The invention relates to a method (500) and an arrangement for defining transmission power in a mobile station. The invention can preferably be applied in a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) cellular system which offers broadband services and in which the number of time slots to be used for data transfer can be changed during the connection (530). One fundamental idea of the invention is that the transmission power of a new time slot is defined in the mobile station on the basis of the transmission power of at least one other time slot used in the connection (560). If the connection has had one time slot for its use when a new time slot is being allocated, for the transmission power of the new time slot, the same value is preferably set as at the previous time slot. If the connection has had two or more time slots for its use when a new time slot is being allocated, the value of the transmission power of the new time slot is preferably defined on the basis of the transmission powers of these other time slots according to a previously defined algorithm. As the algorithm, a minimum value, a maximum value or an average value can preferably be used.

The invention relates to a method and an arrangement for defining transmission power in a mobile station. The invention can preferably be applied in a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) cellular system which offers broadband services and in which the number of time slots used for data transfer can be changed during the connection.
In present-day mobile station networks, a so-called time division multiplexing, i.e. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) method is generally used. For example, in the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) system, TDMA frames which consist of eight time slots are used on each frequency channel intended for communications use. Traditionally in mobile communication systems connection is established so that one time slot is allocated for the connection and the data transfer channel thus formed is often used during the entire connection. If the mobile station, however, is translocated from the service area of one base station to the service area of another base station, the change of an active base station, i.e. a so-called handover takes place, and then a channel using a new time slot is formed between the new active base station and the mobile station. One can transfer to a new channel also in such a case that one wishes to rearrange the channels used by the base station, for example, to minimize interference. The implementation of the new channel is not then connected to the change of the active base station.
FIG. 1 shows a TDMA frame of the GSM system which comprises eight time slots 0-7. In the figure, a reception frame RX and a transmission frame TX have been shown separately. The reception frame means herein the frame received by a mobile station, i.e. a TDMA frame of downlink transfer direction. The transmission frame means herein the frame transmitted by a mobile station, i.e. a TDMA frame of uplink transfer direction. A time slot 1 has been marked with an X in FIG. 1 and it is used in data transfer of both uplink and downlink transfer direction in the connection described by the example.
FIG. 2 shows the use of time slots in the connection according to FIG. 1 after a new time slot 3, which has been implemented instead of time slot 1, has been allocated for the connection. This new time slot can be in the same TDMA frame as the old time slot used by the connection, or it can also be a TDMA frame which is on a different frequency.
Especially for data transfer services, broadband HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) services have been implemented in which the connection uses more than one time slot for speeding up data transfer. Then the numbers of time slots to be used can be equal in uplink and downlink transfer directions, in the case of a symmetric configuration, or they can be unequal, which is termed an asymmetric configuration. The time slots in use are defined at call establishment when the system informs the mobile station which time slots are to be used and the parameters connected to them, such as the transmission power to be used at each time slot.
The number of time slots in use can be changed also during the connection. The change occurs in accordance with the initiative from the system so that the system transmits to the mobile station a CONFIGURATION CHANGE COMMAND message which contains a proposal for a new time slot configuration. The mobile station responds to this with a CONFIGURATION ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledgement. The aforementioned message is just an alternative by means of which the number of time slots in an HSCSD connection can be changed. The said alternative is however preferable because it requires only a small amount of signalling.
FIG. 3 shows a TDMA frame in a connection as an example in which two time slots 0 and 1 are used in a downlink transfer direction RX and one time slot 1 in an uplink transfer direction TX. FIG. 4 shows the use of time slots after the reconfiguration when one new time slot 2 has been implemented for the connection in both downlink and uplink transfer directions.
When a new time slot is allocated for the connection, the mobile communication system calculates the optimal transmission power for the new time slot for both the downlink and the uplink transfer direction. The value of transmission power calculated for the uplink transfer direction is transferred to the mobile station, for example, on a signalling channel. Said CONFIGURATION CHANGE COMMAND message does not contain information, for example, about the value of the transmission power to be used on the new time slot.
Fundamental disadvantages are, however, associated with the solutions according to prior art. In known mobile phone systems, e.g. in the GSM system, power setting parameters are transmitted at communications SACCH (Slow Associated Control CHannel) time slots at intervals of 0.5 seconds. If, at the implementation of a new time slot, the transmission power is set, for example, at its maximum value, it stays at this value perhaps for as long as 0.5 seconds before the power setting parameter is received from the base station.
When the power setting parameter has been received, the mobile station changes the value of the transmission power according to the parameter concerned step by step. In the GSM system, there are 15 steps between the minimum and maximum transmission powers and it takes 60 ms to perform one power changing step. Accordingly, it takes altogether 0.9 s to change power from its maximum value to the minimum value. When the delay elapsed for the reception of the parameter, the aforementioned 0.5 s at its maximum, is added to this time, it takes altogether 1.4 s at maximum to attain the correct transmission power, and during all of this time the transmission power is too high in the example described above.
This strong transmission power which lasts for quite a long time may cause co-channel interferences to other radio links. The use of high transmission power levels reduces significantly data transfer capacity, since in this case those base stations which are using the same frequency channel must be situated at great distances from each other. Furthermore, unnecessarily high transmission power levels increase current consumption of a mobile station. In particular high transient power levels put major stresses on the power supply circuits and the RF power amplifier.
Excessive transmission power could be avoided by setting the transmission power of a new time slot at its minimum value from which power it could be elevated when necessary after the transmission power parameter has been received. A problem with this procedure is, however, that when transmission power is too low, then data transfer may fail.
One solution would be to transmit power setting parameters considerably more frequently. A disadvantage of this solution is, however, that continuous transfer of control messages on communications channels would burden significantly the data transfer capacity of the mobile communication system. Another solution would be to include the power adjustment parameter in the message which is used for informing about the implementation of a new time slot. A problem with this solution is, however, that it is difficult to arrange the space required by the parameter into the message concerned and secondly, at this stage the base station has not necessarily managed to define the correct transmission power parameter for the mobile station.
The aim of the present invention is to avoid the above described disadvantages connected to prior art by devising a solution in which the transmission power of a new time slot can immediately be made close to the optimal value without increasing signalling between the base station and the mobile station.
One fundamental idea of the invention is that the transmission power of a new time slot is defined in the mobile station on the basis of transmission power of at least one other time slot used in the connection. If there has been one time slot for the use of the connection when a new time slot is being allocated, preferably the same value is set for the transmission power of the new time slot as it had at the time slot previously in use. If there have been two or more time slots for the use of the connection when a new time slot is being allocated, the value of the transmission power of the new time slot is preferably defined on the basis of the transmission powers of these other time slots according to a previously defined algorithm. As the algorithm, a minimum value, a maximum value or an average value can preferably be used.
It is possible to use the solution according to the invention when one or more new time slots are needed for a connection in addition to the time slots which are already in the connection use. Furthermore, the method according to the invention can be applied when it is desired to transfer the connection from the old time slot (old time slots) to a new time slot (new time slots) by performing the change of channel without changing the frequency. The invention can be applied in the changes of multichannel configurations independent of signalling messages used, if the frequency used, i.e. the physical channel does not change.
The invention is partially based on the observation that on the channels between the mobile station and the base station, the values of the optimal transmission powers are very close to each other. Thus a fundamental advantage of the invention is that the transmission power of the new time slot in the mobile station can be made very close to the optimal value immediately at the implementation of a new time slot. Thus problems of interference caused by excessive transmission power can be avoided, as well as increase in power consumption and transient peaks in power consumption. Similarly, the risk that the transmission power of the new time slot would be too low to permit a successful data transfer is minimized.
Furthermore, an advantage of the invention is that, at the implementation of a new time slot, no extra data transfer is needed, and in that way the use of the method according to the invention does not burden the data transfer capacity of the connection.
A method according to the invention for defining the transmission power of a mobile station during the connection between a mobile station and a mobile communication system, when data transfer in an uplink transfer direction occurs at least at one time slot of a TDMA frame and during the connection a new time slot is allocated for the uplink transfer direction of the connection, is characterized in that the transmission power of said new time slot is defined on the basis of the transmission power of some other time slot being used in the uplink transfer direction of said connection.
A mobile station linked to a mobile communication system according to the invention, such that the mobile station comprises means for transferring data at least at one time slot of a TDMA frame and means for allocating a new time slot during the connection, is characterized in that the mobile station comprises means for defining the transmission power of said new time slot on the basis of the transmission power of some other time slot in use in the data transfer of said connection.
Preferable embodiments of the invention have been presented in dependent claims.

Method and arrangement for defining transmission power in a mobile station


A combined electro-mechanical adaptive antenna tracking system for wireless communication between transmitters and receivers moving relative to each other is described. This system enables one or more antenna transceivers on a moving object, such as a high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (HALE UAV), to simultaneously track one or more separate antenna transceivers on the ground, such as multiple customer premises equipment. The antennas on the moving object are constructed with multiple-subsection phased arrays or may have multiple horns on one rotation axis. Adaptive tracking control logic is applied to synchronize electrical switch and/or mechanical rotation and electrical beamforming for the moving transceivers to track multiple ground transceivers. In one advantageous aspect, an off-the-shelf horn antenna can be used and rotated around only one axis, thereby eliminating the need for expensive two dimensional movement actuators such as gimbals and the need for tracking multiple ground based receivers.

