times are sometimes used to improve image resolution. Both of these techniques increase sensitivity to any relative motion between the structure and the detector.
Unwanted motion is especially of concern in the inspection of very large objects such as airframes and aircraft engine nacelles. The physical size and arrangement of these objects results in the X-ray source and detector being mounted on different supports and thus having separate motion. Because of the large size of these objects, the X-ray source and detector mounting structures must be large enough to provide range of motion necessary to cover the entire object. For example, to inspect an aircraft fuselage, one might use a ground based cantilevered boom-like device to position the X-ray source or detector over the top of the fuselage. This would require a very large boom, over 30 feet in the case of a large aircraft. This extended reach device may have significant motion at the end of the boom, including vibration and harmonic motion from the residual inertia after movement of the device. Further, the large objects themselves often move during imaging. This may be due to wind, personnel working on the aircraft, and the like.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method to ensure the motion of the components during a radiographic imaging period is not large enough to negatively impact the quality of the image.

Radiographic inspection of airframes and other large objects


This multilayered wiring board having a multilayered wiring structure includes a first mesh wiring layer having a plurality of holes therein, and a second wiring layer having a plurality of wirings. The wirings of the second wiring layer undulate up and down so as to descend towards the holes formed in the first wiring layer. In another arrangement, the first wiring layer has a plurality of protrusions protruding toward the second wiring layer at locations between adjacent ones of the wirings of the second wiring layer. In these wiring boards, crosstalk between the wirings is suppressed.

This invention relates to a multilayered wiring board carrying a semiconductor device chip and a method for manufacturing the same.
Many of today's microprocessors and memory devices are provided with a multilayered wiring board on which semiconductor device chips and the like are mounted in order to achieve high-density packaging,
Such a multilayered wiring board comprises a board of Si, Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 or AlN, and insulating layers made of SiO.sub.2 or polyimide and wiring layers of Al or Cu, which are alternately laminated on one another, The wiring layers have predetermined wiring patterns formed by combining photolithography, etching and plating. If it is necessary to connect the wiring layers together, they are connected together through via formed in the insulating layers interposed between the adjacent wiring layers.
The wiring layers may have mesh patterns with numerous holes formed therein, Such mesh wiring layers are disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications 2-231749 and 3-158002. Such mesh patterns are used to adjust the distributed constant between these layers and the adjacent other layers.
Besides the requirement for high-density packaging, recent microprocessors and memory devices, which operate at an increasingly high speed, are faced with the problem crosstalk produced on the wiring layers of the multilayered wiring board. Namely, the higher the wiring density of the wiring layers and the higher the processing speed, the larger the crosstalk tend to be. Such crosstalk can cause a malfunction of the semiconductor device chip mounted on the multilayered wiring board.
By providing a mesh wiring layer, it becomes possible to adjust the distributed constant between mesh wiring layer and the layers adjacent thereto. However it was impossible to suppress crosstalk between the wirings in one wiring layer.

Multilayered wiring board with wiring configurations to reduce crosstalk


A probabilistic approach of symbol error estimation is disclosed. The probabilistic approach of symbol error estimation reflects the number of symbol errors more precisely than the number of unsatisfied checks. The more precise quality metric calculated in accordance with the present disclosure allows a codec system to achieve a better overall performance. In addition, many other features that previously depend on the number of unsatisfied checks as the sector quality metric may also benefit by adopting the more precise quality metric.

The number of unsatisfied checks (USCs) refers to the number of parity-check equations that are not satisfied during a decoding process. Currently, the number of USCs in each decoder iteration is commonly used as an estimation of the number of error symbols, which may be used to calculate the symbol error rate. Knowing the symbol error rate of each sector in the queuing system can help allocating resource more efficiently, improving sector failure rate (SFR) performance, and also reducing power consumptions.
However, the number of USCs does not reflect the number of symbol errors in some cases. Therein lies the need to provide a method and system for symbol error rate estimation and sector quality measurement without the aforementioned shortcomings.

