A manual transmission for vehicles minimizes rotational inertia and improves rattle as a consequence of preventing unnecessary idling of a first speed gear and a reverse speed gear by maintaining a first input gear to be a free gear state at all shift-speeds except a first forward speed and a reverse speed.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a manual transmission for vehicles. More particularly, the present invention relates to a manual transmission for vehicles that minimizes rotational inertia and improves rattle as a consequence of preventing unnecessary idling of a first speed gear and a reverse speed gear by maintaining a first input gear to be a free gear state at all shift-speeds except a first forward speed and a reverse speed.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, vibration is generated by impact when teeth of free gears disposed on rotation shafts freely bumps into driving gears fixedly disposed on the rotation shafts. A rattle in a manual transmission for vehicles means that the vibration generated by the impact is transmitted to the rotation shafts, bearings, and a transmission case and noise occurs.
If load is not applied to a free gear FG, teeth of the free gear FG is not engaged with both teeth of a driving gear DG as shown in FIG. 1. At this state, if load (exciting force of an engine) is applied to the free gear FG, the free gear FG moves easily and the teeth of the free gear FG bumps into the teeth of the driving gear DG. Therefore, double side impact occurs, and thereby the rattle occurs.
When the rattle occurs, the double side impact which the free gear FG applies to the rotation shaft is proportional to rotational inertia of the free gear FG, and rattle sensitivity is proportional to total rotational inertia of the free gears.
Gear arrangement of a conventional manual transmission will be described. As shown in FIG. 2, gears that are related to each shift-speed are disposed on an input shaft PIS and an output shaft POS disposed in parallel with the input shaft PIS with a predetermined distance.
A first input gear GI1, a second input gear GI2, a first synchronizer mechanism PSYN1 including third and fourth input gears GI3 and GI4, and a second synchronizer mechanism PSYN2 including fifth and sixth input gears GI5 and GI6 are sequentially disposed on the input shaft PIS from a front side to a rear side.
Herein, the front side means a side close to an engine and the rear side means a side that is far from the engine.
The first input gear GI1 and the second input gear GI2 are integrally formed with the input shaft PIS so as to rotate together with the input shaft PIS when the input shaft PIS rotates.
In addition, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth input gears GI3, GI4, GI5, and GI6 are disposed such that rotations of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth input gears GI3, GI4, GI5, and GI6 are not directly affected by rotation of the input shaft IS (that is, free gear), and each input gear GI3, GI4, GI5, and GI6 rotates together with the input shaft PIS through selective engagement with sleeves PS1 and PS2.
In addition, a first output gear POG1, a third synchronizer mechanism PSYN3 having first and second speed gears GO1 and GO2 engaged respectively to the first and second input gears GI1 and GI2, and third, fourth, fifth, and sixth speed gears GO3, GO4, GO5, and GO6 engaged respectively to the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth input gears GI3, GI4, GI5, and GI6 are disposed on the output shaft POS.
The first and second speed gears GO1 and GO2 are disposed such that rotations of the first and second speed gears GO1 and GO2 do not directly affect on rotation of the output shaft POS (that is, free gear), and rotate together with the output shaft POS through selective engagement with a sleeve PS3. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth speed gears GO3, GO4, GO5, and GO6 are integrally formed with the output shaft POS.
In addition, a second output gear POG2 and a fourth synchronizer mechanism PSYN4 having a reverse speed gear PRG engaged to the first speed gear GO1 are disposed on a reverse speed output shaft PRS disposed in parallel with the input shaft PIS.
The reverse speed gear PRG is disposed such that rotation of the reverse speed gear PRG does not directly affect on rotation of the reverse speed output shaft PRS, and rotates together with the reverse speed output shaft PRS through selective engagement with a sleeve PS4.
In addition, the first and second output gears POG1 and POG2, as shown in FIG. 3, are engaged to driven gear PDG of a differential so as to output converted torque.
Since the first, second, third, and fourth synchronizer mechanisms PSYN1, PSYN2, PSYN3, and PSYN4 are the same as or similar to a conventional synchronizer mechanism applied to a conventional manual transmission, detailed description thereof will be omitted. In addition, each sleeve PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS4 of the first, second, third, and fourth synchronizer mechanisms PSYN1 PSYN2, PSYN3, and PSYN4, as well known to a person of skilled in the art, is operated by a shift fork that is operated by a shift lever disposed at a driver's seat.
Since the reverse speed gear PRG is always engaged with the first speed gear GO1 and the first speed gear GO1 is always engaged with the first input gear GI1 in the manual transmission as shown in FIG. 3, the reverse speed gear PRG and the first speed gear GO1 are idling at shift-speeds other than a first forward speed and a reverse speed and rattle occurs if the input shaft PIS rotates.
The information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.


An automatic stop gauge used in woodworking to facilitate the cutting of multiple workpieces to the same length, or working of the pieces at equal positions along each, quickly and accurately has a plurality of stops, moveably mounted on a beam-like fence, which is in turn aligned with and connected to the existing top fence of a cutting or drilling tool when present “Pin” type stops deploy in succession by means of gravity from holes drilled in the beam at incremental spacings of one or more inter-hole distances. An operator presses a work piece against the beam which retracts one or more of the pins from its stop-defining position projecting from the beam, and with lateral movement of the work piece toward the working member of the tool, as guided by the beam, pins redeploy one at a time, to each provide a new stop position for the workpiece.

Stops gauges are typically devices where one or more stops are moveably mounted on a beam or track that is also to serve as a back fence for guiding a work piece along a linear path leading to the working member of a tool. The stop and track assembly is connected in alignment to the existing back fence of a cutting tool, where such an existing fence is present. The purpose of the apparatus is to allow the operator to cut work pieces into pieces of the same length productively. Generally the stops have one or more mechanical joints that need to be manipulated each time a different measurement is required. Mechanical joints are more expensive to produce, a course for play and inaccuracy and points to be jammed by chips. Larger stop systems make the entire assembly bulkier and less versatile on a variety of machines.
Examples of previously known stop gauges include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 615,991, 751,121, 957,779, 1,504,248, 4,972,749 and 7,464,737. While these stop gauges feature automatically deploying stops that are biased into positions projecting from the fence to form a stop against which the end of the workpiece can abut, they each employ either pivotal hinge-like joints or spring loaded configurations to achieve this self-deploying functionality of each stop.
Applicant has developed a unique stop gauge that achieves automatic gravity-induced stop deployment without the need for springs or pivotal joints at the stops.

Automatic stop gauge for positioning a workpiece relative to the working member of a tool


The present invention provides a method and apparatus for operating a textile winding machine to wind yarn packages with the capability to verify a reported yarn break situation and to respond accordingly in the event that a yarn break has not, in fact, occurred. A sensing device at a textile winding station senses the travel of a yarn therepast as the yarn is wound from a supply package onto a take-up package. In the event of a yarn break or movement of the yarn beyond the sensing range of the sensing device, the sensor reports the absence of yarn to a control unit. The control unit responds to the signal from the sensing device by stopping the yarn winding operation and implementing a yarn re-establishment operation. The yarn re-establishment operation includes monitoring the position of a yarn end engaging member during its movement toward one of the yarn packages and querying the sensing device at a predetermined time determined in correspondence with the position of the yarn end engaging member as to the presence or absence of yarn. If the presence of yarn is reported, the control unit controls a yarn cutting device to cut the yarn ends and subsequently controls a splicing device to splice the yarn ends together. If the absence of yarn is reported, the control unit controls the yarn end engaging members to dispose yarn ends in the splicing device without any cutting of the yarn.

