A bipolar-type semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate on which a collector layer of a first conductivity type, a multilayered structure having a first insulating layer, a first semiconductor layer for connecting a base region, containing an impurity of a second conductivity type, and a second insulating layer, which are sequentially stacked on the semiconductor substrate, in which a first opening is formed in the first semiconductor layer and the second insulating layer, and a second opening having a smaller width than that of the first opening is formed in a position of the first insulating layer corresponding to the bottom portion of the first opening, a second semiconductor layer of the first conductivity type constituting a collector or emitter region formed in the second opening on the impurity-doped layer, a third semiconductor layer of the second conductivity type formed in the first opening, in which a first portion on the second semiconductor layer constitutes a base region, and a second portion adjacent to the first semiconductor layer constitutes a base connecting region, a third insulating layer formed on the base connecting region, and an impurity-doped region of the first conductivity type formed on a surface region of the third semiconductor layer surrounded by the third insulating layer, the impurity-doped region constituting an emitter or collector region.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to a bipolar transistor which can be micropatterned and manufactured in self-alignment, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
High performance bipolar transistors have been demanded in various application fields such as computers and various analog circuits. Recently, in a manufacturing technique for bipolar transistors, a self alignment technique for base and emitter regions has been proposed. An example of this technique is described in Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 61-208872.
FIGS. 1A to 1D are sectional views showing the steps in manufacturing a bipolar transistor by a self alignment technique. As shown in FIG. 1A, an n.sup.+ -type buried layer 2 is formed in a p-type silicon substrate 1, and an n-type silicon layer 3 is epitaxially grown on the p-type silicon substrate 1. Then, an SiO.sub.2 layer 4 is selectively formed in n-type silicon layer 3 to reach the n.sup.+ -type buried layer 2 and n-type silicon layer 3 by, e.g., a LOCOS process. Thereafter, a polycrystalline silicon layer 5a is formed on the entire surface by, e.g., a CVD process. After boron ions are implanted in the polycrystalline silicon layer 5a, predetermined annealing is performed to diffuse the implanted boron ions in the silicon layer 3, thus forming a p-type base region 6. Then, a polycrystalline silicon layer 5b is formed on the polycrystalline silicon layer 5a by the CVD process, thus forming a polycrystalline silicon layer 5 having an increased thickness. Thereafter, boron ions are implanted in the polycrystalline silicon layer 5 so that the layer 5 has a p-type conductivity.
As shown in FIG. 1B, after an SiO.sub.2 layer 7 is formed on the polycrystalline silicon layer 5 by the CVD process, a photoresist layer 8 having a predetermined pattern is formed on the SiO.sub.2 layer 7. Using the photoresist layer 8 as a mask, the SiO.sub.2 layer 7 and the polycrystalline silicon layer 5 are vertically etched in sequence by reactive ion etching (RIE), to form a groove. Thereafter, the photoresist layer 8 is removed. Then, predetermined annealing is performed to activate the boron ions in the polycrystalline silicon layer 5.
As represented by a broken line in FIG. 1C, an SiO.sub.2 layer 9 is formed on the entire surface by the CVD process. Then, the SiO.sub.2 layer 9 is vertically and anisotropically etched by reactive ion etching to remove the SiO.sub.2 layer 9 except for a portion 10 formed on a side wall of the groove.
As shown in FIG. 1D, a polycrystalline silicon layer 11 is formed on the entire surface by the CVD process. An n-type impurity such as As is heavily implanted in a portion of the base region 6, surrounded by the side-wall SiO.sub.2 layer 10, through the polycrystalline silicon layer 11. Then, predetermined annealing is performed to form an emitter region 13. The emitter region 13 is formed in self-alignment with the polycrystalline silicon layer 5, serving as a base connecting electrode, and an inner base region 14. Upon this annealing, a large amount of boron ions contained in the base connecting electrode 5 are diffused in the base region 6 and the silicon layer 3. As a result, p.sup.+ -type graft base region 14 is integrally formed around the inner base region 12. Thereafter, predetermined emitter, base, and collector electrodes are formed, thus forming an npn bipolar transistor.
According to the above-mentioned conventional method, in the step shown in FIG. 1D, annealing is performed in order to diffuse impurities, and p.sup.+ -type graft base region 14 is formed. Therefore, the base-collector capacity is increased due to the presence of the graft base region. As a result, power consumption is increased, and it becomes difficult to achieve high-speed operation. Though the emitter region is formed in self-alignment, opening formed in polycrystalline silicon layer 5 and SiO.sub.2 layer 7 in the step shown in FIG. 1B is limited by a pattern dimension in photolighography. A columnar projection consisting of n-type region 3 and p-type region 6, which are surrounded by SiO.sub.2 layer 4 and formed in the step shown in FIG. 1A becomes larger in size because of mask alignment error. Thus, micro-fabricating of a bipolar transistor is restricted.

Bipolar transistor with side wall base contacts


A resin gear includes an annular metal bush, an annular resin member provided around the metal bush and having a tooth profile formed in an outer peripheral portion, and an elastic member provided between the metal bush and the resin member. The elastic member has a first overhanging portion overhanging one end surface of the metal bush and one end surface of the resin member outward in an axial direction of the resin gear.

Resin gears are lightweight, excellent in quietness, and widely used as, for example, vehicular or industrial gears. A resin gear including a metal bush, a resin member provided around the metal bush and having a tooth profile formed in an outer peripheral portion, and an elastic member provided between the metal bush and the resin member is known as a resin gear (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).


A disk (6) is horizontally rotated a half-turn by a motor (7) in a rotational direction and, then, is rotated a half-turn in an opposite rotational direction. Two servomotors (8, 9) are symmetrically disposed, on an upper surface of the disk (6), with respect to a rotating shaft of the disk (6). Driving shafts (22, 23), driven by the two servomotors (8, 9), downwardly extend through the disk (6), and move hanging members (K, M), respectively, in upward-and-downward directions. Two hanging members (K, M) are provided, at their lower ends, with clampers (32), respectively. The clampers (32) are each provided, at their bottom surfaces, with a suction pad (35), and are provided, at their upper surfaces, with pneumatic cylinders (28, 29). The pressure of the compressed air supplied to the pneumatic cylinder is adjusted by a pressure regulating device (38).

The present invention relates to an IC handler able to transfer an IC device. Particularly, it relates to an IC handler able to rotationally transfer an IC device.
As an IC handler which transfers an IC device to an IC socket and removes an inspected IC device from an inspecting device, a pick-and-place type, a rotary index type, and a cam index type are well known.
An electric cable or an air tube is often attached to the IC handler to supply energy, such as electricity or compressed air, necessary to carry out a rotating operation or a clamping operation. An index table using a number of cams are used to prevent the electric cable or the air tube from being twisted during operation. In the index table, cam surfaces are locally worn in proportion to the period of use, and the worn portion results in chattering, and reduces the positioning accuracy, thus leading to overrun or the like, or breakage of the IC device to be inspected or the IC socket.
In an IC handler which rotates only in one direction, the attachment of the electric cable or the air tube is complicated and expensive. Accordingly, a number of cams are used to clamp the IC device when inspection. However, it is difficult, in such a IC handlers, to make a fine adjustment and to easily adjust the pressure to be applied to an optimum value.
Thus, the IC handler in which the pressure applied to the clamper cannot be adjusted, or in which there is no function to prevent overload, has a problem that an inspection measuring board can be damaged when two overlapped IC devices are abnormally supplied. Moreover, there is a possibility that when a plurality of IC devices which are aligned and supplied at one time are inspected by means of an U-shaped spring probe, the latter cannot sufficiently absorb irregularity in height of the IC socket or in thickness of the IC device. Also, recent spring probes whose compression stroke is short sometimes cannot be used.
In view of the above problems, the object of the present invention is to provide a simple IC handler in which wear tends not to occur, so that the accuracy can be maintained for a long time.
Another object of the present invention is to make the applied pressure adjustable.
According to the present invention, there is provided an IC handler, comprising
a disk which is rotatably supported in a horizontal plane;
two controllable motors disposed on an upper surface of the disk;
two driving shafts that downwardly extend through the disk, and that are driven by the two motors respectively, said driving shafts being disposed symmetrically with respect to an axis of rotation of the disk;
two hanging members that are engaged with the two driving shafts respectively via driving force converting mechanisms, and that are upwardly and downwardly moved by the rotation of the driving shafts;
a clamper attached to a lower end of each of the hanging members;
a suction pads attached to lower ends of the clampers; and
a disk driving motor that can rotate the disk in a first rotational direction and a second rotational direction opposite to the first rotational direction, wherein
after the disk is stopped at a first angular position for a predetermined period, the disk is rotated in the first rotational direction, to a second angular position which is deviated from the first angular position by 180 degrees, by means of the disk driving motor and, after the disk is stopped at the second angular position for a predetermined period, the disk is rotated, in the second rotational direction, to the first angular position;
during the stop at the first angular position, the clamper engaged with one of the driving shafts carries out a first operation, and the clamper engaged with the other driving shaft carries out a second operation; and
during the stop at the second angular position, the clamper engaged with said one driving shaft carries out the second operation, and the clamper engaged with the other driving shaft carries out the first operation.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a pneumatic cylinder is provided above the clampers; and pressurized air is supplied from an air pressure supplying means to the pneumatic cylinder via a pressure regulator which can finely adjust the pressure.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the disk driving motor is located on the outside of the disk and rotates the disk via a belt.
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to accompanying drawings.


Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described, which may be employed for wireless communication in contention-based (e.g., unlicensed or shared) spectrum. An aperiodic channel state information (CSI) reference signals (RS) may be used for channel quality indicator (CQI) measurements, for example. A user equipment (UE) may receive signaling to indicate the presence of CSI RS and may receive the CSI RS according to the signaling. The UE may then compute a CQI based on CSI RS, and transmit the CQI in a report to a base station. In some examples, a quasi-periodic CSI RS is used. For instance, the UE may determine a different location for the CSI RS. For example, the UE may identify a periodic anchor subframe, and locate the CSI RS based on constant offset from the anchor subframe. Periodic or a clear-channel-assessment-exempt transmission based CSI RS examples are also described.

The following relates generally to wireless communication and more specifically to channel state information (CSI) reference signals (RS) in contention-based spectrum.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system). A wireless multiple access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In some cases, a wireless device may operate in unlicensed, shared, or other contention-based spectrum. Such a wireless device may also operate (e.g., receive) transmissions using multiple layers based on multiple antenna ports. If the number of layers exceeds a threshold, common or cell-specific reference signals (CRS) may be insufficient to provide suitable CSI. This may result in lost packets or other communications disruptions. Employing a CSI RS for use in computing CSI may help alleviate such issues; but systems utilizing CSI RS may need to account for specific issues that arise in the context of contention-based spectrum.

Channel state information reference signals in contention-based spectrum


A light diffusion cell for laser light where in a transparent cell in which a liquid can be sealed, a fine particle dispersion in which fine particles having an average particle size of 100 nm or more and 1.5 μm or less are colloidally dispersed in a liquid medium transmitting light, a same light diffusion cell including a reflection mechanism recursively using reflection light of incident light, a laser light source device including the light diffusion cell and a semiconductor laser light source and an image display device including the light diffusion cell or the laser light source device, and the light diffusion cell significantly reduces or removes speckle noise of semiconductor laser light. In addition, the light diffusion cell has an easy constitution, occupies a smaller volume and can be easily incorporated in any type of image display device using laser light. Therefore, it is possible to significantly reduce or remove speckle noise without large-sizing of an image display device using laser light or a higher cost-up.

Recently, there is a trend to use a semiconductor laser for a light source of an image display device. Conventionally as these light sources, extra high pressure mercury lamps, LEDs and the like have been used. However, improvement of color reproductivity and expansion of color representation range are always required. The laser light obtained by induced emission has a very narrow band emission spectrum, whereby it has an excellent ability to represent a pure color. In addition, when 3 primary colors (red, green and blue) by the laser are combined, it is excellent in terms of the capability of representation in a very high color range compared with conventional light sources. Therefore, it is an attractive light source for image display devices. And at present, the problems of the size of visible light laser generator, power consumption, cost and the like which were obstacles to practical use have been overcome, and in practice, large-size rear-projection televisions capable of representing in a wide color range where a semiconductor laser is a light source are produced.
It is known that when a combination of 3 kinds of laser light (for example, blue: 460 nm, green: 532 nm, red: 635 nm) corresponding to the above-mentioned 3 primary colors is used, a range of 150 to 170% of the NTSC color range can be secured and pictures closer to the real thing than those on any other existing type of display can be obtained. For example, the color range which CRT displays can represent using a cathode ray tube is 60 to 70% of the NTSC color range and superior compared with the liquid crystal display, but it is considerably narrow compared with the color range which the combination of the above-mentioned 3 kinds of laser light can represent.
In this regard, the above-mentioned NTSC color range is based on the standard for the color range of analog television, designed by National Television System Committee (NTSC) in the U.S.A.
As mentioned above, the combination of the 3 primary colors of laser light is excellent in representing the color range but poses the problem of generating speckle noise when applied as it is. Specifically, the light emitted from a laser light source is a coherent light which is very susceptible to interference, whereby its application to image displays as it is results in constant occurrence of light ununiformity called speckle noise which is a flickering of the bright part and the dark part all over the image finally projected. Therefore, when the laser light is used as it is, the visibility ends up being worse compared with image display devices using a light source conventionally used. In order to improve that and to use a semiconductor laser as a light source for image display devices, it is essential to prevent adverse effects on visibility by reducing or removing speckle noise so as to make its light more incoherent. In this regard, the projected light without speckle noise is called incoherent light.
Various solutions to this problem have been proposed. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a method of moving a speckle pattern of the image projected on a screen by passing the laser light through a rotating diffusion element (for example, ground glass). When the rotating speed of the diffusion element is high enough, the eyes of viewers cannot detect the speckle and the speckle seems to disappear. However, it is necessary to mount a mechanism of rotating the diffusion element on an image display device, leading to a disadvantage of complication for the image display device.
Patent Literature 2 describes a device of the type which displays images by scanning on the screen using a laser light. In said device, by using a lenticular lens where cylindrical lenses are periodically arrayed in the scanning direction on the screen, a light incident angle on the focus of the lens is changed in accordance with the advancement of scanning laser light and a speckle pattern of the light projected on the screen is also changed, resulting in reduction of speckle noise. This device has an advantage of not using a driving mechanism but inevitably needs a special screen for projection. In addition, it has many limits such that it can be used only for scanning-type devices.
Patent Literature 3 and Patent Literature 4 disclose a technique to produce a fiber bundle element leading to reduction of speckle noise of laser light. It is characterized by using a fiber bundle consisting of many optical fibers, where the difference in length of any two optional fibers is larger than the coherence length of a light source. A larger number of optical fibers leads to more reduction of speckle noise. Therefore, in order to get a fiber bundle with good performance, dozens to hundreds of optical fibers different in length are required. This is thought to lead to a high manufacturing cost. In addition, a relatively large volume seems to be required in order to incorporate said bundle into a device and this cannot be said to be advantageous for incorporating into an image display device using a conventional laser light source.
Patent Literature 5 relates to a laser lighting optical device and discloses a method for reducing speckle noise by split-reflecting a light flux in its optical system using a plurality of stepped reflecting mirrors with optical path difference. In this method, spatial coherence is reduced by making the optical path length of the split light flux longer than the coherent length. As a result, a light flux with low interference is synthesized and speckle noise is reduced. In this method, a more split-number of the stepped reflecting mirror leads to a larger reduction effect on speckle noise. Therefore, it is considered that as the reduction effect is increased, a larger volume of the part removing speckles is required, and the same problem as in the case of the fiber bundle in Patent Literature 3 and Patent Literature 4 seems to be posed.
Patent Literature 6 discloses a method for reducing speckle noise, using a device comprising both a diffusion element into which a fluid component consisting of a fine particle dispersoid and a translucent dispersion medium are sealed and a fine particle oscillation-applying means by micro oscillation of the dispersoid (fine particle) by the oscillation-applying means when coherent laser light is passed through the element. In this method, said micro oscillation is forcibly performed by change in the alternating electric field, change in the magnetic field, or the ultrasonic wave (and so on). The speckle pattern of the diffused laser light diffused by said micro oscillation of said fine particles randomly changes at a high speed. People cannot detect the speckle pattern randomly changing at a high speed and speckle noise is thus removed. This method has, compared with the method requiring a mechanically driving part in Patent Literature 1 and the like, a possibility to make it smaller. However, said Patent Literature 6 provides no specific, technical disclosure relating to the average particle size of fine particles, the strength of electric field, magnetic field or ultrasonic wave, concentration of the fine particle in a dispersion and the like, nor practical disclosure about the way of controlling these and the degree of removing speckle, resulting in disclosure of nothing more than an idea.