Method and system for symbol error rate estimation and sector quality measurement


A circuit that detects if contacts in an HV contactor have been welded or stuck closed. The circuit includes a controller that generates a short duration pulse signal that closes a driver switch and allows current flow through a coil in the HV contactor. The current flow is converted to a voltage by a sensor, where the voltage is received by the controller. The controller uses the voltage, such as by comparing the voltage to a stored representative voltage of the coil current for when the HV contactor is open, to determine whether the HV contactor is closed, and possibly welded or stuck closed, or partially closed. The sensor can be the driver switch or another device, such as a resistor.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and method for determining whether contacts in a high voltage (HV) contactor used in a battery circuit have been welded or stuck closed and, more particularly, to a battery circuit for an electric vehicle (EV) or a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) that includes circuit components for determining if contacts in an HV contactor used in the circuit have been welded or stuck closed.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Electric vehicles are becoming more and more prevalent. These vehicles include hybrid vehicles, such as the extended range electric vehicles (EREV) that combine a battery and a main power source, such as an internal combustion engine, fuel cell systems, etc., and electric only vehicles, such as the battery electric vehicles (BEV). All of these types of electric vehicles employ a high voltage battery that includes a number of battery cells. These batteries can be different battery types, such as lithium ion, nickel metal hydride, lead acid, etc. A typical high voltage battery system for an electric vehicle may include a large number of battery cells or modules including several battery cells to meet the vehicle power and energy requirements. The battery system can include individual battery modules where each battery module may include a certain number of battery cells, such as twelve cells. The individual battery cells may be electrically coupled in series, or a series of cells may be electrically coupled in parallel, where a number of cells in the module are connected in series and each module is electrically coupled to the other modules in parallel. Different vehicle designs include different battery designs that employ various trade-offs and advantages for a particular application.
The high voltage battery in an electric vehicle is selectively coupled to the vehicle's high voltage bus by HV battery contactors. When the vehicle is shut off, the contactors are opened and the battery is disconnected from the high voltage bus. When the vehicle is switched on, the contactors are closed and the battery voltage is coupled to the high voltage bus.
Battery circuits of the type discussed above typically employ several HV contactors, including the battery disconnect contactors mentioned above, that are capable of operating with high current for the particular application. The contacts in the HV contactors are typically held normally open by a spring where a coil in the HV contactor is energized to move the contacts against the bias of the spring to close the HV contactor. Because of the high current that is passing through the HV contactor, it is possible that the contacts that make the connection in the HV contactor when the HV contactor is closed will arc possibly causing the contacts to essentially weld together, where the contacts remain closed and an electrical connection through the HV contactor is still made after the coil is de-energized and the HV contactor should otherwise be opened by the spring. Also, this welding could cause a partial closing of the HV contactor where a high resistance across the contactor occurs.
The designers of battery circuits for these high voltage applications consider this problem and provide suitable design features so that an HV contactor that is welded or stuck closed is not likely to be a safety concern. However, such stuck closed HV contactors could still provide high voltage to unwanted parts of the circuit at unwanted times. Algorithms and processes may be employed to detect a welded or stuck HV contactor. These processes typically use the sequencing of the switches to identify a welded or stuck closed HV contactor, where if a high voltage is detected at a location where it shouldn't be, a welded or stuck closed contact may be suspected. If such a welded or stuck closed HV contactor is detected, then the algorithms may provide suitable warnings to the vehicle driver that service is required. Further, because the vehicle battery industry is moving towards lithium-ion batteries, which are desirable because they typically provide a higher performance because of a higher current density than other battery types, the welding problem of the HV contactor contacts increases with these types of batteries.
The above described technique of detecting welded or stuck closed contacts in an HV contactor has various disadvantages including the time factor involved in going through the sequence of opening and closing the HV contactors, measuring the voltage, and determining that an HV contactor is welded or stuck closed. Further, when using this process of sequencing to determine welded or stuck closed contacts, it is typically not possible to determine if the first HV contactor that is closed during vehicle or system start-up is welded or stuck closed.

Diagnosis of HEV/EV battery disconnect system


The present disclosure relates to an injection device for delivery of a liquid medicament including a housing, a cartridge having a tubular shaped barrel filled with a liquid medicament and sealed in a proximal direction by a piston displaceably arranged in the barrel, and a drive mechanism having a piston rod to advance in a distal direction against a proximally facing surface of the piston of the cartridge. The drive mechanism is configured to advance the piston rod in the distal direction by a distance z1 to dispense a reference volume V1 of the medicament when operably engaged with a reference cartridge having a reference diameter D1, and, the cartridge has a diameter D2 smaller than the reference diameter D1 to dispense a volume V2 of the medicament smaller than the reference volume V1 when the piston rod advances in distal direction by the distance z1.