Increased availability of the Internet and the proliferation of devices that communicate using the Internet Protocol (IP) have increased user expectations about IP communication being available at all times and all places. The telecommunication industry has begun experimenting with different ways to provide Internet connectivity in remote areas where traditional wireline Internet infrastructure is unavailable or damaged or where there is a temporary increase in demand for bandwidth for wireless communication. One such way is to use airborne relays or access points such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that communicate with ground-based transceivers to provide Internet connectivity. While in flight, a UAV is typically not stationary with respect to the ground-based transceiver and moves, e.g., in a repetitive circular path with respect to the ground-based transceiver.

Adaptive antenna tracking of moving transmitters and receivers


Provided are the methods and devices to detect and quantify microstructural and functional differences in valve and cardiac disease using heart sounds, specifically for subjects suffering from early stages of valve remodeling. Such methods and devices can be used to detect and quantify microstructural and/or functional differences in, for example, aortic valves of subjects having bicuspid aortic valves and/or suffering from early Calcific Aortic Valve Disease (CAVD).

Aortic Valve Disease (AVD) occurs when extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling and calcium minerals hinder biomechanical function of aortic valve leaflets. This causes increased myocardial stress and can lead to heart failure. Aortic valve sclerosis is a thickening of the aortic valve leaflets and the formation of calcium nodules near the aortic cusps. Aortic valve stenosis occurs when large nodular calcific masses interfere with blood distribution from the heart to systemic circulation. No diagnostic strategy exists to identify patients with early aortic valve remodeling and aortic valve replacement is currently the only clinical intervention option
AVD most commonly affects patients with congenital bicuspid aortic valve disease and elderly patients with moderate-to-severe valvular remodeling. Approximately 2.5 million people are affected with AVD, and clinical options are limited even though mechanistic studies have identified potential therapeutic targets. Underrepresented minorities in the US have an elevated risk for developing heart disease, and they undergo aortic valve replacement less frequently, leading to increased mortality. Patients with AVD are most often discovered in irreversible late stages of remodeling, where valve function is severely compromised and the only clinical intervention available is aortic valve replacement. Early detection of aortic valve remodeling could facilitate the utilization of non-invasive therapeutic strategies to target cellular changes prior to irreversible gross remodeling. Current modalities to diagnose AVD rely on complex and costly imaging techniques. However, patients are generally asymptomatic during early AVD when the remodeling may be treatable. It is unlikely that asymptomatic patients will be referred for these expensive imaging procedures.

Methods and devices for processing heart sounds

THE FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES


A baffle assembly of this application has an assembling connector for maintaining a coupled state by means of a vertical binding force Fverticality for locking a baffle plate, which has fluid-passing through-holes, to the side surface of a baffle body, which has fluid-passing through-holes, and lateral tightening force Fhorizontality for pressing the same, such that the baffle body and the baffle plate can be assembled in a fitted manner and, particularly, a double locking state is formed by the vertical binding force Fverticality and the lateral tightening force Fhorizontality, thereby preventing a change of the coupled state.

In general, a fuel tank is provided with a plate-shaped baffle having a predetermined length and a plurality of through holes, such that fuel (or oil) supply as well as noise reduction due to oil splashing can be efficiently performed.
In particular, a plastic fuel tank having an advantage of weight reduction compared to a steel material is formed integrally with the baffle by molding a parison in an extrusion blow molding machine during parison molding.
Thus, while the plastic fuel tank formed using the parison has an advantage in that the structure and shape of the baffle are not limited due to the ease of assembly with the fuel tank, it is difficult to precisely maintain the assembly position of the baffle during the parison molding.
To this end, the baffle is held in an accurate assembly position with the aid of a separate device, such as a baffle loading pin, a slide core, etc.


Techniques for facilitating data communications among electronic devices via various communication networks are provided. A first electronic device may be connected to a terrestrial network and a second electronic device may be connected to an on-board communications network of a vehicle. A first voice- or message-based content may be received from the first electronic device, for delivery to the second electronic device. A data center may transmit a corresponding forward communication to the second electronic device via a satellite communication link. The data center may also receive a return communication from the second electronic device via either the satellite communication link or a terrestrial communication link, and transmit corresponding content to the first electronic device.

Technical Field
The instant disclosure generally relates to delivering communications to and from devices that are on-board vehicles, and, in particular, to systems and methods for facilitating communications between electronic devices via various communication networks.
Background
Currently, existing airlines and other transportation companies provide various services to mobile or wireless devices (e.g., cellular phones, smart devices, laptops, tablet computers, etc.) when such devices are on-board a vehicle while the vehicle is en route to a destination. However, the delivery of terrestrial or native features (e.g., roaming, texting, simultaneous calls, etc.) to mobile or wireless devices while a vehicle is in transit presents difficulties. Typically, to support native, terrestrial features of a mobile or wireless device in a non-terrestrial environment, cellular base stations such as "picocells" are installed on-board the vehicle, and the mobile device connects, via the cellular radio of the mobile device and the on-board cellular base stations, to an on-board network. In some cases, hardware in addition to the cellular base stations is also installed on-board the vehicle. This extraneous infrastructure is both limiting and extremely expensive. Moreover, the radio transmissions produced on-board the vehicle may interfere with ground-based cellular systems. For example, if mobile devices on-board the vehicle cannot find an adequate cellular band to which they may connect (e.g., when on-board cellular base stations are deactivated), the mobile devices will automatically increase their power, which may interfere with ground-based terrestrial cell sites as well as quickly drain the batteries of the mobile devices.
Some existing terrestrial communications systems are able to provide internet-based network connections to mobile devices while on-board a vehicle. For example, some communications systems are equipped with Wi-Fi capability that enables the mobile devices to access websites and stream multimedia. However, these communications systems are not able to provide mobile devices with terrestrial or native communication features (i.e., cellular-based communications) while the mobile devices are on-board the vehicle.
Accordingly, there is an opportunity to leverage existing communications infrastructure to facilitate cellular-based communications via electronic devices while the electronic devices are connected to a non-terrestrial communications network.

Facilitating communications between on-board electronic devices and terrestrial devices


An image generation system includes: a glare source drawing section which draws a glare source while referring to a Z value of an original image stored in a Z buffer to generate a first glare source image, and draws the glare source without referring to the Z value of the original image stored in the Z buffer to generate a second glare source image; a glare correction image generation section which performs image calculation processing including AND processing, of a first image which is an image obtained by subjecting the first glare source image to first blur processing and a second image which is one of an image obtained by subjecting the second glare source image to second blur processing and the second glare source image to generate a glare correction image; and a glare expression image generation section which generates a glare expression image based on the original image, the blurred image of the first glare source image, and the glare correction image.

The present invention relates to a program, an information storage medium, and an image generation system.
An image generation system (game system) has been known which generates an image viewed from a virtual camera (given viewpoint) in an object space (virtual three-dimensional space) in which an object such as a character is disposed. Such an image generation system is very popular as a system which enables experience of so-called virtual reality.
In such an image generation system, it is desirable that a glare effect, which causes the outline of an object to be blurred due to light present behind the object, be realistically expressed in order to increase the virtual reality of the player.
A bright object or a bright area on the screen which produces glare is hereinafter called a "glare source". An object subjected to glare is hereinafter called a "glare target object". As expression which further increases the reality of an image using glare, the color of the glare target object positioned in front of the glare source (on the side of the viewpoint) may be made darker in the area subjected to glare. Such a dark expression is hereinafter called a "contrast".
JP-A-2002-42156 and JP-A-2003-85578 disclose technologies for generating an image in which such a glare (glow or halo) effect is expressed, for example.
However, these technologies do not allow expression of the glare contrast. Therefore, a realistic expression of the glare effect cannot be sufficiently achieved.

Program, information storage medium, and image generation system


An endoscope having circumferential surgical instrument positioning capability includes an operation portion; an elongated, flexible insertion portion extending from the operation portion; a viewing conduit extending through the operation portion and the insertion portion; a plurality of instrument channels provided in and spaced around a circumference of the insertion portion; and a channel selector sleeve assembly having a selector channel rotatably carried by the operation portion. The selector channel of the channel selector sleeve assembly registers with the plurality of instrument channels, respectively, as the channel selector sleeve assembly is rotated with respect to the insertion portion.

Endoscopes are extensively used in the examination and surgical treatment of interior body cavities such as the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine. Generally, an endoscope may include a control portion having a handle fitted with finger-actuated control features and an elongated, flexible, tubular insertion portion which extends from the control portion. The insertion portion may terminate in a viewing window which enables an operator of the endoscope to view the interior body cavity or cavities of the patient into which the endoscope is inserted. An irrigation nozzle at the end of the insertion portion may maintain clarity of the viewing window by ejecting irrigation fluid against and washing body fluids and the like from the window. A suction nozzle at the end of the insertion portion may facilitate suction and removal of irrigation fluid and body fluid from the viewing window.
Some laparoscopes may be fitted with a instrument-receiving channel through which a surgical instrument can be inserted to perform surgical procedures in the body cavity in which the endoscope is inserted. However, conventional laparoscope designs may not facilitate placement of the surgical instrument at the desired position around the circumference of the endoscope relative to the viewing window according to the preference of the laparoscope operator. Therefore, an endoscope having circumferential surgical instrument positioning capability is needed.

