A phase-locked laser array comprising a plurality of element regions for passing electric current into an active layer; and inter-element regions formed between the element regions. Each of the inter-element regions is so formed as to have two regions, i.e. a non-diffusion region at the center thereof and a diffusion regions disposed on both sides thereof, thereby rendering the refractive index in the non-diffusion region higher than that in the diffusion regions. The method of manufacturing the phase-locked laser array which is characterized by including a step growing an optical waveguide layer of superlattice on a portion of a second clad layer while diffusing impurities doped in the second clad layer into said optical waveguide layer, thereby forming a diffusion regions on both sides of the inter-element region.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a light visible phase-locked array, which can be utilized in an optical measurement, an information processing and the like, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Prior At
Recently, there is an increasing demand for a semiconductor laser in various fields of industry. To meet these demands, the semiconductor lasers made mainly from GaAs based semiconductor or InP based semiconductor have been actively commercialized. In particular, the demand for a semiconductor laser of high output is so persistent that, in the case of a GaAs based semiconductor laser, a product having a light output exceeding 50 mW has been developed.
However, a material for the semiconductor laser has a limitation with respect to the degree of the light density which can be allowed to emit from the out-going side of the material. Since the laser may be destroyed as the light density exceeds this limitation, the maximum light output of the semiconductor element is determined depending upon the size of the sectional area of light beam at the out-going end face of the material. Thus, in the case of a stable fundamental transverse-mode laser, since its transverse-mode thereof is stabilized by confining light in a light waveguide channel of a small sectional area, the laser is structurally unsuited for enhancing the output thereof, and its output is limited to the order of 100 mW.
Therefore, in order to obtain a stable transverse mode as well as high out-put, a structure of so-called a phase-locked array has been developed. With this semiconductor laser, a stable transverse mode is realized by employing a plurality of adjacent waveguide channels and combining light phases in each of the waveguide channels. Moreover, since the output of the phase-locked array can be given by the sum of the outputs derived from each of the waveguide channels, it is possible to increase the light output by increasing the number of the waveguide channels 1
FIGS. 5a to 5c illustrate the classification of the phase-locked arrays, which are classified according t6 the guiding mechanism. As in the case of the single guiding channel employed in the ordinary semiconductor laser, a gain guided type (FIG. 5a), a loss guided type (FIG. 5b) and an index guided type (FIG. 5c) are mainly employed. In these Figures, reference numeral 10 denotes GaAs substrate, 11 a first clad layer, 12 an active layer, 13 a second clad layer, 15 p-type Al.sub.0.18 Ga.sub.0.82 As layer, 17 a cap layer, 18 a blocking layer, 19 an element region and 20 an inter-element region.
In the gain guided type laser (FIG. 5a), the refractive index in a region having a gain is smaller than that in a region having no gain (non-gain region) as shown in FIG. 6a, whereas in both of the loss guided type laser (FIG. 5b) and the index guided type laser (FIG. 5c), the refractive index in a region having a gain is larger than that in a region having no gain (non-gain region) as shown in FIGS. 6b and 6c.
Additionally, there is also an anti-guided type hereinafter explained with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10. This anti-guided type is featured as shown in FIG. 6d in that the refractive index in a region having a gain is smaller than that in a region having no gain, which is quite different from the refractive index distributions the loss guided type laser (FIG. 5b) and of the index guided type laser (FIG. 5c).
In GaAs-based semiconductors, the gain guided type (FIG. 5a) and the loss guided type (FIG. 5b) have been widely utilized. Likewise, in the phase-locked arrays, lasers of these types are widely utilized, because the same manufacturing process as that of the GaAs-based semiconductors can also be utilized in the phase-locked array. A laser of the index guided type is also widely utilized as it can be manufactured by forming a simple ridge stripe structure.
As for the coupling of waveguide channels in the phase-locked arrays, there are two coupling modes; namely, 0.degree. phase coupled mode wherein the phase of a waveguide channel coincides with the phase of the neighboring waveguide channel, and 180.degree. phase coupled mode wherein the phase of a waveguide channel is shifted from the neighboring waveguide channel by 180.degree.. In the case of the 0.degree. phase coupled mode, it is possible to obtain a single lobe far field pattern as shown in FIG. 7a, so that it is easy to obtain a parallel light beam or to condense the light beam. Whereas in the case of the 180.degree. phase coupled mode, a twin lobe far field pattern will be resulted as shown in FIG. 7b, so that it is rather difficult to utilize the mode.
In the structure of the loss guided type laser (FIG. 5b) or the index guided type laser (FIG. 5c), the refractive index n.sub.1 in the element region is higher than the refractive index n.sub.0 in the inter-element region as described above. Accordingly, when the structure of the loss guided type or the index guided type laser is employed, light beam thereof is fundamentally forced to be confined within the element region, so that the coupled mode thereof may most likely be of the 180.degree. phase coupled mode as shown in FIG. 8a.
The reason of the tendency of the structure of the loss guided type or the index guided type to take 180.degree. phase coupled mode can be attributed to the fact that since the intensity of light in the inter-element region is low]the light intensity at the center of the inter-element region is approximately zero, so that the 180.degree. phase coupled mode is much favored in view of less degree of the waveguide loss and a higher stability of light.
In the structure of the gain guided type laser (FIG. 5a) , the refractive index distribution thereof indicates that the refractive index in the element region is slightly less than that in the inter-element region as shown in FIG. 6a. Therefore, light is weakly confined in the element region, thus the 0.degree. phase coupled mode is more favored to occur. However, since this structure of the gain guided type laser is designed to obtain the light solely through a gain, this phase coupled mode is rather unstable against temperature and optical output.
On the other hand, in the anti-guided type laser, the refractive index distribution thereof indicates as shown in FIG. 6d that the refractive index in the element region is lower than that in the inter-element region as the case of the gain guided type. However, this anti-guided type laser is more advantageous than the gain guided type laser in that a very strong coupling of light can be obtained between the neighboring element regions due to a large difference in defractive index between the element region and inter-element region, so that the 0.degree. phase coupled mode can be more easily obtained as shown FIG. 8b.
To be more specific, there is a gain in the element region so that light is confined in the element region, while in the inter-element region, the refractive index therein is higher than that in the element region that light is confined also in the inter-element region. As a result, the coupling of light occurs in the element region as well as in the inter-element region, thereby allowing the 0.degree. phase coupled mode to be easily obtained.
In the followings, the anti-guided type will be discussed more in detail. FIG. 9 schematically shows a perspective view of the elemental structure of the conventional anti-guided type phase-locked array, and FIG. 10 shows an enlarged sectional view of the main part of the phase-locked arrays shown in FIG. 9 (Appl. Phys. Lett. 55 (1) , July 1989) .
As shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, on a GaAs substrate are formed in succession a first clad layer 11 of n-type Al.sub.0.4 Ga.sub.0.6 As, an active layer 12 constituting a GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum well layer, and a second clad layer 13 of p-type Al.sub.0.4 Ga.sub.0.6 As. The second clad layer 13 is etched into a mesa structure thereby forming an element region 13a through which electric current is to be passed into the active layer 12, and an inter-element region 13b through which electric current is not to be passed into the active layer 12. In this case, the refractive index n.sub.1 in the inter-element region is higher than the refractive index n.sub.0 in the element region.
On the mesas-shaped second clad layer 13 is selectively formed a p-GaAs layer 14. Further on all surface of the second clad layer 13 including the p-GaAs layer 14 is formed a p-Al.sub.0.18 Ga.sub.0.82 As layer 15, on which a p-Al.sub.0.4 Ga.sub.0.6 As layer 16 is further formed. Reference numeral 17 represents a cap layer formed on the p-Al.sub.0.4 Ga.sub.0.6 As layer 16.
In this device, AlGaAs layer 16 is formed over the element region 13a and the inter-element region 13b. In particular, in the inter-element region, this AlGaAs layer 16 is formed close to the active layer 12 . Whereas in the element region, this AlGaAs layer 16 is formed remote from the active layer 12 . Therefore, the refractive index in the inter-element region is higher than that in the element region as shown in FIG. 10. Moreover, since there is a large difference in defractive index between the element region and inter-element region, it is possible to attain a highly stabilized mode coupling.
Electric current is selectively caused to flow into the element region. In this occasion, oscillations are caused to occur not in the inter-element region due t6 the large radiation loss therein of the optical mode, but only in the element region. In order to maximize the coupling between the neighboring element regions in this construction, the width "s" of the inter-element region is set to approximately a half of the resonance wavelength lateral wavelength of light as follows (IEEE J. Quantum Electron 26,482, 1990): EQU s=.lambda..sub.1 /2 EQU .lambda..sub.1 =.lambda./(n.sub.1.sup.2 -n.sub.0.sup.2 +(.lambda./2d).sup.2).sup.1/2
wherein s is a guide region spacing; d is stripe width; .lambda. is wavelength; .lambda..sub.1 is lateral wavelength; n.sub.0 is an effective refractive index in the element region; and n.sub.1 is an effective refractive index in the inter-element region.
When the width "s" of the inter-element region is set in this manner, the array mode turns into a resonance state, so that all of the elements couple to each other the 0.degree. phase coupled mode, and take a state of the highest array mode gain (i. e. a state wherein the oscillation of the 0.degree. phase coupled mode is most likely to occur).
However, even with this conventional anti-guided type phase-locked arrays, it is difficult to achieve a stable 0.degree. phase coupled mode. The reasons for this can be explained as follows.
FIG. 11 illustrates the gain of each of the modes in relative to the width "s" of the inter-element region the number of the element is set to 10.
As seen from FIG. 11, when s=.lambda..sub.1 /2, the gain for the 0.degree. phase coupled mode is in a high level as indicated by the solid line. However, in addition to the 0.degree. phase coupled mode, there are also a 180.degree. phase coupled mode and an adjacent mode as indicated by broken lines. In this case, since it is difficult to enlarge the gain difference g.sub.p between the gain of the 0.degree. phase coupled mode and the gain of either the 180.degree. phase coupled mode or the adjacent mode, the shifting of mode, i. e. from the 0.degree. phase coupled mode to the 180.degree. phase coupled mode or to the adjacent mode may be frequently caused to occur.
In other words, the elements of the phase-locked array may be producing a laser of various modes in a disordered manner, or the mode (zero-order mode or first-order mode) to be selected by each element may be flactuated depending on a light output, or becomes highly unstable as shown in FIGS. 12a to 12d.
Therefore, in order to obtain only the 0.degree. phase coupled mode, it has been required to take some measures, such for example as to mount a Talbot filter (Appl. Phys. Lett. 5(1), Jul. 3, 1989) in separate to the phase locked laser arrays.