Injection devices for setting and dispensing a single or multiple doses of a liquid medicament are as such well-known in the art. Generally, such devices have substantially a similar purpose as that of an ordinary syringe.
Injection devices, in particular pen-type injectors have to meet a number of user-specific requirements. For instance, with patient's suffering chronic diseases, such like diabetes, the patient may be physically infirm and may also have impaired vision. Suitable injection devices especially intended for home medication therefore need to be robust in construction and should be easy to use. Furthermore, manipulation and general handling of the device and its components should be intelligible and easy understandable. Moreover, a dose setting as well as a dose dispensing procedure must be easy to operate and has to be unambiguous.
Typically, such devices comprise a housing including a particular cartridge holder, adapted to receive a cartridge at least partially filled with the medicament to be dispensed. Such devices further comprise a drive mechanism, usually having a displaceable piston rod which is adapted to operably engage with a piston of the cartridge. By means of the drive mechanism and its piston rod, the piston of the cartridge is displaceable in a distal direction or dispensing direction and may therefore expel a predefined amount of the medicament via a piercing assembly, which is to be releasably coupled with a distal end section of the housing of the injection device.
The medicament to be dispensed by the injection device is provided and contained in a multi-dose cartridge. Such cartridges typically comprise a vitreous barrel sealed in distal direction by means of a pierceable seal and being further sealed in proximal direction by the piston. With reusable injection devices an empty cartridge is replaceable by a new one. In contrast to that, injection devices of disposable type are to be discarded when the medicament in the cartridge has been dispensed or used-up.
Existing and commercially distributed pen-injectors may be equipped with cartridges providing a predefined volume for a liquid medicament, e.g. 3 ml. The injection devices are typically configured to provide user-operated variable setting of a dose and subsequent dispensing or delivery thereof. Typically, a dose can be selected and dispensed in discreet steps of e.g. one or several International Units (IU). Most injection devices on the market are configured and designed for use of grown up patients.
In the field of pediatric treatment it is desirable to reduce the dose of medicaments and to administer non-integer amounts of IU to a patient. This requires smaller dose increments to be selectable. It is therefore desirable to set and to dispense doses having a size of less than one IU, e.g. of half units. Hence, it is desirable to provide dose setting with increments of half units or less in order to increase dosing accuracy and to allow for a finely segmented, precise setting and dispensing of doses of a particularly small size.
In order to meet these requirements existing injection devices require modifications.


A reusable concrete spacer sleeve comprises a substantially cylindrical body having a plurality of inwardly extending fins. The sleeve is placed over a vertical drain pipe prior to pouring a concrete floor. After the concrete has set, the sleeve is removed, leaving an annular space around the pipe for accommodating a flange. A lid may be fitted onto the sleeve to prevent debris or other foreign matter from entering the pipe or the annular space around the pipe.

This invention relates to the plumbing trade, and in particular to an improved apparatus and method for finishing a drain pipe so as to bring it even with the level of a poured concrete floor.
In residential and commercial construction, drain pipes are used to direct wastes from a sink or toilet into the sewer below. Where a concrete floor is used, vertical drain pipes are installed prior to the pouring of the concrete floor. After the concrete floor has been poured, the drain pipe usually extends several inches or more above the level of the concrete floor. It then becomes necessary to reduce the level of the drain pipe to bring it even with the floor.
The conventional method for bringing a drain pipe even with a concrete floor is difficult and time consuming. First, concrete is chiseled out from around the pipe to expose part of the pipe below floor level. Next, the pipe is cut off below floor level. Finally, a glued closet fitting is attached to the end of the pipe so as to bring the pipe level with the level of the concrete floor.
While this method has been used in the past, there exists a need for an easier and less time consuming way to finish a drain pipe so as to bring it even with the level of a concrete floor.