In one well-known arrangement for operating a textile winding station of a textile winding machine, a sensing device is provided for sensing the presence and quality of a yarn being wound from a supply package onto a take-up package such as, for example, a cross wound package. In the event that the sensing device senses an out-of-limits condition such as, for example, a portion of the yarn which does not meet the quality requirements, the defective portion of the yarn is severed and removed while the two yarn ends created by the severing process are spliced together and the yarn winding operation is then resumed. In addition to deliberately initiating severing of the yarn such as just described, the yarn itself may break due to a weak defective portion of the yarn and, in such circumstances, the sensing device senses that the yarn is no longer traveling through the sensing area and alerts a control unit which shuts down the yarn winding operation. Typically, a winding re-establishment procedure is then implemented by which a yarn end from the take-up package and a yarn end from the supply package are spliced together so that the yarn winding operation can be restarted.
One such out-of-limits operational condition is a condition in which the yarn has moved out of its normal travel path which extends within the sensing range of the sensing device, although the yarn still extends between the supply package and the take-up package. Such an out-of-limits operational condition may occur if debris or other matter accumulates on the yarn or on a component of the textile winding machine over which the yarn travels, which may lead to a situation in which the yarn moves away from the surfaces of the textile winding machine which normally guide the yarn during its travel without, however, causing a yarn break. However, once the yarn moves beyond the sensing range of the sensing device, the sensing device transmits a signal to the control unit of the textile winding machine which shuts down the yarn winding operation. Unfortunately, a textile winding station which does not possess the capability to distinguish between a true yarn break situation and another shutdown-causing situation in which the yarn has not broken will react to a signal from the sensing device as if a true yarn break has occurred and this approach does not guarantee that the actual out-of-limits operational condition will be remedied.
Other out-of-limits operational conditions which may lead to a shutdown of the yarn winding operation include the occurrence of electrical disturbances such as, for example, fluctuations of at least a certain magnitude in the electrical power system leading to fluctuations in the voltage supply to the sensor. Another out-of-limits operational condition is the accumulation of dirt or debris on or in the vicinity of the sensing device which causes the sensing device to falsely conclude that it has detected a defective portion of the yarn traveling therepast. Such a situation may occur, for example, during the passage through the sensing device of a so-called core yarn which does not have fibers wound around it but, instead, is merely a blank strand of material which, as a rule, is a monofilament. A sensing device which is covered or clouded by dust or debris may falsely conclude that no yarn is present when, in fact, the core yarn is traveling through the sensing device. As a result, the control unit will shut down the yarn winding operation at the textile winding station on the assumption that a yarn break has occurred when, in fact, no yarn break has occurred.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,151, a yarn severing operation is disclosed in which a yarn severing device severs a yarn extending between a supply package and a take-up package during a shutdown of the textile winding station independent of the reason for the shutdown of the textile winding station. In this arrangement, each time the textile winding station is shut down, the yarn severing device is operated to sever the yarn and, subsequently, the two yarn ends created by the yarn severing process are then spliced together. The yarn severing process is implemented even if the shutdown of the textile winding station is not due to any defect in the yarn but, instead, is due to some other reason. However, if the reason for the shutdown of the textile winding station is due to an out-of-limits operational condition other than a defect in the yarn, merely severing the yarn and splicing the yarn ends together may not remedy the out-of-limits operational condition and, upon restarting of the yarn winding operation, another shutdown of the textile winding station will occur very shortly after the restarting. Accordingly, the need exists for an improved method and apparatus for re-establishing a yarn winding operation at a textile winding station after a yarn winding operation has been stopped due to the detection of an out-of-limits operational condition.

Method and apparatus for winding textile yarn from a supply package onto a take-up package including responding to a falsely reported yarn break situation


An air bearing slider for a disk drive, which has a read/write head mounted thereon and is lifted from a surface of a disk due to a lifting force generated by the rotation of the disk, and a suspension assembly including the air bearing slider, the air bearing slide includes: a slider body, which has a disk facing surface facing the surface of the disk and a rear surface opposite to the disk facing surface; a positive pressure forming rail part, which protrudes from the disk facing surface of the slider body and generates a positive pressure for lifting the slider body from the surface of the disk; and an air ventilator, which passes obliquely through the slider body from the disk facing surface to the rear surface in an air flow direction and discharges air introduced between the disk and the slider body and particles contained in the air.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk drive, and more particularly, to an air bearing slider, which has a read/write head mounted thereon and is lifted from a surface of a disk due to a lifting force generated by the rotation of the disk, and a suspension assembly including the air bearing slider.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) that can store information in computers read data written on disks or write data on the disks using read/write heads.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are respectively a partial perspective view and a partial side view of a conventional HDD.
Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, an HDD includes a disk 10 on which data is written, a spindle motor 15, which rotates the disk 10, and an actuator 20, which moves a read/write head 35 for writing data on the disk 10 or reading data written on the disk 10 to a desired position on the disk 10.
The actuator 20 includes a swing arm 22, which is rotated by a voice coil motor (VCM, not shown), and a suspension assembly 30, which is installed at one end portion of the swing arm 22 and elastically biases an air bearing slider 34, on which the read/write head 35 is mounted, toward a surface of the disk 10.
The suspension assembly 30 includes a load beam 31, which is coupled to the one end portion of the swing arm 22, and a flexure 32, which supports the air bearing slider 34 on which the read/write head 35 is mounted. The air bearing slider 34 with the read/write head 35 thereon is lifted to a predetermined height from the surface of the disk 10 due to a lifting force generated by the rotation of the disk 10, and maintains a predetermined distance between the read/write head 35 and the disk 10. A rear end portion of the flexure 32 is fixed to a surface of the load beam 31, that is, a surface facing the disk 10, by welding or the like, and a front end portion of the flexure 32 moves freely. A dimple 33 is formed on the load beam 31 in such a manner as to protrude toward the flexure 32. A predetermined elastic force is provided to the flexure 32 due to the dimple 33. In the above structure, the flexure 32 can move freely, thereby allowing the air bearing slider 34 attached to the flexure 32 to roll and pitch smoothly.
When the HDD does not operate, that is, when the disk 10 stops rotating, the air bearing slider 34 is parked on a parking zone 11 formed on an inner peripheral side of the disk 10 due to the elastic force of the suspension assembly 30. This head parking method is referred to as a contact start stop (CSS) method.
Further, a ramp loading method may be used instead of the CSS method. In the ramp loading method, a ramp is installed outside the disk and the read/write head is parked on the ramp.
When the HDD is turned on and the disk 10 begins to rotate in a direction D, air starts flowing in a direction A. A lifting force generated due to the air flow is applied to a bottom surface of the air bearing slider 34, that is, an air bearing surface, and thus, the air bearing slider 34 is lifted. At this time, the air bearing slider 34 is lifted up to a height where the lifting force generated by the rotation of the disk 10 becomes equal to the elastic force of the suspension assembly 30. The lifted air bearing slider 34 is moved to a desired position over the disk 10 as the swing arm 22 rotates, and the read/write head 35 mounted on the air bearing slider 34 maintains a predetermined distance from the rotating disk 10 and writes or reads data to or from the disk 10.
The air bearing slider 34 performing the aforesaid function may have various structures. For example, FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a basic structure of a conventional taper flat (TF) air bearing slider.
Referring to FIG. 2, a TF air bearing slider 40 has a thin hexahedral body 42. Two rails 44 extending in a longitudinal direction of the body 42 protrude to a predetermined height from a surface of the body 42, that is, a surface facing the disk 10. Inclined surfaces 46 are formed respectively at front end portions of the two rails 44. In the above structure, if air flows in a direction A due to the rotation of the disk 10, air is compressed at the inclined surfaces 46 such that a positive pressure is applied to surfaces of the two rails 44. A lifting force for lifting the air bearing slider 40 from the surface of the disk 10 is generated due to the positive pressure.
Here, the TF air bearing slider 40 has a problem in that as the number of revolutions per minute (RPM) of the disk 10 increases, the lifting force and the flying height continue to increase. The RPM and the flying height are substantially linearly proportional to each other.
Accordingly, in recent years, a negative pressure (NP) air bearing slider that allows the read/write head to fly at a more consistent flying height over the disk by generating a negative pressure as well as a positive pressure is increasingly popular. FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating a basic structure of a conventional NP air bearing slider.
Referring to FIG. 3, an NP air bearing slider 50 includes a body 52, two rails 54, which protrude from a surface of the body 52, that is, a surface facing the disk 10 and extend in a longitudinal direction of the body 52, and a cross rail 58, which is interposed between the two rails 54 and extends widthwise over the body 52. Inclined surfaces 56 are formed at front end portions of the two rails 54, and the cross rail 58 has the same height as the two rails 54. In the above structure, if air flows in a direction A due to the rotation of the disk 10, the two rails 54 generate a positive pressure at both sides of the body 52, and the cross rail 58 forms a negative pressure cavity 59 at a central portion of the body 52. Since the positive pressure is higher than the negative pressure at an earlier stage of the rotation of the disk 10, the air bearing slider 50 is lifted. If the rotational speed of the disk 10 increases, the negative pressure increases. If the rotational speed of the disk 10 reaches a predetermined RPM, the positive pressure and the negative pressure become equal to each other such that the air bearing slider 50 is no longer lifted and is maintained at a constant flying height.
Particles exist in the HDD constructed as described above. The particles attached to the surface of the disk 10 and/or contained in air inside the HDD are conveyed along with the air. When these particles are introduced between the disk 10 and the air bearing slider 34, the particles may cause a scratch or thermal asperity (TA) on the surface of the disk 10, or a damage to the read/write head 35 mounted on the air bearing slider 34, thereby deteriorating the function of the read/write head 35.
To solve the above problem, efforts have been made to improve the cleanliness of the air bearing slider 34, reprocess edges of the air bearing slider 34 to remove chips, maintain a proper flying height of the air bearing slider 34, and/or design the slider 34 so that particles can flow outwardly. Efforts have also been made to improve the cleanliness of a clean room, install a filter for filtering particles inside the HDD, and/or additionally apply a structure for removing particles stuck to the surface of the disk 10 to the HDD.
Nevertheless, the result of those efforts falls short of expectations. Moreover, when the design of the HDD is changed or a new component is added to the HDD, the possibility of problems caused due to the particles is further raised. In particular, the flying height of the air bearing slider 34 is recently decreasing to improve the function of the read/write head 35. Accordingly, the problems due to the particles are becoming more severe.