Anti-guided phase-locked array and manufacturing method therefor

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A metal structure according to the present invention is unlikely to become brittle and has excellent hardness and creep resistance, characterized in that annealing has been applied at a temperature not more than the temperature at which crystals of the metal material start to become larger. This metal structure includes at least two kinds of metal material, and annealing can be applied at a temperature not more than the temperature at which crystals of the metal material start to become larger. For example, the present invention is advantageous in the manner of a microstructure for a contact probe. A fabricating method according to the present invention is a method of fabricating a metal structure unlikely to become brittle and having excellent hardness and creep resistance, characterized in that the step of applying annealing at a temperature not more than the temperature at which crystals of the metal material start to become larger is included.

Annealing is a process to heat a metal structure and the like, hold it at a temperature and then cool the same to lower temperature. It is a heat treatment intended for improvement of plastic working properties, removal of residual internal stress, adjustment of crystal grain and the like. For annealing a metal structure formed of nickel (Ni), the structure is generally heated to around 700-900° C. and held for 1-2 hours, and then cooled down slowly. With this heat treatment, since nickel (Ni) is recrystallized, nanocrystal material of a crystal size of around 10 nm, or amorphous material of a further smaller crystal size, will have a larger crystal size of several μm-several ten μm. The relatively unordered initial structure is reconfigured by annealing, to arrive at a more stable state of equilibrium, and is essentially removed of all residual internal stress.
As an improved annealing method, Japanese Patent National Publication No. 2001-516812 discloses a method of heat treatment to obtain stable machinability under load. In this method, a wire coated with metal such as nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) using saccharine and 2-butyne-1,4-diol and the like is relatively mildly heat-treated to fabricate an elastic metal structure.
For a heat treatment temperature of this method, effective is a temperature 0-150° C. higher than the transformation temperature at which crystals of a metal material on the wire become larger. For example, for a wire coated with a metal material including nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co), the effective temperature for heat treatment is 266-416° C. since the transformation temperature of the metal material is 266° C. (refer to FIG. 6). Therefore, in this method, the structure is heat treated at a temperature lower than the normal annealing temperature for nickel (Ni) of 700-900° C.
For a metal structure including nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co), when annealing is applied at 330° C. for 10 minutes, nanocrystal material or amorphous material having an average grain diameter of 16 nm will have larger crystals to become crystal material with an average grain diameter of 78 nm. Consequently, due to annealing, yield strength, elastic modulus and temperature stability of the metal structure are modified.
As the semiconductor technology advances, importance of a contact probe, which is necessary to test a circuit formed on a semiconductor substrate or the like, increases. Since the contact probe is pressed against a circuit of a semiconductor substrate or the like for usage, it has a spring capability to increase the reliability of connection with the circuit as well as not to damage the circuit. Therefore, the contact probe is required to have the property of being unlikely to become brittle and damaged while having high hardness. Further, since the contact probe is repeatedly used, it is required to have a property to return to its original shape when load is removed after the test. Thus, it is required for the contact probe that the amount remaining as deformation after load is removed (hereinafter referred to as "creep amount") is small, and that spring load which occurs when the spring achieves a predetermined stroke does not change with loading time. Therefore, it is necessary to use a metal structure having superior creep resistance. More specifically, it is required to maintain creep resistance even when a semiconductor substrate to be tested is at a temperature of around 50-125° C. or higher.

Metal structure and fabrication method thereof


The present invention relates to a GaN transistor, and a method of fabricating the same, in which a structure of a bonding pad is improved by forming an ohmic metal layer at edges of the bonding pad of a source, a drain, and a gate so as to be appropriate to wire-bonding or a back-side via-hole forming process. Accordingly, adhesive force between a metal layer of the bonding pad and a GaN substrate is enhanced by forming the ohmic metal at the edges of the bonding pad during manufacturing of the GaN transistor, thereby minimizing a separation phenomenon of a pad layer during the wire-bonding or back-side via-hole forming process, and improving reliability of a device.

1. Field
The present invention relates to a GaN transistor and a method of fabricating the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a GaN transistor, in which a bonding pad structure is improved to be appropriate to a wire bonding process or a back-side via-hole forming process to enhance adhesive force, thereby increasing a yield and improving reliability, and a method of fabricating the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Recently, a GaN transistor has been widely used as an ultrahigh frequency high-power device used in a radar for a war machine and a transceiver for a mobile communication base station. The high-power GaN transistor is generally mounted in a transceiver in a packaged form in a unit device form, or in a form of a Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC).
In this case, for the packaging or the interconnection, a drain electrode and a gate electrode are mostly wire-bonded, and a source pad is connected by wire-bonding or a back-side via-hole forming process, and thus a bonding pad for a connection with an external device is fabricated in the transistor or the MMIC. The bonding pad in the GaN transistor or the GaN MMIC in a batch process is generally formed by plating gold on a gate metal (nickel/gold) or a first metal interconnection (titanium/gold).
However, there is a case where adhesive force between the bonding pad and a wafer is poor according to a process condition, and during the wire bonding or the back-side via-hole forming process, the bonding pad is detached or the pad is separated during an operation, so that a life of a chip may be decreased.

GaN transistor with improved bonding pad structure and method of fabricating the same

ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE


Circuit assembly (1, 1a), uninterrupted power supply unit (1a) with converter part (2) and converter unit (20), central control unit (21) and input for current to be converted and output for converted current and circuit part (3, 4) connected upstream of input of converter part or connected downstream of output of converter part, external control unit (12) connectable to circuit assembly and central control unit (21) configured to receive control instructions from external control unit (12). Circuit assembly can be disconnected from the power supply network rapidly and without repercussions on the network. Every circuit part (3, 4) comprises a decentralized control unit (31, 41), connected to central control unit (21) via communication bus (13), receiving control instructions from central control unit (21). External control unit (12) is connected to communication bus (13) and decentralized control unit (31, 41) is configured to receive control instructions from external control unit (12).

The present invention relates to a circuit arrangement, in particular inverters or uninterruptable power supplies, with a converter section including a converter unit, a central control unit and an input for the current to be converted and an output for the converted current and at least one circuit part which is connected before the input of the converter section or is connected after the output the converter section, wherein at least one external control unit can be connected to the circuit arrangement and that the central control unit is suitable and configured to receive control instructions of the external control unit.
From the translation of the European patent having the publication number DE 600 36 150 T2, a network of solar inverters is known which have an inverter section with an inverter unit and a microcomputer as the central control unit. The network has as external control units remote controls, which are connected to the microcomputer and are able to control the microcomputer. The remote control can also specifically operate a switch in a circuit part arranged on the input-side of a solar inverter.
The translation of the European patent having the publication number DE 600 36 150 T2 describes, how the solar inverters which are connected in parallel to the power grid, can be operated.
The operators of the transmission network or distribution network, into whose power grids electrical energy is fed, issue detailed instructions relating to the configuration of the grid connection for feeding electric energy from photovoltaic systems. Special regulations relating to safety are issued in particular for photovoltaic systems having a power rating of greater than 30 kW. For example, it must be ensured that the photovoltaic system can be disconnected from the power grid quickly and with the least effect on the power grid even in the event of only a partial failure, for example of the solar inverter. A similar problem may occur with uninterrupted power supplies.

Circuit assembly having a converter part comprising a central control unit


A drug delivery system includes an automatic injector that can deliver a small, precise amount of a therapeutic agent. The automatic injector includes a chamber for containing a liquid component and a thin porous member that carries thereon and/or therein the small, precise amount of therapeutic agent. Upon activation of the automatic injector, a flow path opens from the chamber through the porous member, enabling the liquid component to rapidly mix with the therapeutic agent before being injected.