The present invention generally relates to a MEMS device in which silicon residues from the adhesion promoter material are reduced or even eliminated from the cavity floor. The adhesion promoter is typically used to adhere sacrificial material to material above the substrate. The adhesion promoter is the removed along with then sacrificial material. However, the adhesion promoter leaves silicon based residues within the cavity upon removal. The inventors have discovered that the adhesion promoter can be removed from the cavity area prior to depositing the sacrificial material. The adhesion promoter which remains over the remainder of the substrate is sufficient to adhere the sacrificial material to the substrate without fear of the sacrificial material delaminating. Because no adhesion promoter is used in the cavity area of the device, no silicon residues will be present within the cavity after the switching element of the MEMS device is freed.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a micro electro-mechanical system (MEMS) device and a method for its fabrication.
2. Description of the Related Art
MEMS devices typically include a switching element that is movable between multiple positions, such as between a position in close contact with an electrode and a position spaced from the electrode. FIGS. 1A-1D are schematic cross-sectional views of a MEMS device 100 at various stages of fabrication according to the prior art. The MEMS device 100 includes a substrate 102 having a plurality of electrodes 104, 106, 108 embedded therein. A dielectric layer 110 is disposed over the substrate 102 and electrodes 104, 106, 108.
For MEMS that utilize an organic polymer as their sacrificial material, the adhesion of the first layer of the sacrificial material to underlying dielectrics is typically low. In order to fix the low adhesion issue, a silicon polymer is often added to the polymer system. However, the Si, upon removal of the organic sacrificial material, can leave residues behind that can be detrimental to the performance of the MEMS device. As an alternative to adding silicon to the sacrificial material, an independent adhesion promoter material can be used. The adhesion promoter is coated over the substrate, either through a spin-on or CVD type process, prior to the coating of the organic sacrificial material. If inorganic material is used as the sacrificial material, an adhesion promoter would not be utilized.
An adhesion promoter layer 112 is then deposited over the dielectric layer 110. The adhesion promoter layer 112 is used to adhere sacrificial material thereon. A first sacrificial material layer 116A is then deposited on the adhesion promoter layer 112. The first sacrificial material layer 116A is an organic sacrificial material comprising carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. The first sacrificial material layer 116A, the adhesion promoter layer 112 and the dielectric layer 110 are then patterned to expose the electrode 104. As shown in FIG. 1B, an electrical conductive material is then deposited and patterned to form the switching element 118. A second sacrificial material layer 116B is then deposited over the switching element 118. The second sacrificial material layer 116B and the first sacrificial material layer 116A are then patterned using standard semiconductor processing techniques. The cavity 114 is bound by a roof 120, walls 122 and the dielectric layer 110 as shown in FIG. 1C.
As shown in FIG. 1D, the first and second sacrificial material layers 116A, 116B as well as the adhesion promoter layer 112 are then removed to free the switching element 118 within the cavity 114 so that the switching element 118 may move from a position spaced from the electrode 106 to a position in close proximity to the electrode 106 (i.e., in contact with the dielectric layer 110) as shown by arrow "A". The first and second sacrificial material layers 116A, 116B are removed by etching using an H2/O2 chemistry introduced through a release hole (not shown) formed in the roof 120 or in through a hole in the side of the cavity. Any silicon contained in the organic sacrificial material would not be etched and would thus remain in the cavity as residues 124. The residues 124 are believed to be remnants of the adhesion promoter layer 112 or silicon that may be present in the sacrificial material. Specifically, silicon present in the adhesion promoter layer 112 or within the sacrificial material may lead to nanoscopic silicon (i.e., silicon with a vacancy in the 1 s orbital), which is very prone to charging. The residues 124 can interfere with the MEMS device 100 performance by mechanically impeding the switching element 118 from moving into close proximity to the electrode 106. The residue can also alter the electrical switching behavior of the MEMS device 100 by storing charge within the silicon that results in a hysteresis loop narrowing, where the difference between the pull-in voltage applied to electrode 108 which causes the cantilever it be pulled down and that at which the cantilever releases back up, gets smaller.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a MEMS device and a method for its manufacture in which residues do not interfere with device performance.

Elimination of silicon residues from MEMS cavity floor


The invention provides anti-theophylline antibodies and methods of using the same.

Hapten-binding antibodies can be applied as capturing modules for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. For example, hapten-bound entities such as fluorophores, chelating reagents, peptides, nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, nanoparticles, and many other agents can react with hapten-binding antibodies and antibody derivatives. This enables effective detection of such 'payloads', as well as capturing, accumulation at desired locations, crosslinking and other antibody-mediated effects. Since the features and composition of haptens may influence the composition and "behavior" of hapten-bound entities (incl. size, solubility, activity, biophysical properties, PK, biological effects and more), it is highly desired to develop a variety of different hapten-binding entities. Thereby, it is possible to match a selected hapten with a given payload to generate optimized hapten conjugates. Subsequently, optimal hapten-binding entities can be combined with said conjugates to generate optimal antibody-hapten-payload complexes. It is further desired to have hapten-binding entities such as antibody derivatives which are humanized. This enables applications with significantly reduced risk of interference such as immunogenicity in therapeutic applications.
In WO 2010/119704 antibodies that specifically bind to a beta oligomers and use thereof is reported. Novel competitive assay for theophylline and reagent for use therein is reported in U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,226. In WO 2010/045388 the use of MMP-9 and MMP-12 binding proteins for the treatment and prevention of systemic sclerosis is reported. Particle based electrochemiluminescent assays are reported in U.S. Pat. No. 6,881,536.