Air bearing slider for disk drive and suspension assembly including the air bearing slider


An etching apparatus is provided for etching a substrate. The etching apparatus includes a first tank including a first etchant, and an etch bath connected to the first tank and receiving the first etchant, the etch bath containing a residual etchant including a diluted etchant and residue material after the substrate is etched with the first etchant. The etching apparatus further includes a second tank receiving the residual etchant from the etch bath and separating the diluted etchant from the residue material, a connecting passage connecting the first and second tanks for transferring the separated diluted etchant from the second tank to the first tank, and an outlet pipe attached to the second tank for discharging the residue material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an etching apparatus, and more particularly, to an etching apparatus for manufacture of a liquid crystal display (LCD).
2. Description of the Related Art
An LCD uses a liquid crystal screen formed by coupling a first glass substrate having display or switching elements and a second glass substrate having color filters. In order to form such elements on the first glass substrate, metal layers, insulating films, and amorphous silicon layers are deposited on the first glass substrate and are patterned several times. The majority of LCD panels utilize a glass substrate since the glass substrate is transparent, can be processed at a temperature of up to about 400° C., and easily available. However, the glass substrate has a high density and is fragile. In the course of processes described above, the glass substrate is exposed to temperatures that vary from room temperature to 300° C., and accordingly, it may be damaged due to resultant physical and/or thermal stresses.
LCDs should be formed as thin and light as possible, but factors such as described above, limit the thinning of the glass substrate (currently, it is possible to reduce the thickness of a single glass substrate down to 0.7 mm, for example). Further, since the thinning of the glass substrate is more limited as the size of the glass substrate increases, it is very important to solve the problem in view of the current trend of increasing the size of the glass substrate (at present, the size is increased from 300 by 400 mm to 370 by 470 mm, and further, to 550 by 650 mm).
Recently, an alternative approach has been proposed for solving this problem. A thick glass substrate is used at the beginning of the process in order to prevent the substrate from breaking, and then the thick glass substrate is thinned at a later stage. That is, after upper and lower glass substrates are prepared by forming, for example, switching elements and color filters on the respective glass substrates and then sealed to each other, the resultant panel is thinned by removing portions of the outer surfaces of the substrate. Since the above process sequence can decrease the breakage rate of the glass substrates and the defect ratio of the elements, it is possible to improve the production yield of LCDs.
Two methods are available to thin the glass substrate: a method using polishing powder for physically grinding the substrate and a method using acid solutions for etching the substrate.
An etching apparatus for wet etching includes a loader for loading a cassette, in which multiple sealed panels are vertically inserted in the slots therein in order to facilitate transfer of the panel, and an etch bath for use in the etching process of the sealed substrates using an etchant after moving the cassette from the loader to the etch bath. The etching apparatus further has a rinse bath for use in the cleaning process of the substrate after moving the etch-processed cassette from the etch bath to the rinse bath, a dry bath for use in the drying process of the substrate after moving the cleaned cassette from the rinse bath to the dry bath, and an unloader for use in unloading the dried cassette from the dry bath to a site for conveying the substrates to other process apparatus. In the etch apparatus, the transfer of the cassette is automatically performed by an automatic conveying system.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional etching apparatus, which shows only an etch bath and parts directly related to the wet etching process of the substrate.
In the conventional etch apparatus as shown in FIG. 1, the etch bath 20 has an inner space in which a cassette can be positioned, and is connected to an etchant diluting tank 12 for supplying an etchant via an etchant inlet pipe 21. A bubble generating plate 27, which generates nitrogen bubbles for uniformly stirring the etchant, is installed at the bottom of the etch bath 20 and connected to a nitrogen supply line 52 via a nitrogen inlet pipe 22.
An HF supply barrel 11 for supplying undiluted HF solution as the etchant is connected to the etchant diluting tank 12 via an undiluted HF inlet pipe 16. Distilled water (D. I. water) supply line 51 is also connected to the etchant diluting tank 12 via a pure water inlet pipe 17.
The outlet pipe 19 of the etchant diluting tank 12 and the outlet pipe 2 of the etch bath 20 are connected to a discharging line 53 for disposing. On/off valves V1, V2, V3, V4, and V5 are installed on the respective inlet pipes and outlet pipes, so that the flow of the fluid including the D. I. water and the etchant can be controlled. A concentration measuring unit 15 is provided for measuring the concentration of the etchant in the etchant diluting tank 12.
The etching process using the conventional etching apparatus above will be explained. First, a cassette is positioned on the loader (not shown). The valve V1 on the undiluted HF solution inlet pipe 22 is opened and then a pump P1 is activated, so that the undiluted HF solution in the HF solution barrel 11 is supplied to the etchant diluting tank 12. At the same time, the valve V3 in the D.I. water inlet pipe 17 is opened to supply the D. I. water in the D. I. water supply line 51 to the etchant diluting tank 12. As a result, the undiluted HF solution is diluted with the D. I. water. At this time, the etchant of a predetermined concentration is prepared by controlling the amounts of both HF solution and D. I. water. The concentration of the etchant prepared is measured by the concentration measuring unit 15 in the etchant diluting tank 12.
When the preparation of the etchant is completed, the supply of the HF solution and D. I. water is stopped, and the valve V2 on the etchant inlet pipe 21 is opened. Then, a pump P2 is activated to fill the etch bath 20 with the etchant. Thereafter, the cassette on the loader is dipped into the etch bath 20 to start the wet etch process of the glass substrates in the cassette. At this time, nitrogen gas is supplied into the etch bath 20 via the bubble generating plate 27 to enhance the etch process. The nitrogen gas is supplied through the bubble generating plate 27 to generate bubbles in the etchant and stir the etchant. The nitrogen gas is continuously supplied to the etchant through the nitrogen inlet pipe 22 connected to the nitrogen supply line 52 so that the stirring of the etchant can be continued throughout the etch process. When the time period set at the etching apparatus for etching the glass substrates is lapsed, the etching process of the glass substrates is stopped. The time period for etching the glass substrates is adjusted in accordance with the concentration of the etchant and the thickness of the glass substrate.
Next, another cassette (not shown), in which the glass substrates are loaded in the slots thereof, is moved into the etch bath, and the same process is performed. Thereafter, the subsequent etching step is performed. The residual etchant used in each etching process is guided into the discharging line 53 through the outlet pipe 2 of the etch bath 20 and then discharged outside.
The glass substrate etched by the etchant is composed of oxides, such as SiO2, BaO, CaO or Al2O3 in its amorphous state, for example. The HF solution used as the etchant dissolves only SiO2, a main component of the glass substrate, when it is reacted with the glass substrate. The corresponding reaction equation is as follows:SiO2+4HF→SiF2↑+2H2OSince the rest of the oxides are not dissolved in the HF etchant, they exist in the etchant in the form of particles. As a result, the residual etchant discharged from the etch bath includes the HF solution of low concentration and many oxide particles resulting from the chemical reaction of the etchant with the SiO2 components of the glass substrates.
The conventional etching apparatus discharges all the residual etchant used in the etching process through the discharging line, and the HF solution included in the residual etchant is not used again. Further, since the improperly handled HF solution may cause pollution, the discharged HF solution needs to be properly disposed. It is desirable that the residual etchant is reused (recycled) to reduce the amount of the residual HF solution to be disposed of.
Furthermore, since in the conventional etching process, the change in concentration of the HF etchant is not considered when determining the etching end point (the etching time was determined by initial etching parameters), the glass substrates are not etched consistently. Since the etching uniformity of the glass substrates depends on the variable concentration of the etchant as well as the thickness of the glass substrate, in order to control the resultant thickness of the glass substrate, it is necessary to correctly measure the HF concentration of the etchant used in the etching process and flexibly adjust the etch time according to the HF concentration. However, it is difficult to measure the HF concentration periodically and correctly. Furthermore, since the conventional etching apparatus cannot be used to etch a large number of glass substrates consistently, it cannot be used for mass production.


A method is disclosed for analyzing quality of an electronic service (e-service), such as an Internet-based service, hosted by an e-service platform. The provider or separate administrator defines quality of e-service execution by creating quality index records stored in an e-service warehouse. The quality index records allow assigning quality indexes to e-service execution based on specified parameters related to service execution, such as parameters related to transaction duration. As e-services are executed, service data is stored in a log. The service data is processed by an extract-transfer-load (ETL) engine that transfers data from the log to the warehouse. The data is mapped to quality indexes for analysis. The data can be viewed with a reporting tool, such as a dedicated console or a commercially-available analysis tool. Using the tool, the administrator can identify patterns corresponding to poor execution quality and can attempt to resolve the problems. Classification and prediction models are also created and stored to analyze past transactions and to predict behavior of future transactions. The models can be used to re-design the e-service execution and/or can be used at run-time to optimize e-service execution.