Endoscope with surgical instrument multi-positioning capability


An image processing apparatus includes: a main controller which controls a processing of an image; a power supply which supplies power to the main controller; a switching unit which selectively allows the power to be supplied from the power supply to the main controller; and a sub controller which determines whether a first power-off event occurs, and controls the switching unit to cut off the power supplied to the main controller if the sub controller determines that the first power-off event occurs, wherein the main controller determines whether a second power-off event different from the first power-off event occurs, and the switching unit cuts off the power supplied to the main controller if the second power-off event occurs.

1. Field of Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to an image processing apparatus and a control method thereof, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus capable of monitoring a wake-up event in a power-off state and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Suppose that an image processing apparatus such as a monitor of a computer system, a television, etc. is powered off: power is completely cut off from the image processing apparatus like a case that a plug of the image processing apparatus is pulled out, or power supplied to some parts of the image processing apparatus is cut off while the other parts still receive power to some extent (hereinafter, the latter case will be referred to as "soft power-off").
In the latter case, for example, power is not supplied to a display panel, etc. but continuously supplied to a main processor for a standby-mode control, so that the image processing apparatus can be powered on again in response to a wake-up event such as a user's input.
Meanwhile, it is very important for reducing power to be consumed by the image processing apparatus in a soft power-off state (hereinafter, referred to as "standby power") when designing the image processing apparatus. Particularly, since the main processor consumes more and more power as the current performance trend of the image processing apparatus gets higher, it is highly difficult to lower the standby power of the image processing apparatus to a very low level, e.g., 0.3 W.
As an example of a method to solve such problems, it may be considered that the main processor that consumes relatively high power to perform the standby-mode control is replaced by an auxiliary processor that consumes relatively low power to perform the same control and the power supplied to the main processor is cut off in the standby mode, thereby lowering as much standby power of the image processing apparatus as possible.
However, the above method is applicable only to some limited cases where, for example, the power is off based on an event such as a user's input that can be processed by the auxiliary processor (hereinafter, such an event will be referred to as a "power-off event"). In other words, this method is inapplicable to other cases where, for example, the power is off based on another event such as a soft timer-off, which is processed not by the auxiliary processor but by the main processor.

Image processing apparatus and control method thereof


This present invention relates to a spare tire mount on a vehicle, particularly for use on pick-up trucks and similar vehicles having an open cargo area. More particularly, the present invention relates to a spare tire mount which is held at an angle within a cargo bed area of a pick-up truck in which can be moved to an elevated position to allow for greater utilization of the cargo area of a pick-up truck.

This invention relates generally to various types of spare tire mounting mechanisms for use with a pick-up truck. Frequently, a spare tire is mounted under a pick-up truck bed which is difficult to access and remove. It is additionally known to mount a spare tire vertically on a tailgate or on a trailer hitch of a pick-up truck.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,285 to Steelman describes a spare tire rack that is pivotally mounted onto a telescopic hitch mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,945 to Ankemy describes a spare tire mounting apparatus that is pivotally attached to the bumper of a pick-up truck and which will swing down when the tailgate of a pick-up is opened.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,343,736 to Sellers provides for a spare tire mounting apparatus having a base that is mounted on the bumper of a vehicle. A tubular body is pivotally attached to the base and can be positioned between vertical and horizontal positions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,468 to Lucas provides for a spare tire carrier having a frame member that is designed to nest within a bumper of the vehicle. A tire mounting apparatus includes a moveable arm attached to the frame by a pivot point.
Accordingly, there remains room for improvement and variation within the art.


Structures and methods for programmable array type logic and/or memory devices with asymmetrical low tunnel barrier intergate insulators are provided. The programmable array type logic and/or memory devices include non-volatile memory which has a first source/drain region and a second source/drain region separated by a channel region in a substrate. A floating gate opposing the channel region and is separated therefrom by a gate oxide. A control gate opposes the floating gate. The control gate is separated from the floating gate by an asymmetrical low tunnel barrier intergate insulator formed by atomic layer deposition. The asymmetrical low tunnel barrier intergate insulator includes a metal oxide insulator selected from the group consisting of Al2O3, Ta2O5, TiO2, ZrO2, Nb2O5, SrBi2Ta2O3, SrTiO3, PbTiO3, and PbZrO3.

Flash memories have become widely accepted in a variety of applications ranging from personal computers, to digital cameras and wireless phones. Both INTEL and AMD have separately each produced about one billion integrated circuit chips in this technology.
The original EEPROM or EARPROM and flash memory devices described by Toshiba in 1984 used the interpoly dielectric insulator for erase. (See generally, F. Masuoka et al., "A new flash EEPROM cell using triple polysilicon technology," IEEE Int. Electron Devices Meeting, San Francisco, pp. 464-67, 1984; F. Masuoka et al., "256K flash EEPROM using triple polysilicon technology," IEEE Solid-State Circuits Conf., Philadelphia, pp. 168-169, 1985). Various combinations of silicon oxide and silicon nitride were tried. (See generally, S. Mori et al., "reliable CVD inter-poly dialectics for advanced E&EEPROM," Symp. On VLSI Technology, Kobe, Japan, pp. 16-17, 1985). However, the rough top surface of the polysilicon floating gate resulted in, poor quality interpoly oxides, sharp points, localized high electric fields, premature breakdown and reliability problems.
Widespread use of flash memories did not occur until the introduction of the ETOX cell by INTEL in 1988. (See generally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,780,424, "Process for fabricating electrically alterable floating gate memory devices," 25 Oct. 1988; B. Dipert and L. Hebert, "Flash memory goes mainstream," IEEE Spectrum, pp. 48-51, October, 1993; R. D. Pashley and S. K. Lai, "Flash memories, the best of two worlds," IEEE Spectrum, pp. 30-33, December 1989). This extremely simple cell and device structure resulted in high densities, high yield in production and low cost. This enabled the widespread use and application of flash memories anywhere a non-volatile memory function is required. However, in order to enable a reasonable write speed the ETOX cell uses channel hot electron injection, the erase operation which can be slower is achieved by Fowler-Nordhiem tunneling from the floating gate to the source. The large barriers to electron tunneling or hot electron injection presented by the silicon oxide-silicon interface, 3.2 eV, result in slow write and erase speeds even at very high electric fields. The combination of very high electric fields and damage by hot electron collisions in the oxide result in a number of operational problems like soft erase error, reliability problems of premature oxide breakdown and a limited number of cycles of write and erase.
Other approaches to resolve the above described problems include; the use of different floating gate materials, e.g. SiC, SiOC, GaN, and GaAlN, which exhibit a lower work function (see FIG. 1A), the use of structured surfaces which increase the localized electric fields (see FIG. 1B), and amorphous SiC gate insulators with larger electron affinity, χ, to increase the tunneling probability and reduce erase time (see FIG. 1C).
One example of the use of different floating gate (FIG. 1A) materials is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,801,401 by L. Forbes, entitled "FLASH MEMORY WITH MICROCRYSTALLINE SILICON CARBIDE AS THE FLOATING GATE STRUCTURE." Another example is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,852,306 by L. Forbes, entitled "FLASH MEMORY WITH NANOCRYSTALLINE SILICON FILM AS THE FLOATING GATE." Still further examples of this approach are provided in pending applications by L. Forbes and K. Ahn, entitled "DYNAMIC RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY OPERATION OF A FLASH MEMORY DEVICE WITH CHARGE STORAGE ON A LOW ELECTRON AFFINITY GaN OR GaAlN FLOATING GATE," Ser. No. 08/908,098, and "VARIABLE ELECTRON AFFINITY DIAMOND-LIKE COMPOUNDS FOR GATES IN SILICON CMOS MEMORIES AND IMAGING DEVICES," Ser. No. 08/903,452.
An example of the use of the structured surface approach (FIG. 1B) is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,981,350 by J. Geusic, L. Forbes, and K. Y. Ahn, entitled "DRAM CELLS WITH A STRUCTURE SURFACE USING A SELF STRUCTURED MASK." Another example is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 6,025,627 by L. Forbes and J. Geusic, entitled "ATOMIC LAYER EXPITAXY GATE INSULATORS AND TEXTURED SURFACES FOR LOW VOLTAGE FLASH MEMORIES."
Finally, an example of the use of amorphous SiC gate insulators (FIG. 1C) is provided in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/903,453 by L. Forbes and K. Ahn, entitled "GATE INSULATOR FOR SILICON INTEGRATED CIRCUIT TECHNOLOGY BY THE CARBURIZATION OF SILICON."
Additionally, graded composition insulators to increase the tunneling probability and reduce erase time have been described by the same inventors. (See, L. Forbes and J. M. Eldridge, "GRADED COMPOSITION GATE INSULATORS TO REDUCE TUNNELING BARRIERS IN FLASH MEMORY DEVICES," application Ser. No. 09/945,514, now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,586,797.
However, all of these approaches relate to increasing tunneling between the floating gate and the substrate such as is employed in a conventional ETOX device and do not involve tunneling between the control gate and floating gate through and inter-poly dielectric.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide improved programmable array type logic and/or memory devices while avoiding the large barriers to electron tunneling or hot electron injection presented by the silicon oxide-silicon interface, 3.2 eV, which result in slow write and erase speeds even at very high electric fields. There is also a need to avoid the combination of very high electric fields and damage by hot electron collisions in the which oxide result in a number of operational problems like soft erase error, reliability problems of premature oxide breakdown and a limited number of cycles of write and erase. Further, when using an interpoly dielectric insulator erase approach, the above mentioned problems of having a rough top surface on the polysilicon floating gate which results in, poor quality interpoly oxides, sharp points, localized high electric fields, premature breakdown and reliability problems must be avoided.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Atomic layer deposition of metal oxide and/or low asymmetrical tunnel barrier interpoly insulators