An automatic injector is a device that performs intramuscular or subcutaneous administration of a therapeutic agent. An advantage of automatic injectors is that they contain a measured dose of a therapeutic agent in a sealed sterile cartridge. Automatic injectors can therefore be used in emergency situations to quickly and simply inject the therapeutic agent without having to measure dosages. Another advantage of automatic injectors is that the administration of the therapeutic agent is accomplished without the user initially seeing the hypodermic needle through which the therapeutic agent is delivered. Still another advantage is that the user does not have to manually force the needle into the patient. This is particularly advantageous when the therapeutic agent is being self-administered.
In some automatic injectors, the therapeutic agent is stored as a liquid solution. However, the long-term storage of a therapeutic agent in liquid term is problematic. For instance, some therapeutic agents in liquid form are not stable and thus have a shorter shelf-life than their solid counterparts. To address this concern, automatic injectors have been developed that store the therapeutic agent in solid form and, immediately prior to injection, mix the solid therapeutic agent with a liquid injection solution also stored in the injector. Such devices are generally referred to as wet/dry injectors. An example of such an injector is found in U.S. Reissue Pat. No. RE 35,986, entitled "Multiple Chamber Automatic Injector," the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. These injectors require the user to manually rupture a sealing member between the solid and liquid components and then manually shake the injector body to expedite dissolution of the solid component prior to injection. Unfortunately, steps such as manually shaking the injector increase the time needed to administer a dose of the therapeutic agent, which is undesirable in many emergency medical situations where rapid delivery of the therapeutic agent is needed (e.g., in nerve gas and chemical agent poisoning).
Additionally, many of the wet/dry devices available are not capable of storing or delivering a small, precise amount of a therapeutic agent even though many therapeutic agents are effective at very small doses. For example, a therapeutically effective dosage of epinephrine may be about 0.1 mg to about 0.5 mg. In known wet/dry devices, however, the dry chamber that accommodates the therapeutic agent is relatively large. In order to effectively fill the dry chamber to ensure effective mixing, a greater amount of the therapeutic agent should be loaded into the chamber, which is costly and potentially dangerous to the person receiving the injection. Alternatively, various excipients may be added to the therapeutic agent to effectively fill the dry chamber. However, adding excipients to a therapeutic agent requires additional expense and manufacturing in order to formulate and produce the therapeutic agent with the excipients prior to the agent being loaded into an injector.
Therefore, a need exists for a cost-effective automatic injector that can store a small, precise amount of a therapeutic agent and that does not require manual premixing by the user.

Drug delivery system with a small amount of a therapeutic agent


A system and method of using a combination of audio signal modification technologies integrated with hearing capability profiles, modern computer vision, speech recognition, and expert systems for use by a hearing impaired individual to improve speech intelligibility.

This invention relates to a system for enhancing the hearing ability of hearing impaired persons. More particularly, this invention pertains to the improvement of speech intelligibility for persons listening to equipment producing audio signals such as television receivers, recorded music, or radio units.
Hearing improvement aids have been under continuous development for many years. Recently, significant advances have resulted from the introduction of electronic components, electronic circuits and software developments. In the last few years, significant research has lead to a better understanding of the physiological and neurological mechanisms relating to the sense of hearing. Such research is directed to the causes of hearing impairments and possible solutions. Many types of hearing impairments can be treated with surgery or medication. For example, chronic ear infections, which can decrease hearing acuity, may be treated with antibiotics. Also, damaged eardrums can be repaired by surgery. Other ailments such as presbycusis (age related hearing loss) are ameliorated to a certain degree with hearing assistance equipment such as hearing aids.
Hearing impairment falls into four main categories: conduction loss, sensorineural loss, mixed loss, and central loss. Conduction loss is associated with problems in the outer and middle ear that prevent sounds from reaching the inner ear where they are converted from mechanical energy to electrical signals. Sensorineural loss involves either the inner ear or the auditory nerve. The inner ear contains thousands of sensory cells (haircells) that transform sounds into proper neural format to be transmitted to the brain via the auditory nerve. Problems with the sensory cells or auditory nerve exhibit the same results when hearing tests are performed. Mixed loss is a term used to represent a hearing impairment that involves both conduction and sensorineural loss. Central loss occurs when the hearing loss is not associated with conduction or sensorineural types of problems, but the brain itself has difficulty interpreting the signals received from the hearing process.
The invention presented here addresses three areas that represent significant problems for people who suffer from hearing impairments: background noise, room acoustics, and situations where the subject has lost virtually all of his or her hearing capabilities.
It is well known that background noise presents a problem for persons with normal hearing and even more severe problems to many people with impaired hearing. Background noise addressed by this invention falls into three categories. First, system or electrical circuitry background noise is inherent in all electrical equipment. Such system background noise has many sources including induction from ambient electromagnetic sources and non-linear circuitry introducing distortions into the desired electrical signal. Background system noise, if not mitigated, is mixed with the desired audio signals and is reproduced by the speaker system. A second type of background noise is the ambient noise created by machinery, other people, and other sounds that exist in the immediate environment of a person trying to discern spoken words. Ambient background noise has many sources such as crowded rooms (many people talking), air conditioners and fans, kitchen equipment, traffic and road noise, the hum of facsimile machines and computers, factory/industrial equipment, etc. A third type of background noise is defined as those components of an electronic audio signal that interfere with a hearing impaired persons ability to understand the speech component of the same signal. For example, a hearing impaired person watching a television program that has a person speaking and a siren in the background may have trouble resolving the speech. This interfering background noise differs from ambient background noise in that it is part of the sound being produced by the speaker system. Multiple speakers talking at the same time on an audio program presents such interfering background noise problems.
Several concepts and systems for the reduction of background noise exist. For instance, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,025,721; 4,461,025; 4,630,304; and 5,550,924, each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The second environmental condition that causes hearing difficulties is related to room or environment acoustics. Techniques for improving audio quality for particular types of hearing impairments are of marginal value if audio speakers are in an environment having poor acoustics. Poor acoustical environment, whether in a private home, a car, a shopping mall, or sometimes even an auditorium, can make listening to a television, recorded materials, radio or a live performance, difficult even for a person with normal hearing. Sound waves emanating from speakers will contact every surface in the environment and the uncontrolled reflected, and to some extent the absorbed, sound waves will have an effect on the overall sound quality in the environment. The interaction of sound reflections with the incident sound waves can produce room resonance, resonance at natural frequencies, and standing waves. Research into minimizing these sound wave interference effects has resulted in speaker placement concepts and software techniques for acoustical design of enclosures, interior spaces and rooms in general. Signal processing techniques, wherein a digital audio signal is conditioned through software before being output to the speakers, have also been developed.
Even with the use of hearing improvement techniques such as environmental tuning to improve acoustics and control techniques to account for background noise, there still are situations where hearing impairment remains. For extreme cases of hearing loss, including total hearing loss, other methods have been developed. In one approach, the speech in an audio signal is isolated with sophisticated mathematical processing techniques. After the desired components of a particular audio signal are isolated, they can be analyzed and synthesized into textual equivalents of the original target speech sound. The speech, synthesized using a software program is then displayed as the text on a television screen or other display device. Speaker independent speech recognition is one technique to determine spoken words present any audio signal from a television, prerecorded playback device, live presentation, radio, or other source containing spoken words. Speech recognition algorithms process digital audio signals derived from an analog signal or inherently present in digital signals such as those used for digital television or audio broadcasts. Complicated signal processing algorithms, such as hidden Markov modeling (HMM), are implemented to resolve the speech in the presence of other speakers or other types of background noise. Once a speech signal is isolated it can be displayed as sub-titling or amplified to stand out from the other sounds in the audio signal.
Another sophisticated technique for the translation or conditioning of speech so that the actual speech can be textually or graphically presented is found in lip reading systems. The lip reading of a video signal incorporates established techniques used in computer vision. Mathematical or digital modeling of the face and lips of a speaker, singer, or the like, projecting words make computer vision lip reading a viable technique to translate or condition speech elements transmitted through a video signal.
Another element that is background to this invention is the evolution of expert systems. Expert systems are well known in the research community and are implemented in diverse systems today. An expert system is a problem solving technique and methodology that takes advantage of the knowledge base of experienced professionals and technicians who have many years of training and experience in a particular field. For example, in the medical field, expert systems use the knowledge of many experienced doctors to assist in the diagnoses of disease. Expert experience and knowledge is input into a cumulative database. The database can be searched by other doctors, technicians and interested parties to assist in the diagnoses of medical conditions based on particular patient symptoms. Expert systems use a forward or backward chaining process to answer posed questions. Facts input from a user become part of the database to be used in the chaining process. In a typical query, a doctor inputs the patient's current and/or past symptoms. Those symptoms are "facts" that aid the expert system in answering queries concerning the type of malady.
While systems and methods exist for improving hearing ability of the hearing impaired, for filtering background noise, and for compensating for room acoustics, a comprehensive integrated system and method using a combination of such technologies integrated with individual hearing loss profiles, modern computer vision, speech recognition, and expert systems all operated under the control of the hearing impaired individuals to improve speech intelligibility has not heretofore been described. Thus a need exists to provide such a comprehensive system and method to improve speech intelligibility for the hearing impaired.