In the field of electronic services (e-services), service providers seek to provide the services in an efficient and desirable manner to the user, or client. E-services include, for example, electronic web services provided via a global computer network, such as the Internet, as well as services provided independent of the Internet. Examples of conventional e-services include delivery of customized news and stock market updates, on-line ticket reservations, monitoring of flight statuses, and electronic advertisements.
One benefit of the e-services environment is that clients can dynamically identify the available web service that meets his or her needs, can examine the properties of the web service, and can determine how to access the service. Additionally, low-cost web services platforms and low-cost registration on web directories have emerged, allowing small providers to compete with larger providers in the e-services marketplace. Web services for both large and small providers may be listed in the same directories, and users can access e-services and e-service provider information to select an e-service based on quality and cost.
In this competitive environment, it is desirable for providers to deliver services with high, consistent, and predictable quality. Quality in this context includes both internal and external quality. Internal quality refers to quality as judged from the perspective of the provider, including such factors as operating costs. External quality refers to quality as judged from the perspective of the user, including such factors as speed, on-time delivery, low cost, and ease of access to the service.
Quality problems occur from a variety of sources. For example, an e-service such as a car rental service may involve multiple stages such as stages for browsing vehicles, selecting a vehicle, and paying for the vehicle. One or more of these stages may create a bottleneck that hinders performance and therefore quality of the service. In another case, the e-service may be overwhelmed by service requests from a particular origin or at a particular time of the day or week. For example, some services such as stock market updates may receive significant use during week days, but less use on weekends. The peak usage times may diminish quality in terms of user response time, if they are not handled properly. It is therefore desirable to analyze e-service execution and to identify quality problems.
Currently, providers have limited tools at their disposal to understand and analyze service execution to improve quality. What is needed is a way of analyzing e-services provided to a user to identify sources of quality problems and to remove those sources. What is also needed is a method and system for predicting e-service behavior based on previous transactions.

Method and system for analyzing electronic service execution

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Processes for producing toners are provided. The processes include determining the desired gloss for a given toner, and determining the desired amount of aluminum in the toner to obtain that gloss. Utilizing the processes of the present disclosure, the solids content of an emulsion utilized to produce such a toner, as well as the mixing speed utilized in the aggregation process and the temperature at which aggregation of the toner particles occurs, may then be selected to obtain toner particles possessing the desired amount of aluminum, and thus the desired gloss.

This disclosure is generally directed to toner processes, and more specifically, emulsion aggregation and coalescence processes, as well as toner compositions formed by such processes and development processes using such toners for use with electrophotographic copying or printing apparatus.
Toner blends containing crystalline or semi-crystalline polyester resins with an amorphous resin have recently been shown to provide very desirable ultra low melt fusing, which is important for both high-speed printing and lower fuser power consumption. These types of toners containing crystalline polyesters have been demonstrated suitable for both emulsion aggregation (EA) toners, and in conventional jetted toners. Combinations of amorphous and crystalline polyesters may provide toners with relatively low-melting point characteristics (sometimes referred to as low-melt, ultra low melt, or ULM), which allows for more energy-efficient and faster printing.
Emulsion aggregation/coalescing processes for the preparation of toners are illustrated in a number of patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,290,654, 5,278,020, 5,308,734, 5,344,738, 6,593,049, 6,743,559, 6,756,176, 6,830,860, 7,029,817, and 7,329,476, and U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2006/0216626, 2008/0107990, 2008/0236446, and 2009/0047593. The disclosures of each of the foregoing patents are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In the EA process, aggregating agents, including those possessing aluminum, are sometimes used to aggregate the toner particles. However, residual aluminum ions in a toner may reduce the gloss of an image produced with such a toner. Thus, chelating agents may be used to remove the aluminum ions after the aggregation step to achieve target gloss levels in prints made with these toners. When using the same amount of aggregating agent, increasing the amount of chelating agent may remove more aluminum ions from the toner, thus further increasing the toner gloss.
However, one issue which may arise in these processes is batch to batch variability of the aluminum ions in the final toner particles which, in some cases, can be out of target specifications for a toner. Improved toners and methods for their production thus remain desirable.


The present invention relates to a method for preparing psicose by effectively utilizing a psicose crystallization mother liquor obtained in a psicose crystallization process, and specifically, relates to a method of preparation of psicose by putting a psicose crystallization mother liquor obtained in a psicose crystallization process into one or more kinds of processes selected from the group consisting of activated carbon treatment, ion purification process, simulated moving bed chromatography separation process and concentration process of psicose fraction to recycle.

Psicose is an epimer of fructose (D-fructose) and is one kind of functional saccharides known as a rare saccharide, and it has been known to have an effect on prevention and improvement of diabetes, since it has sweetness of about 60 to 70% of sugar and almost zero calorie. In addition, psicose is known to have excellent solubility, and it is one of materials where utilization for food is attracting attention.
There are a chemical method and a biological method in the method for preparing psicose, and recently, a method for preparing psicose with a biological method performs psicose conversion reaction by contacting fructose-containing substrate solution with a psicose epimerase or a microorganism producing the enzyme. However, it is required to separate psicose with high purity, since the reaction solution comprising D-psicose is low purity product.
The reaction raw material used for the psicose conversion process may be fructose isomerization reactant obtained by isomerization reaction of glucose obtained from degradation of starch, etc.
Since the conversion rate of enzymatic reaction of psicose produced from fructose is 20 to 30% (w/w), it shows process flow in which the amount of mother liquor generated is more than the amount of products of psicose. Consequently, the generation of large amount of mother liquor shows a non-economical problem in the industrial production by increasing the production cost due to decline of psicose production.
Thus, a method for enhancing the production yield of psicose by recycling the psicose crystallization mother liquor is required, since the psicose crystallization mother liquor is obtained in the psicose crystallization process and this comprises a high concentration of psicose.