A method for improving the reliability of a high-k gate dielectric layer comprises incorporating a noble metal into a transistor gate stack that contains the high-k gate dielectric layer and annealing the transistor gate stack in a molecular hydrogen or deuterium containing atmosphere. The annealing process drives at least a portion of the molecular hydrogen or deuterium toward the high-k gate dielectric layer. When the molecular hydrogen or deuterium contacts the noble metal, it is converted into atomic hydrogen or deuterium that is able to treat the high-k gate dielectric layer and improve its reliability.

In the manufacture of next generation integrated circuits, the fabrication of gate electrodes for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors has advanced to replace silicon dioxide and polysilicon with high-k dielectric materials and metal. A replacement metal gate process is often used to form the gate electrode. A typical replacement metal gate process begins by forming a high-k dielectric material and a sacrificial gate between a pair of spacers on a semiconductor substrate. After further processing steps, such as an annealing process, the sacrificial gate is removed and the resulting trench is filled with one or more metal layers. The metal layers can include workfunction metals as well as polysilicon electrode layers. This type of MOS transistor is often referred to as a high-k/metal gate transistor.
It has been shown that the reliability of the high-k gate dielectric layer tends to degrade over time. This is at least partially due to a high concentration of "dangling bonds" on the dielectric material, which serve as reactive sites and eventually lead to breakdown of the gate dielectric and failure of the MOS transistor. The dangling bonds therefore serve to decrease the performance, reliability, and lifetime of the transistor. Accordingly, improved methods of forming high-k/metal gate transistors are needed that can address the issue of dangling bonds in order to improve reliability in the high-k gate dielectric layer, thereby improving transistor performance and extending the life of the transistor.

Reliability of high-K gate dielectric layers


A system and method for adding a print medium digitally to a print system are disclosed. The print system has a control unit for controlling a print job queue and print system parameters, a print engine, an input section, and a receiving section. The method includes receiving the print medium in the input section, loading a test job having prescribed print system parameters in the receiving section, printing a large number of prints of the test job to establish an unwanted deposit of marking material on the side of the stack, and establishing whether or not an unwanted marking material is deposited on a stack height side of the stack. If unwanted deposit is established, then printing a number of blank sheets of the same print medium, adjusting the print system parameters, and returning to printing. If no unwanted deposit is established, approving the use of the print medium.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for adding a print medium digitally to a print system, the print system is configured to print on approved print media and comprises a control unit for controlling print system parameters to be applied when printing on the print medium, a print engine for printing marking material on the print medium, an input section for receiving the print medium in the print system, and a receiving section for receiving print jobs submitted to the print system.
The method comprises the steps of a) receiving the print medium in the input section, and b) loading a test job in the receiving section, the test job comprises, as a print job property, the print medium with prescribed print system parameters.
2. Description of the Background Art
To run a certain print medium on a print system, the print system needs to use prescribed print system parameters. For a cut sheet inkjet printer, important values include a total area coverage (TAC), i.e. an amount of marking material that can be placed on the print medium, a distance from the print head to the print medium, and a color profile to be applied. A TAC that is too high for the print medium may result in marking material deposition inside the print engine, as pollution or smearing, and when printed for a longer time, will result in damage to the print engine. Other print system parameters influence the print quality and the amount of sheets that are rejected by the print system due to deformation of the sheets.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,050,196 B1, a method is revealed to print a test sheet to visually determine a maximal ink coverage. However, marking material deposition inside the print engine is not detected.
As determining values for print system parameters that result in optimal print quality and runnability requires printing a significant amount of print media, time, and specialized hardware, a user of the print system can currently choose print media that has been pre-tested by a supplier of the print media, and from which media definitions has been made available.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for users that want to use their own print medium, and do not want to wait for the supplier, to test the print medium. Another object is to provide a method to find print system parameters that are adequate for a customer's usage, and will not result in damage to the print engine. Another object of the present invention is a print system in which the method is implemented.

Method for approving a new print medium for use in a print system


The present invention relates to stable oral compositions of one or more benzimidazole compounds and processes for their preparation. Also provided are methods for treating various gastrointestinal disorders.

Benzimidazole compounds, such as omeprazole, lansoprazole, pantoprazole, rabeprazole or single enantiomers thereof are strong inhibitors of proton pump and are widely used as therapeutic agents for stomach ulcer, duodenal ulcer, and gastro esophageal reflux disorders. Benzimidazole compounds effectively inhibit gastric acid secretion.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,431 discloses omeprazole and therapeutically acceptable salts thereof. The advantages of providing the salts of omeprazole and particularly the magnesium salt are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,974.
The single isomers of omeprazole are reported to be more useful in therapy when compared to the racemic omeprazole. U.S. Pat. No. 5,877,192 discloses the use of the (−)-enantiomer of omeprazole (esomeprazole), or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, in the treatment of gastric acid related diseases as a means to decrease inter-individual variation in plasma levels compared to omeprazole. The use of the (−)-enantiomer of omeprazole to receive increased average plasma levels (AUC) of the substance compared to those of racemic omeprazole and thereby a higher dose efficiency is also disclosed in the patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,900,424 discloses omeprazole magnesium salt as having a degree of crystallinity that is higher than 70% as determined by x-ray powder diffraction. The patent teaches that the isolation and purification in full manufacturing scale of the magnesium omeprazole salt as per U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,974 presents a major problem. The magnesium omeprazole salt crystals so obtained by this method are very fragile. The patent further teaches that in order to use the magnesium salt of omeprazole in full manufacturing scale in preparing pharmaceutical formulations primarily for oral administration, such as tablets, it is necessary that the magnesium omeprazole possess a combination of properties. This makes such full scale manufacturing feasible. These physical properties include degree of crystallinity, particle diameter, density, hygroscopicity, water content and content of other solvents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,960 teaches stable oral formulation comprising a core containing a magnesium salt of omeprazole wherein the salt has more than 70% crystallinity as determined by x-ray powder diffraction; a subcoating layer; and an enteric coating layer.
The efforts to stabilize benzimidazole compositions using amorphous form of benzimidazole compounds are reported in prior art. WO 2004/037253, assigned to Ranbaxy Laboratories and WO 2004/002982, assigned to Dr. Reddy's Laboratories teach processes of preparing amorphous forms of a salt of esomeprazole.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,713,495 discloses magnesium omeprazole having a degree of crystallinity of less than 67% by weight and having a residual organic solvent content of less than 7% by weight. U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0232861 discloses magnesium s-omeprazole having a degree of crystallinity of less than 67%. Example 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,713,495 and U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0232861 disclose magnesium omeprazole and magnesium esomeprazole respectively, having a degree of crystallinity less than 25%.
Indian Application No. 1494/DEL/2003, assigned to Ranbaxy Laboratories, discloses stable oral benzimidazole compositions. The compositions include a core comprising amorphous or crystalline benzimidazole compound, a substantially water-insoluble and substantially non-disintegrating separating layer and an enteric coating.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0128293 teaches stable oral pharmaceutical compositions that include omeprazole and a stabilizing excipient, wherein the composition is free of alkaline compounds. Example 7 of the patent application discloses a process of wet drug layering of an inert carrier using a Wurster fluid bed apparatus.
Because of the strong tendency of benzimidazole compounds to decompose in a neutral and in particular, an acidic environment, numerous approaches have been tried to form a stable pharmaceutical formulation comprising such compounds. The acid labile benzimidazole compounds react with both the gastric acid in the stomach and the enteric coatings used for preventing the benzimidazole compound from coming into contact with the gastric acid.
The prior art teaches various approaches to prepare the stable formulations containing benzimidazole compounds. Amongst the most common approaches to stabilize benzimidazole is the use of an alkaline core, separating layer and enteric coating. It is a well-recognized fact that using an alkaline medium in the core stabilizes benzimidazole from acid degradation. Prior art efforts to stabilize a benzimidazole with an alkaline core without a separating layer between the core and the enteric coating was not effective. Thus the recognition of using a layer to separate the alkaline core from the acidic enteric coating was the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,505 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,230. The separating coating disclosed in these patents was essentially made up of water-soluble polymeric substances.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,274,173; 6,602,522; 5,385,739; 5,626,875; 6,159,499 and 6,207,198 disclose various other formulation approaches to stabilize benzimidazole compositions.
However, there is still a need for the development of new pharmaceutical compositions of benzimidazole compounds with enhanced stability. It was surprisingly observed that careful control of some of the processing parameters is critical to prevent the conversion of the amorphous form of benzimidazole compound to the crystalline form.
The present invention thus relates to the stable oral amorphous benzimidazole compositions and process for preparing the same as herein below described and exemplified.