System and method for enhancing speech intelligibility for the hearing impaired


A system, method, and computer-readable medium are disclosed for separating the purchase of digital assets from their fulfillment. Information associated with the purchase of a system and digital assets to be processed by the system is received, including the system's unique system identifier. The unique system identifier is associated with the digital assets to generate digital assets entitlement data. A personalization agent installed on the system determines the system's unique system identifier and automatically downloads the purchased digital assets and their associated digital assets entitlement data. Once downloaded, the personalization agent uses the digital assets entitlement data to install the purchased digital assets on the system, thereby entitling the system to process the installed digital assets.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the management of information handling systems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide a system, method, and computer-readable medium for separating the purchase of digital assets from their fulfillment.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In recent years, it has become common for manufacturers to offer standardized configurations of these systems bundled with an operating system (OS) and a selection of software applications, digital content, and associated services. Some of these same manufacturers also offer purchasers the ability to order a system custom-configured to their specification. These custom-configured systems, which are often ordered on-line, allow the purchaser to select the OS of their choice along with a selection of software and other digital assets to meet their individual needs. In some cases, the manufacturer may preinstall the OS and the selected digital assets on the system prior to delivery. In addition, the system may be further personalized (e.g., desktop themes and colors, etc.) as a service to the customer.
However, such options and services are generally not available in a retail environment, where the purchased system is more likely to be a standard configuration and software applications and other digital assets (e.g., games, movies, etc.) are typically prepackaged. Furthermore, even large retailers may not have all of the digital assets desired by the customer, causing them to go to other retailers or on-line to complete their system purchase. Moreover, retailers typically do not have the ability to sell a digital asset at a physical point of sale and then electronically deliver the purchased asset to the purchaser at a later time. Regardless of whether the digital assets are available in physical or digital form, or from one or multiple retailers, the customer is still required to sequentially load, configure, and personalize each item, which is often time consuming, tedious, and error-prone.
As a result, both the system manufacturer and their retailer lose the opportunity to establish a mutually beneficial and enduring relationship with the customer. In view of the foregoing, there is a need for separating transactions at a system retailer's Point Of Sale, as well as those made After the Point Of Sale (APOS), for the purchase of digital assets from their fulfillment. Furthermore, there is also a need for securing a connection between on-line providers of digital assets to ensure that they are only fulfilled on the system involved in the original transaction.

System and method for separation of software purchase from fulfillment


The present invention discloses a gene sequencing data compression preprocessing, compression and decompression method, a system, and a computer-readable medium. The preprocessing method implementation steps include: obtaining reference genome data; obtaining a mapping relationship between a short string K-mer and a prediction character c to obtain a prediction data model P1 containing any short string K-mer in the positive strand and negative strand of a reference genome and the prediction character c in a corresponding adjacent bit. The compression and decompression methods relate to performing compression/decompression on the basis of the prediction data model P1. The system is a computer system including a program for executing the previous method. The computer-readable medium includes a computer program for executing the previous method. The present invention can be oriented towards lossless gene sequencing data compression, provides fully effective information for a high-performance lossless compression and decompression algorithm for gene sequencing data.

As next generation sequence (NGS) keeps unfolding in recent years, gene sequencing is fast in speed and low in cost. Moreover, the gene sequencing technology has been extensively popularized and applied in various fields of biology, medicine, heath, criminal investigation, agriculture, etc., which leads to the explosive growth in original gene sequencing data at 3˜5 times every year, even faster. Besides, every gene sequencing sample is very big, for example, one person's 55×whole genome sequencing data is about 400 GB. Hence, there are technology and cost challenges for storage, management, retrieval and transmission of massive gene testing data.
Data compression is one of technologies to mitigate this challenge. Also, it is a process of converting data to be more compact than original format data to decrease the storage space. Original input data comprises a symbol sequence to be compressed or reduced. These symbols are coded by a compressor and output as coded data. At some later time point, the coded data is generally input into a decompressor to be decoded and rebuilt, and then the original data is output in a symbol sequence way. If the output data is always identical to the input data completely, this compression scheme is lossless, also called a lossless encoder. Otherwise, it is a lossy compression scheme.
At present, researchers from various countries in the world have developed various gene sequencing data compression methods. Based on applications thereof, the gene sequencing data compressed must be rebuilt and restored to be original data whenever possible. Hence, the gene sequencing data compression methods with actual meanings refer to lossless compression. In case of classifying based on the total technical route, the gene sequencing data compression method may be divided into general-purpose, reference-based and reference-free compression algorithms.
The general-purpose compression algorithm is to compress data without considering the features of gene sequencing data.
The reference-free compression algorithm is to directly compress target sample data by using a compression method without using reference genome based on the features of the gene sequencing data. The common compression method of the existing reference-free compression algorithm includes Huffman coding compression algorithm, dictionary method represented by LZ77 and LZ78, arithmetic coding compression algorithm, and other basic compression algorithms and their variant and optimization compression algorithms.
The reference-based compression algorithm comprises the steps of selecting a certain genome data as a reference genome, and indirectly compressing data using features of the gene sequencing data and the similarity between target sample data and reference genome data. Common similarity representation, coding and compression methods of the existing reference-based compression algorithms mainly comprise Huffman coding compression algorithm, dictionary method represented by LZ77 and LZ78, arithmetic coding compression algorithm, and other basic compression algorithms and their variant and optimization compression algorithms.
Two most common technical indicators for measuring compression algorithm performances or efficiencies comprise compression ratio or compression rate; compression/decompression time or compression/decompression speed. Compression ratio=(data size after compression/data size before compression)×100%, compression rate (data size before compression/data size after compression), namely, the compression ratio and the compression rate are the inverse of each other. The compression ratio and compression rate are only in connection with the compression algorithms which can be compared with each other directly, showing better algorithm performance or efficiency when the compression ratio is lower or the compression rate is higher; the compression/decompression time means machine running time required from original data reading to decompression; the compression/decompression speed means data volume that can be processed every unit time averagely. The compression/decompression time and the compression/decompression speed are relevant to the compression algorithm and the used machine environment (including hardware and system software). As a result of this, the compression/decompression time or compression/decompression speeds of various algorithms must be meaningful based on the same machine environment. It is on this premise that the algorithm performance or efficiency is better when the compression/decompression time is shorter and the compression/decompression speed is faster. Besides, an additional reference technical indicator is resource consumption at runtime, mainly a peak value stored by machines. When the compression ratio and compression/decompression time are equivalent, the less storage requirements indicate the better algorithm performance or efficiency.
The comparative research results of the existing gene sequencing data compression methods made by the researchers indicate that the general-purpose, reference-free and reference-based compression algorithms have the following problems: 1. the compression ratio can be further decreased; 2. when the relatively better compression ratio is obtained, the algorithm compression/decompression time is relatively long, which makes the time cost become a new problem. Besides, compared with the general-purpose and reference-free compression algorithms, the reference-based compression algorithm can generally obtain the better compression ratio. However, for the reference-based compression algorithm, the choice of the reference genome will result in the algorithm performance stability problem, namely, when different reference genomes are selected to process the same target sample data, there may be obvious differences in compression algorithm performance; when the same reference genome selection strategies are applied to processing same and different gene sequencing sample data, there may be obvious differences in compression algorithm performances as well. To be specific, for the reference-based compression algorithm, how to preprocess to improve the compression ratio and compression performance of the gene sequencing data based on the reference genome has been an urgent technical problem to be solved.

Gene sequencing data compression preprocessing, compression and decompression method, system, and computer-readable medium


As a method for energizing a three-phase stepping motor of Y-connection, driving current values are set to be values resembling sine wave input approximation, thus making it possible to effect driving at small vibration. Energizing of the three-phase stepping motor is performed by a two-three phase driving scheme which calls for alternately effecting a two-phase excitation of the coils in the motor and a three-phase excitation of the coils in the motor. The driving current flowing through each of the coils approximates a sine wave having normalized values defined by .+-. 1, .+-. 0.87, .+-. 0.5 and 0.

The present invention generally relates to an electric motor, and more particularly, to a method for driving a three-phase stepping motor.
In recent years, there has been a tendency that stepping motors come to be used for automobiles, and the stepping motor as an automobile component is required to be compact in size, with higher torque and less vibration.
FIG. 5 shows driving current waveforms for respective coils in a micro-step driving of a conventional three-phase stepping motor, in which the current following through a first coil is represented by Numeral 31, the current flowing through a second coil, by Numeral 32, and that flowing through a third coil, by Numeral 33.
In FIG. 6, there is shown a circuit block diagram for micro-step driving of a conventional three phase stepping motor, which generally includes instruction input terminals 34 connected, through error amplifiers 35, to drivers 38, which are further coupled to the motors 41 connected with current detecting resistors 40, and a triangular wave oscillator 36 coupled with the drivers 38 through a level shift circuit 37, with current feedback amplifiers 39 being coupled between the terminals 34 and the motors 41 connected to the resistor 40 as shown.
By the above arrangement, sine waves respectively shifted in phase by 120.degree. are inputted to the terminals 34 as the instructions. Each of the current detecting resistors 40 is inserted per coil one phase to effect the current detection for each one phase, and the current thus detected is applied to the error amplifiers 35 through the feedback amplifiers 39. Thus, the motor current is controlled by constituting the current minor loop. The drivers 38 are constituted by a transistor H bridge which allows current to be fed to each phase, and respectively subjected to the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control. The level shift circuit 37 is provided with a rest period for preventing arm short-circuiting of the transistor H bridge. By arranging as described above, the motor current synchronized with the instruction value may be controlled, and thus, it becomes possible to subject the three-phase stepping motor to the micro-step driving.
However, in the known arrangement as described above, there is such a disadvantage that the current detection must be effected for the micro-step driving, thus requiring the current detecting resistors. Moreover, the circuit construction becomes complicated for constituting the current minor loop, with a consequent rise in cost. Furthermore, there has been such a problem that due to the complicated circuit construction, the circuit tends to be large in the scale, and can not be employed for application into small spaces.