Light diffusion cell for laser light, light source device and image display device using same


A stretchable display device includes: a stretchable substrate; a plurality of light emitting units on the stretchable substrate; and a plurality of reflective mirrors positioned to correspond to the light emitting units, respectively, and reflecting light emitted from the light emitting units, respectively.

1. Field
Embodiments are directed to a stretchable display device. More particularly, the embodiments relate to a stretchable display device that can be stretched.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a stretchable display device is a display device with a variable image display area that changes, if necessary. A stretchable display device may use a stretchable substrate made of a polymer and an organic light emitting element for displaying an image on the substrate.


A method for manufacturing an implantable medical device, the method including the steps of: (a) providing in a vapor deposition chamber a substrate including a substrate material, an anodic source made of an anodic material, and a cathodic source made of a cathodic material, the anodic and cathodic materials forming a galvanic couple; (b) operating the vapor deposition chamber to vaporize simultaneously the anodic and cathodic materials from the anodic and cathodic sources and depositing the vaporized cathodic and anodic materials on the substrate to produce a coated substrate including the substrate material coated by a bioresorbable coating; and (c) obtaining the implantable medical device from the coated substrate. Also, a stent, a medical device and a bioresorbable material obtained with vapor deposition of materials forming a galvanic couple.

Bioresorbable stents have been shown to be advantageous in the treatment of many medical conditions. Many stents take the form of a scaffold, with some having relatively small struts, for example struts of a few tens of microns. One method of promoting bioresorption in a stent is to manufacture the stent out of particles or grains of different materials that form a galvanic couple. However, such particles need to be relatively small due to the small size of the struts in many stents. Current method of manufacturing such stents result in particles of one or more microns, which may negatively affect the material properties of the stent as the grains are only slightly smaller than the structural elements of the stent. Other types of bioresorbable implantable medical devices and coatings for such devices also present the same inconvenients.
Accordingly, there is a need in the industry to provide an improved bioresorbable stent and other bioresorbable medical devices, along with methods of manufacturing such medical devices and materials having suitable bioresorption properties. An object of the present invention is therefore to provide such devices, methods and materials.

Bioresorbable materials, bioresorbable medical devices, bioresorbable coatings for implantable medical devices and method of manufacturing the same using vapor deposition


A transaction engine includes a multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) module that accesses a latch-free hash table that includes respective hash table entries that include respective buckets of respective bucket items. The bucket items represent respective records, the respective bucket items each including a value indicating a temporal most recent read time of the item and a version list of descriptions that describe respective versions of the respective records, the MVCC module performing timestamp order concurrency control, using the latch-free hash table. Recovery log buffers may be used as cache storage for the transaction engine.

Users of electronic devices frequently need to access database systems to obtain various types of information and/or perform various operations. Many different techniques have been devised for controlling storage and retrieval of data items. For example, some recent hardware platforms have exploited recent hardware developments such as multi-core processors, multi-tiered memory hierarchies, and secondary storage devices such as flash, in an effort to provide higher performance for electronic devices.

High performance transactions in database management systems


A driver device for a laser includes a control device configured to generate a control current, an NPN differential amplifier connected to the control device and configured to superimpose a modulation current onto the control current to generate a combined current, and a laser activation switch coupled to the output of the NPN differential amplifier, the laser activation switch operating the laser utilizing the combined current. Also described herein is a communication system including a driver device.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to power supplies, and more particularly to a driver device for supplying power to a laser.
Optical communication systems typically utilize semiconductor diodes or lasers as the transmitter. An example of such a device is a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). Semiconductor lasers, including VCSELs, are operated above a threshold level which requires that a bias be applied to the device in order to maintain the laser in a lasing mode. In the lasing mode, a modulating signal is applied to the device centered about a set modulation current. This provides a modulated optical output signal.
Conventional driver circuits utilize both P-channel and N-channel devices to supply the modulating signal and the modulation current. For example, assume that the VCSEL is operational between a first power setting, wherein the VCSEL is lasing but at a reduced power level, and a second power setting, where the VCSEL is lasing at an increased power level. When the VCSEL is operated at the increased power setting, the P-channel device provides the maximum current to the VCSEL. However, when the VCSEL is operated at the reduced power level, the N-channel device steers a portion of the current to ground. As a result, a slower P-channel device is utilized to provide a constant current to enable the VCSEL to operate at the increased power level and the N-channel device is utilized to steer a portion of the current away from the VCSEL when the VCSEL is operated at the reduced power level.
As a result, the P-channel device generates the same relatively high current regardless of the operational mode of the VCSEL, thus increasing the power required to operate the VCSEL. Moreover, because the P-channel device is always active, the power dissipated by the VCSEL is relatively high. As communication systems become more complex and the quantity of VCSELs increase, the power consumption of the communication system also increases.
Therefore, a need remains for a VCSEL driver that is capable of operating at increased speeds while also supplying a modulated current to the VCSEL in a more energy efficient manner.