Stable oral benzimidazole compositions and process of preparation thereof


The invention concerns a wrist-wearable electronic device comprising a slot antenna and a method of manufacturing the slot antenna. Such a device comprises an outer housing defining an assembly zone and a radio unit contained within the assembly zone. According to the invention the outer housing is made at least partly of conductive material and comprises an integral slot antenna formed in the conductive material portion thereof, the antenna being electrically connected to the radio unit. The invention provides a convenient antenna structure for wirelessly communicating wristop computers and the like.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wearable electronic devices. In particular, the invention concerns a wrist-worn device, such as a wristop computer, which has an antenna for communicating wirelessly with other electronic devices. In addition, the invention concerns a method for the manufacture of an antenna for wearable devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Antennas have been assembled into wristop computers for some time for allowing wireless data transfer into and out of the device. However, incorporating an antenna into a wearable device is a challenging task due to size limitations, great amount of electronic components in proximity to each other and due to the closeness of human body.
The patent application US 2002/0098807 discloses a wrist device with an integrated loop antenna. The loop is placed in the same plane with other electronic circuitry of the device such that some of the electronics is located inside the antenna loop, whereby the electronic circuitry act as a ground plane for the antenna.
Loop-type antennas are also disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,768,217, 5,926,144 and 6,278,873.
Slot antennas can be used instead of conventional loop or dipole antennas due to their ability of producing and sensing alternating electromagnetic fields. The field produced by the a slot antenna is very similar in form to that produced by a dipole antenna having equal dimensions, with the exception that the polarization directions of the electric and magnetic fields are interchanged.
A cellular phone having a slot antenna for short-range communication is disclosed in document U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,433. The antenna is used for subscribing directly to a remote computer or to a local area network (LAN).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,319 discloses a wrist-watch, which has a built-in dipole antenna or a slot antenna. The antenna is housed between two casings, one of which forms the outer surface of the watch and the other of which houses electronic and mechanical parts of the device. The antenna is formed as a separate element by applying conductive material to an insulator in order to form a suitable antenna pattern.
A major drawback of the wearable devices referred to above is that because the antenna is located deep inside the housing of the device, conductive materials can not be used in the housing of the device due to the resulting attenuation of the signal. Thus, the described structures can not be used in metal-cased or metal-covered devices. In addition, antenna takes a lot of space inside the device and couples easily to the circuitry of the device, whereby the placing of the parts has to be made taking into account the proximity of the antenna.


A computer implemented method for logging extensions to platform configuration registers inside a trusted platform module instance is provided. A request to extend the current state of at least one of a plurality of platform configuration register is received. At least one platform configuration register within the trusted platform module instance is extended. The extension of the at least one platform configuration register is logged inside the trusted platform module instance as a logged entry by storing at least a tuple of platform configuration register indexes and hash values used for extending the platform configuration register. Information about new entries in the consolidated logs can be retrieved by polling or by subscribing to events that are automatically generated. A report of an extend operation and its logged hash value is sent to subscribers interested in receiving notifications of extend operations on a set of PCR registers.

Trusted Computing Group (TCG) use cases provide the means for remote parties to attest to the software state of a computer system/platform. The software state includes measurements of the software chain and might include configuration files used to initialize or customize a software module. The attestation method, according to the TCG, implements a transitive trust chain architecture where each layer of software measures the next layer before executing it. The procedure begins with the Core Root of Trust for Measurement (CRTM) that measures parts of the firmware of the machine (BIOS on a PC) before it starts executing it. Subsequently, each layer in turn measures the next-to-be-executed layer before calling it. Digests of these measurements are accumulated through a one-way hash function, also known as a extend operation, into Platform Configuration Registers (PCRs) contained in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The names of measured pieces of software and their measurement values are appended to a measurement log.
During the remote attestation process, a set of PCRs is quoted, digested, and digitally signed with a trusted Attestation Identity Key (AIK) held inside the TPM. The remote party/system receives the quote, public AIK key and the certificate of the AIK and validates the AIK certificate, which has previously been issued by a trusted privacy certificate authority. The remote party/system also verifies the digital signature of the quote and the integrity of the list of measurements by comparing it to the PCR state included in the quote. Once the list of measurements is found to be trusted, the remote system uses it to determine whether the attested system is running trusted software.
Currently, with a non-virtualized platform, a system's single TPM holds the result of all individual measurements in its PCR registers. The platform also maintains a list of measurements in main memory. Furthermore, the platform runs an attestation service process for remote parties/systems to connect to and request the reporting of measurements.
Similarly, in a virtualized environment, each virtual machine (VM) has a corresponding TPM. To attest to a VM, the remote party must know how to connect to it, and the VM must be running an attestation service process.
Further, each VM's TPM contains common early measurements such as those of the firmware (BIOS on a PC), master boot record, and the virtual machine monitor (VMM) following the aforementioned TCG transitive trust architecture. A remote party attesting to more than one VM may receive duplicate measurements if the VMs all run the same software.
In addition, a remote party only receives measurements reflecting a single point in time. Therefore, the remote party must continuously poll each VM if it wants to detect new entries in the measurement log.
These attributes limit attestation in cases where a VM is not aware of the attestation process or where the remote party cannot locate the server. Further, they do not scale well in cases where a platform hosts many VMs or where a remote party wants to continuously monitor the state of the software inside multiple VMs.
A data center typically hosts many virtualized platforms where on each platform many VM's may be running simultaneously. For trust establishment purposes, each one of the operating systems that is running inside a VM may have been instrumented to take measurements of executables that are started and libraries that link against these applications or driver modules that are loaded into the kernel. Each of the measurements is accumulated in platform configuration registers (PCRs) of a virtual TPM instance associated with a VM.

Method and apparatus for scalable integrity attestation in virtualization environments

International Business Machines Corporation


An improved drywell, drywell system and method of controlling the flow and distribution of surface water employing a drywell, the drywell comprising a plastic, cylindrical drywell adapted to be positioned beneath the ground, which drywell has at least one large diameter port in the cylindrical wall of the drywell to receive or discharge surface water and a plurality of smaller diameter drain ports, generally uniformly distributed about the cylindrical wall surface of the drywell and a removable bottom cover and a removable top cover, the large and the small diameter ports having a mechanically weakened inner peripheral section, the inner section adapted to be easily removed (knocked out) prior to use. By selection of the ports to be removed the direction and distribution of the flow of surface water beneath the surface may be controlled.

The control and flow of surface water, such as rain water, is important in preventing the accumulation of excess surface water near foundations or other structures. Generally drywells are employed to receive therein surface water and to permit the discharge of the surface water beneath the ground and away from the foundation, wall or structure and over a defined area. Typically a drywell would comprise an open pit or a container optionally filled with loose aggregate material, such as gravel or loose stones, into which the surface water is directed either by a grate on the top surface wherein the top surface of the drywell is generally flush or slightly below the ground level or from a pipe which may be connected to the source of surface water, such as rain water from a downspout, and which permits the discharge of the water into the drywell.
Often a simple and effective drywell constitutes a metal drum, such as a 55 gallon drum, with holes perforated in the metal sides thereof and with the drum filled with loose stones and rocks and with a grate placed on the top thereof or a drain pipe directing water into the side of the drywell. Other drywells may comprise precast-type drywells or precast concrete with a hole for an inlet pipe and plurality of holes already precast in the cylindrical walls of the concrete septic tank or drywell to permit the drainage of water therefrom.
It is desirable however to provide for an improved, simple, yet effective drywell to provide for the improved control and flow or direction of the surface water and to a drywell system which uses the improved drywell and to a method of controlling the flow and direction of surface water.

Drywell, drywell system and method for controlling the flow and direction of surface water


A method for obtaining solid-state metal borohydrides without toxic precursors and expensive solvents includes dry mixing of metal hydrides and metal polyhydro-closo-borate starting materials. High pressure and heating is also used in the method. These materials can be used for hydrogen storage, general reducing agents, organic synthesis, wastewater treatment, and paper pulp bleaching.