Method for preparing psicose using recycling


A hydrotreating catalyst comprising a Group 8 metal of the periodic table, molybdenum (Mo), phosphorus and sulfur, wherein the average coordination number [N(Mo)] of the molybdenum atoms around the molybdenum atom is from 1.5 to 2.5 and the average coordination number [N(S)] of the sulfur atoms around the molybdenum atom is from 3.5 to 5.0 when MoS2 structure in the catalyst is measured in accordance with extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hydrotreating catalyst containing molybdenum (Mo). Particularly, it relates to a hydrotreating catalyst having high desulfurization activity and desulfurization selectivity when used in hydrotreatment in which a sulfur content in catalytic cracking gasoline is reduced and also hydrogenation of olefins and aromatics is suppressed.
2. Brief Description of the Background Art
Form the viewpoint of environmental protection of city and roadside air and reduction of environmental burden on a global scale, it has been required to clean exhaust gas from automobiles and reduce the discharge of carbon dioxide. With regard to gasoline-powered automobiles, in order to reduce the discharge of carbon dioxide, it is required to improve fuel economy. Thus, thereafter, it is expected that high mileage automobiles having a direct-injection engine or a lean burn engine may increase. For these automobiles, a nitrogen oxide-reducing catalyst working under oxygen-excessive conditions (lean conditions) is necessary, which is different from a ternary catalyst which is a conventional nitrogen oxide-reducing catalyst. However, since the nitrogen oxide-reducing catalyst working under oxygen-excessive conditions (lean conditions) is poisoned by sulfur content and cleaning performance lowers, it is still required to achieve further decrease of the sulfur content in gasoline.
Currently, commercially available gasoline is prepared by mixing various base materials so as to satisfy the standard of an octane number. Among the materials, a catalytic cracking gasoline obtained by cracking, in a catalytically cracking apparatus, vacuum gas oil and atmospheric residue whose uses are limited as they are is a base material having a high octane number and a mixing ratio thereof in the commercially available gasoline is as high as 40 to 70%. However, since starting materials of the catalytic cracking gasoline are vacuum gas oil and atmospheric residue containing a large amount of sulfur, the sulfur content of the resulting catalytic cracking gasoline is also higher than other base materials for gasoline. Therefore, in order to reduce the sulfur content of the commercially available gasoline produced by mixing various base materials, it is indispensable to desulfurize the catalytic cracking gasoline which is a main base material.
For reducing the sulfur content of the catalytic cracking gasoline, it is common to use the vacuum gas oil and atmospheric residue after hydrodesulfurization as starting oils for catalytic cracking. However, the apparatus for hydrodesulfurization of these heavy oils is an apparatus requiring a high temperature and a high pressure and hence there exist many technical and economical problems in ultra-deep desulfurization of the staring oils.
Sulfur compounds contained in the catalytic cracking gasoline can be hydrodesulfurized by an apparatus requiring relatively low temperature and low pressure. Therefore, if the catalytic cracking gasoline can be directly hydrodesulfurized, there are advantages that the process may be not only economically inexpensive but also can respond the case where the sulfur content of the starting oils for catalytic cracking is high. However, when the catalytic cracking gasoline is hydrodesulfurized with a conventional desulfurization catalyst, there arises a problem that olefins contained in the catalytic cracking gasoline as components having a high octane number are also hydrogenated to result in decrease of the octane number.
In order to improve the problem, with regard to the hydrotreatment of the catalytic cracking gasoline, there are a technique of separating the starting oil into a light component and a heavy component by distillation and hydrodesulfurizing each component under different conditions (JP-A-8-209154, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,990,242, and 5,318,690); a process for reducing the sulfur content by reacting diolefins and mercaptans contained in the catalytic cracking gasoline in minute amounts to convert them into sulfides and removing the sulfides by distillation (WO97/08272 (corresponding to JP-T-2001-519834)); a process for hydrodesulfurization after converting terminal olefins into inner olefins having a low reactivity (JP-A-9-137172); a process comprising hydrodesulfurization involving the decrease of the octane number by hydrogenation of olefins in the first step and subsequently recovering the octane number by isomerization with a solid acid catalyst in the second step (WO95/10850 (corresponding to JP-T-9-503814) and WO96/07713 (corresponding to JP-T-10-505381)); and the like. However, there are problems that the suppression of hydrogenation of the olefins is not sufficient, the decrease of the sulfur content is limited since kinds of sulfur compounds capable of being reduced are restricted, and other facilities are necessary since a multi-step and complex process is required. Therefore, it is desired to develop a hydrotreating catalyst low in hydrogenation activity against olefins in the catalytic cracking gasoline and excellent in desulfurization.
With regard to a selective desulfurization catalyst for the catalytic cracking gasoline for solving such problems, there have been proposed a method of using a catalyst modified with an alkali metal (JP-A-8-277395); a method of preventing the decrease of the octane number by the combination with a zeolite catalyst (U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,354 and WO00/29510 (corresponding to JP-T-2002-530469)); a method of using a catalyst subjected to a certain pretreatment (U.S. Pat. No. 4,149,965); a method of using a hydrodesulfurization catalyst prepared using an organic carboxylic acid (JP-A-2003-286493); a method of using a catalyst obtained by laminating a certain amount or more of an active metal as a catalyst (JP-A-2003-299959), and the like. However, since hydrogenation depth of olefins is also enhanced simultaneously when the desulfurization activity against the catalytic cracking gasoline is tried to be enhanced, there arises a problem that the decrease of the octane number cannot be sufficiently suppressed.
With regard to the hydrotreating catalyst for the catalytic cracking gasoline for solving such problems, there have been conventionally widely used sulfide catalysts obtained by preparing an impregnating solution comprising a compound of molybdenum, a compound of a Group 8 metal of the periodic table, such as cobalt or nickel, and/or a phosphorus compound and supporting the solution in an oxide form on a porous inorganic oxide support such as alumina, silica, or zeolite, followed by activation through presulfuration. The active sites for desulfurization in these sulfide catalysts are considered to be sulfur-coordinating unsaturated sites exhibited on a Group 8 metal-Group 6 metal-S structure (e.g., Co—Mo—S structure) formed at the edge site of a sulfide layer of molybdenum or tungsten which is a Group 6 metal. In order to improve the desulfurization activity, an attempt to highly disperse the Group 6 metal sulfide has been carried out. However, since there are no attempt to quantitatively determine the degree of high dispersion of the group 6 metal sulfide and to correlate the degree with desulfurization properties of the catalytic cracking gasoline and reaction properties of olefins, there exists no sufficient guidelines for designing a catalyst for hydrotreatment of the catalytic cracking gasoline and hence it is difficult to respond requests for further improvement of the desulfurization performance and suppressing hydrogenation of olefins.

Hydrotreating catalyst of catalytic cracking gasoline

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology


A telephone system is disclosed for remotely obtaining from a selected local telephone station audible synthesized speech representative of directory telephone numbers and/or names of previous callers stored digitally or alphanumerically in a data memory of a Caller ID interface unit at the local telephone station. The stored directory telephone numbers and/or names were previously sent to the local telephone station from terminating central office Stored Program Controlled Switching (SPCS) equipment responsively to the telephone line of the local telephone station having Caller ID service and/or other Custom Local Area Signalling System (CLASS) services which discloses a calling party directory telephone number and/or name to a called party. An apparatus, such as a telephone station set or a separate stand-alone unit connected to the telephone station set, and method are also disclosed for recalling the stored directory telephone numbers and/or names from the data memory of the Caller ID interface unit and converting the directory telephone numbers and/or names into a form which can be processed by a speech generator, for receiving the directory telephone numbers and/or names to the speech generator which converts logic signals of the directory telephone numbers and/or names into sounds to audible synthesized speech, and for communicating the audible speech to a calling customer at a remote telephone station, in response to a predetermined command code keyed-in on the remote telephone station keypad by the calling customer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a telephone system for remotely obtaining audible speech of a directory telephone number and/or name (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "special service information" or "DN") of a previous caller stored digitally or alphanumerically in a data memory at a selected local telephone station. More particularly, this invention relates to a telephone station set which automatically recalls digitally or alphanumerically stored special service information from a data memory, converts the special service information into synthesized speech and communicates audible speech of the special service information to a caller at a remote telephone station, in response to a predetermined "DN command code" keyed-in on a keypad at the remote telephone station by the caller.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The invention disclosed in the Continuation-In-Part application of Morris Reese, Ser. No.07/691,492, entitled "Apparatus For Use With Caller ID System", filed on Apr. 25, 1991, discloses a telephone apparatus for receiving, displaying and storing to memory a calling party's directory telephone number and/or name sent from telephone or cellular company terminating central office Stored program Controlled Switching (SPCS) equipment responsively to a called party who subscribes to any Custom Local Area Signalling System CLASS) service, i.e. Caller ID, Automatic Recall, Who Called Me?, Automatic Callback and Screening List to name a few, which discloses a calling party's directory telephone number and/or name to the called party. The telephone apparatus also permits the called party to press a recall button on the apparatus to "recall a stored DN from a memory" for display in a LED display unit built into or connected to the apparatus, and permits the called party to press a digit on the telephone apparatus keypad corresponding to a stored directory telephone number to be automatically dialed to return a missed call.
The invention disclosed in the Re-Issue application of Morris Reese, (serial No. not received from patent office prior to the filing of this present application), entitled "Enhanced Calling Number Delivery Service and System", filed on Apr. 8, 1991, discloses a telephone system and process for transmitting a caller's directory telephone number and/or name, or a keyed-in telephone number and/or name, over a called customer busy, idle or inuse telephone line to be received and stored to an improved telephone apparatus for "later recall, display and automatic or manual dialing of the stored directory or keyed-in telephone number to return a missed call".
While a technical advance is achieved by each telephone apparatus disclosed in the aforementioned inventions, both telephone apparatuses requires on-hand operation by the called customer, e.g. to press the recall button on the telephone apparatus, to "recall a stored directory or keyed-in telephone number from memory" to review a missed call.

Method and apparatus for vocally communicating to a caller at a remote telephone station synthesized speech of stored special service information


In order to use video contents created according to DVD video in DVD audio, audio and video sub-directories are located under a root directory. The video sub-directory includes video contents and their management information. The audio sub-directory includes audio contents and their management information. The video management information can only access the video contents. However, the audio management information can access not only the audio contents but also the video contents.