Method for driving three phase stepping motor


An electro-optic device includes a pair of substrates, and an electro-optic material held between the pair of substrates, wherein one of the pair of substrates includes a condensing unit provided on the electro-optic material-side surface of the substrate in order to condense light incident on the substrate, and a functional layer provided to overlap at least the condensing unit in a plan view.

1. Technical Field
Several aspects of the present invention relates to an electro-optic device, a method for manufacturing an electro-optic device, a projector, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
An image display area of an electro-optic device used as a light valve of a projector includes a pixel region which emits light and a pixel-to-pixel region in which wiring is formed for supplying electric signals to the pixel region. For example, in a liquid crystal device, the pixel-to-pixel region is generally covered with a light-shielding portion to prevent transmission of light in this region.
In such an electro-optic device, preferably, the quantity of light emitted from the pixel region is as large as possible and the emitted light is bright light, and it is desired to realize high light utilization efficiency. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 3-170911 discloses a liquid crystal device using an optical element having a wedge groove in a pixel-to-pixel region. The optical element is provided on one of a pair of opposing substrates of the liquid crystal device so that light transmitted through the pixel-to-pixel region is reflected by the groove to the inside of the pixel region, i.e., the groove functions as a prism. As a result, the light utilization efficiency is increased.
However, the groove is provided in the pixel-to-pixel region of the substrate surface and thus overlaps a region in which the light-shielding portion is formed. When the groove is formed in the substrate surface, the light-shielding portion may be deformed or broken due to sinking in the groove. Therefore, a cover glass is attached to the substrate surface in which the groove is formed so that the light-shielding portion is formed on the cover glass.
However, when the cover glass is attached, the thickness of a liquid crystal device is increased by an amount corresponding to the thickness of the cover glass. In addition, in the configuration shown in FIG. 5 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 3-170911, reflected light is transmitted through the cover glass and is applied to the light-shielding portion, thereby decreasing the light utilization efficiency. Furthermore, the cost is increased by attaching the cover glass.

Electro-optic device, method for manufacturing electro-optic device, projector, and electronic apparatus


A fast and accurate non-contacting angle sensor. According to one aspect of the described sensor and method of operation thereof, the angular orientation of an inner payload relative to an outer structure is monitored with a 2 axis optical angle sensor for azimuth and elevation angles. The sensor operates on the same principle as an autocollimator, thus it measures both azimuth and elevation angles simultaneously. The angle sensor measurements are highly accurate in the angles of interest, while having low sensitivity to translation in three axes and low sensitivity to roll angle between the inner payload and the outer structure.

Many applications require fast and accurate measurement of a relative angular orientation between two points. For these and other applications, angle sensors have been developed. Certain sensors require mechanical or other physical contact between the two bodies whose relative orientation is being studied. However, these types of sensors are undesirable in applications where complete freedom of movement between the two bodies is required.
Accordingly, it would be desirable if a non-contacting angle sensor could be developed that is both accurate and fast.


A vehicle signaling system allowing selective and independent illumination of a vehicle""s headlight and taillight systems. The vehicle signaling system may be made part of new vehicle manufacture, or a retrofit installation. The selective and independent illumination allows an overtaking vehicle and an overtaken vehicle to safely signal each other by means of independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight systems. The vehicle signaling system is connected into the vehicle""s power source and ground, and incorporates a means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system, and may include a remote auxiliary means for activating the systems. An electrical circuit controlling means accepts a plurality of inputs and produces a plurality of outputs used to either interrupt, or supply, power to the headlight and taillight systems. The electrical circuit controlling means may include an integrated circuit.

The present invention relates to the field of vehicle signaling systems; particularly, to a device for conveniently and independently activating and deactivating vehicle headlights and taillights to signal other vehicles, regardless of whether the headlights or taillights are presently illuminated.
Due to the nature of their design, certain vehicles, particularly trucks, are inherently relatively large, long, heavy, slow to accelerate and decelerate, and give their operator limited fields of visibility, especially to the rear. As a result, a persistent problem exists in the operation of trucks upon the roadways, particularly on highways. When a truck overtakes and passes another vehicle, particularly another truck, it is difficult for the passing truck operator, who generally must rely only on his or her rear view mirrors, to accurately gauge when the operator""s truck has fully passed the vehicle that it has overtaken. Such a determination is critical to deciding when it is safe to pull back into the rightwards lane in front of the overtaken vehicle. Errors made in this determination are literally life threatening.
To cope with this problem, an informal system has developed among truck drivers to signal each other when it is safe to pull back into the rightward lane in front of an overtaken vehicle. The driver of the overtaken vehicle carefully observes the progress of the passing truck and notes when it has passed his or her own vehicle with a safe margin of distance for the overtaking truck to return to the rightward lane. The driver then flashes his or her lights a few times, so that the driver of the overtaking truck, seeing the flash in his or her rear view mirrors, will know that it is safe to pull back in front of the overtaken vehicle. The driver of the overtaking vehicle then flashes his or her lights, both to acknowledge the safe passing signal and to express a xe2x80x9cthank youxe2x80x9d for the courtesy shown by the overtaken driver. A driver on essentially any highway can see this ritual repeated hundreds of times in a single evening.
This informal system, while widely used, is not free from drawbacks that are both inconvenient and potentially dangerous. In the daytime, it is necessary for both the overtaken and overtaking vehicles to first energize their vehicles lighting system, before being able to perform the signaling steps. This extra step is another demand on the driver""s attention, which may cause accidents. If the driver chooses to turn off his or her lighting system, after a daytime signal, yet another possibly attention diverting maneuver is required. If a driver leaves the lighting system energized in the daytime after a signal, extra operating time is placed on the light bulbs, additional energy is consumed thereby reducing fuel economy, and the vehicle batteries may be drained if the vehicle is shut down without turning off the lighting system.
At night, another complication is present. Since the traditional lighting system control activates both the headlights and taillights at the same time, and often the running lights, the driver flashing his or her lights must turn on and off both the front headlights and rear taillights of the vehicle, even though the signaling maneuver requires that only the headlights or taillights be flashed. For example, the overtaken vehicle, needing only to flash its headlights, must turn on and off its taillights also. This can cause the overtaken vehicle to appear to temporarily disappear, on a dark roadway, to other vehicles behind it, as for a period of time the vehicle is traveling with no lights on. Other drivers may be startled by the sudden apparent disappearance of a large truck in front of them. Similarly, the overtaking truck, needing only to flash its taillights to acknowledge and thank the overtaken driver, must of necessity flash its headlights as well. The sudden loss of forward illumination can cause the driver of the overtaking truck to momentarily lose sight of the roadway, and any objects upon it, which can be extremely dangerous. The sudden flashing of headlights can also alarm drivers in an opposing flow of traffic.
Both the interruption of the taillights of the overtaken vehicle and the interruption of the headlights of the overtaking vehicle are entirely unnecessary to the signaling ritual, and are necessitated solely by the traditional wiring of vehicle lighting systems.
Alternatives for signaling are used but possess serious drawbacks. Horn signals may be difficult to hear, may startle other drivers in close proximity, and create adverse unnecessary noise. Citizens band radios, which are not universally carried in all vehicles, may be used, but reception and transmission can be problematic depending on various factors, including weather conditions and others"" use of the potentially crowded airwaves.
What continues to be needed but is missing from the field of vehicle signaling systems is a device that improves transportation safety by allowing a driver to conveniently signal other drivers utilizing activating and deactivating headlights and taillights independently of other vehicle lighting. Further, the device must be easy to incorporate as either an original equipment manufacturer lighting system or as an aftermarket retrofit device, and must be easy to fabricate to ensure that it is economical. While some of the prior art devices attempted to improve various aspects of the state of the art of vehicle lighting systems, none has achieved the cost optimized capability of the present invention, which is easy to fabricate and convenient to use. With these capabilities taken into consideration, the instant invention addresses many of the shortcomings of the prior art and offers significant benefits heretofore unavailable.
In its most general configuration, the present invention advances the state of the art with a variety of new capabilities and overcomes many of the shortcomings of prior devices in new and novel ways. In its most general sense, the present invention overcomes the shortcomings and limitations of the prior art in any of a number of generally effective configurations.
A primary objective of the present invention is to allow selective, and independent, illumination of a vehicle""s headlight system, including at least one set of headlights, and a vehicle""s taillight system, including at least one set of taillights and optional running lights, regardless of whether the headlight and taillight systems are illuminated. The vehicle signaling system of the present invention may be applied to existing vehicles in a retrofit type of installation, or may be incorporated into the design and manufacture of new vehicles. Similarly, it may be incorporated into trailer lighting systems including, but not limited to, camper trailers, boat trailers, livestock trailers, and equipment trailers.
The selective, and independent, illumination allows an overtaking vehicle and an overtaken vehicle to conveniently and safely signal each other by activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system. The present invention may connect into a vehicle""s power source, a vehicle grounding system, a headlight system actuation means, and a taillight system actuation means. Such connections may be easily incorporated into existing vehicles.
In one of the many preferable configurations, the vehicle signaling system incorporates, among other elements, a means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system, a means for continuously activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system, a means for obtaining power from the vehicle power system, an electrical circuit means for controlling the headlight system and the taillight system by electrically connecting the intermittent activation and deactivation means, the continuous activation and deactivation means, and the power attaining means, and a means for electrically interfacing the electrical circuit controlling means to the headlight system and the taillight system.
In one particular embodiment, the means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight system may incorporate a two position non-locking switch having a headlight system flash position, a flash OFF position, and a taillight system flash position. Simply moving the switch from the flash OFF position to the headlight system flash position and holding the switch, then letting it return to the flash OFF position will flash the headlight system whether or not the headlight system is presently illuminated, and without having any effect on the illumination of the taillight system. For example, at night when the headlight system and taillight system are illuminated, such action will de-energize the headlights when the switch is held in the headlight system flash position, yet the taillight system will remain illuminated and unaffected by the action. Likewise, during the daytime, movement of the switch to the headlight system flash position results in the intermittent illumination of the headlight system, again without affecting the taillight system.
Alternatively, simply moving the switch from the flash OFF position to the taillight system flash position and holding the switch, then letting it return to the flash OFF position, will flash the taillight system whether or not the taillight system is presently illuminated, and without having any effect on the illumination of the headlight system. For example, at night when the headlight system and taillight system are illuminated, such action will de-energize the taillight system when the switch is held in the taillight system flash position, yet the headlight system will remain illuminated and unaffected by the action. Likewise, during the daytime, movement of the switch to the taillight system flash position results in the intermittent illumination of the taillight system, again without affecting the headlight system.
An additional variation of the present invention includes an auxiliary means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system. The auxiliary means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight system may incorporate a two position non-locking switch having a headlight system flash position, a flash OFF position, and a taillight system flash position. The auxiliary means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight system would operate identically to the means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight system. The auxiliary means may be mounted away from the means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight and taillight system and in virtually any location in the vehicle compartment. In one specific embodiment the auxiliary means may be mounted on the gear shift. Alternatively, the auxiliary means may be incorporated into the steering wheel.
In a further embodiment, the continuous activation and deactivation means may incorporate a two-position locking switch having a headlight system and taillight system ON position, a lighting OFF position, and a taillight system ON position. Generally, in the evening the switch would be in the headlight system and taillight system ON position thereby illuminating the headlight system and the taillight system. Alternatively, the switch may be located in the taillight system ON position thereby illuminating only the taillight system. An alternative embodiment may utilize a vehicle""s original equipment lighting controls in lieu of a separate continuous activation and deactivation means.
The vehicle signaling system also includes a means for obtaining power from the vehicle power system. The power obtaining means may include numerous variations. It may simply electrically connect the vehicles power system to the vehicle signaling system, or may include numerous other electrical devices such as voltage regulators, fuses, capacitors, and resistors. The power obtaining means may include provisions for connecting the vehicle common ground to the vehicle signaling system.
The electrical circuit controlling means accepts inputs from the means for intermittently and independently activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system and the means for continuously activating and deactivating the headlight system and the taillight system and provides outputs to the means for electrically interfacing the electrical circuit controlling means to the headlight system and the taillight system. The electrical circuit controlling means may be constructed with analog or digital devices. In one particular embodiment the electrical circuit controlling means incorporates an integrated circuit, a headlight system current amplification device, and a taillight system current amplification device.
In the specific embodiment utilizing an integrated circuit (IC), the IC may be a standard off the shelf IC that one with skill in the art can select. For example, but not limitation, a standard IC available from Radio Shack(copyright) identified as the 74AC86P IC may be used to perform the required functions. Additionally, embodiments utilizing this IC incorporate a means of obtaining a 5V DC power supply. This may be accomplished utilizing a voltage regulator to reduce the vehicle""s power supply, typically 12V DC, to the desired 5V DC. Later, the 5V DC output must activate the 12V DC headlight system and taillight system. Often, to accomplish this activation of the headlight system and taillight system current amplification devices are required. Such current amplification devices may often incorporate a resistor and a transistor. The amplified current may then be used to activate the electrical interfacing means.
The electrical interfacing means accepts the control signal from the electrical circuit controlling means and activates and deactivates the headlight system and the taillight system. One of many possible embodiments incorporates a headlight secondary relay and a taillight secondary relay. The headlight secondary relay and the taillight secondary relay may include respective headlight secondary relay coil, taillight secondary relay coil, headlight secondary relay contact, and headlight secondary relay contact.
These variations, modifications, alternatives, and alterations of the various preferred embodiments, arrangements, and configurations may be used alone or in combination with one another as will become more readily apparent to those with skill in the art with reference to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying figures and drawings.