Metal borohydrides are versatile reducing agents. Major applications include organic synthesis, wastewater treatment, and paper pulp bleaching. Additionally, metal borohydrides can be used as hydrogen storage media. Hydrogen-based energy storage systems are known and have been investigated as solutions for powering many technological developments including, in particular, electric vehicles. Hydrogen-based energy is particularly desirable because hydrogen gas reacts cleanly with air in a fuel cell, producing power with water as the only by-product. Such systems face challenges that have not, as of yet, found a suitable solution. It would be advantageous to improve the ease and affordability of synthesis of these materials.
Boron-based hydrogen storage materials have the potential to meet the density requirements for hydrogen storage applications given boron's low atomic weight, high chemical valence, and versatile chemistry. Metal borohydride systems have the potential to solve these problems. However, conventional methods to generate metal borohydrides are rather problematic, and often involve toxic precursors and expensive solvents.
Two main classes of metal borohydrides are anion-substituted compounds in which the BH4− anion of the borohydride is replaced by another anion, such as a halide or amide ion; and metal borohydrides modified with neutral molecules such as NH3 or other nitrogen containing compounds. Typically, in the hydrogenated state (outside of extreme operating conditions), such compositions comprise a metal amide and a metal hydride and, in the dehydrogenated state, the materials of such compositions comprise a metal imide and a metal. Bulk metal amides have several drawbacks including limited cycle-life, occurrence of stable nonreactive imide species, and contamination of hydrogen with ammonia gas. Ammonia release irreversibly damages the hydrogen storage material since it removes nitrogen from the material, leading to reduced capacity. In addition, bulk metal nitrides form as the end products and are known to be reluctant towards hydrogenation, adversely affecting the kinetics of the hydrogenation reaction needed for a fully cycling material. Although contributing to the high hydrogen densities, the high valence of boron also leads to slow rates of hydrogen release and absorption (i.e., hydrogen exchange) due to extensive boron-boron atom rearrangements during hydrogen cycling. This rearrangement often leads to multiple solid phases forming during hydrogen release and recharge cycles.
Metal borohydrides can be used for numerous other applications, but synthesizing them on a large scale without environmentally unfriendly/expensive solvents or precursors has not been achieved.

Solid state synthesis of metal borohydrides

National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC


A method of reducing inter-task latency for software comprising a sequence of instructions including a synchronous remote procedure call to be executed on a multiprocessor system comprising a calling processor and at least one remote engine. The method comprises the steps of: inputting the software; inputting a runtime resource description describing a runtime environment of the multiprocessor system; identifying the synchronous remote procedure call in the sequence of instructions; replacing the synchronous remote procedure call in the sequence of instructions with an initiation instruction and a wait instruction to generate a substitute sequence of instructions; reordering the substitute sequence of instructions with reference to the runtime resource description and the dependencies to generate a reordered sequence of instructions; and outputting the reordered sequence of instructions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reducing inter-task latency in a multi-processor system. More particularly, this invention relates to reducing inter-task latency in a multiprocessor system on which software is executed which includes at least one synchronous remote procedure call.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Remote procedures calls (RPCs) are a known technique for programming multiprocessor systems. An RPC typically allows a program executing on one processor to cause a task to be executed by another processor in the multiprocessor system. In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/976,315 the concept of using RPCs to cause the execution of tasks on accelerators (such as DMA engines, data engines etc.) in the multiprocessor system is discussed.
RPCs may be categorised as either synchronous RPCs or asynchronous RPCs. From a programming point of view a synchronous RPC is the simpler of the two and operates much like a function call, except that the function is performed remotely on another processor or engine as is illustrated in FIG. 1A. In this example, the control processor (CP) is performing a sequence of operations in accordance with the instructions it is executing and at point 10 begins execution of an instruction to execute a synchronous RPC, which comprises triggering a remote processor (RP) to perform function A. CP sets up the required inputs to function A, for example by placing them in a memory space that RP can access, and then triggers RP to begin execution of function A by sending an appropriate signal (illustrated here as "do A"). Hence at 12, RP begins execution of function A. Whilst RP is executing function A CP waits until it receives a completion signal from RP. RP completes function A at 14 and sends the completion signal ("done A") to CP. At 16, CP wakes up in response to the completion signal from RP, reads the outputs of the function A (which RP has placed in a memory space accessible to CP) and continues execution of its sequence of instructions.
The feature of a synchronous RPC which makes it "synchronous" is the fact that the control processor waits for the remote processor before continuing execution (i.e. CP waits between 10 and 16 in FIG. 1). This synchronisation between the controller and remote processors makes synchronous RPCs easier to program, because there is no parallelism between the two processors. However, this ease of programming also results in some inter-task latency between tasks carried out in such a multiprocessor system.
For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, if CP executes a first synchronous RPC to cause RP to execute function A, and once it receives the signal "done A" from RP it executes a second synchronous RPC to cause RP to execute function B, there will be a delay between 14 (when RP sends signal "done A" to CP), 16 (when CP receives this signal), 18 (when CP executes the second synchronous RPC and sends signal "do B" to RP), and 20 (when RP begins execution of function B). Finally, once RP completes function B at 22, signals CP with "done B" and CP has received this signal at 24, CP can recommence execution of its instruction sequence.
The inter-task latency associated with synchronous RPCs can be reduced by exploiting parallelism between CP and RP, as illustrated in FIGS. 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D, and instead making use of asynchronous RPCs. In particular, if RP supports a task queue which allows multiple RPCs to be queued ready for execution, this allows CP to place multiple RPCs requests into the task queue which can have various benefits as explained in the following.
FIG. 2A illustrates a situation in which CP requires two functions A and B to be executed by RP (as in FIG. 1B). RP in this example has a task queue which can accept a pending task to be executed whilst a current task is already executing. Hence, having initiated function A at 30, at 32 CP is able to signal RP to execute function B, this pending task being placed in RPs task queue, such that at 34 (when function A completes) RP can both signal CP that function A has completed ("done A") and immediately initiate execution of function B. When function B completes at 36, RP signals CP that B has completed ("done B") and on receipt of this signal at 38 CP continues execution on a sequence of instructions. Hence it can be seen that the use of asynchronous RPCs can substantially reduce the inter-task latency when a sequence of RPCs are executed on a single remote processor.
If CP wishes to perform a sequence of N synchronous RPCs, it must wait for each task to complete and therefore the RP must signal N times and CP must wait N times. However, as illustrated in FIG. 2B, when using asynchronous RPCs with a task queue with a capacity of N (i.e. the task queue is capable of holding N RPCs requests) CP need only wait for the last task to complete. As illustrated in FIG. 2B, at 40 CP signals to RP that N RPCs should be added to its task queue and at 42 RP begins execution of this series of RPCs. On completion of RPCN at 44, RP signals that the last RPC is complete to CP, which at 46 continues execution of its sequence of instructions. The cost associating with signalling and waiting can be significant, so using asynchronous RPCs can reduce the task invocation overhead by up to N times.
The multiprocessor system can consist of more than one remote processor, as illustrated in FIG. 2C. In the situation where CP wishes to perform an RPC on RP1 and then to execute another RPC on RP2 this can be done (using synchronous or asynchronous RPCs) by causing RP1 to signal CP when the first RPC completes, and CP then initiating the second RPC on RP2. However, if the two remote processors are able to signal each other, then asynchronous RPCs allow CP to initiate the first RPC on RP1, further indicating to RP1 that it should signal RP2 when it has completed its task. At the same time CP can queue up the second RPC on RP2, indicating that it should not start execution until the signal from RP1 arrives. This way of executing is only possible if asynchronous RPCs are used and if a suitable signalling mechanism exists, as illustrated in FIG. 2C. At 50, CP signals RP1 ("do A") and further signals RP2 to begin function B when RP2 receives "done A" from RP1 (i.e. CP sends "do B when done A received"). At 52, when RP1 completes A, it signals this fact to RP2 ("done A") and at 54 RP2 begins execution of function B. At 56, when RP2 has completed function B, it signals this fact to CP ("done B") and at 58 CP continues execution of its sequence of instructions. Hence it can be seen that the use of asynchronous RPCs allows inter-task latency to be reduced, even if the sequence of RPCs is spread across multiple processors.
If CP wishes to perform two synchronous RPCs on different remote processors in parallel with each other, the only mechanism available is to execute two parallel threads, each of which performs a synchronous RPC. However, using asynchronous RPCs CP can (in one thread) start two RPCs and wait for both to complete. As illustrated in FIG. 2D, at 60 CP signals RP1 to execute function A ("do A") and signals RP2 to execute function B ("do B"). Hence at 62 RP1 begins execution of function A and at 64 RP2 begins execution of function B. At 66 RP1 completes execution of function A and signals this fact ("done A") to CP, which receives this message at 68 but continues to wait for the completion of function B. RP2 completes execution of function B at 70, and signals this fact ("done B") to CP, which at 72 continues execution of its sequence of instructions. Hence it can be seen that asynchronous RPCs allow parallelism between processors.
Nevertheless, in practice asynchronous RPCs can be difficult for the programmer to use. Various asynchronous RPC libraries are known, but they all suffer from the problem of being hard to program. Some common errors include: suppressing the signalling of task completion, but still waiting for the task to complete; not suppressing the signalling of task completion and not waiting for the task to complete; writing too many RPC requests into a task queue of finite capacity; introducing a deadlock condition where the next RPC request on each of two different remote processors cannot start until it receives a signal indicating that the other RPC request has completed; and introducing race conditions where the behaviour of the program depends on the relative speeds of tasks running on different processors.
The IBM RPC library allows sequences of RPCs to be sent as one group. This reduces the inter-task latency associated with signalling and waiting identified above, but it cannot reduce inter-task latency when the RPCs execute on multiple processors. Furthermore it does not assist the programmer in avoiding the problems described above, such as the introduction of race conditions or omitting waits.
As such the programmer is typically faced with a choice between the simplicity and reliability of programming using synchronous RPCs and the performance benefits of using asynchronous RPCs.
Some discussions of the use of RPCs in the prior art can be found in the following: "Optimizing RPC", Sandler D., COMP 520, Sep. 9, 2004; "Lightweight RPC", Bershad B., Anderson T., Lazowska E., Levy H., 1990; and "Flick: A flexible, optimizing IDL compiler", Eide E., Frei K., Ford B., Lepreau J. and Lindstrom G., ACM SIGPLAN '97, pages 44-56, Las Vegas, Nev., June 1997 .
U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/976,314 and 11/976,315 discuss the programming of multiprocessor systems. Some background information on the analysis of dependencies in the compilation of program code for such systems can be found in Chapters 9.0 to 9.2 of "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation", S. Muchnick, Morgan Kaufmann, 1997 and in "Conversion of control dependence to data dependence", Allen J., Kennedy K., Porterfield C. and Warren J., 10th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (Austin, Tex., Jan. 24-26, 1983), ACM, New York, N.Y., 177-189.
It would be desirable to provide an improved technique for programming multiprocessor systems, which combined the simplicity of programming with synchronous RPCs and the performance benefits of using asynchronous RPCs.