Driver for supplying modulated current to a laser


A device for connecting the grounding shield layer of a cable in a splice connection. A flat strap, such as a mesh of metallic wires, is wrapped at least 270.degree. around the shield layer. The ends of the strap or braid are folded over, forming two generally parallel tails. The central portion of the braid is secured to the shield with a constant force spring, and the free ends of the braid are fastened to the shield layer on the opposite side of the splice. A second braid may be used in a similar manner to bridge the connection across the splice. By providing two tails emanating from a single braid, current surges in the shield layer are divided along two current paths, reducing current density and minimizing failures in the cable shield connection.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electrical connectors for shielded cables, and more particularly to a metallic wire braid for connecting or terminating the grounding shield of high-current power cables.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical cables, such as those used for telephone lines, high voltage lines, cable television, etc., can develop faults or breaks in the line due to manufacturing defects or environmental factors. Faults occur both in underground and aerial cables. Rather than replacing an entire section of such a cable, it is expedient to expose a portion of the cable, repair or splice the fault, and place an enclosure about the splice. Splicing of electrical wires is similarly useful 20 in the placement of successive cable sections, and in cable terminations.
As shown in FIG. 1, the construction of coaxial cables, such as those used in high-voltage lines, typically includes a central conductor 1, a primary insulating layer 2, a shielded grounding layer 3, and an outer cable jacket 4. In splicing such cables, it is necessary to provide electrical continuity not only between the central conductors 1 of the two cables, but also between the sections of the grounding shields 3. One prior art connection technique for the splicing of cable shields requires the use of flat wire braids. One such prior art wire braid 5 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The braid 5 is simply wrapped around the shield 3 and held in place by adhesive tape, a constant force spring, or a metallic clamp. One end 6 of braid 5 is then connected to the shield of the other cable. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. (3M), assignee of the present invention, markets shield connectors, such as the SCOTCHLOK brand 4460 shield bond connector, which utilize flat braids (SCOTCHLOK is a trademark of 3M).
The integrity of the cable shield connection becomes particularly crucial when dealing with currents of 10,000 amperes or more. These currents may be caused by lightning surges (which may reach up to 30,000 amps), or by crossover currents in high-power cables. When such current levels are present, a poor shield connection may result in a failure of shield continuity due to excess current density. While prior art braid connectors provide a low-resistance electrical connection for cable shields (on the order of 2.5.times.10.sup.-4 ohm/foot), high current levels can nevertheless easily overload the braid. For example, the resistive power loss of a 20,000 amp current through a one foot braid surpasses 100 kilowatts. Thus, it is not surprising that reliable connections at these current levels have been extremely difficult to achieve.
One effort to alleviate this difficulty involves the provision of two separate current paths, specifically, two separate wire braids. Such a construction is used in 3M's QUICK TERM II shield termination kit (QUICK TERM is a trademark of 3M), which is depicted in FIG. 2. In this design, two braids or straps 7 and 8 are first laid along opposite sides of the cable. One end of braid 7 is fully wrapped around the first shield section 3 (i.e., at least 360.degree.). The other end of braid 7 is draped over the splice and connected to the second shield section 3' by fastening assembly 9. The second braid 8 is then wrapped over the first braid; in other words, there is no direct contact between braid 8 and shield 3. The other end of braid 8 is similarly draped over the splice and connected to shield 3' by another fastening assembly 9. The wrappings may be held in place by a constant force spring.
Theoretically, this construction would split the current between the two electrical paths, which would significantly reduce the destructive power loss. Unfortunately, however, this does not always occur in practice. For high level fault currents, the relationship of the impedance ratio of the two paths, to the current densities, is not necessarily linear. In other words, if the path through braid 8 is only slightly more resistive than that through braid 7, then much more current will flow through braid 7 than through braid 8. Of course, the path through braid 8 is more resistive, simply due to the fact that it is wrapped over braid 7, meaning that a failure in braid 7 is likely to occur, which could eventually lead to a complete failure of the shield connection.
In this regard, wrapping braid s directly against shield 3 (rather than around braid 7), does not overcome this problem, since this necessarily implies that the total length of braid 8 would be different from the total length of braid 7 and, accordingly, the impedances would also be different. This phenomenon may be intuitively understood by perceiving that, once an initial current path has been established in one of the braids, that path is preferred for the brief duration of the surge. It would, therefore, be desirable and advantageous to devise a method and apparatus which would overcome the above-mentioned limitations and minimize excess current densities across the shield connection.

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company


A system for analyzing an electronic circuit described by characterization data forms an interpolation/approximation function over an analysis interval for analyzing the electronic circuit. An edge detection is applied to the characterization data to determine edges in the data, with the detected edges as subinterval limits used to form subinterval functions which define the interpolation/approximation function. The interpolation/approximation function is continuously differentiable and monotonous in the subintervals.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to analyzing an electronic circuit described by characterization data, in particular, when an interpolation/approximation function over an analysis interval is formed from the characterization data to analyze the electronic circuit
2. Background Information
In the development of electronic circuits, an important consideration is to check whether the specified functionality conditions are satisfied by the electronic circuit or in parts of the electronic circuit in the various operating points. This means that the designer and the design system, for example a computer aided design (CAD) system, must be provided with the opportunity for access to characterization data of the electronic circuit.
Such characterization data of an electronic circuit typically depends on variables, each variable component representing a desired analysis characteristic of the electronic circuit, for example power input, voltage, current, temperature, input/output state, noise, or other variables. Characterization data of an electronic circuit is data, e.g. voltage, current, temperature, etc. of said electronic circuit, for describing or characterizing said electronic circuit. This characterization data is measured in the electronic circuit within the electronic design automation (EDA) process, or is derived by simulation and used in a subsequent analysis process or in the next development step. Since the volume of the characterization data is very comprehensive for an appropriate reproduction of the characteristics of the electronic circuit, a method is required which is able to characterize the behavior of the electronic circuit as closely as possible to reality by as small a data volume as possible within the shortest possible time. Various conventional methods exist for this purpose which will be briefly outlined in the following.
One variant consists in providing the CAD system with multi-dimensional tables containing the characterization data. However, a large data storage volume may be required.
For example, non-linear delay times in electronic circuits may be recorded as characterization data. The non linear delay model (NLDM), which is a forerunner form of scalable polynomial model (SPM), was developed which, for example, models a cell delay and an output edge as a function of an input edge and an output capacity in a look-up table.
It is possible to reduce the data volume, for example, by representing the characterization data as a function. In this case, multi-dimensional interpolation/approximation polynomials may be used to represent the characterization data, so that then only polynomial coefficients have to be stored for the further processing. To improve the accuracy, polynomials of a higher degree may be selected which, however, these higher order polynomials exhibit greater oscillations between support points and thus the significance of the polynomials with respect to the actual circuit behavior is reduced. Lagrange polynomials in particular generally exhibit considerable oscillations, mainly in the region of interval limits.
According to the description language delay calculation language (DCL) (IEEE 1481), the problem is solved by allowing any functions as base functions and thus the characterization data is reproduced with sufficient accuracy while observing specific characteristics, for example continuity and monotony. However, this is associated with the difficulty of finding suitable base functions, so that this method cannot be automated or can only be automated with difficulty.
According to another possible approach, a compensating spline is initially calculated via the characterization data, where spline is then reduced into portion-wise polynomials according to the procedure in CAD programs. By using splines, a smooth course of an interpolation/approximation function is achieved, even at interfaces between the polynomials defined in portions. In this case, no discontinuity points or kinks appear in the curve, even up to a derivation degree which depends on the degree of the spline. The procedure of this method is outlined in brief with reference to FIG. 4.
Block 401 symbolizes the algorithm entry point and Block 450 symbolizes the algorithm end point. In block 402, as initialization, a complete analysis interval is defined as a subinterval, over which a polynomial is produced. At block 404, data points are then introduced as interval limits which are already present in other variables. At block 406, an interpolation/approximation using third order polynomials is carried out by the method of least squares using weight factors allocated to the data points. Thereafter, at block 408, an interpolation/approximation error is determined, for example by the chi-square method, according to different aspects.
Depending on a subsequent first check in at block 410 as to whether the interpolation/approximation error falls below a predetermined bound, if this is the case, a second check is carried out at block 412 with respect to the reproduction of the monotony behavior of the electronic circuit by the calculated interpolation/approximation function. If the result of the first check at block 410 is negative, the procedure is continued with an equidistant interval division or combination at block 418 in regions of insufficient interpolation/approximation accuracy.
In the event of a negative outcome of the second check at block 412, auxiliary points which are weighted for the interpolation/approximation are introduced at block 414 or weights at existing points are modified. A test is then carried out in a third check at block 416 to ascertain whether the aforementioned measure was successful, and dependent thereon, with a negative outcome, the process is continued with the equidistant interval division or combination at block 418 or, with a positive outcome, the interpolation/approximation is continued at block 406. In the event of interval division or combination at block 418, a verification of a new interval division is then carried out at block 420 and subsequently the interpolation/approximation in 406 is also continued.
The iterative process described hitherto is terminated by the second check at block 412 ending in a positive result, i.e. the previously manually predetermined global monotony behavior of the electrical circuit is reproduced with sufficient accuracy by the interpolation/approximation function. In this case, the polynomial representation is simplified at block 420, the results are converted into a format which may be read by CAD systems (typically a polynomial format, for example the Liberty-SPM format) at block 422 and finally stored at block 424.
All the prior art methods do not adequately reproduce the monotony behavior of the characterization data of the electronic circuit by the interpolation/approximation function of said methods based on an interpolation/approximation method used, which is expressed, for example by oscillations or overshooting and/or undershooting oscillators in the interpolation/approximation function. Consequently, the interpolation/approximation function may have extreme points and inflection points where the actual monotony curve according to the electronic circuit has none, or it does not have any where the actual curve does have some. The previously manually predetermined global monotony behavior is considered using the example of the last mentioned method, although the cost of this is the iterative process, which is possibly intensive in terms of running time, at block 414 for the insertion of auxiliary points or the modification of weight factors to data points which are already present. As a result of the insertion of auxiliary points and due to the potentially large number of subintervals and function coefficients which are to be stored and are connected thereto, the amount of data to be further processed may become very extensive. Moreover, at the start the operator must preset whether the function to be approximated/interpolated is monotonous in respect of a variable. A further restriction is the fact that this pre-setting always applies to the entire (global) functional course. Data points are possibly also removed in order to improve the monotony behavior according to the actual behavior of the electronic circuit.
A wrongly reproduced monotony behavior of the electronic circuit by the interpolation/approximation function results in artifacts which occur in the curve leading to a maloperation in the subsequent programs of the EDA process. For example, the "slew degradation" is wrongly determined if the first derivation of the interpolation/approximation function does not correspond to the actual behavior of the electronic circuit, or it is optimized in wrong directions due to incorrect extreme and inflection points, or the optimization methods of the EDA process start to oscillate and thereby converge to produce an invalid solution.