A rotary-wing blade of a rotary-wing aircraft has an airfoil section which has an asymmetrical region of positive camber from its leading edge to its approximately 30-percent chord length point and an essentially symmetrical airfoil region from its 30-percent chord point to approximately its 90-percent chord length point. The region aft of the 90-percent chord point can be optionally curved or reflexed upward or downward to a limited degree. This blade has a large lift coefficient and a small pitching moment and is readily adaptable to meet various design conditions of lift coefficient and pitching moment.

The present invention relates generally to a rotary-wing blade of a rotary-wing aircraft, and more particularly, to a cross-sectional shape of a rotary-wing blade. The cross-sectional shape will hereinafter be referred to as a wing section or airfoil section.
In general, various wing sections have been and are being developed for obtaining desired lift and drag forces of fixed wings and rotary wings. Wing sections can be classified by any of the characteristics thereof. A classification by camber of the wing section is illustrated in FIGS. 9(a) through (e). FIG. 9(a) shows a symmetrical airfoil; FIG. 9(b) a positive camber airfoil; FIG. 9(c) a negative camber airfoil; FIG. 9(d) a leading edge camber (leading-edge droop) airfoil; and FIG. 9(e) a trailing-edge camber (rear-loading) airfoil.
Most of the rotary-wing blades of the rotary-wing aircraft of the prior art have airfoil shapes developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which is predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Representative examples of airfoils of the NACA are symmetrical airfoil NACA 0012 and cambered airfoil NACA 23012. However, these airfoils have the following inadequacies. Both the subsonic maximum lift coefficient Cl.sub.max and zero-lift drag-divergence Mach number Mdd, required for improving the high-velocity performance of rotary-wing aircraft, of NACA 0012 are low. The NACA 23012 has a relatively high maximum lift coefficient Cl.sub.max. However, its zero-lift drag-divergence Mach number Mdd is low. Therefore the airfoils cannot be expected to contribute to a significant improvement of performance of rotary-wing aircraft .
In comparison, the airfoils proposed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-33760 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-56960 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,434) are directed toward performances that are higher. The airfoils have higher maximum lift coefficients Cl.sub.max and zero-lift, drag-convergence Mach numbers Mdd.
FIG. 10 is a graph indicating comparison of the performances of airfoils. The ordinate of the graph represents maximum lift coefficient Cl.sub.max at Mach 0.4. The abscissa represents zero-lift drag-divergence Mach number Mdd. The graph shows points respectively representing the performances of the above mentioned airfoil NACA 0012, airfoil NACA 23012, the airfoil (designated by reference character T) disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-56960, and airfoils (SC 1095-R8 and SC 1095) disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-33760.
The graph of FIG. 10 indicates that airfoils T, SC 1095-R8, and SC 1095 have higher maximum lift coefficients Cl.sub.max at Mach 0.4 and higher zero-lift, drag-divergence Mach number Mdd than airfoil NACA 0012. The graph indicates also that airfoils SC 1095-R8 and SC 1095 have higher zero-lift drag-divergence Mach numbers Mdd than NACA 23012.
The cross-sectional airfoil section disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-56960 is shown in FIG. 11. As shown, the airfoil section is a positive camber section with an up-curved or reflexed trailing edge. The upwardly curved trailing edge is intended to reduce the nose-down (negative) pitching moment. The negative pitching moment is a cause of vibration unavoidable in a positive-camber airfoil and of an increase of the load on the pitch angle varying mechanism.
The cross-sectional airfoil sections SC 1095-R8 and SC 1095, disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-33760 are shown respectively in FIGS. 12(a) and 12(b). In the case of these airfoils, the nose-down (negative) pitching moment is reduced by adding trailing-edge tabs to provide an up-turned trailing edge.
The performances of rotary-wing aircraft have been improving steadily in recent years. In accordance with this trend, various high-performance airfoils have been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 56-95799 discloses a series of four airfoils designated as VR-12, VR-13, VR-14, and VR-15. The relationship between the maximum lift coefficient Cl.sub.max at Mach 0.4 and the zero-lift drag-divergence Mach number Mdd of each of these airfoils is indicated also in FIG. 10. As indicated in FIG. 10, the airfoils have high values of both Cl.sub.max and Mdd. From this, it can be said that the airfoils have high performance.
The cross-sectional profiles of the airfoils of the series disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 56-95799 are shown respectively in FIGS. 13(a), 13(b), 13(c), and 13(d). Similarly as in the case of the other airfoils described hereinabove, upward curves are added thereto in the vicinity of their trailing edges. Thus, the nose-down (negative) pitching moment due to positive camber is reduced in each case.
In general, the pitching moment of a symmetrical airfoil is essentially zero. Furthermore, a symmetrical airfoil is advantageous with regard to its zero-lift drag-divergence Mach number. However, a symmetrical airfoil has the disadvantage of low maximum lift.
In this connection, most of the positive-camber airfoils of the prior art have added positive camber over substantially the entire region thereof from the leading edge to the trailing edge. This feature is intended to increase their maximum lift coefficient. However, in order to mitigate the excessively great nose-down (negative) pitching moment to which these positive-camber airfoils are subjected, they are provided with up-curved or reflexed curves at their trailing edges.
Increasing the angle of up-turn of the airfoil trailing edge may appear to be a measure for further decreasing the nose-down pitching moment. However, increasing the up-turn angle of the trailing edge results in performance-deteriorating effects such as flow separation at the lower surface of the up-turned part of the blade. For this reason, in the case where the allowable value of the pitching moment is small, a major change in the design of the wing section shape becomes necessary. An example of one item of such change is a reduction in the camber.