Anti-theophylline antibodies and methods of use


Metal nanovoids are grown on a stretchable plastic film. The fabrication proceeds by assembling the template of a single layer of close packed silica spheres on a conducting substrate. A conducting layer is then electrochemically grown on top to form a master. An elastomeric precursor is then coated on the master (e.g. by spinning) and is cured before removal. The resulting plastic film is then coated with a thin (e.g. 20 nm) layer of noble metal (e.g. Au, Ag or Cu), to produce a flexible film. Applications for such tuneable structural color would be coating of injection molded artifacts, such as mobile phone covers, car bodies to form an iridescent skin, wall and fascia decorations, loudspeaker coatings, architectural tent coverings, and clothing.

For 5 years, we have been exploring the use of self-assembly and templating to create metal nanostructures which have strong structural colour resonances [1]. These depend on light trapped near the surface of 3D sculpted noble metals on size scales from 100 nm to 10 μm. We have also been developing self-assembled plastic photonic crystals for structural colour applications.[2] Also, we have been developing spherical microcavities like these to demonstrate resonant trapping of specific colours of light [3].
The present invention combines these three ideas together to make metal structures embedded in elastic films, whose colour changes when stretched.

Colour change material and method of manufacture thereof

Cambridge Enterprise Limited of the Old Schools


A load divider dolly has: a chassis; ground engaging wheels; a tow vehicle mount pivotally mounted to the chassis; a variable volume element mounted to adjust a pitch angle between the chassis and the tow vehicle mount; and a pressure control system configured to, during use, supply and exhaust fluid such as gas to and from the variable volume element to distribute load between a tow vehicle and the ground engaging wheels of the load divider dolly.

A load-carrying vehicle may be a truck or trailer unit, such as a dump or pickup truck. Such a vehicle may incorporate a tag axle at a rear end of the vehicle to increase a maximum payload rating of the truck or trailer, and to improve safety while driving the vehicle along a road surface. Some tag axles are retractable or otherwise liftable off the ground surface when not in use. Some tag axles incorporate shock absorbers. Some tag axles pivot when advancing through a valley or cresting a hill.

Load divider dolly with active pitch angle adjustment for on-the-fly load distribution


A ventilated cat litter box for ventilating cat litter and simultaneously keeping the surrounding area litter free. The ventilated cat litter box includes a box, which is generally rectangular in shape. The box has a top portion, a bottom portion, a middle portion, a first wall, a second wall, a third wall, and a fourth wall. A screen covers the bottom portion of the box and is parallel to the bottom portion. A container, rectangular in shape, is located within the box upon the screen. An arched doorway is located in the first wall. A rectangular cavity is located in the top portion of the box. An electric fan is mounted in the inside of the box and is adjacent to the cavity. An actuating device is operationally coupled to the electric fan. A power source is operatively coupled to the actuating device. A ventilation port is attached to the cavity whereby the port extends upwardly away from the box. An exhaust tube has a first end and a second end. The first end is removably connected to the ventilation port.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ventilated litter boxes and more particularly pertains to a new ventilated cat litter box for ventilating cat litter and simultaneously keeping the surrounding area litter free.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of ventilated litter boxes is known in the prior art. More specifically, ventilated litter boxes heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,655,478; 5,134,972; U.S. Pat. No. Des. 331,649; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,044,325; 5,511,513; and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 350,422.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new ventilated cat litter box. The inventive device includes a box, which is generally rectangular in shape. The box has a top portion, a bottom portion, a middle portion, a first wall, a second wall, a third wall, and a fourth wall. A screen covers the bottom portion of the box and is parallel to the bottom portion. A container, rectangular in shape, is located within the box upon the screen. An arched doorway is located in the first wall. A rectangular cavity is located in the top portion of the box. An electric fan is mounted in the inside of the box and is adjacent to the cavity. An actuating means is operationally coupled to the electric fan. A power source is operatively coupled to the actuating means. A ventilation port is attached to the cavity whereby the port extends upwardly away from the box. An exhaust tube has a first end and a second end. The first end is removably connected to the ventilation port.
In these respects, the ventilated cat litter box according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of ventilating cat litter and simultaneously keeping the surrounding area litter free.