System for analyzing an electronic circuit described by characterization data


The present application describes organic compounds of a general formula:

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to treating bacterial infections. In certain aspects, the invention pertains to treating infections caused by gram-negative bacteria. More specifically, the invention described herein pertains to treating gram-negative infections by inhibiting activity of UDP-3-O—(R-3-hydroxydecanoyl)-N-acetylglucosamine deacetylase (LpxC). The present invention provides small molecule inhibitors of LpxC, pharmaceutical formulations containing such inhibitors, methods of treating patients with such pharmaceutical formulations, and methods of preparing such pharmaceutical formulations and inhibitors. The inhibitors can be used to treat Gram-negative infections of patients alone and in combination with other antibacterials.
2. Background of the Invention
Over the past several decades, the frequency of antimicrobial resistance and its association with serious infectious diseases have increased at alarming rates. The increasing prevalence of resistance among nosocomial pathogens is particularly disconcerting. Of the over 2 million nosocomial infections occurring each year in the United States, 50 to 60% are caused by antimicrobial-resistant strains of bacteria. Thus, high rate of resistance increases the morbidity, mortality, and costs associated with nosocomial infections. In the United States, nosocomial infections are thought to contribute to or cause more than 77,000 deaths per year and cost approximately $5 to $10 billion annually. Among Gram-positive organisms, the most important resistant pathogens are methicillin-(oxacillin-)resistant Staphylococcus aureus, (3-lactam-resistant and multidrug-resistant pneumococci, and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. Important causes of Gram-negative resistance include extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) in Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis, high-level third-generation cephalosporin (Amp C) β-lactamase resistance among Enterobacter species and Citrobacter freundii, and multidrug-resistance genes observed in Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and Stenotrophomonas.
The problem of antibacterial resistance is compounded by the existence of bacterial strains resistant to multiple antibacterials. For example, Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates resistant to fluoroquinolones are virtually all resistant to additional antibacterials.
Thus there is a need for new antibacterials, particularly antibacterials with novel mechanisms of action. Most of the antibacterial discovery effort in the pharmaceutical industry is aimed at development of drugs effective against gram-positive bacteria. However, there is also a need for new gram-negative antibacterials. Gram-negative bacteria are in general more resistant to a large number of antibacterials and chemotherapeutic agents than are gram-positive bacteria.

Abstract: and salts, and isomers thereof, wherein R, R2 and R3 are defined in the specification. The compounds are useful for treating a gram-negative bacterial infection.


A contact lens and method for making the same provides a cosmetic effect using pearlescent pigment.

Contact lenses which yield a cosmetic effect, i.e., a change in the visual appearance of the wearer's eye, are well known and have been available commercially for many years. The principal object of many of these lenses is to improve the color of the iris or its texture. The appearance of an iris is relatively complex, showing multiple colors and textures (collectively referred to herein simply as "color", as in a "colored contact lens"). See, for example, Jahnke, U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,477. The appearance of the natural iris is not a simple solid color, but a structure comprising many lines and different colors. Some cosmetic lens wearers prefer a colored contact lens that duplicates this natural complexity. For these wearers, the more natural their eyes appear with the lens, the more appealing they find the cosmetic effect of the lens. Other cosmetic contact lens wearers are interested in a more striking eye change, and the contact lens patterns and colors that these customers prefer may deviate from a common natural looking eye in order to make their eyes more distinct. The more a contact lens can duplicate this complexity, the more appealing it is considered to be as a consumer product.
Colored contact lenses are commonly made in two ways. One is by bonding, or entrapping, a dye to a lens, such as diazo, triazo, or vat dyes, which permeate the lens. This method is considered limiting because only non-opaque dyes can be used. The resulting contact lens will be colored, but the entire lens still transmits significant amounts of light through the part of the lens covering the iris. This tends to produce generally subtle color changes, which reduces the utility of the lens to effect a cosmetic change with dark colored eyes, for instance.
Opaque lenses may be produced using vat, diazo or triazo dyes by first soaking a hydrophilic lens in a BaCI solution, removing the lens from the BaCI solution, soaking the lens in an H.sub.2 SO.sub.4 solution so that the barium precipitates with the sulfate ion to form BaSO.sub.4. Thereafter, the application of the vat, diazo or triazo dyes can produce an opaque color. This process, however, is extremely time consuming, involves many steps, and is difficult to scale.
The other common method for making a colored contact lens is by printing an ink-containing pigment (or pigments) to the surface of the lens. This can be by printing the ink directly on the surface of the lens, or on a casting cup which then transfers the printing to the lens. Printing is also considered somewhat limited due to the types of pigments that have been used to date. These pigments absorb and reflect light to give a cosmetic effect. Texture, for instance, is achieved by choosing the pattern(s) in which the ink is applied to the lens surface, and the number of ink colors applied. Current technology relies upon pigments that have limited or no characteristics other than direct absorption or reflection of light. There has been a continuing effort in the industry to improve colored contact lenses by printing pigments on the lens that give the cosmetic appearance that many consumers want, and attempting to achieve cosmetic effects that may have appeal such as a perception of depth, and unusual textural effects.


A pet waste disposal apparatus comprising a funnel shaped receptacle with a top open end for receiving pet waste and a bottom open end connectable to a sewage line via one or more plumbing adapters for discharging the pet waste. The apparatus further comprises a lid closure removably attached to the top open end of the receptacle and a water inlet on the exterior receptacle to receive from a hose supplying water from a water source and discharge pressurized water into the receptacle for flushing the pet waste.

Raising household pet animals often requires commitment from pet owners for feeding, tending and cleaning after their pets. Also, nowadays the living environment also is not very supportive for raising pets, for instance, people living in high-rise apartments and in houses without lawn areas, find it difficult to tend to pets and in some cases the living arrangements can also be unsafe for raising pets. Defecation or excretion of waste by pets such as dogs, for example, either indoors or outdoors has become an ever increasing problem. Pet owners have consequently been faced with the continuing problem of disposal of their pet's waste.
Attempts have been made to develop toilet systems to assist pet owners in the disposal of pet waste. One such type of pet toilet system allow waste to accumulate in a removable tray, which is not only unsanitary, but also creates undesirable odor and difficult to clean. Whereas other types of pet toilet requires more space and complicated systems which are neither economical nor feasible for pet owners. Therefore, indoor pet toilet systems that conveniently dispose of pet waste are desirable.
Hence, there still exists an unresolved need for a simple and efficient pet waste disposal system connectable to a sewage system of the building for quick and hygienic way of disposal of the pet waste.


A mobile terminal device includes: a housing; a touch panel-equipped display section; a sensor; and a control unit including a processor and, upon execution of a control program by the processor, functioning as a display control section, an operating region decision section, an operating region storage section, a specific inclination determination section, and a display change section. The operating region decision section determines, during holding of the housing with a user's one hand, an operating region on the screen of the display section reachable with an operating finger of the one hand from a trace of points of touch with the operating finger. When an inclination of the housing detected by the sensor is determined to be a specific inclination toward the operating finger by the specific inclination determination section, the display change section moves and displays a plurality of on-screen objects into and within the operating region.