Also, the present invention relates to an information medium having management data for sharing objects of a plurality of contents, an apparatus for playing back information recorded on the medium, a method of recording information containing the management data on the medium, and a method of playing back information from the medium on the basis of the management data.
As optical discs that can record video (moving picture) data with high quality and at high density, and can record various kinds of information such as multiangle video data, sub-picture data, multilingual audio data, multichannel audio data, and the like, DVD video discs have been developed, and are beginning to be put into the market (DVD is an abbreviation for a digital versatile disc).
The DVD video disc standards can support compressed multichannel audio (AC-3, MPEG, and the like) and non-compressed linear PCM (from a sampling rate of 48 kHz/16 quantization bits to a sampling rate of 96 kHz/24 quantization bits). Linear PCM of DVD video has high-sound quality specifications with high sampling rate and high quantization bits superior to conventional music CDs (a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz/16 quantization bits). Especially, linear PCM having a sampling rate of 96 kHz/20 to 24 quantization bits qualifies for the next generation digital audio discs (so-called super CDs or super audio discs).
However, DVD video specifications give priority to video over audio, and audio priority specifications superior to audio specifications of DVD video in terms of not only the sampling frequency and the number of quantization bits but also the number of recordable channels, recordable time, and the like, are yet to come.
To meet such demand, DVD audio specifications are being explored (however, the DVD audio specifications are not yet a prior art). The DVD audio specifications can support up to linear PCM having a sampling rate of 192 kHz and 24 quantization bits as well as linear PCM having a sampling rate of 48 kHz to 96 kHz and 16 to 24 quantization bits. In the future version up of DVD audio specifications, higher-sound quality specifications may be introduced.
DVD audio can cope with such future scale-up since it can commonly use some specifications of DVD video capable of large-amount recording that includes even digital Hi-Vision video as a target.
Also, DVD audio can take future technical, market, and economic advantages that will become available along with the improvement of DVD video.
For example, when a large-amount DVD disc which will be available in the future in DVD video is used in DVD audio, the sampling frequency, the number of quantization bits, the number of recording channels, and the like used in recording can be increased considerably if the recording time remains the same. The technique of a DVD video recorder which will be put into the market in the near future and uses a DVD-RAM (or rewritable DVD-RW or write-once DVD-R) can be used in a DVD audio recorder that will become available soon.
Furthermore, if the market scale expands as DVD video prevails, media (DVD-ROM discs, DVD-RAM/DVD-RW discs, DVD-R discs, and the like), components (disc drive, optical pickup, various ICs, and the like), various control programs, and the like are standardized, and a cost reduction of DVD audio products having many features and high sound quality is promoted. With the spread of DVD audio, DVD video can also take future technical, market, and economical advantages that will become available along with the improvement of DVD audio.
As a management method for controlling playback of video (moving picture) or audio (music or the like) contents, it is a common practice to manage playback of contents produced according to their purposes. By contrast, with recent diversification of users' requirements, video and music have vague boundary, and requirements for partly using the contents that can be independently played back as video in music or for commonly using contents by allowing video created for music to be played back as video alone are increasing among producers of these contents (contents providers).
The DVD audio specifications according to the present invention can meet such requirements of the contents providers. More specifically, the DVD audio specifications normally give priority to audio over video, but it is possible to build a system compatible with both DVD video and DVD audio. That is, the DVD audio specifications can provide an audio only disc (A disc) including DVD audio contents alone, and an audio+video disc (AV disc) including both audio and video contents. In such case, upon playing back the audio contents of an AV disc, its video contents can also be accessed.
In the DVD audio specifications according to the present invention, not only video picture data as subsets of the DVD video specifications, but also high-resolution still picture data, text information, and menu data (visual menu data that can be freely designed by the contents provider) can be added to audio data with high-sound quality specifications.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System of sharing objects having a plurality of contents


Embodiments herein include a method of notifying terminals located in a target network area. The method is executed by a call control node. The call control node is associated with a serving network area, wherein the serving network area at least partially comprises the target network area. In order to provide an efficient, easily accomplishable, and network capacity sparing notification of terminals located in a target network area, the method comprises receiving a result of a scanning of a visitor location register database associated with the call control node for terminals registered for the target network area, and sending a notification message to the terminals located in the target network area based on the received result of the scanning.

Notifying the general public in a selected area of an approaching emergency event has always been an important issue.
The area of telecommunication offers the possibility to reach a subscriber associated with a terminal via a message. 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specifies a "Broadcast"-procedure usable for notifying terminals about an emergency event. Broadcasting makes use of sending a message to terminals in a particular network area via a selected channel. The Broadcast procedure is specified as a Cell Broadcast System (CBS), for example, in 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 23.041, and is usable in the context of Public Warning Systems (PWS), as specified in 3GPP TS22.268. However, the extension of the target network area to be reached via the broadcast procedure may be selected at call level extension. Further, a message length may be limited owing to the used broadcast channel throughput.
Further, it is known to send a Short Message Service (SMS) to a selected terminal, in order to notify the terminal of an approaching event. In general, sending a SMS is a terminal specific procedure but not dedicated to a selected target network area. Further, the actual location of the terminal has to be permanently tracked for the sending of the SMS.
In order to keep track of the actual location of the terminal, location update signaling sent from a Mobile Switching Center (MSC)/Visitor Location Register (VLR) of a home network to a respective Home Location Register (HLR) may be intercepted, and information about subscribers having roamed into the serving network area of the responsible MSC may be accordingly stored. However, the latter may not allow for actually localizing the terminal within an extension of a serving network area of the MSC, and may thus limit the extension of the target network area to the extension of the serving network area. This problem may even be multiplied in a case in which the MSC may form part of a pool of MSCs.
Further, in order to locate the selected terminal, it may be possible to intercept the signaling at the A-/Iu-interface between a Base Station Subsystem (BSS) and the MSC such that all mobility management procedures executed by all terminals in the serving network area of the MSC are tracked. However, the information about the actual location of all terminals may have to be stored in an external database for a later evaluating. Further, such a monitoring of a movement of a terminal and thus its associated subscriber may be subject to a governmental authorization, which may be legally prohibited in a large number of countries, as it is the case in Germany.
It is also known to use a Customized Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic (CAMEL) "MM Notify" procedure executed by the VLR when a respective MSC receives location update signaling traffic from the selected terminal, and to store the information about the actual location of the terminals. However, this continuous tracking of a location of terminals in the serving network area may require additional effort. Further, the terminals to be tracked may have to be subscribed to this procedure, which may add a lot of signaling traffic even if no SMS may have to be sent to the terminals.
Accordingly, the above described techniques for notifying terminals in a target network area may require additional effort, hardware or signaling traffic within the network, but may comprise a low geographical precision concerning the actual location of the terminal, and may cause legal problems.

Terminating notification message for terminals in a target network area


A hardware circuit component for executing multiple sum-of-products operations is manufactured as follows. A set of multiplexed sum-of-products functions of a plurality of operands (a, b, c, . . . ), any one of which functions can be selected in dependence upon a select value (sel) by multiplex operations, is received. The sum-of-products functions are then rearranged in a particular manner. The rearranged set of sum-of-products functions is merged into a single merged sum-of-products function containing one or more multiplexing operations. From this a layout design can be generated, and a hardware circuit component such as an integrated circuit manufactured from the layout design. The step of re-arranging the multiple sum-of-products functions involves aligning the elements of the set of sum-of-products functions in such a manner that the amount of multiplexing in the single merged sum-of-products function is less than in the input set of sum-of-products functions.

The invention relates to a method of designing and making hardware circuits, particularly implementable in integrated circuit form, for executing multiple sum-of-products operations, and to circuits made by the method.
Many common operations found within fixed-point Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Graphics algorithms in integrated circuits can be expressed as a fixed-point sum-of-products (SOP). These include adders, subtractors, multipliers, squarers, multiply-accumulators (MACS), chained additions, decrementors and incrementors, for example. An SOP can be efficiently implemented in hardware, as the partial products for each product can all be summed in parallel.
Previous work has considered improvements to the final carry propagate adder of an SOP, (S. Das and S. P. Khatri, "A timing-driven synthesis approach of a fast four-stage hybrid adder in sum-of-products," in MWSCAS: 51st Symposium on Circuits and Systems, August 2008, pp. 507-510). In S. Das and S. P. Khatri's, "An inversion-based synthesis approach for area and power efficient arithmetic sum-of-products," in VLSID: 21st International Conference on VLSI Design, January 2008, pp. 653-659, inverted partial product arrays were shown to improve quality of results. Designs implementing operations of the form Σ kixiyi where ki are constants and xi and yi are input operands have been considered (D. Kumar and B. Erickson, "Asop: arithmetic sum-of-products generator," in ICCD: IEEE International Conference on Computer Design: VLSI in Computers and Processors, October 1994, pp. 522-526). Here multiplication by a constant was performed by using the canonical signed digit recoding and xi*yi is computed in redundant carrysave form. Product-of-sum (POS) expressions have also been optimized; (a+b)c, which could be implemented as an addition and multiplier in series, can be expanded to ac+bc, and in fact a whole host of intermediate designs can be created, as demonstrated by S. Das and S. P. Khatri, "A timing-driven synthesis technique for arithmetic product-of-sum expressions," in VLSID: 21st International Conference on VLSI Design, January 2008, pp. 635-640, where timing constraints are used to determine which architecture to use. In fact there is a further wealth of design options for POS expressions; they can be incorporated into Booth encoded multipliers in a variety of styles (R. Zimmerman and D. Q. Tran, "Optimized synthesis of sum-of-products," in 37th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, vol. 1, November 2003, pp. 867-872).
Despite the existence of efficient implementations of SOP and POS expressions, most datapath synthesis cannot exploit these highly optimal blocks due to non-SOP expressions found within the datapath. Muxing (multiplexing) and shifting found within SOP expressions prevent full and efficient merging. In A. K. Verma and P. lenne, "Improved use of the carry-save representation for the synthesis of complex arithmetic circuits," in ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design, November 2004, pp. 791-798, data flow graphs have been locally manipulated to increase the proportion of the datapath which can be expressed as a single SOP, hence reducing delay and area. For example one of the transformations includes (a+b+c)<<d=(a<<d)+(b<<d)+(c<<d), hence shifters can be moved through summations; a fact exploited more fully by S. Das and S. P. Khatri, "A merged synthesis technique for fast arithmetic blocks involving sum-of-products and shifters," in VLSID: 21st International Conference on VLSI Design, January 2008, pp. 572-579.
In terms of considering mutually-exclusive SOP expressions, an example can be found in A. K. Verma and P. lenne, supra: sel?a+b:c=(sel?a:c)+(sel?b:0). However such optimizations were restricted to localized regions. A fuller consideration of merging mutually-exclusive operations can be found in S. Das and S. P. Khatri's "Area-reducing sharing of mutually exclusive multiplier, mac, adder and subtractor blocks," in IASTED: 5th International Conference on Circuits, Signals and Systems, July 2007, pp. 269-272 and "Resource sharing among mutually exclusive sum-of-product blocks for area reduction," TODAES: ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 51-57, July 2008. In this instance the SOP is split into partial generation, array reduction and final carry propagate adder with muxing on inputs to each of these units.