Rotary-wing blade of rotary-wing aircraft


The present invention relates to the IL-12p40 subunit mutant gene which can produce IL-12(interleukin 12) of human and mouse origin with high activity, the expression vector including above mutant gene and the use of them to DNA vaccine adjuvant. Particularly, it relates to IL-12p40 mutant gene which inhibits the secretion of IL-12p40 but normally secretes active IL-12p70 by making mutation at Asn-222(human) or Asn-220(mouse) amino acid of IL-12p40, which acts as a competitive inhibitor of active form of IL-12, IL-12p70. Therefore, the IL-12p40 mutant gene of the present invention can be useful for DNA vaccination and gene therapy against various diseases, for example, AIDS, hepatitis C or hepatitis B, cancer, influenza, tuberculosis and malaria, which essentially require cellular immune responses for their therapy.

IL-12 is secreted by antigen presenting cells (APC) such as macrophages, monocytes and B cells after getting appropriate stimulation, and works as a regulator for many kinds of immune response in vivo. Particularly, IL-12 has a broad range of activities including proliferation of activated type 1 helper T (Th1) and natural killer (NK) cells, regulation of the production of many cytokines, induction of type 1 T helper cell immune responses, differentiation of CD8+ T cells, stimulation of hematopoietic stem cells (Hsieh, C. S. et al., Science, 260:547-549, 1993), and especially, regulation of immune response by promoting lytic activity of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) and NK cells (Robertson, M. J. and J. Ritz., Oncologist, 1:88-97, 1999; Trinchieri, G., Annu. Rev. Immunol., 13:251-276, 1995). According to recent reports, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients produced five-fold less biologically active IL-12 (Chehimi, J. et al., J. Exp. Med., 179:1361-1366, 1994), and mycobacterial and salmonella infections were found to lack of IL-12 receptor expression (de Jong, R. et al., Science, 280:1435-1438). Due to these roles of IL-12, it could induce strong immune response in vivo against virus, bacteria and various cancers. Therefore, the present inventors can expect development of many treatment agents using the present invention.
On the basis of the theory that IL-12 is related to the growth of memory Th1 and memory CTL cells (Stobie, L. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 97:8427-8432, 2000; Mortarini, R. et al., Cancer Res., 60:3559-3568, 2000; Mbawuike, I. N. et al., J. Infect. Dis., 180:1477-1486, 1999), IL-12 is believed to be used as a effective vaccine adjuvant or a treatment agent against various diseases requiring cellular immune response. Considering metastasis or recurrence, which is the most difficult part of the cancer treatment, the inducing of memory immune response is especially necessary. However, as of today the exact mechanism of IL-12, which is connected to those effects, has not been cleared. But, based on current available data, these are some clues to the mechanism by which IL-12 sustains CD4+ Th1 cells. In the course of Th1 differentiation, production of IFN-γ is enhanced and IL-2 is diminished. Because IL-2 is a potent growth factor and IFN-γ is antiproliferative, IL-12 could function to sustain cell growth and viability or to prevent apoptosis of CD4+ IFN-γ T cells (Fuss, I. J. et al., Gastroenterology, 117:1078-1088, 1999; Marth, T. et al., J. Immunol., 162:7233-7240, 1999). Also, IFN-γ which is increased by IL-12 augments expression of IL-15 (Zhang, X. et al., Immunity, 8:591-599, 1998), which is related to memory CD8+ T cell. Based on those reports, IL-12 is very useful in vaccine immunization since IL-12 is related not only to the early immune response but also to the memory immune response.
The biologically functional form of IL-12 is a 70 kDa heterodimer, IL-12p70, which consists of disulfide-bonded p40 and p35 subunits. The p40 subunit shares amino aid sequence homology with the IL-6 receptor, thus it belongs to the cytokine receptor superfamily, whereas p35 subunit has a distant but a significant relationship to the IL-6/granulocyte colony stimulating factor cytokine family (Gearing, D. P., and Cosman, D., Cell, 66:9-10, 1991).
The IL-12p40 is secreted as both a monomer and a homodimer in large excess over IL-12p70 both in vitro (D'Andrea et al., J. Exp. Med., 176:1387-1398, 1992; Podlasky, F. J. et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 294:230-237, 1992) and in vivo (Mattner, F. et al., Eur. J. Immunol., 23:2202-2208, 1993; Heinzel, F. P. et al., Infect. Immun., 62:4244-4249, 1994). It has been demonstrated that IL-12p40 strongly antagonizes IL-12p70-mediated responses by binding competitively to IL-12 recepor in vitro (Gillessen, S. et al., Eur. J. Immunol., 25:200-206, 1995; Ling, P. et al., J. Immunol., 154:116-127, 1995), suggesting the critical role of IL-12p40 as a natural antagonist of IL-12p70. This is supported by several observations including a reduction in Th1 responses in IL-12p40 transgenic mice (Yoshimoto, T. et al., J. Immunol., 160:588-594, 1998), the prevention of allogenic rejection in transplanted myoblasts engineered to produce IL-12p40 (Kato, K. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 93:9085-9089, 1996), and the inhibition of tumor suppression activity of IL-12p70 by adenovirus expressing IL-12p40 (Chen, L. et al., J. Immunol., 159:351-359, 1997). In contrast, there is a report describing a positive role of IL-12p40 in IL-12p70-mediated responses resulting in alloantigen-specific Th1 development under certain condition (Piccotti, J. R. et al., J. Immunol., 157:1951-1957, 1996). Furthermore, a novel function of IL-12p40 as a chemotactic molecule for macrophage was known by this inventors (Ha, S. J. et al., J. Immunol., 163:2902-2908, 1999).
Various in vivo systems have been established in order to prove the anti-cancer effect of IL-12p70. However, there is a significant side-effect which could result in death if human recombinant IL-12p70 protein is directly injected into a cancer patient (Robertson, M. J. and Ritz, J., Oncologist, 1:88-97, 1996; Cohen, J., Science, 270:908, 1995). To prevent this side-effect and to be effective in economy, lots of studies have been conducted on gene therapy by using IL-12 gene, which now proves that IL-12 gene treatment is very effective and has no harm (Rakhmilevich, A. L. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 93:6291-6296, 1996; Tahara, H. et al., J. Immunol., 154:6466-6474, 1995; Lotze, M. T. et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 795:440-454, 1996).
IL-12p70, a biologically active form of IL-12, is essential (Gulber, U. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 88:4143-4147) for the gene-therapy using IL-12 and, cDNAs of p35 and p40 should be expressed in a cell at the same time. Many methods have been used to simultaneously express p35 and p40 subunit together in one cell. One of them is to use expression cassette through which p35 and p40 are placed in consecutive row and expressed each by each (Rakhmilevich, A. L. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 93:6291-6296, 1996). Another one is to use internal ribosomal entry site (IRES) of encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) for simultaneous expression of both genes. These methods were successful in expressing IL-12p70 in one cell, but as mentioned above, not successful in removing the possibility that continuously expressed excessive IL-12p40 inhibits the biological action of IL-12p70.
To overcome this intrinsic defect, the genetic linkage of p35 subunit followed by p40 subunit was recently proposed by means of a DNA sequence encoding a protein linker commonly used in antibody engineering (Lieschke, G. J. et al., Nat. Biotechnol., 15:35-40, 1997; Lode, H. N. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 95:2475-2480, 1998; Lee, Y. L. et al., Human Gene Ther., 9:457-465, 1998). Antagonistic effect of excessive IL-12p40 against biological activity of IL-12p70 could be surmounted in the above method. However, it is still not good enough having a problem that the activity of IL-12p70 was 5-100 times more decreased since it's structure may be changed when p35 and p40 are linked together. For the effective treatment against cancer or other diseases with IL-12 gene, it is required to induce IL-12p70 still having the same activity and prevent the secretion of IL-12p40.
Glycosylation has been known to contribute protein folding, secretion, conformation, stability and biological activity. The p35 and p40 subunits of human IL-12 express 219 and 328 amino acids that contain 56 and 22 amino acids of hydrophobic signal sequences, respectively. The analysis of human IL-12 amino acid sequence reveals three and four putative N-glycosylation sites within p35 and p40 subunits, respectively (Podlasky, F. J. et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 294:230-237, 1992). Stern et al. reported that after treatment of human IL-12 with tri-fluoromethanesulfonic acid or glycosidase F, IL-12p35 and IL-12p40 were reduced in molecular weight (Podlasky, F. J. et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 294:230-237, 1992). This suggests that p35 and p40 subunits of human IL-12 are composed of carbohydrates. In the same report, it was also demonstrated that the digestion of IL-12p35 with neuramidase followed by endo-α-N-acetylgalactosamimidase reduced its molecular weight, whereas IL-12p40 was unaffected by such treatment. These experiments indicate that the glycosylation of IL-12p35 is contributed by O-linked oligosaccharides and that IL-12p40 has no O-linked carbohydrates. And, in the analysis of N-glycosylation at Asn-135 and Asn-222 amino acid residues, it was revealed that Asn-222 is the N-glycosylation site. However the exact N-glycosylation sites of human and mouse IL-12 and its effects on the synthesis, secretion and biological activity of IL-12 have not been defined.
On the other hand, the study using IL-12 gene has been accelerated since cell-mediated immune response is required rather than humoral immune response for the prevention and treatment of many viral or bacterial diseases along with suppression of cancer formation. Hepatitis C is the representative virus-mediated disease and once infected with HCV, more than 50% patients become chronic and finally lead to liver cirrhosis or liver cancer (Alter, H. J. et al., N. Engl. J. Med., 321:1494-1500, 1989). As of today, only α-interferon is known as a treatment agent for hepatitis C, but the effect is not good enough (10-30%) (Weiland, E. et al. J. Virol., 66:3677-3682, 1992). So, more effective vaccine or treatment agents against HCV are urgently required. According to the medical test reports including both human and chimpanzee, HCV is related to specific humoral immune response and cell-mediated immune response as well (Prince, A. M. et al., J. Infect. Dis., 165:438-443, 1992), and E1 and E2, structural protein of HCV is reported as a major antigen to induce protective immunity (Choo, Q. L. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91:1294-1298, 1994). Once more, cell-mediated immune response including CTL is preferably needed to remove HCV compared to humoral immune response (Cooper, S. et al., Immunity, 10:439-449, 1999; Rinaldo, C. et al., J. Virol., 69:5838-5842, 1995).
DNA immunization is the most recent method to induce cell-mediated immune response. DNA immunization is differentiated with the existing one using dead or detoxicated pathogen or certain parts of pathogen in the matter of inserting DNA coding a specific component of pathogen directly to the human body. DNA immunization is also known to induce strong immune response against various infectious virus such as influenza, hepatitis B and human immunodeficiency virus (Ulmer, J. B. et al., Science, 259:1745-1749, 1993; Michel, M. L. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 92:5307-5311, 1995; Irwin, M. J. et al., J. Virol., 68:5306-5044, 1994). In addition, DNA immunization is also reported to induce special immune response against capsid and E2 protein of HCV (Major, M. E. et al., J. Virol., 69:5798-5805, 1995; Tedeschi, V. et al., Hepatology, 25:459-462, 1997).
However, DNA immunization is limited in use because expression frequency of an antigen is low in vivo. Some kind of costimulatory molecule genes which are necessary for the activation of immune cells were used to increase the effect of DNA immunization (Geissler, M. et al., J. Immunol., 159:5107-5113, 1997; Iwasaki, A. et al., J. Immunol., 158:4591-4601, 1997; Lee, S. W. et al., J. Virol., 72:8430-8436, 1997). IL-12 gene was also used to induce immune response against HCV effectively (Lasartte, J. J. et al., J. Immunol., 162:270-277, 1999). Those, however, has given unsatisfactory results so far especially in the DNA immunization with human and primates (Boyer, J. et al., Keystone Symposium on DNA Vaccines Apr., 12-17, 1998).
The present inventors worked hard to produce genes which can express active IL-12p70 through the control of glycosylation and can minimize the secretion of IL-12p40 decreasing immune activity by action of IL-12. As a result, the mutant gene was obtained through the mutation of Asn-222, glycosylation site of human IL-12p40 subunit and Asn-220, glycosylation site of mouse IL-12p40 subunit. The obtained mutant genes which increase the expression of active IL-12p70 and decrease the secretion of IL-12p40 was used in small animal model, mice, along with HCV E2 gene for DNA immunization. Through this trial, the best cell-mediated immune response was induced and even this immune response was continued long period. Thus, it is certain that the mutant gene of the present invention is very useful as an adjuvant for DNA vaccine.