The present disclosure relates to mobile terminal devices and methods for controlling the display of mobile terminal devices and particularly relates to a technique for improving the operability of a mobile terminal device with one hand.
In operating a mobile terminal device having a relatively large screen with a user's one hand, the fingers of the one hand often do not reach objects, such as buttons, located at ends of the screen. In such a case, touch gestures must be made on these buttons with the other hand, which gives inconvenience to the user against his/her desire to operate the mobile terminal device with one hand. For example, there is a technique in which when a user is operating a mobile terminal device with one hand, the grip force of the one hand applied to the housing of the mobile terminal device is detected and, if the detected value of the grip force is beyond a threshold, the display of the mobile terminal device is controlled to bring buttons unreachable with a user's operating finger close to the finger.


Aspects of the present disclosure relate to an apparatus comprising register circuitry implementing a plurality of registers and processing circuitry to perform data processing operations on data stored in said registers. The apparatus comprises store buffer circuitry to, responsive to a store instruction in respect of given data, temporarily store said given data prior to providing said given data to a memory. Responsive to receiving at the processing circuitry a request to perform a state-saving-triggering operation, the register circuitry is configured to capture in shadow registers of said register circuitry a state of a subset of registers of the plurality of registers, provide the captured state from the shadow registers to the memory.

The present technique relates to the field of processing devices.
Some processing devices have a set of registers, accessible to execution circuitry, for storing data that is undergoing processing operations. In some situations, for example when carrying out an interrupt, the contents of these registers may be stored in a storage such as a memory. The latency associated with performing this storage can cause a bottleneck in processing capacity.

Apparatus and method of capturing a register state


A method for controlling a power battery is provided. The method includes: detecting a maximum temperature and a minimum temperature of the plurality of single cells, a plurality of first temperatures of positive electrodes and/or a plurality of second temperatures of negative electrodes, and a plurality of third temperatures of cores; determining whether the plurality of first temperatures and/or the plurality of second temperatures are within a first temperature range; determining whether the plurality of third temperatures are within a second temperature range; managing the power battery; and determining that a connection failure occurs in the power battery if one of the plurality of first temperatures and/or one of the plurality of second temperatures is not within the first temperature range; and determining a core related failure if the third temperature of a first single cell is not within the second temperature range. Further, a system for controlling a power battery is provided.

At present, with the development of electric vehicles, a power battery, as an energy source of an electric vehicle, should be in a safe state. If a temperature of the power battery is too high or too low, or there are connection problems occurring in the power battery, the life of the power battery and the safety of the electric vehicle may be affected. Therefore, it is particularly important to control and monitor the power battery.

Method and system for controlling power battery


In a magnetic resonance angiography method with flow-compensated and flow-sensitive imaging and a magnetic resonance apparatus for implementing such a method, a first MR data set of the examination region is acquired with an imaging sequence in which vessels in the examination region are shown with high signal intensity, a second MR data set of the examination region with an imaging sequence in which the vessels in the examination region are shown with low signal intensity, and the angiographic magnetic resonance image is calculated in a processor by taking the difference of the first and second data set. The first data set is acquired with an imaging sequence with reduced flow sensitivity and the second data set is acquired with an imaging sequence with an increased flow sensitivity compared to the initial imaging sequence.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method to generate an angiographic magnetic resonance image of an examination region and a magnetic resonance system for implementing such a method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In magnetic resonance tomography there are multiple possibilities to show the blood vessels in angiograms that can either be based on a contrast agent-intensified signal acquisition, or acquired without contrast agent by using the effect of flowing magnetization during the image acquisition. Since not all examined persons tolerate the administration of contrast agent, magnetic resonance angiography that is not contrast agent-intensified is gaining importance.
In magnetic resonance angiography it is typically desirable to show only the arteries and to suppress the MR signal from the veins. In MR angiography that is not contrast agent-intensified, the method that is used depends on the desired examination region, i.e. on the blood flow conditions in this region. In peripheral body regions (for example the lower legs), the blood flow is typically slow. For MR angiography the pulsation of the arterial blood flow is used in order to generate MR angiograms that are not contrast agent-intensified. Typically an image acquisition technique is used in which blood delivers a high signal, i.e. a T2-weighted or T2/T1-weighted imaging frequency that is sensitive to flow. In such flow-sensitive imaging sequences, a quickly flowing magnetization delivers little signal; the vessels are dark. Such MR images with dark vessels are acquired in a data set in which the arterial flow is high, for example in the systoles of the cardiac cycle, which leads to an MR image with dark arteries, as desired.
Furthermore, an additional MR data set is acquired, for example in the diastoles during which the arteries ideally exhibit no flow or only a very slight flow, which leads to an MR image with bright arteries. By subtraction of the MR images that are acquired from the first and second data set, an MR angiography image is obtained that shows only the arteries. In the prior art it is known to use fast spin echo sequences for this purpose, for example, as is described in (among others) Miyazaki et al. in "Non-Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiography Using 3D ECG-Synchronized Half-Fourier Fast Spin Echo", Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 12(5): 776-783, 2000. This angiography technique could be improved by, for example, flow spoiler gradients being added in the readout direction, so the flowing spins are additionally dephased, which additionally intensifies the signal obliteration in the arteries in the acquisition during the diastole (see Miyazaki et al. "Peripheral MR Angiography: Separation of Arteries from Veins with Flow-spoiled Gradient Pulses in Electrocardiography-triggered Three-dimensional Half-Fourier Fast Spin-Echo Imaging", Radiology 227(3): 890-896, 2003). It is likewise known to use gradient echo-based imaging sequences for such angiography methods, for example sequences known as TrueFISP sequences in which the transverse magnetization is refocused by gradient moments in all spatial directions. In such TrueFISP-based methods, the necessary flow sensitization is achieved by a dephasing preparation before every data acquisition in the systole, as is described in (among others) Koktzoglou et al. in "Diffusion-Prepared Segmented Steady-State Free Precession: Application to 3D Black-Blood Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance of the Thoracic Aorta and Carotid Arterio Walls", Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 9(1): 33-42, 2007, and in Priest et al. in Proceedings ISMRM Toronto, Number 727, 2008. These methods, however, have the following disadvantage.
First, it has been shown in practice that it is very difficult for many patients to find a cardiac phase in which absolutely no flow occurs, such that the MR image with the bright flow signal often has regions with less signal or without signal in the arteries. This particularly applies for patients with rapid heart rates. Second, this type of angiography imaging is problematical, in particular in regions with fast flow. For example, with the aforementioned technique good results (i.e. good MR angiography images) can be achieved in the lower feet while it is more difficult to achieve the same result quality in the upper feet or the pelvis. The problem of signal obliterations in the arteries with high signal also occurs for patients with irregular heart beat since it is difficult to precisely determine the phase of the rapid flow during the systole and the phase of the low flow during the diastole.
In "Highly Accelerated Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiography using Ghost imaging" by R. R. Edelman et al. in Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 17, S. 272, 2009, it is described that a mixed raw data set is generated instead of a subtraction of the signals in the two cardiac phases. In this method (in the simplest 3D execution variant) the even k-space lines (for example in the kz-direction, thus in the slice direction) are filled with data set 1 and the odd k-space lines are filled with data set 2; the transformation can thereby already be implemented or not in the readout direction and phase coding direction. A modulation of signal portions in which the two data sets differ is hereby generated in this direction. After transformation into image space in the kz-direction or z-direction (typically by Fourier transformation), a doubled 3D data set is obtained, so to speak, in which both a type of averaged original image and a second image exist, the second image being spatially separate (i.e. displaced in the z-direction as what is known as a "ghost image") and representing the differences of the two data sets. This new method for combination of two data sets is described as advantageous compared to a traditional subtraction, particularly given the use of high acceleration factors in parallel imaging.
A third disadvantage is that the strong pulsing of the vessels leads to changes in the vessel diameter, which can lead to false results in taking the difference of the images of the systole and the diastole. A fourth disadvantage of the method described above is that EKG triggering is necessary during the image acquisition in order to correlate the image acquisition with the heart beat for the acquisition of the MR images during the systole and the diastole.
In fast imaging sequences based on spin echo, the inherent flow sensitivity is greatest in the direction of the readout gradient. One possibility to reduce the large flow effects in the image acquisition is to select the phase coding gradients along the flow direction. However, in this case it is more difficult to achieve a sufficient flow sensitivity in the data set in which the vessels should be shown dark. Moreover, in most applications the phase coding direction runs in the head-foot direction. In such acquisitions the body of the examined person runs further outside of the imaged field of view (FOV) so that the problem can occur that signals from outside of the field of view are detected, or what is known as phase oversampling must be used in order to prevent aliasing artifacts.