Method of making apparatus for computing multiple sum of products


An image display device is provided which is capable of improving its image quality when a moving picture is displayed by using a holding-type display panel such as a liquid crystal panel. A display gray-level feature value of each display screen is extracted based on a video input signal. A black inserting signal to set a gray level of a black screen (frame) is generated based on the display gray-level feature value extracted by the displayed brightness extracting section. Based on a video input signal, a control signal is sent out to a source driver and another control signal is sent out to a gate driver and a gray level of a black screen to be inserted among display screens each making up a moving picture is set to a liquid crystal panel based on the black inserting signal generated by the black inserting signal computing section.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display device, a driving circuit and, a driving method to be used in the image display device and more particularly to the image display device in which, when a moving picture is displayed by using a holding-type display panel such as a liquid crystal panel which holds a current frame until display data corresponding to a succeeding frame is supplied, a black insertion driving operation to insert one black frame between two continuous frames in a repeated manner is performed, and to the driving circuit and driving method to be used in the above image display device.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-347156 filed on Nov. 30, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display device is generally driven in a holding-type manner in which a current frame is held until display data corresponding to a succeeding frame is supplied. As a result, in principle, there is no flicker in the display which can provide easiness on the eyes. In this case, a device used to mainly display a still image, such as a personal computer or a like presents no problem, however, in the case of a display device to display a moving picture such as a liquid crystal television set, a subsequent image is displayed with a current image being still left in the consciousness of a user and, as a result, the current image is perceived by a user as an afterimage. On the other hand, a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) display device is generally called an "Impulse-type" display device in which, immediately after light is intensively emitted for a moment, light disappears, and nothing is displayed until subsequent displaying starts. This operation is repeated, for example, at the frequency of 60 times per second. Thus, subsequent displaying does not start until an image previously displayed disappears and, therefore, in the case of displaying a moving picture, the persistence of vision is less perceived by a user. Due to this, in a liquid crystal display device, in a liquid crystal television set in particular, in order to achieve the "impulse-type" displaying, an effort to reduce the persistence of vision is being made by inserting one black frame between two continuous frames in a repeated manner.
The conventional liquid crystal display device of this type includes, as shown in FIG. 11, a black insertion driving control section 1, a source driver 2, a gate driver 3, and a liquid crystal panel 4. The liquid crystal panel 4 has data electrodes (not shown), scanning electrodes (not shown), and liquid crystal cells (not shown). In the liquid crystal panel 4, scanning signals "OUT" are sequentially supplied to the scanning electrodes and corresponding pixel data "D" are supplied to the data electrodes and, as a result, corresponding pixel data "D" are fed to corresponding liquid crystal cells in which modulation is then performed on light emitted from a backlight (not shown) to form an image to be displayed. The source driver 2 applies, based on a control signal "a" fed from the black insertion driving control section 1, a voltage for pixel data "D" corresponding to a video input signal "VD" to each of the data electrodes in the liquid crystal panel 4. The gate driver 3 applies a scanning signal "OUT", based on a control signal "b" fed from the black insertion driving control section 1, line-sequentially, to each of the scanning electrodes in the liquid crystal panel 4. The black insertion driving control section 1 sends out, based on the video input signal "VD", a control signal "a" to the source driver 2 and a control signal "b" to the gate driver 3 so as to perform the black insertion driving operation so that one black frame having a gray level of, for example, "0" is inserted between two continuous frames in the liquid crystal panel 4 uniformly and in a repeated manner.
Conventional technologies of this type, in addition to the above conventional liquid crystal display device, are disclosed, for example, in following references.
In the conventional liquid crystal display device disclosed in Patent Reference 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-186456, abstract, FIG. 1), data screen and a black screen appear for one frame period alternately at over twice faster than normal speed. Particularly, in image display for adjacent frames, a black display region and a data display region change their places alternately. As a result, when moving pictures are being displayed, portions in which a response speed is high and portions in which a response speed is low exist in a mixed manner, thus suppressing an image distortion and a feeling of the persistence of vision.
In frame interpolation technology disclosed in Non-Patent Reference 1 (Gou Sato, "Frame interpolation technology for displaying moving pictures having more natural images", Homepage "R & D Forefront" Toshiba Review, Vol. 59 No. 12, 2004), motion estimation is performed base on two original image frames to form interpolated frames which are inserted for one frame period. As a result, each frame maintains brightness with an afterimage being reduced.
However, the above conventional liquid crystal display devices have the problems described below.
That is, in the conventional liquid crystal display device shown in FIG. 11, since black frames are inserted uniformly irrespective of shades of gray set for every frame, though an effect of reducing afterimages at time of displaying moving pictures can be obtained, gray-level displaying effects decrease and contrast is lowered, as a result, making it difficult to achieve sufficient improvement in displaying moving pictures. In order to obtain compatibility between the effect of improving display of moving pictures and the effect of enhancing gray-level displaying and contrast, a great increase in luminance of backlight is required, which causes an increase in manufacturing costs for the backlight and in power consumption.
Also, in the liquid crystal display device disclosed in the Patent Reference 1, data screen and a black screen appear for one frame period alternately at over twice faster than normal speed to suppress the image distortion and feeling of the persistence of vision and, therefore, the object of the invention disclosed in the Patent Reference 1 is very similar to that of the present invention, however, both are different from each other in terms of the configurations of the liquid crystal display device.
In the frame interpolation technology disclosed in the Non-Patent Reference 1, the object of the invention disclosed in the Non-Patent Reference is very similar to that of the present invention, however, additional devices for motion estimation are required in the conventional technology, a problem arises that hardware configurations of the liquid crystal display device become complicated.

Image display device, driving circuit and driving method used in same


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving multiple resources, each resource including electronic media content. For each resource, a computing system identifies one or more entities that are associated with the resource. For at least one pair of identified entities, the system determines a quantity of resources in which each entity of the pair is associated. The system determines, based on the quantity of resources, an occurrence of an event that is associated with a particular pair of entities. The system generates a representation that corresponds to the event and based on the resources in which each entity of the pair of entities is associated. The system provides, for output to a user device, the representation that corresponds to the event.

Computing systems may be configured to gather data from multiple webpages and organize the gathered data into a searchable index of information. The gathered data can be in a structured or unstructured data format. For example, computing systems can receive structured or unstructured data for resources that include electronic media content, such as articles and other electronic publications. Users that consume media content may desire to receive a subset of media content that is identified as being associated with certain interests or content preferences of the user.

Content selection and presentation of electronic content


One or more techniques or systems for controlling a voltage divider are provided herein. In some embodiments, a control circuit is configured to bias a pull up unit of a voltage divider using an analog signal, thus enabling the voltage divider to be level tunable. In other words, the control circuit enables the voltage divider to output multiple voltage levels. Additionally, the control circuit is configured to bias the pull up unit based on a bias timing associated with a pull down unit of the voltage divider. For example, the pull up unit is activated after the pull down unit is activated. In this manner, the control circuit provides a timing boost, thus enabling the voltage divider to stabilize more quickly.

Generally, a voltage divider is a circuit for producing an output voltage. For example, a voltage divider may output a voltage that is a fraction of an input voltage. However, some voltage dividers are associated with slow stabilization times. Additionally, a voltage divider is generally associated with an output voltage.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited


A low-k dielectric material for use in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, semiconductor structures using the low-k dielectric material, and methods of forming such dielectric materials and fabricating such structures. The low-k dielectric material comprises carbon nanostructures, like carbon nanotubes or carbon buckyballs, that are characterized by an insulating electronic state. The carbon nanostructures may be converted to the insulating electronic state either before or after a layer containing the carbon nanostructures is formed on a substrate. One approach for converting the carbon nanostructures to the insulating electronic state is fluorination.