Reducing inter-task latency in a multiprocessor system


A polyphase machine fed by a pulse-controlled a.c. converter in which the current is controlled between rectangular and sine-shaped waveforms in each half cycle according to the required torque. Independently of the current control, the active number of phase windings is reduced as a function of the rotational speed of the machine.

A known type of polyphase machine is the specially designed, permanently energized synchronous machines. In machines controlled by pulse-controlled a.c. converters, a known method described in German Patent 33 45 271 seeks to improve efficiency when the rotational frequency diminishes. In this method, the phases are subdivided into phase sections and the series connection of the individual phase sections are increased until all the phase sections of each phase are connected in series. By doing this, the number of actively dissipative frequency converters can be reduced to one. On the other hand, with higher rotational frequencies (rated speed) and greater torques (rated-load torque), all the phase sections are connected in parallel. Therefore, the determining phase winding number m and the number of slots q remains unchanged.
At a rated speed n.sub.N, a correspondingly high rotary voltage is induced, whereby all m phase windings are switched in parallel through their frequency converters to the supplying direct-current mains. With diminishing rotational speeds n<n.sub.N,the induced voltage declines approximately in the ratio n/n.sub.N, and increasingly the phase windings are switched from parallel operation over to series operation.
As a result of this switching-over of more and more phase windings from parallel to series operation, the number of phase windings finally decreases to m*. The active number of slots therefore climbs to q*, according to the relation m.multidot.q=m*.multidot.q*. By switching over to series operation, using the known method, fewer losses occur as a result of the reduction of the number of frequency converters remaining in operation, and thereby a better efficiency factor is achieved.
Low-loss bistable circuit elements, such as thyristors which can be activated after time delays, are effective to further reduce losses when switching the frequency converters.
There is, however, a need to provide a polyphase machine that improves the efficiency factor to a greater extent than in the prior art, and runs with minimum process noise and small oscillating torques.

Polyphase machine fed by a pulse-controlled a.c. converter


A forceps is provided that includes a housing defining an internal passageway and a longitudinal axis, first and second jaws slidably and pivotably connected to the housing, a first connection member having a first end pivotably attached to the first jaw, a second connection member having a first end pivotably attached to the second jaw; and a driver pivotably connected to the other ends of the first connection member and the second connection member, wherein the jaws have an open configuration and a closed configuration, wherein longitudinal movement of the driver in a first direction rotates the first and second jaws relative to the housing from the open configuration towards the closed configuration, wherein longitudinal movement of the driver in the first direction also moves the first and second jaws longitudinally along the longitudinal axis of the housing from the open configuration towards the closed configuration.

Forceps are common medical devices used in a variety of procedures to grasp or engage bodily structures or other items. For example, forceps may be used to grasp tissue for hemostasis, marking, ligating, and sealing perforations. Forceps are also commonly used to obtain tissue samples during a biopsy procedure. In a biopsy, the forceps are closed around and excise a piece of tissue. The tissue and forceps are then removed from the patient for further testing.
Traditional forceps generally have two or more opposing jaws that can be opened and closed by an operator. The forceps are traditionally inserted into a patient's body lumen with the jaws in a closed position. Once the forceps are positioned near the tissue to be engaged, the jaws are opened. The jaws are then closed around the tissue, thus effectively grasping it. If a biopsy sample is desired, the forceps are then retracted and the tissue sample is torn from the surrounding tissue.
One of the problems associated with traditional forceps is the low grasping force of the jaws. While traditional forceps have a large initial closing force, the closing force continuously declines as the closure cycle progresses. Thus, once the jaws reach the closed position, the force required to reopen the closed jaws is relatively low. Therefore, while a large amount of tissue is initially grasped, the jaws have a difficult time maintaining their grip on the tissue, which may undesirably result in the tissue being released from the jaws. The low grasping force is especially concerning during a biopsy, as the forceps, in addition to grasping the tissue, must also remove the tissue, such as by tearing or cutting it. Thus, using traditional forceps includes a risk of obtaining an inadequate amount of tissue for a proper biopsy sample. Therefore, it is desirable to improve on traditional forceps by increasing the grasping force and maintaining that force throughout the closure cycle.
Additionally, forceps and similar devices are commonly used in a variety of applications outside of the medical field. In these various applications, there exists a similar desire for forceps that strongly and effectively grasp materials.


The present invention is provided a method to use a pattern section without extra serif to correct the polygon feature pattern with at least one inner corner. Such that the polygon feature pattern with at least one inner corner can achieve effectively OPC (optical proximity correction) without adding any extra data point. Therefore, the present invention can instead of the conventional serif and achieves the effective OPC. In addition, the mask writing time is also improved since the original feature pattern is divided into a few rectangular-shaped mask writing units or trapeze-shaped mask writing units for regular mask writing, and the inner corner is/are not in the middle of each divided mask writing units. The mask inspection is also simplified and easier to calibration since a simple geometry other than complex serif is used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an optical proximity correction, and more particularly to an optical proximity correction method for modifying the polygon feature pattern with inner corner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The minimum feature sizes of integrated circuits (ICs) have been shrunk for years. This feature size reduction, various process limitations have made IC fabrication more difficult. One area of fabrication technology in which such limitations have appeared is photolithography.
An important component of photolithographic apparatus is a xe2x80x9creticlexe2x80x9d which includes a pattern corresponding to features at one layer in an IC design. Such reticle typically includes a transparent glass plate covered with a patterned light blocking material such as chromium.
For advance SOC (system on chip), the complexity of design and the file size of mask tooling both dramatically increased. For example, a 50 GB (giga bytes) file size, it may take two days for mask writing. Therefore, how to reduce the file size is an important issue. The traditional OPC (optical proximity correction) methodology corrects the inner corner pattern by adding extra serifs. For a single inner corner, the number of data points can be expanded from one to five. Overall, this approach would increase the output file size and dramatically increase the mask writing time since the serif require adding extra data points. Thus, the data points of the file are increased and the writing speed is slow down.
FIGS. 1A to 3C show the conventional OPC (optical proximity correction) using inner serif for L-, T-, and cross-shaped feature patterns. Extra data points and mask writing units are required to define these OPC patterns. Small mask writing units causes a large file size, a complex and slower mask writing procedure.
FIG. 1A to FIG. 1C shown a reticle corresponding to an integrated circuit (IC) pattern. FIG. 1A shows an un-corrected L-shaped feature pattern 10. To avoid the L-shaped feature pattern with a corner, there is a method to modify the un-corrected L-shaped pattern 10 with an OPC method such as serif method to form a corrected L-shaped feature pattern 10a which has an inner corner 14 as shown in FIG. 1B. Therefore, the extra data points and the file size are also increased after correction steps. The un-corrected L-shaped feature pattern 10 has only one data point 12A, however, the corrected L-shaped feature pattern 10a has four extra data points, 12B, 12C, 12D, and 12E. Therefore, the computer data-processing capacity and file size are increased that according to increase of data points. Referring to FIG. 1C, the corrected feature pattern 10a is divided into five rectangular feature patterns 16a through 16e, such that increase two extra mask units after the mask dividing step.
Then, referring to FIG. 2A shown the uncorrected T-shaped feature pattern 20 with two data points 22A and 22B. The correcting steps as the FIG. 1A to FIG. 1C, a corrected T-shaped feature pattern 20a with two inner corners 24A and 24B are formed after serif correction method as shown in FIG. 2B and has eight extra data points 22C through 22J. In the FIG. 2C, there are seven extra mask units 26a through 26h after a mask-dividing step. Next, referring to FIG. 3A that shown the un-corrected crossed-shaped feature pattern 30 with four data points 32A through 32D. As the above-mentioned, after serif correction method, the corrected crossed-shaped feature pattern 30a with four inner corners 34a through 34d and has sixteen extra data points 32E through 32T, which are increased after OPC method. Therefore, the output file size is increased and the mask writing time is dramatically increased since the serif requires adding extra data points.
Next, the FIG. 4 is schematic vertical views showing a contour image of the un-corrected crossed-shaped feature pattern 30. The scope of the solid line is an original un-corrected crossed-shaped feature pattern 30, after exposure steps, the scope of dotted line is a simulation area image 40 is smaller than the original un-corrected crossed-shaped feature pattern 30. But the simulation area images have four corners 42a, 42b, 42c, and 42d, and further the corner still causes the pattern inspection issue. Furthermore, in order to solve the corner issue, the conventional technique is utilized a serif method to modify the conventional crossed-shape feature pattern 30. According to FIG. 3B, after exposure step, the simulation area image 40a is approach to the original feature pattern 30a with using serif method as shown in FIG. 5. In the FIG. 5, even though the simulation area image 40a is approach to the original feature pattern 30a, but the simulation area image 40a has corners and still causes the file size increased, loading mask time, and mask writing time are increased.
In accordance with the present invention, a method is provided to correct the feature pattern with inner corner fidelity by an optical proximity correction (OPC) method, the improved method substantially reduces the OPC output file size, improves the mask writing with a few rectangular-shaped writing units or trapeze-shaped writing units for regular mask writing, and save the mask inspection time.
It is an object of this present invention to provide an improved OPC (optical proximity correction) method without adding extra serifs to obtain a high-resolution pattern mask.
It is another object of this present invention to provide an effectively OPC to reduce the OPC output file size.
It is still another object of this present invention to provide an OPC method to correct the polygon feature pattern and perform the plurality of the mask writing with a few rectangular-shaped writing units or trapeze-shaped writing units for regular mask writing to improve the mask writing time.
It is a further object of this present invention to provide a method to improve the mask uniformity and feature pattern inspection.
In one embodiment, the approach of the present invention uses a pattern section without adding extra serif to correct the polygon feature pattern. Correcting the polygon feature pattern with at least one inner corner that can achieve effectively OPC (optical proximity correction) without adding extra data points and mask writing units. Therefore, the present invention can instead of four as the conventional serif and achieve the effectively OPC. In addition, the mask writing time is also improved since the original feature pattern is divided into a few rectangular-shaped mask writing units or trapeze-shaped mask writing units for regular mask writing units, and the inner corner is/are not in the middle of each of the divided mask writing unit (rectangular mask writing units or trapeze mask writing units). The feature pattern inspection is also simplified and easier to calibration since a simple geometry other than complex serif is used.