Magnetic resonance angiography with flow-compensated and flow-sensitive imaging


The present invention provides a device that provides relief for lower back pain and corrects bad posture. The back brace device comprises a plurality of belts having a rear side, a front side, and a first end removably securable to a second end. The rear side of at least one of the belts has an inflatable bladder that is controlled by an air pump. The device further comprises having a heating element and a vibration mechanism that can be turned on or off as desired by the user. The present invention is used by placing the belt around the waist of the user and securing the first and second ends to one another via one or more suitable fasteners. The bladder is then inflated in order to provide support to the back of the user.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to back brace, and in particular to one the helps correct back posture.
2. Description of Prior Art
Conventional back braces that are currently used to correct back posture do not provide relief from lower back pain and pressure. Some individual apply a heating pad or a cold compress to their lower back in order to provide temporary relief. However, these techniques are ineffective if the individual also desire to simultaneously correct his or her back posture.
There is still room for improvement in the art.


A communications device establishes a communications context for communicating data packets using a packet communications bearer from the communications device via the mobile communications network. A controller of the communications device is configured to identify that the communications device can enter a stasis state because no data packets are available for transmission for a predetermined time via the packet communications bearer or there are no data packets to receive via the packet communications bearer, to transmit a stasis state message to the mobile communications network, and to store information relating to the communications context associated with the packet communications bearer in a data store. The stored information can be used by the controller to re-establish the packet communications bearer to transmit and/or receive data packets using the packet communications bearer, the communications device thereby entering the stasis state.

Mobile communications systems continue to be developed to provide wireless communications services to a greater variety of electronic devices. In more recent years, third and fourth generation mobile telecommunication systems, such as those based on the 3GPP defined UMTS and Long Term Evolution (LTE) architectures have been developed to support more sophisticated communications services to personal computing and communications devices than simple voice and messaging services offered by previous generations of mobile telecommunication systems. For example, with the improved radio interface and enhanced data rates provided by LTE systems, a user may enjoy high data rate applications such as mobile video streaming and mobile video conferencing that would previously only have been available via a fixed line data connection. The demand to deploy third and fourth generation networks is therefore strong and the coverage area of these networks, i.e. geographic locations where access to the networks is possible, is expected to increase rapidly.
More recently it has been recognised that rather than providing high data rate communications services to certain types of electronics devices, it is also desirable to provide communications services to electronics devices that are simpler and less sophisticated. For example, so-called machine type communication (MTC) applications may be semi-autonomous or autonomous wireless communication devices which may communicate small amounts of data on a relatively infrequent basis. Some examples include so-called smart meters which, for example, are located in a customer's house and periodically transmit information back to a central MTC server data relating to the customer's consumption of a utility such as gas, water, electricity and so on.
Whilst it can be convenient for a communications device such as an MTC type device to take advantage of the wide coverage area provided by a third or fourth generation mobile telecommunication network there are at present disadvantages. Unlike a conventional third or fourth generation communications device such as a smartphone, a lower complexity device may operate with a lower bandwidth and be preferably relatively simple and inexpensive. The type of functions performed by the MTC-type device (e.g. collecting and reporting back data) do not require particularly complex processing to perform.
As will be appreciated, there may be a desire for many types of communications devices and mobile communications networks to use communications resources as efficiently as possible and to reduce power consumption. It is known for example to reduce the power consumed by a communications device by performing what is known as discontinuous reception. Discontinuous reception is a technique in which a communications device may be radio resource connected, but after monitoring a control channel to determine whether communications resources have been allocated to the communications device, the communications device can sleep for a remainder of a time before another transmission may occur on the control channel. A communications device may also be configured with a short and a long discontinuous reception timer. If no activity is detected for a short discontinuous reception time, then the communications device moves to a long discontinuous reception timer. Accordingly the communications device can save power.


Disclosed herein is a system for creating an injectable and flowable cold slurry, the system comprising a housing; a mount operatively connected to the housing configured to accept a container; a first motor configured to move the mount from a first position to a second position; a second motor; and a drive shaft in communication with the second motor, wherein the drive shaft is configured to rotate to cause an internal volume of the container to be transformed into the injectable and flowable cold slurry.

Cold slurries (e.g., ice slurries) are known in the art as compositions that are made of sterile ice particles of water, varying amounts of excipients or additives such as freezing point depressants, and, optionally, one or more active pharmaceutical ingredients, as described in U.S. application Ser. No. 15/505,042 ("'042 Application"; "Publication No. US2017/0274011), incorporated in its entirety herein. The cold slurries can be delivered, preferably via injection, to a tissue of a subject, preferably a human patient, to cause selective or non-selective cryotherapy and/or cryolysis for prophylactic, therapeutic, or aesthetic purposes. Injectable cold slurries may be used for treatment of various disorders that require inhibition of nerve conduction. For example, U.S. application Ser. No. 15/505,039 ("'039 Application"; Publication No. US2017/0274078), incorporated in its entirety herein, discloses the use of slurries to induce reversable degeneration of nerves (e.g., through Wallerian degeneration) by causing crystallization of lipids in the myelin sheath of nerves. The '039 Application also discloses using injectable cold slurries to treat various other disorders that require inhibition of somatic or autonomic nerves, including motor spasms, hypertension, hyperhidrosis, and urinary incontinence.
A method of preparing a cold slurry is shown in U.S. application Ser. No. 16/080,092 ("'092 Application"; Publication No. US2019/0053939). However, the '092 Application requires installation of a medical cold slurry production system at the point of care. Also, this requires the point of care to be concerned with maintaining sterility of the cold slurry during and following manufacture.
Co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 17/062,955 ("'955 application") discloses a method of easily transporting a sterile biomaterial to a point of care using standard shipping techniques, where the biomaterial can be transformed into a flowable and injectable cold slurry at a point of care without requiring manufacturing equipment to be available at the point of care and without compromising the sterility of the biomaterial at the point of care. The disclosure in the present application is compatible with the methods and systems disclosed in the '955 application.
There exists a need for apparatuses, systems, and methods that allow for preparation of a flowable and injectable cold slurry at a clinical point of care without compromising the sterility of the slurry during preparation and without requiring manufacturing equipment or slurry components to be available at the point of care. The present disclosure provides for improved apparatuses, systems, and methods of transforming a composition into a flowable and injectable cold slurry using components internal and/or external to a container holding the composition, such as a syringe containing a crystallized solution adapted to interact with external hardware to agitate the solution to form a slurry. The disclosure provides for apparatuses, systems, and methods that preserve the sterility of the composition and reduce the time required to provide a therapeutic substance to a patient.

Apparatus for creation of injectable slurry


A method of manufacturing a MOSFET includes the steps of preparing a silicon carbide substrate, forming an active layer on the silicon carbide substrate, forming a gate oxide film on the active layer, forming a gate electrode on the gate oxide film, forming a source contact electrode on the active layer, and forming a source interconnection on the source contact electrode. The step of forming the source interconnection includes the steps of forming a conductor film on the source contact electrode and processing the conductor film by etching the conductor film with reactive ion etching. Then, the method of manufacturing a MOSFET further includes the step of performing annealing of heating the silicon carbide substrate to a temperature not lower than 50° C. after the step of processing the conductor film.