Genes of IL-12P40 subunit mutated for improving the activity of IL-12 and use thereof for DNA vaccine adjuvant


In a wireless charging system having a power transmitter (TX) and a power receiver (RX), the RX has a rectifier that rectifies an AC power signal received wirelessly from the TX into a rectified DC power signal. The RX also has regulation modules that monitor the DC power signal at various different voltage regions having one or more different high-voltage regions and one or more different low-voltage regions. Each regulation module affects operations of the wireless charging system in a different way. The regulation modules protect the RX from both over-voltage and under-voltage conditions.

The present invention relates generally to wireless charging systems, and, more particularly, to a receiver of a wireless charging system that avoids over-voltage and under-voltage conditions.
FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic block diagram of a conventional wireless charging system 100 having a power transmitter (TX) 110 and a power receiver (RX) 130. The TX 110 includes transmitter 112, TX matching network 114, and TX inductor coil 116, while the RX 130 includes RX inductor coil 132, RX matching network 134, rectifier (i.e., AC-to-DC converter) 136, communication controller 138, and communication processor 140. The matching networks 114 and 134 are designed to ensure that the output impedance of the TX 110 matches the input impedance of the RX 130. The TX and RX inductor coils 116 and 132 form an inductive interface 120 for wirelessly (i.e., magnetically) transferring (i) power from the TX 110 to the RX 130 and (ii) communications signals between the TX and RX 110 and 130.
The transmitter 112 applies an AC power signal 113 to the TX inductor coil 116 via the TX matching network 114. The AC power signal 113 induces an AC power signal in the RX inductor coil 132, which is applied via the RX matching network 134 as AC power signal 135 to the rectifier 136. The rectifier 136 rectifies the AC power signal 135 into a DC power signal VRECT that is applied to power the system load (not shown).
The communication controller 138 generates communication signals that are transmitted by the communication processor 140 through the inductive interface 120 to the TX 110. In particular, the communication controller 138 monitors VRECT and, if appropriate, transmits communication signals to (i) instruct the TX 110 to increase the power transfer level if VRECT is too low and (ii) instruct the TX 110 to decrease the power transfer level if VRECT is too high.
There are some situations, however, where the wireless charging system 100 will not operate properly. For example, under some conditions, the power transfer path can interfere with the communication path since they share a common inductive interface 120. In addition, under other conditions when VRECT is too high or too low, the conventional feedback signals back to the TX 110 may be too slow to prevent damage to either the load or even to the TX 110 and/or the RX 130 themselves. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a RX that can avoid over and under-voltage conditions.

Dynamic regulation of wireless charging system


An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a developing device, a voltage applier, a current detector, a cleaning blade, and a control device. The control device acts as a measurer and an estimator. The measurer changes the DC bias to a first value and a second value, and acquires a first magnitude of the developing current corresponding to the first value, and a second magnitude of the developing current corresponding to the second value, from the current detector. The estimator calculates a current ratio between the first magnitude and the second magnitude, and estimates deterioration status of the cleaning blade, according to the value of the current ratio.

The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus.
In general, existing image forming apparatuses include a photoconductor drum, a cleaning blade, and a control device. The control device estimates a distribution of slipperiness of the cleaning blade, with respect to the photoconductor drum in the axial direction thereof, on the basis of load variation during the rotation of the photoconductor drum, when a residual object on the surface of the photoconductor drum is being removed by the cleaning blade. According to the estimation result, a developing toner is supplied to a position where the slipperiness is low, so that the distribution of slipperiness is uniformized.

Image forming apparatus that estimates deterioration status of cleaning blade according to current ratio


An apparatus and method for controlling the temperature of an electronic device under test utilizes a thermal head spaced apart from a movable support structure by a mechanical isolation assembly. The support structure has a manifold configured to route refrigerant fluid between the evaporator head and components of a refrigeration system. The mechanical isolation assembly is configured to compensate for variations in the planar orientation of the device under test. Moreover, the mechanical isolation assembly preferably includes bellows through which the refrigerant fluid is conducted.

The present invention generally relates to temperature control systems for maintaining the temperature of an electronic device at a predetermined temperature while the device is being tested.
Testing equipment has been utilized in the electronics industry to test the operation of an electronic device under test (DUT) such as an integrated circuit. Often, the testing equipment will include a thermal head having a temperature controlled surface which is brought into thermal engagement with a top surface of the DUT. The thermal head functions to maintain a predetermined temperature during the testing operation.
The integrated circuit is typically mounted to a carrier substrate having a plurality of depending pins, pads or other such contacts. The contacts are mated with corresonding contacts of a test fixture. As a result, the test fixture will be electrically connected to the DUT so that the testing operation can be performed.
Ideally, the DUT will be installed in the test fixture such that its top surface is exactly horizontal. In a real manufacturing environment, however, such is not always the case. For example, the top surface of the DUT may be slightly canted with respect to the horizontal after installation in the test fixture. This can cause poor electrical connection between at least some of the respective contacts. In addition, the temperature controlled surface of the thermal head (which is horizontal) may not fully engage the top surface of the DUT. As a result, heat transfer between the thermal head and the DUT will suffer.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Apparatus and method having mechanical isolation arrangement for controlling the temperature of an electronic device under test