Correcting the polygon feature pattern with an optical proximity correction method


A method for verifying an identity attribute of a remote user includes providing pose instructions to a remote client from a host during an authentication session. The pose instructions may reference a specific physical token associated with the user, for example a government ID card, credit card, household object or printed or displayed image provided from an authentication host. The host receives an image from the client and may analyze the image to determine if the pose instructions were followed and if the physical token appears in the image. Based on this determination, and optionally using other factors, the host verifies an identity attribute of the user.

1. Field
This application relates to identity and identity attribute verification, and more particularly to identity or identity attribute verification of persons seeking to access an online or remote resource.
2. Description of Related Art
Online age and identity verification is a substantial problem. While credit cards have been utilized as a statutory mechanism to show age (see for example 47 U.S.C.A. §223(e)(5)(B)), the efficacy of this mechanism has been questioned by some commentators. Similarly, the use of stolen credit cards online is fairly simple, as the online merchant is unable to confirm identity by comparing identification cards with presenter's appearance and the name on the credit card, as might be done at a physical retail point of sale. For example, it may be relatively easy for children to pose as their parents while online, and thereby obtain access to adults-only online resources. This problem may arise most acutely in circumstances where online access is not already protected by a security feature such as a login name and password. For example, when setting a new user account to access online resources of any kind, all that is sometimes required is knowledge of identity information for an eligible adult and an payment account. Such requirements may not always be effective, especially in circumstances within a household wherein household members may have easy or routine access to identity and payment information for other members of the household.
In some situations, it is not necessary to verify a complete identity for a person attempting to access an online resource. For example, it may be undesirable or disadvantageous to require complete disclosure of user identity before providing access, while at the same time, it may be legally required or desirable to verify that the user possesses a certain identity attribute such as, for example, age, gender, place of residence or club membership before allowing a user to access online resources. An identity attribute may sometimes also be referred to as a "personal attribute." Some users, for example, may want to protect their identity and remain anonymous while accessing an online resource, but are willing to verify an attribute of their identity such as their age, etc., as a precondition to accessing their resource. However, identity theft security holes for remote verification, such as outlined above, may decrease the reliability of more limited identity attribute verification processes as well.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide methods and systems for more effectively verifying the identity or identity attributes of remote users of online resources.


A symbolic modeling language for trade matching providers techniques to describe the specialized operations of a match engine in a form that can be understood by business analysts and readily translated into program code and test cases by developers and testers. Associated techniques for calculating implied markets and testing can expedite match engine development, testing and maintenance.

The design of reliable high-speed software for a match engine (e.g., one that recognizes implied spread markets) poses a number of problems for a commodities exchange, and in particular to the software architect or program manager responsible for the implementation. Aspects of these problems include the complexity of the market, the speed at which the exchange must operate, and the need to quickly implement reliable electronic trading software.
The complexity of the market arises from, among other things, the large number of potential order combinations. For example, a single commodity with 72 delivery months has 2556 (72*71) potential spread contracts. For even the simplest implied markets where orders in two contracts imply an order in a third, there are 6,530,580 (2556*2555) possible combinations. As the number of contracts involved in the implication gets larger, the number of possible combinations grows exponentially. The problem is aggravated when multiple commodities are linked by intercommodity spreads that can also take part in implication, especially since different commodities can open and close at different times, thereby affecting which orders can take part in implication.
The speed of electronic commodities trading has increased by a factor of about a hundred since 2001. While in 2001 there might have been 5000 lots of Light Crude traded overnight on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) electronic trading platform, by 2007, the daily volume could attain 500,000 lots or more. The growth in overall volume is likely to continue, given the ever-increasing demand for energy-related commodities.
During the period from 2001 to the present, many commodities exchanges have become publicly-traded companies subject to increased competition and investor scrutiny. The ability of an exchange to specify, design and test new electronic trading software is crucial in maintaining volume growth and its positive effect on shareholder value. This combination of high complexity, high speed and reduced time to market is coupled with an increased need for reliability. In 2001, electronic trading at NYMEX was an overnight service accounting for less than 10% of the volume traded. Orders were received at a rate of 1-2 per minute and a call-in number was available to assist traders with technical and business issues. By 2007, over 90% of the exchange's volume was traded electronically at an average message rate of over 100 per second. An outage that would have passed unnoticed in 2001 would now affect dozens of traders and millions of dollars in transactions.
These problems are common to modern exchanges, since the majority of their revenue comes from electronic trading and the cost of inaccurate calculations or lost business from system failures can be significant.


A method for reducing a driving power of a vehicle drive includes detecting a temperature difference between a temperature of at least one component of the vehicle drive and a temperature threshold value, detecting an instantaneous driving state of the vehicle drive, establishing whether or not the instantaneous driving state allows for a reduction in the driving power of the vehicle drive, and reducing the driving power of the vehicle drive for lowering the temperature of the at least one component in order to increase the temperature difference if the instantaneous driving state allows for the reduced driving power.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to power reduction in vehicle drives for lowering temperature.
2. Description of Related Art
The performance of components of a vehicle drive is essentially a function of the heat output or of the temperature of the particular component of the vehicle drive. Thus, for example an electric drive or an energy storage of an electric vehicle or of a hybrid vehicle has a temperature curve which results in the particular component having to be operated at reduced power if its temperature reaches a maximum temperature at which this component may be damaged. This power reduction, also known as derating, presents no problem, as long it is not performed in driving situations in which the driver expects or needs the full driving power, for example, to carry out, for example, a passing maneuver on the oncoming lane or to merge onto a superhighway. Power reduction is critical, in particular in sporty driving, which makes providing the full driving power necessary.
An excess temperature power regulation is normally used for power reduction with the purpose of avoiding critical component temperatures; when a critical temperature occurs, such regulation forces a brief shutoff of the vehicle or an operation of the vehicle in a state in which the particular component is cooled off, driving being resumed after a cool-off. If the affected component is a generator which supplies an electric motor with electrical power in a power split hybrid vehicle drive train, for example, when a generator excess temperature is reached, the driving power is abruptly reduced, so that the vehicle is drivable at crawling speed at most. For reducing the driving power, a current reduction, such as described in Japanese patent document 11-215888, may be performed.
In fact, there is the possibility of designing the vehicle drive for a maximum sustained driving power for avoiding the power reduction. This requires overdimensioning of the overall system in order to avoid the infrequent special case of excess temperature power regulation, which is associated with high additional costs. Indeed the driver could be pointed, for example, to a component temperature to be reached or to an imminent power reduction via a display. This presupposes that the driver also sees and heeds this display. The disadvantage here is that, if a display of this type is not heeded, one of the components may be damaged by overload, or dangerous driving situations may arise due to an abrupt power reduction.

Method for reducing a driving power of a vehicle drive