In recent years, in order to achieve a higher breakdown voltage and lower loss of a semiconductor device, use thereof in an environment at high temperature and the like, silicon carbide has increasingly been adopted as a material for forming a semiconductor device. Silicon carbide is a wide band-gap semiconductor greater in band gap than silicon conventionally widely used as a material for forming a semiconductor device. Therefore, by adopting silicon carbide as a material for forming a semiconductor device, a higher breakdown voltage, a lower ON resistance of a semiconductor device and the like can be achieved. In addition, a semiconductor device adopting silicon carbide as a material is also more advantageous than a semiconductor device adopting silicon as a material in that deterioration in its characteristics at the time when it is used in an environment at high temperature is less.
Among such semiconductor devices including silicon carbide as a material, with regard to such a semiconductor device as a MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) or an IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) in which whether or not an inversion layer is formed in a channel region directly under a gate insulating film with a prescribed voltage serving as a threshold is controlled so that a current is allowed to flow or cut off, various studies on adjustment of a threshold voltage or improvement in channel mobility have been conducted (see, for example, Sei-Hyung Ryu et al., "Critical Issues for MOS Based Power Devices in 4H-SiC," Materials Science Forum, 2009, Vols. 615-617, p 743-748 (NPL 1)).

Method of manufacturing semiconductor device


A new and distinct hop plant cultivar named ‘IH101033’ is disclosed, characterized by having an early maturity date in Oregon's Willamette Valley; tolerance to downy mildew (Pseudoperonospora humuli [Miyabe & Takah.] G. W. Wilson); vigor with potentially high yield; low alpha acids content; typically high beta acids content; low total essential oil content; and unique amounts of 19 essential oil components implicated in beer flavor and aroma.

The present disclosure comprises a new and distinct cultivar of Humulus lupulus L., and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name 'IH101033'.
The new hop plant resulted from a planned breeding program from crossing Humulus lupulus 'Sterling' (unpatented) as the female parent to the male parent Humulus lupulus '64035M', an unpatented hop male genotype released by the USDA-ARS hop breeding and genetics program based in Corvallis, Oreg. in 1985. The resulting hop plant was selected when growing in a greenhouse in Corvallis, Oreg. during February 2011.


Disclosed is a filter circuit, comprising a signal to be filtered, a difference circuit coupled to the signal to be filtered, a filter having an input coupled to the difference circuit, an integrator (or accumulator) having a first input coupled to an output of the filter circuit, and having a second input, and an accumulator coupled to an output of the integrator. A method of filtering is described also.

A digital filter is any electronic filter that works by performing digital mathematical operations on an intermediate form of a signal. This is in contrast to analog filters which work entirely in the analog realm and must rely on physical networks of electronic components (such as resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc) to achieve the desired filtering effect.
Digital filters are very flexible and can achieve virtually any filtering effect that can be expressed as a mathematical function or algorithm. The two primary limitations of digital filters are speed (the filter can't operate any faster than the processor at the heart of the filter), and cost. However as the cost of integrated circuits continues to drop over time, digital filters have become increasingly commonplace and are now an essential element of many everyday objects such as radios, cellphones, and stereo receivers.
Digital filters may be implemented in programmable logic devices (PLDs) and programmable system on a chip devices (such the PSoC microcontroller, a trademark of Cypress Semiconductor Corp.). Digital filters may also be implemented in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or in microprocessors (using either hardware or software implementations).
FIG. 1 shows a first conventional 1 pole filter circuit 100. The circuit 100 comprises an input voltage 110 (Vin) coupled to a difference function 120. The difference function 120 outputs a difference voltage 130 which is passed to a divider 140. The output of the divider 140 is coupled to a summing function 150, the output of which is coupled to accumulator 160. Accumulator 160 accumulates the difference value with the previous output voltage Vout. The accumulator 160 generates an output voltage 170 (Vout). The output voltage 170 is coupled back via a feedback path 180 to the summing function 150 and to the difference function 120.
FIG. 2 shows a second conventional n-bit filter circuit 200. The circuit 200 comprises an n-bit input voltage 210 (Vin) coupled to a difference function 220. The n-bit input is a digital word for example an 8-bit or 16-bit wide word, or any other width word. The difference function 220 outputs a difference voltage 230 which is passed to a divider 240. The output of the divider 240 is coupled to a summing function 250, the output of which is coupled to an accumulator function 260 which has an output voltage 270 (Vout). The output n-bit voltage 270 is coupled back via a feedback path 280 to the summing function 250 and to the difference function 220.
FIG. 3 shows a third conventional filter circuit 300. The circuit 300 comprises an n-bit input voltage 310 (Vin) coupled to a n-bit to m-bit converter 315. The m-bit output of the converter 315 is passed to a difference function 320. The difference function 320 outputs a m-bit difference voltage 330 which is passed to a divider 340. The m-bit output of the divider 340 is coupled to a summing function 350, the output of which is coupled to an accumulator 360 which has an m-bit output voltage 380 (Vout). The output n-bit voltage 180 is coupled back via a feedback path to the summing function 350 and to the difference function 320. The m-bit output voltage 380 is coupled to a m-bit to n-bit converter 365, which outputs an n-bit output voltage 370 (Vout).
Conventional filter solutions work well for analog (infinite resolution) implementations, because infinite resolution is available in its storage elements. but when the analog signals are digitized they now have a finite resolution. Any division of this value causes values less than the assigned quantization.
In a conventional filter, as the value of the divider gets greater, the residue (amount left over after a divide by operation) increases. For example in an operation to divide 15 by 4, the result is 3 (since 4*3=12, the biggest multiplicand of 4 less than 15) with a residue of 3 (15−12=3). In a divide by 4 operation, the residue can be 0, 1, 2, or 3. As a result, 2 bits of memory are required to represent the residue. Similarly, for a divide by 8 operation, 3 bits of memory are required to represent the residue. So as the divide value (and the filter resolution) grows, the memory required for the residue increases. In embedded systems where memory is at a premium, this can be a problem.
The residue is used to allow the filter to converge to an accurate representation of the analog value. By storing and summing the residues the quantization error can be accumulated and the filter can converge (reach the most accurate representation) of an analog value input. If due to memory limitations (for example in embedded devices where memory is scarce) the residue value is discarded, then the filter will never fully converge to the ideal value, i.e. the most accurate representation of the input. So to reach an accurate representation, extra (and often costly) memory may be required. Furthermore, if the divider value can change on the fly (during operation) then the conventional solution requires a memory large enough for use with the largest (worst case) divider.

Statistical method for filter convergence without accumulating residual error


A two-piece tire assembly with a removable tread belt for installing about the circumference of a tire carcass is provided. The two-piece tire assembly includes a tread belt comprised of two or more belt layers, each layer having one or more belts, wherein at least one of the belts in each layer has a chord length less than about 25% of the circumferential length of the belt.

Very large two piece tires, in which a removable tread belt is mounted upon a pneumatic structure, have been designed for use on large earthmover vehicles. The large two piece tires are subjected to high stress and loads under harsh environmental conditions such as in rock quarries, mines, foundries, and other areas where tires are subjected to puncture-producing and wear-inducing conditions.
Two engineering challenges separate the two piece tires from standard one-piece tires. The first engineering challenge is to retain the outer tread belt on the casing, which requires enough interfacial pressure between the tread belt and carcass. The second engineering challenge is to ensure that the tread has adequate circumferential stiffness to restrain the diametric growth of the casing. The tread ring must also have enough flexural compliance to have a nonzero interfacial pressure at the leading and trailing edges of the footprint, and low circumferential compliance to compress the belt package in the footprint in the circumferential direction. These opposing requirements make it difficult to design a two piece tire which is utilized under heavy load conditions.
With the continual drive to improve earthmover performance, there is a continuing need to provide novel methods and tire designs for improving earthmover tire durability. The present invention is directed to an improved pneumatic tire and removable tread belt assembly with which the frequency of premature tire failure is thought to be substantially reduced. The present invention is also directed to providing an improved pneumatic tire and tread belt assembly which is designed to allow large tires to be transported in several sections and then assembled at the construction site to ease the otherwise difficult problem of transporting the large tires, i.e. sometimes over 13 feet in height and approximately 8,000 to 15,000 pounds. Moreover, the present invention relates to an improved pneumatic tire and removable tread belt assembly with which the driving characteristics of the tire can be more economically changed and the inventory of the number of tire spares that are typically needed can be reduced.

Two piece tire with improved tire tread belt