Progressive miniaturization of feature sizes in circuit elements has improved the performance and increased the functional capability of integrated circuits (IC's). Back-end-of-line (BEOL) multilevel interconnect structures have been developed that complement advances in circuit element density realized by size reductions by more effectively routing signal paths between the constituent circuit elements of the IC. Circuit performance and functional capability of the circuit elements are eventually limited by the signal-transmission effectiveness and efficiency of the BEOL interconnect structure. Damascene processes are routinely used to fabricate such BEOL multilevel interconnect structures. In a single damascene process, vias are etched in a patterned layer of dielectric material and filled with metal to establish interlevel contacts with a lower conductor. The lower conductor may be the metallization lines of an underlying level of the interconnect structure. Trenches are then etched in another patterned layer of dielectric material and filled with metal to define intralevel metallization lines. In a dual-damascene process, trenches and vias are etched in a patterned layer of dielectric material and filled simultaneously by a single blanket deposition of metal. In single and dual-damascene processes, any excess overburden of metal on the dielectric layer is removed from the top of the structure in a planarization process, such as chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Silicon oxide and fluorine-doped silicon glass (FSG) are common materials used to form the dielectric layer(s).
Increases in circuit element density as achieved by reducing the line-to-line spacings between adjacent, on-pitch metallization lines in each interconnect level and between metallization lines in adjacent interconnect levels. The reduction in line-to-line spacing serves to increase the line-to-line capacitance, which causes propagation delay by slowing the speed of the signals carried by the metallization lines, and results in cross talk noise. This increase in line-to-line capacitance may be offset by reducing the dielectric constant of the dielectric material constituting the dielectric layer(s). Conversely, a reduction in line-to-line capacitance by reducing the dielectric constant permits concomitant reductions in line-to-line spacing.
The reduction or elimination of these adverse capacitive couplings could advantageously lead to enhanced device speed and reduced power consumption. Consequently, a trend in interconnect structures is to form the dielectric layer from a dielectric material characterized by a relative permittivity or dielectric constant smaller than the dielectric constant of traditional materials. Candidate low-k materials include inorganic polymers, organic polymers such as polyamides and SiLK® from Dow Chemical Company, organo-inorganic materials like spin-on glasses, and silsesquioxane-based materials. Generally, these candidate low-k materials are characterized by a dielectric constant smaller than three (3).
Damascene processes place stringent requirements on the properties of the candidate low-k dielectric materials, which has limited the integration of low-k dielectrics into damascene processes. In particular, a suitable low-k dielectric material must have sufficient mechanical strength and adequate chemical stability to withstand the cleaning, etching, polishing, and thermal treatments imposed by damascene processing. After manufacture, BEOL interconnect structures formed using organic dielectric materials have experienced significant reliability problems resulting from mismatches in the thermal coefficient of expansion with neighboring inorganic materials.
What is needed, therefore, is a low-k dielectric material suitable for use in forming a structure in an integrated circuit, such as for use as a low-k dielectric layer in a BEOL interconnect structure for an integrated circuit, that is fully compatible with processes for forming such interconnect structures.

Low-k dielectric layer based upon carbon nanostructures

International Business Machines Corporation


The information processing apparatus includes a first device which is managed by a first OS, a second device which is managed by a second OS, and a processing unit. The processing unit causes the first OS and the second OS, the first OS to load a first maintenance driver corresponding to the first device, the first maintenance driver to perform maintenance control of the first device, the first OS to load a second maintenance driver corresponding to the second device, and the second maintenance driver to perform maintenance control of the second device. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently achieve the maintenance control of a plurality of devices, each of which is managed by a plurality of operating systems.

As a network storage system, a network attached storage (NAS) and a storage area network (SAN) are well known.
The NAS connected to Ethernet (registered trademark) which is an existing network is easy in management compared to the SAN, but in many cases is degraded in performance or easily falls short in capacity. On the other hand, the SAN generally operates at a high speed compared to the NAS and is possible to store a larger volume of data, but it is expensive in price.
In order to improve efficiency in data storage and to reduce cost through a successful combination of advantages of these NAS and SAN, unification between the SAN and the NAS is being realized.
At this time, an SAN device is under control of an SAN operating system (OS), and an NAS device is under control of an NAS OS. However, since the devices under control of both the OSs are mounted as hardware of the unified storage apparatus, maintenance of the devices are desired to be performed in the common maintenance sequence. This is because when the configuration of the maintenance guide screen and the maintenance sequence are different with respect to each OS, it causes difficulties in use according to a user.
Therefore, maintenance control functions are doubly mounted for a plurality of OSs, which is inefficient.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2011-65551 A
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-9029 A
Patent Document 3: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-207232 A

Information processing apparatus, storage control apparatus, and computer-readable recording medium having stored program


Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for radio frequency identification. According to one embodiment, a radio frequency identification system comprises a radio frequency identification tag. The tag comprises a radio frequency transmitter and an optical receiver. A reader is communicatively coupled with the tag and is adapted to receive information from the radio frequency identification tag via the radio frequency transmitter of the radio frequency identification tag. The system also includes a trigger communicatively coupled with the tag. The trigger is adapted to send information to the radio frequency identification tag via the optical receiver of the radio frequency identification tag.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications are proliferating as the economies of automated tracking and identification are being realized by the global community. RFID is the ability to detect, read, and/or write data to tags that are affixed to "things." Cost of the RFID tag is the predominant parameter dictating applicability of this technology.
There are several categories of RFID tags and readers in use and proposed. The technology currently is predominantly passive. Passive implies that the tags have no battery. They derive power from a reader that transmits electromagnetic energy to the tag, which in turn reflects or modulates the energy signal back to the reader. While passive tags and readers are relatively inexpensive, they have severe limitations dictated by physics. For example, passive tags and readers have a limited range (from 0.1 cm to 6 meters) and are non-operational when blocked or shielded by metal objects, liquids and certain solid materials. In such systems, data rates are limited to approximate 6 mph "drive-thru" speeds thru portals, conveyors, etc. Further, passive systems have limited data storage capacity and no sensing capability.
There are also "active" tags that derive their power from incorporated batteries. Such devices add significant value to the process of inventory tracking and In Transit Visibility (ITV) enabling processes such as Total Asset Visibility (TAV). Relative to passive tags, active tags have a greater data acquisition range (0 to 100 meters). Active tags have the ability to provide Real Time Location System (RTLS) effectivity, to automatically provide theft deterrence thru continuous and automatic "presence detecting," and to enable tracking through processes such as manufacturing, shipping, on trucks, forklift transfer, and warehousing. A disadvantage of active tags is that they cost more than passive tags and this requires that these tags achieve maximum performance, add value to supply chain management and achieve these goals with absolute lowest cost.
Many active tags simply "beacon" or periodically transmit data. However, this approach has limitations. In certain instances, the continuous battery consumption is prohibitive since RF data transfer is only required when handling or processing the tagged items. In addition, it is often desired to associate a specific tagged item with a process such that the tagged item can be associated with a specific event, time or operator and beacon tags do not provide this utility. It is often desired to locate a specific tagged item in a situation where many identical items are tagged. It may be desired to be able to change the tag's mode of operation, i.e. turn the beacon mode "off or on", or change the beaconing rate. A specific tag should be able to respond under any of these circumstances. The ability to transfer data from the tag via a medium other than RF signals is also a desirable functionality since many locales and operations (such as aircraft flight) require RF silence.
Therefore, current commercial tags offer secondary triggering or communication modes of operation. "Triggering" is the remotely transmitted command to a tag directing that it execute a function such as "transmit RF, store data, or take a sensor reading". These secondary modes are restricted to the use of magnetic or RF fields to effect the triggering or communication. RF and magnetic triggered tags have the problem of being non-discriminatory, that is, the nature of RF fields is that they cannot be restrained to a narrow effective Field of View (FOV) and hence are not tag specific in the presence of many tags. They are also costly.
Low frequencies (magnetic domain) such as 125-134 KHz require very close proximity to actuate the tag response and often will not work with the tag attached to ferrous objects. Higher frequencies such as 915 MHz also are affected by metal items and are often reflected making single tag actuation less reliable than is required. All of these triggering mechanisms are large, bulky, and expensive. Handheld triggers or communicators are also large and bulky. Many applications require that the tags and readers comply with Intrinsic Safety requirements. This task is significantly complicated and more costly with low frequency devices due to the necessity for relatively high source power. Additionally, the transfer of data is at relatively low speeds.

Active RFID tag utilizing a secondary communication mode